BOOKS.

GREENWOOD'S CATHEDRA PETRI.* TILE origin and gradual growth of the Papal theocracy as well as of the temporal power of the Popedom are the subjects of Mr. Greenwood's work. The two volumes before us bring down the disquisitional narrative to the middle of the nintlicenttcy, ending with the great image-worship controversy. Of these volumes the first was published as long ago as 1856, the second appeared in the course of the present season. The author originally seems to have contemplated the Reformation as the natural limit of his theme. As yet, however, the work is only completed in manu- script as far down as the great contest of investitures in the thir- teenth century, and if published as it stands would occupy three more volumes like those before us • or in other words some fifteen hundred ample pages in addition to the thousand already printed. We should doubt the advantage of completing the publication, at least upon its present plan and scale ; and that for various reasons which pass beyond the mere question of popular writing, to the nature of the book.

In the first place, the subject is essentially intellectual or lo- gical, sometimes, indeed, reaching the metaphysical ; and no long work which mainly deals with the results of intellectual opera- tions can ever possess the interest that attends upon human cha- racters engaged in action. Ecclesiastical history undoubtedly would furnish deeds enough in the stories of martyrs and miracle- mongers, as well as in the lives of great priests, great preachers, the doings of great councils or synods, and of a few men whose labours in the cause of humanity were truly apostolic. Still, even the story of the church wants the variety of secular history. Mr. Greenwood's Cathedra Petri, however, is in reality only an exposition of the growth of a religious usurpation, based on a re- ligious opinion, whose successive stages we cannot very satisfac- torily trace in the early periods, owing to the paucity of writers in the first century of the Church, and the questionable authen- ticity of some of the alleged authorities of later date. When the claim of the Bishop of Rome to autocratical authority as the suc- cessor of St. Peter, and of the powers alleged to be conveyed to the Apostle by the celebrated text " Thou art Peter," &c., nonce distinctly put forth, something akin to action is visible in the systematic and artful attempts of the Roman Church to fasten its yoke on other churches, and the occasional resistance displayed. With the decline of the Western Empire, and the necessity thrown upon the Pope of acting as a volunteer princeps as well as a religious chief, variety of action accompanied by danger and courage is to be found. This element, however, is only occasion- ally developed ; and when the decree of Valentian the Third ac- knowledged the " apostolic see " (under Leo the Great) as " the brightest star in the episcopal constellation," &c., and affirmed that the whole world also acknowledged " that see as its [spiritual] director and governor," the work of Mr. Greenwood seems done. That decree gave the Pope, in theory, as much spiritual power as he ever claimed. If the Eastern Church opposed his claims and disowned his sovereignty, it is only what it has been doing ever since, and does now. Some churches and some prelates might in practice resist the claims of Leo's successors ; when Belisarius and Narses conquered Italy for Justinian, the Eastern Emperor and his generals made short account of Popes ' • but the theoretical claims and rescriptive rights of the Popedom to supreme religions jurisdiction were clearly enough acknowledged under Leo. 'Under Gregory the Great they were established in Italy, Africa, Spain and France. The extension of the Pope's religious rule over Britain and Germany had yet to be carried out, as the peoples to a great extent had to be converted ; his exercise of the power of deposing princes could not in those days have been safely urged; the extent and solidity of his gigantic usurpation had still to be realized ; but the principles of the Papacy were promulgated, and with some rebellious or heretical exceptions received; the interest of the chace is therefore at an end ; at all events from the time of Gregory. This Mr. Greenwood has not seen. His second volume is con- sequently somewhat inferior to the first. Substantially that closes with the death of Leo, and the historian henceforth should not have continued to dwell in detail upon questions or controversies that up to that time were of the nature of proof, but have con- finfil himself to the salient points of Papal history. The reign of Justinian and the Pontificate of Gregory, the Great are un- doubtedly of this kind ; but the larger portion of the four centu- ries of which the second volume treats, refers to internal disputes in the Romish church, or to squabbles with the Eastern Patriarch and clergy, which as the last led to no practical result are devoid of any attraction to relieve their tedious triviality. The icono- clastic question has greater importance, as well in itself as in its bearings on the differences between the Eastern and Western Churches ; but its relation to the professed object of the book, the growth of the Papal power, is not so clear. For these reasons the actual interest of Mr. Greenwood's second volume at all events, will be limited to a very special class of readers. This interest would not be increased by its extension to a threefold length, un- less a broader and more rapid style of treatment were adopted.. Inherent circumstances also rather militate against any h101 degree of general attraction. One has been alluded to already, • Cathedra Petri. A Political History of the Great Latin Patriarchate. By The- mes Greenwood, M.A. Camb. and Durb., F.R.S.L., Barrister-at-Law. Published by Stewart. namely, the intellectual character of the main subject, which never cans possess the interest of human feelings and passions. The ma- terials from which the views are often drawn partake of the same deficiency. A book that deals with the interests, the conduct, or the manners of men, whether it be limited to individuals, as a law-suit, or attempt like a poem or a tale to delineate mankind in a generalized representation, such book must if of average merit reflect life of some sort. And the spirit of this life, it is the busi- ness of the narrator to infuse into his own pages. A book whose essential object is logical conclusion, metaphysical speculation, re- ligious exposition, or all combined will display the mental powers, opinions, and rein. dices of the author, probably of his

