rebellion against their lawful bishop. The church took alarm at these dangerous commotions, and in a general council of the Lateran, held in 1139, by Innocent II., Arnold was condemned to perpetual silence. He sought for refuge beyond the Alps, and found a hospitable shelter in the Canton of Zurich. Here he again began his career of reform, and had the ability to seduce from their allegiance the bishop of Constance, and even the pope's legate. The exhortations of St. Bernard, however, reclaimed these yielding ecclesiastics to a sense of their duty, and Arnold was driven by persecution to hazard the desperate expedient of fixing the standard of rebellion in the very heart of Rome.

Protected, perhaps, if not invited, by the nobles, Arnold harangued the populace with his usual fervour, and inspired them with such a regard for their civil and ecclesiastical rights, that a complete revolution was effected in the city. Innocent, struggled in vain against this invasion of his power, and at last sunk under the pressure of calamity. His successors, Celestine and Lucius, who reigned only a few months, were unable to check the popular frenzy. The leaders of the insurrection waited upon Lucius, demanded the restitution of the civil rights which had been usurped from the people, and insisted that his holiness and the clergy should trust only to pious offerings of the faithful. Lucius survived this demand but a few days, and was succeeded by Eugenius III., who, dreading the mutinous spirit of the inhabitants, withdrew from Rome, and was consecrated in a neighbouring fortress.

As soon as Arnold was acquainted with the escape of the pontiff, he entered Rome, and animated with new vigour the licentious fury of the populace. He called to their remembrance the achievements of their forefathers--he painted, in the strongest colours, the sufferings which sprung from ecclesiastical tyranny; and he charged them as men and as Romans, never to admit the pontiff within their walls, till they had prescribed the limits of his spiritual jurisdic

tion, and fixed the civil government in their own hands. Headed by the disaffected nobles, the frenzied populace attacked the cardinals and clergy, who still continued in the city. They set fire to the palaces, and forced the inhabitants to swear allegiance to the new system of things.

The Roman pontiff could no longer view with patience the excesses of this ungovernable mob. At the head of his troops, chiefly composed of Tiburtines, he marched against the city, and after some trifling concessions on his part, was reinstated on the papal throne. Notwithstanding the triumph over the malecontents, the friends of Arnold were still numerous, and continued to disturb the peace of the city, till our countryman, Adrian IV., was raised to the chair of St. Peter. On the first appearance of a riot, during which a cardinal was either killed or wounded in the street, Adrian held an interdict over the guilty city, and from Christmas to Easter deprived it of the privilege of religious worship. This bold and sagacious contrivance gave a sudden turn to the minds of the people. Arnold and his followers were banished from the city, and fled for protection to the viscounts of Campania. His holiness, however, was not satisfied with restoring peace to his capital. A spirit of revenge burned within him, till he instigated Frederic Barbarossa to force Arnold from his asylum in Campania. This intrepid reformer was immediately seized by Cardinal Gerard in 1155, and was burned alive in the midst of a fickle people, who gazed with stupid indifference on the expiring hero, who had fallen in defence of their dearest rights, and whom they had formerly regarded with more than mortal veneration; his ashes were thrown into the Tiber; but though no corporeal relic could be preserved to animate his followers, the efforts which he made in the cause of civil and religious freedom were cherished in the breasts of future patriots, and inspired those mighty attempts which have chained down and finally destroyed, the monster of superstition.

It is impossible not to admire the genius and persevering intrepidity of Arnold. To distinguish truth from error in an age of darkness, and to detect the causes of spiritual corruption in the thickest atmosphere of ignorance and superstition, evinced a mind of more than ordinary stretch. To adopt a plan for recovering the lost glory of his country, and fixing the limits of spiritual usurpation, demanded a degree of resolution which no opposition could control. But to struggle against superstition, entrenched in power, to plant the standard of rebellion in the very heart of her empire, and to keep possession of her capital for a number of years, could scarcely have been expected from an individual who had no power but that of his eloquence, and no assistance but that derived from the justice of his cause. Yet such were the individual exertions of Arnold, which posterity will appreciate as one of the noblest legacies which former ages have bequeathed. Every triumph that is gained over ecclesiastical power stretched beyond its just limits, in whatever country it is sanctioned, and under whatever system of faith it is exercised, is the triumph of right reason over the worst passions of the heart. It is the greatest step which the human mind can take in its progress to that knowledge and happiness to which the Almighty has destined it to arrive.*

