Chapter VIII. II.—The Seventh Seal Opened

3.—And there were Lightnings

Thunders are international wars, whose echoes reverberate through the heavens of the respective states; while lightnings denote civil discord and revolutions in the government.

The tragic voice which announced the murder of the Emperor Constans by the agents of Magnentius A. D. 350, developed an important revolution. The authority of the regicide was acknowledged through the whole extent of the two great præfectures of Gaul and Italy; and the usurper prepared by every act of oppression, to collect a treasure to supply the expenses of a civil war.

The intelligence of this revolution which so deeply affected the honor and safety of the House of Constantine, recalled the arms of Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the Persian war. He consigned the East to his lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus, whom he raised from a prison to a throne; and marched toward Europe, with a mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and indignation. He rejected the ignominious terms of peace that were offered to him, with disdain; put the usurper’s ambassadors in irons, and prepared to wage implacable war. as became the Chief Bishop of the Apostasy!

p. 372 The contest with Magnentius was serious and sanguinary. He advanced with rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at the head of a numerous army of Gauls, Spaniards, Franks, and Saxons. During the greater part of the summer he operated in the fertile plains of the lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the Save, and the Danube, where he showed himself the master of the field. The humbled pride of Constantius condescended to solicit a treaty of peace, which would have resigned to Magnentius the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. But the haughty usurper replied by detaining the ambassador in captivity, and despatching an officer to reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise of a pardon, if he would instantly abdicate the purple. This, however, he declined to do, and answered that “he should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of an avenging Deity.”

The two armies were confronted in order of battle upon a naked and level plain round the city of Mursa, which has always been considered as a place of importance in the wars of Hungary. On this ground, Sep. 28, A. D. 351, the army of Constantius formed, with the Drave upon its right; while the left extended far beyond the right flank of Magnentius. Upon this host the son of Constantine bestowed an eloquent speech, and then retiring into a church at a safe distance from the battle-field, committed to his generals the conduct of this decisive day. They deserved his confidence by the valor and skill they exerted. Once began, the engagement soon became general, and was scarcely ended with the darkness of night. Victory declared for the imperialists. The number of the slain was computed at fifty-four thousand men, and the slaughter of the victors was more considerable than that of the vanquished; a circumstance that proves the obstinacy of the contest, and justifies the remark of an ancient author, that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal battle of Mursa, by the loss of a veteran army, sufficient to defend the frontiers, or to add new triumphs to the glory of Rome.

After this fatal overthrow, the pride of Magnentius was reduced by repeated misfortunes, to sue, and to sue in vain, for peace. On Aug. 10, A. D. 353, the bloody combat of Mount Seleucus completely broke the usurper’s power. He was unable to bring another army into the field; the fidelity of his guards was corrupted; and they saluted him with shouts of “Long live the Emperor Constantius!” Perceiving by this that all was lost, he prevented their design of delivering him up to his enemy, by the easier and less p. 373 ignominious death of falling upon his sword. Magnentius being removed, the public tranquillity was confirmed by the execution of the leaders who survived. A severe inquisition was extended over all, who either from choice or compulsion, had been involved in the rebellion. The most innocent subjects of the west were exposed to exile and confiscation, to death and torture; and as the timid are always cruel, the mind of Constantius, the Bishop of Bishops, was inaccessible to mercy.

These lightnings having ceased to scatter their deadly bolts, the international thunders between the catholic empire and the barbarians of Germany, began to roll as we have already related. They were the echoes of these lightnings; for during the civil war, in the blindness of his fury, Constantius abandoned to the Franks and Allemanni the countries of Gaul, which still acknowledged the authority of his rival. He invited them to cross the Rhine, by presents and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant of all the territory they might be able to subdue. The rapacity of his barbarian allies being thus excited, when he had no further use for them he discovered and lamented the difficulty of dismissing them, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil. They refused to retire, and treating, as their natural enemies, all the subjects of the empire, pillaged and destroyed at pleasure. To relieve the country of this scourge, Julian was sent to Gaul to thunder upon them, as already related in section 2.

While the Gallic legions and barbarians were thundering upon the Rhine, the Quadi and Sarmatians, against Constantius and his Illyrian forces, were thundering upon the Danube. Thus, at the same time, “there were thunders” on the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates. Julian and Constantius were both victorious in Gaul and Illyricum; and the praises of Julian were everywhere repeated, except in the palace of Constantius, who was jealous of his popularity, and determined, if possible, to deprive him of his power.

In April A. D. 360, while attending to the public affairs in Paris, Julian was surprised by the hasty arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders from the emperor, that four entire legions, and three hundred of the bravest from each of the remaining bands, should instantly begin their march for the frontiers of Persia. This numerous detachment constituted the strength of the Gallic army, which loved and admired Julian; despised, and perhaps, hated Constantius; and dreaded the laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of Asia. If Julian complied with the orders he had received, he subscribed his own destruction, and that p. 374 of the people, who would again be exposed to the invasion of the Germans. But a positive refusal was an act of rebellion, and a declaration of war.

After a painful conflict he ordered the troops to march. A scene of general distress ensued. But the grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage. Their line of march was through Paris, in the suburbs of which they were to be reviewed by Julian. On their approach he went out to meet them. He addressed them in a studied oration, and then dismissed them to quarters. At the hour of midnight their discontent became furious. With sword, and bows, and torches in hand, they rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; and careless of future dangers, pronounced the fatal and irrevocable words, JULIAN AUGUSTUS! He earnestly protested against their treason, but it was useless; they repeatedly assured him, that if he wished to live, he must consent to reign.

Thus, the lightning of revolution and civil discord again began to flash its fires in the political aerial. Julian was a worshipper of Jupiter, the Sun, Mars, Minerva, and all the other deities of the old superstition; while his cousin Constantius was the Chief Bishop of the Apostasy. Hence, they were rival champions of the old and new superstitions of the empire, which were now about to contend for the dominion of the world.

