lypse. The waters which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and nations, and tongues. Furthermore, the name of the star is wormwood; the star may well be called wormwood, since it caused such bitter distresses, such bitter calamities, and, in fine, ruin, to the Roman people. The same kind of expression for calamities, sent by the hand of God, we find in the prophet Jeremias: Behold, said the Lord, I will feed this people, the Jews, with wormwood, and will give them water of gall to drink, Jerem. ix. 15. Lastly, the third part of the waters became wormwood: and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter: a great number of the Romans perished by the bitter draught of those calamities.

The disasters, and devastations by fire, that afflicted the Roman dominions at this time, may therefore very justly be compared to the effects of lightning, Apoc. viii. 5. See p. 25.

But here we must observe, that this third trumpet sounded not only war and ruin to the pagan Roman em*pire, but also a terrible alarm to the Christians in it, as they became involved in those general calamities, and suffered extremely. Besides, they had lived for some time with comfort under Christian emperors, and shared their benevolence and protection; but this blessing also was now wrested from them by the northern invaders, who superseded the western Roman emperors, and seizing their provinces, set up there their own princes, who were either idolaters or Arians. Nay, even history informs us, that about the year 480 there was not one Catholic king in the world. Odoacer, who reigned over Italy, was an Arian; the same were the kings in Spain, and Genseric, in Africa. The different princes in Gaul or France were also either heathens or Arians. In the East, reigned the emperor Zeno, an abettor of the Eutychian heresy; and the kings of Persia were pagans.

The Pouring out of the third Vial of the wrath of God. Apoc. Chap. XVI. v. 4. And the third Angel, says

St. John, poured out his Vial upon the rivers and the fountains of waters: and there was made blood.

V. 5. And I heard the Angel of the waters, saying: Thou art just, O Lord, who art, and who wast, the holy one, because thou hast judged these things:

V.6. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink: for they are worthy.

V. 7. And I heard another from the altar, saying: Yea, O Lord God Almighty, true and just are thy judg

ments.

At the sounding of the third trumpet, the great star fell upon the rivers and the fountains of waters: so likewise the third Vial of the wrath of God is here poured out on the rivers and the fountains of waters, that is, on the pagans of the western Roman provinces, and on those of Italy and Rome itself. And there was marte blood: This is the last stroke, that of the sword, employed by the Almighty to complete the overthrow of the Roman empire; and effectually dreadful was the slaughter the barbarians made of the pagan Roman people. The Divine judgment being executed, the justice of it is immediately proclaimed by the Angel of the waters, that is, by the angel that presided over the Roman state. He cries out: Thou art just, O Lord, who art, and who wast, the holy one, because thou hast judged these things; and the reason is added: For they have shed the blood of Saints and Prophets, and therefore thou hast given them blood to drink: for they are worthy, or deserve it: they, the Romans, have exercised the most cruel persecutions against thy people, the Christians; they have spilt their blood, and that of thy Apostles and ministers of thy gospel: and now, by a just retaliation, thou hast given them blood to drink, by bringing upon them other people, as cruel as themselves, to pour out their blood. Then the angel, who presides

over the altar of Holocausts, at the foot of which, according to the Jewish rites, was poured out the blood of the victims, joins agreeably to his function in acknowledging the Divine justice in the effusion of Reman blood. He addresses-the Almighty, saying: Yea,

He renewed the scenes of bloodshed and violence, but two years after, by a just judgment, was massacred by the pagans for his cruelty.

