Historical sketches

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HISTORICAL SKETCHES

VOL. I.

THE TURKS IN THEIR RELATION TO EUROPE
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

APOLLONIUS OF TYANA
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN

NEW IMPRESSION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK

BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS

1914

TO THE
RIGHT REVEREND DAVID MORIARTY, D.D.

BISHOP OF KERRY.

MY DEAR LORD.

If I have not asked your Lordship for your formal
leave to dedicate this Volume to you, this has been
because one part of it, written by me as an Anglican
controversialist, could not be consistently offered for the
direct sanction of a Catholic bishop. If, in spite of this,
I presume to inscribe your name in its first page, I do so
because I have a freedom in this matter which you have
not, because I covet much to be associated publicly with
you, and because I trust to gain your forgiveness for a
somewhat violent proceeding, on the plea that I may
perhaps thereby be availing myself of the only oppor-
tunity given to me, if not the most suitable occasion, of
securing what I so earnestly desire.

I desire it, because I desire to acknowledge the debt
I owe you for kindnesses and services rendered to me
through a course of years. All along, from the time
that the Oratory first came to this place, you have taken

vi Dedication.

a warm interest in me and in my doings. You found
me out twenty-four years ago on our first start in the
narrow streets of Birmingham, before we could well be
said to have a home or a church. And you have never
been wanting to me since, or spared time or trouble,
when I had occasion in any difficulty to seek your
guidance or encouragement.

Especially have I cause to remember the help you
gave me, by your prudent counsels and your anxious
sympathy, when I was called over to Ireland to initiate
a great Catholic institution. From others also, eccle-
siastics and laymen, I received a hearty welcome and
a large assistance, which I ever bear in mind ; but you,
when I would fill the Professors' chairs, were in a posi-
tion to direct me to the men whose genius, learning, and
zeal became so great a part of the life and strength of
the University ; and, even as regards those whose high
endowments I otherwise learned, or already knew my-
self, you had your part in my appointments, for I ever
tried to guide myself by what I had gained from the
conversations and correspondence which you had from
time to time allowed me. To you, then, my dear Lord,
more than to any other, I owe my introduction to a large
circle of friends, who faithfully worked with me in the
course of my seven years of connexion with the Univer-
sity, and who now, for twice seven years since, have
generously kept me in mind, though I have been out of
their sight.

There is no one, then, whom I more intimately asso-
ciate with my life in Dublin than your Lordship ; and
thus, when I revive the recollections of what my friends
there did for me, my mind naturally reverts to you ; and
again in making my acknowledgments to you, I am
virtually thanking them.

Dedication. v i i

That you may live for many years, in health, strength,
and usefulness, the centre of many minds, a blessing to
the Irish people, and a light in the Universal Church, is,

MY DEAR LORD,

The fervent prayer of
Your affectiooate friend and servant,

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

BIRMINGHAM,

October 23, 1872.

I.

LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE

TURKS,
IN THEIR RELATION TO EUROPE.

PREFATORY NOTICE.

following sketch of Turkish history was the sub-
stance of Lectures delivered in the Catholic Institute
of Liverpool during October, 1853. It may be necessary
for its author to state at once, in order to prevent disap-
pointment, that he only professes in the course of it to
have brought together in one materials which are to be
found in any ordinarily furnished library. Not intending
it in the first instance for publication, but to answer a
temporary purpose, he has, in drawing it up, sometimes
borrowed words and phrases, to save himself trouble,
from the authorities whom he has consulted ; and this
must be taken as his excuse, if any want of keeping is
discernible in the composition. He has attempted
nothing more than to group old facts in his own way ;
and he trusts that his defective acquaintance with his-
torical works and travels, and the unreality of book-
knowledge altogether in questions of fact, have not
exposed him to superficial generalizations.

One other remark may be necessary. Such a work
at the present moment, when we are on the point of un-
dertaking a great war in behalf of the Turks, may seem

xii Preface.

without meaning, unless it conducts the reader to some
definite conclusions, as to what is to be wished, what to
be done, in the present state of the East ; but a minister
of religion may fairly protest against being made a
politician. Political questions are mainly decided by
political expediency, and only indirectly and under
circumstances fall into the province of theology. Much
less can such a question be asked of the priests of that
Church, whose voice in this matter has been for five
centuries unheeded by the Powers of Europe. As they
have sown, so must they reap : had the advice of the
Holy See been followed, there would have been no
Turks in Europe for the Russians to turn out of it. All
that need be said here in behalf of the Sultan is, that
the Christian Powers are bound to keep such lawful
promises as they have made to him. All that need be
said in favour of the Czar is, that he is attacking an
infamous Power, the enemy of God and man. And all
that need be said by way of warning to the Catholic
is, that he should beware of strengthening the Czar's
cause by denying or ignoring its strong point. It is
difficult to understand how a reader of history can side
with the Spanish people in past centuries in their
struggle with the Moors, without wishing Godspeed, in
mere consistency , to any Christian Power, which aims at
delivering the Last of Europe from the Turkish yoke.

THE TURKS.

I. THE MOTHER COUNTRY OF THE TURKS.

tBCT. FA01

1. The Tribes of the North i

2. The Tartars . Ig

II. THE DESCENT OF THE TURKS.

3. The Tartar and the Turk 48

4. The Turk and the Saracen 74

III. THE CONQUESTS OF THE TURKS.

5. The Turk and the Christian - . . . . . -104

6. The Pope and the Turk 131

IV. THE PROSPECTS OF THE TURKS.

7. Barbarism and Civilization . 159

8. The Past and Present of the Ottomans - • • • -183
g. The Future of the Ottomans . 207

Note 230

Chronological Tables • •%••-.-• 235

I.

THE MOTHER COUNTRY OF THE TURKS.
LECTURE I.

The Tribes of the North.

i.

THE collision between Russia and Turkey, which at
present engages public attention, is only one scene
in that persevering conflict, which is carried on, from age
to age, between the North and the South, — the North
aggressive, the South on the defensive. In the earliest
histories this conflict finds a place ; and hence, when the
inspired Prophets l denounce defeat and captivity upon
the chosen people or other transgressing nations, who
were inhabitants of the South, the North is pointed out
as the quarter from which the judgment is to descend.

Nor is this conflict, nor is its perpetuity, difficult of
explanation. The South ever has gifts of nature to tempt
the invader, and the North ever has multitudes to be
tempted by them. The North has been fitly called the
storehouse of nations. Along the breadth of Asia, and
thence to Europe, from the Chinese Sea on the East, to
the Euxine on the West, nay to the Rhine, nay even to

1 Isai. xli. 25 : Jer. i. 14 ; vi. i, 22; Joel ii. 20 ; etc., etc.

I

2 The Tribes of the North.

the Bay of Biscay, running between and beyond the
4Oth and 5oth degrees of latitude, and above the fruitful
South, stretches a vast plain, which has been from time
immemorial what may be called the wild common and
place of encampment, or again the highway, or the broad
horse-path, of restless populations seeking a home. The
European portion of this tract has in Christian times
been reclaimed from its state of desolation, and is at
present occupied by civilized communities ; but even
now the East remains for the most part in its primitive
neglect, and is in possession of roving barbarians.

It is the Eastern portion of this vast territory which I
have pointed out, that I have now, Gentlemen, princi-
pally to keep before your view. It goes by the general
name of Tartary : in width from north to south it is said
to vary from 400 to 1,100 miles, while in length from
east to west it is not far short of 5,000. It is of very
different elevations in different parts, and it is divided
longitudinally by as many as three or four mountain-
chains of great height. The valleys which lie between
them necessarily confine the wandering savage to an
eastward or westward course, and the slope of the land
westward invites him to that direction rather than to the
east. Then, at a certain point in these westward pas-
sages, as he approaches the meridian of the Sea of Aral, he
finds the mountain-ranges cease, and open upon him the
opportunity, as well as the temptation, to roam to the
North or to the South also. Up in the East, from whence
he came, in the most northerly of the lofty ranges which
I have spoken of, is a great mountain, which some geo-
graphers have identified with the classical Imaus ; it is
called by the Saracens Caf, by the Turks Altai. Some-
times too it has the name of the Girdle of the Earth,
from the huge appearance of the chain to which it

The Tribes of the North. 3

belongs, sometimes of the Golden Mountain, from the
gold, as well as other metals, with which its sides abound.
It is said to be at an equal distance of 2,000 miles from
the Caspian, the Frozen Sea, the North Pacific Ocean,
and the Bay of Bengal : and, being in situation the
furthest withdrawn from West and South, it is in fact
the high capital or metropolis of the vast Tartar country,
which it overlooks, and has sent forth, in the course of
ages, innumerable populations into the illimitable and
mysterious regions around it, regions protected by their
inland character both from the observation and the
civilizing influence of foreign nations.

2.

To eat bread in the sweat of his brow is the original
punishment of mankind ; the indolence of the savage
shrinks from the obligation, and looks out for methods
of escaping it. Corn, wine, and oil have no charms for
him at such a price ; he turns to the brute animals which
are his aboriginal companions, the horse, the cow, and
the sheep ; he chooses to be a grazier rather than to till
the ground. He feeds his horses, flocks, and herds on its
spontaneous vegetation, and then in turn he feeds him-
self on their flesh. He remains on one spot while the
natural crop yields them sustenance ; when it is ex-
hausted, he migrates to another. He adopts, what is
called, the life of a nomad. In maritime countries indeed
he must have recourse to other expedients ; he fishes
in the stream, or among the rocks of the beach. In
the woods he betakes himself to roots and wild honey ;
or he has a resource in the chase, an occupation, ever
ready at hand, exciting, and demanding no persever-
ance. But when the savage finds himself inclosed in
1 Gibbon.

4 The Tribes of the North.

the continent and the wilderness, he draws the domestic
animals about him, and constitutes himself the head of
a sort of brute polity. He becomes a king and father
of the beasts, and by the economical arrangements which
this pretension involves, advances a first step, though a
low one, in civilization, which the hunter or the fisher
does not attain.

And here, beyond other animals, the horse is the
instrument of that civilization. It enables him to govern
and to guide his sheep and cattle ; it carries him to the
chase, when he is tempted to it ; it transports him and
his from place to place ; while his very locomotion and
shifting location and independence of the soil define the
idea, and secure the existence, both of a household and
of personal property. Nor is this all which the horse
does for him ; it is food both in its life and in its death ;
— when dead, it nourishes him with its flesh, and, while
alive, it supplies its milk for an intoxicating liquor which,
under the name of koumiss, has from time immemorial
served the Tartar instead of wine or spirits. The horse
then is his friend under all circumstances, and insepar-
able from him ; he may be even said to live on horse-
back, he eats and sleeps without dismounting, till the
fable has been current that he has a centaur's nature,
half man and half beast. Hence it was that the ancient
Saxons had a horse for their ensign in war ; thus it is
that the Ottoman ordinances are, I believe, to this day
dated from "the imperial stirrup," and the display of
horsetails at the gate of the palace is the Ottoman signal
of war. Thus too, as the Catholic ritual measures inter-
vals by " a Miserere," and St Ignatius in his Exercises
by " a Pater Noster," so the Turcomans and the Usbeks
speak familiarly of the time of a gallop. But as to
houses, on the other hand, the Tartars contemptuously

The Tribes of the North. 5

called them the sepulchres of the living, and, when
abroad, could hardly be persuaded to cross a threshold.
Their women, indeed, and children could not live on
horseback ; them some kind of locomotive dwelling must
receive, and a less noble animal must draw. The old
historians and poets of Greece and Rome describe it,
and the travellers of the middle ages repeat and enlarge
the classical description of it. The strangers from Europe
gazed with astonishment on huge wattled houses set on
wheels, and drawn by no less than twenty-two oxen.

3-

From the age of Job, the horse has been the emblem
of battle ; a mounted shepherd is but one remove from a
knight-errant, except in the object of his excursions ;
and the discipline of a pastoral station from the nature
of the case is not very different from that of a camp.
There can be no community without order, and a com-
munity in motion demands a special kind of organiza-
tion. Provision must be made for the separation, the
protection, and the sustenance of men, women, and chil-
dren, horses, flocks, and cattle. To march without
straggling, to halt without confusion, to make good their
ground, to reconnoitre neighbourhoods, to ascertain the
character and capabilities of places in the distance, and
to determine their future route, is to be versed in some
of the most important duties of the military art Such
pastoral tribes are already an army in the field, if not as
yet against any human foe, at least against the elements.
They have to subdue, or to check, or to circumvent, or
to endure the opposition of earth, water, and wind, in
their pursuits of the mere necessaries of life. The war with
wild beasts naturally follows, and then the war on their
own kind. Thus when they are at length provoked or

6 The Tribes of the North.

allured to direct their fury against the inhabitants of
other regions, they are ready-made soldiers. They have
a soldier's qualifications in their independence of soil,
freedom from local ties, and practice in discipline ;
nay, in one respect they are superior to any troops which
civilized countries can produce. One of the problems
of warfare is how to feed the vast masses which its
operations require; and hence it is commonly said,
that a well-managed commissariat is a chief condition of
victory. Few people can fight without eating ; — English-
men as little as any. I have heard of a work of a
foreign officer, who took a survey of the European
armies previously to the revolutionary war ; in which
he praised our troops highly, but said they would
not be effective till they were supported by a better
commissariat. Moreover, one commonly hears, that the
supply of this deficiency is one of the very merits of the
great Duke of Wellington. So it is with civilized races ;
but the Tartars, as is evident from what I have already
observed, have in their wars no need of any commissariat
at all ; and that, not merely from the unscrupulousness
of their foraging, but because they find in the instru-
ments of their conquests the staple of their food. " Corn
is a bulky and perishable commodity," says an his-
torian ; * " and the large magazines, which are indispen-
sably necessary for the subsistence of civilized troops,
are difficult and slow of transport." But, not to say
that even their flocks and herds were fitted for rapid
movement, like the nimble sheep of Wales and the wild
cattle of North Britain, the Tartars could even dispense
with these altogether. If straitened for provisions, they
ate the chargers which carried them to battle ; indeed
they seemed to account their flesh a delicacy, above the
1 Gibbon.

The Tribes of the North. 7

reach of the poor, and in consequence were enjoying a
banquet in circumstances when civilized troops would
be staving off starvation. And with a view to such
accidents, they have been accustomed to carry with them
in their expeditions a number of supernumerary horses,
which they might either ride or eat, according to the
occasion. It was an additional advantage to them in
their warlike movements, that they were little particular
whether their food had been killed for the purpose, or
had died of disease. Nor is this all : their horses' hides
were made into tents and clothing, perhaps into bottles
and coracles ; and their intestines into bowstrings.1

Trained then as they are, to habits which in them-
selves invite to war, the inclemency of their native
climate has been a constant motive for them to seek
out settlements and places of sojournment elsewhere.
The spacious plains, over which they roam, are either
monotonous grazing lands, or inhospitable deserts, re-
lieved with green valleys or recesses. The cold is intense
in a degree of which we have no experience in England,
though we lie to the north of them.8 This arises in a
measure from their distance from the sea, and again from
their elevation of level, and further from the saltpetre with
which their soil or their atmosphere is impregnated. The
sole influence then of their fatherland, if I may apply to
it such a term, is to drive its inhabitants from it to the
West or to the South.

4-

I have said that the geographical features of their
country carry them forward in those two directions, the
South and the West ; not to say that the ocean forbids
them going eastward, and the North does but hold out

1 Caldecott's Baber. » Vid. Mitford's Greece, vol. viii. p. 86.

8 The Tribes of the North.

to them a climate more inclement than their own. Leav-
ing the district of Mongolia in the furthermost East, high
above the north of China, and passing through the long
and broad valleys which I spoke of just now, the emi-
grants at length would arrive at the edge of that elevated
plateau, which constitutes Tartary proper. They would
pass over the high region of Pamer, where are the
sources of the Oxus, they would descend the terrace of
the Bolor, and the steeps of Badakshan, and gradually
reach a vast region, flat on the whole as the expanse
they had left, but as strangely depressed below the level
of the sea, as Tartary is lifted above it.1 This is the
country, forming the two basins of the Aral and the
Caspian, which terminates the immense Asiatic plain,
and may be vaguely designated by the name of Turkis-
tan. Hitherto the necessity of their route would force
them on, in one multitudinous emigration, but now they
may diverge, and have diverged. If they were to cross
the Jaxartes and the Oxus, and then to proceed south-
ward, they would come to Khorasan, the ancient Bactria-
na, and so to Afghanistan and to Hindostan on the east,
or to Persia on the west. But if, instead, they continued
their westward course, then they would skirt the north
coast of the Aral and the Caspian, cross the Volga, and
there would have a second opportunity, if they chose
to avail themselves of it, of descending southwards, by
Georgia and Armenia, either to Syria or to Asia Minor.
Refusing this diversion, and persevering onwards to the
west, at length they would pass the Don, and descend
upon Europe across the Ukraine, Bessarabia, and the
Danube.

Such are the three routes, — across the Oxus, across
the Caucasus, and across the Danube, — which the pas-

1 Pritchard's Researches.

The Tribes of the North. $

toral nations have variously pursued at various times,
when their roving habits, their warlike propensities, and
their discomforts at home, have combined to precipitate
them on the industry, the civilization, and the luxury of
the West and of the South. And at such times, as
might be inferred from what has been already said, their
invasions have been rather irruptions, inroads, or, what
are called, raids, than a proper conquest and occupation
of the countries which have been their victims. They
would go forward, 200,000 of them at once, at the rate
of 100 miles a day, swimming the rivers, galloping over
the plains, intoxicated with the excitement of air and
speed, as if it were a fox-chase, or full of pride and fury
at the reverses which set them in motion ; seeking in-
deed their fortunes, but seeking them on no plan ;
like a flight of locusts, or a swarm of angry wasps
smoked out of their nest. They would seek for imme-
diate gratification, and let the future take its course.
They would be bloodthirsty and rapacious, and would
inflict ruin and misery to any extent ; and they would
do tenfold more harm to the invaded, than benefit to
themselves. They would be powerful to break down ;
helpless to build up. They would in a day undo the
labour and skill, the prosperity of years ; but they would
not know how to construct a polity, how to conduct a
government, how to organize a system of slavery, or
to digest a code of laws. Rather they would despise
the sciences of politics, law, and finance ; and, if they
honoured any profession or vocation, it would be such
as bore immediately and personally on themselves.
Thus we find them treating the priest and the physician
with respect, when they found such among their cap-
tives; but they could not endure the presence of a
lawyer. How could it be otherwise with those who may

10 The Tribes of the North.

be called the outlaws of the human race ? They did
but justify the seeming paradox of the traveller's excla-
mation, who, when at length, after a dreary passage
through the wilderness, he came in sight of a gibbet,
returned thanks that he had now arrived at a civilized
country. " The pastoral tribes," says the writer I have
already quoted, " who were ignorant of the distinction
of landed property, must have disregarded the use, as
well as the abuse, of civil jurisprudence ; and the skill
of an eloquent laywer would excite only their contempt
or their abhorrence.*' And he refers to an outrage on
the part of a barbarian of the North, who, not satisfied
with cutting out a lawyer's tongue, sewed up his mouth,
in order, as he said, that the viper might no longer
hiss. The well-known story of the Czar Peter, himself
a Tartar, is here in point. When told there were some
thousands of lawyers at Westminster, he is said to have
observed that there had been only two in his own do-
minions, and he had hung one of them.

5-

Now I have thrown the various inhabitants of the
Asiatic plain together, under one description, not as if I
overlooked, or undervalued, the distinction of races, but
because I have no intention of committing myself to any
statements on so intricate and interminable a subject as
ethnology. In spite of the controversy about skulls, and
skins, and languages, by means of which man is to be
traced up to his primitive condition, I consider place and
climate to be a sufficiently real aspect under which he
may be regarded, and with this I shall content myself.
I am speaking of the inhabitants of those extended
plains, whether Scythians, Massagetae, Sarmatians, Huns,
Moguls, Tartars, Turks, or anything else ; and whether

The Tribes of the North. 1 1

or no any of them or all of them are identical with each
other in their pedigree and antiquities. Position and
climate create habits ; and, since the country is called
Tartary, I shall call them Tartar habits, and the popula-
tions which have inhabited it and exhibited them,
Tartars, for convenience-sake, whatever be their family
descent. From the circumstances of their situation,
these populations have in all ages been shepherds,
mounted on horseback, roaming through trackless spaces,
easily incited to war, easily formed into masses, easily
dissolved again into their component parts, suddenly
sweeping across continents, suddenly descending on the
south or west, suddenly extinguishing the civilization of
ages, suddenly forming empires, suddenly vanishing, no
one knows how, into their native north.

Such is the fearful provision for havoc and devasta-
tion, when the Divine Word goes forth for judgment
upon the civilized world, which the North has ever had
in store ; and the regions on which it has principally
expended its fury, are those, whose fatal beauty, or
richness of soil, or perfection of cultivation, or exquisite-
ness of produce, or amenity of climate, makes them
objects of desire to the barbarian. Such are China, Hin-
dostan, Persia, Syria, and Anatolia or the Levant, in
Asia ; Greece, Italy, Sicily, and Spain, in Europe ; and
the northern coast of Africa.

These regions, on the contrary, have neither the in-
ducement nor the means to retaliate upon their ferocious
invaders. The relative position of the combatants must
always be the same, while the combat lasts. The South
has nothing to win, the North nothing to lose ; the
North nothing to offer, the South nothing to covet. Nor
is this all : the North, as in an impregnable fortress, defies
the attack of the South. Immense trackless solitudes ;

1 2 The Tribes of the North

no cities, no tillage, no roads ; deserts, forests, marshes j
bleak table-lands, snowy mountains ; unlocated, flitting,
receding populations ; no capitals, or marts, or strong
places, or fruitful vales, to hold as hostages for submis-
sion ; fearful winters and many months of them ; — nature
herself fights and conquers for the barbarian. What
madness shall tempt the South to undergo extreme risks
without the prospect or chance of a return ? True it is,
ambition, whose very life is a fever, has now and then
ventured on the reckless expedition ; but from the first
page of history to the last, from Cyrus to Napoleon,
what has the Northern war done for the greatest warriors
but destroy the flower of their armies and the prestigt
of their name ? Our maps, in placing the North at the
top, and the South at the bottom of the sheet, impress
us, by what may seem a sophistical analogy, with the
imagination that Huns or Moguls, Kalmucks or Cos-
sacks, have been a superincumbent mass, descending by
a sort of gravitation upon the fair territories which lie
below them. Yet this is substantially true ; — though the
attraction towards the South is of a moral, not of a
physical nature, yet an attraction there is, and a huge
conglomeration of destructive elements hangs over us,
and from time to time rushes down with an awful irre-
sistible momentum. Barbarism is ever impending over
the civilized world. Never, since history began, has
there been so long a cessation of this law of human
society, as in the period in which we live. The descent
of the Turks on Europe was the last instance of it,
and that was completed four hundred years ago. They
are now themselves in the position of those races, whom
they themselves formerly came down upon.

The Tribes of the North. 13

6.

As to the instances of this conflict between North and
South in the times before the Christian era, we know more
of them from antiquarian research than from history.
The principal of those which ancient writers have re-
corded are contained in the history of the Persian
Empire. The wandering Tartar tribes went at that time
by the name of Scythians, and had possession of the
plains of Europe as well as of Asia. Central Europe
was not at that time the seat of civilized nations ; but
from the Chinese Sea even to the Rhine or Bay of Bis-
cay, a course of many thousand miles, the barbarian
emigrant might wander on, as necessity or caprice im-
pelled him. Darius assailed the Scythians of Europe ;
Cyrus, his predecessor, the Scythians of Asia.

As to Cyrus, writers are not concordant on the sub-
ject ; but the celebrated Greek historian, Herodotus,
whose accuracy of research is generally confessed, makes
the great desert, which had already been fatal, according
to some accounts, to the Assyrian Semiramis, the ruin
also of the founder of the Persian Empire. He tells us
that Cyrus led an army against the Scythian tribes (Mas-
sagetae, as they were called), who were stationed to the
east of the Caspian ; and that they, on finding him pre-
pared to cross the river which bounded their country to
the South, sent him a message which well illustrates the
hopelessness of going to war with them. They are said
to have given him his choice of fighting them either
three days' march within th'eir own territory, or three
days' march within his ; it being the same to them
whether he made himself a grave in their inhospitable
deserts, or they a home in his flourishing provinces. He
had with him in his army a celebrated captive, the Lydian

14 The Tribes of the North.

King Croesus, who had once been head of a wealthy
empire, till he had succumbed to the fortunes of a more
illustrious conqueror; and on this occasion he availed
himself of his advice. Croesus cautioned him against
admitting the barbarians within the Persian border,
and counselled him to accept their permission of his
advancing into their territory, and then to have recourse
to stratagem. " As I hear," he says in the simple style
of the historian, which will not bear translation, "the
Massagetae have no experience of the good things of
life. Spare not then to serve up many sheep, and add
thereunto stoups of neat wine, and all sorts of viands. Set
out this banquet for them in our camp, leave the refuse of
the army there, and retreat with the body of your troops
upon the river. If I am not mistaken, the Scythians
will address themselves to all this good cheer, as soon as
they fall in with it, and then we shall have the opportu-
nity of a brilliant exploit." I need not pursue the his-
tory further than to state the issue. In spite of the
immediate success of his ruse de guerre, Cyrus was even-
tually defeated, and lost both his army and his life. The
Scythian Queen Tomyris, in revenge for the lives which
he had sacrificed to his ambition, is related to have cut
off his head and plunged it into a vessel filled with
blood, saying, "Cyrus, drink your fill." Such is the
account given us by Herodotus ; and, even if it is to
be rejected, it serves to illustrate the difficulties of an
invasion of Scythia ; for legends must be framed accord-
ing to the circumstances of the case, and grow out of
probabilities, if they are to gain credit, and if they have
actually succeeded in gaining it

7-

Our knowledge of the expedition of Darius jn the

The Trttes of the North. 15

next generation, is more certain. This fortunate monarch,
after many successes, even on the European side of the
Bosphorus, impelled by that ambition, which holy
Daniel had already seen in prophecy to threaten West
and North as well as South, towards the end of his life
directed his arms against the Scythians who inhabited
the country now called the Ukraine. His pretext for
this expedition was an incursion which the same bar-
barians had made into Asia, shortly before the time of
Cyrus. They had crossed the Don, just above the sea
of Azoff, had entered the country now called Circassia,
had threaded the defiles of the Caucasus, and had de-
feated the Median King Cyaxares, the grandfather of
Cyrus. Then they overran Armenia, Cappadocia, Pon-
tus, and part of Lydia, that is, a great portion of
Anatolia or Asia Minor ; and managed to establish
themselves in the country for twenty-eight years, living
by plunder and exaction. In the course of this period,,
they descended into Syria, as far as to the very borders
of Egypt. The Egyptians bought them off, and they
turned back ; however, they possessed themselves of a
portion of Palestine, and gave their name to one town,
Scythopolis, in the territory of Manasses. This was in
the last days of the Jewish monarchy, shortly before
the captivity. At length Cyaxares got rid of them by
treachery ; he invited the greater number of them to a
banquet, intoxicated, and massacred them. Nor was
this the termination of the troubles, of which they were
the authors \ and I mention the sequel, because both
the office which they undertook and their manner of
discharging it, their insubordination and their cruelty,
are an anticipation of some passages in the early history
of the Turks. The Median King had taken some of
them into his pay, made them hi§ huntsmen, and

1 6 The Tribes of the North.

submitted certain noble youths to their training. Justly
or unjustly they happened one day to be punished for
leaving the royal table without its due supply of game :
without more ado, the savages in revenge murdered and
served up one of these youths instead of the venison
which had been expected of them, and made forthwith
for the neighbouring kingdom of Lydia. A war between
the two states was the consequence.

But to return to Darius : — it is said to have been in
retaliation for these excesses that he resolved on his
expedition against the Scythians, who, as I have men-
tioned, were in occupation of the district between the
Danube and the Don. For this purpose he advanced
from Susa in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf,
through Assyria and Asia Minor to the Bosphorus, just
opposite to the present site of Constantinople, where he
crossed over into Europe. Thence he made his way,
with the incredible number of 700,000 men, horse and
foot, to the Danube, reducing Thrace, the present
Roumelia, in his way. When he had crossed that stream,
he was at once in Scythia; but the Scythians had adopted
the same sort of strategy, which in the beginning of this
century was practised by their successors against Napo-
leon. They cut and carried off the green crops, stopped
up their wells or spoilt their water, and sent off their
families and flocks to places of safety. Then they sta-
tioned their outposts just a day's journey before the
enemy, to entice him on. He pursued them, they re-
treated ; and at length he found himself on the Don, the
further boundary of the Scythian territory. They crossed
the Don, and he crossed it too, into desolate and un-
known wilds ; then, eluding him altogether, from their
own knowledge of the country, they made a circuit, and
got back into their own land again,

The Tribes of the North. fj

Darius found himself outwitted, and came to a halt r
how he had victualled his army, whatever deduction we
make for its numbers, does not appear ; but it is plain
that the time must come, when he could not proceed.
He gave the order for retreat. Meanwhile, he found an
opportunity of sending a message to the Scythian chief,
and it was to this effect : — " Perverse man, take your
choice ; fight me or yield." The Scythians intended to
do neither, but contrived, as before, .to harass the Per-
sian retreat. At length an answer came ; not a message,
but an ominous gift ; they sent Darius a bird, a mouse,
a frog, and five arrows ; without a word of explanation.
Darius himself at first hailed it as an intimation of sub-
mission ; in Greece to offer earth and water was the
sign of capitulation, as, in a sale of land in our own
country, a clod from the soil still passes, or passed lately,
from seller to purchaser, as a symbol of the transfer of
possession. The Persian king, then, discerned in these
singular presents a similar surrender of territorial juris-
diction. But another version, less favourable to his
vanity and his hopes, was suggested by one of his cour-
tiers, and it ran thus : " Unless you can fly like a bird,
or burrow like a mouse, or swim the marshes like a
frog, you cannot escape our arrows." Whichever inter-
pretation was the true one, it needed no message from
the enemy to inflict upon Darius the presence of the
dilemma suggested in this unpleasant interpretation.
He yielded to imperative necessity, and hastened his
escape from the formidable situation in which he had
placed himself, and through great good fortune succeeded
in effecting it. He crossed the sea just in time ; for the
Scythians came down in pursuit, as far as the coast, and
returned home laden with booty.

VOL. i. 2

18 The Tribes of the North.

This is pretty much all that is definitely recorded in
history of the ancient Tartars. Alexander, in a later
age, came into conflict with them in the region called
Sogdiana which lies at the foot of that high plateau oi
central and eastern Asia, which I have designated as
their proper home, But he was too prudent to be en-
tangled in extended expeditions against them, and
having made trial of their formidable strength, and made
some demonstrations of the superiority of his own. he
left them in possession of their wildernesses.

LECTURE II.

The Tartars.

I.

IF anything needs be added to the foregoing account,
in illustration of the natural advantages of the
Scythian or Tartar position, it is the circumstance that
the shepherds of the Ukraine were divided in their
counsels when Darius made war against them, and that
only a portion of their tribes coalesced to repel his in-
vasion. Indeed, this internal discord, which is the ordi-
nary characteristic of races so barbarous, and the frequent
motive of their migrations, is the cause why in ancient
times they were so little formidable to their southern
neighbours ; and it suggests a remark to the philoso-
phical historian, Thucydides, which, viewed in the light
of subsequent history, is almost prophetic. " As to the \
Scythians," he says, " not only no European nation, but \
not even any Asiatic, would be able to measure itself J
with them, nation with nation, were they but of one
\ mind." Such was the safeguard of civilization in ancient
times; in modern unhappily it has disappeared. Not
unfrequently, since the Christian era, the powers of the
North have been under one sovereign, sometimes even
for a series of years ; and have in consequence been
brought into combined action against the South ; nay, as
time has gone on, they have been thrown into more and
more formidable combinations, with more and more dis-
astrous consequences to its prosperity. Of these northern

2O The Tartars.

coalitions or Empires, there have been three, nay five,
which demand our especial attention both from their
size and their historical importance.

The first of these is the Empire of the Huns, under
the sovereignty of Attila, at the termination of the
Roman Empire ; and it began and ended in himself.
The second is in the time of the Crusades, when the
Moguls spread themselves over Europe and Asia under
Zingis Khan, whose power continued to the third gene-
ration, nay, for two centuries, in the northern parts of
Europe. The third outbreak was under Timour or
Tamerlane, a century and more before the rise of Protes-
tantism, when the Mahometan Tartars, starting from the
basin of the Aral and the fertile region of the present
Bukharia, swept over nearly the whole of Asia round
about, and at length seated themselves in Delhi in Hin-
dostan, where they remained in imperial power till they
succumbed to the English in the last century. Then
come the Turks, a multiform and reproductive race,
varied in its fortunes, complicated in its history, falling
to rise again, receding here to expand there, and harass-
ing and oppressing the world for at least a long 800
years. And lastly comes the Russian Empire, in which
the Tartar element is prominent, whether in its pure
blood or in the Slavonian approximation, and which
comprises a population of many millions, gradually
moulded into one in the course of centuries, ever grow-
ing, never wavering, looking eagerly to the South and to
an unfulfilled destiny, and possessing both the energy
of barbarism in its subjects and the subtlety of civiliza-
tion in its rulers. The two former of these five empires
were Pagan, the two next Mahometan, the last Chris-
tian, but schismatic ; all have been persecutors of the
Church, or, at least, instruments of evil against her chil-

The Tartars. 21

dren. The Russians I shall dismiss ; the Turks, who form
my proper subject, I shall postpone. First of all, I will
take a brief survey of the three empires of the Tartars
proper ; of Attila and his Huns ; of Zingis and his
Moguls ; and of Timour and his Mahometan Tartars.

I have already waived the intricate question of race,
as regards the various tribes who have roamed from time
immemorial, or used to roam, in the Asiatic and Euro-
pean wilderness, because it was not necessary to the
discussion in which I am engaged. Their geographical
position assimilated them to each other in their wildness,
their love of wandering, their pastoral occupations, their
predatory habits, their security from attack, and the
suddenness and the transitoriness of their conquests,
even though they descend from our first parent by differ-
ent lines. However, there is no need of any reserve or
hesitation in speaking of the three first empires into
which the shepherds of the North developed, the Huns,
the Moguls, and the Mahometan Tartars : they were the
creation of Tribes, whose identity of race is as certain
as their community of country.

Of these the first in order is the Hunnish Empire of
Attila, and if I speak of it and of him with more of
historical consecutiveness than of Zingis or of Timour,
it is because I think in him we see the pure undiluted
Tartar, better than in the other two, and in his empire
the best specimen of a Tartar rule. Nothing brings
before us more vividly the terrible character of Attila
than this, that he terrified the Goths themselves. These
celebrated barbarians at the time of Attila inhabited the
countries to the north of the Black Sea, between the
Danube and the Don, the very district in which Darius

22 The Tartars.

so many centuries before found the Scythians. They
were impending over the Roman Empire, and threaten-
ing it with destruction ; their king was the great Her-
manric, who, after many victories, was closing his days
in the fulness of power and renown. That they them-
selves, the formidable Goths, should have to fear and
flee, seemed the most improbable of prospects ; yet it
was their lot. Suddenly they heard, or rather they felt
before they heard, — so rapid is the torrent of Scythian
warfare, — they felt upon them and among them the
resistless, crushing force of a remorseless foe. They
beheld their fields and villages in flames about them, and
their hearthstones deluged in the blood of their dearest
and their bravest. Shocked and stunned by so unex-
pected a calamity, they could think of nothing better
than turning their backs on the enemy, crowding to the
Danube, and imploring the Romans to let them cross
over, and to lodge themselves and their families in
safety from the calamity which menaced them.

Indeed, the very appearance of the enemy scared
them ; and they shrank from him, as children before
some monstrous object. It is observed of the Scythians,
their ancestors, who, as I have mentioned, came down
upon Asia in the Median times, that they were a fright-
ful set of men. " The persons of the Scythians," says a
living historian,1 "naturally unsightly, were rendered
hideous by indolent habits, only occasionally interrupted
by violent exertions ; and the same cause subjected them
to disgusting diseases, in which they themselves revered
the finger of Heaven." Some of these ancient tribes are
said to have been cannibals, and their horrible outrage
in serving up to Cyaxares human flesh for game, may
be taken to confirm the account. Their sensuality was
* Tfcirlwall : Greece, vol. ii. p. 196.

The Tartar*. 23

unbridled, so much so that even polygamy was a licence
too limited for their depravity. The Huns were worthy
sons of such fathers. The Goths, the bravest and noblest
of barbarians, recoiled in horror from their physical and
mental deformity. Their voices were shrill, their ges-
tures uncouth, and their shapes scarcely human. They
are said by a Gothic historian to have resembled brutes
set up awkwardly on their hind legs, or to the mis-
shapen figures (something like, I suppose, the grotesque
forms of medieval sculpture), which were placed upon
the bridges of antiquity. Their shoulders were broad,
their noses flat, and their eyes black, small, and deeply
buried in their head. They had little hair on their skulls,
and no beard. The report was spread and believed by
the Goths, that they were not mere men, but the detest-
able progeny of evil spirits and witches in the wilds of
the East.

As the Huns were but reproductions of the ancient
Scythians, so are they reproduced themselves in various
Tartar races of modern times. Tavernier, the French
traveller, in the seventeenth century, gives us a similar
description of the Kalmuks, some of whom at present
are included in the Russian Empire. " They are robust
men," he says,1 " but the most ugly and deformed under
heaven ; a face so flat and broad, that from one eye to
the other is a space of five or six fingers. Their eyes
are very small, the nose so flat that two small nostrils is
the whole of it ; their knees turned out, and their feet
turned in."

Attila himself did not degenerate in aspect from this
unlovely race ; for an historian tells us, whom I have
already made use of, that " his features bore the stamp
of his national origin ; and the portrait of Attila exhibits

1 Voyages, tip. 456-

24 The Tartars

the genuine deformity of a modern Calmuck ; a large
head, a swarthy complexion, small deep-seated eyes,
a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad
shoulders, and a short square body, of nervous strength,
though of a disproportioned form." I should add that
the Tartar eyes are not only far apart, but slant inwards,
as do the eyebrows, and are partly covered by the eye-
lid. Now Attila, this writer continues, " had a custom
of rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror
which he had inspired ; " yet, strange to say, all this was
so far from being thought a deformity by his people,
that it even went for something supernatural, for we
presently read, "the barbarian princes confessed, that
they could not presume to gaze, with a steady eye, on
the divine majesty of the King of the Huns."

I consider Attila to have been a pure Hun ; I do not
suppose the later hordes under Zingis and Timour to
have been so hideous, as being the descendants of mixed
marriages. Both Zingis himself and Timour had foreign
mothers ; as to the Turks, from even an earlier date
than those conquerors, they had taken foreign captives
to be mothers of their families, and had lived among
foreign people. Borrowing the blood of a hundred
tribes as they went on, they slowly made their way, in
the course of six or seven centuries, from Turkistan to
Constantinople. Then as to the Russians again, only a
portion of the empire is strictly Tartar or Scythian ; the
greater portion is but Scythian in its first origin, many
ages ago, and has long surrendered its wandering or
nomad habits, its indolence, and its brutality.

3-

To return to Attila: — this extraordinary man is the
only conqueror of ancient and modern times who has

The Tartars. 25

united in one empire the two mighty kingdoms of Eastern
Scythia and Western Germany, that is, of that immense
expanse of plain, which stretches across Europe and Asia.
If we divide the inhabited portions of the globe into two
oarts, the land of civilization and the land of barbarism,
v?e may call him the supreme and sole king of the latter,
of all those populations who did not live in cities, who
did not till the soil, who were hunters and shepherds,
dwelling in tents, in waggons, and on horseback.1
Imagination can hardly take in the extent of his empire.
In the West he interfered with the Franks, and chastised
the Burgundians, on the Rhine. On the East he even
sent ambassadors to negotiate an equal alliance with the
Chinese Empire. The north of Asia was the home of
his race, and on the north of Europe he ascended as high
as Denmark and Sweden. It is said he could bring into
the field an army of 500,000 or 700,000 men.

You will ask perhaps how he gained this immense
power ; did he inherit it ? the Russian Empire is the slow
growth of centuries ; had Attila a long line of royal
ancestors, and was his empire, like that of Haroun, or
Soliman, or Aurunzebe, the maturity and consummation
of an eventful history ? Nothing of the kind ; it began,
as it ended, with himself. The history of the Huns
during the centuries immediately before him, will show
us how he came by it It seems that, till shortly before
the Christian era, the Huns had a vast empire, from a
date unknown, in the portion of Tartary to the east of
Mount Altai. It was against these formidable invaders
that the Chinese built their famous wall, 1,500 miles in
length, which still exists as one of the wonders of the
world. In spite of its protection, however, they were
obliged to pay tribute to their fierce neighbours, until

Gibbon.

?6 The Tartars*

one of their emperors undertook a task which at first
sight seems an exception to what I have already laid
down as if a universal law in the history of northern
warfare. This Chinese monarch accomplished the bold
design of advancing an army as much as 700 miles into
the depths of the Tartar wilderness, and thereby at
length succeeded in breaking the power of the Huns.
He succeeded ; — but at the price of 1 10,000 men. He
entered Tartary with an army 140,000 strong; he
returned with 30,000.

The Huns, however, though broken, had no intention
at all of being reduced. The wild warriors turned their
faces westward, and not knowing whither they were going,
set out for Europe, This was at the end of the first
century after Christ ; in the course of the following
.enturies they pursued the track which I have already
^narked out for the emigrating companies. They passed
the lofty Altai ; they gradually travelled along the foot
of the mountain-chain in which it is seated ; they arrived
at the edge of the high table-land which bounds Tartary
on the west ; then turning southward down the slopes
which led to the low level of Turkistan, they found
themselves close to a fertile region between the Jaxartes
and the Oxus, the present Bukharia, then called
Sogdiana by the Greeks, afterwards the native land of
Timour. Here was the first of the three thoroughfares
for a descent southwards, which I have pointed out as
open to the choice of adventurers. A portion of these
Huns, attracted by the rich pasture-land and general
beauty of Sogdiana, took up their abode there ; the main
body wandered on. Persevering in their original course,
they skirted Siberia and the north of the Caspian, crossed
the Volga, then the Don, and thus in the fifth century of
the Christian era, as I just now mentioned, came upon

The Tartars. 27

the Goths, who were ID undisturbed possession of the
country. Now it would appear that, in this long march
from the wall of China to the Danube, lasting as it did
through some centuries, they lost hold of no part of the
tracts which they traversed. They remained on each
successive encampment long enough (if I may so express
myself) to sow themselves there. They left behind
them at least a remnant of their own population while
they went forward, like a rocket thrown up in the sky,
which, while it shoots forward, keeps possession of its track
by its train of fire. And hence it was that Attila, when
he found himself at length in Hungary, and elevated
to the headship of his people, became at once the
acknowledged king of the vast territories and the untold
populations which that people had been leaving behind
them in its advance during the foregoing 350 years.

Such a power indeed had none of the elements of
permanence in it, but it was appalling at the momentv
whenever there was a vigorous and unscrupulous hand
to put it into motion. Such was Attila ; it was his
boast, that, where his horse once trod, there grass never
grew again. As he fulfilled his terrible destiny, reli-
gious men looked on with awe, and called him the
" Scourge of God." He burst as a thunder-cloud upon
the whole extent of country, now called Turkey in
Europe, along a line of more than five hundred miles
from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Venice. He defeated
the Roman armies in three pitched battles, and then
set about destroying the cities of the Empire. Three
of the greatest, Constantinople, Adrianople, and another,
escaped : but as for the rest, the barbarian fury fell on
as many as seventy ; they were sacked, levelled to the
ground, and their inhabitants carried off to captivity.
Next he turned round to the West, and rode off with

28 The Tartars.

his savage horsemen to the Rhine. He entered France,
and stormed and sacked the greater part of its cities.
At Metz he involved in one promiscuous massacre priests
and children ; he burned the city, so that a solitary
chapel of St. Stephen was its sole remains. At length he
was signally defeated by the Romans and Goths united
at Chalons on the Marne, in a tremendous battle, which
ended in 252,000, or, as one account says, 300,000 men
being left dead on the field.

Irritated rather than humbled, as some beast of prey,
by this mishap, he turned to Italy. Crossing the Alps,
he laid siege to Aquileia, at that time one of the richest,
most populous, and strongest of the cities on the Had-
riatic coast He took it, sacked it, and so utterly
destroyed it, that the succeeding generation could
scarcely trace its ruins. It is, we know, no slight work,
in toil and expense, even with all the appliances of
modern science, to raze a single fortress ; yet the energy
of these wild warriors made sport of walled cities. He
turned back, and passed along through Lombardy ; and,
as he moved, he set fire to Padua and other cities ; he
plundered Vincenza, Verona, and Bergamo ; and sold to
the citizens of Milan and Pavia their lives and buildings
at the price of the surrender of their property. There
were a number of minute islands in the shallows of the
extremity of the Hadriatic ; and thither the trembling
inhabitants of the coast fled for refuge. Fish was for a
time their sole food, and salt, extracted from the sea,
their sole possession. Such was the origin of the city
and the republic of Venice.

4-

It does not enter into my subject to tell you how this
ferocious conqueror was stayed in the course of blood

The Tartars. 29

and fire which was carrying him towards Rome, by the
great St. Leo, the Pope of the day, who undertook an
embassy to his camp. It was not the first embassy
which the Romans had sent to him, and their former
negotiations had been associated with circumstances
which could not favourably dispose the Hun to new
overtures. It is melancholy to be obliged to confess
that, on that occasion, the contrast between barbarism
and civilization had been to the advantage of the former.
The Romans, who came to Attila to treat upon the terms
of an accommodation, after various difficulties and some
insults, had found themselves at length in the Hunnish
capital, in Hungary, the sole city of an empire which
extended for some thousand miles. In the number of
these ambassadors were some who were conducting an
intrigue with Attila's own people for his assassination,
and who actually had with them the imperial gold which
was to be the price of the crime. Attila was aware of
the conspiracy, and showed his knowledge of it ; but,
from respect for the law of nations and of hospitality,
he spared the guilty instruments or authors. Sad as it
is to have to record such practices of an Imperial Court
professedly Christian, still, it is not unwelcome, for the
honour of human nature, to discover in consequence of
them those vestiges of moral rectitude which the degra-
dation of ages had not obliterated from the Tartar
character. It is well known that when Homer, 1,500
years before, speaks of these barbarians, he calls them,
on the one hand, "drinkers of mare's. milk;" on the
other, "the most just of men." Truth, honesty, jus-
tice, hospitality, according to their view of things, are
the historical characteristics, it must be granted, of
Scythians, Tartars, and Turks, down to this day ; and
Homer, perhaps, as other authors after him, was the

30 The Tartars.

more struck with such virtues in these wild shepherds, in
contrast with the subtlety and perfidy, which, then as
since, were the qualities of his own intellectually gifted
countrymen.

Attila, though aware of the treachery and of the
traitor, had received the Roman ambassadors, as a bar-
barian indeed, but as a king; and with that strange
mixture of rudeness and magnificence of which I shall
have, as I proceed, to give more detailed specimens. As
he entered the royal village or capital with his guests, a
numerous troop of women came out to meet him, and
marched in long files before him, chanting hymns in his
honour. As he passed the door of one of his favourite
soldiers, the wife of the latter presented wine and meat
for his refreshment. He did not dismount, but a silver
table was raised for his accommodation by his domestics,
and then he continued his march. His palace, which
was all of wood, was surrounded by a wooden wall, and
contained separate houses for each of his numerous
wives. The Romans were taken round to all of them to
pay their respects ; and they admired the singular quality
and workmanship of the wooden columns, which they
found in the apartments of his queen or state wife. She
received them reclining on a soft couch, with her ladies
round her working at embroidery. Afterwards they had
an opportunity of seeing his council ; the supreme tri-
bunal was held in the gate of the palace according to
Oriental custom, perpetuated even to this day in the
title of the "Ottoman Porte." They were invited to
two solemn banquets, in which Attila feasted with the
princes and nobles of Scythia. The royal couch and table
were covered with carpets and fine linen. The swords,
and even the shoes of the nobles, were studded with
gold and preciou« «tones ; the tables were profusely

The Tartars. 31

spread with gold and silver plates, goblets, and vases.
Two bards stood before the King's couch, and sung of
his victories. Wine was drunk in great excess ; and
buffoons, Scythian and Moorish, exhibited their un-
seemly dances before the revellers. When the Romans
were to depart, Attila discovered to them his knowledge
of the treachery which had been carried on against him.

Such were some of the untoward circumstances under
which the great Pontiff I have mentioned undertook a
new embassy to the King of the Huns. He was not,
we may well conceive, to be a spectator of their bar-
baric festivities, or to be a listener to their licentious
interludes ; he was rather an object to be gazed upon,
than to gaze ; and in truth there was that about him, in
the noble aspect and the spare youthful form, which
portraits give to Pope Leo, which was adapted to arrest
and subdue even Attila. Attila had seen many great
men in his day ; he had seen the majesty of the Caesars,
and the eagles of their legions ; he had never seen before
a Vicar of Christ. The place of their interview has been
ascertained by antiquarians ; l it is near the great Aus-
trian fortress of Peschiera, where the Mincio enters the
Lago di Garda, close to the farm of Virgil. It is said
he saw behind the Pontiff the two Apostles St. Peter
and St. Paul, as they are represented in the picture of
Raffaelle ; he was subdued by the influence of religion,
and agreed to evacuate Italy.

A few words will bring us to the end of his career.
Evil has its limit ; the Scourge of God had accomplished
His mission. Hardly had St. Leo retired, when the
barbarian king availed himself of the brief interval in his
work of blood, to celebrate a new marriage. In the
deep corruption of the Tartar race, polygamy is compa-

1 Maffei Verona, part ii. p. 6,

3 2 The Tartars.

ratively a point of virtue : Attila's wives were beyond
computation. Zingis, after him, had as many as five
hundred ; another of the Tartar leaders, whose name I
forget, had three hundred. Attila, on the evening of
his new nuptials, drank to excess, and was carried to his
room. There he was found in the morning, bathed and
suffocated in his blood. An artery had suddenly burst;
and, as he lay on his back, the blood had flowed back
upon his throat and lungs, and so he had gone to his
place.

5-

And now for Zingis and Timour : — like the Huns,
they and their tribes came down from the North of Asia,
swept over the face of the South, obliterated the civili-
zation of centuries, inflicted unspeakable misery on whole
nations, and then were spent, extinguished, and only
survived to posterity in the desolation they caused. As
Attila ruled from China to the Rhine, and wasted Europe
from the Black Sea to the Loire, so Zingis and his sons
and grandsons occupied a still larger portion of the
world's surface, and exercised a still more pitiless sway.
Besides the immense range of territory, from Germany
to the North Pacific Ocean, throughout which their power
was felt, even if it was not acknowledged, they overran
China, Siberia, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Anatolia, Syria,
and Persia. During the sixty-five years of their do-
minion, they subdued almost all Asia and a large portion
of Europe. The conquests of Timour were as sudden
and as complete, if not as vast, as those of Zingis ; and,
if he did not penetrate into Europe, he accomplished
instead the subjugation of Hindostan.

The exploits of those warriors have the air of Eastern
romance ; 700,000 men marched under the standard of
Zingis; and in one of his battles he left 160,000 of his

The Tartars. 33

enemies upon the field. Before Timour died, he had had
twenty-seven crowns upon his head. When he invaded
Turkistan, his army stretched along a line of thirteen
miles. We may conceive his energy and determination,
when we are told that, for five months, he marched
through wildernesses, subsisting his immense army on
the fortunes of the chase. In his invasion of Hindostan
he had to pass over a high chain of mountains, and, in
one stage of the passage, had to be lowered by ropes on
a scaffold, down a precipice of 1 50 cubits in depth. He
attempted the operation five times before he got safely
to the bottom.

These two extraordinary men rivalled or exceeded
Attila in their wholesale barbarities. Attila vaunted
that the grass never grew again after his horse's hoof;
so it was the boast of Zingis, that when he destroyed
a city, he did it so completely, that his horse could
gallop across its site without stumbling. He depopu-
lated the whole country from the Danube to the Baltic
in a season ; and the ruins of cities and churches
were strewed with the bones of the inhabitants. He
allured the fugitives from the woods, where they lay hid.
under a promise of pardon and peace ; he made them
gather in the harvest and the vintage, and then he put
them to death. At Gran, in Hungary, he had 300 noble
ladies slaughtered in his presence. But these were slight
excesses compared with other of his acts. When he
had subdued the northern part of China, he proposed,
not in the heat of victory, but deliberately in council,
to exterminate all its inhabitants, and to turn it into a
cattle-walk ; from this project indeed he was diverted,
but a similar process was his rule with the cities he
conquered. Let it be understood, he came down upon
cities living in peace and prosperity, as the cities of
VOL. I. 3

34 The Tartars.

England now, which had done him no harm, which had
not resisted him, which submitted to him at discre-
tion on his summons. What was his treatment of
such ? He ordered out the whole population on some
adjacent plain ; then he proceeded to sack their city.
Next he divided them into three parts : first, the
soldiers and others capable of bearing arms ; these he
either enlisted into his armies, or slaughtered on the
spot. The second class consisted of the rich, the
women, and the artizans ; — these he divided amongst his
followers. The remainder, the old, infirm, and poor, he
suffered to return to their rifled city. Such was his
ordinary course ; but when anything occurred to provoke
him, the most savage excesses followed. The slightest
offence, or appearance of offence, on the part of an in-
dividual, sufficed for the massacre of whole populations.
The three great capitals of Khorasan were destroyed
by his orders, and a reckoning made of the slain ; at
JMaru were killed 1,300,000 ; at Herat, 1,600,000 ; and
at Neisabour, 1,747,000 ; making a total of 4,647,000
deaths. Say these numbers are exaggerated four-fold
or ten-fold ; even on the last supposition you will have a
massacre of towards half a million of helpless beings.
After recounting such preternatural crimes, it is little to
add, that his devastation of the fine countries between
the Caspian and the Indus, a tract of many hundred
miles, was so complete, that six centuries have been
unable to repair the ravages of four years.

Timour equalled Zingis, if he could not surpass him,
in barbarity. At Delhi, the capital of his future dynasty,
he massacred 100,000 prisoners, because some of them
were seen to smile when the army of their countrymen
came in sight. He laid a tax of the following sort on
the people of Ispahan, viz. to find him 70,000 human

The Tartars. 35

skulls, to build his towers with ; and, after Bagdad had
revolted, he exacted of the inhabitants as many as
90,000. He burned, or sacked, or razed to the ground,
the cities of Astrachan, Carisme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad,
Aleppo, Damascus, Broussa, Smyrna, and a thousand
others. We seem to be reading of some antediluvian
giant, rather than of a medieval conqueror.

The terrible races which I have been describing, like
those giants of old, have ever been enemies of God and
persecutors of His Church. Celts, Goths, Lombards,
Franks, have been converted, and their descendants to
this day are Christian ; but, whether we consider Huns,
Moguls, or Turks, up to this time they are in the outer
darkness. And accordingly, to the innumerable Tartar
tribes, and to none other, have been applied by com-
mentators the solemn passages about Gog and Magog,
who are to fight the battles of Antichrist against the
faithful. " Satan shall go forth and seduce the nations
which are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and
Magog, and shall collect them to battle, whose number
is as the sea sand." From time to time the Holy See
has fulfilled its apostolic mission of sending preachers to
them, but without success. The only missionaries who
have had any influence upon them have been those of
the Nestorian heresy, who have in certain districts made
the same sort of impression on them which the Greek
schism has made upon the Russians. St. Louis too sent
a friar to them on an embassy, when he wished to
persuade them to turn their strength upon the Turks,
with whom he was at war ; other European monarchs
afterwards followed his pattern ; and sometimes Euro-
pean merchants visited them for the purposes of trade.

36 The Tartars.

However little influence as these various visitants, in
the course of several centuries, had upon their minds,
they have at least done us the service of giving us in-
formation concerning their habits and manners ; and
this so fully corroborates the historical account of them
which I have been giving, that it will be worth while
laying before you some specimens of it here.

I have said that some of these travellers were laymen
travelling for gain or in secular splendour, and others
were humble servants of religion. The contrast of
their respective adventures is striking. The celebrated
Marco Polo, who was one of a company of enterprising
Venetian merchants, lived many years in Tartary in
honour, and returned laden with riches ; the poor friars
met with hardships in plenty, and nothing besides.
Not that the Poli were not good Catholics, not that
they went out without a blessing from the Pope, or
without friars of the order of St. Dominic of his selec-
tion ; but so it was, that the Tartars understood the
merchant well enough, but could not comprehend,
could not set a value on the friar.

When the Pope's missionaries came in sight of the
Tartar encampment on the northern frontier of Persia,
they at once announced their mission and its object. It
was from the Vicar of Christ upon earth, and the spi-
ritual head of Christendom ; and it was a simple exhor-
tation addressed to the fierce conquerors before whom
they stood, to repent and believe. The answer of the
Tartars was equally prompt and equally intelligible.
When they had fully mastered the business of their
visitors, they sentenced them to immediate execution ;
and did but hesitate about the mode. They were to
be flayed alive, their skins filled with hay, and so sent
back to the Pope ; or they were to be, put in the first.

The Tartan. 37

rank in the next battle with the Franks, and to die by
the weapons of their own countrymen. Eventually one
of the Khan's wives begged them off. They were kept
in a sort of captivity for three years, and at length
thought themselves happy to be sent away with their
lives. So much for the friars ; how different was the
lot of the merchants may be understood by the scene
which took place on their return to Venice. It is
said that, on their arrival at their own city, after the
absence of a quarter of a century, their change of ap-
pearance and poorness of apparel were such that even
their nearest friends did not know them. Having with
difficulty effected an entrance into their own house, they
set about giving a splendid entertainment to the prin-
cipal persons of the city. The banquet over, following
the Oriental custom, they successively put on and then
put off again, and distributed to their attendants, a
series of magnificent dresses ; and at length they
entered the room in the same weather-stained and
shabby dresses, in which, as travellers, they had made
their first appearance at Venice. The assembled com-
pany eyed them with wonder ; which you may be sure
was not diminished, when they began to unrip the
linings and the patches of those old clothes, and as the
seams were opened, poured out before them a prodigious
quantity of jewels. This had been their expedient for
conveying their gains to Europe, and the effect of the
discovery upon the world may be anticipated. Persons
of all ranks and ages crowded to them, as the report
spread, and they were the wonder of their day.1

7-

Savage cruelty, brutal gluttony, and barbarous

1 Murray's Asia,

38 The Tartars.

magnificence, are the three principal ethfcal character-
istics of a Tartar prince, as we may gather from what
has come down to us in history, whether concerning the
Scythians or the Huns. The first of these three quali-
ties has also been illustrated, from the references which
I have been making to the history of Zingis and Timour,
so that 1 think we have heard enough of it, without
further instances from the report of these travellers,
whether ecclesiastical or lay. I will but mention one
corroboration of a barbarity, which at first hearing it is
difficult to credit. When the Spanish ambassador, then,
was on his way to Timour, and had got as far as the
north of Persia, he there actually saw a specimen of that
sort of poll-tax, which I just now mentioned. It was a
structure consisting of four towers, composed of human
skulls, a layer of mud and of skulls being placed alter-
nately ; and he tells us that upwards of 60,000 men
were massacred to afford materials for this building.
Indeed it seems a demonstration of revenge familiar to
the Tartar race. Selim, the Ottoman Sultan, reared a
similar pyramid on the banks of the Nile.1

To return to our Spanish traveller. He proceeded to
his destination, which was Samarcand, the royal city of
Timour, in Sogdiana, the present Bukharia, and was
presented to the great conqueror. He describes the
gate of the palace as lofty, and richly ornamented with
gold and azure ; in the inner court were six elephants,
with wooden castles on their backs, and streamers, which
performed gambols for the amusement of the courtiers.
He was led into a spacious room, where were some
boys, Timour's grandsons, and these carried the King
of Spain's letters to the Khan. He then was ushered

1 Thornton's Turkey. Vid. also Jenkinson's Voyage across the Caspian
in 1562.

The Tartars. 39

into Timour*s presence, who was seated, like Attila's
queen, on a sort of cushioned sofa, with a fountain
playing before him. He was at that time an old man,
and his eyesight was impaired.

At the entertainment which followed, the meat was
introduced in leathern bags, so large as to be dragged
along with difficulty. When opened, pieces were cut
out and placed on dishes of gold, silver, or porcelain.
One of the most esteemed, says the ambassador, was
the hind quarter of a horse ; I must add what I find
related, in spite of its offending our ears : — our in-
formant tells us that horse-tripe also was one of the
delicacies at table. No dish was removed, but the
servants of the guests were expected to carry off the
remains, so that our ambassador doubtless had his
larder provided with the sort of viands I have men-
tioned for some time to come. The drink was the
famous Tartar beverage which we hear of so often,
mares' milk, sweetened with sugar, or perhaps rather
the koumiss or spirit which is distilled from it. It was
handed round in gold and silver cups.

Nothing is more strange about the Tartars than the
attachment they have shown to such coarse fare, from
the earliest times till now. Timour, at whose royal
table this most odious banquet was served, was lord of
all Asia, and had the command of every refinement not
only of luxury, but of gluttony. Yet he is faithful to
the food which regaled the old Scythians in the heroic
age of Greece, and which is prized by the Usbek of the
present day. As Homer, in the beginning of the his-
toric era, calls the Scythians "mares'-milk drinkers,"
so geographers of the present day describe their mode
of distilling it in Russia. Tavernier speaks of it two
centuries ago ; the European visitors partook of it in the

4O The Tartars.

middle ages ; and the Roman ambassadors, in the later
times of the Empire. These tribes have had the com-
mand of the vine, yet they seem to have scorned or
even abhorred its use ; and we have a curious account
in Herodotus, of a Scythian king who lost his life for
presuming to take part secretly in the orgies of Bacchus.
Yet it was not that they did not intoxicate themselves
freely with the distillation which they had chosen ; and
even when they tolerated wine, they still adhered to
their koumiss. That beverage is described by the Fran-
ciscan, who was sent by St. Louis, as what he calls
biting, and leaving a taste like almond milk on the
palate ; though Elphinstone, on the contrary writing in
this century, says " it is of a whitish colour and a sourish
taste." And so of horseflesh ; I believe it is still put
out for sale in the Chinese markets ; Lieutenant Wood,
in his journey to the source of the Oxus, speaks of it
among the Usbeks as an expensive food. So does
Elphinstone, adding that in consequence the Usbeks are
" obliged to be content with beef." Pinkerton tells us
that it is made into dried hams ; but this seems to be a
refinement, for we hear a great deal from various authors
of its being eaten more than half raw. After all, horse-
flesh was the most delicate of the Tartar viands in the
times we are now considering. We are told that, in
spite of their gold and silver, and jewels, they were con-
tent to eat dogs, foxes, and wolves ; and, as I have
observed before, the flesh of animals which had died of
disease.

But again we have lost sight of the ambassador of
Spain. After this banquet, he was taken about by
Timour to other palaces, each more magnificent than the
one preceding it. He speaks of the magnificent halls,
painted with various colours, of the hangings of silk, of gold

The Tartars, 41

and silver embroidery, of tables of solid gold, and of the
rubies and other precious stones. The most magnificent
of these entertainments was on a plain ; 20,000 pavilions
being pitched around Timour's, which displayed the most
gorgeous variety of colours. Two entertainments were
given by the ladies of the court, in which the state
queens of Timour, nine in number, sat in a row, and here
pages handed round wine, not koumiss, in golden cups,
which they were not slow in emptying.

The good friar, who went from St. Louis to the
princes of the house of Zingis, several centuries earlier,
gives us a similar account. When he was presented to
the Khan, he went with a Bible and a Psalter in his
hand ; on entering the royal apartment, he found a
curtain of felt spread across the room ; it was lifted up,
and discovered the great man at table with his wives
about him, and prepared for drinking koumiss. The
court knew something of Christianity from the Nesto-
rians, who were about it, and the friar was asked to say
a blessing on the meal ; so he entered singing the Salve
Regina. On another occasion he was present at the
baptism of a wife of the Khan by a Nestorian priest.
After the ceremony, she called for a cup of liquor, de-
sired a blessing from the officiating minister, and drank
it off. Then she drank off another, and then another ;
and continued this process till she could drink no more,
and was put into her carriage, and taken home. At
another entertainment the friar had to make a speech,
in the name of the holy king he represented, to pray for
health and long life to the Khan. When he looked
round for his interpreter, he found him in a state of in-
toxication, and in no condition to be of service ; then
he directed his gaze upon the Khan himself, and found
him intoxicated also.

4? The Tartars.

I have made much mention of the wealth of the
Tartars, from Attila to Timour ; their foreign conquests
would yield to them of course whatever of costly
material their pride might require ; but their native
territory itself was rich in minerals. Altai in the north
yielded the precious metals ; the range of mountains
which branches westward from the Himalaya on the
south yielded them rubies and lapis lazuli. We are in-
formed by the travellers whom I have been citing that
they dressed in winter in costly furs ; in summer in silk,
and even in cloth of gold.1 One of the Franciscans
speaks of the gifts received by the Khan from foreign
powers. They were more than could be numbered ; —
satin cloths, robes of purple, silk girdles wrought with
gold, costly skins. We are told of an umbrella enriched
with precious stones ; of a train of camels covered with
cloth of Bagdad ; of a tent of glowing purple ; of five
hundred waggons full of silver, gold, and silk stuffs.

8.

It is remarkable that the three great conquerors, who
have been our subject, all died in the fulness of glory.
From the beginning of history to our own times, the
insecurity of great prosperity has been the theme of poets
and philosophers. Scripture points out to our warning
in opposite ways the fortunes of Sennacherib, Nabucho-
donosor, and Antiochus. Profane history tells us of Solon,
the Athenian sage, coming to the court of Crcesus, the
prosperous King of Lydia, whom in his fallen state I
have already had occasion to mention ; and, when he had
seen his treasures and was asked by the exulting
monarch who was the happiest of men, making answer
that no one could be called happy before his death.

1 Vid. also Jenkinson, supr.

The Tartan. 43

And we may call to mind in confirmation the history
of Cyrus, of Hannibal, of Mithridates, of Belisarius, of
Bajazet, of Napoleon. But these Tartars finished a pros-
perous course without reverse; they died indeed and
went to judgment, but, as far as the visible scene of their
glory is concerned, they underwent no change. Attila
was summoned suddenly, but the summons found him
a triumphant king ; and the case is the same with Zingis
and Timour. These latter conquerors had glories be-
sides of a different kind which increased the lustre of
their rule. They were both lawgivers ; it is the boast of
Zingis that he laid down the principle of religious tole-
ration with a clearness which modern philsophers have
considered to rival the theory of Locke ; and Timour, also
established an efficient police in his dominions, and was
a patron of literature. Their sun went down full and
cloudless, with the merit of having shed some rays of
blessing upon the earth, scorching and withering as had
been its day. It is remarkable also that all three had
something of a misgiving, or softening of mind, miserably
unsatisfactory as it was, shortly before their deaths.
Attila's quailing before the eye of the Vicar of Christ,
and turning away from Italy, I have already spoken of,
As to Zingis, as, laden at once with years and with the
spoils of Asia, he reluctantly measured his way home at
the impatient bidding of his veterans, who were tired of
war, he seemed visited by a sense of the vanity of all
things and a terror for the evil he had done. He showed
some sort of pity for the vanquished, and declared his
intention of rebuilding the cities he had destroyed.
Alas ! it is ever easier to pull down than to build up.
His wars continued ; he was successful by his lieutenants
when he could not go to battle himself ; he left his power
to his children and grandchildren, and he died

44 The Tartars.

9-

Such was the end of Zingis, a pagan, who had sonic
notion of Christianity in a corrupted form, and who once
almost gave hopes of becoming a Christian, but who
really had adopted a sort of indifference towards religious
creeds altogether. Timour was a zealous Mahometan,
and had been instructed in more definite notions of
moral duty. He too felt some misgivings about his past
course towards the end of his life ; and the groans and
shrieks of the dying and the captured in the sack of
Aleppo awoke for a while the stern monitor within him.
He protested to the cadhi his innocence of the blood
which he had shed. " You see me here," he said, " a
poor, lame, decrepit mortal ; yet by my arm it has
pleased the Almighty to subdue the kingdoms of Iran,
Touran, and Hindostan. I am not a man of blood ; I
call God to witness, that never, in all my wars, have I
been the aggressor, but that my enemies have ever been
the authors of the calamities which have come upon
them."1

This was the feeling of a mind sated with conquest,
sated with glory, aware at length that he must go
further and look deeper, if he was to find that on which
the soul could really feed and live, and startled to find
the entrance to that abode of true greatness and of glory
sternly shut against him. He looked towards the home
of his youth, and the seat of his long prosperity, across
the Oxus, to Sogdiana, to Samarcand, its splendid
capital, with its rich groves and smiling pastures, and
there the old man went to die. Not that he directly
thought of death ; for still he yearned after military
success: and he went thither for but a short repose,

1 Gibbon.

The Tartars. 45

between his stupendous victories in Asia Minor and a
projected campaign in China. But Samarcand was a
fitting halt in that long march ; and there for the last
time he displayed the glory of his kingdom, receiving
the petitions or appeals of his subjects, ostentatiously
judging between the deserving and the guilty, inspecting
plans for the erection of palaces and temples, and giving
audience to ambassadors from Russia, Spain, Egypt,
and Hindostan. An English historian, whom I have
already used, has enlarged upon this closing scene, and I
here abridge his account of it. " The marriage of six of
the Emperor's grandsons," he says, "was esteemed an
act of religion as well as of paternal tenderness ; and
the pomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in their
nuptials. They were celebrated in the garden of Cani-
ghul, where innumerable tents and pavilions displayed
the luxury of a great city and the spoils of a victorious
camp. Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for
the kitchens ; the plain was spread with pyramids of
meat and vases of every liquor, to which thousands of
guests were courteously invited. The orders of the
state and the nations of the earth were marshalled at
the royal banquet. The public joy was testified by
illuminations and masquerades ; the trades of Samar-
cand passed in review ; and every trade was emulous to
execute some quaint device, some marvellous pageant,
with the materials of their peculiar art. After the
marriage contracts had been ratified by the cadhies,
nine times, according to the Asiatic fashion, were the
bridegrooms and their brides dressed and undressed ;
and at each change of apparel, pearls and rubies were
showered on their heads, and contemptuously aban-
doned to their attendants."

You may recollect the passage in Milton's Paradise

46 The Tartars.

Lost, which has a reference to the Oriental ceremony
here described. It is in his account of Satan's throne in
Pandemonium. " High on a throne," the poet says,

" High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exulting sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence."

So it is ; the greatest magnificence of this world is
but a poor imitation of the flaming throne of the author
of evil. But let us return to the history : — " A general
indulgence was proclaimed, and every law was relaxed,
every pleasure was allowed ; the people were free, the
sovereign was idle ; and the historian of Timour may
remark, that after devoting fifty years to the attainment
of empire, the only happy period of his life was the two
months in which he ceased to exercise his power. But
he was soon awakened to the cares of government and
war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion of
China ; the emirs made the report of 200,000, the select
and veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran ; the baggage
and provisions were transported by 500 great waggons,
and an immense train of horses and camels ; and the
troops might prepare for a long absence, since more
than six months were employed in the tranquil journey
of a caravan from Samarcand to Pekin. Neither age,
nor the severity of winter, could retard the impa-
tience of Timour ; he mounted on horseback, passed
the Sihun" (or Jaxartes) "on the ice, marched 300
miles from his capital, and pitched his last camp at
Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of death.
Fatigue and the indiscreet use of iced water accelerated

The Tartars. 47

the progress of his fever; and the conqueror of Asia
expired in the seventieth year of his age ; his designs
were lost ; his armies were disbanded ; China was
saved."

But the wonderful course of human affairs rolled on.
Timour's death was followed at no long interval by the
rise of John Basilowich in Russia, who succeeded in
throwing of the Mogul yoke, and laid the foundation of
the present mighty empire. The Tartar sovereignty
passed from Samarcand to Moscow.

48

IL

THE DESCENT OF THE TURKS
LECTURE III.

The Tartar and the Turk.

\/rOU may think, Gentlemen, I have been very long in
A coming to the Turks, and indeed I have been longer
than I could have wished ; but I have thought it neces-
sary, in order to your taking a just view of them, that
you should survey them first of all in their original con-
dition. When they first appear in history they are Huns
or Tartars, and nothing else ; they are indeed in no
unimportant respects Tartars even now ; but, had they
never been made something more than Tartars, they
never would have had much to do with the history of
the world. In that case, they would have had only the
fortunes of Attila and Zingis ; they might have swept
over the face of the earth, and scourged the human race,
powerful to destroy, helpless to construct, and in conse-
quence ephemeral ; but this would have been all. But
this has not been all, as regards the Turks ; for, in spite
of their intimate resemblance or relationship to the
Tartar tribes, in spite of their essential barbarism to this
day, still they, or at least great portions of the race, have
been put under education; they have been submitted to a
slow course of change, with a long history and a profit-
able discipline and fortunes of a peculiar kind ; and thus

The Tartar and the Turk 49

they have gained those qualities of mind, which alone
enable a nation to wield and to consolidate imperial
power.

I.

I have said that, when first they distinctly appear on
the scene of history, they are indistinguishable from
Tartars. Mount Altai, the high metropolis of Tartary,
is surrounded by a hilly district, rich not only in the
useful, but in the precious metals. Gold is said to
abound there ; but it is still more fertile in veins of iron,
which indeed is said to be the most plentiful in the world.
There have been iron works there from time immemorial,
and at the time that the Huns descended on the Roman
Empire (in the fifth century of the Christian era), we
find the Turks nothing more than a family of slaves, em-
ployed as workers of the ore and as blacksmiths by the
dominant tribe. Suddenly in the course of fifty years,
soon after the fall of the Hunnish power in Europe, with
the sudden development peculiar to Tartars, we find
these Turks spread from East to West, and lords of a
territory so extensive, that they were connected, by re-
lations of peace or war, at once with the Chinese, the
Persians, and the Romans. They had reached Kamtchatka
on the North, the Caspian on the West, and perhaps even
the mouth of the Indus on the South. Here then we
have an intermediate empire of Tartars, placed between
the eras of Attila and Zingis ; but in this sketch it has no
place, except as belonging to Turkish history, because it
was contained within the limits of Asia, and, though it
lasted for 200 years, it only faintly affected the political
transactions of Europe. However, it was not without
some sort of influence on Christendom, for the Romans
interchanged embassies with its sovereign in the reign of
VOL. I. 4

50 The Tartar and the Turk*

the then Greek Emperor Justin the younger (A.D. 570),
with the view of engaging him in a warlike alliance
against Persia. The account of one of these embassies
remains, and the picture it presents of the Turks is
important, because it seems clearly to identify them with
the Tartar race.

For instance, in the mission to the Tartars from the
Pope, which I have already spoken of, the friars were
led between two fires, when they approached the Khan,
and they at first refused to follow, thinking they might
be countenancing some magical rite. Now we find it
recorded of this Roman embassy, that, on its arrival, it
was purified by the Turks with fire and incense. As to
incense, which seems out of place among such barbarians,
it is remarkable that it is used in the ceremonial of the
Turkish court to this day. At least Sir Charles Fellows,
in his work on the Antiquities of Asia Minor, in 1838,
speaks of the Sultan as going to the festival of Bairam
with incense-bearers before him. Again, when the Ro-
mans were presented to the great Khan, they found him
in his tent, seated on a throne, to which wheels were at-
tached and horses attachable, in other words, a Tartar
waggon. Moreover, they were entertained at a banquet
which lasted the greater part of the day ; and an intoxi-
cating liquor, not wine, which was sweet and pleasant,
was freely presented to them ; evidently the Tartar
koumiss? The next day they had a second entertain-
ment in a still more splendid tent ; the hangings were
of embroidered silk, and the throne, the cups, and the
vases were of gold. On the third day, the pavilion, in
which they were received, was supported on gilt columns ;
a couch of massive gold was raised on four gold pea-
cocks ; and before the entrance to the tent was what

1 Univ. Hist. Modern, vol. iii. p. 346.

The Tartar and the Turk. 5 1

might be called a sideboard, only that it was a sort of
barricade of waggons, laden with dishes, basins, and
statues of solid silver. All these points in the description,
— the silk hangings, the gold vessels, the successively
increasing splendour of the entertainments, — remind us
of the courts of Zingis and Timour, 700 and 900 years
afterwards.

This empire, then, of the Turks was of a Tartar
character ; yet it was the first step of their passing from
barbarism to that degree of civilization which is their
historical badge. And it was their first step in civiliza-
tion, not so much by what it did in its day, as (unless it
be a paradox to say so), by its coming to an end. In-
deed it so happens, that those Turkish tribes which have
changed their original character and have a place in the
history of the world, have obtained their stattis and their
qualifications for it, by a process very different from that
which took place in the nations most familiar to us.
What this process has been I will say presently ; first,
however, let us observe that, fortunately for our purpose,
we have still specimens existing of those other Turkish
tribes, which were never submitted to this process of
education and change, and, in looking at them as they
now exist, we see at this very day the Turkish nationality
in something very like its original form, and are able to
decide for ourselves on its close approximation to the
Tartar. You may recollect I pointed out to you, Gen-
tlemen, in the opening of these lectures, the course
which the pastoral tribes, or nomads as they are often
called, must necessarily take in their emigrations. They
were forced along in one direction till they emerged from
their mountain valleys, and descended their high plateau
at the end of Tartary, and then they had the opportunity
of turning south. If they did not avail themselves of

5 2 The Tartar and the Turk.

this opening, but went on still westward, their next
southern pass would be the defiles of the Caucasus and
Circassia, to the west of the Caspian. If they did not
use this, they would skirt the top of the Black Sea, and
so reach Europe. Thus in the emigration of the Huns
from China, you may recollect a tribe of them turned to
the South as soon as they could, and settled themselves
between the high Tartar land and the sea of Aral, while
the main body went on to the furthest West by the
north of the Black Sea. Now with this last passage into
Europe we are not here concerned, for the Turks have
never introduced themselves to Europe by means of
it ; l but with those two southward passages which are
Asiatic, viz., that to the east of the Aral, and that to the
west of the Caspian. The Turkish tribes have all
descended upon the civilized world by one or other of
these two roads ; and I observe, that those which have
descended along the east of the Aral have changed
their social habits and gained political power, while
those which descended to the west of the Caspian remain
pretty much what they ever were. The former of these
go among us by the general name of Turks ; the
latter are the Turcomans or Turkmans.

2.

Now, first, I shall briefly mention the Turcomans,
and dismiss them, because, when they have once illus-
trated the original state of their race, they have no
place in this sketch. I have said, then, that the ancient
Turco-Tartar empire, to which the Romans sent their
embassy in the sixth century, extended to the Caspian
and towards the Indus. It was in the beginning of the

1 I am here assuming that the Magyars are not of the Turkish stock ;
yid. Gibbon and Pritchard.

The Tartar and the Turk. 53

next century that the Romans, that is, the Greco-
Romans of Constantinople, found them in the former of
these neighbourhoods ; and they made the same use
of them in the defence of their territory, to which they
had put the Goths before the overthrow of the Western
Empire. It was a most eventful era at which they
addressed themselves to these Turks of the Caspian.
It was almost the very year of the Hegira, which marks
the rise of the Mahometan imposture and rule. As
yet, however, the Persians were in power, and formid-
able enemies to the Romans, and at this very time in
possession of the Holy Cross, which Chosroes, their
powerful king, had carried away from Jerusalem twelve
years before. But the successful Emperor Heraclius
was already in the full tide of those brilliant victories,
which in the course of a few years recovered it ; and,
to recall him from their own soil, the Persians had
allied themselves with the barbarous tribes of Europe,
(the Russians, Sclavonians, Bulgarians, and others,)
which, then as now, were pressing down close upon
Constantinople from the north. This alliance suggested
to Heraclius the counterstroke of allying himself with
the Turkish freebooters, who in like manner, as stationed
above the Caspian, were impending over Persia. Ac-
cordingly the horde of Chozars, as this Turkish tribe
was called, at the Emperor's invitation, transported their
tents from the plains of the Volga through the defiles
of the Caucasus into Georgia. Heraclius showed them
extraordinary attention ; he put his own diadem on the
head of the barbarian prince, and distributed gold,
jewels, and silk to his officers ; and, on the other hand,
he obtained from them an immediate succour of 40,000
horse, and the promise of an irruption of their brethren
into Persia from the far East, from the quarter of the

54 The Tartar and the Turk.

Sea of Aral, which I have pointed out as the first of
the passages by which the shepherds of Tartary came
down upon the South. Such were the allies, with
which Heraclius succeeded in utterly overthrowing and
breaking up the Persian power ; and thus, strange to
say, the greatest of all the enemies of the Church among
the nations of the earth, the Turk, began his career in
Christian history by cooperating with a Christian
Emperor in the recovery of the Holy Cross, of which
a pagan, the ally of Russia, had got possession. The
religious aspect, however, of this first era of their his-
tory, seems to have passed away without improvement ;
what they gained was a temporal advantage, a settle-
ment in Georgia and its neighbourhood, which they
have held from that day to this.

