violation of their safe-conduct, or other breach of faith, was on this occasion meditated.

They were introduced, on February 16, 1433, to a general meeting of the fathers, and immediately proposed the condiEmbassy to Basle. tions of reconciliation, which were four in number*. (1.) The use of the cup in the administration of the sacrament. (2.) The free preaching of the word of God. (3.) The abolition of the endowments of the clergy. (4.) The punishment of heinous transgressions and mortal sins. A separate debate was then opened upon each of these articles; and John of Rokysan, the most conspicuous among the Hussite divines, commenced by a defence of the double communion, which lasted for three entire mornings. He was afterwards answered by John of Ragusa, an ingenious Dominican, who so far surpassed the prolixity of his opponent, as to occupy eight mornings in the delivery of his arguments t; six others were then consumed by the reply of Rokysan. The other subjects were contested with scarcely less tediousness; and when the debate had thus continued for nearly two months, and when it was found that, so far from any progress having been made towards accommodation, the obstinacy of both parties was only confirmed and inflamed, the Duke of Bavaria, the secular protector of the council, sought for other expedients to bring them to terms. But in this attempt he failed likewise; and after the Catholics had advanced some counterpropositions, which were rejected by the Hussites, the conference terminated, and the deputies returned to recount to their compatriots the failure of their mission.

But the Catholics, being now better informed as to the variety and nature of the dissensions which divided their opponents, thought to profit by that circumstance, if they should carry the controversy into the hostile territories; a solemn embassy was accordingly appointed to proceed to Prague. Negociations were again opened; and again the Catholics essayed the arts of persuasion in vain. They then introduced such amendments into the four articles as effectually destroyed their force, or altered their meaning; but these were firmly rejected by the larger and more determined portion of the separatists. There existed, however, among these last, a more moderate and very influential party, which was

The Calixtines.

called Calixtines

strongly disposed to waive all other subjects of complaint, provided the double communion were fairly conceded by the Church. These were from the chalice § to which their demands were conAccording to Cochlæus (lib. v., p., 205), these were first agreed upon in a general assembly" Baronum terræ Bohemiæ et Moravia, et dominorum inclytæ urbis Pragensis, militarium, clientum, civitatum et communitatum,' A.D. 1421. This will account for the moderation of the demands contained in them.

+ It is observed that John of Ragusa gave great offence to his opponents by the frequent use of the word heresy, as applied to their opinions. With them it was still a question whether it was not the Church which was in heresy; with the Dominican, the Church was infallible. With them it was error to differ from the Scripture; with John, to differ from the Church. Thus the term, taken in a different sense, was as obnoxious in their eyes as in those of the Dominican.

Cochlæus (lib. v., p. 192) mentions early differences between the Magistri Pragenses and the Thaborites. The former were the more moderate Dissenters; the Church Hussites and Jacobellus Misnensis, Rokysan, and other distinguished reformers, belonged to them. But the Thaborites, who were the Puritans, and also the soldiers of the party, had Zisca with them, and the two Procopiuses-both eminent warriors-so that they were for some time the stronger faction.

Tot pingit calices Bohemorum Terra per urbes,

Ut credas Bacchi numina sola coli

is a contemporary distich. It should be observed, that every other picture was an object of aversion, at least to the more rigid reformers.

fined and they were distinguished from the Thaborites, who constituted the more violent faction; and the sum of whose grievances was by no means comprehended in the four articles, though they might consent in their public deliberations to suppress the rest. Among the Calixtins were several of the substantial citizens and leading members of the aristocracy; and of such too the Catholic party was chiefly composed. As these, next after the clergy, were the principal sufferers by the continuance of anarchy and the devastations of war, they entered without much difficulty into the designs of the council. And since it was now obvious, that no reconciliation was to be expected from discussion, it was determined to make another appeal to the sword.