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age but will rarely furnish a glimpse of its life, not to men- tion that some of the Fathers were by no means of average merit, and have been preserved by superstition rather than inherent worth. Hence the bulk of many of Mr. Greenwood's originals furnish little or nothing to relieve the dryness of theological' dis- quisition. The subject, too, has been largely dealt with already ; though not perhaps in our author's precise method. For he passes in review each of the early Fathers who makes any allusion to the presence of Peter at Rome, or to the early authority and power of her Bishops. He arranges the whole history into periods— perhaps too many to preserve the masses of his subject, but the principle gives clearness to the exposition, and assists the reader's grasp, especially when the subordinate divisions are dropped out of view. And these leading periods may stand as the Apostolic, the Post-Apostolic, the Oligarchical—when Mr. Green- wood considers there was a probability of the Church falling under the rule of the chief bishops ; and the Struggling, during which the Papal claims were not only put forward but exercised when pos- sible, till they theoretically culminated with Leo the Great. But although the whole matter may not have been treated so syste- matically as by Mr. Greenwood, still such questions as whether St. Peter ever was at Rome—what were the views of the early Fathers respecting the power conveyed to Peter—or his pre- 'eminence over the other apostles—or their acknowledgement of Rome's superiority—have all been discussed over and over again. For popular power and even satisfactory argument, the author is often too exhausting ; perhaps he is too much given to importing meanings which the original does not obviously contain, so that advocacy supersedes disquisition.

In characterizing the work as an exposition of theological opin- ions and superstitious disputes, rather than a history of actions, it must be understood that this remark only applies to the book generally. There are parts where character, courage, and action centre altogether in the Roman pontiff. Stich was Leo's conduct when he saved Rome from the fury of Attila, and again from the Vandal Genseric. On these occasions, however, it mustbe ob- served that proof of the growth of Papal power is lurking at the bottom, and may conduce to the interest. The Emperor and his court were absent, or fled away ; all who had the means followed their prince's example ; soldiery there were none. In Milton's language, addressed to Cromwell. the whole national interest fell into Leo's hands and subsisted only in his abilities. We quote the second occasion on which the Pope saved the eternal city from the barbarian.

