Adopting, then, the use of plain English, and quitting the language of (I hope) not quite unpardonable banter, I may well, in Mr. Dowling's own words, ask Mr. Dowling's own readers, "Will it be believed" that I have actually myself, in all fairness and honesty, quoted, at full length, the identical passage from Peter Siculus, which my opponent has solemnly quoted against me for the avowed purpose of demonstrating my very culpable "carelessness of mispresentation?"

The exactly parallel passage from Photius, as given by Mr. Dowling, I did not quote; because, as I distinctly stated, I had not read Photius. (1.) But Mr. Dowling here will say, that I quoted only the Latin version of Peter as it occurs in the Bibliotheca Patrum, not the Greek original; and that this said Latin version is no better than it should be.

It is perfectly true that, because I had no access to the Greek original, I quoted only the Latin version: but if any curious individual will compare together the Greek, as adduced by Mr. Dowling at page 397 of the British Magazine for October, 1838, and the Latin, as adduced by myself at page 33 of my own work on the Vallenses and Albigenses, he will perceive that they each alike set forth the very same alleged fact-namely, that Constantine was originally a Manichean, and that afterward he determined to receive no book save the gospel and the Pauline Epistles, (librum deinceps, præter Evangelii et Apostoli codices, nullum attingere,) in order that, by their help, (eorum ope) he might daub over the injuriousness of his former wickedness, and by false interpretations make them speak his own Manichèan sentiments.

(2.) We find it a somewhat trying piece of business gravely to explain a pun to an undiscerning auditor; and perhaps we may find it scarcely less trying to undertake the solemn interpretation of a mere piece of banter. But most trying of all is it, at least to one's patience, when we have to deal with such treatment as that which I have publicly experienced from Mr. Dowling.

He quotes against me a passage to demonstrate what he is pleased to represent as my careless inaccuracy, but what the whole world, save himself, would instinctively perceive to be nothing more than pure banter; when all the while, in perfect honesty, the identical demonstrative passage, which was effectually to demolish my credit, had actually been already cited by myself.

I regret to say that, even in popish and Socinian writers, I have rarely met with a more gross perversion to serve a turn in contro

versy.

11. Mr. Dowling, however, talks of my "attempting to press history into the service of a theory."

1. It is marvellous that he perceives not my alleged practice to be precisely his own actual practice.

To the great amusement, I doubt not, of the Romish followers of Bossuet, who either believe or, for obvious reasons, affect to believe, that the Paulicians, and their spiritual descendants the Albigenses, were rank Manichèans, Mr. Dowling has resolutely taken up, in evident good earnest, the asserted opinion of the renowned bishop of Meaux, and has determined that the Paulicians (and also, I conclude, the Albigenses,) shall be all Manichèans of the first water.

Under this aspect it is quite in vein, that both Photius and Peter Siculus attest their rejection of Manes, and all the writings of the Manichèans, their strenuous reception of nothing save the New Testament, and their perfect innocence of tampering with the inspired text (as the real Manichèans were notoriously wont to do, in order that it might thus serve their own purposes), to make it speak the language of Manichèism. All this is quite in vein. Those two prejudiced writers, Peter and Photius, assert, with every mark of inconsistency and falsehood branded upon their assertion, that the Paulicians were Manichèans; and forthwith Mr. Dowling, with entire sincerity, I doubt not-for we all know how easily the mind may be honestly warped by a predetermined theory-professes to believe them!

2. With his ready credulity I have no quarrel. He has an undoubted right to believe just as much as he pleases; but then I must protest against his being out of humour with my thorough incredulity. Respecting Peter, whom I have fully examined, and respecting Photius, who, from Mr. Dowling's own account of him, seems to be pretty much the mere double of Peter, I am constrained to say, what another writer has said of another witness on another occasion: Ego huic testi, etiamsi jurato, qui tam manifesto fumos vendit, me non crediturum esse affirmo.

III. Mr. Dowling apparently triumphs in my full admission, that the Albigenses were the spiritual descendants of the Paulicians.

1. He has small room, I take it, for triumph. While the popish priests scattered among the vulgar the same idle tales of the Manicheism of the Albigenses that their predecessors in the East had scattered of the Manichèism of the Paulicians, a thoroughly honest writer, Roger Hoveden, gives us in full the open religious confession of these very Albigenses at Lombers, in the year 1176; a confession which at once demolishes the whole Babel of malignant fabrication.See Roger Hoveden, Annal. fol. 319, in my work on the Vallens, and Albig., p. 234-236.

