Edward Harper Parker - "Ancient China Simplified"

James Boswell - "No Abolition of Slavery"

Charles Dickens - "The Cricket on the Hearth"

Jules Verne - "20000 Lieues sous les mers Part 2"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5




[Footnote 94: Justinian, says the historian Agathias, (l. v. p.
157,). Yet the specific title of Emperor of the Romans was not
used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French
and German emperors of old Rome.]

[Footnote 95: Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his
barbarous verse, and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras,
Cedrenus, and the Historia Miscella: voluit in urbem Romam
Imperium transferre, (l. xix. p. 157 in tom. i. pars i. of the
Scriptores Rer. Ital. of Muratori.)]

[Footnote 96: Paul. Diacon. l. v. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in
Vitis Pontificum, in Muratori's Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p.
141.]

[Footnote 97: Consult the preface of Ducange, (ad Gloss, Graec.
Medii Aevi) and the Novels of Justinian, (vii. lxvi.)]

[Footnote 98: (Matth. Blastares, Hist. Juris, apud Fabric.
Bibliot. Graec. tom. xii. p. 369.) The Code and Pandects (the
latter by Thalelaeus) were translated in the time of Justinian,
(p. 358, 366.) Theophilus one of the original triumvirs, has left
an elegant, though diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. On the
other hand, Julian, antecessor of Constantinople, (A.D. 570,)
cxx. Novellas Graecas eleganti Latinitate donavit (Heineccius,
Hist. J. R. p. 396) for the use of Italy and Africa.]

[Footnote 99: Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the
Franks or Romans, the viiith to the Greeks, the ixth to the
Arabs. A tempore Augusti Caesaris donec imperaret Tiberius
Caesar spatio circiter annorum 600 fuerunt Imperatores C. P.
Patricii, et praecipua pars exercitus Romani: extra quod,
conciliarii, scribae et populus, omnes Graeci fuerunt: deinde
regnum etiam Graecanicum factum est, (p. 96, vers. Pocock.) The
Christian and ecclesiastical studies of Abulpharagius gave him
some advantage over the more ignorant Moslems.]

[Footnote 100: Primus ex Graecorum genere in Imperio confirmatus
est; or according to another Ms. of Paulus Diaconus, (l. iii. c.
15, p. 443,) in Orasorum Imperio.]

[Footnote 101: Quia linguam, mores, vestesque mutastis, putavit
Sanctissimus Papa. (an audacious irony,) ita vos (vobis)
displicere Romanorum nomen. His nuncios, rogabant Nicephorum
Imperatorem Graecorum, ut cum Othone Imperatore Romanorum
amicitiam faceret, (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 486.)

Note: Sicut et vestem. These words follow in the text of
Liutprand, (apud Murat. Script. Ital. tom. ii. p. 486, to which
Gibbon refers.) But with some inaccuracy or confusion, which
rarely occurs in Gibbon's references, the rest of the quotation,
which as it stands is unintelligible, does not appear - M.]

[Footnote 102: By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last
siege of Constantinople, the account is thus stated, (l. i. p.
3.) Constantine transplanted his Latins of Italy to a Greek city
of Thrace: they adopted the language and manners of the natives,
who were confounded with them under the name of Romans. The
kings of Constantinople, says the historian.]

While the government of the East was transacted in Latin,
the Greek was the language of literature and philosophy; nor
could the masters of this rich and perfect idiom be tempted to
envy the borrowed learning and imitative taste of their Roman
disciples. After the fall of Paganism, the loss of Syria and
Egypt, and the extinction of the schools of Alexandria and
Athens, the studies of the Greeks insensibly retired to some
regular monasteries, and above all, to the royal college of
Constantinople, which was burnt in the reign of Leo the Isaurian.
^103 In the pompous style of the age, the president of that
foundation was named the Sun of Science: his twelve associates,
the professors in the different arts and faculties, were the
twelve signs of the zodiac; a library of thirty-six thousand five
hundred volumes was open to their inquiries; and they could show
an ancient manuscript of Homer, on a roll of parchment one
hundred and twenty feet in length, the intestines, as it was
fabled, of a prodigious serpent. ^104 But the seventh and eight
centuries were a period of discord and darkness: the library was
burnt, the college was abolished, the Iconoclasts are represented
as the foes of antiquity; and a savage ignorance and contempt of
letters has disgraced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian
dynasties. ^105

[Footnote 103: See Ducange, (C. P. Christiana, l. ii. p. 150,
151,) who collects the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at
least of Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 454,)
Michael Glycas, (p. 281,) Constantine Manasses, (p. 87.) After
refuting the absurd charge against the emperor, Spanheim, (Hist.
Imaginum, p. 99 - 111,) like a true advocate, proceeds to doubt
or deny the reality of the fire, and almost of the library.]

