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.]