This horde of Turks, the Chozars, was nomad and
pagan ; it consisted of mounted shepherds, surrounded
with their flocks, living in tents and waggons. In the
course of the following centuries, under the shadow of
their more civilized brethren, other similar hordes were
introduced, nomad and pagan still ; they might indeed
happen sometimes to pass down from the east of the
Caspian as well as from the west, hastening to the south
straight from Turkistan along the coast of the Aral ;
— either road would lead them down to the position
which the Chozars were the first to occupy in Georgia
and Armenia, — but still there would be but one step
in their journey between their old native sheep-walk and
horse-path and the fair region into which they came.
It was a sudden Tartar descent, accompanied with no
national change of habits, and promising no permanent
stability. Nor would they have remained there, I sup-
pose, as they did remain, were it not that they have
been protected, as they were originally introduced, by

The Tartar and tke Turk. 55

neighbouring states which have made use of them.
There, however, in matter of fact, they remain to this
day, the successors of the Chozars, in Armenia, in Syria,
in Asia Minor, even as far west as the coast of the
Archipelago and its maritime cities and ports, being
pretty much what they were a thousand years ago,
except that they have taken up the loose profession of
Mahometanism, and have given up some of the extreme
peculiarities of their Tartar state, such as their attach-
ment to horse-flesh and mares' milk. These are the
Turcomans.

3-

The writer in the Universal History divides them into
eastern and western. Of the Eastern, with which we
are not concerned, he tells us that * " they are tall and
robust, with square flat faces, as well as the western ;
only they are more swarthy, and have a greater resem-
blance to the Tartars. Some of them have betaken
themselves to husbandry. They are all Mohammedans ;
they are ve>y turbulent, very brave, and good horsemen."
Arid of the Western, that they once had two dynasties
in the neighbourhood of Armenia, and were for a time
very powerful, but that they are now subjects of the
Turks, who never have been able to subdue their roving
habits ; that they dwell in tents of thick felt, without
fixed habitation ; that they profess Mahomedanism, but
perform its duties no better than their brethren in the
East ; that they are governed by their own chiefs ac-
cording to their own laws ; that they pay tribute to the
Ottoman Porte, and are bound to furnish it with horse-
men ; that they are great robbers, and are in perpetual
warfare with their neighbours the Kurds \ that they
* Vol. v. p. 248,

56 The Tartar and the Turk.

march sometimes two or three hundred families to-
gether, and with their droves cover sometimes a space
of two leagues, and that they prefer the use of the bow
to that of fire-arms.

This account is drawn up from writers of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Precisely the same report of
their habits is made by Dr. Chandler in his travels in
Asia Minor in the middle of the last century ; he fell in
with them in his journey between Smyrna and Ephesus.
" We were told here," he says, " that the road farther on
was beset with Turcomans, a people supposed to be
descended from the Nomades Scythae or Shepherd
Scythians ; busied, as of old, in breeding and nurturing
cattle, and leading, as then, an unsettled life ; not form-
ing villages and towns with stable habitations, but
flitting from place to place, as the season and their
convenience directs ; choosing their stations, and over-
spreading without control the vast neglected pastures of
this desert empire. . . We set out, and . . . soon after
came to a wild country covered with thickets, and with
the black booths of the Turcomans, spreading on every
side, innumerable, with flocks and herds and horses and
poultry feeding round them." l

I may seem to be making unnecessary extracts, but I
have two reasons for multiplying them ; in order, first,
to show the identity in character of the various tribes of
the Tartar and the Turkish stock, and next, in order to
impress upon your imagination what that character is ;
for it is not easy to admit into the mind the very idea
of a people of this kind, dwelling too, and that for ages,
in some of the most celebrated and beautiful regions of
the world, such as Syria and Asia Minor. With this
view I will read what Volney says of them, as he found
* p. 137, ed. 1817.

The Tartar and the Turk. 57

them in Syria towards the close of the last century.
" The Turkmans," he says, l " are of the number of
those Tartar hordes, who, in the great revolutions of the
Empire of the Caliphs, emigrated from the eastward of
the Caspian Sea, and spread themselves over the vast
plains of Armenia and Asia Minor. Their language is
the same as that of the Turks, and their mode of life
nearly resembles that of the Bedouin Arabs. Like
them, they are shepherds, and consequently obliged to
travel over immense tracts of land to procure subsist-
ence for their numerous herds. . . . Their whole occu-
pation consists in smoking and looking after their flocks.
Perpetually on horseback, with their lances on their
shoulders, their crooked sabres by their sides, and their
pistols in their belts, they are expert horsemen and
indefatigable soldiers ... A great number of these
tribes pass in the summer into Armenia and Caramania,
where they find grass in great abundance, and return to
their former quarters in the winter. The Turkmans are
reputed to be Moslem . . . but they trouble themselves
little about religion."

While I was collecting these passages, a notice of
these tribes appeared in the columns of the Times
newspaper, sent home by its Constantinople corres-
pondent, apropos of the present concentration of troops
in that capital in expectation of a Russian war. His
statement enables us to carry down our specimens of
the Tartar type of the Turkish race to the present day
" From the coast of the Black Sea," he writes home, " to
the Taurus chain of mountains, a great part of the popu-
lation is nomad, and besides the Turks or Osmanlis,"
that is, the Ottoman or Imperial Turks, " consists of two
distinct races ; — the Turcomans, who possessed them-

1 Travels in Syria, vol. L p. 369, ed. 1787.

58 The Tartar and the Turk.

selves of the land before the advent of the Osmanlis,
and who wander with their black tents up to the shores
of the Bosphorus ; and the Curds." With the Curds we
are not here concerned. He proceeds : " The Turcomans,
who are spread over the whole of Asia .Minor, are a
most warlike people. Clans, numbering many thousand,
acknowledge the Sultan as the representative of the
Caliphs and the Sovereign Lord of Islam, from whom
all the Frank kings receive their crowns ; but they are
practically independent of him, and pay no taxes but
to their own chiefs. In the neighbourhood of Caesarea,
Kusan Oghlou, a Turcoman chief, numbers 20,000
armed horsemen, rules despotically over a large district,
and has often successfully resisted the Sultan's arms.
These people lead a nomad life, are always engaged in.
petty warfare, are well mounted, and armed with pistol,
scimitar, spear, or gun, and would always be useful as
irregular troops."

4-

And now I have said enough, and more than enough,
of the original state of the Turkish race, as exhibited in
the Chozars and Turcomans : — it is time to pursue the
history of that more important portion of it with which
we are properly engaged, which received some sort of
education, and has proved itself capable of social and
political union. I observed just now, that that education
was very different in its mode and circumstances from
that which has been the lot of the nations with which we
are best acquainted. Other nations have been civilized
in their own homes, and, by their social progress, have
immortalized a country as well as a race. They have
been educated by their conquests, or by subjugation, or
by the intercourse with foreigners which commerce or

The Tartar and the Turk. 59

colonization has opened ; but in every case they have
been true to their father-land, and are children of the
soil. The Greeks sent out their colonies to Asia Minor
and Italy, and those colonies reacted upon the mother
country. Magna Graecia and Ionia showed their mother
country the way to her intellectual supremacy. The
Romans spread gradually from one central city, and
when their conquests reached as far as Greece, "the
captive," in the poet's words, " captivated her wild con •
queror, and introduced arts into unmannered Latium."1
England was converted by the Roman See and conquered
by the Normans, and was gradually civilized by the
joint influences of religion and of chivalry. Religion
indeed, though a depraved religion, has had something
to do, as we shall see, with the civilization of the Turks ;
but the circumstances have been altogether different
from those which we trace in the history of England,
Rome, or Greece. The Turks present the spectacle of a
race poured out, as it were, upon a foreign material, inter-
penetrating all its parts, yet preserving its individuality,
and at length making its way through it, and reappear-
ing, in substance the same as before, but charged with
the qualities of the material through which it has been
passed, and modified by them. They have been invaded
by no conqueror, they have brought no captive arts or
literature home, they have undergone no conversion in
mass, they have been taught by no commerce, by no
international relationship ; but they have in the course
of centuries slowly soaked or trickled, if I may use the
words, through the Saracenic populations with which
they came in contact, and after being nationally lost to
the world, as far as history goes, for long periods and
through different countries, eventually they have come

1 Hor. Epist. ii i, 155.

60 The Tartar and the Turk.

to the face of day with that degree of civilization which
they at present possess, and at length have usurped a
place within the limits of the great European family.
And this is why the path southwards to the east of the
Aral was, in matter of fact, the path of civilization, and
that by the Caucasus the path of barbarism ; this is why
the Turks who took the former course could found an
empire, and those who took the latter have remained
Tartars or Turcomans, as they were originally ; because
the way of the Caucasus was a sheer descent from
Turkistan into the country which they occupy, but the
way of the Aral was a circuitous course, leading them
through many countries — through Sogdiana, Khorasan,
Zabulistan, and Persia, — with many fortunes, under
many masters, for many hundred years, before they came
round to the region to which their Turcoman brethren
attained so easily, but with so little eventual advantage.
My meaning will be clearer, as I proceed.

5-

I. First of all, we may say that the very region into
which they came, tended to their civilization. Of course
the peculiarities of soil, climate, and country are not
by themselves sufficient for a social change, else the
Turcomans would have the best right to civilization ;
yet, when other influences are present too, climate and
country are far from being unimportant. You may recol-
lect that I have spoken more than once of the separation
of a portion of the Huns from the main body, when they
were emigrating from Tartary into Europe, in the
time of the Goths.1 These turned off sharp to the
South immediately on descending the high table-land ;
and, crossing the Jaxartes, found themselves in a fertile

1 Supr. p. 26.

The Tartar and the Turk. 61

and attractive country, between the Aral and their old
country, where they settled. It is a peculiarity of Asia
that its regions are either very hot or very cold. It has
the highest mountains in the world, bleak table-lands,
vast spaces of burning desert, tracts stretched out
beneath the tropical sun. Siberia goes for a proverb
for cold : India is a proverb for heat. It is not ade-
quately supplied with rivers, and it has little of inland
sea. In these respects it stands in singular contrast
with Europe. If then the tribes which inhabit a cold^
country have, generally speaking, more energy than
those which are relaxed by the heat, it follows that
you will have in Asia two descriptions of people brought
together in extreme, sometimes in sudden, contrariety
with each other, the strong and the weak. Here then,
as some philosophers have argued,1 you have the secret
of the despotisms and the vast empires of which Asia
has been the seat ; for it always possesses those who are
naturally fitted to be tyrants, and those also whose
nature it is to tremble and obey. But we may take
another, perhaps a broader, view of the phenomenon.
The sacred writer says : " Give me neither riches nor
beggary : " and, as the extremes of abundance and of
want are prejudicial to our moral well-being, so they
seem to be prejudicial to our intellectual nature also.
Mental cultivation is best carried on in temperate regions.
In the north men are commonly too cold, in the south
too hot, to think, read, write, and act. Science, litera-
ture, and art refuse to germinate in the frost, and are
burnt up by the sun.

Now it so happened that the region in which this
party of Huns settled themselves was one of the fairest
and most fruitful in Asia. It is bounded by deserts, it
1 Montesquieu.

62 The Jartar and the Turk.

is in parts encroached on by deserts ; but viewed in its
length and breadth, in its produce and its position, it
seems a country equal, or superior, to any which that
vast continent, as at present known, can show. Its
lower portion is the extensive territory of Khorasan, the
ancient Bactriana; going northwards across the Oxus, we
come into a spacious tract, stretching to the Aral and to
the Jaxartes, and measuring a square of 600 miles. It
was called in ancient times Sogdiana ; in the history of
the middle ages Transoxiana, or " beyond the Oxus ; "
by the Eastern writers Maver-ul-nere, or Mawer-al-nahar,
which is said to have the same meaning ; and it is now
known by the name Bukharia. To these may be added
a third province, at the bottom of the Aral, between the
mouth of the Oxus and the Caspian, called Kharasm.
These, then, were the regions in which the Huns in
question took up their abode.

The two large countries I first mentioned are cele-
brated in all ages for those characteristics which render
a spot desirable for human habitation. As to Sogdiana,
or Maver-ul-nere, the region with which we are specially
concerned, the Orientals, especially the Persians, of the
medieval period do not know how to express in fit terms
their admiration of its climate and soil. They do not
scruple to call it the Paradise of Asia. " It may be con-
sidered," says a modern writer,1 "as almost the only
example of the finest temperate climate occurring in
that continent, which presents generally an abrupt tran-
sition from burning tropical heat to the extreme cold of
the north." According to an Arabian author, there are
just three spots in the globe which surpass all the rest
in beauty and fertility ; one of them is near Damascus,
another seems to be the valley of a river on the Persian

1 Murray.

The Tartar and the Turk. 63

Gulf, and the third is the plain of Sogdiana. Another
writer says : " I have cast my eyes around Bokhara, and
never have I seen a verdure more fresh or of wider extent.
The green carpet mingles in the horizon with the azure
of the sky." l Abulfeda in like manner calls it " the most
delightful of all places God has created." Some recent
writer, I think, speaks in disparagement of it* And I can
quite understand, that the deserts which must be passed
to reach it from the south or the north may betray the
weary traveller into an exaggerated praise, which is the
expression both of his recruited spirits and of his grati-
tude. But all things are good only by comparison ; and
I do not see why an Asiatic, having experience of the
sands which elsewhere overspread the face of his con-
tinent, should for that reason be ill qualified to pronounce
that Sogdiana affords a contrast to them. Moreover,
we have the experience of other lands, as Asia Minor,
which have presented a very different aspect in different
ages. A river overflows and turns a fruitful plain into a
marsh ; or it fails, and turns it into a sandy desert. Sog-
diana is watered by a number of great rivers, which
make their way across it from the high land on its east
to the Aral or Caspian. Now we read in history of
several instances of changes, accidental or artificial, in
the direction or the supply of these great water-courses.
I think I have read somewhere, but cannot recover my
authority, of some emigration of the inhabitants of those
countries, caused by a failure of the stream on which
they depended. And we know for certain that the Oxus
has been changed in its course, accidentally or artificially,
more than once. Disputes have arisen before now be-
tween the Russian Government and the Tartars, on
the subject of one of these diversions of the bed of

i Caldecott's Baber. » Vid. Quarterly Review, vol. lii. p. 396-7

64 The Tartar and the Turk.

a river.1 One province of Khorasan, which once was very
fertile, is in consequence now a desert. It may be ques-
tioned, too, whether the sands of the adjacent deserts,
which are subject to violent agitation from the action of
the wind, may not have encroached upon Sogdiana.
Nor should it be overlooked that this rich country has
been subjected to the same calamities which have been
the desolation of Asia Minor; for, as the Turcomans have
devastated the latter, so, as I have already had occasion
to mention, Zingis swept round the sea of Aral, and
destroyed the fruits of a long civilization.

Even after the ravages of that conqueror, however,
Timour and the Emperor Baber, who had a right to
judge of the comparative excellence of the countries of
the East, bear witness to the beauty of Sogdiana.
Timour, who had fixed his imperial seat in Samarcand,
boasted he had a garden 120 miles in extent. Baber
expatiates on the grain and fruit and game of its
northern parts ; of the tulips, violets, and roses of
another portion of it; of the streams and gardens of
another. Its plains are said by travellers to abound in
wood, its rivers in fish, its valleys in fruit-trees, in wheat
and barley, and in cotton.* The quince, pomegranate,
fig, apricot, and almond all flourish in it. Its melons
are the finest in the world. Mulberries abound, and
provide for a considerable manufacture of silk. No
wine, says Baber, is equal to the wine of Bokhara. Its
atmosphere is so clear and serene, that the stars are
visible even to the verge of the horizon. A recent
Russian traveller says he came to a country so smiling,
well cultivated, and thickly peopled, with fields, canals,
avenues of trees, villages, and gardens, that he thought

1 Univ. Hist mod. vol. v. p. 262, etc.
* Ibid. voL iv. p. 353.

The Tartar and the Turk. 65

himself in an enchanted country. He speaks in raptures
of its melons, pomegranates, and grapes.1 Its breed
of horses is celebrated ; so much so that a late British
traveller8 visited the country with the special object of
substituting it for the Arab in our Indian armies. Its
mountains abound in useful and precious produce.
Coal is found there ; gold is collected from its rivers ;
silver and iron are yielded by its hills ; we hear too of
its mines of turquoise, and of its cliffs of lapis lazuli,8
and its mines of rubies, which to this day are the ob-
ject of the traveller's curiosity.4 I might extend my
remarks to the country south of the Oxus and of its
mountain range, the modern Afghanistan. Though
Cabul is 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, it abounds
in pomegranates, mulberries, apples, and fruit of every
kind. Grapes are so plentiful, that for three months of
the year they are given to the cattle.

This region, favoured in soil and climate, is favoured
also in position. Lying at the mouth of the two great
roads of emigration from the far East, the valleys of
the Jaxartes and the Oxus, it is the natural mart
between High Asia and Europe, receiving the merchan-
dize of East and North, and transporting it by its
rivers, by the Caspian, the Kur, and the Phasis, to the
Black Sea. Thus it received in former days the silk
of China, the musk of Thibet, and the furs of Siberia,
and shipped them for the cities of the Roman Empire.
To Samarcand, its metropolis, we owe the art of trans-
forming linen into paper, which the Sogdian merchants
are said to have gained from China, and thence diffused
by means of their own manufacturers over the western

1 Meyendorff. 2 Moorcroft. 8 Vid. Elphinstone. 4 Wood's Oxus.
VOL. I. 5

66 The Tartar and the Turk.

world. A people so circumstanced could not be with-
out civilization ; but that civilization was of a much
earlier date. It must not be forgotten that the cele-
brated sage, Zoroaster, before the times of history, was
a native, and, as some say, king of Bactriana. Cyrus had
established a city in the same region, which he called
after his name. Alexander conquered both Bactriana and
Sogdiana, and planted Grecian cities there. There is
a long line of Greco-Bactrian kings ; and their coins
and paterae have been brought to light within the last
few years. Alexander's name is still famous in the
country ; not only does Marco Polo in the middle ages
speak of his descendants as still found there, but even
within the last fifteen years Sir Alexander Burns found
a man professing that descent in the valley of the Oxus,
and Lieutenant Wood another in the same neighbour-
hood.

Nor was Greek occupation the only source of the
civilization of Sogdiana, Centuries rolled on, and at
length the Saracens renewed, on their own peculiar basis,
the mental cultivation which Sogdiana had received from
Alexander. The cities of Bokhara and Samarcand have
been famous tor science and literature. Bokhara was
long celebrated as the most eminent seat of Mahometan
learning in central Asia ; its colleges were, and are, nu-
merous, accommodating from 60 to 600 students each.
One of them gained the notice and the pecuniary aid
of the Russian Empress Catharine.1 Samarcand rivals
Bokhara in fame ; its university even in the last century
was frequented by Mahometan youth from foreign coun-
tries. There were more than 300 colleges for students, and
there was an observatory, celebrated in the middle ages,
the ruins of which remain. Here lies the body of Timour,

1 Elphinstone's Cabul.

Tartar and the Turk. 67

under a lofty dome, the sides of which are enriched with
agate. "Since the time of the Holy Prophet," that
is, Mahomet, says the Emperor Baber, "no country
has produced so many Imaums and eminent divines as
Mawar-al-nahar," that is, Sogdiana. It was celebrated
for its populousness. At one time it boasted of being
able to send out 300,000 foot, and as many horse, without
missing them. Bridges and caravansaries abounded ;
the latter, in the single province attached to its capital,
amounted to 2,000. In Bactriana, the very ruins of Balkh
extend for a circuit of 20 miles, and Sir A. Burns wound
through three miles of them continuously.

Such is the country, seated at present between the
British and the Russian Empires, and such as regards its
previous and later state, which the savage Huns, in their
emigration from Tartary, had necessarily encountered ;
and it cannot surprise us that one of their many tribes
had been persuaded to settle there, instead of seeking
their fortunes farther west. The effect upon these settlers
in course of time was marvellous. Though it was not of
course the mere climate of Sogdiana that changed them,
still we cannot undervalue the influence which is neces-
sarily exerted on the mind by the idea of property, when
once recognised and accepted, by the desire of possession
and by the love of home, and by the sentiment of
patriotism which arises in the mind, especially with the
occupation of a rich and beautiful country. Moreover,
they became the guests or masters of a people, who,
however rude, at least had far higher claims to be called
civilized than they themselves, and possessed among
them the remains of a more civilized era. They found a
race, too, not Tartar, more capable of civilization, more
gifted with intellect, and more comely in person. Settling
down among the inhabitants, and intermarrying with

68 The Tartar and the Turk.

them, in the course of generations their Tartar character-
istics were sensibly softened. For a thousand years this
restless people remained there, as if chained to the soil.
They still had the staple of barbarism in them, but so
polished were they for children of a Tartar stock, that
they are called in history the White Huns of Sogdiana.
They took to commerce, they took to literature ; and
when, at the end of a few centuries, the Turks, as I have
already described, spread abroad from the iron works
and forges of Mount Altai to Kamtchatka, the Volga,
and the Indus, and overran these White Huns in the
course of their victories, they could find no parties more
fitted than them to act as their diplomatists and corre-
spondents in their negotiations with the Romans.

Such was the influence of Sogdiana on the Huns ; is it
wonderful that it exerted some influence on the Turks,
when they in turn got possession of it ? History justifies
the anticipation ; as the Huns of the second or third
centuries settled around the Aral, so the Turks in the
course of the sixth or seventh centuries overran them,
and descended down to the modern Afghanistan and
the Indus ; and as the fair region and its inhabitants,
which they crossed and occupied, had begun at the
former era the civilization of the first race of Tartars,
so did it at the latter era begin the education of the
second.

7-

2. But a more direct and effective instrument of social
education was accorded to the Turks on their occupa-
tion of Sogdiana. You may recollect I spoke of their
first empire as lasting for only 200 years,1 about 90 of
which measures the period of that occupation. Their

l Sufr. p. 59.

The Tartar and the Turk' 69

power then came to an end ; what was the consequence
of their fall ? were they driven out of Sogdiana again ?
were they massacred ? did they take refuge in the
mountains or deserts ? were they reduced to slavery ?
Thus we are introduced to a famous passage of history :
the case was as follows: — At the very date at which
Heraclius called the Turcomans into Georgia, at the very
date when their Eastern brethren crossed the northern
border of Sogdiana, an event of most momentous import
had occurred in the South. A new religion had arisen in
Arabia. The impostor Mahomet, announcing himself the
Prophet of God, was writing the pages of that book, and
moulding the faith of that people, which was to subdue
half the known world. The Turks passed the Jaxartes
southward in A.D. 626 ; just four years before Mahomet
had assumed the royal dignity, and just six years after,
on his death, his followers began the conquest of the
Persian Empire. In the course of 20 years they effected
it ; Sogdiana was at its very extremity, or its border-
land ; there the last king of Persia took refuge from the
south, while the Turks were pouring into it from the north.
There was little to choose for the unfortunate prince be-
tween the Turk and the Saracen ; the Turks were his
hereditary foe ; they had been the giants and monsters
of the popular poetry ; but he threw himself into their
arms. They engaged in his service, betrayed him, mur-
dered him, and measured themselves with the Saracens
in his stead. Thus the military strength of the north and
south of Asia, the Saracenic and the Turkish, came into
memorable conflict in the regions of which I have said so
much. The struggle was a fierce one, and lasted many
years ; the Turks striving to force their way down to the
ocean, the Saracens to drive them back into their Scy-
thian deserts. They first fought this issue in Bactriana

70 The Tartar and the Turk.

or Khorasan ; the Turks got the worst of the fight, and
then it was thrown back upon Sogdiana itself, and there
it ended again in favour of the Saracens. At the end of
90 years from the time of the first Turkish descent on
this fair region, they relinquished it to their Mahometan
opponents. The conquerors found it rich, populous, and
powerful ; its cities, Carisme, Bokhara, and Samarcand,
were surrounded beyond their fortifications by a suburb
of fields and gardens, which was in turn protected by
exterior works ; its plains were well cultivated, and its
commerce extended from China to Europe. Its riches
were proportionally great ; the Saracens were able to
extort a tribute of two million gold pieces from the in-
habitants ; we read, moreover, of the cro\vn jewels of one
of the Turkish princesses ; and of the buskin of another,
which she dropt in her flight from Bokhara, as being
worth two thousand pieces of gold.1 Such had been the
prosperity of the barbarian invaders, such was its end ;
but not their end, for adversity did them service, as well
as prosperity, as we shall see.

It is usual for historians to say, that the triumph of
the South threw the Turks back again upon their
northern solitudes ; and this might easily be the case
with some of the many hordes, which were ever passing
the boundary and flocking down ; but it is no just
account of the historical fact, viewed as a whole, Not
often indeed do the Oriental nations present us with an
example of versatility of character ; the Turks, for in-
stance, of this day are substantially what they were four
centuries ago. We cannot conceive, were Turkey over-
run by the Russians at the present moment, that the
fanatical tribes, which are pouring into Constantinople
from Asia Minor, would submit to the foreign yoke,

1 Gibbon.

The Tartar and the Turk. 7 1

take service under their conquerors, become soldiers,
custom-officers, police, men of business, attache's, states-
men, working their way up from the ranks and from the
masses into influence and power ; but, whether from
skill in the Saracens, or from far-reaching sagacity in
the Turks (and it is difficult to assign it to either cause),
so it was, that a process of this nature followed close
upon the Mahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to be
traced in detail to a variety of accidents. Many of the
Turks probably were made slaves, and the service to
which they were subjected was no matter of choice.
Numbers had got attached to the soil ; and inheriting
the blood of Persians, White Huns, or aboriginal in-
habitants for three generations, had simply unlearned
the wildness of the Tartar shepherd. Others fell
victims to the religion of their conquerors, which ulti-
mately, as we know, exercised a most remarkable
influence upon them. Not all at once, but as tribe
descended after tribe, and generation followed genera-
tion, they succumbed to the creed of Mahomet ; and
they embraced it with the ardour and enthusiasm which
Franks and Saxons so gloriously and meritoriously
manifested in their conversion to Christianity.

8.

3. Here again was a very powerful instrument in
modification of their national character. Let me illus-
trate it in one particular. If there is one peculiarity
above another, proper to the savage and to the Tartar,
it is that of excitability and impetuosity on ordinary
occasions ; the Turks, on the other hand, are nationally
remarkable for gravity and almost apathy of demeanour.
Now there are evidently elements in the Mahometan
creed, which would tend to change them from the one

7 2 The Tartar and the Turk.

temperament to the other. Its sternness, its coldness,
its doctrine of fatalism ; even the truths which it
borrowed from Revelation, when separated from the
truths it rejected, its monotheism untempered by media-
tion, its severe view of the divine attributes, of the law,
and of a sure retribution to come, wrought both a gloom
and also an improvement in the barbarian, not very un-
like the effect which some forms of Protestantism produce
among ourselves. But whatever was the mode of opera-
tion, certainly it is to their religion that this peculiarity
of the Turks is ascribed by competent judges. Lieu-
tenant Wood in his journal gives us a lively account of
a peculiarity of theirs, which he unhesitatingly attributes
to Islamism. " Nowhere," he says, " is the difference
between European and Mahomedan society more
strongly marked than in the lower walks of life. . . .
A Kasid, or messenger, for example, will come into a
public department, deliver his letters in full durbar, and
demean himself throughout the interview with so much
composure and self-possession, that an European can
hardly believe that his grade in society is so low. After
he has delivered his letters, he takes his seat among the
crowd, and answers, calmly and without hesitation, all
the questions which may be addressed to him, or com-
municates the verbal instructions with which he has
been entrusted by his employer, and which are often of
more importance than the letters themselves. Indeed,
all the inferior classes possess an innate self-respect, and
a natural gravity of deportment, which differs as far
from the suppleness of a Hindustani as from the awk-
ward rusticity of an English clown." ... " Even chil-
dren," he continues, "in Mahomedan countries have
an unusual degree of gravity in their deportment. The
boy, who can but lisp his ' Peace be with you/ has

The Tartar andtke Turk. 73

imbibed this portion of the national character. In
passing through a village, these little men will place
their hands upon their breasts, and give the usual greet-
ing. Frequently have I seen the children of chiefs
approach their father's durbar, and stopping short at
the threshold of the door, utter the shout of ' Salam
Ali-Kum/ so as to draw all eyes upon them ; but
nothing daunted, they marched boldly into the room,
and sliding down upon their knees, folded their arms
and took their seat upon the musnad with all the
gravity of grown-up persons."

As Islamism has changed the demeanour of the Turks,
so doubtless it has in other ways materially innovated
on their Tartar nature. It has given an aim to their
military efforts, a political principle, and a social bond.
It has laid them under a sense of responsibility, has
moulded them into consistency, and taught them a course
of policy and perseverance in it. But to treat this part
of the subject adequately to its importance would require,
Gentlemen, a research and a fulness of discussion un-
suitable to the historical sketch which I have under-
taken. I have said enough for my purpose upon this
topic ; and indeed on the general question of the modi-
fication of national character to which the Turks were at
this period subjected

M

LECTURE IV.

The Turk and the Saracen.

I.

ERE occupation of a rich country is not enough
for civilization, as I have granted already. The
Turks came into the pleasant plains and valleys of Sog-
diana ; the Turcomans into the well-wooded mountains
and sunny slopes of Asia Minor. The Turcomans were
brought out of their dreary deserts, yet they retained
their old habits, and they remain barbarians to this day.
But why ? it must be borne in mind, they neither sub-
jugated the inhabitants of their new country on the one
hand, nor were subjugated by them on the other. They
never had direct or intimate relations with it ; they were
brought into it by the Roman Government at Constan-
tinople as its auxiliaries, but they never naturalized them-
selves there. They were like gipseys in England, except
that they were mounted freebooters instead of pilferers
and fortune-tellers. It was far otherwise with their breth-
ren in Sogdiana; they were there first as conquerors, then
as conquered. First they held it in possession as their
prize for 90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and
enjoyment of it. Next, their political ascendancy over it
involved, as in the case of the White Huns, some sort of
moral surrender of themselves to it. What was the first
consequence of this ? that, like the White Huns, they in-
termarried with the races they found there. We know
the custom of the Tartars and Turlcs ; under such cir-

The Turk and the Saracen. 75

Cumstances they would avail themselves of their national
practice of polygamy to its full extent of licence. In
the course of twenty years a new generation would arise
of a mixed race ; and these in turn would marry into
the native population, and at the end of ninety or a
hundred years we should find the great-grandsons or the
great-great-grandsons of the wild marauders who first
crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their ancestors
in features both of mind and body, that they hardly
would be recognized as deserving the Tartar name. At
the end of that period their power came to an end,
the Saracens became masters of them and of their coun-
try, but the process of emigration southward from the
Scythian desert, which had never intermitted during the
years of their domination, continued still, though that
domination was no more.

Here it is necessary to have a clear idea of the nature
of that association of the Turkish tribes from the Volga
to the Eastern Sea, to which I have given the name of
Empire : — it was not so much of a political as of a
national character ; it was the power, not of a system,
but of a race. They were not one well-organized state,
but a number of independent tribes, acting generally to-
gether, acknowledging one leader or not, according to
circumstances, combining and cooperating from the iden-
tity of object which acted on them, and often jealous of
each other and quarrelling with each other on account of
that very identity. Each tribe made its way down to the
south as it could ; one blocked up the way of the other for
a time ; there were stoppages and collisions, but there was
a continual movement and progress. Down they came
one after another, like wolves after their prey ; and as
the tribes which came first became partially civilized,
and as a mixed generation arose, these would naturally

76 The Turk and tke Saracen.

be desirous of keeping back their less polished uncles or
cousins, if they could ; and would do so successfully for
awhile : but cupidity is stronger than conservatism ; and
so, in spite of delay and difficulty, down they would keep*
coming, and down they did come, even after and in spite
of the overthrow of their Empire ; crowding down as to
a new world, to get what they could, as adventurers,
ready to turn to the right or the left, prepared to struggle
on anyhow, willing to be forced forward into countries
farther still, careless what might turn up, so that they
did but get down. And this was the process which went
on (whatever were their fortunes when they actually got
down, prosperous or adverse) for 400, nay, I will say for
700 years. The storehouse of the north was never ex-
hausted ; it sustained the never-ending run upon its
resources.

I was just now referring to a change in the Turks,
which I have mentioned before, and which had as im-
portant a bearing as any other of their changes upon
their subsequent fortunes. It was a change in their
physiognomy and shape, so striking as to recommend
them to their masters for the purposes of war or of dis-
play. Instead of bearing any longer the hideous ex-
terior which in the Huns frightened the Romans and
Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as the ninth
century, when they had been among the natives of
Sogdiana only two hundred years, for the beauty of
their persons. An important political event was the
result : hence the introduction of the Turks into the
heart of the Saracenic empire. By this time the Caliphs
had removed from Damascus to Bagdad ; Persia was
the imperial province, and into Persia they were intro-

The Turk and the Saracen. 77

duced for the reason I have mentioned, sometimes as
slaves, sometimes as captives taken in war, sometimes
as mercenaries for the Saracenic armies : at length they
were enrolled as guards to the Caliph, and even ap-
pointed to offices in the palace, to the command of the
forces, and to governorships in the provinces. The son
of the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as many as
50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. And thus
slowly and silently they made their way to the south,
not with the pomp and pretence of conquest, but by
means of that ordinary intercommunion which connected
one portion of the empire of the Caliphs with another.
In this manner they were introduced even into Egypt.

This was their history for a hundred and fifty years,
and what do we suppose would be the result of this
importation of barbarians into the heart of a flourishing
empire ? Would they be absorbed as slaves or settlers
in the mass of the population, or would they, like mer-
cenaries elsewhere, be fatal to the power that introduced
them ? The answer is not difficult, considering that
their very introduction argued a want of energy and re-
source in the rulers whom they served. To employ
them was a confession of weakness ; the Saracenic
power indeed was not very aged, but the Turkish was
much younger, and more vigorous ; — then too must be
considered the difference of national character between
the Turks and the Saracens. A writer of the beginning
of the present century, * compares the Turks to the
Romans ; such parallels are generally fanciful and falla-
cious ; but, if we must accept it in the present instance,
we may complete the picture by likening the Saracens
and Persians to the Greeks, and we know what was the
result of the collision between Greece and Rome. The

1 Thornton.

78 The Turk and the Saracen.

Persians were poets, the Saracens were philosophers.
The mathematics, astronomy, and botany were especial
subjects of the studies of the latter. Their observatories
were celebrated, and they may be considered to have
originated the science of chemistry. The Turks, on the
other hand, though they are said to have a literature,
and though certain of their princes have been patrons of
letters, have never distinguished themselves in exercises
of pure intellect ; but they have had an energy of
character, a pertinacity, a perseverance, and a political
talent, in a word, they then had the qualities of mind
necessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than the
people they were serving. The Saracens, like the
Greeks, carried their arms over the surface of the earth
with an unrivalled brilliancy and an unchequered suc-
cess ; but their dominion, like that of Greece, did not
last for more than 200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly
through many centuries, and its influence lasts to this
day ; the Turkish race battled with difficulties and re-
verses, and made its way on amid tumult and compli-
cation, for a good 1,000 years from first to last, till at
length it found itself in possession of Constantinople,
and a terror to the whole of Europe. It has ended its
career upon the throne of Constantine ; it began it as
the slave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire, of
Persia and Sogdiana.

3-

As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed one season
of power and then in turn of reverse which there befell
the Turks ; and next a more remarkable outbreak and
its reaction mark their presence in Persia. I have spoken
of the formidable force, consisting of Turks, which formed
the guard of the Caliphs immediately after the time p(

The Turk and the Saracen. 79

Harun al Raschid : — suddenly they rebelled against their
master, burst into his apartment at the hour of supper,
murdered him, and cut his body into seven pieces. They
got possession of the symbols of imperial power, the gar-
ment and the staff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make
and unmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the course of
four years they had elevated, deposed, and murdered as
many as three. At their wanton caprice, they made
these successors of the false prophet the sport of their
insults and their blows. They dragged them by the
feet, stripped them, and exposed them to the burning
sun, beat them with iron clubs, and left them for days
without food. At length, however, the people of Bagdad
were roused in defence of the Caliphate, and the Turks
for a time were brought under ; but they remained in
the country, or rather, by the short-sighted policy of the
moment, were dispersed throughout it, and thus became
in the sequel ready-made elements of revolution for the
purposes of other traitors of their own race, who, at a
later period, as we shall presently see, descended on
Persia from Turkistan.

Indeed, events were opening the way slowly, but
surely, to their ascendancy. Throughout the whole of
the tenth century, which followed, they seem to dis-
appear from history ; but a silent revolution was all
along in progress, leading them forward to their great
destiny. The empire of the Caliphate was already dying
in its extremities, and Sogdiana was one of the first
countries to be detached from his power. The Turks
were still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the
army and the offices of the government ; but the politi-
cal changes which took place were not at first to their
visible advantage. What first occurred was the revolt
of the Caliph's viceroy, whQ made himself a great king-

8o 1 ke Turk and Ike Saracen.

dom or empire out of the provinces around, extending
it from the Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary
of Sogdiana, almost to the Indian ocean, and from the
confines of Georgia to the mountains of Afghanistan.
The dynasty thus established lasted for four generations
and for the space of ninety years. Then the successor
happened to be a "boy ; and one of his servants, the
governor of Khorasan, an able and experienced man, was
forced by circumstances to rebellion against him. He
was successful, and the whole power of this great kingdom
fell into his hands ; now he was a Tartar or Turk ; and
thus at length the Turks suddenly appear in history, the
acknowledged masters of a southern dominion.

4-

This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish dynasty of
the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh, or Ghizni, or
Ghuznee, the principal city, and it lasted for two hundred
years. We are not particularly concerned in it, because
it has no direct relations with Europe ; but it falls into
our subject, as having been instrumental to the advance
of the Turks towards the West. Its most distinguished
monarch was Mahmood, and he conquered Hindostan,
which became eventually the seat of the empire. In
Mahmood the Gaznevide we have a prince of true Ori-
ental splendour. For him the title of Sultan or Sold an
was invented, which henceforth became the special
badge of the Turkish monarchs ; as Khan is the title of
the sovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the sovereign
of the Saracens. I have already described generally the
extent of his dominions : he inherited Sogdiana, Carisme,
Khorasan, and Cabul ; but, being a zealous Mussulman,
he obtained the title of Gazi, or champion, by his reduc-
tion of Hindostan, and his destruction of its idol temples,

The Turk and the Saracen. 8 1

There was no need, however, of religious enthusiasm
to stimulate him to the war : the riches, which he
amassed in the course of it, were a recompense amply
sufficient. His Indian expeditions in all amounted to
twelve, and they abound in battles and sieges of a truly
Oriental cast. " Never," says a celebrated historian,1
" was the Mussulman hero dismayed by the inclemency
of the seasons, the height of the mountains, t'he breadth
of the rivers, the barrenness of the desert, the multitudes
of the enemy," or their elephants of war. One of the
sovereigns of the country brought against him as many
as 2,500 elephants; the borderers on the Indus resisted
him with 4,000 war-boats. He was successful in every
direction ; he levelled to the ground many hundreds of
pagodas, and carried off their treasures. In one of his
campaigns8 he took prisoner the prince of Lahore, round
whose neck alone were sixteen strings of jewels, valued
at .£320,000 of our money. At Mutra he found five great
idols of pure gold, with eyes of rubies ; and a hundred
idols of silver, which, when melted down, loaded a hun-
dred camels with bullion.

These stories, which sound like the fables in the
Arabian Nights, are but a specimen of the wonderful
fruits of the victories of this Mahmood. His richest prize
was the great temple of Sunnat, or Somnaut, on the
promontory of Guzerat, between the Indus and Bombay.
It was a place as diabolically wicked as it was wealthy t
and we may safely regard Mahmood as the instrument
of divine vengeance upon it. But here I am only con-
cerned with its wealth, for which grave writers are the
vouchers. When this temple was taken, Mahmood
entered a great square hall, having its lofty roof sup-
ported with 56 pillars, curiously turned and set with

i Gibbon. * Vid. Dow's Hindostan.

VOL. I.

3 2 The Turk and the Saracen.

precious stones. In the centre stood the idol, made of
stone, and five feet high. The conqueror began to
demolish it. He raised his mace, and struck off the
idol's nose. The Brahmins interposed, and are said to
have offered the fabulous sum, as Mill considers it, of
ten millions sterling for its ransom. His officers urged '
him to accept it, and the Sultan himself was moved ; but
recovering himself, he observed that it was somewhat
more honourable to destroy idols than to traffic in them,
and proceeded to repeat his blows at the trunk of the
figure. He broke it open ; it was found to be hollow,
and at once explained the prodigality of the offer of the
Brahmins. Inside was found an incalculable treasure
of diamonds, rubies, and pearls. Mahmood took away
the lofty doors of sandal-wood, which belonged to this
temple, as a trophy for posterity. Till a few years ago,
they were the decoration of his tomb near Gazneh, which
is built of white marble with a cupola, and where Moollas
are still maintained to read prayers over his grave.1
There too once hung the ponderous mace, which few
but himself could wield ; but the mace has disappeared,
and the sandal gates, if genuine, were carried off about
twelve years since by the British Governor-General of
India, and restored to their old place, as an acceptable
present to the impure idolaters of Guzerat."

It is not wonderful that this great conqueror should
have been overcome by the special infirmity, to which
such immense plunder would dispose him ; he has left

1 Caldecott's Baber. Vid. also Elphinstone, vol. ii. p. 366.

8 "Our victorious army bears the gates of the temple of Somnauth in
triumph from Afghanistan, and the despoiled tomb of Sultan Mahmood
looks upon the ruins of Ghuznee. The insult of 800 years is at last
avenged," etc., etc. — Proclamation of the Governor- General to all the pnnca,
Jiiefs, and people of India.

The Turk and ike Saracen. 83

behind him a reputation for avarice. He desired to be
a patron of literature, and on one occasion he promised
a court poet a golden coin for every verse of an heroic
poem he was writing. Stimulated by the promise, " the
divine poet," to use the words of the Persian historian,
" wrote the unparalleled poem called the Shah Namna,
consisting of 60,000 couplets." This was more than had
been bargained for by the Sultan, who, repenting of
his engagement, wished to compromise the matter for
60,000 rupees, about a sixteenth part of the sum he had
promised. The indignant author would accept no re-
muneration at all, but wrote a satire upon Mahmood
instead ; but he was merciful in his revenge, for he
reached no more than the seven-thousandth couplet.

There is a melancholy grandeur about the last days
of this victorious Sultan, which seems to show that even
then the character of his race was changed from the
fierce impatience of Hun and Tartar to the grave, pen-
sive, and majestic demeanour of the Turk. Tartar he
was in his countenance, as he was painfully conscious,
but his mind had a refinement, to which the Tartar was
a stranger. Broken down by an agonizing complaint,
he perceived his life was failing, and his glory coming to
an end. Two days before his death, he commanded all
the untold riches of his treasury, his sacks of gold and
silver, his caskets ol precious stones, to be brought out
and placed before him. Having feasted his eyes upon
them, he burst into tears ; he knew they would not long
be his, but he had not the heart to give any part of
them away. The next day he caused to be drawn up
before his travelling throne, for he observed still the
Tartar custom, his army of 100,000 foot and 55,ooo
horse, his chariots, his camels, and his 1,300 elephants
of war ; and again he wept, and, overcome with grief,

84 The Turk and the Saracen.

retired to his palace. Next day he died, after a pros-
perous reign of more than thirty years.

But, to return to the general history. It will be re-
collected that Mahmood's dominions stretched very far
to the west, as some say, even round the Caspian to
Georgia ; and it is not wonderful that, while he was
adding India to them, he found a difficulty in defend-
ing his frontier towards Persia. Meantime, as before, his
own countrymen kept streaming down upon him without
intermission from the north, and he thought he could
not do better than employ these dangerous visitors in
garrison duty against his western enemies. They took
service under him, but did not fulfil his expectations.
Indeed, what followed may be anticipated from the
history which I have been giving of the Caliphs : it was
an instance of workmen emancipating themselves from
their employer. The fierce barbarians who were de-
fending the province of Khorasan so well for another,
naturally felt that they could take as good care of it for
themselves ; and when Mahmood was approaching the
end of his life, he became sensible of the error he had
committed in introducing them. He asked one of their
chiefs what force he could lend him : " If you sent one
of the arrows into our camp," was the answer, " 50,000 of
us will mount to do thy bidding." " But what if I want
more?" inquired Mahmood ; "send this arrow into the
camp of Balik, and you will have another 50,000." The
Sultan asked again : " But what if I require your whole
forces?" " Send round my bow," answered the Turk, " and
the summons will be obeyed by 200,000 horse." l The
foreboding, which disclosures such as this inspired, was
fulfilled the year before his death. The Turks came into
collision with his lieutenants, and defeated one of them

* Gibbon. Universal Hist.

The Turk and the Saracen. 85

in a bloody action ; and though he took full reprisals,
! and for a while cleared the country of them, yet in the
i reign of his son they succeeded in wresting from his
dynasty one-half of his empire, and Hindostan, the ac-
quisition of Mahmood, became henceforth its principal
possession.

5-

We have now arrived at what may literally be called
; the turning-point of Turkish history. We have seen
j them gradually descend from the north, and in a cer-
! tain degree become acclimated in the countries where
j they settled. They first appear across the Jaxartes in
the beginning of the seventh century ; they have now
come to the beginning of the eleventh. Four centuries
I or thereabout have they been out of their deserts, gain-
i ing experience and educating themselves in such
measure as was necessary for playing their part in the
I civilized world. First they came down into Sogdiana
and Khorasan, and the country below it, as conquerors ;
they continued in it as subjects and slaves. They
offered their services to the race which had subdued
them ; they made their way by means of their new
masters down to the west and the south ; they laid the
foundations for their future supremacy in Persia, and
gradually rose upwards through the social fabric to
which they had been admitted, till they found them-
selves at length at the head of it. The sovereign power
which they had acquired in the line of the Gazne-
vides, drifted off to Hindostan ; but still fresh tribes
of their race poured down from the north, and filled
up the gap ; and while one dynasty of Turks was esta-
blished in the peninsula, a second dynasty arose in the
former seat of their power.
Now I call the era at which I have arrived the

86 The Turk and the Saracen.

turning-point of their fortunes, because, when they had
descended down to Khorasan and the countries below
it, they might have turned to the East or to the West,
as they chose. They were at liberty to turn their forces
eastward against their kindred in Hindostan, whom they
had driven out of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face
towards the west, and make their way thither through
the Saracens of Persia and its neighbouring countries.
It was an era which determined the history of the
world. I recollect once hearing a celebrated professor
of geology attempt to draw out the consequences which
would have occurred, had there not been an outlet for
the Thames, which exists in fact, at a certain point of
its course. He said that, had the range of hills been
unbroken, it would have streamed oft to the north-east,
and have run into the sea at the Wash in Lincolnshire.
An utter change in the political events which came
after, another history of England, and nothing short of
it, would have been the result. An illustration such as
this will at least serve to express what I would say of
the point at which we now stand in the history of the
Turks. Mahmood turned to the east ; and had the
barbarian tribes which successively descended done the
same, they might have conquered the Gaznevide
dynasty, they might have settled themselves, like
Timour, at Delhi, and their descendants might have been
found there by the British in their conquests during the
last century ; but they would have been unknown to
Europe, they would have been strange to Constanti-
nople, they would have had little interest for the
Church. They had rebelled against Mahmood, they
had driven his family to the East ; but they did not
pursue him thither ; he had strength enough to keep
off the rich territory he had appropriated • he was

The Turk and the Saracen. 87

the obstacle which turned the stream westward ; in
consequence, they looked towards Persia, where their
brethren had been so long settled, and they directed
their course for good and all towards Europe.

But this era was a turning-point in their history in
another and more serious respect. In Sogdiana and
Khorasan, they had become converts to the Mahometan
faith. You will not suppose I am going to praise a
religious imposture, but no Catholic need deny that
it is, considered in itself, a great improvement upon
Paganism. Paganism has no rule of right and wrong,
no supreme and immutable judge, no intelligible revela-
tion, no fixed dogma whatever ; on the other hand, the
being of one God, the fact of His revelation, His faith-
fulness to His promises, the eternity of the moral law,
the certainty of future retribution, were borrowed by
Mahomet from the Church, and are steadfastly held
by his followers. The false prophet taught much which
is materially true and objectively important, whatever
be its subjective and formal value and influence in the
individuals who profess it. He stands in his creed
between the religion of God and the religion of devils,
between Christianity and idolatry, between the West
and the extreme East. And so stood the Turks, on
adopting his faith, at the date I am speaking of ; they
stood between Christ in the West, and Satan in the
East, and they had to make their choice ; and, alas !
they were led by the circumstances of the time to
oppose themselves, not to Paganism, but to Christianity.
A happier lot indeed had befallen poor Sultan Mah-
mood than befell his kindred who followed in his wake
Mahmood, a Mahomedan, went eastward and found a
superstition worse than his own, and fought against it,
and smote it ; and the sandal doors which he tore away

88 The Turk and the Saracen.

from the idol temple and hung up at his tomb at
Gazneh, almost seemed to plead for him through cen-
turies as the soldier and the instrument of Heaven.
The tribes which followed him, Moslem also, faced
westward, and found, not error but truth, and fought
against it as zealously, and in doing so, were simply
tools of the Evil One, and preachers of a lie, and
enemies, not witnesses of God. The one destroyed
idol temples, the other Christian shrines. The one has
been saved the woe of persecuting the Bride of the
Lamb ; the other is of all races the veriest brood of the
serpent which the Church has encountered since she
was set up. For 800 years did the sandal gates remain
at Mahmood's tomb, as a trophy over idolatry ; and for
800 years have Seljuk and Othman been our foe,
singled out as such, and denounced by successive Vicars
of Christ.

6.

The year 1048 of our era is fixed by chronologists as
the date of the rise of the Turkish power, as far *as
Christendom is interested in its history.1 Sixty-three
years before this date, a Turk of high rank, of the name
of Seljuk, had quarrelled with his native prince in
Turkistan, crossed the Jaxartes with his followers, and
planted himself in the territory of Sogdiana. His father
had been a chief officer in the prince's court, and was
the first of his family to embrace Islamism ; but Seljuk,
in spite of his creed, did not obtain permission to advance
into Sogdiana from the Saracenic government, which at
that time was in possession of the country. After
several successful encounters, however, he gained ad-
mission into the city of Bokhara, and there he settled
As time went on, he fully recompensed the tardy hos-

1Baronius,

The Turk and the Saracen. 89

pitality which the Saracens had shown him ; for his feud
with his own countrymen, whom he had left, took the
shape of a religious enmity, and he fought against
them as pagans and infidels, with a zeal, which was both
an earnest of the devotion of his people to the faith of
Mahomet, and a training for the exercise of it. He died,
it is said, in battle against the pagans, and at the won-
derful age of 107. Of his five sons, whom he left behind
him, one, Michael, was cut off prematurely in battle
against the infidels also, and has obtained the name of
Shadid or the Martyr ; for in a religion where the
soldier is the missionary, the soldier is the martyr also.
The other sons became rich and powerful ; they had
numerous flocks and fertile pastures in Sogdiana, till at
length they attracted the notice of the Sultan Mahmood,
who, having dispossessed the Saracens of the country
where Seljuk had placed himself, looked about for
mercenary troops to keep his possession of it. It was
one of Seljuk's family, who at a later date alarmed
Mahmood by telling him he could bring 200,000 horsemen
from the Scythian wilderness, if he sent round his bow
to summon them ; it was Seljuk's horde and retainers
that ultimately forced back Mahmood's son into the
south and the east, and got possession of Sogdiana and
Khorasan. Having secured this acquisition, they next
advanced into Persia, and this was the event, which is
considered to fix the date of their entrance into ecclesias-
tical history. It was the date of their first steadily looking
westward ; it determined their destiny ; they began to be
enemies of the Cross in the year 1048, under the leading
of Michael the Martyr's son, Togrul Beg.

It is the inconvenience of any mere sketch of his-
torical transactions, that a multiplicity of objects
successively passes over the field of view, not less inde-

go The Turk and the Saracen.

pendent in themselves, though not less connected in the
succession of events, than the pictures of a magic
lantern. I am aware of the weariness and the perplexity
which are in consequence inflicted on the attention and
the memory of the hearer ; but what can I do but ask
your indulgence, Gentlemen, for a circumstance which is
inherent in any undertaking like the present ? I have in
the course of an hour to deal with a series of exploits
and fortunes, which begin in the wilds of Turkistan, and
conclude upon the Bosphorus ; in which, as I may say,
time is no measure of events, one while from the obscurity
in which they lie, at another from their multitude and
consequent confusion. For four centuries the Turks are
little or hardly heard of ; then suddenly in the course of
as many tens of years, and under three Sultans, they
make the whole world resound with their deeds ; and,
while they have pushed to the East through Hindostan,
in the West they have hurried down to the coasts of the
Mediterranean and the Archipelago, have taken Jeru-
salem, and threatened Constantinople. In their long
period of silence they had been sowing the seeds of
future conquests; in their short period of action they
were gathering the fruit of past labours and sufferings.
The Saracenic empire stood apparently as before ; but,
as soon as a Turk showed himself at the head of a
military force within its territory, he found himself
surrounded by the armies of his kindred which had been
so long in its pay ; he was joined by the tribes of
Turcomans, to whom the Romans in a former age had
shown the passes of the Caucasus ; and he could rely on
the reserve of innumerable swarms, ever issuing out of
his native desert, and following in his track. Such was
the state of Western Asia in the middle of the eleventh
century.

The Turk and the Saracen. 9 1

7-

I have said there were three great Sultans of the race
of Seljuk, by whom the conquest of the West of Asia
was begun and completed ; their names are Togrul Beg,
Alp Arslan, and Malek Shah. I have not to write their
histories, but I may say a few words of their characters
and their actions.

I. The first, Togrul, was the son and grandson of
Mahometan Martyrs, and he inherited that fanaticism,
which made the old Seljuk and the young Michael sur-
render their lives in their missionary warfare against the
enemies of their faith. Each day he repeated the five
prayers prescribed for the disciples of Islam ; each week
he gave two days to fasting ; in every city which he
made his own, he built a mosque before he built his
palace. He introduced vast numbers of his wild coun-
trymen into his provinces, and suffered their nomadic
habits, on the condition of their becoming proselytes to
his creed. He was the man suited to his time ; mere
material power was not adequate to the overthrow of the
Saracenic sovereignty : rebellion after rebellion had been
successful against the Caliph ; and at the very time I
speak of he was in subjection to a family of the old
Persian race. But then he was spiritual head of the
Empire as well as temporal ; and, though he lay in his
palace wallowing in brutal sensuality, he was still a sort of
mock-Pope, even after his armies and his territories had
been wrested from his hands ; but it was the reward of
Togrul's zeal to gain from him this spiritual prerogative,
retaining which the Caliph could never have fallen alto-
gether. He gave to Togrul the title of Rocnoddin, or
" the firm pillar of religion ; " and, what was more to
the purpose, he made him his vicegerent over the whole

92 The Turk and the Saracen.

Moslem world. Armed with this religious authority,
which was temporal in its operation, he went to wai
against the various insurgents who troubled the Caliph's
repose, and substituted himself for them, a more power-
ful and insidious enemy than any or all. But even Ma-
homet, the Caliph's predecessor, would not have denied
that Togrul was worthy of his hire ; he turned towards
Armenia and Asia Minor, and began that terrible war
against the Cross, which was to last 500 years. The
prodigious number of 1 30,000 Christians, in battle or
otherwise, is said to be the sacrifice he offered up to the
false prophet. On his victorious return, he was again
recognized by his grateful master as his representative.
He made his public entry into the imperial city on
horseback. At the palace gate he showed the outward
deference to the Caliph's authority which was his policy.
He dismounted, his nobles laid aside their arms, and
thus they walked respectfully into the recesses of the
palace. According to the Saracenic ceremonial, the
Caliph received them behind his black veil, the black
garment of his family was cast over his shoulders, and
the staff of Mahomet was in his hand. Togrul kissed
the ground, and waited modestly, till he was led to the
throne, and was there allowed to seat himself, and to
hear the commission publicly declaring him invested
with the authority of the Vicar of the Arch-deceiver.
He was then successively clothed in seven robes of hon-
our, and presented with seven slaves, the natives of the
seven climates of the Saracenic Empire. His veil was
perfumed with musk ; two crowns were set upon his
head ; two scimitars were girded on his side, in token of
his double reign over East and West. He twice kissed
the Caliph's hand ; and his titles were proclaimed by
the voice of heralds and the applause of the Moslem.

The Turk and the Saracen. 93

Such was Togrul Beg, and such was his reward. After
these exploits, he marched against his brother (for these
Turkish tribes were always quarrelling over their prey),
deposed him, strangled him and put to death a number
of his adherents, married the Caliph's daughter, and then
died without children. His power passed to his nephew
Alp Arslan.

2. Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line of Seljuk,
is said to signify in Turkish " the courageous lion : " and
the Caliph gave its possessor the Arabic appellation
of Azzaddin, or " Protector of Religion." It was the
distinctive work of his short reign to pass from humbling
the Caliph to attacking the Greek Emperor. Togrul
had already invaded the Greek provinces of Asia Minor,
from Cilicia to Armenia, along a line of 600 miles, and
here it was that he had achieved his tremendous
massacres of Christians. Alp Arslan renewed the war ;
he penetrated to Caesarea in Cappadocia, attracted by the
gold and pearls which encrusted the shrine of the great
St. Basil. He then turned his arms against Armenia and
Georgia, and conquered the hardy mountaineers of the
Caucasus, who at present give such trouble to the Rus-
sians. After this he encountered, defeated, and captured
the Greek Emperor. He began the battle with all the
solemnity and pageantry of a hero of romance. Casting
away his bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace and
scimitar ; he perfumed his body with musk, as if for his
burial, and dressed himself in white, that he might be slain
in his winding-sheet. After his victory, the captive Em-
peror of New Rome was brought before him in a peasant's
dress ; he made him kiss the ground beneath his feet,
and put his foot upon his neck. Then, raising him up,
he struck or patted him three times with his hand, and
gave him his life and, on a large ransom, his liberty.

94 Tke Turk and the Saracen.

At this time the Sultan was only forty-four years of
age, and seemed to have a career of glory still before him.
Twelve hundred nobles stood before his throne ; two
hundred thousand soldiers marched under his banner.
As if dissatisfied with the South, he turned his arms
against his own paternal wildernesses, with which his
family, as I have related, had a feud. New tribes ot
Turks seem to have poured down, and were wresting
Sogdiana from the race of Seljuk, as the Seljukians had
wrested it from the Gaznevides. Alp had not advanced
far into the country, when he met his death from the hand
of a captive. A Carismian chief had withstood his
progress, and, being taken, was condemned to a lingering
execution. On hearing the sentence, he rushed forward
upon Alp Arslan ; and the Sultan, disdaining to let his
generals interfere, bent his bow, but, missing his aim,
received the dagger of his prisoner in his breast. His
death, which followed, brings before us that grave dignity
of the Turkish character, of which we have already had
an example in Mahmood. Finding his end approaching,
he has left on record a sort of dying confession : — " In
my youth," he said, " I was advised by a sage to humble
myself before God, to distrust my own strength, and
never to despise the most contemptible foe. I have
neglected these lessons, and my neglect has been de-
servedly punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, I
beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit of my
armies ; the earth seemed to tremble under my feet, and
I said in my heart, Surely thou art the king of the
world, the greatest and most invincible of warriors.
These armies are no longer mine ; and, in the confidence
of my personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an
assassin." On his tomb was engraven an inscription,
conceived in a similar spirit. " O ye, who have seen the

The Turk and tke Saracen. 95

glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens, repair to
Maru, and you will behold it buried in the dust."1 Alp
Arslan was adorned with great natural qualities both of
intellect and of soul. He was brave and liberal : just,
patient, and sincere : constant in his prayers, diligent in
his alms, and, it is added, witty in his conversation ;— ;
but his gifts availed him not.

3. It often happens in the history of states and races,
in which there is found first a rise and then a decline, that
the greatest glories take place just then when the reverse
is beginning or begun. Thus, for instance, in the history
of the Ottoman Turks, to which I have not yet come,
Soliman the Magnificent is at once the last and greatest
of a series of great Sultans. So was it as regards this
house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the son of Alp Arslan,
the third sovereign, in whom its glories ended, is repre-
sented to us in history in colours so bright and perfect,
that it is difficult to believe we are not reading the
account of some mythical personage. He came to the
throne at the early age of seventeen ; he was well-shaped,
handsome, polished both in manners and in mind ; wise
and courageous, pious and sincere. He engaged himself
even more in the consolidation of his empire than in its
extension. He reformed abuses ; he reduced the taxes ;
he repaired the high roads, bridges, and canals ; he
built an imperial mosque at Bagdad ; he founded and
nobly endowed a college. He patronised learning and
poetry, and he reformed the calendar. He provided
marts for commerce ; he upheld the pure administration
of justice, and protected the helpless and the innocent.
He established wells and cisterns in great numbers
along the road of pilgrimage to Mecca ; he fed the
pilgrims, and distributed immense sums among the poor.

1 Gibbon.

96 The Turk and the Saracen

He was in every respect a great prince ; he extended
his conquests across Sogdiana to the very borders of
China. He subdued by his lieutenants Syria and the
Holy Land, and took Jerusalem. He is said to have
travelled round his vast dominions twelve times. So
potent was he, that he actually gave away kingdoms, and
had for feudatories great princes. He gave to his cousin
his territories in Asia Minor, and planted him over
against Constantinople, as an earnest of future conquests ;
and he may be said to have finally allotted to the
Turcomans the fair regions of Western Asia, over which
they roam to this day.

All human greatness has its term ; the more brilliant
was this great Sultan's rise, the more sudden was his
extinction ; and the earlier he came to his power, the
earlier did he lose it. He had reigned twenty years, and
was but thirty-seven years old, when he was lifted up
with pride and came to his end. He disgraced and
abandoned to an assassin his faithful vizir, at the age of
ninety-three, who for thirty years had been the servant
and benefactor of the house of Seljuk. After obtaining
from the Caliph the peculiar and almost incommunicable
title of " the commander of the faithful," unsatisfied still,
he wished to fix his own throne in Bagdad, and to
deprive his impotent superior of his few remaining
honours. He demanded the hand of the daughter of
the Greek Emperor, a Christian, in marriage. A few
days, and he was no more ; he had gone out hunting,
and returned indisposed ; a vein was opened, and the
blood would not flow. A burning fever took him off,
only eighteen days after the murder of his vizir, and less
than ten before the day when the Caliph was to have
been removed from Bagdad.

The Turk and the Saracen. 97

8.

Such is human greatness at the best, even were it ever
so innocent ; but as to this poor Sultan, there is another
aspect even of his glorious deeds. If I have seemed
here or elsewhere in these Lectures to speak of him or
his with interest or admiration, only take me, Gentlemen,
as giving the external view of the Turkish history, and
that as introductory to the determination of its true signi-
ficance. Historians and poets may celebrate the exploits
of Malek ; but what were they in the sight of Him who
has said that whoso shall strike against His corner-stone
shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fall, shall
be ground to powder ? Looking at this Sultan's deeds
as mere exhibitions of human power, they were brilliant
and marvellous ; but there was another judgment of
them formed in the West, and other feelings than admi-
ration roused by them in the faith and the chivalry of
Christendom. Especially was there one, the divinely
appointed shepherd of the poor of Christ, the anxious
steward of His Church, who from his high and ancient
watch tower, in the fulness of apostolic charity, surveyed
narrowly what was going on at thousands of miles from
him, and with prophetic eye looked into the future age ;
and scarcely had that enemy, who was in the event so
heavily to smite the Christian world, shown himself,
when he gave warning of the danger, and prepared him-
self with measures for averting it. Scarcely had the
Turk touched the shores of the Mediterranean and the
Archipelago, when the Pope detected and denounced
him before all Europe. The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory
the Seventh, was then upon the throne of the Apostle ;
and though he was engaged in one of the severest
conflicts which Pope has ever sustained, not only against
VOL. I.

98 The Turk and the Saracen.

the secular power, but against bad bishops and priests,
yet at a time when his very life was not his own, and
present responsibilities so urged him, that one would
fancy he had time for no other thought, Gregory was
able to turn his mind to the consideration of a contingent
danger in the almost fabulous East. In a letter written
during the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the idea
of a crusade against the misbeliever, which later popes
carried out. He assures the Emperor of Germany,
whom he was addressing, that he had 50,000 troops
ready for the holy war, whom he would fain have led
in person. This was in the year 1074.

In truth, the most melancholy accounts were brought
to Europe of the state of things in the Holy Land.
A rude Turcoman ruled in Jerusalem ; his people
insulted there the clergy of every profession ; they
dragged the patriarch by the hair along the pavement,
and cast him into a dungeon, in hopes of a ransom ;
and disturbed from time to time the Latin Mass and
office in the Church of the Resurrection. As to the
pilgrims, Asia Minor, the country through which they
had to travel in an age when the sea was not yet safe to
the voyager, was a scene of foreign incursion and internal
distraction. They arrived at Jerusalem exhausted by
their sufferings, and sometimes terminated them by
death, before they were permitted to kiss the Holy
Sepulchre.

9-

Outrages such as these were of frequent occurrence,
;;nd one was very like another. In concluding, however,
this Lecture, I think it worth while to set before you,
Gentlemen, the circumstances ot one of them in detail,
that you may be able to form some ideas of the state
both of Asia Minor and of a Christian pilgrimage, under

The Turk and the Saracen. 99

the dominion of the Turks. You may recollect, then,
that Alp Arslan, the second Seljukian Sultan, invaded
Asia Minor, and made prisoner the Greek Emperor.
This Sultan came to the throne in 1062, and appears to
have begun his warlike operations immediately. The
next year, or the next but one, a body of pilgrims, to
the number of 7,000, were pursuing their peaceful
way to Jerusalem, by a route which at that time
lay entirely through countries professing Christianity.1
The pious company was headed by the Archbishop of
Mentz, the Bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon,
and, among others, by a party of Norman soldiers and
clerks, belonging to the household of William Duke of
Normandy, who made himself, very soon afterwards,
our William the Conqueror. Among these clerks was
the celebrated Benedictine Monk Ingulphus, William's
secretary, afterwards Abbot of Croyland in Lincolnshire,
being at that time a little more than thirty years of age.
They passed through Germany and Hungary to Constan-
tinople, and thence by the southern coast of Asia Minor
or Anatolia, to Syria and Palestine. When they got on
the confines of Asia Minor towards Cilicia, they fell in
with the savage Turcomans, who were attracted by the
treasure, which these noble persons and wealthy church-
men had brought with them for pious purposes and
imprudently displayed. Ingulphus's words are few, but
so graphic that I require an apology for using them.
He says then, they were " exenterated " or "cleaned out
of the immense sums of money they carried with them,
together with the loss of many lives."

A contemporary historian gives us fuller particulars of
the adventure, and he too appears to have been a party
to the expedition.2 It seems the prelates celebrated the

Baronius, Gibbon. a Vid. Cave's Hist. Litterar. in nom. Lambertits,

i oo The Turk and the Saracen.

rites of the Church with great magnificence, as they went
along, and travelled with a pomp which became great
dignitaries. The Turcomans in consequence set on
them, overwhelmed them, stripped them to the skin,
and left the Bishop of Utrecht disabled and half dead
upon the field. The poor sufferers effected their retreat
to a village, where they fortified an enclosure and took
possession of a building which stood within it. Here
they defended themselves courageously for as many as
three days, though they are said to have had nothing
to eat. At the end of that time they expressed a wish
to surrender themselves to the enemy, and admitted
eighteen of the barbarian leaders into their place of
strength, with a view of negotiating the terms. The
Bishop of Bamberg, who is said to have had a striking
presence, acted for the Christians, and bargained for
nothing more than their lives. The savage Turcoman,
who was the speaker on the other side, attracted by his
appearance, unrolled his turban, and threw it round the
Bishop's neck, crying out : " You and all of you are
mine." The Bishop made answer by an interpreter:
" What will you do to me ? " The savage shrieked out
some unintelligible words, which, being explained to
the Bishop, ran thus : " I will suck that blood which is
so ruddy in your throat, and then I will hang you up
like a dog at your gate." "Upon which," says the
historian, " the Bishop, who had the modesty of a gentle-
man, and was of a grave disposition, not bearing the
insult, dashed his fist into the Turcoman's face with such
vigour as to fell him to the ground, crying out that the
profane wretch should rather be the sufferer, for laying
his unclean hands upon a priest."

This was the signal for an exploit so bold, that it
seemed, if I may so express myself, like a particular

The Turk and the Saracen. I o i

inspiration. The Christians, unarmed as they were,
started up, and though, as I have observed, they may be
said to have scarcely tasted food for three days, rushed
upon the eighteen Turcomans, bound their arms behind
their backs, and showing them in this condition to their
own troops who surrounded the house, protested that
they would instantly put them all to death, unless they
themselves were let go. It is difficult to see how this
complication would have ended, in which neither side
were in a condition either to recede or to advance, had
not a third party interfered with a considerable force in
the person of the military governor, himself a Pagan,1
of a neighbouring city ; and though, as our historian
says, the Christians found it difficult to understand how
Satan could cast out Satan, so it was, that they found
themselves at liberty and their enemies marched off to
punishment, on the payment of a sum of money to their
deliverers. I need not pursue the history of these
pilgrims further than to say, that, of 7,000 who set out,
only 2,000 returned to Europe.

Much less am I led to enter into the history of the
Crusades which followed. How the Holy See, twenty
years after St. Gregory, effected that which St. Gregory
attempted without result ; how, along the very way
which the pilgrims I have described journeyed, 100,000
men at length appeared cased in complete armour and
on horseback ; how they drove the Turk from Nicaea
over against Constantinople, where he had fixed his
imperial city, to the farther borders of Asia Minor ; how,

1 Gibbon makes this the Fatimite governor of some town in Galilee,
laying the scene in Palestine. The name Capernaum is doubtfully
mentioned in the history, but the occurrence is said to have taken place on
the borders of Lycia. Anyhow, there were Turcomans in Palestine. Part
of the account in the text is taken from Marianus Scotus.

IO2 The Turk and the Saracen.

after defeating him in a pitched battle at Dorylaeum,
they went on and took Antioch, and then at length,
after a long pilgrimage of three years, made conquest of
Jerusalem itself, I need not here relate. To one point
only is it to our present purpose to direct attention. It
is commonly said that the Crusades failed in their object;
that they were nothing else but a lavish expenditure of
men and treasure ; and that the possession of the Holy
Places by the Turks to this day is a proof of it. Now
I will not enter here into a very intricate controversy ;
this only will I say, that, if the tribes of the desert,
under the leadership of the house of Seljuk, turned their
faces to the West in the middle of the eleventh century ;
if in forty years they had advanced from Khorasan to
Jerusalem and the neighbourhood of Constantinople ;
and if in consequence they were threatening Europe
and Christianity ; and if, for that reason, it was a great
object to drive them back or break them to pieces ; if it
were a worthy object of the Crusades to rescue Europe
from this peril and to reassure the anxious minds of
Christian multitudes; — then were the Crusades no failure
in their issue, for this object was fully accomplished.
The Seljukian Turks were hurled back upon the East,
and then broken up, by the hosts of the Crusaders.1
The lieutenant of Malek Shah, who had been esta-
blished as Sultan of Roum (as Asia Minor was called by
the Turks), was driven to an obscure town, where his
dynasty lasted, indeed, but gradually dwindled away.
A similar fate attended the house of Seljuk in other
parts of the Empire, and internal quarrels increased and
perpetuated its weakness. Sudden as was its rise, as
sudden was its fall ; till the terrible Zingis, descending

1 1 should observe that the Turks were driven out of Jerusalem by the
Fatimites of Egypt, two years before the Crusaders appeared.

The Turk and the Saracen. 103

on the Turkish dynasties, like an avalanche, cooperated
effectually with the Crusaders and finished their work;
and if Jerusalem was not protected from other enemies,
at least Constantinople was saved, and Europe was
placed in security, for three hundred years.1

1 I am pleased to see that Mr. Sharon Turner takes the same view
strongly. — England in Middle Ages, i. 9. Also Mr, Francis Newman ;
"The See of Rome," he says, "had not forgotten, if Europe had, how
deadly and dangerous a war Charles Martel and the Franks had had to
wage against the Moors from Spain. A new and redoubtable nation, the
Seljuk Turks, had now appeared on the confines of Europe, as a fresh
champion of the Mohammedan Creed ; and it is not attributing too much
foresight or too sagacious policy to the Court of Rome, to believe, that they
wished to stop and put down the Turkish power before it should come too
near. Be this as it may, such was the result. The might of the Seljukians
was crippled on the plains of Palestine, and did not ultimately reach Europe.
... A large portion of Christendom, which disowned the religious pre-
tensions of Rome, was afterwards subdued by another Turkish tribe, the Otto-
mans or Osmanlis ; but Romish Christendom remained untouched : Poland,
Germany, and Hungary, saved her from the later Turks, even during the
schism of the Reformation, as the Franks had saved her from the Moors.
On the whole, it would seem that to the Romish Church we have been
largely indebted for that union between European nations, without which
Mohammedanism might perhaps not have been repelled. I state this as
probable, not at all as certain." — Lectures at Manchester, 1846.

104

III.

THE CONQUESTS OF THE TURKS
LECTURE V.

The Turk and the Christian.

I SAID in my last Lecture, that we are bound to
judge of persons and events in history, not by their
outward appearance, but by their inward significancy.
In speaking of the Turks, we may for a moment yield
to the romance which attends on their name and their
actions, as we may admire the beauty of some beast of
prey ; but, as it would be idle and puerile to praise its
shape or skin, and form no further judgment upon it, so
in like manner it is unreal and unphilosophical to interest
ourselves in the mere adventures and successes of the
Turks, without going on to view them in their moral
aspect also. No race casts so broad and dark a shadow
on the page of ecclesiastical history, and leaves so pain-
ful an impression on the minds of the reader, as the
Turkish. The fierce Goths and Vandals, and then again
the Lombards, were converted to Catholicism. The
Franks yielded to the voice of St. Remigius, and Clovis,
their leader, became the eldest son of the Church. The
Anglo-Saxons gave up their idols at the preaching of
St. Augustine and his companions. The German tribes
acknowledged Christ amid their forests, though they
martyred St. Boniface and other English and Irish

The Turk and the Christian. 105

missionaries who came to them. The Magyars in
Hungary were led to faith through loyalty to their
temporal monarch, their royal missioner St. Stephen.
The heathen Danes reappear as the chivalrous Normans,
the haughty but true sons and vassals of St. Peter. The
Saracens even, who gave birth to an imposture, withered
away at the end of 300 or 400 years, and had not the
power, though they had the will, to persevere in their
enmity to the Cross. The Tartars had both the will
and the power, but they were far off from Christendom,
or they came down in ephemeral outbreaks, which were
rather those of freebooters than of persecutors, or they
directed their fury as often against the enemies of the
Church as against her children. But the unhappy race,
of whom I am speaking, from the first moment they
appear in the history of Christendom, are its unmitigated,
its obstinate, its consistent foes. They are inexhaustible
in numbers, pouring down upon the South and West,
and taking one and the same terrible mould of misbelief,
as they successively descend. They have the populous-
ness of the North, with the fire of the South ; the re-
sources of Tartars, with the fanaticism of Saracens.
And when their strength declines, and age steals upon
them, there is no softening, no misgiving ; they die and
make no sign. In the words of the Wise Man, " Being
born, they forthwith ceased to be ; and have been able
to show no mark of virtue, but are consumed in wicked-
ness." God's judgments, God's mercies, are inscrutable;
one nation is taken, another is left. It is a mystery ;
but the fact stands ; since the year 1048 the Turks have
been the great Antichrist among the races of men.

I say since this date, because then it was that Togrul
Beg finally opened the gates of the North to those
descents, which had taken place indeed at intervals before,

io6 The Turk and the Christian.

but then became the habit of centuries. In vain was the
power of his dynasty overthrown by the Crusaders ; in
vain do the Seljukians disappear from the annals of the
world ; in vain is Constantinople respited ; in vain is
Europe saved. Christendom in arms had not yet finished,
it had but begun the work, in which it needed the grace
to persevere. Down came the savage hordes, as at first,
upon Sogdiana and Khorasan, so then upon Syria and its
neighbouring countries. Sometimes they remain wild
Turcomans, sometimes they fall into the civilization of
the South ; but there they are, in Egypt, in the Holy
Land, in Armenia, in Anatolia, forming political bodies
of long or short duration, breaking up here to form again
there, in all cases trampling on Christianity, and beating
out its sacred impression from the breasts of tens of
thousands. Nor is this all ; scarcely is the race of Seljuk
quite extinct, or rather when it is on its very death-bed,
after it had languished and shrunk and dwindled and
flickered and kept on dying through a tedious two hun-
dred years, when its sole remaining heir was just in one
obscure court, from that very court we discern the birth
of another empire, as dazzling in its rise, as energetic and
impetuous in its deeds as that of Togrul, Alp, and Malek,
and far more wide-spreading, far more powerful, far more
lasting than the Seljukian. This is the empire of the
great (if I must measure it by a human standard) and
glorious race of Othman ; this is the dynasty of the
Ottomans or Osmanlis ; once the admiration, the terror
of nations, now, even in its downfall, an object of curiosity,
interest, anxiety, and even respect ; but, whether high or
low, in all cases to the Christian the inveterate and hate-
ful enemy of the Cross.

Tke Turk and ike Christian. 107

I.

There is a certain remarkable parallel and contrast
between the fortunes of these two races, the Seljukian
and the Ottoman. In the beginning of the twelfth
century, the race of Seljuk all but took Constantinople,
and overran the West, and did not ; in the beginning of
the fifteenth, the Ottoman Turks were all but taking the
same city, and then were withheld from taking it, and at
length did take it, and have it still. In each case a foe
came upon them from the north, still more fierce and
vigorous than they, and humbled them to the dust

These two foes, which came upon the Seljukian Turks
and the Ottoman Turks respectively, are names by this
time familiar to us ; they are Zingis and Timour. Zingis
came down upon the Seljukians, and Timour came down
upon the Ottomans. Timour pressed the Ottomans
even more severely than Zingis pressed the Seljukians ;
yet the Seljukians did not recover the blow of Zingis ;
but the Ottomans survived the blow of Timour, and rose
more formidable after it, and have long outlived the
power which inflicted it.

Zingis and Timour were but the blind instruments of
divine vengeance. They knew not what they did. The
inward impulse of gigantic energy and brutal cupidity
urged them forward ; ambition, love of destruction, sen-
sual appetite, frenzied them, and made them both more
and less than men. They pushed eastward, westward,
southward ; they confronted promptly and joyfully every
peril, every obstacle which lay in their course. They
smote down all rival pride and greatness of man ; and
therefore, by the law (as I may call it) of their nature
and destiny, not on politic reason or far-reaching plan,
but because they came across him, they smote the Turk.

io& The Turk and tke Christian.

These then were one class of his opponents ; but there
was another adversary, stationed against him, of a
different order, one whose power was not material, but
mental and spiritual ; one whose enmity was not ran-
dom, or casual, or temporary, but went on steadily from
age to age, and lasts down to this day, except so far as
the Turk's decrepitude has at length disarmed anxiety
and opposition. I have spoken of him already ; of
course I mean the Vicar of Christ. I mean the zealous,
the religious enmity to every anti-Christian power, of
him who has outlasted Zingis and Timour, who has
outlasted Seljuk, who is now outlasting Othman. He
incited Christendom against the Seljukians, and the
Seljukians, assailed also by Zingis, sunk beneath the
double blow. He tried to rouse Christendom against
the Ottomans also, but in vain ; and therefore in vain
did Timour discharge his overwhelming, crushing force
against them. Overwhelmed and crushed they were,
but they revived. The Seljukians fell, in consequence
of the united zeal of the great Christian commonwealth
moving in panoply against them ; the Ottomans suc-
ceeded by reason of its deplorable divisions, and its
decay of faith and heroism.

2.

Whether indeed in the long run, and after all his
disappointments and reverses, the Pope was altogether
unsuccessful in his warfare against the Ottomans, we
shall see by-and-by ; but certainly, if perseverance
merited a favourable issue, at least he has had a right
to expect it. War with the Turks was his uninterrupted
cry for seven or eight centuries, from the eleventh to
the eighteenth ; it is a solitary and singular event in the
history of the Church. Sylvester the Second was the

The Turk and the Christian. 109

originator of the scheme of a union of Christian nations
against them. St. Gregory the Seventh collected
50,000 men to repel them. Urban the Second actually
set in motion the long crusade. Honorius the Second
instituted the order of Knight Templars to protect the
pilgrims from their assaults. Eugenius the Third sent
St. Bernard to preach the Holy War. Innocent the
Third advocated it in the august Council of the Lateran.
Nicholas the Fourth negotiated an alliance with the
Tartars for its prosecution. Gregory the Tenth was in
the Holy Land in the midst of it, with our Edward the
First, when he was elected Pope. Urban the Fifth
received and reconciled the Greek Emperor with a view
to its renewal. Innocent the Sixth sent the Blessed
Peter Thomas the Carmelite to preach in its behalf.
Boniface the Ninth raised the magnificent army of
French, Germans, and Hungarians, who fought the
great battle of Nicopolis. Eugenius the Fourth formed
the confederation of Hungarians and Poles who fought
the battle of Varna. Nicholas the Fifth sent round St.
John Capistran to urge the princes of Christendom
against the enemy. Callixtus the Third sent the cele-
brated Hunniades to fight with them. Pius the Second
addressed to their Sultan an apostolic letter of warning
and denunciation. Sixtus the Fourth fitted out a fleet
against them. Innocent the Eighth made them his
mark from the beginning of his Pontificate to the end.
St. Pius the Fifth added the " Auxilium Christianorum "
to our Lady's Litany in thankfulness for his victory
over them. Gregory the Thirteenth with the same pur-
pose appointed the Festival of the Rosary. Clement
the Ninth died of grief on account of their successes.
The venerable Innocent the Eleventh appointed the
Festival of the Holy Name of Mary, for their rout be-

r 10 The Turk and the Christian.

fore Vienna. Clement the Eleventh extended the Feast
of the Rosary to the whole Church for the great victory
over them near Belgrade. These are but some of the
many instances which might be given ; but they are
enough for the purpose of showing the perseverance of
the Popes.