2. What the confession of the Albigenses was, we may justly deem the olden confession of the Paulicians, who abhorred Manes and his doctrine, and who built their theological creed on the unadulterated text of the New Testament; nor can Mr. Dowling legitimately deny to me this right of retrospective argumentation, since he triumphs in the fact, that the Paulicians were the doctrinal parents of the Albi

genses.

IV. The modern speculatists, whether popish or protestant, of whom Mr. Dowling seems so fond, and concerning whom he thinks foul scorn of me that I have never consulted them, are little, indeed, evidentially speaking, to the purpose. Of the real question, the whole pith lies in the two oldest witnesses, Photius and Peter Siculus; or rather, I should say, in Peter Siculus alone, for he spent nine months among the Paulicians. All that Mr. Dowling's moderns can do is, to read lectures upon the text of Peter, with such comments upon it as they can pick up from later and less authoritative authors. The matter must finally be settled by Peter himself, Photius, if we please, being called in as his companion in the witness-box.

Mr. Dowling's own lecture has been read; and so has mine. With his facility of belief, or with his omnivorous mode of reading what passes for history, I have, I repeat it, no sort of quarrel, provided only he will allow me to sift history as well as to read it, and to plant my own belief upon severe examination of evidence, rather than upon mere prejudiced and inconsistent assertion. To which side the weight of cross-examined testimony inclines, the public, of course, must judge for themselves. G. S. FABER.

Sherburn House, Oct. 25, 1838.

MR. DOWLING'S REPLY TO MR. FABER ON THE PAULICIANS.

My Dear Sir,—I am not less indisposed than Mr. Faber to protract our controversy respecting the orthodoxy of the Paulicians. Enough has been already written to shew that it is not likely to be continued with advantage. In spite of a very sincere desire on my part to speak of my antagonist with the respect due to his reputation and station, I fear that an extended discussion might lead to very unedifying personalities. Mr. Faber, however, seems to expect a reply. I would not be discourteous, and will accordingly make a few remarks on his two letters.

But I beg leave to protest in the outset, that I do not regard myself as called upon to answer Mr. Faber at all. My case still remains as I stated it in my former letter. After disposing of remarks of a personal nature, which, of course, go for nothing, and penetrating the serious difficulties presented by Mr. Faber's affectation of logical reasoning, it will be found that he does but confess what I charged him with-namely, (1) that he was acquainted with only a part (a small part) of the contemporary evidence, (2) that he does not follow the authorities he consulted, and (3) that for what he regards as the most important evidence he was content to confide in a translation. To all and several of these counts Mr. Faber pleads guilty. Upon the ground of his own confession, I now crave judgment against his pretensions to be regarded as an accurate or trustworthy historian.

It is really amusing to observe Mr. Faber's anxiety to undervalue the work of Photius. As he has not seen it, he feels it necessary to disparage it; just as the cunning personage in the fable, when he could not get at the grapes, denounced them as sour. It would be mere pedantry to insist upon the value of this celebrated piece. And if this controversy should ever inspire him with a desire to inspect the materials of Paulician history, he will find it amply vindicated in the preface to the first volume of Wolf's Anecdota Græca. In the meantime, his anti-Photian zeal has been rather unfortunately ardent. He tells us, that "Photius never visited the Paulicians;" that he "never visited them at all; at least, so far as he ever heard." Has he ever heard of the illustrious patriarch's Bibliotheca?* That noble monu

In the letter in which he inscribes it to his brother Tarasius, he describes himself as τῷ κοινῷ τῆς πρεσβείας, καὶ τῷ βασιλείῳ ψήφω, πρεσβεύειν ἐπ' Ασσυρίους aipe vrag. It is generally supposed to have been written while he was upon the embassy.-Fabr. Bibl. Græc. Tom. ix. p. 374.

ment of ancient learning was composed when its accomplished author was ambassador from the Emperor to the Caliph. While the Paulicians were infesting the frontiers of the two empires, and making incursions into the Roman provinces, it would not have been an easy matter for him to go from Constantinople to Bagdad without falling in their way, if he did not actually pass through their territory. The circumstances of the times render it highly probable that the proceedings of the warlike heretics formed the subject of his negotiation. And, at all events, the most sagacious man of the age, who, before he became an ecclesiastic, was notorious for his curiosity about everything connected with theology, was not likely to see anything of so remarkable a people in vain.

