Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/132

 114 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, the provinces were disposed to allow them a primacy ' of order and association (such was their very accurate expression) in the christian aristocracy". But the power of a monarch was rejected with abhorrence; and the aspiring genius of Rome experienced from the na- tions of Asia and Africa, a more vigorous resistance to her spiritual, than she had formerly done to her tem- poral, dominion. The patriotic Cyprian, who ruled with the most absolute sway the church of Carthage and the provincial synods, opposed with resolution and success the ambition of the Roman pontiff, artfully connected his own cause with that of the eastern bi- shops, and, like Hannibal, sought out new allies in the heart of Asia''. If this punic war was carried on with- out any effusion of blood, it was owing much less to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending prelates. Invectives and excommunications were their only weapons ; and these, during the progress of the whole controversy, they hurled against each other with equal fury and devotion. The hard necessity of cen- suring either a pope, or a saint and martyr, distresses the modern catholics, whenever they are obliged to relate the particulars of a dispute, in which the cham- pions of religion indulged such passions as seem much more adapted to the senate or to the camp'. Laity and ^he progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the memorable distinction of the laity and of the clergy, which had been unknown to the Greeks and Romans™. The former of these appellations com- prehended the body of the christian people ; the latter, ' Irenaeus adv. Heerests, iii. 3; Tertullian de Preescription. c. 36; and Cyprian, Epistol. 27.55.71.75. Le Clerc (Hist. Eccles. p. 764.) and Moslieim (p. 258. 578.) labour in the interpretation of these passages. But the loose and rhetorical style of the fathers often appears favourable to the pretensions of Rome. ^ See the sharp epistle from Firmilianus bishop of Caesarea, to Stephen bishop of Rome, ap. Cyprian. Epistol. 75. ' Concerning this dispute of the re-baptism of heretics, see the epistles of Cyprian, and the seventh book of Eusebius. "' For the origin of these words, see Mosheim, p. 141 ; Spanheim, Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 633. The distinction of clerus and laicxis. was established before the lime of Tertullian.