Nor was their sagacity in this matter less remarkable
than their pertinacity. The Holy See has the reputa-
tion, even with men of the world, of seeing instinctively
what is favourable, what is unfavourable, to the interests
of religion and of the Catholic Faith. Its undying
opposition to the Turks is not the least striking instance
of this divinely imparted gift. From the very first it
pointed at them as an object of alarm for all Christendom,
in a way in which it had marked out neither Tartars
nor Saracens. It exposed them to the reprobation of
Europe, as a people, with whom, if charity differ from
merciless ferocity, tenderness from hardness of heart,
depravity of appetite from virtue, and pride from meek-
ness and humility, the faithful never could have sym-
pathy, never alliance. It denounced, not merely an
odious outlying deformity, painful simply to the moral
sight and scent, but an energetic evil, an aggressive,
ambitious, ravenous foe, in whom foulness of life and
cruelty of policy were methodized by system, consecrated
by religion, propagated by the sword. I am not insen-
sible, I wish to do justice, to the high qualities of the
Turkish race. I do not altogether deny to its national
character the grandeur, the force and originality, the
valour, the truthfulness and sense of justice, the sobriety
and gentleness, which historians and travellers speak of ;
but, in spite of all that has been done for them by nature
and by the European world, Tartar still is the staple of
their composition, and their gifts a.nd attainments, what-

The Turk and the Christian. 1 1 1

ever they may be, do but make them the more efficient
foes of faith and civilization.

3-

It was said by a Prophet of old, in the prospect of a
fierce invader, " a day of clouds and whirlwinds, a nu-
merous and strong people, as the morning spread upon
the mountains. The like to it hath not been from the
beginning, nor shall be after it, even to the years of
generation and generation. Before the face thereof a
devouring fire, and behind it a burning flame. The
land is like a garden of pleasure before it, and behind it
a desolate wilderness ; neither is there any one can
escape it." Now I might, in illustration of the character
which the Turks bear in history, suitably accommodate
these words to the moral, or the social, or the political,
or the religious calamities, of which they were the authors
to the Christian countries they overran ; and so I might
bring home to you the meaning and drift of that oppo-
sition with which the Holy See has met them in every
age. I might allude (if I dare, but I dare not, nor does
any one dare), — else, allusion might be made to those
unutterable deeds which brand the people which allows
them, even in the natural judgment of men, as the most
flagitious, the most detestable of nations. I might en-
large on the reckless and remorseless cruelty which, had
they succeeded in Europe, as they succeeded in Asia,
would have decimated or exterminated her children ; I
might have reminded you, for instance, how it has
been almost a canon of their imperial policy for centuries,
that their Sultan, on mounting the throne, should de-
stroy his nearest of kin, father, brother, or cousin, who
might rival him in his sovereignty; how he is surrounded,
and his subjects according to their wealth,, with slaves

112 The Turk and the Christian.

carried off from their homes, men and boys, living
monuments of his barbarity towards the work of God's
hands; how he has at his remorseless will and in the
sudden breath of his mouth the life or death of all his
subjects ; how he multiplies his despotism by giving to
his lieutenants in every province, a like prerogative ;
how little scruple those governors have ever felt in exer-
cising this prerogative to the full, in executions on a
large scale, and sudden overwhelming massacres, shed-
ding blood like water, and playing with the life of man
as though it were the life of a mere beast or reptile. I
might call your attention to particular instances of such
atrocities, such as that outrage perpetrated in the
memory of many of us, — how, on the insurrection of the
Greeks at Scio, their barbarian masters carried fire and
sword throughout the flourishing island till it was left a
desert, hurrying away women and boys to an infamous
captivity, and murdering youths and grown men, till out
of 120,000 souls, in the spring time, not 900 were left
there when the crops were ripe for the sickle. If I do
not go into scenes such as these in detail, it is because
I have wearied and troubled you more than enough
already, in my account of the savage perpetrations of
Zingis and Timour.

Or 1 might, in like manner, still more obviously insist
on their system of compulsory conversion, which, from
the time of the Seljukian Sultans to the present day,
have raised the indignation and the compassion of the
Christian world ; how, when the lieutenants of Malek
Shah got possession of Asia Minor, they profaned the
churches, subjected Bishops and Clergy to the most
revolting outrages, circumcised the youth, and led off
their sisters to their profligate households; — how, when
the Ottomans conquered in turn, and added an infantry »

The Turk and the Christian. i 1 3

I mean the Janizaries, to their Tartar horse, they formed
that body of troops, from first to last, for near five
hundred years, of boys, all born Christian, a body of at
first 12,000, at last 40,000 strong, torn away year by
year from their parents, circumcised, trained to the faith
and morals of their masters, and becoming in their turn
the instruments of the terrible policy of which they had
themselves been victims ; and how, when at length lately
they abolished this work of their hands, they ended it by
the slaughter of 20,000 of the poor renegades whom they
had seduced from their God. I might remind you how
within the last few years a Protestant traveller tells us
that he found the Nestorian Christians, who had survived
the massacres of their race, living in holes and pits, their
pastures and tillage land forfeited, their sheep and cattle
driven away, their villages burned, and their ministers
and people tortured ; and how a Catholic missionary has
found in the neighbourhood of Broussa the remnant of
some twenty Catholic families, who, in consequence of
repudiating the Turkish faith, had been carried all the
way from Servia and Albania across the sea to Asia
Minor ; the men killed, the women disgraced, the boys
sold, till out of a hundred and eighty persons but eighty-
seven were left, and they sick, and famished, and dying
among their unburied dead. I could of course continue
this topic also to any extent, and draw it out as an
illustration of the words of the Prophet which I have
quoted. But I prefer to take those words literally, as
expressive of the desolation spread by an infidel foe
over the face of a flourishing country ; and then I shall
be viewing the Turkish rule under an aspect addressed
to the senses, not admitting of a question, calculated
to rouse the sensibilities of Christians of whatever
caste of opinion, and explanatory by itself of the
VOL. I. 8

114 The Turk and the Christian.

determined front which the Holy See has ever made
against it.

4-

The Catholic Church was in the first instance a
wanderer on the earth, and had nothing to attach her
to its soil ; but no sooner did persecution cease, and
territory was allowed to her, than she began to exert a
beneficent influence upon the face of the land, and on
its cultivators. She shed her consolations, and extended
her protection, over the serf and the slave ; and, while
she gradually relaxed his fetters, she sent her own
dearest children to bear his burden with him, and to
aid him in the cultivation of the soil. Under the loving
Assiduity of the Benedictine Monk, the ravages of war
were repaired, the plantation throve, the river diffused
itself in rills and channels, and hill and dale and plain
rejoiced in corn land and pasture. And when in a later
time a world was to be created, not restored, when the
deep forests of the North were to be cleared, and the
unwholesome marsh to be drained, who but the mis-
sionaries from the same great Order were to be the
ministers of temporal, as well as spiritual, benefits to
the rude tribes they were converting ? And then again,
when history moved on into the era of the first Turkish
outbreak, who but St. Bernard, the very preacher of
the Crusade, who but he led on his peaceful Cistercians,
after the pattern of his master, St. Stephen, to that
laborious but cheerful husbandry, which they continue
in the wild places of the earth even to this day ? Never
has Holy Church forgotten, — abhorrent, as she is, from
the Pantheistic tendencies which in all ages have sur-
rounded her, — never has she forgotten the interests of
that mighty mother on whose bosom we feed in life,

The Turk and the Christian. 1 1 5

into whose arms we drop in death ; never has she for-
gotten that that mother is the special creature of God,
and to be honoured, in leaf and flower, in lofty tree and
pleasant stream, for His sake, as well as for our own ; that
while it is our primeval penalty to till the earth, she
lovingly repays us for our toil ; that Adam was a gar-
dener even in Paradise, and that Noe inaugurated his
new world by " beginning to be a husbandman, and by
planting a vineyard."

Such is the genius of the true faith ; and it might
have been thought, that, though not Christians, even of
very gratitude, the barbarous race, which owed a part
of whatever improvement of mind or manners they had
received to the fair plains of Sogdiana, would, on seizing
on their rich and beautiful lands on the north, east, and
south of the Mediterranean, have felt some sort of
reverence for their captive, and, while enjoying her gifts,
would have been merciful to the giver. But the same
selfish sensuality, with which they regard the rational
creation of God, possesses them in their conduct to-
wards physical nature. They have made the earth
their paramour, and are heartless towards her dishonoui
and her misery. We have lately been reminded in this
place of the Doge of Venice1 making the Adriatic his
bride, and claiming her by a ring of espousal ; but the
Turk does not deign to legitimatize his possession of
the soil he has violently seized, or to gain a title to it
by any sacred tie ; caring for no better right to it than
the pirate has to the jurisdiction of the high seas. Let
the Turcoman ride up and down Asia Minor or Syria
for a thousand years, how is the trampling of his horse-
hoofs a possession of those countries, more than a

1 Vid. a beautiful passage in Cardinal Wiseman's late lecture at Liver-
pool.

1 1 6 The Turk and the Christian

Scythian raid or a Tartar gallop across it? The im«
perial Osmanli sits and smokes long days in his pavi-
lion, without any thought at all of his broad domain
except to despise and to plunder and impoverish its
cultivators ; and is his title made better thereby than
the Turcoman's, to be the heir of Alexander and Seleu-
f cus, of the Ptolemies and Massinissa, of Constantine
and Justinian ? What claim does it give him upon
Europe, Asia, and Africa, upon Greece, Palestine, and
Egypt, that he has frustrated the munificence of nature
and demolished the works of man ?

5-

Asia Minor especially, the peninsula which lies be-
tween the Black Sea, the Archipelago, and the Medi-
terranean, was by nature one of the most beautiful, and
had been made by art one of the most fertile of coun-
tries. It had for generations contained flourishing marts
of commerce, and it had been studded with magnificent
cities, the ruins of which now stand as a sepulchre of
the past No country perhaps has seen such a succes-
sion of prosperous states, and had such a host of his-
torical reminiscences, under such distinct eras and such
various distributions of territory. It is memorable in
the beginning of history for its barbarian kings and
nobles, whose names stand as commonplaces and pro-
verbs of wealth and luxury. The magnificence of
Pelops imparts lustre even to the brilliant dreams of the
mythologist. The name of Croesus, King of Lydia,
whom I have already had occasion to mention, goes as
a proverb for his enormous riches. Midas, King of
Phrygia, had such abundance of the precious metals,
that he was said by the poets to have the power of
turning whatever he touched into gold. The tomb of

The Turk and the Christian. \ 1 7

Mausolus, King of Caria, was one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world. It was the same with the Greek
colonies which were scattered along its coasts ; they are
renowned for opulence, for philosophy, and for the
liberal and the fine arts. Homer among the poets,
Thales among philosophers, Herodotus, the father of
history, Hippocrates, the oracle of physicians, Apelles,
the prince of painters, were among their citizens ; and
Pythius, who presented one of the Persian Kings with
a plane-tree and a vine of massive gold, was in his
day, after those kings, the richest man in the known
world.

Then come the many splendid cities founded by the
successors of Alexander, through its extent ; and the
powerful and opulent kingdoms, Greek or Barbarian, of
Pontus, and Bithynia, and Pergamus — Pergamus, with
its library of 200,000 choice volumes. Later still, the
resources of the country were so well recognised, that
it was the favourite prey of the Roman statesmen, who,
after involving themselves in enormous debts in the
career of ambition, needed by extortion and rapine to
set themselves right with their creditors. Next it be-
came one of the first seats of Christianity ; St. Luke in
the Acts of the Apostles relates to us the apostolic
labours of St. Paul there in town and country ; St. John
wrote the Apocalypse to the Churches of seven of its
principal cities ; and St. Peter, his first Epistle to Chris-
tians scattered through its provinces. It was the home
of some of the greatest Saints, Martyrs, and Doctors
of the early ages : there first, in Bithynia, the power of
Christianity manifested itself over a heathen population ;
there St. Polycarp was martyred, there St. Gregory
Thamaturgus converted the inhabitants of Pontus ;
there St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory Nyssen, St.

1 1 8 The Turk and the Christian.

Basil, and St. Amphilochius preached and wrote. There
were held three of the first four Councils of the Church,
at Chalcedon, at Epbesus, and at Nicaea, the very city
afterwards profaned by the palace of the Sultan. It
abounded in the gifts of nature, for food, utility, or
ornament ; its rivers ran with gold, its mountains
yielded the most costly marbles ; it had mines of
copper, and especially of iron ; its plains were fruitful
in all kinds of grain, in broad pastures and luxuriant
woods, while its hills were favourable to the olive and
the vine.

Such was that region, once celebrated for its natural
advantages, for its arts, its splendour, as well as for its
gifts of grace; and the misery and degradation which
are at present imprinted on the very face of the soil are
the emblems of that worse ruin which has overtaken the
souls of its children. I have already referred to the
journal of Dr. Chandler, who saw it, even in its western
coast, overrun by the hideous tents of the Turcomans.
Another traveller of late years1 tells us of that ancient
Bithynia, which runs along the Black Sea, a beautiful
and romantic country, intersected with lofty mountains
and fertile valleys, and abounding in rivers and forests.
The luxuriance of the pastures, he says, and the rich-
ness of the woods, often reminded him of an English
gentleman's park. Such is it as nature has furnished it
for the benefit of man ; but he found its forests covered
with straggling Turcomans and numerous flocks of goats.
As he was passing through Phrygia, the inhabitants
smiled, when he asked for ruins, assuring him that the
whole country was overspread with them. There too
again he found a great part of its face covered with the
roving Turcomans, " a boisterous and ignorant race,
» Vid Murray's Asia.

The Turk and the Christian. 1 19

though much more honourable and hospitable," he
adds, " than the inhabitants of the towns." Mr. Alison
tells us that when the English fleet, in 1801, was stationed
on the southern coast, some sailors accidentally set fire to
a thick wood, and the space thus left bare was studded
all along with the ruins of temples and palaces.

A still more recent traveller1 corroborates this testi-
mony. Striking inland from Smyrna, he found " the
scenery extremely beautiful, and the land," he continues,
" which is always rich, would be valuable, if sufficiently
cultivated, but it is much neglected." In another part
of the country, he " rode for at least three miles through a
ruined city, which was one pile of temples, theatres, and
buildings, vying with each other in splendour." Now
here, you will observe, I am not finding fault with the
mere circumstance that the scenes of ancient grandeur
should abound in ruins. Buildings will decay ; old build-
ings will not answer new uses ; there are ruins enough
in Europe ; but the force of the argument lies in this,
that in these countries there are ruins and nothing else ;
that the old is gone, and has not been replaced by the
new. So was it about Smyrna ; and so too about
Sardis : " Its situation," he says, " is very beautiful, but
the country over which it looks is now almost deserted,
and the valley is become a swamp. Its little rivers of
clear water, after turning a mill or two, serve only to
flood, instead ol draining and beautifying the country."
His descriptions of the splendour of the scenery, yet of
the desolation of the land, are so frequent that I should
not be able to confine my extracts within bounds, did I
attempt to give them all. He speaks of his route as
lying through " a rich wilderness " of ruins. Sometimes
the landscape " so far exceeded the beauty of nature, as to
* Sir Chafes Fellows.

T 20 The 7urk and the Christian.

seem the work of magic." Again, "the splendid view
passed like a dream ; for the continual turns in the road,
and the increasing richness of the woods and vegetation,
soon limited my view to a mere foreground. Nor was
this without interest ; on each projecting rock stood an
ancient sarcophagus ; and the trees half concealed the
lids and broken sculpture of innumerable tombs."

The gifts of nature remain ; he was especially struck
with the trees. " We traversed the coast," he says,
"through woods of the richest trees, the planes being
the handsomest to be found in this or perhaps any other
part of the world. I have never seen such stupendous
arms to any trees." Everything was running wild ;
"the underwood was of myrtle, growing sometimes
twenty feet high, the beautiful daphne laurel, and the
arbutus ; and they seemed contending for preeminence
with the vine, clematis, and woodbine, which climbed to
the very tops, and in many instances bore them down
into a thicket of vegetation, impervious except to the
squirrels and birds, which, sensible of their security in
these retreats, stand boldly to survey the traveller."
Elsewhere he found the ground carpeted with the most
beautiful flowers. A Protestant Missionary,1 in like
manner, travelling in a different part of the country,
speaks of the hedges of wild roses, the luxuriant gar-
dens and fruit-trees, principally the cherry, the rich soil,
the growth of beech, oak, and maple, the level meadows
and swelling hills covered with the richest sward, and
the rivulets of the purest water. No wonder that, as he
tells us, " sitting down under a spreading walnut-tree, by
the side of a murmuring mill stream, he was led by the
charming woodland scenery around to reflect upon that
mysterious Providence, by which so beautiful a country
* Vid. Smith and Dwight's Travels.

The Turk and the Christian. 121

has been placed under such a blighting government, in
the hands of so ignorant and barbarous a people."

The state of the population is in keeping with the
neglected condition of the country. It is, down to the
present time, wasting away ; and that there are inha-
bitants at all seems in the main referable to merely
accidental causes. On the road from Angora to Con-
stantinople there were old people, twenty years since,
who remembered as many as forty or fifty villages,
where now there are none ; and in the middle of the
last century two hundred places had become forsaken in
the tract lying between those two cities and Smyrna.1

This desolation is no accident of a declining empire ;
it dates from the very time that a Turk first came into
the country, from the era of the Seljukian Sultans, eight
hundred years ago. We have indirect but clear proof
of it in the course of history following their expulsion
from the country by the Crusaders. For a while the
Greeks recovered their dominion in its western portion,
and fixed their imperial residence at Nicaea, which had
been the capital of the Seljukians. A vigorous prince
mounted the throne, and the main object of his exer-
tions and the special work of his reign was the recovery
of the soil. We are told by an English historian,2 that
he found the most fertile lands without either cultivation
or inhabitants, and he took them into his own manage-
ment. It followed that, in the course of some years, the
imperial domain became the granary and garden of
Asia ; and the sovereign made money without impover-
ishing his people. According to the nature of the soil,
he sowed it with corn, or planted it with vines, or laid
it down in grass : his pastures abounded with herds and
flocks, horses and swine ; and his speculation, as it may
1 Eclectic Review, Dec-, 1839. 8 Gibbon.

122 The Turk and the Christian.

be called, in poultry was so happy, that he was able to
present his empress with a crown of pearls and diamonds
out of his gains. His example encouraged his nobles to
imitation ; and they learned to depend for their incomes
on the honourable proceeds of their estates, instead of
oppressing their people, and seeking favours from the
court. Such was the immediate consequence when man
cooperated with the bountifulness of nature in this fruit-
ful region ; and it brings out prominently by its contrast
the wretchedness of the Turkish domination.

6.

That wretchedness is found, not in Asia Minor only,
but wherever Turks are to be found in power. Through-
out the whole extent of their territory, if you believe the
report of travellers, the peasantry are indigent, oppressed,
and wretched.1 The great island of Crete or Candia
would maintain four times its present population ; once
it had a hundred cities ; many of its towns, which were
densely populous, are now obscure villages. Under the
Venetians it used to export corn largely ; now it imports
it. As to Cyprus, from holding a million of inhabitants,
it now has only 30,000. Its climate was that of a per-
petual spring ; now it is unwholesome and unpleasant ;
its cities and towns nearly touched one another, now
they are simply ruins. Corn, wine, oil, sugar, and the
metals are among its productions ; the soil is still ex-
ceedingly rich ; but now, according to Dr. Clarke, in
that " paradise of the Levant, agriculture is neglected,
inhabitants are oppressed, population is destroyed."
Cross over to the continent, and survey Syria and its
neighbouring cities ; at this day the Turks themselves
are dying out ; Diarbekr, which numbered 400,000 souls

1 Alison on Population, vol. i. p. 309, etc.

The Turk and the Christian. 123

in the middle of last century, forty years afterwards had
dwindled to 50,000. Mosul had lost half its inhabitants ;
Bagdad had fallen from 130,000 to 20,000; and Bassora
from 100,000 to 8,000.

If we pass on to Egypt, the tale is still the same. " In
the fifteenth century," says Mr. Alison, "Egypt, after all
the revolutions which it had undergone, was compara-
tively rich and populous; but since the fatal era of
Turkish conquest, the tyranny of the Pashas has ex-
pelled industry, riches, and the arts." Stretch across
the width of Africa to Barbary, wherever there is a
Turk, there is desolation. What indeed have the shep-
herds of the desert, in the most ambitious effort of their
civilization, to do with the cultivation of the soil? "That
fertile territory," says Robertson, "which sustained the
Roman Empire, still lies in a great measure unculti-
vated ; and that province, which Victor called Speciositas
totius terrce florentis, is now the retreat of pirates and
banditti."

End your survey at length with Europe, and you find
the same account is to be given of its Turkish provinces.
In the Morea, Chateaubriand, wherever he went, beheld
villages destroyed by fire and sword, whole suburbs
deserted, often fifteen leagues without a single habita-
tion. " I have travelled," says Mr. Thornton, " through
several provinces of European Turkey, and cannot con-
vey an idea of the state of desolation in which that
beautiful country is left. For the space of seventy
miles, between Kirk Kilise and Carnabat, there is not
in inhabitant, though the country is an earthly paradise.
The extensive and pleasant village of Faki, with its
houses deserted, its gardens overrun with weeds and
grass, its lands waste and uncultivated, and now the
resort of robbers, affects the traveller with the most

1 24 The Turk and the Christian.

painful sensations."1 Even in Wallachia and Moldavia
the population has been gradually decreasing, while of
that rich country not more than a fortieth part is under
tillage. In a word, the average population in the whole
Empire is not a fifth of what it was in ancient times.

7-

Here I am tempted to exclaim (though the very juxta-
position of two countries so different from each other
in their condition needs an apology), I cannot help ex-
claiming, how different is the condition of that other
peninsula in the centre of which is placed the See of
Peter ! I am ashamed of comparing, or even contrast-
ing, Italy with Asia Minor — the seat of Christian govern-
ments with the seat of a barbarian rule — except that,
since I have been speaking of the tenderness which the
Popes have shown, according to their means, for the
earth and its cultivators, there is a sort of fitness in
pointing out that the result is in their case conformable
to our just anticipation. Besides, so much is uttered
among us in disparagement of the governments of that
beautiful country, that there is a reason for pressing the
contrast on the attention of those, who in their hearts
acknowledge little difference between the rulers of Italy
and of Turkey. I think it will be instructive, then, to
dwell upon the account given us of Italy by an intelli-
gent and popular writer of this day ; nor need we, in
doing so, concern ourselves with questions which he
elsewhere discusses, such as whether Italy has received
the last improvements in agriculture, or in civil economy,
or in finance, or in politics, or in mechanical contrivances ;
in short, whether the art of life is carried there to its
perfection. Systems and codes are to be tested by their

1 VoL i., p. 66, not?.

The Turk and the Christian. 125

results ; let us put aside theories and disputable points ;
let us survey a broad, undeniable, important fact ; let us
look simply at the state both of the land and of the
population in Italy ; let us take it as our gauge and
estimate of political institutions ; let us, by way of con-
trast, put it side by side of the state of land and popu-
lation, as reported to us by travellers in Turkey.

Mr. Alison, then, in his most diligent and interesting
history of Europe,1 divides the extent of Italy into three
great districts, of mountain, plain, and marsh. The
region of marsh lies between the Apennines and the
Mediterranean ; and here, I confess, he finds fault with
the degree of diligence in reclaiming it exerted by its
present possessors. He notices with dissatisfaction that
the marshes of Volterra are still as pestilential as in the
days of Hannibal ; moreover, that the Campagna of
Rome, once inhabited by numerous tribes, is now an
almost uninhabited desert, and that the Pontine Marshes,
formerly the abode of thirty nations, are now a pestilen-
tial swamp. 1 will not stop to remind you that the
irruptions of barbarians like the Turks, have been the
causes of this desolation, that the existing governments
had nothing to do with it, and that, on the contrary,
they have made various efforts to overcome the evil.
For argument's sake, I will allow them to be a reproach
to the government, for they will be found to be only
exceptions to the general state of the country. Even as
regards this low tract, he speaks of one portion of it, the
plain of the Clitumnus, as being rich, as in ancient days,
in herds and flocks ; and he enlarges upon the Campagna
of Naples as " still the scene of industry, elegance, and
agricultural riches. There," he says, " still, as in ancient
times, an admirable cultivation brings to perfection the

1 Alison, ch. xx., § 28.

126 The Turk and the Christian.

choicest gifts of nature. Magnificent crops of wheat
and maize cover the rich and level expanse ; rows of
elms or willows shelter their harvests from the too
scorching rays of the sun ; and luxuriant vines, cluster-
ing to the very tops of the trees, are trained in festoons
from one summit to the other. On its hills the orange,
the vine, and the fig-tree flourish in luxuriant beauty ;
the air is rendered fragrant by their ceaseless perfume ;
and the prodigy is here exhibited of the fruit and the
flower appearing at the same time on the same stem."

So much for that portion of Italy which owes least to
the labours of the husbandman : the second portion is
the plain of Lombardy, which stretches three hundred
miles in length by one hundred and twenty in breadth,
and which, he says, " beyond question is the richest and
the most fertile in Europe." This great plain is so level,
that you may travel two hundred miles in a straight
line, without coming to a natural eminence ten feet
high ; and it is watered by numerous rivers, the Ticino,
the Adda, the Adige, and others, which fall into the
great stream of the Po, the " king of rivers," as Virgil
calls it, which flows majestically through its length from
west to east till it finds its mouth in the Adriatic. It is
obvious, from the testimony of the various travellers in
the East, whom I have cited, what would be the fate of
this noble plain under a Turkish government ; it would
become nothing more or less than one great and deadly
swamp. But Mr. Alison observes : " It is hard to say,
whether the cultivation of the soil, the riches of nature,
or the structures of human industry in this beautiful
region, are most to be admired. An unrivalled system
of agriculture, from which every nation in Europe might
take a lesson, has long been established over its whole
surface, and two, and sometimes three successive crops

The Jurk and the Christian. 127

annually reward the labours of the husbandman. Indian
corn is produced in abundance, and by its return, quad-
ruple that of wheat, affords subsistence for a numerous
and dense population. Rice arrives at maturity to a
great extent in the marshy districts ; and an incom-
parable system of irrigation, diffused over the whole,
conveys the waters of the Alps to every field, and in
some places to every ridge, in the grass lands. It is in
these rich meadows, stretching round Lodi, and from
thence to Verona, that the celebrated Parmesan cheese,
known over all Europe for the richness of its flavour, is
made. The vine and the olive thrive in the sunny slopes
which ascend from the plain to the ridges of the Alps; and
a woody zone of never-failing beauty lies between the
desolation of the mountain and the fertility of the plain."

8.

Such is his language concerning the cultivation at
present bestowed upon the great plain of Italy ; but
after all it is for the third or mountainous region of the
country, where art has to supply the deficiencies of
nature, that he reserves his enthusiastic praises. After
speaking of what nature really does for it in the way of
vegetation and fruits, he continues : " An admirable
terrace-cultivation, where art and industry have com-
bined to overcome the obstacles of nature, has every-
where converted the slopes, naturally sterile and arid,
mto a succession of gardens, loaded with the choicest
vegetable productions. A delicious climate there brings
the finest fruits to maturity ; the grapes hang in festoons
from tree to tree ; the song of the nightingale is heard
in every grove ; all nature seems to rejoice in the para-
dise which the industry of man has created. To this
incomparable system of horticulture, which appears to

128 The Turk and the Christian.

have been unknown to the ancient Romans, and to have
been introduced into Europe by the warriors who re-
turned from the Crusades, the riches and smiling aspect
of Tuscany and the mountain-region of Italy are chiefly
to be ascribed ; for nothing can be more desolate by
nature than the waterless declivities, in general almost
destitute of soil, on which it has been formed. The
earth required to be brought in from a distance, retain-
ing walls erected, the steep slopes converted into a series
of gentle inclinations, the mountain-torrent diverted or
restrained, and the means of artificial irrigation, to
sustain nature during the long droughts of summer,
obtained. By the incessant labour of centuries this
prodigy has been completed, and the very stony sterility
of nature converted into the means of heightening, by
artificial means, the heat of summer. . . . No room is
lost in these little but precious freeholds ; the vine ex-
tends its tendrils along the terrace walls ... in the
corners formed by their meeting, a little sheltered nook
is found, where fig-trees are planted, which ripen delicious
fruit under their protection. The owner takes advantage
of every vacant space to raise melons and vegetables.
Olives shelter it from the rains ; so that, within the
compass of a very small garden, he obtains olives, figs,
grapes, pomegranates, and melons. Such is the return
which nature yields under this admirable system of
management, that half the crop of seven acres is suffi-
cient in general for the maintenance of a family of five
persons, and the whole produce supports them all in
rustic affluence. Italy, in this delightful region, still
realizes the glowing description of her classic historian
three hundred years ago."

The author I have quoted goes on next to observe
that this diligent cultivation ot the rock accounts for

The Turk and the Christian. 129

what at first sight is inexplicable, viz., the vast popula-
tion, which is found, not merely in the valleys, but over
the greater part of the ridges of the Apennines, and
the endless succession of villages and hamlets which are
perched on the edge or summit of rocks, often, to ap-
pearance, scarcely accessible to human approach. He
adds that the labour never ends, for, if a place goes out
of repair, the violence of the rain will soon destroy it.
" Stones and torrents wash down the soil ; the terraces
are broken through ; the heavy rains bring down a
shapeless mass of ruins ; everything returns rapidly to
its former state." Thus it is that parts of Palestine at
present exhibit such desolate features to the traveller,
who wonders how it ever could have been the rich land
described in Scripture ; till he finds that it was this sort
of cultivation which made it what, it was, that this it was
the Crusaders probably saw and imported into Europe, and
this that the ruthless Turks in great measure laid waste.
Lastly, he speaks of the population of Italy ; as to the
towns, it has declined on account of the new channels of
commerce which nautical discovery has opened, to the
prejudice of the marts and ports of the middle ages. In
spite of this, however, he says, " that the provinces have
increased both in riches and inhabitants, and the popu-
lation of Italy was never, either in the days of the
Emperors, or of the modern Republics, so considerable
as it is at the present moment. In the days of Napo-
leon, it gave 1,237 to the square marine league, a density
greater than that of either France or England at that
period. This populousness of Italy," he adds, " is to be
explained by the direction of its capital to agricultural
investment, and the increasing industry with which,
during a long course of centuries, its inhabitants have
overcome the sterility of nature,"
VOL. I.

130 The Turk and the Christian.

Such is the contrast between Italy under its present
governments and Asia Minor under the Turks ; and can
we doubt at all, that, if the Turks had conquered Italy,
they would have caused the labours of the agriculturist
and the farmer to cease, and have reduced it to the
level of their present dominions ?

13*

LECTURE VI.

The Pope and the Turk.

i.

AND now, having dwelt upon the broad contrast
which exists between Christendom and Turkey, I
proceed to give you some general idea of the Ottoman
Turks, who are at present in power, as I have already
sketched the history of the Seljukian. We left off with
the Crusaders victorious in the Holy Land, and the Sel-
jukian Sultan, the cousin of Malek Shah, driven back
from his capital over against Constantinople, to an ob-
scure town on the Cilician border of Asia Minor. This
is that Sultan Soliman, who plays so conspicuous a part
in Tasso's celebrated Poem of "Jerusalem Delivered," —

That Solyman, than whom there was not any
Of all God's foes more rebel an offender ;

Nay, nor a giant such, among the many
Whom earth once bore, and might again engender j

The Turkish Prince, who first the Greeks expelling,

Fixed at Nicaea his imperial dwelling.

And then he made his infidel advances

From Phrygian Sangar to Meander's river ;

Lydia and Mysia, humbled in war's chances,
Bithynia, Pontus, hymned the Arch-deceiver ;

But when to Asia passed the Christian lances,
To battle with the Turk and misbeliever,

He, in two fields, encountered two disasters,

And so he fled, and the vexed land changed masters.

Two centuries of military effort followed, and then

132 The Pope and the Turk.

the contest seemed over ; the barbarians of the North
destroyed, and Europe free. It seemed as though the
Turks had come to their end and were dying out, as the
Saracens had died out before them, when suddenly, when
the breath of the last Seljukian Sultan was flitting at
Iconium, and the. Crusaders had broken their last lance for
the Holy Sepulchre, on the 2/th of July, 1301, the rule
and dynasty of the Ottomans rose up from his death-bed.

2.

Othman, the founder of the line and people, who take
from him the name of Ottoman or Osmanli, was the
grandson of a nomad Turk, or Turcoman, who, descend-
ing from the North by Sogdiana and the Oxus, took the
prescriptive course (as I may call it) towards social and
political improvement. His son, Othman's father, came
into the service of the last Sultan of the Seljukian line,
and governed for fifty-two years a horde of 400 families.
That line of sovereigns had been for a time in alliance
with the Greek Emperors ; but Othman inherited the
fanaticism of the desert, and, when he succeeded to his
father's power, he proclaimed a gazi, or holy war, against
the professors of Christianity. Suddenly, like some
beast of prey, he managed to leap the mountain heights
which separated the Greek Province from the Mahomedan
conquests, and he pitched himself in Broussa, in Bithynia,
which remained from that time the Turkish capital, till
it was exchanged for Adrianople and Constantinople
This was the beginning of a long series of conquests
lasting about 270 years, till the Ottomans became one of
the first, if not the first power, not only of Asia, but of
the world.

These conquests were achieved during the reigns of
ten great Sultans, the average length of whose reigns is as

The Pope and the Turk. 133

much as twenty-six years, an unusual period for military
sovereigns, and both an evidence of the stability, and a
means of the extension, of their power. Then came the
period of their decline, and we are led on through the space
of another 270 years, up to our own day, when they seem
on the verge of some great reverse or overthrow. In this
second period they have had as many as twenty-one
Sultans, whose average reigns are only half the length of
those who preceded them, and afford as cogent an argu-
ment of their national disorder and demoralization. Of
these twenty-one, five have been strangled, three have been
deposed, and three have died of excess ; of the remaining
ten, four only have attained the age of man, and these
come together in the course of the last century ; two
others have died about the age of thirty, and three about
the age of fifty. The last, the thirty-first from Othman,
is the present Sultan, who came to the throne as a boy,
and is described at that time by an English traveller, as
one of the most " sickly, pale, inanimate, and unmanly
youths he ever saw,"1 and who has this very year just
reached the average length of the reign of his twenty
predecessors.

The names of the Ottoman Sultans are more familiar
to us and more easy to recollect than other Oriental
sovereigns, partly from their greater euphony as Euro-
peans read them, partly from their recurrence again
and again in the catalogue. There are four Mahomets,
four Mustaphas, four Amuraths or Murads, three Selims,
three Achmets, three Othmans, two Mahmoods, two Soli-
mans, and two Bajazets.*

I have already described Othman, the founder of the

i Formby's Visit to the East.

a The three remaining of the thirty are Orchan, Ibrahim, and Abdoul

Achmet

134 The Pope and the Turk.

line, as a soldier of fortune in the Seljukian service;
and, in spite of the civilizing influences of the country,
the people, and the religion, to which he had attached
himself, he had not as yet laid aside the habits of his
ancestors, but was half shepherd, half freebooter. Nor is
it likely that any of his countrymen would be anything
else, as long as they were still in war and in subordinate
posts. Peace must precede the enjoyment, and power the
arts of government ; and the very readiness with which
his followers left their nomad life, as soon as they had
the opportunity, shows that the means of civilization
which they had enjoyed, had not been thrown away on
them. The soldiers of Zingis, when laden with booty,
and not till then, cried out to be led back, and would
fight no more; Tamerlane, at the end of fifty years,
began to be a magnificent king. In like manner, Othman
observed the life of a Turcoman, till he became a con-
queror; but, as soon as he had crossed Mount Olympus,
and found himself in the Greek territory as a master, he
was both willing and able to accommodate himself to
a pomp and luxury to which a mere Turcoman was
unequal. He bade adieu to his fastnesses in the heights,
and he began to fortify the towns and castles which he
had heretofore pillaged. Conquest and civilization went
hand in hand ; his successor, Orchan, selected a capital,
which he ornamented with a mosque, a hospital, a mint,
and a college ; he introduced professors of the sciences,
and, what was as great a departure from Tartar habits,
he raised a force of infantry, among his captives (in an-
ticipation of the Janizaries, formed soon after), and he
furnished himself with a train of battering engines.
More strange still, he gained the Greek Emperor's
daughter in marriage, a Christian princess ; and lastly,
he crossed over into Europe under cover of friendship

The Pope and the Turk. 135

to the court of Constantinople, and possessed himself of
Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont. His successors
gained first Roumelia, that is, the country round Con-
stantinople, as far as the Balkan, with Adrianople for a
capital ; then they successively swept over Moldavia,
Servia, Bulgaria, Greece, and the Morea. Then they
gained a portion of Hungary ; then they took Constan-
tinople, just 400 years ago this very year. Meanwhile
they had extended their empire into Syria, Egypt, and
along the coast of Africa. And thus at length they more
than half encompassed the Mediterranean, from the straits
of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Venice, and reigned in three
quarters of the world.

3-

Now you may ask me, what were Christians doing in
Europe all this while ? What was the Holy Father
about at Rome, if he did not turn his eyes, as heretofore,
on the suffering state of his Asiatic provinces, and
oppose some rampart to the advance of the enemy upon
Constantinople? and how has he been the enduring
enemy of the Turk, if he acquiesced in the Turk's long
course of victories ? Alas ! he often looked towards the
East, and often raised the alarm, and often, as I have
said, attempted by means of the powers of Christendom,
what his mission did not give him arms to do himself.
But he was impeded and embarrassed by so many and
such various difficulties, that, if I proposed to go through
them, I should find myself engaged in a history of
Europe during those centuries. I will suggest some of
them, though I can do no more.

I. First of all, then, I observe generally, that the
Pope, in attempting to save Constantinople and its
Empire, was attempting to save a fanatical people, who

136 The Pope and the Turk.

had for ages set themselves against the Holy See and
the Latin world, and who had for centuries been under
a sentence of excommunication. They hated and feared
the Catholics, as much as they hated and feared the
Turks, and they contemned them too, for their compara-
tive rudeness and ignorance of literature ; and this hatred
and fear and contempt were grafted on a cowardly,
crafty, insincere, and fickle character of mind, for which
they had been notorious from time immemorial. It was
impossible to save them without their own cordial co-
operation ; it was impossible to save them in spite of
themselves.

These odious traits and dispositions had, in the course
of the two hundred years during which the Crusades
lasted, borne abundant fruits and exhibited themselves
in results intolerable to the warlike multitudes who had
come to their assistance. For two hundred years "each
spring and summer had produced a new emigration of
pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land ; " l
and what had been the effect upon the Greeks of such
prodigality of succour ? what satisfaction, what gratitude
had they shown for an undertaking on the part of th<
West, which ought properly to have been their own, am
which the West commenced, because the East asked it ?
When the celebrated Peter the Hermit was in Constan-
tinople, he would have addressed himself first of all to
its imperial master ; and not till the Patriarch of the day
showed the hopelessness of seeking help from a vicious
and imbecile court, did he cry out : " I will rouse the
nations of Europe in your cause." The Emperors soughl
help themselves instead of lending it. Again and again,
in the course of the Holy Wars, did they selfishly betake
themselves to the European capitals; and they made

Gibbon.

The Pope and the Turk. 137

their gain of the successes of the Crusaders, as far as
they had opportunity, as the jackal follows the lion ;
but from the very first, their pride was wounded, and
their cowardice alarmed, at the sight of their protectors
in their city and provinces, and they took every means
to weaken and annoy the very men whom they had
invited. In the great council of Placentia, summoned
by Urban the Second, before the Crusades were yet
begun, in the presence of 200 Latin Bishops, 4,000
inferior clergy, and 30,000 laity, the ambassadors of the
Greek Emperor had been introduced, and they pleaded
the distress of their sovereign and the danger of their
city, which the misbelievers already were threatening.1
They insisted on its being the policy of the Latin princes
to repel the barbarian in Asia rather than when he was
in the heart of Europe, and drew such a picture of their
own miseries, that the vast assembly burst into tears,
and dismissed them with the assurance of their most
zealous cooperation.

Yet what, I say, was the reception which the cowardly
suppliants had given to their avengers and protectors ?
From the very first, they threw difficulties in the way of
their undertaking. When the heroic Godfrey and his
companions in arms arrived in the neighbourhood of
Constantinople, they found themselves all but betrayed
into a dangerous position, where they might either have
been starved, or been easily attacked. When at length
they had crossed over into Asia, the Crusaders found
themselves without the means of sustenance. They had
bargained for a fair market in the Greek territories ; but
the Imperial Court allowed the cities which they passed
by to close their gates upon them, to let down to them
from the wall an insufficient supply of food, to mix

1 Gibbon.

138 The Pope and the Turk.

poisonous ingredients in their bread, to give them base
coin, to break down the bridges before them, and to
fortify the passes, and to mislead them by their guides,
to give information of their movements to the Turk, to
pillage and murder the stragglers, and to hang up their
dead bodies on gibbets along the highway. The Greek
clergy preached against them as heretics and schismatics
and dogs ; the Patriarch and the Bishops spoke of their
extermination as a merit, and their priests washed and
purified the altars where the Latin priests had said mass.
Nay, the Emperors formed a secret alliance with Turks
and Saracens against them, and the price at which they
obtained it, was the permission of erecting a mosque in
Constantinople.

As time went on, they did not stop even here. A
number of Latin merchants had settled at Constantinople,
as our own merchants now are planted all over the cities
of the Continent. The Greek populace rose against
them ; and the Emperor did not scruple to send his
own troops to aid the rioters. The Latins were slaugh-
tered in their own homes and in the streets ; their
clergy were burned in the churches, their sick in the
hospitals, and their whole quarter reduced to ashes ; nay,
4,000 of the survivors were sold into perpetual slavery to
the Turks. They cut off the head of the Cardinal Legate,
and tied it to the tail of a dog, and then chanted a Te
Deum. What could be said to such a people ? What
could be made of them ? The Turks might be a more
powerful and energetic, but could not be a more virulent,
a more unscrupulous foe. It did not seem to matter
much to the Latin whether Turk or Greek was lord of
Constantinople ; and the Greek justified the indifference
of the Latin by declaring that he would rather have the
Turban in Constantinople than the Tiara,

The Pope and the Turk. 139

2. It is the nature of crime to perpetuate itself, and
the atrocities of the Greeks brought about a retaliation
from the Latins. Twenty years after the events I have
been relating, the Crusading hosts turned their arms
against the Greeks, and besieged and gained possession
of Constantinople ; and, though their excesses seem to
have been inferior to those which provoked them, it is
not to be supposed that a city could be taken by a
rude and angry multitude, without the occurrence of
innumerable outrages. It was pillaged and disfigured ;
and the Pope had to publish an indignant protest against
the work of his own adherents and followers. He might
well be alarmed and distressed, not only for the crime
itself, but for its bearing on the general course of the
Crusades ; for, if it was difficult under any circumstances
to keep the Greeks in a right course, it was doubly diffi-
cult, when they had been injured, even though they were
the original offenders.

4-

3. But there were other causes, still less satisfactory
than those I have mentioned, tending to nullify all the
Pope's efforts to make head against the barbarian power.
I have said that the period of the Ottoman growth was
about 270 years ; and this period, viz., the fourteenth
and fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries,
was the most disastrous and melancholy in the internal
history of the Church of any that can be named. It was
that miserable period, which directly prepared the
way for Protestantism. The resistance to the Pope's
authority, on the part of the states of Europe generally,
is pretty nearly coincident with the rise of the Ottomans.
Heresy followed ; in the middle of the fourteenth cen-
tury, the teaching of Wickliffe gained ground in England ;

140 The Pope and the 7urk.

Huss and others followed on the Continent ; and they
were succeeded by Luther. That energy of Popes, those
intercessions of holy men, which hitherto had found
matter in the affairs of the East, now found a more
urgent incentive in the troubles which were taking place
at home.

4. The increase of national prosperity and strength, to
which the alienation of kings and states from the Holy
See must be ascribed, in various ways indisposed them
to the continuance of the war against the misbelievers.
Rulers and people, who were increasing in wealth, did
not like to spend their substance on objects both distant
and spiritual. Wealth is a present good, and has a ten-
dency to fix the mind on the visible and tangible, to the
prejudice of both faith and secular policy. The rich and
happy will not go to war, if they can help it ; and trade,
of course, does not care for the religious tenets of those
who offer to enter into relations with it, whether of inter-
change or of purchase. Nor was this all ; when nations
began to know their own strength, they had a tendency
to be jealous of each other, as well as to be indifferent
to the interests of religion ; and the two most valiant
nations of Europe, France and England, gave up the
Holy Wars, only to go to war one with another. As in
the twelfth century, we read of Coeur de Lion in Pales-
tine, and in the thirteenth, of St. Louis in Egypt, so in the
fourteenth do we read the sad tale of Poitiers and Cressy,
and in the fifteenth of Agincourt. People are apt to
ask what good came of the prowess shown at Ascalon or
Damietta ; forgetting that they should rather ask them-
selves what good came of the conquests of our Edwards
and Henries, of which they are so proud. If Richard's
prowess ended in his imprisonment in Germany, and St.
Louis died in Africa, yet there is another history which

The Pope and the Turk. 141

ends as ingloriously in the Maid of Orleans, and the
expulsion of tyrants from a soil they had usurped. In
vain did the Popes attempt to turn the restless destruc-
tiveness of the European commonwealth into a safer
channel. In vain did the Legates of the Holy See
interpose between Edward of England and the French
king ; in their very presence was a French town deli-
vered over by the English conqueror to a three days'
pillage.1 In vain did one Pope take a vow of never-
dying hostility to the Turks ; in vain did another, close
upon his end, repair to the fleet, that " he might, like
Moses, raise his hands to God during the battle ; " a
Christian was to war with Christian, not with infidel.

The suppliant Greek Emperor in one of his begging
missions, as they may be called, came to England : it was
in the reign of Henry the Fourth, but Henry could do
nothing for him. He had usurped the English Crown,
and could not afford to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, with
so precarious a position at home. However, he was
under some kind of promise to take the Cross, which is
signified in the popular story, that he had expected to
die at Jerusalem, whereas he died in his palace at West-
minster instead, in the Jerusalem chamber. It is said,
too, that he was actually meditating a Crusade, and had
ordered galleys to be prepared, when he came to his
end.8 His son, Henry the Fifth, crossed the Channel to
conquer France, just at the very, the only time, when
the Ottoman reverses gave a fair hope of the success of
Christendom. When premature death overtook him, and
he had but two hours to live,4 he ordered his confessor
to recite the Seven Penitential Psalms ; and, when the
verse was read about building the walls of Jerusalem,
the word caught his ear ; he stopped the reader, and

1 Hume's History. * Ranke, vol. i. 8 Turner's History. * Ibid,

142 The Pope and the lurk.

observed that he had proposed to conquer Jerusalem,
and to have rebuilt it, had God granted him life. In-
deed, he had already sent a knight to take a survey of
the towns and country of Syria, which is still extant.
Alas, that good intentions should only become strong in
moments of sickness or of death !

A like necessary or unnecessary attention, as the case
might be, to national concerns and private interests, pre-
vailed all over Europe. In the same century1 Charles
the Seventh of France forbade the preaching of a Crusade
in his dominions, lest it should lay him open to the
attacks of the English. Alfonso of Portugal promised
to join in a Holy War, and retracted. Alfonso of
Arragon and Sicily took the Cross, and used the men
and money raised for its objects in a war against the
Genoese. The Bohemians would not fight, unless they
were paid ; and the Germans affected or felt a fear that
the Pope would apply the sums they contributed for
some other purpose.

5. Alas ! more must be said ; it seldom happens that
the people go wrong, without the rulers being some-
where in fault, nor is the portion of history to which I
am referring an exception. It must be confessed that,
at the very time the Turks were making progress, the
Christian world was in a more melancholy state than it
had ever been either before or since. The sins of na-
tions were accumulating that heavy judgment which fell
upon them in the Ottoman conquests and the Refor-
mation. There were great scandals among Bishops and
Priests, as well as heresy and insubordination. As to the
Pontiffs who filled the Holy See during that period, I
will say no more than this, that it did not please the
good Providence of God to raise up for His Church such

1 Gieseler's Text Book.

The Pope and the Turk. 143

heroic men as St. Leo, of the fifth, and St. Gregory, of
the eleventh century. For a time the Popes removed
from Italy to France; then, when they returned to Rome,
there was a schism in the Papacy for nearly forty years,
during which time the populations of Europe were per-
plexed to find the real successor of St. Peter, or even took
the pretended Pope for the true one.

5-

Such was the condition of Christendom, thus destitute
of resources, thus weakened by internal quarrels, thus
bribed and retained (so to speak) by the temptations of
the world, at the very time when the Ottomans were
pressing on its outposts. One moment occurred, and
just one, in their history, when they might have been
resisted with success. You will recollect that the Sel-
iukians were broken, not simply by the Crusaders, but
also, though not so early, by the terrible Zingis. What
Zingis was to the Seljukians, such, and more than such,
was Timour to the Ottomans. It was in their full career
of victory, and when everything seemed in their power,
when they had gained the whole province of Roumelia,
which is round about Constantinople, that a terrible
reverse befell them. The Sultan then on the throne was
Bajazet, surnamed Ilderim, or the Lightning, from the
rapidity of his movements. He had extended his em-
pire, or his sensible influence, from the Carpathians to
the Euphrates ; he had destroyed the remains of rival
dynasties in Asia Minor, had carried his arms down to
the Morea, and utterly routed an allied Christian army
in Hungary. Elated with these successes, he put no
bounds to his pride and ambition. He vaunted that he
would subdue, not Hungary only, but Germany and
.Italy besjcJes ; and that he would feed his horse with a

144 The Pope and the Turk.

bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter's, at Rome. The
Apostle heard the blasphemy ; and this mighty con-
queror was not suffered to leave this world for his eternal
habitation without Divine infliction in evidence that He
who made him, could unmake him at His will. The
Disposer of all things sent against him the fierce Timour,
of whom I have already said so much. One would have
thought the two conquerors could not possibly have
come into collision — Timour, the Lord of Persia, Kho-
rasan, Sogdiana, and Hindostan, and Bajazet, the Sultan
of Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece. They were both
Mahomedans ; they might have turned their backs on
each other, if they were jealous of each other, and might
have divided the world between them. Bajazet might
have gone forward towards Germany and Italy, and
Timour might have stretched his conquests into China.

But ambition is a spirit of envy as well as of covetous-
ness ; neither of them could brook a rival greatness.
Timour was on the Ganges, and Bajazet was besieging
Constantinople, when they interchanged the words of
hatred and defiance. Timour called Bajazet a pismire,
whom he would crush with his elephants ; and Bajazet
retaliated with a worse insult on Timour, by promising
that he would capture his retinue of wives. The foes
met at Angora in Asia Minor; Bajazet was defeated
and captured in the battle, and Timour secured him in
an iron-barred apartment or cage, which, according to
Tartar custom, was on wheels, and he carried him about,
as some wild beast, on his march through Asia. Can
imagination invent a more intolerable punishment upon
pride ? is it not wonderful that the victim of it was able
to live as many as nine months under such a visitation ?

This was at the beginning of the fifteenth century,
shortly before young Harry of Monmouth, the idol of

The Pope and the Turk. 145

English poetry and loyalty, crossed the sea to kill the

French at Agincourt; and an opportunity was offered to

Christendom to destroy an enemy, who never before or

since has been in such extremity of peril. For fourteen

years a state of interregnum, or civil war, lasted in the

Ottoman empire; and the capture of Constantinople,

I which was imminent at the time of Bajazet's downfall,

, was anyhow delayed for full fifty years. Had a crusade

! been attempted with the matured experience and subdued

i enthusiasm, which the trials of three hundred years had

i given to the European nations, the Ottomans, according

; to all human probability, would have perished, as the

jSeljukians before them. But, in the inscrutable decree

1 of Heaven, no such attempt was made ; one attempt in-

jdeed was made too soon, and a second attempt was made

itoo late, but none at the time.

I. The first of these two was set on foot when Bajazet
was in the full tide of his victories ; and he was able,
!not only to defeat it, but, by defeating, to damp the
ihopes, and by anticipation, to stifle the efforts, which
jmight have been used against him with better effect in the
jiay of his reverses. In the year 1394, eight years
JDefore Bajazet's misfortunes, Pope Boniface the Ninth
broclaimed a Crusade, with ample indulgences for those
vho engaged in it, to the countries which were especially
ppen to the Ottoman attack. In his Bull, he bewails
Jhe sins of Christendom, which had brought upon them
ihat scourge which was the occasion of his invitation,
ie speaks of the massacres, the tortures, and slavery
rhich had been inflicted on multitudes of the faithful.
The mind is horrified," he says, " at the very mention
f these miseries ; but it crowns our anguish to reflect,
liat the whole of Christendom, which, if in concord, might
ut an end to these and even greater evils, is either in
VOL. I.

146 The Pope and the Turk,

open war, country with country, or, if in apparent peace,
is secretly wasted by mutual jealousies and animosities."1
The Pontiffs voice, aided by the imminent peril of
Hungary and its neighbouring kingdoms, was successful.
Not only from Germany, but even from France, the
bravest knights, each a fortress in himself, or a man-of-
war on land (as he may be called), came forward in answer
to his call, and boasted that, even were the sky to fall,
they would uphold its canopy upon the points of their
lances. They formed the flower of the army of 100,000
men, who rallied round the King of Hungary in the great
battle of Nicopolis. The Turk was victorious ; the greater
part of the Christian army were slain or driven into the
Danube ; and a part of the French chivalry of the
highest rank were made prisoners. Among these were
the son of the Duke of Burgundy ; the Sire de Coucy,
who had great possessions in France and England ; the
Marshal of France (Boucicault), who afterwards fell on
the field of Agincourt ; and four French princes of the
blood. Bajazet spared twenty-five of his noblest pri-
soners, whom their wealth and station made it politic to
except ; then, summoning the rest before his throne, he
offered them the famous choice of the Koran or the
sword. As they came up one by one, they one by one
professed their faith in Christ, and were beheaded in the
Sultan's presence. His royal and noble captives he
carried about with him in his march through Europe and
Asia, as he himself was soon to grace the retinue of
Timour. Two of the most illustrious of them died in
prison in Asia. As to the rest, he exacted a heavy
ransom from them ; but, before he sent them away, he
gave them a grand entertainment, which displayed both
the barbarism and the magnificence of the Asiatic. He

J Baronius.

The Pope and the Turk. 14?

exhibited before them his hunting and hawking equipage,
amounting to seven thousand huntsmen and as many
falconers ; and, when one of his chamberlains was ac-
cused before him of drinking a poor woman's goat's milk,
he literally fulfilled the " castigat auditque " of the poet,
by having the unhappy man ripped open, in order to find
in his inside the evidence of the charge.

Such was the disastrous issue of the battle of Nico-
polis ; nor is it wonderful that it should damp the zeal
of the Christians and weaken the influence of the Pope,
for a long time to come ; anyhow, it had this effect till
the critical moment of the Turkish misfortunes was over,
and the race of Othman was recovering itself after the
captivity and death of its Sultan. " Whereas the Turks
might have been expelled from Greece on the loss of their
Sultan," says Rainaldus, " Christians, torn to pieces by
their quarrels and by schism, lost a fit and sufficient op-
portunity. Whence it followed, that the wound inflicted
upon the beast was not unto death, but he revived more
ferocious for the devouring of the faithful."

2. However, Christendom made a second attempt still,
but when it was too late. The grandson of Bajazet was
then on the throne, one of the ablest of the Sultans; and,
though the allied Christian army had considerable suc-
cess against him at first, in vain was the bravery of Hun-
niades, and the preaching of St. John Capistran : the Turk
managed to negotiate with its leaders, to put them in the
wrong, to charge them with perjury, and then to beat them
in the fatal battle of Varna, in which the King of Hungary
and Poland and the Pope's Legate were killed, with 10,000
men. In vain after this was any attempt to make head
against the enemy ; in vain did Pope after Pope raise his
warning voice and point to the judgment which hung over
Christendom ; Constantinonle fell.

148 The Pope and the Turk.

6.

Thus things did but go on worse and worse for the
interest of Christendom. Even the taking of Constanti-
nople was not the limit of the Ottoman successes. Ma-
homet the Conqueror, as he is called, was but the seventh
of the great Sultans, who carried on the fortunes of the
barbarian empire. An eighth, a ninth followed. The
ninth, Selim, returned from his Eastern conquests with
the last of the Caliphs in his company, and made him
resign to himself the prerogatives of Pontiff and Lawgiver,
which the Caliph inherited from Mahomet. Then came
a tenth, the greatest perhaps of all, Soliman the Magnifi-
cent, the contemporary of the Emperor Charles, Francis
the First of France, and Henry the Eighth of England.
And an eleventh might have been expected, and a
twelfth, and the power of the enemy would have be-
come greater and greater, and would have afflicted the
Church more and more heavily ; and what was to be the
end of these things ? What was to be the end ? why,
not a Christian only, but any philosopher of this world
would have known what was to be the end, in spite of
existing appearances. All earthly power has an end ; it
rises to fall, it grows to die ; and the depth of its humili-
ation issues out of the pride of its lifting up. This is.
what even a philosopher would say ; he would not know
whether Soliman, the tenth conqueror, was also to be the
last ; but if not the tenth, he would be bold to say it
would be the twelfth, who would close their victories, or
the fifteenth, or the twentieth. But what a philosopher
could not say, what a Christian knows and enjoys, is this,
that one earthly power there is which is something more
than earthly, and which, while it dies in the individual, for
he is human, is immortal in its succession, for it is divine.

The Pope and the Turk. 149

1 50 The Pope and the Turk.

at the very time when the Ottoman crescent had passed
its zenith and was beginning to descend the sky. The
Turkish successes began in the middle of the eleventh
century ; they ended in the middle of the sixteenth ; in
the middle of the sixteenth century, just five hundred
years after St. Gregory and Malek Shah, Selim the Sot
came to the throne of Othman, and St. Pius the Fifth
to the throne of the Apostle; Pius became Pope in
1566, and Selim became Sultan in that very same year.
O what a strange contrast, Gentlemen, did Rome and
Constantinople present at that era ! Neither was what
it had been, but they had changed in opposite directions.
Both had been the seat of Imperial Power ; Rome,
where heresy never throve, had exchanged its Emperors
for the succession of St. Peter and St. Paul ; Constanti-
nople had passed from secular supremacy into schism,
and thence into a blasphemous apostasy. The unhappy
city, which with its subject provinces had been succes-
sively the seat of Arianism, of Nestorianism, of Photian-
ism, now had become the metropolis of the false
Prophet ; and, while in the West the great edifice of the
Vatican Basilica was rising anew in its wonderful pro-
portions and its costly materials, the Temple of St.
Sophia in the East was degraded into a Mosque ! O
the strange contrast in the state of the inhabitants of
each place ! Here in the city of Constantine a God-
denying misbelief was accompanied by an impure, man-
degrading rule of life, by the slavery of woman, and the
corruption of youth. But there, in the city which
Apostles had consecrated with their blood, the great
and true reformation of the age was in full progress.
There the determinations in doctrine and discipline of
the great Council of Trent had lately been promulgated.
There for twenty years past had laboured our own deaf

The Pope and the Turk. 1 5 1

saint, St. Philip, till he earned the title of Apostle of
Rome, and yet had still nearly thirty years of life and
work in him. There, too, the romantic royal-minded
saint, Ignatius Loyola, had but lately died. And there,
when the Holy See fell vacant, and a Pope had to be
appointed in the great need of the Church, a saint was
present in the conclave to find in it a brother saint, and
to recommend him for the Chair of St. Peter, to the
suffrages of the Fathers and Princes of the Church.

7-

St. Carlo Borromeo,1 the Cardinal Archbishop of
Milan, was the nephew of the Pope who was just dead,
and though he was only twenty- five years of age at the
time, nevertheless, by the various influences arising out of
the position which he held, and from the weight attached
to his personal character, he might be considered to
sway the votes of the College of Cardinals, and to de-
termine the election of a new Pontiff. It is remarkable
that Cardinal Alessandrino, as St. Pius was then called,
(from Alexandria, in North Italy, near which he was
born,) was not the first object of his choice. His eyes
were first turned on Cardinal Morone, who was in many
respects the most illustrious of the Sacred College, and
had served the Church on various occasions with great
devotion, and with distinguished success. From his
youth he had been reared up in public affairs, he had
held many public offices, he had great influence with the
German Emperor, he had been Apostolical Legate at
the Council of Trent. He had great virtue, judgment,
experience, and sagacity. Such, then, was the choice
of St. Carlo, and the votes were taken ; but it seemed
otherwise to the Holy Ghost. He wanted four to make

1 Bollandist. Mai. 5.

1 5 2 The Pope and the Turk.

up the sufficient number of votes. St. Carlo had to
begin again ; and again, strange to say, the Cardinal
Alessandrino still was not his choice. He chose Cardinal
Sirleto, a man most opposite in character and history to
Morone. He was not nobly born, he was no man of the
world, he had ever been urgent with the late Pope not
to make him Cardinal. He was a first-rate scholar in
Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; versed in the Scriptures,
ready as a theologian. Moreover, he was of a character
most unblemished, of most innocent life, and of manners
most popular and winning. St. Pius as well as St.
Carlo advocated the cause of Cardinal Sirleto, and the
votes were given a second time ; a second time they came
short. It was like holy Samuel choosing Eliab instead
of David. Then matters were in confusion ; one name
and another were mentioned, and no progress was made.
At length and at last, and not till all others were
thought of who could enter into the minds of the
electors, the Cardinal Alessandrino himself began to
attract attention. He seems not to have been known to
the Fathers of the conclave in general ; a Dominican
Friar, of humble rank, ever taken up in the duties of his
rule and his special employments, living in his cell,
knowing little or nothing of mankind — such a one St.
Carlo, the son of a prince and the nephew of a Pope,
had no means of knowing ; and the intimacy, conse-
quent on their cooperation in behalf of Cardinal Sirleto,
was the first real introduction which the one Saint had
to the other. It was just at this moment that our own
St. Philip was in his small room at St. Girolamo, with
Marcello Ferro, one of his spiritual children, when, lift-
ing up his eyes to heaven, and going almost into an
ecstasy, he said : " The Pope will be elected on Monday."
On one of the following days, as they were walking to-

The Pope and the Turk. 153

gether, Marcello asked him who was to be Pope. Philip
answered, " Come, I will tell you ; the Pope will be one
whom you have never thought of, and whom no one has
spoken of as likely ; and that is Cardinal Alessandrino ;
and he will be elected on Monday evening without fail."
The event accomplished the prediction ; the statesman
and the man of the world, the accomplished and exem-
plary and amiable scholar, were put aside to make way
for the Saint. He took the name of Pius.

I am far from denying that St. Pius was stern and severe,
as far as a heart burning within and melting with the ful-
ness of divine love could be so ; and this was the reason
that the conclave was so slow in electing him. Yet
such energy and vigour as his was necessary for his
times. He was emphatically a soldier .of Christ in a
time of insurrection and rebellion, when, in a spiritual
sense, martial law was proclaimed. St. Philip, a private
priest, might follow his bent, in casting his net for souls,
as he expressed himself, and enticing them to the truth ;
but the Vicar of Christ had to right and to steer the
vessel, when it was in rough waters, and among breakers.
A Protestant historian on this point does justice to him.
" When Pope," he says, " he lived in all the austerity of
his monastic life, fasted with the utmost rigour and
punctuality, would wear no finer garments than before
. . . arose at an extremely early hour in the morning,
and took no siesta. If we doubted the depth of his
religious earnestness, we may find a proof of it in his
declaration, that the Papacy was unfavourable to his
advance in piety ; that it did not contribute to his salva-
tion and to his attainment of Paradise ; and that, but for
prayer, the burden had been too heavy for him. The
happiness of a fervent devotion, which often moved him
to tears, was granted him to the end of his life. The

1 54 The Pope and the Turk.

people were excited to enthusiasm, when they saw him
walking in procession, barefooted and bareheaded, with
the expression of unaffected piety in his countenance,
and with his long snow-white beard falling on his breast.
They thought there had never been so pious a Pope ; they
told each other how his very look had converted heretics.
Pius was kind, too, and affable ; his intercourse with his
old servants was of the most confidential kind. At a
former period, before he was Pope, the Count della
Trinita had threatened to have him thrown into a well,
and he had replied, that it must be as God pleased.
How beautiful was his greeting to this same Count, who
was now sent as ambassador to his court ! ' See,' said
he, when he recognized him, 'how God preserves the
innocent/ This was the only way in which he made
him feel that he recollected his enmity. He had ever
been most charitable and bounteous ; he kept a list of
the poor of Rome, whom he regularly assisted according
to their station and their wants." The writer, after pro-
ceeding to condemn what he considers his severity, ends
thus: "It is certain that his deportment and mode of
thinking exercised an incalculable influence on his con-
temporaries, and on the general development of the
Church of which he was the head. After so many cir-
cumstances had concurred to excite and foster a religious
spirit, after so many resolutions and measures had been
taken to exalt it to universal dominion, a Pope like this
was needed, not only to proclaim it to the world, but
also to reduce it to practice ; his zeal and his example
combined produced the most powerful effect." l

8.
It is not to be supposed that a Saint on whom lay the

1 Ranke's Hist, of the Popes.

The Pope and the Turk. 155

" solicitude of all the churches," should neglect the tradi-
tion, which his predecessors of so many centuries had be-
queathed to him, of zeal and hostility against the Turkish
power. He was only six years on the Pontifical throne ;
and the achievement of which I am going to speak was
among his last; he died the following year. At this
time the Ottoman armies were continuing their course
of victory ; they had just taken Cyprus, with the active
cooperation of the Greek population of the island, and
were massacring the Latin nobility and clergy, and
mutilating and flaying alive the Venetian governor.
Yet the Saint found it impossible to move Christendom
to its own defence. How, indeed, was that to be done,
when half Christendom had become Protestant, and
secretly perhaps felt as the Greeks felt, that the Turk
was its friend and ally? In such a quarrel England,
France, and Germany were out of the question. At
length, however, with great effort, he succeeded in form-
ing a holy league between himself, King Philip of Spain,
and the Venetians. Don John, of Austria, King Philip's
half brother, was appointed commander-in-chief of the
forces, and Colonna admiral. The treaty was signed on
the 24th of May ; but such was the cowardice and
jealousy of the parties concerned, that the autumn had
arrived, and nothing of importance was accomplished
With difficulty were the armies united ; with difficulty
were the dissensions of the commanders brought to a
settlement. Meanwhile, the Ottomans were scouring the
Gulf of Venice, blockading the ports, and terrifying the
city itself.

But the holy Pope was securing the success of his
cause by arms of his own, which the Turks understood
not He had been appointing a Triduo of supplication
at Rome, and had taken part in the procession himself.

156 The Pope and the Ttirk.

He had proclaimed a jubilee to the whole Christian
world, for the happy issue of the war. He had been
interesting the Holy Virgin in his cause. He presented
to his admiral, after High Mass in his chapel, a standard
of red damask, embroidered with a crucifix, and with
the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the legend,
" In hoc signo vinces." Next, sending to Messina, where
the allied fleet lay, he assured the general-in- chief and
the armament, that " if, relying on divine, rather than
on human help, they attacked the enemy, God would
not be wanting to His own cause. He augured a
prosperous and happy issue; not on any light or random
hope, but on a divine guidance, and by the anticipations
of many holy men." Moreover, he enjoined the officers
to look to the good conduct of their troops ; to repress
swearing, gaming, riot, and plunder, and thereby to
render them more deserving of victory. Accordingly, a
fast of three days was proclaimed for the fleet, beginning
with the Nativity of our Lady ; all the men went to
confession and communion, and appropriated to them-
selves the plentiful indulgences which the Pope attached
to the expedition. Then they moved across the foot of
Italy to Corfu, with the intention of presenting them-
selves at once to the enemy; being disappointed in
their expectations, they turned back to the Gulf of
Corinth ; and there at length, on the /th of October,
they found the Turkish fleet, half way between Lepanto
and the Echinades on the North, and Patras, in the
Morea, on the South ; and, though it was towards even-
ing, strong in faith and zeal, they at once commenced
the engagement.

The night before the battle, and the day itself, aged
as he was, and broken with a cruel malady, the Saint
had passed in the Vatican in fasting and prayer. All

The Pope and the Turk. 157

through the Holy City the monasteries and the colleges
were in prayer too. As the evening advanced, the
Pontifical treasurer asked an audience of the Sovereign
Pontiff on an important matter. Pius was in his bed-
room, and began to converse with him ; when suddenly
he stopped the conversation, left him, threw open the
window, and gazed up into heaven. Then closing it
again, he looked gravely at his official, and said, " This
is no time for business ; go, return thanks to the Lord
God. In this very hour our fleet has engaged the
Turkish, and is victorious." As the treasurer went out,
he saw him fall on his knees before the altar in thank-
fulness and joy.

And a most memorable victory it was : upwards of
30,000 Turks are said to have lost their lives in the
engagement, and 3,500 were made prisoners. Almost
their whole fleet was taken. I quote from Protestant
authorities when I say that the Sultan, on the news of
the calamity, neither ate, nor drank, nor showed himself,
nor saw any one for three days ; that it was the greatest
blow which the Ottomans had had since Timour's vic-
tory over Bajazet, a century and a half before; nay,
that it was the turning-point in the Turkish history;1
and that, though the Sultans have had isolated successes
since, yet from that day they undeniably and constantly
declined, that they have lost their prestige and their self-

1 "The battle of Lepanto arrested for ever the danger of Mahometan
invasion in the south of Europe." — Alison's Europe, vol. ix. p. 95. " The
powers of the Turks and of their European neighbours were now nearly
balanced ; in the reign of Amurath the Third, who succeeded Selim, the
advantages became more evidently in favour of the Christians ; and since
that time, though the Turks have sometimes enjoyed a transitory success,
the real stability of their affairs has constantly declined. " — Bell's Geogra-
phy, vol. il, part 2. Vid. also Ranke, vol. i., pp. 381-2. It is remarkable
that it should be passed over by Professor Creasy in his " Fifteen Decisive
Battles."

158 The Pope and the Turk.

confidence, and that the victories gained over them since
are but the complements and the reverberations of the
overthrow at Lepanto.

Such was the catastrophe of this long and anxious
drama ; the hosts of Turkistan and Tartary had poured
down from their wildernesses through ages, to be with-
stood, and foiled, and reversed by an old man. It was
a repetition, though under different circumstances, of
the history of Leo and the Hun. In the contrast
between the combatants we see the contrast of the
histories of good and evil. The Enemy, as the Turks
in this battle, rushing forward with the terrible fury
of wild beasts ; and the Church, ever combating with
the energetic perseverance and the heroic obstinacy of
St. Pius.

159

IV.

THE PROSPECTS OF THE TURKS.
LECTURE VII.

Barbarism and Civilization.

I.

MY object in the sketch which I have been attempt-
ing, of the history of the Turks, has been to show
the relation of this celebrated race to Europe and to
Christendom. I have not been led to speak of them by
any especial interest in them for their own sake, but by
the circumstances of the present moment, which bring
them often before us, oblige us to speak of them, and
involve the necessity of entertaining some definite senti-
ments about them. With this view I have been con-
sidering their antecedents ; whence they came, how
they came, where they are, and what title they have to
be there at all. When I now say, that I am proceeding
to contemplate their future, do not suppose me to be so
rash as to be hazarding any political prophecy; I do
but mean to set down some characteristics in their exist-
ing state (if I have any right to fancy, that in any true
measure we at the distance of some thousand miles
know it), which naturally suggest to us to pursue their
prospective history in one direction, not in another.

Now it seems safe to say, in the first place, that some
time or other the Ottomans will come to an end. All

160 Barbarism and Civilization.

human power has its termination sooner or later ; states
rise to fall ; and, secure as they may be now, so one
day they will be in peril and in course of overthrow
Nineveh, Tyre, Babylon, Persia, Egypt, and Greece,
each has had its day ; and this was so clear to mankind
2,000 years ago, that the conqueror of Carthage wept,
as he gazed upon its flames, for he saw in them the
conflagration of her rival, his own Rome. " Fuit Ilium''
The Saracens, the Moguls, have had their day ; those
European states, so great three centuries ago, Spain and
Poland, Venice and Genoa, are now either extinct or in
decrepitude. What is the lot of all states, is still more
strikingly fulfilled in the case of empires ; kingdoms
indeed are of slow growth, but empires commonly are
but sudden manifestations of power, which are as short-
lived as they are sudden. Even the Roman empire,
which is an exception, did not last beyond five hundred
years ; the Saracenic three hundred ; the Spanish three
hundred ; the Russian has lasted about a hundred and
fifty, that is, since the Czar Peter ; the British not a
hundred ; the Ottoman has reached four or five. If there
be an empire which does not at all feel the pressure of
this natural law, but lasts continuously, repairs its losses,
renews its vigour, and with every successive age emulates
its antecedent fame, such a power must be more than
human, and has no place in our present inquiry. We
are concerned, not with any supernatural power, to which
is promised perpetuity, but with the Ottoman empire,
famous in history, vigorous in constitution, but, after
all, human, and nothing more. There is, then, neither
risk nor merit in prophesying the eventual fall of
the Osmanlis, as of the Seljukians, as of the Gaznevides
before them ; the only wonder is that they actually have
lasted as much as four hundred years.

Barbarism and Civilization. 161

Such will be the issue and the sum of their whole
history; but, certain as this is, and confidently as it
may be pronounced, nothing else can be prudently
asserted about their future. Times and moments are
in the decrees of the All- wise, and known to Him alone;
and so are the occurrences to which they give birth.
The only further point open to conjecture, as being not
quite destitute of data for speculating upon it, is the
particular course of events and quality of circumstances,
which will precede the downfall of the Turkish power ;
for, granting that that downfall is to come, it is reason-
able to think it will take place in that particular way,
for which in their present state we see an existing pre-
paration, if such can be discerned, or in a way which at
least is not inconsistent with the peculiarities of that
present state.

2.

Hence, in speculating on this question, I shall take
this as a reasonable assumption first of all, that the
catastrophe of a state is according to its antecedents,
and its destiny according to its nature; and therefore,
that we cannot venture on any anticipation of the in-
struments or the conditions of its death, until we know
something about the principle and the character of its
life. Next I lay down, that, whereas a state is in its
very idea a society, and a society is a collection of many
individuals made one by their participation in some
common possession, and to the extent of that common
possession, the presence of that possession held in
common constitutes the life, and the loss of it consti-
tutes the dissolution, of a state. In like manner, what-
ever avails or tends to withdraw that common possession,
is either fatal or prejudicial tQ the social union. As
VOL. I, II

1 62 Barbarism and Civilization.

regards the Ottoman power, then, we have to inquire
what its life consists in, and what are the dangers to
which that life, from the nature of its constitution, is
exposed.

Now,, states may be broadly divided into barbarous
and civilized ; their common possession, or life, is some
object either of sense or of imagination ; and their bane
and destruction is either external or internal. And, to
speak in general terms, without allowing for exceptions
or limitations (for I am treating the subject scientifically
only so far as is requisite for my particular inquiry), we
may pronounce that barbarous states live in a common
imagination, and are destroyed from without ; whereas
civilized states live in some common object of sense, and
are destroyed from within.

By external enemies I mean foreign wars, foreign in-
fluence, insurrection of slaves or of subject races, famine,
accidental enormities of individuals in power, and other
instruments analogous to what, in the case of an in-
dividual, is called a violent death ; by internal I mean
civil contention, excessive changes, revolution, decay of
public spirit, which may be considered analogous to
natural death.

Again, by objects of imagination, I mean such as
religion, true or false (for there are not only false ima-
ginations but true), divine mission of a sovereign or of
a dynasty, and historical fame ; and by objects of sense,
such as secular interests, country, home, protection of
person and property.

I do not allude to the conservative power of habit
when I speak of the social bond, because habit is rather
the necessary result of possessing a common object, and
protects all states equally, barbarous and civilized
Nor do I include moral degeneracy among the instru-

Barbarism and Civilization. 163

ments of their destruction, because this too attaches to
all states, civilized and barbarous, and is rather a dis-
position exposing them to the influence of what is their
bane, than a direct cause of their ruin in itself.

3-

But what is meant by the words barbarous and civi-
lized, as applied to political bodies ? this is a question
which it will take more time to answer, even if I succeed
in satisfying it at all. By " barbarism," then, I suppose,
in itself is meant a state of nature ; and by " civiliza-
tion," a state of mental cultivation and discipline. In a
state of nature man has reason, conscience, affections,
and passions, and he uses these severally, or rather is
influenced by them, according to circumstances ; and
whereas they do not one and all necessarily move in the
same direction, he takes no great pains to make them
agree together, but lets them severally take their course,
and, if I may so speak, jostle into a sort of union, and
get on together, as best they can. He does not im-
prove his talents; he does not simplify and fix his
motives ; he does not put his impulses under the con-
trol of principle, or form his mind upon a rule. He
grows up pretty much what he was when a chila
capricious, wayward, unstable, idle, irritable, excitabv.
with not much more of habituation than that whic-r
experience of living unconsciously forces even on tr»*
brutes. Brutes act upon instinct, not on reason ; thej
are ferocious when they are hungry ; they fiercely in-
dulge their appetite ; they gorge themselves ; they fall
into torpor and inactivity. In a like, but a more human
way, the savage is drawn by the object held up to him,
as if he could not help following it ; an excitement
rushes on him, and he yields to it without a struggle ;

164 Barbarism and Civilization.

he acts according to the moment, without regard to
consequences ; he is energetic or slothful, tempestuous
or calm, as the winds blow or the sun shines. He is
one being to-day, another to-morrow, as if he were
simply the sport of influences or circumstances. If he
is raised somewhat above this extreme state of bar-
barism, just one idea or feeling occupies the narrow
range of his thoughts, to the exclusion of others.

Moreover, brutes differ from men in this ; that they
cannot invent, cannot progress. They remain in the use
of those faculties and methods, which nature gave them
at their birth. They are endowed by the law of their
being with certain weapons of defence, and they do not
improve on them. They have food, raiment, and dwell-
ing, ready at their command. They need no arrow or
noose to catch their prey, nor kitchen to dress it ; no
garment to wrap round them, nor roof to shelter them.
Their claws, their teeth, their viscera, are their butcher
and their cook ; and their fur is their wardrobe. The
cave or the jungle is their home ; or if it is their nature
to exercise some architectural craft, they have not to
learn it. But man comes into the world with the capa-
bilities, rather than the means and appliances, of life.
He begins with a small capital, but one which admits of
indefinite improvement. He is, in his very idea, a crea-
ture of progress. He starts, the inferior of the brute
animals, but he surpasses them in the long run ; he sub-
jects them to himself, and he goes forward on a career,
which at least hitherto has not found its limit.

Even the savage of course in some measure exempli-
fies this law of human nature, and is lord of the brutes;
and what he is and man is generally, compared with the
inferior animals, such is man civilized compared with the
barbarian. Civilization is that state to which man's

Barbarism and Civilization. 165

nature points and tends ; it is the systematic use, im-
provement, and combination of those faculties which are
his characteristic ; and, viewed in its idea, it is the per-
fection, the happiness of our mortal state. It is the
development of art out of nature, and of self-govern-
ment out of passion, and of certainty out of opinion,
and of faith out of reason. It is the due disposition of
the various powers of the soul, each in its place, the sub-
ordination or subjection of the inferior, and the union of
all into one whole. Aims, rules, views, habits, projects ;
prudence, foresight, observation, inquiry, invention, re-
source, resolution, perseverance, are its characteristics.
Justice, benevolence, expedience, propriety, religion, are
its recognized, its motive principles. Supernatural truth is
its sovereign law. Such is it in its true idea, synony-
mous with Christianity ; and, not only in idea, but in
matter of fact also, is Christianity ever civilization, as
far as its influence prevails ; but, unhappily, in matter of
fact, civilization is not necessarily Christianity. If we
would view things as they really are, we must bear in
mind that, true as it is, that only a supernatural grace
can raise man towards the perfection of his nature, yet
it is possible, — without the cultivation of its spiritual part,
which contemplates objects subtle, distant, delicate of
apprehension, and slow of operation, nay, even with an
actual contempt of faith and devotion, in comparison of
objects tangible and present, — possible it is, I say, to com-
bine in some sort the other faculties of man into one, and
to progress forward, with the substitution of natural reli-
gion for faith, and a refined expediency or propriety for
true morality, just as with practice a man might manage
to run without an arm or without sight, and as the defect
of one organ is sometimes supplied to a certain extent
by the preternatural action of another.

