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Loss of
Antioch,

June 12.

CHAP, sin. 106 Antioch,107 whose situation had been less exposed to LIX. the calamities of the holy war, was finally occupied and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and Syria: the Latin principality was extinguished; and the first seat of the A. D. 1268, Christian name was dispeopled by the slaughter of seventeen, and the captivity of one hundred, thousand of her inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli, Berytus, Sidon, Tyre, and Jaffa, and the stronger castles of the Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the whole existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of St. John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more classic title of Ptolemais.

After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, 108 which is distant about seventy miles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and was adorned with strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an artificial port, and a double wall. The population was increased by the incessant streams of pilgrims and fugitives in the pauses of hostility, the trade of the East and West was attracted to this convenient station; and the market could offer the produce of every clime and the interpreters of every tongue. But in this conflux of nations, every vice was propagated and practised: of all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and female inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could the abuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city had many sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus, of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the counts of Tripoli and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital, the temple, and Teutonic order, the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, the pope's legate, the kings of France and England, assumed an independent command; seventeen tribunals exercised the power of life and death: every criminal was protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual jealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood. Some adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages: nineteen Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith, were despoiled and hanged by the Christians; and the denial of satisfaction justified the arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched against

106 See Carte's History of England, vol. ii. p. 165-175, and his original authors, Thomas Wilkes and Walter Hemingford (1. iii. c. 34, 3-5,) in Gale's Collection (tom. ii. p. 97. 589--592.) They are both ignorant of the princess Eleanor's piety in sucking the poisoned wound, and saving her husband at the risk of her own life.

107 Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis l. iii. p. xii. c. 9, and de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the Arabic historians.

108 The state of Acre is represented in all the chronicles of the times, and most accurately in John Villani, l. vii. c. 144, in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 337, 338.

LIX.

Acre and

Land,

Acre, at the head of sixty thousand horse and one hundred CHAP. and forty thousand foot: his train of artillery (if I may use the word) was numerous and weighty; the separate timbers of a single engine were transported in one hundred wagons; and the royal historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices of the Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but they were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs, and overwhelmed on all sides by the powers of the sultan. After a siege of thirty-three days, the double The loss of wall was forced by the Moslems; the principal tower yielded the Holy to their engines; the Mamalukes made a general assault; the A. D. 1291. city was stormed; and death or slavery was the lot of sixty May 18. thousand Christians. The convent, or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days longer; but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the victims of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold in the unjust and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of Jerusalem, the patriarch, and the great master of the hospital, effected their retreat to the shore; but the sea was rough; the vessels were insufficient; and great numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they could reach the isle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so long resounded with the WORLD'S DEBATE.109

109 See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus, l. iii. p. xii. c. 11—22, Abulfeda Macrizi, &c. in de Guignes, tom. iv. p. 162. 164. and Vertot, tom. i.. ii), p. 407--428.

СНАР.

LX.

the Greeks.

CHAPTER LX.

Schism of the Greeks and Latins-State of ConstantinopleRevolt of the Bulgarians-Isaac Angelus dethroned by his brother Alexius-Origin of the Fourth Crusade--Alliance of the French and Venetians with the son of Isaac—Their naval expedition to Constantinople- The two Sieges and final Conquest of the City by the Latins.

THE restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne, was speedily followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches.1 A religious and national animosity still diSchism of vides the two largest communions of the Christian world; and the schism of Constantinople, by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most dangerous enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire in the East.

Their aver- In the course of the present history, the aversion of the sion to the Greeks for the Latins has been often visible and conspicuous.

Latins.

It was originally derived from the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after the time of Constantine, by the pride of equality or dominion, and finally exasperated by the preference which their rebellious subjects had given to the alliance of the Franks. In every age, the Greeks were proud of their superiority in profane and religious knowledge; they had first received the light of Christianity; they had pronounced the decrees of the seven general councils; they alone possessed the language of scripture and philosophy; nor should the barbarians, immersed in the darkness of the West, presume to argue on the high and mysterious questions of theological science Those barbarians despised, in their turn, the restless and subtle levity of the Orientals, the authors of every heresy, and blessed their own simplicity, which was content to hold the tradition of the apostolic church. Yet in the seventh century, the synods of Spain, and afterward of France, improved or corrupted the Nicene creed, on the mysterious subProcession ject of the third person of the Trinity. In the long controof the Holy versies of the East, the nature and generation of the Christ had been scrupulously defined; and the well-known relation of

Ghost.

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1 In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the xviiith, Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks, with learning, clearness, and impartiality: the filioque (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 277,) Leo III. p. 303. Photius, p. 307, 308. Michael Cerularius, p. 370, 371, &c.