A civil war was immediately kindled throughout the country (in 1434); the party of the council was directed with ability

by a distinguished Bohemian, named Maynard: Renewal of War. his schemes were at first advanced by dissen

sions which raged between the Thaborites and the Orphans; and he afterwards conducted matters with so much address, that he engaged them when united, and entirely overthrew them. On this occasion it so happened, that the most hardened and desperate among the insurgents fell alive into the power of the conquerors; and as they were numerous, and objects, even in their captivity, of fearful apprehension, Maynard resolved to use artifice for their destruction. Among the prisoners there were also several, who were innocent of any previous campaigns against the Church, and who were neither hateful as rebels, nor dangerous as soldiers. These it was the design of the Catholics to spare; and the better to distinguish them from the veterans of Zisca, they caused it to be proclaimed, that the government intended to confer honours and pensions on the more experienced warriors, the heroes of so many fields. These were accordingly invited to separate themselves from their less deserving companions, and to withdraw to some adjacent buildings, where more abundant entertainment and a worthier residence were prepared for them. They believed these promises; and then it came to pass (says Æneas* Sylvius), that many thousands of the Thaborites and Orphans entered the barns assigned to them; they were men blackened, and inured and indurated against sun and wind; hideous and horrible of aspect; who had lived in the smoke of camps; with eagle eyes, locks uncombed, long beards, lofty stature, shaggy limbs, and skin so hardened and callous as to seem proof, like mail, against hostile weapons. The gates were immediately closed upon them; fire was applied to the buildings; and by their combustion, that ignominious band, the dregs and draff of the human race, at length made atonement in the flames, for the crimes which it had perpetrated, to the religion which it had insulted.'... Among the crimes with which the Thaborites are reproached, was there any more foul than that, by which they perished? or can any deeper insult be cast on the religion of Christ, than to offer up human holocausts in his peaceful name? In the balance of religious atrocities the mass of guilt must rest at last with those, who established the practice of violence, and consecrated the principles of Antichrist.

But the adversaries of Rome were not thus wholly extirpated: under the spiritual direction of Rokysan, they were still so considerable, that Sigismond did not disdain to negociate with them. The result was, that a concordat or compact was concluded at Iglau in the year 1436, by

Hist. Bohem., cap. li., ad finem.

which the Bohemians conceded almost all their claims; but in return, the use of the cup was conceded to them, not as an Compact of Iglau. essential practice, but only through the indulgence of the Church*. Some arrangement was likewise made respecting the ecclesiastical property, which had been despoiled by the rebels. This affair was conducted with the countenance of the Council. The first result was favourable; and the contest with Rome might then, perhaps, have ceased; the Bohemians, fatigued with tumult and bloodshed, might have returned to the obedience of the Church, contented with one almost nominal concession, if the chiefs of the hierarchy could have endured any independence of thought or action, any shadow of emancipation from their immitigable despotism. For this was, in fact, the spirit which guided the Councils of Rome; it was not the attachment to any particular tenet or ceremony, which moved her to so much rancour; but it was her general hatred of intellectual freedom, and the just apprehensions with which she saw it directed to the affairs of the Church.

In September, 1436, Sigismond made his entry into Prague, amid congratulations almost universal; and the calamities which had desolated the country for two-and-twenty years appeared to be at an end t. But the Pope refused his assent to the concordat; he refused to confirm the appointment of Rokysan to the See of Prague, though the Emperor had promised it; and though all the factions of the people were united in desiring it. Wherever the guilt of the previous dissensions may have rested, henceforward we need not hesitate to impute it wholly to the Vatican. Legates and mendicant emissaries continued to visit the country, and contend with the divines, and tamper with the people. Even Pius II., whose personal §

*The Council of Basle, in its thirtieth session, published its Decree on the Eucharist, in which are these words:-Sive autem sub una specie sive duplici quis communicet, secundum ordinationem seu observationem Ecclesiæ, proficit digne communicantibus ad salutem. Cochlæus, lib. viii. p. 308. Communicants might be saved according to either method, so long as that method was sanctioned by the Church.

The appointment of a double administrator of the Sacrament in every Church, one for the Catholic, the other for the Separatist, was of somewhat later date. Lenfant places it in 1441, and mentions that great good proceeded from it.

The most celebrated among these papal missionaries was John Capistano, a Franciscan, who had gained great distinction in a spiritual campaign against the Fratricelli in the Campagna di Roma and March of Ancona, and had condemned thirty-six of them to the flames.... He is described by Cochlaus (lib. x. ad finem) as a little emaciated old man, full of fire and enthusiasm, and indefatigable in the service of the Church. The year of his exertions in Bohemia was 1451. Such emissaries were in those days among the most useful tools of the Roman hierarchy.