166 Barbarism and Civilization.

And this is, in fact, what is commonly understood b>
civilization, and it is the sense in which the word must
be used here ; not that perfection which nature aims at,
and requires, and cannot of itself reach ; but a second-
rate perfection of nature, being what it is, and re-
maining what it is, without any supernatural principle,
only with its powers of ratiocination, judgment, sagacity,
and imagination fully exercised, and the affections and
passions under sufficient control. Such was it, in its
higher excellences, in heathen Greece and Rome, where
the perception of moral principles, possessed by the cul-
tivated and accomplished intellect, by the mind of Plato
or Isocrates, of Cleanthes, Seneca, Epictetus, or Anto-
ninus, rivalled in outward pretensions the inspired teach-
ing of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Such is it at the
present day, not only in its reception of the elements of
religion and morals (when Christianity is in the midst of
it as an inexhaustible storehouse for natural reason to
borrow from), but especially in a province peculiar to
these times, viz., in science and art, in physics, in politics,
in economics, and mechanics. And great as are its at-
tainments at present, still, as I have said, we are far from
being able to discern, even in the distance, the limit of
its advancement and of its perfectibility.

4-

It is evident from what has been said, that barbarism
is a principle, not of society, but of isolation ; he who
will not submit even to himself, is not likely to volunteer
a subjection to others ; and this is more or less the price
which, from the nature of the case, the members of
society pay individually for the security of that which
they hold in common. It follows, that no polity can be
simply barbarous ; barbarians may indeed combine in

Barbarism and Civilization. 167

small bodies, as they have done in Gaul, Scythia, and
America, from the gregariousness of our nature, from
fellowship of blood, from accidental neighbourhood, or
for self-preservation ; but such societies are not bodies
or polities ; they are but the chance result of an occasion,
and are destitute of a common life. Barbarism has no
individuality, it has no history ; quarrels between neigh-
bouring tribes, grudges, blood-shedding, exhaustion,
raids, success, defeat, the same thing over and over
again, this is not the action of society, nor the subject-
matter of narrative ; it neither interests the curiosity,
nor leaves any impression on the memory. " Labitur et
labetur ;" it forms and breaks again, like the billows of
the sea, and is but a mockery of unity. When I speak
of barbarian states, I mean such as consist of members
not simply barbarous, but just so far removed from the
extreme of savageness that they admit of having certain
principles in common, and are able to submit themselves
individually to the system which rises out of those prin-
ciples ; that they do recognize the ideas of government,
property, and law, however imperfectly ; though they
still differ from civilized polities in those main points,
which I have set down as analogous to the difference
between brutes and the human species.

As instinct is perfect after its kind at first, and never
advances, whereas the range of the intellect is ever grow-
ing, so barbarous states are pretty much the same from
first to last, and this is their characteristic ; and civilized
states, on the other hand, though they have had a bar-
barian era, are ever advancing further and further from
it, and thus their distinguishing badge is progress. So
far my line of thought leads me to concur in the elabo-
rate remarks on the subject put forth by the celebrated
M. Guizot, in his " Lectures on European Civilization/1

1 68 Barbarism and Civilization.

Civilized states are ever developing into a more perfect
organization, and a more exact and more various opera-
tion ; they are ever increasing their stock of thoughts
and of knowledge : ever creating, comparing, disposing,
and improving. Hence, while bodily strength is the
token of barbarian power, mental ability is the honour-
able badge of civilized states. The one is like Ajax, the
other like Ulysses ; civilized nations are constructive,
barbarous are destructive. Civilization spreads by the
ways of peace, by moral suasion, by means of literature,
the arts, commerce, diplomacy, institutions ; and, though
material power never can be superseded, it is subor-
dinate to the influence of mind. Barbarians can provide
themselves with swift and hardy horses, can sweep over
a country, rush on with a shout, use the steel and fire-
brand, and frighten and overwhelm the weak or cowardly ;
but in the wars of civilized countries, even the imple-
ments of carnage are scientifically constructed, and are
calculated to lessen or supersede it; and a campaign
becomes co-ordinately a tour of savants, or a colonizing
expedition, or a political demonstration. When Sesos-
tris marched through Asia to the Euxine, he left upon
his road monuments of himself, which have not utterly
disappeared even at this day ; and the memorials of the
rule of the Pharaohs are still engraved on the rocks of
Libya and Arabia. Alexander, again, in a later age,
crossed from Macedonia to Asia with the disciples of
Aristotle in his train. His march was the diffusion of
the arts and commerce, and the acquisition of scientific
knowledge ; the countries he passed through were accu-
rately described, as he proceeded, and the intervals
between halt and halt regularly measured.1 His naval
armaments explored nearly the whole distance from

Murray's Asia.

Barbarism and Civilization. 169

Attock on the Upper Indus to the Isthmus of Suez : his
philosophers noted down the various productions and
beasts of the unknown East ; and his courtiers were
the first to report to the western world the singular
institutions of Hindostan.

Again, while Attila boasted that his horse's hoof
withered the grass it trod on, and Zingis could gallop
over the site of the cities he had destroyed, Seleucus, or
Ptolemy, or Trajan, covered the range of his conquests
with broad capitals, marts of commerce, noble roads, and
spacious harbours. Lucullus collected a magnificent
library in the East, and Caesar converted his northern
expeditions into an antiquarian and historical research.

Nor is this an accident in Roman annals. She was a
power pre-eminently military ; yet what is her history but
the most remarkable instance of a political development
and progress ? More than any power, she was able to
accommodate and expand her institutions according to
the circumstances of successive ages, extending her muni-
cipal privileges to the conquered cities, yielding herself to
the literature of Greece, and admitting into her bosom
the rites of Egypt and Phrygia. At length, by an effort
of versatility unrivalled in history, she was able to reverse
one main article of her policy, and, as she had already
acknowledged the intellectual supremacy of Greece, so
did she humble herself in a still more striking manner
before a religion which she had persecuted.

5-

If these remarks upon the difference between bar-
barism and civilization be in the main correct, they have
prepared the way for answering the question which I
have raised concerning the principle of life and the
mode of dissolution proper or natural to barbarous and

170 Barbarism and Civilization.

civilized powers respectively. Ratiocination and its
kindred processes, which are the necessary instruments
of political progress, are, taking things as we find them,
hostile to imagination and auxiliary to sense. It is true
that a St. Thomas can draw out a whole system of theo-
logy from principles impalpable and invisible, and fix
upon the mind by pure reason a vast multitude of facts
and truths which have no pretence to a bodily form.
But, taking man as he is, we shall commonly find him
dissatisfied with a demonstrative process from an unde-
monstrated premiss, and, when he has once begun to
reason, he will seek to prove the point from which his
reasoning starts, as well as that at which it arrives.
Thus he will be forced back from immediate first prin-
ciples to others more remote, nor will he be satisfied till
he ultimately reaches those which are as much within
his own handling and mastery as the reasoning apparatus
itself. Hence it is that civilized states ever tend to
substitute objects of sense for objects of imagination, as
the basis of their existence. The Pope's political power
was greater when Europe was semi-barbarous ; and the
divine right of the successors of the English St. Edward
received, a death-blow in the philosophy of Bacon and
Locke. At present, I suppose, our own political life, as
a nation, lies in the supremacy of the law ; and that
again is resolvable into the internal peace, and protection
of life and property, and freedom of the individual, which
are its result ; and these I call objects of sense.

For the very same reason, objects of this nature will
not constitute the life of a barbarian community ; pru-
dence, foresight, calculation of consequences do not enter
into its range of mental operations ; it has no talent for
analysis; it cannot understand expediency; it is im-
pressed and affected by what is direct and absolute.

Barbarism and Civilization. 171

Religion, superstition, belief in persons and families,
objects, not proveable, but vivid and imposing, will be
the bond which keeps its members together. I have
already alluded to the divinity which in the imagination
of the Huns encircled the hideous form of Attila. Zingis
claimed for himself or his ancestry a miraculous concep-
tion, and received from a prophet, who ascended to hea-
ven, the dominion of the earth. He called himself the
son of God ; and when the missionary friars came to his
immediate successor from the Pope, that successor made
answer to them, that it was the Pope's duty to do him
homage, as being earthly lord of all by divine right. It
was a similar pretension, I need hardly say, which was
the life of the Mahometan conquests, when the wild
Saracen first issued from the Arabian desert. So, too,
in the other hemisphere, the Caziques of aboriginal
America were considered to be brothers of the Sun, and
received religious homage as his representatives. They
spoke as the oracles of the divinity, and claimed the
power of regulating the seasons and the weather at their
will. This was especially the case in Peru ; " the whole
system of policy," says Robertson, "was founded on
religion. The Incas appeared, not only as a legislator,
but as the messenger of heaven."1 Elsewhere, the
divine virtue has been considered to rest, not on the
monarch, but on the code of laws, which accordingly is
the social principle of the nation. The Celts ascribed
their legislation to Mercury ;* as Lycurgus and Numa
in Sparta and Rome appealed to a divine sanction in
behalf of their respective institutions.

This being the case, imperfect as is the condition of
barbarous states, still what is there to overthrow them ?
They have a principle of union congenial to the state of

1 Robertson's America, books vi. and vii 2 Univ. Hist. Anc., vol. xvi.

Barbarism and Civilization

their intellect, and they have not the ratiocinative habit
to scrutinize and invalidate it. Since they admit of no
mental progress, what serves as a bond to-day will be
equally serviceable to-morrow ; so that apparently their
dissolution cannot come from themselves. It is true, a
barbarous people, possessed of a beautiful country, may
be relaxed in luxury and effeminacy ; but such degene-
racy has no obvious tendency to weaken their faith in
the objects in which their political unity consists, though
it may render them defenceless against external attacks.
And here indeed lies their real peril at all times ; they
are ever vulnerable from without. Thus Sparta, formed
deliberately on a barbarian pattern, remained faithful to
it, without change, without decay, while its intellectual
rival was the victim of successive revolutions. At length
its power was broken externally by the Theban Epami-
nondas ; and by the restoration of Messenia, the insur-
rection of the Laconians, and the emancipation of the
Helots. Agesilaus, at the time of its fall, was as good
a Spartan as any of his predecessors. Again, the ancient
Empire of the Huns in Asia is said to have lasted 1,500
years ; at length its wanton tyranny was put an end to
by the Chinese King plunging into the Tartar desert,
and thus breaking their power. Thrace, again, a barba
rous country, lasted many centuries, with kings of great
vigour, with much external prosperity, and then suc-
cumbed, not to internal revolution, but to the permanent
ascendancy of Rome. Similar too is the instance of
Pontus, and again of Numidia and Mauritania ; they
may have had great or accomplished sovereigns, but
they have no history, except in the wars of their con-
querors. Great leaders are necessary for the prosperity,
as great enemies for the destruction, of barbarians ; they
thrive, as they come to nought, by means of agents

Barbarism and Civilization. 173

external to themselves. So again Malek Shah died, and
his empire fell to pieces. Hence, too, the unexpected
and utter catastrophes which befall barbarous people,
analogous to a violent death, which I have alluded to in
speaking of the sudden rise and fall of Tartar dynasties ;
for no one can anticipate results, which, instead of being
the slow evolution of political principles, proceed from
the accident of external quarrels and of the relative con-
dition of rival powers.

6.

Far otherwise is the history of those states, in which
the intellect, not prescription, is recognized as the ulti-
mate authority, and where the course of time is neces-
sarily accompanied by a corresponding course of change.
Such polities are ever in progress ; at first from worse
to better, and then from better to worse. In all human
things there is a maximum of advance, and that maximum
is not an established state of things, but a point in a
career. The cultivation of reason and the spread of
knowledge for a time develop and at length dissipate
the elements of political greatness ; acting first as the
invaluable ally of public spirit, and then as its insidious
enemy. Barbarian minds remain in the circle of ideas
which sufficed their forefathers ; the opinions, principles,
and habits which they inherited, they transmit. They
have the prestige of antiquity and the strength of con-
servatism ; but where thought is encouraged, too many
will think, and will think too much. The sentiment of
sacredness in institutions fades away, and the measure
of truth or expediency is the private judgment of the
individual. An endless variety of opinion is the certain
though slow result ; no overpowering majority of judg-
ments is found to decide what is good and what is bad ;

1 74 Barbarism and Civilization.

political measures become acts of compromise ; and at
length the common bond of unity in the state consists
in nothing really common, but simply in the unanimous
wish of each member of it to secure his own interests.
Thus the veterans of Sylla, comfortably settled in their
farms, refused to rally round Pompey in his war with
Caesar.1 Thus the municipal cities in the provinces re-
fused to unite together in a later age for the defence of
the Empire, then evidently on the way to dissolution.8
Selfishness takes the place of loyalty, patriotism, and
faith ; parties grow and strengthen themselves ; classes
and ranks withdraw from each other more and more ;
the national energy becomes but a self-consuming fever,
and but enables the constituent parts to be their own
mutual destruction ; and at length such union as is
necessary for political life is found to be impossible.
Meanwhile corruption of morals, which is common to all
prosperous countries, completes the internal ruin, and,
whether an external enemy appears or not, the nation
can hardly be considered any more a state. It is but like
some old arch, which, when its supports are crumbled
away, stands by the force of cohesion, no one knows
how. It dies a natural death, even though some Alaric
or Genseric happens to be at hand to take possession
of the corpse. And centuries before the end comes,
patriots may see it coming, though they cannot tell
its hour; and that hour creates surprise, not because
it at length is come, but because it has been so long
delayed.

I have been referring to the decline, as I before

spoke of the progress, of the Romans : the career of that

people through twelve centuries is a drama of sustained

Interest and equable and majestic evolution ; it has

-1 Merivale's Rome, vol. ii. 2 Guizot's European Civilization.

Barbarism and Civilization. 175

given scope for the most ingenious researches into its
internal history. There one age is the parent of an-
other ; the elements and principles of its political system
are brought out into a variety of powers with mutual
relations; external events act and react with domestic
affairs ; manners and views change ; excess of prosperity
becomes the omen of misfortune to come; till in the
words of the poet, " Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit"
For how many philosophical histories has Greece
afforded opportunity! while the constitutional history
of England, as far as it has hitherto gone, is a recog-
nized subject-matter of scientific and professional teach-
ing. The case is the same with the history of the
medieval Italian cities, of the medieval Church, and of
the Saracenic empire. As regards the last of these
instances, I am not alluding merely to the civil conten-
tions and wars which took place in it, for such may
equally happen to a barbarian state. Cupidity and
ambition are inherent in the nature of man ; the Gauls
and British, the tribes of Scythia, the Seljukian Turks,
consisted each of a number of mutually hostile com-
munities or kingdoms. What is relevant to my purpose
in the history of the Saracens is, that their quarrels often
had an intellectual basis, and arose out of their religion.
The white, the green, and the black factions, who
severally reigned at Cordova, Cairo, and Bagdad, ex-
communicated each other, and claimed severally to be
the successors of Mahomet. Then came the fanatical
innovation of the Carmathians, who pretended to a divine
mission to complete the religion of Mahomet, as Ma-
homet had completed Christianity.1 They relaxed the
duties of ablution, fasting, and pilgrimage; admitted
the use of wine, and protested against the worldly pomp

1 Giboon, vol. x.

176 Barbarism and Civilization.

of the Caliphs. They spread their tents along the coast
of the Persian Gulf, and in no long time were able to
bring an army of ioo,ooo men into the field. Ulti-
mately they took up their residence on the borders of
Assyria, Syria, and Egypt. As time went on, and the
power of the Caliphs was still further reduced, religious
contention broke out in Bagdad itself, between the rigid
and the lax parties, and the followers of the Abbassides
and of Ali.

If we consult ancient history, the case is the same ;
the Jews, a people of progress, were ruined, as appears
on the face of Scripture, by internal causes ; they split
into sects, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians Essenes, as
soon as the Divine Hand retired from the direct govern-
ment of their polity ; and they were fighting together in
Jerusalem when the Romans were beleaguering its walls.
Nay, even the disunion, which was a special and divine
punishment for their sins, was fulfilled according to this
natural law which I am illustrating ; it was the splendid
reign of Solomon, the era of literature, commerce,
opulence, and general prosperity, which was the ante-
cedent of fatal revolutions. If we turn to civilized
nations of an even earlier date, the case is the same ; we
are accustomed indeed to associate Chinese and Egyp-
tians with ideas of perpetual untroubled stability ; but
a philosophical historian, whom I shall presently cite,
speaks far otherwise of those times when the intellect
was prominently active. China was for many centuries
the seat of a number of petty principalities, which were
limited, not despotic ; about 200 years before our era it
became one absolute monarchy. Till then idolatry was
unknown, and the doctrines of Confucius were in honour :
the first Emperor ordered a general burning of books,
burning at the same time between 400 and 500 of the

Barbarism and Civilization. 177

)llowers of Confucius, and persecuting the men of
tters. A rationalist philosophy succeeded, and this
*ain gave way to the introduction of the religion of
uddha or Fo, just about the time of our Lord's Cruci-
sion. At later periods, in the fifth and in the thirteenth
mturies, the country was divided into two distinct king-
3ms, north and south ; and such was its state when
iarco Polo visited it. It has been several times con-
lered by the Tartars, and it is a remarkable proof of
3 civilization, that it has ever obliged them to adopt its
anners, laws, and even language. China, then, has a
stinct and peculiar internal history, and has paid to the
11 the penalty which, in the course of centuries, goes
ong with the blessings of civilization. " The whole
story of China, from beginning to end," says Frederic
:hlegel, "displays one continued series of seditions,
iurpations, anarchy, changes of dynasty, and other
olent revolutions and catastrophes." *
The history of Egypt tells the same tale ; " Civil dis-
>rd," he says, " existed there under various forms. The
mntry itself was often divided into several kingdoms ;
id, even when united, we observe a great conflict of
terests between the agricultural province of Upper
gypt, and the commercial and manufacturing province
' the Lower : as, indeed, a similar clashing of interests
often to be noticed in modern states. In the period
imediately preceding the Persian conquest, the caste
' warriors, or the whole class of nobility, were decidedly
)posed to the monarchs, because they imagined them
promote too much the power of the priesthood ;" — in
her words, their national downfall was not owing
rectly to an external cause, but to an internal collision
' parties and interests ; — " in the same way/' continues

1 Philosophy of History j Robertson's translation.
VOL. I. 12

178 Barbarism and Civilization.

the author I am quoting, " as the history of India pre
sents a similar rivalry or political hostility between th<
Brahmins and the caste of the Cshatriyas. In the reigi
of Psammatichus, the disaffection of the native nobility
obliged this prince to take Greek soldiers into his pay
and thus at length was the defence of Egypt entruste<
to an army of foreign mercenaries." He adds, which i
apposite to my purpose, for I suppose he is speaking
of civilized nations, " In general, states and kingdoms
before they succumb to a foreign conqueror, are, i
not outwardly and visibly, yet secretly and internally
undermined."

So much on the connexion between the civilization o
a state and its overthrow from internal causes, or, wha
may be called, its succumbing to a natural death. I wi]
only add, that I am but attempting to set down genera
rules, to which there may be exceptions, explicable o
not. For instance, Venice is one of the most civilizei
states of the middle age ; but, by a system of jealou
and odious tyranny, it continued to maintain its groun<
without revolution, when revolutions were frequent in th
other Italian cities ; yet the very necessity of so severe
despotism shows us what would have happened there, :
natural causes had been left to work unimpeded.

7-

I feel I owe you, Gentlemen, an apology for the time
have consumed in an abstract discussion ; it is drawini
to an end, but it still requires the notice of two questions
on which, however, I have not much to say, even if
would. First, can a civilized state become barbarian i:
course of years ? and secondly, can a barbarian stat
ever become civilized ?

As to the former of the&e questions, considering th

Barbarism and Civilization. 179

human race did start with society, and did not start with
barbarism, and barbarism exists, we might be inclined
it first sight to answer it in the affirmative ; again, since
Christianity implies civilization, and is the recovery of
the whole race of Adam, we might answer the second in
the affirmative also ; but such resolutions of the inquiry
are scarcely to the point. Doubtless the human race
may degenerate, doubtless it may make progress ;
doubtless men, viewed as individuals or as members of
races or tribes, or as inhabitants of certain countries,
may change their state from better to worse, or from
worse to better : this, however, is not the question ; but
whether a given state, which has a certain political
unity, can change the principle of that unity, and,
without breaking up into its component parts, become
barbarian instead of civilized, and civilized instead of
barbarian.

(i.) Now as to the latter of these questions, it still
must be answered in the affirmative under circumstances :
that is, all civilized states have started with barbarism,
and have gradually in the course of ages developed
into civilization, unless there be any political community
in the world, as China has by some been considered,
representative of Noe ; and unless we consider the case
of colonies, as Constantinople or Venice, fairly to form
an exception. But the question is very much altered,
when we contemplate a change in one or two generations
from barbarism to civilization. The substitution of one
form of political life for another, when it occurs, is the
sort of process by which fossils take the place of animal
substances, or strata are formed, or carbon is crystallized,
or boys grow into men. Christianity itself has never,
I think, suddenly civilized a race ; national habits and
opinions cannot be cast off at will without miracle.

I So Barbarism and Civilization.

Hence the extreme jealousy and irritation of the mem-
bers of a state with innovators, who would tamper with
what the Greeks called vojut/ua, or constitutional and
vital usages. Hence the fury of Pentheus against the
Maenades, and of the Scythians against their King
Scylas, and the agitation created at Athens by the
destruction of the Mercuries. Hence the obstinacy of
the Roman statesmen of old, and of the British con-
stituency now, against the Catholic Church ; and the
feeling is so far justified, that projected innovations often
turn out, if not simply nugatory, nothing short of de-
structive ; and though there is a great notion just now
that the British Constitution admits of being fitted upon
every people under heaven, from the Blacks to the
Italians, I do not know what has occurred to give
plausibility to the anticipation. England herself once
attempted the costume of republicanism, but she found
that monarchy was part of her political essence.

(2.) Still less can the possibility be admitted of a
civilized polity really relapsing into barbarism ; though
a state of things may be superinduced, which in many
of its features may be thought to resemble it. In truth,
I have not yet traced out the ultimate result of those
internal revolutions which I have assigned as the inci-
dental but certain evils, in the long run, attendant on
civilization. That result is various : sometimes the
over- civilized and degenerate people is swept from the
face of the earth, as the Roman populations in Africa
by the Vandals ; sometimes it is reduced to servitude,
as the Egyptians by the Ptolemies, or the Greeks by the
Turks ; sometimes it is absorbed or included in new
political combinations, as the northern Italians by the
Lombards and Franks; sometimes it remains unmolested
on its own territory, and lives by the momentum, or the

Barbarism and Civilization. 181

;pute, or the habit, or the tradition of its former civili-
ition. This last of course is the only case which
sars upon the question I am considering ; and I grant
lat a state of things does then ensue, which in some of
s phenomena is like barbarism ; China is an example
L point. No one can deny its civilization; its diligent
ire of the soil, its cultivation of silk and 01 the tea-tree,
3 populousness, its canals, its literature, its court cere-
onial, its refinement of manners, its power of perse-
jring so loyally in its old institutions through so
any ages, abundantly vindicate it from the reproach of
irbarism. But at the same time there are tokens of
jgeneracy, which are all the stronger for being also
kens, still more striking than those I have hitherto
entioned, of its high civilization in times past. It has
id for ages the knowledge of the more recent dis-
rveries and institutions of the West, which have done
i much for Europe, yet it has been unable to use them,
.e magnetic needle, gunpowder, and printing. The
tleness of the national character, its self-conceit, and its
rmality, are further instances of an effete civilization,
hey remind the observer vividly of the picture which
story presents to us of the Byzantine Court before the
king of Constantinople ; or, again, of that material
tention of Christian doctrine (to use the theological
3rd), of which Protestantism in its more orthodox
:hibitions, and still more, of which the Greek schism
fords the specimen. Either a state of deadness and
echanical action, or a restless ebb and flow of
>inion and sentiment, is the symptom of that intel-
:tual exhaustion and decrepitude, whether in politics
religion, which, if old age be a second childhood, may
some sense be called barbarism, and of which, at
esent, we are respectively reminded in China on the

1 82 Barbarism and Civilization.

one hand, and in some southern states of Europe on the
other.

These are the principles, whatever modifications the>
may require, which, however rudely adumbrated, I trust
will suffice to enable me to contemplate the future ol
the Ottoman Empire.

1 83

LECTURE VIII.

The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

WHATEVER objections in detail may stand against
the account I have been giving of barbarism
and civilization — and I trust there are none which do not
admit of removal — so far, I think, is clear, that, if my
account be only in the main correct, the Turkish power
certainly is not a civilized, and is a barbarous power.
The barbarian lives without principle and without aim ;
he does but reflect the successive outward circumstances
in which he finds himself, and he varies with them. He
changes suddenly, when their change is sudden, and is
as unlike what he was just before, as one fortune or ex-
ternal condition is unlike another. He moves when he
is urged by appetite ; else, he remains in sloth and in-
activity. He lives, and he dies, and he has done nothing,
but leaves the world as he found it. And what the
individual is, such is his whole generation ; and as that
generation, such is the generation before and after. No
generation can say what it has been doing ; it has not
made the state of things better or worse ; for retrogres-
sion there is hardly room ; for progress, no sort of mate-
rial. Now I shall show that these characteristics of the
barbarian are rudimental points, as I may call them,
in the picture of the Turks, as drawn by those who have
studied them. I shall principally avail myself of the
information supplied by Mr. Thornton and M. Volney,

1 84 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

men of name and ability, and for various reasons prefer
able as authorities to writers of the present day.

I.

" The Turks," says Mr. Thornton, who, though not
blind to their shortcomings, is certainly favourable to
them, "the Turks are of a grave and saturnine cast
. . . patient of hunger and privations, capable of enduring
the hardships of war, but not much inclined to habits
of industry. . . . They prefer apathy and indolence to
active enjoyments ; but when moved by a powerful
stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasures in excess."
" The Turk," he says elsewhere, " stretched at his ease on
the banks of the Bosphorus, glides down the stream of
existence without reflection on the past, and without
anxiety for the future. His life is one continued and
unvaried reverie. To his imagination the whole universe
appears occupied in procuring him pleasures. . . . Every
custom invites to repose, and every object inspires an
indolent voluptuousness. Their delight is to recline on
soft verdure under the shade of trees, and to muse with-
out fixing the attention, lulled by the trickling of a
fountain or the murmuring of a rivulet, and inhaling
through their pipe a gently inebriating vapour. Such
pleasures, the highest which the rich can enjoy, are
equally within the reach of the artizan or the peasant."

M. Volney corroborates this account of them : —
"Their behaviour," he says, "is serious, austere, and
melancholy; they rarely laugh, and the gaiety of the
French appears to them a fit of delirium. When they
speak, it is with deliberation, without gestures and with-
out passion ; they listen without interrupting you ; they
are silent for whole days together, and they by no means
pique themselves on supporting conversation. If they

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. 185

walk, it is always leisurely, and on business. They have
no idea of our troublesome activity, and our walks
backwards and forwards for amusement. Continually
seated, they pass whole days smoking, with their legs
crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost with-
out changing their attitude." Englishmen present as
great a contrast to the Ottoman as the French ; as a
late English traveller brings before us, apropos of see-
ing some Turks in quarantine : " Certainly," he says,
" Englishmen are the least able to wait, and the Turks
the most so, of any people I have ever seen. To im-
pede an Englishman's locomotion on a journey, is equiva-
lent to stopping the circulation of his blood ; to disturb
the repose of a Turk on his, is to re-awaken him to a
painful sense of the miseries of life. The one nation
at rest is as much tormented as Prometheus, chained
to his rock, with the vulture feeding on him ; the
other in motion is as uncomfortable as Ixion tied to
his ever-moving wheel"1

2.

However, the barbarian, when roused to action, is a
very different being from the barbarian at rest. " The
Turk," says Mr. Thornton, " is usually placid, hypochon-
driac, and unimpassioned ; but, when the customary
sedateness of his temper is ruffled, his passions ....
are furious and uncontrollable. The individual seems
possessed with all the ungovernable fury of a multitude;
and all ties, all attachments, all natural and moral obli-
gations, are forgotten or despised, till his rage subsides."
A similar remark is made by a writer of the day : " The
Turk on horseback has no resemblance to the Turk
reclining on his carpet. He there assumes a vigour,
1 Formby's Visit, p. 70.

1 86 The Pc&t and Present of the Ottomans.

and displays a dexterity, which few Europeans would
be capable of emulating ; no horsemen surpass the
Turks ; and, with all the indolence of which they are
accused, no people are more fond of the violent exercise
of riding." l

So was it with their ancestors, the Tartars ; now
dosing on their horses or their waggons, now galloping
over the plains from morning to night. However, these
successive phases of Turkish character, as reported by
travellers, have seemed to readers as inconsistencies in
their reports; Thornton accepts the inconsistency.
" The national character of the Turks," he says, " is a
composition of contradictory qualities. We find them
brave and pusillanimous ; gentle and ferocious ; resolute
and inconstant ; active and indolent ; fastidiously abste-
mious, and indiscriminately indulgent. The great are
alternately haughty and humble, arrogant and cringing,
liberal and sordid." What is this but to say in one
word that we find them barbarians ?

According to these distinct moods or phases of cha-
racter, they will leave very various impressions of them-
selves on the minds of successive beholders. A traveller
finds them in their ordinary state in repose and serenity;
he is surprised and startled to find them so different
from what he imagined ; he admires and extols them,
and inveighs against the prejudice which has slandered
them to the European world. He finds them mild and
patient, tender to the brute creation, as becomes the
children of a Tartar shepherd, kind and hospitable, self-
possessed and dignified, the lowest classes sociable with
each other, and the children gamesome. It is true ; they
are as noble as the lion of the desert, and as gentle and
as playful as the fireside cat. Our traveller observes all

Geography.

The Past and Present of ttie Ottomans. 1 87

this;1 and seems to forget that from the humblest to
the highest of the feline tribe, from the cat to the lion,
the most wanton and tyrannical cruelty alternates with
qualities more engaging or more elevated. Other bar-
barous tribes also have their innocent aspects — from
the Scythians in the classical poets and historians down
to the Lewchoo islanders in the pages of Basil Hall.

3-

2. But whatever be the natural excellences of the
Turks, progressive they are not. This Sir Charles
Fellows seems to allow : " My intimacy with the cha-
racter of the Turks," he says, "which has led me to
think so highly of their moral excellence, has not given
me the same favourable impression of the development
of their mental powers. Their refinement is of manners
and affections ; there is little cultivation or activity of
mind among them." This admission implies a great
deal, and brings us to a fresh consideration. Observe,
they were in the eighth century of their political exist-
ence when Thornton and Volney lived among them,
and these authors report of them as follows : — " Their
buildings," says Thornton, " are heavy in their propor-
tions, bad in detail, both in taste and execution, fantastic
in decoration, and destitute of genius. Their cities are
not decorated with public monuments, whose object is
to enliven or to embellish." Their religion forbids them
every sort of painting, sculpture, or engraving ; thus the
fine arts cannot exist among them. They have no
music but vocal ; and know of no accompaniment ex-
cept a bass of one note like that of the bagpipe. Their
singing is in a great measure recitative, with little varia-
tion of note. They have scarcely any notion of medicine

1 Vi4, Sir Charles Fellows' Asia Minor,

1 88 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

or surgery ; and they do not allow of anatomy. As to
science, the telescope, the microscope, the electric bat-
tery, are unknown, except as playthings. The compass
is not universally employed in their navy, nor are its
common purposes thoroughly understood. Navigation,
astronomy, geography, chemistry, are either not known,
or practised only on antiquated and exploded principles.
As to their civil and criminal codes of law, these are
unalterably fixed in the Koran. Their habits require
very little furniture ; " the whole inventory of a wealthy
family," says Volney, "consists in a carpet, mats,
cushions, mattresses, some small cotton clothes, copper
and wooden platters for the table, a mortar, a portable
mill, a little porcelain, and some plates of copper tinned.
All our apparatus of tapestry, wooden bedsteads, chairs,
stools, glasses, desks, bureaus, closets, buffets with their
plate and table services, all our cabinet and upholstery-
work are unknown." They have no clocks, though they
have watches. In short, they are hardly more than dis-
mounted Tartars still ; and, if pressed by the Powers of
Christendom, would be able, at very short warning, to
pack up and turn their faces northward to their paternal
deserts. You find in their cities barbers and mercers ;
saddlers and gunsmiths ; bakers and confectioners ;
sometimes butchers ; whitesmiths and ironmongers ;
these are pretty nearly all their trades. Their inher-
itance is their all ; their own acquisition is nought. Their
stuffs are from the classical Greeks ; their dyes are the
old Tyrian ; their cement is of the age of the Romans ;
and their locks may be traced back to Solomon. They
do not commonly engage either in agriculture or in
commerce ; of the cultivators of the soil I have said
quite enough in a foregoing Lecture, and their com-
merce seems to be generally in the hands of Franks

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. \ 89

Greeks, or Armenians, as formerly in the hands of the
Jews.1

The White Huns took to commerce and diplomacy
in the course of a century or two ; the Saracens in a
shorter time unlearned their barbarism, and became
philosophers and experimentalists ; what have the Turks
to show to the human race for their long spell of pros-
perity and power ?

As to their warfare, their impracticable and unpro-
gressive temperament showed itself even in the era of
their military and political ascendancy, and had much
to do, as far as human causes are concerned, with their
defeat at Lepanto. " The signal for engaging was no
sooner given," says the writer in the " Universal History,"
" than the Turks with a hideous cry fell on six galeasses,
which lay at anchor near a mile ahead of the confederate
fleet." "With a hideous cry," — this was the true bar-
barian onset ; we find it in the Red Indians and the
New Zealanders ; and it is noticed of the Seljukians,
the predecessors of the Ottomans, in their celebrated
engagement with the Crusaders at Dorylaeum. " With
horrible howlings," says Mr. Turner, " and loud clangour
of drums and trumpets, the Turks rushed on ; " and you
may recollect, the savage who would have murdered
the Bishop of Bamberg, began with a shriek. However,
as you will see directly, such an onset was as ignorant
as it was savage, for it was made with a haughty and
wilful blindness to the importance of firearms under
their circumstances. The Turks, in the hey-day of
their victories and under their most sagacious leaders,

1 The correspondent of the Times in February, 1854, speaking of the
great arsenal of Rustchuk, observes : '* All the heavy smith work was
done by Bulgarians, the light iron work by gipsies, the carpenters were all
Turks, the sawyers Bulgarians, the tinmen all Jews. "

1 90 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

had scorned and ignored the use of the then newly in-
vented instruments of war. In truth, they had shared
the prejudice against firearms which had been in the
first instance felt by the semi-barbarous chivalry of
Europe. The knight- errant, as Ariosto draws and
reflects him, disdained so dishonourable a means of
beating a foe. He looked upon the use of gunpowder,
as Mr. Thornton reminds us, as " cruel, cowardly, and
murderous ; " because it gave an unfair and disgraceful
advantage to the feeble or the unwarlike. Such was
the sentiment of the Ottomans even in the reign of their
great Soli man. Shortly before the battle of Lepanto,
a Dalmatian horseman rode express to Constantinople,
and reported to the Divan, that 2,500 Turks had been
surprised and routed by 500 musqueteers. Great was
the indignation of the assembly against the unfortunate
troops, of whom the messenger was one. But he was
successful in his defence of himself and his companions.
" Do you not hear," he said, " that we were overcome by
guns ? We were routed by fire, not by the enemy. It
would have been otherwise, had it been a contest of
courage. They took fire to their aid ; fire is one of the
elements ; what is man that he should resist their
shock ? " They did not dream of the apophthegm that
knowledge is power ; and that we become strong by
subduing nature to our will.

Accordingly, their tactics by sea was a sort of land
engagement on deck, as it was with our ancestors, and
with the ancients. First, they charged the adverse
vessel, with a view of taking it ; if that would not do,
they boarded it. They fought hand to hand, and each
captain might pretty much exercise his own judgment
which ship to attack, as Homer's heroes chose their
combatants on the field of Troy. However, the Chris-

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. I g i

tian galeasses at Lepanto, — for to these we must at
length return, — were vessels of larger dimensions than
the Ottomans had ever built ; they were fortified, like
castles, with heavy ordnance, and were so disposed as
to cover the line of their own galleys. The consequence
was, that as the Turks advanced in order of battle, these
galeasses kept up a heavy and destructive fire upon
them, and their barbarian energy availed them as little
as their howlings. It was the triumph of civilization
over brute force, as well as of faith over misbelief,
"While discipline and attention to the military exer-
cises could insure success in war, the Turks," says
Thornton, "were the first of military nations. When
the whole art of war was changed, and victory or defeat
became matter of calculation, the rude and illiterate
Turkish warriors experienced the fatal consequences of
ignorance without suspecting the cause ; accustomed tc
employ no other means than force, they sunk intc
despondency, when force could no longer avail."

Another half century has passed since this was written
and the Turkish power has now completed its eighth
century since Togrul Beg, the first Seljukian Sultan ;
and what has been the fruit of so long a duration ? Just
about the time of Togrul Beg, flourished William, Duke
of Normandy ; he passed over to take possession of
England ; compare the England of the Conquest with
the England of this day. Again, compare the Rome of
Junius Brutus to the Rome of Constantine, 800 years
afterwards. In each of these polities there was a con-
tinuous progression, and the end was unlike the begin-
ning ; but the Turks, except that they have gained the
faculty of political union, are pretty much what they
were when they crossed the Jaxartes and Oxus. Again
at the time of Togrul Beg, the Greek schism also toot

1C) 2 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

place ; now from Michael Cerularius, in 1054, to Anthi-
mus, in 1853, Patriarchs of Constantinople, eight centuries
have passed of religious deadness and insensibility : a
longer time has passed in China of a similar political
inertness : yet China has preserved at least the civiliza-
tion, and Greece the ecclesiastical science, with which
they respectively passed into their long sleep ; but the
Turks of this day are still in the less than infancy of
art, literature, philosophy, and general knowledge ; and
we may fairly conclude that, if they have not learned
the very alphabet of science in eight hundred years, they
are not likely to set to work on it in the nine hundredth.
Moreover, it is remarkable that with them, as with the
ancient Medes and Persians, change of law and govern-
ment is distinctly prohibited. The greatest of their
Sultans, and the last of the great ten, Soli man, known
in European history as the Magnificent, is called by his
compatriots the Regulator, on account of the irreversible
sanction which he gave to the existing administration of
affairs. "The magnitude and the splendour of the mili-
tary achievements of Soliman," says Mr. Thornton, "are
surpassed in the judgment of his people by the wisdom of
his legislation. He has acquired the name of Canuni,
or institutor of rules ... on account of the order and
police which he established in his Empire. He caused
a compilation to be made of all the maxims and regula-
tions of his predecessors on subjects of political and
military economy. He strictly defined the duties, the
powers, and the privileges of all governors, commanders,
and public functionaries. He regulated the levies, the
services, the equipments, and the pay of the military
and maritime force of the Empire. He prescribed the
mode of collecting, and of applying, the public revenue.
He assigned to every officer his rank at court, in the

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. 193

city, and in the army ; and the observance of his regula-
tions was enforced on his successors by the sanction of
his authority. The work, which his ancestors had begun,
and which his care had completed, seemed to himself
and his contemporaries the compendium of human wis-
dom. Soliman contemplated it with the fondness of a
parent ; and, conceiving it not to be susceptible of further
improvement, he endeavoured to secure its perpetual
duration." The author, after pointing out that this was
done at the very time when a new hemisphere was in
course of exploration, when the telescope was mapping
for mankind the heavens, when the Baconian philosophy
was about to convert discovery and experiment into
instruments of science, printing was carrying knowledge
and literature into the heart of society, and the fine arts
were receiving one of their most remarkable develop-
ments, proceeds : " The institutions of Soliman placed
a barrier between his subjects and future improve-
ment. He beheld with complacency and exultation the
eternal fabric which his hands had reared ; and the
curse denounced against pride has reduced the nation,
which participated in his sentiments, to a state of in-
feriority to the present level of civilized men." The
result is the same, though we say that Soliman only
recognized and affirmed that barbarism was the law oi
the Ottoman power.

4-

3. It is true that in the last quarter of a century
efforts have been made by the government of Constan-
tinople to innovate on the existing condition of its people;
and it has addressed itself in the first instance to certain
details of daily Turkish life. We must take it for
granted that it began with such changes as were easiest ;
VOL. I. 13

194 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

if so, its failure in these small matters suggests how little
ground there is for hope of success in other advances
more important and difficult. Every one knows that in
the details of dress, carriage, and general manners, the
Turks are very different from Europeans : so different,
and so consistently different, that the contrariety would
seem to arise from some difference of essential principle.
"This dissimilitude," says Mr. Thornton, "which per-
vades the whole of their habits, is so general, even in
things of apparent insignificance, as almost to indicate
design rather than accident. The whole exterior of the
Oriental is different from purs." And then he goes on
to mention some specimens, to which we are able to
add others from Volney and Bell. For instance : — The
European stands firm and erect ; his head drawn back,
his chest advanced, his toes turned out, his knees straight.
The attitude of the Turk, in each of these particulars,
is different, and, to express myself by an antithesis, is
more conformable to nature, and less to reason. The
European wears short and close garments, the Turk
long and ample. The one uncovers the head, when he
would show reverence ; with the other, a bared head is
a sign of folly. The one salutes by an inclination, the
other by raising himself. The one passes his life upright,
the other sitting. The one sits on raised seats, the other on
the ground. In inviting a person to approach, the one
draws his hand to him, the other thrusts it from him.
The host in Europe helps himself last ; in Turkey, first.
The one drinks to his company, or at least to some
toast ; the other drinks silently, and his guests con-
gratulate him. The European has a night dress, the
Turk lies down in his clothes. The Turkish barber
pushes the razor from him ; the Turkish carpenter draws
the saw to him ; the Turkish mason sits as he builds ;

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. 195

and he begins a house at the top, and finishes at the
bottom, so that the upper rooms are inhabited, when
the bottom is a framework.

Now it would seem as if this multitude of little usages
hung together, and were as difficult to break through as
the meshes of some complicated web. However, the
Sultan found it the most favourable subject-matter of
his incipient reformation ; and his consequent attempt
and the omens of its ultimate issue are interestingly
recounted in the pages of Sir Charles Fellows, the pane-
gyrist both of Mahmood and his people. " The Turk,"
he says, "proud of his beard, comes up from the province
a candidate for, or to receive, the office of governor.
The Sultan gives him an audience, passes his hand over
his own short-trimmed beard ; the candidate takes the
hint, and appears the next day shorn of his honoured
locks. The Sultan, who is always attired in a plain blue
frock coat, asks of the aspirant for office if he admires
it ; he, of course, praises the costume worn by his patron ;
whereupon the Sultan suggests that he would look well
in it, as also in the red unturbaned fez. The following
day the officer again attends to receive or lose his ap-
pointment ; and, to promote the progress of his suit,
throws off his costly and beautiful costume, and appears
like the Sultan in the dull unsightly frock."

Such is the triumph of loyalty and self-interest, and
such is its limit. " A regimental cloak," continues our
author, " may sometimes be seen covering a fat body
inclosed in all the robes of the Turkish costume ; the
whole bundle, including the fur-lined gown, being
strapped together round the waist. Some of the figures
are literally as broad as long, and have a laughable effect
on horseback. The saddles for the upper classes are
now generally made of the European form ; but the

1 96 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

people, who cannot give up their accustomed love of
finery for plain leather, have them mostly of purple or
crimson velvet, embroidered with silver or gold, the
holsters ornamented with beautiful patterns." After a
while, he continues : " One very unpopular reform which
the Sultan tried to effect in the formation of his troops
was that of their wearing braces, a necessary accom-
paniment to the trousers ; and why ? because these form
a cross, the badge of the infidel, upon the back. Many,
indeed, will submit to severe punishment, and even
death, for disobedience to military orders, rather than
bear upon their persons this sign hostile to their religion."
In another place he continues this subject with an
amusing accuracy of analysis : — " The mere substitution
of trousers for their loose dress interferes seriously with
their old habits ; they all turn in their toes, in consequence
of the Turkish manner of sitting, and they walk wide,
and with a swing, from being habituated to the full
drapery : this gait has become natural to them, and in
their European trousers they walk in the same manner.
They wear wide-topped loose boots, which push up their
trousers. Wellington boots would be still more incon-
venient, as they must slip them off six times a day for
prayers. In this new dress they cannot with comfort
sit or kneel on the ground, as is their custom ; and they
will thus be led to use chairs ; and with chairs they will
want tables. But, were these to be introduced, their
houses would be too low, for their heads would almost
touch the ceiling. Thus by a little innovation might
their whole usages be unhinged."

5-

4. In these failures, however, should they turn out to be
such, the vis inertia of habit is not the whole account of

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. 197

the matter ; an antagonistic principle is at work, charac-
teristic of the barbarian, and intimately present to the
mind of a Turk — national pride. All nations, indeed, are
proud of themselves ; but, as being the first and the best,
not as being the solitary existing perfection, among the
inhabitants of the earth. Civilized nations allow that
foreigners have their specific excellences, and such ex-
cellences as are a lesson to themselves. They may think
too well of their own proficiency, and may lose by such
blindness ; but they admit enough about others to allow
of their own emulation and advance ; whereas the bar-
barian, in his own estimate, is perfect already ; and what
is perfect cannot be improved. Hence he cherishes in
his heart a self-esteem of a very peculiar kind, and a
special contempt of others. He views foreigners, either
as simply unworthy of his attention, or as objects of his
legitimate dominion. Thus, too, he justifies his sloth,
and places his ignorance of all things human and divine
on a sort of intellectual basis.

Robertson, in his history of America, enlarges on this
peculiarity of the savage. " The Tartar," he says, " ac-,
customed to roam over extensive plains, and to subsist
on the produce of his herds, imprecates upon his enemy
as the greatest of all curses, that he may be condemned
to reside in one place, and to be nourished with the top
of a weed. The rude Americans . . .far from com-
plaining of their own situation, or viewing that of men
in a more improved state with admiration or envy, regard
themselves as the standard of excellence, as beings the
best entitled, as well as the most perfectly qualified, to
enjoy real happiness. . . . Void of foresight, as well
as free from care themselves, and delighted with that
state of indolent security, they wonder at the anxious
precautions, the unceasing industry, and complicated

198 The Past and Present of tht Ottomans.

arrangements of Europeans, in guarding against distant
evils, or providing for future wants ; and they often ex-
claim against their preposterous folly, in thus multiply-
ing the troubles, and increasing the labour of life. . . .
The appellation which the Iroquois give to themselves
is, ' The chief of men/ Caraibe, the original name oi
the fierce inhabitants of the Windward Islands, signifies
' The warlike people.' The Cherokees, from an idea of
their own superiority, call the Europeans ' Nothings/ or
' The accursed race/ and assume to themselves the name
of ' The beloved people/ . . . They called them the
froth of the sea, men without father or mother. They
suppose that either they have no country of their own,
and, therefore, invaded that which belonged to others ;
or that, being destitute of the necessaries of life at
home, they were obliged to roam over the ocean, in order
to rob such as were more amply provided."1

It is easy to see that an intense self-adoration, such as
is here suggested, is, in the case of a" martial people, to
a certain point a principle of strength ; it gives a sort of
•intellectual force to the impetuosity and obstinacy of their
attacks ; while, on the other hand, it is in the long run
a principle of debility, as blinding them to the most
evident and imminent dangers, and, after defeat, burden-
ing and precipitating their despair.

Now, is it possible to trace this attribute of barbarism
among the Turks ? If so, what does it do for them,
and whence is it supplied ? You will recollect, I have
not been unwilling in a former Lecture to acknowledge
what is salutary in Mahometanism ; certainly it embodies
in it some ancient and momentous truths, and is undeni-
ably beneficial so far as their proper influence extends.
But, after all, looked at as a religion, it is as debasing to

1 Lab. iv. fin.

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. 1 99

the populations which receive it as it is false ; and, as it
arose among barbarians, it is not wonderful that it sub-
serves the reign of barbarism. This it certainly does in
the case of the Turks ; already three great departments
of intellectual activity in civilized countries have inci-
dentally come before us, which are forbidden ground to its
professors. The first is legislation ; for the criminal and
civil code of the Mahometan is unalterably fixed in the
Koran. The second is the modern system of money
transactions and finance ; for " in obedience to their
religion," says an author I have been lately quoting,1
" which, like the Jewish law, forbids taking interest for
money, the Turks abstain from carrying on many lucra-
tive trades connected with the lending of money. Hence
other nations, generally the Armenians, act as their
bankers." The third is the department of the Fine Arts
for, it being unlawful to represent the human form, nay,
any natural substance whatever, as fruit or flowers, sculp-
ture loses its solitary object, painting is almost extin-
guished, while architecture has been obliged to undergo a
sort of revolution in its decorative portions to accommo-
date it to the restriction. These, however, are matters of
detail, though of very high importance ; what I wish rather
to point out is the general tendency of Mahometanism, as
such, to foster those very faults in the barbarian which
keep him from ameliorating his condition. Here some-
thing might be said on what seems to be the acknow-
ledged effect of its doctrine of fatalism, viz., in encourag-
ing a barbarian recklessness of mind both in special
seasons of prosperity and adversity, and in the ordinary
business of life ; but this is a point which it is difficult
to speak of without a more intimate knowledge of its
circumstances than can be gained at a distance ; I prefer

i Sir C. Fellows.

2OO The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

to show how the Religion is calculated to act upon that
extravagant self-conceit, which Robertson tells us is so
congenial to uncivilized man. While, on the one hand,
it closes the possible openings and occasions of internal
energy and self- education, it has no tendency to compen-
sate for this mischief, on the other, by inculcating any
docile attention to the instruction of foreigners.

To learn from others, you must entertain a respect
for them ; no one listens to those whom he contemns.
Christian nations make progress in secular matters,
because they are aware they have many things to learn,
and do not mind from whom they learn them, so that
he be able to teach. It is true that Christianity, as well
as Mahometanism, which imitated it, has its visible
polity, and its universal rule, and its especial preroga-
tives and powers and lessons, for its disciples. But, with
a divine wisdom, and contrary to its human copyist,, it
has carefully guarded (if I may use the expression)
against extending its revelations to any point which
would blunt the keenness of human research or the
activity of human toil. It has taken those matters for
its field in which the human mind, left to itself, could
not profitably exercise itself, or progress, if it would ; it
has confined its revelations to the province of theology,
only indirectly touching on other departments of know-
ledge, so far as theological truth accidentally affects
them ; and it has shown an equally remarkable care in
preventing the introduction of the spirit of caste or race
into its constitution or administration. Pure nationalism
it abhors ; its authoritative documents pointedly ignore
the distinction of Jew and Gentile, and warn us that the
first often becomes the last ; while its subsequent history

The Past and Present of the Ottomans 2OI

has illustrated this great principle, by its awful, and
absolute, and inscrutable, and irreversible passage from
country to country, as its territory and its home. Such,
then, it has been in the divine counsels, and such, too, as
realized in fact ; but man has ways of his own, and,
even before its introduction into the world, the inspired
announcements, which preceded it, were distorted by the
people to whom they were given, to minister to views of
a very different kind. The secularized Jews, relying on
Jie supernatural favours locally and temporally be-
stowed on themselves, fell into the error of supposing
that a conquest of the earth was reserved for some
mighty warrior of their own race, and that, in compen-
sation of the reverses which befell them, they were to
become an imperial nation.

What a contrast is presented to us by these different
ideas of a universal empire ! The distinctions of race
are indelible ; a Jew cannot become a Greek, or a Greek
a Jew ; birth is an event of past time ; according to the
Judaizers, their nation, as a nation, was ever to be domi-
nant ; and all other nations, as such, were inferior and
subject. What was the necessary consequence ? There
is nothing men more pride themselves on than birth, for
this very reason, that it is irrevocable ; it can neither be
given to those who have it not, nor taken away from
those who have. The Almighty can do anything which
admits of doing ; He can compensate every evil ; but a
Greek poet says that there is one thing impossible to
Him — to undo what is done. Without throwing the
thought into a shape which borders on the profane, we
may see in it the reason why the idea of national power
•was so dear and so dangerous to the Jew. It was his
consciousness of inalienable superiority that led him to
regard Roman and Greek, Syrian and Egyptian, with

2O2 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

ineffable arrogance and scorn. Christians, too, are ac-
customed to think of those who are not Christians as
their inferiors ; but the conviction which possesses them,
that they have what others have not, is obviously not
open to the temptation which nationalism presents.
According to their own faith, there is no insuperable
gulf between themselves and the rest of mankind ; there
is not a being in the whole world but is invited by their
religion to occupy the same position as themselves, and,
did he come, would stand on their very level, as if he
had ever been there. Such accessions to their body
they continually receive, and they are bound under
obligation of duty to promote them. They never can
pronounce of any one, now external to them, that he
will not some day be among them ; they never can pro-
nounce of themselves that, though they are now within,
they may not some day be found outside, the divine
polity. Such are the sentiments inculcated by Chris-
tianity, even in the contemplation of the very superiority
which it imparts ; even there it is a principle, not of re-
pulsion between man and man, but of good fellowship;
but as to subjects of secular knowledge, since here it
does not arrogate any superiority at all, it has in fact no
tendency whatever to centre its disciple's contemplation
on himself, or to alienate him from his kind. He readily
acknowledges and defers to the superiority in art or science
of those, if so be, who are unhappily enemies to Chris-
tianity. He admits the principle of progress on all matters
of knowledge and conduct on which the Creator has not
decided the truth already by revealing it ; and he is at
all times ready to learn, in those merely secular matters,
from those who can teach him best. Thus it is that Chris-
tianity, even negatively, and without contemplating its
positive influences, is the religion of civilization.

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. 203

7-

But I have here been directing your attention to
Christianity with no other view than to illustrate, by
the contrast, the condition of the Mahometan Turks.
Their religion is not far from embodying the very dream
of the Judaizing zealots of the Apostolic age. On the
one hand, there is in it the profession of a universal em-
pire, and an empire by conquest ; nay, military success
seems to be considered the special note of its divine
origin. On the other hand, I believe it is a received
notion with them that their religion is not even intended
for the north of the earth, for some reasons connected
with its ceremonial ; nor is there in it any public
recognition, as in intercessory prayer, of the duty of
converting infidels. Certainly, the idea of Mahometan
missions and missionaries, unless an army in the field
may be considered to be such, is never suggested to us
by Eastern historian or traveller, as entering into their
religious system. Though the Caliphate, then, may be
transferred from Saracen to Turk, Mahometanism is
essentially a consecration of the principle of nationalism ;
and thereby is as congenial to the barbarian as Chris-
tianity is congenial to man civilized. The less a man
knows, the more conceited he is of his proficiency ; and,
the more barbarous is a nation, the more imposing and
peremptory are its claims. Such was the spirit of the
religion of the Tartars, whatever was the nature of its
tenets in detail. It deified the Tartar race; Zingis Khan
was "the son of God, mild and venerable ;" and " God
was great and exalted over all, and immortal, but Zingis
Khan was sole lord upon the earth."1 Such, too, is the
strength of the Greek schism, which there only flourishes

1 Bergeron, t. 1.

1 04 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

where it can fasten on barbarism, and extol the prero-
gatives of an elect nation. The Czar is the divinely-
appointed source of religious power ; his country is
"Holy Russia;" and the high office committed to him
and to it is to extend what it considers the orthodox
faith. The Osmanlis are not behind Tartar or Russ in
pretending to a divine mission ; the Sultan, in his treaties
with Christian Powers, calls himself " Refuge of Sove-
reigns, Distributor of Crowns to the Kings of the earth,
Master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and shadow of God
upon earth."

We might smile at such titles, were they not claimed
in good earnest, and professed in order to be used. It
is said to be the popular belief among the Turks, that
the monarchs of Europe are, as this imperial style
declares, the feudatories of the Sultan. We should
smile, too, at the very opposite titles which they apply to
Europeans, did they not here, too, mean what they say,
and strengthen and propagate their own scorn and hatred
of us by using them. " The Mussulmans, courteous and
humane in their intercourse with each other," says
Thornton, " sternly refuse to unbelievers the salutation of
peace." Not that they necessarily insult the Christian,
he adds, by this refusal ; nay, he even insists that
polished Turks are able to practise condescension ; and
then, as an illustration of their courtesy, he tells us that
"Mr. Eton, pleasantly and accurately enough, compared
the general behaviour of a Turk to a Christian with that
of a German baron to his vassal." However, he allows
that at least " the common people, more bigoted to their
dogmas, express more bluntly their sense of superiority
over the Christians." " Their usual salutation addressed
to Christians," says Volney, " is 'good morning ; ' but it
is well if it be not accompanied with a Djaour, Kafer, or

The Past and Present of the Ottomans. 205

Kelb, that is, impious, infidel, dog, expressions to which
Christians are familiarized." Sir C. Fellows is an earnest
witness for their amiableness ; but he does not conceal
that the children " hoot after a European, and call him
Frank dog, and even strike him ;" and on one occasion
a woman caught up a child and ran off from him, crying
out against the Ghiaour ; which gives him an oppor-
tunity of telling us that the word " Ghiaour " means a
man without a soul, without a God. A writer in a
popular Review, who seems to have been in the East,
tells us that " their hatred and contempt of the Ghiaour
and Frangi is as burning as ever ; perhaps even more so,
because they are forced to implore his aid. The Eastern
seeks Christian aid in the same spirit and with the same
disgust as he would eat swine's flesh, were it the only
means of securing him from starvation."1 Such conduct
is indeed only consistent with their faith, and the un-
tenableness of that faith is not my present question ;
here I do but ask, are these barbarians likely to think
themselves inferior in any respect to men without souls ?
are they likely to receive civilization from the nations
of the West, whom, according to the well-known story,
they definitively divide into the hog and the dog ?

I have not time for more than an allusion to what is
the complement of this arrogance, and is a most preg-
nant subject of thought, whenever the fortunes of the
Ottomans are contemplated ; I mean the despair which
takes its place in their minds, consistently with the bar-
barian temperament, upon the occurrence of any con-
siderable reverses. A passage from Mr. Thornton just
now quoted refers to this characteristic. The overthrow
at Lepanto, though they rallied from their consternation
for a while, was a far more serious and permanent

1 Edinburgh Rev. 1853.

206 The Past and Present of the Ottomans.

misfortune in its moral than in its material consequences.
And, on any such national calamity, the fatalism of
their creed, to which I have already referred, consecrates
and fortifies their despair.

I have been proving a point, which most persons would
grant me, in thus insisting on the essential barbarism
of the Turks ; but I have thought it worth while to
insist on it under the feeling, that to prove it is at the
same time to describe it, and many persons will vaguely
grant that they are barbarous without having any clear
idea what barbarism means. With this view I draw out
my formal conclusion : — If civilization be the ascendancy
of rnind over passion and imagination ; if it manifests
itself in consistency of habit and action, and is charac-
terised by a continual progress or development of the
principles on which it rests ; and if, on the other hand,
the Turks alternate between sloth and energy, self-con-
fidence and despair, — if they have two contrary characters
within them, and pass from one to the other rapidly,
and when they are the one, are as if they could not
be the other ; — if they think themselves, notwithstand-
ing, to be the first nation upon earth, while at the end of
many centuries they are just what they were at the
beginning ; — if they are so ignorant as not to know their
ignorance, and so far from making progress that they
have not even started, and so far from seeking instruc-
tion that they think no one fit to teach them ; — there
is surely not much hazard in concluding, that, apart
from the consideration of any supernatural intervention,
barbarians they have lived, and barbarians they will die

207

LECTURE IX.
The Future of the Ottomans.

OCIENTIFIC anticipations are commonly either
O truisms or failures ; failures, if, as is usually the
case, they are made upon insufficient data ; and truisms,
if they succeed, for conclusions, being always contained
in their premisses, never can be discoveries. Yet, as
mixed mathematics correct, without superseding, the
pure science, so I do not see why I may not allow-
ably take a sort of pure philosophical view of the Turks
and their position, though it be but abstract and theo-
retical, and require correction when confronted by the
event. There is a use in investigating what ought to be,
under given suppositions and conditions, even though
speculation and fact do not happen to keep pace
together.

As to myself, having laid down my premisses, as
drawn from historical considerations, I must needs go
on, whether I will or no, to the conjectures to which
they lead ; and that shall be my business in this con-
cluding discussion. My line of argument has been as
follows : — First, I stated some peculiarities of civilized
and of barbarian communities ; I said that it is a
general truth that civilized states are destroyed from
within, and barbarian states from without ; that the
very causes, which lead to the greatness of civilized
communities, at length by continuing become their

208 The Future of the Ottomans.

ruin, whereas the causes of barbarian greatness uphold
that greatness, as long as they continue, and by ceasing
to act, not by continuing, lead the way to its overthrow.
Thus the intellect of Athens first was its making and
then its unmaking ; while the warlike prowess of the
Spartans maintained their pre-eminence, till it succumbed
to the antagonist prowess of Thebes.

i,

I laid down this principle as a general law of human
society, open to exceptions and requiring modifications
in particular cases, but true on the whole. Next, I
went on to show that the Ottoman power was of a
barbarian character. The conclusion is obvious ; viz.,
that it has risen, and will fall, not by anything within
it, but by agents external to itself; and this conclusion,
I certainly think, is actually confirmed by Turkish his-
tory, as far as it has hitherto gone. The Ottoman state
seems, in matter of fact, to be most singularly con-
structed, so as to have nothing inside of it, and to be
moved solely or mainly by influences from without.
What a contrast, for instance, to the German race ! In
the earliest history of that people, we discern an element
of civilization, a vigorous action of the intellect residing
in the body, independent of individuals, and giving birth
to great men, rather than created by them. Again, in
the first three centuries of the Church, we find martyrs
indeed in plenty, as the Turks might have soldiers ; but
(to view the matter humanly) perhaps there was not one
great mind, after the Apostles, to teach and to mould
her children. The highest intellects, Origen, Tertullia*n,
and Eusebius, were representatives of a philosophy not
hers ; her greatest bishops, such as St. Gregory, St.
Dionysius, and St. Cyprian, so little exercised a doctor's.

The Future of the Ottomans. 269

office, as to incur, however undeservedly, the imputation
of doctrinal inaccuracy. Vigilant as was the Holy See
then, as in every age, yet there is no Pope, I may say,
during that period, who , has impressed his character
upon his generation ; yet how well instructed, how pre-
cisely informed, how self-possessed an oracle of truth,
nevertheless, do we find the Church to be, when the
great internal troubles of the fourth century required it !
how unambiguous, how bold is the Christianity of the
great Pontiffs, St. Julius, St. Damasus, St. Siricius, and
St. Innocent ; of the great Doctors, St. Athanasius,
St. Basil, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine ! By what
channels, then, had the divine philosophy descended
down from the Great Teacher through three centuries
of persecution ? First through the See and Church of
Peter, into which error never intruded (though Popes
might be little more than victims, to be hunted out and
killed, as soon as made), and to which the faithful from
all quarters of the world might have recourse when
difficulties arose, or when false teachers anywhere
exalted themselves. But intercommunion was difficult,
and comparatively rare in days like those, and of
nothing is there less pretence of proof than that the
Holy See, while persecution raged, imposed a faith
upon the ecumenical body. Rather, in that earliest
age, it was simply the living spirit of the myriads of the
faithful, none of them known to fame, who received
from the disciples of our Lord, and husbanded so well,
and circulated so widely, and transmitted so faithfully,
generation after generation, the once delivered apostolic
faith ; who held it with such sharpness of outline and
explicitness of detail, as enabled even the unlearned
instinctively to discriminate between truth and error,
spontaneously to reject the very shadow of heresy, and
VOL. i. *4

21 6 The Future of the Ottomans.

to be proof against the fascination of the most brilliant
intellects, when they would lead them out of the narrow
way. Here, then, is a luminous instance of what I
mean by an energetic action from within.

Take again the history of the Saracenic schools and
parties, on which I have already touched. Mr. South-
gate considers the absence of religious controversy among
the Turks, contrasted with its frequency of old among the
Saracens, as a proof of the decay of the spirit of Islam.
I should rather refer the present apathy to the national
temperament of the Turks, and set it down, with other
instances I shall mention presently, as a result of their
barbarism. Saracenic Mahometanism, on the contrary,
gives me an apposite illustration of what I mean by an
" interior " people, if I may borrow a devotional word
to express a philosophical idea. A barbarous nation has
no " interior," but the Saracens show us what a national
"interior" is. " In former ages," says the author to whom
I have referred, Mr. Southgate, " the bosom of Islamism
was riven with numerous feuds and schisms, some of which
have originated from religious controversy, and others
from political ambition. During the first centuries of
its existence, and while Mussulman learning flourished
under the patronage of the Caliphs, religious questions
were discussed by the learned with all the proverbial
virulence of theological hatred. The chief of these ques-
tions respected the origin of the Koran, the nature of
God, predestination and free will, and the grounds of
human salvation. The question, whether the Koran was
created or eternal, rent for a time the whole body of
Islamism into twain, and gave rise to the most violent
persecutions. . . . Besides these religious contentions,
which divided the Mussulmans into parties, but seldom
gave birth to sects, there have sprung up, at different

The Future of the Ottomans. 211

periods, avowed heresies, which flourished for a time,
and for the most part died with their authors. Others,
stimulated by ambition only, have reared the standard
of revolt, and under cover of some new religious dogma,
propounded only to shield a selfish end, have sought to
raise themselves to power. Most of these, whether
theological disputes, heresies, or civil rebellions, cloaked
under the name of religion, arose previously to the
sixteenth century."1

2.

Such is that internal peculiarity, the presence of which
constitutes a civilized, the absence a barbarous people ;
which makes a people great, and small again ; and which,
just consistently with the notion of their being barbarians,
I cannot discern, for strength or for weakness, in the
Turks. On the contrary, almost all the elements of
their success, and instruments of their downfall, are
jxternal to themselves. For instance, their religion, one
of their principal bonds, owes nothing to them ; it is,
not only in substance, but in concrete shape, just what
it was when it came to them. I cannot find that they
have commented upon it ; I cannot find that they are
the channels of any of those famous traditions by which
the Koran is interpreted, and which they themselves
accept ; or that they have exercised their minds upon it
at all, except so far as they have been obliged, in a certain
degree, to do so in the administration of the law. It is
true also that they have been obliged to choose to be
Sunnites and not Shiahs ; but, considering the latter sect
arose in Persia, since the date of the Turkish occupation
of Constantinople, it was really no choice at all. They
have but remained as they were. Besides, the Shiahs

1 Tour through Armenia, etc.

212 The Future of the Ottomans.

maintain the hereditary transmission of the Caliphate,
which would exclude the line of Othman from the succes-
sion— good reason then the Turks should be Sunnites ;
and the dates of the two events so nearly coincide, that
one could even fancy that the Shiahs actually arose in
consequence of the Sultan Selim's carrying off the last of
the Abassides from Egypt, and gaining the transference
of the Caliphate from his captive. Besides, if it is worth
while pursuing the point, did they not remain Sunnites,
they would have to abandon the traditional or oral law,
and must cease to use the labours of its four great
doctors, which would be to bring upon themselves an
incalculable extent of intellectual toil ; for without re-
cognized comments on the Koran, neither the religion
nor the civil state could be made to work.

The divine right of the line of Othman is another of
their special political bonds, and this too is shown by the
following extract from a well-known historian,1 if it needs
showing, to be simply external to themselves : " The
origin of the Sultans," he says, " is obscure ; but this
sacred and indefeasible right " to the throne, " which no
time can erase, and no violence can infringe, was soon
and unalterably implanted in the minds of their subjects.
A weak or vicious Sultan may be deposed and strangled,
but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an idiot ; nor
has the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne i
of his lawful sovereign. While the transient dynasties of j
Asia have been continually subverted by a crafty visir j
in the palace, or a victorious general in the camp, the j
Ottoman succession has been confirmed by the practice
of five centuries, and is now incorporated with the vital
principle of the Turkish nation." Here we have on the>
one hand the imperial succession described as an element!

1 Gibbon.

The Future of the Ottomans. 213

of the political life of the Osmanlis — on the other as an
appointment over which they have no power ; and ob-
viously it is from its very nature independent of them.
It is a form of life external to the community it vivifies.

Probably it was the wonderful continuity of so many
great Sultans in their early ages, which wrought in their
minds the idea of a divine mission as the attribute of the
dynasty ; and its acquisition of the Caliphate would fix
it indelibly within them. And here again, we have
another special instrument of their imperial greatness, but
still an external one. I have already had occasion to
observe, that barbarians make conquests by means of
great men, in whom they, as it were, live ; ten successive
monarchs, of extraordinary vigour and talent, carried on
the Ottomans to empire. Will any one show that those
monarchs can be fairly called specimens of the nation,
any more than Zingis was the specimen of the Tartars ?
Have they not rather acted as the Deus t machind, carrying
on the drama, which has languished or stopped, since the
time when they ceased to animate it ? Contrast the Otto-
man history in this respect with the rise of the Anglo-
Indian Empire, or with the military successes of Great
Britain under the Regency ; or again with the literary
eminence of England under Charles the Second or even
Anne, which owed little to those monarchs. Kings indeed
at various periods have been most effective patrons of art
and science ; but the question is, not whether English or
French literature has ever been indebted to royal en-
couragement, but whether the Ottomans can do any-
thing at all, as a nation, without it.

Indeed, I should like it investigated what internal his-
tory the Ottomans have at all ; what inward development
of any kind they have made since they crossed Mount
Olympus and planted themselves in Broussa ; how they

2 H The Future of the Ottomans.

have changed shape and feature, even in lesser matters,
since they were a state, or how they are a year older
than when they first came into being. We see among
them no representative of Confucius, Chi-hoagti, and the
sect of Ta-osse ; no magi ; no Pisistratus and Har-
modius ; no Socrates and Alcibiades ; no patricians and
plebeians ; no Caesar ; no invasion or adoption of foreign
mysteries ; no mythical impersonation of an AH ; no
Suffeeism ; no Guelphs and Gibellines ; nothing really on
the type of Catholic religious orders ; no Luther; nothing,
in short, which, for good or evil, marks the presence of a
life internal to the political community itself. Some
authors indeed maintain they have a literature; but I
cannot ascertain what the assertion is worth. Rather
the tenor of their annals runs thus : — Two Pachas make
war against each other, and a kat-sherif comes from
Constantinople for the head of the one or the other ; or
a Pacha exceeds in pillaging his province, or acts rebel-
liously, and is preferred to a higher government and
suddenly strangled on his way to it ; or he successfully
maintains himself, and gains an hereditary settlement,
still subject, however, to the feudal tenure, which is the
principle of the political structure, continuing to send his
contingent of troops, when the Sultan goes to war, and
remitting the ordinary taxes through his agent at Court.
Such is the staple of Turkish history, whether amid the
hordes of Turkistan, or the feudatory Turcomans of
Anatolia, or the imperial Osmanlis.

3-

The remark I am making applies to them, not only
as a nation, but as a body politic. When they descended
on horseback upon the rich territories which they occupy,
they had need tp become agriculturists, and miners, and

The Future of the Ottomans. 215

civil engineers, and traders ; all which they were not ; yet
I do not find that they have attempted any of these
functions themselves. Public works, bridges, ano> roads,
draining, levelling, building, they seem almost entirely
to have neglected ; where, however, to do something was
imperative, instead of applying themselves to their new
position, and manifesting native talent for each emer-
gency, they usually have had recourse to foreign assist-
ance to execute what was uncongenial or dishonourable
to themselves. The Franks were their merchants, the
Armenians their bankers, the subject races their field
labourers, and the Greeks their sailors. "Almost the
whole business of the ship," says Thornton, "is per-
formed by the slaves, or by the Greeks who are retained
upon wages."

The most remarkable instance of this reluctance to
develop from within — remarkable, both for the origi-
nality, boldness, success, and permanence of the policy
adopted, and for its appositeness to my purpose — is the in-
stitution of the Janizaries, detestable as it was in a moral
point of view. I enlarge upon it here because it is at the
same time a palmary instance of the practical ability and
wisdom of their great Sultans, exerted in compensation of
the resourceless impotence of the barbarians whom they
governed. The Turks were by nature nothing better
than horsemen ; infantry they could not be ; an infantry
their Sultans hardly attempted to form out of them ;
but since infantry was indispensable in European war-
fare, they availed themselves of passages in their own
earlier history, and provided themselves with a perpetual
supply of foot soldiers from without. Of this procedure
they were not, strictly speaking, the originators ; they
took the idea of it from the Saracens. You may recol-
lect that, when their ancestors were defeated by the

2 1 6 The Future of the Ottomans.

latter people in Sogdiana, instead of returning to their
deserts, they suffered themselves to be diffused and
widely located through the great empire of the Caliphs.
Whether as slaves, or as captives, or as mercenaries,
they were taken into favour by the dominant nation,
and employed as soldiers or civilians. They were chosen
as boys or youths for their handsome appearance, turned
into Mahometans, and educated for the army or other
purposes. And thus the strength of the empire which
they served was always kept fresh and vigorous, by the
continual infusion into it of new blood to perform its
functions ; a skilful policy, if the servants could be hin-
dered from becoming masters.

Masters in time they did become, and then they
adopted a similar system themselves ; we find traces of
it even in the history of the Gaznevide dynasty. In the
reign of the son of the great Mahmood, we read of an
insurrection of the slaves ; who, conspiring with one of
his nobles, seized his best horses, and rode off to his
enemies. " By slaves," says Dow, in translating this
history, "are meant the captives and young children,
bought by kings, and educated for the offices of state.
They were often adopted by the Emperors, and very
frequently succeeded to the Empire. A whole dynasty
of these possessed afterwards the throne in Hindostan."

The same system appears in Egypt, about or soon
after the time of the celebrated Saladin. Zingis, in his
dreadful expedition from Khorasan to Syria and Russia,
had collected an innumerable multitude of youthful cap-
tives, who glutted, as we may say, the markets of Asia.
This gave the conquerors of Egypt an opportunity of
forming a mercenary or foreign force for their defence,
on a more definite idea than seems hitherto to have been
acted upon. Saladin was a Curd, and, as such, a neigh-

The Future of the Ottomans. 217

hour of the Caucasus ; hence the Caucasian tribes be-
came for many centuries the store-houses of Egyptian
mercenaries. A detestable slave trade has existed with
this object, especially among the Circassians, since the
time of the Moguls ; and of these for the most part this
Egyptian force, Mamlouks, as they are called, has con-
sisted. After a time, these Mamlouks took matters into
their own hands, and became a self-elective body, or
sort of large corporation. They were masters of the
country, and of its nominal ruler, and they recruited
their ranks continually, and perpetuated their power, by
means of the natives of the Caucasus, slaves like them-
selves, and of their own race.

"During the 500 or 600 years," says Volney, "that
there have been Mamlouks in Egypt, not one of them
has left subsisting issue ; there does not exist one single
family of them in the second generation ; all their chil-
dren perish in the first and second descent. The means
therefore by which they are perpetuated and multiplied
were of necessity the same by which they were first
established." These troops have been massacred and
got rid of in the memory of the last generation ; towards
the end of last century they formed a body of above
8,500 men. The writer I have just been quoting adds
the following remarks : — " Born for the most part in the
rites of the Greek Church, and circumcised the moment
they are bought, they are considered by the Turks
themselves as renegades, void of faith and of religion.
Strangers to each other, they are not bound by those
natural ties which unite the rest of mankind. Without
parents, without children, the past has nothing to do for
them, and they do nothing for the future. Ignorant
and superstitious from education, they become ferpcious
from the murders they commit, and corrupted by the

2 1 8 The Future of the Ottomans.

most horrible debauchery." On the other hand, they
had every sort of incentive and teaching to prompt them
to rapacity and lawlessness. " The young peasant, sold
in Mingrelia or Georgia, no sooner arrives in Egypt,
than his ideas undergo a total alteration. A new and
extraordinary scene opens before him, where everything
conduces to awaken his audacity and ambition. Though
now a slave, he seems destined to become a master, and
already assumes the spirit of his future condition. No
sooner is a slave enfranchised, than he aspires to the
principal employments ; and who is to oppose his pre-
tensions ? and he will be no less able than his betters in
the art of governing, which consists only in taking
money, and giving blows with the sabre."

In describing the Mamlouks I have been in a great
measure describing the Janizaries, and have little to add
to the picture. When Amurath, one of the ten Sultans,
had made himself master of the territory round Con-
stantinople, as far as the Balkan, he passed northwards,
and subdued the warlike tribes which possessed Bulgaria,
Servia, Bosnia, and the neighbouring provinces. These
countries had neither the precious metals in their moun-
tains, nor marts of commerce ; but their inhabitants
were a brave and hardy race, who had been for ages the
terror of Constantinople. It was suggested to the Sultan,
that, according to the Mahometan law, he was entitled
to a fifth part of the captives, and he made this privilege
the commencement of a new institution. Twelve thou-
sand of the strongest and handsomest youths were
selected as his share ; he formed them into a military
force; he made them abjure Christianity, he consecrated
them with a religious rite, and named them Janizaries.
The discipline to which they were submitted was peculiar,
and in some respects severe. They were in the first in-

The Future of the Ottomans. 2 19

stance made over to the peasantry to assist them in the
labours of the field, and thus were prepared by penury
and hard fare for the privations of a military life. After
this introduction, they were drafted into the companies
of the Janizaries, but only in order to commence a
second noviciate. Sometimes they were employed in
the menial duties of the palace, sometimes in the public
works, sometimes in the dockyards, and sometimes in
the imperial gardens. Meanwhile they were taught
their new religion, and were submitted to the drill.
When at length they went on service, the road to pro-
motion was opened upon them; nor were military
honours the only recompense to which they might aspire.
There are examples in history, of men from the ranks
attaining the highest dignities in the state, and at least
of one of them marrying the sister of the Sultan.

This corps has constituted the main portion of the
infantry of the Ottoman armies for a period of nearly
five hundred years ; till, in our own day, on account of
its repeated turbulence, it was annihilated, as the Mam-
louks before it, by means of a barbarous massacre. Its
end was as strange as its constitution ; but here it comes
under our notice as a singular exemplification of the un-
productiveness, as I may call it, of the Turkish intellect.
It was nothing else but an external institution devised
to supply a need which a civilized state would have
supplied from its own resources ; and it fell perhaps
without any essential prejudice to the integrity of the
power which it had served. That power is just what it
was before the Janizaries were formed. They may still
fall back upon the powerful cavalry, which. carried them
all the way from Turkistan ; or they may proceed to
employ a mercenary force ; anyhow their primitive
social type remains inviolate,

22O The Future o/ the Ottomans

Such is the strange phenomenon, or rather portent,
presented to us by the barbarian power which has
been for centuries seated in the very heart of the old
world ; which has in its brute clutch the most famous
countries of classical and religious antiquity, and many
of the most fruitful and beautiful regions of the earth ;
which stretches along the course of the Danube, the
Euphrates, and the Nile ; which embraces the Pindus,
the Taurus, the Caucasus, Mount Sinai, the Libyan
mountains, and the Atlas, as far as the Pillars of
Hercules ; and which, having no history itself, is heir
to the historical names of Constantinople and Nicaea,
Nicomedia and Caesarea, Jerusalem and Damascus,
Nineveh and Babylon, Mecca and Bagdad, Antioch
and Alexandria, ignorantly holding in possession one-
half of the history of the whole world. There it lies
and will not die, and has not in itself the elements of
death, for it has the life of a stone, and, unless pounded
and pulverized, is indestructible. Such is it in the
simplicity of its national existence, while that mode
of existence remains, while it remains faithful to its
religion and its imperial line. Should its fidelity to
either fail, it would not merely degenerate or decay ; it
would simply cease to be.

4-

But we have dwelt long enough on the internal pecu-
liarities of the Ottomans; now let us shift the scene,
and view them in the presence of their enemies, and in
their external relations both above and below them ; and
then at once a very different prospect presents itself for
our contemplation. However, the first remark I have to
make is one which has reference still to their internal
condition, but which does not properly come into con-

The Future of the Ottomans. 22 1

sideration, till we place them in the presence of rival and
hostile nations and races. Moral degeneracy is not,
strictly speaking, a cause of political ruin, as I have
already said ; but its existence is of course a point of the
gravest importance, when we would calculate the chance
which a people has of standing the brunt of war and
insurrection. It is a natural question to ask whether the
Osmanlis, after centuries of indulgence, have the physical
nerve and mental vigour which carried them forward
through such a course of fortunes, till it enthroned them
in three quarters of the world. Their numbers are
diminished and diminishing ; their great cities are half
emptied ; their villages have disappeared ; I believe that
even out of the fraction of Mahometans to be found amid
their European population, but a miserable minority are
Osmanlis. Too much stress, however, must not be laid
on this circumstance. Though the Osmanlis are the
conquering race, it requires to be shown that they have
ever had much to do, as a race, with the executive of
the Empire. While there are some vigorous minds at
the head of affairs, while there is a constant introduction
of foreigners into posts of authority and power, while
Curd and Turcoman supply the cavalry, while Egypt
and other Pachalics send their contingents, while the
government can manage to combine, or to steer between,
the fanaticism of its subjects and the claims of European
diplomacy, there is a certain counterbalance in the State
to the depravity and worthlessness, whatever it be, of
those who have the nominal power.

A far more formidable difficulty, when we survey their
external prospects, is that very peculiarity, which, inter-
nally considered, is so much in their favour — the sim-
plicity of their internal unity, and the individuality of
their political structure. The Turkish races, as being

222 The Future of the Ottomans.

conquerors, of course are only a portion of the whole
population of their empire ; for four centuries they have
remained distinct from Slavonians, Greeks, Copts, Arme-
nians, Curds, Arabs, Jews, Druses, Maronites, Ansarians,
Motoualis ; and they never can coalesce with them.
Like other Empires, they have kept their sovereign
position by the insignificance, degeneracy, or mutual
animosities of the several countries and religions which
they rule, and by the ruthless tyranny of their govern-
ment. Were they to relax that tyranny, were they to relin-
quish their ascendancy, were they to place their Greek
subjects, for instance, on a civil equality with themselves,
how in the nature of things could two incommunicable
races coexist beside each other in one political com-
munity ? Yet if, on the other hand, they refuse this
enfranchisement of their subjects, they will have to
encounter the displeasure of united Christendom.