While offering peace to Constantius, he made the most vigorous preparations for war. The cruel persecution of the adherents of Magnentius had filled Gaul with outlaws and robbers. These flocked to the standard of Julian. Several months were ineffectually consumed in negociations at the distance of three thousand miles from Paris to Antioch; at length, perceiving that his adversary was implacable, he boldly resolved to commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil war; and though some weeks before he had celebrated the catholic festival of the Epiphany, made a public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced the religion, as well as the friendship of Constantius.

4.—And there was an Earthquake

The storm of thunders and lightnings being expended, the earth, into which the fire from the angel’s frankincense bowl was cast, began to shake. The seasonable death of Constantius A. D. 361, delivered the Roman Empire from the calamities of civil war, which had hitherto progressed without serious effusion p. 375 of blood. Julian was now acknowledged as emperor by the whole empire. His throne was the seat of philosophy and science, falsely so-called, heathen piety, and vanity. He despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and discharged with incessant diligence the duties of his exalted station.

The reformation of the imperial court was one of the first and most necessary acts of Julian’s revolutionary government. Soon after his entrance into the palace of Constantinople, he had occasion for the service of a barber. An officer magnificently dressed presented himself. “It is a barber,” exclaimed Julian, with affected surprise, “that I want, and not a receiver general of the finances.” He questioned the man concerning the profits of his employment; and was informed that besides a large salary and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed a daily allowance for twenty servants, and as many horses. A thousand barbers, a thousand cupbearers, a thousand cooks, were distributed in the several offices of catholic luxury; and the number of the eunuchs of this “christian” establishment could be compared only to the insects of a summer’s day. The “BISHOP OF BISHOPS” was distinguished by the oppressive magnificence of his dress, his table, his buildings, and his train. The domestic crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions. The monarch was disgraced, and the people injured, by the creation and sale of an infinite number of obscure and even titular employments; and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the privilege of being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of fees and perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt, and the bribes they extorted from those who feared their enmity, or solicited their favor, suddenly enriched these haughty menials. Their rapine and venality could be equalled only by the extravagance of their dissipations. Their silken robes were embroidered with gold, their tables were served with delicacy and profusion; and the most honorable citizens were obliged to dismount from their horses, and respectfully to salute any eunuch they might meet on the public highway. All this excited the contempt and indignation of the philosophic Julian, who despised the pomp of royalty, and was impatient to relieve the distress, and to appease the murmurs of the people. By a single edict, he reduced the palace of Constantinople to an immense desert, and dismissed with ignominy the whole train of slaves and dependents. The splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics, the curls and paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared so ridiculous in the person of p. 376 “the first christian emperor,” CONSTANTINE, were rejected with contempt by his philosophic and pagan nephew, Julian.

But the “earthquake” would have only slightly shaken the Apostasy, if Julian had only corrected the abuses, without punishing the crimes, of his catholic predecessor’s reign. “We are now delivered,” says he, in a familiar letter to one of his intimates, “we are now surprisingly delivered from the voracious jaws of the many-headed Hydra. I do not mean to apply that epithet to my brother Constantius. He is no more; may the earth be light upon his head! But his artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive and exasperate a prince, whose natural mildness cannot be praised without some efforts of adulation. It is not, however, my intention, that even those men should be oppressed: they are accused, and they shall enjoy the benefit of a fair and impartial trial.” To conduct this inquiry, Julian named six judges of the highest rank in the state and army; and as he wished to escape the reproach of condemning his personal enemies, he fixed this extraordinary and inexorable Chamber of Justice at Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and transferred to the commissioners an absolute power to pronounce and execute their final sentence without delay and without appeal. The office of president was exercised by the venerable præfect of the east, a second Sallust, whose good qualities conciliated the esteem of Greek sophists, and catholic bishops. He was assisted by the eloquent Mamertinus, one of the consuls elect. But the civil wisdom of these two magistrates was overbalanced by the ferocious violence of four generals. One of these, Arbetio by name, more fit for the prisoners’ bar than the bench, was supposed to possess the secret of the commission; the armed and angry leaders of the Jovian and Herculean bands encompassed the tribune; and the judges were alternately swayed by the laws of justice, and by the clamours of faction.

A devout and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and Rome constituted the ruling passion of Julian; and the superstitious phantoms which existed only in his mind, had a real and judicial effect through the government of the empire. The vehement zeal of the catholics, who despised the worship, and overturned the altars, of those heathen rivals of the martyrs, engaged their imperial votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a very numerous party of his subjects. The subsequent triumph of this party, which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of infamy on the name of Julian; and the unsuccessful “apostate” has been overwhelmed with a torrent of Arian and Trinitarian invectives, of p. 377 which the signal was given by the sonorous trumpet of Gregory Nazianzen.

The catholics, who beheld with horror and indignation the apostasy of Julian from their superstition, had much more to fear from his power than from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected that the flames of persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent some cruel refinements of death and torture, which had been unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors. But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the rival religious factions were disappointed by one who was persuaded that neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind. Influenced by this conviction he extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship he inflicted on the catholics, was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects whom they stigmatized as idolators and heretics. Among these so-called “heretics,” were those who in the reigns of Constantius and Julian were being sealed in their foreheads with the seal of the Deity as the 144,000. The pagans were expressly ordered to reopen all their temples; and they were at once delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations they had sustained under the reign of Constantine and his sons. At the same time the trinitarian bishops and clergy, who had been banished by the Arian emperor, Constantius, were recalled from exile, and restored to their respective conventicles; also the Donatists,^a Novatians, Eunomians, and so forth. Julian, who understood and derided their theological disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects, that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious encounters. The clamour of controversy sometimes provoked him to exclaim, “Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the Allemanni;” but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with more obstinate and implacable enemies; and though he exerted the powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied before he dismissed them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the union of the “christians” so-called.

