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as a competent witness. Tiridates ascended the throne of Armenia in the third year of Diocletian, (Hist. Armeniæ, L. ii. c. 79. p. 207,) and St. Gregory, who was invested with the Episcopal character in the seventeenth year of Tiridates, governed almost thirty years the Church of Armenia, and disappeared from the world in the forty-sixth year of the reign of the same Prince. (Hist. Armeniæ, L. ii. c. 88. p. 224, 225.) The consecration of St. Gregory must therefore be placed A. D. 303, and the conversion of the King and kingdom was soon achieved by that successful missionary. 2. The unjust and inglorious war which Maximin undertook against the Armenians, the ancient faithful allies of the Republic, was evidently derived from a motive of superstitious zeal. The historian Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. L. ix. c. 8. p. 448. edit. Cantab.) considers the pious Armenians as a nation of Christians, who bravely defended themselves from the hostile oppression of an idolatrous tyrant. Instead of maintaining "that the conversion of Armenia was not attempted with any degree of success till the sceptre was in the hands of an orthodox Emperor," I ought to have observed, that the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season of the last and greatest persecution, that many Roman exiles might assist the labours of Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the East, may dispute with Constantine the honour of being the first Sovereign who embraced the Christian religion.

In a future edition, I shall rectify an expression

VOL. IV.

PP

which,

which, in strictness, can only be applied to the kingdoms of Iberia and Æthiopia. Had the error been exposed by Mr. Davis himself, I should not have been ashamed to correct it; but I am ashamed at being reduced to contend with an adversary who is unable to discover, or to improve, his own advantages.

But, instead of prosecuting any inquiry from whence the Public might have gained instruction, and himself credit, Mr. Davis chooses to perplex his readers with some angry cavils about the progress of the Gospel in the second century. What does he mean to establish or to refute? Have I denied, that before the end of that period Christianity was very widely diffused both in the East and in the West? Has not Justin Martyr affirmed, without exception or limitation, that it was already preached to every nation on the face of the earth? Is that proposition true at present? Could it be true in the time of Justin? Does not Mosheim acknowledge the exaggeration? "Demus, nec enim quæ in oculos incurrunt infitiari audemus, esse in his verbis exaggerationis nonnihil. Certum enim est diu post Justini ætatem, multas orbis ter rarum gentes cognitione Christi caruisse." (Mosheim de Rebus Christianis, p. 203.) Does he not expose (p. 205), with becoming scorn and indignation, the falsehood and vanity of the hyperboles of Tertullian?" bonum hominem æstu imaginationis elatum non satis adtendisse ad ea quæ literis consignabat."

The high esteem which Mr. Davis expresses for

the

the writings of Mosheim, would alone convince me how little he has read them, since he must have been perpetually offended and disgusted by a train of thinking, the most repugnant to his own. His jealousy, however, for the honour of Mosheim, provokes him to arraign the boldness of Mr. Gibbon, who presumes falsely to charge such an eminent man with unjustifiable assertions.* I might observe, that my style, which on this occasion was more modest and moderate, has acquired, perhaps undesignedly, an illiberal cast from the rough hand of Mr. Davis. But as my veracity is impeached, I may be less solicitous about my politeness; and though I have repeatedly declined the fairest opportunities of correcting the errors of my predecessors, yet, as long as I have truth on my side, I am not easily daunted by the names of the most emi

nent men.

The assertion of Mosheim, which did not seem to be justified by the authority of Lactantius, was, that the wife and daughter of Diocletian, Prisca and Valeria, had been privately baptized. Mr. Davis is sure that the words of Mosheim, "Christianis sacris clam initiata," need not be confined to the rite of baptism; and he is equally sure, that the reference to Mosheim does not lead us to dis-cover even the name of Valeria. In both these assurances he is grossly mistaken; but it is the misfortune of controversy, that an error may be

+ Gibbon, p. 676. N. 132.

* Davis, p. 131.

PP 2

committed

committed in three or four words, which cannot be rectified in less than thirty or forty lines.

1. The true and the sole meaning of the Christian initiation, one of the familiar and favourite allusions of the Fathers of the fourth century, is clearly explained by the exact and laborious Bingham. « The baptized were also styled δι μεμυημένοι, which the Latins call initiati, the initiated, that is, admitted to the use of the sacred offices, and knowledge of the sacred mysteries of the Christian Religion. Hence came that form of speaking so frequently used by St. Chrysostom, and other ancient writers, when they touched upon any doctrines or mysteries which the Catechumens understood not, ισασιν οι μεμνημένοι, the initiated know what is spoken. St. Ambrose writes a book to these initiati; Isidore of Pelusium and Hesychius call them μvOTAL and μυσταγωγητοι. Whence the Catechumens have the contrary names, Αμυστοι, Αμύητοι, Αμυσταγωγητοι, the uninitiated or unbaptized." (Antiquities of the Christian Church, L. i. c. 4. No. 2. vol. i. p. 11. fol. edit.) Had I presumed to suppose that Mosheim was capable of employing a technical expression in a loose and equivocal sense, I should indeed have violated the respect which I have always entertained for his learning and abilities.

2. But Mr. Davis cannot discover in the text of Mosheim the name of Valeria. In that case Mosheim would have suffered another slight innaccuracy to drop from his pen, as the passage of Lac-tantius," sacrificio pollui coëgit," on which he founds his assertion, includes the names both of

Prisca and Valeria. But I am not reduced to the necessity of accusing another in my own defence. Mosheim has properly and expressly declared that Valeria imitated the pious example of her mother Prisca, “Gener Diocletiani uxorem habebat Valeriam matris exemplum pietate erga Deum imitantem et a cultu fictorum Numinum alienam." (Mosheim, p. 913.) Mr. Davis has a bad habit of greedily snapping at the first words of a reference, without giving himself the trouble of going to the end of the page or paragraph.

These trifling and peevish cavils would, perhaps, have been confounded with some criticisms of the same stamp, on which I had bestowed a slight, though sufficient notice, in the beginning of this article of Mosheim; had not my attention been awakened by a peroration worthy of Tertullian himself, if Tertullian had been devoid of eloquence as well as of moderation-" Much less does the Christian Mosheim give our infidel Historian any pretext for inserting that illiberal malignant insinuation, That Christianity has, in every age, acknowledged its important obligations to FEMALE devotion; the remark is truly contemptible."

It is not my design to fill whole pages with a tedious enumeration of the many illustrious examples of female Saints, who, in every age, and almost in every country, have promoted the interest of Christianity. Such instances will readily offer themselves to those who have the slightest

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