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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35110-0.txt b/35110-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90cdb5e --- /dev/null +++ b/35110-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15143 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on the Development of Christian +Doctrine, by John Henry Cardinal Newman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine + +Author: John Henry Cardinal Newman + +Release Date: January 29, 2011 [EBook #35110] +Last Updated: July 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lisa Reigel, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: Greek words may not display properly--in that case, +try another version of the text. Transliterations of Greek words can be +found in the ascii and html files. + +Words in italics in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. A row +of asterisks represents a thought break. Variations in spelling and +hyphenation have been left as in the original. Words with and without +accents appear as in the original. In this text, semi-colons and colons +are used indiscriminately. They appear as in the original. Ellipses +match the original. + +A few typographical errors have been corrected. A complete list follows +the text. + + + + + AN ESSAY + + ON THE + + DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN + DOCTRINE. + + + BY + + JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN. + + + _SIXTH EDITION_ + + + UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS + NOTRE DAME, INDIANA + + + + +TO THE + +REV. SAMUEL WILLIAM WAYTE, B.D. + +PRESIDENT OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. + + +MY DEAR PRESIDENT, + +Not from any special interest which I anticipate you will take in this +Volume, or any sympathy you will feel in its argument, or intrinsic +fitness of any kind in my associating you and your Fellows with it,-- + +But, because I have nothing besides it to offer you, in token of my +sense of the gracious compliment which you and they have paid me in +making me once more a Member of a College dear to me from Undergraduate +memories;-- + +Also, because of the happy coincidence, that whereas its first +publication was contemporaneous with my leaving Oxford, its second +becomes, by virtue of your act, contemporaneous with a recovery of my +position there:-- + +Therefore it is that, without your leave or your responsibility, I take +the bold step of placing your name in the first pages of what, at my +age, I must consider the last print or reprint on which I shall ever be +engaged. + + I am, my dear President, + Most sincerely yours, + JOHN H. NEWMAN. + +_February 23, 1878._ + + + + +PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1878. + + +The following pages were not in the first instance written to prove the +divinity of the Catholic Religion, though ultimately they furnish a +positive argument in its behalf, but to explain certain difficulties in +its history, felt before now by the author himself, and commonly +insisted on by Protestants in controversy, as serving to blunt the force +of its _primâ facie_ and general claims on our recognition. + +However beautiful and promising that Religion is in theory, its history, +we are told, is its best refutation; the inconsistencies, found age +after age in its teaching, being as patent as the simultaneous +contrarieties of religious opinion manifest in the High, Low, and Broad +branches of the Church of England. + +In reply to this specious objection, it is maintained in this Essay +that, granting that some large variations of teaching in its long course +of 1800 years exist, nevertheless, these, on examination, will be found +to arise from the nature of the case, and to proceed on a law, and with +a harmony and a definite drift, and with an analogy to Scripture +revelations, which, instead of telling to their disadvantage, actually +constitute an argument in their favour, as witnessing to a +superintending Providence and a great Design in the mode and in the +circumstances of their occurrence. + +Perhaps his confidence in the truth and availableness of this view has +sometimes led the author to be careless and over-liberal in his +concessions to Protestants of historical fact. + +If this be so anywhere, he begs the reader in such cases to understand +him as speaking hypothetically, and in the sense of an _argumentum ad +hominem_ and _à fortiori_. Nor is such hypothetical reasoning out of +place in a publication which is addressed, not to theologians, but to +those who as yet are not even Catholics, and who, as they read history, +would scoff at any defence of Catholic doctrine which did not go the +length of covering admissions in matters of fact as broad as those which +are here ventured on. + +In this new Edition of the Essay various important alterations have been +made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in +its matter, but in its text. + +_February 2, 1878._ + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. + +OCULI MEI DEFECERUNT IN SALUTARE TUUM. + + +It is now above eleven years since the writer of the following pages, in +one of the early Numbers of the Tracts for the Times, expressed himself +thus:-- + + "Considering the high gifts, and the strong claims of the + Church of Rome and her dependencies on our admiration, + reverence, love, and gratitude, how could we withstand her, as + we do; how could we refrain from being melted into tenderness, + and rushing into communion with her, but for the words of + Truth, which bid us prefer Itself to the whole world? 'He that + loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me.' + How could we learn to be severe, and execute judgment, but for + the warning of Moses against even a divinely-gifted teacher + who should preach new gods, and the anathema of St. Paul even + against Angels and Apostles who should bring in a new + doctrine?"[ix-1] + +He little thought, when he so wrote, that the time would ever come when +he should feel the obstacle, which he spoke of as lying in the way of +communion with the Church of Rome, to be destitute of solid foundation. + +The following work is directed towards its removal. + +Having, in former publications, called attention to the supposed +difficulty, he considers himself bound to avow his present belief that +it is imaginary. + +He has neither the ability to put out of hand a finished composition, +nor the wish to make a powerful and moving representation, on the great +subject of which he treats. His aim will be answered, if he succeeds in +suggesting thoughts, which in God's good time may quietly bear fruit, in +the minds of those to whom that subject is new; and which may carry +forward inquirers, who have already put themselves on the course. + +If at times his tone appears positive or peremptory, he hopes this will +be imputed to the scientific character of the Work, which requires a +distinct statement of principles, and of the arguments which recommend +them. + +He hopes too he shall be excused for his frequent quotations from +himself; which are necessary in order to show how he stands at present +in relation to various of his former Publications. * * * + + LITTLEMORE, + _October 6, 1845_. + + +POSTSCRIPT. + +Since the above was written, the Author has joined the Catholic Church. +It was his intention and wish to have carried his Volume through the +Press before deciding finally on this step. But when he had got some +way in the printing, he recognized in himself a conviction of the truth +of the conclusion to which the discussion leads, so clear as to +supersede further deliberation. Shortly afterwards circumstances gave +him the opportunity of acting upon it, and he felt that he had no +warrant for refusing to do so. + +His first act on his conversion was to offer his Work for revision to +the proper authorities; but the offer was declined on the ground that it +was written and partly printed before he was a Catholic, and that it +would come before the reader in a more persuasive form, if he read it as +the author wrote it. + +It is scarcely necessary to add that he now submits every part of the +book to the judgment of the Church, with whose doctrine, on the subjects +of which he treats, he wishes all his thoughts to be coincident. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[ix-1] Records of the Church, xxiv. p. 7. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PART I. + + DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED IN THEMSELVES. + PAGE + INTRODUCTION 3 + + CHAPTER I. + + The Development of Ideas 33 + Section 1. The Process of Development in Ideas 33 + Section 2. The Kinds of Development in Ideas 41 + + CHAPTER II. + + The Antecedent Argument in behalf of Developments in Christian + Doctrine 55 + Section 1. Developments to be expected 55 + Section 2. An infallible Developing Authority to be expected 75 + Section 3. The existing Developments of Doctrine the probable + Fulfilment of that Expectation 92 + + CHAPTER III. + + The Historical Argument in behalf of the existing Developments 99 + Section 1. Method of Proof 99 + Section 2. State of the Evidence 110 + + CHAPTER IV. + + Instances in Illustration 122 + Section 1. Instances cursorily noticed 123 + § 1. Canon of the New Testament 123 + § 2. Original Sin 126 + § 3. Infant Baptism 127 + § 4. Communion in one kind 129 + § 5. The Homoüsion 133 + Section 2. Our Lord's Incarnation, and the dignity of His + Mother and of all Saints 135 + Section 3. Papal Supremacy 148 + + + PART II. + + DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED RELATIVELY TO DOCTRINAL CORRUPTIONS. + + CHAPTER V. + + Genuine Developments contrasted with Corruptions 169 + Section 1. First Note of a genuine Development of an Idea: + Preservation of its Type 171 + Section 2. Second Note: Continuity of its Principles 178 + Section 3. Third Note: Its Power of Assimilation 185 + Section 4. Fourth Note: Its Logical Sequence 189 + Section 5. Fifth Note: Anticipation of its Future 195 + Section 6. Sixth Note: Conservative Action upon its Past 199 + Section 7. Seventh Note: Its Chronic Vigour 203 + + CHAPTER VI. + + Application of the First Note of a true Development to the + Existing Developments of Christian Doctrine: Preservation + of its Type 207 + Section 1. The Church of the First Centuries 208 + Section 2. The Church of the Fourth Century 248 + Section 3. The Church of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries 273 + + CHAPTER VII. + + Application of the Second: Continuity of its Principles 323 + § 1. Principles of Christianity 323 + § 2. Supremacy of Faith 326 + § 3. Theology 336 + § 4. Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation 338 + § 5. Dogma 346 + § 6. Additional Remarks 353 + + CHAPTER VIII. + + Application of the Third: its Assimilative Power 355 + § 1. The Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth 357 + § 2. The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace 368 + + CHAPTER IX. + + Application of the Fourth: its Logical Sequence 383 + § 1. Pardons 384 + § 2. Penances 385 + § 3. Satisfactions 386 + § 4. Purgatory 388 + § 5. Meritorious Works 393 + § 6. The Monastic Rule 395 + + CHAPTER X. + + Application of the Fifth: Anticipation of its Future 400 + § 1. Resurrection and Relics 401 + § 2. The Virgin Life 407 + § 3. Cultus of Saints and Angels 410 + § 4. Office of the Blessed Virgin 415 + + CHAPTER XI. + + Application of the Sixth: Conservative Action on its Past 419 + Section 1. Instances cursorily noticed 420 + Section 2. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin 425 + + CHAPTER XII. + + Application of the Seventh: its Chronic Vigour 437 + + CONCLUSION 445 + + + + +PART I. + +DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED IN THEMSELVES. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Christianity has been long enough in the world to justify us in dealing +with it as a fact in the world's history. Its genius and character, its +doctrines, precepts, and objects cannot be treated as matters of private +opinion or deduction, unless we may reasonably so regard the Spartan +institutions or the religion of Mahomet. It may indeed legitimately be +made the subject-matter of theories; what is its moral and political +excellence, what its due location in the range of ideas or of facts +which we possess, whether it be divine or human, whether original or +eclectic, or both at once, how far favourable to civilization or to +literature, whether a religion for all ages or for a particular state of +society, these are questions upon the fact, or professed solutions of +the fact, and belong to the province of opinion; but to a fact do they +relate, on an admitted fact do they turn, which must be ascertained as +other facts, and surely has on the whole been so ascertained, unless the +testimony of so many centuries is to go for nothing. Christianity is no +theory of the study or the cloister. It has long since passed beyond the +letter of documents and the reasonings of individual minds, and has +become public property. Its "sound has gone out into all lands," and its +"words unto the ends of the world." It has from the first had an +objective existence, and has thrown itself upon the great concourse of +men. Its home is in the world; and to know what it is, we must seek it +in the world, and hear the world's witness of it. + + +2. + +The hypothesis, indeed, has met with wide reception in these latter +times, that Christianity does not fall within the province of +history,--that it is to each man what each man thinks it to be, and +nothing else; and thus in fact is a mere name for a cluster or family of +rival religions all together, religions at variance one with another, +and claiming the same appellation, not because there can be assigned any +one and the same doctrine as the common foundation of all, but because +certain points of agreement may be found here and there of some sort or +other, by which each in its turn is connected with one or other of the +rest. Or again, it has been maintained, or implied, that all existing +denominations of Christianity are wrong, none representing it as taught +by Christ and His Apostles; that the original religion has gradually +decayed or become hopelessly corrupt; nay that it died out of the world +at its birth, and was forthwith succeeded by a counterfeit or +counterfeits which assumed its name, though they inherited at best but +some fragments of its teaching; or rather that it cannot even be said +either to have decayed or to have died, because historically it has no +substance of its own, but from the first and onwards it has, on the +stage of the world, been nothing more than a mere assemblage of +doctrines and practices derived from without, from Oriental, Platonic, +Polytheistic sources, from Buddhism, Essenism, Manicheeism; or that, +allowing true Christianity still to exist, it has but a hidden and +isolated life, in the hearts of the elect, or again as a literature or +philosophy, not certified in any way, much less guaranteed, to come from +above, but one out of the various separate informations about the +Supreme Being and human duty, with which an unknown Providence had +furnished us, whether in nature or in the world. + + +3. + +All such views of Christianity imply that there is no sufficient body of +historical proof to interfere with, or at least to prevail against, any +number whatever of free and independent hypotheses concerning it. But +this surely is not self-evident, and has itself to be proved. Till +positive reasons grounded on facts are adduced to the contrary, the most +natural hypotheses, the most agreeable to our mode of proceeding in +parallel cases, and that which takes precedence of all others, is to +consider that the society of Christians, which the Apostles left on +earth, were of that religion to which the Apostles had converted them; +that the external continuity of name, profession, and communion, argues +a real continuity of doctrine; that, as Christianity began by +manifesting itself as of a certain shape and bearing to all mankind, +therefore it went on so to manifest itself; and that the more, +considering that prophecy had already determined that it was to be a +power visible in the world and sovereign over it, characters which are +accurately fulfilled in that historical Christianity to which we +commonly give the name. It is not a violent assumption, then, but rather +mere abstinence from the wanton admission of a principle which would +necessarily lead to the most vexatious and preposterous scepticism, to +take it for granted, before proof to the contrary, that the Christianity +of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate +centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ and His +Apostles taught in the first, whatever may be the modifications for good +or for evil which lapse of years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs, +have impressed upon it. + +Of course I do not deny the abstract possibility of extreme changes. +The substitution is certainly, in idea, supposable of a counterfeit +Christianity,--superseding the original, by means of the adroit +innovations of seasons, places, and persons, till, according to the +familiar illustration, the "blade" and the "handle" are alternately +renewed, and identity is lost without the loss of continuity. It is +possible; but it must not be assumed. The _onus probandi_ is with those +who assert what it is unnatural to expect; to be just able to doubt is +no warrant for disbelieving. + + +4. + +Accordingly, some writers have gone on to give reasons from history for +their refusing to appeal to history. They aver that, when they come to +look into the documents and literature of Christianity in times past, +they find its doctrines so variously represented, and so inconsistently +maintained by its professors, that, however natural it be _à priori_, it +is useless, in fact, to seek in history the matter of that Revelation +which has been vouchsafed to mankind; that they cannot be historical +Christians if they would. They say, in the words of Chillingworth, +"There are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers +against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of +fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the +Church of one age against the Church of another age:"--Hence they are +forced, whether they will or not, to fall back upon the Bible as the +sole source of Revelation, and upon their own personal private judgment +as the sole expounder of its doctrine. This is a fair argument, if it +can be maintained, and it brings me at once to the subject of this +Essay. Not that it enters into my purpose to convict of misstatement, as +might be done, each separate clause of this sweeping accusation of a +smart but superficial writer; but neither on the other hand do I mean +to deny everything that he says to the disadvantage of historical +Christianity. On the contrary, I shall admit that there are in fact +certain apparent variations in its teaching, which have to be explained; +thus I shall begin, but then I shall attempt to explain them to the +exculpation of that teaching in point of unity, directness, and +consistency. + + +5. + +Meanwhile, before setting about this work, I will address one remark to +Chillingworth and his friends:--Let them consider, that if they can +criticize history, the facts of history certainly can retort upon them. +It might, I grant, be clearer on this great subject than it is. This is +no great concession. History is not a creed or a catechism, it gives +lessons rather than rules; still no one can mistake its general teaching +in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and +broad masses of colour rise out of the records of the past. They may be +dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite. And this one thing +at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, +whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at +least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there +were a safe truth, it is this. + +And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer +on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at +least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or +to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt +it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing +with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity +from the Bible alone: men never would have put it aside, unless they had +despaired of it. It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical +history in England, which prevails even in the English Church. Our +popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages +which lie between the Councils of Nicæa and Trent, except as affording +one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain +prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the +chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be +considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be +deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. + + +6. + +And this utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical +Christianity is a plain fact, whether the latter be regarded in its +earlier or in its later centuries. Protestants can as little bear its +Ante-nicene as its Post-tridentine period. I have elsewhere observed on +this circumstance: "So much must the Protestant grant that, if such a +system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever existed in early +times, it has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, +silently, and without memorial; by a deluge coming in a night, and +utterly soaking, rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of +what it found in the Church, before cock-crowing: so that 'when they +rose in the morning' her true seed 'were all dead corpses'--Nay dead and +buried--and without gravestone. 'The waters went over them; there was +not one of them left; they sunk like lead in the mighty waters.' Strange +antitype, indeed, to the early fortunes of Israel!--then the enemy was +drowned, and 'Israel saw them dead upon the sea-shore.' But now, it +would seem, water proceeded as a flood 'out of the serpent's mouth,' and +covered all the witnesses, so that not even their dead bodies lay in the +streets of the great city.' Let him take which of his doctrines he will, +his peculiar view of self-righteousness, of formality, of superstition; +his notion of faith, or of spirituality in religious worship; his denial +of the virtue of the sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or +of the visible Church; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of the +Scriptures as the one appointed instrument of religious teaching; and +let him consider how far Antiquity, as it has come down to us, will +countenance him in it. No; he must allow that the alleged deluge has +done its work; yes, and has in turn disappeared itself; it has been +swallowed up by the earth, mercilessly as itself was merciless."[9:1] + +That Protestantism, then, is not the Christianity of history, it is easy +to determine, but to retort is a poor reply in controversy to a question +of fact, and whatever be the violence or the exaggeration of writers +like Chillingworth, if they have raised a real difficulty, it may claim +a real answer, and we must determine whether on the one hand +Christianity is still to represent to us a definite teaching from above, +or whether on the other its utterances have been from time to time so +strangely at variance, that we are necessarily thrown back on our own +judgment individually to determine, what the revelation of God is, or +rather if in fact there is, or has been, any revelation at all. + + +7. + +Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that +there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has +lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine +and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who +inquire into it. They are not sufficient to interfere with the general +character and course of the religion, but they raise the question how +they came about, and what they mean, and have in consequence supplied +matter for several hypotheses. + +Of these one is to the effect that Christianity has even changed from +the first and ever accommodates itself to the circumstances of times and +seasons; but it is difficult to understand how such a view is compatible +with the special idea of revealed truth, and in fact its advocates more +or less abandon, or tend to abandon the supernatural claims of +Christianity; so it need not detain us here. + +A second and more plausible hypothesis is that of the Anglican divines, +who reconcile and bring into shape the exuberant phenomena under +consideration, by cutting off and casting away as corruptions all +usages, ways, opinions, and tenets, which have not the sanction of +primitive times. They maintain that history first presents to us a pure +Christianity in East and West, and then a corrupt; and then of course +their duty is to draw the line between what is corrupt and what is pure, +and to determine the dates at which the various changes from good to bad +were introduced. Such a principle of demarcation, available for the +purpose, they consider they have found in the _dictum_ of Vincent of +Lerins, that revealed and Apostolic doctrine is "quod semper, quod +ubique, quod ab omnibus," a principle infallibly separating, on the +whole field of history, authoritative doctrine from opinion, rejecting +what is faulty, and combining and forming a theology. That "Christianity +is what has been held always, everywhere, and by all," certainly +promises a solution of the perplexities, an interpretation of the +meaning, of history. What can be more natural than that divines and +bodies of men should speak, sometimes from themselves, sometimes from +tradition? what more natural than that individually they should say many +things on impulse, or under excitement, or as conjectures, or in +ignorance? what more certain than that they must all have been +instructed and catechized in the Creed of the Apostles? what more +evident than that what was their own would in its degree be peculiar, +and differ from what was similarly private and personal in their +brethren? what more conclusive than that the doctrine that was common to +all at once was not really their own, but public property in which they +had a joint interest, and was proved by the concurrence of so many +witnesses to have come from an Apostolical source? Here, then, we have a +short and easy method for bringing the various informations of +ecclesiastical history under that antecedent probability in its favour, +which nothing but its actual variations would lead us to neglect. Here +we have a precise and satisfactory reason why we should make much of the +earlier centuries, yet pay no regard to the later, why we should admit +some doctrines and not others, why we refuse the Creed of Pius IV. and +accept the Thirty-nine Articles. + + +8. + +Such is the rule of historical interpretation which has been professed +in the English school of divines; and it contains a majestic truth, and +offers an intelligible principle, and wears a reasonable air. It is +congenial, or, as it may be said, native to the Anglican mind, which +takes up a middle position, neither discarding the Fathers nor +acknowledging the Pope. It lays down a simple rule by which to measure +the value of every historical fact, as it comes, and thereby it provides +a bulwark against Rome, while it opens an assault upon Protestantism. +Such is its promise; but its difficulty lies in applying it in +particular cases. The rule is more serviceable in determining what is +not, than what is Christianity; it is irresistible against +Protestantism, and in one sense indeed it is irresistible against Rome +also, but in the same sense it is irresistible against England. It +strikes at Rome through England. It admits of being interpreted in one +of two ways: if it be narrowed for the purpose of disproving the +catholicity of the Creed of Pope Pius, it becomes also an objection to +the Athanasian; and if it be relaxed to admit the doctrines retained by +the English Church, it no longer excludes certain doctrines of Rome +which that Church denies. It cannot at once condemn St. Thomas and St. +Bernard, and defend St. Athanasius and St. Gregory Nazianzen. + +This general defect in its serviceableness has been heretofore felt by +those who appealed to it. It was said by one writer; "The Rule of +Vincent is not of a mathematical or demonstrative character, but moral, +and requires practical judgment and good sense to apply it. For +instance, what is meant by being 'taught _always_'? does it mean in +every century, or every year, or every month? Does '_everywhere_' mean +in every country, or in every diocese? and does 'the _Consent of +Fathers_' require us to produce the direct testimony of every one of +them? How many Fathers, how many places, how many instances, constitute +a fulfilment of the test proposed? It is, then, from the nature of the +case, a condition which never can be satisfied as fully as it might have +been. It admits of various and unequal application in various instances; +and what degree of application is enough, must be decided by the same +principles which guide us in the conduct of life, which determine us in +politics, or trade, or war, which lead us to accept Revelation at all, +(for which we have but probability to show at most,) nay, to believe in +the existence of an intelligent Creator."[12:1] + + +9. + +So much was allowed by this writer; but then he added:-- + +"This character, indeed, of Vincent's Canon, will but recommend it to +the disciples of the school of Butler, from its agreement with the +analogy of nature; but it affords a ready loophole for such as do not +wish to be persuaded, of which both Protestants and Romanists are not +slow to avail themselves." + +This surely is the language of disputants who are more intent on +assailing others than on defending themselves; as if similar loopholes +were not necessary for Anglican theology. + +He elsewhere says: "What there is not the shadow of a reason for saying +that the Fathers held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a +Catholic truth, is this, that St. Peter or his successors were and are +universal Bishops, that they have the whole of Christendom for their one +diocese in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops had and have +not."[13:1] Most true, if, in order that a doctrine be considered +Catholic, it must be formally stated by the Fathers generally from the +very first; but, on the same understanding, the doctrine also of the +apostolical succession in the episcopal order "has not the faintest +pretensions of being a Catholic truth." + +Nor was this writer without a feeling of the special difficulty of his +school; and he attempted to meet it by denying it. He wished to maintain +that the sacred doctrines admitted by the Church of England into her +Articles were taught in primitive times with a distinctness which no one +could fancy to attach to the characteristic tenets of Rome. + +"We confidently affirm," he said in another publication, "that there is +not an article in the Athanasian Creed concerning the Incarnation which +is not anticipated in the controversy with the Gnostics. There is no +question which the Apollinarian or the Nestorian heresy raised, which +may not be decided in the words of Ignatius, Irenæus and +Tertullian."[13:2] + + +10. + +This may be considered as true. It may be true also, or at least shall +here be granted as true, that there is also a _consensus_ in the +Ante-nicene Church for the doctrines of our Lord's Consubstantiality and +Coeternity with the Almighty Father. Let us allow that the whole circle +of doctrines, of which our Lord is the subject, was consistently and +uniformly confessed by the Primitive Church, though not ratified +formally in Council. But it surely is otherwise with the Catholic +doctrine of the Trinity. I do not see in what sense it can be said that +there is a _consensus_ of primitive divines in its favour, which will +not avail also for certain doctrines of the Roman Church which will +presently come into mention. And this is a point which the writer of the +above passages ought to have more distinctly brought before his mind and +more carefully weighed; but he seems to have fancied that Bishop Bull +proved the primitiveness of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Holy +Trinity as well as that concerning our Lord. + +Now it should be clearly understood what it is which must be shown by +those who would prove it. Of course the doctrine of our Lord's divinity +itself partly implies and partly recommends the doctrine of the Trinity; +but implication and suggestion belong to another class of arguments +which has not yet come into consideration. Moreover the statements of a +particular father or doctor may certainly be of a most important +character; but one divine is not equal to a Catena. We must have a whole +doctrine stated by a whole Church. The Catholic Truth in question is +made up of a number of separate propositions, each of which, if +maintained to the exclusion of the rest, is a heresy. In order then to +prove that all the Ante-nicene writers taught the dogma of the Holy +Trinity, it is not enough to prove that each still has gone far enough +to be only a heretic--not enough to prove that one has held that the +Son is God, (for so did the Sabellian, so did the Macedonian), and +another that the Father is not the Son, (for so did the Arian), and +another that the Son is equal to the Father, (for so did the Tritheist), +and another that there is but One God, (for so did the Unitarian),--not +enough that many attached in some sense a Threefold Power to the idea of +the Almighty, (for so did almost all the heresies that ever existed, and +could not but do so, if they accepted the New Testament at all); but we +must show that all these statements at once, and others too, are laid +down by as many separate testimonies as may fairly be taken to +constitute a "_consensus_ of doctors." It is true indeed that the +subsequent profession of the doctrine in the Universal Church creates a +presumption that it was held even before it was professed; and it is +fair to interpret the early Fathers by the later. This is true, and +admits of application to certain other doctrines besides that of the +Blessed Trinity in Unity; but there is as little room for such +antecedent probabilities as for the argument from suggestions and +intimations in the precise and imperative _Quod semper, quod ubique, +quod ab omnibus_, as it is commonly understood by English divines, and +is by them used against the later Church and the see of Rome. What we +have a right to ask, if we are bound to act upon Vincent's rule in +regard to the Trinitarian dogma, is a sufficient number of Ante-nicene +statements, each distinctly anticipating the Athanasian Creed. + + +11. + +Now let us look at the leading facts of the case, in appealing to which +I must not be supposed to be ascribing any heresy to the holy men whose +words have not always been sufficiently full or exact to preclude the +imputation. First, the Creeds of that early day make no mention in +their letter of the Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention indeed +of a Three; but that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the +Three are One, that They are coequal, coeternal, all increate, all +omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated, and never could be +gathered from them. Of course we believe that they imply it, or rather +intend it. God forbid we should do otherwise! But nothing in the mere +letter of those documents leads to that belief. To give a deeper meaning +to their letter, we must interpret them by the times which came after. + +Again, there is one and one only great doctrinal Council in Ante-nicene +times. It was held at Antioch, in the middle of the third century, on +occasion of the incipient innovations of the Syrian heretical school. +Now the Fathers there assembled, for whatever reason, condemned, or at +least withdrew, when it came into the dispute, the word "Homoüsion," +which was afterwards received at Nicæa as the special symbol of +Catholicism against Arius.[16:1] + +Again, the six great Bishops and Saints of the Ante-nicene Church were +St. Irenæus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. +Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these, St. Dionysius is +accused by St. Basil of having sown the first seeds of Arianism;[16:2] +and St. Gregory is allowed by the same learned Father to have used +language concerning our Lord, which he only defends on the plea of an +economical object in the writer.[16:3] St. Hippolytus speaks as if he +were ignorant of our Lord's Eternal Sonship;[17:1] St. Methodius speaks +incorrectly at least upon the Incarnation;[17:2] and St. Cyprian does +not treat of theology at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant +teaching of these true saints, and, in their day, faithful witnesses of +the Eternal Son. + +Again, Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and the two SS. Dionysii +would appear to be the only writers whose language is at any time exact +and systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian Creed. If we limit +our view of the teaching of the Fathers by what they expressly state, +St. Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin arianizes, +and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian. + +Again, there are three great theological authors of the Ante-nicene +centuries, Tertullian, Origen, and, we may add, Eusebius, though he +lived some way into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the doctrine +of our Lord's divinity,[17:3] and, indeed, ultimately fell altogether +into heresy or schism; Origen is, at the very least, suspected, and must +be defended and explained rather than cited as a witness of orthodoxy; +and Eusebius was a Semi-Arian. + + +12. + +Moreover, it may be questioned whether any Ante-nicene father +distinctly affirms either the numerical Unity or the Coequality of the +Three Persons; except perhaps the heterodox Tertullian, and that chiefly +in a work written after he had become a Montanist:[18:1] yet to satisfy +the Anti-roman use of _Quod semper, &c._, surely we ought not to be left +for these great articles of doctrine to the testimony of a later age. + +Further, Bishop Bull allows that "nearly all the ancient Catholics who +preceded Arius have the appearance of being ignorant of the invisible +and incomprehensible (_immensam_) nature of the Son of God;"[18:2] an +article expressly taught in the Athanasian Creed under the sanction of +its anathema. + +It must be asked, moreover, how much direct and literal testimony the +Ante-nicene Fathers give, one by one, to the divinity of the Holy +Spirit? This alone shall be observed, that St. Basil, in the fourth +century, finding that, if he distinctly called the Third Person in the +Blessed Trinity by the Name of God, he should be put out of the Church +by the Arians, pointedly refrained from doing so on an occasion on which +his enemies were on the watch; and that, when some Catholics found fault +with him, St. Athanasius took his part.[18:3] Could this possibly have +been the conduct of any true Christian, not to say Saint, of a later +age? that is, whatever be the true account of it, does it not suggest to +us that the testimony of those early times lies very unfavourably for +the application of the rule of Vincentius? + + +13. + +Let it not be for a moment supposed that I impugn the orthodoxy of the +early divines, or the cogency of their testimony among _fair_ inquirers; +but I am trying them by that _unfair_ interpretation of Vincentius, +which is necessary in order to make him available against the Church of +Rome. And now, as to the positive evidence which those Fathers offer in +behalf of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, it has been drawn out by +Dr. Burton and seems to fall under two heads. One is the general +_ascription of glory_ to the Three Persons together, both by fathers and +churches, and that on continuous tradition and from the earliest times. +Under the second fall certain _distinct statements_ of _particular_ +fathers; thus we find the word "Trinity" used by St. Theophilus, St. +Clement, St. Hippolytus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Origen, St. Methodius; +and the Divine _Circumincessio_, the most distinctive portion of the +Catholic doctrine, and the unity of power, or again, of substance, are +declared with more or less distinctness by Athenagoras, St. Irenæus, St. +Clement, Tertullian, St. Hippolytus, Origen, and the two SS. Dionysii. +This is pretty much the whole of the evidence. + + +14. + +Perhaps it will be said we ought to take the Ante-nicene Fathers as a +whole, and interpret one of them by another. This is to assume that they +are all of one school, which of course they are, but which in +controversy is a point to be proved; but it is even doubtful whether, on +the whole, such a procedure would strengthen the argument. For instance, +as to the second head of the positive evidence noted by Dr. Burton, +Tertullian is the most formal and elaborate of these Fathers in his +statements of the Catholic doctrine. "It would hardly be possible," says +Dr. Burton, after quoting a passage, "for Athanasius himself, or the +compiler of the Athanasian Creed, to have delivered the doctrine of the +Trinity in stronger terms than these."[19:1] Yet Tertullian must be +considered heterodox on the doctrine of our Lord's eternal +generation.[20:1] If then we are to argue from his instance to that of +the other Fathers, we shall be driven to the conclusion that even the +most exact statements are worth nothing more than their letter, are a +warrant for nothing beyond themselves, and are consistent with +heterodoxy where they do not expressly protest against it. + +And again, as to the argument derivable from the Doxologies, it must not +be forgotten that one of the passages in St. Justin Martyr includes the +worship of the Angels. "We worship and adore," he says, "Him, and the +Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the host of those +other good Angels, who follow and are like Him, and the Prophetic +Spirit."[20:2] A Unitarian might argue from this passage that the glory +and worship which the early Church ascribed to our Lord was not more +definite than that which St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures. + + +15. + +Thus much on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Let us proceed to another +example. There are two doctrines which are generally associated with the +name of a Father of the fourth and fifth centuries, and which can show +little definite, or at least but partial, testimony in their behalf +before his time,--Purgatory and Original Sin. The dictum of Vincent +admits both or excludes both, according as it is or is not rigidly +taken; but, if used by Aristotle's "Lesbian Rule," then, as Anglicans +would wish, it can be made to admit Original Sin and exclude Purgatory. + +On the one hand, some notion of suffering, or disadvantage, or +punishment after this life, in the case of the faithful departed, or +other vague forms of the doctrine of Purgatory, has in its favour almost +a _consensus_ of the four first ages of the Church, though some Fathers +state it with far greater openness and decision than others. It is, as +far as words go, the confession of St. Clement of Alexandria, +Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, St. Hilary, +St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, St. Gregory of +Nazianzus, and of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus, and +St. Augustine. And so, on the other hand, there is a certain agreement +of Fathers from the first that mankind has derived some disadvantage +from the sin of Adam. + + +16. + +Next, when we consider the two doctrines more distinctly,--the doctrine +that between death and judgment there is a time or state of punishment; +and the doctrine that all men, naturally propagated from fallen Adam, +are in consequence born destitute of original righteousness,--we find, +on the one hand, several, such as Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyril, +St. Hilary, St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nyssen, as far as their words go, +definitely declaring a doctrine of Purgatory: whereas no one will say +that there is a testimony of the Fathers, equally strong, for the +doctrine of Original Sin, though it is difficult here to make any +definite statement about their teaching without going into a discussion +of the subject. + +On the subject of Purgatory there were, to speak generally, two schools +of opinion; the Greek, which contemplated a trial of fire at the last +day through which all were to pass; and the African, resembling more +nearly the present doctrine of the Roman Church. And so there were two +principal views of Original Sin, the Greek and the African or Latin. Of +the Greek, the judgment of Hooker is well known, though it must not be +taken in the letter: "The heresy of freewill was a millstone about those +Pelagians' neck; shall we therefore give sentence of death inevitable +against all those Fathers in the Greek Church which, being mispersuaded, +died in the error of freewill?"[22:1] Bishop Taylor, arguing for an +opposite doctrine, bears a like testimony: "Original Sin," he says, "as +it is at this day commonly explicated, was not the doctrine of the +primitive Church; but when Pelagius had puddled the stream, St. Austin +was so angry that he stamped and disturbed it more. And truly . . I do +not think that the gentlemen that urged against me St. Austin's opinion +do well consider that I profess myself to follow those Fathers who were +before him; and whom St. Austin did forsake, as I do him, in the +question."[22:2] The same is asserted or allowed by Jansenius, Petavius, +and Walch,[22:3] men of such different schools that we may surely take +their agreement as a proof of the fact. A late writer, after going +through the testimonies of the Fathers one by one, comes to the +conclusion, first, that "the Greek Church in no point favoured +Augustine, except in teaching that from Adam's sin came death, and, +(after the time of Methodius,) an extraordinary and unnatural sensuality +also;" next, that "the Latin Church affirmed, in addition, that a +corrupt and contaminated soul, and that, by generation, was carried on +to his posterity;"[22:4] and, lastly, that neither Greeks nor Latins +held the doctrine of imputation. It may be observed, in addition, that, +in spite of the forcible teaching of St. Paul on the subject, the +doctrine of Original Sin appears neither in the Apostles' nor the Nicene +Creed. + + +17. + +One additional specimen shall be given as a sample of many others:--I +betake myself to one of our altars to receive the Blessed Eucharist; I +have no doubt whatever on my mind about the Gift which that Sacrament +contains; I confess to myself my belief, and I go through the steps on +which it is assured to me. "The Presence of Christ is here, for It +follows upon Consecration; and Consecration is the prerogative of +Priests; and Priests are made by Ordination; and Ordination comes in +direct line from the Apostles. Whatever be our other misfortunes, every +link in our chain is safe; we have the Apostolic Succession, we have a +right form of consecration: therefore we are blessed with the great +Gift." Here the question rises in me, "Who told you about that Gift?" I +answer, "I have learned it from the Fathers: I believe the Real Presence +because they bear witness to it. St. Ignatius calls it 'the medicine of +immortality:' St. Irenæus says that 'our flesh becomes incorrupt, and +partakes of life, and has the hope of the resurrection,' as 'being +nourished from the Lord's Body and Blood;' that the Eucharist 'is made +up of two things, an earthly and an heavenly:'[23:1] perhaps Origen, and +perhaps Magnes, after him, say that It is not a type of our Lord's Body, +but His Body: and St. Cyprian uses language as fearful as can be spoken, +of those who profane it. I cast my lot with them, I believe as they." +Thus I reply, and then the thought comes upon me a second time, "And do +not the same ancient Fathers bear witness to another doctrine, which +you disown? Are you not as a hypocrite, listening to them when you will, +and deaf when you will not? How are you casting your lot with the +Saints, when you go but half-way with them? For of whether of the two do +they speak the more frequently, of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, +or of the Pope's supremacy? You accept the lesser evidence, you reject +the greater." + + +18. + +In truth, scanty as the Ante-nicene notices may be of the Papal +Supremacy, they are both more numerous and more definite than the +adducible testimonies in favour of the Real Presence. The testimonies to +the latter are confined to a few passages such as those just quoted. On +the other hand, of a passage in St. Justin, Bishop Kaye remarks, "Le +Nourry infers that Justin maintained the doctrine of Transubstantiation; +it might in my opinion be more plausibly urged in favour of +Consubstantiation, since Justin calls the consecrated elements Bread and +Wine, though not common bread and wine.[24:1] . . . We may therefore +conclude that, when he calls them the Body and Blood of Christ, he +speaks figuratively." "Clement," observes the same author, "says that +the Scripture calls wine a mystic _symbol_ of the holy blood. . . . +Clement gives various interpretations of Christ's expressions in John +vi. respecting His flesh and blood; but in no instance does he interpret +them literally. . . . His notion seems to have been that, by partaking +of the bread and wine in the Eucharist, the soul of the believer is +united to the Spirit, and that by this union the principle of +immortality is imparted to the flesh."[24:2] "It has been suggested by +some," says Waterland, "that Tertullian understood John vi. merely of +faith, or doctrine, or spiritual actions; and it is strenuously denied +by others." After quoting the passage, he adds, "All that one can +justly gather from this confused passage is that Tertullian interpreted +the bread of life in John vi. of the Word, which he sometimes makes to +be vocal, and sometimes substantial, blending the ideas in a very +perplexed manner; so that he is no clear authority for construing John +vi. of doctrines, &c. All that is certain is that he supposes the Word +made flesh, the Word incarnate to be the heavenly bread spoken of +in that chapter."[25:1] "Origen's general observation relating to +that chapter is, that it must not be literally, but figuratively +understood."[25:2] Again, "It is plain enough that Eusebius followed +Origen in this matter, and that both of them favoured the same mystical +or allegorical construction; whether constantly and uniformly I need not +say."[25:3] I will but add the incidental testimony afforded on a late +occasion:--how far the Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist depends on the +times before the Nicene Council, how far on the times after it, may be +gathered from the circumstance that, when a memorable Sermon[25:4] was +published on the subject, out of about one hundred and forty passages +from the Fathers appended in the notes, not in formal proof, but in +general illustration, only fifteen were taken from Ante-nicene writers. + +With such evidence, the Ante-nicene testimonies which may be cited in +behalf of the authority of the Holy See, need not fear a comparison. +Faint they may be one by one, but at least we may count seventeen of +them, and they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, +and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof. +Whatever objections may be made to this or that particular fact, and I +do not think any valid ones can be raised, still, on the whole, I +consider that a cumulative argument rises from them in favour of the +ecumenical and the doctrinal authority of Rome, stronger than any +argument which can be drawn from the same period for the doctrine of the +Real Presence. I shall have occasion to enumerate them in the fourth +chapter of this Essay. + + +19. + +If it be said that the Real Presence appears, by the Liturgies of the +fourth or fifth century, to have been the doctrine of the earlier, since +those very forms probably existed from the first in Divine worship, this +is doubtless an important truth; but then it is true also that the +writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly +allow that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times, +and that because it was the See of St. Peter. + +Moreover, if the resistance of St. Cyprian and Firmilian to the Church +of Rome, in the question of baptism by heretics, be urged as an argument +against her primitive authority, or the earlier resistance of Polycrates +of Ephesus, let it be considered, first, whether all authority does not +necessarily lead to resistance; next, whether St. Cyprian's own +doctrine, which is in favour of Rome, is not more weighty than his act, +which is against her; thirdly, whether he was not already in error in +the main question under discussion, and Firmilian also; and lastly, +which is the chief point here, whether, in like manner, we may +not object on the other hand against the Real Presence the words +of Tertullian, who explains, "This is my Body," by "a figure of +my Body," and of Origen, who speaks of "our drinking Christ's +Blood not only in the rite of the Sacraments, but also when we +receive His discourses,"[26:1] and says that "that Bread which +God the Word acknowledges as His Body is the Word which nourishes +souls,"[26:2]--passages which admit of a Catholic interpretation when +the Catholic doctrine is once proved, but which _primâ facie_ run +counter to that doctrine. + +It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever +be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early +and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be +considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in +his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their +testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory +result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. + + +20. + +Another hypothesis for accounting for a want of accord between the early +and the late aspects of Christianity is that of the _Disciplina Arcani_, +put forward on the assumption that there has been no variation in the +teaching of the Church from first to last. It is maintained that +doctrines which are associated with the later ages of the Church were +really in the Church from the first, but not publicly taught, and that +for various reasons: as, for the sake of reverence, that sacred subjects +might not be profaned by the heathen; and for the sake of catechumens, +that they might not be oppressed or carried away by a sudden +communication of the whole circle of revealed truth. And indeed the fact +of this concealment can hardly be denied, in whatever degree it took the +shape of a definite rule, which might vary with persons and places. That +it existed even as a rule, as regards the Sacraments, seems to be +confessed on all hands. That it existed in other respects, as a +practice, is plain from the nature of the case, and from the writings of +the Apologists. Minucius Felix and Arnobius, in controversy with Pagans, +imply a denial that then the Christians used altars; yet Tertullian +speaks expressly of the _Ara Dei_ in the Church. What can we say, but +that the Apologists deny altars _in the sense_ in which they ridicule +them; or, that they deny that altars _such as_ the Pagan altars were +tolerated by Christians? And, in like manner, Minucius allows that there +were no temples among Christians; yet they are distinctly recognized in +the edicts of the Dioclesian era, and are known to have existed at a +still earlier date. It is the tendency of every dominant system, such as +the Paganism of the Ante-nicene centuries, to force its opponents into +the most hostile and jealous attitude, from the apprehension which they +naturally feel, lest if they acted otherwise, in those points in which +they approximate towards it, they should be misinterpreted and overborne +by its authority. The very fault now found with clergymen of the +Anglican Church, who wish to conform their practices to her rubrics, and +their doctrines to her divines of the seventeenth century, is, that, +whether they mean it or no, whether legitimately or no, still, in matter +of fact, they will be sanctioning and encouraging the religion of Rome, +in which there are similar doctrines and practices, more definite and +more influential; so that, at any rate, it is inexpedient at the moment +to attempt what is sure to be mistaken. That is, they are required to +exercise a _disciplina arcani_; and a similar reserve was inevitable on +the part of the Catholic Church, at a time when priests and altars +and rites all around it were devoted to malignant and incurable +superstitions. It would be wrong indeed to deny, but it was a duty to +withhold, the ceremonial of Christianity; and Apologists might be +sometimes tempted to deny absolutely what at furthest could only be +denied under conditions. An idolatrous Paganism tended to repress +the externals of Christianity, as, at this day, the presence of +Protestantism is said to repress, though for another reason, the +exhibition of the Roman Catholic religion. + +On various grounds, then, it is certain that portions of the Church +system were held back in primitive times, and of course this fact goes +some way to account for that apparent variation and growth of doctrine, +which embarrasses us when we would consult history for the true idea of +Christianity; yet it is no key to the whole difficulty, as we find it, +for obvious reasons:--because the variations continue beyond the time +when it is conceivable that the discipline was in force, and because +they manifest themselves on a law, not abruptly, but by a visible growth +which has persevered up to this time without any sign of its coming to +an end.[29:1] + + +21. + +The following Essay is directed towards a solution of the difficulty +which has been stated,--the difficulty, as far as it exists, which lies +in the way of our using in controversy the testimony of our most natural +informant concerning the doctrine and worship of Christianity, viz. the +history of eighteen hundred years. The view on which it is written has +at all times, perhaps, been implicitly adopted by theologians, and, I +believe, has recently been illustrated by several distinguished writers +of the continent, such as De Maistre and Möhler: viz. that the increase +and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations +which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and +Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which +takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or +extended dominion; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is +necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and +that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the +world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all +at once by the recipients, but, as being received and transmitted by +minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required +only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. This +may be called the _Theory of Development of Doctrine_; and, before +proceeding to treat of it, one remark may be in place. + +It is undoubtedly an hypothesis to account for a difficulty; but such +too are the various explanations given by astronomers from Ptolemy to +Newton of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, and it is as +unphilosophical on that account to object to the one as to object to the +other. Nor is it more reasonable to express surprise, that at this time +of day a theory is necessary, granting for argument's sake that the +theory is novel, than to have directed a similar wonder in disparagement +of the theory of gravitation, or the Plutonian theory in geology. +Doubtless, the theory of the Secret and the theory of doctrinal +Developments are expedients, and so is the dictum of Vincentius; so is +the art of grammar or the use of the quadrant; it is an expedient to +enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious +problem. For three hundred years the documents and the facts of +Christianity have been exposed to a jealous scrutiny; works have been +judged spurious which once were received without a question; facts have +been discarded or modified which were once first principles in argument; +new facts and new principles have been brought to light; philosophical +views and polemical discussions of various tendencies have been +maintained with more or less success. Not only has the relative +situation of controversies and theologies altered, but infidelity itself +is in a different,--I am obliged to say in a more hopeful position,--as +regards Christianity. The facts of Revealed Religion, though in their +substance unaltered, present a less compact and orderly front to the +attacks of its enemies now than formerly, and allow of the introduction +of new inquiries and theories concerning its sources and its rise. The +state of things is not as it was, when an appeal lay to the supposed +works of the Areopagite, or to the primitive Decretals, or to St. +Dionysius's answers to Paul, or to the Cœna Domini of St. Cyprian. +The assailants of dogmatic truth have got the start of its adherents of +whatever Creed; philosophy is completing what criticism has begun; and +apprehensions are not unreasonably excited lest we should have a new +world to conquer before we have weapons for the warfare. Already +infidelity has its views and conjectures, on which it arranges the facts +of ecclesiastical history; and it is sure to consider the absence of any +antagonist theory as an evidence of the reality of its own. That the +hypothesis, here to be adopted, accounts not only for the Athanasian +Creed, but for the Creed of Pope Pius, is no fault of those who adopt +it. No one has power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage +our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more. An +argument is needed, unless Christianity is to abandon the province of +argument; and those who find fault with the explanation here offered of +its historical phenomena will find it their duty to provide one for +themselves. + +And as no special aim at Roman Catholic doctrine need be supposed to +have given a direction to the inquiry, so neither can a reception of +that doctrine be immediately based on its results. It would be the work +of a life to apply the Theory of Developments so carefully to the +writings of the Fathers, and to the history of controversies and +councils, as thereby to vindicate the reasonableness of every decision +of Rome; much less can such an undertaking be imagined by one who, in +the middle of his days, is beginning life again. Thus much, however, +might be gained even from an Essay like the present, an explanation of +so many of the reputed corruptions, doctrinal and practical, of Rome, as +might serve as a fair ground for trusting her in parallel cases where +the investigation had not been pursued. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9:1] Church of the Fathers [Hist. Sketches, vol. i. p. 418]. + +[12:1] Proph. Office [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 55, 56]. + +[13:1] [Ibid. p. 181.] + +[13:2] [British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193. Vid. supr. vol. i. p. 130.] + +[16:1] This of course has been disputed, as is the case with almost all +facts which bear upon the decision of controversies. I shall not think +it necessary to notice the possibility or the fact of objections on +questions upon which the world may now be said to be agreed; _e. g._ the +arianizing tone of Eusebius. + +[16:2] σχεδὸν ταυτησὶ τῆς νῦν περιθυλλουμένης ἀσεβείας, τῆς κατὰ τὸ Ἀνόμοιον λέγω, οὗτος ἐστὶν, +ὅσα γε ἡμεῖς ἴσμεν, ὁ πρῶτος ἀνθρώποις τὰ σπέρματα παρασχών. Ep. ix. 2. + +[16:3] Bull, Defens. F. N. ii. 12, § 6. + +[17:1] "The authors who make the generation temporary, and speak not +expressly of any other, are these following: Justin, Athenagoras, +Theophilus, Tatian, Tertullian, and Hippolytus."--_Waterland_, vol. i. +part 2, p. 104. + +[17:2] "Levia sunt," says Maran in his defence, "quæ in Sanctissimam +Trinitatem hic liber peccare dicitur, paulo graviora quæ in mysterium +Incarnationis."--_Div. Jes. Christ._ p. 527. Shortly after, p. 530, "In +tertiâ oratione nonnulla legimus Incarnationem Domini spectantia, quæ +subabsurdè dicta fateor, nego impiè cogitata." + +[17:3] Bishop Bull, who is tender towards him, allows, "Ut quod res est +dicam, cum Valentinianis hic et reliquo gnosticorum grege aliquatenus +locutus est Tertullianus; in re ipsâ tamen cum Catholicis omninò +sensit."--_Defens. F. N._ iii. 10, § 15. + +[18:1] Adv. Praxeam. + +[18:2] Defens. F. N. iv. 3, § 1. + +[18:3] Basil, ed. Ben. vol. 3, p. xcvi. + +[19:1] Ante-nicene Test, to the Trinity, p. 69. + +[20:1] "Quia et Pater Deus est, et judex Deus est, non tamen ideo Pater +et judex semper, quia Deus semper. Nam nec Pater potuit esse ante +Filium, nec judex ante delictum. Fuit autem tempus, cum et delictum et +Filius non fuit, quod judicem, et qui Patrem Dominum faceret."--_Contr. +Herm._ 3. + +[20:2] Vid. infra, towards the end of the Essay, ch. x., where more will +be said on the passage. + +[22:1] Of Justification, 26. + +[22:2] Works, vol. ix. p. 396. + +[22:3] "Quamvis igitur quam maximè fallantur Pelagiani, quum asserant, +peccatum originale ex Augustini profluxisse ingenio, antiquam vero +ecclesiam illud plane nescivisse; diffiteri tamen nemo potest, apud +Græcos patres imprimis inveniri loca, quæ Pelagianismo favere videntur. +Hinc et C. Jansenius, 'Græci,' inquit, 'nisi caute legantur et +intelligantur, præbere possunt occasionem errori Pelagiano;' et D. +Petavius dicit, 'Græci originalis fere criminis raram, nec disertam, +mentionem scriptis suis attigerunt.'"--_Walch_, _Miscell. Sacr._ p. 607. + +[22:4] Horn, Comment. de Pecc. Orig. 1801, p. 98. + +[23:1] Hær. iv. 18, § 5. + +[24:1] Justin Martyr, ch. 4. + +[24:2] Clem. Alex. ch. 11. + +[25:1] Works, vol. vii. p. 118-120. + +[25:2] Ibid. p. 121. + +[25:3] Ibid. p. 127. + +[25:4] [Dr. Pusey's University Sermon of 1843.] + +[26:1] Numer. Hom. xvi. 9. + +[26:2] Interp. Com. in Matt. 85. + +[29:1] [_Vid._ Apolog., p. 198, and Difficulties of Angl. vol. i. xii. +7.] + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS. + + +SECTION I. + +ON THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. + +It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing +judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend +than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, +contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view +all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have +invested it. + +Of the judgments thus made, which become aspects in our minds of the +things which meet us, some are mere opinions which come and go, or which +remain with us only till an accident displaces them, whatever be the +influence which they exercise meanwhile. Others are firmly fixed in our +minds, with or without good reason, and have a hold upon us, whether +they relate to matters of fact, or to principles of conduct, or are +views of life and the world, or are prejudices, imaginations, or +convictions. Many of them attach to one and the same object, which is +thus variously viewed, not only by various minds, but by the same. They +sometimes lie in such near relation, that each implies the others; some +are only not inconsistent with each other, in that they have a common +origin: some, as being actually incompatible with each other, are, one +or other, falsely associated in our minds with their object, and in any +case they may be nothing more than ideas, which we mistake for things. + +Thus Judaism is an idea which once was objective, and Gnosticism is an +idea which was never so. Both of them have various aspects: those of +Judaism were such as monotheism, a certain ethical discipline, a +ministration of divine vengeance, a preparation for Christianity: those +of the Gnostic idea are such as the doctrine of two principles, that of +emanation, the intrinsic malignity of matter, the inculpability of +sensual indulgence, or the guilt of every pleasure of sense, of which +last two one or other must be in the Gnostic a false aspect and +subjective only. + + +2. + +The idea which represents an object or supposed object is commensurate +with the sum total of its possible aspects, however they may vary in the +separate consciousness of individuals; and in proportion to the variety +of aspects under which it presents itself to various minds is its force +and depth, and the argument for its reality. Ordinarily an idea is not +brought home to the intellect as objective except through this variety; +like bodily substances, which are not apprehended except under the +clothing of their properties and results, and which admit of being +walked round, and surveyed on opposite sides, and in different +perspectives, and in contrary lights, in evidence of their reality. And, +as views of a material object may be taken from points so remote or so +opposed, that they seem at first sight incompatible, and especially as +their shadows will be disproportionate, or even monstrous, and yet all +these anomalies will disappear and all these contrarieties be adjusted, +on ascertaining the point of vision or the surface of projection in each +case; so also all the aspects of an idea are capable of coalition, and +of a resolution into the object to which it belongs; and the _primâ +facie_ dissimilitude of its aspects becomes, when explained, an argument +for its substantiveness and integrity, and their multiplicity for its +originality and power. + + +3. + +There is no one aspect deep enough to exhaust the contents of a real +idea, no one term or proposition which will serve to define it; though +of course one representation of it is more just and exact than another, +and though when an idea is very complex, it is allowable, for the sake +of convenience, to consider its distinct aspects as if separate ideas. +Thus, with all our intimate knowledge of animal life and of the +structure of particular animals, we have not arrived at a true +definition of any one of them, but are forced to enumerate properties +and accidents by way of description. Nor can we inclose in a formula +that intellectual fact, or system of thought, which we call the Platonic +philosophy, or that historical phenomenon of doctrine and conduct, which +we call the heresy of Montanus or of Manes. Again, if Protestantism were +said to lie in its theory of private judgment, and Lutheranism in its +doctrine of justification, this indeed would be an approximation to the +truth; but it is plain that to argue or to act as if the one or the +other aspect were a sufficient account of those forms of religion +severally, would be a serious mistake. Sometimes an attempt is made to +determine the "leading idea," as it has been called, of Christianity, an +ambitious essay as employed on a supernatural work, when, even as +regards the visible creation and the inventions of man, such a task is +beyond us. Thus its one idea has been said by some to be the restoration +of our fallen race, by others philanthropy, by others the tidings of +immortality, or the spirituality of true religious service, or the +salvation of the elect, or mental liberty, or the union of the soul with +God. If, indeed, it is only thereby meant to use one or other of these +as a central idea for convenience, in order to group others around it, +no fault can be found with such a proceeding: and in this sense I should +myself call the Incarnation the central aspect of Christianity, out of +which the three main aspects of its teaching take their rise, the +sacramental, the hierarchical, and the ascetic. But one aspect of +Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or to obscure another; and +Christianity is dogmatical, devotional, practical all at once; it is +esoteric and exoteric; it is indulgent and strict; it is light and dark; +it is love, and it is fear. + + +4. + +When an idea, whether real or not, is of a nature to arrest and possess +the mind, it may be said to have life, that is, to live in the mind +which is its recipient. Thus mathematical ideas, real as they are, can +hardly properly be called living, at least ordinarily. But, when some +great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present +good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the +public throng of men and draws attention, then it is not merely received +passively in this or that form into many minds, but it becomes an active +principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of +itself, to an application of it in various directions, and a propagation +of it on every side. Such is the doctrine of the divine right of kings, +or of the rights of man, or of the anti-social bearings of a priesthood, +or utilitarianism, or free trade, or the duty of benevolent enterprises, +or the philosophy of Zeno or Epicurus, doctrines which are of a nature +to attract and influence, and have so far a _primâ facie_ reality, that +they may be looked at on many sides and strike various minds very +variously. Let one such idea get possession of the popular mind, or the +mind of any portion of the community, and it is not difficult to +understand what will be the result. At first men will not fully realize +what it is that moves them, and will express and explain themselves +inadequately. There will be a general agitation of thought, and an +action of mind upon mind. There will be a time of confusion, when +conceptions and misconceptions are in conflict, and it is uncertain +whether anything is to come of the idea at all, or which view of it is +to get the start of the others. New lights will be brought to bear upon +the original statements of the doctrine put forward; judgments and +aspects will accumulate. After a while some definite teaching emerges; +and, as time proceeds, one view will be modified or expanded by another, +and then combined with a third; till the idea to which these various +aspects belong, will be to each mind separately what at first it was +only to all together. It will be surveyed too in its relation to other +doctrines or facts, to other natural laws or established customs, to the +varying circumstances of times and places, to other religions, polities, +philosophies, as the case may be. How it stands affected towards other +systems, how it affects them, how far it may be made to combine with +them, how far it tolerates them, when it interferes with them, will be +gradually wrought out. It will be interrogated and criticized by +enemies, and defended by well-wishers. The multitude of opinions formed +concerning it in these respects and many others will be collected, +compared, sorted, sifted, selected, rejected, gradually attached to it, +separated from it, in the minds of individuals and of the community. It +will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtlety, introduce itself +into the framework and details of social life, changing public opinion, +and strengthening or undermining the foundations of established order. +Thus in time it will have grown into an ethical code, or into a system +of government, or into a theology, or into a ritual, according to its +capabilities: and this body of thought, thus laboriously gained, will +after all be little more than the proper representative of one idea, +being in substance what that idea meant from the first, its complete +image as seen in a combination of diversified aspects, with the +suggestions and corrections of many minds, and the illustration of many +experiences. + + +5. + +This process, whether it be longer or shorter in point of time, by which +the aspects of an idea are brought into consistency and form, I call its +development, being the germination and maturation of some truth or +apparent truth on a large mental field. On the other hand this process +will not be a development, unless the assemblage of aspects, which +constitute its ultimate shape, really belongs to the idea from which +they start. A republic, for instance, is not a development from a pure +monarchy, though it may follow upon it; whereas the Greek "tyrant" may +be considered as included in the idea of a democracy. Moreover a +development will have this characteristic, that, its action being in the +busy scene of human life, it cannot progress at all without cutting +across, and thereby destroying or modifying and incorporating with +itself existing modes of thinking and operating. The development then of +an idea is not like an investigation worked out on paper, in which each +successive advance is a pure evolution from a foregoing, but it is +carried on through and by means of communities of men and their leaders +and guides; and it employs their minds as its instruments, and depends +upon them, while it uses them. And so, as regards existing opinions, +principles, measures, and institutions of the community which it has +invaded; it developes by establishing relations between itself and +them; it employs itself, in giving them a new meaning and direction, in +creating what may be called a jurisdiction over them, in throwing off +whatever in them it cannot assimilate. It grows when it incorporates, +and its identity is found, not in isolation, but in continuity and +sovereignty. This it is that imparts to the history both of states and +of religions, its specially turbulent and polemical character. Such is +the explanation of the wranglings, whether of schools or of parliaments. +It is the warfare of ideas under their various aspects striving for the +mastery, each of them enterprising, engrossing, imperious, more or less +incompatible with the rest, and rallying followers or rousing foes, +according as it acts upon the faith, the prejudices, or the interest of +parties or classes. + + +6. + +Moreover, an idea not only modifies, but is modified, or at least +influenced, by the state of things in which it is carried out, and is +dependent in various ways on the circumstances which surround it. Its +development proceeds quickly or slowly, as it may be; the order of +succession in its separate stages is variable; it shows differently in a +small sphere of action and in an extended; it may be interrupted, +retarded, mutilated, distorted, by external violence; it may be +enfeebled by the effort of ridding itself of domestic foes; it may be +impeded and swayed or even absorbed by counter energetic ideas; it may +be coloured by the received tone of thought into which it comes, or +depraved by the intrusion of foreign principles, or at length shattered +by the development of some original fault within it. + + +7. + +But whatever be the risk of corruption from intercourse with the world +around, such a risk must be encountered if a great idea is duly to be +understood, and much more if it is to be fully exhibited. It is elicited +and expanded by trial, and battles into perfection and supremacy. Nor +does it escape the collision of opinion even in its earlier years, nor +does it remain truer to itself, and with a better claim to be considered +one and the same, though externally protected from vicissitude and +change. It is indeed sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the +spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply +to the history of a philosophy or belief, which on the contrary is more +equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and +broad, and full. It necessarily rises out of an existing state of +things, and for a time savours of the soil. Its vital element needs +disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in +efforts after freedom which become more vigorous and hopeful as its +years increase. Its beginnings are no measure of its capabilities, nor +of its scope. At first no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It +remains perhaps for a time quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs, +and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to time it +makes essays which fail, and are in consequence abandoned. It seems in +suspense which way to go; it wavers, and at length strikes out in one +definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory; points of +controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall around it; +dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and old principles reappear +under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a +higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and +to be perfect is to have changed often. + + +SECTION II. + +ON THE KINDS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. + +To attempt an accurate analysis or complete enumeration of the processes +of thought, whether speculative or practical, which come under the +notion of development, exceeds the pretensions of an Essay like the +present; but, without some general view of the various mental exercises +which go by the name we shall have no security against confusion in our +reasoning and necessary exposure to criticism. + +1. First, then, it must be borne in mind that the word is commonly used, +and is used here, in three senses indiscriminately, from defect of our +language; on the one hand for the process of development, on the other +for the result; and again either generally for a development, true or +not true, (that is, faithful or unfaithful to the idea from which it +started,) or exclusively for a development deserving the name. A false +or unfaithful development is more properly to be called a corruption. + +2. Next, it is plain that _mathematical_ developments, that is, the +system of truths drawn out from mathematical definitions or equations, +do not fall under our present subject, though altogether analogous to +it. There can be no corruption in such developments, because they are +conducted on strict demonstration; and the conclusions in which they +terminate, being necessary, cannot be declensions from the original +idea. + +3. Nor, of course, do _physical_ developments, as the growth of animal +or vegetable nature, come into consideration here; excepting that, +together with mathematical, they may be taken as illustrations of the +general subject to which we have to direct our attention. + +4. Nor have we to consider _material_ developments, which, though +effected by human contrivance, are still physical; as the development, +as it is called, of the national resources. We speak, for instance, of +Ireland, the United States, or the valley of the Indus, as admitting of +a great development; by which we mean, that those countries have fertile +tracts, or abundant products, or broad and deep rivers, or central +positions for commerce, or capacious and commodious harbours, the +materials and instruments of wealth, and these at present turned to +insufficient account. Development in this case will proceed by +establishing marts, cutting canals, laying down railroads, erecting +factories, forming docks, and similar works, by which the natural riches +of the country may be made to yield the largest return and to exert the +greatest influence. In this sense, art is the development of nature, +that is, its adaptation to the purposes of utility and beauty, the human +intellect being the developing power. + + +2. + +5. When society and its various classes and interests are the +subject-matter of the ideas which are in operation, the development may +be called _political_; as we see it in the growth of States or the +changes of a Constitution. Barbarians descend into southern regions from +cupidity, and their warrant is the sword: this is no intellectual +process, nor is it the mode of development exhibited in civilized +communities. Where civilization exists, reason, in some shape or other, +is the incentive or the pretence of development. When an empire +enlarges, it is on the call of its allies, or for the balance of power, +or from the necessity of a demonstration of strength, or from a fear for +its frontiers. It lies uneasily in its territory, it is ill-shaped, it +has unreal boundary-lines, deficient communication between its principal +points, or defenceless or turbulent neighbours. Thus, of old time, +Eubœa was necessary for Athens, and Cythera for Sparta; and Augustus +left his advice, as a legacy, to confine the Empire between the +Atlantic, the Rhine and Danube, the Euphrates, and the Arabian and +African deserts. In this day, we hear of the Rhine being the natural +boundary of France, and the Indus of our Eastern empire; and we predict +that, in the event of a war, Prussia will change her outlines in the map +of Europe. The development is material; but an idea gives unity and +force to its movement. + +And so to take a case of national politics, a late writer remarks of the +Parliament of 1628-29, in its contest with Charles, that, so far from +encroaching on the just powers of a limited monarch, it never hinted at +the securities which were necessary for its measures. However, "twelve +years more of repeated aggressions," he adds, "taught the Long +Parliament what a few sagacious men might perhaps have already +suspected; that they must recover more of their ancient constitution, +from oblivion; that they must sustain its partial weakness by new +securities; that, in order to render the existence of monarchy +compatible with that of freedom, they must not only strip it of all it +had usurped, but of something that was its own."[43:1] Whatever be the +worth of this author's theory, his facts or representations are an +illustration of a political development. + +Again, at the present day, that Ireland should have a population of one +creed, and a Church of another, is felt to be a political arrangement so +unsatisfactory, that all parties seem to agree that either the +population will develope in power or the Establishment in influence. + +Political developments, though really the growth of ideas, are often +capricious and irregular from the nature of their subject-matter. They +are influenced by the character of sovereigns, the rise and fall of +statesmen, the fate of battles, and the numberless vicissitudes of the +world. "Perhaps the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the +Monophysites," says Gibbon, "if the Emperor's horse had not fortunately +stumbled. Theodosius expired, his orthodox sister succeeded to the +throne."[44:1] + + +3. + +Again, it often happens, or generally, that various distinct and +incompatible elements are found in the origin or infancy of politics, or +indeed of philosophies, some of which must be ejected before any +satisfactory developments, if any, can take place. And they are commonly +ejected by the gradual growth of the stronger. The reign of Charles the +First, just referred to, supplies an instance in point. + +Sometimes discordant ideas are for a time connected and concealed by a +common profession or name. Such is the case of coalitions in politics +and comprehensions in religion, of which commonly no good is to be +expected. Such is an ordinary function of committees and boards, and the +sole aim of conciliations and concessions, to make contraries look the +same, and to secure an outward agreement where there is no other unity. + +Again, developments, reactions, reforms, revolutions, and changes of +various kinds are mixed together in the actual history of states, as of +philosophical sects, so as to make it very difficult to exhibit them in +any scientific analysis. + +Often the intellectual process is detached from the practical, and +posterior to it. Thus it was after Elizabeth had established the +Reformation that Hooker laid down his theory of Church and State as one +and the same, differing only in idea; and, after the Revolution and its +political consequences, that Warburton wrote his "Alliance." And now +again a new theory is needed for the constitutional lawyer, in order to +reconcile the existing political state of things with the just claims +of religion. And so, again, in Parliamentary conflicts, men first come +to their conclusions by the external pressure of events or the force of +principles, they do not know how; then they have to speak, and they look +about for arguments: and a pamphlet is published on the subject in +debate, or an article appears in a Review, to furnish common-places for +the many. + +Other developments, though political, are strictly subjected and +consequent to the ideas of which they are the exhibitions. Thus Locke's +philosophy was a real guide, not a mere defence of the Revolution era, +operating forcibly upon Church and Government in and after his day. Such +too were the theories which preceded the overthrow of the old regime in +France and other countries at the end of the last century. + +Again, perhaps there are polities founded on no ideas at all, but on +mere custom, as among the Asiatics. + + +4. + +6. In other developments the intellectual character is so prominent that +they may even be called _logical_, as in the Anglican doctrine of the +Royal Supremacy, which has been created in the courts of law, not in the +cabinet or on the field. Hence it is carried out with a consistency and +minute application which the history of constitutions cannot exhibit. It +does not only exist in statutes, or in articles, or in oaths, it is +realized in details: as in the _congé d'élire_ and letter-missive on +appointment of a Bishop;--in the forms observed in Privy Council on the +issuing of State Prayers;--in certain arrangements observed in the +Prayer-book, where the universal or abstract Church precedes the King, +but the national or really existing body follows him; in printing his +name in large capitals, while the Holiest Names are in ordinary type, +and in fixing his arms in churches instead of the Crucifix; moreover, +perhaps, in placing "sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion," before +"false doctrine, heresy, and schism" in the Litany. + +Again, when some new philosophy or its instalments are introduced into +the measures of the Legislature, or into the concessions made to a +political party, or into commercial or agricultural policy, it is often +said, "We have not seen the end of this;" "It is an earnest of future +concessions;" "Our children will see." We feel that it has unknown +bearings and issues. + +The admission of Jews to municipal offices has lately been +defended[46:1] on the ground that it is the introduction of no new +principle, but a development of one already received; that its great +premisses have been decided long since; and that the present age has but +to draw the conclusion; that it is not open to us to inquire what ought +to be done in the abstract, since there is no ideal model for the +infallible guidance of nations; that change is only a question of time, +and that there is a time for all things; that the application of +principles ought not to go beyond the actual case, neither preceding nor +coming after an imperative demand; that in point of fact Jews have +lately been chosen for offices, and that in point of principle the law +cannot refuse to legitimate such elections. + + +5. + +7. Another class of developments may be called _historical_; being the +gradual formation of opinion concerning persons, facts, and events. +Judgments, which were at one time confined to a few, at length spread +through a community, and attain general reception by the accumulation +and concurrence of testimony. Thus some authoritative accounts die away; +others gain a footing, and are ultimately received as truths. Courts of +law, Parliamentary proceedings, newspapers, letters and other +posthumous documents, the industry of historians and biographers, and +the lapse of years which dissipates parties and prejudices, are in this +day the instruments of such development. Accordingly the Poet makes +Truth the daughter of Time.[47:1] Thus at length approximations are made +to a right appreciation of transactions and characters. History cannot +be written except in an after-age. Thus by development the Canon of the +New Testament has been formed. Thus public men are content to leave +their reputation to posterity; great reactions take place in opinion; +nay, sometimes men outlive opposition and obloquy. Thus Saints are +canonized in the Church, long after they have entered into their rest. + + +6. + +8. _Ethical_ developments are not properly matter for argument and +controversy, but are natural and personal, substituting what is +congruous, desirable, pious, appropriate, generous, for strictly logical +inference. Bishop Butler supplies us with a remarkable instance in the +beginning of the Second Part of his "Analogy." As principles imply +applications, and general propositions include particulars, so, he tells +us, do certain relations imply correlative duties, and certain objects +demand certain acts and feelings. He observes that, even though we were +not enjoined to pay divine honours to the Second and Third Persons of +the Holy Trinity, what is predicated of Them in Scripture would be an +abundant warrant, an indirect command, nay, a ground in reason, for +doing so. "Does not," he asks, "the duty of religious regards to both +these Divine Persons as immediately arise, to the view of reason, out of +the very nature of these offices and relations, as the inward good-will +and kind intention which we owe to our fellow-creatures arises out of +the common relations between us and them?" He proceeds to say that he is +speaking of the inward religious regards of reverence, honour, love, +trust, gratitude, fear, hope. "In what external manner this inward +worship is to be expressed, is a matter of pure revealed command; . . +but the worship, the internal worship itself, to the Son and Holy Ghost, +is no further matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they +stand in to us are matter of pure revelation; for, the relations being +known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of +reason, arising out of those relations themselves." Here is a +development of doctrine into worship, of which parallel instances are +obviously to be found in the Church of Rome. + + +7. + +A development, converse to that which Butler speaks of, must next be +mentioned. As certain objects excite certain emotions and sentiments, so +do sentiments imply objects and duties. Thus conscience, the existence +of which we cannot deny, is a proof of the doctrine of a Moral Governor, +which alone gives it a meaning and a scope; that is, the doctrine of a +Judge and Judgment to come is a development of the phenomenon of +conscience. Again, it is plain that passions and affections are in +action in our minds before the presence of their proper objects; and +their activity would of course be an antecedent argument of extreme +cogency in behalf of the real existence of those legitimate objects, +supposing them unknown. And so again, the social principle, which is +innate in us, gives a divine sanction to society and to civil +government. And the usage of prayers for the dead implies certain +circumstances of their state upon which such devotions bear. And rites +and ceremonies are natural means through which the mind relieves itself +of devotional and penitential emotions. And sometimes the cultivation +of awe and love towards what is great, high, and unseen, has led a man +to the abandonment of his sect for some more Catholic form of doctrine. + +Aristotle furnishes us with an instance of this kind of development in +his account of the happy man. After showing that his definition of +happiness includes in itself the pleasurable, which is the most obvious +and popular idea of happiness, he goes on to say that still external +goods are necessary to it, about which, however, the definition said +nothing; that is, a certain prosperity is by moral fitness, not by +logical necessity, attached to the happy man. "For it is impossible," he +observes, "or not easy, to practise high virtue without abundant means. +Many deeds are done by the instrumentality of friends, wealth and +political power; and of some things the absence is a cloud upon +happiness, as of noble birth, of hopeful children, and of personal +appearance: for a person utterly deformed, or low-born, or bereaved and +childless, cannot quite be happy: and still less if he have very +worthless children or friends, or they were good and died."[49:1] + + +8. + +This process of development has been well delineated by a living French +writer, in his Lectures on European civilization, who shall be quoted at +some length. "If we reduce religion," he says, "to a purely religious +sentiment . . . it appears evident that it must and ought to remain a +purely personal concern. But I am either strangely mistaken, or this +religious sentiment is not the complete expression of the religious +nature of man. Religion is, I believe, very different from this, +and much more extended. There are problems in human nature, in human +destinies, which cannot be solved in this life, which depend on +an order of things unconnected with the visible world, but which +unceasingly agitate the human mind with a desire to comprehend them. The +solution of these problems is the origin of all religion; her primary +object is to discover the creeds and doctrines which contain, or are +supposed to contain it. + +"Another cause also impels mankind to embrace religion . . . From whence +do morals originate? whither do they lead? is this self-existing +obligation to do good, an isolated fact, without an author, without an +end? does it not conceal, or rather does it not reveal to man, an +origin, a destiny, beyond this world? The science of morals, by these +spontaneous and inevitable questions, conducts man to the threshold of +religion, and displays to him a sphere from whence he has not derived +it. Thus the certain and never-failing sources of religion are, on the +one hand, the problems of our nature; on the other, the necessity of +seeking for morals a sanction, an origin, and an aim. It therefore +assumes many other forms beside that of a pure sentiment; it appears a +union of doctrines, of precepts, of promises. This is what truly +constitutes religion; this is its fundamental character; it is not +merely a form of sensibility, an impulse of the imagination, a variety +of poetry. + +"When thus brought back to its true elements, to its essential nature, +religion appears no longer a purely personal concern, but a powerful and +fruitful principle of association. Is it considered in the light of a +system of belief, a system of dogmas? Truth is not the heritage of any +individual, it is absolute and universal; mankind ought to seek and +profess it in common. Is it considered with reference to the precepts +that are associated with its doctrines? A law which is obligatory on a +single individual, is so on all; it ought to be promulgated, and it is +our duty to endeavour to bring all mankind under its dominion. It is +the same with respect to the promises that religion makes, in the name +of its creeds and precepts; they ought to be diffused; all men should be +incited to partake of their benefits. A religious society, therefore, +naturally results from the essential elements of religion, and is such a +necessary consequence of it that the term which expresses the most +energetic social sentiment, the most intense desire to propagate ideas +and extend society, is the word _proselytism_, a term which is +especially applied to religious belief, and in fact consecrated to it. + +"When a religious society has ever been formed, when a certain number of +men are united by a common religious creed, are governed by the same +religious precepts, and enjoy the same religious hopes, some form of +government is necessary. No society can endure a week, nay more, no +society can endure a single hour, without a government. The moment, +indeed, a society is formed, by the very fact of its formation, it calls +forth a government,--a government which shall proclaim the common truth +which is the bond of the society, and promulgate and maintain the +precepts that this truth ought to produce. The necessity of a superior +power, of a form of government, is involved in the fact of the existence +of a religious, as it is in that of any other society. + +"And not only is a government necessary, but it naturally forms +itself. . . . When events are suffered to follow their natural laws, +when force does not interfere, power falls into the hands of the most +able, the most worthy, those who are most capable of carrying out the +principles on which the society was founded. Is a warlike expedition +in agitation? The bravest take the command. Is the object of the +association learned research, or a scientific undertaking? The best +informed will be the leader. . . . The inequality of faculties and +influence, which is the foundation of power in civil life, has the same +effect in a religious society. . . Religion has no sooner arisen in the +human mind than a religious society appears; and immediately a religious +society is formed, it produces its government."[52:1] + + +9. + +9. It remains to allude to what, unless the word were often so vaguely +and variously used, I should be led to call _metaphysical_ developments; +I mean such as are a mere analysis of the idea contemplated, and +terminate in its exact and complete delineation. Thus Aristotle draws +the character of a magnanimous or of a munificent man; thus Shakspeare +might conceive and bring out his Hamlet or Ariel; thus Walter Scott +gradually enucleates his James, or Dalgetty, as the action of his story +proceeds; and thus, in the sacred province of theology, the mind may be +employed in developing the solemn ideas, which it has hitherto held +implicitly and without subjecting them to its reflecting and reasoning +powers. + +I have already treated of this subject at length, with a reference to +the highest theological subject, in a former work, from which it will be +sufficient here to quote some sentences in explanation:-- + +"The mind which is habituated to the thought of God, of Christ, of +the Holy Spirit, naturally turns with a devout curiosity to the +contemplation of the object of its adoration, and begins to form +statements concerning it, before it knows whither, or how far, it will +be carried. One proposition necessarily leads to another, and a second +to a third; then some limitation is required; and the combination of +these opposites occasions some fresh evolutions from the original idea, +which indeed can never be said to be entirely exhausted. This process is +its development, and results in a series, or rather body, of dogmatic +statements, till what was an impression on the Imagination has become a +system or creed in the Reason. + +"Now such impressions are obviously individual and complete above other +theological ideas, because they are the impressions of Objects. Ideas +and their developments are commonly not identical, the development being +but the carrying out of the idea into its consequences. Thus the +doctrine of Penance may be called a development of the doctrine of +Baptism, yet still is a distinct doctrine; whereas the developments in +the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are mere portions +of the original impression, and modes of representing it. As God is one, +so the impression which He gives us of Himself is one; it is not a thing +of parts; it is not a system; nor is it anything imperfect and needing a +counterpart. It is the vision of an object. When we pray, we pray, not +to an assemblage of notions or to a creed, but to One Individual Being; +and when we speak of Him, we speak of a Person, not of a Law or +Manifestation . . . Religious men, according to their measure, have an +idea or vision of the Blessed Trinity in Unity, of the Son Incarnate, +and of His Presence, not as a number of qualities, attributes, and +actions, not as the subject of a number of propositions, but as one and +individual, and independent of words, like an impression conveyed +through the senses. . . . Creeds and dogmas live in the one idea which +they are designed to express, and which alone is substantive; and are +necessary, because the human mind cannot reflect upon that idea except +piecemeal, cannot use it in its oneness and entireness, or without +resolving it into a series of aspects and relations."[53:1] + + +10. + +So much on the development of ideas in various subject matters: it may +be necessary to add that, in many cases, _development_ simply stands +for _exhibition_, as in some of the instances adduced above. Thus both +Calvinism and Unitarianism may be called developments, that is, +exhibitions, of the principle of Private Judgment, though they have +nothing in common, viewed as doctrines. + +As to Christianity, supposing the truths of which it consists to admit +of development, that development will be one or other of the last five +kinds. Taking the Incarnation as its central doctrine, the Episcopate, +as taught by St. Ignatius, will be an instance of political development, +the _Theotokos_ of logical, the determination of the date of our Lord's +birth of historical, the Holy Eucharist of moral, and the Athanasian +Creed of metaphysical. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43:1] Hallam's Constit. Hist. ch. vii. p. 572. + +[44:1] ch. xlvii. + +[46:1] _Times_ newspaper of March, 1845. + +[47:1] Crabbe's Tales. + +[49:1] Eth. Nic. i. 8. + +[52:1] Guizot, Europ. Civil., Lect. v., Beckwith's Translation. + +[53:1] [Univ. Serm. xv. 20-23, pp. 329-332, ed. 3.] + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ON THE ANTECEDENT ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIAN +DOCTRINE. + + +SECTION I. + +DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE TO BE EXPECTED. + +1. If Christianity is a fact, and impresses an idea of itself on our +minds and is a subject-matter of exercises of the reason, that idea will +in course of time expand into a multitude of ideas, and aspects of +ideas, connected and harmonious with one another, and in themselves +determinate and immutable, as is the objective fact itself which is thus +represented. It is a characteristic of our minds, that they cannot take +an object in, which is submitted to them simply and integrally. We +conceive by means of definition or description; whole objects do not +create in the intellect whole ideas, but are, to use a mathematical +phrase, thrown into series, into a number of statements, strengthening, +interpreting, correcting each other, and with more or less exactness +approximating, as they accumulate, to a perfect image. There is no other +way of learning or of teaching. We cannot teach except by aspects or +views, which are not identical with the thing itself which we are +teaching. Two persons may each convey the same truth to a third, yet by +methods and through representations altogether different. The same +person will treat the same argument differently in an essay or speech, +according to the accident of the day of writing, or of the audience, yet +it will be substantially the same. + +And the more claim an idea has to be considered living, the more various +will be its aspects; and the more social and political is its nature, +the more complicated and subtle will be its issues, and the longer and +more eventful will be its course. And in the number of these special +ideas, which from their very depth and richness cannot be fully +understood at once, but are more and more clearly expressed and taught +the longer they last,--having aspects many and bearings many, mutually +connected and growing one out of another, and all parts of a whole, with +a sympathy and correspondence keeping pace with the ever-changing +necessities of the world, multiform, prolific, and ever +resourceful,--among these great doctrines surely we Christians shall not +refuse a foremost place to Christianity. Such previously to the +determination of the fact, must be our anticipation concerning it from a +contemplation of its initial achievements. + + +2. + +It may be objected that its inspired documents at once determine the +limits of its mission without further trouble; but ideas are in the +writer and reader of the revelation, not the inspired text itself: and +the question is whether those ideas which the letter conveys from writer +to reader, reach the reader at once in their completeness and accuracy +on his first perception of them, or whether they open out in his +intellect and grow to perfection in the course of time. Nor could it +surely be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the New +Testament, or of any assignable number of books, comprises a delineation +of all possible forms which a divine message will assume when submitted +to a multitude of minds. + +Nor is the case altered by supposing that inspiration provided in behalf +of the first recipients of the Revelation, what the Divine Fiat effected +for herbs and plants in the beginning, which were created in maturity. +Still, the time at length came, when its recipients ceased to be +inspired; and on these recipients the revealed truths would fall, as in +other cases, at first vaguely and generally, though in spirit and in +truth, and would afterwards be completed by developments. + +Nor can it fairly be made a difficulty that thus to treat of Christianity +is to level it in some sort to sects and doctrines of the world, and to +impute to it the imperfections which characterize the productions of +man. Certainly it is a sort of degradation of a divine work to consider +it under an earthly form; but it is no irreverence, since our Lord +Himself, its Author and Guardian, bore one also. Christianity differs +from other religions and philosophies, in what is superadded to earth +from heaven; not in kind, but in origin; not in its nature, but in its +personal characteristics; being informed and quickened by what is more +than intellect, by a divine spirit. It is externally what the Apostle +calls an "earthen vessel," being the religion of men. And, considered as +such, it grows "in wisdom and stature;" but the powers which it wields, +and the words which proceed out of its mouth, attest its miraculous +nativity. + +Unless then some special ground of exception can be assigned, it is as +evident that Christianity, as a doctrine and worship, will develope in +the minds of recipients, as that it conforms in other respects, in its +external propagation or its political framework, to the general methods +by which the course of things is carried forward. + + +3. + +2. Again, if Christianity be an universal religion, suited not simply to +one locality or period, but to all times and places, it cannot but vary +in its relations and dealings towards the world around it, that is, it +will develope. Principles require a very various application according +as persons and circumstances vary, and must be thrown into new shapes +according to the form of society which they are to influence. Hence all +bodies of Christians, orthodox or not, develope the doctrines of +Scripture. Few but will grant that Luther's view of justification had +never been stated in words before his time: that his phraseology and his +positions were novel, whether called for by circumstances or not. It is +equally certain that the doctrine of justification defined at Trent was, +in some sense, new also. The refutation and remedy of errors cannot +precede their rise; and thus the fact of false developments or +corruptions involves the correspondent manifestation of true ones. +Moreover, all parties appeal to Scripture, that is, argue from +Scripture; but argument implies deduction, that is, development. Here +there is no difference between early times and late, between a Pope _ex +cathedrâ_ and an individual Protestant, except that their authority is +not on a par. On either side the claim of authority is the same, and the +process of development. + +Accordingly, the common complaint of Protestants against the Church of +Rome is, not simply that she has added to the primitive or the +Scriptural doctrine, (for this they do themselves,) but that she +contradicts it, and moreover imposes her additions as fundamental truths +under sanction of an anathema. For themselves they deduce by quite as +subtle a method, and act upon doctrines as implicit and on reasons as +little analyzed in time past, as Catholic schoolmen. What prominence has +the Royal Supremacy in the New Testament, or the lawfulness of bearing +arms, or the duty of public worship, or the substitution of the first +day of the week for the seventh, or infant baptism, to say nothing of +the fundamental principle that the Bible and the Bible only is the +religion of Protestants? These doctrines and usages, true or not, which +is not the question here, are surely not gained by the direct use and +immediate application of Scripture, nor by a mere exercise of argument +upon words and sentences placed before the eyes, but by the unconscious +growth of ideas suggested by the letter and habitual to the mind. + + +4. + +3. And, indeed, when we turn to the consideration of particular +doctrines on which Scripture lays the greatest stress, we shall see that +it is absolutely impossible for them to remain in the mere letter of +Scripture, if they are to be more than mere words, and to convey a +definite idea to the recipient. When it is declared that "the Word +became flesh," three wide questions open upon us on the very +announcement. What is meant by "the Word," what by "flesh," what by +"became"? The answers to these involve a process of investigation, and +are developments. Moreover, when they have been made, they will suggest +a series of secondary questions; and thus at length a multitude of +propositions is the result, which gather round the inspired sentence of +which they come, giving it externally the form of a doctrine, and +creating or deepening the idea of it in the mind. + +It is true that, so far as such statements of Scripture are mysteries, +they are relatively to us but words, and cannot be developed. But as a +mystery implies in part what is incomprehensible or at least unknown, so +does it in part imply what is not so; it implies a partial manifestation, +or a representation by economy. Because then it is in a measure +understood, it can so far be developed, though each result in the +process will partake of the dimness and confusion of the original +impression. + + +5. + +4. This moreover should be considered,--that great questions exist in +the subject-matter of which Scripture treats, which Scripture does not +solve; questions too so real, so practical, that they must be answered, +and, unless we suppose a new revelation, answered by means of the +revelation which we have, that is, by development. Such is the question +of the Canon of Scripture and its inspiration: that is, whether +Christianity depends upon a written document as Judaism;--if so, on what +writings and how many;--whether that document is self-interpreting, or +requires a comment, and whether any authoritative comment or commentator +is provided;--whether the revelation and the document are commensurate, +or the one outruns the other;--all these questions surely find no +solution on the surface of Scripture, nor indeed under the surface in +the case of most men, however long and diligent might be their study of +it. Nor were these difficulties settled by authority, as far as we know, +at the commencement of the religion; yet surely it is quite conceivable +that an Apostle might have dissipated them all in a few words, had +Divine Wisdom thought fit. But in matter of fact the decision has been +left to time, to the slow process of thought, to the influence of mind +upon mind, the issues of controversy, and the growth of opinion. + + +6. + +To take another instance just now referred to:--if there was a point on +which a rule was desirable from the first, it was concerning the +religious duties under which Christian parents lay as regards their +children. It would be natural indeed in any Christian father, in the +absence of a rule, to bring his children for baptism; such in this +instance would be the practical development of his faith in Christ and +love for his offspring; still a development it is,--necessarily +required, yet, as far as we know, not provided for his need by direct +precept in the Revelation as originally given. + +Another very large field of thought, full of practical considerations, +yet, as far as our knowledge goes, but only partially occupied by any +Apostolical judgment, is that which the question of the effects of +Baptism opens upon us. That they who came in repentance and faith to +that Holy Sacrament received remission of sins, is undoubtedly the +doctrine of the Apostles; but is there any means of a second remission +for sins committed after it? St. Paul's Epistles, where we might expect +an answer to our inquiry, contain no explicit statement on the subject; +what they do plainly say does not diminish the difficulty:--viz., first, +that baptism is intended for the pardon of sins before it, not in +prospect; next, that those who have received the gift of Baptism in fact +live in a state of holiness, not of sin. How do statements such as these +meet the actual state of the Church as we see it at this day? + +Considering that it was expressly predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven, +like the fisher's net, should gather of every kind, and that the tares +should grow with the wheat until the harvest, a graver and more +practical question cannot be imagined than that which it has pleased the +Divine Author of the Revelation to leave undecided, unless indeed there +be means given in that Revelation of its own growth or development. As +far as the letter goes of the inspired message, every one who holds that +Scripture is the rule of faith, as all Protestants do, must allow that +"there is not one of us but has exceeded by transgression its revealed +Ritual, and finds himself in consequence thrown upon those infinite +resources of Divine Love which are stored in Christ, but have not been +drawn out into form in the appointments of the Gospel."[62:1] Since then +Scripture needs completion, the question is brought to this issue, +whether defect or inchoateness in its doctrines be or be not an +antecedent probability in favour of a development of them. + + +7. + +There is another subject, though not so immediately practical, on which +Scripture does not, strictly speaking, keep silence, but says so little +as to require, and so much as to suggest, information beyond its +letter,--the intermediate state between death and the Resurrection. +Considering the long interval which separates Christ's first and second +coming, the millions of faithful souls who are waiting it out, and the +intimate concern which every Christian has in the determination of its +character, it might have been expected that Scripture would have spoken +explicitly concerning it, whereas in fact its notices are but brief and +obscure. We might indeed have argued that this silence of Scripture +was intentional, with a view of discouraging speculations upon the +subject, except for the circumstance that, as in the question of our +post-baptismal state, its teaching seems to proceed upon an hypothesis +inapplicable to the state of the Church after the time when it was +delivered. As Scripture contemplates Christians, not as backsliders, but +as saints, so does it apparently represent the Day of Judgment as +immediate, and the interval of expectation as evanescent. It leaves on +our minds the general impression that Christ was returning on earth at +once, "the time short," worldly engagements superseded by "the present +distress," persecutors urgent, Christians, as a body, sinless and +expectant, without home, without plan for the future, looking up to +heaven. But outward circumstances have changed, and with the change, a +different application of the revealed word has of necessity been +demanded, that is, a development. When the nations were converted and +offences abounded, then the Church came out to view, on the one hand as +a temporal establishment, on the other as a remedial system, and +passages of Scripture aided and directed the development which before +were of inferior account. Hence the doctrine of Penance as the +complement of Baptism, and of Purgatory as the explanation of the +Intermediate State. So reasonable is this expansion of the original +creed, that, when some ten years since the true doctrine of Baptism was +expounded among us without any mention of Penance, our teacher was +accused by many of us of Novatianism; while, on the other hand, +heterodox divines have before now advocated the doctrine of the sleep of +the soul because they said it was the only successful preventive of +belief in Purgatory. + + +8. + +Thus developments of Christianity are proved to have been in the +contemplation of its Divine Author, by an argument parallel to that by +which we infer intelligence in the system of the physical world. In +whatever sense the need and its supply are a proof of design in the +visible creation, in the same do the gaps, if the word may be used, +which occur in the structure of the original creed of the Church, make +it probable that those developments, which grow out of the truths which +lie around it, were intended to fill them up. + +Nor can it be fairly objected that in thus arguing we are contradicting +the great philosopher, who tells us, that "upon supposition of God +affording us light and instruction by revelation, additional to what He +has afforded us by reason and experience, we are in no sort judges by +what methods, and in what proportion, it were to be expected that this +supernatural light and instruction would be afforded us,"[64:1] because +he is speaking of our judging before a revelation is given. He observes +that "we have no principles of reason upon which to judge _beforehand_, +how it were to be expected Revelation should have been left, or what was +most suitable to the divine plan of government," in various respects; +but the case is altogether altered when a Revelation is vouchsafed, for +then a new precedent, or what he calls "principle of reason," is +introduced, and from what is actually put into our hands we can form a +judgment whether more is to be expected. Butler, indeed, as a well-known +passage of his work shows, is far from denying the principle of +progressive development. + + +9. + +5. The method of revelation observed in Scripture abundantly confirms +this anticipation. For instance, Prophecy, if it had so happened, need +not have afforded a specimen of development; separate predictions might +have been made to accumulate as time went on, prospects might have +opened, definite knowledge might have been given, by communications +independent of each other, as St. John's Gospel or the Epistles of St. +Paul are unconnected with the first three Gospels, though the doctrine +of each Apostle is a development of their matter. But the prophetic +Revelation is, in matter of fact, not of this nature, but a process of +development: the earlier prophecies are pregnant texts out of which the +succeeding announcements grow; they are types. It is not that first one +truth is told, then another; but the whole truth or large portions of it +are told at once, yet only in their rudiments, or in miniature, and they +are expanded and finished in their parts, as the course of revelation +proceeds. + +The Seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; the sceptre was +not to depart from Judah till Shiloh came, to whom was to be the +gathering of the people. He was to be Wonderful, Counsellor, the Prince +of Peace. The question of the Ethiopian rises in the reader's mind, "Of +whom speaketh the Prophet this?" Every word requires a comment. +Accordingly, it is no uncommon theory with unbelievers, that the +Messianic idea, as they call it, was gradually developed in the minds of +the Jews by a continuous and traditional habit of contemplating it, and +grew into its full proportions by a mere human process; and so far seems +certain, without trenching on the doctrine of inspiration, that the +books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are developments of the writings of +the Prophets, expressed or elicited by means of current ideas in the +Greek philosophy, and ultimately adopted and ratified by the Apostle in +his Epistle to the Hebrews. + + +10. + +But the whole Bible, not its prophetical portions only, is written on +the principle of development. As the Revelation proceeds, it is ever +new, yet ever old. St. John, who completes it, declares that he writes +no "new commandment unto his brethren," but an old commandment which +they "had from the beginning." And then he adds, "A new commandment I +write unto you." The same test of development is suggested in our Lord's +words on the Mount, as has already been noticed, "Think not that I am +come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I am not come to destroy, but +to fulfil." He does not reverse, but perfect, what has gone before. Thus +with respect to the evangelical view of the rite of sacrifice, first the +rite is enjoined by Moses; next Samuel says, "to obey is better than +sacrifice;" then Hosea, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice;" Isaiah, +"Incense is an abomination onto me;" then Malachi, describing the times +of the Gospel, speaks of the "pure offering" of wheatflour; and our Lord +completes the development, when He speaks of worshipping "in spirit and +in truth." If there is anything here left to explain, it will be found +in the usage of the Christian Church immediately afterwards, which shows +that sacrifice was not removed, but truth and spirit added. + +Nay, the _effata_ of our Lord and His Apostles are of a typical +structure, parallel to the prophetic announcements above mentioned, and +predictions as well as injunctions of doctrine. If then the prophetic +sentences have had that development which has really been given them, +first by succeeding revelations, and then by the event, it is probable +antecedently that those doctrinal, political, ritual, and ethical +sentences, which have the same structure, should admit the same +expansion. Such are, "This is My Body," or "Thou art Peter, and upon +this Rock I will build My Church," or "The meek shall inherit the +earth," or "Suffer little children to come unto Me," or "The pure in +heart shall see God." + + +11. + +On this character of our Lord's teaching, the following passage +may suitably be quoted from a writer already used. "His recorded words +and works when on earth . . . come to us as the declarations of a +Lawgiver. In the Old Covenant, Almighty God first of all spoke the Ten +Commandments from Mount Sinai, and afterwards wrote them. So our Lord +first spoke His own Gospel, both of promise and of precept, on the +Mount, and His Evangelists have recorded it. Further, when He delivered +it, He spoke by way of parallel to the Ten Commandments. And His style, +moreover, corresponds to the authority which He assumes. It is of that +solemn, measured, and severe character, which bears on the face of it +tokens of its belonging to One who spake as none other man could speak. +The Beatitudes, with which His Sermon opens, are an instance of this +incommunicable style, which befitted, as far as human words could befit, +God Incarnate. + +"Nor is this style peculiar to the Sermon on the Mount. All through the +Gospels it is discernible, distinct from any other part of Scripture, +showing itself in solemn declarations, canons, sentences, or sayings, +such as legislators propound, and scribes and lawyers comment on. Surely +everything our Saviour did and said is characterized by mingled +simplicity and mystery. His emblematical actions, His typical miracles, +His parables, His replies, His censures, all are evidences of a +legislature in germ, afterwards to be developed, a code of divine +truth which was ever to be before men's eyes, to be the subject of +investigation and interpretation, and the guide in controversy. 'Verily, +verily, I say unto you,'--'But, I say unto you,'--are the tokens of a +supreme Teacher and Prophet. + +"And thus the Fathers speak of His teaching. 'His sayings,' observes St. +Justin, 'were short and concise; for He was no rhetorician, but His word +was the power of God.' And St. Basil, in like manner, 'Every deed and +every word of our Saviour Jesus Christ is a canon of piety and virtue. +When then thou hearest word or deed of His, do not hear it as by the +way, or after a simple and carnal manner, but enter into the depth of +His contemplations, become a communicant in truths mystically delivered +to thee.'"[67:1] + + +12. + +Moreover, while it is certain that developments of Revelation proceeded +all through the Old Dispensation down to the very end of our Lord's +ministry, on the other hand, if we turn our attention to the beginnings +of Apostolical teaching after His ascension, we shall find ourselves +unable to fix an historical point at which the growth of doctrine +ceased, and the rule of faith was once for all settled. Not on the day +of Pentecost, for St. Peter had still to learn at Joppa that he was to +baptize Cornelius; not at Joppa and Cæsarea, for St. Paul had to write +his Epistles; not on the death of the last Apostle, for St. Ignatius had +to establish the doctrine of Episcopacy; not then, nor for centuries +after, for the Canon of the New Testament was still undetermined. Not in +the Creed, which is no collection of definitions, but a summary of +certain _credenda_, an incomplete summary, and, like the Lord's Prayer +or the Decalogue, a mere sample of divine truths, especially of the more +elementary. No one doctrine can be named which starts complete at first, +and gains nothing afterwards from the investigations of faith and the +attacks of heresy. The Church went forth from the old world in haste, as +the Israelites from Egypt "with their dough before it was leavened, +their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their +shoulders." + + +13. + +Further, the political developments contained in the historical parts of +Scripture are as striking as the prophetical and the doctrinal. Can any +history wear a more human appearance than that of the rise and growth of +the chosen people to whom I have just referred? What had been determined +in the counsels of the Lord of heaven and earth from the beginning, what +was immutable, what was announced to Moses in the burning bush, is +afterwards represented as the growth of an idea under successive +emergencies. The Divine Voice in the bush had announced the Exodus of +the children of Israel from Egypt and their entrance into Canaan; and +added, as a token of the certainty of His purpose, "When thou hast +brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this +mountain." Now this sacrifice or festival, which was but incidental and +secondary in the great deliverance, is for a while the ultimate scope of +the demands which Moses makes upon Pharaoh. "Thou shalt come, thou and +the elders of Israel unto the King of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, +The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we +beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may +sacrifice to the Lord our God." It had been added that Pharaoh would +first refuse their request, but that after miracles he would let them go +altogether, nay with "jewels of silver and gold, and raiment." + +Accordingly the first request of Moses was, "Let us go, we pray thee, +three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our +God." Before the plague of frogs the warning is repeated, "Let My people +go that they may serve Me;" and after it Pharaoh says, "I will let the +people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord." It occurs again +before the plague of flies; and after it Pharaoh offers to let the +Israelites sacrifice in Egypt, which Moses refuses on the ground that +they will have to "sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before +their eyes." "We will go three days' journey into the wilderness," he +proceeds, "and sacrifice to the Lord our God;" and Pharaoh then concedes +their sacrificing in the wilderness, "only," he says, "you shall not go +very far away." The demand is repeated separately before the plagues of +murrain, hail, and locusts, no mention being yet made of anything beyond +a service or sacrifice in the wilderness. On the last of these +interviews, Pharaoh asks an explanation, and Moses extends his claim: +"We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our +daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go, for we must +hold a feast unto the Lord." That it was an extension seems plain from +Pharaoh's reply: "Go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord, for that +ye did desire." Upon the plague of darkness Pharaoh concedes the +extended demand, excepting the flocks and herds; but Moses reminds him +that they were implied, though not expressed in the original wording: +"Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may +sacrifice unto the Lord our God." Even to the last, there was no +intimation of their leaving Egypt for good; the issue was left to be +wrought out by the Egyptians. "All these thy servants," says Moses, +"shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get +thee out and all the people that follow thee, and after that I will go +out;" and, accordingly, after the judgment on the first-born, they were +thrust out at midnight, with their flocks and herds, their kneading +troughs and their dough, laden, too, with the spoils of Egypt, as had +been fore-ordained, yet apparently by a combination of circumstances, or +the complication of a crisis. Yet Moses knew that their departure from +Egypt was final, for he took the bones of Joseph with him; and that +conviction broke on Pharaoh soon, when he and his asked themselves, "Why +have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?" But +this progress of events, vague and uncertain as it seemed to be, +notwithstanding the miracles which attended it, had been directed by Him +who works out gradually what He has determined absolutely; and it ended +in the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host, on +his pursuing them. + +Moreover, from what occurred forty years afterwards, when they were +advancing upon the promised land, it would seem that the original grant +of territory did not include the country east of Jordan, held in the +event by Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh; at least they +undertook at first to leave Sihon in undisturbed possession of his +country, if he would let them pass through it, and only on his refusing +his permission did they invade and appropriate it. + + +14. + +6. It is in point to notice also the structure and style of Scripture, a +structure so unsystematic and various, and a style so figurative and +indirect, that no one would presume at first sight to say what is in it +and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents +catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to +the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with +heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our +path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. +Of no doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has +been delivered, can it be peremptorily asserted that it is not in +Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said +that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains. Butler's remarks +on this subject were just now referred to. "The more distinct and +particular knowledge," he says, "of those things, the study of which the +Apostle calls 'going on unto perfection,'" that is, of the more +recondite doctrines of the Gospel, "and of the prophetic parts of +revelation, like many parts of natural and even civil knowledge, may +require very exact thought and careful consideration. The hindrances too +of natural and of supernatural light and knowledge have been of the +same kind. And as it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not +yet understood, so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the +'restitution of all things,' and without miraculous interpositions, it +must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at, by the +continuance and progress of learning and of liberty, and by particular +persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up +and down it, which are overlooked and disregarded by the generality of +the world. For this is the way in which all improvements are made, by +thoughtful men tracing on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by +nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds by chance. Nor +is it at all incredible that a book, which has been so long in the +possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered. +For all the same phenomena, and the same faculties of investigation, +from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have been made in +the present and last age, were equally in the possession of mankind +several thousand years before. And possibly it might be intended that +events, as they come to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of +several parts of Scripture."[72:1] Butler of course was not contemplating +the case of new articles of faith, or developments imperative on +our acceptance, but he surely bears witness to the probability of +developments taking place in Christian doctrine considered in themselves, +which is the point at present in question. + + +15. + +It may be added that, in matter of fact, all the definitions or received +judgments of the early and medieval Church rest upon definite, even +though sometimes obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus Purgatory may +appeal to the "saving by fire," and "entering through much tribulation +into the kingdom of God;" the communication of the merits of the Saints +to our "receiving a prophet's reward" for "receiving a prophet in the +name of a prophet," and "a righteous man's reward" for "receiving a +righteous man in the name of a righteous man;" the Real Presence to +"This is My Body;" Absolution to "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are +remitted;" Extreme Unction to "Anointing him with oil in the Name of the +Lord;" Voluntary poverty to "Sell all that thou hast;" obedience to "He +was in subjection to His parents;" the honour paid to creatures, animate +or inanimate, to _Laudate Dominum in sanctis Ejus_, and _Adorate +scabellum pedum Ejus_; and so of the rest. + + +16. + +7. Lastly, while Scripture nowhere recognizes itself or asserts the +inspiration of those passages which are most essential, it distinctly +anticipates the development of Christianity, both as a polity and as a +doctrine. In one of our Lord's parables "the Kingdom of Heaven" is even +compared to "a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and hid in his +field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it +is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree," and, as St. Mark +words it, "shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air +come and lodge in the branches thereof." And again, in the same chapter +of St. Mark, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed +into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed +should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how; for the earth bringeth +forth fruit of herself." Here an internal element of life, whether +principle or doctrine, is spoken of rather than any mere external +manifestation; and it is observable that the spontaneous, as well as the +gradual, character of the growth is intimated. This description of the +process corresponds to what has been above observed respecting +development, viz. that it is not an effect of wishing and resolving, or +of forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism of reasoning, or of any mere +subtlety of intellect; but comes of its own innate power of expansion +within the mind in its season, though with the use of reflection and +argument and original thought, more or less as it may happen, with a +dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself, and with a reflex +influence upon it. Again, the Parable of the Leaven describes the +development of doctrine in another respect, in its active, engrossing, +and interpenetrating power. + + +17. + +From the necessity, then, of the case, from the history of all sects and +parties in religion, and from the analogy and example of Scripture, +we may fairly conclude that Christian doctrine admits of formal, +legitimate, and true developments, that is, of developments contemplated +by its Divine Author. + +The general analogy of the world, physical and moral, confirms this +conclusion, as we are reminded by the great authority who has already +been quoted in the course of this Section. "The whole natural world and +government of it," says Butler, "is a scheme or system; not a fixed, but +a progressive one; a scheme in which the operation of various means +takes up a great length of time before the ends they tend to can be +attained. The change of seasons, the ripening of the fruits of the +earth, the very history of a flower is an instance of this; and so is +human life. Thus vegetable bodies, and those of animals, though possibly +formed at once, yet grow up by degrees to a mature state. And thus +rational agents, who animate these latter bodies, are naturally directed +to form each his own manners and character by the gradual gaining of +knowledge and experience, and by a long course of action. Our existence +is not only successive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our +life and being is appointed by God to be a preparation for another; and +that to be the means of attaining to another succeeding one: infancy to +childhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. Men are impatient, +and for precipitating things; but the Author of Nature appears +deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by +slow successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid +out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as +well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts +into execution. Thus, in the daily course of natural providence, God +operates in the very same manner as in the dispensation of Christianity, +making one thing subservient to another; this, to somewhat farther; and +so on, through a progressive series of means, which extend, both +backward and forward, beyond our utmost view. Of this manner of +operation, everything we see in the course of nature is as much an +instance as any part of the Christian dispensation."[75:1] + + +SECTION II. + +AN INFALLIBLE DEVELOPING AUTHORITY TO BE EXPECTED. + +It has now been made probable that developments of Christianity were but +natural, as time went on, and were to be expected; and that these +natural and true developments, as being natural and true, were of course +contemplated and taken into account by its Author, who in designing the +work designed its legitimate results. These, whatever they turn out to +be, may be called absolutely "the developments" of Christianity. That, +beyond reasonable doubt, there are such is surely a great step gained in +the inquiry; it is a momentous fact. The next question is, _What_ are +they? and to a theologian, who could take a general view, and also +possessed an intimate and minute knowledge, of its history, they +would doubtless on the whole be easily distinguishable by their own +characters, and require no foreign aid to point them out, no external +authority to ratify them. But it is difficult to say who is exactly in +this position. Considering that Christians, from the nature of the case, +live under the bias of the doctrines, and in the very midst of the +facts, and during the process of the controversies, which are to be the +subject of criticism, since they are exposed to the prejudices of birth, +education, place, personal attachment, engagements, and party, it can +hardly be maintained that in matter of fact a true development carries +with it always its own certainty even to the learned, or that history, +past or present, is secure from the possibility of a variety of +interpretations. + + +2. + +I have already spoken on this subject, and from a very different point +of view from that which I am taking at present:-- + +"Prophets or Doctors are the interpreters of the revelation; they unfold +and define its mysteries, they illuminate its documents, they harmonize +its contents, they apply its promises. Their teaching is a vast system, +not to be comprised in a few sentences, not to be embodied in one code +or treatise, but consisting of a certain body of Truth, pervading the +Church like an atmosphere, irregular in its shape from its very +profusion and exuberance; at times separable only in idea from Episcopal +Tradition, yet at times melting away into legend and fable; partly +written, partly unwritten, partly the interpretation, partly the +supplement of Scripture, partly preserved in intellectual expressions, +partly latent in the spirit and temper of Christians; poured to and fro +in closets and upon the housetops, in liturgies, in controversial works, +in obscure fragments, in sermons, in popular prejudices, in local +customs. This I call Prophetical Tradition, existing primarily in the +bosom of the Church itself, and recorded in such measure as Providence +has determined in the writings of eminent men. Keep that which is +committed to thy charge, is St. Paul's injunction to Timothy; and for +this reason, because from its vastness and indefiniteness it is +especially exposed to corruption, if the Church fails in vigilance. This +is that body of teaching which is offered to all Christians even at the +present day, though in various forms and measures of truth, in different +parts of Christendom, partly being a comment, partly an addition upon +the articles of the Creed."[77:1] + +If this be true, certainly some rule is necessary for arranging and +authenticating these various expressions and results of Christian +doctrine. No one will maintain that all points of belief are of equal +importance. "There are what may be called minor points, which we may +hold to be true without imposing them as necessary;" "there are greater +truths and lesser truths, points which it is necessary, and points which +it is pious to believe."[77:2] The simple question is, How are we to +discriminate the greater from the less, the true from the false. + + +3. + +This need of an authoritative sanction is increased by considering, +after M. Guizot's suggestion, that Christianity, though represented in +prophecy as a kingdom, came into the world as an idea rather than an +institution, and has had to wrap itself in clothing and fit itself with +armour of its own providing, and to form the instruments and methods of +its prosperity and warfare. If the developments, which have above been +called _moral_, are to take place to any great extent, and without them +it is difficult to see how Christianity can exist at all, if only its +relations towards civil government have to be ascertained, or the +qualifications for the profession of it have to be defined, surely an +authority is necessary to impart decision to what is vague, and +confidence to what is empirical, to ratify the successive steps of so +elaborate a process, and to secure the validity of inferences which are +to be made the premisses of more remote investigations. + +Tests, it is true, for ascertaining the correctness of developments in +general may be drawn out, as I shall show in the sequel; but they are +insufficient for the guidance of individuals in the case of so large and +complicated a problem as Christianity, though they may aid our inquiries +and support our conclusions in particular points. They are of a +scientific and controversial, not of a practical character, and are +instruments rather than warrants of right decisions. Moreover, they +rather serve as answers to objections brought against the actual +decisions of authority, than are proofs of the correctness of those +decisions. While, then, on the one hand, it is probable that some means +will be granted for ascertaining the legitimate and true developments of +Revelation, it appears, on the other, that these means must of necessity +be external to the developments themselves. + + +4. + +Reasons shall be given in this Section for concluding that, in +proportion to the probability of true developments of doctrine and +practice in the Divine Scheme, so is the probability also of the +appointment in that scheme of an external authority to decide upon them, +thereby separating them from the mass of mere human speculation, +extravagance, corruption, and error, in and out of which they grow. This +is the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church; for by infallibility +I suppose is meant the power of deciding whether this, that, and a +third, and any number of theological or ethical statements are true. + + +5. + +1. Let the state of the case be carefully considered. If the Christian +doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and important +developments, as was argued in the foregoing Section, this is a strong +antecedent argument in favour of a provision in the Dispensation for +putting a seal of authority upon those developments. The probability of +their being known to be true varies with that of their truth. The two +ideas indeed are quite distinct, I grant, of revealing and of +guaranteeing a truth, and they are often distinct in fact. There are +various revelations all over the earth which do not carry with them the +evidence of their divinity. Such are the inward suggestions and secret +illuminations granted to so many individuals; such are the traditionary +doctrines which are found among the heathen, that "vague and unconnected +family of religious truths, originally from God, but sojourning, without +the sanction of miracle or a definite home, as pilgrims up and down the +world, and discernible and separable from the corrupt legends with which +they are mixed, by the spiritual mind alone."[79:1] There is nothing +impossible in the notion of a revelation occurring without evidences +that it is a revelation; just as human sciences are a divine gift, yet +are reached by our ordinary powers and have no claim on our faith. But +Christianity is not of this nature: it is a revelation which comes to us +as a revelation, as a whole, objectively, and with a profession of +infallibility; and the only question to be determined relates to the +matter of the revelation. If then there are certain great truths, or +duties, or observances, naturally and legitimately resulting from the +doctrines originally professed, it is but reasonable to include these +true results in the idea of the revelation itself, to consider them +parts of it, and if the revelation be not only true, but guaranteed as +true, to anticipate that they too will come under the privilege of that +guarantee. Christianity, unlike other revelations of God's will, except +the Jewish, of which it is a continuation, is an objective religion, or +a revelation with credentials; it is natural, I say, to view it wholly +as such, and not partly _sui generis_, partly like others. Such as it +begins, such let it be considered to continue; granting that certain +large developments of it are true, they must surely be accredited as +true. + + +6. + +2. An objection, however, is often made to the doctrine of infallibility +_in limine_, which is too important not to be taken into consideration. +It is urged that, as all religious knowledge rests on moral evidence, +not on demonstration, our belief in the Church's infallibility must be +of this character; but what can be more absurd than a probable +infallibility, or a certainty resting on doubt?--I believe, because I am +sure; and I am sure, because I suppose. Granting then that the gift of +infallibility be adapted, when believed, to unite all intellects in one +common confession, the fact that it is given is as difficult of proof as +the developments which it is to prove, and nugatory therefore, and in +consequence improbable in a Divine Scheme. The advocates of Rome, it has +been urged, "insist on the necessity of an infallible guide in religious +matters, as an argument that such a guide has really been accorded. Now +it is obvious to inquire how individuals are to know with certainty that +Rome _is_ infallible . . . how any ground can be such as to bring home +to the mind infallibly that she is infallible; what conceivable proof +amounts to more than a probability of the fact; and what advantage is an +infallible guide, if those who are to be guided have, after all, no +more than an opinion, as the Romanists call it, that she is +infallible?"[81:1] + + +7. + +This argument, however, except when used, as is intended in this +passage, against such persons as would remove all imperfection in +the proof of Religion, is certainly a fallacious one. For since, +as all allow, the Apostles were infallible, it tells against their +infallibility, or the infallibility of Scripture, as truly as against +the infallibility of the Church; for no one will say that the Apostles +were made infallible for nothing, yet we are only morally certain that +they were infallible. Further, if we have but probable grounds for the +Church's infallibility, we have but the like for the impossibility of +certain things, the necessity of others, the truth, the certainty of +others; and therefore the words _infallibility_, _necessity_, _truth_, +and _certainty_ ought all of them to be banished from the language. But +why is it more inconsistent to speak of an uncertain infallibility than +of a doubtful truth or a contingent necessity, phrases which present +ideas clear and undeniable? In sooth we are playing with words when we +use arguments of this sort. When we say that a person is infallible, we +mean no more than that what he says is always true, always to be +believed, always to be done. The term is resolvable into these phrases +as its equivalents; either then the phrases are inadmissible, or the +idea of infallibility must be allowed. A probable infallibility is a +probable gift of never erring; a reception of the doctrine of a probable +infallibility is faith and obedience towards a person founded on the +probability of his never erring in his declarations or commands. What is +inconsistent in this idea? Whatever then be the particular means of +determining infallibility, the abstract objection may be put +aside.[81:2] + + +8. + +3. Again, it is sometimes argued that such a dispensation would destroy +our probation, as dissipating doubt, precluding the exercise of faith, +and obliging us to obey whether we wish it or no; and it is urged that a +Divine Voice spoke in the first age, and difficulty and darkness rest +upon all subsequent ones; as if infallibility and personal judgment were +incompatible; but this is to confuse the subject. We must distinguish +between a revelation and a reception of it, not between its earlier and +later stages. A revelation, in itself divine, and guaranteed as such, +may from first to last be received, doubted, argued against, perverted, +rejected, by individuals according to the state of mind of each. +Ignorance, misapprehension, unbelief, and other causes, do not at once +cease to operate because the revelation is in itself true and in its +proofs irrefragable. We have then no warrant at all for saying that an +accredited revelation will exclude the existence of doubts and +difficulties on the part of those whom it addresses, or dispense with +anxious diligence on their part, though it may in its own nature tend +to do so. Infallibility does not interfere with moral probation; the two +notions are absolutely distinct. It is no objection then to the idea of +a peremptory authority, such as I am supposing, that it lessens the task +of personal inquiry, unless it be an objection to the authority of +Revelation altogether. A Church, or a Council, or a Pope, or a Consent +of Doctors, or a Consent of Christendom, limits the inquiries of the +individual in no other way than Scripture limits them: it does limit +them; but, while it limits their range, it preserves intact their +probationary character; we are tried as really, though not on so large a +field. To suppose that the doctrine of a permanent authority in matters +of faith interferes with our free-will and responsibility is, as before, +to forget that there were infallible teachers in the first age, and +heretics and schismatics in the ages subsequent. There may have been at +once a supreme authority from first to last, and a moral judgment from +first to last. Moreover, those who maintain that Christian truth must be +gained solely by personal efforts are bound to show that methods, +ethical and intellectual, are granted to individuals sufficient for +gaining it; else the mode of probation they advocate is less, not more, +perfect than that which proceeds upon external authority. On the whole, +then, no argument against continuing the principle of objectiveness into +the developments of Revelation arises out of the conditions of our moral +responsibility. + + +9. + +4. Perhaps it will be urged that the Analogy of Nature is against our +anticipating the continuance of an external authority which has once +been given; because in the words of the profound thinker who has already +been cited, "We are wholly ignorant what degree of new knowledge it were +to be expected God would give mankind by revelation, upon supposition +of His affording one; or how far, and in what way, He would interpose +miraculously to qualify them to whom He should originally make the +revelation for communicating the knowledge given by it, and to secure +their doing it to the age in which they should live, and to secure its +being transmitted to posterity;" and because "we are not in any sort +able to judge whether it were to be expected that the revelation should +have been committed to writing, or left to be handed down, and +consequently corrupted, by verbal tradition, and at length sunk under +it."[84:1] But this reasoning does not apply here, as has already been +observed; it contemplates only the abstract hypothesis of a revelation, +not the fact of an existing revelation of a particular kind, which may +of course in various ways modify our state of knowledge, by settling +some of those very points which, before it was given, we had no means of +deciding. Nor can it, as I think, be fairly denied that the argument +from analogy in one point of view tells against anticipating a +revelation at all, for an innovation upon the physical order of the +world is by the very force of the terms inconsistent with its ordinary +course. We cannot then regulate our antecedent view of the character of +a revelation by a test which, applied simply, overthrows the very notion +of a revelation altogether. Any how, Analogy is in some sort violated by +the fact of a revelation, and the question before us only relates to the +extent of that violation. + + +10. + +I will hazard a distinction here between the facts of revelation and its +principles:--the argument from Analogy is more concerned with its +principles than with its facts. The revealed facts are special and +singular, not analogous, from the nature of the case: but it is +otherwise with the revealed principles; these are common to all the +works of God: and if the Author of Nature be the Author of Grace, it may +be expected that, while the two systems of facts are distinct and +independent, the principles displayed in them will be the same, and form +a connecting link between them. In this identity of principle lies the +Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, in Butler's sense of the word. +The doctrine of the Incarnation is a fact, and cannot be paralleled by +anything in nature; the doctrine of Mediation is a principle, and is +abundantly exemplified in its provisions. Miracles are facts; +inspiration is a fact; divine teaching once for all, and a continual +teaching, are each a fact; probation by means of intellectual +difficulties is a principle both in nature and in grace, and may be +carried on in the system of grace either by a standing ordinance of +teaching or by one definite act of teaching, and that with an analogy +equally perfect in either case to the order of nature; nor can we +succeed in arguing from the analogy of that order against a standing +guardianship of revelation without arguing also against its original +bestowal. Supposing the order of nature once broken by the introduction +of a revelation, the continuance of that revelation is but a question of +degree; and the circumstance that a work has begun makes it more +probable than not that it will proceed. We have no reason to suppose +that there is so great a distinction of dispensation between ourselves +and the first generation of Christians, as that they had a living +infallible guidance, and we have not. + +The case then stands thus:--Revelation has introduced a new law of +divine governance over and above those laws which appear in the natural +course of the world; and in consequence we are able to argue for the +existence of a standing authority in matters of faith on the analogy of +Nature, and from the fact of Christianity. Preservation is involved in +the idea of creation. As the Creator rested on the seventh day from the +work which He had made, yet He "worketh hitherto;" so He gave the Creed +once for all in the beginning, yet blesses its growth still, and +provides for its increase. His word "shall not return unto Him void, but +accomplish" His pleasure. As creation argues continual governance, so +are Apostles harbingers of Popes. + + +11. + +5. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that, as the essence of all +religion is authority and obedience, so the distinction between natural +religion and revealed lies in this, that the one has a subjective +authority, and the other an objective. Revelation consists in the +manifestation of the Invisible Divine Power, or in the substitution of +the voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of conscience. The supremacy of +conscience is the essence of natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle, +or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed; and when such +external authority is taken away, the mind falls back again of necessity +upon that inward guide which it possessed even before Revelation was +vouchsafed. Thus, what conscience is in the system of nature, such is +the voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or of the Holy See, as we may +determine it, in the system of Revelation. It may be objected, indeed, +that conscience is not infallible; it is true, but still it is ever to +be obeyed. And this is just the prerogative which controversialists +assign to the See of St. Peter; it is not in all cases infallible, it +may err beyond its special province, but it has in all cases a claim on +our obedience. "All Catholics and heretics," says Bellarmine, "agree in +two things: first, that it is possible for the Pope, even as pope, and +with his own assembly of councillors, or with General Council, to err in +particular controversies of fact, which chiefly depend on human +information and testimony; secondly, that it is possible for him to err +as a private Doctor, even in universal questions of right, whether of +faith or of morals, and that from ignorance, as sometimes happens to +other doctors. Next, all Catholics agree in other two points, not, +however, with heretics, but solely with each other: first, that the Pope +with General Council cannot err, either in framing decrees of faith or +general precepts of morality; secondly, that the Pope when determining +anything in a doubtful matter, whether by himself or with his own +particular Council, _whether it is possible for him to err or not, is to +be obeyed_ by all the faithful."[87:1] And as obedience to conscience, +even supposing conscience ill-informed, tends to the improvement of our +moral nature, and ultimately of our knowledge, so obedience to our +ecclesiastical superior may subserve our growth in illumination and +sanctity, even though he should command what is extreme or inexpedient, +or teach what is external to his legitimate province. + + +12. + +6. The common sense of mankind does but support a conclusion thus forced +upon us by analogical considerations. It feels that the very idea of +revelation implies a present informant and guide, and that an infallible +one; not a mere abstract declaration of Truths unknown before to man, or +a record of history, or the result of an antiquarian research, but a +message and a lesson speaking to this man and that. This is shown by the +popular notion which has prevailed among us since the Reformation, that +the Bible itself is such a guide; and which succeeded in overthrowing +the supremacy of Church and Pope, for the very reason that it was a +rival authority, not resisting merely, but supplanting it. In +proportion, then, as we find, in matter of fact, that the inspired +Volume is not adapted or intended to subserve that purpose, are we +forced to revert to that living and present Guide, who, at the era of +our rejection of her, had been so long recognized as the dispenser of +Scripture, according to times and circumstances, and the arbiter of all +true doctrine and holy practice to her children. We feel a need, and she +alone of all things under heaven supplies it. We are told that God has +spoken. Where? In a book? We have tried it and it disappoints; it +disappoints us, that most holy and blessed gift, not from fault of its +own, but because it is used for a purpose for which it was not given. +The Ethiopian's reply, when St. Philip asked him if he understood what +he was reading, is the voice of nature: "How can I, unless some man +shall guide me?" The Church undertakes that office; she does what none +else can do, and this is the secret of her power. "The human mind," it +has been said, "wishes to be rid of doubt in religion; and a teacher who +claims infallibility is readily believed on his simple word. We see this +constantly exemplified in the case of individual pretenders among +ourselves. In Romanism the Church pretends to it; she rids herself of +competitors by forestalling them. And probably, in the eyes of her +children, this is not the least persuasive argument for her +infallibility, that she alone of all Churches dares claim it, as if a +secret instinct and involuntary misgivings restrained those rival +communions which go so far towards affecting it."[88:1] These sentences, +whatever be the errors of their wording, surely express a great truth. +The most obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield to the +authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith, is, +that some authority there must be if there is a revelation given, and +other authority there is none but she. A revelation is not given, if +there be no authority to decide what it is that is given. In the words +of St. Peter to her Divine Master and Lord, "To whom shall we go?" Nor +must it be forgotten in confirmation, that Scripture expressly calls the +Church "the pillar and ground of the Truth," and promises her as by +covenant that "the Spirit of the Lord that is upon her, and His words +which He has put in her mouth shall not depart out of her mouth, nor out +of the mouth of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed's seed, from +henceforth and for ever."[89:1] + + +13. + +7. And if the very claim to infallible arbitration in religious disputes +is of so weighty importance and interest in all ages of the world, much +more is it welcome at a time like the present, when the human intellect +is so busy, and thought so fertile, and opinion so manifold. The +absolute need of a spiritual supremacy is at present the strongest of +arguments in favour of the fact of its supply. Surely, either an +objective revelation has not been given, or it has been provided with +means for impressing its objectiveness on the world. If Christianity be +a social religion, as it certainly is, and if it be based on certain +ideas acknowledged as divine, or a creed, (which shall here be assumed,) +and if these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct impressions +on different minds, and issue in consequence in a multiplicity of +developments, true, or false, or mixed, as has been shown, what power +will suffice to meet and to do justice to these conflicting conditions, +but a supreme authority ruling and reconciling individual judgments by a +divine right and a recognized wisdom? In barbarous times the will is +reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is +called, is the standard of truth and right, it is abundantly evident to +any one, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are +left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and +take his own course; that two or three will agree to-day to part company +to-morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history, +according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver +shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, +party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some +supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement. + +There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of +truth. As cultivation brings out the colours of flowers, and +domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of +necessity develope differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to +lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly +unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to +one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet +proclaims,[90:1] which all acknowledge in private, but that there are +none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action. +The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is, +(when truth is in question,) a judgment which we feel to be superior to +our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for +all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else +you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity +of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose +between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, +between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or +intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. +By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an +infallible chair; and by the sects of England, an interminable +division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in +scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis +than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the +object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the +Revelation. + + +14. + +8. I have called the doctrine of Infallibility an hypothesis: let it be +so considered for the sake of argument, that is, let it be considered to +be a mere position, supported by no direct evidence, but required by the +facts of the case, and reconciling them with each other. That hypothesis +is indeed, in matter of fact, maintained and acted on in the largest +portion of Christendom, and from time immemorial; but let this +coincidence be accounted for by the need. Moreover, it is not a naked or +isolated fact, but the animating principle of a large scheme of doctrine +which the need itself could not simply create; but again, let this +system be merely called its development. Yet even as an hypothesis, +which has been held by one out of various communions, it may not be +lightly put aside. Some hypothesis, this or that, all parties, all +controversialists, all historians must adopt, if they would treat of +Christianity at all. Gieseler's "Text Book" bears the profession of +being a dry analysis of Christian history; yet on inspection it will be +found to be written on a positive and definite theory, and to bend facts +to meet it. An unbeliever, as Gibbon, assumes one hypothesis, and an +Ultra-montane, as Baronius, adopts another. The School of Hurd and +Newton hold, as the only true view of history, that Christianity slept +for centuries upon centuries, except among those whom historians call +heretics. Others speak as if the oath of supremacy or the _congé +d'élire_ could be made the measure of St. Ambrose, and they fit the +Thirty-nine Articles on the fervid Tertullian. The question is, which +of all these theories is the simplest, the most natural, the most +persuasive. Certainly the notion of development under infallible +authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis, than the +chance and coincidence of events, or the Oriental Philosophy, or the +working of Antichrist, to account for the rise of Christianity and the +formation of its theology. + + +SECTION III. + +THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE THE PROBABLE FULFILMENT OF THAT +EXPECTATION. + +I have been arguing, in respect to the revealed doctrine, given to us +from above in Christianity, first, that, in consequence of its +intellectual character, and as passing through the minds of so many +generations of men, and as applied by them to so many purposes, and as +investigated so curiously as to its capabilities, implications, and +bearings, it could not but grow or develope, as time went on, into a +large theological system;--next, that, if development must be, then, +whereas Revelation is a heavenly gift, He who gave it virtually has not +given it, unless He has also secured it from perversion and corruption, +in all such development as comes upon it by the necessity of its nature, +or, in other words, that that intellectual action through successive +generations, which is the organ of development, must, so far forth as it +can claim to have been put in charge of the Revelation, be in its +determinations infallible. + +Passing from these two points, I come next to the question whether in +the history of Christianity there is any fulfilment of such anticipation +as I have insisted on, whether in matter-of-fact doctrines, rites, and +usages have grown up round the Apostolic Creed and have interpenetrated +its Articles, claiming to be part of Christianity and looking like those +additions which we are in search of. The answer is, that such additions +there are, and that they are found just where they might be expected, in +the authoritative seats and homes of old tradition, the Latin and Greek +Churches. Let me enlarge on this point. + + +2. + +I observe, then, that, if the idea of Christianity, as originally given +to us from heaven, cannot but contain much which will be only partially +recognized by us as included in it and only held by us unconsciously; +and if again, Christianity being from heaven, all that is necessarily +involved in it, and is evolved from it, is from heaven, and if, on the +other hand, large accretions actually do exist, professing to be its +true and legitimate results, our first impression naturally is, that +these must be the very developments which they profess to be. Moreover, +the very scale on which they have been made, their high antiquity yet +present promise, their gradual formation yet precision, their harmonious +order, dispose the imagination most forcibly towards the belief that a +teaching so consistent with itself, so well balanced, so young and so +old, not obsolete after so many centuries, but vigorous and progressive +still, is the very development contemplated in the Divine Scheme. These +doctrines are members of one family, and suggestive, or correlative, or +confirmatory, or illustrative of each other. One furnishes evidence to +another, and all to each of them; if this is proved, that becomes +probable; if this and that are both probable, but for different reasons, +each adds to the other its own probability. The Incarnation is the +antecedent of the doctrine of Mediation, and the archetype both of the +Sacramental principle and of the merits of Saints. From the doctrine of +Mediation follow the Atonement, the Mass, the merits of Martyrs and +Saints, their invocation and _cultus_. From the Sacramental principle +come the Sacraments properly so called; the unity of the Church, and the +Holy See as its type and centre; the authority of Councils; the sanctity +of rites; the veneration of holy places, shrines, images, vessels, +furniture, and vestments. Of the Sacraments, Baptism is developed into +Confirmation on the one hand; into Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences +on the other; and the Eucharist into the Real Presence, adoration of the +Host, Resurrection of the body, and the virtue of relics. Again, the +doctrine of the Sacraments leads to the doctrine of Justification; +Justification to that of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of +Celibacy. Nor do these separate developments stand independent of each +other, but by cross relations they are connected, and grow together +while they grow from one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one; +the veneration of Saints and their relics are parts of one; their +intercessory power and the Purgatorial State, and again the Mass and +that State are correlative; Celibacy is the characteristic mark of +Monachism and of the Priesthood. You must accept the whole or reject the +whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate. It is +trifling to receive all but something which is as integral as any other +portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to accept any +part, for, before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a +stern logical necessity to accept the whole. + + +3. + +Next, we have to consider that from first to last other developments +there are none, except those which have possession of Christendom; none, +that is, of prominence and permanence sufficient to deserve the name. In +early times the heretical doctrines were confessedly barren and +short-lived, and could not stand their ground against Catholicism. As to +the medieval period I am not aware that the Greeks present more than a +negative opposition to the Latins. And now in like manner the Tridentine +Creed is met by no rival developments; there is no antagonist system. +Criticisms, objections, protests, there are in plenty, but little of +positive teaching anywhere; seldom an attempt on the part of any +opposing school to master its own doctrines, to investigate their sense +and bearing, to determine their relation to the decrees of Trent and +their distance from them. And when at any time this attempt is by chance +in any measure made, then an incurable contrariety does but come to view +between portions of the theology thus developed, and a war of +principles; an impossibility moreover of reconciling that theology with +the general drift of the formularies in which its elements occur, and a +consequent appearance of unfairness and sophistry in adventurous persons +who aim at forcing them into consistency;[95:1] and, further, a +prevalent understanding of the truth of this representation, authorities +keeping silence, eschewing a hopeless enterprise and discouraging it in +others, and the people plainly intimating that they think both doctrine +and usage, antiquity and development, of very little matter at all; and, +lastly, the evident despair of even the better sort of men, who, in +consequence, when they set great schemes on foot, as for the conversion +of the heathen world, are afraid to agitate the question of the +doctrines to which it is to be converted, lest through the opened door +they should lose what they have, instead of gaining what they have not. +To the weight of recommendation which this contrast throws upon the +developments commonly called Catholic, must be added the argument which +arises from the coincidence of their consistency and permanence, with +their claim of an infallible sanction,--a claim, the existence of which, +in some quarter or other of the Divine Dispensation, is, as we have +already seen, antecedently probable. All these things being considered, +I think few persons will deny the very strong presumption which exists, +that, if there must be and are in fact developments in Christianity, the +doctrines propounded by successive Popes and Councils, through so many +ages, are they. + + +4. + +A further presumption in behalf of these doctrines arises from the +general opinion of the world about them. Christianity being one, all its +doctrines are necessarily developments of one, and, if so, are of +necessity consistent with each other, or form a whole. Now the world +fully enters into this view of those well-known developments which claim +the name of Catholic. It allows them that title, it considers them to +belong to one family, and refers them to one theological system. It is +scarcely necessary to set about proving what is urged by their opponents +even more strenuously than by their champions. Their opponents avow that +they protest, not against this doctrine or that, but against one and +all; and they seem struck with wonder and perplexity, not to say with +awe, at a consistency which they feel to be superhuman, though they +would not allow it to be divine. The system is confessed on all hands to +bear a character of integrity and indivisibility upon it, both at first +view and on inspection. Hence such sayings as the "Tota jacet Babylon" +of the distich. Luther did but a part of the work, Calvin another +portion, Socinus finished it. To take up with Luther, and to reject +Calvin and Socinus, would be, according to that epigram, like living in +a house without a roof to it. This, I say, is no private judgment of +this man or that, but the common opinion and experience of all +countries. The two great divisions of religion feel it, Roman Catholic +and Protestant, between whom the controversy lies; sceptics and +liberals, who are spectators of the conflict, feel it; philosophers feel +it. A school of divines there is, I grant, dear to memory, who have not +felt it; and their exception will have its weight,--till we reflect that +the particular theology which they advocate has not the prescription of +success, never has been realized in fact, or, if realized for a moment, +had no stay; moreover, that, when it has been enacted by human +authority, it has scarcely travelled beyond the paper on which it was +printed, or out of the legal forms in which it was embodied. But, +putting the weight of these revered names at the highest, they do not +constitute more than an exception to the general rule, such as is found +in every subject that comes into discussion. + + +5. + +And this general testimony to the oneness of Catholicism extends to its +past teaching relatively to its present, as well as to the portions of +its present teaching one with another. No one doubts, with such +exception as has just been allowed, that the Roman Catholic communion of +this day is the successor and representative of the Medieval Church, or +that the Medieval Church is the legitimate heir of the Nicene; even +allowing that it is a question whether a line cannot be drawn between +the Nicene Church and the Church which preceded it. On the whole, all +parties will agree that, of all existing systems, the present communion +of Rome is the nearest approximation in fact to the Church of the +Fathers, possible though some may think it, to be nearer still to that +Church on paper. Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to +life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own. +All surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of +their own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at +home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the +lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the +unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or with the +members of any other creed. And may we not add, that were those same +Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy, at Treves, to +come more northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair +city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy +brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which +they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where mass was +said in the populous alley or forlorn suburb? And, on the other hand, +can any one who has but heard his name, and cursorily read his history, +doubt for one instant how, in turn, the people of England, "we, our +princes, our priests, and our prophets," Lords and Commons, +Universities, Ecclesiastical Courts, marts of commerce, great towns, +country parishes, would deal with Athanasius,--Athanasius, who spent his +long years in fighting against sovereigns for a theological term? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[62:1] Doctrine of Justification, Lect. xiii. + +[64:1] Butler's Anal. ii. 3. + +[67:1] Proph. Office, Lect. xii. [Via Med. vol. i. pp. 292-3]. + +[72:1] ii. 3; vide also ii. 4, fin. + +[75:1] Analogy, ii. 4, _ad fin._ + +[77:1] Proph. Office, x. [Via Med. p. 250]. + +[77:2] [Ibid. pp. 247, 254.] + +[79:1] Arians, ch. i. sect. 3 [p. 82, ed. 3]. + +[81:1] Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 122]. + +[81:2] ["It is very common to confuse infallibility with certitude, but +the two words stand for things quite distinct from each other. I +remember for certain what I did yesterday, but still my memory is not +infallible. I am quite clear that two and two makes four, but I often +make mistakes in long addition sums. I have no doubt whatever that John +or Richard is my true friend; but I have before now trusted those who +failed me, and I may do so again before I die. I am quite certain that +Victoria is our sovereign, and not her father, the Duke of Kent, without +any claim myself to the gift of infallibility, as I may do a virtuous +action, without being impeccable. I may be certain that the Church is +infallible, while I am myself a fallible mortal; otherwise I cannot be +certain that the Supreme Being is infallible, unless I am infallible +myself. Certitude is directed to one or other definite concrete +proposition. I am certain of propositions one, two, three, four, or +five, one by one, each by itself. I can be certain of one of them, +without being certain of the rest: that I am certain of the first makes +it neither likely nor unlikely that I am certain of the second: but, +were I infallible, then I should be certain, not only of one of them, +but of all."--_Essay on Assent_, ch. vii. sect. 2.] + +[84:1] Anal. ii. 3. + +[87:1] De Rom. Pont. iv. 2. [Seven years ago, it is scarcely necessary +to say, the Vatican Council determined that the Pope, _ex cathedrâ_, has +the same infallibility as the Church. This does not affect the argument +in the text.] + +[88:1] Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 117]. + +[89:1] 1 Tim. iii. 16; Isa. lix. 21. + +[90:1] Οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε κὰχθές, κ.τ.λ. + +[95:1] [_Vid._ Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 231-341.] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ON THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS. + + +SECTION I. + +METHOD OF PROOF. + +It seems, then, that we have to deal with a case something like the +following: Certain doctrines come to us, professing to be Apostolic, and +possessed of such high antiquity that, though we are only able to assign +the date of their formal establishment to the fourth, or the fifth, or +the eighth, or the thirteenth century, as it may happen, yet their +substance may, for what appears, be coeval with the Apostles, and be +expressed or implied in texts of Scripture. Further, these existing +doctrines are universally considered, without any question, in each age +to be the echo of the doctrines of the times immediately preceding them, +and thus are continually thrown back to a date indefinitely early, even +though their ultimate junction with the Apostolic Creed be out of sight +and unascertainable. Moreover, they are confessed to form one body one +with another, so that to reject one is to disparage the rest; and they +include within the range of their system even those primary articles of +faith, as the Incarnation, which many an impugner of the said doctrinal +system, as a system, professes to accept, and which, do what he will, +he cannot intelligibly separate, whether in point of evidence or of +internal character, from others which he disavows. Further, these +doctrines occupy the whole field of theology, and leave nothing to be +supplied, except in detail, by any other system; while, in matter of +fact, no rival system is forthcoming, so that we have to choose between +this theology and none at all. Moreover, this theology alone makes +provision for that guidance of opinion and conduct, which seems +externally to be the special aim of Revelation; and fulfils the promises +of Scripture, by adapting itself to the various problems of thought and +practice which meet us in life. And, further, it is the nearest +approach, to say the least, to the religious sentiment, and what is +called _ethos_, of the early Church, nay, to that of the Apostles and +Prophets; for all will agree so far as this, that Elijah, Jeremiah, the +Baptist, and St. Paul are in their history and mode of life (I do not +speak of measures of grace, no, nor of doctrine and conduct, for these +are the points in dispute, but) in what is external and meets the eye +(and this is no slight resemblance when things are viewed as a whole and +from a distance),--these saintly and heroic men, I say, are more like a +Dominican preacher, or a Jesuit missionary, or a Carmelite friar, more +like St. Toribio, or St. Vincent Ferrer, or St. Francis Xavier, or St. +Alphonso Liguori, than to any individuals, or to any classes of men, +that can be found in other communions. And then, in addition, there is +the high antecedent probability that Providence would watch over His own +work, and would direct and ratify those developments of doctrine which +were inevitable. + + +2. + +If this is, on the whole, a true view of the general shape under which +the existing body of developments, commonly called Catholic, present +themselves before us, antecedently to our looking into the particular +evidence on which they stand, I think we shall be at no loss to +determine what both logical truth and duty prescribe to us as to our +reception of them. It is very little to say that we should treat them as +we are accustomed to treat other alleged facts and truths and the +evidence for them, such as come to us with a fair presumption in their +favour. Such are of every day's occurrence; and what is our behaviour +towards them? We meet them, not with suspicion and criticism, but with a +frank confidence. We do not in the first instance exercise our reason +upon opinions which are received, but our faith. We do not begin with +doubting; we take them on trust, and we put them on trial, and that, not +of set purpose, but spontaneously. We prove them by using them, by +applying them to the subject-matter, or the evidence, or the body of +circumstances, to which they belong, as if they gave it its +interpretation or its colour as a matter of course; and only when they +fail, in the event, in illustrating phenomena or harmonizing facts, do +we discover that we must reject the doctrines or the statements which we +had in the first instance taken for granted. Again, we take the evidence +for them, whatever it be, as a whole, as forming a combined proof; and +we interpret what is obscure in separate portions by such portions as +are clear. Moreover, we bear with these in proportion to the strength of +the antecedent probability in their favour, we are patient with +difficulties in their application, with apparent objections to them +drawn from other matters of fact, deficiency in their comprehensiveness, +or want of neatness in their working, provided their claims on our +attention are considerable. + + +3. + +Thus most men take Newton's theory of gravitation for granted, because +it is generally received, and use it without rigidly testing it first, +each for himself, (as it can be tested,) by phenomena; and if phenomena +are found which it does not satisfactorily solve, this does not trouble +us, for a way there must be of explaining them, consistently with that +theory, though it does not occur to ourselves. Again, if we found a +concise or obscure passage in one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, we +should not scruple to admit as its true explanation a more explicit +statement in his _Ad Familiares_. Æschylus is illustrated by Sophocles +in point of language, and Thucydides by Aristophanes, in point of +history. Horace, Persius, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Juvenal may be made to +throw light upon each other. Even Plato may gain a commentator in +Plotinus, and St. Anselm is interpreted by St. Thomas. Two writers, +indeed, may be already known to differ, and then we do not join them +together as fellow-witnesses to common truths; Luther has taken on +himself to explain St. Augustine, and Voltaire, Pascal, without +persuading the world that they have a claim to do so; but in no case do +we begin with asking whether a comment does not disagree with its text, +when there is a _primâ facie_ congruity between them. We elucidate the +text by the comment, though, or rather because, the comment is fuller +and more explicit than the text. + + +4. + +Thus too we deal with Scripture, when we have to interpret the +prophetical text and the types of the Old Testament. The event which is +the development is also the interpretation of the prediction; it +provides a fulfilment by imposing a meaning. And we accept certain +events as the fulfilment of prophecy from the broad correspondence of +the one with the other, in spite of many incidental difficulties. The +difficulty, for instance, in accounting for the fact that the dispersion +of the Jews followed upon their keeping, not their departing from their +Law, does not hinder us from insisting on their present state as an +argument against the infidel. Again, we readily submit our reason on +competent authority, and accept certain events as an accomplishment of +predictions, which seem very far removed from them; as in the passage, +"Out of Egypt have I called My Son." Nor do we find a difficulty, when +St. Paul appeals to a text of the Old Testament, which stands otherwise +in our Hebrew copies; as the words, "A body hast Thou prepared Me." We +receive such difficulties on faith, and leave them to take care of +themselves. Much less do we consider mere fulness in the interpretation, +or definiteness, or again strangeness, as a sufficient reason for +depriving the text, or the action to which it is applied, of the +advantage of such interpretation. We make it no objection that the words +themselves come short of it, or that the sacred writer did not +contemplate it, or that a previous fulfilment satisfies it. A reader who +came to the inspired text by himself, beyond the influence of that +traditional acceptation which happily encompasses it, would be surprised +to be told that the Prophet's words, "A virgin shall conceive," &c., or +"Let all the Angels of God worship Him," refer to our Lord; but assuming +the intimate connexion between Judaism and Christianity, and the +inspiration of the New Testament, we do not scruple to believe it. We +rightly feel that it is no prejudice to our receiving the prophecy of +Balaam in its Christian meaning, that it is adequately fulfilled in +David; or the history of Jonah, that it is poetical in character and has +a moral in itself like an apologue; or the meeting of Abraham and +Melchizedek, that it is too brief and simple to mean any great thing, as +St. Paul interprets it. + + +5. + +Butler corroborates these remarks, when speaking of the particular +evidence for Christianity. "The obscurity or unintelligibleness," he +says, "of one part of a prophecy does not in any degree invalidate the +proof of foresight, arising from the appearing completion of those other +parts which are understood. For the case is evidently the same as if +those parts, which are not understood, were lost, or not written at all, +or written in an unknown tongue. Whether this observation be commonly +attended to or not, it is so evident that one can scarce bring one's +self to set down an instance in common matters to exemplify it."[104:1] +He continues, "Though a man should be incapable, for want of learning, +or opportunities of inquiry, or from not having turned his studies this +way, even so much as to judge whether particular prophecies have been +throughout completely fulfilled; yet he may see, in general, that they +have been fulfilled to such a degree, as, upon very good ground, to be +convinced of foresight more than human in such prophecies, and of such +events being intended by them. For the same reason also, though, by +means of the deficiencies in civil history, and the different accounts +of historians, the most learned should not be able to make out to +satisfaction that such parts of the prophetic history have been minutely +and throughout fulfilled; yet a very strong proof of foresight may arise +from that general completion of them which is made out; as much proof of +foresight, perhaps, as the Giver of prophecy intended should ever be +afforded by such parts of prophecy." + + +6. + +He illustrates this by the parallel instance of fable and concealed +satire. "A man might be assured that he understood what an author +intended by a fable or parable, related without any application or +moral, merely from seeing it to be easily capable of such application, +and that such a moral might naturally be deduced from it. And he might +be fully assured that such persons and events were intended in a +satirical writing, merely from its being applicable to them. And, +agreeably to the last observation, he might be in a good measure +satisfied of it, though he were not enough informed in affairs, or in +the story of such persons, to understand half the satire. For his +satisfaction, that he understood the meaning, the intended meaning, of +these writings, would be greater or less, in proportion as he saw the +general turn of them to be capable of such application, and in +proportion to the number of particular things capable of it." And he +infers hence, that if a known course of events, or the history of a +person as our Lord, is found to answer on the whole to the prophetical +text, it becomes fairly the right interpretation of that text, in spite +of difficulties in detail. And this rule of interpretation admits of an +obvious application to the parallel case of doctrinal passages, when a +certain creed, which professes to have been derived from Revelation, +comes recommended to us on strong antecedent grounds, and presents no +strong opposition to the sacred text. + +The same author observes that the first fulfilment of a prophecy is no +valid objection to a second, when what seems like a second has once +taken place; and, in like manner, an interpretation of doctrinal texts +may be literal, exact, and sufficient, yet in spite of all this may not +embrace what is really the full scope of their meaning; and that fuller +scope, if it so happen, may be less satisfactory and precise, as an +interpretation, than their primary and narrow sense. Thus, if the +Protestant interpretation of the sixth chapter of St. John were true and +sufficient for its letter, (which of course I do not grant,) that would +not hinder the Roman, which at least is quite compatible with the text, +being the higher sense and the only rightful. In such cases the +justification of the larger and higher interpretation lies in some +antecedent probability, such as Catholic consent; and the ground of the +narrow is the context, and the rules of grammar; and, whereas the +argument of the critical commentator is that the sacred text _need not_ +mean more than the letter, those who adopt a deeper view of it maintain, +as Butler in the case of prophecy, that we have no warrant for putting a +limit to the sense of words which are not human but divine. + + +7. + +Now it is but a parallel exercise of reasoning to interpret the previous +history of a doctrine by its later development, and to consider that it +contains the later _in posse_ and in the divine intention; and the +grudging and jealous temper, which refuses to enlarge the sacred text +for the fulfilment of prophecy, is the very same that will occupy itself +in carping at the Ante-nicene testimonies for Nicene or Medieval +doctrines and usages. When "I and My Father are One" is urged in proof +of our Lord's unity with the Father, heretical disputants do not see why +the words must be taken to denote more than a unity of will. When "This +is My Body" is alleged as a warrant for the change of the Bread into the +Body of Christ, they explain away the words into a figure, because such +is their most obvious interpretation. And, in like manner, when Roman +Catholics urge St. Gregory's invocations, they are told that these are +but rhetorical; or St. Clement's allusion to Purgatory, that perhaps it +was Platonism; or Origen's language about praying to Angels and the +merits of Martyrs, that it is but an instance of his heterodoxy; or St. +Cyprian's exaltation of the _Cathedra Petri_, that he need not be +contemplating more than a figurative or abstract see; or the general +testimony to the spiritual authority of Rome in primitive times, that it +arose from her temporal greatness; or Tertullian's language about +Tradition and the Church, that he took a lawyer's view of those +subjects; whereas the early condition, and the evidence, of each +doctrine respectively, ought consistently to be interpreted by means of +that development which was ultimately attained. + + +8. + +Moreover, since, as above shown, the doctrines all together make up one +integral religion, it follows that the several evidences which +respectively support those doctrines belong to a whole, and must be +thrown into a common stock, and all are available in the defence of any. +A collection of weak evidences makes up a strong evidence; again, one +strong argument imparts cogency to collateral arguments which are in +themselves weak. For instance, as to the miracles, whether of Scripture +or the Church, "the number of those which carry with them their own +proof now, and are believed for their own sake, is small, and they +furnish the grounds on which we receive the rest."[107:1] Again, no one +would fancy it necessary, before receiving St. Matthew's Gospel, to find +primitive testimony in behalf of every chapter and verse: when only part +is proved to have been in existence in ancient times, the whole is +proved, because that part is but part of a whole; and when the whole is +proved, it may shelter such parts as for some incidental reason have +less evidence of their antiquity. Again, it would be enough to show that +St. Augustine knew the Italic version of the Scriptures, if he quoted it +once or twice. And, in like manner, it will be generally admitted that +the proof of a Second Person in the Godhead lightens greatly the burden +of proof necessary for belief in a Third Person; and that, the Atonement +being in some sort a correlative of eternal punishment, the evidence for +the former doctrine virtually increases the evidence for the latter. +And so, a Protestant controversialist would feel that it told little, +except as an omen of victory, to reduce an opponent to a denial of +Transubstantiation, if he still adhered firmly to the Invocation of +Saints, Purgatory, the Seven Sacraments, and the doctrine of merit; and +little too for one of his own party to condemn the adoration of the +Host, the supremacy of Rome, the acceptableness of celibacy, auricular +confession, communion under one kind, and tradition, if he was zealous +for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. + + +9. + +The principle on which these remarks are made has the sanction of some +of the deepest of English Divines. Bishop Butler, for instance, who has +so often been quoted here, thus argues in behalf of Christianity itself, +though confessing at the same time the disadvantage which in consequence +the revealed system lies under. "Probable proofs," he observes, "by +being added, not only increase the evidence, but multiply it. Nor should +I dissuade any one from setting down what he thought made for the +contrary side. . . . The truth of our religion, like the truth of common +matters, is to be judged by all the evidence taken together. And unless +the whole series of things which may be alleged in this argument, and +every particular thing in it, can reasonably be supposed to have been by +accident (for here the stress of the argument for Christianity lies), +then is the truth of it proved; in like manner, as if, in any common +case, numerous events acknowledged were to be alleged in proof of any +other event disputed, the truth of the disputed event would be proved, +not only if any one of the acknowledged ones did of itself clearly imply +it, but though no one of them singly did so, if the whole of the +acknowledged events, taken together, could not in reason be supposed to +have happened, unless the disputed one were true. + +"It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to +those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For +it is easy to show, in a short and lively manner, that such and such +things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little +weight in itself; but impossible to show, in like manner, the united +force of the whole argument in one view."[109:1] + +In like manner, Mr. Davison condemns that "vicious manner of reasoning," +which represents "any insufficiency of the proof, in its several +branches, as so much objection;" which manages "the inquiry so as to +make it appear that, if the divided arguments be inconclusive one by +one, we have a series of exceptions to the truths of religion instead of +a train of favourable presumptions, growing stronger at every step. The +disciple of Scepticism is taught that he cannot fully rely on this or +that motive of belief, that each of them is insecure, and the conclusion +is put upon him that they ought to be discarded one after another, +instead of being connected and combined."[109:2] No work perhaps affords +more specimens in a short compass of the breach of the principle of +reasoning inculcated in these passages, than Barrow's Treatise on the +Pope's Supremacy. + + +10. + +The remarks of these two writers relate to the duty of combining +doctrines which belong to one body, and evidences which relate to one +subject; and few persons would dispute it in the abstract. The +application which has been here made of the principle is this,--that +where a doctrine comes recommended to us by strong presumptions of its +truth, we are bound to receive it unsuspiciously, and use it as a key to +the evidences to which it appeals, or the facts which it professes to +systematize, whatever may be our eventual judgment about it. Nor is it +enough to answer, that the voice of our particular Church, denying this +so-called Catholicism, is an antecedent probability which outweighs all +others and claims our prior obedience, loyally and without reasoning, to +its own interpretation. This may excuse individuals certainly, in +beginning with doubt and distrust of the Catholic developments, but it +only shifts the blame to the particular Church, Anglican or other, which +thinks itself qualified to enforce so peremptory a judgment against the +one and only successor, heir and representative of the Apostolic +college. + + +SECTION II. + +STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. + +Bacon is celebrated for destroying the credit of a method of reasoning +much resembling that which it has been the object of this Chapter to +recommend. "He who is not practised in doubting," he says, "but forward +in asserting and laying down such principles as he takes to be approved, +granted and manifest, and, according to the established truth thereof, +receives or rejects everything, as squaring with or proving contrary to +them, is only fitted to mix and confound things with words, reason with +madness, and the world with fable and fiction, but not to interpret the +works of nature."[110:1] But he was aiming at the application of these +modes of reasoning to what should be strict investigation, and that in +the province of physics; and this he might well censure, without +attempting, (what is impossible,) to banish them from history, ethics, +and religion. + +Physical facts are present; they are submitted to the senses, and the +senses may be satisfactorily tested, corrected, and verified. To trust +to anything but sense in a matter of sense is irrational; why are the +senses given us but to supersede less certain, less immediate +informants? We have recourse to reason or authority to determine facts, +when the senses fail us; but with the senses we begin. We deduce, we +form inductions, we abstract, we theorize from facts; we do not begin +with surmise and conjecture, much less do we look to the tradition of +past ages, or the decree of foreign teachers, to determine matters which +are in our hands and under our eyes. + +But it is otherwise with history, the facts of which are not present; it +is otherwise with ethics, in which phenomena are more subtle, closer, +and more personal to individuals than other facts, and not referable to +any common standard by which all men can decide upon them. In such +sciences, we cannot rest upon mere facts, if we would, because we have +not got them. We must do our best with what is given us, and look about +for aid from any quarter; and in such circumstances the opinions of +others, the traditions of ages, the prescriptions of authority, +antecedent auguries, analogies, parallel cases, these and the like, not +indeed taken at random, but, like the evidence from the senses, sifted +and scrutinized, obviously become of great importance. + + +2. + +And, further, if we proceed on the hypothesis that a merciful Providence +has supplied us with means of gaining such truth as concerns us, in +different subject-matters, though with different instruments, then the +simple question is, what those instruments are which are proper to a +particular case. If they are of the appointment of a Divine Protector, +we may be sure that they will lead to the truth, whatever they are. The +less exact methods of reasoning may do His work as well as the more +perfect, if He blesses them. He may bless antecedent probabilities in +ethical inquiries, who blesses experience and induction in the art of +medicine. + +And if it is reasonable to consider medicine, or architecture, or +engineering, in a certain sense, divine arts, as being divinely ordained +means of our receiving divine benefits, much more may ethics be called +divine; while as to religion, it directly professes to be the method of +recommending ourselves to Him and learning His will. If then it be His +gracious purpose that we should learn it, the means He gives for +learning it, be they promising or not to human eyes, are sufficient, +because they are His. And what they are at this particular time, or to +this person, depends on His disposition. He may have imposed simple +prayer and obedience on some men as the instrument of their attaining to +the mysteries and precepts of Christianity. He may lead others through +the written word, at least for some stages of their course; and if the +formal basis on which He has rested His revelations be, as it is, of an +historical and philosophical character, then antecedent probabilities, +subsequently corroborated by facts, will be sufficient, as in the +parallel case of other history, to bring us safely to the matter, or at +least to the organ, of those revelations. + + +3. + +Moreover, in subjects which belong to moral proof, such, I mean, as +history, antiquities, political science, ethics, metaphysics, and +theology, which are pre-eminently such, and especially in theology and +ethics, antecedent probability may have a real weight and cogency which +it cannot have in experimental science; and a mature politician or +divine may have a power of reaching matters of fact in consequence of +his peculiar habits of mind, which is seldom given in the same degree to +physical inquirers, who, for the purposes of this particular pursuit, +are very much on a level. And this last remark at least is confirmed by +Lord Bacon, who confesses "Our method of discovering the sciences does +not much depend upon subtlety and strength of genius, but lies level to +almost every capacity and understanding;"[113:1] though surely sciences +there are, in which genius is everything, and rules all but nothing. + + +4. + +It will be a great mistake then to suppose that, because this eminent +philosopher condemned presumption and prescription in inquiries into +facts which are external to us, present with us, and common to us all, +therefore authority, tradition, verisimilitude, analogy, and the like, +are mere "idols of the den" or "of the theatre" in history or ethics. +Here we may oppose to him an author in his own line as great as he is: +"Experience," says Bacon, "is by far the best demonstration, provided it +dwell in the experiment; for the transferring of it to other things +judged alike is very fallacious, unless done with great exactness and +regularity."[113:2] Niebuhr explains or corrects him: "Instances are not +arguments," he grants, when investigating an obscure question of Roman +history,--"instances are not arguments, but in history are scarcely of +less force; above all, where the parallel they exhibit is in the +progressive development of institutions."[113:3] Here this sagacious +writer recognizes the true principle of historical logic, while he +exemplifies it. + +The same principle is involved in the well-known maxim of Aristotle, +that "it is much the same to admit the probabilities of a mathematician, +and to look for demonstration from an orator." In all matters of human +life, presumption verified by instances, is our ordinary instrument of +proof, and, if the antecedent probability is great, it almost +supersedes instances. Of course, as is plain, we may err grievously in +the antecedent view which we start with, and in that case, our +conclusions may be wide of the truth; but that only shows that we had no +right to assume a premiss which was untrustworthy, not that our +reasoning was faulty. + + +5. + +I am speaking of the process itself, and its correctness is shown by its +general adoption. In religious questions a single text of Scripture is +all-sufficient with most people, whether the well disposed or the +prejudiced, to prove a doctrine or a duty in cases when a custom is +established or a tradition is strong. "Not forsaking the assembling of +ourselves together" is sufficient for establishing social, public, nay, +Sunday worship. "Where the tree falleth, there shall it lie," shows that +our probation ends with life. "Forbidding to marry" determines the Pope +to be the man of sin. Again, it is plain that a man's after course for +good or bad brings out the passing words or obscure actions of previous +years. Then, on a retrospect, we use the event as a presumptive +interpretation of the past, of those past indications of his character +which, considered as evidence, were too few and doubtful to bear +insisting on at the time, and would have seemed ridiculous, had we +attempted to do so. And the antecedent probability is even found to +triumph over contrary evidence, as well as to sustain what agrees with +it. Every one may know of cases in which a plausible charge against an +individual was borne down at once by weight of character, though that +character was incommensurate of course with the circumstances which gave +rise to suspicion, and had no direct neutralizing force to destroy it. +On the other hand, it is sometimes said, and even if not literally true +will serve in illustration, that not a few of those who are put on trial +in our criminal courts are not legally guilty of the particular crime on +which a verdict is found against them, being convicted not so much upon +the particular evidence, as on the presumption arising from their want +of character and the memory of their former offences. Nor is it in +slight matters only or unimportant that we thus act. Our dearest +interests, our personal welfare, our property, our health, our +reputation, we freely hazard, not on proof, but on a simple probability, +which is sufficient for our conviction, because prudence dictates to us +so to take it. We must be content to follow the law of our being in +religious matters as well as in secular. + + +6. + +But there is more to say on the subordinate position which direct +evidence holds among the _motiva_ of conviction in most matters. It is +no paradox to say that there is a certain scantiness, nay an absence of +evidence, which may even tell in favour of statements which require to +be made good. There are indeed cases in which we cannot discover the law +of silence or deficiency, which are then simply unaccountable. Thus +Lucian, for whatever reason, hardly notices Roman authors or +affairs.[115:1] Maximus Tyrius, who wrote several of his works at Rome, +nevertheless makes no reference to Roman history. Paterculus, the +historian, is mentioned by no ancient writer except Priscian. What is +more to our present purpose, Seneca, Pliny the elder, and Plutarch are +altogether silent about Christianity; and perhaps Epictetus also, and +the Emperor Marcus. The Jewish Mishna, too, compiled about A.D. 180, is +silent about Christianity; and the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds +almost so, though the one was compiled about A.D. 300, and the other +A.D. 500.[115:2] Eusebius again, is very uncertain in his notice of +facts: he does not speak of St. Methodius, nor of St. Anthony, nor of +the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, nor of the miraculous powers of St. +Gregory Thaumaturgus; and he mentions Constantine's luminous cross, not +in his Ecclesiastical History, where it would naturally find a place, +but in his Life of the Emperor. Moreover, those who receive that +wonderful occurrence, which is, as one who rejects it allows,[116:1] "so +inexplicable to the historical inquirer," have to explain the difficulty +of the universal silence on the subject of all the Fathers of the fourth +and fifth centuries, excepting Eusebius. + +In like manner, Scripture has its unexplained omissions. No religious +school finds its own tenets and usages on the surface of it. The remark +applies also to the very context of Scripture, as in the obscurity which +hangs over Nathanael or the Magdalen. It is a remarkable circumstance +that there is no direct intimation all through Scripture that the +Serpent mentioned in the temptation of Eve was the evil spirit, till we +come to the vision of the Woman and Child, and their adversary, the +Dragon, in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. + + +7. + +Omissions, thus absolute and singular, when they occur in the evidence +of facts or doctrines, are of course difficulties; on the other hand, +not unfrequently they admit of explanation. Silence may arise from the +very notoriety of the facts in question, as in the case of the seasons, +the weather, or other natural phenomena; or from their sacredness, as +the Athenians would not mention the mythological Furies; or from +external constraint, as the omission of the statues of Brutus and +Cassius in the procession. Or it may proceed from fear or disgust, as on +the arrival of unwelcome news; or from indignation, or hatred, or +contempt, or perplexity, as Josephus is silent about Christianity, and +Eusebius passes over the death of Crispus in his life of Constantine; or +from other strong feeling, as implied in the poet's sentiment, "Give +sorrow words;" or from policy or other prudential motive, or propriety, +as Queen's Speeches do not mention individuals, however influential in +the political world, and newspapers after a time were silent about the +cholera. Or, again, from the natural and gradual course which the fact +took, as in the instance of inventions and discoveries, the history of +which is on this account often obscure; or from loss of documents or +other direct testimonies, as we should not look for theological +information in a treatise on geology. + + +8. + +Again, it frequently happens that omissions proceed on some law, as the +varying influence of an external cause; and then, so far from being a +perplexity, they may even confirm such evidence as occurs, by becoming, +as it were, its correlative. For instance, an obstacle may be +assignable, person, or principle, or accident, which ought, if it +exists, to reduce or distort the indications of a fact to that very +point, or in that very direction, or with the variations, or in the +order and succession, which do occur in its actual history. At first +sight it might be a suspicious circumstance that but one or two +manuscripts of some celebrated document were forthcoming; but if it were +known that the sovereign power had exerted itself to suppress and +destroy it at the time of its publication, and that the extant +manuscripts were found just in those places where history witnessed to +the failure of the attempt, the coincidence would be highly +corroborative of that evidence which alone remained. + +Thus it is possible to have too much evidence; that is, evidence so full +or exact as to throw suspicion over the case for which it is adduced. +The genuine Epistles of St. Ignatius contain none of those +ecclesiastical terms, such as "Priest" or "See," which are so frequent +afterwards; and they quote Scripture sparingly. The interpolated +Epistles quote it largely; that is, they are too Scriptural to be +Apostolic. Few persons, again, who are acquainted with the primitive +theology, but will be sceptical at first reading of the authenticity of +such works as the longer Creed of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, or St. +Hippolytus contra Beronem, from the precision of the theological +language, which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene period. + + +9. + +The influence of circumstances upon the expression of opinion or +testimony supplies another form of the same law of omission. "I am ready +to admit," says Paley, "that the ancient Christian advocates did not +insist upon the miracles in argument so frequently as I should have +done. It was their lot to contend with notions of magical agency, +against which the mere production of the facts was not sufficient for +the convincing of their adversaries; I do not know whether they +themselves thought it quite decisive of the controversy. But since it is +proved, I conceive with certainty, that the sparingness with which they +appealed to miracles was owing neither to their ignorance nor their +doubt of the facts, it is at any rate an objection, not to the truth of +the history, but to the judgment of its defenders."[118:1] And, in like +manner, Christians were not likely to entertain the question of the +abstract allowableness of images in the Catholic ritual, with the actual +superstitions and immoralities of paganism before their eyes. Nor were +they likely to determine the place of the Blessed Mary in our reverence, +before they had duly secured, in the affections of the faithful, the +supreme glory and worship of God Incarnate, her Eternal Lord and Son. +Nor would they recognize Purgatory as a part of the Dispensation, till +the world had flowed into the Church, and a habit of corruption had +been largely superinduced. Nor could ecclesiastical liberty be asserted, +till it had been assailed. Nor would a Pope arise, but in proportion as +the Church was consolidated. Nor would monachism be needed, while +martyrdoms were in progress. Nor could St. Clement give judgment on the +doctrine of Berengarius, nor St. Dionysius refute the Ubiquists, nor St. +Irenæus denounce the Protestant view of Justification, nor St. Cyprian +draw up a theory of toleration. There is "a time for every purpose under +the heaven;" "a time to keep silence and a time to speak." + + +10. + +Sometimes when the want of evidence for a series of facts or doctrines +is unaccountable, an unexpected explanation or addition in the course of +time is found as regards a portion of them, which suggests a ground of +patience as regards the historical obscurity of the rest. Two instances +are obvious to mention, of an accidental silence of clear primitive +testimony as to important doctrines, and its removal. In the number of +the articles of Catholic belief which the Reformation especially +resisted, were the Mass and the sacramental virtue of Ecclesiastical +Unity. Since the date of that movement, the shorter Epistles of St. +Ignatius have been discovered, and the early Liturgies verified; and +this with most men has put an end to the controversy about those +doctrines. The good fortune which has happened to them, may happen to +others; and though it does not, yet that it has happened to them, is to +those others a sort of compensation for the obscurity in which their +early history continues to be involved. + + +11. + +I may seem in these remarks to be preparing the way for a broad +admission of the absence of any sanction in primitive Christianity in +behalf of its medieval form, but I do not make them with this intention. +Not from misgivings of this kind, but from the claims of a sound logic, +I think it right to insist, that, whatever early testimonies I may bring +in support of later developments of doctrine, are in great measure +brought _ex abundante_, a matter of grace, not of compulsion. The _onus +probandi_ is with those who assail a teaching which is, and has long +been, in possession. As for positive evidence in our behalf, they must +take what they can get, if they cannot get as much as they might wish, +inasmuch as antecedent probabilities, as I have said, go so very far +towards dispensing with it. It is a first strong point that, in an idea +such as Christianity, developments cannot but be, and those surely +divine, because it is divine; a second that, if so, they are those very +ones which exist, because there are no others; and a third point is the +fact that they are found just there, where true developments ought to be +found,--namely, in the historic seats of Apostolical teaching and in the +authoritative homes of immemorial tradition. + + +12. + +And, if it be said in reply that the difficulty of admitting these +developments of doctrine lies, not merely in the absence of early +testimony for them, but in the actual existence of distinct testimony +against them,--or, as Chillingworth says, in "Popes against Popes, +Councils against Councils,"--I answer, of course this will be said; but +let the fact of this objection be carefully examined, and its value +reduced to its true measure, before it is used in argument. I grant that +there are "Bishops against Bishops in Church history, Fathers against +Fathers, Fathers against themselves," for such differences in individual +writers are consistent with, or rather are involved in the very idea of +doctrinal development, and consequently are no real objection to it; +the one essential question is whether the recognized organ of teaching, +the Church herself, acting through Pope or Council as the oracle of +heaven, has ever contradicted her own enunciations. If so, the +hypothesis which I am advocating is at once shattered; but, till I have +positive and distinct evidence of the fact, I am slow to give credence +to the existence of so great an improbability. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[104:1] Anal. ii. 7. + +[107:1] [On Miracles, Essay ii. 111.] + +[109:1] Anal. ii. 7. + +[109:2] On Prophecy, i. p. 28. + +[110:1] Aphor. 5, vol. iv. p. xi. ed. 1815. + +[113:1] Nov. Org. i. 2, § 26, vol. iv. p. 29. + +[113:2] Nov. Org. § 70, p. 44. + +[113:3] Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 345, ed. 1828. + +[115:1] Lardner's Heath. Test. p. 22. + +[115:2] Paley's Evid. p. i. prop. 1, 7. + +[116:1] Milman, Christ. vol. ii. p. 352. + +[118:1] Evidences, iii. 5. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. + + +It follows now to inquire how much evidence is actually producible for +those large portions of the present Creed of Christendom, which have not +a recognized place in the primordial idea and the historical outline of +the Religion, yet which come to us with certain antecedent +considerations strong enough in reason to raise the effectiveness of +that evidence to a point disproportionate, as I have allowed, to its +intrinsic value. In urging these considerations here, of course I +exclude for the time the force of the Church's claim of infallibility in +her acts, for which so much can be said, but I do not exclude the +logical cogency of those acts, considered as testimonies to the faith of +the times before them. + +My argument then is this:--that, from the first age of Christianity, its +teaching looked towards those ecclesiastical dogmas, afterwards +recognized and defined, with (as time went on) more or less determinate +advance in the direction of them; till at length that advance became so +pronounced, as to justify their definition and to bring it about, and to +place them in the position of rightful interpretations and keys of the +remains and the records in history of the teaching which had so +terminated. + + +2. + +This line of argument is not unlike that which is considered to +constitute a sufficient proof of truths in physical science. An +instance of this is furnished us in a work on Mechanics of the past +generation, by a writer of name, and his explanation of it will serve as +an introduction to our immediate subject. After treating of the laws of +motion, he goes on to observe, "These laws are the simplest principles +to which motion can be reduced, and upon them the whole theory depends. +They are not indeed self-evident, nor do they admit of accurate proof by +experiment, on account of the great nicety required in adjusting the +instruments and making the experiments; and on account of the effects of +friction, and the air's resistance, which cannot entirely be removed. +They are, however, constantly, and invariably, suggested to our senses, +and they agree with experiment as far as experiment can go; and the more +accurately the experiments are made, and the greater care we take to +remove all those impediments which tend to render the conclusions +erroneous, the more nearly do the experiments coincide with these +laws."[123:1] And thus a converging evidence in favour of certain +doctrines may, under circumstances, be as clear a proof of their +Apostolical origin as can be reached practically from the _Quod semper, +quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. + +In such a method of proof there is, first, an imperfect, secondly, a +growing evidence, thirdly, in consequence a delayed inference and +judgment, fourthly, reasons producible to account for the delay. + + +SECTION I. + +INSTANCES CURSORILY NOTICED. + + +1. + +(1.) _Canon of the New Testament._ + +As regards the New Testament, Catholics and Protestants receive the +same books as canonical and inspired; yet among those books some are to +be found, which certainly have no right there if, following the rule of +Vincentius, we receive nothing as of divine authority but what has been +received always and everywhere. The degrees of evidence are very various +for one book and another. "It is confessed," says Less, "that not all +the Scriptures of our New Testament have been received with universal +consent as genuine works of the Evangelists and Apostles. But that man +must have predetermined to oppose the most palpable truths, and must +reject all history, who will not confess that the _greater_ part of the +New Testament has been universally received as authentic, and that the +remaining books have been acknowledged as such by the _majority_ of the +ancients."[124:1] + + +2. + +For instance, as to the Epistle of St. James. It is true, it is +contained in the old Syriac version in the second century; but Origen, +in the third century, is the first writer who distinctly mentions it +among the Greeks; and it is not quoted by name by any Latin till the +fourth. St. Jerome speaks of its gaining credit "by degrees, in process +of time." Eusebius says no more than that it had been, up to his time, +acknowledged by the majority; and he classes it with the Shepherd of St. +Hermas and the Epistle of St. Barnabas.[124:2] + +Again: "The Epistle to the Hebrews, though received in the East, was not +received in the Latin Churches till St. Jerome's time. St. Irenæus +either does not affirm, or denies that it is St. Paul's. Tertullian +ascribes it to St. Barnabas. Caius excludes it from his list. St. +Hippolytus does not receive it. St. Cyprian is silent about it. It is +doubtful whether St. Optatus received it."[124:3] + +Again, St. Jerome tells us, that in his day, towards A.D. 400, the +Greek Church rejected the Apocalypse, but the Latin received it. + +Again: "The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books in all, though +of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till +from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number +are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the +Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other +thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First to +Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John are quoted but by one +writer during the same period."[125:1] + + +3. + +On what ground, then, do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on +the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries? The +Church at that era decided--not merely bore testimony, but passed a +judgment on former testimony,--decided, that certain books were of +authority. And on what ground did she so decide? on the ground that +hitherto a decision had been impossible, in an age of persecution, from +want of opportunities for research, discussion, and testimony, from the +private or the local character of some of the books, and from +misapprehension of the doctrine contained in others. Now, however, +facilities were at length given for deciding once for all on what had +been in suspense and doubt for three centuries. On this subject I will +quote another passage from the same Tract: "We depend upon the fourth +and fifth centuries thus:--As to Scripture, former centuries do not +speak distinctly, frequently, or unanimously, except of some chief +books, as the Gospels; but we see in them, as we believe, an +ever-growing tendency and approximation to that full agreement which we +find in the fifth. The testimony given at the latter date is the limit +to which all that has been before said converges. For instance, it is +commonly said, _Exceptio probat regulam_; when we have reason to think +that a writer or an age would have witnessed so and so, _but for_ this +or that, and that this or that were mere accidents of his position, then +he or it may be said to _tend towards_ such testimony. In this way the +first centuries tend towards the fifth. Viewing the matter as one of +moral evidence, we seem to see in the testimony of the fifth the very +testimony which every preceding century gave, accidents excepted, such +as the present loss of documents once extant, or the then existing +misconceptions which want of intercourse between the Churches +occasioned. The fifth century acts as a comment on the obscure text of +the centuries before it, and brings out a meaning, which with the help +of the comment any candid person sees really to be theirs."[126:1] + + +4. + +(2.) _Original Sin._ + +I have already remarked upon the historical fact, that the recognition +of Original Sin, considered as the consequence of Adam's fall, was, both +as regards general acceptance and accurate understanding, a gradual +process, not completed till the time of Augustine and Pelagius. St. +Chrysostom lived close up to that date, but there are passages in his +works, often quoted, which we should not expect to find worded as they +stand, if they had been written fifty years later. It is commonly, and +reasonably, said in explanation, that the fatalism, so prevalent in +various shapes pagan and heretical, in the first centuries, was an +obstacle to an accurate apprehension of the consequences of the fall, as +the presence of the existing idolatry was to the use of images. If this +be so, we have here an instance of a doctrine held back for a time by +circumstances, yet in the event forcing its way into its normal shape, +and at length authoritatively fixed in it, that is, of a doctrine held +implicitly, then asserting itself, and at length fully developed. + + +5. + +(3.) _Infant Baptism._ + +One of the passages of St. Chrysostom to which I might refer is this, +"We baptize infants, though they are not defiled with sin, that they may +receive sanctity, righteousness, adoption, heirship, brotherhood with +Christ, and may become His members." (_Aug. contr. Jul._ i. 21.) This at +least shows that he had a clear view of the importance and duty of +infant baptism, but such was not the case even with saints in the +generation immediately before him. As is well known, it was not unusual +in that age of the Church for those, who might be considered +catechumens, to delay their baptism, as Protestants now delay reception +of the Holy Eucharist. It is difficult for us at this day to enter into +the assemblage of motives which led to this postponement; to a keen +sense and awe of the special privileges of baptism which could only once +be received, other reasons would be added,--reluctance to being +committed to a strict rule of life, and to making a public profession of +religion, and to joining in a specially intimate fellowship or +solidarity with strangers. But so it was in matter of fact, for reasons +good or bad, that infant baptism, which is a fundamental rule of +Christian duty with us, was less earnestly insisted on in early times. + + +6. + +Even in the fourth century St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and St. +Augustine, having Christian mothers, still were not baptized till they +were adults. St. Gregory's mother dedicated him to God immediately on +his birth; and again when he had come to years of discretion, with the +rite of taking the gospels into his hands by way of consecration. He was +religiously-minded from his youth, and had devoted himself to a single +life. Yet his baptism did not take place till after he had attended the +schools of Cæsarea, Palestine, and Alexandria, and was on his voyage to +Athens. He had embarked during the November gales, and for twenty days +his life was in danger. He presented himself for baptism as soon as he +got to land. St. Basil was the son of Christian confessors on both +father's and mother's side. His grandmother Macrina, who brought him up, +had for seven years lived with her husband in the woods of Pontus during +the Decian persecution. His father was said to have wrought miracles; +his mother, an orphan of great beauty of person, was forced from her +unprotected state to abandon the hope of a single life, and was +conspicuous in matrimony for her care of strangers and the poor, and for +her offerings to the churches. How religiously she brought up her +children is shown by the singular blessing, that four out of ten have +since been canonized as Saints. St. Basil was one of these; yet the +child of such parents was not baptized till he had come to man's +estate,--till, according to the Benedictine Editor, his twenty-first, +and perhaps his twenty-ninth, year. St. Augustine's mother, who is +herself a Saint, was a Christian when he was born, though his father was +not. Immediately on his birth, he was made a catechumen; in his +childhood he fell ill, and asked for baptism. His mother was alarmed, +and was taking measures for his reception into the Church, when he +suddenly got better, and it was deferred. He did not receive baptism +till the age of thirty-three, after he had been for nine years a victim +of Manichæan error. In like manner, St. Ambrose, though brought up by +his mother and holy nuns, one of them his own sister St. Marcellina, was +not baptized till he was chosen bishop at the age of about thirty-four, +nor his brother St. Satyrus till about the same age, after the serious +warning of a shipwreck. St. Jerome too, though educated at Rome, and so +far under religious influences, as, with other boys, to be in the +observance of Sunday, and of devotions in the catacombs, had no friend +to bring him to baptism, till he had reached man's estate and had +travelled. + + +7. + +Now how are the modern sects, which protest against infant baptism, to +be answered by Anglicans with this array of great names in their favour? +By the later rule of the Church surely; by the _dicta_ of some later +Saints, as by St. Chrysostom; by one or two inferences from Scripture; +by an argument founded on the absolute necessity of Baptism for +salvation,--sufficient reasons certainly, but impotent to reverse the +fact that neither in Dalmatia nor in Cappadocia, neither in Rome, nor in +Africa, was it then imperative on Christian parents, as it is now, to +give baptism to their young children. It was on retrospect and after the +truths of the Creed had sunk into the Christian mind, that the authority +of such men as St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine brought +round the _orbis terrarum_ to the conclusion, which the infallible +Church confirmed, that observance of the rite was the rule, and the +non-observance the exception. + + +8. + +(4.) _Communion in one kind._ + +In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance +pronounced that, "though in the primitive Church the Sacrament" of the +Eucharist "was received by the faithful under each kind, yet the custom +has been reasonably introduced, for the avoiding of certain dangers and +scandals, that it should be received by the consecrators under each +kind, and by the laity only under the kind of Bread; since it is most +firmly to be believed, and in no wise doubted, that the whole Body and +Blood of Christ is truly contained as well under the kind of Bread as +under the kind of Wine." + +Now the question is, whether the doctrine here laid down, and carried +into effect in the usage here sanctioned, was entertained by the early +Church, and may be considered a just development of its principles and +practices. I answer that, starting with the presumption that the Council +has ecclesiastical authority, which is the point here to be assumed, we +shall find quite enough for its defence, and shall be satisfied to +decide in the affirmative; we shall readily come to the conclusion that +Communion under either kind is lawful, each kind conveying the full gift +of the Sacrament. + +For instance, Scripture affords us two instances of what may reasonably +be considered the administration of the form of Bread without that of +Wine; viz. our Lord's own example towards the two disciples at Emmaus, +and St. Paul's action at sea during the tempest. Moreover, St. Luke +speaks of the first Christians as continuing in the "_breaking of +bread_, and in prayer," and of the first day of the week "when they came +together to _break bread_." + +And again, in the sixth chapter of St. John, our Lord says absolutely, +"He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." And, though He distinctly +promises that we shall have it granted to us to drink His blood, as well +as to eat His flesh; nevertheless, not a word does He say to signify +that, as He is the Bread from heaven and the living Bread, so He is the +heavenly, living Wine also. Again, St. Paul says that "whosoever shall +eat this Bread _or_ drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be +guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord." + +Many of the types of the Holy Eucharist, as far as they go, tend to the +same conclusion; as the Manna, to which our Lord referred, the Paschal +Lamb, the Shewbread, the sacrifices from which the blood was poured out, +and the miracle of the loaves, which are figures of the bread alone; +while the water from the rock, and the Blood from our Lord's side +correspond to the wine without the bread. Others are representations of +both kinds; as Melchizedek's feast, and Elijah's miracle of the meal and +oil. + + +9. + +And, further, it certainly was the custom in the early Church, under +circumstances, to communicate in one kind, as we learn from St. Cyprian, +St. Dionysius, St. Basil, St. Jerome, and others. For instance, St. +Cyprian speaks of the communion of an infant under Wine, and of a woman +under Bread; and St. Ambrose speaks of his brother in shipwreck folding +the consecrated Bread in a handkerchief, and placing it round his neck; +and the monks and hermits in the desert can hardly be supposed to have +been ordinarily in possession of consecrated Wine as well as Bread. From +the following Letter of St. Basil, it appears that, not only the monks, +but the whole laity of Egypt ordinarily communicated in Bread only. He +seems to have been asked by his correspondent, whether in time of +persecution it was lawful, in the absence of priest or deacon, to take +the communion "in one's own _hand_," that is, of course, the Bread; he +answers that it may be justified by the following parallel cases, in +mentioning which he is altogether silent about the Cup. "It is plainly +no fault," he says, "for long custom supplies instances enough to +sanction it. For all the monks in the desert, where there is no priest, +keep the communion at home, and partake it from themselves. In +Alexandria too, and in Egypt, each of the laity, for the most part, has +the Communion in his house, and, when he will, he partakes it by means +of himself. For when once the priest has celebrated the Sacrifice and +given it, he who takes it as a whole together, and then partakes of it +daily, reasonably ought to think that he partakes and receives from him +who has given it."[132:1] It should be added, that in the beginning of +the Letter he may be interpreted to speak of communion in both kinds, +and to say that it is "good and profitable." + +Here we have the usage of Pontus, Egypt, Africa, and Milan. Spain may be +added, if a late author is right in his view of the meaning of a Spanish +Canon;[132:2] and Syria, as well as Egypt, at least at a later date, +since Nicephorus[132:3] tells us that the Acephali, having no Bishops, +kept the Bread which their last priests had consecrated, and dispensed +crumbs of it every year at Easter for the purposes of Communion. + + +10. + +But it may be said, that after all it is so very hazardous and fearful a +measure actually to withdraw from Christians one-half of the Sacrament, +that, in spite of these precedents, some direct warrant is needed to +reconcile the mind to it. There might have been circumstances which led +St. Cyprian, or St. Basil, or the Apostolical Christians before them to +curtail it, about which we know nothing. It is not therefore safe in us, +because it was safe in them. Certainly a warrant is necessary; and just +such a warrant is the authority of the Church. If we can trust her +implicitly, there is nothing in the state of the evidence to form an +objection to her decision in this instance, and in proportion as we find +we can trust her does our difficulty lessen. Moreover, children, not to +say infants, were at one time admitted to the Eucharist, at least to the +Cup; on what authority are they now excluded from Cup and Bread also? +St. Augustine considered the usage to be of Apostolical origin; and it +continued in the West down to the twelfth century; it continues in the +East among Greeks, Russo-Greeks, and the various Monophysite Churches to +this day, and that on the ground of its almost universality in the +primitive Church.[133:1] Is it a greater innovation to suspend the Cup, +than to cut off children from Communion altogether? Yet we acquiesce in +the latter deprivation without a scruple. It is safer to acquiesce with, +than without, an authority; safer with the belief that the Church is the +pillar and ground of the truth, than with the belief that in so great a +matter she is likely to err. + + +11. + +(5.) _The Homoüsion._ + +The next instance I shall take is from the early teaching on the subject +of our Lord's Consubstantiality and Co-eternity. + +In the controversy carried on by various learned men in the seventeenth +and following century, concerning the statements of the early Fathers on +this subject, the one party determined the patristic theology by the +literal force of the separate expressions or phrases used in it, or by +the philosophical opinions of the day; the other, by the doctrine of the +Catholic Church, as afterwards authoritatively declared. The one party +argued that those Fathers _need not_ have meant more than what was +afterwards considered heresy; the other answered that there is _nothing +to prevent_ their meaning more. Thus the position which Bull maintains +seems to be nothing beyond this, that the Nicene Creed is a natural key +for interpreting the body of Ante-nicene theology. His very aim is to +explain difficulties; now the notion of difficulties and their +explanation implies a rule to which they are apparent exceptions, and in +accordance with which they are to be explained. Nay, the title of his +work, which is a "Defence of the Creed of Nicæa," shows that he is not +investigating what is true and what false, but explaining and justifying +a foregone conclusion, as sanctioned by the testimony of the great +Council. Unless the statements of the Fathers had suggested +difficulties, his work would have had no object. He allows that their +language is not such as they would have used after the Creed had been +imposed; but he says in effect that, if we will but take it in our hands +and apply it equitably to their writings, we shall bring out and +harmonize their teaching, clear their ambiguities, and discover their +anomalous statements to be few and insignificant. In other words, he +begins with a presumption, and shows how naturally facts close round it +and fall in with it, if we will but let them. He does this triumphantly, +yet he has an arduous work; out of about thirty writers whom he reviews, +he has, for one cause or other, to "explain piously" nearly twenty. + + +SECTION II. + +OUR LORD'S INCARNATION AND THE DIGNITY OF HIS BLESSED MOTHER AND OF ALL +SAINTS. + +Bishop Bull's controversy had regard to Ante-nicene writers only, and to +little more than to the doctrine of the Divine Son's consubstantiality +and co-eternity; and, as being controversy, it necessarily narrows and +dries up a large and fertile subject. Let us see whether, treated +historically, it will not present itself to us in various aspects which +may rightly be called developments, as coming into view, one out of +another, and following one after another by a natural order of +succession. + + +2. + +First then, that the language of the Ante-nicene Fathers, on the subject +of our Lord's Divinity, may be far more easily accommodated to the Arian +hypothesis than can the language of the Post-nicene, is agreed on all +hands. Thus St. Justin speaks of the Son as subservient to the Father in +the creation of the world, as seen by Abraham, as speaking to Moses from +the bush, as appearing to Joshua before the fall of Jericho,[135:1] as +Minister and Angel, and as numerically distinct from the Father. +Clement, again, speaks of the Word[135:2] as the "Instrument of God," +"close to the Sole Almighty;" "ministering to the Omnipotent Father's +will;"[135:3] "an energy, so to say, or operation of the Father," and +"constituted by His will as the cause of all good."[135:4] Again, the +Council of Antioch, which condemned Paul of Samosata, says that He +"appears to the Patriarchs and converses with them, being testified +sometimes to be an Angel, at other times Lord, at others God;" that, +while "it is impious to think that the God of all is called an Angel, +the Son is the Angel of the Father."[136:1] Formal proof, however, is +unnecessary; had not the fact been as I have stated it, neither Sandius +would have professed to differ from the Post-nicene Fathers, nor would +Bull have had to defend the Ante-nicene. + + +3. + +One principal change which took place, as time went on, was the +following: the Ante-nicene Fathers, as in some of the foregoing +extracts, speak of the Angelic visions in the Old Testament as if they +were appearances of the Son; but St. Augustine introduced the explicit +doctrine, which has been received since his date, that they were simply +Angels, through whom the Omnipresent Son manifested Himself. This indeed +is the only interpretation which the Ante-nicene statements admitted, as +soon as reason began to examine what they did mean. They could not mean +that the Eternal God could really be seen by bodily eyes; if anything +was seen, that must have been some created glory or other symbol, by +which it pleased the Almighty to signify His Presence. What was heard +was a sound, as external to His Essence, and as distinct from His +Nature, as the thunder or the voice of the trumpet, which pealed along +Mount Sinai; what it was had not come under discussion till St. +Augustine; both question and answer were alike undeveloped. The earlier +Fathers spoke as if there were no medium interposed between the Creator +and the creature, and so they seemed to make the Eternal Son the medium; +what it really was, they had not determined. St. Augustine ruled, and +his ruling has been accepted in later times, that it was not a mere +atmospheric phenomenon, or an impression on the senses, but the material +form proper to an Angelic presence, or the presence of an Angel in that +material garb in which blessed Spirits do ordinarily appear to men. +Henceforth the Angel in the bush, the voice which spoke with Abraham, +and the man who wrestled with Jacob, were not regarded as the Son of +God, but as Angelic ministers, whom He employed, and through whom He +signified His presence and His will. Thus the tendency of the +controversy with the Arians was to raise our view of our Lord's +Mediatorial acts, to impress them on us in their divine rather than +their human aspect, and to associate them more intimately with the +ineffable glories which surround the Throne of God. The Mediatorship was +no longer regarded in itself, in that prominently subordinate place +which it had once occupied in the thoughts of Christians, but as an +office assumed by One, who though having become man in order to bear it, +was still God.[137:1] Works and attributes, which had hitherto been +assigned to the Economy or to the Sonship, were now simply assigned to +the Manhood. A tendency was also elicited, as the controversy proceeded, +to contemplate our Lord more distinctly in His absolute perfections, +than in His relation to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, +whereas the Nicene Creed speaks of the "Father Almighty," and "His +Only-begotten Son, our Lord, God from God, Light from Light, Very God +from Very God," and of the Holy Ghost, "the Lord and Giver of Life," we +are told in the Athanasian of "the Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and +the Holy Ghost Eternal," and that "none is afore or after other, none is +greater or less than another." + + +4. + +The Apollinarian and Monophysite controversy, which followed in the +course of the next century, tended towards a development in the same +direction. Since the heresies, which were in question, maintained, at +least virtually, that our Lord was not man, it was obvious to insist on +the passages of Scripture which describe His created and subservient +nature, and this had the immediate effect of interpreting of His manhood +texts which had hitherto been understood more commonly of His Divine +Sonship. Thus, for instance, "My Father is greater than I," which had +been understood even by St. Athanasius of our Lord as God, is applied by +later writers more commonly to His humanity; and in this way the +doctrine of His subordination to the Eternal Father, which formed so +prominent a feature in Ante-nicene theology, comparatively fell into the +shade. + + +5. + +And coincident with these changes, a most remarkable result is +discovered. The Catholic polemic, in view of the Arian and Monophysite +errors, being of this character, became the natural introduction to the +_cultus Sanctorum_; for in proportion as texts descriptive of created +mediation ceased to belong to our Lord, so was a room opened for created +mediators. Nay, as regards the instance of Angelic appearances itself, +as St. Augustine explained them, if those appearances were creatures, +certainly creatures were worshipped by the Patriarchs, not indeed in +themselves,[138:1] but as the token of a Presence greater than +themselves. When "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon +God," he hid his face before a creature; when Jacob said, "I have seen +God face to face and my life is preserved," the Son of God was there, +but what he saw, what he wrestled with, was an Angel. When "Joshua fell +on his face to the earth and did worship before the captain of the +Lord's host, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?" +what was seen and heard was a glorified creature, if St. Augustine is +to be followed; and the Son of God was in him. + +And there were plain precedents in the Old Testament for the lawfulness +of such adoration. When "the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the +tabernacle-door," "all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in +his tent-door."[139:1] When Daniel too saw "a certain man clothed in +linen" "there remained no strength" in him, for his "comeliness was +turned" in him "into corruption." He fell down on his face, and next +remained on his knees and hands, and at length "stood trembling," and +said "O my Lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have +retained no strength. For how can the servant of this my Lord talk with +this my Lord?"[139:2] It might be objected perhaps to this argument, +that a worship which was allowable in an elementary system might be +unlawful when "grace and truth" had come "through Jesus Christ;" but +then it might be retorted surely, that that elementary system had been +emphatically opposed to all idolatry, and had been minutely jealous of +everything which might approach to favouring it. Nay, the very +prominence given in the Pentateuch to the doctrine of a Creator, and the +comparative silence concerning the Angelic creation, and the prominence +given to the Angelic creation in the later Prophets, taken together, +were a token both of that jealousy, and of its cessation, as time went +on. Nor can anything be concluded from St. Paul's censure of Angel +worship, since the sin which he is denouncing was that of "not holding +the Head," and of worshipping creatures _instead_ of the Creator as the +source of good. The same explanation avails for passages like those in +St. Athanasius and Theodoret, in which the worship of Angels is +discountenanced. + + +6. + +The Arian controversy had led to another development, which confirmed by +anticipation the _cultus_ to which St. Augustine's doctrine pointed. In +answer to the objection urged against our Lord's supreme Divinity from +texts which speak of His exaltation, St. Athanasius is led to insist +forcibly on the benefits which have accrued to man through it. He says +that, in truth, not Christ, but that human nature which He had assumed, +was raised and glorified in Him. The more plausible was the heretical +argument against His Divinity from those texts, the more emphatic is St. +Athanasius's exaltation of our regenerate nature by way of explaining +them. But intimate indeed must be the connexion between Christ and His +brethren, and high their glory, if the language which seemed to belong +to the Incarnate Word really belonged to them. Thus the pressure of the +controversy elicited and developed a truth, which till then was held +indeed by Christians, but less perfectly realized and not publicly +recognized. The sanctification, or rather the deification of the nature +of man, is one main subject of St. Athanasius's theology. Christ, in +rising, raises His Saints with Him to the right hand of power. They +become instinct with His life, of one body with His flesh, divine sons, +immortal kings, gods. He is in them, because He is in human nature; and +He communicates to them that nature, deified by becoming His, that them +It may deify. He is in them by the Presence of His Spirit, and in them +He is seen. They have those titles of honour by participation, which are +properly His. Without misgiving we may apply to them the most sacred +language of Psalmists and Prophets. "Thou art a Priest for ever" may be +said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin as well as of their Lord. "He hath +dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor," was fulfilled in St. +Laurence. "I have found David My servant," first said typically of the +King of Israel, and belonging really to Christ, is transferred back +again by grace to His Vicegerents upon earth. "I have given thee the +nations for thine inheritance" is the prerogative of Popes; "Thou hast +given him his heart's desire," the record of a martyr; "thou hast loved +righteousness and hated iniquity," the praise of Virgins. + + +7. + +"As Christ," says St. Athanasius, "died, and was exalted as man, so, as +man, is He said to take what, as God, He ever had, in order that even +this so high a grant of grace might reach to us. For the Word did not +suffer loss in receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a grace, +but rather He deified that which He put on, nay, gave it graciously to +the race of man. . . . For it is the Father's glory, that man, made and +then lost, should be found again; and, when done to death, that he +should be made alive, and should become God's temple. For whereas the +powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were ever worshipping the +Lord, as they are now too worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is +our grace and high exaltation, that, even when He became man, the Son of +God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers are not startled at seeing +all of us, who are of one body with Him, introduced into their +realms."[141:1] In this passage it is almost said that the glorified +Saints will partake in the homage paid by Angels to Christ, the True +Object of all worship; and at least a reason is suggested to us by it +for the Angel's shrinking in the Apocalypse from the homage of St. John, +the Theologian and Prophet of the Church.[141:2] But St. Athanasius +proceeds still more explicitly, "In that the Lord, even when come in +human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God's +Son, and that through Him the Father is known, it is plain, as has been +said, that, _not the Word_, considered as the Word, received this so +great grace, _but we_. For, because of our relationship to His Body, we +too have become God's temple, and in consequence have been made God's +sons, so that _even in us the Lord is now worshipped_, and beholders +report, as the Apostle says, that 'God is in them of a truth.'"[142:1] +It appears to be distinctly stated in this passage, that those who are +formally recognized as God's adopted sons in Christ, are fit objects of +worship on account of Him who is in them; a doctrine which both +interprets and accounts for the invocation of Saints, the _cultus_ of +relics, and the religious veneration in which even the living have +sometimes been held, who, being saintly, were distinguished by +miraculous gifts.[142:2] Worship then is the necessary correlative of +glory; and in the same sense in which created natures can share in the +Creator's incommunicable glory, are they also allowed a share of that +worship which is His property alone. + + +8. + +There was one other subject on which the Arian controversy had a more +intimate, though not an immediate influence. Its tendency to give a new +interpretation to the texts which speak of our Lord's subordination, has +already been noticed; such as admitted of it were henceforth explained +more prominently of His manhood than of His Mediatorship or His Sonship. +But there were other texts which did not admit of this interpretation, +and which, without ceasing to belong to Him, might seem more directly +applicable to a creature than to the Creator. He indeed was really the +"Wisdom in whom the Father eternally delighted," yet it would be but +natural, if, under the circumstances of Arian misbelief, theologians +looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be the immediate object of +such descriptions. And thus the controversy opened a question which it +did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the +realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its +inhabitant. Arianism had admitted that our Lord was both the God of the +Evangelical Covenant, and the actual Creator of the Universe; but even +this was not enough, because it did not confess Him to be the One, +Everlasting, Infinite, Supreme Being, but as one who was made by the +Supreme. It was not enough in accordance with that heresy to proclaim +Him as having an ineffable origin before all worlds; not enough to place +him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God's +Hands; not enough to make Him the King of all Saints, the Intercessor +for man with God, the Object of worship, the Image of the Father; not +enough, because it was not all, and between all and anything short of +all, there was an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is +levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself. That +is, the Nicene Council recognized the eventful principle, that, while we +believe and profess any being to be made of a created nature, such a +being is really no God to us, though honoured by us with whatever high +titles and with whatever homage. Arius or Asterius did all but confess +that Christ was the Almighty; they said much more than St. Bernard or +St. Alphonso have since said of the Blessed Mary; yet they left Him a +creature and were found wanting. Thus there was "a wonder in heaven:" a +throne was seen, far above all other created powers, mediatorial, +intercessory; a title archetypal; a crown bright as the morning star; a +glory issuing from the Eternal Throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a +sceptre over all; and who was the predestined heir of that Majesty? +Since it was not high enough for the Highest, who was that Wisdom, and +what was her name, "the Mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope," +"exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho," +"created from the beginning before the world" in God's everlasting +counsels, and "in Jerusalem her power"? The vision is found in the +Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, +and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not +exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. +The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy. + + +9. + +I am not stating conclusions which were drawn out in the controversy, +but of premisses which were laid, broad and deep. It was then shown, it +was then determined, that to exalt a creature was no recognition of its +divinity. Nor am I speaking of the Semi-Arians, who, holding our Lord's +derivation from the Substance of the Father, yet denying His +Consubstantiality, really did lie open to the charge of maintaining two +Gods, and present no parallel to the defenders of the prerogatives of +St. Mary. But I speak of the Arians who taught that the Son's Substance +was created; and concerning them it is true that St. Athanasius's +condemnation of their theology is a vindication of the Medieval. Yet it +is not wonderful, considering how Socinians, Sabellians, Nestorians, and +the like, abound in these days, without their even knowing it +themselves, if those who never rise higher in their notions of our +Lord's Divinity, than to consider Him a man singularly inhabited by a +Divine Presence, that is, a Catholic Saint,--if such men should mistake +the honour paid by the Church to the human Mother for that very honour +which, and which alone, is worthy of her Eternal Son. + + +10. + +I have said that there was in the first ages no public and +ecclesiastical recognition of the place which St. Mary holds in the +Economy of grace; this was reserved for the fifth century, as the +definition of our Lord's proper Divinity had been the work of the +fourth. There was a controversy contemporary with those already +mentioned, I mean the Nestorian, which brought out the complement of the +development, to which they had been subservient; and which, if I may so +speak, supplied the subject of that august proposition of which Arianism +had provided the predicate. In order to do honour to Christ, in order to +defend the true doctrine of the Incarnation, in order to secure a right +faith in the manhood of the Eternal Son, the Council of Ephesus +determined the Blessed Virgin to be the Mother of God. Thus all heresies +of that day, though opposite to each other, tended in a most wonderful +way to her exaltation; and the School of Antioch, the fountain of +primitive rationalism, led the Church to determine first the conceivable +greatness of a creature, and then the incommunicable dignity of the +Blessed Virgin. + + +11. + +But the spontaneous or traditional feeling of Christians had in great +measure anticipated the formal ecclesiastical decision. Thus the title +_Theotocos_, or Mother of God, was familiar to Christians from primitive +times, and had been used, among other writers, by Origen, Eusebius, St. +Alexander, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. +Gregory Nyssen, and St. Nilus. She had been called Ever-Virgin by +others, as by St. Epiphanius, St. Jerome, and Didymus. By others, "the +Mother of all living," as being the antitype of Eve; for, as St. +Epiphanius observes, "in truth," not in shadow, "from Mary was Life +itself brought into the world, that Mary might bear things living, and +might become Mother of living things."[146:1] St. Augustine says that +all have sinned "except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the +honour of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are +treating of sins." "She was alone and wrought the world's salvation," +says St. Ambrose, alluding to her conception of the Redeemer. She is +signified by the Pillar of the cloud which guided the Israelites, +according to the same Father; and she had "so great grace, as not only +to have virginity herself, but to impart it to those to whom she +came;"--"the Rod out of the stem of Jesse," says St. Jerome, and "the +Eastern gate through which the High Priest alone goes in and out, yet is +ever shut;"--the wise woman, says St. Nilus, who "hath clad all +believers, from the fleece of the Lamb born of her, with the clothing of +incorruption, and delivered them from their spiritual nakedness;"--"the +Mother of Life, of beauty, of majesty, the Morning Star," according to +Antiochus;--"the mystical new heavens," "the heavens carrying the +Divinity," "the fruitful vine by whom we are translated from death unto +life," according to St. Ephraim;--"the manna which is delicate, bright, +sweet, and virgin, which, as though coming from heaven, has poured down +on all the people of the Churches a food pleasanter than honey," +according to St. Maximus. + +St. Proclus calls her "the unsullied shell which contains the pearl of +price," "the sacred shrine of sinlessness," "the golden altar of +holocaust," "the holy oil of anointing," "the costly alabaster box of +spikenard," "the ark gilt within and without," "the heifer whose ashes, +that is, the Lord's Body taken from her, cleanses those who are defiled +by the pollution of sin," "the fair bride of the Canticles," "the stay +(στήριγμα) of believers," "the Church's diadem," "the expression of +orthodoxy." These are oratorical expressions; but we use oratory on +great subjects, not on small. Elsewhere he calls her "God's only bridge +to man;" and elsewhere he breaks forth, "Run through all creation in +your thoughts, and see if there be equal to, or greater than, the Holy +Virgin Mother of God." + + +12. + +Theodotus too, one of the Fathers of Ephesus, or whoever it is whose +Homilies are given to St. Amphilochius:--"As debtors and God's +well-affected servants, let us make confession to God the Word and to +His Mother, of the gift of words, as far as we are able. . . Hail, +Mother, clad in light, of the light which sets not; hail all-undefiled +mother of holiness; hail most pellucid fountain of the life-giving +stream!" After speaking of the Incarnation, he continues, "Such +paradoxes doth the Divine Virgin Mother ever bring to us in her holy +irradiations, for with her is the Fount of Life, and breasts of the +spiritual and guileless milk; from which to suck the sweetness, we have +even now earnestly run to her, not as in forgetfulness of what has gone +before, but in desire of what is to come." + +To St. Fulgentius is ascribed the following: "Mary became the window of +heaven, for God through her poured the True Light upon the world; the +heavenly ladder, for through her did God descend upon earth. . . . . +Come, ye virgins, to a Virgin, come ye who conceive to one who did +conceive, ye who bear to one who bore, mothers to a Mother, ye who give +suck to one who suckled, young women to the Young." Lastly, "Thou hast +found grace," says St. Peter Chrysologus, "how much? he had said above, +Full. And full indeed, which with full shower might pour upon and into +the whole creation."[148:1] + + * * * * * + +Such was the state of sentiment on the subject of the Blessed Virgin, +which the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite heresies found in the +Church; and on which the doctrinal decisions consequent upon them +impressed a form and a consistency which has been handed on in the East +and West to this day. + + +SECTION III. + +THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. + +I will take one instance more. Let us see how, on the principles which I +have been laying down and defending, the evidence lies for the Pope's +Supremacy. + +As to this doctrine the question is this, whether there was not from the +first a certain element at work, or in existence, divinely sanctioned, +which, for certain reasons, did not at once show itself upon the surface +of ecclesiastical affairs, and of which events in the fourth century +are the development; and whether the evidence of its existence and +operation, which does occur in the earlier centuries, be it much or +little, is not just such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis. + + +2. + +For instance, it is true, St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the +subject of the Pope's authority; but if in fact that authority could not +be in active operation then, such silence is not so difficult to account +for as the silence of Seneca or Plutarch about Christianity itself, or +of Lucian about the Roman people. St. Ignatius directed his doctrine +according to the need. While Apostles were on earth, there was the +display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as +being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the +Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. When the +Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into +portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of +internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be +wanted. Christians at home did not yet quarrel with Christians abroad; +they quarrelled at home among themselves. St. Ignatius applied the +fitting remedy. The _Sacramentum Unitatis_ was acknowledged on all +hands; the mode of fulfilling and the means of securing it would vary +with the occasion; and the determination of its essence, its seat, and +its laws would be a gradual supply for a gradual necessity. + + +3. + +This is but natural, and is parallel to instances which happen daily, +and may be so considered without prejudice to the divine right whether +of the Episcopate or of the Papacy. It is a common occurrence for a +quarrel and a lawsuit to bring out the state of the law, and then the +most unexpected results often follow. St. Peter's prerogative would +remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters +became the cause of ascertaining it. While Christians were "of one heart +and one soul," it would be suspended; love dispenses with laws. +Christians knew that they must live in unity, and they were in unity; in +what that unity consisted, how far they could proceed, as it were, in +bending it, and what at length was the point at which it broke, was an +irrelevant as well as unwelcome inquiry. Relatives often live together +in happy ignorance of their respective rights and properties, till a +father or a husband dies; and then they find themselves against their +will in separate interests, and on divergent courses, and dare not move +without legal advisers. Again, the case is conceivable of a corporation +or an Academical body, going on for centuries in the performance of the +routine-business which came in its way, and preserving a good +understanding between its members, with statutes almost a dead letter +and no precedents to explain them, and the rights of its various classes +and functions undefined,--then of its being suddenly thrown back by the +force of circumstances upon the question of its formal character as a +body politic, and in consequence developing in the relation of governors +and governed. The _regalia Petri_ might sleep, as the power of a +Chancellor has slept; not as an obsolete, for they never had been +carried into effect, but as a mysterious privilege, which was not +understood; as an unfulfilled prophecy. For St. Ignatius to speak of +Popes, when it was a matter of Bishops, would have been like sending an +army to arrest a housebreaker. The Bishop's power indeed was from God, +and the Pope's could be no more; he, as well as the Pope, was our Lord's +representative, and had a sacramental office: but I am speaking, not of +the intrinsic sanctity or divinity of such an office, but of its duties. + + +4. + +When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local +disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances +gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was +necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a +suspension of that communion had actually occurred. It is not a greater +difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about +Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about +Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not +formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no +formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is +violated. + +And, in like manner, it was natural for Christians to direct their +course in matters of doctrine by the guidance of mere floating, and, as +it were, endemic tradition, while it was fresh and strong; but in +proportion as it languished, or was broken in particular places, did it +become necessary to fall back upon its special homes, first the +Apostolic Sees, and then the See of St. Peter. + + +5. + +Moreover, an international bond and a common authority could not be +consolidated, were it ever so certainly provided, while persecutions +lasted. If the Imperial Power checked the development of Councils, it +availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy. The Creed, the +Canon, in like manner, both remained undefined. The Creed, the Canon, +the Papacy, Ecumenical Councils, all began to form, as soon as the +Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church. And as it was +natural that her monarchical power should display itself when the Empire +became Christian, so was it natural also that further developments of +that power should take place when that Empire fell. Moreover, when the +power of the Holy See began to exert itself, disturbance and collision +would be the necessary consequence. Of the Temple of Solomon, it was +said that "neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in +the house, while it was in building." This is a type of the Church +above; it was otherwise with the Church below, whether in the instance +of Popes or Apostles. In either case, a new power had to be defined; as +St. Paul had to plead, nay, to strive for his apostolic authority, and +enjoined St. Timothy, as Bishop of Ephesus, to let no man despise him: +so Popes too have not therefore been ambitious because they did not +establish their authority without a struggle. It was natural that +Polycrates should oppose St. Victor; and natural too that St. Cyprian +should both extol the See of St. Peter, yet resist it when he thought it +went beyond its province. And at a later day it was natural that +Emperors should rise in indignation against it; and natural, on the +other hand, that it should take higher ground with a younger power than +it had taken with an elder and time-honoured. + + +6. + +We may follow Barrow here without reluctance, except in his imputation +of motives. + +"In the first times," he says, "while the Emperors were pagans, their +[the Popes'] pretences were suited to their condition, and could not +soar high; they were not then so mad as to pretend to any temporal +power, and a pittance of spiritual eminency did content them." + +Again: "The state of the most primitive Church did not well admit such +an universal sovereignty. For that did consist of small bodies +incoherently situated, and scattered about in very distant places, and +consequently unfit to be modelled into one political society, or to be +governed by one head, especially considering their condition under +persecution and poverty. What convenient resort for direction or justice +could a few distressed Christians in Egypt, Ethiopia, Parthia, India, +Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Cappadocia, and other parts, have to Rome!" + +Again: "Whereas no point avowed by Christians could be so apt to raise +offence and jealousy in pagans against our religion as this, which +setteth up a power of so vast extent and huge influence; whereas no +novelty could be more surprising or startling than the creation of an +universal empire over the consciences and religious practices of men; +whereas also this doctrine could not be but very conspicuous and glaring +in ordinary practice, it is prodigious that all pagans should not loudly +exclaim against it," that is, on the supposition that the Papal power +really was then in actual exercise. + +And again: "It is most prodigious that, in the disputes managed by the +Fathers against heretics, the Gnostics, Valentinians, &c., they should +not, even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence of the +universal pastor and judge, as a most evidently conclusive argument, as +the most efficacious and compendious method of convincing and silencing +them." + +Once more: "Even Popes themselves have shifted their pretences, and +varied in style, according to the different circumstances of time, and +their variety of humours, designs, interests. In time of prosperity, and +upon advantage, when they might safely do it, any Pope almost would talk +high and assume much to himself; but when they were low, or stood in +fear of powerful contradiction, even the boldest Popes would speak +submissively or moderately."[153:1] + +On the whole, supposing the power to be divinely bestowed, yet in the +first instance more or less dormant, a history could not be traced out +more probable, more suitable to that hypothesis, than the actual course +of the controversy which took place age after age upon the Papal +supremacy. + + +7. + +It will be said that all this is a theory. Certainly it is: it is a +theory to account for facts as they lie in the history, to account for +so much being told us about the Papal authority in early times, and not +more; a theory to reconcile what is and what is not recorded about it; +and, which is the principal point, a theory to connect the words and +acts of the Ante-nicene Church with that antecedent probability of a +monarchical principle in the Divine Scheme, and that actual +exemplification of it in the fourth century, which forms their +presumptive interpretation. All depends on the strength of that +presumption. Supposing there be otherwise good reason for saying that +the Papal Supremacy is part of Christianity, there is nothing in the +early history of the Church to contradict it. + + +8. + +It follows to inquire in what this presumption consists? It has, as I +have said, two parts, the antecedent probability of a Popedom, and the +actual state of the Post-nicene Church. The former of these reasons has +unavoidably been touched upon in what has preceded. It is the absolute +need of a monarchical power in the Church which is our ground for +anticipating it. A political body cannot exist without government, and +the larger is the body the more concentrated must the government be. If +the whole of Christendom is to form one Kingdom, one head is essential; +at least this is the experience of eighteen hundred years. As the Church +grew into form, so did the power of the Pope develope; and wherever the +Pope has been renounced, decay and division have been the consequence. +We know of no other way of preserving the _Sacramentum Unitatis_, but a +centre of unity. The Nestorians have had their "Catholicus;" the +Lutherans of Prussia have their general superintendent; even the +Independents, I believe, have had an overseer in their Missions. The +Anglican Church affords an observable illustration of this doctrine. As +her prospects have opened and her communion extended, the See of +Canterbury has become the natural centre of her operations. It has at +the present time jurisdiction in the Mediterranean, at Jerusalem, in +Hindostan, in North America, at the Antipodes. It has been the organ of +communication, when a Prime Minister would force the Church to a +redistribution of her property, or a Protestant Sovereign abroad would +bring her into friendly relations with his own communion. Eyes have been +lifted up thither in times of perplexity; thither have addresses been +directed and deputations sent. Thence issue the legal decisions, or the +declarations in Parliament, or the letters, or the private +interpositions, which shape the fortunes of the Church, and are the +moving influence within her separate dioceses. It must be so; no Church +can do without its Pope. We see before our eyes the centralizing process +by which the See of St. Peter became the Sovereign Head of Christendom. + +If such be the nature of the case, it is impossible, if we may so speak +reverently, that an Infinite Wisdom, which sees the end from the +beginning, in decreeing the rise of an universal Empire, should not have +decreed the development of a sovereign ruler. + +Moreover, all this must be viewed in the light of the general +probability, so much insisted on above, that doctrine cannot but +develope as time proceeds and need arises, and that its developments are +parts of the Divine system, and that therefore it is lawful, or rather +necessary, to interpret the words and deeds of the earlier Church by the +determinate teaching of the later. + + +9. + +And, on the other hand, as the counterpart of these anticipations, we +are met by certain announcements in Scripture, more or less obscure and +needing a comment, and claimed by the Papal See as having their +fulfilment in itself. Such are the words, "Thou art Peter, and upon this +rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail +against it, and I will give unto Thee the Keys of the Kingdom of +Heaven." Again: "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." And "Satan hath desired +to have you; I have prayed for thee, and when thou art converted, +strengthen thy brethren." Such, too, are various other indications of +the Divine purpose as regards St. Peter, too weak in themselves to be +insisted on separately, but not without a confirmatory power; such as +his new name, his walking on the sea, his miraculous draught of fishes +on two occasions, our Lord's preaching out of his boat, and His +appearing first to him after His resurrection. + +It should be observed, moreover, that a similar promise was made by the +patriarch Jacob to Judah: "Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: +the sceptre shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come;" yet this +promise was not fulfilled for perhaps eight hundred years, during which +long period we hear little or nothing of the tribe descended from him. +In like manner, "On this rock I will build My Church," "I give unto thee +the Keys," "Feed My sheep," are not precepts merely, but prophecies and +promises, promises to be accomplished by Him who made them, prophecies +to be fulfilled according to the need, and to be interpreted by the +event,--by the history, that is, of the fourth and fifth centuries, +though they had a partial fulfilment even in the preceding period, and a +still more noble development in the middle ages. + + +10. + +A partial fulfilment, or at least indications of what was to be, there +certainly were in the first age. Faint one by one, at least they are +various, and are found in writers of many times and countries, and +thereby illustrative of each other, and forming a body of proof. Thus +St. Clement, in the name of the Church of Rome, writes to the +Corinthians, when they were without a bishop; St. Ignatius of Antioch +addresses the Roman Church, out of the Churches to which he writes, as +"the Church, which has in dignity the first seat, of the city of the +Romans,"[157:1] and implies that it was too high for his directing as +being the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Polycarp of Smyrna has +recourse to the Bishop of Rome on the question of Easter; the heretic +Marcion, excommunicated in Pontus, betakes himself to Rome; Soter, +Bishop of Rome, sends alms, according to the custom of his Church, to +the Churches throughout the empire, and, in the words of Eusebius, +"affectionately exhorted those who came to Rome, as a father his +children;" the Montanists from Phrygia come to Rome to gain the +countenance of its Bishop; Praxeas, from Asia, attempts the like, and +for a while is successful; St. Victor, Bishop of Rome, threatens to +excommunicate the Asian Churches; St. Irenæus speaks of Rome as "the +greatest Church, the most ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded and +established by Peter and Paul," appeals to its tradition, not in +contrast indeed, but in preference to that of other Churches, and +declares that "to this Church, every Church, that is, the faithful from +every side must resort" or "must agree with it, _propter potiorem +principalitatem_." "O Church, happy in its position," says Tertullian, +"into which the Apostles poured out, together with their blood, their +whole doctrine;" and elsewhere, though in indignation and bitter +mockery, he calls the Pope "the Pontifex Maximus, the Bishop of +Bishops." The presbyters of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, +complain of his doctrine to St. Dionysius of Rome; the latter +expostulates with him, and he explains. The Emperor Aurelian leaves "to +the Bishops of Italy and of Rome" the decision, whether or not Paul of +Samosata shall be dispossessed of the see-house at Antioch; St. Cyprian +speaks of Rome as "the See of Peter and the principal Church, whence +the unity of the priesthood took its rise, . . whose faith has been +commended by the Apostles, to whom faithlessness can have no access;" +St. Stephen refuses to receive St. Cyprian's deputation, and separates +himself from various Churches of the East; Fortunatus and Felix, deposed +by St. Cyprian, have recourse to Rome; Basilides, deposed in Spain, +betakes himself to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen. + + +11. + +St. Cyprian had his quarrel with the Roman See, but it appears he allows +to it the title of the "Cathedra Petri," and even Firmilian is a witness +that Rome claimed it. In the fourth and fifth centuries this title and +its logical results became prominent. Thus St. Julius (A.D. 342) +remonstrated by letter with the Eusebian party for "proceeding on their +own authority as they pleased," and then, as he says, "desiring to +obtain our concurrence in their decisions, though we never condemned +[Athanasius]. Not so have the constitutions of Paul, not so have the +traditions of the Fathers directed; this is another form of procedure, a +novel practice. . . . For what we have received from the blessed Apostle +Peter, that I signify to you; and I should not have written this, as +deeming that these things are manifest unto all men, had not these +proceedings so disturbed us."[158:1] St. Athanasius, by preserving this +protest, has given it his sanction. Moreover, it is referred to by +Socrates; and his account of it has the more force, because he happens +to be incorrect in the details, and therefore did not borrow it from +St. Athanasius: "Julius wrote back," he says, "that they acted against +the Canons, because they had not called him to the Council, the +Ecclesiastical Canon commanding that the Churches ought not to make +Canons beside the will of the Bishop of Rome."[159:1] And Sozomen: "It +was a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid whatever was transacted beside +the will of the Bishop of the Romans."[159:2] On the other hand, the +heretics themselves, whom St. Julius withstands, are obliged to +acknowledge that Rome was "the School of the Apostles and the Metropolis +of orthodoxy from the beginning;" and two of their leaders (Western +Bishops indeed) some years afterwards recanted their heresy before the +Pope in terms of humble confession. + + +12. + +Another Pope, St. Damasus, in his letter addressed to the Eastern +Bishops against Apollinaris (A.D. 382), calls those Bishops his sons. +"In that your charity pays the due reverence to the Apostolical See, ye +profit yourselves the most, most honoured sons. For if, placed as we are +in that Holy Church, in which the Holy Apostle sat and taught, how it +becometh us to direct the helm to which we have succeeded, we +nevertheless confess ourselves unequal to that honour; yet do we +therefore study as we may, if so be we may be able to attain to the +glory of his blessedness."[159:3] "I speak," says St. Jerome to the same +St. Damasus, "with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of +the Cross. I, following no one as my chief but Christ, am associated in +communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. I know +that on that rock the Church is built. Whosoever shall eat the Lamb +outside this House is profane; if a man be not in the Ark of Noe, he +shall perish when the flood comes in its power."[160:1] St. Basil +entreats St. Damasus to send persons to arbitrate between the Churches +of Asia Minor, or at least to make a report on the authors of their +troubles, and name the party with which the Pope should hold communion. +"We are in no wise asking anything new," he proceeds, "but what was +customary with blessed and religious men of former times, and especially +with yourself. For we know, by tradition of our fathers of whom we have +inquired, and from the information of writings still preserved among us, +that Dionysius, that most blessed Bishop, while he was eminent among you +for orthodoxy and other virtues, sent letters of visitation to our +Church at Cæsarea, and of consolation to our fathers, with ransomers of +our brethren from captivity." In like manner, Ambrosiaster, a Pelagian +in his doctrine, which here is not to the purpose, speaks of the "Church +being God's house, whose ruler at this time is Damasus."[160:2] + + +13. + +"We bear," says St. Siricius, another Pope (A.D. 385), "the burden of +all who are laden; yea, rather the blessed Apostle Peter beareth them in +us, who, as we trust, in all things protects and defends us the heirs of +his government."[160:3] And he in turn is confirmed by St. Optatus. "You +cannot deny your knowledge," says the latter to Parmenian, the Donatist, +"that, in the city Rome, on Peter first hath an Episcopal See been +conferred, in which Peter sat, the head of all the Apostles, . . . in +which one See unity might be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles +should support their respective Sees; in order that he might be at once +a schismatic and a sinner, who against that one See (_singularem_) +placed a second. Therefore that one See (_unicam_), which is the first +of the Church's prerogatives, Peter filled first; to whom succeeded +Linus; to Linus, Clement; to Clement, &c., &c. . . . to Damasus, +Siricius, who at this day is associated with us (_socius_), together +with whom the whole world is in accordance with us, in the one bond of +communion, by the intercourse of letters of peace."[161:1] + +Another Pope: "Diligently and congruously do ye consult the _arcana_ of +the Apostolical dignity," says St. Innocent to the Council of Milevis +(A.D. 417), "the dignity of him on whom, beside those things which are +without, falls the care of all the Churches; following the form of the +ancient rule, which you know, as well as I, has been preserved always by +the whole world."[161:2] Here the Pope appeals, as it were, to the Rule +of Vincentius; while St. Augustine bears witness that he did not outstep +his Prerogative, for, giving an account of this and another letter, he +says, "He [the Pope] answered us as to all these matters as it was +religious and becoming in the Bishop of the Apostolic See."[161:3] + +Another Pope: "We have especial anxiety about all persons," says St. +Celestine (A.D. 425), to the Illyrian Bishops, "on whom, in the holy +Apostle Peter, Christ conferred the necessity of making all men our +care, when He gave him the Keys of opening and shutting." And St. +Prosper, his contemporary, confirms him, when he calls Rome "the seat of +Peter, which, being made to the world the head of pastoral honour, +possesses by religion what it does not possess by arms;" and Vincent of +Lerins, when he calls the Pope "the head of the world."[161:4] + + +14. + +Another Pope: "Blessed Peter," says St. Leo (A.D. 440, &c.), "hath not +deserted the helm of the Church which he had assumed. . . His power +lives and his authority is pre-eminent in his See."[162:1] "That +immoveableness, which, from the Rock Christ, he, when made a rock, +received, has been communicated also to his heirs."[162:2] And as St. +Athanasius and the Eusebians, by their contemporary testimonies, confirm +St. Julius; and St. Jerome, St. Basil; and Ambrosiaster, St. Damasus; +and St. Optatus, St. Siricius; and St. Augustine, St. Innocent; and St. +Prosper and Vincent, St. Celestine; so do St. Peter Chrysologus, and the +Council of Chalcedon confirm St. Leo. "Blessed Peter," says Chrysologus, +"who lives and presides in his own See, supplies truth of faith to those +who seek it."[162:3] And the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, addressing +St. Leo respecting Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria: "He extends his +madness even against him to whom the custody of the vineyard has been +committed by the Saviour, that is, against thy Apostolical +holiness."[162:4] But the instance of St. Leo will occur again in a +later Chapter. + + +15. + +The acts of the fourth century speak as strongly as its words. We may +content ourselves here with Barrow's admissions:-- + +"The Pope's power," he says, "was much amplified by the importunity of +persons condemned or extruded from their places, whether upon just +accounts, or wrongfully, and by faction; for they, finding no other more +hopeful place of refuge and redress, did often apply to him: for what +will not men do, whither will not they go in straits? Thus did Marcion +go to Rome, and sue for admission to communion there. So Fortunatus and +Felicissimus in St. Cyprian, being condemned in Afric, did fly to Rome +for shelter; of which absurdity St. Cyprian doth so complain. So +likewise Martianus and Basilides in St. Cyprian, being outed of their +Sees for having lapsed from the Christian profession, did fly to Stephen +for succour, to be restored. So Maximus, the Cynic, went to Rome, to get +a confirmation of his election at Constantinople. So Marcellus, being +rejected for heterodoxy, went thither to get attestation to his +orthodoxy, of which St. Basil complaineth. So Apiarus, being condemned +in Afric for his crimes, did appeal to Rome. And, on the other side, +Athanasius being with great partiality condemned by the Synod of Tyre; +Paulus and other bishops being extruded from their sees for orthodoxy; +St. Chrysostom being condemned and expelled by Theophilus and his +complices; Flavianus being deposed by Dioscorus and the Ephesine synod; +Theodoret being condemned by the same; did cry out for help to Rome. +Chelidonius, Bishop of Besançon, being deposed by Hilarius of Arles for +crime, did fly to Pope Leo." + +Again: "Our adversaries do oppose some instances of popes meddling in +the constitution of bishops; as, Pope Leo I. saith, that Anatolius did +'by the favour of his assent obtain the bishopric of Constantinople.' +The same Pope is alleged as having confirmed Maximus of Antioch. The +same doth write to the Bishop of Thessalonica, his vicar, that he should +'confirm the elections of bishops by his authority.' He also confirmed +Donatus, an African bishop:--'We will that Donatus preside over the +Lord's flock, upon condition that he remember to send us an account of +his faith.' . . Pope Damasus did confirm the ordination of Peter +Alexandrinus." + + +16. + +And again: "The Popes indeed in the fourth century began to practise a +fine trick, very serviceable to the enlargement of their power; which +was to confer on certain bishops, as occasion served, or for +continuance, the title of their vicar or lieutenant, thereby pretending +to impart authority to them; whereby they were enabled for performance +of divers things, which otherwise by their own episcopal or +metropolitical power they could not perform. By which device they did +engage such bishops to such a dependence on them, whereby they did +promote the papal authority in provinces, to the oppression of the +ancient rights and liberties of bishops and synods, doing what they +pleased under pretence of this vast power communicated to them; and for +fear of being displaced, or out of affection to their favourer, doing +what might serve to advance the papacy. Thus did Pope Celestine +constitute Cyril in his room. Pope Leo appointed Anatolius of +Constantinople; Pope Felix, Acacius of Constantinople. . . . . Pope +Simplicius to Zeno, Bishop of Seville: 'We thought it convenient that +you should be held up by the vicariat authority of our see.' So did +Siricius and his successors constitute the bishops of Thessalonica to be +their vicars in the diocese of Illyricum, wherein being then a member of +the western empire they had caught a special jurisdiction; to which Pope +Leo did refer in those words, which sometimes are impertinently alleged +with reference to all bishops, but concern only Anastasius, Bishop of +Thessalonica: 'We have entrusted thy charity to be in our stead; so that +thou art called into part of the solicitude, not into plenitude of the +authority.' So did Pope Zosimus bestow a like pretence of vicarious +power upon the Bishop of Arles, which city was the seat of the temporal +exarch in Gaul."[164:1] + + +17. + +More ample testimony for the Papal Supremacy, as now professed by Roman +Catholics, is scarcely necessary than what is contained in these +passages; the simple question is, whether the clear light of the fourth +and fifth centuries may be fairly taken to interpret to us the dim, +though definite, outlines traced in the preceding. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[123:1] Wood's Mechanics, p. 31. + +[124:1] Authent. N. T. Tr. p. 237. + +[124:2] According to Less. + +[124:3] Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 78 [Discuss. iii. 6, p. 207]. + +[125:1] [Ibid. p. 209. These results are taken from Less, and are +practically accurate.] + +[126:1] No. 85 [Discuss. p. 236]. + +[132:1] Ep. 93. I have thought it best to give an over-literal +translation. + +[132:2] Vid. Concil. Bracar. ap. Aguirr. Conc. Hisp. t. ii. p. 676. +"That the cup was not administered at the same time is not so clear; but +from the tenor of this first Canon in the Acts of the Third Council of +Braga, which condemns the notion that the Host should be steeped in the +chalice, we have no doubt that the wine was withheld from the laity. +Whether certain points of doctrine are or are not found in the +Scriptures is no concern of the historian; all that he has to do is +religiously to follow his guides, to suppress or distrust nothing +through partiality."--_Dunham_, _Hist. of Spain and Port._ vol. i. p. +204. If _pro complemento communionis_ in the Canon merely means "for the +Cup," at least the Cup is spoken of as a complement; the same view is +contained in the "confirmation of the Eucharist," as spoken of in St. +German's life. Vid. Lives of Saints, No. 9, p. 28. + +[132:3] Niceph. Hist. xviii. 45. Renaudot, however, tells us of two +Bishops at the time when the schism was at length healed. Patr. Al. Jac. +p. 248. However, these had been consecrated by priests, p. 145. + +[133:1] Vid. Bing. Ant. xv. 4, § 7; and Fleury, Hist. xxvi. 50, note +_g_. + +[135:1] Kaye's Justin, p. 59, &c. + +[135:2] Kaye's Clement, p. 335. + +[135:3] p. 341. + +[135:4] Ib. 342. + +[136:1] Reliqu. Sacr. t. ii. p. 469, 470. + +[137:1] [This subject is more exactly and carefully treated in Tracts +Theol. and Eccles. pp. 192-226.] + +[138:1] [They also had a _cultus_ in themselves, and specially when a +greater Presence did _not_ overshadow them. _Vid._ Via Media, vol. ii. +art. iv. 8, note 1.] + +[139:1] Exod. xxxiii. 10. + +[139:2] Dan. x. 5-17. + +[141:1] Athan. Orat. i. 42, Oxf. tr. + +[141:2] [_Vid. supr._ p. 138, note 8.] + +[142:1] Athan. ibid. + +[142:2] And so Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine: "The all-holy choir +of God's perpetual virgins, he was used almost to worship (σέβων), +believing that that God, to whom they had consecrated themselves, was an +inhabitant in the souls of such." Vit. Const. iv. 28. + +[146:1] Hær. 78, 18. + +[148:1] Aug. de Nat. et Grat. 42. Ambros. Ep. 1, 49, § 2. In Psalm 118, +v. 3, de Instit. Virg. 50. Hier. in Is. xi. 1, contr. Pelag. ii. 4. Nil. +Ep. i. p. 267. Antioch. ap. Cyr. de Rect. Fid. p. 49. Ephr. Opp. Syr. t. +3, p. 607. Max. Hom. 45. Procl. Orat. vi. pp. 225-228, p. 60, p. 179, +180, ed. 1630. Theodot. ap. Amphiloch. pp. 39, &c. Fulgent. Serm. 3, p. +125. Chrysol. Serm. 142. A striking passage from another Sermon of the +last-mentioned author, on the words "She cast in her mind what manner of +salutation," &c., may be added: "Quantus sit Deus satis ignorat ille, +qui hujus Virginis mentem non stupet, animum non miratur. Pavet cœlum, +tremunt Angeli, creatura non sustinet, natura non sufficit; et una +puella sic Deum in sui pectoris capit, recipit, oblectat hospitio, ut +pacem terris, cœlis gloriam, salutem perditis, vitam mortuis, terrenis +cum cœlestibus parentelam, ipsius Dei cum carne commercium, pro ipsâ +domûs exigat pensione, pro ipsius uteri mercede conquirat," &c. Serm. +140. [St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Alexandria sometimes +speak, it is true, in a different tone; on this subject vid. "Letter to +Dr. Pusey," Note iii., Diff. of Angl. vol. 2.] + +[153:1] Pope's Suprem. ed. 1836, pp. 26, 27, 157, 171, 222. + +[157:1] ἥτις καὶ προκάθηται ἐν τόπῳ χωρίου Ῥωμαίων. + +[158:1] Athan. Hist. Tracts. Oxf. tr. p. 56. + +[159:1] Hist. ii. 17. + +[159:2] Hist. iii. 10. + +[159:3] Theod. Hist. v. 10. + +[160:1] Coustant, Epp. Pont. p. 546. + +[160:2] In 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15. + +[160:3] Coustant, p. 624. + +[161:1] ii. 3. + +[161:2] Coustant, pp. 896, 1064. + +[161:3] Ep. 186, 2. + +[161:4] De Ingrat. 2. Common. 41. + +[162:1] Serm. De Natal. iii. 3. + +[162:2] Ibid. v. 4. + +[162:3] Ep. ad Eutych. fin. + +[162:4] Concil. Hard. t. ii. p. 656. + +[164:1] Barrow on the Supremacy, ed. 1836, pp. 263, 331, 384. + + + + +PART II. + +DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS + +VIEWED RELATIVELY TO DOCTRINAL + +CORRUPTIONS. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +GENUINE DEVELOPMENTS CONTRASTED WITH CORRUPTIONS. + + +I have been engaged in drawing out the positive and direct argument in +proof of the intimate connexion, or rather oneness, with primitive +Apostolic teaching, of the body of doctrine known at this day by +the name of Catholic, and professed substantially both by Eastern +and Western Christendom. That faith is undeniably the historical +continuation of the religious system, which bore the name of Catholic in +the eighteenth century, in the seventeenth, in the sixteenth, and so +back in every preceding century, till we arrive at the first;--undeniably +the successor, the representative, the heir of the religion of Cyprian, +Basil, Ambrose and Augustine. The only question that can be raised is +whether the said Catholic faith, as now held, is logically, as well as +historically, the representative of the ancient faith. This then is the +subject, to which I have as yet addressed myself, and I have maintained +that modern Catholicism is nothing else but simply the legitimate growth +and complement, that is, the natural and necessary development, of the +doctrine of the early church, and that its divine authority is included +in the divinity of Christianity. + + +2. + +So far I have gone, but an important objection presents itself for +distinct consideration. It may be said in answer to me that it is not +enough that a certain large system of doctrine, such as that which goes +by the name of Catholic, should admit of being referred to beliefs, +opinions, and usages which prevailed among the first Christians, in +order to my having a logical right to include a reception of the later +teaching in the reception of the earlier; that an intellectual +development may be in one sense natural, and yet untrue to its original, +as diseases come of nature, yet are the destruction, or rather the +negation of health; that the causes which stimulate the growth of ideas +may also disturb and deform them; and that Christianity might indeed +have been intended by its Divine Author for a wide expansion of the +ideas proper to it, and yet this great benefit hindered by the evil +birth of cognate errors which acted as its counterfeit; in a word, that +what I have called developments in the Roman Church are nothing more or +less than what used to be called her corruptions; and that new names do +not destroy old grievances. + +This is what may be said, and I acknowledge its force: it becomes +necessary in consequence to assign certain characteristics of faithful +developments, which none but faithful developments have, and the +presence of which serves as a test to discriminate between them and +corruptions. This I at once proceed to do, and I shall begin by +determining what a corruption is, and why it cannot rightly be called, +and how it differs from, a development. + + +3. + +To find then what a corruption or perversion of the truth is, let us +inquire what the word means, when used literally of material substances. +Now it is plain, first of all, that a corruption is a word attaching to +organized matters only; a stone may be crushed to powder, but it cannot +be corrupted. Corruption, on the contrary, is the breaking up of life, +preparatory to its termination. This resolution of a body into its +component parts is the stage before its dissolution; it begins when life +has reached its perfection, and it is the sequel, or rather the +continuation, of that process towards perfection, being at the same time +the reversal and undoing of what went before. Till this point of +regression is reached, the body has a function of its own, and a +direction and aim in its action, and a nature with laws; these it is now +losing, and the traits and tokens of former years; and with them its +vigour and powers of nutrition, of assimilation, and of self-reparation. + + +4. + +Taking this analogy as a guide, I venture to set down seven Notes of +varying cogency, independence and applicability, to discriminate healthy +developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as +follows:--There is no corruption if it retains one and the same type, +the same principles, the same organization; if its beginnings anticipate +its subsequent phases, and its later phenomena protect and subserve its +earlier; if it has a power of assimilation and revival, and a vigorous +action from first to last. On these tests I shall now enlarge, nearly in +the order in which I have enumerated them. + + +SECTION I. + +FIRST NOTE OF A GENUINE DEVELOPMENT. + +PRESERVATION OF TYPE. + +This is readily suggested by the analogy of physical growth, which is +such that the parts and proportions of the developed form, however +altered, correspond to those which belong to its rudiments. The adult +animal has the same make, as it had on its birth; young birds do not +grow into fishes, nor does the child degenerate into the brute, wild or +domestic, of which he is by inheritance lord. Vincentius of Lerins +adopts this illustration in distinct reference to Christian doctrine. +"Let the soul's religion," he says "imitate the law of the body, which, +as years go on developes indeed and opens out its due proportions, and +yet remains identically what it was. Small are a baby's limbs, a youth's +are larger, yet they are the same."[172:1] + + +2. + +In like manner every calling or office has its own type, which those who +fill it are bound to maintain; and to deviate from the type in any +material point is to relinquish the calling. Thus both Chaucer and +Goldsmith have drawn pictures of a true parish priest; these differ in +details, but on the whole they agree together, and are one in such +sense, that sensuality, or ambition, must be considered a forfeiture of +that high title. Those magistrates, again, are called "corrupt," who are +guided in their judgments by love of lucre or respect of persons, for +the administration of justice is their essential function. Thus +collegiate or monastic bodies lose their claim to their endowments or +their buildings, as being relaxed and degenerate, if they neglect their +statutes or their Rule. Thus, too, in political history, a mayor of the +palace, such as he became in the person of Pepin, was no faithful +development of the office he filled, as originally intended and +established. + + +3. + +In like manner, it has been argued by a late writer, whether fairly or +not does not interfere with the illustration, that the miraculous vision +and dream of the Labarum could not have really taken place, as reported +by Eusebius, because it is counter to the original type of Christianity. +"For the first time," he says, on occasion of Constantine's introduction +of the standard into his armies, "the meek and peaceful Jesus became a +God of battle, and the Cross, the holy sign of Christian Redemption, a +banner of bloody strife. . . . . This was the first advance to the +military Christianity of the middle ages, a modification of the pure +religion of the Gospel, if directly opposed to its genuine principles, +still apparently indispensable to the social progress of men."[173:1] + +On the other hand, a popular leader may go through a variety of +professions, he may court parties and break with them, he may contradict +himself in words, and undo his own measures, yet there may be a steady +fulfilment of certain objects, or adherence to certain plain doctrines, +which gives a unity to his career, and impresses on beholders an image +of directness and large consistency which shows a fidelity to his type +from first to last. + + +4. + +However, as the last instances suggest to us, this unity of type, +characteristic as it is of faithful developments, must not be pressed to +the extent of denying all variation, nay, considerable alteration of +proportion and relation, as time goes on, in the parts or aspects of an +idea. Great changes in outward appearance and internal harmony occur in +the instance of the animal creation itself. The fledged bird differs +much from its rudimental form in the egg. The butterfly is the +development, but not in any sense the image, of the grub. The whale +claims a place among mammalia, though we might fancy that, as in the +child's game of catscradle, some strange introsusception had been +permitted, to make it so like, yet so contrary, to the animals with +which it is itself classed. And, in like manner, if beasts of prey were +once in paradise, and fed upon grass, they must have presented bodily +phenomena very different from the structure of muscles, claws, teeth, +and viscera which now fit them for a carnivorous existence. Eutychius, +Patriarch of Constantinople, on his death-bed, grasped his own hand and +said, "I confess that in this flesh we shall all rise again;" yet flesh +and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and a glorified body has +attributes incompatible with its present condition on earth. + + +5. + +More subtle still and mysterious are the variations which are consistent +or not inconsistent with identity in political and religious +developments. The Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity has ever been +accused by heretics of interfering with that of the Divine Unity out of +which it grew, and even believers will at first sight consider that it +tends to obscure it. Yet Petavius says, "I will affirm, what perhaps +will surprise the reader, that that distinction of Persons which, in +regard to _proprietates_ is in reality most great, is so far from +disparaging the Unity and Simplicity of God that this very real +distinction especially avails for the doctrine that God is One and most +Simple."[174:1] + +Again, Arius asserted that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was +not able to comprehend the First, whereas Eunomius's characteristic +tenet was in an opposite direction, viz., that not only the Son, but +that all men could comprehend God; yet no one can doubt that Eunomianism +was a true development, not a corruption of Arianism. + +The same man may run through various philosophies or beliefs, which are +in themselves irreconcilable, without inconsistency, since in him they +may be nothing more than accidental instruments or expressions of what +he is inwardly from first to last. The political doctrines of the modern +Tory resemble those of the primitive Whig; yet few will deny that the +Whig and Tory characters have each a discriminating type. Calvinism has +changed into Unitarianism: yet this need not be called a corruption, +even if it be not, strictly speaking, a development; for Harding, in +controversy with Jewell, surmised the coming change three centuries +since, and it has occurred not in one country, but in many. + + +6. + +The history of national character supplies an analogy, rather than an +instance strictly in point; yet there is so close a connexion between +the development of minds and of ideas that it is allowable to refer to +it here. Thus we find England of old the most loyal supporter, and +England of late the most jealous enemy, of the Holy See. As great a +change is exhibited in France, once the eldest born of the Church and +the flower of her knighthood, now democratic and lately infidel. Yet, in +neither nation, can these great changes be well called corruptions. + +Or again, let us reflect on the ethical vicissitudes of the chosen +people. How different is their grovelling and cowardly temper on leaving +Egypt from the chivalrous spirit, as it may be called, of the age of +David, or, again, from the bloody fanaticism which braved Titus and +Hadrian! In what contrast is that impotence of mind which gave way at +once, and bowed the knee, at the very sight of a pagan idol, with the +stern iconoclasm and bigoted nationality of later Judaism! How startling +the apparent absence of what would be called talent in this people +during their supernatural Dispensation, compared with the gifts of mind +which various witnesses assign to them now! + + +7. + +And, in like manner, ideas may remain, when the expression of them is +indefinitely varied; and we cannot determine whether a professed +development is truly such or not, without further knowledge than an +experience of the mere fact of this variation. Nor will our instinctive +feelings serve as a criterion. It must have been an extreme shock to St. +Peter to be told he must slay and eat beasts, unclean as well as clean, +though such a command was implied already in that faith which he held +and taught; a shock, which a single effort, or a short period, or the +force of reason would not suffice to overcome. Nay, it may happen that a +representation which varies from its original may be felt as more true +and faithful than one which has more pretensions to be exact. So it is +with many a portrait which is not striking: at first look, of course, it +disappoints us; but when we are familiar with it, we see in it what we +could not see at first, and prefer it, not to a perfect likeness, but to +many a sketch which is so precise as to be a caricature. + + +8. + +On the other hand, real perversions and corruptions are often not so +unlike externally to the doctrine from which they come, as are changes +which are consistent with it and true developments. When Rome changed +from a Republic to an Empire, it was a real alteration of polity, or +what may be called a corruption; yet in appearance the change was small. +The old offices or functions of government remained: it was only that +the Imperator, or Commander in Chief, concentrated them in his own +person. Augustus was Consul and Tribune, Supreme Pontiff and Censor, +and the Imperial rule was, in the words of Gibbon, "an absolute monarchy +disguised by the forms of a commonwealth." On the other hand, when the +dissimulation of Augustus was exchanged for the ostentation of +Dioclesian, the real alteration of constitution was trivial, but the +appearance of change was great. Instead of plain Consul, Censor, and +Tribune, Dioclesian became Dominus or King, assumed the diadem, and +threw around him the forms of a court. + +Nay, one cause of corruption in religion is the refusal to follow the +course of doctrine as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of +the past. Certainly: as we see conspicuously in the history of the +chosen race. The Samaritans who refused to add the Prophets to the Law, +and the Sadducees who denied a truth which was covertly taught in the +Book of Exodus, were in appearance only faithful adherents to the +primitive doctrine. Our Lord found His people precisians in their +obedience to the letter; He condemned them for not being led on to its +spirit, that is, to its developments. The Gospel is the development of +the Law; yet what difference seems wider than that which separates the +unbending rule of Moses from the "grace and truth" which "came by Jesus +Christ?" Samuel had of old time fancied that the tall Eliab was the +Lord's anointed; and Jesse had thought David only fit for the sheepcote; +and when the Great King came, He was "as a root out of a dry ground;" +but strength came out of weakness, and out of the strong sweetness. + +So it is in the case of our friends; the most obsequious are not always +the truest, and seeming cruelty is often genuine affection. We know the +conduct of the three daughters in the drama towards the old king. She +who had found her love "more richer than her tongue," and could not +"heave her heart into her mouth," was in the event alone true to her +father. + + +9. + +An idea then does not always bear about it the same external image; this +circumstance, however, has no force to weaken the argument for its +substantial identity, as drawn from its external sameness, when such +sameness remains. On the contrary, for that very reason, _unity of type_ +becomes so much the surer guarantee of the healthiness and soundness of +developments, when it is persistently preserved in spite of their number +or importance. + + +SECTION II. + +SECOND NOTE. CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES. + +As in mathematical creations figures are formed on distinct formulæ, +which are the laws under which they are developed, so it is in ethical +and political subjects. Doctrines expand variously according to the +mind, individual or social, into which they are received; and the +peculiarities of the recipient are the regulating power, the law, the +organization, or, as it may be called, the form of the development. The +life of doctrines may be said to consist in the law or principle which +they embody. + +Principles are abstract and general, doctrines relate to facts; +doctrines develope, and principles at first sight do not; doctrines grow +and are enlarged, principles are permanent; doctrines are intellectual, +and principles are more immediately ethical and practical. Systems live +in principles and represent doctrines. Personal responsibility is a +principle, the Being of a God is a doctrine; from that doctrine all +theology has come in due course, whereas that principle is not clearer +under the Gospel than in paradise, and depends, not on belief in an +Almighty Governor, but on conscience. + +Yet the difference between the two sometimes merely exists in our mode +of viewing them; and what is a doctrine in one philosophy is a principle +in another. Personal responsibility may be made a doctrinal basis, and +develope into Arminianism or Pelagianism. Again, it may be discussed +whether infallibility is a principle or a doctrine of the Church of +Rome, and dogmatism a principle or doctrine of Christianity. Again, +consideration for the poor is a doctrine of the Church considered as a +religious body, and a principle when she is viewed as a political power. + +Doctrines stand to principles, as the definitions to the axioms and +postulates of mathematics. Thus the 15th and 17th propositions of +Euclid's book I. are developments, not of the three first axioms, which +are required in the proof, but of the definition of a right angle. +Perhaps the perplexity, which arises in the mind of a beginner, on +learning the early propositions of the second book, arises from these +being more prominently exemplifications of axioms than developments of +definitions. He looks for developments from the definition of the +rectangle, and finds but various particular cases of the general truth, +that "the whole is equal to its parts." + + +2. + +It might be expected that the Catholic principles would be later in +development than the Catholic doctrines, inasmuch as they lie deeper in +the mind, and are assumptions rather than objective professions. This +has been the case. The Protestant controversy has mainly turned, or is +turning, on one or other of the principles of Catholicity; and to this +day the rule of Scripture Interpretation, the doctrine of Inspiration, +the relation of Faith to Reason, moral responsibility, private +judgment, inherent grace, the seat of infallibility, remain, I suppose, +more or less undeveloped, or, at least, undefined, by the Church. + +Doctrines stand to principles, if it may be said without fancifulness, +as fecundity viewed relatively to generation, though this analogy must +not be strained. Doctrines are developed by the operation of principles, +and develope variously according to those principles. Thus a belief in +the transitiveness of worldly goods leads the Epicurean to enjoyment, +and the ascetic to mortification; and, from their common doctrine of the +sinfulness of matter, the Alexandrian Gnostics became sensualists, and +the Syrian devotees. The same philosophical elements, received into a +certain sensibility or insensibility to sin and its consequences, leads +one mind to the Church of Rome; another to what, for want of a better +word, may be called Germanism. + +Again, religious investigation sometimes is conducted on the principle +that it is a duty "to follow and speak the truth," which really means +that it is no duty to fear error, or to consider what is safest, or to +shrink from scattering doubts, or to regard the responsibility of +misleading; and thus it terminates in heresy or infidelity, without any +blame to religious investigation in itself. + +Again, to take a different subject, what constitutes a chief interest of +dramatic compositions and tales, is to use external circumstances, which +may be considered their law of development, as a means of bringing out +into different shapes, and showing under new aspects, the personal +peculiarities of character, according as either those circumstances or +those peculiarities vary in the case of the personages introduced. + + +3. + +Principles are popularly said to develope when they are but exemplified; +thus the various sects of Protestantism, unconnected as they are with +each other, are called developments of the principle of Private +Judgment, of which really they are but applications and results. + +A development, to be faithful, must retain both the doctrine and the +principle with which it started. Doctrine without its correspondent +principle remains barren, if not lifeless, of which the Greek Church +seems an instance; or it forms those hollow professions which are +familiarly called "shams," as a zeal for an established Church and its +creed on merely conservative or temporal motives. Such, too, was the +Roman Constitution between the reigns of Augustus and Dioclesian. + +On the other hand, principle without its corresponding doctrine may be +considered as the state of religious minds in the heathen world, viewed +relatively to Revelation; that is, of the "children of God who are +scattered abroad." + +Pagans may have, heretics cannot have, the same principles as Catholics; +if the latter have the same, they are not real heretics, but in +ignorance. Principle is a better test of heresy than doctrine. Heretics +are true to their principles, but change to and fro, backwards and +forwards, in opinion; for very opposite doctrines may be +exemplifications of the same principle. Thus the Antiochenes and other +heretics sometimes were Arians, sometimes Sabellians, sometimes +Nestorians, sometimes Monophysites, as if at random, from fidelity to +their common principle, that there is no mystery in theology. Thus +Calvinists become Unitarians from the principle of private judgment. The +doctrines of heresy are accidents and soon run to an end; its principles +are everlasting. + +This, too, is often the solution of the paradox "Extremes meet," and of +the startling reactions which take place in individuals; viz., the +presence of some one principle or condition, which is dominant in their +minds from first to last. If one of two contradictory alternatives be +necessarily true on a certain hypothesis, then the denial of the one +leads, by mere logical consistency and without direct reasons, to a +reception of the other. Thus the question between the Church of Rome and +Protestantism falls in some minds into the proposition, "Rome is either +the pillar and ground of the Truth, or she is Antichrist;" in +proportion, then, as they revolt from considering her the latter are +they compelled to receive her as the former. Hence, too, men may pass +from infidelity to Rome, and from Rome to infidelity, from a conviction +in both courses that there is no tangible intellectual position between +the two. + +Protestantism, viewed in its more Catholic aspect, is doctrine without +active principle; viewed in its heretical, it is active principle +without doctrine. Many of its speakers, for instance, use eloquent and +glowing language about the Church and its characteristics: some of them +do not realize what they say, but use high words and general statements +about "the faith," and "primitive truth," and "schism," and "heresy," to +which they attach no definite meaning; while others speak of "unity," +"universality," and "Catholicity," and use the words in their own sense +and for their own ideas. + + +4. + +The science of grammar affords another instance of the existence of +special laws in the formation of systems. Some languages have more +elasticity than others, and greater capabilities; and the difficulty of +explaining the fact cannot lead us to doubt it. There are languages, for +instance, which have a capacity for compound words, which, we cannot +tell why, is in matter of fact denied to others. We feel the presence of +a certain character or genius in each, which determines its path and its +range; and to discover and enter into it is one part of refined +scholarship. And when particular writers, in consequence perhaps of +some theory, tax a language beyond its powers, the failure is +conspicuous. Very subtle, too, and difficult to draw out, are the +principles on which depends the formation of proper names in a +particular people. In works of fiction, names or titles, significant or +ludicrous, must be invented for the characters introduced; and some +authors excel in their fabrication, while others are equally +unfortunate. Foreign novels, perhaps, attempt to frame English surnames, +and signally fail; yet what every one feels to be the case, no one can +analyze: that is, our surnames are constructed on a law which is only +exhibited in particular instances, and which rules their formation on +certain, though subtle, determinations. + +And so in philosophy, the systems of physics or morals, which go by +celebrated names, proceed upon the assumption of certain conditions +which are necessary for every stage of their development. The Newtonian +theory of gravitation is based on certain axioms; for instance, that the +fewest causes assignable for phenomena are the true ones: and the +application of science to practical purposes depends upon the hypothesis +that what happens to-day will happen to-morrow. + +And so in military matters, the discovery of gunpowder developed the +science of attack and defence in a new instrumentality. Again, it is +said that when Napoleon began his career of victories, the enemy's +generals pronounced that his battles were fought against rule, and that +he ought not to be victorious. + + +5. + +So states have their respective policies, on which they move forward, +and which are the conditions of their well-being. Thus it is sometimes +said that the true policy of the American Union, or the law of its +prosperity, is not the enlargement of its territory, but the +cultivation of its internal resources. Thus Russia is said to be weak in +attack, strong in defence, and to grow, not by the sword, but by +diplomacy. Thus Islamism is said to be the form or life of the Ottoman, +and Protestantism of the British Empire, and the admission of European +ideas into the one, or of Catholic ideas into the other, to be the +destruction of the respective conditions of their power. Thus Augustus +and Tiberius governed by dissimulation; thus Pericles in his "Funeral +Oration" draws out the principles of the Athenian commonwealth, viz., +that it is carried on, not by formal and severe enactments, but by the +ethical character and spontaneous energy of the people. + +The political principles of Christianity, if it be right to use such +words of a divine polity, are laid down for us in the Sermon on the +Mount. Contrariwise to other empires, Christians conquer by yielding; +they gain influence by shrinking from it; they possess the earth by +renouncing it. Gibbon speaks of "the vices of the clergy" as being "to a +philosophic eye far less dangerous than their virtues."[184:1] + +Again, as to Judaism, it may be asked on what law it developed; that is, +whether Mahometanism may not be considered as a sort of Judaism, as +formed by the presence of a different class of influences. In this +contrast between them, perhaps it may be said that the expectation of a +Messiah was the principle or law which expanded the elements, almost +common to Judaism with Mahometanism, into their respective +characteristic shapes. + +One of the points of discipline to which Wesley attached most importance +was that of preaching early in the morning. This was his principle. In +Georgia, he began preaching at five o'clock every day, winter and +summer. "Early preaching," he said, "is the glory of the Methodists; +whenever this is dropt, they will dwindle away into nothing, they have +lost their first love, they are a fallen people." + + +6. + +Now, these instances show, as has been incidentally observed of some of +them, that the destruction of the special laws or principles of a +development is its corruption. Thus, as to nations, when we talk of the +spirit of a people being lost, we do not mean that this or that act has +been committed, or measure carried, but that certain lines of thought or +conduct by which it has grown great are abandoned. Thus the Roman Poets +consider their State in course of ruin because its _prisci mores_ and +_pietas_ were failing. And so we speak of countries or persons as being +in a false position, when they take up a course of policy, or assume a +profession, inconsistent with their natural interests or real character. +Judaism, again, was rejected when it rejected the Messiah. + +Thus the _continuity or the alteration of the principles_ on which an +idea has developed is a second mark of discrimination between a true +development and a corruption. + + +SECTION III. + +THIRD NOTE. POWER OF ASSIMILATION. + +In the physical world, whatever has life is characterized by growth, so +that in no respect to grow is to cease to live. It grows by taking into +its own substance external materials; and this absorption or +assimilation is completed when the materials appropriated come to belong +to it or enter into its unity. Two things cannot become one, except +there be a power of assimilation in one or the other. Sometimes +assimilation is effected only with an effort; it is possible to die of +repletion, and there are animals who lie torpid for a time under the +contest between the foreign substance and the assimilating power. And +different food is proper for different recipients. + +This analogy may be taken to illustrate certain peculiarities in the +growth or development in ideas, which were noticed in the first Chapter. +It is otherwise with mathematical and other abstract creations, which, +like the soul itself, are solitary and self-dependent; but doctrines and +views which relate to man are not placed in a void, but in the crowded +world, and make way for themselves by interpenetration, and develope by +absorption. Facts and opinions, which have hitherto been regarded in +other relations and grouped round other centres, henceforth are +gradually attracted to a new influence and subjected to a new sovereign. +They are modified, laid down afresh, thrust aside, as the case may be. A +new element of order and composition has come among them; and its life +is proved by this capacity of expansion, without disarrangement or +dissolution. An eclectic, conservative, assimilating, healing, moulding +process, a unitive power, is of the essence, and a third test, of a +faithful development. + + +2. + +Thus, a power of development is a proof of life, not only in its essay, +but especially in its success; for a mere formula either does not expand +or is shattered in expanding. A living idea becomes many, yet remains +one. + +The attempt at development shows the presence of a principle, and its +success the presence of an idea. Principles stimulate thought, and an +idea concentrates it. + +The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, like mathematical truth, +incorporated nothing from external sources. So far from the fact of such +incorporation implying corruption, as is sometimes supposed, development +is a process of incorporation. Mahometanism may be in external +developments scarcely more than a compound of other theologies, yet no +one would deny that there has been a living idea somewhere in a +religion, which has been so strong, so wide, so lasting a bond of union +in the history of the world. Why it has not continued to develope after +its first preaching, if this be the case, as it seems to be, cannot be +determined without a greater knowledge of that religion, and how far it +is merely political, how far theological, than we commonly possess. + + +3. + +In Christianity, opinion, while a raw material, is called philosophy or +scholasticism; when a rejected refuse, it is called heresy. + +Ideas are more open to an external bias in their commencement than +afterwards; hence the great majority of writers who consider the +Medieval Church corrupt, trace its corruption to the first four +centuries, not to what are called the dark ages. + +That an idea more readily coalesces with these ideas than with those +does not show that it has been unduly influenced, that is, corrupted by +them, but that it has an antecedent affinity to them. At least it shall +be assumed here that, when the Gospels speak of virtue going out of our +Lord, and of His healing with the clay which His lips had moistened, +they afford instances, not of a perversion of Christianity, but of +affinity to notions which were external to it; and that St. Paul was not +biassed by Orientalism, though he said, after the manner of some Eastern +sects, that it was "excellent not to touch a woman." + + +4. + +Thus in politics, too, ideas are sometimes proposed, discussed, +rejected, or adopted, as it may happen, and sometimes they are shown to +be unmeaning and impossible; sometimes they are true, but partially so, +or in subordination to other ideas, with which, in consequence, they are +as wholes or in part incorporated, as far as these have affinities to +them, the power to incorporate being thus recognized as a property of +life. Mr. Bentham's system was an attempt to make the circle of legal +and moral truths developments of certain principles of his own;--those +principles of his may, if it so happen, prove unequal to the weight of +truths which are eternal, and the system founded on them may break into +pieces; or again, a State may absorb certain of them, for which it has +affinity, that is, it may develope in Benthamism, yet remain in +substance what it was before. In the history of the French Revolution we +read of many middle parties, who attempted to form theories of +constitutions short of those which they would call extreme, and +successively failed from the want of power or reality in their +characteristic ideas. The Semi-arians attempted a middle way between +orthodoxy and heresy, but could not stand their ground; at length part +fell into Macedonianism, and part joined the Church. + + +5. + +The stronger and more living is an idea, that is, the more powerful hold +it exercises on the minds of men, the more able is it to dispense with +safeguards, and trust to itself against the danger of corruption. As +strong frames exult in their agility, and healthy constitutions throw +off ailments, so parties or schools that live can afford to be rash, and +will sometimes be betrayed into extravagances, yet are brought right by +their inherent vigour. On the other hand, unreal systems are commonly +decent externally. Forms, subscriptions, or Articles of religion are +indispensable when the principle of life is weakly. Thus Presbyterianism +has maintained its original theology in Scotland where legal +subscriptions are enforced, while it has run into Arianism or +Unitarianism where that protection is away. We have yet to see whether +the Free Kirk can keep its present theological ground. The Church of +Rome can consult expedience more freely than other bodies, as trusting +to her living tradition, and is sometimes thought to disregard principle +and scruple, when she is but dispensing with forms. Thus Saints are +often characterized by acts which are no pattern for others; and the +most gifted men are, by reason of their very gifts, sometimes led into +fatal inadvertences. Hence vows are the wise defence of unstable virtue, +and general rules the refuge of feeble authority. + +And so much may suffice on the _unitive power_ of faithful developments, +which constitutes their third characteristic. + + +SECTION IV. + +FOURTH NOTE. LOGICAL SEQUENCE. + +Logic is the organization of thought, and, as being such, is a security +for the faithfulness of intellectual developments; and the necessity of +using it is undeniable as far as this, that its rules must not be +transgressed. That it is not brought into exercise in every instance of +doctrinal development is owing to the varieties of mental constitution, +whether in communities or in individuals, with whom great truths or +seeming truths are lodged. The question indeed may be asked whether a +development can be other in any case than a logical operation; but, if +by this is meant a conscious reasoning from premisses to conclusion, of +course the answer must be in the negative. An idea under one or other +of its aspects grows in the mind by remaining there; it becomes familiar +and distinct, and is viewed in its relations; it leads to other aspects, +and these again to others, subtle, recondite, original, according to the +character, intellectual and moral, of the recipient; and thus a body of +thought is gradually formed without his recognizing what is going on +within him. And all this while, or at least from time to time, external +circumstances elicit into formal statement the thoughts which are coming +into being in the depths of his mind; and soon he has to begin to defend +them; and then again a further process must take place, of analyzing his +statements and ascertaining their dependence one on another. And thus he +is led to regard as consequences, and to trace to principles, what +hitherto he has discerned by a moral perception, and adopted on +sympathy; and logic is brought in to arrange and inculcate what no +science was employed in gaining. + +And so in the same way, such intellectual processes, as are carried on +silently and spontaneously in the mind of a party or school, of +necessity come to light at a later date, and are recognized, and their +issues are scientifically arranged. And then logic has the further +function of propagation; analogy, the nature of the case, antecedent +probability, application of principles, congruity, expedience, being +some of the methods of proof by which the development is continued from +mind to mind and established in the faith of the community. + +Yet even then the analysis is not made on a principle, or with any view +to its whole course and finished results. Each argument is brought for +an immediate purpose; minds develope step by step, without looking +behind them or anticipating their goal, and without either intention or +promise of forming a system. Afterwards, however, this logical character +which the whole wears becomes a test that the process has been a true +development, not a perversion or corruption, from its evident +naturalness; and in some cases from the gravity, distinctness, +precision, and majesty of its advance, and the harmony of its +proportions, like the tall growth, and graceful branching, and rich +foliage, of some vegetable production. + + +2. + +The process of development, thus capable of a logical expression, has +sometimes been invidiously spoken of as rationalism and contrasted with +faith. But, though a particular doctrine or opinion which is subjected +to development may happen to be rationalistic, and, as is the original, +such are its results: and though we may develope erroneously, that is, +reason incorrectly, yet the developing itself as little deserves that +imputation in any case, as an inquiry into an historical fact, which we +do not thereby make but ascertain,--for instance, whether or not St. +Mark wrote his Gospel with St. Matthew before him, or whether Solomon +brought his merchandise from Tartessus or some Indian port. Rationalism +is the exercise of reason instead of faith in matters of faith; but one +does not see how it can be faith to adopt the premisses, and unbelief to +accept the conclusion. + +At the same time it may be granted that the spontaneous process which +goes on within the mind itself is higher and choicer than that which is +logical; for the latter, being scientific, is common property, and can +be taken and made use of by minds who are personally strangers, in any +true sense, both to the ideas in question and to their development. + + +3. + +Thus, the holy Apostles would without words know all the truths +concerning the high doctrines of theology, which controversialists +after them have piously and charitably reduced to formulæ, and developed +through argument. Thus, St. Justin or St. Irenæus might be without any +digested ideas of Purgatory or Original Sin, yet have an intense +feeling, which they had not defined or located, both of the fault of our +first nature and the responsibilities of our nature regenerate. Thus St. +Antony said to the philosophers who came to mock him, "He whose mind is +in health does not need letters;" and St. Ignatius Loyola, while yet an +unlearned neophyte, was favoured with transcendent perceptions of the +Holy Trinity during his penance at Manresa. Thus St. Athanasius himself +is more powerful in statement and exposition than in proof; while in +Bellarmine we find the whole series of doctrines carefully drawn out, +duly adjusted with one another, and exactly analyzed one by one. + +The history of empires and of public men supplies so many instances of +logical development in the field of politics, that it is needless to do +more than to refer to one of them. It is illustrated by the words of +Jeroboam, "Now shall this kingdom return to the house of David, if this +people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem. . . +Wherefore the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said +unto them, Behold thy gods, O Israel." Idolatry was a duty of kingcraft +with the schismatical kingdom. + + +4. + +A specimen of logical development is afforded us in the history of +Lutheranism as it has of late years been drawn out by various English +writers. Luther started on a double basis, his dogmatic principle being +contradicted by his right of private judgment, and his sacramental by +his theory of justification. The sacramental element never showed signs +of life; but on his death, that which he represented in his own person +as a teacher, the dogmatic, gained the ascendancy; and "every expression +of his upon controverted points became a norm for the party, which, at +all times the largest, was at last coextensive with the Church itself. +This almost idolatrous veneration was perhaps increased by the selection +of declarations of faith, of which the substance on the whole was his, +for the symbolical books of his Church."[193:1] Next a reaction took +place; private judgment was restored to the supremacy. Calixtus put +reason, and Spener the so-called religion of the heart, in the place of +dogmatic correctness. Pietism for the time died away; but rationalism +developed in Wolf, who professed to prove all the orthodox doctrines, by +a process of reasoning, from premisses level with the reason. It was +soon found that the instrument which Wolf had used for orthodoxy, could +as plausibly be used against it;--in his hands it had proved the Creed; +in the hands of Semler, Ernesti, and others, it disproved the authority +of Scripture. What was religion to be made to consist in now? A sort of +philosophical Pietism followed; or rather Spener's pietism and the +original theory of justification were analyzed more thoroughly, and +issued in various theories of Pantheism, which from the first was at the +bottom of Luther's doctrine and personal character. And this appears to +be the state of Lutheranism at present, whether we view it in the +philosophy of Kant, in the open infidelity of Strauss, or in the +religious professions of the new Evangelical Church of Prussia. Applying +this instance to the subject which it has been here brought to +illustrate, I should say that the equable and orderly march and natural +succession of views, by which the creed of Luther has been changed into +the infidel or heretical philosophy of his present representatives, is a +proof that that change is no perversion or corruption, but a faithful +development of the original idea. + + +5. + +This is but one out of many instances with which the history of the +Church supplies us. The fortunes of a theological school are made, in a +later generation, the measure of the teaching of its founder. The great +Origen after his many labours died in peace; his immediate pupils were +saints and rulers in the Church; he has the praise of St. Athanasius, +St. Basil, and St. Gregory Nazianzen, and furnishes materials to St. +Ambrose and St. Hilary; yet, as time proceeded, a definite heterodoxy +was the growing result of his theology, and at length, three hundred +years after his death, he was condemned, and, as has generally been +considered, in an Ecumenical Council.[194:1] "Diodorus of Tarsus," says +Tillemont, "died at an advanced age, in the peace of the Church, +honoured by the praises of the greatest saints, and crowned with a +glory, which, having ever attended him through life, followed him after +his death;"[194:2] yet St. Cyril of Alexandria considers him and +Theodore of Mopsuestia the true authors of Nestorianism, and he was +placed in the event by the Nestorians among their saints. Theodore +himself was condemned after his death by the same Council which is said +to have condemned Origen, and is justly considered the chief +rationalizing doctor of Antiquity; yet he was in the highest repute in +his day, and the Eastern Synod complains, as quoted by Facundus, that +"Blessed Theodore, who died so happily, who was so eminent a teacher for +five and forty years, and overthrew every heresy, and in his lifetime +experienced no imputation from the orthodox, now after his death so +long ago, after his many conflicts, after his ten thousand books +composed in refutation of errors, after his approval in the sight of +priests, emperors, and people, runs the risk of receiving the reward of +heretics, and of being called their chief."[195:1] There is a certain +continuous advance and determinate path which belong to the history of a +doctrine, policy, or institution, and which impress upon the common +sense of mankind, that what it ultimately becomes is the issue of what +it was at first. This sentiment is expressed in the proverb, not limited +to Latin, _Exitus acta probat_; and is sanctioned by Divine wisdom, +when, warning us against false prophets, it says, "Ye shall know them by +their fruits." + +A doctrine, then, professed in its mature years by a philosophy or +religion, is likely to be a true development, not a corruption, in +proportion as it seems to be the _logical issue_ of its original +teaching. + + +SECTION V. + +FIFTH NOTE. ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE. + +Since, when an idea is living, that is, influential and effective, it is +sure to develope according to its own nature, and the tendencies, which +are carried out on the long run, may under favourable circumstances show +themselves early as well as late, and logic is the same in all ages, +instances of a development which is to come, though vague and isolated, +may occur from the very first, though a lapse of time be necessary to +bring them to perfection. And since developments are in great measure +only aspects of the idea from which they proceed, and all of them are +natural consequences of it, it is often a matter of accident in what +order they are carried out in individual minds; and it is in no wise +strange that here and there definite specimens of advanced teaching +should very early occur, which in the historical course are not found +till a late day. The fact, then, of such early or recurring intimations +of tendencies which afterwards are fully realized, is a sort of evidence +that those later and more systematic fulfilments are only in accordance +with the original idea. + + +2. + +Nothing is more common, for instance, than accounts or legends of the +anticipations, which great men have given in boyhood of the bent of +their minds, as afterwards displayed in their history; so much so that +the popular expectation has sometimes led to the invention of them. The +child Cyrus mimics a despot's power, and St. Athanasius is elected +Bishop by his playfellows. + +It is noticeable that in the eleventh century, when the Russians were +but pirates upon the Black Sea, Constantinople was their aim; and that a +prophesy was in circulation in that city that they should one day gain +possession of it. + +In the reign of James the First, we have an observable anticipation of +the system of influence in the management of political parties, which +was developed by Sir R. Walpole a century afterwards. This attempt is +traced by a living writer to the ingenuity of Lord Bacon. "He submitted +to the King that there were expedients for more judiciously managing a +House of Commons; . . that much might be done by forethought towards +filling the House with well-affected persons, winning or blinding the +lawyers . . and drawing the chief constituent bodies of the assembly, +the country gentlemen, the merchants, the courtiers, to act for the +King's advantage; that it would be expedient to tender voluntarily +certain graces and modifications of the King's prerogative," &c.[197:1] +The writer adds, "This circumstance, like several others in the present +reign, is curious, as it shows the rise of a systematic parliamentary +influence, which was one day to become the mainspring of government." + + +3. + +Arcesilas and Carneades, the founders of the later Academy, are known to +have innovated on the Platonic doctrine by inculcating a universal +scepticism; and they did this, as if on the authority of Socrates, who +had adopted the method of _ironia_ against the Sophists, on their +professing to know everything. This, of course, was an insufficient +plea. However, could it be shown that Socrates did on one or two +occasions evidence deliberate doubts on the great principles of theism +or morals, would any one deny that the innovation in question had +grounds for being considered a true development, not a corruption? + +It is certain that, in the idea of Monachism, prevalent in ancient +times, manual labour had a more prominent place than study; so much so +that De Rancé, the celebrated Abbot of La Trappe, in controversy with +Mabillon, maintained his ground with great plausibility against the +latter's apology for the literary occupations for which the Benedictines +of France are so famous. Nor can it be denied that the labours of such +as Mabillon and Montfaucon are at least a development upon the +simplicity of the primitive institution. And yet it is remarkable that +St. Pachomius, the first author of a monastic rule, enjoined a library +in each of his houses, and appointed conferences and disputations three +times a week on religious subjects, interpretation of Scripture, or +points of theology. St. Basil, the founder of Monachism in Pontus, one +of the most learned of the Greek Fathers, wrote his theological +treatises in the intervals of agricultural labour. St. Jerome, the +author of the Latin versions of Scripture, lived as a poor monk in a +cell at Bethlehem. These, indeed, were but exceptions in the character +of early Monachism; but they suggest its capabilities and anticipate its +history. Literature is certainly not inconsistent with its idea. + + +4. + +In the controversies with the Gnostics, in the second century, striking +anticipations occasionally occur, in the works of their Catholic +opponents, of the formal dogmatic teaching developed in the Church in +the course of the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies in the fifth. +On the other hand, Paul of Samosata, one of the first disciples of the +Syrian school of theology, taught a heresy sufficiently like +Nestorianism, in which that school terminated, to be mistaken for it in +later times; yet for a long while after him the characteristic of the +school was Arianism, an opposite heresy. + +Lutheranism has by this time become in most places almost simple heresy +or infidelity; it has terminated, if it has even yet reached its limit, +in a denial both of the Canon and the Creed, nay, of many principles of +morals. Accordingly the question arises, whether these conclusions are +in fairness to be connected with its original teaching or are a +corruption. And it is no little aid towards its resolution to find that +Luther himself at one time rejected the Apocalypse, called the Epistle +of St. James "straminea," condemned the word "Trinity," fell into a kind +of Eutychianism in his view of the Holy Eucharist, and in a particular +case sanctioned bigamy. Calvinism, again, in various distinct countries, +has become Socinianism, and Calvin himself seems to have denied our +Lord's Eternal Sonship and ridiculed the Nicene Creed. + +Another evidence, then, of the faithfulness of an ultimate development +is its _definite anticipation_ at an early period in the history of the +idea to which it belongs. + + +SECTION VI. + +SIXTH NOTE. CONSERVATIVE ACTION UPON ITS PAST. + +As developments which are preceded by definite indications have a fair +presumption in their favour, so those which do but contradict and +reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed before them, and +out of which they spring, are certainly corrupt; for a corruption is a +development in that very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and +begins to disturb, the acquisitions gained in its previous history. + +It is the rule of creation, or rather of the phenomena which it +presents, that life passes on to its termination by a gradual, +imperceptible course of change. There is ever a maximum in earthly +excellence, and the operation of the same causes which made things great +makes them small again. Weakness is but the resulting product of power. +Events move in cycles; all things come round, "the sun ariseth and goeth +down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." Flowers first bloom, and +then fade; fruit ripens and decays. The fermenting process, unless +stopped at the due point, corrupts the liquor which it has created. The +grace of spring, the richness of autumn are but for a moment, and +worldly moralists bid us _Carpe diem_, for we shall have no second +opportunity. Virtue seems to lie in a mean, between vice and vice; and +as it grew out of imperfection, so to grow into enormity. There is a +limit to human knowledge, and both sacred and profane writers witness +that overwisdom is folly. And in the political world states rise and +fall, the instruments of their aggrandizement becoming the weapons of +their destruction. And hence the frequent ethical maxims, such as, "_Ne +quid nimis_," "_Medio tutissimus_," "Vaulting ambition," which seem to +imply that too much of what is good is evil. + +So great a paradox of course cannot be maintained as that truth +literally leads to falsehood, or that there can be an excess of virtue; +but the appearance of things and the popular language about them will at +least serve us in obtaining an additional test for the discrimination of +a _bonâ fide_ development of an idea from its corruption. + +A true development, then, may be described as one which is conservative +of the course of antecedent developments being really those antecedents +and something besides them: it is an addition which illustrates, not +obscures, corroborates, not corrects, the body of thought from which it +proceeds; and this is its characteristic as contrasted with a +corruption. + + +2. + +For instance, a gradual conversion from a false to a true religion, +plainly, has much of the character of a continuous process, or a +development, in the mind itself, even when the two religions, which are +the limits of its course, are antagonists. Now let it be observed, that +such a change consists in addition and increase chiefly, not in +destruction. "True religion is the summit and perfection of false +religions; it combines in one whatever there is of good and true +separately remaining in each. And in like manner the Catholic Creed is +for the most part the combination of separate truths, which heretics +have divided among themselves, and err in dividing. So that, in matter +of fact, if a religious mind were educated in and sincerely attached to +some form of heathenism or heresy, and then were brought under the light +of truth, it would be drawn off from error into the truth, not by losing +what it had, but by gaining what it had not, not by being unclothed, but +by being 'clothed upon,' 'that mortality may be swallowed up of life.' +That same principle of faith which attaches it at first to the wrong +doctrine would attach it to the truth; and that portion of its original +doctrine, which was to be cast off as absolutely false, would not be +directly rejected, but indirectly, _in_ the reception of the truth which +is its opposite. True conversion is ever of a positive, not a negative +character."[201:1] + +Such too is the theory of the Fathers as regards the doctrines fixed by +Councils, as is instanced in the language of St. Leo. "To be seeking for +what has been disclosed, to reconsider what has been finished, to tear +up what has been laid down, what is this but to be unthankful for what +is gained?"[201:2] Vincentius of Lerins, in like manner, speaks of the +development of Christian doctrine, as _profectus fidei non +permutatio_.[201:3] And so as regards the Jewish Law, our Lord said that +He came "not to destroy, but to fulfil." + + +3. + +Mahomet is accused of contradicting his earlier revelations by his +later, "which is a thing so well known to those of his sect that they +all acknowledge it; and therefore when the contradictions are such as +they cannot solve them, then they will have one of the contradictory +places to be revoked. And they reckon in the whole Alcoran about a +hundred and fifty verses which are thus revoked."[201:4] + +Schelling, says Mr. Dewar, considers "that the time has arrived when an +esoteric speculative Christianity ought to take the place of the +exoteric empiricism which has hitherto prevailed." This German +philosopher "acknowledges that such a project is opposed to the evident +design of the Church, and of her earliest teachers."[202:1] + + +4. + +When Roman Catholics are accused of substituting another Gospel for the +primitive Creed, they answer that they hold, and can show that they +hold, the doctrines of the Incarnation and Atonement, as firmly as any +Protestant can state them. To this it is replied that they do certainly +profess them, but that they obscure and virtually annul them by their +additions; that the _cultus_ of St. Mary and the Saints is no +development of the truth, but a corruption and a religious mischief to +those doctrines of which it is the corruption, because it draws away the +mind and heart from Christ. But they answer that, so far from this, it +subserves, illustrates, protects the doctrine of our Lord's loving +kindness and mediation. Thus the parties in controversy join issue on +the common ground, that a developed doctrine which reverses the course +of development which has preceded it, is no true development but a +corruption; also, that what is corrupt acts as an element of +unhealthiness towards what is sound. This subject, however, will come +before us in its proper place by and by. + + +5. + +Blackstone supplies us with an instance in another subject-matter, of a +development which is justified by its utility, when he observes that +"when society is once formed, government results of course, as necessary +to preserve and to keep that society in order."[202:2] + +On the contrary, when the Long Parliament proceeded to usurp the +executive, they impaired the popular liberties which they seemed to be +advancing; for the security of those liberties depends on the separation +of the executive and legislative powers, or on the enactors being +subjects, not executors of the laws. + +And in the history of ancient Rome, from the time that the privileges +gained by the tribunes in behalf of the people became an object of +ambition to themselves, the development had changed into a corruption. + +And thus a sixth test of a true development is that it is of a _tendency +conservative_ of what has gone before it. + + +SECTION VII. + +SEVENTH NOTE. CHRONIC VIGOUR. + +Since the corruption of an idea, as far as the appearance goes, is a +sort of accident or affection of its development, being the end of a +course, and a transition-state leading to a crisis, it is, as has been +observed above, a brief and rapid process. While ideas live in men's +minds, they are ever enlarging into fuller development: they will not be +stationary in their corruption any more than before it; and dissolution +is that further state to which corruption tends. Corruption cannot, +therefore, be of long standing; and thus _duration_ is another test of a +faithful development. + +_Si gravis, brevis; si longus, levis_; is the Stoical topic of +consolation under pain; and of a number of disorders it can even be +said, The worse, the shorter. + +Sober men are indisposed to change in civil matters, and fear reforms +and innovations, lest, if they go a little too far, they should at once +run on to some great calamities before a remedy can be applied. The +chance of a slow corruption does not strike them. Revolutions are +generally violent and swift; now, in fact, they are the course of a +corruption. + + +2. + +The course of heresies is always short; it is an intermediate state +between life and death, or what is like death; or, if it does not result +in death, it is resolved into some new, perhaps opposite, course of +error, which lays no claim to be connected with it. And in this way +indeed, but in this way only, an heretical principle will continue in +life many years, first running one way, then another. + +The abounding of iniquity is the token of the end approaching; the +faithful in consequence cry out, How long? as if delay opposed reason as +well as patience. Three years and a half are to complete the reign of +Antichrist. + +Nor is it any real objection that the world is ever corrupt, and yet, in +spite of this, evil does not fill up its measure and overflow; for this +arises from the external counteractions of truth and virtue, which bear +it back; let the Church be removed, and the world will soon come to its +end. + +And so again, if the chosen people age after age became worse and worse, +till there was no recovery, still their course of evil was continually +broken by reformations, and was thrown back upon a less advanced stage +of declension. + + +3. + +It is true that decay, which is one form of corruption, is slow; but +decay is a state in which there is no violent or vigorous action at all, +whether of a conservative or a destructive character, the hostile +influence being powerful enough to enfeeble the functions of life, but +not to quicken its own process. And thus we see opinions, usages, and +systems, which are of venerable and imposing aspect, but which have no +soundness within them, and keep together from a habit of consistence, or +from dependence on political institutions; or they become almost +peculiarities of a country, or the habits of a race, or the fashions of +society. And then, at length, perhaps, they go off suddenly and die out +under the first rough influence from without. Such are the superstitions +which pervade a population, like some ingrained dye or inveterate odour, +and which at length come to an end, because nothing lasts for ever, but +which run no course, and have no history; such was the established +paganism of classical times, which was the fit subject of persecution, +for its first breath made it crumble and disappear. Such apparently is +the state of the Nestorian and Monophysite communions; such might have +been the condition of Christianity had it been absorbed by the feudalism +of the middle ages; such too is that Protestantism, or (as it sometimes +calls itself) attachment to the Establishment, which is not unfrequently +the boast of the respectable and wealthy among ourselves. + +Whether Mahometanism external to Christendom, and the Greek Church +within it, fall under this description is yet to be seen. Circumstances +can be imagined which would even now rouse the fanaticism of the Moslem; +and the Russian despotism does not meddle with the usages, though it may +domineer over the priesthood, of the national religion. + + * * * * * + +Thus, while a corruption is distinguished from decay by its energetic +action, it is distinguished from a development by its _transitory +character_. + + +4. + +Such are seven out of various Notes, which may be assigned, of fidelity +in the development of an idea. The point to be ascertained is the unity +and identity of the idea with itself through all stages of its +development from first to last, and these are seven tokens that it may +rightly be accounted one and the same all along. To guarantee its own +substantial unity, it must be seen to be one in type, one in its system +of principles, one in its unitive power towards externals, one in its +logical consecutiveness, one in the witness of its early phases to its +later, one in the protection which its later extend to its earlier, and +one in its union of vigour with continuance, that is, in its tenacity. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[172:1] Commonit. 29. + +[173:1] Milman, Christ. + +[174:1] De Deo, ii. 4, § 8. + +[184:1] Ch. xlix. + +[193:1] Pusey on German Rationalism, p. 21, note. + +[194:1] Halloix, Valesius, Lequien, Gieseler, Döllinger, &c., say that +he was condemned, not in the fifth Council, but in the Council under +Mennas. + +[194:2] Mem. Eccl. tom. viii. p. 562. + +[195:1] Def. Tr. Cap. viii. init. + +[197:1] Hallam's Const. Hist. ch. vi. p. 461. + +[201:1] Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 73. [Discuss. p. 200; _vide_ +also Essay on Assent, pp. 249-251.] + +[201:2] Ep. 162. + +[201:3] Ib. p. 309. + +[201:4] Prideaux, Life of Mahomet, p. 90. + +[202:1] German Protestantism, p. 176. + +[202:2] Vol. i. p. 118. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +APPLICATION OF THE SEVEN NOTES TO THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF CHRISTIAN +DOCTRINE. + + +APPLICATION OF THE FIRST NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. PRESERVATION OF +TYPE. + +Now let me attempt to apply the foregoing seven Notes of fidelity in +intellectual developments to the instance of Christian Doctrine. And +first as to the Note of _identity of type_. + +I have said above, that, whereas all great ideas are found, as time goes +on, to involve much which was not seen at first to belong to them, and +have developments, that is enlargements, applications, uses and +fortunes, very various, one security against error and perversion in the +process is the maintenance of the original type, which the idea +presented to the world at its origin, amid and through all its apparent +changes and vicissitudes from first to last. + +How does this apply to Christianity? What is its original type? and has +that type been preserved in the developments commonly called Catholic, +which have followed, and in the Church which embodies and teaches them? +Let us take it as the world now views it in its age; and let us take it +as the world once viewed it in its youth, and let us see whether there +be any great difference between the early and the later description of +it. The following statement will show my meaning:-- + +There is a religious communion claiming a divine commission, and +holding all other religious bodies around it heretical or infidel; it is +a well-organized, well-disciplined body; it is a sort of secret society, +binding together its members by influences and by engagements which it +is difficult for strangers to ascertain. It is spread over the known +world; it may be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong on the +whole from its continuity; it may be smaller than all other religious +bodies together, but is larger than each separately. It is a natural +enemy to governments external to itself; it is intolerant and +engrossing, and tends to a new modelling of society; it breaks laws, it +divides families. It is a gross superstition; it is charged with the +foulest crimes; it is despised by the intellect of the day; it is +frightful to the imagination of the many. And there is but one communion +such. + +Place this description before Pliny or Julian; place it before Frederick +the Second or Guizot.[208:1] "Apparent diræ facies." Each knows at once, +without asking a question, who is meant by it. One object, and only one, +absorbs each item of the detail of the delineation. + + +SECTION I. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. + +The _primâ facie_ view of early Christianity, in the eyes of witnesses +external to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions +given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who +distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years. + +Tacitus is led to speak of the Religion, on occasion of the +conflagration of Rome, which was popularly imputed to Nero. "To put an +end to the report," he says, "he laid the guilt on others, and visited +them with the most exquisite punishment, those, namely, who, held in +abhorrence for their crimes (_per flagitia invisos_), were popularly +called Christians. The author of that profession (_nominis_) was Christ, +who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the Procurator, +Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (_exitiabilis superstitio_), +though checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only +throughout Judæa, the original seat of the evil, but through the City +also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (_atrocia aut pudenda_) +flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were +seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were +convicted, not so much of firing the City, as of hatred of mankind +(_odio humani generis_)." After describing their tortures, he continues +"In consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal +punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public +object, but from the barbarity of one man." + +Suetonius relates the same transactions thus: "Capital punishments were +inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical +superstition (_superstitionis novæ et maleficæ_)." What gives additional +character to this statement is its context; for it occurs as one out of +various police or sumptuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made; +such as "controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat, +repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the +integrity of wills." When Pliny was Governor of Pontus, he wrote his +celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to +deal with the Christians, whom he found there in great numbers. One of +his points of hesitation was, whether the very profession of +Christianity was not by itself sufficient to justify punishment; +"whether the name itself should be visited, though clear of flagitious +acts (_flagitia_), or only when connected with them." He says, he had +ordered for execution such as persevered in their profession, after +repeated warnings, "as not doubting, whatever it was they professed, +that at any rate contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be +punished." He required them to invoke the gods, to sacrifice wine and +frankincense to the images of the Emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; "to +which," he adds, "it is said no real Christian can be compelled." +Renegades informed him that "the sum total of their offence or fault was +meeting before light on an appointed day, and saying with one another a +form of words (_carmen_) to Christ, as if to a god, and binding +themselves by oath, (not to the commission of any wickedness, but) +against the commission of theft, robbery, adultery, breach of trust, +denial of deposits; that, after this they were accustomed to separate, +and then to meet again for a meal, but eaten all together and harmless; +however, that they had even left this off after his edicts enforcing the +Imperial prohibition of _Hetæriæ_ or Associations." He proceeded to put +two women to the torture, but "discovered nothing beyond a bad and +excessive superstition" (_superstitionem pravam et immodicam_), "the +contagion" of which, he continues, "had spread through villages and +country, till the temples were emptied of worshippers." + + +2. + +In these testimonies, which will form a natural and convenient text for +what is to follow, we have various characteristics brought before us of +the religion to which they relate. It was a superstition, as all three +writers agree; a bad and excessive superstition, according to Pliny; a +magical superstition, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition, +according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a society, and moreover a +secret and unlawful society or _hetæria_; and it was a proselytizing +society; and its very name was connected with "flagitious," "atrocious," +and "shocking" acts. + + +3. + +Now these few points, which are not all which might be set down, contain +in themselves a distinct and significant description of Christianity; +but they have far greater meaning when illustrated by the history of the +times, the testimony of later writers, and the acts of the Roman +government towards its professors. It is impossible to mistake the +judgment passed on the religion by these three writers, and still more +clearly by other writers and Imperial functionaries. They evidently +associated Christianity with the oriental superstitions, whether +propagated by individuals or embodied in a rite, which were in that day +traversing the Empire, and which in the event acted so remarkable a part +in breaking up the national forms of worship, and so in preparing the +way for Christianity. This, then, is the broad view which the educated +heathen took of Christianity; and, if it had been very unlike those +rites and curious arts in external appearance, they would not have +confused it with them. + +Changes in society are, by a providential appointment, commonly preceded +and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts +and feelings in that direction towards which a change is to be made. +And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage +it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming +revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude, or pass +across the field of events. This was specially the case with +Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and attended +by a crowd of shadows, shadows of itself, impotent and monstrous as +shadows are, but not at first sight distinguishable from it by common +spectators. Before the mission of the Apostles, a movement, of which +there had been earlier parallels, had begun in Egypt, Syria, and the +neighbouring countries, tending to the propagation of new and peculiar +forms of worship throughout the Empire. Prophecies were afloat that some +new order of things was coming in from the East, which increased the +existing unsettlement of the popular mind; pretenders made attempts to +satisfy its wants, and old Traditions of the Truth, embodied for ages in +local or in national religions, gave to these attempts a doctrinal and +ritual shape, which became an additional point of resemblance to that +Truth which was soon visibly to appear. + + +4. + +The distinctive character of the rites in question lay in their +appealing to the gloomy rather than to the cheerful and hopeful +feelings, and in their influencing the mind through fear. The notions of +guilt and expiation, of evil and good to come, and of dealings with the +invisible world, were in some shape or other pre-eminent in them, and +formed a striking contrast to the classical polytheism, which was gay +and graceful, as was natural in a civilized age. The new rites, on the +other hand, were secret; their doctrine was mysterious; their profession +was a discipline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested in an +association, and exercised in privation and pain. They were from the +nature of the case proselytizing societies, for they were rising into +power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and +encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them +into easy connexion with magic and astrology, which are as attractive to +the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions to the +populace. + + +5. + +Such were the rites of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras; such the Chaldeans, as +they were commonly called, and the Magi; they came from one part of the +world, and during the first and second century spread with busy +perseverance to the northern and western extremities of the +empire.[213:1] Traces of the mysteries of Cybele, a Syrian deity, if the +famous temple at Hierapolis was hers, have been found in Spain, in Gaul, +and in Britain, as high up as the wall of Severus. The worship of Isis +was the most widely spread of all the pagan deities; it was received in +Ethiopia and in Germany, and even the name of Paris has been fancifully +traced to it. Both worships, as well as the Science of Magic, had their +colleges of priests and devotees, which were governed by a president, +and in some places were supported by farms. Their processions passed +from town to town, begging as they went and attracting proselytes. +Apuleius describes one of them as seizing a whip, accusing himself of +some offence, and scourging himself in public. These strollers, +_circulatores_ or _agyrtæ_ in classical language, told fortunes, and +distributed prophetical tickets to the ignorant people who consulted +them. Also, they were learned in the doctrine of omens, of lucky and +unlucky days, of the rites of expiation and of sacrifices. Such an +_agyrtes_ or itinerant was the notorious Alexander of Abonotichus, till +he managed to establish himself in Pontus, where he carried on so +successful an imposition that his fame reached Rome, and men in office +and station entrusted him with their dearest political secrets. Such a +wanderer, with a far more religious bearing and a high reputation for +virtue, was Apollonius of Tyana, who professed the Pythagorean +philosophy, claimed the gift of miracles, and roamed about preaching, +teaching, healing, and prophesying from India and Alexandria to Athens +and Rome. Another solitary proselytizer, though of an earlier time and +of an avowed profligacy, had been the Sacrificulus, viewed with such +horror by the Roman Senate, as introducing the infamous Bacchic rites +into Rome. Such, again, were those degenerate children of a divine +religion, who, in the words of their Creator and Judge, "compassed sea +and land to make one proselyte," and made him "twofold more the child of +hell than themselves." + + +6. + +These vagrant religionists for the most part professed a severe rule of +life, and sometimes one of fanatical mortification. In the mysteries of +Mithras, the initiation[214:1] was preceded by fasting and abstinence, +and a variety of painful trials; it was made by means of a baptism as a +spiritual washing; and it included an offering of bread, and some emblem +of a resurrection. In the Samothracian rites it had been a custom to +initiate children; confession too of greater crimes seems to have been +required, and would naturally be involved in others in the inquisition +prosecuted into the past lives of the candidates for initiation. The +garments of the converts were white; their calling was considered as a +warfare (_militia_), and was undertaken with a _sacramentum_, or +military oath. The priests shaved their heads and wore linen, and when +they were dead were buried in a sacerdotal garment. It is scarcely +necessary to refer to the mutilation inflicted on the priests of Cybele; +one instance of their scourgings has been already mentioned; and +Tertullian speaks of their high priest cutting his arms for the life of +the Emperor Marcus.[215:1] The priests of Isis, in lamentation for +Osiris, tore their breasts with pine cones. This lamentation was a +ritual observance, founded on some religious mystery: Isis lost Osiris, +and the initiated wept in memory of her sorrow; the Syrian goddess had +wept over dead Thammuz, and her mystics commemorated it by a ceremonial +woe; in the rites of Bacchus, an image was laid on a bier at +midnight,[215:2] which was bewailed in metrical hymns; the god was +supposed to die, and then to revive. Nor was this the only worship which +was continued through the night; while some of the rites were performed +in caves. + + +7. + +Only a heavenly light can give purity to nocturnal and subterraneous +worship. Caves were at that time appropriated to the worship of the +infernal gods. It was but natural that these wild religions should be +connected with magic and its kindred arts; magic has at all times led to +cruelty, and licentiousness would be the inevitable reaction from a +temporary strictness. An extraordinary profession, when men are in a +state of mere nature, makes hypocrites or madmen, and will in no long +time be discarded except by the few. The world of that day associated +together in one company, Isiac, Phrygian, Mithriac, Chaldean, wizard, +astrologer, fortune-teller, itinerant, and, as was not unnatural, Jew. +Magic was professed by the profligate Alexander, and was imputed to the +grave Apollonius. The rites of Mithras came from the Magi of Persia; and +it is obviously difficult to distinguish in principle the ceremonies of +the Syrian Taurobolium from those of the Necyomantia in the Odyssey, or +of Canidia in Horace. + +The Theodosian Code calls magic generally a "superstition;" and magic, +orgies, mysteries, and "sabbathizings," were referred to the same +"barbarous" origin. "Magical superstitions," the "rites of the Magi," +the "promises of the Chaldeans," and the "Mathematici," are familiar to +the readers of Tacitus. The Emperor Otho, an avowed patron of oriental +fashions, took part in the rites of Isis, and consulted the Mathematici. +Vespasian, who also consulted them, is heard of in Egypt as performing +miracles at the suggestion of Serapis. Tiberius, in an edict, classes +together "Egyptian and Jewish rites;" and Tacitus and Suetonius, in +recording it, speak of the two religions together as "_ea +superstitio_."[216:1] Augustus had already associated them together as +superstitions, and as unlawful, and that in contrast to others of a like +foreign origin. "As to foreign rites (_peregrinæ ceremoniæ_)," says +Suetonius, "as he paid more reverence to those which were old and +enjoined, so did he hold the rest in contempt."[216:2] He goes on to say +that, even on the judgment-seat, he had recognized the Eleusinian +priests, into whose mysteries he had been initiated at Athens; "whereas, +when travelling in Egypt, he had refused to see Apis, and had approved +of his grandson Caligula's passing by Judæa without sacrificing at +Jerusalem." Plutarch speaks of magic as connected with the mournful +mysteries of Orpheus and Zoroaster, with the Egyptian and the Phrygian; +and, in his Treatise on Superstition, he puts together in one clause, as +specimens of that disease of mind, "covering oneself with mud, wallowing +in the mire, sabbathizings, fallings on the face, unseemly postures, +foreign adorations."[216:3] Ovid mentions in consecutive verses the +rites of "Adonis lamented by Venus," "The Sabbath of the Syrian Jew," +and the "Memphitic Temple of Io in her linen dress."[216:4] Juvenal +speaks of the rites, as well as the language and the music, of the +Syrian Orontes having flooded Rome; and, in his description of the +superstition of the Roman women, he places the low Jewish fortune-teller +between the pompous priests of Cybele and Isis, and the bloody +witchcraft of the Armenian haruspex and the astrology of the +Chaldeans.[217:1] + + +8. + +The Christian, being at first accounted a kind of Jew, was even on that +score included in whatever odium, and whatever bad associations, +attended on the Jewish name. But in a little time his independence of +the rejected people was clearly understood, as even the persecutions +show; and he stood upon his own ground. Still his character did not +change in the eyes of the world; for favour or for reproach, he was +still associated with the votaries of secret and magical rites. The +Emperor Hadrian, noted as he is for his inquisitive temper, and a +partaker in so many mysteries,[217:2] still believed that the Christians +of Egypt allowed themselves in the worship of Serapis. They are brought +into connexion with the magic of Egypt in the history of what is +commonly called the Thundering Legion, so far as this, that the rain +which relieved the Emperor's army in the field, and which the Church +ascribed to the prayers of the Christian soldiers, is by Dio Cassius +attributed to an Egyptian magician, who obtained it by invoking Mercury +and other spirits. This war had been the occasion of one of the first +recognitions which the state had conceded to the Oriental rites, though +statesmen and emperors, as private men, had long taken part in them. The +Emperor Marcus had been urged by his fears of the Marcomanni to resort +to these foreign introductions, and is said to have employed Magi and +Chaldeans in averting an unsuccessful issue of the war. It is +observable that, in the growing countenance which was extended to these +rites in the third century, Christianity came in for a share. The chapel +of Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius, +Pythagoras, and our Lord. Here indeed, as in the case of Zenobia's +Judaism, an eclectic philosophy aided the comprehension of religions. +But, immediately before Alexander, Heliogabalus, who was no philosopher, +while he formally seated his Syrian idol in the Palatine, while he +observed the mysteries of Cybele and Adonis, and celebrated his magic +rites with human victims, intended also, according to Lampridius, to +unite with his horrible superstition "the Jewish and Samaritan religions +and the Christian rite, that so the priesthood of Heliogabalus might +comprise the mystery of every worship."[218:1] Hence, more or less, the +stories which occur in ecclesiastical history of the conversion or +good-will of the emperors to the Christian faith, of Hadrian, Mammæa, +and others, besides Heliogabalus and Alexander. Such stories might often +mean little more than that they favoured it among other forms of +Oriental superstition. + + +9. + +What has been said is sufficient to bring before the mind an historical +fact, which indeed does not need evidence. Upon the established +religions of Europe the East had renewed her encroachments, and was +pouring forth a family of rites which in various ways attracted the +attention of the luxurious, the political, the ignorant, the restless, +and the remorseful. Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, Syrian, Phrygian, +as the case might be, was the designation of the new hierophant; and +magic, superstition, barbarism, jugglery, were the names given to his +rite by the world. In this company appeared Christianity. When then +three well-informed writers call Christianity a superstition and a +magical superstition, they were not using words at random, or the +language of abuse, but they were describing it in distinct and +recognized terms as cognate to those gloomy, secret, odious, +disreputable religions which were making so much disturbance up and down +the empire. + + +10. + +The impression made on the world by circumstances immediately before the +rise of Christianity received a sort of confirmation upon its rise, in +the appearance of the Gnostic and kindred heresies, which issued from +the Church during the second and third centuries. Their resemblance in +ritual and constitution to the Oriental religions, sometimes their +historical relationship, is undeniable; and certainly it is a singular +coincidence, that Christianity should be first called a magical +superstition by Suetonius, and then should be found in the intimate +company, and seemingly the parent, of a multitude of magical +superstitions, if there was nothing in the Religion itself to give rise +to such a charge. + + +11. + +The Gnostic family[219:1] suitably traces its origin to a mixed race, +which had commenced its national history by associating Orientalism with +Revelation. After the captivity of the ten tribes, Samaria was colonized +by "men from Babylon and Cushan, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from +Sepharvaim," who were instructed at their own instance in "the manner of +the God of the land," by one of the priests of the Church of Jeroboam. +The consequence was, that "they feared the Lord and served their own +gods." Of this country was Simon, the reputed patriarch of the +Gnostics; and he is introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as professing +those magical powers which were so principal a characteristic of the +Oriental mysteries. His heresy, though broken into a multitude of sects, +was poured over the world with a Catholicity not inferior in its day to +that of Christianity. St. Peter, who fell in with him originally in +Samaria, seems to have encountered him again at Rome. At Rome, St. +Polycarp met Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread through Italy, +Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia; Valentinus preached his doctrines in +Alexandria, Rome, and Cyprus; and we read of his disciples in Crete, +Cæsarea, Antioch, and other parts of the East. Bardesanes and his +followers were found in Mesopotamia. The Carpocratians are spoken of at +Alexandria, at Rome, and in Cephallenia; the Basilidians spread through +the greater part of Egypt; the Ophites were apparently in Bithynia and +Galatia; the Cainites or Caians in Africa, and the Marcosians in Gaul. +To these must be added several sects, which, though not strictly of the +Gnostic stock, are associated with them in date, character, and +origin;--the Ebionites of Palestine, the Cerinthians, who rose in some +part of Asia Minor, the Encratites and kindred sects, who spread from +Mesopotamia to Syria, to Cilicia and other provinces of Asia Minor, and +thence to Rome, Gaul, Aquitaine, and Spain; and the Montanists, who, +with a town in Phrygia for their metropolis, reached at length from +Constantinople to Carthage. + +"When [the reader of Christian history] comes to the second century," +says Dr. Burton, "he finds that Gnosticism, under some form or other, +was professed in every part of the then civilized world. He finds it +divided into schools, as numerously and as zealously attended as any +which Greece or Asia could boast in their happiest days. He meets with +names totally unknown to him before, which excited as much sensation as +those of Aristotle or Plato. He hears of volumes having been written in +support of this new philosophy, not one of which has survived to our own +day."