Mr. Faber inquires, whether I venture to impugn the accuracy of the "statement that, even according to Photius, the Paulicians expressed the utmost abhorrence of Manes and his doctrine ?" I, too, must ask a question. Does Mr. Faber seriously think that the orthodoxy of the Paulicians can be established in this way? No one denies or doubts that they expressed their detestation of Manes, and the fables which had been adopted by his sect; or that they rejected the old Manichæan writings. To do so was the very characteristic of their system. All the authorities represent Constantine of Mananalis as a bold reformer, who from prudential motives rejected the absurd stuff which had hitherto been entertained by his sect. But as he retained a belief in dualism, and several other peculiarities common to all the dualistic sects, they naturally enough maintained that he was still a Manichæan; for though the doctrine of the two principles had existed in the east long before Manes was heard of, it had become by that time inseparably connected with his name. It is so still. If any one were to maintain that doctrine now, we should without hesitation call him a Manichæan, though he should express his abhorrence of Manes and the Gnostic mythology as loudly as Constantine. I repeat, therefore, that the reasoning of Mr. Faber "evidently proves nothing" -except a manifest ignoratio elenchi.

With regard to Mr. Faber's reply to my exposure of his misrepresentation of the circumstances under which Constantine adopted his new system, I have only to say that I am quite unsatisfied, as I should think most people must be, with his attempt to explain away that misrepresentation as "a mere piece of banter." I am far from being insensible to seasonable mirth; but I readily confess that I see no joke here. I am sincerely grieved that a person of Mr. Faber's character should write so. It is lamentable; yea, I must add, pitiful. It is an odd way of justifying such a misrepresentation as that

It may be observed by the way that, by slipping the word doctrine into this question, Mr. Faber contrives to involve in it a petitio principii. Mosheim certainly says, "Illi, quod ipse Photius refert, Manetem, ejusque disciplinam detestabantur." But he does not mean by the word "disciplina" what is called in common parlance Manichæism; i. e., dualism. Mosheim was not the man to assert that. In the very first passage cited in the note referred to Mr. Faber, (Vallenses and Albigenses, p. 54, note,) Photius says, δύο μὲν ἀρχὰς ὁμολογοῦσιν, ὡς οἱ Μανιχαῖοι, "they admit two principles, as the Manichæans do."

which I laid to his charge, to allege that he gave the true version of the story in a dead language, in a note. This seems to me rather an aggravation than an apology, as shewing at least most extraordinary carelessness. But this is a delicate point. I will not press it. It has already made Mr. Faber very angry. It is in the spirit of a disputant of the seventeenth, rather than of the nineteenth century, that he describes this part of my letter as a "gross perversion, to serve a turn in controversy."

I can assure him, however, very confidently that I have no "turn" to serve. I have not taken up this subject with a view "to manufacture a community of Manichæns," or a community of protestants, but in the hope of contributing in my poor measure to purify history from the mischiefs introduced into it by persons who meddle with it for mere party purposes. I certainly sympathize in none of Mr. Faber's terrors with regard to the advantages which my view of the subject may afford to the Romanists. I beg leave to inform him most emphatically, that in my historical studies I only inquire for truth; and should feel ashamed to think for a moment that the discovery of truth could in any way injure the Anglican church.

"The modern speculatists," of whom Mr. Faber speaks so contemptuously, are, it should be remembered, all the scholars, of every language and every communion, who have during the last century given us the result of an examination of the documents which contain the history of the Paulicians. My own views were, as I stated in my former letter, originally formed upon the study of the sources. But" a severe examination of evidence" has in this instance uniformly had the same result, and I was proud to adduce the most illustrious disciples of the rival schools of Mosheim and Semler as maintaining substantially the same opinion. I gladly embrace the present opportunity of supplying an omission, by adding to the list our accomplished countryman, Mr. Hallam. Indeed, the orthodoxy of the Paulicians can be maintained only by such a writer as Mr. Faber, who does not hesitate to avow his "thorough incredulity" with regard to the testimony of the authorities, nor scruple to abuse the simplicity of confiding readers by serving up "banter" and conjecture for authentic history. I am, my dear Sir, yours very truly, J. G. DOWLING.

Gloucester, Nov. 6, 1838.

RATING TITHES.-MR. METCALFE IN REPLY TO MR. AUSTEN.

DEAR SIR,-Although I entirely concur in the opinion which you have expressed respecting the Rev. Mr. Austen's letter, I cannot assent to your decision, that there is no necessity for a reply to appear in the "British Magazine." Mr. Jones's valuable pamphlet will be read by comparatively few. His views are also assailed in other journals; and Mr. Austen's are extolled by "A Clergyman and Tithe-owner," in the last number of your own. Most willingly, however, shall I leave the following remarks upon the subject at your disposal.