society, whose taste had long lost all relish for truth and simplicity.

A veneration for departed excellence is one of the most natural and praiseworthy principles of our nature; hence no one can blame the early Christians for visiting with respect the tombs of those who died beneath heathen tortures rather than renounce their faith. But, gradually, simple respect was converted into religious adoration; the bodies and reliques of the martyrs and confessors were taken from their peaceful and obscure places of rest, and solemnly enshrined in stately churches, where, by the devout, they were viewed with awful veneration, and to whose sanctity they were held largely to contribute.

If such honours were paid to the mortal remains of the champions for Christ, of how much greater were they themselves to be held worthy! It soon became an established article of faith, that the apostles and other eminent saints were at once admitted to the beatific vision and immediate presence of God, where they enjoyed an extent of knowledge and a measure of power to which limits could not easily be set. The transition was easy to an invocation of them, to exert their own power for their suppliant, or intercede with God in his favour; and the worship of saints was speedily disseminated through the Christian world. The bodies which the saints had occupied when on earth were supposed to retain or to have acquired a portion of this power: they too were adored; and, shortly after, this honour was extended to their images. Each saint was held to be most easily propitiated at the place where his reliques lay, or his life had been spent, and hence the origin of pilgrimages.

In effect, the theory devised by Euhemerus, to account for the origin of Grecian polytheism, was exactly applicable to a great part of the religion now called Christianity; and we shall have completed the picture when we add the number of pretended miracles that were every day asserted with the most unblushing assurance,

and the quantity of Jewish and heathen ceremonies that was rapidly introduced into the church, which still rose in error, till, amidst the gloom of the dark ages, in transubstantiation the cope-stone was laid on the antiChristian edifice.

This is the religion which will appear in the next twelve centuries of our history, and to which our future remarks will apply. We must, however, in justice add, that the torrent of corruption was nobly stemmed by some, such as Vigilantius; that many of the corruptors knew not what they did; and that much of the gold still remained among the dross.

CHAP. X.

DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE.

A. D.

Successors of Constantine.

357. CONSTANTINE II. obtained Gaul and Britain: Constans Italy, Illyria, and Africa; Constantius had the East. Their cousins, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, had been made Cæsars by their uncle: the former governed Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece; the latter, Armenia.

The Cæsars were murdered by their soldiers, not without the approbation of the emperors, each of whom thirsted for absolute sway. Constantine attempted to deprive his brother of Italy, and lost his life in a battle 340. against him near Aquileia. Constans, a prince not devoid of talent, was devoted to and passed his days in the practice of unnatural lusts. Magnentius conspired against him, and he was surprised and slain in a wood 350. at the foot of the Pyrenees, whither he was in the habit of retiring with his favourites. Magnentius attempted to seize his dominions; but Illyria refused obedience, and made Vetranio, an old and worthy officer, emperor.

Constantius, committing the war which he was waging, with little success, against Shahpoor, king of Persia, to his cousin Gallus, whom he had made Cæsar, marched to the West. Vetranio cheerfully resigned his dignity for an annual pension. Italy declared for Constantius; and Rome suffered a cruel vengeance from Magnentius, ere he marched to meet his rival. A series of bloody engagements ensued. On the plains of Hungary the last decisive one was fought, which re-united the empire under a single sceptre. Magnentius, to save

them from disgrace, slew his own mother, and one of his brothers, and then himself; and his example was followed by his brother Decentius. The Cæsar Gallus was A. D. executed shortly afterwards for some offences, by order 354. of the emperor.

Julian, the brother of Gallus, had been reared up at the court of Constantius. His habits were studious, his sentiments virtuous. Disgusted with what he saw around him, he sought relief in the contemplation of the noble characters of Greek and Roman story, whom he made his models. He carried his veneration for his loved antiquity so far as to renounce the Christian religion in which he had been reared, and secretly to embrace the ancient system of Greece and Rome, refined by the allegorising subtilty of the school of the New Platonists; and resolved to restore it to its former dignity if ever the empire should fall to him.