[221:1] Many of the founders of these sects had been Christians; +others were of Jewish parentage; others were more or less connected in +fact with the Pagan rites to which their own bore so great a +resemblance. Montanus seems even to have been a mutilated priest of +Cybele; the followers of Prodicus professed to possess the secret books +of Zoroaster; and the doctrine of dualism, which so many of the sects +held, is to be traced to the same source. Basilides seems to have +recognized Mithras as the Supreme Being, or the Prince of Angels, or the +Sun, if Mithras is equivalent to Abraxas, which was inscribed upon his +amulets: on the other hand, he is said to have been taught by an +immediate disciple of St. Peter, and Valentinus by an immediate disciple +of St. Paul. Marcion was the son of a Bishop of Pontus; Tatian, a +disciple of St. Justin Martyr. + + +12. + +Whatever might be the history of these sects, and though it may be a +question whether they can be properly called "superstitions," and though +many of them numbered educated men among their teachers and followers, +they closely resembled, at least in ritual and profession, the vagrant +Pagan mysteries which have been above described. Their very name of +"Gnostic" implied the possession of a secret, which was to be +communicated to their disciples. Ceremonial observances were the +preparation, and symbolical rites the instrument, of initiation. Tatian +and Montanus, the representatives of very distinct schools, agreed in +making asceticism a rule of life. The followers of each of these +sectaries abstained from wine; the Tatianites and Marcionites, from +flesh; the Montanists kept three Lents in the year. All the Gnostic +sects seem to have condemned marriage on one or other reason.[222:1] The +Marcionites had three baptisms or more; the Marcosians had two rites of +what they called redemption; the latter of these was celebrated as a +marriage, and the room adorned as a marriage-chamber. A consecration to +a priesthood then followed with anointing. An extreme unction was +another of their rites, and prayers for the dead one of their +observances. Bardesanes and Harmonius were famous for the beauty of +their chants. The prophecies of Montanus were delivered, like the +oracles of the heathen, in a state of enthusiasm or ecstasy. To +Epiphanes, the son of Carpocrates, who died at the age of seventeen, a +temple was erected in the island of Cephallenia, his mother's +birthplace, where he was celebrated with hymns and sacrifices. A similar +honour was paid by the Carpocratians to Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, +Aristotle, as well as to the Apostles; crowns were placed upon their +images, and incense burned before them. In one of the inscriptions found +at Cyrene, about twenty years since, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, +and others, are put together with our Lord, as guides of conduct. These +inscriptions also contain the Carpocratian tenet of a community of +women. I am unwilling to allude to the Agapæ and Communions of certain +of these sects, which were not surpassed in profligacy by the Pagan +rites of which they were an imitation. The very name of Gnostic became +an expression for the worst impurities, and no one dared eat bread with +them, or use their culinary instruments or plates. + + +13. + +These profligate excesses are found in connexion with the exercise of +magic and astrology.[223:1] The amulets of the Basilidians are still +extant in great numbers, inscribed with symbols, some Christian, some +with figures of Isis, Serapis, and Anubis, represented according to the +gross indecencies of the Egyptian mythology.[223:2] St. Irenæus had +already connected together the two crimes in speaking of the Simonians: +"Their mystical priests," he says, "live in lewdness, and practise +magic, according to the ability of each. They use exorcisms and +incantations; love-potions too, and seductive spells; the virtue of +spirits, and dreams, and all other curious arts, they diligently +observe."[223:3] The Marcosians were especially devoted to these +"curious arts," which are also ascribed to Carpocrates and Apelles. +Marcion and others are reported to have used astrology. Tertullian +speaks generally of the sects of his day: "Infamous are the dealings of +the heretics with sorcerers very many, with mountebanks, with +astrologers, with philosophers, to wit, such as are given to curious +questions. They everywhere remember, 'Seek, and ye shall find.'"[223:4] + +Such were the Gnostics; and to external and prejudiced spectators, +whether philosophers, as Celsus and Porphyry, or the multitude, they +wore an appearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken for her +in the latter part of the Ante-nicene period, as she was confused with +the Pagan mysteries in the earlier. + + +14. + +Of course it may happen that the common estimate concerning a person or +a body is purely accidental and unfounded; but in such cases it is not +lasting. Such were the calumnies of child-eating and impurity in the +Christian meetings, which were almost extinct by the time of Origen, and +which might arise from the world's confusing them with the pagan and +heretical rites. But when it continues from age to age, it is certainly +an index of a fact, and corresponds to definite qualities in the object +to which it relates. In that case, even mistakes carry information; for +they are cognate to the truth, and we can allow for them. Often what +seems like a mistake is merely the mode in which the informant conveys +his testimony, or the impression which a fact makes on him. Censure is +the natural tone of one man in a case where praise is the natural tone +of another; the very same character or action inspires one mind with +enthusiasm, and another with contempt. What to one man is magnanimity, +to another is romance, and pride to a third, and pretence to a fourth, +while to a fifth it is simply unintelligible; and yet there is a certain +analogy in their separate testimonies, which conveys to us what the +thing is like and what it is not like. When a man's acknowledged note is +superstition, we may be pretty sure we shall not find him an Academic or +an Epicurean; and even words which are ambiguous, as "atheist," or +"reformer," admit of a sure interpretation when we are informed of the +speaker. In like manner, there is a certain general correspondence +between magic and miracle, obstinacy and faith, insubordination and zeal +for religion, sophistry and argumentative talent, craft and meekness, as +is obvious. Let us proceed then in our contemplation of this reflection, +as it may be called of primitive Christianity in the mirror of the +world. + + +15. + +All three writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, call it a +"superstition;" this is no accidental imputation, but is repeated by a +variety of subsequent writers and speakers. The charge of Thyestean +banquets scarcely lasts a hundred years; but, while pagan witnesses are +to be found, the Church is accused of superstition. The heathen +disputant in Minucius calls Christianity, "_Vana et demens +superstitio_." The lawyer Modestinus speaks, with an apparent allusion +to Christianity, of "weak minds being terrified _superstitione +numinis_." The heathen magistrate asks St. Marcellus, whether he and +others have put away "vain superstitions," and worship the gods whom the +emperors worship. The Pagans in Arnobius speak of Christianity as "an +execrable and unlucky religion, full of impiety and sacrilege, +contaminating the rites instituted from of old with the superstition of +its novelty." The anonymous opponent of Lactantius calls it, "_Impia et +anilis superstitio_." Diocletian's inscription at Clunia was, as it +declared, on occasion of "the total extinction of the superstition of +the Christians, and the extension of the worship of the gods." Maximin, +in his Letter upon Constantine's Edict, still calls it a +superstition.[225:1] + + +16. + +Now what is meant by the word thus attached by a _consensus_ of heathen +authorities to Christianity? At least, it cannot mean a religion in +which a man might think what he pleased, and was set free from all +yokes, whether of ignorance, fear, authority, or priestcraft. When +heathen writers call the Oriental rites superstitions, they evidently +use the word in its modern sense; it cannot surely be doubted that they +apply it in the same sense to Christianity. But Plutarch explains for us +the word at length, in his Treatise which bears the name: "Of all kinds +of fear," he says, "superstition is the most fatal to action and +resource. He does not fear the sea who does not sail, nor war who does +not serve, nor robbers who keeps at home, nor the sycophant who is poor, +nor the envious if he is a private man, nor an earthquake if he lives in +Gaul, nor thunder if he lives in Ethiopia; but he who fears the gods +fears everything, earth, seas, air, sky, darkness, light, noises, +silence, sleep. Slaves sleep and forget their masters; of the fettered +doth sleep lighten the chain; inflamed wounds, ulcers cruel and +agonizing, are not felt by the sleeping. Superstition alone has come to +no terms with sleep; but in the very sleep of her victims, as though +they were in the realms of the impious, she raises horrible spectres, +and monstrous phantoms, and various pains, and whirls the miserable soul +about, and persecutes it. They rise, and, instead of making light of +what is unreal, they fall into the hands of quacks and conjurers, who +say, 'Call the crone to expiate, bathe in the sea, and sit all day on +the ground.'" He goes on to speak of the introduction of "uncouth names +and barbarous terms" into "the divine and national authority of +religion;" observes that, whereas slaves, when they despair of freedom, +may demand to be sold to another master, superstition admits of no +change of gods, since "the god cannot be found whom he will not fear, +who fears the gods of his family and his birth, who shudders at the +Saving and the Benignant, who has a trembling and dread at those from +whom we ask riches and wealth, concord, peace, success of all good words +and deeds." He says, moreover, that, while death is to all men an end of +life, it is not so to the superstitious; for then "there are deep gates +of hell to yawn, and headlong streams of at once fire and gloom are +opened, and darkness with its many phantoms encompasses, ghosts +presenting horrid visages and wretched voices, and judges and +executioners, and chasms and dens full of innumerable miseries." + +Presently, he says, that in misfortune or sickness the superstitious man +refuses to see physician or philosopher, and cries, "Suffer me, O man, +to undergo punishment, the impious, the cursed, the hated of gods and +spirits. The Atheist," with whom all along he is contrasting the +superstitious disadvantageously, "wipes his tears, trims his hair, doffs +his mourning; but how can you address, how help the superstitious? He +sits apart in sackcloth or filthy rags; and often he strips himself and +rolls in the mud, and tells out his sins and offences, as having eaten +and drunken something, or walked some way which the divinity did not +allow. . . . And in his best mood, and under the influence of a +good-humoured superstition, he sits at home, with sacrifice and +slaughter all round him, while the old crones hang on him as on a peg, +as Bion says, any charm they fall in with." He continues, "What men like +best are festivals, banquets at the temples, initiations, orgies, votive +prayers, and adorations. But the superstitious wishes indeed, but is +unable to rejoice. He is crowned and turns pale; he sacrifices and is in +fear; he prays with a quivering voice, and burns incense with trembling +hands, and altogether belies the saying of Pythagoras, that we are then +in best case when we go to the gods; for superstitious men are in most +wretched and evil case, approaching the houses or shrines of the gods as +if they were the dens of bears, or the holes of snakes, or the caves of +whales." + + +17. + +Here we have a vivid picture of Plutarch's idea of the essence of +Superstition; it was the imagination of the existence of an unseen +ever-present Master; the bondage of a rule of life, of a continual +responsibility; obligation to attend to little things, the +impossibility of escaping from duty, the inability to choose or change +one's religion, an interference with the enjoyment of life, a melancholy +view of the world, sense of sin, horror at guilt, apprehension of +punishment, dread, self-abasement, depression, anxiety and endeavour to +be at peace with heaven, and error and absurdity in the methods chosen +for the purpose. Such too had been the idea of the Epicurean Velleius, +when he shrunk with horror from the "_sempiternus dominus_" and +"_curiosus Deus_" of the Stoics.[228:1] Such, surely, was the meaning of +Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny. And hence of course the frequent reproach +cast on Christians as credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The +heathen objectors in Minucius and Lactantius speak of their "old-woman's +tales."[228:2] Celsus accuses them of "assenting at random and without +reason," saying, "Do not inquire, but believe." "They lay it down," he +says elsewhere, "Let no educated man approach, no man of wisdom, no man +of sense; but if a man be unlearned, weak in intellect, an infant, let +him come with confidence. Confessing that these are worthy of their God, +they evidently desire, as they are able, to convert none but fools, and +vulgar, and stupid, and slavish, women and boys." They "take in the +simple, and lead him where they will." They address themselves to +"youths, house-servants, and the weak in intellect." They "hurry away +from the educated, as not fit subjects of their imposition, and inveigle +the rustic."[228:3] "Thou," says the heathen magistrate to the Martyr +Fructuosus, "who as a teacher dost disseminate a new fable, that fickle +girls may desert the groves and abandon Jupiter, condemn, if thou art +wise, the anile creed."[229:1] + + +18. + +Hence the epithets of itinerant, mountebank, conjurer, cheat, sophist, +sorcerer, heaped upon the teachers of Christianity; sometimes to account +for the report or apparent truth of their miracles, sometimes to explain +their success. Our Lord was said to have learned His miraculous power in +Egypt; "wizard, mediciner, cheat, rogue, conjurer," were the epithets +applied to Him by the opponents of Eusebius;[229:2] they "worship that +crucified sophist," says Lucian;[229:3] "Paul, who surpasses all the +conjurers and impostors who ever lived," is Julian's account of the +Apostle. "You have sent through the whole world," says St. Justin to +Trypho, "to preach that a certain atheistic and lawless sect has sprung +from one Jesus, a Galilean cheat."[229:4] "We know," says Lucian, +speaking of Chaldeans and Magicians, "the Syrian from Palestine, who is +the sophist in these matters, how many lunatics, with eyes distorted and +mouth in foam, he raises and sends away restored, ridding them from the +evil at a great price."[229:5] "If any conjurer came to them, a man of +skill and knowing how to manage matters," says the same writer, "he made +money in no time, with a broad grin at the simple fellows."[229:6] The +officer who had custody of St. Perpetua feared her escape from prison +"by magical incantations."[229:7] When St. Tiburtius had walked barefoot +on hot coals, his judge cried out that Christ had taught him magic. St. +Anastasia was thrown into prison as a mediciner; the populace called out +against St. Agnes, "Away with the witch," _Tolle magam, tolle +maleficam_. + +When St. Bonosus and St. Maximilian bore the burning pitch without +shrinking, Jews and Gentiles cried out, _Isti magi et malefici_. "What +new delusion," says the heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has +brought in these sophists to deny the worship of the gods? How doth this +chief sorcerer mock us, skilled by his Thessalian charm (_carmine_) to +laugh at punishment."[230:1] + +Hence we gather the meaning of the word "_carmen_" as used by Pliny; +when he speaks of the Christians "saying with one another a _carmen_ to +Christ as to a god," he meant pretty much what Suetonius expresses by +the "_malefica superstitio_."[230:2] And the words of the last-mentioned +writer and Tacitus are still more exactly, and, I may say, singularly +illustrated by clauses which occur in the Theodosian code; which seem to +show that these historians were using formal terms and phrases to +express their notion of Christianity. For instance, Tacitus says, "_Quos +per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat_;" and the Law +against the Malefici and Mathematici in the Code speaks of those, "_Quos +ob facinorum magnitudinem vulgus maleficos appellat_."[230:3] Again, +Tacitus charges Christians with the "_odium humani generis_:" this is +the very characteristic of a practiser in magic; the Laws call the +Malefici, "_humani generis hostes_," "_humani generis inimici_," +"_naturæ peregrini_," "_communis salutis hostes_."[230:4] + + +19. + +This also explains the phenomenon, which has created so much surprise to +certain moderns;--that a grave, well-informed historian like Tacitus +should apply to Christians what sounds like abuse. Yet what is the +difficulty, supposing that Christians were considered mathematici and +magi, and these were the secret intriguers against established +government, the allies of desperate politicians, the enemies of the +established religion, the disseminators of lying rumours, the +perpetrators of poisonings and other crimes? "Read this," says Paley, +after quoting some of the most beautiful and subduing passages of St. +Paul, "read this, and then think of _exitiabilis superstitio_;" and he +goes on to express a wish "in contending with heathen authorities, to +produce our books against theirs,"[231:1] as if it were a matter of +books. Public men care very little for books; the finest sentiments, the +most luminous philosophy, the deepest theology, inspiration itself, +moves them but little; they look at facts, and care only for facts. The +question was, What was the worth, what the tendency of the Christian +body in the state? what Christians said, what they thought, was little +to the purpose. They might exhort to peaceableness and passive obedience +as strongly as words could speak; but what did they do, what was their +political position? This is what statesmen thought of then, as they do +now. What had men of the world to do with abstract proofs or first +principles? a statesman measures parties, and sects, and writers by +their bearing upon _him_; and he has a practised eye in this sort of +judgment, and is not likely to be mistaken. "'What is Truth?' said +jesting Pilate." Apologies, however eloquent or true, availed nothing +with the Roman magistrate against the sure instinct which taught him to +dread Christianity. It was a dangerous enemy to any power not built +upon itself; he felt it, and the event justified his apprehension. + + +20. + +We must not forget the well-known character of the Roman state in its +dealings with its subjects. It had had from the first an extreme +jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large +toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern +governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority +in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil +institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion. +Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it +was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of +low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the +outlaws of society, and were in a condition analogous, if the comparison +may be allowed, to smugglers or poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to +burglars and highwaymen. The modern robber is sometimes made to ask in +novels or essays, why the majority of a people should bind the minority, +and why he is amenable to laws which he does not enact; but the +magistrate, relying on the power of the sword, wishes all men to gain a +living indeed, and to prosper, but only in his own legally sanctioned +ways, and he hangs or transports dissenters from his authority. The +Romans applied this rule to religion. Lardner protests against Pliny's +application of the words "contumacy and inflexible obstinacy" to the +Christians of Pontus. "Indeed, these are hard words," he says, "very +improperly applied to men who were open to conviction, and willing to +satisfy others, if they might have leave to speak."[232:1] And he says, +"It seems to me that Pliny acted very arbitrarily and unrighteously, in +his treatment of the Christians in his province. What right had Pliny to +act in this manner? by what law or laws did he punish [them] with +death?"--but the Romans had ever burnt the sorcerer, and banished his +consulters for life.[233:1] It was an ancient custom. And at mysteries +they looked with especial suspicion, because, since the established +religion did not include them in its provisions, they really did supply +what may be called a demand of the age. The Greeks of an earlier day had +naturalized among themselves the Eleusinian and other mysteries, which +had come from Egypt and Syria, and had little to fear from a fresh +invasion from the same quarter; yet even in Greece, as Plutarch tells us, +the "_carmina_" of the itinerants of Cybele and Serapis threw the +Pythian verses out of fashion, and henceforth the responses from the +temple were given in prose. Soon the oracles altogether ceased. What +would cause in the Roman mind still greater jealousy of Christianity was +the general infidelity which prevailed among all classes as regards the +mythological fables of Charon, Cerberus, and the realms of +punishment.[233:2] + + +21. + +We know what opposition had been made in Rome even to the philosophy of +Greece; much greater would be the aversion of constitutional statesmen +and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. Religion was the Roman point of +honour. "Spaniards might rival them in numbers," says Cicero, "Gauls in +bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, Greeks in the arts, Italians +and Latins in native talent, but the Romans surpassed all nations in +piety and devotion."[234:1] It was one of their laws, "Let no one have +gods by himself, nor worship in private new gods nor adventitious, +unless added on public authority."[234:2] Lutatius,[234:3] at the end of +the first Punic war, was forbidden by the senate to consult the Sortes +Prænestinæ as being "_auspicia alienigena_." Some years afterwards the +Consul took axe in hand, and commenced the destruction of the temples of +Isis and Serapis. In the second Punic war, the senate had commanded the +surrender of the _libri vaticini_ or _precationes_, and any written art +of sacrificing. When a secret confraternity was discovered, at a later +date, the Consul spoke of the rule of their ancestors which forbade the +forum, circus, and city to Sacrificuli and prophets, and burnt their +books. In the next age banishment was inflicted on individuals who were +introducing the worship of the Syrian Sabazius; and in the next the +Iseion and Serapeion were destroyed a second time. Mæcenas in Dio +advises Augustus to honour the gods according to the national custom, +because the contempt of the country's deities leads to civil +insubordination, reception of foreign laws, conspiracies, and secret +meetings.[234:4] "Suffer no one," he adds, "to deny the gods or to +practise sorcery." The civilian Julius Paulus lays it down as one of the +leading principles of Roman Law, that those who introduce new or untried +religions should be degraded, and if in the lower orders put to +death.[234:5] In like manner, it is enacted in one of Constantine's Laws +that the Haruspices should not exercise their art in private; and there +is a law of Valentinian's against nocturnal sacrifices or magic. It is +more immediately to our purpose that Trajan had been so earnest in his +resistance to _Hetæriæ_ or secret societies, that, when a fire had laid +waste Nicomedia, and Pliny proposed to him to incorporate a body of a +hundred and fifty firemen in consequence,[235:1] he was afraid of the +precedent and forbade it. + + +22. + +What has been said will suggest another point of view in which the +Oriental rites were obnoxious to the government, viz., as being vagrant +and proselytizing religions. If it tolerated foreign superstitions, this +would be on the ground that districts or countries within its +jurisdiction held them; to proselytize to a rite hitherto unknown, to +form a new party, and to propagate it through the Empire,--a religion +not local but Catholic,--was an offence against both order and reason. +The state desired peace everywhere, and no change; "considering," +according to Lactantius, "that they were rightly and deservedly punished +who execrated the public religion handed down to them by their +ancestors."[235:2] + +It is impossible surely to deny that, in assembling for religious +purposes, the Christians were breaking a solemn law, a vital principle +of the Roman constitution; and this is the light in which their conduct +was regarded by the historians and philosophers of the Empire. This was +a very strong act on the part of the disciples of the great Apostle, who +had enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time after time they +resisted the authority of the magistrate; and this is a phenomenon +inexplicable on the theory of Private Judgment or of the Voluntary +Principle. The justification of such disobedience lies simply in the +necessity of obeying the higher authority of some divine law; but if +Christianity were in its essence only private and personal, as so many +now think, there was no necessity of their meeting together at all. If, +on the other hand, in assembling for worship and holy communion, they +were fulfilling an indispensable observance, Christianity has imposed a +social law on the world, and formally enters the field of politics. +Gibbon says that, in consequence of Pliny's edict, "the prudence of the +Christians suspended their Agapæ; but it was _impossible_ for them to +omit the exercise of public worship."[236:1] We can draw no other +conclusion. + + +23. + +At the end of three hundred years, a more remarkable violation of law +seems to have been admitted by the Christian body. It shall be given in +the words of Dr. Burton; he has been speaking of Maximin's edict, which +provided for the restitution of any of their lands or buildings which +had been alienated from them. "It is plain," he says, "from the terms of +this edict, that the Christians had for some time been in possession of +property. It speaks of houses and lands which did not belong to +individuals, but to the whole body. Their possession of such property +could hardly have escaped the notice of the government; but it seems to +have been held in direct violation of a law of Diocletian, which +prohibited corporate bodies, or associations which were not legally +recognized, from acquiring property. The Christians were certainly not a +body recognized by law at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, and +it might almost be thought that this enactment was specially directed +against them. But, like other laws which are founded upon tyranny, and +are at variance with the first principles of justice, it is probable +that this law about corporate property was evaded. We must suppose that +the Christians had purchased lands and houses before the law was passed; +and their disregard of the prohibition may be taken as another proof +that their religion had now taken so firm a footing that the executors +of the laws were obliged to connive at their being broken by so numerous +a body."[237:1] + + +24. + +No wonder that the magistrate who presided at the martyrdom of St. +Romanus calls them in Prudentius "a rebel people;"[237:2] that Galerius +speaks of them as "a nefarious conspiracy;" the heathen in Minucius, as +"men of a desperate faction;" that others make them guilty of sacrilege +and treason, and call them by those other titles which, more closely +resembling the language of Tacitus, have been noticed above. Hence the +violent accusations against them as the destruction of the Empire, the +authors of physical evils, and the cause of the anger of the gods. + +"Men cry out," says Tertullian, "that the state is beset, that the +Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. They +mourn as for a loss that every sex, condition, and now even rank, is +going over to this sect. And yet they do not by this very means advance +their minds to the idea of some good therein hidden; they allow not +themselves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not to examine more +closely. The generality run upon a hatred of this name, with eyes so +closed that in bearing favourable testimony to any one they mingle with +it the reproach of the name. 'A good man Caius Seius, only he is a +Christian.' So another, 'I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius hath +suddenly become a Christian.' No one reflecteth whether Caius be not +therefore good and Lucius wise because a Christian, or therefore a +Christian because wise and good. They praise that which they know, they +revile that which they know not. Virtue is not in such account as hatred +of the Christians. Now, then, if the hatred be of the name, what guilt +is there in names? What charge against words? Unless it be that any word +which is a name have either a barbarous or ill-omened, or a scurrilous +or an immodest sound. If the Tiber cometh up to the walls, if the Nile +cometh not up to the fields, if the heaven hath stood still, if the +earth hath been moved, if there be any famine, if any pestilence, 'The +Christians to the lions' is forthwith the word."[238:1] + + +25. + +"Men of a desperate, lawless, reckless faction," says the heathen +Cæcilius, in the passage above referred to, "who collect together out of +the lowest rabble the thoughtless portion, and credulous women seduced +by the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of impure conspirators, of +whom nocturnal assemblies, and solemn fastings, and unnatural food, no +sacred rite but pollution, is the bond. A tribe lurking and +light-hating, dumb for the public, talkative in corners, they despise +our temples as if graves, spit at our gods, deride our religious forms; +pitiable themselves, they pity, forsooth, our priests; half-naked +themselves, they despise our honours and purple; monstrous folly and +incredible impudence! . . . Day after day, their abandoned morals wind +their serpentine course; over the whole world are those most hideous +rites of an impious association growing into shape: . . . they recognize +each other by marks and signs, and love each other almost before they +recognize; promiscuous lust is their religion. Thus does their vain and +mad superstition glory in crimes. . . The writer who tells the story of a +criminal capitally punished, and of the gibbet (_ligna feralia_) of the +cross being their observance (_ceremonias_), assigns to them thereby an +altar in keeping with the abandoned and wicked, that they may worship +(_colant_) what they merit. . . . Why their mighty effort to hide and +shroud whatever it is they worship (_colunt_), since things honest ever +like the open day, and crimes are secret? Why have they no altars, no +temples, no images known to us, never speak abroad, never assemble +freely, were it not that what they worship and suppress is subject +either of punishment or of shame? . . What monstrous, what portentous +notions do they fabricate! that that God of theirs, whom they can +neither show nor see, should be inquiring diligently into the +characters, the acts, nay the words and secret thoughts of all men; +running to and fro, forsooth, and present everywhere, troublesome, +restless, nay impudently curious they would have him; that is, if he is +close at every deed, interferes in all places, while he can neither +attend to each as being distracted through the whole, nor suffice for +the whole as being engaged about each. Think too of their threatening +fire, meditating destruction to the whole earth, nay the world itself +with its stars! . . . Nor content with this mad opinion, they add and +append their old wives' tales about a new birth after death, ashes and +cinders, and by some strange confidence believe each other's lies. Poor +creatures! consider what hangs over you after death, while you are still +alive. Lo, the greater part of you, the better, as you say, are in want, +cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it; but I omit common trials. +Lo, threats are offered to you, punishments, torments; crosses to be +undergone now, not worshipped (_adorandæ_); fires too which ye predict +and fear; where is that God who can recover, but cannot preserve your +life? The answer of Socrates, when he was asked about heavenly matters, +is well known, 'What is above us does not concern us.' My opinion also +is, that points which are doubtful, as are the points in question, must +be left; nor, when so many and such great men are in controversy on the +subject, must judgment be rashly and audaciously given on either side, +lest the consequence be either anile superstition or the overthrow of +all religion." + + +26. + +Such was Christianity in the eyes of those who witnessed its rise and +propagation;--one of a number of wild and barbarous rites which were +pouring in upon the Empire from the ancient realms of superstition, and +the mother of a progeny of sects which were faithful to the original +they had derived from Egypt or Syria; a religion unworthy of an educated +person, as appealing, not to the intellect, but to the fears and +weaknesses of human nature, and consisting, not in the rational and +cheerful enjoyment, but in a morose rejection of the gifts of +Providence; a horrible religion, as inflicting or enjoining cruel +sufferings, and monstrous and loathsome in its very indulgence of the +passions; a religion leading by reaction to infidelity; a religion of +magic, and of the vulgar arts, real and pretended, with which magic was +accompanied; a secret religion which dared not face the day; an +itinerant, busy, proselytizing religion, forming an extended confederacy +against the state, resisting its authority and breaking its laws. There +may be some exceptions to this general impression, such as Pliny's +discovery of the innocent and virtuous rule of life adopted by the +Christians of Pontus; but this only proves that Christianity was not in +fact the infamous religion which the heathen thought it; it did not +reverse their general belief to that effect. + + +27. + +Now it must be granted that, in some respects, this view of Christianity +depended on the times, and would alter with their alteration. When there +was no persecution, Martyrs could not be obstinate; and when the Church +was raised aloft in high places, it was no longer in caves. Still, I +believe, it continued substantially the same in the judgment of the +world external to it, while there was an external world to judge of it. +"They thought it enough," says Julian in the fourth century, of our Lord +and His Apostles, "to deceive women, servants, and slaves, and by their +means wives and husbands." "A human fabrication," says he elsewhere, +"put together by wickedness, having nothing divine in it, but making a +perverted use of the fable-loving, childish, irrational part of the +soul, and offering a set of wonders to create belief." "Miserable men," +he says elsewhere, "you refuse to worship the ancile, yet you worship +the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads, and fix it on your +doors. Shall one for this hate the intelligent among you, or pity the +less understanding, who in following you have gone to such an excess of +perdition as to leave the everlasting gods and go over to a dead Jew?" +He speaks of their adding other dead men to Him who died so long ago. +"You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments, though it is +nowhere told you in your religion to haunt the tombs and to attend upon +them." Elsewhere he speaks of their "leaving the gods for corpses and +relics." On the other hand, he attributes the growth of Christianity to +its humanity towards strangers, care in burying the dead, and pretended +religiousness of life. In another place he speaks of their care of the +poor.[241:1] + +Libanius, Julian's preceptor in rhetoric, delivers the same testimony, +as far as it goes. He addressed his Oration for the Temples to a +Christian Emperor, and would in consequence be guarded in his language; +however it runs in one direction. He speaks of "those black-habited +men," meaning the monks, "who eat more than elephants, and by the +number of their potations trouble those who send them drink in their +chantings, and conceal this by paleness artificially acquired." They +"are in good condition out of the misfortunes of others, while they +pretend to serve God by hunger." Those whom they attack "are like bees, +they like drones." I do not quote this passage to prove that there were +monks in Libanius's days, which no one doubts, but to show his +impression of Christianity, as far as his works betray it. + +Numantian, in the same century, describes in verse his voyage from Rome +to Gaul: one book of the poem is extant; he falls in with Christianity +on two of the islands which lie in his course. He thus describes them as +found on one of these: "The island is in a squalid state, being full of +light-haters. They call themselves monks, because they wish to live +alone without witness. They dread the gifts, from fearing the reverses, +of fortune. Thus Homer says that melancholy was the cause of +Bellerophon's anxiety; for it is said that after the wounds of grief +mankind displeased the offended youth." He meets on the other island a +Christian, whom he had known, of good family and fortune, and happy in +his marriage, who "impelled by the Furies had left men and gods, and, +credulous exile, was living in base concealment. Is not this herd," he +continues, "worse than Circean poison? then bodies were changed, now +minds." + + +28. + +In the Philopatris, which is the work of an Author of the fourth +century,[242:1] Critias is introduced pale and wild. His friend asks him +if he has seen Cerberus or Hecate; and he answers that he has heard a +rigmarole from certain "thrice-cursed sophists;" which he thinks would +drive him mad, if he heard it again, and was nearly sending him +headlong over some cliff as it was. He retires for relief with his +inquirer to a pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swallows and +nightingales are singing, and a quiet brook is purling. Triephon, his +friend, expresses a fear lest he has heard some incantation, and is led +by the course of the dialogue, before his friend tells his tale, to give +some account of Christianity, being himself a Christian. After speaking +of the creation, as described by Moses, he falls at once upon that +doctrine of a particular providence which is so distasteful to Plutarch, +Velleius in Cicero, and Cæcilius, and generally to unbelievers. "He is +in heaven," he says, "looking at just and unjust, and causing actions to +be entered in books; and He will recompense all on a day which He has +appointed." Critias objects that he cannot make this consistent with the +received doctrine about the Fates, "even though he has perhaps been +carried aloft with his master, and initiated in unspeakable mysteries." +He also asks if the deeds of the Scythians are written in heaven; for if +so, there must be many scribes there. After some more words, in course +of which, as in the earlier part of the dialogue, the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity is introduced, Critias gives an account of what befell him. +He says, he fell in with a crowd in the streets; and, while asking a +friend the cause of it, others joined them (Christians or monks), and a +conversation ensues, part of it corrupt or obscure, on the subject, as +Gesner supposes, of Julian's oppression of the Christians, especially of +the clergy. One of these interlocutors is a wretched old man, whose +"phlegm is paler than death;" another has "a rotten cloke on, and no +covering on head or feet," who says he has been told by some ill-clad +person from the mountains, with a shorn crown, that in the theatre was a +name hieroglyphically written of one who would flood the highway with +gold. On his laughing at the story, his friend Crato, whom he had +joined, bids him be silent, using a Pythagorean word; for he has "most +excellent matters to initiate him into, and that the prediction is no +dream but true," and will be fulfilled in August, using the Egyptian +name of the month. He attempts to leave them in disgust, but Crato pulls +him back "at the instigation of that old demon." He is in consequence +persuaded to go "to those conjurers," who, says Crato, would "initiate +in all mysteries." He finds, in a building which is described in the +language used by Homer of the Palace of Menelaus, "not Helen, no, but +men pale and downcast," who ask, whether there was any bad news; "for +they seemed," he says, "wishing the worst; and rejoicing in misfortune, +as the Furies in the theatres." On their asking him how the city and the +world went on, and his answering that things went on smoothly and seemed +likely to do so still, they frown, and say that "the city is in travail +with a bad birth." "You, who dwell aloft," he answers, "and see +everything from on high, doubtless have a keen perception in this +matter; but tell me, how is the sky? will the Sun be eclipsed? will Mars +be in quadrature with Jupiter? &c.;" and he goes on to jest upon their +celibacy. On their persisting in prophesying evil to the state, he says, +"This evil will fall on your own head, since you are so hard upon your +country; for not as high-flyers have ye heard this, nor are ye adepts in +the restless astrological art, but if divinations and conjurings have +seduced you, double is your stupidity; for they are the discoveries of +old women and things to laugh at." The interview then draws to an end; +but more than enough has been quoted already to show the author's notion +of Christianity. + + +29. + +Such was the language of paganism after Christianity had for fifty years +been exposed to the public gaze; after it had been before the world for +fifty more, St. Augustine had still to defend it against the charge of +being the cause of the calamities of the Empire. And for the charge of +magic, when the Arian bishops were in formal disputations with the +Catholic, before Gungebald, Burgundian King of France, at the end of the +fifth century, we find still that they charged the Catholics with being +"_præstigiatores_," and worshipping a number of gods; and when the +Catholics proposed that the king should repair to the shrine of St. +Justus, where both parties might ask him concerning their respective +faiths, the Arians cried out that "they would not seek enchantments like +Saul, for Scripture was enough for them, which was more powerful than +all bewitchments."[245:1] This was said, not against strangers of whom +they knew nothing, as Ethelbert might be suspicious of St. Augustine and +his brother missionaries, but against a body of men who lived among +them. + +I do not think it can be doubted then that, had Tacitus, Suetonius, and +Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and the other opponents of Christianity, lived +in the fourth century, their evidence concerning Christianity would be +very much the same as it has come down to us from the centuries before +it. In either case, a man of the world and a philosopher would have been +disgusted at the gloom and sadness of its profession, its +mysteriousness, its claim of miracles, the want of good sense imputable +to its rule of life, and the unsettlement and discord it was introducing +into the social and political world. + + +30. + +On the whole then I conclude as follows:--if there is a form of +Christianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of +borrowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to +forms and ceremonies an occult virtue;--a religion which is considered +to burden and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to +the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and +imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith;--a +religion which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of +the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, +one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a +grave shadow over the future;--a religion which holds up to admiration +the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it +if they would;--a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, +are to the generality of men unknown; which is considered to bear on its +very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance +suffices to judge of it, and that careful examination is preposterous; +which is felt to be so simply bad, that it may be calumniated at hazard +and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the +accurate distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or +painfully to determine how far this or that story concerning it is +literally true, or what has to be allowed in candour, or what is +improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be +plausibly defended;--a religion such, that men look at a convert to it +with a feeling which no other denomination raises except Judaism, +Socialism, or Mormonism, viz. with curiosity, suspicion, fear, disgust, +as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if he +had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion with +dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which +claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, reduced him +to a mere organ or instrument of a whole;--a religion which men hate as +proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as dividing families, +separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of government, making a +mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of human nature, and a +"conspirator against its rights and privileges;"[247:1]--a religion +which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness, and a +pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven;--a religion +which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak +about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes +wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable;--a religion, +the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad +epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they would +persecute if they could;--if there be such a religion now in the world, +it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it, when first +it came forth from its Divine Author.[247:2] + + +SECTION II. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. + +Till the Imperial Government had become Christian, and heresies were put +down by the arm of power, the face of Christendom presented much the +same appearance all along as on the first propagation of the religion. +What Gnosticism, Montanism, Judaism and, I may add, the Oriental +mysteries were to the nascent Church, as described in the foregoing +Section, such were the Manichean, Donatist, Apollinarian and +contemporary sects afterwards. The Church in each place looked at first +sight as but one out of a number of religious communions, with little of +a very distinctive character except to the careful inquirer. Still there +were external indications of essential differences within; and, as we +have already compared it in the first centuries, we may now contrast it +in the fourth, with the rival religious bodies with which it was +encompassed. + + +2. + +How was the man to guide his course who wished to join himself to the +doctrine and fellowship of the Apostles in the times of St. Athanasius, +St. Basil, and St. Augustine? Few indeed were the districts in the +_orbis terrarum_, which did not then, as in the Ante-nicene era, present +a number of creeds and communions for his choice. Gaul indeed is said at +that era to have been perfectly free from heresies; at least none are +mentioned as belonging to that country in the Theodosian Code. But in +Egypt, in the early part of the fourth century, the Meletian schism +numbered one-third as many bishops as were contained in the whole +Patriarchate. In Africa, towards the end of it, while the Catholic +Bishops amounted in all to 466, the Donatists rivalled them with as many +as 400. In Spain Priscillianism was spread from the Pyrenees to the +Ocean. It seems to have been the religion of the population in the +province of Gallicia, while its author Priscillian, whose death had been +contrived by the Ithacians, was honoured as a Martyr. The Manichees, +hiding themselves under a variety of names in different localities, were +not in the least flourishing condition at Rome. Rome and Italy were the +seat of the Marcionites. The Origenists, too, are mentioned by St. +Jerome as "bringing a cargo of blasphemies into the port of Rome." And +Rome was the seat of a Novatian, a Donatist, and a Luciferian bishop, in +addition to the legitimate occupant of the See of St. Peter. The +Luciferians, as was natural under the circumstances of their schism, +were sprinkled over Christendom from Spain to Palestine, and from Treves +to Lybia; while in its parent country Sardinia, as a centre of that +extended range, Lucifer seems to have received the honours of a Saint. + +When St. Gregory Nazianzen began to preach at Constantinople, the Arians +were in possession of its hundred churches; they had the populace in +their favour, and, after their legal dislodgment, edict after edict was +ineffectually issued against them. The Novatians too abounded there; and +the Sabbatians, who had separated from them, had a church, where they +prayed at the tomb of their founder. Moreover, Apollinarians, Eunomians, +and Semi-arians, mustered in great numbers at Constantinople. The +Semi-arian bishops were as popular in the neighbouring provinces, as the +Arian doctrine in the capital. They had possession of the coast of the +Hellespont and Bithynia; and were found in Phrygia, Isauria, and the +neighbouring parts of Asia Minor. Phrygia was the headquarters of the +Montanists, and was overrun by the Messalians, who had advanced thus far +from Mesopotamia, spreading through Syria, Lycaonia, Pamphylia, and +Cappadocia in their way. In the lesser Armenia, the same heretics had +penetrated into the monasteries. Phrygia, too, and Paphlagonia were the +seat of the Novatians, who besides were in force at Nicæa and Nicomedia, +were found in Alexandria, Africa, and Spain, and had a bishop even in +Scythia. The whole tract of country from the Hellespont to Cilicia had +nearly lapsed into Eunomianism, and the tract from Cilicia as far as +Phœnicia into Apollinarianism. The disorders of the Church of Antioch +are well known: an Arian succession, two orthodox claimants, and a +bishop of the Apollinarians. Palestine abounded in Origenists, if at +that time they may properly be called a sect; Palestine, Egypt, and +Arabia were overrun with Marcionites; Osrhoene was occupied by the +followers of Bardesanes and Harmonius, whose hymns so nearly took the +place of national tunes that St. Ephrem found no better way of resisting +the heresy than setting them to fresh words. Theodoret in Comagene +speaks in the next century of reclaiming eight villages of Marcionites, +one of Eunomians, and one of Arians. + + +3. + +These sects were of very various character. Learning, eloquence, and +talent were the characteristics of the Apollinarians, Manichees, and +Pelagians; Tichonius the Donatist was distinguished in Biblical +interpretation; the Semi-arian and Apollinarian leaders were men of +grave and correct behaviour; the Novatians had sided with the Orthodox +during the Arian persecution; the Montanists and Messalians addressed +themselves to an almost heathen population; the atrocious fanaticism of +the Priscillianists, the fury of the Arian women of Alexandria and +Constantinople, and the savage cruelty of the Circumcellions can hardly +be exaggerated. These various sectaries had their orders of clergy, +bishops, priests and deacons; their readers and ministers; their +celebrants and altars; their hymns and litanies. They preached to the +crowds in public, and their meeting-houses bore the semblance of +churches. They had their sacristies and cemeteries; their farms; their +professors and doctors; their schools. Miracles were ascribed to the +Arian Theophilus, to the Luciferian Gregory of Elvira, to a Macedonian +in Cyzicus, and to the Donatists in Africa. + + +4. + +How was an individual inquirer to find, or a private Christian to keep +the Truth, amid so many rival teachers? The misfortunes or perils of +holy men and saints show us the difficulty; St. Augustine was nine years +a Manichee; St. Basil for a time was in admiration of the Semi-arians; +St. Sulpicius gave a momentary countenance to the Pelagians; St. Paula +listened, and Melania assented, to the Origenists. Yet the rule was +simple, which would direct every one right; and in that age, at least, +no one could be wrong for any long time without his own fault. The +Church is everywhere, but it is one; sects are everywhere, but they are +many, independent and discordant. Catholicity is the attribute of the +Church, independency of sectaries. It is true that some sects might seem +almost Catholic in their diffusion; Novatians or Marcionites were in all +quarters of the empire; yet it is hardly more than the name, or the +general doctrine or philosophy, that was universal: the different +portions which professed it seem to have been bound together by no +strict or definite tie. The Church might be evanescent or lost for a +while in particular countries, or it might be levelled and buried among +sects, when the eye was confined to one spot, or it might be confronted +by the one and same heresy in various places; but, on looking round the +_orbis terrarum_, there was no mistaking that body which, and which +alone, had possession of it. The Church is a kingdom; a heresy is a +family rather than a kingdom; and as a family continually divides and +sends out branches, founding new houses, and propagating itself in +colonies, each of them as independent as its original head, so was it +with heresy. Simon Magus, the first heretic, had been Patriarch of +Menandrians, Basilidians, Valentinians, and the whole family of +Gnostics; Tatian of Encratites, Severians, Aquarians, Apotactites, and +Saccophori. The Montanists had been propagated into Tascodrugites, +Pepuzians, Artotyrites, and Quartodecimans. Eutyches, in a later time, +gave birth to the Dioscorians, Gaianites, Theodosians, Agnoetæ, +Theopaschites, Acephali, Semidalitæ, Nagranitæ, Jacobites, and others. +This is the uniform history of heresy. The patronage of the civil power +might for a time counteract the law of its nature, but it showed it as +soon as that obstacle was removed. Scarcely was Arianism deprived of the +churches of Constantinople, and left to itself, than it split in that +very city into the Dorotheans, the Psathyrians, and the Curtians; and +the Eunomians into the Theophronians and Eutychians. One fourth part of +the Donatists speedily became Maximinianists; and besides these were the +Rogatians, the Primianists, the Urbanists, and the Claudianists. If such +was the fecundity of the heretical principle in one place, it is not to +be supposed that Novatians or Marcionites in Africa or the East would +feel themselves bound to think or to act with their fellow-sectaries of +Rome or Constantinople; and the great varieties or inconsistencies of +statement, which have come down to us concerning the tenets of heresies, +may thus be explained. This had been the case with the pagan rites, +whether indigenous or itinerant, to which heresy succeeded. The +established priesthoods were local properties, as independent +theologically as they were geographically of each other; the fanatical +companies which spread over the Empire dissolved and formed again as the +circumstances of the moment occasioned. So was it with heresy: it was, +by its very nature, its own master, free to change, self-sufficient; +and, having thrown off the yoke of the Church, it was little likely to +submit to any usurped and spurious authority. Montanism and Manicheeism +might perhaps in some sort furnish an exception to this remark. + + +5. + +In one point alone the heresies seem universally to have agreed,--in +hatred to the Church. This might at that time be considered one of her +surest and most obvious Notes. She was that body of which all sects, +however divided among themselves, spoke ill; according to the prophecy, +"If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more +them of His household." They disliked and they feared her; they did +their utmost to overcome their mutual differences, in order to unite +against her. Their utmost indeed was little, for independency was the +law of their being; they could not exert themselves without fresh +quarrels, both in the bosom of each, and one with another. "_Bellum +hæreticorum pax est ecclesiæ_" had become a proverb; but they felt the +great desirableness of union against the only body which was the natural +antagonist of all, and various are the instances which occur in +ecclesiastical history of attempted coalitions. The Meletians of Africa +united with the Arians against St. Athanasius; the Semi-Arians of the +Council of Sardica corresponded with the Donatists of Africa; Nestorius +received and protected the Pelagians; Aspar, the Arian minister of Leo +the Emperor, favoured the Monophysites of Egypt; the Jacobites of Egypt +sided with the Moslem, who are charged with holding a Nestorian +doctrine. It had been so from the beginning: "They huddle up a peace +with all everywhere," says Tertullian, "for it maketh no matter to them, +although they hold different doctrines, so long as they conspire +together in their siege against the one thing, Truth."[254:1] And even +though active co-operation was impracticable, at least hard words cost +nothing, and could express that common hatred at all seasons. +Accordingly, by Montanists, Catholics were called "the carnal;" by +Novatians, "the apostates;" by Valentinians, "the worldly;" by +Manichees, "the simple;" by Aërians, "the ancient;"[254:2] by +Apollinarians, "the man-worshippers;" by Origenists, "the flesh-lovers," +and "the slimy;" by the Nestorians, "Egyptians;" by Monophysites, the +"Chalcedonians:" by Donatists, "the traitors," and "the sinners," and +"servants of Antichrist;" and St. Peter's chair, "the seat of +pestilence;" and by the Luciferians, the Church was called "a brothel," +"the devil's harlot," and "synagogue of Satan:" so that it might be +called a Note of the Church, as I have said, for the use of the most +busy and the most ignorant, that she was on one side and all other +bodies on the other. + + +6. + +Yet, strange as it may appear, there was one title of the Church of a +very different nature from those which have been enumerated,--a title of +honour, which all men agreed to give her,--and one which furnished a +still more simple direction than such epithets of abuse to aid the busy +and the ignorant in finding her, and which was used by the Fathers for +that purpose. It was one which the sects could neither claim for +themselves, nor hinder being enjoyed by its rightful owner, though, +since it was the characteristic designation of the Church in the Creed, +it seemed to surrender the whole controversy between the two parties +engaged in it. Balaam could not keep from blessing the ancient people of +God; and the whole world, heresies inclusive, were irresistibly +constrained to call God's second election by its prophetical title of +the "Catholic" Church. St. Paul tells us that the heretic is "condemned +by himself;" and no clearer witness against the sects of the earlier +centuries was needed by the Church, than their own testimony to this +contrast between her actual position and their own. Sects, say the +Fathers, are called after the name of their founders, or from their +locality, or from their doctrine. So was it from the beginning: "I am of +Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas;" but it was promised to the +Church that she should have no master upon earth, and that she should +"gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." +Her every-day name, which was understood in the marketplace and used in +the palace, which every chance comer knew, and which state-edicts +recognized, was the "Catholic" Church. This was that very description of +Christianity in those times which we are all along engaged in +determining. And it had been recognized as such from the first; the name +or the fact is put forth by St. Ignatius, St. Justin, St. Clement; by +the Church of Smyrna, St. Irenæus, Rhodon or another, Tertullian, +Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Cornelius; by the Martyrs, Pionius, Sabina, and +Asclepiades; by Lactantius, Eusebius, Adimantius, St. Athanasius, St. +Pacian, St. Optatus, St. Epiphanius, St. Cyril, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, +St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and Facundus. St. Clement +uses it as an argument against the Gnostics, St. Augustine against the +Donatists and Manichees, St. Jerome against the Luciferians, and St. +Pacian against the Novatians. + + +7. + +It was an argument for educated and simple. When St. Ambrose would +convert the cultivated reason of Augustine, he bade him study the book +of Isaiah, who is the prophet, as of the Messiah, so of the calling of +the Gentiles and of the Imperial power of the Church. And when St. Cyril +would give a rule to his crowd of Catechumens, "If ever thou art +sojourning in any city," he says, "inquire not simply where the Lord's +house is, (for the sects of the profane also make an attempt to call +their own dens houses of the Lord,) nor merely where the Church is, but +where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy +Body, the Mother of us all, which is the Spouse of our Lord Jesus +Christ."[256:1] "In the Catholic Church," says St. Augustine to the +Manichees, "not to speak of that most pure wisdom, to the knowledge of +which few spiritual men attain in this life so as to know it even in its +least measure,--as men, indeed, yet, without any doubt,--(for the +multitude of Christians are safest, not in understanding with quickness, +but in believing with simplicity,) not to speak of this wisdom, which ye +do not believe to be in the Catholic Church, there are many other +considerations which most sufficiently hold me in her bosom. I am held +by the consent of people and nations; by that authority which began in +miracles, was nourished in hope, was increased by charity, and made +steadfast by age; by that succession of priests from the chair of the +Apostle Peter, to whose feeding the Lord after His resurrection +commended His sheep, even to the present episcopate; lastly, by the very +title of Catholic, which, not without cause, hath this Church alone, +amid so many heresies, obtained in such sort, that, whereas all +heretics wish to be called Catholics, nevertheless to any stranger, who +asked where to find the 'Catholic' Church, none of them would dare to +point to his own basilica or home. These dearest bonds, then, of the +Christian Name, so many and such, rightly hold a man in belief in the +Catholic Church, even though, by reason of the slowness of our +understanding or our deserts, truth doth not yet show herself in her +clearest tokens. But among you, who have none of these reasons to invite +and detain me, I hear but the loud sound of a promise of the truth; +which truth, verily, if it be so manifestly displayed among you that +there can be no mistake about it, is to be preferred to all those things +by which I am held in the Catholic Church; but if it is promised alone, +and not exhibited, no one shall move me from that faith which by so many +and great ties binds my mind to the Christian religion."[257:1] When +Adimantius asked his Marcionite opponent, how he was a Christian who did +not even bear that name, but was called from Marcion, he retorts, "And +you are called from the Catholic Church, therefore ye are not Christians +either;" Adimantius answers, "Did we profess man's name, you would have +spoken to the point; but if we are called from being all over the world, +what is there bad in this?"[257:2] + + +8. + +"Whereas there is one God and one Lord," says St. Clement, "therefore +also that which is the highest in esteem is praised on the score of +being sole, as after the pattern of the One Principle. In the nature +then of the One, the Church, which is one, hath its portion, which they +would forcibly cut up into many heresies. In substance then, and in +idea, and in first principle, and in pre-eminence, we call the ancient +Catholic Church sole; in order to the unity of one faith, the faith +according to her own covenants, or rather that one covenant in different +times, which, by the will of one God and through one Lord, is gathering +together those who are already ordained, whom God hath predestined, +having known that they would be just from the foundation of the +world. . . . . But of heresies, some are called from a man's name, as +Valentine's heresy, Marcion's, and that of Basilides (though they +profess to bring the opinion of Matthias, for all the Apostles had, as +one teaching, so one tradition); and others from place, as the Peratici; +and others from nation, as that of the Phrygians; and others from their +actions, as that of the Encratites; and others from their peculiar +doctrines, as the Docetæ and Hematites; and others from their +hypotheses, and what they have honoured, as Cainites and the Ophites; +and others from their wicked conduct and enormities, as those Simonians +who are called Eutychites."[258:1] "There are, and there have been," +says St. Justin, "many who have taught atheistic and blasphemous words +and deeds, coming in the name of Jesus; and they are called by us from +the appellation of the men whence each doctrine and opinion began . . . +Some are called Marcians, others Valentinians, others Basilidians, +others Saturnilians."[258:2] "When men are called Phrygians, or +Novatians, or Valentinians, or Marcionites, or Anthropians," says +Lactantius, "or by any other name, they cease to be Christians; for they +have lost Christ's Name, and clothe themselves in human and foreign +titles. It is the Catholic Church alone which retains the true +worship."[258:3] "We never heard of Petrines, or Paulines, or +Bartholomeans, or Thaddeans," says St. Epiphanius; "but from the first +there was one preaching of all the Apostles, not preaching themselves, +but Christ Jesus the Lord. Wherefore also all gave one name to the +Church, not their own, but that of their Lord Jesus Christ, since they +began to be called Christians first at Antioch; which is the Sole +Catholic Church, having nought else but Christ's, being a Church of +Christians; not of Christs, but of Christians, He being One, they from +that One being called Christians. None, but this Church and her +preachers, are of this character, as is shown by their own epithets, +Manicheans, and Simonians, and Valentinians, and Ebionites."[259:1] "If +you ever hear those who are said to belong to Christ," says St. Jerome, +"named, not from the Lord Jesus Christ, but from some other, say +Marcionites, Valentinians, Mountaineers, Campestrians, know that it is +not Christ's Church, but the synagogue of Antichrist."[259:2] + + +9. + +St. Pacian's letters to the Novatian Bishop Sympronian require a more +extended notice. The latter had required the Catholic faith to be proved +to him, without distinctly stating from what portion of it he dissented; +and he boasted that he had never found any one to convince him of its +truth. St. Pacian observes that there is one point which Sympronian +cannot dispute, and which settles the question, the very name Catholic. +He then supposes Sympronian to object that, "under the Apostles no one +was called Catholic." He answers, "Be it thus;[259:3] it shall have been +so; allow even that. When, after the Apostles, heresies had burst forth, +and were striving under various names to tear piecemeal and divide 'the +Dove' and 'the Queen' of God, did not the Apostolic people require a +name of their own, whereby to mark the unity of the people that was +uncorrupted, lest the error of some should rend limb by limb 'the +undefiled virgin' of God? Was it not seemly that the chief head should +be distinguished by its own peculiar appellation? Suppose this very day +I entered a populous city. When I had found Marcionites, Apollinarians, +Cataphrygians, Novatians, and others of the kind, who call themselves +Christians, by what name should I recognize the congregation of my own +people, unless it were named Catholic? . . . . Whence was it delivered +to me? Certainly that which has stood through so many ages was not +borrowed from man. This name 'Catholic' sounds not of Marcion, nor of +Apelles, nor of Montanus, nor does it take heretics for its authors." + +In his second letter, he continues, "Certainly that was no accessory +name which endured through so many ages. And, indeed, I am glad for +thee, that, although thou mayest have preferred others, yet thou agreest +that the name attaches to us, which should you deny nature would cry +out. But and if you still have doubts, let us hold our peace. We will +both be that which we shall be named." After alluding to Sympronian's +remark that, though Cyprian was holy, "his people bear the name of +Apostaticum, Capitolinum, or Synedrium," which were some of the Novatian +titles of the Church, St. Pacian replies, "Ask a century, brother, and +all its years in succession, whether this name has adhered to us; +whether the people of Cyprian have been called other than Catholic? No +one of these names have I ever heard." It followed that such +appellations were "taunts, not names," and therefore unmannerly. On the +other hand it seems that Sympronian did not like to be called a +Novatian, though he could not call himself a Catholic. "Tell me +yourselves," says St. Pacian, "what ye are called. Do ye deny that the +Novatians are called from Novatian? Impose on them whatever name you +like; that will ever adhere to them. Search, if you please, whole +annals, and trust so many ages. You will answer, 'Christian.' But +if I inquire the genus of the sect, you will not deny that it is +Novatian. . . . Confess it without deceit; there is no wickedness in +the name. Why, when so often inquired for, do you hide yourself? Why +ashamed of the origin of your name? When you first wrote, I thought you +a Cataphrygian. . . . Dost thou grudge me my name, and yet shun thine +own? Think what there is of shame in a cause which shrinks from its own +name." + +In a third letter: "'The Church is the Body of Christ.' Truly, the body, +not a member; the body composed of many parts and members knit in one, +as saith the Apostle, 'For the Body is not one member, but many.' +Therefore, the Church is the full body, compacted and diffused now +throughout the whole world; like a city, I mean, all whose parts are +united, not as ye are, O Novatians, some small and insolent portion, and +a mere swelling that has gathered and separated from the rest of the +body. . . . Great is the progeny of the Virgin, and without number her +offspring, wherewith the whole world is filled, wherewith the populous +swarms ever throng the circumfluous hive." And he founds this +characteristic of the Church upon the prophecies: "At length, brother +Sympronian, be not ashamed to be with the many; at length consent to +despise these festering spots of the Novatians, and these parings of +yours; and at length, to look upon the flocks of the Catholics, and the +people of the Church extending so far and wide. . . . Hear what David +saith, 'I will sing unto Thy name in the great congregation;' and again, +'I will praise Thee among much people;' and 'the Lord, even the most +mighty God, hath spoken, and called the world from the rising up of the +sun unto the going down thereof.' What! shall the seed of Abraham, which +is as the stars and the sand on the seashore for number, be contented +with your poverty? . . . Recognize now, brother, the Church of God +extending her tabernacles and fixing the stakes of her curtains on the +right and on the left; understand that 'the Lord's name is praised from +the rising up of the sun unto the going down thereof.'" + + +10. + +In citing these passages, I am not proving what was the doctrine of the +Fathers concerning the Church in those early times, or what were the +promises made to it in Scripture; but simply ascertaining what, in +matter of fact, was its then condition relatively to the various +Christian bodies among which it was found. That the Fathers were able to +put forward a certain doctrine, that they were able to appeal to the +prophecies, proves that matter of fact; for unless the Church, and the +Church alone, had been one body everywhere, they could not have argued +on the supposition that it was so. And so as to the word "Catholic;" it +is enough that the Church was so called; that title was a confirmatory +proof and symbol of what is even otherwise so plain, that she, as St. +Pacian explains the word, was everywhere one, while the sects of the day +were nowhere one, but everywhere divided. Sects might, indeed, be +everywhere, but they were in no two places the same; every spot had its +own independent communion, or at least to this result they were +inevitably and continually tending. + + +11. + +St. Pacian writes in Spain: the same contrast between the Church and +sectarianism is presented to us in Africa in the instance of the +Donatists; and St. Optatus is a witness both to the fact, and to its +notoriety, and to the deep impressions which it made on all parties. +Whether or not the Donatists identified themselves with the true Church, +and cut off the rest of Christendom from it, is not the question here, +nor alters the fact which I wish distinctly brought out and recognized, +that in those ancient times the Church was that Body which was spread +over the _orbis terrarum_, and sects were those bodies which were local +or transitory. + +"What is that one Church," says St. Optatus, "which Christ calls 'Dove' +and 'Spouse'? . . . It cannot be in the multitude of heretics and +schismatics. If so, it follows that it is but in one place. Thou, +brother Parmenian, hast said that it is with you alone; unless, perhaps, +you aim at claiming for yourselves a special sanctity from your pride, +so that where you will, there the Church may be, and may not be, where +you will not. Must it then be in a small portion of Africa, in the +corner of a small realm, among you, but not among us in another part of +Africa? And not in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy, where you are not? And if +you will have it only among you, not in the three Pannonian provinces, +in Dacia, Mœsia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, and in all Greece, where +you are not? And that you may keep it among yourselves, not in Pontus, +Galatia, Cappadocia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Cilicia, in the three Syrias, +in the two Armenias, in all Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, where you are +not? Not among such innumerable islands and the other provinces, +scarcely numerable, where you are not? What will become then of the +meaning of the word Catholic, which is given to the Church, as being +according to reason[263:1] and diffused every where? For if thus at your +pleasure you narrow the Church, if you withdraw from her all the +nations, where will be the earnings of the Son of God? where will be +that which the Father hath so amply accorded to Him, saying in the +second Psalm 'I will give thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the +uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession,' &c.? . . The whole +earth is given Him with the nations; its whole circuit (_orbis_) is +Christ's one possession."[263:2] + + +12. + +An African writer contemporary with St. Augustine, if not St. Augustine +himself, enumerates the small portions of the Donatist Sect, in and out +of Africa, and asks if they can be imagined to be the fulfilment of the +Scripture promise to the Church. "If the holy Scriptures have assigned +the Church to Africa alone, or to the scanty Cutzupitans or Mountaineers +of Rome, or to the house or patrimony of one Spanish woman, however the +argument may stand from other writings, then none but the Donatists have +possession of the Church. If holy Scripture determines it to the few +Moors of the Cæsarean province, we must go over to the Rogatists: if to +the few Tripolitans or Byzacenes and Provincials, the Maximianists have +attained to it; if in the Orientals only, it is to be sought for among +Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and others that may be there; for who +can enumerate every heresy of every nation? But if Christ's Church, by +the divine and most certain testimonies of Canonical Scriptures, is +assigned to all nations, whatever may be adduced, and from whatever +quarter cited, by those who say, 'Lo, here is Christ and lo there,' let +us rather hear, if we be His sheep, the voice of our Shepherd saying +unto us, 'Do not believe.' For they are not each found in the many +nations where she is; but she, who is everywhere, is found where they +are."[264:1] + +Lastly, let us hear St. Augustine himself again in the same controversy: +"They do not communicate with us, as you say," he observes to +Cresconius, "Novatians, Arians, Patripassians, Valentinians, Patricians, +Apellites, Marcionites, Ophites, and the rest of those sacrilegious +names, as you call them, of nefarious pests rather than sects. Yet, +wheresoever they are, there is the Catholic Church; as in Africa it is +where you are. On the other hand, neither you, nor any one of those +heresies whatever, is to be found wherever is the Catholic Church. +Whence it appears, which is that tree whose boughs extend over all the +earth by the richness of its fruitfulness, and which be those broken +branches which have not the life of the root, but lie and wither, each +in its own place."[265:1] + + +13. + +It may be possibly suggested that this universality which the Fathers +ascribe to the Catholic Church lay in its Apostolical descent, or again +in its Episcopacy; and that it was one, not as being one kingdom or +civitas "at unity with itself," with one and the same intelligence in +every part, one sympathy, one ruling principle, one organization, one +communion, but because, though consisting of a number of independent +communities, at variance (if so be) with each other even to a breach of +communion, nevertheless all these were possessed of a legitimate +succession of clergy, or all governed by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. +But who will in seriousness maintain that relationship, or that sameness +of structure, makes two bodies one? England and Prussia are both of them +monarchies; are they therefore one kingdom? England and the United +States are from one stock; can they therefore be called one state? +England and Ireland are peopled by different races; yet are they not one +kingdom still? If unity lies in the Apostolical succession, an act of +schism is from the nature of the case impossible; for as no one can +reverse his parentage, so no Church can undo the fact that its clergy +have come by lineal descent from the Apostles. Either there is no such +sin as schism, or unity does not lie in the Episcopal form or in the +Episcopal ordination. And this is felt by the controversialists of this +day; who in consequence are obliged to invent a sin, and to consider, +not division of Church from Church, but the interference of Church with +Church to be the sin of schism, as if local dioceses and bishops with +restraint were more than ecclesiastical arrangements and by-laws of the +Church, however sacred, while schism is a sin against her essence. Thus +they strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Division is the schism, if +schism there be, not interference. If interference is a sin, division +which is the cause of it is a greater; but where division is a duty, +there can be no sin in interference. + + +14. + +Far different from such a theory is the picture which the ancient Church +presents to us; true, it was governed by Bishops, and those Bishops came +from the Apostles, but it was a kingdom besides; and as a kingdom admits +of the possibility of rebels, so does such a Church involve sectaries +and schismatics, but not independent portions. It was a vast organized +association, co-extensive with the Roman Empire, or rather overflowing +it. Its Bishops were not mere local officers, but possessed a +quasi-ecumenical power, extending wherever a Christian was to be found. +"No Christian," says Bingham, "would pretend to travel without taking +letters of credence with him from his own bishop, if he meant to +communicate with the Christian Church in a foreign country. Such was the +admirable unity of the Church Catholic in those days, and the blessed +harmony and consent of her bishops among one another."[266:1] St. +Gregory Nazianzen calls St. Cyprian an universal Bishop, "presiding," as +the same author presently quotes Gregory, "not only over the Church of +Carthage and Africa, but over all the regions of the West, and over the +East, and South, and Northern parts of the world also." This is +evidence of a unity throughout Christendom, not of mere origin or of +Apostolical succession, but of government. Bingham continues "[Gregory] +says the same of Athanasius; that, in being made Bishop of Alexandria, +he was made Bishop of the whole world. Chrysostom, in like manner, +styles Timothy, Bishop of the universe. . . . . The great Athanasius, as +he returned from his exile, made no scruple to ordain in several cities +as he went along, though they were not in his own diocese. And the +famous Eusebius of Samosata did the like, in the times of the Arian +persecution under Valens. . . Epiphanius made use of the same power and +privilege in a like case, ordaining Paulinianus, St. Jerome's brother, +first deacon and then presbyter, in a monastery out of his own diocese +in Palestine."[267:1] And so in respect of teaching, before Councils met +on any large scale, St. Ignatius of Antioch had addressed letters to the +Churches along the coast of Asia Minor, when on his way to martyrdom at +Rome. St. Irenæus, when a subject of the Church of Smyrna, betakes +himself to Gaul, and answers in Lyons the heresies of Syria. The see of +St. Hippolytus, as if he belonged to all parts of the _orbis terrarum_, +cannot be located, and is variously placed in the neighbourhood of Rome +and in Arabia. Hosius, a Spanish Bishop, arbitrates in an Alexandrian +controversy. St. Athanasius, driven from his Church, makes all +Christendom his home, from Treves to Ethiopia, and introduces into the +West the discipline of the Egyptian Antony. St. Jerome is born in +Dalmatia, studies at Constantinople and Alexandria, is secretary to St. +Damasus at Rome, and settles and dies in Palestine. + +Above all the See of Rome itself is the centre of teaching as well as +of action, is visited by Fathers and heretics as a tribunal in +controversy, and by ancient custom sends her alms to the poor Christians +of all Churches, to Achaia and Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, and +Cappadocia. + + +15. + +Moreover, this universal Church was not only one; it was exclusive also. +As to the vehemence with which Christians of the Ante-nicene period +denounced the idolatries and sins of paganism, and proclaimed the +judgments which would be their consequence, this is well known, and led +to their being reputed in the heathen world as "enemies of mankind." +"Worthily doth God exert the lash of His stripes and scourges," says St. +Cyprian to a heathen magistrate; "and since they avail so little, and +convert not men to God by all this dreadfulness of havoc, there abides +beyond the prison eternal and the ceaseless flame and the everlasting +penalty. . . . Why humble yourself and bend to false gods? Why bow your +captive body before helpless images and moulded earth? Why grovel in the +prostration of death, like the serpent whom ye worship? Why rush into +the downfall of the devil, his fall the cause of yours, and he your +companion? . . . . Believe and live; you have been our persecutors in +time; in eternity, be companions of our joy."[268:1] "These rigid +sentiments," says Gibbon, "which had been unknown to the ancient world, +appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of love and +harmony."[268:2] Such, however, was the judgment passed by the first +Christians upon all who did not join their own society; and such still +more was the judgment of their successors on those who lived and died in +the sects and heresies which had issued from it. That very Father, whose +denunciation of the heathen has just been quoted, had already declared +it even in the third century. "He who leaves the Church of Christ," he +says, "attains not to Christ's rewards. He is an alien, an outcast, an +enemy. He can no longer have God for a Father, who has not the Church +for a Mother. If any man was able to escape who remained without the Ark +of Noah, then will that man escape who is out of doors beyond the +Church. . . What sacrifice do they believe they celebrate, who are +rivals of the Priests? If such men were even killed for confession of +the Christian name, not even by their blood is this stain washed out. +Inexplicable and heavy is the sin of discord, and is purged by no +suffering . . . They cannot dwell with God who have refused to be of one +mind in God's Church; a man of such sort may indeed be killed, crowned +he cannot be."[269:1] And so again St. Chrysostom, in the following +century, in harmony with St. Cyprian's sentiment: "Though we have +achieved ten thousand glorious acts, yet shall we, if we cut to pieces +the fulness of the Church, suffer punishment no less sore than they who +mangled His body."[269:2] In like manner St Augustine seems to consider +that a conversion from idolatry to a schismatical communion is no gain. +"Those whom Donatists baptize, they heal of the wound of idolatry or +infidelity, but inflict a more grievous stroke in the wound of schism; +for idolaters among God's people the sword destroyed, but schismatics +the gaping earth devoured."[269:3] Elsewhere, he speaks of the +"sacrilege of schism, which surpasses all wickednesses."[269:4] St. +Optatus, too, marvels at the Donatist Parmenian's inconsistency in +maintaining the true doctrine, that "Schismatics are cut off as branches +from the vine, are destined for punishments, and reserved, as dry wood, +for hell-fire."[269:5] "Let us hate them who are worthy of hatred," says +St. Cyril, "withdraw we from those whom God withdraws from; let us also +say unto God with all boldness concerning all heretics, 'Do not I hate +them, O Lord, that hate thee?'"[270:1] "Most firmly hold, and doubt in +no wise," says St. Fulgentius, "that every heretic and schismatic +soever, baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, unless +aggregated to the Catholic Church, how great soever have been his alms, +though for Christ's Name he has even shed his blood, can in no wise be +saved."[270:2] The Fathers ground this doctrine on St. Paul's words +that, though we have knowledge, and give our goods to the poor, and our +body to be burned, we are nothing without love.[270:3] + + +16. + +One more remark shall be made: that the Catholic teachers, far from +recognizing any ecclesiastical relation as existing between the +Sectarian Bishops and Priests and their people, address the latter +immediately, as if those Bishops did not exist, and call on them to come +over to the Church individually without respect to any one besides; and +that because it is a matter of life and death. To take the instance of +the Donatists: it was nothing to the purpose that their Churches in +Africa were nearly as numerous as those of the Catholics, or that they +had a case to produce in their controversy with the Catholic Church; the +very fact that they were separated from the _orbis terrarum_ was a +public, a manifest, a simple, a sufficient argument against them. "The +question is not about your gold and silver," says St. Augustine to +Glorius and others, "not your lands, or farms, nor even your bodily +health is in peril, but we address your souls about obtaining eternal +life and fleeing eternal death. Rouse yourself therefore. . . . . You +see it all, and know it, and groan over it; yet God sees that there is +nothing to detain you in so pestiferous and sacrilegious a separation, +if you will but overcome your carnal affection, for the obtaining the +spiritual kingdom, and rid yourselves of the fear of wounding +friendships, which will avail nothing in God's judgment for escaping +eternal punishment. Go, think over the matter, consider what can be said +in answer. . . . No one blots out from heaven the Ordinance of God, no +one blots out from earth the Church of God: He hath promised her, she +hath filled, the whole world." "Some carnal intimacies," he says to his +kinsman Severinus, "hold you where you are. . . . What avails temporal +health or relationship, if with it we neglect Christ's eternal heritage +and our perpetual health?" "I ask," he says to Celer, a person of +influence, "that you would more earnestly urge upon your men Catholic +Unity in the region of Hippo." "Why," he says, in the person of the +Church, to the whole Donatist population, "Why open your ears to the +words of men, who say what they never have been able to prove, and close +them to the word of God, saying, 'Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the +heathen for Thine inheritance'?" At another time he says to them, "Some +of the presbyters of your party have sent to us to say, 'Retire from our +flocks, unless you would have us kill you.' How much more justly do we +say to them, 'Nay, do you, not retire from, but come in peace, not to +our flocks, but to the flocks of Him whose we are all; or if you will +not, and are far from peace, then do you rather retire from flocks, for +which Christ shed His Blood.'" "I call on you for Christ's sake," he +says to a late pro-consul, "to write me an answer, and to urge gently +and kindly all your people in the district of Sinis or Hippo into the +communion of the Catholic Church." He publishes an address to the +Donatists at another time to inform them of the defeat of their Bishops +in a conference: "Whoso," he says, "is separated from the Catholic +Church, however laudably he thinks he is living, by this crime alone, +that he is separated from Christ's Unity, he shall not have life, but +the wrath of God abideth on him." "Let them believe of the Catholic +Church," he writes to some converts about their friends who were still +in schism, "that is, to the Church diffused over the whole world, rather +what the Scriptures say of it than what human tongues utter in calumny." +The idea of acting upon the Donatists only as a body and through their +bishops, does not appear to have occurred to St. Augustine at +all.[272:1] + + +17. + +On the whole, then, we have reason to say, that if there be a form of +Christianity at this day distinguished for its careful organization, and +its consequent power; if it is spread over the world; if it is +conspicuous for zealous maintenance of its own creed; if it is +intolerant towards what it considers error; if it is engaged in +ceaseless war with all other bodies called Christian; if it, and it +alone, is called "Catholic" by the world, nay, by those very bodies, and +if it makes much of the title; if it names them heretics, and warns them +of coming woe, and calls on them one by one, to come over to itself, +overlooking every other tie; and if they, on the other hand, call it +seducer, harlot, apostate, Antichrist, devil; if, however much they +differ one with another, they consider it their common enemy; if they +strive to unite together against it, and cannot; if they are but local; +if they continually subdivide, and it remains one; if they fall one +after another, and make way for new sects, and it remains the same; such +a religious communion is not unlike historical Christianity, as it comes +before us at the Nicene Era. + + +SECTION III. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. + +The patronage extended by the first Christian Emperors to Arianism, its +adoption by the barbarians who succeeded to their power, the subsequent +expulsion of all heresy beyond the limits of the Empire, and then again +the Monophysite tendencies of Egypt and part of Syria, changed in some +measure the aspect of the Church, and claim our further attention. It +was still a body in possession, or approximating to the possession, of +the _orbis terrarum_; but it was not simply intermixed with sectaries, +as we have been surveying it in the earlier periods, rather it lay +between or over against large schisms. That same vast Association, +which, and which only, had existed from the first, which had been +identified by all parties with Christianity, which had been ever called +Catholic by people and by laws, took a different shape; collected itself +in far greater strength on some points of her extended territory than on +others; possessed whole kingdoms with scarcely a rival; lost others +partially or wholly, temporarily or for good; was stemmed in its course +here or there by external obstacles; and was defied by heresy, in a +substantive shape and in mass, from foreign lands, and with the support +of the temporal power. Thus not to mention the Arianism of the Eastern +Empire in the fourth century, the whole of the West was possessed by the +same heresy in the fifth; and nearly the whole of Asia, east of the +Euphrates, as far as it was Christian, by the Nestorians, in the +centuries which followed; while the Monophysites had almost the +possession of Egypt, and at times of the whole Eastern Church. I think +it no assumption to call Arianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism +heresies, or to identify the contemporary Catholic Church with +Christianity. Now, then, let us consider the mutual relation of +Christianity and heresy under these circumstances. + + +§ 1. _The Arians of the Gothic Race._ + +No heresy has started with greater violence or more sudden success than +the Arian; and it presents a still more remarkable exhibition of these +characteristics among the barbarians than in the civilized world. Even +among the Greeks it had shown a missionary spirit. Theophilus in the +reign of Constantius had introduced the dominant heresy, not without +some promising results, to the Sabeans of the Arabian peninsula; but +under Valens, Ulphilas became the apostle of a whole race. He taught the +Arian doctrine, which he had unhappily learned in the Imperial Court, +first to the pastoral Mœsogoths; who, unlike the other branches of +their family, had multiplied under the Mœsian mountains with neither +military nor religious triumphs. The Visigoths were next corrupted; by +whom does not appear. It is one of the singular traits in the history of +this vast family of heathens that they so instinctively caught, and so +impetuously communicated, and so fiercely maintained, a heresy, which +had excited in the Empire, except at Constantinople, little interest in +the body of the people. The Visigoths are said to have been converted by +the influence of Valens; but Valens reigned for only fourteen years, and +the barbarian population which had been admitted to the Empire amounted +to nearly a million of persons. It is as difficult to trace how the +heresy was conveyed from them to the other barbarian tribes. Gibbon +seems to suppose that the Visigoths acted the part of missionaries in +their career of predatory warfare from Thrace to the Pyrenees. But such +is the fact, however it was brought about, that the success in arms and +the conversion to Arianism, of Ostrogoths, Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and +Burgundians stand as concurrent events in the history of the times; and +by the end of the fifth century the heresy had been established by the +Visigoths in France and Spain, in Portugal by the Suevi, in Africa by +the Vandals, and by the Ostrogoths in Italy. For a while the title of +Catholic as applied to the Church seemed a misnomer; for not only was +she buried beneath these populations of heresy, but that heresy was one, +and maintained the same distinctive tenet, whether at Carthage, Seville, +Toulouse, or Ravenna. + + +2. + +It cannot be supposed that these northern warriors had attained to any +high degree of mental cultivation; but they understood their own +religion enough to hate the Catholics, and their bishops were learned +enough to hold disputations for its propagation. They professed to stand +upon the faith of Ariminum, administering Baptism under an altered form +of words, and re-baptizing Catholics whom they gained over to their +sect. It must be added that, whatever was their cruelty or tyranny, both +Goths and Vandals were a moral people, and put to shame the Catholics +whom they dispossessed. "What can the prerogative of a religious name +profit us," says Salvian, "that we call ourselves Catholic, boast of +being the faithful, taunt Goths and Vandals with the reproach of an +heretical appellation, while we live in heretical wickedness?"[276:1] +The barbarians were chaste, temperate, just, and devout; the Visigoth +Theodoric repaired every morning with his domestic officers to his +chapel, where service was performed by the Arian priests; and one +singular instance is on record of the defeat of a Visigoth force by the +Imperial troops on a Sunday, when instead of preparing for battle they +were engaged in the religious services of the day.[276:2] Many of their +princes were men of great ability, as the two Theodorics, Euric and +Leovigild. + + +3. + +Successful warriors, animated by a fanatical spirit of religion, were +not likely to be content with a mere profession of their own creed; they +proceeded to place their own priests in the religious establishments +which they found, and to direct a bitter persecution against the +vanquished Catholics. The savage cruelties of the Vandal Hunneric in +Africa have often been enlarged upon; Spain was the scene of repeated +persecutions; Sicily, too, had its Martyrs. Compared with these +enormities, it was but a little thing to rob the Catholics of their +churches, and the shrines of their treasures. Lands, immunities, and +jurisdictions, which had been given by the Emperors to the African +Church, were made over to the clergy of its conquerors; and by the time +of Belisarius, the Catholic Bishops had been reduced to less than a +third of their original number. In Spain, as in Africa, bishops were +driven from their sees, churches were destroyed, cemeteries profaned, +martyries rifled. When it was possible, the Catholics concealed the +relics in caves, keeping up a perpetual memory of these provisional +hiding-places.[277:1] Repeated spoliations were exercised upon the +property of the Church. Leovigild applied[277:2] its treasures partly to +increasing the splendour of his throne, partly to national works. At +other times, the Arian clergy themselves must have been the recipients +of the plunder: for when Childebert the Frank had been brought into +Spain by the cruelties exercised against the Catholic Queen of the +Goths, who was his sister, he carried away with him from the Arian +churches, as St. Gregory of Tours informs us, sixty chalices, fifteen +patens, twenty cases in which the gospels were kept, all of pure gold +and ornamented with jewels.[277:3] + + +4. + +In France, and especially in Italy, the rule of the heretical power was +much less oppressive; Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, reigned from the Alps to +Sicily, and till the close of a long reign he gave an ample toleration +to his Catholic subjects. He respected their property, suffered their +churches and sacred places to remain in their hands, and had about his +court some of their eminent Bishops, since known as Saints, St. Cæsarius +of Arles, and St. Epiphanius of Pavia. Still he brought into the country +a new population, devoted to Arianism, or, as we now speak, a new +Church. "His march," says Gibbon,[277:4] "must be considered as the +emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the Goths, +their aged parents, and most precious effects, were carefully +transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy luggage that now +followed the camp by the loss of two thousand waggons, which had been +sustained in a single action in the war of Epirus." To his soldiers he +assigned a third of the soil of Italy, and the barbarian families +settled down with their slaves and cattle. The original number of the +Vandal conquerors of Africa had only been fifty thousand men, but the +military colonists of Italy soon amounted to the number of two hundred +thousand; which, according to the calculation adopted by the same author +elsewhere, involves a population of a million. The least that could be +expected was, that an Arian ascendency established through the extent of +Italy would provide for the sufficient celebration of the Arian worship, +and we hear of the Arians having a Church even in Rome.[278:1] The rule +of the Lombards in the north of Italy succeeded to that of the +Goths,--Arians, like their predecessors, without their toleration. The +clergy whom they brought with them seem to have claimed their share in +the possession of the Catholic churches;[278:2] and though the Court was +converted at the end of thirty years, many cities in Italy were for some +time afterwards troubled by the presence of heretical bishops.[278:3] +The rule of Arianism in France lasted for eighty years; in Spain for a +hundred and eighty; in Africa for a hundred; for about a hundred in +Italy. These periods were not contemporaneous; but extend altogether +from the beginning of the fifth to the end of the sixth century. + + +5. + +It will be anticipated that the duration of this ascendency of error +had not the faintest tendency to deprive the ancient Church of the West +of the title of Catholic; and it is needless to produce evidence of a +fact which is on the very face of the history. The Arians seem never to +have claimed the Catholic name. It is more remarkable that the Catholics +during this period were denoted by the additional title of "Romans." Of +this there are many proofs in the histories of St. Gregory of Tours, +Victor of Vite, and the Spanish Councils. Thus, St. Gregory speaks of +Theodegisilus, a king of Portugal, expressing his incredulity at a +miracle, by saying, "It is the temper of the Romans, (for," interposes +the author, "they call men of our religion Romans,) and not the power of +God."[279:1] "Heresy is everywhere an enemy to Catholics," says the same +St. Gregory in a subsequent place, and he proceeds to illustrate it by +the story of a "Catholic woman," who had a heretic husband, to whom, he +says, came "a presbyter of our religion very Catholic;" and whom the +husband matched at table with his own Arian presbyter, "that there might +be the priests of each religion" in their house at once. When they were +eating, the husband said to the Arian, "Let us have some sport with this +presbyter of the Romans."[279:2] The Arian Count Gomachar, seized on the +lands of the Church of Agde in France, and was attacked with a fever; on +his recovery, at the prayers of the Bishop, he repented of having asked +for them, observing, "What will these Romans say now? that my fever came +of taking their land."[279:3] When the Vandal Theodoric would have +killed the Catholic Armogastes, after failing to torture him into +heresy, his presbyter dissuaded him, "lest the Romans should begin to +call him a Martyr."[279:4] + + +6. + +This appellation had two meanings; one, which will readily suggest +itself, is its use in contrast to the word "barbarian," as denoting the +faith of the Empire, as "Greek" occurs in St. Paul's Epistles. In this +sense it would more naturally be used by the Romans themselves than by +others. Thus Salvian says, that "nearly all the Romans are greater +sinners than the barbarians;"[280:1] and he speaks of "Roman heretics, +of which there is an innumerable multitude,"[280:2] meaning heretics +within the Empire. And so St. Gregory the Great complains, that he "had +become Bishop of the Lombards rather than of the Romans."[280:3] And +Evagrius, speaking even of the East, contrasts "Romans and +barbarians"[280:4] in his account of St. Simeon; and at a later date, +and even to this day, Thrace and portions of Dacia and of Asia Minor +derive their name from Rome. In like manner, we find Syrian writers +sometimes speaking of the religion of the Romans, sometimes of the +Greeks,[280:5] as synonymes. + + +7. + +But the word certainly contains also an allusion to the faith and +communion of the Roman See. In this sense the Emperor Theodosius, in his +letter to Acacius of Berœa, contrasts it with Nestorianism, which was +within the Empire as well as Catholicism; during the controversy raised +by that heresy, he exhorts him and others to show themselves "approved +priests of the Roman religion."[280:6] Again when the Ligurian nobles +were persuading the Arian Ricimer to come to terms with Anthemius, the +orthodox representative of the Greek Emperor,[280:7] they propose to him +to send St. Epiphanius as ambassador, a man "whose life is venerable to +every Catholic and Roman, and at least amiable in the eyes of a Greek +(_Græculus_) if he deserves the sight of him."[281:1] It must be +recollected, too, that the Spanish and African Churches actually were in +the closest union with the See of Rome at that time, and that that +intercommunion was the visible ecclesiastical distinction between them +and their Arian rivals. The chief ground of the Vandal Hunneric's +persecution of the African Catholics seems to have been their connexion +with their brethren beyond the sea,[281:2] which he looked at with +jealousy, as introducing a foreign power into his territory. Prior to +this he had published an edict calling on the "Homoüsian" Bishops (for +on this occasion he did not call them Catholic), to meet his own bishops +at Carthage and treat concerning the faith, that "their meetings to the +seduction of Christian souls might not be held in the provinces of the +Vandals."[281:3] Upon this invitation, Eugenius of Carthage replied, +that all the transmarine Bishops of the orthodox communion ought to be +summoned, "in particular because it is a matter for the whole world, not +special to the African provinces," that "they could not undertake a +point of faith _sine universitatis assensu_." Hunneric answered that if +Eugenius would make him sovereign of the _orbis terrarum_, he would +comply with his request. This led Eugenius to say that the orthodox +faith was "the only true faith;" that the king ought to write to his +allies abroad, if he wished to know it, and that he himself would write +to his brethren for foreign bishops, "who," he says, "may assist us in +setting before you the true faith, common to them and to us, and +especially the Roman Church, which is the head of all Churches." +Moreover, the African Bishops in their banishment in Sardinia, to the +number of sixty, with St. Fulgentius at their head, quote with +approbation the words of Pope Hormisdas, to the effect that they hold, +"on the point of free will and divine grace, what the Roman, that is, +the Catholic, Church follows and preserves."[282:1] Again, the Spanish +Church was under the superintendence of the Pope's Vicar[282:2] during +the persecutions, whose duty it was to hinder all encroachments upon +"the Apostolical decrees, or the limits of the Holy Fathers," through +the whole of the country. + + +8. + +Nor was the association of Catholicism with the See of Rome an +introduction of that age. The Emperor Gratian, in the fourth century, +had ordered that the Churches which the Arians had usurped should be +restored (not to those who held "the Catholic faith," or "the Nicene +Creed," or were "in communion with the _orbis terrarum_,") but "who +chose the communion of Damasus,"[282:3] the then Pope. It was St. +Jerome's rule, also, in some well-known passages:--Writing against +Ruffinus, who had spoken of "our faith," he says, "What does he mean by +'his faith'? that which is the strength of the Roman Church? or that +which is contained in the volumes of Origen? If he answer, 'The Roman,' +then we are Catholics who have borrowed nothing of Origen's error; but +if Origen's blasphemy be his faith, then, while he is charging me with +inconsistency, he proves himself to be an heretic."[282:4] The other +passage, already quoted, is still more exactly to the point, because it +was written on occasion of a schism. The divisions at Antioch had thrown +the Catholic Church into a remarkable position; there were two Bishops +in the See, one in connexion with the East, the other with Egypt and the +West,--with which then was "Catholic Communion"? St. Jerome has no doubt +on the subject:--Writing to St. Damasus, he says, "Since the East tears +into pieces the Lord's coat, . . . therefore by me is the chair of Peter +to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the Apostle's +mouth. . . . Though your greatness terrifies me, yet your kindness +invites me. From the Priest I ask the salvation of the victim, from the +Shepherd the protection of the sheep. Let us speak without offence; I +court not the Roman height: I speak with the successor of the Fisherman +and the disciple of the Cross. I, who follow none as my chief but +Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with +the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built, I know. Whoso shall +eat the Lamb outside that House is profane . . . . I know not Vitalis" +(the Apollinarian), "Meletius I reject, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoso +gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, he who is not of Christ is +of Antichrist."[283:1] Again, "The ancient authority of the monks, +dwelling round about, rises against me; I meanwhile cry out, If any be +joined to Peter's chair he is mine."[283:2] + + +9. + +Here was what may be considered a _dignus vindice nodus_, the Church +being divided, and an arbiter wanted. Such a case had also occurred in +Africa in the controversy with the Donatists. Four hundred bishops, +though but in one region, were a fifth part of the whole Episcopate of +Christendom, and might seem too many for a schism, and in themselves too +large a body to be cut off from God's inheritance by a mere majority, +even had it been overwhelming. St. Augustine, then, who so often appeals +to the _orbis terrarum_, sometimes adopts a more prompt criterion. He +tells certain Donatists to whom he writes, that the Catholic Bishop of +Carthage "was able to make light of the thronging multitude of his +enemies, when he found himself by letters of credence joined both to the +Roman Church, in which ever had flourished the principality of the +Apostolical See, and to the other lands whence the gospel came to Africa +itself."[284:1] + +There are good reasons then for explaining the Gothic and Arian use of +the word "Roman," when applied to the Catholic Church and faith, of +something beyond its mere connexion with the Empire, which the +barbarians were assaulting; nor would "Roman" surely be the most obvious +word to denote the orthodox faith, in the mouths of a people who had +learned their heresy from a Roman Emperor and Court, and who professed +to direct their belief by the great Latin Council of Ariminum. + + +10. + +As then the fourth century presented to us in its external aspect the +Catholic Church lying in the midst of a multitude of sects, all enemies +to it, so in the fifth and sixth we see the same Church lying in the +West under the oppression of a huge, farspreading, and schismatical +communion. Heresy is no longer a domestic enemy intermingled with the +Church, but it occupies its own ground and is extended over against her, +even though on the same territory, and is more or less organized, and +cannot be so promptly refuted by the simple test of Catholicity. + + +§ 2. _The Nestorians._ + +The Churches of Syria and Asia Minor were the most intellectual portion +of early Christendom. Alexandria was but one metropolis in a large +region, and contained the philosophy of the whole Patriarchate; but +Syria abounded in wealthy and luxurious cities, the creation of the +Seleucidæ, where the arts and the schools of Greece had full +opportunities of cultivation. For a time too, for the first two hundred +years, as some think, Alexandria was the only See as well as the only +school of Egypt; while Syria was divided into smaller dioceses, each of +which had at first an authority of its own, and which, even after the +growth of the Patriarchal power, received their respective bishops, not +from the See of Antioch, but from their own metropolitan. In Syria too +the schools were private, a circumstance which would tend both to +diversity in religious opinion, and incaution in the expression of it; +but the sole catechetical school of Egypt was the organ of the Church, +and its Bishop could banish Origen for speculations which developed and +ripened with impunity in Syria. + + +2. + +But the immediate source of that fertility in heresy, which is the +unhappiness of the ancient Syrian Church, was its celebrated Exegetical +School. The history of that School is summed up in the broad +characteristic fact, on the one hand that it devoted itself to the +literal and critical interpretation of Scripture, and on the other that +it gave rise first to the Arian and then to the Nestorian heresy. If +additional evidence be wanted of the connexion of heterodoxy and +biblical criticism in that age, it is found in the fact that, not long +after this coincidence in Syria, they are found combined in the person +of Theodore of Heraclea, so called from the place both of his birth and +his bishoprick, an able commentator and an active enemy of St. +Athanasius, though a Thracian unconnected except by sympathy with the +Patriarchate of Antioch. + +The Antiochene School appears to have risen in the middle of the third +century; but there is no evidence to determine whether it was a local +institution, or, as is more probable, a discipline or method +characteristic generally of Syrian teaching. Dorotheus is one of its +earliest luminaries; he is known as a Hebrew scholar, as well as a +commentator on the sacred text, and he was the master of Eusebius of +Cæsarea. Lucian, the friend of the notorious Paul of Samosata, and for +three successive Episcopates after him separated from the Church though +afterwards a martyr in it, was the author of a new edition of the +Septuagint, and master of the chief original teachers of Arianism. +Eusebius of Cæsarea, Asterius called the Sophist, and Eusebius of Emesa, +Arians of the Nicene period, and Diodorus, a zealous opponent of +Arianism, but the master of Theodore of Mopsuestia, have all a place in +the Exegetical School. St. Chrysostom and Theodoret, both Syrians, and +the former the pupil of Diodorus, adopted the literal interpretation, +though preserved from its abuse. But the principal doctor of the School +was that Theodore, the master of Nestorius, who has just above been +mentioned, and who, with his writings, and with the writings of +Theodoret against St. Cyril, and the letter written by Ibas of Edessa to +Maris, was condemned by the fifth Ecumenical Council. Ibas was the +translator into Syriac, and Maris into Persian, of the books of Theodore +and Diodorus;[286:1] and thus they became immediate instruments in the +formation of the great Nestorian school and Church in farther Asia. + +As many as ten thousand tracts of Theodore are said in this way to have +been introduced to the knowledge of the Christians of Mesopotamia, +Adiabene, Babylonia, and the neighbouring countries. He was called by +those Churches absolutely "the Interpreter," and it eventually became +the very profession of the Nestorian communion to follow him as such. +"The doctrine of all our Eastern Churches," says their Council under the +Patriarch Marabas, "is founded on the Creed of Nicæa; but in the +exposition of the Scriptures we follow St. Theodore." "We must by all +means remain firm to the commentaries of the great Commentator," says +the Council under Sabarjesus; "whoso shall in any manner oppose them, or +think otherwise, be he anathema."[287:1] No one since the beginning of +Christianity, except Origen and St. Augustine, has had so great literary +influence on his brethren as Theodore.[287:2] + + +3. + +The original Syrian School had possessed very marked characteristics, +which it did not lose when it passed into a new country and into strange +tongues. Its comments on Scripture seem to have been clear, natural, +methodical, apposite, and logically exact. "In all Western Aramæa," says +Lengerke, that is, in Syria, "there was but one mode of treating whether +exegetics or doctrine, the practical."[287:3] Thus Eusebius of Cæsarea, +whether as a disputant or a commentator, is commonly a writer of sense +and judgment; and he is to be referred to the Syrian school, though he +does not enter so far into its temper as to exclude the mystical +interpretation or to deny the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Again, we +see in St. Chrysostom a direct, straightforward treatment of the sacred +text, and a pointed application of it to things and persons; and +Theodoret abounds in modes of thinking and reasoning which without any +great impropriety may be called English. Again, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, +though he does not abstain from allegory, shows the character of his +school by the great stress he lays upon the study of Scripture, and, I +may add, by the peculiar characteristics of his style, which will be +appreciated by a modern reader. + + +4. + +It would have been well, had the genius of the Syrian theology been +ever in the safe keeping of men such as St. Cyril, St. Chrysostom, and +Theodoret; but in Theodore of Mopsuestia, nay in Diodorus before him, it +developed into those errors, of which Paul of Samosata had been the omen +on its rise. As its attention was chiefly directed to the examination of +the Scriptures, in its interpretation of the Scriptures was its +heretical temper discovered; and though allegory can be made an +instrument for evading Scripture doctrine, criticism may more readily be +turned to the destruction of doctrine and Scripture together. Theodore +was bent on ascertaining the literal sense, an object with which no +fault could be found: but, leading him of course to the Hebrew text +instead of the Septuagint, it also led him to Jewish commentators. +Jewish commentators naturally suggested events and objects short of +evangelical as the fulfilment of the prophetical announcements, and, +when it was possible, an ethical sense instead of a prophetical. The +eighth chapter of Proverbs ceased to bear a Christian meaning, because, +as Theodore maintained, the writer of the book had received the gift, +not of prophecy, but of wisdom. The Canticles must be interpreted +literally; and then it was but an easy, or rather a necessary step, to +exclude the book from the Canon. The book of Job too professed to be +historical; yet what was it really but a Gentile drama? He also gave up +the books of Chronicles and Ezra, and, strange to say, the Epistle of +St. James, though it was contained in the Peschito Version of his +Church. He denied that Psalms 22 and 69 [21 and 68] applied to our Lord; +rather he limited the Messianic passages of the whole book to four; of +which the eighth Psalm was one, and the forty-fifth [44] another. The +rest he explained of Hezekiah and Zerubbabel, without denying that they +might be accommodated to an evangelical sense.[288:1] He explained St. +Thomas's words, "My Lord and my God," as an exclamation of joy, and our +Lord's "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," as an anticipation of the day of +Pentecost. As may be expected he denied the verbal inspiration of +Scripture. Also, he held that the deluge did not cover the earth; and, +as others before him, he was heterodox on the doctrine of original sin, +and denied the eternity of punishment. + + +5. + +Maintaining that the real sense of Scripture was, not the scope of a +Divine Intelligence, but the intention of the mere human organ of +inspiration, Theodore was led to hold, not only that that sense was one +in each text, but that it was continuous and single in a context; that +what was the subject of the composition in one verse must be the subject +in the next, and that if a Psalm was historical or prophetical in its +commencement, it was the one or the other to its termination. Even that +fulness, of meaning, refinement of thought, subtle versatility of +feeling, and delicate reserve or reverent suggestiveness, which poets +exemplify, seems to have been excluded from his idea of a sacred +composition. Accordingly, if a Psalm contained passages which could not +be applied to our Lord, it followed that that Psalm did not properly +apply to Him at all, except by accommodation. Such at least is the +doctrine of Cosmas, a writer of Theodore's school, who on this ground +passes over the twenty-second, sixty-ninth, and other Psalms, and limits +the Messianic to the second, the eighth, the forty-fifth, and the +hundred and tenth. "David," he says, "did not make common to the +servants what belongs to the Lord[289:1] Christ, but what was proper to +the Lord he spoke of the Lord, and what was proper to the servants, of +servants."[289:2] Accordingly the twenty-second could not properly +belong to Christ, because in the beginning it spoke of the "_verba +delictorum meorum_." A remarkable consequence would follow from this +doctrine, that as Christ was to be separated from His Saints, so the +Saints were to be separated from Christ; and an opening was made for a +denial of the doctrine of their _cultus_, though this denial in the +event has not been developed among the Nestorians. But a more serious +consequence is latently contained in it, and nothing else than the +Nestorian heresy, viz. that our Lord's manhood is not so intimately +included in His Divine Personality that His brethren according to the +flesh may be associated with the Image of the One Christ. Here St. +Chrysostom pointedly contradicts the doctrine of Theodore, though his +fellow-pupil and friend;[290:1] as does St. Ephrem, though a Syrian +also;[290:2] and St. Basil.[290:3] + + +6. + +One other peculiarity of the Syrian school, viewed as independent of +Nestorius, should be added:--As it tended to the separation of the +Divine Person of Christ from His manhood, so did it tend to explain away +His Divine Presence in the Sacramental elements. Ernesti seems to +consider the school, in modern language, Sacramentarian: and certainly +some of the most cogent testimonies brought by moderns against the +Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist are taken from writers who are +connected with that school; as the author, said to be St. Chrysostom, of +the Epistle to Cæsarius, Theodoret in his Eranistes, and Facundus. Some +countenance too is given to the same view of the Eucharist, at least in +some parts of his works, by Origen, whose language concerning the +Incarnation also leans to what was afterwards Nestorianism. To these may +be added Eusebius,[291:1] who, far removed, as he was, from that +heresy, was a disciple of the Syrian school. The language of the later +Nestorian writers seems to have been of the same character.[291:2] Such +then on the whole is the character of that theology of Theodore which +passed from Cilicia and Antioch to Edessa first, and then to Nisibis. + + +7. + +Edessa, the metropolis of Mesopotamia, had remained an Oriental city +till the third century, when it was made a Roman colony by +Caracalla.[291:3] Its position on the confines of two empires gave it +great ecclesiastical importance, as the channel by which the theology of +Rome and Greece was conveyed to a family of Christians, dwelling in +contempt and persecution amid a still heathen world. It was the seat of +various schools; apparently of a Greek school, where the classics were +studied as well as theology, where Eusebius of Emesa[291:4] had +originally been trained, and where perhaps Protogenes taught.[291:5] +There were also Syrian schools attended by heathen and Christian youths +in common. The cultivation of the native language had been an especial +object of its masters since the time of Vespasian, so that the pure and +refined dialect went by the name of the Edessene.[291:6] At Edessa too +St. Ephrem formed his own Syrian school, which lasted long after him; +and there too was the celebrated Persian Christian school, over which +Maris presided, who has been already mentioned as the translator of +Theodore into Persian.[291:7] Even in the time of the predecessor of +Ibas in the See (before A.D. 435) the Nestorianism of this Persian +School was so notorious that Rabbula the Bishop had expelled its +masters and scholars;[292:1] and they, taking refuge in a country which +might be called their own, had introduced the heresy to the Churches +subject to the Persian King. + + +8. + +Something ought to be said of these Churches; though little is known +except what is revealed by the fact, in itself of no slight value, that +they had sustained two persecutions at the hands of the heathen +government in the fourth and fifth centuries. One testimony is extant as +early as the end of the second century, to the effect that in Parthia, +Media, Persia, and Bactria there were Christians who "were not overcome +by evil laws and customs."[292:2] In the early part of the fourth +century, a bishop of Persia attended the Nicene Council, and about the +same time Christianity is said to have pervaded nearly the whole of +Assyria.[292:3] Monachism had been introduced there before the middle of +the fourth century, and shortly after commenced that fearful persecution +in which sixteen thousand Christians are said to have suffered. It +lasted thirty years, and is said to have recommenced at the end of the +Century. The second persecution lasted for at least another thirty years +of the next, at the very time when the Nestorian troubles were in +progress in the Empire. Trials such as these show the populousness as +well as the faith of the Churches in those parts,--and the number of the +Sees, for the names of twenty-seven Bishops are preserved who suffered +in the former persecution. One of them was apprehended together with +sixteen priests, nine deacons, besides monks and nuns of his diocese; +another with twenty-eight companions, ecclesiastics or regulars; another +with one hundred ecclesiastics of different orders; another with one +hundred and twenty-eight; another with his chorepiscopus and two hundred +and fifty of his clergy. Such was the Church, consecrated by the blood +of so many martyrs, which immediately after its glorious confession fell +a prey to the theology of Theodore; and which through a succession of +ages manifested the energy, when it had lost the pure orthodoxy of +Saints. + + +9. + +The members of the Persian school, who had been driven out of Edessa by +Rabbula, found a wide field open for their exertions under the pagan +government with which they had taken refuge. The Persian monarchs, who +had often prohibited by edict[293:1] the intercommunion of the Church +under their sway with the countries towards the west, readily extended +their protection to exiles, whose very profession was the means of +destroying its Catholicity. Barsumas, the most energetic of them, was +placed in the metropolitan See of Nisibis, where also the fugitive +school was settled under the presidency of another of their party; while +Maris was promoted to the See of Ardaschir. The primacy of the Church +had from an early period belonged to the See of Seleucia in Babylonia. +Catholicus was the title appropriated to its occupant, as well as to the +Persian Primate, as being deputies of the Patriarch of Antioch, and was +derived apparently from the Imperial dignity so called, denoting their +function as Procurators-general, or officers in chief for the regions in +which they were placed. Acacius, another of the Edessene party, was put +into this principal See, and suffered, if he did not further, the +innovations of Barsumas. The mode by which the latter effected those +measures has been left on record by an enemy. "Barsumas accused Babuæus, +the Catholicus, before King Pherozes, whispering, 'These men hold the +faith of the Romans, and are their spies. Give me power against them to +arrest them.'"[294:1] It is said that in this way he obtained the death +of Babuæus, whom Acacius succeeded. When a minority resisted[294:2] the +process of schism, a persecution followed. The death of seven thousand +seven hundred Catholics is said by Monophysite authorities to have been +the price of the severance of the Chaldaic Churches from +Christendom.[294:3] Their loss was compensated in the eyes of the +Government by the multitude of Nestorian fugitives, who flocked into +Persia from the Empire, numbers of them industrious artisans, who sought +a country where their own religion was in the ascendant. + + +10. + +That religion was founded, as we have already seen, in the literal +interpretation of Holy Scripture, of which Theodore was the principal +teacher. The doctrine, in which it formally consisted, is known by the +name of Nestorianism: it lay in the ascription of a human as well as a +Divine Personality to our Lord; and it showed itself in denying the +title of "Mother of God," or θεοτόκος, to the Blessed Mary. As to our +Lord's Personality, the question of language came into the controversy, +which always serves to perplex a subject and make a dispute seem a +matter of words. The native Syrians made a distinction between the word +"Person," and "Prosopon," which stands for it in Greek; they allowed +that there was one Prosopon or Parsopa, as they called it, and they +heldthat there were two Persons. If it is asked what they meant by +_parsopa_, the answer seems to be, that they took the word merely in +the sense of _character_ or _aspect_, a sense familiar to the Greek +_prosopon_, and quite irrelevant as a guarantee of their orthodoxy. It +follows moreover that, since the _aspect_ of a thing is its impression +upon the beholder, the personality to which they ascribed unity must +have laid in our Lord's manhood, and not in His Divine Nature. But it is +hardly worth while pursuing the heresy to its limits. Next, as to +the phrase "Mother of God," they rejected it as unscriptural; they +maintained that St. Mary was Mother of the humanity of Christ, not of +the Word, and they fortified themselves by the Nicene Creed, in which no +such title is ascribed to her. + + +11. + +Whatever might be the obscurity or the plausibility of their original +dogma, there is nothing obscure or attractive in the developments, +whether of doctrine or of practice, in which it issued. The first act of +the exiles of Edessa, on their obtaining power in the Chaldean +communion, was to abolish the celibacy of the clergy, or, in Gibbon's +forcible words, to allow "the public and reiterated nuptials of the +priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself." Barsumas, the +great instrument of the change of religion, was the first to set an +example of the new usage, and is even said by a Nestorian writer to have +married a nun.[295:1] He passed a Canon at Councils, held at Seleucia +and elsewhere, that bishops and priests might marry, and might renew +their wives as often as they lost them. The Catholicus who followed +Acacius went so far as to extend the benefit of the Canon to Monks, that +is, to destroy the Monastic order; and his two successors availed +themselves of this liberty, and are recorded to have been fathers. A +restriction, however, was afterwards placed upon the Catholicus, and +upon the Episcopal order. + + +12. + +Such were the circumstances, and such the principles, under which the +See of Seleucia became the Rome of the East. In the course of time the +Catholicus took on himself the loftier and independent title of +Patriarch of Babylon; and though Seleucia was changed for Ctesiphon and +for Bagdad,[296:1] still the name of Babylon was preserved from first to +last as a formal or ideal Metropolis. In the time of the Caliphs, it was +at the head of as many as twenty-five Archbishops; its Communion +extended from China to Jerusalem; and its numbers, with those of the +Monophysites, are said to have surpassed those of the Greek and Latin +Churches together. The Nestorians seem to have been unwilling, like the +Novatians, to be called by the name of their founder,[296:2] though they +confessed it had adhered to them; one instance may be specified of their +assuming the name of Catholic,[296:3] but there is nothing to show it +was given them by others. + +"From the conquest of Persia," says Gibbon, "they carried their +spiritual arms to the North, the East, and the South; and the simplicity +of the Gospel was fashioned and painted with the colours of the Syriac +theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a Nestorian +traveller, Christianity was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the +Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and the +Elamites: the Barbaric Churches from the gulf of Persia to the Caspian +Sea were almost infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the +number and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of +Malabar and the isles of the ocean, Socotra and Ceylon, were peopled +with an increasing multitude of Christians, and the bishops and clergy +of those sequestered regions derived their ordination from the +Catholicus of Babylon. In a subsequent age, the zeal of the Nestorians +overleaped the limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both +of the Greeks and Persians. The missionaries of Balch and Samarcand +pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated +themselves into the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the +Selinga."[297:1] + + +§ 3. _The Monophysites._ + +Eutyches was Archimandrite, or Abbot, of a Monastery in the suburbs of +Constantinople; he was a man of unexceptionable character, and was of +the age of seventy years, and had been Abbot for thirty, at the date of +his unhappy introduction into ecclesiastical history. He had been the +friend and assistant of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and had lately taken +part against Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, whose name has occurred in the +above account of the Nestorians. For some time he had been engaged in +teaching a doctrine concerning the Incarnation, which he maintained +indeed to be none other than that of St. Cyril's in his controversy with +Nestorius, but which others denounced as a heresy in the opposite +extreme, and substantially a reassertion of Apollinarianism. The subject +was brought before a Council of Constantinople, under the presidency of +Flavian, the Patriarch, in the year 448; and Eutyches was condemned by +the assembled Bishops of holding the doctrine of One, instead of Two +Natures in Christ. + + +2. + +It is scarcely necessary for our present purpose to ascertain accurately +what he held, and there has been a great deal of controversy on the +subject; partly from confusion between him and his successors, partly +from the indecision or the ambiguity which commonly attaches to the +professions of heretics. If a statement must here be made of the +doctrine of Eutyches himself, in whom the controversy began, let it be +said to consist in these two tenets:--in maintaining first, that "before +the Incarnation there were two natures, after their union one," or that +our Lord was of or from two natures, but not in two;--and, secondly, +that His flesh was not of one substance with ours, that is, not of the +substance of the Blessed Virgin. Of these two points, he seemed willing +to abandon the second, but was firm in his maintenance of the first. But +let us return to the Council of Constantinople. + +In his examination Eutyches allowed that the Holy Virgin was +consubstantial with us, and that "our God was incarnate of her;" but he +would not allow that He was therefore, as man, consubstantial with us, +his notion apparently being that union with the Divinity had changed +what otherwise would have been human nature. However, when pressed, he +said, that, though up to that day he had not permitted himself to +discuss the nature of Christ, or to affirm that "God's body is man's +body though it was human," yet he would allow, if commanded, our Lord's +consubstantiality with us. Upon this Flavian observed that "the Council +was introducing no innovation, but declaring the faith of the Fathers." +To his other position, however, that our Lord had but one nature after +the Incarnation, he adhered: when the Catholic doctrine was put before +him, he answered, "Let St. Athanasius be read; you will find nothing of +the kind in him." + +His condemnation followed: it was signed by twenty-two Bishops and +twenty-three Abbots;[298:1] among the former were Flavian of +Constantinople, Basil metropolitan of Seleucia in Isauria, the +metropolitans of Amasea in Pontus, and Marcianopolis in Mœsia, and +the Bishop of Cos, the Pope's minister at Constantinople. + + +3. + +Eutyches appealed to the Pope of the day, St. Leo, who at first hearing +took his part. He wrote to Flavian that, "judging by the statement of +Eutyches, he did not see with what justice he had been separated from +the communion of the Church." "Send therefore," he continued, "some +suitable person to give us a full account of what has occurred, and let +us know what the new error is." St. Flavian, who had behaved with great +forbearance throughout the proceedings, had not much difficulty in +setting the controversy before the Pope in its true light. + +Eutyches was supported by the Imperial Court, and by Dioscorus the +Patriarch of Alexandria; the proceedings therefore at Constantinople +were not allowed to settle the question. A general Council was summoned +for the ensuing summer at Ephesus, where the third Ecumenical Council +had been held twenty years before against Nestorius. It was attended by +sixty metropolitans, ten from each of the great divisions of the East; +the whole number of bishops assembled amounted to one hundred and +thirty-five.[299:1] Dioscorus was appointed President by the Emperor, +and the object of the assembly was said to be the settlement of a +question of faith which had arisen between Flavian and Eutyches. St. +Leo, dissatisfied with the measure altogether, nevertheless sent his +legates, but with the object, as their commission stated, and a letter +he addressed to the Council, of "condemning the heresy, and reinstating +Eutyches if he retracted." His legates took precedence after Dioscorus +and before the other Patriarchs. He also published at this time his +celebrated Tome on the Incarnation, in a letter addressed to Flavian. + +The proceedings which followed were of so violent a character, that the +Council has gone down to posterity under the name of the Latrocinium or +"Gang of Robbers." Eutyches was honourably acquitted, and his doctrine +received; but the assembled Fathers showed some backwardness to depose +St. Flavian. Dioscorus had been attended by a multitude of monks, +furious zealots for the Monophysite doctrine from Syria and Egypt, and +by an armed force. These broke into the Church at his call; Flavian was +thrown down and trampled on, and received injuries of which he died the +third day after. The Pope's legates escaped as they could; and the +Bishops were compelled to sign a blank paper, which was afterwards +filled up with the condemnation of Flavian. These outrages, however, +were subsequent to the Synodical acceptance of the Creed of Eutyches, +which seems to have been the spontaneous act of the assembled Fathers. +The proceedings ended by Dioscorus excommunicating the Pope, and the +Emperor issuing an edict in approval of the decision of the Council. + + +4. + +Before continuing the narrative, let us pause awhile to consider what it +has already brought before us. An aged and blameless man, the friend of +a Saint, and him the great champion of the faith against the heresy of +his day, is found in the belief and maintenance of a doctrine, which he +declares to be the very doctrine which that Saint taught in opposition +to that heresy. To prove it, he and his friends refer to the very words +of St. Cyril; Eustathius of Berytus quoting from him at Ephesus as +follows: "We must not then conceive two natures, but one nature of the +Word incarnate."[300:1] Moreover, it seems that St. Cyril had been +called to account for this very phrase, and had appealed more than once +to a passage, which is extant as he quoted it, in a work by St. +Athanasius.[301:1] Whether the passage in question is genuine is very +doubtful, but that is not to the purpose; for the phrase which it +contains is also attributed by St. Cyril to other Fathers, and was +admitted by Catholics generally, as by St. Flavian, who deposed +Eutyches, nay was indirectly adopted by the Council of Chalcedon itself. + + +5. + +But Eutyches did not merely insist upon a phrase; he appealed for his +doctrine to the Fathers generally; "I have read the blessed Cyril, and +the holy Fathers, and the holy Athanasius," he says at Constantinople, +"that they said, 'Of two natures before the union,' but that 'after the +union' they said 'but one.'"[301:2] In his letter to St. Leo, he appeals +in particular to Pope Julius, Pope Felix, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. +Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, Atticus, and St. Proclus. He did not +appeal to them unreservedly certainly, as shall be presently noticed; he +allowed that they might err, and perhaps had erred, in their +expressions: but it is plain, even from what has been said, that there +could be no _consensus_ against him, as the word is now commonly +understood. It is also undeniable that, though the word "nature" is +applied to our Lord's manhood by St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen and +others, yet on the whole it is for whatever reason avoided by the +previous Fathers; certainly by St. Athanasius, who uses the words +"manhood," "flesh," "the man," "economy," where a later writer would +have used "nature:" and the same is true of St. Hilary.[301:3] In like +manner, the Athanasian Creed, written, as it is supposed, some twenty +years before the date of Eutyches, does not contain the word "nature." +Much might be said on the plausibility of the defence, which Eutyches +might have made for his doctrine from the history and documents of the +Church before his time. + + +6. + +Further, Eutyches professed to subscribe heartily the decrees of the +Council of Nicæa and Ephesus, and his friends appealed to the latter of +these Councils and to previous Fathers, in proof that nothing could be +added to the Creed of the Church. "I," he says to St. Leo, "even from my +elders have so understood, and from my childhood have so been +instructed, as the holy and Ecumenical Council at Nicæa of the three +hundred and eighteen most blessed Bishops settled the faith, and which +the holy Council held at Ephesus maintained and defined anew as the only +faith; and I have never understood otherwise than as the right or only +true orthodox faith hath enjoined." He says at the Latrocinium, "When I +declared that my faith was conformable to the decision of Nicæa, +confirmed at Ephesus, they demanded that I should add some words to it; +and I, fearing to act contrary to the decrees of the First Council of +Ephesus and of the Council of Nicæa, desired that your holy Council +might be made acquainted with it, since I was ready to submit to +whatever you should approve."[302:1] Dioscorus states the matter more +strongly: "We have heard," he says, "what this Council" of Ephesus +"decreed, that if any one affirm or opine anything, or raise any +question, beyond the Creed aforesaid" of Nicæa, "he is to be +condemned."[302:2] It is remarkable that the Council of Ephesus, which +laid down this rule, had itself sanctioned the Theotocos, an addition, +greater perhaps than any before or since, to the letter of the primitive +faith. + + +7. + +Further, Eutyches appealed to Scripture, and denied that a human nature +was there given to our Lord; and this appeal obliged him in consequence +to refuse an unconditional assent to the Councils and Fathers, though he +so confidently spoke about them at other times. It was urged against him +that the Nicene Council itself had introduced into the Creed +extra-scriptural terms. "'I have never found in Scripture,' he said," +according to one of the Priests who were sent to him, "'that there are +two natures.' I replied, 'Neither is the Consubstantiality,'" (the +Homoüsion of Nicæa,) "'to be found in the Scriptures, but in the Holy +Fathers who well understood them and faithfully expounded them.'"[303:1] +Accordingly, on another occasion, a report was made of him, that "he +professed himself ready to assent to the Exposition of Faith made by the +Holy Fathers of the Nicene and Ephesine Councils and he engaged to +subscribe their interpretations. However, if there were any accidental +fault or error in any expressions which they made, this he would neither +blame nor accept; but only search the Scriptures, as being surer than +the expositions of the Fathers; that since the time of the Incarnation +of God the Word . . he worshipped one Nature . . . that the doctrine +that our Lord Jesus Christ came of Two Natures personally united, this +it was that he had learned from the expositions of the Holy Fathers; nor +did he accept, if ought was read to him from any author to [another] +effect, because the Holy Scriptures, as he said, were better than the +teaching of the Fathers."[304:1] This appeal to the Scriptures will +remind us of what has lately been said of the school of Theodore +in the history of Nestorianism, and of the challenge of the Arians +to St. Avitus before the Gothic King.[304:2] It had also been the +characteristic of heresy in the antecedent period. St. Hilary brings +together a number of instances in point, from the history of Marcellus, +Photinus, Sabellius, Montanus, and Manes; then he adds, "They all speak +Scripture without the sense of Scripture, and profess a faith without +faith."[304:3] + + +8. + +Once more; the Council of the Latrocinium, however, tyrannized over by +Dioscorus in the matter of St. Flavian, certainly did acquit Eutyches +and accept his doctrine canonically, and, as it would appear, cordially; +though their change at Chalcedon, and the subsequent variations of the +East, make it a matter of little moment how they decided. The Acts of +Constantinople were read to the Fathers of the Latrocinium; when they +came to the part where Eusebius of Dorylæum, the accuser of Eutyches, +asked him, whether he confessed Two Natures after the Incarnation, and +the Consubstantiality according to the flesh, the Fathers broke in upon +the reading:--"Away with Eusebius; burn him; burn him alive; cut him in +two; as he divided, so let him be divided."[305:1] The Council seems to +have been unanimous, with the exception of the Pope's Legates, in the +restoration of Eutyches; a more complete decision can hardly be +imagined. + +It is true the whole number of signatures now extant, one hundred and +eight, may seem small out of a thousand, the number of Sees in the East; +but the attendance of Councils always bore a representative character. +The whole number of East and West was about eighteen hundred, yet the +second Ecumenical Council was attended by only one hundred and fifty, +which is but a twelfth part of the whole number; the Third Council by +about two hundred, or a ninth; the Council of Nicæa itself numbered only +three hundred and eighteen Bishops. Moreover, when we look through the +names subscribed to the Synodal decision, we find that the misbelief, or +misapprehension, or weakness, to which this great offence must be +attributed, was no local phenomenon, but the unanimous sin of Bishops in +every patriarchate and of every school of the East. Three out of the +four patriarchs were in favour of the heresiarch, the fourth being on +his trial. Of these Domnus of Antioch and Juvenal of Jerusalem acquitted +him, on the ground of his confessing the faith of Nicæa and Ephesus: and +Domnus was a man of the fairest and purest character, and originally a +disciple of St. Euthemius, however inconsistent on this occasion, and +ill-advised in former steps of his career. Dioscorus, violent and bad +man as he showed himself, had been Archdeacon to St. Cyril, whom he +attended at the Council of Ephesus; and was on this occasion supported +by those Churches which had so nobly stood by their patriarch Athanasius +in the great Arian conflict. These three Patriarchs were supported by +the Exarchs of Ephesus and Cæsarea in Cappadocia; and both of these as +well as Domnus and Juvenal, were supported in turn by their subordinate +Metropolitans. Even the Sees under the influence of Constantinople, +which was the remaining sixth division of the East, took part with +Eutyches. We find among the signatures to his acquittal the Bishops of +Dyrrachium, of Heraclea in Macedonia, of Messene in the Peloponese, of +Sebaste in Armenia, of Tarsus, of Damascus, of Berytus, of Bostra in +Arabia, of Amida in Mesopotamia, of Himeria in Osrhoene, of Babylon, of +Arsinoe in Egypt, and of Cyrene. The Bishops of Palestine, of Macedonia, +and of Achaia, where the keen eye of St. Athanasius had detected the +doctrine in its germ, while Apollinarianism was but growing into form, +were his actual partisans. Another Barsumas, a Syrian Abbot, ignorant of +Greek, attended the Latrocinium, as the representative of the monks of +his nation, whom he formed into a force, material or moral, of a +thousand strong, and whom at that infamous assembly he cheered on to the +murder of St. Flavian. + + +9. + +Such was the state of Eastern Christendom in the year 449; a heresy, +appealing to the Fathers, to the Creed, and, above all, to Scripture, +was by a general Council, professing to be Ecumenical, received as true +in the person of its promulgator. If the East could determine a matter +of faith independently of the West, certainly the Monophysite heresy was +established as Apostolic truth in all its provinces from Macedonia to +Egypt. + +There has been a time in the history of Christianity, when it had been +Athanasius against the world, and the world against Athanasius. The need +and straitness of the Church had been great, and one man was raised up +for her deliverance. In this second necessity, who was the destined +champion of her who cannot fail? Whence did he come, and what was his +name? He came with an augury of victory upon him, which even Athanasius +could not show; it was Leo, Bishop of Rome. + + +10. + +Leo's augury of success, which even Athanasius had not, was this, that +he was seated in the chair of St. Peter and the heir of his +prerogatives. In the very beginning of the controversy, St. Peter +Chrysologus had urged this grave consideration upon Eutyches himself, in +words which have already been cited: "I exhort you, my venerable +brother," he had said, "to submit yourself in everything to what has +been written by the blessed Pope of Rome; for St. Peter, who lives and +presides in his own See, gives the true faith to those who seek +it."[307:1] This voice had come from Ravenna, and now after the +Latrocinium it was echoed back from the depths of Syria by the learned +Theodoret. "That all-holy See," he says in a letter to one of the +Pope's Legates, "has the office of heading (ἡγεμονίαν) the whole world's +Churches for many reasons; and above all others, because it has remained +free of the communion of heretical taint, and no one of heterodox +sentiments hath sat in it, but it hath preserved the Apostolic grace +unsullied."[307:2] And a third testimony in encouragement of the +faithful at the same dark moment issued from the Imperial court of the +West. "We are bound," says Valentinian to the Emperor of the East, "to +preserve inviolate in our times the prerogative of particular reverence +to the blessed Apostle Peter; that the most blessed Bishop of Rome, +to whom Antiquity assigned the priesthood over all (κατὰ πάντων) may +have place and opportunity of judging concerning the faith and the +priests."[307:3] Nor had Leo himself been wanting at the same time in +"the confidence" he had "obtained from the most blessed Peter and head +of the Apostles, that he had authority to defend the truth for the peace +of the Church."[308:1] Thus Leo introduces us to the Council of +Chalcedon, by which he rescued the East from a grave heresy. + + +11. + +The Council met on the 8th of October, 451, and was attended by the +largest number of Bishops of any Council before or since; some say by as +many as six hundred and thirty. Of these, only four came from the West, +two Roman Legates and two Africans.[308:2] + +Its proceedings were opened by the Pope's Legates, who said that they +had it in charge from the Bishop of Rome, "which is the head of all the +Churches," to demand that Dioscorus should not sit, on the ground that +"he had presumed to hold a Council without the authority of the +Apostolic See, which had never been done nor was lawful to do."[308:3] +This was immediately allowed them. + +The next act of the Council was to give admission to Theodoret, who had +been deposed at the Latrocinium. The Imperial officers present urged his +admission, on the ground that "the most holy Archbishop Leo hath +restored him to the Episcopal office, and the most pious Emperor hath +ordered that he should assist at the holy Council."[308:4] + +Presently, a charge was brought forward against Dioscorus, that, though +the Legates had presented a letter from the Pope to the Council, it had +not been read. Dioscorus admitted not only the fact, but its relevancy; +but alleged in excuse that he had twice ordered it to be read in vain. + +In the course of the reading of the Acts of the Latrocinium and +Constantinople, a number of Bishops moved from the side of Dioscorus +and placed themselves with the opposite party. When Peter, Bishop of +Corinth, crossed over, the Orientals whom he joined shouted, "Peter +thinks as does Peter; orthodox Bishop, welcome." + + +12. + +In the second Session it was the duty of the Fathers to draw up a +confession of faith condemnatory of the heresy. A committee was formed +for the purpose, and the Creed of Nicæa and Constantinople was read; +then some of the Epistles of St. Cyril; lastly, St. Leo's Tome, which +had been passed over in silence at the Latrocinium. Some discussion +followed upon the last of these documents, but at length the Bishops +cried out, "This is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the +Apostles: we all believe thus; the orthodox believe thus; anathema to +him who does not believe thus. Peter has thus spoken through Leo; the +Apostles taught thus." Readings from the other Fathers followed; and +then some days were allowed for private discussion, before drawing up +the confession of faith which was to set right the heterodoxy of the +Latrocinium. + +During the interval, Dioscorus was tried and condemned; sentence was +pronounced against him by the Pope's Legates, and ran thus: "The most +holy Archbishop of Rome, Leo, through us and this present Council, with +the Apostle St. Peter, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic +Church and of the orthodox faith, deprives him of the Episcopal dignity +and every sacerdotal ministry." + +In the fourth Session the question of the definition of faith came on +again, but the Council got no further than this, that it received the +definitions of the three previous Ecumenical Councils; it would not add +to them what Leo required. One hundred and sixty Bishops however +subscribed his Tome. + + +13. + +In the fifth Session the question came on once more; some sort of +definition of faith was the result of the labours of the committee, and +was accepted by the great majority of the Council. The Bishops cried +out, "We are all satisfied with the definition; it is the faith of the +Fathers: anathema to him who thinks otherwise: drive out the +Nestorians." When objectors appeared, Anatolius, the new Patriarch of +Constantinople, asked "Did not every one yesterday consent to the +definition of faith?" on which the Bishops answered, "Every one +consented; we do not believe otherwise; it is the Faith of the Fathers; +let it be set down that Holy Mary is the Mother of God: let this be +added to the Creed; put out the Nestorians."[310:1] The objectors were +the Pope's Legates, supported by a certain number of Orientals: those +clear-sighted, firm-minded Latins understood full well what and what +alone was the true expression of orthodox doctrine under the emergency +of the existing heresy. They had been instructed to induce the Council +to pass a declaration to the effect, that Christ was not only "of," but +"in" two natures. However, they did not enter upon disputation on the +point, but they used a more intelligible argument: If the Fathers did +not consent to the letter of the blessed Bishop Leo, they would leave +the Council and go home. The Imperial officers took the part of the +Legates. The Council however persisted: "Every one approved the +definition; let it be subscribed: he who refuses to subscribe it is a +heretic." They even proceeded to refer it to Divine inspiration. The +officers asked if they received St. Leo's Tome; they answered that they +had subscribed it, but that they would not introduce its contents into +their definition of faith. "We are for no other definition," they said; +"nothing is wanting in this." + + +14. + +Notwithstanding, the Pope's Legates gained their point through the +support of the Emperor Marcian, who had succeeded Theodosius. A fresh +committee was obtained under the threat that, if they resisted, the +Council should be transferred to the West. Some voices were raised +against this measure; the cries were repeated against the Roman party, +"They are Nestorians; let them go to Rome." The Imperial officers +remonstrated, "Dioscorus said, 'Of two natures;' Leo says, 'Two +natures:' which will you follow, Leo or Dioscorus?" On their answering +"Leo," they continued, "Well then, add to the definition, according to +the judgment of our most holy Leo." Nothing more was to be said. The +committee immediately proceeded to their work, and in a short time +returned to the assembly with such a definition as the Pope required. +After reciting the Creed of Nicæa and Constantinople, it observes, "This +Creed were sufficient for the perfect knowledge of religion, but the +enemies of the truth have invented novel expressions;" and therefore it +proceeds to state the faith more explicitly. When this was read through, +the Bishops all exclaimed, "This is the faith of the Fathers; we all +follow it." And thus ended the controversy once for all. + +The Council, after its termination, addressed a letter to St. Leo; in it +the Fathers acknowledge him as "constituted interpreter of the voice of +Blessed Peter,"[311:1] (with an allusion to St. Peter's Confession in +Matthew xvi.,) and speak of him as "the very one commissioned with the +guardianship of the Vine by the Saviour." + + +15. + +Such is the external aspect of those proceedings by which the Catholic +faith has been established in Christendom against the Monophysites. That +the definition passed at Chalcedon is the Apostolic Truth once delivered +to the Saints is most firmly to be received, from faith in that +overruling Providence which is by special promise extended over the acts +of the Church; moreover, that it is in simple accordance with the faith +of St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and all the other Fathers, +will be evident to the theological student in proportion as he becomes +familiar with their works: but the historical account of the Council is +this, that a formula which the Creed did not contain, which the Fathers +did not unanimously witness, and which some eminent Saints had almost in +set terms opposed, which the whole East refused as a symbol, not once, +but twice, patriarch by patriarch, metropolitan by metropolitan, first +by the mouth of above a hundred, then by the mouth of above six hundred +of its Bishops, and refused upon the grounds of its being an addition to +the Creed, was forced upon the Council, not indeed as being such an +addition, yet, on the other hand, not for subscription merely, but for +acceptance as a definition of faith under the sanction of an +anathema,--forced on the Council by the resolution of the Pope of the +day, acting through his Legates and supported by the civil power.[312:1] + + +16. + +It cannot be supposed that such a transaction would approve itself to +the Churches of Egypt, and the event showed it: they disowned the +authority of the Council, and called its adherents Chalcedonians,[313:1] +and Synodites.[313:2] For here was the West tyrannizing over the East, +forcing it into agreement with itself, resolved to have one and one only +form of words, rejecting the definition of faith which the East had +drawn up in Council, bidding it and making it frame another, dealing +peremptorily and sternly with the assembled Bishops, and casting +contempt on the most sacred traditions of Egypt! What was Eutyches to +them? He might be guilty or innocent; they gave him up: Dioscorus had +given him up at Chalcedon;[313:3] they did not agree with him:[313:4] he +was an extreme man; they would not call themselves by human titles; they +were not Eutychians; Eutyches was not their master, but Athanasius and +Cyril were their doctors.[313:5] The two great lights of their Church, +the two greatest and most successful polemical Fathers that Christianity +had seen, had both pronounced "One Nature Incarnate," though allowing +Two before the Incarnation; and though Leo and his Council had not gone +so far as to deny this phrase, they had proceeded to say what was the +contrary to it, to explain away, to overlay the truth, by defining that +the Incarnate Saviour was "in Two Natures." At Ephesus it had been +declared that the Creed should not be touched; the Chalcedonian Fathers +had, not literally, but virtually added to it: by subscribing Leo's +Tome, and promulgating their definition of faith, they had added what +might be called, "The Creed of Pope Leo." + + +17. + +It is remarkable, as has been just stated, that Dioscorus, wicked man +as he was in act, was of the moderate or middle school in doctrine, as +the violent and able Severus after him; and from the first the great +body of the protesting party disowned Eutyches, whose form of the heresy +took refuge in Armenia, where it remains to this day. The Armenians +alone were pure Eutychians, and so zealously such that they innovated on +the ancient and recognized custom of mixing water with the wine in the +Holy Eucharist, and consecrated the wine by itself in token of the one +nature, as they considered, of the Christ. Elsewhere both name and +doctrine of Eutyches were abjured; the heretical bodies in Egypt and +Syria took a title from their special tenet, and formed the Monophysite +communion. Their theology was at once simple and specious. They based it +upon the illustration which is familiar to us in the Athanasian Creed, +and which had been used by St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril, St. +Augustine, Vincent of Lerins, not to say St. Leo himself. They argued +that as body and soul made up one man, so God and man made up but one, +though one compound Nature, in Christ. It might have been charitably +hoped that their difference from the Catholics had been a simple matter +of words, as it is allowed by Vigilius of Thapsus really to have been in +many cases; but their refusal to obey the voice of the Church was a +token of real error in their faith, and their implicit heterodoxy is +proved by their connexion, in spite of themselves, with the extreme or +ultra party whom they so vehemently disowned. + +It is very observable that, ingenious as is their theory and sometimes +perplexing to a disputant, the Monophysites never could shake themselves +free of the Eutychians; and though they could draw intelligible lines on +paper between the two doctrines, yet in fact by a hidden fatality their +partisans were ever running into or forming alliance with the +anathematized extreme. Thus Peter the Fuller the Theopaschite +(Eutychian), is at one time in alliance with Peter the Stammerer, who +advocated the Henoticon (which was Monophysite). The Acephali, though +separating from the latter Peter for that advocacy, and accused by +Leontius of being Gaianites[315:1] (Eutychians), are considered by +Facundus as Monophysites.[315:2] Timothy the Cat, who is said to have +agreed with Dioscorus and Peter the Stammerer, who signed the Henoticon, +that is, with two Monophysite Patriarchs, is said nevertheless, +according to Anastasius, to have maintained the extreme tenet, that "the +Divinity is the sole nature of Christ."[315:3] Severus, according to +Anastasius,[315:3] symbolized with the Phantasiasts (Eutychians), yet he +is more truly, according to Leontius, the chief doctor and leader of the +Monophysites. And at one time there was an union, though temporary, +between the Theodosians (Monophysites) and the Gaianites. + + +18. + +Such a division of an heretical party, into the maintainers, of an +extreme and a moderate view, perspicuous and plausible on paper, yet in +fact unreal, impracticable, and hopeless, was no new phenomenon in the +history of the Church. As Eutyches put forward an extravagant tenet, +which was first corrected into the Monophysite, and then relapsed +hopelessly into the doctrine of the Phantasiasts and the Theopaschites, +so had Arius been superseded by the Eusebians and had revived in +Eunomius; and as the moderate Eusebians had formed the great body of the +dissentients from the Nicene Council, so did the Monophysites include +the mass of those who protested against Chalcedon; and as the Eusebians +had been moderate in creed, yet unscrupulous in act, so were the +Monophysites. And as the Eusebians were ever running individually into +pure Arianism, so did the Monophysites run into pure Eutychianism. And +as the Monophysites set themselves against Pope Leo, so had the +Eusebians, with even less provocation, withstood and complained of Pope +Julius. In like manner, the Apollinarians had divided into two sects; +one, with Timotheus, going the whole length of the inferences which the +tenet of their master involved, and the more cautious or timid party +making an unintelligible stand with Valentinus. Again, in the history of +Nestorianism, though it admitted less opportunity for division of +opinion, the See of Rome was with St. Cyril in one extreme, Nestorius in +the other, and between them the great Eastern party, headed by John of +Antioch and Theodoret, not heretical, but for a time dissatisfied with +the Council of Ephesus. + + +19. + +The Nestorian heresy, I have said, gave less opportunity for doctrinal +varieties than the heresy of Eutyches. Its spirit was rationalizing, and +had the qualities which go with rationalism. When cast out of the Roman +Empire, it addressed itself, as we have seen, to a new and rich field of +exertion, got possession of an Established Church, co-operated with the +civil government, adopted secular fashions, and, by whatever means, +pushed itself out into an Empire. Apparently, though it requires a very +intimate knowledge of its history to speak except conjecturally, it was +a political power rather than a dogma, and despised the science of +theology. Eutychianism, on the other hand, was mystical, severe, +enthusiastic; with the exception of Severus, and one or two more, it was +supported by little polemical skill; it had little hold upon the +intellectual Greeks of Syria and Asia Minor, but flourished in Egypt, +which was far behind the East in civilization, and among the native +Syrians. Nestorianism, like Arianism[317:1] before it, was a cold +religion, and more fitted for the schools than for the many; but the +Monophysites carried the people with them. Like modern Jansenism, and +unlike Nestorianism, the Monophysites were famous for their austerities. +They have, or had, five Lents in the year, during which laity as well as +clergy abstain not only from flesh and eggs, but from wine, oil, and +fish.[317:2] Monachism was a characteristic part of their ecclesiastical +system: their Bishops, and Maphrian or Patriarch, were always taken from +the Monks, who are even said to have worn an iron shirt or breastplate +as a part of their monastic habit.[317:3] + + +20. + +Severus, Patriarch of Antioch at the end of the fifth century, has +already been mentioned as an exception to the general character of the +Monophysites, and, by his learning and ability, may be accounted the +founder of its theology. Their cause, however, had been undertaken by +the Emperors themselves before him. For the first thirty years after the +Council of Chalcedon, the protesting Church of Egypt had been the scene +of continued tumult and bloodshed. Dioscorus had been popular with the +people for his munificence, in spite of the extreme laxity of his +morals, and for a while the Imperial Government failed in obtaining the +election of a Catholic successor. At length Proterius, a man of fair +character, and the Vicar-general of Dioscorus on his absence at +Chalcedon, was chosen, consecrated, and enthroned; but the people rose +against the civil authorities, and the military, coming to their +defence, were attacked with stones, and pursued into a church, where +they were burned alive by the mob. Next, the popular leaders prepared to +intercept the supplies of grain which were destined for Constantinople; +and, a defensive retaliation taking place, Alexandria was starved. Then +a force of two thousand men was sent for the restoration of order, who +permitted themselves in scandalous excesses towards the women of +Alexandria. Proterius's life was attempted, and he was obliged to be +attended by a guard. The Bishops of Egypt would not submit to him; two +of his own clergy, who afterward succeeded him, Timothy and Peter, +seceded, and were joined by four or five of the Bishops and by the mass +of the population;[318:1] and the Catholic Patriarch was left without a +communion in Alexandria. He held a council, and condemned the +schismatics; and the Emperor, seconding his efforts, sent them out of +the country, and enforced the laws against the Eutychians. An external +quiet succeeded; then Marcian died; and then forthwith Timothy (the Cat) +made his appearance again, first in Egypt, then in Alexandria. The +people rose in his favour, and carried in triumph their persecuted +champion to the great Cæsarean Church, where he was consecrated +Patriarch by two deprived Bishops, who had been put out of their sees, +whether by a Council of Egypt or of Palestine.[318:2] Timothy, now +raised to the Episcopal rank, began to create a new succession; he +ordained Bishops for the Churches of Egypt, and drove into exile those +who were in possession. The Imperial troops, who had been stationed in +Upper Egypt, returned to Alexandria; the mob rose again, broke into the +Church, where St. Proterius was in prayer, and murdered him. A general +ejectment of the Catholic clergy throughout Egypt followed. On their +betaking themselves to Constantinople to the new Emperor, Timothy and +his party addressed him also. They quoted the Fathers, and demanded the +abrogation of the Council of Chalcedon. Next they demanded a conference; +the Catholics said that what was once done could not be undone; their +opponents agreed to this and urged it, as their very argument against +Chalcedon, that it added to the faith, and reversed former +decisions.[319:1] After a rule of three years, Timothy was driven out +and Catholicism restored; but then in turn the Monophysites rallied, and +this state of warfare and alternate success continued for thirty years. + + +21. + +At length the Imperial Government, wearied out with a dispute which was +interminable, came to the conclusion that the only way of restoring +peace to the Church was to abandon the Council of Chalcedon. In the year +482 was published the famous _Henoticon_ or Pacification of Zeno, in +which the Emperor took upon himself to determine a matter of faith. The +Henoticon declared that no symbol of faith but that of the Nicene Creed, +commonly so called, should be received in the Churches; it anathematized +the opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, and it was silent on +the question of the "One" or "Two Natures" after the Incarnation. This +middle measure had the various effects which might be anticipated. It +united the great body of the Eastern Bishops, who readily relaxed into +the vague profession of doctrine from which they had been roused by the +authority of St. Leo. All the Eastern Bishops signed this Imperial +formulary. But this unanimity of the East was purchased by a breach with +the West; for the Popes cut off the communication between Greeks and +Latins for thirty-five years. On the other hand, the more zealous +Monophysites, disgusted at their leaders for accepting what they +considered an unjustifiable compromise, split off from the Eastern +Churches, and formed a sect by themselves, which remained without +Bishops (_acephali_) for three hundred years, when at length they were +received back into the communion of the Catholic Church. + + +22. + +Dreary and waste was the condition of the Church, and forlorn her +prospects, at the period which we have been reviewing. After the brief +triumph which attended the conversion of Constantine, trouble and trial +had returned upon her. Her imperial protectors were failing in power or +in faith. Strange forms of evil were rising in the distance and were +thronging for the conflict. There was but one spot in the whole of +Christendom, one voice in the whole Episcopate, to which the faithful +turned in hope in that miserable day. In the year 493, in the +Pontificate of Gelasius, the whole of the East was in the hands of +traitors to Chalcedon, and the whole of the West under the tyranny of +the open enemies of Nicæa. Italy was the prey of robbers; mercenary +bands had overrun its territory, and barbarians were seizing on its +farms and settling in its villas. The peasants were thinned by famine +and pestilence; Tuscany might be even said, as Gelasius words it, to +contain scarcely a single inhabitant.[320:1] Odoacer was sinking before +Theodoric, and the Pope was changing one Arian master for another. And +as if one heresy were not enough, Pelagianism was spreading with the +connivance of the Bishops in the territory of Picenum. In the North of +the dismembered Empire, the Britons had first been infected by +Pelagianism, and now were dispossessed by the heathen Saxons. The +Armoricans still preserved a witness of Catholicism in the West of Gaul; +but Picardy, Champagne, and the neighbouring provinces, where some +remnant of its supremacy had been found, had lately submitted to the +yet heathen Clovis. The Arian kingdoms of Burgundy in France, and of the +Visigoths in Aquitaine and Spain, oppressed a zealous and Catholic +clergy, Africa was in still more deplorable condition under the cruel +sway of the Vandal Gundamond: the people indeed uncorrupted by the +heresy,[321:1] but their clergy in exile and their worship suspended. +While such was the state of the Latins, what had happened in the East? +Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, had secretly taken part +against the Council of Chalcedon and was under Papal excommunication. +Nearly the whole East had sided with Acacius, and a schism had begun +between East and West, which lasted, as I have above stated, for +thirty-five years. The Henoticon was in force, and at the Imperial +command had been signed by all the Patriarchs and Bishops throughout the +Eastern Empire.[321:2] In Armenia the Churches were ripening for the +pure Eutychianism which they adopted in the following century; and in +Egypt the Acephali, already separated from the Monophysite Patriarch, +were extending in the east and west of the country, and preferred the +loss of the Episcopal Succession to the reception of the Council of +Chalcedon. And while Monophysites or their favourers occupied the +Churches of the Eastern Empire, Nestorianism was making progress in the +territories beyond it. Barsumas had held the See of Nisibis, Theodore +was read in the schools of Persia, and the successive Catholici of +Seleucia had abolished Monachism and were secularizing the clergy. + + +23. + +If then there is now a form of Christianity such, that it extends +throughout the world, though with varying measures of prominence or +prosperity in separate places;--that it lies under the power of +sovereigns and magistrates, in various ways alien to its faith;--that +flourishing nations and great empires, professing or tolerating the +Christian name, lie over against it as antagonists;--that schools of +philosophy and learning are supporting theories, and following out +conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an exegetical system +subversive of its Scriptures;--that it has lost whole Churches by +schism, and is now opposed by powerful communions once part of +itself;--that it has been altogether or almost driven from some +countries;--that in others its line of teachers is overlaid, its flocks +oppressed, its Churches occupied, its property held by what may be +called a duplicate succession;--that in others its members are +degenerate and corrupt, and are surpassed in conscientiousness and in +virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very heretics whom it +condemns;--that heresies are rife and bishops negligent within its own +pale;--and that amid its disorders and its fears there is but one Voice +for whose decisions the peoples wait with trust, one Name and one See to +which they look with hope, and that name Peter, and that see Rome;--such +a religion is not unlike the Christianity of the fifth and sixth +Centuries.[322:1] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[208:1] [This juxtaposition of names has been strangely distorted by +critics. In the intention of the author, Guizot matched with Pliny, not +with Frederick.] + +[213:1] Vid. Muller de Hierarch. et Ascetic. Warburton, Div. Leg. ii. 4. +Selden de Diis Syr. Acad. des Inscript. t. 3, hist. p. 296, t. 5, mem. +p. 63, t. 16, mem. p. 267. Lucian. Pseudomant. Cod. Theod. ix. 16. + +[214:1] Acad. t. 16. mem. p. 274. + +[215:1] Apol. 25. Vid. also Prudent. in hon. Romani, circ. fin. and +Lucian de Deo Syr. 50. + +[215:2] Vid. also the scene in Jul. Firm. p. 449. + +[216:1] Tac. Ann. ii. 85; Sueton. Tiber. 36. + +[216:2] August. 93. + +[216:3] De Superst. 3. + +[216:4] De Art. Am. i. init. + +[217:1] Sat. iii. vi. + +[217:2] Tertul. Ap. 5. + +[218:1] Vit. Hel. 3. + +[219:1] Vid. Tillemont, Mem. and Lardner's Hist. Heretics. + +[221:1] Bampton Lect. 2. + +[222:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 61. + +[223:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 44. + +[223:2] Montfaucon, Antiq. t. ii. part 2, p. 353. + +[223:3] Hær. i. 20. + +[223:4] De Præscr. 43. + +[225:1] Vid. Kortholt, in Plin. et Traj. Epp. p. 152. Comment. in Minuc. +F. &c. + +[228:1] "Itaque imposuistis in cervicibus nostris sempiternum dominum, +quem dies et noctes timeremus; quis enim non timeat omnia providentem et +cogitantem et animadvertentem, et omnia ad se pertinere putantem, +curiosum, et plenum negotii Deum?"--_Cic. de Nat. Deor._ i. 20. + +[228:2] Min. c. 11. Lact. v. 1, 2, vid. Arnob. ii. 8, &c. + +[228:3] Origen, contr. Cels. i. 9, iii. 44, 50, vi. 44. + +[229:1] Prudent. in hon. Fruct. 37. + +[229:2] Evan. Dem. iii. 3, 4. + +[229:3] Mort. Peregr. 13. + +[229:4] c. 108. + +[229:5] i. e. Philop. 16. + +[229:6] De Mort. Pereg. ibid. + +[229:7] Ruin. Mart. pp. 100, 594, &c. + +[230:1] Prud. in hon. Rom. vv. 404, 868. + +[230:2] We have specimens of _carmina_ ascribed to Christians in the +Philopatris. + +[230:3] Goth. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 120, ed. 1665. Again, "Qui malefici +vulgi consuetudine nuncupantur." Leg. 6. So Lactantius, "Magi et ii quos +verè maleficos vulgus appellat." Inst. ii. 17. "Quos et maleficos vulgus +appellat." August. Civ. Dei, x. 19. "Quos vulgus mathematicos vocat." +Hieron. in Dan. c. ii. Vid. Gothof. in loc. Other laws speak of those +who were "maleficiorum labe polluti," and of the "maleficiorum scabies." + +[230:4] Tertullian too mentions the charge of "hostes principum +Romanorum, populi, generis humani, Deorum, Imperatorum, legum, morum, +naturæ totius inimici." Apol. 2, 35, 38, ad. Scap. 4, ad. Nat. i. 17. + +[231:1] Evid. part ii. ch. 4. + +[232:1] Heathen Test. 9. + +[233:1] Gothof. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 121. + +[233:2] Cic. pro Cluent. 61. Gieseler transl. vol. i. p. 21, note 5. +Acad. Inscr. t. 34, hist. p. 110. + +[234:1] De Harusp. Resp. 9. + +[234:2] De Legg. ii. 8. + +[234:3] Acad. Inscr. ibid. + +[234:4] Neander, Eccl. Hist. tr. vol. i. p. 81. + +[234:5] Muller, p. 21, 22, 30. Tertull. Ox. tr. p. 12, note _p_. + +[235:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 16, note 14. + +[235:2] Epit. Instit. 55. + +[236:1] Gibbon, ibid. Origen admits and defends the violation of the +laws: οὐκ ἄλογον συνθήκας παρὰ τὰ νενομισμένα ποιεῖν, τὰς ὑπὲρ ἁληθείας. c. Cels. i. 1. + +[237:1] Hist. p. 418. + +[237:2] In hon. Rom. 62. In Act. S. Cypr. 4, Tert. Apol. 10, &c. + +[238:1] Apol. i. 3, 39, Oxf. tr. + +[241:1] Julian ap. Cyril, pp. 39, 194, 206, 335. Epp. pp. 305, 429, 438, +ed. Spanh. + +[242:1] Niebuhr ascribes it to the beginning of the tenth. + +[245:1] Sirm. Opp. ii. p. 225, ed. Ven. + +[247:1] Proph. Office, p. 132 [Via Media, vol. i. p. 109]. + +[247:2] [Since the publication of this volume in 1845, a writer in a +Conservative periodical of great name has considered that no happier +designation could be bestowed upon us than that which heathen statesmen +gave to the first Christians, "enemies of the human race." What a +remarkable witness to our identity with the Church of St. Paul ("a +pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition throughout the world"), of St. +Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and the other Martyrs! In this matter, +Conservative politicians join with Liberals, and with the movement +parties in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, in their view of +our religion. + +"The Catholics," says the _Quarterly Review_ for January, 1873, pp. +181-2, "wherever they are numerous and powerful in a Protestant nation, +_compel_ (sic) as it were by a law of their being, that nation to treat +them with stern repression and control. . . . Catholicism, if it be true +to itself, and its mission, _cannot_ (sic) . . . wherever and whenever +the opportunity is afforded it, abstain from claiming, working for, and +grasping that supremacy and paramount influence and control, which it +conscientiously believes to be its inalienable and universal due. . . . +By the force of circumstances, by the inexorable logic of its claims, it +must be the intestine foe or the disturbing element of every state in +which it does not bear sway; and . . . it must now stand out in the +estimate of all Protestants, Patriots and Thinkers" (philosophers and +historians, as Tacitus?) "as the _hostis humani generis_ (sic), &c."] + +[254:1] De Præscr. Hær. 41, Oxf. tr. + +[254:2] χρονῖται. + +[256:1] Cat. xviii. 26. + +[257:1] Contr. Ep. Manich. 5. + +[257:2] Origen, Opp. t. i. p. 809. + +[258:1] Strom. vii. 17. + +[258:2] c. Tryph. 35. + +[258:3] Instit. 4. 30. + +[259:1] Hær. 42, p. 366. + +[259:2] In Lucif. fin. + +[259:3] The Oxford translation is used. + +[263:1] _Rationabilis_; apparently an allusion to the civil officer +called _Catholicus_ or _Rationalis_, receiver-general. + +[263:2] Ad. Parm. ii. init. + +[264:1] De Unit. Eccles. 6. + +[265:1] Contr. Cresc. iv. 75; also iii. 77. + +[266:1] Antiq. ii. 4, § 5. + +[267:1] Antiq. 5, § 3. [Bingham apparently in this passage is indirectly +replying to the Catholic argument for the Pope's Supremacy drawn from +the titles and acts ascribed to him in antiquity; but that argument is +cumulative in character, being part of a whole body of proof; and there +is moreover a great difference between a rhetorical discourse and a +synodal enunciation as at Chalcedon.] + +[268:1] Ad Demetr. 4, &c. Oxf. Tr. + +[268:2] Hist. ch. xv. + +[269:1] De Unit. 5, 12. + +[269:2] Chrys. in Eph. iv. + +[269:3] De Baptism. i. 10. + +[269:4] c. Ep. Parm. i. 7. + +[269:5] De Schism. Donat. i. 10. + +[270:1] Cat. xvi. 10. + +[270:2] De Fid. ad Petr. 39. [82.] + +[270:3] [Of course this solemn truth must not be taken apart from the +words of the present Pope, Pius IX., concerning invincible ignorance: +"Notum nobis vobisque est, eos, qui invincibili circa sanctissimam +nostram religionem ignorantiâ laborant, quique naturalem legem ejusque +præcepta in omnium cordibus a Deo insculpta sedulo servantes, ac Deo +obedire parati, honestam rectamque vitam agunt, posse, divinæ lucis et +gratiæ operante virtute, æternam consequi vitam, cùm Deus, qui omnium +mentes, animos, cogitationes, habitusque planè intuetur, scrutatur et +noscit, pro summâ suâ bonitate et clementia, minimè patiatur quempiam +æternis puniri suppliciis, qui voluntariæ culpæ reatum non habeat."] + +[272:1] Epp. 43, 52, 57, 76, 105, 112, 141, 144. + +[276:1] De Gubern. Dei, vii. p. 142. Elsewhere, "Apud Aquitanicos quæ +civitas in locupletissimâ ac nobilissimâ sui parte non quasi lupanar +fuit? Quis potentum ac divitum non in luto libidinis vixit? Haud multum +matrona abest à vilitate servarum, ubi paterfamilias ancillarum maritus +est? Quis autem Aquitanorum divitum non hoc fuit?" (pp. 134, 135.) +"Offenduntur barbari ipsi impuritatibus nostris. Esse inter Gothos non +licet scortatorem Gothum; soli inter eos præjudicio nationis ac nominis +permittuntur impuri esse Romani" (p. 137). "Quid? Hispanias nonne vel +eadem vel majora forsitan vitia perdiderunt? . . . Accessit hoc ad +manifestandam illic impudicitiæ damnationem, ut Wandalis potissimum, id +est, pudicis barbaris traderentur" (p. 137). Of Africa and Carthage, "In +urbe Christianâ, in urbe ecclesiasticâ, . . . viri in semetipsis feminas +profitebantur," &c. (p. 152). + +[276:2] Dunham, Hist. Spain, vol. i. p. 112. + +[277:1] Aguirr. Concil. t. 2, p. 191. + +[277:2] Dunham, p. 125. + +[277:3] Hist. Franc. iii. 10. + +[277:4] Ch. 39. + +[278:1] Greg. Dial. iii. 30. + +[278:2] Ibid. 20. + +[278:3] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 37. + +[279:1] De Glor. Mart. i. 25. + +[279:2] Ibid. 80. + +[279:3] Ibid. 79. + +[279:4] Vict. Vit. i. 14. + +[280:1] De Gub. D. iv. p. 73. + +[280:2] Ibid. v. p. 88. + +[280:3] Epp. i. 31. + +[280:4] Hist. vi. 23. + +[280:5] Cf. Assem. t. i. p. 351, not. 4, t. 3, p. 393. + +[280:6] Baron. Ann. 432, 47. + +[280:7] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36. + +[281:1] Baron. Ann. 471, 18. + +[281:2] Vict. Vit. iv. 4. + +[281:3] Vict. Vit. ii. 3-15. + +[282:1] Aguirr. Conc. t. 2, p. 262. + +[282:2] Aguirr. ibid. p. 232. + +[282:3] Theod. Hist. v. 2. + +[282:4] c. Ruff. i. 4. + +[283:1] Ep. 15. + +[283:2] Ep. 16. + +[284:1] Aug. Epp. 43. 7. + +[286:1] Assem. iii. p. 68. + +[287:1] Ibid. t. 3, p. 84, note 3. + +[287:2] Wegnern, Proleg. in Theod. Opp. p. ix. + +[287:3] De Ephrem Syr. p. 61. + +[288:1] Lengerke, de Ephrem Syr. pp. 73-75. + +[289:1] δεσπότου, vid. La Croze, Thesaur. Ep. t. 3, § 145. + +[289:2] Montf. Coll. Nov. t. 2, p. 227. + +[290:1] Rosenmuller, Hist. Interpr. t. 3, p. 278. + +[290:2] Lengerke, de Ephr. Syr. pp. 165-167. + +[290:3] Ernest. de Proph. Mess. p. 462. + +[291:1] Eccl. Theol. iii. 12. + +[291:2] Professor Lee's Serm. Oct. 1838, pp. 144-152. + +[291:3] Noris. Opp. t. 2, p. 112. + +[291:4] Augusti. Euseb. Em. Opp. + +[291:5] Asseman. Bibl. Or. p. cmxxv. + +[291:6] Hoffman, Gram. Syr. Proleg. § 4. + +[291:7] The educated Persians were also acquainted with Syriac. Assem. +t. i. p. 351, not. + +[292:1] Asseman., p. lxx. + +[292:2] Euseb. Præp. vi. 10. + +[292:3] Tillemont, Mem. t. 7, p. 77. + +[293:1] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[294:1] Asseman. p. lxxviii. + +[294:2] Gibbon, ibid. + +[294:3] Asseman. t. 2, p. 403, t. 3, p. 393. + +[295:1] Asseman. t. 3, p. 67. + +[296:1] Gibbon, ibid. + +[296:2] Assem. p. lxxvi. + +[296:3] Ibid. t. 3, p. 441. + +[297:1] Ch. 47. + +[298:1] Fleur. Hist. xxvii. 29. + +[299:1] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[300:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 127. + +[301:1] Petav. de Incarn. iv. 6, § 4. + +[301:2] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 168. + +[301:3] Vid. the Author's Athan. trans. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. pp. 331-333, +426-429, and on the general subject his Theol. Tracts, art. v.] + +[302:1] Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxvii. 39. + +[302:2] Ibid. 41. In like manner, St. Athanasius in the foregoing age +had said, "The faith confessed at Nicæa by the Fathers, according to the +Scriptures, is sufficient for the overthrow of all misbelief." ad Epict. +init. Elsewhere, however, he explains his statement, "The decrees of +Nicæa are right and sufficient for the overthrow of all heresy, +_especially_ the Arian," ad. Max. fin. St. Gregory Nazianzen, in like +manner, appeals to Nicæa; but he "adds an explanation on the doctrine of +the Holy Spirit which was left deficient by the Fathers, because the +question had not then been raised." Ep. 102, init. This exclusive +maintenance, and yet extension of the Creed, according to the exigences +of the times, is instanced in other Fathers. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, +vol. ii. p. 82.] + +[303:1] Fleury, ibid. 27. + +[304:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 141. [A negative is omitted in the Greek, +but inserted in the Latin.] + +[304:2] Supr. p. 245. + +[304:3] Ad Const. ii. 9. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. p. 261.] + +[305:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 162. + +[307:1] Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxvii. 37. + +[307:2] Ep. 116. + +[307:3] Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 36. + +[308:1] Ep. 43. + +[308:2] Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxviii. 17, note _l_. + +[308:3] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 68. + +[308:4] Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxviii. 2, 3. + +[310:1] Ibid. 20. + +[311:1] Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 656. + +[312:1] [Can any so grave an _ex parte_ charge as this be urged against +the recent Vatican Council?] + +[313:1] I cannot find my reference for this fact; the sketch is formed +from notes made some years since, though I have now verified them. + +[313:2] Leont. de Sect. v. p. 512. + +[313:3] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 99, vid. also p. 418. + +[313:4] Renaud. Patr. Alex. p. 115. + +[313:5] Assem. t. 2, pp. 133-137. + +[315:1] Leont. de Sect. vii. pp. 521, 2. + +[315:2] Fac. i. 5, circ. init. + +[315:3] Hodeg. 20, p. 319. + +[317:1] _i. e._ Arianism in the East: "Sanctiores aures plebis quam +corda sunt sacerdotum." S. Hil. contr. Auxent. 6. It requires some +research to account for its hold on the barbarians. Vid. _supr._ pp. +274, 5. + +[317:2] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[317:3] Assem. t. 2, de Monoph. circ. fin. + +[318:1] Leont. Sect. v. init. + +[318:2] Tillemont, t. 15, p. 784. + +[319:1] Tillemont, Mem. t. 15, pp. 790-811. + +[320:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin. + +[321:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin. + +[321:2] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 47. + +[322:1] [The above sketch has run to great length, yet it is only part +of what might be set down in evidence of the wonderful identity of type +which characterizes the Catholic Church from first to last. I have +confined myself for the most part to her political aspect; but a +parallel illustration might be drawn simply from her doctrinal, or from +her devotional. As to her devotional aspect, Cardinal Wiseman has shown +its identity in the fifth compared with the nineteenth century, in an +article of the _Dublin Review_, quoted in part in _Via Media_, vol. ii. +p. 378. Indeed it is confessed on all hands, as by Middleton, Gibbon, +&c., that from the time of Constantine to their own, the system and the +phenomena of worship in Christendom, from Moscow to Spain, and from +Ireland to Chili, is one and the same. I have myself paralleled Medieval +Europe with modern Belgium or Italy, in point of ethical character in +"Difficulties of Anglicans," vol. i. Lecture ix., referring the identity +to the operation of a principle, insisted on presently, the Supremacy of +Faith. And so again, as to the system of Catholic doctrine, the type of +the Religion remains the same, because it has developed according to the +"analogy of faith," as is observed in _Apol._, p. 196, "The idea of the +Blessed Virgin was, as it were, _magnified_ in the Church of Rome, as +time went on, but so were _all_ the Christian ideas, as that of the +Blessed Eucharist," &c.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +APPLICATION OF THE SECOND NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES. + +It appears then that there has been a certain general type of +Christianity in every age, by which it is known at first sight, +differing from itself only as what is young differs from what is mature, +or as found in Europe or in America, so that it is named at once and +without hesitation, as forms of nature are recognized by experts in +physical science; or as some work of literature or art is assigned to +its right author by the critic, difficult as may be the analysis of that +specific impression by which he is enabled to do so. And it appears that +this type has remained entire from first to last, in spite of that +process of development which seems to be attributed by all parties, for +good or bad, to the doctrines, rites, and usages in which Christianity +consists; or, in other words, that the changes which have taken place in +Christianity have not been such as to destroy that type,--that is, that +they are not corruptions, because they are consistent with that type. +Here then, in the _preservation of type_, we have a first Note of the +fidelity of the existing developments of Christianity. Let us now +proceed to a second. + + +§ 1. _The Principles of Christianity._ + +When developments in Christianity are spoken of, it is sometimes +supposed that they are deductions and diversions made at random, +according to accident or the caprice of individuals; whereas it is +because they have been conducted all along on definite and continuous +principles that the type of the Religion has remained from first to last +unalterable. What then are the principles under which the developments +have been made? I will enumerate some obvious ones. + + +2. + +They must be many and positive, as well as obvious, if they are to be +effective; thus the Society of Friends seems in the course of years to +have changed its type in consequence of its scarcity of principles, a +fanatical spiritualism and an intense secularity, types simply contrary +to each other, being alike consistent with its main principle, "Forms of +worship are Antichristian." Christianity, on the other hand, has +principles so distinctive, numerous, various, and operative, as to be +unlike any other religious, ethical, or political system that the world +has ever seen, unlike, not only in character, but in persistence in that +character. I cannot attempt here to enumerate more than a few by way of +illustration. + + +3. + +For the convenience of arrangement, I will consider the Incarnation the +central truth of the gospel, and the source whence we are to draw out +its principles. This great doctrine is unequivocally announced in +numberless passages of the New Testament, especially by St. John and St. +Paul; as is familiar to us all: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among +us, full of grace and truth." "That which was from the beginning, which +we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked +upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, that declare we +to you." "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though +He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His +poverty might be rich." "Not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life +which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, +who loved me and gave Himself for me." + + +4. + +In such passages as these we have + +1. The principle of _dogma_, that is, supernatural truths irrevocably +committed to human language, imperfect because it is human, but +definitive and necessary because given from above. + +2. The principle of _faith_, which is the correlative of dogma, being +the absolute acceptance of the divine Word with an internal assent, in +opposition to the informations, if such, of sight and reason. + +3. Faith, being an act of the intellect, opens a way for inquiry, +comparison and inference, that is, for science in religion, in +subservience to itself; this is the principle of _theology_. + +4. The doctrine of the Incarnation is the announcement of a divine gift +conveyed in a material and visible medium, it being thus that heaven and +earth are in the Incarnation united. That is, it establishes in the very +idea of Christianity the _sacramental_ principle as its characteristic. + +5. Another principle involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation, viewed +as taught or as dogmatic, is the necessary use of language, e. g. of the +text of Scripture, in a second or _mystical sense_. Words must be made +to express new ideas, and are invested with a sacramental office. + +6. It is our Lord's intention in His Incarnation to make us what He is +Himself; this is the principle of _grace_, which is not only holy but +sanctifying. + +7. It cannot elevate and change us without mortifying our lower +nature:--here is the principle of _asceticism_. + +8. And, involved in this death of the natural man, is necessarily a +revelation of the _malignity of sin_, in corroboration of the +forebodings of conscience. + +9. Also by the fact of an Incarnation we are taught that matter is an +essential part of us, and, as well as mind, is _capable of +sanctification_. + + +5. + +Here are nine specimens of Christian principles out of the many[326:1] +which might be enumerated, and will any one say that they have not been +retained in vigorous action in the Church at all times amid whatever +development of doctrine Christianity has experienced, so as even to be +the very instruments of that development, and as patent, and as +operative, in the Latin and Greek Christianity of this day as they were +in the beginning? + +This continuous identity of principles in ecclesiastical action has been +seen in part in treating of the Note of Unity of type, and will be seen +also in the Notes which follow; however, as some direct account of them, +in illustration, may be desirable, I will single out four as +specimens,--Faith, Theology, Scripture, and Dogma. + + +§ 2. _Supremacy of Faith._ + +This principle which, as we have already seen, was so great a jest to +Celsus and Julian, is of the following kind:--That belief in +Christianity is in itself better than unbelief; that faith, though an +intellectual action, is ethical in its origin; that it is safer to +believe; that we must begin with believing; that as for the reasons of +believing, they are for the most part implicit, and need be but slightly +recognized by the mind that is under their influence; that they consist +moreover rather of presumptions and ventures after the truth than of +accurate and complete proofs; and that probable arguments, under the +scrutiny and sanction of a prudent judgment, are sufficient for +conclusions which we even embrace as most certain, and turn to the most +important uses. + + +2. + +Antagonistic to this is the principle that doctrines are only so far to +be considered true as they are logically demonstrated. This is the +assertion of Locke, who says in defence of it,--"Whatever God hath +revealed is certainly true; no doubt can be made of it. This is the +proper object of Faith; but, whether it be a divine revelation or no, +reason must judge." Now, if he merely means that proofs can be given for +Revelation, and that Reason comes in logical order before Faith, such a +doctrine is in no sense uncatholic; but he certainly holds that for an +individual to act on Faith without proof, or to make Faith a personal +principle of conduct for themselves, without waiting till they have got +their reasons accurately drawn out and serviceable for controversy, is +enthusiastic and absurd. "How a man may know whether he be [a lover of +truth for truth's sake] is worth inquiry; and I think there is this one +unerring mark of it, viz. the not entertaining any proposition with +greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon, will warrant. +Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain, receives not +truth in the love of it; loves not truth for truth's sake, but for some +other by-end." + + +3. + +It does not seem to have struck him that our "by-end" may be the desire +to please our Maker, and that the defect of scientific proof may be made +up to our reason by our love of Him. It does not seem to have struck him +that such a philosophy as his cut off from the possibility and the +privilege of faith all but the educated few, all but the learned, the +clear-headed, the men of practised intellects and balanced minds, men +who had leisure, who had opportunities of consulting others, and kind +and wise friends to whom they deferred. How could a religion ever be +Catholic, if it was to be called credulity or enthusiasm in the +multitude to use those ready instruments of belief, which alone +Providence had put into their power? On such philosophy as this, were it +generally received, no great work ever would have been done for God's +glory and the welfare of man. The "enthusiasm" against which Locke +writes may do much harm, and act at times absurdly; but calculation +never made a hero. However, it is not to our present purpose to examine +this theory, and I have done so elsewhere.[328:1] Here I have but to +show the unanimity of Catholics, ancient as well as modern, in their +absolute rejection of it. + + +4. + +For instance, it is the very objection urged by Celsus, that Christians +were but parallel to the credulous victims of jugglers or of devotees, +who itinerated through the pagan population. He says "that some do not +even wish to give or to receive a reason for their faith, but say, 'Do +not inquire but believe,' and 'Thy faith will save thee;' and 'A bad +thing is the world's wisdom, and foolishness is a good.'" How does +Origen answer the charge? by denying the fact, and speaking of the +reason of each individual as demonstrating the divinity of the +Scriptures, and Faith as coming after that argumentative process, as it +is now popular to maintain? Far from it; he grants the fact alleged +against the Church and defends it. He observes that, considering the +engagements and the necessary ignorance of the multitude of men, it is a +very happy circumstance that a substitute is provided for those +philosophical exercises, which Christianity allows and encourages, but +does not impose on the individual. "Which," he asks, "is the better, for +them to believe without reason, and thus to reform any how and gain a +benefit, from their belief in the punishment of sinners and the reward +of well-doers, or to refuse to be converted on mere belief, or except +they devote themselves to an intellectual inquiry?"[329:1] Such a +provision then is a mark of divine wisdom and mercy. In like manner, St. +Irenæus, after observing that the Jews had the evidence of prophecy, +which the Gentiles had not, and that to the latter it was a foreign +teaching and a new doctrine to be told that the gods of the Gentiles +were not only not gods, but were idols of devils, and that in +consequence St. Paul laboured more upon them, as needing it more, adds, +"On the other hand, the faith of the Gentiles is thereby shown to be +more generous, who followed the word of God without the assistance of +Scriptures." To believe on less evidence was generous faith, not +enthusiasm. And so again, Eusebius, while he contends of course that +Christians are influenced by "no irrational faith," that is, by a faith +which is capable of a logical basis, fully allows that in the individual +believing, it is not necessarily or ordinarily based upon argument, and +maintains that it is connected with that very "hope," and inclusively +with that desire of the things beloved, which Locke in the above +extract considers incompatible with the love of truth. "What do we +find," he says, "but that the whole life of man is suspended on these +two, hope and faith?"[330:1] + +I do not mean of course that the Fathers were opposed to inquiries into +the intellectual basis of Christianity, but that they held that men were +not obliged to wait for logical proof before believing: on the contrary, +that the majority were to believe first on presumptions and let the +intellectual proof come as their reward.[330:2] + + +5. + +St. Augustine, who had tried both ways, strikingly contrasts them in his +_De Utilitate credendi_, though his direct object in that work is to +decide, not between Reason and Faith, but between Reason and Authority. +He addresses in it a very dear friend, who, like himself, had become a +Manichee, but who, with less happiness than his own, was still retained +in the heresy. "The Manichees," he observes, "inveigh against those who, +following the authority of the Catholic faith, fortify themselves in the +first instance with believing, and before they are able to set eyes upon +that truth, which is discerned by the pure soul, prepare themselves for +a God who shall illuminate. You, Honoratus, know that nothing else was +the cause of my falling into their hands, than their professing to put +away Authority which was so terrible, and by absolute and simple Reason +to lead their hearers to God's presence, and to rid them of all error. +For what was there else that forced me, for nearly nine years, to slight +the religion which was sown in me when a child by my parents, and to +follow them and diligently attend their lectures, but their assertion +that I was terrified by superstition, and was bidden to have Faith +before I had Reason, whereas they pressed no one to believe before the +truth had been discussed and unravelled? Who would not be seduced by +these promises, and especially a youth, such as they found me then, +desirous of truth, nay conceited and forward, by reason of the +disputations of certain men of school learning, with a contempt of +old-wives' tales, and a desire of possessing and drinking that clear and +unmixed truth which they promised me?"[331:1] + +Presently he goes on to describe how he was reclaimed. He found the +Manichees more successful in pulling down than in building up; he was +disappointed in Faustus, whom he found eloquent and nothing besides. +Upon this, he did not know what to hold, and was tempted to a general +scepticism. At length he found he must be guided by Authority; then came +the question, Which authority among so many teachers? He cried earnestly +to God for help, and at last was led to the Catholic Church. He then +returns to the question urged against that Church, that "she bids those +who come to her believe," whereas heretics "boast that they do not +impose a yoke of believing, but open a fountain of teaching." On which +he observes, "True religion cannot in any manner be rightly embraced, +without a belief in those things which each individual afterwards +attains and perceives, if he behave himself well and shall deserve it, +nor altogether without some weighty and imperative Authority."[331:2] + + +6. + +These are specimens of the teaching of the Ancient Church on the subject +of Faith and Reason; if, on the other hand, we would know what has been +taught on the subject in those modern schools, in and through which the +subsequent developments of Catholic doctrines have proceeded, we may +turn to the extracts made from their writings by Huet, in his "Essay on +the Human Understanding;" and, in so doing, we need not perplex +ourselves with the particular theory, true or not, for the sake of which +he has collected them. Speaking of the weakness of the Understanding, +Huet says,-- + +"God, by His goodness, repairs this defect of human nature, by granting +us the inestimable gift of Faith, which confirms our staggering Reason, +and corrects that perplexity of doubts which we must bring to the +knowledge of things. For example: my reason not being able to inform me +with absolute evidence, and perfect certainty, whether there are bodies, +what was the origin of the world, and many other like things, after I +had received the Faith, all those doubts vanish, as darkness at the +rising of the sun. This made St. Thomas Aquinas say: 'It is necessary +for man to receive as articles of Faith, not only the things which are +above Reason, but even those that for their certainty may be known by +Reason. For human Reason is very deficient in things divine; a sign of +which we have from philosophers, who, in the search of human things by +natural methods, have been deceived, and opposed each other on many +heads. To the end then that men may have a certain and undoubted +cognizance of God, it was necessary things divine should be taught them +by way of Faith, as being revealed of God Himself, who cannot +lie.'[332:1] . . . . . + +"Then St. Thomas adds afterwards: 'No search by natural Reason is +sufficient to make man know things divine, nor even those which we can +prove by Reason.' And in another place he speaks thus: 'Things which may +be proved demonstratively, as the Being of God, the Unity of the +Godhead, and other points, are placed among articles we are to believe, +because previous to other things that are of Faith; and these must be +presupposed, at least by such as have no demonstration of them.' + + +7. + +"What St. Thomas says of the cognizance of divine things extends also to +the knowledge of human, according to the doctrine of Suarez. 'We often +correct,' he says, 'the light of Nature by the light of Faith, even in +things which seem to be first principles, as appears in this: those +things that are the same to a third, are the same between themselves; +which, if we have respect to the Trinity, ought to be restrained to +finite things. And in other mysteries, especially in those of the +Incarnation and the Eucharist, we use many other limitations, that +nothing may be repugnant to the Faith. This is then an indication that +the light of Faith is most certain, because founded on the first +truth, which is God, to whom it's more impossible to deceive or be +deceived than for the natural science of man to be mistaken and +erroneous.'[333:1] . . . . + +"If we hearken not to Reason, say you, you overthrow that great +foundation of Religion which Reason has established in our +understanding, viz. God is. To answer this objection, you must be told +that men know God in two manners. By Reason, with entire human +certainty; and by Faith, with absolute and divine certainty. Although by +Reason we cannot acquire any knowledge more certain than that of the +Being of God; insomuch that all the arguments, which the impious oppose +to this knowledge are of no validity and easily refuted; nevertheless +this certainty is not absolutely perfect[333:2] . . . . . + + +8. + +"Now although, to prove the existence of the Deity, we can bring +arguments which, accumulated and connected together, are not of less +power to convince men than geometrical principles, and theorems deduced +from them, and which are of entire human certainty, notwithstanding, +because learned philosophers have openly opposed even these principles, +'tis clear we cannot, neither in the natural knowledge we have of God, +which is acquired by Reason, nor in science founded on geometrical +principles and theorems, find absolute and consummate certainty, but +only that human certainty I have spoken of, to which nevertheless every +wise man ought to submit his understanding. This being not repugnant to +the testimony of the Book of Wisdom and the Epistle to the Romans, which +declares that men who do not from the make of the world acknowledge the +power and divinity of the Maker are senseless and inexcusable. + +"For to use the terms of Vasquez: 'By these words the Holy Scripture +means only that there has ever been a sufficient testimony of the Being +of a God in the fabrick of the world, and in His other works, to make +Him known unto men: but the Scripture is not under any concern whether +this knowledge be evident or of greatest probability; for these terms +are seen and understood, in their common and usual acceptation, to +signify all the knowledge of the mind with a determined assent.' He adds +after: 'For if any one should at this time deny Christ, that which would +render him inexcusable would not be because he might have had an evident +knowledge and reason for believing Him, but because he might have +believed it by Faith and a prudential knowledge.' + +"'Tis with reason then that Suarez teaches that 'the natural evidence of +this principle, God is the first truth, who cannot be deceived, is not +necessary, nor sufficient enough to make us believe by infused Faith, +what God reveals.' He proves, by the testimony of experience, that it is +not necessary; for ignorant and illiterate Christians, though they know +nothing clearly and certainly of God, do believe nevertheless that God +is. Even Christians of parts and learning, as St. Thomas has observed, +believe that God is, before they know it by Reason. Suarez shows +afterwards that the natural evidence of this principle is not +sufficient, because divine Faith, which is infused into our +understanding, cannot be bottomed upon human faith alone, how clear and +firm soever it is, as upon a formal object, because an assent most firm, +and of an order most noble and exalted, cannot derive its certainty from +a more infirm assent.[335:1] . . . . + + +9. + +"As touching the motives of credibility, which, preparing the mind to +receive Faith, ought according to you to be not only certain by supreme +and human certainty, but by supreme and absolute certainty, I will +oppose Gabriel Biel to you, who pronounces that to receive Faith 'tis +sufficient that the motives of credibility be proposed as probable. Do +you believe that children, illiterate, gross, ignorant people, who have +scarcely the use of Reason, and notwithstanding have received the gift +of Faith, do most clearly and most steadfastly conceive those +forementioned motives of credibility? No, without doubt; but the grace +of God comes in to their assistance, and sustains the imbecility of +Nature and Reason. + +"This is the common opinion of divines. Reason has need of divine grace, +not only in gross, illiterate persons, but even in those of parts and +learning; for how clear-sighted soever that may be, yet it cannot make +us have Faith, if celestial light does not illuminate us within, +because, as I have said already, divine Faith being of a superior order +cannot derive its efficacy from human faith."[336:1] "This is likewise +the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas: 'The light of Faith makes things +seen that are believed.' He says moreover, 'Believers have knowledge of +the things of Faith, not in a demonstrative way, but so as by the light +of Faith it appears to them that they ought to be believed.'"[336:2] + + +10. + +It is evident what a special influence such doctrine as this must exert +upon the theological method of those who hold it. Arguments will come to +be considered as suggestions and guides rather than logical proofs; and +developments as the slow, spontaneous, ethical growth, not the +scientific and compulsory results, of existing opinions. + + +§ 3. _Theology._ + +I have spoken and have still to speak of the action of logic, implicit +and explicit, as a safeguard, and thereby a note, of legitimate +developments of doctrine: but I am regarding it here as that continuous +tradition and habit in the Church of a scientific analysis of all +revealed truth, which is an ecclesiastical principle rather than a note +of any kind, as not merely bearing upon the process of development, but +applying to all religious teaching equally, and which is almost unknown +beyond the pale of Christendom. Reason, thus considered, is subservient +to faith, as handling, examining, explaining, recording, cataloguing, +defending, the truths which faith, not reason, has gained for us, as +providing an intellectual expression of supernatural facts, eliciting +what is implicit, comparing, measuring, connecting each with each, and +forming one and all into a theological system. + + +2. + +The first step in theology is investigation, an investigation arising +out of the lively interest and devout welcome which the matters +investigated claim of us; and, if Scripture teaches us the duty of +faith, it teaches quite as distinctly that loving inquisitiveness which +is the life of the _Schola_. It attributes that temper both to the +Blessed Virgin and to the Angels. The Angels are said to have "desired +to look into the mysteries of Revelation," and it is twice recorded of +Mary that she "kept these things and pondered them in her heart." +Moreover, her words to the Archangel, "How shall this be?" show that +there is a questioning in matters revealed to us compatible with the +fullest and most absolute faith. It has sometimes been said in defence +and commendation of heretics that "their misbelief at least showed that +they had thought upon the subject of religion;" this is an unseemly +paradox,--at the same time there certainly is the opposite extreme of a +readiness to receive any number of dogmas at a minute's warning, which, +when it is witnessed, fairly creates a suspicion that they are merely +professed with the tongue, not intelligently held. Our Lord gives no +countenance to such lightness of mind; He calls on His disciples to use +their reason, and to submit it. Nathanael's question "Can there any good +thing come out of Nazareth?" did not prevent our Lord's praise of him as +"an Israelite without guile." Nor did He blame Nicodemus, except for +want of theological knowledge, on his asking "How can these things be?" +Even towards St. Thomas He was gentle, as if towards one of those who +had "eyes too tremblingly awake to bear with dimness for His sake." In +like manner He praised the centurion when he argued himself into a +confidence of divine help and relief from the analogy of his own +profession; and left his captious enemies to prove for themselves from +the mission of the Baptist His own mission; and asked them "if David +called Him Lord, how was He his Son?" and, when His disciples wished to +have a particular matter taught them, chid them for their want of +"understanding." And these are but some out of the various instances +which He gives us of the same lesson. + + +3. + +Reason has ever been awake and in exercise in the Church after Him from +the first. Scarcely were the Apostles withdrawn from the world, when the +Martyr Ignatius, in his way to the Roman Amphitheatre, wrote his +strikingly theological Epistles; he was followed by Irenæus, Hippolytus, +and Tertullian; thus we are brought to the age of Athanasius and his +contemporaries, and to Augustine. Then we pass on by Maximus and John +Damascene to the Middle age, when theology was made still more +scientific by the Schoolmen; nor has it become less so, by passing on +from St. Thomas to the great Jesuit writers Suarez and Vasquez, and then +to Lambertini. + + +§ 4. _Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation._ + +Several passages have occurred in the foregoing Chapters, which serve to +suggest another principle on which some words are now to be said. +Theodore's exclusive adoption of the literal, and repudiation of the +mystical interpretation of Holy Scripture, leads to the consideration of +the latter, as one of the characteristic conditions or principles on +which the teaching of the Church has ever proceeded. Thus Christianity +developed, as we have incidentally seen, into the form, first, of a +Catholic, then of a Papal Church. Now it was Scripture that was made the +rule on which this development proceeded in each case, and Scripture +moreover interpreted in a mystical sense; and, whereas at first certain +texts were inconsistently confined to the letter, and a Millennium was +in consequence expected, the very course of events, as time went on, +interpreted the prophecies about the Church more truly, and that first +in respect of her prerogative as occupying the _orbis terrarum_, next in +support of the claims of the See of St. Peter. This is but one specimen +of a certain law of Christian teaching, which is this,--a reference to +Scripture throughout, and especially in its mystical sense.[339:1] + + +2. + +1. This is a characteristic which will become more and more evident to +us, the more we look for it. The divines of the Church are in every age +engaged in regulating themselves by Scripture, appealing to Scripture in +proof of their conclusions, and exhorting and teaching in the thoughts +and language of Scripture. Scripture may be said to be the medium in +which the mind of the Church has energized and developed.[339:2] When +St. Methodius would enforce the doctrine of vows of celibacy, he refers +to the book of Numbers; and if St. Irenæus proclaims the dignity of St. +Mary, it is from a comparison of St. Luke's Gospel with Genesis. And +thus St. Cyprian, in his Testimonies, rests the prerogatives of +martyrdom, as indeed the whole circle of Christian doctrine, on the +declaration of certain texts; and, when in his letter to Antonian he +seems to allude to Purgatory, he refers to our Lord's words about "the +prison" and "paying the last farthing." And if St. Ignatius exhorts to +unity, it is from St. Paul; and he quotes St. Luke against the +Phantasiasts of his day. We have a first instance of this law in the +Epistle of St. Polycarp, and a last in the practical works of St. +Alphonso Liguori. St. Cyprian, or St. Ambrose, or St. Bede, or St. +Bernard, or St. Carlo, or such popular books as Horstius's _Paradisus +Animæ_, are specimens of a rule which is too obvious to need formal +proof. It is exemplified in the theological decisions of St. Athanasius +in the fourth century, and of St. Thomas in the thirteenth; in the +structure of the Canon Law, and in the Bulls and Letters of Popes. It is +instanced in the notion so long prevalent in the Church, which +philosophers of this day do not allow us to forget, that all truth, all +science, must be derived from the inspired volume. And it is recognized +as well as exemplified; recognized as distinctly by writers of the +Society of Jesus, as it is copiously exemplified by the Ante-nicene +Fathers. + + +3. + +"Scriptures are called canonical," says Salmeron, "as having been +received and set apart by the Church into the Canon of sacred books, and +because they are to us a rule of right belief and good living; also +because they ought to rule and moderate all other doctrines, laws, +writings, whether ecclesiastical, apocryphal, or human. For as these +agree with them, or at least do not disagree, so far are they admitted; +but they are repudiated and reprobated so far as they differ from them +even in the least matter."[340:1] Again: "The main subject of Scripture +is nothing else than to treat of the God-Man, or the Man-God, Christ +Jesus, not only in the New Testament, which is open, but in the +Old. . . . . . . For whereas Scripture contains nothing but the precepts +of belief and conduct, or faith and works, the end and the means towards +it, the Creator and the creature, love of God and our neighbour, +creation and redemption, and whereas all these are found in Christ, it +follows that Christ is the proper subject of Canonical Scripture. For +all matters of faith, whether concerning Creator or creatures, are +recapitulated in Jesus, whom every heresy denies, according to that +text, 'Every spirit that divides (_solvit_) Jesus is not of God;' for He +as man is united to the Godhead, and as God to the manhood, to the +Father from whom He is born, to the Holy Ghost who proceeds at once from +Christ and the Father, to Mary his most Holy Mother, to the Church, to +Scriptures, Sacraments, Saints, Angels, the Blessed, to Divine Grace, to +the authority and ministers of the Church, so that it is rightly said +that every heresy divides Jesus."[341:1] And again: "Holy Scripture is +so fashioned and composed by the Holy Ghost as to be accommodated to all +plans, times, persons, difficulties, dangers, diseases, the expulsion of +evil, the obtaining of good, the stifling of errors, the establishment +of doctrines, the ingrafting of virtues, the averting of vices. Hence it +is deservedly compared by St. Basil to a dispensary which supplies +various medicines against every complaint. From it did the Church in the +age of Martyrs draw her firmness and fortitude; in the age of Doctors, +her wisdom and light of knowledge; in the time of heretics, the +overthrow of error; in time of prosperity, humility and moderation; +fervour and diligence, in a lukewarm time; and in times of depravity and +growing abuse, reformation from corrupt living and return to the first +estate."[341:2] + + +4. + +"Holy Scripture," says Cornelius à Lapide, "contains the beginnings of +all theology: for theology is nothing but the science of conclusions +which are drawn from principles certain to faith, and therefore is of +all sciences most august as well as certain; but the principles of faith +and faith itself doth Scripture contain; whence it evidently follows +that Holy Scripture lays down those principles of theology by which the +theologian begets of the mind's reasoning his demonstrations. He, then, +who thinks he can tear away Scholastic Science from the work of +commenting on Holy Scripture is hoping for offspring without a +mother."[342:1] Again: "What is the subject-matter of Scripture? Must I +say it in a word? Its aim is _de omni scibili_; it embraces in its bosom +all studies, all that can be known: and thus it is a certain university +of sciences containing all sciences either 'formally' or +'eminently.'"[342:2] + +Nor am I aware that later Post-tridentine writers deny that the whole +Catholic faith may be proved from Scripture, though they would certainly +maintain that it is not to be found on the surface of it, nor in such +sense that it may be gained from Scripture without the aid of Tradition. + + +5. + +2. And this has been the doctrine of all ages of the Church, as is shown +by the disinclination of her teachers to confine themselves to the mere +literal interpretation of Scripture. Her most subtle and powerful method +of proof, whether in ancient or modern times, is the mystical sense, +which is so frequently used in doctrinal controversy as on many +occasions to supersede any other. Thus the Council of Trent appeals to +the peace-offering spoken of in Malachi in proof of the Eucharistic +Sacrifice; to the water and blood issuing from our Lord's side, and to +the mention of "waters" in the Apocalypse, in admonishing on the subject +of the mixture of water with the wine in the Oblation. Thus Bellarmine +defends Monastic celibacy by our Lord's words in Matthew xix., and +refers to "We went through fire and water," &c., in the Psalm, as an +argument for Purgatory; and these, as is plain, are but specimens of a +rule. Now, on turning to primitive controversy, we find this method of +interpretation to be the very basis of the proof of the Catholic +doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Whether we betake ourselves to the +Ante-nicene writers or the Nicene, certain texts will meet us, which do +not obviously refer to that doctrine, yet are put forward as palmary +proofs of it. Such are, in respect of our Lord's divinity, "My heart is +inditing of a good matter," or "has burst forth with a good Word;" "The +Lord made" or "possessed Me in the beginning of His ways;" "I was with +Him, in whom He delighted;" "In Thy Light shall we see Light;" "Who +shall declare His generation?" "She is the Breath of the Power of God;" +and "His Eternal Power and Godhead." + +On the other hand, the School of Antioch, which adopted the literal +interpretation, was, as I have noticed above, the very metropolis of +heresy. Not to speak of Lucian, whose history is but imperfectly known, +(one of the first masters of this school, and also teacher of Arius and +his principal supporters), Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who were +the most eminent masters of literalism in the succeeding generation, +were, as we have seen, the forerunners of Nestorianism. The case had +been the same in a still earlier age;--the Jews clung to the literal +sense of the Scriptures and hence rejected the Gospel; the Christian +Apologists proved its divinity by means of the allegorical. The formal +connexion of this mode of interpretation with Christian theology is +noticed by Porphyry, who speaks of Origen and others as borrowing it +from heathen philosophy, both in explanation of the Old Testament and in +defence of their own doctrine. It may be almost laid down as an +historical fact, that the mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will +stand or fall together. + + +6. + +This is clearly seen, as regards the primitive theology, by a recent +writer, in the course of a Dissertation upon St. Ephrem. After observing +that Theodore of Heraclea, Eusebius, and Diodorus gave a systematic +opposition to the mystical interpretation, which had a sort of sanction +from Antiquity and the orthodox Church, he proceeds; "Ephrem is not as +sober in his interpretations, _nor could it be, since_ he was a zealous +disciple of the orthodox faith. For all those who are most eminent in +such sobriety were as far as possible removed from the faith of the +Councils. . . . . On the other hand, all who retained the faith of +the Church never entirely dispensed with the spiritual sense of the +Scriptures. For the Councils watched over the orthodox faith; nor was it +safe in those ages, as we learn especially from the instance of Theodore +of Mopsuestia, to desert the spiritual for an exclusive cultivation of +the literal method. Moreover, the allegorical interpretation, even when +the literal sense was not injured, was also preserved; because in those +times, when both heretics and Jews in controversy were stubborn in their +objections to Christian doctrine, maintaining that the Messiah was yet +to come, or denying the abrogation of the Sabbath and ceremonial law, or +ridiculing the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and especially that of +Christ's Divine Nature, under such circumstances ecclesiastical +writers found it to their purpose, in answer to such exceptions, +violently to refer every part of Scripture by allegory to Christ and +His Church."[345:1] + + +7. + +With this passage from a learned German, illustrating the bearing of the +allegorical method upon the Judaic and Athanasian controversies, it will +be well to compare the following passage from the latitudinarian Hale's +"Golden Remains," as directed against the theology of Rome. "The +literal, plain, and uncontroversible meaning of Scripture," he says, +"without any addition or supply by way of interpretation, is that alone +which for ground of faith we are necessarily bound to accept; except it +be there, where the Holy Ghost Himself treads us out another way. I take +not this to be any particular conceit of mine, but that unto which our +Church stands necessarily bound. When we receded from the Church of +Rome, one motive was, because she added unto Scripture her glosses as +Canonical, to supply what the plain text of Scripture could not yield. +If, in place of hers, we set up our own glosses, thus to do were nothing +else but to pull down Baal, and set up an Ephod, to run round and meet +the Church of Rome again in the same point in which at first we left +her. . . . This doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous or +prejudicial to any, but only to those who were inwardly conscious that +their positions were not sufficiently grounded. When Cardinal Cajetan, +in the days of our grandfathers, had forsaken that vein of postilling +and allegorizing on Scripture, which for a long time had prevailed in +the Church, and betaken himself unto the literal sense, it was a thing +so distasteful unto the Church of Rome that he was forced to find out +many shifts and make many apologies for himself. The truth is (as it +will appear to him that reads his writings), this sticking close to the +literal sense was that alone which made him to shake off many of those +tenets upon which the Church of Rome and the reformed Churches differ. +But when the importunity of the Reformers, and the great credit of +Calvin's writings in that kind, had forced the divines of Rome to level +their interpretations by the same line; when they saw that no pains, no +subtlety of wit was strong enough to defeat the literal evidence of +Scripture, it drove them on those desperate shoals, on which at this day +they stick, to call in question, as far as they durst, the credit of the +Hebrew text, and countenance against it a corrupt translation; to add +traditions unto Scripture, and to make the Church's interpretation, so +pretended, to be above exception."[346:1] + + +8. + +He presently adds concerning the allegorical sense: "If we absolutely +condemn these interpretations, then must we condemn a great part of +Antiquity, who are very much conversant in this kind of interpreting. +For the most partial for Antiquity cannot choose but see and confess +thus much, that for the literal sense, the interpreters of our own +times, because of their skill in the original languages, their care of +pressing the circumstances and coherence of the text, of comparing like +places of Scripture with like, have generally surpassed the best of the +ancients."[346:2] + +The use of Scripture then, especially its spiritual or second sense, as +a medium of thought and deduction, is a characteristic principle of +doctrinal teaching in the Church. + + +§ 5. _Dogma._ + +1. That opinions in religion are not matters of indifference, but have a +definite bearing on the position of their holders in the Divine Sight, +is a principle on which the Evangelical Faith has from the first +developed, and on which that Faith has been the first to develope. I +suppose, it hardly had any exercise under the Law; the zeal and +obedience of the ancient people being mainly employed in the maintenance +of divine worship and the overthrow of idolatry, not in the action of +the intellect. Faith is in this, as in other respects, a characteristic +of the Gospel, except so far as it was anticipated, as its time drew +near. Elijah and the prophets down to Ezra resisted Baal or restored the +Temple Service; the Three Children refused to bow down before the golden +image; Daniel would turn his face towards Jerusalem; the Maccabees +spurned the Grecian paganism. On the other hand, the Greek Philosophers +were authoritative indeed in their teaching, enforced the "_Ipse +dixit_," and demanded the faith of their disciples; but they did not +commonly attach sanctity or reality to opinions, or view them in a +religious light. Our Saviour was the first to "bear witness to the +Truth," and to die for it, when "before Pontius Pilate he witnessed a +good confession." St. John and St. Paul, following his example, both +pronounce anathema on those who denied "the Truth" or "brought in +another Gospel." Tradition tells us that the Apostle of love seconded +his word with his deed, and on one occasion hastily quitted a bath +because an heresiarch of the day had entered it. St. Ignatius, his +contemporary, compares false teachers to raging dogs; and St. Polycarp, +his disciple, exercised the same seventy upon Marcion which St. John had +shown towards Cerinthus. + + +2. + +St. Irenæus after St. Polycarp exemplifies the same doctrine: "I saw +thee," he says to the heretic Florinus, "when I was yet a boy, in lower +Asia, with Polycarp, when thou wast living splendidly in the Imperial +Court, and trying to recommend thyself to him. I remember indeed what +then happened better than more recent occurrences, for the lessons of +boyhood grow with the mind and become one with it. Thus I can name the +place where blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, and his goings out and +comings in, and the fashion of his life, and the appearance of his +person, and his discourses to the people, and his familiarity with John, +which he used to tell of, and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and +how he used to repeat their words, and what it was that he had learned +about the Lord from them. . . . And in the sight of God, I can protest, +that, if that blessed and apostolical Elder had heard aught of this +doctrine, he had cried out and stopped his ears, saying after his wont, +'O Good God, for what times hast thou reserved me that I should endure +this?' and he had fled the place where he was sitting or standing when +he heard it." It seems to have been the duty of every individual +Christian from the first to witness in his place against all opinions +which were contrary to what he had received in his baptismal +catechizing, and to shun the society of those who maintained them. "So +religious," says Irenæus after giving his account of St. Polycarp, "were +the Apostles and their disciples, in not even conversing with those who +counterfeited the truth."[348:1] + + +3. + +Such a principle, however, would but have broken up the Church the +sooner, resolving it into the individuals of which it was composed, +unless the Truth, to which they were to bear witness, had been a +something definite, and formal, and independent of themselves. +Christians were bound to defend and to transmit the faith which they had +received, and they received it from the rulers of the Church; and, on +the other hand, it was the duty of those rulers to watch over and define +this traditionary faith. It is unnecessary to go over ground which has +been traversed so often of late years. St. Irenæus brings the subject +before us in his description of St. Polycarp, part of which has already +been quoted; and to it we may limit ourselves. "Polycarp," he says when +writing against the Gnostics, "whom we have seen in our first youth, +ever taught those lessons which he learned from the Apostles, which the +Church also transmits, which alone are true. All the Churches of Asia +bear witness to them; and the successors of Polycarp down to this day, +who is a much more trustworthy and sure witness of truth than +Valentinus, Marcion, or their perverse companions. The same was in Rome +in the time of Anicetus, and converted many of the aforenamed heretics +to the Church of God, preaching that he had received from the Apostles +this one and only truth, which had been transmitted by the +Church."[349:1] + + +4. + +Nor was this the doctrine and practice of one school only, which might +be ignorant of philosophy; the cultivated minds of the Alexandrian +Fathers, who are said to owe so much to Pagan science, certainly showed +no gratitude or reverence towards their alleged instructors, but +maintained the supremacy of Catholic Tradition. Clement[349:2] speaks of +heretical teachers as perverting Scripture, and essaying the gate of +heaven with a false key, not raising the veil, as he and his, by means +of tradition from Christ, but digging through the Church's wall, and +becoming mystagogues of misbelief; "for," he continues, "few words are +enough to prove that they have formed their human assemblies later than +the Catholic Church," and "from that previously existing and most true +Church it is very clear that these later heresies, and others which +have been since, are counterfeit and novel inventions."[350:1] "When the +Marcionites, Valentinians, and the like," says Origen, "appeal to +apocryphal works, they are saying, 'Christ is in the desert;' when to +canonical Scripture, 'Lo, He is in the chambers;' but we must not depart +from that first and ecclesiastical tradition, nor believe otherwise than +as the Churches of God by succession have transmitted to us." And it is +recorded of him in his youth, that he never could be brought to attend +the prayers of a heretic who was in the house of his patroness, from +abomination of his doctrine, "observing," adds Eusebius, "the rule of +the Church." Eusebius too himself, unsatisfactory as is his own +theology, cannot break from this fundamental rule; he ever speaks of the +Gnostic teachers, the chief heretics of his period (at least before the +rise of Arianism), in terms most expressive of abhorrence and disgust. + + +5. + +The African, Syrian, and Asian schools are additional witnesses; +Tertullian at Carthage was strenuous for the dogmatic principle even +after he had given up the traditional. The Fathers of Asia Minor, who +excommunicated Noëtus, rehearse the Creed, and add, "We declare as we +have learned;" the Fathers of Antioch, who depose Paul of Samosata, set +down in writing the Creed from Scripture, "which," they say, "we +received from the beginning, and have, by tradition and in custody, in +the Catholic and Holy Church, until this day, by succession, as preached +by the blessed Apostles, who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the +Word."[350:2] + + +6. + +Moreover, it is as plain, or even plainer, that what the Christians of +the first ages anathematized, included deductions from the Articles of +Faith, that is, false developments, as well as contradictions of those +Articles. And, since the reason they commonly gave for using the +anathema was that the doctrine in question was strange and startling, it +follows that the truth, which was its contradictory, was also in some +respect unknown to them hitherto; which is also shown by their temporary +perplexity, and their difficulty of meeting heresy, in particular cases. +"Who ever heard the like hitherto?" says St. Athanasius, of +Apollinarianism; "who was the teacher of it, who the hearer? 'From Sion +shall go forth the Law of God, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem;' +but from whence hath this gone forth? What hell hath burst out with it?" +The Fathers at Nicæa stopped their ears; and St. Irenæus, as above +quoted, says that St. Polycarp, had he heard the Gnostic blasphemies, +would have stopped his ears, and deplored the times for which he was +reserved. They anathematized the doctrine, not because it was old, but +because it was new: the anathema would have altogether slept, if it +could not have been extended to propositions not anathematized in the +beginning; for the very characteristic of heresy is this novelty and +originality of manifestation. + +Such was the exclusiveness of Christianity of old: I need not insist on +the steadiness with which that principle has been maintained ever since, +for bigotry and intolerance is one of the ordinary charges brought at +this day against both the medieval Church and the modern. + + +7. + +The Church's consistency and thoroughness in teaching is another aspect +of the same principle, as is illustrated in the following passage from +M. Guizot's History of Civilization. "The adversaries," he says, "of the +Reformation, knew very well what they were about, and what they +required; they could point to their first principles, and boldly admit +all the consequences that might result from them. No government was ever +more consistent and systematic than that of the Romish Church. In fact, +the Court of Rome was much more accommodating, yielded much more than +the Reformers; but in principle it much more completely adopted its own +system, and maintained a much more consistent conduct. There is an +immense power in this full confidence of what is done; this perfect +knowledge of what is required; this complete and rational adaptation of +a system and a creed." Then he goes on to the history of the Society of +Jesus in illustration. "Everything," he says, "was unfavourable to the +Jesuits, both fortune and appearances; neither practical sense which +requires success, nor the imagination which looks for splendour, were +gratified by their destiny. Still it is certain that they possessed the +elements of greatness; a grand idea is attached to their name, to their +influence, and to their history. Why? because they worked from fixed +principles, which they fully and clearly understood, and the tendency of +which they entirely comprehended. In the Reformation, on the contrary, +when the event surpassed its conception, something incomplete, +inconsequent, and narrow has remained, which has placed the conquerors +themselves in a state of rational and philosophical inferiority, the +influence of which has occasionally been felt in events. The conflict of +the new spiritual order of things against the old, is, I think, the weak +side of the Reformation."[352:1] + + +§ 6. _Additional Remarks._ + +Such are some of the intellectual principles which are characteristic of +Christianity. I observe,-- + +That their continuity down to this day, and the vigour of their +operation, are two distinct guarantees that the theological conclusions +to which they are subservient are, in accordance with the Divine +Promise, true developments, and not corruptions of the Revelation. + +Moreover, if it be true that the principles of the later Church are the +same as those of the earlier, then, whatever are the variations of +belief between the two periods, the later in reality agrees more than it +differs with the earlier, for principles are responsible for doctrines. +Hence they who assert that the modern Roman system is the corruption of +primitive theology are forced to discover some difference of principle +between the one and the other; for instance, that the right of private +judgment was secured to the early Church and has been lost to the later, +or, again, that the later Church rationalizes and the earlier went by +faith. + + +2. + +On this point I will but remark as follows. It cannot be doubted that +the horror of heresy, the law of absolute obedience to ecclesiastical +authority, and the doctrine of the mystical virtue of unity, were as +strong and active in the Church of St. Ignatius and St. Cyprian as in +that of St. Carlo and St. Pius the Fifth, whatever be thought of the +theology respectively taught in the one and in the other. Now we have +before our eyes the effect of these principles in the instance of the +later Church; they have entirely succeeded in preventing departure from +the doctrine of Trent for three hundred years. Have we any reason for +doubting, that from the same strictness the same fidelity would follow, +in the first three, or any three, centuries of the Ante-tridentine +period? Where then was the opportunity of corruption in the three +hundred years between St. Ignatius and St. Augustine? or between St. +Augustine and St. Bede? or between St. Bede and St. Peter Damiani? or +again, between St. Irenæus and St. Leo, St. Cyprian and St. Gregory the +Great, St. Athanasius and St. John Damascene? Thus the tradition of +eighteen centuries becomes a collection of indefinitely many _catenæ_, +each commencing from its own point, and each crossing the other; and +each year, as it comes, is guaranteed with various degrees of cogency by +every year which has gone before it. + + +3. + +Moreover, while the development of doctrine in the Church has been in +accordance with, or in consequence of these immemorial principles, the +various heresies, which have from time to time arisen, have in one +respect or other, as might be expected, violated those principles with +which she rose into existence, and which she still retains. Thus Arian +and Nestorian schools denied the allegorical rule of Scripture +interpretation; the Gnostics and Eunomians for Faith professed to +substitute knowledge; and the Manichees also, as St. Augustine so +touchingly declares in the beginning of his work _De Utilitate +credendi_. The dogmatic Rule, at least so far as regards its traditional +character, was thrown aside by all those sects which, as Tertullian +tells us, claimed to judge for themselves from Scripture; and the +Sacramental principle was violated, _ipso facto_, by all who separated +from the Church,--was denied also by Faustus the Manichee when he argued +against the Catholic ceremonial, by Vigilantius in his opposition to +relics, and by the Iconoclasts. In like manner the contempt of mystery, +of reverence, of devoutness, of sanctity, are other notes of the +heretical spirit. As to Protestantism it is plain in how many ways it +has reversed the principles of Catholic theology. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[326:1] [E. g. development itself is such a principle also. "And thus I +was led on to a further consideration. I saw that the principle of +development not only accounted for certain facts, but was in itself a +remarkable philosophical phenomenon, giving a character to the whole +course of Christian thought. It was discernible from the first years of +Catholic teaching up to the present day, and gave to that teaching a +unity and individuality. It served as a sort of test, which the Anglican +could not stand, that modern Rome was in truth ancient Antioch, +Alexandria, and Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve has its own +law and expression." _Apol._ p. 198, _vid._ also Angl. Diff. vol. i. +Lect. xii. 7.] + +[328:1] University Sermons [but, more carefully in the "Essay on +Assent"]. + +[329:1] c. Cels. i. 9. + +[330:1] Hær. iv. 24. Euseb. Præp. Ev. i. 5. + +[330:2] [This is too large a subject to admit of justice being done to +it here: I have treated of it at length in the "Essay on Assent."] + +[331:1] Init. + +[331:2] _Vid._ also _supr._ p. 256. + +[332:1] pp. 142, 143, Combe's tr. + +[333:1] pp. 144, 145. + +[333:2] p. 219. + +[335:1] pp. 221, 223. + +[336:1] pp. 229, 230. + +[336:2] pp. 230, 231. + +[339:1] Vid. Proph. Offic. Lect. xiii. [Via Media, vol. i. p. 309, &c.] + +[339:2] A late writer goes farther, and maintains that it is not +determined by the Council of Trent, whether the whole of the Revelation +is in Scripture or not. "The Synod declares that the Christian 'truth +and discipline are contained in written books and unwritten traditions.' +They were well aware that the controversy then was, whether the +Christian doctrine was only _in part_ contained in Scripture. But they +did not dare to frame their decree openly in accordance with the modern +Romish view; they did not venture to affirm, as they might easily have +done, that the Christian verity 'was contained _partly_ in written +books, and _partly_ in unwritten traditions.'"--_Palmer on the Church_, +vol. 2, p. 15. Vid. Difficulties of Angl. vol. ii. pp. 11, 12. + +[340:1] Opp. t. 1, p. 4. + +[341:1] Opp. t. i. pp. 4, 5. + +[341:2] Ibid. p. 9. + +[342:1] Proem. 5. + +[342:2] p. 4. + +[345:1] Lengerke, de Ephr. S. pp. 78-80. + +[346:1] pp. 24-26. + +[346:2] p. 27. + +[348:1] Euseb. Hist. iv. 14, v. 20. + +[349:1] Contr. Hær. iii. 3, § 4. + +[349:2] Ed. Potter, p. 897. + +[350:1] Ed. Potter, p. 899. + +[350:2] Clem. Strom. vii. 17. Origen in Matth. Comm. Ser. 46. Euseb. +Hist. vi. 2, fin. Epiph. Hær. 57, p. 480. Routh, t. 2, p. 465. + +[352:1] Eur. Civil. pp. 394-398. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +APPLICATION OF THE THIRD NOTE Of A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +ASSIMILATIVE POWER. + +Since religious systems, true and false, have one and the same great and +comprehensive subject-matter, they necessarily interfere with one +another as rivals, both in those points in which they agree together, +and in those in which they differ. That Christianity on its rise was in +these circumstances of competition and controversy, is sufficiently +evident even from a foregoing Chapter: it was surrounded by rites, +sects, and philosophies, which contemplated the same questions, +sometimes advocated the same truths, and in no slight degree wore the +same external appearance. It could not stand still, it could not take +its own way, and let them take theirs: they came across its path, and a +conflict was inevitable. The very nature of a true philosophy relatively +to other systems is to be polemical, eclectic, unitive: Christianity was +polemical; it could not but be eclectic; but was it also unitive? Had it +the power, while keeping its own identity, of absorbing its antagonists, +as Aaron's rod, according to St. Jerome's illustration, devoured the +rods of the sorcerers of Egypt? Did it incorporate them into itself, or +was it dissolved into them? Did it assimilate them into its own +substance, or, keeping its name, was it simply infected by them? In a +word, were its developments faithful or corrupt? Nor is this a question +merely of the early centuries. When we consider the deep interest of the +controversies which Christianity raises, the various characters of mind +it has swayed, the range of subjects which it embraces, the many +countries it has entered, the deep philosophies it has encountered, the +vicissitudes it has undergone, and the length of time through which it +has lasted, it requires some assignable explanation, why we should not +consider it substantially modified and changed, that is, corrupted, from +the first, by the numberless influences to which it has been exposed. + + +2. + +Now there was this cardinal distinction between Christianity and the +religions and philosophies by which it was surrounded, nay even the +Judaism of the day, that it referred all truth and revelation to one +source, and that the Supreme and Only God. Pagan rites which honoured +one or other out of ten thousand deities; philosophies which scarcely +taught any source of revelation at all; Gnostic heresies which were +based on Dualism, adored angels, or ascribed the two Testaments to +distinct authors, could not regard truth as one, unalterable, +consistent, imperative, and saving. But Christianity started with the +principle that there was but "one God and one Mediator," and that He, +"who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the +fathers by the Prophets, had in these last days spoken unto us by His +Son." He had never left Himself without witness, and now He had come, +not to undo the past, but to fulfil and perfect it. His Apostles, and +they alone, possessed, venerated, and protected a Divine Message, as +both sacred and sanctifying; and, in the collision and conflict of +opinions, in ancient times or modern, it was that Message, and not any +vague or antagonist teaching, that was to succeed in purifying, +assimilating, transmuting, and taking into itself the many-coloured +beliefs, forms of worship, codes of duty, schools of thought, through +which it was ever moving. It was Grace, and it was Truth. + + +§ 1. _The Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth._ + +That there is a truth then; that there is one truth; that religious +error is in itself of an immoral nature; that its maintainers, unless +involuntarily such, are guilty in maintaining it; that it is to be +dreaded; that the search for truth is not the gratification of +curiosity; that its attainment has nothing of the excitement of a +discovery; that the mind is below truth, not above it, and is bound, not +to descant upon it, but to venerate it; that truth and falsehood are set +before us for the trial of our hearts; that our choice is an awful +giving forth of lots on which salvation or rejection is inscribed; that +"before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith;" that "he +that would be saved must thus think," and not otherwise; that, "if thou +criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if +thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasure, +then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge +of God,"--this is the dogmatical principle, which has strength. + +That truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; that one +doctrine is as good as another; that the Governor of the world does not +intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we +are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; +that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of +necessity or accident; that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we +profess; that our merit lies in seeking, not in possessing; that it is +a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should +not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, and can be no harm to +fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief +belongs to the mere intellect, not to the heart also; that we may safely +trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and need no other guide,--this +is the principle of philosophies and heresies, which is very weakness. + + +2. + +Two opinions encounter; each may be abstractedly true; or again, each +may be a subtle, comprehensive doctrine, vigorous, elastic, expansive, +various; one is held as a matter of indifference, the other as a matter +of life and death; one is held by the intellect only, the other also by +the heart: it is plain which of the two must succumb to the other. Such +was the conflict of Christianity with the old established Paganism, +which was almost dead before Christianity appeared; with the Oriental +Mysteries, flitting wildly to and fro like spectres; with the Gnostics, +who made Knowledge all in all, despised the many, and called Catholics +mere children in the Truth; with the Neo-platonists, men of literature, +pedants, visionaries, or courtiers; with the Manichees, who professed to +seek Truth by Reason, not by Faith; with the fluctuating teachers of the +school of Antioch, the time-serving Eusebians, and the reckless +versatile Arians; with the fanatic Montanists and harsh Novatians, who +shrank from the Catholic doctrine, without power to propagate their own. +These sects had no stay or consistence, yet they contained elements of +truth amid their error, and had Christianity been as they, it might have +resolved into them; but it had that hold of the truth which gave its +teaching a gravity, a directness, a consistency, a sternness, and a +force, to which its rivals for the most part were strangers. It could +not call evil good, or good evil, because it discerned the difference +between them; it could not make light of what was so solemn, or desert +what was so solid. Hence, in the collision, it broke in pieces its +antagonists, and divided the spoils. + + +3. + +This was but another form of the spirit that made martyrs. Dogmatism was +in teaching, what confession was in act. Each was the same strong +principle of life in a different aspect, distinguishing the faith which +was displayed in it from the world's philosophies on the one side, and +the world's religions on the other. The heathen sects and the heresies +of Christian history were dissolved by the breath of opinion which made +them; paganism shuddered and died at the very sight of the sword of +persecution, which it had itself unsheathed. Intellect and force were +applied as tests both upon the divine and upon the human work; they +prevailed with the human, they did but become instruments of the Divine. +"No one," says St. Justin, "has so believed Socrates as to die for the +doctrine which he taught." "No one was ever found undergoing death for +faith in the sun."[359:1] Thus Christianity grew in its proportions, +gaining aliment and medicine from all that it came near, yet preserving +its original type, from its perception and its love of what had been +revealed once for all and was no private imagination. + + +4. + +There are writers who refer to the first centuries of the Church as a +time when opinion was free, and the conscience exempt from the +obligation or temptation to take on trust what it had not proved; and +that, apparently on the mere ground that the series of great +theological decisions did not commence till the fourth. This seems to be +M. Guizot's meaning when he says that Christianity "in the early ages +was a belief, a sentiment, an individual conviction;"[360:1] that "the +Christian society appears as a pure association of men animated by the +same sentiments and professing the same creed. The first Christians," he +continues, "assembled to enjoy together the same emotions, the same +religious convictions. We do not find any doctrinal system established, +any form of discipline or of laws, or any body of magistrates."[360:2] +What can be meant by saying that Christianity had no magistrates in the +earliest ages?--but, any how, in statements such as these the +distinction is not properly recognized between a principle and its +exhibitions and instances, even if the fact were as is represented. The +principle indeed of Dogmatism developes into Councils in the course of +time; but it was active, nay sovereign from the first, in every part of +Christendom. A conviction that truth was one; that it was a gift from +without, a sacred trust, an inestimable blessing; that it was to be +reverenced, guarded, defended, transmitted; that its absence was a +grievous want, and its loss an unutterable calamity; and again, the +stern words and acts of St. John, of Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenæus, +Clement, Tertullian, and Origen;--all this is quite consistent with +perplexity or mistake as to what was truth in particular cases, in what +way doubtful questions were to be decided, or what were the limits of +the Revelation. Councils and Popes are the guardians and instruments of +the dogmatic principle: they are not that principle themselves; they +presuppose the principle; they are summoned into action at the call of +the principle, and the principle might act even before they had their +legitimate place, and exercised a recognized power, in the movements of +the Christian body. + + +5. + +The instance of Conscience, which has already served us in illustration, +may assist us here. What Conscience is in the history of an individual +mind, such was the dogmatic principle in the history of Christianity. +Both in the one case and the other, there is the gradual formation of a +directing power out of a principle. The natural voice of Conscience is +far more imperative in testifying and enforcing a rule of duty, than +successful in determining that duty in particular cases. It acts as a +messenger from above, and says that there is a right and a wrong, and +that the right must be followed; but it is variously, and therefore +erroneously, trained in the instance of various persons. It mistakes +error for truth; and yet we believe that on the whole, and even in those +cases where it is ill-instructed, if its voice be diligently obeyed, it +will gradually be cleared, simplified, and perfected, so that minds, +starting differently will, if honest, in course of time converge to one +and the same truth. I do not hereby imply that there is indistinctness +so great as this in the theology of the first centuries; but so far is +plain, that the early Church and Fathers exercised far more a ruler's +than a doctor's office: it was the age of Martyrs, of acting not of +thinking. Doctors succeeded Martyrs, as light and peace of conscience +follow upon obedience to it; yet, even before the Church had grown into +the full measure of its doctrines, it was rooted in its principles. + + +6. + +So far, however, may be granted to M. Guizot, that even principles were +not so well understood and so carefully handled at first, as they were +afterwards. In the early period, we see traces of a conflict, as well as +of a variety, in theological elements, which were in course of +combination, but which required adjustment and management before they +could be used with precision as one. In a thousand instances of a minor +character, the statements of the early Fathers are but tokens of the +multiplicity of openings which the mind of the Church was making into +the treasure-house of Truth; real openings, but incomplete or irregular. +Nay, the doctrines even of the heretical bodies are indices and +anticipations of the mind of the Church. As the first step in settling a +question of doctrine is to raise and debate it, so heresies in every age +may be taken as the measure of the existing state of thought in the +Church, and of the movement of her theology; they determine in what way +the current is setting, and the rate at which it flows. + + +7. + +Thus, St. Clement may be called the representative of the eclectic +element, and Tertullian of the dogmatic, neither element as yet being +fully understood by Catholics; and Clement perhaps went too far in his +accommodation to philosophy, and Tertullian asserted with exaggeration +the immutability of the Creed. Nay, the two antagonist principles of +dogmatism and assimilation are found in Tertullian alone, though with +some deficiency of amalgamation, and with a greater leaning towards the +dogmatic. Though the Montanists professed to pass over the subject of +doctrine, it is chiefly in Tertullian's Montanistic works that his +strong statements occur of the unalterableness of the Creed; and +extravagance on the subject is not only in keeping with the stern and +vehement temper of that Father, but with the general severity and +harshness of his sect. On the other hand the very foundation of +Montanism is development, though not of doctrine, yet of discipline and +conduct. It is said that its founder professed himself the promised +Comforter, through whom the Church was to be perfected; he provided +prophets as organs of the new revelation, and called Catholics Psychici +or animal. Tertullian distinctly recognizes even the process of +development in one of his Montanistic works. After speaking of an +innovation upon usage, which his newly revealed truth required, he +proceeds, "Therefore hath the Lord sent the Paraclete, that, since human +infirmity could not take all things in at once, discipline might be +gradually directed, regulated and brought to perfection by the Lord's +Vicar, the Holy Ghost. 'I have yet many things to say to you,' He saith, +&c. What is this dispensation of the Paraclete but this, that discipline +is directed, Scriptures opened, intellect reformed, improvements +effected? Nothing can take place without age, and all things wait their +time. In short, the Preacher says 'There is a time for all things.' +Behold the creature itself gradually advancing to fruit. At first there +is a seed, and a stalk springs out of the seed, and from the stalk +bursts out a shrub, and then its branches and foliage grow vigorous, and +all that we mean by a tree is unfolded; then there is the swelling of +the bud, and the bud is resolved into a blossom, and the blossom is +opened into a fruit, and is for a while rudimental and unformed, till, +by degrees following out its life, it is matured into mellowness of +flavour. So too righteousness, (for there is the same God both of +righteousness and of the creation,) was at first in its rudiments, a +nature fearing God; thence, by means of Law and Prophets, it advanced +into infancy; thence, by the gospel, it burst forth into its youth; and +now by the Paraclete, it is fashioned into maturity."[363:1] + + +8. + +Not in one principle or doctrine only, but in its whole system, +Montanism is a remarkable anticipation or presage of developments which +soon began to show themselves in the Church, though they were not +perfected for centuries after. Its rigid maintenance of the original +Creed, yet its admission of a development, at least in the ritual, has +just been instanced in the person of Tertullian. Equally Catholic in +their principle, whether in fact or anticipation, were most of the other +peculiarities of Montanism: its rigorous fasts, its visions, its +commendation of celibacy and martyrdom, its contempt of temporal goods, +its penitential discipline, and its maintenance of a centre of unity. +The doctrinal determinations and the ecclesiastical usages of the middle +ages are the true fulfilment of its self-willed and abortive attempts at +precipitating the growth of the Church. The favour shown to it for a +while by Pope Victor is an evidence of its external resemblance to +orthodoxy; and the celebrated Martyrs and Saints in Africa, in the +beginning of the third century, Perpetua and Felicitas, or at least +their Acts, betoken that same peculiar temper of religion, which, when +cut off from the Church a few years afterwards, quickly degenerated into +a heresy. A parallel instance occurs in the case of the Donatists. They +held a doctrine on the subject of Baptism similar to that of St. +Cyprian: "Vincentius Lirinensis," says Gibbon, referring to Tillemont's +remarks on that resemblance, "has explained why the Donatists are +eternally burning with the devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven +with Jesus Christ."[364:1] And his reason is intelligible: it is, says +Tillemont, "as St. Augustine often says, because the Donatists had +broken the bond of peace and charity with the other Churches, which St. +Cyprian had preserved so carefully."[364:2] + + +9. + +These are specimens of the raw material, as it may be called, which, +whether as found in individual Fathers within the pale of the Church, or +in heretics external to it, she had the power, by means of the +continuity and firmness of her principles, to convert to her own uses. +She alone has succeeded in thus rejecting evil without sacrificing the +good, and in holding together in one things which in all other schools +are incompatible. Gnostic or Platonic words are found in the inspired +theology of St. John; to the Platonists Unitarian writers trace the +doctrine of our Lord's divinity; Gibbon the idea of the Incarnation to +the Gnostics. The Gnostics too seem first to have systematically thrown +the intellect upon matters of faith; and the very term "Gnostic" has +been taken by Clement to express his perfect Christian. And, though +ascetics existed from the beginning, the notion of a religion higher +than the Christianity of the many, was first prominently brought forward +by the Gnostics, Montanists, Novatians, and Manichees. And while the +prophets of the Montanists prefigure the Church's Doctors, and their +professed inspiration her infallibility, and their revelations her +developments, and the heresiarch himself is the unsightly anticipation +of St. Francis, in Novatian again we discern the aspiration of nature +after such creations of grace as St. Benedict or St. Bruno. And so the +effort of Sabellius to complete the enunciation of the mystery of the +Ever-blessed Trinity failed: it became a heresy; grace would not be +constrained; the course of thought could not be forced;--at length it +was realized in the true Unitarianism of St. Augustine. + + +10. + +Doctrine too is percolated, as it were, through different minds, +beginning with writers of inferior authority in the Church, and issuing +at length in the enunciation of her Doctors. Origen, Tertullian, nay +Eusebius and the Antiochenes, supply the materials, from which the +Fathers have wrought out comments or treatises. St. Gregory Nazianzen +and St. Basil digested into form the theological principles of Origen; +St. Hilary and St. Ambrose are both indebted to the same great writer in +their interpretations of Scripture; St. Ambrose again has taken his +comment on St. Luke from Eusebius, and certain of his Tracts from Philo; +St. Cyprian called Tertullian his Master; and traces of Tertullian, in +his almost heretical treatises, may be detected in the most finished +sentences of St. Leo. The school of Antioch, in spite of the heretical +taint of various of its Masters, formed the genius of St. Chrysostom. +And the Apocryphal gospels have contributed many things for the devotion +and edification of Catholic believers.[366:1] + +The deep meditation which seems to have been exercised by the Fathers on +points of doctrine, the disputes and turbulence yet lucid determination +which characterize the Councils, the indecision of Popes, are all in +different ways, at least when viewed together, portions and indications +of the same process. The theology of the Church is no random combination +of various opinions, but a diligent, patient working out of one doctrine +from many materials. The conduct of Popes, Councils, Fathers, betokens +the slow, painful, anxious taking up of new truths into an existing body +of belief. St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Leo are conspicuous for +the repetition _in terminis_ of their own theological statements; on the +contrary, it has been observed of the heterodox Tertullian, that his +works "indicate no ordinary fertility of mind in that he so little +repeats himself or recurs to favourite thoughts, as is frequently the +case even with the great St. Augustine."[366:2] + + +11. + +Here we see the difference between originality of mind and the gift and +calling of a Doctor in the Church; the holy Fathers just mentioned were +intently fixing their minds on what they taught, grasping it more and +more closely, viewing it on various sides, trying its consistency, +weighing their own separate expressions. And thus if in some cases they +were even left in ignorance, the next generation of teachers completed +their work, for the same unwearied anxious process of thought went on. +St. Gregory Nyssen finishes the investigations of St. Athanasius; St. +Leo guards the polemical statements of St. Cyril. Clement may hold a +purgatory, yet tend to consider all punishment purgatorial; St. Cyprian +may hold the unsanctified state of heretics, but include in his doctrine +a denial of their baptism; St. Hippolytus may believe in the personal +existence of the Word from eternity, yet speak confusedly on the +eternity of His Sonship; the Council of Antioch might put aside the +Homoüsion, and the Council of Nicæa impose it; St. Hilary may believe in +a purgatory, yet confine it to the day of judgment; St. Athanasius and +other Fathers may treat with almost supernatural exactness the doctrine +of our Lord's incarnation, yet imply, as far as words go, that He was +ignorant viewed in His human nature; the Athanasian Creed may admit the +illustration of soul and body, and later Fathers may discountenance it; +St. Augustine might first be opposed to the employment of force in +religion, and then acquiesce in it. Prayers for the faithful departed +may be found in the early liturgies, yet with an indistinctness which +included the Blessed Virgin and the Martyrs in the same rank with the +imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet unexpiated; and succeeding +times might keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient. +Aristotle might be reprobated by certain early Fathers, yet furnish the +phraseology for theological definitions afterwards. And in a different +subject-matter, St. Isidore and others might be suspicious of the +decoration of Churches; St. Paulinus and St. Helena advance it. And thus +we are brought on to dwell upon the office of grace, as well as of +truth, in enabling the Church's creed to develope and to absorb without +the risk of corruption. + + +§ 2. _The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace._ + +There is in truth a certain virtue or grace in the Gospel which changes +the quality of doctrines, opinions, usages, actions, and personal +characters when incorporated with it, and makes them right and +acceptable to its Divine Author, whereas before they were either +infected with evil, or at best but shadows of the truth. This is the +principle, above spoken of, which I have called the Sacramental. "We +know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness," is an +enunciation of the principle;--or, the declaration of the Apostle of the +Gentiles, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are +passed away, behold all things are become new." Thus it is that outward +rites, which are but worthless in themselves, lose their earthly +character and become Sacraments under the Gospel; circumcision, as St. +Paul says, is carnal and has come to an end, yet Baptism is a perpetual +ordinance, as being grafted upon a system which is grace and truth. +Elsewhere, he parallels, while he contrasts, "the cup of the Lord" and +"the cup of devils," in this respect, that to partake of either is to +hold communion with the source from which it comes; and he adds +presently, that "we have been all made to drink into one spirit." So +again he says, no one is justified by the works of the old Law; while +both he implies, and St. James declares, that Christians are justified +by works of the New Law. Again he contrasts the exercises of the +intellect as exhibited by heathen and Christian. "Howbeit," he says, +after condemning heathen wisdom, "we speak wisdom among them that are +perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world;" and it is plain that nowhere +need we look for more glowing eloquence, more distinct profession of +reasoning, more careful assertion of doctrine, than is to be found in +the Apostle's writings. + + +2. + +In like manner when the Jewish exorcists attempted to "call over them +which had evil spirits the Name of the Lord Jesus," the evil spirit +professed not to know them, and inflicted on them a bodily injury; on +the other hand, the occasion of this attempt of theirs was a stupendous +instance or type, in the person of St. Paul, of the very principle I am +illustrating. "God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so +that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, +and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of +them." The grace given him was communicable, diffusive; an influence +passing from him to others, and making what it touched spiritual, as +enthusiasm may be or tastes or panics. + +Parallel instances occur of the operation of this principle in the +history of the Church, from the time that the Apostles were taken from +it. St. Paul denounces distinctions in meat and drink, the observance of +Sabbaths and holydays, and of ordinances, and the worship of Angels; yet +Christians, from the first, were rigid in their stated fastings, +venerated, as St. Justin tells us, the Angelic intelligences,[369:1] and +established the observance of the Lord's day as soon as persecution +ceased. + + +3. + +In like manner Celsus objects that Christians did not "endure the sight +of temples, altars, and statues;" Porphyry, that "they blame the rites +of worship, victims, and frankincense;" the heathen disputant in +Minucius asks, "Why have Christians no altars, no temples, no +conspicuous images?" and "no sacrifices;" and yet it is plain from +Tertullian that Christians had altars of their own, and sacrifices and +priests. And that they had churches is again and again proved by +Eusebius who had seen "the houses of prayer levelled" in the Dioclesian +persecution; from the history too of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, nay from +Clement.[370:1] Again, St. Justin and Minucius speak of the form of the +Cross in terms of reverence, quite inconsistent with the doctrine that +external emblems of religion may not be venerated. Tertullian speaks of +Christians signing themselves with it whatever they set about, whether +they walk, eat, or lie down to sleep. In Eusebius's life of Constantine, +the figure of the Cross holds a most conspicuous place; the Emperor sees +it in the sky and is converted; he places it upon his standards; he +inserts it into his own hand when he puts up his statue; wherever the +Cross is displayed in his battles, he conquers; he appoints fifty men to +carry it; he engraves it on his soldiers' arms; and Licinius dreads its +power. Shortly after, Julian plainly accuses Christians of worshipping +the wood of the Cross, though they refused to worship the _ancile_. In a +later age the worship of images was introduced.[370:2] + + +4. + +The principle of the distinction, by which these observances were pious +in Christianity and superstitious in paganism, is implied in such +passages of Tertullian, Lactantius, and others, as speak of evil spirits +lurking under the pagan statues. It is intimated also by Origen, who, +after saying that Scripture so strongly "forbids temples, altars, and +images," that Christians are "ready to go to death, if necessary, rather +than pollute their notion of the God of all by any such transgression," +assigns as a reason "that, as far as possible, they might not fall into +the notion that images were gods." St. Augustine, in replying to +Porphyry, is more express; "Those," he says, "who are acquainted with +Old and New Testament do not blame in the pagan religion the erection of +temples or institution of priesthoods, but that these are done to idols +and devils. . . True religion blames in their superstitions, not so much +their sacrificing, for the ancient saints sacrificed to the True God, as +their sacrificing to false gods."[371:1] To Faustus the Manichee he +answers, "We have some things in common with the gentiles, but our +purpose is different."[371:2] And St. Jerome asks Vigilantius, who made +objections to lights and oil, "Because we once worshipped idols, is that +a reason why we should not worship God, for fear of seeming to address +him with an honour like that which was paid to idols and then was +detestable, whereas this is paid to Martyrs and therefore to be +received?"[371:3] + + +5. + +Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of +evil, and to transmute the very instruments and appendages of +demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages +had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of +nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what +they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were +moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted +the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, +should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the +existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of +the educated class. + +St. Gregory Thaumaturgus supplies the first instance on record of this +economy. He was the Apostle of Pontus, and one of his methods for +governing an untoward population is thus related by St. Gregory of +Nyssa. "On returning," he says, "to the city, after revisiting the +country round about, he increased the devotion of the people everywhere +by instituting festive meetings in honour of those who had fought for +the faith. The bodies of the Martyrs were distributed in different +places, and the people assembled and made merry, as the year came round, +holding festival in their honour. This indeed was a proof of his great +wisdom . . . for, perceiving that the childish and untrained populace +were retained in their idolatrous error by creature comforts, in order +that what was of first importance should at any rate be secured to them, +viz. that they should look to God in place of their vain rites, he +allowed them to be merry, jovial, and gay at the monuments of the holy +Martyrs, as if their behaviour would in time undergo a spontaneous +change into greater seriousness and strictness, since faith would lead +them to it; which has actually been the happy issue in that population, +all carnal gratification having turned into a spiritual form of +rejoicing."[372:1] There is no reason to suppose that the licence here +spoken of passed the limits of harmless though rude festivity; for +it is observable that the same reason, the need of holydays for the +multitude, is assigned by Origen, St. Gregory's master, to explain +the establishment of the Lord's Day also, and the Paschal and the +Pentecostal festivals, which have never been viewed as unlawful +compliances; and, moreover, the people were in fact eventually reclaimed +from their gross habits by his indulgent policy, a successful issue +which could not have followed an accommodation to what was sinful. + + +6. + +The example set by St. Gregory in an age of persecution was impetuously +followed when a time of peace succeeded. In the course of the fourth +century two movements or developments spread over the face of +Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one +ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by +Eusebius,[373:1] that Constantine, in order to recommend the new +religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to +which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go +into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made +familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to +particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; +incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; +holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, +processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, +the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, +perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison,[373:2] are all +of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. + + +7. + +The eighth book of Theodoret's work _Adversus Gentiles_, which is "On +the Martyrs," treats so largely on the subject, that we must content +ourselves with only a specimen of the illustrations which it affords, of +the principle acted on by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. "Time, which makes +all things decay," he says, speaking of the Martyrs, "has preserved +their glory incorruptible. For as the noble souls of those conquerors +traverse the heavens, and take part in the spiritual choirs, so their +bodies are not consigned to separate tombs, but cities and towns divide +them among them; and call them saviours of souls and bodies, and +physicians, and honour them as the protectors and guardians of cities, +and, using their intervention with the Lord of all, obtain through them +divine gifts. And though each body be divided, the grace remains +indivisible; and that small, that tiny particle is equal in power with +the Martyr that hath never been dispersed about. For the grace which is +ever blossoming distributes the gifts, measuring the bounty according to +the faith of those who come for it. + +"Yet not even this persuades you to celebrate their God, but ye laugh +and mock at the honour which is paid them by all, and consider it a +pollution to approach their tombs. But though all men made a jest of +them, yet at least the Greeks could not decently complain, to whom +belonged libations and expiations, and heroes and demi-gods and deified +men. To Hercules, though a man . . . and compelled to serve Eurystheus, +they built temples, and constructed altars, and offered sacrifices in +honour, and allotted feasts; and that, not Spartans only and Athenians, +but the whole of Greece and the greater part of Europe." + + +8. + +Then, after going through the history of many heathen deities, and +referring to the doctrine of the philosophers about great men, and to +the monuments of kings and emperors, all of which at once are witnesses +and are inferior, to the greatness of the Martyrs, he continues: "To +their shrines we come, not once or twice a year or five times, but often +do we hold celebrations; often, nay daily, do we present hymns to their +Lord. And the sound in health ask for its preservation, and those who +struggle with any disease for a release from their sufferings; the +childless for children, the barren to become mothers, and those who +enjoy the blessing for its safe keeping. Those too who are setting out +for a foreign land beg that the Martyrs may be their fellow-travellers +and guides of the journey; those who have come safe back acknowledge the +grace, not coming to them as to gods, but beseeching them as divine men, +and asking their intercession. And that they obtain what they ask in +faith, their dedications openly witness, in token of their cure. For +some bring likenesses of eyes, others of feet, others of hands; some of +gold, others of silver; and their Lord accepts even the small and cheap, +measuring the gift by the offerer's ability. . . . . Philosophers and +Orators are consigned to oblivion, and kings and captains are not known +even by name to the many; but the names of the Martyrs are better known +to all than the names of those dearest to them. And they make a point of +giving them to their children, with a view of gaining for them thereby +safety and protection. . . . Nay, of the so-called gods, so utterly have +the sacred places been destroyed, that not even their outline remains, +nor the shape of their altars is known to men of this generation, while +their materials have been dedicated to the shrines of the Martyrs. For +the Lord has introduced His own dead in place of your gods; of the one +He hath made a riddance, on the other He hath conferred their honours. +For the Pandian festival, the Diasia, and the Dionysia, and your other +such, we have the feasts of Peter, of Paul, of Thomas, of Sergius, of +Marcellus, of Leontius, of Panteleëmon, of Antony, of Maurice, and of +the other Martyrs; and for that old-world procession, and indecency of +work and word, are held modest festivities, without intemperance, or +revel, or laughter, but with divine hymns, and attendance on holy +discourses and prayers, adorned with laudable tears." This was the view +of the "Evidences of Christianity" which a Bishop of the fifth century +offered for the conversion of unbelievers. + + +9. + +The introduction of Images was still later, and met with more opposition +in the West than in the East. It is grounded on the same great principle +which I am illustrating; and as I have given extracts from Theodoret for +the developments of the fourth and fifth centuries, so will I now cite +St. John Damascene in defence of the further developments of the eighth. + +"As to the passages you adduce," he says to his opponents, "they +abominate not the worship paid to our Images, but that of the Greeks, +who made them gods. It needs not therefore, because of the absurd use of +the Greeks, to abolish our use which is so pious. Enchanters and wizards +use adjurations, so does the Church over its Catechumens; but they +invoke devils, and she invokes God against devils. Greeks dedicate +images to devils, and call them gods; but we to True God Incarnate, and +to God's servants and friends, who drive away the troops of +devils."[376:1] Again, "As the holy Fathers overthrew the temples and +shrines of the devils, and raised in their places shrines in the names +of Saints and we worship them, so also they overthrew the images of the +devils, and in their stead raised images of Christ, and God's Mother, +and the Saints. And under the Old Covenant, Israel neither raised +temples in the name of men, nor was memory of man made a festival; for, +as yet, man's nature was under a curse, and death was condemnation, and +therefore was lamented, and a corpse was reckoned unclean and he who +touched it; but now that the Godhead has been combined with our nature, +as some life-giving and saving medicine, our nature has been glorified +and is trans-elemented into incorruption. Wherefore the death of Saints +is made a feast, and temples are raised to them, and Images are +painted. . . For the Image is a triumph, and a manifestation, and a +monument in memory of the victory of those who have done nobly and +excelled, and of the shame of the devils defeated and overthrown." Once +more, "If because of the Law thou dost forbid Images, you will soon have +to sabbatize and be circumcised, for these ordinances the Law commands +as indispensable; nay, to observe the whole law, and not to keep the +festival of the Lord's Pascha out of Jerusalem: but know that if you +keep the Law, Christ hath profited you nothing. . . . . But away with +this, for whoever of you are justified in the Law have fallen from +grace."[377:1] + + +10. + +It is quite consistent with the tenor of these remarks to observe, or to +allow, that real superstitions have sometimes obtained in parts of +Christendom from its intercourse with the heathen; or have even been +admitted, or all but admitted, though commonly resisted strenuously, by +authorities in the Church, in consequence of the resemblance which +exists between the heathen rites and certain portions of her ritual. As +philosophy has at times corrupted her divines, so has paganism +corrupted her worshippers; and as the more intellectual have been +involved in heresy, so have the ignorant been corrupted by superstition. +Thus St. Chrysostom is vehement against the superstitious usages which +Jews and Gentiles were introducing among Christians at Antioch and +Constantinople. "What shall we say," he asks in one place, "about the +amulets and bells which are hung upon the hands, and the scarlet woof, +and other things full of such extreme folly; when they ought to invest +the child with nothing else save the protection of the Cross? But now +that is despised which hath converted the whole world, and given the +sore wound to the devil, and overthrown all his power; while the thread, +and the woof, and the other amulets of that kind, are entrusted with the +child's safety." After mentioning further superstitions, he proceeds, +"Now that among Greeks such things should be done, is no wonder; but +among the worshippers of the Cross, and partakers in unspeakable +mysteries, and professors of such morality, that such unseemliness +should prevail, this is especially to be deplored again and +again."[378:1] + +And in like manner St. Augustine suppressed the feasts called Agapæ, +which had been allowed the African Christians on their first conversion. +"It is time," he says, "for men who dare not deny that they are +Christians, to begin to live according to the will of Christ, and, now +being Christians, to reject what was only allowed that they might become +Christians." The people objected the example of the Vatican Church at +Rome, where such feasts were observed every day; St. Augustine answered, +"I have heard that it has been often prohibited, but the place is far +off from the Bishop's abode (the Lateran), and in so large a city there +is a multitude of carnal persons, especially of strangers who resort +daily thither."[378:2] And in like manner it certainly is possible that +the consciousness of the sanctifying power in Christianity may have +acted as a temptation to sins, whether of deceit or of violence; as if +the habit or state of grace destroyed the sinfulness of certain acts, or +as if the end justified the means. + + +11. + +It is but enunciating in other words the principle we are tracing, to +say that the Church has been entrusted with the dispensation of grace. +For if she can convert heathen appointments into spiritual rites and +usages, what is this but to be in possession of a treasure, and to +exercise a discretionary power in its application? Hence there has been +from the first much variety and change, in the Sacramental acts and +instruments which she has used. While the Eastern and African Churches +baptized heretics on their reconciliation, the Church of Rome, as the +Catholic Church since, maintained that imposition of hands was +sufficient, if their prior baptism had been formally correct. The +ceremony of imposition of hands was used on various occasions with a +distinct meaning; at the rite of Catechumens, on admitting heretics, in +Confirmation, in Ordination, in Benediction. Baptism was sometimes +administered by immersion, sometimes by infusion. Infant Baptism was not +at first enforced as afterwards. Children or even infants were admitted +to the Eucharist in the African Church and the rest of the West, as now +in the Greek. Oil had various uses, as for healing the sick, or as in +the rite of extreme unction. Indulgences in works or in periods of +penance, had a different meaning, according to circumstances. In like +manner the Sign of the Cross was one of the earliest means of grace; +then holy seasons, and holy places, and pilgrimage to them; holy water; +prescribed prayers, or other observances; garments, as the scapular, +and sacred vestments; the rosary; the crucifix. And for some wise +purpose doubtless, such as that of showing the power of the Church in +the dispensation of divine grace, as well as the perfection and +spirituality of the Eucharistic Presence, the Chalice is in the West +withheld from all but the celebrant in the Holy Eucharist. + + +12. + +Since it has been represented as if the power of assimilation, spoken of +in this Chapter, is in my meaning nothing more than a mere accretion of +doctrines or rites from without, I am led to quote the following passage +in further illustration of it from my "Essays," vol. ii. p. 231:-- + + "The phenomenon, admitted on all hands, is this:--That great + portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, + in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in + heathen philosophies and religions. For instance, the doctrine + of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West; so is + the ceremony of washing; so is the rite of sacrifice. The + doctrine of the Divine Word is Platonic; the doctrine of the + Incarnation is Indian; of a divine kingdom is Judaic; of + Angels and demons is Magian; the connexion of sin with the + body is Gnostic; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin; a + sacerdotal order is Egyptian; the idea of a new birth is + Chinese and Eleusinian; belief in sacramental virtue is + Pythagorean; and honours to the dead are a polytheism. Such is + the general nature of the fact before us; Mr. Milman argues + from it,--'These things are in heathenism, therefore they are + not Christian:' we, on the contrary, prefer to say, 'these + things are in Christianity, therefore they are not heathen.' + That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears + us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor + of the world has scattered the seeds of truth far and wide + over its extent; that these have variously taken root, and + grown up as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living; + and hence that, as the inferior animals have tokens of an + immaterial principle in them, yet have not souls, so the + philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain + true ideas, though they are not directly divine. What man is + amid the brute creation, such is the Church among the schools + of the world; and as Adam gave names to the animals about him, + so has the Church from the first looked round upon the earth, + noting and visiting the doctrines she found there. She began + in Chaldea, and then sojourned among the Canaanites, and went + down into Egypt, and thence passed into Arabia, till she + rested in her own land. Next she encountered the merchants of + Tyre, and the wisdom of the East country, and the luxury of + Sheba. Then she was carried away to Babylon, and wandered to + the schools of Greece. And wherever she went, in trouble or in + triumph, still she was a living spirit, the mind and voice of + the Most High; 'sitting in the midst of the doctors, both + hearing them and asking them questions;' claiming to herself + what they said rightly, correcting their errors, supplying + their defects, completing their beginnings, expanding their + surmises, and thus gradually by means of them enlarging the + range and refining the sense of her own teaching. So far then + from her creed being of doubtful credit because it resembles + foreign theologies, we even hold that one special way in which + Providence has imparted divine knowledge to us has been by + enabling her to draw and collect it together out of the world, + and, in this sense, as in others, to 'suck the milk of the + Gentiles and to suck the breast of kings.' + + "How far in fact this process has gone, is a question of + history; and we believe it has before now been grossly + exaggerated and misrepresented by those who, like Mr. Milman, + have thought that its existence told against Catholic + doctrine; but so little antecedent difficulty have we in the + matter, that we could readily grant, unless it were a question + of fact not of theory, that Balaam was an Eastern sage, or a + Sibyl was inspired, or Solomon learnt of the sons of Mahol, or + Moses was a scholar of the Egyptian hierophants. We are not + distressed to be told that the doctrine of the angelic host + came from Babylon, while we know that they did sing at the + Nativity; nor that the vision of a Mediator is in Philo, if in + very deed He died for us on Calvary. Nor are we afraid to + allow, that, even after His coming, the Church has been a + treasure-house, giving forth things old and new, casting the + gold of fresh tributaries into her refiner's fire, or stamping + upon her own, as time required it, a deeper impress of her + Master's image. + + "The distinction between these two theories is broad and + obvious. The advocates of the one imply that Revelation was a + single, entire, solitary act, or nearly so, introducing a + certain message; whereas we, who maintain the other, consider + that Divine teaching has been in fact, what the analogy of + nature would lead us to expect, 'at sundry times and in divers + manners,' various, complex, progressive, and supplemental of + itself. We consider the Christian doctrine, when analyzed, to + appear, like the human frame, 'fearfully and wonderfully + made;' but they think it some one tenet or certain principles + given out at one time in their fulness, without gradual + enlargement before Christ's coming or elucidation afterwards. + They cast off all that they also find in Pharisee or heathen; + we conceive that the Church, like Aaron's rod, devours the + serpents of the magicians. They are ever hunting for a + fabulous primitive simplicity; we repose in Catholic fulness. + They seek what never has been found; we accept and use what + even they acknowledge to be a substance. They are driven to + maintain, on their part, that the Church's doctrine was never + pure; we say that it can never be corrupt. We consider that a + divine promise keeps the Church Catholic from doctrinal + corruption; but on what promise, or on what encouragement, + they are seeking for their visionary purity does not appear." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[359:1] Justin, Apol. ii. 10, Tryph. 121. + +[360:1] Europ. Civ. p. 56, tr. + +[360:2] p. 58. + +[363:1] De Virg. Vol. 1. + +[364:1] Hist. t. 3, p. 312. + +[364:2] Mem. Eccl. t. 6, p. 83. + +[366:1] Galland. t. 3, p. 673, note 3. + +[366:2] Vid. Preface to Oxford Transl. of Tertullian, where the +character of his mind is admirably drawn out. + +[369:1] Infra, pp. 411-415, &c. + +[370:1] Orig. c. Cels. vii. 63, viii. 17 (vid. not. Bened. in loc.), +August. Ep. 102, 16; Minuc. F. 10, and 32; Tertull. de Orat. fin. ad +Uxor. i. fin. Euseb. Hist. viii. 2; Clem. Strom. vii. 6, p. 846. + +[370:2] Tertull. de Cor. 3; Just. Apol. i. 65; Minuc. F. 20; Julian ap. +Cyr. vi. p. 194, Spanh. + +[371:1] Epp. 102, 18. + +[371:2] Contr. Faust. 20, 23. + +[371:3] Lact. ii. 15, 16; Tertull. Spect. 12; Origen, c. Cels. vii. +64-66, August. Ep. 102, 18; Contr. Faust. xx. 23; Hieron. c. Vigil. 8. + +[372:1] Vit. Thaum. p. 1006. + +[373:1] V. Const. iii. 1, iv. 23, &c. + +[373:2] According to Dr. E. D. Clarke, Travels, vol. i. p. 352. + +[376:1] De Imag. i. 24. + +[377:1] Ibid. ii. 11. 14. + +[378:1] Hom. xii. in Cor. 1, Oxf. Tr. + +[378:2] Fleury, Hist. xx. 11, Oxf. Tr. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +LOGICAL SEQUENCE. + +Logical Sequence has been set down above as a fourth test of fidelity in +development, and shall now be briefly illustrated in the history of +Christian doctrine. That is, I mean to give instances of one doctrine +leading to another; so that, if the former be admitted, the latter can +hardly be denied, and the latter can hardly be called a corruption +without taking exception to the former. And I use "logical sequence" in +contrast both to that process of incorporation and assimilation which +was last under review, and also to that principle of science, which has +put into order and defended the developments after they have been made. +Accordingly it will include any progress of the mind from one judgment +to another, as, for instance, by way of moral fitness, which may not +admit of analysis into premiss and conclusion. Thus St. Peter argued in +the case of Cornelius and his friends, "Can any man forbid water that +these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well +as we?" + +Such is the series of doctrinal truths, which start from the dogma of +our Lord's Divinity, and again from such texts of Scripture as "Thou art +Peter," and which I should have introduced here, had I not already used +them for a previous purpose in the Fourth Chapter. I shall confine +myself then for an example to the instance of the developments which +follow on the consideration of sin after Baptism, a subject which was +touched upon in the same Chapter. + + +§ 1. _Pardons._ + +It is not necessary here to enlarge on the benefits which the primitive +Church held to be conveyed to the soul by means of the Sacrament of +Baptism. Its distinguishing gift, which is in point to mention, was the +plenary forgiveness of sins past. It was also held that the Sacrament +could not be repeated. The question immediately followed, how, since +there was but "one Baptism for the remission of sins," the guilt of such +sin was to be removed as was incurred after its administration. There +must be some provision in the revealed system for so obvious a need. +What could be done for those who had received the one remission of sins, +and had sinned since? Some who thought upon the subject appear to have +conceived that the Church was empowered to grant one, and one only, +reconciliation after grievous offences. Three sins seemed to many, at +least in the West, to be irremissible, idolatry, murder, and adultery. +But such a system of Church discipline, however suited to a small +community, and even expedient in a time of persecution, could not exist +in Christianity, as it spread into the _orbis terrarum_, and gathered +like a net of every kind. A more indulgent rule gradually gained ground; +yet the Spanish Church adhered to the ancient even in the fourth +century, and a portion of the African in the third, and in the remaining +portion there was a relaxation only as regards the crime of +incontinence. + + +2. + +Meanwhile a protest was made against the growing innovation: at the +beginning of the third century Montanus, who was a zealot for the more +primitive rule, shrank from the laxity, as he considered it, of the +Asian Churches;[385:1] as, in a different subject-matter, Jovinian and +Vigilantius were offended at the developments in divine worship in the +century which followed. The Montanists had recourse to the See of Rome, +and at first with some appearance of success. Again, in Africa, where +there had been in the first instance a schism headed by Felicissimus in +favour of a milder discipline than St. Cyprian approved, a far more +formidable stand was soon made in favour of Antiquity, headed by +Novatus, who originally had been of the party of Felicissimus. This was +taken up at Rome by Novatian, who professed to adhere to the original, +or at least the primitive rule of the Church, viz. that those who had +once fallen from the faith could in no case be received again.[385:2] +The controversy seems to have found the following issue,--whether the +Church had the _means_ of pardoning sins committed after Baptism, which +the Novatians, at least practically, denied. "It is fitting," says the +Novatian Acesius, "to exhort those who have sinned after Baptism to +repentance, but to expect hope of remission, not from the priests, but +from God, who hath power to forgive sins."[385:3] The schism spread into +the East, and led to the appointment of a penitentiary priest in the +Catholic Churches. By the end of the third century as many as four +degrees of penance were appointed, through which offenders had to pass +in order to a reconciliation. + + +§ 2. _Penances._ + +The length and severity of the penance varied with times and places. +Sometimes, as we have seen, it lasted, in the case of grave offences, +through life and on to death, without any reconciliation; at other times +it ended only in the _viaticum_; and if, after reconciliation they did +not die, their ordinary penance was still binding on them either for +life or for a certain time. In other cases it lasted ten, fifteen, or +twenty years. But in all cases, from the first, the Bishop had the power +of shortening it, and of altering the nature and quality of the +punishment. Thus in the instance of the Emperor Theodosius, whom St. +Ambrose shut out from communion for the massacre at Thessalonica, +"according to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were +established in the fourth century," says Gibbon, "the crime of homicide +was expiated by the penitence of twenty years; and as it was impossible, +in the period of human life, to purge the accumulated guilt of the +massacre . . . the murderer should have been excluded from the holy +communion till the hour of his death." He goes on to say that the public +edification which resulted from the humiliation of so illustrious a +penitent was a reason for abridging the punishment. "It was sufficient +that the Emperor of the Romans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, +should appear in a mournful and suppliant posture, and that, in the +midst of the Church of Milan, he should humbly solicit with sighs and +tears the pardon of his sins." His penance was shortened to an interval +of about eight months. Hence arose the phrase of a "_pœnitentia +legitima, plena, et justa_;" which signifies a penance sufficient, +perhaps in length of time, perhaps in intensity of punishment. + + +§ 3. _Satisfactions._ + +Here a serious question presented itself to the minds of Christians, +which was now to be wrought out:--Were these punishments merely signs +of contrition, or in any sense satisfactions for sin? If the former, +they might be absolutely remitted at the discretion of the Church, as +soon as true repentance was discovered; the end had then been attained, +and nothing more was necessary. Thus St. Chrysostom says in one of his +Homilies,[387:1] "I require not continuance of time, but the correction +of the soul. Show your contrition, show your reformation, and all is +done." Yet, though there might be a reason of the moment for shortening +the penance imposed by the Church, this does not at all decide the +question whether that ecclesiastical penance be not part of an expiation +made to the Almighty Judge for the sin; and supposing this really to be +the case, the question follows, How is the complement of that +satisfaction to be wrought out, which on just grounds of present +expedience has been suspended by the Church now? + +As to this question, it cannot be doubted that the Fathers considered +penance as not a mere expression of contrition, but as an act done +directly towards God and a means of averting His anger. "If the sinner +spare not himself, he will be spared by God," says the writer who goes +under the name of St. Ambrose. "Let him lie in sackcloth, and by the +austerity of his life make amends for the offence of his past +pleasures," says St. Jerome. "As we have sinned greatly," says St. +Cyprian, "let us weep greatly; for a deep wound diligent and long +tending must not be wanting, the repentance must not fall short of the +offence." "Take heed to thyself," says St. Basil, "that, in proportion +to the fault, thou admit also the restoration from the remedy."[387:2] +If so, the question follows which was above contemplated,--if in +consequence of death, or in the exercise of the Church's discretion, +the "_plena pœnitentia_" is not accomplished in its ecclesiastical +shape, how and when will the residue be exacted? + + +§ 4. _Purgatory._ + +Clement of Alexandria answers this particular question very distinctly, +according to Bishop Kaye, though not in some other points expressing +himself conformably to the doctrine afterwards received. "Clement," says +that author, "distinguishes between sins committed before and after +baptism: the former are remitted at baptism; the latter are purged by +discipline. . . . The necessity of this purifying discipline is such, +that if it does not take place in this life, it must after death, and is +then to be effected by fire, not by a destructive, but a discriminating +fire, pervading the soul which passes through it."[388:1] + +There is a celebrated passage in St. Cyprian, on the subject of the +punishment of lapsed Christians, which certainly seems to express the +same doctrine. "St. Cyprian is arguing in favour of readmitting the +lapsed, when penitent; and his argument seems to be that it does not +follow that we absolve them simply because we simply restore them to the +Church. He writes thus to Antonian: 'It is one thing to stand for +pardon, another to arrive at glory; one to be sent to prison (_missum in +carcerem_) and not to go out till the last farthing be paid, another to +receive at once the reward of faith and virtue; one thing to be +tormented for sin in long pain, and so to be cleansed and purged a long +while by fire (_purgari diu igne_), another to be washed from all sin in +martyrdom; one thing, in short, to wait for the Lord's sentence in the +Day of Judgment, another at once to be crowned by Him.' Some understand +this passage to refer to the penitential discipline of the Church which +was imposed on the penitent; and, as far as the context goes, certainly +no sense could be more apposite. Yet . . . the words in themselves seem +to go beyond any mere ecclesiastical, though virtually divine censure; +especially '_missum in carcerem_' and '_purgari diu igne_.'"[389:1] + + +2. + +The Acts of the Martyrs St. Perpetua and St. Felicitas, which are prior +to St. Cyprian, confirm this interpretation. In the course of the +narrative, St. Perpetua prays for her brother Dinocrates, who had died +at the age of seven; and has a vision of a dark place, and next of a +pool of water, which he was not tall enough to reach. She goes on +praying; and in a second vision the water descended to him, and he was +able to drink, and went to play as children use. "Then I knew," she +says, "that he was translated from his place of punishment."[389:2] + +The prayers in the Eucharistic Service for the faithful departed, +inculcate, at least according to the belief of the fourth century, the +same doctrine, that the sins of accepted and elect souls, which were not +expiated here, would receive punishment hereafter. Certainly such was +St. Cyril's belief: "I know that many say," he observes, "what is a soul +profited, which departs from this world either with sins or without +sins, if it be commemorated in the [Eucharistic] Prayer? Now, surely, if +when a king had banished certain who had given him offence, their +connexions should weave a crown and offer it to him on behalf of those +under his vengeance, would he not grant a respite to their punishments? +In the same way we, when we offer to Him our supplications for those who +have fallen asleep, though they be sinners, weave no crown, but offer up +Christ, sacrificed for our sins, propitiating our merciful God, both +for them and for ourselves."[390:1] + + +3. + +Thus we see how, as time went on, the doctrine of Purgatory was brought +home to the minds of the faithful as a portion or form of Penance due +for post-baptismal sin. And thus the apprehension of this doctrine and +the practice of Infant Baptism would grow into general reception +together. Cardinal Fisher gives another reason for Purgatory being then +developed out of earlier points of faith. He says, "Faith, whether in +Purgatory or in Indulgences, was not so necessary in the Primitive +Church as now. For then love so burned, that every one was ready to meet +death for Christ. Crimes were rare, and such as occurred were avenged by +the great severity of the Canons."[390:2] + + +4. + +An author, who quotes this passage, analyzes the circumstances and the +reflections which prepared the Christian mind for the doctrine, when it +was first insisted on, and his remarks with a few corrections may be +accepted here. "Most men," he says, "to our apprehensions, are too +little formed in religious habits either for heaven or for hell, yet +there is no middle state when Christ comes in judgment. In consequence +it is obvious to have recourse to the interval before His coming, as a +time during which this incompleteness may be remedied; as a season, not +of changing the spiritual bent and character of the soul departed, +whatever that be, for probation ends with mortal life, but of developing +it in a more determinate form, whether of good or of evil. Again, when +the mind once allows itself to speculate, it will discern in such a +provision a means, whereby those, who, not without true faith at bottom, +yet have committed great crimes, or those who have been carried off in +youth while still undecided, or who die after a barren though not an +immoral or scandalous life, may receive such chastisement as may prepare +them for heaven, and render it consistent with God's justice to admit +them thither. Again, the inequality of the sufferings of Christians in +this life, compared one with another, leads the mind to the same +speculations; the intense suffering, for instance, which some men +undergo on their death-bed, seeming as if but an anticipation in their +case of what comes after death upon others, who, without greater claim +on God's forbearance, live without chastisement, and die easily. The +mind will inevitably dwell upon such thoughts, unless it has been taught +to subdue them by education or by the fear or the experience of their +dangerousness. + + +5. + +"Various suppositions have, accordingly, been made, as pure +suppositions, as mere specimens of the capabilities (if one may so +speak) of the Divine Dispensation, as efforts of the mind reaching +forward and venturing beyond its depth into the abyss of the Divine +Counsels. If one supposition could be hazarded, sufficient to solve the +problem, the existence of ten thousand others is conceivable, unless +indeed the resources of God's Providence are exactly commensurate with +man's discernment of them. Religious men, amid these searchings of +heart, have naturally gone to Scripture for relief; to see if the +inspired word anywhere gave them any clue for their inquiries. And from +what was there found, and from the speculations of reason upon it, +various notions have been hazarded at different times; for instance, +that there is a certain momentary ordeal to be undergone by all men +after this life, more or less severe according to their spiritual +state; or that certain gross sins in good men will be thus visited, or +their lighter failings and habitual imperfections; or that the very +sight of Divine Perfection in the invisible world will be in itself a +pain, while it constitutes the purification of the imperfect but +believing soul; or that, happiness admitting of various degrees of +intensity, penitents late in life may sink for ever into a state, +blissful as far as it goes, but more or less approaching to +unconsciousness; and infants dying after baptism may be as gems paving +the courts of heaven, or as the living wheels of the Prophet's vision; +while matured Saints may excel in capacity of bliss, as well as in +dignity, the highest Archangels. + + +6. + +"Now, as to the punishments and satisfactions for sin, the texts to +which the minds of the early Christians seem to have been principally +drawn, and from which they ventured to argue in behalf of these vague +notions, were these two: 'The fire shall try every man's work,' &c., and +'He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' These +passages, with which many more were found to accord, directed their +thoughts one way, as making mention of 'fire,' whatever was meant by the +word, as the instrument of trial and purification; and that, at some +time between the present time and the Judgment, or at the Judgment. + +"As the doctrine, thus suggested by certain striking texts, grew in +popularity and definiteness, and verged towards its present Roman form, +it seemed a key to many others. Great portions of the books of Psalms, +Job, and the Lamentations, which express the feelings of religious men +under suffering, would powerfully recommend it by the forcible and most +affecting and awful meaning which they received from it. When this was +once suggested, all other meanings would seem tame and inadequate. + +"To these may be added various passages from the Prophets, as that in +the beginning of the third chapter of Malachi, which speaks of fire as +the instrument of judgment and purification, when Christ comes to visit +His Church. + +"Moreover, there were other texts of obscure and indeterminate bearing, +which seemed on this hypothesis to receive a profitable meaning; such as +our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount, 'Verily, I say unto thee, +thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost +farthing;' and St. John's expression in the Apocalypse, that 'no man in +heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the +book.'"[393:1] + + +7. + +When then an answer had to be made to the question, how is +post-baptismal sin to be remitted, there was an abundance of passages in +Scripture to make easy to the faith of the inquirer the definitive +decision of the Church. + + +§ 5. _Meritorious Works._ + +The doctrine of post-baptismal sin, especially when realized in the +doctrine of Purgatory, leads the inquirer to fresh developments beyond +itself. Its effect is to convert a Scripture statement, which might seem +only of temporary application, into a universal and perpetual truth. +When St. Paul and St. Barnabas would "confirm the souls of the +disciples," they taught them "that we must through much tribulation +enter into the kingdom of God." It is obvious what very practical +results would follow on such an announcement, in the instance of those +who simply accepted the Apostolic decision; and in like manner a +conviction that sin must have its punishment, here or hereafter, and +that we all must suffer, how overpowering will be its effect, what a new +light does it cast on the history of the soul, what a change does it +make in our judgment of the external world, what a reversal of our +natural wishes and aims for the future! Is a doctrine conceivable which +would so elevate the mind above this present state, and teach it so +successfully to dare difficult things, and to be reckless of danger and +pain? He who believes that suffer he must, and that delayed punishment +may be the greater, will be above the world, will admire nothing, fear +nothing, desire nothing. He has within his breast a source of greatness, +self-denial, heroism. This is the secret spring of strenuous efforts and +persevering toil, of the sacrifice of fortune, friends, ease, +reputation, happiness. There is, it is true, a higher class of motives +which will be felt by the Saint; who will do from love what all +Christians, who act acceptably, do from faith. And, moreover, the +ordinary measures of charity which Christians possess, suffice for +securing such respectable attention to religious duties as the routine +necessities of the Church require. But if we would raise an army of +devoted men to resist the world, to oppose sin and error, to relieve +misery, or to propagate the truth, we must be provided with motives +which keenly affect the many. Christian love is too rare a gift, +philanthropy is too weak a material, for the occasion. Nor is there an +influence to be found to suit our purpose, besides this solemn +conviction, which arises out of the very rudiments of Christian +theology, and is taught by its most ancient masters,--this sense of the +awfulness of post-baptismal sin. It is in vain to look out for +missionaries for China or Africa, or evangelists for our great towns, or +Christian attendants on the sick, or teachers of the ignorant, on such a +scale of numbers as the need requires, without the doctrine of +Purgatory. For thus the sins of youth are turned to account by the +profitable penance of manhood; and terrors, which the philosopher scorns +in the individual, become the benefactors and earn the gratitude of +nations. + + +§ 6. _The Monastic Rule._ + +But there is one form of Penance which has been more prevalent and +uniform than any other, out of which the forms just noticed have grown, +or on which they have been engrafted,--the Monastic Rule. In the first +ages, the doctrine of the punishments of sin, whether in this world or +in the next, was little called for. The rigid discipline of the infant +Church was the preventive of greater offences, and its persecutions the +penance of their commission; but when the Canons were relaxed and +confessorship ceased, then some substitute was needed, and such was +Monachism, being at once a sort of continuation of primeval innocence, +and a school of self-chastisement. And, as it is a great principle in +economical and political science that everything should be turned to +account, and there should be no waste, so, in the instance of +Christianity, the penitential observances of individuals, which were +necessarily on a large scale as its professors increased, took the form +of works, whether for the defence of the Church, or the spiritual and +temporal good of mankind. + + +2. + +In no aspect of the Divine system do we see more striking developments +than in the successive fortunes of Monachism. Little did the youth +Antony foresee, when he set off to fight the evil one in the wilderness, +what a sublime and various history he was opening, a history which had +its first developments even in his own lifetime. He was himself a +hermit in the desert; but when others followed his example, he was +obliged to give them guidance, and thus he found himself, by degrees, at +the head of a large family of solitaries, five thousand of whom were +scattered in the district of Nitria alone. He lived to see a second +stage in the development; the huts in which they lived were brought +together, sometimes round a church, and a sort of subordinate community, +or college, formed among certain individuals of their number. St. +Pachomius was the first who imposed a general rule of discipline upon +the brethren, gave them a common dress, and set before them the objects +to which the religious life was dedicated. Manual labour, study, +devotion, bodily mortification, were now their peculiarities; and the +institution, thus defined, spread and established itself through Eastern +and Western Christendom. + +The penitential character of Monachism is not prominent in St. Antony, +though it is distinctly noticed by Pliny in his description of the +Essenes of the Dead Sea, who anticipated the monastic life at the rise +of Christianity. In St. Basil, however, it becomes a distinguishing +feature;--so much so that the monastic profession was made a +disqualification for the pastoral office,[396:1] and in theory involved +an absolute separation from mankind; though in St. Basil's, as well as +St. Antony's disciples, it performed the office of resisting heresy. + +Next, the monasteries, which in their ecclesiastical capacity had been +at first separate churches under a Presbyter or Abbot, became schools +for the education of the clergy.[396:2] + + +3. + +Centuries passed, and after many extravagant shapes of the institution, +and much wildness and insubordination in its members, a new development +took place under St. Benedict. Revising and digesting the provisions of +St. Antony, St. Pachomius, and St. Basil, he bound together his monks by +a perpetual vow, brought them into the cloister, united the separate +convents into one Order,[397:1] and added objects of an ecclesiastical +and civil nature to that of personal edification. Of these objects, +agriculture seemed to St. Benedict himself of first importance; but in a +very short time it was superseded by study and education, and the +monasteries of the following centuries became the schools and libraries, +and the monks the chroniclers and copyists, of a dark period. Centuries +later, the Benedictine Order was divided into separate Congregations, +and propagated in separate monastic bodies. The Congregation of Cluni +was the most celebrated of the former; and of the latter, the hermit +order of the Camaldoli and the agricultural Cistercians. + + +4. + +Both a unity and an originality are observable in the successive phases +under which Monachism has shown itself; and while its developments bring +it more and more into the ecclesiastical system, and subordinate it to +the governing power, they are true to their first idea, and spring fresh +and fresh from the parent stock, which from time immemorial had thriven +in Syria and Egypt. The sheepskin and desert of St. Antony did but +revive "the mantle"[397:2] and the mountain of the first Carmelite, and +St. Basil's penitential exercises had already been practised by the +Therapeutæ. In like manner the Congregational principle, which is +ascribed to St. Benedict, had been anticipated by St. Antony and St. +Pachomius; and after centuries of disorder, another function of early +Monachism, for which there had been little call for centuries, the +defence of Catholic truth, was exercised with singular success by the +rival orders of Dominicans and Franciscans. + +St. Benedict had come as if to preserve a principle of civilization, and +a refuge for learning, at a time when the old framework of society was +falling, and new political creations were taking their place. And when +the young intellect within them began to stir, and a change of another +kind discovered itself, then appeared St. Francis and St. Dominic to +teach and chastise it; and in proportion as Monachism assumed this +public office, so did the principle of penance, which had been the chief +characteristic of its earlier forms, hold a less prominent place. The +Tertiaries indeed, or members of the third order of St. Francis and St. +Dominic, were penitents; but the friar himself, instead of a penitent, +was made a priest, and was allowed to quit cloister. Nay, they assumed +the character of what may be called an Ecumenical Order, as being +supported by begging, not by endowments, and being under the +jurisdiction, not of the local Bishop, but of the Holy See. The +Dominicans too came forward especially as a learned body, and as +entrusted with the office of preaching, at a time when the mind of +Europe seemed to be developing into infidelity. They filled the chairs +at the Universities, while the strength of the Franciscans lay among the +lower orders. + + +5. + +At length, in the last era of ecclesiastical revolution, another +principle of early Monachism, which had been but partially developed, +was brought out into singular prominence in the history of the Jesuits. +"Obedience," said an ancient abbot, "is a monk's service, with which he +shall be heard in prayer, and shall stand with confidence by the +Crucified, for so the Lord came to the cross, being made obedient even +unto death;"[399:1] but it was reserved for modern times to furnish the +perfect illustration of this virtue, and to receive the full blessing +which follows it. The great Society, which bears no earthly name, still +more secular in its organization, and still more simply dependent on the +See of St. Peter, has been still more distinguished than any Order +before it for the rule of obedience, while it has compensated the danger +of its free intercourse with the world by its scientific adherence to +devotional exercises. The hermitage, the cloister, the inquisitor, and +the friar were suited to other states of society; with the Jesuits, as +well as with the religious Communities, which are their juniors, +usefulness, secular and religious, literature, education, the +confessional, preaching, the oversight of the poor, missions, the care +of the sick, have been chief objects of attention; great cities have +been the scene of operation: bodily austerities and the ceremonial of +devotion have been made of but secondary importance. Yet it may fairly +be questioned, whether, in an intellectual age, when freedom both of +thought and of action is so dearly prized, a greater penance can be +devised for the soldier of Christ than the absolute surrender of +judgment and will to the command of another. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[385:1] Gieseler, Text-book, vol. i. p. 108. + +[385:2] Gieseler, ibid. p. 164. + +[385:3] Socr. Hist. i. 10. + +[387:1] Hom. 14, in 2 Cor. fin. + +[387:2] Vid. Tertull. Oxf. tr. pp. 374, 5. + +[388:1] Clem. ch. 12. Vid. also Tertull. de Anim. fin. + +[389:1] Tracts for the Times, No. 79, p. 38. + +[389:2] Ruinart, Mart. p. 96. + +[390:1] Mystagog. 5. + +[390:2] [Vid. Via Media, vol. i. p 72.] + +[393:1] [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 174-177.] + +[396:1] Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 288. + +[396:2] Ibid. p. 279. + +[397:1] Or rather his successors, as St. Benedict of Anian, were the +founders of the Order; but minute accuracy on these points is +unnecessary in a mere sketch of the history. + +[397:2] μηλωτής, 2 Kings ii. Sept. Vid. also, "They wandered about in +sheepskins and goatskins" (Heb. xi. 37). + +[399:1] Rosweyde, V. P. p. 618. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE. + +It has been set down above as a fifth argument in favour of the fidelity +of developments, ethical or political, if the doctrine from which they +have proceeded has, in any early stage of its history, given indications +of those opinions and practices in which it has ended. Supposing then +the so-called Catholic doctrines and practices are true and legitimate +developments, and not corruptions, we may expect from the force of logic +to find instances of them in the first centuries. And this I conceive to +be the case: the records indeed of those times are scanty, and we have +little means of determining what daily Christian life then was: we know +little of the thoughts, and the prayers, and the meditations, and the +discourses of the early disciples of Christ, at a time when these +professed developments were not recognized and duly located in the +theological system; yet it appears, even from what remains, that the +atmosphere of the Church was, as it were, charged with them from the +first, and delivered itself of them from time to time, in this way or +that, in various places and persons, as occasion elicited them, +testifying the presence of a vast body of thought within it, which one +day would take shape and position. + + +§ 1. _Resurrection and Relics._ + +As a chief specimen of what I am pointing out, I will direct attention +to a characteristic principle of Christianity, whether in the East or in +the West, which is at present both a special stumbling-block and a +subject of scoffing with Protestants and free-thinkers of every shade +and colour: I mean the devotions which both Greeks and Latins show +towards bones, blood, the heart, the hair, bits of clothes, scapulars, +cords, medals, beads, and the like, and the miraculous powers which they +often ascribe to them. Now, the principle from which these beliefs and +usages proceed is the doctrine that Matter is susceptible of grace, or +capable of a union with a Divine Presence and influence. This principle, +as we shall see, was in the first age both energetically manifested and +variously developed; and that chiefly in consequence of the +diametrically opposite doctrine of the schools and the religions of the +day. And thus its exhibition in that primitive age becomes also an +instance of a statement often made in controversy, that the profession +and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the +time, and that silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not +then held, but that it was not questioned. + + +2. + +Christianity began by considering Matter as a creature of God, and in +itself "very good." It taught that Matter, as well as Spirit, had become +corrupt, in the instance of Adam; and it contemplated its recovery. It +taught that the Highest had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon +Himself, in order to the sanctification of the whole; that, as a +firstfruits of His purpose, He had purified from all sin that very +portion of it which He took into His Eternal Person, and thereunto had +taken it from a Virgin Womb, which He had filled with the abundance of +His Spirit. Moreover, it taught that during His earthly sojourn He had +been subject to the natural infirmities of man, and had suffered from +those ills to which flesh is heir. It taught that the Highest had in +that flesh died on the Cross, and that His blood had an expiatory power; +moreover, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had carried that +flesh with Him into heaven, and that from that flesh, glorified and +deified in Him, He never would be divided. As a first consequence of +these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of the bodies of +His Saints, and of their future glorification with Him; next, that of +the sanctity of their relics; further, that of the merit of Virginity; +and, lastly, that of the prerogatives of Mary, Mother of God. All these +doctrines are more or less developed in the Ante-nicene period, though +in very various degrees, from the nature of the case. + + +3. + +And they were all objects of offence or of scorn to philosophers, +priests, or populace of the day. With varieties of opinions which need +not be mentioned, it was a fundamental doctrine in the schools, whether +Greek or Oriental, that Matter was essentially evil. It had not been +created by the Supreme God; it was in eternal enmity with Him; it was +the source of all pollution; and it was irreclaimable. Such was the +doctrine of Platonist, Gnostic, and Manichee:--whereas then St. John had +laid it down that "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is +come in the flesh is the spirit of Antichrist:" the Gnostics obstinately +denied the Incarnation, and held that Christ was but a phantom, or had +come on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him at his passion. The +one great topic of preaching with Apostles and Evangelists was the +Resurrection of Christ and of all mankind after Him; but when the +philosophers of Athens heard St. Paul, "some mocked," and others +contemptuously put aside the doctrine. The birth from a Virgin implied, +not only that the body was not intrinsically evil, but that one state of +it was holier than another, and St. Paul explained that, while marriage +was good, celibacy was better; but the Gnostics, holding the utter +malignity of Matter, one and all condemned marriage as sinful, and, +whether they observed continence or not, or abstained from eating flesh +or not, maintained that all functions of our animal nature were evil and +abominable. + + +4. + +"Perish the thought," says Manes, "that our Lord Jesus Christ should +have descended through the womb of a woman." "He descended," says +Marcion, "but without touching her or taking aught from her." "Through +her, not of her," said another. "It is absurd to assert," says a +disciple of Bardesanes, "that this flesh in which we are imprisoned +shall rise again, for it is well called a burden, a tomb, and a chain." +"They execrate the funeral-pile," says Cæcilius, speaking of Christians, +"as if bodies, though withdrawn from the flames, did not all resolve +into dust by years, whether beasts tear, or sea swallows, or earth +covers, or flame wastes." According to the old Paganism, both the +educated and vulgar held corpses and sepulchres in aversion. They +quickly rid themselves of the remains even of their friends, thinking +their presence a pollution, and felt the same terror even of +burying-places which assails the ignorant and superstitious now. It is +recorded of Hannibal that, on his return to the African coast from +Italy, he changed his landing-place to avoid a ruined sepulchre. "May +the god who passes between heaven and hell," says Apuleius in his +_Apology_, "present to thy eyes, O Emilian, all that haunts the night, +all that alarms in burying-places, all that terrifies in tombs." George +of Cappadocia could not direct a more bitter taunt against the +Alexandrian Pagans than to call the temple of Serapis a sepulchre. The +case had been the same even among the Jews; the Rabbins taught, that +even the corpses of holy men "did but serve to diffuse infection and +defilement." "When deaths were Judaical," says the writer who goes under +the name of St. Basil, "corpses were an abomination; when death is for +Christ, the relics of Saints are precious. It was anciently said to the +Priests and the Nazarites, 'If any one shall touch a corpse, he shall be +unclean till evening, and he shall wash his garment;' now, on the +contrary, if any one shall touch a Martyr's bones, by reason of the +grace dwelling in the body, he receives some participation of his +sanctity."[404:1] Nay, Christianity taught a reverence for the bodies +even of heathen. The care of the dead is one of the praises which, as we +have seen above, is extorted in their favour from the Emperor Julian; +and it was exemplified during the mortality which spread through the +Roman world in the time of St. Cyprian. "They did good," says Pontius of +the Christians of Carthage, "in the profusion of exuberant works to all, +and not only to the household of faith. They did somewhat more than is +recorded of the incomparable benevolence of Tobias. The slain of the +king and the outcasts, whom Tobias gathered together, were of his own +kin only."[404:2] + + +5. + +Far more of course than such general reverence was the honour that they +showed to the bodies of the Saints. They ascribed virtue to their +martyred tabernacles, and treasured, as something supernatural, their +blood, their ashes, and their bones. When St. Cyprian was beheaded, his +brethren brought napkins to soak up his blood. "Only the harder portion +of the holy relics remained," say the Acts of St. Ignatius, who was +exposed to the beasts in the amphitheatre, "which were conveyed to +Antioch, and deposited in linen, bequeathed, by the grace that was in +the Martyr, to that holy Church as a priceless treasure." The Jews +attempted to deprive the brethren of St. Polycarp's body, "lest, leaving +the Crucified, they begin to worship him," say his Acts; "ignorant," +they continue, "that we can never leave Christ;" and they add, "We, +having taken up his bones which were more costly than precious stones, +and refined more than gold, deposited them where was fitting; and there +when we meet together, as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate +with joy and gladness the birthday of his martyrdom." On one occasion in +Palestine, the Imperial authorities disinterred the bodies and cast them +into the sea, "lest as their opinion went," says Eusebius, "there should +be those who in their sepulchres and monuments might think them gods, +and treat them with divine worship." + +Julian, who had been a Christian, and knew the Christian history more +intimately than a mere infidel would know it, traces the superstition, +as he considers it, to the very lifetime of St. John, that is, as early +as there were Martyrs to honour; makes the honour paid them +contemporaneous with the worship paid to our Lord, and equally distinct +and formal; and, moreover, declares that first it was secret, which for +various reasons it was likely to have been. "Neither Paul," he says, +"nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor Mark, dared to call Jesus God; but honest +John, having perceived that a great multitude had been caught by this +disease in many of the Greek and Italian cities, and hearing, I suppose, +that the monuments of Peter and Paul were, secretly indeed, but still +hearing that they were honoured, first dared to say it." "Who can feel +fitting abomination?" he says elsewhere; "you have filled all places +with tombs and monuments, though it has been nowhere told you to tumble +down at tombs or to honour them. . . . . If Jesus said that they were +full of uncleanness, why do ye invoke God at them?" The tone of Faustus +the Manichæan is the same. "Ye have turned," he says to St. Augustine, +"the idols" of the heathen "into your Martyrs, whom ye honour +(_colitis_) with similar prayers (_votis_)."[406:1] + + +6. + +It is remarkable that the attention of both Christians and their +opponents turned from the relics of the Martyrs to their persons. +Basilides at least, who was founder of one of the most impious Gnostic +sects, spoke of them with disrespect; he considered that their +sufferings were the penalty of secret sins or evil desires, or +transgressions committed in another body, and a sign of divine favour +only because they were allowed to connect them with the cause of +Christ.[406:2] On the other hand, it was the doctrine of the Church that +Martyrdom was meritorious, that it had a certain supernatural efficacy +in it, and that the blood of the Saints received from the grace of the +One Redeemer a certain expiatory power. Martyrdom stood in the place of +Baptism, where the Sacrament had not been administered. It exempted the +soul from all preparatory waiting, and gained its immediate admittance +into glory. "All crimes are pardoned for the sake of this work," says +Tertullian. + +And in proportion to the near approach of the martyrs to their Almighty +Judge, was their high dignity and power. St. Dionysius speaks of their +reigning with Christ; Origen even conjectures that "as we are redeemed +by the precious blood of Jesus, so some are redeemed by the precious +blood of the Martyrs." St. Cyprian seems to explain his meaning when he +says, "We believe that the merits of Martyrs and the works of the just +avail much with the Judge," that is, for those who were lapsed, "when, +after the end of this age and the world, Christ's people shall stand +before His judgment-seat." Accordingly they were considered to intercede +for the Church militant in their state of glory, and for individuals +whom they had known. St. Potamiæna of Alexandria, in the first years of +the third century, when taken out for execution, promised to obtain +after her departure the salvation of the officer who led her out; and +did appear to him, according to Eusebius, on the third day, and +prophesied his own speedy martyrdom. And St. Theodosia in Palestine came +to certain confessors who were in bonds, "to request them," as Eusebius +tells us, "to remember her when they came to the Lord's Presence." +Tertullian, when a Montanist, betrays the existence of the doctrine in +the Catholic body by protesting against it.[407:1] + + +§ 2. _The Virgin Life._ + +Next to the prerogatives of bodily suffering or Martyrdom came, in the +estimation of the early Church, the prerogatives of bodily, as well as +moral, purity or Virginity; another form of the general principle which +I am here illustrating. "The first reward," says St. Cyprian to the +Virgins, "is for the Martyrs an hundredfold; the second, sixtyfold, is +for yourselves."[407:2] Their state and its merit is recognized by a +_consensus_ of the Ante-nicene writers; of whom Athenagoras distinctly +connects Virginity with the privilege of divine communion: "You will +find many of our people," he says to the Emperor Marcus, "both men and +women, grown old in their single state, in hope thereby of a closer +union with God."[408:1] + + +2. + +Among the numerous authorities which might be cited, I will confine +myself to a work, elaborate in itself, and important from its author. +St. Methodius was a Bishop and Martyr of the latter years of the +Ante-nicene period, and is celebrated as the most variously endowed +divine of his day. His learning, elegance in composition, and eloquence, +are all commemorated.[408:2] The work in question, the _Convivium +Virginum_, is a conference in which ten Virgins successively take part, +in praise of the state of life to which they have themselves been +specially called. I do not wish to deny that there are portions of it +which strangely grate upon the feelings of an age, which is formed on +principles of which marriage is the centre. But here we are concerned +with its doctrine. Of the speakers in this Colloquy, three at least are +real persons prior to St. Methodius's time; of these Thecla, whom +tradition associates with St. Paul, is one, and Marcella, who in the +Roman Breviary is considered to be St. Martha's servant, and who is said +to have been the woman who exclaimed, "Blessed is the womb that bare +Thee," &c., is described as a still older servant of Christ. The latter +opens the discourse, and her subject is the gradual development of the +doctrine of Virginity in the Divine Dispensations; Theophila, who +follows, enlarges on the sanctity of Matrimony, with which the special +glory of the higher state does not interfere; Thalia discourses on the +mystical union which exists between Christ and His Church, and on the +seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians; Theopatra on +the merit of Virginity; Thallusa exhorts to a watchful guardianship of +the gift; Agatha shows the necessity of other virtues and good works, in +order to the real praise of their peculiar profession; Procilla extols +Virginity as the special instrument of becoming a spouse of Christ; +Thecla treats of it as the great combatant in the warfare between heaven +and hell, good and evil; Tysiana with reference to the Resurrection; and +Domnina allegorizes Jothan's parable in Judges ix. Virtue, who has been +introduced as the principal personage in the representation from the +first, closes the discussion with an exhortation to inward purity, and +they answer her by an hymn to our Lord as the Spouse of His Saints. + + +3. + +It is observable that St. Methodius plainly speaks of the profession of +Virginity as a vow. "I will explain," says one of his speakers, "how we +are dedicated to the Lord. What is enacted in the Book of Numbers, 'to +vow a vow mightily,' shows what I am insisting on at great length, that +Chastity is a mighty vow beyond all vows."[409:1] This language is not +peculiar to St. Methodius among the Ante-nicene Fathers. "Let such as +promise Virginity and break their profession be ranked among digamists," +says the Council of Ancyra in the beginning of the fourth century. +Tertullian speaks of being "married to Christ," and marriage implies a +vow; he proceeds, "to Him thou hast pledged (_sponsasti_) thy ripeness +of age;" and before he had expressly spoken of the _continentiæ votum_. +Origen speaks of "devoting one's body to God" in chastity; and St. +Cyprian "of Christ's Virgin, dedicated to Him and destined for His +sanctity," and elsewhere of "members dedicated to Christ, and for ever +devoted by virtuous chastity to the praise of continence;" and Eusebius +of those "who had consecrated themselves body and soul to a pure and +all-holy life."[410:1] + + +§ 3. _Cultus of Saints and Angels._ + +The Spanish Church supplies us with an anticipation of the later +devotions to Saints and Angels. The Canons are extant of a Council of +Illiberis, held shortly before the Council of Nicæa, and representative +of course of the doctrine of the third century. Among these occurs the +following: "It is decreed, that pictures ought not to be in church, lest +what is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls."[410:2] Now these +words are commonly taken to be decisive against the use of pictures in +the Spanish Church at that era. Let us grant it; let us grant that the +use of all pictures is forbidden, pictures not only of our Lord, and +sacred emblems, as of the Lamb and the Dove, but pictures of Angels and +Saints also. It is not fair to restrict the words, nor are +controversialists found desirous of doing so; they take them to include +the images of the Saints. "For keeping of pictures out of the Church, +the Canon of the Eliberine or Illiberitine Council, held in Spain, about +the time of Constantine the Great, is most plain,"[410:3] says Ussher: +he is speaking of "the representations of God and of Christ, and of +Angels and of Saints."[410:4] "The Council of Eliberis is very ancient, +and of great fame," says Taylor, "in which it is expressly forbidden +that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls, and that +therefore pictures ought not to be in churches."[411:1] He too is +speaking of the Saints. I repeat, let us grant this freely. This +inference then seems to be undeniable, that the Spanish Church +considered the Saints to be in the number of objects either of "worship +or adoration;" for it is of such objects that the representations are +forbidden. The very drift of the prohibition is this,--_lest_ what is in +itself an object of worship (_quod colitur_) should be worshipped _in +painting_; unless then Saints and Angels were objects of worship, their +pictures would have been allowed. + + +2. + +This mention of Angels leads me to a memorable passage about the honour +due to them in Justin Martyr. + +St. Justin, after "answering the charge of Atheism," as Dr. Burton says, +"which was brought against Christians of his day, and observing that +they were punished for not worshipping evil demons which were not really +gods," continues, "But Him, (God,) and the Son who came from Him, and +taught us these things, and the host of the other good Angels who follow +and resemble Him, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, paying +them a reasonable and true honour, and not grudging to deliver to any +one, who wishes to learn, as we ourselves have been taught."[411:2] + +A more express testimony to the _cultus Angelorum_ cannot be required; +nor is it unnatural in the connexion in which it occurs, considering St. +Justin has been speaking of the heathen worship of demons, and therefore +would be led without effort to mention, not only the incommunicable +adoration paid to the One God, who "will not give His glory to another," +but such inferior honour as may be paid to creatures, without sin on the +side whether of giver or receiver. Nor is the construction of the +original Greek harsher than is found in other authors; nor need it +surprise us in one whose style is not accurate, that two words should be +used in combination to express worship, and that one should include +Angels, and that the other should not. + + +3. + +The following is Dr. Burton's account of the passage: + +"Scultetus, a Protestant divine of Heidelberg, in his _Medulla Theologiæ +Patrum_, which appeared in 1605, gave a totally different meaning to the +passage; and instead of connecting '_the host_' with '_we worship_,' +connected it with '_taught us_.' The words would then be rendered thus: +'But Him, and the Son who came from Him, who also gave us instructions +concerning these things, and concerning the host of the other good +angels we worship,' &c. This interpretation is adopted and defended at +some length by Bishop Bull, and by Stephen Le Moyne; and even the +Benedictine Le Nourry supposed Justin to mean that Christ had taught us +not to worship the bad angels, as well as the existence of good angels. +Grabe, in his edition of 'Justin's Apology,' which was printed in 1703, +adopted another interpretation, which had been before proposed by Le +Moyne and by Cave. This also connects '_the host_' with '_taught_,' and +would require us to render the passage thus: '. . . and the Son who came +from Him, who also taught these things to us, and to the host of the +other Angels,' &c. It might be thought that Langus, who published a +Latin translation of Justin in 1565, meant to adopt one of these +interpretations, or at least to connect '_host_' with '_taught these +things_.' Both of them certainly are ingenious, and are not perhaps +opposed to the literal construction of the Greek words; but I cannot say +that they are satisfactory, or that I am surprised at Roman Catholic +writers describing them as forced and violent attempts to evade a +difficulty. If the words enclosed in brackets were removed, the whole +passage would certainly contain a strong argument in favour of the +Trinity; but as they now stand, Roman Catholic writers will naturally +quote them as supporting the worship of Angels. + +"There is, however, this difficulty in such a construction of the +passage: it proves too much. By coupling the Angels with the three +persons of the Trinity, as objects of religious adoration, it seems to +go beyond even what Roman Catholics themselves would maintain concerning +the worship of Angels. Their well-known distinction between _latria_ and +_dulia_ would be entirely confounded; and the difficulty felt by the +Benedictine editor appears to have been as great, as his attempt to +explain it is unsuccessful, when he wrote as follows: 'Our adversaries +in vain object the twofold expression, _we worship and adore_. For the +former is applied to Angels themselves, regard being had to the +distinction between the creature and the Creator; the latter by no means +necessarily includes the Angels.' This sentence requires concessions, +which no opponent could be expected to make; and if one of the two +terms, _we worship_ and _adore_, may be applied to Angels, it is +unreasonable to contend that the other must not also. Perhaps, however, +the passage may be explained so as to admit a distinction of this kind. +The interpretations of Scultetus and Grabe have not found many +advocates; and upon the whole I should be inclined to conclude, that the +clause, which relates to the Angels, is connected particularly with the +words, '_paying them a reasonable and true honour_.'"[414:1] + +Two violent alterations of the text have also been proposed: one to +transfer the clause which creates the difficulty, after the words +_paying them honour_; the other to substitute στρατηγὸν (_commander_) +for στρατὸν (_host_). + + +4. + +Presently Dr. Burton continues:--"Justin, as I observed, is defending +the Christians from the charge of Atheism; and after saying that the +gods, whom they refused to worship, were no gods, but evil demons, he +points out what were the Beings who were worshipped by the Christians. +He names the true God, who is the source of all virtue; the Son, who +proceeded from Him; the good and ministering spirits; and the Holy +Ghost. To these Beings, he says, we pay all the worship, adoration, and +honour, which is due to each of them; _i. e._ worship where worship is +due, honour where honour is due. The Christians were accused of +worshipping no gods, that is, of acknowledging no superior beings at +all. Justin shows that so far was this from being true, that they +acknowledged more than one order of spiritual Beings; they offered +divine worship to the true God, and they also believed in the existence +of good spirits, which were entitled to honour and respect. If the +reader will view the passage as a whole, he will perhaps see that there +is nothing violent in thus restricting the words _worship and adore_, +and _honouring_, to certain parts of it respectively. It may seem +strange that Justin should mention the ministering spirits before the +Holy Ghost: but this is a difficulty which presses upon the Roman +Catholics as much as upon ourselves; and we may perhaps adopt the +explanation of the Bishop of Lincoln,[414:2] who says, 'I have sometimes +thought that in this passage, "_and the host_," is equivalent to "_with +the host_," and that Justin had in his mind the glorified state of +Christ, when He should come to judge the world, surrounded by the host +of heaven.' The bishop then brings several passages from Justin, where +the Son of God is spoken of as attended by a company of Angels; and if +this idea was then in Justin's mind, it might account for his naming the +ministering spirits immediately after the Son of God, rather than after +the Holy Ghost, which would have been the natural and proper +order."[415:1] + +This passage of St. Justin is the more remarkable, because it cannot be +denied that there was a worship of the Angels at that day, of which St. +Paul speaks, which was Jewish and Gnostic, and utterly reprobated by the +Church. + + +§ 4. _Office of the Blessed Virgin._ + +The special prerogatives of St. Mary, the _Virgo Virginum_, are +intimately involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation itself, with +which these remarks began, and have already been dwelt upon above. As is +well known, they were not fully recognized in the Catholic ritual till a +late date, but they were not a new thing in the Church, or strange to +her earlier teachers. St. Justin, St. Irenæus, and others, had +distinctly laid it down, that she not only had an office, but bore a +part, and was a voluntary agent, in the actual process of redemption, as +Eve had been instrumental and responsible in Adam's fall. They taught +that, as the first woman might have foiled the Tempter and did not, so, +if Mary had been disobedient or unbelieving on Gabriel's message, the +Divine Economy would have been frustrated. And certainly the parallel +between "the Mother of all living" and the Mother of the Redeemer may be +gathered from a comparison of the first chapters of Scripture with the +last. It was noticed in a former place, that the only passage where the +serpent is directly identified with the evil spirit occurs in the +twelfth chapter of the Revelation; now it is observable that the +recognition, when made, is found in the course of a vision of a "woman +clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet:" thus two women are +brought into contrast with each other. Moreover, as it is said in the +Apocalypse, "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went about to make +war with the remnant of her seed," so is it prophesied in Genesis, "I +will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her +Seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." Also +the enmity was to exist, not only between the Serpent and the Seed of +the woman, but between the serpent and the woman herself; and here too +there is a correspondence in the Apocalyptic vision. If then there is +reason for thinking that this mystery at the close of the Scripture +record answers to the mystery in the beginning of it, and that "the +Woman" mentioned in both passages is one and the same, then she can be +none other than St. Mary, thus introduced prophetically to our notice +immediately on the transgression of Eve. + + +2. + +Here, however, we are not so much concerned to interpret Scripture as to +examine the Fathers. Thus St. Justin says, "Eve, being a virgin and +incorrupt, having conceived the word from the Serpent, bore disobedience +and death; but Mary the Virgin, receiving faith and joy, when Gabriel +the Angel evangelized her, answered, 'Be it unto me according to thy +word.'"[416:1] And Tertullian says that, whereas Eve believed the +Serpent, and Mary believed Gabriel, "the fault of Eve in believing, Mary +by believing hath blotted out."[416:2] St. Irenæus speaks more +explicitly: "As Eve," he says . . . "becoming disobedient, became the +cause of death to herself and to all mankind, so Mary too, having the +predestined Man, and yet a Virgin, being obedient, became cause of +salvation both to herself and to all mankind."[417:1] This becomes the +received doctrine in the Post-nicene Church. + +One well-known instance occurs in the history of the third century of +St. Mary's interposition, and it is remarkable from the names of the two +persons, who were, one the subject, the other the historian of it. St. +Gregory Nyssen, a native of Cappadocia in the fourth century, relates +that his name-sake Bishop of Neo-cæsarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, in the +preceding century, shortly before he was called to the priesthood, +received in a vision a Creed, which is still extant, from the Blessed +Virgin at the hands of St. John. The account runs thus: He was deeply +pondering theological doctrine, which the heretics of the day depraved. +"In such thoughts," says his name-sake of Nyssa, "he was passing the +night, when one appeared, as if in human form, aged in appearance, +saintly in the fashion of his garments, and very venerable both in grace +of countenance and general mien. . . . Following with his eyes his +extended hand, he saw another appearance opposite to the former, in +shape of a woman, but more than human. . . . When his eyes could not +bear the apparition, he heard them conversing together on the subject +of his doubts; and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of the +faith, but learned their names, as they addressed each other by their +respective appellations. And thus he is said to have heard the person in +woman's shape bid 'John the Evangelist' disclose to the young man the +mystery of godliness; and he answered that he was ready to comply in +this matter with the wish of 'the Mother of the Lord,' and enunciated a +formulary, well-turned and complete, and so vanished." + +Gregory proceeds to rehearse the Creed thus given, "There is One God, +Father of a Living Word," &c.[418:1] Bull, after quoting it in his work +upon the Nicene Faith, refers to this history of its origin, and adds, +"No one should think it incredible that such a providence should befall +a man whose whole life was conspicuous for revelations and miracles, as +all ecclesiastical writers who have mentioned him (and who has not?) +witness with one voice."[418:2] + + +3. + +It is remarkable that St. Gregory Nazianzen relates an instance, even +more pointed, of St. Mary's intercession, contemporaneous with this +appearance to Thaumaturgus; but it is attended with mistake in the +narrative, which weakens its cogency as an evidence of the belief, not +indeed of the fourth century, in which St. Gregory lived, but of the +third. He speaks of a Christian woman having recourse to the protection +of St. Mary, and obtaining the conversion of a heathen who had attempted +to practise on her by magical arts. They were both martyred. + +In both these instances the Blessed Virgin appears especially in that +character of Patroness or Paraclete, which St. Irenæus and other Fathers +describe, and which the Medieval Church exhibits,--a loving Mother with +clients. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[404:1] Act. Arch. p. 85. Athan. c. Apoll. ii. 3.--Adam. Dial. iii. +init. Minuc. Dial. 11. Apul. Apol. p. 535. Kortholt. Cal. p. 63. Calmet, +Dict. t. 2, p. 736. Basil in Ps. 115, 4. + +[404:2] Vit. S. Cypr. 10. + +[406:1] Act. Procons. 5. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 22, 44. Euseb. Hist. +viii. 6. Julian, ap. Cyr. pp. 327, 335. August. c. Faust. xx. 4. + +[406:2] Clem. Strom. iv. 12. + +[407:1] Tertull. Apol. fin. Euseb. Hist. vi. 42. Orig. ad Martyr. 50. +Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 122, 323. + +[407:2] De Hab. Virg. 12. + +[408:1] Athenag. Leg. 33. + +[408:2] Lumper, Hist. t. 13, p. 439. + +[409:1] Galland. t. 3, p. 670. + +[410:1] Routh, Reliqu. t. 3, p. 414. Tertull. de Virg. Vel. 16 and 11. +Orig. in Num. Hom. 24, 2. Cyprian. Ep. 4, p. 8, ed. Fell. Ep. 62, p. +147. Euseb. V. Const. iv. 26. + +[410:2] Placuit picturas in ecclesiâ esse non debere, ne quod colitur +aut adoratur, in parietibus depingatur. Can. 36. + +[410:3] Answ. to a Jes. 10, p. 437. + +[410:4] P. 430. The "colitur _aut_ adoratur" marks a difference of +worship. + +[411:1] Dissuasive, i. 1, 8. + +[411:2] Ἐκεῖνον τε, καὶ τὸν παρ' αὐτοῦ υἱὸν ἐλθόντα καὶ διδάξαντα ἡμᾶς ταῦτα, [καὶ τὸν τῶν +ἄλλων ἑπομένων καὶ ἐξομοιουμένων ἀγαθῶν ἀγγέλων στρατὸν,] πνεῦμα τε τὸ προφητικὸν σεβόμεθα καὶ +προσκυνοῦμεν, λόγῳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ τιμῶντες καὶ παντὶ βουλομένῳ μαθεῖν, ὡς ἐδιδαχθημεν, ἀφθόνως +παραδιδόντες.--_Apol._ i. 6. The passage is parallel to the Prayer in the +Breviary: "Sacrosanctæ et individuæ Trinitati, Crucifixi Domini nostri +Jesu Christi humanitati, beatissimæ et gloriosissimæ semperque Virginis +Mariæ fœcundæ integritati, et omnium Sanctorum universitati, sit +sempiterna laus, honor, virtus, et gloria ab omni creaturâ," &c. + +[414:1] Test. Trin. pp. 16, 17, 18. + +[414:2] Dr. Kaye. + +[415:1] Pp. 19-21. + +[416:1] Tryph. 100. + +[416:2] Carn. Christ. 17. + +[417:1] Hær. iii. 22, § 4. + +[418:1] Nyss. Opp. t. ii. p. 977. + +[418:2] Def. F. N. ii. 12. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CONSERVATIVE ACTION ON ITS PAST. + +It is the general pretext of heretics that they are but serving and +protecting Christianity by their innovations; and it is their charge +against what by this time we may surely call the Catholic Church, that +her successive definitions of doctrine have but overlaid and obscured +it. That is, they assume, what we have no wish to deny, that a true +development is that which is conservative of its original, and a +corruption is that which tends to its destruction. This has already been +set down as a Sixth Test, discriminative of a development from a +corruption, and must now be applied to the Catholic doctrines; though +this Essay has so far exceeded its proposed limits, that both reader and +writer may well be weary, and may content themselves with a brief +consideration of the portions of the subject which remain. + +It has been observed already that a strict correspondence between the +various members of a development, and those of the doctrine from which +it is derived, is more than we have any right to expect. The bodily +structure of a grown man is not merely that of a magnified boy; he +differs from what he was in his make and proportions; still manhood is +the perfection of boyhood, adding something of its own, yet keeping +what it finds. "Ut nihil novum," says Vincentius, "proferatur in +senibus, quod non in pueris jam antea latitaverit." This character of +addition,--that is, of a change which is in one sense real and +perceptible, yet without loss or reversal of what was before, but, on +the contrary, protective and confirmative of it,--in many respects and +in a special way belongs to Christianity. + + +SECTION I. + +VARIOUS INSTANCES. + +If we take the simplest and most general view of its history, as +existing in an individual mind, or in the Church at large, we shall see +in it an instance of this peculiarity. It is the birth of something +virtually new, because latent in what was before. Thus we know that no +temper of mind is acceptable in the Divine Presence without love; it is +love which makes Christian fear differ from servile dread, and true +faith differ from the faith of devils; yet in the beginning of the +religious life, fear is the prominent evangelical grace, and love is but +latent in fear, and has in course of time to be developed out of what +seems its contradictory. Then, when it is developed, it takes that +prominent place which fear held before, yet protecting not superseding +it. Love is added, not fear removed, and the mind is but perfected in +grace by what seems a revolution. "They that sow in tears, reap in joy;" +yet afterwards still they are "sorrowful," though "alway rejoicing." + +And so was it with the Church at large. She started with suffering, +which turned to victory; but when she was set free from the house of her +prison, she did not quit it so much as turn it into a cell. Meekness +inherited the earth; strength came forth from weakness; the poor made +many rich; yet meekness and poverty remained. The rulers of the world +were Monks, when they could not be Martyrs. + + +2. + +Immediately on the overthrow of the heathen power, two movements +simultaneously ran through the world from East to West, as quickly as +the lightning in the prophecy, a development of worship and of +asceticism. Hence, while the world's first reproach in heathen times had +been that Christianity was a dark malevolent magic, its second has been +that it is a joyous carnal paganism;--according to that saying, "We have +piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye +have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they +say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they +say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and +sinners." Yet our Lord too was "a man of sorrows" all the while, but +softened His austerity by His gracious gentleness. + + +3. + +The like characteristic attends also on the mystery of His Incarnation. +He was first God and He became man; but Eutyches and heretics of his +school refused to admit that He was man, lest they should deny that He +was God. In consequence the Catholic Fathers are frequent and unanimous +in their asseverations, that "the Word" had become flesh, not to His +loss, but by an addition. Each Nature is distinct, but the created +Nature lives in and by the Eternal. "Non amittendo quod erat, sed +sumendo quod non erat," is the Church's principle. And hence, though the +course of development, as was observed in a former Chapter, has been to +bring into prominence the divine aspect of our Lord's mediation, this +has been attended by even a more open manifestation of the doctrine of +His atoning sufferings. The passion of our Lord is one of the most +imperative and engrossing subjects of Catholic teaching. It is the great +topic of meditations and prayers; it is brought into continual +remembrance by the sign of the Cross; it is preached to the world in the +Crucifix; it is variously honoured by the many houses of prayer, and +associations of religious men, and pious institutions and undertakings, +which in some way or other are placed under the name and the shadow of +Jesus, or the Saviour, or the Redeemer, or His Cross, or His Passion, or +His sacred Heart. + + +4. + +Here a singular development may be mentioned of the doctrine of the +Cross, which some have thought so contrary to its original +meaning,[422:1] as to be a manifest corruption; I mean the introduction +of the Sign of the meek Jesus into the armies of men, and the use of an +emblem of peace as a protection in battle. If light has no communion +with darkness, or Christ with Belial, what has He to do with Moloch, who +would not call down fire on His enemies, and came not to destroy but to +save? Yet this seeming anomaly is but one instance of a great law which +is seen in developments generally, that changes which appear at first +sight to contradict that out of which they grew, are really its +protection or illustration. Our Lord Himself is represented in the +Prophets as a combatant inflicting wounds while He received them, as +coming from Bozrah with dyed garments, sprinkled and red in His apparel +with the blood of His enemies; and, whereas no war is lawful but what is +just, it surely beseems that they who are engaged in so dreadful a +commission as that of taking away life at the price of their own, +should at least have the support of His Presence, and fight under the +mystical influence of His Name, who redeemed His elect as a combatant by +the Blood of Atonement, with the slaughter of His foes, the sudden +overthrow of the Jews, and the slow and awful fall of the Pagan Empire. +And if the wars of Christian nations have often been unjust, this is a +reason against much more than the use of religious symbols by the +parties who engage in them, though the pretence of religion may increase +the sin. + + +5. + +The same rule of development has been observed in respect of the +doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. It is the objection of the School of +Socinus, that belief in the Trinity is destructive of any true +maintenance of the Divine Unity, however strongly the latter may be +professed; but Petavius, as we have seen,[423:1] sets it down as one +especial recommendation of the Catholic doctrine, that it subserves that +original truth which at first sight it does but obscure and compromise. + + +6. + +This representation of the consistency of the Catholic system will be +found to be true, even in respect of those peculiarities of it, which +have been considered by Protestants most open to the charge of +corruption and innovation. It is maintained, for instance, that the +veneration paid to Images in the Catholic Church directly contradicts +the command of Scripture, and the usage of the primitive ages. As to +primitive usage, that part of the subject has been incidentally observed +upon already; here I will make one remark on the argument from +Scripture. + +It may be reasonably questioned, then, whether the Commandment which +stands second in the Protestant Decalogue, on which the prohibition of +Images is grounded, was intended in its letter for more than temporary +observance. So far is certain, that, though none could surpass the later +Jews in its literal observance, nevertheless this did not save them from +the punishments attached to the violation of it. If this be so, the +literal observance is not its true and evangelical import. + + +7. + +"When the generation to come of your children shall rise up after you," +says their inspired lawgiver, "and the stranger that shall come from a +far land shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its +sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it; and that the whole land +thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor +beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, . . . even all nations shall +say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the +heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken +the covenants of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them +when He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; for they went and +served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and +whom He had not given them." Now the Jews of our Lord's day did not keep +this covenant, for they incurred the penalty; yet they kept the letter +of the Commandment rigidly, and were known among the heathen far and +wide for their devotion to the "Lord God of their fathers who brought +them out of the land of Egypt," and for their abhorrence of the "gods +whom He had not given them." If then adherence to the letter was no +protection to the Jews, departure from the letter may be no guilt in +Christians. + +It should be observed, moreover, that there certainly is a difference +between the two covenants in their respective view of symbols of the +Almighty. In the Old, it was blasphemy to represent Him under "the +similitude of a calf that eateth hay;" in the New, the Third Person of +the Holy Trinity has signified His Presence by the appearance of a Dove, +and the Second Person has presented His sacred Humanity for worship +under the name of the Lamb. + + +8. + +It follows that, if the letter of the Decalogue is but partially binding +on Christians, it is as justifiable, in setting it before persons under +instruction, to omit such parts as do not apply to them, as, when we +quote passages from the Pentateuch in Sermons or Lectures generally, to +pass over verses which refer simply to the temporal promises or the +ceremonial law, a practice which we allow without any intention or +appearance of dealing irreverently with the sacred text. + + +SECTION II. + +DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN. + +It has been anxiously asked, whether the honours paid to St. Mary, which +have grown out of devotion to her Almighty Lord and Son, do not, in +fact, tend to weaken that devotion; and whether, from the nature of the +case, it is possible so to exalt a creature without withdrawing the +heart from the Creator. + +In addition to what has been said on this subject in foregoing Chapters, +I would here observe that the question is one of fact, not of +presumption or conjecture. The abstract lawfulness of the honours paid +to St. Mary, and their distinction in theory from the incommunicable +worship paid to God, are points which have already been dwelt upon; but +here the question turns upon their practicability or expedience, which +must be determined by the fact whether they are practicable, and whether +they have been found to be expedient. + + +1. + +Here I observe, first, that, to those who admit the authority of the +Fathers of Ephesus, the question is in no slight degree answered by +their sanction of the θεοτόκος, or "Mother of God," as a title of St. +Mary, and as given in order to protect the doctrine of the Incarnation, +and to preserve the faith of Catholics from a specious Humanitarianism. +And if we take a survey at least of Europe, we shall find that it is not +those religious communions which are characterized by devotion towards +the Blessed Virgin that have ceased to adore her Eternal Son, but those +very bodies, (when allowed by the law,) which have renounced devotion to +her. The regard for His glory, which was professed in that keen jealousy +of her exaltation, has not been supported by the event. They who were +accused of worshipping a creature in His stead, still worship Him; their +accusers, who hoped to worship Him so purely, they, wherever obstacles +to the development of their principles have been removed, have ceased to +worship Him altogether. + + +2. + +Next, it must be observed, that the tone of the devotion paid to the +Blessed Mary is altogether distinct from that which is paid to her +Eternal Son, and to the Holy Trinity, as we must certainly allow on +inspection of the Catholic services. The supreme and true worship paid +to the Almighty is severe, profound, awful, as well as tender, +confiding, and dutiful. Christ is addressed as true God, while He is +true Man; as our Creator and Judge, while He is most loving, gentle, and +gracious. On the other hand, towards St. Mary the language employed is +affectionate and ardent, as towards a mere child of Adam; though +subdued, as coming from her sinful kindred. How different, for instance, +is the tone of the _Dies Iræ_ from that of the _Stabat Mater_. In the +"Tristis et afflicta Mater Unigeniti," in the "Virgo virginum præclara +Mihi jam non sis amara, Pœnas mecum divide," in the "Fac me vere +tecum flere," we have an expression of the feelings with which we regard +one who is a creature and a mere human being; but in the "Rex tremendæ +majestatis qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me Fons pietatis," the "Ne +me perdas illâ die," the "Juste judex ultionis, donum fac remissionis," +the "Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis," the "Pie Jesu +Domine, dona eis requiem," we hear the voice of the creature raised in +hope and love, yet in deep awe to his Creator, Infinite Benefactor, and +Judge. + +Or again, how distinct is the language of the Breviary Services on the +Festival of Pentecost, or of the Holy Trinity, from the language of the +Services for the Assumption! How indescribably majestic, solemn, and +soothing is the "Veni Creator Spiritus," the "Altissimi donum Dei, Fons +vivus, ignis, charitas," or the "Vera et una Trinitas, una et summa +Deitas, sancta et una Unitas," the "Spes nostra, salus nostra, honor +noster, O beata Trinitas," the "Charitas Pater, gratia Filius, +communicatio Spiritus Sanctus, O beata Trinitas;" "Libera nos, salva +nos, vivifica nos, O beata Trinitas!" How fond, on the contrary, how +full of sympathy and affection, how stirring and animating, in the +Office for the Assumption, is the "Virgo prudentissima, quo progrederis, +quasi aurora valde rutilans? filia Sion, tota formosa et suavis es, +pulcra ut luna, electa ut sol;" the "Sicut dies verni circumdabant eam +flores rosarum, et lilia convallium;" the "Maria Virgo assumpta est ad +æthereum thalamum in quo Rex regum stellato sedet solio;" and the +"Gaudent Angeli, laudantes benedicunt Dominum." And so again, the +Antiphon, the "Ad te clamamus exules filii Hevæ, ad te suspiramus +gementes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle," and "Eia ergo, advocata +nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte," and "O clemens, +O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria." Or the Hymn, "Ave Maris stella, Dei Mater +alma," and "Virgo singularis, inter omnes mitis, nos culpis solutos, +mites fac et castos." + + +3. + +Nor does it avail to object that, in this contrast of devotional +exercises, the human will supplant the Divine, from the infirmity of our +nature; for, I repeat, the question is one of fact, whether it has done +so. And next it must be asked, whether the character of much of the +Protestant devotion towards our Lord has been that of adoration at all; +and not rather such as we pay to an excellent human being, that is, no +higher devotion than that which Catholics pay to St. Mary, differing +from it, however, in often being familiar, rude, and earthly. Carnal +minds will ever create a carnal worship for themselves; and to forbid +them the service of the Saints will have no tendency to teach them the +worship of God. + +Moreover, it must be observed, what is very important, that great and +constant as is the devotion which the Catholic pays to the Blessed Mary, +it has a special province, and has far more connexion with the public +services and the festive aspect of Christianity, and with certain +extraordinary offices which she holds, than with what is strictly +personal and primary in religion. + +Two instances will serve in illustration of this, and they are but +samples of many others.[428:1] + + +4. + +(1.) For example, St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises are among the most +approved methods of devotion in the modern Catholic Church; they proceed +from one of the most celebrated of her Saints, and have the praise of +Popes, and of the most eminent masters of the spiritual life. A Bull of +Paul the Third's "approves, praises, and sanctions all and everything +contained in them;" indulgences are granted to the performance of them +by the same Pope, by Alexander the Seventh, and by Benedict the +Fourteenth. St. Carlo Borromeo declared that he learned more from them +than from all other books together; St. Francis de Sales calls them "a +holy method of reformation," and they are the model on which all the +extraordinary devotions of religious men or bodies, and the course of +missions, are conducted. If there is a document which is the +authoritative exponent of the inward communion of the members of the +modern Catholic Church with their God and Saviour, it is this work. + +The Exercises are directed to the removal of obstacles in the way of the +soul's receiving and profiting by the gifts of God. They undertake to +effect this in three ways; by removing all objects of this world, and, +as it were, bringing the soul "into the solitude where God may speak to +its heart;" next, by setting before it the ultimate end of man, and its +own deviations from it, the beauty of holiness, and the pattern of +Christ; and, lastly, by giving rules for its correction. They consist of +a course of prayers, meditations, self-examinations, and the like, which +in its complete extent lasts thirty days; and these are divided into +three stages,--the _Via Purgativa_, in which sin is the main subject of +consideration; the _Via Illuminativa_, which is devoted to the +contemplation of our Lord's passion, involving the process of the +determination of our calling; and the _Via Unitiva_, in which we proceed +to the contemplation of our Lord's resurrection and ascension. + + +5. + +No more need be added in order to introduce the remark for which I have +referred to these Exercises; viz. that in a work so highly sanctioned, +so widely received, so intimately bearing upon the most sacred points of +personal religion, very slight mention occurs of devotion to the Blessed +Virgin, Mother of God. There is one mention of her in the rule given for +the first Prelude or preparation, in which the person meditating is +directed to consider as before him a church, or other place with Christ +in it, St. Mary, and whatever else is suitable to the subject of +meditation. Another is in the third Exercise, in which one of the three +addresses is made to our Lady, Christ's Mother, requesting earnestly +"her intercession with her Son;" to which is to be added the Ave Mary. +In the beginning of the Second Week there is a form of offering +ourselves to God in the presence of "His infinite goodness," and with +the witness of His "glorious Virgin Mother Mary, and the whole host of +heaven." At the end of the Meditation upon the Angel Gabriel's mission +to St. Mary, there is an address to each Divine Person, to "the Word +Incarnate and to His Mother." In the Meditation upon the Two Standards, +there is an address prescribed to St. Mary to implore grace from her Son +through her, with an Ave Mary after it. + +In the beginning of the Third Week one address is prescribed to Christ; +or three, if devotion incites, to Mother, Son, and Father. In the +description given of three different modes of prayer we are told, if we +would imitate the Blessed Mary, we must recommend ourselves to her, as +having power with her Son, and presently the Ave Mary, _Salve Regina_, +and other forms are prescribed, as is usual after all prayers. And this +is pretty much the whole of the devotion, if it may so be called, which +is recommended towards St. Mary in the course of so many apparently as a +hundred and fifty Meditations, and those chiefly on the events in our +Lord's earthly history as recorded in Scripture. It would seem then that +whatever be the influence of the doctrines connected with the Blessed +Virgin and the Saints in the Catholic Church, at least they do not +impede or obscure the freest exercise and the fullest manifestation of +the devotional feelings towards God and Christ. + + +6. + +(2.) The other instance which I give in illustration is of a different +kind, but is suitable to mention. About forty little books have come +into my possession which are in circulation among the laity at Rome, and +answer to the smaller publications of the Christian Knowledge Society +among ourselves. They have been taken almost at hazard from a number of +such works, and are of various lengths; some running to as many as two +or three hundred pages, others consisting of scarce a dozen. They may be +divided into three classes:--a third part consists of books on practical +subjects; another third is upon the Incarnation and Passion; and of the +rest, a portion is upon the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, +with two or three for the use of Missions, but the greater part is about +the Blessed Virgin. + +As to the class on practical subjects, they are on such as the +following: "La Consolazione degl' Infermi;" "Pensieri di una donna sul +vestire moderno;" "L'Inferno Aperto;" "Il Purgatorio Aperto;" St. +Alphonso Liguori's "Massime eterne;" other Maxims by St. Francis de +Sales for every day in the year; "Pratica per ben confessarsi e +communicarsi;" and the like. + +The titles of the second class on the Incarnation and Passion are such +as "Gesu dalla Croce al cuore del peccatore;" "Novena del Ss. Natale di +G. C.;" "Associazione pel culto perpetuo del divin cuore;" "Compendio +della Passione." + +In the third are "Il Mese Eucaristico," "Il divoto di Maria," Feasts of +the Blessed Virgin, &c. + + +7. + +These books in all three divisions are, as even the titles of some of +them show, in great measure made up of Meditations; such are the "Breve +e pie Meditazioni" of P. Crasset; the "Meditazioni per ciascun giorno +del mese sulla Passione;" the "Meditazioni per l'ora Eucaristica." Now +of these it may be said generally, that in the body of the Meditation +St. Mary is hardly mentioned at all. For instance, in the Meditations on +the Passion, a book used for distribution, through two hundred and +seventy-seven pages St. Mary is not once named. In the Prayers for Mass +which are added, she is introduced, at the Confiteor, thus, "I pray the +Virgin, the Angels, the Apostles, and all the Saints of heaven to +intercede," &c.; and in the Preparation for Penance, she is once +addressed, after our Lord, as the Refuge of sinners, with the Saints and +Guardian Angel; and at the end of the Exercise there is a similar prayer +of four lines for the intercession of St. Mary, Angels and Saints of +heaven. In the Exercise for Communion, in a prayer to our Lord, "my only +and infinite good, my treasure, my life, my paradise, my all," the +merits of the Saints are mentioned, "especially of St. Mary." She is +also mentioned with Angels and Saints at the termination. + +In a collection of "Spiritual Lauds" for Missions, of thirty-six Hymns, +we find as many as eleven addressed to St. Mary, or relating to her, +among which are translations of the _Ave Maris Stella_, and the _Stabat +Mater_, and the _Salve Regina_; and one is on "the sinner's reliance on +Mary." Five, however, which are upon Repentance, are entirely engaged +upon the subjects of our Lord and sin, with the exception of an address +to St. Mary at the end of two of them. Seven others, upon sin, the +Crucifixion, and the Four Last Things, do not mention the Blessed +Virgin's name. + +To the Manual for the Perpetual Adoration of the Divine Heart of Jesus +there is appended one chapter on the Immaculate Conception. + + +8. + +One of the most important of these books is the French _Pensez-y bien_, +which seems a favourite, since there are two translations of it, one of +them being the fifteenth edition; and it is used for distribution in +Missions. In these reflections there is scarcely a word said of St. +Mary. At the end there is a Method of reciting the Crown of the Seven +Dolours of the Virgin Mary, which contains seven prayers to her, and the +_Stabat Mater_. + +One of the longest in the whole collection is a tract consisting +principally of Meditations on the Holy Communion; under the title of the +"Eucharistic Month," as already mentioned. In these "Preparations," +"Aspirations," &c., St. Mary is but once mentioned, and that in a prayer +addressed to our Lord. "O my sweetest Brother," it says with an allusion +to the Canticles, "who, being made Man for my salvation, hast sucked the +milk from the virginal breast of her, who is my Mother by grace," &c. In +a small "Instruction" given to children on their first Communion, there +are the following questions and answers: "Is our Lady in the Host? No. +Are the Angels and the Saints? No. Why not? Because they have no place +there." + + +9. + +Now coming to those in the third class, which directly relate to the +Blessed Mary, such as "Esercizio ad Onore dell' addolorato cuore di +Maria," "Novena di Preparazione alla festa dell' Assunzione," "Li +Quindici Misteri del Santo Rosario," the principal is Father Segneri's +"Il divoto di Maria," which requires a distinct notice. It is far from +the intention of these remarks to deny the high place which the Holy +Virgin holds in the devotion of Catholics; I am but bringing evidence of +its not interfering with that incommunicable and awful relation which +exists between the creature and the Creator; and, if the foregoing +instances show, as far as they go, that that relation is preserved +inviolate in such honours as are paid to St. Mary, so will this treatise +throw light upon the _rationale_ by which the distinction is preserved +between the worship of God and the honour of an exalted creature, and +that in singular accordance with the remarks made in the foregoing +Section. + + +10. + +This work of Segneri is written against persons who continue in sins +under pretence of their devotion to St. Mary, and in consequence he is +led to draw out the idea which good Catholics have of her. The idea is +this, that she is absolutely the first of created beings. Thus the +treatise says, that "God might have easily made a more beautiful +firmament, and a greener earth, but it was not possible to make a higher +Mother than the Virgin Mary; and in her formation there has been +conferred on mere creatures all the glory of which they are capable, +remaining mere creatures," p. 34. And as containing all created +perfection, she has all those attributes, which, as was noticed above, +the Arians and other heretics applied to our Lord, and which the Church +denied of Him as infinitely below His Supreme Majesty. Thus she is "the +created Idea in the making of the world," p. 20; "which, as being a more +exact copy of the Incarnate Idea than was elsewhere to be found, was +used as the original of the rest of the creation," p. 21. To her are +applied the words, "Ego primogenita prodivi ex ore Altissimi," because +she was predestinated in the Eternal Mind coevally with the Incarnation +of her Divine Son. But to Him alone the title of Wisdom Incarnate is +reserved, p. 25. Again, Christ is the First-born by nature; the Virgin +in a less sublime order, viz. that of adoption. Again, if omnipotence is +ascribed to her, it is a participated omnipotence (as she and all Saints +have a participated sonship, divinity, glory, holiness, and worship), +and is explained by the words, "Quod Deus imperio, tu prece, Virgo, +potes." + + +11. + +Again, a special office is assigned to the Blessed Virgin, that is, +special as compared with all other Saints; but it is marked off with the +utmost precision from that assigned to our Lord. Thus she is said to +have been made "the arbitress of every _effect_ coming from God's +mercy." Because she is the Mother of God, the salvation of mankind is +said to be given to her prayers "_de congruo_, but _de condigno_ it is +due only to the blood of the Redeemer," p. 113. Merit is ascribed to +Christ, and prayer to St. Mary, p. 162. The whole may be expressed in +the words, "_Unica_ spes mea Jesus, et post Jesum Virgo Maria. Amen." + +Again, a distinct _cultus_ is assigned to Mary, but the reason of it is +said to be the transcendent dignity of her Son. "A particular _cultus_ +is due to the Virgin beyond comparison greater than that given to any +other Saint, because her dignity belongs to another order, namely to one +which in some sense belongs to the order of the Hypostatic Union itself, +and is necessarily connected with it," p. 41. And "Her being the Mother +of God is the source of all the extraordinary honours due to Mary," p. +35. + +It is remarkable that the "Monstra te esse Matrem" is explained, p. 158, +as "Show thyself to be _our_ Mother;" an interpretation which I think I +have found elsewhere in these Tracts, and also in a book commonly used +in religious houses, called the "Journal of Meditations," and +elsewhere.[436:1] + +It must be kept in mind that my object here is not to prove the dogmatic +accuracy of what these popular publications teach concerning the +prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin, but to show that that teaching is +not such as to obscure the divine glory of her Son. We must ask for +clearer evidence before we are able to admit so grave a charge; and so +much may suffice on the Sixth Test of fidelity in the development of an +idea, as applied to the Catholic system. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[422:1] Supr. p. 173. + +[423:1] Supr. p. 174. + +[428:1] _E. g._ the "De Imitatione," the "Introduction à la Vie Dévote," +the "Spiritual Combat," the "Anima Divota," the "Paradisus Animæ," the +"Regula Cleri," the "Garden of the Soul," &c. &c. [Also, the Roman +Catechism, drawn up expressly for Parish instruction, a book in which, +out of nearly 600 pages, scarcely half-a-dozen make mention of the +Blessed Virgin, though without any disparagement thereby, or thought of +disparagement, of her special prerogatives.] + +[436:1] [Vid. Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 121-2.] + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CHRONIC VIGOUR. + +We have arrived at length at the seventh and last test, which was laid +down when we started, for distinguishing the true development of an idea +from its corruptions and perversions: it is this. A corruption, if +vigorous, is of brief duration, runs itself out quickly, and ends in +death; on the other hand, if it lasts, it fails in vigour and passes +into a decay. This general law gives us additional assistance in +determining the character of the developments of Christianity commonly +called Catholic. + + +2. + +When we consider the succession of ages during which the Catholic system +has endured, the severity of the trials it has undergone, the sudden and +wonderful changes without and within which have befallen it, the +incessant mental activity and the intellectual gifts of its maintainers, +the enthusiasm which it has kindled, the fury of the controversies which +have been carried on among its professors, the impetuosity of the +assaults made upon it, the ever-increasing responsibilities to which it +has been committed by the continuous development of its dogmas, it is +quite inconceivable that it should not have been broken up and lost, +were it a corruption of Christianity. Yet it is still living, if there +be a living religion or philosophy in the world; vigorous, energetic, +persuasive, progressive; _vires acquirit eundo_; it grows and is not +overgrown; it spreads out, yet is not enfeebled; it is ever germinating, +yet ever consistent with itself. Corruptions indeed are to be found +which sleep and are suspended; and these, as I have said, are usually +called "decays:" such is not the case with Catholicity; it does not +sleep, it is not stationary even now; and that its long series of +developments should be corruptions would be an instance of sustained +error, so novel, so unaccountable, so preternatural, as to be little +short of a miracle, and to rival those manifestations of Divine Power +which constitute the evidence of Christianity. We sometimes view with +surprise and awe the degree of pain and disarrangement which the human +frame can undergo without succumbing; yet at length there comes an end. +Fevers have their crisis, fatal or favourable; but this corruption of a +thousand years, if corruption it be, has ever been growing nearer death, +yet never reaching it, and has been strengthened, not debilitated, by +its excesses. + + +3. + +For instance: when the Empire was converted, multitudes, as is very +plain, came into the Church on but partially religious motives, and with +habits and opinions infected with the false worships which they had +professedly abandoned. History shows us what anxiety and effort it cost +her rulers to keep Paganism out of her pale. To this tendency must be +added the hazard which attended on the development of the Catholic +ritual, such as the honours publicly assigned to Saints and Martyrs, the +formal veneration of their relics, and the usages and observances which +followed. What was to hinder the rise of a sort of refined Pantheism, +and the overthrow of dogmatism _pari passu_ with the multiplication of +heavenly intercessors and patrons? If what is called in reproach +"Saint-worship" resembled the polytheism which it supplanted, or was a +corruption, how did Dogmatism survive? Dogmatism is a religion's +profession of its own reality as contrasted with other systems; but +polytheists are liberals, and hold that one religion is as good as +another. Yet the theological system was developing and strengthening, as +well as the monastic rule, which is intensely anti-pantheistic, all the +while the ritual was assimilating itself, as Protestants say, to the +Paganism of former ages. + + +4. + +Nor was the development of dogmatic theology, which was then taking +place, a silent and spontaneous process. It was wrought out and carried +through under the fiercest controversies, and amid the most fearful +risks. The Catholic faith was placed in a succession of perils, and +rocked to and fro like a vessel at sea. Large portions of Christendom +were, one after another, in heresy or in schism; the leading Churches +and the most authoritative schools fell from time to time into serious +error; three Popes, Liberius, Vigilius, Honorius, have left to posterity +the burden of their defence: but these disorders were no interruption to +the sustained and steady march of the sacred science from implicit +belief to formal statement. The series of ecclesiastical decisions, in +which its progress was ever and anon signified, alternate between the +one and the other side of the theological dogma especially in question, +as if fashioning it into shape by opposite strokes. The controversy +began in Apollinaris, who confused or denied the Two Natures in Christ, +and was condemned by Pope Damasus. A reaction followed, and Theodore of +Mopsuestia suggested by his teaching the doctrine of Two Persons. After +Nestorius had brought that heresy into public view, and had incurred in +consequence the anathema of the Third Ecumenical Council, the current of +controversy again shifted its direction; for Eutyches appeared, +maintained the One Nature, and was condemned at Chalcedon. Something +however was still wanting to the overthrow of the Nestorian doctrine of +Two Persons, and the Fifth Council was formally directed against the +writings of Theodore and his party. Then followed the Monothelite +heresy, which was a revival of the Eutychian or Monophysite, and was +condemned in the Sixth. Lastly, Nestorianism once more showed itself in +the Adoptionists of Spain, and gave occasion to the great Council of +Frankfort. Any one false step would have thrown the whole theory of the +doctrine into irretrievable confusion; but it was as if some one +individual and perspicacious intellect, to speak humanly, ruled the +theological discussion from first to last. That in the long course of +centuries, and in spite of the failure, in points of detail, of the most +gifted Fathers and Saints, the Church thus wrought out the one and only +consistent theory which can be taken on the great doctrine in dispute, +proves how clear, simple, and exact her vision of that doctrine was. But +it proves more than this. Is it not utterly incredible, that with this +thorough comprehension of so great a mystery, as far as the human mind +can know it, she should be at that very time in the commission of the +grossest errors in religious worship, and should be hiding the God and +Mediator, whose Incarnation she contemplated with so clear an intellect, +behind a crowd of idols? + + +5. + +The integrity of the Catholic developments is still more evident when +they are viewed in contrast with the history of other doctrinal systems. +Philosophies and religions of the world have each its day, and are parts +of a succession. They supplant and are in turn supplanted. But the +Catholic religion alone has had no limits; it alone has ever been +greater than the emergence, and can do what others cannot do. If it were +a falsehood, or a corruption, like the systems of men, it would be weak +as they are; whereas it is able even to impart to them a strength which +they have not, and it uses them for its own purposes, and locates them +in its own territory. The Church can extract good from evil, or at least +gets no harm from it. She inherits the promise made to the disciples, +that they should take up serpents, and, if they drank any deadly thing, +it should not hurt them. When evil has clung to her, and the barbarian +people have looked on with curiosity or in malice, till she should have +swollen or fallen down suddenly, she has shaken the venomous beast into +the fire, and felt no harm. + + +6. + +Eusebius has set before us this attribute of Catholicism in a passage in +his history. "These attempts," he says, speaking of the acts of the +enemy, "did not long avail him, Truth ever consolidating itself, and, as +time goes on, shining into broader day. For, while the devices of +adversaries were extinguished at once, undone by their very +impetuosity,--one heresy after another presenting its own novelty, the +former specimens ever dissolving and wasting variously in manifold and +multiform shapes,--the brightness of the Catholic and only true Church +went forward increasing and enlarging, yet ever in the same things, and +in the same way, beaming on the whole race of Greeks and barbarians with +the awfulness, and simplicity, and nobleness, and sobriety, and purity +of its divine polity and philosophy. Thus the calumny against our whole +creed died with its day, and there continued alone our Discipline, +sovereign among all, and acknowledged to be pre-eminent in awfulness, +sobriety, and divine and philosophical doctrines; so that no one of this +day dares to cast any base reproach upon our faith, nor any calumny, +such as it was once usual for our enemies to use."[442:1] + + +7. + +The Psalmist says, "We went through fire and water;" nor is it possible +to imagine trials fiercer or more various than those from which +Catholicism has come forth uninjured, as out of the Egyptian sea or the +Babylonian furnace. First of all were the bitter persecutions of the +Pagan Empire in the early centuries; then its sudden conversion, the +liberty of Christian worship, the development of the _cultus sanctorum_, +and the reception of Monachism into the ecclesiastical system. Then came +the irruption of the barbarians, and the occupation by them of the +_orbis terrarum_ from the North, and by the Saracens from the South. +Meanwhile the anxious and protracted controversy concerning the +Incarnation hung like some terrible disease upon the faith of the +Church. Then came the time of thick darkness; and afterwards two great +struggles, one with the material power, the other with the intellect, of +the world, terminating in the ecclesiastical monarchy, and in the +theology of the schools. And lastly came the great changes consequent +upon the controversies of the sixteenth century. Is it conceivable that +any one of those heresies, with which ecclesiastical history abounds, +should have gone through a hundredth part of these trials, yet have come +out of them so nearly what it was before, as Catholicism has done? Could +such a theology as Arianism have lasted through the scholastic contest? +or Montanism have endured to possess the world, without coming to a +crisis, and failing? or could the imbecility of the Manichean system, as +a religion, have escaped exposure, had it been brought into conflict +with the barbarians of the Empire, or the feudal system? + + +8. + +A similar contrast discovers itself in the respective effects and +fortunes of certain influential principles or usages, which have both +been introduced into the Catholic system, and are seen in operation +elsewhere. When a system really is corrupt, powerful agents, when +applied to it, do but develope that corruption, and bring it the more +speedily to an end. They stimulate it preternaturally; it puts forth its +strength, and dies in some memorable act. Very different has been the +history of Catholicism, when it has committed itself to such formidable +influences. It has borne, and can bear, principles or doctrines, which +in other systems of religion quickly degenerate into fanaticism or +infidelity. This might be shown at great length in the history of the +Aristotelic philosophy within and without the Church; or in the history +of Monachism, or of Mysticism;--not that there has not been at first a +conflict between these powerful and unruly elements and the Divine +System into which they were entering, but that it ended in the victory +of Catholicism. The theology of St. Thomas, nay of the Church of his +period, is built on that very Aristotelism, which the early Fathers +denounce as the source of all misbelief, and in particular of the Arian +and Monophysite heresies. The exercises of asceticism, which are so +graceful in St. Antony, so touching in St. Basil, and so awful in St. +Germanus, do but become a melancholy and gloomy superstition even in the +most pious persons who are cut off from Catholic communion. And while +the highest devotion in the Church is the mystical, and contemplation +has been the token of the most singularly favoured Saints, we need not +look deeply into the history of modern sects, for evidence of the +excesses in conduct, or the errors in doctrine, to which mystics have +been commonly led, who have boasted of their possession of reformed +truth, and have rejected what they called the corruptions of +Catholicism. + + +9. + +It is true, there have been seasons when, from the operation of external +or internal causes, the Church has been thrown into what was almost a +state of _deliquium_; but her wonderful revivals, while the world was +triumphing over her, is a further evidence of the absence of corruption +in the system of doctrine and worship into which she has developed. If +corruption be an incipient disorganization, surely an abrupt and +absolute recurrence to the former state of vigour, after an interval, is +even less conceivable than a corruption that is permanent. Now this is +the case with the revivals I speak of. After violent exertion men are +exhausted and fall asleep; they awake the same as before, refreshed by +the temporary cessation of their activity; and such has been the slumber +and such the restoration of the Church. She pauses in her course, and +almost suspends her functions; she rises again, and she is herself once +more; all things are in their place and ready for action. Doctrine is +where it was, and usage, and precedence, and principle, and policy; +there may be changes, but they are consolidations or adaptations; all is +unequivocal and determinate, with an identity which there is no +disputing. Indeed it is one of the most popular charges against the +Catholic Church at this very time, that she is "incorrigible;"--change +she cannot, if we listen to St. Athanasius or St. Leo; change she never +will, if we believe the controversialist or alarmist of the present day. + + * * * * * + +Such were the thoughts concerning the "Blessed Vision of Peace," of one +whose long-continued petition had been that the Most Merciful would not +despise the work of His own Hands, nor leave him to himself;--while yet +his eyes were dim, and his breast laden, and he could but employ Reason +in the things of Faith. And now, dear Reader, time is short, eternity is +long. Put not from you what you have here found; regard it not as mere +matter of present controversy; set not out resolved to refute it, and +looking about for the best way of doing so; seduce not yourself with the +imagination that it comes of disappointment, or disgust, or +restlessness, or wounded feeling, or undue sensibility, or other +weakness. Wrap not yourself round in the associations of years past; nor +determine that to be truth which you wish to be so, nor make an idol of +cherished anticipations. Time is short, eternity is long. + + NUNC DIMITTIS SERVUM TUUM, DOMINE, + SECUNDUM VERBUM TUUM IN PACE: + QUIA VIDERUNT OCULI MEI SALUTARE TUUM. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[442:1] Euseb. Hist. iv. 7, _ap._ Church of the Fathers [Historical +Sketches, vol. i. p. 408]. + + +THE END. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + +The abbreviations i. e. and e. g. have been spaced throughout the text +for consistency. + +The following corrections have been made to the text: + + Page 5: or the vicissitudes[original has vicissisudes] of + human affairs + + Page 20: St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures.[period + missing in original] + + Page 39: but is modified, or[original has or or] at least + influenced + + Page 100: professes to accept,[original has period] and which, + do what he will + + Page 102: and more explicit than the text.[period missing in + original] + + Page 118: which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene[original has + Antenicene] period + + Page 133: almost universality in the primitive Church.[133:1] + [footnote anchor missing in original--position verified in an + earlier edition] + + Page 172: whether fairly or not does not interfere[original + has interefere] + + Page 227: a good-humoured superstition[original has + supersition] + + Page 288: He explained St. Thomas's[original has extraneous + comma] + + Page 306: of Himeria in Osrhoene[original has Orshoëne] + + Page 309: During the interval, Dioscorus[original has + Discorus] was tried + + Page 320: to contain scarcely[original has scarely] a single + inhabitant + + Page 336: derive its efficacy from human faith."[quotation + mark missing in original] + + Page 344: orthodoxy will stand or fall together.[period + missing in original] + + Page 365: true Unitarianism of St.[period missing in original] + Augustine. + + Page 416: as it is said in the Apocalypse,[original has + extraneous quotation mark] "The dragon + + [13:2] British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193.[period missing in + original] + + [18:3] Basil,[original has period] ed. Ben.[period missing in + original] vol. 3,[comma missing in original] p. xcvi. + + [81:2] _Essay on Assent_, ch. vii. sect. 2.[period missing in + original] + + [148:1] In Psalm 118, v. 3,[original has period] de Instit. + Virg. 50. + + [162:1] Serm.[period missing in original] De Natal. iii. 3. + + [213:1] p. 296, t. 5, mem. p. 63, t. 16,[comma missing in + original] mem. p. 267 + + [216:1] Sueton. Tiber.[period missing in original] 36 + + [234:3] [footnote number missing in original] Acad. Inscr. ibid. + + [235:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch.[period missing in original] 16, note + 14. + + [237:2] In hon. Rom. 62.[original has comma] In Act. S. Cypr. + 4 + + [259:1] Hær. 42,[original has period] p. 366. + + [280:1] De Gub.[period missing in original] D. iv. p. 73. + + [288:1] Lengerke, de Ephrem[original has extraneous period] + Syr. pp. 73-75. + + [302:2] overthrow of all heresy, _especially_ the + Arian,[original has period] + + [331:2] _Vid._ also _supr._[period missing in original] p. + 256. + + [369:1] Infra,[original has period] pp. 411-415, &c. + + [371:1] Epp.[period missing in original] 102, 18. + + [371:2] Contr. Faust.[original has comma] 20, 23. + + [371:3] August.[letter "s" not printed in original] Ep. 102, + 18 + + [399:1] Rosweyde,[original has period] V. P. p. 618. + + [442:1] Euseb.[period missing in original] Hist. iv. 7 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on the Development of +Christian Doctrine, by John Henry Cardinal Newman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT *** + +***** This file should be named 35110-0.txt or 35110-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/1/35110/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lisa Reigel, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/35110-0.zip b/35110-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..99ba3e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/35110-0.zip diff --git a/35110-8.txt b/35110-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7694138 --- /dev/null +++ b/35110-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15153 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Development of Christian Doctrine, by +John Henry Cardinal Newman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Development of Christian Doctrine + +Author: John Henry Cardinal Newman + +Release Date: January 29, 2011 [EBook #35110] +Last Updated: July 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lisa Reigel, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + +Transcriber's Notes: Greek words in this text have been transliterated +and placed between +plus signs+. Words in italics in the original are +surrounded by _underscores_. A row of asterisks represents a thought +break. + +Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the +original. Words with and without accents appear as in the original. In +this text, semi-colons and colons are used indiscriminately. They appear +as in the original. Ellipses match the original. + +A few typographical errors have been corrected. A complete list follows +the text. + + + + + AN ESSAY + + ON THE + + DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN + DOCTRINE. + + + BY + + JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN. + + + _SIXTH EDITION_ + + + UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS + NOTRE DAME, INDIANA + + + + +TO THE + +REV. SAMUEL WILLIAM WAYTE, B.D. + +PRESIDENT OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. + + +MY DEAR PRESIDENT, + +Not from any special interest which I anticipate you will take in this +Volume, or any sympathy you will feel in its argument, or intrinsic +fitness of any kind in my associating you and your Fellows with it,-- + +But, because I have nothing besides it to offer you, in token of my +sense of the gracious compliment which you and they have paid me in +making me once more a Member of a College dear to me from Undergraduate +memories;-- + +Also, because of the happy coincidence, that whereas its first +publication was contemporaneous with my leaving Oxford, its second +becomes, by virtue of your act, contemporaneous with a recovery of my +position there:-- + +Therefore it is that, without your leave or your responsibility, I take +the bold step of placing your name in the first pages of what, at my +age, I must consider the last print or reprint on which I shall ever be +engaged. + + I am, my dear President, + Most sincerely yours, + JOHN H. NEWMAN. + +_February 23, 1878._ + + + + +PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1878. + + +The following pages were not in the first instance written to prove the +divinity of the Catholic Religion, though ultimately they furnish a +positive argument in its behalf, but to explain certain difficulties in +its history, felt before now by the author himself, and commonly +insisted on by Protestants in controversy, as serving to blunt the force +of its _prim facie_ and general claims on our recognition. + +However beautiful and promising that Religion is in theory, its history, +we are told, is its best refutation; the inconsistencies, found age +after age in its teaching, being as patent as the simultaneous +contrarieties of religious opinion manifest in the High, Low, and Broad +branches of the Church of England. + +In reply to this specious objection, it is maintained in this Essay +that, granting that some large variations of teaching in its long course +of 1800 years exist, nevertheless, these, on examination, will be found +to arise from the nature of the case, and to proceed on a law, and with +a harmony and a definite drift, and with an analogy to Scripture +revelations, which, instead of telling to their disadvantage, actually +constitute an argument in their favour, as witnessing to a +superintending Providence and a great Design in the mode and in the +circumstances of their occurrence. + +Perhaps his confidence in the truth and availableness of this view has +sometimes led the author to be careless and over-liberal in his +concessions to Protestants of historical fact. + +If this be so anywhere, he begs the reader in such cases to understand +him as speaking hypothetically, and in the sense of an _argumentum ad +hominem_ and _ fortiori_. Nor is such hypothetical reasoning out of +place in a publication which is addressed, not to theologians, but to +those who as yet are not even Catholics, and who, as they read history, +would scoff at any defence of Catholic doctrine which did not go the +length of covering admissions in matters of fact as broad as those which +are here ventured on. + +In this new Edition of the Essay various important alterations have been +made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in +its matter, but in its text. + +_February 2, 1878._ + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. + +OCULI MEI DEFECERUNT IN SALUTARE TUUM. + + +It is now above eleven years since the writer of the following pages, in +one of the early Numbers of the Tracts for the Times, expressed himself +thus:-- + + "Considering the high gifts, and the strong claims of the + Church of Rome and her dependencies on our admiration, + reverence, love, and gratitude, how could we withstand her, as + we do; how could we refrain from being melted into tenderness, + and rushing into communion with her, but for the words of + Truth, which bid us prefer Itself to the whole world? 'He that + loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me.' + How could we learn to be severe, and execute judgment, but for + the warning of Moses against even a divinely-gifted teacher + who should preach new gods, and the anathema of St. Paul even + against Angels and Apostles who should bring in a new + doctrine?"[ix-1] + +He little thought, when he so wrote, that the time would ever come when +he should feel the obstacle, which he spoke of as lying in the way of +communion with the Church of Rome, to be destitute of solid foundation. + +The following work is directed towards its removal. + +Having, in former publications, called attention to the supposed +difficulty, he considers himself bound to avow his present belief that +it is imaginary. + +He has neither the ability to put out of hand a finished composition, +nor the wish to make a powerful and moving representation, on the great +subject of which he treats. His aim will be answered, if he succeeds in +suggesting thoughts, which in God's good time may quietly bear fruit, in +the minds of those to whom that subject is new; and which may carry +forward inquirers, who have already put themselves on the course. + +If at times his tone appears positive or peremptory, he hopes this will +be imputed to the scientific character of the Work, which requires a +distinct statement of principles, and of the arguments which recommend +them. + +He hopes too he shall be excused for his frequent quotations from +himself; which are necessary in order to show how he stands at present +in relation to various of his former Publications. * * * + + LITTLEMORE, + _October 6, 1845_. + + +POSTSCRIPT. + +Since the above was written, the Author has joined the Catholic Church. +It was his intention and wish to have carried his Volume through the +Press before deciding finally on this step. But when he had got some +way in the printing, he recognized in himself a conviction of the truth +of the conclusion to which the discussion leads, so clear as to +supersede further deliberation. Shortly afterwards circumstances gave +him the opportunity of acting upon it, and he felt that he had no +warrant for refusing to do so. + +His first act on his conversion was to offer his Work for revision to +the proper authorities; but the offer was declined on the ground that it +was written and partly printed before he was a Catholic, and that it +would come before the reader in a more persuasive form, if he read it as +the author wrote it. + +It is scarcely necessary to add that he now submits every part of the +book to the judgment of the Church, with whose doctrine, on the subjects +of which he treats, he wishes all his thoughts to be coincident. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[ix-1] Records of the Church, xxiv. p. 7. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PART I. + + DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED IN THEMSELVES. + PAGE + INTRODUCTION 3 + + CHAPTER I. + + The Development of Ideas 33 + Section 1. The Process of Development in Ideas 33 + Section 2. The Kinds of Development in Ideas 41 + + CHAPTER II. + + The Antecedent Argument in behalf of Developments in Christian + Doctrine 55 + Section 1. Developments to be expected 55 + Section 2. An infallible Developing Authority to be expected 75 + Section 3. The existing Developments of Doctrine the probable + Fulfilment of that Expectation 92 + + CHAPTER III. + + The Historical Argument in behalf of the existing Developments 99 + Section 1. Method of Proof 99 + Section 2. State of the Evidence 110 + + CHAPTER IV. + + Instances in Illustration 122 + Section 1. Instances cursorily noticed 123 + 1. Canon of the New Testament 123 + 2. Original Sin 126 + 3. Infant Baptism 127 + 4. Communion in one kind 129 + 5. The Homosion 133 + Section 2. Our Lord's Incarnation, and the dignity of His + Mother and of all Saints 135 + Section 3. Papal Supremacy 148 + + + PART II. + + DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED RELATIVELY TO DOCTRINAL CORRUPTIONS. + + CHAPTER V. + + Genuine Developments contrasted with Corruptions 169 + Section 1. First Note of a genuine Development of an Idea: + Preservation of its Type 171 + Section 2. Second Note: Continuity of its Principles 178 + Section 3. Third Note: Its Power of Assimilation 185 + Section 4. Fourth Note: Its Logical Sequence 189 + Section 5. Fifth Note: Anticipation of its Future 195 + Section 6. Sixth Note: Conservative Action upon its Past 199 + Section 7. Seventh Note: Its Chronic Vigour 203 + + CHAPTER VI. + + Application of the First Note of a true Development to the + Existing Developments of Christian Doctrine: Preservation + of its Type 207 + Section 1. The Church of the First Centuries 208 + Section 2. The Church of the Fourth Century 248 + Section 3. The Church of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries 273 + + CHAPTER VII. + + Application of the Second: Continuity of its Principles 323 + 1. Principles of Christianity 323 + 2. Supremacy of Faith 326 + 3. Theology 336 + 4. Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation 338 + 5. Dogma 346 + 6. Additional Remarks 353 + + CHAPTER VIII. + + Application of the Third: its Assimilative Power 355 + 1. The Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth 357 + 2. The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace 368 + + CHAPTER IX. + + Application of the Fourth: its Logical Sequence 383 + 1. Pardons 384 + 2. Penances 385 + 3. Satisfactions 386 + 4. Purgatory 388 + 5. Meritorious Works 393 + 6. The Monastic Rule 395 + + CHAPTER X. + + Application of the Fifth: Anticipation of its Future 400 + 1. Resurrection and Relics 401 + 2. The Virgin Life 407 + 3. Cultus of Saints and Angels 410 + 4. Office of the Blessed Virgin 415 + + CHAPTER XI. + + Application of the Sixth: Conservative Action on its Past 419 + Section 1. Instances cursorily noticed 420 + Section 2. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin 425 + + CHAPTER XII. + + Application of the Seventh: its Chronic Vigour 437 + + CONCLUSION 445 + + + + +PART I. + +DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED IN THEMSELVES. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Christianity has been long enough in the world to justify us in dealing +with it as a fact in the world's history. Its genius and character, its +doctrines, precepts, and objects cannot be treated as matters of private +opinion or deduction, unless we may reasonably so regard the Spartan +institutions or the religion of Mahomet. It may indeed legitimately be +made the subject-matter of theories; what is its moral and political +excellence, what its due location in the range of ideas or of facts +which we possess, whether it be divine or human, whether original or +eclectic, or both at once, how far favourable to civilization or to +literature, whether a religion for all ages or for a particular state of +society, these are questions upon the fact, or professed solutions of +the fact, and belong to the province of opinion; but to a fact do they +relate, on an admitted fact do they turn, which must be ascertained as +other facts, and surely has on the whole been so ascertained, unless the +testimony of so many centuries is to go for nothing. Christianity is no +theory of the study or the cloister. It has long since passed beyond the +letter of documents and the reasonings of individual minds, and has +become public property. Its "sound has gone out into all lands," and its +"words unto the ends of the world." It has from the first had an +objective existence, and has thrown itself upon the great concourse of +men. Its home is in the world; and to know what it is, we must seek it +in the world, and hear the world's witness of it. + + +2. + +The hypothesis, indeed, has met with wide reception in these latter +times, that Christianity does not fall within the province of +history,--that it is to each man what each man thinks it to be, and +nothing else; and thus in fact is a mere name for a cluster or family of +rival religions all together, religions at variance one with another, +and claiming the same appellation, not because there can be assigned any +one and the same doctrine as the common foundation of all, but because +certain points of agreement may be found here and there of some sort or +other, by which each in its turn is connected with one or other of the +rest. Or again, it has been maintained, or implied, that all existing +denominations of Christianity are wrong, none representing it as taught +by Christ and His Apostles; that the original religion has gradually +decayed or become hopelessly corrupt; nay that it died out of the world +at its birth, and was forthwith succeeded by a counterfeit or +counterfeits which assumed its name, though they inherited at best but +some fragments of its teaching; or rather that it cannot even be said +either to have decayed or to have died, because historically it has no +substance of its own, but from the first and onwards it has, on the +stage of the world, been nothing more than a mere assemblage of +doctrines and practices derived from without, from Oriental, Platonic, +Polytheistic sources, from Buddhism, Essenism, Manicheeism; or that, +allowing true Christianity still to exist, it has but a hidden and +isolated life, in the hearts of the elect, or again as a literature or +philosophy, not certified in any way, much less guaranteed, to come from +above, but one out of the various separate informations about the +Supreme Being and human duty, with which an unknown Providence had +furnished us, whether in nature or in the world. + + +3. + +All such views of Christianity imply that there is no sufficient body of +historical proof to interfere with, or at least to prevail against, any +number whatever of free and independent hypotheses concerning it. But +this surely is not self-evident, and has itself to be proved. Till +positive reasons grounded on facts are adduced to the contrary, the most +natural hypotheses, the most agreeable to our mode of proceeding in +parallel cases, and that which takes precedence of all others, is to +consider that the society of Christians, which the Apostles left on +earth, were of that religion to which the Apostles had converted them; +that the external continuity of name, profession, and communion, argues +a real continuity of doctrine; that, as Christianity began by +manifesting itself as of a certain shape and bearing to all mankind, +therefore it went on so to manifest itself; and that the more, +considering that prophecy had already determined that it was to be a +power visible in the world and sovereign over it, characters which are +accurately fulfilled in that historical Christianity to which we +commonly give the name. It is not a violent assumption, then, but rather +mere abstinence from the wanton admission of a principle which would +necessarily lead to the most vexatious and preposterous scepticism, to +take it for granted, before proof to the contrary, that the Christianity +of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate +centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ and His +Apostles taught in the first, whatever may be the modifications for good +or for evil which lapse of years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs, +have impressed upon it. + +Of course I do not deny the abstract possibility of extreme changes. +The substitution is certainly, in idea, supposable of a counterfeit +Christianity,--superseding the original, by means of the adroit +innovations of seasons, places, and persons, till, according to the +familiar illustration, the "blade" and the "handle" are alternately +renewed, and identity is lost without the loss of continuity. It is +possible; but it must not be assumed. The _onus probandi_ is with those +who assert what it is unnatural to expect; to be just able to doubt is +no warrant for disbelieving. + + +4. + +Accordingly, some writers have gone on to give reasons from history for +their refusing to appeal to history. They aver that, when they come to +look into the documents and literature of Christianity in times past, +they find its doctrines so variously represented, and so inconsistently +maintained by its professors, that, however natural it be _ priori_, it +is useless, in fact, to seek in history the matter of that Revelation +which has been vouchsafed to mankind; that they cannot be historical +Christians if they would. They say, in the words of Chillingworth, +"There are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers +against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of +fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the +Church of one age against the Church of another age:"--Hence they are +forced, whether they will or not, to fall back upon the Bible as the +sole source of Revelation, and upon their own personal private judgment +as the sole expounder of its doctrine. This is a fair argument, if it +can be maintained, and it brings me at once to the subject of this +Essay. Not that it enters into my purpose to convict of misstatement, as +might be done, each separate clause of this sweeping accusation of a +smart but superficial writer; but neither on the other hand do I mean +to deny everything that he says to the disadvantage of historical +Christianity. On the contrary, I shall admit that there are in fact +certain apparent variations in its teaching, which have to be explained; +thus I shall begin, but then I shall attempt to explain them to the +exculpation of that teaching in point of unity, directness, and +consistency. + + +5. + +Meanwhile, before setting about this work, I will address one remark to +Chillingworth and his friends:--Let them consider, that if they can +criticize history, the facts of history certainly can retort upon them. +It might, I grant, be clearer on this great subject than it is. This is +no great concession. History is not a creed or a catechism, it gives +lessons rather than rules; still no one can mistake its general teaching +in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and +broad masses of colour rise out of the records of the past. They may be +dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite. And this one thing +at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, +whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at +least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there +were a safe truth, it is this. + +And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer +on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at +least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or +to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt +it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing +with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity +from the Bible alone: men never would have put it aside, unless they had +despaired of it. It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical +history in England, which prevails even in the English Church. Our +popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages +which lie between the Councils of Nica and Trent, except as affording +one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain +prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the +chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be +considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be +deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. + + +6. + +And this utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical +Christianity is a plain fact, whether the latter be regarded in its +earlier or in its later centuries. Protestants can as little bear its +Ante-nicene as its Post-tridentine period. I have elsewhere observed on +this circumstance: "So much must the Protestant grant that, if such a +system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever existed in early +times, it has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, +silently, and without memorial; by a deluge coming in a night, and +utterly soaking, rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of +what it found in the Church, before cock-crowing: so that 'when they +rose in the morning' her true seed 'were all dead corpses'--Nay dead and +buried--and without gravestone. 'The waters went over them; there was +not one of them left; they sunk like lead in the mighty waters.' Strange +antitype, indeed, to the early fortunes of Israel!--then the enemy was +drowned, and 'Israel saw them dead upon the sea-shore.' But now, it +would seem, water proceeded as a flood 'out of the serpent's mouth,' and +covered all the witnesses, so that not even their dead bodies lay in the +streets of the great city.' Let him take which of his doctrines he will, +his peculiar view of self-righteousness, of formality, of superstition; +his notion of faith, or of spirituality in religious worship; his denial +of the virtue of the sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or +of the visible Church; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of the +Scriptures as the one appointed instrument of religious teaching; and +let him consider how far Antiquity, as it has come down to us, will +countenance him in it. No; he must allow that the alleged deluge has +done its work; yes, and has in turn disappeared itself; it has been +swallowed up by the earth, mercilessly as itself was merciless."[9:1] + +That Protestantism, then, is not the Christianity of history, it is easy +to determine, but to retort is a poor reply in controversy to a question +of fact, and whatever be the violence or the exaggeration of writers +like Chillingworth, if they have raised a real difficulty, it may claim +a real answer, and we must determine whether on the one hand +Christianity is still to represent to us a definite teaching from above, +or whether on the other its utterances have been from time to time so +strangely at variance, that we are necessarily thrown back on our own +judgment individually to determine, what the revelation of God is, or +rather if in fact there is, or has been, any revelation at all. + + +7. + +Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that +there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has +lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine +and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who +inquire into it. They are not sufficient to interfere with the general +character and course of the religion, but they raise the question how +they came about, and what they mean, and have in consequence supplied +matter for several hypotheses. + +Of these one is to the effect that Christianity has even changed from +the first and ever accommodates itself to the circumstances of times and +seasons; but it is difficult to understand how such a view is compatible +with the special idea of revealed truth, and in fact its advocates more +or less abandon, or tend to abandon the supernatural claims of +Christianity; so it need not detain us here. + +A second and more plausible hypothesis is that of the Anglican divines, +who reconcile and bring into shape the exuberant phenomena under +consideration, by cutting off and casting away as corruptions all +usages, ways, opinions, and tenets, which have not the sanction of +primitive times. They maintain that history first presents to us a pure +Christianity in East and West, and then a corrupt; and then of course +their duty is to draw the line between what is corrupt and what is pure, +and to determine the dates at which the various changes from good to bad +were introduced. Such a principle of demarcation, available for the +purpose, they consider they have found in the _dictum_ of Vincent of +Lerins, that revealed and Apostolic doctrine is "quod semper, quod +ubique, quod ab omnibus," a principle infallibly separating, on the +whole field of history, authoritative doctrine from opinion, rejecting +what is faulty, and combining and forming a theology. That "Christianity +is what has been held always, everywhere, and by all," certainly +promises a solution of the perplexities, an interpretation of the +meaning, of history. What can be more natural than that divines and +bodies of men should speak, sometimes from themselves, sometimes from +tradition? what more natural than that individually they should say many +things on impulse, or under excitement, or as conjectures, or in +ignorance? what more certain than that they must all have been +instructed and catechized in the Creed of the Apostles? what more +evident than that what was their own would in its degree be peculiar, +and differ from what was similarly private and personal in their +brethren? what more conclusive than that the doctrine that was common to +all at once was not really their own, but public property in which they +had a joint interest, and was proved by the concurrence of so many +witnesses to have come from an Apostolical source? Here, then, we have a +short and easy method for bringing the various informations of +ecclesiastical history under that antecedent probability in its favour, +which nothing but its actual variations would lead us to neglect. Here +we have a precise and satisfactory reason why we should make much of the +earlier centuries, yet pay no regard to the later, why we should admit +some doctrines and not others, why we refuse the Creed of Pius IV. and +accept the Thirty-nine Articles. + + +8. + +Such is the rule of historical interpretation which has been professed +in the English school of divines; and it contains a majestic truth, and +offers an intelligible principle, and wears a reasonable air. It is +congenial, or, as it may be said, native to the Anglican mind, which +takes up a middle position, neither discarding the Fathers nor +acknowledging the Pope. It lays down a simple rule by which to measure +the value of every historical fact, as it comes, and thereby it provides +a bulwark against Rome, while it opens an assault upon Protestantism. +Such is its promise; but its difficulty lies in applying it in +particular cases. The rule is more serviceable in determining what is +not, than what is Christianity; it is irresistible against +Protestantism, and in one sense indeed it is irresistible against Rome +also, but in the same sense it is irresistible against England. It +strikes at Rome through England. It admits of being interpreted in one +of two ways: if it be narrowed for the purpose of disproving the +catholicity of the Creed of Pope Pius, it becomes also an objection to +the Athanasian; and if it be relaxed to admit the doctrines retained by +the English Church, it no longer excludes certain doctrines of Rome +which that Church denies. It cannot at once condemn St. Thomas and St. +Bernard, and defend St. Athanasius and St. Gregory Nazianzen. + +This general defect in its serviceableness has been heretofore felt by +those who appealed to it. It was said by one writer; "The Rule of +Vincent is not of a mathematical or demonstrative character, but moral, +and requires practical judgment and good sense to apply it. For +instance, what is meant by being 'taught _always_'? does it mean in +every century, or every year, or every month? Does '_everywhere_' mean +in every country, or in every diocese? and does 'the _Consent of +Fathers_' require us to produce the direct testimony of every one of +them? How many Fathers, how many places, how many instances, constitute +a fulfilment of the test proposed? It is, then, from the nature of the +case, a condition which never can be satisfied as fully as it might have +been. It admits of various and unequal application in various instances; +and what degree of application is enough, must be decided by the same +principles which guide us in the conduct of life, which determine us in +politics, or trade, or war, which lead us to accept Revelation at all, +(for which we have but probability to show at most,) nay, to believe in +the existence of an intelligent Creator."[12:1] + + +9. + +So much was allowed by this writer; but then he added:-- + +"This character, indeed, of Vincent's Canon, will but recommend it to +the disciples of the school of Butler, from its agreement with the +analogy of nature; but it affords a ready loophole for such as do not +wish to be persuaded, of which both Protestants and Romanists are not +slow to avail themselves." + +This surely is the language of disputants who are more intent on +assailing others than on defending themselves; as if similar loopholes +were not necessary for Anglican theology. + +He elsewhere says: "What there is not the shadow of a reason for saying +that the Fathers held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a +Catholic truth, is this, that St. Peter or his successors were and are +universal Bishops, that they have the whole of Christendom for their one +diocese in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops had and have +not."[13:1] Most true, if, in order that a doctrine be considered +Catholic, it must be formally stated by the Fathers generally from the +very first; but, on the same understanding, the doctrine also of the +apostolical succession in the episcopal order "has not the faintest +pretensions of being a Catholic truth." + +Nor was this writer without a feeling of the special difficulty of his +school; and he attempted to meet it by denying it. He wished to maintain +that the sacred doctrines admitted by the Church of England into her +Articles were taught in primitive times with a distinctness which no one +could fancy to attach to the characteristic tenets of Rome. + +"We confidently affirm," he said in another publication, "that there is +not an article in the Athanasian Creed concerning the Incarnation which +is not anticipated in the controversy with the Gnostics. There is no +question which the Apollinarian or the Nestorian heresy raised, which +may not be decided in the words of Ignatius, Irenus and +Tertullian."[13:2] + + +10. + +This may be considered as true. It may be true also, or at least shall +here be granted as true, that there is also a _consensus_ in the +Ante-nicene Church for the doctrines of our Lord's Consubstantiality and +Coeternity with the Almighty Father. Let us allow that the whole circle +of doctrines, of which our Lord is the subject, was consistently and +uniformly confessed by the Primitive Church, though not ratified +formally in Council. But it surely is otherwise with the Catholic +doctrine of the Trinity. I do not see in what sense it can be said that +there is a _consensus_ of primitive divines in its favour, which will +not avail also for certain doctrines of the Roman Church which will +presently come into mention. And this is a point which the writer of the +above passages ought to have more distinctly brought before his mind and +more carefully weighed; but he seems to have fancied that Bishop Bull +proved the primitiveness of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Holy +Trinity as well as that concerning our Lord. + +Now it should be clearly understood what it is which must be shown by +those who would prove it. Of course the doctrine of our Lord's divinity +itself partly implies and partly recommends the doctrine of the Trinity; +but implication and suggestion belong to another class of arguments +which has not yet come into consideration. Moreover the statements of a +particular father or doctor may certainly be of a most important +character; but one divine is not equal to a Catena. We must have a whole +doctrine stated by a whole Church. The Catholic Truth in question is +made up of a number of separate propositions, each of which, if +maintained to the exclusion of the rest, is a heresy. In order then to +prove that all the Ante-nicene writers taught the dogma of the Holy +Trinity, it is not enough to prove that each still has gone far enough +to be only a heretic--not enough to prove that one has held that the +Son is God, (for so did the Sabellian, so did the Macedonian), and +another that the Father is not the Son, (for so did the Arian), and +another that the Son is equal to the Father, (for so did the Tritheist), +and another that there is but One God, (for so did the Unitarian),--not +enough that many attached in some sense a Threefold Power to the idea of +the Almighty, (for so did almost all the heresies that ever existed, and +could not but do so, if they accepted the New Testament at all); but we +must show that all these statements at once, and others too, are laid +down by as many separate testimonies as may fairly be taken to +constitute a "_consensus_ of doctors." It is true indeed that the +subsequent profession of the doctrine in the Universal Church creates a +presumption that it was held even before it was professed; and it is +fair to interpret the early Fathers by the later. This is true, and +admits of application to certain other doctrines besides that of the +Blessed Trinity in Unity; but there is as little room for such +antecedent probabilities as for the argument from suggestions and +intimations in the precise and imperative _Quod semper, quod ubique, +quod ab omnibus_, as it is commonly understood by English divines, and +is by them used against the later Church and the see of Rome. What we +have a right to ask, if we are bound to act upon Vincent's rule in +regard to the Trinitarian dogma, is a sufficient number of Ante-nicene +statements, each distinctly anticipating the Athanasian Creed. + + +11. + +Now let us look at the leading facts of the case, in appealing to which +I must not be supposed to be ascribing any heresy to the holy men whose +words have not always been sufficiently full or exact to preclude the +imputation. First, the Creeds of that early day make no mention in +their letter of the Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention indeed +of a Three; but that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the +Three are One, that They are coequal, coeternal, all increate, all +omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated, and never could be +gathered from them. Of course we believe that they imply it, or rather +intend it. God forbid we should do otherwise! But nothing in the mere +letter of those documents leads to that belief. To give a deeper meaning +to their letter, we must interpret them by the times which came after. + +Again, there is one and one only great doctrinal Council in Ante-nicene +times. It was held at Antioch, in the middle of the third century, on +occasion of the incipient innovations of the Syrian heretical school. +Now the Fathers there assembled, for whatever reason, condemned, or at +least withdrew, when it came into the dispute, the word "Homosion," +which was afterwards received at Nica as the special symbol of +Catholicism against Arius.[16:1] + +Again, the six great Bishops and Saints of the Ante-nicene Church were +St. Irenus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. +Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these, St. Dionysius is +accused by St. Basil of having sown the first seeds of Arianism;[16:2] +and St. Gregory is allowed by the same learned Father to have used +language concerning our Lord, which he only defends on the plea of an +economical object in the writer.[16:3] St. Hippolytus speaks as if he +were ignorant of our Lord's Eternal Sonship;[17:1] St. Methodius speaks +incorrectly at least upon the Incarnation;[17:2] and St. Cyprian does +not treat of theology at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant +teaching of these true saints, and, in their day, faithful witnesses of +the Eternal Son. + +Again, Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and the two SS. Dionysii +would appear to be the only writers whose language is at any time exact +and systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian Creed. If we limit +our view of the teaching of the Fathers by what they expressly state, +St. Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin arianizes, +and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian. + +Again, there are three great theological authors of the Ante-nicene +centuries, Tertullian, Origen, and, we may add, Eusebius, though he +lived some way into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the doctrine +of our Lord's divinity,[17:3] and, indeed, ultimately fell altogether +into heresy or schism; Origen is, at the very least, suspected, and must +be defended and explained rather than cited as a witness of orthodoxy; +and Eusebius was a Semi-Arian. + + +12. + +Moreover, it may be questioned whether any Ante-nicene father +distinctly affirms either the numerical Unity or the Coequality of the +Three Persons; except perhaps the heterodox Tertullian, and that chiefly +in a work written after he had become a Montanist:[18:1] yet to satisfy +the Anti-roman use of _Quod semper, &c._, surely we ought not to be left +for these great articles of doctrine to the testimony of a later age. + +Further, Bishop Bull allows that "nearly all the ancient Catholics who +preceded Arius have the appearance of being ignorant of the invisible +and incomprehensible (_immensam_) nature of the Son of God;"[18:2] an +article expressly taught in the Athanasian Creed under the sanction of +its anathema. + +It must be asked, moreover, how much direct and literal testimony the +Ante-nicene Fathers give, one by one, to the divinity of the Holy +Spirit? This alone shall be observed, that St. Basil, in the fourth +century, finding that, if he distinctly called the Third Person in the +Blessed Trinity by the Name of God, he should be put out of the Church +by the Arians, pointedly refrained from doing so on an occasion on which +his enemies were on the watch; and that, when some Catholics found fault +with him, St. Athanasius took his part.[18:3] Could this possibly have +been the conduct of any true Christian, not to say Saint, of a later +age? that is, whatever be the true account of it, does it not suggest to +us that the testimony of those early times lies very unfavourably for +the application of the rule of Vincentius? + + +13. + +Let it not be for a moment supposed that I impugn the orthodoxy of the +early divines, or the cogency of their testimony among _fair_ inquirers; +but I am trying them by that _unfair_ interpretation of Vincentius, +which is necessary in order to make him available against the Church of +Rome. And now, as to the positive evidence which those Fathers offer in +behalf of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, it has been drawn out by +Dr. Burton and seems to fall under two heads. One is the general +_ascription of glory_ to the Three Persons together, both by fathers and +churches, and that on continuous tradition and from the earliest times. +Under the second fall certain _distinct statements_ of _particular_ +fathers; thus we find the word "Trinity" used by St. Theophilus, St. +Clement, St. Hippolytus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Origen, St. Methodius; +and the Divine _Circumincessio_, the most distinctive portion of the +Catholic doctrine, and the unity of power, or again, of substance, are +declared with more or less distinctness by Athenagoras, St. Irenus, St. +Clement, Tertullian, St. Hippolytus, Origen, and the two SS. Dionysii. +This is pretty much the whole of the evidence. + + +14. + +Perhaps it will be said we ought to take the Ante-nicene Fathers as a +whole, and interpret one of them by another. This is to assume that they +are all of one school, which of course they are, but which in +controversy is a point to be proved; but it is even doubtful whether, on +the whole, such a procedure would strengthen the argument. For instance, +as to the second head of the positive evidence noted by Dr. Burton, +Tertullian is the most formal and elaborate of these Fathers in his +statements of the Catholic doctrine. "It would hardly be possible," says +Dr. Burton, after quoting a passage, "for Athanasius himself, or the +compiler of the Athanasian Creed, to have delivered the doctrine of the +Trinity in stronger terms than these."[19:1] Yet Tertullian must be +considered heterodox on the doctrine of our Lord's eternal +generation.[20:1] If then we are to argue from his instance to that of +the other Fathers, we shall be driven to the conclusion that even the +most exact statements are worth nothing more than their letter, are a +warrant for nothing beyond themselves, and are consistent with +heterodoxy where they do not expressly protest against it. + +And again, as to the argument derivable from the Doxologies, it must not +be forgotten that one of the passages in St. Justin Martyr includes the +worship of the Angels. "We worship and adore," he says, "Him, and the +Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the host of those +other good Angels, who follow and are like Him, and the Prophetic +Spirit."[20:2] A Unitarian might argue from this passage that the glory +and worship which the early Church ascribed to our Lord was not more +definite than that which St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures. + + +15. + +Thus much on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Let us proceed to another +example. There are two doctrines which are generally associated with the +name of a Father of the fourth and fifth centuries, and which can show +little definite, or at least but partial, testimony in their behalf +before his time,--Purgatory and Original Sin. The dictum of Vincent +admits both or excludes both, according as it is or is not rigidly +taken; but, if used by Aristotle's "Lesbian Rule," then, as Anglicans +would wish, it can be made to admit Original Sin and exclude Purgatory. + +On the one hand, some notion of suffering, or disadvantage, or +punishment after this life, in the case of the faithful departed, or +other vague forms of the doctrine of Purgatory, has in its favour almost +a _consensus_ of the four first ages of the Church, though some Fathers +state it with far greater openness and decision than others. It is, as +far as words go, the confession of St. Clement of Alexandria, +Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, St. Hilary, +St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, St. Gregory of +Nazianzus, and of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus, and +St. Augustine. And so, on the other hand, there is a certain agreement +of Fathers from the first that mankind has derived some disadvantage +from the sin of Adam. + + +16. + +Next, when we consider the two doctrines more distinctly,--the doctrine +that between death and judgment there is a time or state of punishment; +and the doctrine that all men, naturally propagated from fallen Adam, +are in consequence born destitute of original righteousness,--we find, +on the one hand, several, such as Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyril, +St. Hilary, St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nyssen, as far as their words go, +definitely declaring a doctrine of Purgatory: whereas no one will say +that there is a testimony of the Fathers, equally strong, for the +doctrine of Original Sin, though it is difficult here to make any +definite statement about their teaching without going into a discussion +of the subject. + +On the subject of Purgatory there were, to speak generally, two schools +of opinion; the Greek, which contemplated a trial of fire at the last +day through which all were to pass; and the African, resembling more +nearly the present doctrine of the Roman Church. And so there were two +principal views of Original Sin, the Greek and the African or Latin. Of +the Greek, the judgment of Hooker is well known, though it must not be +taken in the letter: "The heresy of freewill was a millstone about those +Pelagians' neck; shall we therefore give sentence of death inevitable +against all those Fathers in the Greek Church which, being mispersuaded, +died in the error of freewill?"[22:1] Bishop Taylor, arguing for an +opposite doctrine, bears a like testimony: "Original Sin," he says, "as +it is at this day commonly explicated, was not the doctrine of the +primitive Church; but when Pelagius had puddled the stream, St. Austin +was so angry that he stamped and disturbed it more. And truly . . I do +not think that the gentlemen that urged against me St. Austin's opinion +do well consider that I profess myself to follow those Fathers who were +before him; and whom St. Austin did forsake, as I do him, in the +question."[22:2] The same is asserted or allowed by Jansenius, Petavius, +and Walch,[22:3] men of such different schools that we may surely take +their agreement as a proof of the fact. A late writer, after going +through the testimonies of the Fathers one by one, comes to the +conclusion, first, that "the Greek Church in no point favoured +Augustine, except in teaching that from Adam's sin came death, and, +(after the time of Methodius,) an extraordinary and unnatural sensuality +also;" next, that "the Latin Church affirmed, in addition, that a +corrupt and contaminated soul, and that, by generation, was carried on +to his posterity;"[22:4] and, lastly, that neither Greeks nor Latins +held the doctrine of imputation. It may be observed, in addition, that, +in spite of the forcible teaching of St. Paul on the subject, the +doctrine of Original Sin appears neither in the Apostles' nor the Nicene +Creed. + + +17. + +One additional specimen shall be given as a sample of many others:--I +betake myself to one of our altars to receive the Blessed Eucharist; I +have no doubt whatever on my mind about the Gift which that Sacrament +contains; I confess to myself my belief, and I go through the steps on +which it is assured to me. "The Presence of Christ is here, for It +follows upon Consecration; and Consecration is the prerogative of +Priests; and Priests are made by Ordination; and Ordination comes in +direct line from the Apostles. Whatever be our other misfortunes, every +link in our chain is safe; we have the Apostolic Succession, we have a +right form of consecration: therefore we are blessed with the great +Gift." Here the question rises in me, "Who told you about that Gift?" I +answer, "I have learned it from the Fathers: I believe the Real Presence +because they bear witness to it. St. Ignatius calls it 'the medicine of +immortality:' St. Irenus says that 'our flesh becomes incorrupt, and +partakes of life, and has the hope of the resurrection,' as 'being +nourished from the Lord's Body and Blood;' that the Eucharist 'is made +up of two things, an earthly and an heavenly:'[23:1] perhaps Origen, and +perhaps Magnes, after him, say that It is not a type of our Lord's Body, +but His Body: and St. Cyprian uses language as fearful as can be spoken, +of those who profane it. I cast my lot with them, I believe as they." +Thus I reply, and then the thought comes upon me a second time, "And do +not the same ancient Fathers bear witness to another doctrine, which +you disown? Are you not as a hypocrite, listening to them when you will, +and deaf when you will not? How are you casting your lot with the +Saints, when you go but half-way with them? For of whether of the two do +they speak the more frequently, of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, +or of the Pope's supremacy? You accept the lesser evidence, you reject +the greater." + + +18. + +In truth, scanty as the Ante-nicene notices may be of the Papal +Supremacy, they are both more numerous and more definite than the +adducible testimonies in favour of the Real Presence. The testimonies to +the latter are confined to a few passages such as those just quoted. On +the other hand, of a passage in St. Justin, Bishop Kaye remarks, "Le +Nourry infers that Justin maintained the doctrine of Transubstantiation; +it might in my opinion be more plausibly urged in favour of +Consubstantiation, since Justin calls the consecrated elements Bread and +Wine, though not common bread and wine.[24:1] . . . We may therefore +conclude that, when he calls them the Body and Blood of Christ, he +speaks figuratively." "Clement," observes the same author, "says that +the Scripture calls wine a mystic _symbol_ of the holy blood. . . . +Clement gives various interpretations of Christ's expressions in John +vi. respecting His flesh and blood; but in no instance does he interpret +them literally. . . . His notion seems to have been that, by partaking +of the bread and wine in the Eucharist, the soul of the believer is +united to the Spirit, and that by this union the principle of +immortality is imparted to the flesh."[24:2] "It has been suggested by +some," says Waterland, "that Tertullian understood John vi. merely of +faith, or doctrine, or spiritual actions; and it is strenuously denied +by others." After quoting the passage, he adds, "All that one can +justly gather from this confused passage is that Tertullian interpreted +the bread of life in John vi. of the Word, which he sometimes makes to +be vocal, and sometimes substantial, blending the ideas in a very +perplexed manner; so that he is no clear authority for construing John +vi. of doctrines, &c. All that is certain is that he supposes the Word +made flesh, the Word incarnate to be the heavenly bread spoken of +in that chapter."[25:1] "Origen's general observation relating to +that chapter is, that it must not be literally, but figuratively +understood."[25:2] Again, "It is plain enough that Eusebius followed +Origen in this matter, and that both of them favoured the same mystical +or allegorical construction; whether constantly and uniformly I need not +say."[25:3] I will but add the incidental testimony afforded on a late +occasion:--how far the Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist depends on the +times before the Nicene Council, how far on the times after it, may be +gathered from the circumstance that, when a memorable Sermon[25:4] was +published on the subject, out of about one hundred and forty passages +from the Fathers appended in the notes, not in formal proof, but in +general illustration, only fifteen were taken from Ante-nicene writers. + +With such evidence, the Ante-nicene testimonies which may be cited in +behalf of the authority of the Holy See, need not fear a comparison. +Faint they may be one by one, but at least we may count seventeen of +them, and they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, +and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof. +Whatever objections may be made to this or that particular fact, and I +do not think any valid ones can be raised, still, on the whole, I +consider that a cumulative argument rises from them in favour of the +ecumenical and the doctrinal authority of Rome, stronger than any +argument which can be drawn from the same period for the doctrine of the +Real Presence. I shall have occasion to enumerate them in the fourth +chapter of this Essay. + + +19. + +If it be said that the Real Presence appears, by the Liturgies of the +fourth or fifth century, to have been the doctrine of the earlier, since +those very forms probably existed from the first in Divine worship, this +is doubtless an important truth; but then it is true also that the +writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly +allow that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times, +and that because it was the See of St. Peter. + +Moreover, if the resistance of St. Cyprian and Firmilian to the Church +of Rome, in the question of baptism by heretics, be urged as an argument +against her primitive authority, or the earlier resistance of Polycrates +of Ephesus, let it be considered, first, whether all authority does not +necessarily lead to resistance; next, whether St. Cyprian's own +doctrine, which is in favour of Rome, is not more weighty than his act, +which is against her; thirdly, whether he was not already in error in +the main question under discussion, and Firmilian also; and lastly, +which is the chief point here, whether, in like manner, we may +not object on the other hand against the Real Presence the words +of Tertullian, who explains, "This is my Body," by "a figure of +my Body," and of Origen, who speaks of "our drinking Christ's +Blood not only in the rite of the Sacraments, but also when we +receive His discourses,"[26:1] and says that "that Bread which +God the Word acknowledges as His Body is the Word which nourishes +souls,"[26:2]--passages which admit of a Catholic interpretation when +the Catholic doctrine is once proved, but which _prim facie_ run +counter to that doctrine. + +It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever +be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early +and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be +considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in +his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their +testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory +result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. + + +20. + +Another hypothesis for accounting for a want of accord between the early +and the late aspects of Christianity is that of the _Disciplina Arcani_, +put forward on the assumption that there has been no variation in the +teaching of the Church from first to last. It is maintained that +doctrines which are associated with the later ages of the Church were +really in the Church from the first, but not publicly taught, and that +for various reasons: as, for the sake of reverence, that sacred subjects +might not be profaned by the heathen; and for the sake of catechumens, +that they might not be oppressed or carried away by a sudden +communication of the whole circle of revealed truth. And indeed the fact +of this concealment can hardly be denied, in whatever degree it took the +shape of a definite rule, which might vary with persons and places. That +it existed even as a rule, as regards the Sacraments, seems to be +confessed on all hands. That it existed in other respects, as a +practice, is plain from the nature of the case, and from the writings of +the Apologists. Minucius Felix and Arnobius, in controversy with Pagans, +imply a denial that then the Christians used altars; yet Tertullian +speaks expressly of the _Ara Dei_ in the Church. What can we say, but +that the Apologists deny altars _in the sense_ in which they ridicule +them; or, that they deny that altars _such as_ the Pagan altars were +tolerated by Christians? And, in like manner, Minucius allows that there +were no temples among Christians; yet they are distinctly recognized in +the edicts of the Dioclesian era, and are known to have existed at a +still earlier date. It is the tendency of every dominant system, such as +the Paganism of the Ante-nicene centuries, to force its opponents into +the most hostile and jealous attitude, from the apprehension which they +naturally feel, lest if they acted otherwise, in those points in which +they approximate towards it, they should be misinterpreted and overborne +by its authority. The very fault now found with clergymen of the +Anglican Church, who wish to conform their practices to her rubrics, and +their doctrines to her divines of the seventeenth century, is, that, +whether they mean it or no, whether legitimately or no, still, in matter +of fact, they will be sanctioning and encouraging the religion of Rome, +in which there are similar doctrines and practices, more definite and +more influential; so that, at any rate, it is inexpedient at the moment +to attempt what is sure to be mistaken. That is, they are required to +exercise a _disciplina arcani_; and a similar reserve was inevitable on +the part of the Catholic Church, at a time when priests and altars +and rites all around it were devoted to malignant and incurable +superstitions. It would be wrong indeed to deny, but it was a duty to +withhold, the ceremonial of Christianity; and Apologists might be +sometimes tempted to deny absolutely what at furthest could only be +denied under conditions. An idolatrous Paganism tended to repress +the externals of Christianity, as, at this day, the presence of +Protestantism is said to repress, though for another reason, the +exhibition of the Roman Catholic religion. + +On various grounds, then, it is certain that portions of the Church +system were held back in primitive times, and of course this fact goes +some way to account for that apparent variation and growth of doctrine, +which embarrasses us when we would consult history for the true idea of +Christianity; yet it is no key to the whole difficulty, as we find it, +for obvious reasons:--because the variations continue beyond the time +when it is conceivable that the discipline was in force, and because +they manifest themselves on a law, not abruptly, but by a visible growth +which has persevered up to this time without any sign of its coming to +an end.[29:1] + + +21. + +The following Essay is directed towards a solution of the difficulty +which has been stated,--the difficulty, as far as it exists, which lies +in the way of our using in controversy the testimony of our most natural +informant concerning the doctrine and worship of Christianity, viz. the +history of eighteen hundred years. The view on which it is written has +at all times, perhaps, been implicitly adopted by theologians, and, I +believe, has recently been illustrated by several distinguished writers +of the continent, such as De Maistre and Mhler: viz. that the increase +and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations +which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and +Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which +takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or +extended dominion; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is +necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and +that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the +world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all +at once by the recipients, but, as being received and transmitted by +minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required +only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. This +may be called the _Theory of Development of Doctrine_; and, before +proceeding to treat of it, one remark may be in place. + +It is undoubtedly an hypothesis to account for a difficulty; but such +too are the various explanations given by astronomers from Ptolemy to +Newton of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, and it is as +unphilosophical on that account to object to the one as to object to the +other. Nor is it more reasonable to express surprise, that at this time +of day a theory is necessary, granting for argument's sake that the +theory is novel, than to have directed a similar wonder in disparagement +of the theory of gravitation, or the Plutonian theory in geology. +Doubtless, the theory of the Secret and the theory of doctrinal +Developments are expedients, and so is the dictum of Vincentius; so is +the art of grammar or the use of the quadrant; it is an expedient to +enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious +problem. For three hundred years the documents and the facts of +Christianity have been exposed to a jealous scrutiny; works have been +judged spurious which once were received without a question; facts have +been discarded or modified which were once first principles in argument; +new facts and new principles have been brought to light; philosophical +views and polemical discussions of various tendencies have been +maintained with more or less success. Not only has the relative +situation of controversies and theologies altered, but infidelity itself +is in a different,--I am obliged to say in a more hopeful position,--as +regards Christianity. The facts of Revealed Religion, though in their +substance unaltered, present a less compact and orderly front to the +attacks of its enemies now than formerly, and allow of the introduction +of new inquiries and theories concerning its sources and its rise. The +state of things is not as it was, when an appeal lay to the supposed +works of the Areopagite, or to the primitive Decretals, or to St. +Dionysius's answers to Paul, or to the Coena Domini of St. Cyprian. +The assailants of dogmatic truth have got the start of its adherents of +whatever Creed; philosophy is completing what criticism has begun; and +apprehensions are not unreasonably excited lest we should have a new +world to conquer before we have weapons for the warfare. Already +infidelity has its views and conjectures, on which it arranges the facts +of ecclesiastical history; and it is sure to consider the absence of any +antagonist theory as an evidence of the reality of its own. That the +hypothesis, here to be adopted, accounts not only for the Athanasian +Creed, but for the Creed of Pope Pius, is no fault of those who adopt +it. No one has power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage +our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more. An +argument is needed, unless Christianity is to abandon the province of +argument; and those who find fault with the explanation here offered of +its historical phenomena will find it their duty to provide one for +themselves. + +And as no special aim at Roman Catholic doctrine need be supposed to +have given a direction to the inquiry, so neither can a reception of +that doctrine be immediately based on its results. It would be the work +of a life to apply the Theory of Developments so carefully to the +writings of the Fathers, and to the history of controversies and +councils, as thereby to vindicate the reasonableness of every decision +of Rome; much less can such an undertaking be imagined by one who, in +the middle of his days, is beginning life again. Thus much, however, +might be gained even from an Essay like the present, an explanation of +so many of the reputed corruptions, doctrinal and practical, of Rome, as +might serve as a fair ground for trusting her in parallel cases where +the investigation had not been pursued. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9:1] Church of the Fathers [Hist. Sketches, vol. i. p. 418]. + +[12:1] Proph. Office [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 55, 56]. + +[13:1] [Ibid. p. 181.] + +[13:2] [British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193. Vid. supr. vol. i. p. 130.] + +[16:1] This of course has been disputed, as is the case with almost all +facts which bear upon the decision of controversies. I shall not think +it necessary to notice the possibility or the fact of objections on +questions upon which the world may now be said to be agreed; _e. g._ the +arianizing tone of Eusebius. + +[16:2] +schedon tautsi ts nyn perithylloumens asebeias, ts kata to +Anomoion leg, outos hestin, hosa ge hmeis hismen, ho prtos anthrpois +ta spermata paraschn.+ Ep. ix. 2. + +[16:3] Bull, Defens. F. N. ii. 12, 6. + +[17:1] "The authors who make the generation temporary, and speak not +expressly of any other, are these following: Justin, Athenagoras, +Theophilus, Tatian, Tertullian, and Hippolytus."--_Waterland_, vol. i. +part 2, p. 104. + +[17:2] "Levia sunt," says Maran in his defence, "qu in Sanctissimam +Trinitatem hic liber peccare dicitur, paulo graviora qu in mysterium +Incarnationis."--_Div. Jes. Christ._ p. 527. Shortly after, p. 530, "In +terti oratione nonnulla legimus Incarnationem Domini spectantia, qu +subabsurd dicta fateor, nego impi cogitata." + +[17:3] Bishop Bull, who is tender towards him, allows, "Ut quod res est +dicam, cum Valentinianis hic et reliquo gnosticorum grege aliquatenus +locutus est Tertullianus; in re ips tamen cum Catholicis omnin +sensit."--_Defens. F. N._ iii. 10, 15. + +[18:1] Adv. Praxeam. + +[18:2] Defens. F. N. iv. 3, 1. + +[18:3] Basil, ed. Ben. vol. 3, p. xcvi. + +[19:1] Ante-nicene Test, to the Trinity, p. 69. + +[20:1] "Quia et Pater Deus est, et judex Deus est, non tamen ideo Pater +et judex semper, quia Deus semper. Nam nec Pater potuit esse ante +Filium, nec judex ante delictum. Fuit autem tempus, cum et delictum et +Filius non fuit, quod judicem, et qui Patrem Dominum faceret."--_Contr. +Herm._ 3. + +[20:2] Vid. infra, towards the end of the Essay, ch. x., where more will +be said on the passage. + +[22:1] Of Justification, 26. + +[22:2] Works, vol. ix. p. 396. + +[22:3] "Quamvis igitur quam maxim fallantur Pelagiani, quum asserant, +peccatum originale ex Augustini profluxisse ingenio, antiquam vero +ecclesiam illud plane nescivisse; diffiteri tamen nemo potest, apud +Grcos patres imprimis inveniri loca, qu Pelagianismo favere videntur. +Hinc et C. Jansenius, 'Grci,' inquit, 'nisi caute legantur et +intelligantur, prbere possunt occasionem errori Pelagiano;' et D. +Petavius dicit, 'Grci originalis fere criminis raram, nec disertam, +mentionem scriptis suis attigerunt.'"--_Walch_, _Miscell. Sacr._ p. 607. + +[22:4] Horn, Comment. de Pecc. Orig. 1801, p. 98. + +[23:1] Hr. iv. 18, 5. + +[24:1] Justin Martyr, ch. 4. + +[24:2] Clem. Alex. ch. 11. + +[25:1] Works, vol. vii. p. 118-120. + +[25:2] Ibid. p. 121. + +[25:3] Ibid. p. 127. + +[25:4] [Dr. Pusey's University Sermon of 1843.] + +[26:1] Numer. Hom. xvi. 9. + +[26:2] Interp. Com. in Matt. 85. + +[29:1] [_Vid._ Apolog., p. 198, and Difficulties of Angl. vol. i. xii. +7.] + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS. + + +SECTION I. + +ON THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. + +It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing +judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend +than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, +contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view +all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have +invested it. + +Of the judgments thus made, which become aspects in our minds of the +things which meet us, some are mere opinions which come and go, or which +remain with us only till an accident displaces them, whatever be the +influence which they exercise meanwhile. Others are firmly fixed in our +minds, with or without good reason, and have a hold upon us, whether +they relate to matters of fact, or to principles of conduct, or are +views of life and the world, or are prejudices, imaginations, or +convictions. Many of them attach to one and the same object, which is +thus variously viewed, not only by various minds, but by the same. They +sometimes lie in such near relation, that each implies the others; some +are only not inconsistent with each other, in that they have a common +origin: some, as being actually incompatible with each other, are, one +or other, falsely associated in our minds with their object, and in any +case they may be nothing more than ideas, which we mistake for things. + +Thus Judaism is an idea which once was objective, and Gnosticism is an +idea which was never so. Both of them have various aspects: those of +Judaism were such as monotheism, a certain ethical discipline, a +ministration of divine vengeance, a preparation for Christianity: those +of the Gnostic idea are such as the doctrine of two principles, that of +emanation, the intrinsic malignity of matter, the inculpability of +sensual indulgence, or the guilt of every pleasure of sense, of which +last two one or other must be in the Gnostic a false aspect and +subjective only. + + +2. + +The idea which represents an object or supposed object is commensurate +with the sum total of its possible aspects, however they may vary in the +separate consciousness of individuals; and in proportion to the variety +of aspects under which it presents itself to various minds is its force +and depth, and the argument for its reality. Ordinarily an idea is not +brought home to the intellect as objective except through this variety; +like bodily substances, which are not apprehended except under the +clothing of their properties and results, and which admit of being +walked round, and surveyed on opposite sides, and in different +perspectives, and in contrary lights, in evidence of their reality. And, +as views of a material object may be taken from points so remote or so +opposed, that they seem at first sight incompatible, and especially as +their shadows will be disproportionate, or even monstrous, and yet all +these anomalies will disappear and all these contrarieties be adjusted, +on ascertaining the point of vision or the surface of projection in each +case; so also all the aspects of an idea are capable of coalition, and +of a resolution into the object to which it belongs; and the _prim +facie_ dissimilitude of its aspects becomes, when explained, an argument +for its substantiveness and integrity, and their multiplicity for its +originality and power. + + +3. + +There is no one aspect deep enough to exhaust the contents of a real +idea, no one term or proposition which will serve to define it; though +of course one representation of it is more just and exact than another, +and though when an idea is very complex, it is allowable, for the sake +of convenience, to consider its distinct aspects as if separate ideas. +Thus, with all our intimate knowledge of animal life and of the +structure of particular animals, we have not arrived at a true +definition of any one of them, but are forced to enumerate properties +and accidents by way of description. Nor can we inclose in a formula +that intellectual fact, or system of thought, which we call the Platonic +philosophy, or that historical phenomenon of doctrine and conduct, which +we call the heresy of Montanus or of Manes. Again, if Protestantism were +said to lie in its theory of private judgment, and Lutheranism in its +doctrine of justification, this indeed would be an approximation to the +truth; but it is plain that to argue or to act as if the one or the +other aspect were a sufficient account of those forms of religion +severally, would be a serious mistake. Sometimes an attempt is made to +determine the "leading idea," as it has been called, of Christianity, an +ambitious essay as employed on a supernatural work, when, even as +regards the visible creation and the inventions of man, such a task is +beyond us. Thus its one idea has been said by some to be the restoration +of our fallen race, by others philanthropy, by others the tidings of +immortality, or the spirituality of true religious service, or the +salvation of the elect, or mental liberty, or the union of the soul with +God. If, indeed, it is only thereby meant to use one or other of these +as a central idea for convenience, in order to group others around it, +no fault can be found with such a proceeding: and in this sense I should +myself call the Incarnation the central aspect of Christianity, out of +which the three main aspects of its teaching take their rise, the +sacramental, the hierarchical, and the ascetic. But one aspect of +Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or to obscure another; and +Christianity is dogmatical, devotional, practical all at once; it is +esoteric and exoteric; it is indulgent and strict; it is light and dark; +it is love, and it is fear. + + +4. + +When an idea, whether real or not, is of a nature to arrest and possess +the mind, it may be said to have life, that is, to live in the mind +which is its recipient. Thus mathematical ideas, real as they are, can +hardly properly be called living, at least ordinarily. But, when some +great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present +good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the +public throng of men and draws attention, then it is not merely received +passively in this or that form into many minds, but it becomes an active +principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of +itself, to an application of it in various directions, and a propagation +of it on every side. Such is the doctrine of the divine right of kings, +or of the rights of man, or of the anti-social bearings of a priesthood, +or utilitarianism, or free trade, or the duty of benevolent enterprises, +or the philosophy of Zeno or Epicurus, doctrines which are of a nature +to attract and influence, and have so far a _prim facie_ reality, that +they may be looked at on many sides and strike various minds very +variously. Let one such idea get possession of the popular mind, or the +mind of any portion of the community, and it is not difficult to +understand what will be the result. At first men will not fully realize +what it is that moves them, and will express and explain themselves +inadequately. There will be a general agitation of thought, and an +action of mind upon mind. There will be a time of confusion, when +conceptions and misconceptions are in conflict, and it is uncertain +whether anything is to come of the idea at all, or which view of it is +to get the start of the others. New lights will be brought to bear upon +the original statements of the doctrine put forward; judgments and +aspects will accumulate. After a while some definite teaching emerges; +and, as time proceeds, one view will be modified or expanded by another, +and then combined with a third; till the idea to which these various +aspects belong, will be to each mind separately what at first it was +only to all together. It will be surveyed too in its relation to other +doctrines or facts, to other natural laws or established customs, to the +varying circumstances of times and places, to other religions, polities, +philosophies, as the case may be. How it stands affected towards other +systems, how it affects them, how far it may be made to combine with +them, how far it tolerates them, when it interferes with them, will be +gradually wrought out. It will be interrogated and criticized by +enemies, and defended by well-wishers. The multitude of opinions formed +concerning it in these respects and many others will be collected, +compared, sorted, sifted, selected, rejected, gradually attached to it, +separated from it, in the minds of individuals and of the community. It +will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtlety, introduce itself +into the framework and details of social life, changing public opinion, +and strengthening or undermining the foundations of established order. +Thus in time it will have grown into an ethical code, or into a system +of government, or into a theology, or into a ritual, according to its +capabilities: and this body of thought, thus laboriously gained, will +after all be little more than the proper representative of one idea, +being in substance what that idea meant from the first, its complete +image as seen in a combination of diversified aspects, with the +suggestions and corrections of many minds, and the illustration of many +experiences. + + +5. + +This process, whether it be longer or shorter in point of time, by which +the aspects of an idea are brought into consistency and form, I call its +development, being the germination and maturation of some truth or +apparent truth on a large mental field. On the other hand this process +will not be a development, unless the assemblage of aspects, which +constitute its ultimate shape, really belongs to the idea from which +they start. A republic, for instance, is not a development from a pure +monarchy, though it may follow upon it; whereas the Greek "tyrant" may +be considered as included in the idea of a democracy. Moreover a +development will have this characteristic, that, its action being in the +busy scene of human life, it cannot progress at all without cutting +across, and thereby destroying or modifying and incorporating with +itself existing modes of thinking and operating. The development then of +an idea is not like an investigation worked out on paper, in which each +successive advance is a pure evolution from a foregoing, but it is +carried on through and by means of communities of men and their leaders +and guides; and it employs their minds as its instruments, and depends +upon them, while it uses them. And so, as regards existing opinions, +principles, measures, and institutions of the community which it has +invaded; it developes by establishing relations between itself and +them; it employs itself, in giving them a new meaning and direction, in +creating what may be called a jurisdiction over them, in throwing off +whatever in them it cannot assimilate. It grows when it incorporates, +and its identity is found, not in isolation, but in continuity and +sovereignty. This it is that imparts to the history both of states and +of religions, its specially turbulent and polemical character. Such is +the explanation of the wranglings, whether of schools or of parliaments. +It is the warfare of ideas under their various aspects striving for the +mastery, each of them enterprising, engrossing, imperious, more or less +incompatible with the rest, and rallying followers or rousing foes, +according as it acts upon the faith, the prejudices, or the interest of +parties or classes. + + +6. + +Moreover, an idea not only modifies, but is modified, or at least +influenced, by the state of things in which it is carried out, and is +dependent in various ways on the circumstances which surround it. Its +development proceeds quickly or slowly, as it may be; the order of +succession in its separate stages is variable; it shows differently in a +small sphere of action and in an extended; it may be interrupted, +retarded, mutilated, distorted, by external violence; it may be +enfeebled by the effort of ridding itself of domestic foes; it may be +impeded and swayed or even absorbed by counter energetic ideas; it may +be coloured by the received tone of thought into which it comes, or +depraved by the intrusion of foreign principles, or at length shattered +by the development of some original fault within it. + + +7. + +But whatever be the risk of corruption from intercourse with the world +around, such a risk must be encountered if a great idea is duly to be +understood, and much more if it is to be fully exhibited. It is elicited +and expanded by trial, and battles into perfection and supremacy. Nor +does it escape the collision of opinion even in its earlier years, nor +does it remain truer to itself, and with a better claim to be considered +one and the same, though externally protected from vicissitude and +change. It is indeed sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the +spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply +to the history of a philosophy or belief, which on the contrary is more +equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and +broad, and full. It necessarily rises out of an existing state of +things, and for a time savours of the soil. Its vital element needs +disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in +efforts after freedom which become more vigorous and hopeful as its +years increase. Its beginnings are no measure of its capabilities, nor +of its scope. At first no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It +remains perhaps for a time quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs, +and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to time it +makes essays which fail, and are in consequence abandoned. It seems in +suspense which way to go; it wavers, and at length strikes out in one +definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory; points of +controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall around it; +dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and old principles reappear +under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a +higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and +to be perfect is to have changed often. + + +SECTION II. + +ON THE KINDS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. + +To attempt an accurate analysis or complete enumeration of the processes +of thought, whether speculative or practical, which come under the +notion of development, exceeds the pretensions of an Essay like the +present; but, without some general view of the various mental exercises +which go by the name we shall have no security against confusion in our +reasoning and necessary exposure to criticism. + +1. First, then, it must be borne in mind that the word is commonly used, +and is used here, in three senses indiscriminately, from defect of our +language; on the one hand for the process of development, on the other +for the result; and again either generally for a development, true or +not true, (that is, faithful or unfaithful to the idea from which it +started,) or exclusively for a development deserving the name. A false +or unfaithful development is more properly to be called a corruption. + +2. Next, it is plain that _mathematical_ developments, that is, the +system of truths drawn out from mathematical definitions or equations, +do not fall under our present subject, though altogether analogous to +it. There can be no corruption in such developments, because they are +conducted on strict demonstration; and the conclusions in which they +terminate, being necessary, cannot be declensions from the original +idea. + +3. Nor, of course, do _physical_ developments, as the growth of animal +or vegetable nature, come into consideration here; excepting that, +together with mathematical, they may be taken as illustrations of the +general subject to which we have to direct our attention. + +4. Nor have we to consider _material_ developments, which, though +effected by human contrivance, are still physical; as the development, +as it is called, of the national resources. We speak, for instance, of +Ireland, the United States, or the valley of the Indus, as admitting of +a great development; by which we mean, that those countries have fertile +tracts, or abundant products, or broad and deep rivers, or central +positions for commerce, or capacious and commodious harbours, the +materials and instruments of wealth, and these at present turned to +insufficient account. Development in this case will proceed by +establishing marts, cutting canals, laying down railroads, erecting +factories, forming docks, and similar works, by which the natural riches +of the country may be made to yield the largest return and to exert the +greatest influence. In this sense, art is the development of nature, +that is, its adaptation to the purposes of utility and beauty, the human +intellect being the developing power. + + +2. + +5. When society and its various classes and interests are the +subject-matter of the ideas which are in operation, the development may +be called _political_; as we see it in the growth of States or the +changes of a Constitution. Barbarians descend into southern regions from +cupidity, and their warrant is the sword: this is no intellectual +process, nor is it the mode of development exhibited in civilized +communities. Where civilization exists, reason, in some shape or other, +is the incentive or the pretence of development. When an empire +enlarges, it is on the call of its allies, or for the balance of power, +or from the necessity of a demonstration of strength, or from a fear for +its frontiers. It lies uneasily in its territory, it is ill-shaped, it +has unreal boundary-lines, deficient communication between its principal +points, or defenceless or turbulent neighbours. Thus, of old time, +Euboea was necessary for Athens, and Cythera for Sparta; and Augustus +left his advice, as a legacy, to confine the Empire between the +Atlantic, the Rhine and Danube, the Euphrates, and the Arabian and +African deserts. In this day, we hear of the Rhine being the natural +boundary of France, and the Indus of our Eastern empire; and we predict +that, in the event of a war, Prussia will change her outlines in the map +of Europe. The development is material; but an idea gives unity and +force to its movement. + +And so to take a case of national politics, a late writer remarks of the +Parliament of 1628-29, in its contest with Charles, that, so far from +encroaching on the just powers of a limited monarch, it never hinted at +the securities which were necessary for its measures. However, "twelve +years more of repeated aggressions," he adds, "taught the Long +Parliament what a few sagacious men might perhaps have already +suspected; that they must recover more of their ancient constitution, +from oblivion; that they must sustain its partial weakness by new +securities; that, in order to render the existence of monarchy +compatible with that of freedom, they must not only strip it of all it +had usurped, but of something that was its own."[43:1] Whatever be the +worth of this author's theory, his facts or representations are an +illustration of a political development. + +Again, at the present day, that Ireland should have a population of one +creed, and a Church of another, is felt to be a political arrangement so +unsatisfactory, that all parties seem to agree that either the +population will develope in power or the Establishment in influence. + +Political developments, though really the growth of ideas, are often +capricious and irregular from the nature of their subject-matter. They +are influenced by the character of sovereigns, the rise and fall of +statesmen, the fate of battles, and the numberless vicissitudes of the +world. "Perhaps the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the +Monophysites," says Gibbon, "if the Emperor's horse had not fortunately +stumbled. Theodosius expired, his orthodox sister succeeded to the +throne."[44:1] + + +3. + +Again, it often happens, or generally, that various distinct and +incompatible elements are found in the origin or infancy of politics, or +indeed of philosophies, some of which must be ejected before any +satisfactory developments, if any, can take place. And they are commonly +ejected by the gradual growth of the stronger. The reign of Charles the +First, just referred to, supplies an instance in point. + +Sometimes discordant ideas are for a time connected and concealed by a +common profession or name. Such is the case of coalitions in politics +and comprehensions in religion, of which commonly no good is to be +expected. Such is an ordinary function of committees and boards, and the +sole aim of conciliations and concessions, to make contraries look the +same, and to secure an outward agreement where there is no other unity. + +Again, developments, reactions, reforms, revolutions, and changes of +various kinds are mixed together in the actual history of states, as of +philosophical sects, so as to make it very difficult to exhibit them in +any scientific analysis. + +Often the intellectual process is detached from the practical, and +posterior to it. Thus it was after Elizabeth had established the +Reformation that Hooker laid down his theory of Church and State as one +and the same, differing only in idea; and, after the Revolution and its +political consequences, that Warburton wrote his "Alliance." And now +again a new theory is needed for the constitutional lawyer, in order to +reconcile the existing political state of things with the just claims +of religion. And so, again, in Parliamentary conflicts, men first come +to their conclusions by the external pressure of events or the force of +principles, they do not know how; then they have to speak, and they look +about for arguments: and a pamphlet is published on the subject in +debate, or an article appears in a Review, to furnish common-places for +the many. + +Other developments, though political, are strictly subjected and +consequent to the ideas of which they are the exhibitions. Thus Locke's +philosophy was a real guide, not a mere defence of the Revolution era, +operating forcibly upon Church and Government in and after his day. Such +too were the theories which preceded the overthrow of the old regime in +France and other countries at the end of the last century. + +Again, perhaps there are polities founded on no ideas at all, but on +mere custom, as among the Asiatics. + + +4. + +6. In other developments the intellectual character is so prominent that +they may even be called _logical_, as in the Anglican doctrine of the +Royal Supremacy, which has been created in the courts of law, not in the +cabinet or on the field. Hence it is carried out with a consistency and +minute application which the history of constitutions cannot exhibit. It +does not only exist in statutes, or in articles, or in oaths, it is +realized in details: as in the _cong d'lire_ and letter-missive on +appointment of a Bishop;--in the forms observed in Privy Council on the +issuing of State Prayers;--in certain arrangements observed in the +Prayer-book, where the universal or abstract Church precedes the King, +but the national or really existing body follows him; in printing his +name in large capitals, while the Holiest Names are in ordinary type, +and in fixing his arms in churches instead of the Crucifix; moreover, +perhaps, in placing "sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion," before +"false doctrine, heresy, and schism" in the Litany. + +Again, when some new philosophy or its instalments are introduced into +the measures of the Legislature, or into the concessions made to a +political party, or into commercial or agricultural policy, it is often +said, "We have not seen the end of this;" "It is an earnest of future +concessions;" "Our children will see." We feel that it has unknown +bearings and issues. + +The admission of Jews to municipal offices has lately been +defended[46:1] on the ground that it is the introduction of no new +principle, but a development of one already received; that its great +premisses have been decided long since; and that the present age has but +to draw the conclusion; that it is not open to us to inquire what ought +to be done in the abstract, since there is no ideal model for the +infallible guidance of nations; that change is only a question of time, +and that there is a time for all things; that the application of +principles ought not to go beyond the actual case, neither preceding nor +coming after an imperative demand; that in point of fact Jews have +lately been chosen for offices, and that in point of principle the law +cannot refuse to legitimate such elections. + + +5. + +7. Another class of developments may be called _historical_; being the +gradual formation of opinion concerning persons, facts, and events. +Judgments, which were at one time confined to a few, at length spread +through a community, and attain general reception by the accumulation +and concurrence of testimony. Thus some authoritative accounts die away; +others gain a footing, and are ultimately received as truths. Courts of +law, Parliamentary proceedings, newspapers, letters and other +posthumous documents, the industry of historians and biographers, and +the lapse of years which dissipates parties and prejudices, are in this +day the instruments of such development. Accordingly the Poet makes +Truth the daughter of Time.[47:1] Thus at length approximations are made +to a right appreciation of transactions and characters. History cannot +be written except in an after-age. Thus by development the Canon of the +New Testament has been formed. Thus public men are content to leave +their reputation to posterity; great reactions take place in opinion; +nay, sometimes men outlive opposition and obloquy. Thus Saints are +canonized in the Church, long after they have entered into their rest. + + +6. + +8. _Ethical_ developments are not properly matter for argument and +controversy, but are natural and personal, substituting what is +congruous, desirable, pious, appropriate, generous, for strictly logical +inference. Bishop Butler supplies us with a remarkable instance in the +beginning of the Second Part of his "Analogy." As principles imply +applications, and general propositions include particulars, so, he tells +us, do certain relations imply correlative duties, and certain objects +demand certain acts and feelings. He observes that, even though we were +not enjoined to pay divine honours to the Second and Third Persons of +the Holy Trinity, what is predicated of Them in Scripture would be an +abundant warrant, an indirect command, nay, a ground in reason, for +doing so. "Does not," he asks, "the duty of religious regards to both +these Divine Persons as immediately arise, to the view of reason, out of +the very nature of these offices and relations, as the inward good-will +and kind intention which we owe to our fellow-creatures arises out of +the common relations between us and them?" He proceeds to say that he is +speaking of the inward religious regards of reverence, honour, love, +trust, gratitude, fear, hope. "In what external manner this inward +worship is to be expressed, is a matter of pure revealed command; . . +but the worship, the internal worship itself, to the Son and Holy Ghost, +is no further matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they +stand in to us are matter of pure revelation; for, the relations being +known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of +reason, arising out of those relations themselves." Here is a +development of doctrine into worship, of which parallel instances are +obviously to be found in the Church of Rome. + + +7. + +A development, converse to that which Butler speaks of, must next be +mentioned. As certain objects excite certain emotions and sentiments, so +do sentiments imply objects and duties. Thus conscience, the existence +of which we cannot deny, is a proof of the doctrine of a Moral Governor, +which alone gives it a meaning and a scope; that is, the doctrine of a +Judge and Judgment to come is a development of the phenomenon of +conscience. Again, it is plain that passions and affections are in +action in our minds before the presence of their proper objects; and +their activity would of course be an antecedent argument of extreme +cogency in behalf of the real existence of those legitimate objects, +supposing them unknown. And so again, the social principle, which is +innate in us, gives a divine sanction to society and to civil +government. And the usage of prayers for the dead implies certain +circumstances of their state upon which such devotions bear. And rites +and ceremonies are natural means through which the mind relieves itself +of devotional and penitential emotions. And sometimes the cultivation +of awe and love towards what is great, high, and unseen, has led a man +to the abandonment of his sect for some more Catholic form of doctrine. + +Aristotle furnishes us with an instance of this kind of development in +his account of the happy man. After showing that his definition of +happiness includes in itself the pleasurable, which is the most obvious +and popular idea of happiness, he goes on to say that still external +goods are necessary to it, about which, however, the definition said +nothing; that is, a certain prosperity is by moral fitness, not by +logical necessity, attached to the happy man. "For it is impossible," he +observes, "or not easy, to practise high virtue without abundant means. +Many deeds are done by the instrumentality of friends, wealth and +political power; and of some things the absence is a cloud upon +happiness, as of noble birth, of hopeful children, and of personal +appearance: for a person utterly deformed, or low-born, or bereaved and +childless, cannot quite be happy: and still less if he have very +worthless children or friends, or they were good and died."[49:1] + + +8. + +This process of development has been well delineated by a living French +writer, in his Lectures on European civilization, who shall be quoted at +some length. "If we reduce religion," he says, "to a purely religious +sentiment . . . it appears evident that it must and ought to remain a +purely personal concern. But I am either strangely mistaken, or this +religious sentiment is not the complete expression of the religious +nature of man. Religion is, I believe, very different from this, +and much more extended. There are problems in human nature, in human +destinies, which cannot be solved in this life, which depend on +an order of things unconnected with the visible world, but which +unceasingly agitate the human mind with a desire to comprehend them. The +solution of these problems is the origin of all religion; her primary +object is to discover the creeds and doctrines which contain, or are +supposed to contain it. + +"Another cause also impels mankind to embrace religion . . . From whence +do morals originate? whither do they lead? is this self-existing +obligation to do good, an isolated fact, without an author, without an +end? does it not conceal, or rather does it not reveal to man, an +origin, a destiny, beyond this world? The science of morals, by these +spontaneous and inevitable questions, conducts man to the threshold of +religion, and displays to him a sphere from whence he has not derived +it. Thus the certain and never-failing sources of religion are, on the +one hand, the problems of our nature; on the other, the necessity of +seeking for morals a sanction, an origin, and an aim. It therefore +assumes many other forms beside that of a pure sentiment; it appears a +union of doctrines, of precepts, of promises. This is what truly +constitutes religion; this is its fundamental character; it is not +merely a form of sensibility, an impulse of the imagination, a variety +of poetry. + +"When thus brought back to its true elements, to its essential nature, +religion appears no longer a purely personal concern, but a powerful and +fruitful principle of association. Is it considered in the light of a +system of belief, a system of dogmas? Truth is not the heritage of any +individual, it is absolute and universal; mankind ought to seek and +profess it in common. Is it considered with reference to the precepts +that are associated with its doctrines? A law which is obligatory on a +single individual, is so on all; it ought to be promulgated, and it is +our duty to endeavour to bring all mankind under its dominion. It is +the same with respect to the promises that religion makes, in the name +of its creeds and precepts; they ought to be diffused; all men should be +incited to partake of their benefits. A religious society, therefore, +naturally results from the essential elements of religion, and is such a +necessary consequence of it that the term which expresses the most +energetic social sentiment, the most intense desire to propagate ideas +and extend society, is the word _proselytism_, a term which is +especially applied to religious belief, and in fact consecrated to it. + +"When a religious society has ever been formed, when a certain number of +men are united by a common religious creed, are governed by the same +religious precepts, and enjoy the same religious hopes, some form of +government is necessary. No society can endure a week, nay more, no +society can endure a single hour, without a government. The moment, +indeed, a society is formed, by the very fact of its formation, it calls +forth a government,--a government which shall proclaim the common truth +which is the bond of the society, and promulgate and maintain the +precepts that this truth ought to produce. The necessity of a superior +power, of a form of government, is involved in the fact of the existence +of a religious, as it is in that of any other society. + +"And not only is a government necessary, but it naturally forms +itself. . . . When events are suffered to follow their natural laws, +when force does not interfere, power falls into the hands of the most +able, the most worthy, those who are most capable of carrying out the +principles on which the society was founded. Is a warlike expedition +in agitation? The bravest take the command. Is the object of the +association learned research, or a scientific undertaking? The best +informed will be the leader. . . . The inequality of faculties and +influence, which is the foundation of power in civil life, has the same +effect in a religious society. . . Religion has no sooner arisen in the +human mind than a religious society appears; and immediately a religious +society is formed, it produces its government."[52:1] + + +9. + +9. It remains to allude to what, unless the word were often so vaguely +and variously used, I should be led to call _metaphysical_ developments; +I mean such as are a mere analysis of the idea contemplated, and +terminate in its exact and complete delineation. Thus Aristotle draws +the character of a magnanimous or of a munificent man; thus Shakspeare +might conceive and bring out his Hamlet or Ariel; thus Walter Scott +gradually enucleates his James, or Dalgetty, as the action of his story +proceeds; and thus, in the sacred province of theology, the mind may be +employed in developing the solemn ideas, which it has hitherto held +implicitly and without subjecting them to its reflecting and reasoning +powers. + +I have already treated of this subject at length, with a reference to +the highest theological subject, in a former work, from which it will be +sufficient here to quote some sentences in explanation:-- + +"The mind which is habituated to the thought of God, of Christ, of +the Holy Spirit, naturally turns with a devout curiosity to the +contemplation of the object of its adoration, and begins to form +statements concerning it, before it knows whither, or how far, it will +be carried. One proposition necessarily leads to another, and a second +to a third; then some limitation is required; and the combination of +these opposites occasions some fresh evolutions from the original idea, +which indeed can never be said to be entirely exhausted. This process is +its development, and results in a series, or rather body, of dogmatic +statements, till what was an impression on the Imagination has become a +system or creed in the Reason. + +"Now such impressions are obviously individual and complete above other +theological ideas, because they are the impressions of Objects. Ideas +and their developments are commonly not identical, the development being +but the carrying out of the idea into its consequences. Thus the +doctrine of Penance may be called a development of the doctrine of +Baptism, yet still is a distinct doctrine; whereas the developments in +the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are mere portions +of the original impression, and modes of representing it. As God is one, +so the impression which He gives us of Himself is one; it is not a thing +of parts; it is not a system; nor is it anything imperfect and needing a +counterpart. It is the vision of an object. When we pray, we pray, not +to an assemblage of notions or to a creed, but to One Individual Being; +and when we speak of Him, we speak of a Person, not of a Law or +Manifestation . . . Religious men, according to their measure, have an +idea or vision of the Blessed Trinity in Unity, of the Son Incarnate, +and of His Presence, not as a number of qualities, attributes, and +actions, not as the subject of a number of propositions, but as one and +individual, and independent of words, like an impression conveyed +through the senses. . . . Creeds and dogmas live in the one idea which +they are designed to express, and which alone is substantive; and are +necessary, because the human mind cannot reflect upon that idea except +piecemeal, cannot use it in its oneness and entireness, or without +resolving it into a series of aspects and relations."[53:1] + + +10. + +So much on the development of ideas in various subject matters: it may +be necessary to add that, in many cases, _development_ simply stands +for _exhibition_, as in some of the instances adduced above. Thus both +Calvinism and Unitarianism may be called developments, that is, +exhibitions, of the principle of Private Judgment, though they have +nothing in common, viewed as doctrines. + +As to Christianity, supposing the truths of which it consists to admit +of development, that development will be one or other of the last five +kinds. Taking the Incarnation as its central doctrine, the Episcopate, +as taught by St. Ignatius, will be an instance of political development, +the _Theotokos_ of logical, the determination of the date of our Lord's +birth of historical, the Holy Eucharist of moral, and the Athanasian +Creed of metaphysical. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43:1] Hallam's Constit. Hist. ch. vii. p. 572. + +[44:1] ch. xlvii. + +[46:1] _Times_ newspaper of March, 1845. + +[47:1] Crabbe's Tales. + +[49:1] Eth. Nic. i. 8. + +[52:1] Guizot, Europ. Civil., Lect. v., Beckwith's Translation. + +[53:1] [Univ. Serm. xv. 20-23, pp. 329-332, ed. 3.] + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ON THE ANTECEDENT ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIAN +DOCTRINE. + + +SECTION I. + +DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE TO BE EXPECTED. + +1. If Christianity is a fact, and impresses an idea of itself on our +minds and is a subject-matter of exercises of the reason, that idea will +in course of time expand into a multitude of ideas, and aspects of +ideas, connected and harmonious with one another, and in themselves +determinate and immutable, as is the objective fact itself which is thus +represented. It is a characteristic of our minds, that they cannot take +an object in, which is submitted to them simply and integrally. We +conceive by means of definition or description; whole objects do not +create in the intellect whole ideas, but are, to use a mathematical +phrase, thrown into series, into a number of statements, strengthening, +interpreting, correcting each other, and with more or less exactness +approximating, as they accumulate, to a perfect image. There is no other +way of learning or of teaching. We cannot teach except by aspects or +views, which are not identical with the thing itself which we are +teaching. Two persons may each convey the same truth to a third, yet by +methods and through representations altogether different. The same +person will treat the same argument differently in an essay or speech, +according to the accident of the day of writing, or of the audience, yet +it will be substantially the same. + +And the more claim an idea has to be considered living, the more various +will be its aspects; and the more social and political is its nature, +the more complicated and subtle will be its issues, and the longer and +more eventful will be its course. And in the number of these special +ideas, which from their very depth and richness cannot be fully +understood at once, but are more and more clearly expressed and taught +the longer they last,--having aspects many and bearings many, mutually +connected and growing one out of another, and all parts of a whole, with +a sympathy and correspondence keeping pace with the ever-changing +necessities of the world, multiform, prolific, and ever +resourceful,--among these great doctrines surely we Christians shall not +refuse a foremost place to Christianity. Such previously to the +determination of the fact, must be our anticipation concerning it from a +contemplation of its initial achievements. + + +2. + +It may be objected that its inspired documents at once determine the +limits of its mission without further trouble; but ideas are in the +writer and reader of the revelation, not the inspired text itself: and +the question is whether those ideas which the letter conveys from writer +to reader, reach the reader at once in their completeness and accuracy +on his first perception of them, or whether they open out in his +intellect and grow to perfection in the course of time. Nor could it +surely be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the New +Testament, or of any assignable number of books, comprises a delineation +of all possible forms which a divine message will assume when submitted +to a multitude of minds. + +Nor is the case altered by supposing that inspiration provided in behalf +of the first recipients of the Revelation, what the Divine Fiat effected +for herbs and plants in the beginning, which were created in maturity. +Still, the time at length came, when its recipients ceased to be +inspired; and on these recipients the revealed truths would fall, as in +other cases, at first vaguely and generally, though in spirit and in +truth, and would afterwards be completed by developments. + +Nor can it fairly be made a difficulty that thus to treat of Christianity +is to level it in some sort to sects and doctrines of the world, and to +impute to it the imperfections which characterize the productions of +man. Certainly it is a sort of degradation of a divine work to consider +it under an earthly form; but it is no irreverence, since our Lord +Himself, its Author and Guardian, bore one also. Christianity differs +from other religions and philosophies, in what is superadded to earth +from heaven; not in kind, but in origin; not in its nature, but in its +personal characteristics; being informed and quickened by what is more +than intellect, by a divine spirit. It is externally what the Apostle +calls an "earthen vessel," being the religion of men. And, considered as +such, it grows "in wisdom and stature;" but the powers which it wields, +and the words which proceed out of its mouth, attest its miraculous +nativity. + +Unless then some special ground of exception can be assigned, it is as +evident that Christianity, as a doctrine and worship, will develope in +the minds of recipients, as that it conforms in other respects, in its +external propagation or its political framework, to the general methods +by which the course of things is carried forward. + + +3. + +2. Again, if Christianity be an universal religion, suited not simply to +one locality or period, but to all times and places, it cannot but vary +in its relations and dealings towards the world around it, that is, it +will develope. Principles require a very various application according +as persons and circumstances vary, and must be thrown into new shapes +according to the form of society which they are to influence. Hence all +bodies of Christians, orthodox or not, develope the doctrines of +Scripture. Few but will grant that Luther's view of justification had +never been stated in words before his time: that his phraseology and his +positions were novel, whether called for by circumstances or not. It is +equally certain that the doctrine of justification defined at Trent was, +in some sense, new also. The refutation and remedy of errors cannot +precede their rise; and thus the fact of false developments or +corruptions involves the correspondent manifestation of true ones. +Moreover, all parties appeal to Scripture, that is, argue from +Scripture; but argument implies deduction, that is, development. Here +there is no difference between early times and late, between a Pope _ex +cathedr_ and an individual Protestant, except that their authority is +not on a par. On either side the claim of authority is the same, and the +process of development. + +Accordingly, the common complaint of Protestants against the Church of +Rome is, not simply that she has added to the primitive or the +Scriptural doctrine, (for this they do themselves,) but that she +contradicts it, and moreover imposes her additions as fundamental truths +under sanction of an anathema. For themselves they deduce by quite as +subtle a method, and act upon doctrines as implicit and on reasons as +little analyzed in time past, as Catholic schoolmen. What prominence has +the Royal Supremacy in the New Testament, or the lawfulness of bearing +arms, or the duty of public worship, or the substitution of the first +day of the week for the seventh, or infant baptism, to say nothing of +the fundamental principle that the Bible and the Bible only is the +religion of Protestants? These doctrines and usages, true or not, which +is not the question here, are surely not gained by the direct use and +immediate application of Scripture, nor by a mere exercise of argument +upon words and sentences placed before the eyes, but by the unconscious +growth of ideas suggested by the letter and habitual to the mind. + + +4. + +3. And, indeed, when we turn to the consideration of particular +doctrines on which Scripture lays the greatest stress, we shall see that +it is absolutely impossible for them to remain in the mere letter of +Scripture, if they are to be more than mere words, and to convey a +definite idea to the recipient. When it is declared that "the Word +became flesh," three wide questions open upon us on the very +announcement. What is meant by "the Word," what by "flesh," what by +"became"? The answers to these involve a process of investigation, and +are developments. Moreover, when they have been made, they will suggest +a series of secondary questions; and thus at length a multitude of +propositions is the result, which gather round the inspired sentence of +which they come, giving it externally the form of a doctrine, and +creating or deepening the idea of it in the mind. + +It is true that, so far as such statements of Scripture are mysteries, +they are relatively to us but words, and cannot be developed. But as a +mystery implies in part what is incomprehensible or at least unknown, so +does it in part imply what is not so; it implies a partial manifestation, +or a representation by economy. Because then it is in a measure +understood, it can so far be developed, though each result in the +process will partake of the dimness and confusion of the original +impression. + + +5. + +4. This moreover should be considered,--that great questions exist in +the subject-matter of which Scripture treats, which Scripture does not +solve; questions too so real, so practical, that they must be answered, +and, unless we suppose a new revelation, answered by means of the +revelation which we have, that is, by development. Such is the question +of the Canon of Scripture and its inspiration: that is, whether +Christianity depends upon a written document as Judaism;--if so, on what +writings and how many;--whether that document is self-interpreting, or +requires a comment, and whether any authoritative comment or commentator +is provided;--whether the revelation and the document are commensurate, +or the one outruns the other;--all these questions surely find no +solution on the surface of Scripture, nor indeed under the surface in +the case of most men, however long and diligent might be their study of +it. Nor were these difficulties settled by authority, as far as we know, +at the commencement of the religion; yet surely it is quite conceivable +that an Apostle might have dissipated them all in a few words, had +Divine Wisdom thought fit. But in matter of fact the decision has been +left to time, to the slow process of thought, to the influence of mind +upon mind, the issues of controversy, and the growth of opinion. + + +6. + +To take another instance just now referred to:--if there was a point on +which a rule was desirable from the first, it was concerning the +religious duties under which Christian parents lay as regards their +children. It would be natural indeed in any Christian father, in the +absence of a rule, to bring his children for baptism; such in this +instance would be the practical development of his faith in Christ and +love for his offspring; still a development it is,--necessarily +required, yet, as far as we know, not provided for his need by direct +precept in the Revelation as originally given. + +Another very large field of thought, full of practical considerations, +yet, as far as our knowledge goes, but only partially occupied by any +Apostolical judgment, is that which the question of the effects of +Baptism opens upon us. That they who came in repentance and faith to +that Holy Sacrament received remission of sins, is undoubtedly the +doctrine of the Apostles; but is there any means of a second remission +for sins committed after it? St. Paul's Epistles, where we might expect +an answer to our inquiry, contain no explicit statement on the subject; +what they do plainly say does not diminish the difficulty:--viz., first, +that baptism is intended for the pardon of sins before it, not in +prospect; next, that those who have received the gift of Baptism in fact +live in a state of holiness, not of sin. How do statements such as these +meet the actual state of the Church as we see it at this day? + +Considering that it was expressly predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven, +like the fisher's net, should gather of every kind, and that the tares +should grow with the wheat until the harvest, a graver and more +practical question cannot be imagined than that which it has pleased the +Divine Author of the Revelation to leave undecided, unless indeed there +be means given in that Revelation of its own growth or development. As +far as the letter goes of the inspired message, every one who holds that +Scripture is the rule of faith, as all Protestants do, must allow that +"there is not one of us but has exceeded by transgression its revealed +Ritual, and finds himself in consequence thrown upon those infinite +resources of Divine Love which are stored in Christ, but have not been +drawn out into form in the appointments of the Gospel."[62:1] Since then +Scripture needs completion, the question is brought to this issue, +whether defect or inchoateness in its doctrines be or be not an +antecedent probability in favour of a development of them. + + +7. + +There is another subject, though not so immediately practical, on which +Scripture does not, strictly speaking, keep silence, but says so little +as to require, and so much as to suggest, information beyond its +letter,--the intermediate state between death and the Resurrection. +Considering the long interval which separates Christ's first and second +coming, the millions of faithful souls who are waiting it out, and the +intimate concern which every Christian has in the determination of its +character, it might have been expected that Scripture would have spoken +explicitly concerning it, whereas in fact its notices are but brief and +obscure. We might indeed have argued that this silence of Scripture +was intentional, with a view of discouraging speculations upon the +subject, except for the circumstance that, as in the question of our +post-baptismal state, its teaching seems to proceed upon an hypothesis +inapplicable to the state of the Church after the time when it was +delivered. As Scripture contemplates Christians, not as backsliders, but +as saints, so does it apparently represent the Day of Judgment as +immediate, and the interval of expectation as evanescent. It leaves on +our minds the general impression that Christ was returning on earth at +once, "the time short," worldly engagements superseded by "the present +distress," persecutors urgent, Christians, as a body, sinless and +expectant, without home, without plan for the future, looking up to +heaven. But outward circumstances have changed, and with the change, a +different application of the revealed word has of necessity been +demanded, that is, a development. When the nations were converted and +offences abounded, then the Church came out to view, on the one hand as +a temporal establishment, on the other as a remedial system, and +passages of Scripture aided and directed the development which before +were of inferior account. Hence the doctrine of Penance as the +complement of Baptism, and of Purgatory as the explanation of the +Intermediate State. So reasonable is this expansion of the original +creed, that, when some ten years since the true doctrine of Baptism was +expounded among us without any mention of Penance, our teacher was +accused by many of us of Novatianism; while, on the other hand, +heterodox divines have before now advocated the doctrine of the sleep of +the soul because they said it was the only successful preventive of +belief in Purgatory. + + +8. + +Thus developments of Christianity are proved to have been in the +contemplation of its Divine Author, by an argument parallel to that by +which we infer intelligence in the system of the physical world. In +whatever sense the need and its supply are a proof of design in the +visible creation, in the same do the gaps, if the word may be used, +which occur in the structure of the original creed of the Church, make +it probable that those developments, which grow out of the truths which +lie around it, were intended to fill them up. + +Nor can it be fairly objected that in thus arguing we are contradicting +the great philosopher, who tells us, that "upon supposition of God +affording us light and instruction by revelation, additional to what He +has afforded us by reason and experience, we are in no sort judges by +what methods, and in what proportion, it were to be expected that this +supernatural light and instruction would be afforded us,"[64:1] because +he is speaking of our judging before a revelation is given. He observes +that "we have no principles of reason upon which to judge _beforehand_, +how it were to be expected Revelation should have been left, or what was +most suitable to the divine plan of government," in various respects; +but the case is altogether altered when a Revelation is vouchsafed, for +then a new precedent, or what he calls "principle of reason," is +introduced, and from what is actually put into our hands we can form a +judgment whether more is to be expected. Butler, indeed, as a well-known +passage of his work shows, is far from denying the principle of +progressive development. + + +9. + +5. The method of revelation observed in Scripture abundantly confirms +this anticipation. For instance, Prophecy, if it had so happened, need +not have afforded a specimen of development; separate predictions might +have been made to accumulate as time went on, prospects might have +opened, definite knowledge might have been given, by communications +independent of each other, as St. John's Gospel or the Epistles of St. +Paul are unconnected with the first three Gospels, though the doctrine +of each Apostle is a development of their matter. But the prophetic +Revelation is, in matter of fact, not of this nature, but a process of +development: the earlier prophecies are pregnant texts out of which the +succeeding announcements grow; they are types. It is not that first one +truth is told, then another; but the whole truth or large portions of it +are told at once, yet only in their rudiments, or in miniature, and they +are expanded and finished in their parts, as the course of revelation +proceeds. + +The Seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; the sceptre was +not to depart from Judah till Shiloh came, to whom was to be the +gathering of the people. He was to be Wonderful, Counsellor, the Prince +of Peace. The question of the Ethiopian rises in the reader's mind, "Of +whom speaketh the Prophet this?" Every word requires a comment. +Accordingly, it is no uncommon theory with unbelievers, that the +Messianic idea, as they call it, was gradually developed in the minds of +the Jews by a continuous and traditional habit of contemplating it, and +grew into its full proportions by a mere human process; and so far seems +certain, without trenching on the doctrine of inspiration, that the +books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are developments of the writings of +the Prophets, expressed or elicited by means of current ideas in the +Greek philosophy, and ultimately adopted and ratified by the Apostle in +his Epistle to the Hebrews. + + +10. + +But the whole Bible, not its prophetical portions only, is written on +the principle of development. As the Revelation proceeds, it is ever +new, yet ever old. St. John, who completes it, declares that he writes +no "new commandment unto his brethren," but an old commandment which +they "had from the beginning." And then he adds, "A new commandment I +write unto you." The same test of development is suggested in our Lord's +words on the Mount, as has already been noticed, "Think not that I am +come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I am not come to destroy, but +to fulfil." He does not reverse, but perfect, what has gone before. Thus +with respect to the evangelical view of the rite of sacrifice, first the +rite is enjoined by Moses; next Samuel says, "to obey is better than +sacrifice;" then Hosea, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice;" Isaiah, +"Incense is an abomination onto me;" then Malachi, describing the times +of the Gospel, speaks of the "pure offering" of wheatflour; and our Lord +completes the development, when He speaks of worshipping "in spirit and +in truth." If there is anything here left to explain, it will be found +in the usage of the Christian Church immediately afterwards, which shows +that sacrifice was not removed, but truth and spirit added. + +Nay, the _effata_ of our Lord and His Apostles are of a typical +structure, parallel to the prophetic announcements above mentioned, and +predictions as well as injunctions of doctrine. If then the prophetic +sentences have had that development which has really been given them, +first by succeeding revelations, and then by the event, it is probable +antecedently that those doctrinal, political, ritual, and ethical +sentences, which have the same structure, should admit the same +expansion. Such are, "This is My Body," or "Thou art Peter, and upon +this Rock I will build My Church," or "The meek shall inherit the +earth," or "Suffer little children to come unto Me," or "The pure in +heart shall see God." + + +11. + +On this character of our Lord's teaching, the following passage +may suitably be quoted from a writer already used. "His recorded words +and works when on earth . . . come to us as the declarations of a +Lawgiver. In the Old Covenant, Almighty God first of all spoke the Ten +Commandments from Mount Sinai, and afterwards wrote them. So our Lord +first spoke His own Gospel, both of promise and of precept, on the +Mount, and His Evangelists have recorded it. Further, when He delivered +it, He spoke by way of parallel to the Ten Commandments. And His style, +moreover, corresponds to the authority which He assumes. It is of that +solemn, measured, and severe character, which bears on the face of it +tokens of its belonging to One who spake as none other man could speak. +The Beatitudes, with which His Sermon opens, are an instance of this +incommunicable style, which befitted, as far as human words could befit, +God Incarnate. + +"Nor is this style peculiar to the Sermon on the Mount. All through the +Gospels it is discernible, distinct from any other part of Scripture, +showing itself in solemn declarations, canons, sentences, or sayings, +such as legislators propound, and scribes and lawyers comment on. Surely +everything our Saviour did and said is characterized by mingled +simplicity and mystery. His emblematical actions, His typical miracles, +His parables, His replies, His censures, all are evidences of a +legislature in germ, afterwards to be developed, a code of divine +truth which was ever to be before men's eyes, to be the subject of +investigation and interpretation, and the guide in controversy. 'Verily, +verily, I say unto you,'--'But, I say unto you,'--are the tokens of a +supreme Teacher and Prophet. + +"And thus the Fathers speak of His teaching. 'His sayings,' observes St. +Justin, 'were short and concise; for He was no rhetorician, but His word +was the power of God.' And St. Basil, in like manner, 'Every deed and +every word of our Saviour Jesus Christ is a canon of piety and virtue. +When then thou hearest word or deed of His, do not hear it as by the +way, or after a simple and carnal manner, but enter into the depth of +His contemplations, become a communicant in truths mystically delivered +to thee.'"[67:1] + + +12. + +Moreover, while it is certain that developments of Revelation proceeded +all through the Old Dispensation down to the very end of our Lord's +ministry, on the other hand, if we turn our attention to the beginnings +of Apostolical teaching after His ascension, we shall find ourselves +unable to fix an historical point at which the growth of doctrine +ceased, and the rule of faith was once for all settled. Not on the day +of Pentecost, for St. Peter had still to learn at Joppa that he was to +baptize Cornelius; not at Joppa and Csarea, for St. Paul had to write +his Epistles; not on the death of the last Apostle, for St. Ignatius had +to establish the doctrine of Episcopacy; not then, nor for centuries +after, for the Canon of the New Testament was still undetermined. Not in +the Creed, which is no collection of definitions, but a summary of +certain _credenda_, an incomplete summary, and, like the Lord's Prayer +or the Decalogue, a mere sample of divine truths, especially of the more +elementary. No one doctrine can be named which starts complete at first, +and gains nothing afterwards from the investigations of faith and the +attacks of heresy. The Church went forth from the old world in haste, as +the Israelites from Egypt "with their dough before it was leavened, +their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their +shoulders." + + +13. + +Further, the political developments contained in the historical parts of +Scripture are as striking as the prophetical and the doctrinal. Can any +history wear a more human appearance than that of the rise and growth of +the chosen people to whom I have just referred? What had been determined +in the counsels of the Lord of heaven and earth from the beginning, what +was immutable, what was announced to Moses in the burning bush, is +afterwards represented as the growth of an idea under successive +emergencies. The Divine Voice in the bush had announced the Exodus of +the children of Israel from Egypt and their entrance into Canaan; and +added, as a token of the certainty of His purpose, "When thou hast +brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this +mountain." Now this sacrifice or festival, which was but incidental and +secondary in the great deliverance, is for a while the ultimate scope of +the demands which Moses makes upon Pharaoh. "Thou shalt come, thou and +the elders of Israel unto the King of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, +The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we +beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may +sacrifice to the Lord our God." It had been added that Pharaoh would +first refuse their request, but that after miracles he would let them go +altogether, nay with "jewels of silver and gold, and raiment." + +Accordingly the first request of Moses was, "Let us go, we pray thee, +three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our +God." Before the plague of frogs the warning is repeated, "Let My people +go that they may serve Me;" and after it Pharaoh says, "I will let the +people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord." It occurs again +before the plague of flies; and after it Pharaoh offers to let the +Israelites sacrifice in Egypt, which Moses refuses on the ground that +they will have to "sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before +their eyes." "We will go three days' journey into the wilderness," he +proceeds, "and sacrifice to the Lord our God;" and Pharaoh then concedes +their sacrificing in the wilderness, "only," he says, "you shall not go +very far away." The demand is repeated separately before the plagues of +murrain, hail, and locusts, no mention being yet made of anything beyond +a service or sacrifice in the wilderness. On the last of these +interviews, Pharaoh asks an explanation, and Moses extends his claim: +"We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our +daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go, for we must +hold a feast unto the Lord." That it was an extension seems plain from +Pharaoh's reply: "Go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord, for that +ye did desire." Upon the plague of darkness Pharaoh concedes the +extended demand, excepting the flocks and herds; but Moses reminds him +that they were implied, though not expressed in the original wording: +"Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may +sacrifice unto the Lord our God." Even to the last, there was no +intimation of their leaving Egypt for good; the issue was left to be +wrought out by the Egyptians. "All these thy servants," says Moses, +"shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get +thee out and all the people that follow thee, and after that I will go +out;" and, accordingly, after the judgment on the first-born, they were +thrust out at midnight, with their flocks and herds, their kneading +troughs and their dough, laden, too, with the spoils of Egypt, as had +been fore-ordained, yet apparently by a combination of circumstances, or +the complication of a crisis. Yet Moses knew that their departure from +Egypt was final, for he took the bones of Joseph with him; and that +conviction broke on Pharaoh soon, when he and his asked themselves, "Why +have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?" But +this progress of events, vague and uncertain as it seemed to be, +notwithstanding the miracles which attended it, had been directed by Him +who works out gradually what He has determined absolutely; and it ended +in the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host, on +his pursuing them. + +Moreover, from what occurred forty years afterwards, when they were +advancing upon the promised land, it would seem that the original grant +of territory did not include the country east of Jordan, held in the +event by Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh; at least they +undertook at first to leave Sihon in undisturbed possession of his +country, if he would let them pass through it, and only on his refusing +his permission did they invade and appropriate it. + + +14. + +6. It is in point to notice also the structure and style of Scripture, a +structure so unsystematic and various, and a style so figurative and +indirect, that no one would presume at first sight to say what is in it +and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents +catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to +the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with +heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our +path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. +Of no doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has +been delivered, can it be peremptorily asserted that it is not in +Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said +that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains. Butler's remarks +on this subject were just now referred to. "The more distinct and +particular knowledge," he says, "of those things, the study of which the +Apostle calls 'going on unto perfection,'" that is, of the more +recondite doctrines of the Gospel, "and of the prophetic parts of +revelation, like many parts of natural and even civil knowledge, may +require very exact thought and careful consideration. The hindrances too +of natural and of supernatural light and knowledge have been of the +same kind. And as it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not +yet understood, so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the +'restitution of all things,' and without miraculous interpositions, it +must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at, by the +continuance and progress of learning and of liberty, and by particular +persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up +and down it, which are overlooked and disregarded by the generality of +the world. For this is the way in which all improvements are made, by +thoughtful men tracing on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by +nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds by chance. Nor +is it at all incredible that a book, which has been so long in the +possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered. +For all the same phenomena, and the same faculties of investigation, +from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have been made in +the present and last age, were equally in the possession of mankind +several thousand years before. And possibly it might be intended that +events, as they come to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of +several parts of Scripture."[72:1] Butler of course was not contemplating +the case of new articles of faith, or developments imperative on +our acceptance, but he surely bears witness to the probability of +developments taking place in Christian doctrine considered in themselves, +which is the point at present in question. + + +15. + +It may be added that, in matter of fact, all the definitions or received +judgments of the early and medieval Church rest upon definite, even +though sometimes obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus Purgatory may +appeal to the "saving by fire," and "entering through much tribulation +into the kingdom of God;" the communication of the merits of the Saints +to our "receiving a prophet's reward" for "receiving a prophet in the +name of a prophet," and "a righteous man's reward" for "receiving a +righteous man in the name of a righteous man;" the Real Presence to +"This is My Body;" Absolution to "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are +remitted;" Extreme Unction to "Anointing him with oil in the Name of the +Lord;" Voluntary poverty to "Sell all that thou hast;" obedience to "He +was in subjection to His parents;" the honour paid to creatures, animate +or inanimate, to _Laudate Dominum in sanctis Ejus_, and _Adorate +scabellum pedum Ejus_; and so of the rest. + + +16. + +7. Lastly, while Scripture nowhere recognizes itself or asserts the +inspiration of those passages which are most essential, it distinctly +anticipates the development of Christianity, both as a polity and as a +doctrine. In one of our Lord's parables "the Kingdom of Heaven" is even +compared to "a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and hid in his +field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it +is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree," and, as St. Mark +words it, "shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air +come and lodge in the branches thereof." And again, in the same chapter +of St. Mark, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed +into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed +should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how; for the earth bringeth +forth fruit of herself." Here an internal element of life, whether +principle or doctrine, is spoken of rather than any mere external +manifestation; and it is observable that the spontaneous, as well as the +gradual, character of the growth is intimated. This description of the +process corresponds to what has been above observed respecting +development, viz. that it is not an effect of wishing and resolving, or +of forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism of reasoning, or of any mere +subtlety of intellect; but comes of its own innate power of expansion +within the mind in its season, though with the use of reflection and +argument and original thought, more or less as it may happen, with a +dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself, and with a reflex +influence upon it. Again, the Parable of the Leaven describes the +development of doctrine in another respect, in its active, engrossing, +and interpenetrating power. + + +17. + +From the necessity, then, of the case, from the history of all sects and +parties in religion, and from the analogy and example of Scripture, +we may fairly conclude that Christian doctrine admits of formal, +legitimate, and true developments, that is, of developments contemplated +by its Divine Author. + +The general analogy of the world, physical and moral, confirms this +conclusion, as we are reminded by the great authority who has already +been quoted in the course of this Section. "The whole natural world and +government of it," says Butler, "is a scheme or system; not a fixed, but +a progressive one; a scheme in which the operation of various means +takes up a great length of time before the ends they tend to can be +attained. The change of seasons, the ripening of the fruits of the +earth, the very history of a flower is an instance of this; and so is +human life. Thus vegetable bodies, and those of animals, though possibly +formed at once, yet grow up by degrees to a mature state. And thus +rational agents, who animate these latter bodies, are naturally directed +to form each his own manners and character by the gradual gaining of +knowledge and experience, and by a long course of action. Our existence +is not only successive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our +life and being is appointed by God to be a preparation for another; and +that to be the means of attaining to another succeeding one: infancy to +childhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. Men are impatient, +and for precipitating things; but the Author of Nature appears +deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by +slow successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid +out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as +well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts +into execution. Thus, in the daily course of natural providence, God +operates in the very same manner as in the dispensation of Christianity, +making one thing subservient to another; this, to somewhat farther; and +so on, through a progressive series of means, which extend, both +backward and forward, beyond our utmost view. Of this manner of +operation, everything we see in the course of nature is as much an +instance as any part of the Christian dispensation."[75:1] + + +SECTION II. + +AN INFALLIBLE DEVELOPING AUTHORITY TO BE EXPECTED. + +It has now been made probable that developments of Christianity were but +natural, as time went on, and were to be expected; and that these +natural and true developments, as being natural and true, were of course +contemplated and taken into account by its Author, who in designing the +work designed its legitimate results. These, whatever they turn out to +be, may be called absolutely "the developments" of Christianity. That, +beyond reasonable doubt, there are such is surely a great step gained in +the inquiry; it is a momentous fact. The next question is, _What_ are +they? and to a theologian, who could take a general view, and also +possessed an intimate and minute knowledge, of its history, they +would doubtless on the whole be easily distinguishable by their own +characters, and require no foreign aid to point them out, no external +authority to ratify them. But it is difficult to say who is exactly in +this position. Considering that Christians, from the nature of the case, +live under the bias of the doctrines, and in the very midst of the +facts, and during the process of the controversies, which are to be the +subject of criticism, since they are exposed to the prejudices of birth, +education, place, personal attachment, engagements, and party, it can +hardly be maintained that in matter of fact a true development carries +with it always its own certainty even to the learned, or that history, +past or present, is secure from the possibility of a variety of +interpretations. + + +2. + +I have already spoken on this subject, and from a very different point +of view from that which I am taking at present:-- + +"Prophets or Doctors are the interpreters of the revelation; they unfold +and define its mysteries, they illuminate its documents, they harmonize +its contents, they apply its promises. Their teaching is a vast system, +not to be comprised in a few sentences, not to be embodied in one code +or treatise, but consisting of a certain body of Truth, pervading the +Church like an atmosphere, irregular in its shape from its very +profusion and exuberance; at times separable only in idea from Episcopal +Tradition, yet at times melting away into legend and fable; partly +written, partly unwritten, partly the interpretation, partly the +supplement of Scripture, partly preserved in intellectual expressions, +partly latent in the spirit and temper of Christians; poured to and fro +in closets and upon the housetops, in liturgies, in controversial works, +in obscure fragments, in sermons, in popular prejudices, in local +customs. This I call Prophetical Tradition, existing primarily in the +bosom of the Church itself, and recorded in such measure as Providence +has determined in the writings of eminent men. Keep that which is +committed to thy charge, is St. Paul's injunction to Timothy; and for +this reason, because from its vastness and indefiniteness it is +especially exposed to corruption, if the Church fails in vigilance. This +is that body of teaching which is offered to all Christians even at the +present day, though in various forms and measures of truth, in different +parts of Christendom, partly being a comment, partly an addition upon +the articles of the Creed."[77:1] + +If this be true, certainly some rule is necessary for arranging and +authenticating these various expressions and results of Christian +doctrine. No one will maintain that all points of belief are of equal +importance. "There are what may be called minor points, which we may +hold to be true without imposing them as necessary;" "there are greater +truths and lesser truths, points which it is necessary, and points which +it is pious to believe."[77:2] The simple question is, How are we to +discriminate the greater from the less, the true from the false. + + +3. + +This need of an authoritative sanction is increased by considering, +after M. Guizot's suggestion, that Christianity, though represented in +prophecy as a kingdom, came into the world as an idea rather than an +institution, and has had to wrap itself in clothing and fit itself with +armour of its own providing, and to form the instruments and methods of +its prosperity and warfare. If the developments, which have above been +called _moral_, are to take place to any great extent, and without them +it is difficult to see how Christianity can exist at all, if only its +relations towards civil government have to be ascertained, or the +qualifications for the profession of it have to be defined, surely an +authority is necessary to impart decision to what is vague, and +confidence to what is empirical, to ratify the successive steps of so +elaborate a process, and to secure the validity of inferences which are +to be made the premisses of more remote investigations. + +Tests, it is true, for ascertaining the correctness of developments in +general may be drawn out, as I shall show in the sequel; but they are +insufficient for the guidance of individuals in the case of so large and +complicated a problem as Christianity, though they may aid our inquiries +and support our conclusions in particular points. They are of a +scientific and controversial, not of a practical character, and are +instruments rather than warrants of right decisions. Moreover, they +rather serve as answers to objections brought against the actual +decisions of authority, than are proofs of the correctness of those +decisions. While, then, on the one hand, it is probable that some means +will be granted for ascertaining the legitimate and true developments of +Revelation, it appears, on the other, that these means must of necessity +be external to the developments themselves. + + +4. + +Reasons shall be given in this Section for concluding that, in +proportion to the probability of true developments of doctrine and +practice in the Divine Scheme, so is the probability also of the +appointment in that scheme of an external authority to decide upon them, +thereby separating them from the mass of mere human speculation, +extravagance, corruption, and error, in and out of which they grow. This +is the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church; for by infallibility +I suppose is meant the power of deciding whether this, that, and a +third, and any number of theological or ethical statements are true. + + +5. + +1. Let the state of the case be carefully considered. If the Christian +doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and important +developments, as was argued in the foregoing Section, this is a strong +antecedent argument in favour of a provision in the Dispensation for +putting a seal of authority upon those developments. The probability of +their being known to be true varies with that of their truth. The two +ideas indeed are quite distinct, I grant, of revealing and of +guaranteeing a truth, and they are often distinct in fact. There are +various revelations all over the earth which do not carry with them the +evidence of their divinity. Such are the inward suggestions and secret +illuminations granted to so many individuals; such are the traditionary +doctrines which are found among the heathen, that "vague and unconnected +family of religious truths, originally from God, but sojourning, without +the sanction of miracle or a definite home, as pilgrims up and down the +world, and discernible and separable from the corrupt legends with which +they are mixed, by the spiritual mind alone."[79:1] There is nothing +impossible in the notion of a revelation occurring without evidences +that it is a revelation; just as human sciences are a divine gift, yet +are reached by our ordinary powers and have no claim on our faith. But +Christianity is not of this nature: it is a revelation which comes to us +as a revelation, as a whole, objectively, and with a profession of +infallibility; and the only question to be determined relates to the +matter of the revelation. If then there are certain great truths, or +duties, or observances, naturally and legitimately resulting from the +doctrines originally professed, it is but reasonable to include these +true results in the idea of the revelation itself, to consider them +parts of it, and if the revelation be not only true, but guaranteed as +true, to anticipate that they too will come under the privilege of that +guarantee. Christianity, unlike other revelations of God's will, except +the Jewish, of which it is a continuation, is an objective religion, or +a revelation with credentials; it is natural, I say, to view it wholly +as such, and not partly _sui generis_, partly like others. Such as it +begins, such let it be considered to continue; granting that certain +large developments of it are true, they must surely be accredited as +true. + + +6. + +2. An objection, however, is often made to the doctrine of infallibility +_in limine_, which is too important not to be taken into consideration. +It is urged that, as all religious knowledge rests on moral evidence, +not on demonstration, our belief in the Church's infallibility must be +of this character; but what can be more absurd than a probable +infallibility, or a certainty resting on doubt?--I believe, because I am +sure; and I am sure, because I suppose. Granting then that the gift of +infallibility be adapted, when believed, to unite all intellects in one +common confession, the fact that it is given is as difficult of proof as +the developments which it is to prove, and nugatory therefore, and in +consequence improbable in a Divine Scheme. The advocates of Rome, it has +been urged, "insist on the necessity of an infallible guide in religious +matters, as an argument that such a guide has really been accorded. Now +it is obvious to inquire how individuals are to know with certainty that +Rome _is_ infallible . . . how any ground can be such as to bring home +to the mind infallibly that she is infallible; what conceivable proof +amounts to more than a probability of the fact; and what advantage is an +infallible guide, if those who are to be guided have, after all, no +more than an opinion, as the Romanists call it, that she is +infallible?"[81:1] + + +7. + +This argument, however, except when used, as is intended in this +passage, against such persons as would remove all imperfection in +the proof of Religion, is certainly a fallacious one. For since, +as all allow, the Apostles were infallible, it tells against their +infallibility, or the infallibility of Scripture, as truly as against +the infallibility of the Church; for no one will say that the Apostles +were made infallible for nothing, yet we are only morally certain that +they were infallible. Further, if we have but probable grounds for the +Church's infallibility, we have but the like for the impossibility of +certain things, the necessity of others, the truth, the certainty of +others; and therefore the words _infallibility_, _necessity_, _truth_, +and _certainty_ ought all of them to be banished from the language. But +why is it more inconsistent to speak of an uncertain infallibility than +of a doubtful truth or a contingent necessity, phrases which present +ideas clear and undeniable? In sooth we are playing with words when we +use arguments of this sort. When we say that a person is infallible, we +mean no more than that what he says is always true, always to be +believed, always to be done. The term is resolvable into these phrases +as its equivalents; either then the phrases are inadmissible, or the +idea of infallibility must be allowed. A probable infallibility is a +probable gift of never erring; a reception of the doctrine of a probable +infallibility is faith and obedience towards a person founded on the +probability of his never erring in his declarations or commands. What is +inconsistent in this idea? Whatever then be the particular means of +determining infallibility, the abstract objection may be put +aside.[81:2] + + +8. + +3. Again, it is sometimes argued that such a dispensation would destroy +our probation, as dissipating doubt, precluding the exercise of faith, +and obliging us to obey whether we wish it or no; and it is urged that a +Divine Voice spoke in the first age, and difficulty and darkness rest +upon all subsequent ones; as if infallibility and personal judgment were +incompatible; but this is to confuse the subject. We must distinguish +between a revelation and a reception of it, not between its earlier and +later stages. A revelation, in itself divine, and guaranteed as such, +may from first to last be received, doubted, argued against, perverted, +rejected, by individuals according to the state of mind of each. +Ignorance, misapprehension, unbelief, and other causes, do not at once +cease to operate because the revelation is in itself true and in its +proofs irrefragable. We have then no warrant at all for saying that an +accredited revelation will exclude the existence of doubts and +difficulties on the part of those whom it addresses, or dispense with +anxious diligence on their part, though it may in its own nature tend +to do so. Infallibility does not interfere with moral probation; the two +notions are absolutely distinct. It is no objection then to the idea of +a peremptory authority, such as I am supposing, that it lessens the task +of personal inquiry, unless it be an objection to the authority of +Revelation altogether. A Church, or a Council, or a Pope, or a Consent +of Doctors, or a Consent of Christendom, limits the inquiries of the +individual in no other way than Scripture limits them: it does limit +them; but, while it limits their range, it preserves intact their +probationary character; we are tried as really, though not on so large a +field. To suppose that the doctrine of a permanent authority in matters +of faith interferes with our free-will and responsibility is, as before, +to forget that there were infallible teachers in the first age, and +heretics and schismatics in the ages subsequent. There may have been at +once a supreme authority from first to last, and a moral judgment from +first to last. Moreover, those who maintain that Christian truth must be +gained solely by personal efforts are bound to show that methods, +ethical and intellectual, are granted to individuals sufficient for +gaining it; else the mode of probation they advocate is less, not more, +perfect than that which proceeds upon external authority. On the whole, +then, no argument against continuing the principle of objectiveness into +the developments of Revelation arises out of the conditions of our moral +responsibility. + + +9. + +4. Perhaps it will be urged that the Analogy of Nature is against our +anticipating the continuance of an external authority which has once +been given; because in the words of the profound thinker who has already +been cited, "We are wholly ignorant what degree of new knowledge it were +to be expected God would give mankind by revelation, upon supposition +of His affording one; or how far, and in what way, He would interpose +miraculously to qualify them to whom He should originally make the +revelation for communicating the knowledge given by it, and to secure +their doing it to the age in which they should live, and to secure its +being transmitted to posterity;" and because "we are not in any sort +able to judge whether it were to be expected that the revelation should +have been committed to writing, or left to be handed down, and +consequently corrupted, by verbal tradition, and at length sunk under +it."[84:1] But this reasoning does not apply here, as has already been +observed; it contemplates only the abstract hypothesis of a revelation, +not the fact of an existing revelation of a particular kind, which may +of course in various ways modify our state of knowledge, by settling +some of those very points which, before it was given, we had no means of +deciding. Nor can it, as I think, be fairly denied that the argument +from analogy in one point of view tells against anticipating a +revelation at all, for an innovation upon the physical order of the +world is by the very force of the terms inconsistent with its ordinary +course. We cannot then regulate our antecedent view of the character of +a revelation by a test which, applied simply, overthrows the very notion +of a revelation altogether. Any how, Analogy is in some sort violated by +the fact of a revelation, and the question before us only relates to the +extent of that violation. + + +10. + +I will hazard a distinction here between the facts of revelation and its +principles:--the argument from Analogy is more concerned with its +principles than with its facts. The revealed facts are special and +singular, not analogous, from the nature of the case: but it is +otherwise with the revealed principles; these are common to all the +works of God: and if the Author of Nature be the Author of Grace, it may +be expected that, while the two systems of facts are distinct and +independent, the principles displayed in them will be the same, and form +a connecting link between them. In this identity of principle lies the +Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, in Butler's sense of the word. +The doctrine of the Incarnation is a fact, and cannot be paralleled by +anything in nature; the doctrine of Mediation is a principle, and is +abundantly exemplified in its provisions. Miracles are facts; +inspiration is a fact; divine teaching once for all, and a continual +teaching, are each a fact; probation by means of intellectual +difficulties is a principle both in nature and in grace, and may be +carried on in the system of grace either by a standing ordinance of +teaching or by one definite act of teaching, and that with an analogy +equally perfect in either case to the order of nature; nor can we +succeed in arguing from the analogy of that order against a standing +guardianship of revelation without arguing also against its original +bestowal. Supposing the order of nature once broken by the introduction +of a revelation, the continuance of that revelation is but a question of +degree; and the circumstance that a work has begun makes it more +probable than not that it will proceed. We have no reason to suppose +that there is so great a distinction of dispensation between ourselves +and the first generation of Christians, as that they had a living +infallible guidance, and we have not. + +The case then stands thus:--Revelation has introduced a new law of +divine governance over and above those laws which appear in the natural +course of the world; and in consequence we are able to argue for the +existence of a standing authority in matters of faith on the analogy of +Nature, and from the fact of Christianity. Preservation is involved in +the idea of creation. As the Creator rested on the seventh day from the +work which He had made, yet He "worketh hitherto;" so He gave the Creed +once for all in the beginning, yet blesses its growth still, and +provides for its increase. His word "shall not return unto Him void, but +accomplish" His pleasure. As creation argues continual governance, so +are Apostles harbingers of Popes. + + +11. + +5. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that, as the essence of all +religion is authority and obedience, so the distinction between natural +religion and revealed lies in this, that the one has a subjective +authority, and the other an objective. Revelation consists in the +manifestation of the Invisible Divine Power, or in the substitution of +the voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of conscience. The supremacy of +conscience is the essence of natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle, +or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed; and when such +external authority is taken away, the mind falls back again of necessity +upon that inward guide which it possessed even before Revelation was +vouchsafed. Thus, what conscience is in the system of nature, such is +the voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or of the Holy See, as we may +determine it, in the system of Revelation. It may be objected, indeed, +that conscience is not infallible; it is true, but still it is ever to +be obeyed. And this is just the prerogative which controversialists +assign to the See of St. Peter; it is not in all cases infallible, it +may err beyond its special province, but it has in all cases a claim on +our obedience. "All Catholics and heretics," says Bellarmine, "agree in +two things: first, that it is possible for the Pope, even as pope, and +with his own assembly of councillors, or with General Council, to err in +particular controversies of fact, which chiefly depend on human +information and testimony; secondly, that it is possible for him to err +as a private Doctor, even in universal questions of right, whether of +faith or of morals, and that from ignorance, as sometimes happens to +other doctors. Next, all Catholics agree in other two points, not, +however, with heretics, but solely with each other: first, that the Pope +with General Council cannot err, either in framing decrees of faith or +general precepts of morality; secondly, that the Pope when determining +anything in a doubtful matter, whether by himself or with his own +particular Council, _whether it is possible for him to err or not, is to +be obeyed_ by all the faithful."[87:1] And as obedience to conscience, +even supposing conscience ill-informed, tends to the improvement of our +moral nature, and ultimately of our knowledge, so obedience to our +ecclesiastical superior may subserve our growth in illumination and +sanctity, even though he should command what is extreme or inexpedient, +or teach what is external to his legitimate province. + + +12. + +6. The common sense of mankind does but support a conclusion thus forced +upon us by analogical considerations. It feels that the very idea of +revelation implies a present informant and guide, and that an infallible +one; not a mere abstract declaration of Truths unknown before to man, or +a record of history, or the result of an antiquarian research, but a +message and a lesson speaking to this man and that. This is shown by the +popular notion which has prevailed among us since the Reformation, that +the Bible itself is such a guide; and which succeeded in overthrowing +the supremacy of Church and Pope, for the very reason that it was a +rival authority, not resisting merely, but supplanting it. In +proportion, then, as we find, in matter of fact, that the inspired +Volume is not adapted or intended to subserve that purpose, are we +forced to revert to that living and present Guide, who, at the era of +our rejection of her, had been so long recognized as the dispenser of +Scripture, according to times and circumstances, and the arbiter of all +true doctrine and holy practice to her children. We feel a need, and she +alone of all things under heaven supplies it. We are told that God has +spoken. Where? In a book? We have tried it and it disappoints; it +disappoints us, that most holy and blessed gift, not from fault of its +own, but because it is used for a purpose for which it was not given. +The Ethiopian's reply, when St. Philip asked him if he understood what +he was reading, is the voice of nature: "How can I, unless some man +shall guide me?" The Church undertakes that office; she does what none +else can do, and this is the secret of her power. "The human mind," it +has been said, "wishes to be rid of doubt in religion; and a teacher who +claims infallibility is readily believed on his simple word. We see this +constantly exemplified in the case of individual pretenders among +ourselves. In Romanism the Church pretends to it; she rids herself of +competitors by forestalling them. And probably, in the eyes of her +children, this is not the least persuasive argument for her +infallibility, that she alone of all Churches dares claim it, as if a +secret instinct and involuntary misgivings restrained those rival +communions which go so far towards affecting it."[88:1] These sentences, +whatever be the errors of their wording, surely express a great truth. +The most obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield to the +authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith, is, +that some authority there must be if there is a revelation given, and +other authority there is none but she. A revelation is not given, if +there be no authority to decide what it is that is given. In the words +of St. Peter to her Divine Master and Lord, "To whom shall we go?" Nor +must it be forgotten in confirmation, that Scripture expressly calls the +Church "the pillar and ground of the Truth," and promises her as by +covenant that "the Spirit of the Lord that is upon her, and His words +which He has put in her mouth shall not depart out of her mouth, nor out +of the mouth of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed's seed, from +henceforth and for ever."[89:1] + + +13. + +7. And if the very claim to infallible arbitration in religious disputes +is of so weighty importance and interest in all ages of the world, much +more is it welcome at a time like the present, when the human intellect +is so busy, and thought so fertile, and opinion so manifold. The +absolute need of a spiritual supremacy is at present the strongest of +arguments in favour of the fact of its supply. Surely, either an +objective revelation has not been given, or it has been provided with +means for impressing its objectiveness on the world. If Christianity be +a social religion, as it certainly is, and if it be based on certain +ideas acknowledged as divine, or a creed, (which shall here be assumed,) +and if these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct impressions +on different minds, and issue in consequence in a multiplicity of +developments, true, or false, or mixed, as has been shown, what power +will suffice to meet and to do justice to these conflicting conditions, +but a supreme authority ruling and reconciling individual judgments by a +divine right and a recognized wisdom? In barbarous times the will is +reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is +called, is the standard of truth and right, it is abundantly evident to +any one, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are +left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and +take his own course; that two or three will agree to-day to part company +to-morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history, +according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver +shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, +party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some +supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement. + +There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of +truth. As cultivation brings out the colours of flowers, and +domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of +necessity develope differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to +lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly +unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to +one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet +proclaims,[90:1] which all acknowledge in private, but that there are +none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action. +The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is, +(when truth is in question,) a judgment which we feel to be superior to +our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for +all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else +you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity +of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose +between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, +between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or +intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. +By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an +infallible chair; and by the sects of England, an interminable +division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in +scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis +than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the +object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the +Revelation. + + +14. + +8. I have called the doctrine of Infallibility an hypothesis: let it be +so considered for the sake of argument, that is, let it be considered to +be a mere position, supported by no direct evidence, but required by the +facts of the case, and reconciling them with each other. That hypothesis +is indeed, in matter of fact, maintained and acted on in the largest +portion of Christendom, and from time immemorial; but let this +coincidence be accounted for by the need. Moreover, it is not a naked or +isolated fact, but the animating principle of a large scheme of doctrine +which the need itself could not simply create; but again, let this +system be merely called its development. Yet even as an hypothesis, +which has been held by one out of various communions, it may not be +lightly put aside. Some hypothesis, this or that, all parties, all +controversialists, all historians must adopt, if they would treat of +Christianity at all. Gieseler's "Text Book" bears the profession of +being a dry analysis of Christian history; yet on inspection it will be +found to be written on a positive and definite theory, and to bend facts +to meet it. An unbeliever, as Gibbon, assumes one hypothesis, and an +Ultra-montane, as Baronius, adopts another. The School of Hurd and +Newton hold, as the only true view of history, that Christianity slept +for centuries upon centuries, except among those whom historians call +heretics. Others speak as if the oath of supremacy or the _cong +d'lire_ could be made the measure of St. Ambrose, and they fit the +Thirty-nine Articles on the fervid Tertullian. The question is, which +of all these theories is the simplest, the most natural, the most +persuasive. Certainly the notion of development under infallible +authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis, than the +chance and coincidence of events, or the Oriental Philosophy, or the +working of Antichrist, to account for the rise of Christianity and the +formation of its theology. + + +SECTION III. + +THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE THE PROBABLE FULFILMENT OF THAT +EXPECTATION. + +I have been arguing, in respect to the revealed doctrine, given to us +from above in Christianity, first, that, in consequence of its +intellectual character, and as passing through the minds of so many +generations of men, and as applied by them to so many purposes, and as +investigated so curiously as to its capabilities, implications, and +bearings, it could not but grow or develope, as time went on, into a +large theological system;--next, that, if development must be, then, +whereas Revelation is a heavenly gift, He who gave it virtually has not +given it, unless He has also secured it from perversion and corruption, +in all such development as comes upon it by the necessity of its nature, +or, in other words, that that intellectual action through successive +generations, which is the organ of development, must, so far forth as it +can claim to have been put in charge of the Revelation, be in its +determinations infallible. + +Passing from these two points, I come next to the question whether in +the history of Christianity there is any fulfilment of such anticipation +as I have insisted on, whether in matter-of-fact doctrines, rites, and +usages have grown up round the Apostolic Creed and have interpenetrated +its Articles, claiming to be part of Christianity and looking like those +additions which we are in search of. The answer is, that such additions +there are, and that they are found just where they might be expected, in +the authoritative seats and homes of old tradition, the Latin and Greek +Churches. Let me enlarge on this point. + + +2. + +I observe, then, that, if the idea of Christianity, as originally given +to us from heaven, cannot but contain much which will be only partially +recognized by us as included in it and only held by us unconsciously; +and if again, Christianity being from heaven, all that is necessarily +involved in it, and is evolved from it, is from heaven, and if, on the +other hand, large accretions actually do exist, professing to be its +true and legitimate results, our first impression naturally is, that +these must be the very developments which they profess to be. Moreover, +the very scale on which they have been made, their high antiquity yet +present promise, their gradual formation yet precision, their harmonious +order, dispose the imagination most forcibly towards the belief that a +teaching so consistent with itself, so well balanced, so young and so +old, not obsolete after so many centuries, but vigorous and progressive +still, is the very development contemplated in the Divine Scheme. These +doctrines are members of one family, and suggestive, or correlative, or +confirmatory, or illustrative of each other. One furnishes evidence to +another, and all to each of them; if this is proved, that becomes +probable; if this and that are both probable, but for different reasons, +each adds to the other its own probability. The Incarnation is the +antecedent of the doctrine of Mediation, and the archetype both of the +Sacramental principle and of the merits of Saints. From the doctrine of +Mediation follow the Atonement, the Mass, the merits of Martyrs and +Saints, their invocation and _cultus_. From the Sacramental principle +come the Sacraments properly so called; the unity of the Church, and the +Holy See as its type and centre; the authority of Councils; the sanctity +of rites; the veneration of holy places, shrines, images, vessels, +furniture, and vestments. Of the Sacraments, Baptism is developed into +Confirmation on the one hand; into Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences +on the other; and the Eucharist into the Real Presence, adoration of the +Host, Resurrection of the body, and the virtue of relics. Again, the +doctrine of the Sacraments leads to the doctrine of Justification; +Justification to that of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of +Celibacy. Nor do these separate developments stand independent of each +other, but by cross relations they are connected, and grow together +while they grow from one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one; +the veneration of Saints and their relics are parts of one; their +intercessory power and the Purgatorial State, and again the Mass and +that State are correlative; Celibacy is the characteristic mark of +Monachism and of the Priesthood. You must accept the whole or reject the +whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate. It is +trifling to receive all but something which is as integral as any other +portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to accept any +part, for, before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a +stern logical necessity to accept the whole. + + +3. + +Next, we have to consider that from first to last other developments +there are none, except those which have possession of Christendom; none, +that is, of prominence and permanence sufficient to deserve the name. In +early times the heretical doctrines were confessedly barren and +short-lived, and could not stand their ground against Catholicism. As to +the medieval period I am not aware that the Greeks present more than a +negative opposition to the Latins. And now in like manner the Tridentine +Creed is met by no rival developments; there is no antagonist system. +Criticisms, objections, protests, there are in plenty, but little of +positive teaching anywhere; seldom an attempt on the part of any +opposing school to master its own doctrines, to investigate their sense +and bearing, to determine their relation to the decrees of Trent and +their distance from them. And when at any time this attempt is by chance +in any measure made, then an incurable contrariety does but come to view +between portions of the theology thus developed, and a war of +principles; an impossibility moreover of reconciling that theology with +the general drift of the formularies in which its elements occur, and a +consequent appearance of unfairness and sophistry in adventurous persons +who aim at forcing them into consistency;[95:1] and, further, a +prevalent understanding of the truth of this representation, authorities +keeping silence, eschewing a hopeless enterprise and discouraging it in +others, and the people plainly intimating that they think both doctrine +and usage, antiquity and development, of very little matter at all; and, +lastly, the evident despair of even the better sort of men, who, in +consequence, when they set great schemes on foot, as for the conversion +of the heathen world, are afraid to agitate the question of the +doctrines to which it is to be converted, lest through the opened door +they should lose what they have, instead of gaining what they have not. +To the weight of recommendation which this contrast throws upon the +developments commonly called Catholic, must be added the argument which +arises from the coincidence of their consistency and permanence, with +their claim of an infallible sanction,--a claim, the existence of which, +in some quarter or other of the Divine Dispensation, is, as we have +already seen, antecedently probable. All these things being considered, +I think few persons will deny the very strong presumption which exists, +that, if there must be and are in fact developments in Christianity, the +doctrines propounded by successive Popes and Councils, through so many +ages, are they. + + +4. + +A further presumption in behalf of these doctrines arises from the +general opinion of the world about them. Christianity being one, all its +doctrines are necessarily developments of one, and, if so, are of +necessity consistent with each other, or form a whole. Now the world +fully enters into this view of those well-known developments which claim +the name of Catholic. It allows them that title, it considers them to +belong to one family, and refers them to one theological system. It is +scarcely necessary to set about proving what is urged by their opponents +even more strenuously than by their champions. Their opponents avow that +they protest, not against this doctrine or that, but against one and +all; and they seem struck with wonder and perplexity, not to say with +awe, at a consistency which they feel to be superhuman, though they +would not allow it to be divine. The system is confessed on all hands to +bear a character of integrity and indivisibility upon it, both at first +view and on inspection. Hence such sayings as the "Tota jacet Babylon" +of the distich. Luther did but a part of the work, Calvin another +portion, Socinus finished it. To take up with Luther, and to reject +Calvin and Socinus, would be, according to that epigram, like living in +a house without a roof to it. This, I say, is no private judgment of +this man or that, but the common opinion and experience of all +countries. The two great divisions of religion feel it, Roman Catholic +and Protestant, between whom the controversy lies; sceptics and +liberals, who are spectators of the conflict, feel it; philosophers feel +it. A school of divines there is, I grant, dear to memory, who have not +felt it; and their exception will have its weight,--till we reflect that +the particular theology which they advocate has not the prescription of +success, never has been realized in fact, or, if realized for a moment, +had no stay; moreover, that, when it has been enacted by human +authority, it has scarcely travelled beyond the paper on which it was +printed, or out of the legal forms in which it was embodied. But, +putting the weight of these revered names at the highest, they do not +constitute more than an exception to the general rule, such as is found +in every subject that comes into discussion. + + +5. + +And this general testimony to the oneness of Catholicism extends to its +past teaching relatively to its present, as well as to the portions of +its present teaching one with another. No one doubts, with such +exception as has just been allowed, that the Roman Catholic communion of +this day is the successor and representative of the Medieval Church, or +that the Medieval Church is the legitimate heir of the Nicene; even +allowing that it is a question whether a line cannot be drawn between +the Nicene Church and the Church which preceded it. On the whole, all +parties will agree that, of all existing systems, the present communion +of Rome is the nearest approximation in fact to the Church of the +Fathers, possible though some may think it, to be nearer still to that +Church on paper. Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to +life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own. +All surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of +their own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at +home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the +lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the +unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or with the +members of any other creed. And may we not add, that were those same +Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy, at Treves, to +come more northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair +city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy +brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which +they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where mass was +said in the populous alley or forlorn suburb? And, on the other hand, +can any one who has but heard his name, and cursorily read his history, +doubt for one instant how, in turn, the people of England, "we, our +princes, our priests, and our prophets," Lords and Commons, +Universities, Ecclesiastical Courts, marts of commerce, great towns, +country parishes, would deal with Athanasius,--Athanasius, who spent his +long years in fighting against sovereigns for a theological term? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[62:1] Doctrine of Justification, Lect. xiii. + +[64:1] Butler's Anal. ii. 3. + +[67:1] Proph. Office, Lect. xii. [Via Med. vol. i. pp. 292-3]. + +[72:1] ii. 3; vide also ii. 4, fin. + +[75:1] Analogy, ii. 4, _ad fin._ + +[77:1] Proph. Office, x. [Via Med. p. 250]. + +[77:2] [Ibid. pp. 247, 254.] + +[79:1] Arians, ch. i. sect. 3 [p. 82, ed. 3]. + +[81:1] Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 122]. + +[81:2] ["It is very common to confuse infallibility with certitude, but +the two words stand for things quite distinct from each other. I +remember for certain what I did yesterday, but still my memory is not +infallible. I am quite clear that two and two makes four, but I often +make mistakes in long addition sums. I have no doubt whatever that John +or Richard is my true friend; but I have before now trusted those who +failed me, and I may do so again before I die. I am quite certain that +Victoria is our sovereign, and not her father, the Duke of Kent, without +any claim myself to the gift of infallibility, as I may do a virtuous +action, without being impeccable. I may be certain that the Church is +infallible, while I am myself a fallible mortal; otherwise I cannot be +certain that the Supreme Being is infallible, unless I am infallible +myself. Certitude is directed to one or other definite concrete +proposition. I am certain of propositions one, two, three, four, or +five, one by one, each by itself. I can be certain of one of them, +without being certain of the rest: that I am certain of the first makes +it neither likely nor unlikely that I am certain of the second: but, +were I infallible, then I should be certain, not only of one of them, +but of all."--_Essay on Assent_, ch. vii. sect. 2.] + +[84:1] Anal. ii. 3. + +[87:1] De Rom. Pont. iv. 2. [Seven years ago, it is scarcely necessary +to say, the Vatican Council determined that the Pope, _ex cathedr_, has +the same infallibility as the Church. This does not affect the argument +in the text.] + +[88:1] Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 117]. + +[89:1] 1 Tim. iii. 16; Isa. lix. 21. + +[90:1] +Ou gar ti nyn ge kachthes, k.t.l.+ + +[95:1] [_Vid._ Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 231-341.] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ON THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS. + + +SECTION I. + +METHOD OF PROOF. + +It seems, then, that we have to deal with a case something like the +following: Certain doctrines come to us, professing to be Apostolic, and +possessed of such high antiquity that, though we are only able to assign +the date of their formal establishment to the fourth, or the fifth, or +the eighth, or the thirteenth century, as it may happen, yet their +substance may, for what appears, be coeval with the Apostles, and be +expressed or implied in texts of Scripture. Further, these existing +doctrines are universally considered, without any question, in each age +to be the echo of the doctrines of the times immediately preceding them, +and thus are continually thrown back to a date indefinitely early, even +though their ultimate junction with the Apostolic Creed be out of sight +and unascertainable. Moreover, they are confessed to form one body one +with another, so that to reject one is to disparage the rest; and they +include within the range of their system even those primary articles of +faith, as the Incarnation, which many an impugner of the said doctrinal +system, as a system, professes to accept, and which, do what he will, +he cannot intelligibly separate, whether in point of evidence or of +internal character, from others which he disavows. Further, these +doctrines occupy the whole field of theology, and leave nothing to be +supplied, except in detail, by any other system; while, in matter of +fact, no rival system is forthcoming, so that we have to choose between +this theology and none at all. Moreover, this theology alone makes +provision for that guidance of opinion and conduct, which seems +externally to be the special aim of Revelation; and fulfils the promises +of Scripture, by adapting itself to the various problems of thought and +practice which meet us in life. And, further, it is the nearest +approach, to say the least, to the religious sentiment, and what is +called _ethos_, of the early Church, nay, to that of the Apostles and +Prophets; for all will agree so far as this, that Elijah, Jeremiah, the +Baptist, and St. Paul are in their history and mode of life (I do not +speak of measures of grace, no, nor of doctrine and conduct, for these +are the points in dispute, but) in what is external and meets the eye +(and this is no slight resemblance when things are viewed as a whole and +from a distance),--these saintly and heroic men, I say, are more like a +Dominican preacher, or a Jesuit missionary, or a Carmelite friar, more +like St. Toribio, or St. Vincent Ferrer, or St. Francis Xavier, or St. +Alphonso Liguori, than to any individuals, or to any classes of men, +that can be found in other communions. And then, in addition, there is +the high antecedent probability that Providence would watch over His own +work, and would direct and ratify those developments of doctrine which +were inevitable. + + +2. + +If this is, on the whole, a true view of the general shape under which +the existing body of developments, commonly called Catholic, present +themselves before us, antecedently to our looking into the particular +evidence on which they stand, I think we shall be at no loss to +determine what both logical truth and duty prescribe to us as to our +reception of them. It is very little to say that we should treat them as +we are accustomed to treat other alleged facts and truths and the +evidence for them, such as come to us with a fair presumption in their +favour. Such are of every day's occurrence; and what is our behaviour +towards them? We meet them, not with suspicion and criticism, but with a +frank confidence. We do not in the first instance exercise our reason +upon opinions which are received, but our faith. We do not begin with +doubting; we take them on trust, and we put them on trial, and that, not +of set purpose, but spontaneously. We prove them by using them, by +applying them to the subject-matter, or the evidence, or the body of +circumstances, to which they belong, as if they gave it its +interpretation or its colour as a matter of course; and only when they +fail, in the event, in illustrating phenomena or harmonizing facts, do +we discover that we must reject the doctrines or the statements which we +had in the first instance taken for granted. Again, we take the evidence +for them, whatever it be, as a whole, as forming a combined proof; and +we interpret what is obscure in separate portions by such portions as +are clear. Moreover, we bear with these in proportion to the strength of +the antecedent probability in their favour, we are patient with +difficulties in their application, with apparent objections to them +drawn from other matters of fact, deficiency in their comprehensiveness, +or want of neatness in their working, provided their claims on our +attention are considerable. + + +3. + +Thus most men take Newton's theory of gravitation for granted, because +it is generally received, and use it without rigidly testing it first, +each for himself, (as it can be tested,) by phenomena; and if phenomena +are found which it does not satisfactorily solve, this does not trouble +us, for a way there must be of explaining them, consistently with that +theory, though it does not occur to ourselves. Again, if we found a +concise or obscure passage in one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, we +should not scruple to admit as its true explanation a more explicit +statement in his _Ad Familiares_. schylus is illustrated by Sophocles +in point of language, and Thucydides by Aristophanes, in point of +history. Horace, Persius, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Juvenal may be made to +throw light upon each other. Even Plato may gain a commentator in +Plotinus, and St. Anselm is interpreted by St. Thomas. Two writers, +indeed, may be already known to differ, and then we do not join them +together as fellow-witnesses to common truths; Luther has taken on +himself to explain St. Augustine, and Voltaire, Pascal, without +persuading the world that they have a claim to do so; but in no case do +we begin with asking whether a comment does not disagree with its text, +when there is a _prim facie_ congruity between them. We elucidate the +text by the comment, though, or rather because, the comment is fuller +and more explicit than the text. + + +4. + +Thus too we deal with Scripture, when we have to interpret the +prophetical text and the types of the Old Testament. The event which is +the development is also the interpretation of the prediction; it +provides a fulfilment by imposing a meaning. And we accept certain +events as the fulfilment of prophecy from the broad correspondence of +the one with the other, in spite of many incidental difficulties. The +difficulty, for instance, in accounting for the fact that the dispersion +of the Jews followed upon their keeping, not their departing from their +Law, does not hinder us from insisting on their present state as an +argument against the infidel. Again, we readily submit our reason on +competent authority, and accept certain events as an accomplishment of +predictions, which seem very far removed from them; as in the passage, +"Out of Egypt have I called My Son." Nor do we find a difficulty, when +St. Paul appeals to a text of the Old Testament, which stands otherwise +in our Hebrew copies; as the words, "A body hast Thou prepared Me." We +receive such difficulties on faith, and leave them to take care of +themselves. Much less do we consider mere fulness in the interpretation, +or definiteness, or again strangeness, as a sufficient reason for +depriving the text, or the action to which it is applied, of the +advantage of such interpretation. We make it no objection that the words +themselves come short of it, or that the sacred writer did not +contemplate it, or that a previous fulfilment satisfies it. A reader who +came to the inspired text by himself, beyond the influence of that +traditional acceptation which happily encompasses it, would be surprised +to be told that the Prophet's words, "A virgin shall conceive," &c., or +"Let all the Angels of God worship Him," refer to our Lord; but assuming +the intimate connexion between Judaism and Christianity, and the +inspiration of the New Testament, we do not scruple to believe it. We +rightly feel that it is no prejudice to our receiving the prophecy of +Balaam in its Christian meaning, that it is adequately fulfilled in +David; or the history of Jonah, that it is poetical in character and has +a moral in itself like an apologue; or the meeting of Abraham and +Melchizedek, that it is too brief and simple to mean any great thing, as +St. Paul interprets it. + + +5. + +Butler corroborates these remarks, when speaking of the particular +evidence for Christianity. "The obscurity or unintelligibleness," he +says, "of one part of a prophecy does not in any degree invalidate the +proof of foresight, arising from the appearing completion of those other +parts which are understood. For the case is evidently the same as if +those parts, which are not understood, were lost, or not written at all, +or written in an unknown tongue. Whether this observation be commonly +attended to or not, it is so evident that one can scarce bring one's +self to set down an instance in common matters to exemplify it."[104:1] +He continues, "Though a man should be incapable, for want of learning, +or opportunities of inquiry, or from not having turned his studies this +way, even so much as to judge whether particular prophecies have been +throughout completely fulfilled; yet he may see, in general, that they +have been fulfilled to such a degree, as, upon very good ground, to be +convinced of foresight more than human in such prophecies, and of such +events being intended by them. For the same reason also, though, by +means of the deficiencies in civil history, and the different accounts +of historians, the most learned should not be able to make out to +satisfaction that such parts of the prophetic history have been minutely +and throughout fulfilled; yet a very strong proof of foresight may arise +from that general completion of them which is made out; as much proof of +foresight, perhaps, as the Giver of prophecy intended should ever be +afforded by such parts of prophecy." + + +6. + +He illustrates this by the parallel instance of fable and concealed +satire. "A man might be assured that he understood what an author +intended by a fable or parable, related without any application or +moral, merely from seeing it to be easily capable of such application, +and that such a moral might naturally be deduced from it. And he might +be fully assured that such persons and events were intended in a +satirical writing, merely from its being applicable to them. And, +agreeably to the last observation, he might be in a good measure +satisfied of it, though he were not enough informed in affairs, or in +the story of such persons, to understand half the satire. For his +satisfaction, that he understood the meaning, the intended meaning, of +these writings, would be greater or less, in proportion as he saw the +general turn of them to be capable of such application, and in +proportion to the number of particular things capable of it." And he +infers hence, that if a known course of events, or the history of a +person as our Lord, is found to answer on the whole to the prophetical +text, it becomes fairly the right interpretation of that text, in spite +of difficulties in detail. And this rule of interpretation admits of an +obvious application to the parallel case of doctrinal passages, when a +certain creed, which professes to have been derived from Revelation, +comes recommended to us on strong antecedent grounds, and presents no +strong opposition to the sacred text. + +The same author observes that the first fulfilment of a prophecy is no +valid objection to a second, when what seems like a second has once +taken place; and, in like manner, an interpretation of doctrinal texts +may be literal, exact, and sufficient, yet in spite of all this may not +embrace what is really the full scope of their meaning; and that fuller +scope, if it so happen, may be less satisfactory and precise, as an +interpretation, than their primary and narrow sense. Thus, if the +Protestant interpretation of the sixth chapter of St. John were true and +sufficient for its letter, (which of course I do not grant,) that would +not hinder the Roman, which at least is quite compatible with the text, +being the higher sense and the only rightful. In such cases the +justification of the larger and higher interpretation lies in some +antecedent probability, such as Catholic consent; and the ground of the +narrow is the context, and the rules of grammar; and, whereas the +argument of the critical commentator is that the sacred text _need not_ +mean more than the letter, those who adopt a deeper view of it maintain, +as Butler in the case of prophecy, that we have no warrant for putting a +limit to the sense of words which are not human but divine. + + +7. + +Now it is but a parallel exercise of reasoning to interpret the previous +history of a doctrine by its later development, and to consider that it +contains the later _in posse_ and in the divine intention; and the +grudging and jealous temper, which refuses to enlarge the sacred text +for the fulfilment of prophecy, is the very same that will occupy itself +in carping at the Ante-nicene testimonies for Nicene or Medieval +doctrines and usages. When "I and My Father are One" is urged in proof +of our Lord's unity with the Father, heretical disputants do not see why +the words must be taken to denote more than a unity of will. When "This +is My Body" is alleged as a warrant for the change of the Bread into the +Body of Christ, they explain away the words into a figure, because such +is their most obvious interpretation. And, in like manner, when Roman +Catholics urge St. Gregory's invocations, they are told that these are +but rhetorical; or St. Clement's allusion to Purgatory, that perhaps it +was Platonism; or Origen's language about praying to Angels and the +merits of Martyrs, that it is but an instance of his heterodoxy; or St. +Cyprian's exaltation of the _Cathedra Petri_, that he need not be +contemplating more than a figurative or abstract see; or the general +testimony to the spiritual authority of Rome in primitive times, that it +arose from her temporal greatness; or Tertullian's language about +Tradition and the Church, that he took a lawyer's view of those +subjects; whereas the early condition, and the evidence, of each +doctrine respectively, ought consistently to be interpreted by means of +that development which was ultimately attained. + + +8. + +Moreover, since, as above shown, the doctrines all together make up one +integral religion, it follows that the several evidences which +respectively support those doctrines belong to a whole, and must be +thrown into a common stock, and all are available in the defence of any. +A collection of weak evidences makes up a strong evidence; again, one +strong argument imparts cogency to collateral arguments which are in +themselves weak. For instance, as to the miracles, whether of Scripture +or the Church, "the number of those which carry with them their own +proof now, and are believed for their own sake, is small, and they +furnish the grounds on which we receive the rest."[107:1] Again, no one +would fancy it necessary, before receiving St. Matthew's Gospel, to find +primitive testimony in behalf of every chapter and verse: when only part +is proved to have been in existence in ancient times, the whole is +proved, because that part is but part of a whole; and when the whole is +proved, it may shelter such parts as for some incidental reason have +less evidence of their antiquity. Again, it would be enough to show that +St. Augustine knew the Italic version of the Scriptures, if he quoted it +once or twice. And, in like manner, it will be generally admitted that +the proof of a Second Person in the Godhead lightens greatly the burden +of proof necessary for belief in a Third Person; and that, the Atonement +being in some sort a correlative of eternal punishment, the evidence for +the former doctrine virtually increases the evidence for the latter. +And so, a Protestant controversialist would feel that it told little, +except as an omen of victory, to reduce an opponent to a denial of +Transubstantiation, if he still adhered firmly to the Invocation of +Saints, Purgatory, the Seven Sacraments, and the doctrine of merit; and +little too for one of his own party to condemn the adoration of the +Host, the supremacy of Rome, the acceptableness of celibacy, auricular +confession, communion under one kind, and tradition, if he was zealous +for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. + + +9. + +The principle on which these remarks are made has the sanction of some +of the deepest of English Divines. Bishop Butler, for instance, who has +so often been quoted here, thus argues in behalf of Christianity itself, +though confessing at the same time the disadvantage which in consequence +the revealed system lies under. "Probable proofs," he observes, "by +being added, not only increase the evidence, but multiply it. Nor should +I dissuade any one from setting down what he thought made for the +contrary side. . . . The truth of our religion, like the truth of common +matters, is to be judged by all the evidence taken together. And unless +the whole series of things which may be alleged in this argument, and +every particular thing in it, can reasonably be supposed to have been by +accident (for here the stress of the argument for Christianity lies), +then is the truth of it proved; in like manner, as if, in any common +case, numerous events acknowledged were to be alleged in proof of any +other event disputed, the truth of the disputed event would be proved, +not only if any one of the acknowledged ones did of itself clearly imply +it, but though no one of them singly did so, if the whole of the +acknowledged events, taken together, could not in reason be supposed to +have happened, unless the disputed one were true. + +"It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to +those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For +it is easy to show, in a short and lively manner, that such and such +things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little +weight in itself; but impossible to show, in like manner, the united +force of the whole argument in one view."[109:1] + +In like manner, Mr. Davison condemns that "vicious manner of reasoning," +which represents "any insufficiency of the proof, in its several +branches, as so much objection;" which manages "the inquiry so as to +make it appear that, if the divided arguments be inconclusive one by +one, we have a series of exceptions to the truths of religion instead of +a train of favourable presumptions, growing stronger at every step. The +disciple of Scepticism is taught that he cannot fully rely on this or +that motive of belief, that each of them is insecure, and the conclusion +is put upon him that they ought to be discarded one after another, +instead of being connected and combined."[109:2] No work perhaps affords +more specimens in a short compass of the breach of the principle of +reasoning inculcated in these passages, than Barrow's Treatise on the +Pope's Supremacy. + + +10. + +The remarks of these two writers relate to the duty of combining +doctrines which belong to one body, and evidences which relate to one +subject; and few persons would dispute it in the abstract. The +application which has been here made of the principle is this,--that +where a doctrine comes recommended to us by strong presumptions of its +truth, we are bound to receive it unsuspiciously, and use it as a key to +the evidences to which it appeals, or the facts which it professes to +systematize, whatever may be our eventual judgment about it. Nor is it +enough to answer, that the voice of our particular Church, denying this +so-called Catholicism, is an antecedent probability which outweighs all +others and claims our prior obedience, loyally and without reasoning, to +its own interpretation. This may excuse individuals certainly, in +beginning with doubt and distrust of the Catholic developments, but it +only shifts the blame to the particular Church, Anglican or other, which +thinks itself qualified to enforce so peremptory a judgment against the +one and only successor, heir and representative of the Apostolic +college. + + +SECTION II. + +STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. + +Bacon is celebrated for destroying the credit of a method of reasoning +much resembling that which it has been the object of this Chapter to +recommend. "He who is not practised in doubting," he says, "but forward +in asserting and laying down such principles as he takes to be approved, +granted and manifest, and, according to the established truth thereof, +receives or rejects everything, as squaring with or proving contrary to +them, is only fitted to mix and confound things with words, reason with +madness, and the world with fable and fiction, but not to interpret the +works of nature."[110:1] But he was aiming at the application of these +modes of reasoning to what should be strict investigation, and that in +the province of physics; and this he might well censure, without +attempting, (what is impossible,) to banish them from history, ethics, +and religion. + +Physical facts are present; they are submitted to the senses, and the +senses may be satisfactorily tested, corrected, and verified. To trust +to anything but sense in a matter of sense is irrational; why are the +senses given us but to supersede less certain, less immediate +informants? We have recourse to reason or authority to determine facts, +when the senses fail us; but with the senses we begin. We deduce, we +form inductions, we abstract, we theorize from facts; we do not begin +with surmise and conjecture, much less do we look to the tradition of +past ages, or the decree of foreign teachers, to determine matters which +are in our hands and under our eyes. + +But it is otherwise with history, the facts of which are not present; it +is otherwise with ethics, in which phenomena are more subtle, closer, +and more personal to individuals than other facts, and not referable to +any common standard by which all men can decide upon them. In such +sciences, we cannot rest upon mere facts, if we would, because we have +not got them. We must do our best with what is given us, and look about +for aid from any quarter; and in such circumstances the opinions of +others, the traditions of ages, the prescriptions of authority, +antecedent auguries, analogies, parallel cases, these and the like, not +indeed taken at random, but, like the evidence from the senses, sifted +and scrutinized, obviously become of great importance. + + +2. + +And, further, if we proceed on the hypothesis that a merciful Providence +has supplied us with means of gaining such truth as concerns us, in +different subject-matters, though with different instruments, then the +simple question is, what those instruments are which are proper to a +particular case. If they are of the appointment of a Divine Protector, +we may be sure that they will lead to the truth, whatever they are. The +less exact methods of reasoning may do His work as well as the more +perfect, if He blesses them. He may bless antecedent probabilities in +ethical inquiries, who blesses experience and induction in the art of +medicine. + +And if it is reasonable to consider medicine, or architecture, or +engineering, in a certain sense, divine arts, as being divinely ordained +means of our receiving divine benefits, much more may ethics be called +divine; while as to religion, it directly professes to be the method of +recommending ourselves to Him and learning His will. If then it be His +gracious purpose that we should learn it, the means He gives for +learning it, be they promising or not to human eyes, are sufficient, +because they are His. And what they are at this particular time, or to +this person, depends on His disposition. He may have imposed simple +prayer and obedience on some men as the instrument of their attaining to +the mysteries and precepts of Christianity. He may lead others through +the written word, at least for some stages of their course; and if the +formal basis on which He has rested His revelations be, as it is, of an +historical and philosophical character, then antecedent probabilities, +subsequently corroborated by facts, will be sufficient, as in the +parallel case of other history, to bring us safely to the matter, or at +least to the organ, of those revelations. + + +3. + +Moreover, in subjects which belong to moral proof, such, I mean, as +history, antiquities, political science, ethics, metaphysics, and +theology, which are pre-eminently such, and especially in theology and +ethics, antecedent probability may have a real weight and cogency which +it cannot have in experimental science; and a mature politician or +divine may have a power of reaching matters of fact in consequence of +his peculiar habits of mind, which is seldom given in the same degree to +physical inquirers, who, for the purposes of this particular pursuit, +are very much on a level. And this last remark at least is confirmed by +Lord Bacon, who confesses "Our method of discovering the sciences does +not much depend upon subtlety and strength of genius, but lies level to +almost every capacity and understanding;"[113:1] though surely sciences +there are, in which genius is everything, and rules all but nothing. + + +4. + +It will be a great mistake then to suppose that, because this eminent +philosopher condemned presumption and prescription in inquiries into +facts which are external to us, present with us, and common to us all, +therefore authority, tradition, verisimilitude, analogy, and the like, +are mere "idols of the den" or "of the theatre" in history or ethics. +Here we may oppose to him an author in his own line as great as he is: +"Experience," says Bacon, "is by far the best demonstration, provided it +dwell in the experiment; for the transferring of it to other things +judged alike is very fallacious, unless done with great exactness and +regularity."[113:2] Niebuhr explains or corrects him: "Instances are not +arguments," he grants, when investigating an obscure question of Roman +history,--"instances are not arguments, but in history are scarcely of +less force; above all, where the parallel they exhibit is in the +progressive development of institutions."[113:3] Here this sagacious +writer recognizes the true principle of historical logic, while he +exemplifies it. + +The same principle is involved in the well-known maxim of Aristotle, +that "it is much the same to admit the probabilities of a mathematician, +and to look for demonstration from an orator." In all matters of human +life, presumption verified by instances, is our ordinary instrument of +proof, and, if the antecedent probability is great, it almost +supersedes instances. Of course, as is plain, we may err grievously in +the antecedent view which we start with, and in that case, our +conclusions may be wide of the truth; but that only shows that we had no +right to assume a premiss which was untrustworthy, not that our +reasoning was faulty. + + +5. + +I am speaking of the process itself, and its correctness is shown by its +general adoption. In religious questions a single text of Scripture is +all-sufficient with most people, whether the well disposed or the +prejudiced, to prove a doctrine or a duty in cases when a custom is +established or a tradition is strong. "Not forsaking the assembling of +ourselves together" is sufficient for establishing social, public, nay, +Sunday worship. "Where the tree falleth, there shall it lie," shows that +our probation ends with life. "Forbidding to marry" determines the Pope +to be the man of sin. Again, it is plain that a man's after course for +good or bad brings out the passing words or obscure actions of previous +years. Then, on a retrospect, we use the event as a presumptive +interpretation of the past, of those past indications of his character +which, considered as evidence, were too few and doubtful to bear +insisting on at the time, and would have seemed ridiculous, had we +attempted to do so. And the antecedent probability is even found to +triumph over contrary evidence, as well as to sustain what agrees with +it. Every one may know of cases in which a plausible charge against an +individual was borne down at once by weight of character, though that +character was incommensurate of course with the circumstances which gave +rise to suspicion, and had no direct neutralizing force to destroy it. +On the other hand, it is sometimes said, and even if not literally true +will serve in illustration, that not a few of those who are put on trial +in our criminal courts are not legally guilty of the particular crime on +which a verdict is found against them, being convicted not so much upon +the particular evidence, as on the presumption arising from their want +of character and the memory of their former offences. Nor is it in +slight matters only or unimportant that we thus act. Our dearest +interests, our personal welfare, our property, our health, our +reputation, we freely hazard, not on proof, but on a simple probability, +which is sufficient for our conviction, because prudence dictates to us +so to take it. We must be content to follow the law of our being in +religious matters as well as in secular. + + +6. + +But there is more to say on the subordinate position which direct +evidence holds among the _motiva_ of conviction in most matters. It is +no paradox to say that there is a certain scantiness, nay an absence of +evidence, which may even tell in favour of statements which require to +be made good. There are indeed cases in which we cannot discover the law +of silence or deficiency, which are then simply unaccountable. Thus +Lucian, for whatever reason, hardly notices Roman authors or +affairs.[115:1] Maximus Tyrius, who wrote several of his works at Rome, +nevertheless makes no reference to Roman history. Paterculus, the +historian, is mentioned by no ancient writer except Priscian. What is +more to our present purpose, Seneca, Pliny the elder, and Plutarch are +altogether silent about Christianity; and perhaps Epictetus also, and +the Emperor Marcus. The Jewish Mishna, too, compiled about A.D. 180, is +silent about Christianity; and the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds +almost so, though the one was compiled about A.D. 300, and the other +A.D. 500.[115:2] Eusebius again, is very uncertain in his notice of +facts: he does not speak of St. Methodius, nor of St. Anthony, nor of +the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, nor of the miraculous powers of St. +Gregory Thaumaturgus; and he mentions Constantine's luminous cross, not +in his Ecclesiastical History, where it would naturally find a place, +but in his Life of the Emperor. Moreover, those who receive that +wonderful occurrence, which is, as one who rejects it allows,[116:1] "so +inexplicable to the historical inquirer," have to explain the difficulty +of the universal silence on the subject of all the Fathers of the fourth +and fifth centuries, excepting Eusebius. + +In like manner, Scripture has its unexplained omissions. No religious +school finds its own tenets and usages on the surface of it. The remark +applies also to the very context of Scripture, as in the obscurity which +hangs over Nathanael or the Magdalen. It is a remarkable circumstance +that there is no direct intimation all through Scripture that the +Serpent mentioned in the temptation of Eve was the evil spirit, till we +come to the vision of the Woman and Child, and their adversary, the +Dragon, in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. + + +7. + +Omissions, thus absolute and singular, when they occur in the evidence +of facts or doctrines, are of course difficulties; on the other hand, +not unfrequently they admit of explanation. Silence may arise from the +very notoriety of the facts in question, as in the case of the seasons, +the weather, or other natural phenomena; or from their sacredness, as +the Athenians would not mention the mythological Furies; or from +external constraint, as the omission of the statues of Brutus and +Cassius in the procession. Or it may proceed from fear or disgust, as on +the arrival of unwelcome news; or from indignation, or hatred, or +contempt, or perplexity, as Josephus is silent about Christianity, and +Eusebius passes over the death of Crispus in his life of Constantine; or +from other strong feeling, as implied in the poet's sentiment, "Give +sorrow words;" or from policy or other prudential motive, or propriety, +as Queen's Speeches do not mention individuals, however influential in +the political world, and newspapers after a time were silent about the +cholera. Or, again, from the natural and gradual course which the fact +took, as in the instance of inventions and discoveries, the history of +which is on this account often obscure; or from loss of documents or +other direct testimonies, as we should not look for theological +information in a treatise on geology. + + +8. + +Again, it frequently happens that omissions proceed on some law, as the +varying influence of an external cause; and then, so far from being a +perplexity, they may even confirm such evidence as occurs, by becoming, +as it were, its correlative. For instance, an obstacle may be +assignable, person, or principle, or accident, which ought, if it +exists, to reduce or distort the indications of a fact to that very +point, or in that very direction, or with the variations, or in the +order and succession, which do occur in its actual history. At first +sight it might be a suspicious circumstance that but one or two +manuscripts of some celebrated document were forthcoming; but if it were +known that the sovereign power had exerted itself to suppress and +destroy it at the time of its publication, and that the extant +manuscripts were found just in those places where history witnessed to +the failure of the attempt, the coincidence would be highly +corroborative of that evidence which alone remained. + +Thus it is possible to have too much evidence; that is, evidence so full +or exact as to throw suspicion over the case for which it is adduced. +The genuine Epistles of St. Ignatius contain none of those +ecclesiastical terms, such as "Priest" or "See," which are so frequent +afterwards; and they quote Scripture sparingly. The interpolated +Epistles quote it largely; that is, they are too Scriptural to be +Apostolic. Few persons, again, who are acquainted with the primitive +theology, but will be sceptical at first reading of the authenticity of +such works as the longer Creed of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, or St. +Hippolytus contra Beronem, from the precision of the theological +language, which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene period. + + +9. + +The influence of circumstances upon the expression of opinion or +testimony supplies another form of the same law of omission. "I am ready +to admit," says Paley, "that the ancient Christian advocates did not +insist upon the miracles in argument so frequently as I should have +done. It was their lot to contend with notions of magical agency, +against which the mere production of the facts was not sufficient for +the convincing of their adversaries; I do not know whether they +themselves thought it quite decisive of the controversy. But since it is +proved, I conceive with certainty, that the sparingness with which they +appealed to miracles was owing neither to their ignorance nor their +doubt of the facts, it is at any rate an objection, not to the truth of +the history, but to the judgment of its defenders."[118:1] And, in like +manner, Christians were not likely to entertain the question of the +abstract allowableness of images in the Catholic ritual, with the actual +superstitions and immoralities of paganism before their eyes. Nor were +they likely to determine the place of the Blessed Mary in our reverence, +before they had duly secured, in the affections of the faithful, the +supreme glory and worship of God Incarnate, her Eternal Lord and Son. +Nor would they recognize Purgatory as a part of the Dispensation, till +the world had flowed into the Church, and a habit of corruption had +been largely superinduced. Nor could ecclesiastical liberty be asserted, +till it had been assailed. Nor would a Pope arise, but in proportion as +the Church was consolidated. Nor would monachism be needed, while +martyrdoms were in progress. Nor could St. Clement give judgment on the +doctrine of Berengarius, nor St. Dionysius refute the Ubiquists, nor St. +Irenus denounce the Protestant view of Justification, nor St. Cyprian +draw up a theory of toleration. There is "a time for every purpose under +the heaven;" "a time to keep silence and a time to speak." + + +10. + +Sometimes when the want of evidence for a series of facts or doctrines +is unaccountable, an unexpected explanation or addition in the course of +time is found as regards a portion of them, which suggests a ground of +patience as regards the historical obscurity of the rest. Two instances +are obvious to mention, of an accidental silence of clear primitive +testimony as to important doctrines, and its removal. In the number of +the articles of Catholic belief which the Reformation especially +resisted, were the Mass and the sacramental virtue of Ecclesiastical +Unity. Since the date of that movement, the shorter Epistles of St. +Ignatius have been discovered, and the early Liturgies verified; and +this with most men has put an end to the controversy about those +doctrines. The good fortune which has happened to them, may happen to +others; and though it does not, yet that it has happened to them, is to +those others a sort of compensation for the obscurity in which their +early history continues to be involved. + + +11. + +I may seem in these remarks to be preparing the way for a broad +admission of the absence of any sanction in primitive Christianity in +behalf of its medieval form, but I do not make them with this intention. +Not from misgivings of this kind, but from the claims of a sound logic, +I think it right to insist, that, whatever early testimonies I may bring +in support of later developments of doctrine, are in great measure +brought _ex abundante_, a matter of grace, not of compulsion. The _onus +probandi_ is with those who assail a teaching which is, and has long +been, in possession. As for positive evidence in our behalf, they must +take what they can get, if they cannot get as much as they might wish, +inasmuch as antecedent probabilities, as I have said, go so very far +towards dispensing with it. It is a first strong point that, in an idea +such as Christianity, developments cannot but be, and those surely +divine, because it is divine; a second that, if so, they are those very +ones which exist, because there are no others; and a third point is the +fact that they are found just there, where true developments ought to be +found,--namely, in the historic seats of Apostolical teaching and in the +authoritative homes of immemorial tradition. + + +12. + +And, if it be said in reply that the difficulty of admitting these +developments of doctrine lies, not merely in the absence of early +testimony for them, but in the actual existence of distinct testimony +against them,--or, as Chillingworth says, in "Popes against Popes, +Councils against Councils,"--I answer, of course this will be said; but +let the fact of this objection be carefully examined, and its value +reduced to its true measure, before it is used in argument. I grant that +there are "Bishops against Bishops in Church history, Fathers against +Fathers, Fathers against themselves," for such differences in individual +writers are consistent with, or rather are involved in the very idea of +doctrinal development, and consequently are no real objection to it; +the one essential question is whether the recognized organ of teaching, +the Church herself, acting through Pope or Council as the oracle of +heaven, has ever contradicted her own enunciations. If so, the +hypothesis which I am advocating is at once shattered; but, till I have +positive and distinct evidence of the fact, I am slow to give credence +to the existence of so great an improbability. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[104:1] Anal. ii. 7. + +[107:1] [On Miracles, Essay ii. 111.] + +[109:1] Anal. ii. 7. + +[109:2] On Prophecy, i. p. 28. + +[110:1] Aphor. 5, vol. iv. p. xi. ed. 1815. + +[113:1] Nov. Org. i. 2, 26, vol. iv. p. 29. + +[113:2] Nov. Org. 70, p. 44. + +[113:3] Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 345, ed. 1828. + +[115:1] Lardner's Heath. Test. p. 22. + +[115:2] Paley's Evid. p. i. prop. 1, 7. + +[116:1] Milman, Christ. vol. ii. p. 352. + +[118:1] Evidences, iii. 5. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. + + +It follows now to inquire how much evidence is actually producible for +those large portions of the present Creed of Christendom, which have not +a recognized place in the primordial idea and the historical outline of +the Religion, yet which come to us with certain antecedent +considerations strong enough in reason to raise the effectiveness of +that evidence to a point disproportionate, as I have allowed, to its +intrinsic value. In urging these considerations here, of course I +exclude for the time the force of the Church's claim of infallibility in +her acts, for which so much can be said, but I do not exclude the +logical cogency of those acts, considered as testimonies to the faith of +the times before them. + +My argument then is this:--that, from the first age of Christianity, its +teaching looked towards those ecclesiastical dogmas, afterwards +recognized and defined, with (as time went on) more or less determinate +advance in the direction of them; till at length that advance became so +pronounced, as to justify their definition and to bring it about, and to +place them in the position of rightful interpretations and keys of the +remains and the records in history of the teaching which had so +terminated. + + +2. + +This line of argument is not unlike that which is considered to +constitute a sufficient proof of truths in physical science. An +instance of this is furnished us in a work on Mechanics of the past +generation, by a writer of name, and his explanation of it will serve as +an introduction to our immediate subject. After treating of the laws of +motion, he goes on to observe, "These laws are the simplest principles +to which motion can be reduced, and upon them the whole theory depends. +They are not indeed self-evident, nor do they admit of accurate proof by +experiment, on account of the great nicety required in adjusting the +instruments and making the experiments; and on account of the effects of +friction, and the air's resistance, which cannot entirely be removed. +They are, however, constantly, and invariably, suggested to our senses, +and they agree with experiment as far as experiment can go; and the more +accurately the experiments are made, and the greater care we take to +remove all those impediments which tend to render the conclusions +erroneous, the more nearly do the experiments coincide with these +laws."[123:1] And thus a converging evidence in favour of certain +doctrines may, under circumstances, be as clear a proof of their +Apostolical origin as can be reached practically from the _Quod semper, +quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. + +In such a method of proof there is, first, an imperfect, secondly, a +growing evidence, thirdly, in consequence a delayed inference and +judgment, fourthly, reasons producible to account for the delay. + + +SECTION I. + +INSTANCES CURSORILY NOTICED. + + +1. + +(1.) _Canon of the New Testament._ + +As regards the New Testament, Catholics and Protestants receive the +same books as canonical and inspired; yet among those books some are to +be found, which certainly have no right there if, following the rule of +Vincentius, we receive nothing as of divine authority but what has been +received always and everywhere. The degrees of evidence are very various +for one book and another. "It is confessed," says Less, "that not all +the Scriptures of our New Testament have been received with universal +consent as genuine works of the Evangelists and Apostles. But that man +must have predetermined to oppose the most palpable truths, and must +reject all history, who will not confess that the _greater_ part of the +New Testament has been universally received as authentic, and that the +remaining books have been acknowledged as such by the _majority_ of the +ancients."[124:1] + + +2. + +For instance, as to the Epistle of St. James. It is true, it is +contained in the old Syriac version in the second century; but Origen, +in the third century, is the first writer who distinctly mentions it +among the Greeks; and it is not quoted by name by any Latin till the +fourth. St. Jerome speaks of its gaining credit "by degrees, in process +of time." Eusebius says no more than that it had been, up to his time, +acknowledged by the majority; and he classes it with the Shepherd of St. +Hermas and the Epistle of St. Barnabas.[124:2] + +Again: "The Epistle to the Hebrews, though received in the East, was not +received in the Latin Churches till St. Jerome's time. St. Irenus +either does not affirm, or denies that it is St. Paul's. Tertullian +ascribes it to St. Barnabas. Caius excludes it from his list. St. +Hippolytus does not receive it. St. Cyprian is silent about it. It is +doubtful whether St. Optatus received it."[124:3] + +Again, St. Jerome tells us, that in his day, towards A.D. 400, the +Greek Church rejected the Apocalypse, but the Latin received it. + +Again: "The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books in all, though +of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till +from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number +are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the +Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other +thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First to +Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John are quoted but by one +writer during the same period."[125:1] + + +3. + +On what ground, then, do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on +the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries? The +Church at that era decided--not merely bore testimony, but passed a +judgment on former testimony,--decided, that certain books were of +authority. And on what ground did she so decide? on the ground that +hitherto a decision had been impossible, in an age of persecution, from +want of opportunities for research, discussion, and testimony, from the +private or the local character of some of the books, and from +misapprehension of the doctrine contained in others. Now, however, +facilities were at length given for deciding once for all on what had +been in suspense and doubt for three centuries. On this subject I will +quote another passage from the same Tract: "We depend upon the fourth +and fifth centuries thus:--As to Scripture, former centuries do not +speak distinctly, frequently, or unanimously, except of some chief +books, as the Gospels; but we see in them, as we believe, an +ever-growing tendency and approximation to that full agreement which we +find in the fifth. The testimony given at the latter date is the limit +to which all that has been before said converges. For instance, it is +commonly said, _Exceptio probat regulam_; when we have reason to think +that a writer or an age would have witnessed so and so, _but for_ this +or that, and that this or that were mere accidents of his position, then +he or it may be said to _tend towards_ such testimony. In this way the +first centuries tend towards the fifth. Viewing the matter as one of +moral evidence, we seem to see in the testimony of the fifth the very +testimony which every preceding century gave, accidents excepted, such +as the present loss of documents once extant, or the then existing +misconceptions which want of intercourse between the Churches +occasioned. The fifth century acts as a comment on the obscure text of +the centuries before it, and brings out a meaning, which with the help +of the comment any candid person sees really to be theirs."[126:1] + + +4. + +(2.) _Original Sin._ + +I have already remarked upon the historical fact, that the recognition +of Original Sin, considered as the consequence of Adam's fall, was, both +as regards general acceptance and accurate understanding, a gradual +process, not completed till the time of Augustine and Pelagius. St. +Chrysostom lived close up to that date, but there are passages in his +works, often quoted, which we should not expect to find worded as they +stand, if they had been written fifty years later. It is commonly, and +reasonably, said in explanation, that the fatalism, so prevalent in +various shapes pagan and heretical, in the first centuries, was an +obstacle to an accurate apprehension of the consequences of the fall, as +the presence of the existing idolatry was to the use of images. If this +be so, we have here an instance of a doctrine held back for a time by +circumstances, yet in the event forcing its way into its normal shape, +and at length authoritatively fixed in it, that is, of a doctrine held +implicitly, then asserting itself, and at length fully developed. + + +5. + +(3.) _Infant Baptism._ + +One of the passages of St. Chrysostom to which I might refer is this, +"We baptize infants, though they are not defiled with sin, that they may +receive sanctity, righteousness, adoption, heirship, brotherhood with +Christ, and may become His members." (_Aug. contr. Jul._ i. 21.) This at +least shows that he had a clear view of the importance and duty of +infant baptism, but such was not the case even with saints in the +generation immediately before him. As is well known, it was not unusual +in that age of the Church for those, who might be considered +catechumens, to delay their baptism, as Protestants now delay reception +of the Holy Eucharist. It is difficult for us at this day to enter into +the assemblage of motives which led to this postponement; to a keen +sense and awe of the special privileges of baptism which could only once +be received, other reasons would be added,--reluctance to being +committed to a strict rule of life, and to making a public profession of +religion, and to joining in a specially intimate fellowship or +solidarity with strangers. But so it was in matter of fact, for reasons +good or bad, that infant baptism, which is a fundamental rule of +Christian duty with us, was less earnestly insisted on in early times. + + +6. + +Even in the fourth century St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and St. +Augustine, having Christian mothers, still were not baptized till they +were adults. St. Gregory's mother dedicated him to God immediately on +his birth; and again when he had come to years of discretion, with the +rite of taking the gospels into his hands by way of consecration. He was +religiously-minded from his youth, and had devoted himself to a single +life. Yet his baptism did not take place till after he had attended the +schools of Csarea, Palestine, and Alexandria, and was on his voyage to +Athens. He had embarked during the November gales, and for twenty days +his life was in danger. He presented himself for baptism as soon as he +got to land. St. Basil was the son of Christian confessors on both +father's and mother's side. His grandmother Macrina, who brought him up, +had for seven years lived with her husband in the woods of Pontus during +the Decian persecution. His father was said to have wrought miracles; +his mother, an orphan of great beauty of person, was forced from her +unprotected state to abandon the hope of a single life, and was +conspicuous in matrimony for her care of strangers and the poor, and for +her offerings to the churches. How religiously she brought up her +children is shown by the singular blessing, that four out of ten have +since been canonized as Saints. St. Basil was one of these; yet the +child of such parents was not baptized till he had come to man's +estate,--till, according to the Benedictine Editor, his twenty-first, +and perhaps his twenty-ninth, year. St. Augustine's mother, who is +herself a Saint, was a Christian when he was born, though his father was +not. Immediately on his birth, he was made a catechumen; in his +childhood he fell ill, and asked for baptism. His mother was alarmed, +and was taking measures for his reception into the Church, when he +suddenly got better, and it was deferred. He did not receive baptism +till the age of thirty-three, after he had been for nine years a victim +of Manichan error. In like manner, St. Ambrose, though brought up by +his mother and holy nuns, one of them his own sister St. Marcellina, was +not baptized till he was chosen bishop at the age of about thirty-four, +nor his brother St. Satyrus till about the same age, after the serious +warning of a shipwreck. St. Jerome too, though educated at Rome, and so +far under religious influences, as, with other boys, to be in the +observance of Sunday, and of devotions in the catacombs, had no friend +to bring him to baptism, till he had reached man's estate and had +travelled. + + +7. + +Now how are the modern sects, which protest against infant baptism, to +be answered by Anglicans with this array of great names in their favour? +By the later rule of the Church surely; by the _dicta_ of some later +Saints, as by St. Chrysostom; by one or two inferences from Scripture; +by an argument founded on the absolute necessity of Baptism for +salvation,--sufficient reasons certainly, but impotent to reverse the +fact that neither in Dalmatia nor in Cappadocia, neither in Rome, nor in +Africa, was it then imperative on Christian parents, as it is now, to +give baptism to their young children. It was on retrospect and after the +truths of the Creed had sunk into the Christian mind, that the authority +of such men as St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine brought +round the _orbis terrarum_ to the conclusion, which the infallible +Church confirmed, that observance of the rite was the rule, and the +non-observance the exception. + + +8. + +(4.) _Communion in one kind._ + +In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance +pronounced that, "though in the primitive Church the Sacrament" of the +Eucharist "was received by the faithful under each kind, yet the custom +has been reasonably introduced, for the avoiding of certain dangers and +scandals, that it should be received by the consecrators under each +kind, and by the laity only under the kind of Bread; since it is most +firmly to be believed, and in no wise doubted, that the whole Body and +Blood of Christ is truly contained as well under the kind of Bread as +under the kind of Wine." + +Now the question is, whether the doctrine here laid down, and carried +into effect in the usage here sanctioned, was entertained by the early +Church, and may be considered a just development of its principles and +practices. I answer that, starting with the presumption that the Council +has ecclesiastical authority, which is the point here to be assumed, we +shall find quite enough for its defence, and shall be satisfied to +decide in the affirmative; we shall readily come to the conclusion that +Communion under either kind is lawful, each kind conveying the full gift +of the Sacrament. + +For instance, Scripture affords us two instances of what may reasonably +be considered the administration of the form of Bread without that of +Wine; viz. our Lord's own example towards the two disciples at Emmaus, +and St. Paul's action at sea during the tempest. Moreover, St. Luke +speaks of the first Christians as continuing in the "_breaking of +bread_, and in prayer," and of the first day of the week "when they came +together to _break bread_." + +And again, in the sixth chapter of St. John, our Lord says absolutely, +"He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." And, though He distinctly +promises that we shall have it granted to us to drink His blood, as well +as to eat His flesh; nevertheless, not a word does He say to signify +that, as He is the Bread from heaven and the living Bread, so He is the +heavenly, living Wine also. Again, St. Paul says that "whosoever shall +eat this Bread _or_ drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be +guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord." + +Many of the types of the Holy Eucharist, as far as they go, tend to the +same conclusion; as the Manna, to which our Lord referred, the Paschal +Lamb, the Shewbread, the sacrifices from which the blood was poured out, +and the miracle of the loaves, which are figures of the bread alone; +while the water from the rock, and the Blood from our Lord's side +correspond to the wine without the bread. Others are representations of +both kinds; as Melchizedek's feast, and Elijah's miracle of the meal and +oil. + + +9. + +And, further, it certainly was the custom in the early Church, under +circumstances, to communicate in one kind, as we learn from St. Cyprian, +St. Dionysius, St. Basil, St. Jerome, and others. For instance, St. +Cyprian speaks of the communion of an infant under Wine, and of a woman +under Bread; and St. Ambrose speaks of his brother in shipwreck folding +the consecrated Bread in a handkerchief, and placing it round his neck; +and the monks and hermits in the desert can hardly be supposed to have +been ordinarily in possession of consecrated Wine as well as Bread. From +the following Letter of St. Basil, it appears that, not only the monks, +but the whole laity of Egypt ordinarily communicated in Bread only. He +seems to have been asked by his correspondent, whether in time of +persecution it was lawful, in the absence of priest or deacon, to take +the communion "in one's own _hand_," that is, of course, the Bread; he +answers that it may be justified by the following parallel cases, in +mentioning which he is altogether silent about the Cup. "It is plainly +no fault," he says, "for long custom supplies instances enough to +sanction it. For all the monks in the desert, where there is no priest, +keep the communion at home, and partake it from themselves. In +Alexandria too, and in Egypt, each of the laity, for the most part, has +the Communion in his house, and, when he will, he partakes it by means +of himself. For when once the priest has celebrated the Sacrifice and +given it, he who takes it as a whole together, and then partakes of it +daily, reasonably ought to think that he partakes and receives from him +who has given it."[132:1] It should be added, that in the beginning of +the Letter he may be interpreted to speak of communion in both kinds, +and to say that it is "good and profitable." + +Here we have the usage of Pontus, Egypt, Africa, and Milan. Spain may be +added, if a late author is right in his view of the meaning of a Spanish +Canon;[132:2] and Syria, as well as Egypt, at least at a later date, +since Nicephorus[132:3] tells us that the Acephali, having no Bishops, +kept the Bread which their last priests had consecrated, and dispensed +crumbs of it every year at Easter for the purposes of Communion. + + +10. + +But it may be said, that after all it is so very hazardous and fearful a +measure actually to withdraw from Christians one-half of the Sacrament, +that, in spite of these precedents, some direct warrant is needed to +reconcile the mind to it. There might have been circumstances which led +St. Cyprian, or St. Basil, or the Apostolical Christians before them to +curtail it, about which we know nothing. It is not therefore safe in us, +because it was safe in them. Certainly a warrant is necessary; and just +such a warrant is the authority of the Church. If we can trust her +implicitly, there is nothing in the state of the evidence to form an +objection to her decision in this instance, and in proportion as we find +we can trust her does our difficulty lessen. Moreover, children, not to +say infants, were at one time admitted to the Eucharist, at least to the +Cup; on what authority are they now excluded from Cup and Bread also? +St. Augustine considered the usage to be of Apostolical origin; and it +continued in the West down to the twelfth century; it continues in the +East among Greeks, Russo-Greeks, and the various Monophysite Churches to +this day, and that on the ground of its almost universality in the +primitive Church.[133:1] Is it a greater innovation to suspend the Cup, +than to cut off children from Communion altogether? Yet we acquiesce in +the latter deprivation without a scruple. It is safer to acquiesce with, +than without, an authority; safer with the belief that the Church is the +pillar and ground of the truth, than with the belief that in so great a +matter she is likely to err. + + +11. + +(5.) _The Homosion._ + +The next instance I shall take is from the early teaching on the subject +of our Lord's Consubstantiality and Co-eternity. + +In the controversy carried on by various learned men in the seventeenth +and following century, concerning the statements of the early Fathers on +this subject, the one party determined the patristic theology by the +literal force of the separate expressions or phrases used in it, or by +the philosophical opinions of the day; the other, by the doctrine of the +Catholic Church, as afterwards authoritatively declared. The one party +argued that those Fathers _need not_ have meant more than what was +afterwards considered heresy; the other answered that there is _nothing +to prevent_ their meaning more. Thus the position which Bull maintains +seems to be nothing beyond this, that the Nicene Creed is a natural key +for interpreting the body of Ante-nicene theology. His very aim is to +explain difficulties; now the notion of difficulties and their +explanation implies a rule to which they are apparent exceptions, and in +accordance with which they are to be explained. Nay, the title of his +work, which is a "Defence of the Creed of Nica," shows that he is not +investigating what is true and what false, but explaining and justifying +a foregone conclusion, as sanctioned by the testimony of the great +Council. Unless the statements of the Fathers had suggested +difficulties, his work would have had no object. He allows that their +language is not such as they would have used after the Creed had been +imposed; but he says in effect that, if we will but take it in our hands +and apply it equitably to their writings, we shall bring out and +harmonize their teaching, clear their ambiguities, and discover their +anomalous statements to be few and insignificant. In other words, he +begins with a presumption, and shows how naturally facts close round it +and fall in with it, if we will but let them. He does this triumphantly, +yet he has an arduous work; out of about thirty writers whom he reviews, +he has, for one cause or other, to "explain piously" nearly twenty. + + +SECTION II. + +OUR LORD'S INCARNATION AND THE DIGNITY OF HIS BLESSED MOTHER AND OF ALL +SAINTS. + +Bishop Bull's controversy had regard to Ante-nicene writers only, and to +little more than to the doctrine of the Divine Son's consubstantiality +and co-eternity; and, as being controversy, it necessarily narrows and +dries up a large and fertile subject. Let us see whether, treated +historically, it will not present itself to us in various aspects which +may rightly be called developments, as coming into view, one out of +another, and following one after another by a natural order of +succession. + + +2. + +First then, that the language of the Ante-nicene Fathers, on the subject +of our Lord's Divinity, may be far more easily accommodated to the Arian +hypothesis than can the language of the Post-nicene, is agreed on all +hands. Thus St. Justin speaks of the Son as subservient to the Father in +the creation of the world, as seen by Abraham, as speaking to Moses from +the bush, as appearing to Joshua before the fall of Jericho,[135:1] as +Minister and Angel, and as numerically distinct from the Father. +Clement, again, speaks of the Word[135:2] as the "Instrument of God," +"close to the Sole Almighty;" "ministering to the Omnipotent Father's +will;"[135:3] "an energy, so to say, or operation of the Father," and +"constituted by His will as the cause of all good."[135:4] Again, the +Council of Antioch, which condemned Paul of Samosata, says that He +"appears to the Patriarchs and converses with them, being testified +sometimes to be an Angel, at other times Lord, at others God;" that, +while "it is impious to think that the God of all is called an Angel, +the Son is the Angel of the Father."[136:1] Formal proof, however, is +unnecessary; had not the fact been as I have stated it, neither Sandius +would have professed to differ from the Post-nicene Fathers, nor would +Bull have had to defend the Ante-nicene. + + +3. + +One principal change which took place, as time went on, was the +following: the Ante-nicene Fathers, as in some of the foregoing +extracts, speak of the Angelic visions in the Old Testament as if they +were appearances of the Son; but St. Augustine introduced the explicit +doctrine, which has been received since his date, that they were simply +Angels, through whom the Omnipresent Son manifested Himself. This indeed +is the only interpretation which the Ante-nicene statements admitted, as +soon as reason began to examine what they did mean. They could not mean +that the Eternal God could really be seen by bodily eyes; if anything +was seen, that must have been some created glory or other symbol, by +which it pleased the Almighty to signify His Presence. What was heard +was a sound, as external to His Essence, and as distinct from His +Nature, as the thunder or the voice of the trumpet, which pealed along +Mount Sinai; what it was had not come under discussion till St. +Augustine; both question and answer were alike undeveloped. The earlier +Fathers spoke as if there were no medium interposed between the Creator +and the creature, and so they seemed to make the Eternal Son the medium; +what it really was, they had not determined. St. Augustine ruled, and +his ruling has been accepted in later times, that it was not a mere +atmospheric phenomenon, or an impression on the senses, but the material +form proper to an Angelic presence, or the presence of an Angel in that +material garb in which blessed Spirits do ordinarily appear to men. +Henceforth the Angel in the bush, the voice which spoke with Abraham, +and the man who wrestled with Jacob, were not regarded as the Son of +God, but as Angelic ministers, whom He employed, and through whom He +signified His presence and His will. Thus the tendency of the +controversy with the Arians was to raise our view of our Lord's +Mediatorial acts, to impress them on us in their divine rather than +their human aspect, and to associate them more intimately with the +ineffable glories which surround the Throne of God. The Mediatorship was +no longer regarded in itself, in that prominently subordinate place +which it had once occupied in the thoughts of Christians, but as an +office assumed by One, who though having become man in order to bear it, +was still God.[137:1] Works and attributes, which had hitherto been +assigned to the Economy or to the Sonship, were now simply assigned to +the Manhood. A tendency was also elicited, as the controversy proceeded, +to contemplate our Lord more distinctly in His absolute perfections, +than in His relation to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, +whereas the Nicene Creed speaks of the "Father Almighty," and "His +Only-begotten Son, our Lord, God from God, Light from Light, Very God +from Very God," and of the Holy Ghost, "the Lord and Giver of Life," we +are told in the Athanasian of "the Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and +the Holy Ghost Eternal," and that "none is afore or after other, none is +greater or less than another." + + +4. + +The Apollinarian and Monophysite controversy, which followed in the +course of the next century, tended towards a development in the same +direction. Since the heresies, which were in question, maintained, at +least virtually, that our Lord was not man, it was obvious to insist on +the passages of Scripture which describe His created and subservient +nature, and this had the immediate effect of interpreting of His manhood +texts which had hitherto been understood more commonly of His Divine +Sonship. Thus, for instance, "My Father is greater than I," which had +been understood even by St. Athanasius of our Lord as God, is applied by +later writers more commonly to His humanity; and in this way the +doctrine of His subordination to the Eternal Father, which formed so +prominent a feature in Ante-nicene theology, comparatively fell into the +shade. + + +5. + +And coincident with these changes, a most remarkable result is +discovered. The Catholic polemic, in view of the Arian and Monophysite +errors, being of this character, became the natural introduction to the +_cultus Sanctorum_; for in proportion as texts descriptive of created +mediation ceased to belong to our Lord, so was a room opened for created +mediators. Nay, as regards the instance of Angelic appearances itself, +as St. Augustine explained them, if those appearances were creatures, +certainly creatures were worshipped by the Patriarchs, not indeed in +themselves,[138:1] but as the token of a Presence greater than +themselves. When "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon +God," he hid his face before a creature; when Jacob said, "I have seen +God face to face and my life is preserved," the Son of God was there, +but what he saw, what he wrestled with, was an Angel. When "Joshua fell +on his face to the earth and did worship before the captain of the +Lord's host, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?" +what was seen and heard was a glorified creature, if St. Augustine is +to be followed; and the Son of God was in him. + +And there were plain precedents in the Old Testament for the lawfulness +of such adoration. When "the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the +tabernacle-door," "all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in +his tent-door."[139:1] When Daniel too saw "a certain man clothed in +linen" "there remained no strength" in him, for his "comeliness was +turned" in him "into corruption." He fell down on his face, and next +remained on his knees and hands, and at length "stood trembling," and +said "O my Lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have +retained no strength. For how can the servant of this my Lord talk with +this my Lord?"[139:2] It might be objected perhaps to this argument, +that a worship which was allowable in an elementary system might be +unlawful when "grace and truth" had come "through Jesus Christ;" but +then it might be retorted surely, that that elementary system had been +emphatically opposed to all idolatry, and had been minutely jealous of +everything which might approach to favouring it. Nay, the very +prominence given in the Pentateuch to the doctrine of a Creator, and the +comparative silence concerning the Angelic creation, and the prominence +given to the Angelic creation in the later Prophets, taken together, +were a token both of that jealousy, and of its cessation, as time went +on. Nor can anything be concluded from St. Paul's censure of Angel +worship, since the sin which he is denouncing was that of "not holding +the Head," and of worshipping creatures _instead_ of the Creator as the +source of good. The same explanation avails for passages like those in +St. Athanasius and Theodoret, in which the worship of Angels is +discountenanced. + + +6. + +The Arian controversy had led to another development, which confirmed by +anticipation the _cultus_ to which St. Augustine's doctrine pointed. In +answer to the objection urged against our Lord's supreme Divinity from +texts which speak of His exaltation, St. Athanasius is led to insist +forcibly on the benefits which have accrued to man through it. He says +that, in truth, not Christ, but that human nature which He had assumed, +was raised and glorified in Him. The more plausible was the heretical +argument against His Divinity from those texts, the more emphatic is St. +Athanasius's exaltation of our regenerate nature by way of explaining +them. But intimate indeed must be the connexion between Christ and His +brethren, and high their glory, if the language which seemed to belong +to the Incarnate Word really belonged to them. Thus the pressure of the +controversy elicited and developed a truth, which till then was held +indeed by Christians, but less perfectly realized and not publicly +recognized. The sanctification, or rather the deification of the nature +of man, is one main subject of St. Athanasius's theology. Christ, in +rising, raises His Saints with Him to the right hand of power. They +become instinct with His life, of one body with His flesh, divine sons, +immortal kings, gods. He is in them, because He is in human nature; and +He communicates to them that nature, deified by becoming His, that them +It may deify. He is in them by the Presence of His Spirit, and in them +He is seen. They have those titles of honour by participation, which are +properly His. Without misgiving we may apply to them the most sacred +language of Psalmists and Prophets. "Thou art a Priest for ever" may be +said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin as well as of their Lord. "He hath +dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor," was fulfilled in St. +Laurence. "I have found David My servant," first said typically of the +King of Israel, and belonging really to Christ, is transferred back +again by grace to His Vicegerents upon earth. "I have given thee the +nations for thine inheritance" is the prerogative of Popes; "Thou hast +given him his heart's desire," the record of a martyr; "thou hast loved +righteousness and hated iniquity," the praise of Virgins. + + +7. + +"As Christ," says St. Athanasius, "died, and was exalted as man, so, as +man, is He said to take what, as God, He ever had, in order that even +this so high a grant of grace might reach to us. For the Word did not +suffer loss in receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a grace, +but rather He deified that which He put on, nay, gave it graciously to +the race of man. . . . For it is the Father's glory, that man, made and +then lost, should be found again; and, when done to death, that he +should be made alive, and should become God's temple. For whereas the +powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were ever worshipping the +Lord, as they are now too worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is +our grace and high exaltation, that, even when He became man, the Son of +God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers are not startled at seeing +all of us, who are of one body with Him, introduced into their +realms."[141:1] In this passage it is almost said that the glorified +Saints will partake in the homage paid by Angels to Christ, the True +Object of all worship; and at least a reason is suggested to us by it +for the Angel's shrinking in the Apocalypse from the homage of St. John, +the Theologian and Prophet of the Church.[141:2] But St. Athanasius +proceeds still more explicitly, "In that the Lord, even when come in +human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God's +Son, and that through Him the Father is known, it is plain, as has been +said, that, _not the Word_, considered as the Word, received this so +great grace, _but we_. For, because of our relationship to His Body, we +too have become God's temple, and in consequence have been made God's +sons, so that _even in us the Lord is now worshipped_, and beholders +report, as the Apostle says, that 'God is in them of a truth.'"[142:1] +It appears to be distinctly stated in this passage, that those who are +formally recognized as God's adopted sons in Christ, are fit objects of +worship on account of Him who is in them; a doctrine which both +interprets and accounts for the invocation of Saints, the _cultus_ of +relics, and the religious veneration in which even the living have +sometimes been held, who, being saintly, were distinguished by +miraculous gifts.[142:2] Worship then is the necessary correlative of +glory; and in the same sense in which created natures can share in the +Creator's incommunicable glory, are they also allowed a share of that +worship which is His property alone. + + +8. + +There was one other subject on which the Arian controversy had a more +intimate, though not an immediate influence. Its tendency to give a new +interpretation to the texts which speak of our Lord's subordination, has +already been noticed; such as admitted of it were henceforth explained +more prominently of His manhood than of His Mediatorship or His Sonship. +But there were other texts which did not admit of this interpretation, +and which, without ceasing to belong to Him, might seem more directly +applicable to a creature than to the Creator. He indeed was really the +"Wisdom in whom the Father eternally delighted," yet it would be but +natural, if, under the circumstances of Arian misbelief, theologians +looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be the immediate object of +such descriptions. And thus the controversy opened a question which it +did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the +realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its +inhabitant. Arianism had admitted that our Lord was both the God of the +Evangelical Covenant, and the actual Creator of the Universe; but even +this was not enough, because it did not confess Him to be the One, +Everlasting, Infinite, Supreme Being, but as one who was made by the +Supreme. It was not enough in accordance with that heresy to proclaim +Him as having an ineffable origin before all worlds; not enough to place +him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God's +Hands; not enough to make Him the King of all Saints, the Intercessor +for man with God, the Object of worship, the Image of the Father; not +enough, because it was not all, and between all and anything short of +all, there was an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is +levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself. That +is, the Nicene Council recognized the eventful principle, that, while we +believe and profess any being to be made of a created nature, such a +being is really no God to us, though honoured by us with whatever high +titles and with whatever homage. Arius or Asterius did all but confess +that Christ was the Almighty; they said much more than St. Bernard or +St. Alphonso have since said of the Blessed Mary; yet they left Him a +creature and were found wanting. Thus there was "a wonder in heaven:" a +throne was seen, far above all other created powers, mediatorial, +intercessory; a title archetypal; a crown bright as the morning star; a +glory issuing from the Eternal Throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a +sceptre over all; and who was the predestined heir of that Majesty? +Since it was not high enough for the Highest, who was that Wisdom, and +what was her name, "the Mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope," +"exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho," +"created from the beginning before the world" in God's everlasting +counsels, and "in Jerusalem her power"? The vision is found in the +Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, +and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not +exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. +The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy. + + +9. + +I am not stating conclusions which were drawn out in the controversy, +but of premisses which were laid, broad and deep. It was then shown, it +was then determined, that to exalt a creature was no recognition of its +divinity. Nor am I speaking of the Semi-Arians, who, holding our Lord's +derivation from the Substance of the Father, yet denying His +Consubstantiality, really did lie open to the charge of maintaining two +Gods, and present no parallel to the defenders of the prerogatives of +St. Mary. But I speak of the Arians who taught that the Son's Substance +was created; and concerning them it is true that St. Athanasius's +condemnation of their theology is a vindication of the Medieval. Yet it +is not wonderful, considering how Socinians, Sabellians, Nestorians, and +the like, abound in these days, without their even knowing it +themselves, if those who never rise higher in their notions of our +Lord's Divinity, than to consider Him a man singularly inhabited by a +Divine Presence, that is, a Catholic Saint,--if such men should mistake +the honour paid by the Church to the human Mother for that very honour +which, and which alone, is worthy of her Eternal Son. + + +10. + +I have said that there was in the first ages no public and +ecclesiastical recognition of the place which St. Mary holds in the +Economy of grace; this was reserved for the fifth century, as the +definition of our Lord's proper Divinity had been the work of the +fourth. There was a controversy contemporary with those already +mentioned, I mean the Nestorian, which brought out the complement of the +development, to which they had been subservient; and which, if I may so +speak, supplied the subject of that august proposition of which Arianism +had provided the predicate. In order to do honour to Christ, in order to +defend the true doctrine of the Incarnation, in order to secure a right +faith in the manhood of the Eternal Son, the Council of Ephesus +determined the Blessed Virgin to be the Mother of God. Thus all heresies +of that day, though opposite to each other, tended in a most wonderful +way to her exaltation; and the School of Antioch, the fountain of +primitive rationalism, led the Church to determine first the conceivable +greatness of a creature, and then the incommunicable dignity of the +Blessed Virgin. + + +11. + +But the spontaneous or traditional feeling of Christians had in great +measure anticipated the formal ecclesiastical decision. Thus the title +_Theotocos_, or Mother of God, was familiar to Christians from primitive +times, and had been used, among other writers, by Origen, Eusebius, St. +Alexander, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. +Gregory Nyssen, and St. Nilus. She had been called Ever-Virgin by +others, as by St. Epiphanius, St. Jerome, and Didymus. By others, "the +Mother of all living," as being the antitype of Eve; for, as St. +Epiphanius observes, "in truth," not in shadow, "from Mary was Life +itself brought into the world, that Mary might bear things living, and +might become Mother of living things."[146:1] St. Augustine says that +all have sinned "except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the +honour of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are +treating of sins." "She was alone and wrought the world's salvation," +says St. Ambrose, alluding to her conception of the Redeemer. She is +signified by the Pillar of the cloud which guided the Israelites, +according to the same Father; and she had "so great grace, as not only +to have virginity herself, but to impart it to those to whom she +came;"--"the Rod out of the stem of Jesse," says St. Jerome, and "the +Eastern gate through which the High Priest alone goes in and out, yet is +ever shut;"--the wise woman, says St. Nilus, who "hath clad all +believers, from the fleece of the Lamb born of her, with the clothing of +incorruption, and delivered them from their spiritual nakedness;"--"the +Mother of Life, of beauty, of majesty, the Morning Star," according to +Antiochus;--"the mystical new heavens," "the heavens carrying the +Divinity," "the fruitful vine by whom we are translated from death unto +life," according to St. Ephraim;--"the manna which is delicate, bright, +sweet, and virgin, which, as though coming from heaven, has poured down +on all the people of the Churches a food pleasanter than honey," +according to St. Maximus. + +St. Proclus calls her "the unsullied shell which contains the pearl of +price," "the sacred shrine of sinlessness," "the golden altar of +holocaust," "the holy oil of anointing," "the costly alabaster box of +spikenard," "the ark gilt within and without," "the heifer whose ashes, +that is, the Lord's Body taken from her, cleanses those who are defiled +by the pollution of sin," "the fair bride of the Canticles," "the stay +(+strigma+) of believers," "the Church's diadem," "the expression of +orthodoxy." These are oratorical expressions; but we use oratory on +great subjects, not on small. Elsewhere he calls her "God's only bridge +to man;" and elsewhere he breaks forth, "Run through all creation in +your thoughts, and see if there be equal to, or greater than, the Holy +Virgin Mother of God." + + +12. + +Theodotus too, one of the Fathers of Ephesus, or whoever it is whose +Homilies are given to St. Amphilochius:--"As debtors and God's +well-affected servants, let us make confession to God the Word and to +His Mother, of the gift of words, as far as we are able. . . Hail, +Mother, clad in light, of the light which sets not; hail all-undefiled +mother of holiness; hail most pellucid fountain of the life-giving +stream!" After speaking of the Incarnation, he continues, "Such +paradoxes doth the Divine Virgin Mother ever bring to us in her holy +irradiations, for with her is the Fount of Life, and breasts of the +spiritual and guileless milk; from which to suck the sweetness, we have +even now earnestly run to her, not as in forgetfulness of what has gone +before, but in desire of what is to come." + +To St. Fulgentius is ascribed the following: "Mary became the window of +heaven, for God through her poured the True Light upon the world; the +heavenly ladder, for through her did God descend upon earth. . . . . +Come, ye virgins, to a Virgin, come ye who conceive to one who did +conceive, ye who bear to one who bore, mothers to a Mother, ye who give +suck to one who suckled, young women to the Young." Lastly, "Thou hast +found grace," says St. Peter Chrysologus, "how much? he had said above, +Full. And full indeed, which with full shower might pour upon and into +the whole creation."[148:1] + + * * * * * + +Such was the state of sentiment on the subject of the Blessed Virgin, +which the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite heresies found in the +Church; and on which the doctrinal decisions consequent upon them +impressed a form and a consistency which has been handed on in the East +and West to this day. + + +SECTION III. + +THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. + +I will take one instance more. Let us see how, on the principles which I +have been laying down and defending, the evidence lies for the Pope's +Supremacy. + +As to this doctrine the question is this, whether there was not from the +first a certain element at work, or in existence, divinely sanctioned, +which, for certain reasons, did not at once show itself upon the surface +of ecclesiastical affairs, and of which events in the fourth century +are the development; and whether the evidence of its existence and +operation, which does occur in the earlier centuries, be it much or +little, is not just such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis. + + +2. + +For instance, it is true, St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the +subject of the Pope's authority; but if in fact that authority could not +be in active operation then, such silence is not so difficult to account +for as the silence of Seneca or Plutarch about Christianity itself, or +of Lucian about the Roman people. St. Ignatius directed his doctrine +according to the need. While Apostles were on earth, there was the +display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as +being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the +Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. When the +Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into +portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of +internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be +wanted. Christians at home did not yet quarrel with Christians abroad; +they quarrelled at home among themselves. St. Ignatius applied the +fitting remedy. The _Sacramentum Unitatis_ was acknowledged on all +hands; the mode of fulfilling and the means of securing it would vary +with the occasion; and the determination of its essence, its seat, and +its laws would be a gradual supply for a gradual necessity. + + +3. + +This is but natural, and is parallel to instances which happen daily, +and may be so considered without prejudice to the divine right whether +of the Episcopate or of the Papacy. It is a common occurrence for a +quarrel and a lawsuit to bring out the state of the law, and then the +most unexpected results often follow. St. Peter's prerogative would +remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters +became the cause of ascertaining it. While Christians were "of one heart +and one soul," it would be suspended; love dispenses with laws. +Christians knew that they must live in unity, and they were in unity; in +what that unity consisted, how far they could proceed, as it were, in +bending it, and what at length was the point at which it broke, was an +irrelevant as well as unwelcome inquiry. Relatives often live together +in happy ignorance of their respective rights and properties, till a +father or a husband dies; and then they find themselves against their +will in separate interests, and on divergent courses, and dare not move +without legal advisers. Again, the case is conceivable of a corporation +or an Academical body, going on for centuries in the performance of the +routine-business which came in its way, and preserving a good +understanding between its members, with statutes almost a dead letter +and no precedents to explain them, and the rights of its various classes +and functions undefined,--then of its being suddenly thrown back by the +force of circumstances upon the question of its formal character as a +body politic, and in consequence developing in the relation of governors +and governed. The _regalia Petri_ might sleep, as the power of a +Chancellor has slept; not as an obsolete, for they never had been +carried into effect, but as a mysterious privilege, which was not +understood; as an unfulfilled prophecy. For St. Ignatius to speak of +Popes, when it was a matter of Bishops, would have been like sending an +army to arrest a housebreaker. The Bishop's power indeed was from God, +and the Pope's could be no more; he, as well as the Pope, was our Lord's +representative, and had a sacramental office: but I am speaking, not of +the intrinsic sanctity or divinity of such an office, but of its duties. + + +4. + +When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local +disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances +gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was +necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a +suspension of that communion had actually occurred. It is not a greater +difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about +Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about +Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not +formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no +formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is +violated. + +And, in like manner, it was natural for Christians to direct their +course in matters of doctrine by the guidance of mere floating, and, as +it were, endemic tradition, while it was fresh and strong; but in +proportion as it languished, or was broken in particular places, did it +become necessary to fall back upon its special homes, first the +Apostolic Sees, and then the See of St. Peter. + + +5. + +Moreover, an international bond and a common authority could not be +consolidated, were it ever so certainly provided, while persecutions +lasted. If the Imperial Power checked the development of Councils, it +availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy. The Creed, the +Canon, in like manner, both remained undefined. The Creed, the Canon, +the Papacy, Ecumenical Councils, all began to form, as soon as the +Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church. And as it was +natural that her monarchical power should display itself when the Empire +became Christian, so was it natural also that further developments of +that power should take place when that Empire fell. Moreover, when the +power of the Holy See began to exert itself, disturbance and collision +would be the necessary consequence. Of the Temple of Solomon, it was +said that "neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in +the house, while it was in building." This is a type of the Church +above; it was otherwise with the Church below, whether in the instance +of Popes or Apostles. In either case, a new power had to be defined; as +St. Paul had to plead, nay, to strive for his apostolic authority, and +enjoined St. Timothy, as Bishop of Ephesus, to let no man despise him: +so Popes too have not therefore been ambitious because they did not +establish their authority without a struggle. It was natural that +Polycrates should oppose St. Victor; and natural too that St. Cyprian +should both extol the See of St. Peter, yet resist it when he thought it +went beyond its province. And at a later day it was natural that +Emperors should rise in indignation against it; and natural, on the +other hand, that it should take higher ground with a younger power than +it had taken with an elder and time-honoured. + + +6. + +We may follow Barrow here without reluctance, except in his imputation +of motives. + +"In the first times," he says, "while the Emperors were pagans, their +[the Popes'] pretences were suited to their condition, and could not +soar high; they were not then so mad as to pretend to any temporal +power, and a pittance of spiritual eminency did content them." + +Again: "The state of the most primitive Church did not well admit such +an universal sovereignty. For that did consist of small bodies +incoherently situated, and scattered about in very distant places, and +consequently unfit to be modelled into one political society, or to be +governed by one head, especially considering their condition under +persecution and poverty. What convenient resort for direction or justice +could a few distressed Christians in Egypt, Ethiopia, Parthia, India, +Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Cappadocia, and other parts, have to Rome!" + +Again: "Whereas no point avowed by Christians could be so apt to raise +offence and jealousy in pagans against our religion as this, which +setteth up a power of so vast extent and huge influence; whereas no +novelty could be more surprising or startling than the creation of an +universal empire over the consciences and religious practices of men; +whereas also this doctrine could not be but very conspicuous and glaring +in ordinary practice, it is prodigious that all pagans should not loudly +exclaim against it," that is, on the supposition that the Papal power +really was then in actual exercise. + +And again: "It is most prodigious that, in the disputes managed by the +Fathers against heretics, the Gnostics, Valentinians, &c., they should +not, even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence of the +universal pastor and judge, as a most evidently conclusive argument, as +the most efficacious and compendious method of convincing and silencing +them." + +Once more: "Even Popes themselves have shifted their pretences, and +varied in style, according to the different circumstances of time, and +their variety of humours, designs, interests. In time of prosperity, and +upon advantage, when they might safely do it, any Pope almost would talk +high and assume much to himself; but when they were low, or stood in +fear of powerful contradiction, even the boldest Popes would speak +submissively or moderately."[153:1] + +On the whole, supposing the power to be divinely bestowed, yet in the +first instance more or less dormant, a history could not be traced out +more probable, more suitable to that hypothesis, than the actual course +of the controversy which took place age after age upon the Papal +supremacy. + + +7. + +It will be said that all this is a theory. Certainly it is: it is a +theory to account for facts as they lie in the history, to account for +so much being told us about the Papal authority in early times, and not +more; a theory to reconcile what is and what is not recorded about it; +and, which is the principal point, a theory to connect the words and +acts of the Ante-nicene Church with that antecedent probability of a +monarchical principle in the Divine Scheme, and that actual +exemplification of it in the fourth century, which forms their +presumptive interpretation. All depends on the strength of that +presumption. Supposing there be otherwise good reason for saying that +the Papal Supremacy is part of Christianity, there is nothing in the +early history of the Church to contradict it. + + +8. + +It follows to inquire in what this presumption consists? It has, as I +have said, two parts, the antecedent probability of a Popedom, and the +actual state of the Post-nicene Church. The former of these reasons has +unavoidably been touched upon in what has preceded. It is the absolute +need of a monarchical power in the Church which is our ground for +anticipating it. A political body cannot exist without government, and +the larger is the body the more concentrated must the government be. If +the whole of Christendom is to form one Kingdom, one head is essential; +at least this is the experience of eighteen hundred years. As the Church +grew into form, so did the power of the Pope develope; and wherever the +Pope has been renounced, decay and division have been the consequence. +We know of no other way of preserving the _Sacramentum Unitatis_, but a +centre of unity. The Nestorians have had their "Catholicus;" the +Lutherans of Prussia have their general superintendent; even the +Independents, I believe, have had an overseer in their Missions. The +Anglican Church affords an observable illustration of this doctrine. As +her prospects have opened and her communion extended, the See of +Canterbury has become the natural centre of her operations. It has at +the present time jurisdiction in the Mediterranean, at Jerusalem, in +Hindostan, in North America, at the Antipodes. It has been the organ of +communication, when a Prime Minister would force the Church to a +redistribution of her property, or a Protestant Sovereign abroad would +bring her into friendly relations with his own communion. Eyes have been +lifted up thither in times of perplexity; thither have addresses been +directed and deputations sent. Thence issue the legal decisions, or the +declarations in Parliament, or the letters, or the private +interpositions, which shape the fortunes of the Church, and are the +moving influence within her separate dioceses. It must be so; no Church +can do without its Pope. We see before our eyes the centralizing process +by which the See of St. Peter became the Sovereign Head of Christendom. + +If such be the nature of the case, it is impossible, if we may so speak +reverently, that an Infinite Wisdom, which sees the end from the +beginning, in decreeing the rise of an universal Empire, should not have +decreed the development of a sovereign ruler. + +Moreover, all this must be viewed in the light of the general +probability, so much insisted on above, that doctrine cannot but +develope as time proceeds and need arises, and that its developments are +parts of the Divine system, and that therefore it is lawful, or rather +necessary, to interpret the words and deeds of the earlier Church by the +determinate teaching of the later. + + +9. + +And, on the other hand, as the counterpart of these anticipations, we +are met by certain announcements in Scripture, more or less obscure and +needing a comment, and claimed by the Papal See as having their +fulfilment in itself. Such are the words, "Thou art Peter, and upon this +rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail +against it, and I will give unto Thee the Keys of the Kingdom of +Heaven." Again: "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." And "Satan hath desired +to have you; I have prayed for thee, and when thou art converted, +strengthen thy brethren." Such, too, are various other indications of +the Divine purpose as regards St. Peter, too weak in themselves to be +insisted on separately, but not without a confirmatory power; such as +his new name, his walking on the sea, his miraculous draught of fishes +on two occasions, our Lord's preaching out of his boat, and His +appearing first to him after His resurrection. + +It should be observed, moreover, that a similar promise was made by the +patriarch Jacob to Judah: "Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: +the sceptre shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come;" yet this +promise was not fulfilled for perhaps eight hundred years, during which +long period we hear little or nothing of the tribe descended from him. +In like manner, "On this rock I will build My Church," "I give unto thee +the Keys," "Feed My sheep," are not precepts merely, but prophecies and +promises, promises to be accomplished by Him who made them, prophecies +to be fulfilled according to the need, and to be interpreted by the +event,--by the history, that is, of the fourth and fifth centuries, +though they had a partial fulfilment even in the preceding period, and a +still more noble development in the middle ages. + + +10. + +A partial fulfilment, or at least indications of what was to be, there +certainly were in the first age. Faint one by one, at least they are +various, and are found in writers of many times and countries, and +thereby illustrative of each other, and forming a body of proof. Thus +St. Clement, in the name of the Church of Rome, writes to the +Corinthians, when they were without a bishop; St. Ignatius of Antioch +addresses the Roman Church, out of the Churches to which he writes, as +"the Church, which has in dignity the first seat, of the city of the +Romans,"[157:1] and implies that it was too high for his directing as +being the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Polycarp of Smyrna has +recourse to the Bishop of Rome on the question of Easter; the heretic +Marcion, excommunicated in Pontus, betakes himself to Rome; Soter, +Bishop of Rome, sends alms, according to the custom of his Church, to +the Churches throughout the empire, and, in the words of Eusebius, +"affectionately exhorted those who came to Rome, as a father his +children;" the Montanists from Phrygia come to Rome to gain the +countenance of its Bishop; Praxeas, from Asia, attempts the like, and +for a while is successful; St. Victor, Bishop of Rome, threatens to +excommunicate the Asian Churches; St. Irenus speaks of Rome as "the +greatest Church, the most ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded and +established by Peter and Paul," appeals to its tradition, not in +contrast indeed, but in preference to that of other Churches, and +declares that "to this Church, every Church, that is, the faithful from +every side must resort" or "must agree with it, _propter potiorem +principalitatem_." "O Church, happy in its position," says Tertullian, +"into which the Apostles poured out, together with their blood, their +whole doctrine;" and elsewhere, though in indignation and bitter +mockery, he calls the Pope "the Pontifex Maximus, the Bishop of +Bishops." The presbyters of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, +complain of his doctrine to St. Dionysius of Rome; the latter +expostulates with him, and he explains. The Emperor Aurelian leaves "to +the Bishops of Italy and of Rome" the decision, whether or not Paul of +Samosata shall be dispossessed of the see-house at Antioch; St. Cyprian +speaks of Rome as "the See of Peter and the principal Church, whence +the unity of the priesthood took its rise, . . whose faith has been +commended by the Apostles, to whom faithlessness can have no access;" +St. Stephen refuses to receive St. Cyprian's deputation, and separates +himself from various Churches of the East; Fortunatus and Felix, deposed +by St. Cyprian, have recourse to Rome; Basilides, deposed in Spain, +betakes himself to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen. + + +11. + +St. Cyprian had his quarrel with the Roman See, but it appears he allows +to it the title of the "Cathedra Petri," and even Firmilian is a witness +that Rome claimed it. In the fourth and fifth centuries this title and +its logical results became prominent. Thus St. Julius (A.D. 342) +remonstrated by letter with the Eusebian party for "proceeding on their +own authority as they pleased," and then, as he says, "desiring to +obtain our concurrence in their decisions, though we never condemned +[Athanasius]. Not so have the constitutions of Paul, not so have the +traditions of the Fathers directed; this is another form of procedure, a +novel practice. . . . For what we have received from the blessed Apostle +Peter, that I signify to you; and I should not have written this, as +deeming that these things are manifest unto all men, had not these +proceedings so disturbed us."[158:1] St. Athanasius, by preserving this +protest, has given it his sanction. Moreover, it is referred to by +Socrates; and his account of it has the more force, because he happens +to be incorrect in the details, and therefore did not borrow it from +St. Athanasius: "Julius wrote back," he says, "that they acted against +the Canons, because they had not called him to the Council, the +Ecclesiastical Canon commanding that the Churches ought not to make +Canons beside the will of the Bishop of Rome."[159:1] And Sozomen: "It +was a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid whatever was transacted beside +the will of the Bishop of the Romans."[159:2] On the other hand, the +heretics themselves, whom St. Julius withstands, are obliged to +acknowledge that Rome was "the School of the Apostles and the Metropolis +of orthodoxy from the beginning;" and two of their leaders (Western +Bishops indeed) some years afterwards recanted their heresy before the +Pope in terms of humble confession. + + +12. + +Another Pope, St. Damasus, in his letter addressed to the Eastern +Bishops against Apollinaris (A.D. 382), calls those Bishops his sons. +"In that your charity pays the due reverence to the Apostolical See, ye +profit yourselves the most, most honoured sons. For if, placed as we are +in that Holy Church, in which the Holy Apostle sat and taught, how it +becometh us to direct the helm to which we have succeeded, we +nevertheless confess ourselves unequal to that honour; yet do we +therefore study as we may, if so be we may be able to attain to the +glory of his blessedness."[159:3] "I speak," says St. Jerome to the same +St. Damasus, "with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of +the Cross. I, following no one as my chief but Christ, am associated in +communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. I know +that on that rock the Church is built. Whosoever shall eat the Lamb +outside this House is profane; if a man be not in the Ark of Noe, he +shall perish when the flood comes in its power."[160:1] St. Basil +entreats St. Damasus to send persons to arbitrate between the Churches +of Asia Minor, or at least to make a report on the authors of their +troubles, and name the party with which the Pope should hold communion. +"We are in no wise asking anything new," he proceeds, "but what was +customary with blessed and religious men of former times, and especially +with yourself. For we know, by tradition of our fathers of whom we have +inquired, and from the information of writings still preserved among us, +that Dionysius, that most blessed Bishop, while he was eminent among you +for orthodoxy and other virtues, sent letters of visitation to our +Church at Csarea, and of consolation to our fathers, with ransomers of +our brethren from captivity." In like manner, Ambrosiaster, a Pelagian +in his doctrine, which here is not to the purpose, speaks of the "Church +being God's house, whose ruler at this time is Damasus."[160:2] + + +13. + +"We bear," says St. Siricius, another Pope (A.D. 385), "the burden of +all who are laden; yea, rather the blessed Apostle Peter beareth them in +us, who, as we trust, in all things protects and defends us the heirs of +his government."[160:3] And he in turn is confirmed by St. Optatus. "You +cannot deny your knowledge," says the latter to Parmenian, the Donatist, +"that, in the city Rome, on Peter first hath an Episcopal See been +conferred, in which Peter sat, the head of all the Apostles, . . . in +which one See unity might be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles +should support their respective Sees; in order that he might be at once +a schismatic and a sinner, who against that one See (_singularem_) +placed a second. Therefore that one See (_unicam_), which is the first +of the Church's prerogatives, Peter filled first; to whom succeeded +Linus; to Linus, Clement; to Clement, &c., &c. . . . to Damasus, +Siricius, who at this day is associated with us (_socius_), together +with whom the whole world is in accordance with us, in the one bond of +communion, by the intercourse of letters of peace."[161:1] + +Another Pope: "Diligently and congruously do ye consult the _arcana_ of +the Apostolical dignity," says St. Innocent to the Council of Milevis +(A.D. 417), "the dignity of him on whom, beside those things which are +without, falls the care of all the Churches; following the form of the +ancient rule, which you know, as well as I, has been preserved always by +the whole world."[161:2] Here the Pope appeals, as it were, to the Rule +of Vincentius; while St. Augustine bears witness that he did not outstep +his Prerogative, for, giving an account of this and another letter, he +says, "He [the Pope] answered us as to all these matters as it was +religious and becoming in the Bishop of the Apostolic See."[161:3] + +Another Pope: "We have especial anxiety about all persons," says St. +Celestine (A.D. 425), to the Illyrian Bishops, "on whom, in the holy +Apostle Peter, Christ conferred the necessity of making all men our +care, when He gave him the Keys of opening and shutting." And St. +Prosper, his contemporary, confirms him, when he calls Rome "the seat of +Peter, which, being made to the world the head of pastoral honour, +possesses by religion what it does not possess by arms;" and Vincent of +Lerins, when he calls the Pope "the head of the world."[161:4] + + +14. + +Another Pope: "Blessed Peter," says St. Leo (A.D. 440, &c.), "hath not +deserted the helm of the Church which he had assumed. . . His power +lives and his authority is pre-eminent in his See."[162:1] "That +immoveableness, which, from the Rock Christ, he, when made a rock, +received, has been communicated also to his heirs."[162:2] And as St. +Athanasius and the Eusebians, by their contemporary testimonies, confirm +St. Julius; and St. Jerome, St. Basil; and Ambrosiaster, St. Damasus; +and St. Optatus, St. Siricius; and St. Augustine, St. Innocent; and St. +Prosper and Vincent, St. Celestine; so do St. Peter Chrysologus, and the +Council of Chalcedon confirm St. Leo. "Blessed Peter," says Chrysologus, +"who lives and presides in his own See, supplies truth of faith to those +who seek it."[162:3] And the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, addressing +St. Leo respecting Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria: "He extends his +madness even against him to whom the custody of the vineyard has been +committed by the Saviour, that is, against thy Apostolical +holiness."[162:4] But the instance of St. Leo will occur again in a +later Chapter. + + +15. + +The acts of the fourth century speak as strongly as its words. We may +content ourselves here with Barrow's admissions:-- + +"The Pope's power," he says, "was much amplified by the importunity of +persons condemned or extruded from their places, whether upon just +accounts, or wrongfully, and by faction; for they, finding no other more +hopeful place of refuge and redress, did often apply to him: for what +will not men do, whither will not they go in straits? Thus did Marcion +go to Rome, and sue for admission to communion there. So Fortunatus and +Felicissimus in St. Cyprian, being condemned in Afric, did fly to Rome +for shelter; of which absurdity St. Cyprian doth so complain. So +likewise Martianus and Basilides in St. Cyprian, being outed of their +Sees for having lapsed from the Christian profession, did fly to Stephen +for succour, to be restored. So Maximus, the Cynic, went to Rome, to get +a confirmation of his election at Constantinople. So Marcellus, being +rejected for heterodoxy, went thither to get attestation to his +orthodoxy, of which St. Basil complaineth. So Apiarus, being condemned +in Afric for his crimes, did appeal to Rome. And, on the other side, +Athanasius being with great partiality condemned by the Synod of Tyre; +Paulus and other bishops being extruded from their sees for orthodoxy; +St. Chrysostom being condemned and expelled by Theophilus and his +complices; Flavianus being deposed by Dioscorus and the Ephesine synod; +Theodoret being condemned by the same; did cry out for help to Rome. +Chelidonius, Bishop of Besanon, being deposed by Hilarius of Arles for +crime, did fly to Pope Leo." + +Again: "Our adversaries do oppose some instances of popes meddling in +the constitution of bishops; as, Pope Leo I. saith, that Anatolius did +'by the favour of his assent obtain the bishopric of Constantinople.' +The same Pope is alleged as having confirmed Maximus of Antioch. The +same doth write to the Bishop of Thessalonica, his vicar, that he should +'confirm the elections of bishops by his authority.' He also confirmed +Donatus, an African bishop:--'We will that Donatus preside over the +Lord's flock, upon condition that he remember to send us an account of +his faith.' . . Pope Damasus did confirm the ordination of Peter +Alexandrinus." + + +16. + +And again: "The Popes indeed in the fourth century began to practise a +fine trick, very serviceable to the enlargement of their power; which +was to confer on certain bishops, as occasion served, or for +continuance, the title of their vicar or lieutenant, thereby pretending +to impart authority to them; whereby they were enabled for performance +of divers things, which otherwise by their own episcopal or +metropolitical power they could not perform. By which device they did +engage such bishops to such a dependence on them, whereby they did +promote the papal authority in provinces, to the oppression of the +ancient rights and liberties of bishops and synods, doing what they +pleased under pretence of this vast power communicated to them; and for +fear of being displaced, or out of affection to their favourer, doing +what might serve to advance the papacy. Thus did Pope Celestine +constitute Cyril in his room. Pope Leo appointed Anatolius of +Constantinople; Pope Felix, Acacius of Constantinople. . . . . Pope +Simplicius to Zeno, Bishop of Seville: 'We thought it convenient that +you should be held up by the vicariat authority of our see.' So did +Siricius and his successors constitute the bishops of Thessalonica to be +their vicars in the diocese of Illyricum, wherein being then a member of +the western empire they had caught a special jurisdiction; to which Pope +Leo did refer in those words, which sometimes are impertinently alleged +with reference to all bishops, but concern only Anastasius, Bishop of +Thessalonica: 'We have entrusted thy charity to be in our stead; so that +thou art called into part of the solicitude, not into plenitude of the +authority.' So did Pope Zosimus bestow a like pretence of vicarious +power upon the Bishop of Arles, which city was the seat of the temporal +exarch in Gaul."[164:1] + + +17. + +More ample testimony for the Papal Supremacy, as now professed by Roman +Catholics, is scarcely necessary than what is contained in these +passages; the simple question is, whether the clear light of the fourth +and fifth centuries may be fairly taken to interpret to us the dim, +though definite, outlines traced in the preceding. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[123:1] Wood's Mechanics, p. 31. + +[124:1] Authent. N. T. Tr. p. 237. + +[124:2] According to Less. + +[124:3] Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 78 [Discuss. iii. 6, p. 207]. + +[125:1] [Ibid. p. 209. These results are taken from Less, and are +practically accurate.] + +[126:1] No. 85 [Discuss. p. 236]. + +[132:1] Ep. 93. I have thought it best to give an over-literal +translation. + +[132:2] Vid. Concil. Bracar. ap. Aguirr. Conc. Hisp. t. ii. p. 676. +"That the cup was not administered at the same time is not so clear; but +from the tenor of this first Canon in the Acts of the Third Council of +Braga, which condemns the notion that the Host should be steeped in the +chalice, we have no doubt that the wine was withheld from the laity. +Whether certain points of doctrine are or are not found in the +Scriptures is no concern of the historian; all that he has to do is +religiously to follow his guides, to suppress or distrust nothing +through partiality."--_Dunham_, _Hist. of Spain and Port._ vol. i. p. +204. If _pro complemento communionis_ in the Canon merely means "for the +Cup," at least the Cup is spoken of as a complement; the same view is +contained in the "confirmation of the Eucharist," as spoken of in St. +German's life. Vid. Lives of Saints, No. 9, p. 28. + +[132:3] Niceph. Hist. xviii. 45. Renaudot, however, tells us of two +Bishops at the time when the schism was at length healed. Patr. Al. Jac. +p. 248. However, these had been consecrated by priests, p. 145. + +[133:1] Vid. Bing. Ant. xv. 4, 7; and Fleury, Hist. xxvi. 50, note +_g_. + +[135:1] Kaye's Justin, p. 59, &c. + +[135:2] Kaye's Clement, p. 335. + +[135:3] p. 341. + +[135:4] Ib. 342. + +[136:1] Reliqu. Sacr. t. ii. p. 469, 470. + +[137:1] [This subject is more exactly and carefully treated in Tracts +Theol. and Eccles. pp. 192-226.] + +[138:1] [They also had a _cultus_ in themselves, and specially when a +greater Presence did _not_ overshadow them. _Vid._ Via Media, vol. ii. +art. iv. 8, note 1.] + +[139:1] Exod. xxxiii. 10. + +[139:2] Dan. x. 5-17. + +[141:1] Athan. Orat. i. 42, Oxf. tr. + +[141:2] [_Vid. supr._ p. 138, note 8.] + +[142:1] Athan. ibid. + +[142:2] And so Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine: "The all-holy choir +of God's perpetual virgins, he was used almost to worship (+sebn+), +believing that that God, to whom they had consecrated themselves, was an +inhabitant in the souls of such." Vit. Const. iv. 28. + +[146:1] Hr. 78, 18. + +[148:1] Aug. de Nat. et Grat. 42. Ambros. Ep. 1, 49, 2. In Psalm 118, +v. 3, de Instit. Virg. 50. Hier. in Is. xi. 1, contr. Pelag. ii. 4. Nil. +Ep. i. p. 267. Antioch. ap. Cyr. de Rect. Fid. p. 49. Ephr. Opp. Syr. t. +3, p. 607. Max. Hom. 45. Procl. Orat. vi. pp. 225-228, p. 60, p. 179, +180, ed. 1630. Theodot. ap. Amphiloch. pp. 39, &c. Fulgent. Serm. 3, p. +125. Chrysol. Serm. 142. A striking passage from another Sermon of the +last-mentioned author, on the words "She cast in her mind what manner of +salutation," &c., may be added: "Quantus sit Deus satis ignorat ille, +qui hujus Virginis mentem non stupet, animum non miratur. Pavet coelum, +tremunt Angeli, creatura non sustinet, natura non sufficit; et una +puella sic Deum in sui pectoris capit, recipit, oblectat hospitio, ut +pacem terris, coelis gloriam, salutem perditis, vitam mortuis, terrenis +cum coelestibus parentelam, ipsius Dei cum carne commercium, pro ips +doms exigat pensione, pro ipsius uteri mercede conquirat," &c. Serm. +140. [St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Alexandria sometimes +speak, it is true, in a different tone; on this subject vid. "Letter to +Dr. Pusey," Note iii., Diff. of Angl. vol. 2.] + +[153:1] Pope's Suprem. ed. 1836, pp. 26, 27, 157, 171, 222. + +[157:1] +htis kai prokathtai en top chriou Rhmain.+ + +[158:1] Athan. Hist. Tracts. Oxf. tr. p. 56. + +[159:1] Hist. ii. 17. + +[159:2] Hist. iii. 10. + +[159:3] Theod. Hist. v. 10. + +[160:1] Coustant, Epp. Pont. p. 546. + +[160:2] In 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15. + +[160:3] Coustant, p. 624. + +[161:1] ii. 3. + +[161:2] Coustant, pp. 896, 1064. + +[161:3] Ep. 186, 2. + +[161:4] De Ingrat. 2. Common. 41. + +[162:1] Serm. De Natal. iii. 3. + +[162:2] Ibid. v. 4. + +[162:3] Ep. ad Eutych. fin. + +[162:4] Concil. Hard. t. ii. p. 656. + +[164:1] Barrow on the Supremacy, ed. 1836, pp. 263, 331, 384. + + + + +PART II. + +DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS + +VIEWED RELATIVELY TO DOCTRINAL + +CORRUPTIONS. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +GENUINE DEVELOPMENTS CONTRASTED WITH CORRUPTIONS. + + +I have been engaged in drawing out the positive and direct argument in +proof of the intimate connexion, or rather oneness, with primitive +Apostolic teaching, of the body of doctrine known at this day by +the name of Catholic, and professed substantially both by Eastern +and Western Christendom. That faith is undeniably the historical +continuation of the religious system, which bore the name of Catholic in +the eighteenth century, in the seventeenth, in the sixteenth, and so +back in every preceding century, till we arrive at the first;--undeniably +the successor, the representative, the heir of the religion of Cyprian, +Basil, Ambrose and Augustine. The only question that can be raised is +whether the said Catholic faith, as now held, is logically, as well as +historically, the representative of the ancient faith. This then is the +subject, to which I have as yet addressed myself, and I have maintained +that modern Catholicism is nothing else but simply the legitimate growth +and complement, that is, the natural and necessary development, of the +doctrine of the early church, and that its divine authority is included +in the divinity of Christianity. + + +2. + +So far I have gone, but an important objection presents itself for +distinct consideration. It may be said in answer to me that it is not +enough that a certain large system of doctrine, such as that which goes +by the name of Catholic, should admit of being referred to beliefs, +opinions, and usages which prevailed among the first Christians, in +order to my having a logical right to include a reception of the later +teaching in the reception of the earlier; that an intellectual +development may be in one sense natural, and yet untrue to its original, +as diseases come of nature, yet are the destruction, or rather the +negation of health; that the causes which stimulate the growth of ideas +may also disturb and deform them; and that Christianity might indeed +have been intended by its Divine Author for a wide expansion of the +ideas proper to it, and yet this great benefit hindered by the evil +birth of cognate errors which acted as its counterfeit; in a word, that +what I have called developments in the Roman Church are nothing more or +less than what used to be called her corruptions; and that new names do +not destroy old grievances. + +This is what may be said, and I acknowledge its force: it becomes +necessary in consequence to assign certain characteristics of faithful +developments, which none but faithful developments have, and the +presence of which serves as a test to discriminate between them and +corruptions. This I at once proceed to do, and I shall begin by +determining what a corruption is, and why it cannot rightly be called, +and how it differs from, a development. + + +3. + +To find then what a corruption or perversion of the truth is, let us +inquire what the word means, when used literally of material substances. +Now it is plain, first of all, that a corruption is a word attaching to +organized matters only; a stone may be crushed to powder, but it cannot +be corrupted. Corruption, on the contrary, is the breaking up of life, +preparatory to its termination. This resolution of a body into its +component parts is the stage before its dissolution; it begins when life +has reached its perfection, and it is the sequel, or rather the +continuation, of that process towards perfection, being at the same time +the reversal and undoing of what went before. Till this point of +regression is reached, the body has a function of its own, and a +direction and aim in its action, and a nature with laws; these it is now +losing, and the traits and tokens of former years; and with them its +vigour and powers of nutrition, of assimilation, and of self-reparation. + + +4. + +Taking this analogy as a guide, I venture to set down seven Notes of +varying cogency, independence and applicability, to discriminate healthy +developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as +follows:--There is no corruption if it retains one and the same type, +the same principles, the same organization; if its beginnings anticipate +its subsequent phases, and its later phenomena protect and subserve its +earlier; if it has a power of assimilation and revival, and a vigorous +action from first to last. On these tests I shall now enlarge, nearly in +the order in which I have enumerated them. + + +SECTION I. + +FIRST NOTE OF A GENUINE DEVELOPMENT. + +PRESERVATION OF TYPE. + +This is readily suggested by the analogy of physical growth, which is +such that the parts and proportions of the developed form, however +altered, correspond to those which belong to its rudiments. The adult +animal has the same make, as it had on its birth; young birds do not +grow into fishes, nor does the child degenerate into the brute, wild or +domestic, of which he is by inheritance lord. Vincentius of Lerins +adopts this illustration in distinct reference to Christian doctrine. +"Let the soul's religion," he says "imitate the law of the body, which, +as years go on developes indeed and opens out its due proportions, and +yet remains identically what it was. Small are a baby's limbs, a youth's +are larger, yet they are the same."[172:1] + + +2. + +In like manner every calling or office has its own type, which those who +fill it are bound to maintain; and to deviate from the type in any +material point is to relinquish the calling. Thus both Chaucer and +Goldsmith have drawn pictures of a true parish priest; these differ in +details, but on the whole they agree together, and are one in such +sense, that sensuality, or ambition, must be considered a forfeiture of +that high title. Those magistrates, again, are called "corrupt," who are +guided in their judgments by love of lucre or respect of persons, for +the administration of justice is their essential function. Thus +collegiate or monastic bodies lose their claim to their endowments or +their buildings, as being relaxed and degenerate, if they neglect their +statutes or their Rule. Thus, too, in political history, a mayor of the +palace, such as he became in the person of Pepin, was no faithful +development of the office he filled, as originally intended and +established. + + +3. + +In like manner, it has been argued by a late writer, whether fairly or +not does not interfere with the illustration, that the miraculous vision +and dream of the Labarum could not have really taken place, as reported +by Eusebius, because it is counter to the original type of Christianity. +"For the first time," he says, on occasion of Constantine's introduction +of the standard into his armies, "the meek and peaceful Jesus became a +God of battle, and the Cross, the holy sign of Christian Redemption, a +banner of bloody strife. . . . . This was the first advance to the +military Christianity of the middle ages, a modification of the pure +religion of the Gospel, if directly opposed to its genuine principles, +still apparently indispensable to the social progress of men."[173:1] + +On the other hand, a popular leader may go through a variety of +professions, he may court parties and break with them, he may contradict +himself in words, and undo his own measures, yet there may be a steady +fulfilment of certain objects, or adherence to certain plain doctrines, +which gives a unity to his career, and impresses on beholders an image +of directness and large consistency which shows a fidelity to his type +from first to last. + + +4. + +However, as the last instances suggest to us, this unity of type, +characteristic as it is of faithful developments, must not be pressed to +the extent of denying all variation, nay, considerable alteration of +proportion and relation, as time goes on, in the parts or aspects of an +idea. Great changes in outward appearance and internal harmony occur in +the instance of the animal creation itself. The fledged bird differs +much from its rudimental form in the egg. The butterfly is the +development, but not in any sense the image, of the grub. The whale +claims a place among mammalia, though we might fancy that, as in the +child's game of catscradle, some strange introsusception had been +permitted, to make it so like, yet so contrary, to the animals with +which it is itself classed. And, in like manner, if beasts of prey were +once in paradise, and fed upon grass, they must have presented bodily +phenomena very different from the structure of muscles, claws, teeth, +and viscera which now fit them for a carnivorous existence. Eutychius, +Patriarch of Constantinople, on his death-bed, grasped his own hand and +said, "I confess that in this flesh we shall all rise again;" yet flesh +and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and a glorified body has +attributes incompatible with its present condition on earth. + + +5. + +More subtle still and mysterious are the variations which are consistent +or not inconsistent with identity in political and religious +developments. The Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity has ever been +accused by heretics of interfering with that of the Divine Unity out of +which it grew, and even believers will at first sight consider that it +tends to obscure it. Yet Petavius says, "I will affirm, what perhaps +will surprise the reader, that that distinction of Persons which, in +regard to _proprietates_ is in reality most great, is so far from +disparaging the Unity and Simplicity of God that this very real +distinction especially avails for the doctrine that God is One and most +Simple."[174:1] + +Again, Arius asserted that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was +not able to comprehend the First, whereas Eunomius's characteristic +tenet was in an opposite direction, viz., that not only the Son, but +that all men could comprehend God; yet no one can doubt that Eunomianism +was a true development, not a corruption of Arianism. + +The same man may run through various philosophies or beliefs, which are +in themselves irreconcilable, without inconsistency, since in him they +may be nothing more than accidental instruments or expressions of what +he is inwardly from first to last. The political doctrines of the modern +Tory resemble those of the primitive Whig; yet few will deny that the +Whig and Tory characters have each a discriminating type. Calvinism has +changed into Unitarianism: yet this need not be called a corruption, +even if it be not, strictly speaking, a development; for Harding, in +controversy with Jewell, surmised the coming change three centuries +since, and it has occurred not in one country, but in many. + + +6. + +The history of national character supplies an analogy, rather than an +instance strictly in point; yet there is so close a connexion between +the development of minds and of ideas that it is allowable to refer to +it here. Thus we find England of old the most loyal supporter, and +England of late the most jealous enemy, of the Holy See. As great a +change is exhibited in France, once the eldest born of the Church and +the flower of her knighthood, now democratic and lately infidel. Yet, in +neither nation, can these great changes be well called corruptions. + +Or again, let us reflect on the ethical vicissitudes of the chosen +people. How different is their grovelling and cowardly temper on leaving +Egypt from the chivalrous spirit, as it may be called, of the age of +David, or, again, from the bloody fanaticism which braved Titus and +Hadrian! In what contrast is that impotence of mind which gave way at +once, and bowed the knee, at the very sight of a pagan idol, with the +stern iconoclasm and bigoted nationality of later Judaism! How startling +the apparent absence of what would be called talent in this people +during their supernatural Dispensation, compared with the gifts of mind +which various witnesses assign to them now! + + +7. + +And, in like manner, ideas may remain, when the expression of them is +indefinitely varied; and we cannot determine whether a professed +development is truly such or not, without further knowledge than an +experience of the mere fact of this variation. Nor will our instinctive +feelings serve as a criterion. It must have been an extreme shock to St. +Peter to be told he must slay and eat beasts, unclean as well as clean, +though such a command was implied already in that faith which he held +and taught; a shock, which a single effort, or a short period, or the +force of reason would not suffice to overcome. Nay, it may happen that a +representation which varies from its original may be felt as more true +and faithful than one which has more pretensions to be exact. So it is +with many a portrait which is not striking: at first look, of course, it +disappoints us; but when we are familiar with it, we see in it what we +could not see at first, and prefer it, not to a perfect likeness, but to +many a sketch which is so precise as to be a caricature. + + +8. + +On the other hand, real perversions and corruptions are often not so +unlike externally to the doctrine from which they come, as are changes +which are consistent with it and true developments. When Rome changed +from a Republic to an Empire, it was a real alteration of polity, or +what may be called a corruption; yet in appearance the change was small. +The old offices or functions of government remained: it was only that +the Imperator, or Commander in Chief, concentrated them in his own +person. Augustus was Consul and Tribune, Supreme Pontiff and Censor, +and the Imperial rule was, in the words of Gibbon, "an absolute monarchy +disguised by the forms of a commonwealth." On the other hand, when the +dissimulation of Augustus was exchanged for the ostentation of +Dioclesian, the real alteration of constitution was trivial, but the +appearance of change was great. Instead of plain Consul, Censor, and +Tribune, Dioclesian became Dominus or King, assumed the diadem, and +threw around him the forms of a court. + +Nay, one cause of corruption in religion is the refusal to follow the +course of doctrine as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of +the past. Certainly: as we see conspicuously in the history of the +chosen race. The Samaritans who refused to add the Prophets to the Law, +and the Sadducees who denied a truth which was covertly taught in the +Book of Exodus, were in appearance only faithful adherents to the +primitive doctrine. Our Lord found His people precisians in their +obedience to the letter; He condemned them for not being led on to its +spirit, that is, to its developments. The Gospel is the development of +the Law; yet what difference seems wider than that which separates the +unbending rule of Moses from the "grace and truth" which "came by Jesus +Christ?" Samuel had of old time fancied that the tall Eliab was the +Lord's anointed; and Jesse had thought David only fit for the sheepcote; +and when the Great King came, He was "as a root out of a dry ground;" +but strength came out of weakness, and out of the strong sweetness. + +So it is in the case of our friends; the most obsequious are not always +the truest, and seeming cruelty is often genuine affection. We know the +conduct of the three daughters in the drama towards the old king. She +who had found her love "more richer than her tongue," and could not +"heave her heart into her mouth," was in the event alone true to her +father. + + +9. + +An idea then does not always bear about it the same external image; this +circumstance, however, has no force to weaken the argument for its +substantial identity, as drawn from its external sameness, when such +sameness remains. On the contrary, for that very reason, _unity of type_ +becomes so much the surer guarantee of the healthiness and soundness of +developments, when it is persistently preserved in spite of their number +or importance. + + +SECTION II. + +SECOND NOTE. CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES. + +As in mathematical creations figures are formed on distinct formul, +which are the laws under which they are developed, so it is in ethical +and political subjects. Doctrines expand variously according to the +mind, individual or social, into which they are received; and the +peculiarities of the recipient are the regulating power, the law, the +organization, or, as it may be called, the form of the development. The +life of doctrines may be said to consist in the law or principle which +they embody. + +Principles are abstract and general, doctrines relate to facts; +doctrines develope, and principles at first sight do not; doctrines grow +and are enlarged, principles are permanent; doctrines are intellectual, +and principles are more immediately ethical and practical. Systems live +in principles and represent doctrines. Personal responsibility is a +principle, the Being of a God is a doctrine; from that doctrine all +theology has come in due course, whereas that principle is not clearer +under the Gospel than in paradise, and depends, not on belief in an +Almighty Governor, but on conscience. + +Yet the difference between the two sometimes merely exists in our mode +of viewing them; and what is a doctrine in one philosophy is a principle +in another. Personal responsibility may be made a doctrinal basis, and +develope into Arminianism or Pelagianism. Again, it may be discussed +whether infallibility is a principle or a doctrine of the Church of +Rome, and dogmatism a principle or doctrine of Christianity. Again, +consideration for the poor is a doctrine of the Church considered as a +religious body, and a principle when she is viewed as a political power. + +Doctrines stand to principles, as the definitions to the axioms and +postulates of mathematics. Thus the 15th and 17th propositions of +Euclid's book I. are developments, not of the three first axioms, which +are required in the proof, but of the definition of a right angle. +Perhaps the perplexity, which arises in the mind of a beginner, on +learning the early propositions of the second book, arises from these +being more prominently exemplifications of axioms than developments of +definitions. He looks for developments from the definition of the +rectangle, and finds but various particular cases of the general truth, +that "the whole is equal to its parts." + + +2. + +It might be expected that the Catholic principles would be later in +development than the Catholic doctrines, inasmuch as they lie deeper in +the mind, and are assumptions rather than objective professions. This +has been the case. The Protestant controversy has mainly turned, or is +turning, on one or other of the principles of Catholicity; and to this +day the rule of Scripture Interpretation, the doctrine of Inspiration, +the relation of Faith to Reason, moral responsibility, private +judgment, inherent grace, the seat of infallibility, remain, I suppose, +more or less undeveloped, or, at least, undefined, by the Church. + +Doctrines stand to principles, if it may be said without fancifulness, +as fecundity viewed relatively to generation, though this analogy must +not be strained. Doctrines are developed by the operation of principles, +and develope variously according to those principles. Thus a belief in +the transitiveness of worldly goods leads the Epicurean to enjoyment, +and the ascetic to mortification; and, from their common doctrine of the +sinfulness of matter, the Alexandrian Gnostics became sensualists, and +the Syrian devotees. The same philosophical elements, received into a +certain sensibility or insensibility to sin and its consequences, leads +one mind to the Church of Rome; another to what, for want of a better +word, may be called Germanism. + +Again, religious investigation sometimes is conducted on the principle +that it is a duty "to follow and speak the truth," which really means +that it is no duty to fear error, or to consider what is safest, or to +shrink from scattering doubts, or to regard the responsibility of +misleading; and thus it terminates in heresy or infidelity, without any +blame to religious investigation in itself. + +Again, to take a different subject, what constitutes a chief interest of +dramatic compositions and tales, is to use external circumstances, which +may be considered their law of development, as a means of bringing out +into different shapes, and showing under new aspects, the personal +peculiarities of character, according as either those circumstances or +those peculiarities vary in the case of the personages introduced. + + +3. + +Principles are popularly said to develope when they are but exemplified; +thus the various sects of Protestantism, unconnected as they are with +each other, are called developments of the principle of Private +Judgment, of which really they are but applications and results. + +A development, to be faithful, must retain both the doctrine and the +principle with which it started. Doctrine without its correspondent +principle remains barren, if not lifeless, of which the Greek Church +seems an instance; or it forms those hollow professions which are +familiarly called "shams," as a zeal for an established Church and its +creed on merely conservative or temporal motives. Such, too, was the +Roman Constitution between the reigns of Augustus and Dioclesian. + +On the other hand, principle without its corresponding doctrine may be +considered as the state of religious minds in the heathen world, viewed +relatively to Revelation; that is, of the "children of God who are +scattered abroad." + +Pagans may have, heretics cannot have, the same principles as Catholics; +if the latter have the same, they are not real heretics, but in +ignorance. Principle is a better test of heresy than doctrine. Heretics +are true to their principles, but change to and fro, backwards and +forwards, in opinion; for very opposite doctrines may be +exemplifications of the same principle. Thus the Antiochenes and other +heretics sometimes were Arians, sometimes Sabellians, sometimes +Nestorians, sometimes Monophysites, as if at random, from fidelity to +their common principle, that there is no mystery in theology. Thus +Calvinists become Unitarians from the principle of private judgment. The +doctrines of heresy are accidents and soon run to an end; its principles +are everlasting. + +This, too, is often the solution of the paradox "Extremes meet," and of +the startling reactions which take place in individuals; viz., the +presence of some one principle or condition, which is dominant in their +minds from first to last. If one of two contradictory alternatives be +necessarily true on a certain hypothesis, then the denial of the one +leads, by mere logical consistency and without direct reasons, to a +reception of the other. Thus the question between the Church of Rome and +Protestantism falls in some minds into the proposition, "Rome is either +the pillar and ground of the Truth, or she is Antichrist;" in +proportion, then, as they revolt from considering her the latter are +they compelled to receive her as the former. Hence, too, men may pass +from infidelity to Rome, and from Rome to infidelity, from a conviction +in both courses that there is no tangible intellectual position between +the two. + +Protestantism, viewed in its more Catholic aspect, is doctrine without +active principle; viewed in its heretical, it is active principle +without doctrine. Many of its speakers, for instance, use eloquent and +glowing language about the Church and its characteristics: some of them +do not realize what they say, but use high words and general statements +about "the faith," and "primitive truth," and "schism," and "heresy," to +which they attach no definite meaning; while others speak of "unity," +"universality," and "Catholicity," and use the words in their own sense +and for their own ideas. + + +4. + +The science of grammar affords another instance of the existence of +special laws in the formation of systems. Some languages have more +elasticity than others, and greater capabilities; and the difficulty of +explaining the fact cannot lead us to doubt it. There are languages, for +instance, which have a capacity for compound words, which, we cannot +tell why, is in matter of fact denied to others. We feel the presence of +a certain character or genius in each, which determines its path and its +range; and to discover and enter into it is one part of refined +scholarship. And when particular writers, in consequence perhaps of +some theory, tax a language beyond its powers, the failure is +conspicuous. Very subtle, too, and difficult to draw out, are the +principles on which depends the formation of proper names in a +particular people. In works of fiction, names or titles, significant or +ludicrous, must be invented for the characters introduced; and some +authors excel in their fabrication, while others are equally +unfortunate. Foreign novels, perhaps, attempt to frame English surnames, +and signally fail; yet what every one feels to be the case, no one can +analyze: that is, our surnames are constructed on a law which is only +exhibited in particular instances, and which rules their formation on +certain, though subtle, determinations. + +And so in philosophy, the systems of physics or morals, which go by +celebrated names, proceed upon the assumption of certain conditions +which are necessary for every stage of their development. The Newtonian +theory of gravitation is based on certain axioms; for instance, that the +fewest causes assignable for phenomena are the true ones: and the +application of science to practical purposes depends upon the hypothesis +that what happens to-day will happen to-morrow. + +And so in military matters, the discovery of gunpowder developed the +science of attack and defence in a new instrumentality. Again, it is +said that when Napoleon began his career of victories, the enemy's +generals pronounced that his battles were fought against rule, and that +he ought not to be victorious. + + +5. + +So states have their respective policies, on which they move forward, +and which are the conditions of their well-being. Thus it is sometimes +said that the true policy of the American Union, or the law of its +prosperity, is not the enlargement of its territory, but the +cultivation of its internal resources. Thus Russia is said to be weak in +attack, strong in defence, and to grow, not by the sword, but by +diplomacy. Thus Islamism is said to be the form or life of the Ottoman, +and Protestantism of the British Empire, and the admission of European +ideas into the one, or of Catholic ideas into the other, to be the +destruction of the respective conditions of their power. Thus Augustus +and Tiberius governed by dissimulation; thus Pericles in his "Funeral +Oration" draws out the principles of the Athenian commonwealth, viz., +that it is carried on, not by formal and severe enactments, but by the +ethical character and spontaneous energy of the people. + +The political principles of Christianity, if it be right to use such +words of a divine polity, are laid down for us in the Sermon on the +Mount. Contrariwise to other empires, Christians conquer by yielding; +they gain influence by shrinking from it; they possess the earth by +renouncing it. Gibbon speaks of "the vices of the clergy" as being "to a +philosophic eye far less dangerous than their virtues."[184:1] + +Again, as to Judaism, it may be asked on what law it developed; that is, +whether Mahometanism may not be considered as a sort of Judaism, as +formed by the presence of a different class of influences. In this +contrast between them, perhaps it may be said that the expectation of a +Messiah was the principle or law which expanded the elements, almost +common to Judaism with Mahometanism, into their respective +characteristic shapes. + +One of the points of discipline to which Wesley attached most importance +was that of preaching early in the morning. This was his principle. In +Georgia, he began preaching at five o'clock every day, winter and +summer. "Early preaching," he said, "is the glory of the Methodists; +whenever this is dropt, they will dwindle away into nothing, they have +lost their first love, they are a fallen people." + + +6. + +Now, these instances show, as has been incidentally observed of some of +them, that the destruction of the special laws or principles of a +development is its corruption. Thus, as to nations, when we talk of the +spirit of a people being lost, we do not mean that this or that act has +been committed, or measure carried, but that certain lines of thought or +conduct by which it has grown great are abandoned. Thus the Roman Poets +consider their State in course of ruin because its _prisci mores_ and +_pietas_ were failing. And so we speak of countries or persons as being +in a false position, when they take up a course of policy, or assume a +profession, inconsistent with their natural interests or real character. +Judaism, again, was rejected when it rejected the Messiah. + +Thus the _continuity or the alteration of the principles_ on which an +idea has developed is a second mark of discrimination between a true +development and a corruption. + + +SECTION III. + +THIRD NOTE. POWER OF ASSIMILATION. + +In the physical world, whatever has life is characterized by growth, so +that in no respect to grow is to cease to live. It grows by taking into +its own substance external materials; and this absorption or +assimilation is completed when the materials appropriated come to belong +to it or enter into its unity. Two things cannot become one, except +there be a power of assimilation in one or the other. Sometimes +assimilation is effected only with an effort; it is possible to die of +repletion, and there are animals who lie torpid for a time under the +contest between the foreign substance and the assimilating power. And +different food is proper for different recipients. + +This analogy may be taken to illustrate certain peculiarities in the +growth or development in ideas, which were noticed in the first Chapter. +It is otherwise with mathematical and other abstract creations, which, +like the soul itself, are solitary and self-dependent; but doctrines and +views which relate to man are not placed in a void, but in the crowded +world, and make way for themselves by interpenetration, and develope by +absorption. Facts and opinions, which have hitherto been regarded in +other relations and grouped round other centres, henceforth are +gradually attracted to a new influence and subjected to a new sovereign. +They are modified, laid down afresh, thrust aside, as the case may be. A +new element of order and composition has come among them; and its life +is proved by this capacity of expansion, without disarrangement or +dissolution. An eclectic, conservative, assimilating, healing, moulding +process, a unitive power, is of the essence, and a third test, of a +faithful development. + + +2. + +Thus, a power of development is a proof of life, not only in its essay, +but especially in its success; for a mere formula either does not expand +or is shattered in expanding. A living idea becomes many, yet remains +one. + +The attempt at development shows the presence of a principle, and its +success the presence of an idea. Principles stimulate thought, and an +idea concentrates it. + +The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, like mathematical truth, +incorporated nothing from external sources. So far from the fact of such +incorporation implying corruption, as is sometimes supposed, development +is a process of incorporation. Mahometanism may be in external +developments scarcely more than a compound of other theologies, yet no +one would deny that there has been a living idea somewhere in a +religion, which has been so strong, so wide, so lasting a bond of union +in the history of the world. Why it has not continued to develope after +its first preaching, if this be the case, as it seems to be, cannot be +determined without a greater knowledge of that religion, and how far it +is merely political, how far theological, than we commonly possess. + + +3. + +In Christianity, opinion, while a raw material, is called philosophy or +scholasticism; when a rejected refuse, it is called heresy. + +Ideas are more open to an external bias in their commencement than +afterwards; hence the great majority of writers who consider the +Medieval Church corrupt, trace its corruption to the first four +centuries, not to what are called the dark ages. + +That an idea more readily coalesces with these ideas than with those +does not show that it has been unduly influenced, that is, corrupted by +them, but that it has an antecedent affinity to them. At least it shall +be assumed here that, when the Gospels speak of virtue going out of our +Lord, and of His healing with the clay which His lips had moistened, +they afford instances, not of a perversion of Christianity, but of +affinity to notions which were external to it; and that St. Paul was not +biassed by Orientalism, though he said, after the manner of some Eastern +sects, that it was "excellent not to touch a woman." + + +4. + +Thus in politics, too, ideas are sometimes proposed, discussed, +rejected, or adopted, as it may happen, and sometimes they are shown to +be unmeaning and impossible; sometimes they are true, but partially so, +or in subordination to other ideas, with which, in consequence, they are +as wholes or in part incorporated, as far as these have affinities to +them, the power to incorporate being thus recognized as a property of +life. Mr. Bentham's system was an attempt to make the circle of legal +and moral truths developments of certain principles of his own;--those +principles of his may, if it so happen, prove unequal to the weight of +truths which are eternal, and the system founded on them may break into +pieces; or again, a State may absorb certain of them, for which it has +affinity, that is, it may develope in Benthamism, yet remain in +substance what it was before. In the history of the French Revolution we +read of many middle parties, who attempted to form theories of +constitutions short of those which they would call extreme, and +successively failed from the want of power or reality in their +characteristic ideas. The Semi-arians attempted a middle way between +orthodoxy and heresy, but could not stand their ground; at length part +fell into Macedonianism, and part joined the Church. + + +5. + +The stronger and more living is an idea, that is, the more powerful hold +it exercises on the minds of men, the more able is it to dispense with +safeguards, and trust to itself against the danger of corruption. As +strong frames exult in their agility, and healthy constitutions throw +off ailments, so parties or schools that live can afford to be rash, and +will sometimes be betrayed into extravagances, yet are brought right by +their inherent vigour. On the other hand, unreal systems are commonly +decent externally. Forms, subscriptions, or Articles of religion are +indispensable when the principle of life is weakly. Thus Presbyterianism +has maintained its original theology in Scotland where legal +subscriptions are enforced, while it has run into Arianism or +Unitarianism where that protection is away. We have yet to see whether +the Free Kirk can keep its present theological ground. The Church of +Rome can consult expedience more freely than other bodies, as trusting +to her living tradition, and is sometimes thought to disregard principle +and scruple, when she is but dispensing with forms. Thus Saints are +often characterized by acts which are no pattern for others; and the +most gifted men are, by reason of their very gifts, sometimes led into +fatal inadvertences. Hence vows are the wise defence of unstable virtue, +and general rules the refuge of feeble authority. + +And so much may suffice on the _unitive power_ of faithful developments, +which constitutes their third characteristic. + + +SECTION IV. + +FOURTH NOTE. LOGICAL SEQUENCE. + +Logic is the organization of thought, and, as being such, is a security +for the faithfulness of intellectual developments; and the necessity of +using it is undeniable as far as this, that its rules must not be +transgressed. That it is not brought into exercise in every instance of +doctrinal development is owing to the varieties of mental constitution, +whether in communities or in individuals, with whom great truths or +seeming truths are lodged. The question indeed may be asked whether a +development can be other in any case than a logical operation; but, if +by this is meant a conscious reasoning from premisses to conclusion, of +course the answer must be in the negative. An idea under one or other +of its aspects grows in the mind by remaining there; it becomes familiar +and distinct, and is viewed in its relations; it leads to other aspects, +and these again to others, subtle, recondite, original, according to the +character, intellectual and moral, of the recipient; and thus a body of +thought is gradually formed without his recognizing what is going on +within him. And all this while, or at least from time to time, external +circumstances elicit into formal statement the thoughts which are coming +into being in the depths of his mind; and soon he has to begin to defend +them; and then again a further process must take place, of analyzing his +statements and ascertaining their dependence one on another. And thus he +is led to regard as consequences, and to trace to principles, what +hitherto he has discerned by a moral perception, and adopted on +sympathy; and logic is brought in to arrange and inculcate what no +science was employed in gaining. + +And so in the same way, such intellectual processes, as are carried on +silently and spontaneously in the mind of a party or school, of +necessity come to light at a later date, and are recognized, and their +issues are scientifically arranged. And then logic has the further +function of propagation; analogy, the nature of the case, antecedent +probability, application of principles, congruity, expedience, being +some of the methods of proof by which the development is continued from +mind to mind and established in the faith of the community. + +Yet even then the analysis is not made on a principle, or with any view +to its whole course and finished results. Each argument is brought for +an immediate purpose; minds develope step by step, without looking +behind them or anticipating their goal, and without either intention or +promise of forming a system. Afterwards, however, this logical character +which the whole wears becomes a test that the process has been a true +development, not a perversion or corruption, from its evident +naturalness; and in some cases from the gravity, distinctness, +precision, and majesty of its advance, and the harmony of its +proportions, like the tall growth, and graceful branching, and rich +foliage, of some vegetable production. + + +2. + +The process of development, thus capable of a logical expression, has +sometimes been invidiously spoken of as rationalism and contrasted with +faith. But, though a particular doctrine or opinion which is subjected +to development may happen to be rationalistic, and, as is the original, +such are its results: and though we may develope erroneously, that is, +reason incorrectly, yet the developing itself as little deserves that +imputation in any case, as an inquiry into an historical fact, which we +do not thereby make but ascertain,--for instance, whether or not St. +Mark wrote his Gospel with St. Matthew before him, or whether Solomon +brought his merchandise from Tartessus or some Indian port. Rationalism +is the exercise of reason instead of faith in matters of faith; but one +does not see how it can be faith to adopt the premisses, and unbelief to +accept the conclusion. + +At the same time it may be granted that the spontaneous process which +goes on within the mind itself is higher and choicer than that which is +logical; for the latter, being scientific, is common property, and can +be taken and made use of by minds who are personally strangers, in any +true sense, both to the ideas in question and to their development. + + +3. + +Thus, the holy Apostles would without words know all the truths +concerning the high doctrines of theology, which controversialists +after them have piously and charitably reduced to formul, and developed +through argument. Thus, St. Justin or St. Irenus might be without any +digested ideas of Purgatory or Original Sin, yet have an intense +feeling, which they had not defined or located, both of the fault of our +first nature and the responsibilities of our nature regenerate. Thus St. +Antony said to the philosophers who came to mock him, "He whose mind is +in health does not need letters;" and St. Ignatius Loyola, while yet an +unlearned neophyte, was favoured with transcendent perceptions of the +Holy Trinity during his penance at Manresa. Thus St. Athanasius himself +is more powerful in statement and exposition than in proof; while in +Bellarmine we find the whole series of doctrines carefully drawn out, +duly adjusted with one another, and exactly analyzed one by one. + +The history of empires and of public men supplies so many instances of +logical development in the field of politics, that it is needless to do +more than to refer to one of them. It is illustrated by the words of +Jeroboam, "Now shall this kingdom return to the house of David, if this +people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem. . . +Wherefore the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said +unto them, Behold thy gods, O Israel." Idolatry was a duty of kingcraft +with the schismatical kingdom. + + +4. + +A specimen of logical development is afforded us in the history of +Lutheranism as it has of late years been drawn out by various English +writers. Luther started on a double basis, his dogmatic principle being +contradicted by his right of private judgment, and his sacramental by +his theory of justification. The sacramental element never showed signs +of life; but on his death, that which he represented in his own person +as a teacher, the dogmatic, gained the ascendancy; and "every expression +of his upon controverted points became a norm for the party, which, at +all times the largest, was at last coextensive with the Church itself. +This almost idolatrous veneration was perhaps increased by the selection +of declarations of faith, of which the substance on the whole was his, +for the symbolical books of his Church."[193:1] Next a reaction took +place; private judgment was restored to the supremacy. Calixtus put +reason, and Spener the so-called religion of the heart, in the place of +dogmatic correctness. Pietism for the time died away; but rationalism +developed in Wolf, who professed to prove all the orthodox doctrines, by +a process of reasoning, from premisses level with the reason. It was +soon found that the instrument which Wolf had used for orthodoxy, could +as plausibly be used against it;--in his hands it had proved the Creed; +in the hands of Semler, Ernesti, and others, it disproved the authority +of Scripture. What was religion to be made to consist in now? A sort of +philosophical Pietism followed; or rather Spener's pietism and the +original theory of justification were analyzed more thoroughly, and +issued in various theories of Pantheism, which from the first was at the +bottom of Luther's doctrine and personal character. And this appears to +be the state of Lutheranism at present, whether we view it in the +philosophy of Kant, in the open infidelity of Strauss, or in the +religious professions of the new Evangelical Church of Prussia. Applying +this instance to the subject which it has been here brought to +illustrate, I should say that the equable and orderly march and natural +succession of views, by which the creed of Luther has been changed into +the infidel or heretical philosophy of his present representatives, is a +proof that that change is no perversion or corruption, but a faithful +development of the original idea. + + +5. + +This is but one out of many instances with which the history of the +Church supplies us. The fortunes of a theological school are made, in a +later generation, the measure of the teaching of its founder. The great +Origen after his many labours died in peace; his immediate pupils were +saints and rulers in the Church; he has the praise of St. Athanasius, +St. Basil, and St. Gregory Nazianzen, and furnishes materials to St. +Ambrose and St. Hilary; yet, as time proceeded, a definite heterodoxy +was the growing result of his theology, and at length, three hundred +years after his death, he was condemned, and, as has generally been +considered, in an Ecumenical Council.[194:1] "Diodorus of Tarsus," says +Tillemont, "died at an advanced age, in the peace of the Church, +honoured by the praises of the greatest saints, and crowned with a +glory, which, having ever attended him through life, followed him after +his death;"[194:2] yet St. Cyril of Alexandria considers him and +Theodore of Mopsuestia the true authors of Nestorianism, and he was +placed in the event by the Nestorians among their saints. Theodore +himself was condemned after his death by the same Council which is said +to have condemned Origen, and is justly considered the chief +rationalizing doctor of Antiquity; yet he was in the highest repute in +his day, and the Eastern Synod complains, as quoted by Facundus, that +"Blessed Theodore, who died so happily, who was so eminent a teacher for +five and forty years, and overthrew every heresy, and in his lifetime +experienced no imputation from the orthodox, now after his death so +long ago, after his many conflicts, after his ten thousand books +composed in refutation of errors, after his approval in the sight of +priests, emperors, and people, runs the risk of receiving the reward of +heretics, and of being called their chief."[195:1] There is a certain +continuous advance and determinate path which belong to the history of a +doctrine, policy, or institution, and which impress upon the common +sense of mankind, that what it ultimately becomes is the issue of what +it was at first. This sentiment is expressed in the proverb, not limited +to Latin, _Exitus acta probat_; and is sanctioned by Divine wisdom, +when, warning us against false prophets, it says, "Ye shall know them by +their fruits." + +A doctrine, then, professed in its mature years by a philosophy or +religion, is likely to be a true development, not a corruption, in +proportion as it seems to be the _logical issue_ of its original +teaching. + + +SECTION V. + +FIFTH NOTE. ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE. + +Since, when an idea is living, that is, influential and effective, it is +sure to develope according to its own nature, and the tendencies, which +are carried out on the long run, may under favourable circumstances show +themselves early as well as late, and logic is the same in all ages, +instances of a development which is to come, though vague and isolated, +may occur from the very first, though a lapse of time be necessary to +bring them to perfection. And since developments are in great measure +only aspects of the idea from which they proceed, and all of them are +natural consequences of it, it is often a matter of accident in what +order they are carried out in individual minds; and it is in no wise +strange that here and there definite specimens of advanced teaching +should very early occur, which in the historical course are not found +till a late day. The fact, then, of such early or recurring intimations +of tendencies which afterwards are fully realized, is a sort of evidence +that those later and more systematic fulfilments are only in accordance +with the original idea. + + +2. + +Nothing is more common, for instance, than accounts or legends of the +anticipations, which great men have given in boyhood of the bent of +their minds, as afterwards displayed in their history; so much so that +the popular expectation has sometimes led to the invention of them. The +child Cyrus mimics a despot's power, and St. Athanasius is elected +Bishop by his playfellows. + +It is noticeable that in the eleventh century, when the Russians were +but pirates upon the Black Sea, Constantinople was their aim; and that a +prophesy was in circulation in that city that they should one day gain +possession of it. + +In the reign of James the First, we have an observable anticipation of +the system of influence in the management of political parties, which +was developed by Sir R. Walpole a century afterwards. This attempt is +traced by a living writer to the ingenuity of Lord Bacon. "He submitted +to the King that there were expedients for more judiciously managing a +House of Commons; . . that much might be done by forethought towards +filling the House with well-affected persons, winning or blinding the +lawyers . . and drawing the chief constituent bodies of the assembly, +the country gentlemen, the merchants, the courtiers, to act for the +King's advantage; that it would be expedient to tender voluntarily +certain graces and modifications of the King's prerogative," &c.[197:1] +The writer adds, "This circumstance, like several others in the present +reign, is curious, as it shows the rise of a systematic parliamentary +influence, which was one day to become the mainspring of government." + + +3. + +Arcesilas and Carneades, the founders of the later Academy, are known to +have innovated on the Platonic doctrine by inculcating a universal +scepticism; and they did this, as if on the authority of Socrates, who +had adopted the method of _ironia_ against the Sophists, on their +professing to know everything. This, of course, was an insufficient +plea. However, could it be shown that Socrates did on one or two +occasions evidence deliberate doubts on the great principles of theism +or morals, would any one deny that the innovation in question had +grounds for being considered a true development, not a corruption? + +It is certain that, in the idea of Monachism, prevalent in ancient +times, manual labour had a more prominent place than study; so much so +that De Ranc, the celebrated Abbot of La Trappe, in controversy with +Mabillon, maintained his ground with great plausibility against the +latter's apology for the literary occupations for which the Benedictines +of France are so famous. Nor can it be denied that the labours of such +as Mabillon and Montfaucon are at least a development upon the +simplicity of the primitive institution. And yet it is remarkable that +St. Pachomius, the first author of a monastic rule, enjoined a library +in each of his houses, and appointed conferences and disputations three +times a week on religious subjects, interpretation of Scripture, or +points of theology. St. Basil, the founder of Monachism in Pontus, one +of the most learned of the Greek Fathers, wrote his theological +treatises in the intervals of agricultural labour. St. Jerome, the +author of the Latin versions of Scripture, lived as a poor monk in a +cell at Bethlehem. These, indeed, were but exceptions in the character +of early Monachism; but they suggest its capabilities and anticipate its +history. Literature is certainly not inconsistent with its idea. + + +4. + +In the controversies with the Gnostics, in the second century, striking +anticipations occasionally occur, in the works of their Catholic +opponents, of the formal dogmatic teaching developed in the Church in +the course of the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies in the fifth. +On the other hand, Paul of Samosata, one of the first disciples of the +Syrian school of theology, taught a heresy sufficiently like +Nestorianism, in which that school terminated, to be mistaken for it in +later times; yet for a long while after him the characteristic of the +school was Arianism, an opposite heresy. + +Lutheranism has by this time become in most places almost simple heresy +or infidelity; it has terminated, if it has even yet reached its limit, +in a denial both of the Canon and the Creed, nay, of many principles of +morals. Accordingly the question arises, whether these conclusions are +in fairness to be connected with its original teaching or are a +corruption. And it is no little aid towards its resolution to find that +Luther himself at one time rejected the Apocalypse, called the Epistle +of St. James "straminea," condemned the word "Trinity," fell into a kind +of Eutychianism in his view of the Holy Eucharist, and in a particular +case sanctioned bigamy. Calvinism, again, in various distinct countries, +has become Socinianism, and Calvin himself seems to have denied our +Lord's Eternal Sonship and ridiculed the Nicene Creed. + +Another evidence, then, of the faithfulness of an ultimate development +is its _definite anticipation_ at an early period in the history of the +idea to which it belongs. + + +SECTION VI. + +SIXTH NOTE. CONSERVATIVE ACTION UPON ITS PAST. + +As developments which are preceded by definite indications have a fair +presumption in their favour, so those which do but contradict and +reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed before them, and +out of which they spring, are certainly corrupt; for a corruption is a +development in that very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and +begins to disturb, the acquisitions gained in its previous history. + +It is the rule of creation, or rather of the phenomena which it +presents, that life passes on to its termination by a gradual, +imperceptible course of change. There is ever a maximum in earthly +excellence, and the operation of the same causes which made things great +makes them small again. Weakness is but the resulting product of power. +Events move in cycles; all things come round, "the sun ariseth and goeth +down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." Flowers first bloom, and +then fade; fruit ripens and decays. The fermenting process, unless +stopped at the due point, corrupts the liquor which it has created. The +grace of spring, the richness of autumn are but for a moment, and +worldly moralists bid us _Carpe diem_, for we shall have no second +opportunity. Virtue seems to lie in a mean, between vice and vice; and +as it grew out of imperfection, so to grow into enormity. There is a +limit to human knowledge, and both sacred and profane writers witness +that overwisdom is folly. And in the political world states rise and +fall, the instruments of their aggrandizement becoming the weapons of +their destruction. And hence the frequent ethical maxims, such as, "_Ne +quid nimis_," "_Medio tutissimus_," "Vaulting ambition," which seem to +imply that too much of what is good is evil. + +So great a paradox of course cannot be maintained as that truth +literally leads to falsehood, or that there can be an excess of virtue; +but the appearance of things and the popular language about them will at +least serve us in obtaining an additional test for the discrimination of +a _bon fide_ development of an idea from its corruption. + +A true development, then, may be described as one which is conservative +of the course of antecedent developments being really those antecedents +and something besides them: it is an addition which illustrates, not +obscures, corroborates, not corrects, the body of thought from which it +proceeds; and this is its characteristic as contrasted with a +corruption. + + +2. + +For instance, a gradual conversion from a false to a true religion, +plainly, has much of the character of a continuous process, or a +development, in the mind itself, even when the two religions, which are +the limits of its course, are antagonists. Now let it be observed, that +such a change consists in addition and increase chiefly, not in +destruction. "True religion is the summit and perfection of false +religions; it combines in one whatever there is of good and true +separately remaining in each. And in like manner the Catholic Creed is +for the most part the combination of separate truths, which heretics +have divided among themselves, and err in dividing. So that, in matter +of fact, if a religious mind were educated in and sincerely attached to +some form of heathenism or heresy, and then were brought under the light +of truth, it would be drawn off from error into the truth, not by losing +what it had, but by gaining what it had not, not by being unclothed, but +by being 'clothed upon,' 'that mortality may be swallowed up of life.' +That same principle of faith which attaches it at first to the wrong +doctrine would attach it to the truth; and that portion of its original +doctrine, which was to be cast off as absolutely false, would not be +directly rejected, but indirectly, _in_ the reception of the truth which +is its opposite. True conversion is ever of a positive, not a negative +character."[201:1] + +Such too is the theory of the Fathers as regards the doctrines fixed by +Councils, as is instanced in the language of St. Leo. "To be seeking for +what has been disclosed, to reconsider what has been finished, to tear +up what has been laid down, what is this but to be unthankful for what +is gained?"[201:2] Vincentius of Lerins, in like manner, speaks of the +development of Christian doctrine, as _profectus fidei non +permutatio_.[201:3] And so as regards the Jewish Law, our Lord said that +He came "not to destroy, but to fulfil." + + +3. + +Mahomet is accused of contradicting his earlier revelations by his +later, "which is a thing so well known to those of his sect that they +all acknowledge it; and therefore when the contradictions are such as +they cannot solve them, then they will have one of the contradictory +places to be revoked. And they reckon in the whole Alcoran about a +hundred and fifty verses which are thus revoked."[201:4] + +Schelling, says Mr. Dewar, considers "that the time has arrived when an +esoteric speculative Christianity ought to take the place of the +exoteric empiricism which has hitherto prevailed." This German +philosopher "acknowledges that such a project is opposed to the evident +design of the Church, and of her earliest teachers."[202:1] + + +4. + +When Roman Catholics are accused of substituting another Gospel for the +primitive Creed, they answer that they hold, and can show that they +hold, the doctrines of the Incarnation and Atonement, as firmly as any +Protestant can state them. To this it is replied that they do certainly +profess them, but that they obscure and virtually annul them by their +additions; that the _cultus_ of St. Mary and the Saints is no +development of the truth, but a corruption and a religious mischief to +those doctrines of which it is the corruption, because it draws away the +mind and heart from Christ. But they answer that, so far from this, it +subserves, illustrates, protects the doctrine of our Lord's loving +kindness and mediation. Thus the parties in controversy join issue on +the common ground, that a developed doctrine which reverses the course +of development which has preceded it, is no true development but a +corruption; also, that what is corrupt acts as an element of +unhealthiness towards what is sound. This subject, however, will come +before us in its proper place by and by. + + +5. + +Blackstone supplies us with an instance in another subject-matter, of a +development which is justified by its utility, when he observes that +"when society is once formed, government results of course, as necessary +to preserve and to keep that society in order."[202:2] + +On the contrary, when the Long Parliament proceeded to usurp the +executive, they impaired the popular liberties which they seemed to be +advancing; for the security of those liberties depends on the separation +of the executive and legislative powers, or on the enactors being +subjects, not executors of the laws. + +And in the history of ancient Rome, from the time that the privileges +gained by the tribunes in behalf of the people became an object of +ambition to themselves, the development had changed into a corruption. + +And thus a sixth test of a true development is that it is of a _tendency +conservative_ of what has gone before it. + + +SECTION VII. + +SEVENTH NOTE. CHRONIC VIGOUR. + +Since the corruption of an idea, as far as the appearance goes, is a +sort of accident or affection of its development, being the end of a +course, and a transition-state leading to a crisis, it is, as has been +observed above, a brief and rapid process. While ideas live in men's +minds, they are ever enlarging into fuller development: they will not be +stationary in their corruption any more than before it; and dissolution +is that further state to which corruption tends. Corruption cannot, +therefore, be of long standing; and thus _duration_ is another test of a +faithful development. + +_Si gravis, brevis; si longus, levis_; is the Stoical topic of +consolation under pain; and of a number of disorders it can even be +said, The worse, the shorter. + +Sober men are indisposed to change in civil matters, and fear reforms +and innovations, lest, if they go a little too far, they should at once +run on to some great calamities before a remedy can be applied. The +chance of a slow corruption does not strike them. Revolutions are +generally violent and swift; now, in fact, they are the course of a +corruption. + + +2. + +The course of heresies is always short; it is an intermediate state +between life and death, or what is like death; or, if it does not result +in death, it is resolved into some new, perhaps opposite, course of +error, which lays no claim to be connected with it. And in this way +indeed, but in this way only, an heretical principle will continue in +life many years, first running one way, then another. + +The abounding of iniquity is the token of the end approaching; the +faithful in consequence cry out, How long? as if delay opposed reason as +well as patience. Three years and a half are to complete the reign of +Antichrist. + +Nor is it any real objection that the world is ever corrupt, and yet, in +spite of this, evil does not fill up its measure and overflow; for this +arises from the external counteractions of truth and virtue, which bear +it back; let the Church be removed, and the world will soon come to its +end. + +And so again, if the chosen people age after age became worse and worse, +till there was no recovery, still their course of evil was continually +broken by reformations, and was thrown back upon a less advanced stage +of declension. + + +3. + +It is true that decay, which is one form of corruption, is slow; but +decay is a state in which there is no violent or vigorous action at all, +whether of a conservative or a destructive character, the hostile +influence being powerful enough to enfeeble the functions of life, but +not to quicken its own process. And thus we see opinions, usages, and +systems, which are of venerable and imposing aspect, but which have no +soundness within them, and keep together from a habit of consistence, or +from dependence on political institutions; or they become almost +peculiarities of a country, or the habits of a race, or the fashions of +society. And then, at length, perhaps, they go off suddenly and die out +under the first rough influence from without. Such are the superstitions +which pervade a population, like some ingrained dye or inveterate odour, +and which at length come to an end, because nothing lasts for ever, but +which run no course, and have no history; such was the established +paganism of classical times, which was the fit subject of persecution, +for its first breath made it crumble and disappear. Such apparently is +the state of the Nestorian and Monophysite communions; such might have +been the condition of Christianity had it been absorbed by the feudalism +of the middle ages; such too is that Protestantism, or (as it sometimes +calls itself) attachment to the Establishment, which is not unfrequently +the boast of the respectable and wealthy among ourselves. + +Whether Mahometanism external to Christendom, and the Greek Church +within it, fall under this description is yet to be seen. Circumstances +can be imagined which would even now rouse the fanaticism of the Moslem; +and the Russian despotism does not meddle with the usages, though it may +domineer over the priesthood, of the national religion. + + * * * * * + +Thus, while a corruption is distinguished from decay by its energetic +action, it is distinguished from a development by its _transitory +character_. + + +4. + +Such are seven out of various Notes, which may be assigned, of fidelity +in the development of an idea. The point to be ascertained is the unity +and identity of the idea with itself through all stages of its +development from first to last, and these are seven tokens that it may +rightly be accounted one and the same all along. To guarantee its own +substantial unity, it must be seen to be one in type, one in its system +of principles, one in its unitive power towards externals, one in its +logical consecutiveness, one in the witness of its early phases to its +later, one in the protection which its later extend to its earlier, and +one in its union of vigour with continuance, that is, in its tenacity. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[172:1] Commonit. 29. + +[173:1] Milman, Christ. + +[174:1] De Deo, ii. 4, 8. + +[184:1] Ch. xlix. + +[193:1] Pusey on German Rationalism, p. 21, note. + +[194:1] Halloix, Valesius, Lequien, Gieseler, Dllinger, &c., say that +he was condemned, not in the fifth Council, but in the Council under +Mennas. + +[194:2] Mem. Eccl. tom. viii. p. 562. + +[195:1] Def. Tr. Cap. viii. init. + +[197:1] Hallam's Const. Hist. ch. vi. p. 461. + +[201:1] Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 73. [Discuss. p. 200; _vide_ +also Essay on Assent, pp. 249-251.] + +[201:2] Ep. 162. + +[201:3] Ib. p. 309. + +[201:4] Prideaux, Life of Mahomet, p. 90. + +[202:1] German Protestantism, p. 176. + +[202:2] Vol. i. p. 118. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +APPLICATION OF THE SEVEN NOTES TO THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF CHRISTIAN +DOCTRINE. + + +APPLICATION OF THE FIRST NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. PRESERVATION OF +TYPE. + +Now let me attempt to apply the foregoing seven Notes of fidelity in +intellectual developments to the instance of Christian Doctrine. And +first as to the Note of _identity of type_. + +I have said above, that, whereas all great ideas are found, as time goes +on, to involve much which was not seen at first to belong to them, and +have developments, that is enlargements, applications, uses and +fortunes, very various, one security against error and perversion in the +process is the maintenance of the original type, which the idea +presented to the world at its origin, amid and through all its apparent +changes and vicissitudes from first to last. + +How does this apply to Christianity? What is its original type? and has +that type been preserved in the developments commonly called Catholic, +which have followed, and in the Church which embodies and teaches them? +Let us take it as the world now views it in its age; and let us take it +as the world once viewed it in its youth, and let us see whether there +be any great difference between the early and the later description of +it. The following statement will show my meaning:-- + +There is a religious communion claiming a divine commission, and +holding all other religious bodies around it heretical or infidel; it is +a well-organized, well-disciplined body; it is a sort of secret society, +binding together its members by influences and by engagements which it +is difficult for strangers to ascertain. It is spread over the known +world; it may be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong on the +whole from its continuity; it may be smaller than all other religious +bodies together, but is larger than each separately. It is a natural +enemy to governments external to itself; it is intolerant and +engrossing, and tends to a new modelling of society; it breaks laws, it +divides families. It is a gross superstition; it is charged with the +foulest crimes; it is despised by the intellect of the day; it is +frightful to the imagination of the many. And there is but one communion +such. + +Place this description before Pliny or Julian; place it before Frederick +the Second or Guizot.[208:1] "Apparent dir facies." Each knows at once, +without asking a question, who is meant by it. One object, and only one, +absorbs each item of the detail of the delineation. + + +SECTION I. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. + +The _prim facie_ view of early Christianity, in the eyes of witnesses +external to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions +given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who +distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years. + +Tacitus is led to speak of the Religion, on occasion of the +conflagration of Rome, which was popularly imputed to Nero. "To put an +end to the report," he says, "he laid the guilt on others, and visited +them with the most exquisite punishment, those, namely, who, held in +abhorrence for their crimes (_per flagitia invisos_), were popularly +called Christians. The author of that profession (_nominis_) was Christ, +who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the Procurator, +Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (_exitiabilis superstitio_), +though checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only +throughout Juda, the original seat of the evil, but through the City +also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (_atrocia aut pudenda_) +flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were +seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were +convicted, not so much of firing the City, as of hatred of mankind +(_odio humani generis_)." After describing their tortures, he continues +"In consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal +punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public +object, but from the barbarity of one man." + +Suetonius relates the same transactions thus: "Capital punishments were +inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical +superstition (_superstitionis nov et malefic_)." What gives additional +character to this statement is its context; for it occurs as one out of +various police or sumptuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made; +such as "controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat, +repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the +integrity of wills." When Pliny was Governor of Pontus, he wrote his +celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to +deal with the Christians, whom he found there in great numbers. One of +his points of hesitation was, whether the very profession of +Christianity was not by itself sufficient to justify punishment; +"whether the name itself should be visited, though clear of flagitious +acts (_flagitia_), or only when connected with them." He says, he had +ordered for execution such as persevered in their profession, after +repeated warnings, "as not doubting, whatever it was they professed, +that at any rate contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be +punished." He required them to invoke the gods, to sacrifice wine and +frankincense to the images of the Emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; "to +which," he adds, "it is said no real Christian can be compelled." +Renegades informed him that "the sum total of their offence or fault was +meeting before light on an appointed day, and saying with one another a +form of words (_carmen_) to Christ, as if to a god, and binding +themselves by oath, (not to the commission of any wickedness, but) +against the commission of theft, robbery, adultery, breach of trust, +denial of deposits; that, after this they were accustomed to separate, +and then to meet again for a meal, but eaten all together and harmless; +however, that they had even left this off after his edicts enforcing the +Imperial prohibition of _Hetri_ or Associations." He proceeded to put +two women to the torture, but "discovered nothing beyond a bad and +excessive superstition" (_superstitionem pravam et immodicam_), "the +contagion" of which, he continues, "had spread through villages and +country, till the temples were emptied of worshippers." + + +2. + +In these testimonies, which will form a natural and convenient text for +what is to follow, we have various characteristics brought before us of +the religion to which they relate. It was a superstition, as all three +writers agree; a bad and excessive superstition, according to Pliny; a +magical superstition, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition, +according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a society, and moreover a +secret and unlawful society or _hetria_; and it was a proselytizing +society; and its very name was connected with "flagitious," "atrocious," +and "shocking" acts. + + +3. + +Now these few points, which are not all which might be set down, contain +in themselves a distinct and significant description of Christianity; +but they have far greater meaning when illustrated by the history of the +times, the testimony of later writers, and the acts of the Roman +government towards its professors. It is impossible to mistake the +judgment passed on the religion by these three writers, and still more +clearly by other writers and Imperial functionaries. They evidently +associated Christianity with the oriental superstitions, whether +propagated by individuals or embodied in a rite, which were in that day +traversing the Empire, and which in the event acted so remarkable a part +in breaking up the national forms of worship, and so in preparing the +way for Christianity. This, then, is the broad view which the educated +heathen took of Christianity; and, if it had been very unlike those +rites and curious arts in external appearance, they would not have +confused it with them. + +Changes in society are, by a providential appointment, commonly preceded +and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts +and feelings in that direction towards which a change is to be made. +And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage +it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming +revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude, or pass +across the field of events. This was specially the case with +Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and attended +by a crowd of shadows, shadows of itself, impotent and monstrous as +shadows are, but not at first sight distinguishable from it by common +spectators. Before the mission of the Apostles, a movement, of which +there had been earlier parallels, had begun in Egypt, Syria, and the +neighbouring countries, tending to the propagation of new and peculiar +forms of worship throughout the Empire. Prophecies were afloat that some +new order of things was coming in from the East, which increased the +existing unsettlement of the popular mind; pretenders made attempts to +satisfy its wants, and old Traditions of the Truth, embodied for ages in +local or in national religions, gave to these attempts a doctrinal and +ritual shape, which became an additional point of resemblance to that +Truth which was soon visibly to appear. + + +4. + +The distinctive character of the rites in question lay in their +appealing to the gloomy rather than to the cheerful and hopeful +feelings, and in their influencing the mind through fear. The notions of +guilt and expiation, of evil and good to come, and of dealings with the +invisible world, were in some shape or other pre-eminent in them, and +formed a striking contrast to the classical polytheism, which was gay +and graceful, as was natural in a civilized age. The new rites, on the +other hand, were secret; their doctrine was mysterious; their profession +was a discipline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested in an +association, and exercised in privation and pain. They were from the +nature of the case proselytizing societies, for they were rising into +power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and +encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them +into easy connexion with magic and astrology, which are as attractive to +the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions to the +populace. + + +5. + +Such were the rites of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras; such the Chaldeans, as +they were commonly called, and the Magi; they came from one part of the +world, and during the first and second century spread with busy +perseverance to the northern and western extremities of the +empire.