[Footnote 104: According to Malchus, (apud Zonar. l. xiv. p. 53,)
this Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The Ms. might be
renewed - But on a serpent's skin? Most strange and incredible!]

[Footnote 105: The words of Zonaras, and of Cedrenus, are strong
words, perhaps not ill suited to those reigns.]

In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the
restoration of science. ^106 After the fanaticism of the Arabs
had subsided, the caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather
than the provinces, of the empire: their liberal curiosity
rekindled the emulation of the Greeks, brushed away the dust from
their ancient libraries, and taught them to know and reward the
philosophers, whose labors had been hitherto repaid by the
pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Caesar Bardas,
the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of
letters, a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused
his ambition. A particle of the treasures of his nephew was
sometimes diverted from the indulgence of vice and folly; a
school was opened in the palace of Magnaura; and the presence of
Bardas excited the emulation of the masters and students. At
their head was the philosopher Leo, archbishop of Thessalonica:
his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics was admired
by the strangers of the East; and this occult science was
magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all
knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration
or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Caesar, his friend,
the celebrated Photius, ^107 renounced the freedom of a secular
and studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was
alternately excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East
and West. By the confession even of priestly hatred, no art or
science, except poetry, was foreign to this universal scholar,
who was deep in thought, indefatigable in reading, and eloquent
in diction. Whilst he exercised the office of protospathaire or
captain of the guards, Photius was sent ambassador to the caliph
of Bagdad. ^108 The tedious hours of exile, perhaps of
confinement, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his
Library, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two
hundred and fourscore writers, historians, orators, philosophers,
theologians, are reviewed without any regular method: he abridges
their narrative or doctrine, appreciates their style and
character, and judges even the fathers of the church with a
discreet freedom, which often breaks through the superstition of
the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented the defects of his
own education, intrusted to the care of Photius his son and
successor, Leo the philosopher; and the reign of that prince and
of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of the most
prosperous aeras of the Byzantine literature. By their
munificence the treasures of antiquity were deposited in the
Imperial library; by their pens, or those of their associates,
they were imparted in such extracts and abridgments as might
amuse the curiosity, without oppressing the indolence, of the
public. Besides the Basilics, or code of laws, the arts of
husbandry and war, of feeding or destroying the human species,
were propagated with equal diligence; and the history of Greece
and Rome was digested into fifty-three heads or titles, of which
two only (of embassies, and of virtues and vices) have escaped
the injuries of time. In every station, the reader might
contemplate the image of the past world, apply the lesson or
warning of each page, and learn to admire, perhaps to imitate,
the examples of a brighter period. I shall not expatiate on the
works of the Byzantine Greeks, who, by the assiduous study of the
ancients, have deserved, in some measure, the remembrance and
gratitude of the moderns. The scholars of the present age may
still enjoy the benefit of the philosophical commonplace book of
Stobaeus, the grammatical and historical lexicon of Suidas, the
Chiliads of Tzetzes, which comprise six hundred narratives in
twelve thousand verses, and the commentaries on Homer of
Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, who, from his horn of
plenty, has poured the names and authorities of four hundred
writers. From these originals, and from the numerous tribe of
scholiasts and critics, ^109 some estimate may be formed of the
literary wealth of the twelfth century: Constantinople was
enlightened by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle
and Plato: and in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches,
we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history
of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of
Menander, ^110 and the odes of Alcaeus and Sappho. The frequent
labor of illustration attests not only the existence, but the
popularity, of the Grecian classics: the general knowledge of the
age may be deduced from the example of two learned females, the
empress Eudocia, and the princess Anna Comnena, who cultivated,
in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy. ^111 The
vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous: a more
correct and elaborate style distinguished the discourse, or at
least the compositions, of the church and palace, which sometimes
affected to copy the purity of the Attic models.