As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed, according to imperial custom, the character of SUPREME PONTIFF, not only as the p. 378 most honorable title of imperial greatness, but as a sacred and important office, the duties of which he was resolved to execute with pious diligence. Encouraged by the example, exhortations, and liberality of their pious sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their neglected ceremonies. “Every part of the world,” exclaims Libanius, with devout transport, “displayed the triumph of religion; and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods and a supper for their joyous votaries.”

As the army is the most forcible engine of absolute power, Julian applied himself with peculiar diligence to corrupt the religion of his troops, without whose hearty concurrence every measure must be dangerous and unsuccessful; and the natural temper of soldiers made this conquest as easy as it was important. On the days of solemn and public festivals, the emperor received the homage and rewarded the merit of the troops. His throne of state was encircled with the military ensigns of the Roman republic; the name of Christ was erased from the Labarum, and the symbols of war, of majesty, and of pagan superstition, were so dexterously blended that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry when he respectfully saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The soldiers passed successively in review, and each of them, before he received from the hand of Julian a liberal donative proportioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few grains of incense into the flame which burned upon the altar. This restoration and encouragement of paganism revealed a multitude of pretended christians, who, from motives of temporal advantage, had acquiesced in the catholicism of the former reign, and who afterwards returned, with the same flexibility of conscience, to the superstition professed by the successors of Julian.

As I am not composing a history of the Julian earthquake, but merely evidencing illustratively by history the symbolical drama of the apocalypse, it is only necessary that I should show that the events of the first sixteen months of his reign over the whole empire, following the “lightnings,” were, in the fullest sense, such a revolution as could only fairly and properly be represented by “an earthquake.” I need not go into all the details of his remarkable reign. It will, therefore, be sufficient to say that, in his great work of humbling the LAODICEAN APOSTASY in the lowest depths of p. 379 degradation into which he could plunge it, he proclaimed himself the gracious protector of the Jews! He had no love for these unfortunates, but they deserved the friendship of the idolator by their implacable hatred of the christian name. He proposed to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem, and relieved them of the pecuniary oppressions imposed upon them by the bishops and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. The catholics were firmly but erroneously persuaded that a sentence of everlasting destruction rested upon the whole fabric of the Mosaic law. Julian, therefore, argued that the success of his rebuilding speculation would prove the falsity of the prophets, and turn the truth of revelation into a lie. But had he succeeded, his success would only have proved the ignorance of the catholics, who understood nothing aright. His enterprise, however, was defeated by an earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which scorched and blasted the workmen, overturned and scattered their works, and compelled the abandonment of the undertaking.

Foiled in this manœuvre, he attacked the catholic church in the very seat of its soul. He transferred to the priests of his own superstition the management of the liberal allowances from the public revenue which had been granted to their church by Constantine and his sons. The proud system of clerical honors and immunities was levelled to the ground, testamentary donations were forbidden, and the catholic priests were confounded with the last and most ignominious class of the people. By this policy he aimed to deprive them of all the temporal honors and advantages which rendered them respectable in the eyes of the world, which is “the enemy of God.” But, besides this, he prohibited catholics from teaching the arts of grammar and rhetoric, observing that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or enjoy the advantages of science, and that they ought to content themselves with expounding, not Homer and Demosthenes, but Luke and Matthew in the conventicles of the Galileans. This edict deprived them wholly of the education of youth, which, in the Roman world, was intrusted to masters of grammar and rhetoric, who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable privileges. Having thus substituted pagan sophists for catholic priests, he invited a free and general resort to the public schools, in a full confidence that the tender minds of the scholars would be paganized by the impressions received. The greater part of the catholic officers were gradually removed from their employments in the state, the army, and the provinces; and the hopes of future candidates were extinguished by p. 380 his maliciously, but most correctly, reminding them, that it was unlawful for a christian to use the sword either of justice or of war; and studiously guarding the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of idolatry. The powers of government were entrusted to the pagans, who professed an ardent zeal for the superstition of their ancestors. Under their administration the catholics had much to suffer and more to apprehend. Julian was averse to cruelty, but his provincial ministers exercised a vexatious tyranny against sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to confer the honors of martyrdom. He dissembled the knowledge of the injustice exercised in his name, and expressed his real sense of their conduct by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards.

The most effectual instrument of annoyance with which they were armed was the law that obliged the catholics to make full and ample satisfaction for the temples they had destroyed under the preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant Laodicean Apostasy had not always the sanction of the public authority; and the catholic bishops, who were secure of impunity, had often marched at the head of their congregations to attack and demolish the rival fortresses of Satan. On his consecrated lands, which had been given to the clergy, and on the ruins of paganism, the catholics had frequently erected their conventicles. The ground had to be cleared of these, and the stately temples of the idols which had been levelled, and the precious ornaments which had been converted to catholic uses, had to be restored, making a very large amount of damages and debt. But the catholics, who had robbed and destroyed the property of “heretics” as well as pagans, in this, the dark hour of retribution, were unable to pay. The Roman law, therefore, gave the claimants a right to the debtors’ persons. They were, consequently, seized by Julian’s ministers, and subjected to bodily pains and torments. In this the moment of their prosperity, they dragged their mangled bodies through the streets, pierced them by the spits of cooks and the distaffs of enraged women, and the entrails of catholic priests and their ecclesiastical females, after they had been tasted by these bloody fanatics, were mixed with barley and contemptuously thrown to the unclean animals of the city.

