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

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[Footnote 27: See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell' Imperio
Ottomano, p. 24.]

In the West, the first teachers of the Manichaean theology
had been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince.
The favor and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries must be imputed to the strong, though secret,
discontent which armed the most pious Christians against the
church of Rome. Her avarice was oppressive, her despotism
odious; less degenerate perhaps than the Greeks in the worship of
saints and images, her innovations were more rapid and
scandalous: she had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine
of transubstantiation: the lives of the Latin clergy were more
corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of
the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly prelates, who
wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three
different roads might introduce the Paulicians into the heart of
Europe. After the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims who
visited Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube:
in their journey and return they passed through Philippopolis;
and the sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might
accompany the French or German caravans to their respective
countries. The trade and dominion of Venice pervaded the coast
of the Adriatic, and the hospitable republic opened her bosom to
foreigners of every climate and religion. Under the Byzantine
standard, the Paulicians were often transported to the Greek
provinces of Italy and Sicily: in peace and war, they freely
conversed with strangers and natives, and their opinions were
silently propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the
Alps. ^28 It was soon discovered, that many thousand Catholics of
every rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean
heresy; and the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans
was the first act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians, ^29
a name so innocent in its origin, so odious in its application,
spread their branches over the face of Europe. United in common
hatred of idolatry and Rome, they were connected by a form of
episcopal and presbyterian government; their various sects were
discriminated by some fainter or darker shades of theology; but
they generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the
Old Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the
cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple worship and
blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was
their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations
were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who
practised, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of
the Albigeois, ^30 in the southern provinces of France, that the
Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes
of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the
neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth
century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern
emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of
Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc:
Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It
was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of
the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by
the founders of the Inquisition; ^31 an office more adapted to
confirm, than to refute, the belief of an evil principle. The
visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were
extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by
flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible
spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the
Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the
cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of
St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the
Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the
visions of the Gnostic theology. ^* The struggles of Wickliff in
England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual; but
the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced with
gratitude as the deliverers of nations.

[Footnote 28: The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and
France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lx. p. 81 - 152) and Mosheim, (p. 379 -
382, 419 - 422.) Yet both have overlooked a curious passage of
William the Apulian, who clearly describes them in a battle
between the Greeks and Normans, A.D. 1040, (in Muratori, Script.
Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 256: )

Cum Graecis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error

Fecerat amentes, et ab ipso nomen habebant.]

But he is so ignorant of their doctrine as to make them a kind of
Sabellians or Patripassians.]

[Footnote 29: Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation,
has been applied by the French as a term of reproach to usurers
and unnatural sinners. The Paterini, or Patelini, has been made
to signify a smooth and flattering hypocrite, such as l'Avocat
Patelin of that original and pleasant farce, (Ducange, Gloss.
Latinitat. Medii et Infimi Aevi.) The Manichaeans were likewise
named Cathari or the pure, by corruption. Gazari, &c.]

[Footnote 30: Of the laws, crusade, and persecution against the
Albigeois, a just, though general, idea is expressed by Mosheim,
(p. 477 - 481.) The detail may be found in the ecclesiastical
historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and
amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate.]

[Footnote 31: The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of
Tholouse (A.D. 1307 - 1323) have been published by Limborch,
(Amstelodami, 1692,) with a previous History of the Inquisition
in general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor.
As we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will
observe, that of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio
pages, only fifteen men and four women were delivered to the
secular arm.]

[Footnote *: The popularity of "Milner's History of the Church"
with some readers, may make it proper to observe, that his
attempt to exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of Gnosticism
or Manicheism is in direct defiance, if not in ignorance, of all
the original authorities. Gibbon himself, it appears, was not
acquainted with the work of Photius, "Contra Manicheos
Repullulantes," the first book of which was edited by Montfaucon,
Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p. 349, 375, the whole by Wolf,
in his Anecdota Graeca. Hamburg 1722. Compare a very sensible
tract. Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G. Dowling, M. A.
London, 1835. - M.]

