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ed. Want of energy in the government, and luxury, effeminacy, and a general depravity of manners among the people in that age, characterized the Roman empire.

Having delineated a view of the Roman empire, in its declining state, and traced the events which preceded, as well as the causes which produced its downfal, it will not be amiss to defer, to another opportunity, an investigation of the state of religion during the above-mentioned period. I shall, therefore, conclude, at present, with subscribing myself,

Sir, your's &c.

J. B..

SIR,

LETTER XVIII.

THE religious history of the Roman empire, after the death of Constantine, merits attention. The state of religion, true or false, is an important subject in the history of the human mind. Every thing must, therefore, be peculiarly interesting that relates to a system, which, to this day, influences the political and moral world, gives a particular direction to our ideas, and forms the basis of our hopes. No sooner was Constantine deposited in the tomb, than his favorite council of Nice began to lose its authority and influence, and

Arianism became triumphant. The orthodox party was discountenanced, and almost all the great ecclesiastical dignities, throughout the eastern empire, were conferred on the Arians. We have

already observed the dangerous situation of Christianity in the reign of Julian, and its providential deliverance from persecution, by the fall of that Emperor in the Persian war. From that period

no pagan was ever decorated with the imperial purple; but Valens, the eastern Emperor, adhered strongly to Arianism, and persecuted the orthodox. After the disastrous fate of Valens, at the battle of Adrianople, in the Gothic war, the great Theodosius was elected Emperor of the east. He firmly adhered to the orthodox faith of the trinity, and deprived the Arians of their ecclesiastical preferments, beside other rigorous proceedings against them; and if he did not extirpate, at least he entirely subdued that heresy, which never more lifted up its head in the Roman empire. This Emperor becoming sole master of the Roman world, abolished idol worship in every part of the empire; and, in his reign, the Roman senate embraced Christianity, A. D. 388.

During a period of forty years, which had elapsed from the death of Constantine to the triumph of orthodoxy under Theodosius, Constantinople had been the seat of Arianism; and the faith of the emperors, the prelates, and the people of that metropolis, was rejected in the theological schools of Rome and Alexandria.

The

celebrated Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, from whom the Athanasian creed takes its name, was the strenuous assertor of the Catholic doctrine of the trinity, and suffered many persecutions on that account. Religious controversy was the grand object of attention, and the prevailing taste among the lazy multitude of Constantinople; and not only the mechanics, but even the very slaves, were all profound theologians, and pretended to investigate the mystery of the trinity, and the incomprehensible nature of the Supreme and Eternal Being. The history of the church, during this period, exhibits a disgusting scene of faction, persecution, and anarchy; bishop condemning bishop, and synod condemning synod, with all the virulence of pride and fanaticism.

The elevation of Gregory Nazianzen to the archiepiscopal see of Constantinople, A. D. 380, marked the triumph of the orthodox party. The Emperor Theodosius, himself conducted Gregory. through the streets, and placed him on the archiepiscopal throne, and the Arians were expelled from the churches by military force. As soon as the archbishop began to preach the doctrine of the trinity, and the divinity of Christ, a motley band of monks and vagabonds assaulted the church, and were not, without difficulty, compelled to retire. Theodosius, in order to cut off all pretext for dispute, or doubt, concerning those profound questions of the nature of the Divine Persons of the

trinity, assembled at Constantinople a council of one hundred and fifty bishops, in which the theological system of the council of Nice was illustrated and explained; and the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, concerning which some doubts had arisen, was established as an essential article in the creed of the Christian church. This council of Constantinople ranks as the second general council, and completely established and explained the orthodox faith of the trinity. In the reign of Theodosius, and that of Arcadius, his son, several great characters flourished in the Christian church, particularly Gregory Nazianzen, and Julian Chrysostome, both of them successively archbishops of Constantinople. The corruption of language is visible in most of the Latin fathers of that age; but the composition of Gregory Nazianzen and Chrysostome are deemed equal to the most elegant models of attic eloquence; Chrysostome especially has always been esteemed the most elegant writer, as he certainly was the most eloquent preacher of all the primitive fathers. He was originally a priest of Antioch, and after he was made archbishop of Constantinople he was persecuted and driven into exile by the Empress Eudoxia, A. D. 404; not without an insurrection of the people in his favor, which he, notwithstanding, disapproved, and with difficulty dispersed. This great man died in exile, A. D. 407, and his relics were, with great solemnity, translated to Constantinople by the Emperor, Theodosius the Second, A. D. 438.

After the reign of Theodosius the Great had effected the depression of Arianism, the orthodox faith of the trinity continued to be the creed of the whole Roman empire. The Goths, and several other nations bordering on the Roman empire, had alrealy been wholly, or in part, converted to the Christian faith; but as they had received their religion principally from the Arians, who had been expelled by the orthodox party, in the reign of Constantine, or by the missionaries of Constantinople, during the reign of the Arian Emperors, his successors, the religion they had embraced was Arianism. In consequence of the persecution of the Arians, under Theodosius, and the expulsion of the bishops, and other clergy, who refused to subscribe the articles of faith dictated by the councils of Nice and Constantinople, a great number of those churchmen took refuge among the Gothic nations, where their doctrines were looked upon as the true creed of the Christian church. These expelled ecclesiastics were well received among the barbarous nations, revered as sufferers in the cause of religion, and met with extraordinary success in the propagation of their doctrines; so that Arian Christianity became the religion of all the northern nations, who were converted before the subversion of the Roman empire. Thus omitting the different sects, which, from time to time, made their appearance in the church, and have been stigmatized with the name of heresies, it may suffice to remark, that the Christian world was divided into two great par

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