are obstinately defended, furiously stormed; they are defiled with blood. Men fall in murderous warfare before the altar of the Prince of Peace. In one sense it might seem the reanimation of Rome to new life, ancient Rome is resuming her wonted but long-lost liberties. The iron hand of despotism, from the time of the last Triumvirate, or rather from the accession of Augustus to the Empire, had compressed the unruly populace, which only occasionally dared to break out, on a change in the Imperial dynasty, to oppose, or be the victims of, the Prætorian soldiery. Now, however, the Roman populace appears quickened by a new principle of freedom; of freedom, if with some of its bold independence, with all its blind partisanship, its headstrong and stubborn ferocity. The great offices, which still perpetuated in name the ancient Republic, the Senatorship, Quæstorship, Consulate, are quietly transmitted according to the Imperial mandates, excite no popular commotion, nor even interest; for they are honorary titles, which confer neither influence, authority, nor wealth. Even the Prefecture of the city is accepted at the will of the Emperor, who rarely condescends to visit Rome. But the election to the bishopric is now not merely an affair of importance-the affair of paramount importance it might seem,-in Rome; it is an event in the annals of the world. The heathen historian, on whose notice had already been forced the Athanasian controversy, Athanasius himself, the acts and the exile of Liberius, assigns the same place to the contested promotion of Damasus which Livy might to that of one of the great consuls, tribunes, or dictators. He interprets, as well as relates, the event:-"No wonder that for so magnificent a prize as the Bishopric of Rome, men should contest with the utmost eagerness and obstinacy. To be enriched by the lavish donations of the principal females of the city; to ride, splendidly attired, in a stately chariot; to sit at a profuse, luxuriant, more than imperial, table-these are the rewards of successful ambition." The honest historian contrasts this pomp and luxury with the abstemiousness, the humility, the exemplary gentleness of the provincial prelates. Ammianus, ignorant or regardless as to the legitimacy of either election, arraigns both Damasus and his rival Ursicinus as equally guilty authors of the tumult. Of the Christian writers (and there are, singularly enough, contemporary witnesses, probably eye-witnesses, on each side), the one asserts the priority and legality of election in favour of Damasus, the other of Ursicinus; the one aggravates, the other extenuates the violence and slaughter. But that scenes occurred of frightful atrocity is beyond all doubt. So long and obstinate was the conflict, that Juventius, the Præfect of the city, finding his authority contemned, his forces unequal to keep the peace, retired into the neighbourhood of Rome. Churches were garrisoned, churches besieged, churches stormed and deluged with blood. In one day, relates Ammianus, above one hundred and thirty dead bodies were counted in the basilica of Sisinnius. The triumph of Damasus cannot relieve his memory from the sanction, the excitement, hardly from active participation in these deeds of blood. Nor did the contention cease with the first discomfiture and banishment of Ursicinus: he was more than once recalled, exiled, again set up as rival bishop, and re-exiled. Another frightful massacre took place in the church of St. Agnes. The Emperor was forced to have recourse to the character and firmness of the famous heathen Prætextatus, as successor to Juventius in the government of Rome, in order to put down with impartial severity these disastrous tumults. Some years elapsed before Damasus was in undisputed possession of his see.

The strife between Damasus and Ursicinus was a prolongation or revival of that between Liberius and Felix, and so may have remotely grown out of the doctrinal conflict of Arianism and Trinitarianism.'- Vol.i. pp. 67-70.

We need cite no more; we will only observe here that Dr. Milman seems to be right in supposing that there was a contest between Arianism and Catholicity; but as he says before, at p. 65, that Bishop Felix, if not himself an Arian, did not scruple to communicate with Arians,' we might be led to think, as the Preface to the 'libel' asserts, that the party of Felix had elected Damasus; whereas it is certain, from a passage in a letter of S. Jerome to Damasus, which the author has overlooked, that Ursinus was the Arian, Damasus the Catholic Bishop. His words are:- Et si ita est, cur ab Ario parietibus separamur; perfidia copulati? Jungatur cum Beatitudine tuâ Ursinus; cum Ambrosio Auxentius.' (Epist. xv. vol. i. p. 39. Ed. Vallars.) As Auxentius was the Arian anti-Bishop of Milan, so it would seem that Ursinus was the Arian anti-Pope of Rome. But, as the Dean says, in a note, p. 68, 'According to the Preface (is 'it quite certain that the Preface is of the same date?) to this Libellus Precum, Damasus is supported by the party of Felix; 'he was the successor of Felix, the reputed Arian, Ursicinus of Liberius.' We think that the Preface is not of the same date as the Libellus-that it is written by a violent partisan, opposed to Damasus, and also opposed to the Arians; possibly by one of the Luciferians-that party in the Church who refused to join in the healing measures of Athanasius, or to communicate with those who received with returning Arianizers. Anyhow, it bears the marks of being a calumnious production.

