THE DECLINE AND FALL

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chap, the features, however harsh and ugly, express alively resemblance of the Romans of the twelfthPolitical century.’

Arnoid°of The Jews had rejected the Christ when he ap-« r ^- 0 peared among them in a plebeian character;and the Romans might plead their ignorance ofhis vicar when he assumed the pomp and prideof a temporal sovereign. In the busy age of thecrusades, some sparks of curiosity and reasonwere rekindled in the western world: the heresyof Bulgaria , the paulician sect, was successfullytransplanted into the soil of Italy and France ;the Gnostic visions were mingled with the sim-plicity of the gospel; and the enemies of theclergy reconciled their passions with their con-science,the desire of freedom with the profession ofpiety.* The trumpet of Roman liberty was firstsounded by Arnold of Brescia / whose promo-tion in the church was confined to the lowestrank, and who wore the monastic habit ratheras a garb of poverty than as an uniform of obe-dience. His adversaries could not deny the wit

* Baronins, in his index to the twelfth volume of his Annals , hasfound a fair and easy excuse. He makes two heads, of Romani Ca-tholici and Sc'hismatici: to the former he applies all the good, to thelatter all the evil, that is told of the city.

c The heresies of the twelfth century may be found in Mosheim(Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 419 427), who entertains a favourable opi-nion of Arnold of Brescia In the tenth volume 1 have described thesect of the paulicians, and followed their migration from Armenia toThrace and Bulgaria, Italy and France .

* The original pictures of Arnold of Brescia are drawn by Othobishop of Frisingen (Chron. 1. vii, c. 31, de gestis Frederici I. i. c.27, 1. ii, c. 21), and in the third book of the Ligurinus, a poem of Gun-ther, who flourished a. d. 1200, in the monastery of Paris near Basil (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin . med« et infiniae jEtatis, tom iii, p. 174, 175).The long passage that relates to Arnold is produced by Guilliman (deRebus Helvelicis, 1. iii, c. 5, p, 108).