"We may truly say," says Dr. Allix, "that scarcely any man was ever so torn and defamed on account of his doctrine as was this Arnold of Brescia. Would we know the reason of this? It was because with all his power he opposed the tyranny and usurpations which the popes began to establish at Rome over the temporal jurisdiction of the emperors. He was the man, who by his counsel renewed the design of re-establishing the authority of the senate in Rome, and of obliging the pope not to meddle with any thing but what concerned the government of the church,

without invading the temporal jurisdiction:-this was his crime, and this indeed is such an one as is unpardonable with the pope, if there be any such."*

"But there was a still more heinous thing laid to his charge, which was this: Præter hæc de sacramento altaris et baptismo parvulorum, non sane dictur sensisse! that is, 'He was unsound in his judgment about the sacrament of the altar and infant baptism'-(in other words, he rejected the popish doctrine of transubstantiation and of the baptism of infants.) And this alone was sufficient ground for his condemnation; for as he set himself industriously to oppose the accumulating errors in the church of Brescia, his native place, in which he was supported by MAIFREDUS, the consul of that city, accusations against him were transmitted to Pope Innocent II., who immediately imposed silence upon him, lest such pernicious doctrine should spread further. On this, Arnold retired from Italy, and settled at Zurich in the diocess of Constance, where he continued to disseminate his doctrine until the death of the pope, at which time he returned to Rome."

Otho Frisingensis, a catholic bishop, gives the following account of the death of this great man. "Being entered into the city [Rome] and finding it altogether in a seditious uproar against the pope, he was so far from following the advice of the wise man, not to add fuel to the fire, that he greatly increased it, proposing to the multitude the examples of the ancient Romans, who, by the maturity of their senators, counsels, and the valour and integrity of their youth, made the world their own. He therefore advised them to rebuild the capitol, to restore the dignity of the senate, and reform the order of knights. He maintained that the civil government of the city did not belong to the pope who ought to confine himself to matters purely ecclesiastical. And so far did the mischief of this infectious doctrine prevail, that the mob pulled down several of

* Allix's Remarks, p. 169.

the houses of the nobility and cardinals, treating the latter with personal abuse, and even violence. He could not hope to escape long, after committing so heinous a crime against persons so extremely jealous of their tyranny.

"Having persisted for a length of time, incessantly and irreverently, in these and similar enterprises, contemning the sentence of the clergy justly and canonically pronounced against him as altogether void and of no authority; he at length fell into the hands of some, on the borders of Tuscany, who took him prisoner, and being preserved for the prince's trial, he was at last, by the præfect of the city, hanged, (Mosheim says he was crucified) and his body burnt to ashes, to prevent the foolish rabble from expressing any veneration for his body, and the ashes of it cast into the Tiber.”*

Such was the end of Arnold of Brescia, whose memory, however, was long and fondly cherished by the people of Rome, whose interests he had so courageously advocated against the tyranny of the popes, and whose hatred he had thereby incurred. His tragical end occasioned deep and loud murmurs; it was regarded as an act of injustice and cruelty, the guilt of which lay upon the bishop of Rome and his clergy, who had been the occasion of it. The disciples of Arnold, who were numerous, and obtained the name of Arnoldists, separated themselves from the communion of the church of Rome, and long continued to bear their testimony against its numerous abominations.

This seems to be the proper place for introducing some particular mention of the sect of the Paterines. The most copious account of them that I have met with, is that given by Mr. Robinson in his Ecclesiastical Researches, and as it appears to be well supported by the authorities which he has adduced, and to correspond with what is said of the same people by Dr. Allix, Mosheim, and others, I present it to the reader mostly in his own words.

Dr. Allix's Remarks, p. 172.