" Two years after the retreat of Attila, the intrepid Bishop of Rome, was again summoned into the arena of worldly politics. In the year 454 the vicious Valentinian III. dipped his hands in the blood of the only capable minister and general of the expiring state. The magieter militum AEtius fell by the dagger of the jealous tyrant ; and about a twelvemonth after- wards, Petronius Maximus, the creature, and probably the betrayer of Aitius, avenged his blood by the murder of the imperial assassin. Maximus assumed the purple, and dragged the widowed Empress Eudoxia to his bed. The miserable woman for a while suppressed the fierce passions which burned within her. She managed meanwhile to convey a message to Gen- seric the predatory sovereign of the African Vandals, holding out the plun- der of Rome and Italy as a reward for ridding her of the unnatural con- nexion with the murderer of her husband. Excited rather by the prospect of the plunder of the imperial city than by the vindictive solicitations of an in- jured woman, Genseric embarked the whole of his army, and landed at a point on the coast of Italy, nearest to the city. Resistance was not even dreamt of; Maximus took flight, and all who had the means of escape followed the ex- ample of the court. Eudoxia seized the opportunity to accomplish her re- venge; her satellites dogged the footsteps of her victim, overtook and slew him, and flung his mutilated body into the Tiber. Genseric hastened his march towards the defenceless city, burning with lust of plunder and blood. At this terrible moment Leo the bishop went forth unarmed to confront the ruthless barbarian, and to save at least a remnant of his flock from death and ruin. By his eloquent supplications, as it is said—but far more probably by a dexterous and rational appeal to the interests of the invader— he. prevailed upon Genseric to spare the city the needless horrors of indis- cninioate pillage. The lives and dwellings of the remaining inhabitants were saved ; but for the space of fourteen days a rigid scrutiny of all move- able property was carried on ; and Rome was methodically drained of all her portable public and private wealth, Spoils of inestimable value, many thousand slaves of all ages and of both sexes, and among the numerous cap- tives, the Empress Eudoxia and her two daughters by Valentinian, were carried away to Carthage.

the Services like these are better appreciated at a distance of time than at file moment they are rendered. The rescue of an immense and a populous city from the hands of an irresistable host of greedy savages by the mere weight of personal address and a calm appeal to the selfish interests of the victors is an achievement of no mean ment. But reflecting for a moment upon the strength and perspicacity of the mind that could weigh at a glance ofetlfreatlie88 of the loss that must needs be incurred against the magnitude

, the gain, and the moral courage requisite to incur the one to insure the ther, and we shall not hesitate to inscribe the name of Leo Bishop of Rome high upon the lists of the noblest benefactors of mankind. The Emperor, the court, the wealthy, and the noble, had fled at the a roach of danger: the intrepid bishop, strong faith hope and lovelalp alone remained at the post of honour and tr Z4%17) altnd and retired, and left the city emptied of all its'waealtn tsubsaatarce, anralmosret red a wilderness of deserted habitations, there remained none to 'advise or to

cheer the famishing remnant but the undauntad bishop and his gallant clergy. These had never quitted their poste—these had faced the foe and averted the extremity of ruin, and their example alone kept alive the spark of hope among the despairing multitude that still clung- to their desolate i

homes. It is in this spontaneous chieftainship that we recognize one of the most effective elements of the subsequent political greatness of the Ro- man bishops. The decaying mass of civil institutions became as manure at the root of the papacy. Papal Rome drew nourishment from dissolution, strength from desertion, courage from despair. In desperate emergencies like that we have just adverted to, no one will look into or scrutinize too closely the claims and titles of the deliverer; in such times the duties of civil and spiritual government are thrust into the hands best able to exe- cute them ; both duties are impelled into the same channel and flow on naturally and amicably together. To Leo it was due that Rome was not converted into a heap of smouldering ashes ; and if natural justice were to decide the question between the Church and the State, without doubt the Pope was the rightful governor of Rome, for without him there would have been no Rome to govern."

Neither is the idea of action confined to the secular doings of the Pontiffs and the priesthood ; it is found in their ecclesiastical proceedings, though more frequently when the Papal supremacy had been received, than when it was growing. This in a pas- sage from Gregory's efforts to reform the Church is an instance of what we mean.