But the passage we are more concerned with occurs a little later. The Dean has been speaking of monasticism in Rome. Now, when asceticism is the supposed fruit of the spirit of the age-when it is the seemingly natural development of the religious temper-it is viewed by him with condescending acquiescence. But here we have asceticism springing up in the midst of that most luxurious, wealthy, pleasure-loving city, Rome; springing up under the sanction and encouragement of a few, a very few, great and earnest-minded men-of the very practical Athanasius, a man in whom good sense is as conspicuous as sanctity; of Jerome, one of the most learned and able men of the time; of Damasus, the Bishop of the city, himself a man of refined taste, and one that, as we have seen, thought it right to adopt great external splendour and style. The Dean considers this asceticism a development of the Roman character; it is Christian Stoicism. We would only observe that asceticism was so universal that it would be much more reasonable to attribute it to some common principle in human nature and in Christianity.

But the Roman character did not interwork into the general Chrisnity alone, it embraced monastic Christianity, in all its extremest rigour,

its sternest asceticism, with the same ardour and energy. Christian Stoicism could not but find its Catos; but it was principally among the females that the recoil seemed to take place from the utter shamelessness, the unspeakable profligacy of the Imperial times to a severity of chastity, to a fanatic appreciation of virginity, as an angelic state, as a kind of religious aristocratical distinction, far above the regular virtues of the wife or the matron. Pope Damasus, though by no means indifferent to the splendour of his office, was the patron, as his secretary Jerome was the preacher of this powerful party; and between this party and the priesthood of Rome there was already that hostility which has so constantly prevailed between the Regulars, the observants of monastic rule, and what were called in later times the secular clergy. The monastics inveighed against the worldly riches, pomp, and luxury of the clergy: the clergy looked with undisguised jealousy on the growing, irresistible influence of the monks, especially over the high-born females. Jerome hated, and was hated with the most cordial reciprocity. The austere Jerome was accused, unjustly no doubt, of more than spiritual intimacy with his distinguished converts; his enemies brought a charge of adultery against Pope Damasus himself. '— Vol. i. pp. 71, 72.

On these last words there is the following note, the note-mark being attached to the word himself.'

¡Quem in tantum matronæ diligebant, ut matronarum auriscalpius diceretur. So says the preface to the hostile petition, the Libellus Precum. Apud Sirmond. i. p. 136.'-Vol. i. p. 72.

Of course one would suppose that this charge was expressed in the words cited in the note, and was consequently a charge of habitual adultery, and was contained in the preface to the Hostile Petition. This is not an unimportant point. The writer of that preface evidently endeavoured to allege all he could against the character of Damasus. But he does not bring this charge. He does not insinuate it. He only accuses the Bishop

as any foul-mouthed slanderer now might accuse a holy man, who was the adviser and director of religious women-of ministering to the relief of their 'itching ears;' or, as we might say, tickling their ears. The word 'auriscalpius' has no impure sense. Anastasius, writing two centuries later, says that Damasus was accused of adultery, and cleared by a council of forty-four bishops. Just so S. Athanasius was accused of murder, and produced the man alleged to have been murdered, as a living testimony to the falsity of the charge. But coming to us only on the authority of Anastasius, the whole statement is very doubtful; and we think the author should have taken care not to allow any impression of the truth of these insinuations to

remain.

To return; great assistance in mastering the History may be derived from the portions into which the author has divided it; each book corresponding to one of the divisions; and the divisions themselves being based on the marked points in the progress

and development of the Latin Church, and the power of its Bishops. The three volumes already published bring that power up to the verge of its greatest external height, at the close of the twelfth century. But through what a series of wonderful changes did it arrive at that point!