[213:1] Traces of the mysteries of Cybele, a Syrian deity, if the +famous temple at Hierapolis was hers, have been found in Spain, in Gaul, +and in Britain, as high up as the wall of Severus. The worship of Isis +was the most widely spread of all the pagan deities; it was received in +Ethiopia and in Germany, and even the name of Paris has been fancifully +traced to it. Both worships, as well as the Science of Magic, had their +colleges of priests and devotees, which were governed by a president, +and in some places were supported by farms. Their processions passed +from town to town, begging as they went and attracting proselytes. +Apuleius describes one of them as seizing a whip, accusing himself of +some offence, and scourging himself in public. These strollers, +_circulatores_ or _agyrt_ in classical language, told fortunes, and +distributed prophetical tickets to the ignorant people who consulted +them. Also, they were learned in the doctrine of omens, of lucky and +unlucky days, of the rites of expiation and of sacrifices. Such an +_agyrtes_ or itinerant was the notorious Alexander of Abonotichus, till +he managed to establish himself in Pontus, where he carried on so +successful an imposition that his fame reached Rome, and men in office +and station entrusted him with their dearest political secrets. Such a +wanderer, with a far more religious bearing and a high reputation for +virtue, was Apollonius of Tyana, who professed the Pythagorean +philosophy, claimed the gift of miracles, and roamed about preaching, +teaching, healing, and prophesying from India and Alexandria to Athens +and Rome. Another solitary proselytizer, though of an earlier time and +of an avowed profligacy, had been the Sacrificulus, viewed with such +horror by the Roman Senate, as introducing the infamous Bacchic rites +into Rome. Such, again, were those degenerate children of a divine +religion, who, in the words of their Creator and Judge, "compassed sea +and land to make one proselyte," and made him "twofold more the child of +hell than themselves." + + +6. + +These vagrant religionists for the most part professed a severe rule of +life, and sometimes one of fanatical mortification. In the mysteries of +Mithras, the initiation[214:1] was preceded by fasting and abstinence, +and a variety of painful trials; it was made by means of a baptism as a +spiritual washing; and it included an offering of bread, and some emblem +of a resurrection. In the Samothracian rites it had been a custom to +initiate children; confession too of greater crimes seems to have been +required, and would naturally be involved in others in the inquisition +prosecuted into the past lives of the candidates for initiation. The +garments of the converts were white; their calling was considered as a +warfare (_militia_), and was undertaken with a _sacramentum_, or +military oath. The priests shaved their heads and wore linen, and when +they were dead were buried in a sacerdotal garment. It is scarcely +necessary to refer to the mutilation inflicted on the priests of Cybele; +one instance of their scourgings has been already mentioned; and +Tertullian speaks of their high priest cutting his arms for the life of +the Emperor Marcus.[215:1] The priests of Isis, in lamentation for +Osiris, tore their breasts with pine cones. This lamentation was a +ritual observance, founded on some religious mystery: Isis lost Osiris, +and the initiated wept in memory of her sorrow; the Syrian goddess had +wept over dead Thammuz, and her mystics commemorated it by a ceremonial +woe; in the rites of Bacchus, an image was laid on a bier at +midnight,[215:2] which was bewailed in metrical hymns; the god was +supposed to die, and then to revive. Nor was this the only worship which +was continued through the night; while some of the rites were performed +in caves. + + +7. + +Only a heavenly light can give purity to nocturnal and subterraneous +worship. Caves were at that time appropriated to the worship of the +infernal gods. It was but natural that these wild religions should be +connected with magic and its kindred arts; magic has at all times led to +cruelty, and licentiousness would be the inevitable reaction from a +temporary strictness. An extraordinary profession, when men are in a +state of mere nature, makes hypocrites or madmen, and will in no long +time be discarded except by the few. The world of that day associated +together in one company, Isiac, Phrygian, Mithriac, Chaldean, wizard, +astrologer, fortune-teller, itinerant, and, as was not unnatural, Jew. +Magic was professed by the profligate Alexander, and was imputed to the +grave Apollonius. The rites of Mithras came from the Magi of Persia; and +it is obviously difficult to distinguish in principle the ceremonies of +the Syrian Taurobolium from those of the Necyomantia in the Odyssey, or +of Canidia in Horace. + +The Theodosian Code calls magic generally a "superstition;" and magic, +orgies, mysteries, and "sabbathizings," were referred to the same +"barbarous" origin. "Magical superstitions," the "rites of the Magi," +the "promises of the Chaldeans," and the "Mathematici," are familiar to +the readers of Tacitus. The Emperor Otho, an avowed patron of oriental +fashions, took part in the rites of Isis, and consulted the Mathematici. +Vespasian, who also consulted them, is heard of in Egypt as performing +miracles at the suggestion of Serapis. Tiberius, in an edict, classes +together "Egyptian and Jewish rites;" and Tacitus and Suetonius, in +recording it, speak of the two religions together as "_ea +superstitio_."[216:1] Augustus had already associated them together as +superstitions, and as unlawful, and that in contrast to others of a like +foreign origin. "As to foreign rites (_peregrin ceremoni_)," says +Suetonius, "as he paid more reverence to those which were old and +enjoined, so did he hold the rest in contempt."[216:2] He goes on to say +that, even on the judgment-seat, he had recognized the Eleusinian +priests, into whose mysteries he had been initiated at Athens; "whereas, +when travelling in Egypt, he had refused to see Apis, and had approved +of his grandson Caligula's passing by Juda without sacrificing at +Jerusalem." Plutarch speaks of magic as connected with the mournful +mysteries of Orpheus and Zoroaster, with the Egyptian and the Phrygian; +and, in his Treatise on Superstition, he puts together in one clause, as +specimens of that disease of mind, "covering oneself with mud, wallowing +in the mire, sabbathizings, fallings on the face, unseemly postures, +foreign adorations."[216:3] Ovid mentions in consecutive verses the +rites of "Adonis lamented by Venus," "The Sabbath of the Syrian Jew," +and the "Memphitic Temple of Io in her linen dress."[216:4] Juvenal +speaks of the rites, as well as the language and the music, of the +Syrian Orontes having flooded Rome; and, in his description of the +superstition of the Roman women, he places the low Jewish fortune-teller +between the pompous priests of Cybele and Isis, and the bloody +witchcraft of the Armenian haruspex and the astrology of the +Chaldeans.[217:1] + + +8. + +The Christian, being at first accounted a kind of Jew, was even on that +score included in whatever odium, and whatever bad associations, +attended on the Jewish name. But in a little time his independence of +the rejected people was clearly understood, as even the persecutions +show; and he stood upon his own ground. Still his character did not +change in the eyes of the world; for favour or for reproach, he was +still associated with the votaries of secret and magical rites. The +Emperor Hadrian, noted as he is for his inquisitive temper, and a +partaker in so many mysteries,[217:2] still believed that the Christians +of Egypt allowed themselves in the worship of Serapis. They are brought +into connexion with the magic of Egypt in the history of what is +commonly called the Thundering Legion, so far as this, that the rain +which relieved the Emperor's army in the field, and which the Church +ascribed to the prayers of the Christian soldiers, is by Dio Cassius +attributed to an Egyptian magician, who obtained it by invoking Mercury +and other spirits. This war had been the occasion of one of the first +recognitions which the state had conceded to the Oriental rites, though +statesmen and emperors, as private men, had long taken part in them. The +Emperor Marcus had been urged by his fears of the Marcomanni to resort +to these foreign introductions, and is said to have employed Magi and +Chaldeans in averting an unsuccessful issue of the war. It is +observable that, in the growing countenance which was extended to these +rites in the third century, Christianity came in for a share. The chapel +of Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius, +Pythagoras, and our Lord. Here indeed, as in the case of Zenobia's +Judaism, an eclectic philosophy aided the comprehension of religions. +But, immediately before Alexander, Heliogabalus, who was no philosopher, +while he formally seated his Syrian idol in the Palatine, while he +observed the mysteries of Cybele and Adonis, and celebrated his magic +rites with human victims, intended also, according to Lampridius, to +unite with his horrible superstition "the Jewish and Samaritan religions +and the Christian rite, that so the priesthood of Heliogabalus might +comprise the mystery of every worship."[218:1] Hence, more or less, the +stories which occur in ecclesiastical history of the conversion or +good-will of the emperors to the Christian faith, of Hadrian, Mamma, +and others, besides Heliogabalus and Alexander. Such stories might often +mean little more than that they favoured it among other forms of +Oriental superstition. + + +9. + +What has been said is sufficient to bring before the mind an historical +fact, which indeed does not need evidence. Upon the established +religions of Europe the East had renewed her encroachments, and was +pouring forth a family of rites which in various ways attracted the +attention of the luxurious, the political, the ignorant, the restless, +and the remorseful. Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, Syrian, Phrygian, +as the case might be, was the designation of the new hierophant; and +magic, superstition, barbarism, jugglery, were the names given to his +rite by the world. In this company appeared Christianity. When then +three well-informed writers call Christianity a superstition and a +magical superstition, they were not using words at random, or the +language of abuse, but they were describing it in distinct and +recognized terms as cognate to those gloomy, secret, odious, +disreputable religions which were making so much disturbance up and down +the empire. + + +10. + +The impression made on the world by circumstances immediately before the +rise of Christianity received a sort of confirmation upon its rise, in +the appearance of the Gnostic and kindred heresies, which issued from +the Church during the second and third centuries. Their resemblance in +ritual and constitution to the Oriental religions, sometimes their +historical relationship, is undeniable; and certainly it is a singular +coincidence, that Christianity should be first called a magical +superstition by Suetonius, and then should be found in the intimate +company, and seemingly the parent, of a multitude of magical +superstitions, if there was nothing in the Religion itself to give rise +to such a charge. + + +11. + +The Gnostic family[219:1] suitably traces its origin to a mixed race, +which had commenced its national history by associating Orientalism with +Revelation. After the captivity of the ten tribes, Samaria was colonized +by "men from Babylon and Cushan, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from +Sepharvaim," who were instructed at their own instance in "the manner of +the God of the land," by one of the priests of the Church of Jeroboam. +The consequence was, that "they feared the Lord and served their own +gods." Of this country was Simon, the reputed patriarch of the +Gnostics; and he is introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as professing +those magical powers which were so principal a characteristic of the +Oriental mysteries. His heresy, though broken into a multitude of sects, +was poured over the world with a Catholicity not inferior in its day to +that of Christianity. St. Peter, who fell in with him originally in +Samaria, seems to have encountered him again at Rome. At Rome, St. +Polycarp met Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread through Italy, +Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia; Valentinus preached his doctrines in +Alexandria, Rome, and Cyprus; and we read of his disciples in Crete, +Csarea, Antioch, and other parts of the East. Bardesanes and his +followers were found in Mesopotamia. The Carpocratians are spoken of at +Alexandria, at Rome, and in Cephallenia; the Basilidians spread through +the greater part of Egypt; the Ophites were apparently in Bithynia and +Galatia; the Cainites or Caians in Africa, and the Marcosians in Gaul. +To these must be added several sects, which, though not strictly of the +Gnostic stock, are associated with them in date, character, and +origin;--the Ebionites of Palestine, the Cerinthians, who rose in some +part of Asia Minor, the Encratites and kindred sects, who spread from +Mesopotamia to Syria, to Cilicia and other provinces of Asia Minor, and +thence to Rome, Gaul, Aquitaine, and Spain; and the Montanists, who, +with a town in Phrygia for their metropolis, reached at length from +Constantinople to Carthage. + +"When [the reader of Christian history] comes to the second century," +says Dr. Burton, "he finds that Gnosticism, under some form or other, +was professed in every part of the then civilized world. He finds it +divided into schools, as numerously and as zealously attended as any +which Greece or Asia could boast in their happiest days. He meets with +names totally unknown to him before, which excited as much sensation as +those of Aristotle or Plato. He hears of volumes having been written in +support of this new philosophy, not one of which has survived to our own +day."[221:1] Many of the founders of these sects had been Christians; +others were of Jewish parentage; others were more or less connected in +fact with the Pagan rites to which their own bore so great a +resemblance. Montanus seems even to have been a mutilated priest of +Cybele; the followers of Prodicus professed to possess the secret books +of Zoroaster; and the doctrine of dualism, which so many of the sects +held, is to be traced to the same source. Basilides seems to have +recognized Mithras as the Supreme Being, or the Prince of Angels, or the +Sun, if Mithras is equivalent to Abraxas, which was inscribed upon his +amulets: on the other hand, he is said to have been taught by an +immediate disciple of St. Peter, and Valentinus by an immediate disciple +of St. Paul. Marcion was the son of a Bishop of Pontus; Tatian, a +disciple of St. Justin Martyr. + + +12. + +Whatever might be the history of these sects, and though it may be a +question whether they can be properly called "superstitions," and though +many of them numbered educated men among their teachers and followers, +they closely resembled, at least in ritual and profession, the vagrant +Pagan mysteries which have been above described. Their very name of +"Gnostic" implied the possession of a secret, which was to be +communicated to their disciples. Ceremonial observances were the +preparation, and symbolical rites the instrument, of initiation. Tatian +and Montanus, the representatives of very distinct schools, agreed in +making asceticism a rule of life. The followers of each of these +sectaries abstained from wine; the Tatianites and Marcionites, from +flesh; the Montanists kept three Lents in the year. All the Gnostic +sects seem to have condemned marriage on one or other reason.[222:1] The +Marcionites had three baptisms or more; the Marcosians had two rites of +what they called redemption; the latter of these was celebrated as a +marriage, and the room adorned as a marriage-chamber. A consecration to +a priesthood then followed with anointing. An extreme unction was +another of their rites, and prayers for the dead one of their +observances. Bardesanes and Harmonius were famous for the beauty of +their chants. The prophecies of Montanus were delivered, like the +oracles of the heathen, in a state of enthusiasm or ecstasy. To +Epiphanes, the son of Carpocrates, who died at the age of seventeen, a +temple was erected in the island of Cephallenia, his mother's +birthplace, where he was celebrated with hymns and sacrifices. A similar +honour was paid by the Carpocratians to Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, +Aristotle, as well as to the Apostles; crowns were placed upon their +images, and incense burned before them. In one of the inscriptions found +at Cyrene, about twenty years since, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, +and others, are put together with our Lord, as guides of conduct. These +inscriptions also contain the Carpocratian tenet of a community of +women. I am unwilling to allude to the Agap and Communions of certain +of these sects, which were not surpassed in profligacy by the Pagan +rites of which they were an imitation. The very name of Gnostic became +an expression for the worst impurities, and no one dared eat bread with +them, or use their culinary instruments or plates. + + +13. + +These profligate excesses are found in connexion with the exercise of +magic and astrology.[223:1] The amulets of the Basilidians are still +extant in great numbers, inscribed with symbols, some Christian, some +with figures of Isis, Serapis, and Anubis, represented according to the +gross indecencies of the Egyptian mythology.[223:2] St. Irenus had +already connected together the two crimes in speaking of the Simonians: +"Their mystical priests," he says, "live in lewdness, and practise +magic, according to the ability of each. They use exorcisms and +incantations; love-potions too, and seductive spells; the virtue of +spirits, and dreams, and all other curious arts, they diligently +observe."[223:3] The Marcosians were especially devoted to these +"curious arts," which are also ascribed to Carpocrates and Apelles. +Marcion and others are reported to have used astrology. Tertullian +speaks generally of the sects of his day: "Infamous are the dealings of +the heretics with sorcerers very many, with mountebanks, with +astrologers, with philosophers, to wit, such as are given to curious +questions. They everywhere remember, 'Seek, and ye shall find.'"[223:4] + +Such were the Gnostics; and to external and prejudiced spectators, +whether philosophers, as Celsus and Porphyry, or the multitude, they +wore an appearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken for her +in the latter part of the Ante-nicene period, as she was confused with +the Pagan mysteries in the earlier. + + +14. + +Of course it may happen that the common estimate concerning a person or +a body is purely accidental and unfounded; but in such cases it is not +lasting. Such were the calumnies of child-eating and impurity in the +Christian meetings, which were almost extinct by the time of Origen, and +which might arise from the world's confusing them with the pagan and +heretical rites. But when it continues from age to age, it is certainly +an index of a fact, and corresponds to definite qualities in the object +to which it relates. In that case, even mistakes carry information; for +they are cognate to the truth, and we can allow for them. Often what +seems like a mistake is merely the mode in which the informant conveys +his testimony, or the impression which a fact makes on him. Censure is +the natural tone of one man in a case where praise is the natural tone +of another; the very same character or action inspires one mind with +enthusiasm, and another with contempt. What to one man is magnanimity, +to another is romance, and pride to a third, and pretence to a fourth, +while to a fifth it is simply unintelligible; and yet there is a certain +analogy in their separate testimonies, which conveys to us what the +thing is like and what it is not like. When a man's acknowledged note is +superstition, we may be pretty sure we shall not find him an Academic or +an Epicurean; and even words which are ambiguous, as "atheist," or +"reformer," admit of a sure interpretation when we are informed of the +speaker. In like manner, there is a certain general correspondence +between magic and miracle, obstinacy and faith, insubordination and zeal +for religion, sophistry and argumentative talent, craft and meekness, as +is obvious. Let us proceed then in our contemplation of this reflection, +as it may be called of primitive Christianity in the mirror of the +world. + + +15. + +All three writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, call it a +"superstition;" this is no accidental imputation, but is repeated by a +variety of subsequent writers and speakers. The charge of Thyestean +banquets scarcely lasts a hundred years; but, while pagan witnesses are +to be found, the Church is accused of superstition. The heathen +disputant in Minucius calls Christianity, "_Vana et demens +superstitio_." The lawyer Modestinus speaks, with an apparent allusion +to Christianity, of "weak minds being terrified _superstitione +numinis_." The heathen magistrate asks St. Marcellus, whether he and +others have put away "vain superstitions," and worship the gods whom the +emperors worship. The Pagans in Arnobius speak of Christianity as "an +execrable and unlucky religion, full of impiety and sacrilege, +contaminating the rites instituted from of old with the superstition of +its novelty." The anonymous opponent of Lactantius calls it, "_Impia et +anilis superstitio_." Diocletian's inscription at Clunia was, as it +declared, on occasion of "the total extinction of the superstition of +the Christians, and the extension of the worship of the gods." Maximin, +in his Letter upon Constantine's Edict, still calls it a +superstition.[225:1] + + +16. + +Now what is meant by the word thus attached by a _consensus_ of heathen +authorities to Christianity? At least, it cannot mean a religion in +which a man might think what he pleased, and was set free from all +yokes, whether of ignorance, fear, authority, or priestcraft. When +heathen writers call the Oriental rites superstitions, they evidently +use the word in its modern sense; it cannot surely be doubted that they +apply it in the same sense to Christianity. But Plutarch explains for us +the word at length, in his Treatise which bears the name: "Of all kinds +of fear," he says, "superstition is the most fatal to action and +resource. He does not fear the sea who does not sail, nor war who does +not serve, nor robbers who keeps at home, nor the sycophant who is poor, +nor the envious if he is a private man, nor an earthquake if he lives in +Gaul, nor thunder if he lives in Ethiopia; but he who fears the gods +fears everything, earth, seas, air, sky, darkness, light, noises, +silence, sleep. Slaves sleep and forget their masters; of the fettered +doth sleep lighten the chain; inflamed wounds, ulcers cruel and +agonizing, are not felt by the sleeping. Superstition alone has come to +no terms with sleep; but in the very sleep of her victims, as though +they were in the realms of the impious, she raises horrible spectres, +and monstrous phantoms, and various pains, and whirls the miserable soul +about, and persecutes it. They rise, and, instead of making light of +what is unreal, they fall into the hands of quacks and conjurers, who +say, 'Call the crone to expiate, bathe in the sea, and sit all day on +the ground.'" He goes on to speak of the introduction of "uncouth names +and barbarous terms" into "the divine and national authority of +religion;" observes that, whereas slaves, when they despair of freedom, +may demand to be sold to another master, superstition admits of no +change of gods, since "the god cannot be found whom he will not fear, +who fears the gods of his family and his birth, who shudders at the +Saving and the Benignant, who has a trembling and dread at those from +whom we ask riches and wealth, concord, peace, success of all good words +and deeds." He says, moreover, that, while death is to all men an end of +life, it is not so to the superstitious; for then "there are deep gates +of hell to yawn, and headlong streams of at once fire and gloom are +opened, and darkness with its many phantoms encompasses, ghosts +presenting horrid visages and wretched voices, and judges and +executioners, and chasms and dens full of innumerable miseries." + +Presently, he says, that in misfortune or sickness the superstitious man +refuses to see physician or philosopher, and cries, "Suffer me, O man, +to undergo punishment, the impious, the cursed, the hated of gods and +spirits. The Atheist," with whom all along he is contrasting the +superstitious disadvantageously, "wipes his tears, trims his hair, doffs +his mourning; but how can you address, how help the superstitious? He +sits apart in sackcloth or filthy rags; and often he strips himself and +rolls in the mud, and tells out his sins and offences, as having eaten +and drunken something, or walked some way which the divinity did not +allow. . . . And in his best mood, and under the influence of a +good-humoured superstition, he sits at home, with sacrifice and +slaughter all round him, while the old crones hang on him as on a peg, +as Bion says, any charm they fall in with." He continues, "What men like +best are festivals, banquets at the temples, initiations, orgies, votive +prayers, and adorations. But the superstitious wishes indeed, but is +unable to rejoice. He is crowned and turns pale; he sacrifices and is in +fear; he prays with a quivering voice, and burns incense with trembling +hands, and altogether belies the saying of Pythagoras, that we are then +in best case when we go to the gods; for superstitious men are in most +wretched and evil case, approaching the houses or shrines of the gods as +if they were the dens of bears, or the holes of snakes, or the caves of +whales." + + +17. + +Here we have a vivid picture of Plutarch's idea of the essence of +Superstition; it was the imagination of the existence of an unseen +ever-present Master; the bondage of a rule of life, of a continual +responsibility; obligation to attend to little things, the +impossibility of escaping from duty, the inability to choose or change +one's religion, an interference with the enjoyment of life, a melancholy +view of the world, sense of sin, horror at guilt, apprehension of +punishment, dread, self-abasement, depression, anxiety and endeavour to +be at peace with heaven, and error and absurdity in the methods chosen +for the purpose. Such too had been the idea of the Epicurean Velleius, +when he shrunk with horror from the "_sempiternus dominus_" and +"_curiosus Deus_" of the Stoics.[228:1] Such, surely, was the meaning of +Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny. And hence of course the frequent reproach +cast on Christians as credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The +heathen objectors in Minucius and Lactantius speak of their "old-woman's +tales."[228:2] Celsus accuses them of "assenting at random and without +reason," saying, "Do not inquire, but believe." "They lay it down," he +says elsewhere, "Let no educated man approach, no man of wisdom, no man +of sense; but if a man be unlearned, weak in intellect, an infant, let +him come with confidence. Confessing that these are worthy of their God, +they evidently desire, as they are able, to convert none but fools, and +vulgar, and stupid, and slavish, women and boys." They "take in the +simple, and lead him where they will." They address themselves to +"youths, house-servants, and the weak in intellect." They "hurry away +from the educated, as not fit subjects of their imposition, and inveigle +the rustic."[228:3] "Thou," says the heathen magistrate to the Martyr +Fructuosus, "who as a teacher dost disseminate a new fable, that fickle +girls may desert the groves and abandon Jupiter, condemn, if thou art +wise, the anile creed."[229:1] + + +18. + +Hence the epithets of itinerant, mountebank, conjurer, cheat, sophist, +sorcerer, heaped upon the teachers of Christianity; sometimes to account +for the report or apparent truth of their miracles, sometimes to explain +their success. Our Lord was said to have learned His miraculous power in +Egypt; "wizard, mediciner, cheat, rogue, conjurer," were the epithets +applied to Him by the opponents of Eusebius;[229:2] they "worship that +crucified sophist," says Lucian;[229:3] "Paul, who surpasses all the +conjurers and impostors who ever lived," is Julian's account of the +Apostle. "You have sent through the whole world," says St. Justin to +Trypho, "to preach that a certain atheistic and lawless sect has sprung +from one Jesus, a Galilean cheat."[229:4] "We know," says Lucian, +speaking of Chaldeans and Magicians, "the Syrian from Palestine, who is +the sophist in these matters, how many lunatics, with eyes distorted and +mouth in foam, he raises and sends away restored, ridding them from the +evil at a great price."[229:5] "If any conjurer came to them, a man of +skill and knowing how to manage matters," says the same writer, "he made +money in no time, with a broad grin at the simple fellows."[229:6] The +officer who had custody of St. Perpetua feared her escape from prison +"by magical incantations."[229:7] When St. Tiburtius had walked barefoot +on hot coals, his judge cried out that Christ had taught him magic. St. +Anastasia was thrown into prison as a mediciner; the populace called out +against St. Agnes, "Away with the witch," _Tolle magam, tolle +maleficam_. + +When St. Bonosus and St. Maximilian bore the burning pitch without +shrinking, Jews and Gentiles cried out, _Isti magi et malefici_. "What +new delusion," says the heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has +brought in these sophists to deny the worship of the gods? How doth this +chief sorcerer mock us, skilled by his Thessalian charm (_carmine_) to +laugh at punishment."[230:1] + +Hence we gather the meaning of the word "_carmen_" as used by Pliny; +when he speaks of the Christians "saying with one another a _carmen_ to +Christ as to a god," he meant pretty much what Suetonius expresses by +the "_malefica superstitio_."[230:2] And the words of the last-mentioned +writer and Tacitus are still more exactly, and, I may say, singularly +illustrated by clauses which occur in the Theodosian code; which seem to +show that these historians were using formal terms and phrases to +express their notion of Christianity. For instance, Tacitus says, "_Quos +per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat_;" and the Law +against the Malefici and Mathematici in the Code speaks of those, "_Quos +ob facinorum magnitudinem vulgus maleficos appellat_."[230:3] Again, +Tacitus charges Christians with the "_odium humani generis_:" this is +the very characteristic of a practiser in magic; the Laws call the +Malefici, "_humani generis hostes_," "_humani generis inimici_," +"_natur peregrini_," "_communis salutis hostes_."[230:4] + + +19. + +This also explains the phenomenon, which has created so much surprise to +certain moderns;--that a grave, well-informed historian like Tacitus +should apply to Christians what sounds like abuse. Yet what is the +difficulty, supposing that Christians were considered mathematici and +magi, and these were the secret intriguers against established +government, the allies of desperate politicians, the enemies of the +established religion, the disseminators of lying rumours, the +perpetrators of poisonings and other crimes? "Read this," says Paley, +after quoting some of the most beautiful and subduing passages of St. +Paul, "read this, and then think of _exitiabilis superstitio_;" and he +goes on to express a wish "in contending with heathen authorities, to +produce our books against theirs,"[231:1] as if it were a matter of +books. Public men care very little for books; the finest sentiments, the +most luminous philosophy, the deepest theology, inspiration itself, +moves them but little; they look at facts, and care only for facts. The +question was, What was the worth, what the tendency of the Christian +body in the state? what Christians said, what they thought, was little +to the purpose. They might exhort to peaceableness and passive obedience +as strongly as words could speak; but what did they do, what was their +political position? This is what statesmen thought of then, as they do +now. What had men of the world to do with abstract proofs or first +principles? a statesman measures parties, and sects, and writers by +their bearing upon _him_; and he has a practised eye in this sort of +judgment, and is not likely to be mistaken. "'What is Truth?' said +jesting Pilate." Apologies, however eloquent or true, availed nothing +with the Roman magistrate against the sure instinct which taught him to +dread Christianity. It was a dangerous enemy to any power not built +upon itself; he felt it, and the event justified his apprehension. + + +20. + +We must not forget the well-known character of the Roman state in its +dealings with its subjects. It had had from the first an extreme +jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large +toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern +governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority +in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil +institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion. +Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it +was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of +low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the +outlaws of society, and were in a condition analogous, if the comparison +may be allowed, to smugglers or poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to +burglars and highwaymen. The modern robber is sometimes made to ask in +novels or essays, why the majority of a people should bind the minority, +and why he is amenable to laws which he does not enact; but the +magistrate, relying on the power of the sword, wishes all men to gain a +living indeed, and to prosper, but only in his own legally sanctioned +ways, and he hangs or transports dissenters from his authority. The +Romans applied this rule to religion. Lardner protests against Pliny's +application of the words "contumacy and inflexible obstinacy" to the +Christians of Pontus. "Indeed, these are hard words," he says, "very +improperly applied to men who were open to conviction, and willing to +satisfy others, if they might have leave to speak."[232:1] And he says, +"It seems to me that Pliny acted very arbitrarily and unrighteously, in +his treatment of the Christians in his province. What right had Pliny to +act in this manner? by what law or laws did he punish [them] with +death?"--but the Romans had ever burnt the sorcerer, and banished his +consulters for life.[233:1] It was an ancient custom. And at mysteries +they looked with especial suspicion, because, since the established +religion did not include them in its provisions, they really did supply +what may be called a demand of the age. The Greeks of an earlier day had +naturalized among themselves the Eleusinian and other mysteries, which +had come from Egypt and Syria, and had little to fear from a fresh +invasion from the same quarter; yet even in Greece, as Plutarch tells us, +the "_carmina_" of the itinerants of Cybele and Serapis threw the +Pythian verses out of fashion, and henceforth the responses from the +temple were given in prose. Soon the oracles altogether ceased. What +would cause in the Roman mind still greater jealousy of Christianity was +the general infidelity which prevailed among all classes as regards the +mythological fables of Charon, Cerberus, and the realms of +punishment.[233:2] + + +21. + +We know what opposition had been made in Rome even to the philosophy of +Greece; much greater would be the aversion of constitutional statesmen +and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. Religion was the Roman point of +honour. "Spaniards might rival them in numbers," says Cicero, "Gauls in +bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, Greeks in the arts, Italians +and Latins in native talent, but the Romans surpassed all nations in +piety and devotion."[234:1] It was one of their laws, "Let no one have +gods by himself, nor worship in private new gods nor adventitious, +unless added on public authority."[234:2] Lutatius,[234:3] at the end of +the first Punic war, was forbidden by the senate to consult the Sortes +Prnestin as being "_auspicia alienigena_." Some years afterwards the +Consul took axe in hand, and commenced the destruction of the temples of +Isis and Serapis. In the second Punic war, the senate had commanded the +surrender of the _libri vaticini_ or _precationes_, and any written art +of sacrificing. When a secret confraternity was discovered, at a later +date, the Consul spoke of the rule of their ancestors which forbade the +forum, circus, and city to Sacrificuli and prophets, and burnt their +books. In the next age banishment was inflicted on individuals who were +introducing the worship of the Syrian Sabazius; and in the next the +Iseion and Serapeion were destroyed a second time. Mcenas in Dio +advises Augustus to honour the gods according to the national custom, +because the contempt of the country's deities leads to civil +insubordination, reception of foreign laws, conspiracies, and secret +meetings.[234:4] "Suffer no one," he adds, "to deny the gods or to +practise sorcery." The civilian Julius Paulus lays it down as one of the +leading principles of Roman Law, that those who introduce new or untried +religions should be degraded, and if in the lower orders put to +death.[234:5] In like manner, it is enacted in one of Constantine's Laws +that the Haruspices should not exercise their art in private; and there +is a law of Valentinian's against nocturnal sacrifices or magic. It is +more immediately to our purpose that Trajan had been so earnest in his +resistance to _Hetri_ or secret societies, that, when a fire had laid +waste Nicomedia, and Pliny proposed to him to incorporate a body of a +hundred and fifty firemen in consequence,[235:1] he was afraid of the +precedent and forbade it. + + +22. + +What has been said will suggest another point of view in which the +Oriental rites were obnoxious to the government, viz., as being vagrant +and proselytizing religions. If it tolerated foreign superstitions, this +would be on the ground that districts or countries within its +jurisdiction held them; to proselytize to a rite hitherto unknown, to +form a new party, and to propagate it through the Empire,--a religion +not local but Catholic,--was an offence against both order and reason. +The state desired peace everywhere, and no change; "considering," +according to Lactantius, "that they were rightly and deservedly punished +who execrated the public religion handed down to them by their +ancestors."[235:2] + +It is impossible surely to deny that, in assembling for religious +purposes, the Christians were breaking a solemn law, a vital principle +of the Roman constitution; and this is the light in which their conduct +was regarded by the historians and philosophers of the Empire. This was +a very strong act on the part of the disciples of the great Apostle, who +had enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time after time they +resisted the authority of the magistrate; and this is a phenomenon +inexplicable on the theory of Private Judgment or of the Voluntary +Principle. The justification of such disobedience lies simply in the +necessity of obeying the higher authority of some divine law; but if +Christianity were in its essence only private and personal, as so many +now think, there was no necessity of their meeting together at all. If, +on the other hand, in assembling for worship and holy communion, they +were fulfilling an indispensable observance, Christianity has imposed a +social law on the world, and formally enters the field of politics. +Gibbon says that, in consequence of Pliny's edict, "the prudence of the +Christians suspended their Agap; but it was _impossible_ for them to +omit the exercise of public worship."[236:1] We can draw no other +conclusion. + + +23. + +At the end of three hundred years, a more remarkable violation of law +seems to have been admitted by the Christian body. It shall be given in +the words of Dr. Burton; he has been speaking of Maximin's edict, which +provided for the restitution of any of their lands or buildings which +had been alienated from them. "It is plain," he says, "from the terms of +this edict, that the Christians had for some time been in possession of +property. It speaks of houses and lands which did not belong to +individuals, but to the whole body. Their possession of such property +could hardly have escaped the notice of the government; but it seems to +have been held in direct violation of a law of Diocletian, which +prohibited corporate bodies, or associations which were not legally +recognized, from acquiring property. The Christians were certainly not a +body recognized by law at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, and +it might almost be thought that this enactment was specially directed +against them. But, like other laws which are founded upon tyranny, and +are at variance with the first principles of justice, it is probable +that this law about corporate property was evaded. We must suppose that +the Christians had purchased lands and houses before the law was passed; +and their disregard of the prohibition may be taken as another proof +that their religion had now taken so firm a footing that the executors +of the laws were obliged to connive at their being broken by so numerous +a body."[237:1] + + +24. + +No wonder that the magistrate who presided at the martyrdom of St. +Romanus calls them in Prudentius "a rebel people;"[237:2] that Galerius +speaks of them as "a nefarious conspiracy;" the heathen in Minucius, as +"men of a desperate faction;" that others make them guilty of sacrilege +and treason, and call them by those other titles which, more closely +resembling the language of Tacitus, have been noticed above. Hence the +violent accusations against them as the destruction of the Empire, the +authors of physical evils, and the cause of the anger of the gods. + +"Men cry out," says Tertullian, "that the state is beset, that the +Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. They +mourn as for a loss that every sex, condition, and now even rank, is +going over to this sect. And yet they do not by this very means advance +their minds to the idea of some good therein hidden; they allow not +themselves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not to examine more +closely. The generality run upon a hatred of this name, with eyes so +closed that in bearing favourable testimony to any one they mingle with +it the reproach of the name. 'A good man Caius Seius, only he is a +Christian.' So another, 'I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius hath +suddenly become a Christian.' No one reflecteth whether Caius be not +therefore good and Lucius wise because a Christian, or therefore a +Christian because wise and good. They praise that which they know, they +revile that which they know not. Virtue is not in such account as hatred +of the Christians. Now, then, if the hatred be of the name, what guilt +is there in names? What charge against words? Unless it be that any word +which is a name have either a barbarous or ill-omened, or a scurrilous +or an immodest sound. If the Tiber cometh up to the walls, if the Nile +cometh not up to the fields, if the heaven hath stood still, if the +earth hath been moved, if there be any famine, if any pestilence, 'The +Christians to the lions' is forthwith the word."[238:1] + + +25. + +"Men of a desperate, lawless, reckless faction," says the heathen +Ccilius, in the passage above referred to, "who collect together out of +the lowest rabble the thoughtless portion, and credulous women seduced +by the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of impure conspirators, of +whom nocturnal assemblies, and solemn fastings, and unnatural food, no +sacred rite but pollution, is the bond. A tribe lurking and +light-hating, dumb for the public, talkative in corners, they despise +our temples as if graves, spit at our gods, deride our religious forms; +pitiable themselves, they pity, forsooth, our priests; half-naked +themselves, they despise our honours and purple; monstrous folly and +incredible impudence! . . . Day after day, their abandoned morals wind +their serpentine course; over the whole world are those most hideous +rites of an impious association growing into shape: . . . they recognize +each other by marks and signs, and love each other almost before they +recognize; promiscuous lust is their religion. Thus does their vain and +mad superstition glory in crimes. . . The writer who tells the story of a +criminal capitally punished, and of the gibbet (_ligna feralia_) of the +cross being their observance (_ceremonias_), assigns to them thereby an +altar in keeping with the abandoned and wicked, that they may worship +(_colant_) what they merit. . . . Why their mighty effort to hide and +shroud whatever it is they worship (_colunt_), since things honest ever +like the open day, and crimes are secret? Why have they no altars, no +temples, no images known to us, never speak abroad, never assemble +freely, were it not that what they worship and suppress is subject +either of punishment or of shame? . . What monstrous, what portentous +notions do they fabricate! that that God of theirs, whom they can +neither show nor see, should be inquiring diligently into the +characters, the acts, nay the words and secret thoughts of all men; +running to and fro, forsooth, and present everywhere, troublesome, +restless, nay impudently curious they would have him; that is, if he is +close at every deed, interferes in all places, while he can neither +attend to each as being distracted through the whole, nor suffice for +the whole as being engaged about each. Think too of their threatening +fire, meditating destruction to the whole earth, nay the world itself +with its stars! . . . Nor content with this mad opinion, they add and +append their old wives' tales about a new birth after death, ashes and +cinders, and by some strange confidence believe each other's lies. Poor +creatures! consider what hangs over you after death, while you are still +alive. Lo, the greater part of you, the better, as you say, are in want, +cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it; but I omit common trials. +Lo, threats are offered to you, punishments, torments; crosses to be +undergone now, not worshipped (_adorand_); fires too which ye predict +and fear; where is that God who can recover, but cannot preserve your +life? The answer of Socrates, when he was asked about heavenly matters, +is well known, 'What is above us does not concern us.' My opinion also +is, that points which are doubtful, as are the points in question, must +be left; nor, when so many and such great men are in controversy on the +subject, must judgment be rashly and audaciously given on either side, +lest the consequence be either anile superstition or the overthrow of +all religion." + + +26. + +Such was Christianity in the eyes of those who witnessed its rise and +propagation;--one of a number of wild and barbarous rites which were +pouring in upon the Empire from the ancient realms of superstition, and +the mother of a progeny of sects which were faithful to the original +they had derived from Egypt or Syria; a religion unworthy of an educated +person, as appealing, not to the intellect, but to the fears and +weaknesses of human nature, and consisting, not in the rational and +cheerful enjoyment, but in a morose rejection of the gifts of +Providence; a horrible religion, as inflicting or enjoining cruel +sufferings, and monstrous and loathsome in its very indulgence of the +passions; a religion leading by reaction to infidelity; a religion of +magic, and of the vulgar arts, real and pretended, with which magic was +accompanied; a secret religion which dared not face the day; an +itinerant, busy, proselytizing religion, forming an extended confederacy +against the state, resisting its authority and breaking its laws. There +may be some exceptions to this general impression, such as Pliny's +discovery of the innocent and virtuous rule of life adopted by the +Christians of Pontus; but this only proves that Christianity was not in +fact the infamous religion which the heathen thought it; it did not +reverse their general belief to that effect. + + +27. + +Now it must be granted that, in some respects, this view of Christianity +depended on the times, and would alter with their alteration. When there +was no persecution, Martyrs could not be obstinate; and when the Church +was raised aloft in high places, it was no longer in caves. Still, I +believe, it continued substantially the same in the judgment of the +world external to it, while there was an external world to judge of it. +"They thought it enough," says Julian in the fourth century, of our Lord +and His Apostles, "to deceive women, servants, and slaves, and by their +means wives and husbands." "A human fabrication," says he elsewhere, +"put together by wickedness, having nothing divine in it, but making a +perverted use of the fable-loving, childish, irrational part of the +soul, and offering a set of wonders to create belief." "Miserable men," +he says elsewhere, "you refuse to worship the ancile, yet you worship +the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads, and fix it on your +doors. Shall one for this hate the intelligent among you, or pity the +less understanding, who in following you have gone to such an excess of +perdition as to leave the everlasting gods and go over to a dead Jew?" +He speaks of their adding other dead men to Him who died so long ago. +"You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments, though it is +nowhere told you in your religion to haunt the tombs and to attend upon +them." Elsewhere he speaks of their "leaving the gods for corpses and +relics." On the other hand, he attributes the growth of Christianity to +its humanity towards strangers, care in burying the dead, and pretended +religiousness of life. In another place he speaks of their care of the +poor.[241:1] + +Libanius, Julian's preceptor in rhetoric, delivers the same testimony, +as far as it goes. He addressed his Oration for the Temples to a +Christian Emperor, and would in consequence be guarded in his language; +however it runs in one direction. He speaks of "those black-habited +men," meaning the monks, "who eat more than elephants, and by the +number of their potations trouble those who send them drink in their +chantings, and conceal this by paleness artificially acquired." They +"are in good condition out of the misfortunes of others, while they +pretend to serve God by hunger." Those whom they attack "are like bees, +they like drones." I do not quote this passage to prove that there were +monks in Libanius's days, which no one doubts, but to show his +impression of Christianity, as far as his works betray it. + +Numantian, in the same century, describes in verse his voyage from Rome +to Gaul: one book of the poem is extant; he falls in with Christianity +on two of the islands which lie in his course. He thus describes them as +found on one of these: "The island is in a squalid state, being full of +light-haters. They call themselves monks, because they wish to live +alone without witness. They dread the gifts, from fearing the reverses, +of fortune. Thus Homer says that melancholy was the cause of +Bellerophon's anxiety; for it is said that after the wounds of grief +mankind displeased the offended youth." He meets on the other island a +Christian, whom he had known, of good family and fortune, and happy in +his marriage, who "impelled by the Furies had left men and gods, and, +credulous exile, was living in base concealment. Is not this herd," he +continues, "worse than Circean poison? then bodies were changed, now +minds." + + +28. + +In the Philopatris, which is the work of an Author of the fourth +century,[242:1] Critias is introduced pale and wild. His friend asks him +if he has seen Cerberus or Hecate; and he answers that he has heard a +rigmarole from certain "thrice-cursed sophists;" which he thinks would +drive him mad, if he heard it again, and was nearly sending him +headlong over some cliff as it was. He retires for relief with his +inquirer to a pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swallows and +nightingales are singing, and a quiet brook is purling. Triephon, his +friend, expresses a fear lest he has heard some incantation, and is led +by the course of the dialogue, before his friend tells his tale, to give +some account of Christianity, being himself a Christian. After speaking +of the creation, as described by Moses, he falls at once upon that +doctrine of a particular providence which is so distasteful to Plutarch, +Velleius in Cicero, and Ccilius, and generally to unbelievers. "He is +in heaven," he says, "looking at just and unjust, and causing actions to +be entered in books; and He will recompense all on a day which He has +appointed." Critias objects that he cannot make this consistent with the +received doctrine about the Fates, "even though he has perhaps been +carried aloft with his master, and initiated in unspeakable mysteries." +He also asks if the deeds of the Scythians are written in heaven; for if +so, there must be many scribes there. After some more words, in course +of which, as in the earlier part of the dialogue, the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity is introduced, Critias gives an account of what befell him. +He says, he fell in with a crowd in the streets; and, while asking a +friend the cause of it, others joined them (Christians or monks), and a +conversation ensues, part of it corrupt or obscure, on the subject, as +Gesner supposes, of Julian's oppression of the Christians, especially of +the clergy. One of these interlocutors is a wretched old man, whose +"phlegm is paler than death;" another has "a rotten cloke on, and no +covering on head or feet," who says he has been told by some ill-clad +person from the mountains, with a shorn crown, that in the theatre was a +name hieroglyphically written of one who would flood the highway with +gold. On his laughing at the story, his friend Crato, whom he had +joined, bids him be silent, using a Pythagorean word; for he has "most +excellent matters to initiate him into, and that the prediction is no +dream but true," and will be fulfilled in August, using the Egyptian +name of the month. He attempts to leave them in disgust, but Crato pulls +him back "at the instigation of that old demon." He is in consequence +persuaded to go "to those conjurers," who, says Crato, would "initiate +in all mysteries." He finds, in a building which is described in the +language used by Homer of the Palace of Menelaus, "not Helen, no, but +men pale and downcast," who ask, whether there was any bad news; "for +they seemed," he says, "wishing the worst; and rejoicing in misfortune, +as the Furies in the theatres." On their asking him how the city and the +world went on, and his answering that things went on smoothly and seemed +likely to do so still, they frown, and say that "the city is in travail +with a bad birth." "You, who dwell aloft," he answers, "and see +everything from on high, doubtless have a keen perception in this +matter; but tell me, how is the sky? will the Sun be eclipsed? will Mars +be in quadrature with Jupiter? &c.;" and he goes on to jest upon their +celibacy. On their persisting in prophesying evil to the state, he says, +"This evil will fall on your own head, since you are so hard upon your +country; for not as high-flyers have ye heard this, nor are ye adepts in +the restless astrological art, but if divinations and conjurings have +seduced you, double is your stupidity; for they are the discoveries of +old women and things to laugh at." The interview then draws to an end; +but more than enough has been quoted already to show the author's notion +of Christianity. + + +29. + +Such was the language of paganism after Christianity had for fifty years +been exposed to the public gaze; after it had been before the world for +fifty more, St. Augustine had still to defend it against the charge of +being the cause of the calamities of the Empire. And for the charge of +magic, when the Arian bishops were in formal disputations with the +Catholic, before Gungebald, Burgundian King of France, at the end of the +fifth century, we find still that they charged the Catholics with being +"_prstigiatores_," and worshipping a number of gods; and when the +Catholics proposed that the king should repair to the shrine of St. +Justus, where both parties might ask him concerning their respective +faiths, the Arians cried out that "they would not seek enchantments like +Saul, for Scripture was enough for them, which was more powerful than +all bewitchments."[245:1] This was said, not against strangers of whom +they knew nothing, as Ethelbert might be suspicious of St. Augustine and +his brother missionaries, but against a body of men who lived among +them. + +I do not think it can be doubted then that, had Tacitus, Suetonius, and +Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and the other opponents of Christianity, lived +in the fourth century, their evidence concerning Christianity would be +very much the same as it has come down to us from the centuries before +it. In either case, a man of the world and a philosopher would have been +disgusted at the gloom and sadness of its profession, its +mysteriousness, its claim of miracles, the want of good sense imputable +to its rule of life, and the unsettlement and discord it was introducing +into the social and political world. + + +30. + +On the whole then I conclude as follows:--if there is a form of +Christianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of +borrowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to +forms and ceremonies an occult virtue;--a religion which is considered +to burden and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to +the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and +imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith;--a +religion which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of +the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, +one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a +grave shadow over the future;--a religion which holds up to admiration +the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it +if they would;--a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, +are to the generality of men unknown; which is considered to bear on its +very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance +suffices to judge of it, and that careful examination is preposterous; +which is felt to be so simply bad, that it may be calumniated at hazard +and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the +accurate distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or +painfully to determine how far this or that story concerning it is +literally true, or what has to be allowed in candour, or what is +improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be +plausibly defended;--a religion such, that men look at a convert to it +with a feeling which no other denomination raises except Judaism, +Socialism, or Mormonism, viz. with curiosity, suspicion, fear, disgust, +as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if he +had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion with +dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which +claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, reduced him +to a mere organ or instrument of a whole;--a religion which men hate as +proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as dividing families, +separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of government, making a +mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of human nature, and a +"conspirator against its rights and privileges;"[247:1]--a religion +which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness, and a +pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven;--a religion +which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak +about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes +wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable;--a religion, +the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad +epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they would +persecute if they could;--if there be such a religion now in the world, +it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it, when first +it came forth from its Divine Author.[247:2] + + +SECTION II. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. + +Till the Imperial Government had become Christian, and heresies were put +down by the arm of power, the face of Christendom presented much the +same appearance all along as on the first propagation of the religion. +What Gnosticism, Montanism, Judaism and, I may add, the Oriental +mysteries were to the nascent Church, as described in the foregoing +Section, such were the Manichean, Donatist, Apollinarian and +contemporary sects afterwards. The Church in each place looked at first +sight as but one out of a number of religious communions, with little of +a very distinctive character except to the careful inquirer. Still there +were external indications of essential differences within; and, as we +have already compared it in the first centuries, we may now contrast it +in the fourth, with the rival religious bodies with which it was +encompassed. + + +2. + +How was the man to guide his course who wished to join himself to the +doctrine and fellowship of the Apostles in the times of St. Athanasius, +St. Basil, and St. Augustine? Few indeed were the districts in the +_orbis terrarum_, which did not then, as in the Ante-nicene era, present +a number of creeds and communions for his choice. Gaul indeed is said at +that era to have been perfectly free from heresies; at least none are +mentioned as belonging to that country in the Theodosian Code. But in +Egypt, in the early part of the fourth century, the Meletian schism +numbered one-third as many bishops as were contained in the whole +Patriarchate. In Africa, towards the end of it, while the Catholic +Bishops amounted in all to 466, the Donatists rivalled them with as many +as 400. In Spain Priscillianism was spread from the Pyrenees to the +Ocean. It seems to have been the religion of the population in the +province of Gallicia, while its author Priscillian, whose death had been +contrived by the Ithacians, was honoured as a Martyr. The Manichees, +hiding themselves under a variety of names in different localities, were +not in the least flourishing condition at Rome. Rome and Italy were the +seat of the Marcionites. The Origenists, too, are mentioned by St. +Jerome as "bringing a cargo of blasphemies into the port of Rome." And +Rome was the seat of a Novatian, a Donatist, and a Luciferian bishop, in +addition to the legitimate occupant of the See of St. Peter. The +Luciferians, as was natural under the circumstances of their schism, +were sprinkled over Christendom from Spain to Palestine, and from Treves +to Lybia; while in its parent country Sardinia, as a centre of that +extended range, Lucifer seems to have received the honours of a Saint. + +When St. Gregory Nazianzen began to preach at Constantinople, the Arians +were in possession of its hundred churches; they had the populace in +their favour, and, after their legal dislodgment, edict after edict was +ineffectually issued against them. The Novatians too abounded there; and +the Sabbatians, who had separated from them, had a church, where they +prayed at the tomb of their founder. Moreover, Apollinarians, Eunomians, +and Semi-arians, mustered in great numbers at Constantinople. The +Semi-arian bishops were as popular in the neighbouring provinces, as the +Arian doctrine in the capital. They had possession of the coast of the +Hellespont and Bithynia; and were found in Phrygia, Isauria, and the +neighbouring parts of Asia Minor. Phrygia was the headquarters of the +Montanists, and was overrun by the Messalians, who had advanced thus far +from Mesopotamia, spreading through Syria, Lycaonia, Pamphylia, and +Cappadocia in their way. In the lesser Armenia, the same heretics had +penetrated into the monasteries. Phrygia, too, and Paphlagonia were the +seat of the Novatians, who besides were in force at Nica and Nicomedia, +were found in Alexandria, Africa, and Spain, and had a bishop even in +Scythia. The whole tract of country from the Hellespont to Cilicia had +nearly lapsed into Eunomianism, and the tract from Cilicia as far as +Phoenicia into Apollinarianism. The disorders of the Church of Antioch +are well known: an Arian succession, two orthodox claimants, and a +bishop of the Apollinarians. Palestine abounded in Origenists, if at +that time they may properly be called a sect; Palestine, Egypt, and +Arabia were overrun with Marcionites; Osrhoene was occupied by the +followers of Bardesanes and Harmonius, whose hymns so nearly took the +place of national tunes that St. Ephrem found no better way of resisting +the heresy than setting them to fresh words. Theodoret in Comagene +speaks in the next century of reclaiming eight villages of Marcionites, +one of Eunomians, and one of Arians. + + +3. + +These sects were of very various character. Learning, eloquence, and +talent were the characteristics of the Apollinarians, Manichees, and +Pelagians; Tichonius the Donatist was distinguished in Biblical +interpretation; the Semi-arian and Apollinarian leaders were men of +grave and correct behaviour; the Novatians had sided with the Orthodox +during the Arian persecution; the Montanists and Messalians addressed +themselves to an almost heathen population; the atrocious fanaticism of +the Priscillianists, the fury of the Arian women of Alexandria and +Constantinople, and the savage cruelty of the Circumcellions can hardly +be exaggerated. These various sectaries had their orders of clergy, +bishops, priests and deacons; their readers and ministers; their +celebrants and altars; their hymns and litanies. They preached to the +crowds in public, and their meeting-houses bore the semblance of +churches. They had their sacristies and cemeteries; their farms; their +professors and doctors; their schools. Miracles were ascribed to the +Arian Theophilus, to the Luciferian Gregory of Elvira, to a Macedonian +in Cyzicus, and to the Donatists in Africa. + + +4. + +How was an individual inquirer to find, or a private Christian to keep +the Truth, amid so many rival teachers? The misfortunes or perils of +holy men and saints show us the difficulty; St. Augustine was nine years +a Manichee; St. Basil for a time was in admiration of the Semi-arians; +St. Sulpicius gave a momentary countenance to the Pelagians; St. Paula +listened, and Melania assented, to the Origenists. Yet the rule was +simple, which would direct every one right; and in that age, at least, +no one could be wrong for any long time without his own fault. The +Church is everywhere, but it is one; sects are everywhere, but they are +many, independent and discordant. Catholicity is the attribute of the +Church, independency of sectaries. It is true that some sects might seem +almost Catholic in their diffusion; Novatians or Marcionites were in all +quarters of the empire; yet it is hardly more than the name, or the +general doctrine or philosophy, that was universal: the different +portions which professed it seem to have been bound together by no +strict or definite tie. The Church might be evanescent or lost for a +while in particular countries, or it might be levelled and buried among +sects, when the eye was confined to one spot, or it might be confronted +by the one and same heresy in various places; but, on looking round the +_orbis terrarum_, there was no mistaking that body which, and which +alone, had possession of it. The Church is a kingdom; a heresy is a +family rather than a kingdom; and as a family continually divides and +sends out branches, founding new houses, and propagating itself in +colonies, each of them as independent as its original head, so was it +with heresy. Simon Magus, the first heretic, had been Patriarch of +Menandrians, Basilidians, Valentinians, and the whole family of +Gnostics; Tatian of Encratites, Severians, Aquarians, Apotactites, and +Saccophori. The Montanists had been propagated into Tascodrugites, +Pepuzians, Artotyrites, and Quartodecimans. Eutyches, in a later time, +gave birth to the Dioscorians, Gaianites, Theodosians, Agnoet, +Theopaschites, Acephali, Semidalit, Nagranit, Jacobites, and others. +This is the uniform history of heresy. The patronage of the civil power +might for a time counteract the law of its nature, but it showed it as +soon as that obstacle was removed. Scarcely was Arianism deprived of the +churches of Constantinople, and left to itself, than it split in that +very city into the Dorotheans, the Psathyrians, and the Curtians; and +the Eunomians into the Theophronians and Eutychians. One fourth part of +the Donatists speedily became Maximinianists; and besides these were the +Rogatians, the Primianists, the Urbanists, and the Claudianists. If such +was the fecundity of the heretical principle in one place, it is not to +be supposed that Novatians or Marcionites in Africa or the East would +feel themselves bound to think or to act with their fellow-sectaries of +Rome or Constantinople; and the great varieties or inconsistencies of +statement, which have come down to us concerning the tenets of heresies, +may thus be explained. This had been the case with the pagan rites, +whether indigenous or itinerant, to which heresy succeeded. The +established priesthoods were local properties, as independent +theologically as they were geographically of each other; the fanatical +companies which spread over the Empire dissolved and formed again as the +circumstances of the moment occasioned. So was it with heresy: it was, +by its very nature, its own master, free to change, self-sufficient; +and, having thrown off the yoke of the Church, it was little likely to +submit to any usurped and spurious authority. Montanism and Manicheeism +might perhaps in some sort furnish an exception to this remark. + + +5. + +In one point alone the heresies seem universally to have agreed,--in +hatred to the Church. This might at that time be considered one of her +surest and most obvious Notes. She was that body of which all sects, +however divided among themselves, spoke ill; according to the prophecy, +"If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more +them of His household." They disliked and they feared her; they did +their utmost to overcome their mutual differences, in order to unite +against her. Their utmost indeed was little, for independency was the +law of their being; they could not exert themselves without fresh +quarrels, both in the bosom of each, and one with another. "_Bellum +hreticorum pax est ecclesi_" had become a proverb; but they felt the +great desirableness of union against the only body which was the natural +antagonist of all, and various are the instances which occur in +ecclesiastical history of attempted coalitions. The Meletians of Africa +united with the Arians against St. Athanasius; the Semi-Arians of the +Council of Sardica corresponded with the Donatists of Africa; Nestorius +received and protected the Pelagians; Aspar, the Arian minister of Leo +the Emperor, favoured the Monophysites of Egypt; the Jacobites of Egypt +sided with the Moslem, who are charged with holding a Nestorian +doctrine. It had been so from the beginning: "They huddle up a peace +with all everywhere," says Tertullian, "for it maketh no matter to them, +although they hold different doctrines, so long as they conspire +together in their siege against the one thing, Truth."[254:1] And even +though active co-operation was impracticable, at least hard words cost +nothing, and could express that common hatred at all seasons. +Accordingly, by Montanists, Catholics were called "the carnal;" by +Novatians, "the apostates;" by Valentinians, "the worldly;" by +Manichees, "the simple;" by Arians, "the ancient;"[254:2] by +Apollinarians, "the man-worshippers;" by Origenists, "the flesh-lovers," +and "the slimy;" by the Nestorians, "Egyptians;" by Monophysites, the +"Chalcedonians:" by Donatists, "the traitors," and "the sinners," and +"servants of Antichrist;" and St. Peter's chair, "the seat of +pestilence;" and by the Luciferians, the Church was called "a brothel," +"the devil's harlot," and "synagogue of Satan:" so that it might be +called a Note of the Church, as I have said, for the use of the most +busy and the most ignorant, that she was on one side and all other +bodies on the other. + + +6. + +Yet, strange as it may appear, there was one title of the Church of a +very different nature from those which have been enumerated,--a title of +honour, which all men agreed to give her,--and one which furnished a +still more simple direction than such epithets of abuse to aid the busy +and the ignorant in finding her, and which was used by the Fathers for +that purpose. It was one which the sects could neither claim for +themselves, nor hinder being enjoyed by its rightful owner, though, +since it was the characteristic designation of the Church in the Creed, +it seemed to surrender the whole controversy between the two parties +engaged in it. Balaam could not keep from blessing the ancient people of +God; and the whole world, heresies inclusive, were irresistibly +constrained to call God's second election by its prophetical title of +the "Catholic" Church. St. Paul tells us that the heretic is "condemned +by himself;" and no clearer witness against the sects of the earlier +centuries was needed by the Church, than their own testimony to this +contrast between her actual position and their own. Sects, say the +Fathers, are called after the name of their founders, or from their +locality, or from their doctrine. So was it from the beginning: "I am of +Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas;" but it was promised to the +Church that she should have no master upon earth, and that she should +"gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." +Her every-day name, which was understood in the marketplace and used in +the palace, which every chance comer knew, and which state-edicts +recognized, was the "Catholic" Church. This was that very description of +Christianity in those times which we are all along engaged in +determining. And it had been recognized as such from the first; the name +or the fact is put forth by St. Ignatius, St. Justin, St. Clement; by +the Church of Smyrna, St. Irenus, Rhodon or another, Tertullian, +Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Cornelius; by the Martyrs, Pionius, Sabina, and +Asclepiades; by Lactantius, Eusebius, Adimantius, St. Athanasius, St. +Pacian, St. Optatus, St. Epiphanius, St. Cyril, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, +St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and Facundus. St. Clement +uses it as an argument against the Gnostics, St. Augustine against the +Donatists and Manichees, St. Jerome against the Luciferians, and St. +Pacian against the Novatians. + + +7. + +It was an argument for educated and simple. When St. Ambrose would +convert the cultivated reason of Augustine, he bade him study the book +of Isaiah, who is the prophet, as of the Messiah, so of the calling of +the Gentiles and of the Imperial power of the Church. And when St. Cyril +would give a rule to his crowd of Catechumens, "If ever thou art +sojourning in any city," he says, "inquire not simply where the Lord's +house is, (for the sects of the profane also make an attempt to call +their own dens houses of the Lord,) nor merely where the Church is, but +where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy +Body, the Mother of us all, which is the Spouse of our Lord Jesus +Christ."[256:1] "In the Catholic Church," says St. Augustine to the +Manichees, "not to speak of that most pure wisdom, to the knowledge of +which few spiritual men attain in this life so as to know it even in its +least measure,--as men, indeed, yet, without any doubt,--(for the +multitude of Christians are safest, not in understanding with quickness, +but in believing with simplicity,) not to speak of this wisdom, which ye +do not believe to be in the Catholic Church, there are many other +considerations which most sufficiently hold me in her bosom. I am held +by the consent of people and nations; by that authority which began in +miracles, was nourished in hope, was increased by charity, and made +steadfast by age; by that succession of priests from the chair of the +Apostle Peter, to whose feeding the Lord after His resurrection +commended His sheep, even to the present episcopate; lastly, by the very +title of Catholic, which, not without cause, hath this Church alone, +amid so many heresies, obtained in such sort, that, whereas all +heretics wish to be called Catholics, nevertheless to any stranger, who +asked where to find the 'Catholic' Church, none of them would dare to +point to his own basilica or home. These dearest bonds, then, of the +Christian Name, so many and such, rightly hold a man in belief in the +Catholic Church, even though, by reason of the slowness of our +understanding or our deserts, truth doth not yet show herself in her +clearest tokens. But among you, who have none of these reasons to invite +and detain me, I hear but the loud sound of a promise of the truth; +which truth, verily, if it be so manifestly displayed among you that +there can be no mistake about it, is to be preferred to all those things +by which I am held in the Catholic Church; but if it is promised alone, +and not exhibited, no one shall move me from that faith which by so many +and great ties binds my mind to the Christian religion."[257:1] When +Adimantius asked his Marcionite opponent, how he was a Christian who did +not even bear that name, but was called from Marcion, he retorts, "And +you are called from the Catholic Church, therefore ye are not Christians +either;" Adimantius answers, "Did we profess man's name, you would have +spoken to the point; but if we are called from being all over the world, +what is there bad in this?"[257:2] + + +8. + +"Whereas there is one God and one Lord," says St. Clement, "therefore +also that which is the highest in esteem is praised on the score of +being sole, as after the pattern of the One Principle. In the nature +then of the One, the Church, which is one, hath its portion, which they +would forcibly cut up into many heresies. In substance then, and in +idea, and in first principle, and in pre-eminence, we call the ancient +Catholic Church sole; in order to the unity of one faith, the faith +according to her own covenants, or rather that one covenant in different +times, which, by the will of one God and through one Lord, is gathering +together those who are already ordained, whom God hath predestined, +having known that they would be just from the foundation of the +world. . . . . But of heresies, some are called from a man's name, as +Valentine's heresy, Marcion's, and that of Basilides (though they +profess to bring the opinion of Matthias, for all the Apostles had, as +one teaching, so one tradition); and others from place, as the Peratici; +and others from nation, as that of the Phrygians; and others from their +actions, as that of the Encratites; and others from their peculiar +doctrines, as the Docet and Hematites; and others from their +hypotheses, and what they have honoured, as Cainites and the Ophites; +and others from their wicked conduct and enormities, as those Simonians +who are called Eutychites."[258:1] "There are, and there have been," +says St. Justin, "many who have taught atheistic and blasphemous words +and deeds, coming in the name of Jesus; and they are called by us from +the appellation of the men whence each doctrine and opinion began . . . +Some are called Marcians, others Valentinians, others Basilidians, +others Saturnilians."[258:2] "When men are called Phrygians, or +Novatians, or Valentinians, or Marcionites, or Anthropians," says +Lactantius, "or by any other name, they cease to be Christians; for they +have lost Christ's Name, and clothe themselves in human and foreign +titles. It is the Catholic Church alone which retains the true +worship."[258:3] "We never heard of Petrines, or Paulines, or +Bartholomeans, or Thaddeans," says St. Epiphanius; "but from the first +there was one preaching of all the Apostles, not preaching themselves, +but Christ Jesus the Lord. Wherefore also all gave one name to the +Church, not their own, but that of their Lord Jesus Christ, since they +began to be called Christians first at Antioch; which is the Sole +Catholic Church, having nought else but Christ's, being a Church of +Christians; not of Christs, but of Christians, He being One, they from +that One being called Christians. None, but this Church and her +preachers, are of this character, as is shown by their own epithets, +Manicheans, and Simonians, and Valentinians, and Ebionites."[259:1] "If +you ever hear those who are said to belong to Christ," says St. Jerome, +"named, not from the Lord Jesus Christ, but from some other, say +Marcionites, Valentinians, Mountaineers, Campestrians, know that it is +not Christ's Church, but the synagogue of Antichrist."[259:2] + + +9. + +St. Pacian's letters to the Novatian Bishop Sympronian require a more +extended notice. The latter had required the Catholic faith to be proved +to him, without distinctly stating from what portion of it he dissented; +and he boasted that he had never found any one to convince him of its +truth. St. Pacian observes that there is one point which Sympronian +cannot dispute, and which settles the question, the very name Catholic. +He then supposes Sympronian to object that, "under the Apostles no one +was called Catholic." He answers, "Be it thus;[259:3] it shall have been +so; allow even that. When, after the Apostles, heresies had burst forth, +and were striving under various names to tear piecemeal and divide 'the +Dove' and 'the Queen' of God, did not the Apostolic people require a +name of their own, whereby to mark the unity of the people that was +uncorrupted, lest the error of some should rend limb by limb 'the +undefiled virgin' of God? Was it not seemly that the chief head should +be distinguished by its own peculiar appellation? Suppose this very day +I entered a populous city. When I had found Marcionites, Apollinarians, +Cataphrygians, Novatians, and others of the kind, who call themselves +Christians, by what name should I recognize the congregation of my own +people, unless it were named Catholic? . . . . Whence was it delivered +to me? Certainly that which has stood through so many ages was not +borrowed from man. This name 'Catholic' sounds not of Marcion, nor of +Apelles, nor of Montanus, nor does it take heretics for its authors." + +In his second letter, he continues, "Certainly that was no accessory +name which endured through so many ages. And, indeed, I am glad for +thee, that, although thou mayest have preferred others, yet thou agreest +that the name attaches to us, which should you deny nature would cry +out. But and if you still have doubts, let us hold our peace. We will +both be that which we shall be named." After alluding to Sympronian's +remark that, though Cyprian was holy, "his people bear the name of +Apostaticum, Capitolinum, or Synedrium," which were some of the Novatian +titles of the Church, St. Pacian replies, "Ask a century, brother, and +all its years in succession, whether this name has adhered to us; +whether the people of Cyprian have been called other than Catholic? No +one of these names have I ever heard." It followed that such +appellations were "taunts, not names," and therefore unmannerly. On the +other hand it seems that Sympronian did not like to be called a +Novatian, though he could not call himself a Catholic. "Tell me +yourselves," says St. Pacian, "what ye are called. Do ye deny that the +Novatians are called from Novatian? Impose on them whatever name you +like; that will ever adhere to them. Search, if you please, whole +annals, and trust so many ages. You will answer, 'Christian.' But +if I inquire the genus of the sect, you will not deny that it is +Novatian. . . . Confess it without deceit; there is no wickedness in +the name. Why, when so often inquired for, do you hide yourself? Why +ashamed of the origin of your name? When you first wrote, I thought you +a Cataphrygian. . . . Dost thou grudge me my name, and yet shun thine +own? Think what there is of shame in a cause which shrinks from its own +name." + +In a third letter: "'The Church is the Body of Christ.' Truly, the body, +not a member; the body composed of many parts and members knit in one, +as saith the Apostle, 'For the Body is not one member, but many.' +Therefore, the Church is the full body, compacted and diffused now +throughout the whole world; like a city, I mean, all whose parts are +united, not as ye are, O Novatians, some small and insolent portion, and +a mere swelling that has gathered and separated from the rest of the +body. . . . Great is the progeny of the Virgin, and without number her +offspring, wherewith the whole world is filled, wherewith the populous +swarms ever throng the circumfluous hive." And he founds this +characteristic of the Church upon the prophecies: "At length, brother +Sympronian, be not ashamed to be with the many; at length consent to +despise these festering spots of the Novatians, and these parings of +yours; and at length, to look upon the flocks of the Catholics, and the +people of the Church extending so far and wide. . . . Hear what David +saith, 'I will sing unto Thy name in the great congregation;' and again, +'I will praise Thee among much people;' and 'the Lord, even the most +mighty God, hath spoken, and called the world from the rising up of the +sun unto the going down thereof.' What! shall the seed of Abraham, which +is as the stars and the sand on the seashore for number, be contented +with your poverty? . . . Recognize now, brother, the Church of God +extending her tabernacles and fixing the stakes of her curtains on the +right and on the left; understand that 'the Lord's name is praised from +the rising up of the sun unto the going down thereof.'" + + +10. + +In citing these passages, I am not proving what was the doctrine of the +Fathers concerning the Church in those early times, or what were the +promises made to it in Scripture; but simply ascertaining what, in +matter of fact, was its then condition relatively to the various +Christian bodies among which it was found. That the Fathers were able to +put forward a certain doctrine, that they were able to appeal to the +prophecies, proves that matter of fact; for unless the Church, and the +Church alone, had been one body everywhere, they could not have argued +on the supposition that it was so. And so as to the word "Catholic;" it +is enough that the Church was so called; that title was a confirmatory +proof and symbol of what is even otherwise so plain, that she, as St. +Pacian explains the word, was everywhere one, while the sects of the day +were nowhere one, but everywhere divided. Sects might, indeed, be +everywhere, but they were in no two places the same; every spot had its +own independent communion, or at least to this result they were +inevitably and continually tending. + + +11. + +St. Pacian writes in Spain: the same contrast between the Church and +sectarianism is presented to us in Africa in the instance of the +Donatists; and St. Optatus is a witness both to the fact, and to its +notoriety, and to the deep impressions which it made on all parties. +Whether or not the Donatists identified themselves with the true Church, +and cut off the rest of Christendom from it, is not the question here, +nor alters the fact which I wish distinctly brought out and recognized, +that in those ancient times the Church was that Body which was spread +over the _orbis terrarum_, and sects were those bodies which were local +or transitory. + +"What is that one Church," says St. Optatus, "which Christ calls 'Dove' +and 'Spouse'? . . . It cannot be in the multitude of heretics and +schismatics. If so, it follows that it is but in one place. Thou, +brother Parmenian, hast said that it is with you alone; unless, perhaps, +you aim at claiming for yourselves a special sanctity from your pride, +so that where you will, there the Church may be, and may not be, where +you will not. Must it then be in a small portion of Africa, in the +corner of a small realm, among you, but not among us in another part of +Africa? And not in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy, where you are not? And if +you will have it only among you, not in the three Pannonian provinces, +in Dacia, Moesia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, and in all Greece, where +you are not? And that you may keep it among yourselves, not in Pontus, +Galatia, Cappadocia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Cilicia, in the three Syrias, +in the two Armenias, in all Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, where you are +not? Not among such innumerable islands and the other provinces, +scarcely numerable, where you are not? What will become then of the +meaning of the word Catholic, which is given to the Church, as being +according to reason[263:1] and diffused every where? For if thus at your +pleasure you narrow the Church, if you withdraw from her all the +nations, where will be the earnings of the Son of God? where will be +that which the Father hath so amply accorded to Him, saying in the +second Psalm 'I will give thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the +uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession,' &c.? . . The whole +earth is given Him with the nations; its whole circuit (_orbis_) is +Christ's one possession."[263:2] + + +12. + +An African writer contemporary with St. Augustine, if not St. Augustine +himself, enumerates the small portions of the Donatist Sect, in and out +of Africa, and asks if they can be imagined to be the fulfilment of the +Scripture promise to the Church. "If the holy Scriptures have assigned +the Church to Africa alone, or to the scanty Cutzupitans or Mountaineers +of Rome, or to the house or patrimony of one Spanish woman, however the +argument may stand from other writings, then none but the Donatists have +possession of the Church. If holy Scripture determines it to the few +Moors of the Csarean province, we must go over to the Rogatists: if to +the few Tripolitans or Byzacenes and Provincials, the Maximianists have +attained to it; if in the Orientals only, it is to be sought for among +Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and others that may be there; for who +can enumerate every heresy of every nation? But if Christ's Church, by +the divine and most certain testimonies of Canonical Scriptures, is +assigned to all nations, whatever may be adduced, and from whatever +quarter cited, by those who say, 'Lo, here is Christ and lo there,' let +us rather hear, if we be His sheep, the voice of our Shepherd saying +unto us, 'Do not believe.' For they are not each found in the many +nations where she is; but she, who is everywhere, is found where they +are."[264:1] + +Lastly, let us hear St. Augustine himself again in the same controversy: +"They do not communicate with us, as you say," he observes to +Cresconius, "Novatians, Arians, Patripassians, Valentinians, Patricians, +Apellites, Marcionites, Ophites, and the rest of those sacrilegious +names, as you call them, of nefarious pests rather than sects. Yet, +wheresoever they are, there is the Catholic Church; as in Africa it is +where you are. On the other hand, neither you, nor any one of those +heresies whatever, is to be found wherever is the Catholic Church. +Whence it appears, which is that tree whose boughs extend over all the +earth by the richness of its fruitfulness, and which be those broken +branches which have not the life of the root, but lie and wither, each +in its own place."[265:1] + + +13. + +It may be possibly suggested that this universality which the Fathers +ascribe to the Catholic Church lay in its Apostolical descent, or again +in its Episcopacy; and that it was one, not as being one kingdom or +civitas "at unity with itself," with one and the same intelligence in +every part, one sympathy, one ruling principle, one organization, one +communion, but because, though consisting of a number of independent +communities, at variance (if so be) with each other even to a breach of +communion, nevertheless all these were possessed of a legitimate +succession of clergy, or all governed by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. +But who will in seriousness maintain that relationship, or that sameness +of structure, makes two bodies one? England and Prussia are both of them +monarchies; are they therefore one kingdom? England and the United +States are from one stock; can they therefore be called one state? +England and Ireland are peopled by different races; yet are they not one +kingdom still? If unity lies in the Apostolical succession, an act of +schism is from the nature of the case impossible; for as no one can +reverse his parentage, so no Church can undo the fact that its clergy +have come by lineal descent from the Apostles. Either there is no such +sin as schism, or unity does not lie in the Episcopal form or in the +Episcopal ordination. And this is felt by the controversialists of this +day; who in consequence are obliged to invent a sin, and to consider, +not division of Church from Church, but the interference of Church with +Church to be the sin of schism, as if local dioceses and bishops with +restraint were more than ecclesiastical arrangements and by-laws of the +Church, however sacred, while schism is a sin against her essence. Thus +they strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Division is the schism, if +schism there be, not interference. If interference is a sin, division +which is the cause of it is a greater; but where division is a duty, +there can be no sin in interference. + + +14. + +Far different from such a theory is the picture which the ancient Church +presents to us; true, it was governed by Bishops, and those Bishops came +from the Apostles, but it was a kingdom besides; and as a kingdom admits +of the possibility of rebels, so does such a Church involve sectaries +and schismatics, but not independent portions. It was a vast organized +association, co-extensive with the Roman Empire, or rather overflowing +it. Its Bishops were not mere local officers, but possessed a +quasi-ecumenical power, extending wherever a Christian was to be found. +"No Christian," says Bingham, "would pretend to travel without taking +letters of credence with him from his own bishop, if he meant to +communicate with the Christian Church in a foreign country. Such was the +admirable unity of the Church Catholic in those days, and the blessed +harmony and consent of her bishops among one another."[266:1] St. +Gregory Nazianzen calls St. Cyprian an universal Bishop, "presiding," as +the same author presently quotes Gregory, "not only over the Church of +Carthage and Africa, but over all the regions of the West, and over the +East, and South, and Northern parts of the world also." This is +evidence of a unity throughout Christendom, not of mere origin or of +Apostolical succession, but of government. Bingham continues "[Gregory] +says the same of Athanasius; that, in being made Bishop of Alexandria, +he was made Bishop of the whole world. Chrysostom, in like manner, +styles Timothy, Bishop of the universe. . . . . The great Athanasius, as +he returned from his exile, made no scruple to ordain in several cities +as he went along, though they were not in his own diocese. And the +famous Eusebius of Samosata did the like, in the times of the Arian +persecution under Valens. . . Epiphanius made use of the same power and +privilege in a like case, ordaining Paulinianus, St. Jerome's brother, +first deacon and then presbyter, in a monastery out of his own diocese +in Palestine."[267:1] And so in respect of teaching, before Councils met +on any large scale, St. Ignatius of Antioch had addressed letters to the +Churches along the coast of Asia Minor, when on his way to martyrdom at +Rome. St. Irenus, when a subject of the Church of Smyrna, betakes +himself to Gaul, and answers in Lyons the heresies of Syria. The see of +St. Hippolytus, as if he belonged to all parts of the _orbis terrarum_, +cannot be located, and is variously placed in the neighbourhood of Rome +and in Arabia. Hosius, a Spanish Bishop, arbitrates in an Alexandrian +controversy. St. Athanasius, driven from his Church, makes all +Christendom his home, from Treves to Ethiopia, and introduces into the +West the discipline of the Egyptian Antony. St. Jerome is born in +Dalmatia, studies at Constantinople and Alexandria, is secretary to St. +Damasus at Rome, and settles and dies in Palestine. + +Above all the See of Rome itself is the centre of teaching as well as +of action, is visited by Fathers and heretics as a tribunal in +controversy, and by ancient custom sends her alms to the poor Christians +of all Churches, to Achaia and Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, and +Cappadocia. + + +15. + +Moreover, this universal Church was not only one; it was exclusive also. +As to the vehemence with which Christians of the Ante-nicene period +denounced the idolatries and sins of paganism, and proclaimed the +judgments which would be their consequence, this is well known, and led +to their being reputed in the heathen world as "enemies of mankind." +"Worthily doth God exert the lash of His stripes and scourges," says St. +Cyprian to a heathen magistrate; "and since they avail so little, and +convert not men to God by all this dreadfulness of havoc, there abides +beyond the prison eternal and the ceaseless flame and the everlasting +penalty. . . . Why humble yourself and bend to false gods? Why bow your +captive body before helpless images and moulded earth? Why grovel in the +prostration of death, like the serpent whom ye worship? Why rush into +the downfall of the devil, his fall the cause of yours, and he your +companion? . . . . Believe and live; you have been our persecutors in +time; in eternity, be companions of our joy."[268:1] "These rigid +sentiments," says Gibbon, "which had been unknown to the ancient world, +appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of love and +harmony."[268:2] Such, however, was the judgment passed by the first +Christians upon all who did not join their own society; and such still +more was the judgment of their successors on those who lived and died in +the sects and heresies which had issued from it. That very Father, whose +denunciation of the heathen has just been quoted, had already declared +it even in the third century. "He who leaves the Church of Christ," he +says, "attains not to Christ's rewards. He is an alien, an outcast, an +enemy. He can no longer have God for a Father, who has not the Church +for a Mother. If any man was able to escape who remained without the Ark +of Noah, then will that man escape who is out of doors beyond the +Church. . . What sacrifice do they believe they celebrate, who are +rivals of the Priests? If such men were even killed for confession of +the Christian name, not even by their blood is this stain washed out. +Inexplicable and heavy is the sin of discord, and is purged by no +suffering . . . They cannot dwell with God who have refused to be of one +mind in God's Church; a man of such sort may indeed be killed, crowned +he cannot be."[269:1] And so again St. Chrysostom, in the following +century, in harmony with St. Cyprian's sentiment: "Though we have +achieved ten thousand glorious acts, yet shall we, if we cut to pieces +the fulness of the Church, suffer punishment no less sore than they who +mangled His body."[269:2] In like manner St Augustine seems to consider +that a conversion from idolatry to a schismatical communion is no gain. +"Those whom Donatists baptize, they heal of the wound of idolatry or +infidelity, but inflict a more grievous stroke in the wound of schism; +for idolaters among God's people the sword destroyed, but schismatics +the gaping earth devoured."[269:3] Elsewhere, he speaks of the +"sacrilege of schism, which surpasses all wickednesses."[269:4] St. +Optatus, too, marvels at the Donatist Parmenian's inconsistency in +maintaining the true doctrine, that "Schismatics are cut off as branches +from the vine, are destined for punishments, and reserved, as dry wood, +for hell-fire."[269:5] "Let us hate them who are worthy of hatred," says +St. Cyril, "withdraw we from those whom God withdraws from; let us also +say unto God with all boldness concerning all heretics, 'Do not I hate +them, O Lord, that hate thee?'"[270:1] "Most firmly hold, and doubt in +no wise," says St. Fulgentius, "that every heretic and schismatic +soever, baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, unless +aggregated to the Catholic Church, how great soever have been his alms, +though for Christ's Name he has even shed his blood, can in no wise be +saved."[270:2] The Fathers ground this doctrine on St. Paul's words +that, though we have knowledge, and give our goods to the poor, and our +body to be burned, we are nothing without love.[270:3] + + +16. + +One more remark shall be made: that the Catholic teachers, far from +recognizing any ecclesiastical relation as existing between the +Sectarian Bishops and Priests and their people, address the latter +immediately, as if those Bishops did not exist, and call on them to come +over to the Church individually without respect to any one besides; and +that because it is a matter of life and death. To take the instance of +the Donatists: it was nothing to the purpose that their Churches in +Africa were nearly as numerous as those of the Catholics, or that they +had a case to produce in their controversy with the Catholic Church; the +very fact that they were separated from the _orbis terrarum_ was a +public, a manifest, a simple, a sufficient argument against them. "The +question is not about your gold and silver," says St. Augustine to +Glorius and others, "not your lands, or farms, nor even your bodily +health is in peril, but we address your souls about obtaining eternal +life and fleeing eternal death. Rouse yourself therefore. . . . . You +see it all, and know it, and groan over it; yet God sees that there is +nothing to detain you in so pestiferous and sacrilegious a separation, +if you will but overcome your carnal affection, for the obtaining the +spiritual kingdom, and rid yourselves of the fear of wounding +friendships, which will avail nothing in God's judgment for escaping +eternal punishment. Go, think over the matter, consider what can be said +in answer. . . . No one blots out from heaven the Ordinance of God, no +one blots out from earth the Church of God: He hath promised her, she +hath filled, the whole world." "Some carnal intimacies," he says to his +kinsman Severinus, "hold you where you are. . . . What avails temporal +health or relationship, if with it we neglect Christ's eternal heritage +and our perpetual health?" "I ask," he says to Celer, a person of +influence, "that you would more earnestly urge upon your men Catholic +Unity in the region of Hippo." "Why," he says, in the person of the +Church, to the whole Donatist population, "Why open your ears to the +words of men, who say what they never have been able to prove, and close +them to the word of God, saying, 'Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the +heathen for Thine inheritance'?" At another time he says to them, "Some +of the presbyters of your party have sent to us to say, 'Retire from our +flocks, unless you would have us kill you.' How much more justly do we +say to them, 'Nay, do you, not retire from, but come in peace, not to +our flocks, but to the flocks of Him whose we are all; or if you will +not, and are far from peace, then do you rather retire from flocks, for +which Christ shed His Blood.'" "I call on you for Christ's sake," he +says to a late pro-consul, "to write me an answer, and to urge gently +and kindly all your people in the district of Sinis or Hippo into the +communion of the Catholic Church." He publishes an address to the +Donatists at another time to inform them of the defeat of their Bishops +in a conference: "Whoso," he says, "is separated from the Catholic +Church, however laudably he thinks he is living, by this crime alone, +that he is separated from Christ's Unity, he shall not have life, but +the wrath of God abideth on him." "Let them believe of the Catholic +Church," he writes to some converts about their friends who were still +in schism, "that is, to the Church diffused over the whole world, rather +what the Scriptures say of it than what human tongues utter in calumny." +The idea of acting upon the Donatists only as a body and through their +bishops, does not appear to have occurred to St. Augustine at +all.[272:1] + + +17. + +On the whole, then, we have reason to say, that if there be a form of +Christianity at this day distinguished for its careful organization, and +its consequent power; if it is spread over the world; if it is +conspicuous for zealous maintenance of its own creed; if it is +intolerant towards what it considers error; if it is engaged in +ceaseless war with all other bodies called Christian; if it, and it +alone, is called "Catholic" by the world, nay, by those very bodies, and +if it makes much of the title; if it names them heretics, and warns them +of coming woe, and calls on them one by one, to come over to itself, +overlooking every other tie; and if they, on the other hand, call it +seducer, harlot, apostate, Antichrist, devil; if, however much they +differ one with another, they consider it their common enemy; if they +strive to unite together against it, and cannot; if they are but local; +if they continually subdivide, and it remains one; if they fall one +after another, and make way for new sects, and it remains the same; such +a religious communion is not unlike historical Christianity, as it comes +before us at the Nicene Era. + + +SECTION III. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. + +The patronage extended by the first Christian Emperors to Arianism, its +adoption by the barbarians who succeeded to their power, the subsequent +expulsion of all heresy beyond the limits of the Empire, and then again +the Monophysite tendencies of Egypt and part of Syria, changed in some +measure the aspect of the Church, and claim our further attention. It +was still a body in possession, or approximating to the possession, of +the _orbis terrarum_; but it was not simply intermixed with sectaries, +as we have been surveying it in the earlier periods, rather it lay +between or over against large schisms. That same vast Association, +which, and which only, had existed from the first, which had been +identified by all parties with Christianity, which had been ever called +Catholic by people and by laws, took a different shape; collected itself +in far greater strength on some points of her extended territory than on +others; possessed whole kingdoms with scarcely a rival; lost others +partially or wholly, temporarily or for good; was stemmed in its course +here or there by external obstacles; and was defied by heresy, in a +substantive shape and in mass, from foreign lands, and with the support +of the temporal power. Thus not to mention the Arianism of the Eastern +Empire in the fourth century, the whole of the West was possessed by the +same heresy in the fifth; and nearly the whole of Asia, east of the +Euphrates, as far as it was Christian, by the Nestorians, in the +centuries which followed; while the Monophysites had almost the +possession of Egypt, and at times of the whole Eastern Church. I think +it no assumption to call Arianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism +heresies, or to identify the contemporary Catholic Church with +Christianity. Now, then, let us consider the mutual relation of +Christianity and heresy under these circumstances. + + + 1. _The Arians of the Gothic Race._ + +No heresy has started with greater violence or more sudden success than +the Arian; and it presents a still more remarkable exhibition of these +characteristics among the barbarians than in the civilized world. Even +among the Greeks it had shown a missionary spirit. Theophilus in the +reign of Constantius had introduced the dominant heresy, not without +some promising results, to the Sabeans of the Arabian peninsula; but +under Valens, Ulphilas became the apostle of a whole race. He taught the +Arian doctrine, which he had unhappily learned in the Imperial Court, +first to the pastoral Moesogoths; who, unlike the other branches of +their family, had multiplied under the Moesian mountains with neither +military nor religious triumphs. The Visigoths were next corrupted; by +whom does not appear. It is one of the singular traits in the history of +this vast family of heathens that they so instinctively caught, and so +impetuously communicated, and so fiercely maintained, a heresy, which +had excited in the Empire, except at Constantinople, little interest in +the body of the people. The Visigoths are said to have been converted by +the influence of Valens; but Valens reigned for only fourteen years, and +the barbarian population which had been admitted to the Empire amounted +to nearly a million of persons. It is as difficult to trace how the +heresy was conveyed from them to the other barbarian tribes. Gibbon +seems to suppose that the Visigoths acted the part of missionaries in +their career of predatory warfare from Thrace to the Pyrenees. But such +is the fact, however it was brought about, that the success in arms and +the conversion to Arianism, of Ostrogoths, Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and +Burgundians stand as concurrent events in the history of the times; and +by the end of the fifth century the heresy had been established by the +Visigoths in France and Spain, in Portugal by the Suevi, in Africa by +the Vandals, and by the Ostrogoths in Italy. For a while the title of +Catholic as applied to the Church seemed a misnomer; for not only was +she buried beneath these populations of heresy, but that heresy was one, +and maintained the same distinctive tenet, whether at Carthage, Seville, +Toulouse, or Ravenna. + + +2. + +It cannot be supposed that these northern warriors had attained to any +high degree of mental cultivation; but they understood their own +religion enough to hate the Catholics, and their bishops were learned +enough to hold disputations for its propagation. They professed to stand +upon the faith of Ariminum, administering Baptism under an altered form +of words, and re-baptizing Catholics whom they gained over to their +sect. It must be added that, whatever was their cruelty or tyranny, both +Goths and Vandals were a moral people, and put to shame the Catholics +whom they dispossessed. "What can the prerogative of a religious name +profit us," says Salvian, "that we call ourselves Catholic, boast of +being the faithful, taunt Goths and Vandals with the reproach of an +heretical appellation, while we live in heretical wickedness?"[276:1] +The barbarians were chaste, temperate, just, and devout; the Visigoth +Theodoric repaired every morning with his domestic officers to his +chapel, where service was performed by the Arian priests; and one +singular instance is on record of the defeat of a Visigoth force by the +Imperial troops on a Sunday, when instead of preparing for battle they +were engaged in the religious services of the day.[276:2] Many of their +princes were men of great ability, as the two Theodorics, Euric and +Leovigild. + + +3. + +Successful warriors, animated by a fanatical spirit of religion, were +not likely to be content with a mere profession of their own creed; they +proceeded to place their own priests in the religious establishments +which they found, and to direct a bitter persecution against the +vanquished Catholics. The savage cruelties of the Vandal Hunneric in +Africa have often been enlarged upon; Spain was the scene of repeated +persecutions; Sicily, too, had its Martyrs. Compared with these +enormities, it was but a little thing to rob the Catholics of their +churches, and the shrines of their treasures. Lands, immunities, and +jurisdictions, which had been given by the Emperors to the African +Church, were made over to the clergy of its conquerors; and by the time +of Belisarius, the Catholic Bishops had been reduced to less than a +third of their original number. In Spain, as in Africa, bishops were +driven from their sees, churches were destroyed, cemeteries profaned, +martyries rifled. When it was possible, the Catholics concealed the +relics in caves, keeping up a perpetual memory of these provisional +hiding-places.[277:1] Repeated spoliations were exercised upon the +property of the Church. Leovigild applied[277:2] its treasures partly to +increasing the splendour of his throne, partly to national works. At +other times, the Arian clergy themselves must have been the recipients +of the plunder: for when Childebert the Frank had been brought into +Spain by the cruelties exercised against the Catholic Queen of the +Goths, who was his sister, he carried away with him from the Arian +churches, as St. Gregory of Tours informs us, sixty chalices, fifteen +patens, twenty cases in which the gospels were kept, all of pure gold +and ornamented with jewels.[277:3] + + +4. + +In France, and especially in Italy, the rule of the heretical power was +much less oppressive; Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, reigned from the Alps to +Sicily, and till the close of a long reign he gave an ample toleration +to his Catholic subjects. He respected their property, suffered their +churches and sacred places to remain in their hands, and had about his +court some of their eminent Bishops, since known as Saints, St. Csarius +of Arles, and St. Epiphanius of Pavia. Still he brought into the country +a new population, devoted to Arianism, or, as we now speak, a new +Church. "His march," says Gibbon,[277:4] "must be considered as the +emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the Goths, +their aged parents, and most precious effects, were carefully +transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy luggage that now +followed the camp by the loss of two thousand waggons, which had been +sustained in a single action in the war of Epirus." To his soldiers he +assigned a third of the soil of Italy, and the barbarian families +settled down with their slaves and cattle. The original number of the +Vandal conquerors of Africa had only been fifty thousand men, but the +military colonists of Italy soon amounted to the number of two hundred +thousand; which, according to the calculation adopted by the same author +elsewhere, involves a population of a million. The least that could be +expected was, that an Arian ascendency established through the extent of +Italy would provide for the sufficient celebration of the Arian worship, +and we hear of the Arians having a Church even in Rome.[278:1] The rule +of the Lombards in the north of Italy succeeded to that of the +Goths,--Arians, like their predecessors, without their toleration. The +clergy whom they brought with them seem to have claimed their share in +the possession of the Catholic churches;[278:2] and though the Court was +converted at the end of thirty years, many cities in Italy were for some +time afterwards troubled by the presence of heretical bishops.[278:3] +The rule of Arianism in France lasted for eighty years; in Spain for a +hundred and eighty; in Africa for a hundred; for about a hundred in +Italy. These periods were not contemporaneous; but extend altogether +from the beginning of the fifth to the end of the sixth century. + + +5. + +It will be anticipated that the duration of this ascendency of error +had not the faintest tendency to deprive the ancient Church of the West +of the title of Catholic; and it is needless to produce evidence of a +fact which is on the very face of the history. The Arians seem never to +have claimed the Catholic name. It is more remarkable that the Catholics +during this period were denoted by the additional title of "Romans." Of +this there are many proofs in the histories of St. Gregory of Tours, +Victor of Vite, and the Spanish Councils. Thus, St. Gregory speaks of +Theodegisilus, a king of Portugal, expressing his incredulity at a +miracle, by saying, "It is the temper of the Romans, (for," interposes +the author, "they call men of our religion Romans,) and not the power of +God."[279:1] "Heresy is everywhere an enemy to Catholics," says the same +St. Gregory in a subsequent place, and he proceeds to illustrate it by +the story of a "Catholic woman," who had a heretic husband, to whom, he +says, came "a presbyter of our religion very Catholic;" and whom the +husband matched at table with his own Arian presbyter, "that there might +be the priests of each religion" in their house at once. When they were +eating, the husband said to the Arian, "Let us have some sport with this +presbyter of the Romans."[279:2] The Arian Count Gomachar, seized on the +lands of the Church of Agde in France, and was attacked with a fever; on +his recovery, at the prayers of the Bishop, he repented of having asked +for them, observing, "What will these Romans say now? that my fever came +of taking their land."[279:3] When the Vandal Theodoric would have +killed the Catholic Armogastes, after failing to torture him into +heresy, his presbyter dissuaded him, "lest the Romans should begin to +call him a Martyr."[279:4] + + +6. + +This appellation had two meanings; one, which will readily suggest +itself, is its use in contrast to the word "barbarian," as denoting the +faith of the Empire, as "Greek" occurs in St. Paul's Epistles. In this +sense it would more naturally be used by the Romans themselves than by +others. Thus Salvian says, that "nearly all the Romans are greater +sinners than the barbarians;"[280:1] and he speaks of "Roman heretics, +of which there is an innumerable multitude,"[280:2] meaning heretics +within the Empire. And so St. Gregory the Great complains, that he "had +become Bishop of the Lombards rather than of the Romans."[280:3] And +Evagrius, speaking even of the East, contrasts "Romans and +barbarians"[280:4] in his account of St. Simeon; and at a later date, +and even to this day, Thrace and portions of Dacia and of Asia Minor +derive their name from Rome. In like manner, we find Syrian writers +sometimes speaking of the religion of the Romans, sometimes of the +Greeks,[280:5] as synonymes. + + +7. + +But the word certainly contains also an allusion to the faith and +communion of the Roman See. In this sense the Emperor Theodosius, in his +letter to Acacius of Beroea, contrasts it with Nestorianism, which was +within the Empire as well as Catholicism; during the controversy raised +by that heresy, he exhorts him and others to show themselves "approved +priests of the Roman religion."[280:6] Again when the Ligurian nobles +were persuading the Arian Ricimer to come to terms with Anthemius, the +orthodox representative of the Greek Emperor,[280:7] they propose to him +to send St. Epiphanius as ambassador, a man "whose life is venerable to +every Catholic and Roman, and at least amiable in the eyes of a Greek +(_Grculus_) if he deserves the sight of him."[281:1] It must be +recollected, too, that the Spanish and African Churches actually were in +the closest union with the See of Rome at that time, and that that +intercommunion was the visible ecclesiastical distinction between them +and their Arian rivals. The chief ground of the Vandal Hunneric's +persecution of the African Catholics seems to have been their connexion +with their brethren beyond the sea,[281:2] which he looked at with +jealousy, as introducing a foreign power into his territory. Prior to +this he had published an edict calling on the "Homosian" Bishops (for +on this occasion he did not call them Catholic), to meet his own bishops +at Carthage and treat concerning the faith, that "their meetings to the +seduction of Christian souls might not be held in the provinces of the +Vandals."[281:3] Upon this invitation, Eugenius of Carthage replied, +that all the transmarine Bishops of the orthodox communion ought to be +summoned, "in particular because it is a matter for the whole world, not +special to the African provinces," that "they could not undertake a +point of faith _sine universitatis assensu_." Hunneric answered that if +Eugenius would make him sovereign of the _orbis terrarum_, he would +comply with his request. This led Eugenius to say that the orthodox +faith was "the only true faith;" that the king ought to write to his +allies abroad, if he wished to know it, and that he himself would write +to his brethren for foreign bishops, "who," he says, "may assist us in +setting before you the true faith, common to them and to us, and +especially the Roman Church, which is the head of all Churches." +Moreover, the African Bishops in their banishment in Sardinia, to the +number of sixty, with St. Fulgentius at their head, quote with +approbation the words of Pope Hormisdas, to the effect that they hold, +"on the point of free will and divine grace, what the Roman, that is, +the Catholic, Church follows and preserves."[282:1] Again, the Spanish +Church was under the superintendence of the Pope's Vicar[282:2] during +the persecutions, whose duty it was to hinder all encroachments upon +"the Apostolical decrees, or the limits of the Holy Fathers," through +the whole of the country. + + +8. + +Nor was the association of Catholicism with the See of Rome an +introduction of that age. The Emperor Gratian, in the fourth century, +had ordered that the Churches which the Arians had usurped should be +restored (not to those who held "the Catholic faith," or "the Nicene +Creed," or were "in communion with the _orbis terrarum_,") but "who +chose the communion of Damasus,"[282:3] the then Pope. It was St. +Jerome's rule, also, in some well-known passages:--Writing against +Ruffinus, who had spoken of "our faith," he says, "What does he mean by +'his faith'? that which is the strength of the Roman Church? or that +which is contained in the volumes of Origen? If he answer, 'The Roman,' +then we are Catholics who have borrowed nothing of Origen's error; but +if Origen's blasphemy be his faith, then, while he is charging me with +inconsistency, he proves himself to be an heretic."[282:4] The other +passage, already quoted, is still more exactly to the point, because it +was written on occasion of a schism. The divisions at Antioch had thrown +the Catholic Church into a remarkable position; there were two Bishops +in the See, one in connexion with the East, the other with Egypt and the +West,--with which then was "Catholic Communion"? St. Jerome has no doubt +on the subject:--Writing to St. Damasus, he says, "Since the East tears +into pieces the Lord's coat, . . . therefore by me is the chair of Peter +to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the Apostle's +mouth. . . . Though your greatness terrifies me, yet your kindness +invites me. From the Priest I ask the salvation of the victim, from the +Shepherd the protection of the sheep. Let us speak without offence; I +court not the Roman height: I speak with the successor of the Fisherman +and the disciple of the Cross. I, who follow none as my chief but +Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with +the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built, I know. Whoso shall +eat the Lamb outside that House is profane . . . . I know not Vitalis" +(the Apollinarian), "Meletius I reject, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoso +gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, he who is not of Christ is +of Antichrist."[283:1] Again, "The ancient authority of the monks, +dwelling round about, rises against me; I meanwhile cry out, If any be +joined to Peter's chair he is mine."[283:2] + + +9. + +Here was what may be considered a _dignus vindice nodus_, the Church +being divided, and an arbiter wanted. Such a case had also occurred in +Africa in the controversy with the Donatists. Four hundred bishops, +though but in one region, were a fifth part of the whole Episcopate of +Christendom, and might seem too many for a schism, and in themselves too +large a body to be cut off from God's inheritance by a mere majority, +even had it been overwhelming. St. Augustine, then, who so often appeals +to the _orbis terrarum_, sometimes adopts a more prompt criterion. He +tells certain Donatists to whom he writes, that the Catholic Bishop of +Carthage "was able to make light of the thronging multitude of his +enemies, when he found himself by letters of credence joined both to the +Roman Church, in which ever had flourished the principality of the +Apostolical See, and to the other lands whence the gospel came to Africa +itself."[284:1] + +There are good reasons then for explaining the Gothic and Arian use of +the word "Roman," when applied to the Catholic Church and faith, of +something beyond its mere connexion with the Empire, which the +barbarians were assaulting; nor would "Roman" surely be the most obvious +word to denote the orthodox faith, in the mouths of a people who had +learned their heresy from a Roman Emperor and Court, and who professed +to direct their belief by the great Latin Council of Ariminum. + + +10. + +As then the fourth century presented to us in its external aspect the +Catholic Church lying in the midst of a multitude of sects, all enemies +to it, so in the fifth and sixth we see the same Church lying in the +West under the oppression of a huge, farspreading, and schismatical +communion. Heresy is no longer a domestic enemy intermingled with the +Church, but it occupies its own ground and is extended over against her, +even though on the same territory, and is more or less organized, and +cannot be so promptly refuted by the simple test of Catholicity. + + + 2. _The Nestorians._ + +The Churches of Syria and Asia Minor were the most intellectual portion +of early Christendom. Alexandria was but one metropolis in a large +region, and contained the philosophy of the whole Patriarchate; but +Syria abounded in wealthy and luxurious cities, the creation of the +Seleucid, where the arts and the schools of Greece had full +opportunities of cultivation. For a time too, for the first two hundred +years, as some think, Alexandria was the only See as well as the only +school of Egypt; while Syria was divided into smaller dioceses, each of +which had at first an authority of its own, and which, even after the +growth of the Patriarchal power, received their respective bishops, not +from the See of Antioch, but from their own metropolitan. In Syria too +the schools were private, a circumstance which would tend both to +diversity in religious opinion, and incaution in the expression of it; +but the sole catechetical school of Egypt was the organ of the Church, +and its Bishop could banish Origen for speculations which developed and +ripened with impunity in Syria. + + +2. + +But the immediate source of that fertility in heresy, which is the +unhappiness of the ancient Syrian Church, was its celebrated Exegetical +School. The history of that School is summed up in the broad +characteristic fact, on the one hand that it devoted itself to the +literal and critical interpretation of Scripture, and on the other that +it gave rise first to the Arian and then to the Nestorian heresy. If +additional evidence be wanted of the connexion of heterodoxy and +biblical criticism in that age, it is found in the fact that, not long +after this coincidence in Syria, they are found combined in the person +of Theodore of Heraclea, so called from the place both of his birth and +his bishoprick, an able commentator and an active enemy of St. +Athanasius, though a Thracian unconnected except by sympathy with the +Patriarchate of Antioch. + +The Antiochene School appears to have risen in the middle of the third +century; but there is no evidence to determine whether it was a local +institution, or, as is more probable, a discipline or method +characteristic generally of Syrian teaching. Dorotheus is one of its +earliest luminaries; he is known as a Hebrew scholar, as well as a +commentator on the sacred text, and he was the master of Eusebius of +Csarea. Lucian, the friend of the notorious Paul of Samosata, and for +three successive Episcopates after him separated from the Church though +afterwards a martyr in it, was the author of a new edition of the +Septuagint, and master of the chief original teachers of Arianism. +Eusebius of Csarea, Asterius called the Sophist, and Eusebius of Emesa, +Arians of the Nicene period, and Diodorus, a zealous opponent of +Arianism, but the master of Theodore of Mopsuestia, have all a place in +the Exegetical School. St. Chrysostom and Theodoret, both Syrians, and +the former the pupil of Diodorus, adopted the literal interpretation, +though preserved from its abuse. But the principal doctor of the School +was that Theodore, the master of Nestorius, who has just above been +mentioned, and who, with his writings, and with the writings of +Theodoret against St. Cyril, and the letter written by Ibas of Edessa to +Maris, was condemned by the fifth Ecumenical Council. Ibas was the +translator into Syriac, and Maris into Persian, of the books of Theodore +and Diodorus;[286:1] and thus they became immediate instruments in the +formation of the great Nestorian school and Church in farther Asia. + +As many as ten thousand tracts of Theodore are said in this way to have +been introduced to the knowledge of the Christians of Mesopotamia, +Adiabene, Babylonia, and the neighbouring countries. He was called by +those Churches absolutely "the Interpreter," and it eventually became +the very profession of the Nestorian communion to follow him as such. +"The doctrine of all our Eastern Churches," says their Council under the +Patriarch Marabas, "is founded on the Creed of Nica; but in the +exposition of the Scriptures we follow St. Theodore." "We must by all +means remain firm to the commentaries of the great Commentator," says +the Council under Sabarjesus; "whoso shall in any manner oppose them, or +think otherwise, be he anathema."[287:1] No one since the beginning of +Christianity, except Origen and St. Augustine, has had so great literary +influence on his brethren as Theodore.[287:2] + + +3. + +The original Syrian School had possessed very marked characteristics, +which it did not lose when it passed into a new country and into strange +tongues. Its comments on Scripture seem to have been clear, natural, +methodical, apposite, and logically exact. "In all Western Arama," says +Lengerke, that is, in Syria, "there was but one mode of treating whether +exegetics or doctrine, the practical."[287:3] Thus Eusebius of Csarea, +whether as a disputant or a commentator, is commonly a writer of sense +and judgment; and he is to be referred to the Syrian school, though he +does not enter so far into its temper as to exclude the mystical +interpretation or to deny the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Again, we +see in St. Chrysostom a direct, straightforward treatment of the sacred +text, and a pointed application of it to things and persons; and +Theodoret abounds in modes of thinking and reasoning which without any +great impropriety may be called English. Again, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, +though he does not abstain from allegory, shows the character of his +school by the great stress he lays upon the study of Scripture, and, I +may add, by the peculiar characteristics of his style, which will be +appreciated by a modern reader. + + +4. + +It would have been well, had the genius of the Syrian theology been +ever in the safe keeping of men such as St. Cyril, St. Chrysostom, and +Theodoret; but in Theodore of Mopsuestia, nay in Diodorus before him, it +developed into those errors, of which Paul of Samosata had been the omen +on its rise. As its attention was chiefly directed to the examination of +the Scriptures, in its interpretation of the Scriptures was its +heretical temper discovered; and though allegory can be made an +instrument for evading Scripture doctrine, criticism may more readily be +turned to the destruction of doctrine and Scripture together. Theodore +was bent on ascertaining the literal sense, an object with which no +fault could be found: but, leading him of course to the Hebrew text +instead of the Septuagint, it also led him to Jewish commentators. +Jewish commentators naturally suggested events and objects short of +evangelical as the fulfilment of the prophetical announcements, and, +when it was possible, an ethical sense instead of a prophetical. The +eighth chapter of Proverbs ceased to bear a Christian meaning, because, +as Theodore maintained, the writer of the book had received the gift, +not of prophecy, but of wisdom. The Canticles must be interpreted +literally; and then it was but an easy, or rather a necessary step, to +exclude the book from the Canon. The book of Job too professed to be +historical; yet what was it really but a Gentile drama? He also gave up +the books of Chronicles and Ezra, and, strange to say, the Epistle of +St. James, though it was contained in the Peschito Version of his +Church. He denied that Psalms 22 and 69 [21 and 68] applied to our Lord; +rather he limited the Messianic passages of the whole book to four; of +which the eighth Psalm was one, and the forty-fifth [44] another. The +rest he explained of Hezekiah and Zerubbabel, without denying that they +might be accommodated to an evangelical sense.[288:1] He explained St. +Thomas's words, "My Lord and my God," as an exclamation of joy, and our +Lord's "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," as an anticipation of the day of +Pentecost. As may be expected he denied the verbal inspiration of +Scripture. Also, he held that the deluge did not cover the earth; and, +as others before him, he was heterodox on the doctrine of original sin, +and denied the eternity of punishment. + + +5. + +Maintaining that the real sense of Scripture was, not the scope of a +Divine Intelligence, but the intention of the mere human organ of +inspiration, Theodore was led to hold, not only that that sense was one +in each text, but that it was continuous and single in a context; that +what was the subject of the composition in one verse must be the subject +in the next, and that if a Psalm was historical or prophetical in its +commencement, it was the one or the other to its termination. Even that +fulness, of meaning, refinement of thought, subtle versatility of +feeling, and delicate reserve or reverent suggestiveness, which poets +exemplify, seems to have been excluded from his idea of a sacred +composition. Accordingly, if a Psalm contained passages which could not +be applied to our Lord, it followed that that Psalm did not properly +apply to Him at all, except by accommodation. Such at least is the +doctrine of Cosmas, a writer of Theodore's school, who on this ground +passes over the twenty-second, sixty-ninth, and other Psalms, and limits +the Messianic to the second, the eighth, the forty-fifth, and the +hundred and tenth. "David," he says, "did not make common to the +servants what belongs to the Lord[289:1] Christ, but what was proper to +the Lord he spoke of the Lord, and what was proper to the servants, of +servants."[289:2] Accordingly the twenty-second could not properly +belong to Christ, because in the beginning it spoke of the "_verba +delictorum meorum_." A remarkable consequence would follow from this +doctrine, that as Christ was to be separated from His Saints, so the +Saints were to be separated from Christ; and an opening was made for a +denial of the doctrine of their _cultus_, though this denial in the +event has not been developed among the Nestorians. But a more serious +consequence is latently contained in it, and nothing else than the +Nestorian heresy, viz. that our Lord's manhood is not so intimately +included in His Divine Personality that His brethren according to the +flesh may be associated with the Image of the One Christ. Here St. +Chrysostom pointedly contradicts the doctrine of Theodore, though his +fellow-pupil and friend;[290:1] as does St. Ephrem, though a Syrian +also;[290:2] and St. Basil.[290:3] + + +6. + +One other peculiarity of the Syrian school, viewed as independent of +Nestorius, should be added:--As it tended to the separation of the +Divine Person of Christ from His manhood, so did it tend to explain away +His Divine Presence in the Sacramental elements. Ernesti seems to +consider the school, in modern language, Sacramentarian: and certainly +some of the most cogent testimonies brought by moderns against the +Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist are taken from writers who are +connected with that school; as the author, said to be St. Chrysostom, of +the Epistle to Csarius, Theodoret in his Eranistes, and Facundus. Some +countenance too is given to the same view of the Eucharist, at least in +some parts of his works, by Origen, whose language concerning the +Incarnation also leans to what was afterwards Nestorianism. To these may +be added Eusebius,[291:1] who, far removed, as he was, from that +heresy, was a disciple of the Syrian school. The language of the later +Nestorian writers seems to have been of the same character.[291:2] Such +then on the whole is the character of that theology of Theodore which +passed from Cilicia and Antioch to Edessa first, and then to Nisibis. + + +7. + +Edessa, the metropolis of Mesopotamia, had remained an Oriental city +till the third century, when it was made a Roman colony by +Caracalla.[291:3] Its position on the confines of two empires gave it +great ecclesiastical importance, as the channel by which the theology of +Rome and Greece was conveyed to a family of Christians, dwelling in +contempt and persecution amid a still heathen world. It was the seat of +various schools; apparently of a Greek school, where the classics were +studied as well as theology, where Eusebius of Emesa[291:4] had +originally been trained, and where perhaps Protogenes taught.[291:5] +There were also Syrian schools attended by heathen and Christian youths +in common. The cultivation of the native language had been an especial +object of its masters since the time of Vespasian, so that the pure and +refined dialect went by the name of the Edessene.[291:6] At Edessa too +St. Ephrem formed his own Syrian school, which lasted long after him; +and there too was the celebrated Persian Christian school, over which +Maris presided, who has been already mentioned as the translator of +Theodore into Persian.[291:7] Even in the time of the predecessor of +Ibas in the See (before A.D. 435) the Nestorianism of this Persian +School was so notorious that Rabbula the Bishop had expelled its +masters and scholars;[292:1] and they, taking refuge in a country which +might be called their own, had introduced the heresy to the Churches +subject to the Persian King. + + +8. + +Something ought to be said of these Churches; though little is known +except what is revealed by the fact, in itself of no slight value, that +they had sustained two persecutions at the hands of the heathen +government in the fourth and fifth centuries. One testimony is extant as +early as the end of the second century, to the effect that in Parthia, +Media, Persia, and Bactria there were Christians who "were not overcome +by evil laws and customs."[292:2] In the early part of the fourth +century, a bishop of Persia attended the Nicene Council, and about the +same time Christianity is said to have pervaded nearly the whole of +Assyria.[292:3] Monachism had been introduced there before the middle of +the fourth century, and shortly after commenced that fearful persecution +in which sixteen thousand Christians are said to have suffered. It +lasted thirty years, and is said to have recommenced at the end of the +Century. The second persecution lasted for at least another thirty years +of the next, at the very time when the Nestorian troubles were in +progress in the Empire. Trials such as these show the populousness as +well as the faith of the Churches in those parts,--and the number of the +Sees, for the names of twenty-seven Bishops are preserved who suffered +in the former persecution. One of them was apprehended together with +sixteen priests, nine deacons, besides monks and nuns of his diocese; +another with twenty-eight companions, ecclesiastics or regulars; another +with one hundred ecclesiastics of different orders; another with one +hundred and twenty-eight; another with his chorepiscopus and two hundred +and fifty of his clergy. Such was the Church, consecrated by the blood +of so many martyrs, which immediately after its glorious confession fell +a prey to the theology of Theodore; and which through a succession of +ages manifested the energy, when it had lost the pure orthodoxy of +Saints. + + +9. + +The members of the Persian school, who had been driven out of Edessa by +Rabbula, found a wide field open for their exertions under the pagan +government with which they had taken refuge. The Persian monarchs, who +had often prohibited by edict[293:1] the intercommunion of the Church +under their sway with the countries towards the west, readily extended +their protection to exiles, whose very profession was the means of +destroying its Catholicity. Barsumas, the most energetic of them, was +placed in the metropolitan See of Nisibis, where also the fugitive +school was settled under the presidency of another of their party; while +Maris was promoted to the See of Ardaschir. The primacy of the Church +had from an early period belonged to the See of Seleucia in Babylonia. +Catholicus was the title appropriated to its occupant, as well as to the +Persian Primate, as being deputies of the Patriarch of Antioch, and was +derived apparently from the Imperial dignity so called, denoting their +function as Procurators-general, or officers in chief for the regions in +which they were placed. Acacius, another of the Edessene party, was put +into this principal See, and suffered, if he did not further, the +innovations of Barsumas. The mode by which the latter effected those +measures has been left on record by an enemy. "Barsumas accused Babuus, +the Catholicus, before King Pherozes, whispering, 'These men hold the +faith of the Romans, and are their spies. Give me power against them to +arrest them.'"[294:1] It is said that in this way he obtained the death +of Babuus, whom Acacius succeeded. When a minority resisted[294:2] the +process of schism, a persecution followed. The death of seven thousand +seven hundred Catholics is said by Monophysite authorities to have been +the price of the severance of the Chaldaic Churches from +Christendom.[294:3] Their loss was compensated in the eyes of the +Government by the multitude of Nestorian fugitives, who flocked into +Persia from the Empire, numbers of them industrious artisans, who sought +a country where their own religion was in the ascendant. + + +10. + +That religion was founded, as we have already seen, in the literal +interpretation of Holy Scripture, of which Theodore was the principal +teacher. The doctrine, in which it formally consisted, is known by the +name of Nestorianism: it lay in the ascription of a human as well as a +Divine Personality to our Lord; and it showed itself in denying the +title of "Mother of God," or +theotokos+, to the Blessed Mary. As to our +Lord's Personality, the question of language came into the controversy, +which always serves to perplex a subject and make a dispute seem a +matter of words. The native Syrians made a distinction between the word +"Person," and "Prosopon," which stands for it in Greek; they allowed +that there was one Prosopon or Parsopa, as they called it, and they +heldthat there were two Persons. If it is asked what they meant by +_parsopa_, the answer seems to be, that they took the word merely in +the sense of _character_ or _aspect_, a sense familiar to the Greek +_prosopon_, and quite irrelevant as a guarantee of their orthodoxy. It +follows moreover that, since the _aspect_ of a thing is its impression +upon the beholder, the personality to which they ascribed unity must +have laid in our Lord's manhood, and not in His Divine Nature. But it is +hardly worth while pursuing the heresy to its limits. Next, as to +the phrase "Mother of God," they rejected it as unscriptural; they +maintained that St. Mary was Mother of the humanity of Christ, not of +the Word, and they fortified themselves by the Nicene Creed, in which no +such title is ascribed to her. + + +11. + +Whatever might be the obscurity or the plausibility of their original +dogma, there is nothing obscure or attractive in the developments, +whether of doctrine or of practice, in which it issued. The first act of +the exiles of Edessa, on their obtaining power in the Chaldean +communion, was to abolish the celibacy of the clergy, or, in Gibbon's +forcible words, to allow "the public and reiterated nuptials of the +priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself." Barsumas, the +great instrument of the change of religion, was the first to set an +example of the new usage, and is even said by a Nestorian writer to have +married a nun.[295:1] He passed a Canon at Councils, held at Seleucia +and elsewhere, that bishops and priests might marry, and might renew +their wives as often as they lost them. The Catholicus who followed +Acacius went so far as to extend the benefit of the Canon to Monks, that +is, to destroy the Monastic order; and his two successors availed +themselves of this liberty, and are recorded to have been fathers. A +restriction, however, was afterwards placed upon the Catholicus, and +upon the Episcopal order. + + +12. + +Such were the circumstances, and such the principles, under which the +See of Seleucia became the Rome of the East. In the course of time the +Catholicus took on himself the loftier and independent title of +Patriarch of Babylon; and though Seleucia was changed for Ctesiphon and +for Bagdad,[296:1] still the name of Babylon was preserved from first to +last as a formal or ideal Metropolis. In the time of the Caliphs, it was +at the head of as many as twenty-five Archbishops; its Communion +extended from China to Jerusalem; and its numbers, with those of the +Monophysites, are said to have surpassed those of the Greek and Latin +Churches together. The Nestorians seem to have been unwilling, like the +Novatians, to be called by the name of their founder,[296:2] though they +confessed it had adhered to them; one instance may be specified of their +assuming the name of Catholic,[296:3] but there is nothing to show it +was given them by others. + +"From the conquest of Persia," says Gibbon, "they carried their +spiritual arms to the North, the East, and the South; and the simplicity +of the Gospel was fashioned and painted with the colours of the Syriac +theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a Nestorian +traveller, Christianity was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the +Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and the +Elamites: the Barbaric Churches from the gulf of Persia to the Caspian +Sea were almost infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the +number and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of +Malabar and the isles of the ocean, Socotra and Ceylon, were peopled +with an increasing multitude of Christians, and the bishops and clergy +of those sequestered regions derived their ordination from the +Catholicus of Babylon. In a subsequent age, the zeal of the Nestorians +overleaped the limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both +of the Greeks and Persians. The missionaries of Balch and Samarcand +pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated +themselves into the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the +Selinga."[297:1] + + + 3. _The Monophysites._ + +Eutyches was Archimandrite, or Abbot, of a Monastery in the suburbs of +Constantinople; he was a man of unexceptionable character, and was of +the age of seventy years, and had been Abbot for thirty, at the date of +his unhappy introduction into ecclesiastical history. He had been the +friend and assistant of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and had lately taken +part against Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, whose name has occurred in the +above account of the Nestorians. For some time he had been engaged in +teaching a doctrine concerning the Incarnation, which he maintained +indeed to be none other than that of St. Cyril's in his controversy with +Nestorius, but which others denounced as a heresy in the opposite +extreme, and substantially a reassertion of Apollinarianism. The subject +was brought before a Council of Constantinople, under the presidency of +Flavian, the Patriarch, in the year 448; and Eutyches was condemned by +the assembled Bishops of holding the doctrine of One, instead of Two +Natures in Christ. + + +2. + +It is scarcely necessary for our present purpose to ascertain accurately +what he held, and there has been a great deal of controversy on the +subject; partly from confusion between him and his successors, partly +from the indecision or the ambiguity which commonly attaches to the +professions of heretics. If a statement must here be made of the +doctrine of Eutyches himself, in whom the controversy began, let it be +said to consist in these two tenets:--in maintaining first, that "before +the Incarnation there were two natures, after their union one," or that +our Lord was of or from two natures, but not in two;--and, secondly, +that His flesh was not of one substance with ours, that is, not of the +substance of the Blessed Virgin. Of these two points, he seemed willing +to abandon the second, but was firm in his maintenance of the first. But +let us return to the Council of Constantinople. + +In his examination Eutyches allowed that the Holy Virgin was +consubstantial with us, and that "our God was incarnate of her;" but he +would not allow that He was therefore, as man, consubstantial with us, +his notion apparently being that union with the Divinity had changed +what otherwise would have been human nature. However, when pressed, he +said, that, though up to that day he had not permitted himself to +discuss the nature of Christ, or to affirm that "God's body is man's +body though it was human," yet he would allow, if commanded, our Lord's +consubstantiality with us. Upon this Flavian observed that "the Council +was introducing no innovation, but declaring the faith of the Fathers." +To his other position, however, that our Lord had but one nature after +the Incarnation, he adhered: when the Catholic doctrine was put before +him, he answered, "Let St. Athanasius be read; you will find nothing of +the kind in him." + +His condemnation followed: it was signed by twenty-two Bishops and +twenty-three Abbots;[298:1] among the former were Flavian of +Constantinople, Basil metropolitan of Seleucia in Isauria, the +metropolitans of Amasea in Pontus, and Marcianopolis in Moesia, and +the Bishop of Cos, the Pope's minister at Constantinople. + + +3. + +Eutyches appealed to the Pope of the day, St. Leo, who at first hearing +took his part. He wrote to Flavian that, "judging by the statement of +Eutyches, he did not see with what justice he had been separated from +the communion of the Church." "Send therefore," he continued, "some +suitable person to give us a full account of what has occurred, and let +us know what the new error is." St. Flavian, who had behaved with great +forbearance throughout the proceedings, had not much difficulty in +setting the controversy before the Pope in its true light. + +Eutyches was supported by the Imperial Court, and by Dioscorus the +Patriarch of Alexandria; the proceedings therefore at Constantinople +were not allowed to settle the question. A general Council was summoned +for the ensuing summer at Ephesus, where the third Ecumenical Council +had been held twenty years before against Nestorius. It was attended by +sixty metropolitans, ten from each of the great divisions of the East; +the whole number of bishops assembled amounted to one hundred and +thirty-five.[299:1] Dioscorus was appointed President by the Emperor, +and the object of the assembly was said to be the settlement of a +question of faith which had arisen between Flavian and Eutyches. St. +Leo, dissatisfied with the measure altogether, nevertheless sent his +legates, but with the object, as their commission stated, and a letter +he addressed to the Council, of "condemning the heresy, and reinstating +Eutyches if he retracted." His legates took precedence after Dioscorus +and before the other Patriarchs. He also published at this time his +celebrated Tome on the Incarnation, in a letter addressed to Flavian. + +The proceedings which followed were of so violent a character, that the +Council has gone down to posterity under the name of the Latrocinium or +"Gang of Robbers." Eutyches was honourably acquitted, and his doctrine +received; but the assembled Fathers showed some backwardness to depose +St. Flavian. Dioscorus had been attended by a multitude of monks, +furious zealots for the Monophysite doctrine from Syria and Egypt, and +by an armed force. These broke into the Church at his call; Flavian was +thrown down and trampled on, and received injuries of which he died the +third day after. The Pope's legates escaped as they could; and the +Bishops were compelled to sign a blank paper, which was afterwards +filled up with the condemnation of Flavian. These outrages, however, +were subsequent to the Synodical acceptance of the Creed of Eutyches, +which seems to have been the spontaneous act of the assembled Fathers. +The proceedings ended by Dioscorus excommunicating the Pope, and the +Emperor issuing an edict in approval of the decision of the Council. + + +4. + +Before continuing the narrative, let us pause awhile to consider what it +has already brought before us. An aged and blameless man, the friend of +a Saint, and him the great champion of the faith against the heresy of +his day, is found in the belief and maintenance of a doctrine, which he +declares to be the very doctrine which that Saint taught in opposition +to that heresy. To prove it, he and his friends refer to the very words +of St. Cyril; Eustathius of Berytus quoting from him at Ephesus as +follows: "We must not then conceive two natures, but one nature of the +Word incarnate."[300:1] Moreover, it seems that St. Cyril had been +called to account for this very phrase, and had appealed more than once +to a passage, which is extant as he quoted it, in a work by St. +Athanasius.[301:1] Whether the passage in question is genuine is very +doubtful, but that is not to the purpose; for the phrase which it +contains is also attributed by St. Cyril to other Fathers, and was +admitted by Catholics generally, as by St. Flavian, who deposed +Eutyches, nay was indirectly adopted by the Council of Chalcedon itself. + + +5. + +But Eutyches did not merely insist upon a phrase; he appealed for his +doctrine to the Fathers generally; "I have read the blessed Cyril, and +the holy Fathers, and the holy Athanasius," he says at Constantinople, +"that they said, 'Of two natures before the union,' but that 'after the +union' they said 'but one.'"[301:2] In his letter to St. Leo, he appeals +in particular to Pope Julius, Pope Felix, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. +Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, Atticus, and St. Proclus. He did not +appeal to them unreservedly certainly, as shall be presently noticed; he +allowed that they might err, and perhaps had erred, in their +expressions: but it is plain, even from what has been said, that there +could be no _consensus_ against him, as the word is now commonly +understood. It is also undeniable that, though the word "nature" is +applied to our Lord's manhood by St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen and +others, yet on the whole it is for whatever reason avoided by the +previous Fathers; certainly by St. Athanasius, who uses the words +"manhood," "flesh," "the man," "economy," where a later writer would +have used "nature:" and the same is true of St. Hilary.[301:3] In like +manner, the Athanasian Creed, written, as it is supposed, some twenty +years before the date of Eutyches, does not contain the word "nature." +Much might be said on the plausibility of the defence, which Eutyches +might have made for his doctrine from the history and documents of the +Church before his time. + + +6. + +Further, Eutyches professed to subscribe heartily the decrees of the +Council of Nica and Ephesus, and his friends appealed to the latter of +these Councils and to previous Fathers, in proof that nothing could be +added to the Creed of the Church. "I," he says to St. Leo, "even from my +elders have so understood, and from my childhood have so been +instructed, as the holy and Ecumenical Council at Nica of the three +hundred and eighteen most blessed Bishops settled the faith, and which +the holy Council held at Ephesus maintained and defined anew as the only +faith; and I have never understood otherwise than as the right or only +true orthodox faith hath enjoined." He says at the Latrocinium, "When I +declared that my faith was conformable to the decision of Nica, +confirmed at Ephesus, they demanded that I should add some words to it; +and I, fearing to act contrary to the decrees of the First Council of +Ephesus and of the Council of Nica, desired that your holy Council +might be made acquainted with it, since I was ready to submit to +whatever you should approve."[302:1] Dioscorus states the matter more +strongly: "We have heard," he says, "what this Council" of Ephesus +"decreed, that if any one affirm or opine anything, or raise any +question, beyond the Creed aforesaid" of Nica, "he is to be +condemned."[302:2] It is remarkable that the Council of Ephesus, which +laid down this rule, had itself sanctioned the Theotocos, an addition, +greater perhaps than any before or since, to the letter of the primitive +faith. + + +7. + +Further, Eutyches appealed to Scripture, and denied that a human nature +was there given to our Lord; and this appeal obliged him in consequence +to refuse an unconditional assent to the Councils and Fathers, though he +so confidently spoke about them at other times. It was urged against him +that the Nicene Council itself had introduced into the Creed +extra-scriptural terms. "'I have never found in Scripture,' he said," +according to one of the Priests who were sent to him, "'that there are +two natures.' I replied, 'Neither is the Consubstantiality,'" (the +Homosion of Nica,) "'to be found in the Scriptures, but in the Holy +Fathers who well understood them and faithfully expounded them.'"[303:1] +Accordingly, on another occasion, a report was made of him, that "he +professed himself ready to assent to the Exposition of Faith made by the +Holy Fathers of the Nicene and Ephesine Councils and he engaged to +subscribe their interpretations. However, if there were any accidental +fault or error in any expressions which they made, this he would neither +blame nor accept; but only search the Scriptures, as being surer than +the expositions of the Fathers; that since the time of the Incarnation +of God the Word . . he worshipped one Nature . . . that the doctrine +that our Lord Jesus Christ came of Two Natures personally united, this +it was that he had learned from the expositions of the Holy Fathers; nor +did he accept, if ought was read to him from any author to [another] +effect, because the Holy Scriptures, as he said, were better than the +teaching of the Fathers."[304:1] This appeal to the Scriptures will +remind us of what has lately been said of the school of Theodore +in the history of Nestorianism, and of the challenge of the Arians +to St. Avitus before the Gothic King.[304:2] It had also been the +characteristic of heresy in the antecedent period. St. Hilary brings +together a number of instances in point, from the history of Marcellus, +Photinus, Sabellius, Montanus, and Manes; then he adds, "They all speak +Scripture without the sense of Scripture, and profess a faith without +faith."[304:3] + + +8. + +Once more; the Council of the Latrocinium, however, tyrannized over by +Dioscorus in the matter of St. Flavian, certainly did acquit Eutyches +and accept his doctrine canonically, and, as it would appear, cordially; +though their change at Chalcedon, and the subsequent variations of the +East, make it a matter of little moment how they decided. The Acts of +Constantinople were read to the Fathers of the Latrocinium; when they +came to the part where Eusebius of Dorylum, the accuser of Eutyches, +asked him, whether he confessed Two Natures after the Incarnation, and +the Consubstantiality according to the flesh, the Fathers broke in upon +the reading:--"Away with Eusebius; burn him; burn him alive; cut him in +two; as he divided, so let him be divided."[305:1] The Council seems to +have been unanimous, with the exception of the Pope's Legates, in the +restoration of Eutyches; a more complete decision can hardly be +imagined. + +It is true the whole number of signatures now extant, one hundred and +eight, may seem small out of a thousand, the number of Sees in the East; +but the attendance of Councils always bore a representative character. +The whole number of East and West was about eighteen hundred, yet the +second Ecumenical Council was attended by only one hundred and fifty, +which is but a twelfth part of the whole number; the Third Council by +about two hundred, or a ninth; the Council of Nica itself numbered only +three hundred and eighteen Bishops. Moreover, when we look through the +names subscribed to the Synodal decision, we find that the misbelief, or +misapprehension, or weakness, to which this great offence must be +attributed, was no local phenomenon, but the unanimous sin of Bishops in +every patriarchate and of every school of the East. Three out of the +four patriarchs were in favour of the heresiarch, the fourth being on +his trial. Of these Domnus of Antioch and Juvenal of Jerusalem acquitted +him, on the ground of his confessing the faith of Nica and Ephesus: and +Domnus was a man of the fairest and purest character, and originally a +disciple of St. Euthemius, however inconsistent on this occasion, and +ill-advised in former steps of his career. Dioscorus, violent and bad +man as he showed himself, had been Archdeacon to St. Cyril, whom he +attended at the Council of Ephesus; and was on this occasion supported +by those Churches which had so nobly stood by their patriarch Athanasius +in the great Arian conflict. These three Patriarchs were supported by +the Exarchs of Ephesus and Csarea in Cappadocia; and both of these as +well as Domnus and Juvenal, were supported in turn by their subordinate +Metropolitans. Even the Sees under the influence of Constantinople, +which was the remaining sixth division of the East, took part with +Eutyches. We find among the signatures to his acquittal the Bishops of +Dyrrachium, of Heraclea in Macedonia, of Messene in the Peloponese, of +Sebaste in Armenia, of Tarsus, of Damascus, of Berytus, of Bostra in +Arabia, of Amida in Mesopotamia, of Himeria in Osrhoene, of Babylon, of +Arsinoe in Egypt, and of Cyrene. The Bishops of Palestine, of Macedonia, +and of Achaia, where the keen eye of St. Athanasius had detected the +doctrine in its germ, while Apollinarianism was but growing into form, +were his actual partisans. Another Barsumas, a Syrian Abbot, ignorant of +Greek, attended the Latrocinium, as the representative of the monks of +his nation, whom he formed into a force, material or moral, of a +thousand strong, and whom at that infamous assembly he cheered on to the +murder of St. Flavian. + + +9. + +Such was the state of Eastern Christendom in the year 449; a heresy, +appealing to the Fathers, to the Creed, and, above all, to Scripture, +was by a general Council, professing to be Ecumenical, received as true +in the person of its promulgator. If the East could determine a matter +of faith independently of the West, certainly the Monophysite heresy was +established as Apostolic truth in all its provinces from Macedonia to +Egypt. + +There has been a time in the history of Christianity, when it had been +Athanasius against the world, and the world against Athanasius. The need +and straitness of the Church had been great, and one man was raised up +for her deliverance. In this second necessity, who was the destined +champion of her who cannot fail? Whence did he come, and what was his +name? He came with an augury of victory upon him, which even Athanasius +could not show; it was Leo, Bishop of Rome. + + +10. + +Leo's augury of success, which even Athanasius had not, was this, that +he was seated in the chair of St. Peter and the heir of his +prerogatives. In the very beginning of the controversy, St. Peter +Chrysologus had urged this grave consideration upon Eutyches himself, in +words which have already been cited: "I exhort you, my venerable +brother," he had said, "to submit yourself in everything to what has +been written by the blessed Pope of Rome; for St. Peter, who lives and +presides in his own See, gives the true faith to those who seek +it."[307:1] This voice had come from Ravenna, and now after the +Latrocinium it was echoed back from the depths of Syria by the learned +Theodoret. "That all-holy See," he says in a letter to one of the Pope's +Legates, "has the office of heading (+hgemonian+) the whole world's +Churches for many reasons; and above all others, because it has remained +free of the communion of heretical taint, and no one of heterodox +sentiments hath sat in it, but it hath preserved the Apostolic grace +unsullied."[307:2] And a third testimony in encouragement of the +faithful at the same dark moment issued from the Imperial court of the +West. "We are bound," says Valentinian to the Emperor of the East, "to +preserve inviolate in our times the prerogative of particular reverence +to the blessed Apostle Peter; that the most blessed Bishop of Rome, to +whom Antiquity assigned the priesthood over all (+kata pantn+) may +have place and opportunity of judging concerning the faith and the +priests."[307:3] Nor had Leo himself been wanting at the same time in +"the confidence" he had "obtained from the most blessed Peter and head +of the Apostles, that he had authority to defend the truth for the peace +of the Church."[308:1] Thus Leo introduces us to the Council of +Chalcedon, by which he rescued the East from a grave heresy. + + +11. + +The Council met on the 8th of October, 451, and was attended by the +largest number of Bishops of any Council before or since; some say by as +many as six hundred and thirty. Of these, only four came from the West, +two Roman Legates and two Africans.[308:2] + +Its proceedings were opened by the Pope's Legates, who said that they +had it in charge from the Bishop of Rome, "which is the head of all the +Churches," to demand that Dioscorus should not sit, on the ground that +"he had presumed to hold a Council without the authority of the +Apostolic See, which had never been done nor was lawful to do."[308:3] +This was immediately allowed them. + +The next act of the Council was to give admission to Theodoret, who had +been deposed at the Latrocinium. The Imperial officers present urged his +admission, on the ground that "the most holy Archbishop Leo hath +restored him to the Episcopal office, and the most pious Emperor hath +ordered that he should assist at the holy Council."[308:4] + +Presently, a charge was brought forward against Dioscorus, that, though +the Legates had presented a letter from the Pope to the Council, it had +not been read. Dioscorus admitted not only the fact, but its relevancy; +but alleged in excuse that he had twice ordered it to be read in vain. + +In the course of the reading of the Acts of the Latrocinium and +Constantinople, a number of Bishops moved from the side of Dioscorus +and placed themselves with the opposite party. When Peter, Bishop of +Corinth, crossed over, the Orientals whom he joined shouted, "Peter +thinks as does Peter; orthodox Bishop, welcome." + + +12. + +In the second Session it was the duty of the Fathers to draw up a +confession of faith condemnatory of the heresy. A committee was formed +for the purpose, and the Creed of Nica and Constantinople was read; +then some of the Epistles of St. Cyril; lastly, St. Leo's Tome, which +had been passed over in silence at the Latrocinium. Some discussion +followed upon the last of these documents, but at length the Bishops +cried out, "This is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the +Apostles: we all believe thus; the orthodox believe thus; anathema to +him who does not believe thus. Peter has thus spoken through Leo; the +Apostles taught thus." Readings from the other Fathers followed; and +then some days were allowed for private discussion, before drawing up +the confession of faith which was to set right the heterodoxy of the +Latrocinium. + +During the interval, Dioscorus was tried and condemned; sentence was +pronounced against him by the Pope's Legates, and ran thus: "The most +holy Archbishop of Rome, Leo, through us and this present Council, with +the Apostle St. Peter, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic +Church and of the orthodox faith, deprives him of the Episcopal dignity +and every sacerdotal ministry." + +In the fourth Session the question of the definition of faith came on +again, but the Council got no further than this, that it received the +definitions of the three previous Ecumenical Councils; it would not add +to them what Leo required. One hundred and sixty Bishops however +subscribed his Tome. + + +13. + +In the fifth Session the question came on once more; some sort of +definition of faith was the result of the labours of the committee, and +was accepted by the great majority of the Council. The Bishops cried +out, "We are all satisfied with the definition; it is the faith of the +Fathers: anathema to him who thinks otherwise: drive out the +Nestorians." When objectors appeared, Anatolius, the new Patriarch of +Constantinople, asked "Did not every one yesterday consent to the +definition of faith?" on which the Bishops answered, "Every one +consented; we do not believe otherwise; it is the Faith of the Fathers; +let it be set down that Holy Mary is the Mother of God: let this be +added to the Creed; put out the Nestorians."[310:1] The objectors were +the Pope's Legates, supported by a certain number of Orientals: those +clear-sighted, firm-minded Latins understood full well what and what +alone was the true expression of orthodox doctrine under the emergency +of the existing heresy. They had been instructed to induce the Council +to pass a declaration to the effect, that Christ was not only "of," but +"in" two natures. However, they did not enter upon disputation on the +point, but they used a more intelligible argument: If the Fathers did +not consent to the letter of the blessed Bishop Leo, they would leave +the Council and go home. The Imperial officers took the part of the +Legates. The Council however persisted: "Every one approved the +definition; let it be subscribed: he who refuses to subscribe it is a +heretic." They even proceeded to refer it to Divine inspiration. The +officers asked if they received St. Leo's Tome; they answered that they +had subscribed it, but that they would not introduce its contents into +their definition of faith. "We are for no other definition," they said; +"nothing is wanting in this." + + +14. + +Notwithstanding, the Pope's Legates gained their point through the +support of the Emperor Marcian, who had succeeded Theodosius. A fresh +committee was obtained under the threat that, if they resisted, the +Council should be transferred to the West. Some voices were raised +against this measure; the cries were repeated against the Roman party, +"They are Nestorians; let them go to Rome." The Imperial officers +remonstrated, "Dioscorus said, 'Of two natures;' Leo says, 'Two +natures:' which will you follow, Leo or Dioscorus?" On their answering +"Leo," they continued, "Well then, add to the definition, according to +the judgment of our most holy Leo." Nothing more was to be said. The +committee immediately proceeded to their work, and in a short time +returned to the assembly with such a definition as the Pope required. +After reciting the Creed of Nica and Constantinople, it observes, "This +Creed were sufficient for the perfect knowledge of religion, but the +enemies of the truth have invented novel expressions;" and therefore it +proceeds to state the faith more explicitly. When this was read through, +the Bishops all exclaimed, "This is the faith of the Fathers; we all +follow it." And thus ended the controversy once for all. + +The Council, after its termination, addressed a letter to St. Leo; in it +the Fathers acknowledge him as "constituted interpreter of the voice of +Blessed Peter,"[311:1] (with an allusion to St. Peter's Confession in +Matthew xvi.,) and speak of him as "the very one commissioned with the +guardianship of the Vine by the Saviour." + + +15. + +Such is the external aspect of those proceedings by which the Catholic +faith has been established in Christendom against the Monophysites. That +the definition passed at Chalcedon is the Apostolic Truth once delivered +to the Saints is most firmly to be received, from faith in that +overruling Providence which is by special promise extended over the acts +of the Church; moreover, that it is in simple accordance with the faith +of St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and all the other Fathers, +will be evident to the theological student in proportion as he becomes +familiar with their works: but the historical account of the Council is +this, that a formula which the Creed did not contain, which the Fathers +did not unanimously witness, and which some eminent Saints had almost in +set terms opposed, which the whole East refused as a symbol, not once, +but twice, patriarch by patriarch, metropolitan by metropolitan, first +by the mouth of above a hundred, then by the mouth of above six hundred +of its Bishops, and refused upon the grounds of its being an addition to +the Creed, was forced upon the Council, not indeed as being such an +addition, yet, on the other hand, not for subscription merely, but for +acceptance as a definition of faith under the sanction of an +anathema,--forced on the Council by the resolution of the Pope of the +day, acting through his Legates and supported by the civil power.[312:1] + + +16. + +It cannot be supposed that such a transaction would approve itself to +the Churches of Egypt, and the event showed it: they disowned the +authority of the Council, and called its adherents Chalcedonians,[313:1] +and Synodites.[313:2] For here was the West tyrannizing over the East, +forcing it into agreement with itself, resolved to have one and one only +form of words, rejecting the definition of faith which the East had +drawn up in Council, bidding it and making it frame another, dealing +peremptorily and sternly with the assembled Bishops, and casting +contempt on the most sacred traditions of Egypt! What was Eutyches to +them? He might be guilty or innocent; they gave him up: Dioscorus had +given him up at Chalcedon;[313:3] they did not agree with him:[313:4] he +was an extreme man; they would not call themselves by human titles; they +were not Eutychians; Eutyches was not their master, but Athanasius and +Cyril were their doctors.[313:5] The two great lights of their Church, +the two greatest and most successful polemical Fathers that Christianity +had seen, had both pronounced "One Nature Incarnate," though allowing +Two before the Incarnation; and though Leo and his Council had not gone +so far as to deny this phrase, they had proceeded to say what was the +contrary to it, to explain away, to overlay the truth, by defining that +the Incarnate Saviour was "in Two Natures." At Ephesus it had been +declared that the Creed should not be touched; the Chalcedonian Fathers +had, not literally, but virtually added to it: by subscribing Leo's +Tome, and promulgating their definition of faith, they had added what +might be called, "The Creed of Pope Leo." + + +17. + +It is remarkable, as has been just stated, that Dioscorus, wicked man +as he was in act, was of the moderate or middle school in doctrine, as +the violent and able Severus after him; and from the first the great +body of the protesting party disowned Eutyches, whose form of the heresy +took refuge in Armenia, where it remains to this day. The Armenians +alone were pure Eutychians, and so zealously such that they innovated on +the ancient and recognized custom of mixing water with the wine in the +Holy Eucharist, and consecrated the wine by itself in token of the one +nature, as they considered, of the Christ. Elsewhere both name and +doctrine of Eutyches were abjured; the heretical bodies in Egypt and +Syria took a title from their special tenet, and formed the Monophysite +communion. Their theology was at once simple and specious. They based it +upon the illustration which is familiar to us in the Athanasian Creed, +and which had been used by St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril, St. +Augustine, Vincent of Lerins, not to say St. Leo himself. They argued +that as body and soul made up one man, so God and man made up but one, +though one compound Nature, in Christ. It might have been charitably +hoped that their difference from the Catholics had been a simple matter +of words, as it is allowed by Vigilius of Thapsus really to have been in +many cases; but their refusal to obey the voice of the Church was a +token of real error in their faith, and their implicit heterodoxy is +proved by their connexion, in spite of themselves, with the extreme or +ultra party whom they so vehemently disowned. + +It is very observable that, ingenious as is their theory and sometimes +perplexing to a disputant, the Monophysites never could shake themselves +free of the Eutychians; and though they could draw intelligible lines on +paper between the two doctrines, yet in fact by a hidden fatality their +partisans were ever running into or forming alliance with the +anathematized extreme. Thus Peter the Fuller the Theopaschite +(Eutychian), is at one time in alliance with Peter the Stammerer, who +advocated the Henoticon (which was Monophysite). The Acephali, though +separating from the latter Peter for that advocacy, and accused by +Leontius of being Gaianites[315:1] (Eutychians), are considered by +Facundus as Monophysites.[315:2] Timothy the Cat, who is said to have +agreed with Dioscorus and Peter the Stammerer, who signed the Henoticon, +that is, with two Monophysite Patriarchs, is said nevertheless, +according to Anastasius, to have maintained the extreme tenet, that "the +Divinity is the sole nature of Christ."[315:3] Severus, according to +Anastasius,[315:3] symbolized with the Phantasiasts (Eutychians), yet he +is more truly, according to Leontius, the chief doctor and leader of the +Monophysites. And at one time there was an union, though temporary, +between the Theodosians (Monophysites) and the Gaianites. + + +18. + +Such a division of an heretical party, into the maintainers, of an +extreme and a moderate view, perspicuous and plausible on paper, yet in +fact unreal, impracticable, and hopeless, was no new phenomenon in the +history of the Church. As Eutyches put forward an extravagant tenet, +which was first corrected into the Monophysite, and then relapsed +hopelessly into the doctrine of the Phantasiasts and the Theopaschites, +so had Arius been superseded by the Eusebians and had revived in +Eunomius; and as the moderate Eusebians had formed the great body of the +dissentients from the Nicene Council, so did the Monophysites include +the mass of those who protested against Chalcedon; and as the Eusebians +had been moderate in creed, yet unscrupulous in act, so were the +Monophysites. And as the Eusebians were ever running individually into +pure Arianism, so did the Monophysites run into pure Eutychianism. And +as the Monophysites set themselves against Pope Leo, so had the +Eusebians, with even less provocation, withstood and complained of Pope +Julius. In like manner, the Apollinarians had divided into two sects; +one, with Timotheus, going the whole length of the inferences which the +tenet of their master involved, and the more cautious or timid party +making an unintelligible stand with Valentinus. Again, in the history of +Nestorianism, though it admitted less opportunity for division of +opinion, the See of Rome was with St. Cyril in one extreme, Nestorius in +the other, and between them the great Eastern party, headed by John of +Antioch and Theodoret, not heretical, but for a time dissatisfied with +the Council of Ephesus. + + +19. + +The Nestorian heresy, I have said, gave less opportunity for doctrinal +varieties than the heresy of Eutyches. Its spirit was rationalizing, and +had the qualities which go with rationalism. When cast out of the Roman +Empire, it addressed itself, as we have seen, to a new and rich field of +exertion, got possession of an Established Church, co-operated with the +civil government, adopted secular fashions, and, by whatever means, +pushed itself out into an Empire. Apparently, though it requires a very +intimate knowledge of its history to speak except conjecturally, it was +a political power rather than a dogma, and despised the science of +theology. Eutychianism, on the other hand, was mystical, severe, +enthusiastic; with the exception of Severus, and one or two more, it was +supported by little polemical skill; it had little hold upon the +intellectual Greeks of Syria and Asia Minor, but flourished in Egypt, +which was far behind the East in civilization, and among the native +Syrians. Nestorianism, like Arianism[317:1] before it, was a cold +religion, and more fitted for the schools than for the many; but the +Monophysites carried the people with them. Like modern Jansenism, and +unlike Nestorianism, the Monophysites were famous for their austerities. +They have, or had, five Lents in the year, during which laity as well as +clergy abstain not only from flesh and eggs, but from wine, oil, and +fish.[317:2] Monachism was a characteristic part of their ecclesiastical +system: their Bishops, and Maphrian or Patriarch, were always taken from +the Monks, who are even said to have worn an iron shirt or breastplate +as a part of their monastic habit.[317:3] + + +20. + +Severus, Patriarch of Antioch at the end of the fifth century, has +already been mentioned as an exception to the general character of the +Monophysites, and, by his learning and ability, may be accounted the +founder of its theology. Their cause, however, had been undertaken by +the Emperors themselves before him. For the first thirty years after the +Council of Chalcedon, the protesting Church of Egypt had been the scene +of continued tumult and bloodshed. Dioscorus had been popular with the +people for his munificence, in spite of the extreme laxity of his +morals, and for a while the Imperial Government failed in obtaining the +election of a Catholic successor. At length Proterius, a man of fair +character, and the Vicar-general of Dioscorus on his absence at +Chalcedon, was chosen, consecrated, and enthroned; but the people rose +against the civil authorities, and the military, coming to their +defence, were attacked with stones, and pursued into a church, where +they were burned alive by the mob. Next, the popular leaders prepared to +intercept the supplies of grain which were destined for Constantinople; +and, a defensive retaliation taking place, Alexandria was starved. Then +a force of two thousand men was sent for the restoration of order, who +permitted themselves in scandalous excesses towards the women of +Alexandria. Proterius's life was attempted, and he was obliged to be +attended by a guard. The Bishops of Egypt would not submit to him; two +of his own clergy, who afterward succeeded him, Timothy and Peter, +seceded, and were joined by four or five of the Bishops and by the mass +of the population;[318:1] and the Catholic Patriarch was left without a +communion in Alexandria. He held a council, and condemned the +schismatics; and the Emperor, seconding his efforts, sent them out of +the country, and enforced the laws against the Eutychians. An external +quiet succeeded; then Marcian died; and then forthwith Timothy (the Cat) +made his appearance again, first in Egypt, then in Alexandria. The +people rose in his favour, and carried in triumph their persecuted +champion to the great Csarean Church, where he was consecrated +Patriarch by two deprived Bishops, who had been put out of their sees, +whether by a Council of Egypt or of Palestine.[318:2] Timothy, now +raised to the Episcopal rank, began to create a new succession; he +ordained Bishops for the Churches of Egypt, and drove into exile those +who were in possession. The Imperial troops, who had been stationed in +Upper Egypt, returned to Alexandria; the mob rose again, broke into the +Church, where St. Proterius was in prayer, and murdered him. A general +ejectment of the Catholic clergy throughout Egypt followed. On their +betaking themselves to Constantinople to the new Emperor, Timothy and +his party addressed him also. They quoted the Fathers, and demanded the +abrogation of the Council of Chalcedon. Next they demanded a conference; +the Catholics said that what was once done could not be undone; their +opponents agreed to this and urged it, as their very argument against +Chalcedon, that it added to the faith, and reversed former +decisions.[319:1] After a rule of three years, Timothy was driven out +and Catholicism restored; but then in turn the Monophysites rallied, and +this state of warfare and alternate success continued for thirty years. + + +21. + +At length the Imperial Government, wearied out with a dispute which was +interminable, came to the conclusion that the only way of restoring +peace to the Church was to abandon the Council of Chalcedon. In the year +482 was published the famous _Henoticon_ or Pacification of Zeno, in +which the Emperor took upon himself to determine a matter of faith. The +Henoticon declared that no symbol of faith but that of the Nicene Creed, +commonly so called, should be received in the Churches; it anathematized +the opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, and it was silent on +the question of the "One" or "Two Natures" after the Incarnation. This +middle measure had the various effects which might be anticipated. It +united the great body of the Eastern Bishops, who readily relaxed into +the vague profession of doctrine from which they had been roused by the +authority of St. Leo. All the Eastern Bishops signed this Imperial +formulary. But this unanimity of the East was purchased by a breach with +the West; for the Popes cut off the communication between Greeks and +Latins for thirty-five years. On the other hand, the more zealous +Monophysites, disgusted at their leaders for accepting what they +considered an unjustifiable compromise, split off from the Eastern +Churches, and formed a sect by themselves, which remained without +Bishops (_acephali_) for three hundred years, when at length they were +received back into the communion of the Catholic Church. + + +22. + +Dreary and waste was the condition of the Church, and forlorn her +prospects, at the period which we have been reviewing. After the brief +triumph which attended the conversion of Constantine, trouble and trial +had returned upon her. Her imperial protectors were failing in power or +in faith. Strange forms of evil were rising in the distance and were +thronging for the conflict. There was but one spot in the whole of +Christendom, one voice in the whole Episcopate, to which the faithful +turned in hope in that miserable day. In the year 493, in the +Pontificate of Gelasius, the whole of the East was in the hands of +traitors to Chalcedon, and the whole of the West under the tyranny of +the open enemies of Nica. Italy was the prey of robbers; mercenary +bands had overrun its territory, and barbarians were seizing on its +farms and settling in its villas. The peasants were thinned by famine +and pestilence; Tuscany might be even said, as Gelasius words it, to +contain scarcely a single inhabitant.[320:1] Odoacer was sinking before +Theodoric, and the Pope was changing one Arian master for another. And +as if one heresy were not enough, Pelagianism was spreading with the +connivance of the Bishops in the territory of Picenum. In the North of +the dismembered Empire, the Britons had first been infected by +Pelagianism, and now were dispossessed by the heathen Saxons. The +Armoricans still preserved a witness of Catholicism in the West of Gaul; +but Picardy, Champagne, and the neighbouring provinces, where some +remnant of its supremacy had been found, had lately submitted to the +yet heathen Clovis. The Arian kingdoms of Burgundy in France, and of the +Visigoths in Aquitaine and Spain, oppressed a zealous and Catholic +clergy, Africa was in still more deplorable condition under the cruel +sway of the Vandal Gundamond: the people indeed uncorrupted by the +heresy,[321:1] but their clergy in exile and their worship suspended. +While such was the state of the Latins, what had happened in the East? +Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, had secretly taken part +against the Council of Chalcedon and was under Papal excommunication. +Nearly the whole East had sided with Acacius, and a schism had begun +between East and West, which lasted, as I have above stated, for +thirty-five years. The Henoticon was in force, and at the Imperial +command had been signed by all the Patriarchs and Bishops throughout the +Eastern Empire.[321:2] In Armenia the Churches were ripening for the +pure Eutychianism which they adopted in the following century; and in +Egypt the Acephali, already separated from the Monophysite Patriarch, +were extending in the east and west of the country, and preferred the +loss of the Episcopal Succession to the reception of the Council of +Chalcedon. And while Monophysites or their favourers occupied the +Churches of the Eastern Empire, Nestorianism was making progress in the +territories beyond it. Barsumas had held the See of Nisibis, Theodore +was read in the schools of Persia, and the successive Catholici of +Seleucia had abolished Monachism and were secularizing the clergy. + + +23. + +If then there is now a form of Christianity such, that it extends +throughout the world, though with varying measures of prominence or +prosperity in separate places;--that it lies under the power of +sovereigns and magistrates, in various ways alien to its faith;--that +flourishing nations and great empires, professing or tolerating the +Christian name, lie over against it as antagonists;--that schools of +philosophy and learning are supporting theories, and following out +conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an exegetical system +subversive of its Scriptures;--that it has lost whole Churches by +schism, and is now opposed by powerful communions once part of +itself;--that it has been altogether or almost driven from some +countries;--that in others its line of teachers is overlaid, its flocks +oppressed, its Churches occupied, its property held by what may be +called a duplicate succession;--that in others its members are +degenerate and corrupt, and are surpassed in conscientiousness and in +virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very heretics whom it +condemns;--that heresies are rife and bishops negligent within its own +pale;--and that amid its disorders and its fears there is but one Voice +for whose decisions the peoples wait with trust, one Name and one See to +which they look with hope, and that name Peter, and that see Rome;--such +a religion is not unlike the Christianity of the fifth and sixth +Centuries.[322:1] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[208:1] [This juxtaposition of names has been strangely distorted by +critics. In the intention of the author, Guizot matched with Pliny, not +with Frederick.] + +[213:1] Vid. Muller de Hierarch. et Ascetic. Warburton, Div. Leg. ii. 4. +Selden de Diis Syr. Acad. des Inscript. t. 3, hist. p. 296, t. 5, mem. +p. 63, t. 16, mem. p. 267. Lucian. Pseudomant. Cod. Theod. ix. 16. + +[214:1] Acad. t. 16. mem. p. 274. + +[215:1] Apol. 25. Vid. also Prudent. in hon. Romani, circ. fin. and +Lucian de Deo Syr. 50. + +[215:2] Vid. also the scene in Jul. Firm. p. 449. + +[216:1] Tac. Ann. ii. 85; Sueton. Tiber. 36. + +[216:2] August. 93. + +[216:3] De Superst. 3. + +[216:4] De Art. Am. i. init. + +[217:1] Sat. iii. vi. + +[217:2] Tertul. Ap. 5. + +[218:1] Vit. Hel. 3. + +[219:1] Vid. Tillemont, Mem. and Lardner's Hist. Heretics. + +[221:1] Bampton Lect. 2. + +[222:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 61. + +[223:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 44. + +[223:2] Montfaucon, Antiq. t. ii. part 2, p. 353. + +[223:3] Hr. i. 20. + +[223:4] De Prscr. 43. + +[225:1] Vid. Kortholt, in Plin. et Traj. Epp. p. 152. Comment. in Minuc. +F. &c. + +[228:1] "Itaque imposuistis in cervicibus nostris sempiternum dominum, +quem dies et noctes timeremus; quis enim non timeat omnia providentem et +cogitantem et animadvertentem, et omnia ad se pertinere putantem, +curiosum, et plenum negotii Deum?"--_Cic. de Nat. Deor._ i. 20. + +[228:2] Min. c. 11. Lact. v. 1, 2, vid. Arnob. ii. 8, &c. + +[228:3] Origen, contr. Cels. i. 9, iii. 44, 50, vi. 44. + +[229:1] Prudent. in hon. Fruct. 37. + +[229:2] Evan. Dem. iii. 3, 4. + +[229:3] Mort. Peregr. 13. + +[229:4] c. 108. + +[229:5] i. e. Philop. 16. + +[229:6] De Mort. Pereg. ibid. + +[229:7] Ruin. Mart. pp. 100, 594, &c. + +[230:1] Prud. in hon. Rom. vv. 404, 868. + +[230:2] We have specimens of _carmina_ ascribed to Christians in the +Philopatris. + +[230:3] Goth. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 120, ed. 1665. Again, "Qui malefici +vulgi consuetudine nuncupantur." Leg. 6. So Lactantius, "Magi et ii quos +ver maleficos vulgus appellat." Inst. ii. 17. "Quos et maleficos vulgus +appellat." August. Civ. Dei, x. 19. "Quos vulgus mathematicos vocat." +Hieron. in Dan. c. ii. Vid. Gothof. in loc. Other laws speak of those +who were "maleficiorum labe polluti," and of the "maleficiorum scabies." + +[230:4] Tertullian too mentions the charge of "hostes principum +Romanorum, populi, generis humani, Deorum, Imperatorum, legum, morum, +natur totius inimici." Apol. 2, 35, 38, ad. Scap. 4, ad. Nat. i. 17. + +[231:1] Evid. part ii. ch. 4. + +[232:1] Heathen Test. 9. + +[233:1] Gothof. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 121. + +[233:2] Cic. pro Cluent. 61. Gieseler transl. vol. i. p. 21, note 5. +Acad. Inscr. t. 34, hist. p. 110. + +[234:1] De Harusp. Resp. 9. + +[234:2] De Legg. ii. 8. + +[234:3] Acad. Inscr. ibid. + +[234:4] Neander, Eccl. Hist. tr. vol. i. p. 81. + +[234:5] Muller, p. 21, 22, 30. Tertull. Ox. tr. p. 12, note _p_. + +[235:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 16, note 14. + +[235:2] Epit. Instit. 55. + +[236:1] Gibbon, ibid. Origen admits and defends the violation of the +laws: +ouk alogon synthkas para ta nenomismena poiein, tas hyper +haltheias+. c. Cels. i. 1. + +[237:1] Hist. p. 418. + +[237:2] In hon. Rom. 62. In Act. S. Cypr. 4, Tert. Apol. 10, &c. + +[238:1] Apol. i. 3, 39, Oxf. tr. + +[241:1] Julian ap. Cyril, pp. 39, 194, 206, 335. Epp. pp. 305, 429, 438, +ed. Spanh. + +[242:1] Niebuhr ascribes it to the beginning of the tenth. + +[245:1] Sirm. Opp. ii. p. 225, ed. Ven. + +[247:1] Proph. Office, p. 132 [Via Media, vol. i. p. 109]. + +[247:2] [Since the publication of this volume in 1845, a writer in a +Conservative periodical of great name has considered that no happier +designation could be bestowed upon us than that which heathen statesmen +gave to the first Christians, "enemies of the human race." What a +remarkable witness to our identity with the Church of St. Paul ("a +pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition throughout the world"), of St. +Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and the other Martyrs! In this matter, +Conservative politicians join with Liberals, and with the movement +parties in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, in their view of +our religion. + +"The Catholics," says the _Quarterly Review_ for January, 1873, pp. +181-2, "wherever they are numerous and powerful in a Protestant nation, +_compel_ (sic) as it were by a law of their being, that nation to treat +them with stern repression and control. . . . Catholicism, if it be true +to itself, and its mission, _cannot_ (sic) . . . wherever and whenever +the opportunity is afforded it, abstain from claiming, working for, and +grasping that supremacy and paramount influence and control, which it +conscientiously believes to be its inalienable and universal due. . . . +By the force of circumstances, by the inexorable logic of its claims, it +must be the intestine foe or the disturbing element of every state in +which it does not bear sway; and . . . it must now stand out in the +estimate of all Protestants, Patriots and Thinkers" (philosophers and +historians, as Tacitus?) "as the _hostis humani generis_ (sic), &c."] + +[254:1] De Prscr. Hr. 41, Oxf. tr. + +[254:2] +chronitai.+ + +[256:1] Cat. xviii. 26. + +[257:1] Contr. Ep. Manich. 5. + +[257:2] Origen, Opp. t. i. p. 809. + +[258:1] Strom. vii. 17. + +[258:2] c. Tryph. 35. + +[258:3] Instit. 4. 30. + +[259:1] Hr. 42, p. 366. + +[259:2] In Lucif. fin. + +[259:3] The Oxford translation is used. + +[263:1] _Rationabilis_; apparently an allusion to the civil officer +called _Catholicus_ or _Rationalis_, receiver-general. + +[263:2] Ad. Parm. ii. init. + +[264:1] De Unit. Eccles. 6. + +[265:1] Contr. Cresc. iv. 75; also iii. 77. + +[266:1] Antiq. ii. 4, 5. + +[267:1] Antiq. 5, 3. [Bingham apparently in this passage is indirectly +replying to the Catholic argument for the Pope's Supremacy drawn from +the titles and acts ascribed to him in antiquity; but that argument is +cumulative in character, being part of a whole body of proof; and there +is moreover a great difference between a rhetorical discourse and a +synodal enunciation as at Chalcedon.] + +[268:1] Ad Demetr. 4, &c. Oxf. Tr. + +[268:2] Hist. ch. xv. + +[269:1] De Unit. 5, 12. + +[269:2] Chrys. in Eph. iv. + +[269:3] De Baptism. i. 10. + +[269:4] c. Ep. Parm. i. 7. + +[269:5] De Schism. Donat. i. 10. + +[270:1] Cat. xvi. 10. + +[270:2] De Fid. ad Petr. 39. [82.] + +[270:3] [Of course this solemn truth must not be taken apart from the +words of the present Pope, Pius IX., concerning invincible ignorance: +"Notum nobis vobisque est, eos, qui invincibili circa sanctissimam +nostram religionem ignoranti laborant, quique naturalem legem ejusque +prcepta in omnium cordibus a Deo insculpta sedulo servantes, ac Deo +obedire parati, honestam rectamque vitam agunt, posse, divin lucis et +grati operante virtute, ternam consequi vitam, cm Deus, qui omnium +mentes, animos, cogitationes, habitusque plan intuetur, scrutatur et +noscit, pro summ su bonitate et clementia, minim patiatur quempiam +ternis puniri suppliciis, qui voluntari culp reatum non habeat."] + +[272:1] Epp. 43, 52, 57, 76, 105, 112, 141, 144. + +[276:1] De Gubern. Dei, vii. p. 142. Elsewhere, "Apud Aquitanicos qu +civitas in locupletissim ac nobilissim sui parte non quasi lupanar +fuit? Quis potentum ac divitum non in luto libidinis vixit? Haud multum +matrona abest vilitate servarum, ubi paterfamilias ancillarum maritus +est? Quis autem Aquitanorum divitum non hoc fuit?" (pp. 134, 135.) +"Offenduntur barbari ipsi impuritatibus nostris. Esse inter Gothos non +licet scortatorem Gothum; soli inter eos prjudicio nationis ac nominis +permittuntur impuri esse Romani" (p. 137). "Quid? Hispanias nonne vel +eadem vel majora forsitan vitia perdiderunt? . . . Accessit hoc ad +manifestandam illic impudiciti damnationem, ut Wandalis potissimum, id +est, pudicis barbaris traderentur" (p. 137). Of Africa and Carthage, "In +urbe Christian, in urbe ecclesiastic, . . . viri in semetipsis feminas +profitebantur," &c. (p. 152). + +[276:2] Dunham, Hist. Spain, vol. i. p. 112. + +[277:1] Aguirr. Concil. t. 2, p. 191. + +[277:2] Dunham, p. 125. + +[277:3] Hist. Franc. iii. 10. + +[277:4] Ch. 39. + +[278:1] Greg. Dial. iii. 30. + +[278:2] Ibid. 20. + +[278:3] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 37. + +[279:1] De Glor. Mart. i. 25. + +[279:2] Ibid. 80. + +[279:3] Ibid. 79. + +[279:4] Vict. Vit. i. 14. + +[280:1] De Gub. D. iv. p. 73. + +[280:2] Ibid. v. p. 88. + +[280:3] Epp. i. 31. + +[280:4] Hist. vi. 23. + +[280:5] Cf. Assem. t. i. p. 351, not. 4, t. 3, p. 393. + +[280:6] Baron. Ann. 432, 47. + +[280:7] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36. + +[281:1] Baron. Ann. 471, 18. + +[281:2] Vict. Vit. iv. 4. + +[281:3] Vict. Vit. ii. 3-15. + +[282:1] Aguirr. Conc. t. 2, p. 262. + +[282:2] Aguirr. ibid. p. 232. + +[282:3] Theod. Hist. v. 2. + +[282:4] c. Ruff. i. 4. + +[283:1] Ep. 15. + +[283:2] Ep. 16. + +[284:1] Aug. Epp. 43. 7. + +[286:1] Assem. iii. p. 68. + +[287:1] Ibid. t. 3, p. 84, note 3. + +[287:2] Wegnern, Proleg. in Theod. Opp. p. ix. + +[287:3] De Ephrem Syr. p. 61. + +[288:1] Lengerke, de Ephrem Syr. pp. 73-75. + +[289:1] +despotou+, vid. La Croze, Thesaur. Ep. t. 3, 145. + +[289:2] Montf. Coll. Nov. t. 2, p. 227. + +[290:1] Rosenmuller, Hist. Interpr. t. 3, p. 278. + +[290:2] Lengerke, de Ephr. Syr. pp. 165-167. + +[290:3] Ernest. de Proph. Mess. p. 462. + +[291:1] Eccl. Theol. iii. 12. + +[291:2] Professor Lee's Serm. Oct. 1838, pp. 144-152. + +[291:3] Noris. Opp. t. 2, p. 112. + +[291:4] Augusti. Euseb. Em. Opp. + +[291:5] Asseman. Bibl. Or. p. cmxxv. + +[291:6] Hoffman, Gram. Syr. Proleg. 4. + +[291:7] The educated Persians were also acquainted with Syriac. Assem. +t. i. p. 351, not. + +[292:1] Asseman., p. lxx. + +[292:2] Euseb. Prp. vi. 10. + +[292:3] Tillemont, Mem. t. 7, p. 77. + +[293:1] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[294:1] Asseman. p. lxxviii. + +[294:2] Gibbon, ibid. + +[294:3] Asseman. t. 2, p. 403, t. 3, p. 393. + +[295:1] Asseman. t. 3, p. 67. + +[296:1] Gibbon, ibid. + +[296:2] Assem. p. lxxvi. + +[296:3] Ibid. t. 3, p. 441. + +[297:1] Ch. 47. + +[298:1] Fleur. Hist. xxvii. 29. + +[299:1] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[300:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 127. + +[301:1] Petav. de Incarn. iv. 6, 4. + +[301:2] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 168. + +[301:3] Vid. the Author's Athan. trans. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. pp. 331-333, +426-429, and on the general subject his Theol. Tracts, art. v.] + +[302:1] Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxvii. 39. + +[302:2] Ibid. 41. In like manner, St. Athanasius in the foregoing age +had said, "The faith confessed at Nica by the Fathers, according to the +Scriptures, is sufficient for the overthrow of all misbelief." ad Epict. +init. Elsewhere, however, he explains his statement, "The decrees of +Nica are right and sufficient for the overthrow of all heresy, +_especially_ the Arian," ad. Max. fin. St. Gregory Nazianzen, in like +manner, appeals to Nica; but he "adds an explanation on the doctrine of +the Holy Spirit which was left deficient by the Fathers, because the +question had not then been raised." Ep. 102, init. This exclusive +maintenance, and yet extension of the Creed, according to the exigences +of the times, is instanced in other Fathers. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, +vol. ii. p. 82.] + +[303:1] Fleury, ibid. 27. + +[304:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 141. [A negative is omitted in the Greek, +but inserted in the Latin.] + +[304:2] Supr. p. 245. + +[304:3] Ad Const. ii. 9. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. p. 261.] + +[305:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 162. + +[307:1] Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxvii. 37. + +[307:2] Ep. 116. + +[307:3] Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 36. + +[308:1] Ep. 43. + +[308:2] Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxviii. 17, note _l_. + +[308:3] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 68. + +[308:4] Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxviii. 2, 3. + +[310:1] Ibid. 20. + +[311:1] Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 656. + +[312:1] [Can any so grave an _ex parte_ charge as this be urged against +the recent Vatican Council?] + +[313:1] I cannot find my reference for this fact; the sketch is formed +from notes made some years since, though I have now verified them. + +[313:2] Leont. de Sect. v. p. 512. + +[313:3] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 99, vid. also p. 418. + +[313:4] Renaud. Patr. Alex. p. 115. + +[313:5] Assem. t. 2, pp. 133-137. + +[315:1] Leont. de Sect. vii. pp. 521, 2. + +[315:2] Fac. i. 5, circ. init. + +[315:3] Hodeg. 20, p. 319. + +[317:1] _i. e._ Arianism in the East: "Sanctiores aures plebis quam +corda sunt sacerdotum." S. Hil. contr. Auxent. 6. It requires some +research to account for its hold on the barbarians. Vid. _supr._ pp. +274, 5. + +[317:2] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[317:3] Assem. t. 2, de Monoph. circ. fin. + +[318:1] Leont. Sect. v. init. + +[318:2] Tillemont, t. 15, p. 784. + +[319:1] Tillemont, Mem. t. 15, pp. 790-811. + +[320:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin. + +[321:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin. + +[321:2] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 47. + +[322:1] [The above sketch has run to great length, yet it is only part +of what might be set down in evidence of the wonderful identity of type +which characterizes the Catholic Church from first to last. I have +confined myself for the most part to her political aspect; but a +parallel illustration might be drawn simply from her doctrinal, or from +her devotional. As to her devotional aspect, Cardinal Wiseman has shown +its identity in the fifth compared with the nineteenth century, in an +article of the _Dublin Review_, quoted in part in _Via Media_, vol. ii. +p. 378. Indeed it is confessed on all hands, as by Middleton, Gibbon, +&c., that from the time of Constantine to their own, the system and the +phenomena of worship in Christendom, from Moscow to Spain, and from +Ireland to Chili, is one and the same. I have myself paralleled Medieval +Europe with modern Belgium or Italy, in point of ethical character in +"Difficulties of Anglicans," vol. i. Lecture ix., referring the identity +to the operation of a principle, insisted on presently, the Supremacy of +Faith. And so again, as to the system of Catholic doctrine, the type of +the Religion remains the same, because it has developed according to the +"analogy of faith," as is observed in _Apol._, p. 196, "The idea of the +Blessed Virgin was, as it were, _magnified_ in the Church of Rome, as +time went on, but so were _all_ the Christian ideas, as that of the +Blessed Eucharist," &c.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +APPLICATION OF THE SECOND NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES. + +It appears then that there has been a certain general type of +Christianity in every age, by which it is known at first sight, +differing from itself only as what is young differs from what is mature, +or as found in Europe or in America, so that it is named at once and +without hesitation, as forms of nature are recognized by experts in +physical science; or as some work of literature or art is assigned to +its right author by the critic, difficult as may be the analysis of that +specific impression by which he is enabled to do so. And it appears that +this type has remained entire from first to last, in spite of that +process of development which seems to be attributed by all parties, for +good or bad, to the doctrines, rites, and usages in which Christianity +consists; or, in other words, that the changes which have taken place in +Christianity have not been such as to destroy that type,--that is, that +they are not corruptions, because they are consistent with that type. +Here then, in the _preservation of type_, we have a first Note of the +fidelity of the existing developments of Christianity. Let us now +proceed to a second. + + + 1. _The Principles of Christianity._ + +When developments in Christianity are spoken of, it is sometimes +supposed that they are deductions and diversions made at random, +according to accident or the caprice of individuals; whereas it is +because they have been conducted all along on definite and continuous +principles that the type of the Religion has remained from first to last +unalterable. What then are the principles under which the developments +have been made? I will enumerate some obvious ones. + + +2. + +They must be many and positive, as well as obvious, if they are to be +effective; thus the Society of Friends seems in the course of years to +have changed its type in consequence of its scarcity of principles, a +fanatical spiritualism and an intense secularity, types simply contrary +to each other, being alike consistent with its main principle, "Forms of +worship are Antichristian." Christianity, on the other hand, has +principles so distinctive, numerous, various, and operative, as to be +unlike any other religious, ethical, or political system that the world +has ever seen, unlike, not only in character, but in persistence in that +character. I cannot attempt here to enumerate more than a few by way of +illustration. + + +3. + +For the convenience of arrangement, I will consider the Incarnation the +central truth of the gospel, and the source whence we are to draw out +its principles. This great doctrine is unequivocally announced in +numberless passages of the New Testament, especially by St. John and St. +Paul; as is familiar to us all: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among +us, full of grace and truth." "That which was from the beginning, which +we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked +upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, that declare we +to you." "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though +He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His +poverty might be rich." "Not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life +which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, +who loved me and gave Himself for me." + + +4. + +In such passages as these we have + +1. The principle of _dogma_, that is, supernatural truths irrevocably +committed to human language, imperfect because it is human, but +definitive and necessary because given from above. + +2. The principle of _faith_, which is the correlative of dogma, being +the absolute acceptance of the divine Word with an internal assent, in +opposition to the informations, if such, of sight and reason. + +3. Faith, being an act of the intellect, opens a way for inquiry, +comparison and inference, that is, for science in religion, in +subservience to itself; this is the principle of _theology_. + +4. The doctrine of the Incarnation is the announcement of a divine gift +conveyed in a material and visible medium, it being thus that heaven and +earth are in the Incarnation united. That is, it establishes in the very +idea of Christianity the _sacramental_ principle as its characteristic. + +5. Another principle involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation, viewed +as taught or as dogmatic, is the necessary use of language, e. g. of the +text of Scripture, in a second or _mystical sense_. Words must be made +to express new ideas, and are invested with a sacramental office. + +6. It is our Lord's intention in His Incarnation to make us what He is +Himself; this is the principle of _grace_, which is not only holy but +sanctifying. + +7. It cannot elevate and change us without mortifying our lower +nature:--here is the principle of _asceticism_. + +8. And, involved in this death of the natural man, is necessarily a +revelation of the _malignity of sin_, in corroboration of the +forebodings of conscience. + +9. Also by the fact of an Incarnation we are taught that matter is an +essential part of us, and, as well as mind, is _capable of +sanctification_. + + +5. + +Here are nine specimens of Christian principles out of the many[326:1] +which might be enumerated, and will any one say that they have not been +retained in vigorous action in the Church at all times amid whatever +development of doctrine Christianity has experienced, so as even to be +the very instruments of that development, and as patent, and as +operative, in the Latin and Greek Christianity of this day as they were +in the beginning? + +This continuous identity of principles in ecclesiastical action has been +seen in part in treating of the Note of Unity of type, and will be seen +also in the Notes which follow; however, as some direct account of them, +in illustration, may be desirable, I will single out four as +specimens,--Faith, Theology, Scripture, and Dogma. + + + 2. _Supremacy of Faith._ + +This principle which, as we have already seen, was so great a jest to +Celsus and Julian, is of the following kind:--That belief in +Christianity is in itself better than unbelief; that faith, though an +intellectual action, is ethical in its origin; that it is safer to +believe; that we must begin with believing; that as for the reasons of +believing, they are for the most part implicit, and need be but slightly +recognized by the mind that is under their influence; that they consist +moreover rather of presumptions and ventures after the truth than of +accurate and complete proofs; and that probable arguments, under the +scrutiny and sanction of a prudent judgment, are sufficient for +conclusions which we even embrace as most certain, and turn to the most +important uses. + + +2. + +Antagonistic to this is the principle that doctrines are only so far to +be considered true as they are logically demonstrated. This is the +assertion of Locke, who says in defence of it,--"Whatever God hath +revealed is certainly true; no doubt can be made of it. This is the +proper object of Faith; but, whether it be a divine revelation or no, +reason must judge." Now, if he merely means that proofs can be given for +Revelation, and that Reason comes in logical order before Faith, such a +doctrine is in no sense uncatholic; but he certainly holds that for an +individual to act on Faith without proof, or to make Faith a personal +principle of conduct for themselves, without waiting till they have got +their reasons accurately drawn out and serviceable for controversy, is +enthusiastic and absurd. "How a man may know whether he be [a lover of +truth for truth's sake] is worth inquiry; and I think there is this one +unerring mark of it, viz. the not entertaining any proposition with +greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon, will warrant. +Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain, receives not +truth in the love of it; loves not truth for truth's sake, but for some +other by-end." + + +3. + +It does not seem to have struck him that our "by-end" may be the desire +to please our Maker, and that the defect of scientific proof may be made +up to our reason by our love of Him. It does not seem to have struck him +that such a philosophy as his cut off from the possibility and the +privilege of faith all but the educated few, all but the learned, the +clear-headed, the men of practised intellects and balanced minds, men +who had leisure, who had opportunities of consulting others, and kind +and wise friends to whom they deferred. How could a religion ever be +Catholic, if it was to be called credulity or enthusiasm in the +multitude to use those ready instruments of belief, which alone +Providence had put into their power? On such philosophy as this, were it +generally received, no great work ever would have been done for God's +glory and the welfare of man. The "enthusiasm" against which Locke +writes may do much harm, and act at times absurdly; but calculation +never made a hero. However, it is not to our present purpose to examine +this theory, and I have done so elsewhere.[328:1] Here I have but to +show the unanimity of Catholics, ancient as well as modern, in their +absolute rejection of it. + + +4. + +For instance, it is the very objection urged by Celsus, that Christians +were but parallel to the credulous victims of jugglers or of devotees, +who itinerated through the pagan population. He says "that some do not +even wish to give or to receive a reason for their faith, but say, 'Do +not inquire but believe,' and 'Thy faith will save thee;' and 'A bad +thing is the world's wisdom, and foolishness is a good.'" How does +Origen answer the charge? by denying the fact, and speaking of the +reason of each individual as demonstrating the divinity of the +Scriptures, and Faith as coming after that argumentative process, as it +is now popular to maintain? Far from it; he grants the fact alleged +against the Church and defends it. He observes that, considering the +engagements and the necessary ignorance of the multitude of men, it is a +very happy circumstance that a substitute is provided for those +philosophical exercises, which Christianity allows and encourages, but +does not impose on the individual. "Which," he asks, "is the better, for +them to believe without reason, and thus to reform any how and gain a +benefit, from their belief in the punishment of sinners and the reward +of well-doers, or to refuse to be converted on mere belief, or except +they devote themselves to an intellectual inquiry?"[329:1] Such a +provision then is a mark of divine wisdom and mercy. In like manner, St. +Irenus, after observing that the Jews had the evidence of prophecy, +which the Gentiles had not, and that to the latter it was a foreign +teaching and a new doctrine to be told that the gods of the Gentiles +were not only not gods, but were idols of devils, and that in +consequence St. Paul laboured more upon them, as needing it more, adds, +"On the other hand, the faith of the Gentiles is thereby shown to be +more generous, who followed the word of God without the assistance of +Scriptures." To believe on less evidence was generous faith, not +enthusiasm. And so again, Eusebius, while he contends of course that +Christians are influenced by "no irrational faith," that is, by a faith +which is capable of a logical basis, fully allows that in the individual +believing, it is not necessarily or ordinarily based upon argument, and +maintains that it is connected with that very "hope," and inclusively +with that desire of the things beloved, which Locke in the above +extract considers incompatible with the love of truth. "What do we +find," he says, "but that the whole life of man is suspended on these +two, hope and faith?"[330:1] + +I do not mean of course that the Fathers were opposed to inquiries into +the intellectual basis of Christianity, but that they held that men were +not obliged to wait for logical proof before believing: on the contrary, +that the majority were to believe first on presumptions and let the +intellectual proof come as their reward.[330:2] + + +5. + +St. Augustine, who had tried both ways, strikingly contrasts them in his +_De Utilitate credendi_, though his direct object in that work is to +decide, not between Reason and Faith, but between Reason and Authority. +He addresses in it a very dear friend, who, like himself, had become a +Manichee, but who, with less happiness than his own, was still retained +in the heresy. "The Manichees," he observes, "inveigh against those who, +following the authority of the Catholic faith, fortify themselves in the +first instance with believing, and before they are able to set eyes upon +that truth, which is discerned by the pure soul, prepare themselves for +a God who shall illuminate. You, Honoratus, know that nothing else was +the cause of my falling into their hands, than their professing to put +away Authority which was so terrible, and by absolute and simple Reason +to lead their hearers to God's presence, and to rid them of all error. +For what was there else that forced me, for nearly nine years, to slight +the religion which was sown in me when a child by my parents, and to +follow them and diligently attend their lectures, but their assertion +that I was terrified by superstition, and was bidden to have Faith +before I had Reason, whereas they pressed no one to believe before the +truth had been discussed and unravelled? Who would not be seduced by +these promises, and especially a youth, such as they found me then, +desirous of truth, nay conceited and forward, by reason of the +disputations of certain men of school learning, with a contempt of +old-wives' tales, and a desire of possessing and drinking that clear and +unmixed truth which they promised me?"[331:1] + +Presently he goes on to describe how he was reclaimed. He found the +Manichees more successful in pulling down than in building up; he was +disappointed in Faustus, whom he found eloquent and nothing besides. +Upon this, he did not know what to hold, and was tempted to a general +scepticism. At length he found he must be guided by Authority; then came +the question, Which authority among so many teachers? He cried earnestly +to God for help, and at last was led to the Catholic Church. He then +returns to the question urged against that Church, that "she bids those +who come to her believe," whereas heretics "boast that they do not +impose a yoke of believing, but open a fountain of teaching." On which +he observes, "True religion cannot in any manner be rightly embraced, +without a belief in those things which each individual afterwards +attains and perceives, if he behave himself well and shall deserve it, +nor altogether without some weighty and imperative Authority."[331:2] + + +6. + +These are specimens of the teaching of the Ancient Church on the subject +of Faith and Reason; if, on the other hand, we would know what has been +taught on the subject in those modern schools, in and through which the +subsequent developments of Catholic doctrines have proceeded, we may +turn to the extracts made from their writings by Huet, in his "Essay on +the Human Understanding;" and, in so doing, we need not perplex +ourselves with the particular theory, true or not, for the sake of which +he has collected them. Speaking of the weakness of the Understanding, +Huet says,-- + +"God, by His goodness, repairs this defect of human nature, by granting +us the inestimable gift of Faith, which confirms our staggering Reason, +and corrects that perplexity of doubts which we must bring to the +knowledge of things. For example: my reason not being able to inform me +with absolute evidence, and perfect certainty, whether there are bodies, +what was the origin of the world, and many other like things, after I +had received the Faith, all those doubts vanish, as darkness at the +rising of the sun. This made St. Thomas Aquinas say: 'It is necessary +for man to receive as articles of Faith, not only the things which are +above Reason, but even those that for their certainty may be known by +Reason. For human Reason is very deficient in things divine; a sign of +which we have from philosophers, who, in the search of human things by +natural methods, have been deceived, and opposed each other on many +heads. To the end then that men may have a certain and undoubted +cognizance of God, it was necessary things divine should be taught them +by way of Faith, as being revealed of God Himself, who cannot +lie.'[332:1] . . . . . + +"Then St. Thomas adds afterwards: 'No search by natural Reason is +sufficient to make man know things divine, nor even those which we can +prove by Reason.' And in another place he speaks thus: 'Things which may +be proved demonstratively, as the Being of God, the Unity of the +Godhead, and other points, are placed among articles we are to believe, +because previous to other things that are of Faith; and these must be +presupposed, at least by such as have no demonstration of them.' + + +7. + +"What St. Thomas says of the cognizance of divine things extends also to +the knowledge of human, according to the doctrine of Suarez. 'We often +correct,' he says, 'the light of Nature by the light of Faith, even in +things which seem to be first principles, as appears in this: those +things that are the same to a third, are the same between themselves; +which, if we have respect to the Trinity, ought to be restrained to +finite things. And in other mysteries, especially in those of the +Incarnation and the Eucharist, we use many other limitations, that +nothing may be repugnant to the Faith. This is then an indication that +the light of Faith is most certain, because founded on the first +truth, which is God, to whom it's more impossible to deceive or be +deceived than for the natural science of man to be mistaken and +erroneous.'[333:1] . . . . + +"If we hearken not to Reason, say you, you overthrow that great +foundation of Religion which Reason has established in our +understanding, viz. God is. To answer this objection, you must be told +that men know God in two manners. By Reason, with entire human +certainty; and by Faith, with absolute and divine certainty. Although by +Reason we cannot acquire any knowledge more certain than that of the +Being of God; insomuch that all the arguments, which the impious oppose +to this knowledge are of no validity and easily refuted; nevertheless +this certainty is not absolutely perfect[333:2] . . . . . + + +8. + +"Now although, to prove the existence of the Deity, we can bring +arguments which, accumulated and connected together, are not of less +power to convince men than geometrical principles, and theorems deduced +from them, and which are of entire human certainty, notwithstanding, +because learned philosophers have openly opposed even these principles, +'tis clear we cannot, neither in the natural knowledge we have of God, +which is acquired by Reason, nor in science founded on geometrical +principles and theorems, find absolute and consummate certainty, but +only that human certainty I have spoken of, to which nevertheless every +wise man ought to submit his understanding. This being not repugnant to +the testimony of the Book of Wisdom and the Epistle to the Romans, which +declares that men who do not from the make of the world acknowledge the +power and divinity of the Maker are senseless and inexcusable. + +"For to use the terms of Vasquez: 'By these words the Holy Scripture +means only that there has ever been a sufficient testimony of the Being +of a God in the fabrick of the world, and in His other works, to make +Him known unto men: but the Scripture is not under any concern whether +this knowledge be evident or of greatest probability; for these terms +are seen and understood, in their common and usual acceptation, to +signify all the knowledge of the mind with a determined assent.' He adds +after: 'For if any one should at this time deny Christ, that which would +render him inexcusable would not be because he might have had an evident +knowledge and reason for believing Him, but because he might have +believed it by Faith and a prudential knowledge.' + +"'Tis with reason then that Suarez teaches that 'the natural evidence of +this principle, God is the first truth, who cannot be deceived, is not +necessary, nor sufficient enough to make us believe by infused Faith, +what God reveals.' He proves, by the testimony of experience, that it is +not necessary; for ignorant and illiterate Christians, though they know +nothing clearly and certainly of God, do believe nevertheless that God +is. Even Christians of parts and learning, as St. Thomas has observed, +believe that God is, before they know it by Reason. Suarez shows +afterwards that the natural evidence of this principle is not +sufficient, because divine Faith, which is infused into our +understanding, cannot be bottomed upon human faith alone, how clear and +firm soever it is, as upon a formal object, because an assent most firm, +and of an order most noble and exalted, cannot derive its certainty from +a more infirm assent.[335:1] . . . . + + +9. + +"As touching the motives of credibility, which, preparing the mind to +receive Faith, ought according to you to be not only certain by supreme +and human certainty, but by supreme and absolute certainty, I will +oppose Gabriel Biel to you, who pronounces that to receive Faith 'tis +sufficient that the motives of credibility be proposed as probable. Do +you believe that children, illiterate, gross, ignorant people, who have +scarcely the use of Reason, and notwithstanding have received the gift +of Faith, do most clearly and most steadfastly conceive those +forementioned motives of credibility? No, without doubt; but the grace +of God comes in to their assistance, and sustains the imbecility of +Nature and Reason. + +"This is the common opinion of divines. Reason has need of divine grace, +not only in gross, illiterate persons, but even in those of parts and +learning; for how clear-sighted soever that may be, yet it cannot make +us have Faith, if celestial light does not illuminate us within, +because, as I have said already, divine Faith being of a superior order +cannot derive its efficacy from human faith."[336:1] "This is likewise +the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas: 'The light of Faith makes things +seen that are believed.' He says moreover, 'Believers have knowledge of +the things of Faith, not in a demonstrative way, but so as by the light +of Faith it appears to them that they ought to be believed.'"[336:2] + + +10. + +It is evident what a special influence such doctrine as this must exert +upon the theological method of those who hold it. Arguments will come to +be considered as suggestions and guides rather than logical proofs; and +developments as the slow, spontaneous, ethical growth, not the +scientific and compulsory results, of existing opinions. + + + 3. _Theology._ + +I have spoken and have still to speak of the action of logic, implicit +and explicit, as a safeguard, and thereby a note, of legitimate +developments of doctrine: but I am regarding it here as that continuous +tradition and habit in the Church of a scientific analysis of all +revealed truth, which is an ecclesiastical principle rather than a note +of any kind, as not merely bearing upon the process of development, but +applying to all religious teaching equally, and which is almost unknown +beyond the pale of Christendom. Reason, thus considered, is subservient +to faith, as handling, examining, explaining, recording, cataloguing, +defending, the truths which faith, not reason, has gained for us, as +providing an intellectual expression of supernatural facts, eliciting +what is implicit, comparing, measuring, connecting each with each, and +forming one and all into a theological system. + + +2. + +The first step in theology is investigation, an investigation arising +out of the lively interest and devout welcome which the matters +investigated claim of us; and, if Scripture teaches us the duty of +faith, it teaches quite as distinctly that loving inquisitiveness which +is the life of the _Schola_. It attributes that temper both to the +Blessed Virgin and to the Angels. The Angels are said to have "desired +to look into the mysteries of Revelation," and it is twice recorded of +Mary that she "kept these things and pondered them in her heart." +Moreover, her words to the Archangel, "How shall this be?" show that +there is a questioning in matters revealed to us compatible with the +fullest and most absolute faith. It has sometimes been said in defence +and commendation of heretics that "their misbelief at least showed that +they had thought upon the subject of religion;" this is an unseemly +paradox,--at the same time there certainly is the opposite extreme of a +readiness to receive any number of dogmas at a minute's warning, which, +when it is witnessed, fairly creates a suspicion that they are merely +professed with the tongue, not intelligently held. Our Lord gives no +countenance to such lightness of mind; He calls on His disciples to use +their reason, and to submit it. Nathanael's question "Can there any good +thing come out of Nazareth?" did not prevent our Lord's praise of him as +"an Israelite without guile." Nor did He blame Nicodemus, except for +want of theological knowledge, on his asking "How can these things be?" +Even towards St. Thomas He was gentle, as if towards one of those who +had "eyes too tremblingly awake to bear with dimness for His sake." In +like manner He praised the centurion when he argued himself into a +confidence of divine help and relief from the analogy of his own +profession; and left his captious enemies to prove for themselves from +the mission of the Baptist His own mission; and asked them "if David +called Him Lord, how was He his Son?" and, when His disciples wished to +have a particular matter taught them, chid them for their want of +"understanding." And these are but some out of the various instances +which He gives us of the same lesson. + + +3. + +Reason has ever been awake and in exercise in the Church after Him from +the first. Scarcely were the Apostles withdrawn from the world, when the +Martyr Ignatius, in his way to the Roman Amphitheatre, wrote his +strikingly theological Epistles; he was followed by Irenus, Hippolytus, +and Tertullian; thus we are brought to the age of Athanasius and his +contemporaries, and to Augustine. Then we pass on by Maximus and John +Damascene to the Middle age, when theology was made still more +scientific by the Schoolmen; nor has it become less so, by passing on +from St. Thomas to the great Jesuit writers Suarez and Vasquez, and then +to Lambertini. + + + 4. _Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation._ + +Several passages have occurred in the foregoing Chapters, which serve to +suggest another principle on which some words are now to be said. +Theodore's exclusive adoption of the literal, and repudiation of the +mystical interpretation of Holy Scripture, leads to the consideration of +the latter, as one of the characteristic conditions or principles on +which the teaching of the Church has ever proceeded. Thus Christianity +developed, as we have incidentally seen, into the form, first, of a +Catholic, then of a Papal Church. Now it was Scripture that was made the +rule on which this development proceeded in each case, and Scripture +moreover interpreted in a mystical sense; and, whereas at first certain +texts were inconsistently confined to the letter, and a Millennium was +in consequence expected, the very course of events, as time went on, +interpreted the prophecies about the Church more truly, and that first +in respect of her prerogative as occupying the _orbis terrarum_, next in +support of the claims of the See of St. Peter. This is but one specimen +of a certain law of Christian teaching, which is this,--a reference to +Scripture throughout, and especially in its mystical sense.[339:1] + + +2. + +1. This is a characteristic which will become more and more evident to +us, the more we look for it. The divines of the Church are in every age +engaged in regulating themselves by Scripture, appealing to Scripture in +proof of their conclusions, and exhorting and teaching in the thoughts +and language of Scripture. Scripture may be said to be the medium in +which the mind of the Church has energized and developed.[339:2] When +St. Methodius would enforce the doctrine of vows of celibacy, he refers +to the book of Numbers; and if St. Irenus proclaims the dignity of St. +Mary, it is from a comparison of St. Luke's Gospel with Genesis. And +thus St. Cyprian, in his Testimonies, rests the prerogatives of +martyrdom, as indeed the whole circle of Christian doctrine, on the +declaration of certain texts; and, when in his letter to Antonian he +seems to allude to Purgatory, he refers to our Lord's words about "the +prison" and "paying the last farthing." And if St. Ignatius exhorts to +unity, it is from St. Paul; and he quotes St. Luke against the +Phantasiasts of his day. We have a first instance of this law in the +Epistle of St. Polycarp, and a last in the practical works of St. +Alphonso Liguori. St. Cyprian, or St. Ambrose, or St. Bede, or St. +Bernard, or St. Carlo, or such popular books as Horstius's _Paradisus +Anim_, are specimens of a rule which is too obvious to need formal +proof. It is exemplified in the theological decisions of St. Athanasius +in the fourth century, and of St. Thomas in the thirteenth; in the +structure of the Canon Law, and in the Bulls and Letters of Popes. It is +instanced in the notion so long prevalent in the Church, which +philosophers of this day do not allow us to forget, that all truth, all +science, must be derived from the inspired volume. And it is recognized +as well as exemplified; recognized as distinctly by writers of the +Society of Jesus, as it is copiously exemplified by the Ante-nicene +Fathers. + + +3. + +"Scriptures are called canonical," says Salmeron, "as having been +received and set apart by the Church into the Canon of sacred books, and +because they are to us a rule of right belief and good living; also +because they ought to rule and moderate all other doctrines, laws, +writings, whether ecclesiastical, apocryphal, or human. For as these +agree with them, or at least do not disagree, so far are they admitted; +but they are repudiated and reprobated so far as they differ from them +even in the least matter."[340:1] Again: "The main subject of Scripture +is nothing else than to treat of the God-Man, or the Man-God, Christ +Jesus, not only in the New Testament, which is open, but in the +Old. . . . . . . For whereas Scripture contains nothing but the precepts +of belief and conduct, or faith and works, the end and the means towards +it, the Creator and the creature, love of God and our neighbour, +creation and redemption, and whereas all these are found in Christ, it +follows that Christ is the proper subject of Canonical Scripture. For +all matters of faith, whether concerning Creator or creatures, are +recapitulated in Jesus, whom every heresy denies, according to that +text, 'Every spirit that divides (_solvit_) Jesus is not of God;' for He +as man is united to the Godhead, and as God to the manhood, to the +Father from whom He is born, to the Holy Ghost who proceeds at once from +Christ and the Father, to Mary his most Holy Mother, to the Church, to +Scriptures, Sacraments, Saints, Angels, the Blessed, to Divine Grace, to +the authority and ministers of the Church, so that it is rightly said +that every heresy divides Jesus."[341:1] And again: "Holy Scripture is +so fashioned and composed by the Holy Ghost as to be accommodated to all +plans, times, persons, difficulties, dangers, diseases, the expulsion of +evil, the obtaining of good, the stifling of errors, the establishment +of doctrines, the ingrafting of virtues, the averting of vices. Hence it +is deservedly compared by St. Basil to a dispensary which supplies +various medicines against every complaint. From it did the Church in the +age of Martyrs draw her firmness and fortitude; in the age of Doctors, +her wisdom and light of knowledge; in the time of heretics, the +overthrow of error; in time of prosperity, humility and moderation; +fervour and diligence, in a lukewarm time; and in times of depravity and +growing abuse, reformation from corrupt living and return to the first +estate."[341:2] + + +4. + +"Holy Scripture," says Cornelius Lapide, "contains the beginnings of +all theology: for theology is nothing but the science of conclusions +which are drawn from principles certain to faith, and therefore is of +all sciences most august as well as certain; but the principles of faith +and faith itself doth Scripture contain; whence it evidently follows +that Holy Scripture lays down those principles of theology by which the +theologian begets of the mind's reasoning his demonstrations. He, then, +who thinks he can tear away Scholastic Science from the work of +commenting on Holy Scripture is hoping for offspring without a +mother."[342:1] Again: "What is the subject-matter of Scripture? Must I +say it in a word? Its aim is _de omni scibili_; it embraces in its bosom +all studies, all that can be known: and thus it is a certain university +of sciences containing all sciences either 'formally' or +'eminently.'"[342:2] + +Nor am I aware that later Post-tridentine writers deny that the whole +Catholic faith may be proved from Scripture, though they would certainly +maintain that it is not to be found on the surface of it, nor in such +sense that it may be gained from Scripture without the aid of Tradition. + + +5. + +2. And this has been the doctrine of all ages of the Church, as is shown +by the disinclination of her teachers to confine themselves to the mere +literal interpretation of Scripture. Her most subtle and powerful method +of proof, whether in ancient or modern times, is the mystical sense, +which is so frequently used in doctrinal controversy as on many +occasions to supersede any other. Thus the Council of Trent appeals to +the peace-offering spoken of in Malachi in proof of the Eucharistic +Sacrifice; to the water and blood issuing from our Lord's side, and to +the mention of "waters" in the Apocalypse, in admonishing on the subject +of the mixture of water with the wine in the Oblation. Thus Bellarmine +defends Monastic celibacy by our Lord's words in Matthew xix., and +refers to "We went through fire and water," &c., in the Psalm, as an +argument for Purgatory; and these, as is plain, are but specimens of a +rule. Now, on turning to primitive controversy, we find this method of +interpretation to be the very basis of the proof of the Catholic +doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Whether we betake ourselves to the +Ante-nicene writers or the Nicene, certain texts will meet us, which do +not obviously refer to that doctrine, yet are put forward as palmary +proofs of it. Such are, in respect of our Lord's divinity, "My heart is +inditing of a good matter," or "has burst forth with a good Word;" "The +Lord made" or "possessed Me in the beginning of His ways;" "I was with +Him, in whom He delighted;" "In Thy Light shall we see Light;" "Who +shall declare His generation?" "She is the Breath of the Power of God;" +and "His Eternal Power and Godhead." + +On the other hand, the School of Antioch, which adopted the literal +interpretation, was, as I have noticed above, the very metropolis of +heresy. Not to speak of Lucian, whose history is but imperfectly known, +(one of the first masters of this school, and also teacher of Arius and +his principal supporters), Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who were +the most eminent masters of literalism in the succeeding generation, +were, as we have seen, the forerunners of Nestorianism. The case had +been the same in a still earlier age;--the Jews clung to the literal +sense of the Scriptures and hence rejected the Gospel; the Christian +Apologists proved its divinity by means of the allegorical. The formal +connexion of this mode of interpretation with Christian theology is +noticed by Porphyry, who speaks of Origen and others as borrowing it +from heathen philosophy, both in explanation of the Old Testament and in +defence of their own doctrine. It may be almost laid down as an +historical fact, that the mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will +stand or fall together. + + +6. + +This is clearly seen, as regards the primitive theology, by a recent +writer, in the course of a Dissertation upon St. Ephrem. After observing +that Theodore of Heraclea, Eusebius, and Diodorus gave a systematic +opposition to the mystical interpretation, which had a sort of sanction +from Antiquity and the orthodox Church, he proceeds; "Ephrem is not as +sober in his interpretations, _nor could it be, since_ he was a zealous +disciple of the orthodox faith. For all those who are most eminent in +such sobriety were as far as possible removed from the faith of the +Councils. . . . . On the other hand, all who retained the faith of +the Church never entirely dispensed with the spiritual sense of the +Scriptures. For the Councils watched over the orthodox faith; nor was it +safe in those ages, as we learn especially from the instance of Theodore +of Mopsuestia, to desert the spiritual for an exclusive cultivation of +the literal method. Moreover, the allegorical interpretation, even when +the literal sense was not injured, was also preserved; because in those +times, when both heretics and Jews in controversy were stubborn in their +objections to Christian doctrine, maintaining that the Messiah was yet +to come, or denying the abrogation of the Sabbath and ceremonial law, or +ridiculing the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and especially that of +Christ's Divine Nature, under such circumstances ecclesiastical +writers found it to their purpose, in answer to such exceptions, +violently to refer every part of Scripture by allegory to Christ and +His Church."[345:1] + + +7. + +With this passage from a learned German, illustrating the bearing of the +allegorical method upon the Judaic and Athanasian controversies, it will +be well to compare the following passage from the latitudinarian Hale's +"Golden Remains," as directed against the theology of Rome. "The +literal, plain, and uncontroversible meaning of Scripture," he says, +"without any addition or supply by way of interpretation, is that alone +which for ground of faith we are necessarily bound to accept; except it +be there, where the Holy Ghost Himself treads us out another way. I take +not this to be any particular conceit of mine, but that unto which our +Church stands necessarily bound. When we receded from the Church of +Rome, one motive was, because she added unto Scripture her glosses as +Canonical, to supply what the plain text of Scripture could not yield. +If, in place of hers, we set up our own glosses, thus to do were nothing +else but to pull down Baal, and set up an Ephod, to run round and meet +the Church of Rome again in the same point in which at first we left +her. . . . This doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous or +prejudicial to any, but only to those who were inwardly conscious that +their positions were not sufficiently grounded. When Cardinal Cajetan, +in the days of our grandfathers, had forsaken that vein of postilling +and allegorizing on Scripture, which for a long time had prevailed in +the Church, and betaken himself unto the literal sense, it was a thing +so distasteful unto the Church of Rome that he was forced to find out +many shifts and make many apologies for himself. The truth is (as it +will appear to him that reads his writings), this sticking close to the +literal sense was that alone which made him to shake off many of those +tenets upon which the Church of Rome and the reformed Churches differ. +But when the importunity of the Reformers, and the great credit of +Calvin's writings in that kind, had forced the divines of Rome to level +their interpretations by the same line; when they saw that no pains, no +subtlety of wit was strong enough to defeat the literal evidence of +Scripture, it drove them on those desperate shoals, on which at this day +they stick, to call in question, as far as they durst, the credit of the +Hebrew text, and countenance against it a corrupt translation; to add +traditions unto Scripture, and to make the Church's interpretation, so +pretended, to be above exception."[346:1] + + +8. + +He presently adds concerning the allegorical sense: "If we absolutely +condemn these interpretations, then must we condemn a great part of +Antiquity, who are very much conversant in this kind of interpreting. +For the most partial for Antiquity cannot choose but see and confess +thus much, that for the literal sense, the interpreters of our own +times, because of their skill in the original languages, their care of +pressing the circumstances and coherence of the text, of comparing like +places of Scripture with like, have generally surpassed the best of the +ancients."[346:2] + +The use of Scripture then, especially its spiritual or second sense, as +a medium of thought and deduction, is a characteristic principle of +doctrinal teaching in the Church. + + + 5. _Dogma._ + +1. That opinions in religion are not matters of indifference, but have a +definite bearing on the position of their holders in the Divine Sight, +is a principle on which the Evangelical Faith has from the first +developed, and on which that Faith has been the first to develope. I +suppose, it hardly had any exercise under the Law; the zeal and +obedience of the ancient people being mainly employed in the maintenance +of divine worship and the overthrow of idolatry, not in the action of +the intellect. Faith is in this, as in other respects, a characteristic +of the Gospel, except so far as it was anticipated, as its time drew +near. Elijah and the prophets down to Ezra resisted Baal or restored the +Temple Service; the Three Children refused to bow down before the golden +image; Daniel would turn his face towards Jerusalem; the Maccabees +spurned the Grecian paganism. On the other hand, the Greek Philosophers +were authoritative indeed in their teaching, enforced the "_Ipse +dixit_," and demanded the faith of their disciples; but they did not +commonly attach sanctity or reality to opinions, or view them in a +religious light. Our Saviour was the first to "bear witness to the +Truth," and to die for it, when "before Pontius Pilate he witnessed a +good confession." St. John and St. Paul, following his example, both +pronounce anathema on those who denied "the Truth" or "brought in +another Gospel." Tradition tells us that the Apostle of love seconded +his word with his deed, and on one occasion hastily quitted a bath +because an heresiarch of the day had entered it. St. Ignatius, his +contemporary, compares false teachers to raging dogs; and St. Polycarp, +his disciple, exercised the same seventy upon Marcion which St. John had +shown towards Cerinthus. + + +2. + +St. Irenus after St. Polycarp exemplifies the same doctrine: "I saw +thee," he says to the heretic Florinus, "when I was yet a boy, in lower +Asia, with Polycarp, when thou wast living splendidly in the Imperial +Court, and trying to recommend thyself to him. I remember indeed what +then happened better than more recent occurrences, for the lessons of +boyhood grow with the mind and become one with it. Thus I can name the +place where blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, and his goings out and +comings in, and the fashion of his life, and the appearance of his +person, and his discourses to the people, and his familiarity with John, +which he used to tell of, and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and +how he used to repeat their words, and what it was that he had learned +about the Lord from them. . . . And in the sight of God, I can protest, +that, if that blessed and apostolical Elder had heard aught of this +doctrine, he had cried out and stopped his ears, saying after his wont, +'O Good God, for what times hast thou reserved me that I should endure +this?' and he had fled the place where he was sitting or standing when +he heard it." It seems to have been the duty of every individual +Christian from the first to witness in his place against all opinions +which were contrary to what he had received in his baptismal +catechizing, and to shun the society of those who maintained them. "So +religious," says Irenus after giving his account of St. Polycarp, "were +the Apostles and their disciples, in not even conversing with those who +counterfeited the truth."[348:1] + + +3. + +Such a principle, however, would but have broken up the Church the +sooner, resolving it into the individuals of which it was composed, +unless the Truth, to which they were to bear witness, had been a +something definite, and formal, and independent of themselves. +Christians were bound to defend and to transmit the faith which they had +received, and they received it from the rulers of the Church; and, on +the other hand, it was the duty of those rulers to watch over and define +this traditionary faith. It is unnecessary to go over ground which has +been traversed so often of late years. St. Irenus brings the subject +before us in his description of St. Polycarp, part of which has already +been quoted; and to it we may limit ourselves. "Polycarp," he says when +writing against the Gnostics, "whom we have seen in our first youth, +ever taught those lessons which he learned from the Apostles, which the +Church also transmits, which alone are true. All the Churches of Asia +bear witness to them; and the successors of Polycarp down to this day, +who is a much more trustworthy and sure witness of truth than +Valentinus, Marcion, or their perverse companions. The same was in Rome +in the time of Anicetus, and converted many of the aforenamed heretics +to the Church of God, preaching that he had received from the Apostles +this one and only truth, which had been transmitted by the +Church."[349:1] + + +4. + +Nor was this the doctrine and practice of one school only, which might +be ignorant of philosophy; the cultivated minds of the Alexandrian +Fathers, who are said to owe so much to Pagan science, certainly showed +no gratitude or reverence towards their alleged instructors, but +maintained the supremacy of Catholic Tradition. Clement[349:2] speaks of +heretical teachers as perverting Scripture, and essaying the gate of +heaven with a false key, not raising the veil, as he and his, by means +of tradition from Christ, but digging through the Church's wall, and +becoming mystagogues of misbelief; "for," he continues, "few words are +enough to prove that they have formed their human assemblies later than +the Catholic Church," and "from that previously existing and most true +Church it is very clear that these later heresies, and others which +have been since, are counterfeit and novel inventions."[350:1] "When the +Marcionites, Valentinians, and the like," says Origen, "appeal to +apocryphal works, they are saying, 'Christ is in the desert;' when to +canonical Scripture, 'Lo, He is in the chambers;' but we must not depart +from that first and ecclesiastical tradition, nor believe otherwise than +as the Churches of God by succession have transmitted to us." And it is +recorded of him in his youth, that he never could be brought to attend +the prayers of a heretic who was in the house of his patroness, from +abomination of his doctrine, "observing," adds Eusebius, "the rule of +the Church." Eusebius too himself, unsatisfactory as is his own +theology, cannot break from this fundamental rule; he ever speaks of the +Gnostic teachers, the chief heretics of his period (at least before the +rise of Arianism), in terms most expressive of abhorrence and disgust. + + +5. + +The African, Syrian, and Asian schools are additional witnesses; +Tertullian at Carthage was strenuous for the dogmatic principle even +after he had given up the traditional. The Fathers of Asia Minor, who +excommunicated Notus, rehearse the Creed, and add, "We declare as we +have learned;" the Fathers of Antioch, who depose Paul of Samosata, set +down in writing the Creed from Scripture, "which," they say, "we +received from the beginning, and have, by tradition and in custody, in +the Catholic and Holy Church, until this day, by succession, as preached +by the blessed Apostles, who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the +Word."[350:2] + + +6. + +Moreover, it is as plain, or even plainer, that what the Christians of +the first ages anathematized, included deductions from the Articles of +Faith, that is, false developments, as well as contradictions of those +Articles. And, since the reason they commonly gave for using the +anathema was that the doctrine in question was strange and startling, it +follows that the truth, which was its contradictory, was also in some +respect unknown to them hitherto; which is also shown by their temporary +perplexity, and their difficulty of meeting heresy, in particular cases. +"Who ever heard the like hitherto?" says St. Athanasius, of +Apollinarianism; "who was the teacher of it, who the hearer? 'From Sion +shall go forth the Law of God, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem;' +but from whence hath this gone forth? What hell hath burst out with it?" +The Fathers at Nica stopped their ears; and St. Irenus, as above +quoted, says that St. Polycarp, had he heard the Gnostic blasphemies, +would have stopped his ears, and deplored the times for which he was +reserved. They anathematized the doctrine, not because it was old, but +because it was new: the anathema would have altogether slept, if it +could not have been extended to propositions not anathematized in the +beginning; for the very characteristic of heresy is this novelty and +originality of manifestation. + +Such was the exclusiveness of Christianity of old: I need not insist on +the steadiness with which that principle has been maintained ever since, +for bigotry and intolerance is one of the ordinary charges brought at +this day against both the medieval Church and the modern. + + +7. + +The Church's consistency and thoroughness in teaching is another aspect +of the same principle, as is illustrated in the following passage from +M. Guizot's History of Civilization. "The adversaries," he says, "of the +Reformation, knew very well what they were about, and what they +required; they could point to their first principles, and boldly admit +all the consequences that might result from them. No government was ever +more consistent and systematic than that of the Romish Church. In fact, +the Court of Rome was much more accommodating, yielded much more than +the Reformers; but in principle it much more completely adopted its own +system, and maintained a much more consistent conduct. There is an +immense power in this full confidence of what is done; this perfect +knowledge of what is required; this complete and rational adaptation of +a system and a creed." Then he goes on to the history of the Society of +Jesus in illustration. "Everything," he says, "was unfavourable to the +Jesuits, both fortune and appearances; neither practical sense which +requires success, nor the imagination which looks for splendour, were +gratified by their destiny. Still it is certain that they possessed the +elements of greatness; a grand idea is attached to their name, to their +influence, and to their history. Why? because they worked from fixed +principles, which they fully and clearly understood, and the tendency of +which they entirely comprehended. In the Reformation, on the contrary, +when the event surpassed its conception, something incomplete, +inconsequent, and narrow has remained, which has placed the conquerors +themselves in a state of rational and philosophical inferiority, the +influence of which has occasionally been felt in events. The conflict of +the new spiritual order of things against the old, is, I think, the weak +side of the Reformation."[352:1] + + + 6. _Additional Remarks._ + +Such are some of the intellectual principles which are characteristic of +Christianity. I observe,-- + +That their continuity down to this day, and the vigour of their +operation, are two distinct guarantees that the theological conclusions +to which they are subservient are, in accordance with the Divine +Promise, true developments, and not corruptions of the Revelation. + +Moreover, if it be true that the principles of the later Church are the +same as those of the earlier, then, whatever are the variations of +belief between the two periods, the later in reality agrees more than it +differs with the earlier, for principles are responsible for doctrines. +Hence they who assert that the modern Roman system is the corruption of +primitive theology are forced to discover some difference of principle +between the one and the other; for instance, that the right of private +judgment was secured to the early Church and has been lost to the later, +or, again, that the later Church rationalizes and the earlier went by +faith. + + +2. + +On this point I will but remark as follows. It cannot be doubted that +the horror of heresy, the law of absolute obedience to ecclesiastical +authority, and the doctrine of the mystical virtue of unity, were as +strong and active in the Church of St. Ignatius and St. Cyprian as in +that of St. Carlo and St. Pius the Fifth, whatever be thought of the +theology respectively taught in the one and in the other. Now we have +before our eyes the effect of these principles in the instance of the +later Church; they have entirely succeeded in preventing departure from +the doctrine of Trent for three hundred years. Have we any reason for +doubting, that from the same strictness the same fidelity would follow, +in the first three, or any three, centuries of the Ante-tridentine +period? Where then was the opportunity of corruption in the three +hundred years between St. Ignatius and St. Augustine? or between St. +Augustine and St. Bede? or between St. Bede and St. Peter Damiani? or +again, between St. Irenus and St. Leo, St. Cyprian and St. Gregory the +Great, St. Athanasius and St. John Damascene? Thus the tradition of +eighteen centuries becomes a collection of indefinitely many _caten_, +each commencing from its own point, and each crossing the other; and +each year, as it comes, is guaranteed with various degrees of cogency by +every year which has gone before it. + + +3. + +Moreover, while the development of doctrine in the Church has been in +accordance with, or in consequence of these immemorial principles, the +various heresies, which have from time to time arisen, have in one +respect or other, as might be expected, violated those principles with +which she rose into existence, and which she still retains. Thus Arian +and Nestorian schools denied the allegorical rule of Scripture +interpretation; the Gnostics and Eunomians for Faith professed to +substitute knowledge; and the Manichees also, as St. Augustine so +touchingly declares in the beginning of his work _De Utilitate +credendi_. The dogmatic Rule, at least so far as regards its traditional +character, was thrown aside by all those sects which, as Tertullian +tells us, claimed to judge for themselves from Scripture; and the +Sacramental principle was violated, _ipso facto_, by all who separated +from the Church,--was denied also by Faustus the Manichee when he argued +against the Catholic ceremonial, by Vigilantius in his opposition to +relics, and by the Iconoclasts. In like manner the contempt of mystery, +of reverence, of devoutness, of sanctity, are other notes of the +heretical spirit. As to Protestantism it is plain in how many ways it +has reversed the principles of Catholic theology. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[326:1] [E. g. development itself is such a principle also. "And thus I +was led on to a further consideration. I saw that the principle of +development not only accounted for certain facts, but was in itself a +remarkable philosophical phenomenon, giving a character to the whole +course of Christian thought. It was discernible from the first years of +Catholic teaching up to the present day, and gave to that teaching a +unity and individuality. It served as a sort of test, which the Anglican +could not stand, that modern Rome was in truth ancient Antioch, +Alexandria, and Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve has its own +law and expression." _Apol._ p. 198, _vid._ also Angl. Diff. vol. i. +Lect. xii. 7.] + +[328:1] University Sermons [but, more carefully in the "Essay on +Assent"]. + +[329:1] c. Cels. i. 9. + +[330:1] Hr. iv. 24. Euseb. Prp. Ev. i. 5. + +[330:2] [This is too large a subject to admit of justice being done to +it here: I have treated of it at length in the "Essay on Assent."] + +[331:1] Init. + +[331:2] _Vid._ also _supr._ p. 256. + +[332:1] pp. 142, 143, Combe's tr. + +[333:1] pp. 144, 145. + +[333:2] p. 219. + +[335:1] pp. 221, 223. + +[336:1] pp. 229, 230. + +[336:2] pp. 230, 231. + +[339:1] Vid. Proph. Offic. Lect. xiii. [Via Media, vol. i. p. 309, &c.] + +[339:2] A late writer goes farther, and maintains that it is not +determined by the Council of Trent, whether the whole of the Revelation +is in Scripture or not. "The Synod declares that the Christian 'truth +and discipline are contained in written books and unwritten traditions.' +They were well aware that the controversy then was, whether the +Christian doctrine was only _in part_ contained in Scripture. But they +did not dare to frame their decree openly in accordance with the modern +Romish view; they did not venture to affirm, as they might easily have +done, that the Christian verity 'was contained _partly_ in written +books, and _partly_ in unwritten traditions.'"--_Palmer on the Church_, +vol. 2, p. 15. Vid. Difficulties of Angl. vol. ii. pp. 11, 12. + +[340:1] Opp. t. 1, p. 4. + +[341:1] Opp. t. i. pp. 4, 5. + +[341:2] Ibid. p. 9. + +[342:1] Proem. 5. + +[342:2] p. 4. + +[345:1] Lengerke, de Ephr. S. pp. 78-80. + +[346:1] pp. 24-26. + +[346:2] p. 27. + +[348:1] Euseb. Hist. iv. 14, v. 20. + +[349:1] Contr. Hr. iii. 3, 4. + +[349:2] Ed. Potter, p. 897. + +[350:1] Ed. Potter, p. 899. + +[350:2] Clem. Strom. vii. 17. Origen in Matth. Comm. Ser. 46. Euseb. +Hist. vi. 2, fin. Epiph. Hr. 57, p. 480. Routh, t. 2, p. 465. + +[352:1] Eur. Civil. pp. 394-398. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +APPLICATION OF THE THIRD NOTE Of A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +ASSIMILATIVE POWER. + +Since religious systems, true and false, have one and the same great and +comprehensive subject-matter, they necessarily interfere with one +another as rivals, both in those points in which they agree together, +and in those in which they differ. That Christianity on its rise was in +these circumstances of competition and controversy, is sufficiently +evident even from a foregoing Chapter: it was surrounded by rites, +sects, and philosophies, which contemplated the same questions, +sometimes advocated the same truths, and in no slight degree wore the +same external appearance. It could not stand still, it could not take +its own way, and let them take theirs: they came across its path, and a +conflict was inevitable. The very nature of a true philosophy relatively +to other systems is to be polemical, eclectic, unitive: Christianity was +polemical; it could not but be eclectic; but was it also unitive? Had it +the power, while keeping its own identity, of absorbing its antagonists, +as Aaron's rod, according to St. Jerome's illustration, devoured the +rods of the sorcerers of Egypt? Did it incorporate them into itself, or +was it dissolved into them? Did it assimilate them into its own +substance, or, keeping its name, was it simply infected by them? In a +word, were its developments faithful or corrupt? Nor is this a question +merely of the early centuries. When we consider the deep interest of the +controversies which Christianity raises, the various characters of mind +it has swayed, the range of subjects which it embraces, the many +countries it has entered, the deep philosophies it has encountered, the +vicissitudes it has undergone, and the length of time through which it +has lasted, it requires some assignable explanation, why we should not +consider it substantially modified and changed, that is, corrupted, from +the first, by the numberless influences to which it has been exposed. + + +2. + +Now there was this cardinal distinction between Christianity and the +religions and philosophies by which it was surrounded, nay even the +Judaism of the day, that it referred all truth and revelation to one +source, and that the Supreme and Only God. Pagan rites which honoured +one or other out of ten thousand deities; philosophies which scarcely +taught any source of revelation at all; Gnostic heresies which were +based on Dualism, adored angels, or ascribed the two Testaments to +distinct authors, could not regard truth as one, unalterable, +consistent, imperative, and saving. But Christianity started with the +principle that there was but "one God and one Mediator," and that He, +"who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the +fathers by the Prophets, had in these last days spoken unto us by His +Son." He had never left Himself without witness, and now He had come, +not to undo the past, but to fulfil and perfect it. His Apostles, and +they alone, possessed, venerated, and protected a Divine Message, as +both sacred and sanctifying; and, in the collision and conflict of +opinions, in ancient times or modern, it was that Message, and not any +vague or antagonist teaching, that was to succeed in purifying, +assimilating, transmuting, and taking into itself the many-coloured +beliefs, forms of worship, codes of duty, schools of thought, through +which it was ever moving. It was Grace, and it was Truth. + + + 1. _The Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth._ + +That there is a truth then; that there is one truth; that religious +error is in itself of an immoral nature; that its maintainers, unless +involuntarily such, are guilty in maintaining it; that it is to be +dreaded; that the search for truth is not the gratification of +curiosity; that its attainment has nothing of the excitement of a +discovery; that the mind is below truth, not above it, and is bound, not +to descant upon it, but to venerate it; that truth and falsehood are set +before us for the trial of our hearts; that our choice is an awful +giving forth of lots on which salvation or rejection is inscribed; that +"before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith;" that "he +that would be saved must thus think," and not otherwise; that, "if thou +criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if +thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasure, +then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge +of God,"--this is the dogmatical principle, which has strength. + +That truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; that one +doctrine is as good as another; that the Governor of the world does not +intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we +are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; +that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of +necessity or accident; that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we +profess; that our merit lies in seeking, not in possessing; that it is +a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should +not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, and can be no harm to +fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief +belongs to the mere intellect, not to the heart also; that we may safely +trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and need no other guide,--this +is the principle of philosophies and heresies, which is very weakness. + + +2. + +Two opinions encounter; each may be abstractedly true; or again, each +may be a subtle, comprehensive doctrine, vigorous, elastic, expansive, +various; one is held as a matter of indifference, the other as a matter +of life and death; one is held by the intellect only, the other also by +the heart: it is plain which of the two must succumb to the other. Such +was the conflict of Christianity with the old established Paganism, +which was almost dead before Christianity appeared; with the Oriental +Mysteries, flitting wildly to and fro like spectres; with the Gnostics, +who made Knowledge all in all, despised the many, and called Catholics +mere children in the Truth; with the Neo-platonists, men of literature, +pedants, visionaries, or courtiers; with the Manichees, who professed to +seek Truth by Reason, not by Faith; with the fluctuating teachers of the +school of Antioch, the time-serving Eusebians, and the reckless +versatile Arians; with the fanatic Montanists and harsh Novatians, who +shrank from the Catholic doctrine, without power to propagate their own. +These sects had no stay or consistence, yet they contained elements of +truth amid their error, and had Christianity been as they, it might have +resolved into them; but it had that hold of the truth which gave its +teaching a gravity, a directness, a consistency, a sternness, and a +force, to which its rivals for the most part were strangers. It could +not call evil good, or good evil, because it discerned the difference +between them; it could not make light of what was so solemn, or desert +what was so solid. Hence, in the collision, it broke in pieces its +antagonists, and divided the spoils. + + +3. + +This was but another form of the spirit that made martyrs. Dogmatism was +in teaching, what confession was in act. Each was the same strong +principle of life in a different aspect, distinguishing the faith which +was displayed in it from the world's philosophies on the one side, and +the world's religions on the other. The heathen sects and the heresies +of Christian history were dissolved by the breath of opinion which made +them; paganism shuddered and died at the very sight of the sword of +persecution, which it had itself unsheathed. Intellect and force were +applied as tests both upon the divine and upon the human work; they +prevailed with the human, they did but become instruments of the Divine. +"No one," says St. Justin, "has so believed Socrates as to die for the +doctrine which he taught." "No one was ever found undergoing death for +faith in the sun."[359:1] Thus Christianity grew in its proportions, +gaining aliment and medicine from all that it came near, yet preserving +its original type, from its perception and its love of what had been +revealed once for all and was no private imagination. + + +4. + +There are writers who refer to the first centuries of the Church as a +time when opinion was free, and the conscience exempt from the +obligation or temptation to take on trust what it had not proved; and +that, apparently on the mere ground that the series of great +theological decisions did not commence till the fourth. This seems to be +M. Guizot's meaning when he says that Christianity "in the early ages +was a belief, a sentiment, an individual conviction;"[360:1] that "the +Christian society appears as a pure association of men animated by the +same sentiments and professing the same creed. The first Christians," he +continues, "assembled to enjoy together the same emotions, the same +religious convictions. We do not find any doctrinal system established, +any form of discipline or of laws, or any body of magistrates."[360:2] +What can be meant by saying that Christianity had no magistrates in the +earliest ages?--but, any how, in statements such as these the +distinction is not properly recognized between a principle and its +exhibitions and instances, even if the fact were as is represented. The +principle indeed of Dogmatism developes into Councils in the course of +time; but it was active, nay sovereign from the first, in every part of +Christendom. A conviction that truth was one; that it was a gift from +without, a sacred trust, an inestimable blessing; that it was to be +reverenced, guarded, defended, transmitted; that its absence was a +grievous want, and its loss an unutterable calamity; and again, the +stern words and acts of St. John, of Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenus, +Clement, Tertullian, and Origen;--all this is quite consistent with +perplexity or mistake as to what was truth in particular cases, in what +way doubtful questions were to be decided, or what were the limits of +the Revelation. Councils and Popes are the guardians and instruments of +the dogmatic principle: they are not that principle themselves; they +presuppose the principle; they are summoned into action at the call of +the principle, and the principle might act even before they had their +legitimate place, and exercised a recognized power, in the movements of +the Christian body. + + +5. + +The instance of Conscience, which has already served us in illustration, +may assist us here. What Conscience is in the history of an individual +mind, such was the dogmatic principle in the history of Christianity. +Both in the one case and the other, there is the gradual formation of a +directing power out of a principle. The natural voice of Conscience is +far more imperative in testifying and enforcing a rule of duty, than +successful in determining that duty in particular cases. It acts as a +messenger from above, and says that there is a right and a wrong, and +that the right must be followed; but it is variously, and therefore +erroneously, trained in the instance of various persons. It mistakes +error for truth; and yet we believe that on the whole, and even in those +cases where it is ill-instructed, if its voice be diligently obeyed, it +will gradually be cleared, simplified, and perfected, so that minds, +starting differently will, if honest, in course of time converge to one +and the same truth. I do not hereby imply that there is indistinctness +so great as this in the theology of the first centuries; but so far is +plain, that the early Church and Fathers exercised far more a ruler's +than a doctor's office: it was the age of Martyrs, of acting not of +thinking. Doctors succeeded Martyrs, as light and peace of conscience +follow upon obedience to it; yet, even before the Church had grown into +the full measure of its doctrines, it was rooted in its principles. + + +6. + +So far, however, may be granted to M. Guizot, that even principles were +not so well understood and so carefully handled at first, as they were +afterwards. In the early period, we see traces of a conflict, as well as +of a variety, in theological elements, which were in course of +combination, but which required adjustment and management before they +could be used with precision as one. In a thousand instances of a minor +character, the statements of the early Fathers are but tokens of the +multiplicity of openings which the mind of the Church was making into +the treasure-house of Truth; real openings, but incomplete or irregular. +Nay, the doctrines even of the heretical bodies are indices and +anticipations of the mind of the Church. As the first step in settling a +question of doctrine is to raise and debate it, so heresies in every age +may be taken as the measure of the existing state of thought in the +Church, and of the movement of her theology; they determine in what way +the current is setting, and the rate at which it flows. + + +7. + +Thus, St. Clement may be called the representative of the eclectic +element, and Tertullian of the dogmatic, neither element as yet being +fully understood by Catholics; and Clement perhaps went too far in his +accommodation to philosophy, and Tertullian asserted with exaggeration +the immutability of the Creed. Nay, the two antagonist principles of +dogmatism and assimilation are found in Tertullian alone, though with +some deficiency of amalgamation, and with a greater leaning towards the +dogmatic. Though the Montanists professed to pass over the subject of +doctrine, it is chiefly in Tertullian's Montanistic works that his +strong statements occur of the unalterableness of the Creed; and +extravagance on the subject is not only in keeping with the stern and +vehement temper of that Father, but with the general severity and +harshness of his sect. On the other hand the very foundation of +Montanism is development, though not of doctrine, yet of discipline and +conduct. It is said that its founder professed himself the promised +Comforter, through whom the Church was to be perfected; he provided +prophets as organs of the new revelation, and called Catholics Psychici +or animal. Tertullian distinctly recognizes even the process of +development in one of his Montanistic works. After speaking of an +innovation upon usage, which his newly revealed truth required, he +proceeds, "Therefore hath the Lord sent the Paraclete, that, since human +infirmity could not take all things in at once, discipline might be +gradually directed, regulated and brought to perfection by the Lord's +Vicar, the Holy Ghost. 'I have yet many things to say to you,' He saith, +&c. What is this dispensation of the Paraclete but this, that discipline +is directed, Scriptures opened, intellect reformed, improvements +effected? Nothing can take place without age, and all things wait their +time. In short, the Preacher says 'There is a time for all things.' +Behold the creature itself gradually advancing to fruit. At first there +is a seed, and a stalk springs out of the seed, and from the stalk +bursts out a shrub, and then its branches and foliage grow vigorous, and +all that we mean by a tree is unfolded; then there is the swelling of +the bud, and the bud is resolved into a blossom, and the blossom is +opened into a fruit, and is for a while rudimental and unformed, till, +by degrees following out its life, it is matured into mellowness of +flavour. So too righteousness, (for there is the same God both of +righteousness and of the creation,) was at first in its rudiments, a +nature fearing God; thence, by means of Law and Prophets, it advanced +into infancy; thence, by the gospel, it burst forth into its youth; and +now by the Paraclete, it is fashioned into maturity."[363:1] + + +8. + +Not in one principle or doctrine only, but in its whole system, +Montanism is a remarkable anticipation or presage of developments which +soon began to show themselves in the Church, though they were not +perfected for centuries after. Its rigid maintenance of the original +Creed, yet its admission of a development, at least in the ritual, has +just been instanced in the person of Tertullian. Equally Catholic in +their principle, whether in fact or anticipation, were most of the other +peculiarities of Montanism: its rigorous fasts, its visions, its +commendation of celibacy and martyrdom, its contempt of temporal goods, +its penitential discipline, and its maintenance of a centre of unity. +The doctrinal determinations and the ecclesiastical usages of the middle +ages are the true fulfilment of its self-willed and abortive attempts at +precipitating the growth of the Church. The favour shown to it for a +while by Pope Victor is an evidence of its external resemblance to +orthodoxy; and the celebrated Martyrs and Saints in Africa, in the +beginning of the third century, Perpetua and Felicitas, or at least +their Acts, betoken that same peculiar temper of religion, which, when +cut off from the Church a few years afterwards, quickly degenerated into +a heresy. A parallel instance occurs in the case of the Donatists. They +held a doctrine on the subject of Baptism similar to that of St. +Cyprian: "Vincentius Lirinensis," says Gibbon, referring to Tillemont's +remarks on that resemblance, "has explained why the Donatists are +eternally burning with the devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven +with Jesus Christ."[364:1] And his reason is intelligible: it is, says +Tillemont, "as St. Augustine often says, because the Donatists had +broken the bond of peace and charity with the other Churches, which St. +Cyprian had preserved so carefully."[364:2] + + +9. + +These are specimens of the raw material, as it may be called, which, +whether as found in individual Fathers within the pale of the Church, or +in heretics external to it, she had the power, by means of the +continuity and firmness of her principles, to convert to her own uses. +She alone has succeeded in thus rejecting evil without sacrificing the +good, and in holding together in one things which in all other schools +are incompatible. Gnostic or Platonic words are found in the inspired +theology of St. John; to the Platonists Unitarian writers trace the +doctrine of our Lord's divinity; Gibbon the idea of the Incarnation to +the Gnostics. The Gnostics too seem first to have systematically thrown +the intellect upon matters of faith; and the very term "Gnostic" has +been taken by Clement to express his perfect Christian. And, though +ascetics existed from the beginning, the notion of a religion higher +than the Christianity of the many, was first prominently brought forward +by the Gnostics, Montanists, Novatians, and Manichees. And while the +prophets of the Montanists prefigure the Church's Doctors, and their +professed inspiration her infallibility, and their revelations her +developments, and the heresiarch himself is the unsightly anticipation +of St. Francis, in Novatian again we discern the aspiration of nature +after such creations of grace as St. Benedict or St. Bruno. And so the +effort of Sabellius to complete the enunciation of the mystery of the +Ever-blessed Trinity failed: it became a heresy; grace would not be +constrained; the course of thought could not be forced;--at length it +was realized in the true Unitarianism of St. Augustine. + + +10. + +Doctrine too is percolated, as it were, through different minds, +beginning with writers of inferior authority in the Church, and issuing +at length in the enunciation of her Doctors. Origen, Tertullian, nay +Eusebius and the Antiochenes, supply the materials, from which the +Fathers have wrought out comments or treatises. St. Gregory Nazianzen +and St. Basil digested into form the theological principles of Origen; +St. Hilary and St. Ambrose are both indebted to the same great writer in +their interpretations of Scripture; St. Ambrose again has taken his +comment on St. Luke from Eusebius, and certain of his Tracts from Philo; +St. Cyprian called Tertullian his Master; and traces of Tertullian, in +his almost heretical treatises, may be detected in the most finished +sentences of St. Leo. The school of Antioch, in spite of the heretical +taint of various of its Masters, formed the genius of St. Chrysostom. +And the Apocryphal gospels have contributed many things for the devotion +and edification of Catholic believers.[366:1] + +The deep meditation which seems to have been exercised by the Fathers on +points of doctrine, the disputes and turbulence yet lucid determination +which characterize the Councils, the indecision of Popes, are all in +different ways, at least when viewed together, portions and indications +of the same process. The theology of the Church is no random combination +of various opinions, but a diligent, patient working out of one doctrine +from many materials. The conduct of Popes, Councils, Fathers, betokens +the slow, painful, anxious taking up of new truths into an existing body +of belief. St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Leo are conspicuous for +the repetition _in terminis_ of their own theological statements; on the +contrary, it has been observed of the heterodox Tertullian, that his +works "indicate no ordinary fertility of mind in that he so little +repeats himself or recurs to favourite thoughts, as is frequently the +case even with the great St. Augustine."[366:2] + + +11. + +Here we see the difference between originality of mind and the gift and +calling of a Doctor in the Church; the holy Fathers just mentioned were +intently fixing their minds on what they taught, grasping it more and +more closely, viewing it on various sides, trying its consistency, +weighing their own separate expressions. And thus if in some cases they +were even left in ignorance, the next generation of teachers completed +their work, for the same unwearied anxious process of thought went on. +St. Gregory Nyssen finishes the investigations of St. Athanasius; St. +Leo guards the polemical statements of St. Cyril. Clement may hold a +purgatory, yet tend to consider all punishment purgatorial; St. Cyprian +may hold the unsanctified state of heretics, but include in his doctrine +a denial of their baptism; St. Hippolytus may believe in the personal +existence of the Word from eternity, yet speak confusedly on the +eternity of His Sonship; the Council of Antioch might put aside the +Homosion, and the Council of Nica impose it; St. Hilary may believe in +a purgatory, yet confine it to the day of judgment; St. Athanasius and +other Fathers may treat with almost supernatural exactness the doctrine +of our Lord's incarnation, yet imply, as far as words go, that He was +ignorant viewed in His human nature; the Athanasian Creed may admit the +illustration of soul and body, and later Fathers may discountenance it; +St. Augustine might first be opposed to the employment of force in +religion, and then acquiesce in it. Prayers for the faithful departed +may be found in the early liturgies, yet with an indistinctness which +included the Blessed Virgin and the Martyrs in the same rank with the +imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet unexpiated; and succeeding +times might keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient. +Aristotle might be reprobated by certain early Fathers, yet furnish the +phraseology for theological definitions afterwards. And in a different +subject-matter, St. Isidore and others might be suspicious of the +decoration of Churches; St. Paulinus and St. Helena advance it. And thus +we are brought on to dwell upon the office of grace, as well as of +truth, in enabling the Church's creed to develope and to absorb without +the risk of corruption. + + + 2. _The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace._ + +There is in truth a certain virtue or grace in the Gospel which changes +the quality of doctrines, opinions, usages, actions, and personal +characters when incorporated with it, and makes them right and +acceptable to its Divine Author, whereas before they were either +infected with evil, or at best but shadows of the truth. This is the +principle, above spoken of, which I have called the Sacramental. "We +know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness," is an +enunciation of the principle;--or, the declaration of the Apostle of the +Gentiles, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are +passed away, behold all things are become new." Thus it is that outward +rites, which are but worthless in themselves, lose their earthly +character and become Sacraments under the Gospel; circumcision, as St. +Paul says, is carnal and has come to an end, yet Baptism is a perpetual +ordinance, as being grafted upon a system which is grace and truth. +Elsewhere, he parallels, while he contrasts, "the cup of the Lord" and +"the cup of devils," in this respect, that to partake of either is to +hold communion with the source from which it comes; and he adds +presently, that "we have been all made to drink into one spirit." So +again he says, no one is justified by the works of the old Law; while +both he implies, and St. James declares, that Christians are justified +by works of the New Law. Again he contrasts the exercises of the +intellect as exhibited by heathen and Christian. "Howbeit," he says, +after condemning heathen wisdom, "we speak wisdom among them that are +perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world;" and it is plain that nowhere +need we look for more glowing eloquence, more distinct profession of +reasoning, more careful assertion of doctrine, than is to be found in +the Apostle's writings. + + +2. + +In like manner when the Jewish exorcists attempted to "call over them +which had evil spirits the Name of the Lord Jesus," the evil spirit +professed not to know them, and inflicted on them a bodily injury; on +the other hand, the occasion of this attempt of theirs was a stupendous +instance or type, in the person of St. Paul, of the very principle I am +illustrating. "God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so +that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, +and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of +them." The grace given him was communicable, diffusive; an influence +passing from him to others, and making what it touched spiritual, as +enthusiasm may be or tastes or panics. + +Parallel instances occur of the operation of this principle in the +history of the Church, from the time that the Apostles were taken from +it. St. Paul denounces distinctions in meat and drink, the observance of +Sabbaths and holydays, and of ordinances, and the worship of Angels; yet +Christians, from the first, were rigid in their stated fastings, +venerated, as St. Justin tells us, the Angelic intelligences,[369:1] and +established the observance of the Lord's day as soon as persecution +ceased. + + +3. + +In like manner Celsus objects that Christians did not "endure the sight +of temples, altars, and statues;" Porphyry, that "they blame the rites +of worship, victims, and frankincense;" the heathen disputant in +Minucius asks, "Why have Christians no altars, no temples, no +conspicuous images?" and "no sacrifices;" and yet it is plain from +Tertullian that Christians had altars of their own, and sacrifices and +priests. And that they had churches is again and again proved by +Eusebius who had seen "the houses of prayer levelled" in the Dioclesian +persecution; from the history too of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, nay from +Clement.[370:1] Again, St. Justin and Minucius speak of the form of the +Cross in terms of reverence, quite inconsistent with the doctrine that +external emblems of religion may not be venerated. Tertullian speaks of +Christians signing themselves with it whatever they set about, whether +they walk, eat, or lie down to sleep. In Eusebius's life of Constantine, +the figure of the Cross holds a most conspicuous place; the Emperor sees +it in the sky and is converted; he places it upon his standards; he +inserts it into his own hand when he puts up his statue; wherever the +Cross is displayed in his battles, he conquers; he appoints fifty men to +carry it; he engraves it on his soldiers' arms; and Licinius dreads its +power. Shortly after, Julian plainly accuses Christians of worshipping +the wood of the Cross, though they refused to worship the _ancile_. In a +later age the worship of images was introduced.[370:2] + + +4. + +The principle of the distinction, by which these observances were pious +in Christianity and superstitious in paganism, is implied in such +passages of Tertullian, Lactantius, and others, as speak of evil spirits +lurking under the pagan statues. It is intimated also by Origen, who, +after saying that Scripture so strongly "forbids temples, altars, and +images," that Christians are "ready to go to death, if necessary, rather +than pollute their notion of the God of all by any such transgression," +assigns as a reason "that, as far as possible, they might not fall into +the notion that images were gods." St. Augustine, in replying to +Porphyry, is more express; "Those," he says, "who are acquainted with +Old and New Testament do not blame in the pagan religion the erection of +temples or institution of priesthoods, but that these are done to idols +and devils. . . True religion blames in their superstitions, not so much +their sacrificing, for the ancient saints sacrificed to the True God, as +their sacrificing to false gods."[371:1] To Faustus the Manichee he +answers, "We have some things in common with the gentiles, but our +purpose is different."[371:2] And St. Jerome asks Vigilantius, who made +objections to lights and oil, "Because we once worshipped idols, is that +a reason why we should not worship God, for fear of seeming to address +him with an honour like that which was paid to idols and then was +detestable, whereas this is paid to Martyrs and therefore to be +received?"[371:3] + + +5. + +Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of +evil, and to transmute the very instruments and appendages of +demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages +had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of +nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what +they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were +moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted +the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, +should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the +existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of +the educated class. + +St. Gregory Thaumaturgus supplies the first instance on record of this +economy. He was the Apostle of Pontus, and one of his methods for +governing an untoward population is thus related by St. Gregory of +Nyssa. "On returning," he says, "to the city, after revisiting the +country round about, he increased the devotion of the people everywhere +by instituting festive meetings in honour of those who had fought for +the faith. The bodies of the Martyrs were distributed in different +places, and the people assembled and made merry, as the year came round, +holding festival in their honour. This indeed was a proof of his great +wisdom . . . for, perceiving that the childish and untrained populace +were retained in their idolatrous error by creature comforts, in order +that what was of first importance should at any rate be secured to them, +viz. that they should look to God in place of their vain rites, he +allowed them to be merry, jovial, and gay at the monuments of the holy +Martyrs, as if their behaviour would in time undergo a spontaneous +change into greater seriousness and strictness, since faith would lead +them to it; which has actually been the happy issue in that population, +all carnal gratification having turned into a spiritual form of +rejoicing."[372:1] There is no reason to suppose that the licence here +spoken of passed the limits of harmless though rude festivity; for +it is observable that the same reason, the need of holydays for the +multitude, is assigned by Origen, St. Gregory's master, to explain +the establishment of the Lord's Day also, and the Paschal and the +Pentecostal festivals, which have never been viewed as unlawful +compliances; and, moreover, the people were in fact eventually reclaimed +from their gross habits by his indulgent policy, a successful issue +which could not have followed an accommodation to what was sinful. + + +6. + +The example set by St. Gregory in an age of persecution was impetuously +followed when a time of peace succeeded. In the course of the fourth +century two movements or developments spread over the face of +Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one +ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by +Eusebius,[373:1] that Constantine, in order to recommend the new +religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to +which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go +into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made +familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to +particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; +incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; +holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, +processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, +the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, +perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison,[373:2] are all +of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. + + +7. + +The eighth book of Theodoret's work _Adversus Gentiles_, which is "On +the Martyrs," treats so largely on the subject, that we must content +ourselves with only a specimen of the illustrations which it affords, of +the principle acted on by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. "Time, which makes +all things decay," he says, speaking of the Martyrs, "has preserved +their glory incorruptible. For as the noble souls of those conquerors +traverse the heavens, and take part in the spiritual choirs, so their +bodies are not consigned to separate tombs, but cities and towns divide +them among them; and call them saviours of souls and bodies, and +physicians, and honour them as the protectors and guardians of cities, +and, using their intervention with the Lord of all, obtain through them +divine gifts. And though each body be divided, the grace remains +indivisible; and that small, that tiny particle is equal in power with +the Martyr that hath never been dispersed about. For the grace which is +ever blossoming distributes the gifts, measuring the bounty according to +the faith of those who come for it. + +"Yet not even this persuades you to celebrate their God, but ye laugh +and mock at the honour which is paid them by all, and consider it a +pollution to approach their tombs. But though all men made a jest of +them, yet at least the Greeks could not decently complain, to whom +belonged libations and expiations, and heroes and demi-gods and deified +men. To Hercules, though a man . . . and compelled to serve Eurystheus, +they built temples, and constructed altars, and offered sacrifices in +honour, and allotted feasts; and that, not Spartans only and Athenians, +but the whole of Greece and the greater part of Europe." + + +8. + +Then, after going through the history of many heathen deities, and +referring to the doctrine of the philosophers about great men, and to +the monuments of kings and emperors, all of which at once are witnesses +and are inferior, to the greatness of the Martyrs, he continues: "To +their shrines we come, not once or twice a year or five times, but often +do we hold celebrations; often, nay daily, do we present hymns to their +Lord. And the sound in health ask for its preservation, and those who +struggle with any disease for a release from their sufferings; the +childless for children, the barren to become mothers, and those who +enjoy the blessing for its safe keeping. Those too who are setting out +for a foreign land beg that the Martyrs may be their fellow-travellers +and guides of the journey; those who have come safe back acknowledge the +grace, not coming to them as to gods, but beseeching them as divine men, +and asking their intercession. And that they obtain what they ask in +faith, their dedications openly witness, in token of their cure. For +some bring likenesses of eyes, others of feet, others of hands; some of +gold, others of silver; and their Lord accepts even the small and cheap, +measuring the gift by the offerer's ability. . . . . Philosophers and +Orators are consigned to oblivion, and kings and captains are not known +even by name to the many; but the names of the Martyrs are better known +to all than the names of those dearest to them. And they make a point of +giving them to their children, with a view of gaining for them thereby +safety and protection. . . . Nay, of the so-called gods, so utterly have +the sacred places been destroyed, that not even their outline remains, +nor the shape of their altars is known to men of this generation, while +their materials have been dedicated to the shrines of the Martyrs. For +the Lord has introduced His own dead in place of your gods; of the one +He hath made a riddance, on the other He hath conferred their honours. +For the Pandian festival, the Diasia, and the Dionysia, and your other +such, we have the feasts of Peter, of Paul, of Thomas, of Sergius, of +Marcellus, of Leontius, of Pantelemon, of Antony, of Maurice, and of +the other Martyrs; and for that old-world procession, and indecency of +work and word, are held modest festivities, without intemperance, or +revel, or laughter, but with divine hymns, and attendance on holy +discourses and prayers, adorned with laudable tears." This was the view +of the "Evidences of Christianity" which a Bishop of the fifth century +offered for the conversion of unbelievers. + + +9. + +The introduction of Images was still later, and met with more opposition +in the West than in the East. It is grounded on the same great principle +which I am illustrating; and as I have given extracts from Theodoret for +the developments of the fourth and fifth centuries, so will I now cite +St. John Damascene in defence of the further developments of the eighth. + +"As to the passages you adduce," he says to his opponents, "they +abominate not the worship paid to our Images, but that of the Greeks, +who made them gods. It needs not therefore, because of the absurd use of +the Greeks, to abolish our use which is so pious. Enchanters and wizards +use adjurations, so does the Church over its Catechumens; but they +invoke devils, and she invokes God against devils. Greeks dedicate +images to devils, and call them gods; but we to True God Incarnate, and +to God's servants and friends, who drive away the troops of +devils."[376:1] Again, "As the holy Fathers overthrew the temples and +shrines of the devils, and raised in their places shrines in the names +of Saints and we worship them, so also they overthrew the images of the +devils, and in their stead raised images of Christ, and God's Mother, +and the Saints. And under the Old Covenant, Israel neither raised +temples in the name of men, nor was memory of man made a festival; for, +as yet, man's nature was under a curse, and death was condemnation, and +therefore was lamented, and a corpse was reckoned unclean and he who +touched it; but now that the Godhead has been combined with our nature, +as some life-giving and saving medicine, our nature has been glorified +and is trans-elemented into incorruption. Wherefore the death of Saints +is made a feast, and temples are raised to them, and Images are +painted. . . For the Image is a triumph, and a manifestation, and a +monument in memory of the victory of those who have done nobly and +excelled, and of the shame of the devils defeated and overthrown." Once +more, "If because of the Law thou dost forbid Images, you will soon have +to sabbatize and be circumcised, for these ordinances the Law commands +as indispensable; nay, to observe the whole law, and not to keep the +festival of the Lord's Pascha out of Jerusalem: but know that if you +keep the Law, Christ hath profited you nothing. . . . . But away with +this, for whoever of you are justified in the Law have fallen from +grace."[377:1] + + +10. + +It is quite consistent with the tenor of these remarks to observe, or to +allow, that real superstitions have sometimes obtained in parts of +Christendom from its intercourse with the heathen; or have even been +admitted, or all but admitted, though commonly resisted strenuously, by +authorities in the Church, in consequence of the resemblance which +exists between the heathen rites and certain portions of her ritual. As +philosophy has at times corrupted her divines, so has paganism +corrupted her worshippers; and as the more intellectual have been +involved in heresy, so have the ignorant been corrupted by superstition. +Thus St. Chrysostom is vehement against the superstitious usages which +Jews and Gentiles were introducing among Christians at Antioch and +Constantinople. "What shall we say," he asks in one place, "about the +amulets and bells which are hung upon the hands, and the scarlet woof, +and other things full of such extreme folly; when they ought to invest +the child with nothing else save the protection of the Cross? But now +that is despised which hath converted the whole world, and given the +sore wound to the devil, and overthrown all his power; while the thread, +and the woof, and the other amulets of that kind, are entrusted with the +child's safety." After mentioning further superstitions, he proceeds, +"Now that among Greeks such things should be done, is no wonder; but +among the worshippers of the Cross, and partakers in unspeakable +mysteries, and professors of such morality, that such unseemliness +should prevail, this is especially to be deplored again and +again."[378:1] + +And in like manner St. Augustine suppressed the feasts called Agap, +which had been allowed the African Christians on their first conversion. +"It is time," he says, "for men who dare not deny that they are +Christians, to begin to live according to the will of Christ, and, now +being Christians, to reject what was only allowed that they might become +Christians." The people objected the example of the Vatican Church at +Rome, where such feasts were observed every day; St. Augustine answered, +"I have heard that it has been often prohibited, but the place is far +off from the Bishop's abode (the Lateran), and in so large a city there +is a multitude of carnal persons, especially of strangers who resort +daily thither."[378:2] And in like manner it certainly is possible that +the consciousness of the sanctifying power in Christianity may have +acted as a temptation to sins, whether of deceit or of violence; as if +the habit or state of grace destroyed the sinfulness of certain acts, or +as if the end justified the means. + + +11. + +It is but enunciating in other words the principle we are tracing, to +say that the Church has been entrusted with the dispensation of grace. +For if she can convert heathen appointments into spiritual rites and +usages, what is this but to be in possession of a treasure, and to +exercise a discretionary power in its application? Hence there has been +from the first much variety and change, in the Sacramental acts and +instruments which she has used. While the Eastern and African Churches +baptized heretics on their reconciliation, the Church of Rome, as the +Catholic Church since, maintained that imposition of hands was +sufficient, if their prior baptism had been formally correct. The +ceremony of imposition of hands was used on various occasions with a +distinct meaning; at the rite of Catechumens, on admitting heretics, in +Confirmation, in Ordination, in Benediction. Baptism was sometimes +administered by immersion, sometimes by infusion. Infant Baptism was not +at first enforced as afterwards. Children or even infants were admitted +to the Eucharist in the African Church and the rest of the West, as now +in the Greek. Oil had various uses, as for healing the sick, or as in +the rite of extreme unction. Indulgences in works or in periods of +penance, had a different meaning, according to circumstances. In like +manner the Sign of the Cross was one of the earliest means of grace; +then holy seasons, and holy places, and pilgrimage to them; holy water; +prescribed prayers, or other observances; garments, as the scapular, +and sacred vestments; the rosary; the crucifix. And for some wise +purpose doubtless, such as that of showing the power of the Church in +the dispensation of divine grace, as well as the perfection and +spirituality of the Eucharistic Presence, the Chalice is in the West +withheld from all but the celebrant in the Holy Eucharist. + + +12. + +Since it has been represented as if the power of assimilation, spoken of +in this Chapter, is in my meaning nothing more than a mere accretion of +doctrines or rites from without, I am led to quote the following passage +in further illustration of it from my "Essays," vol. ii. p. 231:-- + + "The phenomenon, admitted on all hands, is this:--That great + portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, + in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in + heathen philosophies and religions. For instance, the doctrine + of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West; so is + the ceremony of washing; so is the rite of sacrifice. The + doctrine of the Divine Word is Platonic; the doctrine of the + Incarnation is Indian; of a divine kingdom is Judaic; of + Angels and demons is Magian; the connexion of sin with the + body is Gnostic; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin; a + sacerdotal order is Egyptian; the idea of a new birth is + Chinese and Eleusinian; belief in sacramental virtue is + Pythagorean; and honours to the dead are a polytheism. Such is + the general nature of the fact before us; Mr. Milman argues + from it,--'These things are in heathenism, therefore they are + not Christian:' we, on the contrary, prefer to say, 'these + things are in Christianity, therefore they are not heathen.' + That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears + us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor + of the world has scattered the seeds of truth far and wide + over its extent; that these have variously taken root, and + grown up as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living; + and hence that, as the inferior animals have tokens of an + immaterial principle in them, yet have not souls, so the + philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain + true ideas, though they are not directly divine. What man is + amid the brute creation, such is the Church among the schools + of the world; and as Adam gave names to the animals about him, + so has the Church from the first looked round upon the earth, + noting and visiting the doctrines she found there. She began + in Chaldea, and then sojourned among the Canaanites, and went + down into Egypt, and thence passed into Arabia, till she + rested in her own land. Next she encountered the merchants of + Tyre, and the wisdom of the East country, and the luxury of + Sheba. Then she was carried away to Babylon, and wandered to + the schools of Greece. And wherever she went, in trouble or in + triumph, still she was a living spirit, the mind and voice of + the Most High; 'sitting in the midst of the doctors, both + hearing them and asking them questions;' claiming to herself + what they said rightly, correcting their errors, supplying + their defects, completing their beginnings, expanding their + surmises, and thus gradually by means of them enlarging the + range and refining the sense of her own teaching. So far then + from her creed being of doubtful credit because it resembles + foreign theologies, we even hold that one special way in which + Providence has imparted divine knowledge to us has been by + enabling her to draw and collect it together out of the world, + and, in this sense, as in others, to 'suck the milk of the + Gentiles and to suck the breast of kings.' + + "How far in fact this process has gone, is a question of + history; and we believe it has before now been grossly + exaggerated and misrepresented by those who, like Mr. Milman, + have thought that its existence told against Catholic + doctrine; but so little antecedent difficulty have we in the + matter, that we could readily grant, unless it were a question + of fact not of theory, that Balaam was an Eastern sage, or a + Sibyl was inspired, or Solomon learnt of the sons of Mahol, or + Moses was a scholar of the Egyptian hierophants. We are not + distressed to be told that the doctrine of the angelic host + came from Babylon, while we know that they did sing at the + Nativity; nor that the vision of a Mediator is in Philo, if in + very deed He died for us on Calvary. Nor are we afraid to + allow, that, even after His coming, the Church has been a + treasure-house, giving forth things old and new, casting the + gold of fresh tributaries into her refiner's fire, or stamping + upon her own, as time required it, a deeper impress of her + Master's image. + + "The distinction between these two theories is broad and + obvious. The advocates of the one imply that Revelation was a + single, entire, solitary act, or nearly so, introducing a + certain message; whereas we, who maintain the other, consider + that Divine teaching has been in fact, what the analogy of + nature would lead us to expect, 'at sundry times and in divers + manners,' various, complex, progressive, and supplemental of + itself. We consider the Christian doctrine, when analyzed, to + appear, like the human frame, 'fearfully and wonderfully + made;' but they think it some one tenet or certain principles + given out at one time in their fulness, without gradual + enlargement before Christ's coming or elucidation afterwards. + They cast off all that they also find in Pharisee or heathen; + we conceive that the Church, like Aaron's rod, devours the + serpents of the magicians. They are ever hunting for a + fabulous primitive simplicity; we repose in Catholic fulness. + They seek what never has been found; we accept and use what + even they acknowledge to be a substance. They are driven to + maintain, on their part, that the Church's doctrine was never + pure; we say that it can never be corrupt. We consider that a + divine promise keeps the Church Catholic from doctrinal + corruption; but on what promise, or on what encouragement, + they are seeking for their visionary purity does not appear." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[359:1] Justin, Apol. ii. 10, Tryph. 121. + +[360:1] Europ. Civ. p. 56, tr. + +[360:2] p. 58. + +[363:1] De Virg. Vol. 1. + +[364:1] Hist. t. 3, p. 312. + +[364:2] Mem. Eccl. t. 6, p. 83. + +[366:1] Galland. t. 3, p. 673, note 3. + +[366:2] Vid. Preface to Oxford Transl. of Tertullian, where the +character of his mind is admirably drawn out. + +[369:1] Infra, pp. 411-415, &c. + +[370:1] Orig. c. Cels. vii. 63, viii. 17 (vid. not. Bened. in loc.), +August. Ep. 102, 16; Minuc. F. 10, and 32; Tertull. de Orat. fin. ad +Uxor. i. fin. Euseb. Hist. viii. 2; Clem. Strom. vii. 6, p. 846. + +[370:2] Tertull. de Cor. 3; Just. Apol. i. 65; Minuc. F. 20; Julian ap. +Cyr. vi. p. 194, Spanh. + +[371:1] Epp. 102, 18. + +[371:2] Contr. Faust. 20, 23. + +[371:3] Lact. ii. 15, 16; Tertull. Spect. 12; Origen, c. Cels. vii. +64-66, August. Ep. 102, 18; Contr. Faust. xx. 23; Hieron. c. Vigil. 8. + +[372:1] Vit. Thaum. p. 1006. + +[373:1] V. Const. iii. 1, iv. 23, &c. + +[373:2] According to Dr. E. D. Clarke, Travels, vol. i. p. 352. + +[376:1] De Imag. i. 24. + +[377:1] Ibid. ii. 11. 14. + +[378:1] Hom. xii. in Cor. 1, Oxf. Tr. + +[378:2] Fleury, Hist. xx. 11, Oxf. Tr. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +LOGICAL SEQUENCE. + +Logical Sequence has been set down above as a fourth test of fidelity in +development, and shall now be briefly illustrated in the history of +Christian doctrine. That is, I mean to give instances of one doctrine +leading to another; so that, if the former be admitted, the latter can +hardly be denied, and the latter can hardly be called a corruption +without taking exception to the former. And I use "logical sequence" in +contrast both to that process of incorporation and assimilation which +was last under review, and also to that principle of science, which has +put into order and defended the developments after they have been made. +Accordingly it will include any progress of the mind from one judgment +to another, as, for instance, by way of moral fitness, which may not +admit of analysis into premiss and conclusion. Thus St. Peter argued in +the case of Cornelius and his friends, "Can any man forbid water that +these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well +as we?" + +Such is the series of doctrinal truths, which start from the dogma of +our Lord's Divinity, and again from such texts of Scripture as "Thou art +Peter," and which I should have introduced here, had I not already used +them for a previous purpose in the Fourth Chapter. I shall confine +myself then for an example to the instance of the developments which +follow on the consideration of sin after Baptism, a subject which was +touched upon in the same Chapter. + + + 1. _Pardons._ + +It is not necessary here to enlarge on the benefits which the primitive +Church held to be conveyed to the soul by means of the Sacrament of +Baptism. Its distinguishing gift, which is in point to mention, was the +plenary forgiveness of sins past. It was also held that the Sacrament +could not be repeated. The question immediately followed, how, since +there was but "one Baptism for the remission of sins," the guilt of such +sin was to be removed as was incurred after its administration. There +must be some provision in the revealed system for so obvious a need. +What could be done for those who had received the one remission of sins, +and had sinned since? Some who thought upon the subject appear to have +conceived that the Church was empowered to grant one, and one only, +reconciliation after grievous offences. Three sins seemed to many, at +least in the West, to be irremissible, idolatry, murder, and adultery. +But such a system of Church discipline, however suited to a small +community, and even expedient in a time of persecution, could not exist +in Christianity, as it spread into the _orbis terrarum_, and gathered +like a net of every kind. A more indulgent rule gradually gained ground; +yet the Spanish Church adhered to the ancient even in the fourth +century, and a portion of the African in the third, and in the remaining +portion there was a relaxation only as regards the crime of +incontinence. + + +2. + +Meanwhile a protest was made against the growing innovation: at the +beginning of the third century Montanus, who was a zealot for the more +primitive rule, shrank from the laxity, as he considered it, of the +Asian Churches;[385:1] as, in a different subject-matter, Jovinian and +Vigilantius were offended at the developments in divine worship in the +century which followed. The Montanists had recourse to the See of Rome, +and at first with some appearance of success. Again, in Africa, where +there had been in the first instance a schism headed by Felicissimus in +favour of a milder discipline than St. Cyprian approved, a far more +formidable stand was soon made in favour of Antiquity, headed by +Novatus, who originally had been of the party of Felicissimus. This was +taken up at Rome by Novatian, who professed to adhere to the original, +or at least the primitive rule of the Church, viz. that those who had +once fallen from the faith could in no case be received again.[385:2] +The controversy seems to have found the following issue,--whether the +Church had the _means_ of pardoning sins committed after Baptism, which +the Novatians, at least practically, denied. "It is fitting," says the +Novatian Acesius, "to exhort those who have sinned after Baptism to +repentance, but to expect hope of remission, not from the priests, but +from God, who hath power to forgive sins."[385:3] The schism spread into +the East, and led to the appointment of a penitentiary priest in the +Catholic Churches. By the end of the third century as many as four +degrees of penance were appointed, through which offenders had to pass +in order to a reconciliation. + + + 2. _Penances._ + +The length and severity of the penance varied with times and places. +Sometimes, as we have seen, it lasted, in the case of grave offences, +through life and on to death, without any reconciliation; at other times +it ended only in the _viaticum_; and if, after reconciliation they did +not die, their ordinary penance was still binding on them either for +life or for a certain time. In other cases it lasted ten, fifteen, or +twenty years. But in all cases, from the first, the Bishop had the power +of shortening it, and of altering the nature and quality of the +punishment. Thus in the instance of the Emperor Theodosius, whom St. +Ambrose shut out from communion for the massacre at Thessalonica, +"according to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were +established in the fourth century," says Gibbon, "the crime of homicide +was expiated by the penitence of twenty years; and as it was impossible, +in the period of human life, to purge the accumulated guilt of the +massacre . . . the murderer should have been excluded from the holy +communion till the hour of his death." He goes on to say that the public +edification which resulted from the humiliation of so illustrious a +penitent was a reason for abridging the punishment. "It was sufficient +that the Emperor of the Romans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, +should appear in a mournful and suppliant posture, and that, in the +midst of the Church of Milan, he should humbly solicit with sighs and +tears the pardon of his sins." His penance was shortened to an interval +of about eight months. Hence arose the phrase of a "_poenitentia +legitima, plena, et justa_;" which signifies a penance sufficient, +perhaps in length of time, perhaps in intensity of punishment. + + + 3. _Satisfactions._ + +Here a serious question presented itself to the minds of Christians, +which was now to be wrought out:--Were these punishments merely signs +of contrition, or in any sense satisfactions for sin? If the former, +they might be absolutely remitted at the discretion of the Church, as +soon as true repentance was discovered; the end had then been attained, +and nothing more was necessary. Thus St. Chrysostom says in one of his +Homilies,[387:1] "I require not continuance of time, but the correction +of the soul. Show your contrition, show your reformation, and all is +done." Yet, though there might be a reason of the moment for shortening +the penance imposed by the Church, this does not at all decide the +question whether that ecclesiastical penance be not part of an expiation +made to the Almighty Judge for the sin; and supposing this really to be +the case, the question follows, How is the complement of that +satisfaction to be wrought out, which on just grounds of present +expedience has been suspended by the Church now? + +As to this question, it cannot be doubted that the Fathers considered +penance as not a mere expression of contrition, but as an act done +directly towards God and a means of averting His anger. "If the sinner +spare not himself, he will be spared by God," says the writer who goes +under the name of St. Ambrose. "Let him lie in sackcloth, and by the +austerity of his life make amends for the offence of his past +pleasures," says St. Jerome. "As we have sinned greatly," says St. +Cyprian, "let us weep greatly; for a deep wound diligent and long +tending must not be wanting, the repentance must not fall short of the +offence." "Take heed to thyself," says St. Basil, "that, in proportion +to the fault, thou admit also the restoration from the remedy."[387:2] +If so, the question follows which was above contemplated,--if in +consequence of death, or in the exercise of the Church's discretion, +the "_plena poenitentia_" is not accomplished in its ecclesiastical +shape, how and when will the residue be exacted? + + + 4. _Purgatory._ + +Clement of Alexandria answers this particular question very distinctly, +according to Bishop Kaye, though not in some other points expressing +himself conformably to the doctrine afterwards received. "Clement," says +that author, "distinguishes between sins committed before and after +baptism: the former are remitted at baptism; the latter are purged by +discipline. . . . The necessity of this purifying discipline is such, +that if it does not take place in this life, it must after death, and is +then to be effected by fire, not by a destructive, but a discriminating +fire, pervading the soul which passes through it."[388:1] + +There is a celebrated passage in St. Cyprian, on the subject of the +punishment of lapsed Christians, which certainly seems to express the +same doctrine. "St. Cyprian is arguing in favour of readmitting the +lapsed, when penitent; and his argument seems to be that it does not +follow that we absolve them simply because we simply restore them to the +Church. He writes thus to Antonian: 'It is one thing to stand for +pardon, another to arrive at glory; one to be sent to prison (_missum in +carcerem_) and not to go out till the last farthing be paid, another to +receive at once the reward of faith and virtue; one thing to be +tormented for sin in long pain, and so to be cleansed and purged a long +while by fire (_purgari diu igne_), another to be washed from all sin in +martyrdom; one thing, in short, to wait for the Lord's sentence in the +Day of Judgment, another at once to be crowned by Him.' Some understand +this passage to refer to the penitential discipline of the Church which +was imposed on the penitent; and, as far as the context goes, certainly +no sense could be more apposite. Yet . . . the words in themselves seem +to go beyond any mere ecclesiastical, though virtually divine censure; +especially '_missum in carcerem_' and '_purgari diu igne_.'"[389:1] + + +2. + +The Acts of the Martyrs St. Perpetua and St. Felicitas, which are prior +to St. Cyprian, confirm this interpretation. In the course of the +narrative, St. Perpetua prays for her brother Dinocrates, who had died +at the age of seven; and has a vision of a dark place, and next of a +pool of water, which he was not tall enough to reach. She goes on +praying; and in a second vision the water descended to him, and he was +able to drink, and went to play as children use. "Then I knew," she +says, "that he was translated from his place of punishment."[389:2] + +The prayers in the Eucharistic Service for the faithful departed, +inculcate, at least according to the belief of the fourth century, the +same doctrine, that the sins of accepted and elect souls, which were not +expiated here, would receive punishment hereafter. Certainly such was +St. Cyril's belief: "I know that many say," he observes, "what is a soul +profited, which departs from this world either with sins or without +sins, if it be commemorated in the [Eucharistic] Prayer? Now, surely, if +when a king had banished certain who had given him offence, their +connexions should weave a crown and offer it to him on behalf of those +under his vengeance, would he not grant a respite to their punishments? +In the same way we, when we offer to Him our supplications for those who +have fallen asleep, though they be sinners, weave no crown, but offer up +Christ, sacrificed for our sins, propitiating our merciful God, both +for them and for ourselves."[390:1] + + +3. + +Thus we see how, as time went on, the doctrine of Purgatory was brought +home to the minds of the faithful as a portion or form of Penance due +for post-baptismal sin. And thus the apprehension of this doctrine and +the practice of Infant Baptism would grow into general reception +together. Cardinal Fisher gives another reason for Purgatory being then +developed out of earlier points of faith. He says, "Faith, whether in +Purgatory or in Indulgences, was not so necessary in the Primitive +Church as now. For then love so burned, that every one was ready to meet +death for Christ. Crimes were rare, and such as occurred were avenged by +the great severity of the Canons."[390:2] + + +4. + +An author, who quotes this passage, analyzes the circumstances and the +reflections which prepared the Christian mind for the doctrine, when it +was first insisted on, and his remarks with a few corrections may be +accepted here. "Most men," he says, "to our apprehensions, are too +little formed in religious habits either for heaven or for hell, yet +there is no middle state when Christ comes in judgment. In consequence +it is obvious to have recourse to the interval before His coming, as a +time during which this incompleteness may be remedied; as a season, not +of changing the spiritual bent and character of the soul departed, +whatever that be, for probation ends with mortal life, but of developing +it in a more determinate form, whether of good or of evil. Again, when +the mind once allows itself to speculate, it will discern in such a +provision a means, whereby those, who, not without true faith at bottom, +yet have committed great crimes, or those who have been carried off in +youth while still undecided, or who die after a barren though not an +immoral or scandalous life, may receive such chastisement as may prepare +them for heaven, and render it consistent with God's justice to admit +them thither. Again, the inequality of the sufferings of Christians in +this life, compared one with another, leads the mind to the same +speculations; the intense suffering, for instance, which some men +undergo on their death-bed, seeming as if but an anticipation in their +case of what comes after death upon others, who, without greater claim +on God's forbearance, live without chastisement, and die easily. The +mind will inevitably dwell upon such thoughts, unless it has been taught +to subdue them by education or by the fear or the experience of their +dangerousness. + + +5. + +"Various suppositions have, accordingly, been made, as pure +suppositions, as mere specimens of the capabilities (if one may so +speak) of the Divine Dispensation, as efforts of the mind reaching +forward and venturing beyond its depth into the abyss of the Divine +Counsels. If one supposition could be hazarded, sufficient to solve the +problem, the existence of ten thousand others is conceivable, unless +indeed the resources of God's Providence are exactly commensurate with +man's discernment of them. Religious men, amid these searchings of +heart, have naturally gone to Scripture for relief; to see if the +inspired word anywhere gave them any clue for their inquiries. And from +what was there found, and from the speculations of reason upon it, +various notions have been hazarded at different times; for instance, +that there is a certain momentary ordeal to be undergone by all men +after this life, more or less severe according to their spiritual +state; or that certain gross sins in good men will be thus visited, or +their lighter failings and habitual imperfections; or that the very +sight of Divine Perfection in the invisible world will be in itself a +pain, while it constitutes the purification of the imperfect but +believing soul; or that, happiness admitting of various degrees of +intensity, penitents late in life may sink for ever into a state, +blissful as far as it goes, but more or less approaching to +unconsciousness; and infants dying after baptism may be as gems paving +the courts of heaven, or as the living wheels of the Prophet's vision; +while matured Saints may excel in capacity of bliss, as well as in +dignity, the highest Archangels. + + +6. + +"Now, as to the punishments and satisfactions for sin, the texts to +which the minds of the early Christians seem to have been principally +drawn, and from which they ventured to argue in behalf of these vague +notions, were these two: 'The fire shall try every man's work,' &c., and +'He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' These +passages, with which many more were found to accord, directed their +thoughts one way, as making mention of 'fire,' whatever was meant by the +word, as the instrument of trial and purification; and that, at some +time between the present time and the Judgment, or at the Judgment. + +"As the doctrine, thus suggested by certain striking texts, grew in +popularity and definiteness, and verged towards its present Roman form, +it seemed a key to many others. Great portions of the books of Psalms, +Job, and the Lamentations, which express the feelings of religious men +under suffering, would powerfully recommend it by the forcible and most +affecting and awful meaning which they received from it. When this was +once suggested, all other meanings would seem tame and inadequate. + +"To these may be added various passages from the Prophets, as that in +the beginning of the third chapter of Malachi, which speaks of fire as +the instrument of judgment and purification, when Christ comes to visit +His Church. + +"Moreover, there were other texts of obscure and indeterminate bearing, +which seemed on this hypothesis to receive a profitable meaning; such as +our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount, 'Verily, I say unto thee, +thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost +farthing;' and St. John's expression in the Apocalypse, that 'no man in +heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the +book.'"[393:1] + + +7. + +When then an answer had to be made to the question, how is +post-baptismal sin to be remitted, there was an abundance of passages in +Scripture to make easy to the faith of the inquirer the definitive +decision of the Church. + + + 5. _Meritorious Works._ + +The doctrine of post-baptismal sin, especially when realized in the +doctrine of Purgatory, leads the inquirer to fresh developments beyond +itself. Its effect is to convert a Scripture statement, which might seem +only of temporary application, into a universal and perpetual truth. +When St. Paul and St. Barnabas would "confirm the souls of the +disciples," they taught them "that we must through much tribulation +enter into the kingdom of God." It is obvious what very practical +results would follow on such an announcement, in the instance of those +who simply accepted the Apostolic decision; and in like manner a +conviction that sin must have its punishment, here or hereafter, and +that we all must suffer, how overpowering will be its effect, what a new +light does it cast on the history of the soul, what a change does it +make in our judgment of the external world, what a reversal of our +natural wishes and aims for the future! Is a doctrine conceivable which +would so elevate the mind above this present state, and teach it so +successfully to dare difficult things, and to be reckless of danger and +pain? He who believes that suffer he must, and that delayed punishment +may be the greater, will be above the world, will admire nothing, fear +nothing, desire nothing. He has within his breast a source of greatness, +self-denial, heroism. This is the secret spring of strenuous efforts and +persevering toil, of the sacrifice of fortune, friends, ease, +reputation, happiness. There is, it is true, a higher class of motives +which will be felt by the Saint; who will do from love what all +Christians, who act acceptably, do from faith. And, moreover, the +ordinary measures of charity which Christians possess, suffice for +securing such respectable attention to religious duties as the routine +necessities of the Church require. But if we would raise an army of +devoted men to resist the world, to oppose sin and error, to relieve +misery, or to propagate the truth, we must be provided with motives +which keenly affect the many. Christian love is too rare a gift, +philanthropy is too weak a material, for the occasion. Nor is there an +influence to be found to suit our purpose, besides this solemn +conviction, which arises out of the very rudiments of Christian +theology, and is taught by its most ancient masters,--this sense of the +awfulness of post-baptismal sin. It is in vain to look out for +missionaries for China or Africa, or evangelists for our great towns, or +Christian attendants on the sick, or teachers of the ignorant, on such a +scale of numbers as the need requires, without the doctrine of +Purgatory. For thus the sins of youth are turned to account by the +profitable penance of manhood; and terrors, which the philosopher scorns +in the individual, become the benefactors and earn the gratitude of +nations. + + + 6. _The Monastic Rule._ + +But there is one form of Penance which has been more prevalent and +uniform than any other, out of which the forms just noticed have grown, +or on which they have been engrafted,--the Monastic Rule. In the first +ages, the doctrine of the punishments of sin, whether in this world or +in the next, was little called for. The rigid discipline of the infant +Church was the preventive of greater offences, and its persecutions the +penance of their commission; but when the Canons were relaxed and +confessorship ceased, then some substitute was needed, and such was +Monachism, being at once a sort of continuation of primeval innocence, +and a school of self-chastisement. And, as it is a great principle in +economical and political science that everything should be turned to +account, and there should be no waste, so, in the instance of +Christianity, the penitential observances of individuals, which were +necessarily on a large scale as its professors increased, took the form +of works, whether for the defence of the Church, or the spiritual and +temporal good of mankind. + + +2. + +In no aspect of the Divine system do we see more striking developments +than in the successive fortunes of Monachism. Little did the youth +Antony foresee, when he set off to fight the evil one in the wilderness, +what a sublime and various history he was opening, a history which had +its first developments even in his own lifetime. He was himself a +hermit in the desert; but when others followed his example, he was +obliged to give them guidance, and thus he found himself, by degrees, at +the head of a large family of solitaries, five thousand of whom were +scattered in the district of Nitria alone. He lived to see a second +stage in the development; the huts in which they lived were brought +together, sometimes round a church, and a sort of subordinate community, +or college, formed among certain individuals of their number. St. +Pachomius was the first who imposed a general rule of discipline upon +the brethren, gave them a common dress, and set before them the objects +to which the religious life was dedicated. Manual labour, study, +devotion, bodily mortification, were now their peculiarities; and the +institution, thus defined, spread and established itself through Eastern +and Western Christendom. + +The penitential character of Monachism is not prominent in St. Antony, +though it is distinctly noticed by Pliny in his description of the +Essenes of the Dead Sea, who anticipated the monastic life at the rise +of Christianity. In St. Basil, however, it becomes a distinguishing +feature;--so much so that the monastic profession was made a +disqualification for the pastoral office,[396:1] and in theory involved +an absolute separation from mankind; though in St. Basil's, as well as +St. Antony's disciples, it performed the office of resisting heresy. + +Next, the monasteries, which in their ecclesiastical capacity had been +at first separate churches under a Presbyter or Abbot, became schools +for the education of the clergy.[396:2] + + +3. + +Centuries passed, and after many extravagant shapes of the institution, +and much wildness and insubordination in its members, a new development +took place under St. Benedict. Revising and digesting the provisions of +St. Antony, St. Pachomius, and St. Basil, he bound together his monks by +a perpetual vow, brought them into the cloister, united the separate +convents into one Order,[397:1] and added objects of an ecclesiastical +and civil nature to that of personal edification. Of these objects, +agriculture seemed to St. Benedict himself of first importance; but in a +very short time it was superseded by study and education, and the +monasteries of the following centuries became the schools and libraries, +and the monks the chroniclers and copyists, of a dark period. Centuries +later, the Benedictine Order was divided into separate Congregations, +and propagated in separate monastic bodies. The Congregation of Cluni +was the most celebrated of the former; and of the latter, the hermit +order of the Camaldoli and the agricultural Cistercians. + + +4. + +Both a unity and an originality are observable in the successive phases +under which Monachism has shown itself; and while its developments bring +it more and more into the ecclesiastical system, and subordinate it to +the governing power, they are true to their first idea, and spring fresh +and fresh from the parent stock, which from time immemorial had thriven +in Syria and Egypt. The sheepskin and desert of St. Antony did but +revive "the mantle"[397:2] and the mountain of the first Carmelite, and +St. Basil's penitential exercises had already been practised by the +Therapeut. In like manner the Congregational principle, which is +ascribed to St. Benedict, had been anticipated by St. Antony and St. +Pachomius; and after centuries of disorder, another function of early +Monachism, for which there had been little call for centuries, the +defence of Catholic truth, was exercised with singular success by the +rival orders of Dominicans and Franciscans. + +St. Benedict had come as if to preserve a principle of civilization, and +a refuge for learning, at a time when the old framework of society was +falling, and new political creations were taking their place. And when +the young intellect within them began to stir, and a change of another +kind discovered itself, then appeared St. Francis and St. Dominic to +teach and chastise it; and in proportion as Monachism assumed this +public office, so did the principle of penance, which had been the chief +characteristic of its earlier forms, hold a less prominent place. The +Tertiaries indeed, or members of the third order of St. Francis and St. +Dominic, were penitents; but the friar himself, instead of a penitent, +was made a priest, and was allowed to quit cloister. Nay, they assumed +the character of what may be called an Ecumenical Order, as being +supported by begging, not by endowments, and being under the +jurisdiction, not of the local Bishop, but of the Holy See. The +Dominicans too came forward especially as a learned body, and as +entrusted with the office of preaching, at a time when the mind of +Europe seemed to be developing into infidelity. They filled the chairs +at the Universities, while the strength of the Franciscans lay among the +lower orders. + + +5. + +At length, in the last era of ecclesiastical revolution, another +principle of early Monachism, which had been but partially developed, +was brought out into singular prominence in the history of the Jesuits. +"Obedience," said an ancient abbot, "is a monk's service, with which he +shall be heard in prayer, and shall stand with confidence by the +Crucified, for so the Lord came to the cross, being made obedient even +unto death;"[399:1] but it was reserved for modern times to furnish the +perfect illustration of this virtue, and to receive the full blessing +which follows it. The great Society, which bears no earthly name, still +more secular in its organization, and still more simply dependent on the +See of St. Peter, has been still more distinguished than any Order +before it for the rule of obedience, while it has compensated the danger +of its free intercourse with the world by its scientific adherence to +devotional exercises. The hermitage, the cloister, the inquisitor, and +the friar were suited to other states of society; with the Jesuits, as +well as with the religious Communities, which are their juniors, +usefulness, secular and religious, literature, education, the +confessional, preaching, the oversight of the poor, missions, the care +of the sick, have been chief objects of attention; great cities have +been the scene of operation: bodily austerities and the ceremonial of +devotion have been made of but secondary importance. Yet it may fairly +be questioned, whether, in an intellectual age, when freedom both of +thought and of action is so dearly prized, a greater penance can be +devised for the soldier of Christ than the absolute surrender of +judgment and will to the command of another. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[385:1] Gieseler, Text-book, vol. i. p. 108. + +[385:2] Gieseler, ibid. p. 164. + +[385:3] Socr. Hist. i. 10. + +[387:1] Hom. 14, in 2 Cor. fin. + +[387:2] Vid. Tertull. Oxf. tr. pp. 374, 5. + +[388:1] Clem. ch. 12. Vid. also Tertull. de Anim. fin. + +[389:1] Tracts for the Times, No. 79, p. 38. + +[389:2] Ruinart, Mart. p. 96. + +[390:1] Mystagog. 5. + +[390:2] [Vid. Via Media, vol. i. p 72.] + +[393:1] [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 174-177.] + +[396:1] Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 288. + +[396:2] Ibid. p. 279. + +[397:1] Or rather his successors, as St. Benedict of Anian, were the +founders of the Order; but minute accuracy on these points is +unnecessary in a mere sketch of the history. + +[397:2] +mlts+, 2 Kings ii. Sept. Vid. also, "They wandered about in +sheepskins and goatskins" (Heb. xi. 37). + +[399:1] Rosweyde, V. P. p. 618. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE. + +It has been set down above as a fifth argument in favour of the fidelity +of developments, ethical or political, if the doctrine from which they +have proceeded has, in any early stage of its history, given indications +of those opinions and practices in which it has ended. Supposing then +the so-called Catholic doctrines and practices are true and legitimate +developments, and not corruptions, we may expect from the force of logic +to find instances of them in the first centuries. And this I conceive to +be the case: the records indeed of those times are scanty, and we have +little means of determining what daily Christian life then was: we know +little of the thoughts, and the prayers, and the meditations, and the +discourses of the early disciples of Christ, at a time when these +professed developments were not recognized and duly located in the +theological system; yet it appears, even from what remains, that the +atmosphere of the Church was, as it were, charged with them from the +first, and delivered itself of them from time to time, in this way or +that, in various places and persons, as occasion elicited them, +testifying the presence of a vast body of thought within it, which one +day would take shape and position. + + + 1. _Resurrection and Relics._ + +As a chief specimen of what I am pointing out, I will direct attention +to a characteristic principle of Christianity, whether in the East or in +the West, which is at present both a special stumbling-block and a +subject of scoffing with Protestants and free-thinkers of every shade +and colour: I mean the devotions which both Greeks and Latins show +towards bones, blood, the heart, the hair, bits of clothes, scapulars, +cords, medals, beads, and the like, and the miraculous powers which they +often ascribe to them. Now, the principle from which these beliefs and +usages proceed is the doctrine that Matter is susceptible of grace, or +capable of a union with a Divine Presence and influence. This principle, +as we shall see, was in the first age both energetically manifested and +variously developed; and that chiefly in consequence of the +diametrically opposite doctrine of the schools and the religions of the +day. And thus its exhibition in that primitive age becomes also an +instance of a statement often made in controversy, that the profession +and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the +time, and that silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not +then held, but that it was not questioned. + + +2. + +Christianity began by considering Matter as a creature of God, and in +itself "very good." It taught that Matter, as well as Spirit, had become +corrupt, in the instance of Adam; and it contemplated its recovery. It +taught that the Highest had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon +Himself, in order to the sanctification of the whole; that, as a +firstfruits of His purpose, He had purified from all sin that very +portion of it which He took into His Eternal Person, and thereunto had +taken it from a Virgin Womb, which He had filled with the abundance of +His Spirit. Moreover, it taught that during His earthly sojourn He had +been subject to the natural infirmities of man, and had suffered from +those ills to which flesh is heir. It taught that the Highest had in +that flesh died on the Cross, and that His blood had an expiatory power; +moreover, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had carried that +flesh with Him into heaven, and that from that flesh, glorified and +deified in Him, He never would be divided. As a first consequence of +these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of the bodies of +His Saints, and of their future glorification with Him; next, that of +the sanctity of their relics; further, that of the merit of Virginity; +and, lastly, that of the prerogatives of Mary, Mother of God. All these +doctrines are more or less developed in the Ante-nicene period, though +in very various degrees, from the nature of the case. + + +3. + +And they were all objects of offence or of scorn to philosophers, +priests, or populace of the day. With varieties of opinions which need +not be mentioned, it was a fundamental doctrine in the schools, whether +Greek or Oriental, that Matter was essentially evil. It had not been +created by the Supreme God; it was in eternal enmity with Him; it was +the source of all pollution; and it was irreclaimable. Such was the +doctrine of Platonist, Gnostic, and Manichee:--whereas then St. John had +laid it down that "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is +come in the flesh is the spirit of Antichrist:" the Gnostics obstinately +denied the Incarnation, and held that Christ was but a phantom, or had +come on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him at his passion. The +one great topic of preaching with Apostles and Evangelists was the +Resurrection of Christ and of all mankind after Him; but when the +philosophers of Athens heard St. Paul, "some mocked," and others +contemptuously put aside the doctrine. The birth from a Virgin implied, +not only that the body was not intrinsically evil, but that one state of +it was holier than another, and St. Paul explained that, while marriage +was good, celibacy was better; but the Gnostics, holding the utter +malignity of Matter, one and all condemned marriage as sinful, and, +whether they observed continence or not, or abstained from eating flesh +or not, maintained that all functions of our animal nature were evil and +abominable. + + +4. + +"Perish the thought," says Manes, "that our Lord Jesus Christ should +have descended through the womb of a woman." "He descended," says +Marcion, "but without touching her or taking aught from her." "Through +her, not of her," said another. "It is absurd to assert," says a +disciple of Bardesanes, "that this flesh in which we are imprisoned +shall rise again, for it is well called a burden, a tomb, and a chain." +"They execrate the funeral-pile," says Ccilius, speaking of Christians, +"as if bodies, though withdrawn from the flames, did not all resolve +into dust by years, whether beasts tear, or sea swallows, or earth +covers, or flame wastes." According to the old Paganism, both the +educated and vulgar held corpses and sepulchres in aversion. They +quickly rid themselves of the remains even of their friends, thinking +their presence a pollution, and felt the same terror even of +burying-places which assails the ignorant and superstitious now. It is +recorded of Hannibal that, on his return to the African coast from +Italy, he changed his landing-place to avoid a ruined sepulchre. "May +the god who passes between heaven and hell," says Apuleius in his +_Apology_, "present to thy eyes, O Emilian, all that haunts the night, +all that alarms in burying-places, all that terrifies in tombs." George +of Cappadocia could not direct a more bitter taunt against the +Alexandrian Pagans than to call the temple of Serapis a sepulchre. The +case had been the same even among the Jews; the Rabbins taught, that +even the corpses of holy men "did but serve to diffuse infection and +defilement." "When deaths were Judaical," says the writer who goes under +the name of St. Basil, "corpses were an abomination; when death is for +Christ, the relics of Saints are precious. It was anciently said to the +Priests and the Nazarites, 'If any one shall touch a corpse, he shall be +unclean till evening, and he shall wash his garment;' now, on the +contrary, if any one shall touch a Martyr's bones, by reason of the +grace dwelling in the body, he receives some participation of his +sanctity."[404:1] Nay, Christianity taught a reverence for the bodies +even of heathen. The care of the dead is one of the praises which, as we +have seen above, is extorted in their favour from the Emperor Julian; +and it was exemplified during the mortality which spread through the +Roman world in the time of St. Cyprian. "They did good," says Pontius of +the Christians of Carthage, "in the profusion of exuberant works to all, +and not only to the household of faith. They did somewhat more than is +recorded of the incomparable benevolence of Tobias. The slain of the +king and the outcasts, whom Tobias gathered together, were of his own +kin only."[404:2] + + +5. + +Far more of course than such general reverence was the honour that they +showed to the bodies of the Saints. They ascribed virtue to their +martyred tabernacles, and treasured, as something supernatural, their +blood, their ashes, and their bones. When St. Cyprian was beheaded, his +brethren brought napkins to soak up his blood. "Only the harder portion +of the holy relics remained," say the Acts of St. Ignatius, who was +exposed to the beasts in the amphitheatre, "which were conveyed to +Antioch, and deposited in linen, bequeathed, by the grace that was in +the Martyr, to that holy Church as a priceless treasure." The Jews +attempted to deprive the brethren of St. Polycarp's body, "lest, leaving +the Crucified, they begin to worship him," say his Acts; "ignorant," +they continue, "that we can never leave Christ;" and they add, "We, +having taken up his bones which were more costly than precious stones, +and refined more than gold, deposited them where was fitting; and there +when we meet together, as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate +with joy and gladness the birthday of his martyrdom." On one occasion in +Palestine, the Imperial authorities disinterred the bodies and cast them +into the sea, "lest as their opinion went," says Eusebius, "there should +be those who in their sepulchres and monuments might think them gods, +and treat them with divine worship." + +Julian, who had been a Christian, and knew the Christian history more +intimately than a mere infidel would know it, traces the superstition, +as he considers it, to the very lifetime of St. John, that is, as early +as there were Martyrs to honour; makes the honour paid them +contemporaneous with the worship paid to our Lord, and equally distinct +and formal; and, moreover, declares that first it was secret, which for +various reasons it was likely to have been. "Neither Paul," he says, +"nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor Mark, dared to call Jesus God; but honest +John, having perceived that a great multitude had been caught by this +disease in many of the Greek and Italian cities, and hearing, I suppose, +that the monuments of Peter and Paul were, secretly indeed, but still +hearing that they were honoured, first dared to say it." "Who can feel +fitting abomination?" he says elsewhere; "you have filled all places +with tombs and monuments, though it has been nowhere told you to tumble +down at tombs or to honour them. . . . . If Jesus said that they were +full of uncleanness, why do ye invoke God at them?" The tone of Faustus +the Manichan is the same. "Ye have turned," he says to St. Augustine, +"the idols" of the heathen "into your Martyrs, whom ye honour +(_colitis_) with similar prayers (_votis_)."[406:1] + + +6. + +It is remarkable that the attention of both Christians and their +opponents turned from the relics of the Martyrs to their persons. +Basilides at least, who was founder of one of the most impious Gnostic +sects, spoke of them with disrespect; he considered that their +sufferings were the penalty of secret sins or evil desires, or +transgressions committed in another body, and a sign of divine favour +only because they were allowed to connect them with the cause of +Christ.[406:2] On the other hand, it was the doctrine of the Church that +Martyrdom was meritorious, that it had a certain supernatural efficacy +in it, and that the blood of the Saints received from the grace of the +One Redeemer a certain expiatory power. Martyrdom stood in the place of +Baptism, where the Sacrament had not been administered. It exempted the +soul from all preparatory waiting, and gained its immediate admittance +into glory. "All crimes are pardoned for the sake of this work," says +Tertullian. + +And in proportion to the near approach of the martyrs to their Almighty +Judge, was their high dignity and power. St. Dionysius speaks of their +reigning with Christ; Origen even conjectures that "as we are redeemed +by the precious blood of Jesus, so some are redeemed by the precious +blood of the Martyrs." St. Cyprian seems to explain his meaning when he +says, "We believe that the merits of Martyrs and the works of the just +avail much with the Judge," that is, for those who were lapsed, "when, +after the end of this age and the world, Christ's people shall stand +before His judgment-seat." Accordingly they were considered to intercede +for the Church militant in their state of glory, and for individuals +whom they had known. St. Potamina of Alexandria, in the first years of +the third century, when taken out for execution, promised to obtain +after her departure the salvation of the officer who led her out; and +did appear to him, according to Eusebius, on the third day, and +prophesied his own speedy martyrdom. And St. Theodosia in Palestine came +to certain confessors who were in bonds, "to request them," as Eusebius +tells us, "to remember her when they came to the Lord's Presence." +Tertullian, when a Montanist, betrays the existence of the doctrine in +the Catholic body by protesting against it.[407:1] + + + 2. _The Virgin Life._ + +Next to the prerogatives of bodily suffering or Martyrdom came, in the +estimation of the early Church, the prerogatives of bodily, as well as +moral, purity or Virginity; another form of the general principle which +I am here illustrating. "The first reward," says St. Cyprian to the +Virgins, "is for the Martyrs an hundredfold; the second, sixtyfold, is +for yourselves."[407:2] Their state and its merit is recognized by a +_consensus_ of the Ante-nicene writers; of whom Athenagoras distinctly +connects Virginity with the privilege of divine communion: "You will +find many of our people," he says to the Emperor Marcus, "both men and +women, grown old in their single state, in hope thereby of a closer +union with God."[408:1] + + +2. + +Among the numerous authorities which might be cited, I will confine +myself to a work, elaborate in itself, and important from its author. +St. Methodius was a Bishop and Martyr of the latter years of the +Ante-nicene period, and is celebrated as the most variously endowed +divine of his day. His learning, elegance in composition, and eloquence, +are all commemorated.[408:2] The work in question, the _Convivium +Virginum_, is a conference in which ten Virgins successively take part, +in praise of the state of life to which they have themselves been +specially called. I do not wish to deny that there are portions of it +which strangely grate upon the feelings of an age, which is formed on +principles of which marriage is the centre. But here we are concerned +with its doctrine. Of the speakers in this Colloquy, three at least are +real persons prior to St. Methodius's time; of these Thecla, whom +tradition associates with St. Paul, is one, and Marcella, who in the +Roman Breviary is considered to be St. Martha's servant, and who is said +to have been the woman who exclaimed, "Blessed is the womb that bare +Thee," &c., is described as a still older servant of Christ. The latter +opens the discourse, and her subject is the gradual development of the +doctrine of Virginity in the Divine Dispensations; Theophila, who +follows, enlarges on the sanctity of Matrimony, with which the special +glory of the higher state does not interfere; Thalia discourses on the +mystical union which exists between Christ and His Church, and on the +seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians; Theopatra on +the merit of Virginity; Thallusa exhorts to a watchful guardianship of +the gift; Agatha shows the necessity of other virtues and good works, in +order to the real praise of their peculiar profession; Procilla extols +Virginity as the special instrument of becoming a spouse of Christ; +Thecla treats of it as the great combatant in the warfare between heaven +and hell, good and evil; Tysiana with reference to the Resurrection; and +Domnina allegorizes Jothan's parable in Judges ix. Virtue, who has been +introduced as the principal personage in the representation from the +first, closes the discussion with an exhortation to inward purity, and +they answer her by an hymn to our Lord as the Spouse of His Saints. + + +3. + +It is observable that St. Methodius plainly speaks of the profession of +Virginity as a vow. "I will explain," says one of his speakers, "how we +are dedicated to the Lord. What is enacted in the Book of Numbers, 'to +vow a vow mightily,' shows what I am insisting on at great length, that +Chastity is a mighty vow beyond all vows."[409:1] This language is not +peculiar to St. Methodius among the Ante-nicene Fathers. "Let such as +promise Virginity and break their profession be ranked among digamists," +says the Council of Ancyra in the beginning of the fourth century. +Tertullian speaks of being "married to Christ," and marriage implies a +vow; he proceeds, "to Him thou hast pledged (_sponsasti_) thy ripeness +of age;" and before he had expressly spoken of the _continenti votum_. +Origen speaks of "devoting one's body to God" in chastity; and St. +Cyprian "of Christ's Virgin, dedicated to Him and destined for His +sanctity," and elsewhere of "members dedicated to Christ, and for ever +devoted by virtuous chastity to the praise of continence;" and Eusebius +of those "who had consecrated themselves body and soul to a pure and +all-holy life."[410:1] + + + 3. _Cultus of Saints and Angels._ + +The Spanish Church supplies us with an anticipation of the later +devotions to Saints and Angels. The Canons are extant of a Council of +Illiberis, held shortly before the Council of Nica, and representative +of course of the doctrine of the third century. Among these occurs the +following: "It is decreed, that pictures ought not to be in church, lest +what is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls."[410:2] Now these +words are commonly taken to be decisive against the use of pictures in +the Spanish Church at that era. Let us grant it; let us grant that the +use of all pictures is forbidden, pictures not only of our Lord, and +sacred emblems, as of the Lamb and the Dove, but pictures of Angels and +Saints also. It is not fair to restrict the words, nor are +controversialists found desirous of doing so; they take them to include +the images of the Saints. "For keeping of pictures out of the Church, +the Canon of the Eliberine or Illiberitine Council, held in Spain, about +the time of Constantine the Great, is most plain,"[410:3] says Ussher: +he is speaking of "the representations of God and of Christ, and of +Angels and of Saints."[410:4] "The Council of Eliberis is very ancient, +and of great fame," says Taylor, "in which it is expressly forbidden +that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls, and that +therefore pictures ought not to be in churches."[411:1] He too is +speaking of the Saints. I repeat, let us grant this freely. This +inference then seems to be undeniable, that the Spanish Church +considered the Saints to be in the number of objects either of "worship +or adoration;" for it is of such objects that the representations are +forbidden. The very drift of the prohibition is this,--_lest_ what is in +itself an object of worship (_quod colitur_) should be worshipped _in +painting_; unless then Saints and Angels were objects of worship, their +pictures would have been allowed. + + +2. + +This mention of Angels leads me to a memorable passage about the honour +due to them in Justin Martyr. + +St. Justin, after "answering the charge of Atheism," as Dr. Burton says, +"which was brought against Christians of his day, and observing that +they were punished for not worshipping evil demons which were not really +gods," continues, "But Him, (God,) and the Son who came from Him, and +taught us these things, and the host of the other good Angels who follow +and resemble Him, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, paying +them a reasonable and true honour, and not grudging to deliver to any +one, who wishes to learn, as we ourselves have been taught."[411:2] + +A more express testimony to the _cultus Angelorum_ cannot be required; +nor is it unnatural in the connexion in which it occurs, considering St. +Justin has been speaking of the heathen worship of demons, and therefore +would be led without effort to mention, not only the incommunicable +adoration paid to the One God, who "will not give His glory to another," +but such inferior honour as may be paid to creatures, without sin on the +side whether of giver or receiver. Nor is the construction of the +original Greek harsher than is found in other authors; nor need it +surprise us in one whose style is not accurate, that two words should be +used in combination to express worship, and that one should include +Angels, and that the other should not. + + +3. + +The following is Dr. Burton's account of the passage: + +"Scultetus, a Protestant divine of Heidelberg, in his _Medulla Theologi +Patrum_, which appeared in 1605, gave a totally different meaning to the +passage; and instead of connecting '_the host_' with '_we worship_,' +connected it with '_taught us_.' The words would then be rendered thus: +'But Him, and the Son who came from Him, who also gave us instructions +concerning these things, and concerning the host of the other good +angels we worship,' &c. This interpretation is adopted and defended at +some length by Bishop Bull, and by Stephen Le Moyne; and even the +Benedictine Le Nourry supposed Justin to mean that Christ had taught us +not to worship the bad angels, as well as the existence of good angels. +Grabe, in his edition of 'Justin's Apology,' which was printed in 1703, +adopted another interpretation, which had been before proposed by Le +Moyne and by Cave. This also connects '_the host_' with '_taught_,' and +would require us to render the passage thus: '. . . and the Son who came +from Him, who also taught these things to us, and to the host of the +other Angels,' &c. It might be thought that Langus, who published a +Latin translation of Justin in 1565, meant to adopt one of these +interpretations, or at least to connect '_host_' with '_taught these +things_.' Both of them certainly are ingenious, and are not perhaps +opposed to the literal construction of the Greek words; but I cannot say +that they are satisfactory, or that I am surprised at Roman Catholic +writers describing them as forced and violent attempts to evade a +difficulty. If the words enclosed in brackets were removed, the whole +passage would certainly contain a strong argument in favour of the +Trinity; but as they now stand, Roman Catholic writers will naturally +quote them as supporting the worship of Angels. + +"There is, however, this difficulty in such a construction of the +passage: it proves too much. By coupling the Angels with the three +persons of the Trinity, as objects of religious adoration, it seems to +go beyond even what Roman Catholics themselves would maintain concerning +the worship of Angels. Their well-known distinction between _latria_ and +_dulia_ would be entirely confounded; and the difficulty felt by the +Benedictine editor appears to have been as great, as his attempt to +explain it is unsuccessful, when he wrote as follows: 'Our adversaries +in vain object the twofold expression, _we worship and adore_. For the +former is applied to Angels themselves, regard being had to the +distinction between the creature and the Creator; the latter by no means +necessarily includes the Angels.' This sentence requires concessions, +which no opponent could be expected to make; and if one of the two +terms, _we worship_ and _adore_, may be applied to Angels, it is +unreasonable to contend that the other must not also. Perhaps, however, +the passage may be explained so as to admit a distinction of this kind. +The interpretations of Scultetus and Grabe have not found many +advocates; and upon the whole I should be inclined to conclude, that the +clause, which relates to the Angels, is connected particularly with the +words, '_paying them a reasonable and true honour_.'"[414:1] + +Two violent alterations of the text have also been proposed: one to +transfer the clause which creates the difficulty, after the words +_paying them honour_; the other to substitute +stratgon+ (_commander_) +for +straton+ (_host_). + + +4. + +Presently Dr. Burton continues:--"Justin, as I observed, is defending +the Christians from the charge of Atheism; and after saying that the +gods, whom they refused to worship, were no gods, but evil demons, he +points out what were the Beings who were worshipped by the Christians. +He names the true God, who is the source of all virtue; the Son, who +proceeded from Him; the good and ministering spirits; and the Holy +Ghost. To these Beings, he says, we pay all the worship, adoration, and +honour, which is due to each of them; _i. e._ worship where worship is +due, honour where honour is due. The Christians were accused of +worshipping no gods, that is, of acknowledging no superior beings at +all. Justin shows that so far was this from being true, that they +acknowledged more than one order of spiritual Beings; they offered +divine worship to the true God, and they also believed in the existence +of good spirits, which were entitled to honour and respect. If the +reader will view the passage as a whole, he will perhaps see that there +is nothing violent in thus restricting the words _worship and adore_, +and _honouring_, to certain parts of it respectively. It may seem +strange that Justin should mention the ministering spirits before the +Holy Ghost: but this is a difficulty which presses upon the Roman +Catholics as much as upon ourselves; and we may perhaps adopt the +explanation of the Bishop of Lincoln,[414:2] who says, 'I have sometimes +thought that in this passage, "_and the host_," is equivalent to "_with +the host_," and that Justin had in his mind the glorified state of +Christ, when He should come to judge the world, surrounded by the host +of heaven.' The bishop then brings several passages from Justin, where +the Son of God is spoken of as attended by a company of Angels; and if +this idea was then in Justin's mind, it might account for his naming the +ministering spirits immediately after the Son of God, rather than after +the Holy Ghost, which would have been the natural and proper +order."[415:1] + +This passage of St. Justin is the more remarkable, because it cannot be +denied that there was a worship of the Angels at that day, of which St. +Paul speaks, which was Jewish and Gnostic, and utterly reprobated by the +Church. + + + 4. _Office of the Blessed Virgin._ + +The special prerogatives of St. Mary, the _Virgo Virginum_, are +intimately involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation itself, with +which these remarks began, and have already been dwelt upon above. As is +well known, they were not fully recognized in the Catholic ritual till a +late date, but they were not a new thing in the Church, or strange to +her earlier teachers. St. Justin, St. Irenus, and others, had +distinctly laid it down, that she not only had an office, but bore a +part, and was a voluntary agent, in the actual process of redemption, as +Eve had been instrumental and responsible in Adam's fall. They taught +that, as the first woman might have foiled the Tempter and did not, so, +if Mary had been disobedient or unbelieving on Gabriel's message, the +Divine Economy would have been frustrated. And certainly the parallel +between "the Mother of all living" and the Mother of the Redeemer may be +gathered from a comparison of the first chapters of Scripture with the +last. It was noticed in a former place, that the only passage where the +serpent is directly identified with the evil spirit occurs in the +twelfth chapter of the Revelation; now it is observable that the +recognition, when made, is found in the course of a vision of a "woman +clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet:" thus two women are +brought into contrast with each other. Moreover, as it is said in the +Apocalypse, "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went about to make +war with the remnant of her seed," so is it prophesied in Genesis, "I +will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her +Seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." Also +the enmity was to exist, not only between the Serpent and the Seed of +the woman, but between the serpent and the woman herself; and here too +there is a correspondence in the Apocalyptic vision. If then there is +reason for thinking that this mystery at the close of the Scripture +record answers to the mystery in the beginning of it, and that "the +Woman" mentioned in both passages is one and the same, then she can be +none other than St. Mary, thus introduced prophetically to our notice +immediately on the transgression of Eve. + + +2. + +Here, however, we are not so much concerned to interpret Scripture as to +examine the Fathers. Thus St. Justin says, "Eve, being a virgin and +incorrupt, having conceived the word from the Serpent, bore disobedience +and death; but Mary the Virgin, receiving faith and joy, when Gabriel +the Angel evangelized her, answered, 'Be it unto me according to thy +word.'"[416:1] And Tertullian says that, whereas Eve believed the +Serpent, and Mary believed Gabriel, "the fault of Eve in believing, Mary +by believing hath blotted out."[416:2] St. Irenus speaks more +explicitly: "As Eve," he says . . . "becoming disobedient, became the +cause of death to herself and to all mankind, so Mary too, having the +predestined Man, and yet a Virgin, being obedient, became cause of +salvation both to herself and to all mankind."[417:1] This becomes the +received doctrine in the Post-nicene Church. + +One well-known instance occurs in the history of the third century of +St. Mary's interposition, and it is remarkable from the names of the two +persons, who were, one the subject, the other the historian of it. St. +Gregory Nyssen, a native of Cappadocia in the fourth century, relates +that his name-sake Bishop of Neo-csarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, in the +preceding century, shortly before he was called to the priesthood, +received in a vision a Creed, which is still extant, from the Blessed +Virgin at the hands of St. John. The account runs thus: He was deeply +pondering theological doctrine, which the heretics of the day depraved. +"In such thoughts," says his name-sake of Nyssa, "he was passing the +night, when one appeared, as if in human form, aged in appearance, +saintly in the fashion of his garments, and very venerable both in grace +of countenance and general mien. . . . Following with his eyes his +extended hand, he saw another appearance opposite to the former, in +shape of a woman, but more than human. . . . When his eyes could not +bear the apparition, he heard them conversing together on the subject +of his doubts; and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of the +faith, but learned their names, as they addressed each other by their +respective appellations. And thus he is said to have heard the person in +woman's shape bid 'John the Evangelist' disclose to the young man the +mystery of godliness; and he answered that he was ready to comply in +this matter with the wish of 'the Mother of the Lord,' and enunciated a +formulary, well-turned and complete, and so vanished." + +Gregory proceeds to rehearse the Creed thus given, "There is One God, +Father of a Living Word," &c.[418:1] Bull, after quoting it in his work +upon the Nicene Faith, refers to this history of its origin, and adds, +"No one should think it incredible that such a providence should befall +a man whose whole life was conspicuous for revelations and miracles, as +all ecclesiastical writers who have mentioned him (and who has not?) +witness with one voice."[418:2] + + +3. + +It is remarkable that St. Gregory Nazianzen relates an instance, even +more pointed, of St. Mary's intercession, contemporaneous with this +appearance to Thaumaturgus; but it is attended with mistake in the +narrative, which weakens its cogency as an evidence of the belief, not +indeed of the fourth century, in which St. Gregory lived, but of the +third. He speaks of a Christian woman having recourse to the protection +of St. Mary, and obtaining the conversion of a heathen who had attempted +to practise on her by magical arts. They were both martyred. + +In both these instances the Blessed Virgin appears especially in that +character of Patroness or Paraclete, which St. Irenus and other Fathers +describe, and which the Medieval Church exhibits,--a loving Mother with +clients. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[404:1] Act. Arch. p. 85. Athan. c. Apoll. ii. 3.--Adam. Dial. iii. +init. Minuc. Dial. 11. Apul. Apol. p. 535. Kortholt. Cal. p. 63. Calmet, +Dict. t. 2, p. 736. Basil in Ps. 115, 4. + +[404:2] Vit. S. Cypr. 10. + +[406:1] Act. Procons. 5. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 22, 44. Euseb. Hist. +viii. 6. Julian, ap. Cyr. pp. 327, 335. August. c. Faust. xx. 4. + +[406:2] Clem. Strom. iv. 12. + +[407:1] Tertull. Apol. fin. Euseb. Hist. vi. 42. Orig. ad Martyr. 50. +Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 122, 323. + +[407:2] De Hab. Virg. 12. + +[408:1] Athenag. Leg. 33. + +[408:2] Lumper, Hist. t. 13, p. 439. + +[409:1] Galland. t. 3, p. 670. + +[410:1] Routh, Reliqu. t. 3, p. 414. Tertull. de Virg. Vel. 16 and 11. +Orig. in Num. Hom. 24, 2. Cyprian. Ep. 4, p. 8, ed. Fell. Ep. 62, p. +147. Euseb. V. Const. iv. 26. + +[410:2] Placuit picturas in ecclesi esse non debere, ne quod colitur +aut adoratur, in parietibus depingatur. Can. 36. + +[410:3] Answ. to a Jes. 10, p. 437. + +[410:4] P. 430. The "colitur _aut_ adoratur" marks a difference of +worship. + +[411:1] Dissuasive, i. 1, 8. + +[411:2] +Ekeinon te, kai ton par' autou hyion elthonta kai didaxanta +hmas tauta, [kai ton tn alln hepomenn kai exomoioumenn agathn +angeln straton,] pneuma te to prophtikon sebometha kai proskynoumen, +log kai altheia timntes kai panti boulomen mathein, hs +edidachthmen, aphthons paradidontes.+--_Apol._ i. 6. The passage is +parallel to the Prayer in the Breviary: "Sacrosanct et individu +Trinitati, Crucifixi Domini nostri Jesu Christi humanitati, beatissim +et gloriosissim semperque Virginis Mari foecund integritati, et +omnium Sanctorum universitati, sit sempiterna laus, honor, virtus, et +gloria ab omni creatur," &c. + +[414:1] Test. Trin. pp. 16, 17, 18. + +[414:2] Dr. Kaye. + +[415:1] Pp. 19-21. + +[416:1] Tryph. 100. + +[416:2] Carn. Christ. 17. + +[417:1] Hr. iii. 22, 4. + +[418:1] Nyss. Opp. t. ii. p. 977. + +[418:2] Def. F. N. ii. 12. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CONSERVATIVE ACTION ON ITS PAST. + +It is the general pretext of heretics that they are but serving and +protecting Christianity by their innovations; and it is their charge +against what by this time we may surely call the Catholic Church, that +her successive definitions of doctrine have but overlaid and obscured +it. That is, they assume, what we have no wish to deny, that a true +development is that which is conservative of its original, and a +corruption is that which tends to its destruction. This has already been +set down as a Sixth Test, discriminative of a development from a +corruption, and must now be applied to the Catholic doctrines; though +this Essay has so far exceeded its proposed limits, that both reader and +writer may well be weary, and may content themselves with a brief +consideration of the portions of the subject which remain. + +It has been observed already that a strict correspondence between the +various members of a development, and those of the doctrine from which +it is derived, is more than we have any right to expect. The bodily +structure of a grown man is not merely that of a magnified boy; he +differs from what he was in his make and proportions; still manhood is +the perfection of boyhood, adding something of its own, yet keeping +what it finds. "Ut nihil novum," says Vincentius, "proferatur in +senibus, quod non in pueris jam antea latitaverit." This character of +addition,--that is, of a change which is in one sense real and +perceptible, yet without loss or reversal of what was before, but, on +the contrary, protective and confirmative of it,--in many respects and +in a special way belongs to Christianity. + + +SECTION I. + +VARIOUS INSTANCES. + +If we take the simplest and most general view of its history, as +existing in an individual mind, or in the Church at large, we shall see +in it an instance of this peculiarity. It is the birth of something +virtually new, because latent in what was before. Thus we know that no +temper of mind is acceptable in the Divine Presence without love; it is +love which makes Christian fear differ from servile dread, and true +faith differ from the faith of devils; yet in the beginning of the +religious life, fear is the prominent evangelical grace, and love is but +latent in fear, and has in course of time to be developed out of what +seems its contradictory. Then, when it is developed, it takes that +prominent place which fear held before, yet protecting not superseding +it. Love is added, not fear removed, and the mind is but perfected in +grace by what seems a revolution. "They that sow in tears, reap in joy;" +yet afterwards still they are "sorrowful," though "alway rejoicing." + +And so was it with the Church at large. She started with suffering, +which turned to victory; but when she was set free from the house of her +prison, she did not quit it so much as turn it into a cell. Meekness +inherited the earth; strength came forth from weakness; the poor made +many rich; yet meekness and poverty remained. The rulers of the world +were Monks, when they could not be Martyrs. + + +2. + +Immediately on the overthrow of the heathen power, two movements +simultaneously ran through the world from East to West, as quickly as +the lightning in the prophecy, a development of worship and of +asceticism. Hence, while the world's first reproach in heathen times had +been that Christianity was a dark malevolent magic, its second has been +that it is a joyous carnal paganism;--according to that saying, "We have +piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye +have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they +say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they +say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and +sinners." Yet our Lord too was "a man of sorrows" all the while, but +softened His austerity by His gracious gentleness. + + +3. + +The like characteristic attends also on the mystery of His Incarnation. +He was first God and He became man; but Eutyches and heretics of his +school refused to admit that He was man, lest they should deny that He +was God. In consequence the Catholic Fathers are frequent and unanimous +in their asseverations, that "the Word" had become flesh, not to His +loss, but by an addition. Each Nature is distinct, but the created +Nature lives in and by the Eternal. "Non amittendo quod erat, sed +sumendo quod non erat," is the Church's principle. And hence, though the +course of development, as was observed in a former Chapter, has been to +bring into prominence the divine aspect of our Lord's mediation, this +has been attended by even a more open manifestation of the doctrine of +His atoning sufferings. The passion of our Lord is one of the most +imperative and engrossing subjects of Catholic teaching. It is the great +topic of meditations and prayers; it is brought into continual +remembrance by the sign of the Cross; it is preached to the world in the +Crucifix; it is variously honoured by the many houses of prayer, and +associations of religious men, and pious institutions and undertakings, +which in some way or other are placed under the name and the shadow of +Jesus, or the Saviour, or the Redeemer, or His Cross, or His Passion, or +His sacred Heart. + + +4. + +Here a singular development may be mentioned of the doctrine of the +Cross, which some have thought so contrary to its original +meaning,[422:1] as to be a manifest corruption; I mean the introduction +of the Sign of the meek Jesus into the armies of men, and the use of an +emblem of peace as a protection in battle. If light has no communion +with darkness, or Christ with Belial, what has He to do with Moloch, who +would not call down fire on His enemies, and came not to destroy but to +save? Yet this seeming anomaly is but one instance of a great law which +is seen in developments generally, that changes which appear at first +sight to contradict that out of which they grew, are really its +protection or illustration. Our Lord Himself is represented in the +Prophets as a combatant inflicting wounds while He received them, as +coming from Bozrah with dyed garments, sprinkled and red in His apparel +with the blood of His enemies; and, whereas no war is lawful but what is +just, it surely beseems that they who are engaged in so dreadful a +commission as that of taking away life at the price of their own, +should at least have the support of His Presence, and fight under the +mystical influence of His Name, who redeemed His elect as a combatant by +the Blood of Atonement, with the slaughter of His foes, the sudden +overthrow of the Jews, and the slow and awful fall of the Pagan Empire. +And if the wars of Christian nations have often been unjust, this is a +reason against much more than the use of religious symbols by the +parties who engage in them, though the pretence of religion may increase +the sin. + + +5. + +The same rule of development has been observed in respect of the +doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. It is the objection of the School of +Socinus, that belief in the Trinity is destructive of any true +maintenance of the Divine Unity, however strongly the latter may be +professed; but Petavius, as we have seen,[423:1] sets it down as one +especial recommendation of the Catholic doctrine, that it subserves that +original truth which at first sight it does but obscure and compromise. + + +6. + +This representation of the consistency of the Catholic system will be +found to be true, even in respect of those peculiarities of it, which +have been considered by Protestants most open to the charge of +corruption and innovation. It is maintained, for instance, that the +veneration paid to Images in the Catholic Church directly contradicts +the command of Scripture, and the usage of the primitive ages. As to +primitive usage, that part of the subject has been incidentally observed +upon already; here I will make one remark on the argument from +Scripture. + +It may be reasonably questioned, then, whether the Commandment which +stands second in the Protestant Decalogue, on which the prohibition of +Images is grounded, was intended in its letter for more than temporary +observance. So far is certain, that, though none could surpass the later +Jews in its literal observance, nevertheless this did not save them from +the punishments attached to the violation of it. If this be so, the +literal observance is not its true and evangelical import. + + +7. + +"When the generation to come of your children shall rise up after you," +says their inspired lawgiver, "and the stranger that shall come from a +far land shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its +sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it; and that the whole land +thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor +beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, . . . even all nations shall +say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the +heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken +the covenants of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them +when He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; for they went and +served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and +whom He had not given them." Now the Jews of our Lord's day did not keep +this covenant, for they incurred the penalty; yet they kept the letter +of the Commandment rigidly, and were known among the heathen far and +wide for their devotion to the "Lord God of their fathers who brought +them out of the land of Egypt," and for their abhorrence of the "gods +whom He had not given them." If then adherence to the letter was no +protection to the Jews, departure from the letter may be no guilt in +Christians. + +It should be observed, moreover, that there certainly is a difference +between the two covenants in their respective view of symbols of the +Almighty. In the Old, it was blasphemy to represent Him under "the +similitude of a calf that eateth hay;" in the New, the Third Person of +the Holy Trinity has signified His Presence by the appearance of a Dove, +and the Second Person has presented His sacred Humanity for worship +under the name of the Lamb. + + +8. + +It follows that, if the letter of the Decalogue is but partially binding +on Christians, it is as justifiable, in setting it before persons under +instruction, to omit such parts as do not apply to them, as, when we +quote passages from the Pentateuch in Sermons or Lectures generally, to +pass over verses which refer simply to the temporal promises or the +ceremonial law, a practice which we allow without any intention or +appearance of dealing irreverently with the sacred text. + + +SECTION II. + +DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN. + +It has been anxiously asked, whether the honours paid to St. Mary, which +have grown out of devotion to her Almighty Lord and Son, do not, in +fact, tend to weaken that devotion; and whether, from the nature of the +case, it is possible so to exalt a creature without withdrawing the +heart from the Creator. + +In addition to what has been said on this subject in foregoing Chapters, +I would here observe that the question is one of fact, not of +presumption or conjecture. The abstract lawfulness of the honours paid +to St. Mary, and their distinction in theory from the incommunicable +worship paid to God, are points which have already been dwelt upon; but +here the question turns upon their practicability or expedience, which +must be determined by the fact whether they are practicable, and whether +they have been found to be expedient. + + +1. + +Here I observe, first, that, to those who admit the authority of the +Fathers of Ephesus, the question is in no slight degree answered by +their sanction of the +theotokos+, or "Mother of God," as a title of St. +Mary, and as given in order to protect the doctrine of the Incarnation, +and to preserve the faith of Catholics from a specious Humanitarianism. +And if we take a survey at least of Europe, we shall find that it is not +those religious communions which are characterized by devotion towards +the Blessed Virgin that have ceased to adore her Eternal Son, but those +very bodies, (when allowed by the law,) which have renounced devotion to +her. The regard for His glory, which was professed in that keen jealousy +of her exaltation, has not been supported by the event. They who were +accused of worshipping a creature in His stead, still worship Him; their +accusers, who hoped to worship Him so purely, they, wherever obstacles +to the development of their principles have been removed, have ceased to +worship Him altogether. + + +2. + +Next, it must be observed, that the tone of the devotion paid to the +Blessed Mary is altogether distinct from that which is paid to her +Eternal Son, and to the Holy Trinity, as we must certainly allow on +inspection of the Catholic services. The supreme and true worship paid +to the Almighty is severe, profound, awful, as well as tender, +confiding, and dutiful. Christ is addressed as true God, while He is +true Man; as our Creator and Judge, while He is most loving, gentle, and +gracious. On the other hand, towards St. Mary the language employed is +affectionate and ardent, as towards a mere child of Adam; though +subdued, as coming from her sinful kindred. How different, for instance, +is the tone of the _Dies Ir_ from that of the _Stabat Mater_. In the +"Tristis et afflicta Mater Unigeniti," in the "Virgo virginum prclara +Mihi jam non sis amara, Poenas mecum divide," in the "Fac me vere +tecum flere," we have an expression of the feelings with which we regard +one who is a creature and a mere human being; but in the "Rex tremend +majestatis qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me Fons pietatis," the "Ne +me perdas ill die," the "Juste judex ultionis, donum fac remissionis," +the "Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis," the "Pie Jesu +Domine, dona eis requiem," we hear the voice of the creature raised in +hope and love, yet in deep awe to his Creator, Infinite Benefactor, and +Judge. + +Or again, how distinct is the language of the Breviary Services on the +Festival of Pentecost, or of the Holy Trinity, from the language of the +Services for the Assumption! How indescribably majestic, solemn, and +soothing is the "Veni Creator Spiritus," the "Altissimi donum Dei, Fons +vivus, ignis, charitas," or the "Vera et una Trinitas, una et summa +Deitas, sancta et una Unitas," the "Spes nostra, salus nostra, honor +noster, O beata Trinitas," the "Charitas Pater, gratia Filius, +communicatio Spiritus Sanctus, O beata Trinitas;" "Libera nos, salva +nos, vivifica nos, O beata Trinitas!" How fond, on the contrary, how +full of sympathy and affection, how stirring and animating, in the +Office for the Assumption, is the "Virgo prudentissima, quo progrederis, +quasi aurora valde rutilans? filia Sion, tota formosa et suavis es, +pulcra ut luna, electa ut sol;" the "Sicut dies verni circumdabant eam +flores rosarum, et lilia convallium;" the "Maria Virgo assumpta est ad +thereum thalamum in quo Rex regum stellato sedet solio;" and the +"Gaudent Angeli, laudantes benedicunt Dominum." And so again, the +Antiphon, the "Ad te clamamus exules filii Hev, ad te suspiramus +gementes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle," and "Eia ergo, advocata +nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte," and "O clemens, +O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria." Or the Hymn, "Ave Maris stella, Dei Mater +alma," and "Virgo singularis, inter omnes mitis, nos culpis solutos, +mites fac et castos." + + +3. + +Nor does it avail to object that, in this contrast of devotional +exercises, the human will supplant the Divine, from the infirmity of our +nature; for, I repeat, the question is one of fact, whether it has done +so. And next it must be asked, whether the character of much of the +Protestant devotion towards our Lord has been that of adoration at all; +and not rather such as we pay to an excellent human being, that is, no +higher devotion than that which Catholics pay to St. Mary, differing +from it, however, in often being familiar, rude, and earthly. Carnal +minds will ever create a carnal worship for themselves; and to forbid +them the service of the Saints will have no tendency to teach them the +worship of God. + +Moreover, it must be observed, what is very important, that great and +constant as is the devotion which the Catholic pays to the Blessed Mary, +it has a special province, and has far more connexion with the public +services and the festive aspect of Christianity, and with certain +extraordinary offices which she holds, than with what is strictly +personal and primary in religion. + +Two instances will serve in illustration of this, and they are but +samples of many others.