Finding at length that his community at Valdeluce had become seriously relaxed in discipline by the wealth, numbers, and renown, which his sanctity had given to it, he departed and went to a place near Gaëta. "The monks of these times," he said, "do not employ their leisure in prayer, meditation, and reading of Scripture, but in vain discourse, evil thoughts, and useless curiosity. These and many other evils are removed by labour, which distracts the attention from them; and there is nothing equal to eating our bread in the sweat of our counte

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The princess of Gaëta came to visit him, out of reverence for his piety, and he discoursed to her on purity, almsgiving, and the fear of God. It was always unpleasant to him to meet the great: avoided it carefully, as a source of vanity and danger, and had no intercourse with them even by letter, except to assist them in their necessities and their misfortunes. Nilus died soon after, in 1002, aged ninety-five.

CHAPTER XIV.

ON THE ABUSES AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THIS PERIOD. A.D. 680-1054.

THE ignorance caused by the disorganised condition of society during these ages could not fail to produce many irregularities, abuses, and superstitions. I have already alluded to the mischiefs resulting from the use of images, which were of the most afflicting character. The invocation of saints was also frequent, though we do not find that direct prayers were, as yet, addressed to them, or their aid sought,

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except with a desire for their prayers to God. The litanies of the western Churches began to include such invocations; but they did not find their way into the usual services of the Church. We have seen, in the last chapter, the lamentable want of information on religion which existed in some countries, where the Scriptures and the offices of religion were unintelligible even to the clergy. It was a mistaken reverence for antiquity which led Augustine and Boniface to employ the ancient Latin liturgies in the Churches which they founded amongst the heathen. They had not calculated that the knowledge of that language would be so limited, or that the people would be so badly instructed. Succeeding generations wanted ability or courage to correct a mistake sanctioned by such respectable authority. Still some means of instruction existed, though these were not universally found. Such were the sermons of the bishops and presbyters; the exhortations of the monks; the discipline of penance, which still continued, though much impaired; the system of catechising the young; and the instruction which was conveyed by parents and godfathers, who were also reminded of their duties. And if, as we have reason to believe, a large portion of the community were accustomed to receive the holy eucharist three times a-year, we may trust that the state of religion was in those ages not so bad as it has been sometimes represented; and the present age, with all its advantages of civilisation, peace, and education, would perhaps scarcely be able to prove its greater attention to known duties, or its more conscientious obedience to the impulse of conscience. As time advanced, indeed, we see the words of our Lord verified. The tares began to grow thickly in the field of the Church, and the wheat was oppressed by their multitude. The pure gold of the early times, tried seven times in the

fire, was now mingled with the alloy of this earth; and the human heart betrayed daily its tendency to fall away from the service of its Creator. The very chosen resorts of religious zeal and self-denying piety exemplified most lamentably this tendency to decay. The way of life in which an Antony and a Benedict had shewn such eminent virtues was now filled with lukewarm professors. The simple piety, the poverty, and the industry of St. Benedict's rule, gradually gave way before the influence of too ample endowments. Abuses of all kinds arose. The cupidity of barbarians was attracted by the wealth of monasteries and the splendour of their ornaments. Powerful barons usurped their territories or intruded into their precincts, spreading disorder and licentiousness amongst those former seats of religion and learning. When Odo, about 920, was desirous to devote himself to the monastic life, he went himself or sent messengers to all the celebrated monasteries of France; but he could not find a single house in which sufficient regularity and order were observed. He then founded the monastery and order of Clugny, in which the strictness of ancient discipline was revived. Indeed, the observance of St. Benedict's rule had, even in the preceding century, become so much relaxed, that Benedict of Anianum was employed to reform a number of monasteries in France and Italy.

The vast possessions which were bestowed on the Church by the sovereigns of the West, and which were held by feudal tenure, obliged bishops and abbots to attend the courts of princes, to absent themselves from their dioceses, and to mingle in scenes of war and civil commotion, which were little consistent with their sacred characters. Hence too arose that mutual interference of Church and State, of which these ages furnished several examples. Princes seized on the temporalities of churches, kept them vacant

to enjoy their revenues, or insisted on the appointment of bishops who were altogether unworthy. On the other hand, the bishops began to assume temporal authority. The council of Toledo, in 681, deposed Wamba king of the Visigoths, because, as they pretended, he had taken the monastic habit. The emperor Louis le Débonnaire was deposed, and restored again by councils of bishops. When the patriarchs of Rome had obtained from Pepin, Charlemagne, and their successors, considerable grants of territory in Italy, those powerful prelates assumed a still loftier tone of authority, and began to interfere in the disputes and other affairs of princes. Thus Adrian II. forbade the Emperor Charles the Bald to possess himself of the dominions of king Lothaire, under pain of excommunication, but in this he was resisted by the bishops of France; and when Gregory IV., about 830, had taken part with Lothaire against his father the emperor Louis, and threatened to excommunicate the latter, the bishops of France informed that prelate, that if he came to excommunicate the emperor, he should return home excommunicated himself.

Another evil in these times was the facility with which excommunications were denounced. A sentence, which ought only to be passed on those who have been guilty of most serious offences against God or their brethren, was used on many trifling and unworthy occasions; and hence we need not wonder at the complaints frequently made in those times, that excommunication was disregarded.

The power of the Roman see in the western Church was greatly augmented in the ninth century, by the fabrication of a large body of decretal epistles or ecclesiastical laws, which purported to have been written by the popes during the first three centuries, and in which the judgment of all bishops, the holding of all councils, and a right to hear appeals from all

ecclesiastical judgments, were claimed for the Roman pontiffs. These epistles, which had been forged in the preceding century, and which are now acknowledged by the most learned Romanists to be mere fabrications, exaggerated to the highest degree the powers and privileges of the popes; and the ignorance of the ninth century prevented any discovery of their falsehood. The bishops of Rome asserted their genuineness, and carried their principles into practice; though the bishops, especially those of France, offered much opposition. Thus the liberties of Churches were gradually invaded, while their discipline was injured by the obstacles thrown in the way of assembling synods and condemning offenders, and by the facility of appeals to a foreign and too favourable tribunal.

CHAPTER XV.

ON THE DIVISIONS OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES.

A.D. 680-1054.

DURING the period now before us the rival Churches of Rome and Constantinople had several disputes. When the controversy about images broke out in the eighth century, Gregory II. and Gregory III. of Rome excommunicated the emperors of the East, and forbade the payment of tribute to them, in consequence of their opposition to images. The emperors in return confiscated the possessions of the Roman see in their dominions, and withdrawing the various Churches of Illyricum, Macedonia, Greece, as well as those of Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria, from the jurisdiction of Rome, subjected them to the see of Constantinople.