age when he accompanied the caravan of his uncle; and that his duty compelled him to return as soon as he had disposed of the merchandise of Cadijah. In these hasty and superficial excursions, the eye of genius might discern some objects invisible to his grosser companions; some seeds of knowledge might be cast upon a fruitful soil: but his ignorance of the Syriac language must have checked his curiosity; and it cannot be perceived, in the life or writings of Mohammed, that his prospect was far extended beyond the limits of the Arabian world. From every region of that solitary world, the pilgrims of Mecca were annually assembled, by the calls of devotion and commerce. In the free concourse of multitudes a simple citizen, in his native tongue, might study the political state and character of the tribes, the theory and practice of the Jews and Christians. Some useful strangers might be tempted, or forced, to implore the rites of hospitality: and the enemies of Mohammed have named the Jew, the Persian, and the Syrian monk, whom they accused of lending their secret aid to the composition of the Koran. Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius; and the uniformity of a work denotes the hand of a single artist. From his earliest youth, Mohammed was addicted to religious contemplation: each year, during the month of Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and from the arms of Cadijah: in the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca, he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode was not in the heavens, but in the mind of the prophet. The faith which, under the name of Islam, he preached to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal truth, and a necessary fiction: That there is only one God, and that Mohammed is the apostle of God.",

The doctrines of Mohammed were artfully adapted to the prejudices of the Jews, the several heresies of the eastern Church, and the pagan rites of the Arabs. To a large proportion of mankind they were rendered still more agreeable by the full permission of all sensual gratifications, which were not only allowed to the faithful believer in this world, but his share of enjoyment, as well as his capacity for it, were promised to be increased in the groves and fountains of paradise, where seventy-two houris, of resplendent beauty, were allotted to the embraces of the sincere, though most insignificant believer.

In order to prove that Jesus Christ was the prophet, not the Son of God, and endued only with powers a little superior to those of Moses, the impostor had recourse to the assertion that all texts to the contrary were interpolations in the sacred Scriptures, the validity of which, with these alterations, he fully allowed. In the retreats of Hera, Mohammed professed he had the felicity of communing with the angel Gabriel, who revealed to him those sentiments concerning the nature, the will, and the attributes of the Supreme Being, which compose the Koran. This system, which was slowly formed, and gradually promulgated, was at first probably inspired by fanaticism, and was afterward perfected by artifice. The first proselytes of Mohammed were his faithful wife Cadijah, his servant Zeid, his pupil Ali, and his friend Abubeker. His religion slowly advanced within the walls of his native city, Mecca, during ten years. In this situation, the prophet was surrounded by enemies jealous of the power of his family, and incensed at his pretensions; and his death, which was resolved upon by the

princes of Mecca, was only prevented by a nocturnal and precipitate flight to Medina; the memorable era of the Hegira, which happened in the 622d year of the Christian era, and still discriminates the lunar years of the Mohammedan nations.

The fame of Mohammed had preceded his flight; and the profession of Islam had already been acknowledged at Medina, where the prophet was received with the loyal and devout acclamations of five hundred of the citizens. From the time of his establishment at Medina, Mohammed assumed the exercise of the regal and sacerdotal functions, and was invested with the prerogative of forming alliances, and of waging war. He urged the command of Heaven to propagate his religion by every possible means: thousands enlisted under his warlike banner, who were gratified with the distribution of the spoil, which was regulated by a Divine law; a fifth was reserved by the prophet for pious and charitable uses, and the remainder was shared in adequate portions by the soldiers. These rewards, the eternal recompenses of paradise, and the persuasive tenets of fate and predestination, induced the companions of Mohammed to face danger, and to meet undauntedly that death which they believed it impossible to shun.

Encouraged by the conquest of his own country, the victorious prophet carried his arms into the Roman territories, with invincible courage and astonishing success. In the sixty-third year of his age, the happiness of his faithful disciples was imbittered by the indisposition of their master, who believed himself poisoned through the revenge of a Jewish female; and, after a lingering disease, the prophet terminated his existence in the year 632. Of the issue of his twelve wives Fatima, the wife of Ali, alone remained; and the sceptre of Arabia was transferred from the family of Mohammed into the hands of Abubeker who assumed the title of caliph, a name which equally implies a spiritual and a temporal command. The successors of the prophet propagated his faith, and imitated his example; and such was the rapidity of their progress that, in the space of a century, Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Spain, had submitted to the victorious arms of the Arabian and Saracen conquerors.