[428:1] + + +4. + +(1.) For example, St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises are among the most +approved methods of devotion in the modern Catholic Church; they proceed +from one of the most celebrated of her Saints, and have the praise of +Popes, and of the most eminent masters of the spiritual life. A Bull of +Paul the Third's "approves, praises, and sanctions all and everything +contained in them;" indulgences are granted to the performance of them +by the same Pope, by Alexander the Seventh, and by Benedict the +Fourteenth. St. Carlo Borromeo declared that he learned more from them +than from all other books together; St. Francis de Sales calls them "a +holy method of reformation," and they are the model on which all the +extraordinary devotions of religious men or bodies, and the course of +missions, are conducted. If there is a document which is the +authoritative exponent of the inward communion of the members of the +modern Catholic Church with their God and Saviour, it is this work. + +The Exercises are directed to the removal of obstacles in the way of the +soul's receiving and profiting by the gifts of God. They undertake to +effect this in three ways; by removing all objects of this world, and, +as it were, bringing the soul "into the solitude where God may speak to +its heart;" next, by setting before it the ultimate end of man, and its +own deviations from it, the beauty of holiness, and the pattern of +Christ; and, lastly, by giving rules for its correction. They consist of +a course of prayers, meditations, self-examinations, and the like, which +in its complete extent lasts thirty days; and these are divided into +three stages,--the _Via Purgativa_, in which sin is the main subject of +consideration; the _Via Illuminativa_, which is devoted to the +contemplation of our Lord's passion, involving the process of the +determination of our calling; and the _Via Unitiva_, in which we proceed +to the contemplation of our Lord's resurrection and ascension. + + +5. + +No more need be added in order to introduce the remark for which I have +referred to these Exercises; viz. that in a work so highly sanctioned, +so widely received, so intimately bearing upon the most sacred points of +personal religion, very slight mention occurs of devotion to the Blessed +Virgin, Mother of God. There is one mention of her in the rule given for +the first Prelude or preparation, in which the person meditating is +directed to consider as before him a church, or other place with Christ +in it, St. Mary, and whatever else is suitable to the subject of +meditation. Another is in the third Exercise, in which one of the three +addresses is made to our Lady, Christ's Mother, requesting earnestly +"her intercession with her Son;" to which is to be added the Ave Mary. +In the beginning of the Second Week there is a form of offering +ourselves to God in the presence of "His infinite goodness," and with +the witness of His "glorious Virgin Mother Mary, and the whole host of +heaven." At the end of the Meditation upon the Angel Gabriel's mission +to St. Mary, there is an address to each Divine Person, to "the Word +Incarnate and to His Mother." In the Meditation upon the Two Standards, +there is an address prescribed to St. Mary to implore grace from her Son +through her, with an Ave Mary after it. + +In the beginning of the Third Week one address is prescribed to Christ; +or three, if devotion incites, to Mother, Son, and Father. In the +description given of three different modes of prayer we are told, if we +would imitate the Blessed Mary, we must recommend ourselves to her, as +having power with her Son, and presently the Ave Mary, _Salve Regina_, +and other forms are prescribed, as is usual after all prayers. And this +is pretty much the whole of the devotion, if it may so be called, which +is recommended towards St. Mary in the course of so many apparently as a +hundred and fifty Meditations, and those chiefly on the events in our +Lord's earthly history as recorded in Scripture. It would seem then that +whatever be the influence of the doctrines connected with the Blessed +Virgin and the Saints in the Catholic Church, at least they do not +impede or obscure the freest exercise and the fullest manifestation of +the devotional feelings towards God and Christ. + + +6. + +(2.) The other instance which I give in illustration is of a different +kind, but is suitable to mention. About forty little books have come +into my possession which are in circulation among the laity at Rome, and +answer to the smaller publications of the Christian Knowledge Society +among ourselves. They have been taken almost at hazard from a number of +such works, and are of various lengths; some running to as many as two +or three hundred pages, others consisting of scarce a dozen. They may be +divided into three classes:--a third part consists of books on practical +subjects; another third is upon the Incarnation and Passion; and of the +rest, a portion is upon the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, +with two or three for the use of Missions, but the greater part is about +the Blessed Virgin. + +As to the class on practical subjects, they are on such as the +following: "La Consolazione degl' Infermi;" "Pensieri di una donna sul +vestire moderno;" "L'Inferno Aperto;" "Il Purgatorio Aperto;" St. +Alphonso Liguori's "Massime eterne;" other Maxims by St. Francis de +Sales for every day in the year; "Pratica per ben confessarsi e +communicarsi;" and the like. + +The titles of the second class on the Incarnation and Passion are such +as "Gesu dalla Croce al cuore del peccatore;" "Novena del Ss. Natale di +G. C.;" "Associazione pel culto perpetuo del divin cuore;" "Compendio +della Passione." + +In the third are "Il Mese Eucaristico," "Il divoto di Maria," Feasts of +the Blessed Virgin, &c. + + +7. + +These books in all three divisions are, as even the titles of some of +them show, in great measure made up of Meditations; such are the "Breve +e pie Meditazioni" of P. Crasset; the "Meditazioni per ciascun giorno +del mese sulla Passione;" the "Meditazioni per l'ora Eucaristica." Now +of these it may be said generally, that in the body of the Meditation +St. Mary is hardly mentioned at all. For instance, in the Meditations on +the Passion, a book used for distribution, through two hundred and +seventy-seven pages St. Mary is not once named. In the Prayers for Mass +which are added, she is introduced, at the Confiteor, thus, "I pray the +Virgin, the Angels, the Apostles, and all the Saints of heaven to +intercede," &c.; and in the Preparation for Penance, she is once +addressed, after our Lord, as the Refuge of sinners, with the Saints and +Guardian Angel; and at the end of the Exercise there is a similar prayer +of four lines for the intercession of St. Mary, Angels and Saints of +heaven. In the Exercise for Communion, in a prayer to our Lord, "my only +and infinite good, my treasure, my life, my paradise, my all," the +merits of the Saints are mentioned, "especially of St. Mary." She is +also mentioned with Angels and Saints at the termination. + +In a collection of "Spiritual Lauds" for Missions, of thirty-six Hymns, +we find as many as eleven addressed to St. Mary, or relating to her, +among which are translations of the _Ave Maris Stella_, and the _Stabat +Mater_, and the _Salve Regina_; and one is on "the sinner's reliance on +Mary." Five, however, which are upon Repentance, are entirely engaged +upon the subjects of our Lord and sin, with the exception of an address +to St. Mary at the end of two of them. Seven others, upon sin, the +Crucifixion, and the Four Last Things, do not mention the Blessed +Virgin's name. + +To the Manual for the Perpetual Adoration of the Divine Heart of Jesus +there is appended one chapter on the Immaculate Conception. + + +8. + +One of the most important of these books is the French _Pensez-y bien_, +which seems a favourite, since there are two translations of it, one of +them being the fifteenth edition; and it is used for distribution in +Missions. In these reflections there is scarcely a word said of St. +Mary. At the end there is a Method of reciting the Crown of the Seven +Dolours of the Virgin Mary, which contains seven prayers to her, and the +_Stabat Mater_. + +One of the longest in the whole collection is a tract consisting +principally of Meditations on the Holy Communion; under the title of the +"Eucharistic Month," as already mentioned. In these "Preparations," +"Aspirations," &c., St. Mary is but once mentioned, and that in a prayer +addressed to our Lord. "O my sweetest Brother," it says with an allusion +to the Canticles, "who, being made Man for my salvation, hast sucked the +milk from the virginal breast of her, who is my Mother by grace," &c. In +a small "Instruction" given to children on their first Communion, there +are the following questions and answers: "Is our Lady in the Host? No. +Are the Angels and the Saints? No. Why not? Because they have no place +there." + + +9. + +Now coming to those in the third class, which directly relate to the +Blessed Mary, such as "Esercizio ad Onore dell' addolorato cuore di +Maria," "Novena di Preparazione alla festa dell' Assunzione," "Li +Quindici Misteri del Santo Rosario," the principal is Father Segneri's +"Il divoto di Maria," which requires a distinct notice. It is far from +the intention of these remarks to deny the high place which the Holy +Virgin holds in the devotion of Catholics; I am but bringing evidence of +its not interfering with that incommunicable and awful relation which +exists between the creature and the Creator; and, if the foregoing +instances show, as far as they go, that that relation is preserved +inviolate in such honours as are paid to St. Mary, so will this treatise +throw light upon the _rationale_ by which the distinction is preserved +between the worship of God and the honour of an exalted creature, and +that in singular accordance with the remarks made in the foregoing +Section. + + +10. + +This work of Segneri is written against persons who continue in sins +under pretence of their devotion to St. Mary, and in consequence he is +led to draw out the idea which good Catholics have of her. The idea is +this, that she is absolutely the first of created beings. Thus the +treatise says, that "God might have easily made a more beautiful +firmament, and a greener earth, but it was not possible to make a higher +Mother than the Virgin Mary; and in her formation there has been +conferred on mere creatures all the glory of which they are capable, +remaining mere creatures," p. 34. And as containing all created +perfection, she has all those attributes, which, as was noticed above, +the Arians and other heretics applied to our Lord, and which the Church +denied of Him as infinitely below His Supreme Majesty. Thus she is "the +created Idea in the making of the world," p. 20; "which, as being a more +exact copy of the Incarnate Idea than was elsewhere to be found, was +used as the original of the rest of the creation," p. 21. To her are +applied the words, "Ego primogenita prodivi ex ore Altissimi," because +she was predestinated in the Eternal Mind coevally with the Incarnation +of her Divine Son. But to Him alone the title of Wisdom Incarnate is +reserved, p. 25. Again, Christ is the First-born by nature; the Virgin +in a less sublime order, viz. that of adoption. Again, if omnipotence is +ascribed to her, it is a participated omnipotence (as she and all Saints +have a participated sonship, divinity, glory, holiness, and worship), +and is explained by the words, "Quod Deus imperio, tu prece, Virgo, +potes." + + +11. + +Again, a special office is assigned to the Blessed Virgin, that is, +special as compared with all other Saints; but it is marked off with the +utmost precision from that assigned to our Lord. Thus she is said to +have been made "the arbitress of every _effect_ coming from God's +mercy." Because she is the Mother of God, the salvation of mankind is +said to be given to her prayers "_de congruo_, but _de condigno_ it is +due only to the blood of the Redeemer," p. 113. Merit is ascribed to +Christ, and prayer to St. Mary, p. 162. The whole may be expressed in +the words, "_Unica_ spes mea Jesus, et post Jesum Virgo Maria. Amen." + +Again, a distinct _cultus_ is assigned to Mary, but the reason of it is +said to be the transcendent dignity of her Son. "A particular _cultus_ +is due to the Virgin beyond comparison greater than that given to any +other Saint, because her dignity belongs to another order, namely to one +which in some sense belongs to the order of the Hypostatic Union itself, +and is necessarily connected with it," p. 41. And "Her being the Mother +of God is the source of all the extraordinary honours due to Mary," p. +35. + +It is remarkable that the "Monstra te esse Matrem" is explained, p. 158, +as "Show thyself to be _our_ Mother;" an interpretation which I think I +have found elsewhere in these Tracts, and also in a book commonly used +in religious houses, called the "Journal of Meditations," and +elsewhere.[436:1] + +It must be kept in mind that my object here is not to prove the dogmatic +accuracy of what these popular publications teach concerning the +prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin, but to show that that teaching is +not such as to obscure the divine glory of her Son. We must ask for +clearer evidence before we are able to admit so grave a charge; and so +much may suffice on the Sixth Test of fidelity in the development of an +idea, as applied to the Catholic system. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[422:1] Supr. p. 173. + +[423:1] Supr. p. 174. + +[428:1] _E. g._ the "De Imitatione," the "Introduction la Vie Dvote," +the "Spiritual Combat," the "Anima Divota," the "Paradisus Anim," the +"Regula Cleri," the "Garden of the Soul," &c. &c. [Also, the Roman +Catechism, drawn up expressly for Parish instruction, a book in which, +out of nearly 600 pages, scarcely half-a-dozen make mention of the +Blessed Virgin, though without any disparagement thereby, or thought of +disparagement, of her special prerogatives.] + +[436:1] [Vid. Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 121-2.] + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CHRONIC VIGOUR. + +We have arrived at length at the seventh and last test, which was laid +down when we started, for distinguishing the true development of an idea +from its corruptions and perversions: it is this. A corruption, if +vigorous, is of brief duration, runs itself out quickly, and ends in +death; on the other hand, if it lasts, it fails in vigour and passes +into a decay. This general law gives us additional assistance in +determining the character of the developments of Christianity commonly +called Catholic. + + +2. + +When we consider the succession of ages during which the Catholic system +has endured, the severity of the trials it has undergone, the sudden and +wonderful changes without and within which have befallen it, the +incessant mental activity and the intellectual gifts of its maintainers, +the enthusiasm which it has kindled, the fury of the controversies which +have been carried on among its professors, the impetuosity of the +assaults made upon it, the ever-increasing responsibilities to which it +has been committed by the continuous development of its dogmas, it is +quite inconceivable that it should not have been broken up and lost, +were it a corruption of Christianity. Yet it is still living, if there +be a living religion or philosophy in the world; vigorous, energetic, +persuasive, progressive; _vires acquirit eundo_; it grows and is not +overgrown; it spreads out, yet is not enfeebled; it is ever germinating, +yet ever consistent with itself. Corruptions indeed are to be found +which sleep and are suspended; and these, as I have said, are usually +called "decays:" such is not the case with Catholicity; it does not +sleep, it is not stationary even now; and that its long series of +developments should be corruptions would be an instance of sustained +error, so novel, so unaccountable, so preternatural, as to be little +short of a miracle, and to rival those manifestations of Divine Power +which constitute the evidence of Christianity. We sometimes view with +surprise and awe the degree of pain and disarrangement which the human +frame can undergo without succumbing; yet at length there comes an end. +Fevers have their crisis, fatal or favourable; but this corruption of a +thousand years, if corruption it be, has ever been growing nearer death, +yet never reaching it, and has been strengthened, not debilitated, by +its excesses. + + +3. + +For instance: when the Empire was converted, multitudes, as is very +plain, came into the Church on but partially religious motives, and with +habits and opinions infected with the false worships which they had +professedly abandoned. History shows us what anxiety and effort it cost +her rulers to keep Paganism out of her pale. To this tendency must be +added the hazard which attended on the development of the Catholic +ritual, such as the honours publicly assigned to Saints and Martyrs, the +formal veneration of their relics, and the usages and observances which +followed. What was to hinder the rise of a sort of refined Pantheism, +and the overthrow of dogmatism _pari passu_ with the multiplication of +heavenly intercessors and patrons? If what is called in reproach +"Saint-worship" resembled the polytheism which it supplanted, or was a +corruption, how did Dogmatism survive? Dogmatism is a religion's +profession of its own reality as contrasted with other systems; but +polytheists are liberals, and hold that one religion is as good as +another. Yet the theological system was developing and strengthening, as +well as the monastic rule, which is intensely anti-pantheistic, all the +while the ritual was assimilating itself, as Protestants say, to the +Paganism of former ages. + + +4. + +Nor was the development of dogmatic theology, which was then taking +place, a silent and spontaneous process. It was wrought out and carried +through under the fiercest controversies, and amid the most fearful +risks. The Catholic faith was placed in a succession of perils, and +rocked to and fro like a vessel at sea. Large portions of Christendom +were, one after another, in heresy or in schism; the leading Churches +and the most authoritative schools fell from time to time into serious +error; three Popes, Liberius, Vigilius, Honorius, have left to posterity +the burden of their defence: but these disorders were no interruption to +the sustained and steady march of the sacred science from implicit +belief to formal statement. The series of ecclesiastical decisions, in +which its progress was ever and anon signified, alternate between the +one and the other side of the theological dogma especially in question, +as if fashioning it into shape by opposite strokes. The controversy +began in Apollinaris, who confused or denied the Two Natures in Christ, +and was condemned by Pope Damasus. A reaction followed, and Theodore of +Mopsuestia suggested by his teaching the doctrine of Two Persons. After +Nestorius had brought that heresy into public view, and had incurred in +consequence the anathema of the Third Ecumenical Council, the current of +controversy again shifted its direction; for Eutyches appeared, +maintained the One Nature, and was condemned at Chalcedon. Something +however was still wanting to the overthrow of the Nestorian doctrine of +Two Persons, and the Fifth Council was formally directed against the +writings of Theodore and his party. Then followed the Monothelite +heresy, which was a revival of the Eutychian or Monophysite, and was +condemned in the Sixth. Lastly, Nestorianism once more showed itself in +the Adoptionists of Spain, and gave occasion to the great Council of +Frankfort. Any one false step would have thrown the whole theory of the +doctrine into irretrievable confusion; but it was as if some one +individual and perspicacious intellect, to speak humanly, ruled the +theological discussion from first to last. That in the long course of +centuries, and in spite of the failure, in points of detail, of the most +gifted Fathers and Saints, the Church thus wrought out the one and only +consistent theory which can be taken on the great doctrine in dispute, +proves how clear, simple, and exact her vision of that doctrine was. But +it proves more than this. Is it not utterly incredible, that with this +thorough comprehension of so great a mystery, as far as the human mind +can know it, she should be at that very time in the commission of the +grossest errors in religious worship, and should be hiding the God and +Mediator, whose Incarnation she contemplated with so clear an intellect, +behind a crowd of idols? + + +5. + +The integrity of the Catholic developments is still more evident when +they are viewed in contrast with the history of other doctrinal systems. +Philosophies and religions of the world have each its day, and are parts +of a succession. They supplant and are in turn supplanted. But the +Catholic religion alone has had no limits; it alone has ever been +greater than the emergence, and can do what others cannot do. If it were +a falsehood, or a corruption, like the systems of men, it would be weak +as they are; whereas it is able even to impart to them a strength which +they have not, and it uses them for its own purposes, and locates them +in its own territory. The Church can extract good from evil, or at least +gets no harm from it. She inherits the promise made to the disciples, +that they should take up serpents, and, if they drank any deadly thing, +it should not hurt them. When evil has clung to her, and the barbarian +people have looked on with curiosity or in malice, till she should have +swollen or fallen down suddenly, she has shaken the venomous beast into +the fire, and felt no harm. + + +6. + +Eusebius has set before us this attribute of Catholicism in a passage in +his history. "These attempts," he says, speaking of the acts of the +enemy, "did not long avail him, Truth ever consolidating itself, and, as +time goes on, shining into broader day. For, while the devices of +adversaries were extinguished at once, undone by their very +impetuosity,--one heresy after another presenting its own novelty, the +former specimens ever dissolving and wasting variously in manifold and +multiform shapes,--the brightness of the Catholic and only true Church +went forward increasing and enlarging, yet ever in the same things, and +in the same way, beaming on the whole race of Greeks and barbarians with +the awfulness, and simplicity, and nobleness, and sobriety, and purity +of its divine polity and philosophy. Thus the calumny against our whole +creed died with its day, and there continued alone our Discipline, +sovereign among all, and acknowledged to be pre-eminent in awfulness, +sobriety, and divine and philosophical doctrines; so that no one of this +day dares to cast any base reproach upon our faith, nor any calumny, +such as it was once usual for our enemies to use."[442:1] + + +7. + +The Psalmist says, "We went through fire and water;" nor is it possible +to imagine trials fiercer or more various than those from which +Catholicism has come forth uninjured, as out of the Egyptian sea or the +Babylonian furnace. First of all were the bitter persecutions of the +Pagan Empire in the early centuries; then its sudden conversion, the +liberty of Christian worship, the development of the _cultus sanctorum_, +and the reception of Monachism into the ecclesiastical system. Then came +the irruption of the barbarians, and the occupation by them of the +_orbis terrarum_ from the North, and by the Saracens from the South. +Meanwhile the anxious and protracted controversy concerning the +Incarnation hung like some terrible disease upon the faith of the +Church. Then came the time of thick darkness; and afterwards two great +struggles, one with the material power, the other with the intellect, of +the world, terminating in the ecclesiastical monarchy, and in the +theology of the schools. And lastly came the great changes consequent +upon the controversies of the sixteenth century. Is it conceivable that +any one of those heresies, with which ecclesiastical history abounds, +should have gone through a hundredth part of these trials, yet have come +out of them so nearly what it was before, as Catholicism has done? Could +such a theology as Arianism have lasted through the scholastic contest? +or Montanism have endured to possess the world, without coming to a +crisis, and failing? or could the imbecility of the Manichean system, as +a religion, have escaped exposure, had it been brought into conflict +with the barbarians of the Empire, or the feudal system? + + +8. + +A similar contrast discovers itself in the respective effects and +fortunes of certain influential principles or usages, which have both +been introduced into the Catholic system, and are seen in operation +elsewhere. When a system really is corrupt, powerful agents, when +applied to it, do but develope that corruption, and bring it the more +speedily to an end. They stimulate it preternaturally; it puts forth its +strength, and dies in some memorable act. Very different has been the +history of Catholicism, when it has committed itself to such formidable +influences. It has borne, and can bear, principles or doctrines, which +in other systems of religion quickly degenerate into fanaticism or +infidelity. This might be shown at great length in the history of the +Aristotelic philosophy within and without the Church; or in the history +of Monachism, or of Mysticism;--not that there has not been at first a +conflict between these powerful and unruly elements and the Divine +System into which they were entering, but that it ended in the victory +of Catholicism. The theology of St. Thomas, nay of the Church of his +period, is built on that very Aristotelism, which the early Fathers +denounce as the source of all misbelief, and in particular of the Arian +and Monophysite heresies. The exercises of asceticism, which are so +graceful in St. Antony, so touching in St. Basil, and so awful in St. +Germanus, do but become a melancholy and gloomy superstition even in the +most pious persons who are cut off from Catholic communion. And while +the highest devotion in the Church is the mystical, and contemplation +has been the token of the most singularly favoured Saints, we need not +look deeply into the history of modern sects, for evidence of the +excesses in conduct, or the errors in doctrine, to which mystics have +been commonly led, who have boasted of their possession of reformed +truth, and have rejected what they called the corruptions of +Catholicism. + + +9. + +It is true, there have been seasons when, from the operation of external +or internal causes, the Church has been thrown into what was almost a +state of _deliquium_; but her wonderful revivals, while the world was +triumphing over her, is a further evidence of the absence of corruption +in the system of doctrine and worship into which she has developed. If +corruption be an incipient disorganization, surely an abrupt and +absolute recurrence to the former state of vigour, after an interval, is +even less conceivable than a corruption that is permanent. Now this is +the case with the revivals I speak of. After violent exertion men are +exhausted and fall asleep; they awake the same as before, refreshed by +the temporary cessation of their activity; and such has been the slumber +and such the restoration of the Church. She pauses in her course, and +almost suspends her functions; she rises again, and she is herself once +more; all things are in their place and ready for action. Doctrine is +where it was, and usage, and precedence, and principle, and policy; +there may be changes, but they are consolidations or adaptations; all is +unequivocal and determinate, with an identity which there is no +disputing. Indeed it is one of the most popular charges against the +Catholic Church at this very time, that she is "incorrigible;"--change +she cannot, if we listen to St. Athanasius or St. Leo; change she never +will, if we believe the controversialist or alarmist of the present day. + + * * * * * + +Such were the thoughts concerning the "Blessed Vision of Peace," of one +whose long-continued petition had been that the Most Merciful would not +despise the work of His own Hands, nor leave him to himself;--while yet +his eyes were dim, and his breast laden, and he could but employ Reason +in the things of Faith. And now, dear Reader, time is short, eternity is +long. Put not from you what you have here found; regard it not as mere +matter of present controversy; set not out resolved to refute it, and +looking about for the best way of doing so; seduce not yourself with the +imagination that it comes of disappointment, or disgust, or +restlessness, or wounded feeling, or undue sensibility, or other +weakness. Wrap not yourself round in the associations of years past; nor +determine that to be truth which you wish to be so, nor make an idol of +cherished anticipations. Time is short, eternity is long. + + NUNC DIMITTIS SERVUM TUUM, DOMINE, + SECUNDUM VERBUM TUUM IN PACE: + QUIA VIDERUNT OCULI MEI SALUTARE TUUM. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[442:1] Euseb. Hist. iv. 7, _ap._ Church of the Fathers [Historical +Sketches, vol. i. p. 408]. + + +THE END. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + +The abbreviations i. e. and e. g. have been spaced throughout the text +for consistency. + +The following words use an oe ligature in the original: + + Beroea Moesia + coelis Moesian + coelistibus Moesogoths + coelum Phoenicia + coena Poenas + Euboea poenitentia + foecund + +The following corrections have been made to the text: + + Page 5: or the vicissitudes[original has vicissisudes] of + human affairs + + Page 20: St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures.[period + missing in original] + + Page 39: but is modified, or[original has or or] at least + influenced + + Page 100: professes to accept,[original has period] and which, + do what he will + + Page 102: and more explicit than the text.[period missing in + original] + + Page 118: which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene[original has + Antenicene] period + + Page 133: almost universality in the primitive Church.[133:1] + [footnote anchor missing in original--position verified in an + earlier edition] + + Page 172: whether fairly or not does not interfere[original + has interefere] + + Page 227: a good-humoured superstition[original has + supersition] + + Page 288: He explained St. Thomas's[original has extraneous + comma] + + Page 306: of Himeria in Osrhoene[original has Orshone] + + Page 309: During the interval, Dioscorus[original has + Discorus] was tried + + Page 320: to contain scarcely[original has scarely] a single + inhabitant + + Page 336: derive its efficacy from human faith."[quotation + mark missing in original] + + Page 344: orthodoxy will stand or fall together.[period + missing in original] + + Page 365: true Unitarianism of St.[period missing in original] + Augustine. + + Page 416: as it is said in the Apocalypse,[original has + extraneous quotation mark] "The dragon + + [13:2] British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193.[period missing in + original] + + [18:3] Basil,[original has period] ed. Ben.[period missing in + original] vol. 3,[comma missing in original] p. xcvi. + + [81:2] _Essay on Assent_, ch. vii. sect. 2.[period missing in + original] + + [148:1] In Psalm 118, v. 3,[original has period] de Instit. + Virg. 50. + + [162:1] Serm.[period missing in original] De Natal. iii. 3. + + [213:1] p. 296, t. 5, mem. p. 63, t. 16,[comma missing in + original] mem. p. 267 + + [216:1] Sueton. Tiber.[period missing in original] 36 + + [234:3] [footnote number missing in original] Acad. Inscr. ibid. + + [235:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch.[period missing in original] 16, note + 14. + + [237:2] In hon. Rom. 62.[original has comma] In Act. S. Cypr. + 4 + + [259:1] Hr. 42,[original has period] p. 366. + + [280:1] De Gub.[period missing in original] D. iv. p. 73. + + [288:1] Lengerke, de Ephrem[original has extraneous period] + Syr. pp. 73-75. + + [302:2] overthrow of all heresy, _especially_ the + Arian,[original has period] + + [331:2] _Vid._ also _supr._[period missing in original] p. + 256. + + [369:1] Infra,[original has period] pp. 411-415, &c. + + [371:1] Epp.[period missing in original] 102, 18. + + [371:2] Contr. Faust.[original has comma] 20, 23. + + [371:3] August.[letter "s" not printed in original] Ep. 102, + 18 + + [399:1] Rosweyde,[original has period] V. P. p. 618. + + [442:1] Euseb.[period missing in original] Hist. iv. 7 + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Development of Christian Doctrine, by +John Henry Cardinal Newman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE *** + +***** This file should be named 35110-8.txt or 35110-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/1/35110/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lisa Reigel, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine + +Author: John Henry Cardinal Newman + +Release Date: January 29, 2011 [EBook #35110] +Last Updated: July 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lisa Reigel, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class = "notebox"><p>Transcriber's Notes:<br /><br /> +Greek words that may not display correctly in all browsers are +transliterated in the text like this: +<ins class="greek" title="biblos">βιβλος</ins>. +Position your mouse over the line to see the transliteration.</p> + +<p>Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the +original. Words with and without accents appear as in the original. +In this text, semi-colons and colons are used indiscriminately. They +appear as in the original. Ellipses match the original.</p> + +<p>A few typographical errors have been corrected. A complete <a href="#TN">list</a> +follows the text.</p> +</div> + +<p class="gap"> </p> + +<h1>AN ESSAY<br /><br /> + +ON THE<br /><br /> + +DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN<br /><br /> +DOCTRINE.</h1> + +<p class="gap"> </p> + +<p class="p3">BY</p> + +<h2>JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN.</h2> + +<p class="smallgap"> </p> + +<p class="p3"><i>SIXTH EDITION</i></p> + +<p class="biggap"> </p> + +<p class="p4">UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS<br /> +NOTRE DAME, INDIANA</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<p class="p4">TO THE</p> + +<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Rev.</span> SAMUEL WILLIAM WAYTE, B.D.</p> + +<p class="p4">PRESIDENT OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear President</span>,</p> + +<p>Not from any special interest which I anticipate you will take in this +Volume, or any sympathy you will feel in its argument, or intrinsic +fitness of any kind in my associating you and your Fellows with it,—</p> + +<p>But, because I have nothing besides it to offer you, in token of my +sense of the gracious compliment which you and they have paid me in +making me once more a Member of a College dear to me from Undergraduate +memories;—</p> + +<p>Also, because of the happy coincidence, that whereas its first +publication was contemporaneous with my leaving Oxford, its second +becomes, by virtue of your act, contemporaneous with a recovery of my +position there:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> +Therefore it is that, without your leave or your responsibility, I take +the bold step of placing your name in the first pages of what, at my +age, I must consider the last print or reprint on which I shall ever be +engaged.</p> + +<p class="signatureline1">I am, my dear President,</p> + +<p class="signatureline2">Most sincerely yours,</p> + +<p class="signatureline3">JOHN H. NEWMAN.</p> + +<p><i>February 23, 1878.</i></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1878.</h2> + + +<p>The following pages were not in the first instance written to prove the +divinity of the Catholic Religion, though ultimately they furnish a +positive argument in its behalf, but to explain certain difficulties in +its history, felt before now by the author himself, and commonly +insisted on by Protestants in controversy, as serving to blunt the force +of its <i>primâ facie</i> and general claims on our recognition.</p> + +<p>However beautiful and promising that Religion is in theory, its history, +we are told, is its best refutation; the inconsistencies, found age +after age in its teaching, being as patent as the simultaneous +contrarieties of religious opinion manifest in the High, Low, and Broad +branches of the Church of England.</p> + +<p>In reply to this specious objection, it is maintained in this Essay +that, granting that some large variations of teaching in its long course +of 1800 years exist, nevertheless, these, on examination, will be found +to arise from the nature of the case, and to proceed on a law, and with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>a harmony and a definite drift, and with an analogy to Scripture +revelations, which, instead of telling to their disadvantage, actually +constitute an argument in their favour, as witnessing to a +superintending Providence and a great Design in the mode and in the +circumstances of their occurrence.</p> + +<p>Perhaps his confidence in the truth and availableness of this view has +sometimes led the author to be careless and over-liberal in his +concessions to Protestants of historical fact.</p> + +<p>If this be so anywhere, he begs the reader in such cases to understand +him as speaking hypothetically, and in the sense of an <i>argumentum ad +hominem</i> and <i>à fortiori</i>. Nor is such hypothetical reasoning out of +place in a publication which is addressed, not to theologians, but to +those who as yet are not even Catholics, and who, as they read history, +would scoff at any defence of Catholic doctrine which did not go the +length of covering admissions in matters of fact as broad as those which +are here ventured on.</p> + +<p>In this new Edition of the Essay various important alterations have been +made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in +its matter, but in its text.</p> + +<p><i>February 2, 1878.</i></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<h2>ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.</h2> + +<h3>OCULI MEI DEFECERUNT IN SALUTARE TUUM.</h3> + + +<p>It is now above eleven years since the writer of the following pages, in +one of the early Numbers of the Tracts for the Times, expressed himself +thus:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Considering the high gifts, and the strong claims of the +Church of Rome and her dependencies on our admiration, +reverence, love, and gratitude, how could we withstand her, as +we do; how could we refrain from being melted into tenderness, +and rushing into communion with her, but for the words of +Truth, which bid us prefer Itself to the whole world? 'He that +loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me.' +How could we learn to be severe, and execute judgment, but for +the warning of Moses against even a divinely-gifted teacher +who should preach new gods, and the anathema of St. Paul even +against Angels and Apostles who should bring in a new +doctrine?"<a name="FNanchor_IX:1_1" id="FNanchor_IX:1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_IX:1_1" class="fnanchor">[ix:1]</a></p> +</div> + +<p>He little thought, when he so wrote, that the time would ever come when +he should feel the obstacle, which he spoke of as lying in the way of +communion with the Church of Rome, to be destitute of solid foundation.</p> + +<p>The following work is directed towards its removal.</p> + +<p>Having, in former publications, called attention to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>supposed +difficulty, he considers himself bound to avow his present belief that +it is imaginary.</p> + +<p>He has neither the ability to put out of hand a finished composition, +nor the wish to make a powerful and moving representation, on the great +subject of which he treats. His aim will be answered, if he succeeds in +suggesting thoughts, which in God's good time may quietly bear fruit, in +the minds of those to whom that subject is new; and which may carry +forward inquirers, who have already put themselves on the course.</p> + +<p>If at times his tone appears positive or peremptory, he hopes this will +be imputed to the scientific character of the Work, which requires a +distinct statement of principles, and of the arguments which recommend +them.</p> + +<p>He hopes too he shall be excused for his frequent quotations from +himself; which are necessary in order to show how he stands at present +in relation to various of his former Publications. * * *</p> + +<p class="indentsc">Littlemore,</p> +<p class="indent2"><i>October 6, 1845</i>.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">POSTSCRIPT.</p> + +<p>Since the above was written, the Author has joined the Catholic Church. +It was his intention and wish to have carried his Volume through the +Press before deciding <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span>finally on this step. But when he had got some +way in the printing, he recognized in himself a conviction of the truth +of the conclusion to which the discussion leads, so clear as to +supersede further deliberation. Shortly afterwards circumstances gave +him the opportunity of acting upon it, and he felt that he had no +warrant for refusing to do so.</p> + +<p>His first act on his conversion was to offer his Work for revision to +the proper authorities; but the offer was declined on the ground that it +was written and partly printed before he was a Catholic, and that it +would come before the reader in a more persuasive form, if he read it as +the author wrote it.</p> + +<p>It is scarcely necessary to add that he now submits every part of the +book to the judgment of the Church, with whose doctrine, on the subjects +of which he treats, he wishes all his thoughts to be coincident.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IX:1_1" id="Footnote_IX:1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IX:1_1"><span class="label">[ix:1]</span></a> Records of the Church, xxiv. p. 7.</p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<table summary="Table of Contents" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="0"> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">PART I.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdctrsc" colspan="3">Doctrinal Developments viewed in Themselves.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright" colspan="3" style="font-size: 70%;">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdleftsc" colspan="2">Introduction</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER I.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">The Development of Ideas</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Process of Development in Ideas</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Kinds of Development in Ideas</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER II.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">The Antecedent Argument in behalf of Developments in Christian Doctrine</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Developments to be expected</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">An infallible Developing Authority to be expected</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 3.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The existing Developments of Doctrine the probable Fulfilment of that Expectation</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER III.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">The Historical Argument in behalf of the existing Developments</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Method of Proof</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">State of the Evidence</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER IV.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">Instances in Illustration</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Instances cursorily noticed</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Canon of the New Testament</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Original Sin</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 3.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Infant Baptism</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 4.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Communion in one kind</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 5.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Homoüsion</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Our Lord's Incarnation, and the dignity of His Mother and of all Saints</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 3.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Papal Supremacy</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">PART II.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdctrsc" colspan="3">Doctrinal Developments viewed Relatively to Doctrinal Corruptions.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER V.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">Genuine Developments contrasted with Corruptions</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">First Note of a genuine Development of an Idea: Preservation of its Type</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Second Note: Continuity of its Principles</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 3.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Third Note: Its Power of Assimilation</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 4.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Fourth Note: Its Logical Sequence</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 5.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Fifth Note: Anticipation of its Future</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 6.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Sixth Note: Conservative Action upon its Past</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 7.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Seventh Note: Its Chronic Vigour</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER VI.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2" style="padding-right: 1.5em;">Application of the First Note of a true Development to the Existing Developments of Christian Doctrine: Preservation of its Type</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>Section 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Church of the First Centuries</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Church of the Fourth Century</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 3.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Church of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER VII.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">Application of the Second: Continuity of its Principles</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_323">323</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Principles of Christianity</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_323">323</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Supremacy of Faith</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 3.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Theology</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_336">336</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 4.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 5.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Dogma</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 6.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Additional Remarks</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_353">353</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER VIII.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">Application of the Third: its Assimilative Power</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_357">357</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_368">368</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER IX.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">Application of the Fourth: its Logical Sequence</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_383">383</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Pardons</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_384">384</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Penances</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_385">385</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 3.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Satisfactions</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_386">386</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 4.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Purgatory</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_388">388</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 5.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Meritorious Works</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_393">393</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 6.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Monastic Rule</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_395">395</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER X.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">Application of the Fifth: Anticipation of its Future</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_400">400</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Resurrection and Relics</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_401">401</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">The Virgin Life</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_407">407</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 3.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Cultus of Saints and Angels</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_410">410</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">§ 4.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Office of the Blessed Virgin</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER XI.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">Application of the Sixth: Conservative Action on its Past</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_419">419</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 1.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Instances cursorily noticed</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_420">420</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrighttop">Section 2.</td> + <td class="tdlefthang">Devotion to the Blessed Virgin</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_425">425</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdcenter" colspan="3">CHAPTER XII.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthang" colspan="2">Application of the Seventh: its Chronic Vigour</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_437">437</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlefthangsc" colspan="2">Conclusion</td> + <td class="tdrightbot"><a href="#Page_445">445</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART I.</h2> + +<h3>DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED IN THEMSELVES.</h3> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2> + + +<p>Christianity has been long enough in the world to justify us in dealing +with it as a fact in the world's history. Its genius and character, its +doctrines, precepts, and objects cannot be treated as matters of private +opinion or deduction, unless we may reasonably so regard the Spartan +institutions or the religion of Mahomet. It may indeed legitimately be +made the subject-matter of theories; what is its moral and political +excellence, what its due location in the range of ideas or of facts +which we possess, whether it be divine or human, whether original or +eclectic, or both at once, how far favourable to civilization or to +literature, whether a religion for all ages or for a particular state of +society, these are questions upon the fact, or professed solutions of +the fact, and belong to the province of opinion; but to a fact do they +relate, on an admitted fact do they turn, which must be ascertained as +other facts, and surely has on the whole been so ascertained, unless the +testimony of so many centuries is to go for nothing. Christianity is no +theory of the study or the cloister. It has long since passed beyond the +letter of documents and the reasonings of individual minds, and has +become public property. Its "sound has gone out into all lands," and its +"words unto the ends of the world." It has from the first had an +objective existence, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>and has thrown itself upon the great concourse of +men. Its home is in the world; and to know what it is, we must seek it +in the world, and hear the world's witness of it.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>The hypothesis, indeed, has met with wide reception in these latter +times, that Christianity does not fall within the province of +history,—that it is to each man what each man thinks it to be, and +nothing else; and thus in fact is a mere name for a cluster or family of +rival religions all together, religions at variance one with another, +and claiming the same appellation, not because there can be assigned any +one and the same doctrine as the common foundation of all, but because +certain points of agreement may be found here and there of some sort or +other, by which each in its turn is connected with one or other of the +rest. Or again, it has been maintained, or implied, that all existing +denominations of Christianity are wrong, none representing it as taught +by Christ and His Apostles; that the original religion has gradually +decayed or become hopelessly corrupt; nay that it died out of the world +at its birth, and was forthwith succeeded by a counterfeit or +counterfeits which assumed its name, though they inherited at best but +some fragments of its teaching; or rather that it cannot even be said +either to have decayed or to have died, because historically it has no +substance of its own, but from the first and onwards it has, on the +stage of the world, been nothing more than a mere assemblage of +doctrines and practices derived from without, from Oriental, Platonic, +Polytheistic sources, from Buddhism, Essenism, Manicheeism; or that, +allowing true Christianity still to exist, it has but a hidden and +isolated life, in the hearts of the elect, or again as a literature or +philosophy, not certified in any way, much less guaranteed, to come from +above, but one out of the various separate informations <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>about the +Supreme Being and human duty, with which an unknown Providence had +furnished us, whether in nature or in the world.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>All such views of Christianity imply that there is no sufficient body of +historical proof to interfere with, or at least to prevail against, any +number whatever of free and independent hypotheses concerning it. But +this surely is not self-evident, and has itself to be proved. Till +positive reasons grounded on facts are adduced to the contrary, the most +natural hypotheses, the most agreeable to our mode of proceeding in +parallel cases, and that which takes precedence of all others, is to +consider that the society of Christians, which the Apostles left on +earth, were of that religion to which the Apostles had converted them; +that the external continuity of name, profession, and communion, argues +a real continuity of doctrine; that, as Christianity began by +manifesting itself as of a certain shape and bearing to all mankind, +therefore it went on so to manifest itself; and that the more, +considering that prophecy had already determined that it was to be a +power visible in the world and sovereign over it, characters which are +accurately fulfilled in that historical Christianity to which we +commonly give the name. It is not a violent assumption, then, but rather +mere abstinence from the wanton admission of a principle which would +necessarily lead to the most vexatious and preposterous scepticism, to +take it for granted, before proof to the contrary, that the Christianity +of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate +centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ and His +Apostles taught in the first, whatever may be the modifications for good +or for evil which lapse of years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs, +have impressed upon it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +Of course I do not deny the abstract possibility of extreme changes. +The substitution is certainly, in idea, supposable of a counterfeit +Christianity,—superseding the original, by means of the adroit +innovations of seasons, places, and persons, till, according to the +familiar illustration, the "blade" and the "handle" are alternately +renewed, and identity is lost without the loss of continuity. It is +possible; but it must not be assumed. The <i>onus probandi</i> is with those +who assert what it is unnatural to expect; to be just able to doubt is +no warrant for disbelieving.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, some writers have gone on to give reasons from history for +their refusing to appeal to history. They aver that, when they come to +look into the documents and literature of Christianity in times past, +they find its doctrines so variously represented, and so inconsistently +maintained by its professors, that, however natural it be <i>à priori</i>, it +is useless, in fact, to seek in history the matter of that Revelation +which has been vouchsafed to mankind; that they cannot be historical +Christians if they would. They say, in the words of Chillingworth, +"There are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers +against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of +fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the +Church of one age against the Church of another age:"—Hence they are +forced, whether they will or not, to fall back upon the Bible as the +sole source of Revelation, and upon their own personal private judgment +as the sole expounder of its doctrine. This is a fair argument, if it +can be maintained, and it brings me at once to the subject of this +Essay. Not that it enters into my purpose to convict of misstatement, as +might be done, each separate clause of this sweeping accusation of a +smart but superficial writer; but neither on the other hand do I <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>mean +to deny everything that he says to the disadvantage of historical +Christianity. On the contrary, I shall admit that there are in fact +certain apparent variations in its teaching, which have to be explained; +thus I shall begin, but then I shall attempt to explain them to the +exculpation of that teaching in point of unity, directness, and +consistency.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, before setting about this work, I will address one remark to +Chillingworth and his friends:—Let them consider, that if they can +criticize history, the facts of history certainly can retort upon them. +It might, I grant, be clearer on this great subject than it is. This is +no great concession. History is not a creed or a catechism, it gives +lessons rather than rules; still no one can mistake its general teaching +in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and +broad masses of colour rise out of the records of the past. They may be +dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite. And this one thing +at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, +whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at +least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there +were a safe truth, it is this.</p> + +<p>And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer +on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at +least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or +to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt +it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing +with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity +from the Bible alone: men never would have put it aside, unless they had +despaired of it. It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical +history in England, which prevails even in the English Church. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>Our +popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages +which lie between the Councils of Nicæa and Trent, except as affording +one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain +prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the +chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be +considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be +deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>And this utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical +Christianity is a plain fact, whether the latter be regarded in its +earlier or in its later centuries. Protestants can as little bear its +Ante-nicene as its Post-tridentine period. I have elsewhere observed on +this circumstance: "So much must the Protestant grant that, if such a +system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever existed in early +times, it has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, +silently, and without memorial; by a deluge coming in a night, and +utterly soaking, rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of +what it found in the Church, before cock-crowing: so that 'when they +rose in the morning' her true seed 'were all dead corpses'—Nay dead and +buried—and without gravestone. 'The waters went over them; there was +not one of them left; they sunk like lead in the mighty waters.' Strange +antitype, indeed, to the early fortunes of Israel!—then the enemy was +drowned, and 'Israel saw them dead upon the sea-shore.' But now, it +would seem, water proceeded as a flood 'out of the serpent's mouth,' and +covered all the witnesses, so that not even their dead bodies lay in the +streets of the great city.' Let him take which of his doctrines he will, +his peculiar view of self-righteousness, of formality, of superstition; +his notion of faith, or of spirituality in religious worship; his denial +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>of the virtue of the sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or +of the visible Church; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of the +Scriptures as the one appointed instrument of religious teaching; and +let him consider how far Antiquity, as it has come down to us, will +countenance him in it. No; he must allow that the alleged deluge has +done its work; yes, and has in turn disappeared itself; it has been +swallowed up by the earth, mercilessly as itself was merciless."<a name="FNanchor_9:1_2" id="FNanchor_9:1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_9:1_2" class="fnanchor">[9:1]</a></p> + +<p>That Protestantism, then, is not the Christianity of history, it is easy +to determine, but to retort is a poor reply in controversy to a question +of fact, and whatever be the violence or the exaggeration of writers +like Chillingworth, if they have raised a real difficulty, it may claim +a real answer, and we must determine whether on the one hand +Christianity is still to represent to us a definite teaching from above, +or whether on the other its utterances have been from time to time so +strangely at variance, that we are necessarily thrown back on our own +judgment individually to determine, what the revelation of God is, or +rather if in fact there is, or has been, any revelation at all.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that +there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has +lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine +and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who +inquire into it. They are not sufficient to interfere with the general +character and course of the religion, but they raise the question how +they came about, and what they mean, and have in consequence supplied +matter for several hypotheses.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +Of these one is to the effect that Christianity has even changed from +the first and ever accommodates itself to the circumstances of times and +seasons; but it is difficult to understand how such a view is compatible +with the special idea of revealed truth, and in fact its advocates more +or less abandon, or tend to abandon the supernatural claims of +Christianity; so it need not detain us here.</p> + +<p>A second and more plausible hypothesis is that of the Anglican divines, +who reconcile and bring into shape the exuberant phenomena under +consideration, by cutting off and casting away as corruptions all +usages, ways, opinions, and tenets, which have not the sanction of +primitive times. They maintain that history first presents to us a pure +Christianity in East and West, and then a corrupt; and then of course +their duty is to draw the line between what is corrupt and what is pure, +and to determine the dates at which the various changes from good to bad +were introduced. Such a principle of demarcation, available for the +purpose, they consider they have found in the <i>dictum</i> of Vincent of +Lerins, that revealed and Apostolic doctrine is "quod semper, quod +ubique, quod ab omnibus," a principle infallibly separating, on the +whole field of history, authoritative doctrine from opinion, rejecting +what is faulty, and combining and forming a theology. That "Christianity +is what has been held always, everywhere, and by all," certainly +promises a solution of the perplexities, an interpretation of the +meaning, of history. What can be more natural than that divines and +bodies of men should speak, sometimes from themselves, sometimes from +tradition? what more natural than that individually they should say many +things on impulse, or under excitement, or as conjectures, or in +ignorance? what more certain than that they must all have been +instructed and catechized in the Creed of the Apostles? what more +evident than that what was their own would in its degree be peculiar, +and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>differ from what was similarly private and personal in their +brethren? what more conclusive than that the doctrine that was common to +all at once was not really their own, but public property in which they +had a joint interest, and was proved by the concurrence of so many +witnesses to have come from an Apostolical source? Here, then, we have a +short and easy method for bringing the various informations of +ecclesiastical history under that antecedent probability in its favour, +which nothing but its actual variations would lead us to neglect. Here +we have a precise and satisfactory reason why we should make much of the +earlier centuries, yet pay no regard to the later, why we should admit +some doctrines and not others, why we refuse the Creed of Pius IV. and +accept the Thirty-nine Articles.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>Such is the rule of historical interpretation which has been professed +in the English school of divines; and it contains a majestic truth, and +offers an intelligible principle, and wears a reasonable air. It is +congenial, or, as it may be said, native to the Anglican mind, which +takes up a middle position, neither discarding the Fathers nor +acknowledging the Pope. It lays down a simple rule by which to measure +the value of every historical fact, as it comes, and thereby it provides +a bulwark against Rome, while it opens an assault upon Protestantism. +Such is its promise; but its difficulty lies in applying it in +particular cases. The rule is more serviceable in determining what is +not, than what is Christianity; it is irresistible against +Protestantism, and in one sense indeed it is irresistible against Rome +also, but in the same sense it is irresistible against England. It +strikes at Rome through England. It admits of being interpreted in one +of two ways: if it be narrowed for the purpose of disproving the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>catholicity of the Creed of Pope Pius, it becomes also an objection to +the Athanasian; and if it be relaxed to admit the doctrines retained by +the English Church, it no longer excludes certain doctrines of Rome +which that Church denies. It cannot at once condemn St. Thomas and St. +Bernard, and defend St. Athanasius and St. Gregory Nazianzen.</p> + +<p>This general defect in its serviceableness has been heretofore felt by +those who appealed to it. It was said by one writer; "The Rule of +Vincent is not of a mathematical or demonstrative character, but moral, +and requires practical judgment and good sense to apply it. For +instance, what is meant by being 'taught <i>always</i>'? does it mean in +every century, or every year, or every month? Does '<i>everywhere</i>' mean +in every country, or in every diocese? and does 'the <i>Consent of +Fathers</i>' require us to produce the direct testimony of every one of +them? How many Fathers, how many places, how many instances, constitute +a fulfilment of the test proposed? It is, then, from the nature of the +case, a condition which never can be satisfied as fully as it might have +been. It admits of various and unequal application in various instances; +and what degree of application is enough, must be decided by the same +principles which guide us in the conduct of life, which determine us in +politics, or trade, or war, which lead us to accept Revelation at all, +(for which we have but probability to show at most,) nay, to believe in +the existence of an intelligent Creator."<a name="FNanchor_12:1_3" id="FNanchor_12:1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_12:1_3" class="fnanchor">[12:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>So much was allowed by this writer; but then he added:—</p> + +<p>"This character, indeed, of Vincent's Canon, will but recommend it to +the disciples of the school of Butler, from <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>its agreement with the +analogy of nature; but it affords a ready loophole for such as do not +wish to be persuaded, of which both Protestants and Romanists are not +slow to avail themselves."</p> + +<p>This surely is the language of disputants who are more intent on +assailing others than on defending themselves; as if similar loopholes +were not necessary for Anglican theology.</p> + +<p>He elsewhere says: "What there is not the shadow of a reason for saying +that the Fathers held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a +Catholic truth, is this, that St. Peter or his successors were and are +universal Bishops, that they have the whole of Christendom for their one +diocese in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops had and have +not."<a name="FNanchor_13:1_4" id="FNanchor_13:1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_13:1_4" class="fnanchor">[13:1]</a> Most true, if, in order that a doctrine be considered +Catholic, it must be formally stated by the Fathers generally from the +very first; but, on the same understanding, the doctrine also of the +apostolical succession in the episcopal order "has not the faintest +pretensions of being a Catholic truth."</p> + +<p>Nor was this writer without a feeling of the special difficulty of his +school; and he attempted to meet it by denying it. He wished to maintain +that the sacred doctrines admitted by the Church of England into her +Articles were taught in primitive times with a distinctness which no one +could fancy to attach to the characteristic tenets of Rome.</p> + +<p>"We confidently affirm," he said in another publication, "that there is +not an article in the Athanasian Creed concerning the Incarnation which +is not anticipated in the controversy with the Gnostics. There is no +question which the Apollinarian or the Nestorian heresy raised, which +may not be decided in the words of Ignatius, Irenæus and +Tertullian."<a name="FNanchor_13:2_5" id="FNanchor_13:2_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_13:2_5" class="fnanchor">[13:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>10.</p> + +<p>This may be considered as true. It may be true also, or at least shall +here be granted as true, that there is also a <i>consensus</i> in the +Ante-nicene Church for the doctrines of our Lord's Consubstantiality and +Coeternity with the Almighty Father. Let us allow that the whole circle +of doctrines, of which our Lord is the subject, was consistently and +uniformly confessed by the Primitive Church, though not ratified +formally in Council. But it surely is otherwise with the Catholic +doctrine of the Trinity. I do not see in what sense it can be said that +there is a <i>consensus</i> of primitive divines in its favour, which will +not avail also for certain doctrines of the Roman Church which will +presently come into mention. And this is a point which the writer of the +above passages ought to have more distinctly brought before his mind and +more carefully weighed; but he seems to have fancied that Bishop Bull +proved the primitiveness of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Holy +Trinity as well as that concerning our Lord.</p> + +<p>Now it should be clearly understood what it is which must be shown by +those who would prove it. Of course the doctrine of our Lord's divinity +itself partly implies and partly recommends the doctrine of the Trinity; +but implication and suggestion belong to another class of arguments +which has not yet come into consideration. Moreover the statements of a +particular father or doctor may certainly be of a most important +character; but one divine is not equal to a Catena. We must have a whole +doctrine stated by a whole Church. The Catholic Truth in question is +made up of a number of separate propositions, each of which, if +maintained to the exclusion of the rest, is a heresy. In order then to +prove that all the Ante-nicene writers taught the dogma of the Holy +Trinity, it is not enough to prove that each still has gone far enough +to be only a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>heretic—not enough to prove that one has held that the +Son is God, (for so did the Sabellian, so did the Macedonian), and +another that the Father is not the Son, (for so did the Arian), and +another that the Son is equal to the Father, (for so did the Tritheist), +and another that there is but One God, (for so did the Unitarian),—not +enough that many attached in some sense a Threefold Power to the idea of +the Almighty, (for so did almost all the heresies that ever existed, and +could not but do so, if they accepted the New Testament at all); but we +must show that all these statements at once, and others too, are laid +down by as many separate testimonies as may fairly be taken to +constitute a "<i>consensus</i> of doctors." It is true indeed that the +subsequent profession of the doctrine in the Universal Church creates a +presumption that it was held even before it was professed; and it is +fair to interpret the early Fathers by the later. This is true, and +admits of application to certain other doctrines besides that of the +Blessed Trinity in Unity; but there is as little room for such +antecedent probabilities as for the argument from suggestions and +intimations in the precise and imperative <i>Quod semper, quod ubique, +quod ab omnibus</i>, as it is commonly understood by English divines, and +is by them used against the later Church and the see of Rome. What we +have a right to ask, if we are bound to act upon Vincent's rule in +regard to the Trinitarian dogma, is a sufficient number of Ante-nicene +statements, each distinctly anticipating the Athanasian Creed.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>Now let us look at the leading facts of the case, in appealing to which +I must not be supposed to be ascribing any heresy to the holy men whose +words have not always been sufficiently full or exact to preclude the +imputation. First, the Creeds of that early day make no mention in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>their letter of the Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention indeed +of a Three; but that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the +Three are One, that They are coequal, coeternal, all increate, all +omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated, and never could be +gathered from them. Of course we believe that they imply it, or rather +intend it. God forbid we should do otherwise! But nothing in the mere +letter of those documents leads to that belief. To give a deeper meaning +to their letter, we must interpret them by the times which came after.</p> + +<p>Again, there is one and one only great doctrinal Council in Ante-nicene +times. It was held at Antioch, in the middle of the third century, on +occasion of the incipient innovations of the Syrian heretical school. +Now the Fathers there assembled, for whatever reason, condemned, or at +least withdrew, when it came into the dispute, the word "Homoüsion," +which was afterwards received at Nicæa as the special symbol of +Catholicism against Arius.<a name="FNanchor_16:1_6" id="FNanchor_16:1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_16:1_6" class="fnanchor">[16:1]</a></p> + +<p>Again, the six great Bishops and Saints of the Ante-nicene Church were +St. Irenæus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. +Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these, St. Dionysius is +accused by St. Basil of having sown the first seeds of Arianism;<a name="FNanchor_16:2_7" id="FNanchor_16:2_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_16:2_7" class="fnanchor">[16:2]</a> +and St. Gregory is allowed by the same learned Father to have used +language concerning our Lord, which he only defends on the plea of an +economical object in the writer.<a name="FNanchor_16:3_8" id="FNanchor_16:3_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_16:3_8" class="fnanchor">[16:3]</a> St. Hippolytus speaks as if he +were ignorant of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>our Lord's Eternal Sonship;<a name="FNanchor_17:1_9" id="FNanchor_17:1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_17:1_9" class="fnanchor">[17:1]</a> St. Methodius speaks +incorrectly at least upon the Incarnation;<a name="FNanchor_17:2_10" id="FNanchor_17:2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_17:2_10" class="fnanchor">[17:2]</a> and St. Cyprian does +not treat of theology at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant +teaching of these true saints, and, in their day, faithful witnesses of +the Eternal Son.</p> + +<p>Again, Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and the two SS. Dionysii +would appear to be the only writers whose language is at any time exact +and systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian Creed. If we limit +our view of the teaching of the Fathers by what they expressly state, +St. Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin arianizes, +and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian.</p> + +<p>Again, there are three great theological authors of the Ante-nicene +centuries, Tertullian, Origen, and, we may add, Eusebius, though he +lived some way into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the doctrine +of our Lord's divinity,<a name="FNanchor_17:3_11" id="FNanchor_17:3_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_17:3_11" class="fnanchor">[17:3]</a> and, indeed, ultimately fell altogether +into heresy or schism; Origen is, at the very least, suspected, and must +be defended and explained rather than cited as a witness of orthodoxy; +and Eusebius was a Semi-Arian.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it may be questioned whether any <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>Ante-nicene father +distinctly affirms either the numerical Unity or the Coequality of the +Three Persons; except perhaps the heterodox Tertullian, and that chiefly +in a work written after he had become a Montanist:<a name="FNanchor_18:1_12" id="FNanchor_18:1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_18:1_12" class="fnanchor">[18:1]</a> yet to satisfy +the Anti-roman use of <i>Quod semper, &c.</i>, surely we ought not to be left +for these great articles of doctrine to the testimony of a later age.</p> + +<p>Further, Bishop Bull allows that "nearly all the ancient Catholics who +preceded Arius have the appearance of being ignorant of the invisible +and incomprehensible (<i>immensam</i>) nature of the Son of God;"<a name="FNanchor_18:2_13" id="FNanchor_18:2_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_18:2_13" class="fnanchor">[18:2]</a> an +article expressly taught in the Athanasian Creed under the sanction of +its anathema.</p> + +<p>It must be asked, moreover, how much direct and literal testimony the +Ante-nicene Fathers give, one by one, to the divinity of the Holy +Spirit? This alone shall be observed, that St. Basil, in the fourth +century, finding that, if he distinctly called the Third Person in the +Blessed Trinity by the Name of God, he should be put out of the Church +by the Arians, pointedly refrained from doing so on an occasion on which +his enemies were on the watch; and that, when some Catholics found fault +with him, St. Athanasius took his part.<a name="FNanchor_18:3_14" id="FNanchor_18:3_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_18:3_14" class="fnanchor">[18:3]</a> Could this possibly have +been the conduct of any true Christian, not to say Saint, of a later +age? that is, whatever be the true account of it, does it not suggest to +us that the testimony of those early times lies very unfavourably for +the application of the rule of Vincentius?</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">13.</p> + +<p>Let it not be for a moment supposed that I impugn the orthodoxy of the +early divines, or the cogency of their testimony among <i>fair</i> inquirers; +but I am trying them by <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>that <i>unfair</i> interpretation of Vincentius, +which is necessary in order to make him available against the Church of +Rome. And now, as to the positive evidence which those Fathers offer in +behalf of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, it has been drawn out by +Dr. Burton and seems to fall under two heads. One is the general +<i>ascription of glory</i> to the Three Persons together, both by fathers and +churches, and that on continuous tradition and from the earliest times. +Under the second fall certain <i>distinct statements</i> of <i>particular</i> +fathers; thus we find the word "Trinity" used by St. Theophilus, St. +Clement, St. Hippolytus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Origen, St. Methodius; +and the Divine <i>Circumincessio</i>, the most distinctive portion of the +Catholic doctrine, and the unity of power, or again, of substance, are +declared with more or less distinctness by Athenagoras, St. Irenæus, St. +Clement, Tertullian, St. Hippolytus, Origen, and the two SS. Dionysii. +This is pretty much the whole of the evidence.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">14.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it will be said we ought to take the Ante-nicene Fathers as a +whole, and interpret one of them by another. This is to assume that they +are all of one school, which of course they are, but which in +controversy is a point to be proved; but it is even doubtful whether, on +the whole, such a procedure would strengthen the argument. For instance, +as to the second head of the positive evidence noted by Dr. Burton, +Tertullian is the most formal and elaborate of these Fathers in his +statements of the Catholic doctrine. "It would hardly be possible," says +Dr. Burton, after quoting a passage, "for Athanasius himself, or the +compiler of the Athanasian Creed, to have delivered the doctrine of the +Trinity in stronger terms than these."<a name="FNanchor_19:1_15" id="FNanchor_19:1_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_19:1_15" class="fnanchor">[19:1]</a> Yet Tertullian must be +considered heterodox on the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>doctrine of our Lord's eternal +generation.<a name="FNanchor_20:1_16" id="FNanchor_20:1_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_20:1_16" class="fnanchor">[20:1]</a> If then we are to argue from his instance to that of +the other Fathers, we shall be driven to the conclusion that even the +most exact statements are worth nothing more than their letter, are a +warrant for nothing beyond themselves, and are consistent with +heterodoxy where they do not expressly protest against it.</p> + +<p>And again, as to the argument derivable from the Doxologies, it must not +be forgotten that one of the passages in St. Justin Martyr includes the +worship of the Angels. "We worship and adore," he says, "Him, and the +Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the host of those +other good Angels, who follow and are like Him, and the Prophetic +Spirit."<a name="FNanchor_20:2_17" id="FNanchor_20:2_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_20:2_17" class="fnanchor">[20:2]</a> A Unitarian might argue from this passage that the glory +and worship which the early Church ascribed to our Lord was not more +definite than that which St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">15.</p> + +<p>Thus much on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Let us proceed to another +example. There are two doctrines which are generally associated with the +name of a Father of the fourth and fifth centuries, and which can show +little definite, or at least but partial, testimony in their behalf +before his time,—Purgatory and Original Sin. The dictum of Vincent +admits both or excludes both, according as it is or is not rigidly +taken; but, if used by Aristotle's "Lesbian Rule," then, as Anglicans +would wish, it can be made to admit Original Sin and exclude Purgatory.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +On the one hand, some notion of suffering, or disadvantage, or +punishment after this life, in the case of the faithful departed, or +other vague forms of the doctrine of Purgatory, has in its favour almost +a <i>consensus</i> of the four first ages of the Church, though some Fathers +state it with far greater openness and decision than others. It is, as +far as words go, the confession of St. Clement of Alexandria, +Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, St. Hilary, +St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, St. Gregory of +Nazianzus, and of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus, and +St. Augustine. And so, on the other hand, there is a certain agreement +of Fathers from the first that mankind has derived some disadvantage +from the sin of Adam.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">16.</p> + +<p>Next, when we consider the two doctrines more distinctly,—the doctrine +that between death and judgment there is a time or state of punishment; +and the doctrine that all men, naturally propagated from fallen Adam, +are in consequence born destitute of original righteousness,—we find, +on the one hand, several, such as Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyril, +St. Hilary, St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nyssen, as far as their words go, +definitely declaring a doctrine of Purgatory: whereas no one will say +that there is a testimony of the Fathers, equally strong, for the +doctrine of Original Sin, though it is difficult here to make any +definite statement about their teaching without going into a discussion +of the subject.</p> + +<p>On the subject of Purgatory there were, to speak generally, two schools +of opinion; the Greek, which contemplated a trial of fire at the last +day through which all were to pass; and the African, resembling more +nearly the present doctrine of the Roman Church. And so there were two +principal views of Original Sin, the Greek and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>the African or Latin. Of +the Greek, the judgment of Hooker is well known, though it must not be +taken in the letter: "The heresy of freewill was a millstone about those +Pelagians' neck; shall we therefore give sentence of death inevitable +against all those Fathers in the Greek Church which, being mispersuaded, +died in the error of freewill?"<a name="FNanchor_22:1_18" id="FNanchor_22:1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_22:1_18" class="fnanchor">[22:1]</a> Bishop Taylor, arguing for an +opposite doctrine, bears a like testimony: "Original Sin," he says, "as +it is at this day commonly explicated, was not the doctrine of the +primitive Church; but when Pelagius had puddled the stream, St. Austin +was so angry that he stamped and disturbed it more. And truly . . I do +not think that the gentlemen that urged against me St. Austin's opinion +do well consider that I profess myself to follow those Fathers who were +before him; and whom St. Austin did forsake, as I do him, in the +question."<a name="FNanchor_22:2_19" id="FNanchor_22:2_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_22:2_19" class="fnanchor">[22:2]</a> The same is asserted or allowed by Jansenius, Petavius, +and Walch,<a name="FNanchor_22:3_20" id="FNanchor_22:3_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_22:3_20" class="fnanchor">[22:3]</a> men of such different schools that we may surely take +their agreement as a proof of the fact. A late writer, after going +through the testimonies of the Fathers one by one, comes to the +conclusion, first, that "the Greek Church in no point favoured +Augustine, except in teaching that from Adam's sin came death, and, +(after the time of Methodius,) an extraordinary and unnatural sensuality +also;" next, that "the Latin Church affirmed, in addition, that a +corrupt and contaminated soul, and that, by generation, was carried on +to his posterity;"<a name="FNanchor_22:4_21" id="FNanchor_22:4_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_22:4_21" class="fnanchor">[22:4]</a> and, lastly, that neither <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>Greeks nor Latins +held the doctrine of imputation. It may be observed, in addition, that, +in spite of the forcible teaching of St. Paul on the subject, the +doctrine of Original Sin appears neither in the Apostles' nor the Nicene +Creed.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">17.</p> + +<p>One additional specimen shall be given as a sample of many others:—I +betake myself to one of our altars to receive the Blessed Eucharist; I +have no doubt whatever on my mind about the Gift which that Sacrament +contains; I confess to myself my belief, and I go through the steps on +which it is assured to me. "The Presence of Christ is here, for It +follows upon Consecration; and Consecration is the prerogative of +Priests; and Priests are made by Ordination; and Ordination comes in +direct line from the Apostles. Whatever be our other misfortunes, every +link in our chain is safe; we have the Apostolic Succession, we have a +right form of consecration: therefore we are blessed with the great +Gift." Here the question rises in me, "Who told you about that Gift?" I +answer, "I have learned it from the Fathers: I believe the Real Presence +because they bear witness to it. St. Ignatius calls it 'the medicine of +immortality:' St. Irenæus says that 'our flesh becomes incorrupt, and +partakes of life, and has the hope of the resurrection,' as 'being +nourished from the Lord's Body and Blood;' that the Eucharist 'is made +up of two things, an earthly and an heavenly:'<a name="FNanchor_23:1_22" id="FNanchor_23:1_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_23:1_22" class="fnanchor">[23:1]</a> perhaps Origen, and +perhaps Magnes, after him, say that It is not a type of our Lord's Body, +but His Body: and St. Cyprian uses language as fearful as can be spoken, +of those who profane it. I cast my lot with them, I believe as they." +Thus I reply, and then the thought comes upon me a second time, "And do +not the same ancient Fathers bear witness to another <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>doctrine, which +you disown? Are you not as a hypocrite, listening to them when you will, +and deaf when you will not? How are you casting your lot with the +Saints, when you go but half-way with them? For of whether of the two do +they speak the more frequently, of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, +or of the Pope's supremacy? You accept the lesser evidence, you reject +the greater."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">18.</p> + +<p>In truth, scanty as the Ante-nicene notices may be of the Papal +Supremacy, they are both more numerous and more definite than the +adducible testimonies in favour of the Real Presence. The testimonies to +the latter are confined to a few passages such as those just quoted. On +the other hand, of a passage in St. Justin, Bishop Kaye remarks, "Le +Nourry infers that Justin maintained the doctrine of Transubstantiation; +it might in my opinion be more plausibly urged in favour of +Consubstantiation, since Justin calls the consecrated elements Bread and +Wine, though not common bread and wine.<a name="FNanchor_24:1_23" id="FNanchor_24:1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_24:1_23" class="fnanchor">[24:1]</a> . . . We may therefore +conclude that, when he calls them the Body and Blood of Christ, he +speaks figuratively." "Clement," observes the same author, "says that +the Scripture calls wine a mystic <i>symbol</i> of the holy blood. . . . Clement +gives various interpretations of Christ's expressions in John vi. +respecting His flesh and blood; but in no instance does he interpret +them literally. . . . . His notion seems to have been that, by partaking of +the bread and wine in the Eucharist, the soul of the believer is united +to the Spirit, and that by this union the principle of immortality is +imparted to the flesh."<a name="FNanchor_24:2_24" id="FNanchor_24:2_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24:2_24" class="fnanchor">[24:2]</a> "It has been suggested by some," says +Waterland, "that Tertullian understood John vi. merely of faith, or +doctrine, or spiritual actions; and it is strenuously denied by others." +After quoting the passage, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>he adds, "All that one can justly gather +from this confused passage is that Tertullian interpreted the bread of +life in John vi. of the Word, which he sometimes makes to be vocal, and +sometimes substantial, blending the ideas in a very perplexed manner; so +that he is no clear authority for construing John vi. of doctrines, &c. +All that is certain is that he supposes the Word made flesh, the Word +incarnate to be the heavenly bread spoken of in that chapter."<a name="FNanchor_25:1_25" id="FNanchor_25:1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25:1_25" class="fnanchor">[25:1]</a> +"Origen's general observation relating to that chapter is, that it must +not be literally, but figuratively understood."<a name="FNanchor_25:2_26" id="FNanchor_25:2_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_25:2_26" class="fnanchor">[25:2]</a> Again, "It is +plain enough that Eusebius followed Origen in this matter, and that both +of them favoured the same mystical or allegorical construction; whether +constantly and uniformly I need not say."<a name="FNanchor_25:3_27" id="FNanchor_25:3_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_25:3_27" class="fnanchor">[25:3]</a> I will but add the +incidental testimony afforded on a late occasion:—how far the Anglican +doctrine of the Eucharist depends on the times before the Nicene +Council, how far on the times after it, may be gathered from the +circumstance that, when a memorable Sermon<a name="FNanchor_25:4_28" id="FNanchor_25:4_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_25:4_28" class="fnanchor">[25:4]</a> was published on the +subject, out of about one hundred and forty passages from the Fathers +appended in the notes, not in formal proof, but in general illustration, +only fifteen were taken from Ante-nicene writers.</p> + +<p>With such evidence, the Ante-nicene testimonies which may be cited in +behalf of the authority of the Holy See, need not fear a comparison. +Faint they may be one by one, but at least we may count seventeen of +them, and they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, +and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof. +Whatever objections may be made to this or that particular fact, and I +do not think any valid ones can be raised, still, on the whole, I +consider that a cumulative argument rises from them in favour of the +ecumenical and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>the doctrinal authority of Rome, stronger than any +argument which can be drawn from the same period for the doctrine of the +Real Presence. I shall have occasion to enumerate them in the <a href="#Page_122">fourth +chapter</a> of this Essay.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">19.</p> + +<p>If it be said that the Real Presence appears, by the Liturgies of the +fourth or fifth century, to have been the doctrine of the earlier, since +those very forms probably existed from the first in Divine worship, this +is doubtless an important truth; but then it is true also that the +writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly +allow that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times, +and that because it was the See of St. Peter.</p> + +<p>Moreover, if the resistance of St. Cyprian and Firmilian to the Church +of Rome, in the question of baptism by heretics, be urged as an argument +against her primitive authority, or the earlier resistance of Polycrates +of Ephesus, let it be considered, first, whether all authority does not +necessarily lead to resistance; next, whether St. Cyprian's own +doctrine, which is in favour of Rome, is not more weighty than his act, +which is against her; thirdly, whether he was not already in error in +the main question under discussion, and Firmilian also; and lastly, +which is the chief point here, whether, in like manner, we may not +object on the other hand against the Real Presence the words of +Tertullian, who explains, "This is my Body," by "a figure of my Body," +and of Origen, who speaks of "our drinking Christ's Blood not only in +the rite of the Sacraments, but also when we receive His +discourses,"<a name="FNanchor_26:1_29" id="FNanchor_26:1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_26:1_29" class="fnanchor">[26:1]</a> and says that "that Bread which God the Word +acknowledges as His Body is the Word which nourishes +souls,"<a name="FNanchor_26:2_30" id="FNanchor_26:2_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_26:2_30" class="fnanchor">[26:2]</a>—passages which admit of a Catholic interpretation when +the Catholic doctrine is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>once proved, but which <i>primâ facie</i> run +counter to that doctrine.</p> + +<p>It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever +be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early +and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be +considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in +his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their +testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory +result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">20.</p> + +<p>Another hypothesis for accounting for a want of accord between the early +and the late aspects of Christianity is that of the <i>Disciplina Arcani</i>, +put forward on the assumption that there has been no variation in the +teaching of the Church from first to last. It is maintained that +doctrines which are associated with the later ages of the Church were +really in the Church from the first, but not publicly taught, and that +for various reasons: as, for the sake of reverence, that sacred subjects +might not be profaned by the heathen; and for the sake of catechumens, +that they might not be oppressed or carried away by a sudden +communication of the whole circle of revealed truth. And indeed the fact +of this concealment can hardly be denied, in whatever degree it took the +shape of a definite rule, which might vary with persons and places. That +it existed even as a rule, as regards the Sacraments, seems to be +confessed on all hands. That it existed in other respects, as a +practice, is plain from the nature of the case, and from the writings of +the Apologists. Minucius Felix and Arnobius, in controversy with Pagans, +imply a denial that then the Christians used altars; yet Tertullian +speaks expressly of the <i>Ara Dei</i> in the Church. What <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>can we say, but +that the Apologists deny altars <i>in the sense</i> in which they ridicule +them; or, that they deny that altars <i>such as</i> the Pagan altars were +tolerated by Christians? And, in like manner, Minucius allows that there +were no temples among Christians; yet they are distinctly recognized in +the edicts of the Dioclesian era, and are known to have existed at a +still earlier date. It is the tendency of every dominant system, such as +the Paganism of the Ante-nicene centuries, to force its opponents into +the most hostile and jealous attitude, from the apprehension which they +naturally feel, lest if they acted otherwise, in those points in which +they approximate towards it, they should be misinterpreted and overborne +by its authority. The very fault now found with clergymen of the +Anglican Church, who wish to conform their practices to her rubrics, and +their doctrines to her divines of the seventeenth century, is, that, +whether they mean it or no, whether legitimately or no, still, in matter +of fact, they will be sanctioning and encouraging the religion of Rome, +in which there are similar doctrines and practices, more definite and +more influential; so that, at any rate, it is inexpedient at the moment +to attempt what is sure to be mistaken. That is, they are required to +exercise a <i>disciplina arcani</i>; and a similar reserve was inevitable on +the part of the Catholic Church, at a time when priests and altars and +rites all around it were devoted to malignant and incurable +superstitions. It would be wrong indeed to deny, but it was a duty to +withhold, the ceremonial of Christianity; and Apologists might be +sometimes tempted to deny absolutely what at furthest could only be +denied under conditions. An idolatrous Paganism tended to repress the +externals of Christianity, as, at this day, the presence of +Protestantism is said to repress, though for another reason, the +exhibition of the Roman Catholic religion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +On various grounds, then, it is certain that portions of the Church +system were held back in primitive times, and of course this fact goes +some way to account for that apparent variation and growth of doctrine, +which embarrasses us when we would consult history for the true idea of +Christianity; yet it is no key to the whole difficulty, as we find it, +for obvious reasons:—because the variations continue beyond the time +when it is conceivable that the discipline was in force, and because +they manifest themselves on a law, not abruptly, but by a visible growth +which has persevered up to this time without any sign of its coming to +an end.<a name="FNanchor_29:1_31" id="FNanchor_29:1_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_29:1_31" class="fnanchor">[29:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">21.</p> + +<p>The following Essay is directed towards a solution of the difficulty +which has been stated,—the difficulty, as far as it exists, which lies +in the way of our using in controversy the testimony of our most natural +informant concerning the doctrine and worship of Christianity, viz. the +history of eighteen hundred years. The view on which it is written has +at all times, perhaps, been implicitly adopted by theologians, and, I +believe, has recently been illustrated by several distinguished writers +of the continent, such as De Maistre and Möhler: viz. that the increase +and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations +which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and +Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which +takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or +extended dominion; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is +necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and +that the highest and most wonderful truths, though <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>communicated to the +world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all +at once by the recipients, but, as being received and transmitted by +minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required +only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. This +may be called the <i>Theory of Development of Doctrine</i>; and, before +proceeding to treat of it, one remark may be in place.</p> + +<p>It is undoubtedly an hypothesis to account for a difficulty; but such +too are the various explanations given by astronomers from Ptolemy to +Newton of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, and it is as +unphilosophical on that account to object to the one as to object to the +other. Nor is it more reasonable to express surprise, that at this time +of day a theory is necessary, granting for argument's sake that the +theory is novel, than to have directed a similar wonder in disparagement +of the theory of gravitation, or the Plutonian theory in geology. +Doubtless, the theory of the Secret and the theory of doctrinal +Developments are expedients, and so is the dictum of Vincentius; so is +the art of grammar or the use of the quadrant; it is an expedient to +enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious +problem. For three hundred years the documents and the facts of +Christianity have been exposed to a jealous scrutiny; works have been +judged spurious which once were received without a question; facts have +been discarded or modified which were once first principles in argument; +new facts and new principles have been brought to light; philosophical +views and polemical discussions of various tendencies have been +maintained with more or less success. Not only has the relative +situation of controversies and theologies altered, but infidelity itself +is in a different,—I am obliged to say in a more hopeful position,—as +regards Christianity. The facts of Revealed Religion, though in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>their +substance unaltered, present a less compact and orderly front to the +attacks of its enemies now than formerly, and allow of the introduction +of new inquiries and theories concerning its sources and its rise. The +state of things is not as it was, when an appeal lay to the supposed +works of the Areopagite, or to the primitive Decretals, or to St. +Dionysius's answers to Paul, or to the Cœna Domini of St. Cyprian. +The assailants of dogmatic truth have got the start of its adherents of +whatever Creed; philosophy is completing what criticism has begun; and +apprehensions are not unreasonably excited lest we should have a new +world to conquer before we have weapons for the warfare. Already +infidelity has its views and conjectures, on which it arranges the facts +of ecclesiastical history; and it is sure to consider the absence of any +antagonist theory as an evidence of the reality of its own. That the +hypothesis, here to be adopted, accounts not only for the Athanasian +Creed, but for the Creed of Pope Pius, is no fault of those who adopt +it. No one has power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage +our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more. An +argument is needed, unless Christianity is to abandon the province of +argument; and those who find fault with the explanation here offered of +its historical phenomena will find it their duty to provide one for +themselves.</p> + +<p>And as no special aim at Roman Catholic doctrine need be supposed to +have given a direction to the inquiry, so neither can a reception of +that doctrine be immediately based on its results. It would be the work +of a life to apply the Theory of Developments so carefully to the +writings of the Fathers, and to the history of controversies and +councils, as thereby to vindicate the reasonableness of every decision +of Rome; much less can such an undertaking be imagined by one who, in +the middle of his days, is beginning life again. Thus much, however, +might be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>gained even from an Essay like the present, an explanation of +so many of the reputed corruptions, doctrinal and practical, of Rome, as +might serve as a fair ground for trusting her in parallel cases where +the investigation had not been pursued.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9:1_2" id="Footnote_9:1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9:1_2"><span class="label">[9:1]</span></a> Church of the Fathers [Hist. Sketches, vol. i. p. 418].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12:1_3" id="Footnote_12:1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12:1_3"><span class="label">[12:1]</span></a> Proph. Office [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 55, 56].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13:1_4" id="Footnote_13:1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13:1_4"><span class="label">[13:1]</span></a> [Ibid. p. 181.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13:2_5" id="Footnote_13:2_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13:2_5"><span class="label">[13:2]</span></a> [British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193. Vid. supr. vol. i. +p. 130.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16:1_6" id="Footnote_16:1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16:1_6"><span class="label">[16:1]</span></a> This of course has been disputed, as is the case with +almost all facts which bear upon the decision of controversies. I shall +not think it necessary to notice the possibility or the fact of +objections on questions upon which the world may now be said to be +agreed; <i>e. g.</i> the arianizing tone of Eusebius.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16:2_7" id="Footnote_16:2_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16:2_7"><span class="label">[16:2]</span></a> <ins class="greek" title="schedon tautêsi tês nyn perithylloumenês">σχεδὸν ταυτησὶ τῆς νῦν περιθυλλουμένης</ins> +<ins class="greek" title="asebeias, tês kata to Anomoion legô, houtos estin, hosa ge hêmeis">ἀσεβείας, τῆς κατὰ τὸ Ἀνόμοιον λέγω, οὗτος ἐστὶν, ὅσα γε ἡμεῖς</ins> +<ins class="greek" title="ismen, ho prôtos anthrôpois ta spermata paraschôn">ἴσμεν, ὁ πρῶτος ἀνθρώποις τὰ σπέρματα παρασχών</ins>. Ep. ix. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16:3_8" id="Footnote_16:3_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16:3_8"><span class="label">[16:3]</span></a> Bull, Defens. F. N. ii. 12, § 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17:1_9" id="Footnote_17:1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17:1_9"><span class="label">[17:1]</span></a> "The authors who make the generation temporary, and +speak not expressly of any other, are these following: Justin, +Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tatian, Tertullian, and +Hippolytus."—<i>Waterland</i>, vol. i. part 2, p. 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17:2_10" id="Footnote_17:2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17:2_10"><span class="label">[17:2]</span></a> "Levia sunt," says Maran in his defence, "quæ in +Sanctissimam Trinitatem hic liber peccare dicitur, paulo graviora quæ in +mysterium Incarnationis."—<i>Div. Jes. Christ.</i> p. 527. Shortly after, p. +530, "In tertiâ oratione nonnulla legimus Incarnationem Domini +spectantia, quæ subabsurdè dicta fateor, nego impiè cogitata."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17:3_11" id="Footnote_17:3_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17:3_11"><span class="label">[17:3]</span></a> Bishop Bull, who is tender towards him, allows, "Ut quod +res est dicam, cum Valentinianis hic et reliquo gnosticorum grege +aliquatenus locutus est Tertullianus; in re ipsâ tamen cum Catholicis +omninò sensit."—<i>Defens. F. N.</i> iii. 10, § 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18:1_12" id="Footnote_18:1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18:1_12"><span class="label">[18:1]</span></a> Adv. Praxeam.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18:2_13" id="Footnote_18:2_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18:2_13"><span class="label">[18:2]</span></a> Defens. F. N. iv. 3, § 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18:3_14" id="Footnote_18:3_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18:3_14"><span class="label">[18:3]</span></a> Basil, ed. Ben. vol. 3, p. xcvi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19:1_15" id="Footnote_19:1_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19:1_15"><span class="label">[19:1]</span></a> Ante-nicene Test, to the Trinity, p. 69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20:1_16" id="Footnote_20:1_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20:1_16"><span class="label">[20:1]</span></a> "Quia et Pater Deus est, et judex Deus est, non tamen +ideo Pater et judex semper, quia Deus semper. Nam nec Pater potuit esse +ante Filium, nec judex ante delictum. Fuit autem tempus, cum et delictum +et Filius non fuit, quod judicem, et qui Patrem Dominum +faceret."—<i>Contr. Herm.</i> 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20:2_17" id="Footnote_20:2_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20:2_17"><span class="label">[20:2]</span></a> Vid. <a href="#Page_411_Point_2">infra</a>, towards the end of the Essay, ch. x., where +more will be said on the passage.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22:1_18" id="Footnote_22:1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22:1_18"><span class="label">[22:1]</span></a> Of Justification, 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22:2_19" id="Footnote_22:2_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22:2_19"><span class="label">[22:2]</span></a> Works, vol. ix. p. 396.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22:3_20" id="Footnote_22:3_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22:3_20"><span class="label">[22:3]</span></a> "Quamvis igitur quam maximè fallantur Pelagiani, quum +asserant, peccatum originale ex Augustini profluxisse ingenio, antiquam +vero ecclesiam illud plane nescivisse; diffiteri tamen nemo potest, apud +Græcos patres imprimis inveniri loca, quæ Pelagianismo favere videntur. +Hinc et C. Jansenius, 'Græci,' inquit, 'nisi caute legantur et +intelligantur, præbere possunt occasionem errori Pelagiano;' et D. +Petavius dicit, 'Græci originalis fere criminis raram, nec disertam, +mentionem scriptis suis attigerunt.'"—<i>Walch</i>, <i>Miscell. Sacr.</i> p. +607.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22:4_21" id="Footnote_22:4_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22:4_21"><span class="label">[22:4]</span></a> Horn, Comment. de Pecc. Orig. 1801, p. 98.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23:1_22" id="Footnote_23:1_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23:1_22"><span class="label">[23:1]</span></a> Hær. iv. 18, § 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24:1_23" id="Footnote_24:1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24:1_23"><span class="label">[24:1]</span></a> Justin Martyr, ch. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24:2_24" id="Footnote_24:2_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24:2_24"><span class="label">[24:2]</span></a> Clem. Alex. ch. 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25:1_25" id="Footnote_25:1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25:1_25"><span class="label">[25:1]</span></a> Works, vol. vii. p. 118-120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25:2_26" id="Footnote_25:2_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25:2_26"><span class="label">[25:2]</span></a> Ibid. p. 121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25:3_27" id="Footnote_25:3_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25:3_27"><span class="label">[25:3]</span></a> Ibid. p. 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25:4_28" id="Footnote_25:4_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25:4_28"><span class="label">[25:4]</span></a> [Dr. Pusey's University Sermon of 1843.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26:1_29" id="Footnote_26:1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26:1_29"><span class="label">[26:1]</span></a> Numer. Hom. xvi. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26:2_30" id="Footnote_26:2_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26:2_30"><span class="label">[26:2]</span></a> Interp. Com. in Matt. 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29:1_31" id="Footnote_29:1_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29:1_31"><span class="label">[29:1]</span></a> [<i>Vid.</i> Apolog., p. 198, and Difficulties of Angl. vol. +i. xii. 7.]</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS.</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION I.</h4> + +<h5>ON THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS.</h5> + +<p>It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing +judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend +than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, +contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view +all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have +invested it.</p> + +<p>Of the judgments thus made, which become aspects in our minds of the +things which meet us, some are mere opinions which come and go, or which +remain with us only till an accident displaces them, whatever be the +influence which they exercise meanwhile. Others are firmly fixed in our +minds, with or without good reason, and have a hold upon us, whether +they relate to matters of fact, or to principles of conduct, or are +views of life and the world, or are prejudices, imaginations, or +convictions. Many of them attach to one and the same object, which is +thus variously viewed, not only by various minds, but by the same. They +sometimes lie in such near relation, that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>each implies the others; some +are only not inconsistent with each other, in that they have a common +origin: some, as being actually incompatible with each other, are, one +or other, falsely associated in our minds with their object, and in any +case they may be nothing more than ideas, which we mistake for things.</p> + +<p>Thus Judaism is an idea which once was objective, and Gnosticism is an +idea which was never so. Both of them have various aspects: those of +Judaism were such as monotheism, a certain ethical discipline, a +ministration of divine vengeance, a preparation for Christianity: those +of the Gnostic idea are such as the doctrine of two principles, that of +emanation, the intrinsic malignity of matter, the inculpability of +sensual indulgence, or the guilt of every pleasure of sense, of which +last two one or other must be in the Gnostic a false aspect and +subjective only.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>The idea which represents an object or supposed object is commensurate +with the sum total of its possible aspects, however they may vary in the +separate consciousness of individuals; and in proportion to the variety +of aspects under which it presents itself to various minds is its force +and depth, and the argument for its reality. Ordinarily an idea is not +brought home to the intellect as objective except through this variety; +like bodily substances, which are not apprehended except under the +clothing of their properties and results, and which admit of being +walked round, and surveyed on opposite sides, and in different +perspectives, and in contrary lights, in evidence of their reality. And, +as views of a material object may be taken from points so remote or so +opposed, that they seem at first sight incompatible, and especially as +their shadows will be disproportionate, or even monstrous, and yet all +these anomalies will disappear and all these contrarieties <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>be adjusted, +on ascertaining the point of vision or the surface of projection in each +case; so also all the aspects of an idea are capable of coalition, and +of a resolution into the object to which it belongs; and the <i>primâ +facie</i> dissimilitude of its aspects becomes, when explained, an argument +for its substantiveness and integrity, and their multiplicity for its +originality and power.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>There is no one aspect deep enough to exhaust the contents of a real +idea, no one term or proposition which will serve to define it; though +of course one representation of it is more just and exact than another, +and though when an idea is very complex, it is allowable, for the sake +of convenience, to consider its distinct aspects as if separate ideas. +Thus, with all our intimate knowledge of animal life and of the +structure of particular animals, we have not arrived at a true +definition of any one of them, but are forced to enumerate properties +and accidents by way of description. Nor can we inclose in a formula +that intellectual fact, or system of thought, which we call the Platonic +philosophy, or that historical phenomenon of doctrine and conduct, which +we call the heresy of Montanus or of Manes. Again, if Protestantism were +said to lie in its theory of private judgment, and Lutheranism in its +doctrine of justification, this indeed would be an approximation to the +truth; but it is plain that to argue or to act as if the one or the +other aspect were a sufficient account of those forms of religion +severally, would be a serious mistake. Sometimes an attempt is made to +determine the "leading idea," as it has been called, of Christianity, an +ambitious essay as employed on a supernatural work, when, even as +regards the visible creation and the inventions of man, such a task is +beyond us. Thus its one idea has been said by some to be the restoration +of our fallen race, by others philanthropy, by <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>others the tidings of +immortality, or the spirituality of true religious service, or the +salvation of the elect, or mental liberty, or the union of the soul with +God. If, indeed, it is only thereby meant to use one or other of these +as a central idea for convenience, in order to group others around it, +no fault can be found with such a proceeding: and in this sense I should +myself call the Incarnation the central aspect of Christianity, out of +which the three main aspects of its teaching take their rise, the +sacramental, the hierarchical, and the ascetic. But one aspect of +Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or to obscure another; and +Christianity is dogmatical, devotional, practical all at once; it is +esoteric and exoteric; it is indulgent and strict; it is light and dark; +it is love, and it is fear.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>When an idea, whether real or not, is of a nature to arrest and possess +the mind, it may be said to have life, that is, to live in the mind +which is its recipient. Thus mathematical ideas, real as they are, can +hardly properly be called living, at least ordinarily. But, when some +great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present +good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the +public throng of men and draws attention, then it is not merely received +passively in this or that form into many minds, but it becomes an active +principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of +itself, to an application of it in various directions, and a propagation +of it on every side. Such is the doctrine of the divine right of kings, +or of the rights of man, or of the anti-social bearings of a priesthood, +or utilitarianism, or free trade, or the duty of benevolent enterprises, +or the philosophy of Zeno or Epicurus, doctrines which are of a nature +to attract and influence, and have so <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>far a <i>primâ facie</i> reality, that +they may be looked at on many sides and strike various minds very +variously. Let one such idea get possession of the popular mind, or the +mind of any portion of the community, and it is not difficult to +understand what will be the result. At first men will not fully realize +what it is that moves them, and will express and explain themselves +inadequately. There will be a general agitation of thought, and an +action of mind upon mind. There will be a time of confusion, when +conceptions and misconceptions are in conflict, and it is uncertain +whether anything is to come of the idea at all, or which view of it is +to get the start of the others. New lights will be brought to bear upon +the original statements of the doctrine put forward; judgments and +aspects will accumulate. After a while some definite teaching emerges; +and, as time proceeds, one view will be modified or expanded by another, +and then combined with a third; till the idea to which these various +aspects belong, will be to each mind separately what at first it was +only to all together. It will be surveyed too in its relation to other +doctrines or facts, to other natural laws or established customs, to the +varying circumstances of times and places, to other religions, polities, +philosophies, as the case may be. How it stands affected towards other +systems, how it affects them, how far it may be made to combine with +them, how far it tolerates them, when it interferes with them, will be +gradually wrought out. It will be interrogated and criticized by +enemies, and defended by well-wishers. The multitude of opinions formed +concerning it in these respects and many others will be collected, +compared, sorted, sifted, selected, rejected, gradually attached to it, +separated from it, in the minds of individuals and of the community. It +will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtlety, introduce itself +into the framework and details of social life, changing public opinion, +and strengthening or undermining the foundations <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>of established order. +Thus in time it will have grown into an ethical code, or into a system +of government, or into a theology, or into a ritual, according to its +capabilities: and this body of thought, thus laboriously gained, will +after all be little more than the proper representative of one idea, +being in substance what that idea meant from the first, its complete +image as seen in a combination of diversified aspects, with the +suggestions and corrections of many minds, and the illustration of many +experiences.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>This process, whether it be longer or shorter in point of time, by which +the aspects of an idea are brought into consistency and form, I call its +development, being the germination and maturation of some truth or +apparent truth on a large mental field. On the other hand this process +will not be a development, unless the assemblage of aspects, which +constitute its ultimate shape, really belongs to the idea from which +they start. A republic, for instance, is not a development from a pure +monarchy, though it may follow upon it; whereas the Greek "tyrant" may +be considered as included in the idea of a democracy. Moreover a +development will have this characteristic, that, its action being in the +busy scene of human life, it cannot progress at all without cutting +across, and thereby destroying or modifying and incorporating with +itself existing modes of thinking and operating. The development then of +an idea is not like an investigation worked out on paper, in which each +successive advance is a pure evolution from a foregoing, but it is +carried on through and by means of communities of men and their leaders +and guides; and it employs their minds as its instruments, and depends +upon them, while it uses them. And so, as regards existing opinions, +principles, measures, and institutions of the community which it has +invaded; it developes by <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>establishing relations between itself and +them; it employs itself, in giving them a new meaning and direction, in +creating what may be called a jurisdiction over them, in throwing off +whatever in them it cannot assimilate. It grows when it incorporates, +and its identity is found, not in isolation, but in continuity and +sovereignty. This it is that imparts to the history both of states and +of religions, its specially turbulent and polemical character. Such is +the explanation of the wranglings, whether of schools or of parliaments. +It is the warfare of ideas under their various aspects striving for the +mastery, each of them enterprising, engrossing, imperious, more or less +incompatible with the rest, and rallying followers or rousing foes, +according as it acts upon the faith, the prejudices, or the interest of +parties or classes.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>Moreover, an idea not only modifies, but is modified, or at least +influenced, by the state of things in which it is carried out, and is +dependent in various ways on the circumstances which surround it. Its +development proceeds quickly or slowly, as it may be; the order of +succession in its separate stages is variable; it shows differently in a +small sphere of action and in an extended; it may be interrupted, +retarded, mutilated, distorted, by external violence; it may be +enfeebled by the effort of ridding itself of domestic foes; it may be +impeded and swayed or even absorbed by counter energetic ideas; it may +be coloured by the received tone of thought into which it comes, or +depraved by the intrusion of foreign principles, or at length shattered +by the development of some original fault within it.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>But whatever be the risk of corruption from intercourse with the world +around, such a risk must be encountered <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>if a great idea is duly to be +understood, and much more if it is to be fully exhibited. It is elicited +and expanded by trial, and battles into perfection and supremacy. Nor +does it escape the collision of opinion even in its earlier years, nor +does it remain truer to itself, and with a better claim to be considered +one and the same, though externally protected from vicissitude and +change. It is indeed sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the +spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply +to the history of a philosophy or belief, which on the contrary is more +equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and +broad, and full. It necessarily rises out of an existing state of +things, and for a time savours of the soil. Its vital element needs +disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in +efforts after freedom which become more vigorous and hopeful as its +years increase. Its beginnings are no measure of its capabilities, nor +of its scope. At first no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It +remains perhaps for a time quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs, +and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to time it +makes essays which fail, and are in consequence abandoned. It seems in +suspense which way to go; it wavers, and at length strikes out in one +definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory; points of +controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall around it; +dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and old principles reappear +under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a +higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and +to be perfect is to have changed often.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> +<h4>SECTION II.</h4> + +<p class="center">ON THE KINDS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS.</p> + +<p>To attempt an accurate analysis or complete enumeration of the processes +of thought, whether speculative or practical, which come under the +notion of development, exceeds the pretensions of an Essay like the +present; but, without some general view of the various mental exercises +which go by the name we shall have no security against confusion in our +reasoning and necessary exposure to criticism.</p> + +<p>1. First, then, it must be borne in mind that the word is commonly used, +and is used here, in three senses indiscriminately, from defect of our +language; on the one hand for the process of development, on the other +for the result; and again either generally for a development, true or +not true, (that is, faithful or unfaithful to the idea from which it +started,) or exclusively for a development deserving the name. A false +or unfaithful development is more properly to be called a corruption.</p> + +<p>2. Next, it is plain that <i>mathematical</i> developments, that is, the +system of truths drawn out from mathematical definitions or equations, +do not fall under our present subject, though altogether analogous to +it. There can be no corruption in such developments, because they are +conducted on strict demonstration; and the conclusions in which they +terminate, being necessary, cannot be declensions from the original +idea.</p> + +<p>3. Nor, of course, do <i>physical</i> developments, as the growth of animal +or vegetable nature, come into consideration here; excepting that, +together with mathematical, they may be taken as illustrations of the +general subject to which we have to direct our attention.</p> + +<p>4. Nor have we to consider <i>material</i> developments, which, though +effected by human contrivance, are still <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>physical; as the development, +as it is called, of the national resources. We speak, for instance, of +Ireland, the United States, or the valley of the Indus, as admitting of +a great development; by which we mean, that those countries have fertile +tracts, or abundant products, or broad and deep rivers, or central +positions for commerce, or capacious and commodious harbours, the +materials and instruments of wealth, and these at present turned to +insufficient account. Development in this case will proceed by +establishing marts, cutting canals, laying down railroads, erecting +factories, forming docks, and similar works, by which the natural riches +of the country may be made to yield the largest return and to exert the +greatest influence. In this sense, art is the development of nature, +that is, its adaptation to the purposes of utility and beauty, the human +intellect being the developing power.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>5. When society and its various classes and interests are the +subject-matter of the ideas which are in operation, the development may +be called <i>political</i>; as we see it in the growth of States or the +changes of a Constitution. Barbarians descend into southern regions from +cupidity, and their warrant is the sword: this is no intellectual +process, nor is it the mode of development exhibited in civilized +communities. Where civilization exists, reason, in some shape or other, +is the incentive or the pretence of development. When an empire +enlarges, it is on the call of its allies, or for the balance of power, +or from the necessity of a demonstration of strength, or from a fear for +its frontiers. It lies uneasily in its territory, it is ill-shaped, it +has unreal boundary-lines, deficient communication between its principal +points, or defenceless or turbulent neighbours. Thus, of old time, +Eubœa was necessary for Athens, and Cythera for Sparta; and Augustus +left <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>his advice, as a legacy, to confine the Empire between the +Atlantic, the Rhine and Danube, the Euphrates, and the Arabian and +African deserts. In this day, we hear of the Rhine being the natural +boundary of France, and the Indus of our Eastern empire; and we predict +that, in the event of a war, Prussia will change her outlines in the map +of Europe. The development is material; but an idea gives unity and +force to its movement.</p> + +<p>And so to take a case of national politics, a late writer remarks of the +Parliament of 1628-29, in its contest with Charles, that, so far from +encroaching on the just powers of a limited monarch, it never hinted at +the securities which were necessary for its measures. However, "twelve +years more of repeated aggressions," he adds, "taught the Long +Parliament what a few sagacious men might perhaps have already +suspected; that they must recover more of their ancient constitution, +from oblivion; that they must sustain its partial weakness by new +securities; that, in order to render the existence of monarchy +compatible with that of freedom, they must not only strip it of all it +had usurped, but of something that was its own."<a name="FNanchor_43:1_32" id="FNanchor_43:1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_43:1_32" class="fnanchor">[43:1]</a> Whatever be the +worth of this author's theory, his facts or representations are an +illustration of a political development.</p> + +<p>Again, at the present day, that Ireland should have a population of one +creed, and a Church of another, is felt to be a political arrangement so +unsatisfactory, that all parties seem to agree that either the +population will develope in power or the Establishment in influence.</p> + +<p>Political developments, though really the growth of ideas, are often +capricious and irregular from the nature of their subject-matter. They +are influenced by the character of sovereigns, the rise and fall of +statesmen, the fate of battles, and the numberless vicissitudes of the +world. "Perhaps the Greeks would be still involved in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>the heresy of the +Monophysites," says Gibbon, "if the Emperor's horse had not fortunately +stumbled. Theodosius expired, his orthodox sister succeeded to the +throne."<a name="FNanchor_44:1_33" id="FNanchor_44:1_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_44:1_33" class="fnanchor">[44:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Again, it often happens, or generally, that various distinct and +incompatible elements are found in the origin or infancy of politics, or +indeed of philosophies, some of which must be ejected before any +satisfactory developments, if any, can take place. And they are commonly +ejected by the gradual growth of the stronger. The reign of Charles the +First, just referred to, supplies an instance in point.</p> + +<p>Sometimes discordant ideas are for a time connected and concealed by a +common profession or name. Such is the case of coalitions in politics +and comprehensions in religion, of which commonly no good is to be +expected. Such is an ordinary function of committees and boards, and the +sole aim of conciliations and concessions, to make contraries look the +same, and to secure an outward agreement where there is no other unity.</p> + +<p>Again, developments, reactions, reforms, revolutions, and changes of +various kinds are mixed together in the actual history of states, as of +philosophical sects, so as to make it very difficult to exhibit them in +any scientific analysis.</p> + +<p>Often the intellectual process is detached from the practical, and +posterior to it. Thus it was after Elizabeth had established the +Reformation that Hooker laid down his theory of Church and State as one +and the same, differing only in idea; and, after the Revolution and its +political consequences, that Warburton wrote his "Alliance." And now +again a new theory is needed for the constitutional lawyer, in order to +reconcile the existing political state of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>things with the just claims +of religion. And so, again, in Parliamentary conflicts, men first come +to their conclusions by the external pressure of events or the force of +principles, they do not know how; then they have to speak, and they look +about for arguments: and a pamphlet is published on the subject in +debate, or an article appears in a Review, to furnish common-places for +the many.</p> + +<p>Other developments, though political, are strictly subjected and +consequent to the ideas of which they are the exhibitions. Thus Locke's +philosophy was a real guide, not a mere defence of the Revolution era, +operating forcibly upon Church and Government in and after his day. Such +too were the theories which preceded the overthrow of the old regime in +France and other countries at the end of the last century.</p> + +<p>Again, perhaps there are polities founded on no ideas at all, but on +mere custom, as among the Asiatics.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>6. In other developments the intellectual character is so prominent that +they may even be called <i>logical</i>, as in the Anglican doctrine of the +Royal Supremacy, which has been created in the courts of law, not in the +cabinet or on the field. Hence it is carried out with a consistency and +minute application which the history of constitutions cannot exhibit. It +does not only exist in statutes, or in articles, or in oaths, it is +realized in details: as in the <i>congé d'élire</i> and letter-missive on +appointment of a Bishop;—in the forms observed in Privy Council on the +issuing of State Prayers;—in certain arrangements observed in the +Prayer-book, where the universal or abstract Church precedes the King, +but the national or really existing body follows him; in printing his +name in large capitals, while the Holiest Names are in ordinary type, +and in fixing his arms in churches instead of the Crucifix; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>moreover, +perhaps, in placing "sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion," before +"false doctrine, heresy, and schism" in the Litany.</p> + +<p>Again, when some new philosophy or its instalments are introduced into +the measures of the Legislature, or into the concessions made to a +political party, or into commercial or agricultural policy, it is often +said, "We have not seen the end of this;" "It is an earnest of future +concessions;" "Our children will see." We feel that it has unknown +bearings and issues.</p> + +<p>The admission of Jews to municipal offices has lately been +defended<a name="FNanchor_46:1_34" id="FNanchor_46:1_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_46:1_34" class="fnanchor">[46:1]</a> on the ground that it is the introduction of no new +principle, but a development of one already received; that its great +premisses have been decided long since; and that the present age has but +to draw the conclusion; that it is not open to us to inquire what ought +to be done in the abstract, since there is no ideal model for the +infallible guidance of nations; that change is only a question of time, +and that there is a time for all things; that the application of +principles ought not to go beyond the actual case, neither preceding nor +coming after an imperative demand; that in point of fact Jews have +lately been chosen for offices, and that in point of principle the law +cannot refuse to legitimate such elections.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>7. Another class of developments may be called <i>historical</i>; being the +gradual formation of opinion concerning persons, facts, and events. +Judgments, which were at one time confined to a few, at length spread +through a community, and attain general reception by the accumulation +and concurrence of testimony. Thus some authoritative accounts die away; +others gain a footing, and are ultimately received as truths. Courts of +law, Parliamentary <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>proceedings, newspapers, letters and other +posthumous documents, the industry of historians and biographers, and +the lapse of years which dissipates parties and prejudices, are in this +day the instruments of such development. Accordingly the Poet makes +Truth the daughter of Time.<a name="FNanchor_47:1_35" id="FNanchor_47:1_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_47:1_35" class="fnanchor">[47:1]</a> Thus at length approximations are made +to a right appreciation of transactions and characters. History cannot +be written except in an after-age. Thus by development the Canon of the +New Testament has been formed. Thus public men are content to leave +their reputation to posterity; great reactions take place in opinion; +nay, sometimes men outlive opposition and obloquy. Thus Saints are +canonized in the Church, long after they have entered into their rest.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>8. <i>Ethical</i> developments are not properly matter for argument and +controversy, but are natural and personal, substituting what is +congruous, desirable, pious, appropriate, generous, for strictly logical +inference. Bishop Butler supplies us with a remarkable instance in the +beginning of the Second Part of his "Analogy." As principles imply +applications, and general propositions include particulars, so, he tells +us, do certain relations imply correlative duties, and certain objects +demand certain acts and feelings. He observes that, even though we were +not enjoined to pay divine honours to the Second and Third Persons of +the Holy Trinity, what is predicated of Them in Scripture would be an +abundant warrant, an indirect command, nay, a ground in reason, for +doing so. "Does not," he asks, "the duty of religious regards to both +these Divine Persons as immediately arise, to the view of reason, out of +the very nature of these offices and relations, as the inward good-will +and kind intention which we owe to our <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>fellow-creatures arises out of +the common relations between us and them?" He proceeds to say that he is +speaking of the inward religious regards of reverence, honour, love, +trust, gratitude, fear, hope. "In what external manner this inward +worship is to be expressed, is a matter of pure revealed command; . . +but the worship, the internal worship itself, to the Son and Holy Ghost, +is no further matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they +stand in to us are matter of pure revelation; for, the relations being +known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of +reason, arising out of those relations themselves." Here is a +development of doctrine into worship, of which parallel instances are +obviously to be found in the Church of Rome.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>A development, converse to that which Butler speaks of, must next be +mentioned. As certain objects excite certain emotions and sentiments, so +do sentiments imply objects and duties. Thus conscience, the existence +of which we cannot deny, is a proof of the doctrine of a Moral Governor, +which alone gives it a meaning and a scope; that is, the doctrine of a +Judge and Judgment to come is a development of the phenomenon of +conscience. Again, it is plain that passions and affections are in +action in our minds before the presence of their proper objects; and +their activity would of course be an antecedent argument of extreme +cogency in behalf of the real existence of those legitimate objects, +supposing them unknown. And so again, the social principle, which is +innate in us, gives a divine sanction to society and to civil +government. And the usage of prayers for the dead implies certain +circumstances of their state upon which such devotions bear. And rites +and ceremonies are natural means through which the mind relieves itself +of devotional <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>and penitential emotions. And sometimes the cultivation +of awe and love towards what is great, high, and unseen, has led a man +to the abandonment of his sect for some more Catholic form of doctrine.</p> + +<p>Aristotle furnishes us with an instance of this kind of development in +his account of the happy man. After showing that his definition of +happiness includes in itself the pleasurable, which is the most obvious +and popular idea of happiness, he goes on to say that still external +goods are necessary to it, about which, however, the definition said +nothing; that is, a certain prosperity is by moral fitness, not by +logical necessity, attached to the happy man. "For it is impossible," he +observes, "or not easy, to practise high virtue without abundant means. +Many deeds are done by the instrumentality of friends, wealth and +political power; and of some things the absence is a cloud upon +happiness, as of noble birth, of hopeful children, and of personal +appearance: for a person utterly deformed, or low-born, or bereaved and +childless, cannot quite be happy: and still less if he have very +worthless children or friends, or they were good and died."<a name="FNanchor_49:1_36" id="FNanchor_49:1_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_49:1_36" class="fnanchor">[49:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>This process of development has been well delineated by a living French +writer, in his Lectures on European civilization, who shall be quoted at +some length. "If we reduce religion," he says, "to a purely religious +sentiment . . . it appears evident that it must and ought to remain a +purely personal concern. But I am either strangely mistaken, or this +religious sentiment is not the complete expression of the religious +nature of man. Religion is, I believe, very different from this, and +much more extended. There are problems in human nature, in human +destinies, which cannot be solved in this life, which depend on an +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>order of things unconnected with the visible world, but which +unceasingly agitate the human mind with a desire to comprehend them. The +solution of these problems is the origin of all religion; her primary +object is to discover the creeds and doctrines which contain, or are +supposed to contain it.</p> + +<p>"Another cause also impels mankind to embrace religion . . . From whence +do morals originate? whither do they lead? is this self-existing +obligation to do good, an isolated fact, without an author, without an +end? does it not conceal, or rather does it not reveal to man, an +origin, a destiny, beyond this world? The science of morals, by these +spontaneous and inevitable questions, conducts man to the threshold of +religion, and displays to him a sphere from whence he has not derived +it. Thus the certain and never-failing sources of religion are, on the +one hand, the problems of our nature; on the other, the necessity of +seeking for morals a sanction, an origin, and an aim. It therefore +assumes many other forms beside that of a pure sentiment; it appears a +union of doctrines, of precepts, of promises. This is what truly +constitutes religion; this is its fundamental character; it is not +merely a form of sensibility, an impulse of the imagination, a variety +of poetry.</p> + +<p>"When thus brought back to its true elements, to its essential nature, +religion appears no longer a purely personal concern, but a powerful and +fruitful principle of association. Is it considered in the light of a +system of belief, a system of dogmas? Truth is not the heritage of any +individual, it is absolute and universal; mankind ought to seek and +profess it in common. Is it considered with reference to the precepts +that are associated with its doctrines? A law which is obligatory on a +single individual, is so on all; it ought to be promulgated, and it is +our duty to endeavour to bring all mankind under its <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>dominion. It is +the same with respect to the promises that religion makes, in the name +of its creeds and precepts; they ought to be diffused; all men should be +incited to partake of their benefits. A religious society, therefore, +naturally results from the essential elements of religion, and is such a +necessary consequence of it that the term which expresses the most +energetic social sentiment, the most intense desire to propagate ideas +and extend society, is the word <i>proselytism</i>, a term which is +especially applied to religious belief, and in fact consecrated to it.</p> + +<p>"When a religious society has ever been formed, when a certain number of +men are united by a common religious creed, are governed by the same +religious precepts, and enjoy the same religious hopes, some form of +government is necessary. No society can endure a week, nay more, no +society can endure a single hour, without a government. The moment, +indeed, a society is formed, by the very fact of its formation, it calls +forth a government,—a government which shall proclaim the common truth +which is the bond of the society, and promulgate and maintain the +precepts that this truth ought to produce. The necessity of a superior +power, of a form of government, is involved in the fact of the existence +of a religious, as it is in that of any other society.</p> + +<p>"And not only is a government necessary, but it naturally forms +itself. . . . When events are suffered to follow their natural laws, when +force does not interfere, power falls into the hands of the most able, +the most worthy, those who are most capable of carrying out the +principles on which the society was founded. Is a warlike expedition in +agitation? The bravest take the command. Is the object of the +association learned research, or a scientific undertaking? The best +informed will be the leader. . . . The inequality of faculties and +influence, which is the foundation of power in civil life, has the same +effect in a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>religious society. . . Religion has no sooner arisen in the +human mind than a religious society appears; and immediately a religious +society is formed, it produces its government."<a name="FNanchor_52:1_37" id="FNanchor_52:1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_52:1_37" class="fnanchor">[52:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>9. It remains to allude to what, unless the word were often so vaguely +and variously used, I should be led to call <i>metaphysical</i> developments; +I mean such as are a mere analysis of the idea contemplated, and +terminate in its exact and complete delineation. Thus Aristotle draws +the character of a magnanimous or of a munificent man; thus Shakspeare +might conceive and bring out his Hamlet or Ariel; thus Walter Scott +gradually enucleates his James, or Dalgetty, as the action of his story +proceeds; and thus, in the sacred province of theology, the mind may be +employed in developing the solemn ideas, which it has hitherto held +implicitly and without subjecting them to its reflecting and reasoning +powers.</p> + +<p>I have already treated of this subject at length, with a reference to +the highest theological subject, in a former work, from which it will be +sufficient here to quote some sentences in explanation:—</p> + +<p>"The mind which is habituated to the thought of God, of Christ, of the +Holy Spirit, naturally turns with a devout curiosity to the +contemplation of the object of its adoration, and begins to form +statements concerning it, before it knows whither, or how far, it will +be carried. One proposition necessarily leads to another, and a second +to a third; then some limitation is required; and the combination of +these opposites occasions some fresh evolutions from the original idea, +which indeed can never be said to be entirely exhausted. This process is +its development, and results in a series, or rather body, of dogmatic +statements, till what <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>was an impression on the Imagination has become a +system or creed in the Reason.</p> + +<p>"Now such impressions are obviously individual and complete above other +theological ideas, because they are the impressions of Objects. Ideas +and their developments are commonly not identical, the development being +but the carrying out of the idea into its consequences. Thus the +doctrine of Penance may be called a development of the doctrine of +Baptism, yet still is a distinct doctrine; whereas the developments in +the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are mere portions +of the original impression, and modes of representing it. As God is one, +so the impression which He gives us of Himself is one; it is not a thing +of parts; it is not a system; nor is it anything imperfect and needing a +counterpart. It is the vision of an object. When we pray, we pray, not +to an assemblage of notions or to a creed, but to One Individual Being; +and when we speak of Him, we speak of a Person, not of a Law or +Manifestation . . . Religious men, according to their measure, have an +idea or vision of the Blessed Trinity in Unity, of the Son Incarnate, +and of His Presence, not as a number of qualities, attributes, and +actions, not as the subject of a number of propositions, but as one and +individual, and independent of words, like an impression conveyed +through the senses . . . . Creeds and dogmas live in the one idea which +they are designed to express, and which alone is substantive; and are +necessary, because the human mind cannot reflect upon that idea except +piecemeal, cannot use it in its oneness and entireness, or without +resolving it into a series of aspects and relations."<a name="FNanchor_53:1_38" id="FNanchor_53:1_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_53:1_38" class="fnanchor">[53:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>So much on the development of ideas in various subject matters: it may +be necessary to add that, in many cases, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span><i>development</i> simply stands +for <i>exhibition</i>, as in some of the instances adduced above. Thus both +Calvinism and Unitarianism may be called developments, that is, +exhibitions, of the principle of Private Judgment, though they have +nothing in common, viewed as doctrines.</p> + +<p>As to Christianity, supposing the truths of which it consists to admit +of development, that development will be one or other of the last five +kinds. Taking the Incarnation as its central doctrine, the Episcopate, +as taught by St. Ignatius, will be an instance of political development, +the <i>Theotokos</i> of logical, the determination of the date of our Lord's +birth of historical, the Holy Eucharist of moral, and the Athanasian +Creed of metaphysical.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43:1_32" id="Footnote_43:1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43:1_32"><span class="label">[43:1]</span></a> Hallam's Constit. Hist. ch. vii. p. 572.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44:1_33" id="Footnote_44:1_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44:1_33"><span class="label">[44:1]</span></a> ch. xlvii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46:1_34" id="Footnote_46:1_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46:1_34"><span class="label">[46:1]</span></a> <i>Times</i> newspaper of March, 1845.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47:1_35" id="Footnote_47:1_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47:1_35"><span class="label">[47:1]</span></a> Crabbe's Tales.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49:1_36" id="Footnote_49:1_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49:1_36"><span class="label">[49:1]</span></a> Eth. Nic. i. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52:1_37" id="Footnote_52:1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52:1_37"><span class="label">[52:1]</span></a> Guizot, Europ. Civil., Lect. v., Beckwith's +Translation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53:1_38" id="Footnote_53:1_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53:1_38"><span class="label">[53:1]</span></a> [Univ. Serm. xv. 20-23, pp. 329-332, ed. 3.]</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>ON THE ANTECEDENT ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF<br /> +DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION I.</h4> + +<h5>DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE TO BE EXPECTED.</h5> + +<p>1. If Christianity is a fact, and impresses an idea of itself on our +minds and is a subject-matter of exercises of the reason, that idea will +in course of time expand into a multitude of ideas, and aspects of +ideas, connected and harmonious with one another, and in themselves +determinate and immutable, as is the objective fact itself which is thus +represented. It is a characteristic of our minds, that they cannot take +an object in, which is submitted to them simply and integrally. We +conceive by means of definition or description; whole objects do not +create in the intellect whole ideas, but are, to use a mathematical +phrase, thrown into series, into a number of statements, strengthening, +interpreting, correcting each other, and with more or less exactness +approximating, as they accumulate, to a perfect image. There is no other +way of learning or of teaching. We cannot teach except by aspects or +views, which are not identical with the thing itself which we are +teaching. Two persons may each convey the same truth to a third, yet by +methods and through representations <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>altogether different. The same +person will treat the same argument differently in an essay or speech, +according to the accident of the day of writing, or of the audience, yet +it will be substantially the same.</p> + +<p>And the more claim an idea has to be considered living, the more various +will be its aspects; and the more social and political is its nature, +the more complicated and subtle will be its issues, and the longer and +more eventful will be its course. And in the number of these special +ideas, which from their very depth and richness cannot be fully +understood at once, but are more and more clearly expressed and taught +the longer they last,—having aspects many and bearings many, mutually +connected and growing one out of another, and all parts of a whole, with +a sympathy and correspondence keeping pace with the ever-changing +necessities of the world, multiform, prolific, and ever +resourceful,—among these great doctrines surely we Christians shall not +refuse a foremost place to Christianity. Such previously to the +determination of the fact, must be our anticipation concerning it from a +contemplation of its initial achievements.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>It may be objected that its inspired documents at once determine the +limits of its mission without further trouble; but ideas are in the +writer and reader of the revelation, not the inspired text itself: and +the question is whether those ideas which the letter conveys from writer +to reader, reach the reader at once in their completeness and accuracy +on his first perception of them, or whether they open out in his +intellect and grow to perfection in the course of time. Nor could it +surely be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the New +Testament, or of any assignable number of books, comprises a delineation +of all possible <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>forms which a divine message will assume when submitted +to a multitude of minds.</p> + +<p>Nor is the case altered by supposing that inspiration provided in behalf +of the first recipients of the Revelation, what the Divine Fiat effected +for herbs and plants in the beginning, which were created in maturity. +Still, the time at length came, when its recipients ceased to be +inspired; and on these recipients the revealed truths would fall, as in +other cases, at first vaguely and generally, though in spirit and in +truth, and would afterwards be completed by developments.</p> + +<p>Nor can it fairly be made a difficulty that thus to treat of +Christianity is to level it in some sort to sects and doctrines of the +world, and to impute to it the imperfections which characterize the +productions of man. Certainly it is a sort of degradation of a divine +work to consider it under an earthly form; but it is no irreverence, +since our Lord Himself, its Author and Guardian, bore one also. +Christianity differs from other religions and philosophies, in what is +superadded to earth from heaven; not in kind, but in origin; not in its +nature, but in its personal characteristics; being informed and +quickened by what is more than intellect, by a divine spirit. It is +externally what the Apostle calls an "earthen vessel," being the +religion of men. And, considered as such, it grows "in wisdom and +stature;" but the powers which it wields, and the words which proceed +out of its mouth, attest its miraculous nativity.</p> + +<p>Unless then some special ground of exception can be assigned, it is as +evident that Christianity, as a doctrine and worship, will develope in +the minds of recipients, as that it conforms in other respects, in its +external propagation or its political framework, to the general methods +by which the course of things is carried forward.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>2. Again, if Christianity be an universal religion, suited not simply to +one locality or period, but to all times and places, it cannot but vary +in its relations and dealings towards the world around it, that is, it +will develope. Principles require a very various application according +as persons and circumstances vary, and must be thrown into new shapes +according to the form of society which they are to influence. Hence all +bodies of Christians, orthodox or not, develope the doctrines of +Scripture. Few but will grant that Luther's view of justification had +never been stated in words before his time: that his phraseology and his +positions were novel, whether called for by circumstances or not. It is +equally certain that the doctrine of justification defined at Trent was, +in some sense, new also. The refutation and remedy of errors cannot +precede their rise; and thus the fact of false developments or +corruptions involves the correspondent manifestation of true ones. +Moreover, all parties appeal to Scripture, that is, argue from +Scripture; but argument implies deduction, that is, development. Here +there is no difference between early times and late, between a Pope <i>ex +cathedrâ</i> and an individual Protestant, except that their authority is +not on a par. On either side the claim of authority is the same, and the +process of development.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, the common complaint of Protestants against the Church of +Rome is, not simply that she has added to the primitive or the +Scriptural doctrine, (for this they do themselves,) but that she +contradicts it, and moreover imposes her additions as fundamental truths +under sanction of an anathema. For themselves they deduce by quite as +subtle a method, and act upon doctrines as implicit and on reasons as +little analyzed in time past, as Catholic schoolmen. What prominence has +the Royal Supremacy in the New <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>Testament, or the lawfulness of bearing +arms, or the duty of public worship, or the substitution of the first +day of the week for the seventh, or infant baptism, to say nothing of +the fundamental principle that the Bible and the Bible only is the +religion of Protestants? These doctrines and usages, true or not, which +is not the question here, are surely not gained by the direct use and +immediate application of Scripture, nor by a mere exercise of argument +upon words and sentences placed before the eyes, but by the unconscious +growth of ideas suggested by the letter and habitual to the mind.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>3. And, indeed, when we turn to the consideration of particular +doctrines on which Scripture lays the greatest stress, we shall see that +it is absolutely impossible for them to remain in the mere letter of +Scripture, if they are to be more than mere words, and to convey a +definite idea to the recipient. When it is declared that "the Word +became flesh," three wide questions open upon us on the very +announcement. What is meant by "the Word," what by "flesh," what by +"became"? The answers to these involve a process of investigation, and +are developments. Moreover, when they have been made, they will suggest +a series of secondary questions; and thus at length a multitude of +propositions is the result, which gather round the inspired sentence of +which they come, giving it externally the form of a doctrine, and +creating or deepening the idea of it in the mind.</p> + +<p>It is true that, so far as such statements of Scripture are mysteries, +they are relatively to us but words, and cannot be developed. But as a +mystery implies in part what is incomprehensible or at least unknown, so +does it in part imply what is not so; it implies a partial +manifestation, or a representation by economy. Because then <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>it is in a +measure understood, it can so far be developed, though each result in +the process will partake of the dimness and confusion of the original +impression.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>4. This moreover should be considered,—that great questions exist in +the subject-matter of which Scripture treats, which Scripture does not +solve; questions too so real, so practical, that they must be answered, +and, unless we suppose a new revelation, answered by means of the +revelation which we have, that is, by development. Such is the question +of the Canon of Scripture and its inspiration: that is, whether +Christianity depends upon a written document as Judaism;—if so, on what +writings and how many;—whether that document is self-interpreting, or +requires a comment, and whether any authoritative comment or commentator +is provided;—whether the revelation and the document are commensurate, +or the one outruns the other;—all these questions surely find no +solution on the surface of Scripture, nor indeed under the surface in +the case of most men, however long and diligent might be their study of +it. Nor were these difficulties settled by authority, as far as we know, +at the commencement of the religion; yet surely it is quite conceivable +that an Apostle might have dissipated them all in a few words, had +Divine Wisdom thought fit. But in matter of fact the decision has been +left to time, to the slow process of thought, to the influence of mind +upon mind, the issues of controversy, and the growth of opinion.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>To take another instance just now referred to:—if there was a point on +which a rule was desirable from the first, it was concerning the +religious duties under which Christian parents lay as regards their +children. It would be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>natural indeed in any Christian father, in the +absence of a rule, to bring his children for baptism; such in this +instance would be the practical development of his faith in Christ and +love for his offspring; still a development it is,—necessarily +required, yet, as far as we know, not provided for his need by direct +precept in the Revelation as originally given.</p> + +<p>Another very large field of thought, full of practical considerations, +yet, as far as our knowledge goes, but only partially occupied by any +Apostolical judgment, is that which the question of the effects of +Baptism opens upon us. That they who came in repentance and faith to +that Holy Sacrament received remission of sins, is undoubtedly the +doctrine of the Apostles; but is there any means of a second remission +for sins committed after it? St. Paul's Epistles, where we might expect +an answer to our inquiry, contain no explicit statement on the subject; +what they do plainly say does not diminish the difficulty:—viz., first, +that baptism is intended for the pardon of sins before it, not in +prospect; next, that those who have received the gift of Baptism in fact +live in a state of holiness, not of sin. How do statements such as these +meet the actual state of the Church as we see it at this day?</p> + +<p>Considering that it was expressly predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven, +like the fisher's net, should gather of every kind, and that the tares +should grow with the wheat until the harvest, a graver and more +practical question cannot be imagined than that which it has pleased the +Divine Author of the Revelation to leave undecided, unless indeed there +be means given in that Revelation of its own growth or development. As +far as the letter goes of the inspired message, every one who holds that +Scripture is the rule of faith, as all Protestants do, must allow that +"there is not one of us but has exceeded by transgression its revealed +Ritual, and finds himself in consequence <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>thrown upon those infinite +resources of Divine Love which are stored in Christ, but have not been +drawn out into form in the appointments of the Gospel."<a name="FNanchor_62:1_39" id="FNanchor_62:1_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_62:1_39" class="fnanchor">[62:1]</a> Since then +Scripture needs completion, the question is brought to this issue, +whether defect or inchoateness in its doctrines be or be not an +antecedent probability in favour of a development of them.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>There is another subject, though not so immediately practical, on which +Scripture does not, strictly speaking, keep silence, but says so little +as to require, and so much as to suggest, information beyond its +letter,—the intermediate state between death and the Resurrection. +Considering the long interval which separates Christ's first and second +coming, the millions of faithful souls who are waiting it out, and the +intimate concern which every Christian has in the determination of its +character, it might have been expected that Scripture would have spoken +explicitly concerning it, whereas in fact its notices are but brief and +obscure. We might indeed have argued that this silence of Scripture was +intentional, with a view of discouraging speculations upon the subject, +except for the circumstance that, as in the question of our +post-baptismal state, its teaching seems to proceed upon an hypothesis +inapplicable to the state of the Church after the time when it was +delivered. As Scripture contemplates Christians, not as backsliders, but +as saints, so does it apparently represent the Day of Judgment as +immediate, and the interval of expectation as evanescent. It leaves on +our minds the general impression that Christ was returning on earth at +once, "the time short," worldly engagements superseded by "the present +distress," persecutors urgent, Christians, as a body, sinless and +expectant, without home, without plan for the future, looking up to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>heaven. But outward circumstances have changed, and with the change, a +different application of the revealed word has of necessity been +demanded, that is, a development. When the nations were converted and +offences abounded, then the Church came out to view, on the one hand as +a temporal establishment, on the other as a remedial system, and +passages of Scripture aided and directed the development which before +were of inferior account. Hence the doctrine of Penance as the +complement of Baptism, and of Purgatory as the explanation of the +Intermediate State. So reasonable is this expansion of the original +creed, that, when some ten years since the true doctrine of Baptism was +expounded among us without any mention of Penance, our teacher was +accused by many of us of Novatianism; while, on the other hand, +heterodox divines have before now advocated the doctrine of the sleep of +the soul because they said it was the only successful preventive of +belief in Purgatory.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>Thus developments of Christianity are proved to have been in the +contemplation of its Divine Author, by an argument parallel to that by +which we infer intelligence in the system of the physical world. In +whatever sense the need and its supply are a proof of design in the +visible creation, in the same do the gaps, if the word may be used, +which occur in the structure of the original creed of the Church, make +it probable that those developments, which grow out of the truths which +lie around it, were intended to fill them up.</p> + +<p>Nor can it be fairly objected that in thus arguing we are contradicting +the great philosopher, who tells us, that "upon supposition of God +affording us light and instruction by revelation, additional to what He +has afforded us by reason and experience, we are in no sort judges by +what <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>methods, and in what proportion, it were to be expected that this +supernatural light and instruction would be afforded us,"<a name="FNanchor_64:1_40" id="FNanchor_64:1_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_64:1_40" class="fnanchor">[64:1]</a> because +he is speaking of our judging before a revelation is given. He observes +that "we have no principles of reason upon which to judge <i>beforehand</i>, +how it were to be expected Revelation should have been left, or what was +most suitable to the divine plan of government," in various respects; +but the case is altogether altered when a Revelation is vouchsafed, for +then a new precedent, or what he calls "principle of reason," is +introduced, and from what is actually put into our hands we can form a +judgment whether more is to be expected. Butler, indeed, as a well-known +passage of his work shows, is far from denying the principle of +progressive development.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>5. The method of revelation observed in Scripture abundantly confirms +this anticipation. For instance, Prophecy, if it had so happened, need +not have afforded a specimen of development; separate predictions might +have been made to accumulate as time went on, prospects might have +opened, definite knowledge might have been given, by communications +independent of each other, as St. John's Gospel or the Epistles of St. +Paul are unconnected with the first three Gospels, though the doctrine +of each Apostle is a development of their matter. But the prophetic +Revelation is, in matter of fact, not of this nature, but a process of +development: the earlier prophecies are pregnant texts out of which the +succeeding announcements grow; they are types. It is not that first one +truth is told, then another; but the whole truth or large portions of it +are told at once, yet only in their rudiments, or in miniature, and they +are expanded and finished in their parts, as the course of revelation +proceeds.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +The Seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; the sceptre was +not to depart from Judah till Shiloh came, to whom was to be the +gathering of the people. He was to be Wonderful, Counsellor, the Prince +of Peace. The question of the Ethiopian rises in the reader's mind, "Of +whom speaketh the Prophet this?" Every word requires a comment. +Accordingly, it is no uncommon theory with unbelievers, that the +Messianic idea, as they call it, was gradually developed in the minds of +the Jews by a continuous and traditional habit of contemplating it, and +grew into its full proportions by a mere human process; and so far seems +certain, without trenching on the doctrine of inspiration, that the +books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are developments of the writings of +the Prophets, expressed or elicited by means of current ideas in the +Greek philosophy, and ultimately adopted and ratified by the Apostle in +his Epistle to the Hebrews.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>But the whole Bible, not its prophetical portions only, is written on +the principle of development. As the Revelation proceeds, it is ever +new, yet ever old. St. John, who completes it, declares that he writes +no "new commandment unto his brethren," but an old commandment which +they "had from the beginning." And then he adds, "A new commandment I +write unto you." The same test of development is suggested in our Lord's +words on the Mount, as has already been noticed, "Think not that I am +come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I am not come to destroy, but +to fulfil." He does not reverse, but perfect, what has gone before. Thus +with respect to the evangelical view of the rite of sacrifice, first the +rite is enjoined by Moses; next Samuel says, "to obey is better than +sacrifice;" then Hosea, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice;" Isaiah, +"Incense is an <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>abomination onto me;" then Malachi, describing the times +of the Gospel, speaks of the "pure offering" of wheatflour; and our Lord +completes the development, when He speaks of worshipping "in spirit and +in truth." If there is anything here left to explain, it will be found +in the usage of the Christian Church immediately afterwards, which shows +that sacrifice was not removed, but truth and spirit added.</p> + +<p>Nay, the <i>effata</i> of our Lord and His Apostles are of a typical +structure, parallel to the prophetic announcements above mentioned, and +predictions as well as injunctions of doctrine. If then the prophetic +sentences have had that development which has really been given them, +first by succeeding revelations, and then by the event, it is probable +antecedently that those doctrinal, political, ritual, and ethical +sentences, which have the same structure, should admit the same +expansion. Such are, "This is My Body," or "Thou art Peter, and upon +this Rock I will build My Church," or "The meek shall inherit the +earth," or "Suffer little children to come unto Me," or "The pure in +heart shall see God."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>On this character of our Lord's teaching, the following passage may +suitably be quoted from a writer already used. "His recorded words and +works when on earth . . . come to us as the declarations of a Lawgiver. In +the Old Covenant, Almighty God first of all spoke the Ten Commandments +from Mount Sinai, and afterwards wrote them. So our Lord first spoke His +own Gospel, both of promise and of precept, on the Mount, and His +Evangelists have recorded it. Further, when He delivered it, He spoke by +way of parallel to the Ten Commandments. And His style, moreover, +corresponds to the authority which He assumes. It is of that solemn, +measured, and severe character, which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>bears on the face of it tokens of +its belonging to One who spake as none other man could speak. The +Beatitudes, with which His Sermon opens, are an instance of this +incommunicable style, which befitted, as far as human words could befit, +God Incarnate.</p> + +<p>"Nor is this style peculiar to the Sermon on the Mount. All through the +Gospels it is discernible, distinct from any other part of Scripture, +showing itself in solemn declarations, canons, sentences, or sayings, +such as legislators propound, and scribes and lawyers comment on. Surely +everything our Saviour did and said is characterized by mingled +simplicity and mystery. His emblematical actions, His typical miracles, +His parables, His replies, His censures, all are evidences of a +legislature in germ, afterwards to be developed, a code of divine truth +which was ever to be before men's eyes, to be the subject of +investigation and interpretation, and the guide in controversy. 'Verily, +verily, I say unto you,'—'But, I say unto you,'—are the tokens of a +supreme Teacher and Prophet.</p> + +<p>"And thus the Fathers speak of His teaching. 'His sayings,' observes St. +Justin, 'were short and concise; for He was no rhetorician, but His word +was the power of God.' And St. Basil, in like manner, 'Every deed and +every word of our Saviour Jesus Christ is a canon of piety and virtue. +When then thou hearest word or deed of His, do not hear it as by the +way, or after a simple and carnal manner, but enter into the depth of +His contemplations, become a communicant in truths mystically delivered +to thee.'"<a name="FNanchor_67:1_41" id="FNanchor_67:1_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_67:1_41" class="fnanchor">[67:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>Moreover, while it is certain that developments of Revelation proceeded +all through the Old Dispensation <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>down to the very end of our Lord's +ministry, on the other hand, if we turn our attention to the beginnings +of Apostolical teaching after His ascension, we shall find ourselves +unable to fix an historical point at which the growth of doctrine +ceased, and the rule of faith was once for all settled. Not on the day +of Pentecost, for St. Peter had still to learn at Joppa that he was to +baptize Cornelius; not at Joppa and Cæsarea, for St. Paul had to write +his Epistles; not on the death of the last Apostle, for St. Ignatius had +to establish the doctrine of Episcopacy; not then, nor for centuries +after, for the Canon of the New Testament was still undetermined. Not in +the Creed, which is no collection of definitions, but a summary of +certain <i>credenda</i>, an incomplete summary, and, like the Lord's Prayer +or the Decalogue, a mere sample of divine truths, especially of the more +elementary. No one doctrine can be named which starts complete at first, +and gains nothing afterwards from the investigations of faith and the +attacks of heresy. The Church went forth from the old world in haste, as +the Israelites from Egypt "with their dough before it was leavened, +their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their +shoulders."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">13.</p> + +<p>Further, the political developments contained in the historical parts of +Scripture are as striking as the prophetical and the doctrinal. Can any +history wear a more human appearance than that of the rise and growth of +the chosen people to whom I have just referred? What had been determined +in the counsels of the Lord of heaven and earth from the beginning, what +was immutable, what was announced to Moses in the burning bush, is +afterwards represented as the growth of an idea under successive +emergencies. The Divine Voice in the bush had announced the Exodus of +the children of Israel from Egypt and their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>entrance into Canaan; and +added, as a token of the certainty of His purpose, "When thou hast +brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this +mountain." Now this sacrifice or festival, which was but incidental and +secondary in the great deliverance, is for a while the ultimate scope of +the demands which Moses makes upon Pharaoh. "Thou shalt come, thou and +the elders of Israel unto the King of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, +The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we +beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may +sacrifice to the Lord our God." It had been added that Pharaoh would +first refuse their request, but that after miracles he would let them go +altogether, nay with "jewels of silver and gold, and raiment."</p> + +<p>Accordingly the first request of Moses was, "Let us go, we pray thee, +three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our +God." Before the plague of frogs the warning is repeated, "Let My people +go that they may serve Me;" and after it Pharaoh says, "I will let the +people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord." It occurs again +before the plague of flies; and after it Pharaoh offers to let the +Israelites sacrifice in Egypt, which Moses refuses on the ground that +they will have to "sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before +their eyes." "We will go three days' journey into the wilderness," he +proceeds, "and sacrifice to the Lord our God;" and Pharaoh then concedes +their sacrificing in the wilderness, "only," he says, "you shall not go +very far away." The demand is repeated separately before the plagues of +murrain, hail, and locusts, no mention being yet made of anything beyond +a service or sacrifice in the wilderness. On the last of these +interviews, Pharaoh asks an explanation, and Moses extends his claim: +"We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go, for we must +hold a feast unto the Lord." That it was an extension seems plain from +Pharaoh's reply: "Go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord, for that +ye did desire." Upon the plague of darkness Pharaoh concedes the +extended demand, excepting the flocks and herds; but Moses reminds him +that they were implied, though not expressed in the original wording: +"Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may +sacrifice unto the Lord our God." Even to the last, there was no +intimation of their leaving Egypt for good; the issue was left to be +wrought out by the Egyptians. "All these thy servants," says Moses, +"shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get +thee out and all the people that follow thee, and after that I will go +out;" and, accordingly, after the judgment on the first-born, they were +thrust out at midnight, with their flocks and herds, their kneading +troughs and their dough, laden, too, with the spoils of Egypt, as had +been fore-ordained, yet apparently by a combination of circumstances, or +the complication of a crisis. Yet Moses knew that their departure from +Egypt was final, for he took the bones of Joseph with him; and that +conviction broke on Pharaoh soon, when he and his asked themselves, "Why +have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?" But this +progress of events, vague and uncertain as it seemed to be, +notwithstanding the miracles which attended it, had been directed by Him +who works out gradually what He has determined absolutely; and it ended +in the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host, on +his pursuing them.</p> + +<p>Moreover, from what occurred forty years afterwards, when they were +advancing upon the promised land, it would seem that the original grant +of territory did not include the country east of Jordan, held in the +event by <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh; at least they +undertook at first to leave Sihon in undisturbed possession of his +country, if he would let them pass through it, and only on his refusing +his permission did they invade and appropriate it.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">14.</p> + +<p>6. It is in point to notice also the structure and style of Scripture, a +structure so unsystematic and various, and a style so figurative and +indirect, that no one would presume at first sight to say what is in it +and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents +catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to +the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with +heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our +path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. +Of no doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has +been delivered, can it be peremptorily asserted that it is not in +Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said +that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains. Butler's remarks +on this subject were just now referred to. "The more distinct and +particular knowledge," he says, "of those things, the study of which the +Apostle calls 'going on unto perfection,'" that is, of the more +recondite doctrines of the Gospel, "and of the prophetic parts of +revelation, like many parts of natural and even civil knowledge, may +require very exact thought and careful consideration. The hindrances too +of natural and of supernatural light and knowledge have been of the same +kind. And as it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet +understood, so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the +'restitution of all things,' and without miraculous interpositions, it +must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at, by the +continuance and progress of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>learning and of liberty, and by particular +persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up +and down it, which are overlooked and disregarded by the generality of +the world. For this is the way in which all improvements are made, by +thoughtful men tracing on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by +nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds by chance. Nor +is it at all incredible that a book, which has been so long in the +possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered. +For all the same phenomena, and the same faculties of investigation, +from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have been made in +the present and last age, were equally in the possession of mankind +several thousand years before. And possibly it might be intended that +events, as they come to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of +several parts of Scripture."<a name="FNanchor_72:1_42" id="FNanchor_72:1_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_72:1_42" class="fnanchor">[72:1]</a> Butler of course was not +contemplating the case of new articles of faith, or developments +imperative on our acceptance, but he surely bears witness to the +probability of developments taking place in Christian doctrine +considered in themselves, which is the point at present in question.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">15.</p> + +<p>It may be added that, in matter of fact, all the definitions or received +judgments of the early and medieval Church rest upon definite, even +though sometimes obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus Purgatory may +appeal to the "saving by fire," and "entering through much tribulation +into the kingdom of God;" the communication of the merits of the Saints +to our "receiving a prophet's reward" for "receiving a prophet in the +name of a prophet," and "a righteous man's reward" for "receiving a +righteous man in the name of a righteous man;" the Real Presence to +"This is My Body;" Absolution to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are +remitted;" Extreme Unction to "Anointing him with oil in the Name of the +Lord;" Voluntary poverty to "Sell all that thou hast;" obedience to "He +was in subjection to His parents;" the honour paid to creatures, animate +or inanimate, to <i>Laudate Dominum in sanctis Ejus</i>, and <i>Adorate +scabellum pedum Ejus</i>; and so of the rest.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">16.</p> + +<p>7. Lastly, while Scripture nowhere recognizes itself or asserts the +inspiration of those passages which are most essential, it distinctly +anticipates the development of Christianity, both as a polity and as a +doctrine. In one of our Lord's parables "the Kingdom of Heaven" is even +compared to "a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and hid in his +field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it +is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree," and, as St. Mark +words it, "shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air +come and lodge in the branches thereof." And again, in the same chapter +of St. Mark, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed +into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed +should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how; for the earth bringeth +forth fruit of herself." Here an internal element of life, whether +principle or doctrine, is spoken of rather than any mere external +manifestation; and it is observable that the spontaneous, as well as the +gradual, character of the growth is intimated. This description of the +process corresponds to what has been above observed respecting +development, viz. that it is not an effect of wishing and resolving, or +of forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism of reasoning, or of any mere +subtlety of intellect; but comes of its own innate power of expansion +within the mind in its season, though with the use of reflection and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>argument and original thought, more or less as it may happen, with a +dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself, and with a reflex +influence upon it. Again, the Parable of the Leaven describes the +development of doctrine in another respect, in its active, engrossing, +and interpenetrating power.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">17.</p> + +<p>From the necessity, then, of the case, from the history of all sects and +parties in religion, and from the analogy and example of Scripture, we +may fairly conclude that Christian doctrine admits of formal, +legitimate, and true developments, that is, of developments contemplated +by its Divine Author.</p> + +<p>The general analogy of the world, physical and moral, confirms this +conclusion, as we are reminded by the great authority who has already +been quoted in the course of this Section. "The whole natural world and +government of it," says Butler, "is a scheme or system; not a fixed, but +a progressive one; a scheme in which the operation of various means +takes up a great length of time before the ends they tend to can be +attained. The change of seasons, the ripening of the fruits of the +earth, the very history of a flower is an instance of this; and so is +human life. Thus vegetable bodies, and those of animals, though possibly +formed at once, yet grow up by degrees to a mature state. And thus +rational agents, who animate these latter bodies, are naturally directed +to form each his own manners and character by the gradual gaining of +knowledge and experience, and by a long course of action. Our existence +is not only successive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our +life and being is appointed by God to be a preparation for another; and +that to be the means of attaining to another succeeding one: infancy to +childhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>Men are impatient, +and for precipitating things; but the Author of Nature appears +deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by +slow successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid +out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as +well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts +into execution. Thus, in the daily course of natural providence, God +operates in the very same manner as in the dispensation of Christianity, +making one thing subservient to another; this, to somewhat farther; and +so on, through a progressive series of means, which extend, both +backward and forward, beyond our utmost view. Of this manner of +operation, everything we see in the course of nature is as much an +instance as any part of the Christian dispensation."<a name="FNanchor_75:1_43" id="FNanchor_75:1_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_75:1_43" class="fnanchor">[75:1]</a></p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION II.</h4> + +<h5>AN INFALLIBLE DEVELOPING AUTHORITY TO BE EXPECTED.</h5> + +<p>It has now been made probable that developments of Christianity were but +natural, as time went on, and were to be expected; and that these +natural and true developments, as being natural and true, were of course +contemplated and taken into account by its Author, who in designing the +work designed its legitimate results. These, whatever they turn out to +be, may be called absolutely "the developments" of Christianity. That, +beyond reasonable doubt, there are such is surely a great step gained in +the inquiry; it is a momentous fact. The next question is, <i>What</i> are +they? and to a theologian, who could take a general view, and also +possessed an intimate and minute <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>knowledge, of its history, they would +doubtless on the whole be easily distinguishable by their own +characters, and require no foreign aid to point them out, no external +authority to ratify them. But it is difficult to say who is exactly in +this position. Considering that Christians, from the nature of the case, +live under the bias of the doctrines, and in the very midst of the +facts, and during the process of the controversies, which are to be the +subject of criticism, since they are exposed to the prejudices of birth, +education, place, personal attachment, engagements, and party, it can +hardly be maintained that in matter of fact a true development carries +with it always its own certainty even to the learned, or that history, +past or present, is secure from the possibility of a variety of +interpretations.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>I have already spoken on this subject, and from a very different point +of view from that which I am taking at present:—</p> + +<p>"Prophets or Doctors are the interpreters of the revelation; they unfold +and define its mysteries, they illuminate its documents, they harmonize +its contents, they apply its promises. Their teaching is a vast system, +not to be comprised in a few sentences, not to be embodied in one code +or treatise, but consisting of a certain body of Truth, pervading the +Church like an atmosphere, irregular in its shape from its very +profusion and exuberance; at times separable only in idea from Episcopal +Tradition, yet at times melting away into legend and fable; partly +written, partly unwritten, partly the interpretation, partly the +supplement of Scripture, partly preserved in intellectual expressions, +partly latent in the spirit and temper of Christians; poured to and fro +in closets and upon the housetops, in liturgies, in controversial works, +in obscure fragments, in sermons, in popular prejudices, in local +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>customs. This I call Prophetical Tradition, existing primarily in the +bosom of the Church itself, and recorded in such measure as Providence +has determined in the writings of eminent men. Keep that which is +committed to thy charge, is St. Paul's injunction to Timothy; and for +this reason, because from its vastness and indefiniteness it is +especially exposed to corruption, if the Church fails in vigilance. This +is that body of teaching which is offered to all Christians even at the +present day, though in various forms and measures of truth, in different +parts of Christendom, partly being a comment, partly an addition upon +the articles of the Creed."<a name="FNanchor_77:1_44" id="FNanchor_77:1_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_77:1_44" class="fnanchor">[77:1]</a></p> + +<p>If this be true, certainly some rule is necessary for arranging and +authenticating these various expressions and results of Christian +doctrine. No one will maintain that all points of belief are of equal +importance. "There are what may be called minor points, which we may +hold to be true without imposing them as necessary;" "there are greater +truths and lesser truths, points which it is necessary, and points which +it is pious to believe."<a name="FNanchor_77:2_45" id="FNanchor_77:2_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_77:2_45" class="fnanchor">[77:2]</a> The simple question is, How are we to +discriminate the greater from the less, the true from the false.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>This need of an authoritative sanction is increased by considering, +after M. Guizot's suggestion, that Christianity, though represented in +prophecy as a kingdom, came into the world as an idea rather than an +institution, and has had to wrap itself in clothing and fit itself with +armour of its own providing, and to form the instruments and methods of +its prosperity and warfare. If the developments, which have above been +called <i>moral</i>, are to take place to any great extent, and without them +it is difficult to see how Christianity can exist at all, if only its +relations towards civil <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>government have to be ascertained, or the +qualifications for the profession of it have to be defined, surely an +authority is necessary to impart decision to what is vague, and +confidence to what is empirical, to ratify the successive steps of so +elaborate a process, and to secure the validity of inferences which are +to be made the premisses of more remote investigations.</p> + +<p>Tests, it is true, for ascertaining the correctness of developments in +general may be drawn out, as I shall show in the sequel; but they are +insufficient for the guidance of individuals in the case of so large and +complicated a problem as Christianity, though they may aid our inquiries +and support our conclusions in particular points. They are of a +scientific and controversial, not of a practical character, and are +instruments rather than warrants of right decisions. Moreover, they +rather serve as answers to objections brought against the actual +decisions of authority, than are proofs of the correctness of those +decisions. While, then, on the one hand, it is probable that some means +will be granted for ascertaining the legitimate and true developments of +Revelation, it appears, on the other, that these means must of necessity +be external to the developments themselves.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Reasons shall be given in this Section for concluding that, in +proportion to the probability of true developments of doctrine and +practice in the Divine Scheme, so is the probability also of the +appointment in that scheme of an external authority to decide upon them, +thereby separating them from the mass of mere human speculation, +extravagance, corruption, and error, in and out of which they grow. This +is the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church; for by infallibility +I suppose is meant the power <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>of deciding whether this, that, and a +third, and any number of theological or ethical statements are true.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>1. Let the state of the case be carefully considered. If the Christian +doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and important +developments, as was argued in the foregoing Section, this is a strong +antecedent argument in favour of a provision in the Dispensation for +putting a seal of authority upon those developments. The probability of +their being known to be true varies with that of their truth. The two +ideas indeed are quite distinct, I grant, of revealing and of +guaranteeing a truth, and they are often distinct in fact. There are +various revelations all over the earth which do not carry with them the +evidence of their divinity. Such are the inward suggestions and secret +illuminations granted to so many individuals; such are the traditionary +doctrines which are found among the heathen, that "vague and unconnected +family of religious truths, originally from God, but sojourning, without +the sanction of miracle or a definite home, as pilgrims up and down the +world, and discernible and separable from the corrupt legends with which +they are mixed, by the spiritual mind alone."<a name="FNanchor_79:1_46" id="FNanchor_79:1_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_79:1_46" class="fnanchor">[79:1]</a> There is nothing +impossible in the notion of a revelation occurring without evidences +that it is a revelation; just as human sciences are a divine gift, yet +are reached by our ordinary powers and have no claim on our faith. But +Christianity is not of this nature: it is a revelation which comes to us +as a revelation, as a whole, objectively, and with a profession of +infallibility; and the only question to be determined relates to the +matter of the revelation. If then there are certain great truths, or +duties, or observances, naturally and legitimately resulting from the +doctrines originally professed, it is but reasonable to include <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>these +true results in the idea of the revelation itself, to consider them +parts of it, and if the revelation be not only true, but guaranteed as +true, to anticipate that they too will come under the privilege of that +guarantee. Christianity, unlike other revelations of God's will, except +the Jewish, of which it is a continuation, is an objective religion, or +a revelation with credentials; it is natural, I say, to view it wholly +as such, and not partly <i>sui generis</i>, partly like others. Such as it +begins, such let it be considered to continue; granting that certain +large developments of it are true, they must surely be accredited as +true.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>2. An objection, however, is often made to the doctrine of infallibility +<i>in limine</i>, which is too important not to be taken into consideration. +It is urged that, as all religious knowledge rests on moral evidence, +not on demonstration, our belief in the Church's infallibility must be +of this character; but what can be more absurd than a probable +infallibility, or a certainty resting on doubt?—I believe, because I am +sure; and I am sure, because I suppose. Granting then that the gift of +infallibility be adapted, when believed, to unite all intellects in one +common confession, the fact that it is given is as difficult of proof as +the developments which it is to prove, and nugatory therefore, and in +consequence improbable in a Divine Scheme. The advocates of Rome, it has +been urged, "insist on the necessity of an infallible guide in religious +matters, as an argument that such a guide has really been accorded. Now +it is obvious to inquire how individuals are to know with certainty that +Rome <i>is</i> infallible . . . how any ground can be such as to bring home +to the mind infallibly that she is infallible; what conceivable proof +amounts to more than a probability of the fact; and what advantage is an +infallible guide, if those who are to be guided have, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>after all, no +more than an opinion, as the Romanists call it, that she is +infallible?"<a name="FNanchor_81:1_47" id="FNanchor_81:1_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_81:1_47" class="fnanchor">[81:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>This argument, however, except when used, as is intended in this +passage, against such persons as would remove all imperfection in the +proof of Religion, is certainly a fallacious one. For since, as all +allow, the Apostles were infallible, it tells against their +infallibility, or the infallibility of Scripture, as truly as against +the infallibility of the Church; for no one will say that the Apostles +were made infallible for nothing, yet we are only morally certain that +they were infallible. Further, if we have but probable grounds for the +Church's infallibility, we have but the like for the impossibility of +certain things, the necessity of others, the truth, the certainty of +others; and therefore the words <i>infallibility</i>, <i>necessity</i>, <i>truth</i>, +and <i>certainty</i> ought all of them to be banished from the language. But +why is it more inconsistent to speak of an uncertain infallibility than +of a doubtful truth or a contingent necessity, phrases which present +ideas clear and undeniable? In sooth we are playing with words when we +use arguments of this sort. When we say that a person is infallible, we +mean no more than that what he says is always true, always to be +believed, always to be done. The term is resolvable into these phrases +as its equivalents; either then the phrases are inadmissible, or the +idea of infallibility must be allowed. A probable infallibility is a +probable gift of never erring; a reception of the doctrine of a probable +infallibility is faith and obedience towards a person founded on the +probability of his never erring in his declarations or commands. What is +inconsistent in this idea? Whatever then be the particular means of +determining infallibility, the abstract objection may be put +aside.<a name="FNanchor_81:2_48" id="FNanchor_81:2_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_81:2_48" class="fnanchor">[81:2]</a></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>3. Again, it is sometimes argued that such a dispensation would destroy +our probation, as dissipating doubt, precluding the exercise of faith, +and obliging us to obey whether we wish it or no; and it is urged that a +Divine Voice spoke in the first age, and difficulty and darkness rest +upon all subsequent ones; as if infallibility and personal judgment were +incompatible; but this is to confuse the subject. We must distinguish +between a revelation and a reception of it, not between its earlier and +later stages. A revelation, in itself divine, and guaranteed as such, +may from first to last be received, doubted, argued against, perverted, +rejected, by individuals according to the state of mind of each. +Ignorance, misapprehension, unbelief, and other causes, do not at once +cease to operate because the revelation is in itself true and in its +proofs irrefragable. We have then no warrant at all for saying that an +accredited revelation will exclude the existence of doubts and +difficulties on the part of those whom it addresses, or dispense with +anxious diligence on their part, though it may in its <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>own nature tend +to do so. Infallibility does not interfere with moral probation; the two +notions are absolutely distinct. It is no objection then to the idea of +a peremptory authority, such as I am supposing, that it lessens the task +of personal inquiry, unless it be an objection to the authority of +Revelation altogether. A Church, or a Council, or a Pope, or a Consent +of Doctors, or a Consent of Christendom, limits the inquiries of the +individual in no other way than Scripture limits them: it does limit +them; but, while it limits their range, it preserves intact their +probationary character; we are tried as really, though not on so large a +field. To suppose that the doctrine of a permanent authority in matters +of faith interferes with our free-will and responsibility is, as before, +to forget that there were infallible teachers in the first age, and +heretics and schismatics in the ages subsequent. There may have been at +once a supreme authority from first to last, and a moral judgment from +first to last. Moreover, those who maintain that Christian truth must be +gained solely by personal efforts are bound to show that methods, +ethical and intellectual, are granted to individuals sufficient for +gaining it; else the mode of probation they advocate is less, not more, +perfect than that which proceeds upon external authority. On the whole, +then, no argument against continuing the principle of objectiveness into +the developments of Revelation arises out of the conditions of our moral +responsibility.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>4. Perhaps it will be urged that the Analogy of Nature is against our +anticipating the continuance of an external authority which has once +been given; because in the words of the profound thinker who has already +been cited, "We are wholly ignorant what degree of new knowledge it were +to be expected God would give mankind by revelation, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>upon supposition +of His affording one; or how far, and in what way, He would interpose +miraculously to qualify them to whom He should originally make the +revelation for communicating the knowledge given by it, and to secure +their doing it to the age in which they should live, and to secure its +being transmitted to posterity;" and because "we are not in any sort +able to judge whether it were to be expected that the revelation should +have been committed to writing, or left to be handed down, and +consequently corrupted, by verbal tradition, and at length sunk under +it."<a name="FNanchor_84:1_49" id="FNanchor_84:1_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_84:1_49" class="fnanchor">[84:1]</a> But this reasoning does not apply here, as has already been +observed; it contemplates only the abstract hypothesis of a revelation, +not the fact of an existing revelation of a particular kind, which may +of course in various ways modify our state of knowledge, by settling +some of those very points which, before it was given, we had no means of +deciding. Nor can it, as I think, be fairly denied that the argument +from analogy in one point of view tells against anticipating a +revelation at all, for an innovation upon the physical order of the +world is by the very force of the terms inconsistent with its ordinary +course. We cannot then regulate our antecedent view of the character of +a revelation by a test which, applied simply, overthrows the very notion +of a revelation altogether. Any how, Analogy is in some sort violated by +the fact of a revelation, and the question before us only relates to the +extent of that violation.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>I will hazard a distinction here between the facts of revelation and its +principles:—the argument from Analogy is more concerned with its +principles than with its facts. The revealed facts are special and +singular, not analogous, from the nature of the case: but it is +otherwise with the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>revealed principles; these are common to all the +works of God: and if the Author of Nature be the Author of Grace, it may +be expected that, while the two systems of facts are distinct and +independent, the principles displayed in them will be the same, and form +a connecting link between them. In this identity of principle lies the +Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, in Butler's sense of the word. +The doctrine of the Incarnation is a fact, and cannot be paralleled by +anything in nature; the doctrine of Mediation is a principle, and is +abundantly exemplified in its provisions. Miracles are facts; +inspiration is a fact; divine teaching once for all, and a continual +teaching, are each a fact; probation by means of intellectual +difficulties is a principle both in nature and in grace, and may be +carried on in the system of grace either by a standing ordinance of +teaching or by one definite act of teaching, and that with an analogy +equally perfect in either case to the order of nature; nor can we +succeed in arguing from the analogy of that order against a standing +guardianship of revelation without arguing also against its original +bestowal. Supposing the order of nature once broken by the introduction +of a revelation, the continuance of that revelation is but a question of +degree; and the circumstance that a work has begun makes it more +probable than not that it will proceed. We have no reason to suppose +that there is so great a distinction of dispensation between ourselves +and the first generation of Christians, as that they had a living +infallible guidance, and we have not.</p> + +<p>The case then stands thus:—Revelation has introduced a new law of +divine governance over and above those laws which appear in the natural +course of the world; and in consequence we are able to argue for the +existence of a standing authority in matters of faith on the analogy of +Nature, and from the fact of Christianity. Preservation is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>involved in +the idea of creation. As the Creator rested on the seventh day from the +work which He had made, yet He "worketh hitherto;" so He gave the Creed +once for all in the beginning, yet blesses its growth still, and +provides for its increase. His word "shall not return unto Him void, but +accomplish" His pleasure. As creation argues continual governance, so +are Apostles harbingers of Popes.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>5. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that, as the essence of all +religion is authority and obedience, so the distinction between natural +religion and revealed lies in this, that the one has a subjective +authority, and the other an objective. Revelation consists in the +manifestation of the Invisible Divine Power, or in the substitution of +the voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of conscience. The supremacy of +conscience is the essence of natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle, +or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed; and when such +external authority is taken away, the mind falls back again of necessity +upon that inward guide which it possessed even before Revelation was +vouchsafed. Thus, what conscience is in the system of nature, such is +the voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or of the Holy See, as we may +determine it, in the system of Revelation. It may be objected, indeed, +that conscience is not infallible; it is true, but still it is ever to +be obeyed. And this is just the prerogative which controversialists +assign to the See of St. Peter; it is not in all cases infallible, it +may err beyond its special province, but it has in all cases a claim on +our obedience. "All Catholics and heretics," says Bellarmine, "agree in +two things: first, that it is possible for the Pope, even as pope, and +with his own assembly of councillors, or with General Council, to err in +particular controversies of fact, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>which chiefly depend on human +information and testimony; secondly, that it is possible for him to err +as a private Doctor, even in universal questions of right, whether of +faith or of morals, and that from ignorance, as sometimes happens to +other doctors. Next, all Catholics agree in other two points, not, +however, with heretics, but solely with each other: first, that the Pope +with General Council cannot err, either in framing decrees of faith or +general precepts of morality; secondly, that the Pope when determining +anything in a doubtful matter, whether by himself or with his own +particular Council, <i>whether it is possible for him to err or not, is to +be obeyed</i> by all the faithful."<a name="FNanchor_87:1_50" id="FNanchor_87:1_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_87:1_50" class="fnanchor">[87:1]</a> And as obedience to conscience, +even supposing conscience ill-informed, tends to the improvement of our +moral nature, and ultimately of our knowledge, so obedience to our +ecclesiastical superior may subserve our growth in illumination and +sanctity, even though he should command what is extreme or inexpedient, +or teach what is external to his legitimate province.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>6. The common sense of mankind does but support a conclusion thus forced +upon us by analogical considerations. It feels that the very idea of +revelation implies a present informant and guide, and that an infallible +one; not a mere abstract declaration of Truths unknown before to man, or +a record of history, or the result of an antiquarian research, but a +message and a lesson speaking to this man and that. This is shown by the +popular notion which has prevailed among us since the Reformation, that +the Bible itself is such a guide; and which succeeded in overthrowing +the supremacy of Church and Pope, for the very reason <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>that it was a +rival authority, not resisting merely, but supplanting it. In +proportion, then, as we find, in matter of fact, that the inspired +Volume is not adapted or intended to subserve that purpose, are we +forced to revert to that living and present Guide, who, at the era of +our rejection of her, had been so long recognized as the dispenser of +Scripture, according to times and circumstances, and the arbiter of all +true doctrine and holy practice to her children. We feel a need, and she +alone of all things under heaven supplies it. We are told that God has +spoken. Where? In a book? We have tried it and it disappoints; it +disappoints us, that most holy and blessed gift, not from fault of its +own, but because it is used for a purpose for which it was not given. +The Ethiopian's reply, when St. Philip asked him if he understood what +he was reading, is the voice of nature: "How can I, unless some man +shall guide me?" The Church undertakes that office; she does what none +else can do, and this is the secret of her power. "The human mind," it +has been said, "wishes to be rid of doubt in religion; and a teacher who +claims infallibility is readily believed on his simple word. We see this +constantly exemplified in the case of individual pretenders among +ourselves. In Romanism the Church pretends to it; she rids herself of +competitors by forestalling them. And probably, in the eyes of her +children, this is not the least persuasive argument for her +infallibility, that she alone of all Churches dares claim it, as if a +secret instinct and involuntary misgivings restrained those rival +communions which go so far towards affecting it."<a name="FNanchor_88:1_51" id="FNanchor_88:1_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_88:1_51" class="fnanchor">[88:1]</a> These sentences, +whatever be the errors of their wording, surely express a great truth. +The most obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield to the +authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith, is, +that some authority there must be if there is a revelation given, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>other authority there is none but she. A revelation is not given, if +there be no authority to decide what it is that is given. In the words +of St. Peter to her Divine Master and Lord, "To whom shall we go?" Nor +must it be forgotten in confirmation, that Scripture expressly calls the +Church "the pillar and ground of the Truth," and promises her as by +covenant that "the Spirit of the Lord that is upon her, and His words +which He has put in her mouth shall not depart out of her mouth, nor out +of the mouth of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed's seed, from +henceforth and for ever."<a name="FNanchor_89:1_52" id="FNanchor_89:1_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_89:1_52" class="fnanchor">[89:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">13.</p> + +<p>7. And if the very claim to infallible arbitration in religious disputes +is of so weighty importance and interest in all ages of the world, much +more is it welcome at a time like the present, when the human intellect +is so busy, and thought so fertile, and opinion so manifold. The +absolute need of a spiritual supremacy is at present the strongest of +arguments in favour of the fact of its supply. Surely, either an +objective revelation has not been given, or it has been provided with +means for impressing its objectiveness on the world. If Christianity be +a social religion, as it certainly is, and if it be based on certain +ideas acknowledged as divine, or a creed, (which shall here be assumed,) +and if these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct impressions +on different minds, and issue in consequence in a multiplicity of +developments, true, or false, or mixed, as has been shown, what power +will suffice to meet and to do justice to these conflicting conditions, +but a supreme authority ruling and reconciling individual judgments by a +divine right and a recognized wisdom? In barbarous times the will is +reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is +called, is the standard of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>truth and right, it is abundantly evident to +any one, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are +left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and +take his own course; that two or three will agree to-day to part company +to-morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history, +according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver +shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, +party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some +supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement.</p> + +<p>There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of +truth. As cultivation brings out the colours of flowers, and +domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of +necessity develope differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to +lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly +unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to +one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet +proclaims,<a name="FNanchor_90:1_53" id="FNanchor_90:1_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_90:1_53" class="fnanchor">[90:1]</a> which all acknowledge in private, but that there are +none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action. +The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is, +(when truth is in question,) a judgment which we feel to be superior to +our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for +all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else +you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity +of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose +between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, +between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or +intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. +By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an +infallible chair; and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>by the sects of England, an interminable +division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in +scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis +than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the +object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the +Revelation.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">14.</p> + +<p>8. I have called the doctrine of Infallibility an hypothesis: let it be +so considered for the sake of argument, that is, let it be considered to +be a mere position, supported by no direct evidence, but required by the +facts of the case, and reconciling them with each other. That hypothesis +is indeed, in matter of fact, maintained and acted on in the largest +portion of Christendom, and from time immemorial; but let this +coincidence be accounted for by the need. Moreover, it is not a naked or +isolated fact, but the animating principle of a large scheme of doctrine +which the need itself could not simply create; but again, let this +system be merely called its development. Yet even as an hypothesis, +which has been held by one out of various communions, it may not be +lightly put aside. Some hypothesis, this or that, all parties, all +controversialists, all historians must adopt, if they would treat of +Christianity at all. Gieseler's "Text Book" bears the profession of +being a dry analysis of Christian history; yet on inspection it will be +found to be written on a positive and definite theory, and to bend facts +to meet it. An unbeliever, as Gibbon, assumes one hypothesis, and an +Ultra-montane, as Baronius, adopts another. The School of Hurd and +Newton hold, as the only true view of history, that Christianity slept +for centuries upon centuries, except among those whom historians call +heretics. Others speak as if the oath of supremacy or the <i>congé +d'élire</i> could be made the measure of St. Ambrose, and they fit the +Thirty-nine <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>Articles on the fervid Tertullian. The question is, which +of all these theories is the simplest, the most natural, the most +persuasive. Certainly the notion of development under infallible +authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis, than the +chance and coincidence of events, or the Oriental Philosophy, or the +working of Antichrist, to account for the rise of Christianity and the +formation of its theology.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION III.</h4> + +<h5>THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE THE PROBABLE<br /> +FULFILMENT OF THAT EXPECTATION.</h5> + +<p>I have been arguing, in respect to the revealed doctrine, given to us +from above in Christianity, first, that, in consequence of its +intellectual character, and as passing through the minds of so many +generations of men, and as applied by them to so many purposes, and as +investigated so curiously as to its capabilities, implications, and +bearings, it could not but grow or develope, as time went on, into a +large theological system;—next, that, if development must be, then, +whereas Revelation is a heavenly gift, He who gave it virtually has not +given it, unless He has also secured it from perversion and corruption, +in all such development as comes upon it by the necessity of its nature, +or, in other words, that that intellectual action through successive +generations, which is the organ of development, must, so far forth as it +can claim to have been put in charge of the Revelation, be in its +determinations infallible.</p> + +<p>Passing from these two points, I come next to the question whether in +the history of Christianity there is any fulfilment of such anticipation +as I have insisted on, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>whether in matter-of-fact doctrines, rites, and +usages have grown up round the Apostolic Creed and have interpenetrated +its Articles, claiming to be part of Christianity and looking like those +additions which we are in search of. The answer is, that such additions +there are, and that they are found just where they might be expected, in +the authoritative seats and homes of old tradition, the Latin and Greek +Churches. Let me enlarge on this point.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>I observe, then, that, if the idea of Christianity, as originally given +to us from heaven, cannot but contain much which will be only partially +recognized by us as included in it and only held by us unconsciously; +and if again, Christianity being from heaven, all that is necessarily +involved in it, and is evolved from it, is from heaven, and if, on the +other hand, large accretions actually do exist, professing to be its +true and legitimate results, our first impression naturally is, that +these must be the very developments which they profess to be. Moreover, +the very scale on which they have been made, their high antiquity yet +present promise, their gradual formation yet precision, their harmonious +order, dispose the imagination most forcibly towards the belief that a +teaching so consistent with itself, so well balanced, so young and so +old, not obsolete after so many centuries, but vigorous and progressive +still, is the very development contemplated in the Divine Scheme. These +doctrines are members of one family, and suggestive, or correlative, or +confirmatory, or illustrative of each other. One furnishes evidence to +another, and all to each of them; if this is proved, that becomes +probable; if this and that are both probable, but for different reasons, +each adds to the other its own probability. The Incarnation is the +antecedent of the doctrine of Mediation, and the archetype both of the +Sacramental <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>principle and of the merits of Saints. From the doctrine of +Mediation follow the Atonement, the Mass, the merits of Martyrs and +Saints, their invocation and <i>cultus</i>. From the Sacramental principle +come the Sacraments properly so called; the unity of the Church, and the +Holy See as its type and centre; the authority of Councils; the sanctity +of rites; the veneration of holy places, shrines, images, vessels, +furniture, and vestments. Of the Sacraments, Baptism is developed into +Confirmation on the one hand; into Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences +on the other; and the Eucharist into the Real Presence, adoration of the +Host, Resurrection of the body, and the virtue of relics. Again, the +doctrine of the Sacraments leads to the doctrine of Justification; +Justification to that of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of +Celibacy. Nor do these separate developments stand independent of each +other, but by cross relations they are connected, and grow together +while they grow from one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one; +the veneration of Saints and their relics are parts of one; their +intercessory power and the Purgatorial State, and again the Mass and +that State are correlative; Celibacy is the characteristic mark of +Monachism and of the Priesthood. You must accept the whole or reject the +whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate. It is +trifling to receive all but something which is as integral as any other +portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to accept any +part, for, before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a +stern logical necessity to accept the whole.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Next, we have to consider that from first to last other developments +there are none, except those which have possession of Christendom; none, +that is, of prominence and permanence sufficient to deserve the name. In +early <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>times the heretical doctrines were confessedly barren and +short-lived, and could not stand their ground against Catholicism. As to +the medieval period I am not aware that the Greeks present more than a +negative opposition to the Latins. And now in like manner the Tridentine +Creed is met by no rival developments; there is no antagonist system. +Criticisms, objections, protests, there are in plenty, but little of +positive teaching anywhere; seldom an attempt on the part of any +opposing school to master its own doctrines, to investigate their sense +and bearing, to determine their relation to the decrees of Trent and +their distance from them. And when at any time this attempt is by chance +in any measure made, then an incurable contrariety does but come to view +between portions of the theology thus developed, and a war of +principles; an impossibility moreover of reconciling that theology with +the general drift of the formularies in which its elements occur, and a +consequent appearance of unfairness and sophistry in adventurous persons +who aim at forcing them into consistency;<a name="FNanchor_95:1_54" id="FNanchor_95:1_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_95:1_54" class="fnanchor">[95:1]</a> and, further, a +prevalent understanding of the truth of this representation, authorities +keeping silence, eschewing a hopeless enterprise and discouraging it in +others, and the people plainly intimating that they think both doctrine +and usage, antiquity and development, of very little matter at all; and, +lastly, the evident despair of even the better sort of men, who, in +consequence, when they set great schemes on foot, as for the conversion +of the heathen world, are afraid to agitate the question of the +doctrines to which it is to be converted, lest through the opened door +they should lose what they have, instead of gaining what they have not. +To the weight of recommendation which this contrast throws upon the +developments commonly called Catholic, must be added the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>argument which +arises from the coincidence of their consistency and permanence, with +their claim of an infallible sanction,—a claim, the existence of which, +in some quarter or other of the Divine Dispensation, is, as we have +already seen, antecedently probable. All these things being considered, +I think few persons will deny the very strong presumption which exists, +that, if there must be and are in fact developments in Christianity, the +doctrines propounded by successive Popes and Councils, through so many +ages, are they.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>A further presumption in behalf of these doctrines arises from the +general opinion of the world about them. Christianity being one, all its +doctrines are necessarily developments of one, and, if so, are of +necessity consistent with each other, or form a whole. Now the world +fully enters into this view of those well-known developments which claim +the name of Catholic. It allows them that title, it considers them to +belong to one family, and refers them to one theological system. It is +scarcely necessary to set about proving what is urged by their opponents +even more strenuously than by their champions. Their opponents avow that +they protest, not against this doctrine or that, but against one and +all; and they seem struck with wonder and perplexity, not to say with +awe, at a consistency which they feel to be superhuman, though they +would not allow it to be divine. The system is confessed on all hands to +bear a character of integrity and indivisibility upon it, both at first +view and on inspection. Hence such sayings as the "Tota jacet Babylon" +of the distich. Luther did but a part of the work, Calvin another +portion, Socinus finished it. To take up with Luther, and to reject +Calvin and Socinus, would be, according to that epigram, like living in +a house without a roof to it. This, I say, is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>no private judgment of +this man or that, but the common opinion and experience of all +countries. The two great divisions of religion feel it, Roman Catholic +and Protestant, between whom the controversy lies; sceptics and +liberals, who are spectators of the conflict, feel it; philosophers feel +it. A school of divines there is, I grant, dear to memory, who have not +felt it; and their exception will have its weight,—till we reflect that +the particular theology which they advocate has not the prescription of +success, never has been realized in fact, or, if realized for a moment, +had no stay; moreover, that, when it has been enacted by human +authority, it has scarcely travelled beyond the paper on which it was +printed, or out of the legal forms in which it was embodied. But, +putting the weight of these revered names at the highest, they do not +constitute more than an exception to the general rule, such as is found +in every subject that comes into discussion.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>And this general testimony to the oneness of Catholicism extends to its +past teaching relatively to its present, as well as to the portions of +its present teaching one with another. No one doubts, with such +exception as has just been allowed, that the Roman Catholic communion of +this day is the successor and representative of the Medieval Church, or +that the Medieval Church is the legitimate heir of the Nicene; even +allowing that it is a question whether a line cannot be drawn between +the Nicene Church and the Church which preceded it. On the whole, all +parties will agree that, of all existing systems, the present communion +of Rome is the nearest approximation in fact to the Church of the +Fathers, possible though some may think it, to be nearer still to that +Church on paper. Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to +life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>own. +All surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of +their own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at +home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the +lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the +unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or with the +members of any other creed. And may we not add, that were those same +Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy, at Treves, to +come more northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair +city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy +brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which +they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where mass was +said in the populous alley or forlorn suburb? And, on the other hand, +can any one who has but heard his name, and cursorily read his history, +doubt for one instant how, in turn, the people of England, "we, our +princes, our priests, and our prophets," Lords and Commons, +Universities, Ecclesiastical Courts, marts of commerce, great towns, +country parishes, would deal with Athanasius,—Athanasius, who spent his +long years in fighting against sovereigns for a theological term?</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62:1_39" id="Footnote_62:1_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62:1_39"><span class="label">[62:1]</span></a> Doctrine of Justification, Lect. xiii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64:1_40" id="Footnote_64:1_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64:1_40"><span class="label">[64:1]</span></a> Butler's Anal. ii. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67:1_41" id="Footnote_67:1_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67:1_41"><span class="label">[67:1]</span></a> Proph. Office, Lect. xii. [Via Med. vol. i. pp. 292-3].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72:1_42" id="Footnote_72:1_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72:1_42"><span class="label">[72:1]</span></a> ii. 3; vide also ii. 4, fin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75:1_43" id="Footnote_75:1_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75:1_43"><span class="label">[75:1]</span></a> Analogy, ii. 4, <i>ad fin.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77:1_44" id="Footnote_77:1_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77:1_44"><span class="label">[77:1]</span></a> Proph. Office, x. [Via Med. p. 250].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77:2_45" id="Footnote_77:2_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77:2_45"><span class="label">[77:2]</span></a> [Ibid. pp. 247, 254.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79:1_46" id="Footnote_79:1_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79:1_46"><span class="label">[79:1]</span></a> Arians, ch. i. sect. 3 [p. 82, ed. 3].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81:1_47" id="Footnote_81:1_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81:1_47"><span class="label">[81:1]</span></a> Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 122].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81:2_48" id="Footnote_81:2_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81:2_48"><span class="label">[81:2]</span></a> ["It is very common to confuse infallibility with +certitude, but the two words stand for things quite distinct from each +other. I remember for certain what I did yesterday, but still my memory +is not infallible. I am quite clear that two and two makes four, but I +often make mistakes in long addition sums. I have no doubt whatever that +John or Richard is my true friend; but I have before now trusted those +who failed me, and I may do so again before I die. I am quite certain +that Victoria is our sovereign, and not her father, the Duke of Kent, +without any claim myself to the gift of infallibility, as I may do a +virtuous action, without being impeccable. I may be certain that the +Church is infallible, while I am myself a fallible mortal; otherwise I +cannot be certain that the Supreme Being is infallible, unless I am +infallible myself. Certitude is directed to one or other definite +concrete proposition. I am certain of propositions one, two, three, +four, or five, one by one, each by itself. I can be certain of one of +them, without being certain of the rest: that I am certain of the first +makes it neither likely nor unlikely that I am certain of the second: +but, were I infallible, then I should be certain, not only of one of +them, but of all."—<i>Essay on Assent</i>, ch. vii. sect. 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84:1_49" id="Footnote_84:1_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84:1_49"><span class="label">[84:1]</span></a> Anal. ii. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87:1_50" id="Footnote_87:1_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87:1_50"><span class="label">[87:1]</span></a> De Rom. Pont. iv. 2. [Seven years ago, it is scarcely +necessary to say, the Vatican Council determined that the Pope, <i>ex +cathedrâ</i>, has the same infallibility as the Church. This does not +affect the argument in the text.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88:1_51" id="Footnote_88:1_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88:1_51"><span class="label">[88:1]</span></a> Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 117].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89:1_52" id="Footnote_89:1_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89:1_52"><span class="label">[89:1]</span></a> 1 Tim. iii. 16; Isa. lix. 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90:1_53" id="Footnote_90:1_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90:1_53"><span class="label">[90:1]</span></a> <ins class="greek" title="Ou gar ti nyn ge kachthes, k.t.l.">Οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε κὰχθές, κ.τ.λ.</ins></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95:1_54" id="Footnote_95:1_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95:1_54"><span class="label">[95:1]</span></a> [<i>Vid.</i> Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 231-341.]</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>ON THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF THE<br /> +EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS.</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION I.</h4> + +<h5>METHOD OF PROOF.</h5> + +<p>It seems, then, that we have to deal with a case something like the +following: Certain doctrines come to us, professing to be Apostolic, and +possessed of such high antiquity that, though we are only able to assign +the date of their formal establishment to the fourth, or the fifth, or +the eighth, or the thirteenth century, as it may happen, yet their +substance may, for what appears, be coeval with the Apostles, and be +expressed or implied in texts of Scripture. Further, these existing +doctrines are universally considered, without any question, in each age +to be the echo of the doctrines of the times immediately preceding them, +and thus are continually thrown back to a date indefinitely early, even +though their ultimate junction with the Apostolic Creed be out of sight +and unascertainable. Moreover, they are confessed to form one body one +with another, so that to reject one is to disparage the rest; and they +include within the range of their system even those primary articles of +faith, as the Incarnation, which many an impugner of the said doctrinal +system, as a system, professes to accept, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>and which, do what he will, +he cannot intelligibly separate, whether in point of evidence or of +internal character, from others which he disavows. Further, these +doctrines occupy the whole field of theology, and leave nothing to be +supplied, except in detail, by any other system; while, in matter of +fact, no rival system is forthcoming, so that we have to choose between +this theology and none at all. Moreover, this theology alone makes +provision for that guidance of opinion and conduct, which seems +externally to be the special aim of Revelation; and fulfils the promises +of Scripture, by adapting itself to the various problems of thought and +practice which meet us in life. And, further, it is the nearest +approach, to say the least, to the religious sentiment, and what is +called <i>ethos</i>, of the early Church, nay, to that of the Apostles and +Prophets; for all will agree so far as this, that Elijah, Jeremiah, the +Baptist, and St. Paul are in their history and mode of life (I do not +speak of measures of grace, no, nor of doctrine and conduct, for these +are the points in dispute, but) in what is external and meets the eye +(and this is no slight resemblance when things are viewed as a whole and +from a distance),—these saintly and heroic men, I say, are more like a +Dominican preacher, or a Jesuit missionary, or a Carmelite friar, more +like St. Toribio, or St. Vincent Ferrer, or St. Francis Xavier, or St. +Alphonso Liguori, than to any individuals, or to any classes of men, +that can be found in other communions. And then, in addition, there is +the high antecedent probability that Providence would watch over His own +work, and would direct and ratify those developments of doctrine which +were inevitable.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>If this is, on the whole, a true view of the general shape under which +the existing body of developments, commonly <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>called Catholic, present +themselves before us, antecedently to our looking into the particular +evidence on which they stand, I think we shall be at no loss to +determine what both logical truth and duty prescribe to us as to our +reception of them. It is very little to say that we should treat them as +we are accustomed to treat other alleged facts and truths and the +evidence for them, such as come to us with a fair presumption in their +favour. Such are of every day's occurrence; and what is our behaviour +towards them? We meet them, not with suspicion and criticism, but with a +frank confidence. We do not in the first instance exercise our reason +upon opinions which are received, but our faith. We do not begin with +doubting; we take them on trust, and we put them on trial, and that, not +of set purpose, but spontaneously. We prove them by using them, by +applying them to the subject-matter, or the evidence, or the body of +circumstances, to which they belong, as if they gave it its +interpretation or its colour as a matter of course; and only when they +fail, in the event, in illustrating phenomena or harmonizing facts, do +we discover that we must reject the doctrines or the statements which we +had in the first instance taken for granted. Again, we take the evidence +for them, whatever it be, as a whole, as forming a combined proof; and +we interpret what is obscure in separate portions by such portions as +are clear. Moreover, we bear with these in proportion to the strength of +the antecedent probability in their favour, we are patient with +difficulties in their application, with apparent objections to them +drawn from other matters of fact, deficiency in their comprehensiveness, +or want of neatness in their working, provided their claims on our +attention are considerable.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Thus most men take Newton's theory of gravitation for <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>granted, because +it is generally received, and use it without rigidly testing it first, +each for himself, (as it can be tested,) by phenomena; and if phenomena +are found which it does not satisfactorily solve, this does not trouble +us, for a way there must be of explaining them, consistently with that +theory, though it does not occur to ourselves. Again, if we found a +concise or obscure passage in one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, we +should not scruple to admit as its true explanation a more explicit +statement in his <i>Ad Familiares</i>. Æschylus is illustrated by Sophocles +in point of language, and Thucydides by Aristophanes, in point of +history. Horace, Persius, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Juvenal may be made to +throw light upon each other. Even Plato may gain a commentator in +Plotinus, and St. Anselm is interpreted by St. Thomas. Two writers, +indeed, may be already known to differ, and then we do not join them +together as fellow-witnesses to common truths; Luther has taken on +himself to explain St. Augustine, and Voltaire, Pascal, without +persuading the world that they have a claim to do so; but in no case do +we begin with asking whether a comment does not disagree with its text, +when there is a <i>primâ facie</i> congruity between them. We elucidate the +text by the comment, though, or rather because, the comment is fuller +and more explicit than the text.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Thus too we deal with Scripture, when we have to interpret the +prophetical text and the types of the Old Testament. The event which is +the development is also the interpretation of the prediction; it +provides a fulfilment by imposing a meaning. And we accept certain +events as the fulfilment of prophecy from the broad correspondence of +the one with the other, in spite of many incidental difficulties. The +difficulty, for instance, in accounting for the fact that the dispersion +of the Jews <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>followed upon their keeping, not their departing from their +Law, does not hinder us from insisting on their present state as an +argument against the infidel. Again, we readily submit our reason on +competent authority, and accept certain events as an accomplishment of +predictions, which seem very far removed from them; as in the passage, +"Out of Egypt have I called My Son." Nor do we find a difficulty, when +St. Paul appeals to a text of the Old Testament, which stands otherwise +in our Hebrew copies; as the words, "A body hast Thou prepared Me." We +receive such difficulties on faith, and leave them to take care of +themselves. Much less do we consider mere fulness in the interpretation, +or definiteness, or again strangeness, as a sufficient reason for +depriving the text, or the action to which it is applied, of the +advantage of such interpretation. We make it no objection that the words +themselves come short of it, or that the sacred writer did not +contemplate it, or that a previous fulfilment satisfies it. A reader who +came to the inspired text by himself, beyond the influence of that +traditional acceptation which happily encompasses it, would be surprised +to be told that the Prophet's words, "A virgin shall conceive," &c., or +"Let all the Angels of God worship Him," refer to our Lord; but assuming +the intimate connexion between Judaism and Christianity, and the +inspiration of the New Testament, we do not scruple to believe it. We +rightly feel that it is no prejudice to our receiving the prophecy of +Balaam in its Christian meaning, that it is adequately fulfilled in +David; or the history of Jonah, that it is poetical in character and has +a moral in itself like an apologue; or the meeting of Abraham and +Melchizedek, that it is too brief and simple to mean any great thing, as +St. Paul interprets it.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>Butler corroborates these remarks, when speaking of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>the particular +evidence for Christianity. "The obscurity or unintelligibleness," he +says, "of one part of a prophecy does not in any degree invalidate the +proof of foresight, arising from the appearing completion of those other +parts which are understood. For the case is evidently the same as if +those parts, which are not understood, were lost, or not written at all, +or written in an unknown tongue. Whether this observation be commonly +attended to or not, it is so evident that one can scarce bring one's +self to set down an instance in common matters to exemplify it."<a name="FNanchor_104:1_55" id="FNanchor_104:1_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_104:1_55" class="fnanchor">[104:1]</a> +He continues, "Though a man should be incapable, for want of learning, +or opportunities of inquiry, or from not having turned his studies this +way, even so much as to judge whether particular prophecies have been +throughout completely fulfilled; yet he may see, in general, that they +have been fulfilled to such a degree, as, upon very good ground, to be +convinced of foresight more than human in such prophecies, and of such +events being intended by them. For the same reason also, though, by +means of the deficiencies in civil history, and the different accounts +of historians, the most learned should not be able to make out to +satisfaction that such parts of the prophetic history have been minutely +and throughout fulfilled; yet a very strong proof of foresight may arise +from that general completion of them which is made out; as much proof of +foresight, perhaps, as the Giver of prophecy intended should ever be +afforded by such parts of prophecy."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>He illustrates this by the parallel instance of fable and concealed +satire. "A man might be assured that he understood what an author +intended by a fable or parable, related without any application or +moral, merely from seeing <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>it to be easily capable of such application, +and that such a moral might naturally be deduced from it. And he might +be fully assured that such persons and events were intended in a +satirical writing, merely from its being applicable to them. And, +agreeably to the last observation, he might be in a good measure +satisfied of it, though he were not enough informed in affairs, or in +the story of such persons, to understand half the satire. For his +satisfaction, that he understood the meaning, the intended meaning, of +these writings, would be greater or less, in proportion as he saw the +general turn of them to be capable of such application, and in +proportion to the number of particular things capable of it." And he +infers hence, that if a known course of events, or the history of a +person as our Lord, is found to answer on the whole to the prophetical +text, it becomes fairly the right interpretation of that text, in spite +of difficulties in detail. And this rule of interpretation admits of an +obvious application to the parallel case of doctrinal passages, when a +certain creed, which professes to have been derived from Revelation, +comes recommended to us on strong antecedent grounds, and presents no +strong opposition to the sacred text.</p> + +<p>The same author observes that the first fulfilment of a prophecy is no +valid objection to a second, when what seems like a second has once +taken place; and, in like manner, an interpretation of doctrinal texts +may be literal, exact, and sufficient, yet in spite of all this may not +embrace what is really the full scope of their meaning; and that fuller +scope, if it so happen, may be less satisfactory and precise, as an +interpretation, than their primary and narrow sense. Thus, if the +Protestant interpretation of the sixth chapter of St. John were true and +sufficient for its letter, (which of course I do not grant,) that would +not hinder the Roman, which at least is quite compatible with the text, +being the higher sense and the only <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>rightful. In such cases the +justification of the larger and higher interpretation lies in some +antecedent probability, such as Catholic consent; and the ground of the +narrow is the context, and the rules of grammar; and, whereas the +argument of the critical commentator is that the sacred text <i>need not</i> +mean more than the letter, those who adopt a deeper view of it maintain, +as Butler in the case of prophecy, that we have no warrant for putting a +limit to the sense of words which are not human but divine.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>Now it is but a parallel exercise of reasoning to interpret the previous +history of a doctrine by its later development, and to consider that it +contains the later <i>in posse</i> and in the divine intention; and the +grudging and jealous temper, which refuses to enlarge the sacred text +for the fulfilment of prophecy, is the very same that will occupy itself +in carping at the Ante-nicene testimonies for Nicene or Medieval +doctrines and usages. When "I and My Father are One" is urged in proof +of our Lord's unity with the Father, heretical disputants do not see why +the words must be taken to denote more than a unity of will. When "This +is My Body" is alleged as a warrant for the change of the Bread into the +Body of Christ, they explain away the words into a figure, because such +is their most obvious interpretation. And, in like manner, when Roman +Catholics urge St. Gregory's invocations, they are told that these are +but rhetorical; or St. Clement's allusion to Purgatory, that perhaps it +was Platonism; or Origen's language about praying to Angels and the +merits of Martyrs, that it is but an instance of his heterodoxy; or St. +Cyprian's exaltation of the <i>Cathedra Petri</i>, that he need not be +contemplating more than a figurative or abstract see; or the general +testimony to the spiritual authority of Rome in primitive times, that it +arose from <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>her temporal greatness; or Tertullian's language about +Tradition and the Church, that he took a lawyer's view of those +subjects; whereas the early condition, and the evidence, of each +doctrine respectively, ought consistently to be interpreted by means of +that development which was ultimately attained.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>Moreover, since, as above shown, the doctrines all together make up one +integral religion, it follows that the several evidences which +respectively support those doctrines belong to a whole, and must be +thrown into a common stock, and all are available in the defence of any. +A collection of weak evidences makes up a strong evidence; again, one +strong argument imparts cogency to collateral arguments which are in +themselves weak. For instance, as to the miracles, whether of Scripture +or the Church, "the number of those which carry with them their own +proof now, and are believed for their own sake, is small, and they +furnish the grounds on which we receive the rest."<a name="FNanchor_107:1_56" id="FNanchor_107:1_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_107:1_56" class="fnanchor">[107:1]</a> Again, no one +would fancy it necessary, before receiving St. Matthew's Gospel, to find +primitive testimony in behalf of every chapter and verse: when only part +is proved to have been in existence in ancient times, the whole is +proved, because that part is but part of a whole; and when the whole is +proved, it may shelter such parts as for some incidental reason have +less evidence of their antiquity. Again, it would be enough to show that +St. Augustine knew the Italic version of the Scriptures, if he quoted it +once or twice. And, in like manner, it will be generally admitted that +the proof of a Second Person in the Godhead lightens greatly the burden +of proof necessary for belief in a Third Person; and that, the Atonement +being in some sort a correlative of eternal punishment, the evidence for +the former doctrine <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>virtually increases the evidence for the latter. +And so, a Protestant controversialist would feel that it told little, +except as an omen of victory, to reduce an opponent to a denial of +Transubstantiation, if he still adhered firmly to the Invocation of +Saints, Purgatory, the Seven Sacraments, and the doctrine of merit; and +little too for one of his own party to condemn the adoration of the +Host, the supremacy of Rome, the acceptableness of celibacy, auricular +confession, communion under one kind, and tradition, if he was zealous +for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>The principle on which these remarks are made has the sanction of some +of the deepest of English Divines. Bishop Butler, for instance, who has +so often been quoted here, thus argues in behalf of Christianity itself, +though confessing at the same time the disadvantage which in consequence +the revealed system lies under. "Probable proofs," he observes, "by +being added, not only increase the evidence, but multiply it. Nor should +I dissuade any one from setting down what he thought made for the +contrary side. . . . The truth of our religion, like the truth of common +matters, is to be judged by all the evidence taken together. And unless +the whole series of things which may be alleged in this argument, and +every particular thing in it, can reasonably be supposed to have been by +accident (for here the stress of the argument for Christianity lies), +then is the truth of it proved; in like manner, as if, in any common +case, numerous events acknowledged were to be alleged in proof of any +other event disputed, the truth of the disputed event would be proved, +not only if any one of the acknowledged ones did of itself clearly imply +it, but though no one of them singly did so, if the whole of the +acknowledged events, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>taken together, could not in reason be supposed to +have happened, unless the disputed one were true.</p> + +<p>"It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to +those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For +it is easy to show, in a short and lively manner, that such and such +things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little +weight in itself; but impossible to show, in like manner, the united +force of the whole argument in one view."<a name="FNanchor_109:1_57" id="FNanchor_109:1_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_109:1_57" class="fnanchor">[109:1]</a></p> + +<p>In like manner, Mr. Davison condemns that "vicious manner of reasoning," +which represents "any insufficiency of the proof, in its several +branches, as so much objection;" which manages "the inquiry so as to +make it appear that, if the divided arguments be inconclusive one by +one, we have a series of exceptions to the truths of religion instead of +a train of favourable presumptions, growing stronger at every step. The +disciple of Scepticism is taught that he cannot fully rely on this or +that motive of belief, that each of them is insecure, and the conclusion +is put upon him that they ought to be discarded one after another, +instead of being connected and combined."<a name="FNanchor_109:2_58" id="FNanchor_109:2_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_109:2_58" class="fnanchor">[109:2]</a> No work perhaps affords +more specimens in a short compass of the breach of the principle of +reasoning inculcated in these passages, than Barrow's Treatise on the +Pope's Supremacy.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>The remarks of these two writers relate to the duty of combining +doctrines which belong to one body, and evidences which relate to one +subject; and few persons would dispute it in the abstract. The +application which has been here made of the principle is this,—that +where a doctrine comes recommended to us by strong presumptions of its +truth, we are bound to receive it unsuspiciously, and use it as a key to +the evidences to which it appeals, or the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>facts which it professes to +systematize, whatever may be our eventual judgment about it. Nor is it +enough to answer, that the voice of our particular Church, denying this +so-called Catholicism, is an antecedent probability which outweighs all +others and claims our prior obedience, loyally and without reasoning, to +its own interpretation. This may excuse individuals certainly, in +beginning with doubt and distrust of the Catholic developments, but it +only shifts the blame to the particular Church, Anglican or other, which +thinks itself qualified to enforce so peremptory a judgment against the +one and only successor, heir and representative of the Apostolic +college.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION II.</h4> + +<h5>STATE OF THE EVIDENCE.</h5> + +<p>Bacon is celebrated for destroying the credit of a method of reasoning +much resembling that which it has been the object of this Chapter to +recommend. "He who is not practised in doubting," he says, "but forward +in asserting and laying down such principles as he takes to be approved, +granted and manifest, and, according to the established truth thereof, +receives or rejects everything, as squaring with or proving contrary to +them, is only fitted to mix and confound things with words, reason with +madness, and the world with fable and fiction, but not to interpret the +works of nature."<a name="FNanchor_110:1_59" id="FNanchor_110:1_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_110:1_59" class="fnanchor">[110:1]</a> But he was aiming at the application of these +modes of reasoning to what should be strict investigation, and that in +the province of physics; and this he might well censure, without +attempting, (what is impossible,) to banish them from history, ethics, +and religion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +Physical facts are present; they are submitted to the senses, and the +senses may be satisfactorily tested, corrected, and verified. To trust +to anything but sense in a matter of sense is irrational; why are the +senses given us but to supersede less certain, less immediate +informants? We have recourse to reason or authority to determine facts, +when the senses fail us; but with the senses we begin. We deduce, we +form inductions, we abstract, we theorize from facts; we do not begin +with surmise and conjecture, much less do we look to the tradition of +past ages, or the decree of foreign teachers, to determine matters which +are in our hands and under our eyes.</p> + +<p>But it is otherwise with history, the facts of which are not present; it +is otherwise with ethics, in which phenomena are more subtle, closer, +and more personal to individuals than other facts, and not referable to +any common standard by which all men can decide upon them. In such +sciences, we cannot rest upon mere facts, if we would, because we have +not got them. We must do our best with what is given us, and look about +for aid from any quarter; and in such circumstances the opinions of +others, the traditions of ages, the prescriptions of authority, +antecedent auguries, analogies, parallel cases, these and the like, not +indeed taken at random, but, like the evidence from the senses, sifted +and scrutinized, obviously become of great importance.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>And, further, if we proceed on the hypothesis that a merciful Providence +has supplied us with means of gaining such truth as concerns us, in +different subject-matters, though with different instruments, then the +simple question is, what those instruments are which are proper to a +particular case. If they are of the appointment of a Divine Protector, +we may be sure that they will lead to the truth, whatever they are. The +less exact methods of reasoning <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>may do His work as well as the more +perfect, if He blesses them. He may bless antecedent probabilities in +ethical inquiries, who blesses experience and induction in the art of +medicine.</p> + +<p>And if it is reasonable to consider medicine, or architecture, or +engineering, in a certain sense, divine arts, as being divinely ordained +means of our receiving divine benefits, much more may ethics be called +divine; while as to religion, it directly professes to be the method of +recommending ourselves to Him and learning His will. If then it be His +gracious purpose that we should learn it, the means He gives for +learning it, be they promising or not to human eyes, are sufficient, +because they are His. And what they are at this particular time, or to +this person, depends on His disposition. He may have imposed simple +prayer and obedience on some men as the instrument of their attaining to +the mysteries and precepts of Christianity. He may lead others through +the written word, at least for some stages of their course; and if the +formal basis on which He has rested His revelations be, as it is, of an +historical and philosophical character, then antecedent probabilities, +subsequently corroborated by facts, will be sufficient, as in the +parallel case of other history, to bring us safely to the matter, or at +least to the organ, of those revelations.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Moreover, in subjects which belong to moral proof, such, I mean, as +history, antiquities, political science, ethics, metaphysics, and +theology, which are pre-eminently such, and especially in theology and +ethics, antecedent probability may have a real weight and cogency which +it cannot have in experimental science; and a mature politician or +divine may have a power of reaching matters of fact in consequence of +his peculiar habits of mind, which is seldom given in the same degree to +physical inquirers, who, for <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>the purposes of this particular pursuit, +are very much on a level. And this last remark at least is confirmed by +Lord Bacon, who confesses "Our method of discovering the sciences does +not much depend upon subtlety and strength of genius, but lies level to +almost every capacity and understanding;"<a name="FNanchor_113:1_60" id="FNanchor_113:1_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_113:1_60" class="fnanchor">[113:1]</a> though surely sciences +there are, in which genius is everything, and rules all but nothing.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>It will be a great mistake then to suppose that, because this eminent +philosopher condemned presumption and prescription in inquiries into +facts which are external to us, present with us, and common to us all, +therefore authority, tradition, verisimilitude, analogy, and the like, +are mere "idols of the den" or "of the theatre" in history or ethics. +Here we may oppose to him an author in his own line as great as he is: +"Experience," says Bacon, "is by far the best demonstration, provided it +dwell in the experiment; for the transferring of it to other things +judged alike is very fallacious, unless done with great exactness and +regularity."<a name="FNanchor_113:2_61" id="FNanchor_113:2_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_113:2_61" class="fnanchor">[113:2]</a> Niebuhr explains or corrects him: "Instances are not +arguments," he grants, when investigating an obscure question of Roman +history,—"instances are not arguments, but in history are scarcely of +less force; above all, where the parallel they exhibit is in the +progressive development of institutions."<a name="FNanchor_113:3_62" id="FNanchor_113:3_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_113:3_62" class="fnanchor">[113:3]</a> Here this sagacious +writer recognizes the true principle of historical logic, while he +exemplifies it.</p> + +<p>The same principle is involved in the well-known maxim of Aristotle, +that "it is much the same to admit the probabilities of a mathematician, +and to look for demonstration from an orator." In all matters of human +life, presumption verified by instances, is our ordinary instrument of +proof, and, if the antecedent probability is great, it almost +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>supersedes instances. Of course, as is plain, we may err grievously in +the antecedent view which we start with, and in that case, our +conclusions may be wide of the truth; but that only shows that we had no +right to assume a premiss which was untrustworthy, not that our +reasoning was faulty.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>I am speaking of the process itself, and its correctness is shown by its +general adoption. In religious questions a single text of Scripture is +all-sufficient with most people, whether the well disposed or the +prejudiced, to prove a doctrine or a duty in cases when a custom is +established or a tradition is strong. "Not forsaking the assembling of +ourselves together" is sufficient for establishing social, public, nay, +Sunday worship. "Where the tree falleth, there shall it lie," shows that +our probation ends with life. "Forbidding to marry" determines the Pope +to be the man of sin. Again, it is plain that a man's after course for +good or bad brings out the passing words or obscure actions of previous +years. Then, on a retrospect, we use the event as a presumptive +interpretation of the past, of those past indications of his character +which, considered as evidence, were too few and doubtful to bear +insisting on at the time, and would have seemed ridiculous, had we +attempted to do so. And the antecedent probability is even found to +triumph over contrary evidence, as well as to sustain what agrees with +it. Every one may know of cases in which a plausible charge against an +individual was borne down at once by weight of character, though that +character was incommensurate of course with the circumstances which gave +rise to suspicion, and had no direct neutralizing force to destroy it. +On the other hand, it is sometimes said, and even if not literally true +will serve in illustration, that not a few of those who are put on trial +in our criminal courts are not legally guilty of the particular crime on +which a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>verdict is found against them, being convicted not so much upon +the particular evidence, as on the presumption arising from their want +of character and the memory of their former offences. Nor is it in +slight matters only or unimportant that we thus act. Our dearest +interests, our personal welfare, our property, our health, our +reputation, we freely hazard, not on proof, but on a simple probability, +which is sufficient for our conviction, because prudence dictates to us +so to take it. We must be content to follow the law of our being in +religious matters as well as in secular.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>But there is more to say on the subordinate position which direct +evidence holds among the <i>motiva</i> of conviction in most matters. It is +no paradox to say that there is a certain scantiness, nay an absence of +evidence, which may even tell in favour of statements which require to +be made good. There are indeed cases in which we cannot discover the law +of silence or deficiency, which are then simply unaccountable. Thus +Lucian, for whatever reason, hardly notices Roman authors or +affairs.<a name="FNanchor_115:1_63" id="FNanchor_115:1_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_115:1_63" class="fnanchor">[115:1]</a> Maximus Tyrius, who wrote several of his works at Rome, +nevertheless makes no reference to Roman history. Paterculus, the +historian, is mentioned by no ancient writer except Priscian. What is +more to our present purpose, Seneca, Pliny the elder, and Plutarch are +altogether silent about Christianity; and perhaps Epictetus also, and +the Emperor Marcus. The Jewish Mishna, too, compiled about <span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 180, is +silent about Christianity; and the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds +almost so, though the one was compiled about <span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 300, and the other +<span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 500.<a name="FNanchor_115:2_64" id="FNanchor_115:2_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_115:2_64" class="fnanchor">[115:2]</a> Eusebius again, is very uncertain in his notice of +facts: he does not speak of St. Methodius, nor of St. Anthony, nor of +the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, nor of the miraculous powers of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>St. +Gregory Thaumaturgus; and he mentions Constantine's luminous cross, not +in his Ecclesiastical History, where it would naturally find a place, +but in his Life of the Emperor. Moreover, those who receive that +wonderful occurrence, which is, as one who rejects it allows,<a name="FNanchor_116:1_65" id="FNanchor_116:1_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_116:1_65" class="fnanchor">[116:1]</a> "so +inexplicable to the historical inquirer," have to explain the difficulty +of the universal silence on the subject of all the Fathers of the fourth +and fifth centuries, excepting Eusebius.</p> + +<p>In like manner, Scripture has its unexplained omissions. No religious +school finds its own tenets and usages on the surface of it. The remark +applies also to the very context of Scripture, as in the obscurity which +hangs over Nathanael or the Magdalen. It is a remarkable circumstance +that there is no direct intimation all through Scripture that the +Serpent mentioned in the temptation of Eve was the evil spirit, till we +come to the vision of the Woman and Child, and their adversary, the +Dragon, in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>Omissions, thus absolute and singular, when they occur in the evidence +of facts or doctrines, are of course difficulties; on the other hand, +not unfrequently they admit of explanation. Silence may arise from the +very notoriety of the facts in question, as in the case of the seasons, +the weather, or other natural phenomena; or from their sacredness, as +the Athenians would not mention the mythological Furies; or from +external constraint, as the omission of the statues of Brutus and +Cassius in the procession. Or it may proceed from fear or disgust, as on +the arrival of unwelcome news; or from indignation, or hatred, or +contempt, or perplexity, as Josephus is silent about Christianity, and +Eusebius passes over the death of Crispus in his life of Constantine; or +from other strong feeling, as <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>implied in the poet's sentiment, "Give +sorrow words;" or from policy or other prudential motive, or propriety, +as Queen's Speeches do not mention individuals, however influential in +the political world, and newspapers after a time were silent about the +cholera. Or, again, from the natural and gradual course which the fact +took, as in the instance of inventions and discoveries, the history of +which is on this account often obscure; or from loss of documents or +other direct testimonies, as we should not look for theological +information in a treatise on geology.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>Again, it frequently happens that omissions proceed on some law, as the +varying influence of an external cause; and then, so far from being a +perplexity, they may even confirm such evidence as occurs, by becoming, +as it were, its correlative. For instance, an obstacle may be +assignable, person, or principle, or accident, which ought, if it +exists, to reduce or distort the indications of a fact to that very +point, or in that very direction, or with the variations, or in the +order and succession, which do occur in its actual history. At first +sight it might be a suspicious circumstance that but one or two +manuscripts of some celebrated document were forthcoming; but if it were +known that the sovereign power had exerted itself to suppress and +destroy it at the time of its publication, and that the extant +manuscripts were found just in those places where history witnessed to +the failure of the attempt, the coincidence would be highly +corroborative of that evidence which alone remained.</p> + +<p>Thus it is possible to have too much evidence; that is, evidence so full +or exact as to throw suspicion over the case for which it is adduced. +The genuine Epistles of St. Ignatius contain none of those +ecclesiastical terms, such as "Priest" or "See," which are so frequent +afterwards; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>and they quote Scripture sparingly. The interpolated +Epistles quote it largely; that is, they are too Scriptural to be +Apostolic. Few persons, again, who are acquainted with the primitive +theology, but will be sceptical at first reading of the authenticity of +such works as the longer Creed of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, or St. +Hippolytus contra Beronem, from the precision of the theological +language, which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene period.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>The influence of circumstances upon the expression of opinion or +testimony supplies another form of the same law of omission. "I am ready +to admit," says Paley, "that the ancient Christian advocates did not +insist upon the miracles in argument so frequently as I should have +done. It was their lot to contend with notions of magical agency, +against which the mere production of the facts was not sufficient for +the convincing of their adversaries; I do not know whether they +themselves thought it quite decisive of the controversy. But since it is +proved, I conceive with certainty, that the sparingness with which they +appealed to miracles was owing neither to their ignorance nor their +doubt of the facts, it is at any rate an objection, not to the truth of +the history, but to the judgment of its defenders."<a name="FNanchor_118:1_66" id="FNanchor_118:1_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_118:1_66" class="fnanchor">[118:1]</a> And, in like +manner, Christians were not likely to entertain the question of the +abstract allowableness of images in the Catholic ritual, with the actual +superstitions and immoralities of paganism before their eyes. Nor were +they likely to determine the place of the Blessed Mary in our reverence, +before they had duly secured, in the affections of the faithful, the +supreme glory and worship of God Incarnate, her Eternal Lord and Son. +Nor would they recognize Purgatory as a part of the Dispensation, till +the world had flowed into the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>Church, and a habit of corruption had +been largely superinduced. Nor could ecclesiastical liberty be asserted, +till it had been assailed. Nor would a Pope arise, but in proportion as +the Church was consolidated. Nor would monachism be needed, while +martyrdoms were in progress. Nor could St. Clement give judgment on the +doctrine of Berengarius, nor St. Dionysius refute the Ubiquists, nor St. +Irenæus denounce the Protestant view of Justification, nor St. Cyprian +draw up a theory of toleration. There is "a time for every purpose under +the heaven;" "a time to keep silence and a time to speak."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when the want of evidence for a series of facts or doctrines +is unaccountable, an unexpected explanation or addition in the course of +time is found as regards a portion of them, which suggests a ground of +patience as regards the historical obscurity of the rest. Two instances +are obvious to mention, of an accidental silence of clear primitive +testimony as to important doctrines, and its removal. In the number of +the articles of Catholic belief which the Reformation especially +resisted, were the Mass and the sacramental virtue of Ecclesiastical +Unity. Since the date of that movement, the shorter Epistles of St. +Ignatius have been discovered, and the early Liturgies verified; and +this with most men has put an end to the controversy about those +doctrines. The good fortune which has happened to them, may happen to +others; and though it does not, yet that it has happened to them, is to +those others a sort of compensation for the obscurity in which their +early history continues to be involved.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>I may seem in these remarks to be preparing the way <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>for a broad +admission of the absence of any sanction in primitive Christianity in +behalf of its medieval form, but I do not make them with this intention. +Not from misgivings of this kind, but from the claims of a sound logic, +I think it right to insist, that, whatever early testimonies I may bring +in support of later developments of doctrine, are in great measure +brought <i>ex abundante</i>, a matter of grace, not of compulsion. The <i>onus +probandi</i> is with those who assail a teaching which is, and has long +been, in possession. As for positive evidence in our behalf, they must +take what they can get, if they cannot get as much as they might wish, +inasmuch as antecedent probabilities, as I have said, go so very far +towards dispensing with it. It is a first strong point that, in an idea +such as Christianity, developments cannot but be, and those surely +divine, because it is divine; a second that, if so, they are those very +ones which exist, because there are no others; and a third point is the +fact that they are found just there, where true developments ought to be +found,—namely, in the historic seats of Apostolical teaching and in the +authoritative homes of immemorial tradition.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>And, if it be said in reply that the difficulty of admitting these +developments of doctrine lies, not merely in the absence of early +testimony for them, but in the actual existence of distinct testimony +against them,—or, as Chillingworth says, in "Popes against Popes, +Councils against Councils,"—I answer, of course this will be said; but +let the fact of this objection be carefully examined, and its value +reduced to its true measure, before it is used in argument. I grant that +there are "Bishops against Bishops in Church history, Fathers against +Fathers, Fathers against themselves," for such differences in individual +writers are consistent with, or rather are involved in the very idea of +doctrinal development, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>and consequently are no real objection to it; +the one essential question is whether the recognized organ of teaching, +the Church herself, acting through Pope or Council as the oracle of +heaven, has ever contradicted her own enunciations. If so, the +hypothesis which I am advocating is at once shattered; but, till I have +positive and distinct evidence of the fact, I am slow to give credence +to the existence of so great an improbability.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104:1_55" id="Footnote_104:1_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104:1_55"><span class="label">[104:1]</span></a> Anal. ii. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107:1_56" id="Footnote_107:1_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107:1_56"><span class="label">[107:1]</span></a> [On Miracles, Essay ii. 111.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109:1_57" id="Footnote_109:1_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109:1_57"><span class="label">[109:1]</span></a> Anal. ii. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109:2_58" id="Footnote_109:2_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109:2_58"><span class="label">[109:2]</span></a> On Prophecy, i. p. 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110:1_59" id="Footnote_110:1_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110:1_59"><span class="label">[110:1]</span></a> Aphor. 5, vol. iv. p. xi. ed. 1815.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113:1_60" id="Footnote_113:1_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113:1_60"><span class="label">[113:1]</span></a> Nov. Org. i. 2, § 26, vol. iv. p. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113:2_61" id="Footnote_113:2_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113:2_61"><span class="label">[113:2]</span></a> Nov. Org. § 70, p. 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113:3_62" id="Footnote_113:3_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113:3_62"><span class="label">[113:3]</span></a> Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 345, ed. 1828.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115:1_63" id="Footnote_115:1_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115:1_63"><span class="label">[115:1]</span></a> Lardner's Heath. Test. p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115:2_64" id="Footnote_115:2_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115:2_64"><span class="label">[115:2]</span></a> Paley's Evid. p. i. prop. 1, 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116:1_65" id="Footnote_116:1_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116:1_65"><span class="label">[116:1]</span></a> Milman, Christ. vol. ii. p. 352.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118:1_66" id="Footnote_118:1_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118:1_66"><span class="label">[118:1]</span></a> Evidences, iii. 5.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION.</h3> + + +<p>It follows now to inquire how much evidence is actually producible for +those large portions of the present Creed of Christendom, which have not +a recognized place in the primordial idea and the historical outline of +the Religion, yet which come to us with certain antecedent +considerations strong enough in reason to raise the effectiveness of +that evidence to a point disproportionate, as I have allowed, to its +intrinsic value. In urging these considerations here, of course I +exclude for the time the force of the Church's claim of infallibility in +her acts, for which so much can be said, but I do not exclude the +logical cogency of those acts, considered as testimonies to the faith of +the times before them.</p> + +<p>My argument then is this:—that, from the first age of Christianity, its +teaching looked towards those ecclesiastical dogmas, afterwards +recognized and defined, with (as time went on) more or less determinate +advance in the direction of them; till at length that advance became so +pronounced, as to justify their definition and to bring it about, and to +place them in the position of rightful interpretations and keys of the +remains and the records in history of the teaching which had so +terminated.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>This line of argument is not unlike that which is considered to +constitute a sufficient proof of truths in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>physical science. An +instance of this is furnished us in a work on Mechanics of the past +generation, by a writer of name, and his explanation of it will serve as +an introduction to our immediate subject. After treating of the laws of +motion, he goes on to observe, "These laws are the simplest principles +to which motion can be reduced, and upon them the whole theory depends. +They are not indeed self-evident, nor do they admit of accurate proof by +experiment, on account of the great nicety required in adjusting the +instruments and making the experiments; and on account of the effects of +friction, and the air's resistance, which cannot entirely be removed. +They are, however, constantly, and invariably, suggested to our senses, +and they agree with experiment as far as experiment can go; and the more +accurately the experiments are made, and the greater care we take to +remove all those impediments which tend to render the conclusions +erroneous, the more nearly do the experiments coincide with these +laws."<a name="FNanchor_123:1_67" id="FNanchor_123:1_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_123:1_67" class="fnanchor">[123:1]</a> And thus a converging evidence in favour of certain +doctrines may, under circumstances, be as clear a proof of their +Apostolical origin as can be reached practically from the <i>Quod semper, +quod ubique, quod ab omnibus</i>.</p> + +<p>In such a method of proof there is, first, an imperfect, secondly, a +growing evidence, thirdly, in consequence a delayed inference and +judgment, fourthly, reasons producible to account for the delay.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION I.</h4> + +<h5>INSTANCES CURSORILY NOTICED.</h5> + + +<p class="sectctr">1.</p> + +<p class="center">(1.) <i>Canon of the New Testament.</i></p> + +<p>As regards the New Testament, Catholics and Protestants <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>receive the +same books as canonical and inspired; yet among those books some are to +be found, which certainly have no right there if, following the rule of +Vincentius, we receive nothing as of divine authority but what has been +received always and everywhere. The degrees of evidence are very various +for one book and another. "It is confessed," says Less, "that not all +the Scriptures of our New Testament have been received with universal +consent as genuine works of the Evangelists and Apostles. But that man +must have predetermined to oppose the most palpable truths, and must +reject all history, who will not confess that the <i>greater</i> part of the +New Testament has been universally received as authentic, and that the +remaining books have been acknowledged as such by the <i>majority</i> of the +ancients."<a name="FNanchor_124:1_68" id="FNanchor_124:1_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_124:1_68" class="fnanchor">[124:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>For instance, as to the Epistle of St. James. It is true, it is +contained in the old Syriac version in the second century; but Origen, +in the third century, is the first writer who distinctly mentions it +among the Greeks; and it is not quoted by name by any Latin till the +fourth. St. Jerome speaks of its gaining credit "by degrees, in process +of time." Eusebius says no more than that it had been, up to his time, +acknowledged by the majority; and he classes it with the Shepherd of St. +Hermas and the Epistle of St. Barnabas.<a name="FNanchor_124:2_69" id="FNanchor_124:2_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_124:2_69" class="fnanchor">[124:2]</a></p> + +<p>Again: "The Epistle to the Hebrews, though received in the East, was not +received in the Latin Churches till St. Jerome's time. St. Irenæus +either does not affirm, or denies that it is St. Paul's. Tertullian +ascribes it to St. Barnabas. Caius excludes it from his list. St. +Hippolytus does not receive it. St. Cyprian is silent about it. It is +doubtful whether St. Optatus received it."<a name="FNanchor_124:3_70" id="FNanchor_124:3_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_124:3_70" class="fnanchor">[124:3]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +Again, St. Jerome tells us, that in his day, towards <span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 400, the +Greek Church rejected the Apocalypse, but the Latin received it.</p> + +<p>Again: "The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books in all, though +of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till +from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number +are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the +Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other +thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First to +Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John are quoted but by one +writer during the same period."<a name="FNanchor_125:1_71" id="FNanchor_125:1_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_125:1_71" class="fnanchor">[125:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>On what ground, then, do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on +the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries? The +Church at that era decided—not merely bore testimony, but passed a +judgment on former testimony,—decided, that certain books were of +authority. And on what ground did she so decide? on the ground that +hitherto a decision had been impossible, in an age of persecution, from +want of opportunities for research, discussion, and testimony, from the +private or the local character of some of the books, and from +misapprehension of the doctrine contained in others. Now, however, +facilities were at length given for deciding once for all on what had +been in suspense and doubt for three centuries. On this subject I will +quote another passage from the same Tract: "We depend upon the fourth +and fifth centuries thus:—As to Scripture, former centuries do not +speak distinctly, frequently, or unanimously, except of some chief +books, as the Gospels; but we see in them, as we believe, an +ever-growing tendency and approximation <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>to that full agreement which we +find in the fifth. The testimony given at the latter date is the limit +to which all that has been before said converges. For instance, it is +commonly said, <i>Exceptio probat regulam</i>; when we have reason to think +that a writer or an age would have witnessed so and so, <i>but for</i> this +or that, and that this or that were mere accidents of his position, then +he or it may be said to <i>tend towards</i> such testimony. In this way the +first centuries tend towards the fifth. Viewing the matter as one of +moral evidence, we seem to see in the testimony of the fifth the very +testimony which every preceding century gave, accidents excepted, such +as the present loss of documents once extant, or the then existing +misconceptions which want of intercourse between the Churches +occasioned. The fifth century acts as a comment on the obscure text of +the centuries before it, and brings out a meaning, which with the help +of the comment any candid person sees really to be theirs."<a name="FNanchor_126:1_72" id="FNanchor_126:1_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_126:1_72" class="fnanchor">[126:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p class="center">(2.) <i>Original Sin.</i></p> + +<p>I have already remarked upon the historical fact, that the recognition +of Original Sin, considered as the consequence of Adam's fall, was, both +as regards general acceptance and accurate understanding, a gradual +process, not completed till the time of Augustine and Pelagius. St. +Chrysostom lived close up to that date, but there are passages in his +works, often quoted, which we should not expect to find worded as they +stand, if they had been written fifty years later. It is commonly, and +reasonably, said in explanation, that the fatalism, so prevalent in +various shapes pagan and heretical, in the first centuries, was an +obstacle to an accurate apprehension of the consequences of the fall, as +the presence of the existing <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>idolatry was to the use of images. If this +be so, we have here an instance of a doctrine held back for a time by +circumstances, yet in the event forcing its way into its normal shape, +and at length authoritatively fixed in it, that is, of a doctrine held +implicitly, then asserting itself, and at length fully developed.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p class="center">(3.) <i>Infant Baptism.</i></p> + +<p>One of the passages of St. Chrysostom to which I might refer is this, +"We baptize infants, though they are not defiled with sin, that they may +receive sanctity, righteousness, adoption, heirship, brotherhood with +Christ, and may become His members." (<i>Aug. contr. Jul.</i> i. 21.) This at +least shows that he had a clear view of the importance and duty of +infant baptism, but such was not the case even with saints in the +generation immediately before him. As is well known, it was not unusual +in that age of the Church for those, who might be considered +catechumens, to delay their baptism, as Protestants now delay reception +of the Holy Eucharist. It is difficult for us at this day to enter into +the assemblage of motives which led to this postponement; to a keen +sense and awe of the special privileges of baptism which could only once +be received, other reasons would be added,—reluctance to being +committed to a strict rule of life, and to making a public profession of +religion, and to joining in a specially intimate fellowship or +solidarity with strangers. But so it was in matter of fact, for reasons +good or bad, that infant baptism, which is a fundamental rule of +Christian duty with us, was less earnestly insisted on in early times.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>Even in the fourth century St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and St. +Augustine, having Christian mothers, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>still were not baptized till they +were adults. St. Gregory's mother dedicated him to God immediately on +his birth; and again when he had come to years of discretion, with the +rite of taking the gospels into his hands by way of consecration. He was +religiously-minded from his youth, and had devoted himself to a single +life. Yet his baptism did not take place till after he had attended the +schools of Cæsarea, Palestine, and Alexandria, and was on his voyage to +Athens. He had embarked during the November gales, and for twenty days +his life was in danger. He presented himself for baptism as soon as he +got to land. St. Basil was the son of Christian confessors on both +father's and mother's side. His grandmother Macrina, who brought him up, +had for seven years lived with her husband in the woods of Pontus during +the Decian persecution. His father was said to have wrought miracles; +his mother, an orphan of great beauty of person, was forced from her +unprotected state to abandon the hope of a single life, and was +conspicuous in matrimony for her care of strangers and the poor, and for +her offerings to the churches. How religiously she brought up her +children is shown by the singular blessing, that four out of ten have +since been canonized as Saints. St. Basil was one of these; yet the +child of such parents was not baptized till he had come to man's +estate,—till, according to the Benedictine Editor, his twenty-first, +and perhaps his twenty-ninth, year. St. Augustine's mother, who is +herself a Saint, was a Christian when he was born, though his father was +not. Immediately on his birth, he was made a catechumen; in his +childhood he fell ill, and asked for baptism. His mother was alarmed, +and was taking measures for his reception into the Church, when he +suddenly got better, and it was deferred. He did not receive baptism +till the age of thirty-three, after he had been for nine years a victim +of Manichæan error. In like <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>manner, St. Ambrose, though brought up by +his mother and holy nuns, one of them his own sister St. Marcellina, was +not baptized till he was chosen bishop at the age of about thirty-four, +nor his brother St. Satyrus till about the same age, after the serious +warning of a shipwreck. St. Jerome too, though educated at Rome, and so +far under religious influences, as, with other boys, to be in the +observance of Sunday, and of devotions in the catacombs, had no friend +to bring him to baptism, till he had reached man's estate and had +travelled.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>Now how are the modern sects, which protest against infant baptism, to +be answered by Anglicans with this array of great names in their favour? +By the later rule of the Church surely; by the <i>dicta</i> of some later +Saints, as by St. Chrysostom; by one or two inferences from Scripture; +by an argument founded on the absolute necessity of Baptism for +salvation,—sufficient reasons certainly, but impotent to reverse the +fact that neither in Dalmatia nor in Cappadocia, neither in Rome, nor in +Africa, was it then imperative on Christian parents, as it is now, to +give baptism to their young children. It was on retrospect and after the +truths of the Creed had sunk into the Christian mind, that the authority +of such men as St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine brought +round the <i>orbis terrarum</i> to the conclusion, which the infallible +Church confirmed, that observance of the rite was the rule, and the +non-observance the exception.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p class="center">(4.) <i>Communion in one kind.</i></p> + +<p>In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance +pronounced that, "though in the primitive <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>Church the Sacrament" of the +Eucharist "was received by the faithful under each kind, yet the custom +has been reasonably introduced, for the avoiding of certain dangers and +scandals, that it should be received by the consecrators under each +kind, and by the laity only under the kind of Bread; since it is most +firmly to be believed, and in no wise doubted, that the whole Body and +Blood of Christ is truly contained as well under the kind of Bread as +under the kind of Wine."</p> + +<p>Now the question is, whether the doctrine here laid down, and carried +into effect in the usage here sanctioned, was entertained by the early +Church, and may be considered a just development of its principles and +practices. I answer that, starting with the presumption that the Council +has ecclesiastical authority, which is the point here to be assumed, we +shall find quite enough for its defence, and shall be satisfied to +decide in the affirmative; we shall readily come to the conclusion that +Communion under either kind is lawful, each kind conveying the full gift +of the Sacrament.</p> + +<p>For instance, Scripture affords us two instances of what may reasonably +be considered the administration of the form of Bread without that of +Wine; viz. our Lord's own example towards the two disciples at Emmaus, +and St. Paul's action at sea during the tempest. Moreover, St. Luke +speaks of the first Christians as continuing in the "<i>breaking of +bread</i>, and in prayer," and of the first day of the week "when they came +together to <i>break bread</i>."</p> + +<p>And again, in the sixth chapter of St. John, our Lord says absolutely, +"He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." And, though He distinctly +promises that we shall have it granted to us to drink His blood, as well +as to eat His flesh; nevertheless, not a word does He say to signify +that, as He is the Bread from heaven and the living Bread, so He is the +heavenly, living Wine also. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>Again, St. Paul says that "whosoever shall +eat this Bread <i>or</i> drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be +guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord."</p> + +<p>Many of the types of the Holy Eucharist, as far as they go, tend to the +same conclusion; as the Manna, to which our Lord referred, the Paschal +Lamb, the Shewbread, the sacrifices from which the blood was poured out, +and the miracle of the loaves, which are figures of the bread alone; +while the water from the rock, and the Blood from our Lord's side +correspond to the wine without the bread. Others are representations of +both kinds; as Melchizedek's feast, and Elijah's miracle of the meal and +oil.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>And, further, it certainly was the custom in the early Church, under +circumstances, to communicate in one kind, as we learn from St. Cyprian, +St. Dionysius, St. Basil, St. Jerome, and others. For instance, St. +Cyprian speaks of the communion of an infant under Wine, and of a woman +under Bread; and St. Ambrose speaks of his brother in shipwreck folding +the consecrated Bread in a handkerchief, and placing it round his neck; +and the monks and hermits in the desert can hardly be supposed to have +been ordinarily in possession of consecrated Wine as well as Bread. From +the following Letter of St. Basil, it appears that, not only the monks, +but the whole laity of Egypt ordinarily communicated in Bread only. He +seems to have been asked by his correspondent, whether in time of +persecution it was lawful, in the absence of priest or deacon, to take +the communion "in one's own <i>hand</i>," that is, of course, the Bread; he +answers that it may be justified by the following parallel cases, in +mentioning which he is altogether silent about the Cup. "It is plainly +no fault," he says, "for long custom supplies instances enough to +sanction it. For all the monks in the desert, where there is no priest, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>keep the communion at home, and partake it from themselves. In +Alexandria too, and in Egypt, each of the laity, for the most part, has +the Communion in his house, and, when he will, he partakes it by means +of himself. For when once the priest has celebrated the Sacrifice and +given it, he who takes it as a whole together, and then partakes of it +daily, reasonably ought to think that he partakes and receives from him +who has given it."<a name="FNanchor_132:1_73" id="FNanchor_132:1_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_132:1_73" class="fnanchor">[132:1]</a> It should be added, that in the beginning of +the Letter he may be interpreted to speak of communion in both kinds, +and to say that it is "good and profitable."</p> + +<p>Here we have the usage of Pontus, Egypt, Africa, and Milan. Spain may be +added, if a late author is right in his view of the meaning of a Spanish +Canon;<a name="FNanchor_132:2_74" id="FNanchor_132:2_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_132:2_74" class="fnanchor">[132:2]</a> and Syria, as well as Egypt, at least at a later date, +since Nicephorus<a name="FNanchor_132:3_75" id="FNanchor_132:3_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_132:3_75" class="fnanchor">[132:3]</a> tells us that the Acephali, having no Bishops, +kept the Bread which their last priests had consecrated, and dispensed +crumbs of it every year at Easter for the purposes of Communion.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>But it may be said, that after all it is so very hazardous and fearful a +measure actually to withdraw <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>from Christians one-half of the Sacrament, +that, in spite of these precedents, some direct warrant is needed to +reconcile the mind to it. There might have been circumstances which led +St. Cyprian, or St. Basil, or the Apostolical Christians before them to +curtail it, about which we know nothing. It is not therefore safe in us, +because it was safe in them. Certainly a warrant is necessary; and just +such a warrant is the authority of the Church. If we can trust her +implicitly, there is nothing in the state of the evidence to form an +objection to her decision in this instance, and in proportion as we find +we can trust her does our difficulty lessen. Moreover, children, not to +say infants, were at one time admitted to the Eucharist, at least to the +Cup; on what authority are they now excluded from Cup and Bread also? +St. Augustine considered the usage to be of Apostolical origin; and it +continued in the West down to the twelfth century; it continues in the +East among Greeks, Russo-Greeks, and the various Monophysite Churches to +this day, and that on the ground of its almost universality in the +primitive Church.<a name="FNanchor_133:1_76" id="FNanchor_133:1_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_133:1_76" class="fnanchor">[133:1]</a> Is it a greater innovation to suspend the Cup, +than to cut off children from Communion altogether? Yet we acquiesce in +the latter deprivation without a scruple. It is safer to acquiesce with, +than without, an authority; safer with the belief that the Church is the +pillar and ground of the truth, than with the belief that in so great a +matter she is likely to err.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p class="center">(5.) <i>The Homoüsion.</i></p> + +<p>The next instance I shall take is from the early teaching on the subject +of our Lord's Consubstantiality and Co-eternity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +In the controversy carried on by various learned men in the seventeenth +and following century, concerning the statements of the early Fathers on +this subject, the one party determined the patristic theology by the +literal force of the separate expressions or phrases used in it, or by +the philosophical opinions of the day; the other, by the doctrine of the +Catholic Church, as afterwards authoritatively declared. The one party +argued that those Fathers <i>need not</i> have meant more than what was +afterwards considered heresy; the other answered that there is <i>nothing +to prevent</i> their meaning more. Thus the position which Bull maintains +seems to be nothing beyond this, that the Nicene Creed is a natural key +for interpreting the body of Ante-nicene theology. His very aim is to +explain difficulties; now the notion of difficulties and their +explanation implies a rule to which they are apparent exceptions, and in +accordance with which they are to be explained. Nay, the title of his +work, which is a "Defence of the Creed of Nicæa," shows that he is not +investigating what is true and what false, but explaining and justifying +a foregone conclusion, as sanctioned by the testimony of the great +Council. Unless the statements of the Fathers had suggested +difficulties, his work would have had no object. He allows that their +language is not such as they would have used after the Creed had been +imposed; but he says in effect that, if we will but take it in our hands +and apply it equitably to their writings, we shall bring out and +harmonize their teaching, clear their ambiguities, and discover their +anomalous statements to be few and insignificant. In other words, he +begins with a presumption, and shows how naturally facts close round it +and fall in with it, if we will but let them. He does this triumphantly, +yet he has an arduous work; out of about thirty writers whom he reviews, +he has, for one cause or other, to "explain piously" nearly twenty.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> +<h4>SECTION II.</h4> + +<h5>OUR LORD'S INCARNATION AND THE DIGNITY OF HIS BLESSED<br /> +MOTHER AND OF ALL SAINTS.</h5> + +<p>Bishop Bull's controversy had regard to Ante-nicene writers only, and to +little more than to the doctrine of the Divine Son's consubstantiality +and co-eternity; and, as being controversy, it necessarily narrows and +dries up a large and fertile subject. Let us see whether, treated +historically, it will not present itself to us in various aspects which +may rightly be called developments, as coming into view, one out of +another, and following one after another by a natural order of +succession.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>First then, that the language of the Ante-nicene Fathers, on the subject +of our Lord's Divinity, may be far more easily accommodated to the Arian +hypothesis than can the language of the Post-nicene, is agreed on all +hands. Thus St. Justin speaks of the Son as subservient to the Father in +the creation of the world, as seen by Abraham, as speaking to Moses from +the bush, as appearing to Joshua before the fall of Jericho,<a name="FNanchor_135:1_77" id="FNanchor_135:1_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_135:1_77" class="fnanchor">[135:1]</a> as +Minister and Angel, and as numerically distinct from the Father. +Clement, again, speaks of the Word<a name="FNanchor_135:2_78" id="FNanchor_135:2_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_135:2_78" class="fnanchor">[135:2]</a> as the "Instrument of God," +"close to the Sole Almighty;" "ministering to the Omnipotent Father's +will;"<a name="FNanchor_135:3_79" id="FNanchor_135:3_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_135:3_79" class="fnanchor">[135:3]</a> "an energy, so to say, or operation of the Father," and +"constituted by His will as the cause of all good."<a name="FNanchor_135:4_80" id="FNanchor_135:4_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_135:4_80" class="fnanchor">[135:4]</a> Again, the +Council of Antioch, which condemned Paul of Samosata, says that He +"appears to the Patriarchs and converses with them, being testified +sometimes to be an Angel, at other times Lord, at others God;" that, +while "it is impious to think that the God of all is called <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>an Angel, +the Son is the Angel of the Father."<a name="FNanchor_136:1_81" id="FNanchor_136:1_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_136:1_81" class="fnanchor">[136:1]</a> Formal proof, however, is +unnecessary; had not the fact been as I have stated it, neither Sandius +would have professed to differ from the Post-nicene Fathers, nor would +Bull have had to defend the Ante-nicene.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>One principal change which took place, as time went on, was the +following: the Ante-nicene Fathers, as in some of the foregoing +extracts, speak of the Angelic visions in the Old Testament as if they +were appearances of the Son; but St. Augustine introduced the explicit +doctrine, which has been received since his date, that they were simply +Angels, through whom the Omnipresent Son manifested Himself. This indeed +is the only interpretation which the Ante-nicene statements admitted, as +soon as reason began to examine what they did mean. They could not mean +that the Eternal God could really be seen by bodily eyes; if anything +was seen, that must have been some created glory or other symbol, by +which it pleased the Almighty to signify His Presence. What was heard +was a sound, as external to His Essence, and as distinct from His +Nature, as the thunder or the voice of the trumpet, which pealed along +Mount Sinai; what it was had not come under discussion till St. +Augustine; both question and answer were alike undeveloped. The earlier +Fathers spoke as if there were no medium interposed between the Creator +and the creature, and so they seemed to make the Eternal Son the medium; +what it really was, they had not determined. St. Augustine ruled, and +his ruling has been accepted in later times, that it was not a mere +atmospheric phenomenon, or an impression on the senses, but the material +form proper to an Angelic presence, or the presence of an Angel in that +material garb in which blessed <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>Spirits do ordinarily appear to men. +Henceforth the Angel in the bush, the voice which spoke with Abraham, +and the man who wrestled with Jacob, were not regarded as the Son of +God, but as Angelic ministers, whom He employed, and through whom He +signified His presence and His will. Thus the tendency of the +controversy with the Arians was to raise our view of our Lord's +Mediatorial acts, to impress them on us in their divine rather than +their human aspect, and to associate them more intimately with the +ineffable glories which surround the Throne of God. The Mediatorship was +no longer regarded in itself, in that prominently subordinate place +which it had once occupied in the thoughts of Christians, but as an +office assumed by One, who though having become man in order to bear it, +was still God.<a name="FNanchor_137:1_82" id="FNanchor_137:1_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_137:1_82" class="fnanchor">[137:1]</a> Works and attributes, which had hitherto been +assigned to the Economy or to the Sonship, were now simply assigned to +the Manhood. A tendency was also elicited, as the controversy proceeded, +to contemplate our Lord more distinctly in His absolute perfections, +than in His relation to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, +whereas the Nicene Creed speaks of the "Father Almighty," and "His +Only-begotten Son, our Lord, God from God, Light from Light, Very God +from Very God," and of the Holy Ghost, "the Lord and Giver of Life," we +are told in the Athanasian of "the Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and +the Holy Ghost Eternal," and that "none is afore or after other, none is +greater or less than another."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>The Apollinarian and Monophysite controversy, which followed in the +course of the next century, tended towards a development in the same +direction. Since the heresies, which were in question, maintained, at +least virtually, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>that our Lord was not man, it was obvious to insist on +the passages of Scripture which describe His created and subservient +nature, and this had the immediate effect of interpreting of His manhood +texts which had hitherto been understood more commonly of His Divine +Sonship. Thus, for instance, "My Father is greater than I," which had +been understood even by St. Athanasius of our Lord as God, is applied by +later writers more commonly to His humanity; and in this way the +doctrine of His subordination to the Eternal Father, which formed so +prominent a feature in Ante-nicene theology, comparatively fell into the +shade.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>And coincident with these changes, a most remarkable result is +discovered. The Catholic polemic, in view of the Arian and Monophysite +errors, being of this character, became the natural introduction to the +<i>cultus Sanctorum</i>; for in proportion as texts descriptive of created +mediation ceased to belong to our Lord, so was a room opened for created +mediators. Nay, as regards the instance of Angelic appearances itself, +as St. Augustine explained them, if those appearances were creatures, +certainly creatures were worshipped by the Patriarchs, not indeed in +themselves,<a name="FNanchor_138:1_83" id="FNanchor_138:1_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_138:1_83" class="fnanchor">[138:1]</a> but as the token of a Presence greater than +themselves. When "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon +God," he hid his face before a creature; when Jacob said, "I have seen +God face to face and my life is preserved," the Son of God was there, +but what he saw, what he wrestled with, was an Angel. When "Joshua fell +on his face to the earth and did worship before the captain of the +Lord's host, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?" +what was seen and heard was a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>glorified creature, if St. Augustine is +to be followed; and the Son of God was in him.</p> + +<p>And there were plain precedents in the Old Testament for the lawfulness +of such adoration. When "the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the +tabernacle-door," "all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in +his tent-door."<a name="FNanchor_139:1_84" id="FNanchor_139:1_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_139:1_84" class="fnanchor">[139:1]</a> When Daniel too saw "a certain man clothed in +linen" "there remained no strength" in him, for his "comeliness was +turned" in him "into corruption." He fell down on his face, and next +remained on his knees and hands, and at length "stood trembling," and +said "O my Lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have +retained no strength. For how can the servant of this my Lord talk with +this my Lord?"<a name="FNanchor_139:2_85" id="FNanchor_139:2_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_139:2_85" class="fnanchor">[139:2]</a> It might be objected perhaps to this argument, +that a worship which was allowable in an elementary system might be +unlawful when "grace and truth" had come "through Jesus Christ;" but +then it might be retorted surely, that that elementary system had been +emphatically opposed to all idolatry, and had been minutely jealous of +everything which might approach to favouring it. Nay, the very +prominence given in the Pentateuch to the doctrine of a Creator, and the +comparative silence concerning the Angelic creation, and the prominence +given to the Angelic creation in the later Prophets, taken together, +were a token both of that jealousy, and of its cessation, as time went +on. Nor can anything be concluded from St. Paul's censure of Angel +worship, since the sin which he is denouncing was that of "not holding +the Head," and of worshipping creatures <i>instead</i> of the Creator as the +source of good. The same explanation avails for passages like those in +St. Athanasius and Theodoret, in which the worship of Angels is +discountenanced.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>6.</p> + +<p>The Arian controversy had led to another development, which confirmed by +anticipation the <i>cultus</i> to which St. Augustine's doctrine pointed. In +answer to the objection urged against our Lord's supreme Divinity from +texts which speak of His exaltation, St. Athanasius is led to insist +forcibly on the benefits which have accrued to man through it. He says +that, in truth, not Christ, but that human nature which He had assumed, +was raised and glorified in Him. The more plausible was the heretical +argument against His Divinity from those texts, the more emphatic is St. +Athanasius's exaltation of our regenerate nature by way of explaining +them. But intimate indeed must be the connexion between Christ and His +brethren, and high their glory, if the language which seemed to belong +to the Incarnate Word really belonged to them. Thus the pressure of the +controversy elicited and developed a truth, which till then was held +indeed by Christians, but less perfectly realized and not publicly +recognized. The sanctification, or rather the deification of the nature +of man, is one main subject of St. Athanasius's theology. Christ, in +rising, raises His Saints with Him to the right hand of power. They +become instinct with His life, of one body with His flesh, divine sons, +immortal kings, gods. He is in them, because He is in human nature; and +He communicates to them that nature, deified by becoming His, that them +It may deify. He is in them by the Presence of His Spirit, and in them +He is seen. They have those titles of honour by participation, which are +properly His. Without misgiving we may apply to them the most sacred +language of Psalmists and Prophets. "Thou art a Priest for ever" may be +said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin as well as of their Lord. "He hath +dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor," was fulfilled in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>St. +Laurence. "I have found David My servant," first said typically of the +King of Israel, and belonging really to Christ, is transferred back +again by grace to His Vicegerents upon earth. "I have given thee the +nations for thine inheritance" is the prerogative of Popes; "Thou hast +given him his heart's desire," the record of a martyr; "thou hast loved +righteousness and hated iniquity," the praise of Virgins.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>"As Christ," says St. Athanasius, "died, and was exalted as man, so, as +man, is He said to take what, as God, He ever had, in order that even +this so high a grant of grace might reach to us. For the Word did not +suffer loss in receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a grace, +but rather He deified that which He put on, nay, gave it graciously to +the race of man. . . . For it is the Father's glory, that man, made and +then lost, should be found again; and, when done to death, that he +should be made alive, and should become God's temple. For whereas the +powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were ever worshipping the +Lord, as they are now too worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is +our grace and high exaltation, that, even when He became man, the Son of +God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers are not startled at seeing +all of us, who are of one body with Him, introduced into their +realms."<a name="FNanchor_141:1_86" id="FNanchor_141:1_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_141:1_86" class="fnanchor">[141:1]</a> In this passage it is almost said that the glorified +Saints will partake in the homage paid by Angels to Christ, the True +Object of all worship; and at least a reason is suggested to us by it +for the Angel's shrinking in the Apocalypse from the homage of St. John, +the Theologian and Prophet of the Church.<a name="FNanchor_141:2_87" id="FNanchor_141:2_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_141:2_87" class="fnanchor">[141:2]</a> But St. Athanasius +proceeds still more explicitly, "In that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>the Lord, even when come in +human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God's +Son, and that through Him the Father is known, it is plain, as has been +said, that, <i>not the Word</i>, considered as the Word, received this so +great grace, <i>but we</i>. For, because of our relationship to His Body, we +too have become God's temple, and in consequence have been made God's +sons, so that <i>even in us the Lord is now worshipped</i>, and beholders +report, as the Apostle says, that 'God is in them of a truth.'"<a name="FNanchor_142:1_88" id="FNanchor_142:1_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_142:1_88" class="fnanchor">[142:1]</a> +It appears to be distinctly stated in this passage, that those who are +formally recognized as God's adopted sons in Christ, are fit objects of +worship on account of Him who is in them; a doctrine which both +interprets and accounts for the invocation of Saints, the <i>cultus</i> of +relics, and the religious veneration in which even the living have +sometimes been held, who, being saintly, were distinguished by +miraculous gifts.<a name="FNanchor_142:2_89" id="FNanchor_142:2_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_142:2_89" class="fnanchor">[142:2]</a> Worship then is the necessary correlative of +glory; and in the same sense in which created natures can share in the +Creator's incommunicable glory, are they also allowed a share of that +worship which is His property alone.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>There was one other subject on which the Arian controversy had a more +intimate, though not an immediate influence. Its tendency to give a new +interpretation to the texts which speak of our Lord's subordination, has +already been noticed; such as admitted of it were henceforth explained +more prominently of His manhood than of His Mediatorship or His Sonship. +But there were other texts which did not admit of this interpretation, +and which, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>without ceasing to belong to Him, might seem more directly +applicable to a creature than to the Creator. He indeed was really the +"Wisdom in whom the Father eternally delighted," yet it would be but +natural, if, under the circumstances of Arian misbelief, theologians +looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be the immediate object of +such descriptions. And thus the controversy opened a question which it +did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the +realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its +inhabitant. Arianism had admitted that our Lord was both the God of the +Evangelical Covenant, and the actual Creator of the Universe; but even +this was not enough, because it did not confess Him to be the One, +Everlasting, Infinite, Supreme Being, but as one who was made by the +Supreme. It was not enough in accordance with that heresy to proclaim +Him as having an ineffable origin before all worlds; not enough to place +him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God's +Hands; not enough to make Him the King of all Saints, the Intercessor +for man with God, the Object of worship, the Image of the Father; not +enough, because it was not all, and between all and anything short of +all, there was an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is +levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself. That +is, the Nicene Council recognized the eventful principle, that, while we +believe and profess any being to be made of a created nature, such a +being is really no God to us, though honoured by us with whatever high +titles and with whatever homage. Arius or Asterius did all but confess +that Christ was the Almighty; they said much more than St. Bernard or +St. Alphonso have since said of the Blessed Mary; yet they left Him a +creature and were found wanting. Thus there was "a wonder in heaven:" a +throne was seen, far above all other created powers, mediatorial, +intercessory; a title archetypal; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>a crown bright as the morning star; a +glory issuing from the Eternal Throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a +sceptre over all; and who was the predestined heir of that Majesty? +Since it was not high enough for the Highest, who was that Wisdom, and +what was her name, "the Mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope," +"exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho," +"created from the beginning before the world" in God's everlasting +counsels, and "in Jerusalem her power"? The vision is found in the +Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, +and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not +exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. +The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>I am not stating conclusions which were drawn out in the controversy, +but of premisses which were laid, broad and deep. It was then shown, it +was then determined, that to exalt a creature was no recognition of its +divinity. Nor am I speaking of the Semi-Arians, who, holding our Lord's +derivation from the Substance of the Father, yet denying His +Consubstantiality, really did lie open to the charge of maintaining two +Gods, and present no parallel to the defenders of the prerogatives of +St. Mary. But I speak of the Arians who taught that the Son's Substance +was created; and concerning them it is true that St. Athanasius's +condemnation of their theology is a vindication of the Medieval. Yet it +is not wonderful, considering how Socinians, Sabellians, Nestorians, and +the like, abound in these days, without their even knowing it +themselves, if those who never rise higher in their notions of our +Lord's Divinity, than to consider Him a man singularly inhabited by a +Divine Presence, that is, a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>Catholic Saint,—if such men should mistake +the honour paid by the Church to the human Mother for that very honour +which, and which alone, is worthy of her Eternal Son.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>I have said that there was in the first ages no public and +ecclesiastical recognition of the place which St. Mary holds in the +Economy of grace; this was reserved for the fifth century, as the +definition of our Lord's proper Divinity had been the work of the +fourth. There was a controversy contemporary with those already +mentioned, I mean the Nestorian, which brought out the complement of the +development, to which they had been subservient; and which, if I may so +speak, supplied the subject of that august proposition of which Arianism +had provided the predicate. In order to do honour to Christ, in order to +defend the true doctrine of the Incarnation, in order to secure a right +faith in the manhood of the Eternal Son, the Council of Ephesus +determined the Blessed Virgin to be the Mother of God. Thus all heresies +of that day, though opposite to each other, tended in a most wonderful +way to her exaltation; and the School of Antioch, the fountain of +primitive rationalism, led the Church to determine first the conceivable +greatness of a creature, and then the incommunicable dignity of the +Blessed Virgin.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>But the spontaneous or traditional feeling of Christians had in great +measure anticipated the formal ecclesiastical decision. Thus the title +<i>Theotocos</i>, or Mother of God, was familiar to Christians from primitive +times, and had been used, among other writers, by Origen, Eusebius, St. +Alexander, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. +Gregory Nyssen, and St. Nilus. She had been called <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>Ever-Virgin by +others, as by St. Epiphanius, St. Jerome, and Didymus. By others, "the +Mother of all living," as being the antitype of Eve; for, as St. +Epiphanius observes, "in truth," not in shadow, "from Mary was Life +itself brought into the world, that Mary might bear things living, and +might become Mother of living things."<a name="FNanchor_146:1_90" id="FNanchor_146:1_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_146:1_90" class="fnanchor">[146:1]</a> St. Augustine says that +all have sinned "except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the +honour of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are +treating of sins." "She was alone and wrought the world's salvation," +says St. Ambrose, alluding to her conception of the Redeemer. She is +signified by the Pillar of the cloud which guided the Israelites, +according to the same Father; and she had "so great grace, as not only +to have virginity herself, but to impart it to those to whom she +came;"—"the Rod out of the stem of Jesse," says St. Jerome, and "the +Eastern gate through which the High Priest alone goes in and out, yet is +ever shut;"—the wise woman, says St. Nilus, who "hath clad all +believers, from the fleece of the Lamb born of her, with the clothing of +incorruption, and delivered them from their spiritual nakedness;"—"the +Mother of Life, of beauty, of majesty, the Morning Star," according to +Antiochus;—"the mystical new heavens," "the heavens carrying the +Divinity," "the fruitful vine by whom we are translated from death unto +life," according to St. Ephraim;—"the manna which is delicate, bright, +sweet, and virgin, which, as though coming from heaven, has poured down +on all the people of the Churches a food pleasanter than honey," +according to St. Maximus.</p> + +<p>St. Proclus calls her "the unsullied shell which contains the pearl of +price," "the sacred shrine of sinlessness," "the golden altar of +holocaust," "the holy oil of anointing," "the costly alabaster box of +spikenard," "the ark gilt within and without," "the heifer whose ashes, +that is, the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>Lord's Body taken from her, cleanses those who are defiled +by the pollution of sin," "the fair bride of the Canticles," "the stay +(<ins class="greek" title="stêrigma">στήριγμα</ins>) of believers," "the Church's diadem," "the +expression of orthodoxy." These are oratorical expressions; but we use +oratory on great subjects, not on small. Elsewhere he calls her "God's +only bridge to man;" and elsewhere he breaks forth, "Run through all +creation in your thoughts, and see if there be equal to, or greater +than, the Holy Virgin Mother of God."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>Theodotus too, one of the Fathers of Ephesus, or whoever it is whose +Homilies are given to St. Amphilochius:—"As debtors and God's +well-affected servants, let us make confession to God the Word and to +His Mother, of the gift of words, as far as we are able. . . Hail, +Mother, clad in light, of the light which sets not; hail all-undefiled +mother of holiness; hail most pellucid fountain of the life-giving +stream!" After speaking of the Incarnation, he continues, "Such +paradoxes doth the Divine Virgin Mother ever bring to us in her holy +irradiations, for with her is the Fount of Life, and breasts of the +spiritual and guileless milk; from which to suck the sweetness, we have +even now earnestly run to her, not as in forgetfulness of what has gone +before, but in desire of what is to come."</p> + +<p>To St. Fulgentius is ascribed the following: "Mary became the window of +heaven, for God through her poured the True Light upon the world; the +heavenly ladder, for through her did God descend upon earth. . . . +Come, ye virgins, to a Virgin, come ye who conceive to one who did +conceive, ye who bear to one who bore, mothers to a Mother, ye who give +suck to one who suckled, young women to the Young." Lastly, "Thou hast +found grace," says St. Peter Chrysologus, "how much? he had said <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>above, +Full. And full indeed, which with full shower might pour upon and into +the whole creation."<a name="FNanchor_148:1_91" id="FNanchor_148:1_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_148:1_91" class="fnanchor">[148:1]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Such was the state of sentiment on the subject of the Blessed Virgin, +which the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite heresies found in the +Church; and on which the doctrinal decisions consequent upon them +impressed a form and a consistency which has been handed on in the East +and West to this day.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION III.</h4> + +<h5>THE PAPAL SUPREMACY.</h5> + +<p>I will take one instance more. Let us see how, on the principles which I +have been laying down and defending, the evidence lies for the Pope's +Supremacy.</p> + +<p>As to this doctrine the question is this, whether there was not from the +first a certain element at work, or in existence, divinely sanctioned, +which, for certain reasons, did not at once show itself upon the surface +of ecclesiastical <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>affairs, and of which events in the fourth century +are the development; and whether the evidence of its existence and +operation, which does occur in the earlier centuries, be it much or +little, is not just such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>For instance, it is true, St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the +subject of the Pope's authority; but if in fact that authority could not +be in active operation then, such silence is not so difficult to account +for as the silence of Seneca or Plutarch about Christianity itself, or +of Lucian about the Roman people. St. Ignatius directed his doctrine +according to the need. While Apostles were on earth, there was the +display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as +being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the +Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. When the +Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into +portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of +internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be +wanted. Christians at home did not yet quarrel with Christians abroad; +they quarrelled at home among themselves. St. Ignatius applied the +fitting remedy. The <i>Sacramentum Unitatis</i> was acknowledged on all +hands; the mode of fulfilling and the means of securing it would vary +with the occasion; and the determination of its essence, its seat, and +its laws would be a gradual supply for a gradual necessity.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>This is but natural, and is parallel to instances which happen daily, +and may be so considered without prejudice to the divine right whether +of the Episcopate or of the Papacy. It is a common occurrence for a +quarrel and a lawsuit to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>bring out the state of the law, and then the +most unexpected results often follow. St. Peter's prerogative would +remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters +became the cause of ascertaining it. While Christians were "of one heart +and one soul," it would be suspended; love dispenses with laws. +Christians knew that they must live in unity, and they were in unity; in +what that unity consisted, how far they could proceed, as it were, in +bending it, and what at length was the point at which it broke, was an +irrelevant as well as unwelcome inquiry. Relatives often live together +in happy ignorance of their respective rights and properties, till a +father or a husband dies; and then they find themselves against their +will in separate interests, and on divergent courses, and dare not move +without legal advisers. Again, the case is conceivable of a corporation +or an Academical body, going on for centuries in the performance of the +routine-business which came in its way, and preserving a good +understanding between its members, with statutes almost a dead letter +and no precedents to explain them, and the rights of its various classes +and functions undefined,—then of its being suddenly thrown back by the +force of circumstances upon the question of its formal character as a +body politic, and in consequence developing in the relation of governors +and governed. The <i>regalia Petri</i> might sleep, as the power of a +Chancellor has slept; not as an obsolete, for they never had been +carried into effect, but as a mysterious privilege, which was not +understood; as an unfulfilled prophecy. For St. Ignatius to speak of +Popes, when it was a matter of Bishops, would have been like sending an +army to arrest a housebreaker. The Bishop's power indeed was from God, +and the Pope's could be no more; he, as well as the Pope, was our Lord's +representative, and had a sacramental office: but I am speaking, not of +the intrinsic sanctity or divinity of such an office, but of its duties.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>4.</p> + +<p>When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local +disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances +gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was +necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a +suspension of that communion had actually occurred. It is not a greater +difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about +Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about +Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not +formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no +formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is +violated.</p> + +<p>And, in like manner, it was natural for Christians to direct their +course in matters of doctrine by the guidance of mere floating, and, as +it were, endemic tradition, while it was fresh and strong; but in +proportion as it languished, or was broken in particular places, did it +become necessary to fall back upon its special homes, first the +Apostolic Sees, and then the See of St. Peter.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>Moreover, an international bond and a common authority could not be +consolidated, were it ever so certainly provided, while persecutions +lasted. If the Imperial Power checked the development of Councils, it +availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy. The Creed, the +Canon, in like manner, both remained undefined. The Creed, the Canon, +the Papacy, Ecumenical Councils, all began to form, as soon as the +Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church. And as it was +natural that her monarchical power should display itself when the Empire +became Christian, so was it natural also that further <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>developments of +that power should take place when that Empire fell. Moreover, when the +power of the Holy See began to exert itself, disturbance and collision +would be the necessary consequence. Of the Temple of Solomon, it was +said that "neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in +the house, while it was in building." This is a type of the Church +above; it was otherwise with the Church below, whether in the instance +of Popes or Apostles. In either case, a new power had to be defined; as +St. Paul had to plead, nay, to strive for his apostolic authority, and +enjoined St. Timothy, as Bishop of Ephesus, to let no man despise him: +so Popes too have not therefore been ambitious because they did not +establish their authority without a struggle. It was natural that +Polycrates should oppose St. Victor; and natural too that St. Cyprian +should both extol the See of St. Peter, yet resist it when he thought it +went beyond its province. And at a later day it was natural that +Emperors should rise in indignation against it; and natural, on the +other hand, that it should take higher ground with a younger power than +it had taken with an elder and time-honoured.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>We may follow Barrow here without reluctance, except in his imputation +of motives.</p> + +<p>"In the first times," he says, "while the Emperors were pagans, their +[the Popes'] pretences were suited to their condition, and could not +soar high; they were not then so mad as to pretend to any temporal +power, and a pittance of spiritual eminency did content them."</p> + +<p>Again: "The state of the most primitive Church did not well admit such +an universal sovereignty. For that did consist of small bodies +incoherently situated, and scattered about in very distant places, and +consequently unfit to be modelled into one political society, or to be +governed <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>by one head, especially considering their condition under +persecution and poverty. What convenient resort for direction or justice +could a few distressed Christians in Egypt, Ethiopia, Parthia, India, +Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Cappadocia, and other parts, have to Rome!"</p> + +<p>Again: "Whereas no point avowed by Christians could be so apt to raise +offence and jealousy in pagans against our religion as this, which +setteth up a power of so vast extent and huge influence; whereas no +novelty could be more surprising or startling than the creation of an +universal empire over the consciences and religious practices of men; +whereas also this doctrine could not be but very conspicuous and glaring +in ordinary practice, it is prodigious that all pagans should not loudly +exclaim against it," that is, on the supposition that the Papal power +really was then in actual exercise.</p> + +<p>And again: "It is most prodigious that, in the disputes managed by the +Fathers against heretics, the Gnostics, Valentinians, &c., they should +not, even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence of the +universal pastor and judge, as a most evidently conclusive argument, as +the most efficacious and compendious method of convincing and silencing +them."</p> + +<p>Once more: "Even Popes themselves have shifted their pretences, and +varied in style, according to the different circumstances of time, and +their variety of humours, designs, interests. In time of prosperity, and +upon advantage, when they might safely do it, any Pope almost would talk +high and assume much to himself; but when they were low, or stood in +fear of powerful contradiction, even the boldest Popes would speak +submissively or moderately."<a name="FNanchor_153:1_92" id="FNanchor_153:1_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_153:1_92" class="fnanchor">[153:1]</a></p> + +<p>On the whole, supposing the power to be divinely bestowed, yet in the +first instance more or less dormant, a history could not be traced out +more probable, more suitable <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>to that hypothesis, than the actual course +of the controversy which took place age after age upon the Papal +supremacy.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>It will be said that all this is a theory. Certainly it is: it is a +theory to account for facts as they lie in the history, to account for +so much being told us about the Papal authority in early times, and not +more; a theory to reconcile what is and what is not recorded about it; +and, which is the principal point, a theory to connect the words and +acts of the Ante-nicene Church with that antecedent probability of a +monarchical principle in the Divine Scheme, and that actual +exemplification of it in the fourth century, which forms their +presumptive interpretation. All depends on the strength of that +presumption. Supposing there be otherwise good reason for saying that +the Papal Supremacy is part of Christianity, there is nothing in the +early history of the Church to contradict it.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>It follows to inquire in what this presumption consists? It has, as I +have said, two parts, the antecedent probability of a Popedom, and the +actual state of the Post-nicene Church. The former of these reasons has +unavoidably been touched upon in what has preceded. It is the absolute +need of a monarchical power in the Church which is our ground for +anticipating it. A political body cannot exist without government, and +the larger is the body the more concentrated must the government be. If +the whole of Christendom is to form one Kingdom, one head is essential; +at least this is the experience of eighteen hundred years. As the Church +grew into form, so did the power of the Pope develope; and wherever the +Pope has been renounced, decay and division have been the consequence. +We know of no other way of preserving the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span><i>Sacramentum Unitatis</i>, but a +centre of unity. The Nestorians have had their "Catholicus;" the +Lutherans of Prussia have their general superintendent; even the +Independents, I believe, have had an overseer in their Missions. The +Anglican Church affords an observable illustration of this doctrine. As +her prospects have opened and her communion extended, the See of +Canterbury has become the natural centre of her operations. It has at +the present time jurisdiction in the Mediterranean, at Jerusalem, in +Hindostan, in North America, at the Antipodes. It has been the organ of +communication, when a Prime Minister would force the Church to a +redistribution of her property, or a Protestant Sovereign abroad would +bring her into friendly relations with his own communion. Eyes have been +lifted up thither in times of perplexity; thither have addresses been +directed and deputations sent. Thence issue the legal decisions, or the +declarations in Parliament, or the letters, or the private +interpositions, which shape the fortunes of the Church, and are the +moving influence within her separate dioceses. It must be so; no Church +can do without its Pope. We see before our eyes the centralizing process +by which the See of St. Peter became the Sovereign Head of Christendom.</p> + +<p>If such be the nature of the case, it is impossible, if we may so speak +reverently, that an Infinite Wisdom, which sees the end from the +beginning, in decreeing the rise of an universal Empire, should not have +decreed the development of a sovereign ruler.</p> + +<p>Moreover, all this must be viewed in the light of the general +probability, so much insisted on above, that doctrine cannot but +develope as time proceeds and need arises, and that its developments are +parts of the Divine system, and that therefore it is lawful, or rather +necessary, to interpret the words and deeds of the earlier Church by the +determinate teaching of the later.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>9.</p> + +<p>And, on the other hand, as the counterpart of these anticipations, we +are met by certain announcements in Scripture, more or less obscure and +needing a comment, and claimed by the Papal See as having their +fulfilment in itself. Such are the words, "Thou art Peter, and upon this +rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail +against it, and I will give unto Thee the Keys of the Kingdom of +Heaven." Again: "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." And "Satan hath desired +to have you; I have prayed for thee, and when thou art converted, +strengthen thy brethren." Such, too, are various other indications of +the Divine purpose as regards St. Peter, too weak in themselves to be +insisted on separately, but not without a confirmatory power; such as +his new name, his walking on the sea, his miraculous draught of fishes +on two occasions, our Lord's preaching out of his boat, and His +appearing first to him after His resurrection.</p> + +<p>It should be observed, moreover, that a similar promise was made by the +patriarch Jacob to Judah: "Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: +the sceptre shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come;" yet this +promise was not fulfilled for perhaps eight hundred years, during which +long period we hear little or nothing of the tribe descended from him. +In like manner, "On this rock I will build My Church," "I give unto thee +the Keys," "Feed My sheep," are not precepts merely, but prophecies and +promises, promises to be accomplished by Him who made them, prophecies +to be fulfilled according to the need, and to be interpreted by the +event,—by the history, that is, of the fourth and fifth centuries, +though they had a partial fulfilment even in the preceding period, and a +still more noble development in the middle ages.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>10.</p> + +<p>A partial fulfilment, or at least indications of what was to be, there +certainly were in the first age. Faint one by one, at least they are +various, and are found in writers of many times and countries, and +thereby illustrative of each other, and forming a body of proof. Thus +St. Clement, in the name of the Church of Rome, writes to the +Corinthians, when they were without a bishop; St. Ignatius of Antioch +addresses the Roman Church, out of the Churches to which he writes, as +"the Church, which has in dignity the first seat, of the city of the +Romans,"<a name="FNanchor_157:1_93" id="FNanchor_157:1_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_157:1_93" class="fnanchor">[157:1]</a> and implies that it was too high for his directing as +being the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Polycarp of Smyrna has +recourse to the Bishop of Rome on the question of Easter; the heretic +Marcion, excommunicated in Pontus, betakes himself to Rome; Soter, +Bishop of Rome, sends alms, according to the custom of his Church, to +the Churches throughout the empire, and, in the words of Eusebius, +"affectionately exhorted those who came to Rome, as a father his +children;" the Montanists from Phrygia come to Rome to gain the +countenance of its Bishop; Praxeas, from Asia, attempts the like, and +for a while is successful; St. Victor, Bishop of Rome, threatens to +excommunicate the Asian Churches; St. Irenæus speaks of Rome as "the +greatest Church, the most ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded and +established by Peter and Paul," appeals to its tradition, not in +contrast indeed, but in preference to that of other Churches, and +declares that "to this Church, every Church, that is, the faithful from +every side must resort" or "must agree with it, <i>propter potiorem +principalitatem</i>." "O Church, happy in its position," says Tertullian, +"into which the Apostles poured out, together with their blood, their +whole doctrine;" and elsewhere, though in indignation and bitter +mockery, he calls the Pope "the Pontifex Maximus, the Bishop of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>Bishops." The presbyters of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, +complain of his doctrine to St. Dionysius of Rome; the latter +expostulates with him, and he explains. The Emperor Aurelian leaves "to +the Bishops of Italy and of Rome" the decision, whether or not Paul of +Samosata shall be dispossessed of the see-house at Antioch; St. Cyprian +speaks of Rome as "the See of Peter and the principal Church, whence +the unity of the priesthood took its rise, . . whose faith has been +commended by the Apostles, to whom faithlessness can have no access;" +St. Stephen refuses to receive St. Cyprian's deputation, and separates +himself from various Churches of the East; Fortunatus and Felix, deposed +by St. Cyprian, have recourse to Rome; Basilides, deposed in Spain, +betakes himself to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>St. Cyprian had his quarrel with the Roman See, but it appears he allows +to it the title of the "Cathedra Petri," and even Firmilian is a witness +that Rome claimed it. In the fourth and fifth centuries this title and +its logical results became prominent. Thus St. Julius (<span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 342) +remonstrated by letter with the Eusebian party for "proceeding on their +own authority as they pleased," and then, as he says, "desiring to +obtain our concurrence in their decisions, though we never condemned +[Athanasius]. Not so have the constitutions of Paul, not so have the +traditions of the Fathers directed; this is another form of procedure, a +novel practice. . . . For what we have received from the blessed Apostle +Peter, that I signify to you; and I should not have written this, as +deeming that these things are manifest unto all men, had not these +proceedings so disturbed us."<a name="FNanchor_158:1_94" id="FNanchor_158:1_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_158:1_94" class="fnanchor">[158:1]</a> St. Athanasius, by preserving this +protest, has given it his sanction. Moreover, it is referred to by +Socrates; and his account of it has the more force, because he happens +to be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>incorrect in the details, and therefore did not borrow it from +St. Athanasius: "Julius wrote back," he says, "that they acted against +the Canons, because they had not called him to the Council, the +Ecclesiastical Canon commanding that the Churches ought not to make +Canons beside the will of the Bishop of Rome."<a name="FNanchor_159:1_95" id="FNanchor_159:1_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_159:1_95" class="fnanchor">[159:1]</a> And Sozomen: "It +was a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid whatever was transacted beside +the will of the Bishop of the Romans."<a name="FNanchor_159:2_96" id="FNanchor_159:2_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_159:2_96" class="fnanchor">[159:2]</a> On the other hand, the +heretics themselves, whom St. Julius withstands, are obliged to +acknowledge that Rome was "the School of the Apostles and the Metropolis +of orthodoxy from the beginning;" and two of their leaders (Western +Bishops indeed) some years afterwards recanted their heresy before the +Pope in terms of humble confession.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>Another Pope, St. Damasus, in his letter addressed to the Eastern +Bishops against Apollinaris (<span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 382), calls those Bishops his sons. +"In that your charity pays the due reverence to the Apostolical See, ye +profit yourselves the most, most honoured sons. For if, placed as we are +in that Holy Church, in which the Holy Apostle sat and taught, how it +becometh us to direct the helm to which we have succeeded, we +nevertheless confess ourselves unequal to that honour; yet do we +therefore study as we may, if so be we may be able to attain to the +glory of his blessedness."<a name="FNanchor_159:3_97" id="FNanchor_159:3_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_159:3_97" class="fnanchor">[159:3]</a> "I speak," says St. Jerome to the same +St. Damasus, "with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of +the Cross. I, following no one as my chief but Christ, am associated in +communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. I know +that on that rock the Church is built. Whosoever shall eat the Lamb +outside this House is profane; if a man be not in the Ark of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>Noe, he +shall perish when the flood comes in its power."<a name="FNanchor_160:1_98" id="FNanchor_160:1_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_160:1_98" class="fnanchor">[160:1]</a> St. Basil +entreats St. Damasus to send persons to arbitrate between the Churches +of Asia Minor, or at least to make a report on the authors of their +troubles, and name the party with which the Pope should hold communion. +"We are in no wise asking anything new," he proceeds, "but what was +customary with blessed and religious men of former times, and especially +with yourself. For we know, by tradition of our fathers of whom we have +inquired, and from the information of writings still preserved among us, +that Dionysius, that most blessed Bishop, while he was eminent among you +for orthodoxy and other virtues, sent letters of visitation to our +Church at Cæsarea, and of consolation to our fathers, with ransomers of +our brethren from captivity." In like manner, Ambrosiaster, a Pelagian +in his doctrine, which here is not to the purpose, speaks of the "Church +being God's house, whose ruler at this time is Damasus."<a name="FNanchor_160:2_99" id="FNanchor_160:2_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_160:2_99" class="fnanchor">[160:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">13.</p> + +<p>"We bear," says St. Siricius, another Pope (<span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 385), "the burden of +all who are laden; yea, rather the blessed Apostle Peter beareth them in +us, who, as we trust, in all things protects and defends us the heirs of +his government."<a name="FNanchor_160:3_100" id="FNanchor_160:3_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_160:3_100" class="fnanchor">[160:3]</a> And he in turn is confirmed by St. Optatus. "You +cannot deny your knowledge," says the latter to Parmenian, the Donatist, +"that, in the city Rome, on Peter first hath an Episcopal See been +conferred, in which Peter sat, the head of all the Apostles, . . . in +which one See unity might be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles +should support their respective Sees; in order that he might be at once +a schismatic and a sinner, who against that one See (<i>singularem</i>) +placed a second. Therefore that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>one See (<i>unicam</i>), which is the first +of the Church's prerogatives, Peter filled first; to whom succeeded +Linus; to Linus, Clement; to Clement, &c., &c. . . . to Damasus, Siricius, +who at this day is associated with us (<i>socius</i>), together with whom the +whole world is in accordance with us, in the one bond of communion, by +the intercourse of letters of peace."<a name="FNanchor_161:1_101" id="FNanchor_161:1_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_161:1_101" class="fnanchor">[161:1]</a></p> + +<p>Another Pope: "Diligently and congruously do ye consult the <i>arcana</i> of +the Apostolical dignity," says St. Innocent to the Council of Milevis +(<span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 417), "the dignity of him on whom, beside those things which are +without, falls the care of all the Churches; following the form of the +ancient rule, which you know, as well as I, has been preserved always by +the whole world."<a name="FNanchor_161:2_102" id="FNanchor_161:2_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_161:2_102" class="fnanchor">[161:2]</a> Here the Pope appeals, as it were, to the Rule +of Vincentius; while St. Augustine bears witness that he did not outstep +his Prerogative, for, giving an account of this and another letter, he +says, "He [the Pope] answered us as to all these matters as it was +religious and becoming in the Bishop of the Apostolic See."<a name="FNanchor_161:3_103" id="FNanchor_161:3_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_161:3_103" class="fnanchor">[161:3]</a></p> + +<p>Another Pope: "We have especial anxiety about all persons," says St. +Celestine (<span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 425), to the Illyrian Bishops, "on whom, in the holy +Apostle Peter, Christ conferred the necessity of making all men our +care, when He gave him the Keys of opening and shutting." And St. +Prosper, his contemporary, confirms him, when he calls Rome "the seat of +Peter, which, being made to the world the head of pastoral honour, +possesses by religion what it does not possess by arms;" and Vincent of +Lerins, when he calls the Pope "the head of the world."<a name="FNanchor_161:4_104" id="FNanchor_161:4_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_161:4_104" class="fnanchor">[161:4]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">14.</p> + +<p>Another Pope: "Blessed Peter," says St. Leo (<span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 440, &c.), "hath not +deserted the helm of the Church <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>which he had assumed. . . His power +lives and his authority is pre-eminent in his See."<a name="FNanchor_162:1_105" id="FNanchor_162:1_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_162:1_105" class="fnanchor">[162:1]</a> "That +immoveableness, which, from the Rock Christ, he, when made a rock, +received, has been communicated also to his heirs."<a name="FNanchor_162:2_106" id="FNanchor_162:2_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_162:2_106" class="fnanchor">[162:2]</a> And as St. +Athanasius and the Eusebians, by their contemporary testimonies, confirm +St. Julius; and St. Jerome, St. Basil; and Ambrosiaster, St. Damasus; +and St. Optatus, St. Siricius; and St. Augustine, St. Innocent; and St. +Prosper and Vincent, St. Celestine; so do St. Peter Chrysologus, and the +Council of Chalcedon confirm St. Leo. "Blessed Peter," says Chrysologus, +"who lives and presides in his own See, supplies truth of faith to those +who seek it."<a name="FNanchor_162:3_107" id="FNanchor_162:3_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_162:3_107" class="fnanchor">[162:3]</a> And the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, addressing +St. Leo respecting Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria: "He extends his +madness even against him to whom the custody of the vineyard has been +committed by the Saviour, that is, against thy Apostolical +holiness."<a name="FNanchor_162:4_108" id="FNanchor_162:4_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_162:4_108" class="fnanchor">[162:4]</a> But the instance of St. Leo will occur again in a +later Chapter.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">15.</p> + +<p>The acts of the fourth century speak as strongly as its words. We may +content ourselves here with Barrow's admissions:—</p> + +<p>"The Pope's power," he says, "was much amplified by the importunity of +persons condemned or extruded from their places, whether upon just +accounts, or wrongfully, and by faction; for they, finding no other more +hopeful place of refuge and redress, did often apply to him: for what +will not men do, whither will not they go in straits? Thus did Marcion +go to Rome, and sue for admission to communion there. So Fortunatus and +Felicissimus in St. Cyprian, being condemned in Afric, did fly to Rome +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>for shelter; of which absurdity St. Cyprian doth so complain. So +likewise Martianus and Basilides in St. Cyprian, being outed of their +Sees for having lapsed from the Christian profession, did fly to Stephen +for succour, to be restored. So Maximus, the Cynic, went to Rome, to get +a confirmation of his election at Constantinople. So Marcellus, being +rejected for heterodoxy, went thither to get attestation to his +orthodoxy, of which St. Basil complaineth. So Apiarus, being condemned +in Afric for his crimes, did appeal to Rome. And, on the other side, +Athanasius being with great partiality condemned by the Synod of Tyre; +Paulus and other bishops being extruded from their sees for orthodoxy; +St. Chrysostom being condemned and expelled by Theophilus and his +complices; Flavianus being deposed by Dioscorus and the Ephesine synod; +Theodoret being condemned by the same; did cry out for help to Rome. +Chelidonius, Bishop of Besançon, being deposed by Hilarius of Arles for +crime, did fly to Pope Leo."</p> + +<p>Again: "Our adversaries do oppose some instances of popes meddling in +the constitution of bishops; as, Pope Leo I. saith, that Anatolius did +'by the favour of his assent obtain the bishopric of Constantinople.' +The same Pope is alleged as having confirmed Maximus of Antioch. The +same doth write to the Bishop of Thessalonica, his vicar, that he should +'confirm the elections of bishops by his authority.' He also confirmed +Donatus, an African bishop:—'We will that Donatus preside over the +Lord's flock, upon condition that he remember to send us an account of +his faith.' . . Pope Damasus did confirm the ordination of Peter +Alexandrinus."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">16.</p> + +<p>And again: "The Popes indeed in the fourth century began to practise a +fine trick, very serviceable to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>enlargement of their power; which +was to confer on certain bishops, as occasion served, or for +continuance, the title of their vicar or lieutenant, thereby pretending +to impart authority to them; whereby they were enabled for performance +of divers things, which otherwise by their own episcopal or +metropolitical power they could not perform. By which device they did +engage such bishops to such a dependence on them, whereby they did +promote the papal authority in provinces, to the oppression of the +ancient rights and liberties of bishops and synods, doing what they +pleased under pretence of this vast power communicated to them; and for +fear of being displaced, or out of affection to their favourer, doing +what might serve to advance the papacy. Thus did Pope Celestine +constitute Cyril in his room. Pope Leo appointed Anatolius of +Constantinople; Pope Felix, Acacius of Constantinople. . . . . Pope +Simplicius to Zeno, Bishop of Seville: 'We thought it convenient that +you should be held up by the vicariat authority of our see.' So did +Siricius and his successors constitute the bishops of Thessalonica to be +their vicars in the diocese of Illyricum, wherein being then a member of +the western empire they had caught a special jurisdiction; to which Pope +Leo did refer in those words, which sometimes are impertinently alleged +with reference to all bishops, but concern only Anastasius, Bishop of +Thessalonica: 'We have entrusted thy charity to be in our stead; so that +thou art called into part of the solicitude, not into plenitude of the +authority.' So did Pope Zosimus bestow a like pretence of vicarious +power upon the Bishop of Arles, which city was the seat of the temporal +exarch in Gaul."<a name="FNanchor_164:1_109" id="FNanchor_164:1_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_164:1_109" class="fnanchor">[164:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">17.</p> + +<p>More ample testimony for the Papal Supremacy, as now <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>professed by Roman +Catholics, is scarcely necessary than what is contained in these +passages; the simple question is, whether the clear light of the fourth +and fifth centuries may be fairly taken to interpret to us the dim, +though definite, outlines traced in the preceding.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123:1_67" id="Footnote_123:1_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123:1_67"><span class="label">[123:1]</span></a> Wood's Mechanics, p. 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124:1_68" id="Footnote_124:1_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124:1_68"><span class="label">[124:1]</span></a> Authent. N. T. Tr. p. 237.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124:2_69" id="Footnote_124:2_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124:2_69"><span class="label">[124:2]</span></a> According to Less.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124:3_70" id="Footnote_124:3_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124:3_70"><span class="label">[124:3]</span></a> Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 78 [Discuss. iii. 6, +p. 207].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125:1_71" id="Footnote_125:1_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125:1_71"><span class="label">[125:1]</span></a> [Ibid. p. 209. These results are taken from Less, and +are practically accurate.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126:1_72" id="Footnote_126:1_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126:1_72"><span class="label">[126:1]</span></a> No. 85 [Discuss. p. 236].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132:1_73" id="Footnote_132:1_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132:1_73"><span class="label">[132:1]</span></a> Ep. 93. I have thought it best to give an over-literal +translation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132:2_74" id="Footnote_132:2_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132:2_74"><span class="label">[132:2]</span></a> Vid. Concil. Bracar. ap. Aguirr. Conc. Hisp. t. ii. p. +676. "That the cup was not administered at the same time is not so +clear; but from the tenor of this first Canon in the Acts of the Third +Council of Braga, which condemns the notion that the Host should be +steeped in the chalice, we have no doubt that the wine was withheld from +the laity. Whether certain points of doctrine are or are not found in +the Scriptures is no concern of the historian; all that he has to do is +religiously to follow his guides, to suppress or distrust nothing +through partiality."—<i>Dunham</i>, <i>Hist. of Spain and Port.</i> vol. i. p. +204. If <i>pro complemento communionis</i> in the Canon merely means "for the +Cup," at least the Cup is spoken of as a complement; the same view is +contained in the "confirmation of the Eucharist," as spoken of in St. +German's life. Vid. Lives of Saints, No. 9, p. 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132:3_75" id="Footnote_132:3_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132:3_75"><span class="label">[132:3]</span></a> Niceph. Hist. xviii. 45. Renaudot, however, tells us of +two Bishops at the time when the schism was at length healed. Patr. Al. +Jac. p. 248. However, these had been consecrated by priests, p. 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133:1_76" id="Footnote_133:1_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133:1_76"><span class="label">[133:1]</span></a> Vid. Bing. Ant. xv. 4, § 7; and Fleury, Hist. xxvi. 50, +note <i>g</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135:1_77" id="Footnote_135:1_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135:1_77"><span class="label">[135:1]</span></a> Kaye's Justin, p. 59, &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135:2_78" id="Footnote_135:2_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135:2_78"><span class="label">[135:2]</span></a> Kaye's Clement, p. 335.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135:3_79" id="Footnote_135:3_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135:3_79"><span class="label">[135:3]</span></a> p. 341.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135:4_80" id="Footnote_135:4_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135:4_80"><span class="label">[135:4]</span></a> Ib. 342.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136:1_81" id="Footnote_136:1_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136:1_81"><span class="label">[136:1]</span></a> Reliqu. Sacr. t. ii. p. 469, 470.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137:1_82" id="Footnote_137:1_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137:1_82"><span class="label">[137:1]</span></a> [This subject is more exactly and carefully treated in +Tracts Theol. and Eccles. pp. 192-226.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138:1_83" id="Footnote_138:1_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138:1_83"><span class="label">[138:1]</span></a> [They also had a <i>cultus</i> in themselves, and specially +when a greater Presence did <i>not</i> overshadow them. <i>Vid.</i> Via Media, +vol. ii. art. iv. 8, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139:1_84" id="Footnote_139:1_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139:1_84"><span class="label">[139:1]</span></a> Exod. xxxiii. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139:2_85" id="Footnote_139:2_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139:2_85"><span class="label">[139:2]</span></a> Dan. x. 5-17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141:1_86" id="Footnote_141:1_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141:1_86"><span class="label">[141:1]</span></a> Athan. Orat. i. 42, Oxf. tr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141:2_87" id="Footnote_141:2_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141:2_87"><span class="label">[141:2]</span></a> [<i>Vid. supr.</i> p. 138, note 8.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142:1_88" id="Footnote_142:1_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142:1_88"><span class="label">[142:1]</span></a> Athan. ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142:2_89" id="Footnote_142:2_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142:2_89"><span class="label">[142:2]</span></a> And so Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine: "The +all-holy choir of God's perpetual virgins, he was used almost to worship +(<ins class="greek" title="sebôn">σέβων</ins>), believing that that God, to whom they had consecrated +themselves, was an inhabitant in the souls of such." Vit. Const. iv. +28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146:1_90" id="Footnote_146:1_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146:1_90"><span class="label">[146:1]</span></a> Hær. 78, 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148:1_91" id="Footnote_148:1_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148:1_91"><span class="label">[148:1]</span></a> Aug. de Nat. et Grat. 42. Ambros. Ep. 1, 49, § 2. In +Psalm 118, v. 3, de Instit. Virg. 50. Hier. in Is. xi. 1, contr. Pelag. +ii. 4. Nil. Ep. i. p. 267. Antioch. ap. Cyr. de Rect. Fid. p. 49. Ephr. +Opp. Syr. t. 3, p. 607. Max. Hom. 45. Procl. Orat. vi. pp. 225-228, p. +60, p. 179, 180, ed. 1630. Theodot. ap. Amphiloch. pp. 39, &c. Fulgent. +Serm. 3, p. 125. Chrysol. Serm. 142. A striking passage from another +Sermon of the last-mentioned author, on the words "She cast in her mind +what manner of salutation," &c., may be added: "Quantus sit Deus satis +ignorat ille, qui hujus Virginis mentem non stupet, animum non miratur. +Pavet cœlum, tremunt Angeli, creatura non sustinet, natura non +sufficit; et una puella sic Deum in sui pectoris capit, recipit, +oblectat hospitio, ut pacem terris, cœlis gloriam, salutem perditis, +vitam mortuis, terrenis cum cœlestibus parentelam, ipsius Dei cum +carne commercium, pro ipsâ domûs exigat pensione, pro ipsius uteri +mercede conquirat," &c. Serm. 140. [St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and St. +Cyril of Alexandria sometimes speak, it is true, in a different tone; on +this subject vid. "Letter to Dr. Pusey," Note iii., Diff. of Angl. vol. +2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153:1_92" id="Footnote_153:1_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153:1_92"><span class="label">[153:1]</span></a> Pope's Suprem. ed. 1836, pp. 26, 27, 157, 171, 222.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157:1_93" id="Footnote_157:1_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157:1_93"><span class="label">[157:1]</span></a> <ins class="greek" title="hêtis kai prokathêtai en topô chôriou +Rhômaiôn">ἥτις καὶ προκάθηται ἐν τόπῳ χωρίου Ῥωμαίων</ins>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158:1_94" id="Footnote_158:1_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158:1_94"><span class="label">[158:1]</span></a> Athan. Hist. Tracts. Oxf. tr. p. 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159:1_95" id="Footnote_159:1_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159:1_95"><span class="label">[159:1]</span></a> Hist. ii. 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159:2_96" id="Footnote_159:2_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159:2_96"><span class="label">[159:2]</span></a> Hist. iii. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159:3_97" id="Footnote_159:3_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159:3_97"><span class="label">[159:3]</span></a> Theod. Hist. v. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160:1_98" id="Footnote_160:1_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160:1_98"><span class="label">[160:1]</span></a> Coustant, Epp. Pont. p. 546.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160:2_99" id="Footnote_160:2_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160:2_99"><span class="label">[160:2]</span></a> In 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160:3_100" id="Footnote_160:3_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160:3_100"><span class="label">[160:3]</span></a> Coustant, p. 624.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161:1_101" id="Footnote_161:1_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161:1_101"><span class="label">[161:1]</span></a> ii. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161:2_102" id="Footnote_161:2_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161:2_102"><span class="label">[161:2]</span></a> Coustant, pp. 896, 1064.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161:3_103" id="Footnote_161:3_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161:3_103"><span class="label">[161:3]</span></a> Ep. 186, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161:4_104" id="Footnote_161:4_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161:4_104"><span class="label">[161:4]</span></a> De Ingrat. 2. Common. 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162:1_105" id="Footnote_162:1_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162:1_105"><span class="label">[162:1]</span></a> Serm. De Natal. iii. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162:2_106" id="Footnote_162:2_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162:2_106"><span class="label">[162:2]</span></a> Ibid. v. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162:3_107" id="Footnote_162:3_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162:3_107"><span class="label">[162:3]</span></a> Ep. ad Eutych. fin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162:4_108" id="Footnote_162:4_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162:4_108"><span class="label">[162:4]</span></a> Concil. Hard. t. ii. p. 656.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164:1_109" id="Footnote_164:1_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164:1_109"><span class="label">[164:1]</span></a> Barrow on the Supremacy, ed. 1836, pp. 263, 331, 384.</p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART II.</h2> + +<h3>DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS<br /> +VIEWED RELATIVELY TO DOCTRINAL<br /> +CORRUPTIONS.</h3> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>GENUINE DEVELOPMENTS CONTRASTED WITH<br /> +CORRUPTIONS.</h3> + + +<p>I have been engaged in drawing out the positive and direct argument in +proof of the intimate connexion, or rather oneness, with primitive +Apostolic teaching, of the body of doctrine known at this day by the +name of Catholic, and professed substantially both by Eastern and +Western Christendom. That faith is undeniably the historical +continuation of the religious system, which bore the name of Catholic in +the eighteenth century, in the seventeenth, in the sixteenth, and so +back in every preceding century, till we arrive at the +first;—undeniably the successor, the representative, the heir of the +religion of Cyprian, Basil, Ambrose and Augustine. The only question +that can be raised is whether the said Catholic faith, as now held, is +logically, as well as historically, the representative of the ancient +faith. This then is the subject, to which I have as yet addressed +myself, and I have maintained that modern Catholicism is nothing else +but simply the legitimate growth and complement, that is, the natural +and necessary development, of the doctrine of the early church, and that +its divine authority is included in the divinity of Christianity.