About the same time, Julian was informed from Edessa that the proud and wealthy faction of Arian catholics had insulted the weakness of a sect of “heretics” styled Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to be suffered with impunity in a well regulated state. Upon hearing of this, he confiscated the whole property of the church by his mandate to the magistrates of the place.

p. 381 The money was distributed among the soldiers, the lands were added to the state’s domain, and, with the most pungent irony, he wrote to the offenders, saying, “I show myself the true friend of the Galileans. Their admirable law has promised the kingdom of heaven to the poor; and they will advance with more diligence in the paths of virtue and salvation when they are relieved by my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. Take care,” continued he, in a more serious tone, “take care how you provoke my patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people; and you will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and exile, but fire and sword.” The catholics, both Arian and Athanasian, who, before the “earthquake” that levelled their high towers in the dust, had possessed above forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the empire, had contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, and the habit of believing that they were the saints, and that the saints alone were entitled to reign over the earth. As soon as the justice of Julian deprived the clergy of the privileges conferred by the favor of Constantine, unmindful of their own tyranny against “heretics,” among whom were the sealed servants of the Deity, they complained bitterly of “the Apostate’s” most cruel oppression; and the free toleration of idolators and HERETICS, who were alone benefited by the Julian earthquake, was a subject of grief and scandal to catholics. Their present hardships, intolerable as they might appear, were considered as a slight prelude to impending calamities, which were suspended till their crafty oppressor’s victorious return from the Persian war, when laying aside the mask of dissimulation, he would cause the amphitheatres to stream with the blood of hermits and bishops; and that catholics who persevered in the profession of their opinions would be deprived of the common benefits of nature and society. These gloomy forebodings of deserved punishment, however, were suddenly dispelled by the death of Julian, who was mortally wounded, June 26, A. D. 363. He was pierced by a Persian javelin, in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and eight months from the death of Constantius. He was the last of the house of Constantine, which was left without an heir, and the empire without a master, by his unexpected death. The trembling of the catholic world subsided, and the military election of Jovian restored tranquillity to the church and state.

p. 382First Section of the Seventh Seal

This section comprehends the events resulting from the release of the Four Winds, held by the Four Angels standing at the Four Corners of the Earth—Apoc. vii. 1. When in operation, they were to blow injuriously upon the earth, the sea, and the trees, of Daniel’s Fourth Beast-Dominion. They were what Gibbon styles “the threatening tempests of barbarians which subverted the foundations of Roman greatness.” They were commissioned against the catholic empire of the west, and did not cease to blow until they had sorely plagued the Apostasy, and disrobed Old Rome of its glory and dominion. The Four Wind-powers angelized against Roman Europe are identical with the first four trumpets, which were sounded or blown against “the earth,” the “trees,” and “sea,” which were not plagued to the subversion of their sovereignty until these trumpets had produced their full effect.

Preparation for Sounding

The seven angels, which John tells us in ch. viii. 2, he saw standing before the Deity, and to whom were given seven trumpets, he further informs us, in the sixth verse, “prepared themselves to sound.” Though they had been commissioned in the days of Constantine, they had also been forbidden to execute judgment until the sealing of the 144,000 was duly effected. Their preparing to sound was no part of their sounding. When the trumpets were given them they were quiescent, and quiescent they remained during the “voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and earthquake” of the reigns of Constantius and Julian; but, when the earthquake was over, and the Catholic Apostasy found unexpected deliverance in the military election of JOVIAN, a trinitarian catholic, nothing improved by the well merited castigation it had experienced, it progressed from bad to worse, until the forbearance of the Deity had attained the limit which, in his wise foreknowledge of all things, he had fixed, and beyond which he had predetermined that the blasphemous superstition should not continue unscathed by the fierceness of his devouring indignation. From the death of Julian, A. D. 363, to the death of Theodosius the Great, and the revolt of the Goths under Alaric, A. D. 395, a period of thirty-two years, was the period also of the preparation for sounding, which terminated in the Gothic blast of the First Wind-Trumpet. At the end of this PREPARATION-PERIOD, the Catholic Imperiality was finally divided p. 383 into Two SOVEREIGNTIES, which answered to the Two IRON LEGS of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image—the sovereignty of Constantinople under Arcadius, and the sovereignty of Rome under Honorius, both of them the worthless sons of the catholic tyrant, “Theodosius the Great.”

This preparation period of thirty-two years includes the reigns of Jovian, Valentinian and Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius—of Jovian, who reigned about seven months; of Valentinian, who ruled twelve years; of Gratian, who, after reigning four years, associated Theodosius with himself in the purple; and of Theodosius, who reigned sixteen years, or till his decease, A. D. 395. The sounding of the seven angels was, and is (for they will not have ceased to sound until the reign of the saints shall have been established over all the apocalyptic earth), the execution of judgment upon the Laodicean Catholic Apostasy in its imperio-regal constitution. During this preparation-period it made rapid and gigantic progress in developing “the mystery of iniquity,” “after the working of the Satan with all power and signs and wonders of falsehood, and with all deceivableness of the iniquity in them who are being destroyed.” It rapidly filled up that measure of iniquity which rendered it no longer expedient to defer judgment—to restrain the tempest of “hail and fire mingled with blood,” which, as a devouring blast, should scorch and torment it unto death.

It will, doubtless, be satisfactory to the reader unacquainted with the history of this period to receive some information respecting it. I shall, therefore, as briefly as is compatible with clearness, notice the state of the Catholic Apostasy in the thirty-two years of angel-preparation for the execution of judgment.