§ It was in 1451 that Æneas Sylvius made his celebrated visit to Bohemia, as imperial envoy. His mission was merely political; but it deserves our notice from the very interest. ing description which he has drawn of the manners of the Thaborites, among whom he found an asylum when in some danger from bandits :-' It was a spectacle worthy of attention. They were a rustic and disorderly crew, yet desirous to appear civilized. It was cold and rainy. Some of them were destitute of all covering except their shirts; some wore tunics of skin; some had no saddle, others no reins, others no spurs. One had a boot on his leg, another none. One was deprived of an eye, another of a hand; and to use the expression of Virgil, it was unsightly to behold

populataque tempora raptis

Auribus et truncos inhonesto vulnere nares. There was no regularity in their march, no constraint in their conversation; they received us in a barbarous and rustic manner. Nevertheless, they offered us hospitable presents of fish, wine and beer... On the outer gate of the city were two shields; on one of them was a representation of an angel holding a cup: as it were to exhort the people to this communion in wine, on the other Zisca was painted an old man, blind of both eyes whom the Thaborites followed, not only after he had lost one eye, but when he became a perfectly blind leader. Nor was there inconsistency in this, etc.'-(See his 130th Letter.) In the mean time these wild and unseemly sectarians nourished in their

intercourse with the sectarians had not softened his ecclesiastical indignation at their disobedience, exhibited in his negociations with Pogebrac*, the king, an intolerant and resentful spirit. And at length Paul II., his successor, once more found means to light up a long and deadly war in the infected country. It was considered, no doubt, as a stigma upon the Church, which all occasions and instruments were proper to efface, that a single sect should anywhere exist, which dared to differ from the faith or practice of Rome on a single article, and which maintained its difference with impunity.

It was in 1466 that Paul II. excommunicated and deposed Pogebrac, and transferred the kingdom to the son of Huni

ades. In that object he was not successful; but The Bohemian brothers. during the discords of almost thirty years which

followed, the offensive names of Thaborite, Orphan, and even Hussite, gradually disappeared, and the open resistance to the Catholic predominance became fainter and fainter. But the principles were so far from having expired in this conflict, that they came forth from it in greater purity, and with a show of vigour and consistency, which did not at first distinguish them. Early in the ensuing century, about the year 1504, a body of sectarians, under the name of the United Brethren of Bohemia,' begins to attract the historian's notice. Beausobre † affirms, that this association was originally formed in the year 1467; that it separated itself at that time from the Catholics and Calixtines, and instituted a new ministry; that it made application to the Vaudois, in order to receive through them the true apostolical ordination; and that Stephen, a bishop of that persuasion, did actually ordain Matthew, the first bishop of the United Brethren.' It is unquestionable, that those among the Thaborites, and the other more determined dissenters, who had escaped the perils of so many disasters, continued with uncompromising constancy to feed and mature the tenets for which they had suffered; and that many of the leading articles of the Reformation were anticipated and preserved by the Bohemian Brothers.' It is also true, that the evangelical principles of their faith were not unmixed with some erroneous notions; but it is no less certain, that when Luther was engaged in the accomplishment of his mission, he was welcomed by a numerous body of hereditary reformers, who rejected, and whose ancestors had rejected, the sacrifice of the mass, purgatory, transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, the adoration of images; and who confirmed their spiritual emancipation by renouncing the authority of the Pope ‡.

rude abodes opinions, which were the glory of the following age, but which were indeed pernicious to themselves. Exactly seven years after the visit of Eneas Sylvius, the King of Bohemia, Pogebrac, willing to bring them to more moderate sentiments of reform, summoned a General Council of Hussites, who condemned some of their tenets; and then, on their refusal to abjure them, the King assaulted Thabor, and destroyed them (as it is related) with such scrupulous exactness, that not one was left alive.

* Pogebrac was a moderate reformer, a Calixtine; he was extremely anxious to be subject to the Church, on the condition only, that it would leave him the cup: he had been brought up, as he said, in that practice, and would never resign it. His persecution of the Thaborites sufficiently proves how far he was from any anti-ecclesiastical tendency. Yet he seems to have been as much hated at Rome, as if he had gone to the full extent of opposition, and he was certainly much less feared. The Pope had still a powerful party among the aristocracy of Bohemia.

+ Dissertation sur les Adamites. Part I.

