nus. John Maron,
one of the most learned and popular of the monks, assumed the character
of patriarch of Antioch; his nephew, Abraham, at the head of the
Maronites, defended their civil and religious freedom against the
tyrants of the East. The son of the orthodox Constantine pursued with
pious hatred a people of soldiers, who might have stood the bulwark of
his empire against the common foes of Christ and of Rome. An army of
Greeks invaded Syria; the monastery of St. Maron was destroyed with
fire; the bravest chieftains were betrayed and murdered, and twelve
thousand of their followers were transplanted to the distant frontiers
of Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation of the Maronites had
survived the empire of Constantinople, and they still enjoy, under
their Turkish masters, a free religion and a mitigated servitude. Their
domestic governors are chosen among the ancient nobility: the patriarch,
in his monastery of Canobin, still fancies himself on the throne of
Antioch: nine bishops compose his synod, and one hundred and fifty
priests, who retain the liberty of marriage, are intrusted with the care
of one hundred thousand souls. Their country extends from the ridge of
Mount Libanus to the shores of Tripoli; and the gradual descent affords,
in a narrow space, each variety of soil and climate, from the Holy
Cedars, erect under the weight of snow, to the vine, the mulberry, and
the olive-trees of the fruitful valley. In the twelfth century, the
Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite error were reconciled to the Latin
churches of Antioch and Rome, and the same alliance has been frequently
renewed by the ambition of the popes and the distress of the Syrians.
But it may reasonably be questioned, whether their union has ever been
perfect or sincere; and the learned Maronites of the college of Rome
have vainly labored to absolve their ancestors from the guilt of heresy
and schism.

IV. Since the age of Constantine, the Armenians had signalized their
attachment to the religion and empire of the Christians. The disorders
of their country, and their ignorance of the Greek tongue, prevented
their clergy from assisting at the synod of Chalcedon, and they floated
eighty-four years in a state of indifference or suspense, till their
vacant faith was finally occupied by the missionaries of Julian of
Halicarnassus, who in Egypt, their common exile, had been vanquished
by the arguments or the influence of his rival Severus, the Monoph