[Footnote 106: See Zonaras (l. xvi. p. 160, 161) and Cedrenus,
(p. 549, 550.) Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been
transformed by ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so
undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly
ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in
Ms. are in the library of Vienna, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.
tom. vi. p 366, tom. xii. p. 781.) Qui serant!]

[Footnote 107: The ecclesiastical and literary character of
Photius is copiously discussed by Hanckius (de Scriptoribus
Byzant. p. 269, 396) and Fabricius.]

[Footnote 108: It can only mean Bagdad, the seat of the caliphs
and the relation of his embassy might have been curious and
instructive. But how did he procure his books? A library so
numerous could neither be found at Bagdad, nor transported with
his baggage, nor preserved in his memory. Yet the last, however
incredible, seems to be affirmed by Photius himself. Camusat
(Hist. Critique des Journaux, p. 87 - 94) gives a good account of
the Myriobiblon.]

[Footnote 109: Of these modern Greeks, see the respective
articles in the Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius - a laborious
work, yet susceptible of a better method and many improvements;
of Eustathius, (tom. i. p. 289 - 292, 306 - 329,) of the Pselli,
(a diatribe of Leo Allatius, ad calcem tom. v., of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, tom. vi. p. 486 - 509) of John Stobaeus, (tom.
viii., 665 - 728,) of Suidas, (tom. ix. p. 620 - 827,) John
Tzetzes, (tom. xii. p. 245 - 273.) Mr. Harris, in his
Philological Arrangements, opus senile, has given a sketch of
this Byzantine learning, (p. 287 - 300.)]

[Footnote 110: From the obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard
Vossius (de Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque
Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael
Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at
Constantinople. Yet such classic studies seem incompatible with
the gravity or dulness of a schoolman, who pored over the
categories, (de Psellis, p. 42;) and Michael has probably been
confounded with Homerus Sellius, who wrote arguments to the
comedies of Menander. In the xth century, Suidas quotes fifty
plays, but he often transcribes the old scholiast of
Aristophanes.]

[Footnote 111: Anna Comnena may boast of her Greek style, and
Zonaras her contemporary, but not her flatterer, may add with
truth. The princess was conversant with the artful dialogues of
Plato; and had studied quadrivium of astrology, geometry,
arithmetic, and music, (see he preface to the Alexiad, with
Ducange's notes)]

In our modern education, the painful though necessary
attainment of two languages, which are no longer living, may
consume the time and damp the ardor of the youthful student. The
poets and orators were long imprisoned in the barbarous dialects
of our Western ancestors, devoid of harmony or grace; and their
genius, without precept or example, was abandoned to the rule and
native powers of their judgment and fancy. But the Greeks of
Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their vulgar
speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most
happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the
sublime masters who had pleased or instructed the first of
nations. But these advantages only tend to aggravate the
reproach and shame of a degenerate people. They held in their
lifeless hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting
the spirit which had created and improved that sacred patrimony:
they read, they praised, they compiled, but their languid souls
seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution
of ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the
dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea
has been added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a
succession of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic
teachers of the next servile generation. Not a single composition
of history, philosophy, or literature, has been saved from
oblivion by the intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of
original fancy, or even of successful imitation. In prose, the
least offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from
censure by their naked and unpresuming simplicity: but the
orators, most eloquent ^112 in their own conceit, are the
farthest removed from the models whom they affect to emulate. In
every page our taste and reason are wounded by the choice of
gigantic and obsolete words, a stiff and intricate phraseology,
the discord of images, the childish play of false or unseasonable
ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves, to
astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the
smoke of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to
the vicious affectation of poetry: their poetry is sinking below
the flatness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric
muses, were silent and inglorious: the bards of Constantinople
seldom rose above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they
forgot even the rules of prosody; and with the melody of Homer
yet sounding in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and
syllables in the impotent strains which have received the name of
political or city verses. ^113 The minds of the Greek were bound
in the fetters of a base and imperious superstition which extends
her dominion round the circle of profane science. Their
understandings were bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in
the belief of visions and miracles, they had lost all principles
of moral evidence, and their taste was vitiates by the homilies
of the monks, an absurd medley of declamation and Scripture.
Even these contemptible studies were no longer dignified by the
abuse of superior talents: the leaders of the Greek church were
humbly content to admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor
did the schools of pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of
Athanasius and Chrysostom. ^114

[Footnote 112: To censure the Byzantine taste. Ducange (Praefat.
Gloss. Graec. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius,
Jerom, Petronius George Hamartolus, Longinus; who give at once
the precept and the example.]