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>So far I have gone, but an important objection presents itself for +distinct consideration. It may be said in answer <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>to me that it is not +enough that a certain large system of doctrine, such as that which goes +by the name of Catholic, should admit of being referred to beliefs, +opinions, and usages which prevailed among the first Christians, in +order to my having a logical right to include a reception of the later +teaching in the reception of the earlier; that an intellectual +development may be in one sense natural, and yet untrue to its original, +as diseases come of nature, yet are the destruction, or rather the +negation of health; that the causes which stimulate the growth of ideas +may also disturb and deform them; and that Christianity might indeed +have been intended by its Divine Author for a wide expansion of the +ideas proper to it, and yet this great benefit hindered by the evil +birth of cognate errors which acted as its counterfeit; in a word, that +what I have called developments in the Roman Church are nothing more or +less than what used to be called her corruptions; and that new names do +not destroy old grievances.</p> + +<p>This is what may be said, and I acknowledge its force: it becomes +necessary in consequence to assign certain characteristics of faithful +developments, which none but faithful developments have, and the +presence of which serves as a test to discriminate between them and +corruptions. This I at once proceed to do, and I shall begin by +determining what a corruption is, and why it cannot rightly be called, +and how it differs from, a development.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>To find then what a corruption or perversion of the truth is, let us +inquire what the word means, when used literally of material substances. +Now it is plain, first of all, that a corruption is a word attaching to +organized matters only; a stone may be crushed to powder, but it cannot +be corrupted. Corruption, on the contrary, is the breaking up of life, +preparatory to its termination. This resolution of a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>body into its +component parts is the stage before its dissolution; it begins when life +has reached its perfection, and it is the sequel, or rather the +continuation, of that process towards perfection, being at the same time +the reversal and undoing of what went before. Till this point of +regression is reached, the body has a function of its own, and a +direction and aim in its action, and a nature with laws; these it is now +losing, and the traits and tokens of former years; and with them its +vigour and powers of nutrition, of assimilation, and of self-reparation.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Taking this analogy as a guide, I venture to set down seven Notes of +varying cogency, independence and applicability, to discriminate healthy +developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as +follows:—There is no corruption if it retains one and the same type, +the same principles, the same organization; if its beginnings anticipate +its subsequent phases, and its later phenomena protect and subserve its +earlier; if it has a power of assimilation and revival, and a vigorous +action from first to last. On these tests I shall now enlarge, nearly in +the order in which I have enumerated them.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION I.</h4> + +<h5>FIRST NOTE OF A GENUINE DEVELOPMENT.</h5> + +<h5>PRESERVATION OF TYPE.</h5> + +<p>This is readily suggested by the analogy of physical growth, which is +such that the parts and proportions of the developed form, however +altered, correspond to those which belong to its rudiments. The adult +animal has the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>same make, as it had on its birth; young birds do not +grow into fishes, nor does the child degenerate into the brute, wild or +domestic, of which he is by inheritance lord. Vincentius of Lerins +adopts this illustration in distinct reference to Christian doctrine. +"Let the soul's religion," he says "imitate the law of the body, which, +as years go on developes indeed and opens out its due proportions, and +yet remains identically what it was. Small are a baby's limbs, a youth's +are larger, yet they are the same."<a name="FNanchor_172:1_110" id="FNanchor_172:1_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_172:1_110" class="fnanchor">[172:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>In like manner every calling or office has its own type, which those who +fill it are bound to maintain; and to deviate from the type in any +material point is to relinquish the calling. Thus both Chaucer and +Goldsmith have drawn pictures of a true parish priest; these differ in +details, but on the whole they agree together, and are one in such +sense, that sensuality, or ambition, must be considered a forfeiture of +that high title. Those magistrates, again, are called "corrupt," who are +guided in their judgments by love of lucre or respect of persons, for +the administration of justice is their essential function. Thus +collegiate or monastic bodies lose their claim to their endowments or +their buildings, as being relaxed and degenerate, if they neglect their +statutes or their Rule. Thus, too, in political history, a mayor of the +palace, such as he became in the person of Pepin, was no faithful +development of the office he filled, as originally intended and +established.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>In like manner, it has been argued by a late writer, whether fairly or +not does not interfere with the illustration, that the miraculous vision +and dream of the Labarum <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>could not have really taken place, as reported +by Eusebius, because it is counter to the original type of Christianity. +"For the first time," he says, on occasion of Constantine's introduction +of the standard into his armies, "the meek and peaceful Jesus became a +God of battle, and the Cross, the holy sign of Christian Redemption, a +banner of bloody strife. . . . . This was the first advance to the +military Christianity of the middle ages, a modification of the pure +religion of the Gospel, if directly opposed to its genuine principles, +still apparently indispensable to the social progress of men."<a name="FNanchor_173:1_111" id="FNanchor_173:1_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_173:1_111" class="fnanchor">[173:1]</a></p> + +<p>On the other hand, a popular leader may go through a variety of +professions, he may court parties and break with them, he may contradict +himself in words, and undo his own measures, yet there may be a steady +fulfilment of certain objects, or adherence to certain plain doctrines, +which gives a unity to his career, and impresses on beholders an image +of directness and large consistency which shows a fidelity to his type +from first to last.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>However, as the last instances suggest to us, this unity of type, +characteristic as it is of faithful developments, must not be pressed to +the extent of denying all variation, nay, considerable alteration of +proportion and relation, as time goes on, in the parts or aspects of an +idea. Great changes in outward appearance and internal harmony occur in +the instance of the animal creation itself. The fledged bird differs +much from its rudimental form in the egg. The butterfly is the +development, but not in any sense the image, of the grub. The whale +claims a place among mammalia, though we might fancy that, as in the +child's game of catscradle, some strange introsusception had been +permitted, to make it so like, yet so contrary, to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>the animals with +which it is itself classed. And, in like manner, if beasts of prey were +once in paradise, and fed upon grass, they must have presented bodily +phenomena very different from the structure of muscles, claws, teeth, +and viscera which now fit them for a carnivorous existence. Eutychius, +Patriarch of Constantinople, on his death-bed, grasped his own hand and +said, "I confess that in this flesh we shall all rise again;" yet flesh +and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and a glorified body has +attributes incompatible with its present condition on earth.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>More subtle still and mysterious are the variations which are consistent +or not inconsistent with identity in political and religious +developments. The Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity has ever been +accused by heretics of interfering with that of the Divine Unity out of +which it grew, and even believers will at first sight consider that it +tends to obscure it. Yet Petavius says, "I will affirm, what perhaps +will surprise the reader, that that distinction of Persons which, in +regard to <i>proprietates</i> is in reality most great, is so far from +disparaging the Unity and Simplicity of God that this very real +distinction especially avails for the doctrine that God is One and most +Simple."<a name="FNanchor_174:1_112" id="FNanchor_174:1_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_174:1_112" class="fnanchor">[174:1]</a></p> + +<p>Again, Arius asserted that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was +not able to comprehend the First, whereas Eunomius's characteristic +tenet was in an opposite direction, viz., that not only the Son, but +that all men could comprehend God; yet no one can doubt that Eunomianism +was a true development, not a corruption of Arianism.</p> + +<p>The same man may run through various philosophies <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>or beliefs, which are +in themselves irreconcilable, without inconsistency, since in him they +may be nothing more than accidental instruments or expressions of what +he is inwardly from first to last. The political doctrines of the modern +Tory resemble those of the primitive Whig; yet few will deny that the +Whig and Tory characters have each a discriminating type. Calvinism has +changed into Unitarianism: yet this need not be called a corruption, +even if it be not, strictly speaking, a development; for Harding, in +controversy with Jewell, surmised the coming change three centuries +since, and it has occurred not in one country, but in many.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>The history of national character supplies an analogy, rather than an +instance strictly in point; yet there is so close a connexion between +the development of minds and of ideas that it is allowable to refer to +it here. Thus we find England of old the most loyal supporter, and +England of late the most jealous enemy, of the Holy See. As great a +change is exhibited in France, once the eldest born of the Church and +the flower of her knighthood, now democratic and lately infidel. Yet, in +neither nation, can these great changes be well called corruptions.</p> + +<p>Or again, let us reflect on the ethical vicissitudes of the chosen +people. How different is their grovelling and cowardly temper on leaving +Egypt from the chivalrous spirit, as it may be called, of the age of +David, or, again, from the bloody fanaticism which braved Titus and +Hadrian! In what contrast is that impotence of mind which gave way at +once, and bowed the knee, at the very sight of a pagan idol, with the +stern iconoclasm and bigoted nationality of later Judaism! How startling +the apparent absence of what would be called talent in this people +during their supernatural Dispensation, compared <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>with the gifts of mind +which various witnesses assign to them now!</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>And, in like manner, ideas may remain, when the expression of them is +indefinitely varied; and we cannot determine whether a professed +development is truly such or not, without further knowledge than an +experience of the mere fact of this variation. Nor will our instinctive +feelings serve as a criterion. It must have been an extreme shock to St. +Peter to be told he must slay and eat beasts, unclean as well as clean, +though such a command was implied already in that faith which he held +and taught; a shock, which a single effort, or a short period, or the +force of reason would not suffice to overcome. Nay, it may happen that a +representation which varies from its original may be felt as more true +and faithful than one which has more pretensions to be exact. So it is +with many a portrait which is not striking: at first look, of course, it +disappoints us; but when we are familiar with it, we see in it what we +could not see at first, and prefer it, not to a perfect likeness, but to +many a sketch which is so precise as to be a caricature.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, real perversions and corruptions are often not so +unlike externally to the doctrine from which they come, as are changes +which are consistent with it and true developments. When Rome changed +from a Republic to an Empire, it was a real alteration of polity, or +what may be called a corruption; yet in appearance the change was small. +The old offices or functions of government remained: it was only that +the Imperator, or Commander in Chief, concentrated them in his own +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>person. Augustus was Consul and Tribune, Supreme Pontiff and Censor, +and the Imperial rule was, in the words of Gibbon, "an absolute monarchy +disguised by the forms of a commonwealth." On the other hand, when the +dissimulation of Augustus was exchanged for the ostentation of +Dioclesian, the real alteration of constitution was trivial, but the +appearance of change was great. Instead of plain Consul, Censor, and +Tribune, Dioclesian became Dominus or King, assumed the diadem, and +threw around him the forms of a court.</p> + +<p>Nay, one cause of corruption in religion is the refusal to follow the +course of doctrine as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of +the past. Certainly: as we see conspicuously in the history of the +chosen race. The Samaritans who refused to add the Prophets to the Law, +and the Sadducees who denied a truth which was covertly taught in the +Book of Exodus, were in appearance only faithful adherents to the +primitive doctrine. Our Lord found His people precisians in their +obedience to the letter; He condemned them for not being led on to its +spirit, that is, to its developments. The Gospel is the development of +the Law; yet what difference seems wider than that which separates the +unbending rule of Moses from the "grace and truth" which "came by Jesus +Christ?" Samuel had of old time fancied that the tall Eliab was the +Lord's anointed; and Jesse had thought David only fit for the sheepcote; +and when the Great King came, He was "as a root out of a dry ground;" +but strength came out of weakness, and out of the strong sweetness.</p> + +<p>So it is in the case of our friends; the most obsequious are not always +the truest, and seeming cruelty is often genuine affection. We know the +conduct of the three daughters in the drama towards the old king. She +who had found her love "more richer than her tongue," <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>and could not +"heave her heart into her mouth," was in the event alone true to her +father.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>An idea then does not always bear about it the same external image; this +circumstance, however, has no force to weaken the argument for its +substantial identity, as drawn from its external sameness, when such +sameness remains. On the contrary, for that very reason, <i>unity of type</i> +becomes so much the surer guarantee of the healthiness and soundness of +developments, when it is persistently preserved in spite of their number +or importance.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION II.</h4> + +<h5>SECOND NOTE. CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES.</h5> + +<p>As in mathematical creations figures are formed on distinct formulæ, +which are the laws under which they are developed, so it is in ethical +and political subjects. Doctrines expand variously according to the +mind, individual or social, into which they are received; and the +peculiarities of the recipient are the regulating power, the law, the +organization, or, as it may be called, the form of the development. The +life of doctrines may be said to consist in the law or principle which +they embody.</p> + +<p>Principles are abstract and general, doctrines relate to facts; +doctrines develope, and principles at first sight do not; doctrines grow +and are enlarged, principles are permanent; doctrines are intellectual, +and principles are more immediately ethical and practical. Systems live +in principles and represent doctrines. Personal responsibility is a +principle, the Being of a God is a doctrine; from that doctrine all +theology has come in due course, whereas that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>principle is not clearer +under the Gospel than in paradise, and depends, not on belief in an +Almighty Governor, but on conscience.</p> + +<p>Yet the difference between the two sometimes merely exists in our mode +of viewing them; and what is a doctrine in one philosophy is a principle +in another. Personal responsibility may be made a doctrinal basis, and +develope into Arminianism or Pelagianism. Again, it may be discussed +whether infallibility is a principle or a doctrine of the Church of +Rome, and dogmatism a principle or doctrine of Christianity. Again, +consideration for the poor is a doctrine of the Church considered as a +religious body, and a principle when she is viewed as a political power.</p> + +<p>Doctrines stand to principles, as the definitions to the axioms and +postulates of mathematics. Thus the 15th and 17th propositions of +Euclid's book I. are developments, not of the three first axioms, which +are required in the proof, but of the definition of a right angle. +Perhaps the perplexity, which arises in the mind of a beginner, on +learning the early propositions of the second book, arises from these +being more prominently exemplifications of axioms than developments of +definitions. He looks for developments from the definition of the +rectangle, and finds but various particular cases of the general truth, +that "the whole is equal to its parts."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>It might be expected that the Catholic principles would be later in +development than the Catholic doctrines, inasmuch as they lie deeper in +the mind, and are assumptions rather than objective professions. This +has been the case. The Protestant controversy has mainly turned, or is +turning, on one or other of the principles of Catholicity; and to this +day the rule of Scripture Interpretation, the doctrine of Inspiration, +the relation of Faith to Reason, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>moral responsibility, private +judgment, inherent grace, the seat of infallibility, remain, I suppose, +more or less undeveloped, or, at least, undefined, by the Church.</p> + +<p>Doctrines stand to principles, if it may be said without fancifulness, +as fecundity viewed relatively to generation, though this analogy must +not be strained. Doctrines are developed by the operation of principles, +and develope variously according to those principles. Thus a belief in +the transitiveness of worldly goods leads the Epicurean to enjoyment, +and the ascetic to mortification; and, from their common doctrine of the +sinfulness of matter, the Alexandrian Gnostics became sensualists, and +the Syrian devotees. The same philosophical elements, received into a +certain sensibility or insensibility to sin and its consequences, leads +one mind to the Church of Rome; another to what, for want of a better +word, may be called Germanism.</p> + +<p>Again, religious investigation sometimes is conducted on the principle +that it is a duty "to follow and speak the truth," which really means +that it is no duty to fear error, or to consider what is safest, or to +shrink from scattering doubts, or to regard the responsibility of +misleading; and thus it terminates in heresy or infidelity, without any +blame to religious investigation in itself.</p> + +<p>Again, to take a different subject, what constitutes a chief interest of +dramatic compositions and tales, is to use external circumstances, which +may be considered their law of development, as a means of bringing out +into different shapes, and showing under new aspects, the personal +peculiarities of character, according as either those circumstances or +those peculiarities vary in the case of the personages introduced.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Principles are popularly said to develope when they are but exemplified; +thus the various sects of Protestantism, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>unconnected as they are with +each other, are called developments of the principle of Private +Judgment, of which really they are but applications and results.</p> + +<p>A development, to be faithful, must retain both the doctrine and the +principle with which it started. Doctrine without its correspondent +principle remains barren, if not lifeless, of which the Greek Church +seems an instance; or it forms those hollow professions which are +familiarly called "shams," as a zeal for an established Church and its +creed on merely conservative or temporal motives. Such, too, was the +Roman Constitution between the reigns of Augustus and Dioclesian.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, principle without its corresponding doctrine may be +considered as the state of religious minds in the heathen world, viewed +relatively to Revelation; that is, of the "children of God who are +scattered abroad."</p> + +<p>Pagans may have, heretics cannot have, the same principles as Catholics; +if the latter have the same, they are not real heretics, but in +ignorance. Principle is a better test of heresy than doctrine. Heretics +are true to their principles, but change to and fro, backwards and +forwards, in opinion; for very opposite doctrines may be +exemplifications of the same principle. Thus the Antiochenes and other +heretics sometimes were Arians, sometimes Sabellians, sometimes +Nestorians, sometimes Monophysites, as if at random, from fidelity to +their common principle, that there is no mystery in theology. Thus +Calvinists become Unitarians from the principle of private judgment. The +doctrines of heresy are accidents and soon run to an end; its principles +are everlasting.</p> + +<p>This, too, is often the solution of the paradox "Extremes meet," and of +the startling reactions which take place in individuals; viz., the +presence of some one principle or condition, which is dominant in their +minds from first to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>last. If one of two contradictory alternatives be +necessarily true on a certain hypothesis, then the denial of the one +leads, by mere logical consistency and without direct reasons, to a +reception of the other. Thus the question between the Church of Rome and +Protestantism falls in some minds into the proposition, "Rome is either +the pillar and ground of the Truth, or she is Antichrist;" in +proportion, then, as they revolt from considering her the latter are +they compelled to receive her as the former. Hence, too, men may pass +from infidelity to Rome, and from Rome to infidelity, from a conviction +in both courses that there is no tangible intellectual position between +the two.</p> + +<p>Protestantism, viewed in its more Catholic aspect, is doctrine without +active principle; viewed in its heretical, it is active principle +without doctrine. Many of its speakers, for instance, use eloquent and +glowing language about the Church and its characteristics: some of them +do not realize what they say, but use high words and general statements +about "the faith," and "primitive truth," and "schism," and "heresy," to +which they attach no definite meaning; while others speak of "unity," +"universality," and "Catholicity," and use the words in their own sense +and for their own ideas.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>The science of grammar affords another instance of the existence of +special laws in the formation of systems. Some languages have more +elasticity than others, and greater capabilities; and the difficulty of +explaining the fact cannot lead us to doubt it. There are languages, for +instance, which have a capacity for compound words, which, we cannot +tell why, is in matter of fact denied to others. We feel the presence of +a certain character or genius in each, which determines its path and its +range; and to discover and enter into it is one part of refined +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>scholarship. And when particular writers, in consequence perhaps of +some theory, tax a language beyond its powers, the failure is +conspicuous. Very subtle, too, and difficult to draw out, are the +principles on which depends the formation of proper names in a +particular people. In works of fiction, names or titles, significant or +ludicrous, must be invented for the characters introduced; and some +authors excel in their fabrication, while others are equally +unfortunate. Foreign novels, perhaps, attempt to frame English surnames, +and signally fail; yet what every one feels to be the case, no one can +analyze: that is, our surnames are constructed on a law which is only +exhibited in particular instances, and which rules their formation on +certain, though subtle, determinations.</p> + +<p>And so in philosophy, the systems of physics or morals, which go by +celebrated names, proceed upon the assumption of certain conditions +which are necessary for every stage of their development. The Newtonian +theory of gravitation is based on certain axioms; for instance, that the +fewest causes assignable for phenomena are the true ones: and the +application of science to practical purposes depends upon the hypothesis +that what happens to-day will happen to-morrow.</p> + +<p>And so in military matters, the discovery of gunpowder developed the +science of attack and defence in a new instrumentality. Again, it is +said that when Napoleon began his career of victories, the enemy's +generals pronounced that his battles were fought against rule, and that +he ought not to be victorious.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>So states have their respective policies, on which they move forward, +and which are the conditions of their well-being. Thus it is sometimes +said that the true policy of the American Union, or the law of its +prosperity, is not the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>enlargement of its territory, but the +cultivation of its internal resources. Thus Russia is said to be weak in +attack, strong in defence, and to grow, not by the sword, but by +diplomacy. Thus Islamism is said to be the form or life of the Ottoman, +and Protestantism of the British Empire, and the admission of European +ideas into the one, or of Catholic ideas into the other, to be the +destruction of the respective conditions of their power. Thus Augustus +and Tiberius governed by dissimulation; thus Pericles in his "Funeral +Oration" draws out the principles of the Athenian commonwealth, viz., +that it is carried on, not by formal and severe enactments, but by the +ethical character and spontaneous energy of the people.</p> + +<p>The political principles of Christianity, if it be right to use such +words of a divine polity, are laid down for us in the Sermon on the +Mount. Contrariwise to other empires, Christians conquer by yielding; +they gain influence by shrinking from it; they possess the earth by +renouncing it. Gibbon speaks of "the vices of the clergy" as being "to a +philosophic eye far less dangerous than their virtues."<a name="FNanchor_184:1_113" id="FNanchor_184:1_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_184:1_113" class="fnanchor">[184:1]</a></p> + +<p>Again, as to Judaism, it may be asked on what law it developed; that is, +whether Mahometanism may not be considered as a sort of Judaism, as +formed by the presence of a different class of influences. In this +contrast between them, perhaps it may be said that the expectation of a +Messiah was the principle or law which expanded the elements, almost +common to Judaism with Mahometanism, into their respective +characteristic shapes.</p> + +<p>One of the points of discipline to which Wesley attached most importance +was that of preaching early in the morning. This was his principle. In +Georgia, he began preaching at five o'clock every day, winter and +summer. "Early preaching," he said, "is the glory of the Methodists; +whenever this is dropt, they will dwindle away into <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>nothing, they have +lost their first love, they are a fallen people."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>Now, these instances show, as has been incidentally observed of some of +them, that the destruction of the special laws or principles of a +development is its corruption. Thus, as to nations, when we talk of the +spirit of a people being lost, we do not mean that this or that act has +been committed, or measure carried, but that certain lines of thought or +conduct by which it has grown great are abandoned. Thus the Roman Poets +consider their State in course of ruin because its <i>prisci mores</i> and +<i>pietas</i> were failing. And so we speak of countries or persons as being +in a false position, when they take up a course of policy, or assume a +profession, inconsistent with their natural interests or real character. +Judaism, again, was rejected when it rejected the Messiah.</p> + +<p>Thus the <i>continuity or the alteration of the principles</i> on which an +idea has developed is a second mark of discrimination between a true +development and a corruption.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION III.</h4> + +<h5>THIRD NOTE. POWER OF ASSIMILATION.</h5> + +<p>In the physical world, whatever has life is characterized by growth, so +that in no respect to grow is to cease to live. It grows by taking into +its own substance external materials; and this absorption or +assimilation is completed when the materials appropriated come to belong +to it or enter into its unity. Two things cannot become one, except +there be a power of assimilation in one or the other. Sometimes +assimilation is effected only with an effort; it <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>is possible to die of +repletion, and there are animals who lie torpid for a time under the +contest between the foreign substance and the assimilating power. And +different food is proper for different recipients.</p> + +<p>This analogy may be taken to illustrate certain peculiarities in the +growth or development in ideas, which were noticed in the first Chapter. +It is otherwise with mathematical and other abstract creations, which, +like the soul itself, are solitary and self-dependent; but doctrines and +views which relate to man are not placed in a void, but in the crowded +world, and make way for themselves by interpenetration, and develope by +absorption. Facts and opinions, which have hitherto been regarded in +other relations and grouped round other centres, henceforth are +gradually attracted to a new influence and subjected to a new sovereign. +They are modified, laid down afresh, thrust aside, as the case may be. A +new element of order and composition has come among them; and its life +is proved by this capacity of expansion, without disarrangement or +dissolution. An eclectic, conservative, assimilating, healing, moulding +process, a unitive power, is of the essence, and a third test, of a +faithful development.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Thus, a power of development is a proof of life, not only in its essay, +but especially in its success; for a mere formula either does not expand +or is shattered in expanding. A living idea becomes many, yet remains +one.</p> + +<p>The attempt at development shows the presence of a principle, and its +success the presence of an idea. Principles stimulate thought, and an +idea concentrates it.</p> + +<p>The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, like mathematical truth, +incorporated nothing from external sources. So far from the fact of such +incorporation implying corruption, as is sometimes supposed, development +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>is a process of incorporation. Mahometanism may be in external +developments scarcely more than a compound of other theologies, yet no +one would deny that there has been a living idea somewhere in a +religion, which has been so strong, so wide, so lasting a bond of union +in the history of the world. Why it has not continued to develope after +its first preaching, if this be the case, as it seems to be, cannot be +determined without a greater knowledge of that religion, and how far it +is merely political, how far theological, than we commonly possess.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>In Christianity, opinion, while a raw material, is called philosophy or +scholasticism; when a rejected refuse, it is called heresy.</p> + +<p>Ideas are more open to an external bias in their commencement than +afterwards; hence the great majority of writers who consider the +Medieval Church corrupt, trace its corruption to the first four +centuries, not to what are called the dark ages.</p> + +<p>That an idea more readily coalesces with these ideas than with those +does not show that it has been unduly influenced, that is, corrupted by +them, but that it has an antecedent affinity to them. At least it shall +be assumed here that, when the Gospels speak of virtue going out of our +Lord, and of His healing with the clay which His lips had moistened, +they afford instances, not of a perversion of Christianity, but of +affinity to notions which were external to it; and that St. Paul was not +biassed by Orientalism, though he said, after the manner of some Eastern +sects, that it was "excellent not to touch a woman."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Thus in politics, too, ideas are sometimes proposed, discussed, +rejected, or adopted, as it may happen, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>sometimes they are shown to +be unmeaning and impossible; sometimes they are true, but partially so, +or in subordination to other ideas, with which, in consequence, they are +as wholes or in part incorporated, as far as these have affinities to +them, the power to incorporate being thus recognized as a property of +life. Mr. Bentham's system was an attempt to make the circle of legal +and moral truths developments of certain principles of his own;—those +principles of his may, if it so happen, prove unequal to the weight of +truths which are eternal, and the system founded on them may break into +pieces; or again, a State may absorb certain of them, for which it has +affinity, that is, it may develope in Benthamism, yet remain in +substance what it was before. In the history of the French Revolution we +read of many middle parties, who attempted to form theories of +constitutions short of those which they would call extreme, and +successively failed from the want of power or reality in their +characteristic ideas. The Semi-arians attempted a middle way between +orthodoxy and heresy, but could not stand their ground; at length part +fell into Macedonianism, and part joined the Church.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>The stronger and more living is an idea, that is, the more powerful hold +it exercises on the minds of men, the more able is it to dispense with +safeguards, and trust to itself against the danger of corruption. As +strong frames exult in their agility, and healthy constitutions throw +off ailments, so parties or schools that live can afford to be rash, and +will sometimes be betrayed into extravagances, yet are brought right by +their inherent vigour. On the other hand, unreal systems are commonly +decent externally. Forms, subscriptions, or Articles of religion are +indispensable when the principle of life is weakly. Thus Presbyterianism +has maintained its original theology in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>Scotland where legal +subscriptions are enforced, while it has run into Arianism or +Unitarianism where that protection is away. We have yet to see whether +the Free Kirk can keep its present theological ground. The Church of +Rome can consult expedience more freely than other bodies, as trusting +to her living tradition, and is sometimes thought to disregard principle +and scruple, when she is but dispensing with forms. Thus Saints are +often characterized by acts which are no pattern for others; and the +most gifted men are, by reason of their very gifts, sometimes led into +fatal inadvertences. Hence vows are the wise defence of unstable virtue, +and general rules the refuge of feeble authority.</p> + +<p>And so much may suffice on the <i>unitive power</i> of faithful developments, +which constitutes their third characteristic.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION IV.</h4> + +<h5>FOURTH NOTE. LOGICAL SEQUENCE.</h5> + +<p>Logic is the organization of thought, and, as being such, is a security +for the faithfulness of intellectual developments; and the necessity of +using it is undeniable as far as this, that its rules must not be +transgressed. That it is not brought into exercise in every instance of +doctrinal development is owing to the varieties of mental constitution, +whether in communities or in individuals, with whom great truths or +seeming truths are lodged. The question indeed may be asked whether a +development can be other in any case than a logical operation; but, if +by this is meant a conscious reasoning from premisses to conclusion, of +course the answer must be in the negative. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>An idea under one or other +of its aspects grows in the mind by remaining there; it becomes familiar +and distinct, and is viewed in its relations; it leads to other aspects, +and these again to others, subtle, recondite, original, according to the +character, intellectual and moral, of the recipient; and thus a body of +thought is gradually formed without his recognizing what is going on +within him. And all this while, or at least from time to time, external +circumstances elicit into formal statement the thoughts which are coming +into being in the depths of his mind; and soon he has to begin to defend +them; and then again a further process must take place, of analyzing his +statements and ascertaining their dependence one on another. And thus he +is led to regard as consequences, and to trace to principles, what +hitherto he has discerned by a moral perception, and adopted on +sympathy; and logic is brought in to arrange and inculcate what no +science was employed in gaining.</p> + +<p>And so in the same way, such intellectual processes, as are carried on +silently and spontaneously in the mind of a party or school, of +necessity come to light at a later date, and are recognized, and their +issues are scientifically arranged. And then logic has the further +function of propagation; analogy, the nature of the case, antecedent +probability, application of principles, congruity, expedience, being +some of the methods of proof by which the development is continued from +mind to mind and established in the faith of the community.</p> + +<p>Yet even then the analysis is not made on a principle, or with any view +to its whole course and finished results. Each argument is brought for +an immediate purpose; minds develope step by step, without looking +behind them or anticipating their goal, and without either intention or +promise of forming a system. Afterwards, however, this logical character +which the whole wears becomes a test <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>that the process has been a true +development, not a perversion or corruption, from its evident +naturalness; and in some cases from the gravity, distinctness, +precision, and majesty of its advance, and the harmony of its +proportions, like the tall growth, and graceful branching, and rich +foliage, of some vegetable production.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>The process of development, thus capable of a logical expression, has +sometimes been invidiously spoken of as rationalism and contrasted with +faith. But, though a particular doctrine or opinion which is subjected +to development may happen to be rationalistic, and, as is the original, +such are its results: and though we may develope erroneously, that is, +reason incorrectly, yet the developing itself as little deserves that +imputation in any case, as an inquiry into an historical fact, which we +do not thereby make but ascertain,—for instance, whether or not St. +Mark wrote his Gospel with St. Matthew before him, or whether Solomon +brought his merchandise from Tartessus or some Indian port. Rationalism +is the exercise of reason instead of faith in matters of faith; but one +does not see how it can be faith to adopt the premisses, and unbelief to +accept the conclusion.</p> + +<p>At the same time it may be granted that the spontaneous process which +goes on within the mind itself is higher and choicer than that which is +logical; for the latter, being scientific, is common property, and can +be taken and made use of by minds who are personally strangers, in any +true sense, both to the ideas in question and to their development.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Thus, the holy Apostles would without words know all the truths +concerning the high doctrines of theology, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>which controversialists +after them have piously and charitably reduced to formulæ, and developed +through argument. Thus, St. Justin or St. Irenæus might be without any +digested ideas of Purgatory or Original Sin, yet have an intense +feeling, which they had not defined or located, both of the fault of our +first nature and the responsibilities of our nature regenerate. Thus St. +Antony said to the philosophers who came to mock him, "He whose mind is +in health does not need letters;" and St. Ignatius Loyola, while yet an +unlearned neophyte, was favoured with transcendent perceptions of the +Holy Trinity during his penance at Manresa. Thus St. Athanasius himself +is more powerful in statement and exposition than in proof; while in +Bellarmine we find the whole series of doctrines carefully drawn out, +duly adjusted with one another, and exactly analyzed one by one.</p> + +<p>The history of empires and of public men supplies so many instances of +logical development in the field of politics, that it is needless to do +more than to refer to one of them. It is illustrated by the words of +Jeroboam, "Now shall this kingdom return to the house of David, if this +people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem. . . +Wherefore the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said +unto them, Behold thy gods, O Israel." Idolatry was a duty of kingcraft +with the schismatical kingdom.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>A specimen of logical development is afforded us in the history of +Lutheranism as it has of late years been drawn out by various English +writers. Luther started on a double basis, his dogmatic principle being +contradicted by his right of private judgment, and his sacramental by +his theory of justification. The sacramental element never showed signs +of life; but on his death, that which he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>represented in his own person +as a teacher, the dogmatic, gained the ascendancy; and "every expression +of his upon controverted points became a norm for the party, which, at +all times the largest, was at last coextensive with the Church itself. +This almost idolatrous veneration was perhaps increased by the selection +of declarations of faith, of which the substance on the whole was his, +for the symbolical books of his Church."<a name="FNanchor_193:1_114" id="FNanchor_193:1_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_193:1_114" class="fnanchor">[193:1]</a> Next a reaction took +place; private judgment was restored to the supremacy. Calixtus put +reason, and Spener the so-called religion of the heart, in the place of +dogmatic correctness. Pietism for the time died away; but rationalism +developed in Wolf, who professed to prove all the orthodox doctrines, by +a process of reasoning, from premisses level with the reason. It was +soon found that the instrument which Wolf had used for orthodoxy, could +as plausibly be used against it;—in his hands it had proved the Creed; +in the hands of Semler, Ernesti, and others, it disproved the authority +of Scripture. What was religion to be made to consist in now? A sort of +philosophical Pietism followed; or rather Spener's pietism and the +original theory of justification were analyzed more thoroughly, and +issued in various theories of Pantheism, which from the first was at the +bottom of Luther's doctrine and personal character. And this appears to +be the state of Lutheranism at present, whether we view it in the +philosophy of Kant, in the open infidelity of Strauss, or in the +religious professions of the new Evangelical Church of Prussia. Applying +this instance to the subject which it has been here brought to +illustrate, I should say that the equable and orderly march and natural +succession of views, by which the creed of Luther has been changed into +the infidel or heretical philosophy of his present representatives, is a +proof that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>that change is no perversion or corruption, but a faithful +development of the original idea.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>This is but one out of many instances with which the history of the +Church supplies us. The fortunes of a theological school are made, in a +later generation, the measure of the teaching of its founder. The great +Origen after his many labours died in peace; his immediate pupils were +saints and rulers in the Church; he has the praise of St. Athanasius, +St. Basil, and St. Gregory Nazianzen, and furnishes materials to St. +Ambrose and St. Hilary; yet, as time proceeded, a definite heterodoxy +was the growing result of his theology, and at length, three hundred +years after his death, he was condemned, and, as has generally been +considered, in an Ecumenical Council.<a name="FNanchor_194:1_115" id="FNanchor_194:1_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_194:1_115" class="fnanchor">[194:1]</a> "Diodorus of Tarsus," says +Tillemont, "died at an advanced age, in the peace of the Church, +honoured by the praises of the greatest saints, and crowned with a +glory, which, having ever attended him through life, followed him after +his death;"<a name="FNanchor_194:2_116" id="FNanchor_194:2_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_194:2_116" class="fnanchor">[194:2]</a> yet St. Cyril of Alexandria considers him and +Theodore of Mopsuestia the true authors of Nestorianism, and he was +placed in the event by the Nestorians among their saints. Theodore +himself was condemned after his death by the same Council which is said +to have condemned Origen, and is justly considered the chief +rationalizing doctor of Antiquity; yet he was in the highest repute in +his day, and the Eastern Synod complains, as quoted by Facundus, that +"Blessed Theodore, who died so happily, who was so eminent a teacher for +five and forty years, and overthrew every heresy, and in his lifetime +experienced no imputation from the orthodox, now after <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>his death so +long ago, after his many conflicts, after his ten thousand books +composed in refutation of errors, after his approval in the sight of +priests, emperors, and people, runs the risk of receiving the reward of +heretics, and of being called their chief."<a name="FNanchor_195:1_117" id="FNanchor_195:1_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_195:1_117" class="fnanchor">[195:1]</a> There is a certain +continuous advance and determinate path which belong to the history of a +doctrine, policy, or institution, and which impress upon the common +sense of mankind, that what it ultimately becomes is the issue of what +it was at first. This sentiment is expressed in the proverb, not limited +to Latin, <i>Exitus acta probat</i>; and is sanctioned by Divine wisdom, +when, warning us against false prophets, it says, "Ye shall know them by +their fruits."</p> + +<p>A doctrine, then, professed in its mature years by a philosophy or +religion, is likely to be a true development, not a corruption, in +proportion as it seems to be the <i>logical issue</i> of its original +teaching.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION V.</h4> + +<h5>FIFTH NOTE. ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE.</h5> + +<p>Since, when an idea is living, that is, influential and effective, it is +sure to develope according to its own nature, and the tendencies, which +are carried out on the long run, may under favourable circumstances show +themselves early as well as late, and logic is the same in all ages, +instances of a development which is to come, though vague and isolated, +may occur from the very first, though a lapse of time be necessary to +bring them to perfection. And since developments are in great measure +only aspects of the idea from which they proceed, and all of them are +natural consequences of it, it is often a matter of accident in what +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>order they are carried out in individual minds; and it is in no wise +strange that here and there definite specimens of advanced teaching +should very early occur, which in the historical course are not found +till a late day. The fact, then, of such early or recurring intimations +of tendencies which afterwards are fully realized, is a sort of evidence +that those later and more systematic fulfilments are only in accordance +with the original idea.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Nothing is more common, for instance, than accounts or legends of the +anticipations, which great men have given in boyhood of the bent of +their minds, as afterwards displayed in their history; so much so that +the popular expectation has sometimes led to the invention of them. The +child Cyrus mimics a despot's power, and St. Athanasius is elected +Bishop by his playfellows.</p> + +<p>It is noticeable that in the eleventh century, when the Russians were +but pirates upon the Black Sea, Constantinople was their aim; and that a +prophesy was in circulation in that city that they should one day gain +possession of it.</p> + +<p>In the reign of James the First, we have an observable anticipation of +the system of influence in the management of political parties, which +was developed by Sir R. Walpole a century afterwards. This attempt is +traced by a living writer to the ingenuity of Lord Bacon. "He submitted +to the King that there were expedients for more judiciously managing a +House of Commons; . . that much might be done by forethought towards +filling the House with well-affected persons, winning or blinding the +lawyers . . and drawing the chief constituent bodies of the assembly, +the country gentlemen, the merchants, the courtiers, to act for the +King's advantage; that it would be expedient to tender voluntarily +certain graces <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>and modifications of the King's prerogative," &c.<a name="FNanchor_197:1_118" id="FNanchor_197:1_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_197:1_118" class="fnanchor">[197:1]</a> +The writer adds, "This circumstance, like several others in the present +reign, is curious, as it shows the rise of a systematic parliamentary +influence, which was one day to become the mainspring of government."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Arcesilas and Carneades, the founders of the later Academy, are known to +have innovated on the Platonic doctrine by inculcating a universal +scepticism; and they did this, as if on the authority of Socrates, who +had adopted the method of <i>ironia</i> against the Sophists, on their +professing to know everything. This, of course, was an insufficient +plea. However, could it be shown that Socrates did on one or two +occasions evidence deliberate doubts on the great principles of theism +or morals, would any one deny that the innovation in question had +grounds for being considered a true development, not a corruption?</p> + +<p>It is certain that, in the idea of Monachism, prevalent in ancient +times, manual labour had a more prominent place than study; so much so +that De Rancé, the celebrated Abbot of La Trappe, in controversy with +Mabillon, maintained his ground with great plausibility against the +latter's apology for the literary occupations for which the Benedictines +of France are so famous. Nor can it be denied that the labours of such +as Mabillon and Montfaucon are at least a development upon the +simplicity of the primitive institution. And yet it is remarkable that +St. Pachomius, the first author of a monastic rule, enjoined a library +in each of his houses, and appointed conferences and disputations three +times a week on religious subjects, interpretation of Scripture, or +points of theology. St. Basil, the founder of Monachism in Pontus, one +of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>most learned of the Greek Fathers, wrote his theological +treatises in the intervals of agricultural labour. St. Jerome, the +author of the Latin versions of Scripture, lived as a poor monk in a +cell at Bethlehem. These, indeed, were but exceptions in the character +of early Monachism; but they suggest its capabilities and anticipate its +history. Literature is certainly not inconsistent with its idea.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>In the controversies with the Gnostics, in the second century, striking +anticipations occasionally occur, in the works of their Catholic +opponents, of the formal dogmatic teaching developed in the Church in +the course of the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies in the fifth. +On the other hand, Paul of Samosata, one of the first disciples of the +Syrian school of theology, taught a heresy sufficiently like +Nestorianism, in which that school terminated, to be mistaken for it in +later times; yet for a long while after him the characteristic of the +school was Arianism, an opposite heresy.</p> + +<p>Lutheranism has by this time become in most places almost simple heresy +or infidelity; it has terminated, if it has even yet reached its limit, +in a denial both of the Canon and the Creed, nay, of many principles of +morals. Accordingly the question arises, whether these conclusions are +in fairness to be connected with its original teaching or are a +corruption. And it is no little aid towards its resolution to find that +Luther himself at one time rejected the Apocalypse, called the Epistle +of St. James "straminea," condemned the word "Trinity," fell into a kind +of Eutychianism in his view of the Holy Eucharist, and in a particular +case sanctioned bigamy. Calvinism, again, in various distinct countries, +has become Socinianism, and Calvin himself seems to have denied our +Lord's Eternal Sonship and ridiculed the Nicene Creed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +Another evidence, then, of the faithfulness of an ultimate development +is its <i>definite anticipation</i> at an early period in the history of the +idea to which it belongs.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION VI.</h4> + +<h5>SIXTH NOTE. CONSERVATIVE ACTION UPON ITS PAST.</h5> + +<p>As developments which are preceded by definite indications have a fair +presumption in their favour, so those which do but contradict and +reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed before them, and +out of which they spring, are certainly corrupt; for a corruption is a +development in that very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and +begins to disturb, the acquisitions gained in its previous history.</p> + +<p>It is the rule of creation, or rather of the phenomena which it +presents, that life passes on to its termination by a gradual, +imperceptible course of change. There is ever a maximum in earthly +excellence, and the operation of the same causes which made things great +makes them small again. Weakness is but the resulting product of power. +Events move in cycles; all things come round, "the sun ariseth and goeth +down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." Flowers first bloom, and +then fade; fruit ripens and decays. The fermenting process, unless +stopped at the due point, corrupts the liquor which it has created. The +grace of spring, the richness of autumn are but for a moment, and +worldly moralists bid us <i>Carpe diem</i>, for we shall have no second +opportunity. Virtue seems to lie in a mean, between vice and vice; and +as it grew out of imperfection, so to grow into enormity. There is a +limit to human knowledge, and both sacred and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>profane writers witness +that overwisdom is folly. And in the political world states rise and +fall, the instruments of their aggrandizement becoming the weapons of +their destruction. And hence the frequent ethical maxims, such as, "<i>Ne +quid nimis</i>," "<i>Medio tutissimus</i>," "Vaulting ambition," which seem to +imply that too much of what is good is evil.</p> + +<p>So great a paradox of course cannot be maintained as that truth +literally leads to falsehood, or that there can be an excess of virtue; +but the appearance of things and the popular language about them will at +least serve us in obtaining an additional test for the discrimination of +a <i>bonâ fide</i> development of an idea from its corruption.</p> + +<p>A true development, then, may be described as one which is conservative +of the course of antecedent developments being really those antecedents +and something besides them: it is an addition which illustrates, not +obscures, corroborates, not corrects, the body of thought from which it +proceeds; and this is its characteristic as contrasted with a +corruption.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>For instance, a gradual conversion from a false to a true religion, +plainly, has much of the character of a continuous process, or a +development, in the mind itself, even when the two religions, which are +the limits of its course, are antagonists. Now let it be observed, that +such a change consists in addition and increase chiefly, not in +destruction. "True religion is the summit and perfection of false +religions; it combines in one whatever there is of good and true +separately remaining in each. And in like manner the Catholic Creed is +for the most part the combination of separate truths, which heretics +have divided among themselves, and err in dividing. So that, in matter +of fact, if a religious mind were educated in and sincerely attached <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>to +some form of heathenism or heresy, and then were brought under the light +of truth, it would be drawn off from error into the truth, not by losing +what it had, but by gaining what it had not, not by being unclothed, but +by being 'clothed upon,' 'that mortality may be swallowed up of life.' +That same principle of faith which attaches it at first to the wrong +doctrine would attach it to the truth; and that portion of its original +doctrine, which was to be cast off as absolutely false, would not be +directly rejected, but indirectly, <i>in</i> the reception of the truth which +is its opposite. True conversion is ever of a positive, not a negative +character."<a name="FNanchor_201:1_119" id="FNanchor_201:1_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_201:1_119" class="fnanchor">[201:1]</a></p> + +<p>Such too is the theory of the Fathers as regards the doctrines fixed by +Councils, as is instanced in the language of St. Leo. "To be seeking for +what has been disclosed, to reconsider what has been finished, to tear +up what has been laid down, what is this but to be unthankful for what +is gained?"<a name="FNanchor_201:2_120" id="FNanchor_201:2_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_201:2_120" class="fnanchor">[201:2]</a> Vincentius of Lerins, in like manner, speaks of the +development of Christian doctrine, as <i>profectus fidei non +permutatio</i>.<a name="FNanchor_201:3_121" id="FNanchor_201:3_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_201:3_121" class="fnanchor">[201:3]</a> And so as regards the Jewish Law, our Lord said that +He came "not to destroy, but to fulfil."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Mahomet is accused of contradicting his earlier revelations by his +later, "which is a thing so well known to those of his sect that they +all acknowledge it; and therefore when the contradictions are such as +they cannot solve them, then they will have one of the contradictory +places to be revoked. And they reckon in the whole Alcoran about a +hundred and fifty verses which are thus revoked."<a name="FNanchor_201:4_122" id="FNanchor_201:4_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_201:4_122" class="fnanchor">[201:4]</a></p> + +<p>Schelling, says Mr. Dewar, considers "that the time has arrived when an +esoteric speculative Christianity ought <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>to take the place of the +exoteric empiricism which has hitherto prevailed." This German +philosopher "acknowledges that such a project is opposed to the evident +design of the Church, and of her earliest teachers."<a name="FNanchor_202:1_123" id="FNanchor_202:1_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_202:1_123" class="fnanchor">[202:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>When Roman Catholics are accused of substituting another Gospel for the +primitive Creed, they answer that they hold, and can show that they +hold, the doctrines of the Incarnation and Atonement, as firmly as any +Protestant can state them. To this it is replied that they do certainly +profess them, but that they obscure and virtually annul them by their +additions; that the <i>cultus</i> of St. Mary and the Saints is no +development of the truth, but a corruption and a religious mischief to +those doctrines of which it is the corruption, because it draws away the +mind and heart from Christ. But they answer that, so far from this, it +subserves, illustrates, protects the doctrine of our Lord's loving +kindness and mediation. Thus the parties in controversy join issue on +the common ground, that a developed doctrine which reverses the course +of development which has preceded it, is no true development but a +corruption; also, that what is corrupt acts as an element of +unhealthiness towards what is sound. This subject, however, will come +before us in its proper place by and by.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>Blackstone supplies us with an instance in another subject-matter, of a +development which is justified by its utility, when he observes that +"when society is once formed, government results of course, as necessary +to preserve and to keep that society in order."<a name="FNanchor_202:2_124" id="FNanchor_202:2_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_202:2_124" class="fnanchor">[202:2]</a></p> + +<p>On the contrary, when the Long Parliament proceeded to usurp the +executive, they impaired the popular liberties <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>which they seemed to be +advancing; for the security of those liberties depends on the separation +of the executive and legislative powers, or on the enactors being +subjects, not executors of the laws.</p> + +<p>And in the history of ancient Rome, from the time that the privileges +gained by the tribunes in behalf of the people became an object of +ambition to themselves, the development had changed into a corruption.</p> + +<p>And thus a sixth test of a true development is that it is of a <i>tendency +conservative</i> of what has gone before it.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION VII.</h4> + +<h5>SEVENTH NOTE. CHRONIC VIGOUR.</h5> + +<p>Since the corruption of an idea, as far as the appearance goes, is a +sort of accident or affection of its development, being the end of a +course, and a transition-state leading to a crisis, it is, as has been +observed above, a brief and rapid process. While ideas live in men's +minds, they are ever enlarging into fuller development: they will not be +stationary in their corruption any more than before it; and dissolution +is that further state to which corruption tends. Corruption cannot, +therefore, be of long standing; and thus <i>duration</i> is another test of a +faithful development.</p> + +<p><i>Si gravis, brevis; si longus, levis</i>; is the Stoical topic of +consolation under pain; and of a number of disorders it can even be +said, The worse, the shorter.</p> + +<p>Sober men are indisposed to change in civil matters, and fear reforms +and innovations, lest, if they go a little too far, they should at once +run on to some great calamities before a remedy can be applied. The +chance of a slow corruption does not strike them. Revolutions are +generally <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>violent and swift; now, in fact, they are the course of a +corruption.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>The course of heresies is always short; it is an intermediate state +between life and death, or what is like death; or, if it does not result +in death, it is resolved into some new, perhaps opposite, course of +error, which lays no claim to be connected with it. And in this way +indeed, but in this way only, an heretical principle will continue in +life many years, first running one way, then another.</p> + +<p>The abounding of iniquity is the token of the end approaching; the +faithful in consequence cry out, How long? as if delay opposed reason as +well as patience. Three years and a half are to complete the reign of +Antichrist.</p> + +<p>Nor is it any real objection that the world is ever corrupt, and yet, in +spite of this, evil does not fill up its measure and overflow; for this +arises from the external counteractions of truth and virtue, which bear +it back; let the Church be removed, and the world will soon come to its +end.</p> + +<p>And so again, if the chosen people age after age became worse and worse, +till there was no recovery, still their course of evil was continually +broken by reformations, and was thrown back upon a less advanced stage +of declension.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>It is true that decay, which is one form of corruption, is slow; but +decay is a state in which there is no violent or vigorous action at all, +whether of a conservative or a destructive character, the hostile +influence being powerful enough to enfeeble the functions of life, but +not to quicken <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>its own process. And thus we see opinions, usages, and +systems, which are of venerable and imposing aspect, but which have no +soundness within them, and keep together from a habit of consistence, or +from dependence on political institutions; or they become almost +peculiarities of a country, or the habits of a race, or the fashions of +society. And then, at length, perhaps, they go off suddenly and die out +under the first rough influence from without. Such are the superstitions +which pervade a population, like some ingrained dye or inveterate odour, +and which at length come to an end, because nothing lasts for ever, but +which run no course, and have no history; such was the established +paganism of classical times, which was the fit subject of persecution, +for its first breath made it crumble and disappear. Such apparently is +the state of the Nestorian and Monophysite communions; such might have +been the condition of Christianity had it been absorbed by the feudalism +of the middle ages; such too is that Protestantism, or (as it sometimes +calls itself) attachment to the Establishment, which is not unfrequently +the boast of the respectable and wealthy among ourselves.</p> + +<p>Whether Mahometanism external to Christendom, and the Greek Church +within it, fall under this description is yet to be seen. Circumstances +can be imagined which would even now rouse the fanaticism of the Moslem; +and the Russian despotism does not meddle with the usages, though it may +domineer over the priesthood, of the national religion.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Thus, while a corruption is distinguished from decay by its energetic +action, it is distinguished from a development by its <i>transitory +character</i>.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Such are seven out of various Notes, which may be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>assigned, of fidelity +in the development of an idea. The point to be ascertained is the unity +and identity of the idea with itself through all stages of its +development from first to last, and these are seven tokens that it may +rightly be accounted one and the same all along. To guarantee its own +substantial unity, it must be seen to be one in type, one in its system +of principles, one in its unitive power towards externals, one in its +logical consecutiveness, one in the witness of its early phases to its +later, one in the protection which its later extend to its earlier, and +one in its union of vigour with continuance, that is, in its tenacity.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172:1_110" id="Footnote_172:1_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172:1_110"><span class="label">[172:1]</span></a> Commonit. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173:1_111" id="Footnote_173:1_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173:1_111"><span class="label">[173:1]</span></a> Milman, Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174:1_112" id="Footnote_174:1_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174:1_112"><span class="label">[174:1]</span></a> De Deo, ii. 4, § 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184:1_113" id="Footnote_184:1_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184:1_113"><span class="label">[184:1]</span></a> Ch. xlix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193:1_114" id="Footnote_193:1_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193:1_114"><span class="label">[193:1]</span></a> Pusey on German Rationalism, p. 21, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194:1_115" id="Footnote_194:1_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194:1_115"><span class="label">[194:1]</span></a> Halloix, Valesius, Lequien, Gieseler, Döllinger, &c., +say that he was condemned, not in the fifth Council, but in the Council +under Mennas.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194:2_116" id="Footnote_194:2_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194:2_116"><span class="label">[194:2]</span></a> Mem. Eccl. tom. viii. p. 562.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195:1_117" id="Footnote_195:1_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195:1_117"><span class="label">[195:1]</span></a> Def. Tr. Cap. viii. init.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197:1_118" id="Footnote_197:1_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197:1_118"><span class="label">[197:1]</span></a> Hallam's Const. Hist. ch. vi. p. 461.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201:1_119" id="Footnote_201:1_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201:1_119"><span class="label">[201:1]</span></a> Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 73. [Discuss. p. 200; +<i>vide</i> also Essay on Assent, pp. 249-251.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201:2_120" id="Footnote_201:2_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201:2_120"><span class="label">[201:2]</span></a> Ep. 162.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201:3_121" id="Footnote_201:3_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201:3_121"><span class="label">[201:3]</span></a> Ib. p. 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201:4_122" id="Footnote_201:4_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201:4_122"><span class="label">[201:4]</span></a> Prideaux, Life of Mahomet, p. 90.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202:1_123" id="Footnote_202:1_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202:1_123"><span class="label">[202:1]</span></a> German Protestantism, p. 176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202:2_124" id="Footnote_202:2_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202:2_124"><span class="label">[202:2]</span></a> Vol. i. p. 118.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>APPLICATION OF THE SEVEN NOTES TO THE EXISTING<br /> +DEVELOPMENTS OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>APPLICATION OF THE FIRST NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT.<br /> +PRESERVATION OF TYPE.</h4> + +<p>Now let me attempt to apply the foregoing seven Notes of fidelity in +intellectual developments to the instance of Christian Doctrine. And +first as to the Note of <i>identity of type</i>.</p> + +<p>I have said above, that, whereas all great ideas are found, as time goes +on, to involve much which was not seen at first to belong to them, and +have developments, that is enlargements, applications, uses and +fortunes, very various, one security against error and perversion in the +process is the maintenance of the original type, which the idea +presented to the world at its origin, amid and through all its apparent +changes and vicissitudes from first to last.</p> + +<p>How does this apply to Christianity? What is its original type? and has +that type been preserved in the developments commonly called Catholic, +which have followed, and in the Church which embodies and teaches them? +Let us take it as the world now views it in its age; and let us take it +as the world once viewed it in its youth, and let us see whether there +be any great difference between the early and the later description of +it. The following statement will show my meaning:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +There is a religious communion claiming a divine commission, and +holding all other religious bodies around it heretical or infidel; it is +a well-organized, well-disciplined body; it is a sort of secret society, +binding together its members by influences and by engagements which it +is difficult for strangers to ascertain. It is spread over the known +world; it may be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong on the +whole from its continuity; it may be smaller than all other religious +bodies together, but is larger than each separately. It is a natural +enemy to governments external to itself; it is intolerant and +engrossing, and tends to a new modelling of society; it breaks laws, it +divides families. It is a gross superstition; it is charged with the +foulest crimes; it is despised by the intellect of the day; it is +frightful to the imagination of the many. And there is but one communion +such.</p> + +<p>Place this description before Pliny or Julian; place it before Frederick +the Second or Guizot.<a name="FNanchor_208:1_125" id="FNanchor_208:1_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_208:1_125" class="fnanchor">[208:1]</a> "Apparent diræ facies." Each knows at once, +without asking a question, who is meant by it. One object, and only one, +absorbs each item of the detail of the delineation.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION I.</h4> + +<h5>THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES.</h5> + +<p>The <i>primâ facie</i> view of early Christianity, in the eyes of witnesses +external to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions +given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who +distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years.</p> + +<p>Tacitus is led to speak of the Religion, on occasion of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>the +conflagration of Rome, which was popularly imputed to Nero. "To put an +end to the report," he says, "he laid the guilt on others, and visited +them with the most exquisite punishment, those, namely, who, held in +abhorrence for their crimes (<i>per flagitia invisos</i>), were popularly +called Christians. The author of that profession (<i>nominis</i>) was Christ, +who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the Procurator, +Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (<i>exitiabilis superstitio</i>), +though checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only +throughout Judæa, the original seat of the evil, but through the City +also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (<i>atrocia aut pudenda</i>) +flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were +seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were +convicted, not so much of firing the City, as of hatred of mankind +(<i>odio humani generis</i>)." After describing their tortures, he continues +"In consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal +punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public +object, but from the barbarity of one man."</p> + +<p>Suetonius relates the same transactions thus: "Capital punishments were +inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical +superstition (<i>superstitionis novæ et maleficæ</i>)." What gives additional +character to this statement is its context; for it occurs as one out of +various police or sumptuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made; +such as "controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat, +repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the +integrity of wills." When Pliny was Governor of Pontus, he wrote his +celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to +deal with the Christians, whom he found there in great numbers. One of +his points of hesitation was, whether the very profession of +Christianity was not by itself sufficient to justify punishment; +"whether the name <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>itself should be visited, though clear of flagitious +acts (<i>flagitia</i>), or only when connected with them." He says, he had +ordered for execution such as persevered in their profession, after +repeated warnings, "as not doubting, whatever it was they professed, +that at any rate contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be +punished." He required them to invoke the gods, to sacrifice wine and +frankincense to the images of the Emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; "to +which," he adds, "it is said no real Christian can be compelled." +Renegades informed him that "the sum total of their offence or fault was +meeting before light on an appointed day, and saying with one another a +form of words (<i>carmen</i>) to Christ, as if to a god, and binding +themselves by oath, (not to the commission of any wickedness, but) +against the commission of theft, robbery, adultery, breach of trust, +denial of deposits; that, after this they were accustomed to separate, +and then to meet again for a meal, but eaten all together and harmless; +however, that they had even left this off after his edicts enforcing the +Imperial prohibition of <i>Hetæriæ</i> or Associations." He proceeded to put +two women to the torture, but "discovered nothing beyond a bad and +excessive superstition" (<i>superstitionem pravam et immodicam</i>), "the +contagion" of which, he continues, "had spread through villages and +country, till the temples were emptied of worshippers."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>In these testimonies, which will form a natural and convenient text for +what is to follow, we have various characteristics brought before us of +the religion to which they relate. It was a superstition, as all three +writers agree; a bad and excessive superstition, according to Pliny; a +magical superstition, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition, +according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a society, and moreover a +secret and unlawful <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>society or <i>hetæria</i>; and it was a proselytizing +society; and its very name was connected with "flagitious," "atrocious," +and "shocking" acts.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Now these few points, which are not all which might be set down, contain +in themselves a distinct and significant description of Christianity; +but they have far greater meaning when illustrated by the history of the +times, the testimony of later writers, and the acts of the Roman +government towards its professors. It is impossible to mistake the +judgment passed on the religion by these three writers, and still more +clearly by other writers and Imperial functionaries. They evidently +associated Christianity with the oriental superstitions, whether +propagated by individuals or embodied in a rite, which were in that day +traversing the Empire, and which in the event acted so remarkable a part +in breaking up the national forms of worship, and so in preparing the +way for Christianity. This, then, is the broad view which the educated +heathen took of Christianity; and, if it had been very unlike those +rites and curious arts in external appearance, they would not have +confused it with them.</p> + +<p>Changes in society are, by a providential appointment, commonly preceded +and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts +and feelings in that direction towards which a change is to be made. +And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage +it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming +revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude, or pass +across the field of events. This was specially the case with +Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and attended +by a crowd of shadows, shadows of itself, impotent and monstrous as +shadows are, but not at first sight distinguishable from it <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>by common +spectators. Before the mission of the Apostles, a movement, of which +there had been earlier parallels, had begun in Egypt, Syria, and the +neighbouring countries, tending to the propagation of new and peculiar +forms of worship throughout the Empire. Prophecies were afloat that some +new order of things was coming in from the East, which increased the +existing unsettlement of the popular mind; pretenders made attempts to +satisfy its wants, and old Traditions of the Truth, embodied for ages in +local or in national religions, gave to these attempts a doctrinal and +ritual shape, which became an additional point of resemblance to that +Truth which was soon visibly to appear.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>The distinctive character of the rites in question lay in their +appealing to the gloomy rather than to the cheerful and hopeful +feelings, and in their influencing the mind through fear. The notions of +guilt and expiation, of evil and good to come, and of dealings with the +invisible world, were in some shape or other pre-eminent in them, and +formed a striking contrast to the classical polytheism, which was gay +and graceful, as was natural in a civilized age. The new rites, on the +other hand, were secret; their doctrine was mysterious; their profession +was a discipline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested in an +association, and exercised in privation and pain. They were from the +nature of the case proselytizing societies, for they were rising into +power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and +encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them +into easy connexion with magic and astrology, which are as attractive to +the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions to the +populace.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>5.</p> + +<p>Such were the rites of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras; such the Chaldeans, as +they were commonly called, and the Magi; they came from one part of the +world, and during the first and second century spread with busy +perseverance to the northern and western extremities of the +empire.<a name="FNanchor_213:1_126" id="FNanchor_213:1_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_213:1_126" class="fnanchor">[213:1]</a> Traces of the mysteries of Cybele, a Syrian deity, if the +famous temple at Hierapolis was hers, have been found in Spain, in Gaul, +and in Britain, as high up as the wall of Severus. The worship of Isis +was the most widely spread of all the pagan deities; it was received in +Ethiopia and in Germany, and even the name of Paris has been fancifully +traced to it. Both worships, as well as the Science of Magic, had their +colleges of priests and devotees, which were governed by a president, +and in some places were supported by farms. Their processions passed +from town to town, begging as they went and attracting proselytes. +Apuleius describes one of them as seizing a whip, accusing himself of +some offence, and scourging himself in public. These strollers, +<i>circulatores</i> or <i>agyrtæ</i> in classical language, told fortunes, and +distributed prophetical tickets to the ignorant people who consulted +them. Also, they were learned in the doctrine of omens, of lucky and +unlucky days, of the rites of expiation and of sacrifices. Such an +<i>agyrtes</i> or itinerant was the notorious Alexander of Abonotichus, till +he managed to establish himself in Pontus, where he carried on so +successful an imposition that his fame reached Rome, and men in office +and station entrusted him with their dearest political secrets. Such a +wanderer, with a far more religious bearing and a high reputation for +virtue, was Apollonius of Tyana, who professed the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>Pythagorean +philosophy, claimed the gift of miracles, and roamed about preaching, +teaching, healing, and prophesying from India and Alexandria to Athens +and Rome. Another solitary proselytizer, though of an earlier time and +of an avowed profligacy, had been the Sacrificulus, viewed with such +horror by the Roman Senate, as introducing the infamous Bacchic rites +into Rome. Such, again, were those degenerate children of a divine +religion, who, in the words of their Creator and Judge, "compassed sea +and land to make one proselyte," and made him "twofold more the child of +hell than themselves."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>These vagrant religionists for the most part professed a severe rule of +life, and sometimes one of fanatical mortification. In the mysteries of +Mithras, the initiation<a name="FNanchor_214:1_127" id="FNanchor_214:1_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_214:1_127" class="fnanchor">[214:1]</a> was preceded by fasting and abstinence, +and a variety of painful trials; it was made by means of a baptism as a +spiritual washing; and it included an offering of bread, and some emblem +of a resurrection. In the Samothracian rites it had been a custom to +initiate children; confession too of greater crimes seems to have been +required, and would naturally be involved in others in the inquisition +prosecuted into the past lives of the candidates for initiation. The +garments of the converts were white; their calling was considered as a +warfare (<i>militia</i>), and was undertaken with a <i>sacramentum</i>, or +military oath. The priests shaved their heads and wore linen, and when +they were dead were buried in a sacerdotal garment. It is scarcely +necessary to refer to the mutilation inflicted on the priests of Cybele; +one instance of their scourgings has been already mentioned; and +Tertullian speaks of their high priest cutting his arms <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>for the life of +the Emperor Marcus.<a name="FNanchor_215:1_128" id="FNanchor_215:1_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_215:1_128" class="fnanchor">[215:1]</a> The priests of Isis, in lamentation for +Osiris, tore their breasts with pine cones. This lamentation was a +ritual observance, founded on some religious mystery: Isis lost Osiris, +and the initiated wept in memory of her sorrow; the Syrian goddess had +wept over dead Thammuz, and her mystics commemorated it by a ceremonial +woe; in the rites of Bacchus, an image was laid on a bier at +midnight,<a name="FNanchor_215:2_129" id="FNanchor_215:2_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_215:2_129" class="fnanchor">[215:2]</a> which was bewailed in metrical hymns; the god was +supposed to die, and then to revive. Nor was this the only worship which +was continued through the night; while some of the rites were performed +in caves.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>Only a heavenly light can give purity to nocturnal and subterraneous +worship. Caves were at that time appropriated to the worship of the +infernal gods. It was but natural that these wild religions should be +connected with magic and its kindred arts; magic has at all times led to +cruelty, and licentiousness would be the inevitable reaction from a +temporary strictness. An extraordinary profession, when men are in a +state of mere nature, makes hypocrites or madmen, and will in no long +time be discarded except by the few. The world of that day associated +together in one company, Isiac, Phrygian, Mithriac, Chaldean, wizard, +astrologer, fortune-teller, itinerant, and, as was not unnatural, Jew. +Magic was professed by the profligate Alexander, and was imputed to the +grave Apollonius. The rites of Mithras came from the Magi of Persia; and +it is obviously difficult to distinguish in principle the ceremonies of +the Syrian Taurobolium from those of the Necyomantia in the Odyssey, or +of Canidia in Horace.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +The Theodosian Code calls magic generally a "superstition;" and magic, +orgies, mysteries, and "sabbathizings," were referred to the same +"barbarous" origin. "Magical superstitions," the "rites of the Magi," +the "promises of the Chaldeans," and the "Mathematici," are familiar to +the readers of Tacitus. The Emperor Otho, an avowed patron of oriental +fashions, took part in the rites of Isis, and consulted the Mathematici. +Vespasian, who also consulted them, is heard of in Egypt as performing +miracles at the suggestion of Serapis. Tiberius, in an edict, classes +together "Egyptian and Jewish rites;" and Tacitus and Suetonius, in +recording it, speak of the two religions together as "<i>ea +superstitio</i>."<a name="FNanchor_216:1_130" id="FNanchor_216:1_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_216:1_130" class="fnanchor">[216:1]</a> Augustus had already associated them together as +superstitions, and as unlawful, and that in contrast to others of a like +foreign origin. "As to foreign rites (<i>peregrinæ ceremoniæ</i>)," says +Suetonius, "as he paid more reverence to those which were old and +enjoined, so did he hold the rest in contempt."<a name="FNanchor_216:2_131" id="FNanchor_216:2_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_216:2_131" class="fnanchor">[216:2]</a> He goes on to say +that, even on the judgment-seat, he had recognized the Eleusinian +priests, into whose mysteries he had been initiated at Athens; "whereas, +when travelling in Egypt, he had refused to see Apis, and had approved +of his grandson Caligula's passing by Judæa without sacrificing at +Jerusalem." Plutarch speaks of magic as connected with the mournful +mysteries of Orpheus and Zoroaster, with the Egyptian and the Phrygian; +and, in his Treatise on Superstition, he puts together in one clause, as +specimens of that disease of mind, "covering oneself with mud, wallowing +in the mire, sabbathizings, fallings on the face, unseemly postures, +foreign adorations."<a name="FNanchor_216:3_132" id="FNanchor_216:3_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_216:3_132" class="fnanchor">[216:3]</a> Ovid mentions in consecutive verses the +rites of "Adonis lamented by Venus," "The Sabbath of the Syrian Jew," +and the "Memphitic Temple of Io in her linen dress."<a name="FNanchor_216:4_133" id="FNanchor_216:4_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_216:4_133" class="fnanchor">[216:4]</a> Juvenal +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>speaks of the rites, as well as the language and the music, of the +Syrian Orontes having flooded Rome; and, in his description of the +superstition of the Roman women, he places the low Jewish fortune-teller +between the pompous priests of Cybele and Isis, and the bloody +witchcraft of the Armenian haruspex and the astrology of the +Chaldeans.<a name="FNanchor_217:1_134" id="FNanchor_217:1_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_217:1_134" class="fnanchor">[217:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>The Christian, being at first accounted a kind of Jew, was even on that +score included in whatever odium, and whatever bad associations, +attended on the Jewish name. But in a little time his independence of +the rejected people was clearly understood, as even the persecutions +show; and he stood upon his own ground. Still his character did not +change in the eyes of the world; for favour or for reproach, he was +still associated with the votaries of secret and magical rites. The +Emperor Hadrian, noted as he is for his inquisitive temper, and a +partaker in so many mysteries,<a name="FNanchor_217:2_135" id="FNanchor_217:2_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_217:2_135" class="fnanchor">[217:2]</a> still believed that the Christians +of Egypt allowed themselves in the worship of Serapis. They are brought +into connexion with the magic of Egypt in the history of what is +commonly called the Thundering Legion, so far as this, that the rain +which relieved the Emperor's army in the field, and which the Church +ascribed to the prayers of the Christian soldiers, is by Dio Cassius +attributed to an Egyptian magician, who obtained it by invoking Mercury +and other spirits. This war had been the occasion of one of the first +recognitions which the state had conceded to the Oriental rites, though +statesmen and emperors, as private men, had long taken part in them. The +Emperor Marcus had been urged by his fears of the Marcomanni to resort +to these foreign introductions, and is said to have employed Magi and +Chaldeans in averting an unsuccessful <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>issue of the war. It is +observable that, in the growing countenance which was extended to these +rites in the third century, Christianity came in for a share. The chapel +of Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius, +Pythagoras, and our Lord. Here indeed, as in the case of Zenobia's +Judaism, an eclectic philosophy aided the comprehension of religions. +But, immediately before Alexander, Heliogabalus, who was no philosopher, +while he formally seated his Syrian idol in the Palatine, while he +observed the mysteries of Cybele and Adonis, and celebrated his magic +rites with human victims, intended also, according to Lampridius, to +unite with his horrible superstition "the Jewish and Samaritan religions +and the Christian rite, that so the priesthood of Heliogabalus might +comprise the mystery of every worship."<a name="FNanchor_218:1_136" id="FNanchor_218:1_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_218:1_136" class="fnanchor">[218:1]</a> Hence, more or less, the +stories which occur in ecclesiastical history of the conversion or +good-will of the emperors to the Christian faith, of Hadrian, Mammæa, +and others, besides Heliogabalus and Alexander. Such stories might often +mean little more than that they favoured it among other forms of +Oriental superstition.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>What has been said is sufficient to bring before the mind an historical +fact, which indeed does not need evidence. Upon the established +religions of Europe the East had renewed her encroachments, and was +pouring forth a family of rites which in various ways attracted the +attention of the luxurious, the political, the ignorant, the restless, +and the remorseful. Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, Syrian, Phrygian, +as the case might be, was the designation of the new hierophant; and +magic, superstition, barbarism, jugglery, were the names given to his +rite by the world. In this company appeared <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>Christianity. When then +three well-informed writers call Christianity a superstition and a +magical superstition, they were not using words at random, or the +language of abuse, but they were describing it in distinct and +recognized terms as cognate to those gloomy, secret, odious, +disreputable religions which were making so much disturbance up and down +the empire.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>The impression made on the world by circumstances immediately before the +rise of Christianity received a sort of confirmation upon its rise, in +the appearance of the Gnostic and kindred heresies, which issued from +the Church during the second and third centuries. Their resemblance in +ritual and constitution to the Oriental religions, sometimes their +historical relationship, is undeniable; and certainly it is a singular +coincidence, that Christianity should be first called a magical +superstition by Suetonius, and then should be found in the intimate +company, and seemingly the parent, of a multitude of magical +superstitions, if there was nothing in the Religion itself to give rise +to such a charge.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>The Gnostic family<a name="FNanchor_219:1_137" id="FNanchor_219:1_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_219:1_137" class="fnanchor">[219:1]</a> suitably traces its origin to a mixed race, +which had commenced its national history by associating Orientalism with +Revelation. After the captivity of the ten tribes, Samaria was colonized +by "men from Babylon and Cushan, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from +Sepharvaim," who were instructed at their own instance in "the manner of +the God of the land," by one of the priests of the Church of Jeroboam. +The consequence was, that "they feared the Lord and served their own +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>gods." Of this country was Simon, the reputed patriarch of the +Gnostics; and he is introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as professing +those magical powers which were so principal a characteristic of the +Oriental mysteries. His heresy, though broken into a multitude of sects, +was poured over the world with a Catholicity not inferior in its day to +that of Christianity. St. Peter, who fell in with him originally in +Samaria, seems to have encountered him again at Rome. At Rome, St. +Polycarp met Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread through Italy, +Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia; Valentinus preached his doctrines in +Alexandria, Rome, and Cyprus; and we read of his disciples in Crete, +Cæsarea, Antioch, and other parts of the East. Bardesanes and his +followers were found in Mesopotamia. The Carpocratians are spoken of at +Alexandria, at Rome, and in Cephallenia; the Basilidians spread through +the greater part of Egypt; the Ophites were apparently in Bithynia and +Galatia; the Cainites or Caians in Africa, and the Marcosians in Gaul. +To these must be added several sects, which, though not strictly of the +Gnostic stock, are associated with them in date, character, and +origin;—the Ebionites of Palestine, the Cerinthians, who rose in some +part of Asia Minor, the Encratites and kindred sects, who spread from +Mesopotamia to Syria, to Cilicia and other provinces of Asia Minor, and +thence to Rome, Gaul, Aquitaine, and Spain; and the Montanists, who, +with a town in Phrygia for their metropolis, reached at length from +Constantinople to Carthage.</p> + +<p>"When [the reader of Christian history] comes to the second century," +says Dr. Burton, "he finds that Gnosticism, under some form or other, +was professed in every part of the then civilized world. He finds it +divided into schools, as numerously and as zealously attended as any +which Greece or Asia could boast in their happiest days. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>He meets with +names totally unknown to him before, which excited as much sensation as +those of Aristotle or Plato. He hears of volumes having been written in +support of this new philosophy, not one of which has survived to our own +day."<a name="FNanchor_221:1_138" id="FNanchor_221:1_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_221:1_138" class="fnanchor">[221:1]</a> Many of the founders of these sects had been Christians; +others were of Jewish parentage; others were more or less connected in +fact with the Pagan rites to which their own bore so great a +resemblance. Montanus seems even to have been a mutilated priest of +Cybele; the followers of Prodicus professed to possess the secret books +of Zoroaster; and the doctrine of dualism, which so many of the sects +held, is to be traced to the same source. Basilides seems to have +recognized Mithras as the Supreme Being, or the Prince of Angels, or the +Sun, if Mithras is equivalent to Abraxas, which was inscribed upon his +amulets: on the other hand, he is said to have been taught by an +immediate disciple of St. Peter, and Valentinus by an immediate disciple +of St. Paul. Marcion was the son of a Bishop of Pontus; Tatian, a +disciple of St. Justin Martyr.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>Whatever might be the history of these sects, and though it may be a +question whether they can be properly called "superstitions," and though +many of them numbered educated men among their teachers and followers, +they closely resembled, at least in ritual and profession, the vagrant +Pagan mysteries which have been above described. Their very name of +"Gnostic" implied the possession of a secret, which was to be +communicated to their disciples. Ceremonial observances were the +preparation, and symbolical rites the instrument, of initiation. Tatian +and Montanus, the representatives of very distinct schools, agreed in +making asceticism a rule of life. The followers <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>of each of these +sectaries abstained from wine; the Tatianites and Marcionites, from +flesh; the Montanists kept three Lents in the year. All the Gnostic +sects seem to have condemned marriage on one or other reason.<a name="FNanchor_222:1_139" id="FNanchor_222:1_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_222:1_139" class="fnanchor">[222:1]</a> The +Marcionites had three baptisms or more; the Marcosians had two rites of +what they called redemption; the latter of these was celebrated as a +marriage, and the room adorned as a marriage-chamber. A consecration to +a priesthood then followed with anointing. An extreme unction was +another of their rites, and prayers for the dead one of their +observances. Bardesanes and Harmonius were famous for the beauty of +their chants. The prophecies of Montanus were delivered, like the +oracles of the heathen, in a state of enthusiasm or ecstasy. To +Epiphanes, the son of Carpocrates, who died at the age of seventeen, a +temple was erected in the island of Cephallenia, his mother's +birthplace, where he was celebrated with hymns and sacrifices. A similar +honour was paid by the Carpocratians to Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, +Aristotle, as well as to the Apostles; crowns were placed upon their +images, and incense burned before them. In one of the inscriptions found +at Cyrene, about twenty years since, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, +and others, are put together with our Lord, as guides of conduct. These +inscriptions also contain the Carpocratian tenet of a community of +women. I am unwilling to allude to the Agapæ and Communions of certain +of these sects, which were not surpassed in profligacy by the Pagan +rites of which they were an imitation. The very name of Gnostic became +an expression for the worst impurities, and no one dared eat bread with +them, or use their culinary instruments or plates.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>13.</p> + +<p>These profligate excesses are found in connexion with the exercise of +magic and astrology.<a name="FNanchor_223:1_140" id="FNanchor_223:1_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_223:1_140" class="fnanchor">[223:1]</a> The amulets of the Basilidians are still +extant in great numbers, inscribed with symbols, some Christian, some +with figures of Isis, Serapis, and Anubis, represented according to the +gross indecencies of the Egyptian mythology.<a name="FNanchor_223:2_141" id="FNanchor_223:2_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_223:2_141" class="fnanchor">[223:2]</a> St. Irenæus had +already connected together the two crimes in speaking of the Simonians: +"Their mystical priests," he says, "live in lewdness, and practise +magic, according to the ability of each. They use exorcisms and +incantations; love-potions too, and seductive spells; the virtue of +spirits, and dreams, and all other curious arts, they diligently +observe."<a name="FNanchor_223:3_142" id="FNanchor_223:3_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_223:3_142" class="fnanchor">[223:3]</a> The Marcosians were especially devoted to these +"curious arts," which are also ascribed to Carpocrates and Apelles. +Marcion and others are reported to have used astrology. Tertullian +speaks generally of the sects of his day: "Infamous are the dealings of +the heretics with sorcerers very many, with mountebanks, with +astrologers, with philosophers, to wit, such as are given to curious +questions. They everywhere remember, 'Seek, and ye shall find.'"<a name="FNanchor_223:4_143" id="FNanchor_223:4_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_223:4_143" class="fnanchor">[223:4]</a></p> + +<p>Such were the Gnostics; and to external and prejudiced spectators, +whether philosophers, as Celsus and Porphyry, or the multitude, they +wore an appearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken for her +in the latter part of the Ante-nicene period, as she was confused with +the Pagan mysteries in the earlier.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">14.</p> + +<p>Of course it may happen that the common estimate concerning a person or +a body is purely accidental and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>unfounded; but in such cases it is not +lasting. Such were the calumnies of child-eating and impurity in the +Christian meetings, which were almost extinct by the time of Origen, and +which might arise from the world's confusing them with the pagan and +heretical rites. But when it continues from age to age, it is certainly +an index of a fact, and corresponds to definite qualities in the object +to which it relates. In that case, even mistakes carry information; for +they are cognate to the truth, and we can allow for them. Often what +seems like a mistake is merely the mode in which the informant conveys +his testimony, or the impression which a fact makes on him. Censure is +the natural tone of one man in a case where praise is the natural tone +of another; the very same character or action inspires one mind with +enthusiasm, and another with contempt. What to one man is magnanimity, +to another is romance, and pride to a third, and pretence to a fourth, +while to a fifth it is simply unintelligible; and yet there is a certain +analogy in their separate testimonies, which conveys to us what the +thing is like and what it is not like. When a man's acknowledged note is +superstition, we may be pretty sure we shall not find him an Academic or +an Epicurean; and even words which are ambiguous, as "atheist," or +"reformer," admit of a sure interpretation when we are informed of the +speaker. In like manner, there is a certain general correspondence +between magic and miracle, obstinacy and faith, insubordination and zeal +for religion, sophistry and argumentative talent, craft and meekness, as +is obvious. Let us proceed then in our contemplation of this reflection, +as it may be called of primitive Christianity in the mirror of the +world.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">15.</p> + +<p>All three writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, call it <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>a +"superstition;" this is no accidental imputation, but is repeated by a +variety of subsequent writers and speakers. The charge of Thyestean +banquets scarcely lasts a hundred years; but, while pagan witnesses are +to be found, the Church is accused of superstition. The heathen +disputant in Minucius calls Christianity, "<i>Vana et demens +superstitio</i>." The lawyer Modestinus speaks, with an apparent allusion +to Christianity, of "weak minds being terrified <i>superstitione +numinis</i>." The heathen magistrate asks St. Marcellus, whether he and +others have put away "vain superstitions," and worship the gods whom the +emperors worship. The Pagans in Arnobius speak of Christianity as "an +execrable and unlucky religion, full of impiety and sacrilege, +contaminating the rites instituted from of old with the superstition of +its novelty." The anonymous opponent of Lactantius calls it, "<i>Impia et +anilis superstitio</i>." Diocletian's inscription at Clunia was, as it +declared, on occasion of "the total extinction of the superstition of +the Christians, and the extension of the worship of the gods." Maximin, +in his Letter upon Constantine's Edict, still calls it a +superstition.<a name="FNanchor_225:1_144" id="FNanchor_225:1_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_225:1_144" class="fnanchor">[225:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">16.</p> + +<p>Now what is meant by the word thus attached by a <i>consensus</i> of heathen +authorities to Christianity? At least, it cannot mean a religion in +which a man might think what he pleased, and was set free from all +yokes, whether of ignorance, fear, authority, or priestcraft. When +heathen writers call the Oriental rites superstitions, they evidently +use the word in its modern sense; it cannot surely be doubted that they +apply it in the same sense to Christianity. But Plutarch explains for us +the word at length, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>in his Treatise which bears the name: "Of all kinds +of fear," he says, "superstition is the most fatal to action and +resource. He does not fear the sea who does not sail, nor war who does +not serve, nor robbers who keeps at home, nor the sycophant who is poor, +nor the envious if he is a private man, nor an earthquake if he lives in +Gaul, nor thunder if he lives in Ethiopia; but he who fears the gods +fears everything, earth, seas, air, sky, darkness, light, noises, +silence, sleep. Slaves sleep and forget their masters; of the fettered +doth sleep lighten the chain; inflamed wounds, ulcers cruel and +agonizing, are not felt by the sleeping. Superstition alone has come to +no terms with sleep; but in the very sleep of her victims, as though +they were in the realms of the impious, she raises horrible spectres, +and monstrous phantoms, and various pains, and whirls the miserable soul +about, and persecutes it. They rise, and, instead of making light of +what is unreal, they fall into the hands of quacks and conjurers, who +say, 'Call the crone to expiate, bathe in the sea, and sit all day on +the ground.'" He goes on to speak of the introduction of "uncouth names +and barbarous terms" into "the divine and national authority of +religion;" observes that, whereas slaves, when they despair of freedom, +may demand to be sold to another master, superstition admits of no +change of gods, since "the god cannot be found whom he will not fear, +who fears the gods of his family and his birth, who shudders at the +Saving and the Benignant, who has a trembling and dread at those from +whom we ask riches and wealth, concord, peace, success of all good words +and deeds." He says, moreover, that, while death is to all men an end of +life, it is not so to the superstitious; for then "there are deep gates +of hell to yawn, and headlong streams of at once fire and gloom are +opened, and darkness with its many phantoms encompasses, ghosts +presenting horrid visages and wretched voices, and judges and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>executioners, and chasms and dens full of innumerable miseries."</p> + +<p>Presently, he says, that in misfortune or sickness the superstitious man +refuses to see physician or philosopher, and cries, "Suffer me, O man, +to undergo punishment, the impious, the cursed, the hated of gods and +spirits. The Atheist," with whom all along he is contrasting the +superstitious disadvantageously, "wipes his tears, trims his hair, doffs +his mourning; but how can you address, how help the superstitious? He +sits apart in sackcloth or filthy rags; and often he strips himself and +rolls in the mud, and tells out his sins and offences, as having eaten +and drunken something, or walked some way which the divinity did not +allow. . . . And in his best mood, and under the influence of a +good-humoured superstition, he sits at home, with sacrifice and +slaughter all round him, while the old crones hang on him as on a peg, +as Bion says, any charm they fall in with." He continues, "What men like +best are festivals, banquets at the temples, initiations, orgies, votive +prayers, and adorations. But the superstitious wishes indeed, but is +unable to rejoice. He is crowned and turns pale; he sacrifices and is in +fear; he prays with a quivering voice, and burns incense with trembling +hands, and altogether belies the saying of Pythagoras, that we are then +in best case when we go to the gods; for superstitious men are in most +wretched and evil case, approaching the houses or shrines of the gods as +if they were the dens of bears, or the holes of snakes, or the caves of +whales."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">17.</p> + +<p>Here we have a vivid picture of Plutarch's idea of the essence of +Superstition; it was the imagination of the existence of an unseen +ever-present Master; the bondage of a rule of life, of a continual +responsibility; obligation <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>to attend to little things, the +impossibility of escaping from duty, the inability to choose or change +one's religion, an interference with the enjoyment of life, a melancholy +view of the world, sense of sin, horror at guilt, apprehension of +punishment, dread, self-abasement, depression, anxiety and endeavour to +be at peace with heaven, and error and absurdity in the methods chosen +for the purpose. Such too had been the idea of the Epicurean Velleius, +when he shrunk with horror from the "<i>sempiternus dominus</i>" and +"<i>curiosus Deus</i>" of the Stoics.<a name="FNanchor_228:1_145" id="FNanchor_228:1_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_228:1_145" class="fnanchor">[228:1]</a> Such, surely, was the meaning of +Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny. And hence of course the frequent reproach +cast on Christians as credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The +heathen objectors in Minucius and Lactantius speak of their "old-woman's +tales."<a name="FNanchor_228:2_146" id="FNanchor_228:2_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_228:2_146" class="fnanchor">[228:2]</a> Celsus accuses them of "assenting at random and without +reason," saying, "Do not inquire, but believe." "They lay it down," he +says elsewhere, "Let no educated man approach, no man of wisdom, no man +of sense; but if a man be unlearned, weak in intellect, an infant, let +him come with confidence. Confessing that these are worthy of their God, +they evidently desire, as they are able, to convert none but fools, and +vulgar, and stupid, and slavish, women and boys." They "take in the +simple, and lead him where they will." They address themselves to +"youths, house-servants, and the weak in intellect." They "hurry away +from the educated, as not fit subjects of their imposition, and inveigle +the rustic."<a name="FNanchor_228:3_147" id="FNanchor_228:3_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_228:3_147" class="fnanchor">[228:3]</a> "Thou," says the heathen magistrate to the Martyr +Fructuosus, "who as a teacher dost disseminate a new <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>fable, that fickle +girls may desert the groves and abandon Jupiter, condemn, if thou art +wise, the anile creed."<a name="FNanchor_229:1_148" id="FNanchor_229:1_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_229:1_148" class="fnanchor">[229:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">18.</p> + +<p>Hence the epithets of itinerant, mountebank, conjurer, cheat, sophist, +sorcerer, heaped upon the teachers of Christianity; sometimes to account +for the report or apparent truth of their miracles, sometimes to explain +their success. Our Lord was said to have learned His miraculous power in +Egypt; "wizard, mediciner, cheat, rogue, conjurer," were the epithets +applied to Him by the opponents of Eusebius;<a name="FNanchor_229:2_149" id="FNanchor_229:2_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_229:2_149" class="fnanchor">[229:2]</a> they "worship that +crucified sophist," says Lucian;<a name="FNanchor_229:3_150" id="FNanchor_229:3_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_229:3_150" class="fnanchor">[229:3]</a> "Paul, who surpasses all the +conjurers and impostors who ever lived," is Julian's account of the +Apostle. "You have sent through the whole world," says St. Justin to +Trypho, "to preach that a certain atheistic and lawless sect has sprung +from one Jesus, a Galilean cheat."<a name="FNanchor_229:4_151" id="FNanchor_229:4_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_229:4_151" class="fnanchor">[229:4]</a> "We know," says Lucian, +speaking of Chaldeans and Magicians, "the Syrian from Palestine, who is +the sophist in these matters, how many lunatics, with eyes distorted and +mouth in foam, he raises and sends away restored, ridding them from the +evil at a great price."<a name="FNanchor_229:5_152" id="FNanchor_229:5_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_229:5_152" class="fnanchor">[229:5]</a> "If any conjurer came to them, a man of +skill and knowing how to manage matters," says the same writer, "he made +money in no time, with a broad grin at the simple fellows."<a name="FNanchor_229:6_153" id="FNanchor_229:6_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_229:6_153" class="fnanchor">[229:6]</a> The +officer who had custody of St. Perpetua feared her escape from prison +"by magical incantations."<a name="FNanchor_229:7_154" id="FNanchor_229:7_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_229:7_154" class="fnanchor">[229:7]</a> When St. Tiburtius had walked barefoot +on hot coals, his judge cried out that Christ had taught him magic. St. +Anastasia was thrown into prison as a mediciner; the populace called out +against St. Agnes, "Away with the witch," <i>Tolle magam, tolle +maleficam</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +When St. Bonosus and St. Maximilian bore the burning pitch without +shrinking, Jews and Gentiles cried out, <i>Isti magi et malefici</i>. "What +new delusion," says the heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has +brought in these sophists to deny the worship of the gods? How doth this +chief sorcerer mock us, skilled by his Thessalian charm (<i>carmine</i>) to +laugh at punishment."<a name="FNanchor_230:1_155" id="FNanchor_230:1_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_230:1_155" class="fnanchor">[230:1]</a></p> + +<p>Hence we gather the meaning of the word "<i>carmen</i>" as used by Pliny; +when he speaks of the Christians "saying with one another a <i>carmen</i> to +Christ as to a god," he meant pretty much what Suetonius expresses by +the "<i>malefica superstitio</i>."<a name="FNanchor_230:2_156" id="FNanchor_230:2_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_230:2_156" class="fnanchor">[230:2]</a> And the words of the last-mentioned +writer and Tacitus are still more exactly, and, I may say, singularly +illustrated by clauses which occur in the Theodosian code; which seem to +show that these historians were using formal terms and phrases to +express their notion of Christianity. For instance, Tacitus says, "<i>Quos +per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat</i>;" and the Law +against the Malefici and Mathematici in the Code speaks of those, "<i>Quos +ob facinorum magnitudinem vulgus maleficos appellat</i>."<a name="FNanchor_230:3_157" id="FNanchor_230:3_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_230:3_157" class="fnanchor">[230:3]</a> Again, +Tacitus charges Christians with the "<i>odium humani generis</i>:" this is +the very characteristic of a practiser in magic; the Laws call the +Malefici, "<i>humani generis hostes</i>," "<i>humani generis inimici</i>," +"<i>naturæ peregrini</i>," "<i>communis salutis hostes</i>."<a name="FNanchor_230:4_158" id="FNanchor_230:4_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_230:4_158" class="fnanchor">[230:4]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>19.</p> + +<p>This also explains the phenomenon, which has created so much surprise to +certain moderns;—that a grave, well-informed historian like Tacitus +should apply to Christians what sounds like abuse. Yet what is the +difficulty, supposing that Christians were considered mathematici and +magi, and these were the secret intriguers against established +government, the allies of desperate politicians, the enemies of the +established religion, the disseminators of lying rumours, the +perpetrators of poisonings and other crimes? "Read this," says Paley, +after quoting some of the most beautiful and subduing passages of St. +Paul, "read this, and then think of <i>exitiabilis superstitio</i>;" and he +goes on to express a wish "in contending with heathen authorities, to +produce our books against theirs,"<a name="FNanchor_231:1_159" id="FNanchor_231:1_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_231:1_159" class="fnanchor">[231:1]</a> as if it were a matter of +books. Public men care very little for books; the finest sentiments, the +most luminous philosophy, the deepest theology, inspiration itself, +moves them but little; they look at facts, and care only for facts. The +question was, What was the worth, what the tendency of the Christian +body in the state? what Christians said, what they thought, was little +to the purpose. They might exhort to peaceableness and passive obedience +as strongly as words could speak; but what did they do, what was their +political position? This is what statesmen thought of then, as they do +now. What had men of the world to do with abstract proofs or first +principles? a statesman measures parties, and sects, and writers by +their bearing upon <i>him</i>; and he has a practised eye in this sort of +judgment, and is not likely to be mistaken. "'What is Truth?' said +jesting Pilate." Apologies, however eloquent or true, availed nothing +with the Roman magistrate against the sure instinct which taught him to +dread <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>Christianity. It was a dangerous enemy to any power not built +upon itself; he felt it, and the event justified his apprehension.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">20.</p> + +<p>We must not forget the well-known character of the Roman state in its +dealings with its subjects. It had had from the first an extreme +jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large +toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern +governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority +in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil +institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion. +Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it +was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of +low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the +outlaws of society, and were in a condition analogous, if the comparison +may be allowed, to smugglers or poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to +burglars and highwaymen. The modern robber is sometimes made to ask in +novels or essays, why the majority of a people should bind the minority, +and why he is amenable to laws which he does not enact; but the +magistrate, relying on the power of the sword, wishes all men to gain a +living indeed, and to prosper, but only in his own legally sanctioned +ways, and he hangs or transports dissenters from his authority. The +Romans applied this rule to religion. Lardner protests against Pliny's +application of the words "contumacy and inflexible obstinacy" to the +Christians of Pontus. "Indeed, these are hard words," he says, "very +improperly applied to men who were open to conviction, and willing to +satisfy others, if they might have leave to speak."<a name="FNanchor_232:1_160" id="FNanchor_232:1_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_232:1_160" class="fnanchor">[232:1]</a> And he says, +"It seems to me that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>Pliny acted very arbitrarily and unrighteously, in +his treatment of the Christians in his province. What right had Pliny to +act in this manner? by what law or laws did he punish [them] with +death?"—but the Romans had ever burnt the sorcerer, and banished his +consulters for life.<a name="FNanchor_233:1_161" id="FNanchor_233:1_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_233:1_161" class="fnanchor">[233:1]</a> It was an ancient custom. And at mysteries +they looked with especial suspicion, because, since the established +religion did not include them in its provisions, they really did supply +what may be called a demand of the age. The Greeks of an earlier day had +naturalized among themselves the Eleusinian and other mysteries, which +had come from Egypt and Syria, and had little to fear from a fresh +invasion from the same quarter; yet even in Greece, as Plutarch tells us, +the "<i>carmina</i>" of the itinerants of Cybele and Serapis threw the +Pythian verses out of fashion, and henceforth the responses from the +temple were given in prose. Soon the oracles altogether ceased. What +would cause in the Roman mind still greater jealousy of Christianity was +the general infidelity which prevailed among all classes as regards the +mythological fables of Charon, Cerberus, and the realms of +punishment.<a name="FNanchor_233:2_162" id="FNanchor_233:2_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_233:2_162" class="fnanchor">[233:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">21.</p> + +<p>We know what opposition had been made in Rome even to the philosophy of +Greece; much greater would be the aversion of constitutional statesmen +and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. Religion was the Roman point of +honour. "Spaniards might rival them in numbers," says Cicero, "Gauls in +bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, Greeks in the arts, Italians +and Latins in native talent, but the Romans surpassed all nations in +piety and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>devotion."<a name="FNanchor_234:1_163" id="FNanchor_234:1_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_234:1_163" class="fnanchor">[234:1]</a> It was one of their laws, "Let no one have +gods by himself, nor worship in private new gods nor adventitious, +unless added on public authority."<a name="FNanchor_234:2_164" id="FNanchor_234:2_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_234:2_164" class="fnanchor">[234:2]</a> Lutatius,<a name="FNanchor_234:3_165" id="FNanchor_234:3_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_234:3_165" class="fnanchor">[234:3]</a> at the end of +the first Punic war, was forbidden by the senate to consult the Sortes +Prænestinæ as being "<i>auspicia alienigena</i>." Some years afterwards the +Consul took axe in hand, and commenced the destruction of the temples of +Isis and Serapis. In the second Punic war, the senate had commanded the +surrender of the <i>libri vaticini</i> or <i>precationes</i>, and any written art +of sacrificing. When a secret confraternity was discovered, at a later +date, the Consul spoke of the rule of their ancestors which forbade the +forum, circus, and city to Sacrificuli and prophets, and burnt their +books. In the next age banishment was inflicted on individuals who were +introducing the worship of the Syrian Sabazius; and in the next the +Iseion and Serapeion were destroyed a second time. Mæcenas in Dio +advises Augustus to honour the gods according to the national custom, +because the contempt of the country's deities leads to civil +insubordination, reception of foreign laws, conspiracies, and secret +meetings.<a name="FNanchor_234:4_166" id="FNanchor_234:4_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_234:4_166" class="fnanchor">[234:4]</a> "Suffer no one," he adds, "to deny the gods or to +practise sorcery." The civilian Julius Paulus lays it down as one of the +leading principles of Roman Law, that those who introduce new or untried +religions should be degraded, and if in the lower orders put to +death.<a name="FNanchor_234:5_167" id="FNanchor_234:5_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_234:5_167" class="fnanchor">[234:5]</a> In like manner, it is enacted in one of Constantine's Laws +that the Haruspices should not exercise their art in private; and there +is a law of Valentinian's against nocturnal sacrifices or magic. It is +more immediately to our purpose that Trajan had been so earnest in his +resistance to <i>Hetæriæ</i> or secret societies, that, when a fire had laid +waste Nicomedia, and Pliny <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>proposed to him to incorporate a body of a +hundred and fifty firemen in consequence,<a name="FNanchor_235:1_168" id="FNanchor_235:1_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_235:1_168" class="fnanchor">[235:1]</a> he was afraid of the +precedent and forbade it.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">22.</p> + +<p>What has been said will suggest another point of view in which the +Oriental rites were obnoxious to the government, viz., as being vagrant +and proselytizing religions. If it tolerated foreign superstitions, this +would be on the ground that districts or countries within its +jurisdiction held them; to proselytize to a rite hitherto unknown, to +form a new party, and to propagate it through the Empire,—a religion +not local but Catholic,—was an offence against both order and reason. +The state desired peace everywhere, and no change; "considering," +according to Lactantius, "that they were rightly and deservedly punished +who execrated the public religion handed down to them by their +ancestors."<a name="FNanchor_235:2_169" id="FNanchor_235:2_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_235:2_169" class="fnanchor">[235:2]</a></p> + +<p>It is impossible surely to deny that, in assembling for religious +purposes, the Christians were breaking a solemn law, a vital principle +of the Roman constitution; and this is the light in which their conduct +was regarded by the historians and philosophers of the Empire. This was +a very strong act on the part of the disciples of the great Apostle, who +had enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time after time they +resisted the authority of the magistrate; and this is a phenomenon +inexplicable on the theory of Private Judgment or of the Voluntary +Principle. The justification of such disobedience lies simply in the +necessity of obeying the higher authority of some divine law; but if +Christianity were in its essence only private and personal, as so many +now think, there was no necessity of their meeting together at all. If, +on the other hand, in assembling for worship and holy <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>communion, they +were fulfilling an indispensable observance, Christianity has imposed a +social law on the world, and formally enters the field of politics. +Gibbon says that, in consequence of Pliny's edict, "the prudence of the +Christians suspended their Agapæ; but it was <i>impossible</i> for them to +omit the exercise of public worship."<a name="FNanchor_236:1_170" id="FNanchor_236:1_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_236:1_170" class="fnanchor">[236:1]</a> We can draw no other +conclusion.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">23.</p> + +<p>At the end of three hundred years, a more remarkable violation of law +seems to have been admitted by the Christian body. It shall be given in +the words of Dr. Burton; he has been speaking of Maximin's edict, which +provided for the restitution of any of their lands or buildings which +had been alienated from them. "It is plain," he says, "from the terms of +this edict, that the Christians had for some time been in possession of +property. It speaks of houses and lands which did not belong to +individuals, but to the whole body. Their possession of such property +could hardly have escaped the notice of the government; but it seems to +have been held in direct violation of a law of Diocletian, which +prohibited corporate bodies, or associations which were not legally +recognized, from acquiring property. The Christians were certainly not a +body recognized by law at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, and +it might almost be thought that this enactment was specially directed +against them. But, like other laws which are founded upon tyranny, and +are at variance with the first principles of justice, it is probable +that this law about corporate property was evaded. We must suppose that +the Christians had purchased lands and houses before the law was passed; +and their disregard <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>of the prohibition may be taken as another proof +that their religion had now taken so firm a footing that the executors +of the laws were obliged to connive at their being broken by so numerous +a body."<a name="FNanchor_237:1_171" id="FNanchor_237:1_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_237:1_171" class="fnanchor">[237:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">24.</p> + +<p>No wonder that the magistrate who presided at the martyrdom of St. +Romanus calls them in Prudentius "a rebel people;"<a name="FNanchor_237:2_172" id="FNanchor_237:2_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_237:2_172" class="fnanchor">[237:2]</a> that Galerius +speaks of them as "a nefarious conspiracy;" the heathen in Minucius, as +"men of a desperate faction;" that others make them guilty of sacrilege +and treason, and call them by those other titles which, more closely +resembling the language of Tacitus, have been noticed above. Hence the +violent accusations against them as the destruction of the Empire, the +authors of physical evils, and the cause of the anger of the gods.</p> + +<p>"Men cry out," says Tertullian, "that the state is beset, that the +Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. They +mourn as for a loss that every sex, condition, and now even rank, is +going over to this sect. And yet they do not by this very means advance +their minds to the idea of some good therein hidden; they allow not +themselves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not to examine more +closely. The generality run upon a hatred of this name, with eyes so +closed that in bearing favourable testimony to any one they mingle with +it the reproach of the name. 'A good man Caius Seius, only he is a +Christian.' So another, 'I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius hath +suddenly become a Christian.' No one reflecteth whether Caius be not +therefore good and Lucius wise because a Christian, or therefore a +Christian because wise and good. They praise that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>which they know, they +revile that which they know not. Virtue is not in such account as hatred +of the Christians. Now, then, if the hatred be of the name, what guilt +is there in names? What charge against words? Unless it be that any word +which is a name have either a barbarous or ill-omened, or a scurrilous +or an immodest sound. If the Tiber cometh up to the walls, if the Nile +cometh not up to the fields, if the heaven hath stood still, if the +earth hath been moved, if there be any famine, if any pestilence, 'The +Christians to the lions' is forthwith the word."<a name="FNanchor_238:1_173" id="FNanchor_238:1_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_238:1_173" class="fnanchor">[238:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">25.</p> + +<p>"Men of a desperate, lawless, reckless faction," says the heathen +Cæcilius, in the passage above referred to, "who collect together out of +the lowest rabble the thoughtless portion, and credulous women seduced +by the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of impure conspirators, of +whom nocturnal assemblies, and solemn fastings, and unnatural food, no +sacred rite but pollution, is the bond. A tribe lurking and +light-hating, dumb for the public, talkative in corners, they despise +our temples as if graves, spit at our gods, deride our religious forms; +pitiable themselves, they pity, forsooth, our priests; half-naked +themselves, they despise our honours and purple; monstrous folly and +incredible impudence! . . . Day after day, their abandoned morals wind +their serpentine course; over the whole world are those most hideous +rites of an impious association growing into shape: . . . they recognize +each other by marks and signs, and love each other almost before they +recognize; promiscuous lust is their religion. Thus does their vain and +mad superstition glory in crimes. . . The writer who tells the story of a +criminal capitally punished, and of the gibbet (<i>ligna feralia</i>) of the +cross being their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>observance (<i>ceremonias</i>), assigns to them thereby an +altar in keeping with the abandoned and wicked, that they may worship +(<i>colant</i>) what they merit. . . . Why their mighty effort to hide and +shroud whatever it is they worship (<i>colunt</i>), since things honest ever +like the open day, and crimes are secret? Why have they no altars, no +temples, no images known to us, never speak abroad, never assemble +freely, were it not that what they worship and suppress is subject +either of punishment or of shame? . . What monstrous, what portentous +notions do they fabricate! that that God of theirs, whom they can +neither show nor see, should be inquiring diligently into the +characters, the acts, nay the words and secret thoughts of all men; +running to and fro, forsooth, and present everywhere, troublesome, +restless, nay impudently curious they would have him; that is, if he is +close at every deed, interferes in all places, while he can neither +attend to each as being distracted through the whole, nor suffice for +the whole as being engaged about each. Think too of their threatening +fire, meditating destruction to the whole earth, nay the world itself +with its stars! . . . Nor content with this mad opinion, they add and +append their old wives' tales about a new birth after death, ashes and +cinders, and by some strange confidence believe each other's lies. Poor +creatures! consider what hangs over you after death, while you are still +alive. Lo, the greater part of you, the better, as you say, are in want, +cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it; but I omit common trials. +Lo, threats are offered to you, punishments, torments; crosses to be +undergone now, not worshipped (<i>adorandæ</i>); fires too which ye predict +and fear; where is that God who can recover, but cannot preserve your +life? The answer of Socrates, when he was asked about heavenly matters, +is well known, 'What is above us does not concern us.' My opinion also +is, that points which are doubtful, as are the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>points in question, must +be left; nor, when so many and such great men are in controversy on the +subject, must judgment be rashly and audaciously given on either side, +lest the consequence be either anile superstition or the overthrow of +all religion."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">26.</p> + +<p>Such was Christianity in the eyes of those who witnessed its rise and +propagation;—one of a number of wild and barbarous rites which were +pouring in upon the Empire from the ancient realms of superstition, and +the mother of a progeny of sects which were faithful to the original +they had derived from Egypt or Syria; a religion unworthy of an educated +person, as appealing, not to the intellect, but to the fears and +weaknesses of human nature, and consisting, not in the rational and +cheerful enjoyment, but in a morose rejection of the gifts of +Providence; a horrible religion, as inflicting or enjoining cruel +sufferings, and monstrous and loathsome in its very indulgence of the +passions; a religion leading by reaction to infidelity; a religion of +magic, and of the vulgar arts, real and pretended, with which magic was +accompanied; a secret religion which dared not face the day; an +itinerant, busy, proselytizing religion, forming an extended confederacy +against the state, resisting its authority and breaking its laws. There +may be some exceptions to this general impression, such as Pliny's +discovery of the innocent and virtuous rule of life adopted by the +Christians of Pontus; but this only proves that Christianity was not in +fact the infamous religion which the heathen thought it; it did not +reverse their general belief to that effect.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">27.</p> + +<p>Now it must be granted that, in some respects, this view of Christianity +depended on the times, and would alter with their alteration. When there +was no persecution, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>Martyrs could not be obstinate; and when the Church +was raised aloft in high places, it was no longer in caves. Still, I +believe, it continued substantially the same in the judgment of the +world external to it, while there was an external world to judge of it. +"They thought it enough," says Julian in the fourth century, of our Lord +and His Apostles, "to deceive women, servants, and slaves, and by their +means wives and husbands." "A human fabrication," says he elsewhere, +"put together by wickedness, having nothing divine in it, but making a +perverted use of the fable-loving, childish, irrational part of the +soul, and offering a set of wonders to create belief." "Miserable men," +he says elsewhere, "you refuse to worship the ancile, yet you worship +the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads, and fix it on your +doors. Shall one for this hate the intelligent among you, or pity the +less understanding, who in following you have gone to such an excess of +perdition as to leave the everlasting gods and go over to a dead Jew?" +He speaks of their adding other dead men to Him who died so long ago. +"You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments, though it is +nowhere told you in your religion to haunt the tombs and to attend upon +them." Elsewhere he speaks of their "leaving the gods for corpses and +relics." On the other hand, he attributes the growth of Christianity to +its humanity towards strangers, care in burying the dead, and pretended +religiousness of life. In another place he speaks of their care of the +poor.<a name="FNanchor_241:1_174" id="FNanchor_241:1_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_241:1_174" class="fnanchor">[241:1]</a></p> + +<p>Libanius, Julian's preceptor in rhetoric, delivers the same testimony, +as far as it goes. He addressed his Oration for the Temples to a +Christian Emperor, and would in consequence be guarded in his language; +however it runs in one direction. He speaks of "those black-habited +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>men," meaning the monks, "who eat more than elephants, and by the +number of their potations trouble those who send them drink in their +chantings, and conceal this by paleness artificially acquired." They +"are in good condition out of the misfortunes of others, while they +pretend to serve God by hunger." Those whom they attack "are like bees, +they like drones." I do not quote this passage to prove that there were +monks in Libanius's days, which no one doubts, but to show his +impression of Christianity, as far as his works betray it.</p> + +<p>Numantian, in the same century, describes in verse his voyage from Rome +to Gaul: one book of the poem is extant; he falls in with Christianity +on two of the islands which lie in his course. He thus describes them as +found on one of these: "The island is in a squalid state, being full of +light-haters. They call themselves monks, because they wish to live +alone without witness. They dread the gifts, from fearing the reverses, +of fortune. Thus Homer says that melancholy was the cause of +Bellerophon's anxiety; for it is said that after the wounds of grief +mankind displeased the offended youth." He meets on the other island a +Christian, whom he had known, of good family and fortune, and happy in +his marriage, who "impelled by the Furies had left men and gods, and, +credulous exile, was living in base concealment. Is not this herd," he +continues, "worse than Circean poison? then bodies were changed, now +minds."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">28.</p> + +<p>In the Philopatris, which is the work of an Author of the fourth +century,<a name="FNanchor_242:1_175" id="FNanchor_242:1_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_242:1_175" class="fnanchor">[242:1]</a> Critias is introduced pale and wild. His friend asks him +if he has seen Cerberus or Hecate; and he answers that he has heard a +rigmarole from certain "thrice-cursed sophists;" which he thinks would +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>drive him mad, if he heard it again, and was nearly sending him +headlong over some cliff as it was. He retires for relief with his +inquirer to a pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swallows and +nightingales are singing, and a quiet brook is purling. Triephon, his +friend, expresses a fear lest he has heard some incantation, and is led +by the course of the dialogue, before his friend tells his tale, to give +some account of Christianity, being himself a Christian. After speaking +of the creation, as described by Moses, he falls at once upon that +doctrine of a particular providence which is so distasteful to Plutarch, +Velleius in Cicero, and Cæcilius, and generally to unbelievers. "He is +in heaven," he says, "looking at just and unjust, and causing actions to +be entered in books; and He will recompense all on a day which He has +appointed." Critias objects that he cannot make this consistent with the +received doctrine about the Fates, "even though he has perhaps been +carried aloft with his master, and initiated in unspeakable mysteries." +He also asks if the deeds of the Scythians are written in heaven; for if +so, there must be many scribes there. After some more words, in course +of which, as in the earlier part of the dialogue, the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity is introduced, Critias gives an account of what befell him. +He says, he fell in with a crowd in the streets; and, while asking a +friend the cause of it, others joined them (Christians or monks), and a +conversation ensues, part of it corrupt or obscure, on the subject, as +Gesner supposes, of Julian's oppression of the Christians, especially of +the clergy. One of these interlocutors is a wretched old man, whose +"phlegm is paler than death;" another has "a rotten cloke on, and no +covering on head or feet," who says he has been told by some ill-clad +person from the mountains, with a shorn crown, that in the theatre was a +name hieroglyphically written of one who would <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>flood the highway with +gold. On his laughing at the story, his friend Crato, whom he had +joined, bids him be silent, using a Pythagorean word; for he has "most +excellent matters to initiate him into, and that the prediction is no +dream but true," and will be fulfilled in August, using the Egyptian +name of the month. He attempts to leave them in disgust, but Crato pulls +him back "at the instigation of that old demon." He is in consequence +persuaded to go "to those conjurers," who, says Crato, would "initiate +in all mysteries." He finds, in a building which is described in the +language used by Homer of the Palace of Menelaus, "not Helen, no, but +men pale and downcast," who ask, whether there was any bad news; "for +they seemed," he says, "wishing the worst; and rejoicing in misfortune, +as the Furies in the theatres." On their asking him how the city and the +world went on, and his answering that things went on smoothly and seemed +likely to do so still, they frown, and say that "the city is in travail +with a bad birth." "You, who dwell aloft," he answers, "and see +everything from on high, doubtless have a keen perception in this +matter; but tell me, how is the sky? will the Sun be eclipsed? will Mars +be in quadrature with Jupiter? &c.;" and he goes on to jest upon their +celibacy. On their persisting in prophesying evil to the state, he says, +"This evil will fall on your own head, since you are so hard upon your +country; for not as high-flyers have ye heard this, nor are ye adepts in +the restless astrological art, but if divinations and conjurings have +seduced you, double is your stupidity; for they are the discoveries of +old women and things to laugh at." The interview then draws to an end; +but more than enough has been quoted already to show the author's notion +of Christianity.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>29.</p> + +<p>Such was the language of paganism after Christianity had for fifty years +been exposed to the public gaze; after it had been before the world for +fifty more, St. Augustine had still to defend it against the charge of +being the cause of the calamities of the Empire. And for the charge of +magic, when the Arian bishops were in formal disputations with the +Catholic, before Gungebald, Burgundian King of France, at the end of the +fifth century, we find still that they charged the Catholics with being +"<i>præstigiatores</i>," and worshipping a number of gods; and when the +Catholics proposed that the king should repair to the shrine of St. +Justus, where both parties might ask him concerning their respective +faiths, the Arians cried out that "they would not seek enchantments like +Saul, for Scripture was enough for them, which was more powerful than +all bewitchments."<a name="FNanchor_245:1_176" id="FNanchor_245:1_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_245:1_176" class="fnanchor">[245:1]</a> This was said, not against strangers of whom +they knew nothing, as Ethelbert might be suspicious of St. Augustine and +his brother missionaries, but against a body of men who lived among +them.</p> + +<p>I do not think it can be doubted then that, had Tacitus, Suetonius, and +Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and the other opponents of Christianity, lived +in the fourth century, their evidence concerning Christianity would be +very much the same as it has come down to us from the centuries before +it. In either case, a man of the world and a philosopher would have been +disgusted at the gloom and sadness of its profession, its +mysteriousness, its claim of miracles, the want of good sense imputable +to its rule of life, and the unsettlement and discord it was introducing +into the social and political world.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">30.</p> + +<p>On the whole then I conclude as follows:—if there is a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>form of +Christianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of +borrowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to +forms and ceremonies an occult virtue;—a religion which is considered +to burden and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to +the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and +imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith;—a +religion which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of +the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, +one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a +grave shadow over the future;—a religion which holds up to admiration +the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it +if they would;—a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, +are to the generality of men unknown; which is considered to bear on its +very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance +suffices to judge of it, and that careful examination is preposterous; +which is felt to be so simply bad, that it may be calumniated at hazard +and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the +accurate distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or +painfully to determine how far this or that story concerning it is +literally true, or what has to be allowed in candour, or what is +improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be +plausibly defended;—a religion such, that men look at a convert to it +with a feeling which no other denomination raises except Judaism, +Socialism, or Mormonism, viz. with curiosity, suspicion, fear, disgust, +as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if he +had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion with +dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which +claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>reduced him +to a mere organ or instrument of a whole;—a religion which men hate as +proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as dividing families, +separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of government, making a +mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of human nature, and a +"conspirator against its rights and privileges;"<a name="FNanchor_247:1_177" id="FNanchor_247:1_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_247:1_177" class="fnanchor">[247:1]</a>—a religion +which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness, and a +pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven;—a religion +which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak +about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes +wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable;—a religion, +the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad +epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they would +persecute if they could;—if there be such a religion now in the world, +it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it, when first +it came forth from its Divine Author.<a name="FNanchor_247:2_178" id="FNanchor_247:2_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_247:2_178" class="fnanchor">[247:2]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> +<h4>SECTION II.</h4> + +<h5>THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.</h5> + +<p>Till the Imperial Government had become Christian, and heresies were put +down by the arm of power, the face of Christendom presented much the +same appearance all along as on the first propagation of the religion. +What Gnosticism, Montanism, Judaism and, I may add, the Oriental +mysteries were to the nascent Church, as described in the foregoing +Section, such were the Manichean, Donatist, Apollinarian and +contemporary sects afterwards. The Church in each place looked at first +sight as but one out of a number of religious communions, with little of +a very distinctive character except to the careful inquirer. Still there +were external indications of essential differences within; and, as we +have already compared it in the first centuries, we may now contrast it +in the fourth, with the rival religious bodies with which it was +encompassed.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>How was the man to guide his course who wished to join himself to the +doctrine and fellowship of the Apostles in the times of St. Athanasius, +St. Basil, and St. Augustine? Few indeed were the districts in the +<i>orbis terrarum</i>, which did not then, as in the Ante-nicene era, present +a number of creeds and communions for his choice. Gaul indeed is said at +that era to have been perfectly free from heresies; at least none are +mentioned as belonging to that country in the Theodosian Code. But in +Egypt, in the early part of the fourth century, the Meletian schism +numbered <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>one-third as many bishops as were contained in the whole +Patriarchate. In Africa, towards the end of it, while the Catholic +Bishops amounted in all to 466, the Donatists rivalled them with as many +as 400. In Spain Priscillianism was spread from the Pyrenees to the +Ocean. It seems to have been the religion of the population in the +province of Gallicia, while its author Priscillian, whose death had been +contrived by the Ithacians, was honoured as a Martyr. The Manichees, +hiding themselves under a variety of names in different localities, were +not in the least flourishing condition at Rome. Rome and Italy were the +seat of the Marcionites. The Origenists, too, are mentioned by St. +Jerome as "bringing a cargo of blasphemies into the port of Rome." And +Rome was the seat of a Novatian, a Donatist, and a Luciferian bishop, in +addition to the legitimate occupant of the See of St. Peter. The +Luciferians, as was natural under the circumstances of their schism, +were sprinkled over Christendom from Spain to Palestine, and from Treves +to Lybia; while in its parent country Sardinia, as a centre of that +extended range, Lucifer seems to have received the honours of a Saint.</p> + +<p>When St. Gregory Nazianzen began to preach at Constantinople, the Arians +were in possession of its hundred churches; they had the populace in +their favour, and, after their legal dislodgment, edict after edict was +ineffectually issued against them. The Novatians too abounded there; and +the Sabbatians, who had separated from them, had a church, where they +prayed at the tomb of their founder. Moreover, Apollinarians, Eunomians, +and Semi-arians, mustered in great numbers at Constantinople. The +Semi-arian bishops were as popular in the neighbouring provinces, as the +Arian doctrine in the capital. They had possession of the coast of the +Hellespont and Bithynia; and were found in Phrygia, Isauria, and the +neighbouring parts of Asia Minor. Phrygia was the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>headquarters of the +Montanists, and was overrun by the Messalians, who had advanced thus far +from Mesopotamia, spreading through Syria, Lycaonia, Pamphylia, and +Cappadocia in their way. In the lesser Armenia, the same heretics had +penetrated into the monasteries. Phrygia, too, and Paphlagonia were the +seat of the Novatians, who besides were in force at Nicæa and Nicomedia, +were found in Alexandria, Africa, and Spain, and had a bishop even in +Scythia. The whole tract of country from the Hellespont to Cilicia had +nearly lapsed into Eunomianism, and the tract from Cilicia as far as +Phœnicia into Apollinarianism. The disorders of the Church of Antioch +are well known: an Arian succession, two orthodox claimants, and a +bishop of the Apollinarians. Palestine abounded in Origenists, if at +that time they may properly be called a sect; Palestine, Egypt, and +Arabia were overrun with Marcionites; Osrhoene was occupied by the +followers of Bardesanes and Harmonius, whose hymns so nearly took the +place of national tunes that St. Ephrem found no better way of resisting +the heresy than setting them to fresh words. Theodoret in Comagene +speaks in the next century of reclaiming eight villages of Marcionites, +one of Eunomians, and one of Arians.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>These sects were of very various character. Learning, eloquence, and +talent were the characteristics of the Apollinarians, Manichees, and +Pelagians; Tichonius the Donatist was distinguished in Biblical +interpretation; the Semi-arian and Apollinarian leaders were men of +grave and correct behaviour; the Novatians had sided with the Orthodox +during the Arian persecution; the Montanists and Messalians addressed +themselves to an almost heathen population; the atrocious fanaticism of +the Priscillianists, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>the fury of the Arian women of Alexandria and +Constantinople, and the savage cruelty of the Circumcellions can hardly +be exaggerated. These various sectaries had their orders of clergy, +bishops, priests and deacons; their readers and ministers; their +celebrants and altars; their hymns and litanies. They preached to the +crowds in public, and their meeting-houses bore the semblance of +churches. They had their sacristies and cemeteries; their farms; their +professors and doctors; their schools. Miracles were ascribed to the +Arian Theophilus, to the Luciferian Gregory of Elvira, to a Macedonian +in Cyzicus, and to the Donatists in Africa.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>How was an individual inquirer to find, or a private Christian to keep +the Truth, amid so many rival teachers? The misfortunes or perils of +holy men and saints show us the difficulty; St. Augustine was nine years +a Manichee; St. Basil for a time was in admiration of the Semi-arians; +St. Sulpicius gave a momentary countenance to the Pelagians; St. Paula +listened, and Melania assented, to the Origenists. Yet the rule was +simple, which would direct every one right; and in that age, at least, +no one could be wrong for any long time without his own fault. The +Church is everywhere, but it is one; sects are everywhere, but they are +many, independent and discordant. Catholicity is the attribute of the +Church, independency of sectaries. It is true that some sects might seem +almost Catholic in their diffusion; Novatians or Marcionites were in all +quarters of the empire; yet it is hardly more than the name, or the +general doctrine or philosophy, that was universal: the different +portions which professed it seem to have been bound together by no +strict or definite tie. The Church might be evanescent or lost for a +while in particular countries, or it might be levelled and buried <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>among +sects, when the eye was confined to one spot, or it might be confronted +by the one and same heresy in various places; but, on looking round the +<i>orbis terrarum</i>, there was no mistaking that body which, and which +alone, had possession of it. The Church is a kingdom; a heresy is a +family rather than a kingdom; and as a family continually divides and +sends out branches, founding new houses, and propagating itself in +colonies, each of them as independent as its original head, so was it +with heresy. Simon Magus, the first heretic, had been Patriarch of +Menandrians, Basilidians, Valentinians, and the whole family of +Gnostics; Tatian of Encratites, Severians, Aquarians, Apotactites, and +Saccophori. The Montanists had been propagated into Tascodrugites, +Pepuzians, Artotyrites, and Quartodecimans. Eutyches, in a later time, +gave birth to the Dioscorians, Gaianites, Theodosians, Agnoetæ, +Theopaschites, Acephali, Semidalitæ, Nagranitæ, Jacobites, and others. +This is the uniform history of heresy. The patronage of the civil power +might for a time counteract the law of its nature, but it showed it as +soon as that obstacle was removed. Scarcely was Arianism deprived of the +churches of Constantinople, and left to itself, than it split in that +very city into the Dorotheans, the Psathyrians, and the Curtians; and +the Eunomians into the Theophronians and Eutychians. One fourth part of +the Donatists speedily became Maximinianists; and besides these were the +Rogatians, the Primianists, the Urbanists, and the Claudianists. If such +was the fecundity of the heretical principle in one place, it is not to +be supposed that Novatians or Marcionites in Africa or the East would +feel themselves bound to think or to act with their fellow-sectaries of +Rome or Constantinople; and the great varieties or inconsistencies of +statement, which have come down to us concerning the tenets of heresies, +may thus be explained. This had been the case with the pagan <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>rites, +whether indigenous or itinerant, to which heresy succeeded. The +established priesthoods were local properties, as independent +theologically as they were geographically of each other; the fanatical +companies which spread over the Empire dissolved and formed again as the +circumstances of the moment occasioned. So was it with heresy: it was, +by its very nature, its own master, free to change, self-sufficient; +and, having thrown off the yoke of the Church, it was little likely to +submit to any usurped and spurious authority. Montanism and Manicheeism +might perhaps in some sort furnish an exception to this remark.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>In one point alone the heresies seem universally to have agreed,—in +hatred to the Church. This might at that time be considered one of her +surest and most obvious Notes. She was that body of which all sects, +however divided among themselves, spoke ill; according to the prophecy, +"If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more +them of His household." They disliked and they feared her; they did +their utmost to overcome their mutual differences, in order to unite +against her. Their utmost indeed was little, for independency was the +law of their being; they could not exert themselves without fresh +quarrels, both in the bosom of each, and one with another. "<i>Bellum +hæreticorum pax est ecclesiæ</i>" had become a proverb; but they felt the +great desirableness of union against the only body which was the natural +antagonist of all, and various are the instances which occur in +ecclesiastical history of attempted coalitions. The Meletians of Africa +united with the Arians against St. Athanasius; the Semi-Arians of the +Council of Sardica corresponded with the Donatists of Africa; Nestorius +received and protected the Pelagians; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>Aspar, the Arian minister of Leo +the Emperor, favoured the Monophysites of Egypt; the Jacobites of Egypt +sided with the Moslem, who are charged with holding a Nestorian +doctrine. It had been so from the beginning: "They huddle up a peace +with all everywhere," says Tertullian, "for it maketh no matter to them, +although they hold different doctrines, so long as they conspire +together in their siege against the one thing, Truth."<a name="FNanchor_254:1_179" id="FNanchor_254:1_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_254:1_179" class="fnanchor">[254:1]</a> And even +though active co-operation was impracticable, at least hard words cost +nothing, and could express that common hatred at all seasons. +Accordingly, by Montanists, Catholics were called "the carnal;" by +Novatians, "the apostates;" by Valentinians, "the worldly;" by +Manichees, "the simple;" by Aërians, "the ancient;"<a name="FNanchor_254:2_180" id="FNanchor_254:2_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_254:2_180" class="fnanchor">[254:2]</a> by +Apollinarians, "the man-worshippers;" by Origenists, "the flesh-lovers," +and "the slimy;" by the Nestorians, "Egyptians;" by Monophysites, the +"Chalcedonians:" by Donatists, "the traitors," and "the sinners," and +"servants of Antichrist;" and St. Peter's chair, "the seat of +pestilence;" and by the Luciferians, the Church was called "a brothel," +"the devil's harlot," and "synagogue of Satan:" so that it might be +called a Note of the Church, as I have said, for the use of the most +busy and the most ignorant, that she was on one side and all other +bodies on the other.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>Yet, strange as it may appear, there was one title of the Church of a +very different nature from those which have been enumerated,—a title of +honour, which all men agreed to give her,—and one which furnished a +still more simple direction than such epithets of abuse to aid the busy +and the ignorant in finding her, and which was used by the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>Fathers for +that purpose. It was one which the sects could neither claim for +themselves, nor hinder being enjoyed by its rightful owner, though, +since it was the characteristic designation of the Church in the Creed, +it seemed to surrender the whole controversy between the two parties +engaged in it. Balaam could not keep from blessing the ancient people of +God; and the whole world, heresies inclusive, were irresistibly +constrained to call God's second election by its prophetical title of +the "Catholic" Church. St. Paul tells us that the heretic is "condemned +by himself;" and no clearer witness against the sects of the earlier +centuries was needed by the Church, than their own testimony to this +contrast between her actual position and their own. Sects, say the +Fathers, are called after the name of their founders, or from their +locality, or from their doctrine. So was it from the beginning: "I am of +Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas;" but it was promised to the +Church that she should have no master upon earth, and that she should +"gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." +Her every-day name, which was understood in the marketplace and used in +the palace, which every chance comer knew, and which state-edicts +recognized, was the "Catholic" Church. This was that very description of +Christianity in those times which we are all along engaged in +determining. And it had been recognized as such from the first; the name +or the fact is put forth by St. Ignatius, St. Justin, St. Clement; by +the Church of Smyrna, St. Irenæus, Rhodon or another, Tertullian, +Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Cornelius; by the Martyrs, Pionius, Sabina, and +Asclepiades; by Lactantius, Eusebius, Adimantius, St. Athanasius, St. +Pacian, St. Optatus, St. Epiphanius, St. Cyril, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, +St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and Facundus. St. Clement +uses it as an argument against the Gnostics, St. Augustine against the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>Donatists and Manichees, St. Jerome against the Luciferians, and St. +Pacian against the Novatians.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>It was an argument for educated and simple. When St. Ambrose would +convert the cultivated reason of Augustine, he bade him study the book +of Isaiah, who is the prophet, as of the Messiah, so of the calling of +the Gentiles and of the Imperial power of the Church. And when St. Cyril +would give a rule to his crowd of Catechumens, "If ever thou art +sojourning in any city," he says, "inquire not simply where the Lord's +house is, (for the sects of the profane also make an attempt to call +their own dens houses of the Lord,) nor merely where the Church is, but +where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy +Body, the Mother of us all, which is the Spouse of our Lord Jesus +Christ."<a name="FNanchor_256:1_181" id="FNanchor_256:1_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_256:1_181" class="fnanchor">[256:1]</a> "In the Catholic Church," says St. Augustine to the +Manichees, "not to speak of that most pure wisdom, to the knowledge of +which few spiritual men attain in this life so as to know it even in its +least measure,—as men, indeed, yet, without any doubt,—(for the +multitude of Christians are safest, not in understanding with quickness, +but in believing with simplicity,) not to speak of this wisdom, which ye +do not believe to be in the Catholic Church, there are many other +considerations which most sufficiently hold me in her bosom. I am held +by the consent of people and nations; by that authority which began in +miracles, was nourished in hope, was increased by charity, and made +steadfast by age; by that succession of priests from the chair of the +Apostle Peter, to whose feeding the Lord after His resurrection +commended His sheep, even to the present episcopate; lastly, by the very +title of Catholic, which, not without cause, hath this Church alone, +amid so many <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>heresies, obtained in such sort, that, whereas all +heretics wish to be called Catholics, nevertheless to any stranger, who +asked where to find the 'Catholic' Church, none of them would dare to +point to his own basilica or home. These dearest bonds, then, of the +Christian Name, so many and such, rightly hold a man in belief in the +Catholic Church, even though, by reason of the slowness of our +understanding or our deserts, truth doth not yet show herself in her +clearest tokens. But among you, who have none of these reasons to invite +and detain me, I hear but the loud sound of a promise of the truth; +which truth, verily, if it be so manifestly displayed among you that +there can be no mistake about it, is to be preferred to all those things +by which I am held in the Catholic Church; but if it is promised alone, +and not exhibited, no one shall move me from that faith which by so many +and great ties binds my mind to the Christian religion."<a name="FNanchor_257:1_182" id="FNanchor_257:1_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_257:1_182" class="fnanchor">[257:1]</a> When +Adimantius asked his Marcionite opponent, how he was a Christian who did +not even bear that name, but was called from Marcion, he retorts, "And +you are called from the Catholic Church, therefore ye are not Christians +either;" Adimantius answers, "Did we profess man's name, you would have +spoken to the point; but if we are called from being all over the world, +what is there bad in this?"<a name="FNanchor_257:2_183" id="FNanchor_257:2_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_257:2_183" class="fnanchor">[257:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>"Whereas there is one God and one Lord," says St. Clement, "therefore +also that which is the highest in esteem is praised on the score of +being sole, as after the pattern of the One Principle. In the nature +then of the One, the Church, which is one, hath its portion, which they +would forcibly cut up into many heresies. In substance then, and in +idea, and in first principle, and in pre-eminence, we call the ancient +Catholic Church sole; in order to the unity of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>one faith, the faith +according to her own covenants, or rather that one covenant in different +times, which, by the will of one God and through one Lord, is gathering +together those who are already ordained, whom God hath predestined, +having known that they would be just from the foundation of the +world. . . . . But of heresies, some are called from a man's name, as +Valentine's heresy, Marcion's, and that of Basilides (though they +profess to bring the opinion of Matthias, for all the Apostles had, as +one teaching, so one tradition); and others from place, as the Peratici; +and others from nation, as that of the Phrygians; and others from their +actions, as that of the Encratites; and others from their peculiar +doctrines, as the Docetæ and Hematites; and others from their +hypotheses, and what they have honoured, as Cainites and the Ophites; +and others from their wicked conduct and enormities, as those Simonians +who are called Eutychites."<a name="FNanchor_258:1_184" id="FNanchor_258:1_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_258:1_184" class="fnanchor">[258:1]</a> "There are, and there have been," +says St. Justin, "many who have taught atheistic and blasphemous words +and deeds, coming in the name of Jesus; and they are called by us from +the appellation of the men whence each doctrine and opinion began . . . +Some are called Marcians, others Valentinians, others Basilidians, +others Saturnilians."<a name="FNanchor_258:2_185" id="FNanchor_258:2_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_258:2_185" class="fnanchor">[258:2]</a> "When men are called Phrygians, or +Novatians, or Valentinians, or Marcionites, or Anthropians," says +Lactantius, "or by any other name, they cease to be Christians; for they +have lost Christ's Name, and clothe themselves in human and foreign +titles. It is the Catholic Church alone which retains the true +worship."<a name="FNanchor_258:3_186" id="FNanchor_258:3_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_258:3_186" class="fnanchor">[258:3]</a> "We never heard of Petrines, or Paulines, or +Bartholomeans, or Thaddeans," says St. Epiphanius; "but from the first +there was one preaching of all the Apostles, not preaching themselves, +but Christ Jesus the Lord. Wherefore also all gave one name to the +Church, not their own, but that of their Lord Jesus Christ, since they +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>began to be called Christians first at Antioch; which is the Sole +Catholic Church, having nought else but Christ's, being a Church of +Christians; not of Christs, but of Christians, He being One, they from +that One being called Christians. None, but this Church and her +preachers, are of this character, as is shown by their own epithets, +Manicheans, and Simonians, and Valentinians, and Ebionites."<a name="FNanchor_259:1_187" id="FNanchor_259:1_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_259:1_187" class="fnanchor">[259:1]</a> "If +you ever hear those who are said to belong to Christ," says St. Jerome, +"named, not from the Lord Jesus Christ, but from some other, say +Marcionites, Valentinians, Mountaineers, Campestrians, know that it is +not Christ's Church, but the synagogue of Antichrist."<a name="FNanchor_259:2_188" id="FNanchor_259:2_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_259:2_188" class="fnanchor">[259:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>St. Pacian's letters to the Novatian Bishop Sympronian require a more +extended notice. The latter had required the Catholic faith to be proved +to him, without distinctly stating from what portion of it he dissented; +and he boasted that he had never found any one to convince him of its +truth. St. Pacian observes that there is one point which Sympronian +cannot dispute, and which settles the question, the very name Catholic. +He then supposes Sympronian to object that, "under the Apostles no one +was called Catholic." He answers, "Be it thus;<a name="FNanchor_259:3_189" id="FNanchor_259:3_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_259:3_189" class="fnanchor">[259:3]</a> it shall have been +so; allow even that. When, after the Apostles, heresies had burst forth, +and were striving under various names to tear piecemeal and divide 'the +Dove' and 'the Queen' of God, did not the Apostolic people require a +name of their own, whereby to mark the unity of the people that was +uncorrupted, lest the error of some should rend limb by limb 'the +undefiled virgin' of God? Was it not seemly that the chief head should +be distinguished by its own peculiar appellation? Suppose this very day +I entered a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>populous city. When I had found Marcionites, Apollinarians, +Cataphrygians, Novatians, and others of the kind, who call themselves +Christians, by what name should I recognize the congregation of my own +people, unless it were named Catholic? . . . . Whence was it delivered +to me? Certainly that which has stood through so many ages was not +borrowed from man. This name 'Catholic' sounds not of Marcion, nor of +Apelles, nor of Montanus, nor does it take heretics for its authors."</p> + +<p>In his second letter, he continues, "Certainly that was no accessory +name which endured through so many ages. And, indeed, I am glad for +thee, that, although thou mayest have preferred others, yet thou agreest +that the name attaches to us, which should you deny nature would cry +out. But and if you still have doubts, let us hold our peace. We will +both be that which we shall be named." After alluding to Sympronian's +remark that, though Cyprian was holy, "his people bear the name of +Apostaticum, Capitolinum, or Synedrium," which were some of the Novatian +titles of the Church, St. Pacian replies, "Ask a century, brother, and +all its years in succession, whether this name has adhered to us; +whether the people of Cyprian have been called other than Catholic? No +one of these names have I ever heard." It followed that such +appellations were "taunts, not names," and therefore unmannerly. On the +other hand it seems that Sympronian did not like to be called a +Novatian, though he could not call himself a Catholic. "Tell me +yourselves," says St. Pacian, "what ye are called. Do ye deny that the +Novatians are called from Novatian? Impose on them whatever name you +like; that will ever adhere to them. Search, if you please, whole +annals, and trust so many ages. You will answer, 'Christian.' But +if I inquire the genus of the sect, you will not deny that it is +Novatian. . . . Confess it without deceit; there is no wickedness in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>the name. Why, +when so often inquired for, do you hide yourself? Why ashamed of the +origin of your name? When you first wrote, I thought you a +Cataphrygian. . . . Dost thou grudge me my name, and yet shun thine own? +Think what there is of shame in a cause which shrinks from its own +name."</p> + +<p>In a third letter: "'The Church is the Body of Christ.' Truly, the body, +not a member; the body composed of many parts and members knit in one, +as saith the Apostle, 'For the Body is not one member, but many.' +Therefore, the Church is the full body, compacted and diffused now +throughout the whole world; like a city, I mean, all whose parts are +united, not as ye are, O Novatians, some small and insolent portion, and +a mere swelling that has gathered and separated from the rest of the +body. . . . Great is the progeny of the Virgin, and without number her +offspring, wherewith the whole world is filled, wherewith the populous +swarms ever throng the circumfluous hive." And he founds this +characteristic of the Church upon the prophecies: "At length, brother +Sympronian, be not ashamed to be with the many; at length consent to +despise these festering spots of the Novatians, and these parings of +yours; and at length, to look upon the flocks of the Catholics, and the +people of the Church extending so far and wide. . . . Hear what David +saith, 'I will sing unto Thy name in the great congregation;' and again, +'I will praise Thee among much people;' and 'the Lord, even the most +mighty God, hath spoken, and called the world from the rising up of the +sun unto the going down thereof.' What! shall the seed of Abraham, which +is as the stars and the sand on the seashore for number, be contented +with your poverty? . . . Recognize now, brother, the Church of God +extending her tabernacles and fixing the stakes of her curtains on the +right and on the left; understand that 'the Lord's name is praised <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>from +the rising up of the sun unto the going down thereof.'"</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>In citing these passages, I am not proving what was the doctrine of the +Fathers concerning the Church in those early times, or what were the +promises made to it in Scripture; but simply ascertaining what, in +matter of fact, was its then condition relatively to the various +Christian bodies among which it was found. That the Fathers were able to +put forward a certain doctrine, that they were able to appeal to the +prophecies, proves that matter of fact; for unless the Church, and the +Church alone, had been one body everywhere, they could not have argued +on the supposition that it was so. And so as to the word "Catholic;" it +is enough that the Church was so called; that title was a confirmatory +proof and symbol of what is even otherwise so plain, that she, as St. +Pacian explains the word, was everywhere one, while the sects of the day +were nowhere one, but everywhere divided. Sects might, indeed, be +everywhere, but they were in no two places the same; every spot had its +own independent communion, or at least to this result they were +inevitably and continually tending.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>St. Pacian writes in Spain: the same contrast between the Church and +sectarianism is presented to us in Africa in the instance of the +Donatists; and St. Optatus is a witness both to the fact, and to its +notoriety, and to the deep impressions which it made on all parties. +Whether or not the Donatists identified themselves with the true Church, +and cut off the rest of Christendom from it, is not the question here, +nor alters the fact which I wish distinctly brought out and recognized, +that in those ancient <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>times the Church was that Body which was spread +over the <i>orbis terrarum</i>, and sects were those bodies which were local +or transitory.</p> + +<p>"What is that one Church," says St. Optatus, "which Christ calls 'Dove' +and 'Spouse'? . . . It cannot be in the multitude of heretics and +schismatics. If so, it follows that it is but in one place. Thou, +brother Parmenian, hast said that it is with you alone; unless, perhaps, +you aim at claiming for yourselves a special sanctity from your pride, +so that where you will, there the Church may be, and may not be, where +you will not. Must it then be in a small portion of Africa, in the +corner of a small realm, among you, but not among us in another part of +Africa? And not in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy, where you are not? And if +you will have it only among you, not in the three Pannonian provinces, +in Dacia, Mœsia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, and in all Greece, where +you are not? And that you may keep it among yourselves, not in Pontus, +Galatia, Cappadocia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Cilicia, in the three Syrias, +in the two Armenias, in all Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, where you are +not? Not among such innumerable islands and the other provinces, +scarcely numerable, where you are not? What will become then of the +meaning of the word Catholic, which is given to the Church, as being +according to reason<a name="FNanchor_263:1_190" id="FNanchor_263:1_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_263:1_190" class="fnanchor">[263:1]</a> and diffused every where? For if thus at your +pleasure you narrow the Church, if you withdraw from her all the +nations, where will be the earnings of the Son of God? where will be +that which the Father hath so amply accorded to Him, saying in the +second Psalm 'I will give thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the +uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession,' &c.? . . The whole +earth is given Him with the nations; its whole circuit (<i>orbis</i>) is +Christ's one possession."<a name="FNanchor_263:2_191" id="FNanchor_263:2_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_263:2_191" class="fnanchor">[263:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>12.</p> + +<p>An African writer contemporary with St. Augustine, if not St. Augustine +himself, enumerates the small portions of the Donatist Sect, in and out +of Africa, and asks if they can be imagined to be the fulfilment of the +Scripture promise to the Church. "If the holy Scriptures have assigned +the Church to Africa alone, or to the scanty Cutzupitans or Mountaineers +of Rome, or to the house or patrimony of one Spanish woman, however the +argument may stand from other writings, then none but the Donatists have +possession of the Church. If holy Scripture determines it to the few +Moors of the Cæsarean province, we must go over to the Rogatists: if to +the few Tripolitans or Byzacenes and Provincials, the Maximianists have +attained to it; if in the Orientals only, it is to be sought for among +Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and others that may be there; for who +can enumerate every heresy of every nation? But if Christ's Church, by +the divine and most certain testimonies of Canonical Scriptures, is +assigned to all nations, whatever may be adduced, and from whatever +quarter cited, by those who say, 'Lo, here is Christ and lo there,' let +us rather hear, if we be His sheep, the voice of our Shepherd saying +unto us, 'Do not believe.' For they are not each found in the many +nations where she is; but she, who is everywhere, is found where they +are."<a name="FNanchor_264:1_192" id="FNanchor_264:1_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_264:1_192" class="fnanchor">[264:1]</a></p> + +<p>Lastly, let us hear St. Augustine himself again in the same controversy: +"They do not communicate with us, as you say," he observes to +Cresconius, "Novatians, Arians, Patripassians, Valentinians, Patricians, +Apellites, Marcionites, Ophites, and the rest of those sacrilegious +names, as you call them, of nefarious pests rather than sects. Yet, +wheresoever they are, there is the Catholic <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>Church; as in Africa it is +where you are. On the other hand, neither you, nor any one of those +heresies whatever, is to be found wherever is the Catholic Church. +Whence it appears, which is that tree whose boughs extend over all the +earth by the richness of its fruitfulness, and which be those broken +branches which have not the life of the root, but lie and wither, each +in its own place."<a name="FNanchor_265:1_193" id="FNanchor_265:1_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_265:1_193" class="fnanchor">[265:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">13.</p> + +<p>It may be possibly suggested that this universality which the Fathers +ascribe to the Catholic Church lay in its Apostolical descent, or again +in its Episcopacy; and that it was one, not as being one kingdom or +civitas "at unity with itself," with one and the same intelligence in +every part, one sympathy, one ruling principle, one organization, one +communion, but because, though consisting of a number of independent +communities, at variance (if so be) with each other even to a breach of +communion, nevertheless all these were possessed of a legitimate +succession of clergy, or all governed by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. +But who will in seriousness maintain that relationship, or that sameness +of structure, makes two bodies one? England and Prussia are both of them +monarchies; are they therefore one kingdom? England and the United +States are from one stock; can they therefore be called one state? +England and Ireland are peopled by different races; yet are they not one +kingdom still? If unity lies in the Apostolical succession, an act of +schism is from the nature of the case impossible; for as no one can +reverse his parentage, so no Church can undo the fact that its clergy +have come by lineal descent from the Apostles. Either there is no such +sin as schism, or unity does not lie in the Episcopal form or in the +Episcopal ordination. And this is felt by the controversialists of this +day; who in consequence are <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>obliged to invent a sin, and to consider, +not division of Church from Church, but the interference of Church with +Church to be the sin of schism, as if local dioceses and bishops with +restraint were more than ecclesiastical arrangements and by-laws of the +Church, however sacred, while schism is a sin against her essence. Thus +they strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Division is the schism, if +schism there be, not interference. If interference is a sin, division +which is the cause of it is a greater; but where division is a duty, +there can be no sin in interference.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">14.</p> + +<p>Far different from such a theory is the picture which the ancient Church +presents to us; true, it was governed by Bishops, and those Bishops came +from the Apostles, but it was a kingdom besides; and as a kingdom admits +of the possibility of rebels, so does such a Church involve sectaries +and schismatics, but not independent portions. It was a vast organized +association, co-extensive with the Roman Empire, or rather overflowing +it. Its Bishops were not mere local officers, but possessed a +quasi-ecumenical power, extending wherever a Christian was to be found. +"No Christian," says Bingham, "would pretend to travel without taking +letters of credence with him from his own bishop, if he meant to +communicate with the Christian Church in a foreign country. Such was the +admirable unity of the Church Catholic in those days, and the blessed +harmony and consent of her bishops among one another."<a name="FNanchor_266:1_194" id="FNanchor_266:1_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_266:1_194" class="fnanchor">[266:1]</a> St. +Gregory Nazianzen calls St. Cyprian an universal Bishop, "presiding," as +the same author presently quotes Gregory, "not only over the Church of +Carthage and Africa, but over all the regions of the West, and over the +East, and South, and Northern parts of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>world also." This is +evidence of a unity throughout Christendom, not of mere origin or of +Apostolical succession, but of government. Bingham continues "[Gregory] +says the same of Athanasius; that, in being made Bishop of Alexandria, +he was made Bishop of the whole world. Chrysostom, in like manner, +styles Timothy, Bishop of the universe. . . . . The great Athanasius, as +he returned from his exile, made no scruple to ordain in several cities +as he went along, though they were not in his own diocese. And the +famous Eusebius of Samosata did the like, in the times of the Arian +persecution under Valens. . . Epiphanius made use of the same power and +privilege in a like case, ordaining Paulinianus, St. Jerome's brother, +first deacon and then presbyter, in a monastery out of his own diocese +in Palestine."<a name="FNanchor_267:1_195" id="FNanchor_267:1_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_267:1_195" class="fnanchor">[267:1]</a> And so in respect of teaching, before Councils met on +any large scale, St. Ignatius of Antioch had addressed letters to the +Churches along the coast of Asia Minor, when on his way to martyrdom at +Rome. St. Irenæus, when a subject of the Church of Smyrna, betakes +himself to Gaul, and answers in Lyons the heresies of Syria. The see of +St. Hippolytus, as if he belonged to all parts of the <i>orbis terrarum</i>, +cannot be located, and is variously placed in the neighbourhood of Rome +and in Arabia. Hosius, a Spanish Bishop, arbitrates in an Alexandrian +controversy. St. Athanasius, driven from his Church, makes all +Christendom his home, from Treves to Ethiopia, and introduces into the +West the discipline of the Egyptian Antony. St. Jerome is born in +Dalmatia, studies at Constantinople and Alexandria, is secretary to St. +Damasus at Rome, and settles and dies in Palestine.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +Above all the See of Rome itself is the centre of teaching as well as +of action, is visited by Fathers and heretics as a tribunal in +controversy, and by ancient custom sends her alms to the poor Christians +of all Churches, to Achaia and Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, and +Cappadocia.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">15.</p> + +<p>Moreover, this universal Church was not only one; it was exclusive also. +As to the vehemence with which Christians of the Ante-nicene period +denounced the idolatries and sins of paganism, and proclaimed the +judgments which would be their consequence, this is well known, and led +to their being reputed in the heathen world as "enemies of mankind." +"Worthily doth God exert the lash of His stripes and scourges," says St. +Cyprian to a heathen magistrate; "and since they avail so little, and +convert not men to God by all this dreadfulness of havoc, there abides +beyond the prison eternal and the ceaseless flame and the everlasting +penalty. . . . Why humble yourself and bend to false gods? Why bow your +captive body before helpless images and moulded earth? Why grovel in the +prostration of death, like the serpent whom ye worship? Why rush into +the downfall of the devil, his fall the cause of yours, and he your +companion? . . . . Believe and live; you have been our persecutors in time; +in eternity, be companions of our joy."<a name="FNanchor_268:1_196" id="FNanchor_268:1_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_268:1_196" class="fnanchor">[268:1]</a> "These rigid sentiments," +says Gibbon, "which had been unknown to the ancient world, appear to +have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of love and +harmony."<a name="FNanchor_268:2_197" id="FNanchor_268:2_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_268:2_197" class="fnanchor">[268:2]</a> Such, however, was the judgment passed by the first +Christians upon all who did not join their own society; and such still +more was the judgment of their successors on those who lived and died in +the sects and heresies which had issued from it. That very Father, whose +denunciation of the heathen has just been quoted, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>had already declared +it even in the third century. "He who leaves the Church of Christ," he +says, "attains not to Christ's rewards. He is an alien, an outcast, an +enemy. He can no longer have God for a Father, who has not the Church +for a Mother. If any man was able to escape who remained without the Ark +of Noah, then will that man escape who is out of doors beyond the +Church. . . What sacrifice do they believe they celebrate, who are rivals +of the Priests? If such men were even killed for confession of the +Christian name, not even by their blood is this stain washed out. +Inexplicable and heavy is the sin of discord, and is purged by no +suffering . . . They cannot dwell with God who have refused to be of one +mind in God's Church; a man of such sort may indeed be killed, crowned +he cannot be."<a name="FNanchor_269:1_198" id="FNanchor_269:1_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_269:1_198" class="fnanchor">[269:1]</a> And so again St. Chrysostom, in the following +century, in harmony with St. Cyprian's sentiment: "Though we have +achieved ten thousand glorious acts, yet shall we, if we cut to pieces +the fulness of the Church, suffer punishment no less sore than they who +mangled His body."<a name="FNanchor_269:2_199" id="FNanchor_269:2_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_269:2_199" class="fnanchor">[269:2]</a> In like manner St Augustine seems to consider +that a conversion from idolatry to a schismatical communion is no gain. +"Those whom Donatists baptize, they heal of the wound of idolatry or +infidelity, but inflict a more grievous stroke in the wound of schism; +for idolaters among God's people the sword destroyed, but schismatics +the gaping earth devoured."<a name="FNanchor_269:3_200" id="FNanchor_269:3_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_269:3_200" class="fnanchor">[269:3]</a> Elsewhere, he speaks of the +"sacrilege of schism, which surpasses all wickednesses."<a name="FNanchor_269:4_201" id="FNanchor_269:4_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_269:4_201" class="fnanchor">[269:4]</a> St. +Optatus, too, marvels at the Donatist Parmenian's inconsistency in +maintaining the true doctrine, that "Schismatics are cut off as branches +from the vine, are destined for punishments, and reserved, as dry wood, +for hell-fire."<a name="FNanchor_269:5_202" id="FNanchor_269:5_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_269:5_202" class="fnanchor">[269:5]</a> "Let us hate them who are worthy of hatred," says +St. Cyril, "withdraw we from those whom <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>God withdraws from; let us also +say unto God with all boldness concerning all heretics, 'Do not I hate +them, O Lord, that hate thee?'"<a name="FNanchor_270:1_203" id="FNanchor_270:1_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_270:1_203" class="fnanchor">[270:1]</a> "Most firmly hold, and doubt in +no wise," says St. Fulgentius, "that every heretic and schismatic +soever, baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, unless +aggregated to the Catholic Church, how great soever have been his alms, +though for Christ's Name he has even shed his blood, can in no wise be +saved."<a name="FNanchor_270:2_204" id="FNanchor_270:2_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_270:2_204" class="fnanchor">[270:2]</a> The Fathers ground this doctrine on St. Paul's words +that, though we have knowledge, and give our goods to the poor, and our +body to be burned, we are nothing without love.<a name="FNanchor_270:3_205" id="FNanchor_270:3_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_270:3_205" class="fnanchor">[270:3]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">16.</p> + +<p>One more remark shall be made: that the Catholic teachers, far from +recognizing any ecclesiastical relation as existing between the +Sectarian Bishops and Priests and their people, address the latter +immediately, as if those Bishops did not exist, and call on them to come +over to the Church individually without respect to any one besides; and +that because it is a matter of life and death. To take the instance of +the Donatists: it was nothing to the purpose that their Churches in +Africa were nearly as numerous as those of the Catholics, or that they +had a case to produce in their controversy with the Catholic Church; the +very fact that they were separated from the <i>orbis terrarum</i> was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>a +public, a manifest, a simple, a sufficient argument against them. "The +question is not about your gold and silver," says St. Augustine to +Glorius and others, "not your lands, or farms, nor even your bodily +health is in peril, but we address your souls about obtaining eternal +life and fleeing eternal death. Rouse yourself therefore. . . . . You see it +all, and know it, and groan over it; yet God sees that there is nothing +to detain you in so pestiferous and sacrilegious a separation, if you +will but overcome your carnal affection, for the obtaining the spiritual +kingdom, and rid yourselves of the fear of wounding friendships, which +will avail nothing in God's judgment for escaping eternal punishment. +Go, think over the matter, consider what can be said in answer. . . . No +one blots out from heaven the Ordinance of God, no one blots out from +earth the Church of God: He hath promised her, she hath filled, the +whole world." "Some carnal intimacies," he says to his kinsman +Severinus, "hold you where you are. . . . What avails temporal health or +relationship, if with it we neglect Christ's eternal heritage and our +perpetual health?" "I ask," he says to Celer, a person of influence, +"that you would more earnestly urge upon your men Catholic Unity in the +region of Hippo." "Why," he says, in the person of the Church, to the +whole Donatist population, "Why open your ears to the words of men, who +say what they never have been able to prove, and close them to the word +of God, saying, 'Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine +inheritance'?" At another time he says to them, "Some of the presbyters +of your party have sent to us to say, 'Retire from our flocks, unless +you would have us kill you.' How much more justly do we say to them, +'Nay, do you, not retire from, but come in peace, not to our flocks, but +to the flocks of Him whose we are all; or if you will not, and are far +from peace, then do you rather retire from flocks, for which Christ shed +His <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>Blood.'" "I call on you for Christ's sake," he says to a late +pro-consul, "to write me an answer, and to urge gently and kindly all +your people in the district of Sinis or Hippo into the communion of the +Catholic Church." He publishes an address to the Donatists at another +time to inform them of the defeat of their Bishops in a conference: +"Whoso," he says, "is separated from the Catholic Church, however +laudably he thinks he is living, by this crime alone, that he is +separated from Christ's Unity, he shall not have life, but the wrath of +God abideth on him." "Let them believe of the Catholic Church," he +writes to some converts about their friends who were still in schism, +"that is, to the Church diffused over the whole world, rather what the +Scriptures say of it than what human tongues utter in calumny." The idea +of acting upon the Donatists only as a body and through their bishops, +does not appear to have occurred to St. Augustine at all.<a name="FNanchor_272:1_206" id="FNanchor_272:1_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_272:1_206" class="fnanchor">[272:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">17.</p> + +<p>On the whole, then, we have reason to say, that if there be a form of +Christianity at this day distinguished for its careful organization, and +its consequent power; if it is spread over the world; if it is +conspicuous for zealous maintenance of its own creed; if it is +intolerant towards what it considers error; if it is engaged in +ceaseless war with all other bodies called Christian; if it, and it +alone, is called "Catholic" by the world, nay, by those very bodies, and +if it makes much of the title; if it names them heretics, and warns them +of coming woe, and calls on them one by one, to come over to itself, +overlooking every other tie; and if they, on the other hand, call it +seducer, harlot, apostate, Antichrist, devil; if, however much they +differ one with another, they consider it their common enemy; if they +strive to unite together against it, and cannot; if they <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>are but local; +if they continually subdivide, and it remains one; if they fall one +after another, and make way for new sects, and it remains the same; such +a religious communion is not unlike historical Christianity, as it comes +before us at the Nicene Era.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION III.</h4> + +<h5>THE CHURCH OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES.</h5> + +<p>The patronage extended by the first Christian Emperors to Arianism, its +adoption by the barbarians who succeeded to their power, the subsequent +expulsion of all heresy beyond the limits of the Empire, and then again +the Monophysite tendencies of Egypt and part of Syria, changed in some +measure the aspect of the Church, and claim our further attention. It +was still a body in possession, or approximating to the possession, of +the <i>orbis terrarum</i>; but it was not simply intermixed with sectaries, +as we have been surveying it in the earlier periods, rather it lay +between or over against large schisms. That same vast Association, +which, and which only, had existed from the first, which had been +identified by all parties with Christianity, which had been ever called +Catholic by people and by laws, took a different shape; collected itself +in far greater strength on some points of her extended territory than on +others; possessed whole kingdoms with scarcely a rival; lost others +partially or wholly, temporarily or for good; was stemmed in its course +here or there by external obstacles; and was defied by heresy, in a +substantive shape and in mass, from foreign lands, and with the support +of the temporal power. Thus not to mention the Arianism of the Eastern +Empire in the fourth century, the whole of the West was possessed by the +same heresy in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>the fifth; and nearly the whole of Asia, east of the +Euphrates, as far as it was Christian, by the Nestorians, in the +centuries which followed; while the Monophysites had almost the +possession of Egypt, and at times of the whole Eastern Church. I think +it no assumption to call Arianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism +heresies, or to identify the contemporary Catholic Church with +Christianity. Now, then, let us consider the mutual relation of +Christianity and heresy under these circumstances.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. <i>The Arians of the Gothic Race.</i></h4> + +<p>No heresy has started with greater violence or more sudden success than +the Arian; and it presents a still more remarkable exhibition of these +characteristics among the barbarians than in the civilized world. Even +among the Greeks it had shown a missionary spirit. Theophilus in the +reign of Constantius had introduced the dominant heresy, not without +some promising results, to the Sabeans of the Arabian peninsula; but +under Valens, Ulphilas became the apostle of a whole race. He taught the +Arian doctrine, which he had unhappily learned in the Imperial Court, +first to the pastoral Mœsogoths; who, unlike the other branches of +their family, had multiplied under the Mœsian mountains with neither +military nor religious triumphs. The Visigoths were next corrupted; by +whom does not appear. It is one of the singular traits in the history of +this vast family of heathens that they so instinctively caught, and so +impetuously communicated, and so fiercely maintained, a heresy, which +had excited in the Empire, except at Constantinople, little interest in +the body of the people. The Visigoths are said to have been converted by +the influence of Valens; but Valens reigned for only fourteen years, and +the barbarian population which had been admitted to the Empire amounted +to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>nearly a million of persons. It is as difficult to trace how the +heresy was conveyed from them to the other barbarian tribes. Gibbon +seems to suppose that the Visigoths acted the part of missionaries in +their career of predatory warfare from Thrace to the Pyrenees. But such +is the fact, however it was brought about, that the success in arms and +the conversion to Arianism, of Ostrogoths, Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and +Burgundians stand as concurrent events in the history of the times; and +by the end of the fifth century the heresy had been established by the +Visigoths in France and Spain, in Portugal by the Suevi, in Africa by +the Vandals, and by the Ostrogoths in Italy. For a while the title of +Catholic as applied to the Church seemed a misnomer; for not only was +she buried beneath these populations of heresy, but that heresy was one, +and maintained the same distinctive tenet, whether at Carthage, Seville, +Toulouse, or Ravenna.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>It cannot be supposed that these northern warriors had attained to any +high degree of mental cultivation; but they understood their own +religion enough to hate the Catholics, and their bishops were learned +enough to hold disputations for its propagation. They professed to stand +upon the faith of Ariminum, administering Baptism under an altered form +of words, and re-baptizing Catholics whom they gained over to their +sect. It must be added that, whatever was their cruelty or tyranny, both +Goths and Vandals were a moral people, and put to shame the Catholics +whom they dispossessed. "What can the prerogative of a religious name +profit us," says Salvian, "that we call ourselves Catholic, boast of +being the faithful, taunt Goths and Vandals with the reproach of an +heretical appellation, while we live in heretical <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>wickedness?"<a name="FNanchor_276:1_207" id="FNanchor_276:1_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_276:1_207" class="fnanchor">[276:1]</a> +The barbarians were chaste, temperate, just, and devout; the Visigoth +Theodoric repaired every morning with his domestic officers to his +chapel, where service was performed by the Arian priests; and one +singular instance is on record of the defeat of a Visigoth force by the +Imperial troops on a Sunday, when instead of preparing for battle they +were engaged in the religious services of the day.<a name="FNanchor_276:2_208" id="FNanchor_276:2_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_276:2_208" class="fnanchor">[276:2]</a> Many of their +princes were men of great ability, as the two Theodorics, Euric and +Leovigild.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Successful warriors, animated by a fanatical spirit of religion, were +not likely to be content with a mere profession of their own creed; they +proceeded to place their own priests in the religious establishments +which they found, and to direct a bitter persecution against the +vanquished Catholics. The savage cruelties of the Vandal Hunneric in +Africa have often been enlarged upon; Spain was the scene of repeated +persecutions; Sicily, too, had its Martyrs. Compared with these +enormities, it was but a little thing to rob the Catholics of their +churches, and the shrines of their treasures. Lands, immunities, and +jurisdictions, which had been given by the Emperors to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>the African +Church, were made over to the clergy of its conquerors; and by the time +of Belisarius, the Catholic Bishops had been reduced to less than a +third of their original number. In Spain, as in Africa, bishops were +driven from their sees, churches were destroyed, cemeteries profaned, +martyries rifled. When it was possible, the Catholics concealed the +relics in caves, keeping up a perpetual memory of these provisional +hiding-places.<a name="FNanchor_277:1_209" id="FNanchor_277:1_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_277:1_209" class="fnanchor">[277:1]</a> Repeated spoliations were exercised upon the +property of the Church. Leovigild applied<a name="FNanchor_277:2_210" id="FNanchor_277:2_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_277:2_210" class="fnanchor">[277:2]</a> its treasures partly to +increasing the splendour of his throne, partly to national works. At +other times, the Arian clergy themselves must have been the recipients +of the plunder: for when Childebert the Frank had been brought into +Spain by the cruelties exercised against the Catholic Queen of the +Goths, who was his sister, he carried away with him from the Arian +churches, as St. Gregory of Tours informs us, sixty chalices, fifteen +patens, twenty cases in which the gospels were kept, all of pure gold +and ornamented with jewels.<a name="FNanchor_277:3_211" id="FNanchor_277:3_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_277:3_211" class="fnanchor">[277:3]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>In France, and especially in Italy, the rule of the heretical power was +much less oppressive; Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, reigned from the Alps to +Sicily, and till the close of a long reign he gave an ample toleration +to his Catholic subjects. He respected their property, suffered their +churches and sacred places to remain in their hands, and had about his +court some of their eminent Bishops, since known as Saints, St. Cæsarius +of Arles, and St. Epiphanius of Pavia. Still he brought into the country +a new population, devoted to Arianism, or, as we now speak, a new +Church. "His march," says Gibbon,<a name="FNanchor_277:4_212" id="FNanchor_277:4_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_277:4_212" class="fnanchor">[277:4]</a> "must be considered as the +emigration of an entire <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>people; the wives and children of the Goths, +their aged parents, and most precious effects, were carefully +transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy luggage that now +followed the camp by the loss of two thousand waggons, which had been +sustained in a single action in the war of Epirus." To his soldiers he +assigned a third of the soil of Italy, and the barbarian families +settled down with their slaves and cattle. The original number of the +Vandal conquerors of Africa had only been fifty thousand men, but the +military colonists of Italy soon amounted to the number of two hundred +thousand; which, according to the calculation adopted by the same author +elsewhere, involves a population of a million. The least that could be +expected was, that an Arian ascendency established through the extent of +Italy would provide for the sufficient celebration of the Arian worship, +and we hear of the Arians having a Church even in Rome.<a name="FNanchor_278:1_213" id="FNanchor_278:1_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_278:1_213" class="fnanchor">[278:1]</a> The rule +of the Lombards in the north of Italy succeeded to that of the +Goths,—Arians, like their predecessors, without their toleration. The +clergy whom they brought with them seem to have claimed their share in +the possession of the Catholic churches;<a name="FNanchor_278:2_214" id="FNanchor_278:2_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_278:2_214" class="fnanchor">[278:2]</a> and though the Court was +converted at the end of thirty years, many cities in Italy were for some +time afterwards troubled by the presence of heretical bishops.<a name="FNanchor_278:3_215" id="FNanchor_278:3_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_278:3_215" class="fnanchor">[278:3]</a> +The rule of Arianism in France lasted for eighty years; in Spain for a +hundred and eighty; in Africa for a hundred; for about a hundred in +Italy. These periods were not contemporaneous; but extend altogether +from the beginning of the fifth to the end of the sixth century.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>It will be anticipated that the duration of this ascendency <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>of error +had not the faintest tendency to deprive the ancient Church of the West +of the title of Catholic; and it is needless to produce evidence of a +fact which is on the very face of the history. The Arians seem never to +have claimed the Catholic name. It is more remarkable that the Catholics +during this period were denoted by the additional title of "Romans." Of +this there are many proofs in the histories of St. Gregory of Tours, +Victor of Vite, and the Spanish Councils. Thus, St. Gregory speaks of +Theodegisilus, a king of Portugal, expressing his incredulity at a +miracle, by saying, "It is the temper of the Romans, (for," interposes +the author, "they call men of our religion Romans,) and not the power of +God."<a name="FNanchor_279:1_216" id="FNanchor_279:1_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_279:1_216" class="fnanchor">[279:1]</a> "Heresy is everywhere an enemy to Catholics," says the same +St. Gregory in a subsequent place, and he proceeds to illustrate it by +the story of a "Catholic woman," who had a heretic husband, to whom, he +says, came "a presbyter of our religion very Catholic;" and whom the +husband matched at table with his own Arian presbyter, "that there might +be the priests of each religion" in their house at once. When they were +eating, the husband said to the Arian, "Let us have some sport with this +presbyter of the Romans."<a name="FNanchor_279:2_217" id="FNanchor_279:2_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_279:2_217" class="fnanchor">[279:2]</a> The Arian Count Gomachar, seized on the +lands of the Church of Agde in France, and was attacked with a fever; on +his recovery, at the prayers of the Bishop, he repented of having asked +for them, observing, "What will these Romans say now? that my fever came +of taking their land."<a name="FNanchor_279:3_218" id="FNanchor_279:3_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_279:3_218" class="fnanchor">[279:3]</a> When the Vandal Theodoric would have +killed the Catholic Armogastes, after failing to torture him into +heresy, his presbyter dissuaded him, "lest the Romans should begin to +call him a Martyr."<a name="FNanchor_279:4_219" id="FNanchor_279:4_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_279:4_219" class="fnanchor">[279:4]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>6.</p> + +<p>This appellation had two meanings; one, which will readily suggest +itself, is its use in contrast to the word "barbarian," as denoting the +faith of the Empire, as "Greek" occurs in St. Paul's Epistles. In this +sense it would more naturally be used by the Romans themselves than by +others. Thus Salvian says, that "nearly all the Romans are greater +sinners than the barbarians;"<a name="FNanchor_280:1_220" id="FNanchor_280:1_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_280:1_220" class="fnanchor">[280:1]</a> and he speaks of "Roman heretics, +of which there is an innumerable multitude,"<a name="FNanchor_280:2_221" id="FNanchor_280:2_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_280:2_221" class="fnanchor">[280:2]</a> meaning heretics +within the Empire. And so St. Gregory the Great complains, that he "had +become Bishop of the Lombards rather than of the Romans."<a name="FNanchor_280:3_222" id="FNanchor_280:3_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_280:3_222" class="fnanchor">[280:3]</a> And +Evagrius, speaking even of the East, contrasts "Romans and +barbarians"<a name="FNanchor_280:4_223" id="FNanchor_280:4_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_280:4_223" class="fnanchor">[280:4]</a> in his account of St. Simeon; and at a later date, +and even to this day, Thrace and portions of Dacia and of Asia Minor +derive their name from Rome. In like manner, we find Syrian writers +sometimes speaking of the religion of the Romans, sometimes of the +Greeks,<a name="FNanchor_280:5_224" id="FNanchor_280:5_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_280:5_224" class="fnanchor">[280:5]</a> as synonymes.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>But the word certainly contains also an allusion to the faith and +communion of the Roman See. In this sense the Emperor Theodosius, in his +letter to Acacius of Berœa, contrasts it with Nestorianism, which was +within the Empire as well as Catholicism; during the controversy raised +by that heresy, he exhorts him and others to show themselves "approved +priests of the Roman religion."<a name="FNanchor_280:6_225" id="FNanchor_280:6_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_280:6_225" class="fnanchor">[280:6]</a> Again when the Ligurian nobles +were persuading the Arian Ricimer to come to terms with Anthemius, the +orthodox representative of the Greek Emperor,<a name="FNanchor_280:7_226" id="FNanchor_280:7_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_280:7_226" class="fnanchor">[280:7]</a> they propose to him +to send St. Epiphanius as ambassador, a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>man "whose life is venerable to +every Catholic and Roman, and at least amiable in the eyes of a Greek +(<i>Græculus</i>) if he deserves the sight of him."<a name="FNanchor_281:1_227" id="FNanchor_281:1_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_281:1_227" class="fnanchor">[281:1]</a> It must be +recollected, too, that the Spanish and African Churches actually were in +the closest union with the See of Rome at that time, and that that +intercommunion was the visible ecclesiastical distinction between them +and their Arian rivals. The chief ground of the Vandal Hunneric's +persecution of the African Catholics seems to have been their connexion +with their brethren beyond the sea,<a name="FNanchor_281:2_228" id="FNanchor_281:2_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_281:2_228" class="fnanchor">[281:2]</a> which he looked at with +jealousy, as introducing a foreign power into his territory. Prior to +this he had published an edict calling on the "Homoüsian" Bishops (for +on this occasion he did not call them Catholic), to meet his own bishops +at Carthage and treat concerning the faith, that "their meetings to the +seduction of Christian souls might not be held in the provinces of the +Vandals."<a name="FNanchor_281:3_229" id="FNanchor_281:3_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_281:3_229" class="fnanchor">[281:3]</a> Upon this invitation, Eugenius of Carthage replied, +that all the transmarine Bishops of the orthodox communion ought to be +summoned, "in particular because it is a matter for the whole world, not +special to the African provinces," that "they could not undertake a +point of faith <i>sine universitatis assensu</i>." Hunneric answered that if +Eugenius would make him sovereign of the <i>orbis terrarum</i>, he would +comply with his request. This led Eugenius to say that the orthodox +faith was "the only true faith;" that the king ought to write to his +allies abroad, if he wished to know it, and that he himself would write +to his brethren for foreign bishops, "who," he says, "may assist us in +setting before you the true faith, common to them and to us, and +especially the Roman Church, which is the head of all Churches." +Moreover, the African Bishops in their banishment in Sardinia, to the +number of sixty, with St. Fulgentius at their head, quote with +approbation the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>words of Pope Hormisdas, to the effect that they hold, +"on the point of free will and divine grace, what the Roman, that is, +the Catholic, Church follows and preserves."<a name="FNanchor_282:1_230" id="FNanchor_282:1_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_282:1_230" class="fnanchor">[282:1]</a> Again, the Spanish +Church was under the superintendence of the Pope's Vicar<a name="FNanchor_282:2_231" id="FNanchor_282:2_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_282:2_231" class="fnanchor">[282:2]</a> during +the persecutions, whose duty it was to hinder all encroachments upon +"the Apostolical decrees, or the limits of the Holy Fathers," through +the whole of the country.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>Nor was the association of Catholicism with the See of Rome an +introduction of that age. The Emperor Gratian, in the fourth century, +had ordered that the Churches which the Arians had usurped should be +restored (not to those who held "the Catholic faith," or "the Nicene +Creed," or were "in communion with the <i>orbis terrarum</i>,") but "who +chose the communion of Damasus,"<a name="FNanchor_282:3_232" id="FNanchor_282:3_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_282:3_232" class="fnanchor">[282:3]</a> the then Pope. It was St. +Jerome's rule, also, in some well-known passages:—Writing against +Ruffinus, who had spoken of "our faith," he says, "What does he mean by +'his faith'? that which is the strength of the Roman Church? or that +which is contained in the volumes of Origen? If he answer, 'The Roman,' +then we are Catholics who have borrowed nothing of Origen's error; but +if Origen's blasphemy be his faith, then, while he is charging me with +inconsistency, he proves himself to be an heretic."<a name="FNanchor_282:4_233" id="FNanchor_282:4_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_282:4_233" class="fnanchor">[282:4]</a> The other +passage, already quoted, is still more exactly to the point, because it +was written on occasion of a schism. The divisions at Antioch had thrown +the Catholic Church into a remarkable position; there were two Bishops +in the See, one in connexion with the East, the other with Egypt and the +West,—with which then was "Catholic Communion"? St. Jerome has no doubt +on the subject:—Writing <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>to St. Damasus, he says, "Since the East tears +into pieces the Lord's coat, . . . therefore by me is the chair of Peter +to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the Apostle's +mouth. . . . Though your greatness terrifies me, yet your kindness invites +me. From the Priest I ask the salvation of the victim, from the Shepherd +the protection of the sheep. Let us speak without offence; I court not +the Roman height: I speak with the successor of the Fisherman and the +disciple of the Cross. I, who follow none as my chief but Christ, am +associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of +Peter. On that rock the Church is built, I know. Whoso shall eat the +Lamb outside that House is profane . . . . I know not Vitalis" (the +Apollinarian), "Meletius I reject, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoso +gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, he who is not of Christ is +of Antichrist."<a name="FNanchor_283:1_234" id="FNanchor_283:1_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_283:1_234" class="fnanchor">[283:1]</a> Again, "The ancient authority of the monks, +dwelling round about, rises against me; I meanwhile cry out, If any be +joined to Peter's chair he is mine."<a name="FNanchor_283:2_235" id="FNanchor_283:2_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_283:2_235" class="fnanchor">[283:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>Here was what may be considered a <i>dignus vindice nodus</i>, the Church +being divided, and an arbiter wanted. Such a case had also occurred in +Africa in the controversy with the Donatists. Four hundred bishops, +though but in one region, were a fifth part of the whole Episcopate of +Christendom, and might seem too many for a schism, and in themselves too +large a body to be cut off from God's inheritance by a mere majority, +even had it been overwhelming. St. Augustine, then, who so often appeals +to the <i>orbis terrarum</i>, sometimes adopts a more prompt criterion. He +tells certain Donatists to whom he writes, that the Catholic Bishop of +Carthage "was able to make light <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>of the thronging multitude of his +enemies, when he found himself by letters of credence joined both to the +Roman Church, in which ever had flourished the principality of the +Apostolical See, and to the other lands whence the gospel came to Africa +itself."<a name="FNanchor_284:1_236" id="FNanchor_284:1_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_284:1_236" class="fnanchor">[284:1]</a></p> + +<p>There are good reasons then for explaining the Gothic and Arian use of +the word "Roman," when applied to the Catholic Church and faith, of +something beyond its mere connexion with the Empire, which the +barbarians were assaulting; nor would "Roman" surely be the most obvious +word to denote the orthodox faith, in the mouths of a people who had +learned their heresy from a Roman Emperor and Court, and who professed +to direct their belief by the great Latin Council of Ariminum.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>As then the fourth century presented to us in its external aspect the +Catholic Church lying in the midst of a multitude of sects, all enemies +to it, so in the fifth and sixth we see the same Church lying in the +West under the oppression of a huge, farspreading, and schismatical +communion. Heresy is no longer a domestic enemy intermingled with the +Church, but it occupies its own ground and is extended over against her, +even though on the same territory, and is more or less organized, and +cannot be so promptly refuted by the simple test of Catholicity.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. <i>The Nestorians.</i></h4> + +<p>The Churches of Syria and Asia Minor were the most intellectual portion +of early Christendom. Alexandria was but one metropolis in a large +region, and contained the philosophy of the whole Patriarchate; but +Syria abounded in wealthy and luxurious cities, the creation of the +Seleucidæ, where the arts and the schools of Greece <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>had full +opportunities of cultivation. For a time too, for the first two hundred +years, as some think, Alexandria was the only See as well as the only +school of Egypt; while Syria was divided into smaller dioceses, each of +which had at first an authority of its own, and which, even after the +growth of the Patriarchal power, received their respective bishops, not +from the See of Antioch, but from their own metropolitan. In Syria too +the schools were private, a circumstance which would tend both to +diversity in religious opinion, and incaution in the expression of it; +but the sole catechetical school of Egypt was the organ of the Church, +and its Bishop could banish Origen for speculations which developed and +ripened with impunity in Syria.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>But the immediate source of that fertility in heresy, which is the +unhappiness of the ancient Syrian Church, was its celebrated Exegetical +School. The history of that School is summed up in the broad +characteristic fact, on the one hand that it devoted itself to the +literal and critical interpretation of Scripture, and on the other that +it gave rise first to the Arian and then to the Nestorian heresy. If +additional evidence be wanted of the connexion of heterodoxy and +biblical criticism in that age, it is found in the fact that, not long +after this coincidence in Syria, they are found combined in the person +of Theodore of Heraclea, so called from the place both of his birth and +his bishoprick, an able commentator and an active enemy of St. +Athanasius, though a Thracian unconnected except by sympathy with the +Patriarchate of Antioch.</p> + +<p>The Antiochene School appears to have risen in the middle of the third +century; but there is no evidence to determine whether it was a local +institution, or, as is more probable, a discipline or method +characteristic generally of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>Syrian teaching. Dorotheus is one of its +earliest luminaries; he is known as a Hebrew scholar, as well as a +commentator on the sacred text, and he was the master of Eusebius of +Cæsarea. Lucian, the friend of the notorious Paul of Samosata, and for +three successive Episcopates after him separated from the Church though +afterwards a martyr in it, was the author of a new edition of the +Septuagint, and master of the chief original teachers of Arianism. +Eusebius of Cæsarea, Asterius called the Sophist, and Eusebius of Emesa, +Arians of the Nicene period, and Diodorus, a zealous opponent of +Arianism, but the master of Theodore of Mopsuestia, have all a place in +the Exegetical School. St. Chrysostom and Theodoret, both Syrians, and +the former the pupil of Diodorus, adopted the literal interpretation, +though preserved from its abuse. But the principal doctor of the School +was that Theodore, the master of Nestorius, who has just above been +mentioned, and who, with his writings, and with the writings of +Theodoret against St. Cyril, and the letter written by Ibas of Edessa to +Maris, was condemned by the fifth Ecumenical Council. Ibas was the +translator into Syriac, and Maris into Persian, of the books of Theodore +and Diodorus;<a name="FNanchor_286:1_237" id="FNanchor_286:1_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_286:1_237" class="fnanchor">[286:1]</a> and thus they became immediate instruments in the +formation of the great Nestorian school and Church in farther Asia.</p> + +<p>As many as ten thousand tracts of Theodore are said in this way to have +been introduced to the knowledge of the Christians of Mesopotamia, +Adiabene, Babylonia, and the neighbouring countries. He was called by +those Churches absolutely "the Interpreter," and it eventually became +the very profession of the Nestorian communion to follow him as such. +"The doctrine of all our Eastern Churches," says their Council under the +Patriarch Marabas, "is founded on the Creed of Nicæa; but in the +exposition of the Scriptures we follow St. Theodore." "We must by all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>means remain firm to the commentaries of the great Commentator," says +the Council under Sabarjesus; "whoso shall in any manner oppose them, or +think otherwise, be he anathema."<a name="FNanchor_287:1_238" id="FNanchor_287:1_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_287:1_238" class="fnanchor">[287:1]</a> No one since the beginning of +Christianity, except Origen and St. Augustine, has had so great literary +influence on his brethren as Theodore.<a name="FNanchor_287:2_239" id="FNanchor_287:2_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_287:2_239" class="fnanchor">[287:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>The original Syrian School had possessed very marked characteristics, +which it did not lose when it passed into a new country and into strange +tongues. Its comments on Scripture seem to have been clear, natural, +methodical, apposite, and logically exact. "In all Western Aramæa," says +Lengerke, that is, in Syria, "there was but one mode of treating whether +exegetics or doctrine, the practical."<a name="FNanchor_287:3_240" id="FNanchor_287:3_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_287:3_240" class="fnanchor">[287:3]</a> Thus Eusebius of Cæsarea, +whether as a disputant or a commentator, is commonly a writer of sense +and judgment; and he is to be referred to the Syrian school, though he +does not enter so far into its temper as to exclude the mystical +interpretation or to deny the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Again, we +see in St. Chrysostom a direct, straightforward treatment of the sacred +text, and a pointed application of it to things and persons; and +Theodoret abounds in modes of thinking and reasoning which without any +great impropriety may be called English. Again, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, +though he does not abstain from allegory, shows the character of his +school by the great stress he lays upon the study of Scripture, and, I +may add, by the peculiar characteristics of his style, which will be +appreciated by a modern reader.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>It would have been well, had the genius of the Syrian <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>theology been +ever in the safe keeping of men such as St. Cyril, St. Chrysostom, and +Theodoret; but in Theodore of Mopsuestia, nay in Diodorus before him, it +developed into those errors, of which Paul of Samosata had been the omen +on its rise. As its attention was chiefly directed to the examination of +the Scriptures, in its interpretation of the Scriptures was its +heretical temper discovered; and though allegory can be made an +instrument for evading Scripture doctrine, criticism may more readily be +turned to the destruction of doctrine and Scripture together. Theodore +was bent on ascertaining the literal sense, an object with which no +fault could be found: but, leading him of course to the Hebrew text +instead of the Septuagint, it also led him to Jewish commentators. +Jewish commentators naturally suggested events and objects short of +evangelical as the fulfilment of the prophetical announcements, and, +when it was possible, an ethical sense instead of a prophetical. The +eighth chapter of Proverbs ceased to bear a Christian meaning, because, +as Theodore maintained, the writer of the book had received the gift, +not of prophecy, but of wisdom. The Canticles must be interpreted +literally; and then it was but an easy, or rather a necessary step, to +exclude the book from the Canon. The book of Job too professed to be +historical; yet what was it really but a Gentile drama? He also gave up +the books of Chronicles and Ezra, and, strange to say, the Epistle of +St. James, though it was contained in the Peschito Version of his +Church. He denied that Psalms 22 and 69 [21 and 68] applied to our Lord; +rather he limited the Messianic passages of the whole book to four; of +which the eighth Psalm was one, and the forty-fifth [44] another. The +rest he explained of Hezekiah and Zerubbabel, without denying that they +might be accommodated to an evangelical sense.<a name="FNanchor_288:1_241" id="FNanchor_288:1_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_288:1_241" class="fnanchor">[288:1]</a> He explained St. +Thomas's <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>words, "My Lord and my God," as an exclamation of joy, and our +Lord's "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," as an anticipation of the day of +Pentecost. As may be expected he denied the verbal inspiration of +Scripture. Also, he held that the deluge did not cover the earth; and, +as others before him, he was heterodox on the doctrine of original sin, +and denied the eternity of punishment.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>Maintaining that the real sense of Scripture was, not the scope of a +Divine Intelligence, but the intention of the mere human organ of +inspiration, Theodore was led to hold, not only that that sense was one +in each text, but that it was continuous and single in a context; that +what was the subject of the composition in one verse must be the subject +in the next, and that if a Psalm was historical or prophetical in its +commencement, it was the one or the other to its termination. Even that +fulness, of meaning, refinement of thought, subtle versatility of +feeling, and delicate reserve or reverent suggestiveness, which poets +exemplify, seems to have been excluded from his idea of a sacred +composition. Accordingly, if a Psalm contained passages which could not +be applied to our Lord, it followed that that Psalm did not properly +apply to Him at all, except by accommodation. Such at least is the +doctrine of Cosmas, a writer of Theodore's school, who on this ground +passes over the twenty-second, sixty-ninth, and other Psalms, and limits +the Messianic to the second, the eighth, the forty-fifth, and the +hundred and tenth. "David," he says, "did not make common to the +servants what belongs to the Lord<a name="FNanchor_289:1_242" id="FNanchor_289:1_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_289:1_242" class="fnanchor">[289:1]</a> Christ, but what was proper to +the Lord he spoke of the Lord, and what was proper to the servants, of +servants."<a name="FNanchor_289:2_243" id="FNanchor_289:2_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_289:2_243" class="fnanchor">[289:2]</a> Accordingly the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>twenty-second could not properly +belong to Christ, because in the beginning it spoke of the "<i>verba +delictorum meorum</i>." A remarkable consequence would follow from this +doctrine, that as Christ was to be separated from His Saints, so the +Saints were to be separated from Christ; and an opening was made for a +denial of the doctrine of their <i>cultus</i>, though this denial in the +event has not been developed among the Nestorians. But a more serious +consequence is latently contained in it, and nothing else than the +Nestorian heresy, viz. that our Lord's manhood is not so intimately +included in His Divine Personality that His brethren according to the +flesh may be associated with the Image of the One Christ. Here St. +Chrysostom pointedly contradicts the doctrine of Theodore, though his +fellow-pupil and friend;<a name="FNanchor_290:1_244" id="FNanchor_290:1_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_290:1_244" class="fnanchor">[290:1]</a> as does St. Ephrem, though a Syrian +also;<a name="FNanchor_290:2_245" id="FNanchor_290:2_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_290:2_245" class="fnanchor">[290:2]</a> and St. Basil.<a name="FNanchor_290:3_246" id="FNanchor_290:3_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_290:3_246" class="fnanchor">[290:3]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>One other peculiarity of the Syrian school, viewed as independent of +Nestorius, should be added:—As it tended to the separation of the +Divine Person of Christ from His manhood, so did it tend to explain away +His Divine Presence in the Sacramental elements. Ernesti seems to +consider the school, in modern language, Sacramentarian: and certainly +some of the most cogent testimonies brought by moderns against the +Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist are taken from writers who are +connected with that school; as the author, said to be St. Chrysostom, of +the Epistle to Cæsarius, Theodoret in his Eranistes, and Facundus. Some +countenance too is given to the same view of the Eucharist, at least in +some parts of his works, by Origen, whose language concerning the +Incarnation also leans to what was afterwards Nestorianism. To these may +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>be added Eusebius,<a name="FNanchor_291:1_247" id="FNanchor_291:1_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_291:1_247" class="fnanchor">[291:1]</a> who, far removed, as he was, from that +heresy, was a disciple of the Syrian school. The language of the later +Nestorian writers seems to have been of the same character.<a name="FNanchor_291:2_248" id="FNanchor_291:2_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_291:2_248" class="fnanchor">[291:2]</a> Such +then on the whole is the character of that theology of Theodore which +passed from Cilicia and Antioch to Edessa first, and then to Nisibis.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>Edessa, the metropolis of Mesopotamia, had remained an Oriental city +till the third century, when it was made a Roman colony by +Caracalla.<a name="FNanchor_291:3_249" id="FNanchor_291:3_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_291:3_249" class="fnanchor">[291:3]</a> Its position on the confines of two empires gave it +great ecclesiastical importance, as the channel by which the theology of +Rome and Greece was conveyed to a family of Christians, dwelling in +contempt and persecution amid a still heathen world. It was the seat of +various schools; apparently of a Greek school, where the classics were +studied as well as theology, where Eusebius of Emesa<a name="FNanchor_291:4_250" id="FNanchor_291:4_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_291:4_250" class="fnanchor">[291:4]</a> had +originally been trained, and where perhaps Protogenes taught.<a name="FNanchor_291:5_251" id="FNanchor_291:5_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_291:5_251" class="fnanchor">[291:5]</a> +There were also Syrian schools attended by heathen and Christian youths +in common. The cultivation of the native language had been an especial +object of its masters since the time of Vespasian, so that the pure and +refined dialect went by the name of the Edessene.<a name="FNanchor_291:6_252" id="FNanchor_291:6_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_291:6_252" class="fnanchor">[291:6]</a> At Edessa too +St. Ephrem formed his own Syrian school, which lasted long after him; +and there too was the celebrated Persian Christian school, over which +Maris presided, who has been already mentioned as the translator of +Theodore into Persian.<a name="FNanchor_291:7_253" id="FNanchor_291:7_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_291:7_253" class="fnanchor">[291:7]</a> Even in the time of the predecessor of +Ibas in the See (before <span class="allcapsc">A.D.</span> 435) the Nestorianism of this Persian +School was so notorious that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>Rabbula the Bishop had expelled its +masters and scholars;<a name="FNanchor_292:1_254" id="FNanchor_292:1_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_292:1_254" class="fnanchor">[292:1]</a> and they, taking refuge in a country which +might be called their own, had introduced the heresy to the Churches +subject to the Persian King.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>Something ought to be said of these Churches; though little is known +except what is revealed by the fact, in itself of no slight value, that +they had sustained two persecutions at the hands of the heathen +government in the fourth and fifth centuries. One testimony is extant as +early as the end of the second century, to the effect that in Parthia, +Media, Persia, and Bactria there were Christians who "were not overcome +by evil laws and customs."<a name="FNanchor_292:2_255" id="FNanchor_292:2_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_292:2_255" class="fnanchor">[292:2]</a> In the early part of the fourth +century, a bishop of Persia attended the Nicene Council, and about the +same time Christianity is said to have pervaded nearly the whole of +Assyria.<a name="FNanchor_292:3_256" id="FNanchor_292:3_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_292:3_256" class="fnanchor">[292:3]</a> Monachism had been introduced there before the middle of +the fourth century, and shortly after commenced that fearful persecution +in which sixteen thousand Christians are said to have suffered. It +lasted thirty years, and is said to have recommenced at the end of the +Century. The second persecution lasted for at least another thirty years +of the next, at the very time when the Nestorian troubles were in +progress in the Empire. Trials such as these show the populousness as +well as the faith of the Churches in those parts,—and the number of the +Sees, for the names of twenty-seven Bishops are preserved who suffered +in the former persecution. One of them was apprehended together with +sixteen priests, nine deacons, besides monks and nuns of his diocese; +another with twenty-eight companions, ecclesiastics or regulars; another +with one hundred ecclesiastics of different orders; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>another with one +hundred and twenty-eight; another with his chorepiscopus and two hundred +and fifty of his clergy. Such was the Church, consecrated by the blood +of so many martyrs, which immediately after its glorious confession fell +a prey to the theology of Theodore; and which through a succession of +ages manifested the energy, when it had lost the pure orthodoxy of +Saints.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>The members of the Persian school, who had been driven out of Edessa by +Rabbula, found a wide field open for their exertions under the pagan +government with which they had taken refuge. The Persian monarchs, who +had often prohibited by edict<a name="FNanchor_293:1_257" id="FNanchor_293:1_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_293:1_257" class="fnanchor">[293:1]</a> the intercommunion of the Church +under their sway with the countries towards the west, readily extended +their protection to exiles, whose very profession was the means of +destroying its Catholicity. Barsumas, the most energetic of them, was +placed in the metropolitan See of Nisibis, where also the fugitive +school was settled under the presidency of another of their party; while +Maris was promoted to the See of Ardaschir. The primacy of the Church +had from an early period belonged to the See of Seleucia in Babylonia. +Catholicus was the title appropriated to its occupant, as well as to the +Persian Primate, as being deputies of the Patriarch of Antioch, and was +derived apparently from the Imperial dignity so called, denoting their +function as Procurators-general, or officers in chief for the regions in +which they were placed. Acacius, another of the Edessene party, was put +into this principal See, and suffered, if he did not further, the +innovations of Barsumas. The mode by which the latter effected those +measures has been left on record by an enemy. "Barsumas accused Babuæus, +the Catholicus, before King <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>Pherozes, whispering, 'These men hold the +faith of the Romans, and are their spies. Give me power against them to +arrest them.'"<a name="FNanchor_294:1_258" id="FNanchor_294:1_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_294:1_258" class="fnanchor">[294:1]</a> It is said that in this way he obtained the death +of Babuæus, whom Acacius succeeded. When a minority resisted<a name="FNanchor_294:2_259" id="FNanchor_294:2_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_294:2_259" class="fnanchor">[294:2]</a> the +process of schism, a persecution followed. The death of seven thousand +seven hundred Catholics is said by Monophysite authorities to have been +the price of the severance of the Chaldaic Churches from +Christendom.<a name="FNanchor_294:3_260" id="FNanchor_294:3_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_294:3_260" class="fnanchor">[294:3]</a> Their loss was compensated in the eyes of the +Government by the multitude of Nestorian fugitives, who flocked into +Persia from the Empire, numbers of them industrious artisans, who sought +a country where their own religion was in the ascendant.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>That religion was founded, as we have already seen, in the literal +interpretation of Holy Scripture, of which Theodore was the principal +teacher. The doctrine, in which it formally consisted, is known by the +name of Nestorianism: it lay in the ascription of a human as well as a +Divine Personality to our Lord; and it showed itself in denying the +title of "Mother of God," or <ins class="greek" title="theotokos">θεοτόκος</ins>, to the Blessed Mary. As +to our Lord's Personality, the question of language came into the +controversy, which always serves to perplex a subject and make a dispute +seem a matter of words. The native Syrians made a distinction between +the word "Person," and "Prosopon," which stands for it in Greek; they +allowed that there was one Prosopon or Parsopa, as they called it, and +they held that there were two Persons. If it is asked what they meant by +<i>parsopa</i>, the answer seems to be, that they took the word merely in the +sense of <i>character</i> or <i>aspect</i>, a sense familiar to the Greek +<i>prosopon</i>, and quite irrelevant as a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>guarantee of their orthodoxy. It +follows moreover that, since the <i>aspect</i> of a thing is its impression +upon the beholder, the personality to which they ascribed unity must +have laid in our Lord's manhood, and not in His Divine Nature. But it is +hardly worth while pursuing the heresy to its limits. Next, as to the +phrase "Mother of God," they rejected it as unscriptural; they +maintained that St. Mary was Mother of the humanity of Christ, not of +the Word, and they fortified themselves by the Nicene Creed, in which no +such title is ascribed to her.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>Whatever might be the obscurity or the plausibility of their original +dogma, there is nothing obscure or attractive in the developments, +whether of doctrine or of practice, in which it issued. The first act of +the exiles of Edessa, on their obtaining power in the Chaldean +communion, was to abolish the celibacy of the clergy, or, in Gibbon's +forcible words, to allow "the public and reiterated nuptials of the +priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself." Barsumas, the +great instrument of the change of religion, was the first to set an +example of the new usage, and is even said by a Nestorian writer to have +married a nun.<a name="FNanchor_295:1_261" id="FNanchor_295:1_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_295:1_261" class="fnanchor">[295:1]</a> He passed a Canon at Councils, held at Seleucia +and elsewhere, that bishops and priests might marry, and might renew +their wives as often as they lost them. The Catholicus who followed +Acacius went so far as to extend the benefit of the Canon to Monks, that +is, to destroy the Monastic order; and his two successors availed +themselves of this liberty, and are recorded to have been fathers. A +restriction, however, was afterwards placed upon the Catholicus, and +upon the Episcopal order.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>12.</p> + +<p>Such were the circumstances, and such the principles, under which the +See of Seleucia became the Rome of the East. In the course of time the +Catholicus took on himself the loftier and independent title of +Patriarch of Babylon; and though Seleucia was changed for Ctesiphon and +for Bagdad,<a name="FNanchor_296:1_262" id="FNanchor_296:1_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_296:1_262" class="fnanchor">[296:1]</a> still the name of Babylon was preserved from first to +last as a formal or ideal Metropolis. In the time of the Caliphs, it was +at the head of as many as twenty-five Archbishops; its Communion +extended from China to Jerusalem; and its numbers, with those of the +Monophysites, are said to have surpassed those of the Greek and Latin +Churches together. The Nestorians seem to have been unwilling, like the +Novatians, to be called by the name of their founder,<a name="FNanchor_296:2_263" id="FNanchor_296:2_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_296:2_263" class="fnanchor">[296:2]</a> though they +confessed it had adhered to them; one instance may be specified of their +assuming the name of Catholic,<a name="FNanchor_296:3_264" id="FNanchor_296:3_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_296:3_264" class="fnanchor">[296:3]</a> but there is nothing to show it +was given them by others.</p> + +<p>"From the conquest of Persia," says Gibbon, "they carried their +spiritual arms to the North, the East, and the South; and the simplicity +of the Gospel was fashioned and painted with the colours of the Syriac +theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a Nestorian +traveller, Christianity was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the +Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and the +Elamites: the Barbaric Churches from the gulf of Persia to the Caspian +Sea were almost infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the +number and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of +Malabar and the isles of the ocean, Socotra and Ceylon, were peopled +with an increasing multitude of Christians, and the bishops and clergy +of those sequestered regions derived their ordination from <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>the +Catholicus of Babylon. In a subsequent age, the zeal of the Nestorians +overleaped the limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both +of the Greeks and Persians. The missionaries of Balch and Samarcand +pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated +themselves into the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the +Selinga."<a name="FNanchor_297:1_265" id="FNanchor_297:1_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_297:1_265" class="fnanchor">[297:1]</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 3. <i>The Monophysites.</i></h4> + +<p>Eutyches was Archimandrite, or Abbot, of a Monastery in the suburbs of +Constantinople; he was a man of unexceptionable character, and was of +the age of seventy years, and had been Abbot for thirty, at the date of +his unhappy introduction into ecclesiastical history. He had been the +friend and assistant of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and had lately taken +part against Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, whose name has occurred in the +above account of the Nestorians. For some time he had been engaged in +teaching a doctrine concerning the Incarnation, which he maintained +indeed to be none other than that of St. Cyril's in his controversy with +Nestorius, but which others denounced as a heresy in the opposite +extreme, and substantially a reassertion of Apollinarianism. The subject +was brought before a Council of Constantinople, under the presidency of +Flavian, the Patriarch, in the year 448; and Eutyches was condemned by +the assembled Bishops of holding the doctrine of One, instead of Two +Natures in Christ.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>It is scarcely necessary for our present purpose to ascertain accurately +what he held, and there has been a great deal of controversy on the +subject; partly from confusion between him and his successors, partly +from the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>indecision or the ambiguity which commonly attaches to the +professions of heretics. If a statement must here be made of the +doctrine of Eutyches himself, in whom the controversy began, let it be +said to consist in these two tenets:—in maintaining first, that "before +the Incarnation there were two natures, after their union one," or that +our Lord was of or from two natures, but not in two;—and, secondly, +that His flesh was not of one substance with ours, that is, not of the +substance of the Blessed Virgin. Of these two points, he seemed willing +to abandon the second, but was firm in his maintenance of the first. But +let us return to the Council of Constantinople.</p> + +<p>In his examination Eutyches allowed that the Holy Virgin was +consubstantial with us, and that "our God was incarnate of her;" but he +would not allow that He was therefore, as man, consubstantial with us, +his notion apparently being that union with the Divinity had changed +what otherwise would have been human nature. However, when pressed, he +said, that, though up to that day he had not permitted himself to +discuss the nature of Christ, or to affirm that "God's body is man's +body though it was human," yet he would allow, if commanded, our Lord's +consubstantiality with us. Upon this Flavian observed that "the Council +was introducing no innovation, but declaring the faith of the Fathers." +To his other position, however, that our Lord had but one nature after +the Incarnation, he adhered: when the Catholic doctrine was put before +him, he answered, "Let St. Athanasius be read; you will find nothing of +the kind in him."</p> + +<p>His condemnation followed: it was signed by twenty-two Bishops and +twenty-three Abbots;<a name="FNanchor_298:1_266" id="FNanchor_298:1_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_298:1_266" class="fnanchor">[298:1]</a> among the former were Flavian of +Constantinople, Basil metropolitan of Seleucia in Isauria, the +metropolitans of Amasea in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>Pontus, and Marcianopolis in Mœsia, and +the Bishop of Cos, the Pope's minister at Constantinople.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Eutyches appealed to the Pope of the day, St. Leo, who at first hearing +took his part. He wrote to Flavian that, "judging by the statement of +Eutyches, he did not see with what justice he had been separated from +the communion of the Church." "Send therefore," he continued, "some +suitable person to give us a full account of what has occurred, and let +us know what the new error is." St. Flavian, who had behaved with great +forbearance throughout the proceedings, had not much difficulty in +setting the controversy before the Pope in its true light.</p> + +<p>Eutyches was supported by the Imperial Court, and by Dioscorus the +Patriarch of Alexandria; the proceedings therefore at Constantinople +were not allowed to settle the question. A general Council was summoned +for the ensuing summer at Ephesus, where the third Ecumenical Council +had been held twenty years before against Nestorius. It was attended by +sixty metropolitans, ten from each of the great divisions of the East; +the whole number of bishops assembled amounted to one hundred and +thirty-five.<a name="FNanchor_299:1_267" id="FNanchor_299:1_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_299:1_267" class="fnanchor">[299:1]</a> Dioscorus was appointed President by the Emperor, +and the object of the assembly was said to be the settlement of a +question of faith which had arisen between Flavian and Eutyches. St. +Leo, dissatisfied with the measure altogether, nevertheless sent his +legates, but with the object, as their commission stated, and a letter +he addressed to the Council, of "condemning the heresy, and reinstating +Eutyches if he retracted." His legates took precedence after Dioscorus +and before the other Patriarchs. He also published at this time his +celebrated Tome on the Incarnation, in a letter addressed to Flavian.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> +The proceedings which followed were of so violent a character, that the +Council has gone down to posterity under the name of the Latrocinium or +"Gang of Robbers." Eutyches was honourably acquitted, and his doctrine +received; but the assembled Fathers showed some backwardness to depose +St. Flavian. Dioscorus had been attended by a multitude of monks, +furious zealots for the Monophysite doctrine from Syria and Egypt, and +by an armed force. These broke into the Church at his call; Flavian was +thrown down and trampled on, and received injuries of which he died the +third day after. The Pope's legates escaped as they could; and the +Bishops were compelled to sign a blank paper, which was afterwards +filled up with the condemnation of Flavian. These outrages, however, +were subsequent to the Synodical acceptance of the Creed of Eutyches, +which seems to have been the spontaneous act of the assembled Fathers. +The proceedings ended by Dioscorus excommunicating the Pope, and the +Emperor issuing an edict in approval of the decision of the Council.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Before continuing the narrative, let us pause awhile to consider what it +has already brought before us. An aged and blameless man, the friend of +a Saint, and him the great champion of the faith against the heresy of +his day, is found in the belief and maintenance of a doctrine, which he +declares to be the very doctrine which that Saint taught in opposition +to that heresy. To prove it, he and his friends refer to the very words +of St. Cyril; Eustathius of Berytus quoting from him at Ephesus as +follows: "We must not then conceive two natures, but one nature of the +Word incarnate."<a name="FNanchor_300:1_268" id="FNanchor_300:1_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_300:1_268" class="fnanchor">[300:1]</a> Moreover, it seems that St. Cyril had been +called to account for this very phrase, and had <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>appealed more than once +to a passage, which is extant as he quoted it, in a work by St. +Athanasius.<a name="FNanchor_301:1_269" id="FNanchor_301:1_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_301:1_269" class="fnanchor">[301:1]</a> Whether the passage in question is genuine is very +doubtful, but that is not to the purpose; for the phrase which it +contains is also attributed by St. Cyril to other Fathers, and was +admitted by Catholics generally, as by St. Flavian, who deposed +Eutyches, nay was indirectly adopted by the Council of Chalcedon itself.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>But Eutyches did not merely insist upon a phrase; he appealed for his +doctrine to the Fathers generally; "I have read the blessed Cyril, and +the holy Fathers, and the holy Athanasius," he says at Constantinople, +"that they said, 'Of two natures before the union,' but that 'after the +union' they said 'but one.'"<a name="FNanchor_301:2_270" id="FNanchor_301:2_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_301:2_270" class="fnanchor">[301:2]</a> In his letter to St. Leo, he appeals +in particular to Pope Julius, Pope Felix, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. +Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, Atticus, and St. Proclus. He did not +appeal to them unreservedly certainly, as shall be presently noticed; he +allowed that they might err, and perhaps had erred, in their +expressions: but it is plain, even from what has been said, that there +could be no <i>consensus</i> against him, as the word is now commonly +understood. It is also undeniable that, though the word "nature" is +applied to our Lord's manhood by St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen and +others, yet on the whole it is for whatever reason avoided by the +previous Fathers; certainly by St. Athanasius, who uses the words +"manhood," "flesh," "the man," "economy," where a later writer would +have used "nature:" and the same is true of St. Hilary.<a name="FNanchor_301:3_271" id="FNanchor_301:3_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_301:3_271" class="fnanchor">[301:3]</a> In like +manner, the Athanasian Creed, written, as it is supposed, some twenty +years before <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>the date of Eutyches, does not contain the word "nature." +Much might be said on the plausibility of the defence, which Eutyches +might have made for his doctrine from the history and documents of the +Church before his time.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>Further, Eutyches professed to subscribe heartily the decrees of the +Council of Nicæa and Ephesus, and his friends appealed to the latter of +these Councils and to previous Fathers, in proof that nothing could be +added to the Creed of the Church. "I," he says to St. Leo, "even from my +elders have so understood, and from my childhood have so been +instructed, as the holy and Ecumenical Council at Nicæa of the three +hundred and eighteen most blessed Bishops settled the faith, and which +the holy Council held at Ephesus maintained and defined anew as the only +faith; and I have never understood otherwise than as the right or only +true orthodox faith hath enjoined." He says at the Latrocinium, "When I +declared that my faith was conformable to the decision of Nicæa, +confirmed at Ephesus, they demanded that I should add some words to it; +and I, fearing to act contrary to the decrees of the First Council of +Ephesus and of the Council of Nicæa, desired that your holy Council +might be made acquainted with it, since I was ready to submit to +whatever you should approve."<a name="FNanchor_302:1_272" id="FNanchor_302:1_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_302:1_272" class="fnanchor">[302:1]</a> Dioscorus states the matter more +strongly: "We have heard," he says, "what this Council" of Ephesus +"decreed, that if any one affirm or opine anything, or raise any +question, beyond the Creed aforesaid" of Nicæa, "he is to be +condemned."<a name="FNanchor_302:2_273" id="FNanchor_302:2_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_302:2_273" class="fnanchor">[302:2]</a> It is remarkable <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>that the Council of Ephesus, which +laid down this rule, had itself sanctioned the Theotocos, an addition, +greater perhaps than any before or since, to the letter of the primitive +faith.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>Further, Eutyches appealed to Scripture, and denied that a human nature +was there given to our Lord; and this appeal obliged him in consequence +to refuse an unconditional assent to the Councils and Fathers, though he +so confidently spoke about them at other times. It was urged against him +that the Nicene Council itself had introduced into the Creed +extra-scriptural terms. "'I have never found in Scripture,' he said," +according to one of the Priests who were sent to him, "'that there are +two natures.' I replied, 'Neither is the Consubstantiality,'" (the +Homoüsion of Nicæa,) "'to be found in the Scriptures, but in the Holy +Fathers who well understood them and faithfully expounded them.'"<a name="FNanchor_303:1_274" id="FNanchor_303:1_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_303:1_274" class="fnanchor">[303:1]</a> +Accordingly, on another occasion, a report was made of him, that "he +professed himself ready to assent to the Exposition of Faith made by the +Holy Fathers of the Nicene and Ephesine Councils and he engaged to +subscribe their interpretations. However, if there were any accidental +fault or error in any expressions which they made, this he would neither +blame nor accept; but only search the Scriptures, as being surer than +the expositions of the Fathers; that since the time of the Incarnation +of God the Word . . he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>worshipped one Nature . . . that the doctrine that +our Lord Jesus Christ came of Two Natures personally united, this it was +that he had learned from the expositions of the Holy Fathers; nor did he +accept, if ought was read to him from any author to [another] effect, +because the Holy Scriptures, as he said, were better than the teaching +of the Fathers."<a name="FNanchor_304:1_275" id="FNanchor_304:1_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_304:1_275" class="fnanchor">[304:1]</a> This appeal to the Scriptures will remind us of +what has lately been said of the school of Theodore in the history of +Nestorianism, and of the challenge of the Arians to St. Avitus before +the Gothic King.<a name="FNanchor_304:2_276" id="FNanchor_304:2_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_304:2_276" class="fnanchor">[304:2]</a> It had also been the characteristic of heresy in +the antecedent period. St. Hilary brings together a number of instances +in point, from the history of Marcellus, Photinus, Sabellius, Montanus, +and Manes; then he adds, "They all speak Scripture without the sense of +Scripture, and profess a faith without faith."<a name="FNanchor_304:3_277" id="FNanchor_304:3_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_304:3_277" class="fnanchor">[304:3]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>Once more; the Council of the Latrocinium, however, tyrannized over by +Dioscorus in the matter of St. Flavian, certainly did acquit Eutyches +and accept his doctrine canonically, and, as it would appear, cordially; +though their change at Chalcedon, and the subsequent variations of the +East, make it a matter of little moment how they decided. The Acts of +Constantinople were read to the Fathers of the Latrocinium; when they +came to the part where Eusebius of Dorylæum, the accuser of Eutyches, +asked him, whether he confessed Two Natures after the Incarnation, and +the Consubstantiality according to the flesh, the Fathers broke in upon +the reading:—"Away with Eusebius; burn him; burn him alive; cut him in +two; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>as he divided, so let him be divided."<a name="FNanchor_305:1_278" id="FNanchor_305:1_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_305:1_278" class="fnanchor">[305:1]</a> The Council seems to +have been unanimous, with the exception of the Pope's Legates, in the +restoration of Eutyches; a more complete decision can hardly be +imagined.</p> + +<p>It is true the whole number of signatures now extant, one hundred and +eight, may seem small out of a thousand, the number of Sees in the East; +but the attendance of Councils always bore a representative character. +The whole number of East and West was about eighteen hundred, yet the +second Ecumenical Council was attended by only one hundred and fifty, +which is but a twelfth part of the whole number; the Third Council by +about two hundred, or a ninth; the Council of Nicæa itself numbered only +three hundred and eighteen Bishops. Moreover, when we look through the +names subscribed to the Synodal decision, we find that the misbelief, or +misapprehension, or weakness, to which this great offence must be +attributed, was no local phenomenon, but the unanimous sin of Bishops in +every patriarchate and of every school of the East. Three out of the +four patriarchs were in favour of the heresiarch, the fourth being on +his trial. Of these Domnus of Antioch and Juvenal of Jerusalem acquitted +him, on the ground of his confessing the faith of Nicæa and Ephesus: and +Domnus was a man of the fairest and purest character, and originally a +disciple of St. Euthemius, however inconsistent on this occasion, and +ill-advised in former steps of his career. Dioscorus, violent and bad +man as he showed himself, had been Archdeacon to St. Cyril, whom he +attended at the Council of Ephesus; and was on this occasion supported +by those Churches which had so nobly stood by their patriarch Athanasius +in the great Arian conflict. These three Patriarchs were supported by +the Exarchs of Ephesus and Cæsarea in Cappadocia; and both of these as +well as <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>Domnus and Juvenal, were supported in turn by their subordinate +Metropolitans. Even the Sees under the influence of Constantinople, +which was the remaining sixth division of the East, took part with +Eutyches. We find among the signatures to his acquittal the Bishops of +Dyrrachium, of Heraclea in Macedonia, of Messene in the Peloponese, of +Sebaste in Armenia, of Tarsus, of Damascus, of Berytus, of Bostra in +Arabia, of Amida in Mesopotamia, of Himeria in Osrhoene, of Babylon, of +Arsinoe in Egypt, and of Cyrene. The Bishops of Palestine, of Macedonia, +and of Achaia, where the keen eye of St. Athanasius had detected the +doctrine in its germ, while Apollinarianism was but growing into form, +were his actual partisans. Another Barsumas, a Syrian Abbot, ignorant of +Greek, attended the Latrocinium, as the representative of the monks of +his nation, whom he formed into a force, material or moral, of a +thousand strong, and whom at that infamous assembly he cheered on to the +murder of St. Flavian.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>Such was the state of Eastern Christendom in the year 449; a heresy, +appealing to the Fathers, to the Creed, and, above all, to Scripture, +was by a general Council, professing to be Ecumenical, received as true +in the person of its promulgator. If the East could determine a matter +of faith independently of the West, certainly the Monophysite heresy was +established as Apostolic truth in all its provinces from Macedonia to +Egypt.</p> + +<p>There has been a time in the history of Christianity, when it had been +Athanasius against the world, and the world against Athanasius. The need +and straitness of the Church had been great, and one man was raised up +for her deliverance. In this second necessity, who was the destined +champion of her who cannot fail? Whence <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>did he come, and what was his +name? He came with an augury of victory upon him, which even Athanasius +could not show; it was Leo, Bishop of Rome.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>Leo's augury of success, which even Athanasius had not, was this, that +he was seated in the chair of St. Peter and the heir of his +prerogatives. In the very beginning of the controversy, St. Peter +Chrysologus had urged this grave consideration upon Eutyches himself, in +words which have already been cited: "I exhort you, my venerable +brother," he had said, "to submit yourself in everything to what has +been written by the blessed Pope of Rome; for St. Peter, who lives and +presides in his own See, gives the true faith to those who seek +it."<a name="FNanchor_307:1_279" id="FNanchor_307:1_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_307:1_279" class="fnanchor">[307:1]</a> This voice had come from Ravenna, and now after the +Latrocinium it was echoed back from the depths of Syria by the learned +Theodoret. "That all-holy See," he says in a letter to one of the Pope's +Legates, "has the office of heading (<ins class="greek" title="hêgemonian">ἡγεμονίαν</ins>) the whole +world's Churches for many reasons; and above all others, because it has +remained free of the communion of heretical taint, and no one of +heterodox sentiments hath sat in it, but it hath preserved the Apostolic +grace unsullied."<a name="FNanchor_307:2_280" id="FNanchor_307:2_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_307:2_280" class="fnanchor">[307:2]</a> And a third testimony in encouragement of the +faithful at the same dark moment issued from the Imperial court of the +West. "We are bound," says Valentinian to the Emperor of the East, "to +preserve inviolate in our times the prerogative of particular reverence +to the blessed Apostle Peter; that the most blessed Bishop of Rome, to +whom Antiquity assigned the priesthood over all (<ins class="greek" title="kata pantôn">κατὰ πάντων</ins>) +may have place and opportunity of judging concerning the faith and the +priests."<a name="FNanchor_307:3_281" id="FNanchor_307:3_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_307:3_281" class="fnanchor">[307:3]</a> Nor had Leo himself been wanting at the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>same time in +"the confidence" he had "obtained from the most blessed Peter and head +of the Apostles, that he had authority to defend the truth for the peace +of the Church."<a name="FNanchor_308:1_282" id="FNanchor_308:1_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_308:1_282" class="fnanchor">[308:1]</a> Thus Leo introduces us to the Council of +Chalcedon, by which he rescued the East from a grave heresy.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>The Council met on the 8th of October, 451, and was attended by the +largest number of Bishops of any Council before or since; some say by as +many as six hundred and thirty. Of these, only four came from the West, +two Roman Legates and two Africans.<a name="FNanchor_308:2_283" id="FNanchor_308:2_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_308:2_283" class="fnanchor">[308:2]</a></p> + +<p>Its proceedings were opened by the Pope's Legates, who said that they +had it in charge from the Bishop of Rome, "which is the head of all the +Churches," to demand that Dioscorus should not sit, on the ground that +"he had presumed to hold a Council without the authority of the +Apostolic See, which had never been done nor was lawful to do."<a name="FNanchor_308:3_284" id="FNanchor_308:3_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_308:3_284" class="fnanchor">[308:3]</a> +This was immediately allowed them.</p> + +<p>The next act of the Council was to give admission to Theodoret, who had +been deposed at the Latrocinium. The Imperial officers present urged his +admission, on the ground that "the most holy Archbishop Leo hath +restored him to the Episcopal office, and the most pious Emperor hath +ordered that he should assist at the holy Council."<a name="FNanchor_308:4_285" id="FNanchor_308:4_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_308:4_285" class="fnanchor">[308:4]</a></p> + +<p>Presently, a charge was brought forward against Dioscorus, that, though +the Legates had presented a letter from the Pope to the Council, it had +not been read. Dioscorus admitted not only the fact, but its relevancy; +but alleged in excuse that he had twice ordered it to be read in vain.</p> + +<p>In the course of the reading of the Acts of the Latrocinium and +Constantinople, a number of Bishops <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>moved from the side of Dioscorus +and placed themselves with the opposite party. When Peter, Bishop of +Corinth, crossed over, the Orientals whom he joined shouted, "Peter +thinks as does Peter; orthodox Bishop, welcome."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>In the second Session it was the duty of the Fathers to draw up a +confession of faith condemnatory of the heresy. A committee was formed +for the purpose, and the Creed of Nicæa and Constantinople was read; +then some of the Epistles of St. Cyril; lastly, St. Leo's Tome, which +had been passed over in silence at the Latrocinium. Some discussion +followed upon the last of these documents, but at length the Bishops +cried out, "This is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the +Apostles: we all believe thus; the orthodox believe thus; anathema to +him who does not believe thus. Peter has thus spoken through Leo; the +Apostles taught thus." Readings from the other Fathers followed; and +then some days were allowed for private discussion, before drawing up +the confession of faith which was to set right the heterodoxy of the +Latrocinium.</p> + +<p>During the interval, Dioscorus was tried and condemned; sentence was +pronounced against him by the Pope's Legates, and ran thus: "The most +holy Archbishop of Rome, Leo, through us and this present Council, with +the Apostle St. Peter, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic +Church and of the orthodox faith, deprives him of the Episcopal dignity +and every sacerdotal ministry."</p> + +<p>In the fourth Session the question of the definition of faith came on +again, but the Council got no further than this, that it received the +definitions of the three previous Ecumenical Councils; it would not add +to them what Leo required. One hundred and sixty Bishops however +subscribed his Tome.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>13.</p> + +<p>In the fifth Session the question came on once more; some sort of +definition of faith was the result of the labours of the committee, and +was accepted by the great majority of the Council. The Bishops cried +out, "We are all satisfied with the definition; it is the faith of the +Fathers: anathema to him who thinks otherwise: drive out the +Nestorians." When objectors appeared, Anatolius, the new Patriarch of +Constantinople, asked "Did not every one yesterday consent to the +definition of faith?" on which the Bishops answered, "Every one +consented; we do not believe otherwise; it is the Faith of the Fathers; +let it be set down that Holy Mary is the Mother of God: let this be +added to the Creed; put out the Nestorians."<a name="FNanchor_310:1_286" id="FNanchor_310:1_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_310:1_286" class="fnanchor">[310:1]</a> The objectors were +the Pope's Legates, supported by a certain number of Orientals: those +clear-sighted, firm-minded Latins understood full well what and what +alone was the true expression of orthodox doctrine under the emergency +of the existing heresy. They had been instructed to induce the Council +to pass a declaration to the effect, that Christ was not only "of," but +"in" two natures. However, they did not enter upon disputation on the +point, but they used a more intelligible argument: If the Fathers did +not consent to the letter of the blessed Bishop Leo, they would leave +the Council and go home. The Imperial officers took the part of the +Legates. The Council however persisted: "Every one approved the +definition; let it be subscribed: he who refuses to subscribe it is a +heretic." They even proceeded to refer it to Divine inspiration. The +officers asked if they received St. Leo's Tome; they answered that they +had subscribed it, but that they would not introduce its contents into +their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>definition of faith. "We are for no other definition," they said; +"nothing is wanting in this."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">14.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding, the Pope's Legates gained their point through the +support of the Emperor Marcian, who had succeeded Theodosius. A fresh +committee was obtained under the threat that, if they resisted, the +Council should be transferred to the West. Some voices were raised +against this measure; the cries were repeated against the Roman party, +"They are Nestorians; let them go to Rome." The Imperial officers +remonstrated, "Dioscorus said, 'Of two natures;' Leo says, 'Two +natures:' which will you follow, Leo or Dioscorus?" On their answering +"Leo," they continued, "Well then, add to the definition, according to +the judgment of our most holy Leo." Nothing more was to be said. The +committee immediately proceeded to their work, and in a short time +returned to the assembly with such a definition as the Pope required. +After reciting the Creed of Nicæa and Constantinople, it observes, "This +Creed were sufficient for the perfect knowledge of religion, but the +enemies of the truth have invented novel expressions;" and therefore it +proceeds to state the faith more explicitly. When this was read through, +the Bishops all exclaimed, "This is the faith of the Fathers; we all +follow it." And thus ended the controversy once for all.</p> + +<p>The Council, after its termination, addressed a letter to St. Leo; in it +the Fathers acknowledge him as "constituted interpreter of the voice of +Blessed Peter,"<a name="FNanchor_311:1_287" id="FNanchor_311:1_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_311:1_287" class="fnanchor">[311:1]</a> (with an allusion to St. Peter's Confession in +Matthew xvi.,) and speak of him as "the very one commissioned with the +guardianship of the Vine by the Saviour."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>15.</p> + +<p>Such is the external aspect of those proceedings by which the Catholic +faith has been established in Christendom against the Monophysites. That +the definition passed at Chalcedon is the Apostolic Truth once delivered +to the Saints is most firmly to be received, from faith in that +overruling Providence which is by special promise extended over the acts +of the Church; moreover, that it is in simple accordance with the faith +of St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and all the other Fathers, +will be evident to the theological student in proportion as he becomes +familiar with their works: but the historical account of the Council is +this, that a formula which the Creed did not contain, which the Fathers +did not unanimously witness, and which some eminent Saints had almost in +set terms opposed, which the whole East refused as a symbol, not once, +but twice, patriarch by patriarch, metropolitan by metropolitan, first +by the mouth of above a hundred, then by the mouth of above six hundred +of its Bishops, and refused upon the grounds of its being an addition to +the Creed, was forced upon the Council, not indeed as being such an +addition, yet, on the other hand, not for subscription merely, but for +acceptance as a definition of faith under the sanction of an +anathema,—forced on the Council by the resolution of the Pope of the +day, acting through his Legates and supported by the civil power.<a name="FNanchor_312:1_288" id="FNanchor_312:1_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_312:1_288" class="fnanchor">[312:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">16.</p> + +<p>It cannot be supposed that such a transaction would approve itself to +the Churches of Egypt, and the event showed it: they disowned the +authority of the Council, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>and called its adherents +Chalcedonians,<a name="FNanchor_313:1_289" id="FNanchor_313:1_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_313:1_289" class="fnanchor">[313:1]</a> and Synodites.<a name="FNanchor_313:2_290" id="FNanchor_313:2_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_313:2_290" class="fnanchor">[313:2]</a> For here was the West +tyrannizing over the East, forcing it into agreement with itself, +resolved to have one and one only form of words, rejecting the +definition of faith which the East had drawn up in Council, bidding it +and making it frame another, dealing peremptorily and sternly with the +assembled Bishops, and casting contempt on the most sacred traditions of +Egypt! What was Eutyches to them? He might be guilty or innocent; they +gave him up: Dioscorus had given him up at Chalcedon;<a name="FNanchor_313:3_291" id="FNanchor_313:3_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_313:3_291" class="fnanchor">[313:3]</a> they did +not agree with him:<a name="FNanchor_313:4_292" id="FNanchor_313:4_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_313:4_292" class="fnanchor">[313:4]</a> he was an extreme man; they would not call +themselves by human titles; they were not Eutychians; Eutyches was not +their master, but Athanasius and Cyril were their doctors.<a name="FNanchor_313:5_293" id="FNanchor_313:5_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_313:5_293" class="fnanchor">[313:5]</a> The +two great lights of their Church, the two greatest and most successful +polemical Fathers that Christianity had seen, had both pronounced "One +Nature Incarnate," though allowing Two before the Incarnation; and +though Leo and his Council had not gone so far as to deny this phrase, +they had proceeded to say what was the contrary to it, to explain away, +to overlay the truth, by defining that the Incarnate Saviour was "in Two +Natures." At Ephesus it had been declared that the Creed should not be +touched; the Chalcedonian Fathers had, not literally, but virtually +added to it: by subscribing Leo's Tome, and promulgating their +definition of faith, they had added what might be called, "The Creed of +Pope Leo."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">17.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable, as has been just stated, that Dioscorus, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>wicked man +as he was in act, was of the moderate or middle school in doctrine, as +the violent and able Severus after him; and from the first the great +body of the protesting party disowned Eutyches, whose form of the heresy +took refuge in Armenia, where it remains to this day. The Armenians +alone were pure Eutychians, and so zealously such that they innovated on +the ancient and recognized custom of mixing water with the wine in the +Holy Eucharist, and consecrated the wine by itself in token of the one +nature, as they considered, of the Christ. Elsewhere both name and +doctrine of Eutyches were abjured; the heretical bodies in Egypt and +Syria took a title from their special tenet, and formed the Monophysite +communion. Their theology was at once simple and specious. They based it +upon the illustration which is familiar to us in the Athanasian Creed, +and which had been used by St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril, St. +Augustine, Vincent of Lerins, not to say St. Leo himself. They argued +that as body and soul made up one man, so God and man made up but one, +though one compound Nature, in Christ. It might have been charitably +hoped that their difference from the Catholics had been a simple matter +of words, as it is allowed by Vigilius of Thapsus really to have been in +many cases; but their refusal to obey the voice of the Church was a +token of real error in their faith, and their implicit heterodoxy is +proved by their connexion, in spite of themselves, with the extreme or +ultra party whom they so vehemently disowned.</p> + +<p>It is very observable that, ingenious as is their theory and sometimes +perplexing to a disputant, the Monophysites never could shake themselves +free of the Eutychians; and though they could draw intelligible lines on +paper between the two doctrines, yet in fact by a hidden fatality their +partisans were ever running into or forming alliance with the +anathematized extreme. Thus Peter the Fuller <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>the Theopaschite +(Eutychian), is at one time in alliance with Peter the Stammerer, who +advocated the Henoticon (which was Monophysite). The Acephali, though +separating from the latter Peter for that advocacy, and accused by +Leontius of being Gaianites<a name="FNanchor_315:1_294" id="FNanchor_315:1_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_315:1_294" class="fnanchor">[315:1]</a> (Eutychians), are considered by +Facundus as Monophysites.<a name="FNanchor_315:2_295" id="FNanchor_315:2_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_315:2_295" class="fnanchor">[315:2]</a> Timothy the Cat, who is said to have +agreed with Dioscorus and Peter the Stammerer, who signed the Henoticon, +that is, with two Monophysite Patriarchs, is said nevertheless, +according to Anastasius, to have maintained the extreme tenet, that "the +Divinity is the sole nature of Christ."<a name="FNanchor_315:3_296" id="FNanchor_315:3_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_315:3_296" class="fnanchor">[315:3]</a> Severus, according to +Anastasius,<a href="#Footnote_315:3_296" class="fnanchor">[315:3]</a> symbolized with the Phantasiasts (Eutychians), yet he +is more truly, according to Leontius, the chief doctor and leader of the +Monophysites. And at one time there was an union, though temporary, +between the Theodosians (Monophysites) and the Gaianites.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">18.</p> + +<p>Such a division of an heretical party, into the maintainers, of an +extreme and a moderate view, perspicuous and plausible on paper, yet in +fact unreal, impracticable, and hopeless, was no new phenomenon in the +history of the Church. As Eutyches put forward an extravagant tenet, +which was first corrected into the Monophysite, and then relapsed +hopelessly into the doctrine of the Phantasiasts and the Theopaschites, +so had Arius been superseded by the Eusebians and had revived in +Eunomius; and as the moderate Eusebians had formed the great body of the +dissentients from the Nicene Council, so did the Monophysites include +the mass of those who protested against Chalcedon; and as the Eusebians +had been moderate in creed, yet unscrupulous in act, so were the +Monophysites. And <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>as the Eusebians were ever running individually into +pure Arianism, so did the Monophysites run into pure Eutychianism. And +as the Monophysites set themselves against Pope Leo, so had the +Eusebians, with even less provocation, withstood and complained of Pope +Julius. In like manner, the Apollinarians had divided into two sects; +one, with Timotheus, going the whole length of the inferences which the +tenet of their master involved, and the more cautious or timid party +making an unintelligible stand with Valentinus. Again, in the history of +Nestorianism, though it admitted less opportunity for division of +opinion, the See of Rome was with St. Cyril in one extreme, Nestorius in +the other, and between them the great Eastern party, headed by John of +Antioch and Theodoret, not heretical, but for a time dissatisfied with +the Council of Ephesus.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">19.</p> + +<p>The Nestorian heresy, I have said, gave less opportunity for doctrinal +varieties than the heresy of Eutyches. Its spirit was rationalizing, and +had the qualities which go with rationalism. When cast out of the Roman +Empire, it addressed itself, as we have seen, to a new and rich field of +exertion, got possession of an Established Church, co-operated with the +civil government, adopted secular fashions, and, by whatever means, +pushed itself out into an Empire. Apparently, though it requires a very +intimate knowledge of its history to speak except conjecturally, it was +a political power rather than a dogma, and despised the science of +theology. Eutychianism, on the other hand, was mystical, severe, +enthusiastic; with the exception of Severus, and one or two more, it was +supported by little polemical skill; it had little hold upon the +intellectual Greeks of Syria and Asia Minor, but flourished in Egypt, +which was far behind the East in civilization, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>and among the native +Syrians. Nestorianism, like Arianism<a name="FNanchor_317:1_297" id="FNanchor_317:1_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_317:1_297" class="fnanchor">[317:1]</a> before it, was a cold +religion, and more fitted for the schools than for the many; but the +Monophysites carried the people with them. Like modern Jansenism, and +unlike Nestorianism, the Monophysites were famous for their austerities. +They have, or had, five Lents in the year, during which laity as well as +clergy abstain not only from flesh and eggs, but from wine, oil, and +fish.<a name="FNanchor_317:2_298" id="FNanchor_317:2_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_317:2_298" class="fnanchor">[317:2]</a> Monachism was a characteristic part of their ecclesiastical +system: their Bishops, and Maphrian or Patriarch, were always taken from +the Monks, who are even said to have worn an iron shirt or breastplate +as a part of their monastic habit.<a name="FNanchor_317:3_299" id="FNanchor_317:3_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_317:3_299" class="fnanchor">[317:3]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">20.</p> + +<p>Severus, Patriarch of Antioch at the end of the fifth century, has +already been mentioned as an exception to the general character of the +Monophysites, and, by his learning and ability, may be accounted the +founder of its theology. Their cause, however, had been undertaken by +the Emperors themselves before him. For the first thirty years after the +Council of Chalcedon, the protesting Church of Egypt had been the scene +of continued tumult and bloodshed. Dioscorus had been popular with the +people for his munificence, in spite of the extreme laxity of his +morals, and for a while the Imperial Government failed in obtaining the +election of a Catholic successor. At length Proterius, a man of fair +character, and the Vicar-general of Dioscorus on his absence at +Chalcedon, was chosen, consecrated, and enthroned; but the people rose +against the civil authorities, and the military, coming <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>to their +defence, were attacked with stones, and pursued into a church, where +they were burned alive by the mob. Next, the popular leaders prepared to +intercept the supplies of grain which were destined for Constantinople; +and, a defensive retaliation taking place, Alexandria was starved. Then +a force of two thousand men was sent for the restoration of order, who +permitted themselves in scandalous excesses towards the women of +Alexandria. Proterius's life was attempted, and he was obliged to be +attended by a guard. The Bishops of Egypt would not submit to him; two +of his own clergy, who afterward succeeded him, Timothy and Peter, +seceded, and were joined by four or five of the Bishops and by the mass +of the population;<a name="FNanchor_318:1_300" id="FNanchor_318:1_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_318:1_300" class="fnanchor">[318:1]</a> and the Catholic Patriarch was left without a +communion in Alexandria. He held a council, and condemned the +schismatics; and the Emperor, seconding his efforts, sent them out of +the country, and enforced the laws against the Eutychians. An external +quiet succeeded; then Marcian died; and then forthwith Timothy (the Cat) +made his appearance again, first in Egypt, then in Alexandria. The +people rose in his favour, and carried in triumph their persecuted +champion to the great Cæsarean Church, where he was consecrated +Patriarch by two deprived Bishops, who had been put out of their sees, +whether by a Council of Egypt or of Palestine.<a name="FNanchor_318:2_301" id="FNanchor_318:2_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_318:2_301" class="fnanchor">[318:2]</a> Timothy, now +raised to the Episcopal rank, began to create a new succession; he +ordained Bishops for the Churches of Egypt, and drove into exile those +who were in possession. The Imperial troops, who had been stationed in +Upper Egypt, returned to Alexandria; the mob rose again, broke into the +Church, where St. Proterius was in prayer, and murdered him. A general +ejectment of the Catholic clergy throughout Egypt followed. On their +betaking themselves to Constantinople to the new Emperor, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>Timothy and +his party addressed him also. They quoted the Fathers, and demanded the +abrogation of the Council of Chalcedon. Next they demanded a conference; +the Catholics said that what was once done could not be undone; their +opponents agreed to this and urged it, as their very argument against +Chalcedon, that it added to the faith, and reversed former +decisions.<a name="FNanchor_319:1_302" id="FNanchor_319:1_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_319:1_302" class="fnanchor">[319:1]</a> After a rule of three years, Timothy was driven out +and Catholicism restored; but then in turn the Monophysites rallied, and +this state of warfare and alternate success continued for thirty years.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">21.</p> + +<p>At length the Imperial Government, wearied out with a dispute which was +interminable, came to the conclusion that the only way of restoring +peace to the Church was to abandon the Council of Chalcedon. In the year +482 was published the famous <i>Henoticon</i> or Pacification of Zeno, in +which the Emperor took upon himself to determine a matter of faith. The +Henoticon declared that no symbol of faith but that of the Nicene Creed, +commonly so called, should be received in the Churches; it anathematized +the opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, and it was silent on +the question of the "One" or "Two Natures" after the Incarnation. This +middle measure had the various effects which might be anticipated. It +united the great body of the Eastern Bishops, who readily relaxed into +the vague profession of doctrine from which they had been roused by the +authority of St. Leo. All the Eastern Bishops signed this Imperial +formulary. But this unanimity of the East was purchased by a breach with +the West; for the Popes cut off the communication between Greeks and +Latins for thirty-five years. On the other hand, the more zealous +Monophysites, disgusted at their leaders for accepting what they +considered an unjustifiable compromise, split off from <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>the Eastern +Churches, and formed a sect by themselves, which remained without +Bishops (<i>acephali</i>) for three hundred years, when at length they were +received back into the communion of the Catholic Church.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">22.</p> + +<p>Dreary and waste was the condition of the Church, and forlorn her +prospects, at the period which we have been reviewing. After the brief +triumph which attended the conversion of Constantine, trouble and trial +had returned upon her. Her imperial protectors were failing in power or +in faith. Strange forms of evil were rising in the distance and were +thronging for the conflict. There was but one spot in the whole of +Christendom, one voice in the whole Episcopate, to which the faithful +turned in hope in that miserable day. In the year 493, in the +Pontificate of Gelasius, the whole of the East was in the hands of +traitors to Chalcedon, and the whole of the West under the tyranny of +the open enemies of Nicæa. Italy was the prey of robbers; mercenary +bands had overrun its territory, and barbarians were seizing on its +farms and settling in its villas. The peasants were thinned by famine +and pestilence; Tuscany might be even said, as Gelasius words it, to +contain scarcely a single inhabitant.<a name="FNanchor_320:1_303" id="FNanchor_320:1_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_320:1_303" class="fnanchor">[320:1]</a> Odoacer was sinking before +Theodoric, and the Pope was changing one Arian master for another. And +as if one heresy were not enough, Pelagianism was spreading with the +connivance of the Bishops in the territory of Picenum. In the North of +the dismembered Empire, the Britons had first been infected by +Pelagianism, and now were dispossessed by the heathen Saxons. The +Armoricans still preserved a witness of Catholicism in the West of Gaul; +but Picardy, Champagne, and the neighbouring provinces, where some +remnant of its supremacy had been found, had lately <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>submitted to the +yet heathen Clovis. The Arian kingdoms of Burgundy in France, and of the +Visigoths in Aquitaine and Spain, oppressed a zealous and Catholic +clergy, Africa was in still more deplorable condition under the cruel +sway of the Vandal Gundamond: the people indeed uncorrupted by the +heresy,<a name="FNanchor_321:1_304" id="FNanchor_321:1_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_321:1_304" class="fnanchor">[321:1]</a> but their clergy in exile and their worship suspended. +While such was the state of the Latins, what had happened in the East? +Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, had secretly taken part +against the Council of Chalcedon and was under Papal excommunication. +Nearly the whole East had sided with Acacius, and a schism had begun +between East and West, which lasted, as I have above stated, for +thirty-five years. The Henoticon was in force, and at the Imperial +command had been signed by all the Patriarchs and Bishops throughout the +Eastern Empire.<a name="FNanchor_321:2_305" id="FNanchor_321:2_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_321:2_305" class="fnanchor">[321:2]</a> In Armenia the Churches were ripening for the +pure Eutychianism which they adopted in the following century; and in +Egypt the Acephali, already separated from the Monophysite Patriarch, +were extending in the east and west of the country, and preferred the +loss of the Episcopal Succession to the reception of the Council of +Chalcedon. And while Monophysites or their favourers occupied the +Churches of the Eastern Empire, Nestorianism was making progress in the +territories beyond it. Barsumas had held the See of Nisibis, Theodore +was read in the schools of Persia, and the successive Catholici of +Seleucia had abolished Monachism and were secularizing the clergy.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">23.</p> + +<p>If then there is now a form of Christianity such, that it extends +throughout the world, though with varying measures of prominence or +prosperity in separate places;—that it lies under the power of +sovereigns and magistrates, in various ways alien to its faith;—that +flourishing nations <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>and great empires, professing or tolerating the +Christian name, lie over against it as antagonists;—that schools of +philosophy and learning are supporting theories, and following out +conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an exegetical system +subversive of its Scriptures;—that it has lost whole Churches by +schism, and is now opposed by powerful communions once part of +itself;—that it has been altogether or almost driven from some +countries;—that in others its line of teachers is overlaid, its flocks +oppressed, its Churches occupied, its property held by what may be +called a duplicate succession;—that in others its members are +degenerate and corrupt, and are surpassed in conscientiousness and in +virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very heretics whom it +condemns;—that heresies are rife and bishops negligent within its own +pale;—and that amid its disorders and its fears there is but one Voice +for whose decisions the peoples wait with trust, one Name and one See to +which they look with hope, and that name Peter, and that see Rome;—such +a religion is not unlike the Christianity of the fifth and sixth +Centuries.<a name="FNanchor_322:1_306" id="FNanchor_322:1_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_322:1_306" class="fnanchor">[322:1]</a></p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208:1_125" id="Footnote_208:1_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208:1_125"><span class="label">[208:1]</span></a> [This juxtaposition of names has been strangely +distorted by critics. In the intention of the author, Guizot matched +with Pliny, not with Frederick.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213:1_126" id="Footnote_213:1_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213:1_126"><span class="label">[213:1]</span></a> Vid. Muller de Hierarch. et Ascetic. Warburton, Div. +Leg. ii. 4. Selden de Diis Syr. Acad. des Inscript. t. 3, hist. p. 296, +t. 5, mem. p. 63, t. 16, mem. p. 267. Lucian. Pseudomant. Cod. Theod. +ix. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214:1_127" id="Footnote_214:1_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214:1_127"><span class="label">[214:1]</span></a> Acad. t. 16. mem. p. 274.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215:1_128" id="Footnote_215:1_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215:1_128"><span class="label">[215:1]</span></a> Apol. 25. Vid. also Prudent. in hon. Romani, circ. fin. +and Lucian de Deo Syr. 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215:2_129" id="Footnote_215:2_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215:2_129"><span class="label">[215:2]</span></a> Vid. also the scene in Jul. Firm. p. 449.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216:1_130" id="Footnote_216:1_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216:1_130"><span class="label">[216:1]</span></a> Tac. Ann. ii. 85; Sueton. Tiber. 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216:2_131" id="Footnote_216:2_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216:2_131"><span class="label">[216:2]</span></a> August. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216:3_132" id="Footnote_216:3_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216:3_132"><span class="label">[216:3]</span></a> De Superst. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216:4_133" id="Footnote_216:4_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216:4_133"><span class="label">[216:4]</span></a> De Art. Am. i. init.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217:1_134" id="Footnote_217:1_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217:1_134"><span class="label">[217:1]</span></a> Sat. iii. vi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217:2_135" id="Footnote_217:2_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217:2_135"><span class="label">[217:2]</span></a> Tertul. Ap. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218:1_136" id="Footnote_218:1_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218:1_136"><span class="label">[218:1]</span></a> Vit. Hel. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219:1_137" id="Footnote_219:1_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219:1_137"><span class="label">[219:1]</span></a> Vid. Tillemont, Mem. and Lardner's Hist. Heretics.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221:1_138" id="Footnote_221:1_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221:1_138"><span class="label">[221:1]</span></a> Bampton Lect. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222:1_139" id="Footnote_222:1_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222:1_139"><span class="label">[222:1]</span></a> Burton, Bampton Lect. note 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223:1_140" id="Footnote_223:1_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223:1_140"><span class="label">[223:1]</span></a> Burton, Bampton Lect. note 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223:2_141" id="Footnote_223:2_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223:2_141"><span class="label">[223:2]</span></a> Montfaucon, Antiq. t. ii. part 2, p. 353.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223:3_142" id="Footnote_223:3_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223:3_142"><span class="label">[223:3]</span></a> Hær. i. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223:4_143" id="Footnote_223:4_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223:4_143"><span class="label">[223:4]</span></a> De Præscr. 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225:1_144" id="Footnote_225:1_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225:1_144"><span class="label">[225:1]</span></a> Vid. Kortholt, in Plin. et Traj. Epp. p. 152. Comment. +in Minuc. F. &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228:1_145" id="Footnote_228:1_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228:1_145"><span class="label">[228:1]</span></a> "Itaque imposuistis in cervicibus nostris sempiternum +dominum, quem dies et noctes timeremus; quis enim non timeat omnia +providentem et cogitantem et animadvertentem, et omnia ad se pertinere +putantem, curiosum, et plenum negotii Deum?"—<i>Cic. de Nat. Deor.</i> i. +20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228:2_146" id="Footnote_228:2_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228:2_146"><span class="label">[228:2]</span></a> Min. c. 11. Lact. v. 1, 2, vid. Arnob. ii. 8, &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228:3_147" id="Footnote_228:3_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228:3_147"><span class="label">[228:3]</span></a> Origen, contr. Cels. i. 9, iii. 44, 50, vi. 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229:1_148" id="Footnote_229:1_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229:1_148"><span class="label">[229:1]</span></a> Prudent. in hon. Fruct. 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229:2_149" id="Footnote_229:2_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229:2_149"><span class="label">[229:2]</span></a> Evan. Dem. iii. 3, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229:3_150" id="Footnote_229:3_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229:3_150"><span class="label">[229:3]</span></a> Mort. Peregr. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229:4_151" id="Footnote_229:4_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229:4_151"><span class="label">[229:4]</span></a> c. 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229:5_152" id="Footnote_229:5_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229:5_152"><span class="label">[229:5]</span></a> i. e. Philop. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229:6_153" id="Footnote_229:6_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229:6_153"><span class="label">[229:6]</span></a> De Mort. Pereg. ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229:7_154" id="Footnote_229:7_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229:7_154"><span class="label">[229:7]</span></a> Ruin. Mart. pp. 100, 594, &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230:1_155" id="Footnote_230:1_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230:1_155"><span class="label">[230:1]</span></a> Prud. in hon. Rom. vv. 404, 868.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230:2_156" id="Footnote_230:2_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230:2_156"><span class="label">[230:2]</span></a> We have specimens of <i>carmina</i> ascribed to Christians +in the Philopatris.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230:3_157" id="Footnote_230:3_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230:3_157"><span class="label">[230:3]</span></a> Goth. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 120, ed. 1665. Again, "Qui +malefici vulgi consuetudine nuncupantur." Leg. 6. So Lactantius, "Magi +et ii quos verè maleficos vulgus appellat." Inst. ii. 17. "Quos et +maleficos vulgus appellat." August. Civ. Dei, x. 19. "Quos vulgus +mathematicos vocat." Hieron. in Dan. c. ii. Vid. Gothof. in loc. Other +laws speak of those who were "maleficiorum labe polluti," and of the +"maleficiorum scabies."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230:4_158" id="Footnote_230:4_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230:4_158"><span class="label">[230:4]</span></a> Tertullian too mentions the charge of "hostes principum +Romanorum, populi, generis humani, Deorum, Imperatorum, legum, morum, +naturæ totius inimici." Apol. 2, 35, 38, ad. Scap. 4, ad. Nat. i. 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231:1_159" id="Footnote_231:1_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231:1_159"><span class="label">[231:1]</span></a> Evid. part ii. ch. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232:1_160" id="Footnote_232:1_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232:1_160"><span class="label">[232:1]</span></a> Heathen Test. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233:1_161" id="Footnote_233:1_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233:1_161"><span class="label">[233:1]</span></a> Gothof. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233:2_162" id="Footnote_233:2_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233:2_162"><span class="label">[233:2]</span></a> Cic. pro Cluent. 61. Gieseler transl. vol. i. p. 21, +note 5. Acad. Inscr. t. 34, hist. p. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234:1_163" id="Footnote_234:1_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234:1_163"><span class="label">[234:1]</span></a> De Harusp. Resp. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234:2_164" id="Footnote_234:2_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234:2_164"><span class="label">[234:2]</span></a> De Legg. ii. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234:3_165" id="Footnote_234:3_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234:3_165"><span class="label">[234:3]</span></a> Acad. Inscr. ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234:4_166" id="Footnote_234:4_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234:4_166"><span class="label">[234:4]</span></a> Neander, Eccl. Hist. tr. vol. i. p. 81.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234:5_167" id="Footnote_234:5_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234:5_167"><span class="label">[234:5]</span></a> Muller, p. 21, 22, 30. Tertull. Ox. tr. p. 12, note +<i>p</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235:1_168" id="Footnote_235:1_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235:1_168"><span class="label">[235:1]</span></a> Gibbon, Hist. ch. 16, note 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235:2_169" id="Footnote_235:2_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235:2_169"><span class="label">[235:2]</span></a> Epit. Instit. 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236:1_170" id="Footnote_236:1_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236:1_170"><span class="label">[236:1]</span></a> Gibbon, ibid. Origen admits and defends the violation +of the laws: <ins class="greek" title="ouk alogon synthêkas para ta nenomismena poiein, +tas hyper halêtheias">οὐκ ἄλογον συνθήκας παρὰ τὰ νενομισμένα ποιεῖν, +τὰς ὑπὲρ ἁληθείας</ins>. c. Cels. i. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237:1_171" id="Footnote_237:1_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237:1_171"><span class="label">[237:1]</span></a> Hist. p. 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237:2_172" id="Footnote_237:2_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237:2_172"><span class="label">[237:2]</span></a> In hon. Rom. 62. In Act. S. Cypr. 4, Tert. Apol. 10, +&c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238:1_173" id="Footnote_238:1_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238:1_173"><span class="label">[238:1]</span></a> Apol. i. 3, 39, Oxf. tr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241:1_174" id="Footnote_241:1_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241:1_174"><span class="label">[241:1]</span></a> Julian ap. Cyril, pp. 39, 194, 206, 335. Epp. pp. 305, +429, 438, ed. Spanh.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242:1_175" id="Footnote_242:1_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242:1_175"><span class="label">[242:1]</span></a> Niebuhr ascribes it to the beginning of the tenth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245:1_176" id="Footnote_245:1_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245:1_176"><span class="label">[245:1]</span></a> Sirm. Opp. ii. p. 225, ed. Ven.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247:1_177" id="Footnote_247:1_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247:1_177"><span class="label">[247:1]</span></a> Proph. Office, p. 132 [Via Media, vol. i. p. 109].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247:2_178" id="Footnote_247:2_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247:2_178"><span class="label">[247:2]</span></a> [Since the publication of this volume in 1845, a writer +in a Conservative periodical of great name has considered that no +happier designation could be bestowed upon us than that which heathen +statesmen gave to the first Christians, "enemies of the human race." +What a remarkable witness to our identity with the Church of St. Paul +("a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition throughout the world"), of +St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and the other Martyrs! In this matter, +Conservative politicians join with Liberals, and with the movement +parties in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, in their view of +our religion. + +"The Catholics," says the <i>Quarterly Review</i> for January, 1873, pp. +181-2, "wherever they are numerous and powerful in a Protestant nation, +<i>compel</i> (sic) as it were by a law of their being, that nation to treat +them with stern repression and control. . . . Catholicism, if it be true to +itself, and its mission, <i>cannot</i> (sic) . . . wherever and whenever the +opportunity is afforded it, abstain from claiming, working for, and +grasping that supremacy and paramount influence and control, which it +conscientiously believes to be its inalienable and universal due. . . . By +the force of circumstances, by the inexorable logic of its claims, it +must be the intestine foe or the disturbing element of every state in +which it does not bear sway; and . . . it must now stand out in the +estimate of all Protestants, Patriots and Thinkers" (philosophers and +historians, as Tacitus?) "as the <i>hostis humani generis</i> (sic), &c."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254:1_179" id="Footnote_254:1_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254:1_179"><span class="label">[254:1]</span></a> De Præscr. Hær. 41, Oxf. tr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254:2_180" id="Footnote_254:2_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254:2_180"><span class="label">[254:2]</span></a> <ins class="greek" title="chronitai">χρονῖται</ins>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256:1_181" id="Footnote_256:1_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256:1_181"><span class="label">[256:1]</span></a> Cat. xviii. 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257:1_182" id="Footnote_257:1_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257:1_182"><span class="label">[257:1]</span></a> Contr. Ep. Manich. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257:2_183" id="Footnote_257:2_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257:2_183"><span class="label">[257:2]</span></a> Origen, Opp. t. i. p. 809.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258:1_184" id="Footnote_258:1_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258:1_184"><span class="label">[258:1]</span></a> Strom. vii. 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258:2_185" id="Footnote_258:2_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258:2_185"><span class="label">[258:2]</span></a> c. Tryph. 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258:3_186" id="Footnote_258:3_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258:3_186"><span class="label">[258:3]</span></a> Instit. 4. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259:1_187" id="Footnote_259:1_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259:1_187"><span class="label">[259:1]</span></a> Hær. 42, p. 366.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259:2_188" id="Footnote_259:2_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259:2_188"><span class="label">[259:2]</span></a> In Lucif. fin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259:3_189" id="Footnote_259:3_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259:3_189"><span class="label">[259:3]</span></a> The Oxford translation is used.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263:1_190" id="Footnote_263:1_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263:1_190"><span class="label">[263:1]</span></a> <i>Rationabilis</i>; apparently an allusion to the civil +officer called <i>Catholicus</i> or <i>Rationalis</i>, receiver-general.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263:2_191" id="Footnote_263:2_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263:2_191"><span class="label">[263:2]</span></a> Ad. Parm. ii. init.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264:1_192" id="Footnote_264:1_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264:1_192"><span class="label">[264:1]</span></a> De Unit. Eccles. 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265:1_193" id="Footnote_265:1_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265:1_193"><span class="label">[265:1]</span></a> Contr. Cresc. iv. 75; also iii. 77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266:1_194" id="Footnote_266:1_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266:1_194"><span class="label">[266:1]</span></a> Antiq. ii. 4, § 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267:1_195" id="Footnote_267:1_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267:1_195"><span class="label">[267:1]</span></a> Antiq. 5, § 3. [Bingham apparently in this passage is +indirectly replying to the Catholic argument for the Pope's Supremacy +drawn from the titles and acts ascribed to him in antiquity; but that +argument is cumulative in character, being part of a whole body of +proof; and there is moreover a great difference between a rhetorical +discourse and a synodal enunciation as at Chalcedon.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268:1_196" id="Footnote_268:1_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268:1_196"><span class="label">[268:1]</span></a> Ad Demetr. 4, &c. Oxf. Tr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268:2_197" id="Footnote_268:2_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268:2_197"><span class="label">[268:2]</span></a> Hist. ch. xv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269:1_198" id="Footnote_269:1_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269:1_198"><span class="label">[269:1]</span></a> De Unit. 5, 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269:2_199" id="Footnote_269:2_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269:2_199"><span class="label">[269:2]</span></a> Chrys. in Eph. iv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269:3_200" id="Footnote_269:3_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269:3_200"><span class="label">[269:3]</span></a> De Baptism. i. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269:4_201" id="Footnote_269:4_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269:4_201"><span class="label">[269:4]</span></a> c. Ep. Parm. i. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269:5_202" id="Footnote_269:5_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269:5_202"><span class="label">[269:5]</span></a> De Schism. Donat. i. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270:1_203" id="Footnote_270:1_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270:1_203"><span class="label">[270:1]</span></a> Cat. xvi. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270:2_204" id="Footnote_270:2_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270:2_204"><span class="label">[270:2]</span></a> De Fid. ad Petr. 39. [82.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270:3_205" id="Footnote_270:3_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270:3_205"><span class="label">[270:3]</span></a> [Of course this solemn truth must not be taken apart +from the words of the present Pope, Pius IX., concerning invincible +ignorance: "Notum nobis vobisque est, eos, qui invincibili circa +sanctissimam nostram religionem ignorantiâ laborant, quique naturalem +legem ejusque præcepta in omnium cordibus a Deo insculpta sedulo +servantes, ac Deo obedire parati, honestam rectamque vitam agunt, posse, +divinæ lucis et gratiæ operante virtute, æternam consequi vitam, cùm +Deus, qui omnium mentes, animos, cogitationes, habitusque planè +intuetur, scrutatur et noscit, pro summâ suâ bonitate et clementia, +minimè patiatur quempiam æternis puniri suppliciis, qui voluntariæ culpæ +reatum non habeat."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272:1_206" id="Footnote_272:1_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272:1_206"><span class="label">[272:1]</span></a> Epp. 43, 52, 57, 76, 105, 112, 141, 144.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276:1_207" id="Footnote_276:1_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276:1_207"><span class="label">[276:1]</span></a> De Gubern. Dei, vii. p. 142. Elsewhere, "Apud +Aquitanicos quæ civitas in locupletissimâ ac nobilissimâ sui parte non +quasi lupanar fuit? Quis potentum ac divitum non in luto libidinis +vixit? Haud multum matrona abest à vilitate servarum, ubi paterfamilias +ancillarum maritus est? Quis autem Aquitanorum divitum non hoc fuit?" +(pp. 134, 135.) "Offenduntur barbari ipsi impuritatibus nostris. Esse +inter Gothos non licet scortatorem Gothum; soli inter eos præjudicio +nationis ac nominis permittuntur impuri esse Romani" (p. 137). "Quid? +Hispanias nonne vel eadem vel majora forsitan vitia perdiderunt? . . . +Accessit hoc ad manifestandam illic impudicitiæ damnationem, ut Wandalis +potissimum, id est, pudicis barbaris traderentur" (p. 137). Of Africa +and Carthage, "In urbe Christianâ, in urbe ecclesiasticâ, . . . viri in +semetipsis feminas profitebantur," &c. (p. 152).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276:2_208" id="Footnote_276:2_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276:2_208"><span class="label">[276:2]</span></a> Dunham, Hist. Spain, vol. i. p. 112.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277:1_209" id="Footnote_277:1_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277:1_209"><span class="label">[277:1]</span></a> Aguirr. Concil. t. 2, p. 191.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277:2_210" id="Footnote_277:2_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277:2_210"><span class="label">[277:2]</span></a> Dunham, p. 125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277:3_211" id="Footnote_277:3_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277:3_211"><span class="label">[277:3]</span></a> Hist. Franc. iii. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277:4_212" id="Footnote_277:4_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277:4_212"><span class="label">[277:4]</span></a> Ch. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278:1_213" id="Footnote_278:1_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278:1_213"><span class="label">[278:1]</span></a> Greg. Dial. iii. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278:2_214" id="Footnote_278:2_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278:2_214"><span class="label">[278:2]</span></a> Ibid. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278:3_215" id="Footnote_278:3_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278:3_215"><span class="label">[278:3]</span></a> Gibbon, Hist. ch. 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279:1_216" id="Footnote_279:1_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279:1_216"><span class="label">[279:1]</span></a> De Glor. Mart. i. 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279:2_217" id="Footnote_279:2_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279:2_217"><span class="label">[279:2]</span></a> Ibid. 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279:3_218" id="Footnote_279:3_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279:3_218"><span class="label">[279:3]</span></a> Ibid. 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279:4_219" id="Footnote_279:4_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279:4_219"><span class="label">[279:4]</span></a> Vict. Vit. i. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280:1_220" id="Footnote_280:1_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280:1_220"><span class="label">[280:1]</span></a> De Gub. D. iv. p. 73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280:2_221" id="Footnote_280:2_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280:2_221"><span class="label">[280:2]</span></a> Ibid. v. p. 88.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280:3_222" id="Footnote_280:3_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280:3_222"><span class="label">[280:3]</span></a> Epp. i. 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280:4_223" id="Footnote_280:4_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280:4_223"><span class="label">[280:4]</span></a> Hist. vi. 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280:5_224" id="Footnote_280:5_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280:5_224"><span class="label">[280:5]</span></a> Cf. Assem. t. i. p. 351, not. 4, t. 3, p. 393.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280:6_225" id="Footnote_280:6_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280:6_225"><span class="label">[280:6]</span></a> Baron. Ann. 432, 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280:7_226" id="Footnote_280:7_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280:7_226"><span class="label">[280:7]</span></a> Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281:1_227" id="Footnote_281:1_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281:1_227"><span class="label">[281:1]</span></a> Baron. Ann. 471, 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281:2_228" id="Footnote_281:2_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281:2_228"><span class="label">[281:2]</span></a> Vict. Vit. iv. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281:3_229" id="Footnote_281:3_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281:3_229"><span class="label">[281:3]</span></a> Vict. Vit. ii. 3-15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282:1_230" id="Footnote_282:1_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282:1_230"><span class="label">[282:1]</span></a> Aguirr. Conc. t. 2, p. 262.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282:2_231" id="Footnote_282:2_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282:2_231"><span class="label">[282:2]</span></a> Aguirr. ibid. p. 232.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282:3_232" id="Footnote_282:3_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282:3_232"><span class="label">[282:3]</span></a> Theod. Hist. v. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282:4_233" id="Footnote_282:4_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282:4_233"><span class="label">[282:4]</span></a> c. Ruff. i. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283:1_234" id="Footnote_283:1_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283:1_234"><span class="label">[283:1]</span></a> Ep. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283:2_235" id="Footnote_283:2_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283:2_235"><span class="label">[283:2]</span></a> Ep. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284:1_236" id="Footnote_284:1_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284:1_236"><span class="label">[284:1]</span></a> Aug. Epp. 43. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286:1_237" id="Footnote_286:1_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286:1_237"><span class="label">[286:1]</span></a> Assem. iii. p. 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287:1_238" id="Footnote_287:1_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287:1_238"><span class="label">[287:1]</span></a> Ibid. t. 3, p. 84, note 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287:2_239" id="Footnote_287:2_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287:2_239"><span class="label">[287:2]</span></a> Wegnern, Proleg. in Theod. Opp. p. ix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287:3_240" id="Footnote_287:3_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287:3_240"><span class="label">[287:3]</span></a> De Ephrem Syr. p. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288:1_241" id="Footnote_288:1_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288:1_241"><span class="label">[288:1]</span></a> Lengerke, de Ephrem Syr. pp. 73-75.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289:1_242" id="Footnote_289:1_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289:1_242"><span class="label">[289:1]</span></a> <ins class="greek" title="despotou">δεσπότου</ins>, vid. La Croze, Thesaur. Ep. t. 3, § +145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289:2_243" id="Footnote_289:2_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289:2_243"><span class="label">[289:2]</span></a> Montf. Coll. Nov. t. 2, p. 227.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290:1_244" id="Footnote_290:1_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290:1_244"><span class="label">[290:1]</span></a> Rosenmuller, Hist. Interpr. t. 3, p. 278.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290:2_245" id="Footnote_290:2_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290:2_245"><span class="label">[290:2]</span></a> Lengerke, de Ephr. Syr. pp. 165-167.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290:3_246" id="Footnote_290:3_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290:3_246"><span class="label">[290:3]</span></a> Ernest. de Proph. Mess. p. 462.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291:1_247" id="Footnote_291:1_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291:1_247"><span class="label">[291:1]</span></a> Eccl. Theol. iii. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291:2_248" id="Footnote_291:2_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291:2_248"><span class="label">[291:2]</span></a> Professor Lee's Serm. Oct. 1838, pp. 144-152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291:3_249" id="Footnote_291:3_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291:3_249"><span class="label">[291:3]</span></a> Noris. Opp. t. 2, p. 112.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291:4_250" id="Footnote_291:4_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291:4_250"><span class="label">[291:4]</span></a> Augusti. Euseb. Em. Opp.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291:5_251" id="Footnote_291:5_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291:5_251"><span class="label">[291:5]</span></a> Asseman. Bibl. Or. p. cmxxv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291:6_252" id="Footnote_291:6_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291:6_252"><span class="label">[291:6]</span></a> Hoffman, Gram. Syr. Proleg. § 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291:7_253" id="Footnote_291:7_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291:7_253"><span class="label">[291:7]</span></a> The educated Persians were also acquainted with Syriac. +Assem. t. i. p. 351, not.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292:1_254" id="Footnote_292:1_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292:1_254"><span class="label">[292:1]</span></a> Asseman., p. lxx.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292:2_255" id="Footnote_292:2_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292:2_255"><span class="label">[292:2]</span></a> Euseb. Præp. vi. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292:3_256" id="Footnote_292:3_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292:3_256"><span class="label">[292:3]</span></a> Tillemont, Mem. t. 7, p. 77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293:1_257" id="Footnote_293:1_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293:1_257"><span class="label">[293:1]</span></a> Gibbon, ch. 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294:1_258" id="Footnote_294:1_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294:1_258"><span class="label">[294:1]</span></a> Asseman. p. lxxviii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294:2_259" id="Footnote_294:2_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294:2_259"><span class="label">[294:2]</span></a> Gibbon, ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294:3_260" id="Footnote_294:3_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294:3_260"><span class="label">[294:3]</span></a> Asseman. t. 2, p. 403, t. 3, p. 393.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295:1_261" id="Footnote_295:1_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295:1_261"><span class="label">[295:1]</span></a> Asseman. t. 3, p. 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296:1_262" id="Footnote_296:1_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296:1_262"><span class="label">[296:1]</span></a> Gibbon, ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296:2_263" id="Footnote_296:2_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296:2_263"><span class="label">[296:2]</span></a> Assem. p. lxxvi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296:3_264" id="Footnote_296:3_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296:3_264"><span class="label">[296:3]</span></a> Ibid. t. 3, p. 441.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297:1_265" id="Footnote_297:1_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297:1_265"><span class="label">[297:1]</span></a> Ch. 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298:1_266" id="Footnote_298:1_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298:1_266"><span class="label">[298:1]</span></a> Fleur. Hist. xxvii. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299:1_267" id="Footnote_299:1_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299:1_267"><span class="label">[299:1]</span></a> Gibbon, ch. 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300:1_268" id="Footnote_300:1_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300:1_268"><span class="label">[300:1]</span></a> Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301:1_269" id="Footnote_301:1_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301:1_269"><span class="label">[301:1]</span></a> Petav. de Incarn. iv. 6, § 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301:2_270" id="Footnote_301:2_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301:2_270"><span class="label">[301:2]</span></a> Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 168.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301:3_271" id="Footnote_301:3_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301:3_271"><span class="label">[301:3]</span></a> Vid. the Author's Athan. trans. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. pp. +331-333, 426-429, and on the general subject his Theol. Tracts, art. +v.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302:1_272" id="Footnote_302:1_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302:1_272"><span class="label">[302:1]</span></a> Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxvii. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302:2_273" id="Footnote_302:2_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302:2_273"><span class="label">[302:2]</span></a> Ibid. 41. In like manner, St. Athanasius in the +foregoing age had said, "The faith confessed at Nicæa by the Fathers, +according to the Scriptures, is sufficient for the overthrow of all +misbelief." ad Epict. init. Elsewhere, however, he explains his +statement, "The decrees of Nicæa are right and sufficient for the +overthrow of all heresy, <i>especially</i> the Arian," ad. Max. fin. St. +Gregory Nazianzen, in like manner, appeals to Nicæa; but he "adds an +explanation on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit which was left deficient +by the Fathers, because the question had not then been raised." Ep. 102, +init. This exclusive maintenance, and yet extension of the Creed, +according to the exigences of the times, is instanced in other Fathers. +Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. p. 82.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303:1_274" id="Footnote_303:1_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303:1_274"><span class="label">[303:1]</span></a> Fleury, ibid. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304:1_275" id="Footnote_304:1_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304:1_275"><span class="label">[304:1]</span></a> Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 141. [A negative is omitted in +the Greek, but inserted in the Latin.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304:2_276" id="Footnote_304:2_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304:2_276"><span class="label">[304:2]</span></a> Supr. p. 245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304:3_277" id="Footnote_304:3_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304:3_277"><span class="label">[304:3]</span></a> Ad Const. ii. 9. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. p. +261.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305:1_278" id="Footnote_305:1_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305:1_278"><span class="label">[305:1]</span></a> Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 162.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307:1_279" id="Footnote_307:1_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307:1_279"><span class="label">[307:1]</span></a> Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxvii. 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307:2_280" id="Footnote_307:2_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307:2_280"><span class="label">[307:2]</span></a> Ep. 116.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307:3_281" id="Footnote_307:3_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307:3_281"><span class="label">[307:3]</span></a> Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308:1_282" id="Footnote_308:1_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308:1_282"><span class="label">[308:1]</span></a> Ep. 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308:2_283" id="Footnote_308:2_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308:2_283"><span class="label">[308:2]</span></a> Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxviii. 17, note <i>l</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308:3_284" id="Footnote_308:3_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308:3_284"><span class="label">[308:3]</span></a> Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308:4_285" id="Footnote_308:4_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308:4_285"><span class="label">[308:4]</span></a> Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxviii. 2, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310:1_286" id="Footnote_310:1_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310:1_286"><span class="label">[310:1]</span></a> Ibid. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311:1_287" id="Footnote_311:1_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311:1_287"><span class="label">[311:1]</span></a> Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 656.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312:1_288" id="Footnote_312:1_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312:1_288"><span class="label">[312:1]</span></a> [Can any so grave an <i>ex parte</i> charge as this be urged +against the recent Vatican Council?]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313:1_289" id="Footnote_313:1_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313:1_289"><span class="label">[313:1]</span></a> I cannot find my reference for this fact; the sketch is +formed from notes made some years since, though I have now verified +them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313:2_290" id="Footnote_313:2_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313:2_290"><span class="label">[313:2]</span></a> Leont. de Sect. v. p. 512.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313:3_291" id="Footnote_313:3_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313:3_291"><span class="label">[313:3]</span></a> Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 99, vid. also p. 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313:4_292" id="Footnote_313:4_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313:4_292"><span class="label">[313:4]</span></a> Renaud. Patr. Alex. p. 115.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313:5_293" id="Footnote_313:5_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313:5_293"><span class="label">[313:5]</span></a> Assem. t. 2, pp. 133-137.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315:1_294" id="Footnote_315:1_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315:1_294"><span class="label">[315:1]</span></a> Leont. de Sect. vii. pp. 521, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315:2_295" id="Footnote_315:2_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315:2_295"><span class="label">[315:2]</span></a> Fac. i. 5, circ. init.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315:3_296" id="Footnote_315:3_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315:3_296"><span class="label">[315:3]</span></a> Hodeg. 20, p. 319.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317:1_297" id="Footnote_317:1_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317:1_297"><span class="label">[317:1]</span></a> <i>i. e.</i> Arianism in the East: "Sanctiores aures plebis +quam corda sunt sacerdotum." S. Hil. contr. Auxent. 6. It requires some +research to account for its hold on the barbarians. Vid. <i>supr.</i> pp. +274, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317:2_298" id="Footnote_317:2_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317:2_298"><span class="label">[317:2]</span></a> Gibbon, ch. 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317:3_299" id="Footnote_317:3_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317:3_299"><span class="label">[317:3]</span></a> Assem. t. 2, de Monoph. circ. fin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318:1_300" id="Footnote_318:1_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318:1_300"><span class="label">[318:1]</span></a> Leont. Sect. v. init.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318:2_301" id="Footnote_318:2_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318:2_301"><span class="label">[318:2]</span></a> Tillemont, t. 15, p. 784.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319:1_302" id="Footnote_319:1_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319:1_302"><span class="label">[319:1]</span></a> Tillemont, Mem. t. 15, pp. 790-811.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320:1_303" id="Footnote_320:1_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320:1_303"><span class="label">[320:1]</span></a> Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321:1_304" id="Footnote_321:1_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321:1_304"><span class="label">[321:1]</span></a> Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321:2_305" id="Footnote_321:2_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321:2_305"><span class="label">[321:2]</span></a> Gibbon, Hist. ch. 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322:1_306" id="Footnote_322:1_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322:1_306"><span class="label">[322:1]</span></a> [The above sketch has run to great length, yet it is +only part of what might be set down in evidence of the wonderful +identity of type which characterizes the Catholic Church from first to +last. I have confined myself for the most part to her political aspect; +but a parallel illustration might be drawn simply from her doctrinal, or +from her devotional. As to her devotional aspect, Cardinal Wiseman has +shown its identity in the fifth compared with the nineteenth century, in +an article of the <i>Dublin Review</i>, quoted in part in <i>Via Media</i>, vol. +ii. p. 378. Indeed it is confessed on all hands, as by Middleton, +Gibbon, &c., that from the time of Constantine to their own, the system +and the phenomena of worship in Christendom, from Moscow to Spain, and +from Ireland to Chili, is one and the same. I have myself paralleled +Medieval Europe with modern Belgium or Italy, in point of ethical +character in "Difficulties of Anglicans," vol. i. Lecture ix., referring +the identity to the operation of a principle, insisted on presently, the +Supremacy of Faith. And so again, as to the system of Catholic doctrine, +the type of the Religion remains the same, because it has developed +according to the "analogy of faith," as is observed in <i>Apol.</i>, p. 196, +"The idea of the Blessed Virgin was, as it were, <i>magnified</i> in the +Church of Rome, as time went on, but so were <i>all</i> the Christian ideas, +as that of the Blessed Eucharist," &c.]</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>APPLICATION OF THE SECOND NOTE OF A TRUE<br /> +DEVELOPMENT.</h3> + +<h4>CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES.</h4> + +<p>It appears then that there has been a certain general type of +Christianity in every age, by which it is known at first sight, +differing from itself only as what is young differs from what is mature, +or as found in Europe or in America, so that it is named at once and +without hesitation, as forms of nature are recognized by experts in +physical science; or as some work of literature or art is assigned to +its right author by the critic, difficult as may be the analysis of that +specific impression by which he is enabled to do so. And it appears that +this type has remained entire from first to last, in spite of that +process of development which seems to be attributed by all parties, for +good or bad, to the doctrines, rites, and usages in which Christianity +consists; or, in other words, that the changes which have taken place in +Christianity have not been such as to destroy that type,—that is, that +they are not corruptions, because they are consistent with that type. +Here then, in the <i>preservation of type</i>, we have a first Note of the +fidelity of the existing developments of Christianity. Let us now +proceed to a second.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. <i>The Principles of Christianity.</i></h4> + +<p>When developments in Christianity are spoken of, it is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>sometimes +supposed that they are deductions and diversions made at random, +according to accident or the caprice of individuals; whereas it is +because they have been conducted all along on definite and continuous +principles that the type of the Religion has remained from first to last +unalterable. What then are the principles under which the developments +have been made? I will enumerate some obvious ones.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>They must be many and positive, as well as obvious, if they are to be +effective; thus the Society of Friends seems in the course of years to +have changed its type in consequence of its scarcity of principles, a +fanatical spiritualism and an intense secularity, types simply contrary +to each other, being alike consistent with its main principle, "Forms of +worship are Antichristian." Christianity, on the other hand, has +principles so distinctive, numerous, various, and operative, as to be +unlike any other religious, ethical, or political system that the world +has ever seen, unlike, not only in character, but in persistence in that +character. I cannot attempt here to enumerate more than a few by way of +illustration.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>For the convenience of arrangement, I will consider the Incarnation the +central truth of the gospel, and the source whence we are to draw out +its principles. This great doctrine is unequivocally announced in +numberless passages of the New Testament, especially by St. John and St. +Paul; as is familiar to us all: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among +us, full of grace and truth." "That which was from the beginning, which +we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked +upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, that declare we +to you." "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>Christ, that, though +He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His +poverty might be rich." "Not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life +which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, +who loved me and gave Himself for me."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>In such passages as these we have</p> + +<p>1. The principle of <i>dogma</i>, that is, supernatural truths irrevocably +committed to human language, imperfect because it is human, but +definitive and necessary because given from above.</p> + +<p>2. The principle of <i>faith</i>, which is the correlative of dogma, being +the absolute acceptance of the divine Word with an internal assent, in +opposition to the informations, if such, of sight and reason.</p> + +<p>3. Faith, being an act of the intellect, opens a way for inquiry, +comparison and inference, that is, for science in religion, in +subservience to itself; this is the principle of <i>theology</i>.</p> + +<p>4. The doctrine of the Incarnation is the announcement of a divine gift +conveyed in a material and visible medium, it being thus that heaven and +earth are in the Incarnation united. That is, it establishes in the very +idea of Christianity the <i>sacramental</i> principle as its characteristic.</p> + +<p>5. Another principle involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation, viewed +as taught or as dogmatic, is the necessary use of language, e. g. of the +text of Scripture, in a second or <i>mystical sense</i>. Words must be made +to express new ideas, and are invested with a sacramental office.</p> + +<p>6. It is our Lord's intention in His Incarnation to make us what He is +Himself; this is the principle of <i>grace</i>, which is not only holy but +sanctifying.</p> + +<p>7. It cannot elevate and change us without mortifying our lower +nature:—here is the principle of <i>asceticism</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +8. And, involved in this death of the natural man, is necessarily a +revelation of the <i>malignity of sin</i>, in corroboration of the +forebodings of conscience.</p> + +<p>9. Also by the fact of an Incarnation we are taught that matter is an +essential part of us, and, as well as mind, is <i>capable of +sanctification</i>.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>Here are nine specimens of Christian principles out of the many<a name="FNanchor_326:1_307" id="FNanchor_326:1_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_326:1_307" class="fnanchor">[326:1]</a> +which might be enumerated, and will any one say that they have not been +retained in vigorous action in the Church at all times amid whatever +development of doctrine Christianity has experienced, so as even to be +the very instruments of that development, and as patent, and as +operative, in the Latin and Greek Christianity of this day as they were +in the beginning?</p> + +<p>This continuous identity of principles in ecclesiastical action has been +seen in part in treating of the Note of Unity of type, and will be seen +also in the Notes which follow; however, as some direct account of them, +in illustration, may be desirable, I will single out four as +specimens,—Faith, Theology, Scripture, and Dogma.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. <i>Supremacy of Faith.</i></h4> + +<p>This principle which, as we have already seen, was so great a jest to +Celsus and Julian, is of the following kind:—That <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>belief in +Christianity is in itself better than unbelief; that faith, though an +intellectual action, is ethical in its origin; that it is safer to +believe; that we must begin with believing; that as for the reasons of +believing, they are for the most part implicit, and need be but slightly +recognized by the mind that is under their influence; that they consist +moreover rather of presumptions and ventures after the truth than of +accurate and complete proofs; and that probable arguments, under the +scrutiny and sanction of a prudent judgment, are sufficient for +conclusions which we even embrace as most certain, and turn to the most +important uses.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Antagonistic to this is the principle that doctrines are only so far to +be considered true as they are logically demonstrated. This is the +assertion of Locke, who says in defence of it,—"Whatever God hath +revealed is certainly true; no doubt can be made of it. This is the +proper object of Faith; but, whether it be a divine revelation or no, +reason must judge." Now, if he merely means that proofs can be given for +Revelation, and that Reason comes in logical order before Faith, such a +doctrine is in no sense uncatholic; but he certainly holds that for an +individual to act on Faith without proof, or to make Faith a personal +principle of conduct for themselves, without waiting till they have got +their reasons accurately drawn out and serviceable for controversy, is +enthusiastic and absurd. "How a man may know whether he be [a lover of +truth for truth's sake] is worth inquiry; and I think there is this one +unerring mark of it, viz. the not entertaining any proposition with +greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon, will warrant. +Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain, receives not +truth in the love of it; loves not truth for truth's sake, but for some +other by-end."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>3.</p> + +<p>It does not seem to have struck him that our "by-end" may be the desire +to please our Maker, and that the defect of scientific proof may be made +up to our reason by our love of Him. It does not seem to have struck him +that such a philosophy as his cut off from the possibility and the +privilege of faith all but the educated few, all but the learned, the +clear-headed, the men of practised intellects and balanced minds, men +who had leisure, who had opportunities of consulting others, and kind +and wise friends to whom they deferred. How could a religion ever be +Catholic, if it was to be called credulity or enthusiasm in the +multitude to use those ready instruments of belief, which alone +Providence had put into their power? On such philosophy as this, were it +generally received, no great work ever would have been done for God's +glory and the welfare of man. The "enthusiasm" against which Locke +writes may do much harm, and act at times absurdly; but calculation +never made a hero. However, it is not to our present purpose to examine +this theory, and I have done so elsewhere.<a name="FNanchor_328:1_308" id="FNanchor_328:1_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_328:1_308" class="fnanchor">[328:1]</a> Here I have but to +show the unanimity of Catholics, ancient as well as modern, in their +absolute rejection of it.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>For instance, it is the very objection urged by Celsus, that Christians +were but parallel to the credulous victims of jugglers or of devotees, +who itinerated through the pagan population. He says "that some do not +even wish to give or to receive a reason for their faith, but say, 'Do +not inquire but believe,' and 'Thy faith will save thee;' and 'A bad +thing is the world's wisdom, and foolishness is a good.'" How does +Origen answer the charge? by <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>denying the fact, and speaking of the +reason of each individual as demonstrating the divinity of the +Scriptures, and Faith as coming after that argumentative process, as it +is now popular to maintain? Far from it; he grants the fact alleged +against the Church and defends it. He observes that, considering the +engagements and the necessary ignorance of the multitude of men, it is a +very happy circumstance that a substitute is provided for those +philosophical exercises, which Christianity allows and encourages, but +does not impose on the individual. "Which," he asks, "is the better, for +them to believe without reason, and thus to reform any how and gain a +benefit, from their belief in the punishment of sinners and the reward +of well-doers, or to refuse to be converted on mere belief, or except +they devote themselves to an intellectual inquiry?"<a name="FNanchor_329:1_309" id="FNanchor_329:1_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_329:1_309" class="fnanchor">[329:1]</a> Such a +provision then is a mark of divine wisdom and mercy. In like manner, St. +Irenæus, after observing that the Jews had the evidence of prophecy, +which the Gentiles had not, and that to the latter it was a foreign +teaching and a new doctrine to be told that the gods of the Gentiles +were not only not gods, but were idols of devils, and that in +consequence St. Paul laboured more upon them, as needing it more, adds, +"On the other hand, the faith of the Gentiles is thereby shown to be +more generous, who followed the word of God without the assistance of +Scriptures." To believe on less evidence was generous faith, not +enthusiasm. And so again, Eusebius, while he contends of course that +Christians are influenced by "no irrational faith," that is, by a faith +which is capable of a logical basis, fully allows that in the individual +believing, it is not necessarily or ordinarily based upon argument, and +maintains that it is connected with that very "hope," and inclusively +with that desire of the things beloved, which Locke in the above +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>extract considers incompatible with the love of truth. "What do we +find," he says, "but that the whole life of man is suspended on these +two, hope and faith?"<a name="FNanchor_330:1_310" id="FNanchor_330:1_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_330:1_310" class="fnanchor">[330:1]</a></p> + +<p>I do not mean of course that the Fathers were opposed to inquiries into +the intellectual basis of Christianity, but that they held that men were +not obliged to wait for logical proof before believing: on the contrary, +that the majority were to believe first on presumptions and let the +intellectual proof come as their reward.<a name="FNanchor_330:2_311" id="FNanchor_330:2_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_330:2_311" class="fnanchor">[330:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>St. Augustine, who had tried both ways, strikingly contrasts them in his +<i>De Utilitate credendi</i>, though his direct object in that work is to +decide, not between Reason and Faith, but between Reason and Authority. +He addresses in it a very dear friend, who, like himself, had become a +Manichee, but who, with less happiness than his own, was still retained +in the heresy. "The Manichees," he observes, "inveigh against those who, +following the authority of the Catholic faith, fortify themselves in the +first instance with believing, and before they are able to set eyes upon +that truth, which is discerned by the pure soul, prepare themselves for +a God who shall illuminate. You, Honoratus, know that nothing else was +the cause of my falling into their hands, than their professing to put +away Authority which was so terrible, and by absolute and simple Reason +to lead their hearers to God's presence, and to rid them of all error. +For what was there else that forced me, for nearly nine years, to slight +the religion which was sown in me when a child by my parents, and to +follow them and diligently attend their lectures, but their assertion +that I was terrified by superstition, and was bidden <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>to have Faith +before I had Reason, whereas they pressed no one to believe before the +truth had been discussed and unravelled? Who would not be seduced by +these promises, and especially a youth, such as they found me then, +desirous of truth, nay conceited and forward, by reason of the +disputations of certain men of school learning, with a contempt of +old-wives' tales, and a desire of possessing and drinking that clear and +unmixed truth which they promised me?"<a name="FNanchor_331:1_312" id="FNanchor_331:1_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_331:1_312" class="fnanchor">[331:1]</a></p> + +<p>Presently he goes on to describe how he was reclaimed. He found the +Manichees more successful in pulling down than in building up; he was +disappointed in Faustus, whom he found eloquent and nothing besides. +Upon this, he did not know what to hold, and was tempted to a general +scepticism. At length he found he must be guided by Authority; then came +the question, Which authority among so many teachers? He cried earnestly +to God for help, and at last was led to the Catholic Church. He then +returns to the question urged against that Church, that "she bids those +who come to her believe," whereas heretics "boast that they do not +impose a yoke of believing, but open a fountain of teaching." On which +he observes, "True religion cannot in any manner be rightly embraced, +without a belief in those things which each individual afterwards +attains and perceives, if he behave himself well and shall deserve it, +nor altogether without some weighty and imperative Authority."<a name="FNanchor_331:2_313" id="FNanchor_331:2_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_331:2_313" class="fnanchor">[331:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>These are specimens of the teaching of the Ancient Church on the subject +of Faith and Reason; if, on the other hand, we would know what has been +taught on the subject in those modern schools, in and through which the +subsequent developments of Catholic doctrines have <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>proceeded, we may +turn to the extracts made from their writings by Huet, in his "Essay on +the Human Understanding;" and, in so doing, we need not perplex +ourselves with the particular theory, true or not, for the sake of which +he has collected them. Speaking of the weakness of the Understanding, +Huet says,—</p> + +<p>"God, by His goodness, repairs this defect of human nature, by granting +us the inestimable gift of Faith, which confirms our staggering Reason, +and corrects that perplexity of doubts which we must bring to the +knowledge of things. For example: my reason not being able to inform me +with absolute evidence, and perfect certainty, whether there are bodies, +what was the origin of the world, and many other like things, after I +had received the Faith, all those doubts vanish, as darkness at the +rising of the sun. This made St. Thomas Aquinas say: 'It is necessary +for man to receive as articles of Faith, not only the things which are +above Reason, but even those that for their certainty may be known by +Reason. For human Reason is very deficient in things divine; a sign of +which we have from philosophers, who, in the search of human things by +natural methods, have been deceived, and opposed each other on many +heads. To the end then that men may have a certain and undoubted +cognizance of God, it was necessary things divine should be taught them +by way of Faith, as being revealed of God Himself, who cannot +lie.'<a name="FNanchor_332:1_314" id="FNanchor_332:1_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_332:1_314" class="fnanchor">[332:1]</a> . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Then St. Thomas adds afterwards: 'No search by natural Reason is +sufficient to make man know things divine, nor even those which we can +prove by Reason.' And in another place he speaks thus: 'Things which may +be proved demonstratively, as the Being of God, the Unity of the +Godhead, and other points, are placed among articles we are to believe, +because previous to other things that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>are of Faith; and these must be +presupposed, at least by such as have no demonstration of them.'</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>"What St. Thomas says of the cognizance of divine things extends also to +the knowledge of human, according to the doctrine of Suarez. 'We often +correct,' he says, 'the light of Nature by the light of Faith, even in +things which seem to be first principles, as appears in this: those +things that are the same to a third, are the same between themselves; +which, if we have respect to the Trinity, ought to be restrained to +finite things. And in other mysteries, especially in those of the +Incarnation and the Eucharist, we use many other limitations, that +nothing may be repugnant to the Faith. This is then an indication that +the light of Faith is most certain, because founded on the first truth, +which is God, to whom it's more impossible to deceive or be deceived +than for the natural science of man to be mistaken and +erroneous.'<a name="FNanchor_333:1_315" id="FNanchor_333:1_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_333:1_315" class="fnanchor">[333:1]</a> . . . .</p> + +<p>"If we hearken not to Reason, say you, you overthrow that great +foundation of Religion which Reason has established in our +understanding, viz. God is. To answer this objection, you must be told +that men know God in two manners. By Reason, with entire human +certainty; and by Faith, with absolute and divine certainty. Although by +Reason we cannot acquire any knowledge more certain than that of the +Being of God; insomuch that all the arguments, which the impious oppose +to this knowledge are of no validity and easily refuted; nevertheless +this certainty is not absolutely perfect<a name="FNanchor_333:2_316" id="FNanchor_333:2_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_333:2_316" class="fnanchor">[333:2]</a> . . . . .</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>"Now although, to prove the existence of the Deity, we can bring +arguments which, accumulated and connected <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>together, are not of less +power to convince men than geometrical principles, and theorems deduced +from them, and which are of entire human certainty, notwithstanding, +because learned philosophers have openly opposed even these principles, +'tis clear we cannot, neither in the natural knowledge we have of God, +which is acquired by Reason, nor in science founded on geometrical +principles and theorems, find absolute and consummate certainty, but +only that human certainty I have spoken of, to which nevertheless every +wise man ought to submit his understanding. This being not repugnant to +the testimony of the Book of Wisdom and the Epistle to the Romans, which +declares that men who do not from the make of the world acknowledge the +power and divinity of the Maker are senseless and inexcusable.</p> + +<p>"For to use the terms of Vasquez: 'By these words the Holy Scripture +means only that there has ever been a sufficient testimony of the Being +of a God in the fabrick of the world, and in His other works, to make +Him known unto men: but the Scripture is not under any concern whether +this knowledge be evident or of greatest probability; for these terms +are seen and understood, in their common and usual acceptation, to +signify all the knowledge of the mind with a determined assent.' He adds +after: 'For if any one should at this time deny Christ, that which would +render him inexcusable would not be because he might have had an evident +knowledge and reason for believing Him, but because he might have +believed it by Faith and a prudential knowledge.'</p> + +<p>"'Tis with reason then that Suarez teaches that 'the natural evidence of +this principle, God is the first truth, who cannot be deceived, is not +necessary, nor sufficient enough to make us believe by infused Faith, +what God reveals.' He proves, by the testimony of experience, that it is +not necessary; for ignorant and illiterate Christians, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>though they know +nothing clearly and certainly of God, do believe nevertheless that God +is. Even Christians of parts and learning, as St. Thomas has observed, +believe that God is, before they know it by Reason. Suarez shows +afterwards that the natural evidence of this principle is not +sufficient, because divine Faith, which is infused into our +understanding, cannot be bottomed upon human faith alone, how clear and +firm soever it is, as upon a formal object, because an assent most firm, +and of an order most noble and exalted, cannot derive its certainty from +a more infirm assent.<a name="FNanchor_335:1_317" id="FNanchor_335:1_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_335:1_317" class="fnanchor">[335:1]</a> . . . .</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>"As touching the motives of credibility, which, preparing the mind to +receive Faith, ought according to you to be not only certain by supreme +and human certainty, but by supreme and absolute certainty, I will +oppose Gabriel Biel to you, who pronounces that to receive Faith 'tis +sufficient that the motives of credibility be proposed as probable. Do +you believe that children, illiterate, gross, ignorant people, who have +scarcely the use of Reason, and notwithstanding have received the gift +of Faith, do most clearly and most steadfastly conceive those +forementioned motives of credibility? No, without doubt; but the grace +of God comes in to their assistance, and sustains the imbecility of +Nature and Reason.</p> + +<p>"This is the common opinion of divines. Reason has need of divine grace, +not only in gross, illiterate persons, but even in those of parts and +learning; for how clear-sighted soever that may be, yet it cannot make +us have Faith, if celestial light does not illuminate us within, +because, as I have said already, divine Faith being of a superior order +cannot derive its efficacy from human <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>faith."<a name="FNanchor_336:1_318" id="FNanchor_336:1_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_336:1_318" class="fnanchor">[336:1]</a> "This is likewise +the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas: 'The light of Faith makes things +seen that are believed.' He says moreover, 'Believers have knowledge of +the things of Faith, not in a demonstrative way, but so as by the light +of Faith it appears to them that they ought to be believed.'"<a name="FNanchor_336:2_319" id="FNanchor_336:2_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_336:2_319" class="fnanchor">[336:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>It is evident what a special influence such doctrine as this must exert +upon the theological method of those who hold it. Arguments will come to +be considered as suggestions and guides rather than logical proofs; and +developments as the slow, spontaneous, ethical growth, not the +scientific and compulsory results, of existing opinions.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. <i>Theology.</i></h4> + +<p>I have spoken and have still to speak of the action of logic, implicit +and explicit, as a safeguard, and thereby a note, of legitimate +developments of doctrine: but I am regarding it here as that continuous +tradition and habit in the Church of a scientific analysis of all +revealed truth, which is an ecclesiastical principle rather than a note +of any kind, as not merely bearing upon the process of development, but +applying to all religious teaching equally, and which is almost unknown +beyond the pale of Christendom. Reason, thus considered, is subservient +to faith, as handling, examining, explaining, recording, cataloguing, +defending, the truths which faith, not reason, has gained for us, as +providing an intellectual expression of supernatural facts, eliciting +what is implicit, comparing, measuring, connecting each with each, and +forming one and all into a theological system.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>2.</p> + +<p>The first step in theology is investigation, an investigation arising +out of the lively interest and devout welcome which the matters +investigated claim of us; and, if Scripture teaches us the duty of +faith, it teaches quite as distinctly that loving inquisitiveness which +is the life of the <i>Schola</i>. It attributes that temper both to the +Blessed Virgin and to the Angels. The Angels are said to have "desired +to look into the mysteries of Revelation," and it is twice recorded of +Mary that she "kept these things and pondered them in her heart." +Moreover, her words to the Archangel, "How shall this be?" show that +there is a questioning in matters revealed to us compatible with the +fullest and most absolute faith. It has sometimes been said in defence +and commendation of heretics that "their misbelief at least showed that +they had thought upon the subject of religion;" this is an unseemly +paradox,—at the same time there certainly is the opposite extreme of a +readiness to receive any number of dogmas at a minute's warning, which, +when it is witnessed, fairly creates a suspicion that they are merely +professed with the tongue, not intelligently held. Our Lord gives no +countenance to such lightness of mind; He calls on His disciples to use +their reason, and to submit it. Nathanael's question "Can there any good +thing come out of Nazareth?" did not prevent our Lord's praise of him as +"an Israelite without guile." Nor did He blame Nicodemus, except for +want of theological knowledge, on his asking "How can these things be?" +Even towards St. Thomas He was gentle, as if towards one of those who +had "eyes too tremblingly awake to bear with dimness for His sake." In +like manner He praised the centurion when he argued himself into a +confidence of divine help and relief from the analogy of his own +profession; and left his captious enemies to prove for themselves from +the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>mission of the Baptist His own mission; and asked them "if David +called Him Lord, how was He his Son?" and, when His disciples wished to +have a particular matter taught them, chid them for their want of +"understanding." And these are but some out of the various instances +which He gives us of the same lesson.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Reason has ever been awake and in exercise in the Church after Him from +the first. Scarcely were the Apostles withdrawn from the world, when the +Martyr Ignatius, in his way to the Roman Amphitheatre, wrote his +strikingly theological Epistles; he was followed by Irenæus, Hippolytus, +and Tertullian; thus we are brought to the age of Athanasius and his +contemporaries, and to Augustine. Then we pass on by Maximus and John +Damascene to the Middle age, when theology was made still more +scientific by the Schoolmen; nor has it become less so, by passing on +from St. Thomas to the great Jesuit writers Suarez and Vasquez, and then +to Lambertini.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. <i>Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation.</i></h4> + +<p>Several passages have occurred in the foregoing Chapters, which serve to +suggest another principle on which some words are now to be said. +Theodore's exclusive adoption of the literal, and repudiation of the +mystical interpretation of Holy Scripture, leads to the consideration of +the latter, as one of the characteristic conditions or principles on +which the teaching of the Church has ever proceeded. Thus Christianity +developed, as we have incidentally seen, into the form, first, of a +Catholic, then of a Papal Church. Now it was Scripture that was made the +rule on which this development proceeded in each case, and Scripture +moreover interpreted in a mystical sense; and, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>whereas at first certain +texts were inconsistently confined to the letter, and a Millennium was +in consequence expected, the very course of events, as time went on, +interpreted the prophecies about the Church more truly, and that first +in respect of her prerogative as occupying the <i>orbis terrarum</i>, next in +support of the claims of the See of St. Peter. This is but one specimen +of a certain law of Christian teaching, which is this,—a reference to +Scripture throughout, and especially in its mystical sense.<a name="FNanchor_339:1_320" id="FNanchor_339:1_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_339:1_320" class="fnanchor">[339:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>1. This is a characteristic which will become more and more evident to +us, the more we look for it. The divines of the Church are in every age +engaged in regulating themselves by Scripture, appealing to Scripture in +proof of their conclusions, and exhorting and teaching in the thoughts +and language of Scripture. Scripture may be said to be the medium in +which the mind of the Church has energized and developed.<a name="FNanchor_339:2_321" id="FNanchor_339:2_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_339:2_321" class="fnanchor">[339:2]</a> When +St. Methodius would enforce the doctrine of vows of celibacy, he refers +to the book of Numbers; and if St. Irenæus proclaims the dignity of St. +Mary, it is from a comparison of St. Luke's Gospel with Genesis. And +thus St. Cyprian, in his Testimonies, rests the prerogatives of +martyrdom, as <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>indeed the whole circle of Christian doctrine, on the +declaration of certain texts; and, when in his letter to Antonian he +seems to allude to Purgatory, he refers to our Lord's words about "the +prison" and "paying the last farthing." And if St. Ignatius exhorts to +unity, it is from St. Paul; and he quotes St. Luke against the +Phantasiasts of his day. We have a first instance of this law in the +Epistle of St. Polycarp, and a last in the practical works of St. +Alphonso Liguori. St. Cyprian, or St. Ambrose, or St. Bede, or St. +Bernard, or St. Carlo, or such popular books as Horstius's <i>Paradisus +Animæ</i>, are specimens of a rule which is too obvious to need formal +proof. It is exemplified in the theological decisions of St. Athanasius +in the fourth century, and of St. Thomas in the thirteenth; in the +structure of the Canon Law, and in the Bulls and Letters of Popes. It is +instanced in the notion so long prevalent in the Church, which +philosophers of this day do not allow us to forget, that all truth, all +science, must be derived from the inspired volume. And it is recognized +as well as exemplified; recognized as distinctly by writers of the +Society of Jesus, as it is copiously exemplified by the Ante-nicene +Fathers.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>"Scriptures are called canonical," says Salmeron, "as having been +received and set apart by the Church into the Canon of sacred books, and +because they are to us a rule of right belief and good living; also +because they ought to rule and moderate all other doctrines, laws, +writings, whether ecclesiastical, apocryphal, or human. For as these +agree with them, or at least do not disagree, so far are they admitted; +but they are repudiated and reprobated so far as they differ from them +even in the least matter."<a name="FNanchor_340:1_322" id="FNanchor_340:1_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_340:1_322" class="fnanchor">[340:1]</a> Again: "The main subject of Scripture +is nothing else <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>than to treat of the God-Man, or the Man-God, Christ +Jesus, not only in the New Testament, which is open, but in the +Old. . . . . . . For whereas Scripture contains nothing but the precepts +of belief and conduct, or faith and works, the end and the means towards +it, the Creator and the creature, love of God and our neighbour, +creation and redemption, and whereas all these are found in Christ, it +follows that Christ is the proper subject of Canonical Scripture. For +all matters of faith, whether concerning Creator or creatures, are +recapitulated in Jesus, whom every heresy denies, according to that +text, 'Every spirit that divides (<i>solvit</i>) Jesus is not of God;' for He +as man is united to the Godhead, and as God to the manhood, to the +Father from whom He is born, to the Holy Ghost who proceeds at once from +Christ and the Father, to Mary his most Holy Mother, to the Church, to +Scriptures, Sacraments, Saints, Angels, the Blessed, to Divine Grace, to +the authority and ministers of the Church, so that it is rightly said +that every heresy divides Jesus."<a name="FNanchor_341:1_323" id="FNanchor_341:1_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_341:1_323" class="fnanchor">[341:1]</a> And again: "Holy Scripture is +so fashioned and composed by the Holy Ghost as to be accommodated to all +plans, times, persons, difficulties, dangers, diseases, the expulsion of +evil, the obtaining of good, the stifling of errors, the establishment +of doctrines, the ingrafting of virtues, the averting of vices. Hence it +is deservedly compared by St. Basil to a dispensary which supplies +various medicines against every complaint. From it did the Church in the +age of Martyrs draw her firmness and fortitude; in the age of Doctors, +her wisdom and light of knowledge; in the time of heretics, the +overthrow of error; in time of prosperity, humility and moderation; +fervour and diligence, in a lukewarm time; and in times of depravity and +growing abuse, reformation from corrupt living and return to the first +estate."<a name="FNanchor_341:2_324" id="FNanchor_341:2_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_341:2_324" class="fnanchor">[341:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>4.</p> + +<p>"Holy Scripture," says Cornelius à Lapide, "contains the beginnings of +all theology: for theology is nothing but the science of conclusions +which are drawn from principles certain to faith, and therefore is of +all sciences most august as well as certain; but the principles of faith +and faith itself doth Scripture contain; whence it evidently follows +that Holy Scripture lays down those principles of theology by which the +theologian begets of the mind's reasoning his demonstrations. He, then, +who thinks he can tear away Scholastic Science from the work of +commenting on Holy Scripture is hoping for offspring without a +mother."<a name="FNanchor_342:1_325" id="FNanchor_342:1_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_342:1_325" class="fnanchor">[342:1]</a> Again: "What is the subject-matter of Scripture? Must I +say it in a word? Its aim is <i>de omni scibili</i>; it embraces in its bosom +all studies, all that can be known: and thus it is a certain university +of sciences containing all sciences either 'formally' or +'eminently.'"<a name="FNanchor_342:2_326" id="FNanchor_342:2_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_342:2_326" class="fnanchor">[342:2]</a></p> + +<p>Nor am I aware that later Post-tridentine writers deny that the whole +Catholic faith may be proved from Scripture, though they would certainly +maintain that it is not to be found on the surface of it, nor in such +sense that it may be gained from Scripture without the aid of Tradition.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>2. And this has been the doctrine of all ages of the Church, as is shown +by the disinclination of her teachers to confine themselves to the mere +literal interpretation of Scripture. Her most subtle and powerful method +of proof, whether in ancient or modern times, is the mystical sense, +which is so frequently used in doctrinal controversy as on many +occasions to supersede any other. Thus the Council of Trent appeals to +the peace-offering spoken of in Malachi <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>in proof of the Eucharistic +Sacrifice; to the water and blood issuing from our Lord's side, and to +the mention of "waters" in the Apocalypse, in admonishing on the subject +of the mixture of water with the wine in the Oblation. Thus Bellarmine +defends Monastic celibacy by our Lord's words in Matthew xix., and +refers to "We went through fire and water," &c., in the Psalm, as an +argument for Purgatory; and these, as is plain, are but specimens of a +rule. Now, on turning to primitive controversy, we find this method of +interpretation to be the very basis of the proof of the Catholic +doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Whether we betake ourselves to the +Ante-nicene writers or the Nicene, certain texts will meet us, which do +not obviously refer to that doctrine, yet are put forward as palmary +proofs of it. Such are, in respect of our Lord's divinity, "My heart is +inditing of a good matter," or "has burst forth with a good Word;" "The +Lord made" or "possessed Me in the beginning of His ways;" "I was with +Him, in whom He delighted;" "In Thy Light shall we see Light;" "Who +shall declare His generation?" "She is the Breath of the Power of God;" +and "His Eternal Power and Godhead."</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the School of Antioch, which adopted the literal +interpretation, was, as I have noticed above, the very metropolis of +heresy. Not to speak of Lucian, whose history is but imperfectly known, +(one of the first masters of this school, and also teacher of Arius and +his principal supporters), Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who were +the most eminent masters of literalism in the succeeding generation, +were, as we have seen, the forerunners of Nestorianism. The case had +been the same in a still earlier age;—the Jews clung to the literal +sense of the Scriptures and hence rejected the Gospel; the Christian +Apologists proved its divinity by means of the allegorical. The formal +connexion of this mode of interpretation with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>Christian theology is +noticed by Porphyry, who speaks of Origen and others as borrowing it +from heathen philosophy, both in explanation of the Old Testament and in +defence of their own doctrine. It may be almost laid down as an +historical fact, that the mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will +stand or fall together.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>This is clearly seen, as regards the primitive theology, by a recent +writer, in the course of a Dissertation upon St. Ephrem. After observing +that Theodore of Heraclea, Eusebius, and Diodorus gave a systematic +opposition to the mystical interpretation, which had a sort of sanction +from Antiquity and the orthodox Church, he proceeds; "Ephrem is not as +sober in his interpretations, <i>nor could it be, since</i> he was a zealous +disciple of the orthodox faith. For all those who are most eminent in +such sobriety were as far as possible removed from the faith of the +Councils. . . . . On the other hand, all who retained the faith of the Church +never entirely dispensed with the spiritual sense of the Scriptures. For +the Councils watched over the orthodox faith; nor was it safe in those +ages, as we learn especially from the instance of Theodore of +Mopsuestia, to desert the spiritual for an exclusive cultivation of the +literal method. Moreover, the allegorical interpretation, even when the +literal sense was not injured, was also preserved; because in those +times, when both heretics and Jews in controversy were stubborn in their +objections to Christian doctrine, maintaining that the Messiah was yet +to come, or denying the abrogation of the Sabbath and ceremonial law, or +ridiculing the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and especially that of +Christ's Divine Nature, under such circumstances ecclesiastical writers +found it to their purpose, in answer to such exceptions, violently to +refer <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>every part of Scripture by allegory to Christ and His +Church."