Nor is it a mere question of political practicability or
expedience : will the Koran, in its laxest interpreta-
tion, admit of that toleration, on which the Frank king-
doms insist ? yet what and where are they without the
Koran ?

Nor do we understand the full stress of the dilemma
in which they are placed, until we have considered what
is meant by the demands and the displeasure of the
European community. Pledged by the very principle
of their existence to barbarism, the Turks have to cope
with civilized governments all around them, ever advanc-
ing in the material and moral strength which civilization
gives, and ever feeling more and more vividly that the
Turks are simply in the way. They are in the way of
the progress of the nineteenth century. They are in
the way of the Russians, who wish to get into the
Mediterranean ; they are in the way of the English,

The Future of the Ottomans. 223

who wish to cross to the East ; they are in the way of
the French, who, from the Crusades to Napoleon, have
felt a romantic interest in Syria ; they are in the way of
the Austrians, their hereditary foes. There they lie,
unable to abandon their traditionary principles, without
simply ceasing to be a state ; unable to retain them, and
retain the sympathy of Christendom ; — Mahometans,
despots, slave merchants, polygamists, holding agricul-
ture in contempt, Europe in abomination, their own
wretched selves in admiration, cut off from the family
of nations,1 existing by ignorance and fanaticism, and
tolerated in existence by the mutual jealousies of Chris-
tian powers as well ar of their own subjects, and by the
recurring excitement of military and political combina-
tions, which cannot last for ever.

5-

And, last of all, as if it were not enough to be unable
to procure the countenance of any Christian power,
except on specific conditions prejudicial to their ex-
istence, still further, as the alternative of their humbling
themselves before the haughty nations of the West whom
they abhor, they have to encounter the direct cupidity,
hatred, and overpowering pressure of the multitudinous
North, with its fanaticism almost equal, and its numbers
superior, to their own ; a peril more awful in imagination,
from the circumstance that its descent has been for so
many centuries foretold and commenced, and of late
years so widely acquiesced in as inevitable. Seven cen-
turies and a half have passed, since, at the very beginning

i Since this was written, they have been taken into the European family
by the Treaty of 1856, and the Sultan has become a Knight of the Garter.
This strange phenomenon is not for certain to the advantage of their political
position.

224 The Future of the Ottomans.

of the Crusades, a Greek writer still extant turns from
the then menacing inroads of the Turks in the East, and
the long centuries of their triumph which lay in prospect,
to record a prophecy, old in his time, relating to the
North, to the effect that in the last days the Russians
should be masters of Constantinople. When it was
uttered no one knows ; but it was written on an eques-
trian statue, in his day one of the special monuments
of the Imperial City, which had one time been brought
thither from Antioch. That statue, whether of Christian
or pagan origin is not known, has a name in history,
for it was one of the works of art destroyed by the
Latins in the taking of Constantinople ; and the pre-
diction engraven on it bears at least a remarkable evi-
dence of the congruity in itself, if I may use the word,
of that descent of the North upon Constantinople, which,
though not as yet accomplished, generation after genera-
tion grows more probable.

It is now a thousand years since this famous prophecy
has been illustrated by the actual incursions of the
Russian hordes. Such was the date of their first ex-
pedition against Constantinople ; their assaults continued
through two centuries ; and, in the course of that period,
they seemed to be nearer the capture of the city than
they have been at any time since. They descended the
Dnieper in boats, coasted along the East of the Black
Sea, and so came round by Trebizond to the Bosphorus,
plundering the coast as they advanced. At one time their
sovereign had got possession of Bulgaria, to the south of
the Danube. Barbarians of other races flocked to his
standard ; he found himself surrounded by the luxuries
of the East and West, and he marched down as far as
Adrianople, and threatened to go further. Ultimately
he was defeated ; then followed the conversion of his

Future of the Ottomans. 225

people to Christianity, which for a period restrained their
barbarous rapacity; after this, for two centuries, they
were under the yoke and bondage of the Tartars ; but
the prophecy, or rather the omen, remains, and the
whole world has learned to acquiesce in the probability
of its fulfilment. The wonder rather is, that that fulfil-
ment has been so long delayed. The Russians, whose
wishes would inspire their hopes, are not solitary in their
anticipations : the historian from whom I have borrowed
this sketch of their past attempts,1 writing at the end of
last century, records his own expectation of the event.
" Perhaps," he says, " the present generation may yet
behold the accomplishment of a rare prediction, of which
the style is unambiguous and the date unquestionable."
The Turks themselves have long been under the shadow
of its influence ; even as early as the middle of the
seventeenth century, when they were powerful, and
Austria and Poland also, and Russia distant and com-
paratively feeble, a traveller tells us that, "of all the
princes of Christendom, there was none whom the Turks
so much feared as the Czar of Muscovy." This appre-
hension has ever been on the increase ; in favour of
Russia, they made the first formal renunciation of terri-
tory which had been consecrated to Islam by the
solemnities of religion, — a circumstance which has sunk
deep into their imaginations; there is an enigmatical
inscription on the tomb of the Great Constantine, to the
effect that "the yellow-haired race shall overthrow
Ismael;" moreover, ever since their defeats by the
Emperor Leopold, they have had a surmise that the
true footing of their faith is in Asia ; and so strong is the
popular feeling on the subject, that in consequence their
favourite cemetery is at Scutari on the Asiatic coast.8

1 Gibbon. 2 Thornton, ii. 89; Formby, p. 24; Eclectic Rev., Dec., 1828 ,
VQL, I. I

220 The Future of the Ottomans.

6.

It seems likely, then, at no very remote day, to fare ill
with the old enemy of the Cross. However, we must
not undervalue what is still the strength of his position.
First, no well-authenticated tokens come to us of the
decay of the Mahometan faith. It is true that in one
or two cities, in Constantinople, perhaps, or in the marts
of commerce, laxity of opinion and general scepticism
may to a certain extent prevail, as also in the highest
class of all, and in those who have most to do with
Europeans ; but I confess nothing has been brought
home to me to show that this superstition is not still a
living, energetic principle in the Turkish population,
sufficient to bind them together in one, and to lead to
bold and persevering action. It must be recollected that
a national and local faith, like the Mahometan, is most
closely connected with the sentiments of patriotism,
family honour, loyalty towards the past, and party spirit ;
and this the more in the case of a religion which has
no articles of faith at all, except those of the Divine
Unity and the mission of Mahomet. To these must
be added more general considerations : that they have
ever prospered under their religion, that they are habit-
uated to it, that it suits them, that it is their badge
of a standing antagonism to nations they abhor, and
that it places them, in their own imagination, in a
spiritual position relatively to those nations, which they
would simply forfeit if they abandoned it. It would
require clear proof of the fact, to credit in their instance
the report of a change of mind, which antecedently is so
improbable.

And next it must be borne in mind that, few as may
be. the Osmanjis, yet the raw material of the Turkish

The. Future of the Ottomans. 227

nation, represented principally by the Turcomans, ex-
tends over half Asia; and, if it is what it ever has
been, might under circumstances be combined or con-
centrated into a formidable Power. It extends at this
day from Asia Minor, in a continuous tract, to the
Lena, towards Kamtchatka, and from Siberia down to
Khorasan, the Hindu Gush, and China. The Nogays
on the north-east of the Danube, the inhabitants of
the Crimea, the populations on each side of the Don
and Wolga, the wandering Turcomans who are found
from the west of Asia, along the Euxine, Caspian, and
so through Persia into Bukharia, the Kirghies on the
Jaxartes, are said to speak one tongue, and to have one
fakh.1 Religion is a bond of union, and language is a
medium of intercourse ; and, what is still more, they
are all Sunnites, and recognize in the Sultan the suc-
cessor of Mahomet.

Without a head, indeed, to give them a formal unity,
they are only one in name. Nothing is less likely than
a resuscitation of the effete family of Othman ; still,
supposing the Ottomans driven into Asia, and a Sultan
of that race to mount the throne, such as Amurath,
Mahomet, or Selim, it is not easy to set bounds to the
influence the Sovereign Pontiff of Islam might exert,
and to the successes he might attain, in rallying round
him the scattered members of a race, warlike, fanatical,
one in faith, in language, in habits, and in adversity.
Nay, even supposing the Turkish Caliph, like the Sara-
cenic of old, still to slumber in his seraglio, he might
appoint a vicegerent, Emir-ul-Omra, or Mayor of the
Palace, such as Togrul Beg, to conquer with his authority
in his stead.

But, supposing great men to be wanting to the
1 Pritclwd,

228 The Future of the Ottomans.

Turkish race, and the despair, natural to barbarians, to
rush upon them, and defeat, humiliation, and flight to
be their lot ; supposing the rivalries and dissensions of
Pachas, in themselves arguing no disaffection to their
Sultan and Caliph, should practically lead to the success
of their too powerful foes, to the divulsion of their body
politic, and the partition of their territory ; should this
be the distant event to which the present complications
tend, then the fiercer spirits, I suppose, would of their
free will return into the desert, as a portion of the Kal-
mucks have done within the last hundred years. Those,
however, who remained, would lead the easiest life under
the protection of Russia. She already is the sovereign
ruler of many barbarian populations, and, among them,
Turks and Mahometans ; she lets them pursue their
wandering habits without molestation, satisfied with
such service on their part as the interests of the empire
require. The Turcomans would have the same permis-
sion, and would hardly be sensible of the change of
masters, It is a more perplexing question how England
or France, did they on the other hand become their
masters, would be able to tolerate them in their reckless
desolation of a rich country. Rather, such barbarians,
unless they could be placed where they would answer
some political purpose, would eventually share the fate
of the aboriginal inhabitants of North America ; they
would, in the course of years, be surrounded, pressed
upon, divided, decimated, driven into the desert by the
force of civilization, and would once more roam in free-
dom in their old home in Persia or Khorasan, in the
presence of their brethren, who have long succeeded
them in its possession.

Many things are possible ; one thing is inconceivable,

The future of tlw Ottomans,

—that the Turks should, as an existing nation, accept
of modern civilization ; and, in default of it, that they
should be able to stand their ground amid the en-
croachments of Russia, the interested and contemptuous
patronage of Europe, and the hatred of their subject
populations.

230

NOTE ON PAGE 109.

CARDINAL FISHER, in his Assert. Luther. Confut., fol.
clxi., gives the following list of Popes who, up to his
time, had called on the Princes of Christendom to direct
their arms against the Turks: — Urban II., Paschal II.,
Gelasius II., Calistus II., Eugenius III., Lucius III.,
Gregory VIII., Clement III., Ccelestine III., Innocent III.,
Honorius III., Gregory IX., Innocent IV., Alexander IV..
Gregory X., John XXII., Martin IV Nicolas IV.i
Innocent VI., Urban V.

NOTE ON PAGE 124, ETC.

THE following passages, as being upon the subject of the
foregoing Lectures, are extracted from the lively narra-
tive of an Expedition to the Jordan and Dead Sea by
Commander Lynch, of the United States Navy.

1. He was presented to Sultan Abdoul Medjid in
February, 1848. He says : "On the left hung a gorgeous
crimson velvet curtain, embroidered and fringed with
gold " [the ancient Tartar one was of felt], " and towards
it the secretary led the way. His countenance and his
manner exhibited more awe than I had ever seen de-
picted in the human countenance. He seemed to hold
his breath ; and his step was so soft and stealthy, that
once or twice I stopped, under the impression that I had
left him behind, but found him ever beside me. There
were three of us in close proximity, and the stairway
was lined with officers and attendants ; but such was the
death-like stillness that I could distinctly hear my own
foot-fall. If it had been a wild beast slumbering in his
lair that we were about to visit, there could not have
been a silence more deeply hushed."

2. " I presented him, in the name of the President of
the United States, with some biographies and prints,
illustrative of the character and habits of our North
American Indians, the work of American artists. He
looked at some of them. . . and said that he considered
them as evidences of the advancement of the United
States in civilization^ and would treasure them as a

232 Note.

souvenir of the good feeling of its Government towards
him. At the word ' civilization/ pronounced in French,
I started, for it seemed singular, coming from the lips
of a Turk, and applied to our country." The author
accounts for it by observing that the Sultan is but a
beginner in French, and probably meant by "civiliza-
tion " arts and sciences.

3. He saw the old Tartar throne, which puts one in
mind of Attila's queen, Zingis's lieutenant, and Timour.
" The old divan, upon which the Sultans formerly re-
clined when they gave audience, looks like an over-
grown four-poster, covered with carbuncles, turquoise,
amethysts, topaz, emeralds, ruby, and diamond : the
couch was covered with Damascus silk and Cashmere
shawls."

4. " Anchored in the Bay of Scio. In the afternoon,
the weather partially moderating, visited the shore
From the ship we had enjoyed a view of rich orchards
and green fields ; but on landing we found ourselves
amid a scene of desolation. . . . We rode into the
country. . . . What a contrast between the luxu-
riant vegetation, the bounty of nature, and the devasta-
tion of man ! Nearly every house was unroofed and in
ruins, not one in ten inhabited, although surrounded
with thick groves of orange-trees loaded with the weight
of their golden fruit."

" While weather-bound, we availed ourselves of the
opportunity to visit the ruins [of Ephesus], There are
no trees and but very few bushes on the face of this old
country, but the mountain-slopes and the valleys are
enamelled with thousands of beautiful flowers. . . .
Winding round the precipitous crest of a mountain, we
saw the river Cayster . . . flowing through the allu-
vial plain to the sea, and on its banks the black tents of

Note. 233

herdsmen, with their flocks of goats around them." As
Chandler had seen them there ninety years ago.

5. "The tomb of Mahmood is a sarcophagus about
eight feet high and as many long, covered with purple
cloth embroidered in gold, and many votive shawls of
the richest cashmere thrown over it. ... At the
head is the crimson tarbouch which the monarch wore
in life, with a lofty plume, secured by a large and lus-
trous aigrette of diamonds. The following words are
inscribed in letters of gold on the face of the tomb : —
' This is the tomb of the layer of the basis of the civili-
zation of his empire ; of the monarch of exalted place,
the Sultan victorious and just, Mahmood Khan, son of
the victorious Abd' al Hamid Khan. May the Almighty
make his abode in the gardens of Paradise ! Born/ etc."

"From the eager employment of Franks, the intro-
duction of foreign machinery, and the adoption of im-
proved modes of cultivating the land, the present Sultan
gives the strongest assurance of his anxiety to promote
the welfare of his people."

San Stefano " possesses two things in its near vicinity,
of peculiar interest to an American — a model farm and
an agricultural school. The farm consists of about 2,000
acres of land, especially appropriated to the culture of
the cotton-plant. Both farm and school are under the
superintendence of Dr. Davis of South Carolina. . . .
Besides the principal culture, he is sedulously engaged
in the introduction of seeds, plants, domestic animals,
and agricultural instruments. The school is held in one
of the kiosks of the Sultan, which overlooks the sea."

At Jaffa, Dr. Kayat, H.B.M. Consul, "has encouraged
the culture of the vine ; has introduced that of the mul-
berry and of the Irish potato ; and by word and example
is endeavouring to prevail on the people in the adjacent

234

plain to cultivate the sweet potato. ... In the
court-yard we observed an English plough of improved
construction."

He speaks in several places of the remains of the
terrace cultivation (vid. above, p. 128) of Palestine.

6. "We visited the barracks, where a large number
of Turkish soldiers, shaved and dressed like Europeans
except the moustache and the tarbouch, received us
with the Asiatic salute. . . . The whole caserne
was scrupulously clean, the bread dark coloured, but
well baked and sweet. The colonel, who politely ac-
companied us, said that the bastinado had been discon-
tinued, on account of its injuring the culprit's eyes."

. . . "Here," in the Palace, "we saw the last of
the White Eunuchs ; the present enlightened Sultan
having pensioned off those on hand, and discontinued
their attendance for ever."

" In an extensive, but nearly vacant building, was an
abortive attempt at a museum."

" It is said, but untruly, that the slave market of Con-
stantinople has been abolished. An edict, it is true,
was some years since promulgated, which declared the
purchase and sale of slaves to be unlawful; the prohi-
bition, however, is only operative against the Franks,
under which term the Greeks are included."

7. " Every coloured person, employed by the Govern-
ment, receives monthly wages ; and, if a slave, is eman-
cipated at the expiration of seven years, when he becomes
eligible to any office beneath the sovereignty. Many of
the high dignitaries of the empire were originally slaves ;
the present Governor of the Dardanelles is a black, and
was, a short time since, freed from servitude."

"The secretary had the most prepossessing coun-
tenance of any Turk I had yet seen, and in conversation

Note. 235

evinced a spirit of inquiry and an amount of intelligence
that far surpassed my expectations. . . . His history
is a pleasing one. He was a poor boy, a charity scholar
in one of the public schools. The late Sultan Mahmood
requiring a page to fill a vacancy in his suite, directed
the appointment to be given to the most intelligent
pupil. The present secretary was the fortunate one ;
and by his abilities, his suavity and discretion, has risen
to the highest office near the person of majesty."

236

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES.

[The dates, as will be seen, are fixed on no scientific principal, but are taken as they
severally occur in approved authors.]

OUTLINES OF TURKISH CHRONOLOGY.

J. Tartar Empire of the Turks in the north and centre of

Asia . 500-700

ii. Their subjection, education, and silent growth, under the

Saracens - . . 700-1000

in. Their Gaznevide Empire in Hindostan ... 1000-1200
iv. Their Seljukian Empire in Persia and Asia Minor- - 1048-1100

v. Decline of the Seljukians, yet continuous descent of their

kindred tribes to the West - 1100-1300

vi. Their Ottoman Empire in Asia, Africa, and Europe,

growing for 270 years - - 1300-1571

vii. Their Ottoman Empire declining for 270 years - - 1571-1841

CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS INTRODUCED INTO THE FOREGOING
LECTURES.

Semiramis lost in the Scythian desert p. 13 -

The Scythians celebrated by Homer pp. 29, 39 - 900
The Scythians occupy for twenty-eight years the Median king-
dom in the time of Cyaxares pp. 15, 22 (Prideaux) - . 633
Cyrus loses his life in an expedition against the Scythian Mas-

sagetse p. 14 (Clinton) 529

Danus invades Scythia north of the Danube, p. 16 (Clinton} - 508

Zoroaster p. 66 (Prideaux) - 492

Alexander's campaign in Sogdiana p. 18 (Clinton} - 329

A.D.

Ancient Empire of the Huns in further Asia ends ; their con-
sequent emigration westward p. 26 (Gibbon} - - loo
The White Huns of Sogdiana pp. 26, 34, 52, 60, 67 - - after 100
Main body of the Huns invade the Goths on the north of the

Danube p. 22 (L'Art de verifier les dates} - 376

Chronological Tables. 237

A.D.

Attila and his Huns ravage the Roman Empire pp. 27, 28 - 441-452

Mission of St. Leo to Attila pp. 29, 31 - - 453

Tartar Empire of the Turks pp. 49-52 (L'Art, etc., Gibbon),

about - - 500-700

Chosroes the Second captures the Holy Cross p. 53 (L'Art, etc.) 614

Mahomet assumes the royal dignity. The Hegira p. 69 (L'Art) 622
The Turks from the Wolga settled by the Emperor Heraclius

in Georgia against the Persians p. 53 (Gibbon) • 626
The Turks invade Sogdiana p. 68 (Gibbon) - 626
Heraclius recovers the Holy Cross p. 53 (L'Art, etc.) - 628
Death of Mahomet p. 69 (L'Arf) - 632
Yezdegerde, last King of Persia, flying from the Saracens, is
received and murdered by the Turks in Sogdiana p. 69 (Uni-
versal History) 654
The Saracens reduce the Turks in Sogdiana p. 70 (L'Art, and

Univ. Hist.) - - 705-716

The Caliphate transferred from Damascus to Bagdad p. 76 (L'Art) 762
Harun al Raschid p. 77 (L'Art) 786
The Turks taken into the pay of the Caliphs p. 77 (L'Art) - 833, etc.
The Turks tyrannize over the Caliphs p. 79 (L'Art) - - 862-870
The Caliphs lose Sogdiana p. 80 (L'Art) 873
The Turkish dynasty of the Gaznevides in Khorasan and Sog-
diana p. 80 (Dow) - 977
Mahmood the Gaznevide pp. 80-84 (Dow) - - 997

Seljuk the Turk pp. 84-89 ( Univ. Hist.) 985
The Seljukian Turks wrest Sogdiana and Khorasan from the

Gaznevides p. 89 (Dow) . 1041

Togrul Beg, the Seljukian, turns to the West pp. 89, 92 (Baronius) 1048
Sufferings of Christians on pilgrimage to Jerusalem pp. 98-101

(Baronius] - - - 1064

Alp Arslan's victory over the Emperor Diogenes p. 93 (Baronius) 1071
St. Gregory the Seventh's letter against the Turks p. 98 (Sharon

Turner) 1074

Jerusalem in possession of the Turks p. 98 (L'Art) - 1076
Soliman, the Seljukian Sultan of Roum, establishes himself at

Nicsea p. 131 (L'Art) 1082

The Council of Placentia under Urban the Second pp. 109, 137

(L'Art) - 1095

The first Crusade p. 109 (VArt) « - 1097

238 Chronological Tables.

A.D.

Conquests of Zingis Khan and the Moguls pp. 32-34 (1} Art} - 1176-1259

Richard Coeur de Lion in Palestine p. 140 (L'Art) - - 1190

Institution of Mamlooks p. 217 - - - - - about 1200

Constantinople taken by the Latins p. 139 (L'Art) - 1203

Greek Empire of Nicaea p. 121 (L'Art) - - 1206
The Greek Emperor Vataces encourages agriculture in Asia

Minor p. 121 (L'Art) - 1222-1255

The Moguls subjugate Russia p. 225 (L'Art) - « 1236

Mission of St. Louis to the Moguls pp. 35-41 (L'Art) - - 1253
The Turks attack the north and west coast of Asia Minor

p. 93 (Univ. Hist.) - - 1266-1296

Marco Polo p. 37 - - 1270

End of the Seljukian kingdom of Roum p. 132 (L'Art) . 1294

Othman p. 132 ------. 1301

The Popes retire to Avignon for seventy years p. 143 (L'Art) - 1305
Orchan, successor to Othman, originates the institution of

Janizaries p. 134 (L'Art) - .... 1326-1360

Battle of Cressy p. 140 - - - - - 1346

Battle of Poitiers, p. 140 - - 1356

Wicliffe, p. 139 - - 1360

Amurath institutes the Janizaries pp. 113, 215, 218 (Gibbon) • 1370
Conquests of Timour p. 32 (L'Art) - -1370, etc.

Schismatical Pontiffs for thirty-eight years p. 143 (L'Art) - 1378-1417

Battle of Nicopolis p. 146 (L'Art) - - 1303

Timour defeats and captures Bajazet p. 144 (L'Art) - - 1402

Timour at Samarcand pp. 38, 45 (L'Art) - - 1404

Timour dies on his Chinese expedition p. 46 - - 1405

Henry the Fourth of England dies, p. 141 • • 1413

Battle of Agincourt pp. 140, 145 ... 1415

Hussp. 140 - ... I4I^

Henry the Fifth of England dies p. 142 - - 1422

Maid of Orleans p. 141 .... I428

Battle of Varna p. 147 (L'Art) - 1442

Constantinople taken by the Ottomans p. 147 ... 1453
John Basilowich rescues Russia from the Moguls p. 47 (L'Art) about 1480

Luther p. 140 • ... 15^

Soliman the Great pp. 148. 192 - - 1520

St. Pius the Fifth p. 153 - 1568

Battle of -Lepanto pp. 156, 189 - r •> 1571

II.

PERSONAL AND LITERARY CHARACTER
OF CICERO.

the ENCYCLOPEDIA METROPOLITAN of 1824.)

PREFATORY NOTICE.

I" F the following sketch of Cicero's life and writings be
•• thought unworthy of so great a subject, the Author
lust plead the circumstances under which it was made.

In the spring of 1824, when his hands were full of
/ork, Dr. Whately paid him the compliment of asking
lim to write it for the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, to
riiich he was at that time himself contributing. Dr.
Vhately explained to him that the Editor had suddenly
>een disappointed in the article on Cicero which was to
tave appeared in the Encyclopedia, and that in conse-
[uence he could not allow more than two months for the
:omposition of the paper which was to take its place;
ilso, that it must contain such and such subjects. The
\uthor undertook and finished it under these conditions.

In the present Edition (1872) he has in some places
ivailed himself of the excellent translations of its Greek
ind Latin passages, made by the Reverend Henry
Fhompson in the Edition of 1852.

VOL. L 1 6

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

PAGE

1. CHIEF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF CICERO, §§ 1-4 245

2. ins LITERARY POSITION, § 5 259

3. THE NEW ACADEMY AND HIS RELATION TO IT, §§ 6-7 - - 264

4. HIS PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS, §§ 8-IO - - - -. - 275

5. HIS LETTERS, HIS HISTORICAL AND POETICAL COMPOSITIONS, § IO 289

6. HIS ORATIONS, § II - - - - - - - - -291

7. HIS STYLE, § 12 295

8. THE ORATORS OF ROME, §13--- - - . 297

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO was born at Arpi-
num, the native place of Marius,1 in the year of
Rome 648 (A.C. 106), the same year which gave birth
to the Great Pompey. His family was ancient and of
Equestrian rank, but had never taken part in the public
affairs of Rome,2 though both his father and grandfather
were persons of consideration in the part of Italy to
which they belonged.3 His father, being a man of
cultivated mind himself, determined to give his two
sons the advantage of a liberal education, and to fit them
for the prospect of those public employments which a
feeble constitution incapacitated himself from undertak-
ing. Marcus, the elder of the two, soon displayed indica-
tions of a superior intellect, and we are told that his
schoolfellows carried home such accounts of him, that
their parents often visited the school for the sake of see-
ing a youth who gave such promise of future eminence.4
One of his earliest masters was the poet Archias, whom
he defended afterwards in his Consular year ; under his
instructions he was able to compose a poem, though yet
a boy, on the fable of Glaucus, which had formed the
subject of one of the tragedies of ^Eschylus. Soon after

1 De Legg. i. I, ii. I. 2 Contra Rull. ii. I.

1 De Legg. ii. I, iii. 16; de Orat. ii. 66. « Plutarch, in Vita,

246 Marcus Tullim Cicero.

he assumed the manly gown he was placed under the
care of Scaevola, the celebrated lawyer, whom he intro-
duces so beautifully into several of his philosophical
dialogues ; and in no long time he gained a thorough
knowledge of the laws and political institutions of his
country.1

This was about the time of the Social war ; and, ac-
cording to the Roman custom, which made it a necessary
part of education to learn the military art by personal
service, Cicero took the opportunity of serving a cam-
paign under the Consul Pompeius Strabo, father of
Pompey* the Great. Returning to pursuits more con-
genial to his natural taste, he commenced the study of
Philosophy under Philo the Academic, of whom we shall
speak more particularly hereafter.2 But his chief atten-
tion was reserved for Oratory, to which he applied himself
with the assistance of Molo, the first rhetorician of the
day ; while Diodotus the Stoic exercised him in the
argumentative subtleties for which the disciples of Zeno
were so generally celebrated. At the same time he
declaimed daily in Greek and Latin with some young
noblemen, who were competitors with him in the same
race of political honours.

Of the two professions,3 which, from the contentious-
ness of human nature, are involved in the very notion of
society, while that of arms, by its splendour and import-
ance, secures the almost undivided admiration of a rising
and uncivilized people, legal practice, on the other hand,
becomes the path to honours in later and more civilized
ages, by reason of theoratorical accomplishments to which
it usually gives scope. The date of Cicero's birth fell
precisely during that intermediate state of things, in which

1 Middleton's Life, vol. i. p. 13. 4to ; de Clar. Orat. 89.

2 Ityd. 3 Pro Muraena, 1 1 } de Orat. i. 9.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 247

the glory of military exploits lost its pre-eminence by
means of the very opulence and luxury which were their
natural issue; and he was the first Roman who found
his way to the highest dignities of the State with no other
recommendation than his powers of eloquence and his
merits as a civil magistrate.1

The first cause of importance he undertook was his
defence of Sextus Roscius ; in which he distinguished
himself by his spirited opposition to Sylla, whose fa-
vourite Chrysogonus was prosecutor in the action. This
obliging him, according to Plutarch, to leave Rome on
prudential motives, he employed his time in travelling
for two years under pretence of his health, which, he
tells us,2 was as yet unequal to th'! exertion of pleading.
At Athens he met with T. Pomponius Atticus, whom
he had formerly known at school, and there renewed
with him a friendship which lasted through life, in spite
of the change of interests and estrangements of affection
so common in turbulent times.3 Here too he attended
the lectures of Antiochus, who, under the name of
Academic, taught the dogmatic doctrines of Plato and
the Stoics. Though Cicero felt at first considerable
dislike of his philosophical views,4 he seems afterwards
to have adopted the sentiments of the Old Academy,
which they much resembled ; and not till late in life to
have relapsed into the sceptical tenets of his former
instructor Philo.5 After visiting the principal philoso-
phers and rhetoricians of Asia, in his thirtieth year he
returned to Rome, so strengthened and improved both

1 In Catil. iii. 6 ; in Pis. 3 ; pro Sylla, 30 ; pro Dom. 37 ; de Harusp.
resp. 23 ; ad Fam. xv. 4.

2 De Clar. Orat. 91. * Middleton's Life, vol. i. p. 42, 4to.
4 Plutarch, in Vita.

4 Warburton, Div. Leg. lib. iii. sec. 3 ; and Vossius. de Nat. Logic, c.
viii. sec. 22.

248 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

in bodily and mental powers, that he soon eclipsed in
his oratorical efforts all his competitors for public
favour. So popular a talent speedily gained him the
suffrage of the Commons ; and, being sent to Sicily as
Quaestor, at a time when the metropolis itself was visited
with a scarcity of corn, he acquitted himself in that
delicate situation with such address as to supply the
clamorous wants of the people without oppressing the
province from which the provisions were raised.1 Re-
turning thence with greater honours than had ever been
before decreed to a Roman Governor, he ingratiated
himself still farther in the esteem of the Sicilians by
undertaking his celebrated prosecution of Verres ; who,
though defended by the influence of the Metelli and
the eloquence of Hortensius, was at length driven in
despair into voluntary exile.

Five years after his Quaestorship, Cicero was elected
^Edile, a post of considerable expense from the exhibi-
tion of games connected with it. In this magistracy
he conducted himself with singular propriety;8 for, it
being customary to court the people by a display of
splendour in these official shows, he contrived to retain
his popularity without submitting to the usual alterna-
tive of plundering the provinces or sacrificing his private
fortune. The latter was at this time by no means
ample ; but, with the good sense and taste which mark
his character, he preserved in his domestic arrangements
the dignity of a literary and public man, without any
of the ostentation of magnificence which often distin-
guished the candidate for popular applause.*

After the customary interval of two years, he was

1 pro Plane, 26 ; in Ver. vi. 14. 8 Pro Pom. 57, 58,

» Pe Offic, ii. 17 ; Middleton.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 249

returned at the head of the list as Praetor j1 and now
made his first appearance in the rostrum in support of
the Manilian law. About the same time he defended
Cluentius. At the expiration of his Praetorship, he
refused to accept a foreign province, the usual reward
of that magistracy ;a but, having the Consulate full in
view, and relying on his interest with Caesar and
Pompey, he allowed nothing to divert him from that
career of glory for which he now believed himself to be
destined.

2.

It may be doubted, indeed, whether any individual
ever rose to power by more virtuous and truly honour-
able conduct ; the integrity of his public life was only
equalled by the correctness of his private morals ; and it
may at first sight excite our wpnder that a course so
splendidly begun should afterwards so little fulfil its early
promise. Yet it was a failure from the period of his Con-
sulate to his Pro-praetorship in Cilicia, and each year is
found to diminish his influence in public affairs, till it
expires altogether with the death of Pompey. This sur-
prise, however, arises in no small degree from measuring
Cicero's political importance by his present reputation,
and confounding the authority he deservedly possesses
as an author with the opinions entertained of him by his
contemporaries as a statesman. From the consequence
usually attached to passing events, a politician's celebrity
is often at its zenith in his own generation ; while the
author, who is in the highest repute with posterity, may
perhaps have been little valued or courted in his own day.
Virtue indeed so conspicuous as that of Cicero, studies
50 dignified, and oratorical powers so commanding, will
\ In Pis. I. » Pro Muraena, 20.

250 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

always invest their possessor with a large portion of
reputation and authority; and this is nowhere more
apparent than in the enthusiastic welcome with which
he was greeted on his return from exile. But unless
other qualities be added, more peculiarly necessary for
a statesman, they will hardly of themselves carry that
political weight which some writers have attached to
Cicero's public life, and which his own self-love led him
to appropriate.

The advice of the Oracle,1 which had directed him to
make his own genius, not the opinion of the people, his
guide to immortality (which in fact pointed at the above-
mentioned distinction between the fame of a statesman
and of an author), at first made a deep impression on his
mind ; and at the present day he owes his reputation
principally to those pursuits which, as Plutarch tells us,
exposed him to the ridicule and even to the contempt of
his contemporaries as a "pedant and a professor."2 But
his love of popularity overcame his philosophy, and he
commenced a career which gained him one triumph and
ten thousand mortifications.

It is not indeed to be doubted that in his political
course he was more or less influenced by a sense of duty.
To many it may even appear that a public life was best
adapted for the display of his particular talents ; that, at
the termination of the Mithridatic war, Cicero was in fact
marked out as the very man to adjust the pretensions
of the rival parties in the Commonwealth, to withstand
the encroachments of Pompey, and to baffle the arts of
Caesar. And if the power of swaying and controlling the
popular assemblies by his eloquence; if the circumstances
of his rank, Equestrian as far as family was concerned,
yet almost Patrician from the splendour of his personal

1 Plutarch, in Vita. a YpcuKbt /cal <r%o\a<TTiif6f. Plutarch, in Vita-

Marcus Tutlius Cicero. 251

honours ; if the popularity derived from his accusation
of Verres, and defence of Cornelius, and the favour of
the Senate acquired by the brilliant services of his Con-
sulate ; if the general respect of all parties which his
learning and virtue commanded ; if these were sufficient
qualifications for a mediator between contending fac-
tions, Cicero was indeed called upon by the voice of his
country to that most arduous and honourable post.
And in his Consulate he had seemed sensible of the
call : "All through my Consulate," he declares in his
speech against Piso, " I made a point of doing nothing
without the advice of the Senate and the approval
of the People. I ever defended the Senate in the
Rostrum, in the Senate House the People, and united
the populace with the leading men, the Equestrian order
with the Senate."

Yet, after that eventful period, we see him resigning
his high station to Cato, who, with half his abilities, little
foresight, and no address,1 possessed that first requisite
for a statesman, firmness. Cicero, on the contrary, was
irresolute, timid, and inconsistent.8 He talked indeed
largely of preserving a middle course,3 but he was con-
tinually vacillating from one to the other extreme; always
too confident or too dejected ; incorrigibly vain of success,
yet meanly panegyrizing the government of an usurper.
His foresight, sagacity, practical good sense, and singular
tact, were lost for want of that strength of mind which
points them steadily to one object. He was never
decided, never (as has sometimes been observed) took
an important step without afterwards repenting of it
Nor can we account for the firmness and resolution of

1 Ad Attictim, i. 18, ii. I.

2 See Montesquieu, Grandeur des Remains, ch. xii-
8 Ad Atticum, i. 19.

252 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

his Consulate, unless we discriminate between the case
of resisting and exposing a faction, and that of balancing
contending interests. Vigour in repression differs widely
from steadiness in mediation; the latter requiring a cool-
ness of judgment, which a direct attack upon a public
foe is so far from implying, that it even inspires minds
naturally timid with unusual ardour.

3-

His Consulate was succeeded by the return of Pompey
from the East, and the establishment of the First Tri-
umvirate; which, disappointing his hopes of political
power, induced him to resume his forensic and literary
occupations. From these he was recalled, after an in-
terval of four years, by the threatening measures of
Clodius, who at length succeeded in driving him into
exile. This event, which, considering the circumstances
connected with it, was one of the most glorious of his
life, filled him with the utmost distress and despondency.
He wandered about Greece bewailing his miserable
fortune, refusing the consolations which his friends
attempted to administer, and shunning the public
honours with which the Greek cities were eager to load
him.1 His return, which took place in the course of the
following year, reinstated him in the high station he had
filled at the termination of his Consulate, but the cir-

1 Ad Atticum, lib. iii. ; ad Fam. lib. xiv. ; pro Sext. 22 ; pro Dom. 36 ;
Plutarch, in Vita. It is curious to observe how he converts the alleviating
circumstances of his case into exaggerations of his misfortune : he writes to
Atticus : " As to your many fierce objurgations of me, for my weakness of
mind, I ask you, what aggravation is wanting to my calamity ? Who else
has ever fallen from so high a position, in so good a cause, with so large an
intellect, influence, popularity, with all good men so powerfully supporting
him, as I ? " — iii. 10. Other persons would have reckoned the justice of their
cause, and the countenance of good men, alleviations of their distress ; and
50, when others were concerned, he himself thought Vid. pro Sext. 12,

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 253

cumstances of the times did not allow him to retain it.
We refer to Roman history for an account of his vacilla-
tions between the several members of the Triumvirate;
his defence of Vatinius to please Caesar ; and of his bitter
political enemy Gabinius, to ingratiate himself with
Pompey. His personal history in the meanwhile furnishes
little worth noticing, except his election into the college of
Augurs, a dignity which had been a particular object of
his ambition. His appointment to the government of
Cilicia, which took place about five years after his return
from exile, was in consequence of Pompey's law, which
obliged those Senators of Consular or Praetorian rank,
who had never held any foreign command, to divide the
vacant provinces among them. This office, which we
have above seen him decline, he now accepted with
feelings of extreme reluctance, dreading perhaps the
military occupations which the movements of the
Parthians in that quarter rendered necessary. Yet if
we consider the state and splendour with which the
Proconsuls were surrounded, and the opportunities
afforded them for almost legalized plunder and extor-
tion, we must confess that this insensibility to the
common objects of human cupidity was the token of
no ordinary mind. The singular disinterestedness and
integrity of his administration, as well as his success
against the enemy, also belong to the history of his times.
The latter he exaggerated from the desire, so often in-
stanced in eminent men, of appearing to excel in those
things for which nature has not adapted them.

His return to Italy was followed by earnest endeavours
to reconcile Pompey with Caesar, and by very spirited
behaviour when Caesar required his presence in the
Senate. On this occasion he felt the glow of self-appro-
bation with which his political conduct seldom repaid

254 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

him : he writes to Atticus, "I believe I do not please
Caesar, but I am pleased with myself, which has not
happened to me for a long while." However, this effort
at independence was but transient. At no period of
his public life did he display such miserable vacillation
as at the opening of the civil war.* We find him first
accepting a commission from the Republic ; then court-
ing Caesar ; next, on Pompey's sailing for Greece, resolv-
ing to follow him thither; presently determining to
stand neuter; then bent on retiring to the Pompeians
in Sicily; and, when after all he had joined their camp
in Greece, discovering such timidity and discontent as
to draw from Pompey the bitter reproof, " I wish Cicero
would go over to the enemy, that he may learn to
fear us."8

On his return to Italy, after the battle of Pharsalia, he
had the mortification of learning that his brother and
nephew were making their peace with Caesar, by throwing
on himself the blame of their opposition to the conqueror.
And here we see one of those elevated points of charac-
ter which redeem the weaknesses of his political conduct;
for, hearing that Caesar had retorted on Quintus Cicero the
charge which the latter had brought against himself, he
wrote a pressing letter in his favour, declaring his brother's
safety was not less precious to him than his own, and re-
presenting him not as the leader, but as the companion
of his voyage.*

Now too the state of his private affairs reduced
him to much perplexity ; a sum he had advanced to
Pompey had impoverished him, and he was forced to

1 Ad Atticum, ix. 18.

2 Ibid. vii. n, ix. 6, x. 8 and 9, xi, 9, etc,

3 Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 3.

<* Ad Atticum, xi. 8, 9, 10 and 12.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 255

stand indebted to Atticus for present assistance.1 These
difficulties led him to take a step which it has been cus-
tomary to regard with great severity ; the divorce of his
wife Terentia, though he was then in his sixty-second
year, and his marriage with his rich ward Publilia, who
of course was of an age disproportionate to his own.*
Yet, in reviewing this proceeding, we must not adopt the
modern standard of propriety, forgetful of a condition of
society which reconciled actions even of moral turpitude
with a reputation for honour and virtue. Terentia was
a woman of a most imperious and violent temper, and
(what is more to the purpose) had in no slight degree
contributed to his present embarrassments by her extra-
vagance in the management of his private affairs.3 By
her he had two children, a son, born a year before his
Consulate, and a daughter whose loss he was now fated
to deplore. To Tullia he was tenderly attached, not
only from the excellence of her disposition, but from
her literary tastes ; and her death tore from him, as he
so pathetically laments to Sulpicius, the only comfort
which the course of public events had left him.4 At first
he was inconsolable ; and, retiring to a little island near
his estate at Antium, he buried himself in the woods, to
avoid the sight of man.5 His distress was increased by
the conduct of his new wife Publilia ; whom he soon
divorced for testifying joy at the death of her step-
daughter. On this occasion he wrote his Treatise on
Consolation, with a view to alleviate his grief; and, with
the same object, he determined on dedicating a temple
to his daughter, as a memorial of her virtues and his
affection. His friends were assiduous in their attentions ;
and Csesar, who had treated him with extreme kindness

1 Ibid. xi. 13. 2 Ad Fam. iv. 14; Middleton, vol. ii. p. 149.

3 Ibid. 4 Ad Fam. iv. 6. * Ad Atticum, xii. 15, etc

256 Marcus Tullim Cicero.

on his return from Egypt, signified the respect he boie
his character by sending him a letter of condolence from
Spain,1 where the remains of the Pompeian party still
engaged him. Caesar, moreover, had shortly before given
a still stronger proof of his favour, by replying to a work
which Cicero had drawn up in praise of Cato ; 8 but no
attentions, however considerate, could soften Cicero's
vexation at seeing the country he had formerly saved by
his exertions now subjected to the tyranny of one master.
His speeches, indeed, for Marcellus and Ligarius, exhibit
traces of inconsistency ; but for the most part he retired
from public business, and gave himself up to the com-
position of those works which, while they mitigated his
political sorrows, have secured his literary celebrity.

4-

The murder of Caesar, which took place in the follow-
ing year, once more brought him on the stage of public
affairs ; but as our present paper is but supplemental
to the history of the times, we leave to others to relate
what more has to be told of him, his unworthy treat-
ment of Brutus, his coalition with Octavius, his orations
against Antonius, his proscription, and his violent death,
at the age of sixty-four. Willingly would we pass over
his public life altogether ; for he was as little of a great
statesman as of a great commander. His merits are of
another kind and in a higher order of excellence. Anti-
quity may be challenged to produce a man more virtuous,
more perfectly amiable than Cicero. None interest more in
their life, none excite more painful emotions in their death.
Others, it is true, may be found of loftier and more heroic
character, who awe and subdue the mind by the grandeur
of their views, or the intensity of their exertions. But

1 Ad Atticum, xiii. 20. a Ibid. xii. 40 and 41.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. .257

Cicero engages our affections by the integrity of his
public conduct, the correctness of his private life, the
generosity,1 placability, and kindness of his heart, the
playfulness of his wit, the warmth of his domestic at-
tachments. In this respect his letters are in v;;
" Here," says Middleton, " we may see the gx
without disguise or affectation, especially in his ie^tci..
to Atticus ; to whom he talked with the same frankness
as to himself, opened the rise and progress of each
thought ; and never entered into any affair without his
particular advice."3

It must be confessed, indeed, that this private corre-
spondence discloses the defects of his political conduct,
and shows that they were partly of a moral character.
Want of firmness has been repeatedly mentioned as his
principal failing ; and insincerity is the natural attendant
on a timid and irresolute mind. On the other hand, it
must not be forgotten that openness and candour are
rare qualities in a statesman at all times, and while the
duplicity of weakness is despised, the insincerity of
a powerful but crafty mind, though incomparably more
odious, is too commonly regarded with feelings of
indulgence. Cicero was deficient, not in honesty, but
in moral courage ; his disposition, too, was conciliatory
and forgiving ; and much which has been referred to in-
consistency should be attributed to the generous temper
which induced him to remember the services rather than
the neglect of Plancius, and to relieve the exiled and
indigent Verres.8 Much too may be traced to his pro-
fessional habits as a pleader; which led him to introduce

i His want of jealousy towards his rivals was remarkable ; this was
exemplified in his esteem for Hortensius, and still more so in his conduct
towards Calvus. See Ad Fam. xv. 21.

a Vol. ii. p. 525, 4to- H Pro Plane. ; Middleton, vol. i. p. 108,

I. 17

258 Marcus Titllius Cicero.

the licence of the Forum into deliberative discussions,
and (however inexcusably) even into his correspondence
with private friends.

Some writers, as Lyttelton, have considered it an
aggravation of Cicero's inconsistencies, that he was so
perfectly aware, as his writings show, of what was
philosophically and morally upright and honest. It
might be sufficient to reply, that there is a wide differ-
ence between calmly deciding on an abstract point, and
acting on that decision in the hurry of real life ; that
Cicero in fact was apt to fancy (as all will fancy when
assailed by interest or passion) that the circumstances
of his case constituted it an exception to the broad
principles of duty. Besides, he considered it to be
actually the duty of a statesman to accommodate theo-
retical principle to the exigencies of existing circum-
stances. " Surely," he says in his defence of Plancius,
" it is no mark of inconsistency in a statesman to deter-
mine his judgment and to steer his course by the state
of the political weather. This is what I have been
taught, what I have experienced, what I have read ;
this is what is recorded in history of the wisest and
most eminent men, whether at home or abroad ; namely,
that the same man is not bound always to maintain the
same opinions, but those, whatever they may be, which
the state of the commonwealth, the direction of the
times, and the interests of peace may demand."1 More-
over, he claimed for himself especially the part of
mediator between political rivals ; and he considered
it to be a mediator's duty alternately to praise and
blame both parties, even to exaggeration, if by such
means it was possible either to flatter or frighten them
into an adoption of temperate measures/2 " Cicero," says
1 C. 39< * Ad Fam. vi. 6, vii. 3.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 259

Plutarch, " used to give them private advice, keeping
up a correspondence with Caesar, and urging many
things upon Pompey himself, soothing and persuading
each of them."1

5-

But such criticism on Cicero as Lyttelton's proceeds on
an entire misconception of the design and purpose with
which the ancients prosecuted philosophical studies.
The motives and principles of morals were not so
seriously acknowledged as to lead to a practical appli-
cation of them to the conduct of life. Even when they
proposed them in the form of precept, they still regarded
the perfectly virtuous man as the creature of their
imagination rather than a model for imitation — a cha-
racter whom it was a mental recreation rather than a
duty to contemplate ; and if an individual here or there,
as Scipio or Cato, attempted to conform his life to his
philosophical conceptions of virtue, he was sure to be
ridiculed for singularity and affectation.

Even among the Athenians, by whom philosophy
was, in many cases, cultivated to the exclusion of every
active profession, intellectual amusement, not the dis-
covery of Truth, was the principal object of their dis-
cussions. That we must thus account for the ensnaring
questions and sophistical reasonings of which their dis-
putations consisted, has been noticed by writers on
Logic ; a and it was their extension of this system to the
case of morals which brought upon their Sophists the
irony of Socrates and the sterner rebuke of Aristotle.
But if this took place in a state of society in which the
love of speculation pervaded all ranks, much more was it

i Plutarch, in Vita Cic. See also in Vita Pomp.

8 Vid. Dr. Whately in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitan*.

260 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

to be expected among the Romans, who, busied as they
were in political enterprises, and deficient in philosophical
acuteness, had neither time nor inclination for abstruse
investigations ; and who considered philosophy simply
as one of the many fashions introduced from Greece,
" a sort of table furniture," as Warburton well expresses
it, a mere refinement in the arts of social enjoyment.1
This character it bore both among friends and enemies.
Hence the popularity which attended the three Athenian
philosophers who had come to Rome on an embassy
from their native city ; and hence the inflexible deter-
mination with which Cato procured their dismissal,
through fear, as Plutarch tells us,2 lest their arts of
disputation should corrupt the Roman youth. And
when at length, by the authority of Scipio,8 the literary
treasures of Sylla, and the patronage of Lucullus,
philosophical studies had gradually received the coun-
tenance of the higher classes of their countrymen, still,
in consistency with the principle above laid down, we
find them determined in their adoption of this or that
system, not so much by the harmony of its parts, or by
the plausibility of its reasonings, as by its suitableness to
the particular profession and political station to which
they severally belonged. Thus, because the Stoics were
more minute than other sects in inculcating the moral
and social duties, we find the Roman jurisconsults pro-
fessing themselves followers of Zeno ; * the orators, on
the contrary, adopted the disputatious system of the
later Academics ; B while Epicurus was the master of
the idle and the wealthy. Hence, too, they confined

1 Lactantius, Inst. iii. 16.

2 Plutarch, in Vita Caton. See also de Invent, i. 36.

8 Paterculus, i. 12, etc. Plutarch, in Vitt. Lucull. et Syll.

* Gravin. Origin. Juris Civil, lib. i. c. 44.

5 Quinct. xii. 2. Auct. Dialog, de Orator. 31.

Marcus Tutiius Cicero. 261

the profession of philosophical science to Greek teachers;
considering them the sole proprietors, as it were, of a
foreign and expensive luxury, which the vanquished
might suitably have the duty of furnishing, and which the
conquerors could well afford to purchase.

Before the works of Cicero, no attempts worth con-
sidering had been made for using the Latin tongue in
philosophical subjects. The natural stubbornness of the
language conspired with Roman haughtiness to prevent
this application.1 The Epicureans, indeed, had made
the experiment, but their writings were even affectedly
harsh and slovenly,2 and we find Cicero himself, in spite
of his inexhaustible flow of rich and expressive diction,
making continual apologies for his learned occupations,
and extolling philosophy as the parent of everything
great, virtuous, and amiable.8

Yet, with whatever discouragement his design was
attended, he ultimately triumphed over the pride of an
unlettered people, and the difficulties of a defective lan-
guage. He was indeed possessed of that first requisite for
eminence, an enthusiastic attachment to the studies he
was recommending. But, occupied as he was with the
duties of a statesman, mere love of literature would have
availed little, if separated from that energy and breadth
of intellect by which he was enabled to pursue a variety
of objects at once, with equally perserving and inde-
fatigable zeal. "He suffered no part of his leisure to be
idle," says Middleton, " or the least interval of it to be
lost ; but what other people gave to the public shows, to

1 De Nat. Deor. i. 4 ; de Off. i. i ; de Fin. ; init. Acad. Quaest. init. etc.

2 Tusc. Quasst. i. 3 ; ii. 3 ; Acad. Quaest. i. 2 ; de Nat. Deor. i. 21 ;
de Fin. i. 3, etc. ; de Clar. Orat. 35.

3 Lucullus, 2 ; de Fin. i. i — 3 ; Tusc. Quaest. ii. I, 2 ; iii. 2 ; v. 2 ; de
Legg. i. 22—24 J de Off- i^ 2 ; de Orat. 41, etc.

262 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

pleasures, to feasts, nay, even to sleep and the ordinary
refreshments of nature, he generally gave to his books,
and the enlargement of his knowledge. On days oi
business, when he had anything particular to compose,
he had no other time for meditating but when he was
taking a few turns in his walks, where he used to dictate
his thoughts to his scribes who attended him. We find
many of his letters dated before daylight, some from the
senate, others from his meals, and the crowd of his
morning levee."1 Thus he found time, without apparent
inconvenience, for the business of the State, for the
turmoil of the courts, and for philosophical studies.
During his Consulate he delivered twelve orations in the
Senate, Rostrum, or Forum. His Treatises de Oratort
and de Republicd, the most finished perhaps of his com-
positions, were written at a time when, to use his own
words, "not a day passed without his taking part in
forensic disputes."2 And in the last year of his life he
composed at least eight of his philosophical works,
besides the fourteen orations against Antony, which are
known by the name of Philippics.

Being thus ardent in the cause of philosophy, he
recommended it to the notice of his countrymen, not
only for the honour which its introduction would reflect
upon himself (which of course was a motive with him),
but also with the fondness of one who esteemed it " the
guide of life, the parent of virtue, the guardian in diffi-
culty, and the tranquillizer in misfortune."8 Nor were
his mental endowments less adapted to the accomplish-
ment of his object than the spirit with which he engaged
in the work. Gifted with great versatility of talent, with
acuteness, quickness of perception, skill in selection, art

i Middleton's Life, vol. ii. p. 254. 2 Ad Quinct. fratr. iii. 3.

» Tusc. Quaest. v. 2.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 263

in arrangement, fertility of illustration, warmth of fancy,
and extraordinary taste, he at once seizes upon the
most effective parts of his subject, places them in the
most striking point of view, and arrays them in the
liveliest and most inviting colours. His writings have
the singular felicity of combining brilliancy of execution
with never-failing good sense. It must be allowed that
he is deficient in depth ; that he skims over rather than
dives into the subjects of which he treats ; that he had
too great command of the plausible to be a patient
investigator or a sound reasoner. Yet if he has less
originality of thought than others, if he does not grapple
with his subject, if he is unequal to a regular and
lengthened disquisition, if he is frequently inconsistent
in his opinions, we must remember that mere soundness
of view, without talent for display, has few recommen-
dations for those who have not yet imbibed a taste even
for the outward form of knowledge,1 that system nearly
precludes freedom, and depth almost implies obscurity. It
was this very absence of scientific exactness which con-
stituted in Roman eyes a principal charm of Cicero's
compositions.2

Nor must his profession as a pleader be forgotten in
enumerating the circumstances which concurred to give
his writings their peculiar character. For, however his
design of interesting his countrymen in Greek literature,
however too his particular line of talent, may have led
him to explain rather than to invent ; yet he expressly
informs us it was principally with a view to his own
improvement in Oratory that he devoted himself to

1 De Off. i. 5. into.

8 Johnson's observations on Addison's writings may be well applied to
those of Cicero, who would have been eminently successful in short mis-
cellaneous essays, like those of the Spectator, had the manners of the age
allowed it.

264 Marcus Tutlius Cicero.

philosophical studies.1 This induced him to undertake
successively the cause of the Stoic, the Epicurean, or the
Platonist, as an exercise for his powers of argumenta-
tion ; while the wavering and unsettled state of mind,
occasioned by such habits of disputation, led him in his
personal judgment to prefer the sceptical tenets of the
New Academy.

6.

Here then, before enumerating Cicero's philosophical
writings, an opportunity is presented to us of redeeming
the pledge we have given elsewhere in our Encyclopaedia,2
to consider the system of doctrine which the reformers
(as they thought themselves) of the Academic school
introduced about 300 years before the Christian era.

We shall not trace here the history of the Old Aca-
demy, or speak of the innovations on the system of Plato,
silently introduced by the austere Polemo. When Zeno,
however, who was his pupil, advocated the same rigid
tenets in a more open and dogmatic form,3 the Academy
at length took the alarm, and a reaction ensued. Arcesilas,
who had succeeded Polemo and Crates, determined on
reverting to the principles of the elder schools ;* but
mistaking the profession of ignorance, which Socrates
had used against the Sophists on physical questions, for
an actual scepticism on points connected with morals,
^e fell into the opposite extreme, and declared, first,

1 Orat. iii. 4; Tusc. Quaest. ii. 3; de Off. i. I. Paradox, prof at.
Quinct. Instit. xii. 2.

* Article, Plato, in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.

8 Acad. Quaest. i. 10, etc. ; Lucullus, 5 ; de Legg. i. 20 ; iii. 3, etc.

4 Acad. Quaest. i. 4, 12, 13 ; Lucullus, 5 and 23 ; de Nat. Deor. i. 5;
de Fin. ii. i ; de Orat. iii. 18. Augustin. contra Acad. ii. 6. Plutarch, in
Colot. 26.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 265

that nothing could be known, and therefore, secondly,
nothing should be maintained.1

Whatever were his private sentiments (for some
authors affirm his esoteric doctrines to have been dog-
matic2), he brought forward these sceptical tenets in so
unguarded a form, that it required all his argumentative
powers, which were confessedly great, to maintain them
against the obvious objections which were pressed upon
him from all quarters. On his death, therefore, as might
have been anticipated, his school was deserted for those
of Zeno and Epicurus ; and during the lives of Lacydes,
Evander, and Hegesinus, who successively filled the
Academic chair, being no longer recommended by the
novelty of its doctrines,3 or the talents of its masters, it
became of little consideration amid the wranglings of
more popular philosophies. Carneades,4 therefore, who
succeeded Hegesinus, found it necessary to use more
cautious and guarded language ; and, by explaining
what was paradoxical, by reservations and exceptions,
in short, by all the arts which an acute and active genius
could suggest, he contrived to establish its authority,
without departing, as far as we have the means of judg-
ing, from the principle of universal scepticism which
Arcesilas had so pertinaciously advocated.6

1 "Arcesilas negabat esse quidquara, quod sciri posset, ne illud quidem
ipsum quod Socrates sibi reliquisset. Sic omnia latere censebat in occulto,
neque esse quicquam quod cerni, quod intelligi, posset ; quibus de causis
nihil oportere neque profiteri neque affirmare quenquam, neque assentione
approbare, etc." — Acad. Quasi, i. 12. See also Lucullus, 9 and 18. They
were countenanced in these conclusions by Plato's doctrine of ideas.—
Lucullus ; 46.

* Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 33. Diogenes Laertius, lib. iv. in
Arcesil. Vid. Lactant. Instit. iii. 6.

3 Lucullus, 6.

4 Augustin. contr. Acad. iii. 17.

6 Lucullus, 1 8, 24. Augustin. contr. Acad. iii. 39.

266 Marcus Tultius Cicero.

The New Academy,1 then, taught with Plato, that all
things in their own nature were fixed and determinate ;
but that, through the constitution of the human mind,
it was impossible for us to see them in their simple and
eternal forms, to separate appearance from reality, truth
from falsehood.2 For the conception we form of any
object is altogether derived from and depends on the
sensation, the impression, it produces on our own minds
(TTO^OC evcpyc/ae, Qavraata). Reason does but deduce
from premisses ultimately supplied by sensation. Our
only communication, then, with actual existences being
through the medium of our own impressions, we have
no means of ascertaining the correspondence of the
things themselves with the ideas we entertain of them;
and therefore can in no case be certain of the truthfulness
,of our senses. Of their fallibility, however, we may easily
assure ourselves ; for in cases in which they are detected
contradicting each other, all cannot be correct reporters
of the object with which they profess to acquaint us.
Food, which is the same as far as sight and touch are
concerned, tastes differently to different individuals ; fire,
which is the same to the eye, communicates a sensation
of pain at one time, of pleasure at another ; the oar
appears crooked in the water, while the touch assures us
it is as straight as before it was immersed.8 Again, in
dreams, in intoxication, in madness, impressions are
made upon the mind, vivid enough to incite to reflection
and action, yet utterly at variance with those produced

i See Sext. Empir. adv. Log. i. 166., etc., p. 405.

8 Acad. Qusest. i. 13 j Lucullus, 23, 38 ; de Nat. Deor. i. 5 ; Orat.

7«-

8 " Tu autem te negas infracto remo neque columbse collo commoveri.

Primum cur? nam et in remo sentio non esse id quod videatur, et in
columba plures videri colores, nee esse plus uno, etc." •— Lucullus, 25.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 267

by the same objects when we are awake, or sober, or in
possession of our reason.1

It appears, then, that we cannot prove that our senses
are ever faithful to the things they profess to report
about ; but we do know they often produce erroneous
impressions of them. Here then is room for endless
doubt ; for why may they not deceive us in cases in
which we cannot detect the deception ? It is certain
they often act irregularly ; is there any consistency at
all in their operations, any law to which these varieties
may be referred ?

It is undeniable that an object often varies in the
impression which it makes upon the mind, while, on the
other hand, the same impression may arise from differ-
ent objects. What limit is to be assigned to this disorder ?
is there any sensation strong enough to assure us of the
presence of the object which it seems to intimate, any
such as to preclude the possibility of deception ? If,
when we look into a mirror, our minds are impressed
with the appearance of trees, fields, and houses, which are
unreal, how can we ascertain beyond all doubt whether
the scene we directly look upon has any more substantial
existence than the former ?2

From these reasonings the Academics taught that
nothing was certain, nothing was to be known (»caraA»?7r-
rov). For the Stoics themselves, their most determined
opponents, defined the jcaraA^Tm/eT? ^avratua (the phan-
tasy or impression which involved knowledge3) to be

i Lucullus, 1 6— 1 8 ; 26 — 28.

8 " Vehementer errare eos qui dicant ab Academia sensus eripi ; a quibus
nunquam dictum sit aut colorem aut saporem aut sonum nullum esse, [sed]
illud sit disputatum, non inesse in his propriam, qua nusquam alibi esset,
veri et certi notam." — Lucullus, 32. See also 13, 24, 31 ; de Nat. Deor. i. 5.

8 01 yow ZrwiVcoi Kard\t]\^iv eiv&i <f>a<ri /caraXTjTrriKTj (fravraaiq. <rvyKar<i0e<rtD.
Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. iiL 25. Vid. also Adv. Log. i. 152, p. 402.

268 Marcus Tuliius Cicero.

one that was capable of being produced by no object
except that to which it really belonged.1

Since then we cannot arrive at knowledge, we must
suspend our decision, pronounce absolutely on nothing,
nay, according to Arcesilas, never even form an opinion.2
In the conduct of life, however, probability 8 must deter-
mine our choice of action ; and this admits of different
degrees. The lowest kind is that which suggests itself
on the first view of the case (^avraam iriOavri, or per-
suasive phantasy}; but in all important matters we
must correct the evidence of our senses by considera-
tions derived from the nature of the medium, the distance
of the object, the disposition of the organ, the time, the
manner, and other attendant circumstances. When the
impression has been thus minutely considered, the phan-
tasy becomes TTf/ofw&vjulvif, or approved on circumspection;
and if during this examination no objection has arisen
to weaken our belief, the highest degree of probability is
attained, and the phantasy is pronounced unembarrassed
with doubt, or air^piairaaTo^

Sextus Empiricus illustrates this as follows : 6 If on
entering a dark room we discern a coiled rope, our first

1 "Verum non posse comprehend! ex ilia Stoici Zenonis definitione
arripuisse videbantur, qui ait id verum percipi posse, quod ita esset animo
impressum ex eo unde esset, ut esse non posset ex eo unde non esset.
Quod brevius planiusque sic dicitur, his signis verum posse comprehendi,
quae signa non potest habere quod falsum est." — Augustin, contra Acad. ii. 5.
See also Sext. Empir. adv. Math. lib. vii. 7re/>i /Aera/SoXifj, and Cf. Lucullus,
6 with 13.

2 Lucullus, 13, 21, 40.

3 Tots (paifo^vois oZv Trpoff^xot>Te^ /card rr^v ^MTIK^V Tjjp-qffiv d<5o£a(TTWS
/StoG/iey, tirel pr) dwdfj-eda dvevtpyrjTOt Travrdirafftv elvat. — Sext. Empir.
Pyrrk. Hypot. I, n.

4 Cicero terms these three impressions, " visio probabilis ; quae ex cir-
eumspectione aliqua et accurata consideratione fiat ; qua: non impediatur."
—Lucullus, ii.

6 Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 33.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 269

impression may be that it is a serpent — this is the
persuasive phantasy. On a closer inspection, however,
after walking round it (TrepioStiHravrtc;), or on circum-
spection, we observe it does not move, nor has it the
proper colour, shape, or proportions ; and now we con-
clude it is not a serpent ; here we are determined in our
belief by the irepiwStvuemi fyavraaia, and we assent to the
circumspective phantasy. For an instance of the third
and most accurate kind, viz., that with which no contrary
impression interferes, we may refer to the conduct of
Admetus on the return of Alcestis from the infernal
regions. He believes he sees his wife ; everything
confirms it ; but he cannot simply acquiesce in that
opinion, because his mind is embarrassed or distracted
(Trt/jitrrrarat) from the knowledge he has of her having
died ; he asks, " What ! do I see my wife I just now
buried?" (Ale. 1148.) Hercules resolves his difficulty,
and his phantasy is in repose, or aTrtpia-rra<TTO£.

The suspension then of assent (liroxh) which the Aca-
demics enjoined, was, at least from the time of Carne-
ades,1 almost a speculative doctrine ;a and herein lay the
chief difference between them and the Pyrrhonists ; that
the latter altogether denied the existence of the pro-
bable, while the former admitted there was sufficient to
allow of action, provided we pronounced absolutely on
nothing.

Little more can be said concerning the opinions of a
sect whose fundamental maxim was that nothing could
be known, and nothing should be taught. It lay mid-
way between the other philosophies ; and in the alter-
cations of the various schools it was at once attacked by
all,8 yet appealed to by each of the contending parties, if

i Numen. apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. xiv. 7.

» Lucullus, 31, 34 ; de Off. ii. 2 ; de Fin. v. 26. Quinct. xii. i.

1 Lucullus, 22, et alibi ; Tusc. Quaest. ii. 2.

270 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

not to countenance its own sentiments, at least to con-
demn those advocated by its opponents,1 and thus to per-
form the office of an umpire.2 From this necessity, then,
of being prepared on all sides for attack,8 it became as
much a school of rhetoric as of philosophy,* and was
celebrated among the ancients for the eloquence of its
masters.6 Hence also its reputation was continually
varying : for, requiring the aid of great abilities to main-
tain its exalted and arduous post, it alternately rose and
fell in estimation, according to the talents of the indi-
vidual who happened to fill the chair.6 And hence the
frequent alterations which took place in its philosophical
tenets ; which, depending rather on the arbitrary deter-
minations of its present head, than on the tradition of
settled maxims, were accommodated to the views of each
successive master, according as he hoped by sophistry or
concession to overcome the repugnance which the mind
ever will feel to the doctrines of universal scepticism.

And in these continual changes it is pleasing to ob-
serve that the interests of virtue and good order were

1 See a striking passage from Cicero's Academics, preserved by Augustine,
contra Acad. iii. 7, and Lucullus, 18.

2 De Nat. Deor. passim ; de Div. ii. 72. " Quorum controversiam
solebat tanquamhonorarius arbiter judicare Carneades." — Tusc. Quasi, v. 41.

8 De Fin. ii. i; de Orat. i. 18; Lucullus, 3; Tusc. Quaest. v. n ;
Numen. apud Euseb. Prsep. Evang. xiv. 6, etc. Lactantius, Inst. iii. 4.

* De Nat. Deor. i. 67 ; de Fat. 2 ; Dialog, de Orat. 31, 32.

6 Lucullus, 6, 1 8 ; de Orat. ii. 38, iii. 18. Quint. Inst. xii. 2. Numen.
apud Euseb. Prsep. Evang. xiv. 6 and 8.

6 "Msec in philosophia ratio contra omnia disserendi nullamque rem
aperte judicandi, profecta a Socrate, repetita ab Arcesila, confirmata a
Carneade, usque ad nostram viguit setatem ; quam nunc propemodum orbam
esse in ipsa Graecia intelligo. Quod non Academias vitio, sed tarditate
hominum arbitror contigisse. Nam si singulas disciplinas percipere mag-
num est, quanto majus omnes? quod facere iis necesse est, quibus pro-
positum est, veri reperiendi causa, et contra omnes philosophos et prt<
omnibus dicere." — De Nat. Deor. i. 5.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 2JI

uniformly promoted ; interests to which the Academic
doctrines were certainly hostile, if not necessarily fatal.
Thus, although we find Carneades, in conformity to the
plan adopted by Arcesilas,1 opposing the dogmatic prin-
ciples of the Stoics concerning moral duty,3 and studi-
ously concealing his private views even from his friends ;8
yet, by allowing that the suspense of judgment was not
always a duty, that the wise man might sometimes believe
though he could not know ;4 he in some measure restored
the authority of those great instincts of our nature which
his predecessor appears to have discarded. Clitomachus
pursued his steps by innovations in the same direction ; 6
Philo, who followed next, attempting to reconcile his
tenets with those of the Platonic school,6 has been ac-
counted the founder of a fourth academy — while, to his
successor Antiochus, who embraced the doctrines of the
Porch,7 and maintained the fidelity of the senses, it has
been usual to assign the establishment of a fifth.

7-

We have already observed that Cicero in early life in-
clined to the doctrines of Plato and Antiochus, which, at
the time he composed the bulk of his writings, he had
abandoned for those of Carneades and Philo.8 Yet he
was never so entirely a disciple of the New Academy as

1 De Nat. Deor. i. 25. Augustin. contra Acad. iii. 17. Numen. apud
Euseb. Praep. Evang. xiv. 6.

2 De Fin. ii. 13, v. 7 ; Lucullus, 42 j Tusc. Quaest. v. 29.

3 Lucullus, 45.

4 Lucullus, 21. 24; for an elevated moral precept of his, see de Fin. ii. 18.
•* 'Avr)p £v rats rpuriv alp^ffecri Starptyas, tv re rfj' A/ca8?;/iaiV^ ical Tifpiirarir^

riKij Kal "STu'tKrj. — Diogenes Laertius, lib. iv. sub fin.

6 " Quanquam Philo, magnus vir, negaret in libris duas Academias esse
erroremque eorum qui ita putarunt coarguit." — Acad. Quasi, i. 4.

7 De Fin. v. 5 ; Lucullus, 22, 43. Sext. Emp, Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 33.

8 Acad. Quaest. i. 4 ; de Nat, Deor. i. 7,

272 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

to neglect the claims of morality and the laws. He is
loud in his protestations that truth is the great object of
his search : " For my own part, if I have applied myself
especially to this philosophy, through any love of display
or pleasure in disputation, I should condemn not only
my folly, but my moral condition. And, therefore,
unless it were absurd, in an argument like this, to do
what is sometimes done in political discussions, I would
swear by Jupiter and the divine Penates that I burn
with a desire of discovering the truth, and really believe
what I am saying."1 And, however inappropriate this
boast may appear, he at least pursues the useful and
the magnificent in philosophy ; and uses his academic
character as a pretext rather for a judicious selection
from each system than for an indiscriminate rejection
of all.2 Thus, in the capacity of a statesman, he calls
in the assistance of doctrines which, as an orator, he
does not scruple to deride ; those of Zeno in particular,
who maintained the truth of the popular theology,
and the divine origin of augury, and (as we noticed
above) was more explicit than the other masters in his
views of social duty. This difference of sentiment be-
tween the magistrate and the pleader is strikingly illus-
trated in the opening of his treatise de Legibus ; where,
after deriving the principles of law from the nature of
things, he is obliged to beg quarter of the Academics,
whose reasonings he feels could at once destroy the
foundation on which his argument rested. " My treatise
throughout," he says, " aims at the strengthening of
states and the welfare of peoples. I dread therefore to
lay down any but well considered and carefully examined

1 Lucullus, 20 ; see also de Nat. Deor. i. 7 ; de Fin. i. 5.

2 "Nobis autem nostra Academia magnam licentiam dat, ut, quodcun-
que maxim£ probabile occurrat, id nostro jure liceat defendere.' —De.
Off. iii. 4. See also Tusc. Qusest. iv. 4, v. 29. ;, de. Invent. ij.. 3.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 273

principles ; I do not say principles which are universally
received, for none are such, but principles received by
those philosophers who consider virtue to be desirable
for its own sake, and nothing whatever to be good, or at
least a great good, which is not in its own nature praise-
worthy." These philosophers are the Stoics ; and then,
apparently alluding to the arguments of Carneades
against justice, which he had put into the mouth of
Philus in the third book of his de Republicdy he proceeds :
" As to the Academy, which puts the whole subject into
utter confusion, I mean the New Academy of Arcesilas
and Carneades, let us persuade it to hold its peace. For,
should it make an inroad upon the views which we con-
sider we have so skilfully put into shape, it will make
an extreme havoc of them. The Academy I cannot con-
ciliate, and I dare not ignore." 1

And as, in questions connected with the interests of
society, he thus uniformly advocates the tenets of the
Porch, so in discussions of a physical character we find
him adopting the sublime and glowing sentiments of
Pythagoras and Plato. Here, however, having no object
of expediency in view to keep him within the bounds of
consistency, he scruples not to introduce whatever is
most beautiful in itself, or most adapted to his present
purpose. At one time he describes the Deity as the all-
pervading Soul of the world, the cause of life and
motion ;2 at another He is the intelligent Preserver and
Governor of every separate part.3 At one time the soul
of man is in its own nature necessarily eternal, without
beginning or end of existence ; 4 at another it is repre-

1 De Legg. i. 13.

2Tusc. Quaest. i. 27 ; de Div. ii. 72 ; pro Milon. 31 ; de Legg. ii, 7.
3 Fragm. de Rep. 3 ; Tusc. Quaest. i. 29.
4Tusc. Quaast. i. passim; de Senect. 21, 22; Somn. Scip. 8.
VOL. I. 1 8

274 Marcus Tullius CicerO.

sented as a portion, or the haunt of the one infinite Spirit ;!
at another it is to enter the assembly of the Gods, or to
be driven into darkness, according to its moral conduct
in this life;8 at another, it is only in its best and greatest
specimens destined for immortality;8 sometimes that
immortality is described as attended with consciousness
and the continuance of earthly friendships ;4 sometimes
as but an immortality of name and glory ;6 more fre-
quently however these separate notions are confused
together in the same passage.

Though the works of Aristotle were not given to tht
world till Sylla's return from Greece, Cicero appears to
have been a considerable proficient in his philosophy,^
and he has not overlooked the important aid it affords
in those departments of science which are alike removed
from abstract reasoning and fanciful theorizing. To Aris-
totle he is indebted for most of the principles laid down
in his rhetorical discussions,7 while in his treatises on
morals not a few of his remarks may be traced to the
same acute philosopher.8

The doctrines of the Garden alone, though some of his
most intimate friends were of the Epicurean school, he
regarded with aversion and contempt ; feeling no sort of
interest in a system which cut at the very root of that
activity of mind, industry, and patriotism, for which he

1 De Div. i. 32, 49 ; Fragm. de Consolat.

2 Tusc. Qusest. i. 30 ; Som. Scip. 9 ; de Legg. ii. II.

8 De Amic. 4 ; de Off. iii. 28 ; pro Cluent. 61 ; de Legg. ii. 17 : Tusc.
Quaest. i. ii ; pro Sext. 21 ; de Nat. Deor. i. 17.
* De Senect. 23.

5 Pro Arch, ii, 12 , ad Fam. v. 21, vi. 21.

6 He seems to have fallen into some misconceptions of Aristotle's mean-
ing. De Invent, i. 35, 36, ii. 14 ; see Quinct. Inst. v. 14.

? De Invent, i. 7, ii. 51, et passim ; ad. Fam. i. 9 ; de Oral. ii. 36.
« De Off. i. I ; de Fin. iv. 5.

Marcus Tutlius Cicero. 275

himself both in public and private was so honourably
distinguished.1

Such then was the New Academy, and such the vari-
ation of opinion which, in Cicero's judgment, was not
inconsistent with the profession of an Academic. And,
however his adoption of that philosophy may be in part
referred to his oratorical habits, or his natural cast of
mind, yet, considering the ambition which he felt to
inspire his countrymen with a taste for literature and
science,2 we must conclude with Warburton8 that, in
acceding to the system of Philo, he was strongly influ-
enced by the freedom of thought and reasoning which
it allowed to his literary works, the liberty of illustrat-
ing the principles and doctrines, the strong and weak
parts, of every Grecian school. Bearing then in mind
his design of recommending the study of philosophy, it
is interesting to observe the artifices of style and manner
which, with this end, he adopted in his treatises ; and
though to enter minutely into this subject would be
foreign to our present purpose, it may be allowed us to
make some general remarks on the character of works
so eminently successful in accomplishing the object for
which they were undertaken.

8.

The obvious peculiarity of Cicero's philosophical dis-
cussions is the form of dialogue in which most of them
are conveyed. Plato, indeed, and Xenophon, had, before
his time, been even more strictly dramatic in their

1 De Fin. ii. 21, ill I ; de Legg. i. 13 ; de Orat. iii. 17; ad Fam. xiii.
I ; pro Sext. 10.

» De Nat. Deor. i. 4 ; Tusc. Qusest. i. I, v. 29 ; de Fin. L 3, 4 ; de Off.
i. I ; de Div. ii. i, 2.

8 Div. Leg. lib. iii. sec. 9.

276 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

compositions; but they professed to be recording the sen*
timents of an individual, and the Socratic mode of
argument could hardly be displayed in any other shape.
Of that interrogative and inductive conversation, how-
ever, Cicero affords but few specimens ;x the nature of
his dialogue being as different from that of the two Athe-
nians as was his object in writing. His aim was to excite
interest ; and he availed himself of this mode of compo-
sition for the life and variety, the ease, perspicuity, and
vigour which it gave to his discussions. His dialogue is
of two kinds : according as the subject of it is beyond or
under controversy, it assumes the shape of a continued
treatise, or a free disputation ; in the latter case impart-
ing clearness to what is obscure, in the former relief to
what is clear. Thus his practical and systematic treatises
on rhetoric and moral duty, when not written in his own
person, are merely divided between several speakers
who are the mere organs of his own sentiments ; while
in questions of a more speculative cast, on the nature of
the gods, on the human soul, on the greatest good, he
uses his academic liberty, and brings forward the theories
of contending schools under the character of their re-
spective advocates. The advantages gained in both
cases by the form of dialogue are evident. In contro-
verted subjects he is not obliged to discover his own views,
he can detail opposite arguments forcibly and luminously,
and he is allowed the use of those oratorical powers in
which, after all, his great strength lay. In those subjects,
on the other hand, which are uninteresting because they
are familiar, he may pause or digress before the mind is
weary and the attention begins to flag ; the reader is
• carried on by easy journeys and short stages, and novelty
in the speaker supplies the want of novelty in the matter.

1 See Tusc. Quaest. and de Republ.

Marcus TuLlius Cicero. 277

Nor does Cicero discover less skill in the execution of
these dialogues than address in their method. It were
idle to enlarge upon the beauty, richness, and taste of
compositions which have been the admiration of every
age and country. In the dignity of his speakers, their
high tone of mutual courtesy, the harmony of his groups,
and the delicate relief of his contrasts, he is inimitable.
The majesty and splendour of his introductions, which
generally address themselves to the passions or the
imagination, the eloquence with which both sides of a
question are successively displayed, the clearness and
terseness of his statements on abstract points, the grace
of his illustrations, his exquisite allusions to the scene
or time of the supposed conversation, his digressions in
praise of philosophy or great men, his quotations from
Grecian and Roman poetry ; lastly, the melody and ful-
ness of his style, unite to throw a charm round his writ-
ings peculiar to themselves. To the Roman reader they
especially recommended themselves by their continual
and most artful references to the heroes of the old re-
public, who now appeared but exemplars, and (as it were)
patrons of that eternal philosophy, which he had before,
perhaps, considered as the short-lived reveries of inge-
nious but inactive men. Nor is there any confusion,
want of keeping, or appearance of effort in the intro-
duction of the various beauties we have been enumerating,
which are blended together with so much skill and pro-
priety, that it is sometimes difficult to point out the par-
ticular sources of the admiration which they inspire.

9-

The series of his rhetorical works1 has been preserved

1 See Fabricius, Bibliothec. Latin. ; Olivet, in Cic. opp. omn. ;
ipn's Life.

2J& Marcus Tullius Cicero.

nearly complete, and consists of the De Inventione, De
Oratore, Brutus sive de claris Oratoribus, Orator sive de
optima genere Dicendi, De partitione Oratorid, Topica, and
de. optimo genere Oratorum. The last-mentioned, which is
a fragment, is understood to have been the proem to his
translation (now lost) of the speeches of Demosthenes
and ^schines, De Corond. These he translated with
the view of defending, by the example of the Greek
orators, his own style of eloquence, which, as we shall
afterwards find, the critics of the day censured as too
Asiatic in its character ; and hence the proem, which
still survives, is on the subject of the Attic style of
oratory. This composition and his abstracts of his own
orations1 are his only rhetorical works not extant, and
probably our loss is not very great. The Treatise on
Rhetoric, addressed to Herennius, though edited with his
works, and ascribed to him by several of the ancients, is
now generally attributed to Cornificius, or some other
writer of the day.

The works, which we have enumerated, consider the
art of rhetoric in different points of view, and thus receive
from each other mutual support and illustration, while
they prevent the tediousness which might else arise, if they
were moulded into one systematic treatise on the general
subject. Three are in the form of dialogue ; the rest are
written in his own person. In all, except perhaps the
Orator, he professes to have availed himself of the prin-
ciples of the Aristotelic and Isocratean schools, selecting
what was best in each of them, and, as occasion might offer,
adding remarks and precepts of his own.9 The subject
of Oratory is considered in three distinct lights ; 8 with
reference to the case, the speaker, and the speech. The

i Quinct Inst. x. 7. a De Invent, ii. 2 et 3 ; ad Fam. i. 9.