That the Christian subjects of those countries should submit to the dominion of these barbarians is not wonderful: they had little power to resist; and the forces of the empire, attacked in various places, could afford little opposition to the incursions of these powerful invaders.But that their forced profession of the Mohammedan faith should soon become so generally acceptable to the professed believers in a Gospel of peace and purity, may excite more surprise. Let it, however, be remembered, that Christianity no longer retained the same form it had assumed in the primitive Church; the substance had been lost in pursuing the shadow. Weakened and divided by their absurd controversies, and no longer united by the virtues prescribed in the Gospel, the Christians of the seventh century became an easy prey to the victorious followers of Mohammed, whose tenets concerning the lawfulness of bloodshed, rapine, and violence, in the propagation of religion, could not be very obnoxious to the feelings of those who had viewed, without abhorrence, the same means employed in the propagation of opinions they had themselves approved. Adapted as the doctrines of the great eastern impostor were to the jarring sectaries, the warmest contenders

in Christian theology were among the foremost of the apostates. Unwilling to relinquish any abstruse nicety, or unreasonable scruple, for the peace of the Church, they surrendered the whole of their religion at the mandate of their barbarian conquerors; at least the whole which remained to them, the profession and appellation of Christians.

The Nestorians and Monophysites, abhorred and detested by their orthodox brethren, were eagerly received and protected by the sagacious impostor; and repaid this service by bearing arms for the extension of his power over their oppressors.

In

Under the successors of Mohammed, the Christians, who were averse to his faith, suffered incredible hardships, and devastation and bloodshed marked the footsteps of the professors of the faith of Islam. the victorious progress of Amrou, a Saracen general, Egypt was the fruit of his conquests; and a circumstance which arose after the capture of Alexandria is strongly expressive of the character of the first caliphs. Amrou had, in his leisure hours, amused and improved himself by the conversation of John Philoponus, a celebrated grammarian of that city, and a polite scholar. Philoponus earnestly besought his patron to gratify him with the present of the Alexandrian library; but the request of a favourite was not sufficient to make the victorious general forgetful of the obedience which was due to the caliph. The request was therefore preferred to Omar, who replied with the spirit of a fanatic, "If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and deserve not to be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." The sentence was executed with blind obedience; and such was the incredible number of the volumes, that, during six months, they supplied fuel for the baths, which contributed to the health and convenience of the populous capital of Egypt.

The heretical opinions of those who had asserted that Jesus Christ was possessed of only one will and one operation, proved so much more obnoxious to the members of the Church, convened at the third general council of Constantinople, than the increasing immoralities of the clergy, that the synod was dismissed, if not without any person adverting to the necessity of discipline, at least without having enacted a solitary canon for the regulation of clerical conduct.

The enormities which were, however, committed, demanded instant regulation; and several provincial conventions attempted to remedy: the disorders which threatened the dissolution of Christianity itself. Almost every crime which disgraces humanity entered into the dark catalogue of clerical vices, which were augmented by the arrogance and cruelty of their conduct toward the inferior clergy. The council of Prague, in the year 675, passed a public censure upou those of the superior clergy who whipped, as slaves, the inferior ministers of the Church; or who compelled their deacons to perform the menial office of carrying the bishop upon their shoulders. (Fleury, viii, 680.) The authority exercised by the clergy extended as well to the superior as to the inferior classes of mankind; and the twelfth council of Toledo, in the year 681, presumed to release the subjects of Wamba from their allegiance to their sovereign. In vain did the deposed monarch endeavour to regain his kingdom, by the plea that the habit of a monk, with which he had been invested, had been put upon him, under the pretence

of his being a penitent, at a time when his disorder had rendered him insensible. But the two characters of a monk and a king were deemed incompatible by his haughty and arrogant judges. Ervige was declared to have a lawful claim to the allegiance of the people; and the unfortunate Wamba was prohibited from the exercise of temporal jurisdiction, which was not adapted to the situation of a king who was condemned to perform penance.

