e
tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and revenge of the people:
and none except his servile Melchites would salute him as a man, a
Christian, or a bishop. Yet such is the blindness of ambition, that,
when Paul was expelled on a charge of murder, he solicited, with a bribe
of seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to the same station of
hatred and ignominy. His successor Apollinaris entered the hostile city
in military array, alike qualified for prayer or for battle. His troops,
under arms, were distributed through the streets; the gates of the
cathedral were guarded, and a chosen band was stationed in the choir,
to defend the person of their chief. He stood erect on his throne, and,
throwing aside the upper garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared before
the eyes of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of Alexandria.
Astonishment held them mute; but no sooner had Apollinaris begun to
read the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of curses, and invectives, and
stones, assaulted the odious minister of the emperor and the synod.
A charge was instantly sounded by the successor of the apostles;
the soldiers waded to their knees in blood; and two hundred thousand
Christians are said to have fallen by the sword: an incredible account,
even if it be extended from the slaughter of a day to the eighteen years
of the reign of Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius and
John, labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms and arguments
more worthy of their evangelical profession. The theological knowledge
of Eulogius was displayed in many a volume, which magnified the errors
of Eutyches and Severus, and attempted to reconcile the ambiguous
language of St. Cyril with the orthodox creed of Pope Leo and the
fathers of Chalcedon. The bounteous alms of John the eleemosynary were
dictated by superstition, or benevolence, or policy. Seven thousand five
hundred poor were maintained at his expense; on his accession he
found eight thousand pounds of gold in the treasury of the church; he
collected ten thousand from the liberality of the faithful; yet the
primate could boast in his testament, that he left behind him no more
than the third part of the smallest of the silver coins. The churches
of Alexandria were delivered to the Catholics, the religion of the
Monophysites was proscribed in Egypt, and a law was revived which
excluded the natives from the honors and emoluments of the state.

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical D