[1]. Evag. l. 1, c. 7.
Nestorius himself a
cruel Persecutor.
Such were the Sufferings, such was the End, of the famous Nestorius; and both reflect no small Disgrace on the Ecclesiastics of those Times, especially on Celestine and Cyril; for by them this cruel Persecution was raised, and by them it was carried on; the Laymen being only the Ministers of their Cruelty and Revenge. Such a Treatment was quite undeserved by Nestorius, with respect to his Doctrine, as I have shewn already, but was not so, it must be owned, in another respect: for he was himself a most furious Persecutor of all those, who had the Misfortune to be stigmatized with the Name of Heretics; and it is not to be doubted, but Cyril would have met with the same Treatment at his Hands, had his Party prevailed, as he did at Cyril’s. In the Sermon, which he preached on the very Day of his Ordination, he thus addressed the Emperor, who was present: Make the Orthodox Faith, O mighty Prince, reign alone on the Earth; and I will make you reign in Heaven. Lend me your Assistance to exterminate the Heretics, and I will lend you mine to exterminate the Persians[[1641]]. This was proclaiming War against all who dissented from him; and the War, thus proclaimed, he began without Loss of Time, and pursued with the utmost Fury, causing the Imperial Laws against Heretics to be vigorously executed, and stirring up the Mob, not only in Constantinople, but in the neighbouring Provinces, against Dissenters of all Denominations. This occasioned an universal Confusion, and, in some Places, a great deal of Bloodshed; insomuch that the Emperor was obliged to interpose his Authority, and protect, to a certain Degree, as Friends to the State, those whom the Bishop was for exterminating as Enemies to the Church. I will not presume to interpret the Severity that was practised upon him, as a Judgment from Heaven for the Severity which he had practised upon others; agreeably to those Words of our Saviour, With what Measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you[[1642]]; but I cannot help looking upon the Treatment he met with, however severe, as a just and well-deserved Retaliation; and upon him as a Man altogether unworthy of our Compassion.
The Doctrine of the
Jansenists approved
by Celestine.
But to return to Celestine: In the Year 431. he writ to the Gallican Bishops, exhorting them to stand up in Defence of the Doctrine of St. Austin, and to silence, with their Authority, all who opposed it: for it was opposed by many, among the rest, by the famous Cassian, as utterly inconsistent with Merit and Freewill. To this Letter are commonly annexed Nine Articles concerning Grace and Freewill; and, in these Articles styled there, The Authorities of the Bishops of the Holy Apostolic See, is contained, in the most plain and express Terms, the Doctrine of the Jansenists, condemned in our Days by the famous Bull Unigenitus of Clement XI[[1643]]. It is true, some pretend those Articles to be falsly ascribed to Celestine. But they have passed for his, ever since the Sixth to the present Century: they have been placed among his Decrees, by Dionysius Exiguus; were quoted as his by Petrus Diaconus in 519. by Cresconius an African Bishop towards the End of the Sixth Century, and by all, who have had Occasion to mention them since that time.
Palladius the First
Bishop of Ireland.
The same Year died St. Palladius, the First Bishop of Ireland. He belonged to the Roman Church, and had been sent by Celestine some Years before into Britain, to stop the Progress of the Pelagian Heresy in this Island. From Britain he had passed over into Ireland[[N76]]; and, having converted there some of the Inhabitants, he returned to Rome, to beg of Celestine, that a Bishop might be sent thither. Celestine complied with his Request, ordained him First Bishop of Ireland, and sent him back into that Island. Thus Prosper, who lived at this very time[o]. The Irish Writers tell us, that, finding their Countrymen, whose Conversion was reserved by Heaven for St. Patric, very obstinate, he abandoned the Island, and died in the Country of the Picts, that is, in Scotland, on his Return to Rome[[1644]]. His Body indeed was long worshiped in Scotland; but that is no Proof of his having been ever there[[N77]].
[N76]. Prosper writes, that he was sent ad Scotos; whence the Scotch Writers conclude him to have been sent into Scotland, and the Scots have long looked upon him as the Apostle of their Nation. But that he was sent into Ireland, and not into Scotland, is manifest from Prosper’s own Words. For speaking of Celestine, by whom Palladius was sent into Britain to make head against the Pelagians; while he endeavoured, says he, to maintain the Roman Island Catholic, he made a barbarous Island Christian[[1]]. The Island therefore, which he made Christian, was a different Island from that of Britain; and consequently could not be Scotland. The Inhabitants of Ireland began, as early as the Fourth Century, to be known by the Name of Scoti or Scots; so that Scoti and Hiberni were but different Names of one and the same People. It is true, that St. Patric, in such of his Writings, as have been judged by the Critics the most authentic, seems to distinguish the Scoti from the Hiberni: but that Distinction is only with respect to Merit and Rank; for he speaks constantly of the former as Men of a superior Rank to the latter. And indeed the Name Hibernus, tho’ more antient by many Ages than that of Scotus, appears to have been in great Contempt among the neighbouring Nations in St. Patric’s Time[[2]]. The Hiberni were perhaps the Mechanics, and the Scoti the Gentry, or Men who followed more noble Professions. By the latter was afterwards founded the Kingdom of Scotland. Bollandus is of Opinion, that the Hiberni came originally from Britain, and were the first Inhabitants of Ireland; and that the Scoti, a more warlike Race, come from some other Country, subdued the Hiberni, as the Saxons did the Britons[[3]].