Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 374 pages of information about Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 374 pages of information about Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843.
the “Tragedy of Douglas” at those of the Scottish Presbyteries.  Hear what saith the historian:  “This Heliodorus, bishop of Trica, had in his youth written certain love-stories called the “Ethiopics,” which are highly popular even at the present day, though they are now better known by the title of ‘Chariclea’”—­(the name of the heroine)—­“and it was by reason thereof that he lost his see.  For, inasmuch as very many of the youth were drawn into peril of sin by the perusal of these amorous tales, it was determined by the provincial synod that either these books, which kindled the fire of love, should themselves be consumed by fire, or that the author should be deposed from his episcopal functions—­and this choice being propounded to him, he preferred resigning his bishopric to suppressing his writings.”—­(Niceph.  Hist.  Ecclesiast. lib. xii. c. 34.)[54] Heliodorus, according to the same authority, was the first Thessalian bishop who had insisted on the married clergy putting away their wives, which may probably have tended to make him unpopular:  but the story of his deposition, it should be observed, rests solely on the statement of Nicephorus, and is discredited by Bayle and Huet, who argue that the silence of Socrates (Ecclesiast.  Hist. v. chap. 22.) in the passage where he expressly assigns the authorship of the “Ethiopics” to the Bishop Heliodorus, more than counterbalances the unsupported assertion of Nicephorus—­“an author,” says Huet, “of more credulity than judgment.”  If Heliodorus were, indeed, as has been generally supposed, the same to whom several of the Epistles of St Jerome were addressed, this circumstance would supply an additional argument against the probability of his having incurred the censures of the church:  but whatever the testimony of Nicephorus may be worth on this point, his mention of the work affords undeniable proof of its long continued popularity, as his Ecclesiastical History was written about A.D. 900, and Heliodorus lived under the reign of the sons of Theodosius, or fully five hundred years earlier.  Enough, however, has been said of him in his capacity of a bishop—­and we shall proceed to consider him in that of an author, by which he is far better known than by episcopacy.

[Footnote 53:  Home was expelled the ministry for this heinous offence, which raised a fearful turmoil at the time among Synods and Presbyteries.  The Glasgow Presbytery published a declaration (Feb. 14, 1757) on the “melancholy but notorious fact, that one, who is a minister of the Church of Scotland, did himself write and compose a stage play intitled the Tragedy of Douglas;” and to this declaration various other presbyteries published their adhesion.]

[Footnote 54:  This sentence might, with more justice, have been visited upon the work of the other bishop, Achilles Tatius, for his not infrequent transgressions against delicacy, a fault never chargeable on Heliodorus.]

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.