1—The Apostasy in the Preparation-Period

The death of Julian left the Ancient Idolatry in possession of the empire, but without a champion. He had endeavored to thoroughly paganize the army, but had succeeded only in making hypocrites of those who took any interest in religion. So long as he was the dispenser of the loaves and fishes of the state, the soldiery bowed the knee to Jupiter; but when the arrow of the Persian had given victory to “the Galilean,” and the “pious Jovian” became the elect of the fickle host, whose affection had been gained by his comely person, cheerful temper, and familiar wit, the soldiers again displayed at the head of their legions the banner of the cross, the Labarum of Constantine, by which was announced to the people the superstition of their new emperor.

p. 384 The first moments of peace were devoted by Jovian to the restoration of domestic tranquillity to the church and state. “The Christians,” says Gibbon, “had forgotten the spirit of the gospel, and the pagans had imbibed the spirit of the church. In private families, the sentiments of nature were extinguished by the blind fury of zeal and revenge; the majesty of the laws was violated or abused; the cities of the east were stained with blood, and the most implacable enemies of the Romans were in the bosom of their country.” As soon as Jovian was enthroned, he secured the legal establishment of the catholic superstition. The insidious edicts of Julian were abolished, and the immunities of the catholic apostasy were restored and enlarged, which gained for him, of course, the loud and sincere applause of its devotees. The episcopal leaders of their contending sects, convinced, by experience, how much their fate would depend on the earliest impressions made on the mind of an untutored soldier, hastened to the court at Antioch. “The highways of the east were crowded with Homoousian, and Arian, and Semi-Arian, and Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip each other in the holy race for the prize of the imperial favor; the apartments of the palace resounded with their clamors, and the ears of Jovian were assailed, and perhaps astonished, by the Babel-mixture of metaphysics and passionate invectives. They discovered at length his admiration for ‘the celestial virtues of the great Athanasius,’” one of the most persistent ecclesiastics of which Jezebel could boast in that or any subsequent period of her career. By this discovery, Jovian was found to be possessed of the spirit of the times, and therefore in fellowship with the zeal and numbers of the most powerful sect of the Apostasy. Under his reign, Laodiceanism obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as soon as the sunshine of imperial patronage was withdrawn, the ancient idolatry, which had been cherished by the arts of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the dust. Thus, as justly remarked by Themistius in his address to Jovian, “in the recent changes, both religions (Julian’s and Constantine’s) had been alternately disgraced by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass without a reason, and without a blush, from the church to the temple, and from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians.”

After Jovian’s death, Valentinian was elected by the military to the absolute government of the Roman empire. In thirty days after his own election, he associated his brother Valens as his colleague in the emperorship. In June, A. D. 364, they divided the empire between them; Valentinian bestowing on his brother the rich præfecture p. 385 of the Eastern Leg of the Babylonian Image, from the Lower Danube to the confines of Persia; whilst he reserved to himself the three præfectures of Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, constituting the Western Leg, from the extremity of Greece to the Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart to the foot of Mount Atlas. This division being amicably arranged, preparation for the angel-trumpeters was advanced a stage. The Emperor of the West established his temporary residence at Milan; and the Emperor of the East returned to Constantinople, to assume the dominion of fifty provinces.

Both these men were cruel, but not equally and similarly zealous for the traditions of the Apostasy. Valens was an Arian, and therefore a persecutor of the Athanasians. These hostile factions were more equally balanced in the East than in the Latin West, where the Arian party was but small. The Arian and Athanasian monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives, and these were sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius reigned archbishop in Alexandria over the most ignorant and ferocious catholics of the empire; Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by his enemies, the Arians; and every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult, greatly to the disgust and contempt of philosophers and pagans. So great was the lust of power, that the leaders of both factions believed that, if they were not suffered to reign, they were most cruelly injured and oppressed.

The western emperor Valentinian reigned over the countries in which the Sealing Angel was occupied in the work of sealing the servants of the Deity in the forehead. Though a man whose savage disposition was hardened against pity and remorse, he uniformly maintained a firm and temperate impartiality in an age of singular discord and contention among ecclesiastics. He declined with respectful indifference the subtle questions of their debates; and, while he remembered that he was a disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was lord and master of the clergy. The pagans, the Jews, and all the various sects which acknowledged the divine authority of Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power, or popular insult; nor did he prohibit any mode of worship, except those secret and criminal practices which abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of vice and disorder.

He published an edict A. D. 370, addressed to Damasus, Bishop of Rome, restraining the avarice of the clergy. The things he forbid them to practice show in what they were especially guilty. He admonished the ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the houses p. 386 of widows and virgins; and menaced their disobedience with the animadversion of the civil authority. These were of that sort Paul predicted would “creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away by divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” These reprobates installed themselves with these “silly women” as their spiritual directors. But Valentinian rightly discerned the corruptness of their purposes. He therefore forbid their visiting the houses, or receiving any gift, legacy, or inheritance, from the liberality of their spiritual daughters. He had to step in as the civil guardian of domestic happiness and virtue, against the assaults of clerical wolves in sheep’s clothing, calling themselves christian pastors of Christ’s flock!! By their professed contempt of the world, they insensibly acquired the most desirable advantages; the lively attachment, perhaps, of a young and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of an opulent household, and the respectful homage of the slaves, the freedmen and clients of senatorial families. Under this spiritual direction, the immense fortunes of Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish alms and expensive pilgrimages; and the artful ecclesiastic, who had assigned himself the first, or possibly the sole, place in the testament of his spiritual daughter, still presumed to declare, with the smooth face of hypocrisy, that he was only the instrument of charity and the steward of the poor. The lucrative, but disgraceful trade which was exercised by the clergy to defraud the expectations of the natural heirs, had provoked the indignation of a superstitious age; and two of the most respectable of Latin spiritual directors, Jerome and Ambrose, honestly confess that the ignominious edict of Valentinian was just and necessary.