Constantius, the emperor, died in 361, and with his death ceased for a while the Arian persecution. What has been said of this prince sufficiently shows that he was a great sword, according to the expression of the Apocalypse, in the hands of the Arians. In 364, Valens was invested with the empire of the East by his brother Valentinian, who kept to himself the West. This last prince was a true Catholic; but Valens was inclined to Arianism, and openly declared in favour of it in 367, when he was baptized by Eudoxus, the Arian bishop of Constantinople, who made him then swear, that he would always persist in his belief, and persecute those of a contrary persuasion. In conformity to his oath, this emperor became another great sword in defence of the Arians. The devil not being able, as Paulus Orosius observes, lib. vii. c. 29, to persecute the Church any longer by pagan emperors, who no longer existed, found means to do it by the hands of Christian emperors. Valens began his persecution against the orthodox, by ordering the governors of the provinces to banish those bishops who had been deposed by Constantius, and had recovered their sees under Julian. St. Athanasius, among the rest, underwent the penalty, and this was the fourth or fifth time he had been driven from his Church. The Catholics at Constantinople suffered greatly; they were insulted, wounded, and imprisoned, and some of them even put to death. To get a stop put to these violences, they sent a deputation of fourscore ecclesiastics to Valens, at Nicomedia. These, instead of obtaining any redress from the inhuman emperor, were ordered to be put on board a vessel, and the vessel, when out at sea, to be set on fire. The barbarous order was executed, and they all perished. Persecution was openly carried on in different parts of the East. As the monks in the deserts were known to distinguish themselves in supporting the true religion, Valens issued out an order that they should be compelled to bear arms, and the officers who were

sent upon the commission, massacred a great number of them.

The emperor Valens perished miserably in 378, and he being the last of the Roman emperors that favoured Arianism, it lost ground in the eastern provinces, which were chiefly infected. And before the end of this century, that is, before the year 400, the Arians began to differ among themselves about their tenets; they divided into different sects, and these divisions contributed to weaken their strength, and were even the occasion of many of them leaving their party, and embracing the Catholic faith.

On another side, however, one may take notice, that the empress Justina, who favoured the Arians, gave some trouble to the Catholics in the west, particularly to St. Ambrose at Milan; and she prevailed upon her young son Valentinian II. to issue out an edict in support of the Arians, but as she died soon after, it produced but little effect.

The Goths also, who from idolatry had been converted to Christianity, were afterwards brought over to Arianism, about the year 376, by their bishop Ulphilas, who suffered himself to be perverted by Eudoxius, the Arian bishop of Constantinople. These Goths, having overthrown the western empire of Rome, divided themselves into two bodies, one of which settled in Italy, and they were called Ostrogoths, or Eastern Goths; the other proceeded into the southern parts of France, and afterwards into Spain, where they fixed, and were named Visigoths, or Western Goths. The Ostrogoths were converted by degrees to the Catholic faith, after their dominion in Italy was extinguished by Narses, the commander of the emperor Justinian's troops, who defeated their army and slew their king Totila in 552. The Visigoths in Spain, under their king Reccared, who had been instructed by St. Hermenegild, were brought over from Arianism to the Orthodox Faith, about the year 587. The Suevi, a German people who settled in Spain, had been also converted a few years before from the Arian heresy: In fine, in this king's reign an end was put to that heresy in Spain, where

it had been imported by the barbarous nations that invaded that country.

The Lombards, originally a German people, who conquered part of Italy, and raised to themselves a kingdom there in 572, were also Arians; but Charlemagne vanquished them in 774, and put an end to their dominion. The remainder of them were in course of time converted.

The Vandals were not only Arians, but cruel persecutors of the Catholic Church. In a peace they made with the Roman Emperor in 435, was ceded to them large tract of country in Africa, into which a consider ble body of them passed from Spain, where they had been settled before. Two years after Genseric their king resolved to establish Arianism in his new African kingdom, and in that view began to persecute the Catholic bishops, and to banish them from their sees. He afterwards forbid ordaining any Catholic bishops in his dominions, so that they were reduced in thirty years time to three. In 455 the persecution was so hot, that it crowned many with martyrdom, and their Memorial is celebrated by the Church on the 5th of April. The Arians were actuated with such rage and animosity, that they committed the most outrageous indignities: knowing that the Catholics were assembled at the holy Communion, they broke in upon them, threw down the sacred body and blood of Christ, and trampled it under their feet.

Huneric, son and successor to Genseric, in 477, was, like his father, an Arian, but surpassed him in his barbarous treatment of the orthodox. He seemed to have more the nature of a Decius or a Dioclesian, than of a Christian prince. We shall only say in general, that he shut up all the Catholic Churches in his dominions, he banished the bishops and clergy to the number of near five thousand, and very numerous were the victims sacrificed to his, cruelty, in this persecution, some of whom lost their limbs, others their lives, for their adherence to the true faith. But the hand of God overtook him in 485, and he died eaten up with worms. Two other persecutions were afterwards raised against the