A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and
the value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what
articles of faith, above or against our reason, they have
enfranchised the Christians; for such enfranchisement is
doubtless a benefit so far as it may be compatible with truth and
piety. After a fair discussion, we shall rather be surprised by
the timidity, than scandalized by the freedom, of our first
reformers. ^32 With the Jews, they adopted the belief and defence
of all the Hebrew Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the
garden of Eden to the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they
were bound, like the Catholics, to justify against the Jews the
abolition of a divine law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity
and Incarnation the reformers were severely orthodox: they freely
adopted the theology of the four, or the six first councils; and
with the Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation
of all who did not believe the Catholic faith.
Transubstantiation, the invisible change of the bread and wine
into the body and blood of Christ, is a tenet that may defy the
power of argument and pleasantry; but instead of consulting the
evidence of their senses, of their sight, their feeling, and
their taste, the first Protestants were entangled in their own
scruples, and awed by the words of Jesus in the institution of
the sacrament. Luther maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real,
presence of Christ in the eucharist; and the opinion of
Zuinglius, that it is no more than a spiritual communion, a
simple memorial, has slowly prevailed in the reformed churches.
^33 But the loss of one mystery was amply compensated by the
stupendous doctrines of original sin, redemption, faith, grace,
and predestination, which have been strained from the epistles of
St. Paul. These subtile questions had most assuredly been
prepared by the fathers and schoolmen; but the final improvement
and popular use may be attributed to the first reformers, who
enforced them as the absolute and essential terms of salvation.
Hitherto the weight of supernatural belief inclines against the
Protestants; and many a sober Christian would rather admit that a
wafer is God, than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

[Footnote 32: The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are
exposed in the second part of the general history of Mosheim; but
the balance, which he has held with so clear an eye, and so
steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran
brethren.]

[Footnote 33: Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and
perfect, but in the fundamental articles of the church of
England, a strong and explicit declaration against the real
presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the
people or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet's History of
the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 82, 128, 302.)]

Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and
important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these
fearless enthusiasts. ^34 I. By their hands the lofty fabric of
superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercesson of
the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both
sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and
labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of
imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their
temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial
happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church;
and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the
daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of
Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer
and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of
the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime
simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the
vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be
inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and
indifference. II. The chain of authority was broken, which
restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave
from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils,
were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world;
and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the
Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom,
however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the
Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding
the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal
rigor their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of
the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or
personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus ^35 the guilt
of his own rebellion; ^36 and the flames of Smithfield, in which
he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists
by the zeal of Cranmer. ^37 The nature of the tiger wa s the
same, but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A
spiritual and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman
pontiff; the Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank,
without revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by
the antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and
disputes were submitted to the people; and their appeal to
private judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity
and enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret
reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the
reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and
the disciples of Erasmus ^38 diffused a spirit of freedom and
moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a
common benefit, an inalienable right: ^39 the free governments of
Holland ^40 and England ^41 introduced the practice of
toleration; and the narrow allowance of the laws has been
enlarged by the prudence and humanity of the times. In the
exercise, the mind has understood the limits of its powers, and
the words and shadows that might amuse the child can no longer
satisfy his manly reason. The volumes of controversy are
overspread with cobwebs: the doctrine of a Protestant church is
far removed from the knowledge or belief of its private members;
and the forms of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed
with a sigh, or a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends
of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry
and scepticism. The predictions of the Catholics are
accomplished: the web of mystery is unravelled by the Arminians,
Arians, and Socinians, whose number must not be computed from
their separate congregations; and the pillars of Revelation are
shaken by those men who preserve the name without the substance
of religion, who indulge the license without the temper of
philosophy. ^42 ^*

[Footnote 34: "Had it not been for such men as Luther and
myself," said the fanatic Whiston to Halley the philosopher, "you
would now be kneeling before an image of St. Winifred."]

[Footnote 35: The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique
of Chauffepie is the best account which I have seen of this
shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbe d'Artigny, Nouveaux
Memoires d'Histoire, &c., tom. ii. p. 55 - 154.]

[Footnote 36: I am more deeply scandalized at the single
execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in
the Auto de Fes of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal of Calvin
seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps
envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the
judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred
trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was
not varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state.
In his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger,
who neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A
Catholic inquisition yields the same obedience which he requires,
but Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would be done
by; a rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates (in
Nicocle, tom. i. p. 93, edit. Battie) four hundred years before
the publication of the Gospel.

Note: Gibbon has not accurately rendered the sense of this
passage, which does not contain the maxim of charity Do unto
others as you would they should do unto you, but simply the maxim
of justice, Do not to others the which would offend you if they
should do it to you. - G.]