2 Ανδρες δυσσεβεις και αποτροπαιοι, ανδρες εκ σκοτες αναδύντες, της γαρ Έσπερια μειράς Sun Zevenμara (Phot. Epist. p. 47, edit. Montacut.) The Oriental patriarch continues to apply the images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild-boar, precur sors of Antichrist, &c. &c.

s The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy Ghost, is discussed in the historical, theological, and controversial sense, or nonsense, by the Jesuit Petarius (Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. p. 362-440.)

Father and Son seemed to convey a faint image to the human CHAP. mind. The idea of birth was less analogous to the Holy Spi- LX. rit, who, instead of a divine gift or attribute, was considerede by the Catholics, as a substance, a person, a god; he was not begotten, but in the orthodox style, he proceeded. Did he proceed from the Father alone, perhaps by the Son? or from the Father and the Son? The first of these opinions was asserted by the Greeks, the second by the Latins, and the addition to the Nicene creed of the word filioque, kindled the flame of discord between the Oriental and the Gallic churches. In the origin of the dispute, the Roman pontiffs affected a character of neutrality and moderation; they condemned the invocation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, of their Transalpine brethren; they seemed desirous of casting a veil of silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in the correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes the liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the passions and prejudices of a priest.5 But the orthodoxy of Rome spontaneously obeyed the impulse of her temporal policy; and the filioque, which Leo wished to erase, was transcribed in the symbol and chanted in the liturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and Athanasian creeds are held as the Catholic faith, without which none can be saved; and both Papists and Protestants must now sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, who deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father. Such articles of faith are not susceptible variety of of treaty; but the rules of discipline will vary in remote cal disciand independent churches; and the reason, even of divines, pline. might allow, that the difference is inevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition of Rome has imposed on her priests and deacons the rigid obligation of celibacy; among the Greeks it is confined to the bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity or anihilated by age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy the conjugal society of the wives whom they have married before their entrance into holy orders. A question concerning the Azyms was fiercely debated in the eleventh century, and the essence of the Eucharist was supposed in the East and West, to depend on the use of leavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious

4 Before the shrine of St. Peter, he placed two shields of the weight of 94 1-2 pounds of pure silver; on which he inscribed the text of both creeds (utroque symbolo) pro amore et cautela orthodoxæ fidei (Anastas. in Leon. III. in Mura tori, tom. iii. pars i. p. 208.) His language most clearly proves, that neither the filioque, nor the Athanasian creed, were received at Rome about the year 830.

5 The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare, that all who rejected the filioque, at least the doctrine, must be damned. All, replies the pope, are not capable of reaching the altiora mysteria; qui potuerit, et non voluerit, salvus esse non potest (Collect. Concil. tom. ix. p. 277-286.) The potuerit would leave a large loop-hole of salvation!

ecclesiasti

CHAP. history the furious reproaches that were urged against the LX. Latins, who, for a long while, remained on the defensive ? They neglected to abstain, according to the apostolical decree, from things strangled, and from blood: they fasted, a Jewish observance on the Saturday of each week: during the first week of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese;" their infirm monks were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease was substituted for the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or unction in baptism, was reserved to the episcopal order; the bishops, as the bridegrooms of their churches, were decorated with rings; their priests shaved their faces, and baptized by a single immersion. Such were the crimes which provoked the zeal of the patriarchs of Constantinople; and which were justified with equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church.7

Ambitious quarrels of

Constanti

the popes,

857-886.

8

Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of Photius, pa- every object of dispute; but the immediate cause of the triarch of schism of the Greeks may be traced in the emulation of the ople, with leading prelates, who maintained the supremacy of the old meA.D. tropolis superior to all, and of the reigning capital inferior to none, in the Christian world. About the middle of the ninth century, Photius, an ambitious layman, the captain of the guards and principal secretary, was promoted by merit and favour to the more desirable office of patriarch of Constantinople. In science, even ecclesiastical science, he surpassed the clergy of the age; and the purity of his morals has never been impeached; but his ordination was hasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his abdicated predecessor, was yet supported by the public compassion and the obstinacy of his adherents. They appealed to the tribunal of Nicholas the First, one of the proudest and most aspiring of the Roman pontiffs, who embraced the welcome opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East. Their quarrel was embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over the king and nation of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion to Christianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could number the proselytes among the subjects of his power. With the aid of his court the Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the furious contest he deposed, in his turn, the successor of St. Peter, and involved the Latin

6 In France, after some harsher laws, the ecclesiastical discipline is now relaxed; milk, cheese, and butter, are become a perpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in Lent (Vie privée des Francois, tom. ii. p. 27-38.)

7 The original monuments of the schism, of the charges of the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the Epistles of Photius (Epist. Encyclica, ii. p. 47 -61,) and of Michael Cerularius (Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. P. ì. p. 281 ---324, edit. Basnage, with the prolix answer of cardinal Humbert.)

8 The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councils, contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius; they are abridged with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by Dupin and Fleury.

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