8 Cf. de part. Orat. with de Invent.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 279

case, as respects its nature, is definite or indefinite ; with
reference to the hearer, it is judicial, deliberative, or de-
scriptive ; as regards the opponent, the division is fourfold
—according as the fact, its nature, its quality, or its pro-
priety is called in question. The art of the speaker is
directed to five points : the d scovery of persuasives
(whether ethical, pathetical, or argumentative), arrange-
ment, diction, memory, delivery. And the speech itself
consists of six parts : introduction, statement of the ca?e,
division of the subject, proof, refutation, and conclusion.
His treatises De Inventione and Topica, the first anr1
nearly the last of his compositions, are both on the in-
vention of arguments, which he regards, with Aristotle, as
the very foundation of the art ; though he elsewhere con-
fines the term eloquence, according to its derivation, to
denote excellence of diction and delivery, to the exclusion
of argumentative skill.1 The former of these works was
written at the age of twenty, and seems originally to
have consisted of four books, of which but two remain.2
In the first of these he considers rhetorical invention
generally, supplies commonplaces for the six parts of an
oration promiscuously, and gives a full analysis of the
two forms of argument, syllogism and induction. In
the second book he applies these rules particularly to the
three subject-matters of rhetoric, the deliberative, the
judicial, and the descriptive, dwelling principally on the
judicial, as affording the most ample field for discussion.
This treatise seems for the most part compiled from the
writings of Aristotle, Isocrates, and Hermagoras ; 8 and
as such he alludes to it in the opening of his De Oratore
as deficient in the experience and judgment which

1 Orat. 19.

2 Vossius, de Nat. Rhet. c. xiii. ; Fabricius, Bibliothec. Latin.

3 De Invent, i. 5, 6 ; de clar. Orat. 76.

280 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

nothing but time and practice can impart. Still it is an
entertaining, nay, useful work ; remarkable, even among
Cicero's writings, for its uniform good sense, and less
familiar to the scholar only because the greater part has
been superseded by the compositions of his riper years.

His Topica, or treatise on commonplaces, has less
extent and variety of plan, being little else than a com-
pendium of Aristotle's work on the same subject. It was,
as he informs us in its proem, drawn up from memory
on his voyage from Italy to Greece, soon after Caesar's
murder, and in compliance with the wishes of Trebatius,
who had some time before urged him to undertake the
translation.1

Cicero seems to have intended his De Oratore, De
claris Oratoribus, and Orator, to form one complete
system.2 Of these three noble works the first lays down
the principles and rules of the rhetorical art ; the second
exemplifies them in the most eminent speakers of Greece
and Rome ; and the third shadows out the features of
that perfect orator, whose superhuman excellences should
be the aim of our ambition. The De Oratore was written
when the author was fifty-two, two years after his return
from exile ; and is a dialogue between some of the most
illustrious Romans of the preceding age on the subject
of oratory. The principal speakers are the orators
Crassus and Antonius, who are represented unfolding the
principles of their art to Sulpicius and Cotta, young men
just rising in the legal profession. In the first book, the
conversation turns on the subject-matter of rhetoric, and
the qualifications requisite for the perfect orator. Here
Crassus maintains the necessity of his being acquainted
with the whole circle of the arts, while Antonius confines
eloquence to the province of speaking well. The dispute
1 Ad Fam. vii. 1. a Pe Div. U. I.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 281

for the most part seems verbal ; for Cicero himself,
though he here sides with Crassus, yet elsewhere, as we
have above noticed, pronounces eloquence, strictly speak-
ing1, to consist in beauty of diction. Scaevola, the cele-
brated lawyer, takes part in this preliminary discussion ;
but, in the ensuing meetings, makes way for Catulus and
Caesar, the subject leading to such technical disquisitions
as were hardly suitable to the dignity of the aged Augur.1
The next morning Antonius enters upon the subject of
invention, which Caesar completes by subjoining some
remarks on the use of humour in oratory ; and Antonius,
relieving him, finishes the morning discussion with treat-
ing of arrangement and memory. In the afternoon the
rules for propriety and elegance of diction are explained
by Crassus, who was celebrated in this department of the
art ; and the work concludes with his handling the sub-
ject of delivery and action. Such is the plan of the De
Oratore, the most finished perhaps of Cicero's com-
positions. An air of grandeur and magnificence reigns
throughout. The characters of the aged senators are
finely conceived, and the whole company is invested
with an almost religious majesty, from the allusions
interspersed to the melancholy destinies for which its
members were reserved.

His treatise De claris Oratoribus was written after an
interval of nine years, about the time of Cato's death, when
he was sixty-one, and is thrown into the shape of a dialogue
between Brutus, Atticus, and himself. He begins with
Solon, and after briefly mentioning the orators of Greece,
proceeds to those of his own country, so as to take in
the whole period from the time of Junius Brutus down
to himself. About the same time he wrote his Orator ;
in which he directs his attention principally to diction
i Ad Atticum, iv. 16.

282 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

and delivery, as in his De Invention* and Topica he con-
siders the matter of an oration * This treatise is of a
less practical nature than the rest.2 It adopts the prin-
ciples of Plato, and delineates the perfect orator accord-
ing to the abstract conceptions of the intellect rather
than the deductions of observation and experience.
Hence he sets out with a definition of the perfectly
eloquent man, whose characteristic it is to express
himself with propriety on all subjects, whether humble,
great, or of an intermediate character ;3 and here he has
an opportunity of paying some indirect compliments to
himself. With this work he was so well satisfied that
he does not scruple to declare, in a letter to a friend,
that he was ready to rest on its merits his reputation for
judgment in Oratory.4

The treatise De partitione Oratorid, or on the three
parts of rhetoric, is a kind of catechism between Cicero
and his son, drawn up for the use of the latter at the same
time with the two preceding. It is the most systematic
and perspicuous of his rhetorical works, but seems to be
but the rough draught of what he originally intended.6

10.

The connection which we have been able to preserve
between the rhetorical writings of Cicero cannot be at-
tained in his moral, political, and metaphysical treatises;
partly from the extent of the subject, partly from the
losses occasioned by time, partly from the inconsistency
which we have warned the reader to expect in his senti-
ments. In our enumeration, therefore, we shall observe
no other order than that which the date of their com-
position furnishes.

1 Orat. 16. • Orat. 14, 31. • Orat. 21, 29

* Ad Fam. vi. 18. 6 See Middleton, vol. ii. p. 147-

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 283

The earliest now extant is part of his treatise De
Legibus, in three books ; being a sequel to his work on
Politics. Both were written in imitation of Plato's
treatises on the same subjects.1 The latter of these (De
Republic^} was composed a year after the De Oratore?
and seems to have vied with it in the majesty and in-
terest of the dialogue. It consisted of a series of dis-
cussions in six books on the origin and principles of
government, Scipio being the principal speaker, but
Laelius, Philus, Manilius, and other personages of like
gravity taking part in the conversation. Till lately, but
a fragment of the fifth book was understood to be in ex-
istence, in which Scipio, under the fiction of a dream, in-
culcates the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. But
in the year 1822, Monsignor Mai, librarian of the Vatican,
published considerable portions of the first and second
books, from a palimpsest manuscript of St. Austin's
Commentary on the Psalms. In the part now recovered,
Scipio discourses on the different kinds of constitutions
and their respective advantages ; with a particular re-
ference to that of Rome. In the third book, the subject
of justice was discussed by Laelius and Philus ; in the
fourth, Scipio treated of morals and education ; while in
the fifth and sixth, the duties of a magistrate were ex-
plained, and the best means of preventing changes and
revolutions in the constitution itself. In the latter part
of the treatise, allusion was made to the actual posture
of affairs in Rome, when the conversation was supposed
to have occurred, and the commotions excited by the
Gracchi.

In his treatise De Legibus, which was written two years
later than the De Republicd, when he was fifty-five, and

1 De Legg. i. 5.

' Ang. Mai. praef. in Remp. Middleton, vol. i. p. 486

284 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

shortly after the murder of Clodius, he represents himself
as explaining to his brother Quintus and Atticus, in their
walks through the woods of Arpinum, the nature and origin
of the laws and their actual state, both in other countries
and in Rome. The first part only of the subject is con-
tained in the books now extant ; the introduction to which
we have had occasion to notice, when speaking of his Sto-
ical sentiments on questions connected with State policy.
Law he pronounces to be the perfection of reason, the
eternal mind, the divine energy, which, while it pervades
and unites in one the whole universe, associates gods and
men by the more intimate resemblance of reason and
virtue, and still more closely men with men, by the par-
ticipation of common faculties, affections, and situations.
He then proves, at length, that justice is not merely
created by civil institutions, from the power of conscience,
the imperfections of human law, the moral sense, and the
disinterestedness of virtue. He next proceeds to unfold
the principles, first, of religious law, under the heads of
divine worship ; the observance of festivals and games ;
the office of priests, augurs, and heralds ; the punishment
of sacrilege and purjury ; the consecration of land, and
the rights of sepulchre ; and, secondly, of civil law, which
gives him an opportunity of noticing the respective
duties of magistrates and citizens. In these discussions,
though professedly speaking of the abstract question, he
does not hesitate to anticipate the subject of the lost
books, by frequent allusions to the history and customs
of his own country. It must be added, that in no part
of his writings do worse instances occur, than in this
treatise, of that vanity which was notoriously his weak-
ness, which are rendered doubly offensive by their beinp
put into the mouth of his brother and Atticus.1

1 Quinct. lost. xi. I.

Marcus Tullius Cuero. 285

Here a period of seven or eight years intervenes, during
which he composed little of importance besides his
Orations. He then published the De claris Oratoribus
and Orator ; and a year later, when he was sixty-three,
his Academics Qucestiones, in the retirement from public
business to which he was driven by the dictatorship of
Caesar. This work had originally consisted of two
dialogues, which he entitled Catulus and Lucullus, from
the names of the respective speakers in each. These he
now remodelled and enlarged into four books, dedicating
them to Varro, whom he introduced as advocating, in the
presence of Atticus, the tenets of Antiochus, while he
himself defended those of Philo. Of this most valuable
composition, only the second book (Lucullus} of the first
edition and part of the first book of the second are now
extant. In the former of those two, Lucullus argues
against, and Cicero for, the Academic sect, in the presence
of Catulus and Hortensius ; in the latter, Varro pursues
the history of philosophy from Socrates to Arcesilas, and
Cicero continues it down to the time of Carneades. In
the second edition the style was corrected, the matter
condensed, and the whole polished with extraordinary
care and diligence.1

The same year he published his treatise De Finibus, or
" On the chief good," in five books, in which are explained
the sentiments of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Peripatetics
on the subject. This is the earliest of his works in which
the dialogue is of a disputatious character. It is opened
with a defence of the Epicurean tenets, concerning plea-
sure, by Torquatus ; to which Cicero replies at length.
The scene then shifts from the Cuman villa to the library
of young Lucullus (his father being dead), where the
Stoic Cato expatiates on the sublimity of the system

1 Ad Atticum, xiii. 13, 16, 19.

286 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

which maintains the existence of one only good, and is
answered by Cicero in the character of a Peripatetic.
Lastly, Piso, in a conversation held at Athens, enters
into an explanation of the doctrine of Aristotle, that
happiness is the greatest good. The general style of this
treatise is elegant and perspicuous ; and the last book in
particular has great variety and splendour of diction.

It was about this time that Cicero was especially
courted by the heads of the dictator's party, of whom
Hirtius and Dolabella went so far as to declaim daily at
his house for the benefit of his instructions.1 A visit of
this nature to the Tusculan villa, soon after the publi-
cation of the De Finibus, gave rise to his work entitled
Tusculance Qu(zstiones,-w\\\c\i professes to be the substance
of five philosophical disputes between himself and friends,
digested into as many books. He argues throughout after
the manner of an Academic, even with an affectation of in-
consistency ; sometimes making use of the Socratic dia-
logue, sometimes launching out into the diffuse expositions
which characterise his other treatises.2 He first disputes
against the fear of death ; and in so doing he adopts the
opinion of the Platonic school, as regards the nature of
God and the soul. The succeeding discussions on endur-
ing pain, on alleviating grief, on the other emotions of
the mind, and on virtue, are conducted for the most part
on Stoical principles.8 This is a highly ornamental com-
position, and contains more quotations from the poets
than any other of Cicero's treatises.

We have already had occasion to remark upon the
singular activity of his mind, which becomes more and
more conspicuous as we approach the period of his death.
During the ensuing year, which is the last of his life, in

i Ad Fanu ix. 16, 18. 2 Tusc. Quaest. v. 4, n.

3 Ibid. iii. 10, v. 27.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 287

the midst of the confusion and anxieties consequent on
Caesar's death, and the party warfare of his Philippics, he
found time to write the De Naturd Deorum, De Divina-
tione, De Fato, De Senectute, De A micitid, De Officiis, and
Paradoxa, besides the treatise on Rhetorical Common
Places above mentioned.

Of these, the first three were intended as a full expo-
sition of the conflicting opinions entertained on their
respective subj ects ; the De Fato, however, was not
finished according to this plan.1 His treatise De NaturA
Deorum, in three books, may be reckoned the most
splendid of all his works, and shows that neither age nor
disappointment had done injury to the richness and
vigour of his mind. In the first book, Velleius, the
Epicurean, sets forth the physical tenets of his sect, and
is answered by Cotta, who is of the Academic school.
In the second, Balbus, the disciple of the Porch, gives an
account of his own system, and is, in turn, refuted by
Cotta in the third. The eloquent extravagance of the
Epicurean, the solemn enthusiasm of the Stoic, and the
brilliant raillery of the Academic, are contrasted with
extreme vivacity and humour ; — while the sublimity of
the subject itself imparts to the whole composition a
grander and more elevated character, and discovers in
the author imaginative powers, which, celebrated as he
justly is for playfulness of fancy, might yet appear more
the talent of the poet than the orator.

His treatise De Divinatione is conveyed in a discus-
sion between his brother Quintus and himself, in two
books. In the former, Quintus, after dividing Divination
into the heads of natural and artificial, argues with the
Stoics for its sacred nature, from the evidence of facts,
the agreement of all nations, and the existence of divine

'De Nat. Deor. i. 6 ; de Div. u 4 , de Fat. i.

288 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

intelligences. In the latter, Cicero questions its authority,
with Carneades, from the uncertain nature of its rules,
the absurdity and uselessness of the art, and the pos-
sibility of accounting from natural causes for the pheno-
mena on which it was founded. This is a curious work,
from the numerous cases adduced from the histories of
Greece and Rome to illustrate the subject in dispute.

His treatise De Fato is quite a fragment ; it purports to
be the substance of a dissertation in which he explained
to Hirtius (soon after Consul) the sentiments of Chry-
sippus, Diodorus, Epicurus, Carneades, and others, upon
that abstruse subject. It is supposed to have consisted
at least of two books, of which we have but the proem
of the first, and a small portion of the second.

In his beautiful compositions, De Senectute and De
Amicitid, Cato the censor and Laelius are respectively in-
troduced, delivering their sentiments on those subjects.
The conclusion of the former, in which Cato discourses
on the immortality of the soul, has been always cele-
brated ; and the opening of the latter, in which Fannius
and Scaevola come to console Laelius on the death of
Scipio, is as exquisite an instance of delicacy and taste
in composition as can be found in his works. In the
'atter he has borrowed largely from the eighth and ninth
books of Aristotle's Ethics.

His treatise De Officiis was finished about the time he
wrote his second Philippic, a circumstance which illus-
trates the great versatility of his mental powers. Of a
work so extensively celebrated, it is enough to hav(
mentioned the name. Here he lays aside the less ai
thoritative form of dialogue, and, with the dignity of
Roman Consul, unfolds, in his own person, the pritcipl<
of morals, according to the views of the older school
particularly of the Stoics. It is written in three bookf

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 289

with great perspicuity and elegance of style; the first
book treats of the honestum, or virtue, the second of
the utile, or expedience, and the third adjusts the claims
of the two, when they happen to interfere with each
other.

His Paradoxa Stoicorum might have been more suit-
ably, perhaps, included in his rhetorical works, being six
short declamations in support of the positions of Zeno ;
in which that philosopher's subtleties are adapted to the
comprehension of the vulgar, and the events of the times.
The second, fourth, and sixth, are respectively directed
against Antony, Clodius, and Crassus. They seem to
have suffered from time.1 The sixth is the most eloquent,
but the argument of the third is strikingly maintained.

Besides the works now enumerated, we have a con-
siderable fragment of his translation of Plato's Tim&us,
which he seems to have finished in his last year. His
remaining philosophical works, viz. : the Hortensius,
which was a defence of philosophy; De Glorid ; De
Consolatione, written upon Platonic principles on his
daughter's death; De Jure Civili, De Virtutibus, De
Auguriis, Chorographia, translations of Plato's Protagoras,
and Xenophon's (Economics, works on Natural History,
Panegyric on Cato, and some miscellaneous writings,
are, except a few fragments, entirely lost.

His Letters, about one thousand in all, are comprised
in thirty-six books, sixteen of which are addressed to
Atticus, three to his brother Quintus, one to Brutus, and
sixteen to his different friends ; and they form a history
of his life from his fortieth year. Among those ad-
dressed to his friends, some occur from Brutus, Metellus,
Plancius, Caelius, and others. For the preservation of

> Sciopp. in Olivet,
VOL. I, 19

2go Marcus Tullius Cicero.

this most valuable department of Cicero's writings, we
are indebted to Tyro, the author's freed man, though we
possess, at the present day, but a part of those originally
published. As his correspondence with his friends be-
longs to his character as a man and politician, rather
than to his literary aspect, we have already noticed it in
the first part of this memoir.

His Poetical and Historical works have suffered a
heavier fate. The latter class, consisting of his com-
mentary on his consulship and his history of his own
times, is altogether lost. Of the former, which consisted
of the heroic poems Haley one y Limon, Marius, and his
Consulate, the elegy of Tamelastes, translations of Homer
and Aratus, epigrams, etc., nothing remains, except some
fragments of the Phenomena and Diosemeia of Aratus.
It may, however, be questioned whether literature has
suffered much by these losses. We are far, indeed, from
speaking contemptuously of the poetical talent of one
who possessed so much fancy, so much taste, and so fine
an ear.1 But his poems were principally composed in
his youth ; and afterwards, when his powers were more
mature, his occupations did not allow even to his active
mind the time necessary for polishing a language still
more rugged in metre than it was in prose. His con-
temporary history, on the other hand, can hardly have
conveyed more explicit, and certainly would have con-
tained less faithful, information than his private corre-
spondence ; while, with all the penetration he assuredly
possessed, it may be doubted if his diffuse and graceful
style was adapted for the deep and condensed thoughts
and the grasp of facts and events which are the chief
excellences of historical composition.

1 See Plutarch, in Viti.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 291

ir.

The Orations which he is known to have composed
amount in all to about eighty, of which fifty-nine, either
entire or in part, are preserved. Of these some are
deliberative, others judicial, others descriptive ; some
delivered from the rostrum, or in the senate ; others in
the forum, or before Caesar; and, as might be anticipated
from the character already given of his talents, he is
much more successful in pleading or in panegyric than
in debate or invective. In deliberative oratory, indeed,
great part of the effect of the composition depends on
its creating in the hearer a high opinion of the speaker ;
and, though Cicero takes considerable pains to interest
the audience in his favour, yet his style is not simple
and grave enough, he is too ingenious, too declamatory,
discovers too much personal feeling, to elicit that confi-
dence in him, without which argument has little influence.
His invectives, again, however grand and imposing,
yet, compared with his calmer and more familiar
productions, have a forced and unnatural air. Splendid
as is the eloquence of his Catilinarians and Philippics,
it is often the language of abuse rather than of indigna-
tion ; and even his attack on Piso, the most brilliant and
imaginative of its kind, becomes wearisome from want
of ease and relief. His laudatory orations, on the other
hand, are among his happiest efforts. Nothing can
exceed the taste and beauty of those for the Manilian
law, for Marcellus, for Ligarius, for Archias, and the
ninth Philippic, which is principally in praise of Servius
Sulpicius. But it is in judicial eloquence, particularly
on subjects of a lively cast, as in his speeches for Caelius
and Muraena, and against Caecilius, that his talents are
Displayed to the best advantage. In both these depart-

2()2 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

ments of oratory the grace and amiableness of his genius
are manifested in their full lustre, though none of his
orations are without tokens of those characteristic ex-
cellences. Historical allusions, philosophical sentiments,
descriptions full of life and nature, and polite raillery,
succeed each other in the most agreeable manner, with-
out appearance of artifice or effort Such are his pictures
of the confusion of the Catilinarian conspirators on
detection j1 of the death of Metellus ;a of Sulpicius
undertaking the embassy to Antony ;8 the character he
draws of Catiline ;* and his fine sketch of old Appius,
frowning on his degenerate descendant Clodia.6

These, however, are but incidental and occasional
artifices to divert and refresh the mind, since his Orations
are generally laid out according to the plan proposed in
rhetorical works ; the introduction, containing the ethical
proof; the body of the speech, the argument, and the
peroration addressing itself to the passions of the judges.
In opening his case, he commonly makes a profession of
timidity and diffidence, with a view to conciliate the
favour of his audience ; the eloquence, for instance, of
Hortensius, is so powerful," or so much prejudice has
been excited against his client,7 or it is his first appear-
ance in the rostrum,8 or he is unused to speak in an
armed assembly,' or to plead in a private apartment.10
He proceeds to entreat the patience of his judges ; drops
out some generous or popular sentiment, or contrives to
excite prejudice against his opponent. He then states
the circumstances of his case, and the intended plan of
his oration ; and here he is particularly clear. But it is

In Catil. iii. 3'5- * Pro Cael- 24-

Philipp. ix. 3. * Pro Csel. 6.

Ibid. 14. * Pro Quinct. I, and In Vcrr. Act i. 13.

Pro Cluent. I. * Pro Leg. Manil. I,

Pro Milon. i. M Pro Deiotar. 2,

Marcus Tultius Cicero. 293

when he comes actually to prove his point that his
oratorical powers begin to have their full play. He
accounts for everything so naturally, makes trivial
circumstances tell so happily, so adroitly converts ap-
parent objections into confirmations of his argument,
connects independent facts with such ease and plausi-
bility, that it becomes impossible to entertain a question
on the truth of his statement. This is particularly
observable in his defence of Cluentius, where prejudices,
suspicions, and difficulties are encountered with the most
triumphant ingenuity ; in the antecedent probabilities
of his Pro Milone ;x in his apology for Muraena's public,8
and Caelius's private life,8 and his disparagement of
Verres's military services in Sicily ;4 it is observable too
in the address with which the Agrarian law of Rullus,,
and the accusation of Rabirius,8 both popular measures,
are represented to be hostile to public liberty ; with
which Milo's impolitic unconcern is made a touching
incident ;T and Cato's attack upon the crowd of clients
which accompanied the candidate for office, a tyrannical
disregard for the feelings of the poor.8 So great indeed
is his talent, that he even hurts a good cause by an
excess of plausibility.

But it is not enough to have barely proved his point ;
he proceeds, either immediately, or towards the conclu-
sion of his speech, to heighten the effect by amplifica-
tion.9 Here he goes (as it were) round and round his
object ; surveys it in every light ; examines it in all its
parts ; retires, and then advances ; turns and re-turns it ;
compares and contrasts it ; illustrates, confirms, enforces

* Pro Milon. 14, etc. « Pro Mursen. 9. • Pro Gael. 7, etc.

* In Verr. vi. 2, etc. • Contra Rull. ii. 6, 7.

6 Pro Rabir. 4. » Pro Milon. init. et alibi.

* Pro Mursen. 34. • De Orat. partit. 8, 16, 17.

2 94 Marcus Tuliius Cicero.

his view of the question, till at last the hearer feels
ashamed of doubting a position which seems built on a
foundation so strictly argumentative. Of this nature is
his justification of Rabirius in taking up arms against
Saturninus ; 1 his account of the imprisonment of the
Roman citizens by Verres, and of the crucifixion of
Gavius ; a his comparison of Antony with Tarquin ; * and
the contrast he draws of Verres with Fabius, Scipio, and
Marius.4

And now, having established his case, he opens upon
his opponent a discharge of raillery, so delicate and
good-natured, that it is impossible for the latter to
maintain his ground against it. Or where the subject
is too grave to admit this, he colours his exaggeration
with all the bitterness of irony or vehemence of passion.
Such are his frequent delineations of Gabinius, Piso,
Clodius, and Antony ; * particularly his vivid and
almost humorous contrast of the two consuls, who
sanctioned his banishment, in his oration for Sextius.'
Such the celebrated account (already referred to) of the
crucifixion of Gavius by Verres, which it is difficult to
read, even at the present day, without having our feel-
ings roused against the merciless Praetor. But the
appeal to the gentler emotions of the soul is reserved
(perhaps with somewhat of sameness) for the close of
his oration ; as in his defence of Cluentius, Muraena,
Caelius, Milo, Sylla, Flaccus, and Rabirius Postumus;
the most striking instances of which are the poetical
burst of feeling with which he addresses his client
Plancius,7 and his picture of the desolate condition of

i Pro Rabir. 8. * In Verr. v. 56, etc., and 64, etc.

8 Philipp. iii. 4. * In Verr. vi. 10.

6 Post Redit in Senat. i. 4—8 ; pro Dom. 9, 39, etc. ; in Pis. 10, II.
Philipp. ii. 18, etc.

6 Pro Sext. 8—io. 7 Pro Plane. 41, 42.

Marcus Tutlius Cicero. 295

the Vestal Fonteia, should her brother be condemned.1
At other times, his peroration contains more heroic and
elevated sentiments ; as in his invocation of the Alban
groves and altars in the peroration of the Pro Milone,
the panegyric on patriotism, and the love of glory in his
defence of Sextius, and that on liberty at the close of
the third and tenth Philippics.1

12.

But it is by the invention of a style, which adapts
itself with singular felicity to every class of subjects,
whether lofty or familiar, philosophical or forensic, that
Cicero answers even more exactly to his own definition
of a perfect orator8 than by his plausibility, pathos, and
brilliancy. It is not, however, here intended to enter
upon the consideration of a subject so ample and so
familiar to all scholars as Cicero's diction, much less
to take an extended view of it through the range of
his philosophical writings and familiar correspondence.
Among many excellences, the greatest is its suitableness
to the genius of the Latin language ; though the diffuse-
ness thence necessarily resulting has exposed it, both in
his own days and since his time, to the criticisms of
those who have affected to condemn its Asiatic character,
in comparison with the simplicity of Attic writers, and
the strength of Demosthenes.4 Greek, however, is cele-
brated for its copiousness in vocabulary, for its per-
spicuity, and its reproductive power ; and its consequent
facility of expressing the most novel or abstruse ideas
with precision and elegance. Hence the Attic style of

1 Pro Fonteio, 17.

3 Vid. his ideal description of an orator, in Orat. 40. Vid. also de
clar. Orat. 93, his negative panegyric on his own oratorical attainments.
8 Orat. 29.
* Tusc. Quaest. i. 1 ; de clar. Orat. 82. etc., de opt. gen. dicendi.

296 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

eloquence was plain and simple, because simplicity and
plainness were not incompatible with clearness, energy,
and harmony. But it was a singular want of judgment,
an ignorance of the very principles of composition, which
induced Brutus, Calvus, Sallust, and others to imitate
this terse and severe beauty in their own defective
language, and even to pronounce the opposite kind of dic-
tion deficient in taste and purity. In Greek, indeed, the
words fall, as it were, naturally, into a distinct and har-
monious order; and, from the exuberant richness of the
materials, less is left to the ingenuity of the artist. But
the Latin language is comparatively weak, scanty, and
unmusical; and requires considerable skill and manage-
ment to render it expressive and graceful. Simplicity in
Latin is scarcely separable from baldness ; and justly as
Terence is celebrated for chaste and unadorned diction,
yet, even he, compared with Attic writers, is flat and
heavy.1 Again, the perfection of strength is clearness
united to brevity ; but to this combination Latin is
utterly unequal. From the vagueness and uncertainty
of meaning which characterises its separate words, to be
perspicuous it must be full. What Livy, and much more
Tacitus, have gained in energy, they have lost in lucidity
and elegance ; the correspondence of Brutus with Cicero
is forcible, indeed, but harsh and abrupt. Latin, in
short, is not a philosophical language, not a language in
which a deep thinker is likely to express himself with
purity or neatness. Cicero found it barren and dissonant,
and as such he had to deal with it. His good sense
enabled him to perceive what could be done, and what
it was in vain to attempt ; and happily his talents
answered precisely to the purpose required. He may
be compared to a clever landscape-gardener, who gives
1 Quinct. x. L

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 297

depth and richness to narrow and confined premises by-
ingenuity and skill in the disposition of his trees and
walks. Terence and Lucretius had cultivated simpli
city ; Cotta, Brutus, and Calvus had attempted strength ;
but Cicero rather made a language than a style ;
yet not so much by the invention as by the combina-
tion of words. Some terms, indeed, his philosophical
subjects obliged him to coin ; * but his great art lies
in the application of existing materials, in converting
the very disadvantages of the language into beauties,'
in enriching it with circumlocutions and metaphors, in
pruning it of harsh and uncouth expressions, in system-
atizing the structure of a sentence.8 This is that copia
dicendi which gained Cicero the high testimony of Caesar
to his inventive powers,4 and which, we may add, con-
stitutes him the greatest master of composition that the
world has seen.

Such, then, are the principal characteristics of Cicero's
oratory ; on a review of which we may, with some
reason, conclude that Roman eloquence stands scarcely
less indebted to his works than Roman philosophy.
For, though in his De claris Oratoribus he begins his
review from the age of Junius Brutus, yet, soberly
speaking (and as he seems to allow in the opening of

1 De Fin. iii. I and 4 ; Lucull. 6. Plutarch, in Vita.

2 This, which is analogous to his address in pleading, is nowhere more
observable than in his rendering the recurrence of the same word, to which
he is forced by the barrenness or vagueness of the language, an elegance.

8 It is remarkable that some authors attempted to account for the inven-
tion of the Asiatic style, on the same principle we have here adduced to
account for Cicero's adoption of it in Latin ; viz. that the Asiatics had a
defective knowledge of Greek, and devised phrases, etc., to make up for
the imperfection of their scanty vocubulary. See Quinct. xii. 10.

4 De clar. Orat. 72.

298 Marcus Tullius Cicero.

the De Oratore), we cannot assign an earlier date to the
rise of eloquence among his countrymen, than that of
the same Athenian embassy which introduced the study
of philosophy. To aim, indeed, at persuasion, by
appeals to the reason or passions, is so natural, that no
country, whether refined or barbarous, is without its
orators. If, however, eloquence be the mere power of
persuading, it is but a relative term, limited to time and
place, connected with a particular audience, and leaving
to posterity no test of its merits but the report of those
whom it has been successful in influencing ; but we are
speaking of it as the subject-matter of an art.1

The eloquence of Carneades and his associates had
made (to use a familiar term) a great sensation among
the Roman orators, who soon split into two parties, — the
one adhering to the rough unpolished manners of their
forefathers, the other favouring the artificial graces which
distinguished the Grecian rhetoricians. In the former class
were Cato and Laelius,* both men of cultivated minds,
particularly Cato, whose opposition to Greek literature
was founded solely on political considerations. But, as
might have been expected, the Athenian cause had
prevailed ; and Carbo and the two Gracchi, who are the
principal orators of the next generation, are praised as
masters of an oratory learned, majestic, and harmonious
in its character.8 These were succeeded by Antonius,
Crassus, Cotta, Sulpicius, and Hortensius; who, adopting
greater liveliness and variety of manner, form a middle
age in the history of Roman eloquence. But it was in

1 "Vulgus interdum," says Cicero, "non probandum oratorem probat,
sed probat sine comparatione, cum a mediocri aut etiam a malo delectatur ;
eo est contentus : esse melius sentit : illud quod est, qualecunque est,
probat."— De clar. Orat. 52.

• De clar. Orat. 72. Quinct. xii. 10.

* De clar. Orat. 25, 27 ; pro Harusp. resp. 19.

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 299

that which immediately followed that the art was adorned
by an assemblage of orators, which even Greece will find
it difficult to match. Of these Caesar, Cicero, Curio,
Brutus, Caelius, Calvus, and Callidius, are the most
celebrated. The talents, indeed, of Caesar were not more
conspicuous in arms than in his style, which was noted
for its force and purity.1 Caelius, whom Cicero brought
forward into public life, excelled in natural quick-
ness, loftiness of sentiment, and politeness in attack ; *
Brutus in philosophical gravity, though he sometimes
indulged himself in a warmer and bolder style.8 Callidius
was delicate and harmonious ; Curio bold and flowing ;
Calvus, from studied opposition to Cicero's peculiarities,
cold, cautious, and accurate.4 Brutus and Calvus have
been before noticed as the advocates of the dry senten-
tious mode of speaking, which they dignified by the
name of Attic ; a kind of eloquence which seems to
have been popular from the comparative facility with
which it was attained.

In the Ciceronian age the general character of the
oratory was dignified and graceful. The popular nature
of the government gave opportunities for effective ap-
peals to the passions ; and, Greek literature being as yet
a novelty, philosophical sentiments were introduced with
corresponding success. The republican orators were
long in their introductions, diffuse in their statements,
ample in their divisions, frequent in their digressions,
gradual and sedate in their perorations.8 Under the
Emperors, however, the people were less consulted in
state affairs ; and the judges, instead of possessing an

1 Quinct. x. i and 2. De clar. Orat 75.

8 Ibid.

8 Ibid, and ad Atticum, xiv. 1.

« Ibid.

5 Dialog, de Orat. 20 apud Tacit, and 22. Quinct. x. 2.

3OO Marcus Tullius Cicero.

almost independent authority, being but delegates of the
executive, from interested politicians became men of
business ; literature, too, was now familiar to all classes ;
and taste began sensibly to decline. The national
appetite felt a craving for stronger and more stimulating
compositions. Impatience was manifested at the tedious
majesty and formal graces, the parade of arguments,
grave sayings, and shreds of philosophy,1 which charac-
terized their fathers ; and a smarter and more sparkling
kind of oratory succeeded,2 just as in our own country
the minuet of the last century has been supplanted by
the quatlrille, and the stately movements of Giardini
have given way to Rossini's brisker and more artificial
melodies. Corvinus, even before the time of Augustus,
had shown himself more elaborate and fastidious in his
choice of expressions.3 Cassius Severus, the first who
openly deviated from the old style of oratory, introduced
an acrimonious and virulent mode of pleading.4 It now
became the fashion to decry Cicero as inflated, languid,
tame, and even deficient in ornament ; 6 Mecaenas and
Gallic followed in the career of degeneracy; till flippancy
of attack, prettiness of expression, and glitter of deco-
ration prevailed over the bold and manly eloquence of
free Rome.

1 "It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour of
others, to add a little of their own, and overlook their master." — Johnson.
We have before compared Cicero to Addison as regards the purpose of
inspiring their respective countrymen with literary taste. They resembled
each other in the return they experienced.

» Dialog. 18. 3 Ibid. 4 Dialog. 19.

* Dialog. 18 and 22 Quinct. xii 10.

fir.

THE APOLLONIUS OF TtfANA.

(From the ENCYCLOPAEDIA METROPOLITAN of 1826. )

APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.

PACK
INTRODUCTION. — HIS LIFE WRITTEN BY PHILOSTRATUS, INDIRECTLY

AGAINST CHRISTIANITY 305

1. HIS BIRTH, EDUCATION, PYTHAGOREAN TRAINING, AND TRAVELS 306

2. HIS POLITICAL AS! ECT ....... . 309

3. HIS REPUTATION --.».... M . 316

4. HIS PROFESSION OF MIRACLES ....... 319

5. NOT BORNE OUT BY THE INTERNAL CHARACTER OF THE ACTS

THEMSELVES 323

6. NOR BY THEIR DRIFT • •--•-••.- 326

7. BUT AN IMITATION OF SCRIPTURE MIRACLE! .... 328

*

305

APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.

A POLLONIUS, the Pythagorean philosopher, was
/JL born at Tyana, in Cappadocia, in the year of Rome
750, four years before the common Christian era.1 His
reputation rests, not so much on his personal merits, as
on the attempt made in the early ages of the Church,
and since revived,* to bring him forward as a rival to the
Divine Author of our Religion. A narrative of his life,
which is still extant, was written with this object, about
a century after his death (A.D. 217), by Philostratus of
Lemnos, when Ammonius was systematizing the Eclectic
tenets to meet the increasing influence and the spread of
Christianity. Philostratus engaged in this work at the
instance of his patroness Julia Domna, wife of the Em-
peror Severus, a princess celebrated for her zeal in the
cause of Heathen Philosophy ; who put into his hands a
journal of the travels of Apollonius rudely written by
one Damis, an Assyrian, his companion.* This manu-
script, an account of his residence at ^Egae, prior to his
acquaintance with Damis, by Maximus of that city, a
collection of his letters, some private memoranda relative
to his opinions and conduct, and lastly the public records
of the cities he frequented, were the principal documents
from which Philostratus compiled his elaborate narra-

1 Olear. ad Philostr. L 12. * By Lord Herbert and Mr. Blount

• Philostr. i. 3.
VOL. I. 20

306 Apollonius ofTyana.

live.1 It is written with considerable elegance and com-
mand of Greek, but with more attention to ornament
than is consistent with correct taste. Though it is not
a professed imitation of the Gospels, it contains quite
enough to show that it was written with a view of rivalling
the sacred narrative ; and accordingly, in the following
age, it was made use of in a direct attack upon Chris-
tianity by Hierocles,1 Prefect of Bithynia, a disciple of
the Eclectic School, to whom a reply was made by
Eusebius of Caesarea. The selection of a Pythagorean
Philosopher for the purpose of a comparison with our
Lord was judicious. The attachment of the Pythago-
rean Sect to the discipline of the established religion,
which most other philosophies neglected, its austerity,
its pretended intercourse with heaven, its profession of
extraordinary power over nature, and the authoritative
tone of teaching which this profession countenanced,3
were all in favour of the proposed object. But with the
plans of the Eclectics in their attack upon Christianity
we have no immediate concern.

I.

Philostratus begins his work with an account of the
prodigies attending the philosopher's birth, which, with
all circumstances of a like nature, we shall for the pre-
sent pass over, intending to make some observations on
them in the sequel. At the age of fourteen he was
placed by his father under the care of Euthydemus, a
distinguished rhetorician of Tarsus ; but, being dis-

1 Philostr. i. 2, 3.

2 His work was called Aityot $i\aXi$0«s ir/>6$ Xpumwott' on this subject
see Mosheim, Dissertat. de turbatd fer ncentiorcs Platonicos Ecclesid,
Sec. 25.

'Philostr i, I7i vi, 1 1,

Apol/omus of Tyana. 307

pleased with the dissipation of the place, he removed
with his master to -^Egae, a neighbouring town, fre-
quented as a retreat for students in philosophy.1 Here
he made himself master of the Platonic, Stoic, Epicu-
rean, and Peripatetic systems ; giving, however, an ex-
clusive preference to the Pythagorean, which he studied
with Euxenus of Heraclea, a man, however, whose life
ill accorded with the ascetic principles of his Sect. At
the early age of sixteen years, according to his biogra-
pher, he resolved on strictly conforming himself to the
precepts of Pythagoras, and, if possible, rivalling the
fame of his master. He renounced animal food and
wine ; restricted himself to the use of linen garments
and sandals made of the bark of trees ; suffered his hair
to grow ; and betook himself to the temple of ./Escula-
pius, who is said to have regarded him with peculiar
favour.1

On the news of his father's death, which took place
not long afterwards, he left -<Egae for his native place,
where he gave up half his inheritance to his elder
brother, whom he is said to have reclaimed from a dis-
solute course of life, and the greater part of the remainder
to his poorer relatives.8

Prior to composing any philosophical work, he thought
it necessary to observe the silence of five years, which
was the appointed initiation into the esoteric doctrines
of his Sect. During this time he exercised his mind in
storing up materials for future reflection. We are told
that on several occasions he hindered insurrections in
the cities in which he resided by the mute eloquence of
his look and gestures ;4 but such an achievement is
hardly consistent with the Pythagorean rule, which

7. 5Ibid.i. 8.

» Ibid. i. 13. * Ibid. i. 14, 15.

308 Apollonius of Tyana.

forbad its disciples during their silence the intercourse
of mixed society.1

The period of silence being expired, Apollonius passed
through the principal cities of Asia Minor, disputing in
the temples in imitation of Pythagoras, unfolding the
mysteries of his Sect to such as were observing their
probationary silence, discoursing with the Greek Priests
about divine rites, and reforming the worship of barba-
rian cities.* This must have been his employment for
many years ; the next incident in his life being his
Eastern journey, which was not undertaken till he was
between forty and fifty years of age.'

His object in this expedition was to consult the Magi
and Brachmans on philosophical matters ; still following
the example of Pythagoras, who is said to have travelled
as far as India with the same purpose. At Nineveh,
where he arrived with two companions, he was joined
by Damis, already mentioned as his journalist.4 Pro-
ceeding thence to Babylon, he had some interviews with
the Magi, who rather disappointed his expectations ;
and was well received by Bardanes the Parthian King,
who, after detaining him at his Court for the greater
part of two years, dismissed him with marks of peculiar

1 Brucker, vol. ii. p. 104. * Philostr. i. 16.

* See Clear, prafat. ad vitam. As he died, u.c. 849, he is usually
considered to have lived to a hundred. Since, however, here is an interval
of almost twenty years in which nothing important happens, in a part also of
his life unconnected with any public events to fix its chronology, it is highly
probable that the date of his birth is put too early. Philostratus says that
accounts varied, making him live eighty, ninety, or one hundred years ; see
riii. 29. See also ii. 12, where, by some inaccuracy, he makes him to have
been in India twenty years before he was at Babylon. — Olear. ad locum et
prof at. ad vit. The common date of his birth is fixed by his biographer*!
merely accidental mention of the revolt of Archelaus against the Romans,
as taking place before Apollonius was twenty years old ; see i. 12.

* Philostr. i. 19.

.

Apollonius of Tyana. 309

honour.1 From Babylon he proceeded, by way of the
Caucasus and the Indus, to Taxila, the city of Phraotes,
King of the Indians, who is represented as an adept in
the Pythagorean Philosophy ;a and passing on, at length
accomplished the object of his expedition by visiting
larchas, Chief of the Brachmans, from whom he is said
to have learned many valuable theurgic secrets.*

On his return to Asia Minor, after an absence of
about five years, he stationed himself for a time in
Ionia ; where the fame of his travels and his austere
mode of life gained for him much attention to his
philosophical harangues. The cities sent embassies to
him, decreeing him public honours ; while the oracles
pronounced him more than mortal, and referred the sick
to him for relief.4

From Ionia he passed over to Greece, and made his
first tour through its principal cities ;* visiting the
temples and oracles, reforming the divine rites, and
sometimes exercising his theurgic skill. Except at
Sparta, however, he seems to have attracted little at-
tention. At Eleusis his application for admittance to
the Mysteries was unsuccessful ; as was a similar at-
tempt at the Cave of Trophonius at a later date.* In
both places his reputation for magical powers was the
cause of his exclusion.

2.

Hitherto our memoir has only set before us the life of

i Philostr. i. 27—41.

* Ibid. ii. i — 40. Bruckcr, vol. ii. p. no.
» Ibid. iii. 51.

* Ibid. ir. I. Acts xiii. 8 ; see also Acts viii. 9 — ii, and xix. 13 — 16.

* Ibid. iv. II, etseg.

' When denied at the latter place he forced his way in. — Philostr. viii.

3io Apollonius of Tyana.

an ordinary Pythagorean, which may be comprehended in
three words, mysticism, travel, and d imputation. From the
date, however, of his journey to Rome, which succeeded
his Grecian tour, it is in some degree connected with the
history of the times ; and, though for much of what is
told us of him we have no better authority than the
word of Philostratus himself, still there is neither reason
nor necessity for supposing the narrative to be in sub-
stance untrue.

Nero had at this time prohibited the study of philoso-
phy, alleging that it was made the pretence for magical
practices ;' — and the report of his tyrannical excesses so
alarmed the followers of Apollonius as they approached
Rome, that out of thirty-four who had accompanied him
thus far, eight only could be prevailed on to proceed.
On his arrival, his religious pretensions were the occa-
sion of his being brought successively before the consul
Telesinus and Tigellinus the Minister of Nero.3 Both
of them, however, dismissed him after an examination ;
the former from a secret leaning towards philosophy,
the latter from fear (as we are told) of his extraordinary
powers. He was in consequence allowed to go about
at his pleasure from temple to temple, haranguing the
people, and, as in Asia, prosecuting his reforms in the
worship paid to the gods. This, however, can hardly
have been the case, supposing the edict against philoso-
phers was as severe as his biographer represents. In
that case neither Apollonius, nor Demetrius the Cynic,
who joined him after his arrival, would have been per-
mitted to remain in Rome; certainly not Apollonius,

1 Ibid. iv. 35. Brucker (vol. ii. p. 118) with reason thinks this prohibi-
tion extended only to the profession of magic.
* Ibid. iv. 40, etc.

Apollonius of Tyana. 3 1 1

after his acknowledgment of his own magical powers in
the presence of Tigellinus.1

It is more probable he was sent out of the city ; any-
how we soon find him in Spain, taking part in the con-
spiracy forming against Nero by Vindex and others.'
The political partisans of that day seem to have made
use of professed jugglers and magicians to gain over the
body of the people to their interests. To this may be
attributed Nero's banishing such men from Rome ;8 and
Apollonius had probably been already serviceable in
this way at the Capital, as he was now in Spain, and
immediately after to Vespasian ; and at a later period
to Nerva.

His next expeditions were to Africa, to Sicily, and so
to Greece,4 but they do not supply anything of import-
ance to the elucidation of his character. At Athens he
obtained the initiation in the Mysteries, for whfch he
had on his former visit unsuccessfully applied.

The following spring, the seventy-third of his life,
according to the common calculation, he proceeded to
Alexandria,5 where he attracted the notice of Vespa-
sian, who had just assumed the purple, and who seemed
desirous of countenancing his proceedings by the sanction
of religion. Apollonius might be recommended to him

i Brucker, vol. ii. p. 120. a Philostr. v. 10.

8 Astrologers were concerned in Libo's conspiracy against Tiberius, and
punished. Vespasian, as we shall have occasion to notice presently, made
use of them in furthering his political plans. — Tacit. Hist. ii. 78. We read
of their predicting Nero's accession, the deaths of Vitellius and Domitian,
etc. They were sent into banishment by Tiberius, Claudius, Vitellius, and
Domitian. Philostratus describes Nero as issuing his edict on leaving the
Capital for Greece, iv. 47. These circumstances seem to imply that astro-
logy, magic, etc, were at that time of considerable service in political
intrigues.

4 Philostr. v. ii, etc. * Ibid. v. 30, etc.

312 Apollonius of Tyana.

for this purpose by the fame of his travels, his reputation
for theurgic knowledge, and his late acts in Spain against
Nero. It is satisfactory to be able to detect an historical
connexion between two personages, each of whom has in
his turn been made to rival our Lord and His Apostles
in pretensions to miraculous power. Thus, claims which
appeared to be advanced on distinct grounds are found
to proceed from one centre, and by their coalition to
illustrate and expose one another. The celebrated cures
by Vespasian are connected with the ordinary theurgy
of the Pythagorean School; and Apollonius is found
here, as in many other instances, to be the instrument of
a political party.

His biographer's account of his first meeting with the
Emperor, which is perhaps substantially correct, is amus-
ing from the theatrical character with which it was
invested.1 The latter, on entering Alexandria, was met
by the great body of the Magistrates, Prefects, and
Philosophers of the city ; but, not discovering Apollonius
in the number, he hastily asked, " whether the Tyanean
was in Alexandria," and when told he was philosophizing
in the Serapeum, proceeding thither he suppliantly en-
treated him to make him Emperor ; and, on the Philo-
sopher's answering he had already done so in praying for
a just and venerable Sovereign,* Vespasian avowed his
determination of putting himself entirely into his hands,
and of declining the supreme power, unless he could

1 Philostr. T. 27.

1 Tacitus relates, that when Vespasian was going to the Serapcum, ut
super rebus imperil consulerct, Basilides, an Egyptian, who was at the time
eighty miles distant, suddenly appeared to him ; from his name the emperor
drew an omen that the god sanctioned his assumption of the Imperial
power. — Hist. iv. 82. This sufficiently agrees in substance with the narra-
tive of Philostratus to give the latter some probability. It was on this
occasion that the famous cures are said to hive been wrought.

Apollonius of Tyana. 313

obtain his countenance in assuming it.1 A formal con-
sultation was in consequence held, at which, besides
Apollonius, Dio and Euphrates, Stoics in the Emperor's
train, were allowed to deliver' their sentiments ; when the
latter philosopher entered an honest protest against the
sanction which Apollonius was giving to the ambition of
Vespasian, and advocated the restoration of the Roman
State to its ancient republican form.* This difference of
opinion laid the foundation of a lasting quarrel between
the rival advisers, to which Philostratus makes frequent
allusion in the course of his history. Euphrates is men-
tioned by the ancients in terms of high commendation ;
by Pliny especially, who knew him well.' He seems to
have seen through his opponent's religious pretences, as
we gather even from Philostratus ; * and when so plain a
reason exists for the dislike which Apollonius, in his
Letters, and Philostratus, manifest towards him, their
censure must not be allowed to weigh against the testi-
mony, which unbiassed writers have delivered in his
favour.

After parting from Vespasian, Apollonius undertook
an expedition into ^Ethiopia, where he held discussions
with the Gymnosophists, and visited the cataracts of
the Nile.1 On his return he received the news of the

1 As Egypt supplied Rome with corn, Vespasian by taking possession ot
that country almost secured to himself the Empire. — Tacit. Hist. ii. 82, iii.
8. Philostratus insinuates that he was already in possession of supreme
power, and came to Egypt for the sanction of Apollonius. Tyv ^v apx*!'
KtKTijutvot, &M\€£6fj.wos 8t Ttj) avSpi. v. 27.

a Philostr. v. 31.

8 Brucker, vol. ii. p. 566, etc.

4 Philostr. v. 37, he makes Euphrates say to Vespasian, $t\o<rofplav, &
/WtXev, T-fjr pit Kara <p6<rw etraivei Kal a<nrd£ov' rr)V 5£ 0eoK\vreiv <f>d<TKOVffa*
T9.pa.iTQV Ka.Ta\J/cvd6fJievoi yap TOV Btiov wo\\a Kal dvor/ra, ij/jt,S.9 tiralpovru
See Brucker ; and Apollon. Epist. 8.

' Ibid. vi. i, etc.

314 ApoUomus of Tyana.

destruction of Jerusalem ; and being pleased with the
modesty of the conqueror, wrote to him in commenda-
tion of it. Titus is said to have invited him to Argos in
Cilicia, for the sake of his advice on various subjects, and
obtained from him a promise that at some future time
he would visit him at Rome.i

On the succession of Domitian, he became once more
engaged in the political commotions of the day, exerting
himself to excite the countries of Asia Minor against the
Emperor.* These proceedings at length occasioned an
order from the Government to bring him to Rome, which,
however, according to his biographer's account, he antici-
pated by voluntarily surrendering himself, under the idea
that by his prompt appearance he might remove the
Emperor's jealousy, and save Nerva and others whose
political interests he had been promoting. On arriving
at Rome he was brought before Domitian ; and when,
very inconsistently with his wish to shield his friends
from suspicion, he launched out into praise of Nerva, he
was forced away into prison to the company of the worst
criminals, his hair and beard were cut short, and his limbs
loaded with chains. After some days he was brought to
trial ; the charges against him being the singularity of
his dress and appearance, his being called a god, his
foretelling a pestilence at Ephesus, and his sacrificing a
child with Nerva for the purpose of augury.8 Philostratus
supplies us with an ample defence, which, it seems, he
was to have delivered,4 had he not in the course of the
proceedings suddenly vanished from the Court, and trans-

• Philostr. ri. 29, etc.

8 Ibid.vii. I, etc., see Brucker, vol. ii. p. 128.

» Ibid. viii. 5, 6, etc. On account of his foretelling the pestilence he
was honoured as a god by I he Ephesians, vii. 21. Hence this prediction
appeared in the indictment.

* Euseb. in Hier. 41.

Apollonius of Tyana. 315

ported himself to Puteoli, whither he had before sent on
Damis.

This is the only miraculous occurrence which forces
itself into the history as a component part of the narra-
tive ; the rest being of easy omission without any
detriment to its entireness.1 And strictly speaking,
even here, it is only his vanishing which is of a miracu-
lous nature, and his vanishing is not really necessary for
the continuity of events. His " liberation " and " trans-
portation " are sufficient for that continuity ; and to be
set free from prison and sent out of Rome are occur-
rences which might happen without a divine interposi-
tion. And in fact they seem very clearly to have taken
place in the regular course of business. Philostratus
allows that just before the philosopher's pretended dis-
appearance, Domitian had publicly acquitted him, and
that after the miracle he proceeded to hear the cause
next in order, as if nothing had happened ; * and tells
us, moreover, that Apollonius on his return to Greece
gave out that he had pleaded his own cause and so
escaped, no allusion being made to a miraculous preser-
vation.8

After spending two years in the latter country in his
usual philosophical disputations, he passed into Ionia.
According to his biographer's chronology, he was now
approaching the completion of his hundredth year. We
may easily understand, therefore, that when invited to

1 Perhaps his causing the writing of the indictment to vanish from the
paper, when he was brought before Tigellinus, may be an exception, as
being the alleged cause of his acquittal. In general, however, no conse-
quence follows from his marvellous actions : e. g. when imprisoned by
Domitian, in order to show Damis his power, he is described as drawing
his leg out of the fetters, and then — as putting it back again, vii. 38. A
great exertion of power with apparently a small object.

3 Philostr. viii. 8, 9. 3 Ibid. viii. 15.

3 i 6 Apollonim of Tyana.

Rome by Nerva, who had just succeeded to the Empire,
he declined the proposed honour with an intimation
that their meeting must be deferred to another state
of being.1 His death took place shortly after ; and
Ephesus, Rhodes, and Crete are variously mentioned
as the spot at which it occurred.* A temple was dedi-
cated to him at Tyana,8 which was in consequence
accounted one of the sacred cities, and permitted the
privilege of electing its own Magistrates.*

He is said to have written* a treatise upon Judicial
Astrology, a work on Sacrifices, another on Oracles, a
Life of Pythagoras, and an account of the answers
which he received from Trophonius, besides the memo-
randa noticed in the opening of our memoir. A collec-
tion of Letters ascribed to him is still extant.'

3-

It may be regretted that so elaborate a history, as
that which we have abridged, should not contain more
authentic and valuable matter. Both the secular trans-
actions of the times and the history of Christianity
might have been illustrated by the life of one, who,
while he was an instrument of the partisans of Vindex,
Vespasian, and Nerva, was a contemporary and in
some respects a rival of the Apostles ; and who, pro-
bably, was with St. Paul at Ephesus and Rome.7 As

1 Philostr. viii. 27. i Ibid. viii. 30. * Ibid. i. 5, yiii. 29.

* A coin of Hadrian's reign is extant with the inscription, which seems
to run Tuara lepi, &<rv\os, dur6vo/ioj. Olear. ad Philostr. viii. 31.

• See Bayle, Art. Apottonius ; and Brucker.

6 Bishop Lloyd considers them spurious, but Olearms and Brucker show
that there is good reason from internal evidence to suppose them genuine.
See Olear. Addend, ad prsefat. Epistol.; and Brucker, vol. ii. p. 147.

7 Apollonius continued at Ephesus, Smyrna, etc., from A.D. 50 to about
59, and was at Rome from A.D. 63 to 66. St. Paul passed through Ionia

Apollonius of Tyana. 317

far as his personal character is concerned, there is no-
thing to be lamented in these omissions. There is
nothing very winning, or very commanding, either in
his biographer's picture of him, or in his own letters.
His virtues, as we have already seen, were temperance
and a disregard of wealth ; and that he really had these,
and such as these, may be safely concluded from the
fact of the popularity which he enjoyed. The great
object of his ambition seems to have been to emulate
the fame of his master ; and his efforts had their
reward in the general admiration he attracted, the
honours paid him by the Oracles, and the attentions
shown him by men in power.

We might have been inclined, indeed, to suspect that
his reputation existed principally in his biographer's
panegyric, were it not attested by other writers. The
celebrity, which he has enjoyed since the writings of the
Eclectics, by itself affords but a faint presumption of his
notoriety before they appeared. Yet, after all allow-
ances, there remains enough to show that, however
fabulous the details of his history may be, there was
something extraordinary in his life and character.
Some foundation there must have been for statements
which his eulogists were able to maintain in the face of
those who would have spoken out had they been alto-
gether novel. Pretensions never before advanced must
have excited the surprise and contempt of the advocates
of Christianity.1 Yet Eusebius styles him a wise man,
and seems to admit the correctness of Philostratus,
except in the miraculous parts of the narrative.* Lac-

into Greece A.D. 53, and was at Ephesus A.U. 54, and again from A.D. 56
to 58 ; he was at Rome in A.D. 65 and 66, when he was martyred.

i Lucian and Apuleius speak of him as if his name were familiar to them.
Clear, praef. ad Vit. a In Hierocl. 5.

3 1 8 Apollonim of Tyana.

tantius does not deny that a statue was erected to him
at Ephesus ; i and Sidonius Apollinaris, who even wrote
his life, speaks of him as the admiration of the countries
he traversed, and the favourite of monarchs.* One of
his works was deposited in the palace at Antium by the
Emperor Hadrian, who also formed a collection of his
letters ; 8 statues were erected to him in the temples,
divine honours paid him by Caracalla, Alexander
Severus, and Aurelian, and magical virtue attributed to
his name.*

It has in consequence been made a subject of dispute,
how far his reputation was built upon that supposed
claim to extraordinary power which, as was noticed in
the opening of our memoir, has led to his comparison
with Sacred Names. If it could be shown that he did
advance such pretensions, and upon the strength of
them was admitted as an object of divine honour, a case
would be made out, not indeed so strong as that on
which Christianity is founded, yet remarkable enough
to demand our serious examination. Assuming, then,
or overlooking this necessary condition, sceptical writers
have been forward to urge the history and character of
Apollonius as creating a difficulty in the argument for
Christianity derived from miracles ; while their op-
ponents have sometimes attempted to account for a
phenomenon of which they had not yet ascertained the
existence, and have most gratuitously ascribed his
supposed power to the influence of the Evil principle.'

Inst. v. 3.

See Bayle, Art. Apollonius; and Cud worth, Intell. Syst. iv. 14.

Philostr. viii. 19, 20.

See Eusebius, Vopiscus, Lampridius, etc., as quoted by Bayle.

See Brucker on this point, vol. ii. p. 141, who refers to various authors.
Eusebius takes a more sober view of the question, allowing the substance of
*** history, but disputing the extraordinary parts. See in Hierocl. 5 and 12.

Apollonius of Tyana. 3 i 9

On examination, we shall find not a shadow of a reason
for supposing that Apollonius worked miracles in any
proper sense of the word ; or that he professed to work
them ; or that he rested his authority on extraordinary
works of any kind ; and it is strange indeed that Chris-
tians, with victory in their hands, should have so mis-
managed their cause as to establish an objection where
none existed, and in their haste to extricate themselves
from an imaginary difficulty, to overturn one of the
main arguments for Revealed Religion.

4-

I. To state these pretended prodigies is in most
cases a refutation of their claim upon our notice,1 and
even those which are not in themselves exceptionable
become so from the circumstances or manner in which
they took place. Apollonius is said to have been an
incarnation of the God Proteus ; his birth was an-
nounced by the falling of a thunderbolt and a chorus of
swans ; his death signalized by a wonderful voice calling
him up to Heaven ; and after death he appeared to a
youth to convince him of the immortality of the soul.*
He is reported to have known the language of birds ;
to have evoked the spirit of Achilles ; to have dislodged
a demon from a boy ; to have detected an Empusa
who was seducing a youth into marriage ; when brought
before Tigellinus, to have caused the writing of the
indictment to vanish from the paper ; when imprisoned
by Domitian, to have miraculously released himself
from his fetters ; to have discovered the soul of Amasis
in the body of a lion ; to have cured a youth attacked

1 Most of them are imitations of the miracles attributed to Pythagoras

2 See Philostr. i. 4, 5, viii. 30, 31. He insinuates (Cf. viii. 29 with 31),
that Apollonius was taken up alive. See Euseb. 8.

32O Apollonius of Tyana.

by hydrophobia, whom he pronounced to be Telephus
the Mysian.1 In declaring men's thoughts and distant
events, he indulged most liberally ; adopting a brevity
which seemed becoming the dignity of his character,
while it secured his prediction from the possibility of an
entire failure. For instance : he gave previous intima-
tion of Nero's narrow escape from lightning ; foretold
the short reigns of his successors ; informed Vespasian
at Alexandria of the burning of the Capitol ; predicted
the violent death of Titus by a relative ; discovered a
knowledge of the private history of his Egyptian guide ;
foresaw the wreck of a ship he had embarked in, and
the execution of a Cilician Propraetor.2 His prediction
of the Propraetor's ruin was conveyed in the words>
" O that particular day ! " that is, of execution ; of the
short reigns of the Emperors in his saying that many
Thebans would succeed Nero. We must not omit his
first predicting and then removing a pestilence at
Ephesus, the best authenticated of his professed mi-
racles, as being attested by the erecting of a statue to
him in consequence. He is said to have put an end to
the malady by commanding an aged man to be stoned,
whom he pointed out as its author, and who when the
stones were removed was found changed into the shape
of a dog.'

That such marvellous occurrences are wanting either in
the gravity, or in the conclusiveness, proper to true miracles,
is very plain ; moreover, that they gain no recommenda-
tion from the mode in which they are recorded will be
evident, if we extract the accounts given us by Philos-
tratus of those two which alone among Apollonius's acts,

1 Philostr. ir. 3, 16, 20, 25, 44, v. 42, vi. 43, vii. 38.
1 Ibid. i. 12, ir. 24, 43, 11—13, 18, 3°. vi. 3, 32
1 Ibid. ir. 10.

Apollonius of Tyana.

from their internal character, demand our attention.
These are the revival of a young maid at Rome, who
was on her way to burial, and the announcement at
Ephesus of Domitian's assassination at the very time of
its occurrence.

As to the former of these, it will be seen to be an
attempt, and an elaborate, pretentious attempt, to outdo
certain narratives in the Gospels. It runs as follows : —

" A maiden of marriageable age seemed to have died, and the
bridegroom was accompanying her bier, uttering wailing cries, as
was natural on his marriage being thus cut short. And all Rome
lamented with him, for the maiden belonged to a consular house.
But Apollonius, coming upon this sad sight, said, ' Set down the
bier, for I will stop your tears for her/ At the same time, he asked
her name ; and most of those present thought he was going to make
a speech about her, after the manner of professed mourners. But he,
doing nothing else than touching her, and saying over her some
indistinct words, woke her from her seeming death. And the girl
spoke, and returned to her father's house, as Alcestis, when restored
to life by Hercules.* *

As to his proclaiming at Ephesus the assassination of
Domitian at the time of its occurrence, of course, if he
was at a great distance from Rome and the synchronism
of events could be proved, we should be bound to give it
our serious consideration ; but synchronisms are difficult
to verify. Moreover, Apollonius is known to have taken
part in the politics of the empire; and his words, if
he used them, might be prompted by his knowledge, or
by his furtherance, of some attempt upon Domitian's life.
Apollonius was at this time busily engaged in promoting

1 Vit. iv. 45 j Cf. Mark v. 29, etc. ; Luke vii. 16 ; also John xi. 41 — 43;
Acts iii. 4 — 6. In the sequel, the parents offer him money, which he gives
as a portion to the damsel. See 2 Kings v. 15, 16 [4 Kings], and other
passages in Scripture.

VOL. I. 21

322 Apollonius of Tyana.

Nerva's interests among the lonians. Dion1 tells us thai
his success was foretold by the astrologers, among whom
Tzetzes reckons Apollonius ; and he mentions a predic-
tion of Domitian's death which had been put into circu-
lation in Germany. It is true that Dion confirms Philos-
tratus's statement so far as the prediction is concerned,
expressing strongly his personal belief in it. " Apollo-
nius," he says, " ascending upon a high stone at Ephesus
or elsewhere, and calling together the people, cried out,
'Well done, Stephanus!'" He adds, "This really took
place, though a man should ever so much disbelieve it."*
But it must be recollected that Dion was writing his
history when Philostratus wrote ; and one of them may
have taken the account from the other ; moreover, he is
well known to be of a credulous turn of mind, and far
from averse from recording marvellous stories.

Let us now turn to the statement of Philostratus ;
it will be found to form as strong a contrast to the
simplicity and dignity of the Gospel narratives, as the
dabbling in politics, which is so marked a feature in
Apollonius, differs from the conduct of Him who empha-
tically declared that His kingdom was not of this world.

"He was conversing," says Philostratus, " among the groves
attached to the porticoes, about noon, that is, just at the time when
the event was occurring in the imperial palace ; and first he dropped
his voice, as if in terror ; then, with a faltering unusual to him, he
described [an action], as if he beheld something external, as his
words proceeded. Then he was silent, stopping abruptly ; and
looking with agitation on the ground, and advancing up three or
four of the steps, ' Strike the tyrant, strike ! ' he cried out, not as
drawing a mere image of the truth from some mirror, but as seeing
the thing itself, and seeming to realize what was doing; and, to the
consternation of all Ephesus, for it was thronging around while he

i Lib. 67. a Hist. 67.

Apollonius of Tyana. 323

was conversing, after an interval ot suspense, such as happens
when spectators are following some undecided action up to its
issue, he said, ' Courage, my men, for the tyrant is slaughtered
this day — nay, now, now.'"i

Only an eye-witness is warranted to write thus pic-
torially ; Philostratus was born 86 years after Apollo
nius's death.

5-

2. But it is almost superfluous to speak either of the
general character of his extraordinary acts, or of the tone
and manner in which they are narrated, when, in truth,
neither Apollonius nor his biographer had any notion
or any intention of maintaining that, in our sense of the
word " miracle," these acts were miracles at all, or were
to be referred to the immediate agency of the Supreme
Being. Apollonius neither claimed for himself, nor did
Philostratus claim for him, any direct mission from on
high ; nor did he in consequence submit the exercise
of his preternatural powers to such severe tests as may
fairly be applied to the miracles of Christianity.

Of works, indeed, which are asserted to proceed from
the Author of nature, sobriety, dignity, and conclusive-
ness may fairly be required ; but when a man ascribes his
extraordinary power to his knowledge of some merely
human secret, impropriety does but evidence his own
want of taste, and ambiguity his want of skill. We have
no longer a right to expect a great end, worthy means,
or a frugal and judicious application of the miraculous
gift. Now, Apollonius claimed nothing beyond a fuller
insight into nature than others had ; a knowledge of the
fated and immutable laws to which it is conformed, of

1 Vit. viii. 26.

324 Apollonius of Tyana.

the hidden springs on which it moves.1 He brought a
secret from the East and used it"; and though he pro-
fessed to be favoured, and in a manner taught, by good
spirits,2 yet he certainly referred no part of his power
to a Supreme Intelligence. Theurgic virtues, or those
which consisted in communion with the Powers and
Principles of nature, were high in the scale of Pytha-
gorean excellence, and to them it was that he ascribed
his extraordinary gift. By temperate living, it was said,
the mind was endued with ampler and more exalted
faculties than it otherwise possessed ; partook more fully
of the nature of the One Universal Soul, was gifted with
prophetic inspiration, and a kind of intuitive perception
of secret things.8 This power, derived from the favour
of the celestial deities, who were led to distinguish the
virtuous and high-minded, was quite distinct from magic,
an infamous, uncertain, and deceitful art, consisting in
a compulsory power over infernal spirits, operating
by means of Astrology, Auguries, and Sacrifices, and
directed to the personal emolument of those who culti-
vated it.4 To our present question, however, this dis-

1 Philostr. v. 12 ; in i. 2, he associates Democritus, a natural philo-
sopher, with Pythagoras and Empedocles. See viii. 7, § 8, and Brucker,
vol. i. p. 1108, etc., and p. 1184.

2 In his apology before Domitian, he expressly attributes his removal of
the Ephesian pestilence to Hercules, and makes this ascription the test of a
divine philosopher as distinguished from a magician, viii. 7, § 9, ubi vid. Olear.

3 Vid. viii. 7, § 9. See also ii. 37, vi. n, viii. 5.

4 Philostr. i. 2, and Olear. ad loc. note 3, iv. 44, v. 12, vii. 39, viii. 7 ;
Apollon. Epist. 8 and 52 ; Philostr. Prooem. vit. Sophist. ; Euseb. in Hier.
2 j Mosheim, de Simone Mago, Sec. 13. Yet it must be confessed that the
views both of the Pythagoreans and Eclectics were very inconsistent on this
subject. Eusebius notices several instances of yoyrela in Apollonius's mira-
cles ; in Hierocl. 10, 28, 29, and 31. See Brucker, vol. ii. p. 447. At
Eleusis, and the Cave of Triphonius, Apollonius was, as we have seen,
accounted a magician, and so also by Euphrates, Moeragenes, Apuleius, etc.
See Olear. Prsef. ad vit. p. 33 ; and Brucker, vol. ii. p. 136, note k.

Apotlonius of 'Tyana. 325

tinction made by the genuine Pythagorean, is unimport-
ant. To whichever principle the miracles of Apollonius
be referred, theurgy or magic, in either case they are
independent of the First Cause, and not granted with a
view to the particular purpose to which they are to be
applied.1

3. We have also incidentally shown that they did not
profess to be miracles in the proper meaning of the
word, that is, evident innovations on the laws of nature.
At the utmost they do but exemplify the aphorism,
" Knowledge is power."2 Such as are within the range
of human knowledge are no miracles. Those of them,
on the contrary, which are beyond it, will be found on
inspection to be unintelligible, and to convey no evi-
dence. The prediction of an earthquake (for instance)
is not necessarily superhuman. An interpretation of
the discourse of birds can never be verified. In under-
standing languages, knowing future events, discovering
the purposes of others, recognising human souls when
enclosed in new bodies, Apollonius merely professes
extreme penetration and extraordinary acquaintance
with nature. The spell by which he evokes spirits and
exorcises demons, implies the mere possession of a
secret ;8 and so perfectly is his biographer aware of
this, as almost to doubt the resuscitation of the Roman
damsel, the only decisive miracle of them all, on the
ground of its being supernatural, insinuating that per-
haps she was dead only in appearance.* Accordingly, in

i See Mosheim, Dissertat. de turbata Ecclesia, etc., Sec. 27.

a See Quaest. ad Orthodox 24 as quoted by Olearius, in his Preface, p. 34.

8 Eusebius calls it 0?td rts /cai ap^ros ao0/a in Hierocl. 2. In iii. 41,
Philostratus speaks of the K\iJ<reis als deol -xaipovai., the spells for evoking
them, which Apollonius brought from India ; Cf. iv. 16, and in iv. 20 of
the TtKfJi'fipt.ov used for casting out an Evil Spirit.

4 Ef rt ffirivQijpa, TT)S ^«X^S efy>e>' iv afcy, etc.

326 Apollonius of Tyana.

the narrative which we have extracted above, he begins
by saying that she " seemed to have died," or " was to all
appearance dead ; " and again at the end of it he speaks
of her "seeming death." Hence, moreover, may be
understood the meaning of the charge of magic, as
brought against the early Christians by their heathen
adversaries ; the miracles of the Gospels being strictly
interruptions of physical order, and incompatible with
theurgic knowledge.1

When our Lord and His Apostles declare themselves
to be sent from God, this claim to a divine mission
illustrates and gives dignity to their profession of extra-
ordinary power ; whereas the divinity,2 no less than the
gift of miracles to which Apollonius laid claim, must be
understood in its Pythagorean sense, as referring not to
any intimate connection with a Supreme Agent, but to
his partaking, through his theurgic skill, more largely
than others in the perfections of the animating principle
of nature.

6.

4. Yet, whatever is understood by his miraculous gift
and his divine nature, certainly his works were not ad-
duced as vouchers for his divinity, nor were they, in fact,
the principal cause of his reputation. What we desider-
ate is a contemporary appeal to them, on the part of
himself or his friends ; as St. Paul speaks of his miracles
to the Romans and Corinthians, even calling them in one
place " the signs of an Apostle ; " or as St. Luke, in the
Acts of the Apostles, details the miracles of both St.

1 Douglas (Criterion, p. 387, note), observes that some heretics affirmed
that our Lord rose from the dead (pavTavludus, only in appearance, from
an idea of the impossibility of a resurrection.

\ Apollon. Epist. 17.

Apollonius of Tyana. 327

Peter and St. Paul.1 Far different is it with Apollonius :
we meet with no claim to extraordinary power in his
Letters ; nor when returning thanks to a city for public
honours bestowed on him, nor when complaining to
his brother of the neglect of his townsmen, nor when
writing to his opponent Euphrates.'2 To the Milesians,
indeed, he speaks of earthquakes which he had pre-
dicted ; but without appealing to the prediction in proof
of his authority.8 Since, then, he is so far from insisting
on his pretended extraordinary powers, and himself
connects the acquisition of them with his Eastern ex-
pedition,4 we may conclude that credit for possessing
magical secrets was a part of the reputation which that
expedition conferred. A foreign appearance, singularity
of manners, a life of travel, and pretences to superior
knowledge, excite the imagination of beholders ; 5 and,
as in the case of a wandering people among ourselves,
appear to invite the persons who are thus distinguished
to fraudulent practices. Apollonius is represented as
making converts as soon as seen.6 It was not, then,

1 Vid. Rom. xv. 69 ; I Cor. ii. 4 ; 2 Cor. xii. 2, and Acts passim.

2 See Epist. I, 2, etc., u, 44; the last-mentioned addressed to his brother
begins, " What wonder, that, while the rest of mankind think me godlike,
and some even a god, my own country alone hitherto ignores me, for whose
sake especially I wished to distinguish myself, when not even to you, my
brother, as I perceive, has it become clear how much I excel this race of
men in my doctrine and my life? " — Epist. ii. 44, vid. also i. 2. He does
not say "in supernatural power." Cf. John xii. 37: "But though He
had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not in Him."

3 Epist. 68. Claudius, in a message to the Tyanseans, Epist. 53, praises
him merely as a benefactor to youth.

4 Philostr. vi. 1 1 See Euseb. in Hierocl. 26, 27.

6 Hence the first of the charges brought against him by Domitian was the
strangeness of his dress. — Philostr. viii. 5. By way of contrast, Cf. I Cor.
ii. 3, 4 ; 2 Cor. x. 10.

6 Philostr. iv. I. See also i. 19, 21, iv. 17, 20, 39, vii. 31, etc., and
i. 10, 12 etc.

328 Apoltonius of Tyana.

his display of marvels, but his Pythagorean dress and
mysterious deportment, which arrested attention, and
made him thought superior to other men, because he
was different from them. Like Lucian's Alexander1
(who was all but his disciple), he was skilled in medi-
cine, professed to be favoured by ^sculapius, pretended
to foreknowledge, was in collusion with the heathen
priests, and was supported by the Oracles ; and being
more strict in conduct than the Paphlagonian,2 he estab-
lished a more lasting celebrity. His usefulness to poli-
tical aspirants contributed to his success ; perhaps also
the real and contemporary miracles of the Christian
teachers would dispose many minds easily to acquiesce
in any claims of a similar character.

7-

5. In the foregoing remarks we have admitted the
general fidelity of the history, because ancient authors
allow it, and there was no necessity to dispute it. Tried
however on his own merits, it is quite unworthy of
serious attention. Not only in the miraculous accounts
(as we have already seen), but in the relation of a multi-
tude of ordinary facts, an effort to rival our Saviour's
history is distinctly visible. The favour in which
Apollonius from a child was held by gods and men ;
his conversations when a youth in the Temple of yEscula-
pius ; his determination in spite of danger to go up to

1 Brucker, vol. ii. p. 144.

2 Brucker supposes that, as in the case of Alexander, gain was his object;
but we seem to have no proof of this, nor is it necessaiy thus to account for
his conduct. We discover, indeed, in his character, no marks of that high
enthusiasm which would support him in his whimsical career without any
definite worldly object ; yet the veneration he inspired, and the notice taken
of him by great men, might be quite a sufficient recompense to a conceited
and narrow mind.

Apotlonius of Tyana. 329

Rome ; l the cowardice of his disciples in deserting him ;
the charge brought against him of disaffection to Caesar;
the Minister's acknowledging, on his private examina-
tion, that he was more than man ; the ignominious
treatment of him by Domitian on his second appearance
at Rome ; his imprisonment with criminals ; his vanish-
ing from Court and sudden reappearance to his mourn-
ing disciples at Puteoli ;• — these, with other particulars of
a similar cast, evidence a history modelled after the nar-
rative of the Evangelists. Expressions, moreover, and
descriptions occur, clearly imitated from the sacred
volume. To this we must add3 the rhetorical colouring
of the whole composition, so contrary to the sobriety
of truth ; * the fabulous accounts of things and places

1 Cf. also Acts xx. 22, 23 ; xxi. 4, 11—14.

2 Philostr. i. 8, II, iv. 36, 38, 44, vii. 34, viii. 5, n.

8 See the description of his raising the Roman maid as above given.
Or take again the account of his appearance to Damis and Demetrius at
Puteoli, after vanishing from Court, viii. 12; in which there is much
incautious agreement with Luke xxiv. 14 — 17, 27, 29, 32, 36 — 40. Also
more or less in the following : vii. 30, init. and 34, fin. with Luke xii. 1 1, 12 ;
iii. 38, with Matt. xvii. 14, etc., where observe the contrast of the two
narratives : viii. 30, fin. with Acts xii. 7 — 10 : iv. 44, with John xviii. 33,
etc. : vii. 34, init. with Mark xiv. 65 : iv. 34, init. with Acts xvi. 8 — 10 :
i. 19, fin. with Mark vii. 27, 28. Brucker and Douglas notice the following
in the detection of the Empusa : AaKptovri tyicei rb <j>d<rfj.a, Kal tSeiro ^
Pacravl£eu> ovrd, (j.-r)8£ avayKafctv bpoXotyeiv 8n efy, iv. 25, Cf. Mark v. 7 — 9.
Olearius compares an expression in vii. 30, with i Cor. ix. 9.

* E. G. his ambitious descriptions of countries, etc. In iv. 30, 32, v. 22,
vi. 24, he ascribes to Apollonius regular Socratic disputations, and in vi. u,
a long and flowery speech in the presence of the Gymnosophists — modes
of philosophical instruction totally at variance with the genius of the
Pythagorean school, the Philosopher's Letters still extant, and the writer's
own description of his manner of teaching, i. 17. Some of his exaggera-
tions and mis-statements have been noticed in the course of the narrative.
As a specimen of the rhetorical style in which the work is written, vid. his
account of the restoration of the Roman damsel, '0 5£ o&dtv A\\* 4} Trpo<r-
jL\t/<i/j,€vos auTfy atyvwvure, — contrast this with the simplicity of the Scripture
narrative. See also the last sentence of v. 17, and indeed passim.

33° Apollonius of Tyana.

interspersed through the history ; * lastly, we must bear
in mind the principle, recognised by the Pythagorean
and Eclectic schools, of permitting exaggeration and
deceit in the cause of philosophy.8

After all, it must be remembered, that were the pre-
tended miracles as unexceptionable as we have shown them
to be absurd and useless — were they plain interruptions
of established laws — were they grave and dignified in
their nature, and important in their object, and were
there nothing to excite suspicion in the design, manner,
or character of the narrator — still the testimony on which
they rest is the bare word of an author writing one
hundred years after the death of the person panegyrized,
and far distant from the places in which most of the
miracles were wrought, and who can give no better
account of his information than that he gained it from
an unpublished work,8 professedly indeed composed by

1 E. G. his accounts of Indian and ^Ethiopian monsters ; of serpents
whose eyes were jewels of magical virtue ; of pygmies ; of golden water j
of the speaking tree ; of a woman half white and half black, etc. ; he in-
corporates in his narrative the fables of Ctesias, Agatharchidas, and other
writers His blunders in geography and natural philosophy may be added,
as far as they arise from the desire of describing wonders, etc. See also
his pompous description of the wonders of Babylon, which were not then
in existence. — Prideaux, Connection, Part I. Book viii. For his incon
sistencies, see Eusebius and Brucker. It must be remembered, that in the
age of Philostratus the composition of romantic histories was in fashion.

2 Sec Brucker, vol. i. p. 992, vol. ii. p. 378. Apollonius was onl
one out of several who were set up by the Eclectics as rivals to Christ
Brucker, voL ii. p. 372. Mosheim, de turbata Ecclesia, etc. Sees. 25
26.

8 Philostr. i. 2, 3. He professes that his account contains much new
As to the sources, besides the journal of Damis, from which he pretends t
derive his information, he neither tells us how he met with them, nor wha
they contained ; nor does he refer to them in the course of his history. Or
the other hand (as we have above noticed), much of the detail of Apo
lonius's journev is derived from the writings of Ctesias, etc.

Apollonius of Tyana. 331

a witness of the extraordinary transactions, but passing
into his hands through two intermediate possessors.
These are circumstances which almost, without positive
objections, are sufficient by their own negative force to
justify a summary rejection of the whole account.
Unless, indeed, the history had been perverted to a mis-
chievous purpose, we should esteem it impertinent to
direct argument against a mere romance, and to subject
a work of imagination to a grave discussion.

IV.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

(From the BRITISH MAGAZINE, 1833— 1836.*

PREFATORY NOTICE.

THE following Papers originally belonged to the
" Church of the Fathers," as it appeared in the
British Magazine, in the years 1833-1836, and as it was
published afterwards in one volume, with additions and
omissions, in 1840. They were removed from the sub-
sequent Catholic editions, except the chapter on Apol-
linaris, as containing polemical matter, which had no
interest for Catholic readers. Now they are republished
under a separate title.