What Gibbon styles “the splendid vices of the church of Rome,” in the reign of Valentinian, and under the spiritual direction of Damasus, its bishop, have been impartially stated by Ammianus, who says, “The præfecture of Juventius was accompanied with peace and plenty; but the tranquillity of his government was soon disturbed by a bloody sedition of the distracted people. The ardor of Damasus and Ursinus to seize the episcopal seat surpassed the ordinary measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party; the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their followers; and the præfect, unable to resist or appease the tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the suburbs. Damasus prevailed; the well-disputed victory remained on the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies were found in the Basilica of Sicininus, where the christians (!) p. 387 hold their religious assemblies; and it was long before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the capital, I am not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most obstinate contest. The successful candidate is secure that he will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; that as soon as his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance, he may proceed, in his chariot, through the streets of Rome; and that the sumptuousness of the imperial table will not equal the profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste and at the expense of the Roman Pontiffs. How much more rationally (continues the honest pagan, more christian in spirit than “the christians”) would these pontiffs consult their true happiness, if instead of alleging the greatness of the city as an excuse for their manners, they would imitate the exemplary life of some provincial bishops, whose temperance and sobriety, whose mean apparel and downcast looks, recommended their pure and modest virtue to the Deity and his true worshippers.” When the tranquillity of the city was restored by the wisdom of the prefect Prætextatus, this polite and philosophic pagan, disguising a reproach in the form of a jest, remarked to the “right reverend bishop” Damasus, that if he could obtain the bishopric of Rome, he himself would immediately embrace the christian religion. This lively picture of the wealth and luxury of the bishops of Rome in the fourth century becomes the more curious as it represents the intermediate degree between the humble poverty of the Apostles, and the royal state of an Imperial Pontiff, whose temporal dominions once extended from the confines of Naples to the Po.

On the death of Valentinian, A. D. 375, Gratian, his son, a youth of seventeen, and his brother, Valentinian II., then only four years old, became emperors of the West, so that the government of the Roman world was now exercised in the united names of Valens and his nephews. On the fall of Valens in the battle of Hadrianople, A. D. 378, Gratian appointed Theodosius his successor over the East, Gratian was a feeble and indolent character, piously credulous, and a mere tool in the hands of ecclesiastical hypocrites, who procured from him an edict to punish, as a capital offence, the violation, neglect, or even the ignorance, of what they were pleased to call the divine law. This would give them power to persecute and destroy “the servants of the Deity,” then being impressed with his seal. The murder of Gratian did not improve the situation; for Theodosius, a name dear to the Apostasy, was pious and cruel, with strength and activity of mind.

p. 388 Among the benefactors of the catholic church, the fame of Constantine has been rivalled by the glory of Theodosius, who assumed the merit of subduing Arianism, and abolishing the worship of idols in the Roman world. Theodosius was the first of the emperors immersed in what the apostasy terms “the true faith of the Trinity.” As he ascended from the water, “still glowing with the warm feelings of regeneration,” he dictated a solemn edict which proclaimed his own opinions and prescribed the religion of his subjects. “It is our pleasure,” said this sacramentally regenerated prince, “that all the nations, which are governed by our clemency and moderation, should stedfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which faithful tradition hath preserved, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus (!) and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the Apostles and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe the sole Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal majesty, and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of ‘CATHOLIC CHRISTIANS’; and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of HERETICS, and declare that their conventicles shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect to suffer the severe penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them.”

This edict of Theodosius caused great joy to the catholics. He convened, A. D. 381, a council at Constantinople, of one hundred and fifty bishops, to complete the theological system which had been established in the council of Nice. They decreed the equal Deity of the Holy Ghost, which, upon their authority, has been received by all the deluded nations and all the churches of the Apostasy. But, whatever the merits of the question, the sober evidence of history will not allow much weight to the personal authority of these Theodosian fathers. In an age when the spirituals of the Apostasy were a scandalous degeneration from apostolic purity, the most worthless and corrupt were always the most eager to frequent, and disturb the episcopal assemblies. The conflict and fermentation of so many opposite interests and tempers inflamed the passions of the bishops; and their ruling passions were the love of gold and the love of dispute. Many of the same churchmen who now applauded the orthodox piety of Theodosius, had repeatedly changed, with prudent flexibility, their creeds and opinions; and in p. 389 the various revolutions of the church and state, the religion of their sovereign was the rule of their obsequious faith. The unjust and disorderly proceedings of these sycophants forced the gravest members of the council to dissent and secede; and the clamorous majority, which remained masters of the field, could be compared only to wasps or magpies, to a flight of cranes, or to a flock of geese.

The decrees of the council of Constantinople had set up the standard of catholic opinion; and the spirituals who governed the beclouded conscience of Theodosius suggested the most effectual methods of persecution. In the space of fifteen years, he promulgated at least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics; and, to deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their favor, the judges should consider them as illegal productions either of fraud or forgery. The penal statutes were directed against the ministers, the assemblies, and the persons of “the heretics”; and the passions of the legislator were expressed in the language of declamation and invective.

Thus the theory of persecution was established by this regenerated trinitarian emperor, whose justice and piety have been applauded by “the church”; but the practice of it, in the fullest extent, was reserved for his rival and colleague, Maximus, then reigning beyond the Alps, the first, among catholic princes, who shed the blood of his subjects on account of their religious opinions. These were Priscillian and six of his brethren, who were tortured, condemned, and executed at Treves. Their tenets being reported by their enemies, it is not possible to speak with certainty respecting them. Their rejection by the clergy and their adherents is a presumption in favor of their being sufferers for the truth. Their death was the subject of a long and vehement controversy, in which, though Martin, Bishop of Tours, and Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, proclaimed the eternal damnation of heretics, they both were surprized and shocked by the bloody image of their temporal death. Since the murder of Priscillian by the catholics, they have become scarlet with the blood of the saints, and drunk with the blood of the witnesses for Jesus—Apoc. xvii. 6; and their proceedings have been refined and methodized in the “Holy Office,” which assigns their distinct parts to the ecclesiastical and secular powers. The victim to be murdered is regularly delivered by the sanguinary priest to the magistrate, and by the magistrate to the pious executioner; and the inexorable sentence of their Mother Jezebel, which declares her charge against the victim, is hypocritically expressed p. 390 in the language of pity and intercession. Who need wonder at seven angels being commissioned to inflict vengeance upon such a communion of blood? How can wrath cease against men, so long as the earth is cursed with the presence of catholicism, and its kindred abominations? The divine indignation can only be appeased by their extirpation total and complete.

