CHAP. III. THE GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN 1 VII. Phocas put 610. PHOCAS, the Greek emperor, was deposed and put CENT. to death by Heraclius in the year 610. He was one of the most vicious and profligate tyrants, and may be compared with Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. to death by Since the days of Constantine such characters had Heraclius. been exceeding rare. For such was the benign A. D. influence of the Gospel, that even amidst all the corruptions and abuses of it, which were now so numerous, a decency of character and conduct, unknown to their Pagan predecessors, was supported by the emperors in general. Heraclius, the successor of Phocas, reigned thirty years. In the beginning of his reign the Persians desolated the eastern part of the empire, and made themselves masters of Jerusalem. While Asia groaned under their cruelties and oppressions, and was afflicted with scourge after scourge, for her long abuse of the best gift of God, an opportunity was given for the exercise of Christian graces to a bishop of a Church, which had long ceased to produce Christian fruit. * This was John, bishop of Alexandria, called the Almoner, on account of his extensive liberality. He daily supplied with necessaries those who flocked into Egypt, after they had escaped the Persian arms. He sent to Jerusalem the most ample relief for such as remained there: he ransomed captives; placed the sick and wounded in hospitals, and visited them, in person, two or three times a week. He even seems to have interpreted too strictly the sacred rule, "of giving to him that asketh of thee." His spirit *Fleury, XXXVII. 19. III. CHAP. however was noble; "Should the whole world come to Alexandria," said he, "they could not exhaust the treasures of God." The Nile not having risen to its usual height, there was a barren season; provisions were scarce, and crowds of refugees still poured into Alexandria. John continued, however, his liberal donatives, till he had neither money, nor credit. The prayer of faith was his resource, and he still persevered in hope. He even refused a very tempting offer of a person, who would have bribed him with a large present, that he might be ordained deacon. "As to my brethren the poor," said the holy prelate, "God, who fed them, before you and I were born, will take care to feed them now, if we obey him." Soon afterward he heard of the arrival of two large ships, which he had sent into Sicily for corn. "I thank thee, O Lord," cried the bishop in a rapture of joy, "that thou hast kept me from selling thy gift for money. From the beginning of his bishopric he supported 7500 poor persons by daily alms. He was accessible to them on all occasions; and what is most material, divine faith seems to have influenced his acts of love. “If God," said he, "allow us to enter into his house at all times, and if we wish him speedily to hear us, how ought we to conduct ourselves toward our brethren?" He constantly studied the Scriptures, and, in his conversation, was instructive and exemplary. Slander and evil-speaking he peculiarly disliked. If any person in his presence was guilty in this respect, he would give another turn to the discourse. If the person still persisted, he would direct his servant not to admit him any more. The long course of heresy, licentiousness, and ambition, which had filled the Alexandrian Church, supported by the shameful examples of such pastors as Theophilus and other profligate men, must have reduced it to the lowest ebb; and I wonder not to find, that persons behaved indecently, even in public worship. John, one day seeing several leave the church after the reading of the Gospel, went out also and sat down among them. "Children," said he, "the shepherd should be with his flock; I could pray at home, but I cannot preach at home." By doing this twice, he reformed the abuse. Let it be marked, as an evidence of the zeal of this prelate, who, like another Josiah, seems to have been sent to reform a falling church, that the preaching of the word engaged much of his heart. The contempt of preaching is a certain token of extreme degeneracy. CENT. VII. able Canon Paris. A canon was made at Paris, in a council, in the Remarkyear 614, the same year in which Jerusalem was made in a taken, which enjoins that he shall be ordained to Council at succeed a deceased bishop, who shall be chosen by A. D. the archbishop, together with the bishops of the pro- 614. vince, the clergy and the people, without any pros- In the same pect of gain: if the ordination be conducted other-year the wise through compulsion or neglect, the election shall take Jerube void. The intelligent