"But the attention of Pope Gregory was called rather to the disregard of canonical ordinances, and departures from the practice and discipline of Rome, than to that moral decay which tainted the whole body of the Frankish church. If the candid history of his namesake, the Bishop of Tours, had been before him, his Christian discernment must have disco- vered far deeper wounds than the restoration of formal discipline could have cured. In truth, little short of a republication of the Gospel in a purer form, the infusion of a nobler spirit, of a higher conception of Chris- tian duty, could suffice to remedy the evils introduced by the semi-pagan habits and practices which the Frankish clergy had tolerated and encou- raged, till they themselves became infected, and swam with the current of idolatry and superstition. Yet neither the means nor the zeal necessary for such a reformation were altogether wanting. The very first requisite was to check the universal practice of image and relic worship. Serenus, Arch- bishop of Marseilles, was foremost to raise his voice against the monstrous abuse of images and pictures in his own diecess. He had witnessed and de- precated the palpable adoration paid to these representative symbols ; he had broken them in pieces, and cast them out of his temples with abhor- rence. In this violent act of faith, Gregory detected an excess of zeal, and a serious error of judgment. It did not square with the accommodating po- licy he had adopted in dealing with an ignorant and superstitious genera- tion. You have done wrong,' he wrote to Serenus, to break those images in pieces ; for they have been put up in the churches from time imme- morial. They ought not, indeed, to be adored ; and it is your duty to warn your flock against paying them any kind of worship. Nevertheless, you ought not to set yourself up for more pure and pious than your brethren. It is your duty to teach your flock the proper use of pictures and images, but not to destroy them ; for these pictures and images are the substitutes for the books which they cannot read. Besides, you have given great scan- dal to the people by your violence ; and many have in consequence with- drawn from your communion. You ought, therefore, to call them together, and to prove to them from the Holy Scriptures that they are on no account to adore any thing that is the work of man's hands ; you should give as the reason why you have thus cast out and broken their images, that they had swerved from the proper use of them ; and tell them that if they desire to have them restored, they must learn to regard them only as memorials of the faith, and a means of instruction, but that they must on no account pre- sume to adore them.'

"But while Gregory thus denied the divine virtues, and forbade the wor- ship of images, the Frankish clergy were striving with all their might to impart to them the forbidden character. The saints were everywhere re- garded as local divinities, endowed with power to reward friends, favourites, and devotees, and to punish with the most sudden and appalling visitations any disrespect to themselves, their images, their churches, and the guar- dians of their shrines. The universal faith re sed in the miraculous vir- tues of relics became a source of gainful tra c; relics of reputation were bought and sold at fabulous prices ; they were worn as amulets and charms against all sorts of chances and mishaps ; they wrought miracles, rendered the soldier invulnerable, saved the sailor from shipwreck and disasters of every kind ; they absorbed, in short, the religious interest of the age, and withdrew it from the vital duties of a moral and religious life. Of all this Pope Gregory appears to have taken little notice ; so little, in fact, that when an opportunity occurred to check an evil he himself admitted and condemned, he allowed the feeble plea of convenience to prevail against the discontinuance of a practice which had already poisoned the source of pure religion in the heart of Christendom."

" There is nothing new under the sun" ; and if there were, we suspect that theology would' be about the last place to look for novelty. In turning over the old preachers, the arguments of our contemporaries will be found; as probably the views and reasons of the old writers can be traced to the Fathers. In the Sheeherd of Hermas,—a mystical writer of the first century and the third in the list of the Fathers,—what the Wesleyan put forward as the new birth may be discovered. There too we trace the germ of the tremendous dogma—no salvation out of the pale of the Church. An idea which might really be founded enough to the minds of the first Christians, feeling their faith as a constant principle of action, living, as they did, amid the grossest vices and corruption, and in daily dread of persecution by the heathen. "The author gave to his work the title of The Shepherd,' and com- posed it in the form of a revelation or vision, communicated to him by his guardian angel, whom he describes as the Pastor Angelicus.' The work is no other than an elaborate allegory, descriptive of the frame of the Chris- tian mind, the rigour of Christian morals, the jealous apprehension of secret sins, the practical character of repentance, and the necessity of a thorough psychical change and conversion of the inner man, whereby alone the spirit- ual man can hope to obtain the victory in the great conflict with his carnal nature. Living in a wicked and adulterous generation, amid social con- tempt and privation, and surrounded by dangers and temptations from with- in and from without, the Christian philosopher became practically and ex- perimentally acquainted with the awful character of the conflict he was called upon to sustain with the frailties of his moral nature. These reflec- tions sunk deeply into the minds of the instructors and pastors of the Chris- tian community. The proper weapons for their great warfare were inces- sant prayer, fasting, self-denial, abstinence, mortification of the flesh, and fleshly desires. But as the most skilful use of his arms will not secure the victory to the combatant without organization and discipline, the Christian

warrior looked to the army of the faith, the Church,—the drilled and disci- plined array of the soldiers of the cross,—as his sole support in battle, his only pledge of salvation and victory. " In the Shepherd' of Hermes the twofold character of the Christian, viz., as an individual member, and as a constituent of the body of believers, that is, of the Church, is strikingly delineated ; and furnishes the key to several particulars of importance to the progress of Christian history. The individual character is severe and ascetic to moroseness ; but the corporate, or rather the associate capacity so thoroughly absorbs his individuality as to afford the Christian no standing place but in the ranks ; out of the Church