[Footnote 113: The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as,
from their easiness, they are styled by Leo Allatius, usually
consist of fifteen syllables. They are used by Constantine
Manasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p.
i. p. 345, 346, edit. Basil, 1762.)]

[Footnote 114: As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John
Damascenus in the viiith century is revered as the last father of
the Greek, church.]

In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the
emulation of states and individuals is the most powerful spring
of the efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of
ancient Greece were cast in the happy mixture of union and
independence, which is repeated on a larger scale, but in a
looser form, by the nations of modern Europe; the union of
language, religion, and manners, which renders them the
spectators and judges of each other's merit; ^115 the
independence of government and interest, which asserts their
separate freedom, and excites them to strive for preeminence in
the career of glory. The situation of the Romans was less
favorable; yet in the early ages of the republic, which fixed the
national character, a similar emulation was kindled among the
states of Latium and Italy; and in the arts and sciences, they
aspired to equal or surpass their Grecian masters. The empire of
the Caesars undoubtedly checked the activity and progress of the
human mind; its magnitude might indeed allow some scope for
domestic competition; but when it was gradually reduced, at first
to the East and at last to Greece and Constantinople, the
Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject and languid temper,
the natural effect of their solitary and insulated state. From
the North they were oppressed by nameless tribes of Barbarians,
to whom they scarcely imparted the appellation of men. The
language and religion of the more polished Arabs were an
insurmountable bar to all social intercourse. The conquerors of
Europe were their brethren in the Christian faith; but the speech
of the Franks or Latins was unknown, their manners were rude, and
they were rarely connected, in peace or war, with the successors
of Heraclius. Alone in the universe, the self-satisfied pride of
the Greeks was not disturbed by the comparison of foreign merit;
and it is no wonder if they fainted in the race, since they had
neither competitors to urge their speed, nor judges to crown
their victory. The nations of Europe and Asia were mingled by
the expeditions to the Holy Land; and it is under the Comnenian
dynasty that a faint emulation of knowledge and military virtue
was rekindled in the Byzantine empire. [Footnote 115: Hume's
Essays, vol. i. p. 125]



Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.

Part I.

Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians. - Their Persecution
By The Greek Emperors. - Revolt In Armenia &c. - Transplantation
Into Thrace. - Propagation In The West. - The Seeds, Character,
And Consequences Of The Reformation.

In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national
characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria
and Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative
devotion: Rome again aspired to the dominion of the world; and
the wit of the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed in the
disputes of metaphysical theology. The incomprehensible
mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, instead of commanding
their silent submission, were agitated in vehement and subtile
controversies, which enlarged their faith at the expense,
perhaps, of their charity and reason. From the council of Nice
to the end of the seventh century, the peace and unity of the
church was invaded by these spiritual wars; and so deeply did
they affect the decline and fall of the empire, that the
historian has too often been compelled to attend the synods, to
explore the creeds, and to enumerate the sects, of this busy
period of ecclesiastical annals. From the beginning of the
eighth century to the last ages of the Byzantine empire, the
sound of controversy was seldom heard: curiosity was exhausted,
zeal was fatigued, and, in the decrees of six councils, the
articles of the Catholic faith had been irrevocably defined. The
spirit of dispute, however vain and pernicious, requires some
energy and exercise of the mental faculties; and the prostrate
Greeks were content to fast, to pray, and to believe in blind
obedience to the patriarch and his clergy. During a long dream of
superstition, the Virgin and the Saints, their visions and
miracles, their relics and images, were preached by the monks,
and worshipped by the people; and the appellation of people might
be extended, without injustice, to the first ranks of civil
society. At an unseasonable moment, the Isaurian emperors
attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their subjects: under their
influence reason might obtain some proselytes, a far greater
number was swayed by interest or fear; but the Eastern world
embraced or deplored their visible deities, and the restoration
of images was celebrated as the feast of orthodoxy. In this
passive and unanimous state the ecclesiastical rulers were
relieved from the toil, or deprived of the pleasure, of
persecution. The Pagans had disappeared; the Jews were silent
and obscure; the disputes with the Latins were rare and remote
hostilities against a national enemy; and the sects of Egypt and
Syria enjoyed a free toleration under the shadow of the Arabian
caliphs. About the middle of the seventh century, a branch of
Manichaeans was selected as the victims of spiritual tyranny;
their patience was at length exasperated to despair and
rebellion; and their exile has scattered over the West the seeds
of reformation. These important events will justify some inquiry
into the doctrine and story of the Paulicians; ^1 and, as they
cannot plead for themselves, our candid criticism will magnify
the good, and abate or suspect the evil, that is reported by
their adversaries.

