OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE 469 in the presence of the senate and people ; at the end of six years, the humble penitent was restored to the communion of the faithful ; and humanity will rejoice that a milder treatment of the captive Lascaris was stipulated as a proof of his remorse. But the spirit of Arsenius still survived in a powerful faction of the monks and clergy, who persevered above forty-eight years in an obstinate schism. Their scruples were treated with tenderness and respect by Michael and his son ; and the recon- ciliation of the Arsenites was the serious labour of the church and state. In the confidence of fanaticism, they had proposed to try their cause by a miracle ; and, when the two papers that contained their own and the adverse cause were cast into a fiery brazier, they expected that the Catholic verity would be respected by the flames. Alas ! the two papers were indiscrim- inately consumed, and this unforeseen accident produced the union of a day, and renewed the quarrel of an age.^^ The final treaty displayed the victory of the Arsenites ; the clex'gy abstained during forty days from all ecclesiastical functions ; a slight penance was imposed on the laity ; the body of Arsenius was deposited in the sanctuary ; and in the name of the de- parted saint the prince and people were released from the sins of their fathers.^^ The establishment of his family was the motive, or at least Reign of the pretence, of the crime of Palaeologus ; and he was impatient Paiaeoiogns. to confirm the succession, by sharing with his eldest son the Dec. i a'.d. 1282 Dec. 11 honours of the purple. Andronicus, afterwards surnamed the Rergn of Elder, was proclaimed and crowned emperor of the Romans, the Eider. in the fifteenth year of his age ; and, from the first aera of a Nov! sad. .' r^ y ' 1332 Feb. 13 prolix and inglorious reign, he held that august title nine years as the colleague, and fifty as the successor, of his father. Michael himself, had he died in a private station, would have been thought more worthy of the empire ; and the assaults of his temporal and spiritual enemies left him few moments to labour for his own fame or the happiness of his subjects. He wrested from the Franks several of the noblest islands of the
- • Pachynier (1. vii. c. 22) relates this miraculous trial like a philosopher, and treats
with similar contempt a plot of the Arsenites, to hide a revelation in the coffin of some old saint (1. vii. c. 13). He compensates this incredulity by an image that weeps, another that bleeds (1. vii. c. 30), and the miraculous cures of a deaf and a mute patient (1. xi. c. 32). 35 The story of the Arsenites is spread through the thirteen books of Pachymer. Their union and triumph are reserved for Nicephorus Gregoras (1. vii. c. 9), who neither loves nor esteems these sectaries,