he is a 'stone' rejected by the builders. • • • • " Hermas, like all the earlier Christian writers, had apparently abandon- ed all hope of a political and, probably also, of a moral regeneration of the world in which they lived. They seemed to have looked forward to the ap- proaching end of all things as the certain fulfilment of the Lord's predic- tions, and as their surest solace under their afflictions. Hermes, like the rest, acknowledges only one sphere of active Christian existence,—the Church ; only one pursuit worthy of the wise man's solicitude,—salvation in the Church. For she (the Church) is Christ's representative ; she is one, as he is one; and in this unity all individuality is swallowed up. Only the true member of the Church is a member of Christ's body ; and he is a true member who through self-sacrifice and tribulation unto death maintains his communion with this sole life-giving sacramental unity. The next step in the deduction, that, namely, out of that communion there could be no hope, no life, no salvation, followed as a matter of course."

The foregoing extract is an example of the succinct account which Mr. Greenwood furnishes of many curious primitive Chris- tian writings. Here is another example of the want of theological novelty. The arguments of Pelagius in favour of persecution, addressed to nines, the general of Justinian, when he declined to lend the secular arm to arrest certain refractory bishops, might emanate from a dignitary of the Church of these days. In fact, little more could be said.

"The viceroy, either from want of instructions from court or from reluc- tance to endanger the peace of the province, declined compliance, on the ground that it was no part of his duty to interfere in ecclesiastical matters, and that it was inexpedient that he should appear in the character of a reli- gious persecutor. The reply of Narses drew from the Pope a luminous ex- position of the claims of Rome upon the secular arm for the support of her spiritual dominion. Be not led astray,' said Pelagius, by the vain babble of those who call it persecution to repress crime, and to labour for the salavation for souls : no one can be accused of persecution, except he use force to compel men to do wrong ; but he that punishes a crime already perpetrated, or seeks to prevent the commission by the threat of impending punishment, doeth a deed of love rather than of persecution : for if, as some will have it, no one is to be prevented by punishment from evil-doing, or afterwards to be reclaimed by the same means, there is an end of all laws, human and divine ; for it is in the very nature of laws to dispense penalties

• against the wicked and rewards to the righteous, as justice requires it. That schism is a crime, and that such persons as the present delinquents ought to be put down by the temporal power, both the authority of Scrip- ture and the ordinances of the Fathers do positively affirm and teach : more- over it is not to be doubted that whosoever separateth himself from the apostolic see is in schism, and that he setteth up a strange altar in the face

of the Church And therefore it was affirmed by the council of Chalcedon, that if any one shall suspend himself from communion by set- ting up a separate altar, and after proper admonition shall decline to live in unity with his bishop, such an one shall be altogether reprobate, and never again have the benefit of the prayers of the faithful, nor enjoy the comforts of religion. And if such persons shall continue in exclusion, and shall make riotings and sedition* in the Church, they shall be put down by the civil power as movers of rebellion. And in the same strain speaketh St. Augustine in his treatise againsts the Donatists. Now as to the actual offenders, they were in duty bound, before renouncing obedience to their lawful pariarch, to have sent, according to ancient practice, a deputation from their own body to give and receive satisfaction upon the matters in dispute ; and not blindly to tear to pieces the body of Christ, which is His holy Church. You cannot, therefore, entertain any further doubt that these persons ought to be constrained by the authority of the sovereign or of

his magistrates Now we have laid before you these rules of the Fathers, lest perchance your mind may have been rendered timid by the fear of being accounted and hated as a persecutor ; but you will now per- ceive that both the Scriptures and the canons teach that it is not persecu- tion to repress crime, and to labour for the salvation of souls. Therefore, in punishing the obstinate schismatics of Liguria, Venetia, and Istria, you have nothing to fear; for there are a thousand precedents and a thou- sand ordinances to prove that it is the duty of the temporal state to punish spiritual delinquents of this sort, not only by exile, but by confiscation of goods and the severest personal coercion."