The successors of Mahomet, not only.propagated his doctrine, but imitated his example. Their arms were every where victorious; and such was the rapidity of. their progress, that in little more than half a century, the whole of Persia, Syria, and Egypt, and a great part of Africa and Spain, had yielded to their irresistible valour, and acknowledged the dominion of the prophet.
The History of the Church of Christ, from the year 755, when the Supremacy of the Pope was acknowledged, and his Temporal Dominion established, to the era of the Reformation, about the Year 1545.
Tuts period may justly be denominated the period of darkness. It comprehends in it more instances of false opinion and elaborate folly, than all the other por tions into which the history of the church may be di vided. In this melancholy period, the religion of Je sus seems to b-e very nearly extinct, and imposture and fanaticism are dignified with its name. The historian finds himself lost amidst the aberrations of the human u;.. rstanding, and the expressions 4 mistaken piety; and has to grope his way through the monastic institu tions, and relics, and canonizations, and indtilgenc•q, and to conduct his readers safe, amidst the interdicts of the popes, the battles of the crusaders, and the wrap; ling of the schools. To expatiate on all these topics, would carry us far beyond our limits ; shall only touch upon a few of them, and refer our readers to the accounts which are given, milder the different titles, in other parts of the work.
In the beginning of the ninth century, the passion for accumulating the relics of the saints, appears to have reached an extraordinary height. A respect for holy men when alive seems to have been extended to their corrupted remains after their death ; and the more so, as every year brought new accounts of the miracles performed by these exuvix of the faithful. In conse quence of his abstinences and his penances, the ancho rite is supposed to have overcome the malignity of ,nat ter, and to have purified and refined it, by infusing a portion of his spiritual excellence into its native depra vity. And matter, once believed to be the origin and the seat of all evil, is now represented as effectual in healing the sick, and in restoring the dead to life. Many persons, some of whom were in eminent stations, and others, distinguished by the learning which was preva lent at the time, travelled into Judea for the express purpose of obtaining relics. The bodies of the apostles and first martyrs are said to have been dug up, and in numerable fragments, bones, or pieces of bones, legs, arms, toes and fingers, skulls, jaw-bones and teeth, were brought into Italy. Very large sums of money were often paid for them; they were incased in gold, surrounded with precious stones, and worn as amulets about the neck. In some instances', the purchaser does not appear to have been extremely nice or scrupulous in his enquiries. If the bone presented to hint was re ported to have been dug up in Judea, or if it only looked like an old bone, or was in reality a rotten bone, he seemed content to buy it. hence the knavery of the Greeks led them to substitute the remains of other animals for those of human beings, "and particularly for those of the saints. And he who records the fulness
of human credulity, will not fail to state, that many a devotee has wept over the leg or the spine of a dog or a jackal!, and pleased himself at the same time with supposing that he had before him a relic of St Mark, St Bartholomew, or St James. Sometimes the remains in question were found in consequence of an immedi ate revelation front heaven ; a holy monk, or female re nowned for chastity, being directed to the place where they lay dispersed or interred. Many real crosses and fragments of them were obtained ; and, last of all, the thirty pieces of silver with which Judas Iscariot was bribed, and which, by some confusion among the his torians, arc now called thirty pieces of gold, were dis covered and known; and, passing through several hands, are still (it seems) possessed by the curious in relics, in different parts of the world. There is one of them as large as an noble," which is shewn in the entrance to St Peter's at Ha nc. " But though thc, ve neration for the remains of celc brated pc rsons." observes an elegant writer, cc when car. led to such an extreme as to be converted into a species of religious worship, is certainly culpable ; and though the 'idiocies w Inch were attributed to these remains, must be either as delusions of the fancy, or as fo•ger;es o• craft; still we are not to suppose the passion itself, without a foundation in the principles of human na tt re. It impossilde to confine the human affections in their operation: it is impossible not to connect with the objects of our regard eery tking which was origi nally connected with them. The axe. which termi nated the existence of the innocent and beautiful Anne Millen, is still contemplated w ith some sensations of ss inpathy ; and were it possible to survey the real cross on which the Sal lour of mankind had been suspended, the person who did not consider it as more than an ob ject of curiosity. must be destitutc.of all the must and ..ble feelings of the human heart." Monastic institutions kept pace with the passion for relics. The monk (i.toynel) was originally a hermit or anchorite, who withdrew from society, and spent his time in solitary devotion. St Anthony the Egyptian is usually considered as the founder of monachism. Ile was ignorant in the very highe'.t degree, anti boasted of his ignorance ; regarding learning as useless at least, if not pernicious. lle was a severe ascetic and lived much with the wild beasts, and supported himself upon fruits and herbs, the spontaneous produc tions of the earth. From Egypt and the East, mona chism passed over inth Greece. The Latins received it from the Greeks; and so highly was it valued in Italy, that in the beginning of the ninth century, multitudes of pet soLs, in all ranks and situations, withdrew from the world, and wasted their (lays in celibacy and soli tude. The madness spread from province to province, and from one country of Europe to another; and even kings, dukes, and great lords of the court, forgot their true dignity as well as their duty to society, and joined with the poorest of their subjects or dependants, in all the severities of the monastic life.