The date of their composition is a sufficient indication
of the character of the theology which they contain.
They are written under the assumption that the Anglican
Church has a place, as such, in Catholic communion
and Apostolic Christianity. This is a question of fact,
which the Author would now of course answer in the
negative, retaining still, and claiming as his own, the
positive principles and doctrines which that fact is, in
these Papers, taken to involve

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

CHAP.

PAGE

1. WHAT DOES ST. AMBROSE SAY ABOUT IT ? 339

2. WHAT SAYS VINCENT OF LERINS ? 375

3. WHAT SAYS THE HISTORY OF APOLLINARIS J» - . - . 3gj

4. WHAT SAY JOVINIAN AND HIS COMPANIONS? .... 4OI

5. WHAT SAY THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS ? 4X7

VOL. I. 22

339

N

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

CHAPTER I.
WHAT DOES ST. AMBROSE SAY ABOUT IT ?

§ i. Ambrose and Justina.

O considerate person will deny that there is much
in the spirit of the times, and in the actual changes
which the British Constitution has lately undergone,
which makes it probable, or not improbable, that a
material alteration will soon take place in the relations
of the Church towards the State, to which it has been
hitherto united. I do not say that it is out of the
question that things may return to their former quiet
and pleasant course, as in the good old time of King
George III. ; but the very chance that they will not
makes it a practical concern for every churchman to
prepare himself for a change, and a practical question
for the clergy, by what instruments the authority of
Religion is to be supported, should the protection and
patronage of the Government be withdrawn. Truth,
indeed, will always support itself in the world by its
native vigour ; it will never die while heaven and earth
last, but be handed down from saint to saint until the
end of all things. But this was the case before our
Lord came, and is still the case, as we may humbly
trust, in heathen countries. My question concerns the

34O Primitive Christianity.

Church, that peculiar institution which Christ set up as
a visible home and memorial of Truth ; and which, as
being in this world, must be manifested by means of
this world. I know it is common to make light of this
solicitude about the Church, under the notion that the
Gospel may be propagated without it, — or that men are
about the same under every Dispensation, their hearts
being in fault, and not their circumstances, — or for othei
reasons, better or worse as it may be ; to all which I
am accustomed to answer (and I do not see how I can
be in error), that, if Christ had not meant His Church to
answer a purpose, He would not have set it up, and that
our business is not to speculate about possible Dispensa-
tions of Religion, but to resign and devote ourselves to
that in which we are actually placed.

Hitherto the English Church has depended on the
State, *. e. on the ruling powers in the country — the king
and the aristocracy ; and this is so natural and religious
a position of things when viewed in the abstract, and in
its actual working has been productive of such excellent
fruits in the Church, such quietness, such sobriety, such
external propriety of conduct, and such freedom from
doctrinal excesses, that we must ever look back upon
the period of ecclesiastical history so characterized with
affectionate thoughts ; particularly on the reigns of our
blessed martyr St. Charles, and King George the Good.
But these recollections of the past must not engross our
minds, or hinder us from looking at things as they are,
and as they will be soon, and from inquiring what is
intended by Providence to take the place of the time-
honoured instrument, which He has broken (if it be yet
broken), the regal and aristocrat ical power. I shall offend
many men when I say, we must look to tJie people ; but
let them give me a hearing.

Ambrose and Justina. 341

Well can I understand their feelings. Who at first
sight does not dislike the thoughts of gentlemen and
clergymen depending for their maintenance and their
reputation on their flocks ? of their strength, as a visible
power, lying not in their birth, the patronage of the
great, and the endowment of the Church (as hitherto),
but in the homage of a multitude ? I confess I have
before now had a great repugnance to the notion myself;
and if I have overcome it, and turned from the Govern-
ment to the People, it has been simply because I was
forced to do so. It is not we who desert the Govern-
ment, but the Government that has left us ; we are
forced back upon those below us, because those above
us will not honour us ; there is no help for it, I say.
But, in truth, the prospect is not so bad as it seems at
first sight. The chief and obvious objection to the clergy
being thrown on the People, lies in the probable lower-
ing of Christian views, and the adulation of the vulgar,
which would be its consequence ; and the state of
Dissenters is appealed to as an evidence of the danger.
But let us recollect that we are an apostolical body ;
we were not made, nor can be unmade by our flocks ;
and if our influence is to depend on them, yet the Sacra-
ments reside with us. We have that with us, which
none but ourselves possess, the mantle of the Apostles ;
and this, properly understood and cherished, will ever
keep us from being the creatures of a populace.

And what may become necessary in time to come, is
a more religious state of things also. It will not be
denied that, according to the Scripture view of the
Church, though all are admitted into her pale, and the
rich inclusively, yet, the poor are her members with a
peculiar suitableness, and by a special right. Scripture
is ever casting slurs upon wealth, and making much Qf

34 2 Primitive Christianity.

poverty. "To the poor the Gospel is preached." "God
hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith and
heirs of the kingdom." " If thou wilt be perfect, sell all
that thou hast, and give to the poor." To this must be
added the undeniable fact that th,e Church, when purest
and when most powerful, has depended for its influence
on its consideration with the many. Becket's letters,
lately published,1 have struck me not a little ; but of
course I now refer, not to such dark ages as most
Englishmen consider these, but to the primitive Church
— the Church of St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose. With
a view of showing the power of the Church at that
time, and on what it was based, not (as Protestants ima-
gine) on governments, or on human law, or on endow-
ments, but on popular enthusiasm, on dogma, on hier-
archical power, and on a supernatural Divine Presence,
I will now give some account of certain ecclesiastical
proceedings in the city of Milan in the years 385, 386, —
Ambrose being bishop, and Justina and her son, the
younger Valentinian, the reigning powers.

i.

Ambrose was eminently a popular bishop, as every
one knows who has read ever so little of his history.
His very promotion to the sacred office was owing to an
unexpected movement of the populace. Auxentius, his
Arian predecessor in the see of Milan, died, A. D. 374,
upon which the bishops of the province wrote to the
then Emperor, Valentinian the First, who was in Gaul,
requesting him to name the person who was to succeed
him. This was a prudent step on their part, Arianism
having introduced such matter for discord and faction

1Vid. British Magazine, 1832, etc. And Frpude's Remains, part n
V0l.it.

Ambrose and Justina. 343

among the Milanese, that it was dangerous to submit
the election to the people at large, though the majority
of them were orthodox. Valentinian, however, declined
to avail himself of the permission thus given him ; the
choice was thrown upon the voices of the people, and
the cathedral, which was the place of assembling, was
soon a scene of disgraceful uproar, as the bishops had
anticipated. Ambrose was at that time civil governor
of the province of which Milan was the capital : and,
the tumult increasing, he was obliged to interfere in
person, with a view of preventing its ending in open
sedition. He was a man of grave character, and had
been in youth brought up with a sister, who had devoted
herself to the service of God in a single life ; but as yet
was only a catechumen, though he was half way between
thirty and forty. Arrived at the scene of tumult, he
addressed the assembled crowds, exhorting them to
peace and order. While he was speaking, a child's
voice, as is reported, was heard in the midst of the
crowd to say, " Ambrose is bishop ;" the populace took
up the cry, and both parties in the Church, Catholic
and Arian, whether influenced by a sudden enthusiasm,
or willing to take a man who was unconnected with
party, voted unanimously for the election of Ambrose.

It is not wonderful that the subject of this sudden
decision should have been unwilling to quit his civil
office for a station of such high responsibility ; for many
days he fought against the popular voice, and that by
the most extravagant expedients. He absconded, and
was not recovered till the Emperor, confirming the act
of the people of Milan, published an edict against all
who should conceal him. Under these strange circum-
stances, Ambrose was at length consecrated bishop. His
ordination was canonical only on the supposition that it

344 Primitive Christianity.

came under those rare exceptions, for which the rules
of the Church allow, when they speak of election " by
divine grace," by the immediate suggestion of God ;
and if ever a bishop's character and works might be
appealed to as evidence of the divine purpose, surely
Ambrose was the subject of that singular and extraor-
dinary favour. From the time of his call he devoted
his life and abilities to the service of Christ. He be-
stowed his personal property on the poor : his lands on
the Church ; making his sister tenant for life. Next he
gave himself up to the peculiar studies necessary for the
due execution of his high duties, till he gained that
deep insight into Catholic truth, which is evidenced in
his writings, and in no common measure in relation to
Arianism, which had been the dominant creed in Milan
for the twenty years preceding his elevation. Basil of
Caesarea, in Cappadocia, was at this time the main pillar
of Catholic truth in the East, having succeeded Athana-
sius of Alexandria, who died about the time that both
Basil and Ambrose were advanced to their respective
sees. He, from his see in the far East, addresses the
new bishop in these words in an extant Epistle : —

" Proceed in thy work, thou man of God ; and since thou hast
not received the Gospel of Christ of men, neither wast taught it,
but the Lord himself translated thee from among the world's judges
to the chair of the Apostles, fight the good fight, set right the in-
firmities of the people, wherever the Arian madness has affected
them ; renew the old foot-prints of the Fathers, and by frequent
correspondence build up thy love towards us, of which thou hast
already laid the foundation." — Ep. 197.

I just now mentioned St. Thomas Becket. There is
at once a similarity and a contrast between his history
and that of Ambrose. Each of the two was by educa-
tion and society what would now be called a gentleman.

Ambrose and Justina. 345

Each was in high civil station when he was raised to a
great ecclesiastical position ; each was in middle age.
Each had led an upright, virtuous life before his eleva-
tion ; and each, on being elevated, changed it for a life
of extraordinary penance and saintly devotion. Each
was promoted to his high place by the act, direct or
concurrent, of his sovereign ; and each showed to that
sovereign in the most emphatic way that a bishop was
the servant, not of man, but of the Lord of heaven and
earth. Each boldly confronted his sovereign in a great
religious quarrel, and staked his life on its issue ; — but
then comes the contrast, for Becket's earthly master was
as resolute in his opposition to the Church as Becket was
in its behalf, and made him a martyr ; whereas the Im-
perial Power of Rome quailed and gave way before the
dauntless bearing and the grave and gracious presence
of the great prelate of Milan. Indeed, the whole Ponti-
ficate of Ambrose is a history of successive victories of
the Church over the State ; but I shall limit myself to a
bare outline of one of them.

2.

Ambrose had presided in his see about eleven years
at the time when the events took place which are here
to be related. Valentinian was dead, as well as his
eldest son Gratian. His second son, who bore his own
name, was Emperor of the West, under the tutelage of
Justina, his second wife.

Justina was an Arian, and brought up her son in her
own heretical views. This was about the time when the
heresy was finally subdued in the Eastern Churches ;
the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople had lately
been held, many Arian bishops had conformed, and laws
had been passed by Theodosius against those who held

346 Primitive Christianity.

out. It was natural under such circumstances that a
number of the latter should flock to the court of Milan
for protection and patronage. The Gothic officers of
the palace were Arians also, as might be supposed, after
the creed of their nation. At length they obtained a
bishop of their persuasion from the East ; and having
now the form of an ecclesiastical body, they used the
influence of Valentinian, or rather of his mother, to
extort from Ambrose one of the churches of Milan for
their worship.

The bishop was summoned to the palace before the
assembled Court, and was formally asked to relinquish
St. Victor's Church, then called the Portian Basilica,
which was without the walls, for the Arian worship.
His duty was plain ; the churches were the property of
Christ ; he was the representative of Christ, and was
therefore bound not to cede what was committed to him
in trust. This is the account of the matter given by
himself in the course of the dispute : —

" Do not," he says, " O Emperor, embarrass yourself with the
thought that you have an Emperor's right over sacred things. Exalt
not yourself, but, as you would enjoy a continuance of power, be
God's subject. It is written, God's to God, and Caesar's to Caesar.
The palace is the Emperor's, the churches are the bishop's." — Ep. 20.

This argument, which is true at all times, was much
more convincing in an age like the primitive, before men
had begun to deny that Christ had left a visible repre-
sentative of Himself in His Church. If there was
body to whom the concerns of religion were intrusted,
there could be no doubt it was that over which Ambn
presided. It had been there planted ever since Milai
became Christian, its ministers were descended from the
Apostles, and it was the legitimate trustee of the saci

Ambrose and Justina. 347

property. But in our day men have been taught to
doubt whether there is one Apostolic Church, though it
is mentioned in the Creed : nay, it is grievous to say,
clergymen have sometimes forgotten, sometimes made
light of their own privileges. Accordingly, when a
question arises now about the spoliation of the Church,
we are obliged to betake ourselves to the rules of national
law ; we appeal to precedents, or we urge the civil con-
sequences of the measure, or we use other arguments,
which, good as they may be, are too refined to be very
popular. Ambrose rested his resistance on grounds
which the people understood at once, and recognized as
irrefragable. They felt that he was only refusing to
surrender a trust. They rose in a body, and thronged
the palace gates. A company of soldiers was sent to
disperse them ; and a riot was on the point of ensuing,
when the ministers of the Court became alarmed, and
despatched Ambrose to appease the tumult, with the
pledge that no further attempt should be made on the
possessions of the Church.

Now some reader will here interrupt the narrative,
perhaps, with something of an indignant burst about
connecting the cause of religion with mobs and out-
breaks To whom I would reply, that the multitude of
men i& always rude and intemperate, and needs restraint,
— religion does not make them so. But being so, it is
better they should be zealous about religion, and re-
pressed by religion, as in this case, than flow and ebb
again under the irrational influences of this world. A
mob, indeed, is always wayward and faithless ; but it is
a good sign when it is susceptible of the hopes and fears
of the world to come. Is it not probable that, when
religion is thus a popular subject, it may penetrate, soften,
or stimulate hearts which otherwise would know nothing

348 Primitive Christianity

of its power ? However, this is not, properly speaking
my present point, which is to show how a Church may
be in " favour with all the people" without any sub-
serviency to them. To return to our history.

3-

Justina, failing to intimidate, made various underhand
attempts to remove the champion of orthodoxy. She
endeavoured to raise the people against him. Failing in
this object, next, by scattering promises of place and pro-
motion, she set on foot various projects to seize him in
church, and carry him off into banishment. One man
went so far as to take lodgings near the church, and had
a carriage in readiness, in order to avail himself of any
opportunity which offered to convey him away. But
none of these attempts succeeded.

This was in the month of March ; as Easter drew on,
more vigorous steps were taken by the Court. On
April 4th, the Friday before Palm Sunday, the de-
mand of a church for the Arians was renewed ; the
pledges which the government had given, that no further
steps should be taken in the matter, being perhaps
evaded by changing the church which was demanded.
Ambrose was now asked for the New or Roman Basilica,
which was within the walls, and larger than the Portian.
It was dedicated to the Apostles, and (I may add, for
the sake of the antiquarian,) was built in the form of a
cross. When the bishop refused in the same language
as before, the imperial minister returned to the demand
of the Portian Church ; but the people interfering, and
being clamorous against the proposal, he was obliged to
retire to the palace to report how matters stood.

On Palm Sunday, after the lessons and sermon were
over in the Basilica, in which he officiated, Ambrose

Ambrose and Justina. 349

was engaged in teaching the creed to the candidates for
baptism, who, as was customary, had been catechized
during Lent, and were to be admitted into the Church
on the night before Easter-day. News was brought him
that the officers of the Court had taken possession of the
Portian Church, and were arranging the imperial hangings
in token of its being confiscated to the Emperor ; on
the other hand, that the people were flocking thither.
Ambrose continued the service of the day ; but, when he
was in the midst of the celebration of the Eucharistical
rite, a second message came that one of the Arian priests
was in the hands of the populace.

" On this news (he says, writing to his sister,) I could not keep
from shedding many bitter tears, and, while I made oblation, I
prayed God's protection that no blood might be shed in the
Church's quarrel : or if so, that it might be mine, and that not for
my people only, but for those heretics." — Ep. 20.

At the same time he despatched some of his clergy
to the spot, who had influence enough to rescue the un-
fortunate man from the mob.

Though Ambrose so far seems to have been supported
only by a popular movement, yet the proceedings of the
following week showed that he had also the great mass
of respectable citizens on his side. The imprudent mea-
sures of the Court, in punishing those whom it considered
its enemies, disclosed to the world their • number and
importance. The tradesmen of the city were fined two
hundred pounds of gold, and many were thrown into
prison. All the officers, moreover, and place-men of
the courts of justice, were ordered to keep in-doors dua-
ing the continuance of the disorders ; and men of highei
rank were menaced with severe consequences, unless the
Basilica were surrendered.

3 so Primitive Christianity,

Such were the acts by which the Imperial Court
solemnized Passion week. At length a fresh interview
was sought with Ambrose, which shall be described in
his own words : —

" I had a meeting with the counts and tribunes, who urged me to
give up the Basilica without delay, on the ground that the Emperor
was but acting on his undoubted rights, as possessing sovereign
power over all things. I made answer, that if he asked me for what
was my own — for instance, my estate, my money, or the like— I
would make no opposition : though, to tell the truth, all that was
mine was the property of the poor ; but that he had no sovereignty
over things sacred. If my patrimony is demanded, seize upon it ;
my person, here I am. Would you take to prison or to death ? I
go with pleasure. Far be it from me to entrench myself within the
circle of a multitude, or to clasp the altar in supplication for my life ;
rather I will be a sacrifice for the altar's sake.

" In good truth, when I heard that soldiers were sent to take pos-
session of the Basilica, I was horrified at the prospect of bloodshed,
which might issue in ruin to the whole city. I prayed God that I
might not survive the destruction, which might ensue, of such a place,
nay, of Italy itself. I shrank from the odium of having occasioned
slaughter, and would sooner have given my own throat to the knife.
... I was ordered to calm the people. I replied, that all I could
do was not to inflame them ; but God alone could appease them.
For myself, if I appeared to have instigated them, it was the duty
of the government to proceed against me, or to banish me. Upon
this they left me."

Ambrose spent the rest of Palm Sunday in the same
Basilica in which he had been officiating in the morning :
at nigh' \e went to his own house, that the civil power
might haje the opportunity of arresting him, if it was
thought advisable.

4-

The attempt to gain the Portian seems now to have
been dropped ; but on the Wednesday troops were

Ambrose and Justina. 351

marched before day-break to take possession of the New
Church, which was within the walls. Ambrose, upon the
news of this fresh movement, used the weapons of an
apostle. He did not seek to disturb them in their posses-
sion ; but, attending service at his own church, he was
content with threatening the soldiers with a sentence of
excommunication. Meanwhile the New Church, where
the soldiers were posted, began to fill with a larger con-
gregation than it ever contained before the persecution.
Ambrose was requested to go thither, but, desirous of
drawing the people away from the scene of imperial
tyranny, lest a riot should ensue, he remained where he
was, and began a comment on the lesson of the day,
which was from the book of Job. First, he commended
them for the Christian patience and resignation with
which they had hitherto borne their trial, which indeed
was, on the whole, surprising, if we consider the in-
flammable nature of a multitude. " We petition your
Majesty," they said to the Emperor ; " we use no force,
we feel no fear, but we petition." It is common in the
leader of a multitude to profess peaceableness, but very
unusual for the multitude itself to persevere in doing
so. Ambrose went on to observe, that both they and
he had in their way been tempted, as Job was, by the
powers of evil. For himself, his peculiar trial had lain
in the reflection that the extraordinary measures of the
government, the movements of the Gothic guards, the
fines of the tradesmen, the various sufferings of the
faithful, all arose from, as it might be called, his obstinacy
in not yielding to what seemed an overwhelming neces-
sity, and giving the Basilica to the Arians. Yet he felt
that to do so would be to peril his soul ; so that the
request was but the voice of the tempter, as he spoke
in Job's wife, to make him "say a word against God,

352 Primitive Christianity.

and die," to betray his trust, and incur the sentence of
spiritual death.

Before this time the soldiers who had been sent to
the New Church, from dread of the threat of excommuni-
cation, had declared against the sacrilege, and joined his
own congregation ; and now the news came that the
royal hangings had been taken down. Soon after, as he
was continuing his address to the people, a fresh mes-
sage came to him from the Court to ask him whether
he had an intention of domineering over his sovereign ?
Ambrose, in answer, showed the pains he had taken to
be obedient to the Emperor's will, and to hinder dis-
turbance : then he added : —

" Priests have by old right bestowed sovereignty, never assumed
it ; and it is a common saying, that sovereigns have coveted the
priesthood more than priests the sovereignty. Christ hid Himself,
lest He should be made a king. Yes ! we have a dominion of our
own. The dominion of the priest lies in his helplessness, as it is
said, ' When I am weak, then am I strong/ "

And so ended the dispute for a time. On Good
Friday the Court gave way ; the guards were ordered
from the Basilica, and the fines were remitted. I end
for the present with the view which Ambrose took of
the prospect before him : —

" Thus the matter rests ; I wish I could say, has ended : but
the Emperor's words are of that angry sort which shows that a
more severe contest is in store. He says I domineer, or worse
than domineer. He implied this when his ministers were entreat-
ing him, on the petition of the soldiers, to attend church. ' Should
Ambrose bid you/ he made answer, ' doubtless you would give me
to him in chains.' I leave you to judge what these words promise.
Persons present were all shocked at hearing them ; but there are
parties who exasperate him."

353

§ 2. Ambrose and Valentintan.

I.

IN the opposition which Ambrose made to the Arians,
as already related, there is no appearance of his
appealing to any law of the Empire in justification of
his refusal to surrender the Basilica to them. He rested
it upon the simple basis of the Divine Law, a common-
sense argument which there was no evading. "The
Basilica has been made over to Christ ; the Church is
His trustee ; I am its ruler. I dare not alienate the
Lord's property. He who does so, does it at his peril."
Indeed, he elsewhere expressly repudiates the principle
of dependence in this matter on human law. " Law,"
he says, " has not brought the Church together, but the
faith of Christ." However, Justina determined to have
human law on her side. She persuaded her son to make
it a capital offence in any one, either publicly or pri-
vately, even by petition, to interfere with the assemblies
of the Arians ; a provision which admitted a fair, and
might also bear, and did in fact receive, a most tyran-
nical interpretation. Benevolus, the Secretary of State,
from whose office the edict was to proceed, refused to
draw it up, and resigned his place ; but of course others
less scrupulous were easily found to succeed him. At
length it was promulgated on the 2 1st of January of the
next year, A.D. 386, and a fresh attempt soon followed
on the part of the Court to get possession of the Portian
Basilica, which was without the walls.
The line of conduct which Ambrose had adopted

23

354 Primitive Christianity

remained equally clear and straight, whether before or
after the promulgation of this edict. It was his duty to
use all the means which Christ has given the Church to
prevent the profanation of the Basilica. But soon a new
question arose for his determination. An imperial mes-
sage was brought to him to retire from the city at once,
with any friends who chose to attend him. It is not cer-
tain whether this was intended as an absolute command,
or (as his words rather imply) a recommendation on the
part of government to save themselves the odium, and
him the suffering, of public and more severe proceedings.
Even if it were the former, it does not appear that a
Christian bishop, so circumstanced, need obey it; for
what was it but in other words to say, "Depart from the
Basilica, and leave it to us ?" — the very order which he
had already withstood. The words of Scripture, which
bid Christians, if persecuted in one city, flee to another,
are evidently, from the form of them, a discretionary
rule, grounded on the expediency of each occasion, as it
arises. A mere threat is not a persecution, nor is a com-
mand ; and though we are bound to obey our civil rulers,
the welfare of the Church has a prior claim upon our
obedience. Other bishops took the same view of the
case with Ambrose ; and, accordingly, he determined to
stay in Milan till removed by main force, or cut off by
violence.

2.

The reader shall hear his own words in a sermon
which he delivered upon the occasion : —

" I see that you are under a sudden and unusual excitement," he
said, " and are turning your eyes on me. What can be the reason
of this ? Is it that you saw or heard that an imperial message had
been brought to me by the tribunes desiring me to depart hence
whither I would, and to take with me all who would follow me ?

Ambrose and VaUntinian. 355

What ! did you fear that I would desert the Church, and, for fear
of my life, abandon you ? Yet you might have attended to my
answer. I said that I could not, for an instant, entertain the thought
of deserting the Church, in that I feared the Lord of all more than
the Emperor of the day : in truth that, should force hurry me off,
it would be my body, not my mind, that was got rid of; that, should
he act in the way of kingly power, I was prepared to suffer after
the manner of a priest.

" Why, then, are you thus disturbed ? I will never leave you of
my own will ; but if compelled, I may not resist. I shall still have
the power of sorrowing, of weeping, of uttering laments : when
weapons, soldiers, Goths, too, assail me, tears are my weapons, for
such are the defences of a priest. In any other way I neither
ought to resist, nor can ; but as to retiring and deserting the
Church, this is not like me ; and for this reason, lest I seem to do
so from dread of some heavier punishment. Ye yourselves know
that it is my wont to submit to our rulers, but not to make conces-
sions to them ; to present myself readily to legal punishment, and
not to fear what is in preparation.

" A proposal was made to me to deliver up at once the Church
plate. I made answer, that I was ready to give anything that was
my own, farm or house, gold or silver ; but that I could withdraw
no property from God's temple, nor surrender what was put into
my hands, not to surrender, but to keep safely. Besides, that I had
a care for the Emperor's well-being ; since it was as little safe for
him to receive as for me to surrender : let him bear with the words
of a free-spoken priest, for his own good, and shrink from doing
wrong to his Lord.

u You recollect to-day's lesson about holy Naboth and his vine-
yard. The king asked him to make it over to him, as a ground,
not for vines, but for common pot-herbs. What was his answer ?
* God forbid I should give to thee the inheritance of my fathers ! '
The king was saddened when another's property was justly denied
him ; but he was beguiled by a woman's counsel Naboth shed
his blood rather than give up his vines. Shall he refuse his own
vineyard, and we surrender the Church of Christ ?

" What contumacy, then, was there in my answer ? I did but say
at the interview, 'God forbid I should surrender Christ's heritage!'
I added, ' the heritage of our fathers ; ' yes, of our Dionysius, who
died in exile for the faith's sake, of Eustorgius the Confessor, of
MyrocleSj and of all the other faithful bishops back. I answered

356 Primitive Christianity.

as a priest : let the Emperor act as an Emperor ; he shall rob me of
my life sooner than of my fidelity.

" In what respect was my answer other than respectful ? Does
the Emperor wish to tax us ? I make no opposition. The Church
lands pay taxes. Does he require our lands ? He has power to
claim them ; we will not prevent him. The contributions of the
people will suffice for the poor. Let not our enemies take offence
at our lands ; they may away with them, if it please the Emperor ;
not that I give them, but I make no opposition. Do they seek my
gold ? I can truly say, silver and gold I seek not. But they take
offence at my raising contributions. Nor have I any great fear of
the charge. I confess I have stipendiaries ; they are the poor of
Christ's flock ; a treasure which I am well used in amassing. May
this at all times be my offence, to exact contributions for the poor.
And if they accuse me of defending myself by means of them, 1
am far from denying, I court the charge. The poor are my de-
fenders, but it is by their prayers. Blind though they be, lame,
feeble, and aged, yet they have a strength greater than that of the
stoutest warriors. In a word, gifts made to them are a claim upon
the Lord ; as it is written, ' He who giveth to the poor, lendeth to
God ; ' but a military guard oftentimes has no title to divine grace.

" They say, too, that the people are misled by the verses of my
hymns. I frankly confess this also. Truly those hymns have in
them a high strain above all other influence. For can any strain
have more of influence than the confession of the Holy Trinity,
which is proclaimed day by day by the voice of the whole people ?
Each is eager to rival his fellows in confessing, as he well knows
how, in sacred verses, his faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Thus all are made teachers, svho else were scarce equal to being
scholars.

"No one can deny that in what we say we pay to our sovereign
due honour. What indeed can do him higher honour than to style
him a son of the Church ? In saying this, we are loyal to him with-
out sinning against God. For the Emperor is within the Church,
but not over the Church ; and a religious sovereign seeks, not rejects,
the Church's aid. This is our doctrine, modestly avowed, but in-
sisted on without wavering. Though they threaten fire, or the
sword, or transportation, we, Christ's poor servants, have learned
not to fear. And to the fearless nothing is frightful ; as Scripture
says, * Their blows are like the arrows of a child,'"— Serm. contr*
Auvent,

Ambrose and Valentmian. 357

3-

Mention is made in this extract of the Psalmody
which Ambrose adopted about this time. The history
of its introduction is curiously connected with the sub-
ject before us, and interesting, inasmuch as this was the
beginning of a change in the style of Church music,
which spread over the West, and continues even among
ourselves to this day ; it is as follows : —

Soldiers had been sent, as in the former year, to sur-
round his church, in order to prevent the Catholic ser-
vice there ; but being themselves Christians, and afraid
of excommunication, they went so far as to allow the
people to enter, but would not let them leave the build-
ing. This was not so great an inconvenience to them as
might appear at first sight : for the early Basilicas were
not unlike the heathen temples, or our own collegiate
chapels, that is, part of a range of buildings, which con-
tained the lodgings of the ecclesiastics, and formed a
fortress in themselves, which could easily be fortified
from within or blockaded from without. Accordingly,
the people remained shut up within the sacred precincts
for some days, and the bishop with them. There seems
to have been a notion, too, that he was to be seized for
exile, or put to death ; and they naturally kept about him
to " see the end," to suffer with him or for him, according
as their tempers and principles led them. Some went so
far as to barricade the doors of the Basilica ; * nor could
Ambrose prevent this proceeding, unnecessary as it was,
because of the good feelings of the soldiery towards them,
and indeed impracticable in such completeness as might
be sufficient for security.

Some persons may think that Ambrose ought to

1 Vid. 2 [4] Kings vi. 32.

358 Primitive Christianity.

have used his utmost influence against it, whereas in
his sermon to the people he merely insists on its useless-
ness, and urges the propriety of looking simply to God,
and not at all to such expedients, for deliverance. It
must be recollected, however, that he and his people in
no sense drew the sword from its sheath ; he confined
himself to passive resistance. He had violated no law ;
the Church's property was sought by a tyrant : without
using any violence, he took possession of that which he
was bound to defend with his life. He placed himself
upon the sacred territory, and bade them take it and
him together, after St. Laurence's pattern, who sub-
mitted to be burned rather than deliver up the goods
with which he had been intrusted for the sake of the
poor. However, it was evidently a very uncomfortable
state of things for a Christian bishop, who might seem
to be responsible for all the consequences, yet was with-
out control over them, A riot might commence any
moment, which it would not be in his power to arrest.
Under these circumstances, with admirable presence of
mind, he contrived to keep the people quiet, and to
direct their minds to higher objects than those around
them, by Psalmody. Sacred chanting had been one
especial way in which the Catholics of Antioch had kept
alive, in Arian times, the spirit of orthodoxy. And
from the first a peculiar kind of singing — the antiphonal
or responsorial, answering to our cathedral chanting —
had been used in honour of the sacred doctrine which
heresy assailed. Ignatius, the disciple of St. Peter, was
reported to have introduced the practice into the Church
of Antioch, in the doxology to the Trinity. Flavian,
afterwards bishop of that see, revived it during the
Arian usurpation, to the great edification and encourage-
ment of the oppressed Catholics. Chrysostom used it in

Ambrose and Vaientinian. 359

the vigils at Constantinople, in opposition to the same
heretical party ; and similar vigils had been established
by Basil in the monasteries of Cappadocia. The as-
sembled multitude, confined day and night within the
gates of the Basilica, were in the situation of a monastic
body without its discipline, and Ambrose rightly con-
sidered that the novelty and solemnity of the oriental
chants, in praise of the Blessed Trinity, would both in-
terest and sober them during the dangerous temptation
to which they were now exposed. The expedient had
even more successful results than the bishop anticipated ;
the soldiers were affected by the music, and took part in
it ; and, as we hear nothing more of the blockade, we
must suppose that it thus ended, the government being
obliged to overlook what it could not prevent.

It may be interesting to the reader to see Augustine's
notice of this occurrence, and the effect of the Psalmody
upon himself, at the time of his baptism.

" The pious populace (he says in his Confessions) was keeping
vigils in the church prepared to die, O Lord, with their bishop,
Thy servant. There was my mother, Thy handmaid, surpassing
others in anxiety and watching, and making prayers her life.

" I, uninfluenced as yet by the fire of Thy Spirit, was roused how-
ever by the terror and agitation of the city. Then it was that
hymns and psalms, after the oriental rite, were introduced, lest the
spirits of the flock should fail under the wearisome delay." —
Confess, ix. 15.

In the same passage, speaking of his baptism, he
says : —

" How many tears I shed during the performance of Thy hymns
and chants, keenly affected by the notes of Thy melodious Church !
My ears drank up those sounds, and they distilled into my heart as
sacred truths, and overflowed thence again in pious emotion, and
gushed forth into tears, and I was happy in them." — Ibid. 14.

360 Primitive Christianity.

Elsewhere he says : —

" Sometimes, from over-jealousy, I would entirely put from me
and from the Church the melodies of the sweet chants which we
use in the Psalter, lest our ears seduce us ; and the way of Atha-
nasius, Bishop of Alexandria, seems the safer, who, as I have often
heard, made the reader chant with so slight a change of note, that
it was more like speaking than singing. And yet when I call to
mind the tears I shed when I heard the chants of Thy Church in
the infancy of my recovered faith, and reflect that at this time I am
affected, not by the mere music, but by the subject, brought out, as
it is, by clear voices and appropriate tune, then, in turn, I confess
how useful is the practice." — Confess, x. 50.

Such was the influence of the Ambrosian chants when
first introduced at Milan by the great bishop whose name
they bear; there they are in use still, in all the majestic
austerity which gave them their original power, and a
great part of the Western Church uses that modification
of them which Pope Gregory introduced at Rome in the
beginning of the seventh century.

4-

Ambrose implies, in the sermon from which extracts
were given above, that a persecution, reaching even to the
infliction of bodily sufferings, was at this time exercised
upon the bishops of the Exarchate. Certainly he himself
was all along in imminent peril of his life, or of sudden
removal from Milan. However, he made it a point to
frequent the public places and religious meetings as
usual ; and indeed it appears that he was as safe there
as at home, for he narrowly escaped assassination from
a hired ruffian of the Empress's, who made his way to
his bed-chamber for the purpose. Magical arts were
also practised against him, as a more secret and certain
method of ensuring his destructioa

Ambrose and Valentinian. 361

I ought to have mentioned, before this, the challenge
sent to him by the Arian bishop to dispute publicly
with him on the sacred doctrine in controversy ; but was
unwilling to interrupt the narrative of the contest about
the Basilica. I will here translate portions of a letter
sent by him, on the occasion, to the Emperor.

"To the most gracious Emperor and most happy Augustus
" Valentinian, Ambrosius Bishop, —

" Dalmatius, tribune and notary, has come to me, at your
Majesty's desire, as he assures me, to require me to choose umpires,
as Auxentius1 has done on his part. Not that he informed me who
they were that had already been named ; but merely said that the
dispute was to take place in the consistory, in your Majesty's
presence, as final arbitrator of it.

"I trust my answer will prove sufficient. No one should call
me contumacious, if I insist on what your father, of blessed
memory, not only sanctioned by word of mouth, but even by a law :
— That in cases of faith, or of ecclesiastics, the judges should be
neither inferior in function nor separate in jurisdiction — thus the
rescript runs ; in other words, he would have priests decide about
priests. And this extended even to the case of allegations of
wrong conduct.

" When was it you ever heard, most gracious Emperor, that in a
question of faith laymen should be judges of a bishop ? What !
have courtly manners so bent our backs, that we have forgotten
the rights of the priesthood, that I should of myself put into an-
other's hands what God has bestowed upon me ? Once grant that
a layman may set a bishop right, and see what will follow. The
layman in consequence discusses, while the bishop listens; and
the bishop is the pupil of the layman. Yet, whether we turn to
Scripture or to history, who will venture to deny that in a question
of faith, in a question, I say, of faith, it has ever been the bishop's
business to judge the Christian Emperor, not the Emperor's to
judge the bishop ?

" When, through God's blessing, you live to be old, then you will

1 The Arian bishop, who had lately come from the East to Milan, had
taken the name of Auxentius, the heretical predecessor of Ambrose.

362 Primitive Christianity.

know what to think of the fidelity of that bishop who places the
rights of the priesthood at the mercy of laymen. Your father, who
arrived, through God's blessing, at maturer years, was in the habit
of saying, * I have no right to judge between bishops ; ' but now
your Majesty says, ' I ought to judge.' He, even though baptized
into Christ's body, thought himself unequal to the burden of such
a judgment ; your Majesty, who still have to earn a title to the
sacrament, claims to judge in a matter of faith, though you are a
stranger to the sacrament to which that faith belongs.

" But Ambrose is not of such value, that he must degrade the priest-
hood for his own well-being. One man's life is not so precious as
the dignity of all those bishops who have advised me thus to write ;
and who suggested that Auxentius might be choosing some heathen
perhaps or Jew, whose permission to decide about Christ would be a
permission to triumph over Him. What would pleasure them but
blasphemies against Him ? What would satisfy them but the im-
pious denial of His divinity — agreeing, as they do, full well with
the Arian, who pronounces Christ to be a creature with the ready
concurrence of Jews and heathens ?

" I would have come to your Majesty's Court, to offer these re-
marks in your presence ; but neither my bishops nor my people
would let me ; for they said that, when matters of faith were dis-
cussed in the Church, this should be in the presence of the people.

" I could have wished your Majesty had not told me to betake
myself to exile somewhere. I was abroad every day ; no one
guarded me. I was at the mercy of all the world ; you should
have secured my departure to a place of your own choosing. Now
the priests say to me, ' There is little difference between voluntarily
leaving and betraying the altar of Christ ; for when you leave, you
betray it.'

" May it please your Majesty graciously to accept this my de-
clining to appear in the Imperial Court. I am not practised in
attending it, except in your behalf ; nor have I the skill to strive
for victory within the palace, as neither knowing, nor caring to
know, its secrets." — Ep. 21.

The reader will observe an allusion in the last sentence
of this defence to a service Ambrose had rendered the
Emperor and his mother, upon the murder of Gratian ;
when, at the request of Justina, he undertook the diffi-

Ambrose and Valentinian. 363

cult embassy to the usurper Maximus, and was the
means of preserving the peace of Italy. This Maximus
now interfered to defend him against the parties whom
he had on a former occasion defended against Maximus ;
but other and more remarkable occurrences interposed
in his behalf, which shall be mentioned in the next
section.

§ 3- Ambrose and the Martyrs.

i,

A TERMINATION was at length put to the perse-
£\. cution of the Church of Milan by an occurrence
of a very different nature from any which take place in
these days. And since such events as I am to men-
tion do not occur now, we are apt to argue, not very
logically, that they did not occur then. I conceive this
to be the main objection which will be felt against the
following narrative. Miracles never took place then,
because we do not see reason to believe that they take
place now. But it should be recollected, that if there
are no miracles at present, neither are there at present
any martyrs. Might we not as cogently argue that no
martyrdoms took place then,' because no martyrdoms
take place now ? And might not St. Ambrose and his
brethren have as reasonably disbelieved the possible
existence of parsonages and pony carriages in the nine-
teenth century, as we the existence of martyrs and
miracles in the primitive age ? Perhaps miracles and
martyrs go together. Now the account which is to fol-
low does indeed relate to miracles, but then it relates to
martyrs also.

Another objection which may be more reasonably
urged against the narrative is this : that in the fourth
century there were many miraculous tales which even
Fathers of the Church believed, but which no one of
any way of thinking believes now. It will be argued,
that because some miracles are alleged which did not

Ambrose and tke Martyrs. 365

really take place, that therefore none which are alleged
took place either. But I am disposed to reason just the
contrary way. Pretences to revelation make it probable
that there is a true Revelation ; pretences to miracles
make it probable that there are real ones ; falsehood is
the mockery of truth ; false Christs argue a true Christ ;
a shadow implies a substance. If it be replied that the
Scripture miracles are these true miracles, and that it is
they, and none other but they, none after them, which
suggested the counterfeit ; I ask in turn, if so, what
becomes of the original objection, that no miracles are
true, because some are false ? If this be so, the Scrip-
ture miracles are to be believed as little as those after
them ; and this is the very plea which infidels have
urged. No ; it is not reasonable to limit the scope of
an argument according to the exigency of our particular
conclusions ; we have no leave to apply the argument
for miracles only to the first century, and that against
miracles only to the fourth. If forgery in some miracles
proves forgery in all, this tells against the first as well
as against the fourth century ; if forgery in some argues
truth in others, this avails for the fourth as well as for
the first.

And I will add, that even credulousness on other occa-
sions does not necessarily disqualify a person's evidence
for a particular alleged miracle ; for the sight of one true
miracle could not but dispose a man to believe others
readily, nay, too readily, that is, would make him what is
called credulous.

Now let these remarks be kept in mind while I go on
to describe the alleged occurrence which has led to them.
I know of no direct objection to it in particular, viewed
in itself; the main objections are such antecedent
considerations as I have been noticing But if Elisha's

366 Primitive Christianity.

bones restored a dead man to life, I know of no ante-
cedent reason why the relics of Gervasius and Protasius
should not, as in the instance to be considered, have
given sight to the blind.

The circumstances were these : — St. Ambrose, at the
juncture of affairs which I have described in the fore-
going pages, was proceeding to the dedication of a cer-
tain church at Milan, which remains there to this day,
with the name of " St. Ambrose the Greater ; " and was
urged by the people to bury relics of martyrs under the
altar, as he had lately done in the case of the Basilica
of the Apostles. This was according to the usage of
those times, desirous thereby both of honouring those
who had braved death for Christ's sake, and of hallow-
ing religious places with the mortal instruments of their
triumph. Ambrose in consequence gave orders to open
the ground in the church of St. Nabor, as a spot likely
to have been the burying-place of martyrs during the
heathen persecutions.

Augustine, who was in Milan at the time, alleges that
Ambrose was directed in his search by a dream. Am-
brose himself is evidently reserved on the subject in his
letter to his sister, though he was accustomed to make
her his confidant in his ecclesiastical proceedings ; he
only speaks of his heart having burnt within him in
presage of what was to happen. The digging com-
menced, and in due time two skeletons were discovered,
of great size, perfect, and disposed in an orderly way ;
the head of each, however, separated from the body,
and a quantity of blood about. That they were the
remains of martyrs, none could reasonably doubt ; and
their names were ascertained to be Gervasius and Pro-

Ambrose and the Martyrs. 367

tasius ; how, it does not appear, but certainly it was not
so alleged on any traditionary information or for any
popular object, since they proved to be quite new names
to the Church of the day, though some elderly men at
length recollected hearing them in former years. Nor
is it wonderful that these saints should have been for-
gotten, considering the number of the Apostolic martyrs,
among whom Geivasius and Protasius appear to have a
place.

It seems to have been usual in that day to verify the
genuineness of relics by bringing some of the energumeni,
or possessed with devils, to them. Such afflicted persons
were present with St. Ambrose during the search ; and,
before the service for exorcism commenced, one of them
gave the well-known signs of horror and distress which
were customarily excited by the presence of what had
been the tabernacle of divine grace.

The skeletons were raised and transported to the neigh-
bouring church of St. Fausta. The next day, June i8th,
on which they were to be conveyed to their destination, a
vast concourse of people attended the procession. This
was the moment chosen by Divine Providence to give, as
it were, signal to His Church, that, though years passed
on, He was still what He had been from the beginning, a
living and a faithful God, wonder-working as in the life-
time of the Apostles, and true to His word as spoken by
His prophets unto a thousand generations. There was in
Milan a man of middle age, well known in the place, by
name Severus, who, having become blind, had given up
his trade, and was now supported by charitable persons.
Being told the cause of the shoutings in the streets, he
persuaded his guide to lead him to the sacred relics. He
came near ; he touched the cloth which covered them ;
and he regained his sight immediately.

368 Primitive Christianity*

This relation deserves our special notice from its dis-
tinct miraculousness and its circumstantial character ;
but numerous other miracles are stated to have followed.
Various diseases were cured and demoniacs dispossessed
by the touch of the holy bodies or their envelopments.

3-

Now for the evidence on which the whole matter rests.
Our witnesses are three : St. Augustine, St. Ambrose,
and Paulinus, the secretary of the latter, who after his
death addressed a short memoir of his life to the former.

I. St. Augustine, in three separate passages in his
works, two of which shall here be quoted, gives his testi-
mony. First, in his City of God, in an enumeration of
miracles which had taken place since the Apostles' time.
He begins with that which he himself had witnessed in
the city of St. Ambrose : —

" The miracle," he says, " which occurred at Milan, while I was
there, when a blind man gained sight, was of a kind to come to the
knowledge of many, because the city is large, and the Emperor was
there at the time, and it was wrought with the witness of a vast
multitude, who had come together to the bodies of the martyrs
Protasius and Gervasius ; which, being at the time concealed and
altogether unknown, were discovered on the revelation of a dream
to Ambrose the bishop ; upon which that blind man was released
from his former darkness, and saw the day." — xxii. 8.

And next in his sermon upon the feast-day of the two
martyrs : —

" We are celebrating, my brethren, the day on which, by Ambrose
the bishop, that man of God, there was discovered, precious in the
sight of the Lord, the death of His Saints ; of which so great glory
of the martyrs, then accruing, even I was a witness. I was there, I
was at Milan, I know the miracles which were done, God attesting
to the precious death of His Saints ; that by those miracles hence
iorth, not in the Lord's sight only, but in the sight of men also, that

Ambrose and the Martyrs 369

death might be precious. A blind man, perfectly well known to the
whole city, was restored to sight ; he ran, he caused himself to be
brought near, he returned without a guide. We have n&t yet heard
of his death ; perhaps he is still alive. In the very church where
their bodies are, he has vowed his whole life to religious service.
We rejoiced in his restoration, we left him in service/' — Serm*
286. irid. also 318.

The third passage will be found in the ninth book of
St. Augustine's Confessions, and adds to the foregoing
extracts the important fact that the miracle was the
cause of Justina's relinquishing her persecution of the
Catholics.

2. Now let us proceed to the evidence of St. Ambrose,
as contained in the sermons which he preached upon the
occasion. In the former of the two he speaks as follows
of the miracles wrought by the relics : —

u Ye know, nay, ye have yourselves seen, many cleansed from evil
spirits, and numbers loosed from their infirmities, on laying their
hands on the garment of the saints. Ye see renewed the miracles
of the old time, when, through the advent of the Lord Jesus, a fuller
grace poured itself upon the earth ; ye see most men healed by the
very shadow of the sacred bodies. How many are the napkins
which pass to and fro ! what anxiety for garments which are laid
upon the most holy relics, and made salutary by their very touch !
It is an object with all to reach even to the extreme border, and he
who reaches it will be made whole. Thanks be to Thee, Lord
Jesus, for awakening for us at this time the spirits of the holy
martyrs, when Thy Church needs greater guardianship. Let all
understand the sort of champions I ask for — those who may act as
champions, not as assailants. And such have I gained for you, my
religious people, such as benefit all, and harm none. Such defenders
I solicit, such soldiers I possess, not the world's soldiers, but soldiers
of Christ. I fear not that such will give offence ; because the higher
is their guardianship, the less exceptionable is it also. Nay, for
them even who grudge me the martyrs, do I desire the martyrs'
protection. So let them come and see my body-guard ; I own I
have such arms about me. * These put their trust in chariots and
VOL, I. 24

37O Primitive Christianity.

these in horses ; but we will glory in the name of the Lord our
God/

" Elisaeus, as the course of Holy Scripture tells us, when hemmed
in by the Syrian army, said to his frightened servant, by way of
calming him, ' There are more that are for us than are against us.'
And to prove this, he begged that Gehazi's eyes might be opened ;
upon which the latter saw innumerable hosts of Angels present to
the prophet We, though we cannot see them, yet are sensible ot
them. Our eyes were held as long as the bodies of the saints lay
hid in their graves. The Lord has opened our eyes : we have seen
those aids by which we have often been defended. We had not
the sight of these, yet we had the possession. And so, as though
the Lord said to us in our alarm, * Behold what martyrs I have
given you ! ' in like manner our eyes are unclosed, and we see the
glory of the Lord, manifested, as once in their passion, so now in
their power. We have got clear, my brethren, of no slight disgrace ;
we had patrons, yet we knew it not. We have found this one thing,
in which we have the advantage of our forefathers — they lost the
knowledge of these holy martyrs, and we have obtained it.

"Bring the victorious victims to the spot where is Christ the
sacrifice. But He upon the altar, who suffered for all ; they under
it, who were redeemed by His passion. I had intended this spot
for myself, for it is fitting that where the priest had been used to
offer, there he should repose ; but I yield the right side to the
sacred victims ; that spot was due to the martyrs. Therefore let
us bury the hallowed relics, and introduce them into a fitting home;
and celebrate the whole day with sincere devotion." — Ep. 22.

In his latter sermon, preached the following day, he
pursues the subject: —

"This your celebration they are jealous of, who are wont to be ;
and, being jealous of it, they hate the cause of it, and are extrava-
gant enough to deny the merits of those martyrs, whose works the
very devils confess. Nor is it wonderful ; it commonly happens
that unbelievers who deny are less bearable than the devil who
confesses. For the devil said. 'Jesus, Son of the living Son, why
hast Thou come to torment us before the time?' And, whereas
the Jews heard this, yet they were the very men to deny the Son of
God. And now ye have heard the evil spirits crying out, and con-

Ambrose a tut I he Martyrs. 371

fessing to the martyrs, that they cannot bear their pains, and saying,
'Why are ye come to torment us so heavily?' And the Arians
say, ' They are not martyrs, nor can they torment the devil, nor
dispossess any one ; ' while the torments of the evil spirits are evi-
denced by their own voice, and the benefits of the martyrs by the
recovery of the healed, and the tokens of the dispossessed.

" The Arians say, ' These are not real torments of evil spirits, but
they are pretended and counterfeit/ I have heard of many things
pretended, but no one ever could succeed in feigning himself a
devil. How is it we see them in such distress when the hand is
laid on them? What room is here for fraud? what suspicion of
imposture ?

" They deny that the blind received sight ; but he does not deny
that he was cured. He says, * I see, who afore saw not.' He says,
' I ceased to be blind,' and he evidences it by the fact. They deny
the benefit, who cannot deny the fact. The man is well known ;
employed as he was, before his affliction, in a public trade, Severus
his name, a butcher his business : he had given it up when this
misfortune befell him. He refers to the testimony of men whose
charities were supporting him ; he summons them as evidence of
his present visitation, who were witnesses and judges of his blind-
ness. He cries out that, on his touching the hem of the martyrs'
garment, which covered the relics, his sight was restored to him.
We read in the Gospel, that when the Jews saw the cure of the
blind man, they sought the testimony of the parents. Ask others^
if you distrust me ; ask persons unconnected with him, if you think
that his parents would take a side. The obstinacy of these Arians
is more hateful than that of the Jews. When the latter doubted,
at least they inquired of the parents ; these inquire secretly, deny
openly, as giving credit to the fact, but denying the author." — Ibid.

3. We may corroborate the evidence of those two
Fathers with that of Paulinus, who was secretary to St.
Ambrose, and wrote his life, about A.D. 411.

"About the same time," he says, "the holy martyrs Protasius
and Gervasius revealed themselves to God's priest. They lay in
the Basilica, where, at present, are the bodies of the martyrs Nabor
and Felix ; while, however, the holy martyrs Nabor and Felix had
crowds to visit them, as well the names as the graves of the martyrs

37- Primitive Christianity.

Protasius and Gervasius were unknown ; so that all who wished to
come to the rails which protected the graves of the martyrs Nabor
and Felix, were used to walk on the graves of the others. But
when the bodies of the holy martyrs were raised and placed on
litters, thereupon many possessions of the devil were detected.
Moreover, a blind man, by name Severus, who up to this day per-
forms religious service in the Basilica called Ambrosian, into which
the bodies of the martyrs have been translated, when he had touched
the garment of the martyrs, forthwith received sight. Moreover,
bodies possessed by unclean spirits were restored, and with all
blessedness returned home. And by means of these benefits of
the martyrs, while the faith of the Catholic Church made increase,
by so much did Arian misbelief decline."- ~§ 14.

4-

Now I want to know what reason is there for stumbling
at the above narrative, which will not throw uncertainty
upon the very fact that there was such a Bishop as
Ambrose, or such an Empress as Justina, or such a
heresy as the Arian, or any Church at all in Milan. Let
us consider some of the circumstances under which it
comes to us.

1. We have the concordant evidence of three distinct
witnesses, of whom at least two were on the spot when
the alleged miracles were wrought, one writing at the
time, another some years afterwards in a distant country.
And the third, writing after an interval of twenty-six
years, agrees minutely with the evidence of the two
former, not adding to the miraculous narrative, as is the
manner of those who lose their delicate care for exactness
in their admiration of the things and persons of whom
they speak.

2. The miracle was wrought in public, on a person
well known, on one who continued to live in the place
where it was professedly wrought, and who, by devoting
himself to the service of the martyrs who were the instru-

Ambrose and the Martyrs. 373

ments of his cure, was a continual memorial of the mercy
which he professed to have received, and challenged
inquiry into it, and refutation if that were possible.

3. Ambrose, one of our informants, publicly appealed,
at the time when the occurrence took place, to the gene-
ral belief, claimed it for the miracle, and that in a sermon
which is still extant.

4. He made his statement in the presence of bitter and
most powerful enemies, who were much concerned, and
very able to expose the fraud, if there was one ; who did,
as might be expected, deny the hand of God in the
matter ; but who, for all that appears, did nothing but
deny what they could not consistently confess, without
ceasing to be what they were.

5. A great and practical impression was made upon the
popular mind in consequence of the alleged miracles : or,
in the words of an historian, whose very vocation it is to
disbelieve them, " Their effect on the minds of the people
was rapid and irresistible ; and the feeble sovereign of
Italy found himself unable to contend with the favourite
of heaven."1

6. And so powerfully did all this press upon the Court,
that, as the last words of this extract intimate, the perse-
cution was given up, and the Catholics left in quiet pos-
session of the churches.

On the whole, then, are we not in the following dilemma?
If the miracle did not take place, then St. Ambrose and
St. Augustine, men of name, said they had ascertained a
fact which they did not ascertain, and said it in the face
of enemies, with an appeal to a whole city, and that con-
tinued during a quarter of a century. What instrument
of refutation shall we devise against a case like this,
neither so violently a priori as to supersede the testimony

1 Gibbon, Hist. ch. 27.

374 Primitive Christianity.

of Evangelists, nor so fastidious of evidence as to imperil
Tacitus or Caesar ? On the other hand, if the miracle
did take place, a certain measure of authority, more or
less, surely must thereby attach to St. Ambrose — to his
doctrine and his life, to his ecclesiastical principles and
proceedings, to the Church itself of the fourth century,
of which he is one main pillar. The miracle gives a cer-
tain sanction to three things at once, to the Catholic
doctrine of the Trinity, to the Church's resistance of the
civil power, and to the commemoration of saints and
martyrs.

Does it give any sanction to Protestantism and its
adherents? shall we accept it or not? shall we retreat, or
shall we advance ? shall we relapse into scepticism upon
all subjects, or sacrifice our deep-rooted prejudices? shall
we give up our knowledge of times past altogether, or
endure to gain a knowledge which we think we have
already — the knowledge of divine truth ?

375

CHAPTER II.
WHAT SAYS VINCENT OF LERINS?

I.

IT is pretty clear that most persons of this day will be
disposed to wonder at the earnestness shown by the
early bishops of the Church in their defence of the Ca-
tholic faith. Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory, and Am-
brose resisted the spread of Arianism at the risk of their
lives. Yet their repeated protests and efforts were all
about what ? The man of the world will answer, " strifes
of words, perverse disput ings, curious questions, which do
not tend to advance what ought to be the one end of all
religion, peace and love. This is what comes of insist-
ing on orthodoxy ; putting the whole world into a fever!"
Tantum religio potuit, etc., as the Epicurean poet says.

Such certainly is the phenomenon which we have to
contemplate : theirs was a state of mind seldom ex-
perienced, and little understood, in this day ; however
for that reason, it is at least interesting to the anti-
quarian, even were it not a sound and Christian state
also. The highest end of Church union, to which
the mass of educated men now look, is quiet and
unanimity ; as if the Church were not built upon faith,
and truth really the first object of the C hristian's
efforts, peace but the second. The one idea which
statesmen, and lawyers, and journalists, and men of

376 Primitive Christianity.

letters have of a clergyman is, that he is by profession
" a man of peace : " and if he has occasion to denounce,
or to resist, or to protest, a cry is raised, " O how dis-
graceful in a minister of peace ! " The Church is thought
invaluable as a promoter of good order and sobriety ;
but is regarded as nothing more. Far be it from me to
seem to disparage what is really one of her high func-
tions; but still a part of her duty will never be tantamount
to the whole of it At present the beau ideal of a clergy-
man in the eyes of many is a " reverend gentleman,"
who has a large family, and " administers spiritual con-
solation." Now I make bold to say, that confessorship
for the Catholic faith is one part of the duty of Christian
ministers, nay, and Christian laymen too. Yet, in this
day, if at any time there is any difference in matters of
doctrine between Christians, the first and last wish — the
one sovereign object — of so-called judicious men, is to
hush it up. No matter what the difference is about;
that is thought so little to the purpose, that your well-
judging men will not even take the trouble to inquire
what it is. It may be, for what they know, a question of
theism or atheism ; but they will not admit, whatever it is,
that it can be more than secondary to the preservation of
a good understanding between Christians. They think,
whatever it is, it may safely be postponed for future
consideration — that things will right themselves — the
one pressing object being to present a bold and extended
front to our external enemies, to prevent the outward
fabric of the Church from being weakened by dissen-
sions, and insulted by those who witness them. Surely
the Church exists, in an especial way, for the sake of
the faith committed to her keeping. But our practical
men forget there may be remedies worse than the
disease ; that latent heresy may be worse than a contest

Vincent ius of Lenns. 377

of " party ; " and, in their treatment of the Church, they
fulfil the satirist's well-known line : —

" Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas."

No wonder they do so, when they have been so long
accustomed to merge the Church in the nation, and to
talk of " Protestantism " in the abstract as synonymous
with true religion ; to consider that the characteristic
merit of our Church is its " tolerance," as they call it,
and that its greatest misfortune is the exposure to the
world of those antagonistic principles and views which
are really at work within it. But talking of exposure,
what a scandal it was in St. Peter to exert his apostolical
powers on Ananias ; and in St. John, to threaten Dio-
trephes 1 What an exposure in St. Paul to tell the
Corinthians he had " a rod " for them, were they dis-
obedient ! One should have thought, indeed, that wea-
pons were committed to the Church for use as well as for
show; but the present age apparently holds otherwise,
considering that the Church is then most primitive, when
it neither cares for the faith itself, nor uses the divinely
ordained means by which it is to be guarded. Now, to
people who acquiesce in this view, I know well that
Ambrose or Augustine has not more of authority than
an English non-juror ; still, to those who do not acquiesce
in it, it may be some little comfort, some encourage-
ment, some satisfaction, to see that they themselves are
not the first persons in the world who have felt and
judged of religion in that particular way which is now in
disrepute.

2.

However, some persons will allow, perhaps, that doc-
trinal truth ought to be maintained, and that the clergy

378 Primitive Christianity.

ought to maintain it ; but then they will urge that we
should not make the path of truth too narrow ; that it is
a royal and a broad highway by which we travel heaven-
ward, whereas it has been the one object of theologians,
in every age, to encroach upon it, till at length it has
become scarcely broad enough for two to walk abreast in.
And moreover, it will be objected, that over-exactness
was the very fault of the fourth and fifth centuries in
particular, which refined upon the doctrines of the Holy
Trinity and our Lord's Incarnation, till the way of life
became like that razor's edge, which is said in the Koran
to be drawn high over the place of punishment, and must
be traversed by every one at the end of the world.

Now I cannot possibly deny, however disadvantageous
it may be to their reputation, that the Fathers do repre-
sent the way of faith as narrow, nay, even as being the
more excellent and the more royal for that very nar-
rowness. Such is orthodoxy certainly ; but here it is
obvious to ask whether this very characteristic of it may
not possibly be rather an argument for, than against, its
divine origin. Certain it is, that such nicety, as it is
called, is not unknown to other religious dispensations,
creeds, and covenants, besides that which the primitive
Church identified with Christianity. Nor is it a paradox
to maintain that the whole system of religion, natural as
well as revealed, is full of similar appointments. As to
the subject of ethics, even a heathen philosopher tells us
that virtue consists in a mean — that is, in a point be-
tween indefinitely-extending extremes ; " men being in
one way good, and many ways bad." The same princi-
ple, again, is seen in the revealed system of spiritual com-
munications ; the grant of grace and privilege depending
on positive ordinances, simple and definite — on the use
of a little water, the utterance of a few words, the im-

Vmcentiits of L trim. 379

position of hands, and the like ; which, it will perhaps be
granted, are really essential to the conveyance of spiri-
tual blessings, yet are confessedly as formal and tech-
nical as any creed can be represented to be. In a word,
such technicality is involved in the very idea of a means,
which may even be defined to be a something appointed,
at God's inscrutable pleasure, as the necessary condition
of something else ; and the simple question before us is,
merely the matter of fact, viz., whether any doctrine is
set forth by Revelation as necessary to be believed /;/
order to salvation ? Antecedent difficulty in the question
there is none ; or rather, the probability is in favour of
there being some necessary doctrine, from the analogy
of the other parts of religion. The question is simply
about the matter of fact.

This analogy is perspicuously expressed in one of the
sermons of St. Leo : — " Not only," he says, " in the exer-
cise of virtue and the observance of the commandments,
but also in the path of faith, strait and difficult is the
way which leads to life ; and it requires great pains, and
involves great risks, to walk without stumbling along the
one footway of sound doctrine, amid the uncertain
opinions and the plausible untruths of the unskilful,
and to escape all peril of mistake when the toils of
error are on every side." — Serm. 25.

St. Gregory Nazianzen says the same thing : — " W*j
have bid farewell to contentious deviations of doctrine,
and compensations on either side, neither Sabellianizing
nor Arianizing. These are the sports of the evil one,
who is a bad arbiter of our matters. But we, pacing
along the middle and royal way, in which also the essence
of the virtues lies, in the judgment of the learned, believe
in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." — Orat. 32.

On the whole, then, I see nothing very strange either in

380 Primitive Christianity.

orthodoxy lying in what at first sight appears like subtle
and minute exactness of doctrine, or in its being our
duty to contend even to confessorship for such exactness.
Whether it be thus exact, and whether the exactness
of Ambrose, Leo, or Gregory be the true and revealed
exactness, is quite another question : all I say is, that it
is no great difficulty to believe that it may be what they
say it is, both as to its truth and as to its importance.

3-

But now supposing the question is asked, are Ambrose,
Leo, and Gregory right ? and is our Church right in
maintaining with them the Athanasian doctrine on those
sacred points to which it relates, and condemning those
who hold otherwise ? what answer is to be given ? I
answer by asking in turn, supposing any one inquired how
we know that Ambrose, Leo, or Gregory was right, and
our Church right, in receiving St. Paul's Epistles, what
answer we should make ? The answer would be, that it
is a matter of history that the Apostle wrote those letters
which are ascribed to him. And what is meant by its
being a matter of history ? why, that it has ever been so
believed, so declared, so recorded, so acted on, from the
first down to this day ; that there is no assignable point
of time when it was not believed, no assignable point at
which the belief was introduced ; that the records of past
ages fade away and vanish in the belief; that in propor-
tion as past ages speak at all, they speak in one way, and
only fail to bear a witness, when they fail to have a voice.
What stronger testimony can we have of a past fact ?

Now evidence such as this have we for the Catholic
doctrines which Ambrose, Leo, or Gregory maintained ;
they have never and nowhere not been maintained ; or
in other words, wherever we know anything positive of

Vincentius of Lerim. 381

ancient times and places, there we are told of these doc-
trines also. As far as the records of history extend, they
include these doctrines as avowed always, everywhere,
and by all. This is the great canon of the Quod semper \
quod ubiquey quod ab omnibus, which saves us from the
misery of having to find out the truth for ourselves from
Scripture on our independent and private judgment. He
who gave Scripture, also gave us the interpretation of
Scripture ; and He gave the one and the other gift in
the same way, by the testimony of past ages, as matter
of historical knowledge, or as it is sometimes called, by
Tradition. We receive the Catholic doctrines as we re-
ceive the canon of Scripture, because, as our Article ex-
presses it, " of their authority " there " was never any doubt
in the Church"

We receive them on Catholic Tradition, and therefore
they are called Catholic doctrines. And that they are
Catholic, is a proof that they are Apostolic ; they never
could have been universally received in the Church, unless
they had had their origin in the origin of the Church,
unless they had been made the foundation of the Church
by its founders. As the separate successions of bishops
in various countries have but one common origin, the
Apostles, so what has been handed down through these
separate successions comes from that one origin. The
Apostolic College is the only point in which all the lines
converge, and from which they spring. Private traditions,
wandering unconnected traditions, are of no authority,
but permanent, recognised, public, definite, intelligible,
multiplied, concordant testimonies to one and the same
doctrine, bring with them an overwhelming evidence of
apostolical origin. We ground the claims of orthodoxy
on. no powers of reasoning, however great, on the credit
of no names, however imposing, but on an external fact,

382 Primitive Christianity.

on an argument the same as that by which we prove the
genuineness and authority of the four gospels. The
unanimous tradition of all the churches to certain articles
of faith is surely an irresistible evidence, more trustworthy
far than that of witnesses to certain facts in a court of
law, by how much the testimony of a number is more
cogent than the testimony of two or three. That this
really is the ground on which the narrow line of ortho-
doxy was maintained in ancient times, is plain from an
inspection of the writings of the very men who maintained
it, Ambrose, Leo, and Gregory, or Athanasius and Hilary,
and the rest, who set forth its Catholic character in more
ways than it is possible here to instance or even explain.

4-

However, in order to give the general reader some idea
of the state of the case, I will make some copious extracts
from the famous tract of Vincent of Lerins on Heresy,
written in A.D. 434, immediately after the third Ecu-
menical Council, held against Nestorius. The author was
originally a layman, and by profession a soldier. In after
life he became a monk and took orders. Lerins, the site
of his monastery, is one of the small islands off the south
coast of France. He first states what the principle is he
would maintain, and the circumstances under which he
maintains it ; and if his principle is reasonable and valu-
able in itself, so does it come to us with great weight
under the circumstances which he tells us led him to his
exposition of it :l

" Inquiring often," he says, " with great desire and attention, of
very many excellent, holy, and learned men, how and by what
means I might assuredly, and as it were by some general and ordi-

1 The Oxford translation of 1837 is used in the following extracts.

Vmcentius of Lerins. 383

nary way, discern the true Catholic faith from false and wicked
heresy ; to this question I had usually this answer from them all,
that whether I or any other desired to find out the fraud of heretics,
daily springing up, and to escape their snares, and to continue in a
sound faith himself safe and sound, that he ought, by two ways, by
God's assistance, to defend and preserve his faith ; that is, first,
by the authority of the law of God ; secondly, by the tradition of
the Catholic Church."— Ch. 2.

It will be observed he is speaking of the mode in
which an individual is to seek and attain the truth ; and
it will be observed also, as the revered Bishop Jebb has
pointed out, that he is allowing1 and sanctioning the
use of personal inquiry. He proceeds : —

" Here some man, perhaps, may ask, seeing the canon of the
Scripture is perfect, and most abundantly of itself sufficient for all
things, what need we join unto it the authority of the Church's
understanding and interpretation ? The reason is this, because the
Scripture being of itself so deep and profound, all men do not un-
derstand it in one and the same sense, but divers men diversely,
this man and that man, this way and that v/ay, expound and inter-
pret the sayings thereof, so that to one's thinking, 'so many men, so
many opinions ' almost may be gathered out of them : for Novatian
sxpoundeth it one way, Photinus another; Sabellius after this sort,
Donatus after that ; Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius will have this
exposition, Apollinaris and Priscilian will have that ; Jovinian,
Pelagius, Celestius, gather this sense, and, to conclude, Nestorius
findeth out that ; and therefore very necessary it is for the avoid-
ing of so great windings and turnings, of errors so various, that
the line of expounding the Prophets and Apostles be directed and
drawn, according to the rule of the Ecclesiastical and Catholic
sense.

" Again, within the Catholic Church itself we are greatly to con-
sider that we hold that which hath been believed everywhere,

1 [He allows of it in the A bsencc at the time of the Church's authoritative
declaration concerning the particular question in debate. He would say,
•• There was no need of any Ecumenical Council to condemn Nestorius ; he
was condemned by Scripture and tradition already." — 1872.]

384 Primitive Christianity.

always, and of all men : for that is truly and properly Catholic (as
the very force and nature of the word doth declare) which compre-
hendeth all things in general after an universal manner, and that
shall we do if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. Univer-
sality shall we follow thus, if we profess that one faith to be true
which the whole Church throughout the world acknowledgeth and
confesseth. Antiquity shall we follow, if we depart not any whit
from those senses which it is plain that our holy elders and fathers
generally held. Consent shall we likewise follow, if in this very
Antiquity itself we hold the definitions and opinions of all, or at
any rate almost all, the priests and doctors together." — Ch. 2, 3.

It is sometimes said, that what is called orthodoxy 01
Catholicism is only the opinion of one or two Fathers- •
fallible men, however able they might be, or persuasive
— who created a theology, and imposed it on their
generation, and thereby superseded Scriptural truth and
the real gospel. Let us see how Vincent treats such in-
dividual teachers, however highly gifted. He is speak-
ing in the opening sentence of the Judaizers of the time
of St. Paul :—

" When, therefore, such kind of men, wandering up and down
through provinces and cities to set their errors to sale, came also
unto the Galatians, and these, after they had heard them, were de-
lighted with the filthy drugs of heretical novelty, loathing the truth,
and casting up again the heavenly manna of the Apostolic and
Catholic doctrine : the authority of his Apostolic office so puts
itself forth as to decree very severely in this sort. ' But although
(quoth he) we or an Angel from heaven evangelize unto you beside
that which we have evangelized, be he Anathema.'1 Whatmeaneth
this that he saith, ' But although we ? ' why did he not rather say,
* But although I ?' that is to say, Although Peter, although Andrew,
although John, yea, finally, although the whole company of the
Apostles, evangelize unto you otherwise than we have evangelized,
be he accursed. A terrible censure, in that for maintaining the pos-
session of the first faith, he spared not himself, nor any other of the
Apostles ! But this is a small matter : ' Although an Angel from
1 Gall 8.

Vincentius of Lenns. 385

heaven (quoth he) evangelize unto you, beside that which I have
evangelized, be he Anathema,' he was not contented for keeping
the faith once delivered to make mention of man's weak nature,
unless also he included those excellent creatures the Angels. . . But
peradventure he uttered those words slightly, and cast them forth
rather of human affection than decreed them by divine direction.
God forbid : for it followeth, and that urged with great earnestness
of repeated inculcation, ' As I have foretold you (quoth he), and
now again I tell you, If anybody evangelize unto you beside thai
which you have received, be he Anathema.' He said not, If any
man preach unto you beside that which you have received, let him
be blessed, let him be commended, let him be received, but let him
be Anathema, that is, separated, thrust out, excluded, lest the cruel
infection of one sheep with his poisoned company corrupt the
sound flock of Christ."— Ch. 12 and 13.

s-

Here, then, is a point of doctrine which must be
carefully insisted on. The Fathers are primarily to be
considered as witnesses, not as authorities. They are
witnesses of an existing state of things, and their
treatises are, as it were, histories, — teaching us, in the
first instance, matters of fact, not of opinion. Whatever
they themselves might be, whether deeply or poorly
taught in Christian faith and love, they speak, not their
own thoughts, but the received views of their respective
ages. The especial value of their works lies in their
opening upon us a state of the Church which else we
should have no notion of. We read in their writings a
great number of high and glorious principles and acts ,
and our first thought thereupon is, "All this must have had
an existence somewhere or other in those times. These
very men, indeed, may be merely speaking by rote, and
not understand what they say ; but it matters not to the
profit of their writings what they were themselves." It
matters not to the profit of their writings, 'nor again to
VOL. I. 25

386 Primitive Christianity.

the authority resulting from them; for the times in which
they wrote of course are of authority, though the Fathers
themselves may have none. Tertullian or Eusebius may
be nothing more than bare witnesses ; yet so much as
this they have a claim to be considered.

This is even the strict Protestant view. We are not
obliged to take the Fathers as authorities, only as wit-
nesses. Charity, I suppose, and piety will prompt the
Christian student to go further, and to believe that men
who laboured so unremittingly, and suffered so severely
in the cause of the Gospel, really did possess some little
portion of that earnest love of the truth which they pro-
fessed, and were enlightened by that influence for which
they prayed ; but I am stating the strict Protestant doc-
trine, the great polemical principle ever to be borne in
mind, that the Fathers are to be adduced in controversy
merely as testimonies to an existing state of things, not
as authorities. At the same time, no candid Protestant
will be loth to admit, that the state of things to which
they bear witness, is, as I have already said, a most
grave and conclusive authority in guiding us in those
particulars of our duty about which Scripture is silent ;
succeeding, as it does, so very close upon the age of the
Apostles.

Thus much I claim of consistent Protestants, and thus
much I grant to them. Gregory and the rest may have
been but nominal Christians. Athanasius himself may
have been very dark in all points of doctrine, in spite of
his twenty years' exile and his innumerable perils by
sea and land ; the noble Ambrose, a high and dry
churchman ; and Basil, a mere monk. I do not dispute
these points ; though I claim " the right of private judg-
ment," so far as to have my own very definite opinion in
the matter, which I keep to myself,

Vincentius of Lenns. 387

6.

Such being the plain teaching of the Fathers, and
such the duty of following it, Vincentius proceeds to
speak of the misery of doubting and change : —

" Which being so, he is a true and genuine Catholic that loveth
the truth of God, the Church, the body of Christ ; that preferreth
nothing before the religion of God ; nothing before the Catholic
faith ; not any man's authority, not love, not wit, not eloquence, not
philosophy ; but contemning all these things, and in faith abiding
fixed and stable, whatsoever he knoweth the Catholic Church uni-
versally in old times to have holden, that only he purposeth with
himself to hold and believe ; but whatsoever doctrine, new and not
before heard of, such an one shall perceive to be afterwards brought
in of some one man, beside all or contrary to all the saints, let him
know that doctrine doth not pertain to religion, but rather to
temptation, especially being instructed with the sayings of the
blessed Apostle St. Paul. For this is that which he writeth in his
first Epistle to the Corinthians : * There must (quoth he) be heresies
also, that they which are approved may be made manifest among
you.' . . .

" O the miserable state of [waverers] ! with what seas of cares,
with what storms, are they tossed ! for now at one time, as the wind
driveth them, they are carried away headlong in error ; at another
time, coming again to themselves, they are beaten back like con-
trary waves ; sometime with rash presumption they allow such
things as seem uncertain, at another time of pusillanimity they are
in fear even about those things which are certain ; doubtful which
way to take, which way to return, what to desire, what to avoid,
what to hold, what to let go ; which misery and affliction of a
wavering and unsettled heart, were they wise, is as a medicine of
God's mercy towards them.

" Which being so, oftentimes calling to mind and remembering
the selfsame thing, I cannot sufficiently marvel at the great mad-
ness of some men, at so great impiety of their blinded hearts,
lastly, at so great a licentious desire of error, that they be not con-
tent with the rule of faith once delivered us, and received from our
ancestors, but do every day search and seek for new doctrine, ever
desirous to add to, to change, and to take away something from,

388 Primitive Christianity.

religion ; as though that were not the doctrine of God, which it is
enough to have once revealed, but rather man's institution, which
cannot but by continual amendment (or rather correction) be per-
fected."—^. 25, 26.

7-

Then he takes a text, and handles it as a modern
preacher might do. His text is this : —

" O Timothy, keep the depositum, avoiding the profane novelties
of words, and oppositions of falsely-called knowledge, which certain
professing have erred about the faith."

He dwells successively upon Timotny, on the deposit,
on avoiding, on profane, and on novelties.
First, Timothy and the "deposit:" —

"Who at this day is Timothy, but either generally the whole
Church, or especially the whole body of prelates, who ought either
themselves to have a sound knowledge of divine religion, or who
ought to infuse it into others ? What is meant by keep the deposit f
Keep it (quoth he) for fear of thieves, for danger of enemies, lest
when men be asleep, they oversow cockle among that good seed of
wheat, which the Son of man hath sowed in His field. * Keep
(quoth he) the deposit.' What is meant by this deposit ? that is,
that which is committed to thee, not that which is invented of thee ;
that which thou hast received, not that which thou hast devised ; a
thing not of wit, but of learning ; not of private assumption, but of
public tradition ; a thing brought to thee, not brought forth of thee ;
wherein thou must not be an author, but a keeper ; not a beginner,
but a follower ; not a leader, but an observer. Keep the deposit.
Preserve the talent of the Catholic faith safe and undiminished ;
that which is committed to thee, let that remain with thee, and that
deliver. Thou hast received gold, render then gold ; I will not
have one thing for another ; do not for gold render either impu-
dently lead, or craftily brass ; I will, not the show, but the very
nature of gold itself. O Timothy, O priest, O teacher, O doctor, if
God's gift hath made thee meet and sufficient by thy wit, exercise,
and learning, be the Beseleel of the spiritual tabernacle, engrave

Vincentius of Lerins. 389

the precious stones of God's doctrine, faithfully set them, wisely
adorn them, give them brightness, give them grace, give them
beauty. That which men before believed obscurely, let them by
thy exposition understand more clearly. Let posterity rejoice for
coming to the understanding of that by thy means, which antiquity
without that understanding had ''n veneration. Yet for all this, in
such sort deliver the same things which thou hast learned, that
albeit thou teachest after a new manner yet thou never teach new
things."

Next, "avoiding:* —

" ' O Timothy (quoth he), keep the deposit, avoid profane novel-
ties of words.' Avoid (quoth he) as a viper, as a scorpion, as a
basilisk, lest they infect thee not only by touching, but also with
their very eyes and breath. What is meant by avoid 'f1 that is, not
so much as to eat with any such. What importeth this avoid 'f ' If
any man (quoth he) come unto you, and bring not this doctrine,"
what doctrine but the Catholic and universal, and that which, with
incorrupt tradition of the truth, hath continued one and the selfsame,
through all successions of times, and that which shall continue for
ever and ever ? What then ? * Receive him not (quoth he) into
the house, nor say God speed ; for he that saith unto him God
speed, communicateth with his wicked works.1 '

Then, "profane:"—

" ' Profane novelties of words ' (quoth he) ; what is profane f
Those which have no holiness in them, nought of religion, wholly
external to the sanctuary of the Church, which is the temple of God.
' Profane novelties of words (quoth he), of words, that is, novelties
of doctrines, novelties of things, novelties of opinions, contrary to
old usage, contrary to antiquity, which if we receive, of necessity
the faith of our blessed ancestors, either all, or a great part of it,
must be overthrown ; the faithful people of all ages and times, all
holy saints, all the chaste, all the continent, all the virgins, all the
clergy, the deacons, the priests, so many thousands of confessors,
so great armies of martyrs, so many famous and populous cities
and commonwealths, so many islands, provinces, kings, tribes,
kingdoms, nations ; to conclude, almost now the whole world, in-
corporated by the Catholic faith to Christ their Head, must needs
i i Cor. v. II. 3 2 John 10, II.

Primitive Christianity.

be said, so many hundreds of years, to have been ignorant, to have
erred, to have blasphemed, to have believed they knew not what."

Lastly, " novelties .•"—

" * Avoid (quoth he) profane novelties of words/ to receive and
follow which was never the custom of Catholics, but always of
heretics. And, to say truth, what heresy hath ever burst forth, but
under the name of some certain man, in some certain place, and
at some certain time? Who ever set up any heresy, but first
divided himself from the consent of the universality and antiquity
of the Catholic Church ? Which to be true, examples do plainly
prove. For who ever before that profane Pelagius presumed so
much of man's free will, that he thought not the grace of God
necessary to aid it in every particular good act ? Who ever before
his monstrous disciple Celestius denied all mankind to be bound
with the guilt of Adam's transgression ? Who ever before sacri-
legious Arius durst rend in pieces *he Unity of Trinity ? Who ever
before wicked Sabellius durst confound the Trinity of Unity ? Who
ever before cruel Novatian affirmed God to be merciless, in that He
had rather the death of a sinner than that he should return and
live ? Who ever before Simon Magus, durst affirm that God our
Creator was the Author of evil, that is, of our wickedness, impieties,
and crimes ; because God (as he said) so with His own hands
made man's very nature, that by a certain proper motion and im-
pulse of an enforced will, it can do nothing else, desire nothing
else, but to sin. Such examples are infinite, which for brevity-sake
I omit, by all which, notwithstanding, it appeareth plainly and
clearly enough, that it is, as it were, a custom and law in all heresies,
ever to take great pleasure in profane novelties, to loath the decrees
of our forefathers, and to make shipwreck of faith, by oppositions
of falsely-called knowledge ; contrariwise that this is usually proper
to all Catholics, to keep those things which the holy Fathers have
left, and committed to their charge, to condemn profane novelties,
and, as the Apostle hath said, and again forewarned, ' if any man
shall preach otherwise than that which is received,' to anathematize
him."— Ch. 27—34.

From these extracts, which are but specimens of the
whole Tract, I come to the conclusion that Vincent was
a very sorry Protestant.

391

CHAPTER III.
WHAT SAYS THE HISTORY OF APOLLINARIS?