reader will hence judge of salem, the state of ecclesiastical polity at that time. In 616 John the Almoner departed from Alexandria, for fear of the Persians, and died soon after in Cyprus, in the same spirit in which he had lived; and with him ends all that is worth recording of the church of Alexandria. In the same year the haughty Chosroes, king of Persia, having conquered Alexandria and Egypt, and taken Chalcedon, Heraclius, who saw the ruin of his empire approaching, begged for peace. "That I will never consent to," replied the tyrant, "till you renounce him who was crucified, whom "you call God, and with me adore the sun." If one compare Chosroes and Heraclius, their personal characters will not appear intrinsically different. In one is seen a daring blasphemer of Christ, in the other a nominal professor of his religion, whose life brought no honour to the name, Their ostensible Persians CHAP. characters in the world were, however, extremely different. The Lord, who is a jealous God, has ever been used to confound his open enemies in the view of all mankind. Chosroes was a second Sennacherib, and he was treated as such by the Sovereign of the universe. The spirit of Heraclius was roused, and God gave him wonderful success: the Persian king was repeatedly vanquished, though he ceased not to persecute the Christians, so long as he had power; and after he had lost the greatest part of his dominions, he was murdered by his own son, as was the case with Sennacherib, and in the year 628 the Persian power ceased to be formidable to the Roman empire *. It is not without reason that St. Paul exhorts us "to shun profane and vain babblings; because their word will eat like a canker †." The Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, opposite extremes, the one dividing the person, the other confounding the two natures of Jesus Christ, though condemned by councils, still flourished in great vigour in the east. And the resistance of the orthodox had little effect, for want of the energy of true spiritual life, which still. subsisted in a measure in the west. For there the sound doctrine of grace, the guard of true humility, was an ensign around which truly pious men were wont to rally their strength from time to time. But, in Asia and Egypt, religion was for the most part The Mono- heartless speculation. And about the year 630 the Eutychian heresy produced another, the Monothelite, A. D. which ascribed only one will to Jesus Christ. This 630. opinion was the natural consequence of that, which gave him only one nature. Theodore, bishop of Pharan in Arabia, first started this notion, which was also readily received by Sergius, bishop of Constantinople, whose parents had been Eutychians. Fleury, B. XXXVII. 34. Fleury, XLVII. 41. thelite he resy. 2 Tim. ii. 16, 17. VIL Cyrus, who soon after was made bishop of Alexan- CENT. dria, supported the same heresy. The ambiguous subtilties of the party drew the emperor Heraclius into the same net, and the east was rapidly overspread with the heresy. opposes heresy. A. D. 633 In a council at Alexandria, Sophronius, a man of Sophronius sincerity and simplicity, and formerly the disciple of John the Almoner, with tears bewailed and protested against the innovation, but in vain. Having been elected bishop of Jerusalem in 629, he afterwards in 633 exerted his authority against the growing heresy, but with meekness of wisdom. In a synodical letter he explained with equal solidity and accuracy the divine and human operations of Jesus Christ, and gave pertinent instances of both *. "When he thought fit, he gave his human nature an opportunity to act or to suffer whatever belonged to it. His incarnation was no fancy, and he always acted voluntarily. Jesus Christ, as God, willingly took on himself human nature, and he willingly suffered in his flesh to save us, and, by his merits, to free us from suffering. His body was subject to our natural and innocent passions: he permitted it to suffer, according to its nature, till his resurrection; then he freed himself from all that is corruptible in our nature, that he might deliver us from the same." Sophronius recommends himself to the prayers of Sergius, to whom he writes, and adds, "pray for our emperors," he means Heraclius and his son, *that God may give them victory over all the barbarians; particularly, that he would humble the pride of the Saracens, who for our sins have suddenly risen upon us, and lay all waste with fierce barbarity and impious confidence." Thus, in the lowest times of evangelical religion, God ever raised up men who understood the truth, and knew how to defend it by sound argument, a * Fleury, XXXVIII. 5. |