After the death of Valentinian II. and the overthrow of Maximus, the Roman world was in the undivided possession of Theodosius; and thus it continued till his death, A. D. 395, when the separation of the East and the West became final under his sons Arcadius and Honorius.

About sixty years after Constantine’s conversion to catholicism, the ancient form of heathenism was completely superseded by catholic polytheism; and the temples of the gods were replaced by the Bazaars of Guardian Saints and Angels, in which Theodosius, and his sacramentally regenerated coreligionists, convened under the spiritual direction of reprobate bishops and presbyters, for the degrading adoration of dead men’s bones, and other relics they were taught to venerate as sacred. A pagan, treating of this change in the form of Rome’s polytheism, says: “The monks” (a race of filthy animals, to whom he is tempted to refuse the name of men) “are the authors of the new worship, which, in the place of those deities who are conceived by the understanding, has substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads, salted and pickled, of those infamous malefactors who, for the multitude of their crimes, have suffered a just and ignominious death; their bodies, still marked by the impression of the lash, and the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the sentence of the magistrates; such are the gods which the earth produces in our days; such are the martyrs, the supreme arbitrators of our prayers and petitions to the Deity, whose tombs are now consecrated as the objects of the veneration of the people.” This writer was the spectator of a revolution which raised a multitude of fabulous saints and victims to the rank of mahuzzim, of celestial and invincible protectors of the Roman empire! He might well be indignant at the worse than pagan abomination. Fifty years after the building of Constantinople, the pretended remains of Samuel, the prophet of Israel, were transported to that city. His ashes, deposited in a golden vase, and covered with a silken veil, were delivered by the episcopal mountebanks into each other’s hands. These fabulous relics were received by the infatuated catholic multitude with infinitely more demonstrations of joy and reverence than they would have shown to the real p. 391 prophet; the highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were filled with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius, at the head of the most illustriously betitled members of the clergy and senate, advanced to meet this extraordinary and fictitious guest! The example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the superstition, blasphemy and discipline of the catholic world. The honors of fictitious saints and martyrs, after an ineffectual protest of the sealed servants of the Deity,^a were universally established; and in the age of those conspicuous theological empirics, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a catholic bazaar, till it had been consecrated by some portion of “holy relics,” which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the deluded multitude.

The Catholic Apostasy by the end of the preparation period for angelic sounding had become a system of organized and established idolatry—of the worship of gods produced from the earth by the clerical officials of Satan’s kingdom. Perceiving how profitable were the so-called relics of saints, more valuable to church-knaves than gold and precious stones, the clergy were stimulated to multiply these treasures of “the church.” Without regard for truth or probability they invented names for skeletons, and actions for names. The fame of the apostles and prophets, and their holy brethren, was darkened by superstitious fraud and falsehood. To the invincible band of real saints, whose blood from beneath the Altar cried for vengeance against their pagan murderers, the Theodosian craftsmen added myriads of imaginary heroes, who had never existed except iu the fancy of “demons speaking lies in hypocrisy; and having their conscience seared as with a hot iron,” of whom Ambrose, bishop of Milan, his pupil “St. Augustin,” and “St. Jerome,” were notable examples: “and there is reason to suspect,” says Gibbon, “that Tours might not be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored instead of those of a saint. A superstitious practice, which tended to increase the temptations of fraud and credulity, insensibly extinguished the light of history and of reason in,” what he incorrectly terms, “the christian world.”

p. 392 But the progress of catholic idolatry would have been much less rapid and victorious, if the superstition of the people had not been assisted by the seasonable aid of what Paul styles, “signs and wonders of falsehood;” that is, of pretended visions and spurious miracles, to ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious relics. When Ambrose refused to obey the sentence of banishment decreed against him by the Arian government of Valentinian II., and while he and his party were blockaded in the cathedral of Milan, he falsely declared that he was instructed by a dream, to open the earth in a place where the relics or remains of two martyrs, Gervasius and Protasius, had been deposited above three hundred years. Immediately under the church-pavement two perfect skeletons were found, with the heads separated from their bodies, and a plentiful effusion of blood. These “holy relics” were presented, in solemn pomp, to the veneration of his credulous flock. The knavish designs of Ambrose were admirably promoted by this pretended discovery. Their bones, blood, and garments, were supposed to contain a healing power; and their præternatural influence was said to be communicated to the most distant objects, without losing any part of its original virtue. The alleged extraordinary cure of a blind man by touching the garment, and the reluctant confessions of several dæmoniacs, were adduced to justify the Athanasian opinions and sanctity of this rebel churchman! The truth of these miracles is attested by Saint Ambrose himself, and by his proselyte, the celebrated Saint Augustin, who, at that time professed the art of rhetoric in Milan. The Arian court very properly rejected the testimony of such interested parties; and derided the theatrically represented cures, exhibited by the contrivance and at the expense of the archbishop. The effect, however, upon the irrational and strongly deluded multitude was rapid and irresistible; and the feeble sovereign of Italy found himself unable to contend with such a favorite of heaven!