At a time when the manners of the ecclesiastics were so extremely corrupt, we can scarcely be surprised at any instance of atrocity. The Romish see was a prize worthy of the utmost ambition and avarice, and it was eagerly aspired after by various contenders. The intrigues of Peter and Theodore for the pontificate had scarcely ceased, by the appointment of Conon to that see, when the early death of the Romish patriarch afforded a new opportunity for contention between Theodore (who seized upon the Lateran palace) and Paschal. Each contender being elected by his own party, the magistracy and the people were obliged to interfere; in consequence of which, the election of Sergius to the unoccupied see destroyed the pretensions of the two competitors. The submission of Theodore soon followed; but his rival, the Archdeacon Paschal, was with great difficulty compelled to resign his pretension. An accusation of magic was, however, soon preferred against the turbulent priest, who was, in consequence of the charge, deposed from his station in the Church, and condemned to spend the remainder of his life in a monastery, forgotten, or remembered with abhorrence, by a credulous and superstitious people.

The patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, which had already suffered repeated defalcations of power, were during this century abolished by the conquests of the victorious Saracens. Nominal bishops* were indeed appointed to those sees, which had been subjected to the power of the Mussulmen: but toleration was not the virtue of the followers of Mohammed; and, however the Arabian caliphs might be disposed to favour those sects by whom their conquests had been originally advanced, the orthodox Christians were severely oppressed, and the prelates strictly prohibited from the exercise of the episcopal function in their diocesses.

CHAPTER II.

OF GOVERNMENT, DOCTRINE, RITES, AND CEREMONIES, IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY.

Council assembled for the reformation of the clergy-Clergy permitted to retain their wives-Superstitious observance in the celebration of the Lord's Supper-Efficacy of masses asserted-Pilgrimages-Divination-Privileges of monks extended-Boniface IV. converts his house into a monastery-Licensed to perform every clerical function-Alteration in Nicene creed-Festival of the exaltation of the holy cross-Of the annunciation-Deposition and nativity of the blessed Virgin-Church of All Saints-Rights of sanctuary-Public penance.

In order to supply the omissions of the sixth general council, and to provide a remedy for the disorders of the clergy, another council was

*Called bishops in partibus infidelium.

convened at Constantinople, by the Emperor Justinian II., in the year 692. This convention obtained the name of the Quinisext council, from its being considered as a supplement to the two last general conventions; and the council in Trulla, from the synod being assembled in a chamber of the imperial palace, which was covered with a dome or cupola, and called Trulla. This council, among various regulations respecting discipline, was so favourable to the marriage of the clergy, as to decree that the separation of those of the clerical order, who were already married, from their wives was contrary to the command of Christ. It condemned the Saturday's fast, prohibited the representation of Christ under the symbol of a lamb, and raised the Byzantine patriarch to a rank equal with that of the pontiff of Rome. Several of the western churches refused to consider as valid the acts of a synod, which, while it confirmed the faith established by former councils, so strongly militated against their opinions and practices; and the Quinisext council has been branded, by the zeal of the Romish adherents, with the names of an illegitimate council, a false synod, a convention of malignants, and a diabolical council. (Fleury, ix. 110.) Its canons have, however, been always acknowledged and observed by the Greek Church.

The doctrines of religion underwent few alterations in this century; its superstitions were, however, generally received, and their authority confirmed by the sanction and approbation of the multitude. The different fathers of the western Church vied with each other in the invention of new superstitions; and appear to have believed, that, in order to distinguish themselves as the champions of the Church, it was necessary to refuse the aid of truth and reason in support of her cause. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which in the first ages of the Church had been received with the utmost plainness and simplicity, was now accompanied by various superstitious observances prescribed by the authority of councils. The council of Toledo, in the year 646, prohibited its being received after having eaten the smallest particle of food; and that of Trulla confirmed this decree, with the addition of a command to the receiver to take it stretching out his hands in the form of a cross. The superstitious opinions respecting the sacrament extended to the eucharistical wine, which, when mixed with ink, rendered the contract with which it was signed peculiarly sacred. The element, the type of that blood which was shed for the happiness of mankind, was made a vehicle for conveying the bitterest rancour and uncharitableness. When Theodore, the Roman pontiff, deposed and anathematized Pyrrhus, the Monothelite, (who, to conciliate his favour, had publicly abjured his errors, but afterward upon finding that the protection of that pope was rather an impediment to his restoration to the Byzantine see, from which he had been deposed, retracted what he had abjured,) the haughty bishop, calling for the sacred chalice, dipped his envenomed pen in the consecrated wine, and then subscribed his condemnation, which was attended with every superstitious ceremony that could fill the mind with terror and dismay.

The superstitions which increased the power and authority of the clerical order, were at the same time fruitful sources of wealth. The doctrine of the efficacy of masses repeated by ecclesiastics was strenuously urged; and such was their supposed virtue, that they were