"" N the judgment of the early Church, the path of
^. doctrinal truth is narrow; but, in the judgment of
Jie world in all ages, it is so broad as to be no path at
all. This I have said above ; also, that the maintenance
of the faith is considered by the world to be a strife
of words, perverse disputings, curious questionings, and
unprofitable technicality, though by the Fathers it is
considered necessary to salvation. What they call
heresy, the man of the world thinks just as true as what
they call orthodoxy, and only then wrong when per-
tinaciously insisted on by its advocates, as the early
Fathers insisted on orthodoxy. Now do, or do not,
Protestants here take part with the world in disliking,
in abjuring doctrinal propositions and articles, such
as the early Church fought for? Certainly they do.
Well, then, if they thus differ from the Church of the
Fathers, how can they fancy that the early Church was
Protestant ?

In the Treatise I have been quoting, Vincent gives us
various instances of heresiarchs, and tells us what he
thinks about them. Among others, he speaks of Apolli-
naris and his fall ; nor can we have a better instance
than that of Apollinaris of the grave distress and deep
commiseration with which the early Fathers regarded
those whom the present Protestant world thinks very
good kind of men, only fanciful and speculative, with

39 2 Primitive Christianity.

some twist or hobby of their own. Apollinaris, better
than any one else, will make us understand what was
thought of the guilt of heresy in times which came next
to the Apostolic, because the man was so great, and his
characteristic heresy was so small. The charges against
Origen have a manifest breadth and width to support
them ; Nestorius, on the other hand, had no high personal
merits to speak for him ; but Apollinaris, after a life
of laborious service in the cause of religion, did but
suffer himself to teach that the Divine Intelligence in
our Lord superseded the necessity of His having any
other, any human intellect ; and for this apparently
small error, he was condemned. Of course it was not
small really ; for one error leads to another, and did
eventually in his case ; but to all appearance it was
small, yet it was promptly and sternly denounced and
branded by East and West ; would it be so ruthlessly
smitten by Protestants now ?

A brief sketch of his history, and of the conduct of
the Church towards him, may not be out of place in the
experiments I am making with a view of determining
the relation in which modern Protestantism stands
towards primitive Christianity.

I.

His father, who bore the same name, was a native
of Alexandria, by profession a grammarian or school-
master ; who, passing from Berytus to the Syrian Lao-
dicea, married and settled there, and eventually rose to
the presbyterate in the Church of that city, Apolli-
naris, the son, had been born there in the early part of
the fourth century, and was educated for the profession
of rhetoric. After a season of suspense, as to the ulti-
mate destination of his talents, he resolved on dedicating

Apollinarh. 393

them to the service of the Church ; and, after ' being
admitted into reader's orders, he began to distinguish
himself by his opposition to philosophical infidelity.
His work against Porphyry, the most valuable and
elaborate of his writings, was extended to as many as
thirty books. During the reign of Julian, when the
Christian schools were shut up, and the Christian youth
were debarred from the use of the classics, the two
Apollinares, father and son, exerted themselves to
supply the inconvenience thence resulting from their own
resources. They wrote heroical pieces, odes, tragedies,
and dialogues, after the style of Homer and Plato, and
other standard authors, upon Christian subjects ; and
the younger, who is the subject of this Chapter, wrote
and dedicated to Julian a refutation of Paganism, on
grounds of reason.

Nor did he confine himself to the mere external
defence of the Gospel, or the preparatory training of its
disciples. His expositions on Scripture were the most
numerous of his works ; he especially excelled in elicit-
ing and illustrating its sacred meaning, and he had
sufficient acquaintance with the Hebrew to enable him
to translate or comment on the original text. There
was scarcely a controversy of the age, prolific as it was
in heresies, into which he did not enter. He wrote
against the Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and
Manichees ; against Origen and Marcellus ; and in
defence of the Millenarians. Portions of these doctrinal
writings are still excant, and display a vigour and ele-
gance of style not inferior to any writer of his day.

Such a man seemed to be raised up providentially for
the Church's defence in an evil day ; and for awhile he
might be said resolutely and nobly to fulfil his divinely
appointed destiny. The Church of Laodicea, with the

394 Primitive Christianity.

other cities of Syria, was at the time in Arian posses-
sion ; when the great Athanasius passed through on his
return to Egypt, after his second exile (A.D. 348), Apolli-
naris communicated with him, and was in consequence
put out of the Church by the bishop in possession. On
the death of Constantius (A.D. 361), the Catholic cause
prevailed ; and Apollinaris was consecrated to that see,
or to that in Asia Minor which bears the same name.

Such was the station, such the reputation of Apolli-
naris, at the date of the Council thereupon held at
Alexandria, A.D. 362, for settling the disorders of the
Church ; and yet, in the proceedings of this celebrated
assembly, the first intimation occurs of the existence of
that doctrinal error by which he has been since known
in history, though it is not there connected with his
name. The troubles under Julian succeeded, and
diverted the minds of all parties to other objects. The
infant heresy slept till about the year 369 ; when it
gives us evidence of its existence in the appearance of a
number of persons, scattered about Syria and Greece,
who professed it in one form or other, and by the solemn
meeting of a Council in the former country, in which its
distinctive tenets were condemned. We find that even
at this date it had run into those logical consequences
which make even a little error a great one ; still the
name of Apollinaris is not connected with them.

The Council, as I have said, was held in Syria, but
the heresy which occasioned it had already, it seems,
extended into Greece ; for a communication, which the
there assembled bishops addressed to Athanasius on the
subject, elicited from him a letter, still extant, addressed
to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth, who had also written to

Apollinaris. 395

him upon it. This letter, whether from tenderness to
Apollinaris, or from difficulty in bringing the heresy
home to him, still does not mention his name. Another
work written by Athanasius against the heresy, at the
very end of his life, with the keenness and richness of
thought which distinguish his writings generally, is
equally silent; as are two letters to friends about the
same date, which touch more or less on the theological
points in question. All these treatises seem to be forced
from the writer, and are characterized by considerable
energy of expression : as if the Catholics addressed were
really perplexed with the novel statements of doctrine,
and doubtful how Athanasius would meet them, or at
least required his authority before pronouncing upon
them ; and, on the other hand, as if Athanasius himself
were fearful of conniving at them, whatever private
reasons he might have for wishing to pass them over.
Yet there is nothing in the history or documents of the
times to lead one to suppose that more than a general
suspicion attached to Apollinaris ; and, if we may be-
lieve his own statement, Athanasius died in persuasion
of his orthodoxy. A letter is extant, written by Apol-
linaris on this subject, in which he speaks of the kind
intercourse he had with the Patriarch of Alexandria, and
of their agreement in faith, as acknowledged by Atha-
nasius himself. He claims him as his master, and at the
same time slightly hints that there had been points to
settle between them, in which he himself had given way.
In another, written to an Egyptian bishop, he seems to
refer to the very epistle to Epictetus noticed above, ex-
pressing his approbation of it. It is known, moreover,
that Athanasius gave the usual letters of introduction to
Timotheus, Apollinaris's intimate friend, and afterwards
the most extravagant teacher of his sect, on his going to

396 Primitive Christianity.

the Western Bishops, and that, on the ground of his
controversial talents against the Arians.

Athanasius died in A.D. 371 or 373; and that bereave-
ment of the Church was followed, among its calamities,
by the open avowal of heresy on the part of Apollinaris.
In a letter already referred to, he claims Athanasius as
agreeing with him, and then proceeds to profess one of
the very tenets against which Athanasius had written.
In saying this, I have no intention of accusing so con-
siderable a man of that disingenuousness which is almost
the characteristic mark of heresy. It was natural that
Athanasius should have exercised an influence over his
mind ; and it was as natural that, when his fellow-cham-
pion was taken to his rest, he should have found himself
able to breathe more freely, yet have been unwilling to
own it. While indulging in the speculations of a private
judgment, he might still endeavour to persuade himself
that he was not outstepping the teaching of the Catholic
Church. On the other hand, it appears that the ecclesi-
astical authorities of the day, even when he professed his
heresy, were for awhile incredulous about the fact, from
their recollection of his former services and his tried
orthodoxy, and from the hope that he was but carried
on into verbal extravagances by his opposition to
Arianism. Thus they were as unwilling to impute to him
heresy, as he to confess it. Nay, even when he had lost
shame, attacked the Catholics with violence, and formed
his disciples into a sect, not even then was he himself
publicly animadverted on, though his creed was ana-
thematized. His first condemnation was at Rome,
several years after Athanasius's death, in company with
Timotheus, his disciple. In the records of the General
Council of Constantinople, several years later, his sect is
mentioned as existing, with directions how to receive

Apollinaris. 397

back into the Church those who applied for reconcilia-
tion. He outlived this Council about ten years; his
sect lasted only twenty years beyond him ; but in that
short time it had split into three distinct denominations,
of various degrees of heterodoxy, and is said to have
fallen more or less into the errors of Judaism.

3-

If this is a faithful account of the conduct of the Church
towards Apollinaris, no one can accuse its rulers of
treating him with haste or harshness ; still they accom-
panied their tenderness towards him personally with a
conscientious observance of their duties to the Catholic
Faith, to which our Protestants are simply dead. Who
now in England, except very high churchmen, would
dream of putting a man out of the Church for what
would be called a mere speculative or metaphysical
opinion? Why could not Apollinaris be a "spiritual
man," have "a justifying faith," "apprehend" our Lord's
merits, have " a personal interest in redemption," be
in possession of " experimental religion," and be able
to recount his "experiences," though he had some
vagaries of his own about the nature of our Lord's soul?
But such ideas did not approve themselves to Christians
of the fourth century, who followed up the anathemas of
Holy Church with their own hearty adhesion to them.
Epiphanius speaks thus mournfully : —

*' That aged and venerable man, who was ever so singularly dear
to us, and to the holy Father, Athanasius, of blessed memory, and to
all orthodox men, Apollinaris, of Laodicea, he it was who originated
and propagated this doctrine. And at first, when we were assured
of it by some of his disciples, we disbelieved that such a man could
admit such an error into his path, and patiently waited in hope/
till we might ascertain the state of the case. For we argued that

39$ Primitive Christianity.

his youths, who came to us, not entering into the profound views of
so learned and clear-minded a master, had invented these state-
ments of themselves, not gained them from him. For there were
many points in which those who came to us were at variance with
each other : some of them ventured to say that Christ had brought
down His body from above (and this strange theory, admitted into
the mind, developed itself into worse notions) ; others of them
denied that Christ had taken a soul ; and some ventured to say
that Christ's body was consubstantial with the Godhead, and there-
by caused great confusion in the East" — ffcer. Ixxvii. 2.

He proceeds afterwards : —

u Full of distress became our life at that time, that between
brethren so exemplary as the forementioned, a quarrel should at
all have arisen, that the enemy of man might work divisions among
us. And great, my brethren, is the mischief done to the mind from
such a cause. For were no question ever raised on the subject, the
matter would be most simple (for what gain has accrued to the
world from such novel doctrine, or what benefit to the Church ?
rather has it not been an injury, as causing hatred and dissension?) :
but when the question was raised, it became formidable ; it did not
tend to good ; for whether a man disallows this particular point,
or even the slightest, still it is a denial. For we must not, even in
a trivial matter, turn aside from the path of truth. No one of the
ancients ever maintained it — prophet, or apostle, or evangelist, or
commentator — down to these our times, when this so perplex-
ing doctrine proceeded from that most learned man aforesaid. His
was a mind of no common cultivation ; first in the preliminaries of
literature in Greek education, then as a master of dialectics and
argumentation. Moreover, he was most grave in his whole life,
and reckoned among the very first of those who ever deserved the
love of the orthodox, and so continued till his maintenance of this
doctrine. Nay, he had undergone banishment for not submitting
ito the Arians ; — but why enlarge on it ? It afflicted us much, and
gave us a sorrowful time, as is the wont of our enemy." — Ibid. 24.

St. Basil once got into trouble from a supposed inti-
imacy with Apollinaris. He had written one letter to
ftim on 3$ indifferent matter, in 356, when he him-

Apollinaris. 399

self was as yet a layman, and Apollinaris orthodox and
scarcely in orders. This was magnified by his opponent
Eustathius into a correspondence and intercommunion
between the archbishop and heresiarch. As in reality
Basil knew very little even of his works, the description
which the following passages give is valuable, as being,
in fact, a sort of popular opinion about Apollinaris, more
than an individual judgment. Basil wrote the former of
the two in defence of himself ; in the latter, other errors
of Apollinaris are mentioned, besides those to which
I have had occasion to allude, for, as I have said, errors
seldom are found single.

" For myself," says Basil, " I never indeed considered Apollinaris
as an enemy; nay, there are respects in which I reverence him;
however, I did not so connect myself with him as to make myself
answerable for his alleged faults, considering, too, that I have a
complaint of my own against him, on reading some of his composi-
tions. I hear, indeed, that he is become the most copious of all
writers ; yet I have fallen in with but few of his works, for I have
not leisure to search into such, and besides, I do not easily form the
acquaintance of recent writers, being hindered by bodily health
from continuing even the study of inspired Scripture laboriously,
and as is fitting." — Ep. 244, § 3.

The other passage runs thus : —

" After Eustathius comes Apollinaris ; he, too, no slight disturber
of the Church ; for, having a facility in writing and a tongue which
served him on every subject, he has filled the world with his compo-
sitions, despising the warning, ' Beware of making many books/
because in the many are many faults. For how is it possible, in
much speaking, to escape sin ? "—Ep. 263, § 4.

And then he goes on to mention some of the various
gross errors, to which by that time he seemed to be
committed.

400 Primitive Christianity.

Lastly, let us hear Vincent of Lerins about him ;—

" Great was the heat and great the perplexity which Apollinaris
created in the minds of his auditory, when the authority of the
Church drew them one way, and the influence of their teacher
drew them the other, so that, wavering and hesitating between the
two, they could not decide which was to be chosen. You will
say, he ought at once to have been put aside ; yes, but he was so
great a man, that his word carried with it an extraordinary credence.
Who indeed was his superior in acumen, in long practice, in view of
doctrine? As to the number of his volumes against heresies, I
will but mention as a specimen of them that great and noble work
of his against Porphyry, in not less than thirty books, with its vast
collection of arguments. He would have been among the master-
builders of the Church, had not the profane lust of heretical curio-
sity incited him to strike out something new, to pollute withal his
labours throughout with the taint of leprosy, so that his teaching
was rather a temptation to the Church than an edification." — Ch. 16.

It is a solemn and pregnant fact, that two of the most
zealous and forward of Athanasius's companions in the
good fight against Arianism, Marcellus and Apollinaris,
fell away into heresies of their own ; nor did the Church
spare them, for all their past services. " Let him that
thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall "

" Alas, my brother ! round thy tomb,

In sorrow kneeling, and in fear,
We read the pastor's doom,
Who speaks and will not hear.

u The gray-haired saint may fail at last,
The surest guide a wanderer prove ;
Death only binds us fast
To the bright shore of love."

401

CHAPTER IV.
AND WHAT SAY JOVINIAN AND HIS COMPANIONS ?

I.

VINCENTIUS wrote in the early part of the fifth
century, that is, three good centuries and more
after the death of St. John ; accordingly, we sometimes
hear it said that, true though it be, that the Catholic
system, as we Anglicans maintain it, existed at that
time, nevertheless it was a system quite foreign to the
pure Gospel, though introduced at a very early age;
a system of Pagan or Jewish origin, which crept in
unawares, and was established on the ruins of the
Apostolic faith by the episcopal confederation, which
mainly depended on it for its own maintenance. In
other words, it is considered by some persons to be a
system of priestcraft, destructive of Christian liberty.

Now, it is no paradox to say that this would be a
sufficient answer to such a speculation, were there no
other, viz., that no answer can be made to it. I say,
supposing it could not be answered at all, that fact
would be a fair answer. All discussion must have data to
go upon ; without data, neither one party can dispute
nor the other. If I maintained there were negroes in
the moon, I should like to know how these same philo-
sophers would answer me. Of course they would not
attempt it : they would confess they had no grounds for
denying it, only they would add, that I had no grounds
for asserting it. They would not prove that I was
VOL, I, 26

4O2 Primitive Christianity.

wrong, but call upon me to prove that I was right
They would consider such a mode of talking idle and
childish, and unworthy the consideration of a serious
man ; else, there would be no end of speculation, no
hope of certainty and unanimity in anything. Is a man
to be allowed to say what he will, and bring no reasons
for it ? Even if his hypothesis fitted into the facts of
the case, still it would be but an hypothesis, and might
be met, perhaps, in the course of time, by another
hypothesis, presenting as satisfactory a solution of them.
But if it would not be necessarily true, though it were
adequate, much less is it entitled to consideration be-
fore it is proved to be adequate — before it is actually
reconciled with the facts of the case ; and when another
hypothesis has, from the beginning, been in the posses-
sion of the field. From the first it has been believed that
the Catholic system is Apostolic ; convincing reasons
must be brought against this belief, and in favour of
another, before that other is to be preferred to it.

Now the new and gratuitous hypothesis in question
does not appear, when examined, even to harmonize
with the facts of the case. One mode of dealing with
it is this : — Take a large view of the faith of Chris-
tians during the centuries before Constantine estab-
lished their religion. Is there any family likeness in it to
Protestantism ? Look at it, as existing during that period
in different countries, and is it not one and the same,
and a reiteration of itself, as well as singularly unlike Re-
formed Christianity? Hermas with his visions, Ignatius
with his dogmatism, Irenaeus with his praise of tradition
and of the Roman See, Clement with his allegory and
mysticism, Cyprian with his "Out of the Church is no
salvation," and Methodius with his praise of Virginity,
all of thsm writers between the first and fourth centu-

Joviniati and his Companions. 403

ries, and witnesses of the faith of Rome, Africa, Gaul,
Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, certainly do not icpre-
sent the opinions of Luther and Calvin. They stretch
over the whole of Christendom ; they are consistent
with each other ; they coalesce into one religion ; but
it is not the religion of the Reformation. When we ask,
" Where was your Church before Luther ? " Protestants
answer, " Where were you this morning before you
washed your face ? " But, if Protestants can clean
themselves into the likeness of Cyprian or Irenaeus, they
must scrub very hard, and have well-nigh learned the
art of washing the blackamoor white.

2

If the Church system be not Apostolic, it must, some
time or other, have been introduced, and then comes
the question, when ? We maintain that the known
circumstances of the previous history are such as to
preclude the possibility of any time being assigned, ever
so close upon the Apostles, at which the Church system
did not exist. Not only cannot a time be shown when
the free-and-easy system now in fashion did generally
exist, but no time can be shown in which it can be
colourably maintained that the Church system was
brought in. It will be said, of course, that the Church
system was gradually introduced. I do not say there
have never been introductions of any kind ; but let us
see what they amount to here. Select for yourself your
doctrine, or your ordinance, which you say was intro-
duced, and try to give the history of its introduction.
Hypothetical that history will be, of course ; but we
will not scruple at that; — we will only ask one thing>
that it should cut clean between the real facts of the
case, though it bring none in its favour ; but it will not

404 Primitive Christianity.

be able to do even this. The rise of the doctrine of the
Holy Trinity, of the usage of baptizing infants, of the
eucharistic offering, of the episcopal prerogatives, do
what one will, can hardly be made short of Apostolical
times. This is not the place to prove all this ; but so
fully is it felt to be so, by those who are determined not
to admit these portions of Catholicism, that in their
despair of drawing the line between the first and follow-
ing centuries, they make up their minds to intrude into
the first, and boldly pursue their supposed error into
the very presence of some Apostle or Evangelist. Thus
St. John is sometimes made the voluntary or involuntary
originator of some portions of our creed. Dr. Priestley,
I believe, conjectures that his amanuensis played him
false, as regards his teaching upon the sacred doctrine
which that philosopher opposed. Others take excep-
tions to St. Luke, because he tells us of the " handker-
chiefs, or aprons," which " were brought from St. Paul's
body" for the cure of diseases. Others have gone a
step further, and have said, " Not Paul, but Jesus."
Infidel, Socinian, and Protestant, agree in assailing the
Apostles, rather than submitting to the Church.

3-

Let our Protestant friends go to what quarter of
Christendom they will, let them hunt among heretics or
schismatics, into Gnosticism outside the Church, or
Arianism within it, still they will find no hint or vestige
anywhere of that system which they are now pleased to
call Scriptural. Granting that Catholicism be a corrup-
tion, is it possible that it should be a corruption spring-
ing up everywhere at once ? Is it conceivable that at
least no opponent should have retained any remnant of
the system it supplanted ? — that no tradition of primitive

Jovinian and his Companions. 405

purity should remain in any part of Christendom ? — that
no protest, or controversy, should have been raised, as a
monument against the victorious error? This argument,
conclusive against modern Socinianism, is still more
cogent and striking when directed against Puritanism.
At least, there were divines in those early days who
denied the sacred doctrine which Socinianism also dis-
owns, though commonly they did not profess to do so
on authority of tradition ; but who ever heard of Eras-
tians, Supralapsarians, Independents, Sacramentarians,
and the like, before the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies ? It would be too bold to go to prove a negative :
I can only say that I do not know in what quarter to
search for the representatives, in the early Church, of
that "Bible religion," as it is called, which is now so much
in favour. At first sight, one is tempted to say that
all errors come over and over again ; that this and that
notion now in vogue has been refuted in times past.
This is indeed a general truth — nay, for what I know,
these same bold speculatists will bring it even as an argu-
ment for their not being in error, that Antiquity says
nothing at all, good or bad, about their opinions. I cannot
answer for the extent to which they will throw the onus
probandi on us ; but I protest — be it for us, or be it
against us — I cannot find this very religion of theirs in
ancient times, whether in friend or foe, Jew or Pagan,
Montanist or Novatian ; though I find surely enough,
and in plenty, the general characteristics, which are con-
spicuous in their philosophy, of self-will, eccentricity,
and love of paradox.

So far from it, that if we wish to find the rudiments of
the Catholic system clearly laid down in writing, those
who are accounted least orthodox will prove as liberal in
their information about it as the strictest Churchman

406 Primitive Christianity.

We can endure even the heretics better than our oppo-
nents can endure the Apostles. Tertullian, though a
Montanist, gives no sort of encouragement to the so-
called Bible Christians of this day ; rather he would be
the object of their decided abhorrence and disgust.
Origen is not a whit more of a Protestant, though he, if
any, ought, from the circumstances of his history, to be
a witness against us. It is averred that the alleged re-
volution of doctrine and ritual was introduced by the
influence of the episcopal system ; well, here is a victim
of episcopacy, brought forward by our opponents as
such. Here is a man who was persecuted by his bishop,
and driven out of his country ; and whose name after
his death has been dishonourably mentioned, both by
Councils and Fathers. He surely was not in the epis-
copal conspiracy, at least ; and perchance may give the
latitudinarian, the anabaptist, the Erastian, and the
utilitarian, some countenance. Far from it ; he is as
high and as keen, as removed from softness and mawk-
ishness, as ascetic and as reverential, as any bishop
among them. He is as superstitious (as men now talk),
as fanatical, as formal, as Athanasius or Augustine.
Certainly, there seems something providential in the
place which Origen holds in the early Church, consider-
ing the direction which theories about it are now taking ;
and much might be said on that subject.

Take another instance : — There was, in the fourth cen-
tury, a party of divines who were ecclesiastically opposed
to the line of theologians, whose principles had been, and
were afterwards, dominant in the Church, such as Atha-
nasius, Jerome, and Epiphanius ; I mean, for instance,
Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and others who were
more or less connected with the Semi-Arians. If, then,
we see that in all points, as regards the sacraments and

Jovinian and his Companions. 407

sacramentals, the Church and its ministers, the form of
worship, and other religious duties of Christians, Euse-
bius and Cyril agree entirely with the most orthodox of
their contemporaries, with those by party and country
most separated from them, we have a proof that that
system, whatever it turns out to be, was received before
their time — i.e. before the establishment of Christianity
under Constantine ; in other words, that we must look
for the gradual corruption of the Church, if it is to be
found, not when wealth pampered it, and power and
peace brought its distant portions together, but while it
was yet poor, humble, and persecuted, in those times
which are commonly considered pure and primitive.
Again, the genius of Arianism, as a party and a doc-
trine, was to discard antiquity and mystery ; that is, to
resist and expose what is commonly called priestcraft
In proportion, then, as Cyril and Eusebius partook of
that spirit, so far would they be in their own cast of
mind indisposed to the Catholic system, both considered
in itself and as being imposed on them.

Now, have the writers in question any leaning or
tenderness for the theology of Luther and Calvin? rather
they are as unconscious of its existence as of modern
chemistry or astronomy. That faith is a closing with
divine mercy, not a submission to a divine announce-
ment, that justification and sanctification are distinct,
that good works do not benefit the Christian, that the
Church is not Christ's ordinance and instrument, and
that heresy and dissent are not necessarily and intrin-
sically evil : notions such as these they do not oppose,
simply because to all appearance they never heard of
them. To take a single passage, which first occurs, in
which Eusebius, one of the theologians in question, gives
us his notion of the Catholic Church : —

408 Primitive Christianity.

" These attempts," he says, speaking of the arts of the enemy,
" did not long avail him, Truth ever consolidating itself, and, as
time went on, shining into broader day. For while the devices
of adversaries were extinguished at once, confuted by their very
activity, — one heresy after another presenting its own novelty, the
former specimens ever dissolving and wasting variously in manifold
and multiform shapes, — the brightness of the Catholic and only
true Church went forward increasing and enlarging, yet ever in the
same things and in the same way, beaming on the whole race of
Greeks and barbarians with the awfulness, and simplicity, and
nobleness, and sobriety, and purity of its divine polity and philo-
sophy. Thus the calumny against our whole creed died with its
day, and there continued alone our discipline, sovereign among all,
and acknowledged to be pre-eminent in awfulness and sobriety,
in its divine and philosophical doctrines ; so that no one of this day
dares to cast any base reproach upon our faith, nor any such calumn>
such as it was once customary for our enemies to use." — Hist. iv. 7.

Or to take a passage on a different subject, which
almost comes first to hand, from St. Cyril, another of this
school of divines : —

" Only be of good cheer, only work, only strive cheerfully ; for
nothing is lost. Every prayer of thine, every psalm thou singest is
recorded ; every amis-deed, every fast is recorded ; every marriage
duly observed is recorded ; continence kept for God's sake is re-
corded ; but the first crowns in record are those of virginity and
purity ; and thou shalt shine as an Angel. But as thou hast gladly
listened to the good things, listen without shrinking to the contrary.
Every covetous deed of thine is recorded ; every fleshly deed, every
perjury, every blasphemy, every sorcery, every theft, every murder.
All these things are henceforth recorded, if thou do these after
baptism ; for thy former deeds are blotted out." — Cat. xv. 2^.

Cyril and Eutebius, I conceive, do not serve at all
better than Origen to show that faith is a feeling, that
it makes a man independent of the Church, and is effi-
cacious apart from baptism or works. I do not know
any ancient divines of whom more can be made.

Jovinian and his Companions. 409

4-

Where, then, is primitive Protestantism to be found ?
There is one chance for it, not in the second and third
centuries, but in the fourth ; I mean in the history of
Aerius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius, — men who may be
called, by some sort of analogy, the Luther, Calvin, and
Zwingle, of the fourth century. And they have been so
considered both by Protestants and by their opponents ,
so covetous, after all, of precedent are innovators, so pre-
pared are Catholics to believe that there is nothing new
under the sun. Let me, then, briefly state the history
and tenets of these three religionists.

I. Aerius was an intimate friend of Eustathius, bishop
of Sebaste, in Armenia, whose name has already occurred
above. Both had embraced a monastic life ; and both
were Arians in creed. Eustathius, being raised to the
episcopate, ordained his friend presbyter, and set him
over the almshouse or hospital of the see. A quarrel
followed, from whatever cause ; Aerius left his post, and
accused Eustathius of covetousness, as it would appear,
unjustly. Next he collected a large number of persons
of both sexes in the open country, where they braved the
severe weather of that climate. A congregation implies
a creed, and Aerius founded or formed his own on the
following points : I. That there was no difference between
bishop and presbyter. 2. That it was judaical to observe
Easter, because Christ is our Passover. 3. That it was
useless, or rather mischievous, to name the dead in
prayer, or to give alms for them. 4. That fasting was
judaical; and a yoke of bondage. If it be right to fast,
he added, each should choose his own day ; for instance,
Sunday rather than Wednesday and Friday: while
Passion Week he spent fn feasting and merriment,

4io Primitive Christianity.

And this is pretty nearly all we know of Aerius, who
flourished between A.D. 360 and 370.

2. Jovinian was a Roman monk, and was condemned,
first by Siricius at Rome, then by St. Ambrose and
other bishops at Milan, about A.D. 390. He taught, i.
That eating with thanksgiving was just as good as fast-
ing. 2. That, c&teris paribus, celibacy, widowhood, and
marriage, were on a level in the baptized. 3. That there
was no difference of rewards hereafter for those who
had preserved their baptism ; and, 4. That those who
had been baptized with full faith could not fall ; if they
did, they had been baptized, like Simon Magus, only
with water. He persuaded persons of both sexes at
Rome, who had for years led a single life, to desert it
The Emperor Honorius had him transported to an island
on the coast of Dalmatia ; he died in the beginning of
the fifth century.

3. Vigilantius was a priest of Gaul or Spain, and flou-
rished just at the time Jovinian died: he taught, i. That
those who reverenced relics were idolaters; 2. That conti-
nence and celibacy were wrong, as leading to the worst
scandals ; 3. That lighting candles in churches during
the day, in honour of the martyrs, was wrong, as being
a heathen rite ; 4. That Apostles and Martyrs had no
presence at their tombs; 5. That it was useless to pray for
the dead ; 6. That it was better to keep wealth and practice
habitual charity, than to strip one's-self of one's property
once for all ; and 7. That it was wrong to retire into the
desert. This is what we learn of these three (so-called)
reformers, from the writings of Epiphanius and Jerome.

Now you may say, " What can we require more than
this ? Here we have, at the time of a great catastrophe,
Scriptural truth come down to us in the burning matter
which melted and preserved it; in the persecuting

Jovinian and his Companions. 411

language of Epiphanius and Jerome. When corruptions
began to press themselves on the notice of Christians,
here you find three witnesses raising their distinct and
solemn protest in different parts of the Church, inde-
pendently of each other, in Gaul, in Italy, and in Asia
Minor, against prayers for the dead, veneration of relics,
candles in the day-time, the merit of celibacy, the need
of fasting, the observance of days, difference in future
rewards, the defectibility of the regenerate, and the
divine origin of episcopacy. Here is pure and scriptural
Protestantism." Such is the phenomenon on which a
few remarks are now to be offered.

5-

I. I observe then, first, that this case so presented to
us, does not answer the purpose required. The doctrine
of these three Protestants, if I am to be forced into call-
ing them so, is, after all, but negative. We know what
they protested against, not what they protested for. We
do not know what the system of doctrine and ritual was
which they substituted for the Catholic, or whether they
had any such. Though they differed from the ancients,
there is no proof that they agreed with the moderns. Par-
ties which differ from a common third, do not necessarily
agree with each other ; from two negative propositions
nothing is inferred. For instance, the moral temper and
doctrinal character of the sixteenth century is best sym-
bolized by its views about faith and justification, to
which I have already referred, and upon the duty of each
individual man drawing his own creed from the Scriptures.
This is its positive shape, as far as it may be considered
positive at all. Now does any one mean to maintain
that Aerius, Jovinian, or Vigilantius, held justification
by faith only in the sense of John WTesley, or of John

412 Primitive Christianity.

Newton ? Did they consider that baptism was a thing
of nought ; that faith did everything ; that faith was
trust, and the perfection of faith assurance ; that it con-
sisted in believing that " I am pardoned ; " and that
works might be left to themselves, to come as they
might, as being necessary fruits of faith, without our
trouble ? Did they know anything of the " apprehen-
sive " power of faith, or of man's proneness to consider
his imperfect services, done in and by grace, as ade-
quate to purchase eternal life ? There is no proof
they did. Let then these three protesters be ever so
cogent an argument against the Catholic creed, this does
not bring them a whit nearer to the Protestant ; though
in fact there is nothing to show that their protest
was founded on historical grounds, or on any argu-
ment deeper than such existing instances of superstition
and scandal in detail as are sure to accumulate round
revelation.

Further, even if a modern wished, he would not be
able to put up with even the negative creed of these
primitive protesters, whatever his particular persuasion
might be. Their protest suits no sect whatever of this
day. It is either too narrow or too liberal. The Epis-
copalian, as he is styled, will not go along with Aerius's
notions about bishops ; nor will the Lutheran subscribe
to the final perseverance of the saints ; nor will the
strict Calvinist allow that all fasting is judaical ; nor
will the Baptist admit the efficacy of baptism : one man
will wonder why none of the three protested against the
existence of the Church itself ; another that none of them
denied the received doctrine of penance ; a third that all
three let pass the received doctrine of the Eucharist.
Their protestations are either too much or too little for
any one of their present admirers. There is no one of

Jovinian and his Companions. 4 1 3

any of the denominations of this day but will think
them wrong in some points or other ; that is all we know
about them ; but if we all think them wrong on some
points, is that a good reason why we should take them
as an authority on others ?

Or, again, do we wish to fix upon what can be de-
tected in their creed of a positive character, and distinct
from their protests ? We happen to be told what it was
in the case of one of them. Aerius was an Arian ; does
this mend matters ? Is there any agreement at all
between him and Luther here ? If Aerius is an autho-
rity against bishops, or against set fasts, why is he not
an authority against the Creed of St. Athanasius ?

2. What has been last said leads to a further remark.
I observe, then, that if two or three men in the fourth
century are sufficient, against the general voice of the
Church, to disprove one doctrine, then still more are
two or three of an earlier century able to disprove another.
Why should protesters in century four be more entitled
to a hearing than protesters in century three ? Now it
so happens, that as Aerius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius in
the fourth protested against austerities, so did Praxeas,
Noetus, and Sabellius in the third protest against the
Catholic or Athanasian doctrine of the Holy Trinity.
A much stronger case surely could be made out in
favour of the latter protest than of the former. Noetus
was of Asia Minor, Praxeas taught in Rome, Sabellius
in Africa. Nay, we read that in the latter country their
doctrine prevailed among the common people, then and
at an earlier date, to a very great extent, and that the
true faith was hardly preached in the churches.

3. Again, the only value of the protest of these three
men would be, of course, that they represented others ;
that they were exponents of a state of opinion which

4 14 Primitive Christianity.

prevailed either in their day or before them, and which was
in the way to be overpowered by the popular corruptions.
What are Aerius and Jovinian to me as individuals ?
They are worth nothing, unless they can be considered
as organs and witnesses of an expiring cause. Now, it
does not appear that they themselves had any notion that
they were speaking in behalf of any one, living or dead,
besides themselves. They argued against prayers for
the departed from reason, and against celibacy, hopeless
as the case might seem, from Scripture. They ridiculed
one usage, and showed the ill consequence of another.
All this might be very cogent in itself, but it was the
conduct of men who stood by themselves and were
conscious of it. If Jovinian had known of writers of
the second and third centuries holding the same views,
Jovinian would have been as prompt to quote them as
Lutherans are to quote Jovinian. The protest of these
men shows that certain usages undeniably existed in the
fourth century ; it does not prove that they did not exist
also in the first, second, and third. And how does the
fact of their living in the fourth century prove there were
Protestants in the first ? What we are looking for is a
Church of primitive heretics, of baptists and independents
of the Apostolic age, and we must not be put off with the
dark and fallible protests of the Nicene era.

Far different is the tone of Epiphanius in his answer
to Aerius : —

" If one need refer," he says, speaking of fasting, " to the constitu-
tion of the Apostles, why did they there determine the fourth and
sixth day to be ever a fast, except Pentecost ? and concerning the
six days of the Pascha, why do they order us to take nothing at all
but bread, salt, and water ? . . Which of these parties is the rather
correct? this deceived man, who is now among us, and is still
alive, or they who were witnesses before us, possessing before our
time the tradition in the Church, and they having received it from

Jovinian and his Companions* 4 J 5

their fathers, and those very fathers again having learned it from
those who lived before them ? . . The Church has received it, and
it is unanimously confessed in the whole world, before Aerius and
Aerians were born." — Har. 75, § 6.

4. Once more, there is this very observable fact in the
case of each of the three, that their respective protests
seem to have arisen from some personal motive. Cer-
tainly what happens to a man's self often brings a thing
home to his mind more forcibly, makes him contemplate
it steadily, and leads to a successful investigation into its
merits. Yet still, where we know personal feelings to
exist in the maintenance of any doctrine, we look more
narrowly at the proof for ourselves ; thinking it not im-
possible that the parties may have made up their minds
on grounds short of reason. It is natural to feel distrust
of controversialists, who, to all appearance, would not
have been earnest against a doctrine or practice, except
that it galled themselves. Now it so happens that each
of these three Reformers lies open to this imputation.
Aerius is expressly declared by Epiphanius to have
been Eustathius's competitor for the see of Sebaste, and
to have been disgusted at failing. He is the preacher
against bishops. Jovinian was bound by a monastic vow,
and he protests against fasting and coarse raiment.
Vigilantius was a priest ; and, therefore, he disapproves
the celibacy of the clergy. No opinion at all is here
ventured in favour of clerical celibacy ; still it is
remarkable that in the latter, as in the two former cases,
private feeling and public protest should have gone
together.

6.

These distinct considerations are surely quite suffi-
cient to take away our interest in these three Reformers,

4*6 Primitive Christianity.

These men are not an historical clue to a lost primitive
creed, more than Origen or Tertullian ; and much less
do they afford any support to the creed of those moderns
who would fain shelter themselves behind them. That
there were abuses in the Church then, as at all times,
no one, I suppose, will deny. There may have been
extreme opinions and extreme acts, pride and pomp in
certain bishops, over-honour paid to saints, fraud in the
production of relics, extravagance in praising celibacy,
formality in fasting ; and such errors would justify a
protest, which the Catholic Fathers themselves are not
slow to make ; but they would not justify that utter
reprobation of relics, of celibacy, and of fasting, of
episcopacy, of prayers for the dead, and of the doctrine
of defectibility, which these men avowed — avowed with-
out the warrant of the first ages — on grounds of private
reason, under the influence of personal feeling, and with
the accompaniment of but a suspicious orthodoxy. It
does certainly look as if our search after Protestantism
in Antiquity would turn out a simple failure ; — whatever
Primitive Christianity was or was not, it was not the
religion of Luther. I shall think so, until I find Ignatius
and Aerius, in spite of their differences about bishops,
agreeing in his doctrine of justification ; until Irenaeus
and Jovinian, though at daggers drawn about baptism,
shall yet declare Scripture to be the sole rule of faith ;
until Cyprian and Vigilantius, however at variance about
the merit of virginity, uphold in common the sacred
right and duty of private judgment

CHAPTER V.
AND WHAT DO THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS SAY?

I.

SUCH, then, is the testimony borne in various ways
by Origen, Eusebius, and Cyril, by Aerius, Jovinian,
and Vigilantius, to the immemorial reception among
Christians of those doctrines and practices which the
private judgment of this age considers to be unscriptural.
I have been going about from one page to another of the
records of those early times, prying and extravagating
beyond the beaten paths of orthodoxy, for the chance
of detecting some sort of testimony in favour of our
opponents. With this object I have fallen upon the
writers aforesaid ; and, since they have been more or less
accused of heterodoxy, I thought there was at least a
chance of their subserving the cause of Protestantism,
which the Catholic Fathers certainly do not subserve ;
but they, though differing from each other most ma-
terially, and some of them differing from the Church,
do not any one of them approximate to the tone or
language of the movement of 1517. Every additional
instance of this kind does but go indirectly to corrobo-
rate the testimony of the Catholic Church.

It is natural and becoming in all of us to make a
brave struggle for life ; but I do not think it will avail
the Protestant who attempts it in the medium of ec-
clesiastical history. He will find himself in an ele-
ment in which he cannot breathe. The problem before
VOL. I. 27

418 Primitive Christianity.

him is to draw a line between the periods of purity and
alleged corruption, such, as to have all the Apostles
on one side, and all the Fathers on the other; which
may insinuate and meander through the dove-tailings
and inosculations of historical facts, and cut clean be-
tween St John and St. Ignatius, St. Paul and St. Cle-
ment ; to take up a position within the shelter of the
book of Acts, yet safe from the range of all other
extant documents besides. And at any rate, whether
he succeeds or not, so much he must grant, that if such
a system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever
existed in early times, it has been clean swept away as
if by a deluge, suddenly, silently, and without memorial ;
by a deluge coming in a night, and utterly soaking,
rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of
what it found in the Church, before cock-crowing ; so
that " when they rose in the morning " her true seed
"were all dead corpses" — nay, dead and buried — and
without grave-stone. "The waters went over them;
there was not one of them left ; they sunk like lead in
the mighty waters." Strange antitype, indeed, to the
early fortunes of Israel ! — then the enemy was drowned,
and " Israel saw them dead upon the sea-shore." But
now, it would seem, water proceeded as a flood " out of
the serpent's mouth," and covered all the witnesses, so
that not even their dead bodies "lay in the streets of the
great city." Let him take which of his doctrines he
will, — his peculiar view of self-righteousness, of formality,
of superstition ; his notion of faith, or of spirituality
in religious worship ; his denial of the virtue of the
sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or of the
visible Church ; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy
of the Scriptures as the one appointed instrument
of religious teaching ; and let him consider how far

Apostolical Canons. 419

Antiquity, as it has come down to us, will countenance
him in it. No ; he must allow that the alleged deluge has
done its work; yes, and has in turn disappeared itself; it
has been swallowed up in the earth, mercilessly as itself
was merciless.

2.

Representations such as these have been met by say-
ing that the extant records of Primitive Christianity are
scanty, and that, for what we know, what is not extant,
had it survived, would have told a different tale. But
the hypothesis that history might contain facts which
it does not contain, is no positive evidence for the truth
of those facts ; and this is the present question, what is
the positive evidence that the Church ever believed or
taught a Gospel substantially different from that which
ner extant documents contain ? All the evidence that
is extant, be it much or be it little, is on our side : Pro-
testants have none. Is none better than some ? Scarcity
of records — granting for argument's sake there is scarcity
— may be taken to account for Protestants having no
evidence ; it will not account for our having some, for
our having all that is to be had ; it cannot become a
positive evidence in their behalf. That records are
few, does not show that they are of none account.

Accordingly, Protestants had better let alone facts ;
they are wisest when they maintain that the Apostolic
system of the Church was certainly lost ; — lost, when they
know not, how they know not, without assignable instru-
ments, but by a great revolution lost — of that there can
be no doubt ; and then challenge us to prove it was not
so. <; Prove," they seem to say, " if you can, that the real
and very truth is not so entirely hid in primitive history
as to leave not a particle of evidence betraying it. This

420 Primitive Christianity.

is the very thing which misleads you, that all the argu-
ments are in your favour. Is it not possible that an error
has got the place of the truth, and has destroyed all the
evidence but what witnesses on its side ? Is it not possi-
ble that all the Churches should everywhere have given
up and stifled the scheme of doctrine they received from
the Apostles, and have substituted another for it ? Of
course it is ; it is plain to common sense it may be so.
Well, we say, what may be, is; this is our great principle :
we say that the Apostles considered episcopacy an in-
different matter, though Ignatius says it is essential.
We say that the table is not an altar, though Ignatius
says it is. We say there is no priest's office under the
Gospel, though Clement affirms it. We say that baptism
is not an enlightening, though Justin takes it for granted.
We say that heresy is scarcely a misfortune, though Igna-
tius accounts it a deadly sin ; and all this, because it is
our right, and our duty, to interpret Scripture in our own
way. We uphold the pure unmutilated Scripture ; the
Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants ;
the Bible and our own sense of the Bible. We claim a
sort of parliamentary privilege to interpret laws in our
own way, and not to suffer an appeal to any court beyond
ourselves. We know, and we view it with consternation,
that all Antiquity runs counter to our interpretation ;
and therefore, alas, the Church was corrupt from very
early times indeed. But mind, we hold all this in a truly
Catholic spirit, not in bigotry. We allow in others the
right of private judgment, and confess that we, as others,
are fallible men. We confess facts are against us ; we
do but claim the liberty of theorizing in spite of them.
Far be it from us to say that we are certainly right ; we
only say that the whole early Church was certainly
wrong. We do not impose our belief on any one ; we

Apostolical Canons. 421

only say that those who take the contrary side are
Papists, firebrands, persecutors, madmen, zealots, bigots,
and an insult to the nineteenth century."

To such an argument, I am aware, it avails little to
oppose historical evidence, of whatever kind. It sets
out by protesting against all evidence, however early
and consistent, as the testimony of fallible men ; yet at
least, the imagination is affected by an array of facts ;
and I am not unwilling to appeal to the imagination of
those who refuse to let me address their reason. With
this view I have been inquiring into certain early works,
which, or the authors of which, were held in suspicion, or
even condemned by the ruling authorities of the day, to
see if any vestige of an hypothetical Protestantism
could be discovered in them ; and, since they make no
sign, I will now interrogate a very different class of
witnesses. The consent of Fathers is one kind of testi-
mony to Apostolical Truth ; the protest of heretics is
another ; now I will come, thirdly, to received usage. To
give an instance of the last mentioned argument, I shall
appeal to the Apostolical Canons, though a reference
to them will involve me in an inquiry, interesting
indeed to the student, but somewhat dry to the general
reader.

3-

These Canons, well known to Antiquity, were at one
time supposed to be, strictly speaking, Apostolical, and
published before A.D. 50. On the other hand, it has been
contended that they are later than A.D. 450, and the work
of some heretics. Our own divines take a middle course,
considering them as published before A.D. 325, having
been digested by Catholic authorities in the course of
the two preceding centuries, or at the end of the

422 Primitive Christianity.

second, and received and used in most parts of Christen-
dom. This judgment has since been acquiesced in by
the theological world, so far as this — to suppose the
matter and the enactments of the Canons to be of the
highest antiquity, even though the edition which we
possess was not published so early as Bishop Beveridge,
for instance, supposes. At the same time it is acknow-
ledged by all parties, that they, as well as some other
early documents, have suffered from interpolation, and
perhaps by an heretical hand.

They are in number eighty-five,! of which the first
fifty are considered of superior authority to the remain-
ing thirty-five. What has been conjectured to be their
origin will explain the distinction. It was the custom of
the early Church, as is well known, to settle in Council
such points in her discipline, ordinances, and worship,
as the Apostles had not prescribed in Scripture, as the
occasion arose, after the pattern of their own proceedings
in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts ; and this, as far as
might be, after their unwritten directions, or after their
practice, or at least, after their mind, or as it is called in
Scripture, their "minding" or "spirit" Thus she decided
upon the question of Easter, upon that of heretical
baptism, and the like. And, after that same precedent in
the Acts, she recorded her decisions in formal decrees,
and " delivered them for to keep " through the cities in
which her members were found. The Canons in ques-
tion are supposed to be some of these decrees, of which,
first and nearest to the Apostles' times, or in the time of
their immediate successors, were published fifty ; and in
the following age, thirty-five more, which had been
enacted in the interval. They claim, then, to be, first,

1 This account is for the most part taken from Bishops Bevendge and
Pearson.

Apostolical Canons. 423

the recorded judgment of great portions of the Ante-
Nicene Church, chiefly in the eastern provinces, upon
certain matters in dispute, and to be of authority so far
as that Church may be considered a representative of
the mind of the Apostles ; next, they profess to em-
body in themselves positive decisions and injunctions of
the Apostles, though without clearly discriminating how
much is thus directly Apostolical, and how much not.
I will here attempt to state some of the considerations
which show both their antiquity and their authority, and
will afterwards use them for the purpose which has led
me to mention them.

4-

I. In the first place, it would seem quite certain that,
as, on the one hand, Councils were held in the primitive
Church, so, on the other, those Councils enacted certain
Canons. When, then, a Collection presents itself profes-
sing to consist of the Ante-Nicene Canons, there is no-
thing at all to startle us ; it only professes to set before
us that which we know anyhow must have existed.
We may conjecture, if we please, that the fact that there
were Canons may have suggested and encouraged a
counterfeit. Certainly ; but though the fact that there
were Canons will account for a counterfeit, it will not
account for those original Canons being lost ; on the
contrary, what is known to have once existed as a rule
of conduct, is likely to continue in existence, except
under particular circumstances. Which of the two this
existing Collection is, the genuine or the counterfeit, must
depend on other considerations ; but if these considera-
tions be in favour of its genuineness, then this antecedent
probability will be an important confirmation.

Canons, I say, must have existed, whether these be

424 Primitive Christianity.

the real ones or no ; and the circumstance that there
were real ones existing must have tended to make it
difficult to substitute others. It would be no easy thing
in our own Church to pass off another set of Articles
for the Thirty-nine, and to obliterate the genuine.
Canons are public property, and have to be acted upon
by large bodies. Accordingly, as might be expected,
the Nicene Council, when enacting Canons of its own,
refers to certain Canons as already existing, and speaks
of them in that familiar and indirect way which would
be natural under the circumstances, just as we speak of
our Rubrics or Articles. The Fathers of that Council
mention certain descriptions of persons whom " the
Canon admits into holy orders ; " they determine that a
certain rule shall be in force, " according to the Canon
which says so and so ; " they speak of a transgression
of the Canon, and proceed to explain and enforce it,
Nor is the Nicene the only Council which recognizes the
existence of certain Canons, or rules, by which the Church
was at that time bound. The Councils of Antioch,
Gangra, Constantinople, and Carthage, in the same
century, do so likewise ; so do individual Fathers, Alex-
ander, Athanasius, Basil, Julius, and others.

Now here we have lighted upon an important cir-
cumstance, whatever becomes of the particular Collec-
tion of Canons before us. It seems that at the Nicene
Council, only two centuries and a quarter after St. John's
death, about the distance of time at which we live from the
Hampton Court Conference, all Christendom confessed
that from time immemorial it had been guided by cer-
tain ecclesiastical rules, which it considered of authority,
which it did not ascribe to any particular persons or
synods (a sign of great antiquity), and which writers of
the day assigned to the Apostles. I suppose we know

Apostolical Canons. 425

pretty well, at this day, what the customs of our Church
have been since James the First's time, or since the Refor-
mation ; and if respectable writers at present were to
state some of them, — for instance, that it is and has been
the rule of our Church that the king should name the
bishops, that Convocation should not sit without his
leave, or that Easter should be kept according to the
Roman rule, — we should think foreigners very unreason-
able who doubted their word. Now, in the case before
us, we find the Church Catholic, the first time it had
ever met together since the Apostles' days, speaking as
a matter of course of the rules to which it had ever been
accustomed to defer.

If we knew no more than this, and did not know what
the rules were ; or if, knowing what they were, we yet de-
cided, as we well might, that the particular rules are not
of continual obligation ; still, the very circumstance that
there were rules from time immemorial would be a great
fact in the history of Christianity. But we do know,
from the works of the Fathers, the subjects of these Canons,
and that to the number of thirty or forty of them ; so
that we might form a code, as far as it goes, of primitive
discipline, quite independent of the particular Collection
which is under discussion. However, it is remarkable
that all of these thirty or forty are found in this Collec-
tion, being altogether nearly half the whole number, so
that the only question is, whether the rest are of that
value which we know belongs to a great proportion of
them. It is worth noticing, that no Ecclesiastical Canon
is mentioned in the historical documents of the primitive
era which is not found in this Collection, for it shows
that, whoever compiled it, the work was done with con-
siderable care. The opponents to its genuineness bring,
indeed, several exceotions, as they wish to consider

426 Primitive Christianity.

them ; but these admit of so satisfactory an explanation
as to illustrate the proverb, that exceptio probat regulam*

Before going on to consider the whole Collection, let
us see in what terms the ancient writers speak of those
particular Canons to which they actually refer.

(l.) Athanasius speaks as follows: — "Canons and
forms," he says, when describing the extraordinary vio-
lences of the Arians, " were not given to the Churches
in this day, but were handed down from our fathers
well and securely. Nor, again, has the faith had its be-
ginning in this day, but has passed on even to us from
the Lord through His disciples. Rouse yourselves, then,
my brethren, to prevent that from perishing unawares in
the present day which has been observed in the Churches
from ancient times down to us, and ourselves from incur-
ring a responsibility in what has been intrusted to us." —
Ep. Encycl. \. It is remarkable, in this extract, that St.
Athanasius accurately distinguishes between the Faith
which came from Christ, and the Canons received from
the Fathers of old time: which is just the distinction
which our divines are accustomed to make.

(2) Again : the Arians, by simoniacal dealings with
the civil power, had placed Gregory in the see of Alex-
andria. Athanasius observes upon this: — "Such conduct
is both a violation of the Ecclesiastical Canons, and forces
the heathen to blaspheme, as if appointments were made,
not by Divine ordinance, but by merchandise and secular
influence." — Ibid. 2.

(3) Arsenius, bishop of Hypsela, who had been involved
in the Meletian1 schism, and had acted in a hostile way
towards Athanasius, at length reconciled himself to the
Church. In his letter to Athanasius he promises " to be

i The Egyptian Meletius, from which this schism has its name, must not
be confounded with Meletius of Antioch.

Apostolical Canons. 427

obedient to the Ecclesiastical Canon, according to ancient
usage, and never to put forth any regulation, whether
about bishops or any other public ecclesiastical matter,
without the sanction of his metropolitan, but to submit
to all tJie established Canons" — Apol. contr. Arian. 69.

(4) In like manner, St. Basil, after speaking of certain
crimes for which a deacon should be reduced to lay com-
munion, proceeds, " for it is an ancient Canon, that they
who lose their degree should be subjected to this kind
of punishment only."— Ep. 188. Again: "The Canon
altogether excludes from the ministry those who have
been twice married."

(5) When Arius and his abettors were excommuni-
cated by Alexander of Alexandria, they betook them-
selves to Palestine, and were re-admitted into the Church
by the bishops of that country. On this, Alexander
observes as follows : — " A very heavy imputation, doubt-
less, lies upon such of my brethren as have ventured on
this act, in that it is a violation of the Apostolical Canon."
—Theod. Hist. i. 4.

(6) When Eusebius declined being translated from
the see of Caesarea to Antioch, Constantine compli-
mented him on his " observance of the commandments
of God, the Apostolical Canon, and the rule of the
Church," — Vit. Constant, iii. 61, — which last seems to
mean the regulation passed at Nicaea.

(7) In like manner, Julius, bishop of Rome, speaks of
a violation of " the Apostles' Canons ; " and a Council
held at Constantinople, A.D. 394, which was attended
by Gregory Nyssen, Amphilochius, and Flavian, of a
determination of " the Apostolical Canons"

It will be observed that in some of these instances the
Canons are spoken of in the plural, when the particular
infraction which occasions their mention relates only to

428 Primitive Christianity

one of them. This shows they were collected into a code,
if, indeed, that need be proved ; for, in truth, that various
Canons should exist, and be in force, and yet not be put
together, is just as unlikely as that no collection should
be made of the statutes passed in a session of Parliament.
With this historical information about the existence,
authority, and subject-matter of certain Canons in the
Church from time immemorial, we should come to many
anti-Protestant conclusions, even if the particular code
we possess turned out to have no intrinsic authority.
And now let us see how the matter stands on this point
as regards this code of eighty-five Canons.

5-

2. If this Collection existed as a Collection in the
time of the above writers and Councils, then, considering
they allude to nearly half its Canons, and that no Canons
are anywhere producible which are not in it, and that
they do seem to allude to a Collection, and that no other
Collection is producible, we certainly could not avoid the
conclusion that they referred to it, and that, therefore, in
quoting parts of it they sanction the whole. If no book
is to be accounted genuine except such parts of it as
happen to be expressly cited by other writers, — if it may
not be regarded as a whole, and what is actually cited
made to bear up and carry with it what is not cited, —
no ancient book extant can be proved to be genuine.
We believe Virgil's ^Eneid to be Virgil's, because we
know he wrote an ^Eneid, and because particular pas-
sages which we find in it, and in no other book, are
contained, under the name of Virgil, in subsequent
writers or in criticisms, or in accounts of it. We do not
divide it into rhapsodies, because it only exists in frag-
ments in the testimony of later literature. For the same

Apostolical Canons. 429

reason, if the Canons before us can be shown to have
existed as one book in Athanasius's time, it is natural to
conceive that they are the very book to which he and
others refer. All depends on this. If the Collection was
made after his time, of course he referred to some other;
but if it existed in his time, it is more natural to suppose
that there was one Collection than two distinct ones, so
similar, especially since history is silent about there being
two.

However, I conceive it is not worth while to insist upon
so early a formation of the existing Collection. Whether
it existed in Athanasius's time, or was formed afterwards,
and formed by friend or foe, heretic or Catholic, seems
to me immaterial, as I shall by-and-by show. First,
however, I will state, as candidly as I can, the arguments
for and against its antiquity as a Collection.

Now there can be no doubt that the early Canons
were formed into one body ; moreover, certain early
writers speak of them under the name of " the Apostles'
Canons," and "Apostolical Canons." So far I have already
said. Now, certain collectors of Canons, of A.D. (more
or less) 550, and they no common authorities, also speak
of " the Apostolical Canons," and incorporate them into
their own larger collections ; and these which they speak
of are the very body of Canons which we now possess
under the name. We know it, for the digest of these
collectors is preserved. No reason can be assigned why
they should not be speaking of the same Collection which
Gregory Nyssen and Amphilochius speak of, who lived
a century and a half before them ; no reason, again, why
Nyssen and Amphilochius should not mean the same as
Athanasius and Julius, who lived fifty to seventy years
earlier than themselves. The writers of A.D. 550 might
be just as certain that they and St. Athanasius quoted

430 Primitive Christianity.

the same work, as we, at this day, that our copy of it is
the same as Beveridge's, Pearson's, or Ussher's.

The authorities at the specified date (A.D. 550) are
three — Dionysius Exiguus, John of Antioch, patriarch
of Constantinople, and the Emperor Justinian. The
learning of Justinian is well known, not to mention that
he speaks the opinion of the ecclesiastical lawyers of his
age. As to John of Antioch and Dionysius, since their
names are not so familiar to most of us, it may be advis-
able to say thus much — that John had been a lawyer,
and was well versed both in civil and ecclesiastical
matters, — hence he has the title of Scholasticus ; while
Dionysius is the framer of the Christian era, as we still
reckon it. They both made Collections of the Canons
of the Church, the latter in Latin, and they both include
the Apostolical Canons, as we have them, in their
editions ; with this difference, however (which does not
at present concern us), that Dionysius published but
the first fifty, while John of Antioch enumerates the
whole eighty-five.

Such is the main argument for the existence of our
Collection at the end of the third century ; viz., that,
whereas a Collection of Apostolic Canons is acknow-
ledged at that date, this Collection is acknowledged by
competent authorities to be that Apostolic record at
the end of the fifth. However, when we inspect the:
language which Dionysius uses concerning them, in his
prefatory epistle, we shall find something which re-
quires explanation. His words are these, addressed to
Stephen, bishop of Salona : — " We have, in the first
place, translated from the Greek what are called the
Canons of the Apostles ; which, as we wish to apprise
your holiness, have not gained an easy credit from very
many persons. At the; sa.me time,, some qf t&o, decrees.

Apostolical Canons. 431

of the [Roman] pontiffs, at a later date, seem to
be taken from these very Canons." Here Dionysius
must only mean, that they were not received as Apo-
stolic ; for that they were received, or at least nearly
half of them, is, as I have said, an historical fact, what-
ever becomes of the Collection as a Collection. He must
mean that a claim had been advanced that they were
to be received as part of the apostolic deposilum; and he
must be denying that they had more than ecclesiastical
authority. The distinction between divine and eccle-
siastical injunctions requires little explanation : the
latter are imposed by the Church for the sake of decency
and order, as a matter of expedience, safety, propriety,
or piety. Such is the rule among ourselves, that dis-
senting teachers conforming must remain silent three
years before they can be ordained ; or that a certain
form of prayer should be prescribed for universal use in
public service. On the other hand, the appointment of
the Sacraments is apostolic and divine. So, again, that
no one can be a bishop unless consecrated by a bishop,
is apostolic ; that three bishops are necessary in conse-
cration, is ecclesiastical; and, though ordinarily an im-
perative rule, yet, under circumstances, admits of dispen-
sation. Or again, it has, for instance, in this day been
debated whether the sanctification of the Lord's-day is
a divine or an ecclesiastical appointment. Dionysius,
then, in the above extract, means nothing more than to
deny that the Apostles enacted these Canons ; or, again,
that they enacted them as Apostles ; and he goes on to
say that the Popes had acknowledged the ecclesiastical
authority of some of them by embodying them in their
decrees. At the same time, his language certainly
seems to show as much as this, and it is confirmed by
tnat of other writers, that th$ Latin Church, though

43 2 Primitive Christianity.

using them separately as authority, did not receive them
as a Collection with the implicit deference which they
met with in the East ; indeed, the last thirty-five,
though two of them were cited at Nicaea, and one at
Constantinople, A.D. 394, seem to have been in inferior
account. The Canons of the General Councils took their
place, and the Decrees of the Popes.

6.

This, then, seems to be the state of the case as regards
the Collection or Edition of Canons, whether fifty or
eighty-five, which is under consideration. Speaking,
not of the Canons themselves, but of this particular
edition of them, I thus conclude about it — that, whether
it was made at the end of the third century, or later, there
is no sufficient proof that it was strictly of authority ; but
that it is not very material that it should be proved to be of
authority, nay, or even to have been made in early times.
Give us the Canons themselves, and we shall be able to
prove the point for which I am adducing them, even
though they were not at first formed into a collection.
They are, one by one, witnesses to us of a state of things.

Indeed, it must be confessed, that probability is
against this Collection having ever been regarded as an
authority by the ancient Church. It was an anonymous
Collection ; and, as being anonymous, seemed to have
no claim upon Christians. They would consider that a
collection or body of Canons could only be imposed by
a Council ; and since the Council could not be produced
which imposed this in particular, they had no reason to
admit it. They might have been in the practice of
acting upon this Canon, and that, and the third, and so
on to the eighty-fifth, from time immemorial, and that as
Canons, not as mere customs* and might confess the

Apostolical Canons. 433

obligation of each: and yet might say, "We never
looked upon them as a code" which should be something
complete and limited to itself. The true sanction of each
was the immemorial observance of each, not its place
in the Collection, which implied a competent framer.
Moreover, in proportion as General Councils were held,
and enacted Canons, so did the vague title of mere
usage, without definite sanction, become less influential,
and the ancient Canons fell into disregard. And what
made this still more natural was the circumstance that
the Nicene Council did re-enact a considerable num-
ber of those which it found existing. It substituted
then a definite authority, which, in after ages, would
be much more intelligible than what would have by that
time become a mere matter of obscure antiquity. Nor
did it tend to restore their authority, when their advo-
cates, feeling the difficulty of their case, referred the
Collection to the Apostles themselves : first, because this
assertion could not be maintained ; next, because, if it
could, it would have seemingly deprived the Church of
the privilege of making Canons. It would have made
those usages divine which had ever been accounted only
ecclesiastical. It would have raised the question whe-
ther, under such circumstances, the Church had more
right to add to the code of really Apostolic Canons than
to Scripture ; discipline, as well as doctrine, would have
been given by direct revelation, and have been included
in the fundamentals of religion.

If, however, all this be so, it follows that we are not at
liberty to argue, from one part of this Collection having
been received, that therefore every other was also ; as if
it were one authoritative work. No number of individual
Canons being proved to be of the first age will tend to
prove that the remainder are of the same. It is true ;
VOL. I. 28

434 Primitive Christianity.

and I do not think it worth while to contest the point
For argument-sake I will grant that the bond, which
ties them into one, is not of the most trustworthy and
authoritative description, and will proceed to show that
even those Canons which are not formally quoted by
early writers ought to be received as the rules of the
Ante-Nicene Church, independently of their being found
in one compilation.

7.

3. I have already said that nearly half of the Canons,
as they stand in the Collection, are quoted as Canons
by early writers, and thus placed beyond all question,
as remains of the Ante-Nicene period: the following
arguments may be offered in behalf of the rest : —

(i) They are otherwise known to express usages or
opinions of the Ante-Nicene centuries. The simple
question is, whether they had been reflected on, recog-
nized, converted into principles, enacted, obeyed ; whe-
ther they were the unconscious and unanimous result of
the one Christian spirit1 in every place, or were formal
determinations from authority claiming obedience. This
being the case, there is very little worth disputing about;
for (whether we regard them as being religious practices
or as religious antiquities) if uniform custom was in
favour of them, it does not matter whether they were
enacted or not If they were not, their universal ob-
servance is a still greater evidence of their extreme
antiquity, which, in that case, can be hardly short of the
Apostolic age ; and we shall refer to them in the exist-
ing Collection, merely for the sake of convenience, as
being brought together in a short compass.

Nay, a still more serious conclusion will follow, from

1 The CKK\i)<riaffTU(bv <f>povrjfjM.

Apostolical Canons. 435

supposing them not to be enactments — much more
serious than any I am disposed to draw. If it be main-
tained that these observances, though such, did not arise
from injunctions on the part of the Church, then, it might
be argued, the Church has no power over them. As not
having imposed, she cannot abrogate, suspend, or modify
them. They must be referred to a higher source, even
to the inspired Apostles ; and their authority is not
ecclesiastical, but divine. We are almost forced, then,
to consider them as enactments, even when they are not
recognized by ancient writers as such, lest we should
increase the authority of some of them more than seems
consistent with their subject-matter.

Again, if such Canons as are not appealed to by
ancient writers are nevertheless allowed to have been
really enacted, on the ground of our finding historically
that usage corresponds to them ; it may so be that others,
about which the usage is not so clearly known, are real
Canons also. There is a chance of their being genuine ;
for why, in drawing the line, should we decide by the
mere accident of the usage admitting or not admitting of
clear historical proof?

(2) Again, all these Canons, or at least the first fifty,
are composed in uniform style ; there is no reason, as
far as the internal evidence goes, why one should be
more primitive than another, and many, we know, were
certainly in force as Canons from the earliest times.

(3) This argument becomes much more cogent when
we consider what that style is. It carries with it evident
marks of primitive simplicity, some of which I shall in-
stance. The first remark which would be made on reading
them relates to their brevity, the breadth of the rules
which they lay down, and their plain and unartificial
mode of stating them. An instance of this, among

436 Primitive Christianity.

others which might be taken, is supplied by a comparison
of the 7th of them with one of a number of Canons
passed at Antioch by a Council held A. D. 341, and
apparently using the Apostolical Canons as a basis for
its own. The following, read with the words in brackets,
agrees, with but slight exceptions, with the Antiochene
Canon, and, without them, with the Apostolical : —

" All who come [to church] and hear the [holy] Scrip-
tures read, but do not remain to prayer [with the people,]
and [refuse] the holy communion [of the Eucharist,
these] must be put out of the Church, as disorderly,
[until, by confession, and by showing fruits of penitence,
and by entreaty, they are able to gain forgiveness."]

(4) Now this contrast, if pursued, will serve to illustrate
the antiquity of the Apostolical Canons in several ways,
besides the evidence deducible from the simplicity of their
structure. Thus the word " metropolitan " is introduced
into the thirty-fifth Canon of Antioch; no such word
occurs in the Apostolical Canon from which it is appar-
ently formed. There it is simply said, "the principal
bishop;" or, literally, the primus. This accords with the
historical fact, that the word metropolitan was not intro-
duced till the fourth century. The same remark might be
made on the word " province," which occurs in the Canon
of Antioch, not in the other. This contrast is strikingly
brought out in two other Canons, which correspond in
the two Collections. Both treat of the possessions of the
Church; but the Apostolical Canon says simply, "the
interests of the Church," "the goods of the Church; " but
the Antiochene, composed after Christianity had been
acknowledged by the civil power, speaks of " the revenue
of the Church," and "the produce of the land."

Again, when attempts have been made to show that
certain words are contained in the Canons before us

Apostolical Canom. 437

which were not in use in the Ante-Nicene times, they
have in every case failed in the result, which surely may
be considered as a positive evidence in favour of their
genuineness. For instance, the word " clergy," for the
ministerial body, which is found in the Apostolical
Canons, is also used by Origen, Tertullian, and Cyprian.
The word " reader," for an inferior order in the clergy,
is used by Cornelius, bishop of Rome ; nay, by Justin
Martyr. "Altar," which is used in the Canons, is the
only word used for the Lord's table by St. Cyprian, and,
before him, by Tertullian and Ignatius. " Sacrifice "
and " oblation," for the consecrated elements, found in
the Canons, are also found in Clement of Rome, Justin
Irenaeus, and Tertullian.

This negative evidence of genuineness extends to other
points, and surely is of no inconsiderable weight. We
know how difficult it is so to word a forgery as to avoid
all detection from incongruities of time, place, and the
like. A forgery, indeed, it is hardly possible to suppose
this Collection to be, both because great part of it is
known to be genuine, and because no assignable object
would be answered by it ; but let us imagine the com-
piler hastily took up with erroneous traditions, or recent
enactments, and joined them to the rest. Is it possible
to conceive, under such circumstances, that there would
be no anachronisms or other means of detection ? And
if there are none such, and much more if the compiler,
who lived perhaps as early as the fourth century, found
none such (supposing we may assume him willing and
qualified to judge of them), nay, if Dionysius Exiguus
found none such, what reasons have we for denying that
they are the produce of those early times to which they
claim to belong ? Yet so it is ; neither rite, nor heresy,
nor observance, nor phrase, is found in them which is

438 Primitive Christianity.

foreign to the Ante-Nicene period. Indeed, the only
reason one or two persons have thrown suspicion on
them has been an unwillingness on their part to admit
episcopacy, which the Canons assert ; a necessity which
led the same parties to deny the genuineness of St.
Ignatius' epistles.1

(5) I will make one more remark : — First, these Canons
come to us, not from Rome, but from the East, and were
in a great measure neglected, or at least superseded in
the Church, after Constantine's day, especially in the
West, where Rome had sway ; these do not embody
what are called " Romish corruptions." Next, there is
ground for suspecting that the Collection or Edition
which we have was made by heretics, probably Arians,
though they have not meddled with the main contents
of them. Thus, while the neglect of them in later times
separates them from Romanism, the assent of the Arians
is a second witness, in addition to their recognition by
the first centuries, in evidence of their Apostolical origin.
Those first centuries observe them ; contemporary heretics
respect them ; only later and corrupt times pass them
by. May they not be taken as a fair portrait, as far
as they go, of the doctrines and customs of Primitive
Christianity ?

8.

I do wish out-and-out Protestants would seriously lay
to heart where they stand when they would write a history
of Christianity. Are there any traces of Luther before
Luther ? Is there anything to show that what they call
the religion of the Bible was ever professed by any persons,
Christians, Jews, or heathen ? Again, are there any traces

1 Vi<L the parallel case of the Ignatian Epistles in the Author's Essays,
vok L, p. 266.

Apostolical Canons. 439

in history of a process of change in Christian belief and
practice, so serious, or so violent, as to answer to the
notion of a great corruption or perversion of the Primi-
tive Religion ? Was there ever a time, what was the
time, when Christianity was not that which Protestants
protest against, as if formal, unspiritual, self-righteous,
superstitious, and unevangelic ? If that time cannot
be pointed out, is not " the Religion of Protestants " a
matter, not of past historical fact, but of modern private
judgment ? Have they anything to say in defence of
their idea of the Christianity of the first centuries, except
that that view of it is necessary to their being Protest-
ants. " Christians," they seem to say, "must have been
in those early times different from what the record of
those times shows them to have been, and they must, as
time went on, have fallen from that faith and that wor-
ship which they had at first, though history is quite
silent on the subject, or else Protestantism, which is the
apple of our eye, is not true. We are driven to hypo-
thetical facts, or else we cannot reconcile with each other
phenomena so discordant as those which are presented
by ancient times and our own. We claim to substitute
d priori reasoning for historical investigation, by the
right of self-defence and the duty of self-preservation."

I have urged this point in various ways, and now 1
am showing the light which the Canons of the Apostles
throw upon it. There is no reasonable doubt that they
represent to us, on the whole, and as far as they go,
the outward face of Christianity in the first centuries ; —
now will the Protestant venture to say that he recog-
nizes in it any likeness of his own Religion ? First, let
him consider what is conveyed in the very idea of Eccle-
siastical Canons ? This : that Christians could not wor-
ship according to their fancy, but must think and pray

44° Primitive Christianity.

by rule, by a set of rules issuing from a body of men,
the Bishops, over whom the laity had no power what-
ever. If any men at any time have been priest-ridden,
such was the condition of those early Christians. And
then again, what becomes of the Protestant's watchword,
" the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible,"
if a set of Canons might lawfully be placed upon their
shoulders, as if a second rule of faith, to the utter exclu-
sion of all free-and-easy religion ? and what room was
there for private judgment, if they had to obey the bidding
of certain fallible men ? and what is to be done with the
great principle, " Unity, not Uniformity," if Canons are
to be recognized, which command uniformity as well as
unity ?

So much at first sight; but when we go on to examine
what these Canons actually contain, their incompatibility
with the fundamental principles of Protestantism be-
comes still more patent. I will set down some instances
in proof of this. Thus, we gather from the Canons the
following facts about Primitive Christianity : — viz., that,

1. There was a hierarchy of ordained ministers, consist-
ing of the three orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

2. Their names were entered on a formal roll or cata-
logue.

3. There were inferior orders, such as readers and
chanters.

4. Those who had entered into the sacred orders might
not afterwards marry.

5. There were local dioceses, each ruled by a Bishop.

6. To him and him only was committed the care of
souls in his diocese.

7. Each Bishop confined himself to his own diocese.

8. No secular influence was allowed to interfere with
the appointment of Bishops.

Apostolical Canons. 44 1

9. The Bishops formed one legislative body, and met
in Council twice a year, for the consideration of dog-
matic questions and points in controversy.

10. One of them had the precedence over the rest,
and took the lead ; and, as the priests and people in each
diocese obeyed their Bishop, so in more general matters
the Bishops deferred to their Primus.

1 1. Easter and Pentecost were great feasts, and certain
other days feasts also. There was a Lent Fast ; also a
Fast on Easter Eve ; and on Wednesdays and Fridays.

12. The state of celibacy was recognized

13. Places of worship were holy.

14. There was in their churches an altar, and an altar
service.

15. There was a sacrifice in their worship, of which
the materials were bread and wine.

16. There were oblations also of fruits of the earth, in
connection with the sacrifice.

17. There were gold and silver vessels in the rite, and
these were consecrated.

1 8. There were sacred lamps, fed with olive oil, and
incense during the holy rite.

19. Baptism was administered in the name of Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost.

20. Excommunication was inflicted on Christians who
disgraced their profession.

21. No one might pray, even in private, with excom-
municated persons, except at the cost of being excom-
municated himself.

22. No one might pray with heretics, or enter their
churches, or acknowledge their baptism, or priesthood.

9
These rules furnish U3 with large portions, and the

442 Primitive Christianity.

more important, of the outline of the religion of their
times ; and are not only definitive in themselves, but give
us the means of completing those parts of it which are
not found in them. Considered, then, as a living body,
the primitive Christian community was distinguished
by its high sacerdotal, ceremonial, mystical character.
Which among modern religious bodies was it like?
Was it like the Wesleyans ? was it like the Society of
Friends ? was it like the Scotch Kirk ? was it like any
Protestant denomination at all ? Fancy any model
Protestant of this day in a state of things so different
from his own ! With his religious societies for the
Church, with his committees, boards, and platforms
instead of Bishops, his Record and Patriot newspapers
instead of Councils, his concerts for prayer instead of
anathemas on heresy and schism, his spoutings at public
meetings for exorcisms, his fourths of October for festivals
of the Martyrs, his glorious memories for commemora-
tions of the dead, his niggard vestry allowances for
gold and silver vessels, his gas and stoves for wax and
oil, his denunciations of self-righteousness for fasting
and celibacy, and his exercise of private judgment for
submission to authority — would he have a chance of
rinding himself at home in a Christianity such as this ?
is it his own Christianity ?

I end, then, as I began : — If Protestantism is another
name for Christianity, then the Martyrs and Bishops of
the early Church, the men who taught the 'nations, the
men who converted the Roman Empire, had themselves
to be taught, themselves to be converted. Shall we side
with the first age of Christianity, or with the last ?

NOTE ON p. 366.

Lately the relics of St. Ambrose have been discovered
in his Church at Milan, as were the relics of St. Ger-
vasius and St. Protasius several years since. On this
subject I received a month since a letter from a friend,
who passed through Milan, and saw the sacred remains.
I will quote a portion of his letter to me : —

"Sept. 17, 1872.

u I am amazed at the favour which was shown me yesterday at the
Church of St. Ambrogio. I was accidentally allowed to be present
at a private exposition of the relics of St. Ambrose and the Saints
Gervasius and Protasius. I have seen complete every bone in St.
Ambrose's body. There were present a great many of the clergy,
three medid, and Father Secchi, who was there on account of his
great knowledge of the Catacombs, to testify to the age, etc., of the
remains. It was not quite in chance, for I wanted to go to Milan,
solely to venerate St. Ambrose once more, and to thank him for all
the blessings I have had as a Catholic and a Priest, since the day
that I said Mass over his body. The churches were shut when I
arrived ; so I got up early next morning and went off to the Ambro-
sian. I knelt down before the high altar, and thought of all that
had happened since you and I were there, twenty-six years ago.
As I was kneeling, a cleric came out ; so I asked him to let me into
the scurolo, which was boarded up all round for repairs. He took
me there, but he said : ' St Ambrose is not here ; he is above ; do
you wish to see him ? ' He took me round through the corretti into
a large room, where, on a large table, surrounded by ecclesiastics and
medical men, were three skeletons. The two were of immense size,
and very much alike, and bore the marks of a violent death ; their
age was determined to be about twenty-six years. When I entered
the room, Father Secchi was examining the marks of martyrdom on
them. Their throats had been cut with great violence, and the

444

neck vertebrae were injured on the inside. The pomum Adami had
been broken, or was not there ; I forget which. This bone was quite
perfect in St. Ambrose ; his body was wholly uninjured ; the lower
jaw (which was broken in one of the two martyrs) was wholly uninjured
in him, beautifully formed, and every tooth, but one molar in the lower
jaw, quite perfect and white and regular. His face had been long,
thin, and oval, with a high arched forehead. His bones were
nearly white ; those of the other two were very dark. His fingers
long and very delicate ; his bones were a marked contrast to those
of the two martyrs.

" The finding, I was told, was thus : — In the ninth century the
Bishop of Milan translated the relics of St. Ambrose, which till
then had laid side by side with the martyrs in one great stone
coffin of two compartments, St. Gervase being, according to the
account, nearest to St. Ambrose. He removed St. Ambrose from
this coffin into the great porphyry urn which we both saw in the
scurolo; leaving the martyrs where they were. In 1 864 the martyrs'
coffin was opened, and one compartment was found empty, except
a single bone, the right-ankle bone, which lay by itself in that
empty compartment. This was sent to the Pope as all that remained
of St. Ambrose ; in the other compartment were the two skeletons
complete. St. Ambrose's urn was not opened till the other day,
when it was removed from its place for the alterations. The bones
were found perfect all but the ankle bone. They then sent for it
to Rome, and the President of the Seminary showed me how it
fitted exactly in its place, having been separated from it for nine
centuries.

" The Government seems very desirous to make a handsome re-
storation of the whole chapel, and the new shrine will be completed
by May next."

Thus far my friend's letter.

I have not been able in such historical works as are
at my command to find notice of Archbishop Angel-
bert's transferring St. Ambrose's body from the large
coffin of the martyrs to the porphyry urn which has
been traditionally pointed out as the receptacle of the
Saint, and in which he was recently found. That the
body, however, recently disinterred actually was once

Note. 445

in the coffin of the martyrs is evidenced by its right-ankle
bone being found there. Another curious confirmation
arises from my friend's remark about the missing tooth,
when compared with the following passage from Ughelli,
Ital. Sacr. t. iv. col. 82 : —

" Archbishop Angelbert was most devout to the Church
of St. Ambrose, and erected a golden altar in it, at the
cost of 30,000 gold pieces. The occasion of this gift is
told us by Galvaneus, among others, in his Catalogue,
when he is speaking of Angelbert. His words are these : —
' Angelbert was Archbishop for thirty-five years, from
A.D. 826, and out of devotion he extracted a tooth from
the mouth of St. Ambrose, and placed it in his [epis-
copal] ring. One day the tooth fell out from the ring ;
and, on the Archbishop causing a thorough search to be
made for it, an old woman appeared to him, saying, " You
will find the tooth in the place from which you took
it." On hearing this, the Archbishop betook himself to
the body of St. Ambrose, and found it in the mouth of
the blessed Ambrose. Then, to make it impossible for
anything in future [or anything else, de caetero] to be taken
from his body, he hid it under ground, and caused to be
made the golden altar of St. Ambrose, etc.

Castellionaeus in his Antiquities of Milan (apud Bur-
man. Antiqu. Ital. t. 3, part i. col. 487) tells us that the
Archbishop lost his relic " as he was going in his ponti-
fical vestments to the Church of St. Lawrence on Palm
Sunday. He found he had lost it in the way thither,
for, on taking off his gloves, he saw it was gone.

It would seem from my friend's letter that either
the Archbishop took away the tooth a second time, or
the miracle of its restoration did not take place.

It should be added that the place in which Angelbert
hid the sacred relics was so well known, that in the

446 Note.

twelfth century Cardinal Bernard, Bishop of Parma,
was allowed to see and venerate them, — Vid. Puricelli's
Ambros. Basil. Descriptio. c. 58 and c. 352, ap. Burman.
Thesaur. Antiqu. Ital. t. 4, part I.

That St. Ambrose was buried in his own church,
called even from the time of his death the " Ambrosian,"
and the church where he had placed the bones of the
two martyrs, Gervasius and Protasius, by the side of
whom he proposed to have his own body placed, is plain
from his own words and those of Paulinus his Secretary.

For the controversy on the subject vid. Castellion. ubi
supra.

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