Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/106

 88 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, might not be universally receivetl, it appears to have ' been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers ; and it seems so well adapted to the desires and appre- hensions of mankind, that it must have contributed in a very considerable degree to the progress of the chris- tian faith. But when the edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ's reign upon earth, was at first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism". A mysterious prophecy, which still forms a part of the sacred canon, but which was thought to favour the exploded sentiment, has very narrowly escaped the pioscription of the church*. Conflagra- Whilst the happiness and glory of a temporal reign Rome and Were promised to the disciples of Christ, the most of the world. (Ii-eadful calamities were denounced against an unbe- lieving world. The edification of the new Jerusalem was to advance by equal steps with the destruction of the mystic Babylon ; and as long as the emperors who reigned before Constantine persisted in the profession of idolatry, the epithet of Babylon was applied to the solemn manner, Dialog, cum Tryphonte Jud. p. 177, 178. edit. Benedic- tin. If in the beginning of this important passage there is any thing like an inconsistency, we may impute it, as we think proper, either to the author or to his transcribers, " Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastlqne, torn. i. p. 223, torn, ii, p. 366, and Mosheim, p. 720 ; though the latter of these learned divines is not alto- gether candid on this occasion. " In the council of Laodicea, (about the year 360,") the Apocalypse was tacitly excluded from the sacred canon by the same churches of Asia to which it is addressed ; and we may learn from the complaint of Sulpicius Severus, that their sentence had been ratified by the greater number of christians of his time. From what causes then is the Apocalypse at present so generally received by the Greek, the Roman, and the protestant churches? The following ones may be assigned. I, The Greeks were subdued by the authority of an impostor, who, in the sixth century, assumed the character of Dionysius the Areopagite. 2. A just apprehension, that the grammarians might become more important than the theologians, engaged the council of Trent to fix the seal of their infallibility on all the books of scripture con- tained in the Latin Vulgate, in the number of which the Apocalypse was fortunately included. Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, 1. ii. 3. The advantage of turning those mysterious prophecies against the see of Rome, inspired the protestants with uncommon veneration for so useful an ally. See the ingenious and elegant discourses of the present bishop of Lichfield on that unpromising subject.