The same “grave and learned Augustin,” afterwards bishop of Hippo in the Roman Africa, attests the innumerable prodigies performed there by the relics of Stephen, stoned in the presence of Saul of Tarsus. These were brought to light by a dream, thrice repeated to one Lucian, a presbyter, residing twenty miles from Jerusalem. When they were unearthed, the ground trembled, and an odor, such as that of paradise, was smelt, which instantly cured the various diseases of seventy-three of the grave-openers. The relics were transported, in solemn procession, to a house of the dead, called “a church” by the ignorant multitude, constructed in their p. 393 honor on Mount Zion; and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, or the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every province of the catholic world, to possess a divine and miraculous virtue. This “wonder of falsehood” is inserted in his elaborate work, “The City of God,” which Augustin designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of what he called christianity. He solemnly enumerates above seventy miracles, performed by Stephen’s relics, of which three were resurrections from the dead, in the space of two years, and within the limits of his own diocese! “If we enlarge our views to all the dioceses, and all the saints, of the ‘christian’ world”, says Gibbon, truly, “it will not be easy to calculate the fables, and the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source. But we may surely be allowed to observe, that a miracle in that age of credulity and superstition, lost its name and its merit, since it could scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary, and established, laws of nature.”

The innumerable “wonders of falschood,” of which the tombs were the perpetual theatre, impressed the infatuated crowd with a notion of the state and constitution of the invisible world, which became the basis of the system of idol-worship, which darkens the kingdom of the clergy to this day. Whatever might be the condition of the common herd between death and resurrection of body, it was fancifully supposed that the disembodied ghosts of so-called saints and martyrs did not consume that interval in silent and inglorious sleep. It was imagined (without presuming to determine the place of their habitation, or the nature of their felicity) that they employed the lively and active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue, and their powers; and that they had already secured the possession of their eternal reward. The supposed enlargement of their intellectual faculties surpassed the measure of human conception; since they imagined that they had proved by experience, that they were capable of hearing and understanding the various petitions of their numerous votaries; who, in the same moment of time, but in the most distant parts of the world, invoked the name and assistance of Stephen or of Martin. The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the heathen dogma of inherent immortality; and the supposition, that the disembodied immortal souls of saints go to Christ at death, and as unclothed and naked ghosts are reigning with him, and in this their glory cast an eye of pity upon earth; their worshippers are strongly deluded with the notion that these naked souls are warmly interested in the prosperity of the church; and that the individuals, who imitated p. 394 the fabled example of their faith and piety, were the peculiar and favorite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes, indeed, it was thought that their friendship might be influenced by considerations of a less exalted kind; that they viewed, with partial affection, the places which had been consecrated by their birth, their residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their relics. They were regarded as not exempt from pride, avarice, and revenge; hence they were supposed to approve with gratitude the liberality of their votaries; and to hurl the keenest bolts of punishment against the impious wretches, who violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their supernatural power. Severus, bishop of Minorca, says that the relics of St. Stephen in eight days, converted in that island five hundred and forty Jews; but, it must not be forgotten, that they were aided by some potent severities, such as burning the synagogue, driving the obstinate infidels to starve among the rocks, and so forth. The immediate, and almost instantaneous, effects, that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence, satisfied the deluded fanatics of the ample measure of favor and authority enjoyed by Immortal Ghosts in the presence of the Supreme; and it seemed superfluous to inquire, whether they were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace, or whether they might not be permitted to exercise, according to the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated powers of a subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had been raised by a powerful effort to the contemplation and worship of the Eternal Spirit, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of adoration as were more in keeping with its gross conceptions and imperfect faculties. The simplicity which is in Christ, or, as Gibbon styles it, “the sublime and simple theology of the primitive christians,” was not only corrupted, but practically and doctrinally abolished; and the Monarchy of Heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was dethroned by the introduction of a popular mythology, which restored the reign of a multitude of gods, which became the Mahuzzim, or ghost-protectors, of the “Religious World.”

Having thus substituted for the old gods of Greece and Rome, the phantasmata of their corrupt imaginations, which they decorated with the names of real and fictitious saints and angels, they next proceeded to institute the rites and ceremonies, or will-worship, with which they deemed that their new deities ought to be satisfied. These were such as seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar herd. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Paul or Luke, had been raised from the dead, to witness the festival p. 395 of some popular saint, or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle, which had superseded the pure and spiritual worship of a christadelphian ecclesia. As soon as the doors of the Saint-Bazaar, or “church,” were thrown open, they would have been annoyed by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused at noonday a gaudy, superfluous, and in their judgment sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the Saint-altar, they would have made their way through a prostrate crowd, consisting for the most part of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast, and who already felt the “strong delusion,” or intoxication, of fanaticism, and perhaps of wine. Their devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavement of the Idol-Bazaar; and their fervent “vain repetitions” were directed, whatever might be the expletives of their conscience-keepers, the priests, to the bones, the blood, or the dust, of the tutelar of the bazaar, which were usually concealed by a linen or silken veil, from the eyes of the vulgar. The fanatics frequented the tombs of their ghost-deities, in the hope of obtaining, from their supposed powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal, blessings. They implored the preservation of their health, or the care of their infirmities; the fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness of their children. Whenever they undertook any distant or dangerous journey, they requested that “the holy martyrs” would be their guides and protectors, or Mahuzzim, on the roads; and if they returned without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to the ghost-bazaar tombs, to celebrate, with grateful thanksgivings, their obligations to the memory and relics of their invisible patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of the favors they supposed they had received; eyes, and hands, and feet, of gold and silver;, and memorial pictures, which also soon became objects of idolatry, represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar phantasma. All this new system of idolatry was the invention of that spirit of superstition that reigned incarnate in the presbyters and bishops of the church who imitated the polytheism and ritual they were impatient to destroy. They had persuaded themselves, that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstition of paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of their catholicism. This religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a hundred years, the final conquest of the old idolatry in all the Roman empire; but the catholic p. 396 victors themselves were completely subdued by the heathen arts of their vanquished rivals.