[Footnote 37: See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84 - 86. The sense and
humanity of the young king were oppressed by the authority of the
primate.]

[Footnote 38: Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational
theology. After a slumber of a hundred years, it was revived by
the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Limborch, and Le Clerc; in
England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge,
(Burnet, Hist. of Own Times, vol. i. p. 261 - 268, octavo
edition.) Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.]

[Footnote 39: I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of
the last age, by whom the rights of toleration have been so nobly
defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and
philosophers.]

[Footnote 40: See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on
the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with
Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. l. i. p. 13, 14, edit. in
12mo.,) who approves the Imperial laws of persecution, and only
condemns the bloody tribunal of the inquisition.]

[Footnote 41: Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p.
53, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the
Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the
Trinity, would still have a tolerable scope for persecution if
the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred
statutes.]

[Footnote 42: I shall recommend to public animadversion two
passages in Dr. Priestley, which betray the ultimate tendency of
his opinions. At the first of these (Hist. of the Corruptions of
Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276) the priest, at the second
(vol. ii. p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble!]

[Footnote *: There is something ludicrous, if it were not
offensive, in Gibbon holding up to "public animadversion" the
opinions of any believer in Christianity, however imperfect his
creed. The observations which the whole of this passage on the
effects of the reformation, in which much truth and justice is
mingled with much prejudice, would suggest, could not possibly be
compressed into a note; and would indeed embrace the whole
religious and irreligious history of the time which has elapsed
since Gibbon wrote. - M.]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.

Part I.

The Bulgarians. - Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The
Hungarians. - Their Inroads In The East And West. - The Monarchy
Of Russia. - Geography And Trade. - Wars Of The Russians Against
The Greek Empire. - Conversion Of The Barbarians.

Under the reign of Constantine the grandson of Heraclius,
the ancient barrier of the Danube, so often violated and so often
restored, was irretrievably swept away by a new deluge of
Barbarians. Their progress was favored by the caliphs, their
unknown and accidental auxiliaries: the Roman legions were
occupied in Asia; and after the loss of Syria, Egypt, and Africa,
the Caesars were twice reduced to the danger and disgrace of
defending their capital against the Saracens. If, in the account
of this interesting people, I have deviated from the strict and
original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will
hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the
West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and
in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity:
the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be
imputed to their arms; and the disciples of Mahomet still hold
the civil and religious sceptre of the Oriental world. But the
same labor would be unworthily bestowed on the swarms of savages,
who, between the seventh and the twelfth century, descended from
the plains of Scythia, in transient inroad or perpetual
emigration. ^1 Their names are uncouth, their origins doubtful,
their actions obscure, their superstition was blind, their valor
brutal, and the uniformity of their public and private lives was
neither softened by innocence nor refined by policy. The majesty
of the Byzantine throne repelled and survived their disorderly
attacks; the greater part of these Barbarians has disappeared
without leaving any memorial of their existence, and the
despicable remnant continues, and may long continue, to groan
under the dominion of a foreign tyrant. From the antiquities of,
I. Bulgarians, II. Hungarians, and, III. Russians, I shall
content myself with selecting such facts as yet deserve to be
remembered. The conquests of the, IV. Normans, and the monarchy
of the, V. Turks, will naturally terminate in the memorable
Crusades to the Holy Land, and the double fall of the city and
empire of Constantine.

[Footnote 1: All the passages of the Byzantine history which
relate to the Barbarians are compiled, methodized, and
transcribed, in a Latin version, by the laborious John Gotthelf
Stritter, in his "Memoriae Populorum, ad Danubium, Pontum
Euxinum, Paludem Maeotidem, Caucasum, Mare Caspium, et inde Magis
ad Septemtriones incolentium." Petropoli, 1771 - 1779; in four
tomes, or six volumes, in 4to. But the fashion has not enhanced
the price of these raw materials.]