Bossuet (in the eleventh chapter of his Variations) consumes his ingenuity in endeavouring to show that the 'Bohemian Brethren' were descended from the Calixtines, not from the Thaborites, and had thus only one point of doctrinal difference with Rome. But, at the same time, he admits their disobedience- Voilà comme ils sont disciples de

CHAPTER XXVI.

History of the Greek Church after its Separation from the Latin. Origin, progress, and sufferings of the Paulicians-They are transplanted to Thrace, and the opinions gain some prevalence there-Their differences from the Manichæans-and from the Church-Six specific errors charged against them by the latter-Examined-Points of resemblance between the Paulicians and the Hussites-Mysticism at no time extinct in the East-and generally instrumental to piety-Introduction of the mystical books into the West-Opinions of the Echites or Messalians-Those of the Hesychasts or Quietists-who are accused before a Council, and acquittedThe mixed character of the heresy of the Bogomiles-Controversy respecting the God of Mahomet -terminated by a compromise-Points of distinction between the two Churches - Imperial supremacy constant in the East-Absence of feudal institutions-Superior civilization of the Greeks They never received the False Decretals, nor suffered from their consequences — Passionate reverence for antiquity-Animosity against the Latins-Hopes from foundation of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem-Its real consequences-Establishment of a Latin Church in the East-Influence of the military orders-Legates a latere-Latin conquest of Constantinople-confirmed by lnnocent III.-A Latin Church planted and endowed at Constantinople-TithesDissensions of the Latin ecclesiastics-Increasing animosity between the Greeks and LatinsSecession of the Greek hierarchy to Nice-Mission from Rome to Nice-Subject and heat of the controversy, and increased rancour-John of Parma subsequently sent by Innocent IV. -Extinction of the Latin empire-The Church does not still withdraw its claims-Subsequent negociations between the Emperor and the Pope- Confession of Clement IV.-Conduct of the Oriental Clergy-Ambassadors from the East to the Second Council of Lyons -Concession of the Emperor presently disavowed by the Clergy and People - Subsequent attempts at reconciliation — Arrival of the Emperor and Patriarch at Ferrara - First proceedings of the Council-Private deliberations by Members of the two churches-The four grand Subjects of Division-The Dispute on Purgatory-Doctrine of the Latins-of the GreeksFirst Session of the Council-Grand Disputations on the Procession-The Council adjourned to Florence, and the same Discussions repeated there-Suggestions of compromise by the Emperor, to which the Greeks finally assent-The common Confession of Faith-A Treaty, by which the Pope engages to furnish Supplies to the Emperor-The Union is then ratified-The manner in which the other differences, as the Azyms, Purgatory, and the Pope's Primacy, are arranged-Difficulty as to the last-How far the subject of Transubstantiation was treated at Florence. On the fate of Cardinal Julian-Return of the Greeks-Their angry reception-Honours paid to Mark of Ephesus-Insubordination of three Patriarchs-Russia also declares against the Union-Critical situation of the Emperor-The opposite Party gains ground-The prophetic Address of Nicholas V. to the Emperor Constantine-Perversity and Fanaticism of the Greek Clergy-They open Negotiations with the Bohemians-Tumult at Constantinople against the Emperor and the Pope's Legate-Fall of Constantinople-Note. On the Armenians-and Maronites.

WHILE the jealousies, which had so long disturbed the ecclesiastical concord of the east and west, were ripened into open schism by the mutual violence of Nicholas and Photius*, the Eastern Church was in the crisis of a dangerous contest with a domestic foe. A sect of heretics named Paulicians had arisen in the seventh century, and gained great prevalence in the Asiatic provinces, especially Armenia. It was in vain that they were assailed by imperial edicts and penal inflictions. Constans, Justinian II., and even Leo the Isaurian successively chastised their errors or their contumacy; but they resisted with inflexible fortitude, until at length Nicephorus, in the beginning of the ninth century, relented from the system of his predecessors, and restored the factious dissenters to their civil privileges, and religious liberty.

The

During this transient suspension of their sufferings, they gained strength to endure others, more protracted and far more violent. oppressive edicts were renewed by Michael Curopalates, and redoubled by Leo the Armenian; as if that resolute Iconoclast wished to make

Jean Huss. Morceau rompu d'un morceau, schisme séparé d'un schisme-Hussites divisés des Hussites; et qui n'en avoient presque retenu, que la désobéissance et la rupture avec l'Eglise Romaine.'

We refer the reader to the 12th chapter of this History.