If there is one thing which strikes us more than any other in the History of Latin Christianity, it is the vitality of that system whose progress it depicts; a vitality from which it not only withstands persecution, from heathen or heretical emperors, -continues as a barrier against invading tribes, living on while they, heretical and infidel, as well as barbarian, sweep over and almost sweep away the Churches, first of one part, then another, of Christendom-is tossed about by powerful emperors whose interests clash with those of the Church, or who would reform the Church, and masters and survives them -but what is more wonderful, springs up again after years of indifference and weakness, retains its hold on the world notwithstanding its gross corruptions, and when it might seem that the papacy itself had sunk into a depth of degradation from which it could not recover, yet under Pontiffs of a different character is again and again restored. Imperial Rome gained its hold on the world by slow and gradual advances. It had its reverses, and in early days there were times when it was on the verge of extinction; when Porsena all but, or altogether, overcame it or when the Capitol, alone left, was saved as by a divine intervention. Old Rome, too, had its internal contentions, and it might at last seem strange that it held so long together. But these are nothing to what Christian Rome exhibits. Earthly power goes on increasing, and once destroyed, it cannot be restored; but a power which rests on influence over the minds of men, a religious influence, survives under the seeming loss of all external power. It is strengthened under oppression. It flourishes amid calamities. It shoots forth again as soon as it is cut down; and, as in a night, recovers and extends its former empire. And there was this influence in the truths which Christianity taught, and of which Rome was the centre, even when, as existing in Rome itself, they were overlaid with corruptions.

I. Four centuries from the birth of Christ-little more than three and a half from its own origination-bring the Roman Church to a position of independence, of manifested dignity, of influence over the world as well as over the Christian body. It is interesting to see how it emerges from time to time from the obscurity in which its earlier history is involved: how, ever ind anon, as you go over the list of its Bishops and the years f their supposed episcopates, you come across points where the

obscurity is in a measure removed, and some individual stands out conspicuously, or some view is given of the condition of the Church itself. Myths and forgeries being removed, you see S. Clement, in his calm and brotherly office, exhorting the Corinthian Christians, Anicetus and Polycarp, Victor, and Zephyrinus and Callistus-later still, Cornelius and Dionysius. Then, when the empire became Christian, an association, which is mentioned in the first century only as an obscure, despised sect, comes to be recognised as an empire within an empire, meets emperors face to face, and receives homage, as a spiritual guide and ruler, from them.

The first division of the History begins at the earliest period of the existence of Christianity in Rome, when it was almost unknown in the world. Dr. Milman brings out fully the view which has the remarkably concurrent support of the Chevalier Bunsen and Cardinal Wiseman, that the Christians in Rome for more than two centuries were a Greek-speaking people. The view has been maintained with great ability, but we are disposed to think that it is somewhat exaggerated. The strongest argument for it, no doubt, is that which Dr. Wiseman has worked out, namely, that the first Latin versions of the Scriptures were made in Africa, as if they were not needed in Rome. This might seem, to a person of this day, a strong argument, but we doubt its being so. We doubt, that is, whether it implies that the great body of the Christians spoke Greek as their proper language. It is clear, from what Irenæus says of the many nations of barbarians who were Christians, and had not the Holy Scriptures in their language, that the need for translating them was not felt so strongly then as we might suppose. The mass of Christians did not read the Scriptures. The educated classes in Rome were able to read the Greek; whereas, in Africa, the same class could not do it. Greek was the literary language in Rome; from this cause, as well as the universal circulation of works written in that language, the Christian literature was Greek. The language of the religious services bears trace of a Greek original; but that Greek was the language in which it was ordinarily celebrated in the Roman churches of the second century is, we think, highly questionable.

From this obscurity the Roman Church gradually emerged, as its numbers increased and commanded the attention, the deference, the persecutions, or the submission, of the world and the rulers of the world-till, in the middle of the fourth century, after Silvester, Julius, and Liberius, Pope Damasus stands out to be praised and maligned, and the bloody contention of the Christians in the election of a bishop, and the splendour in which that bishop lives, are subjects for the historian