I. In his march to Italy, Theodoric ^2 the Ostrogoth had
trampled on the arms of the Bulgarians. After this defeat, the
name and the nation are lost during a century and a half; and it
may be suspected that the same or a similar appellation was
revived by strange colonies from the Borysthenes, the Tanais, or
the Volga. A king of the ancient Bulgaria, bequeathed to his
five sons a last lesson of moderation and concord. It was
received as youth has ever received the counsels of age and
experience: the five princes buried their father; divided his
subjects and cattle; forgot his advice; separated from each
other; and wandered in quest of fortune till we find the most
adventurous in the heart of Italy, under the protection of the
exarch of Ravenna. ^4 But the stream of emigration was directed
or impelled towards the capital. The modern Bulgaria, along the
southern banks of the Danube, was stamped with the name and image
which it has retained to the present hour: the new conquerors
successively acquired, by war or treaty, the Roman provinces of
Dardania, Thessaly, and the two Epirus; ^5 the ecclesiastical
supremacy was translated from the native city of Justinian; and,
in their prosperous age, the obscure town of Lychnidus, or
Achrida, was honored with the throne of a king and a patriarch.
^6 The unquestionable evidence of language attests the descent of
the Bulgarians from the original stock of the Sclavonian, or more
properly Slavonian, race; ^7 and the kindred bands of Servians,
Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Walachians, ^8 &c., followed
either the standard or the example of the leading tribe. From
the Euxine to the Adriatic, in the state of captives, or
subjects, or allies, or enemies, of the Greek empire, they
overspread the land; and the national appellation of the slaves
^9 has been degraded by chance or malice from the signification
of glory to that of servitude. ^10 Among these colonies, the
Chrobatians, ^11 or Croats, who now attend the motions of an
Austrian army, are the descendants of a mighty people, the
conquerors and sovereigns of Dalmatia. The maritime cities, and
of these the infant republic of Ragusa, implored the aid and
instructions of the Byzantine court: they were advised by the
magnanimous Basil to reserve a small acknowledgment of their
fidelity to the Roman empire, and to appease, by an annual
tribute, the wrath of these irresistible Barbarians. The kingdom
of Crotia was shared by eleven Zoupans, or feudatory lords; and
their united forces were numbered at sixty thousand horse and one
hundred thousand foot. A long sea-coast, indented with capacious
harbors, covered with a string of islands, and almost in sight of
the Italian shores, disposed both the natives and strangers to
the practice of navigation. The boats or brigantines of the
Croats were constructed after the fashion of the old Liburnians:
one hundred and eighty vessels may excite the idea of a
respectable navy; but our seamen will smile at the allowance of
ten, or twenty, or forty, men for each of these ships of war.
They were gradually converted to the more honorable service of
commerce; yet the Sclavonian pirates were still frequent and
dangerous; and it was not before the close of the tenth century
that the freedom and sovereignty of the Gulf were effectually
vindicated by the Venetian republic. ^12 The ancestors of these
Dalmatian kings were equally removed from the use and abuse of
navigation: they dwelt in the White Croatia, in the inland
regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days' journey,
according to the Greek computation, from the sea of darkness.

[Footnote 2: Hist. vol. iv. p. 11.]

[Footnote 3: Theophanes, p. 296 - 299. Anastasius, p. 113.
Nicephorus, C. P. p. 22, 23. Theophanes places the old Bulgaria
on the banks of the Atell or Volga; but he deprives himself of
all geographical credit by discharging that river into the Euxine
Sea.]

[Footnote 4: Paul. Diacon. de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 29, p.
881, 882. The apparent difference between the Lombard historian
and the above- mentioned Greeks, is easily reconciled by Camillo
Pellegrino (de Ducatu Beneventano, dissert. vii. in the
Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. v. p. 186, 187) and Beretti,
(Chorograph. Italiae Medii Aevi, p. 273, &c. This Bulgarian
colony was planted in a vacant district of Samnium, and learned
the Latin, without forgetting their native language.]

[Footnote 5: These provinces of the Greek idiom and empire are
assigned to the Bulgarian kingdom in the dispute of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction between the patriarchs of Rome and
Constantinople, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 869, No. 75.)]

[Footnote 6: The situation and royalty of Lychnidus, or Achrida,
are clearly expressed in Cedrenus, (p. 713.) The removal of an
archbishop or patriarch from Justinianea prima to Lychnidus, and
at length to Ternovo, has produced some perplexity in the ideas
or language of the Greeks, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. ii. c. 2, p.
14, 15. Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. l. i. c. 19,
23;) and a Frenchman (D'Anville) is more accurately skilled in
the geography of their own country, (Hist. de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxxi.)]