[Footnote 1: The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are
weighed, with his usual judgment and candor, by the learned
Mosheim, (Hist. Ecclesiast. seculum ix. p. 311, &c.) He draws his
original intelligence from Photius (contra Manichaeos, l. i.) and
Peter Siculus, (Hist. Manichaeorum.) The first of these accounts
has not fallen into my hands; the second, which Mosheim prefers,
I have read in a Latin version inserted in the Maxima Bibliotheca
Patrum, (tom. xvi. p. 754 - 764,) from the edition of the Jesuit
Raderus, (Ingolstadii, 1604, in 4to.)

Note: Compare Hallam's Middle Ages, p. 461 - 471. Mr.
Hallam justly observes that this chapter "appears to be accurate
as well as luminous, and is at least far superior to any modern
work on the subject." - M.]

The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were oppressed
by the greatness and authority, of the church. Instead of
emulating or surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the
Catholics, their obscure remnant was driven from the capitals of
the East and West, and confined to the villages and mountains
along the borders of the Euphrates. Some vestige of the
Marcionites may be detected in the fifth century; ^2 but the
numerous sects were finally lost in the odious name of the
Manichaeans; and these heretics, who presumed to reconcile the
doctrines of Zoroaster and Christ, were pursued by the two
religions with equal and unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson
of Heraclius, in the neighborhood of Samosata, more famous for
the birth of Lucian than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a
reformer arose, esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen
messenger of truth. In his humble dwelling of Mananalis,
Constantine entertained a deacon, who returned from Syrian
captivity, and received the inestimable gift of the New
Testament, which was already concealed from the vulgar by the
prudence of the Greek, and perhaps of the Gnostic, clergy. ^3
These books became the measure of his studies and the rule of his
faith; and the Catholics, who dispute his interpretation,
acknowledge that his text was genuine and sincere. But he
attached himself with peculiar devotion to the writings and
character of St. Paul: the name of the Paulicians is derived by
their enemies from some unknown and domestic teacher; but I am
confident that they gloried in their affinity to the apostle of
the Gentiles. His disciples, Titus, Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus,
were represented by Constantine and his fellow-laborers: the
names of the apostolic churches were applied to the congregations
which they assembled in Armenia and Cappadocia; and this innocent
allegory revived the example and memory of the first ages. In
the Gospel, and the Epistles of St. Paul, his faithful follower
investigated the Creed of primitive Christianity; and, whatever
might be the success, a Protestant reader will applaud the
spirit, of the inquiry. But if the Scriptures of the Paulicians
were pure, they were not perfect. Their founders rejected the two
Epistles of St. Peter, ^4 the apostle of the circumcision, whose
dispute with their favorite for the observance of the law could
not easily be forgiven. ^5 They agreed with their Gnostic
brethren in the universal contempt for the Old Testament, the
books of Moses and the prophets, which have been consecrated by
the decrees of the Catholic church. With equal boldness, and
doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus,
disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and splendid
volumes, had been published by the Oriental sects; ^6 the
fabulous productions of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of
the East; the spurious gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the
first age had overwhelmed the orthodox code; the theology of
Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies; and the thirty
generations, or aeons, which had been created by the fruitful
fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned the
memory and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the
injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple
votaries of St. Paul and of Christ.

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