History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
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 the 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 of treaty; but
the rules of discipline will vary in remote and independent
churches; and the reason, even of divines, 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 annihilated 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
history the furious reproaches that were urged against the
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; 6 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
2 (return) [ ''AndreV dussebeiV kai apotropaioi, andreV ek sktouV
anadunteV, thV gar 'Esperiou moiraV uphrcon gennhmata, (Phot.
Epist. p. 47, edit. Montacut.) The Oriental patriarch continues
to apply the images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild boar,
precursors of Antichrist, &c., &c.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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