who was an admirer of Origen. Epiphanius and Jerom condemned the Origenifts, and John the Anthropomorphites.

Epiphanius deftroyed a picture of Chrift, or of fome Saint, which he found hung up in a Church, accounting it to be a fuperftitious and idolatrous ornament, and gives an account of what he had done, in an Epiftle to John.

"They whofe confciences are not hardened paft all feeling, muft acknowledge that Epiphanius condemned the ufe of Images in Churches, and that fuch practices were contrary to the then received difcipline; of which Epiphanius could not be ignorant, who had travelled through fo many regions. Du Pin fully acknowledgeth this, whofe candour we ought to commend. Baronius was fadly diftreffed by this teftimony of Epiphanius, and thought it best to have recourfe to effrontery, and to cut the knot which he could not untie. He pronounced this part of the letter of Epiphanius to be fpurious; and

Bellarmine

Bellarmin was of the fame opinion; though many things concur to prove it to be genuine, &c. i."

Petavius and Sirmondus, though Jefuits, acknowledge it to be genuine *. Amongst the Arabians, a Sect arofe of perfons called Collyridians, who offered up cakes to the Virgin Mary, as to a Goddess, to the Queen of Heaven. Epiphanius wrote against them, and treated them as Heretics and Idolaters. But the idolatrous worship of the Virgin became in process of time the most triumphant of all herefies; and Epiphanius, if he had lived in the later centuries, would have been put into the Inquifition, and roafted alive for cenfuring fuch idolatrous practices, and for destroying a facred Picture.

At this time happened the famous fedition at Antioch, which gave occafion to the Emperor Theodofius to exercise his lenity.

Bafnage iii. 116. See Tillemont, x. 807.

* See Stillingfleet, vol. v. p. 449.

I

"The

"The Pagans themselves, as well as the Chriftians, confeffed that the Rioters were only the minifters and inftruments of evil Dæmons, the firft authors of all the mischief, and they relate that a Perfon was feen to appear under different figures, and then disappeared, which caufed great terror, &c. "

m

It is reported, fays Sozomen, that on the night before the day of the fedition, a Spectre was feen, of à female form, a vast stature, and a grim afpect, which flew over the ftreets of the city, lafhing the air with a loud-founding whip, fuch as is ufed in the Amphitheatres, to provoke and enrage the wild beafts. Thus fome pernicious Dæmon treacherously excited this tumult.

Upon which paffage Mr. Reading gravely remarks, in his notes, that fuch Spectres had been fometimes feen, as

Pagan writers alfo teftify, and particularly Plutarch in the Life of Brutus.

It is hard to fay who fhews the most judgment here, Sozomen or his Annotator. It was an excufe invented by the Antiochians for their impudence and fury. Agamemnon in Homer makes the fame apology for himself; Not I, but the Devil who was in me.

Ἐγὼ δ ̓ ἐκ αἴτιός είμι,

̓Αλλὰ Ζούς, και Μοῖρα, καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Ερίννης

The fault was not in me; but fove and Fate,

And dark Erynnis hovering in the air, Inflam'd me with mad ftrife and noxious rage.

The Spectre described by Sozomen is exactly the Poëtical Bellona, as reprefented by Virgil, and by twenty of his brethren. See Valerius Flaccus, where Venus, transformed into a Fury, excites the Lemnian women to murder their hufbands:

" Iliad. T. 86.

ü. 104.

-effera

effera et ingens,

Et maculis fuffecta genas, pinumque fo

Virginibus Stigiis nigramque fimillima pallam.

Theodofius conquered the tyrant Maximus, and put him to death, and behaved himself with tolerable moderation towards his adverfaries, after his victory. Pacatus thus celebrates his clemency: Nullius bona publicata, nullius muletata libertas, nullius præterita dignitas imminuta, &c.

But there is no trufting to Panegyrics, and it appears that the effects and eftates of fome perfons at leaft were forfeited and feized P.

"God began at this time to blaft the undertakings of Maximus: and this tyrant had, befides his other crimes, drawn himself the curfe of God by an action which doubtlefs will feem lawful enough to those who have more

upon

P Cod. Theod. L. iv. Tit. xxii. p. 414. and Gothofred.

of