The Franks and Allemanni were now causing extreme uneasiness to Gaul, and the emperor was obliged to send thither, with the rank of Cæsar, his nephew, But whom he held cheap as a book-learned dreamer. Julian showed, as other men of mental power often have done, that study and learning disqualify not for action. He arranged the most judicious plan for conducting the war, and gave the Allemanni, whose troops under their chief Chnodomar were three times the number of his army, a most decisive defeat in the neighbourhood of Strasburg. He marched all through their territory, reduced them and the Franks to sue for

A. D. 361.

peace, and restored the frontiers of the empire. He diminished the burdens of Gaul, and caused justice to be administered with speed and impartiality. His army saluted him Augustus; and Constantius, on receiving the intelligence in Cilicia, died, it is said, of grief and mortification.

Julian, when seated on the throne, openly professed the ancient religion of the empire. The temples of the gods were again opened, the priests restored to their ancient dignity, and the zealous emperor sought to purify their morals. All practices and institutions to which Christianity appeared to him to have owed its success were engrafted on the old religion: preachers were placed in the temples; excommunication employed against obstinate sinners; large sums distributed in alms among the poor. An example of strict and rigid morals was set by the emperor; the utmost moderation prevailed in the palace; the eunuchs and other ministers of luxury were removed. Favour in the distribution of employments was naturally shown to those who agreed in sentiment with the monarch; but Julian, though superstitious, was too politic, if not too humane, to persecute the Christians. Toleration prevailed; bishops who had been deposed from their sees were restored; the cessation of mutual persecution for opinion enjoined; Arians and Athanasians - for the dispute respecting the divine nature of Jesus Christ had split the church into these parties - compelled to live in peace. The politic emperor hoped, perhaps, by division to weaken his opponents.

From these cares Julian was called away to the defence of the eastern frontier against Shahpoor, who, probably aware of the growing disaffection of the Christians, had begun to make inroads. Julian marched to Mesopotamia, where, deceived by a pretended deserter, who undertook to lead him by a nearer road, he got into the deserts, where his army was exposed to the attacks of the light cavalry of the enemy. He resolved on giving battle; but just as he was preparing for action,

he was mortally wounded, and he died, encouraging his officers to do their duty.

A. D.

On the death of Julian, the army invested with the 363. purple Jovian, a Pannonian, a man of talent, and so zealous a Christian, that he had thereby incurred the displeasure of the late emperor. He was compelled to surrender the strong fortress of Nisibis to Shahpoor, as the condition of peace. Before he reached Constantinople he died.

The army chose another Pannonian, Valentinian, to 364. succeed; and he, with their assent, shared the dignity with his brother Valens, to whom he committed the care of the eastern part of the empire, himself taking charge of the West. Valentinian was a valiant prince; and he distinguished himself in war against the Saxons, Allemanni, and Sarmatians, and built fortresses along the Rhine. Want of self-command was his great defect. Valens was of a less noble character, and he exercised great cruelty against those who set up claims to his empire, or differed from his theological sentiments.

The internal corruption and weakness of the empire still increased; the court more and more every day approximated to the idle pomp, the secret influence of women and eunuchs, the inaccessibleness of the monarch, the horrid cruelty which distinguished those of the East. Barbarous punishments, such as Rome had hardly seen under the worst of her heathen monarchs, were inflicted by these emperors. The discipline of the legions continually relaxed; their armour was lightened; the infantry diminished, and cavalry increased. The garrisons of frontier towns took to civil occupations. The best of the legions were composed of barbarians, who had been taken into the imperial pay. These often refused to fight against their own countrymen; often betrayed the Romans; mocked at all discipline; robbed and plundered the country; forced their emperors to give battle when it pleased them, how unfavourable soever the circumstances might be. When military virtue was lost, all was gone, for civil virtue had long since departed.