<a name="FNanchor_345:1_327" id="FNanchor_345:1_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_345:1_327" class="fnanchor">[345:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>With this passage from a learned German, illustrating the bearing of the +allegorical method upon the Judaic and Athanasian controversies, it will +be well to compare the following passage from the latitudinarian Hale's +"Golden Remains," as directed against the theology of Rome. "The +literal, plain, and uncontroversible meaning of Scripture," he says, +"without any addition or supply by way of interpretation, is that alone +which for ground of faith we are necessarily bound to accept; except it +be there, where the Holy Ghost Himself treads us out another way. I take +not this to be any particular conceit of mine, but that unto which our +Church stands necessarily bound. When we receded from the Church of +Rome, one motive was, because she added unto Scripture her glosses as +Canonical, to supply what the plain text of Scripture could not yield. +If, in place of hers, we set up our own glosses, thus to do were nothing +else but to pull down Baal, and set up an Ephod, to run round and meet +the Church of Rome again in the same point in which at first we left +her. . . . This doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous or +prejudicial to any, but only to those who were inwardly conscious that +their positions were not sufficiently grounded. When Cardinal Cajetan, +in the days of our grandfathers, had forsaken that vein of postilling +and allegorizing on Scripture, which for a long time had prevailed in +the Church, and betaken himself unto the literal sense, it was a thing +so distasteful unto the Church of Rome that he was forced to find out +many shifts and make many apologies for himself. The truth is (as it +will appear to him that reads his writings), this sticking close to the +literal <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>sense was that alone which made him to shake off many of those +tenets upon which the Church of Rome and the reformed Churches differ. +But when the importunity of the Reformers, and the great credit of +Calvin's writings in that kind, had forced the divines of Rome to level +their interpretations by the same line; when they saw that no pains, no +subtlety of wit was strong enough to defeat the literal evidence of +Scripture, it drove them on those desperate shoals, on which at this day +they stick, to call in question, as far as they durst, the credit of the +Hebrew text, and countenance against it a corrupt translation; to add +traditions unto Scripture, and to make the Church's interpretation, so +pretended, to be above exception."<a name="FNanchor_346:1_328" id="FNanchor_346:1_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_346:1_328" class="fnanchor">[346:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>He presently adds concerning the allegorical sense: "If we absolutely +condemn these interpretations, then must we condemn a great part of +Antiquity, who are very much conversant in this kind of interpreting. +For the most partial for Antiquity cannot choose but see and confess +thus much, that for the literal sense, the interpreters of our own +times, because of their skill in the original languages, their care of +pressing the circumstances and coherence of the text, of comparing like +places of Scripture with like, have generally surpassed the best of the +ancients."<a name="FNanchor_346:2_329" id="FNanchor_346:2_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_346:2_329" class="fnanchor">[346:2]</a></p> + +<p>The use of Scripture then, especially its spiritual or second sense, as +a medium of thought and deduction, is a characteristic principle of +doctrinal teaching in the Church.</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. <i>Dogma.</i></h4> + +<p>1. That opinions in religion are not matters of indifference, but have a +definite bearing on the position of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>their holders in the Divine Sight, +is a principle on which the Evangelical Faith has from the first +developed, and on which that Faith has been the first to develope. I +suppose, it hardly had any exercise under the Law; the zeal and +obedience of the ancient people being mainly employed in the maintenance +of divine worship and the overthrow of idolatry, not in the action of +the intellect. Faith is in this, as in other respects, a characteristic +of the Gospel, except so far as it was anticipated, as its time drew +near. Elijah and the prophets down to Ezra resisted Baal or restored the +Temple Service; the Three Children refused to bow down before the golden +image; Daniel would turn his face towards Jerusalem; the Maccabees +spurned the Grecian paganism. On the other hand, the Greek Philosophers +were authoritative indeed in their teaching, enforced the "<i>Ipse +dixit</i>," and demanded the faith of their disciples; but they did not +commonly attach sanctity or reality to opinions, or view them in a +religious light. Our Saviour was the first to "bear witness to the +Truth," and to die for it, when "before Pontius Pilate he witnessed a +good confession." St. John and St. Paul, following his example, both +pronounce anathema on those who denied "the Truth" or "brought in +another Gospel." Tradition tells us that the Apostle of love seconded +his word with his deed, and on one occasion hastily quitted a bath +because an heresiarch of the day had entered it. St. Ignatius, his +contemporary, compares false teachers to raging dogs; and St. Polycarp, +his disciple, exercised the same seventy upon Marcion which St. John had +shown towards Cerinthus.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>St. Irenæus after St. Polycarp exemplifies the same doctrine: "I saw +thee," he says to the heretic Florinus, "when I was yet a boy, in lower +Asia, with Polycarp, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>when thou wast living splendidly in the Imperial +Court, and trying to recommend thyself to him. I remember indeed what +then happened better than more recent occurrences, for the lessons of +boyhood grow with the mind and become one with it. Thus I can name the +place where blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, and his goings out and +comings in, and the fashion of his life, and the appearance of his +person, and his discourses to the people, and his familiarity with John, +which he used to tell of, and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and +how he used to repeat their words, and what it was that he had learned +about the Lord from them. . . . And in the sight of God, I can protest, +that, if that blessed and apostolical Elder had heard aught of this +doctrine, he had cried out and stopped his ears, saying after his wont, +'O Good God, for what times hast thou reserved me that I should endure +this?' and he had fled the place where he was sitting or standing when +he heard it." It seems to have been the duty of every individual +Christian from the first to witness in his place against all opinions +which were contrary to what he had received in his baptismal +catechizing, and to shun the society of those who maintained them. "So +religious," says Irenæus after giving his account of St. Polycarp, "were +the Apostles and their disciples, in not even conversing with those who +counterfeited the truth."<a name="FNanchor_348:1_330" id="FNanchor_348:1_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_348:1_330" class="fnanchor">[348:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Such a principle, however, would but have broken up the Church the +sooner, resolving it into the individuals of which it was composed, +unless the Truth, to which they were to bear witness, had been a +something definite, and formal, and independent of themselves. +Christians were bound to defend and to transmit the faith which they had +received, and they received it from the rulers of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>Church; and, on +the other hand, it was the duty of those rulers to watch over and define +this traditionary faith. It is unnecessary to go over ground which has +been traversed so often of late years. St. Irenæus brings the subject +before us in his description of St. Polycarp, part of which has already +been quoted; and to it we may limit ourselves. "Polycarp," he says when +writing against the Gnostics, "whom we have seen in our first youth, +ever taught those lessons which he learned from the Apostles, which the +Church also transmits, which alone are true. All the Churches of Asia +bear witness to them; and the successors of Polycarp down to this day, +who is a much more trustworthy and sure witness of truth than +Valentinus, Marcion, or their perverse companions. The same was in Rome +in the time of Anicetus, and converted many of the aforenamed heretics +to the Church of God, preaching that he had received from the Apostles +this one and only truth, which had been transmitted by the +Church."<a name="FNanchor_349:1_331" id="FNanchor_349:1_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_349:1_331" class="fnanchor">[349:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Nor was this the doctrine and practice of one school only, which might +be ignorant of philosophy; the cultivated minds of the Alexandrian +Fathers, who are said to owe so much to Pagan science, certainly showed +no gratitude or reverence towards their alleged instructors, but +maintained the supremacy of Catholic Tradition. Clement<a name="FNanchor_349:2_332" id="FNanchor_349:2_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_349:2_332" class="fnanchor">[349:2]</a> speaks of +heretical teachers as perverting Scripture, and essaying the gate of +heaven with a false key, not raising the veil, as he and his, by means +of tradition from Christ, but digging through the Church's wall, and +becoming mystagogues of misbelief; "for," he continues, "few words are +enough to prove that they have formed their human assemblies later than +the Catholic Church," and "from that previously existing and most true +Church it is very clear that these <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>later heresies, and others which +have been since, are counterfeit and novel inventions."<a name="FNanchor_350:1_333" id="FNanchor_350:1_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_350:1_333" class="fnanchor">[350:1]</a> "When the +Marcionites, Valentinians, and the like," says Origen, "appeal to +apocryphal works, they are saying, 'Christ is in the desert;' when to +canonical Scripture, 'Lo, He is in the chambers;' but we must not depart +from that first and ecclesiastical tradition, nor believe otherwise than +as the Churches of God by succession have transmitted to us." And it is +recorded of him in his youth, that he never could be brought to attend +the prayers of a heretic who was in the house of his patroness, from +abomination of his doctrine, "observing," adds Eusebius, "the rule of +the Church." Eusebius too himself, unsatisfactory as is his own +theology, cannot break from this fundamental rule; he ever speaks of the +Gnostic teachers, the chief heretics of his period (at least before the +rise of Arianism), in terms most expressive of abhorrence and disgust.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>The African, Syrian, and Asian schools are additional witnesses; +Tertullian at Carthage was strenuous for the dogmatic principle even +after he had given up the traditional. The Fathers of Asia Minor, who +excommunicated Noëtus, rehearse the Creed, and add, "We declare as we +have learned;" the Fathers of Antioch, who depose Paul of Samosata, set +down in writing the Creed from Scripture, "which," they say, "we +received from the beginning, and have, by tradition and in custody, in +the Catholic and Holy Church, until this day, by succession, as preached +by the blessed Apostles, who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the +Word."<a name="FNanchor_350:2_334" id="FNanchor_350:2_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_350:2_334" class="fnanchor">[350:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>6.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it is as plain, or even plainer, that what the Christians of +the first ages anathematized, included deductions from the Articles of +Faith, that is, false developments, as well as contradictions of those +Articles. And, since the reason they commonly gave for using the +anathema was that the doctrine in question was strange and startling, it +follows that the truth, which was its contradictory, was also in some +respect unknown to them hitherto; which is also shown by their temporary +perplexity, and their difficulty of meeting heresy, in particular cases. +"Who ever heard the like hitherto?" says St. Athanasius, of +Apollinarianism; "who was the teacher of it, who the hearer? 'From Sion +shall go forth the Law of God, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem;' +but from whence hath this gone forth? What hell hath burst out with it?" +The Fathers at Nicæa stopped their ears; and St. Irenæus, as above +quoted, says that St. Polycarp, had he heard the Gnostic blasphemies, +would have stopped his ears, and deplored the times for which he was +reserved. They anathematized the doctrine, not because it was old, but +because it was new: the anathema would have altogether slept, if it +could not have been extended to propositions not anathematized in the +beginning; for the very characteristic of heresy is this novelty and +originality of manifestation.</p> + +<p>Such was the exclusiveness of Christianity of old: I need not insist on +the steadiness with which that principle has been maintained ever since, +for bigotry and intolerance is one of the ordinary charges brought at +this day against both the medieval Church and the modern.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>The Church's consistency and thoroughness in teaching is another aspect +of the same principle, as is illustrated in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>following passage from +M. Guizot's History of Civilization. "The adversaries," he says, "of the +Reformation, knew very well what they were about, and what they +required; they could point to their first principles, and boldly admit +all the consequences that might result from them. No government was ever +more consistent and systematic than that of the Romish Church. In fact, +the Court of Rome was much more accommodating, yielded much more than +the Reformers; but in principle it much more completely adopted its own +system, and maintained a much more consistent conduct. There is an +immense power in this full confidence of what is done; this perfect +knowledge of what is required; this complete and rational adaptation of +a system and a creed." Then he goes on to the history of the Society of +Jesus in illustration. "Everything," he says, "was unfavourable to the +Jesuits, both fortune and appearances; neither practical sense which +requires success, nor the imagination which looks for splendour, were +gratified by their destiny. Still it is certain that they possessed the +elements of greatness; a grand idea is attached to their name, to their +influence, and to their history. Why? because they worked from fixed +principles, which they fully and clearly understood, and the tendency of +which they entirely comprehended. In the Reformation, on the contrary, +when the event surpassed its conception, something incomplete, +inconsequent, and narrow has remained, which has placed the conquerors +themselves in a state of rational and philosophical inferiority, the +influence of which has occasionally been felt in events. The conflict of +the new spiritual order of things against the old, is, I think, the weak +side of the Reformation."<a name="FNanchor_352:1_335" id="FNanchor_352:1_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_352:1_335" class="fnanchor">[352:1]</a></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p> +<h4>§ 6. <i>Additional Remarks.</i></h4> + +<p>Such are some of the intellectual principles which are characteristic of +Christianity. I observe,—</p> + +<p>That their continuity down to this day, and the vigour of their +operation, are two distinct guarantees that the theological conclusions +to which they are subservient are, in accordance with the Divine +Promise, true developments, and not corruptions of the Revelation.</p> + +<p>Moreover, if it be true that the principles of the later Church are the +same as those of the earlier, then, whatever are the variations of +belief between the two periods, the later in reality agrees more than it +differs with the earlier, for principles are responsible for doctrines. +Hence they who assert that the modern Roman system is the corruption of +primitive theology are forced to discover some difference of principle +between the one and the other; for instance, that the right of private +judgment was secured to the early Church and has been lost to the later, +or, again, that the later Church rationalizes and the earlier went by +faith.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>On this point I will but remark as follows. It cannot be doubted that +the horror of heresy, the law of absolute obedience to ecclesiastical +authority, and the doctrine of the mystical virtue of unity, were as +strong and active in the Church of St. Ignatius and St. Cyprian as in +that of St. Carlo and St. Pius the Fifth, whatever be thought of the +theology respectively taught in the one and in the other. Now we have +before our eyes the effect of these principles in the instance of the +later Church; they have entirely succeeded in preventing departure from +the doctrine of Trent for three hundred years. Have we any reason for +doubting, that from the same strictness the same fidelity would follow, +in the first three, or any three, centuries of the Ante-tridentine +period? Where then was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>the opportunity of corruption in the three +hundred years between St. Ignatius and St. Augustine? or between St. +Augustine and St. Bede? or between St. Bede and St. Peter Damiani? or +again, between St. Irenæus and St. Leo, St. Cyprian and St. Gregory the +Great, St. Athanasius and St. John Damascene? Thus the tradition of +eighteen centuries becomes a collection of indefinitely many <i>catenæ</i>, +each commencing from its own point, and each crossing the other; and +each year, as it comes, is guaranteed with various degrees of cogency by +every year which has gone before it.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Moreover, while the development of doctrine in the Church has been in +accordance with, or in consequence of these immemorial principles, the +various heresies, which have from time to time arisen, have in one +respect or other, as might be expected, violated those principles with +which she rose into existence, and which she still retains. Thus Arian +and Nestorian schools denied the allegorical rule of Scripture +interpretation; the Gnostics and Eunomians for Faith professed to +substitute knowledge; and the Manichees also, as St. Augustine so +touchingly declares in the beginning of his work <i>De Utilitate +credendi</i>. The dogmatic Rule, at least so far as regards its traditional +character, was thrown aside by all those sects which, as Tertullian +tells us, claimed to judge for themselves from Scripture; and the +Sacramental principle was violated, <i>ipso facto</i>, by all who separated +from the Church,—was denied also by Faustus the Manichee when he argued +against the Catholic ceremonial, by Vigilantius in his opposition to +relics, and by the Iconoclasts. In like manner the contempt of mystery, +of reverence, of devoutness, of sanctity, are other notes of the +heretical spirit. As to Protestantism it is plain in how many ways it +has reversed the principles of Catholic theology.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326:1_307" id="Footnote_326:1_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326:1_307"><span class="label">[326:1]</span></a> [E. g. development itself is such a principle also. +"And thus I was led on to a further consideration. I saw that the +principle of development not only accounted for certain facts, but was +in itself a remarkable philosophical phenomenon, giving a character to +the whole course of Christian thought. It was discernible from the first +years of Catholic teaching up to the present day, and gave to that +teaching a unity and individuality. It served as a sort of test, which +the Anglican could not stand, that modern Rome was in truth ancient +Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve +has its own law and expression." <i>Apol.</i> p. 198, <i>vid.</i> also Angl. Diff. +vol. i. Lect. xii. 7.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328:1_308" id="Footnote_328:1_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328:1_308"><span class="label">[328:1]</span></a> University Sermons [but, more carefully in the "Essay +on Assent"].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329:1_309" id="Footnote_329:1_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329:1_309"><span class="label">[329:1]</span></a> c. Cels. i. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330:1_310" id="Footnote_330:1_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330:1_310"><span class="label">[330:1]</span></a> Hær. iv. 24. Euseb. Præp. Ev. i. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330:2_311" id="Footnote_330:2_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330:2_311"><span class="label">[330:2]</span></a> [This is too large a subject to admit of justice being +done to it here: I have treated of it at length in the "Essay on +Assent."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331:1_312" id="Footnote_331:1_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331:1_312"><span class="label">[331:1]</span></a> Init.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331:2_313" id="Footnote_331:2_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331:2_313"><span class="label">[331:2]</span></a> <i>Vid.</i> also <i>supr.</i> p. 256.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332:1_314" id="Footnote_332:1_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332:1_314"><span class="label">[332:1]</span></a> pp. 142, 143, Combe's tr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333:1_315" id="Footnote_333:1_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333:1_315"><span class="label">[333:1]</span></a> pp. 144, 145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333:2_316" id="Footnote_333:2_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333:2_316"><span class="label">[333:2]</span></a> p. 219.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335:1_317" id="Footnote_335:1_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335:1_317"><span class="label">[335:1]</span></a> pp. 221, 223.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336:1_318" id="Footnote_336:1_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336:1_318"><span class="label">[336:1]</span></a> pp. 229, 230.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336:2_319" id="Footnote_336:2_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336:2_319"><span class="label">[336:2]</span></a> pp. 230, 231.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339:1_320" id="Footnote_339:1_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339:1_320"><span class="label">[339:1]</span></a> Vid. Proph. Offic. Lect. xiii. [Via Media, vol. i. p. +309, &c.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339:2_321" id="Footnote_339:2_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339:2_321"><span class="label">[339:2]</span></a> A late writer goes farther, and maintains that it is +not determined by the Council of Trent, whether the whole of the +Revelation is in Scripture or not. "The Synod declares that the +Christian 'truth and discipline are contained in written books and +unwritten traditions.' They were well aware that the controversy then +was, whether the Christian doctrine was only <i>in part</i> contained in +Scripture. But they did not dare to frame their decree openly in +accordance with the modern Romish view; they did not venture to affirm, +as they might easily have done, that the Christian verity 'was contained +<i>partly</i> in written books, and <i>partly</i> in unwritten +traditions.'"—<i>Palmer on the Church</i>, vol. 2, p. 15. Vid. Difficulties +of Angl. vol. ii. pp. 11, 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340:1_322" id="Footnote_340:1_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340:1_322"><span class="label">[340:1]</span></a> Opp. t. 1, p. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341:1_323" id="Footnote_341:1_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341:1_323"><span class="label">[341:1]</span></a> Opp. t. i. pp. 4, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341:2_324" id="Footnote_341:2_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341:2_324"><span class="label">[341:2]</span></a> Ibid. p. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342:1_325" id="Footnote_342:1_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342:1_325"><span class="label">[342:1]</span></a> Proem. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342:2_326" id="Footnote_342:2_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342:2_326"><span class="label">[342:2]</span></a> p. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345:1_327" id="Footnote_345:1_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345:1_327"><span class="label">[345:1]</span></a> Lengerke, de Ephr. S. pp. 78-80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346:1_328" id="Footnote_346:1_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346:1_328"><span class="label">[346:1]</span></a> pp. 24-26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346:2_329" id="Footnote_346:2_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346:2_329"><span class="label">[346:2]</span></a> p. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348:1_330" id="Footnote_348:1_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348:1_330"><span class="label">[348:1]</span></a> Euseb. Hist. iv. 14, v. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349:1_331" id="Footnote_349:1_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349:1_331"><span class="label">[349:1]</span></a> Contr. Hær. iii. 3, § 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349:2_332" id="Footnote_349:2_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349:2_332"><span class="label">[349:2]</span></a> Ed. Potter, p. 897.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350:1_333" id="Footnote_350:1_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350:1_333"><span class="label">[350:1]</span></a> Ed. Potter, p. 899.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350:2_334" id="Footnote_350:2_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350:2_334"><span class="label">[350:2]</span></a> Clem. Strom. vii. 17. Origen in Matth. Comm. Ser. 46. +Euseb. Hist. vi. 2, fin. Epiph. Hær. 57, p. 480. Routh, t. 2, p. 465.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352:1_335" id="Footnote_352:1_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352:1_335"><span class="label">[352:1]</span></a> Eur. Civil. pp. 394-398.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>APPLICATION OF THE THIRD NOTE Of A TRUE<br /> +DEVELOPMENT.</h3> + +<h4>ASSIMILATIVE POWER.</h4> + +<p>Since religious systems, true and false, have one and the same great and +comprehensive subject-matter, they necessarily interfere with one +another as rivals, both in those points in which they agree together, +and in those in which they differ. That Christianity on its rise was in +these circumstances of competition and controversy, is sufficiently +evident even from a foregoing Chapter: it was surrounded by rites, +sects, and philosophies, which contemplated the same questions, +sometimes advocated the same truths, and in no slight degree wore the +same external appearance. It could not stand still, it could not take +its own way, and let them take theirs: they came across its path, and a +conflict was inevitable. The very nature of a true philosophy relatively +to other systems is to be polemical, eclectic, unitive: Christianity was +polemical; it could not but be eclectic; but was it also unitive? Had it +the power, while keeping its own identity, of absorbing its antagonists, +as Aaron's rod, according to St. Jerome's illustration, devoured the +rods of the sorcerers of Egypt? Did it incorporate them into itself, or +was it dissolved into them? Did it assimilate them into its own +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>substance, or, keeping its name, was it simply infected by them? In a +word, were its developments faithful or corrupt? Nor is this a question +merely of the early centuries. When we consider the deep interest of the +controversies which Christianity raises, the various characters of mind +it has swayed, the range of subjects which it embraces, the many +countries it has entered, the deep philosophies it has encountered, the +vicissitudes it has undergone, and the length of time through which it +has lasted, it requires some assignable explanation, why we should not +consider it substantially modified and changed, that is, corrupted, from +the first, by the numberless influences to which it has been exposed.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Now there was this cardinal distinction between Christianity and the +religions and philosophies by which it was surrounded, nay even the +Judaism of the day, that it referred all truth and revelation to one +source, and that the Supreme and Only God. Pagan rites which honoured +one or other out of ten thousand deities; philosophies which scarcely +taught any source of revelation at all; Gnostic heresies which were +based on Dualism, adored angels, or ascribed the two Testaments to +distinct authors, could not regard truth as one, unalterable, +consistent, imperative, and saving. But Christianity started with the +principle that there was but "one God and one Mediator," and that He, +"who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the +fathers by the Prophets, had in these last days spoken unto us by His +Son." He had never left Himself without witness, and now He had come, +not to undo the past, but to fulfil and perfect it. His Apostles, and +they alone, possessed, venerated, and protected a Divine Message, as +both sacred and sanctifying; and, in the collision and conflict of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>opinions, in ancient times or modern, it was that Message, and not any +vague or antagonist teaching, that was to succeed in purifying, +assimilating, transmuting, and taking into itself the many-coloured +beliefs, forms of worship, codes of duty, schools of thought, through +which it was ever moving. It was Grace, and it was Truth.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. <i>The Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth.</i></h4> + +<p>That there is a truth then; that there is one truth; that religious +error is in itself of an immoral nature; that its maintainers, unless +involuntarily such, are guilty in maintaining it; that it is to be +dreaded; that the search for truth is not the gratification of +curiosity; that its attainment has nothing of the excitement of a +discovery; that the mind is below truth, not above it, and is bound, not +to descant upon it, but to venerate it; that truth and falsehood are set +before us for the trial of our hearts; that our choice is an awful +giving forth of lots on which salvation or rejection is inscribed; that +"before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith;" that "he +that would be saved must thus think," and not otherwise; that, "if thou +criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if +thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasure, +then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge +of God,"—this is the dogmatical principle, which has strength.</p> + +<p>That truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; that one +doctrine is as good as another; that the Governor of the world does not +intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we +are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; +that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of +necessity or accident; that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we +profess; that our merit lies in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>seeking, not in possessing; that it is +a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should +not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, and can be no harm to +fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief +belongs to the mere intellect, not to the heart also; that we may safely +trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and need no other guide,—this +is the principle of philosophies and heresies, which is very weakness.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Two opinions encounter; each may be abstractedly true; or again, each +may be a subtle, comprehensive doctrine, vigorous, elastic, expansive, +various; one is held as a matter of indifference, the other as a matter +of life and death; one is held by the intellect only, the other also by +the heart: it is plain which of the two must succumb to the other. Such +was the conflict of Christianity with the old established Paganism, +which was almost dead before Christianity appeared; with the Oriental +Mysteries, flitting wildly to and fro like spectres; with the Gnostics, +who made Knowledge all in all, despised the many, and called Catholics +mere children in the Truth; with the Neo-platonists, men of literature, +pedants, visionaries, or courtiers; with the Manichees, who professed to +seek Truth by Reason, not by Faith; with the fluctuating teachers of the +school of Antioch, the time-serving Eusebians, and the reckless +versatile Arians; with the fanatic Montanists and harsh Novatians, who +shrank from the Catholic doctrine, without power to propagate their own. +These sects had no stay or consistence, yet they contained elements of +truth amid their error, and had Christianity been as they, it might have +resolved into them; but it had that hold of the truth which gave its +teaching a gravity, a directness, a consistency, a sternness, and a +force, to which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>its rivals for the most part were strangers. It could +not call evil good, or good evil, because it discerned the difference +between them; it could not make light of what was so solemn, or desert +what was so solid. Hence, in the collision, it broke in pieces its +antagonists, and divided the spoils.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>This was but another form of the spirit that made martyrs. Dogmatism was +in teaching, what confession was in act. Each was the same strong +principle of life in a different aspect, distinguishing the faith which +was displayed in it from the world's philosophies on the one side, and +the world's religions on the other. The heathen sects and the heresies +of Christian history were dissolved by the breath of opinion which made +them; paganism shuddered and died at the very sight of the sword of +persecution, which it had itself unsheathed. Intellect and force were +applied as tests both upon the divine and upon the human work; they +prevailed with the human, they did but become instruments of the Divine. +"No one," says St. Justin, "has so believed Socrates as to die for the +doctrine which he taught." "No one was ever found undergoing death for +faith in the sun."<a name="FNanchor_359:1_336" id="FNanchor_359:1_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_359:1_336" class="fnanchor">[359:1]</a> Thus Christianity grew in its proportions, +gaining aliment and medicine from all that it came near, yet preserving +its original type, from its perception and its love of what had been +revealed once for all and was no private imagination.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>There are writers who refer to the first centuries of the Church as a +time when opinion was free, and the conscience exempt from the +obligation or temptation to take on trust what it had not proved; and +that, apparently on the mere <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>ground that the series of great +theological decisions did not commence till the fourth. This seems to be +M. Guizot's meaning when he says that Christianity "in the early ages +was a belief, a sentiment, an individual conviction;"<a name="FNanchor_360:1_337" id="FNanchor_360:1_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_360:1_337" class="fnanchor">[360:1]</a> that "the +Christian society appears as a pure association of men animated by the +same sentiments and professing the same creed. The first Christians," he +continues, "assembled to enjoy together the same emotions, the same +religious convictions. We do not find any doctrinal system established, +any form of discipline or of laws, or any body of magistrates."<a name="FNanchor_360:2_338" id="FNanchor_360:2_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_360:2_338" class="fnanchor">[360:2]</a> +What can be meant by saying that Christianity had no magistrates in the +earliest ages?—but, any how, in statements such as these the +distinction is not properly recognized between a principle and its +exhibitions and instances, even if the fact were as is represented. The +principle indeed of Dogmatism developes into Councils in the course of +time; but it was active, nay sovereign from the first, in every part of +Christendom. A conviction that truth was one; that it was a gift from +without, a sacred trust, an inestimable blessing; that it was to be +reverenced, guarded, defended, transmitted; that its absence was a +grievous want, and its loss an unutterable calamity; and again, the +stern words and acts of St. John, of Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenæus, +Clement, Tertullian, and Origen;—all this is quite consistent with +perplexity or mistake as to what was truth in particular cases, in what +way doubtful questions were to be decided, or what were the limits of +the Revelation. Councils and Popes are the guardians and instruments of +the dogmatic principle: they are not that principle themselves; they +presuppose the principle; they are summoned into action at the call of +the principle, and the principle might act even before they had their +legitimate place, and exercised a recognized power, in the movements of +the Christian body.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>5.</p> + +<p>The instance of Conscience, which has already served us in illustration, +may assist us here. What Conscience is in the history of an individual +mind, such was the dogmatic principle in the history of Christianity. +Both in the one case and the other, there is the gradual formation of a +directing power out of a principle. The natural voice of Conscience is +far more imperative in testifying and enforcing a rule of duty, than +successful in determining that duty in particular cases. It acts as a +messenger from above, and says that there is a right and a wrong, and +that the right must be followed; but it is variously, and therefore +erroneously, trained in the instance of various persons. It mistakes +error for truth; and yet we believe that on the whole, and even in those +cases where it is ill-instructed, if its voice be diligently obeyed, it +will gradually be cleared, simplified, and perfected, so that minds, +starting differently will, if honest, in course of time converge to one +and the same truth. I do not hereby imply that there is indistinctness +so great as this in the theology of the first centuries; but so far is +plain, that the early Church and Fathers exercised far more a ruler's +than a doctor's office: it was the age of Martyrs, of acting not of +thinking. Doctors succeeded Martyrs, as light and peace of conscience +follow upon obedience to it; yet, even before the Church had grown into +the full measure of its doctrines, it was rooted in its principles.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>So far, however, may be granted to M. Guizot, that even principles were +not so well understood and so carefully handled at first, as they were +afterwards. In the early period, we see traces of a conflict, as well as +of a variety, in theological elements, which were in course of +combination, but which required adjustment and management <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>before they +could be used with precision as one. In a thousand instances of a minor +character, the statements of the early Fathers are but tokens of the +multiplicity of openings which the mind of the Church was making into +the treasure-house of Truth; real openings, but incomplete or irregular. +Nay, the doctrines even of the heretical bodies are indices and +anticipations of the mind of the Church. As the first step in settling a +question of doctrine is to raise and debate it, so heresies in every age +may be taken as the measure of the existing state of thought in the +Church, and of the movement of her theology; they determine in what way +the current is setting, and the rate at which it flows.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>Thus, St. Clement may be called the representative of the eclectic +element, and Tertullian of the dogmatic, neither element as yet being +fully understood by Catholics; and Clement perhaps went too far in his +accommodation to philosophy, and Tertullian asserted with exaggeration +the immutability of the Creed. Nay, the two antagonist principles of +dogmatism and assimilation are found in Tertullian alone, though with +some deficiency of amalgamation, and with a greater leaning towards the +dogmatic. Though the Montanists professed to pass over the subject of +doctrine, it is chiefly in Tertullian's Montanistic works that his +strong statements occur of the unalterableness of the Creed; and +extravagance on the subject is not only in keeping with the stern and +vehement temper of that Father, but with the general severity and +harshness of his sect. On the other hand the very foundation of +Montanism is development, though not of doctrine, yet of discipline and +conduct. It is said that its founder professed himself the promised +Comforter, through whom the Church was to be perfected; he provided +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>prophets as organs of the new revelation, and called Catholics Psychici +or animal. Tertullian distinctly recognizes even the process of +development in one of his Montanistic works. After speaking of an +innovation upon usage, which his newly revealed truth required, he +proceeds, "Therefore hath the Lord sent the Paraclete, that, since human +infirmity could not take all things in at once, discipline might be +gradually directed, regulated and brought to perfection by the Lord's +Vicar, the Holy Ghost. 'I have yet many things to say to you,' He saith, +&c. What is this dispensation of the Paraclete but this, that discipline +is directed, Scriptures opened, intellect reformed, improvements +effected? Nothing can take place without age, and all things wait their +time. In short, the Preacher says 'There is a time for all things.' +Behold the creature itself gradually advancing to fruit. At first there +is a seed, and a stalk springs out of the seed, and from the stalk +bursts out a shrub, and then its branches and foliage grow vigorous, and +all that we mean by a tree is unfolded; then there is the swelling of +the bud, and the bud is resolved into a blossom, and the blossom is +opened into a fruit, and is for a while rudimental and unformed, till, +by degrees following out its life, it is matured into mellowness of +flavour. So too righteousness, (for there is the same God both of +righteousness and of the creation,) was at first in its rudiments, a +nature fearing God; thence, by means of Law and Prophets, it advanced +into infancy; thence, by the gospel, it burst forth into its youth; and +now by the Paraclete, it is fashioned into maturity."<a name="FNanchor_363:1_339" id="FNanchor_363:1_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_363:1_339" class="fnanchor">[363:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>Not in one principle or doctrine only, but in its whole system, +Montanism is a remarkable anticipation or <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>presage of developments which +soon began to show themselves in the Church, though they were not +perfected for centuries after. Its rigid maintenance of the original +Creed, yet its admission of a development, at least in the ritual, has +just been instanced in the person of Tertullian. Equally Catholic in +their principle, whether in fact or anticipation, were most of the other +peculiarities of Montanism: its rigorous fasts, its visions, its +commendation of celibacy and martyrdom, its contempt of temporal goods, +its penitential discipline, and its maintenance of a centre of unity. +The doctrinal determinations and the ecclesiastical usages of the middle +ages are the true fulfilment of its self-willed and abortive attempts at +precipitating the growth of the Church. The favour shown to it for a +while by Pope Victor is an evidence of its external resemblance to +orthodoxy; and the celebrated Martyrs and Saints in Africa, in the +beginning of the third century, Perpetua and Felicitas, or at least +their Acts, betoken that same peculiar temper of religion, which, when +cut off from the Church a few years afterwards, quickly degenerated into +a heresy. A parallel instance occurs in the case of the Donatists. They +held a doctrine on the subject of Baptism similar to that of St. +Cyprian: "Vincentius Lirinensis," says Gibbon, referring to Tillemont's +remarks on that resemblance, "has explained why the Donatists are +eternally burning with the devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven +with Jesus Christ."<a name="FNanchor_364:1_340" id="FNanchor_364:1_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_364:1_340" class="fnanchor">[364:1]</a> And his reason is intelligible: it is, says +Tillemont, "as St. Augustine often says, because the Donatists had +broken the bond of peace and charity with the other Churches, which St. +Cyprian had preserved so carefully."<a name="FNanchor_364:2_341" id="FNanchor_364:2_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_364:2_341" class="fnanchor">[364:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>These are specimens of the raw material, as it may be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>called, which, +whether as found in individual Fathers within the pale of the Church, or +in heretics external to it, she had the power, by means of the +continuity and firmness of her principles, to convert to her own uses. +She alone has succeeded in thus rejecting evil without sacrificing the +good, and in holding together in one things which in all other schools +are incompatible. Gnostic or Platonic words are found in the inspired +theology of St. John; to the Platonists Unitarian writers trace the +doctrine of our Lord's divinity; Gibbon the idea of the Incarnation to +the Gnostics. The Gnostics too seem first to have systematically thrown +the intellect upon matters of faith; and the very term "Gnostic" has +been taken by Clement to express his perfect Christian. And, though +ascetics existed from the beginning, the notion of a religion higher +than the Christianity of the many, was first prominently brought forward +by the Gnostics, Montanists, Novatians, and Manichees. And while the +prophets of the Montanists prefigure the Church's Doctors, and their +professed inspiration her infallibility, and their revelations her +developments, and the heresiarch himself is the unsightly anticipation +of St. Francis, in Novatian again we discern the aspiration of nature +after such creations of grace as St. Benedict or St. Bruno. And so the +effort of Sabellius to complete the enunciation of the mystery of the +Ever-blessed Trinity failed: it became a heresy; grace would not be +constrained; the course of thought could not be forced;—at length it +was realized in the true Unitarianism of St. Augustine.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>Doctrine too is percolated, as it were, through different minds, +beginning with writers of inferior authority in the Church, and issuing +at length in the enunciation of her Doctors. Origen, Tertullian, nay +Eusebius and the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>Antiochenes, supply the materials, from which the +Fathers have wrought out comments or treatises. St. Gregory Nazianzen +and St. Basil digested into form the theological principles of Origen; +St. Hilary and St. Ambrose are both indebted to the same great writer in +their interpretations of Scripture; St. Ambrose again has taken his +comment on St. Luke from Eusebius, and certain of his Tracts from Philo; +St. Cyprian called Tertullian his Master; and traces of Tertullian, in +his almost heretical treatises, may be detected in the most finished +sentences of St. Leo. The school of Antioch, in spite of the heretical +taint of various of its Masters, formed the genius of St. Chrysostom. +And the Apocryphal gospels have contributed many things for the devotion +and edification of Catholic believers.<a name="FNanchor_366:1_342" id="FNanchor_366:1_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_366:1_342" class="fnanchor">[366:1]</a></p> + +<p>The deep meditation which seems to have been exercised by the Fathers on +points of doctrine, the disputes and turbulence yet lucid determination +which characterize the Councils, the indecision of Popes, are all in +different ways, at least when viewed together, portions and indications +of the same process. The theology of the Church is no random combination +of various opinions, but a diligent, patient working out of one doctrine +from many materials. The conduct of Popes, Councils, Fathers, betokens +the slow, painful, anxious taking up of new truths into an existing body +of belief. St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Leo are conspicuous for +the repetition <i>in terminis</i> of their own theological statements; on the +contrary, it has been observed of the heterodox Tertullian, that his +works "indicate no ordinary fertility of mind in that he so little +repeats himself or recurs to favourite thoughts, as is frequently the +case even with the great St. Augustine."<a name="FNanchor_366:2_343" id="FNanchor_366:2_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_366:2_343" class="fnanchor">[366:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>11.</p> + +<p>Here we see the difference between originality of mind and the gift and +calling of a Doctor in the Church; the holy Fathers just mentioned were +intently fixing their minds on what they taught, grasping it more and +more closely, viewing it on various sides, trying its consistency, +weighing their own separate expressions. And thus if in some cases they +were even left in ignorance, the next generation of teachers completed +their work, for the same unwearied anxious process of thought went on. +St. Gregory Nyssen finishes the investigations of St. Athanasius; St. +Leo guards the polemical statements of St. Cyril. Clement may hold a +purgatory, yet tend to consider all punishment purgatorial; St. Cyprian +may hold the unsanctified state of heretics, but include in his doctrine +a denial of their baptism; St. Hippolytus may believe in the personal +existence of the Word from eternity, yet speak confusedly on the +eternity of His Sonship; the Council of Antioch might put aside the +Homoüsion, and the Council of Nicæa impose it; St. Hilary may believe in +a purgatory, yet confine it to the day of judgment; St. Athanasius and +other Fathers may treat with almost supernatural exactness the doctrine +of our Lord's incarnation, yet imply, as far as words go, that He was +ignorant viewed in His human nature; the Athanasian Creed may admit the +illustration of soul and body, and later Fathers may discountenance it; +St. Augustine might first be opposed to the employment of force in +religion, and then acquiesce in it. Prayers for the faithful departed +may be found in the early liturgies, yet with an indistinctness which +included the Blessed Virgin and the Martyrs in the same rank with the +imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet unexpiated; and succeeding +times might keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient. +Aristotle might be reprobated by certain early Fathers, yet <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>furnish the +phraseology for theological definitions afterwards. And in a different +subject-matter, St. Isidore and others might be suspicious of the +decoration of Churches; St. Paulinus and St. Helena advance it. And thus +we are brought on to dwell upon the office of grace, as well as of +truth, in enabling the Church's creed to develope and to absorb without +the risk of corruption.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. <i>The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace.</i></h4> + +<p>There is in truth a certain virtue or grace in the Gospel which changes +the quality of doctrines, opinions, usages, actions, and personal +characters when incorporated with it, and makes them right and +acceptable to its Divine Author, whereas before they were either +infected with evil, or at best but shadows of the truth. This is the +principle, above spoken of, which I have called the Sacramental. "We +know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness," is an +enunciation of the principle;—or, the declaration of the Apostle of the +Gentiles, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are +passed away, behold all things are become new." Thus it is that outward +rites, which are but worthless in themselves, lose their earthly +character and become Sacraments under the Gospel; circumcision, as St. +Paul says, is carnal and has come to an end, yet Baptism is a perpetual +ordinance, as being grafted upon a system which is grace and truth. +Elsewhere, he parallels, while he contrasts, "the cup of the Lord" and +"the cup of devils," in this respect, that to partake of either is to +hold communion with the source from which it comes; and he adds +presently, that "we have been all made to drink into one spirit." So +again he says, no one is justified by the works of the old Law; while +both he implies, and St. James declares, that Christians are justified +by works of the New <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>Law. Again he contrasts the exercises of the +intellect as exhibited by heathen and Christian. "Howbeit," he says, +after condemning heathen wisdom, "we speak wisdom among them that are +perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world;" and it is plain that nowhere +need we look for more glowing eloquence, more distinct profession of +reasoning, more careful assertion of doctrine, than is to be found in +the Apostle's writings.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>In like manner when the Jewish exorcists attempted to "call over them +which had evil spirits the Name of the Lord Jesus," the evil spirit +professed not to know them, and inflicted on them a bodily injury; on +the other hand, the occasion of this attempt of theirs was a stupendous +instance or type, in the person of St. Paul, of the very principle I am +illustrating. "God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so +that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, +and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of +them." The grace given him was communicable, diffusive; an influence +passing from him to others, and making what it touched spiritual, as +enthusiasm may be or tastes or panics.</p> + +<p>Parallel instances occur of the operation of this principle in the +history of the Church, from the time that the Apostles were taken from +it. St. Paul denounces distinctions in meat and drink, the observance of +Sabbaths and holydays, and of ordinances, and the worship of Angels; yet +Christians, from the first, were rigid in their stated fastings, +venerated, as St. Justin tells us, the Angelic intelligences,<a name="FNanchor_369:1_344" id="FNanchor_369:1_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_369:1_344" class="fnanchor">[369:1]</a> and +established the observance of the Lord's day as soon as persecution +ceased.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>3.</p> + +<p>In like manner Celsus objects that Christians did not "endure the sight +of temples, altars, and statues;" Porphyry, that "they blame the rites +of worship, victims, and frankincense;" the heathen disputant in +Minucius asks, "Why have Christians no altars, no temples, no +conspicuous images?" and "no sacrifices;" and yet it is plain from +Tertullian that Christians had altars of their own, and sacrifices and +priests. And that they had churches is again and again proved by +Eusebius who had seen "the houses of prayer levelled" in the Dioclesian +persecution; from the history too of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, nay from +Clement.<a name="FNanchor_370:1_345" id="FNanchor_370:1_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_370:1_345" class="fnanchor">[370:1]</a> Again, St. Justin and Minucius speak of the form of the +Cross in terms of reverence, quite inconsistent with the doctrine that +external emblems of religion may not be venerated. Tertullian speaks of +Christians signing themselves with it whatever they set about, whether +they walk, eat, or lie down to sleep. In Eusebius's life of Constantine, +the figure of the Cross holds a most conspicuous place; the Emperor sees +it in the sky and is converted; he places it upon his standards; he +inserts it into his own hand when he puts up his statue; wherever the +Cross is displayed in his battles, he conquers; he appoints fifty men to +carry it; he engraves it on his soldiers' arms; and Licinius dreads its +power. Shortly after, Julian plainly accuses Christians of worshipping +the wood of the Cross, though they refused to worship the <i>ancile</i>. In a +later age the worship of images was introduced.<a name="FNanchor_370:2_346" id="FNanchor_370:2_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_370:2_346" class="fnanchor">[370:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>4.</p> + +<p>The principle of the distinction, by which these observances were pious +in Christianity and superstitious in paganism, is implied in such +passages of Tertullian, Lactantius, and others, as speak of evil spirits +lurking under the pagan statues. It is intimated also by Origen, who, +after saying that Scripture so strongly "forbids temples, altars, and +images," that Christians are "ready to go to death, if necessary, rather +than pollute their notion of the God of all by any such transgression," +assigns as a reason "that, as far as possible, they might not fall into +the notion that images were gods." St. Augustine, in replying to +Porphyry, is more express; "Those," he says, "who are acquainted with +Old and New Testament do not blame in the pagan religion the erection of +temples or institution of priesthoods, but that these are done to idols +and devils. . . True religion blames in their superstitions, not so much +their sacrificing, for the ancient saints sacrificed to the True God, as +their sacrificing to false gods."<a name="FNanchor_371:1_347" id="FNanchor_371:1_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_371:1_347" class="fnanchor">[371:1]</a> To Faustus the Manichee he +answers, "We have some things in common with the gentiles, but our +purpose is different."<a name="FNanchor_371:2_348" id="FNanchor_371:2_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_371:2_348" class="fnanchor">[371:2]</a> And St. Jerome asks Vigilantius, who made +objections to lights and oil, "Because we once worshipped idols, is that +a reason why we should not worship God, for fear of seeming to address +him with an honour like that which was paid to idols and then was +detestable, whereas this is paid to Martyrs and therefore to be +received?"<a name="FNanchor_371:3_349" id="FNanchor_371:3_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_371:3_349" class="fnanchor">[371:3]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of +evil, and to transmute the very instruments <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>and appendages of +demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages +had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of +nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what +they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were +moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted +the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, +should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the +existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of +the educated class.</p> + +<p>St. Gregory Thaumaturgus supplies the first instance on record of this +economy. He was the Apostle of Pontus, and one of his methods for +governing an untoward population is thus related by St. Gregory of +Nyssa. "On returning," he says, "to the city, after revisiting the +country round about, he increased the devotion of the people everywhere +by instituting festive meetings in honour of those who had fought for +the faith. The bodies of the Martyrs were distributed in different +places, and the people assembled and made merry, as the year came round, +holding festival in their honour. This indeed was a proof of his great +wisdom . . . for, perceiving that the childish and untrained populace were +retained in their idolatrous error by creature comforts, in order that +what was of first importance should at any rate be secured to them, viz. +that they should look to God in place of their vain rites, he allowed +them to be merry, jovial, and gay at the monuments of the holy Martyrs, +as if their behaviour would in time undergo a spontaneous change into +greater seriousness and strictness, since faith would lead them to it; +which has actually been the happy issue in that population, all carnal +gratification having turned into a spiritual form of rejoicing."<a name="FNanchor_372:1_350" id="FNanchor_372:1_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_372:1_350" class="fnanchor">[372:1]</a> +There is no reason to suppose <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>that the licence here spoken of passed +the limits of harmless though rude festivity; for it is observable that +the same reason, the need of holydays for the multitude, is assigned by +Origen, St. Gregory's master, to explain the establishment of the Lord's +Day also, and the Paschal and the Pentecostal festivals, which have +never been viewed as unlawful compliances; and, moreover, the people +were in fact eventually reclaimed from their gross habits by his +indulgent policy, a successful issue which could not have followed an +accommodation to what was sinful.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>The example set by St. Gregory in an age of persecution was impetuously +followed when a time of peace succeeded. In the course of the fourth +century two movements or developments spread over the face of +Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one +ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by +Eusebius,<a name="FNanchor_373:1_351" id="FNanchor_373:1_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_373:1_351" class="fnanchor">[373:1]</a> that Constantine, in order to recommend the new +religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to +which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go +into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made +familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to +particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; +incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; +holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, +processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, +the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, +perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison,<a name="FNanchor_373:2_352" id="FNanchor_373:2_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_373:2_352" class="fnanchor">[373:2]</a> are all +of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>7.</p> + +<p>The eighth book of Theodoret's work <i>Adversus Gentiles</i>, which is "On +the Martyrs," treats so largely on the subject, that we must content +ourselves with only a specimen of the illustrations which it affords, of +the principle acted on by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. "Time, which makes +all things decay," he says, speaking of the Martyrs, "has preserved +their glory incorruptible. For as the noble souls of those conquerors +traverse the heavens, and take part in the spiritual choirs, so their +bodies are not consigned to separate tombs, but cities and towns divide +them among them; and call them saviours of souls and bodies, and +physicians, and honour them as the protectors and guardians of cities, +and, using their intervention with the Lord of all, obtain through them +divine gifts. And though each body be divided, the grace remains +indivisible; and that small, that tiny particle is equal in power with +the Martyr that hath never been dispersed about. For the grace which is +ever blossoming distributes the gifts, measuring the bounty according to +the faith of those who come for it.</p> + +<p>"Yet not even this persuades you to celebrate their God, but ye laugh +and mock at the honour which is paid them by all, and consider it a +pollution to approach their tombs. But though all men made a jest of +them, yet at least the Greeks could not decently complain, to whom +belonged libations and expiations, and heroes and demi-gods and deified +men. To Hercules, though a man . . . and compelled to serve Eurystheus, +they built temples, and constructed altars, and offered sacrifices in +honour, and allotted feasts; and that, not Spartans only and Athenians, +but the whole of Greece and the greater part of Europe."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>8.</p> + +<p>Then, after going through the history of many heathen deities, and +referring to the doctrine of the philosophers about great men, and to +the monuments of kings and emperors, all of which at once are witnesses +and are inferior, to the greatness of the Martyrs, he continues: "To +their shrines we come, not once or twice a year or five times, but often +do we hold celebrations; often, nay daily, do we present hymns to their +Lord. And the sound in health ask for its preservation, and those who +struggle with any disease for a release from their sufferings; the +childless for children, the barren to become mothers, and those who +enjoy the blessing for its safe keeping. Those too who are setting out +for a foreign land beg that the Martyrs may be their fellow-travellers +and guides of the journey; those who have come safe back acknowledge the +grace, not coming to them as to gods, but beseeching them as divine men, +and asking their intercession. And that they obtain what they ask in +faith, their dedications openly witness, in token of their cure. For +some bring likenesses of eyes, others of feet, others of hands; some of +gold, others of silver; and their Lord accepts even the small and cheap, +measuring the gift by the offerer's ability. . . . . Philosophers and Orators +are consigned to oblivion, and kings and captains are not known even by +name to the many; but the names of the Martyrs are better known to all +than the names of those dearest to them. And they make a point of giving +them to their children, with a view of gaining for them thereby safety +and protection. . . . Nay, of the so-called gods, so utterly have the +sacred places been destroyed, that not even their outline remains, nor +the shape of their altars is known to men of this generation, while +their materials have been dedicated to the shrines of the Martyrs. For +the Lord has introduced His <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>own dead in place of your gods; of the one +He hath made a riddance, on the other He hath conferred their honours. +For the Pandian festival, the Diasia, and the Dionysia, and your other +such, we have the feasts of Peter, of Paul, of Thomas, of Sergius, of +Marcellus, of Leontius, of Panteleëmon, of Antony, of Maurice, and of +the other Martyrs; and for that old-world procession, and indecency of +work and word, are held modest festivities, without intemperance, or +revel, or laughter, but with divine hymns, and attendance on holy +discourses and prayers, adorned with laudable tears." This was the view +of the "Evidences of Christianity" which a Bishop of the fifth century +offered for the conversion of unbelievers.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>The introduction of Images was still later, and met with more opposition +in the West than in the East. It is grounded on the same great principle +which I am illustrating; and as I have given extracts from Theodoret for +the developments of the fourth and fifth centuries, so will I now cite +St. John Damascene in defence of the further developments of the eighth.</p> + +<p>"As to the passages you adduce," he says to his opponents, "they +abominate not the worship paid to our Images, but that of the Greeks, +who made them gods. It needs not therefore, because of the absurd use of +the Greeks, to abolish our use which is so pious. Enchanters and wizards +use adjurations, so does the Church over its Catechumens; but they +invoke devils, and she invokes God against devils. Greeks dedicate +images to devils, and call them gods; but we to True God Incarnate, and +to God's servants and friends, who drive away the troops of +devils."<a name="FNanchor_376:1_353" id="FNanchor_376:1_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_376:1_353" class="fnanchor">[376:1]</a> Again, "As the holy Fathers overthrew the temples and +shrines of the devils, and raised in their places shrines in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>names +of Saints and we worship them, so also they overthrew the images of the +devils, and in their stead raised images of Christ, and God's Mother, +and the Saints. And under the Old Covenant, Israel neither raised +temples in the name of men, nor was memory of man made a festival; for, +as yet, man's nature was under a curse, and death was condemnation, and +therefore was lamented, and a corpse was reckoned unclean and he who +touched it; but now that the Godhead has been combined with our nature, +as some life-giving and saving medicine, our nature has been glorified +and is trans-elemented into incorruption. Wherefore the death of Saints +is made a feast, and temples are raised to them, and Images are +painted. . . For the Image is a triumph, and a manifestation, and a +monument in memory of the victory of those who have done nobly and +excelled, and of the shame of the devils defeated and overthrown." Once +more, "If because of the Law thou dost forbid Images, you will soon have +to sabbatize and be circumcised, for these ordinances the Law commands +as indispensable; nay, to observe the whole law, and not to keep the +festival of the Lord's Pascha out of Jerusalem: but know that if you +keep the Law, Christ hath profited you nothing. . . . . But away with this, +for whoever of you are justified in the Law have fallen from +grace."<a name="FNanchor_377:1_354" id="FNanchor_377:1_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_377:1_354" class="fnanchor">[377:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>It is quite consistent with the tenor of these remarks to observe, or to +allow, that real superstitions have sometimes obtained in parts of +Christendom from its intercourse with the heathen; or have even been +admitted, or all but admitted, though commonly resisted strenuously, by +authorities in the Church, in consequence of the resemblance which +exists between the heathen rites and certain portions of her ritual. As +philosophy has at times corrupted her <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>divines, so has paganism +corrupted her worshippers; and as the more intellectual have been +involved in heresy, so have the ignorant been corrupted by superstition. +Thus St. Chrysostom is vehement against the superstitious usages which +Jews and Gentiles were introducing among Christians at Antioch and +Constantinople. "What shall we say," he asks in one place, "about the +amulets and bells which are hung upon the hands, and the scarlet woof, +and other things full of such extreme folly; when they ought to invest +the child with nothing else save the protection of the Cross? But now +that is despised which hath converted the whole world, and given the +sore wound to the devil, and overthrown all his power; while the thread, +and the woof, and the other amulets of that kind, are entrusted with the +child's safety." After mentioning further superstitions, he proceeds, +"Now that among Greeks such things should be done, is no wonder; but +among the worshippers of the Cross, and partakers in unspeakable +mysteries, and professors of such morality, that such unseemliness +should prevail, this is especially to be deplored again and +again."<a name="FNanchor_378:1_355" id="FNanchor_378:1_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_378:1_355" class="fnanchor">[378:1]</a></p> + +<p>And in like manner St. Augustine suppressed the feasts called Agapæ, +which had been allowed the African Christians on their first conversion. +"It is time," he says, "for men who dare not deny that they are +Christians, to begin to live according to the will of Christ, and, now +being Christians, to reject what was only allowed that they might become +Christians." The people objected the example of the Vatican Church at +Rome, where such feasts were observed every day; St. Augustine answered, +"I have heard that it has been often prohibited, but the place is far +off from the Bishop's abode (the Lateran), and in so large a city there +is a multitude of carnal persons, especially of strangers who resort +daily thither."<a name="FNanchor_378:2_356" id="FNanchor_378:2_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_378:2_356" class="fnanchor">[378:2]</a> And <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>in like manner it certainly is possible that +the consciousness of the sanctifying power in Christianity may have +acted as a temptation to sins, whether of deceit or of violence; as if +the habit or state of grace destroyed the sinfulness of certain acts, or +as if the end justified the means.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>It is but enunciating in other words the principle we are tracing, to +say that the Church has been entrusted with the dispensation of grace. +For if she can convert heathen appointments into spiritual rites and +usages, what is this but to be in possession of a treasure, and to +exercise a discretionary power in its application? Hence there has been +from the first much variety and change, in the Sacramental acts and +instruments which she has used. While the Eastern and African Churches +baptized heretics on their reconciliation, the Church of Rome, as the +Catholic Church since, maintained that imposition of hands was +sufficient, if their prior baptism had been formally correct. The +ceremony of imposition of hands was used on various occasions with a +distinct meaning; at the rite of Catechumens, on admitting heretics, in +Confirmation, in Ordination, in Benediction. Baptism was sometimes +administered by immersion, sometimes by infusion. Infant Baptism was not +at first enforced as afterwards. Children or even infants were admitted +to the Eucharist in the African Church and the rest of the West, as now +in the Greek. Oil had various uses, as for healing the sick, or as in +the rite of extreme unction. Indulgences in works or in periods of +penance, had a different meaning, according to circumstances. In like +manner the Sign of the Cross was one of the earliest means of grace; +then holy seasons, and holy places, and pilgrimage to them; holy water; +prescribed prayers, or other observances; garments, as the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>scapular, +and sacred vestments; the rosary; the crucifix. And for some wise +purpose doubtless, such as that of showing the power of the Church in +the dispensation of divine grace, as well as the perfection and +spirituality of the Eucharistic Presence, the Chalice is in the West +withheld from all but the celebrant in the Holy Eucharist.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">12.</p> + +<p>Since it has been represented as if the power of assimilation, spoken of +in this Chapter, is in my meaning nothing more than a mere accretion of +doctrines or rites from without, I am led to quote the following passage +in further illustration of it from my "Essays," vol. ii. p. 231:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"The phenomenon, admitted on all hands, is this:—That great +portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, +in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in +heathen philosophies and religions. For instance, the doctrine +of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West; so is +the ceremony of washing; so is the rite of sacrifice. The +doctrine of the Divine Word is Platonic; the doctrine of the +Incarnation is Indian; of a divine kingdom is Judaic; of +Angels and demons is Magian; the connexion of sin with the +body is Gnostic; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin; a +sacerdotal order is Egyptian; the idea of a new birth is +Chinese and Eleusinian; belief in sacramental virtue is +Pythagorean; and honours to the dead are a polytheism. Such is +the general nature of the fact before us; Mr. Milman argues +from it,—'These things are in heathenism, therefore they are +not Christian:' we, on the contrary, prefer to say, 'these +things are in Christianity, therefore they are not heathen.' +That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears +us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor +of the world has scattered the seeds of truth far and wide +over its extent; that these have variously taken root, and +grown up as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living; +and hence that, as the inferior animals have tokens of an +immaterial <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>principle in them, yet have not souls, so the +philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain +true ideas, though they are not directly divine. What man is +amid the brute creation, such is the Church among the schools +of the world; and as Adam gave names to the animals about him, +so has the Church from the first looked round upon the earth, +noting and visiting the doctrines she found there. She began +in Chaldea, and then sojourned among the Canaanites, and went +down into Egypt, and thence passed into Arabia, till she +rested in her own land. Next she encountered the merchants of +Tyre, and the wisdom of the East country, and the luxury of +Sheba. Then she was carried away to Babylon, and wandered to +the schools of Greece. And wherever she went, in trouble or in +triumph, still she was a living spirit, the mind and voice of +the Most High; 'sitting in the midst of the doctors, both +hearing them and asking them questions;' claiming to herself +what they said rightly, correcting their errors, supplying +their defects, completing their beginnings, expanding their +surmises, and thus gradually by means of them enlarging the +range and refining the sense of her own teaching. So far then +from her creed being of doubtful credit because it resembles +foreign theologies, we even hold that one special way in which +Providence has imparted divine knowledge to us has been by +enabling her to draw and collect it together out of the world, +and, in this sense, as in others, to 'suck the milk of the +Gentiles and to suck the breast of kings.'</p> + +<p>"How far in fact this process has gone, is a question of +history; and we believe it has before now been grossly +exaggerated and misrepresented by those who, like Mr. Milman, +have thought that its existence told against Catholic +doctrine; but so little antecedent difficulty have we in the +matter, that we could readily grant, unless it were a question +of fact not of theory, that Balaam was an Eastern sage, or a +Sibyl was inspired, or Solomon learnt of the sons of Mahol, or +Moses was a scholar of the Egyptian hierophants. We are not +distressed to be told that the doctrine of the angelic host +came from Babylon, while we know that they did sing at the +Nativity; nor that the vision of a Mediator is in Philo, if in +very deed <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>He died for us on Calvary. Nor are we afraid to +allow, that, even after His coming, the Church has been a +treasure-house, giving forth things old and new, casting the +gold of fresh tributaries into her refiner's fire, or stamping +upon her own, as time required it, a deeper impress of her +Master's image.</p> + +<p>"The distinction between these two theories is broad and +obvious. The advocates of the one imply that Revelation was a +single, entire, solitary act, or nearly so, introducing a +certain message; whereas we, who maintain the other, consider +that Divine teaching has been in fact, what the analogy of +nature would lead us to expect, 'at sundry times and in divers +manners,' various, complex, progressive, and supplemental of +itself. We consider the Christian doctrine, when analyzed, to +appear, like the human frame, 'fearfully and wonderfully +made;' but they think it some one tenet or certain principles +given out at one time in their fulness, without gradual +enlargement before Christ's coming or elucidation afterwards. +They cast off all that they also find in Pharisee or heathen; +we conceive that the Church, like Aaron's rod, devours the +serpents of the magicians. They are ever hunting for a +fabulous primitive simplicity; we repose in Catholic fulness. +They seek what never has been found; we accept and use what +even they acknowledge to be a substance. They are driven to +maintain, on their part, that the Church's doctrine was never +pure; we say that it can never be corrupt. We consider that a +divine promise keeps the Church Catholic from doctrinal +corruption; but on what promise, or on what encouragement, +they are seeking for their visionary purity does not appear."</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359:1_336" id="Footnote_359:1_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359:1_336"><span class="label">[359:1]</span></a> Justin, Apol. ii. 10, Tryph. 121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360:1_337" id="Footnote_360:1_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360:1_337"><span class="label">[360:1]</span></a> Europ. Civ. p. 56, tr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360:2_338" id="Footnote_360:2_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360:2_338"><span class="label">[360:2]</span></a> p. 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363:1_339" id="Footnote_363:1_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363:1_339"><span class="label">[363:1]</span></a> De Virg. Vol. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364:1_340" id="Footnote_364:1_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364:1_340"><span class="label">[364:1]</span></a> Hist. t. 3, p. 312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364:2_341" id="Footnote_364:2_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364:2_341"><span class="label">[364:2]</span></a> Mem. Eccl. t. 6, p. 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366:1_342" id="Footnote_366:1_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366:1_342"><span class="label">[366:1]</span></a> Galland. t. 3, p. 673, note 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366:2_343" id="Footnote_366:2_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366:2_343"><span class="label">[366:2]</span></a> Vid. Preface to Oxford Transl. of Tertullian, where the +character of his mind is admirably drawn out.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369:1_344" id="Footnote_369:1_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369:1_344"><span class="label">[369:1]</span></a> Infra, pp. 411-415, &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370:1_345" id="Footnote_370:1_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370:1_345"><span class="label">[370:1]</span></a> Orig. c. Cels. vii. 63, viii. 17 (vid. not. Bened. in +loc.), August. Ep. 102, 16; Minuc. F. 10, and 32; Tertull. de Orat. fin. +ad Uxor. i. fin. Euseb. Hist. viii. 2; Clem. Strom. vii. 6, p. 846.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370:2_346" id="Footnote_370:2_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370:2_346"><span class="label">[370:2]</span></a> Tertull. de Cor. 3; Just. Apol. i. 65; Minuc. F. 20; +Julian ap. Cyr. vi. p. 194, Spanh.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371:1_347" id="Footnote_371:1_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371:1_347"><span class="label">[371:1]</span></a> Epp. 102, 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371:2_348" id="Footnote_371:2_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371:2_348"><span class="label">[371:2]</span></a> Contr. Faust. 20, 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371:3_349" id="Footnote_371:3_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371:3_349"><span class="label">[371:3]</span></a> Lact. ii. 15, 16; Tertull. Spect. 12; Origen, c. Cels. +vii. 64-66, August. Ep. 102, 18; Contr. Faust. xx. 23; Hieron. c. Vigil. +8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372:1_350" id="Footnote_372:1_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372:1_350"><span class="label">[372:1]</span></a> Vit. Thaum. p. 1006.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373:1_351" id="Footnote_373:1_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373:1_351"><span class="label">[373:1]</span></a> V. Const. iii. 1, iv. 23, &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373:2_352" id="Footnote_373:2_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373:2_352"><span class="label">[373:2]</span></a> According to Dr. E. D. Clarke, Travels, vol. i. p. +352.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376:1_353" id="Footnote_376:1_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376:1_353"><span class="label">[376:1]</span></a> De Imag. i. 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377:1_354" id="Footnote_377:1_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377:1_354"><span class="label">[377:1]</span></a> Ibid. ii. 11. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378:1_355" id="Footnote_378:1_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378:1_355"><span class="label">[378:1]</span></a> Hom. xii. in Cor. 1, Oxf. Tr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378:2_356" id="Footnote_378:2_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378:2_356"><span class="label">[378:2]</span></a> Fleury, Hist. xx. 11, Oxf. Tr.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH NOTE OF A TRUE<br /> +DEVELOPMENT.</h3> + +<h4>LOGICAL SEQUENCE.</h4> + +<p>Logical Sequence has been set down above as a fourth test of fidelity in +development, and shall now be briefly illustrated in the history of +Christian doctrine. That is, I mean to give instances of one doctrine +leading to another; so that, if the former be admitted, the latter can +hardly be denied, and the latter can hardly be called a corruption +without taking exception to the former. And I use "logical sequence" in +contrast both to that process of incorporation and assimilation which +was last under review, and also to that principle of science, which has +put into order and defended the developments after they have been made. +Accordingly it will include any progress of the mind from one judgment +to another, as, for instance, by way of moral fitness, which may not +admit of analysis into premiss and conclusion. Thus St. Peter argued in +the case of Cornelius and his friends, "Can any man forbid water that +these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well +as we?"</p> + +<p>Such is the series of doctrinal truths, which start from the dogma of +our Lord's Divinity, and again from such texts of Scripture as "Thou art +Peter," and which I should <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>have introduced here, had I not already used +them for a previous purpose in the <a href="#Page_122">Fourth Chapter</a>. I shall confine +myself then for an example to the instance of the developments which +follow on the consideration of sin after Baptism, a subject which was +touched upon in the same Chapter.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. <i>Pardons.</i></h4> + +<p>It is not necessary here to enlarge on the benefits which the primitive +Church held to be conveyed to the soul by means of the Sacrament of +Baptism. Its distinguishing gift, which is in point to mention, was the +plenary forgiveness of sins past. It was also held that the Sacrament +could not be repeated. The question immediately followed, how, since +there was but "one Baptism for the remission of sins," the guilt of such +sin was to be removed as was incurred after its administration. There +must be some provision in the revealed system for so obvious a need. +What could be done for those who had received the one remission of sins, +and had sinned since? Some who thought upon the subject appear to have +conceived that the Church was empowered to grant one, and one only, +reconciliation after grievous offences. Three sins seemed to many, at +least in the West, to be irremissible, idolatry, murder, and adultery. +But such a system of Church discipline, however suited to a small +community, and even expedient in a time of persecution, could not exist +in Christianity, as it spread into the <i>orbis terrarum</i>, and gathered +like a net of every kind. A more indulgent rule gradually gained ground; +yet the Spanish Church adhered to the ancient even in the fourth +century, and a portion of the African in the third, and in the remaining +portion there was a relaxation only as regards the crime of +incontinence.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +Meanwhile a protest was made against the growing innovation: at the +beginning of the third century Montanus, who was a zealot for the more +primitive rule, shrank from the laxity, as he considered it, of the +Asian Churches;<a name="FNanchor_385:1_357" id="FNanchor_385:1_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_385:1_357" class="fnanchor">[385:1]</a> as, in a different subject-matter, Jovinian and +Vigilantius were offended at the developments in divine worship in the +century which followed. The Montanists had recourse to the See of Rome, +and at first with some appearance of success. Again, in Africa, where +there had been in the first instance a schism headed by Felicissimus in +favour of a milder discipline than St. Cyprian approved, a far more +formidable stand was soon made in favour of Antiquity, headed by +Novatus, who originally had been of the party of Felicissimus. This was +taken up at Rome by Novatian, who professed to adhere to the original, +or at least the primitive rule of the Church, viz. that those who had +once fallen from the faith could in no case be received again.<a name="FNanchor_385:2_358" id="FNanchor_385:2_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_385:2_358" class="fnanchor">[385:2]</a> +The controversy seems to have found the following issue,—whether the +Church had the <i>means</i> of pardoning sins committed after Baptism, which +the Novatians, at least practically, denied. "It is fitting," says the +Novatian Acesius, "to exhort those who have sinned after Baptism to +repentance, but to expect hope of remission, not from the priests, but +from God, who hath power to forgive sins."<a name="FNanchor_385:3_359" id="FNanchor_385:3_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_385:3_359" class="fnanchor">[385:3]</a> The schism spread into +the East, and led to the appointment of a penitentiary priest in the +Catholic Churches. By the end of the third century as many as four +degrees of penance were appointed, through which offenders had to pass +in order to a reconciliation.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. <i>Penances.</i></h4> + +<p>The length and severity of the penance varied with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>times and places. +Sometimes, as we have seen, it lasted, in the case of grave offences, +through life and on to death, without any reconciliation; at other times +it ended only in the <i>viaticum</i>; and if, after reconciliation they did +not die, their ordinary penance was still binding on them either for +life or for a certain time. In other cases it lasted ten, fifteen, or +twenty years. But in all cases, from the first, the Bishop had the power +of shortening it, and of altering the nature and quality of the +punishment. Thus in the instance of the Emperor Theodosius, whom St. +Ambrose shut out from communion for the massacre at Thessalonica, +"according to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were +established in the fourth century," says Gibbon, "the crime of homicide +was expiated by the penitence of twenty years; and as it was impossible, +in the period of human life, to purge the accumulated guilt of the +massacre . . . the murderer should have been excluded from the holy +communion till the hour of his death." He goes on to say that the public +edification which resulted from the humiliation of so illustrious a +penitent was a reason for abridging the punishment. "It was sufficient +that the Emperor of the Romans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, +should appear in a mournful and suppliant posture, and that, in the +midst of the Church of Milan, he should humbly solicit with sighs and +tears the pardon of his sins." His penance was shortened to an interval +of about eight months. Hence arose the phrase of a "<i>pœnitentia +legitima, plena, et justa</i>;" which signifies a penance sufficient, +perhaps in length of time, perhaps in intensity of punishment.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. <i>Satisfactions.</i></h4> + +<p>Here a serious question presented itself to the minds of Christians, +which was now to be wrought out:—Were <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>these punishments merely signs +of contrition, or in any sense satisfactions for sin? If the former, +they might be absolutely remitted at the discretion of the Church, as +soon as true repentance was discovered; the end had then been attained, +and nothing more was necessary. Thus St. Chrysostom says in one of his +Homilies,<a name="FNanchor_387:1_360" id="FNanchor_387:1_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_387:1_360" class="fnanchor">[387:1]</a> "I require not continuance of time, but the correction +of the soul. Show your contrition, show your reformation, and all is +done." Yet, though there might be a reason of the moment for shortening +the penance imposed by the Church, this does not at all decide the +question whether that ecclesiastical penance be not part of an expiation +made to the Almighty Judge for the sin; and supposing this really to be +the case, the question follows, How is the complement of that +satisfaction to be wrought out, which on just grounds of present +expedience has been suspended by the Church now?</p> + +<p>As to this question, it cannot be doubted that the Fathers considered +penance as not a mere expression of contrition, but as an act done +directly towards God and a means of averting His anger. "If the sinner +spare not himself, he will be spared by God," says the writer who goes +under the name of St. Ambrose. "Let him lie in sackcloth, and by the +austerity of his life make amends for the offence of his past +pleasures," says St. Jerome. "As we have sinned greatly," says St. +Cyprian, "let us weep greatly; for a deep wound diligent and long +tending must not be wanting, the repentance must not fall short of the +offence." "Take heed to thyself," says St. Basil, "that, in proportion +to the fault, thou admit also the restoration from the remedy."<a name="FNanchor_387:2_361" id="FNanchor_387:2_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_387:2_361" class="fnanchor">[387:2]</a> +If so, the question follows which was above contemplated,—if in +consequence of death, or in the exercise of the Church's discretion, the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>"<i>plena pœnitentia</i>" is not accomplished in its ecclesiastical +shape, how and when will the residue be exacted?</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. <i>Purgatory.</i></h4> + +<p>Clement of Alexandria answers this particular question very distinctly, +according to Bishop Kaye, though not in some other points expressing +himself conformably to the doctrine afterwards received. "Clement," says +that author, "distinguishes between sins committed before and after +baptism: the former are remitted at baptism; the latter are purged by +discipline. . . . The necessity of this purifying discipline is such, that +if it does not take place in this life, it must after death, and is then +to be effected by fire, not by a destructive, but a discriminating fire, +pervading the soul which passes through it."<a name="FNanchor_388:1_362" id="FNanchor_388:1_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_388:1_362" class="fnanchor">[388:1]</a></p> + +<p>There is a celebrated passage in St. Cyprian, on the subject of the +punishment of lapsed Christians, which certainly seems to express the +same doctrine. "St. Cyprian is arguing in favour of readmitting the +lapsed, when penitent; and his argument seems to be that it does not +follow that we absolve them simply because we simply restore them to the +Church. He writes thus to Antonian: 'It is one thing to stand for +pardon, another to arrive at glory; one to be sent to prison (<i>missum in +carcerem</i>) and not to go out till the last farthing be paid, another to +receive at once the reward of faith and virtue; one thing to be +tormented for sin in long pain, and so to be cleansed and purged a long +while by fire (<i>purgari diu igne</i>), another to be washed from all sin in +martyrdom; one thing, in short, to wait for the Lord's sentence in the +Day of Judgment, another at once to be crowned by Him.' Some understand +this passage to refer to the penitential discipline of the Church which +was imposed on the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>penitent; and, as far as the context goes, certainly +no sense could be more apposite. Yet . . . the words in themselves seem to +go beyond any mere ecclesiastical, though virtually divine censure; +especially '<i>missum in carcerem</i>' and '<i>purgari diu igne</i>.'"<a name="FNanchor_389:1_363" id="FNanchor_389:1_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_389:1_363" class="fnanchor">[389:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>The Acts of the Martyrs St. Perpetua and St. Felicitas, which are prior +to St. Cyprian, confirm this interpretation. In the course of the +narrative, St. Perpetua prays for her brother Dinocrates, who had died +at the age of seven; and has a vision of a dark place, and next of a +pool of water, which he was not tall enough to reach. She goes on +praying; and in a second vision the water descended to him, and he was +able to drink, and went to play as children use. "Then I knew," she +says, "that he was translated from his place of punishment."<a name="FNanchor_389:2_364" id="FNanchor_389:2_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_389:2_364" class="fnanchor">[389:2]</a></p> + +<p>The prayers in the Eucharistic Service for the faithful departed, +inculcate, at least according to the belief of the fourth century, the +same doctrine, that the sins of accepted and elect souls, which were not +expiated here, would receive punishment hereafter. Certainly such was +St. Cyril's belief: "I know that many say," he observes, "what is a soul +profited, which departs from this world either with sins or without +sins, if it be commemorated in the [Eucharistic] Prayer? Now, surely, if +when a king had banished certain who had given him offence, their +connexions should weave a crown and offer it to him on behalf of those +under his vengeance, would he not grant a respite to their punishments? +In the same way we, when we offer to Him our supplications for those who +have fallen asleep, though they be sinners, weave no crown, but offer up +Christ, sacrificed for our sins, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>propitiating our merciful God, both +for them and for ourselves."<a name="FNanchor_390:1_365" id="FNanchor_390:1_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_390:1_365" class="fnanchor">[390:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Thus we see how, as time went on, the doctrine of Purgatory was brought +home to the minds of the faithful as a portion or form of Penance due +for post-baptismal sin. And thus the apprehension of this doctrine and +the practice of Infant Baptism would grow into general reception +together. Cardinal Fisher gives another reason for Purgatory being then +developed out of earlier points of faith. He says, "Faith, whether in +Purgatory or in Indulgences, was not so necessary in the Primitive +Church as now. For then love so burned, that every one was ready to meet +death for Christ. Crimes were rare, and such as occurred were avenged by +the great severity of the Canons."<a name="FNanchor_390:2_366" id="FNanchor_390:2_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_390:2_366" class="fnanchor">[390:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>An author, who quotes this passage, analyzes the circumstances and the +reflections which prepared the Christian mind for the doctrine, when it +was first insisted on, and his remarks with a few corrections may be +accepted here. "Most men," he says, "to our apprehensions, are too +little formed in religious habits either for heaven or for hell, yet +there is no middle state when Christ comes in judgment. In consequence +it is obvious to have recourse to the interval before His coming, as a +time during which this incompleteness may be remedied; as a season, not +of changing the spiritual bent and character of the soul departed, +whatever that be, for probation ends with mortal life, but of developing +it in a more determinate form, whether of good or of evil. Again, when +the mind once allows itself to speculate, it will discern in such <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>a +provision a means, whereby those, who, not without true faith at bottom, +yet have committed great crimes, or those who have been carried off in +youth while still undecided, or who die after a barren though not an +immoral or scandalous life, may receive such chastisement as may prepare +them for heaven, and render it consistent with God's justice to admit +them thither. Again, the inequality of the sufferings of Christians in +this life, compared one with another, leads the mind to the same +speculations; the intense suffering, for instance, which some men +undergo on their death-bed, seeming as if but an anticipation in their +case of what comes after death upon others, who, without greater claim +on God's forbearance, live without chastisement, and die easily. The +mind will inevitably dwell upon such thoughts, unless it has been taught +to subdue them by education or by the fear or the experience of their +dangerousness.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>"Various suppositions have, accordingly, been made, as pure +suppositions, as mere specimens of the capabilities (if one may so +speak) of the Divine Dispensation, as efforts of the mind reaching +forward and venturing beyond its depth into the abyss of the Divine +Counsels. If one supposition could be hazarded, sufficient to solve the +problem, the existence of ten thousand others is conceivable, unless +indeed the resources of God's Providence are exactly commensurate with +man's discernment of them. Religious men, amid these searchings of +heart, have naturally gone to Scripture for relief; to see if the +inspired word anywhere gave them any clue for their inquiries. And from +what was there found, and from the speculations of reason upon it, +various notions have been hazarded at different times; for instance, +that there is a certain momentary ordeal to be undergone by all men +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>after this life, more or less severe according to their spiritual +state; or that certain gross sins in good men will be thus visited, or +their lighter failings and habitual imperfections; or that the very +sight of Divine Perfection in the invisible world will be in itself a +pain, while it constitutes the purification of the imperfect but +believing soul; or that, happiness admitting of various degrees of +intensity, penitents late in life may sink for ever into a state, +blissful as far as it goes, but more or less approaching to +unconsciousness; and infants dying after baptism may be as gems paving +the courts of heaven, or as the living wheels of the Prophet's vision; +while matured Saints may excel in capacity of bliss, as well as in +dignity, the highest Archangels.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>"Now, as to the punishments and satisfactions for sin, the texts to +which the minds of the early Christians seem to have been principally +drawn, and from which they ventured to argue in behalf of these vague +notions, were these two: 'The fire shall try every man's work,' &c., and +'He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' These +passages, with which many more were found to accord, directed their +thoughts one way, as making mention of 'fire,' whatever was meant by the +word, as the instrument of trial and purification; and that, at some +time between the present time and the Judgment, or at the Judgment.</p> + +<p>"As the doctrine, thus suggested by certain striking texts, grew in +popularity and definiteness, and verged towards its present Roman form, +it seemed a key to many others. Great portions of the books of Psalms, +Job, and the Lamentations, which express the feelings of religious men +under suffering, would powerfully recommend it by the forcible and most +affecting and awful meaning which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>they received from it. When this was +once suggested, all other meanings would seem tame and inadequate.</p> + +<p>"To these may be added various passages from the Prophets, as that in +the beginning of the third chapter of Malachi, which speaks of fire as +the instrument of judgment and purification, when Christ comes to visit +His Church.</p> + +<p>"Moreover, there were other texts of obscure and indeterminate bearing, +which seemed on this hypothesis to receive a profitable meaning; such as +our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount, 'Verily, I say unto thee, +thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost +farthing;' and St. John's expression in the Apocalypse, that 'no man in +heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the +book.'"<a name="FNanchor_393:1_367" id="FNanchor_393:1_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_393:1_367" class="fnanchor">[393:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>When then an answer had to be made to the question, how is +post-baptismal sin to be remitted, there was an abundance of passages in +Scripture to make easy to the faith of the inquirer the definitive +decision of the Church.</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. <i>Meritorious Works.</i></h4> + +<p>The doctrine of post-baptismal sin, especially when realized in the +doctrine of Purgatory, leads the inquirer to fresh developments beyond +itself. Its effect is to convert a Scripture statement, which might seem +only of temporary application, into a universal and perpetual truth. +When St. Paul and St. Barnabas would "confirm the souls of the +disciples," they taught them "that we must through much tribulation +enter into the kingdom of God." It is obvious what very practical +results would follow on such an announcement, in the instance of those +who simply <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>accepted the Apostolic decision; and in like manner a +conviction that sin must have its punishment, here or hereafter, and +that we all must suffer, how overpowering will be its effect, what a new +light does it cast on the history of the soul, what a change does it +make in our judgment of the external world, what a reversal of our +natural wishes and aims for the future! Is a doctrine conceivable which +would so elevate the mind above this present state, and teach it so +successfully to dare difficult things, and to be reckless of danger and +pain? He who believes that suffer he must, and that delayed punishment +may be the greater, will be above the world, will admire nothing, fear +nothing, desire nothing. He has within his breast a source of greatness, +self-denial, heroism. This is the secret spring of strenuous efforts and +persevering toil, of the sacrifice of fortune, friends, ease, +reputation, happiness. There is, it is true, a higher class of motives +which will be felt by the Saint; who will do from love what all +Christians, who act acceptably, do from faith. And, moreover, the +ordinary measures of charity which Christians possess, suffice for +securing such respectable attention to religious duties as the routine +necessities of the Church require. But if we would raise an army of +devoted men to resist the world, to oppose sin and error, to relieve +misery, or to propagate the truth, we must be provided with motives +which keenly affect the many. Christian love is too rare a gift, +philanthropy is too weak a material, for the occasion. Nor is there an +influence to be found to suit our purpose, besides this solemn +conviction, which arises out of the very rudiments of Christian +theology, and is taught by its most ancient masters,—this sense of the +awfulness of post-baptismal sin. It is in vain to look out for +missionaries for China or Africa, or evangelists for our great towns, or +Christian attendants on the sick, or teachers of the ignorant, on such a +scale of numbers as the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>need requires, without the doctrine of +Purgatory. For thus the sins of youth are turned to account by the +profitable penance of manhood; and terrors, which the philosopher scorns +in the individual, become the benefactors and earn the gratitude of +nations.</p> + + +<h4>§ 6. <i>The Monastic Rule.</i></h4> + +<p>But there is one form of Penance which has been more prevalent and +uniform than any other, out of which the forms just noticed have grown, +or on which they have been engrafted,—the Monastic Rule. In the first +ages, the doctrine of the punishments of sin, whether in this world or +in the next, was little called for. The rigid discipline of the infant +Church was the preventive of greater offences, and its persecutions the +penance of their commission; but when the Canons were relaxed and +confessorship ceased, then some substitute was needed, and such was +Monachism, being at once a sort of continuation of primeval innocence, +and a school of self-chastisement. And, as it is a great principle in +economical and political science that everything should be turned to +account, and there should be no waste, so, in the instance of +Christianity, the penitential observances of individuals, which were +necessarily on a large scale as its professors increased, took the form +of works, whether for the defence of the Church, or the spiritual and +temporal good of mankind.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>In no aspect of the Divine system do we see more striking developments +than in the successive fortunes of Monachism. Little did the youth +Antony foresee, when he set off to fight the evil one in the wilderness, +what a sublime and various history he was opening, a history which had +its first developments even in his own lifetime. He was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>himself a +hermit in the desert; but when others followed his example, he was +obliged to give them guidance, and thus he found himself, by degrees, at +the head of a large family of solitaries, five thousand of whom were +scattered in the district of Nitria alone. He lived to see a second +stage in the development; the huts in which they lived were brought +together, sometimes round a church, and a sort of subordinate community, +or college, formed among certain individuals of their number. St. +Pachomius was the first who imposed a general rule of discipline upon +the brethren, gave them a common dress, and set before them the objects +to which the religious life was dedicated. Manual labour, study, +devotion, bodily mortification, were now their peculiarities; and the +institution, thus defined, spread and established itself through Eastern +and Western Christendom.</p> + +<p>The penitential character of Monachism is not prominent in St. Antony, +though it is distinctly noticed by Pliny in his description of the +Essenes of the Dead Sea, who anticipated the monastic life at the rise +of Christianity. In St. Basil, however, it becomes a distinguishing +feature;—so much so that the monastic profession was made a +disqualification for the pastoral office,<a name="FNanchor_396:1_368" id="FNanchor_396:1_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_396:1_368" class="fnanchor">[396:1]</a> and in theory involved +an absolute separation from mankind; though in St. Basil's, as well as +St. Antony's disciples, it performed the office of resisting heresy.</p> + +<p>Next, the monasteries, which in their ecclesiastical capacity had been +at first separate churches under a Presbyter or Abbot, became schools +for the education of the clergy.<a name="FNanchor_396:2_369" id="FNanchor_396:2_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_396:2_369" class="fnanchor">[396:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Centuries passed, and after many extravagant shapes of the institution, +and much wildness and insubordination in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>its members, a new development +took place under St. Benedict. Revising and digesting the provisions of +St. Antony, St. Pachomius, and St. Basil, he bound together his monks by +a perpetual vow, brought them into the cloister, united the separate +convents into one Order,<a name="FNanchor_397:1_370" id="FNanchor_397:1_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_397:1_370" class="fnanchor">[397:1]</a> and added objects of an ecclesiastical +and civil nature to that of personal edification. Of these objects, +agriculture seemed to St. Benedict himself of first importance; but in a +very short time it was superseded by study and education, and the +monasteries of the following centuries became the schools and libraries, +and the monks the chroniclers and copyists, of a dark period. Centuries +later, the Benedictine Order was divided into separate Congregations, +and propagated in separate monastic bodies. The Congregation of Cluni +was the most celebrated of the former; and of the latter, the hermit +order of the Camaldoli and the agricultural Cistercians.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Both a unity and an originality are observable in the successive phases +under which Monachism has shown itself; and while its developments bring +it more and more into the ecclesiastical system, and subordinate it to +the governing power, they are true to their first idea, and spring fresh +and fresh from the parent stock, which from time immemorial had thriven +in Syria and Egypt. The sheepskin and desert of St. Antony did but +revive "the mantle"<a name="FNanchor_397:2_371" id="FNanchor_397:2_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_397:2_371" class="fnanchor">[397:2]</a> and the mountain of the first Carmelite, and +St. Basil's penitential exercises had already been practised by the +Therapeutæ. In like manner the Congregational principle, which is +ascribed to St. Benedict, had been anticipated <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>by St. Antony and St. +Pachomius; and after centuries of disorder, another function of early +Monachism, for which there had been little call for centuries, the +defence of Catholic truth, was exercised with singular success by the +rival orders of Dominicans and Franciscans.</p> + +<p>St. Benedict had come as if to preserve a principle of civilization, and +a refuge for learning, at a time when the old framework of society was +falling, and new political creations were taking their place. And when +the young intellect within them began to stir, and a change of another +kind discovered itself, then appeared St. Francis and St. Dominic to +teach and chastise it; and in proportion as Monachism assumed this +public office, so did the principle of penance, which had been the chief +characteristic of its earlier forms, hold a less prominent place. The +Tertiaries indeed, or members of the third order of St. Francis and St. +Dominic, were penitents; but the friar himself, instead of a penitent, +was made a priest, and was allowed to quit cloister. Nay, they assumed +the character of what may be called an Ecumenical Order, as being +supported by begging, not by endowments, and being under the +jurisdiction, not of the local Bishop, but of the Holy See. The +Dominicans too came forward especially as a learned body, and as +entrusted with the office of preaching, at a time when the mind of +Europe seemed to be developing into infidelity. They filled the chairs +at the Universities, while the strength of the Franciscans lay among the +lower orders.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>At length, in the last era of ecclesiastical revolution, another +principle of early Monachism, which had been but partially developed, +was brought out into singular prominence in the history of the Jesuits. +"Obedience," said an ancient abbot, "is a monk's service, with which he +shall be heard in prayer, and shall stand with confidence <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>by the +Crucified, for so the Lord came to the cross, being made obedient even +unto death;"<a name="FNanchor_399:1_372" id="FNanchor_399:1_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_399:1_372" class="fnanchor">[399:1]</a> but it was reserved for modern times to furnish the +perfect illustration of this virtue, and to receive the full blessing +which follows it. The great Society, which bears no earthly name, still +more secular in its organization, and still more simply dependent on the +See of St. Peter, has been still more distinguished than any Order +before it for the rule of obedience, while it has compensated the danger +of its free intercourse with the world by its scientific adherence to +devotional exercises. The hermitage, the cloister, the inquisitor, and +the friar were suited to other states of society; with the Jesuits, as +well as with the religious Communities, which are their juniors, +usefulness, secular and religious, literature, education, the +confessional, preaching, the oversight of the poor, missions, the care +of the sick, have been chief objects of attention; great cities have +been the scene of operation: bodily austerities and the ceremonial of +devotion have been made of but secondary importance. Yet it may fairly +be questioned, whether, in an intellectual age, when freedom both of +thought and of action is so dearly prized, a greater penance can be +devised for the soldier of Christ than the absolute surrender of +judgment and will to the command of another.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385:1_357" id="Footnote_385:1_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385:1_357"><span class="label">[385:1]</span></a> Gieseler, Text-book, vol. i. p. 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385:2_358" id="Footnote_385:2_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385:2_358"><span class="label">[385:2]</span></a> Gieseler, ibid. p. 164.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385:3_359" id="Footnote_385:3_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385:3_359"><span class="label">[385:3]</span></a> Socr. Hist. i. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387:1_360" id="Footnote_387:1_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387:1_360"><span class="label">[387:1]</span></a> Hom. 14, in 2 Cor. fin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387:2_361" id="Footnote_387:2_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387:2_361"><span class="label">[387:2]</span></a> Vid. Tertull. Oxf. tr. pp. 374, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388:1_362" id="Footnote_388:1_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388:1_362"><span class="label">[388:1]</span></a> Clem. ch. 12. Vid. also Tertull. de Anim. fin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389:1_363" id="Footnote_389:1_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389:1_363"><span class="label">[389:1]</span></a> Tracts for the Times, No. 79, p. 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389:2_364" id="Footnote_389:2_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389:2_364"><span class="label">[389:2]</span></a> Ruinart, Mart. p. 96.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390:1_365" id="Footnote_390:1_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390:1_365"><span class="label">[390:1]</span></a> Mystagog. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390:2_366" id="Footnote_390:2_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390:2_366"><span class="label">[390:2]</span></a> [Vid. Via Media, vol. i. p 72.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393:1_367" id="Footnote_393:1_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393:1_367"><span class="label">[393:1]</span></a> [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 174-177.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396:1_368" id="Footnote_396:1_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396:1_368"><span class="label">[396:1]</span></a> Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 288.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396:2_369" id="Footnote_396:2_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396:2_369"><span class="label">[396:2]</span></a> Ibid. p. 279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397:1_370" id="Footnote_397:1_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397:1_370"><span class="label">[397:1]</span></a> Or rather his successors, as St. Benedict of Anian, +were the founders of the Order; but minute accuracy on these points is +unnecessary in a mere sketch of the history.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397:2_371" id="Footnote_397:2_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397:2_371"><span class="label">[397:2]</span></a> <ins class="greek" title="mêlôtês">μηλωτής</ins>, 2 Kings ii. Sept. Vid. also, "They +wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins" (Heb. xi. 37).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399:1_372" id="Footnote_399:1_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399:1_372"><span class="label">[399:1]</span></a> Rosweyde, V. P. p. 618.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH NOTE OF A TRUE<br /> +DEVELOPMENT.</h3> + +<h4>ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE.</h4> + +<p>It has been set down above as a fifth argument in favour of the fidelity +of developments, ethical or political, if the doctrine from which they +have proceeded has, in any early stage of its history, given indications +of those opinions and practices in which it has ended. Supposing then +the so-called Catholic doctrines and practices are true and legitimate +developments, and not corruptions, we may expect from the force of logic +to find instances of them in the first centuries. And this I conceive to +be the case: the records indeed of those times are scanty, and we have +little means of determining what daily Christian life then was: we know +little of the thoughts, and the prayers, and the meditations, and the +discourses of the early disciples of Christ, at a time when these +professed developments were not recognized and duly located in the +theological system; yet it appears, even from what remains, that the +atmosphere of the Church was, as it were, charged with them from the +first, and delivered itself of them from time to time, in this way or +that, in various places and persons, as occasion elicited them, +testifying the presence of a vast body of thought within it, which one +day would take shape and position.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span></p> +<h4>§ 1. <i>Resurrection and Relics.</i></h4> + +<p>As a chief specimen of what I am pointing out, I will direct attention +to a characteristic principle of Christianity, whether in the East or in +the West, which is at present both a special stumbling-block and a +subject of scoffing with Protestants and free-thinkers of every shade +and colour: I mean the devotions which both Greeks and Latins show +towards bones, blood, the heart, the hair, bits of clothes, scapulars, +cords, medals, beads, and the like, and the miraculous powers which they +often ascribe to them. Now, the principle from which these beliefs and +usages proceed is the doctrine that Matter is susceptible of grace, or +capable of a union with a Divine Presence and influence. This principle, +as we shall see, was in the first age both energetically manifested and +variously developed; and that chiefly in consequence of the +diametrically opposite doctrine of the schools and the religions of the +day. And thus its exhibition in that primitive age becomes also an +instance of a statement often made in controversy, that the profession +and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the +time, and that silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not +then held, but that it was not questioned.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Christianity began by considering Matter as a creature of God, and in +itself "very good." It taught that Matter, as well as Spirit, had become +corrupt, in the instance of Adam; and it contemplated its recovery. It +taught that the Highest had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon +Himself, in order to the sanctification of the whole; that, as a +firstfruits of His purpose, He had purified from all sin that very +portion of it which He took into His Eternal Person, and thereunto had +taken it from a Virgin Womb, which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>He had filled with the abundance of +His Spirit. Moreover, it taught that during His earthly sojourn He had +been subject to the natural infirmities of man, and had suffered from +those ills to which flesh is heir. It taught that the Highest had in +that flesh died on the Cross, and that His blood had an expiatory power; +moreover, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had carried that +flesh with Him into heaven, and that from that flesh, glorified and +deified in Him, He never would be divided. As a first consequence of +these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of the bodies of +His Saints, and of their future glorification with Him; next, that of +the sanctity of their relics; further, that of the merit of Virginity; +and, lastly, that of the prerogatives of Mary, Mother of God. All these +doctrines are more or less developed in the Ante-nicene period, though +in very various degrees, from the nature of the case.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>And they were all objects of offence or of scorn to philosophers, +priests, or populace of the day. With varieties of opinions which need +not be mentioned, it was a fundamental doctrine in the schools, whether +Greek or Oriental, that Matter was essentially evil. It had not been +created by the Supreme God; it was in eternal enmity with Him; it was +the source of all pollution; and it was irreclaimable. Such was the +doctrine of Platonist, Gnostic, and Manichee:—whereas then St. John had +laid it down that "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is +come in the flesh is the spirit of Antichrist:" the Gnostics obstinately +denied the Incarnation, and held that Christ was but a phantom, or had +come on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him at his passion. The +one great topic of preaching with Apostles and Evangelists was the +Resurrection of Christ and of all mankind after Him; but when the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>philosophers of Athens heard St. Paul, "some mocked," and others +contemptuously put aside the doctrine. The birth from a Virgin implied, +not only that the body was not intrinsically evil, but that one state of +it was holier than another, and St. Paul explained that, while marriage +was good, celibacy was better; but the Gnostics, holding the utter +malignity of Matter, one and all condemned marriage as sinful, and, +whether they observed continence or not, or abstained from eating flesh +or not, maintained that all functions of our animal nature were evil and +abominable.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>"Perish the thought," says Manes, "that our Lord Jesus Christ should +have descended through the womb of a woman." "He descended," says +Marcion, "but without touching her or taking aught from her." "Through +her, not of her," said another. "It is absurd to assert," says a +disciple of Bardesanes, "that this flesh in which we are imprisoned +shall rise again, for it is well called a burden, a tomb, and a chain." +"They execrate the funeral-pile," says Cæcilius, speaking of Christians, +"as if bodies, though withdrawn from the flames, did not all resolve +into dust by years, whether beasts tear, or sea swallows, or earth +covers, or flame wastes." According to the old Paganism, both the +educated and vulgar held corpses and sepulchres in aversion. They +quickly rid themselves of the remains even of their friends, thinking +their presence a pollution, and felt the same terror even of +burying-places which assails the ignorant and superstitious now. It is +recorded of Hannibal that, on his return to the African coast from +Italy, he changed his landing-place to avoid a ruined sepulchre. "May +the god who passes between heaven and hell," says Apuleius in his +<i>Apology</i>, "present to thy eyes, O Emilian, all that haunts the night, +all that alarms in burying-places, all that terrifies <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>in tombs." George +of Cappadocia could not direct a more bitter taunt against the +Alexandrian Pagans than to call the temple of Serapis a sepulchre. The +case had been the same even among the Jews; the Rabbins taught, that +even the corpses of holy men "did but serve to diffuse infection and +defilement." "When deaths were Judaical," says the writer who goes under +the name of St. Basil, "corpses were an abomination; when death is for +Christ, the relics of Saints are precious. It was anciently said to the +Priests and the Nazarites, 'If any one shall touch a corpse, he shall be +unclean till evening, and he shall wash his garment;' now, on the +contrary, if any one shall touch a Martyr's bones, by reason of the +grace dwelling in the body, he receives some participation of his +sanctity."<a name="FNanchor_404:1_373" id="FNanchor_404:1_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_404:1_373" class="fnanchor">[404:1]</a> Nay, Christianity taught a reverence for the bodies +even of heathen. The care of the dead is one of the praises which, as we +have seen above, is extorted in their favour from the Emperor Julian; +and it was exemplified during the mortality which spread through the +Roman world in the time of St. Cyprian. "They did good," says Pontius of +the Christians of Carthage, "in the profusion of exuberant works to all, +and not only to the household of faith. They did somewhat more than is +recorded of the incomparable benevolence of Tobias. The slain of the +king and the outcasts, whom Tobias gathered together, were of his own +kin only."<a name="FNanchor_404:2_374" id="FNanchor_404:2_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_404:2_374" class="fnanchor">[404:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>Far more of course than such general reverence was the honour that they +showed to the bodies of the Saints. They ascribed virtue to their +martyred tabernacles, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>treasured, as something supernatural, their +blood, their ashes, and their bones. When St. Cyprian was beheaded, his +brethren brought napkins to soak up his blood. "Only the harder portion +of the holy relics remained," say the Acts of St. Ignatius, who was +exposed to the beasts in the amphitheatre, "which were conveyed to +Antioch, and deposited in linen, bequeathed, by the grace that was in +the Martyr, to that holy Church as a priceless treasure." The Jews +attempted to deprive the brethren of St. Polycarp's body, "lest, leaving +the Crucified, they begin to worship him," say his Acts; "ignorant," +they continue, "that we can never leave Christ;" and they add, "We, +having taken up his bones which were more costly than precious stones, +and refined more than gold, deposited them where was fitting; and there +when we meet together, as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate +with joy and gladness the birthday of his martyrdom." On one occasion in +Palestine, the Imperial authorities disinterred the bodies and cast them +into the sea, "lest as their opinion went," says Eusebius, "there should +be those who in their sepulchres and monuments might think them gods, +and treat them with divine worship."</p> + +<p>Julian, who had been a Christian, and knew the Christian history more +intimately than a mere infidel would know it, traces the superstition, +as he considers it, to the very lifetime of St. John, that is, as early +as there were Martyrs to honour; makes the honour paid them +contemporaneous with the worship paid to our Lord, and equally distinct +and formal; and, moreover, declares that first it was secret, which for +various reasons it was likely to have been. "Neither Paul," he says, +"nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor Mark, dared to call Jesus God; but honest +John, having perceived that a great multitude had been caught by this +disease in many of the Greek and Italian cities, and hearing, I suppose, +that the monuments of Peter and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>Paul were, secretly indeed, but still +hearing that they were honoured, first dared to say it." "Who can feel +fitting abomination?" he says elsewhere; "you have filled all places +with tombs and monuments, though it has been nowhere told you to tumble +down at tombs or to honour them. . . . . If Jesus said that they were full of +uncleanness, why do ye invoke God at them?" The tone of Faustus the +Manichæan is the same. "Ye have turned," he says to St. Augustine, "the +idols" of the heathen "into your Martyrs, whom ye honour (<i>colitis</i>) +with similar prayers (<i>votis</i>)."<a name="FNanchor_406:1_375" id="FNanchor_406:1_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_406:1_375" class="fnanchor">[406:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable that the attention of both Christians and their +opponents turned from the relics of the Martyrs to their persons. +Basilides at least, who was founder of one of the most impious Gnostic +sects, spoke of them with disrespect; he considered that their +sufferings were the penalty of secret sins or evil desires, or +transgressions committed in another body, and a sign of divine favour +only because they were allowed to connect them with the cause of +Christ.<a name="FNanchor_406:2_376" id="FNanchor_406:2_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_406:2_376" class="fnanchor">[406:2]</a> On the other hand, it was the doctrine of the Church that +Martyrdom was meritorious, that it had a certain supernatural efficacy +in it, and that the blood of the Saints received from the grace of the +One Redeemer a certain expiatory power. Martyrdom stood in the place of +Baptism, where the Sacrament had not been administered. It exempted the +soul from all preparatory waiting, and gained its immediate admittance +into glory. "All crimes are pardoned for the sake of this work," says +Tertullian.</p> + +<p>And in proportion to the near approach of the martyrs <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>to their Almighty +Judge, was their high dignity and power. St. Dionysius speaks of their +reigning with Christ; Origen even conjectures that "as we are redeemed +by the precious blood of Jesus, so some are redeemed by the precious +blood of the Martyrs." St. Cyprian seems to explain his meaning when he +says, "We believe that the merits of Martyrs and the works of the just +avail much with the Judge," that is, for those who were lapsed, "when, +after the end of this age and the world, Christ's people shall stand +before His judgment-seat." Accordingly they were considered to intercede +for the Church militant in their state of glory, and for individuals +whom they had known. St. Potamiæna of Alexandria, in the first years of +the third century, when taken out for execution, promised to obtain +after her departure the salvation of the officer who led her out; and +did appear to him, according to Eusebius, on the third day, and +prophesied his own speedy martyrdom. And St. Theodosia in Palestine came +to certain confessors who were in bonds, "to request them," as Eusebius +tells us, "to remember her when they came to the Lord's Presence." +Tertullian, when a Montanist, betrays the existence of the doctrine in +the Catholic body by protesting against it.<a name="FNanchor_407:1_377" id="FNanchor_407:1_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_407:1_377" class="fnanchor">[407:1]</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 2. <i>The Virgin Life.</i></h4> + +<p>Next to the prerogatives of bodily suffering or Martyrdom came, in the +estimation of the early Church, the prerogatives of bodily, as well as +moral, purity or Virginity; another form of the general principle which +I am here illustrating. "The first reward," says St. Cyprian to the +Virgins, "is for the Martyrs an hundredfold; the second, sixtyfold, is +for yourselves."<a name="FNanchor_407:2_378" id="FNanchor_407:2_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_407:2_378" class="fnanchor">[407:2]</a> Their state and its merit is recognized by a +<i>consensus</i> of the Ante-nicene writers; of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>whom Athenagoras distinctly +connects Virginity with the privilege of divine communion: "You will +find many of our people," he says to the Emperor Marcus, "both men and +women, grown old in their single state, in hope thereby of a closer +union with God."<a name="FNanchor_408:1_379" id="FNanchor_408:1_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_408:1_379" class="fnanchor">[408:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Among the numerous authorities which might be cited, I will confine +myself to a work, elaborate in itself, and important from its author. +St. Methodius was a Bishop and Martyr of the latter years of the +Ante-nicene period, and is celebrated as the most variously endowed +divine of his day. His learning, elegance in composition, and eloquence, +are all commemorated.<a name="FNanchor_408:2_380" id="FNanchor_408:2_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_408:2_380" class="fnanchor">[408:2]</a> The work in question, the <i>Convivium +Virginum</i>, is a conference in which ten Virgins successively take part, +in praise of the state of life to which they have themselves been +specially called. I do not wish to deny that there are portions of it +which strangely grate upon the feelings of an age, which is formed on +principles of which marriage is the centre. But here we are concerned +with its doctrine. Of the speakers in this Colloquy, three at least are +real persons prior to St. Methodius's time; of these Thecla, whom +tradition associates with St. Paul, is one, and Marcella, who in the +Roman Breviary is considered to be St. Martha's servant, and who is said +to have been the woman who exclaimed, "Blessed is the womb that bare +Thee," &c., is described as a still older servant of Christ. The latter +opens the discourse, and her subject is the gradual development of the +doctrine of Virginity in the Divine Dispensations; Theophila, who +follows, enlarges on the sanctity of Matrimony, with which the special +glory of the higher state does not interfere; Thalia discourses on the +mystical union which exists between Christ and His Church, and on <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>the +seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians; Theopatra on +the merit of Virginity; Thallusa exhorts to a watchful guardianship of +the gift; Agatha shows the necessity of other virtues and good works, in +order to the real praise of their peculiar profession; Procilla extols +Virginity as the special instrument of becoming a spouse of Christ; +Thecla treats of it as the great combatant in the warfare between heaven +and hell, good and evil; Tysiana with reference to the Resurrection; and +Domnina allegorizes Jothan's parable in Judges ix. Virtue, who has been +introduced as the principal personage in the representation from the +first, closes the discussion with an exhortation to inward purity, and +they answer her by an hymn to our Lord as the Spouse of His Saints.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>It is observable that St. Methodius plainly speaks of the profession of +Virginity as a vow. "I will explain," says one of his speakers, "how we +are dedicated to the Lord. What is enacted in the Book of Numbers, 'to +vow a vow mightily,' shows what I am insisting on at great length, that +Chastity is a mighty vow beyond all vows."<a name="FNanchor_409:1_381" id="FNanchor_409:1_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_409:1_381" class="fnanchor">[409:1]</a> This language is not +peculiar to St. Methodius among the Ante-nicene Fathers. "Let such as +promise Virginity and break their profession be ranked among digamists," +says the Council of Ancyra in the beginning of the fourth century. +Tertullian speaks of being "married to Christ," and marriage implies a +vow; he proceeds, "to Him thou hast pledged (<i>sponsasti</i>) thy ripeness +of age;" and before he had expressly spoken of the <i>continentiæ votum</i>. +Origen speaks of "devoting one's body to God" in chastity; and St. +Cyprian "of Christ's Virgin, dedicated to Him and destined for His +sanctity," and elsewhere of "members dedicated to Christ, and for ever +devoted by virtuous <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>chastity to the praise of continence;" and Eusebius +of those "who had consecrated themselves body and soul to a pure and +all-holy life."<a name="FNanchor_410:1_382" id="FNanchor_410:1_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_410:1_382" class="fnanchor">[410:1]</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 3. <i>Cultus of Saints and Angels.</i></h4> + +<p>The Spanish Church supplies us with an anticipation of the later +devotions to Saints and Angels. The Canons are extant of a Council of +Illiberis, held shortly before the Council of Nicæa, and representative +of course of the doctrine of the third century. Among these occurs the +following: "It is decreed, that pictures ought not to be in church, lest +what is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls."<a name="FNanchor_410:2_383" id="FNanchor_410:2_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_410:2_383" class="fnanchor">[410:2]</a> Now these +words are commonly taken to be decisive against the use of pictures in +the Spanish Church at that era. Let us grant it; let us grant that the +use of all pictures is forbidden, pictures not only of our Lord, and +sacred emblems, as of the Lamb and the Dove, but pictures of Angels and +Saints also. It is not fair to restrict the words, nor are +controversialists found desirous of doing so; they take them to include +the images of the Saints. "For keeping of pictures out of the Church, +the Canon of the Eliberine or Illiberitine Council, held in Spain, about +the time of Constantine the Great, is most plain,"<a name="FNanchor_410:3_384" id="FNanchor_410:3_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_410:3_384" class="fnanchor">[410:3]</a> says Ussher: +he is speaking of "the representations of God and of Christ, and of +Angels and of Saints."<a name="FNanchor_410:4_385" id="FNanchor_410:4_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_410:4_385" class="fnanchor">[410:4]</a> "The Council of Eliberis is very ancient, +and of great fame," says Taylor, "in which it is expressly forbidden +that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls, and that +therefore pictures ought <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>not to be in churches."<a name="FNanchor_411:1_386" id="FNanchor_411:1_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_411:1_386" class="fnanchor">[411:1]</a> He too is +speaking of the Saints. I repeat, let us grant this freely. This +inference then seems to be undeniable, that the Spanish Church +considered the Saints to be in the number of objects either of "worship +or adoration;" for it is of such objects that the representations are +forbidden. The very drift of the prohibition is this,—<i>lest</i> what is in +itself an object of worship (<i>quod colitur</i>) should be worshipped <i>in +painting</i>; unless then Saints and Angels were objects of worship, their +pictures would have been allowed.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><a name="Page_411_Point_2" id="Page_411_Point_2"></a>2.</p> + +<p>This mention of Angels leads me to a memorable passage about the honour +due to them in Justin Martyr.</p> + +<p>St. Justin, after "answering the charge of Atheism," as Dr. Burton says, +"which was brought against Christians of his day, and observing that +they were punished for not worshipping evil demons which were not really +gods," continues, "But Him, (God,) and the Son who came from Him, and +taught us these things, and the host of the other good Angels who follow +and resemble Him, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, paying +them a reasonable and true honour, and not grudging to deliver to any +one, who wishes to learn, as we ourselves have been taught."<a name="FNanchor_411:2_387" id="FNanchor_411:2_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_411:2_387" class="fnanchor">[411:2]</a></p> + +<p>A more express testimony to the <i>cultus Angelorum</i> cannot <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span>be required; +nor is it unnatural in the connexion in which it occurs, considering St. +Justin has been speaking of the heathen worship of demons, and therefore +would be led without effort to mention, not only the incommunicable +adoration paid to the One God, who "will not give His glory to another," +but such inferior honour as may be paid to creatures, without sin on the +side whether of giver or receiver. Nor is the construction of the +original Greek harsher than is found in other authors; nor need it +surprise us in one whose style is not accurate, that two words should be +used in combination to express worship, and that one should include +Angels, and that the other should not.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>The following is Dr. Burton's account of the passage:</p> + +<p>"Scultetus, a Protestant divine of Heidelberg, in his <i>Medulla Theologiæ +Patrum</i>, which appeared in 1605, gave a totally different meaning to the +passage; and instead of connecting '<i>the host</i>' with '<i>we worship</i>,' +connected it with '<i>taught us</i>.' The words would then be rendered thus: +'But Him, and the Son who came from Him, who also gave us instructions +concerning these things, and concerning the host of the other good +angels we worship,' &c. This interpretation is adopted and defended at +some length by Bishop Bull, and by Stephen Le Moyne; and even the +Benedictine Le Nourry supposed Justin to mean that Christ had taught us +not to worship the bad angels, as well as the existence of good angels. +Grabe, in his edition of 'Justin's Apology,' which was printed in 1703, +adopted another interpretation, which had been before proposed by Le +Moyne and by Cave. This also connects '<i>the host</i>' with '<i>taught</i>,' and +would require us to render the passage thus: '. . . and the Son who came +from Him, who also taught these things to us, and to the host of the +other Angels,' &c. It might be thought that Langus, who <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>published a +Latin translation of Justin in 1565, meant to adopt one of these +interpretations, or at least to connect '<i>host</i>' with '<i>taught these +things</i>.' Both of them certainly are ingenious, and are not perhaps +opposed to the literal construction of the Greek words; but I cannot say +that they are satisfactory, or that I am surprised at Roman Catholic +writers describing them as forced and violent attempts to evade a +difficulty. If the words enclosed in brackets were removed, the whole +passage would certainly contain a strong argument in favour of the +Trinity; but as they now stand, Roman Catholic writers will naturally +quote them as supporting the worship of Angels.</p> + +<p>"There is, however, this difficulty in such a construction of the +passage: it proves too much. By coupling the Angels with the three +persons of the Trinity, as objects of religious adoration, it seems to +go beyond even what Roman Catholics themselves would maintain concerning +the worship of Angels. Their well-known distinction between <i>latria</i> and +<i>dulia</i> would be entirely confounded; and the difficulty felt by the +Benedictine editor appears to have been as great, as his attempt to +explain it is unsuccessful, when he wrote as follows: 'Our adversaries +in vain object the twofold expression, <i>we worship and adore</i>. For the +former is applied to Angels themselves, regard being had to the +distinction between the creature and the Creator; the latter by no means +necessarily includes the Angels.' This sentence requires concessions, +which no opponent could be expected to make; and if one of the two +terms, <i>we worship</i> and <i>adore</i>, may be applied to Angels, it is +unreasonable to contend that the other must not also. Perhaps, however, +the passage may be explained so as to admit a distinction of this kind. +The interpretations of Scultetus and Grabe have not found many +advocates; and upon the whole I should be inclined to conclude, that the +clause, which relates to the Angels, is connected particularly <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>with the +words, '<i>paying them a reasonable and true honour</i>.'"<a name="FNanchor_414:1_388" id="FNanchor_414:1_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_414:1_388" class="fnanchor">[414:1]</a></p> + +<p>Two violent alterations of the text have also been proposed: one to +transfer the clause which creates the difficulty, after the words +<i>paying them honour</i>; the other to substitute <ins class="greek" title="stratêgon">στρατηγὸν</ins> +(<i>commander</i>) for <ins class="greek" title="straton">στρατὸν</ins> (<i>host</i>).</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Presently Dr. Burton continues:—"Justin, as I observed, is defending +the Christians from the charge of Atheism; and after saying that the +gods, whom they refused to worship, were no gods, but evil demons, he +points out what were the Beings who were worshipped by the Christians. +He names the true God, who is the source of all virtue; the Son, who +proceeded from Him; the good and ministering spirits; and the Holy +Ghost. To these Beings, he says, we pay all the worship, adoration, and +honour, which is due to each of them; <i>i. e.</i> worship where worship is +due, honour where honour is due. The Christians were accused of +worshipping no gods, that is, of acknowledging no superior beings at +all. Justin shows that so far was this from being true, that they +acknowledged more than one order of spiritual Beings; they offered +divine worship to the true God, and they also believed in the existence +of good spirits, which were entitled to honour and respect. If the +reader will view the passage as a whole, he will perhaps see that there +is nothing violent in thus restricting the words <i>worship and adore</i>, +and <i>honouring</i>, to certain parts of it respectively. It may seem +strange that Justin should mention the ministering spirits before the +Holy Ghost: but this is a difficulty which presses upon the Roman +Catholics as much as upon ourselves; and we may perhaps adopt the +explanation of the Bishop of Lincoln,<a name="FNanchor_414:2_389" id="FNanchor_414:2_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_414:2_389" class="fnanchor">[414:2]</a> who says, 'I have sometimes +thought that in this passage, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>"<i>and the host</i>," is equivalent to "<i>with +the host</i>," and that Justin had in his mind the glorified state of +Christ, when He should come to judge the world, surrounded by the host +of heaven.' The bishop then brings several passages from Justin, where +the Son of God is spoken of as attended by a company of Angels; and if +this idea was then in Justin's mind, it might account for his naming the +ministering spirits immediately after the Son of God, rather than after +the Holy Ghost, which would have been the natural and proper +order."<a name="FNanchor_415:1_390" id="FNanchor_415:1_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_415:1_390" class="fnanchor">[415:1]</a></p> + +<p>This passage of St. Justin is the more remarkable, because it cannot be +denied that there was a worship of the Angels at that day, of which St. +Paul speaks, which was Jewish and Gnostic, and utterly reprobated by the +Church.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. <i>Office of the Blessed Virgin.</i></h4> + +<p>The special prerogatives of St. Mary, the <i>Virgo Virginum</i>, are +intimately involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation itself, with +which these remarks began, and have already been dwelt upon above. As is +well known, they were not fully recognized in the Catholic ritual till a +late date, but they were not a new thing in the Church, or strange to +her earlier teachers. St. Justin, St. Irenæus, and others, had +distinctly laid it down, that she not only had an office, but bore a +part, and was a voluntary agent, in the actual process of redemption, as +Eve had been instrumental and responsible in Adam's fall. They taught +that, as the first woman might have foiled the Tempter and did not, so, +if Mary had been disobedient or unbelieving on Gabriel's message, the +Divine Economy would have been frustrated. And certainly the parallel +between "the Mother of all living" and the Mother of the Redeemer may be +gathered from a comparison of the first chapters <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>of Scripture with the +last. It was noticed in a former place, that the only passage where the +serpent is directly identified with the evil spirit occurs in the +twelfth chapter of the Revelation; now it is observable that the +recognition, when made, is found in the course of a vision of a "woman +clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet:" thus two women are +brought into contrast with each other. Moreover, as it is said in the +Apocalypse, "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went about to make +war with the remnant of her seed," so is it prophesied in Genesis, "I +will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her +Seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." Also +the enmity was to exist, not only between the Serpent and the Seed of +the woman, but between the serpent and the woman herself; and here too +there is a correspondence in the Apocalyptic vision. If then there is +reason for thinking that this mystery at the close of the Scripture +record answers to the mystery in the beginning of it, and that "the +Woman" mentioned in both passages is one and the same, then she can be +none other than St. Mary, thus introduced prophetically to our notice +immediately on the transgression of Eve.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Here, however, we are not so much concerned to interpret Scripture as to +examine the Fathers. Thus St. Justin says, "Eve, being a virgin and +incorrupt, having conceived the word from the Serpent, bore disobedience +and death; but Mary the Virgin, receiving faith and joy, when Gabriel +the Angel evangelized her, answered, 'Be it unto me according to thy +word.'"<a name="FNanchor_416:1_391" id="FNanchor_416:1_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_416:1_391" class="fnanchor">[416:1]</a> And Tertullian says that, whereas Eve believed the +Serpent, and Mary believed Gabriel, "the fault of Eve in believing, Mary +by believing hath blotted out."<a name="FNanchor_416:2_392" id="FNanchor_416:2_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_416:2_392" class="fnanchor">[416:2]</a> St. Irenæus speaks more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>explicitly: "As Eve," he says . . . "becoming disobedient, became the +cause of death to herself and to all mankind, so Mary too, having the +predestined Man, and yet a Virgin, being obedient, became cause of +salvation both to herself and to all mankind."<a name="FNanchor_417:1_393" id="FNanchor_417:1_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_417:1_393" class="fnanchor">[417:1]</a> This becomes the +received doctrine in the Post-nicene Church.</p> + +<p>One well-known instance occurs in the history of the third century of +St. Mary's interposition, and it is remarkable from the names of the two +persons, who were, one the subject, the other the historian of it. St. +Gregory Nyssen, a native of Cappadocia in the fourth century, relates +that his name-sake Bishop of Neo-cæsarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, in the +preceding century, shortly before he was called to the priesthood, +received in a vision a Creed, which is still extant, from the Blessed +Virgin at the hands of St. John. The account runs thus: He was deeply +pondering theological doctrine, which the heretics of the day depraved. +"In such thoughts," says his name-sake of Nyssa, "he was passing the +night, when one appeared, as if in human form, aged in appearance, +saintly in the fashion of his garments, and very venerable both in grace +of countenance and general mien. . . . Following with his eyes his extended +hand, he saw another appearance opposite to the former, in shape of a +woman, but more than human. . . . When his eyes could not bear the +apparition, he heard them conversing together on the subject of his +doubts; and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of the faith, but +learned their names, as they addressed each other by their respective +appellations. And thus he is said to have heard the person in woman's +shape bid 'John the Evangelist' disclose to the young man the mystery of +godliness; and he answered that he was ready to comply in this matter +with the wish of 'the Mother of the Lord,' and enunciated a formulary, +well-turned and complete, and so vanished."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> +Gregory proceeds to rehearse the Creed thus given, "There is One God, +Father of a Living Word," &c.<a name="FNanchor_418:1_394" id="FNanchor_418:1_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_418:1_394" class="fnanchor">[418:1]</a> Bull, after quoting it in his work +upon the Nicene Faith, refers to this history of its origin, and adds, +"No one should think it incredible that such a providence should befall +a man whose whole life was conspicuous for revelations and miracles, as +all ecclesiastical writers who have mentioned him (and who has not?) +witness with one voice."<a name="FNanchor_418:2_395" id="FNanchor_418:2_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_418:2_395" class="fnanchor">[418:2]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable that St. Gregory Nazianzen relates an instance, even +more pointed, of St. Mary's intercession, contemporaneous with this +appearance to Thaumaturgus; but it is attended with mistake in the +narrative, which weakens its cogency as an evidence of the belief, not +indeed of the fourth century, in which St. Gregory lived, but of the +third. He speaks of a Christian woman having recourse to the protection +of St. Mary, and obtaining the conversion of a heathen who had attempted +to practise on her by magical arts. They were both martyred.</p> + +<p>In both these instances the Blessed Virgin appears especially in that +character of Patroness or Paraclete, which St. Irenæus and other Fathers +describe, and which the Medieval Church exhibits,—a loving Mother with +clients.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404:1_373" id="Footnote_404:1_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404:1_373"><span class="label">[404:1]</span></a> Act. Arch. p. 85. Athan. c. Apoll. ii. 3.—Adam. Dial. +iii. init. Minuc. Dial. 11. Apul. Apol. p. 535. Kortholt. Cal. p. 63. +Calmet, Dict. t. 2, p. 736. Basil in Ps. 115, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404:2_374" id="Footnote_404:2_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404:2_374"><span class="label">[404:2]</span></a> Vit. S. Cypr. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406:1_375" id="Footnote_406:1_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406:1_375"><span class="label">[406:1]</span></a> Act. Procons. 5. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 22, 44. Euseb. +Hist. viii. 6. Julian, ap. Cyr. pp. 327, 335. August. c. Faust. xx. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406:2_376" id="Footnote_406:2_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406:2_376"><span class="label">[406:2]</span></a> Clem. Strom. iv. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407:1_377" id="Footnote_407:1_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407:1_377"><span class="label">[407:1]</span></a> Tertull. Apol. fin. Euseb. Hist. vi. 42. Orig. ad +Martyr. 50. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 122, 323.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407:2_378" id="Footnote_407:2_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407:2_378"><span class="label">[407:2]</span></a> De Hab. Virg. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408:1_379" id="Footnote_408:1_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408:1_379"><span class="label">[408:1]</span></a> Athenag. Leg. 33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408:2_380" id="Footnote_408:2_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408:2_380"><span class="label">[408:2]</span></a> Lumper, Hist. t. 13, p. 439.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409:1_381" id="Footnote_409:1_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409:1_381"><span class="label">[409:1]</span></a> Galland. t. 3, p. 670.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410:1_382" id="Footnote_410:1_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410:1_382"><span class="label">[410:1]</span></a> Routh, Reliqu. t. 3, p. 414. Tertull. de Virg. Vel. 16 +and 11. Orig. in Num. Hom. 24, 2. Cyprian. Ep. 4, p. 8, ed. Fell. Ep. +62, p. 147. Euseb. V. Const. iv. 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410:2_383" id="Footnote_410:2_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410:2_383"><span class="label">[410:2]</span></a> Placuit picturas in ecclesiâ esse non debere, ne quod +colitur aut adoratur, in parietibus depingatur. Can. 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410:3_384" id="Footnote_410:3_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410:3_384"><span class="label">[410:3]</span></a> Answ. to a Jes. 10, p. 437.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410:4_385" id="Footnote_410:4_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410:4_385"><span class="label">[410:4]</span></a> P. 430. The "colitur <i>aut</i> adoratur" marks a difference +of worship.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411:1_386" id="Footnote_411:1_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411:1_386"><span class="label">[411:1]</span></a> Dissuasive, i. 1, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411:2_387" id="Footnote_411:2_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411:2_387"><span class="label">[411:2]</span></a> <ins class="greek" title="Ekeinon te, kai ton par' autou hyion elthonta +kai didaxanta hêmas tauta">Ἐκεῖνον τε, καὶ τὸν παρ' αὐτοῦ υἱὸν ἐλθόντα +καὶ διδάξαντα ἡμᾶς ταῦτα</ins>, [<ins class="greek" title="kai ton tôn allôn hepomenôn kai +exomoioumenôn agathôn angelôn straton">καὶ τὸν τῶν ἄλλων ἑπομένων καὶ +ἐξομοιουμένων ἀγαθῶν ἀγγέλων στρατὸν</ins>,] <ins class="greek" title="pneuma te to prophêtikon +sebometha kai proskynoumen">πνεῦμα τε τὸ προφητικὸν +σεβόμεθα καὶ προσκυνοῦμεν</ins>, <ins class="greek" title="logô kai alêtheia timôntes kai panti +boulomenô mathein, hôs edidachthêmen">λόγῳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ τιμῶντες καὶ παντὶ +βουλομένῳ μαθεῖν, ὡς ἐδιδαχθημεν</ins>, <ins class="greek" title="aphthonôs paradidontes">ἀφθόνως παραδιδόντες</ins>.—<i>Apol.</i> +i. 6. The passage is parallel to the Prayer in the Breviary: +"Sacrosanctæ et individuæ Trinitati, Crucifixi Domini nostri Jesu +Christi humanitati, beatissimæ et gloriosissimæ semperque Virginis Mariæ +fœcundæ integritati, et omnium Sanctorum universitati, sit sempiterna +laus, honor, virtus, et gloria ab omni creaturâ," &c.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414:1_388" id="Footnote_414:1_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414:1_388"><span class="label">[414:1]</span></a> Test. Trin. pp. 16, 17, 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414:2_389" id="Footnote_414:2_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414:2_389"><span class="label">[414:2]</span></a> Dr. Kaye.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415:1_390" id="Footnote_415:1_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415:1_390"><span class="label">[415:1]</span></a> Pp. 19-21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416:1_391" id="Footnote_416:1_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416:1_391"><span class="label">[416:1]</span></a> Tryph. 100.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416:2_392" id="Footnote_416:2_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416:2_392"><span class="label">[416:2]</span></a> Carn. Christ. 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417:1_393" id="Footnote_417:1_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417:1_393"><span class="label">[417:1]</span></a> Hær. iii. 22, § 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418:1_394" id="Footnote_418:1_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418:1_394"><span class="label">[418:1]</span></a> Nyss. Opp. t. ii. p. 977.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418:2_395" id="Footnote_418:2_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418:2_395"><span class="label">[418:2]</span></a> Def. F. N. ii. 12.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH NOTE OF A TRUE<br /> +DEVELOPMENT.</h3> + +<h4>CONSERVATIVE ACTION ON ITS PAST.</h4> + +<p>It is the general pretext of heretics that they are but serving and +protecting Christianity by their innovations; and it is their charge +against what by this time we may surely call the Catholic Church, that +her successive definitions of doctrine have but overlaid and obscured +it. That is, they assume, what we have no wish to deny, that a true +development is that which is conservative of its original, and a +corruption is that which tends to its destruction. This has already been +set down as a Sixth Test, discriminative of a development from a +corruption, and must now be applied to the Catholic doctrines; though +this Essay has so far exceeded its proposed limits, that both reader and +writer may well be weary, and may content themselves with a brief +consideration of the portions of the subject which remain.</p> + +<p>It has been observed already that a strict correspondence between the +various members of a development, and those of the doctrine from which +it is derived, is more than we have any right to expect. The bodily +structure of a grown man is not merely that of a magnified boy; he +differs from what he was in his make and proportions; still manhood is +the perfection of boyhood, adding something of its own, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>yet keeping +what it finds. "Ut nihil novum," says Vincentius, "proferatur in +senibus, quod non in pueris jam antea latitaverit." This character of +addition,—that is, of a change which is in one sense real and +perceptible, yet without loss or reversal of what was before, but, on +the contrary, protective and confirmative of it,—in many respects and +in a special way belongs to Christianity.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION I.</h4> + +<h5>VARIOUS INSTANCES.</h5> + +<p>If we take the simplest and most general view of its history, as +existing in an individual mind, or in the Church at large, we shall see +in it an instance of this peculiarity. It is the birth of something +virtually new, because latent in what was before. Thus we know that no +temper of mind is acceptable in the Divine Presence without love; it is +love which makes Christian fear differ from servile dread, and true +faith differ from the faith of devils; yet in the beginning of the +religious life, fear is the prominent evangelical grace, and love is but +latent in fear, and has in course of time to be developed out of what +seems its contradictory. Then, when it is developed, it takes that +prominent place which fear held before, yet protecting not superseding +it. Love is added, not fear removed, and the mind is but perfected in +grace by what seems a revolution. "They that sow in tears, reap in joy;" +yet afterwards still they are "sorrowful," though "alway rejoicing."</p> + +<p>And so was it with the Church at large. She started with suffering, +which turned to victory; but when she was set free from the house of her +prison, she did not quit it so much as turn it into a cell. Meekness +inherited the earth; strength came forth from weakness; the poor <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>made +many rich; yet meekness and poverty remained. The rulers of the world +were Monks, when they could not be Martyrs.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Immediately on the overthrow of the heathen power, two movements +simultaneously ran through the world from East to West, as quickly as +the lightning in the prophecy, a development of worship and of +asceticism. Hence, while the world's first reproach in heathen times had +been that Christianity was a dark malevolent magic, its second has been +that it is a joyous carnal paganism;—according to that saying, "We have +piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye +have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they +say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they +say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and +sinners." Yet our Lord too was "a man of sorrows" all the while, but +softened His austerity by His gracious gentleness.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>The like characteristic attends also on the mystery of His Incarnation. +He was first God and He became man; but Eutyches and heretics of his +school refused to admit that He was man, lest they should deny that He +was God. In consequence the Catholic Fathers are frequent and unanimous +in their asseverations, that "the Word" had become flesh, not to His +loss, but by an addition. Each Nature is distinct, but the created +Nature lives in and by the Eternal. "Non amittendo quod erat, sed +sumendo quod non erat," is the Church's principle. And hence, though the +course of development, as was observed in a former Chapter, has been to +bring into prominence the divine <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>aspect of our Lord's mediation, this +has been attended by even a more open manifestation of the doctrine of +His atoning sufferings. The passion of our Lord is one of the most +imperative and engrossing subjects of Catholic teaching. It is the great +topic of meditations and prayers; it is brought into continual +remembrance by the sign of the Cross; it is preached to the world in the +Crucifix; it is variously honoured by the many houses of prayer, and +associations of religious men, and pious institutions and undertakings, +which in some way or other are placed under the name and the shadow of +Jesus, or the Saviour, or the Redeemer, or His Cross, or His Passion, or +His sacred Heart.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Here a singular development may be mentioned of the doctrine of the +Cross, which some have thought so contrary to its original +meaning,<a name="FNanchor_422:1_396" id="FNanchor_422:1_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_422:1_396" class="fnanchor">[422:1]</a> as to be a manifest corruption; I mean the introduction +of the Sign of the meek Jesus into the armies of men, and the use of an +emblem of peace as a protection in battle. If light has no communion +with darkness, or Christ with Belial, what has He to do with Moloch, who +would not call down fire on His enemies, and came not to destroy but to +save? Yet this seeming anomaly is but one instance of a great law which +is seen in developments generally, that changes which appear at first +sight to contradict that out of which they grew, are really its +protection or illustration. Our Lord Himself is represented in the +Prophets as a combatant inflicting wounds while He received them, as +coming from Bozrah with dyed garments, sprinkled and red in His apparel +with the blood of His enemies; and, whereas no war is lawful but what is +just, it surely beseems that they who are engaged in so dreadful a +commission as that of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>taking away life at the price of their own, +should at least have the support of His Presence, and fight under the +mystical influence of His Name, who redeemed His elect as a combatant by +the Blood of Atonement, with the slaughter of His foes, the sudden +overthrow of the Jews, and the slow and awful fall of the Pagan Empire. +And if the wars of Christian nations have often been unjust, this is a +reason against much more than the use of religious symbols by the +parties who engage in them, though the pretence of religion may increase +the sin.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>The same rule of development has been observed in respect of the +doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. It is the objection of the School of +Socinus, that belief in the Trinity is destructive of any true +maintenance of the Divine Unity, however strongly the latter may be +professed; but Petavius, as we have seen,<a name="FNanchor_423:1_397" id="FNanchor_423:1_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_423:1_397" class="fnanchor">[423:1]</a> sets it down as one +especial recommendation of the Catholic doctrine, that it subserves that +original truth which at first sight it does but obscure and compromise.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>This representation of the consistency of the Catholic system will be +found to be true, even in respect of those peculiarities of it, which +have been considered by Protestants most open to the charge of +corruption and innovation. It is maintained, for instance, that the +veneration paid to Images in the Catholic Church directly contradicts +the command of Scripture, and the usage of the primitive ages. As to +primitive usage, that part of the subject has been incidentally observed +upon already; here I will make one remark on the argument from +Scripture.</p> + +<p>It may be reasonably questioned, then, whether the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span>Commandment which +stands second in the Protestant Decalogue, on which the prohibition of +Images is grounded, was intended in its letter for more than temporary +observance. So far is certain, that, though none could surpass the later +Jews in its literal observance, nevertheless this did not save them from +the punishments attached to the violation of it. If this be so, the +literal observance is not its true and evangelical import.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>"When the generation to come of your children shall rise up after you," +says their inspired lawgiver, "and the stranger that shall come from a +far land shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its +sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it; and that the whole land +thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor +beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, . . . even all nations shall say, +Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat +of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the +covenants of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them when +He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; for they went and served +other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom He +had not given them." Now the Jews of our Lord's day did not keep this +covenant, for they incurred the penalty; yet they kept the letter of the +Commandment rigidly, and were known among the heathen far and wide for +their devotion to the "Lord God of their fathers who brought them out of +the land of Egypt," and for their abhorrence of the "gods whom He had +not given them." If then adherence to the letter was no protection to +the Jews, departure from the letter may be no guilt in Christians.</p> + +<p>It should be observed, moreover, that there certainly is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>a difference +between the two covenants in their respective view of symbols of the +Almighty. In the Old, it was blasphemy to represent Him under "the +similitude of a calf that eateth hay;" in the New, the Third Person of +the Holy Trinity has signified His Presence by the appearance of a Dove, +and the Second Person has presented His sacred Humanity for worship +under the name of the Lamb.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>It follows that, if the letter of the Decalogue is but partially binding +on Christians, it is as justifiable, in setting it before persons under +instruction, to omit such parts as do not apply to them, as, when we +quote passages from the Pentateuch in Sermons or Lectures generally, to +pass over verses which refer simply to the temporal promises or the +ceremonial law, a practice which we allow without any intention or +appearance of dealing irreverently with the sacred text.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<h4>SECTION II.</h4> + +<h5>DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN.</h5> + +<p>It has been anxiously asked, whether the honours paid to St. Mary, which +have grown out of devotion to her Almighty Lord and Son, do not, in +fact, tend to weaken that devotion; and whether, from the nature of the +case, it is possible so to exalt a creature without withdrawing the +heart from the Creator.</p> + +<p>In addition to what has been said on this subject in foregoing Chapters, +I would here observe that the question is one of fact, not of +presumption or conjecture. The abstract lawfulness of the honours paid +to St. Mary, and their distinction in theory from the incommunicable +worship paid <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>to God, are points which have already been dwelt upon; but +here the question turns upon their practicability or expedience, which +must be determined by the fact whether they are practicable, and whether +they have been found to be expedient.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">1.</p> + +<p>Here I observe, first, that, to those who admit the authority of the +Fathers of Ephesus, the question is in no slight degree answered by +their sanction of the <ins class="greek" title="theotokos">θεοτόκος</ins>, or "Mother of God," as a title +of St. Mary, and as given in order to protect the doctrine of the +Incarnation, and to preserve the faith of Catholics from a specious +Humanitarianism. And if we take a survey at least of Europe, we shall +find that it is not those religious communions which are characterized +by devotion towards the Blessed Virgin that have ceased to adore her +Eternal Son, but those very bodies, (when allowed by the law,) which +have renounced devotion to her. The regard for His glory, which was +professed in that keen jealousy of her exaltation, has not been +supported by the event. They who were accused of worshipping a creature +in His stead, still worship Him; their accusers, who hoped to worship +Him so purely, they, wherever obstacles to the development of their +principles have been removed, have ceased to worship Him altogether.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>Next, it must be observed, that the tone of the devotion paid to the +Blessed Mary is altogether distinct from that which is paid to her +Eternal Son, and to the Holy Trinity, as we must certainly allow on +inspection of the Catholic services. The supreme and true worship paid +to the Almighty is severe, profound, awful, as well as tender, +confiding, and dutiful. Christ is addressed as true God, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>while He is +true Man; as our Creator and Judge, while He is most loving, gentle, and +gracious. On the other hand, towards St. Mary the language employed is +affectionate and ardent, as towards a mere child of Adam; though +subdued, as coming from her sinful kindred. How different, for instance, +is the tone of the <i>Dies Iræ</i> from that of the <i>Stabat Mater</i>. In the +"Tristis et afflicta Mater Unigeniti," in the "Virgo virginum præclara +Mihi jam non sis amara, Pœnas mecum divide," in the "Fac me vere +tecum flere," we have an expression of the feelings with which we regard +one who is a creature and a mere human being; but in the "Rex tremendæ +majestatis qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me Fons pietatis," the "Ne +me perdas illâ die," the "Juste judex ultionis, donum fac remissionis," +the "Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis," the "Pie Jesu +Domine, dona eis requiem," we hear the voice of the creature raised in +hope and love, yet in deep awe to his Creator, Infinite Benefactor, and +Judge.</p> + +<p>Or again, how distinct is the language of the Breviary Services on the +Festival of Pentecost, or of the Holy Trinity, from the language of the +Services for the Assumption! How indescribably majestic, solemn, and +soothing is the "Veni Creator Spiritus," the "Altissimi donum Dei, Fons +vivus, ignis, charitas," or the "Vera et una Trinitas, una et summa +Deitas, sancta et una Unitas," the "Spes nostra, salus nostra, honor +noster, O beata Trinitas," the "Charitas Pater, gratia Filius, +communicatio Spiritus Sanctus, O beata Trinitas;" "Libera nos, salva +nos, vivifica nos, O beata Trinitas!" How fond, on the contrary, how +full of sympathy and affection, how stirring and animating, in the +Office for the Assumption, is the "Virgo prudentissima, quo progrederis, +quasi aurora valde rutilans? filia Sion, tota formosa et suavis es, +pulcra ut luna, electa ut sol;" the "Sicut dies verni circumdabant eam +flores <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>rosarum, et lilia convallium;" the "Maria Virgo assumpta est ad +æthereum thalamum in quo Rex regum stellato sedet solio;" and the +"Gaudent Angeli, laudantes benedicunt Dominum." And so again, the +Antiphon, the "Ad te clamamus exules filii Hevæ, ad te suspiramus +gementes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle," and "Eia ergo, advocata +nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte," and "O clemens, +O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria." Or the Hymn, "Ave Maris stella, Dei Mater +alma," and "Virgo singularis, inter omnes mitis, nos culpis solutos, +mites fac et castos."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>Nor does it avail to object that, in this contrast of devotional +exercises, the human will supplant the Divine, from the infirmity of our +nature; for, I repeat, the question is one of fact, whether it has done +so. And next it must be asked, whether the character of much of the +Protestant devotion towards our Lord has been that of adoration at all; +and not rather such as we pay to an excellent human being, that is, no +higher devotion than that which Catholics pay to St. Mary, differing +from it, however, in often being familiar, rude, and earthly. Carnal +minds will ever create a carnal worship for themselves; and to forbid +them the service of the Saints will have no tendency to teach them the +worship of God.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it must be observed, what is very important, that great and +constant as is the devotion which the Catholic pays to the Blessed Mary, +it has a special province, and has far more connexion with the public +services and the festive aspect of Christianity, and with certain +extraordinary offices which she holds, than with what is strictly +personal and primary in religion.</p> + +<p>Two instances will serve in illustration of this, and they are but +samples of many others.<a name="FNanchor_428:1_398" id="FNanchor_428:1_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_428:1_398" class="fnanchor">[428:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span>4.</p> + +<p>(1.) For example, St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises are among the most +approved methods of devotion in the modern Catholic Church; they proceed +from one of the most celebrated of her Saints, and have the praise of +Popes, and of the most eminent masters of the spiritual life. A Bull of +Paul the Third's "approves, praises, and sanctions all and everything +contained in them;" indulgences are granted to the performance of them +by the same Pope, by Alexander the Seventh, and by Benedict the +Fourteenth. St. Carlo Borromeo declared that he learned more from them +than from all other books together; St. Francis de Sales calls them "a +holy method of reformation," and they are the model on which all the +extraordinary devotions of religious men or bodies, and the course of +missions, are conducted. If there is a document which is the +authoritative exponent of the inward communion of the members of the +modern Catholic Church with their God and Saviour, it is this work.</p> + +<p>The Exercises are directed to the removal of obstacles in the way of the +soul's receiving and profiting by the gifts of God. They undertake to +effect this in three ways; by removing all objects of this world, and, +as it were, bringing the soul "into the solitude where God may speak to +its heart;" next, by setting before it the ultimate end of man, and its +own deviations from it, the beauty of holiness, and the pattern of +Christ; and, lastly, by giving rules for its correction. They consist of +a course of prayers, meditations, self-examinations, and the like, which +in its complete <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span>extent lasts thirty days; and these are divided into +three stages,—the <i>Via Purgativa</i>, in which sin is the main subject of +consideration; the <i>Via Illuminativa</i>, which is devoted to the +contemplation of our Lord's passion, involving the process of the +determination of our calling; and the <i>Via Unitiva</i>, in which we proceed +to the contemplation of our Lord's resurrection and ascension.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>No more need be added in order to introduce the remark for which I have +referred to these Exercises; viz. that in a work so highly sanctioned, +so widely received, so intimately bearing upon the most sacred points of +personal religion, very slight mention occurs of devotion to the Blessed +Virgin, Mother of God. There is one mention of her in the rule given for +the first Prelude or preparation, in which the person meditating is +directed to consider as before him a church, or other place with Christ +in it, St. Mary, and whatever else is suitable to the subject of +meditation. Another is in the third Exercise, in which one of the three +addresses is made to our Lady, Christ's Mother, requesting earnestly +"her intercession with her Son;" to which is to be added the Ave Mary. +In the beginning of the Second Week there is a form of offering +ourselves to God in the presence of "His infinite goodness," and with +the witness of His "glorious Virgin Mother Mary, and the whole host of +heaven." At the end of the Meditation upon the Angel Gabriel's mission +to St. Mary, there is an address to each Divine Person, to "the Word +Incarnate and to His Mother." In the Meditation upon the Two Standards, +there is an address prescribed to St. Mary to implore grace from her Son +through her, with an Ave Mary after it.</p> + +<p>In the beginning of the Third Week one address is prescribed to Christ; +or three, if devotion incites, to Mother, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span>Son, and Father. In the +description given of three different modes of prayer we are told, if we +would imitate the Blessed Mary, we must recommend ourselves to her, as +having power with her Son, and presently the Ave Mary, <i>Salve Regina</i>, +and other forms are prescribed, as is usual after all prayers. And this +is pretty much the whole of the devotion, if it may so be called, which +is recommended towards St. Mary in the course of so many apparently as a +hundred and fifty Meditations, and those chiefly on the events in our +Lord's earthly history as recorded in Scripture. It would seem then that +whatever be the influence of the doctrines connected with the Blessed +Virgin and the Saints in the Catholic Church, at least they do not +impede or obscure the freest exercise and the fullest manifestation of +the devotional feelings towards God and Christ.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>(2.) The other instance which I give in illustration is of a different +kind, but is suitable to mention. About forty little books have come +into my possession which are in circulation among the laity at Rome, and +answer to the smaller publications of the Christian Knowledge Society +among ourselves. They have been taken almost at hazard from a number of +such works, and are of various lengths; some running to as many as two +or three hundred pages, others consisting of scarce a dozen. They may be +divided into three classes:—a third part consists of books on practical +subjects; another third is upon the Incarnation and Passion; and of the +rest, a portion is upon the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, +with two or three for the use of Missions, but the greater part is about +the Blessed Virgin.</p> + +<p>As to the class on practical subjects, they are on such as the +following: "La Consolazione degl' Infermi;" "Pensieri di una donna sul +vestire moderno;" "L'Inferno <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>Aperto;" "Il Purgatorio Aperto;" St. +Alphonso Liguori's "Massime eterne;" other Maxims by St. Francis de +Sales for every day in the year; "Pratica per ben confessarsi e +communicarsi;" and the like.</p> + +<p>The titles of the second class on the Incarnation and Passion are such +as "Gesu dalla Croce al cuore del peccatore;" "Novena del Ss. Natale di +G. C.;" "Associazione pel culto perpetuo del divin cuore;" "Compendio +della Passione."</p> + +<p>In the third are "Il Mese Eucaristico," "Il divoto di Maria," Feasts of +the Blessed Virgin, &c.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>These books in all three divisions are, as even the titles of some of +them show, in great measure made up of Meditations; such are the "Breve +e pie Meditazioni" of P. Crasset; the "Meditazioni per ciascun giorno +del mese sulla Passione;" the "Meditazioni per l'ora Eucaristica." Now +of these it may be said generally, that in the body of the Meditation +St. Mary is hardly mentioned at all. For instance, in the Meditations on +the Passion, a book used for distribution, through two hundred and +seventy-seven pages St. Mary is not once named. In the Prayers for Mass +which are added, she is introduced, at the Confiteor, thus, "I pray the +Virgin, the Angels, the Apostles, and all the Saints of heaven to +intercede," &c.; and in the Preparation for Penance, she is once +addressed, after our Lord, as the Refuge of sinners, with the Saints and +Guardian Angel; and at the end of the Exercise there is a similar prayer +of four lines for the intercession of St. Mary, Angels and Saints of +heaven. In the Exercise for Communion, in a prayer to our Lord, "my only +and infinite good, my treasure, my life, my paradise, my all," the +merits of the Saints are mentioned, "especially of St. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span>Mary." She is +also mentioned with Angels and Saints at the termination.</p> + +<p>In a collection of "Spiritual Lauds" for Missions, of thirty-six Hymns, +we find as many as eleven addressed to St. Mary, or relating to her, +among which are translations of the <i>Ave Maris Stella</i>, and the <i>Stabat +Mater</i>, and the <i>Salve Regina</i>; and one is on "the sinner's reliance on +Mary." Five, however, which are upon Repentance, are entirely engaged +upon the subjects of our Lord and sin, with the exception of an address +to St. Mary at the end of two of them. Seven others, upon sin, the +Crucifixion, and the Four Last Things, do not mention the Blessed +Virgin's name.</p> + +<p>To the Manual for the Perpetual Adoration of the Divine Heart of Jesus +there is appended one chapter on the Immaculate Conception.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">8.</p> + +<p>One of the most important of these books is the French <i>Pensez-y bien</i>, +which seems a favourite, since there are two translations of it, one of +them being the fifteenth edition; and it is used for distribution in +Missions. In these reflections there is scarcely a word said of St. +Mary. At the end there is a Method of reciting the Crown of the Seven +Dolours of the Virgin Mary, which contains seven prayers to her, and the +<i>Stabat Mater</i>.</p> + +<p>One of the longest in the whole collection is a tract consisting +principally of Meditations on the Holy Communion; under the title of the +"Eucharistic Month," as already mentioned. In these "Preparations," +"Aspirations," &c., St. Mary is but once mentioned, and that in a prayer +addressed to our Lord. "O my sweetest Brother," it says with an allusion +to the Canticles, "who, being made Man for my salvation, hast sucked the +milk from the virginal breast of her, who is my Mother by grace," &c. In +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span>a small "Instruction" given to children on their first Communion, there +are the following questions and answers: "Is our Lady in the Host? No. +Are the Angels and the Saints? No. Why not? Because they have no place +there."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">9.</p> + +<p>Now coming to those in the third class, which directly relate to the +Blessed Mary, such as "Esercizio ad Onore dell' addolorato cuore di +Maria," "Novena di Preparazione alla festa dell' Assunzione," "Li +Quindici Misteri del Santo Rosario," the principal is Father Segneri's +"Il divoto di Maria," which requires a distinct notice. It is far from +the intention of these remarks to deny the high place which the Holy +Virgin holds in the devotion of Catholics; I am but bringing evidence of +its not interfering with that incommunicable and awful relation which +exists between the creature and the Creator; and, if the foregoing +instances show, as far as they go, that that relation is preserved +inviolate in such honours as are paid to St. Mary, so will this treatise +throw light upon the <i>rationale</i> by which the distinction is preserved +between the worship of God and the honour of an exalted creature, and +that in singular accordance with the remarks made in the foregoing +Section.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">10.</p> + +<p>This work of Segneri is written against persons who continue in sins +under pretence of their devotion to St. Mary, and in consequence he is +led to draw out the idea which good Catholics have of her. The idea is +this, that she is absolutely the first of created beings. Thus the +treatise says, that "God might have easily made a more beautiful +firmament, and a greener earth, but it was not possible to make a higher +Mother than the Virgin Mary; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span>and in her formation there has been +conferred on mere creatures all the glory of which they are capable, +remaining mere creatures," p. 34. And as containing all created +perfection, she has all those attributes, which, as was noticed above, +the Arians and other heretics applied to our Lord, and which the Church +denied of Him as infinitely below His Supreme Majesty. Thus she is "the +created Idea in the making of the world," p. 20; "which, as being a more +exact copy of the Incarnate Idea than was elsewhere to be found, was +used as the original of the rest of the creation," p. 21. To her are +applied the words, "Ego primogenita prodivi ex ore Altissimi," because +she was predestinated in the Eternal Mind coevally with the Incarnation +of her Divine Son. But to Him alone the title of Wisdom Incarnate is +reserved, p. 25. Again, Christ is the First-born by nature; the Virgin +in a less sublime order, viz. that of adoption. Again, if omnipotence is +ascribed to her, it is a participated omnipotence (as she and all Saints +have a participated sonship, divinity, glory, holiness, and worship), +and is explained by the words, "Quod Deus imperio, tu prece, Virgo, +potes."</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">11.</p> + +<p>Again, a special office is assigned to the Blessed Virgin, that is, +special as compared with all other Saints; but it is marked off with the +utmost precision from that assigned to our Lord. Thus she is said to +have been made "the arbitress of every <i>effect</i> coming from God's +mercy." Because she is the Mother of God, the salvation of mankind is +said to be given to her prayers "<i>de congruo</i>, but <i>de condigno</i> it is +due only to the blood of the Redeemer," p. 113. Merit is ascribed to +Christ, and prayer to St. Mary, p. 162. The whole may be expressed in +the words, "<i>Unica</i> spes mea Jesus, et post Jesum Virgo Maria. Amen."</p> + +<p>Again, a distinct <i>cultus</i> is assigned to Mary, but the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span>reason of it is +said to be the transcendent dignity of her Son. "A particular <i>cultus</i> +is due to the Virgin beyond comparison greater than that given to any +other Saint, because her dignity belongs to another order, namely to one +which in some sense belongs to the order of the Hypostatic Union itself, +and is necessarily connected with it," p. 41. And "Her being the Mother +of God is the source of all the extraordinary honours due to Mary," p. +35.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable that the "Monstra te esse Matrem" is explained, p. 158, +as "Show thyself to be <i>our</i> Mother;" an interpretation which I think I +have found elsewhere in these Tracts, and also in a book commonly used +in religious houses, called the "Journal of Meditations," and +elsewhere.<a name="FNanchor_436:1_399" id="FNanchor_436:1_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_436:1_399" class="fnanchor">[436:1]</a></p> + +<p>It must be kept in mind that my object here is not to prove the dogmatic +accuracy of what these popular publications teach concerning the +prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin, but to show that that teaching is +not such as to obscure the divine glory of her Son. We must ask for +clearer evidence before we are able to admit so grave a charge; and so +much may suffice on the Sixth Test of fidelity in the development of an +idea, as applied to the Catholic system.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422:1_396" id="Footnote_422:1_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422:1_396"><span class="label">[422:1]</span></a> Supr. p. 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423:1_397" id="Footnote_423:1_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423:1_397"><span class="label">[423:1]</span></a> Supr. p. 174.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428:1_398" id="Footnote_428:1_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428:1_398"><span class="label">[428:1]</span></a> <i>E. g.</i> the "De Imitatione," the "Introduction à la Vie +Dévote," the "Spiritual Combat," the "Anima Divota," the "Paradisus +Animæ," the "Regula Cleri," the "Garden of the Soul," &c. &c. [Also, the +Roman Catechism, drawn up expressly for Parish instruction, a book in +which, out of nearly 600 pages, scarcely half-a-dozen make mention of +the Blessed Virgin, though without any disparagement thereby, or thought +of disparagement, of her special prerogatives.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436:1_399" id="Footnote_436:1_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436:1_399"><span class="label">[436:1]</span></a> [Vid. Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 121-2.]</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH NOTE OF A TRUE<br /> +DEVELOPMENT.</h3> + +<h4>CHRONIC VIGOUR.</h4> + +<p>We have arrived at length at the seventh and last test, which was laid +down when we started, for distinguishing the true development of an idea +from its corruptions and perversions: it is this. A corruption, if +vigorous, is of brief duration, runs itself out quickly, and ends in +death; on the other hand, if it lasts, it fails in vigour and passes +into a decay. This general law gives us additional assistance in +determining the character of the developments of Christianity commonly +called Catholic.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">2.</p> + +<p>When we consider the succession of ages during which the Catholic system +has endured, the severity of the trials it has undergone, the sudden and +wonderful changes without and within which have befallen it, the +incessant mental activity and the intellectual gifts of its maintainers, +the enthusiasm which it has kindled, the fury of the controversies which +have been carried on among its professors, the impetuosity of the +assaults made upon it, the ever-increasing responsibilities to which it +has been committed by the continuous development of its dogmas, it is +quite inconceivable that it should not have been broken up and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>lost, +were it a corruption of Christianity. Yet it is still living, if there +be a living religion or philosophy in the world; vigorous, energetic, +persuasive, progressive; <i>vires acquirit eundo</i>; it grows and is not +overgrown; it spreads out, yet is not enfeebled; it is ever germinating, +yet ever consistent with itself. Corruptions indeed are to be found +which sleep and are suspended; and these, as I have said, are usually +called "decays:" such is not the case with Catholicity; it does not +sleep, it is not stationary even now; and that its long series of +developments should be corruptions would be an instance of sustained +error, so novel, so unaccountable, so preternatural, as to be little +short of a miracle, and to rival those manifestations of Divine Power +which constitute the evidence of Christianity. We sometimes view with +surprise and awe the degree of pain and disarrangement which the human +frame can undergo without succumbing; yet at length there comes an end. +Fevers have their crisis, fatal or favourable; but this corruption of a +thousand years, if corruption it be, has ever been growing nearer death, +yet never reaching it, and has been strengthened, not debilitated, by +its excesses.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">3.</p> + +<p>For instance: when the Empire was converted, multitudes, as is very +plain, came into the Church on but partially religious motives, and with +habits and opinions infected with the false worships which they had +professedly abandoned. History shows us what anxiety and effort it cost +her rulers to keep Paganism out of her pale. To this tendency must be +added the hazard which attended on the development of the Catholic +ritual, such as the honours publicly assigned to Saints and Martyrs, the +formal veneration of their relics, and the usages and observances which +followed. What was to hinder the rise of a sort of refined Pantheism, +and the overthrow of dogmatism <i>pari passu</i> with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>the multiplication of +heavenly intercessors and patrons? If what is called in reproach +"Saint-worship" resembled the polytheism which it supplanted, or was a +corruption, how did Dogmatism survive? Dogmatism is a religion's +profession of its own reality as contrasted with other systems; but +polytheists are liberals, and hold that one religion is as good as +another. Yet the theological system was developing and strengthening, as +well as the monastic rule, which is intensely anti-pantheistic, all the +while the ritual was assimilating itself, as Protestants say, to the +Paganism of former ages.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">4.</p> + +<p>Nor was the development of dogmatic theology, which was then taking +place, a silent and spontaneous process. It was wrought out and carried +through under the fiercest controversies, and amid the most fearful +risks. The Catholic faith was placed in a succession of perils, and +rocked to and fro like a vessel at sea. Large portions of Christendom +were, one after another, in heresy or in schism; the leading Churches +and the most authoritative schools fell from time to time into serious +error; three Popes, Liberius, Vigilius, Honorius, have left to posterity +the burden of their defence: but these disorders were no interruption to +the sustained and steady march of the sacred science from implicit +belief to formal statement. The series of ecclesiastical decisions, in +which its progress was ever and anon signified, alternate between the +one and the other side of the theological dogma especially in question, +as if fashioning it into shape by opposite strokes. The controversy +began in Apollinaris, who confused or denied the Two Natures in Christ, +and was condemned by Pope Damasus. A reaction followed, and Theodore of +Mopsuestia suggested by his teaching the doctrine of Two Persons. After +Nestorius had brought that heresy into public view, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span>and had incurred in +consequence the anathema of the Third Ecumenical Council, the current of +controversy again shifted its direction; for Eutyches appeared, +maintained the One Nature, and was condemned at Chalcedon. Something +however was still wanting to the overthrow of the Nestorian doctrine of +Two Persons, and the Fifth Council was formally directed against the +writings of Theodore and his party. Then followed the Monothelite +heresy, which was a revival of the Eutychian or Monophysite, and was +condemned in the Sixth. Lastly, Nestorianism once more showed itself in +the Adoptionists of Spain, and gave occasion to the great Council of +Frankfort. Any one false step would have thrown the whole theory of the +doctrine into irretrievable confusion; but it was as if some one +individual and perspicacious intellect, to speak humanly, ruled the +theological discussion from first to last. That in the long course of +centuries, and in spite of the failure, in points of detail, of the most +gifted Fathers and Saints, the Church thus wrought out the one and only +consistent theory which can be taken on the great doctrine in dispute, +proves how clear, simple, and exact her vision of that doctrine was. But +it proves more than this. Is it not utterly incredible, that with this +thorough comprehension of so great a mystery, as far as the human mind +can know it, she should be at that very time in the commission of the +grossest errors in religious worship, and should be hiding the God and +Mediator, whose Incarnation she contemplated with so clear an intellect, +behind a crowd of idols?</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">5.</p> + +<p>The integrity of the Catholic developments is still more evident when +they are viewed in contrast with the history of other doctrinal systems. +Philosophies and religions of the world have each its day, and are parts +of a succession. They supplant and are in turn supplanted. But the +Catholic <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>religion alone has had no limits; it alone has ever been +greater than the emergence, and can do what others cannot do. If it were +a falsehood, or a corruption, like the systems of men, it would be weak +as they are; whereas it is able even to impart to them a strength which +they have not, and it uses them for its own purposes, and locates them +in its own territory. The Church can extract good from evil, or at least +gets no harm from it. She inherits the promise made to the disciples, +that they should take up serpents, and, if they drank any deadly thing, +it should not hurt them. When evil has clung to her, and the barbarian +people have looked on with curiosity or in malice, till she should have +swollen or fallen down suddenly, she has shaken the venomous beast into +the fire, and felt no harm.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr">6.</p> + +<p>Eusebius has set before us this attribute of Catholicism in a passage in +his history. "These attempts," he says, speaking of the acts of the +enemy, "did not long avail him, Truth ever consolidating itself, and, as +time goes on, shining into broader day. For, while the devices of +adversaries were extinguished at once, undone by their very +impetuosity,—one heresy after another presenting its own novelty, the +former specimens ever dissolving and wasting variously in manifold and +multiform shapes,—the brightness of the Catholic and only true Church +went forward increasing and enlarging, yet ever in the same things, and +in the same way, beaming on the whole race of Greeks and barbarians with +the awfulness, and simplicity, and nobleness, and sobriety, and purity +of its divine polity and philosophy. Thus the calumny against our whole +creed died with its day, and there continued alone our Discipline, +sovereign among all, and acknowledged to be pre-eminent in awfulness, +sobriety, and divine and philosophical doctrines; so that no one of this +day dares to cast <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>any base reproach upon our faith, nor any calumny, +such as it was once usual for our enemies to use."<a name="FNanchor_442:1_400" id="FNanchor_442:1_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_442:1_400" class="fnanchor">[442:1]</a></p> + + +<p class="sectctr">7.</p> + +<p>The Psalmist says, "We went through fire and water;" nor is it possible +to imagine trials fiercer or more various than those from which +Catholicism has come forth uninjured, as out of the Egyptian sea or the +Babylonian furnace. First of all were the bitter persecutions of the +Pagan Empire in the early centuries; then its sudden conversion, the +liberty of Christian worship, the development of the <i>cultus sanctorum</i>, +and the reception of Monachism into the ecclesiastical system. Then came +the irruption of the barbarians, and the occupation by them of the +<i>orbis terrarum</i> from the North, and by the Saracens from the South. +Meanwhile the anxious and protracted controversy concerning the +Incarnation hung like some terrible disease upon the faith of the +Church. Then came the time of thick darkness; and afterwards two great +struggles, one with the material power, the other with the intellect, of +the world, terminating in the ecclesiastical monarchy, and in the +theology of the schools. And lastly came the great changes consequent +upon the controversies of the sixteenth century. Is it conceivable that +any one of those heresies, with which ecclesiastical history abounds, +should have gone through a hundredth part of these trials, yet have come +out of them so nearly what it was before, as Catholicism has done? Could +such a theology as Arianism have lasted through the scholastic contest? +or Montanism have endured to possess the world, without coming to a +crisis, and failing? or could the imbecility of the Manichean system, as +a religion, have escaped exposure, had it been brought into conflict +with the barbarians of the Empire, or the feudal system?</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span>8.</p> + +<p>A similar contrast discovers itself in the respective effects and +fortunes of certain influential principles or usages, which have both +been introduced into the Catholic system, and are seen in operation +elsewhere. When a system really is corrupt, powerful agents, when +applied to it, do but develope that corruption, and bring it the more +speedily to an end. They stimulate it preternaturally; it puts forth its +strength, and dies in some memorable act. Very different has been the +history of Catholicism, when it has committed itself to such formidable +influences. It has borne, and can bear, principles or doctrines, which +in other systems of religion quickly degenerate into fanaticism or +infidelity. This might be shown at great length in the history of the +Aristotelic philosophy within and without the Church; or in the history +of Monachism, or of Mysticism;—not that there has not been at first a +conflict between these powerful and unruly elements and the Divine +System into which they were entering, but that it ended in the victory +of Catholicism. The theology of St. Thomas, nay of the Church of his +period, is built on that very Aristotelism, which the early Fathers +denounce as the source of all misbelief, and in particular of the Arian +and Monophysite heresies. The exercises of asceticism, which are so +graceful in St. Antony, so touching in St. Basil, and so awful in St. +Germanus, do but become a melancholy and gloomy superstition even in the +most pious persons who are cut off from Catholic communion. And while +the highest devotion in the Church is the mystical, and contemplation +has been the token of the most singularly favoured Saints, we need not +look deeply into the history of modern sects, for evidence of the +excesses in conduct, or the errors in doctrine, to which mystics have +been commonly led, who have boasted of their possession of reformed +truth, and have rejected what they called the corruptions of +Catholicism.</p> + + +<p class="sectctr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>9.</p> + +<p>It is true, there have been seasons when, from the operation of external +or internal causes, the Church has been thrown into what was almost a +state of <i>deliquium</i>; but her wonderful revivals, while the world was +triumphing over her, is a further evidence of the absence of corruption +in the system of doctrine and worship into which she has developed. If +corruption be an incipient disorganization, surely an abrupt and +absolute recurrence to the former state of vigour, after an interval, is +even less conceivable than a corruption that is permanent. Now this is +the case with the revivals I speak of. After violent exertion men are +exhausted and fall asleep; they awake the same as before, refreshed by +the temporary cessation of their activity; and such has been the slumber +and such the restoration of the Church. She pauses in her course, and +almost suspends her functions; she rises again, and she is herself once +more; all things are in their place and ready for action. Doctrine is +where it was, and usage, and precedence, and principle, and policy; +there may be changes, but they are consolidations or adaptations; all is +unequivocal and determinate, with an identity which there is no +disputing. Indeed it is one of the most popular charges against the +Catholic Church at this very time, that she is "incorrigible;"—change +she cannot, if we listen to St. Athanasius or St. Leo; change she never +will, if we believe the controversialist or alarmist of the present day.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> +Such were the thoughts concerning the "Blessed Vision of Peace," of one +whose long-continued petition had been that the Most Merciful would not +despise the work of His own Hands, nor leave him to himself;—while yet +his eyes were dim, and his breast laden, and he could but employ Reason +in the things of Faith. And now, dear Reader, time is short, eternity is +long. Put not from you what you have here found; regard it not as mere +matter of present controversy; set not out resolved to refute it, and +looking about for the best way of doing so; seduce not yourself with the +imagination that it comes of disappointment, or disgust, or +restlessness, or wounded feeling, or undue sensibility, or other +weakness. Wrap not yourself round in the associations of years past; nor +determine that to be truth which you wish to be so, nor make an idol of +cherished anticipations. Time is short, eternity is long.</p> + +<p class="centersc">Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine,<br /><br /> +Secundum verbum tuum in pace:<br /><br /> +Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum.</p> + +<p class="smallgap"> </p> +<p class="sectctr">THE END.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 90%;" /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442:1_400" id="Footnote_442:1_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442:1_400"><span class="label">[442:1]</span></a> Euseb. Hist. iv. 7, <i>ap.</i> Church of the Fathers +[Historical Sketches, vol. i. p. 408].</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="notebox"> +<h2><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:</h2> + + +<p>Pages xii, xvii, 2, 166, and 168 are blank in the original.</p> + +<p>The abbreviations i. e. and e. g. have been spaced throughout the text +for consistency.</p> + +<p>The following corrections have been made to the text:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>Page 5: or the vicissitudes[original has vicissisudes] of +human affairs</p> + +<p>Page 20: St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures.[period +missing in original]</p> + +<p>Page 39: but is modified, or[original has or or] at least +influenced</p> + +<p>Page 100: professes to accept,[original has period] and which, +do what he will</p> + +<p>Page 102: and more explicit than the text.[period missing in +original]</p> + +<p>Page 118: which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene[original has +Antenicene] period</p> + +<p>Page 133: almost universality in the primitive +Church.[133:1][footnote anchor missing in original—position +verified in an earlier edition]</p> + +<p>Page 172: whether fairly or not does not interfere[original +has interefere]</p> + +<p>Page 227: a good-humoured superstition[original has +supersition]</p> + +<p>Page 288: He explained St. Thomas's[original has extraneous +comma]</p> + +<p>Page 306: of Himeria in Osrhoene[original has Orshoëne]</p> + +<p>Page 309: During the interval, Dioscorus[original has +Discorus] was tried</p> + +<p>Page 320: to contain scarcely[original has scarely] a single +inhabitant</p> + +<p>Page 336: derive its efficacy from human faith."[quotation +mark missing in original]</p> + +<p>Page 344: orthodoxy will stand or fall together.[period +missing in original]</p> + +<p>Page 365: true Unitarianism of St.[period missing in original] +Augustine.</p> + +<p>Page 416: as it is said in the Apocalypse,[original has +extraneous quotation mark] "The dragon</p> + +<p>[13:2] British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193.[period missing in +original]</p> + +<p>[16:2] <ins class="greek" title="legô, houtos estin">λέγω, οὗτος ἐστὶν</ins>[original has <ins class="greek" title="hestin">ἑστὶν</ins>], <ins class="greek" title="hosa ge hêmeis">ὅσα γε ἡμεῖς</ins></p> + +<p>[18:3] Basil,[original has period] ed. Ben.[period missing in +original] vol. 3,[comma missing in original] p. xcvi.</p> + +<p>[81:2] <i>Essay on Assent</i>, ch. vii. sect. 2.[period missing in +original]</p> + +<p>[148:1] In Psalm 118, v. 3,[original has period] de Instit. +Virg. 50.</p> + +<p>[162:1] Serm.[period missing in original] De Natal. iii. 3.</p> + +<p>[213:1] p. 296, t. 5, mem. p. 63, t. 16,[comma missing in +original] mem. p. 267</p> + +<p>[216:1] Sueton. Tiber.[period missing in original] 36</p> + +<p>[234:3] [footnote number missing in original] Acad. Inscr. ibid.</p> + +<p>[235:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch.[period missing in original] 16, note +14.</p> + +<p>[237:2] In hon. Rom. 62.[original has comma] In Act. S. Cypr. +4</p> + +<p>[259:1] Hær. 42,[original has period] p. 366.</p> + +<p>[280:1] De Gub.[period missing in original] D. iv. p. 73.</p> + +<p>[288:1] Lengerke, de Ephrem[original has extraneous period] +Syr. pp. 73-75.</p> + +<p>[302:2] overthrow of all heresy, <i>especially</i> the +Arian,[original has period]</p> + +<p>[331:2] <i>Vid.</i> also <i>supr.</i>[period missing in original] p. +256.</p> + +<p>[369:1] Infra,[original has period] pp. 411-415, &c.</p> + +<p>[371:1] Epp.[period missing in original] 102, 18.</p> + +<p>[371:2] Contr. Faust.[original has comma] 20, 23.</p> + +<p>[371:3] August.[letter "s" not printed in original] Ep. 102, +18</p> + +<p>[399:1] Rosweyde,[original has period] V. P. p. 618.</p> + +<p>[442:1] Euseb.[period missing in original] Hist. iv. 7</p> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on the Development of +Christian Doctrine, by John Henry Cardinal Newman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT *** + +***** This file should be named 35110-h.htm or 35110-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/1/35110/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lisa Reigel, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Development of Christian Doctrine + +Author: John Henry Cardinal Newman + +Release Date: January 29, 2011 [EBook #35110] +Last Updated: July 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lisa Reigel, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: Greek words in this text have been transliterated +and placed between +plus signs+. Words in italics in the original are +surrounded by _underscores_. A row of asterisks represents a thought +break. In this text, the word "Section" indicates a section, and the +abbreviation "Sect." points to a subsection. The original uses a section +symbol for the subsections. + +Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the +original. Most accents and ligatures have been removed from this ascii +text. In this text, semi-colons and colons are used indiscriminately. +They appear as in the original. Ellipses match the original. + +A few typographical errors have been corrected. A complete list follows +the text. + + + + + AN ESSAY + + ON THE + + DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN + DOCTRINE. + + + BY + + JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN. + + + _SIXTH EDITION_ + + + UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS + NOTRE DAME, INDIANA + + + + +TO THE + +REV. SAMUEL WILLIAM WAYTE, B.D. + +PRESIDENT OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. + + +MY DEAR PRESIDENT, + +Not from any special interest which I anticipate you will take in this +Volume, or any sympathy you will feel in its argument, or intrinsic +fitness of any kind in my associating you and your Fellows with it,-- + +But, because I have nothing besides it to offer you, in token of my +sense of the gracious compliment which you and they have paid me in +making me once more a Member of a College dear to me from Undergraduate +memories;-- + +Also, because of the happy coincidence, that whereas its first +publication was contemporaneous with my leaving Oxford, its second +becomes, by virtue of your act, contemporaneous with a recovery of my +position there:-- + +Therefore it is that, without your leave or your responsibility, I take +the bold step of placing your name in the first pages of what, at my +age, I must consider the last print or reprint on which I shall ever be +engaged. + + I am, my dear President, + Most sincerely yours, + JOHN H. NEWMAN. + +_February 23, 1878._ + + + + +PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1878. + + +The following pages were not in the first instance written to prove the +divinity of the Catholic Religion, though ultimately they furnish a +positive argument in its behalf, but to explain certain difficulties in +its history, felt before now by the author himself, and commonly +insisted on by Protestants in controversy, as serving to blunt the force +of its _prima facie_ and general claims on our recognition. + +However beautiful and promising that Religion is in theory, its history, +we are told, is its best refutation; the inconsistencies, found age +after age in its teaching, being as patent as the simultaneous +contrarieties of religious opinion manifest in the High, Low, and Broad +branches of the Church of England. + +In reply to this specious objection, it is maintained in this Essay +that, granting that some large variations of teaching in its long course +of 1800 years exist, nevertheless, these, on examination, will be found +to arise from the nature of the case, and to proceed on a law, and with +a harmony and a definite drift, and with an analogy to Scripture +revelations, which, instead of telling to their disadvantage, actually +constitute an argument in their favour, as witnessing to a +superintending Providence and a great Design in the mode and in the +circumstances of their occurrence. + +Perhaps his confidence in the truth and availableness of this view has +sometimes led the author to be careless and over-liberal in his +concessions to Protestants of historical fact. + +If this be so anywhere, he begs the reader in such cases to understand +him as speaking hypothetically, and in the sense of an _argumentum ad +hominem_ and _a fortiori_. Nor is such hypothetical reasoning out of +place in a publication which is addressed, not to theologians, but to +those who as yet are not even Catholics, and who, as they read history, +would scoff at any defence of Catholic doctrine which did not go the +length of covering admissions in matters of fact as broad as those which +are here ventured on. + +In this new Edition of the Essay various important alterations have been +made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in +its matter, but in its text. + +_February 2, 1878._ + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. + +OCULI MEI DEFECERUNT IN SALUTARE TUUM. + + +It is now above eleven years since the writer of the following pages, in +one of the early Numbers of the Tracts for the Times, expressed himself +thus:-- + + "Considering the high gifts, and the strong claims of the + Church of Rome and her dependencies on our admiration, + reverence, love, and gratitude, how could we withstand her, as + we do; how could we refrain from being melted into tenderness, + and rushing into communion with her, but for the words of + Truth, which bid us prefer Itself to the whole world? 'He that + loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me.' + How could we learn to be severe, and execute judgment, but for + the warning of Moses against even a divinely-gifted teacher + who should preach new gods, and the anathema of St. Paul even + against Angels and Apostles who should bring in a new + doctrine?"[ix-1] + +He little thought, when he so wrote, that the time would ever come when +he should feel the obstacle, which he spoke of as lying in the way of +communion with the Church of Rome, to be destitute of solid foundation. + +The following work is directed towards its removal. + +Having, in former publications, called attention to the supposed +difficulty, he considers himself bound to avow his present belief that +it is imaginary. + +He has neither the ability to put out of hand a finished composition, +nor the wish to make a powerful and moving representation, on the great +subject of which he treats. His aim will be answered, if he succeeds in +suggesting thoughts, which in God's good time may quietly bear fruit, in +the minds of those to whom that subject is new; and which may carry +forward inquirers, who have already put themselves on the course. + +If at times his tone appears positive or peremptory, he hopes this will +be imputed to the scientific character of the Work, which requires a +distinct statement of principles, and of the arguments which recommend +them. + +He hopes too he shall be excused for his frequent quotations from +himself; which are necessary in order to show how he stands at present +in relation to various of his former Publications. * * * + + LITTLEMORE, + _October 6, 1845_. + + +POSTSCRIPT. + +Since the above was written, the Author has joined the Catholic Church. +It was his intention and wish to have carried his Volume through the +Press before deciding finally on this step. But when he had got some +way in the printing, he recognized in himself a conviction of the truth +of the conclusion to which the discussion leads, so clear as to +supersede further deliberation. Shortly afterwards circumstances gave +him the opportunity of acting upon it, and he felt that he had no +warrant for refusing to do so. + +His first act on his conversion was to offer his Work for revision to +the proper authorities; but the offer was declined on the ground that it +was written and partly printed before he was a Catholic, and that it +would come before the reader in a more persuasive form, if he read it as +the author wrote it. + +It is scarcely necessary to add that he now submits every part of the +book to the judgment of the Church, with whose doctrine, on the subjects +of which he treats, he wishes all his thoughts to be coincident. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[ix-1] Records of the Church, xxiv. p. 7. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PART I. + + DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED IN THEMSELVES. + PAGE + INTRODUCTION 3 + + CHAPTER I. + + The Development of Ideas 33 + Section 1. The Process of Development in Ideas 33 + Section 2. The Kinds of Development in Ideas 41 + + CHAPTER II. + + The Antecedent Argument in behalf of Developments in Christian + Doctrine 55 + Section 1. Developments to be expected 55 + Section 2. An infallible Developing Authority to be expected 75 + Section 3. The existing Developments of Doctrine the probable + Fulfilment of that Expectation 92 + + CHAPTER III. + + The Historical Argument in behalf of the existing Developments 99 + Section 1. Method of Proof 99 + Section 2. State of the Evidence 110 + + CHAPTER IV. + + Instances in Illustration 122 + Section 1. Instances cursorily noticed 123 + Sect. 1. Canon of the New Testament 123 + Sect. 2. Original Sin 126 + Sect. 3. Infant Baptism 127 + Sect. 4. Communion in one kind 129 + Sect. 5. The Homousion 133 + Section 2. Our Lord's Incarnation, and the dignity of His + Mother and of all Saints 135 + Section 3. Papal Supremacy 148 + + + PART II. + + DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED RELATIVELY TO DOCTRINAL CORRUPTIONS. + + CHAPTER V. + + Genuine Developments contrasted with Corruptions 169 + Section 1. First Note of a genuine Development of an Idea: + Preservation of its Type 171 + Section 2. Second Note: Continuity of its Principles 178 + Section 3. Third Note: Its Power of Assimilation 185 + Section 4. Fourth Note: Its Logical Sequence 189 + Section 5. Fifth Note: Anticipation of its Future 195 + Section 6. Sixth Note: Conservative Action upon its Past 199 + Section 7. Seventh Note: Its Chronic Vigour 203 + + CHAPTER VI. + + Application of the First Note of a true Development to the + Existing Developments of Christian Doctrine: Preservation + of its Type 207 + Section 1. The Church of the First Centuries 208 + Section 2. The Church of the Fourth Century 248 + Section 3. The Church of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries 273 + + CHAPTER VII. + + Application of the Second: Continuity of its Principles 323 + Sect. 1. Principles of Christianity 323 + Sect. 2. Supremacy of Faith 326 + Sect. 3. Theology 336 + Sect. 4. Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation 338 + Sect. 5. Dogma 346 + Sect. 6. Additional Remarks 353 + + CHAPTER VIII. + + Application of the Third: its Assimilative Power 355 + Sect. 1. The Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth 357 + Sect. 2. The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace 368 + + CHAPTER IX. + + Application of the Fourth: its Logical Sequence 383 + Sect. 1. Pardons 384 + Sect. 2. Penances 385 + Sect. 3. Satisfactions 386 + Sect. 4. Purgatory 388 + Sect. 5. Meritorious Works 393 + Sect. 6. The Monastic Rule 395 + + CHAPTER X. + + Application of the Fifth: Anticipation of its Future 400 + Sect. 1. Resurrection and Relics 401 + Sect. 2. The Virgin Life 407 + Sect. 3. Cultus of Saints and Angels 410 + Sect. 4. Office of the Blessed Virgin 415 + + CHAPTER XI. + + Application of the Sixth: Conservative Action on its Past 419 + Section 1. Instances cursorily noticed 420 + Section 2. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin 425 + + CHAPTER XII. + + Application of the Seventh: its Chronic Vigour 437 + + CONCLUSION 445 + + + + +PART I. + +DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS VIEWED IN THEMSELVES. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Christianity has been long enough in the world to justify us in dealing +with it as a fact in the world's history. Its genius and character, its +doctrines, precepts, and objects cannot be treated as matters of private +opinion or deduction, unless we may reasonably so regard the Spartan +institutions or the religion of Mahomet. It may indeed legitimately be +made the subject-matter of theories; what is its moral and political +excellence, what its due location in the range of ideas or of facts +which we possess, whether it be divine or human, whether original or +eclectic, or both at once, how far favourable to civilization or to +literature, whether a religion for all ages or for a particular state of +society, these are questions upon the fact, or professed solutions of +the fact, and belong to the province of opinion; but to a fact do they +relate, on an admitted fact do they turn, which must be ascertained as +other facts, and surely has on the whole been so ascertained, unless the +testimony of so many centuries is to go for nothing. Christianity is no +theory of the study or the cloister. It has long since passed beyond the +letter of documents and the reasonings of individual minds, and has +become public property. Its "sound has gone out into all lands," and its +"words unto the ends of the world." It has from the first had an +objective existence, and has thrown itself upon the great concourse of +men. Its home is in the world; and to know what it is, we must seek it +in the world, and hear the world's witness of it. + + +2. + +The hypothesis, indeed, has met with wide reception in these latter +times, that Christianity does not fall within the province of +history,--that it is to each man what each man thinks it to be, and +nothing else; and thus in fact is a mere name for a cluster or family of +rival religions all together, religions at variance one with another, +and claiming the same appellation, not because there can be assigned any +one and the same doctrine as the common foundation of all, but because +certain points of agreement may be found here and there of some sort or +other, by which each in its turn is connected with one or other of the +rest. Or again, it has been maintained, or implied, that all existing +denominations of Christianity are wrong, none representing it as taught +by Christ and His Apostles; that the original religion has gradually +decayed or become hopelessly corrupt; nay that it died out of the world +at its birth, and was forthwith succeeded by a counterfeit or +counterfeits which assumed its name, though they inherited at best but +some fragments of its teaching; or rather that it cannot even be said +either to have decayed or to have died, because historically it has no +substance of its own, but from the first and onwards it has, on the +stage of the world, been nothing more than a mere assemblage of +doctrines and practices derived from without, from Oriental, Platonic, +Polytheistic sources, from Buddhism, Essenism, Manicheeism; or that, +allowing true Christianity still to exist, it has but a hidden and +isolated life, in the hearts of the elect, or again as a literature or +philosophy, not certified in any way, much less guaranteed, to come from +above, but one out of the various separate informations about the +Supreme Being and human duty, with which an unknown Providence had +furnished us, whether in nature or in the world. + + +3. + +All such views of Christianity imply that there is no sufficient body of +historical proof to interfere with, or at least to prevail against, any +number whatever of free and independent hypotheses concerning it. But +this surely is not self-evident, and has itself to be proved. Till +positive reasons grounded on facts are adduced to the contrary, the most +natural hypotheses, the most agreeable to our mode of proceeding in +parallel cases, and that which takes precedence of all others, is to +consider that the society of Christians, which the Apostles left on +earth, were of that religion to which the Apostles had converted them; +that the external continuity of name, profession, and communion, argues +a real continuity of doctrine; that, as Christianity began by +manifesting itself as of a certain shape and bearing to all mankind, +therefore it went on so to manifest itself; and that the more, +considering that prophecy had already determined that it was to be a +power visible in the world and sovereign over it, characters which are +accurately fulfilled in that historical Christianity to which we +commonly give the name. It is not a violent assumption, then, but rather +mere abstinence from the wanton admission of a principle which would +necessarily lead to the most vexatious and preposterous scepticism, to +take it for granted, before proof to the contrary, that the Christianity +of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate +centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ and His +Apostles taught in the first, whatever may be the modifications for good +or for evil which lapse of years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs, +have impressed upon it. + +Of course I do not deny the abstract possibility of extreme changes. +The substitution is certainly, in idea, supposable of a counterfeit +Christianity,--superseding the original, by means of the adroit +innovations of seasons, places, and persons, till, according to the +familiar illustration, the "blade" and the "handle" are alternately +renewed, and identity is lost without the loss of continuity. It is +possible; but it must not be assumed. The _onus probandi_ is with those +who assert what it is unnatural to expect; to be just able to doubt is +no warrant for disbelieving. + + +4. + +Accordingly, some writers have gone on to give reasons from history for +their refusing to appeal to history. They aver that, when they come to +look into the documents and literature of Christianity in times past, +they find its doctrines so variously represented, and so inconsistently +maintained by its professors, that, however natural it be _a priori_, it +is useless, in fact, to seek in history the matter of that Revelation +which has been vouchsafed to mankind; that they cannot be historical +Christians if they would. They say, in the words of Chillingworth, +"There are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers +against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of +fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the +Church of one age against the Church of another age:"--Hence they are +forced, whether they will or not, to fall back upon the Bible as the +sole source of Revelation, and upon their own personal private judgment +as the sole expounder of its doctrine. This is a fair argument, if it +can be maintained, and it brings me at once to the subject of this +Essay. Not that it enters into my purpose to convict of misstatement, as +might be done, each separate clause of this sweeping accusation of a +smart but superficial writer; but neither on the other hand do I mean +to deny everything that he says to the disadvantage of historical +Christianity. On the contrary, I shall admit that there are in fact +certain apparent variations in its teaching, which have to be explained; +thus I shall begin, but then I shall attempt to explain them to the +exculpation of that teaching in point of unity, directness, and +consistency. + + +5. + +Meanwhile, before setting about this work, I will address one remark to +Chillingworth and his friends:--Let them consider, that if they can +criticize history, the facts of history certainly can retort upon them. +It might, I grant, be clearer on this great subject than it is. This is +no great concession. History is not a creed or a catechism, it gives +lessons rather than rules; still no one can mistake its general teaching +in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and +broad masses of colour rise out of the records of the past. They may be +dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite. And this one thing +at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, +whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at +least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there +were a safe truth, it is this. + +And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer +on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at +least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or +to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt +it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing +with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity +from the Bible alone: men never would have put it aside, unless they had +despaired of it. It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical +history in England, which prevails even in the English Church. Our +popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages +which lie between the Councils of Nicaea and Trent, except as affording +one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain +prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the +chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be +considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be +deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. + + +6. + +And this utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical +Christianity is a plain fact, whether the latter be regarded in its +earlier or in its later centuries. Protestants can as little bear its +Ante-nicene as its Post-tridentine period. I have elsewhere observed on +this circumstance: "So much must the Protestant grant that, if such a +system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever existed in early +times, it has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, +silently, and without memorial; by a deluge coming in a night, and +utterly soaking, rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of +what it found in the Church, before cock-crowing: so that 'when they +rose in the morning' her true seed 'were all dead corpses'--Nay dead and +buried--and without gravestone. 'The waters went over them; there was +not one of them left; they sunk like lead in the mighty waters.' Strange +antitype, indeed, to the early fortunes of Israel!--then the enemy was +drowned, and 'Israel saw them dead upon the sea-shore.' But now, it +would seem, water proceeded as a flood 'out of the serpent's mouth,' and +covered all the witnesses, so that not even their dead bodies lay in the +streets of the great city.' Let him take which of his doctrines he will, +his peculiar view of self-righteousness, of formality, of superstition; +his notion of faith, or of spirituality in religious worship; his denial +of the virtue of the sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or +of the visible Church; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of the +Scriptures as the one appointed instrument of religious teaching; and +let him consider how far Antiquity, as it has come down to us, will +countenance him in it. No; he must allow that the alleged deluge has +done its work; yes, and has in turn disappeared itself; it has been +swallowed up by the earth, mercilessly as itself was merciless."[9:1] + +That Protestantism, then, is not the Christianity of history, it is easy +to determine, but to retort is a poor reply in controversy to a question +of fact, and whatever be the violence or the exaggeration of writers +like Chillingworth, if they have raised a real difficulty, it may claim +a real answer, and we must determine whether on the one hand +Christianity is still to represent to us a definite teaching from above, +or whether on the other its utterances have been from time to time so +strangely at variance, that we are necessarily thrown back on our own +judgment individually to determine, what the revelation of God is, or +rather if in fact there is, or has been, any revelation at all. + + +7. + +Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that +there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has +lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine +and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who +inquire into it. They are not sufficient to interfere with the general +character and course of the religion, but they raise the question how +they came about, and what they mean, and have in consequence supplied +matter for several hypotheses. + +Of these one is to the effect that Christianity has even changed from +the first and ever accommodates itself to the circumstances of times and +seasons; but it is difficult to understand how such a view is compatible +with the special idea of revealed truth, and in fact its advocates more +or less abandon, or tend to abandon the supernatural claims of +Christianity; so it need not detain us here. + +A second and more plausible hypothesis is that of the Anglican divines, +who reconcile and bring into shape the exuberant phenomena under +consideration, by cutting off and casting away as corruptions all +usages, ways, opinions, and tenets, which have not the sanction of +primitive times. They maintain that history first presents to us a pure +Christianity in East and West, and then a corrupt; and then of course +their duty is to draw the line between what is corrupt and what is pure, +and to determine the dates at which the various changes from good to bad +were introduced. Such a principle of demarcation, available for the +purpose, they consider they have found in the _dictum_ of Vincent of +Lerins, that revealed and Apostolic doctrine is "quod semper, quod +ubique, quod ab omnibus," a principle infallibly separating, on the +whole field of history, authoritative doctrine from opinion, rejecting +what is faulty, and combining and forming a theology. That "Christianity +is what has been held always, everywhere, and by all," certainly +promises a solution of the perplexities, an interpretation of the +meaning, of history. What can be more natural than that divines and +bodies of men should speak, sometimes from themselves, sometimes from +tradition? what more natural than that individually they should say many +things on impulse, or under excitement, or as conjectures, or in +ignorance? what more certain than that they must all have been +instructed and catechized in the Creed of the Apostles? what more +evident than that what was their own would in its degree be peculiar, +and differ from what was similarly private and personal in their +brethren? what more conclusive than that the doctrine that was common to +all at once was not really their own, but public property in which they +had a joint interest, and was proved by the concurrence of so many +witnesses to have come from an Apostolical source? Here, then, we have a +short and easy method for bringing the various informations of +ecclesiastical history under that antecedent probability in its favour, +which nothing but its actual variations would lead us to neglect. Here +we have a precise and satisfactory reason why we should make much of the +earlier centuries, yet pay no regard to the later, why we should admit +some doctrines and not others, why we refuse the Creed of Pius IV. and +accept the Thirty-nine Articles. + + +8. + +Such is the rule of historical interpretation which has been professed +in the English school of divines; and it contains a majestic truth, and +offers an intelligible principle, and wears a reasonable air. It is +congenial, or, as it may be said, native to the Anglican mind, which +takes up a middle position, neither discarding the Fathers nor +acknowledging the Pope. It lays down a simple rule by which to measure +the value of every historical fact, as it comes, and thereby it provides +a bulwark against Rome, while it opens an assault upon Protestantism. +Such is its promise; but its difficulty lies in applying it in +particular cases. The rule is more serviceable in determining what is +not, than what is Christianity; it is irresistible against +Protestantism, and in one sense indeed it is irresistible against Rome +also, but in the same sense it is irresistible against England. It +strikes at Rome through England. It admits of being interpreted in one +of two ways: if it be narrowed for the purpose of disproving the +catholicity of the Creed of Pope Pius, it becomes also an objection to +the Athanasian; and if it be relaxed to admit the doctrines retained by +the English Church, it no longer excludes certain doctrines of Rome +which that Church denies. It cannot at once condemn St. Thomas and St. +Bernard, and defend St. Athanasius and St. Gregory Nazianzen. + +This general defect in its serviceableness has been heretofore felt by +those who appealed to it. It was said by one writer; "The Rule of +Vincent is not of a mathematical or demonstrative character, but moral, +and requires practical judgment and good sense to apply it. For +instance, what is meant by being 'taught _always_'? does it mean in +every century, or every year, or every month? Does '_everywhere_' mean +in every country, or in every diocese? and does 'the _Consent of +Fathers_' require us to produce the direct testimony of every one of +them? How many Fathers, how many places, how many instances, constitute +a fulfilment of the test proposed? It is, then, from the nature of the +case, a condition which never can be satisfied as fully as it might have +been. It admits of various and unequal application in various instances; +and what degree of application is enough, must be decided by the same +principles which guide us in the conduct of life, which determine us in +politics, or trade, or war, which lead us to accept Revelation at all, +(for which we have but probability to show at most,) nay, to believe in +the existence of an intelligent Creator."[12:1] + + +9. + +So much was allowed by this writer; but then he added:-- + +"This character, indeed, of Vincent's Canon, will but recommend it to +the disciples of the school of Butler, from its agreement with the +analogy of nature; but it affords a ready loophole for such as do not +wish to be persuaded, of which both Protestants and Romanists are not +slow to avail themselves." + +This surely is the language of disputants who are more intent on +assailing others than on defending themselves; as if similar loopholes +were not necessary for Anglican theology. + +He elsewhere says: "What there is not the shadow of a reason for saying +that the Fathers held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a +Catholic truth, is this, that St. Peter or his successors were and are +universal Bishops, that they have the whole of Christendom for their one +diocese in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops had and have +not."[13:1] Most true, if, in order that a doctrine be considered +Catholic, it must be formally stated by the Fathers generally from the +very first; but, on the same understanding, the doctrine also of the +apostolical succession in the episcopal order "has not the faintest +pretensions of being a Catholic truth." + +Nor was this writer without a feeling of the special difficulty of his +school; and he attempted to meet it by denying it. He wished to maintain +that the sacred doctrines admitted by the Church of England into her +Articles were taught in primitive times with a distinctness which no one +could fancy to attach to the characteristic tenets of Rome. + +"We confidently affirm," he said in another publication, "that there is +not an article in the Athanasian Creed concerning the Incarnation which +is not anticipated in the controversy with the Gnostics. There is no +question which the Apollinarian or the Nestorian heresy raised, which +may not be decided in the words of Ignatius, Irenaeus and +Tertullian."[13:2] + + +10. + +This may be considered as true. It may be true also, or at least shall +here be granted as true, that there is also a _consensus_ in the +Ante-nicene Church for the doctrines of our Lord's Consubstantiality and +Coeternity with the Almighty Father. Let us allow that the whole circle +of doctrines, of which our Lord is the subject, was consistently and +uniformly confessed by the Primitive Church, though not ratified +formally in Council. But it surely is otherwise with the Catholic +doctrine of the Trinity. I do not see in what sense it can be said that +there is a _consensus_ of primitive divines in its favour, which will +not avail also for certain doctrines of the Roman Church which will +presently come into mention. And this is a point which the writer of the +above passages ought to have more distinctly brought before his mind and +more carefully weighed; but he seems to have fancied that Bishop Bull +proved the primitiveness of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Holy +Trinity as well as that concerning our Lord. + +Now it should be clearly understood what it is which must be shown by +those who would prove it. Of course the doctrine of our Lord's divinity +itself partly implies and partly recommends the doctrine of the Trinity; +but implication and suggestion belong to another class of arguments +which has not yet come into consideration. Moreover the statements of a +particular father or doctor may certainly be of a most important +character; but one divine is not equal to a Catena. We must have a whole +doctrine stated by a whole Church. The Catholic Truth in question is +made up of a number of separate propositions, each of which, if +maintained to the exclusion of the rest, is a heresy. In order then to +prove that all the Ante-nicene writers taught the dogma of the Holy +Trinity, it is not enough to prove that each still has gone far enough +to be only a heretic--not enough to prove that one has held that the +Son is God, (for so did the Sabellian, so did the Macedonian), and +another that the Father is not the Son, (for so did the Arian), and +another that the Son is equal to the Father, (for so did the Tritheist), +and another that there is but One God, (for so did the Unitarian),--not +enough that many attached in some sense a Threefold Power to the idea of +the Almighty, (for so did almost all the heresies that ever existed, and +could not but do so, if they accepted the New Testament at all); but we +must show that all these statements at once, and others too, are laid +down by as many separate testimonies as may fairly be taken to +constitute a "_consensus_ of doctors." It is true indeed that the +subsequent profession of the doctrine in the Universal Church creates a +presumption that it was held even before it was professed; and it is +fair to interpret the early Fathers by the later. This is true, and +admits of application to certain other doctrines besides that of the +Blessed Trinity in Unity; but there is as little room for such +antecedent probabilities as for the argument from suggestions and +intimations in the precise and imperative _Quod semper, quod ubique, +quod ab omnibus_, as it is commonly understood by English divines, and +is by them used against the later Church and the see of Rome. What we +have a right to ask, if we are bound to act upon Vincent's rule in +regard to the Trinitarian dogma, is a sufficient number of Ante-nicene +statements, each distinctly anticipating the Athanasian Creed. + + +11. + +Now let us look at the leading facts of the case, in appealing to which +I must not be supposed to be ascribing any heresy to the holy men whose +words have not always been sufficiently full or exact to preclude the +imputation. First, the Creeds of that early day make no mention in +their letter of the Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention indeed +of a Three; but that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the +Three are One, that They are coequal, coeternal, all increate, all +omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated, and never could be +gathered from them. Of course we believe that they imply it, or rather +intend it. God forbid we should do otherwise! But nothing in the mere +letter of those documents leads to that belief. To give a deeper meaning +to their letter, we must interpret them by the times which came after. + +Again, there is one and one only great doctrinal Council in Ante-nicene +times. It was held at Antioch, in the middle of the third century, on +occasion of the incipient innovations of the Syrian heretical school. +Now the Fathers there assembled, for whatever reason, condemned, or at +least withdrew, when it came into the dispute, the word "Homousion," +which was afterwards received at Nicaea as the special symbol of +Catholicism against Arius.[16:1] + +Again, the six great Bishops and Saints of the Ante-nicene Church were +St. Irenaeus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. +Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these, St. Dionysius is +accused by St. Basil of having sown the first seeds of Arianism;[16:2] +and St. Gregory is allowed by the same learned Father to have used +language concerning our Lord, which he only defends on the plea of an +economical object in the writer.[16:3] St. Hippolytus speaks as if he +were ignorant of our Lord's Eternal Sonship;[17:1] St. Methodius speaks +incorrectly at least upon the Incarnation;[17:2] and St. Cyprian does +not treat of theology at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant +teaching of these true saints, and, in their day, faithful witnesses of +the Eternal Son. + +Again, Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and the two SS. Dionysii +would appear to be the only writers whose language is at any time exact +and systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian Creed. If we limit +our view of the teaching of the Fathers by what they expressly state, +St. Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin arianizes, +and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian. + +Again, there are three great theological authors of the Ante-nicene +centuries, Tertullian, Origen, and, we may add, Eusebius, though he +lived some way into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the doctrine +of our Lord's divinity,[17:3] and, indeed, ultimately fell altogether +into heresy or schism; Origen is, at the very least, suspected, and must +be defended and explained rather than cited as a witness of orthodoxy; +and Eusebius was a Semi-Arian. + + +12. + +Moreover, it may be questioned whether any Ante-nicene father +distinctly affirms either the numerical Unity or the Coequality of the +Three Persons; except perhaps the heterodox Tertullian, and that chiefly +in a work written after he had become a Montanist:[18:1] yet to satisfy +the Anti-roman use of _Quod semper, &c._, surely we ought not to be left +for these great articles of doctrine to the testimony of a later age. + +Further, Bishop Bull allows that "nearly all the ancient Catholics who +preceded Arius have the appearance of being ignorant of the invisible +and incomprehensible (_immensam_) nature of the Son of God;"[18:2] an +article expressly taught in the Athanasian Creed under the sanction of +its anathema. + +It must be asked, moreover, how much direct and literal testimony the +Ante-nicene Fathers give, one by one, to the divinity of the Holy +Spirit? This alone shall be observed, that St. Basil, in the fourth +century, finding that, if he distinctly called the Third Person in the +Blessed Trinity by the Name of God, he should be put out of the Church +by the Arians, pointedly refrained from doing so on an occasion on which +his enemies were on the watch; and that, when some Catholics found fault +with him, St. Athanasius took his part.[18:3] Could this possibly have +been the conduct of any true Christian, not to say Saint, of a later +age? that is, whatever be the true account of it, does it not suggest to +us that the testimony of those early times lies very unfavourably for +the application of the rule of Vincentius? + + +13. + +Let it not be for a moment supposed that I impugn the orthodoxy of the +early divines, or the cogency of their testimony among _fair_ inquirers; +but I am trying them by that _unfair_ interpretation of Vincentius, +which is necessary in order to make him available against the Church of +Rome. And now, as to the positive evidence which those Fathers offer in +behalf of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, it has been drawn out by +Dr. Burton and seems to fall under two heads. One is the general +_ascription of glory_ to the Three Persons together, both by fathers and +churches, and that on continuous tradition and from the earliest times. +Under the second fall certain _distinct statements_ of _particular_ +fathers; thus we find the word "Trinity" used by St. Theophilus, St. +Clement, St. Hippolytus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Origen, St. Methodius; +and the Divine _Circumincessio_, the most distinctive portion of the +Catholic doctrine, and the unity of power, or again, of substance, are +declared with more or less distinctness by Athenagoras, St. Irenaeus, St. +Clement, Tertullian, St. Hippolytus, Origen, and the two SS. Dionysii. +This is pretty much the whole of the evidence. + + +14. + +Perhaps it will be said we ought to take the Ante-nicene Fathers as a +whole, and interpret one of them by another. This is to assume that they +are all of one school, which of course they are, but which in +controversy is a point to be proved; but it is even doubtful whether, on +the whole, such a procedure would strengthen the argument. For instance, +as to the second head of the positive evidence noted by Dr. Burton, +Tertullian is the most formal and elaborate of these Fathers in his +statements of the Catholic doctrine. "It would hardly be possible," says +Dr. Burton, after quoting a passage, "for Athanasius himself, or the +compiler of the Athanasian Creed, to have delivered the doctrine of the +Trinity in stronger terms than these."[19:1] Yet Tertullian must be +considered heterodox on the doctrine of our Lord's eternal +generation.[20:1] If then we are to argue from his instance to that of +the other Fathers, we shall be driven to the conclusion that even the +most exact statements are worth nothing more than their letter, are a +warrant for nothing beyond themselves, and are consistent with +heterodoxy where they do not expressly protest against it. + +And again, as to the argument derivable from the Doxologies, it must not +be forgotten that one of the passages in St. Justin Martyr includes the +worship of the Angels. "We worship and adore," he says, "Him, and the +Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the host of those +other good Angels, who follow and are like Him, and the Prophetic +Spirit."[20:2] A Unitarian might argue from this passage that the glory +and worship which the early Church ascribed to our Lord was not more +definite than that which St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures. + + +15. + +Thus much on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Let us proceed to another +example. There are two doctrines which are generally associated with the +name of a Father of the fourth and fifth centuries, and which can show +little definite, or at least but partial, testimony in their behalf +before his time,--Purgatory and Original Sin. The dictum of Vincent +admits both or excludes both, according as it is or is not rigidly +taken; but, if used by Aristotle's "Lesbian Rule," then, as Anglicans +would wish, it can be made to admit Original Sin and exclude Purgatory. + +On the one hand, some notion of suffering, or disadvantage, or +punishment after this life, in the case of the faithful departed, or +other vague forms of the doctrine of Purgatory, has in its favour almost +a _consensus_ of the four first ages of the Church, though some Fathers +state it with far greater openness and decision than others. It is, as +far as words go, the confession of St. Clement of Alexandria, +Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, St. Hilary, +St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, St. Gregory of +Nazianzus, and of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus, and +St. Augustine. And so, on the other hand, there is a certain agreement +of Fathers from the first that mankind has derived some disadvantage +from the sin of Adam. + + +16. + +Next, when we consider the two doctrines more distinctly,--the doctrine +that between death and judgment there is a time or state of punishment; +and the doctrine that all men, naturally propagated from fallen Adam, +are in consequence born destitute of original righteousness,--we find, +on the one hand, several, such as Tertullian, St. Perpetua, St. Cyril, +St. Hilary, St. Jerome, St. Gregory Nyssen, as far as their words go, +definitely declaring a doctrine of Purgatory: whereas no one will say +that there is a testimony of the Fathers, equally strong, for the +doctrine of Original Sin, though it is difficult here to make any +definite statement about their teaching without going into a discussion +of the subject. + +On the subject of Purgatory there were, to speak generally, two schools +of opinion; the Greek, which contemplated a trial of fire at the last +day through which all were to pass; and the African, resembling more +nearly the present doctrine of the Roman Church. And so there were two +principal views of Original Sin, the Greek and the African or Latin. Of +the Greek, the judgment of Hooker is well known, though it must not be +taken in the letter: "The heresy of freewill was a millstone about those +Pelagians' neck; shall we therefore give sentence of death inevitable +against all those Fathers in the Greek Church which, being mispersuaded, +died in the error of freewill?"[22:1] Bishop Taylor, arguing for an +opposite doctrine, bears a like testimony: "Original Sin," he says, "as +it is at this day commonly explicated, was not the doctrine of the +primitive Church; but when Pelagius had puddled the stream, St. Austin +was so angry that he stamped and disturbed it more. And truly . . I do +not think that the gentlemen that urged against me St. Austin's opinion +do well consider that I profess myself to follow those Fathers who were +before him; and whom St. Austin did forsake, as I do him, in the +question."[22:2] The same is asserted or allowed by Jansenius, Petavius, +and Walch,[22:3] men of such different schools that we may surely take +their agreement as a proof of the fact. A late writer, after going +through the testimonies of the Fathers one by one, comes to the +conclusion, first, that "the Greek Church in no point favoured +Augustine, except in teaching that from Adam's sin came death, and, +(after the time of Methodius,) an extraordinary and unnatural sensuality +also;" next, that "the Latin Church affirmed, in addition, that a +corrupt and contaminated soul, and that, by generation, was carried on +to his posterity;"[22:4] and, lastly, that neither Greeks nor Latins +held the doctrine of imputation. It may be observed, in addition, that, +in spite of the forcible teaching of St. Paul on the subject, the +doctrine of Original Sin appears neither in the Apostles' nor the Nicene +Creed. + + +17. + +One additional specimen shall be given as a sample of many others:--I +betake myself to one of our altars to receive the Blessed Eucharist; I +have no doubt whatever on my mind about the Gift which that Sacrament +contains; I confess to myself my belief, and I go through the steps on +which it is assured to me. "The Presence of Christ is here, for It +follows upon Consecration; and Consecration is the prerogative of +Priests; and Priests are made by Ordination; and Ordination comes in +direct line from the Apostles. Whatever be our other misfortunes, every +link in our chain is safe; we have the Apostolic Succession, we have a +right form of consecration: therefore we are blessed with the great +Gift." Here the question rises in me, "Who told you about that Gift?" I +answer, "I have learned it from the Fathers: I believe the Real Presence +because they bear witness to it. St. Ignatius calls it 'the medicine of +immortality:' St. Irenaeus says that 'our flesh becomes incorrupt, and +partakes of life, and has the hope of the resurrection,' as 'being +nourished from the Lord's Body and Blood;' that the Eucharist 'is made +up of two things, an earthly and an heavenly:'[23:1] perhaps Origen, and +perhaps Magnes, after him, say that It is not a type of our Lord's Body, +but His Body: and St. Cyprian uses language as fearful as can be spoken, +of those who profane it. I cast my lot with them, I believe as they." +Thus I reply, and then the thought comes upon me a second time, "And do +not the same ancient Fathers bear witness to another doctrine, which +you disown? Are you not as a hypocrite, listening to them when you will, +and deaf when you will not? How are you casting your lot with the +Saints, when you go but half-way with them? For of whether of the two do +they speak the more frequently, of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, +or of the Pope's supremacy? You accept the lesser evidence, you reject +the greater." + + +18. + +In truth, scanty as the Ante-nicene notices may be of the Papal +Supremacy, they are both more numerous and more definite than the +adducible testimonies in favour of the Real Presence. The testimonies to +the latter are confined to a few passages such as those just quoted. On +the other hand, of a passage in St. Justin, Bishop Kaye remarks, "Le +Nourry infers that Justin maintained the doctrine of Transubstantiation; +it might in my opinion be more plausibly urged in favour of +Consubstantiation, since Justin calls the consecrated elements Bread and +Wine, though not common bread and wine.[24:1] . . . We may therefore +conclude that, when he calls them the Body and Blood of Christ, he +speaks figuratively." "Clement," observes the same author, "says that +the Scripture calls wine a mystic _symbol_ of the holy blood. . . . +Clement gives various interpretations of Christ's expressions in John +vi. respecting His flesh and blood; but in no instance does he interpret +them literally. . . . His notion seems to have been that, by partaking +of the bread and wine in the Eucharist, the soul of the believer is +united to the Spirit, and that by this union the principle of +immortality is imparted to the flesh."[24:2] "It has been suggested by +some," says Waterland, "that Tertullian understood John vi. merely of +faith, or doctrine, or spiritual actions; and it is strenuously denied +by others." After quoting the passage, he adds, "All that one can +justly gather from this confused passage is that Tertullian interpreted +the bread of life in John vi. of the Word, which he sometimes makes to +be vocal, and sometimes substantial, blending the ideas in a very +perplexed manner; so that he is no clear authority for construing John +vi. of doctrines, &c. All that is certain is that he supposes the Word +made flesh, the Word incarnate to be the heavenly bread spoken of +in that chapter."[25:1] "Origen's general observation relating to +that chapter is, that it must not be literally, but figuratively +understood."[25:2] Again, "It is plain enough that Eusebius followed +Origen in this matter, and that both of them favoured the same mystical +or allegorical construction; whether constantly and uniformly I need not +say."[25:3] I will but add the incidental testimony afforded on a late +occasion:--how far the Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist depends on the +times before the Nicene Council, how far on the times after it, may be +gathered from the circumstance that, when a memorable Sermon[25:4] was +published on the subject, out of about one hundred and forty passages +from the Fathers appended in the notes, not in formal proof, but in +general illustration, only fifteen were taken from Ante-nicene writers. + +With such evidence, the Ante-nicene testimonies which may be cited in +behalf of the authority of the Holy See, need not fear a comparison. +Faint they may be one by one, but at least we may count seventeen of +them, and they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, +and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof. +Whatever objections may be made to this or that particular fact, and I +do not think any valid ones can be raised, still, on the whole, I +consider that a cumulative argument rises from them in favour of the +ecumenical and the doctrinal authority of Rome, stronger than any +argument which can be drawn from the same period for the doctrine of the +Real Presence. I shall have occasion to enumerate them in the fourth +chapter of this Essay. + + +19. + +If it be said that the Real Presence appears, by the Liturgies of the +fourth or fifth century, to have been the doctrine of the earlier, since +those very forms probably existed from the first in Divine worship, this +is doubtless an important truth; but then it is true also that the +writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly +allow that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times, +and that because it was the See of St. Peter. + +Moreover, if the resistance of St. Cyprian and Firmilian to the Church +of Rome, in the question of baptism by heretics, be urged as an argument +against her primitive authority, or the earlier resistance of Polycrates +of Ephesus, let it be considered, first, whether all authority does not +necessarily lead to resistance; next, whether St. Cyprian's own +doctrine, which is in favour of Rome, is not more weighty than his act, +which is against her; thirdly, whether he was not already in error in +the main question under discussion, and Firmilian also; and lastly, +which is the chief point here, whether, in like manner, we may +not object on the other hand against the Real Presence the words +of Tertullian, who explains, "This is my Body," by "a figure of +my Body," and of Origen, who speaks of "our drinking Christ's +Blood not only in the rite of the Sacraments, but also when we +receive His discourses,"[26:1] and says that "that Bread which +God the Word acknowledges as His Body is the Word which nourishes +souls,"[26:2]--passages which admit of a Catholic interpretation when +the Catholic doctrine is once proved, but which _prima facie_ run +counter to that doctrine. + +It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever +be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early +and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be +considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in +his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their +testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory +result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. + + +20. + +Another hypothesis for accounting for a want of accord between the early +and the late aspects of Christianity is that of the _Disciplina Arcani_, +put forward on the assumption that there has been no variation in the +teaching of the Church from first to last. It is maintained that +doctrines which are associated with the later ages of the Church were +really in the Church from the first, but not publicly taught, and that +for various reasons: as, for the sake of reverence, that sacred subjects +might not be profaned by the heathen; and for the sake of catechumens, +that they might not be oppressed or carried away by a sudden +communication of the whole circle of revealed truth. And indeed the fact +of this concealment can hardly be denied, in whatever degree it took the +shape of a definite rule, which might vary with persons and places. That +it existed even as a rule, as regards the Sacraments, seems to be +confessed on all hands. That it existed in other respects, as a +practice, is plain from the nature of the case, and from the writings of +the Apologists. Minucius Felix and Arnobius, in controversy with Pagans, +imply a denial that then the Christians used altars; yet Tertullian +speaks expressly of the _Ara Dei_ in the Church. What can we say, but +that the Apologists deny altars _in the sense_ in which they ridicule +them; or, that they deny that altars _such as_ the Pagan altars were +tolerated by Christians? And, in like manner, Minucius allows that there +were no temples among Christians; yet they are distinctly recognized in +the edicts of the Dioclesian era, and are known to have existed at a +still earlier date. It is the tendency of every dominant system, such as +the Paganism of the Ante-nicene centuries, to force its opponents into +the most hostile and jealous attitude, from the apprehension which they +naturally feel, lest if they acted otherwise, in those points in which +they approximate towards it, they should be misinterpreted and overborne +by its authority. The very fault now found with clergymen of the +Anglican Church, who wish to conform their practices to her rubrics, and +their doctrines to her divines of the seventeenth century, is, that, +whether they mean it or no, whether legitimately or no, still, in matter +of fact, they will be sanctioning and encouraging the religion of Rome, +in which there are similar doctrines and practices, more definite and +more influential; so that, at any rate, it is inexpedient at the moment +to attempt what is sure to be mistaken. That is, they are required to +exercise a _disciplina arcani_; and a similar reserve was inevitable on +the part of the Catholic Church, at a time when priests and altars +and rites all around it were devoted to malignant and incurable +superstitions. It would be wrong indeed to deny, but it was a duty to +withhold, the ceremonial of Christianity; and Apologists might be +sometimes tempted to deny absolutely what at furthest could only be +denied under conditions. An idolatrous Paganism tended to repress +the externals of Christianity, as, at this day, the presence of +Protestantism is said to repress, though for another reason, the +exhibition of the Roman Catholic religion. + +On various grounds, then, it is certain that portions of the Church +system were held back in primitive times, and of course this fact goes +some way to account for that apparent variation and growth of doctrine, +which embarrasses us when we would consult history for the true idea of +Christianity; yet it is no key to the whole difficulty, as we find it, +for obvious reasons:--because the variations continue beyond the time +when it is conceivable that the discipline was in force, and because +they manifest themselves on a law, not abruptly, but by a visible growth +which has persevered up to this time without any sign of its coming to +an end.[29:1] + + +21. + +The following Essay is directed towards a solution of the difficulty +which has been stated,--the difficulty, as far as it exists, which lies +in the way of our using in controversy the testimony of our most natural +informant concerning the doctrine and worship of Christianity, viz. the +history of eighteen hundred years. The view on which it is written has +at all times, perhaps, been implicitly adopted by theologians, and, I +believe, has recently been illustrated by several distinguished writers +of the continent, such as De Maistre and Mohler: viz. that the increase +and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations +which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and +Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which +takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or +extended dominion; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is +necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and +that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the +world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all +at once by the recipients, but, as being received and transmitted by +minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required +only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. This +may be called the _Theory of Development of Doctrine_; and, before +proceeding to treat of it, one remark may be in place. + +It is undoubtedly an hypothesis to account for a difficulty; but such +too are the various explanations given by astronomers from Ptolemy to +Newton of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, and it is as +unphilosophical on that account to object to the one as to object to the +other. Nor is it more reasonable to express surprise, that at this time +of day a theory is necessary, granting for argument's sake that the +theory is novel, than to have directed a similar wonder in disparagement +of the theory of gravitation, or the Plutonian theory in geology. +Doubtless, the theory of the Secret and the theory of doctrinal +Developments are expedients, and so is the dictum of Vincentius; so is +the art of grammar or the use of the quadrant; it is an expedient to +enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious +problem. For three hundred years the documents and the facts of +Christianity have been exposed to a jealous scrutiny; works have been +judged spurious which once were received without a question; facts have +been discarded or modified which were once first principles in argument; +new facts and new principles have been brought to light; philosophical +views and polemical discussions of various tendencies have been +maintained with more or less success. Not only has the relative +situation of controversies and theologies altered, but infidelity itself +is in a different,--I am obliged to say in a more hopeful position,--as +regards Christianity. The facts of Revealed Religion, though in their +substance unaltered, present a less compact and orderly front to the +attacks of its enemies now than formerly, and allow of the introduction +of new inquiries and theories concerning its sources and its rise. The +state of things is not as it was, when an appeal lay to the supposed +works of the Areopagite, or to the primitive Decretals, or to St. +Dionysius's answers to Paul, or to the Coena Domini of St. Cyprian. +The assailants of dogmatic truth have got the start of its adherents of +whatever Creed; philosophy is completing what criticism has begun; and +apprehensions are not unreasonably excited lest we should have a new +world to conquer before we have weapons for the warfare. Already +infidelity has its views and conjectures, on which it arranges the facts +of ecclesiastical history; and it is sure to consider the absence of any +antagonist theory as an evidence of the reality of its own. That the +hypothesis, here to be adopted, accounts not only for the Athanasian +Creed, but for the Creed of Pope Pius, is no fault of those who adopt +it. No one has power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage +our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more. An +argument is needed, unless Christianity is to abandon the province of +argument; and those who find fault with the explanation here offered of +its historical phenomena will find it their duty to provide one for +themselves. + +And as no special aim at Roman Catholic doctrine need be supposed to +have given a direction to the inquiry, so neither can a reception of +that doctrine be immediately based on its results. It would be the work +of a life to apply the Theory of Developments so carefully to the +writings of the Fathers, and to the history of controversies and +councils, as thereby to vindicate the reasonableness of every decision +of Rome; much less can such an undertaking be imagined by one who, in +the middle of his days, is beginning life again. Thus much, however, +might be gained even from an Essay like the present, an explanation of +so many of the reputed corruptions, doctrinal and practical, of Rome, as +might serve as a fair ground for trusting her in parallel cases where +the investigation had not been pursued. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9:1] Church of the Fathers [Hist. Sketches, vol. i. p. 418]. + +[12:1] Proph. Office [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 55, 56]. + +[13:1] [Ibid. p. 181.] + +[13:2] [British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193. Vid. supr. vol. i. p. 130.] + +[16:1] This of course has been disputed, as is the case with almost all +facts which bear upon the decision of controversies. I shall not think +it necessary to notice the possibility or the fact of objections on +questions upon which the world may now be said to be agreed; _e. g._ the +arianizing tone of Eusebius. + +[16:2] +schedon tautesi tes nyn perithylloumenes asebeias, tes kata to +Anomoion lego, outos hestin, hosa ge hemeis hismen, ho protos anthropois +ta spermata paraschon.+ Ep. ix. 2. + +[16:3] Bull, Defens. F. N. ii. 12, Sect. 6. + +[17:1] "The authors who make the generation temporary, and speak not +expressly of any other, are these following: Justin, Athenagoras, +Theophilus, Tatian, Tertullian, and Hippolytus."--_Waterland_, vol. i. +part 2, p. 104. + +[17:2] "Levia sunt," says Maran in his defence, "quae in Sanctissimam +Trinitatem hic liber peccare dicitur, paulo graviora quae in mysterium +Incarnationis."--_Div. Jes. Christ._ p. 527. Shortly after, p. 530, "In +tertia oratione nonnulla legimus Incarnationem Domini spectantia, quae +subabsurde dicta fateor, nego impie cogitata." + +[17:3] Bishop Bull, who is tender towards him, allows, "Ut quod res est +dicam, cum Valentinianis hic et reliquo gnosticorum grege aliquatenus +locutus est Tertullianus; in re ipsa tamen cum Catholicis omnino +sensit."--_Defens. F. N._ iii. 10, Sect. 15. + +[18:1] Adv. Praxeam. + +[18:2] Defens. F. N. iv. 3, Sect. 1. + +[18:3] Basil, ed. Ben. vol. 3, p. xcvi. + +[19:1] Ante-nicene Test, to the Trinity, p. 69. + +[20:1] "Quia et Pater Deus est, et judex Deus est, non tamen ideo Pater +et judex semper, quia Deus semper. Nam nec Pater potuit esse ante +Filium, nec judex ante delictum. Fuit autem tempus, cum et delictum et +Filius non fuit, quod judicem, et qui Patrem Dominum faceret."--_Contr. +Herm._ 3. + +[20:2] Vid. infra, towards the end of the Essay, ch. x., where more will +be said on the passage. + +[22:1] Of Justification, 26. + +[22:2] Works, vol. ix. p. 396. + +[22:3] "Quamvis igitur quam maxime fallantur Pelagiani, quum asserant, +peccatum originale ex Augustini profluxisse ingenio, antiquam vero +ecclesiam illud plane nescivisse; diffiteri tamen nemo potest, apud +Graecos patres imprimis inveniri loca, quae Pelagianismo favere videntur. +Hinc et C. Jansenius, 'Graeci,' inquit, 'nisi caute legantur et +intelligantur, praebere possunt occasionem errori Pelagiano;' et D. +Petavius dicit, 'Graeci originalis fere criminis raram, nec disertam, +mentionem scriptis suis attigerunt.'"--_Walch_, _Miscell. Sacr._ p. 607. + +[22:4] Horn, Comment. de Pecc. Orig. 1801, p. 98. + +[23:1] Haer. iv. 18, Sect. 5. + +[24:1] Justin Martyr, ch. 4. + +[24:2] Clem. Alex. ch. 11. + +[25:1] Works, vol. vii. p. 118-120. + +[25:2] Ibid. p. 121. + +[25:3] Ibid. p. 127. + +[25:4] [Dr. Pusey's University Sermon of 1843.] + +[26:1] Numer. Hom. xvi. 9. + +[26:2] Interp. Com. in Matt. 85. + +[29:1] [_Vid._ Apolog., p. 198, and Difficulties of Angl. vol. i. xii. +7.] + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS. + + +SECTION I. + +ON THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. + +It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing +judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend +than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, +contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view +all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have +invested it. + +Of the judgments thus made, which become aspects in our minds of the +things which meet us, some are mere opinions which come and go, or which +remain with us only till an accident displaces them, whatever be the +influence which they exercise meanwhile. Others are firmly fixed in our +minds, with or without good reason, and have a hold upon us, whether +they relate to matters of fact, or to principles of conduct, or are +views of life and the world, or are prejudices, imaginations, or +convictions. Many of them attach to one and the same object, which is +thus variously viewed, not only by various minds, but by the same. They +sometimes lie in such near relation, that each implies the others; some +are only not inconsistent with each other, in that they have a common +origin: some, as being actually incompatible with each other, are, one +or other, falsely associated in our minds with their object, and in any +case they may be nothing more than ideas, which we mistake for things. + +Thus Judaism is an idea which once was objective, and Gnosticism is an +idea which was never so. Both of them have various aspects: those of +Judaism were such as monotheism, a certain ethical discipline, a +ministration of divine vengeance, a preparation for Christianity: those +of the Gnostic idea are such as the doctrine of two principles, that of +emanation, the intrinsic malignity of matter, the inculpability of +sensual indulgence, or the guilt of every pleasure of sense, of which +last two one or other must be in the Gnostic a false aspect and +subjective only. + + +2. + +The idea which represents an object or supposed object is commensurate +with the sum total of its possible aspects, however they may vary in the +separate consciousness of individuals; and in proportion to the variety +of aspects under which it presents itself to various minds is its force +and depth, and the argument for its reality. Ordinarily an idea is not +brought home to the intellect as objective except through this variety; +like bodily substances, which are not apprehended except under the +clothing of their properties and results, and which admit of being +walked round, and surveyed on opposite sides, and in different +perspectives, and in contrary lights, in evidence of their reality. And, +as views of a material object may be taken from points so remote or so +opposed, that they seem at first sight incompatible, and especially as +their shadows will be disproportionate, or even monstrous, and yet all +these anomalies will disappear and all these contrarieties be adjusted, +on ascertaining the point of vision or the surface of projection in each +case; so also all the aspects of an idea are capable of coalition, and +of a resolution into the object to which it belongs; and the _prima +facie_ dissimilitude of its aspects becomes, when explained, an argument +for its substantiveness and integrity, and their multiplicity for its +originality and power. + + +3. + +There is no one aspect deep enough to exhaust the contents of a real +idea, no one term or proposition which will serve to define it; though +of course one representation of it is more just and exact than another, +and though when an idea is very complex, it is allowable, for the sake +of convenience, to consider its distinct aspects as if separate ideas. +Thus, with all our intimate knowledge of animal life and of the +structure of particular animals, we have not arrived at a true +definition of any one of them, but are forced to enumerate properties +and accidents by way of description. Nor can we inclose in a formula +that intellectual fact, or system of thought, which we call the Platonic +philosophy, or that historical phenomenon of doctrine and conduct, which +we call the heresy of Montanus or of Manes. Again, if Protestantism were +said to lie in its theory of private judgment, and Lutheranism in its +doctrine of justification, this indeed would be an approximation to the +truth; but it is plain that to argue or to act as if the one or the +other aspect were a sufficient account of those forms of religion +severally, would be a serious mistake. Sometimes an attempt is made to +determine the "leading idea," as it has been called, of Christianity, an +ambitious essay as employed on a supernatural work, when, even as +regards the visible creation and the inventions of man, such a task is +beyond us. Thus its one idea has been said by some to be the restoration +of our fallen race, by others philanthropy, by others the tidings of +immortality, or the spirituality of true religious service, or the +salvation of the elect, or mental liberty, or the union of the soul with +God. If, indeed, it is only thereby meant to use one or other of these +as a central idea for convenience, in order to group others around it, +no fault can be found with such a proceeding: and in this sense I should +myself call the Incarnation the central aspect of Christianity, out of +which the three main aspects of its teaching take their rise, the +sacramental, the hierarchical, and the ascetic. But one aspect of +Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or to obscure another; and +Christianity is dogmatical, devotional, practical all at once; it is +esoteric and exoteric; it is indulgent and strict; it is light and dark; +it is love, and it is fear. + + +4. + +When an idea, whether real or not, is of a nature to arrest and possess +the mind, it may be said to have life, that is, to live in the mind +which is its recipient. Thus mathematical ideas, real as they are, can +hardly properly be called living, at least ordinarily. But, when some +great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present +good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the +public throng of men and draws attention, then it is not merely received +passively in this or that form into many minds, but it becomes an active +principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of +itself, to an application of it in various directions, and a propagation +of it on every side. Such is the doctrine of the divine right of kings, +or of the rights of man, or of the anti-social bearings of a priesthood, +or utilitarianism, or free trade, or the duty of benevolent enterprises, +or the philosophy of Zeno or Epicurus, doctrines which are of a nature +to attract and influence, and have so far a _prima facie_ reality, that +they may be looked at on many sides and strike various minds very +variously. Let one such idea get possession of the popular mind, or the +mind of any portion of the community, and it is not difficult to +understand what will be the result. At first men will not fully realize +what it is that moves them, and will express and explain themselves +inadequately. There will be a general agitation of thought, and an +action of mind upon mind. There will be a time of confusion, when +conceptions and misconceptions are in conflict, and it is uncertain +whether anything is to come of the idea at all, or which view of it is +to get the start of the others. New lights will be brought to bear upon +the original statements of the doctrine put forward; judgments and +aspects will accumulate. After a while some definite teaching emerges; +and, as time proceeds, one view will be modified or expanded by another, +and then combined with a third; till the idea to which these various +aspects belong, will be to each mind separately what at first it was +only to all together. It will be surveyed too in its relation to other +doctrines or facts, to other natural laws or established customs, to the +varying circumstances of times and places, to other religions, polities, +philosophies, as the case may be. How it stands affected towards other +systems, how it affects them, how far it may be made to combine with +them, how far it tolerates them, when it interferes with them, will be +gradually wrought out. It will be interrogated and criticized by +enemies, and defended by well-wishers. The multitude of opinions formed +concerning it in these respects and many others will be collected, +compared, sorted, sifted, selected, rejected, gradually attached to it, +separated from it, in the minds of individuals and of the community. It +will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtlety, introduce itself +into the framework and details of social life, changing public opinion, +and strengthening or undermining the foundations of established order. +Thus in time it will have grown into an ethical code, or into a system +of government, or into a theology, or into a ritual, according to its +capabilities: and this body of thought, thus laboriously gained, will +after all be little more than the proper representative of one idea, +being in substance what that idea meant from the first, its complete +image as seen in a combination of diversified aspects, with the +suggestions and corrections of many minds, and the illustration of many +experiences. + + +5. + +This process, whether it be longer or shorter in point of time, by which +the aspects of an idea are brought into consistency and form, I call its +development, being the germination and maturation of some truth or +apparent truth on a large mental field. On the other hand this process +will not be a development, unless the assemblage of aspects, which +constitute its ultimate shape, really belongs to the idea from which +they start. A republic, for instance, is not a development from a pure +monarchy, though it may follow upon it; whereas the Greek "tyrant" may +be considered as included in the idea of a democracy. Moreover a +development will have this characteristic, that, its action being in the +busy scene of human life, it cannot progress at all without cutting +across, and thereby destroying or modifying and incorporating with +itself existing modes of thinking and operating. The development then of +an idea is not like an investigation worked out on paper, in which each +successive advance is a pure evolution from a foregoing, but it is +carried on through and by means of communities of men and their leaders +and guides; and it employs their minds as its instruments, and depends +upon them, while it uses them. And so, as regards existing opinions, +principles, measures, and institutions of the community which it has +invaded; it developes by establishing relations between itself and +them; it employs itself, in giving them a new meaning and direction, in +creating what may be called a jurisdiction over them, in throwing off +whatever in them it cannot assimilate. It grows when it incorporates, +and its identity is found, not in isolation, but in continuity and +sovereignty. This it is that imparts to the history both of states and +of religions, its specially turbulent and polemical character. Such is +the explanation of the wranglings, whether of schools or of parliaments. +It is the warfare of ideas under their various aspects striving for the +mastery, each of them enterprising, engrossing, imperious, more or less +incompatible with the rest, and rallying followers or rousing foes, +according as it acts upon the faith, the prejudices, or the interest of +parties or classes. + + +6. + +Moreover, an idea not only modifies, but is modified, or at least +influenced, by the state of things in which it is carried out, and is +dependent in various ways on the circumstances which surround it. Its +development proceeds quickly or slowly, as it may be; the order of +succession in its separate stages is variable; it shows differently in a +small sphere of action and in an extended; it may be interrupted, +retarded, mutilated, distorted, by external violence; it may be +enfeebled by the effort of ridding itself of domestic foes; it may be +impeded and swayed or even absorbed by counter energetic ideas; it may +be coloured by the received tone of thought into which it comes, or +depraved by the intrusion of foreign principles, or at length shattered +by the development of some original fault within it. + + +7. + +But whatever be the risk of corruption from intercourse with the world +around, such a risk must be encountered if a great idea is duly to be +understood, and much more if it is to be fully exhibited. It is elicited +and expanded by trial, and battles into perfection and supremacy. Nor +does it escape the collision of opinion even in its earlier years, nor +does it remain truer to itself, and with a better claim to be considered +one and the same, though externally protected from vicissitude and +change. It is indeed sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the +spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply +to the history of a philosophy or belief, which on the contrary is more +equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and +broad, and full. It necessarily rises out of an existing state of +things, and for a time savours of the soil. Its vital element needs +disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in +efforts after freedom which become more vigorous and hopeful as its +years increase. Its beginnings are no measure of its capabilities, nor +of its scope. At first no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It +remains perhaps for a time quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs, +and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to time it +makes essays which fail, and are in consequence abandoned. It seems in +suspense which way to go; it wavers, and at length strikes out in one +definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory; points of +controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall around it; +dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and old principles reappear +under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a +higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and +to be perfect is to have changed often. + + +SECTION II. + +ON THE KINDS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. + +To attempt an accurate analysis or complete enumeration of the processes +of thought, whether speculative or practical, which come under the +notion of development, exceeds the pretensions of an Essay like the +present; but, without some general view of the various mental exercises +which go by the name we shall have no security against confusion in our +reasoning and necessary exposure to criticism. + +1. First, then, it must be borne in mind that the word is commonly used, +and is used here, in three senses indiscriminately, from defect of our +language; on the one hand for the process of development, on the other +for the result; and again either generally for a development, true or +not true, (that is, faithful or unfaithful to the idea from which it +started,) or exclusively for a development deserving the name. A false +or unfaithful development is more properly to be called a corruption. + +2. Next, it is plain that _mathematical_ developments, that is, the +system of truths drawn out from mathematical definitions or equations, +do not fall under our present subject, though altogether analogous to +it. There can be no corruption in such developments, because they are +conducted on strict demonstration; and the conclusions in which they +terminate, being necessary, cannot be declensions from the original +idea. + +3. Nor, of course, do _physical_ developments, as the growth of animal +or vegetable nature, come into consideration here; excepting that, +together with mathematical, they may be taken as illustrations of the +general subject to which we have to direct our attention. + +4. Nor have we to consider _material_ developments, which, though +effected by human contrivance, are still physical; as the development, +as it is called, of the national resources. We speak, for instance, of +Ireland, the United States, or the valley of the Indus, as admitting of +a great development; by which we mean, that those countries have fertile +tracts, or abundant products, or broad and deep rivers, or central +positions for commerce, or capacious and commodious harbours, the +materials and instruments of wealth, and these at present turned to +insufficient account. Development in this case will proceed by +establishing marts, cutting canals, laying down railroads, erecting +factories, forming docks, and similar works, by which the natural riches +of the country may be made to yield the largest return and to exert the +greatest influence. In this sense, art is the development of nature, +that is, its adaptation to the purposes of utility and beauty, the human +intellect being the developing power. + + +2. + +5. When society and its various classes and interests are the +subject-matter of the ideas which are in operation, the development may +be called _political_; as we see it in the growth of States or the +changes of a Constitution. Barbarians descend into southern regions from +cupidity, and their warrant is the sword: this is no intellectual +process, nor is it the mode of development exhibited in civilized +communities. Where civilization exists, reason, in some shape or other, +is the incentive or the pretence of development. When an empire +enlarges, it is on the call of its allies, or for the balance of power, +or from the necessity of a demonstration of strength, or from a fear for +its frontiers. It lies uneasily in its territory, it is ill-shaped, it +has unreal boundary-lines, deficient communication between its principal +points, or defenceless or turbulent neighbours. Thus, of old time, +Euboea was necessary for Athens, and Cythera for Sparta; and Augustus +left his advice, as a legacy, to confine the Empire between the +Atlantic, the Rhine and Danube, the Euphrates, and the Arabian and +African deserts. In this day, we hear of the Rhine being the natural +boundary of France, and the Indus of our Eastern empire; and we predict +that, in the event of a war, Prussia will change her outlines in the map +of Europe. The development is material; but an idea gives unity and +force to its movement. + +And so to take a case of national politics, a late writer remarks of the +Parliament of 1628-29, in its contest with Charles, that, so far from +encroaching on the just powers of a limited monarch, it never hinted at +the securities which were necessary for its measures. However, "twelve +years more of repeated aggressions," he adds, "taught the Long +Parliament what a few sagacious men might perhaps have already +suspected; that they must recover more of their ancient constitution, +from oblivion; that they must sustain its partial weakness by new +securities; that, in order to render the existence of monarchy +compatible with that of freedom, they must not only strip it of all it +had usurped, but of something that was its own."[43:1] Whatever be the +worth of this author's theory, his facts or representations are an +illustration of a political development. + +Again, at the present day, that Ireland should have a population of one +creed, and a Church of another, is felt to be a political arrangement so +unsatisfactory, that all parties seem to agree that either the +population will develope in power or the Establishment in influence. + +Political developments, though really the growth of ideas, are often +capricious and irregular from the nature of their subject-matter. They +are influenced by the character of sovereigns, the rise and fall of +statesmen, the fate of battles, and the numberless vicissitudes of the +world. "Perhaps the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the +Monophysites," says Gibbon, "if the Emperor's horse had not fortunately +stumbled. Theodosius expired, his orthodox sister succeeded to the +throne."[44:1] + + +3. + +Again, it often happens, or generally, that various distinct and +incompatible elements are found in the origin or infancy of politics, or +indeed of philosophies, some of which must be ejected before any +satisfactory developments, if any, can take place. And they are commonly +ejected by the gradual growth of the stronger. The reign of Charles the +First, just referred to, supplies an instance in point. + +Sometimes discordant ideas are for a time connected and concealed by a +common profession or name. Such is the case of coalitions in politics +and comprehensions in religion, of which commonly no good is to be +expected. Such is an ordinary function of committees and boards, and the +sole aim of conciliations and concessions, to make contraries look the +same, and to secure an outward agreement where there is no other unity. + +Again, developments, reactions, reforms, revolutions, and changes of +various kinds are mixed together in the actual history of states, as of +philosophical sects, so as to make it very difficult to exhibit them in +any scientific analysis. + +Often the intellectual process is detached from the practical, and +posterior to it. Thus it was after Elizabeth had established the +Reformation that Hooker laid down his theory of Church and State as one +and the same, differing only in idea; and, after the Revolution and its +political consequences, that Warburton wrote his "Alliance." And now +again a new theory is needed for the constitutional lawyer, in order to +reconcile the existing political state of things with the just claims +of religion. And so, again, in Parliamentary conflicts, men first come +to their conclusions by the external pressure of events or the force of +principles, they do not know how; then they have to speak, and they look +about for arguments: and a pamphlet is published on the subject in +debate, or an article appears in a Review, to furnish common-places for +the many. + +Other developments, though political, are strictly subjected and +consequent to the ideas of which they are the exhibitions. Thus Locke's +philosophy was a real guide, not a mere defence of the Revolution era, +operating forcibly upon Church and Government in and after his day. Such +too were the theories which preceded the overthrow of the old regime in +France and other countries at the end of the last century. + +Again, perhaps there are polities founded on no ideas at all, but on +mere custom, as among the Asiatics. + + +4. + +6. In other developments the intellectual character is so prominent that +they may even be called _logical_, as in the Anglican doctrine of the +Royal Supremacy, which has been created in the courts of law, not in the +cabinet or on the field. Hence it is carried out with a consistency and +minute application which the history of constitutions cannot exhibit. It +does not only exist in statutes, or in articles, or in oaths, it is +realized in details: as in the _conge d'elire_ and letter-missive on +appointment of a Bishop;--in the forms observed in Privy Council on the +issuing of State Prayers;--in certain arrangements observed in the +Prayer-book, where the universal or abstract Church precedes the King, +but the national or really existing body follows him; in printing his +name in large capitals, while the Holiest Names are in ordinary type, +and in fixing his arms in churches instead of the Crucifix; moreover, +perhaps, in placing "sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion," before +"false doctrine, heresy, and schism" in the Litany. + +Again, when some new philosophy or its instalments are introduced into +the measures of the Legislature, or into the concessions made to a +political party, or into commercial or agricultural policy, it is often +said, "We have not seen the end of this;" "It is an earnest of future +concessions;" "Our children will see." We feel that it has unknown +bearings and issues. + +The admission of Jews to municipal offices has lately been +defended[46:1] on the ground that it is the introduction of no new +principle, but a development of one already received; that its great +premisses have been decided long since; and that the present age has but +to draw the conclusion; that it is not open to us to inquire what ought +to be done in the abstract, since there is no ideal model for the +infallible guidance of nations; that change is only a question of time, +and that there is a time for all things; that the application of +principles ought not to go beyond the actual case, neither preceding nor +coming after an imperative demand; that in point of fact Jews have +lately been chosen for offices, and that in point of principle the law +cannot refuse to legitimate such elections. + + +5. + +7. Another class of developments may be called _historical_; being the +gradual formation of opinion concerning persons, facts, and events. +Judgments, which were at one time confined to a few, at length spread +through a community, and attain general reception by the accumulation +and concurrence of testimony. Thus some authoritative accounts die away; +others gain a footing, and are ultimately received as truths. Courts of +law, Parliamentary proceedings, newspapers, letters and other +posthumous documents, the industry of historians and biographers, and +the lapse of years which dissipates parties and prejudices, are in this +day the instruments of such development. Accordingly the Poet makes +Truth the daughter of Time.[47:1] Thus at length approximations are made +to a right appreciation of transactions and characters. History cannot +be written except in an after-age. Thus by development the Canon of the +New Testament has been formed. Thus public men are content to leave +their reputation to posterity; great reactions take place in opinion; +nay, sometimes men outlive opposition and obloquy. Thus Saints are +canonized in the Church, long after they have entered into their rest. + + +6. + +8. _Ethical_ developments are not properly matter for argument and +controversy, but are natural and personal, substituting what is +congruous, desirable, pious, appropriate, generous, for strictly logical +inference. Bishop Butler supplies us with a remarkable instance in the +beginning of the Second Part of his "Analogy." As principles imply +applications, and general propositions include particulars, so, he tells +us, do certain relations imply correlative duties, and certain objects +demand certain acts and feelings. He observes that, even though we were +not enjoined to pay divine honours to the Second and Third Persons of +the Holy Trinity, what is predicated of Them in Scripture would be an +abundant warrant, an indirect command, nay, a ground in reason, for +doing so. "Does not," he asks, "the duty of religious regards to both +these Divine Persons as immediately arise, to the view of reason, out of +the very nature of these offices and relations, as the inward good-will +and kind intention which we owe to our fellow-creatures arises out of +the common relations between us and them?" He proceeds to say that he is +speaking of the inward religious regards of reverence, honour, love, +trust, gratitude, fear, hope. "In what external manner this inward +worship is to be expressed, is a matter of pure revealed command; . . +but the worship, the internal worship itself, to the Son and Holy Ghost, +is no further matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they +stand in to us are matter of pure revelation; for, the relations being +known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of +reason, arising out of those relations themselves." Here is a +development of doctrine into worship, of which parallel instances are +obviously to be found in the Church of Rome. + + +7. + +A development, converse to that which Butler speaks of, must next be +mentioned. As certain objects excite certain emotions and sentiments, so +do sentiments imply objects and duties. Thus conscience, the existence +of which we cannot deny, is a proof of the doctrine of a Moral Governor, +which alone gives it a meaning and a scope; that is, the doctrine of a +Judge and Judgment to come is a development of the phenomenon of +conscience. Again, it is plain that passions and affections are in +action in our minds before the presence of their proper objects; and +their activity would of course be an antecedent argument of extreme +cogency in behalf of the real existence of those legitimate objects, +supposing them unknown. And so again, the social principle, which is +innate in us, gives a divine sanction to society and to civil +government. And the usage of prayers for the dead implies certain +circumstances of their state upon which such devotions bear. And rites +and ceremonies are natural means through which the mind relieves itself +of devotional and penitential emotions. And sometimes the cultivation +of awe and love towards what is great, high, and unseen, has led a man +to the abandonment of his sect for some more Catholic form of doctrine. + +Aristotle furnishes us with an instance of this kind of development in +his account of the happy man. After showing that his definition of +happiness includes in itself the pleasurable, which is the most obvious +and popular idea of happiness, he goes on to say that still external +goods are necessary to it, about which, however, the definition said +nothing; that is, a certain prosperity is by moral fitness, not by +logical necessity, attached to the happy man. "For it is impossible," he +observes, "or not easy, to practise high virtue without abundant means. +Many deeds are done by the instrumentality of friends, wealth and +political power; and of some things the absence is a cloud upon +happiness, as of noble birth, of hopeful children, and of personal +appearance: for a person utterly deformed, or low-born, or bereaved and +childless, cannot quite be happy: and still less if he have very +worthless children or friends, or they were good and died."[49:1] + + +8. + +This process of development has been well delineated by a living French +writer, in his Lectures on European civilization, who shall be quoted at +some length. "If we reduce religion," he says, "to a purely religious +sentiment . . . it appears evident that it must and ought to remain a +purely personal concern. But I am either strangely mistaken, or this +religious sentiment is not the complete expression of the religious +nature of man. Religion is, I believe, very different from this, +and much more extended. There are problems in human nature, in human +destinies, which cannot be solved in this life, which depend on +an order of things unconnected with the visible world, but which +unceasingly agitate the human mind with a desire to comprehend them. The +solution of these problems is the origin of all religion; her primary +object is to discover the creeds and doctrines which contain, or are +supposed to contain it. + +"Another cause also impels mankind to embrace religion . . . From whence +do morals originate? whither do they lead? is this self-existing +obligation to do good, an isolated fact, without an author, without an +end? does it not conceal, or rather does it not reveal to man, an +origin, a destiny, beyond this world? The science of morals, by these +spontaneous and inevitable questions, conducts man to the threshold of +religion, and displays to him a sphere from whence he has not derived +it. Thus the certain and never-failing sources of religion are, on the +one hand, the problems of our nature; on the other, the necessity of +seeking for morals a sanction, an origin, and an aim. It therefore +assumes many other forms beside that of a pure sentiment; it appears a +union of doctrines, of precepts, of promises. This is what truly +constitutes religion; this is its fundamental character; it is not +merely a form of sensibility, an impulse of the imagination, a variety +of poetry. + +"When thus brought back to its true elements, to its essential nature, +religion appears no longer a purely personal concern, but a powerful and +fruitful principle of association. Is it considered in the light of a +system of belief, a system of dogmas? Truth is not the heritage of any +individual, it is absolute and universal; mankind ought to seek and +profess it in common. Is it considered with reference to the precepts +that are associated with its doctrines? A law which is obligatory on a +single individual, is so on all; it ought to be promulgated, and it is +our duty to endeavour to bring all mankind under its dominion. It is +the same with respect to the promises that religion makes, in the name +of its creeds and precepts; they ought to be diffused; all men should be +incited to partake of their benefits. A religious society, therefore, +naturally results from the essential elements of religion, and is such a +necessary consequence of it that the term which expresses the most +energetic social sentiment, the most intense desire to propagate ideas +and extend society, is the word _proselytism_, a term which is +especially applied to religious belief, and in fact consecrated to it. + +"When a religious society has ever been formed, when a certain number of +men are united by a common religious creed, are governed by the same +religious precepts, and enjoy the same religious hopes, some form of +government is necessary. No society can endure a week, nay more, no +society can endure a single hour, without a government. The moment, +indeed, a society is formed, by the very fact of its formation, it calls +forth a government,--a government which shall proclaim the common truth +which is the bond of the society, and promulgate and maintain the +precepts that this truth ought to produce. The necessity of a superior +power, of a form of government, is involved in the fact of the existence +of a religious, as it is in that of any other society. + +"And not only is a government necessary, but it naturally forms +itself. . . . When events are suffered to follow their natural laws, +when force does not interfere, power falls into the hands of the most +able, the most worthy, those who are most capable of carrying out the +principles on which the society was founded. Is a warlike expedition +in agitation? The bravest take the command. Is the object of the +association learned research, or a scientific undertaking? The best +informed will be the leader. . . . The inequality of faculties and +influence, which is the foundation of power in civil life, has the same +effect in a religious society. . . Religion has no sooner arisen in the +human mind than a religious society appears; and immediately a religious +society is formed, it produces its government."[52:1] + + +9. + +9. It remains to allude to what, unless the word were often so vaguely +and variously used, I should be led to call _metaphysical_ developments; +I mean such as are a mere analysis of the idea contemplated, and +terminate in its exact and complete delineation. Thus Aristotle draws +the character of a magnanimous or of a munificent man; thus Shakspeare +might conceive and bring out his Hamlet or Ariel; thus Walter Scott +gradually enucleates his James, or Dalgetty, as the action of his story +proceeds; and thus, in the sacred province of theology, the mind may be +employed in developing the solemn ideas, which it has hitherto held +implicitly and without subjecting them to its reflecting and reasoning +powers. + +I have already treated of this subject at length, with a reference to +the highest theological subject, in a former work, from which it will be +sufficient here to quote some sentences in explanation:-- + +"The mind which is habituated to the thought of God, of Christ, of +the Holy Spirit, naturally turns with a devout curiosity to the +contemplation of the object of its adoration, and begins to form +statements concerning it, before it knows whither, or how far, it will +be carried. One proposition necessarily leads to another, and a second +to a third; then some limitation is required; and the combination of +these opposites occasions some fresh evolutions from the original idea, +which indeed can never be said to be entirely exhausted. This process is +its development, and results in a series, or rather body, of dogmatic +statements, till what was an impression on the Imagination has become a +system or creed in the Reason. + +"Now such impressions are obviously individual and complete above other +theological ideas, because they are the impressions of Objects. Ideas +and their developments are commonly not identical, the development being +but the carrying out of the idea into its consequences. Thus the +doctrine of Penance may be called a development of the doctrine of +Baptism, yet still is a distinct doctrine; whereas the developments in +the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are mere portions +of the original impression, and modes of representing it. As God is one, +so the impression which He gives us of Himself is one; it is not a thing +of parts; it is not a system; nor is it anything imperfect and needing a +counterpart. It is the vision of an object. When we pray, we pray, not +to an assemblage of notions or to a creed, but to One Individual Being; +and when we speak of Him, we speak of a Person, not of a Law or +Manifestation . . . Religious men, according to their measure, have an +idea or vision of the Blessed Trinity in Unity, of the Son Incarnate, +and of His Presence, not as a number of qualities, attributes, and +actions, not as the subject of a number of propositions, but as one and +individual, and independent of words, like an impression conveyed +through the senses. . . . Creeds and dogmas live in the one idea which +they are designed to express, and which alone is substantive; and are +necessary, because the human mind cannot reflect upon that idea except +piecemeal, cannot use it in its oneness and entireness, or without +resolving it into a series of aspects and relations."[53:1] + + +10. + +So much on the development of ideas in various subject matters: it may +be necessary to add that, in many cases, _development_ simply stands +for _exhibition_, as in some of the instances adduced above. Thus both +Calvinism and Unitarianism may be called developments, that is, +exhibitions, of the principle of Private Judgment, though they have +nothing in common, viewed as doctrines. + +As to Christianity, supposing the truths of which it consists to admit +of development, that development will be one or other of the last five +kinds. Taking the Incarnation as its central doctrine, the Episcopate, +as taught by St. Ignatius, will be an instance of political development, +the _Theotokos_ of logical, the determination of the date of our Lord's +birth of historical, the Holy Eucharist of moral, and the Athanasian +Creed of metaphysical. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43:1] Hallam's Constit. Hist. ch. vii. p. 572. + +[44:1] ch. xlvii. + +[46:1] _Times_ newspaper of March, 1845. + +[47:1] Crabbe's Tales. + +[49:1] Eth. Nic. i. 8. + +[52:1] Guizot, Europ. Civil., Lect. v., Beckwith's Translation. + +[53:1] [Univ. Serm. xv. 20-23, pp. 329-332, ed. 3.] + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ON THE ANTECEDENT ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF DEVELOPMENTS IN CHRISTIAN +DOCTRINE. + + +SECTION I. + +DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE TO BE EXPECTED. + +1. If Christianity is a fact, and impresses an idea of itself on our +minds and is a subject-matter of exercises of the reason, that idea will +in course of time expand into a multitude of ideas, and aspects of +ideas, connected and harmonious with one another, and in themselves +determinate and immutable, as is the objective fact itself which is thus +represented. It is a characteristic of our minds, that they cannot take +an object in, which is submitted to them simply and integrally. We +conceive by means of definition or description; whole objects do not +create in the intellect whole ideas, but are, to use a mathematical +phrase, thrown into series, into a number of statements, strengthening, +interpreting, correcting each other, and with more or less exactness +approximating, as they accumulate, to a perfect image. There is no other +way of learning or of teaching. We cannot teach except by aspects or +views, which are not identical with the thing itself which we are +teaching. Two persons may each convey the same truth to a third, yet by +methods and through representations altogether different. The same +person will treat the same argument differently in an essay or speech, +according to the accident of the day of writing, or of the audience, yet +it will be substantially the same. + +And the more claim an idea has to be considered living, the more various +will be its aspects; and the more social and political is its nature, +the more complicated and subtle will be its issues, and the longer and +more eventful will be its course. And in the number of these special +ideas, which from their very depth and richness cannot be fully +understood at once, but are more and more clearly expressed and taught +the longer they last,--having aspects many and bearings many, mutually +connected and growing one out of another, and all parts of a whole, with +a sympathy and correspondence keeping pace with the ever-changing +necessities of the world, multiform, prolific, and ever +resourceful,--among these great doctrines surely we Christians shall not +refuse a foremost place to Christianity. Such previously to the +determination of the fact, must be our anticipation concerning it from a +contemplation of its initial achievements. + + +2. + +It may be objected that its inspired documents at once determine the +limits of its mission without further trouble; but ideas are in the +writer and reader of the revelation, not the inspired text itself: and +the question is whether those ideas which the letter conveys from writer +to reader, reach the reader at once in their completeness and accuracy +on his first perception of them, or whether they open out in his +intellect and grow to perfection in the course of time. Nor could it +surely be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the New +Testament, or of any assignable number of books, comprises a delineation +of all possible forms which a divine message will assume when submitted +to a multitude of minds. + +Nor is the case altered by supposing that inspiration provided in behalf +of the first recipients of the Revelation, what the Divine Fiat effected +for herbs and plants in the beginning, which were created in maturity. +Still, the time at length came, when its recipients ceased to be +inspired; and on these recipients the revealed truths would fall, as in +other cases, at first vaguely and generally, though in spirit and in +truth, and would afterwards be completed by developments. + +Nor can it fairly be made a difficulty that thus to treat of Christianity +is to level it in some sort to sects and doctrines of the world, and to +impute to it the imperfections which characterize the productions of +man. Certainly it is a sort of degradation of a divine work to consider +it under an earthly form; but it is no irreverence, since our Lord +Himself, its Author and Guardian, bore one also. Christianity differs +from other religions and philosophies, in what is superadded to earth +from heaven; not in kind, but in origin; not in its nature, but in its +personal characteristics; being informed and quickened by what is more +than intellect, by a divine spirit. It is externally what the Apostle +calls an "earthen vessel," being the religion of men. And, considered as +such, it grows "in wisdom and stature;" but the powers which it wields, +and the words which proceed out of its mouth, attest its miraculous +nativity. + +Unless then some special ground of exception can be assigned, it is as +evident that Christianity, as a doctrine and worship, will develope in +the minds of recipients, as that it conforms in other respects, in its +external propagation or its political framework, to the general methods +by which the course of things is carried forward. + + +3. + +2. Again, if Christianity be an universal religion, suited not simply to +one locality or period, but to all times and places, it cannot but vary +in its relations and dealings towards the world around it, that is, it +will develope. Principles require a very various application according +as persons and circumstances vary, and must be thrown into new shapes +according to the form of society which they are to influence. Hence all +bodies of Christians, orthodox or not, develope the doctrines of +Scripture. Few but will grant that Luther's view of justification had +never been stated in words before his time: that his phraseology and his +positions were novel, whether called for by circumstances or not. It is +equally certain that the doctrine of justification defined at Trent was, +in some sense, new also. The refutation and remedy of errors cannot +precede their rise; and thus the fact of false developments or +corruptions involves the correspondent manifestation of true ones. +Moreover, all parties appeal to Scripture, that is, argue from +Scripture; but argument implies deduction, that is, development. Here +there is no difference between early times and late, between a Pope _ex +cathedra_ and an individual Protestant, except that their authority is +not on a par. On either side the claim of authority is the same, and the +process of development. + +Accordingly, the common complaint of Protestants against the Church of +Rome is, not simply that she has added to the primitive or the +Scriptural doctrine, (for this they do themselves,) but that she +contradicts it, and moreover imposes her additions as fundamental truths +under sanction of an anathema. For themselves they deduce by quite as +subtle a method, and act upon doctrines as implicit and on reasons as +little analyzed in time past, as Catholic schoolmen. What prominence has +the Royal Supremacy in the New Testament, or the lawfulness of bearing +arms, or the duty of public worship, or the substitution of the first +day of the week for the seventh, or infant baptism, to say nothing of +the fundamental principle that the Bible and the Bible only is the +religion of Protestants? These doctrines and usages, true or not, which +is not the question here, are surely not gained by the direct use and +immediate application of Scripture, nor by a mere exercise of argument +upon words and sentences placed before the eyes, but by the unconscious +growth of ideas suggested by the letter and habitual to the mind. + + +4. + +3. And, indeed, when we turn to the consideration of particular +doctrines on which Scripture lays the greatest stress, we shall see that +it is absolutely impossible for them to remain in the mere letter of +Scripture, if they are to be more than mere words, and to convey a +definite idea to the recipient. When it is declared that "the Word +became flesh," three wide questions open upon us on the very +announcement. What is meant by "the Word," what by "flesh," what by +"became"? The answers to these involve a process of investigation, and +are developments. Moreover, when they have been made, they will suggest +a series of secondary questions; and thus at length a multitude of +propositions is the result, which gather round the inspired sentence of +which they come, giving it externally the form of a doctrine, and +creating or deepening the idea of it in the mind. + +It is true that, so far as such statements of Scripture are mysteries, +they are relatively to us but words, and cannot be developed. But as a +mystery implies in part what is incomprehensible or at least unknown, so +does it in part imply what is not so; it implies a partial manifestation, +or a representation by economy. Because then it is in a measure +understood, it can so far be developed, though each result in the +process will partake of the dimness and confusion of the original +impression. + + +5. + +4. This moreover should be considered,--that great questions exist in +the subject-matter of which Scripture treats, which Scripture does not +solve; questions too so real, so practical, that they must be answered, +and, unless we suppose a new revelation, answered by means of the +revelation which we have, that is, by development. Such is the question +of the Canon of Scripture and its inspiration: that is, whether +Christianity depends upon a written document as Judaism;--if so, on what +writings and how many;--whether that document is self-interpreting, or +requires a comment, and whether any authoritative comment or commentator +is provided;--whether the revelation and the document are commensurate, +or the one outruns the other;--all these questions surely find no +solution on the surface of Scripture, nor indeed under the surface in +the case of most men, however long and diligent might be their study of +it. Nor were these difficulties settled by authority, as far as we know, +at the commencement of the religion; yet surely it is quite conceivable +that an Apostle might have dissipated them all in a few words, had +Divine Wisdom thought fit. But in matter of fact the decision has been +left to time, to the slow process of thought, to the influence of mind +upon mind, the issues of controversy, and the growth of opinion. + + +6. + +To take another instance just now referred to:--if there was a point on +which a rule was desirable from the first, it was concerning the +religious duties under which Christian parents lay as regards their +children. It would be natural indeed in any Christian father, in the +absence of a rule, to bring his children for baptism; such in this +instance would be the practical development of his faith in Christ and +love for his offspring; still a development it is,--necessarily +required, yet, as far as we know, not provided for his need by direct +precept in the Revelation as originally given. + +Another very large field of thought, full of practical considerations, +yet, as far as our knowledge goes, but only partially occupied by any +Apostolical judgment, is that which the question of the effects of +Baptism opens upon us. That they who came in repentance and faith to +that Holy Sacrament received remission of sins, is undoubtedly the +doctrine of the Apostles; but is there any means of a second remission +for sins committed after it? St. Paul's Epistles, where we might expect +an answer to our inquiry, contain no explicit statement on the subject; +what they do plainly say does not diminish the difficulty:--viz., first, +that baptism is intended for the pardon of sins before it, not in +prospect; next, that those who have received the gift of Baptism in fact +live in a state of holiness, not of sin. How do statements such as these +meet the actual state of the Church as we see it at this day? + +Considering that it was expressly predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven, +like the fisher's net, should gather of every kind, and that the tares +should grow with the wheat until the harvest, a graver and more +practical question cannot be imagined than that which it has pleased the +Divine Author of the Revelation to leave undecided, unless indeed there +be means given in that Revelation of its own growth or development. As +far as the letter goes of the inspired message, every one who holds that +Scripture is the rule of faith, as all Protestants do, must allow that +"there is not one of us but has exceeded by transgression its revealed +Ritual, and finds himself in consequence thrown upon those infinite +resources of Divine Love which are stored in Christ, but have not been +drawn out into form in the appointments of the Gospel."[62:1] Since then +Scripture needs completion, the question is brought to this issue, +whether defect or inchoateness in its doctrines be or be not an +antecedent probability in favour of a development of them. + + +7. + +There is another subject, though not so immediately practical, on which +Scripture does not, strictly speaking, keep silence, but says so little +as to require, and so much as to suggest, information beyond its +letter,--the intermediate state between death and the Resurrection. +Considering the long interval which separates Christ's first and second +coming, the millions of faithful souls who are waiting it out, and the +intimate concern which every Christian has in the determination of its +character, it might have been expected that Scripture would have spoken +explicitly concerning it, whereas in fact its notices are but brief and +obscure. We might indeed have argued that this silence of Scripture +was intentional, with a view of discouraging speculations upon the +subject, except for the circumstance that, as in the question of our +post-baptismal state, its teaching seems to proceed upon an hypothesis +inapplicable to the state of the Church after the time when it was +delivered. As Scripture contemplates Christians, not as backsliders, but +as saints, so does it apparently represent the Day of Judgment as +immediate, and the interval of expectation as evanescent. It leaves on +our minds the general impression that Christ was returning on earth at +once, "the time short," worldly engagements superseded by "the present +distress," persecutors urgent, Christians, as a body, sinless and +expectant, without home, without plan for the future, looking up to +heaven. But outward circumstances have changed, and with the change, a +different application of the revealed word has of necessity been +demanded, that is, a development. When the nations were converted and +offences abounded, then the Church came out to view, on the one hand as +a temporal establishment, on the other as a remedial system, and +passages of Scripture aided and directed the development which before +were of inferior account. Hence the doctrine of Penance as the +complement of Baptism, and of Purgatory as the explanation of the +Intermediate State. So reasonable is this expansion of the original +creed, that, when some ten years since the true doctrine of Baptism was +expounded among us without any mention of Penance, our teacher was +accused by many of us of Novatianism; while, on the other hand, +heterodox divines have before now advocated the doctrine of the sleep of +the soul because they said it was the only successful preventive of +belief in Purgatory. + + +8. + +Thus developments of Christianity are proved to have been in the +contemplation of its Divine Author, by an argument parallel to that by +which we infer intelligence in the system of the physical world. In +whatever sense the need and its supply are a proof of design in the +visible creation, in the same do the gaps, if the word may be used, +which occur in the structure of the original creed of the Church, make +it probable that those developments, which grow out of the truths which +lie around it, were intended to fill them up. + +Nor can it be fairly objected that in thus arguing we are contradicting +the great philosopher, who tells us, that "upon supposition of God +affording us light and instruction by revelation, additional to what He +has afforded us by reason and experience, we are in no sort judges by +what methods, and in what proportion, it were to be expected that this +supernatural light and instruction would be afforded us,"[64:1] because +he is speaking of our judging before a revelation is given. He observes +that "we have no principles of reason upon which to judge _beforehand_, +how it were to be expected Revelation should have been left, or what was +most suitable to the divine plan of government," in various respects; +but the case is altogether altered when a Revelation is vouchsafed, for +then a new precedent, or what he calls "principle of reason," is +introduced, and from what is actually put into our hands we can form a +judgment whether more is to be expected. Butler, indeed, as a well-known +passage of his work shows, is far from denying the principle of +progressive development. + + +9. + +5. The method of revelation observed in Scripture abundantly confirms +this anticipation. For instance, Prophecy, if it had so happened, need +not have afforded a specimen of development; separate predictions might +have been made to accumulate as time went on, prospects might have +opened, definite knowledge might have been given, by communications +independent of each other, as St. John's Gospel or the Epistles of St. +Paul are unconnected with the first three Gospels, though the doctrine +of each Apostle is a development of their matter. But the prophetic +Revelation is, in matter of fact, not of this nature, but a process of +development: the earlier prophecies are pregnant texts out of which the +succeeding announcements grow; they are types. It is not that first one +truth is told, then another; but the whole truth or large portions of it +are told at once, yet only in their rudiments, or in miniature, and they +are expanded and finished in their parts, as the course of revelation +proceeds. + +The Seed of the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; the sceptre was +not to depart from Judah till Shiloh came, to whom was to be the +gathering of the people. He was to be Wonderful, Counsellor, the Prince +of Peace. The question of the Ethiopian rises in the reader's mind, "Of +whom speaketh the Prophet this?" Every word requires a comment. +Accordingly, it is no uncommon theory with unbelievers, that the +Messianic idea, as they call it, was gradually developed in the minds of +the Jews by a continuous and traditional habit of contemplating it, and +grew into its full proportions by a mere human process; and so far seems +certain, without trenching on the doctrine of inspiration, that the +books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are developments of the writings of +the Prophets, expressed or elicited by means of current ideas in the +Greek philosophy, and ultimately adopted and ratified by the Apostle in +his Epistle to the Hebrews. + + +10. + +But the whole Bible, not its prophetical portions only, is written on +the principle of development. As the Revelation proceeds, it is ever +new, yet ever old. St. John, who completes it, declares that he writes +no "new commandment unto his brethren," but an old commandment which +they "had from the beginning." And then he adds, "A new commandment I +write unto you." The same test of development is suggested in our Lord's +words on the Mount, as has already been noticed, "Think not that I am +come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I am not come to destroy, but +to fulfil." He does not reverse, but perfect, what has gone before. Thus +with respect to the evangelical view of the rite of sacrifice, first the +rite is enjoined by Moses; next Samuel says, "to obey is better than +sacrifice;" then Hosea, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice;" Isaiah, +"Incense is an abomination onto me;" then Malachi, describing the times +of the Gospel, speaks of the "pure offering" of wheatflour; and our Lord +completes the development, when He speaks of worshipping "in spirit and +in truth." If there is anything here left to explain, it will be found +in the usage of the Christian Church immediately afterwards, which shows +that sacrifice was not removed, but truth and spirit added. + +Nay, the _effata_ of our Lord and His Apostles are of a typical +structure, parallel to the prophetic announcements above mentioned, and +predictions as well as injunctions of doctrine. If then the prophetic +sentences have had that development which has really been given them, +first by succeeding revelations, and then by the event, it is probable +antecedently that those doctrinal, political, ritual, and ethical +sentences, which have the same structure, should admit the same +expansion. Such are, "This is My Body," or "Thou art Peter, and upon +this Rock I will build My Church," or "The meek shall inherit the +earth," or "Suffer little children to come unto Me," or "The pure in +heart shall see God." + + +11. + +On this character of our Lord's teaching, the following passage +may suitably be quoted from a writer already used. "His recorded words +and works when on earth . . . come to us as the declarations of a +Lawgiver. In the Old Covenant, Almighty God first of all spoke the Ten +Commandments from Mount Sinai, and afterwards wrote them. So our Lord +first spoke His own Gospel, both of promise and of precept, on the +Mount, and His Evangelists have recorded it. Further, when He delivered +it, He spoke by way of parallel to the Ten Commandments. And His style, +moreover, corresponds to the authority which He assumes. It is of that +solemn, measured, and severe character, which bears on the face of it +tokens of its belonging to One who spake as none other man could speak. +The Beatitudes, with which His Sermon opens, are an instance of this +incommunicable style, which befitted, as far as human words could befit, +God Incarnate. + +"Nor is this style peculiar to the Sermon on the Mount. All through the +Gospels it is discernible, distinct from any other part of Scripture, +showing itself in solemn declarations, canons, sentences, or sayings, +such as legislators propound, and scribes and lawyers comment on. Surely +everything our Saviour did and said is characterized by mingled +simplicity and mystery. His emblematical actions, His typical miracles, +His parables, His replies, His censures, all are evidences of a +legislature in germ, afterwards to be developed, a code of divine +truth which was ever to be before men's eyes, to be the subject of +investigation and interpretation, and the guide in controversy. 'Verily, +verily, I say unto you,'--'But, I say unto you,'--are the tokens of a +supreme Teacher and Prophet. + +"And thus the Fathers speak of His teaching. 'His sayings,' observes St. +Justin, 'were short and concise; for He was no rhetorician, but His word +was the power of God.' And St. Basil, in like manner, 'Every deed and +every word of our Saviour Jesus Christ is a canon of piety and virtue. +When then thou hearest word or deed of His, do not hear it as by the +way, or after a simple and carnal manner, but enter into the depth of +His contemplations, become a communicant in truths mystically delivered +to thee.'"[67:1] + + +12. + +Moreover, while it is certain that developments of Revelation proceeded +all through the Old Dispensation down to the very end of our Lord's +ministry, on the other hand, if we turn our attention to the beginnings +of Apostolical teaching after His ascension, we shall find ourselves +unable to fix an historical point at which the growth of doctrine +ceased, and the rule of faith was once for all settled. Not on the day +of Pentecost, for St. Peter had still to learn at Joppa that he was to +baptize Cornelius; not at Joppa and Caesarea, for St. Paul had to write +his Epistles; not on the death of the last Apostle, for St. Ignatius had +to establish the doctrine of Episcopacy; not then, nor for centuries +after, for the Canon of the New Testament was still undetermined. Not in +the Creed, which is no collection of definitions, but a summary of +certain _credenda_, an incomplete summary, and, like the Lord's Prayer +or the Decalogue, a mere sample of divine truths, especially of the more +elementary. No one doctrine can be named which starts complete at first, +and gains nothing afterwards from the investigations of faith and the +attacks of heresy. The Church went forth from the old world in haste, as +the Israelites from Egypt "with their dough before it was leavened, +their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their +shoulders." + + +13. + +Further, the political developments contained in the historical parts of +Scripture are as striking as the prophetical and the doctrinal. Can any +history wear a more human appearance than that of the rise and growth of +the chosen people to whom I have just referred? What had been determined +in the counsels of the Lord of heaven and earth from the beginning, what +was immutable, what was announced to Moses in the burning bush, is +afterwards represented as the growth of an idea under successive +emergencies. The Divine Voice in the bush had announced the Exodus of +the children of Israel from Egypt and their entrance into Canaan; and +added, as a token of the certainty of His purpose, "When thou hast +brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this +mountain." Now this sacrifice or festival, which was but incidental and +secondary in the great deliverance, is for a while the ultimate scope of +the demands which Moses makes upon Pharaoh. "Thou shalt come, thou and +the elders of Israel unto the King of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, +The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we +beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may +sacrifice to the Lord our God." It had been added that Pharaoh would +first refuse their request, but that after miracles he would let them go +altogether, nay with "jewels of silver and gold, and raiment." + +Accordingly the first request of Moses was, "Let us go, we pray thee, +three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our +God." Before the plague of frogs the warning is repeated, "Let My people +go that they may serve Me;" and after it Pharaoh says, "I will let the +people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord." It occurs again +before the plague of flies; and after it Pharaoh offers to let the +Israelites sacrifice in Egypt, which Moses refuses on the ground that +they will have to "sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before +their eyes." "We will go three days' journey into the wilderness," he +proceeds, "and sacrifice to the Lord our God;" and Pharaoh then concedes +their sacrificing in the wilderness, "only," he says, "you shall not go +very far away." The demand is repeated separately before the plagues of +murrain, hail, and locusts, no mention being yet made of anything beyond +a service or sacrifice in the wilderness. On the last of these +interviews, Pharaoh asks an explanation, and Moses extends his claim: +"We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our +daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go, for we must +hold a feast unto the Lord." That it was an extension seems plain from +Pharaoh's reply: "Go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord, for that +ye did desire." Upon the plague of darkness Pharaoh concedes the +extended demand, excepting the flocks and herds; but Moses reminds him +that they were implied, though not expressed in the original wording: +"Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may +sacrifice unto the Lord our God." Even to the last, there was no +intimation of their leaving Egypt for good; the issue was left to be +wrought out by the Egyptians. "All these thy servants," says Moses, +"shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get +thee out and all the people that follow thee, and after that I will go +out;" and, accordingly, after the judgment on the first-born, they were +thrust out at midnight, with their flocks and herds, their kneading +troughs and their dough, laden, too, with the spoils of Egypt, as had +been fore-ordained, yet apparently by a combination of circumstances, or +the complication of a crisis. Yet Moses knew that their departure from +Egypt was final, for he took the bones of Joseph with him; and that +conviction broke on Pharaoh soon, when he and his asked themselves, "Why +have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?" But +this progress of events, vague and uncertain as it seemed to be, +notwithstanding the miracles which attended it, had been directed by Him +who works out gradually what He has determined absolutely; and it ended +in the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host, on +his pursuing them. + +Moreover, from what occurred forty years afterwards, when they were +advancing upon the promised land, it would seem that the original grant +of territory did not include the country east of Jordan, held in the +event by Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh; at least they +undertook at first to leave Sihon in undisturbed possession of his +country, if he would let them pass through it, and only on his refusing +his permission did they invade and appropriate it. + + +14. + +6. It is in point to notice also the structure and style of Scripture, a +structure so unsystematic and various, and a style so figurative and +indirect, that no one would presume at first sight to say what is in it +and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents +catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to +the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with +heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our +path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. +Of no doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has +been delivered, can it be peremptorily asserted that it is not in +Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said +that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains. Butler's remarks +on this subject were just now referred to. "The more distinct and +particular knowledge," he says, "of those things, the study of which the +Apostle calls 'going on unto perfection,'" that is, of the more +recondite doctrines of the Gospel, "and of the prophetic parts of +revelation, like many parts of natural and even civil knowledge, may +require very exact thought and careful consideration. The hindrances too +of natural and of supernatural light and knowledge have been of the +same kind. And as it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not +yet understood, so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the +'restitution of all things,' and without miraculous interpositions, it +must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at, by the +continuance and progress of learning and of liberty, and by particular +persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up +and down it, which are overlooked and disregarded by the generality of +the world. For this is the way in which all improvements are made, by +thoughtful men tracing on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by +nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds by chance. Nor +is it at all incredible that a book, which has been so long in the +possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered. +For all the same phenomena, and the same faculties of investigation, +from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have been made in +the present and last age, were equally in the possession of mankind +several thousand years before. And possibly it might be intended that +events, as they come to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of +several parts of Scripture."[72:1] Butler of course was not contemplating +the case of new articles of faith, or developments imperative on +our acceptance, but he surely bears witness to the probability of +developments taking place in Christian doctrine considered in themselves, +which is the point at present in question. + + +15. + +It may be added that, in matter of fact, all the definitions or received +judgments of the early and medieval Church rest upon definite, even +though sometimes obscure sentences of Scripture. Thus Purgatory may +appeal to the "saving by fire," and "entering through much tribulation +into the kingdom of God;" the communication of the merits of the Saints +to our "receiving a prophet's reward" for "receiving a prophet in the +name of a prophet," and "a righteous man's reward" for "receiving a +righteous man in the name of a righteous man;" the Real Presence to +"This is My Body;" Absolution to "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are +remitted;" Extreme Unction to "Anointing him with oil in the Name of the +Lord;" Voluntary poverty to "Sell all that thou hast;" obedience to "He +was in subjection to His parents;" the honour paid to creatures, animate +or inanimate, to _Laudate Dominum in sanctis Ejus_, and _Adorate +scabellum pedum Ejus_; and so of the rest. + + +16. + +7. Lastly, while Scripture nowhere recognizes itself or asserts the +inspiration of those passages which are most essential, it distinctly +anticipates the development of Christianity, both as a polity and as a +doctrine. In one of our Lord's parables "the Kingdom of Heaven" is even +compared to "a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and hid in his +field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it +is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree," and, as St. Mark +words it, "shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air +come and lodge in the branches thereof." And again, in the same chapter +of St. Mark, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed +into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed +should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how; for the earth bringeth +forth fruit of herself." Here an internal element of life, whether +principle or doctrine, is spoken of rather than any mere external +manifestation; and it is observable that the spontaneous, as well as the +gradual, character of the growth is intimated. This description of the +process corresponds to what has been above observed respecting +development, viz. that it is not an effect of wishing and resolving, or +of forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism of reasoning, or of any mere +subtlety of intellect; but comes of its own innate power of expansion +within the mind in its season, though with the use of reflection and +argument and original thought, more or less as it may happen, with a +dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself, and with a reflex +influence upon it. Again, the Parable of the Leaven describes the +development of doctrine in another respect, in its active, engrossing, +and interpenetrating power. + + +17. + +From the necessity, then, of the case, from the history of all sects and +parties in religion, and from the analogy and example of Scripture, +we may fairly conclude that Christian doctrine admits of formal, +legitimate, and true developments, that is, of developments contemplated +by its Divine Author. + +The general analogy of the world, physical and moral, confirms this +conclusion, as we are reminded by the great authority who has already +been quoted in the course of this Section. "The whole natural world and +government of it," says Butler, "is a scheme or system; not a fixed, but +a progressive one; a scheme in which the operation of various means +takes up a great length of time before the ends they tend to can be +attained. The change of seasons, the ripening of the fruits of the +earth, the very history of a flower is an instance of this; and so is +human life. Thus vegetable bodies, and those of animals, though possibly +formed at once, yet grow up by degrees to a mature state. And thus +rational agents, who animate these latter bodies, are naturally directed +to form each his own manners and character by the gradual gaining of +knowledge and experience, and by a long course of action. Our existence +is not only successive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our +life and being is appointed by God to be a preparation for another; and +that to be the means of attaining to another succeeding one: infancy to +childhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. Men are impatient, +and for precipitating things; but the Author of Nature appears +deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by +slow successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid +out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as +well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts +into execution. Thus, in the daily course of natural providence, God +operates in the very same manner as in the dispensation of Christianity, +making one thing subservient to another; this, to somewhat farther; and +so on, through a progressive series of means, which extend, both +backward and forward, beyond our utmost view. Of this manner of +operation, everything we see in the course of nature is as much an +instance as any part of the Christian dispensation."[75:1] + + +SECTION II. + +AN INFALLIBLE DEVELOPING AUTHORITY TO BE EXPECTED. + +It has now been made probable that developments of Christianity were but +natural, as time went on, and were to be expected; and that these +natural and true developments, as being natural and true, were of course +contemplated and taken into account by its Author, who in designing the +work designed its legitimate results. These, whatever they turn out to +be, may be called absolutely "the developments" of Christianity. That, +beyond reasonable doubt, there are such is surely a great step gained in +the inquiry; it is a momentous fact. The next question is, _What_ are +they? and to a theologian, who could take a general view, and also +possessed an intimate and minute knowledge, of its history, they +would doubtless on the whole be easily distinguishable by their own +characters, and require no foreign aid to point them out, no external +authority to ratify them. But it is difficult to say who is exactly in +this position. Considering that Christians, from the nature of the case, +live under the bias of the doctrines, and in the very midst of the +facts, and during the process of the controversies, which are to be the +subject of criticism, since they are exposed to the prejudices of birth, +education, place, personal attachment, engagements, and party, it can +hardly be maintained that in matter of fact a true development carries +with it always its own certainty even to the learned, or that history, +past or present, is secure from the possibility of a variety of +interpretations. + + +2. + +I have already spoken on this subject, and from a very different point +of view from that which I am taking at present:-- + +"Prophets or Doctors are the interpreters of the revelation; they unfold +and define its mysteries, they illuminate its documents, they harmonize +its contents, they apply its promises. Their teaching is a vast system, +not to be comprised in a few sentences, not to be embodied in one code +or treatise, but consisting of a certain body of Truth, pervading the +Church like an atmosphere, irregular in its shape from its very +profusion and exuberance; at times separable only in idea from Episcopal +Tradition, yet at times melting away into legend and fable; partly +written, partly unwritten, partly the interpretation, partly the +supplement of Scripture, partly preserved in intellectual expressions, +partly latent in the spirit and temper of Christians; poured to and fro +in closets and upon the housetops, in liturgies, in controversial works, +in obscure fragments, in sermons, in popular prejudices, in local +customs. This I call Prophetical Tradition, existing primarily in the +bosom of the Church itself, and recorded in such measure as Providence +has determined in the writings of eminent men. Keep that which is +committed to thy charge, is St. Paul's injunction to Timothy; and for +this reason, because from its vastness and indefiniteness it is +especially exposed to corruption, if the Church fails in vigilance. This +is that body of teaching which is offered to all Christians even at the +present day, though in various forms and measures of truth, in different +parts of Christendom, partly being a comment, partly an addition upon +the articles of the Creed."[77:1] + +If this be true, certainly some rule is necessary for arranging and +authenticating these various expressions and results of Christian +doctrine. No one will maintain that all points of belief are of equal +importance. "There are what may be called minor points, which we may +hold to be true without imposing them as necessary;" "there are greater +truths and lesser truths, points which it is necessary, and points which +it is pious to believe."[77:2] The simple question is, How are we to +discriminate the greater from the less, the true from the false. + + +3. + +This need of an authoritative sanction is increased by considering, +after M. Guizot's suggestion, that Christianity, though represented in +prophecy as a kingdom, came into the world as an idea rather than an +institution, and has had to wrap itself in clothing and fit itself with +armour of its own providing, and to form the instruments and methods of +its prosperity and warfare. If the developments, which have above been +called _moral_, are to take place to any great extent, and without them +it is difficult to see how Christianity can exist at all, if only its +relations towards civil government have to be ascertained, or the +qualifications for the profession of it have to be defined, surely an +authority is necessary to impart decision to what is vague, and +confidence to what is empirical, to ratify the successive steps of so +elaborate a process, and to secure the validity of inferences which are +to be made the premisses of more remote investigations. + +Tests, it is true, for ascertaining the correctness of developments in +general may be drawn out, as I shall show in the sequel; but they are +insufficient for the guidance of individuals in the case of so large and +complicated a problem as Christianity, though they may aid our inquiries +and support our conclusions in particular points. They are of a +scientific and controversial, not of a practical character, and are +instruments rather than warrants of right decisions. Moreover, they +rather serve as answers to objections brought against the actual +decisions of authority, than are proofs of the correctness of those +decisions. While, then, on the one hand, it is probable that some means +will be granted for ascertaining the legitimate and true developments of +Revelation, it appears, on the other, that these means must of necessity +be external to the developments themselves. + + +4. + +Reasons shall be given in this Section for concluding that, in +proportion to the probability of true developments of doctrine and +practice in the Divine Scheme, so is the probability also of the +appointment in that scheme of an external authority to decide upon them, +thereby separating them from the mass of mere human speculation, +extravagance, corruption, and error, in and out of which they grow. This +is the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church; for by infallibility +I suppose is meant the power of deciding whether this, that, and a +third, and any number of theological or ethical statements are true. + + +5. + +1. Let the state of the case be carefully considered. If the Christian +doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and important +developments, as was argued in the foregoing Section, this is a strong +antecedent argument in favour of a provision in the Dispensation for +putting a seal of authority upon those developments. The probability of +their being known to be true varies with that of their truth. The two +ideas indeed are quite distinct, I grant, of revealing and of +guaranteeing a truth, and they are often distinct in fact. There are +various revelations all over the earth which do not carry with them the +evidence of their divinity. Such are the inward suggestions and secret +illuminations granted to so many individuals; such are the traditionary +doctrines which are found among the heathen, that "vague and unconnected +family of religious truths, originally from God, but sojourning, without +the sanction of miracle or a definite home, as pilgrims up and down the +world, and discernible and separable from the corrupt legends with which +they are mixed, by the spiritual mind alone."[79:1] There is nothing +impossible in the notion of a revelation occurring without evidences +that it is a revelation; just as human sciences are a divine gift, yet +are reached by our ordinary powers and have no claim on our faith. But +Christianity is not of this nature: it is a revelation which comes to us +as a revelation, as a whole, objectively, and with a profession of +infallibility; and the only question to be determined relates to the +matter of the revelation. If then there are certain great truths, or +duties, or observances, naturally and legitimately resulting from the +doctrines originally professed, it is but reasonable to include these +true results in the idea of the revelation itself, to consider them +parts of it, and if the revelation be not only true, but guaranteed as +true, to anticipate that they too will come under the privilege of that +guarantee. Christianity, unlike other revelations of God's will, except +the Jewish, of which it is a continuation, is an objective religion, or +a revelation with credentials; it is natural, I say, to view it wholly +as such, and not partly _sui generis_, partly like others. Such as it +begins, such let it be considered to continue; granting that certain +large developments of it are true, they must surely be accredited as +true. + + +6. + +2. An objection, however, is often made to the doctrine of infallibility +_in limine_, which is too important not to be taken into consideration. +It is urged that, as all religious knowledge rests on moral evidence, +not on demonstration, our belief in the Church's infallibility must be +of this character; but what can be more absurd than a probable +infallibility, or a certainty resting on doubt?--I believe, because I am +sure; and I am sure, because I suppose. Granting then that the gift of +infallibility be adapted, when believed, to unite all intellects in one +common confession, the fact that it is given is as difficult of proof as +the developments which it is to prove, and nugatory therefore, and in +consequence improbable in a Divine Scheme. The advocates of Rome, it has +been urged, "insist on the necessity of an infallible guide in religious +matters, as an argument that such a guide has really been accorded. Now +it is obvious to inquire how individuals are to know with certainty that +Rome _is_ infallible . . . how any ground can be such as to bring home +to the mind infallibly that she is infallible; what conceivable proof +amounts to more than a probability of the fact; and what advantage is an +infallible guide, if those who are to be guided have, after all, no +more than an opinion, as the Romanists call it, that she is +infallible?"[81:1] + + +7. + +This argument, however, except when used, as is intended in this +passage, against such persons as would remove all imperfection in +the proof of Religion, is certainly a fallacious one. For since, +as all allow, the Apostles were infallible, it tells against their +infallibility, or the infallibility of Scripture, as truly as against +the infallibility of the Church; for no one will say that the Apostles +were made infallible for nothing, yet we are only morally certain that +they were infallible. Further, if we have but probable grounds for the +Church's infallibility, we have but the like for the impossibility of +certain things, the necessity of others, the truth, the certainty of +others; and therefore the words _infallibility_, _necessity_, _truth_, +and _certainty_ ought all of them to be banished from the language. But +why is it more inconsistent to speak of an uncertain infallibility than +of a doubtful truth or a contingent necessity, phrases which present +ideas clear and undeniable? In sooth we are playing with words when we +use arguments of this sort. When we say that a person is infallible, we +mean no more than that what he says is always true, always to be +believed, always to be done. The term is resolvable into these phrases +as its equivalents; either then the phrases are inadmissible, or the +idea of infallibility must be allowed. A probable infallibility is a +probable gift of never erring; a reception of the doctrine of a probable +infallibility is faith and obedience towards a person founded on the +probability of his never erring in his declarations or commands. What is +inconsistent in this idea? Whatever then be the particular means of +determining infallibility, the abstract objection may be put +aside.[81:2] + + +8. + +3. Again, it is sometimes argued that such a dispensation would destroy +our probation, as dissipating doubt, precluding the exercise of faith, +and obliging us to obey whether we wish it or no; and it is urged that a +Divine Voice spoke in the first age, and difficulty and darkness rest +upon all subsequent ones; as if infallibility and personal judgment were +incompatible; but this is to confuse the subject. We must distinguish +between a revelation and a reception of it, not between its earlier and +later stages. A revelation, in itself divine, and guaranteed as such, +may from first to last be received, doubted, argued against, perverted, +rejected, by individuals according to the state of mind of each. +Ignorance, misapprehension, unbelief, and other causes, do not at once +cease to operate because the revelation is in itself true and in its +proofs irrefragable. We have then no warrant at all for saying that an +accredited revelation will exclude the existence of doubts and +difficulties on the part of those whom it addresses, or dispense with +anxious diligence on their part, though it may in its own nature tend +to do so. Infallibility does not interfere with moral probation; the two +notions are absolutely distinct. It is no objection then to the idea of +a peremptory authority, such as I am supposing, that it lessens the task +of personal inquiry, unless it be an objection to the authority of +Revelation altogether. A Church, or a Council, or a Pope, or a Consent +of Doctors, or a Consent of Christendom, limits the inquiries of the +individual in no other way than Scripture limits them: it does limit +them; but, while it limits their range, it preserves intact their +probationary character; we are tried as really, though not on so large a +field. To suppose that the doctrine of a permanent authority in matters +of faith interferes with our free-will and responsibility is, as before, +to forget that there were infallible teachers in the first age, and +heretics and schismatics in the ages subsequent. There may have been at +once a supreme authority from first to last, and a moral judgment from +first to last. Moreover, those who maintain that Christian truth must be +gained solely by personal efforts are bound to show that methods, +ethical and intellectual, are granted to individuals sufficient for +gaining it; else the mode of probation they advocate is less, not more, +perfect than that which proceeds upon external authority. On the whole, +then, no argument against continuing the principle of objectiveness into +the developments of Revelation arises out of the conditions of our moral +responsibility. + + +9. + +4. Perhaps it will be urged that the Analogy of Nature is against our +anticipating the continuance of an external authority which has once +been given; because in the words of the profound thinker who has already +been cited, "We are wholly ignorant what degree of new knowledge it were +to be expected God would give mankind by revelation, upon supposition +of His affording one; or how far, and in what way, He would interpose +miraculously to qualify them to whom He should originally make the +revelation for communicating the knowledge given by it, and to secure +their doing it to the age in which they should live, and to secure its +being transmitted to posterity;" and because "we are not in any sort +able to judge whether it were to be expected that the revelation should +have been committed to writing, or left to be handed down, and +consequently corrupted, by verbal tradition, and at length sunk under +it."[84:1] But this reasoning does not apply here, as has already been +observed; it contemplates only the abstract hypothesis of a revelation, +not the fact of an existing revelation of a particular kind, which may +of course in various ways modify our state of knowledge, by settling +some of those very points which, before it was given, we had no means of +deciding. Nor can it, as I think, be fairly denied that the argument +from analogy in one point of view tells against anticipating a +revelation at all, for an innovation upon the physical order of the +world is by the very force of the terms inconsistent with its ordinary +course. We cannot then regulate our antecedent view of the character of +a revelation by a test which, applied simply, overthrows the very notion +of a revelation altogether. Any how, Analogy is in some sort violated by +the fact of a revelation, and the question before us only relates to the +extent of that violation. + + +10. + +I will hazard a distinction here between the facts of revelation and its +principles:--the argument from Analogy is more concerned with its +principles than with its facts. The revealed facts are special and +singular, not analogous, from the nature of the case: but it is +otherwise with the revealed principles; these are common to all the +works of God: and if the Author of Nature be the Author of Grace, it may +be expected that, while the two systems of facts are distinct and +independent, the principles displayed in them will be the same, and form +a connecting link between them. In this identity of principle lies the +Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, in Butler's sense of the word. +The doctrine of the Incarnation is a fact, and cannot be paralleled by +anything in nature; the doctrine of Mediation is a principle, and is +abundantly exemplified in its provisions. Miracles are facts; +inspiration is a fact; divine teaching once for all, and a continual +teaching, are each a fact; probation by means of intellectual +difficulties is a principle both in nature and in grace, and may be +carried on in the system of grace either by a standing ordinance of +teaching or by one definite act of teaching, and that with an analogy +equally perfect in either case to the order of nature; nor can we +succeed in arguing from the analogy of that order against a standing +guardianship of revelation without arguing also against its original +bestowal. Supposing the order of nature once broken by the introduction +of a revelation, the continuance of that revelation is but a question of +degree; and the circumstance that a work has begun makes it more +probable than not that it will proceed. We have no reason to suppose +that there is so great a distinction of dispensation between ourselves +and the first generation of Christians, as that they had a living +infallible guidance, and we have not. + +The case then stands thus:--Revelation has introduced a new law of +divine governance over and above those laws which appear in the natural +course of the world; and in consequence we are able to argue for the +existence of a standing authority in matters of faith on the analogy of +Nature, and from the fact of Christianity. Preservation is involved in +the idea of creation. As the Creator rested on the seventh day from the +work which He had made, yet He "worketh hitherto;" so He gave the Creed +once for all in the beginning, yet blesses its growth still, and +provides for its increase. His word "shall not return unto Him void, but +accomplish" His pleasure. As creation argues continual governance, so +are Apostles harbingers of Popes. + + +11. + +5. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that, as the essence of all +religion is authority and obedience, so the distinction between natural +religion and revealed lies in this, that the one has a subjective +authority, and the other an objective. Revelation consists in the +manifestation of the Invisible Divine Power, or in the substitution of +the voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of conscience. The supremacy of +conscience is the essence of natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle, +or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed; and when such +external authority is taken away, the mind falls back again of necessity +upon that inward guide which it possessed even before Revelation was +vouchsafed. Thus, what conscience is in the system of nature, such is +the voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or of the Holy See, as we may +determine it, in the system of Revelation. It may be objected, indeed, +that conscience is not infallible; it is true, but still it is ever to +be obeyed. And this is just the prerogative which controversialists +assign to the See of St. Peter; it is not in all cases infallible, it +may err beyond its special province, but it has in all cases a claim on +our obedience. "All Catholics and heretics," says Bellarmine, "agree in +two things: first, that it is possible for the Pope, even as pope, and +with his own assembly of councillors, or with General Council, to err in +particular controversies of fact, which chiefly depend on human +information and testimony; secondly, that it is possible for him to err +as a private Doctor, even in universal questions of right, whether of +faith or of morals, and that from ignorance, as sometimes happens to +other doctors. Next, all Catholics agree in other two points, not, +however, with heretics, but solely with each other: first, that the Pope +with General Council cannot err, either in framing decrees of faith or +general precepts of morality; secondly, that the Pope when determining +anything in a doubtful matter, whether by himself or with his own +particular Council, _whether it is possible for him to err or not, is to +be obeyed_ by all the faithful."[87:1] And as obedience to conscience, +even supposing conscience ill-informed, tends to the improvement of our +moral nature, and ultimately of our knowledge, so obedience to our +ecclesiastical superior may subserve our growth in illumination and +sanctity, even though he should command what is extreme or inexpedient, +or teach what is external to his legitimate province. + + +12. + +6. The common sense of mankind does but support a conclusion thus forced +upon us by analogical considerations. It feels that the very idea of +revelation implies a present informant and guide, and that an infallible +one; not a mere abstract declaration of Truths unknown before to man, or +a record of history, or the result of an antiquarian research, but a +message and a lesson speaking to this man and that. This is shown by the +popular notion which has prevailed among us since the Reformation, that +the Bible itself is such a guide; and which succeeded in overthrowing +the supremacy of Church and Pope, for the very reason that it was a +rival authority, not resisting merely, but supplanting it. In +proportion, then, as we find, in matter of fact, that the inspired +Volume is not adapted or intended to subserve that purpose, are we +forced to revert to that living and present Guide, who, at the era of +our rejection of her, had been so long recognized as the dispenser of +Scripture, according to times and circumstances, and the arbiter of all +true doctrine and holy practice to her children. We feel a need, and she +alone of all things under heaven supplies it. We are told that God has +spoken. Where? In a book? We have tried it and it disappoints; it +disappoints us, that most holy and blessed gift, not from fault of its +own, but because it is used for a purpose for which it was not given. +The Ethiopian's reply, when St. Philip asked him if he understood what +he was reading, is the voice of nature: "How can I, unless some man +shall guide me?" The Church undertakes that office; she does what none +else can do, and this is the secret of her power. "The human mind," it +has been said, "wishes to be rid of doubt in religion; and a teacher who +claims infallibility is readily believed on his simple word. We see this +constantly exemplified in the case of individual pretenders among +ourselves. In Romanism the Church pretends to it; she rids herself of +competitors by forestalling them. And probably, in the eyes of her +children, this is not the least persuasive argument for her +infallibility, that she alone of all Churches dares claim it, as if a +secret instinct and involuntary misgivings restrained those rival +communions which go so far towards affecting it."[88:1] These sentences, +whatever be the errors of their wording, surely express a great truth. +The most obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield to the +authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith, is, +that some authority there must be if there is a revelation given, and +other authority there is none but she. A revelation is not given, if +there be no authority to decide what it is that is given. In the words +of St. Peter to her Divine Master and Lord, "To whom shall we go?" Nor +must it be forgotten in confirmation, that Scripture expressly calls the +Church "the pillar and ground of the Truth," and promises her as by +covenant that "the Spirit of the Lord that is upon her, and His words +which He has put in her mouth shall not depart out of her mouth, nor out +of the mouth of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed's seed, from +henceforth and for ever."[89:1] + + +13. + +7. And if the very claim to infallible arbitration in religious disputes +is of so weighty importance and interest in all ages of the world, much +more is it welcome at a time like the present, when the human intellect +is so busy, and thought so fertile, and opinion so manifold. The +absolute need of a spiritual supremacy is at present the strongest of +arguments in favour of the fact of its supply. Surely, either an +objective revelation has not been given, or it has been provided with +means for impressing its objectiveness on the world. If Christianity be +a social religion, as it certainly is, and if it be based on certain +ideas acknowledged as divine, or a creed, (which shall here be assumed,) +and if these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct impressions +on different minds, and issue in consequence in a multiplicity of +developments, true, or false, or mixed, as has been shown, what power +will suffice to meet and to do justice to these conflicting conditions, +but a supreme authority ruling and reconciling individual judgments by a +divine right and a recognized wisdom? In barbarous times the will is +reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is +called, is the standard of truth and right, it is abundantly evident to +any one, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are +left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and +take his own course; that two or three will agree to-day to part company +to-morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history, +according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver +shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, +party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some +supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement. + +There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of +truth. As cultivation brings out the colours of flowers, and +domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of +necessity develope differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to +lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly +unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to +one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet +proclaims,[90:1] which all acknowledge in private, but that there are +none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action. +The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is, +(when truth is in question,) a judgment which we feel to be superior to +our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for +all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else +you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity +of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose +between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, +between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or +intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. +By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an +infallible chair; and by the sects of England, an interminable +division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in +scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis +than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the +object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the +Revelation. + + +14. + +8. I have called the doctrine of Infallibility an hypothesis: let it be +so considered for the sake of argument, that is, let it be considered to +be a mere position, supported by no direct evidence, but required by the +facts of the case, and reconciling them with each other. That hypothesis +is indeed, in matter of fact, maintained and acted on in the largest +portion of Christendom, and from time immemorial; but let this +coincidence be accounted for by the need. Moreover, it is not a naked or +isolated fact, but the animating principle of a large scheme of doctrine +which the need itself could not simply create; but again, let this +system be merely called its development. Yet even as an hypothesis, +which has been held by one out of various communions, it may not be +lightly put aside. Some hypothesis, this or that, all parties, all +controversialists, all historians must adopt, if they would treat of +Christianity at all. Gieseler's "Text Book" bears the profession of +being a dry analysis of Christian history; yet on inspection it will be +found to be written on a positive and definite theory, and to bend facts +to meet it. An unbeliever, as Gibbon, assumes one hypothesis, and an +Ultra-montane, as Baronius, adopts another. The School of Hurd and +Newton hold, as the only true view of history, that Christianity slept +for centuries upon centuries, except among those whom historians call +heretics. Others speak as if the oath of supremacy or the _conge +d'elire_ could be made the measure of St. Ambrose, and they fit the +Thirty-nine Articles on the fervid Tertullian. The question is, which +of all these theories is the simplest, the most natural, the most +persuasive. Certainly the notion of development under infallible +authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis, than the +chance and coincidence of events, or the Oriental Philosophy, or the +working of Antichrist, to account for the rise of Christianity and the +formation of its theology. + + +SECTION III. + +THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE THE PROBABLE FULFILMENT OF THAT +EXPECTATION. + +I have been arguing, in respect to the revealed doctrine, given to us +from above in Christianity, first, that, in consequence of its +intellectual character, and as passing through the minds of so many +generations of men, and as applied by them to so many purposes, and as +investigated so curiously as to its capabilities, implications, and +bearings, it could not but grow or develope, as time went on, into a +large theological system;--next, that, if development must be, then, +whereas Revelation is a heavenly gift, He who gave it virtually has not +given it, unless He has also secured it from perversion and corruption, +in all such development as comes upon it by the necessity of its nature, +or, in other words, that that intellectual action through successive +generations, which is the organ of development, must, so far forth as it +can claim to have been put in charge of the Revelation, be in its +determinations infallible. + +Passing from these two points, I come next to the question whether in +the history of Christianity there is any fulfilment of such anticipation +as I have insisted on, whether in matter-of-fact doctrines, rites, and +usages have grown up round the Apostolic Creed and have interpenetrated +its Articles, claiming to be part of Christianity and looking like those +additions which we are in search of. The answer is, that such additions +there are, and that they are found just where they might be expected, in +the authoritative seats and homes of old tradition, the Latin and Greek +Churches. Let me enlarge on this point. + + +2. + +I observe, then, that, if the idea of Christianity, as originally given +to us from heaven, cannot but contain much which will be only partially +recognized by us as included in it and only held by us unconsciously; +and if again, Christianity being from heaven, all that is necessarily +involved in it, and is evolved from it, is from heaven, and if, on the +other hand, large accretions actually do exist, professing to be its +true and legitimate results, our first impression naturally is, that +these must be the very developments which they profess to be. Moreover, +the very scale on which they have been made, their high antiquity yet +present promise, their gradual formation yet precision, their harmonious +order, dispose the imagination most forcibly towards the belief that a +teaching so consistent with itself, so well balanced, so young and so +old, not obsolete after so many centuries, but vigorous and progressive +still, is the very development contemplated in the Divine Scheme. These +doctrines are members of one family, and suggestive, or correlative, or +confirmatory, or illustrative of each other. One furnishes evidence to +another, and all to each of them; if this is proved, that becomes +probable; if this and that are both probable, but for different reasons, +each adds to the other its own probability. The Incarnation is the +antecedent of the doctrine of Mediation, and the archetype both of the +Sacramental principle and of the merits of Saints. From the doctrine of +Mediation follow the Atonement, the Mass, the merits of Martyrs and +Saints, their invocation and _cultus_. From the Sacramental principle +come the Sacraments properly so called; the unity of the Church, and the +Holy See as its type and centre; the authority of Councils; the sanctity +of rites; the veneration of holy places, shrines, images, vessels, +furniture, and vestments. Of the Sacraments, Baptism is developed into +Confirmation on the one hand; into Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences +on the other; and the Eucharist into the Real Presence, adoration of the +Host, Resurrection of the body, and the virtue of relics. Again, the +doctrine of the Sacraments leads to the doctrine of Justification; +Justification to that of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of +Celibacy. Nor do these separate developments stand independent of each +other, but by cross relations they are connected, and grow together +while they grow from one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one; +the veneration of Saints and their relics are parts of one; their +intercessory power and the Purgatorial State, and again the Mass and +that State are correlative; Celibacy is the characteristic mark of +Monachism and of the Priesthood. You must accept the whole or reject the +whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate. It is +trifling to receive all but something which is as integral as any other +portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to accept any +part, for, before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a +stern logical necessity to accept the whole. + + +3. + +Next, we have to consider that from first to last other developments +there are none, except those which have possession of Christendom; none, +that is, of prominence and permanence sufficient to deserve the name. In +early times the heretical doctrines were confessedly barren and +short-lived, and could not stand their ground against Catholicism. As to +the medieval period I am not aware that the Greeks present more than a +negative opposition to the Latins. And now in like manner the Tridentine +Creed is met by no rival developments; there is no antagonist system. +Criticisms, objections, protests, there are in plenty, but little of +positive teaching anywhere; seldom an attempt on the part of any +opposing school to master its own doctrines, to investigate their sense +and bearing, to determine their relation to the decrees of Trent and +their distance from them. And when at any time this attempt is by chance +in any measure made, then an incurable contrariety does but come to view +between portions of the theology thus developed, and a war of +principles; an impossibility moreover of reconciling that theology with +the general drift of the formularies in which its elements occur, and a +consequent appearance of unfairness and sophistry in adventurous persons +who aim at forcing them into consistency;[95:1] and, further, a +prevalent understanding of the truth of this representation, authorities +keeping silence, eschewing a hopeless enterprise and discouraging it in +others, and the people plainly intimating that they think both doctrine +and usage, antiquity and development, of very little matter at all; and, +lastly, the evident despair of even the better sort of men, who, in +consequence, when they set great schemes on foot, as for the conversion +of the heathen world, are afraid to agitate the question of the +doctrines to which it is to be converted, lest through the opened door +they should lose what they have, instead of gaining what they have not. +To the weight of recommendation which this contrast throws upon the +developments commonly called Catholic, must be added the argument which +arises from the coincidence of their consistency and permanence, with +their claim of an infallible sanction,--a claim, the existence of which, +in some quarter or other of the Divine Dispensation, is, as we have +already seen, antecedently probable. All these things being considered, +I think few persons will deny the very strong presumption which exists, +that, if there must be and are in fact developments in Christianity, the +doctrines propounded by successive Popes and Councils, through so many +ages, are they. + + +4. + +A further presumption in behalf of these doctrines arises from the +general opinion of the world about them. Christianity being one, all its +doctrines are necessarily developments of one, and, if so, are of +necessity consistent with each other, or form a whole. Now the world +fully enters into this view of those well-known developments which claim +the name of Catholic. It allows them that title, it considers them to +belong to one family, and refers them to one theological system. It is +scarcely necessary to set about proving what is urged by their opponents +even more strenuously than by their champions. Their opponents avow that +they protest, not against this doctrine or that, but against one and +all; and they seem struck with wonder and perplexity, not to say with +awe, at a consistency which they feel to be superhuman, though they +would not allow it to be divine. The system is confessed on all hands to +bear a character of integrity and indivisibility upon it, both at first +view and on inspection. Hence such sayings as the "Tota jacet Babylon" +of the distich. Luther did but a part of the work, Calvin another +portion, Socinus finished it. To take up with Luther, and to reject +Calvin and Socinus, would be, according to that epigram, like living in +a house without a roof to it. This, I say, is no private judgment of +this man or that, but the common opinion and experience of all +countries. The two great divisions of religion feel it, Roman Catholic +and Protestant, between whom the controversy lies; sceptics and +liberals, who are spectators of the conflict, feel it; philosophers feel +it. A school of divines there is, I grant, dear to memory, who have not +felt it; and their exception will have its weight,--till we reflect that +the particular theology which they advocate has not the prescription of +success, never has been realized in fact, or, if realized for a moment, +had no stay; moreover, that, when it has been enacted by human +authority, it has scarcely travelled beyond the paper on which it was +printed, or out of the legal forms in which it was embodied. But, +putting the weight of these revered names at the highest, they do not +constitute more than an exception to the general rule, such as is found +in every subject that comes into discussion. + + +5. + +And this general testimony to the oneness of Catholicism extends to its +past teaching relatively to its present, as well as to the portions of +its present teaching one with another. No one doubts, with such +exception as has just been allowed, that the Roman Catholic communion of +this day is the successor and representative of the Medieval Church, or +that the Medieval Church is the legitimate heir of the Nicene; even +allowing that it is a question whether a line cannot be drawn between +the Nicene Church and the Church which preceded it. On the whole, all +parties will agree that, of all existing systems, the present communion +of Rome is the nearest approximation in fact to the Church of the +Fathers, possible though some may think it, to be nearer still to that +Church on paper. Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to +life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own. +All surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of +their own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at +home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the +lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the +unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or with the +members of any other creed. And may we not add, that were those same +Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy, at Treves, to +come more northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair +city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy +brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which +they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where mass was +said in the populous alley or forlorn suburb? And, on the other hand, +can any one who has but heard his name, and cursorily read his history, +doubt for one instant how, in turn, the people of England, "we, our +princes, our priests, and our prophets," Lords and Commons, +Universities, Ecclesiastical Courts, marts of commerce, great towns, +country parishes, would deal with Athanasius,--Athanasius, who spent his +long years in fighting against sovereigns for a theological term? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[62:1] Doctrine of Justification, Lect. xiii. + +[64:1] Butler's Anal. ii. 3. + +[67:1] Proph. Office, Lect. xii. [Via Med. vol. i. pp. 292-3]. + +[72:1] ii. 3; vide also ii. 4, fin. + +[75:1] Analogy, ii. 4, _ad fin._ + +[77:1] Proph. Office, x. [Via Med. p. 250]. + +[77:2] [Ibid. pp. 247, 254.] + +[79:1] Arians, ch. i. sect. 3 [p. 82, ed. 3]. + +[81:1] Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 122]. + +[81:2] ["It is very common to confuse infallibility with certitude, but +the two words stand for things quite distinct from each other. I +remember for certain what I did yesterday, but still my memory is not +infallible. I am quite clear that two and two makes four, but I often +make mistakes in long addition sums. I have no doubt whatever that John +or Richard is my true friend; but I have before now trusted those who +failed me, and I may do so again before I die. I am quite certain that +Victoria is our sovereign, and not her father, the Duke of Kent, without +any claim myself to the gift of infallibility, as I may do a virtuous +action, without being impeccable. I may be certain that the Church is +infallible, while I am myself a fallible mortal; otherwise I cannot be +certain that the Supreme Being is infallible, unless I am infallible +myself. Certitude is directed to one or other definite concrete +proposition. I am certain of propositions one, two, three, four, or +five, one by one, each by itself. I can be certain of one of them, +without being certain of the rest: that I am certain of the first makes +it neither likely nor unlikely that I am certain of the second: but, +were I infallible, then I should be certain, not only of one of them, +but of all."--_Essay on Assent_, ch. vii. sect. 2.] + +[84:1] Anal. ii. 3. + +[87:1] De Rom. Pont. iv. 2. [Seven years ago, it is scarcely necessary +to say, the Vatican Council determined that the Pope, _ex cathedra_, has +the same infallibility as the Church. This does not affect the argument +in the text.] + +[88:1] Proph. Office [Via Med. vol. i. p. 117]. + +[89:1] 1 Tim. iii. 16; Isa. lix. 21. + +[90:1] +Ou gar ti nyn ge kachthes, k.t.l.+ + +[95:1] [_Vid._ Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 231-341.] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ON THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT IN BEHALF OF THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS. + + +SECTION I. + +METHOD OF PROOF. + +It seems, then, that we have to deal with a case something like the +following: Certain doctrines come to us, professing to be Apostolic, and +possessed of such high antiquity that, though we are only able to assign +the date of their formal establishment to the fourth, or the fifth, or +the eighth, or the thirteenth century, as it may happen, yet their +substance may, for what appears, be coeval with the Apostles, and be +expressed or implied in texts of Scripture. Further, these existing +doctrines are universally considered, without any question, in each age +to be the echo of the doctrines of the times immediately preceding them, +and thus are continually thrown back to a date indefinitely early, even +though their ultimate junction with the Apostolic Creed be out of sight +and unascertainable. Moreover, they are confessed to form one body one +with another, so that to reject one is to disparage the rest; and they +include within the range of their system even those primary articles of +faith, as the Incarnation, which many an impugner of the said doctrinal +system, as a system, professes to accept, and which, do what he will, +he cannot intelligibly separate, whether in point of evidence or of +internal character, from others which he disavows. Further, these +doctrines occupy the whole field of theology, and leave nothing to be +supplied, except in detail, by any other system; while, in matter of +fact, no rival system is forthcoming, so that we have to choose between +this theology and none at all. Moreover, this theology alone makes +provision for that guidance of opinion and conduct, which seems +externally to be the special aim of Revelation; and fulfils the promises +of Scripture, by adapting itself to the various problems of thought and +practice which meet us in life. And, further, it is the nearest +approach, to say the least, to the religious sentiment, and what is +called _ethos_, of the early Church, nay, to that of the Apostles and +Prophets; for all will agree so far as this, that Elijah, Jeremiah, the +Baptist, and St. Paul are in their history and mode of life (I do not +speak of measures of grace, no, nor of doctrine and conduct, for these +are the points in dispute, but) in what is external and meets the eye +(and this is no slight resemblance when things are viewed as a whole and +from a distance),--these saintly and heroic men, I say, are more like a +Dominican preacher, or a Jesuit missionary, or a Carmelite friar, more +like St. Toribio, or St. Vincent Ferrer, or St. Francis Xavier, or St. +Alphonso Liguori, than to any individuals, or to any classes of men, +that can be found in other communions. And then, in addition, there is +the high antecedent probability that Providence would watch over His own +work, and would direct and ratify those developments of doctrine which +were inevitable. + + +2. + +If this is, on the whole, a true view of the general shape under which +the existing body of developments, commonly called Catholic, present +themselves before us, antecedently to our looking into the particular +evidence on which they stand, I think we shall be at no loss to +determine what both logical truth and duty prescribe to us as to our +reception of them. It is very little to say that we should treat them as +we are accustomed to treat other alleged facts and truths and the +evidence for them, such as come to us with a fair presumption in their +favour. Such are of every day's occurrence; and what is our behaviour +towards them? We meet them, not with suspicion and criticism, but with a +frank confidence. We do not in the first instance exercise our reason +upon opinions which are received, but our faith. We do not begin with +doubting; we take them on trust, and we put them on trial, and that, not +of set purpose, but spontaneously. We prove them by using them, by +applying them to the subject-matter, or the evidence, or the body of +circumstances, to which they belong, as if they gave it its +interpretation or its colour as a matter of course; and only when they +fail, in the event, in illustrating phenomena or harmonizing facts, do +we discover that we must reject the doctrines or the statements which we +had in the first instance taken for granted. Again, we take the evidence +for them, whatever it be, as a whole, as forming a combined proof; and +we interpret what is obscure in separate portions by such portions as +are clear. Moreover, we bear with these in proportion to the strength of +the antecedent probability in their favour, we are patient with +difficulties in their application, with apparent objections to them +drawn from other matters of fact, deficiency in their comprehensiveness, +or want of neatness in their working, provided their claims on our +attention are considerable. + + +3. + +Thus most men take Newton's theory of gravitation for granted, because +it is generally received, and use it without rigidly testing it first, +each for himself, (as it can be tested,) by phenomena; and if phenomena +are found which it does not satisfactorily solve, this does not trouble +us, for a way there must be of explaining them, consistently with that +theory, though it does not occur to ourselves. Again, if we found a +concise or obscure passage in one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, we +should not scruple to admit as its true explanation a more explicit +statement in his _Ad Familiares_. Aeschylus is illustrated by Sophocles +in point of language, and Thucydides by Aristophanes, in point of +history. Horace, Persius, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Juvenal may be made to +throw light upon each other. Even Plato may gain a commentator in +Plotinus, and St. Anselm is interpreted by St. Thomas. Two writers, +indeed, may be already known to differ, and then we do not join them +together as fellow-witnesses to common truths; Luther has taken on +himself to explain St. Augustine, and Voltaire, Pascal, without +persuading the world that they have a claim to do so; but in no case do +we begin with asking whether a comment does not disagree with its text, +when there is a _prima facie_ congruity between them. We elucidate the +text by the comment, though, or rather because, the comment is fuller +and more explicit than the text. + + +4. + +Thus too we deal with Scripture, when we have to interpret the +prophetical text and the types of the Old Testament. The event which is +the development is also the interpretation of the prediction; it +provides a fulfilment by imposing a meaning. And we accept certain +events as the fulfilment of prophecy from the broad correspondence of +the one with the other, in spite of many incidental difficulties. The +difficulty, for instance, in accounting for the fact that the dispersion +of the Jews followed upon their keeping, not their departing from their +Law, does not hinder us from insisting on their present state as an +argument against the infidel. Again, we readily submit our reason on +competent authority, and accept certain events as an accomplishment of +predictions, which seem very far removed from them; as in the passage, +"Out of Egypt have I called My Son." Nor do we find a difficulty, when +St. Paul appeals to a text of the Old Testament, which stands otherwise +in our Hebrew copies; as the words, "A body hast Thou prepared Me." We +receive such difficulties on faith, and leave them to take care of +themselves. Much less do we consider mere fulness in the interpretation, +or definiteness, or again strangeness, as a sufficient reason for +depriving the text, or the action to which it is applied, of the +advantage of such interpretation. We make it no objection that the words +themselves come short of it, or that the sacred writer did not +contemplate it, or that a previous fulfilment satisfies it. A reader who +came to the inspired text by himself, beyond the influence of that +traditional acceptation which happily encompasses it, would be surprised +to be told that the Prophet's words, "A virgin shall conceive," &c., or +"Let all the Angels of God worship Him," refer to our Lord; but assuming +the intimate connexion between Judaism and Christianity, and the +inspiration of the New Testament, we do not scruple to believe it. We +rightly feel that it is no prejudice to our receiving the prophecy of +Balaam in its Christian meaning, that it is adequately fulfilled in +David; or the history of Jonah, that it is poetical in character and has +a moral in itself like an apologue; or the meeting of Abraham and +Melchizedek, that it is too brief and simple to mean any great thing, as +St. Paul interprets it. + + +5. + +Butler corroborates these remarks, when speaking of the particular +evidence for Christianity. "The obscurity or unintelligibleness," he +says, "of one part of a prophecy does not in any degree invalidate the +proof of foresight, arising from the appearing completion of those other +parts which are understood. For the case is evidently the same as if +those parts, which are not understood, were lost, or not written at all, +or written in an unknown tongue. Whether this observation be commonly +attended to or not, it is so evident that one can scarce bring one's +self to set down an instance in common matters to exemplify it."[104:1] +He continues, "Though a man should be incapable, for want of learning, +or opportunities of inquiry, or from not having turned his studies this +way, even so much as to judge whether particular prophecies have been +throughout completely fulfilled; yet he may see, in general, that they +have been fulfilled to such a degree, as, upon very good ground, to be +convinced of foresight more than human in such prophecies, and of such +events being intended by them. For the same reason also, though, by +means of the deficiencies in civil history, and the different accounts +of historians, the most learned should not be able to make out to +satisfaction that such parts of the prophetic history have been minutely +and throughout fulfilled; yet a very strong proof of foresight may arise +from that general completion of them which is made out; as much proof of +foresight, perhaps, as the Giver of prophecy intended should ever be +afforded by such parts of prophecy." + + +6. + +He illustrates this by the parallel instance of fable and concealed +satire. "A man might be assured that he understood what an author +intended by a fable or parable, related without any application or +moral, merely from seeing it to be easily capable of such application, +and that such a moral might naturally be deduced from it. And he might +be fully assured that such persons and events were intended in a +satirical writing, merely from its being applicable to them. And, +agreeably to the last observation, he might be in a good measure +satisfied of it, though he were not enough informed in affairs, or in +the story of such persons, to understand half the satire. For his +satisfaction, that he understood the meaning, the intended meaning, of +these writings, would be greater or less, in proportion as he saw the +general turn of them to be capable of such application, and in +proportion to the number of particular things capable of it." And he +infers hence, that if a known course of events, or the history of a +person as our Lord, is found to answer on the whole to the prophetical +text, it becomes fairly the right interpretation of that text, in spite +of difficulties in detail. And this rule of interpretation admits of an +obvious application to the parallel case of doctrinal passages, when a +certain creed, which professes to have been derived from Revelation, +comes recommended to us on strong antecedent grounds, and presents no +strong opposition to the sacred text. + +The same author observes that the first fulfilment of a prophecy is no +valid objection to a second, when what seems like a second has once +taken place; and, in like manner, an interpretation of doctrinal texts +may be literal, exact, and sufficient, yet in spite of all this may not +embrace what is really the full scope of their meaning; and that fuller +scope, if it so happen, may be less satisfactory and precise, as an +interpretation, than their primary and narrow sense. Thus, if the +Protestant interpretation of the sixth chapter of St. John were true and +sufficient for its letter, (which of course I do not grant,) that would +not hinder the Roman, which at least is quite compatible with the text, +being the higher sense and the only rightful. In such cases the +justification of the larger and higher interpretation lies in some +antecedent probability, such as Catholic consent; and the ground of the +narrow is the context, and the rules of grammar; and, whereas the +argument of the critical commentator is that the sacred text _need not_ +mean more than the letter, those who adopt a deeper view of it maintain, +as Butler in the case of prophecy, that we have no warrant for putting a +limit to the sense of words which are not human but divine. + + +7. + +Now it is but a parallel exercise of reasoning to interpret the previous +history of a doctrine by its later development, and to consider that it +contains the later _in posse_ and in the divine intention; and the +grudging and jealous temper, which refuses to enlarge the sacred text +for the fulfilment of prophecy, is the very same that will occupy itself +in carping at the Ante-nicene testimonies for Nicene or Medieval +doctrines and usages. When "I and My Father are One" is urged in proof +of our Lord's unity with the Father, heretical disputants do not see why +the words must be taken to denote more than a unity of will. When "This +is My Body" is alleged as a warrant for the change of the Bread into the +Body of Christ, they explain away the words into a figure, because such +is their most obvious interpretation. And, in like manner, when Roman +Catholics urge St. Gregory's invocations, they are told that these are +but rhetorical; or St. Clement's allusion to Purgatory, that perhaps it +was Platonism; or Origen's language about praying to Angels and the +merits of Martyrs, that it is but an instance of his heterodoxy; or St. +Cyprian's exaltation of the _Cathedra Petri_, that he need not be +contemplating more than a figurative or abstract see; or the general +testimony to the spiritual authority of Rome in primitive times, that it +arose from her temporal greatness; or Tertullian's language about +Tradition and the Church, that he took a lawyer's view of those +subjects; whereas the early condition, and the evidence, of each +doctrine respectively, ought consistently to be interpreted by means of +that development which was ultimately attained. + + +8. + +Moreover, since, as above shown, the doctrines all together make up one +integral religion, it follows that the several evidences which +respectively support those doctrines belong to a whole, and must be +thrown into a common stock, and all are available in the defence of any. +A collection of weak evidences makes up a strong evidence; again, one +strong argument imparts cogency to collateral arguments which are in +themselves weak. For instance, as to the miracles, whether of Scripture +or the Church, "the number of those which carry with them their own +proof now, and are believed for their own sake, is small, and they +furnish the grounds on which we receive the rest."[107:1] Again, no one +would fancy it necessary, before receiving St. Matthew's Gospel, to find +primitive testimony in behalf of every chapter and verse: when only part +is proved to have been in existence in ancient times, the whole is +proved, because that part is but part of a whole; and when the whole is +proved, it may shelter such parts as for some incidental reason have +less evidence of their antiquity. Again, it would be enough to show that +St. Augustine knew the Italic version of the Scriptures, if he quoted it +once or twice. And, in like manner, it will be generally admitted that +the proof of a Second Person in the Godhead lightens greatly the burden +of proof necessary for belief in a Third Person; and that, the Atonement +being in some sort a correlative of eternal punishment, the evidence for +the former doctrine virtually increases the evidence for the latter. +And so, a Protestant controversialist would feel that it told little, +except as an omen of victory, to reduce an opponent to a denial of +Transubstantiation, if he still adhered firmly to the Invocation of +Saints, Purgatory, the Seven Sacraments, and the doctrine of merit; and +little too for one of his own party to condemn the adoration of the +Host, the supremacy of Rome, the acceptableness of celibacy, auricular +confession, communion under one kind, and tradition, if he was zealous +for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. + + +9. + +The principle on which these remarks are made has the sanction of some +of the deepest of English Divines. Bishop Butler, for instance, who has +so often been quoted here, thus argues in behalf of Christianity itself, +though confessing at the same time the disadvantage which in consequence +the revealed system lies under. "Probable proofs," he observes, "by +being added, not only increase the evidence, but multiply it. Nor should +I dissuade any one from setting down what he thought made for the +contrary side. . . . The truth of our religion, like the truth of common +matters, is to be judged by all the evidence taken together. And unless +the whole series of things which may be alleged in this argument, and +every particular thing in it, can reasonably be supposed to have been by +accident (for here the stress of the argument for Christianity lies), +then is the truth of it proved; in like manner, as if, in any common +case, numerous events acknowledged were to be alleged in proof of any +other event disputed, the truth of the disputed event would be proved, +not only if any one of the acknowledged ones did of itself clearly imply +it, but though no one of them singly did so, if the whole of the +acknowledged events, taken together, could not in reason be supposed to +have happened, unless the disputed one were true. + +"It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to +those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For +it is easy to show, in a short and lively manner, that such and such +things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little +weight in itself; but impossible to show, in like manner, the united +force of the whole argument in one view."[109:1] + +In like manner, Mr. Davison condemns that "vicious manner of reasoning," +which represents "any insufficiency of the proof, in its several +branches, as so much objection;" which manages "the inquiry so as to +make it appear that, if the divided arguments be inconclusive one by +one, we have a series of exceptions to the truths of religion instead of +a train of favourable presumptions, growing stronger at every step. The +disciple of Scepticism is taught that he cannot fully rely on this or +that motive of belief, that each of them is insecure, and the conclusion +is put upon him that they ought to be discarded one after another, +instead of being connected and combined."[109:2] No work perhaps affords +more specimens in a short compass of the breach of the principle of +reasoning inculcated in these passages, than Barrow's Treatise on the +Pope's Supremacy. + + +10. + +The remarks of these two writers relate to the duty of combining +doctrines which belong to one body, and evidences which relate to one +subject; and few persons would dispute it in the abstract. The +application which has been here made of the principle is this,--that +where a doctrine comes recommended to us by strong presumptions of its +truth, we are bound to receive it unsuspiciously, and use it as a key to +the evidences to which it appeals, or the facts which it professes to +systematize, whatever may be our eventual judgment about it. Nor is it +enough to answer, that the voice of our particular Church, denying this +so-called Catholicism, is an antecedent probability which outweighs all +others and claims our prior obedience, loyally and without reasoning, to +its own interpretation. This may excuse individuals certainly, in +beginning with doubt and distrust of the Catholic developments, but it +only shifts the blame to the particular Church, Anglican or other, which +thinks itself qualified to enforce so peremptory a judgment against the +one and only successor, heir and representative of the Apostolic +college. + + +SECTION II. + +STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. + +Bacon is celebrated for destroying the credit of a method of reasoning +much resembling that which it has been the object of this Chapter to +recommend. "He who is not practised in doubting," he says, "but forward +in asserting and laying down such principles as he takes to be approved, +granted and manifest, and, according to the established truth thereof, +receives or rejects everything, as squaring with or proving contrary to +them, is only fitted to mix and confound things with words, reason with +madness, and the world with fable and fiction, but not to interpret the +works of nature."[110:1] But he was aiming at the application of these +modes of reasoning to what should be strict investigation, and that in +the province of physics; and this he might well censure, without +attempting, (what is impossible,) to banish them from history, ethics, +and religion. + +Physical facts are present; they are submitted to the senses, and the +senses may be satisfactorily tested, corrected, and verified. To trust +to anything but sense in a matter of sense is irrational; why are the +senses given us but to supersede less certain, less immediate +informants? We have recourse to reason or authority to determine facts, +when the senses fail us; but with the senses we begin. We deduce, we +form inductions, we abstract, we theorize from facts; we do not begin +with surmise and conjecture, much less do we look to the tradition of +past ages, or the decree of foreign teachers, to determine matters which +are in our hands and under our eyes. + +But it is otherwise with history, the facts of which are not present; it +is otherwise with ethics, in which phenomena are more subtle, closer, +and more personal to individuals than other facts, and not referable to +any common standard by which all men can decide upon them. In such +sciences, we cannot rest upon mere facts, if we would, because we have +not got them. We must do our best with what is given us, and look about +for aid from any quarter; and in such circumstances the opinions of +others, the traditions of ages, the prescriptions of authority, +antecedent auguries, analogies, parallel cases, these and the like, not +indeed taken at random, but, like the evidence from the senses, sifted +and scrutinized, obviously become of great importance. + + +2. + +And, further, if we proceed on the hypothesis that a merciful Providence +has supplied us with means of gaining such truth as concerns us, in +different subject-matters, though with different instruments, then the +simple question is, what those instruments are which are proper to a +particular case. If they are of the appointment of a Divine Protector, +we may be sure that they will lead to the truth, whatever they are. The +less exact methods of reasoning may do His work as well as the more +perfect, if He blesses them. He may bless antecedent probabilities in +ethical inquiries, who blesses experience and induction in the art of +medicine. + +And if it is reasonable to consider medicine, or architecture, or +engineering, in a certain sense, divine arts, as being divinely ordained +means of our receiving divine benefits, much more may ethics be called +divine; while as to religion, it directly professes to be the method of +recommending ourselves to Him and learning His will. If then it be His +gracious purpose that we should learn it, the means He gives for +learning it, be they promising or not to human eyes, are sufficient, +because they are His. And what they are at this particular time, or to +this person, depends on His disposition. He may have imposed simple +prayer and obedience on some men as the instrument of their attaining to +the mysteries and precepts of Christianity. He may lead others through +the written word, at least for some stages of their course; and if the +formal basis on which He has rested His revelations be, as it is, of an +historical and philosophical character, then antecedent probabilities, +subsequently corroborated by facts, will be sufficient, as in the +parallel case of other history, to bring us safely to the matter, or at +least to the organ, of those revelations. + + +3. + +Moreover, in subjects which belong to moral proof, such, I mean, as +history, antiquities, political science, ethics, metaphysics, and +theology, which are pre-eminently such, and especially in theology and +ethics, antecedent probability may have a real weight and cogency which +it cannot have in experimental science; and a mature politician or +divine may have a power of reaching matters of fact in consequence of +his peculiar habits of mind, which is seldom given in the same degree to +physical inquirers, who, for the purposes of this particular pursuit, +are very much on a level. And this last remark at least is confirmed by +Lord Bacon, who confesses "Our method of discovering the sciences does +not much depend upon subtlety and strength of genius, but lies level to +almost every capacity and understanding;"[113:1] though surely sciences +there are, in which genius is everything, and rules all but nothing. + + +4. + +It will be a great mistake then to suppose that, because this eminent +philosopher condemned presumption and prescription in inquiries into +facts which are external to us, present with us, and common to us all, +therefore authority, tradition, verisimilitude, analogy, and the like, +are mere "idols of the den" or "of the theatre" in history or ethics. +Here we may oppose to him an author in his own line as great as he is: +"Experience," says Bacon, "is by far the best demonstration, provided it +dwell in the experiment; for the transferring of it to other things +judged alike is very fallacious, unless done with great exactness and +regularity."[113:2] Niebuhr explains or corrects him: "Instances are not +arguments," he grants, when investigating an obscure question of Roman +history,--"instances are not arguments, but in history are scarcely of +less force; above all, where the parallel they exhibit is in the +progressive development of institutions."[113:3] Here this sagacious +writer recognizes the true principle of historical logic, while he +exemplifies it. + +The same principle is involved in the well-known maxim of Aristotle, +that "it is much the same to admit the probabilities of a mathematician, +and to look for demonstration from an orator." In all matters of human +life, presumption verified by instances, is our ordinary instrument of +proof, and, if the antecedent probability is great, it almost +supersedes instances. Of course, as is plain, we may err grievously in +the antecedent view which we start with, and in that case, our +conclusions may be wide of the truth; but that only shows that we had no +right to assume a premiss which was untrustworthy, not that our +reasoning was faulty. + + +5. + +I am speaking of the process itself, and its correctness is shown by its +general adoption. In religious questions a single text of Scripture is +all-sufficient with most people, whether the well disposed or the +prejudiced, to prove a doctrine or a duty in cases when a custom is +established or a tradition is strong. "Not forsaking the assembling of +ourselves together" is sufficient for establishing social, public, nay, +Sunday worship. "Where the tree falleth, there shall it lie," shows that +our probation ends with life. "Forbidding to marry" determines the Pope +to be the man of sin. Again, it is plain that a man's after course for +good or bad brings out the passing words or obscure actions of previous +years. Then, on a retrospect, we use the event as a presumptive +interpretation of the past, of those past indications of his character +which, considered as evidence, were too few and doubtful to bear +insisting on at the time, and would have seemed ridiculous, had we +attempted to do so. And the antecedent probability is even found to +triumph over contrary evidence, as well as to sustain what agrees with +it. Every one may know of cases in which a plausible charge against an +individual was borne down at once by weight of character, though that +character was incommensurate of course with the circumstances which gave +rise to suspicion, and had no direct neutralizing force to destroy it. +On the other hand, it is sometimes said, and even if not literally true +will serve in illustration, that not a few of those who are put on trial +in our criminal courts are not legally guilty of the particular crime on +which a verdict is found against them, being convicted not so much upon +the particular evidence, as on the presumption arising from their want +of character and the memory of their former offences. Nor is it in +slight matters only or unimportant that we thus act. Our dearest +interests, our personal welfare, our property, our health, our +reputation, we freely hazard, not on proof, but on a simple probability, +which is sufficient for our conviction, because prudence dictates to us +so to take it. We must be content to follow the law of our being in +religious matters as well as in secular. + + +6. + +But there is more to say on the subordinate position which direct +evidence holds among the _motiva_ of conviction in most matters. It is +no paradox to say that there is a certain scantiness, nay an absence of +evidence, which may even tell in favour of statements which require to +be made good. There are indeed cases in which we cannot discover the law +of silence or deficiency, which are then simply unaccountable. Thus +Lucian, for whatever reason, hardly notices Roman authors or +affairs.[115:1] Maximus Tyrius, who wrote several of his works at Rome, +nevertheless makes no reference to Roman history. Paterculus, the +historian, is mentioned by no ancient writer except Priscian. What is +more to our present purpose, Seneca, Pliny the elder, and Plutarch are +altogether silent about Christianity; and perhaps Epictetus also, and +the Emperor Marcus. The Jewish Mishna, too, compiled about A.D. 180, is +silent about Christianity; and the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds +almost so, though the one was compiled about A.D. 300, and the other +A.D. 500.[115:2] Eusebius again, is very uncertain in his notice of +facts: he does not speak of St. Methodius, nor of St. Anthony, nor of +the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, nor of the miraculous powers of St. +Gregory Thaumaturgus; and he mentions Constantine's luminous cross, not +in his Ecclesiastical History, where it would naturally find a place, +but in his Life of the Emperor. Moreover, those who receive that +wonderful occurrence, which is, as one who rejects it allows,[116:1] "so +inexplicable to the historical inquirer," have to explain the difficulty +of the universal silence on the subject of all the Fathers of the fourth +and fifth centuries, excepting Eusebius. + +In like manner, Scripture has its unexplained omissions. No religious +school finds its own tenets and usages on the surface of it. The remark +applies also to the very context of Scripture, as in the obscurity which +hangs over Nathanael or the Magdalen. It is a remarkable circumstance +that there is no direct intimation all through Scripture that the +Serpent mentioned in the temptation of Eve was the evil spirit, till we +come to the vision of the Woman and Child, and their adversary, the +Dragon, in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. + + +7. + +Omissions, thus absolute and singular, when they occur in the evidence +of facts or doctrines, are of course difficulties; on the other hand, +not unfrequently they admit of explanation. Silence may arise from the +very notoriety of the facts in question, as in the case of the seasons, +the weather, or other natural phenomena; or from their sacredness, as +the Athenians would not mention the mythological Furies; or from +external constraint, as the omission of the statues of Brutus and +Cassius in the procession. Or it may proceed from fear or disgust, as on +the arrival of unwelcome news; or from indignation, or hatred, or +contempt, or perplexity, as Josephus is silent about Christianity, and +Eusebius passes over the death of Crispus in his life of Constantine; or +from other strong feeling, as implied in the poet's sentiment, "Give +sorrow words;" or from policy or other prudential motive, or propriety, +as Queen's Speeches do not mention individuals, however influential in +the political world, and newspapers after a time were silent about the +cholera. Or, again, from the natural and gradual course which the fact +took, as in the instance of inventions and discoveries, the history of +which is on this account often obscure; or from loss of documents or +other direct testimonies, as we should not look for theological +information in a treatise on geology. + + +8. + +Again, it frequently happens that omissions proceed on some law, as the +varying influence of an external cause; and then, so far from being a +perplexity, they may even confirm such evidence as occurs, by becoming, +as it were, its correlative. For instance, an obstacle may be +assignable, person, or principle, or accident, which ought, if it +exists, to reduce or distort the indications of a fact to that very +point, or in that very direction, or with the variations, or in the +order and succession, which do occur in its actual history. At first +sight it might be a suspicious circumstance that but one or two +manuscripts of some celebrated document were forthcoming; but if it were +known that the sovereign power had exerted itself to suppress and +destroy it at the time of its publication, and that the extant +manuscripts were found just in those places where history witnessed to +the failure of the attempt, the coincidence would be highly +corroborative of that evidence which alone remained. + +Thus it is possible to have too much evidence; that is, evidence so full +or exact as to throw suspicion over the case for which it is adduced. +The genuine Epistles of St. Ignatius contain none of those +ecclesiastical terms, such as "Priest" or "See," which are so frequent +afterwards; and they quote Scripture sparingly. The interpolated +Epistles quote it largely; that is, they are too Scriptural to be +Apostolic. Few persons, again, who are acquainted with the primitive +theology, but will be sceptical at first reading of the authenticity of +such works as the longer Creed of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, or St. +Hippolytus contra Beronem, from the precision of the theological +language, which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene period. + + +9. + +The influence of circumstances upon the expression of opinion or +testimony supplies another form of the same law of omission. "I am ready +to admit," says Paley, "that the ancient Christian advocates did not +insist upon the miracles in argument so frequently as I should have +done. It was their lot to contend with notions of magical agency, +against which the mere production of the facts was not sufficient for +the convincing of their adversaries; I do not know whether they +themselves thought it quite decisive of the controversy. But since it is +proved, I conceive with certainty, that the sparingness with which they +appealed to miracles was owing neither to their ignorance nor their +doubt of the facts, it is at any rate an objection, not to the truth of +the history, but to the judgment of its defenders."[118:1] And, in like +manner, Christians were not likely to entertain the question of the +abstract allowableness of images in the Catholic ritual, with the actual +superstitions and immoralities of paganism before their eyes. Nor were +they likely to determine the place of the Blessed Mary in our reverence, +before they had duly secured, in the affections of the faithful, the +supreme glory and worship of God Incarnate, her Eternal Lord and Son. +Nor would they recognize Purgatory as a part of the Dispensation, till +the world had flowed into the Church, and a habit of corruption had +been largely superinduced. Nor could ecclesiastical liberty be asserted, +till it had been assailed. Nor would a Pope arise, but in proportion as +the Church was consolidated. Nor would monachism be needed, while +martyrdoms were in progress. Nor could St. Clement give judgment on the +doctrine of Berengarius, nor St. Dionysius refute the Ubiquists, nor St. +Irenaeus denounce the Protestant view of Justification, nor St. Cyprian +draw up a theory of toleration. There is "a time for every purpose under +the heaven;" "a time to keep silence and a time to speak." + + +10. + +Sometimes when the want of evidence for a series of facts or doctrines +is unaccountable, an unexpected explanation or addition in the course of +time is found as regards a portion of them, which suggests a ground of +patience as regards the historical obscurity of the rest. Two instances +are obvious to mention, of an accidental silence of clear primitive +testimony as to important doctrines, and its removal. In the number of +the articles of Catholic belief which the Reformation especially +resisted, were the Mass and the sacramental virtue of Ecclesiastical +Unity. Since the date of that movement, the shorter Epistles of St. +Ignatius have been discovered, and the early Liturgies verified; and +this with most men has put an end to the controversy about those +doctrines. The good fortune which has happened to them, may happen to +others; and though it does not, yet that it has happened to them, is to +those others a sort of compensation for the obscurity in which their +early history continues to be involved. + + +11. + +I may seem in these remarks to be preparing the way for a broad +admission of the absence of any sanction in primitive Christianity in +behalf of its medieval form, but I do not make them with this intention. +Not from misgivings of this kind, but from the claims of a sound logic, +I think it right to insist, that, whatever early testimonies I may bring +in support of later developments of doctrine, are in great measure +brought _ex abundante_, a matter of grace, not of compulsion. The _onus +probandi_ is with those who assail a teaching which is, and has long +been, in possession. As for positive evidence in our behalf, they must +take what they can get, if they cannot get as much as they might wish, +inasmuch as antecedent probabilities, as I have said, go so very far +towards dispensing with it. It is a first strong point that, in an idea +such as Christianity, developments cannot but be, and those surely +divine, because it is divine; a second that, if so, they are those very +ones which exist, because there are no others; and a third point is the +fact that they are found just there, where true developments ought to be +found,--namely, in the historic seats of Apostolical teaching and in the +authoritative homes of immemorial tradition. + + +12. + +And, if it be said in reply that the difficulty of admitting these +developments of doctrine lies, not merely in the absence of early +testimony for them, but in the actual existence of distinct testimony +against them,--or, as Chillingworth says, in "Popes against Popes, +Councils against Councils,"--I answer, of course this will be said; but +let the fact of this objection be carefully examined, and its value +reduced to its true measure, before it is used in argument. I grant that +there are "Bishops against Bishops in Church history, Fathers against +Fathers, Fathers against themselves," for such differences in individual +writers are consistent with, or rather are involved in the very idea of +doctrinal development, and consequently are no real objection to it; +the one essential question is whether the recognized organ of teaching, +the Church herself, acting through Pope or Council as the oracle of +heaven, has ever contradicted her own enunciations. If so, the +hypothesis which I am advocating is at once shattered; but, till I have +positive and distinct evidence of the fact, I am slow to give credence +to the existence of so great an improbability. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[104:1] Anal. ii. 7. + +[107:1] [On Miracles, Essay ii. 111.] + +[109:1] Anal. ii. 7. + +[109:2] On Prophecy, i. p. 28. + +[110:1] Aphor. 5, vol. iv. p. xi. ed. 1815. + +[113:1] Nov. Org. i. 2, Sect. 26, vol. iv. p. 29. + +[113:2] Nov. Org. Sect. 70, p. 44. + +[113:3] Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 345, ed. 1828. + +[115:1] Lardner's Heath. Test. p. 22. + +[115:2] Paley's Evid. p. i. prop. 1, 7. + +[116:1] Milman, Christ. vol. ii. p. 352. + +[118:1] Evidences, iii. 5. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +INSTANCES IN ILLUSTRATION. + + +It follows now to inquire how much evidence is actually producible for +those large portions of the present Creed of Christendom, which have not +a recognized place in the primordial idea and the historical outline of +the Religion, yet which come to us with certain antecedent +considerations strong enough in reason to raise the effectiveness of +that evidence to a point disproportionate, as I have allowed, to its +intrinsic value. In urging these considerations here, of course I +exclude for the time the force of the Church's claim of infallibility in +her acts, for which so much can be said, but I do not exclude the +logical cogency of those acts, considered as testimonies to the faith of +the times before them. + +My argument then is this:--that, from the first age of Christianity, its +teaching looked towards those ecclesiastical dogmas, afterwards +recognized and defined, with (as time went on) more or less determinate +advance in the direction of them; till at length that advance became so +pronounced, as to justify their definition and to bring it about, and to +place them in the position of rightful interpretations and keys of the +remains and the records in history of the teaching which had so +terminated. + + +2. + +This line of argument is not unlike that which is considered to +constitute a sufficient proof of truths in physical science. An +instance of this is furnished us in a work on Mechanics of the past +generation, by a writer of name, and his explanation of it will serve as +an introduction to our immediate subject. After treating of the laws of +motion, he goes on to observe, "These laws are the simplest principles +to which motion can be reduced, and upon them the whole theory depends. +They are not indeed self-evident, nor do they admit of accurate proof by +experiment, on account of the great nicety required in adjusting the +instruments and making the experiments; and on account of the effects of +friction, and the air's resistance, which cannot entirely be removed. +They are, however, constantly, and invariably, suggested to our senses, +and they agree with experiment as far as experiment can go; and the more +accurately the experiments are made, and the greater care we take to +remove all those impediments which tend to render the conclusions +erroneous, the more nearly do the experiments coincide with these +laws."[123:1] And thus a converging evidence in favour of certain +doctrines may, under circumstances, be as clear a proof of their +Apostolical origin as can be reached practically from the _Quod semper, +quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. + +In such a method of proof there is, first, an imperfect, secondly, a +growing evidence, thirdly, in consequence a delayed inference and +judgment, fourthly, reasons producible to account for the delay. + + +SECTION I. + +INSTANCES CURSORILY NOTICED. + + +1. + +(1.) _Canon of the New Testament._ + +As regards the New Testament, Catholics and Protestants receive the +same books as canonical and inspired; yet among those books some are to +be found, which certainly have no right there if, following the rule of +Vincentius, we receive nothing as of divine authority but what has been +received always and everywhere. The degrees of evidence are very various +for one book and another. "It is confessed," says Less, "that not all +the Scriptures of our New Testament have been received with universal +consent as genuine works of the Evangelists and Apostles. But that man +must have predetermined to oppose the most palpable truths, and must +reject all history, who will not confess that the _greater_ part of the +New Testament has been universally received as authentic, and that the +remaining books have been acknowledged as such by the _majority_ of the +ancients."[124:1] + + +2. + +For instance, as to the Epistle of St. James. It is true, it is +contained in the old Syriac version in the second century; but Origen, +in the third century, is the first writer who distinctly mentions it +among the Greeks; and it is not quoted by name by any Latin till the +fourth. St. Jerome speaks of its gaining credit "by degrees, in process +of time." Eusebius says no more than that it had been, up to his time, +acknowledged by the majority; and he classes it with the Shepherd of St. +Hermas and the Epistle of St. Barnabas.[124:2] + +Again: "The Epistle to the Hebrews, though received in the East, was not +received in the Latin Churches till St. Jerome's time. St. Irenaeus +either does not affirm, or denies that it is St. Paul's. Tertullian +ascribes it to St. Barnabas. Caius excludes it from his list. St. +Hippolytus does not receive it. St. Cyprian is silent about it. It is +doubtful whether St. Optatus received it."[124:3] + +Again, St. Jerome tells us, that in his day, towards A.D. 400, the +Greek Church rejected the Apocalypse, but the Latin received it. + +Again: "The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books in all, though +of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till +from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number +are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the +Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other +thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First to +Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John are quoted but by one +writer during the same period."[125:1] + + +3. + +On what ground, then, do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on +the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries? The +Church at that era decided--not merely bore testimony, but passed a +judgment on former testimony,--decided, that certain books were of +authority. And on what ground did she so decide? on the ground that +hitherto a decision had been impossible, in an age of persecution, from +want of opportunities for research, discussion, and testimony, from the +private or the local character of some of the books, and from +misapprehension of the doctrine contained in others. Now, however, +facilities were at length given for deciding once for all on what had +been in suspense and doubt for three centuries. On this subject I will +quote another passage from the same Tract: "We depend upon the fourth +and fifth centuries thus:--As to Scripture, former centuries do not +speak distinctly, frequently, or unanimously, except of some chief +books, as the Gospels; but we see in them, as we believe, an +ever-growing tendency and approximation to that full agreement which we +find in the fifth. The testimony given at the latter date is the limit +to which all that has been before said converges. For instance, it is +commonly said, _Exceptio probat regulam_; when we have reason to think +that a writer or an age would have witnessed so and so, _but for_ this +or that, and that this or that were mere accidents of his position, then +he or it may be said to _tend towards_ such testimony. In this way the +first centuries tend towards the fifth. Viewing the matter as one of +moral evidence, we seem to see in the testimony of the fifth the very +testimony which every preceding century gave, accidents excepted, such +as the present loss of documents once extant, or the then existing +misconceptions which want of intercourse between the Churches +occasioned. The fifth century acts as a comment on the obscure text of +the centuries before it, and brings out a meaning, which with the help +of the comment any candid person sees really to be theirs."[126:1] + + +4. + +(2.) _Original Sin._ + +I have already remarked upon the historical fact, that the recognition +of Original Sin, considered as the consequence of Adam's fall, was, both +as regards general acceptance and accurate understanding, a gradual +process, not completed till the time of Augustine and Pelagius. St. +Chrysostom lived close up to that date, but there are passages in his +works, often quoted, which we should not expect to find worded as they +stand, if they had been written fifty years later. It is commonly, and +reasonably, said in explanation, that the fatalism, so prevalent in +various shapes pagan and heretical, in the first centuries, was an +obstacle to an accurate apprehension of the consequences of the fall, as +the presence of the existing idolatry was to the use of images. If this +be so, we have here an instance of a doctrine held back for a time by +circumstances, yet in the event forcing its way into its normal shape, +and at length authoritatively fixed in it, that is, of a doctrine held +implicitly, then asserting itself, and at length fully developed. + + +5. + +(3.) _Infant Baptism._ + +One of the passages of St. Chrysostom to which I might refer is this, +"We baptize infants, though they are not defiled with sin, that they may +receive sanctity, righteousness, adoption, heirship, brotherhood with +Christ, and may become His members." (_Aug. contr. Jul._ i. 21.) This at +least shows that he had a clear view of the importance and duty of +infant baptism, but such was not the case even with saints in the +generation immediately before him. As is well known, it was not unusual +in that age of the Church for those, who might be considered +catechumens, to delay their baptism, as Protestants now delay reception +of the Holy Eucharist. It is difficult for us at this day to enter into +the assemblage of motives which led to this postponement; to a keen +sense and awe of the special privileges of baptism which could only once +be received, other reasons would be added,--reluctance to being +committed to a strict rule of life, and to making a public profession of +religion, and to joining in a specially intimate fellowship or +solidarity with strangers. But so it was in matter of fact, for reasons +good or bad, that infant baptism, which is a fundamental rule of +Christian duty with us, was less earnestly insisted on in early times. + + +6. + +Even in the fourth century St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and St. +Augustine, having Christian mothers, still were not baptized till they +were adults. St. Gregory's mother dedicated him to God immediately on +his birth; and again when he had come to years of discretion, with the +rite of taking the gospels into his hands by way of consecration. He was +religiously-minded from his youth, and had devoted himself to a single +life. Yet his baptism did not take place till after he had attended the +schools of Caesarea, Palestine, and Alexandria, and was on his voyage to +Athens. He had embarked during the November gales, and for twenty days +his life was in danger. He presented himself for baptism as soon as he +got to land. St. Basil was the son of Christian confessors on both +father's and mother's side. His grandmother Macrina, who brought him up, +had for seven years lived with her husband in the woods of Pontus during +the Decian persecution. His father was said to have wrought miracles; +his mother, an orphan of great beauty of person, was forced from her +unprotected state to abandon the hope of a single life, and was +conspicuous in matrimony for her care of strangers and the poor, and for +her offerings to the churches. How religiously she brought up her +children is shown by the singular blessing, that four out of ten have +since been canonized as Saints. St. Basil was one of these; yet the +child of such parents was not baptized till he had come to man's +estate,--till, according to the Benedictine Editor, his twenty-first, +and perhaps his twenty-ninth, year. St. Augustine's mother, who is +herself a Saint, was a Christian when he was born, though his father was +not. Immediately on his birth, he was made a catechumen; in his +childhood he fell ill, and asked for baptism. His mother was alarmed, +and was taking measures for his reception into the Church, when he +suddenly got better, and it was deferred. He did not receive baptism +till the age of thirty-three, after he had been for nine years a victim +of Manichaean error. In like manner, St. Ambrose, though brought up by +his mother and holy nuns, one of them his own sister St. Marcellina, was +not baptized till he was chosen bishop at the age of about thirty-four, +nor his brother St. Satyrus till about the same age, after the serious +warning of a shipwreck. St. Jerome too, though educated at Rome, and so +far under religious influences, as, with other boys, to be in the +observance of Sunday, and of devotions in the catacombs, had no friend +to bring him to baptism, till he had reached man's estate and had +travelled. + + +7. + +Now how are the modern sects, which protest against infant baptism, to +be answered by Anglicans with this array of great names in their favour? +By the later rule of the Church surely; by the _dicta_ of some later +Saints, as by St. Chrysostom; by one or two inferences from Scripture; +by an argument founded on the absolute necessity of Baptism for +salvation,--sufficient reasons certainly, but impotent to reverse the +fact that neither in Dalmatia nor in Cappadocia, neither in Rome, nor in +Africa, was it then imperative on Christian parents, as it is now, to +give baptism to their young children. It was on retrospect and after the +truths of the Creed had sunk into the Christian mind, that the authority +of such men as St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine brought +round the _orbis terrarum_ to the conclusion, which the infallible +Church confirmed, that observance of the rite was the rule, and the +non-observance the exception. + + +8. + +(4.) _Communion in one kind._ + +In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance +pronounced that, "though in the primitive Church the Sacrament" of the +Eucharist "was received by the faithful under each kind, yet the custom +has been reasonably introduced, for the avoiding of certain dangers and +scandals, that it should be received by the consecrators under each +kind, and by the laity only under the kind of Bread; since it is most +firmly to be believed, and in no wise doubted, that the whole Body and +Blood of Christ is truly contained as well under the kind of Bread as +under the kind of Wine." + +Now the question is, whether the doctrine here laid down, and carried +into effect in the usage here sanctioned, was entertained by the early +Church, and may be considered a just development of its principles and +practices. I answer that, starting with the presumption that the Council +has ecclesiastical authority, which is the point here to be assumed, we +shall find quite enough for its defence, and shall be satisfied to +decide in the affirmative; we shall readily come to the conclusion that +Communion under either kind is lawful, each kind conveying the full gift +of the Sacrament. + +For instance, Scripture affords us two instances of what may reasonably +be considered the administration of the form of Bread without that of +Wine; viz. our Lord's own example towards the two disciples at Emmaus, +and St. Paul's action at sea during the tempest. Moreover, St. Luke +speaks of the first Christians as continuing in the "_breaking of +bread_, and in prayer," and of the first day of the week "when they came +together to _break bread_." + +And again, in the sixth chapter of St. John, our Lord says absolutely, +"He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." And, though He distinctly +promises that we shall have it granted to us to drink His blood, as well +as to eat His flesh; nevertheless, not a word does He say to signify +that, as He is the Bread from heaven and the living Bread, so He is the +heavenly, living Wine also. Again, St. Paul says that "whosoever shall +eat this Bread _or_ drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be +guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord." + +Many of the types of the Holy Eucharist, as far as they go, tend to the +same conclusion; as the Manna, to which our Lord referred, the Paschal +Lamb, the Shewbread, the sacrifices from which the blood was poured out, +and the miracle of the loaves, which are figures of the bread alone; +while the water from the rock, and the Blood from our Lord's side +correspond to the wine without the bread. Others are representations of +both kinds; as Melchizedek's feast, and Elijah's miracle of the meal and +oil. + + +9. + +And, further, it certainly was the custom in the early Church, under +circumstances, to communicate in one kind, as we learn from St. Cyprian, +St. Dionysius, St. Basil, St. Jerome, and others. For instance, St. +Cyprian speaks of the communion of an infant under Wine, and of a woman +under Bread; and St. Ambrose speaks of his brother in shipwreck folding +the consecrated Bread in a handkerchief, and placing it round his neck; +and the monks and hermits in the desert can hardly be supposed to have +been ordinarily in possession of consecrated Wine as well as Bread. From +the following Letter of St. Basil, it appears that, not only the monks, +but the whole laity of Egypt ordinarily communicated in Bread only. He +seems to have been asked by his correspondent, whether in time of +persecution it was lawful, in the absence of priest or deacon, to take +the communion "in one's own _hand_," that is, of course, the Bread; he +answers that it may be justified by the following parallel cases, in +mentioning which he is altogether silent about the Cup. "It is plainly +no fault," he says, "for long custom supplies instances enough to +sanction it. For all the monks in the desert, where there is no priest, +keep the communion at home, and partake it from themselves. In +Alexandria too, and in Egypt, each of the laity, for the most part, has +the Communion in his house, and, when he will, he partakes it by means +of himself. For when once the priest has celebrated the Sacrifice and +given it, he who takes it as a whole together, and then partakes of it +daily, reasonably ought to think that he partakes and receives from him +who has given it."[132:1] It should be added, that in the beginning of +the Letter he may be interpreted to speak of communion in both kinds, +and to say that it is "good and profitable." + +Here we have the usage of Pontus, Egypt, Africa, and Milan. Spain may be +added, if a late author is right in his view of the meaning of a Spanish +Canon;[132:2] and Syria, as well as Egypt, at least at a later date, +since Nicephorus[132:3] tells us that the Acephali, having no Bishops, +kept the Bread which their last priests had consecrated, and dispensed +crumbs of it every year at Easter for the purposes of Communion. + + +10. + +But it may be said, that after all it is so very hazardous and fearful a +measure actually to withdraw from Christians one-half of the Sacrament, +that, in spite of these precedents, some direct warrant is needed to +reconcile the mind to it. There might have been circumstances which led +St. Cyprian, or St. Basil, or the Apostolical Christians before them to +curtail it, about which we know nothing. It is not therefore safe in us, +because it was safe in them. Certainly a warrant is necessary; and just +such a warrant is the authority of the Church. If we can trust her +implicitly, there is nothing in the state of the evidence to form an +objection to her decision in this instance, and in proportion as we find +we can trust her does our difficulty lessen. Moreover, children, not to +say infants, were at one time admitted to the Eucharist, at least to the +Cup; on what authority are they now excluded from Cup and Bread also? +St. Augustine considered the usage to be of Apostolical origin; and it +continued in the West down to the twelfth century; it continues in the +East among Greeks, Russo-Greeks, and the various Monophysite Churches to +this day, and that on the ground of its almost universality in the +primitive Church.[133:1] Is it a greater innovation to suspend the Cup, +than to cut off children from Communion altogether? Yet we acquiesce in +the latter deprivation without a scruple. It is safer to acquiesce with, +than without, an authority; safer with the belief that the Church is the +pillar and ground of the truth, than with the belief that in so great a +matter she is likely to err. + + +11. + +(5.) _The Homousion._ + +The next instance I shall take is from the early teaching on the subject +of our Lord's Consubstantiality and Co-eternity. + +In the controversy carried on by various learned men in the seventeenth +and following century, concerning the statements of the early Fathers on +this subject, the one party determined the patristic theology by the +literal force of the separate expressions or phrases used in it, or by +the philosophical opinions of the day; the other, by the doctrine of the +Catholic Church, as afterwards authoritatively declared. The one party +argued that those Fathers _need not_ have meant more than what was +afterwards considered heresy; the other answered that there is _nothing +to prevent_ their meaning more. Thus the position which Bull maintains +seems to be nothing beyond this, that the Nicene Creed is a natural key +for interpreting the body of Ante-nicene theology. His very aim is to +explain difficulties; now the notion of difficulties and their +explanation implies a rule to which they are apparent exceptions, and in +accordance with which they are to be explained. Nay, the title of his +work, which is a "Defence of the Creed of Nicaea," shows that he is not +investigating what is true and what false, but explaining and justifying +a foregone conclusion, as sanctioned by the testimony of the great +Council. Unless the statements of the Fathers had suggested +difficulties, his work would have had no object. He allows that their +language is not such as they would have used after the Creed had been +imposed; but he says in effect that, if we will but take it in our hands +and apply it equitably to their writings, we shall bring out and +harmonize their teaching, clear their ambiguities, and discover their +anomalous statements to be few and insignificant. In other words, he +begins with a presumption, and shows how naturally facts close round it +and fall in with it, if we will but let them. He does this triumphantly, +yet he has an arduous work; out of about thirty writers whom he reviews, +he has, for one cause or other, to "explain piously" nearly twenty. + + +SECTION II. + +OUR LORD'S INCARNATION AND THE DIGNITY OF HIS BLESSED MOTHER AND OF ALL +SAINTS. + +Bishop Bull's controversy had regard to Ante-nicene writers only, and to +little more than to the doctrine of the Divine Son's consubstantiality +and co-eternity; and, as being controversy, it necessarily narrows and +dries up a large and fertile subject. Let us see whether, treated +historically, it will not present itself to us in various aspects which +may rightly be called developments, as coming into view, one out of +another, and following one after another by a natural order of +succession. + + +2. + +First then, that the language of the Ante-nicene Fathers, on the subject +of our Lord's Divinity, may be far more easily accommodated to the Arian +hypothesis than can the language of the Post-nicene, is agreed on all +hands. Thus St. Justin speaks of the Son as subservient to the Father in +the creation of the world, as seen by Abraham, as speaking to Moses from +the bush, as appearing to Joshua before the fall of Jericho,[135:1] as +Minister and Angel, and as numerically distinct from the Father. +Clement, again, speaks of the Word[135:2] as the "Instrument of God," +"close to the Sole Almighty;" "ministering to the Omnipotent Father's +will;"[135:3] "an energy, so to say, or operation of the Father," and +"constituted by His will as the cause of all good."[135:4] Again, the +Council of Antioch, which condemned Paul of Samosata, says that He +"appears to the Patriarchs and converses with them, being testified +sometimes to be an Angel, at other times Lord, at others God;" that, +while "it is impious to think that the God of all is called an Angel, +the Son is the Angel of the Father."[136:1] Formal proof, however, is +unnecessary; had not the fact been as I have stated it, neither Sandius +would have professed to differ from the Post-nicene Fathers, nor would +Bull have had to defend the Ante-nicene. + + +3. + +One principal change which took place, as time went on, was the +following: the Ante-nicene Fathers, as in some of the foregoing +extracts, speak of the Angelic visions in the Old Testament as if they +were appearances of the Son; but St. Augustine introduced the explicit +doctrine, which has been received since his date, that they were simply +Angels, through whom the Omnipresent Son manifested Himself. This indeed +is the only interpretation which the Ante-nicene statements admitted, as +soon as reason began to examine what they did mean. They could not mean +that the Eternal God could really be seen by bodily eyes; if anything +was seen, that must have been some created glory or other symbol, by +which it pleased the Almighty to signify His Presence. What was heard +was a sound, as external to His Essence, and as distinct from His +Nature, as the thunder or the voice of the trumpet, which pealed along +Mount Sinai; what it was had not come under discussion till St. +Augustine; both question and answer were alike undeveloped. The earlier +Fathers spoke as if there were no medium interposed between the Creator +and the creature, and so they seemed to make the Eternal Son the medium; +what it really was, they had not determined. St. Augustine ruled, and +his ruling has been accepted in later times, that it was not a mere +atmospheric phenomenon, or an impression on the senses, but the material +form proper to an Angelic presence, or the presence of an Angel in that +material garb in which blessed Spirits do ordinarily appear to men. +Henceforth the Angel in the bush, the voice which spoke with Abraham, +and the man who wrestled with Jacob, were not regarded as the Son of +God, but as Angelic ministers, whom He employed, and through whom He +signified His presence and His will. Thus the tendency of the +controversy with the Arians was to raise our view of our Lord's +Mediatorial acts, to impress them on us in their divine rather than +their human aspect, and to associate them more intimately with the +ineffable glories which surround the Throne of God. The Mediatorship was +no longer regarded in itself, in that prominently subordinate place +which it had once occupied in the thoughts of Christians, but as an +office assumed by One, who though having become man in order to bear it, +was still God.[137:1] Works and attributes, which had hitherto been +assigned to the Economy or to the Sonship, were now simply assigned to +the Manhood. A tendency was also elicited, as the controversy proceeded, +to contemplate our Lord more distinctly in His absolute perfections, +than in His relation to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, +whereas the Nicene Creed speaks of the "Father Almighty," and "His +Only-begotten Son, our Lord, God from God, Light from Light, Very God +from Very God," and of the Holy Ghost, "the Lord and Giver of Life," we +are told in the Athanasian of "the Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and +the Holy Ghost Eternal," and that "none is afore or after other, none is +greater or less than another." + + +4. + +The Apollinarian and Monophysite controversy, which followed in the +course of the next century, tended towards a development in the same +direction. Since the heresies, which were in question, maintained, at +least virtually, that our Lord was not man, it was obvious to insist on +the passages of Scripture which describe His created and subservient +nature, and this had the immediate effect of interpreting of His manhood +texts which had hitherto been understood more commonly of His Divine +Sonship. Thus, for instance, "My Father is greater than I," which had +been understood even by St. Athanasius of our Lord as God, is applied by +later writers more commonly to His humanity; and in this way the +doctrine of His subordination to the Eternal Father, which formed so +prominent a feature in Ante-nicene theology, comparatively fell into the +shade. + + +5. + +And coincident with these changes, a most remarkable result is +discovered. The Catholic polemic, in view of the Arian and Monophysite +errors, being of this character, became the natural introduction to the +_cultus Sanctorum_; for in proportion as texts descriptive of created +mediation ceased to belong to our Lord, so was a room opened for created +mediators. Nay, as regards the instance of Angelic appearances itself, +as St. Augustine explained them, if those appearances were creatures, +certainly creatures were worshipped by the Patriarchs, not indeed in +themselves,[138:1] but as the token of a Presence greater than +themselves. When "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon +God," he hid his face before a creature; when Jacob said, "I have seen +God face to face and my life is preserved," the Son of God was there, +but what he saw, what he wrestled with, was an Angel. When "Joshua fell +on his face to the earth and did worship before the captain of the +Lord's host, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?" +what was seen and heard was a glorified creature, if St. Augustine is +to be followed; and the Son of God was in him. + +And there were plain precedents in the Old Testament for the lawfulness +of such adoration. When "the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the +tabernacle-door," "all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in +his tent-door."[139:1] When Daniel too saw "a certain man clothed in +linen" "there remained no strength" in him, for his "comeliness was +turned" in him "into corruption." He fell down on his face, and next +remained on his knees and hands, and at length "stood trembling," and +said "O my Lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have +retained no strength. For how can the servant of this my Lord talk with +this my Lord?"[139:2] It might be objected perhaps to this argument, +that a worship which was allowable in an elementary system might be +unlawful when "grace and truth" had come "through Jesus Christ;" but +then it might be retorted surely, that that elementary system had been +emphatically opposed to all idolatry, and had been minutely jealous of +everything which might approach to favouring it. Nay, the very +prominence given in the Pentateuch to the doctrine of a Creator, and the +comparative silence concerning the Angelic creation, and the prominence +given to the Angelic creation in the later Prophets, taken together, +were a token both of that jealousy, and of its cessation, as time went +on. Nor can anything be concluded from St. Paul's censure of Angel +worship, since the sin which he is denouncing was that of "not holding +the Head," and of worshipping creatures _instead_ of the Creator as the +source of good. The same explanation avails for passages like those in +St. Athanasius and Theodoret, in which the worship of Angels is +discountenanced. + + +6. + +The Arian controversy had led to another development, which confirmed by +anticipation the _cultus_ to which St. Augustine's doctrine pointed. In +answer to the objection urged against our Lord's supreme Divinity from +texts which speak of His exaltation, St. Athanasius is led to insist +forcibly on the benefits which have accrued to man through it. He says +that, in truth, not Christ, but that human nature which He had assumed, +was raised and glorified in Him. The more plausible was the heretical +argument against His Divinity from those texts, the more emphatic is St. +Athanasius's exaltation of our regenerate nature by way of explaining +them. But intimate indeed must be the connexion between Christ and His +brethren, and high their glory, if the language which seemed to belong +to the Incarnate Word really belonged to them. Thus the pressure of the +controversy elicited and developed a truth, which till then was held +indeed by Christians, but less perfectly realized and not publicly +recognized. The sanctification, or rather the deification of the nature +of man, is one main subject of St. Athanasius's theology. Christ, in +rising, raises His Saints with Him to the right hand of power. They +become instinct with His life, of one body with His flesh, divine sons, +immortal kings, gods. He is in them, because He is in human nature; and +He communicates to them that nature, deified by becoming His, that them +It may deify. He is in them by the Presence of His Spirit, and in them +He is seen. They have those titles of honour by participation, which are +properly His. Without misgiving we may apply to them the most sacred +language of Psalmists and Prophets. "Thou art a Priest for ever" may be +said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin as well as of their Lord. "He hath +dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor," was fulfilled in St. +Laurence. "I have found David My servant," first said typically of the +King of Israel, and belonging really to Christ, is transferred back +again by grace to His Vicegerents upon earth. "I have given thee the +nations for thine inheritance" is the prerogative of Popes; "Thou hast +given him his heart's desire," the record of a martyr; "thou hast loved +righteousness and hated iniquity," the praise of Virgins. + + +7. + +"As Christ," says St. Athanasius, "died, and was exalted as man, so, as +man, is He said to take what, as God, He ever had, in order that even +this so high a grant of grace might reach to us. For the Word did not +suffer loss in receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a grace, +but rather He deified that which He put on, nay, gave it graciously to +the race of man. . . . For it is the Father's glory, that man, made and +then lost, should be found again; and, when done to death, that he +should be made alive, and should become God's temple. For whereas the +powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were ever worshipping the +Lord, as they are now too worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is +our grace and high exaltation, that, even when He became man, the Son of +God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers are not startled at seeing +all of us, who are of one body with Him, introduced into their +realms."[141:1] In this passage it is almost said that the glorified +Saints will partake in the homage paid by Angels to Christ, the True +Object of all worship; and at least a reason is suggested to us by it +for the Angel's shrinking in the Apocalypse from the homage of St. John, +the Theologian and Prophet of the Church.[141:2] But St. Athanasius +proceeds still more explicitly, "In that the Lord, even when come in +human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God's +Son, and that through Him the Father is known, it is plain, as has been +said, that, _not the Word_, considered as the Word, received this so +great grace, _but we_. For, because of our relationship to His Body, we +too have become God's temple, and in consequence have been made God's +sons, so that _even in us the Lord is now worshipped_, and beholders +report, as the Apostle says, that 'God is in them of a truth.'"[142:1] +It appears to be distinctly stated in this passage, that those who are +formally recognized as God's adopted sons in Christ, are fit objects of +worship on account of Him who is in them; a doctrine which both +interprets and accounts for the invocation of Saints, the _cultus_ of +relics, and the religious veneration in which even the living have +sometimes been held, who, being saintly, were distinguished by +miraculous gifts.[142:2] Worship then is the necessary correlative of +glory; and in the same sense in which created natures can share in the +Creator's incommunicable glory, are they also allowed a share of that +worship which is His property alone. + + +8. + +There was one other subject on which the Arian controversy had a more +intimate, though not an immediate influence. Its tendency to give a new +interpretation to the texts which speak of our Lord's subordination, has +already been noticed; such as admitted of it were henceforth explained +more prominently of His manhood than of His Mediatorship or His Sonship. +But there were other texts which did not admit of this interpretation, +and which, without ceasing to belong to Him, might seem more directly +applicable to a creature than to the Creator. He indeed was really the +"Wisdom in whom the Father eternally delighted," yet it would be but +natural, if, under the circumstances of Arian misbelief, theologians +looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be the immediate object of +such descriptions. And thus the controversy opened a question which it +did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the +realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its +inhabitant. Arianism had admitted that our Lord was both the God of the +Evangelical Covenant, and the actual Creator of the Universe; but even +this was not enough, because it did not confess Him to be the One, +Everlasting, Infinite, Supreme Being, but as one who was made by the +Supreme. It was not enough in accordance with that heresy to proclaim +Him as having an ineffable origin before all worlds; not enough to place +him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God's +Hands; not enough to make Him the King of all Saints, the Intercessor +for man with God, the Object of worship, the Image of the Father; not +enough, because it was not all, and between all and anything short of +all, there was an infinite interval. The highest of creatures is +levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself. That +is, the Nicene Council recognized the eventful principle, that, while we +believe and profess any being to be made of a created nature, such a +being is really no God to us, though honoured by us with whatever high +titles and with whatever homage. Arius or Asterius did all but confess +that Christ was the Almighty; they said much more than St. Bernard or +St. Alphonso have since said of the Blessed Mary; yet they left Him a +creature and were found wanting. Thus there was "a wonder in heaven:" a +throne was seen, far above all other created powers, mediatorial, +intercessory; a title archetypal; a crown bright as the morning star; a +glory issuing from the Eternal Throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a +sceptre over all; and who was the predestined heir of that Majesty? +Since it was not high enough for the Highest, who was that Wisdom, and +what was her name, "the Mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope," +"exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho," +"created from the beginning before the world" in God's everlasting +counsels, and "in Jerusalem her power"? The vision is found in the +Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, +and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not +exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. +The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy. + + +9. + +I am not stating conclusions which were drawn out in the controversy, +but of premisses which were laid, broad and deep. It was then shown, it +was then determined, that to exalt a creature was no recognition of its +divinity. Nor am I speaking of the Semi-Arians, who, holding our Lord's +derivation from the Substance of the Father, yet denying His +Consubstantiality, really did lie open to the charge of maintaining two +Gods, and present no parallel to the defenders of the prerogatives of +St. Mary. But I speak of the Arians who taught that the Son's Substance +was created; and concerning them it is true that St. Athanasius's +condemnation of their theology is a vindication of the Medieval. Yet it +is not wonderful, considering how Socinians, Sabellians, Nestorians, and +the like, abound in these days, without their even knowing it +themselves, if those who never rise higher in their notions of our +Lord's Divinity, than to consider Him a man singularly inhabited by a +Divine Presence, that is, a Catholic Saint,--if such men should mistake +the honour paid by the Church to the human Mother for that very honour +which, and which alone, is worthy of her Eternal Son. + + +10. + +I have said that there was in the first ages no public and +ecclesiastical recognition of the place which St. Mary holds in the +Economy of grace; this was reserved for the fifth century, as the +definition of our Lord's proper Divinity had been the work of the +fourth. There was a controversy contemporary with those already +mentioned, I mean the Nestorian, which brought out the complement of the +development, to which they had been subservient; and which, if I may so +speak, supplied the subject of that august proposition of which Arianism +had provided the predicate. In order to do honour to Christ, in order to +defend the true doctrine of the Incarnation, in order to secure a right +faith in the manhood of the Eternal Son, the Council of Ephesus +determined the Blessed Virgin to be the Mother of God. Thus all heresies +of that day, though opposite to each other, tended in a most wonderful +way to her exaltation; and the School of Antioch, the fountain of +primitive rationalism, led the Church to determine first the conceivable +greatness of a creature, and then the incommunicable dignity of the +Blessed Virgin. + + +11. + +But the spontaneous or traditional feeling of Christians had in great +measure anticipated the formal ecclesiastical decision. Thus the title +_Theotocos_, or Mother of God, was familiar to Christians from primitive +times, and had been used, among other writers, by Origen, Eusebius, St. +Alexander, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. +Gregory Nyssen, and St. Nilus. She had been called Ever-Virgin by +others, as by St. Epiphanius, St. Jerome, and Didymus. By others, "the +Mother of all living," as being the antitype of Eve; for, as St. +Epiphanius observes, "in truth," not in shadow, "from Mary was Life +itself brought into the world, that Mary might bear things living, and +might become Mother of living things."[146:1] St. Augustine says that +all have sinned "except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the +honour of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are +treating of sins." "She was alone and wrought the world's salvation," +says St. Ambrose, alluding to her conception of the Redeemer. She is +signified by the Pillar of the cloud which guided the Israelites, +according to the same Father; and she had "so great grace, as not only +to have virginity herself, but to impart it to those to whom she +came;"--"the Rod out of the stem of Jesse," says St. Jerome, and "the +Eastern gate through which the High Priest alone goes in and out, yet is +ever shut;"--the wise woman, says St. Nilus, who "hath clad all +believers, from the fleece of the Lamb born of her, with the clothing of +incorruption, and delivered them from their spiritual nakedness;"--"the +Mother of Life, of beauty, of majesty, the Morning Star," according to +Antiochus;--"the mystical new heavens," "the heavens carrying the +Divinity," "the fruitful vine by whom we are translated from death unto +life," according to St. Ephraim;--"the manna which is delicate, bright, +sweet, and virgin, which, as though coming from heaven, has poured down +on all the people of the Churches a food pleasanter than honey," +according to St. Maximus. + +St. Proclus calls her "the unsullied shell which contains the pearl of +price," "the sacred shrine of sinlessness," "the golden altar of +holocaust," "the holy oil of anointing," "the costly alabaster box of +spikenard," "the ark gilt within and without," "the heifer whose ashes, +that is, the Lord's Body taken from her, cleanses those who are defiled +by the pollution of sin," "the fair bride of the Canticles," "the stay +(+sterigma+) of believers," "the Church's diadem," "the expression of +orthodoxy." These are oratorical expressions; but we use oratory on +great subjects, not on small. Elsewhere he calls her "God's only bridge +to man;" and elsewhere he breaks forth, "Run through all creation in +your thoughts, and see if there be equal to, or greater than, the Holy +Virgin Mother of God." + + +12. + +Theodotus too, one of the Fathers of Ephesus, or whoever it is whose +Homilies are given to St. Amphilochius:--"As debtors and God's +well-affected servants, let us make confession to God the Word and to +His Mother, of the gift of words, as far as we are able. . . Hail, +Mother, clad in light, of the light which sets not; hail all-undefiled +mother of holiness; hail most pellucid fountain of the life-giving +stream!" After speaking of the Incarnation, he continues, "Such +paradoxes doth the Divine Virgin Mother ever bring to us in her holy +irradiations, for with her is the Fount of Life, and breasts of the +spiritual and guileless milk; from which to suck the sweetness, we have +even now earnestly run to her, not as in forgetfulness of what has gone +before, but in desire of what is to come." + +To St. Fulgentius is ascribed the following: "Mary became the window of +heaven, for God through her poured the True Light upon the world; the +heavenly ladder, for through her did God descend upon earth. . . . . +Come, ye virgins, to a Virgin, come ye who conceive to one who did +conceive, ye who bear to one who bore, mothers to a Mother, ye who give +suck to one who suckled, young women to the Young." Lastly, "Thou hast +found grace," says St. Peter Chrysologus, "how much? he had said above, +Full. And full indeed, which with full shower might pour upon and into +the whole creation."[148:1] + + * * * * * + +Such was the state of sentiment on the subject of the Blessed Virgin, +which the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite heresies found in the +Church; and on which the doctrinal decisions consequent upon them +impressed a form and a consistency which has been handed on in the East +and West to this day. + + +SECTION III. + +THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. + +I will take one instance more. Let us see how, on the principles which I +have been laying down and defending, the evidence lies for the Pope's +Supremacy. + +As to this doctrine the question is this, whether there was not from the +first a certain element at work, or in existence, divinely sanctioned, +which, for certain reasons, did not at once show itself upon the surface +of ecclesiastical affairs, and of which events in the fourth century +are the development; and whether the evidence of its existence and +operation, which does occur in the earlier centuries, be it much or +little, is not just such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis. + + +2. + +For instance, it is true, St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the +subject of the Pope's authority; but if in fact that authority could not +be in active operation then, such silence is not so difficult to account +for as the silence of Seneca or Plutarch about Christianity itself, or +of Lucian about the Roman people. St. Ignatius directed his doctrine +according to the need. While Apostles were on earth, there was the +display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as +being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the +Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. When the +Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into +portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of +internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be +wanted. Christians at home did not yet quarrel with Christians abroad; +they quarrelled at home among themselves. St. Ignatius applied the +fitting remedy. The _Sacramentum Unitatis_ was acknowledged on all +hands; the mode of fulfilling and the means of securing it would vary +with the occasion; and the determination of its essence, its seat, and +its laws would be a gradual supply for a gradual necessity. + + +3. + +This is but natural, and is parallel to instances which happen daily, +and may be so considered without prejudice to the divine right whether +of the Episcopate or of the Papacy. It is a common occurrence for a +quarrel and a lawsuit to bring out the state of the law, and then the +most unexpected results often follow. St. Peter's prerogative would +remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters +became the cause of ascertaining it. While Christians were "of one heart +and one soul," it would be suspended; love dispenses with laws. +Christians knew that they must live in unity, and they were in unity; in +what that unity consisted, how far they could proceed, as it were, in +bending it, and what at length was the point at which it broke, was an +irrelevant as well as unwelcome inquiry. Relatives often live together +in happy ignorance of their respective rights and properties, till a +father or a husband dies; and then they find themselves against their +will in separate interests, and on divergent courses, and dare not move +without legal advisers. Again, the case is conceivable of a corporation +or an Academical body, going on for centuries in the performance of the +routine-business which came in its way, and preserving a good +understanding between its members, with statutes almost a dead letter +and no precedents to explain them, and the rights of its various classes +and functions undefined,--then of its being suddenly thrown back by the +force of circumstances upon the question of its formal character as a +body politic, and in consequence developing in the relation of governors +and governed. The _regalia Petri_ might sleep, as the power of a +Chancellor has slept; not as an obsolete, for they never had been +carried into effect, but as a mysterious privilege, which was not +understood; as an unfulfilled prophecy. For St. Ignatius to speak of +Popes, when it was a matter of Bishops, would have been like sending an +army to arrest a housebreaker. The Bishop's power indeed was from God, +and the Pope's could be no more; he, as well as the Pope, was our Lord's +representative, and had a sacramental office: but I am speaking, not of +the intrinsic sanctity or divinity of such an office, but of its duties. + + +4. + +When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local +disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances +gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was +necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a +suspension of that communion had actually occurred. It is not a greater +difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about +Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about +Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not +formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no +formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is +violated. + +And, in like manner, it was natural for Christians to direct their +course in matters of doctrine by the guidance of mere floating, and, as +it were, endemic tradition, while it was fresh and strong; but in +proportion as it languished, or was broken in particular places, did it +become necessary to fall back upon its special homes, first the +Apostolic Sees, and then the See of St. Peter. + + +5. + +Moreover, an international bond and a common authority could not be +consolidated, were it ever so certainly provided, while persecutions +lasted. If the Imperial Power checked the development of Councils, it +availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy. The Creed, the +Canon, in like manner, both remained undefined. The Creed, the Canon, +the Papacy, Ecumenical Councils, all began to form, as soon as the +Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church. And as it was +natural that her monarchical power should display itself when the Empire +became Christian, so was it natural also that further developments of +that power should take place when that Empire fell. Moreover, when the +power of the Holy See began to exert itself, disturbance and collision +would be the necessary consequence. Of the Temple of Solomon, it was +said that "neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in +the house, while it was in building." This is a type of the Church +above; it was otherwise with the Church below, whether in the instance +of Popes or Apostles. In either case, a new power had to be defined; as +St. Paul had to plead, nay, to strive for his apostolic authority, and +enjoined St. Timothy, as Bishop of Ephesus, to let no man despise him: +so Popes too have not therefore been ambitious because they did not +establish their authority without a struggle. It was natural that +Polycrates should oppose St. Victor; and natural too that St. Cyprian +should both extol the See of St. Peter, yet resist it when he thought it +went beyond its province. And at a later day it was natural that +Emperors should rise in indignation against it; and natural, on the +other hand, that it should take higher ground with a younger power than +it had taken with an elder and time-honoured. + + +6. + +We may follow Barrow here without reluctance, except in his imputation +of motives. + +"In the first times," he says, "while the Emperors were pagans, their +[the Popes'] pretences were suited to their condition, and could not +soar high; they were not then so mad as to pretend to any temporal +power, and a pittance of spiritual eminency did content them." + +Again: "The state of the most primitive Church did not well admit such +an universal sovereignty. For that did consist of small bodies +incoherently situated, and scattered about in very distant places, and +consequently unfit to be modelled into one political society, or to be +governed by one head, especially considering their condition under +persecution and poverty. What convenient resort for direction or justice +could a few distressed Christians in Egypt, Ethiopia, Parthia, India, +Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Cappadocia, and other parts, have to Rome!" + +Again: "Whereas no point avowed by Christians could be so apt to raise +offence and jealousy in pagans against our religion as this, which +setteth up a power of so vast extent and huge influence; whereas no +novelty could be more surprising or startling than the creation of an +universal empire over the consciences and religious practices of men; +whereas also this doctrine could not be but very conspicuous and glaring +in ordinary practice, it is prodigious that all pagans should not loudly +exclaim against it," that is, on the supposition that the Papal power +really was then in actual exercise. + +And again: "It is most prodigious that, in the disputes managed by the +Fathers against heretics, the Gnostics, Valentinians, &c., they should +not, even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence of the +universal pastor and judge, as a most evidently conclusive argument, as +the most efficacious and compendious method of convincing and silencing +them." + +Once more: "Even Popes themselves have shifted their pretences, and +varied in style, according to the different circumstances of time, and +their variety of humours, designs, interests. In time of prosperity, and +upon advantage, when they might safely do it, any Pope almost would talk +high and assume much to himself; but when they were low, or stood in +fear of powerful contradiction, even the boldest Popes would speak +submissively or moderately."[153:1] + +On the whole, supposing the power to be divinely bestowed, yet in the +first instance more or less dormant, a history could not be traced out +more probable, more suitable to that hypothesis, than the actual course +of the controversy which took place age after age upon the Papal +supremacy. + + +7. + +It will be said that all this is a theory. Certainly it is: it is a +theory to account for facts as they lie in the history, to account for +so much being told us about the Papal authority in early times, and not +more; a theory to reconcile what is and what is not recorded about it; +and, which is the principal point, a theory to connect the words and +acts of the Ante-nicene Church with that antecedent probability of a +monarchical principle in the Divine Scheme, and that actual +exemplification of it in the fourth century, which forms their +presumptive interpretation. All depends on the strength of that +presumption. Supposing there be otherwise good reason for saying that +the Papal Supremacy is part of Christianity, there is nothing in the +early history of the Church to contradict it. + + +8. + +It follows to inquire in what this presumption consists? It has, as I +have said, two parts, the antecedent probability of a Popedom, and the +actual state of the Post-nicene Church. The former of these reasons has +unavoidably been touched upon in what has preceded. It is the absolute +need of a monarchical power in the Church which is our ground for +anticipating it. A political body cannot exist without government, and +the larger is the body the more concentrated must the government be. If +the whole of Christendom is to form one Kingdom, one head is essential; +at least this is the experience of eighteen hundred years. As the Church +grew into form, so did the power of the Pope develope; and wherever the +Pope has been renounced, decay and division have been the consequence. +We know of no other way of preserving the _Sacramentum Unitatis_, but a +centre of unity. The Nestorians have had their "Catholicus;" the +Lutherans of Prussia have their general superintendent; even the +Independents, I believe, have had an overseer in their Missions. The +Anglican Church affords an observable illustration of this doctrine. As +her prospects have opened and her communion extended, the See of +Canterbury has become the natural centre of her operations. It has at +the present time jurisdiction in the Mediterranean, at Jerusalem, in +Hindostan, in North America, at the Antipodes. It has been the organ of +communication, when a Prime Minister would force the Church to a +redistribution of her property, or a Protestant Sovereign abroad would +bring her into friendly relations with his own communion. Eyes have been +lifted up thither in times of perplexity; thither have addresses been +directed and deputations sent. Thence issue the legal decisions, or the +declarations in Parliament, or the letters, or the private +interpositions, which shape the fortunes of the Church, and are the +moving influence within her separate dioceses. It must be so; no Church +can do without its Pope. We see before our eyes the centralizing process +by which the See of St. Peter became the Sovereign Head of Christendom. + +If such be the nature of the case, it is impossible, if we may so speak +reverently, that an Infinite Wisdom, which sees the end from the +beginning, in decreeing the rise of an universal Empire, should not have +decreed the development of a sovereign ruler. + +Moreover, all this must be viewed in the light of the general +probability, so much insisted on above, that doctrine cannot but +develope as time proceeds and need arises, and that its developments are +parts of the Divine system, and that therefore it is lawful, or rather +necessary, to interpret the words and deeds of the earlier Church by the +determinate teaching of the later. + + +9. + +And, on the other hand, as the counterpart of these anticipations, we +are met by certain announcements in Scripture, more or less obscure and +needing a comment, and claimed by the Papal See as having their +fulfilment in itself. Such are the words, "Thou art Peter, and upon this +rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail +against it, and I will give unto Thee the Keys of the Kingdom of +Heaven." Again: "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." And "Satan hath desired +to have you; I have prayed for thee, and when thou art converted, +strengthen thy brethren." Such, too, are various other indications of +the Divine purpose as regards St. Peter, too weak in themselves to be +insisted on separately, but not without a confirmatory power; such as +his new name, his walking on the sea, his miraculous draught of fishes +on two occasions, our Lord's preaching out of his boat, and His +appearing first to him after His resurrection. + +It should be observed, moreover, that a similar promise was made by the +patriarch Jacob to Judah: "Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: +the sceptre shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come;" yet this +promise was not fulfilled for perhaps eight hundred years, during which +long period we hear little or nothing of the tribe descended from him. +In like manner, "On this rock I will build My Church," "I give unto thee +the Keys," "Feed My sheep," are not precepts merely, but prophecies and +promises, promises to be accomplished by Him who made them, prophecies +to be fulfilled according to the need, and to be interpreted by the +event,--by the history, that is, of the fourth and fifth centuries, +though they had a partial fulfilment even in the preceding period, and a +still more noble development in the middle ages. + + +10. + +A partial fulfilment, or at least indications of what was to be, there +certainly were in the first age. Faint one by one, at least they are +various, and are found in writers of many times and countries, and +thereby illustrative of each other, and forming a body of proof. Thus +St. Clement, in the name of the Church of Rome, writes to the +Corinthians, when they were without a bishop; St. Ignatius of Antioch +addresses the Roman Church, out of the Churches to which he writes, as +"the Church, which has in dignity the first seat, of the city of the +Romans,"[157:1] and implies that it was too high for his directing as +being the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Polycarp of Smyrna has +recourse to the Bishop of Rome on the question of Easter; the heretic +Marcion, excommunicated in Pontus, betakes himself to Rome; Soter, +Bishop of Rome, sends alms, according to the custom of his Church, to +the Churches throughout the empire, and, in the words of Eusebius, +"affectionately exhorted those who came to Rome, as a father his +children;" the Montanists from Phrygia come to Rome to gain the +countenance of its Bishop; Praxeas, from Asia, attempts the like, and +for a while is successful; St. Victor, Bishop of Rome, threatens to +excommunicate the Asian Churches; St. Irenaeus speaks of Rome as "the +greatest Church, the most ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded and +established by Peter and Paul," appeals to its tradition, not in +contrast indeed, but in preference to that of other Churches, and +declares that "to this Church, every Church, that is, the faithful from +every side must resort" or "must agree with it, _propter potiorem +principalitatem_." "O Church, happy in its position," says Tertullian, +"into which the Apostles poured out, together with their blood, their +whole doctrine;" and elsewhere, though in indignation and bitter +mockery, he calls the Pope "the Pontifex Maximus, the Bishop of +Bishops." The presbyters of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, +complain of his doctrine to St. Dionysius of Rome; the latter +expostulates with him, and he explains. The Emperor Aurelian leaves "to +the Bishops of Italy and of Rome" the decision, whether or not Paul of +Samosata shall be dispossessed of the see-house at Antioch; St. Cyprian +speaks of Rome as "the See of Peter and the principal Church, whence +the unity of the priesthood took its rise, . . whose faith has been +commended by the Apostles, to whom faithlessness can have no access;" +St. Stephen refuses to receive St. Cyprian's deputation, and separates +himself from various Churches of the East; Fortunatus and Felix, deposed +by St. Cyprian, have recourse to Rome; Basilides, deposed in Spain, +betakes himself to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen. + + +11. + +St. Cyprian had his quarrel with the Roman See, but it appears he allows +to it the title of the "Cathedra Petri," and even Firmilian is a witness +that Rome claimed it. In the fourth and fifth centuries this title and +its logical results became prominent. Thus St. Julius (A.D. 342) +remonstrated by letter with the Eusebian party for "proceeding on their +own authority as they pleased," and then, as he says, "desiring to +obtain our concurrence in their decisions, though we never condemned +[Athanasius]. Not so have the constitutions of Paul, not so have the +traditions of the Fathers directed; this is another form of procedure, a +novel practice. . . . For what we have received from the blessed Apostle +Peter, that I signify to you; and I should not have written this, as +deeming that these things are manifest unto all men, had not these +proceedings so disturbed us."[158:1] St. Athanasius, by preserving this +protest, has given it his sanction. Moreover, it is referred to by +Socrates; and his account of it has the more force, because he happens +to be incorrect in the details, and therefore did not borrow it from +St. Athanasius: "Julius wrote back," he says, "that they acted against +the Canons, because they had not called him to the Council, the +Ecclesiastical Canon commanding that the Churches ought not to make +Canons beside the will of the Bishop of Rome."[159:1] And Sozomen: "It +was a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid whatever was transacted beside +the will of the Bishop of the Romans."[159:2] On the other hand, the +heretics themselves, whom St. Julius withstands, are obliged to +acknowledge that Rome was "the School of the Apostles and the Metropolis +of orthodoxy from the beginning;" and two of their leaders (Western +Bishops indeed) some years afterwards recanted their heresy before the +Pope in terms of humble confession. + + +12. + +Another Pope, St. Damasus, in his letter addressed to the Eastern +Bishops against Apollinaris (A.D. 382), calls those Bishops his sons. +"In that your charity pays the due reverence to the Apostolical See, ye +profit yourselves the most, most honoured sons. For if, placed as we are +in that Holy Church, in which the Holy Apostle sat and taught, how it +becometh us to direct the helm to which we have succeeded, we +nevertheless confess ourselves unequal to that honour; yet do we +therefore study as we may, if so be we may be able to attain to the +glory of his blessedness."[159:3] "I speak," says St. Jerome to the same +St. Damasus, "with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of +the Cross. I, following no one as my chief but Christ, am associated in +communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. I know +that on that rock the Church is built. Whosoever shall eat the Lamb +outside this House is profane; if a man be not in the Ark of Noe, he +shall perish when the flood comes in its power."[160:1] St. Basil +entreats St. Damasus to send persons to arbitrate between the Churches +of Asia Minor, or at least to make a report on the authors of their +troubles, and name the party with which the Pope should hold communion. +"We are in no wise asking anything new," he proceeds, "but what was +customary with blessed and religious men of former times, and especially +with yourself. For we know, by tradition of our fathers of whom we have +inquired, and from the information of writings still preserved among us, +that Dionysius, that most blessed Bishop, while he was eminent among you +for orthodoxy and other virtues, sent letters of visitation to our +Church at Caesarea, and of consolation to our fathers, with ransomers of +our brethren from captivity." In like manner, Ambrosiaster, a Pelagian +in his doctrine, which here is not to the purpose, speaks of the "Church +being God's house, whose ruler at this time is Damasus."[160:2] + + +13. + +"We bear," says St. Siricius, another Pope (A.D. 385), "the burden of +all who are laden; yea, rather the blessed Apostle Peter beareth them in +us, who, as we trust, in all things protects and defends us the heirs of +his government."[160:3] And he in turn is confirmed by St. Optatus. "You +cannot deny your knowledge," says the latter to Parmenian, the Donatist, +"that, in the city Rome, on Peter first hath an Episcopal See been +conferred, in which Peter sat, the head of all the Apostles, . . . in +which one See unity might be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles +should support their respective Sees; in order that he might be at once +a schismatic and a sinner, who against that one See (_singularem_) +placed a second. Therefore that one See (_unicam_), which is the first +of the Church's prerogatives, Peter filled first; to whom succeeded +Linus; to Linus, Clement; to Clement, &c., &c. . . . to Damasus, +Siricius, who at this day is associated with us (_socius_), together +with whom the whole world is in accordance with us, in the one bond of +communion, by the intercourse of letters of peace."[161:1] + +Another Pope: "Diligently and congruously do ye consult the _arcana_ of +the Apostolical dignity," says St. Innocent to the Council of Milevis +(A.D. 417), "the dignity of him on whom, beside those things which are +without, falls the care of all the Churches; following the form of the +ancient rule, which you know, as well as I, has been preserved always by +the whole world."[161:2] Here the Pope appeals, as it were, to the Rule +of Vincentius; while St. Augustine bears witness that he did not outstep +his Prerogative, for, giving an account of this and another letter, he +says, "He [the Pope] answered us as to all these matters as it was +religious and becoming in the Bishop of the Apostolic See."[161:3] + +Another Pope: "We have especial anxiety about all persons," says St. +Celestine (A.D. 425), to the Illyrian Bishops, "on whom, in the holy +Apostle Peter, Christ conferred the necessity of making all men our +care, when He gave him the Keys of opening and shutting." And St. +Prosper, his contemporary, confirms him, when he calls Rome "the seat of +Peter, which, being made to the world the head of pastoral honour, +possesses by religion what it does not possess by arms;" and Vincent of +Lerins, when he calls the Pope "the head of the world."[161:4] + + +14. + +Another Pope: "Blessed Peter," says St. Leo (A.D. 440, &c.), "hath not +deserted the helm of the Church which he had assumed. . . His power +lives and his authority is pre-eminent in his See."[162:1] "That +immoveableness, which, from the Rock Christ, he, when made a rock, +received, has been communicated also to his heirs."[162:2] And as St. +Athanasius and the Eusebians, by their contemporary testimonies, confirm +St. Julius; and St. Jerome, St. Basil; and Ambrosiaster, St. Damasus; +and St. Optatus, St. Siricius; and St. Augustine, St. Innocent; and St. +Prosper and Vincent, St. Celestine; so do St. Peter Chrysologus, and the +Council of Chalcedon confirm St. Leo. "Blessed Peter," says Chrysologus, +"who lives and presides in his own See, supplies truth of faith to those +who seek it."[162:3] And the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, addressing +St. Leo respecting Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria: "He extends his +madness even against him to whom the custody of the vineyard has been +committed by the Saviour, that is, against thy Apostolical +holiness."[162:4] But the instance of St. Leo will occur again in a +later Chapter. + + +15. + +The acts of the fourth century speak as strongly as its words. We may +content ourselves here with Barrow's admissions:-- + +"The Pope's power," he says, "was much amplified by the importunity of +persons condemned or extruded from their places, whether upon just +accounts, or wrongfully, and by faction; for they, finding no other more +hopeful place of refuge and redress, did often apply to him: for what +will not men do, whither will not they go in straits? Thus did Marcion +go to Rome, and sue for admission to communion there. So Fortunatus and +Felicissimus in St. Cyprian, being condemned in Afric, did fly to Rome +for shelter; of which absurdity St. Cyprian doth so complain. So +likewise Martianus and Basilides in St. Cyprian, being outed of their +Sees for having lapsed from the Christian profession, did fly to Stephen +for succour, to be restored. So Maximus, the Cynic, went to Rome, to get +a confirmation of his election at Constantinople. So Marcellus, being +rejected for heterodoxy, went thither to get attestation to his +orthodoxy, of which St. Basil complaineth. So Apiarus, being condemned +in Afric for his crimes, did appeal to Rome. And, on the other side, +Athanasius being with great partiality condemned by the Synod of Tyre; +Paulus and other bishops being extruded from their sees for orthodoxy; +St. Chrysostom being condemned and expelled by Theophilus and his +complices; Flavianus being deposed by Dioscorus and the Ephesine synod; +Theodoret being condemned by the same; did cry out for help to Rome. +Chelidonius, Bishop of Besancon, being deposed by Hilarius of Arles for +crime, did fly to Pope Leo." + +Again: "Our adversaries do oppose some instances of popes meddling in +the constitution of bishops; as, Pope Leo I. saith, that Anatolius did +'by the favour of his assent obtain the bishopric of Constantinople.' +The same Pope is alleged as having confirmed Maximus of Antioch. The +same doth write to the Bishop of Thessalonica, his vicar, that he should +'confirm the elections of bishops by his authority.' He also confirmed +Donatus, an African bishop:--'We will that Donatus preside over the +Lord's flock, upon condition that he remember to send us an account of +his faith.' . . Pope Damasus did confirm the ordination of Peter +Alexandrinus." + + +16. + +And again: "The Popes indeed in the fourth century began to practise a +fine trick, very serviceable to the enlargement of their power; which +was to confer on certain bishops, as occasion served, or for +continuance, the title of their vicar or lieutenant, thereby pretending +to impart authority to them; whereby they were enabled for performance +of divers things, which otherwise by their own episcopal or +metropolitical power they could not perform. By which device they did +engage such bishops to such a dependence on them, whereby they did +promote the papal authority in provinces, to the oppression of the +ancient rights and liberties of bishops and synods, doing what they +pleased under pretence of this vast power communicated to them; and for +fear of being displaced, or out of affection to their favourer, doing +what might serve to advance the papacy. Thus did Pope Celestine +constitute Cyril in his room. Pope Leo appointed Anatolius of +Constantinople; Pope Felix, Acacius of Constantinople. . . . . Pope +Simplicius to Zeno, Bishop of Seville: 'We thought it convenient that +you should be held up by the vicariat authority of our see.' So did +Siricius and his successors constitute the bishops of Thessalonica to be +their vicars in the diocese of Illyricum, wherein being then a member of +the western empire they had caught a special jurisdiction; to which Pope +Leo did refer in those words, which sometimes are impertinently alleged +with reference to all bishops, but concern only Anastasius, Bishop of +Thessalonica: 'We have entrusted thy charity to be in our stead; so that +thou art called into part of the solicitude, not into plenitude of the +authority.' So did Pope Zosimus bestow a like pretence of vicarious +power upon the Bishop of Arles, which city was the seat of the temporal +exarch in Gaul."[164:1] + + +17. + +More ample testimony for the Papal Supremacy, as now professed by Roman +Catholics, is scarcely necessary than what is contained in these +passages; the simple question is, whether the clear light of the fourth +and fifth centuries may be fairly taken to interpret to us the dim, +though definite, outlines traced in the preceding. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[123:1] Wood's Mechanics, p. 31. + +[124:1] Authent. N. T. Tr. p. 237. + +[124:2] According to Less. + +[124:3] Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 78 [Discuss. iii. 6, p. 207]. + +[125:1] [Ibid. p. 209. These results are taken from Less, and are +practically accurate.] + +[126:1] No. 85 [Discuss. p. 236]. + +[132:1] Ep. 93. I have thought it best to give an over-literal +translation. + +[132:2] Vid. Concil. Bracar. ap. Aguirr. Conc. Hisp. t. ii. p. 676. +"That the cup was not administered at the same time is not so clear; but +from the tenor of this first Canon in the Acts of the Third Council of +Braga, which condemns the notion that the Host should be steeped in the +chalice, we have no doubt that the wine was withheld from the laity. +Whether certain points of doctrine are or are not found in the +Scriptures is no concern of the historian; all that he has to do is +religiously to follow his guides, to suppress or distrust nothing +through partiality."--_Dunham_, _Hist. of Spain and Port._ vol. i. p. +204. If _pro complemento communionis_ in the Canon merely means "for the +Cup," at least the Cup is spoken of as a complement; the same view is +contained in the "confirmation of the Eucharist," as spoken of in St. +German's life. Vid. Lives of Saints, No. 9, p. 28. + +[132:3] Niceph. Hist. xviii. 45. Renaudot, however, tells us of two +Bishops at the time when the schism was at length healed. Patr. Al. Jac. +p. 248. However, these had been consecrated by priests, p. 145. + +[133:1] Vid. Bing. Ant. xv. 4, Sect. 7; and Fleury, Hist. xxvi. 50, note +_g_. + +[135:1] Kaye's Justin, p. 59, &c. + +[135:2] Kaye's Clement, p. 335. + +[135:3] p. 341. + +[135:4] Ib. 342. + +[136:1] Reliqu. Sacr. t. ii. p. 469, 470. + +[137:1] [This subject is more exactly and carefully treated in Tracts +Theol. and Eccles. pp. 192-226.] + +[138:1] [They also had a _cultus_ in themselves, and specially when a +greater Presence did _not_ overshadow them. _Vid._ Via Media, vol. ii. +art. iv. 8, note 1.] + +[139:1] Exod. xxxiii. 10. + +[139:2] Dan. x. 5-17. + +[141:1] Athan. Orat. i. 42, Oxf. tr. + +[141:2] [_Vid. supr._ p. 138, note 8.] + +[142:1] Athan. ibid. + +[142:2] And so Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine: "The all-holy choir +of God's perpetual virgins, he was used almost to worship (+sebon+), +believing that that God, to whom they had consecrated themselves, was an +inhabitant in the souls of such." Vit. Const. iv. 28. + +[146:1] Haer. 78, 18. + +[148:1] Aug. de Nat. et Grat. 42. Ambros. Ep. 1, 49, Sect. 2. In Psalm +118, v. 3, de Instit. Virg. 50. Hier. in Is. xi. 1, contr. Pelag. ii. 4. +Nil. Ep. i. p. 267. Antioch. ap. Cyr. de Rect. Fid. p. 49. Ephr. Opp. +Syr. t. 3, p. 607. Max. Hom. 45. Procl. Orat. vi. pp. 225-228, p. 60, p. +179, 180, ed. 1630. Theodot. ap. Amphiloch. pp. 39, &c. Fulgent. Serm. +3, p. 125. Chrysol. Serm. 142. A striking passage from another Sermon of +the last-mentioned author, on the words "She cast in her mind what +manner of salutation," &c., may be added: "Quantus sit Deus satis +ignorat ille, qui hujus Virginis mentem non stupet, animum non miratur. +Pavet coelum, tremunt Angeli, creatura non sustinet, natura non +sufficit; et una puella sic Deum in sui pectoris capit, recipit, +oblectat hospitio, ut pacem terris, coelis gloriam, salutem perditis, +vitam mortuis, terrenis cum coelestibus parentelam, ipsius Dei cum carne +commercium, pro ipsa domus exigat pensione, pro ipsius uteri mercede +conquirat," &c. Serm. 140. [St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of +Alexandria sometimes speak, it is true, in a different tone; on this +subject vid. "Letter to Dr. Pusey," Note iii., Diff. of Angl. vol. 2.] + +[153:1] Pope's Suprem. ed. 1836, pp. 26, 27, 157, 171, 222. + +[157:1] +hetis kai prokathetai en topo choriou Rhomaion.+ + +[158:1] Athan. Hist. Tracts. Oxf. tr. p. 56. + +[159:1] Hist. ii. 17. + +[159:2] Hist. iii. 10. + +[159:3] Theod. Hist. v. 10. + +[160:1] Coustant, Epp. Pont. p. 546. + +[160:2] In 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15. + +[160:3] Coustant, p. 624. + +[161:1] ii. 3. + +[161:2] Coustant, pp. 896, 1064. + +[161:3] Ep. 186, 2. + +[161:4] De Ingrat. 2. Common. 41. + +[162:1] Serm. De Natal. iii. 3. + +[162:2] Ibid. v. 4. + +[162:3] Ep. ad Eutych. fin. + +[162:4] Concil. Hard. t. ii. p. 656. + +[164:1] Barrow on the Supremacy, ed. 1836, pp. 263, 331, 384. + + + + +PART II. + +DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS + +VIEWED RELATIVELY TO DOCTRINAL + +CORRUPTIONS. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +GENUINE DEVELOPMENTS CONTRASTED WITH CORRUPTIONS. + + +I have been engaged in drawing out the positive and direct argument in +proof of the intimate connexion, or rather oneness, with primitive +Apostolic teaching, of the body of doctrine known at this day by +the name of Catholic, and professed substantially both by Eastern +and Western Christendom. That faith is undeniably the historical +continuation of the religious system, which bore the name of Catholic in +the eighteenth century, in the seventeenth, in the sixteenth, and so +back in every preceding century, till we arrive at the first;--undeniably +the successor, the representative, the heir of the religion of Cyprian, +Basil, Ambrose and Augustine. The only question that can be raised is +whether the said Catholic faith, as now held, is logically, as well as +historically, the representative of the ancient faith. This then is the +subject, to which I have as yet addressed myself, and I have maintained +that modern Catholicism is nothing else but simply the legitimate growth +and complement, that is, the natural and necessary development, of the +doctrine of the early church, and that its divine authority is included +in the divinity of Christianity. + + +2. + +So far I have gone, but an important objection presents itself for +distinct consideration. It may be said in answer to me that it is not +enough that a certain large system of doctrine, such as that which goes +by the name of Catholic, should admit of being referred to beliefs, +opinions, and usages which prevailed among the first Christians, in +order to my having a logical right to include a reception of the later +teaching in the reception of the earlier; that an intellectual +development may be in one sense natural, and yet untrue to its original, +as diseases come of nature, yet are the destruction, or rather the +negation of health; that the causes which stimulate the growth of ideas +may also disturb and deform them; and that Christianity might indeed +have been intended by its Divine Author for a wide expansion of the +ideas proper to it, and yet this great benefit hindered by the evil +birth of cognate errors which acted as its counterfeit; in a word, that +what I have called developments in the Roman Church are nothing more or +less than what used to be called her corruptions; and that new names do +not destroy old grievances. + +This is what may be said, and I acknowledge its force: it becomes +necessary in consequence to assign certain characteristics of faithful +developments, which none but faithful developments have, and the +presence of which serves as a test to discriminate between them and +corruptions. This I at once proceed to do, and I shall begin by +determining what a corruption is, and why it cannot rightly be called, +and how it differs from, a development. + + +3. + +To find then what a corruption or perversion of the truth is, let us +inquire what the word means, when used literally of material substances. +Now it is plain, first of all, that a corruption is a word attaching to +organized matters only; a stone may be crushed to powder, but it cannot +be corrupted. Corruption, on the contrary, is the breaking up of life, +preparatory to its termination. This resolution of a body into its +component parts is the stage before its dissolution; it begins when life +has reached its perfection, and it is the sequel, or rather the +continuation, of that process towards perfection, being at the same time +the reversal and undoing of what went before. Till this point of +regression is reached, the body has a function of its own, and a +direction and aim in its action, and a nature with laws; these it is now +losing, and the traits and tokens of former years; and with them its +vigour and powers of nutrition, of assimilation, and of self-reparation. + + +4. + +Taking this analogy as a guide, I venture to set down seven Notes of +varying cogency, independence and applicability, to discriminate healthy +developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as +follows:--There is no corruption if it retains one and the same type, +the same principles, the same organization; if its beginnings anticipate +its subsequent phases, and its later phenomena protect and subserve its +earlier; if it has a power of assimilation and revival, and a vigorous +action from first to last. On these tests I shall now enlarge, nearly in +the order in which I have enumerated them. + + +SECTION I. + +FIRST NOTE OF A GENUINE DEVELOPMENT. + +PRESERVATION OF TYPE. + +This is readily suggested by the analogy of physical growth, which is +such that the parts and proportions of the developed form, however +altered, correspond to those which belong to its rudiments. The adult +animal has the same make, as it had on its birth; young birds do not +grow into fishes, nor does the child degenerate into the brute, wild or +domestic, of which he is by inheritance lord. Vincentius of Lerins +adopts this illustration in distinct reference to Christian doctrine. +"Let the soul's religion," he says "imitate the law of the body, which, +as years go on developes indeed and opens out its due proportions, and +yet remains identically what it was. Small are a baby's limbs, a youth's +are larger, yet they are the same."[172:1] + + +2. + +In like manner every calling or office has its own type, which those who +fill it are bound to maintain; and to deviate from the type in any +material point is to relinquish the calling. Thus both Chaucer and +Goldsmith have drawn pictures of a true parish priest; these differ in +details, but on the whole they agree together, and are one in such +sense, that sensuality, or ambition, must be considered a forfeiture of +that high title. Those magistrates, again, are called "corrupt," who are +guided in their judgments by love of lucre or respect of persons, for +the administration of justice is their essential function. Thus +collegiate or monastic bodies lose their claim to their endowments or +their buildings, as being relaxed and degenerate, if they neglect their +statutes or their Rule. Thus, too, in political history, a mayor of the +palace, such as he became in the person of Pepin, was no faithful +development of the office he filled, as originally intended and +established. + + +3. + +In like manner, it has been argued by a late writer, whether fairly or +not does not interfere with the illustration, that the miraculous vision +and dream of the Labarum could not have really taken place, as reported +by Eusebius, because it is counter to the original type of Christianity. +"For the first time," he says, on occasion of Constantine's introduction +of the standard into his armies, "the meek and peaceful Jesus became a +God of battle, and the Cross, the holy sign of Christian Redemption, a +banner of bloody strife. . . . . This was the first advance to the +military Christianity of the middle ages, a modification of the pure +religion of the Gospel, if directly opposed to its genuine principles, +still apparently indispensable to the social progress of men."[173:1] + +On the other hand, a popular leader may go through a variety of +professions, he may court parties and break with them, he may contradict +himself in words, and undo his own measures, yet there may be a steady +fulfilment of certain objects, or adherence to certain plain doctrines, +which gives a unity to his career, and impresses on beholders an image +of directness and large consistency which shows a fidelity to his type +from first to last. + + +4. + +However, as the last instances suggest to us, this unity of type, +characteristic as it is of faithful developments, must not be pressed to +the extent of denying all variation, nay, considerable alteration of +proportion and relation, as time goes on, in the parts or aspects of an +idea. Great changes in outward appearance and internal harmony occur in +the instance of the animal creation itself. The fledged bird differs +much from its rudimental form in the egg. The butterfly is the +development, but not in any sense the image, of the grub. The whale +claims a place among mammalia, though we might fancy that, as in the +child's game of catscradle, some strange introsusception had been +permitted, to make it so like, yet so contrary, to the animals with +which it is itself classed. And, in like manner, if beasts of prey were +once in paradise, and fed upon grass, they must have presented bodily +phenomena very different from the structure of muscles, claws, teeth, +and viscera which now fit them for a carnivorous existence. Eutychius, +Patriarch of Constantinople, on his death-bed, grasped his own hand and +said, "I confess that in this flesh we shall all rise again;" yet flesh +and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and a glorified body has +attributes incompatible with its present condition on earth. + + +5. + +More subtle still and mysterious are the variations which are consistent +or not inconsistent with identity in political and religious +developments. The Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity has ever been +accused by heretics of interfering with that of the Divine Unity out of +which it grew, and even believers will at first sight consider that it +tends to obscure it. Yet Petavius says, "I will affirm, what perhaps +will surprise the reader, that that distinction of Persons which, in +regard to _proprietates_ is in reality most great, is so far from +disparaging the Unity and Simplicity of God that this very real +distinction especially avails for the doctrine that God is One and most +Simple."[174:1] + +Again, Arius asserted that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was +not able to comprehend the First, whereas Eunomius's characteristic +tenet was in an opposite direction, viz., that not only the Son, but +that all men could comprehend God; yet no one can doubt that Eunomianism +was a true development, not a corruption of Arianism. + +The same man may run through various philosophies or beliefs, which are +in themselves irreconcilable, without inconsistency, since in him they +may be nothing more than accidental instruments or expressions of what +he is inwardly from first to last. The political doctrines of the modern +Tory resemble those of the primitive Whig; yet few will deny that the +Whig and Tory characters have each a discriminating type. Calvinism has +changed into Unitarianism: yet this need not be called a corruption, +even if it be not, strictly speaking, a development; for Harding, in +controversy with Jewell, surmised the coming change three centuries +since, and it has occurred not in one country, but in many. + + +6. + +The history of national character supplies an analogy, rather than an +instance strictly in point; yet there is so close a connexion between +the development of minds and of ideas that it is allowable to refer to +it here. Thus we find England of old the most loyal supporter, and +England of late the most jealous enemy, of the Holy See. As great a +change is exhibited in France, once the eldest born of the Church and +the flower of her knighthood, now democratic and lately infidel. Yet, in +neither nation, can these great changes be well called corruptions. + +Or again, let us reflect on the ethical vicissitudes of the chosen +people. How different is their grovelling and cowardly temper on leaving +Egypt from the chivalrous spirit, as it may be called, of the age of +David, or, again, from the bloody fanaticism which braved Titus and +Hadrian! In what contrast is that impotence of mind which gave way at +once, and bowed the knee, at the very sight of a pagan idol, with the +stern iconoclasm and bigoted nationality of later Judaism! How startling +the apparent absence of what would be called talent in this people +during their supernatural Dispensation, compared with the gifts of mind +which various witnesses assign to them now! + + +7. + +And, in like manner, ideas may remain, when the expression of them is +indefinitely varied; and we cannot determine whether a professed +development is truly such or not, without further knowledge than an +experience of the mere fact of this variation. Nor will our instinctive +feelings serve as a criterion. It must have been an extreme shock to St. +Peter to be told he must slay and eat beasts, unclean as well as clean, +though such a command was implied already in that faith which he held +and taught; a shock, which a single effort, or a short period, or the +force of reason would not suffice to overcome. Nay, it may happen that a +representation which varies from its original may be felt as more true +and faithful than one which has more pretensions to be exact. So it is +with many a portrait which is not striking: at first look, of course, it +disappoints us; but when we are familiar with it, we see in it what we +could not see at first, and prefer it, not to a perfect likeness, but to +many a sketch which is so precise as to be a caricature. + + +8. + +On the other hand, real perversions and corruptions are often not so +unlike externally to the doctrine from which they come, as are changes +which are consistent with it and true developments. When Rome changed +from a Republic to an Empire, it was a real alteration of polity, or +what may be called a corruption; yet in appearance the change was small. +The old offices or functions of government remained: it was only that +the Imperator, or Commander in Chief, concentrated them in his own +person. Augustus was Consul and Tribune, Supreme Pontiff and Censor, +and the Imperial rule was, in the words of Gibbon, "an absolute monarchy +disguised by the forms of a commonwealth." On the other hand, when the +dissimulation of Augustus was exchanged for the ostentation of +Dioclesian, the real alteration of constitution was trivial, but the +appearance of change was great. Instead of plain Consul, Censor, and +Tribune, Dioclesian became Dominus or King, assumed the diadem, and +threw around him the forms of a court. + +Nay, one cause of corruption in religion is the refusal to follow the +course of doctrine as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of +the past. Certainly: as we see conspicuously in the history of the +chosen race. The Samaritans who refused to add the Prophets to the Law, +and the Sadducees who denied a truth which was covertly taught in the +Book of Exodus, were in appearance only faithful adherents to the +primitive doctrine. Our Lord found His people precisians in their +obedience to the letter; He condemned them for not being led on to its +spirit, that is, to its developments. The Gospel is the development of +the Law; yet what difference seems wider than that which separates the +unbending rule of Moses from the "grace and truth" which "came by Jesus +Christ?" Samuel had of old time fancied that the tall Eliab was the +Lord's anointed; and Jesse had thought David only fit for the sheepcote; +and when the Great King came, He was "as a root out of a dry ground;" +but strength came out of weakness, and out of the strong sweetness. + +So it is in the case of our friends; the most obsequious are not always +the truest, and seeming cruelty is often genuine affection. We know the +conduct of the three daughters in the drama towards the old king. She +who had found her love "more richer than her tongue," and could not +"heave her heart into her mouth," was in the event alone true to her +father. + + +9. + +An idea then does not always bear about it the same external image; this +circumstance, however, has no force to weaken the argument for its +substantial identity, as drawn from its external sameness, when such +sameness remains. On the contrary, for that very reason, _unity of type_ +becomes so much the surer guarantee of the healthiness and soundness of +developments, when it is persistently preserved in spite of their number +or importance. + + +SECTION II. + +SECOND NOTE. CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES. + +As in mathematical creations figures are formed on distinct formulae, +which are the laws under which they are developed, so it is in ethical +and political subjects. Doctrines expand variously according to the +mind, individual or social, into which they are received; and the +peculiarities of the recipient are the regulating power, the law, the +organization, or, as it may be called, the form of the development. The +life of doctrines may be said to consist in the law or principle which +they embody. + +Principles are abstract and general, doctrines relate to facts; +doctrines develope, and principles at first sight do not; doctrines grow +and are enlarged, principles are permanent; doctrines are intellectual, +and principles are more immediately ethical and practical. Systems live +in principles and represent doctrines. Personal responsibility is a +principle, the Being of a God is a doctrine; from that doctrine all +theology has come in due course, whereas that principle is not clearer +under the Gospel than in paradise, and depends, not on belief in an +Almighty Governor, but on conscience. + +Yet the difference between the two sometimes merely exists in our mode +of viewing them; and what is a doctrine in one philosophy is a principle +in another. Personal responsibility may be made a doctrinal basis, and +develope into Arminianism or Pelagianism. Again, it may be discussed +whether infallibility is a principle or a doctrine of the Church of +Rome, and dogmatism a principle or doctrine of Christianity. Again, +consideration for the poor is a doctrine of the Church considered as a +religious body, and a principle when she is viewed as a political power. + +Doctrines stand to principles, as the definitions to the axioms and +postulates of mathematics. Thus the 15th and 17th propositions of +Euclid's book I. are developments, not of the three first axioms, which +are required in the proof, but of the definition of a right angle. +Perhaps the perplexity, which arises in the mind of a beginner, on +learning the early propositions of the second book, arises from these +being more prominently exemplifications of axioms than developments of +definitions. He looks for developments from the definition of the +rectangle, and finds but various particular cases of the general truth, +that "the whole is equal to its parts." + + +2. + +It might be expected that the Catholic principles would be later in +development than the Catholic doctrines, inasmuch as they lie deeper in +the mind, and are assumptions rather than objective professions. This +has been the case. The Protestant controversy has mainly turned, or is +turning, on one or other of the principles of Catholicity; and to this +day the rule of Scripture Interpretation, the doctrine of Inspiration, +the relation of Faith to Reason, moral responsibility, private +judgment, inherent grace, the seat of infallibility, remain, I suppose, +more or less undeveloped, or, at least, undefined, by the Church. + +Doctrines stand to principles, if it may be said without fancifulness, +as fecundity viewed relatively to generation, though this analogy must +not be strained. Doctrines are developed by the operation of principles, +and develope variously according to those principles. Thus a belief in +the transitiveness of worldly goods leads the Epicurean to enjoyment, +and the ascetic to mortification; and, from their common doctrine of the +sinfulness of matter, the Alexandrian Gnostics became sensualists, and +the Syrian devotees. The same philosophical elements, received into a +certain sensibility or insensibility to sin and its consequences, leads +one mind to the Church of Rome; another to what, for want of a better +word, may be called Germanism. + +Again, religious investigation sometimes is conducted on the principle +that it is a duty "to follow and speak the truth," which really means +that it is no duty to fear error, or to consider what is safest, or to +shrink from scattering doubts, or to regard the responsibility of +misleading; and thus it terminates in heresy or infidelity, without any +blame to religious investigation in itself. + +Again, to take a different subject, what constitutes a chief interest of +dramatic compositions and tales, is to use external circumstances, which +may be considered their law of development, as a means of bringing out +into different shapes, and showing under new aspects, the personal +peculiarities of character, according as either those circumstances or +those peculiarities vary in the case of the personages introduced. + + +3. + +Principles are popularly said to develope when they are but exemplified; +thus the various sects of Protestantism, unconnected as they are with +each other, are called developments of the principle of Private +Judgment, of which really they are but applications and results. + +A development, to be faithful, must retain both the doctrine and the +principle with which it started. Doctrine without its correspondent +principle remains barren, if not lifeless, of which the Greek Church +seems an instance; or it forms those hollow professions which are +familiarly called "shams," as a zeal for an established Church and its +creed on merely conservative or temporal motives. Such, too, was the +Roman Constitution between the reigns of Augustus and Dioclesian. + +On the other hand, principle without its corresponding doctrine may be +considered as the state of religious minds in the heathen world, viewed +relatively to Revelation; that is, of the "children of God who are +scattered abroad." + +Pagans may have, heretics cannot have, the same principles as Catholics; +if the latter have the same, they are not real heretics, but in +ignorance. Principle is a better test of heresy than doctrine. Heretics +are true to their principles, but change to and fro, backwards and +forwards, in opinion; for very opposite doctrines may be +exemplifications of the same principle. Thus the Antiochenes and other +heretics sometimes were Arians, sometimes Sabellians, sometimes +Nestorians, sometimes Monophysites, as if at random, from fidelity to +their common principle, that there is no mystery in theology. Thus +Calvinists become Unitarians from the principle of private judgment. The +doctrines of heresy are accidents and soon run to an end; its principles +are everlasting. + +This, too, is often the solution of the paradox "Extremes meet," and of +the startling reactions which take place in individuals; viz., the +presence of some one principle or condition, which is dominant in their +minds from first to last. If one of two contradictory alternatives be +necessarily true on a certain hypothesis, then the denial of the one +leads, by mere logical consistency and without direct reasons, to a +reception of the other. Thus the question between the Church of Rome and +Protestantism falls in some minds into the proposition, "Rome is either +the pillar and ground of the Truth, or she is Antichrist;" in +proportion, then, as they revolt from considering her the latter are +they compelled to receive her as the former. Hence, too, men may pass +from infidelity to Rome, and from Rome to infidelity, from a conviction +in both courses that there is no tangible intellectual position between +the two. + +Protestantism, viewed in its more Catholic aspect, is doctrine without +active principle; viewed in its heretical, it is active principle +without doctrine. Many of its speakers, for instance, use eloquent and +glowing language about the Church and its characteristics: some of them +do not realize what they say, but use high words and general statements +about "the faith," and "primitive truth," and "schism," and "heresy," to +which they attach no definite meaning; while others speak of "unity," +"universality," and "Catholicity," and use the words in their own sense +and for their own ideas. + + +4. + +The science of grammar affords another instance of the existence of +special laws in the formation of systems. Some languages have more +elasticity than others, and greater capabilities; and the difficulty of +explaining the fact cannot lead us to doubt it. There are languages, for +instance, which have a capacity for compound words, which, we cannot +tell why, is in matter of fact denied to others. We feel the presence of +a certain character or genius in each, which determines its path and its +range; and to discover and enter into it is one part of refined +scholarship. And when particular writers, in consequence perhaps of +some theory, tax a language beyond its powers, the failure is +conspicuous. Very subtle, too, and difficult to draw out, are the +principles on which depends the formation of proper names in a +particular people. In works of fiction, names or titles, significant or +ludicrous, must be invented for the characters introduced; and some +authors excel in their fabrication, while others are equally +unfortunate. Foreign novels, perhaps, attempt to frame English surnames, +and signally fail; yet what every one feels to be the case, no one can +analyze: that is, our surnames are constructed on a law which is only +exhibited in particular instances, and which rules their formation on +certain, though subtle, determinations. + +And so in philosophy, the systems of physics or morals, which go by +celebrated names, proceed upon the assumption of certain conditions +which are necessary for every stage of their development. The Newtonian +theory of gravitation is based on certain axioms; for instance, that the +fewest causes assignable for phenomena are the true ones: and the +application of science to practical purposes depends upon the hypothesis +that what happens to-day will happen to-morrow. + +And so in military matters, the discovery of gunpowder developed the +science of attack and defence in a new instrumentality. Again, it is +said that when Napoleon began his career of victories, the enemy's +generals pronounced that his battles were fought against rule, and that +he ought not to be victorious. + + +5. + +So states have their respective policies, on which they move forward, +and which are the conditions of their well-being. Thus it is sometimes +said that the true policy of the American Union, or the law of its +prosperity, is not the enlargement of its territory, but the +cultivation of its internal resources. Thus Russia is said to be weak in +attack, strong in defence, and to grow, not by the sword, but by +diplomacy. Thus Islamism is said to be the form or life of the Ottoman, +and Protestantism of the British Empire, and the admission of European +ideas into the one, or of Catholic ideas into the other, to be the +destruction of the respective conditions of their power. Thus Augustus +and Tiberius governed by dissimulation; thus Pericles in his "Funeral +Oration" draws out the principles of the Athenian commonwealth, viz., +that it is carried on, not by formal and severe enactments, but by the +ethical character and spontaneous energy of the people. + +The political principles of Christianity, if it be right to use such +words of a divine polity, are laid down for us in the Sermon on the +Mount. Contrariwise to other empires, Christians conquer by yielding; +they gain influence by shrinking from it; they possess the earth by +renouncing it. Gibbon speaks of "the vices of the clergy" as being "to a +philosophic eye far less dangerous than their virtues."[184:1] + +Again, as to Judaism, it may be asked on what law it developed; that is, +whether Mahometanism may not be considered as a sort of Judaism, as +formed by the presence of a different class of influences. In this +contrast between them, perhaps it may be said that the expectation of a +Messiah was the principle or law which expanded the elements, almost +common to Judaism with Mahometanism, into their respective +characteristic shapes. + +One of the points of discipline to which Wesley attached most importance +was that of preaching early in the morning. This was his principle. In +Georgia, he began preaching at five o'clock every day, winter and +summer. "Early preaching," he said, "is the glory of the Methodists; +whenever this is dropt, they will dwindle away into nothing, they have +lost their first love, they are a fallen people." + + +6. + +Now, these instances show, as has been incidentally observed of some of +them, that the destruction of the special laws or principles of a +development is its corruption. Thus, as to nations, when we talk of the +spirit of a people being lost, we do not mean that this or that act has +been committed, or measure carried, but that certain lines of thought or +conduct by which it has grown great are abandoned. Thus the Roman Poets +consider their State in course of ruin because its _prisci mores_ and +_pietas_ were failing. And so we speak of countries or persons as being +in a false position, when they take up a course of policy, or assume a +profession, inconsistent with their natural interests or real character. +Judaism, again, was rejected when it rejected the Messiah. + +Thus the _continuity or the alteration of the principles_ on which an +idea has developed is a second mark of discrimination between a true +development and a corruption. + + +SECTION III. + +THIRD NOTE. POWER OF ASSIMILATION. + +In the physical world, whatever has life is characterized by growth, so +that in no respect to grow is to cease to live. It grows by taking into +its own substance external materials; and this absorption or +assimilation is completed when the materials appropriated come to belong +to it or enter into its unity. Two things cannot become one, except +there be a power of assimilation in one or the other. Sometimes +assimilation is effected only with an effort; it is possible to die of +repletion, and there are animals who lie torpid for a time under the +contest between the foreign substance and the assimilating power. And +different food is proper for different recipients. + +This analogy may be taken to illustrate certain peculiarities in the +growth or development in ideas, which were noticed in the first Chapter. +It is otherwise with mathematical and other abstract creations, which, +like the soul itself, are solitary and self-dependent; but doctrines and +views which relate to man are not placed in a void, but in the crowded +world, and make way for themselves by interpenetration, and develope by +absorption. Facts and opinions, which have hitherto been regarded in +other relations and grouped round other centres, henceforth are +gradually attracted to a new influence and subjected to a new sovereign. +They are modified, laid down afresh, thrust aside, as the case may be. A +new element of order and composition has come among them; and its life +is proved by this capacity of expansion, without disarrangement or +dissolution. An eclectic, conservative, assimilating, healing, moulding +process, a unitive power, is of the essence, and a third test, of a +faithful development. + + +2. + +Thus, a power of development is a proof of life, not only in its essay, +but especially in its success; for a mere formula either does not expand +or is shattered in expanding. A living idea becomes many, yet remains +one. + +The attempt at development shows the presence of a principle, and its +success the presence of an idea. Principles stimulate thought, and an +idea concentrates it. + +The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, like mathematical truth, +incorporated nothing from external sources. So far from the fact of such +incorporation implying corruption, as is sometimes supposed, development +is a process of incorporation. Mahometanism may be in external +developments scarcely more than a compound of other theologies, yet no +one would deny that there has been a living idea somewhere in a +religion, which has been so strong, so wide, so lasting a bond of union +in the history of the world. Why it has not continued to develope after +its first preaching, if this be the case, as it seems to be, cannot be +determined without a greater knowledge of that religion, and how far it +is merely political, how far theological, than we commonly possess. + + +3. + +In Christianity, opinion, while a raw material, is called philosophy or +scholasticism; when a rejected refuse, it is called heresy. + +Ideas are more open to an external bias in their commencement than +afterwards; hence the great majority of writers who consider the +Medieval Church corrupt, trace its corruption to the first four +centuries, not to what are called the dark ages. + +That an idea more readily coalesces with these ideas than with those +does not show that it has been unduly influenced, that is, corrupted by +them, but that it has an antecedent affinity to them. At least it shall +be assumed here that, when the Gospels speak of virtue going out of our +Lord, and of His healing with the clay which His lips had moistened, +they afford instances, not of a perversion of Christianity, but of +affinity to notions which were external to it; and that St. Paul was not +biassed by Orientalism, though he said, after the manner of some Eastern +sects, that it was "excellent not to touch a woman." + + +4. + +Thus in politics, too, ideas are sometimes proposed, discussed, +rejected, or adopted, as it may happen, and sometimes they are shown to +be unmeaning and impossible; sometimes they are true, but partially so, +or in subordination to other ideas, with which, in consequence, they are +as wholes or in part incorporated, as far as these have affinities to +them, the power to incorporate being thus recognized as a property of +life. Mr. Bentham's system was an attempt to make the circle of legal +and moral truths developments of certain principles of his own;--those +principles of his may, if it so happen, prove unequal to the weight of +truths which are eternal, and the system founded on them may break into +pieces; or again, a State may absorb certain of them, for which it has +affinity, that is, it may develope in Benthamism, yet remain in +substance what it was before. In the history of the French Revolution we +read of many middle parties, who attempted to form theories of +constitutions short of those which they would call extreme, and +successively failed from the want of power or reality in their +characteristic ideas. The Semi-arians attempted a middle way between +orthodoxy and heresy, but could not stand their ground; at length part +fell into Macedonianism, and part joined the Church. + + +5. + +The stronger and more living is an idea, that is, the more powerful hold +it exercises on the minds of men, the more able is it to dispense with +safeguards, and trust to itself against the danger of corruption. As +strong frames exult in their agility, and healthy constitutions throw +off ailments, so parties or schools that live can afford to be rash, and +will sometimes be betrayed into extravagances, yet are brought right by +their inherent vigour. On the other hand, unreal systems are commonly +decent externally. Forms, subscriptions, or Articles of religion are +indispensable when the principle of life is weakly. Thus Presbyterianism +has maintained its original theology in Scotland where legal +subscriptions are enforced, while it has run into Arianism or +Unitarianism where that protection is away. We have yet to see whether +the Free Kirk can keep its present theological ground. The Church of +Rome can consult expedience more freely than other bodies, as trusting +to her living tradition, and is sometimes thought to disregard principle +and scruple, when she is but dispensing with forms. Thus Saints are +often characterized by acts which are no pattern for others; and the +most gifted men are, by reason of their very gifts, sometimes led into +fatal inadvertences. Hence vows are the wise defence of unstable virtue, +and general rules the refuge of feeble authority. + +And so much may suffice on the _unitive power_ of faithful developments, +which constitutes their third characteristic. + + +SECTION IV. + +FOURTH NOTE. LOGICAL SEQUENCE. + +Logic is the organization of thought, and, as being such, is a security +for the faithfulness of intellectual developments; and the necessity of +using it is undeniable as far as this, that its rules must not be +transgressed. That it is not brought into exercise in every instance of +doctrinal development is owing to the varieties of mental constitution, +whether in communities or in individuals, with whom great truths or +seeming truths are lodged. The question indeed may be asked whether a +development can be other in any case than a logical operation; but, if +by this is meant a conscious reasoning from premisses to conclusion, of +course the answer must be in the negative. An idea under one or other +of its aspects grows in the mind by remaining there; it becomes familiar +and distinct, and is viewed in its relations; it leads to other aspects, +and these again to others, subtle, recondite, original, according to the +character, intellectual and moral, of the recipient; and thus a body of +thought is gradually formed without his recognizing what is going on +within him. And all this while, or at least from time to time, external +circumstances elicit into formal statement the thoughts which are coming +into being in the depths of his mind; and soon he has to begin to defend +them; and then again a further process must take place, of analyzing his +statements and ascertaining their dependence one on another. And thus he +is led to regard as consequences, and to trace to principles, what +hitherto he has discerned by a moral perception, and adopted on +sympathy; and logic is brought in to arrange and inculcate what no +science was employed in gaining. + +And so in the same way, such intellectual processes, as are carried on +silently and spontaneously in the mind of a party or school, of +necessity come to light at a later date, and are recognized, and their +issues are scientifically arranged. And then logic has the further +function of propagation; analogy, the nature of the case, antecedent +probability, application of principles, congruity, expedience, being +some of the methods of proof by which the development is continued from +mind to mind and established in the faith of the community. + +Yet even then the analysis is not made on a principle, or with any view +to its whole course and finished results. Each argument is brought for +an immediate purpose; minds develope step by step, without looking +behind them or anticipating their goal, and without either intention or +promise of forming a system. Afterwards, however, this logical character +which the whole wears becomes a test that the process has been a true +development, not a perversion or corruption, from its evident +naturalness; and in some cases from the gravity, distinctness, +precision, and majesty of its advance, and the harmony of its +proportions, like the tall growth, and graceful branching, and rich +foliage, of some vegetable production. + + +2. + +The process of development, thus capable of a logical expression, has +sometimes been invidiously spoken of as rationalism and contrasted with +faith. But, though a particular doctrine or opinion which is subjected +to development may happen to be rationalistic, and, as is the original, +such are its results: and though we may develope erroneously, that is, +reason incorrectly, yet the developing itself as little deserves that +imputation in any case, as an inquiry into an historical fact, which we +do not thereby make but ascertain,--for instance, whether or not St. +Mark wrote his Gospel with St. Matthew before him, or whether Solomon +brought his merchandise from Tartessus or some Indian port. Rationalism +is the exercise of reason instead of faith in matters of faith; but one +does not see how it can be faith to adopt the premisses, and unbelief to +accept the conclusion. + +At the same time it may be granted that the spontaneous process which +goes on within the mind itself is higher and choicer than that which is +logical; for the latter, being scientific, is common property, and can +be taken and made use of by minds who are personally strangers, in any +true sense, both to the ideas in question and to their development. + + +3. + +Thus, the holy Apostles would without words know all the truths +concerning the high doctrines of theology, which controversialists +after them have piously and charitably reduced to formulae, and developed +through argument. Thus, St. Justin or St. Irenaeus might be without any +digested ideas of Purgatory or Original Sin, yet have an intense +feeling, which they had not defined or located, both of the fault of our +first nature and the responsibilities of our nature regenerate. Thus St. +Antony said to the philosophers who came to mock him, "He whose mind is +in health does not need letters;" and St. Ignatius Loyola, while yet an +unlearned neophyte, was favoured with transcendent perceptions of the +Holy Trinity during his penance at Manresa. Thus St. Athanasius himself +is more powerful in statement and exposition than in proof; while in +Bellarmine we find the whole series of doctrines carefully drawn out, +duly adjusted with one another, and exactly analyzed one by one. + +The history of empires and of public men supplies so many instances of +logical development in the field of politics, that it is needless to do +more than to refer to one of them. It is illustrated by the words of +Jeroboam, "Now shall this kingdom return to the house of David, if this +people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem. . . +Wherefore the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said +unto them, Behold thy gods, O Israel." Idolatry was a duty of kingcraft +with the schismatical kingdom. + + +4. + +A specimen of logical development is afforded us in the history of +Lutheranism as it has of late years been drawn out by various English +writers. Luther started on a double basis, his dogmatic principle being +contradicted by his right of private judgment, and his sacramental by +his theory of justification. The sacramental element never showed signs +of life; but on his death, that which he represented in his own person +as a teacher, the dogmatic, gained the ascendancy; and "every expression +of his upon controverted points became a norm for the party, which, at +all times the largest, was at last coextensive with the Church itself. +This almost idolatrous veneration was perhaps increased by the selection +of declarations of faith, of which the substance on the whole was his, +for the symbolical books of his Church."[193:1] Next a reaction took +place; private judgment was restored to the supremacy. Calixtus put +reason, and Spener the so-called religion of the heart, in the place of +dogmatic correctness. Pietism for the time died away; but rationalism +developed in Wolf, who professed to prove all the orthodox doctrines, by +a process of reasoning, from premisses level with the reason. It was +soon found that the instrument which Wolf had used for orthodoxy, could +as plausibly be used against it;--in his hands it had proved the Creed; +in the hands of Semler, Ernesti, and others, it disproved the authority +of Scripture. What was religion to be made to consist in now? A sort of +philosophical Pietism followed; or rather Spener's pietism and the +original theory of justification were analyzed more thoroughly, and +issued in various theories of Pantheism, which from the first was at the +bottom of Luther's doctrine and personal character. And this appears to +be the state of Lutheranism at present, whether we view it in the +philosophy of Kant, in the open infidelity of Strauss, or in the +religious professions of the new Evangelical Church of Prussia. Applying +this instance to the subject which it has been here brought to +illustrate, I should say that the equable and orderly march and natural +succession of views, by which the creed of Luther has been changed into +the infidel or heretical philosophy of his present representatives, is a +proof that that change is no perversion or corruption, but a faithful +development of the original idea. + + +5. + +This is but one out of many instances with which the history of the +Church supplies us. The fortunes of a theological school are made, in a +later generation, the measure of the teaching of its founder. The great +Origen after his many labours died in peace; his immediate pupils were +saints and rulers in the Church; he has the praise of St. Athanasius, +St. Basil, and St. Gregory Nazianzen, and furnishes materials to St. +Ambrose and St. Hilary; yet, as time proceeded, a definite heterodoxy +was the growing result of his theology, and at length, three hundred +years after his death, he was condemned, and, as has generally been +considered, in an Ecumenical Council.[194:1] "Diodorus of Tarsus," says +Tillemont, "died at an advanced age, in the peace of the Church, +honoured by the praises of the greatest saints, and crowned with a +glory, which, having ever attended him through life, followed him after +his death;"[194:2] yet St. Cyril of Alexandria considers him and +Theodore of Mopsuestia the true authors of Nestorianism, and he was +placed in the event by the Nestorians among their saints. Theodore +himself was condemned after his death by the same Council which is said +to have condemned Origen, and is justly considered the chief +rationalizing doctor of Antiquity; yet he was in the highest repute in +his day, and the Eastern Synod complains, as quoted by Facundus, that +"Blessed Theodore, who died so happily, who was so eminent a teacher for +five and forty years, and overthrew every heresy, and in his lifetime +experienced no imputation from the orthodox, now after his death so +long ago, after his many conflicts, after his ten thousand books +composed in refutation of errors, after his approval in the sight of +priests, emperors, and people, runs the risk of receiving the reward of +heretics, and of being called their chief."[195:1] There is a certain +continuous advance and determinate path which belong to the history of a +doctrine, policy, or institution, and which impress upon the common +sense of mankind, that what it ultimately becomes is the issue of what +it was at first. This sentiment is expressed in the proverb, not limited +to Latin, _Exitus acta probat_; and is sanctioned by Divine wisdom, +when, warning us against false prophets, it says, "Ye shall know them by +their fruits." + +A doctrine, then, professed in its mature years by a philosophy or +religion, is likely to be a true development, not a corruption, in +proportion as it seems to be the _logical issue_ of its original +teaching. + + +SECTION V. + +FIFTH NOTE. ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE. + +Since, when an idea is living, that is, influential and effective, it is +sure to develope according to its own nature, and the tendencies, which +are carried out on the long run, may under favourable circumstances show +themselves early as well as late, and logic is the same in all ages, +instances of a development which is to come, though vague and isolated, +may occur from the very first, though a lapse of time be necessary to +bring them to perfection. And since developments are in great measure +only aspects of the idea from which they proceed, and all of them are +natural consequences of it, it is often a matter of accident in what +order they are carried out in individual minds; and it is in no wise +strange that here and there definite specimens of advanced teaching +should very early occur, which in the historical course are not found +till a late day. The fact, then, of such early or recurring intimations +of tendencies which afterwards are fully realized, is a sort of evidence +that those later and more systematic fulfilments are only in accordance +with the original idea. + + +2. + +Nothing is more common, for instance, than accounts or legends of the +anticipations, which great men have given in boyhood of the bent of +their minds, as afterwards displayed in their history; so much so that +the popular expectation has sometimes led to the invention of them. The +child Cyrus mimics a despot's power, and St. Athanasius is elected +Bishop by his playfellows. + +It is noticeable that in the eleventh century, when the Russians were +but pirates upon the Black Sea, Constantinople was their aim; and that a +prophesy was in circulation in that city that they should one day gain +possession of it. + +In the reign of James the First, we have an observable anticipation of +the system of influence in the management of political parties, which +was developed by Sir R. Walpole a century afterwards. This attempt is +traced by a living writer to the ingenuity of Lord Bacon. "He submitted +to the King that there were expedients for more judiciously managing a +House of Commons; . . that much might be done by forethought towards +filling the House with well-affected persons, winning or blinding the +lawyers . . and drawing the chief constituent bodies of the assembly, +the country gentlemen, the merchants, the courtiers, to act for the +King's advantage; that it would be expedient to tender voluntarily +certain graces and modifications of the King's prerogative," &c.[197:1] +The writer adds, "This circumstance, like several others in the present +reign, is curious, as it shows the rise of a systematic parliamentary +influence, which was one day to become the mainspring of government." + + +3. + +Arcesilas and Carneades, the founders of the later Academy, are known to +have innovated on the Platonic doctrine by inculcating a universal +scepticism; and they did this, as if on the authority of Socrates, who +had adopted the method of _ironia_ against the Sophists, on their +professing to know everything. This, of course, was an insufficient +plea. However, could it be shown that Socrates did on one or two +occasions evidence deliberate doubts on the great principles of theism +or morals, would any one deny that the innovation in question had +grounds for being considered a true development, not a corruption? + +It is certain that, in the idea of Monachism, prevalent in ancient +times, manual labour had a more prominent place than study; so much so +that De Rance, the celebrated Abbot of La Trappe, in controversy with +Mabillon, maintained his ground with great plausibility against the +latter's apology for the literary occupations for which the Benedictines +of France are so famous. Nor can it be denied that the labours of such +as Mabillon and Montfaucon are at least a development upon the +simplicity of the primitive institution. And yet it is remarkable that +St. Pachomius, the first author of a monastic rule, enjoined a library +in each of his houses, and appointed conferences and disputations three +times a week on religious subjects, interpretation of Scripture, or +points of theology. St. Basil, the founder of Monachism in Pontus, one +of the most learned of the Greek Fathers, wrote his theological +treatises in the intervals of agricultural labour. St. Jerome, the +author of the Latin versions of Scripture, lived as a poor monk in a +cell at Bethlehem. These, indeed, were but exceptions in the character +of early Monachism; but they suggest its capabilities and anticipate its +history. Literature is certainly not inconsistent with its idea. + + +4. + +In the controversies with the Gnostics, in the second century, striking +anticipations occasionally occur, in the works of their Catholic +opponents, of the formal dogmatic teaching developed in the Church in +the course of the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies in the fifth. +On the other hand, Paul of Samosata, one of the first disciples of the +Syrian school of theology, taught a heresy sufficiently like +Nestorianism, in which that school terminated, to be mistaken for it in +later times; yet for a long while after him the characteristic of the +school was Arianism, an opposite heresy. + +Lutheranism has by this time become in most places almost simple heresy +or infidelity; it has terminated, if it has even yet reached its limit, +in a denial both of the Canon and the Creed, nay, of many principles of +morals. Accordingly the question arises, whether these conclusions are +in fairness to be connected with its original teaching or are a +corruption. And it is no little aid towards its resolution to find that +Luther himself at one time rejected the Apocalypse, called the Epistle +of St. James "straminea," condemned the word "Trinity," fell into a kind +of Eutychianism in his view of the Holy Eucharist, and in a particular +case sanctioned bigamy. Calvinism, again, in various distinct countries, +has become Socinianism, and Calvin himself seems to have denied our +Lord's Eternal Sonship and ridiculed the Nicene Creed. + +Another evidence, then, of the faithfulness of an ultimate development +is its _definite anticipation_ at an early period in the history of the +idea to which it belongs. + + +SECTION VI. + +SIXTH NOTE. CONSERVATIVE ACTION UPON ITS PAST. + +As developments which are preceded by definite indications have a fair +presumption in their favour, so those which do but contradict and +reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed before them, and +out of which they spring, are certainly corrupt; for a corruption is a +development in that very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and +begins to disturb, the acquisitions gained in its previous history. + +It is the rule of creation, or rather of the phenomena which it +presents, that life passes on to its termination by a gradual, +imperceptible course of change. There is ever a maximum in earthly +excellence, and the operation of the same causes which made things great +makes them small again. Weakness is but the resulting product of power. +Events move in cycles; all things come round, "the sun ariseth and goeth +down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." Flowers first bloom, and +then fade; fruit ripens and decays. The fermenting process, unless +stopped at the due point, corrupts the liquor which it has created. The +grace of spring, the richness of autumn are but for a moment, and +worldly moralists bid us _Carpe diem_, for we shall have no second +opportunity. Virtue seems to lie in a mean, between vice and vice; and +as it grew out of imperfection, so to grow into enormity. There is a +limit to human knowledge, and both sacred and profane writers witness +that overwisdom is folly. And in the political world states rise and +fall, the instruments of their aggrandizement becoming the weapons of +their destruction. And hence the frequent ethical maxims, such as, "_Ne +quid nimis_," "_Medio tutissimus_," "Vaulting ambition," which seem to +imply that too much of what is good is evil. + +So great a paradox of course cannot be maintained as that truth +literally leads to falsehood, or that there can be an excess of virtue; +but the appearance of things and the popular language about them will at +least serve us in obtaining an additional test for the discrimination of +a _bona fide_ development of an idea from its corruption. + +A true development, then, may be described as one which is conservative +of the course of antecedent developments being really those antecedents +and something besides them: it is an addition which illustrates, not +obscures, corroborates, not corrects, the body of thought from which it +proceeds; and this is its characteristic as contrasted with a +corruption. + + +2. + +For instance, a gradual conversion from a false to a true religion, +plainly, has much of the character of a continuous process, or a +development, in the mind itself, even when the two religions, which are +the limits of its course, are antagonists. Now let it be observed, that +such a change consists in addition and increase chiefly, not in +destruction. "True religion is the summit and perfection of false +religions; it combines in one whatever there is of good and true +separately remaining in each. And in like manner the Catholic Creed is +for the most part the combination of separate truths, which heretics +have divided among themselves, and err in dividing. So that, in matter +of fact, if a religious mind were educated in and sincerely attached to +some form of heathenism or heresy, and then were brought under the light +of truth, it would be drawn off from error into the truth, not by losing +what it had, but by gaining what it had not, not by being unclothed, but +by being 'clothed upon,' 'that mortality may be swallowed up of life.' +That same principle of faith which attaches it at first to the wrong +doctrine would attach it to the truth; and that portion of its original +doctrine, which was to be cast off as absolutely false, would not be +directly rejected, but indirectly, _in_ the reception of the truth which +is its opposite. True conversion is ever of a positive, not a negative +character."[201:1] + +Such too is the theory of the Fathers as regards the doctrines fixed by +Councils, as is instanced in the language of St. Leo. "To be seeking for +what has been disclosed, to reconsider what has been finished, to tear +up what has been laid down, what is this but to be unthankful for what +is gained?"[201:2] Vincentius of Lerins, in like manner, speaks of the +development of Christian doctrine, as _profectus fidei non +permutatio_.[201:3] And so as regards the Jewish Law, our Lord said that +He came "not to destroy, but to fulfil." + + +3. + +Mahomet is accused of contradicting his earlier revelations by his +later, "which is a thing so well known to those of his sect that they +all acknowledge it; and therefore when the contradictions are such as +they cannot solve them, then they will have one of the contradictory +places to be revoked. And they reckon in the whole Alcoran about a +hundred and fifty verses which are thus revoked."[201:4] + +Schelling, says Mr. Dewar, considers "that the time has arrived when an +esoteric speculative Christianity ought to take the place of the +exoteric empiricism which has hitherto prevailed." This German +philosopher "acknowledges that such a project is opposed to the evident +design of the Church, and of her earliest teachers."[202:1] + + +4. + +When Roman Catholics are accused of substituting another Gospel for the +primitive Creed, they answer that they hold, and can show that they +hold, the doctrines of the Incarnation and Atonement, as firmly as any +Protestant can state them. To this it is replied that they do certainly +profess them, but that they obscure and virtually annul them by their +additions; that the _cultus_ of St. Mary and the Saints is no +development of the truth, but a corruption and a religious mischief to +those doctrines of which it is the corruption, because it draws away the +mind and heart from Christ. But they answer that, so far from this, it +subserves, illustrates, protects the doctrine of our Lord's loving +kindness and mediation. Thus the parties in controversy join issue on +the common ground, that a developed doctrine which reverses the course +of development which has preceded it, is no true development but a +corruption; also, that what is corrupt acts as an element of +unhealthiness towards what is sound. This subject, however, will come +before us in its proper place by and by. + + +5. + +Blackstone supplies us with an instance in another subject-matter, of a +development which is justified by its utility, when he observes that +"when society is once formed, government results of course, as necessary +to preserve and to keep that society in order."[202:2] + +On the contrary, when the Long Parliament proceeded to usurp the +executive, they impaired the popular liberties which they seemed to be +advancing; for the security of those liberties depends on the separation +of the executive and legislative powers, or on the enactors being +subjects, not executors of the laws. + +And in the history of ancient Rome, from the time that the privileges +gained by the tribunes in behalf of the people became an object of +ambition to themselves, the development had changed into a corruption. + +And thus a sixth test of a true development is that it is of a _tendency +conservative_ of what has gone before it. + + +SECTION VII. + +SEVENTH NOTE. CHRONIC VIGOUR. + +Since the corruption of an idea, as far as the appearance goes, is a +sort of accident or affection of its development, being the end of a +course, and a transition-state leading to a crisis, it is, as has been +observed above, a brief and rapid process. While ideas live in men's +minds, they are ever enlarging into fuller development: they will not be +stationary in their corruption any more than before it; and dissolution +is that further state to which corruption tends. Corruption cannot, +therefore, be of long standing; and thus _duration_ is another test of a +faithful development. + +_Si gravis, brevis; si longus, levis_; is the Stoical topic of +consolation under pain; and of a number of disorders it can even be +said, The worse, the shorter. + +Sober men are indisposed to change in civil matters, and fear reforms +and innovations, lest, if they go a little too far, they should at once +run on to some great calamities before a remedy can be applied. The +chance of a slow corruption does not strike them. Revolutions are +generally violent and swift; now, in fact, they are the course of a +corruption. + + +2. + +The course of heresies is always short; it is an intermediate state +between life and death, or what is like death; or, if it does not result +in death, it is resolved into some new, perhaps opposite, course of +error, which lays no claim to be connected with it. And in this way +indeed, but in this way only, an heretical principle will continue in +life many years, first running one way, then another. + +The abounding of iniquity is the token of the end approaching; the +faithful in consequence cry out, How long? as if delay opposed reason as +well as patience. Three years and a half are to complete the reign of +Antichrist. + +Nor is it any real objection that the world is ever corrupt, and yet, in +spite of this, evil does not fill up its measure and overflow; for this +arises from the external counteractions of truth and virtue, which bear +it back; let the Church be removed, and the world will soon come to its +end. + +And so again, if the chosen people age after age became worse and worse, +till there was no recovery, still their course of evil was continually +broken by reformations, and was thrown back upon a less advanced stage +of declension. + + +3. + +It is true that decay, which is one form of corruption, is slow; but +decay is a state in which there is no violent or vigorous action at all, +whether of a conservative or a destructive character, the hostile +influence being powerful enough to enfeeble the functions of life, but +not to quicken its own process. And thus we see opinions, usages, and +systems, which are of venerable and imposing aspect, but which have no +soundness within them, and keep together from a habit of consistence, or +from dependence on political institutions; or they become almost +peculiarities of a country, or the habits of a race, or the fashions of +society. And then, at length, perhaps, they go off suddenly and die out +under the first rough influence from without. Such are the superstitions +which pervade a population, like some ingrained dye or inveterate odour, +and which at length come to an end, because nothing lasts for ever, but +which run no course, and have no history; such was the established +paganism of classical times, which was the fit subject of persecution, +for its first breath made it crumble and disappear. Such apparently is +the state of the Nestorian and Monophysite communions; such might have +been the condition of Christianity had it been absorbed by the feudalism +of the middle ages; such too is that Protestantism, or (as it sometimes +calls itself) attachment to the Establishment, which is not unfrequently +the boast of the respectable and wealthy among ourselves. + +Whether Mahometanism external to Christendom, and the Greek Church +within it, fall under this description is yet to be seen. Circumstances +can be imagined which would even now rouse the fanaticism of the Moslem; +and the Russian despotism does not meddle with the usages, though it may +domineer over the priesthood, of the national religion. + + * * * * * + +Thus, while a corruption is distinguished from decay by its energetic +action, it is distinguished from a development by its _transitory +character_. + + +4. + +Such are seven out of various Notes, which may be assigned, of fidelity +in the development of an idea. The point to be ascertained is the unity +and identity of the idea with itself through all stages of its +development from first to last, and these are seven tokens that it may +rightly be accounted one and the same all along. To guarantee its own +substantial unity, it must be seen to be one in type, one in its system +of principles, one in its unitive power towards externals, one in its +logical consecutiveness, one in the witness of its early phases to its +later, one in the protection which its later extend to its earlier, and +one in its union of vigour with continuance, that is, in its tenacity. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[172:1] Commonit. 29. + +[173:1] Milman, Christ. + +[174:1] De Deo, ii. 4, Sect. 8. + +[184:1] Ch. xlix. + +[193:1] Pusey on German Rationalism, p. 21, note. + +[194:1] Halloix, Valesius, Lequien, Gieseler, Dollinger, &c., say that +he was condemned, not in the fifth Council, but in the Council under +Mennas. + +[194:2] Mem. Eccl. tom. viii. p. 562. + +[195:1] Def. Tr. Cap. viii. init. + +[197:1] Hallam's Const. Hist. ch. vi. p. 461. + +[201:1] Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 73. [Discuss. p. 200; _vide_ +also Essay on Assent, pp. 249-251.] + +[201:2] Ep. 162. + +[201:3] Ib. p. 309. + +[201:4] Prideaux, Life of Mahomet, p. 90. + +[202:1] German Protestantism, p. 176. + +[202:2] Vol. i. p. 118. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +APPLICATION OF THE SEVEN NOTES TO THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENTS OF CHRISTIAN +DOCTRINE. + + +APPLICATION OF THE FIRST NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. PRESERVATION OF +TYPE. + +Now let me attempt to apply the foregoing seven Notes of fidelity in +intellectual developments to the instance of Christian Doctrine. And +first as to the Note of _identity of type_. + +I have said above, that, whereas all great ideas are found, as time goes +on, to involve much which was not seen at first to belong to them, and +have developments, that is enlargements, applications, uses and +fortunes, very various, one security against error and perversion in the +process is the maintenance of the original type, which the idea +presented to the world at its origin, amid and through all its apparent +changes and vicissitudes from first to last. + +How does this apply to Christianity? What is its original type? and has +that type been preserved in the developments commonly called Catholic, +which have followed, and in the Church which embodies and teaches them? +Let us take it as the world now views it in its age; and let us take it +as the world once viewed it in its youth, and let us see whether there +be any great difference between the early and the later description of +it. The following statement will show my meaning:-- + +There is a religious communion claiming a divine commission, and +holding all other religious bodies around it heretical or infidel; it is +a well-organized, well-disciplined body; it is a sort of secret society, +binding together its members by influences and by engagements which it +is difficult for strangers to ascertain. It is spread over the known +world; it may be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong on the +whole from its continuity; it may be smaller than all other religious +bodies together, but is larger than each separately. It is a natural +enemy to governments external to itself; it is intolerant and +engrossing, and tends to a new modelling of society; it breaks laws, it +divides families. It is a gross superstition; it is charged with the +foulest crimes; it is despised by the intellect of the day; it is +frightful to the imagination of the many. And there is but one communion +such. + +Place this description before Pliny or Julian; place it before Frederick +the Second or Guizot.[208:1] "Apparent dirae facies." Each knows at once, +without asking a question, who is meant by it. One object, and only one, +absorbs each item of the detail of the delineation. + + +SECTION I. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. + +The _prima facie_ view of early Christianity, in the eyes of witnesses +external to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions +given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who +distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years. + +Tacitus is led to speak of the Religion, on occasion of the +conflagration of Rome, which was popularly imputed to Nero. "To put an +end to the report," he says, "he laid the guilt on others, and visited +them with the most exquisite punishment, those, namely, who, held in +abhorrence for their crimes (_per flagitia invisos_), were popularly +called Christians. The author of that profession (_nominis_) was Christ, +who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the Procurator, +Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (_exitiabilis superstitio_), +though checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only +throughout Judaea, the original seat of the evil, but through the City +also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (_atrocia aut pudenda_) +flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were +seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were +convicted, not so much of firing the City, as of hatred of mankind +(_odio humani generis_)." After describing their tortures, he continues +"In consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal +punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public +object, but from the barbarity of one man." + +Suetonius relates the same transactions thus: "Capital punishments were +inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical +superstition (_superstitionis novae et maleficae_)." What gives additional +character to this statement is its context; for it occurs as one out of +various police or sumptuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made; +such as "controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat, +repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the +integrity of wills." When Pliny was Governor of Pontus, he wrote his +celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to +deal with the Christians, whom he found there in great numbers. One of +his points of hesitation was, whether the very profession of +Christianity was not by itself sufficient to justify punishment; +"whether the name itself should be visited, though clear of flagitious +acts (_flagitia_), or only when connected with them." He says, he had +ordered for execution such as persevered in their profession, after +repeated warnings, "as not doubting, whatever it was they professed, +that at any rate contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be +punished." He required them to invoke the gods, to sacrifice wine and +frankincense to the images of the Emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; "to +which," he adds, "it is said no real Christian can be compelled." +Renegades informed him that "the sum total of their offence or fault was +meeting before light on an appointed day, and saying with one another a +form of words (_carmen_) to Christ, as if to a god, and binding +themselves by oath, (not to the commission of any wickedness, but) +against the commission of theft, robbery, adultery, breach of trust, +denial of deposits; that, after this they were accustomed to separate, +and then to meet again for a meal, but eaten all together and harmless; +however, that they had even left this off after his edicts enforcing the +Imperial prohibition of _Hetaeriae_ or Associations." He proceeded to put +two women to the torture, but "discovered nothing beyond a bad and +excessive superstition" (_superstitionem pravam et immodicam_), "the +contagion" of which, he continues, "had spread through villages and +country, till the temples were emptied of worshippers." + + +2. + +In these testimonies, which will form a natural and convenient text for +what is to follow, we have various characteristics brought before us of +the religion to which they relate. It was a superstition, as all three +writers agree; a bad and excessive superstition, according to Pliny; a +magical superstition, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition, +according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a society, and moreover a +secret and unlawful society or _hetaeria_; and it was a proselytizing +society; and its very name was connected with "flagitious," "atrocious," +and "shocking" acts. + + +3. + +Now these few points, which are not all which might be set down, contain +in themselves a distinct and significant description of Christianity; +but they have far greater meaning when illustrated by the history of the +times, the testimony of later writers, and the acts of the Roman +government towards its professors. It is impossible to mistake the +judgment passed on the religion by these three writers, and still more +clearly by other writers and Imperial functionaries. They evidently +associated Christianity with the oriental superstitions, whether +propagated by individuals or embodied in a rite, which were in that day +traversing the Empire, and which in the event acted so remarkable a part +in breaking up the national forms of worship, and so in preparing the +way for Christianity. This, then, is the broad view which the educated +heathen took of Christianity; and, if it had been very unlike those +rites and curious arts in external appearance, they would not have +confused it with them. + +Changes in society are, by a providential appointment, commonly preceded +and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts +and feelings in that direction towards which a change is to be made. +And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage +it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming +revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude, or pass +across the field of events. This was specially the case with +Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and attended +by a crowd of shadows, shadows of itself, impotent and monstrous as +shadows are, but not at first sight distinguishable from it by common +spectators. Before the mission of the Apostles, a movement, of which +there had been earlier parallels, had begun in Egypt, Syria, and the +neighbouring countries, tending to the propagation of new and peculiar +forms of worship throughout the Empire. Prophecies were afloat that some +new order of things was coming in from the East, which increased the +existing unsettlement of the popular mind; pretenders made attempts to +satisfy its wants, and old Traditions of the Truth, embodied for ages in +local or in national religions, gave to these attempts a doctrinal and +ritual shape, which became an additional point of resemblance to that +Truth which was soon visibly to appear. + + +4. + +The distinctive character of the rites in question lay in their +appealing to the gloomy rather than to the cheerful and hopeful +feelings, and in their influencing the mind through fear. The notions of +guilt and expiation, of evil and good to come, and of dealings with the +invisible world, were in some shape or other pre-eminent in them, and +formed a striking contrast to the classical polytheism, which was gay +and graceful, as was natural in a civilized age. The new rites, on the +other hand, were secret; their doctrine was mysterious; their profession +was a discipline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested in an +association, and exercised in privation and pain. They were from the +nature of the case proselytizing societies, for they were rising into +power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and +encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them +into easy connexion with magic and astrology, which are as attractive to +the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions to the +populace. + + +5. + +Such were the rites of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras; such the Chaldeans, as +they were commonly called, and the Magi; they came from one part of the +world, and during the first and second century spread with busy +perseverance to the northern and western extremities of the +empire.[213:1] Traces of the mysteries of Cybele, a Syrian deity, if the +famous temple at Hierapolis was hers, have been found in Spain, in Gaul, +and in Britain, as high up as the wall of Severus. The worship of Isis +was the most widely spread of all the pagan deities; it was received in +Ethiopia and in Germany, and even the name of Paris has been fancifully +traced to it. Both worships, as well as the Science of Magic, had their +colleges of priests and devotees, which were governed by a president, +and in some places were supported by farms. Their processions passed +from town to town, begging as they went and attracting proselytes. +Apuleius describes one of them as seizing a whip, accusing himself of +some offence, and scourging himself in public. These strollers, +_circulatores_ or _agyrtae_ in classical language, told fortunes, and +distributed prophetical tickets to the ignorant people who consulted +them. Also, they were learned in the doctrine of omens, of lucky and +unlucky days, of the rites of expiation and of sacrifices. Such an +_agyrtes_ or itinerant was the notorious Alexander of Abonotichus, till +he managed to establish himself in Pontus, where he carried on so +successful an imposition that his fame reached Rome, and men in office +and station entrusted him with their dearest political secrets. Such a +wanderer, with a far more religious bearing and a high reputation for +virtue, was Apollonius of Tyana, who professed the Pythagorean +philosophy, claimed the gift of miracles, and roamed about preaching, +teaching, healing, and prophesying from India and Alexandria to Athens +and Rome. Another solitary proselytizer, though of an earlier time and +of an avowed profligacy, had been the Sacrificulus, viewed with such +horror by the Roman Senate, as introducing the infamous Bacchic rites +into Rome. Such, again, were those degenerate children of a divine +religion, who, in the words of their Creator and Judge, "compassed sea +and land to make one proselyte," and made him "twofold more the child of +hell than themselves." + + +6. + +These vagrant religionists for the most part professed a severe rule of +life, and sometimes one of fanatical mortification. In the mysteries of +Mithras, the initiation[214:1] was preceded by fasting and abstinence, +and a variety of painful trials; it was made by means of a baptism as a +spiritual washing; and it included an offering of bread, and some emblem +of a resurrection. In the Samothracian rites it had been a custom to +initiate children; confession too of greater crimes seems to have been +required, and would naturally be involved in others in the inquisition +prosecuted into the past lives of the candidates for initiation. The +garments of the converts were white; their calling was considered as a +warfare (_militia_), and was undertaken with a _sacramentum_, or +military oath. The priests shaved their heads and wore linen, and when +they were dead were buried in a sacerdotal garment. It is scarcely +necessary to refer to the mutilation inflicted on the priests of Cybele; +one instance of their scourgings has been already mentioned; and +Tertullian speaks of their high priest cutting his arms for the life of +the Emperor Marcus.[215:1] The priests of Isis, in lamentation for +Osiris, tore their breasts with pine cones. This lamentation was a +ritual observance, founded on some religious mystery: Isis lost Osiris, +and the initiated wept in memory of her sorrow; the Syrian goddess had +wept over dead Thammuz, and her mystics commemorated it by a ceremonial +woe; in the rites of Bacchus, an image was laid on a bier at +midnight,[215:2] which was bewailed in metrical hymns; the god was +supposed to die, and then to revive. Nor was this the only worship which +was continued through the night; while some of the rites were performed +in caves. + + +7. + +Only a heavenly light can give purity to nocturnal and subterraneous +worship. Caves were at that time appropriated to the worship of the +infernal gods. It was but natural that these wild religions should be +connected with magic and its kindred arts; magic has at all times led to +cruelty, and licentiousness would be the inevitable reaction from a +temporary strictness. An extraordinary profession, when men are in a +state of mere nature, makes hypocrites or madmen, and will in no long +time be discarded except by the few. The world of that day associated +together in one company, Isiac, Phrygian, Mithriac, Chaldean, wizard, +astrologer, fortune-teller, itinerant, and, as was not unnatural, Jew. +Magic was professed by the profligate Alexander, and was imputed to the +grave Apollonius. The rites of Mithras came from the Magi of Persia; and +it is obviously difficult to distinguish in principle the ceremonies of +the Syrian Taurobolium from those of the Necyomantia in the Odyssey, or +of Canidia in Horace. + +The Theodosian Code calls magic generally a "superstition;" and magic, +orgies, mysteries, and "sabbathizings," were referred to the same +"barbarous" origin. "Magical superstitions," the "rites of the Magi," +the "promises of the Chaldeans," and the "Mathematici," are familiar to +the readers of Tacitus. The Emperor Otho, an avowed patron of oriental +fashions, took part in the rites of Isis, and consulted the Mathematici. +Vespasian, who also consulted them, is heard of in Egypt as performing +miracles at the suggestion of Serapis. Tiberius, in an edict, classes +together "Egyptian and Jewish rites;" and Tacitus and Suetonius, in +recording it, speak of the two religions together as "_ea +superstitio_."[216:1] Augustus had already associated them together as +superstitions, and as unlawful, and that in contrast to others of a like +foreign origin. "As to foreign rites (_peregrinae ceremoniae_)," says +Suetonius, "as he paid more reverence to those which were old and +enjoined, so did he hold the rest in contempt."[216:2] He goes on to say +that, even on the judgment-seat, he had recognized the Eleusinian +priests, into whose mysteries he had been initiated at Athens; "whereas, +when travelling in Egypt, he had refused to see Apis, and had approved +of his grandson Caligula's passing by Judaea without sacrificing at +Jerusalem." Plutarch speaks of magic as connected with the mournful +mysteries of Orpheus and Zoroaster, with the Egyptian and the Phrygian; +and, in his Treatise on Superstition, he puts together in one clause, as +specimens of that disease of mind, "covering oneself with mud, wallowing +in the mire, sabbathizings, fallings on the face, unseemly postures, +foreign adorations."[216:3] Ovid mentions in consecutive verses the +rites of "Adonis lamented by Venus," "The Sabbath of the Syrian Jew," +and the "Memphitic Temple of Io in her linen dress."[216:4] Juvenal +speaks of the rites, as well as the language and the music, of the +Syrian Orontes having flooded Rome; and, in his description of the +superstition of the Roman women, he places the low Jewish fortune-teller +between the pompous priests of Cybele and Isis, and the bloody +witchcraft of the Armenian haruspex and the astrology of the +Chaldeans.[217:1] + + +8. + +The Christian, being at first accounted a kind of Jew, was even on that +score included in whatever odium, and whatever bad associations, +attended on the Jewish name. But in a little time his independence of +the rejected people was clearly understood, as even the persecutions +show; and he stood upon his own ground. Still his character did not +change in the eyes of the world; for favour or for reproach, he was +still associated with the votaries of secret and magical rites. The +Emperor Hadrian, noted as he is for his inquisitive temper, and a +partaker in so many mysteries,[217:2] still believed that the Christians +of Egypt allowed themselves in the worship of Serapis. They are brought +into connexion with the magic of Egypt in the history of what is +commonly called the Thundering Legion, so far as this, that the rain +which relieved the Emperor's army in the field, and which the Church +ascribed to the prayers of the Christian soldiers, is by Dio Cassius +attributed to an Egyptian magician, who obtained it by invoking Mercury +and other spirits. This war had been the occasion of one of the first +recognitions which the state had conceded to the Oriental rites, though +statesmen and emperors, as private men, had long taken part in them. The +Emperor Marcus had been urged by his fears of the Marcomanni to resort +to these foreign introductions, and is said to have employed Magi and +Chaldeans in averting an unsuccessful issue of the war. It is +observable that, in the growing countenance which was extended to these +rites in the third century, Christianity came in for a share. The chapel +of Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius, +Pythagoras, and our Lord. Here indeed, as in the case of Zenobia's +Judaism, an eclectic philosophy aided the comprehension of religions. +But, immediately before Alexander, Heliogabalus, who was no philosopher, +while he formally seated his Syrian idol in the Palatine, while he +observed the mysteries of Cybele and Adonis, and celebrated his magic +rites with human victims, intended also, according to Lampridius, to +unite with his horrible superstition "the Jewish and Samaritan religions +and the Christian rite, that so the priesthood of Heliogabalus might +comprise the mystery of every worship."[218:1] Hence, more or less, the +stories which occur in ecclesiastical history of the conversion or +good-will of the emperors to the Christian faith, of Hadrian, Mammaea, +and others, besides Heliogabalus and Alexander. Such stories might often +mean little more than that they favoured it among other forms of +Oriental superstition. + + +9. + +What has been said is sufficient to bring before the mind an historical +fact, which indeed does not need evidence. Upon the established +religions of Europe the East had renewed her encroachments, and was +pouring forth a family of rites which in various ways attracted the +attention of the luxurious, the political, the ignorant, the restless, +and the remorseful. Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, Syrian, Phrygian, +as the case might be, was the designation of the new hierophant; and +magic, superstition, barbarism, jugglery, were the names given to his +rite by the world. In this company appeared Christianity. When then +three well-informed writers call Christianity a superstition and a +magical superstition, they were not using words at random, or the +language of abuse, but they were describing it in distinct and +recognized terms as cognate to those gloomy, secret, odious, +disreputable religions which were making so much disturbance up and down +the empire. + + +10. + +The impression made on the world by circumstances immediately before the +rise of Christianity received a sort of confirmation upon its rise, in +the appearance of the Gnostic and kindred heresies, which issued from +the Church during the second and third centuries. Their resemblance in +ritual and constitution to the Oriental religions, sometimes their +historical relationship, is undeniable; and certainly it is a singular +coincidence, that Christianity should be first called a magical +superstition by Suetonius, and then should be found in the intimate +company, and seemingly the parent, of a multitude of magical +superstitions, if there was nothing in the Religion itself to give rise +to such a charge. + + +11. + +The Gnostic family[219:1] suitably traces its origin to a mixed race, +which had commenced its national history by associating Orientalism with +Revelation. After the captivity of the ten tribes, Samaria was colonized +by "men from Babylon and Cushan, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from +Sepharvaim," who were instructed at their own instance in "the manner of +the God of the land," by one of the priests of the Church of Jeroboam. +The consequence was, that "they feared the Lord and served their own +gods." Of this country was Simon, the reputed patriarch of the +Gnostics; and he is introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as professing +those magical powers which were so principal a characteristic of the +Oriental mysteries. His heresy, though broken into a multitude of sects, +was poured over the world with a Catholicity not inferior in its day to +that of Christianity. St. Peter, who fell in with him originally in +Samaria, seems to have encountered him again at Rome. At Rome, St. +Polycarp met Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread through Italy, +Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia; Valentinus preached his doctrines in +Alexandria, Rome, and Cyprus; and we read of his disciples in Crete, +Caesarea, Antioch, and other parts of the East. Bardesanes and his +followers were found in Mesopotamia. The Carpocratians are spoken of at +Alexandria, at Rome, and in Cephallenia; the Basilidians spread through +the greater part of Egypt; the Ophites were apparently in Bithynia and +Galatia; the Cainites or Caians in Africa, and the Marcosians in Gaul. +To these must be added several sects, which, though not strictly of the +Gnostic stock, are associated with them in date, character, and +origin;--the Ebionites of Palestine, the Cerinthians, who rose in some +part of Asia Minor, the Encratites and kindred sects, who spread from +Mesopotamia to Syria, to Cilicia and other provinces of Asia Minor, and +thence to Rome, Gaul, Aquitaine, and Spain; and the Montanists, who, +with a town in Phrygia for their metropolis, reached at length from +Constantinople to Carthage. + +"When [the reader of Christian history] comes to the second century," +says Dr. Burton, "he finds that Gnosticism, under some form or other, +was professed in every part of the then civilized world. He finds it +divided into schools, as numerously and as zealously attended as any +which Greece or Asia could boast in their happiest days. He meets with +names totally unknown to him before, which excited as much sensation as +those of Aristotle or Plato. He hears of volumes having been written in +support of this new philosophy, not one of which has survived to our own +day."[221:1] Many of the founders of these sects had been Christians; +others were of Jewish parentage; others were more or less connected in +fact with the Pagan rites to which their own bore so great a +resemblance. Montanus seems even to have been a mutilated priest of +Cybele; the followers of Prodicus professed to possess the secret books +of Zoroaster; and the doctrine of dualism, which so many of the sects +held, is to be traced to the same source. Basilides seems to have +recognized Mithras as the Supreme Being, or the Prince of Angels, or the +Sun, if Mithras is equivalent to Abraxas, which was inscribed upon his +amulets: on the other hand, he is said to have been taught by an +immediate disciple of St. Peter, and Valentinus by an immediate disciple +of St. Paul. Marcion was the son of a Bishop of Pontus; Tatian, a +disciple of St. Justin Martyr. + + +12. + +Whatever might be the history of these sects, and though it may be a +question whether they can be properly called "superstitions," and though +many of them numbered educated men among their teachers and followers, +they closely resembled, at least in ritual and profession, the vagrant +Pagan mysteries which have been above described. Their very name of +"Gnostic" implied the possession of a secret, which was to be +communicated to their disciples. Ceremonial observances were the +preparation, and symbolical rites the instrument, of initiation. Tatian +and Montanus, the representatives of very distinct schools, agreed in +making asceticism a rule of life. The followers of each of these +sectaries abstained from wine; the Tatianites and Marcionites, from +flesh; the Montanists kept three Lents in the year. All the Gnostic +sects seem to have condemned marriage on one or other reason.[222:1] The +Marcionites had three baptisms or more; the Marcosians had two rites of +what they called redemption; the latter of these was celebrated as a +marriage, and the room adorned as a marriage-chamber. A consecration to +a priesthood then followed with anointing. An extreme unction was +another of their rites, and prayers for the dead one of their +observances. Bardesanes and Harmonius were famous for the beauty of +their chants. The prophecies of Montanus were delivered, like the +oracles of the heathen, in a state of enthusiasm or ecstasy. To +Epiphanes, the son of Carpocrates, who died at the age of seventeen, a +temple was erected in the island of Cephallenia, his mother's +birthplace, where he was celebrated with hymns and sacrifices. A similar +honour was paid by the Carpocratians to Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, +Aristotle, as well as to the Apostles; crowns were placed upon their +images, and incense burned before them. In one of the inscriptions found +at Cyrene, about twenty years since, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, +and others, are put together with our Lord, as guides of conduct. These +inscriptions also contain the Carpocratian tenet of a community of +women. I am unwilling to allude to the Agapae and Communions of certain +of these sects, which were not surpassed in profligacy by the Pagan +rites of which they were an imitation. The very name of Gnostic became +an expression for the worst impurities, and no one dared eat bread with +them, or use their culinary instruments or plates. + + +13. + +These profligate excesses are found in connexion with the exercise of +magic and astrology.[223:1] The amulets of the Basilidians are still +extant in great numbers, inscribed with symbols, some Christian, some +with figures of Isis, Serapis, and Anubis, represented according to the +gross indecencies of the Egyptian mythology.[223:2] St. Irenaeus had +already connected together the two crimes in speaking of the Simonians: +"Their mystical priests," he says, "live in lewdness, and practise +magic, according to the ability of each. They use exorcisms and +incantations; love-potions too, and seductive spells; the virtue of +spirits, and dreams, and all other curious arts, they diligently +observe."[223:3] The Marcosians were especially devoted to these +"curious arts," which are also ascribed to Carpocrates and Apelles. +Marcion and others are reported to have used astrology. Tertullian +speaks generally of the sects of his day: "Infamous are the dealings of +the heretics with sorcerers very many, with mountebanks, with +astrologers, with philosophers, to wit, such as are given to curious +questions. They everywhere remember, 'Seek, and ye shall find.'"[223:4] + +Such were the Gnostics; and to external and prejudiced spectators, +whether philosophers, as Celsus and Porphyry, or the multitude, they +wore an appearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken for her +in the latter part of the Ante-nicene period, as she was confused with +the Pagan mysteries in the earlier. + + +14. + +Of course it may happen that the common estimate concerning a person or +a body is purely accidental and unfounded; but in such cases it is not +lasting. Such were the calumnies of child-eating and impurity in the +Christian meetings, which were almost extinct by the time of Origen, and +which might arise from the world's confusing them with the pagan and +heretical rites. But when it continues from age to age, it is certainly +an index of a fact, and corresponds to definite qualities in the object +to which it relates. In that case, even mistakes carry information; for +they are cognate to the truth, and we can allow for them. Often what +seems like a mistake is merely the mode in which the informant conveys +his testimony, or the impression which a fact makes on him. Censure is +the natural tone of one man in a case where praise is the natural tone +of another; the very same character or action inspires one mind with +enthusiasm, and another with contempt. What to one man is magnanimity, +to another is romance, and pride to a third, and pretence to a fourth, +while to a fifth it is simply unintelligible; and yet there is a certain +analogy in their separate testimonies, which conveys to us what the +thing is like and what it is not like. When a man's acknowledged note is +superstition, we may be pretty sure we shall not find him an Academic or +an Epicurean; and even words which are ambiguous, as "atheist," or +"reformer," admit of a sure interpretation when we are informed of the +speaker. In like manner, there is a certain general correspondence +between magic and miracle, obstinacy and faith, insubordination and zeal +for religion, sophistry and argumentative talent, craft and meekness, as +is obvious. Let us proceed then in our contemplation of this reflection, +as it may be called of primitive Christianity in the mirror of the +world. + + +15. + +All three writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, call it a +"superstition;" this is no accidental imputation, but is repeated by a +variety of subsequent writers and speakers. The charge of Thyestean +banquets scarcely lasts a hundred years; but, while pagan witnesses are +to be found, the Church is accused of superstition. The heathen +disputant in Minucius calls Christianity, "_Vana et demens +superstitio_." The lawyer Modestinus speaks, with an apparent allusion +to Christianity, of "weak minds being terrified _superstitione +numinis_." The heathen magistrate asks St. Marcellus, whether he and +others have put away "vain superstitions," and worship the gods whom the +emperors worship. The Pagans in Arnobius speak of Christianity as "an +execrable and unlucky religion, full of impiety and sacrilege, +contaminating the rites instituted from of old with the superstition of +its novelty." The anonymous opponent of Lactantius calls it, "_Impia et +anilis superstitio_." Diocletian's inscription at Clunia was, as it +declared, on occasion of "the total extinction of the superstition of +the Christians, and the extension of the worship of the gods." Maximin, +in his Letter upon Constantine's Edict, still calls it a +superstition.[225:1] + + +16. + +Now what is meant by the word thus attached by a _consensus_ of heathen +authorities to Christianity? At least, it cannot mean a religion in +which a man might think what he pleased, and was set free from all +yokes, whether of ignorance, fear, authority, or priestcraft. When +heathen writers call the Oriental rites superstitions, they evidently +use the word in its modern sense; it cannot surely be doubted that they +apply it in the same sense to Christianity. But Plutarch explains for us +the word at length, in his Treatise which bears the name: "Of all kinds +of fear," he says, "superstition is the most fatal to action and +resource. He does not fear the sea who does not sail, nor war who does +not serve, nor robbers who keeps at home, nor the sycophant who is poor, +nor the envious if he is a private man, nor an earthquake if he lives in +Gaul, nor thunder if he lives in Ethiopia; but he who fears the gods +fears everything, earth, seas, air, sky, darkness, light, noises, +silence, sleep. Slaves sleep and forget their masters; of the fettered +doth sleep lighten the chain; inflamed wounds, ulcers cruel and +agonizing, are not felt by the sleeping. Superstition alone has come to +no terms with sleep; but in the very sleep of her victims, as though +they were in the realms of the impious, she raises horrible spectres, +and monstrous phantoms, and various pains, and whirls the miserable soul +about, and persecutes it. They rise, and, instead of making light of +what is unreal, they fall into the hands of quacks and conjurers, who +say, 'Call the crone to expiate, bathe in the sea, and sit all day on +the ground.'" He goes on to speak of the introduction of "uncouth names +and barbarous terms" into "the divine and national authority of +religion;" observes that, whereas slaves, when they despair of freedom, +may demand to be sold to another master, superstition admits of no +change of gods, since "the god cannot be found whom he will not fear, +who fears the gods of his family and his birth, who shudders at the +Saving and the Benignant, who has a trembling and dread at those from +whom we ask riches and wealth, concord, peace, success of all good words +and deeds." He says, moreover, that, while death is to all men an end of +life, it is not so to the superstitious; for then "there are deep gates +of hell to yawn, and headlong streams of at once fire and gloom are +opened, and darkness with its many phantoms encompasses, ghosts +presenting horrid visages and wretched voices, and judges and +executioners, and chasms and dens full of innumerable miseries." + +Presently, he says, that in misfortune or sickness the superstitious man +refuses to see physician or philosopher, and cries, "Suffer me, O man, +to undergo punishment, the impious, the cursed, the hated of gods and +spirits. The Atheist," with whom all along he is contrasting the +superstitious disadvantageously, "wipes his tears, trims his hair, doffs +his mourning; but how can you address, how help the superstitious? He +sits apart in sackcloth or filthy rags; and often he strips himself and +rolls in the mud, and tells out his sins and offences, as having eaten +and drunken something, or walked some way which the divinity did not +allow. . . . And in his best mood, and under the influence of a +good-humoured superstition, he sits at home, with sacrifice and +slaughter all round him, while the old crones hang on him as on a peg, +as Bion says, any charm they fall in with." He continues, "What men like +best are festivals, banquets at the temples, initiations, orgies, votive +prayers, and adorations. But the superstitious wishes indeed, but is +unable to rejoice. He is crowned and turns pale; he sacrifices and is in +fear; he prays with a quivering voice, and burns incense with trembling +hands, and altogether belies the saying of Pythagoras, that we are then +in best case when we go to the gods; for superstitious men are in most +wretched and evil case, approaching the houses or shrines of the gods as +if they were the dens of bears, or the holes of snakes, or the caves of +whales." + + +17. + +Here we have a vivid picture of Plutarch's idea of the essence of +Superstition; it was the imagination of the existence of an unseen +ever-present Master; the bondage of a rule of life, of a continual +responsibility; obligation to attend to little things, the +impossibility of escaping from duty, the inability to choose or change +one's religion, an interference with the enjoyment of life, a melancholy +view of the world, sense of sin, horror at guilt, apprehension of +punishment, dread, self-abasement, depression, anxiety and endeavour to +be at peace with heaven, and error and absurdity in the methods chosen +for the purpose. Such too had been the idea of the Epicurean Velleius, +when he shrunk with horror from the "_sempiternus dominus_" and +"_curiosus Deus_" of the Stoics.[228:1] Such, surely, was the meaning of +Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny. And hence of course the frequent reproach +cast on Christians as credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The +heathen objectors in Minucius and Lactantius speak of their "old-woman's +tales."[228:2] Celsus accuses them of "assenting at random and without +reason," saying, "Do not inquire, but believe." "They lay it down," he +says elsewhere, "Let no educated man approach, no man of wisdom, no man +of sense; but if a man be unlearned, weak in intellect, an infant, let +him come with confidence. Confessing that these are worthy of their God, +they evidently desire, as they are able, to convert none but fools, and +vulgar, and stupid, and slavish, women and boys." They "take in the +simple, and lead him where they will." They address themselves to +"youths, house-servants, and the weak in intellect." They "hurry away +from the educated, as not fit subjects of their imposition, and inveigle +the rustic."[228:3] "Thou," says the heathen magistrate to the Martyr +Fructuosus, "who as a teacher dost disseminate a new fable, that fickle +girls may desert the groves and abandon Jupiter, condemn, if thou art +wise, the anile creed."[229:1] + + +18. + +Hence the epithets of itinerant, mountebank, conjurer, cheat, sophist, +sorcerer, heaped upon the teachers of Christianity; sometimes to account +for the report or apparent truth of their miracles, sometimes to explain +their success. Our Lord was said to have learned His miraculous power in +Egypt; "wizard, mediciner, cheat, rogue, conjurer," were the epithets +applied to Him by the opponents of Eusebius;[229:2] they "worship that +crucified sophist," says Lucian;[229:3] "Paul, who surpasses all the +conjurers and impostors who ever lived," is Julian's account of the +Apostle. "You have sent through the whole world," says St. Justin to +Trypho, "to preach that a certain atheistic and lawless sect has sprung +from one Jesus, a Galilean cheat."[229:4] "We know," says Lucian, +speaking of Chaldeans and Magicians, "the Syrian from Palestine, who is +the sophist in these matters, how many lunatics, with eyes distorted and +mouth in foam, he raises and sends away restored, ridding them from the +evil at a great price."[229:5] "If any conjurer came to them, a man of +skill and knowing how to manage matters," says the same writer, "he made +money in no time, with a broad grin at the simple fellows."[229:6] The +officer who had custody of St. Perpetua feared her escape from prison +"by magical incantations."[229:7] When St. Tiburtius had walked barefoot +on hot coals, his judge cried out that Christ had taught him magic. St. +Anastasia was thrown into prison as a mediciner; the populace called out +against St. Agnes, "Away with the witch," _Tolle magam, tolle +maleficam_. + +When St. Bonosus and St. Maximilian bore the burning pitch without +shrinking, Jews and Gentiles cried out, _Isti magi et malefici_. "What +new delusion," says the heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has +brought in these sophists to deny the worship of the gods? How doth this +chief sorcerer mock us, skilled by his Thessalian charm (_carmine_) to +laugh at punishment."[230:1] + +Hence we gather the meaning of the word "_carmen_" as used by Pliny; +when he speaks of the Christians "saying with one another a _carmen_ to +Christ as to a god," he meant pretty much what Suetonius expresses by +the "_malefica superstitio_."[230:2] And the words of the last-mentioned +writer and Tacitus are still more exactly, and, I may say, singularly +illustrated by clauses which occur in the Theodosian code; which seem to +show that these historians were using formal terms and phrases to +express their notion of Christianity. For instance, Tacitus says, "_Quos +per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat_;" and the Law +against the Malefici and Mathematici in the Code speaks of those, "_Quos +ob facinorum magnitudinem vulgus maleficos appellat_."[230:3] Again, +Tacitus charges Christians with the "_odium humani generis_:" this is +the very characteristic of a practiser in magic; the Laws call the +Malefici, "_humani generis hostes_," "_humani generis inimici_," +"_naturae peregrini_," "_communis salutis hostes_."[230:4] + + +19. + +This also explains the phenomenon, which has created so much surprise to +certain moderns;--that a grave, well-informed historian like Tacitus +should apply to Christians what sounds like abuse. Yet what is the +difficulty, supposing that Christians were considered mathematici and +magi, and these were the secret intriguers against established +government, the allies of desperate politicians, the enemies of the +established religion, the disseminators of lying rumours, the +perpetrators of poisonings and other crimes? "Read this," says Paley, +after quoting some of the most beautiful and subduing passages of St. +Paul, "read this, and then think of _exitiabilis superstitio_;" and he +goes on to express a wish "in contending with heathen authorities, to +produce our books against theirs,"[231:1] as if it were a matter of +books. Public men care very little for books; the finest sentiments, the +most luminous philosophy, the deepest theology, inspiration itself, +moves them but little; they look at facts, and care only for facts. The +question was, What was the worth, what the tendency of the Christian +body in the state? what Christians said, what they thought, was little +to the purpose. They might exhort to peaceableness and passive obedience +as strongly as words could speak; but what did they do, what was their +political position? This is what statesmen thought of then, as they do +now. What had men of the world to do with abstract proofs or first +principles? a statesman measures parties, and sects, and writers by +their bearing upon _him_; and he has a practised eye in this sort of +judgment, and is not likely to be mistaken. "'What is Truth?' said +jesting Pilate." Apologies, however eloquent or true, availed nothing +with the Roman magistrate against the sure instinct which taught him to +dread Christianity. It was a dangerous enemy to any power not built +upon itself; he felt it, and the event justified his apprehension. + + +20. + +We must not forget the well-known character of the Roman state in its +dealings with its subjects. It had had from the first an extreme +jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large +toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern +governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority +in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil +institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion. +Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it +was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of +low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the +outlaws of society, and were in a condition analogous, if the comparison +may be allowed, to smugglers or poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to +burglars and highwaymen. The modern robber is sometimes made to ask in +novels or essays, why the majority of a people should bind the minority, +and why he is amenable to laws which he does not enact; but the +magistrate, relying on the power of the sword, wishes all men to gain a +living indeed, and to prosper, but only in his own legally sanctioned +ways, and he hangs or transports dissenters from his authority. The +Romans applied this rule to religion. Lardner protests against Pliny's +application of the words "contumacy and inflexible obstinacy" to the +Christians of Pontus. "Indeed, these are hard words," he says, "very +improperly applied to men who were open to conviction, and willing to +satisfy others, if they might have leave to speak."[232:1] And he says, +"It seems to me that Pliny acted very arbitrarily and unrighteously, in +his treatment of the Christians in his province. What right had Pliny to +act in this manner? by what law or laws did he punish [them] with +death?"--but the Romans had ever burnt the sorcerer, and banished his +consulters for life.[233:1] It was an ancient custom. And at mysteries +they looked with especial suspicion, because, since the established +religion did not include them in its provisions, they really did supply +what may be called a demand of the age. The Greeks of an earlier day had +naturalized among themselves the Eleusinian and other mysteries, which +had come from Egypt and Syria, and had little to fear from a fresh +invasion from the same quarter; yet even in Greece, as Plutarch tells us, +the "_carmina_" of the itinerants of Cybele and Serapis threw the +Pythian verses out of fashion, and henceforth the responses from the +temple were given in prose. Soon the oracles altogether ceased. What +would cause in the Roman mind still greater jealousy of Christianity was +the general infidelity which prevailed among all classes as regards the +mythological fables of Charon, Cerberus, and the realms of +punishment.[233:2] + + +21. + +We know what opposition had been made in Rome even to the philosophy of +Greece; much greater would be the aversion of constitutional statesmen +and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. Religion was the Roman point of +honour. "Spaniards might rival them in numbers," says Cicero, "Gauls in +bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, Greeks in the arts, Italians +and Latins in native talent, but the Romans surpassed all nations in +piety and devotion."[234:1] It was one of their laws, "Let no one have +gods by himself, nor worship in private new gods nor adventitious, +unless added on public authority."[234:2] Lutatius,[234:3] at the end of +the first Punic war, was forbidden by the senate to consult the Sortes +Praenestinae as being "_auspicia alienigena_." Some years afterwards the +Consul took axe in hand, and commenced the destruction of the temples of +Isis and Serapis. In the second Punic war, the senate had commanded the +surrender of the _libri vaticini_ or _precationes_, and any written art +of sacrificing. When a secret confraternity was discovered, at a later +date, the Consul spoke of the rule of their ancestors which forbade the +forum, circus, and city to Sacrificuli and prophets, and burnt their +books. In the next age banishment was inflicted on individuals who were +introducing the worship of the Syrian Sabazius; and in the next the +Iseion and Serapeion were destroyed a second time. Maecenas in Dio +advises Augustus to honour the gods according to the national custom, +because the contempt of the country's deities leads to civil +insubordination, reception of foreign laws, conspiracies, and secret +meetings.[234:4] "Suffer no one," he adds, "to deny the gods or to +practise sorcery." The civilian Julius Paulus lays it down as one of the +leading principles of Roman Law, that those who introduce new or untried +religions should be degraded, and if in the lower orders put to +death.[234:5] In like manner, it is enacted in one of Constantine's Laws +that the Haruspices should not exercise their art in private; and there +is a law of Valentinian's against nocturnal sacrifices or magic. It is +more immediately to our purpose that Trajan had been so earnest in his +resistance to _Hetaeriae_ or secret societies, that, when a fire had laid +waste Nicomedia, and Pliny proposed to him to incorporate a body of a +hundred and fifty firemen in consequence,[235:1] he was afraid of the +precedent and forbade it. + + +22. + +What has been said will suggest another point of view in which the +Oriental rites were obnoxious to the government, viz., as being vagrant +and proselytizing religions. If it tolerated foreign superstitions, this +would be on the ground that districts or countries within its +jurisdiction held them; to proselytize to a rite hitherto unknown, to +form a new party, and to propagate it through the Empire,--a religion +not local but Catholic,--was an offence against both order and reason. +The state desired peace everywhere, and no change; "considering," +according to Lactantius, "that they were rightly and deservedly punished +who execrated the public religion handed down to them by their +ancestors."[235:2] + +It is impossible surely to deny that, in assembling for religious +purposes, the Christians were breaking a solemn law, a vital principle +of the Roman constitution; and this is the light in which their conduct +was regarded by the historians and philosophers of the Empire. This was +a very strong act on the part of the disciples of the great Apostle, who +had enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time after time they +resisted the authority of the magistrate; and this is a phenomenon +inexplicable on the theory of Private Judgment or of the Voluntary +Principle. The justification of such disobedience lies simply in the +necessity of obeying the higher authority of some divine law; but if +Christianity were in its essence only private and personal, as so many +now think, there was no necessity of their meeting together at all. If, +on the other hand, in assembling for worship and holy communion, they +were fulfilling an indispensable observance, Christianity has imposed a +social law on the world, and formally enters the field of politics. +Gibbon says that, in consequence of Pliny's edict, "the prudence of the +Christians suspended their Agapae; but it was _impossible_ for them to +omit the exercise of public worship."[236:1] We can draw no other +conclusion. + + +23. + +At the end of three hundred years, a more remarkable violation of law +seems to have been admitted by the Christian body. It shall be given in +the words of Dr. Burton; he has been speaking of Maximin's edict, which +provided for the restitution of any of their lands or buildings which +had been alienated from them. "It is plain," he says, "from the terms of +this edict, that the Christians had for some time been in possession of +property. It speaks of houses and lands which did not belong to +individuals, but to the whole body. Their possession of such property +could hardly have escaped the notice of the government; but it seems to +have been held in direct violation of a law of Diocletian, which +prohibited corporate bodies, or associations which were not legally +recognized, from acquiring property. The Christians were certainly not a +body recognized by law at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, and +it might almost be thought that this enactment was specially directed +against them. But, like other laws which are founded upon tyranny, and +are at variance with the first principles of justice, it is probable +that this law about corporate property was evaded. We must suppose that +the Christians had purchased lands and houses before the law was passed; +and their disregard of the prohibition may be taken as another proof +that their religion had now taken so firm a footing that the executors +of the laws were obliged to connive at their being broken by so numerous +a body."[237:1] + + +24. + +No wonder that the magistrate who presided at the martyrdom of St. +Romanus calls them in Prudentius "a rebel people;"[237:2] that Galerius +speaks of them as "a nefarious conspiracy;" the heathen in Minucius, as +"men of a desperate faction;" that others make them guilty of sacrilege +and treason, and call them by those other titles which, more closely +resembling the language of Tacitus, have been noticed above. Hence the +violent accusations against them as the destruction of the Empire, the +authors of physical evils, and the cause of the anger of the gods. + +"Men cry out," says Tertullian, "that the state is beset, that the +Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. They +mourn as for a loss that every sex, condition, and now even rank, is +going over to this sect. And yet they do not by this very means advance +their minds to the idea of some good therein hidden; they allow not +themselves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not to examine more +closely. The generality run upon a hatred of this name, with eyes so +closed that in bearing favourable testimony to any one they mingle with +it the reproach of the name. 'A good man Caius Seius, only he is a +Christian.' So another, 'I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius hath +suddenly become a Christian.' No one reflecteth whether Caius be not +therefore good and Lucius wise because a Christian, or therefore a +Christian because wise and good. They praise that which they know, they +revile that which they know not. Virtue is not in such account as hatred +of the Christians. Now, then, if the hatred be of the name, what guilt +is there in names? What charge against words? Unless it be that any word +which is a name have either a barbarous or ill-omened, or a scurrilous +or an immodest sound. If the Tiber cometh up to the walls, if the Nile +cometh not up to the fields, if the heaven hath stood still, if the +earth hath been moved, if there be any famine, if any pestilence, 'The +Christians to the lions' is forthwith the word."[238:1] + + +25. + +"Men of a desperate, lawless, reckless faction," says the heathen +Caecilius, in the passage above referred to, "who collect together out of +the lowest rabble the thoughtless portion, and credulous women seduced +by the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of impure conspirators, of +whom nocturnal assemblies, and solemn fastings, and unnatural food, no +sacred rite but pollution, is the bond. A tribe lurking and +light-hating, dumb for the public, talkative in corners, they despise +our temples as if graves, spit at our gods, deride our religious forms; +pitiable themselves, they pity, forsooth, our priests; half-naked +themselves, they despise our honours and purple; monstrous folly and +incredible impudence! . . . Day after day, their abandoned morals wind +their serpentine course; over the whole world are those most hideous +rites of an impious association growing into shape: . . . they recognize +each other by marks and signs, and love each other almost before they +recognize; promiscuous lust is their religion. Thus does their vain and +mad superstition glory in crimes. . . The writer who tells the story of a +criminal capitally punished, and of the gibbet (_ligna feralia_) of the +cross being their observance (_ceremonias_), assigns to them thereby an +altar in keeping with the abandoned and wicked, that they may worship +(_colant_) what they merit. . . . Why their mighty effort to hide and +shroud whatever it is they worship (_colunt_), since things honest ever +like the open day, and crimes are secret? Why have they no altars, no +temples, no images known to us, never speak abroad, never assemble +freely, were it not that what they worship and suppress is subject +either of punishment or of shame? . . What monstrous, what portentous +notions do they fabricate! that that God of theirs, whom they can +neither show nor see, should be inquiring diligently into the +characters, the acts, nay the words and secret thoughts of all men; +running to and fro, forsooth, and present everywhere, troublesome, +restless, nay impudently curious they would have him; that is, if he is +close at every deed, interferes in all places, while he can neither +attend to each as being distracted through the whole, nor suffice for +the whole as being engaged about each. Think too of their threatening +fire, meditating destruction to the whole earth, nay the world itself +with its stars! . . . Nor content with this mad opinion, they add and +append their old wives' tales about a new birth after death, ashes and +cinders, and by some strange confidence believe each other's lies. Poor +creatures! consider what hangs over you after death, while you are still +alive. Lo, the greater part of you, the better, as you say, are in want, +cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it; but I omit common trials. +Lo, threats are offered to you, punishments, torments; crosses to be +undergone now, not worshipped (_adorandae_); fires too which ye predict +and fear; where is that God who can recover, but cannot preserve your +life? The answer of Socrates, when he was asked about heavenly matters, +is well known, 'What is above us does not concern us.' My opinion also +is, that points which are doubtful, as are the points in question, must +be left; nor, when so many and such great men are in controversy on the +subject, must judgment be rashly and audaciously given on either side, +lest the consequence be either anile superstition or the overthrow of +all religion." + + +26. + +Such was Christianity in the eyes of those who witnessed its rise and +propagation;--one of a number of wild and barbarous rites which were +pouring in upon the Empire from the ancient realms of superstition, and +the mother of a progeny of sects which were faithful to the original +they had derived from Egypt or Syria; a religion unworthy of an educated +person, as appealing, not to the intellect, but to the fears and +weaknesses of human nature, and consisting, not in the rational and +cheerful enjoyment, but in a morose rejection of the gifts of +Providence; a horrible religion, as inflicting or enjoining cruel +sufferings, and monstrous and loathsome in its very indulgence of the +passions; a religion leading by reaction to infidelity; a religion of +magic, and of the vulgar arts, real and pretended, with which magic was +accompanied; a secret religion which dared not face the day; an +itinerant, busy, proselytizing religion, forming an extended confederacy +against the state, resisting its authority and breaking its laws. There +may be some exceptions to this general impression, such as Pliny's +discovery of the innocent and virtuous rule of life adopted by the +Christians of Pontus; but this only proves that Christianity was not in +fact the infamous religion which the heathen thought it; it did not +reverse their general belief to that effect. + + +27. + +Now it must be granted that, in some respects, this view of Christianity +depended on the times, and would alter with their alteration. When there +was no persecution, Martyrs could not be obstinate; and when the Church +was raised aloft in high places, it was no longer in caves. Still, I +believe, it continued substantially the same in the judgment of the +world external to it, while there was an external world to judge of it. +"They thought it enough," says Julian in the fourth century, of our Lord +and His Apostles, "to deceive women, servants, and slaves, and by their +means wives and husbands." "A human fabrication," says he elsewhere, +"put together by wickedness, having nothing divine in it, but making a +perverted use of the fable-loving, childish, irrational part of the +soul, and offering a set of wonders to create belief." "Miserable men," +he says elsewhere, "you refuse to worship the ancile, yet you worship +the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads, and fix it on your +doors. Shall one for this hate the intelligent among you, or pity the +less understanding, who in following you have gone to such an excess of +perdition as to leave the everlasting gods and go over to a dead Jew?" +He speaks of their adding other dead men to Him who died so long ago. +"You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments, though it is +nowhere told you in your religion to haunt the tombs and to attend upon +them." Elsewhere he speaks of their "leaving the gods for corpses and +relics." On the other hand, he attributes the growth of Christianity to +its humanity towards strangers, care in burying the dead, and pretended +religiousness of life. In another place he speaks of their care of the +poor.[241:1] + +Libanius, Julian's preceptor in rhetoric, delivers the same testimony, +as far as it goes. He addressed his Oration for the Temples to a +Christian Emperor, and would in consequence be guarded in his language; +however it runs in one direction. He speaks of "those black-habited +men," meaning the monks, "who eat more than elephants, and by the +number of their potations trouble those who send them drink in their +chantings, and conceal this by paleness artificially acquired." They +"are in good condition out of the misfortunes of others, while they +pretend to serve God by hunger." Those whom they attack "are like bees, +they like drones." I do not quote this passage to prove that there were +monks in Libanius's days, which no one doubts, but to show his +impression of Christianity, as far as his works betray it. + +Numantian, in the same century, describes in verse his voyage from Rome +to Gaul: one book of the poem is extant; he falls in with Christianity +on two of the islands which lie in his course. He thus describes them as +found on one of these: "The island is in a squalid state, being full of +light-haters. They call themselves monks, because they wish to live +alone without witness. They dread the gifts, from fearing the reverses, +of fortune. Thus Homer says that melancholy was the cause of +Bellerophon's anxiety; for it is said that after the wounds of grief +mankind displeased the offended youth." He meets on the other island a +Christian, whom he had known, of good family and fortune, and happy in +his marriage, who "impelled by the Furies had left men and gods, and, +credulous exile, was living in base concealment. Is not this herd," he +continues, "worse than Circean poison? then bodies were changed, now +minds." + + +28. + +In the Philopatris, which is the work of an Author of the fourth +century,[242:1] Critias is introduced pale and wild. His friend asks him +if he has seen Cerberus or Hecate; and he answers that he has heard a +rigmarole from certain "thrice-cursed sophists;" which he thinks would +drive him mad, if he heard it again, and was nearly sending him +headlong over some cliff as it was. He retires for relief with his +inquirer to a pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swallows and +nightingales are singing, and a quiet brook is purling. Triephon, his +friend, expresses a fear lest he has heard some incantation, and is led +by the course of the dialogue, before his friend tells his tale, to give +some account of Christianity, being himself a Christian. After speaking +of the creation, as described by Moses, he falls at once upon that +doctrine of a particular providence which is so distasteful to Plutarch, +Velleius in Cicero, and Caecilius, and generally to unbelievers. "He is +in heaven," he says, "looking at just and unjust, and causing actions to +be entered in books; and He will recompense all on a day which He has +appointed." Critias objects that he cannot make this consistent with the +received doctrine about the Fates, "even though he has perhaps been +carried aloft with his master, and initiated in unspeakable mysteries." +He also asks if the deeds of the Scythians are written in heaven; for if +so, there must be many scribes there. After some more words, in course +of which, as in the earlier part of the dialogue, the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity is introduced, Critias gives an account of what befell him. +He says, he fell in with a crowd in the streets; and, while asking a +friend the cause of it, others joined them (Christians or monks), and a +conversation ensues, part of it corrupt or obscure, on the subject, as +Gesner supposes, of Julian's oppression of the Christians, especially of +the clergy. One of these interlocutors is a wretched old man, whose +"phlegm is paler than death;" another has "a rotten cloke on, and no +covering on head or feet," who says he has been told by some ill-clad +person from the mountains, with a shorn crown, that in the theatre was a +name hieroglyphically written of one who would flood the highway with +gold. On his laughing at the story, his friend Crato, whom he had +joined, bids him be silent, using a Pythagorean word; for he has "most +excellent matters to initiate him into, and that the prediction is no +dream but true," and will be fulfilled in August, using the Egyptian +name of the month. He attempts to leave them in disgust, but Crato pulls +him back "at the instigation of that old demon." He is in consequence +persuaded to go "to those conjurers," who, says Crato, would "initiate +in all mysteries." He finds, in a building which is described in the +language used by Homer of the Palace of Menelaus, "not Helen, no, but +men pale and downcast," who ask, whether there was any bad news; "for +they seemed," he says, "wishing the worst; and rejoicing in misfortune, +as the Furies in the theatres." On their asking him how the city and the +world went on, and his answering that things went on smoothly and seemed +likely to do so still, they frown, and say that "the city is in travail +with a bad birth." "You, who dwell aloft," he answers, "and see +everything from on high, doubtless have a keen perception in this +matter; but tell me, how is the sky? will the Sun be eclipsed? will Mars +be in quadrature with Jupiter? &c.;" and he goes on to jest upon their +celibacy. On their persisting in prophesying evil to the state, he says, +"This evil will fall on your own head, since you are so hard upon your +country; for not as high-flyers have ye heard this, nor are ye adepts in +the restless astrological art, but if divinations and conjurings have +seduced you, double is your stupidity; for they are the discoveries of +old women and things to laugh at." The interview then draws to an end; +but more than enough has been quoted already to show the author's notion +of Christianity. + + +29. + +Such was the language of paganism after Christianity had for fifty years +been exposed to the public gaze; after it had been before the world for +fifty more, St. Augustine had still to defend it against the charge of +being the cause of the calamities of the Empire. And for the charge of +magic, when the Arian bishops were in formal disputations with the +Catholic, before Gungebald, Burgundian King of France, at the end of the +fifth century, we find still that they charged the Catholics with being +"_praestigiatores_," and worshipping a number of gods; and when the +Catholics proposed that the king should repair to the shrine of St. +Justus, where both parties might ask him concerning their respective +faiths, the Arians cried out that "they would not seek enchantments like +Saul, for Scripture was enough for them, which was more powerful than +all bewitchments."[245:1] This was said, not against strangers of whom +they knew nothing, as Ethelbert might be suspicious of St. Augustine and +his brother missionaries, but against a body of men who lived among +them. + +I do not think it can be doubted then that, had Tacitus, Suetonius, and +Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and the other opponents of Christianity, lived +in the fourth century, their evidence concerning Christianity would be +very much the same as it has come down to us from the centuries before +it. In either case, a man of the world and a philosopher would have been +disgusted at the gloom and sadness of its profession, its +mysteriousness, its claim of miracles, the want of good sense imputable +to its rule of life, and the unsettlement and discord it was introducing +into the social and political world. + + +30. + +On the whole then I conclude as follows:--if there is a form of +Christianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of +borrowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to +forms and ceremonies an occult virtue;--a religion which is considered +to burden and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to +the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and +imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith;--a +religion which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of +the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, +one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a +grave shadow over the future;--a religion which holds up to admiration +the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it +if they would;--a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, +are to the generality of men unknown; which is considered to bear on its +very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance +suffices to judge of it, and that careful examination is preposterous; +which is felt to be so simply bad, that it may be calumniated at hazard +and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the +accurate distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or +painfully to determine how far this or that story concerning it is +literally true, or what has to be allowed in candour, or what is +improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be +plausibly defended;--a religion such, that men look at a convert to it +with a feeling which no other denomination raises except Judaism, +Socialism, or Mormonism, viz. with curiosity, suspicion, fear, disgust, +as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if he +had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion with +dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which +claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, reduced him +to a mere organ or instrument of a whole;--a religion which men hate as +proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as dividing families, +separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of government, making a +mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of human nature, and a +"conspirator against its rights and privileges;"[247:1]--a religion +which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness, and a +pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven;--a religion +which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak +about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes +wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable;--a religion, +the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad +epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they would +persecute if they could;--if there be such a religion now in the world, +it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it, when first +it came forth from its Divine Author.[247:2] + + +SECTION II. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. + +Till the Imperial Government had become Christian, and heresies were put +down by the arm of power, the face of Christendom presented much the +same appearance all along as on the first propagation of the religion. +What Gnosticism, Montanism, Judaism and, I may add, the Oriental +mysteries were to the nascent Church, as described in the foregoing +Section, such were the Manichean, Donatist, Apollinarian and +contemporary sects afterwards. The Church in each place looked at first +sight as but one out of a number of religious communions, with little of +a very distinctive character except to the careful inquirer. Still there +were external indications of essential differences within; and, as we +have already compared it in the first centuries, we may now contrast it +in the fourth, with the rival religious bodies with which it was +encompassed. + + +2. + +How was the man to guide his course who wished to join himself to the +doctrine and fellowship of the Apostles in the times of St. Athanasius, +St. Basil, and St. Augustine? Few indeed were the districts in the +_orbis terrarum_, which did not then, as in the Ante-nicene era, present +a number of creeds and communions for his choice. Gaul indeed is said at +that era to have been perfectly free from heresies; at least none are +mentioned as belonging to that country in the Theodosian Code. But in +Egypt, in the early part of the fourth century, the Meletian schism +numbered one-third as many bishops as were contained in the whole +Patriarchate. In Africa, towards the end of it, while the Catholic +Bishops amounted in all to 466, the Donatists rivalled them with as many +as 400. In Spain Priscillianism was spread from the Pyrenees to the +Ocean. It seems to have been the religion of the population in the +province of Gallicia, while its author Priscillian, whose death had been +contrived by the Ithacians, was honoured as a Martyr. The Manichees, +hiding themselves under a variety of names in different localities, were +not in the least flourishing condition at Rome. Rome and Italy were the +seat of the Marcionites. The Origenists, too, are mentioned by St. +Jerome as "bringing a cargo of blasphemies into the port of Rome." And +Rome was the seat of a Novatian, a Donatist, and a Luciferian bishop, in +addition to the legitimate occupant of the See of St. Peter. The +Luciferians, as was natural under the circumstances of their schism, +were sprinkled over Christendom from Spain to Palestine, and from Treves +to Lybia; while in its parent country Sardinia, as a centre of that +extended range, Lucifer seems to have received the honours of a Saint. + +When St. Gregory Nazianzen began to preach at Constantinople, the Arians +were in possession of its hundred churches; they had the populace in +their favour, and, after their legal dislodgment, edict after edict was +ineffectually issued against them. The Novatians too abounded there; and +the Sabbatians, who had separated from them, had a church, where they +prayed at the tomb of their founder. Moreover, Apollinarians, Eunomians, +and Semi-arians, mustered in great numbers at Constantinople. The +Semi-arian bishops were as popular in the neighbouring provinces, as the +Arian doctrine in the capital. They had possession of the coast of the +Hellespont and Bithynia; and were found in Phrygia, Isauria, and the +neighbouring parts of Asia Minor. Phrygia was the headquarters of the +Montanists, and was overrun by the Messalians, who had advanced thus far +from Mesopotamia, spreading through Syria, Lycaonia, Pamphylia, and +Cappadocia in their way. In the lesser Armenia, the same heretics had +penetrated into the monasteries. Phrygia, too, and Paphlagonia were the +seat of the Novatians, who besides were in force at Nicaea and Nicomedia, +were found in Alexandria, Africa, and Spain, and had a bishop even in +Scythia. The whole tract of country from the Hellespont to Cilicia had +nearly lapsed into Eunomianism, and the tract from Cilicia as far as +Phoenicia into Apollinarianism. The disorders of the Church of Antioch +are well known: an Arian succession, two orthodox claimants, and a +bishop of the Apollinarians. Palestine abounded in Origenists, if at +that time they may properly be called a sect; Palestine, Egypt, and +Arabia were overrun with Marcionites; Osrhoene was occupied by the +followers of Bardesanes and Harmonius, whose hymns so nearly took the +place of national tunes that St. Ephrem found no better way of resisting +the heresy than setting them to fresh words. Theodoret in Comagene +speaks in the next century of reclaiming eight villages of Marcionites, +one of Eunomians, and one of Arians. + + +3. + +These sects were of very various character. Learning, eloquence, and +talent were the characteristics of the Apollinarians, Manichees, and +Pelagians; Tichonius the Donatist was distinguished in Biblical +interpretation; the Semi-arian and Apollinarian leaders were men of +grave and correct behaviour; the Novatians had sided with the Orthodox +during the Arian persecution; the Montanists and Messalians addressed +themselves to an almost heathen population; the atrocious fanaticism of +the Priscillianists, the fury of the Arian women of Alexandria and +Constantinople, and the savage cruelty of the Circumcellions can hardly +be exaggerated. These various sectaries had their orders of clergy, +bishops, priests and deacons; their readers and ministers; their +celebrants and altars; their hymns and litanies. They preached to the +crowds in public, and their meeting-houses bore the semblance of +churches. They had their sacristies and cemeteries; their farms; their +professors and doctors; their schools. Miracles were ascribed to the +Arian Theophilus, to the Luciferian Gregory of Elvira, to a Macedonian +in Cyzicus, and to the Donatists in Africa. + + +4. + +How was an individual inquirer to find, or a private Christian to keep +the Truth, amid so many rival teachers? The misfortunes or perils of +holy men and saints show us the difficulty; St. Augustine was nine years +a Manichee; St. Basil for a time was in admiration of the Semi-arians; +St. Sulpicius gave a momentary countenance to the Pelagians; St. Paula +listened, and Melania assented, to the Origenists. Yet the rule was +simple, which would direct every one right; and in that age, at least, +no one could be wrong for any long time without his own fault. The +Church is everywhere, but it is one; sects are everywhere, but they are +many, independent and discordant. Catholicity is the attribute of the +Church, independency of sectaries. It is true that some sects might seem +almost Catholic in their diffusion; Novatians or Marcionites were in all +quarters of the empire; yet it is hardly more than the name, or the +general doctrine or philosophy, that was universal: the different +portions which professed it seem to have been bound together by no +strict or definite tie. The Church might be evanescent or lost for a +while in particular countries, or it might be levelled and buried among +sects, when the eye was confined to one spot, or it might be confronted +by the one and same heresy in various places; but, on looking round the +_orbis terrarum_, there was no mistaking that body which, and which +alone, had possession of it. The Church is a kingdom; a heresy is a +family rather than a kingdom; and as a family continually divides and +sends out branches, founding new houses, and propagating itself in +colonies, each of them as independent as its original head, so was it +with heresy. Simon Magus, the first heretic, had been Patriarch of +Menandrians, Basilidians, Valentinians, and the whole family of +Gnostics; Tatian of Encratites, Severians, Aquarians, Apotactites, and +Saccophori. The Montanists had been propagated into Tascodrugites, +Pepuzians, Artotyrites, and Quartodecimans. Eutyches, in a later time, +gave birth to the Dioscorians, Gaianites, Theodosians, Agnoetae, +Theopaschites, Acephali, Semidalitae, Nagranitae, Jacobites, and others. +This is the uniform history of heresy. The patronage of the civil power +might for a time counteract the law of its nature, but it showed it as +soon as that obstacle was removed. Scarcely was Arianism deprived of the +churches of Constantinople, and left to itself, than it split in that +very city into the Dorotheans, the Psathyrians, and the Curtians; and +the Eunomians into the Theophronians and Eutychians. One fourth part of +the Donatists speedily became Maximinianists; and besides these were the +Rogatians, the Primianists, the Urbanists, and the Claudianists. If such +was the fecundity of the heretical principle in one place, it is not to +be supposed that Novatians or Marcionites in Africa or the East would +feel themselves bound to think or to act with their fellow-sectaries of +Rome or Constantinople; and the great varieties or inconsistencies of +statement, which have come down to us concerning the tenets of heresies, +may thus be explained. This had been the case with the pagan rites, +whether indigenous or itinerant, to which heresy succeeded. The +established priesthoods were local properties, as independent +theologically as they were geographically of each other; the fanatical +companies which spread over the Empire dissolved and formed again as the +circumstances of the moment occasioned. So was it with heresy: it was, +by its very nature, its own master, free to change, self-sufficient; +and, having thrown off the yoke of the Church, it was little likely to +submit to any usurped and spurious authority. Montanism and Manicheeism +might perhaps in some sort furnish an exception to this remark. + + +5. + +In one point alone the heresies seem universally to have agreed,--in +hatred to the Church. This might at that time be considered one of her +surest and most obvious Notes. She was that body of which all sects, +however divided among themselves, spoke ill; according to the prophecy, +"If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more +them of His household." They disliked and they feared her; they did +their utmost to overcome their mutual differences, in order to unite +against her. Their utmost indeed was little, for independency was the +law of their being; they could not exert themselves without fresh +quarrels, both in the bosom of each, and one with another. "_Bellum +haereticorum pax est ecclesiae_" had become a proverb; but they felt the +great desirableness of union against the only body which was the natural +antagonist of all, and various are the instances which occur in +ecclesiastical history of attempted coalitions. The Meletians of Africa +united with the Arians against St. Athanasius; the Semi-Arians of the +Council of Sardica corresponded with the Donatists of Africa; Nestorius +received and protected the Pelagians; Aspar, the Arian minister of Leo +the Emperor, favoured the Monophysites of Egypt; the Jacobites of Egypt +sided with the Moslem, who are charged with holding a Nestorian +doctrine. It had been so from the beginning: "They huddle up a peace +with all everywhere," says Tertullian, "for it maketh no matter to them, +although they hold different doctrines, so long as they conspire +together in their siege against the one thing, Truth."[254:1] And even +though active co-operation was impracticable, at least hard words cost +nothing, and could express that common hatred at all seasons. +Accordingly, by Montanists, Catholics were called "the carnal;" by +Novatians, "the apostates;" by Valentinians, "the worldly;" by +Manichees, "the simple;" by Aerians, "the ancient;"[254:2] by +Apollinarians, "the man-worshippers;" by Origenists, "the flesh-lovers," +and "the slimy;" by the Nestorians, "Egyptians;" by Monophysites, the +"Chalcedonians:" by Donatists, "the traitors," and "the sinners," and +"servants of Antichrist;" and St. Peter's chair, "the seat of +pestilence;" and by the Luciferians, the Church was called "a brothel," +"the devil's harlot," and "synagogue of Satan:" so that it might be +called a Note of the Church, as I have said, for the use of the most +busy and the most ignorant, that she was on one side and all other +bodies on the other. + + +6. + +Yet, strange as it may appear, there was one title of the Church of a +very different nature from those which have been enumerated,--a title of +honour, which all men agreed to give her,--and one which furnished a +still more simple direction than such epithets of abuse to aid the busy +and the ignorant in finding her, and which was used by the Fathers for +that purpose. It was one which the sects could neither claim for +themselves, nor hinder being enjoyed by its rightful owner, though, +since it was the characteristic designation of the Church in the Creed, +it seemed to surrender the whole controversy between the two parties +engaged in it. Balaam could not keep from blessing the ancient people of +God; and the whole world, heresies inclusive, were irresistibly +constrained to call God's second election by its prophetical title of +the "Catholic" Church. St. Paul tells us that the heretic is "condemned +by himself;" and no clearer witness against the sects of the earlier +centuries was needed by the Church, than their own testimony to this +contrast between her actual position and their own. Sects, say the +Fathers, are called after the name of their founders, or from their +locality, or from their doctrine. So was it from the beginning: "I am of +Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas;" but it was promised to the +Church that she should have no master upon earth, and that she should +"gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." +Her every-day name, which was understood in the marketplace and used in +the palace, which every chance comer knew, and which state-edicts +recognized, was the "Catholic" Church. This was that very description of +Christianity in those times which we are all along engaged in +determining. And it had been recognized as such from the first; the name +or the fact is put forth by St. Ignatius, St. Justin, St. Clement; by +the Church of Smyrna, St. Irenaeus, Rhodon or another, Tertullian, +Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Cornelius; by the Martyrs, Pionius, Sabina, and +Asclepiades; by Lactantius, Eusebius, Adimantius, St. Athanasius, St. +Pacian, St. Optatus, St. Epiphanius, St. Cyril, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, +St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and Facundus. St. Clement +uses it as an argument against the Gnostics, St. Augustine against the +Donatists and Manichees, St. Jerome against the Luciferians, and St. +Pacian against the Novatians. + + +7. + +It was an argument for educated and simple. When St. Ambrose would +convert the cultivated reason of Augustine, he bade him study the book +of Isaiah, who is the prophet, as of the Messiah, so of the calling of +the Gentiles and of the Imperial power of the Church. And when St. Cyril +would give a rule to his crowd of Catechumens, "If ever thou art +sojourning in any city," he says, "inquire not simply where the Lord's +house is, (for the sects of the profane also make an attempt to call +their own dens houses of the Lord,) nor merely where the Church is, but +where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy +Body, the Mother of us all, which is the Spouse of our Lord Jesus +Christ."[256:1] "In the Catholic Church," says St. Augustine to the +Manichees, "not to speak of that most pure wisdom, to the knowledge of +which few spiritual men attain in this life so as to know it even in its +least measure,--as men, indeed, yet, without any doubt,--(for the +multitude of Christians are safest, not in understanding with quickness, +but in believing with simplicity,) not to speak of this wisdom, which ye +do not believe to be in the Catholic Church, there are many other +considerations which most sufficiently hold me in her bosom. I am held +by the consent of people and nations; by that authority which began in +miracles, was nourished in hope, was increased by charity, and made +steadfast by age; by that succession of priests from the chair of the +Apostle Peter, to whose feeding the Lord after His resurrection +commended His sheep, even to the present episcopate; lastly, by the very +title of Catholic, which, not without cause, hath this Church alone, +amid so many heresies, obtained in such sort, that, whereas all +heretics wish to be called Catholics, nevertheless to any stranger, who +asked where to find the 'Catholic' Church, none of them would dare to +point to his own basilica or home. These dearest bonds, then, of the +Christian Name, so many and such, rightly hold a man in belief in the +Catholic Church, even though, by reason of the slowness of our +understanding or our deserts, truth doth not yet show herself in her +clearest tokens. But among you, who have none of these reasons to invite +and detain me, I hear but the loud sound of a promise of the truth; +which truth, verily, if it be so manifestly displayed among you that +there can be no mistake about it, is to be preferred to all those things +by which I am held in the Catholic Church; but if it is promised alone, +and not exhibited, no one shall move me from that faith which by so many +and great ties binds my mind to the Christian religion."[257:1] When +Adimantius asked his Marcionite opponent, how he was a Christian who did +not even bear that name, but was called from Marcion, he retorts, "And +you are called from the Catholic Church, therefore ye are not Christians +either;" Adimantius answers, "Did we profess man's name, you would have +spoken to the point; but if we are called from being all over the world, +what is there bad in this?"[257:2] + + +8. + +"Whereas there is one God and one Lord," says St. Clement, "therefore +also that which is the highest in esteem is praised on the score of +being sole, as after the pattern of the One Principle. In the nature +then of the One, the Church, which is one, hath its portion, which they +would forcibly cut up into many heresies. In substance then, and in +idea, and in first principle, and in pre-eminence, we call the ancient +Catholic Church sole; in order to the unity of one faith, the faith +according to her own covenants, or rather that one covenant in different +times, which, by the will of one God and through one Lord, is gathering +together those who are already ordained, whom God hath predestined, +having known that they would be just from the foundation of the +world. . . . . But of heresies, some are called from a man's name, as +Valentine's heresy, Marcion's, and that of Basilides (though they +profess to bring the opinion of Matthias, for all the Apostles had, as +one teaching, so one tradition); and others from place, as the Peratici; +and others from nation, as that of the Phrygians; and others from their +actions, as that of the Encratites; and others from their peculiar +doctrines, as the Docetae and Hematites; and others from their +hypotheses, and what they have honoured, as Cainites and the Ophites; +and others from their wicked conduct and enormities, as those Simonians +who are called Eutychites."[258:1] "There are, and there have been," +says St. Justin, "many who have taught atheistic and blasphemous words +and deeds, coming in the name of Jesus; and they are called by us from +the appellation of the men whence each doctrine and opinion began . . . +Some are called Marcians, others Valentinians, others Basilidians, +others Saturnilians."[258:2] "When men are called Phrygians, or +Novatians, or Valentinians, or Marcionites, or Anthropians," says +Lactantius, "or by any other name, they cease to be Christians; for they +have lost Christ's Name, and clothe themselves in human and foreign +titles. It is the Catholic Church alone which retains the true +worship."[258:3] "We never heard of Petrines, or Paulines, or +Bartholomeans, or Thaddeans," says St. Epiphanius; "but from the first +there was one preaching of all the Apostles, not preaching themselves, +but Christ Jesus the Lord. Wherefore also all gave one name to the +Church, not their own, but that of their Lord Jesus Christ, since they +began to be called Christians first at Antioch; which is the Sole +Catholic Church, having nought else but Christ's, being a Church of +Christians; not of Christs, but of Christians, He being One, they from +that One being called Christians. None, but this Church and her +preachers, are of this character, as is shown by their own epithets, +Manicheans, and Simonians, and Valentinians, and Ebionites."[259:1] "If +you ever hear those who are said to belong to Christ," says St. Jerome, +"named, not from the Lord Jesus Christ, but from some other, say +Marcionites, Valentinians, Mountaineers, Campestrians, know that it is +not Christ's Church, but the synagogue of Antichrist."[259:2] + + +9. + +St. Pacian's letters to the Novatian Bishop Sympronian require a more +extended notice. The latter had required the Catholic faith to be proved +to him, without distinctly stating from what portion of it he dissented; +and he boasted that he had never found any one to convince him of its +truth. St. Pacian observes that there is one point which Sympronian +cannot dispute, and which settles the question, the very name Catholic. +He then supposes Sympronian to object that, "under the Apostles no one +was called Catholic." He answers, "Be it thus;[259:3] it shall have been +so; allow even that. When, after the Apostles, heresies had burst forth, +and were striving under various names to tear piecemeal and divide 'the +Dove' and 'the Queen' of God, did not the Apostolic people require a +name of their own, whereby to mark the unity of the people that was +uncorrupted, lest the error of some should rend limb by limb 'the +undefiled virgin' of God? Was it not seemly that the chief head should +be distinguished by its own peculiar appellation? Suppose this very day +I entered a populous city. When I had found Marcionites, Apollinarians, +Cataphrygians, Novatians, and others of the kind, who call themselves +Christians, by what name should I recognize the congregation of my own +people, unless it were named Catholic? . . . . Whence was it delivered +to me? Certainly that which has stood through so many ages was not +borrowed from man. This name 'Catholic' sounds not of Marcion, nor of +Apelles, nor of Montanus, nor does it take heretics for its authors." + +In his second letter, he continues, "Certainly that was no accessory +name which endured through so many ages. And, indeed, I am glad for +thee, that, although thou mayest have preferred others, yet thou agreest +that the name attaches to us, which should you deny nature would cry +out. But and if you still have doubts, let us hold our peace. We will +both be that which we shall be named." After alluding to Sympronian's +remark that, though Cyprian was holy, "his people bear the name of +Apostaticum, Capitolinum, or Synedrium," which were some of the Novatian +titles of the Church, St. Pacian replies, "Ask a century, brother, and +all its years in succession, whether this name has adhered to us; +whether the people of Cyprian have been called other than Catholic? No +one of these names have I ever heard." It followed that such +appellations were "taunts, not names," and therefore unmannerly. On the +other hand it seems that Sympronian did not like to be called a +Novatian, though he could not call himself a Catholic. "Tell me +yourselves," says St. Pacian, "what ye are called. Do ye deny that the +Novatians are called from Novatian? Impose on them whatever name you +like; that will ever adhere to them. Search, if you please, whole +annals, and trust so many ages. You will answer, 'Christian.' But +if I inquire the genus of the sect, you will not deny that it is +Novatian. . . . Confess it without deceit; there is no wickedness in +the name. Why, when so often inquired for, do you hide yourself? Why +ashamed of the origin of your name? When you first wrote, I thought you +a Cataphrygian. . . . Dost thou grudge me my name, and yet shun thine +own? Think what there is of shame in a cause which shrinks from its own +name." + +In a third letter: "'The Church is the Body of Christ.' Truly, the body, +not a member; the body composed of many parts and members knit in one, +as saith the Apostle, 'For the Body is not one member, but many.' +Therefore, the Church is the full body, compacted and diffused now +throughout the whole world; like a city, I mean, all whose parts are +united, not as ye are, O Novatians, some small and insolent portion, and +a mere swelling that has gathered and separated from the rest of the +body. . . . Great is the progeny of the Virgin, and without number her +offspring, wherewith the whole world is filled, wherewith the populous +swarms ever throng the circumfluous hive." And he founds this +characteristic of the Church upon the prophecies: "At length, brother +Sympronian, be not ashamed to be with the many; at length consent to +despise these festering spots of the Novatians, and these parings of +yours; and at length, to look upon the flocks of the Catholics, and the +people of the Church extending so far and wide. . . . Hear what David +saith, 'I will sing unto Thy name in the great congregation;' and again, +'I will praise Thee among much people;' and 'the Lord, even the most +mighty God, hath spoken, and called the world from the rising up of the +sun unto the going down thereof.' What! shall the seed of Abraham, which +is as the stars and the sand on the seashore for number, be contented +with your poverty? . . . Recognize now, brother, the Church of God +extending her tabernacles and fixing the stakes of her curtains on the +right and on the left; understand that 'the Lord's name is praised from +the rising up of the sun unto the going down thereof.'" + + +10. + +In citing these passages, I am not proving what was the doctrine of the +Fathers concerning the Church in those early times, or what were the +promises made to it in Scripture; but simply ascertaining what, in +matter of fact, was its then condition relatively to the various +Christian bodies among which it was found. That the Fathers were able to +put forward a certain doctrine, that they were able to appeal to the +prophecies, proves that matter of fact; for unless the Church, and the +Church alone, had been one body everywhere, they could not have argued +on the supposition that it was so. And so as to the word "Catholic;" it +is enough that the Church was so called; that title was a confirmatory +proof and symbol of what is even otherwise so plain, that she, as St. +Pacian explains the word, was everywhere one, while the sects of the day +were nowhere one, but everywhere divided. Sects might, indeed, be +everywhere, but they were in no two places the same; every spot had its +own independent communion, or at least to this result they were +inevitably and continually tending. + + +11. + +St. Pacian writes in Spain: the same contrast between the Church and +sectarianism is presented to us in Africa in the instance of the +Donatists; and St. Optatus is a witness both to the fact, and to its +notoriety, and to the deep impressions which it made on all parties. +Whether or not the Donatists identified themselves with the true Church, +and cut off the rest of Christendom from it, is not the question here, +nor alters the fact which I wish distinctly brought out and recognized, +that in those ancient times the Church was that Body which was spread +over the _orbis terrarum_, and sects were those bodies which were local +or transitory. + +"What is that one Church," says St. Optatus, "which Christ calls 'Dove' +and 'Spouse'? . . . It cannot be in the multitude of heretics and +schismatics. If so, it follows that it is but in one place. Thou, +brother Parmenian, hast said that it is with you alone; unless, perhaps, +you aim at claiming for yourselves a special sanctity from your pride, +so that where you will, there the Church may be, and may not be, where +you will not. Must it then be in a small portion of Africa, in the +corner of a small realm, among you, but not among us in another part of +Africa? And not in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy, where you are not? And if +you will have it only among you, not in the three Pannonian provinces, +in Dacia, Moesia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, and in all Greece, where +you are not? And that you may keep it among yourselves, not in Pontus, +Galatia, Cappadocia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Cilicia, in the three Syrias, +in the two Armenias, in all Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, where you are +not? Not among such innumerable islands and the other provinces, +scarcely numerable, where you are not? What will become then of the +meaning of the word Catholic, which is given to the Church, as being +according to reason[263:1] and diffused every where? For if thus at your +pleasure you narrow the Church, if you withdraw from her all the +nations, where will be the earnings of the Son of God? where will be +that which the Father hath so amply accorded to Him, saying in the +second Psalm 'I will give thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the +uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession,' &c.? . . The whole +earth is given Him with the nations; its whole circuit (_orbis_) is +Christ's one possession."[263:2] + + +12. + +An African writer contemporary with St. Augustine, if not St. Augustine +himself, enumerates the small portions of the Donatist Sect, in and out +of Africa, and asks if they can be imagined to be the fulfilment of the +Scripture promise to the Church. "If the holy Scriptures have assigned +the Church to Africa alone, or to the scanty Cutzupitans or Mountaineers +of Rome, or to the house or patrimony of one Spanish woman, however the +argument may stand from other writings, then none but the Donatists have +possession of the Church. If holy Scripture determines it to the few +Moors of the Caesarean province, we must go over to the Rogatists: if to +the few Tripolitans or Byzacenes and Provincials, the Maximianists have +attained to it; if in the Orientals only, it is to be sought for among +Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and others that may be there; for who +can enumerate every heresy of every nation? But if Christ's Church, by +the divine and most certain testimonies of Canonical Scriptures, is +assigned to all nations, whatever may be adduced, and from whatever +quarter cited, by those who say, 'Lo, here is Christ and lo there,' let +us rather hear, if we be His sheep, the voice of our Shepherd saying +unto us, 'Do not believe.' For they are not each found in the many +nations where she is; but she, who is everywhere, is found where they +are."[264:1] + +Lastly, let us hear St. Augustine himself again in the same controversy: +"They do not communicate with us, as you say," he observes to +Cresconius, "Novatians, Arians, Patripassians, Valentinians, Patricians, +Apellites, Marcionites, Ophites, and the rest of those sacrilegious +names, as you call them, of nefarious pests rather than sects. Yet, +wheresoever they are, there is the Catholic Church; as in Africa it is +where you are. On the other hand, neither you, nor any one of those +heresies whatever, is to be found wherever is the Catholic Church. +Whence it appears, which is that tree whose boughs extend over all the +earth by the richness of its fruitfulness, and which be those broken +branches which have not the life of the root, but lie and wither, each +in its own place."[265:1] + + +13. + +It may be possibly suggested that this universality which the Fathers +ascribe to the Catholic Church lay in its Apostolical descent, or again +in its Episcopacy; and that it was one, not as being one kingdom or +civitas "at unity with itself," with one and the same intelligence in +every part, one sympathy, one ruling principle, one organization, one +communion, but because, though consisting of a number of independent +communities, at variance (if so be) with each other even to a breach of +communion, nevertheless all these were possessed of a legitimate +succession of clergy, or all governed by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. +But who will in seriousness maintain that relationship, or that sameness +of structure, makes two bodies one? England and Prussia are both of them +monarchies; are they therefore one kingdom? England and the United +States are from one stock; can they therefore be called one state? +England and Ireland are peopled by different races; yet are they not one +kingdom still? If unity lies in the Apostolical succession, an act of +schism is from the nature of the case impossible; for as no one can +reverse his parentage, so no Church can undo the fact that its clergy +have come by lineal descent from the Apostles. Either there is no such +sin as schism, or unity does not lie in the Episcopal form or in the +Episcopal ordination. And this is felt by the controversialists of this +day; who in consequence are obliged to invent a sin, and to consider, +not division of Church from Church, but the interference of Church with +Church to be the sin of schism, as if local dioceses and bishops with +restraint were more than ecclesiastical arrangements and by-laws of the +Church, however sacred, while schism is a sin against her essence. Thus +they strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Division is the schism, if +schism there be, not interference. If interference is a sin, division +which is the cause of it is a greater; but where division is a duty, +there can be no sin in interference. + + +14. + +Far different from such a theory is the picture which the ancient Church +presents to us; true, it was governed by Bishops, and those Bishops came +from the Apostles, but it was a kingdom besides; and as a kingdom admits +of the possibility of rebels, so does such a Church involve sectaries +and schismatics, but not independent portions. It was a vast organized +association, co-extensive with the Roman Empire, or rather overflowing +it. Its Bishops were not mere local officers, but possessed a +quasi-ecumenical power, extending wherever a Christian was to be found. +"No Christian," says Bingham, "would pretend to travel without taking +letters of credence with him from his own bishop, if he meant to +communicate with the Christian Church in a foreign country. Such was the +admirable unity of the Church Catholic in those days, and the blessed +harmony and consent of her bishops among one another."[266:1] St. +Gregory Nazianzen calls St. Cyprian an universal Bishop, "presiding," as +the same author presently quotes Gregory, "not only over the Church of +Carthage and Africa, but over all the regions of the West, and over the +East, and South, and Northern parts of the world also." This is +evidence of a unity throughout Christendom, not of mere origin or of +Apostolical succession, but of government. Bingham continues "[Gregory] +says the same of Athanasius; that, in being made Bishop of Alexandria, +he was made Bishop of the whole world. Chrysostom, in like manner, +styles Timothy, Bishop of the universe. . . . . The great Athanasius, as +he returned from his exile, made no scruple to ordain in several cities +as he went along, though they were not in his own diocese. And the +famous Eusebius of Samosata did the like, in the times of the Arian +persecution under Valens. . . Epiphanius made use of the same power and +privilege in a like case, ordaining Paulinianus, St. Jerome's brother, +first deacon and then presbyter, in a monastery out of his own diocese +in Palestine."[267:1] And so in respect of teaching, before Councils met +on any large scale, St. Ignatius of Antioch had addressed letters to the +Churches along the coast of Asia Minor, when on his way to martyrdom at +Rome. St. Irenaeus, when a subject of the Church of Smyrna, betakes +himself to Gaul, and answers in Lyons the heresies of Syria. The see of +St. Hippolytus, as if he belonged to all parts of the _orbis terrarum_, +cannot be located, and is variously placed in the neighbourhood of Rome +and in Arabia. Hosius, a Spanish Bishop, arbitrates in an Alexandrian +controversy. St. Athanasius, driven from his Church, makes all +Christendom his home, from Treves to Ethiopia, and introduces into the +West the discipline of the Egyptian Antony. St. Jerome is born in +Dalmatia, studies at Constantinople and Alexandria, is secretary to St. +Damasus at Rome, and settles and dies in Palestine. + +Above all the See of Rome itself is the centre of teaching as well as +of action, is visited by Fathers and heretics as a tribunal in +controversy, and by ancient custom sends her alms to the poor Christians +of all Churches, to Achaia and Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, and +Cappadocia. + + +15. + +Moreover, this universal Church was not only one; it was exclusive also. +As to the vehemence with which Christians of the Ante-nicene period +denounced the idolatries and sins of paganism, and proclaimed the +judgments which would be their consequence, this is well known, and led +to their being reputed in the heathen world as "enemies of mankind." +"Worthily doth God exert the lash of His stripes and scourges," says St. +Cyprian to a heathen magistrate; "and since they avail so little, and +convert not men to God by all this dreadfulness of havoc, there abides +beyond the prison eternal and the ceaseless flame and the everlasting +penalty. . . . Why humble yourself and bend to false gods? Why bow your +captive body before helpless images and moulded earth? Why grovel in the +prostration of death, like the serpent whom ye worship? Why rush into +the downfall of the devil, his fall the cause of yours, and he your +companion? . . . . Believe and live; you have been our persecutors in +time; in eternity, be companions of our joy."[268:1] "These rigid +sentiments," says Gibbon, "which had been unknown to the ancient world, +appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of love and +harmony."[268:2] Such, however, was the judgment passed by the first +Christians upon all who did not join their own society; and such still +more was the judgment of their successors on those who lived and died in +the sects and heresies which had issued from it. That very Father, whose +denunciation of the heathen has just been quoted, had already declared +it even in the third century. "He who leaves the Church of Christ," he +says, "attains not to Christ's rewards. He is an alien, an outcast, an +enemy. He can no longer have God for a Father, who has not the Church +for a Mother. If any man was able to escape who remained without the Ark +of Noah, then will that man escape who is out of doors beyond the +Church. . . What sacrifice do they believe they celebrate, who are +rivals of the Priests? If such men were even killed for confession of +the Christian name, not even by their blood is this stain washed out. +Inexplicable and heavy is the sin of discord, and is purged by no +suffering . . . They cannot dwell with God who have refused to be of one +mind in God's Church; a man of such sort may indeed be killed, crowned +he cannot be."[269:1] And so again St. Chrysostom, in the following +century, in harmony with St. Cyprian's sentiment: "Though we have +achieved ten thousand glorious acts, yet shall we, if we cut to pieces +the fulness of the Church, suffer punishment no less sore than they who +mangled His body."[269:2] In like manner St Augustine seems to consider +that a conversion from idolatry to a schismatical communion is no gain. +"Those whom Donatists baptize, they heal of the wound of idolatry or +infidelity, but inflict a more grievous stroke in the wound of schism; +for idolaters among God's people the sword destroyed, but schismatics +the gaping earth devoured."[269:3] Elsewhere, he speaks of the +"sacrilege of schism, which surpasses all wickednesses."[269:4] St. +Optatus, too, marvels at the Donatist Parmenian's inconsistency in +maintaining the true doctrine, that "Schismatics are cut off as branches +from the vine, are destined for punishments, and reserved, as dry wood, +for hell-fire."[269:5] "Let us hate them who are worthy of hatred," says +St. Cyril, "withdraw we from those whom God withdraws from; let us also +say unto God with all boldness concerning all heretics, 'Do not I hate +them, O Lord, that hate thee?'"[270:1] "Most firmly hold, and doubt in +no wise," says St. Fulgentius, "that every heretic and schismatic +soever, baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, unless +aggregated to the Catholic Church, how great soever have been his alms, +though for Christ's Name he has even shed his blood, can in no wise be +saved."[270:2] The Fathers ground this doctrine on St. Paul's words +that, though we have knowledge, and give our goods to the poor, and our +body to be burned, we are nothing without love.[270:3] + + +16. + +One more remark shall be made: that the Catholic teachers, far from +recognizing any ecclesiastical relation as existing between the +Sectarian Bishops and Priests and their people, address the latter +immediately, as if those Bishops did not exist, and call on them to come +over to the Church individually without respect to any one besides; and +that because it is a matter of life and death. To take the instance of +the Donatists: it was nothing to the purpose that their Churches in +Africa were nearly as numerous as those of the Catholics, or that they +had a case to produce in their controversy with the Catholic Church; the +very fact that they were separated from the _orbis terrarum_ was a +public, a manifest, a simple, a sufficient argument against them. "The +question is not about your gold and silver," says St. Augustine to +Glorius and others, "not your lands, or farms, nor even your bodily +health is in peril, but we address your souls about obtaining eternal +life and fleeing eternal death. Rouse yourself therefore. . . . . You +see it all, and know it, and groan over it; yet God sees that there is +nothing to detain you in so pestiferous and sacrilegious a separation, +if you will but overcome your carnal affection, for the obtaining the +spiritual kingdom, and rid yourselves of the fear of wounding +friendships, which will avail nothing in God's judgment for escaping +eternal punishment. Go, think over the matter, consider what can be said +in answer. . . . No one blots out from heaven the Ordinance of God, no +one blots out from earth the Church of God: He hath promised her, she +hath filled, the whole world." "Some carnal intimacies," he says to his +kinsman Severinus, "hold you where you are. . . . What avails temporal +health or relationship, if with it we neglect Christ's eternal heritage +and our perpetual health?" "I ask," he says to Celer, a person of +influence, "that you would more earnestly urge upon your men Catholic +Unity in the region of Hippo." "Why," he says, in the person of the +Church, to the whole Donatist population, "Why open your ears to the +words of men, who say what they never have been able to prove, and close +them to the word of God, saying, 'Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the +heathen for Thine inheritance'?" At another time he says to them, "Some +of the presbyters of your party have sent to us to say, 'Retire from our +flocks, unless you would have us kill you.' How much more justly do we +say to them, 'Nay, do you, not retire from, but come in peace, not to +our flocks, but to the flocks of Him whose we are all; or if you will +not, and are far from peace, then do you rather retire from flocks, for +which Christ shed His Blood.'" "I call on you for Christ's sake," he +says to a late pro-consul, "to write me an answer, and to urge gently +and kindly all your people in the district of Sinis or Hippo into the +communion of the Catholic Church." He publishes an address to the +Donatists at another time to inform them of the defeat of their Bishops +in a conference: "Whoso," he says, "is separated from the Catholic +Church, however laudably he thinks he is living, by this crime alone, +that he is separated from Christ's Unity, he shall not have life, but +the wrath of God abideth on him." "Let them believe of the Catholic +Church," he writes to some converts about their friends who were still +in schism, "that is, to the Church diffused over the whole world, rather +what the Scriptures say of it than what human tongues utter in calumny." +The idea of acting upon the Donatists only as a body and through their +bishops, does not appear to have occurred to St. Augustine at +all.[272:1] + + +17. + +On the whole, then, we have reason to say, that if there be a form of +Christianity at this day distinguished for its careful organization, and +its consequent power; if it is spread over the world; if it is +conspicuous for zealous maintenance of its own creed; if it is +intolerant towards what it considers error; if it is engaged in +ceaseless war with all other bodies called Christian; if it, and it +alone, is called "Catholic" by the world, nay, by those very bodies, and +if it makes much of the title; if it names them heretics, and warns them +of coming woe, and calls on them one by one, to come over to itself, +overlooking every other tie; and if they, on the other hand, call it +seducer, harlot, apostate, Antichrist, devil; if, however much they +differ one with another, they consider it their common enemy; if they +strive to unite together against it, and cannot; if they are but local; +if they continually subdivide, and it remains one; if they fall one +after another, and make way for new sects, and it remains the same; such +a religious communion is not unlike historical Christianity, as it comes +before us at the Nicene Era. + + +SECTION III. + +THE CHURCH OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES. + +The patronage extended by the first Christian Emperors to Arianism, its +adoption by the barbarians who succeeded to their power, the subsequent +expulsion of all heresy beyond the limits of the Empire, and then again +the Monophysite tendencies of Egypt and part of Syria, changed in some +measure the aspect of the Church, and claim our further attention. It +was still a body in possession, or approximating to the possession, of +the _orbis terrarum_; but it was not simply intermixed with sectaries, +as we have been surveying it in the earlier periods, rather it lay +between or over against large schisms. That same vast Association, +which, and which only, had existed from the first, which had been +identified by all parties with Christianity, which had been ever called +Catholic by people and by laws, took a different shape; collected itself +in far greater strength on some points of her extended territory than on +others; possessed whole kingdoms with scarcely a rival; lost others +partially or wholly, temporarily or for good; was stemmed in its course +here or there by external obstacles; and was defied by heresy, in a +substantive shape and in mass, from foreign lands, and with the support +of the temporal power. Thus not to mention the Arianism of the Eastern +Empire in the fourth century, the whole of the West was possessed by the +same heresy in the fifth; and nearly the whole of Asia, east of the +Euphrates, as far as it was Christian, by the Nestorians, in the +centuries which followed; while the Monophysites had almost the +possession of Egypt, and at times of the whole Eastern Church. I think +it no assumption to call Arianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism +heresies, or to identify the contemporary Catholic Church with +Christianity. Now, then, let us consider the mutual relation of +Christianity and heresy under these circumstances. + + +Sect. 1. _The Arians of the Gothic Race._ + +No heresy has started with greater violence or more sudden success than +the Arian; and it presents a still more remarkable exhibition of these +characteristics among the barbarians than in the civilized world. Even +among the Greeks it had shown a missionary spirit. Theophilus in the +reign of Constantius had introduced the dominant heresy, not without +some promising results, to the Sabeans of the Arabian peninsula; but +under Valens, Ulphilas became the apostle of a whole race. He taught the +Arian doctrine, which he had unhappily learned in the Imperial Court, +first to the pastoral Moesogoths; who, unlike the other branches of +their family, had multiplied under the Moesian mountains with neither +military nor religious triumphs. The Visigoths were next corrupted; by +whom does not appear. It is one of the singular traits in the history of +this vast family of heathens that they so instinctively caught, and so +impetuously communicated, and so fiercely maintained, a heresy, which +had excited in the Empire, except at Constantinople, little interest in +the body of the people. The Visigoths are said to have been converted by +the influence of Valens; but Valens reigned for only fourteen years, and +the barbarian population which had been admitted to the Empire amounted +to nearly a million of persons. It is as difficult to trace how the +heresy was conveyed from them to the other barbarian tribes. Gibbon +seems to suppose that the Visigoths acted the part of missionaries in +their career of predatory warfare from Thrace to the Pyrenees. But such +is the fact, however it was brought about, that the success in arms and +the conversion to Arianism, of Ostrogoths, Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and +Burgundians stand as concurrent events in the history of the times; and +by the end of the fifth century the heresy had been established by the +Visigoths in France and Spain, in Portugal by the Suevi, in Africa by +the Vandals, and by the Ostrogoths in Italy. For a while the title of +Catholic as applied to the Church seemed a misnomer; for not only was +she buried beneath these populations of heresy, but that heresy was one, +and maintained the same distinctive tenet, whether at Carthage, Seville, +Toulouse, or Ravenna. + + +2. + +It cannot be supposed that these northern warriors had attained to any +high degree of mental cultivation; but they understood their own +religion enough to hate the Catholics, and their bishops were learned +enough to hold disputations for its propagation. They professed to stand +upon the faith of Ariminum, administering Baptism under an altered form +of words, and re-baptizing Catholics whom they gained over to their +sect. It must be added that, whatever was their cruelty or tyranny, both +Goths and Vandals were a moral people, and put to shame the Catholics +whom they dispossessed. "What can the prerogative of a religious name +profit us," says Salvian, "that we call ourselves Catholic, boast of +being the faithful, taunt Goths and Vandals with the reproach of an +heretical appellation, while we live in heretical wickedness?"[276:1] +The barbarians were chaste, temperate, just, and devout; the Visigoth +Theodoric repaired every morning with his domestic officers to his +chapel, where service was performed by the Arian priests; and one +singular instance is on record of the defeat of a Visigoth force by the +Imperial troops on a Sunday, when instead of preparing for battle they +were engaged in the religious services of the day.[276:2] Many of their +princes were men of great ability, as the two Theodorics, Euric and +Leovigild. + + +3. + +Successful warriors, animated by a fanatical spirit of religion, were +not likely to be content with a mere profession of their own creed; they +proceeded to place their own priests in the religious establishments +which they found, and to direct a bitter persecution against the +vanquished Catholics. The savage cruelties of the Vandal Hunneric in +Africa have often been enlarged upon; Spain was the scene of repeated +persecutions; Sicily, too, had its Martyrs. Compared with these +enormities, it was but a little thing to rob the Catholics of their +churches, and the shrines of their treasures. Lands, immunities, and +jurisdictions, which had been given by the Emperors to the African +Church, were made over to the clergy of its conquerors; and by the time +of Belisarius, the Catholic Bishops had been reduced to less than a +third of their original number. In Spain, as in Africa, bishops were +driven from their sees, churches were destroyed, cemeteries profaned, +martyries rifled. When it was possible, the Catholics concealed the +relics in caves, keeping up a perpetual memory of these provisional +hiding-places.[277:1] Repeated spoliations were exercised upon the +property of the Church. Leovigild applied[277:2] its treasures partly to +increasing the splendour of his throne, partly to national works. At +other times, the Arian clergy themselves must have been the recipients +of the plunder: for when Childebert the Frank had been brought into +Spain by the cruelties exercised against the Catholic Queen of the +Goths, who was his sister, he carried away with him from the Arian +churches, as St. Gregory of Tours informs us, sixty chalices, fifteen +patens, twenty cases in which the gospels were kept, all of pure gold +and ornamented with jewels.[277:3] + + +4. + +In France, and especially in Italy, the rule of the heretical power was +much less oppressive; Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, reigned from the Alps to +Sicily, and till the close of a long reign he gave an ample toleration +to his Catholic subjects. He respected their property, suffered their +churches and sacred places to remain in their hands, and had about his +court some of their eminent Bishops, since known as Saints, St. Caesarius +of Arles, and St. Epiphanius of Pavia. Still he brought into the country +a new population, devoted to Arianism, or, as we now speak, a new +Church. "His march," says Gibbon,[277:4] "must be considered as the +emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the Goths, +their aged parents, and most precious effects, were carefully +transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy luggage that now +followed the camp by the loss of two thousand waggons, which had been +sustained in a single action in the war of Epirus." To his soldiers he +assigned a third of the soil of Italy, and the barbarian families +settled down with their slaves and cattle. The original number of the +Vandal conquerors of Africa had only been fifty thousand men, but the +military colonists of Italy soon amounted to the number of two hundred +thousand; which, according to the calculation adopted by the same author +elsewhere, involves a population of a million. The least that could be +expected was, that an Arian ascendency established through the extent of +Italy would provide for the sufficient celebration of the Arian worship, +and we hear of the Arians having a Church even in Rome.[278:1] The rule +of the Lombards in the north of Italy succeeded to that of the +Goths,--Arians, like their predecessors, without their toleration. The +clergy whom they brought with them seem to have claimed their share in +the possession of the Catholic churches;[278:2] and though the Court was +converted at the end of thirty years, many cities in Italy were for some +time afterwards troubled by the presence of heretical bishops.[278:3] +The rule of Arianism in France lasted for eighty years; in Spain for a +hundred and eighty; in Africa for a hundred; for about a hundred in +Italy. These periods were not contemporaneous; but extend altogether +from the beginning of the fifth to the end of the sixth century. + + +5. + +It will be anticipated that the duration of this ascendency of error +had not the faintest tendency to deprive the ancient Church of the West +of the title of Catholic; and it is needless to produce evidence of a +fact which is on the very face of the history. The Arians seem never to +have claimed the Catholic name. It is more remarkable that the Catholics +during this period were denoted by the additional title of "Romans." Of +this there are many proofs in the histories of St. Gregory of Tours, +Victor of Vite, and the Spanish Councils. Thus, St. Gregory speaks of +Theodegisilus, a king of Portugal, expressing his incredulity at a +miracle, by saying, "It is the temper of the Romans, (for," interposes +the author, "they call men of our religion Romans,) and not the power of +God."[279:1] "Heresy is everywhere an enemy to Catholics," says the same +St. Gregory in a subsequent place, and he proceeds to illustrate it by +the story of a "Catholic woman," who had a heretic husband, to whom, he +says, came "a presbyter of our religion very Catholic;" and whom the +husband matched at table with his own Arian presbyter, "that there might +be the priests of each religion" in their house at once. When they were +eating, the husband said to the Arian, "Let us have some sport with this +presbyter of the Romans."[279:2] The Arian Count Gomachar, seized on the +lands of the Church of Agde in France, and was attacked with a fever; on +his recovery, at the prayers of the Bishop, he repented of having asked +for them, observing, "What will these Romans say now? that my fever came +of taking their land."[279:3] When the Vandal Theodoric would have +killed the Catholic Armogastes, after failing to torture him into +heresy, his presbyter dissuaded him, "lest the Romans should begin to +call him a Martyr."[279:4] + + +6. + +This appellation had two meanings; one, which will readily suggest +itself, is its use in contrast to the word "barbarian," as denoting the +faith of the Empire, as "Greek" occurs in St. Paul's Epistles. In this +sense it would more naturally be used by the Romans themselves than by +others. Thus Salvian says, that "nearly all the Romans are greater +sinners than the barbarians;"[280:1] and he speaks of "Roman heretics, +of which there is an innumerable multitude,"[280:2] meaning heretics +within the Empire. And so St. Gregory the Great complains, that he "had +become Bishop of the Lombards rather than of the Romans."[280:3] And +Evagrius, speaking even of the East, contrasts "Romans and +barbarians"[280:4] in his account of St. Simeon; and at a later date, +and even to this day, Thrace and portions of Dacia and of Asia Minor +derive their name from Rome. In like manner, we find Syrian writers +sometimes speaking of the religion of the Romans, sometimes of the +Greeks,[280:5] as synonymes. + + +7. + +But the word certainly contains also an allusion to the faith and +communion of the Roman See. In this sense the Emperor Theodosius, in his +letter to Acacius of Beroea, contrasts it with Nestorianism, which was +within the Empire as well as Catholicism; during the controversy raised +by that heresy, he exhorts him and others to show themselves "approved +priests of the Roman religion."[280:6] Again when the Ligurian nobles +were persuading the Arian Ricimer to come to terms with Anthemius, the +orthodox representative of the Greek Emperor,[280:7] they propose to him +to send St. Epiphanius as ambassador, a man "whose life is venerable to +every Catholic and Roman, and at least amiable in the eyes of a Greek +(_Graeculus_) if he deserves the sight of him."[281:1] It must be +recollected, too, that the Spanish and African Churches actually were in +the closest union with the See of Rome at that time, and that that +intercommunion was the visible ecclesiastical distinction between them +and their Arian rivals. The chief ground of the Vandal Hunneric's +persecution of the African Catholics seems to have been their connexion +with their brethren beyond the sea,[281:2] which he looked at with +jealousy, as introducing a foreign power into his territory. Prior to +this he had published an edict calling on the "Homousian" Bishops (for +on this occasion he did not call them Catholic), to meet his own bishops +at Carthage and treat concerning the faith, that "their meetings to the +seduction of Christian souls might not be held in the provinces of the +Vandals."[281:3] Upon this invitation, Eugenius of Carthage replied, +that all the transmarine Bishops of the orthodox communion ought to be +summoned, "in particular because it is a matter for the whole world, not +special to the African provinces," that "they could not undertake a +point of faith _sine universitatis assensu_." Hunneric answered that if +Eugenius would make him sovereign of the _orbis terrarum_, he would +comply with his request. This led Eugenius to say that the orthodox +faith was "the only true faith;" that the king ought to write to his +allies abroad, if he wished to know it, and that he himself would write +to his brethren for foreign bishops, "who," he says, "may assist us in +setting before you the true faith, common to them and to us, and +especially the Roman Church, which is the head of all Churches." +Moreover, the African Bishops in their banishment in Sardinia, to the +number of sixty, with St. Fulgentius at their head, quote with +approbation the words of Pope Hormisdas, to the effect that they hold, +"on the point of free will and divine grace, what the Roman, that is, +the Catholic, Church follows and preserves."[282:1] Again, the Spanish +Church was under the superintendence of the Pope's Vicar[282:2] during +the persecutions, whose duty it was to hinder all encroachments upon +"the Apostolical decrees, or the limits of the Holy Fathers," through +the whole of the country. + + +8. + +Nor was the association of Catholicism with the See of Rome an +introduction of that age. The Emperor Gratian, in the fourth century, +had ordered that the Churches which the Arians had usurped should be +restored (not to those who held "the Catholic faith," or "the Nicene +Creed," or were "in communion with the _orbis terrarum_,") but "who +chose the communion of Damasus,"[282:3] the then Pope. It was St. +Jerome's rule, also, in some well-known passages:--Writing against +Ruffinus, who had spoken of "our faith," he says, "What does he mean by +'his faith'? that which is the strength of the Roman Church? or that +which is contained in the volumes of Origen? If he answer, 'The Roman,' +then we are Catholics who have borrowed nothing of Origen's error; but +if Origen's blasphemy be his faith, then, while he is charging me with +inconsistency, he proves himself to be an heretic."[282:4] The other +passage, already quoted, is still more exactly to the point, because it +was written on occasion of a schism. The divisions at Antioch had thrown +the Catholic Church into a remarkable position; there were two Bishops +in the See, one in connexion with the East, the other with Egypt and the +West,--with which then was "Catholic Communion"? St. Jerome has no doubt +on the subject:--Writing to St. Damasus, he says, "Since the East tears +into pieces the Lord's coat, . . . therefore by me is the chair of Peter +to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the Apostle's +mouth. . . . Though your greatness terrifies me, yet your kindness +invites me. From the Priest I ask the salvation of the victim, from the +Shepherd the protection of the sheep. Let us speak without offence; I +court not the Roman height: I speak with the successor of the Fisherman +and the disciple of the Cross. I, who follow none as my chief but +Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with +the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built, I know. Whoso shall +eat the Lamb outside that House is profane . . . . I know not Vitalis" +(the Apollinarian), "Meletius I reject, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoso +gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, he who is not of Christ is +of Antichrist."[283:1] Again, "The ancient authority of the monks, +dwelling round about, rises against me; I meanwhile cry out, If any be +joined to Peter's chair he is mine."[283:2] + + +9. + +Here was what may be considered a _dignus vindice nodus_, the Church +being divided, and an arbiter wanted. Such a case had also occurred in +Africa in the controversy with the Donatists. Four hundred bishops, +though but in one region, were a fifth part of the whole Episcopate of +Christendom, and might seem too many for a schism, and in themselves too +large a body to be cut off from God's inheritance by a mere majority, +even had it been overwhelming. St. Augustine, then, who so often appeals +to the _orbis terrarum_, sometimes adopts a more prompt criterion. He +tells certain Donatists to whom he writes, that the Catholic Bishop of +Carthage "was able to make light of the thronging multitude of his +enemies, when he found himself by letters of credence joined both to the +Roman Church, in which ever had flourished the principality of the +Apostolical See, and to the other lands whence the gospel came to Africa +itself."[284:1] + +There are good reasons then for explaining the Gothic and Arian use of +the word "Roman," when applied to the Catholic Church and faith, of +something beyond its mere connexion with the Empire, which the +barbarians were assaulting; nor would "Roman" surely be the most obvious +word to denote the orthodox faith, in the mouths of a people who had +learned their heresy from a Roman Emperor and Court, and who professed +to direct their belief by the great Latin Council of Ariminum. + + +10. + +As then the fourth century presented to us in its external aspect the +Catholic Church lying in the midst of a multitude of sects, all enemies +to it, so in the fifth and sixth we see the same Church lying in the +West under the oppression of a huge, farspreading, and schismatical +communion. Heresy is no longer a domestic enemy intermingled with the +Church, but it occupies its own ground and is extended over against her, +even though on the same territory, and is more or less organized, and +cannot be so promptly refuted by the simple test of Catholicity. + + +Sect. 2. _The Nestorians._ + +The Churches of Syria and Asia Minor were the most intellectual portion +of early Christendom. Alexandria was but one metropolis in a large +region, and contained the philosophy of the whole Patriarchate; but +Syria abounded in wealthy and luxurious cities, the creation of the +Seleucidae, where the arts and the schools of Greece had full +opportunities of cultivation. For a time too, for the first two hundred +years, as some think, Alexandria was the only See as well as the only +school of Egypt; while Syria was divided into smaller dioceses, each of +which had at first an authority of its own, and which, even after the +growth of the Patriarchal power, received their respective bishops, not +from the See of Antioch, but from their own metropolitan. In Syria too +the schools were private, a circumstance which would tend both to +diversity in religious opinion, and incaution in the expression of it; +but the sole catechetical school of Egypt was the organ of the Church, +and its Bishop could banish Origen for speculations which developed and +ripened with impunity in Syria. + + +2. + +But the immediate source of that fertility in heresy, which is the +unhappiness of the ancient Syrian Church, was its celebrated Exegetical +School. The history of that School is summed up in the broad +characteristic fact, on the one hand that it devoted itself to the +literal and critical interpretation of Scripture, and on the other that +it gave rise first to the Arian and then to the Nestorian heresy. If +additional evidence be wanted of the connexion of heterodoxy and +biblical criticism in that age, it is found in the fact that, not long +after this coincidence in Syria, they are found combined in the person +of Theodore of Heraclea, so called from the place both of his birth and +his bishoprick, an able commentator and an active enemy of St. +Athanasius, though a Thracian unconnected except by sympathy with the +Patriarchate of Antioch. + +The Antiochene School appears to have risen in the middle of the third +century; but there is no evidence to determine whether it was a local +institution, or, as is more probable, a discipline or method +characteristic generally of Syrian teaching. Dorotheus is one of its +earliest luminaries; he is known as a Hebrew scholar, as well as a +commentator on the sacred text, and he was the master of Eusebius of +Caesarea. Lucian, the friend of the notorious Paul of Samosata, and for +three successive Episcopates after him separated from the Church though +afterwards a martyr in it, was the author of a new edition of the +Septuagint, and master of the chief original teachers of Arianism. +Eusebius of Caesarea, Asterius called the Sophist, and Eusebius of Emesa, +Arians of the Nicene period, and Diodorus, a zealous opponent of +Arianism, but the master of Theodore of Mopsuestia, have all a place in +the Exegetical School. St. Chrysostom and Theodoret, both Syrians, and +the former the pupil of Diodorus, adopted the literal interpretation, +though preserved from its abuse. But the principal doctor of the School +was that Theodore, the master of Nestorius, who has just above been +mentioned, and who, with his writings, and with the writings of +Theodoret against St. Cyril, and the letter written by Ibas of Edessa to +Maris, was condemned by the fifth Ecumenical Council. Ibas was the +translator into Syriac, and Maris into Persian, of the books of Theodore +and Diodorus;[286:1] and thus they became immediate instruments in the +formation of the great Nestorian school and Church in farther Asia. + +As many as ten thousand tracts of Theodore are said in this way to have +been introduced to the knowledge of the Christians of Mesopotamia, +Adiabene, Babylonia, and the neighbouring countries. He was called by +those Churches absolutely "the Interpreter," and it eventually became +the very profession of the Nestorian communion to follow him as such. +"The doctrine of all our Eastern Churches," says their Council under the +Patriarch Marabas, "is founded on the Creed of Nicaea; but in the +exposition of the Scriptures we follow St. Theodore." "We must by all +means remain firm to the commentaries of the great Commentator," says +the Council under Sabarjesus; "whoso shall in any manner oppose them, or +think otherwise, be he anathema."[287:1] No one since the beginning of +Christianity, except Origen and St. Augustine, has had so great literary +influence on his brethren as Theodore.[287:2] + + +3. + +The original Syrian School had possessed very marked characteristics, +which it did not lose when it passed into a new country and into strange +tongues. Its comments on Scripture seem to have been clear, natural, +methodical, apposite, and logically exact. "In all Western Aramaea," says +Lengerke, that is, in Syria, "there was but one mode of treating whether +exegetics or doctrine, the practical."[287:3] Thus Eusebius of Caesarea, +whether as a disputant or a commentator, is commonly a writer of sense +and judgment; and he is to be referred to the Syrian school, though he +does not enter so far into its temper as to exclude the mystical +interpretation or to deny the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Again, we +see in St. Chrysostom a direct, straightforward treatment of the sacred +text, and a pointed application of it to things and persons; and +Theodoret abounds in modes of thinking and reasoning which without any +great impropriety may be called English. Again, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, +though he does not abstain from allegory, shows the character of his +school by the great stress he lays upon the study of Scripture, and, I +may add, by the peculiar characteristics of his style, which will be +appreciated by a modern reader. + + +4. + +It would have been well, had the genius of the Syrian theology been +ever in the safe keeping of men such as St. Cyril, St. Chrysostom, and +Theodoret; but in Theodore of Mopsuestia, nay in Diodorus before him, it +developed into those errors, of which Paul of Samosata had been the omen +on its rise. As its attention was chiefly directed to the examination of +the Scriptures, in its interpretation of the Scriptures was its +heretical temper discovered; and though allegory can be made an +instrument for evading Scripture doctrine, criticism may more readily be +turned to the destruction of doctrine and Scripture together. Theodore +was bent on ascertaining the literal sense, an object with which no +fault could be found: but, leading him of course to the Hebrew text +instead of the Septuagint, it also led him to Jewish commentators. +Jewish commentators naturally suggested events and objects short of +evangelical as the fulfilment of the prophetical announcements, and, +when it was possible, an ethical sense instead of a prophetical. The +eighth chapter of Proverbs ceased to bear a Christian meaning, because, +as Theodore maintained, the writer of the book had received the gift, +not of prophecy, but of wisdom. The Canticles must be interpreted +literally; and then it was but an easy, or rather a necessary step, to +exclude the book from the Canon. The book of Job too professed to be +historical; yet what was it really but a Gentile drama? He also gave up +the books of Chronicles and Ezra, and, strange to say, the Epistle of +St. James, though it was contained in the Peschito Version of his +Church. He denied that Psalms 22 and 69 [21 and 68] applied to our Lord; +rather he limited the Messianic passages of the whole book to four; of +which the eighth Psalm was one, and the forty-fifth [44] another. The +rest he explained of Hezekiah and Zerubbabel, without denying that they +might be accommodated to an evangelical sense.[288:1] He explained St. +Thomas's words, "My Lord and my God," as an exclamation of joy, and our +Lord's "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," as an anticipation of the day of +Pentecost. As may be expected he denied the verbal inspiration of +Scripture. Also, he held that the deluge did not cover the earth; and, +as others before him, he was heterodox on the doctrine of original sin, +and denied the eternity of punishment. + + +5. + +Maintaining that the real sense of Scripture was, not the scope of a +Divine Intelligence, but the intention of the mere human organ of +inspiration, Theodore was led to hold, not only that that sense was one +in each text, but that it was continuous and single in a context; that +what was the subject of the composition in one verse must be the subject +in the next, and that if a Psalm was historical or prophetical in its +commencement, it was the one or the other to its termination. Even that +fulness, of meaning, refinement of thought, subtle versatility of +feeling, and delicate reserve or reverent suggestiveness, which poets +exemplify, seems to have been excluded from his idea of a sacred +composition. Accordingly, if a Psalm contained passages which could not +be applied to our Lord, it followed that that Psalm did not properly +apply to Him at all, except by accommodation. Such at least is the +doctrine of Cosmas, a writer of Theodore's school, who on this ground +passes over the twenty-second, sixty-ninth, and other Psalms, and limits +the Messianic to the second, the eighth, the forty-fifth, and the +hundred and tenth. "David," he says, "did not make common to the +servants what belongs to the Lord[289:1] Christ, but what was proper to +the Lord he spoke of the Lord, and what was proper to the servants, of +servants."[289:2] Accordingly the twenty-second could not properly +belong to Christ, because in the beginning it spoke of the "_verba +delictorum meorum_." A remarkable consequence would follow from this +doctrine, that as Christ was to be separated from His Saints, so the +Saints were to be separated from Christ; and an opening was made for a +denial of the doctrine of their _cultus_, though this denial in the +event has not been developed among the Nestorians. But a more serious +consequence is latently contained in it, and nothing else than the +Nestorian heresy, viz. that our Lord's manhood is not so intimately +included in His Divine Personality that His brethren according to the +flesh may be associated with the Image of the One Christ. Here St. +Chrysostom pointedly contradicts the doctrine of Theodore, though his +fellow-pupil and friend;[290:1] as does St. Ephrem, though a Syrian +also;[290:2] and St. Basil.[290:3] + + +6. + +One other peculiarity of the Syrian school, viewed as independent of +Nestorius, should be added:--As it tended to the separation of the +Divine Person of Christ from His manhood, so did it tend to explain away +His Divine Presence in the Sacramental elements. Ernesti seems to +consider the school, in modern language, Sacramentarian: and certainly +some of the most cogent testimonies brought by moderns against the +Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist are taken from writers who are +connected with that school; as the author, said to be St. Chrysostom, of +the Epistle to Caesarius, Theodoret in his Eranistes, and Facundus. Some +countenance too is given to the same view of the Eucharist, at least in +some parts of his works, by Origen, whose language concerning the +Incarnation also leans to what was afterwards Nestorianism. To these may +be added Eusebius,[291:1] who, far removed, as he was, from that +heresy, was a disciple of the Syrian school. The language of the later +Nestorian writers seems to have been of the same character.[291:2] Such +then on the whole is the character of that theology of Theodore which +passed from Cilicia and Antioch to Edessa first, and then to Nisibis. + + +7. + +Edessa, the metropolis of Mesopotamia, had remained an Oriental city +till the third century, when it was made a Roman colony by +Caracalla.[291:3] Its position on the confines of two empires gave it +great ecclesiastical importance, as the channel by which the theology of +Rome and Greece was conveyed to a family of Christians, dwelling in +contempt and persecution amid a still heathen world. It was the seat of +various schools; apparently of a Greek school, where the classics were +studied as well as theology, where Eusebius of Emesa[291:4] had +originally been trained, and where perhaps Protogenes taught.[291:5] +There were also Syrian schools attended by heathen and Christian youths +in common. The cultivation of the native language had been an especial +object of its masters since the time of Vespasian, so that the pure and +refined dialect went by the name of the Edessene.[291:6] At Edessa too +St. Ephrem formed his own Syrian school, which lasted long after him; +and there too was the celebrated Persian Christian school, over which +Maris presided, who has been already mentioned as the translator of +Theodore into Persian.[291:7] Even in the time of the predecessor of +Ibas in the See (before A.D. 435) the Nestorianism of this Persian +School was so notorious that Rabbula the Bishop had expelled its +masters and scholars;[292:1] and they, taking refuge in a country which +might be called their own, had introduced the heresy to the Churches +subject to the Persian King. + + +8. + +Something ought to be said of these Churches; though little is known +except what is revealed by the fact, in itself of no slight value, that +they had sustained two persecutions at the hands of the heathen +government in the fourth and fifth centuries. One testimony is extant as +early as the end of the second century, to the effect that in Parthia, +Media, Persia, and Bactria there were Christians who "were not overcome +by evil laws and customs."[292:2] In the early part of the fourth +century, a bishop of Persia attended the Nicene Council, and about the +same time Christianity is said to have pervaded nearly the whole of +Assyria.[292:3] Monachism had been introduced there before the middle of +the fourth century, and shortly after commenced that fearful persecution +in which sixteen thousand Christians are said to have suffered. It +lasted thirty years, and is said to have recommenced at the end of the +Century. The second persecution lasted for at least another thirty years +of the next, at the very time when the Nestorian troubles were in +progress in the Empire. Trials such as these show the populousness as +well as the faith of the Churches in those parts,--and the number of the +Sees, for the names of twenty-seven Bishops are preserved who suffered +in the former persecution. One of them was apprehended together with +sixteen priests, nine deacons, besides monks and nuns of his diocese; +another with twenty-eight companions, ecclesiastics or regulars; another +with one hundred ecclesiastics of different orders; another with one +hundred and twenty-eight; another with his chorepiscopus and two hundred +and fifty of his clergy. Such was the Church, consecrated by the blood +of so many martyrs, which immediately after its glorious confession fell +a prey to the theology of Theodore; and which through a succession of +ages manifested the energy, when it had lost the pure orthodoxy of +Saints. + + +9. + +The members of the Persian school, who had been driven out of Edessa by +Rabbula, found a wide field open for their exertions under the pagan +government with which they had taken refuge. The Persian monarchs, who +had often prohibited by edict[293:1] the intercommunion of the Church +under their sway with the countries towards the west, readily extended +their protection to exiles, whose very profession was the means of +destroying its Catholicity. Barsumas, the most energetic of them, was +placed in the metropolitan See of Nisibis, where also the fugitive +school was settled under the presidency of another of their party; while +Maris was promoted to the See of Ardaschir. The primacy of the Church +had from an early period belonged to the See of Seleucia in Babylonia. +Catholicus was the title appropriated to its occupant, as well as to the +Persian Primate, as being deputies of the Patriarch of Antioch, and was +derived apparently from the Imperial dignity so called, denoting their +function as Procurators-general, or officers in chief for the regions in +which they were placed. Acacius, another of the Edessene party, was put +into this principal See, and suffered, if he did not further, the +innovations of Barsumas. The mode by which the latter effected those +measures has been left on record by an enemy. "Barsumas accused Babuaeus, +the Catholicus, before King Pherozes, whispering, 'These men hold the +faith of the Romans, and are their spies. Give me power against them to +arrest them.'"[294:1] It is said that in this way he obtained the death +of Babuaeus, whom Acacius succeeded. When a minority resisted[294:2] the +process of schism, a persecution followed. The death of seven thousand +seven hundred Catholics is said by Monophysite authorities to have been +the price of the severance of the Chaldaic Churches from +Christendom.[294:3] Their loss was compensated in the eyes of the +Government by the multitude of Nestorian fugitives, who flocked into +Persia from the Empire, numbers of them industrious artisans, who sought +a country where their own religion was in the ascendant. + + +10. + +That religion was founded, as we have already seen, in the literal +interpretation of Holy Scripture, of which Theodore was the principal +teacher. The doctrine, in which it formally consisted, is known by the +name of Nestorianism: it lay in the ascription of a human as well as a +Divine Personality to our Lord; and it showed itself in denying the +title of "Mother of God," or +theotokos+, to the Blessed Mary. As to our +Lord's Personality, the question of language came into the controversy, +which always serves to perplex a subject and make a dispute seem a +matter of words. The native Syrians made a distinction between the word +"Person," and "Prosopon," which stands for it in Greek; they allowed +that there was one Prosopon or Parsopa, as they called it, and they +heldthat there were two Persons. If it is asked what they meant by +_parsopa_, the answer seems to be, that they took the word merely in +the sense of _character_ or _aspect_, a sense familiar to the Greek +_prosopon_, and quite irrelevant as a guarantee of their orthodoxy. It +follows moreover that, since the _aspect_ of a thing is its impression +upon the beholder, the personality to which they ascribed unity must +have laid in our Lord's manhood, and not in His Divine Nature. But it is +hardly worth while pursuing the heresy to its limits. Next, as to +the phrase "Mother of God," they rejected it as unscriptural; they +maintained that St. Mary was Mother of the humanity of Christ, not of +the Word, and they fortified themselves by the Nicene Creed, in which no +such title is ascribed to her. + + +11. + +Whatever might be the obscurity or the plausibility of their original +dogma, there is nothing obscure or attractive in the developments, +whether of doctrine or of practice, in which it issued. The first act of +the exiles of Edessa, on their obtaining power in the Chaldean +communion, was to abolish the celibacy of the clergy, or, in Gibbon's +forcible words, to allow "the public and reiterated nuptials of the +priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself." Barsumas, the +great instrument of the change of religion, was the first to set an +example of the new usage, and is even said by a Nestorian writer to have +married a nun.[295:1] He passed a Canon at Councils, held at Seleucia +and elsewhere, that bishops and priests might marry, and might renew +their wives as often as they lost them. The Catholicus who followed +Acacius went so far as to extend the benefit of the Canon to Monks, that +is, to destroy the Monastic order; and his two successors availed +themselves of this liberty, and are recorded to have been fathers. A +restriction, however, was afterwards placed upon the Catholicus, and +upon the Episcopal order. + + +12. + +Such were the circumstances, and such the principles, under which the +See of Seleucia became the Rome of the East. In the course of time the +Catholicus took on himself the loftier and independent title of +Patriarch of Babylon; and though Seleucia was changed for Ctesiphon and +for Bagdad,[296:1] still the name of Babylon was preserved from first to +last as a formal or ideal Metropolis. In the time of the Caliphs, it was +at the head of as many as twenty-five Archbishops; its Communion +extended from China to Jerusalem; and its numbers, with those of the +Monophysites, are said to have surpassed those of the Greek and Latin +Churches together. The Nestorians seem to have been unwilling, like the +Novatians, to be called by the name of their founder,[296:2] though they +confessed it had adhered to them; one instance may be specified of their +assuming the name of Catholic,[296:3] but there is nothing to show it +was given them by others. + +"From the conquest of Persia," says Gibbon, "they carried their +spiritual arms to the North, the East, and the South; and the simplicity +of the Gospel was fashioned and painted with the colours of the Syriac +theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a Nestorian +traveller, Christianity was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the +Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and the +Elamites: the Barbaric Churches from the gulf of Persia to the Caspian +Sea were almost infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the +number and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of +Malabar and the isles of the ocean, Socotra and Ceylon, were peopled +with an increasing multitude of Christians, and the bishops and clergy +of those sequestered regions derived their ordination from the +Catholicus of Babylon. In a subsequent age, the zeal of the Nestorians +overleaped the limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both +of the Greeks and Persians. The missionaries of Balch and Samarcand +pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated +themselves into the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the +Selinga."[297:1] + + +Sect. 3. _The Monophysites._ + +Eutyches was Archimandrite, or Abbot, of a Monastery in the suburbs of +Constantinople; he was a man of unexceptionable character, and was of +the age of seventy years, and had been Abbot for thirty, at the date of +his unhappy introduction into ecclesiastical history. He had been the +friend and assistant of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and had lately taken +part against Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, whose name has occurred in the +above account of the Nestorians. For some time he had been engaged in +teaching a doctrine concerning the Incarnation, which he maintained +indeed to be none other than that of St. Cyril's in his controversy with +Nestorius, but which others denounced as a heresy in the opposite +extreme, and substantially a reassertion of Apollinarianism. The subject +was brought before a Council of Constantinople, under the presidency of +Flavian, the Patriarch, in the year 448; and Eutyches was condemned by +the assembled Bishops of holding the doctrine of One, instead of Two +Natures in Christ. + + +2. + +It is scarcely necessary for our present purpose to ascertain accurately +what he held, and there has been a great deal of controversy on the +subject; partly from confusion between him and his successors, partly +from the indecision or the ambiguity which commonly attaches to the +professions of heretics. If a statement must here be made of the +doctrine of Eutyches himself, in whom the controversy began, let it be +said to consist in these two tenets:--in maintaining first, that "before +the Incarnation there were two natures, after their union one," or that +our Lord was of or from two natures, but not in two;--and, secondly, +that His flesh was not of one substance with ours, that is, not of the +substance of the Blessed Virgin. Of these two points, he seemed willing +to abandon the second, but was firm in his maintenance of the first. But +let us return to the Council of Constantinople. + +In his examination Eutyches allowed that the Holy Virgin was +consubstantial with us, and that "our God was incarnate of her;" but he +would not allow that He was therefore, as man, consubstantial with us, +his notion apparently being that union with the Divinity had changed +what otherwise would have been human nature. However, when pressed, he +said, that, though up to that day he had not permitted himself to +discuss the nature of Christ, or to affirm that "God's body is man's +body though it was human," yet he would allow, if commanded, our Lord's +consubstantiality with us. Upon this Flavian observed that "the Council +was introducing no innovation, but declaring the faith of the Fathers." +To his other position, however, that our Lord had but one nature after +the Incarnation, he adhered: when the Catholic doctrine was put before +him, he answered, "Let St. Athanasius be read; you will find nothing of +the kind in him." + +His condemnation followed: it was signed by twenty-two Bishops and +twenty-three Abbots;[298:1] among the former were Flavian of +Constantinople, Basil metropolitan of Seleucia in Isauria, the +metropolitans of Amasea in Pontus, and Marcianopolis in Moesia, and +the Bishop of Cos, the Pope's minister at Constantinople. + + +3. + +Eutyches appealed to the Pope of the day, St. Leo, who at first hearing +took his part. He wrote to Flavian that, "judging by the statement of +Eutyches, he did not see with what justice he had been separated from +the communion of the Church." "Send therefore," he continued, "some +suitable person to give us a full account of what has occurred, and let +us know what the new error is." St. Flavian, who had behaved with great +forbearance throughout the proceedings, had not much difficulty in +setting the controversy before the Pope in its true light. + +Eutyches was supported by the Imperial Court, and by Dioscorus the +Patriarch of Alexandria; the proceedings therefore at Constantinople +were not allowed to settle the question. A general Council was summoned +for the ensuing summer at Ephesus, where the third Ecumenical Council +had been held twenty years before against Nestorius. It was attended by +sixty metropolitans, ten from each of the great divisions of the East; +the whole number of bishops assembled amounted to one hundred and +thirty-five.[299:1] Dioscorus was appointed President by the Emperor, +and the object of the assembly was said to be the settlement of a +question of faith which had arisen between Flavian and Eutyches. St. +Leo, dissatisfied with the measure altogether, nevertheless sent his +legates, but with the object, as their commission stated, and a letter +he addressed to the Council, of "condemning the heresy, and reinstating +Eutyches if he retracted." His legates took precedence after Dioscorus +and before the other Patriarchs. He also published at this time his +celebrated Tome on the Incarnation, in a letter addressed to Flavian. + +The proceedings which followed were of so violent a character, that the +Council has gone down to posterity under the name of the Latrocinium or +"Gang of Robbers." Eutyches was honourably acquitted, and his doctrine +received; but the assembled Fathers showed some backwardness to depose +St. Flavian. Dioscorus had been attended by a multitude of monks, +furious zealots for the Monophysite doctrine from Syria and Egypt, and +by an armed force. These broke into the Church at his call; Flavian was +thrown down and trampled on, and received injuries of which he died the +third day after. The Pope's legates escaped as they could; and the +Bishops were compelled to sign a blank paper, which was afterwards +filled up with the condemnation of Flavian. These outrages, however, +were subsequent to the Synodical acceptance of the Creed of Eutyches, +which seems to have been the spontaneous act of the assembled Fathers. +The proceedings ended by Dioscorus excommunicating the Pope, and the +Emperor issuing an edict in approval of the decision of the Council. + + +4. + +Before continuing the narrative, let us pause awhile to consider what it +has already brought before us. An aged and blameless man, the friend of +a Saint, and him the great champion of the faith against the heresy of +his day, is found in the belief and maintenance of a doctrine, which he +declares to be the very doctrine which that Saint taught in opposition +to that heresy. To prove it, he and his friends refer to the very words +of St. Cyril; Eustathius of Berytus quoting from him at Ephesus as +follows: "We must not then conceive two natures, but one nature of the +Word incarnate."[300:1] Moreover, it seems that St. Cyril had been +called to account for this very phrase, and had appealed more than once +to a passage, which is extant as he quoted it, in a work by St. +Athanasius.[301:1] Whether the passage in question is genuine is very +doubtful, but that is not to the purpose; for the phrase which it +contains is also attributed by St. Cyril to other Fathers, and was +admitted by Catholics generally, as by St. Flavian, who deposed +Eutyches, nay was indirectly adopted by the Council of Chalcedon itself. + + +5. + +But Eutyches did not merely insist upon a phrase; he appealed for his +doctrine to the Fathers generally; "I have read the blessed Cyril, and +the holy Fathers, and the holy Athanasius," he says at Constantinople, +"that they said, 'Of two natures before the union,' but that 'after the +union' they said 'but one.'"[301:2] In his letter to St. Leo, he appeals +in particular to Pope Julius, Pope Felix, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. +Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, Atticus, and St. Proclus. He did not +appeal to them unreservedly certainly, as shall be presently noticed; he +allowed that they might err, and perhaps had erred, in their +expressions: but it is plain, even from what has been said, that there +could be no _consensus_ against him, as the word is now commonly +understood. It is also undeniable that, though the word "nature" is +applied to our Lord's manhood by St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen and +others, yet on the whole it is for whatever reason avoided by the +previous Fathers; certainly by St. Athanasius, who uses the words +"manhood," "flesh," "the man," "economy," where a later writer would +have used "nature:" and the same is true of St. Hilary.[301:3] In like +manner, the Athanasian Creed, written, as it is supposed, some twenty +years before the date of Eutyches, does not contain the word "nature." +Much might be said on the plausibility of the defence, which Eutyches +might have made for his doctrine from the history and documents of the +Church before his time. + + +6. + +Further, Eutyches professed to subscribe heartily the decrees of the +Council of Nicaea and Ephesus, and his friends appealed to the latter of +these Councils and to previous Fathers, in proof that nothing could be +added to the Creed of the Church. "I," he says to St. Leo, "even from my +elders have so understood, and from my childhood have so been +instructed, as the holy and Ecumenical Council at Nicaea of the three +hundred and eighteen most blessed Bishops settled the faith, and which +the holy Council held at Ephesus maintained and defined anew as the only +faith; and I have never understood otherwise than as the right or only +true orthodox faith hath enjoined." He says at the Latrocinium, "When I +declared that my faith was conformable to the decision of Nicaea, +confirmed at Ephesus, they demanded that I should add some words to it; +and I, fearing to act contrary to the decrees of the First Council of +Ephesus and of the Council of Nicaea, desired that your holy Council +might be made acquainted with it, since I was ready to submit to +whatever you should approve."[302:1] Dioscorus states the matter more +strongly: "We have heard," he says, "what this Council" of Ephesus +"decreed, that if any one affirm or opine anything, or raise any +question, beyond the Creed aforesaid" of Nicaea, "he is to be +condemned."[302:2] It is remarkable that the Council of Ephesus, which +laid down this rule, had itself sanctioned the Theotocos, an addition, +greater perhaps than any before or since, to the letter of the primitive +faith. + + +7. + +Further, Eutyches appealed to Scripture, and denied that a human nature +was there given to our Lord; and this appeal obliged him in consequence +to refuse an unconditional assent to the Councils and Fathers, though he +so confidently spoke about them at other times. It was urged against him +that the Nicene Council itself had introduced into the Creed +extra-scriptural terms. "'I have never found in Scripture,' he said," +according to one of the Priests who were sent to him, "'that there are +two natures.' I replied, 'Neither is the Consubstantiality,'" (the +Homousion of Nicaea,) "'to be found in the Scriptures, but in the Holy +Fathers who well understood them and faithfully expounded them.'"[303:1] +Accordingly, on another occasion, a report was made of him, that "he +professed himself ready to assent to the Exposition of Faith made by the +Holy Fathers of the Nicene and Ephesine Councils and he engaged to +subscribe their interpretations. However, if there were any accidental +fault or error in any expressions which they made, this he would neither +blame nor accept; but only search the Scriptures, as being surer than +the expositions of the Fathers; that since the time of the Incarnation +of God the Word . . he worshipped one Nature . . . that the doctrine +that our Lord Jesus Christ came of Two Natures personally united, this +it was that he had learned from the expositions of the Holy Fathers; nor +did he accept, if ought was read to him from any author to [another] +effect, because the Holy Scriptures, as he said, were better than the +teaching of the Fathers."[304:1] This appeal to the Scriptures will +remind us of what has lately been said of the school of Theodore +in the history of Nestorianism, and of the challenge of the Arians +to St. Avitus before the Gothic King.[304:2] It had also been the +characteristic of heresy in the antecedent period. St. Hilary brings +together a number of instances in point, from the history of Marcellus, +Photinus, Sabellius, Montanus, and Manes; then he adds, "They all speak +Scripture without the sense of Scripture, and profess a faith without +faith."[304:3] + + +8. + +Once more; the Council of the Latrocinium, however, tyrannized over by +Dioscorus in the matter of St. Flavian, certainly did acquit Eutyches +and accept his doctrine canonically, and, as it would appear, cordially; +though their change at Chalcedon, and the subsequent variations of the +East, make it a matter of little moment how they decided. The Acts of +Constantinople were read to the Fathers of the Latrocinium; when they +came to the part where Eusebius of Dorylaeum, the accuser of Eutyches, +asked him, whether he confessed Two Natures after the Incarnation, and +the Consubstantiality according to the flesh, the Fathers broke in upon +the reading:--"Away with Eusebius; burn him; burn him alive; cut him in +two; as he divided, so let him be divided."[305:1] The Council seems to +have been unanimous, with the exception of the Pope's Legates, in the +restoration of Eutyches; a more complete decision can hardly be +imagined. + +It is true the whole number of signatures now extant, one hundred and +eight, may seem small out of a thousand, the number of Sees in the East; +but the attendance of Councils always bore a representative character. +The whole number of East and West was about eighteen hundred, yet the +second Ecumenical Council was attended by only one hundred and fifty, +which is but a twelfth part of the whole number; the Third Council by +about two hundred, or a ninth; the Council of Nicaea itself numbered only +three hundred and eighteen Bishops. Moreover, when we look through the +names subscribed to the Synodal decision, we find that the misbelief, or +misapprehension, or weakness, to which this great offence must be +attributed, was no local phenomenon, but the unanimous sin of Bishops in +every patriarchate and of every school of the East. Three out of the +four patriarchs were in favour of the heresiarch, the fourth being on +his trial. Of these Domnus of Antioch and Juvenal of Jerusalem acquitted +him, on the ground of his confessing the faith of Nicaea and Ephesus: and +Domnus was a man of the fairest and purest character, and originally a +disciple of St. Euthemius, however inconsistent on this occasion, and +ill-advised in former steps of his career. Dioscorus, violent and bad +man as he showed himself, had been Archdeacon to St. Cyril, whom he +attended at the Council of Ephesus; and was on this occasion supported +by those Churches which had so nobly stood by their patriarch Athanasius +in the great Arian conflict. These three Patriarchs were supported by +the Exarchs of Ephesus and Caesarea in Cappadocia; and both of these as +well as Domnus and Juvenal, were supported in turn by their subordinate +Metropolitans. Even the Sees under the influence of Constantinople, +which was the remaining sixth division of the East, took part with +Eutyches. We find among the signatures to his acquittal the Bishops of +Dyrrachium, of Heraclea in Macedonia, of Messene in the Peloponese, of +Sebaste in Armenia, of Tarsus, of Damascus, of Berytus, of Bostra in +Arabia, of Amida in Mesopotamia, of Himeria in Osrhoene, of Babylon, of +Arsinoe in Egypt, and of Cyrene. The Bishops of Palestine, of Macedonia, +and of Achaia, where the keen eye of St. Athanasius had detected the +doctrine in its germ, while Apollinarianism was but growing into form, +were his actual partisans. Another Barsumas, a Syrian Abbot, ignorant of +Greek, attended the Latrocinium, as the representative of the monks of +his nation, whom he formed into a force, material or moral, of a +thousand strong, and whom at that infamous assembly he cheered on to the +murder of St. Flavian. + + +9. + +Such was the state of Eastern Christendom in the year 449; a heresy, +appealing to the Fathers, to the Creed, and, above all, to Scripture, +was by a general Council, professing to be Ecumenical, received as true +in the person of its promulgator. If the East could determine a matter +of faith independently of the West, certainly the Monophysite heresy was +established as Apostolic truth in all its provinces from Macedonia to +Egypt. + +There has been a time in the history of Christianity, when it had been +Athanasius against the world, and the world against Athanasius. The need +and straitness of the Church had been great, and one man was raised up +for her deliverance. In this second necessity, who was the destined +champion of her who cannot fail? Whence did he come, and what was his +name? He came with an augury of victory upon him, which even Athanasius +could not show; it was Leo, Bishop of Rome. + + +10. + +Leo's augury of success, which even Athanasius had not, was this, that +he was seated in the chair of St. Peter and the heir of his +prerogatives. In the very beginning of the controversy, St. Peter +Chrysologus had urged this grave consideration upon Eutyches himself, in +words which have already been cited: "I exhort you, my venerable +brother," he had said, "to submit yourself in everything to what has +been written by the blessed Pope of Rome; for St. Peter, who lives and +presides in his own See, gives the true faith to those who seek +it."[307:1] This voice had come from Ravenna, and now after the +Latrocinium it was echoed back from the depths of Syria by the learned +Theodoret. "That all-holy See," he says in a letter to one of the Pope's +Legates, "has the office of heading (+hegemonian+) the whole world's +Churches for many reasons; and above all others, because it has remained +free of the communion of heretical taint, and no one of heterodox +sentiments hath sat in it, but it hath preserved the Apostolic grace +unsullied."[307:2] And a third testimony in encouragement of the +faithful at the same dark moment issued from the Imperial court of the +West. "We are bound," says Valentinian to the Emperor of the East, "to +preserve inviolate in our times the prerogative of particular reverence +to the blessed Apostle Peter; that the most blessed Bishop of Rome, to +whom Antiquity assigned the priesthood over all (+kata panton+) may +have place and opportunity of judging concerning the faith and the +priests."[307:3] Nor had Leo himself been wanting at the same time in +"the confidence" he had "obtained from the most blessed Peter and head +of the Apostles, that he had authority to defend the truth for the peace +of the Church."[308:1] Thus Leo introduces us to the Council of +Chalcedon, by which he rescued the East from a grave heresy. + + +11. + +The Council met on the 8th of October, 451, and was attended by the +largest number of Bishops of any Council before or since; some say by as +many as six hundred and thirty. Of these, only four came from the West, +two Roman Legates and two Africans.[308:2] + +Its proceedings were opened by the Pope's Legates, who said that they +had it in charge from the Bishop of Rome, "which is the head of all the +Churches," to demand that Dioscorus should not sit, on the ground that +"he had presumed to hold a Council without the authority of the +Apostolic See, which had never been done nor was lawful to do."[308:3] +This was immediately allowed them. + +The next act of the Council was to give admission to Theodoret, who had +been deposed at the Latrocinium. The Imperial officers present urged his +admission, on the ground that "the most holy Archbishop Leo hath +restored him to the Episcopal office, and the most pious Emperor hath +ordered that he should assist at the holy Council."[308:4] + +Presently, a charge was brought forward against Dioscorus, that, though +the Legates had presented a letter from the Pope to the Council, it had +not been read. Dioscorus admitted not only the fact, but its relevancy; +but alleged in excuse that he had twice ordered it to be read in vain. + +In the course of the reading of the Acts of the Latrocinium and +Constantinople, a number of Bishops moved from the side of Dioscorus +and placed themselves with the opposite party. When Peter, Bishop of +Corinth, crossed over, the Orientals whom he joined shouted, "Peter +thinks as does Peter; orthodox Bishop, welcome." + + +12. + +In the second Session it was the duty of the Fathers to draw up a +confession of faith condemnatory of the heresy. A committee was formed +for the purpose, and the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople was read; +then some of the Epistles of St. Cyril; lastly, St. Leo's Tome, which +had been passed over in silence at the Latrocinium. Some discussion +followed upon the last of these documents, but at length the Bishops +cried out, "This is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the +Apostles: we all believe thus; the orthodox believe thus; anathema to +him who does not believe thus. Peter has thus spoken through Leo; the +Apostles taught thus." Readings from the other Fathers followed; and +then some days were allowed for private discussion, before drawing up +the confession of faith which was to set right the heterodoxy of the +Latrocinium. + +During the interval, Dioscorus was tried and condemned; sentence was +pronounced against him by the Pope's Legates, and ran thus: "The most +holy Archbishop of Rome, Leo, through us and this present Council, with +the Apostle St. Peter, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic +Church and of the orthodox faith, deprives him of the Episcopal dignity +and every sacerdotal ministry." + +In the fourth Session the question of the definition of faith came on +again, but the Council got no further than this, that it received the +definitions of the three previous Ecumenical Councils; it would not add +to them what Leo required. One hundred and sixty Bishops however +subscribed his Tome. + + +13. + +In the fifth Session the question came on once more; some sort of +definition of faith was the result of the labours of the committee, and +was accepted by the great majority of the Council. The Bishops cried +out, "We are all satisfied with the definition; it is the faith of the +Fathers: anathema to him who thinks otherwise: drive out the +Nestorians." When objectors appeared, Anatolius, the new Patriarch of +Constantinople, asked "Did not every one yesterday consent to the +definition of faith?" on which the Bishops answered, "Every one +consented; we do not believe otherwise; it is the Faith of the Fathers; +let it be set down that Holy Mary is the Mother of God: let this be +added to the Creed; put out the Nestorians."[310:1] The objectors were +the Pope's Legates, supported by a certain number of Orientals: those +clear-sighted, firm-minded Latins understood full well what and what +alone was the true expression of orthodox doctrine under the emergency +of the existing heresy. They had been instructed to induce the Council +to pass a declaration to the effect, that Christ was not only "of," but +"in" two natures. However, they did not enter upon disputation on the +point, but they used a more intelligible argument: If the Fathers did +not consent to the letter of the blessed Bishop Leo, they would leave +the Council and go home. The Imperial officers took the part of the +Legates. The Council however persisted: "Every one approved the +definition; let it be subscribed: he who refuses to subscribe it is a +heretic." They even proceeded to refer it to Divine inspiration. The +officers asked if they received St. Leo's Tome; they answered that they +had subscribed it, but that they would not introduce its contents into +their definition of faith. "We are for no other definition," they said; +"nothing is wanting in this." + + +14. + +Notwithstanding, the Pope's Legates gained their point through the +support of the Emperor Marcian, who had succeeded Theodosius. A fresh +committee was obtained under the threat that, if they resisted, the +Council should be transferred to the West. Some voices were raised +against this measure; the cries were repeated against the Roman party, +"They are Nestorians; let them go to Rome." The Imperial officers +remonstrated, "Dioscorus said, 'Of two natures;' Leo says, 'Two +natures:' which will you follow, Leo or Dioscorus?" On their answering +"Leo," they continued, "Well then, add to the definition, according to +the judgment of our most holy Leo." Nothing more was to be said. The +committee immediately proceeded to their work, and in a short time +returned to the assembly with such a definition as the Pope required. +After reciting the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople, it observes, "This +Creed were sufficient for the perfect knowledge of religion, but the +enemies of the truth have invented novel expressions;" and therefore it +proceeds to state the faith more explicitly. When this was read through, +the Bishops all exclaimed, "This is the faith of the Fathers; we all +follow it." And thus ended the controversy once for all. + +The Council, after its termination, addressed a letter to St. Leo; in it +the Fathers acknowledge him as "constituted interpreter of the voice of +Blessed Peter,"[311:1] (with an allusion to St. Peter's Confession in +Matthew xvi.,) and speak of him as "the very one commissioned with the +guardianship of the Vine by the Saviour." + + +15. + +Such is the external aspect of those proceedings by which the Catholic +faith has been established in Christendom against the Monophysites. That +the definition passed at Chalcedon is the Apostolic Truth once delivered +to the Saints is most firmly to be received, from faith in that +overruling Providence which is by special promise extended over the acts +of the Church; moreover, that it is in simple accordance with the faith +of St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and all the other Fathers, +will be evident to the theological student in proportion as he becomes +familiar with their works: but the historical account of the Council is +this, that a formula which the Creed did not contain, which the Fathers +did not unanimously witness, and which some eminent Saints had almost in +set terms opposed, which the whole East refused as a symbol, not once, +but twice, patriarch by patriarch, metropolitan by metropolitan, first +by the mouth of above a hundred, then by the mouth of above six hundred +of its Bishops, and refused upon the grounds of its being an addition to +the Creed, was forced upon the Council, not indeed as being such an +addition, yet, on the other hand, not for subscription merely, but for +acceptance as a definition of faith under the sanction of an +anathema,--forced on the Council by the resolution of the Pope of the +day, acting through his Legates and supported by the civil power.[312:1] + + +16. + +It cannot be supposed that such a transaction would approve itself to +the Churches of Egypt, and the event showed it: they disowned the +authority of the Council, and called its adherents Chalcedonians,[313:1] +and Synodites.[313:2] For here was the West tyrannizing over the East, +forcing it into agreement with itself, resolved to have one and one only +form of words, rejecting the definition of faith which the East had +drawn up in Council, bidding it and making it frame another, dealing +peremptorily and sternly with the assembled Bishops, and casting +contempt on the most sacred traditions of Egypt! What was Eutyches to +them? He might be guilty or innocent; they gave him up: Dioscorus had +given him up at Chalcedon;[313:3] they did not agree with him:[313:4] he +was an extreme man; they would not call themselves by human titles; they +were not Eutychians; Eutyches was not their master, but Athanasius and +Cyril were their doctors.[313:5] The two great lights of their Church, +the two greatest and most successful polemical Fathers that Christianity +had seen, had both pronounced "One Nature Incarnate," though allowing +Two before the Incarnation; and though Leo and his Council had not gone +so far as to deny this phrase, they had proceeded to say what was the +contrary to it, to explain away, to overlay the truth, by defining that +the Incarnate Saviour was "in Two Natures." At Ephesus it had been +declared that the Creed should not be touched; the Chalcedonian Fathers +had, not literally, but virtually added to it: by subscribing Leo's +Tome, and promulgating their definition of faith, they had added what +might be called, "The Creed of Pope Leo." + + +17. + +It is remarkable, as has been just stated, that Dioscorus, wicked man +as he was in act, was of the moderate or middle school in doctrine, as +the violent and able Severus after him; and from the first the great +body of the protesting party disowned Eutyches, whose form of the heresy +took refuge in Armenia, where it remains to this day. The Armenians +alone were pure Eutychians, and so zealously such that they innovated on +the ancient and recognized custom of mixing water with the wine in the +Holy Eucharist, and consecrated the wine by itself in token of the one +nature, as they considered, of the Christ. Elsewhere both name and +doctrine of Eutyches were abjured; the heretical bodies in Egypt and +Syria took a title from their special tenet, and formed the Monophysite +communion. Their theology was at once simple and specious. They based it +upon the illustration which is familiar to us in the Athanasian Creed, +and which had been used by St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril, St. +Augustine, Vincent of Lerins, not to say St. Leo himself. They argued +that as body and soul made up one man, so God and man made up but one, +though one compound Nature, in Christ. It might have been charitably +hoped that their difference from the Catholics had been a simple matter +of words, as it is allowed by Vigilius of Thapsus really to have been in +many cases; but their refusal to obey the voice of the Church was a +token of real error in their faith, and their implicit heterodoxy is +proved by their connexion, in spite of themselves, with the extreme or +ultra party whom they so vehemently disowned. + +It is very observable that, ingenious as is their theory and sometimes +perplexing to a disputant, the Monophysites never could shake themselves +free of the Eutychians; and though they could draw intelligible lines on +paper between the two doctrines, yet in fact by a hidden fatality their +partisans were ever running into or forming alliance with the +anathematized extreme. Thus Peter the Fuller the Theopaschite +(Eutychian), is at one time in alliance with Peter the Stammerer, who +advocated the Henoticon (which was Monophysite). The Acephali, though +separating from the latter Peter for that advocacy, and accused by +Leontius of being Gaianites[315:1] (Eutychians), are considered by +Facundus as Monophysites.[315:2] Timothy the Cat, who is said to have +agreed with Dioscorus and Peter the Stammerer, who signed the Henoticon, +that is, with two Monophysite Patriarchs, is said nevertheless, +according to Anastasius, to have maintained the extreme tenet, that "the +Divinity is the sole nature of Christ."[315:3] Severus, according to +Anastasius,[315:3] symbolized with the Phantasiasts (Eutychians), yet he +is more truly, according to Leontius, the chief doctor and leader of the +Monophysites. And at one time there was an union, though temporary, +between the Theodosians (Monophysites) and the Gaianites. + + +18. + +Such a division of an heretical party, into the maintainers, of an +extreme and a moderate view, perspicuous and plausible on paper, yet in +fact unreal, impracticable, and hopeless, was no new phenomenon in the +history of the Church. As Eutyches put forward an extravagant tenet, +which was first corrected into the Monophysite, and then relapsed +hopelessly into the doctrine of the Phantasiasts and the Theopaschites, +so had Arius been superseded by the Eusebians and had revived in +Eunomius; and as the moderate Eusebians had formed the great body of the +dissentients from the Nicene Council, so did the Monophysites include +the mass of those who protested against Chalcedon; and as the Eusebians +had been moderate in creed, yet unscrupulous in act, so were the +Monophysites. And as the Eusebians were ever running individually into +pure Arianism, so did the Monophysites run into pure Eutychianism. And +as the Monophysites set themselves against Pope Leo, so had the +Eusebians, with even less provocation, withstood and complained of Pope +Julius. In like manner, the Apollinarians had divided into two sects; +one, with Timotheus, going the whole length of the inferences which the +tenet of their master involved, and the more cautious or timid party +making an unintelligible stand with Valentinus. Again, in the history of +Nestorianism, though it admitted less opportunity for division of +opinion, the See of Rome was with St. Cyril in one extreme, Nestorius in +the other, and between them the great Eastern party, headed by John of +Antioch and Theodoret, not heretical, but for a time dissatisfied with +the Council of Ephesus. + + +19. + +The Nestorian heresy, I have said, gave less opportunity for doctrinal +varieties than the heresy of Eutyches. Its spirit was rationalizing, and +had the qualities which go with rationalism. When cast out of the Roman +Empire, it addressed itself, as we have seen, to a new and rich field of +exertion, got possession of an Established Church, co-operated with the +civil government, adopted secular fashions, and, by whatever means, +pushed itself out into an Empire. Apparently, though it requires a very +intimate knowledge of its history to speak except conjecturally, it was +a political power rather than a dogma, and despised the science of +theology. Eutychianism, on the other hand, was mystical, severe, +enthusiastic; with the exception of Severus, and one or two more, it was +supported by little polemical skill; it had little hold upon the +intellectual Greeks of Syria and Asia Minor, but flourished in Egypt, +which was far behind the East in civilization, and among the native +Syrians. Nestorianism, like Arianism[317:1] before it, was a cold +religion, and more fitted for the schools than for the many; but the +Monophysites carried the people with them. Like modern Jansenism, and +unlike Nestorianism, the Monophysites were famous for their austerities. +They have, or had, five Lents in the year, during which laity as well as +clergy abstain not only from flesh and eggs, but from wine, oil, and +fish.[317:2] Monachism was a characteristic part of their ecclesiastical +system: their Bishops, and Maphrian or Patriarch, were always taken from +the Monks, who are even said to have worn an iron shirt or breastplate +as a part of their monastic habit.[317:3] + + +20. + +Severus, Patriarch of Antioch at the end of the fifth century, has +already been mentioned as an exception to the general character of the +Monophysites, and, by his learning and ability, may be accounted the +founder of its theology. Their cause, however, had been undertaken by +the Emperors themselves before him. For the first thirty years after the +Council of Chalcedon, the protesting Church of Egypt had been the scene +of continued tumult and bloodshed. Dioscorus had been popular with the +people for his munificence, in spite of the extreme laxity of his +morals, and for a while the Imperial Government failed in obtaining the +election of a Catholic successor. At length Proterius, a man of fair +character, and the Vicar-general of Dioscorus on his absence at +Chalcedon, was chosen, consecrated, and enthroned; but the people rose +against the civil authorities, and the military, coming to their +defence, were attacked with stones, and pursued into a church, where +they were burned alive by the mob. Next, the popular leaders prepared to +intercept the supplies of grain which were destined for Constantinople; +and, a defensive retaliation taking place, Alexandria was starved. Then +a force of two thousand men was sent for the restoration of order, who +permitted themselves in scandalous excesses towards the women of +Alexandria. Proterius's life was attempted, and he was obliged to be +attended by a guard. The Bishops of Egypt would not submit to him; two +of his own clergy, who afterward succeeded him, Timothy and Peter, +seceded, and were joined by four or five of the Bishops and by the mass +of the population;[318:1] and the Catholic Patriarch was left without a +communion in Alexandria. He held a council, and condemned the +schismatics; and the Emperor, seconding his efforts, sent them out of +the country, and enforced the laws against the Eutychians. An external +quiet succeeded; then Marcian died; and then forthwith Timothy (the Cat) +made his appearance again, first in Egypt, then in Alexandria. The +people rose in his favour, and carried in triumph their persecuted +champion to the great Caesarean Church, where he was consecrated +Patriarch by two deprived Bishops, who had been put out of their sees, +whether by a Council of Egypt or of Palestine.[318:2] Timothy, now +raised to the Episcopal rank, began to create a new succession; he +ordained Bishops for the Churches of Egypt, and drove into exile those +who were in possession. The Imperial troops, who had been stationed in +Upper Egypt, returned to Alexandria; the mob rose again, broke into the +Church, where St. Proterius was in prayer, and murdered him. A general +ejectment of the Catholic clergy throughout Egypt followed. On their +betaking themselves to Constantinople to the new Emperor, Timothy and +his party addressed him also. They quoted the Fathers, and demanded the +abrogation of the Council of Chalcedon. Next they demanded a conference; +the Catholics said that what was once done could not be undone; their +opponents agreed to this and urged it, as their very argument against +Chalcedon, that it added to the faith, and reversed former +decisions.[319:1] After a rule of three years, Timothy was driven out +and Catholicism restored; but then in turn the Monophysites rallied, and +this state of warfare and alternate success continued for thirty years. + + +21. + +At length the Imperial Government, wearied out with a dispute which was +interminable, came to the conclusion that the only way of restoring +peace to the Church was to abandon the Council of Chalcedon. In the year +482 was published the famous _Henoticon_ or Pacification of Zeno, in +which the Emperor took upon himself to determine a matter of faith. The +Henoticon declared that no symbol of faith but that of the Nicene Creed, +commonly so called, should be received in the Churches; it anathematized +the opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, and it was silent on +the question of the "One" or "Two Natures" after the Incarnation. This +middle measure had the various effects which might be anticipated. It +united the great body of the Eastern Bishops, who readily relaxed into +the vague profession of doctrine from which they had been roused by the +authority of St. Leo. All the Eastern Bishops signed this Imperial +formulary. But this unanimity of the East was purchased by a breach with +the West; for the Popes cut off the communication between Greeks and +Latins for thirty-five years. On the other hand, the more zealous +Monophysites, disgusted at their leaders for accepting what they +considered an unjustifiable compromise, split off from the Eastern +Churches, and formed a sect by themselves, which remained without +Bishops (_acephali_) for three hundred years, when at length they were +received back into the communion of the Catholic Church. + + +22. + +Dreary and waste was the condition of the Church, and forlorn her +prospects, at the period which we have been reviewing. After the brief +triumph which attended the conversion of Constantine, trouble and trial +had returned upon her. Her imperial protectors were failing in power or +in faith. Strange forms of evil were rising in the distance and were +thronging for the conflict. There was but one spot in the whole of +Christendom, one voice in the whole Episcopate, to which the faithful +turned in hope in that miserable day. In the year 493, in the +Pontificate of Gelasius, the whole of the East was in the hands of +traitors to Chalcedon, and the whole of the West under the tyranny of +the open enemies of Nicaea. Italy was the prey of robbers; mercenary +bands had overrun its territory, and barbarians were seizing on its +farms and settling in its villas. The peasants were thinned by famine +and pestilence; Tuscany might be even said, as Gelasius words it, to +contain scarcely a single inhabitant.[320:1] Odoacer was sinking before +Theodoric, and the Pope was changing one Arian master for another. And +as if one heresy were not enough, Pelagianism was spreading with the +connivance of the Bishops in the territory of Picenum. In the North of +the dismembered Empire, the Britons had first been infected by +Pelagianism, and now were dispossessed by the heathen Saxons. The +Armoricans still preserved a witness of Catholicism in the West of Gaul; +but Picardy, Champagne, and the neighbouring provinces, where some +remnant of its supremacy had been found, had lately submitted to the +yet heathen Clovis. The Arian kingdoms of Burgundy in France, and of the +Visigoths in Aquitaine and Spain, oppressed a zealous and Catholic +clergy, Africa was in still more deplorable condition under the cruel +sway of the Vandal Gundamond: the people indeed uncorrupted by the +heresy,[321:1] but their clergy in exile and their worship suspended. +While such was the state of the Latins, what had happened in the East? +Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, had secretly taken part +against the Council of Chalcedon and was under Papal excommunication. +Nearly the whole East had sided with Acacius, and a schism had begun +between East and West, which lasted, as I have above stated, for +thirty-five years. The Henoticon was in force, and at the Imperial +command had been signed by all the Patriarchs and Bishops throughout the +Eastern Empire.[321:2] In Armenia the Churches were ripening for the +pure Eutychianism which they adopted in the following century; and in +Egypt the Acephali, already separated from the Monophysite Patriarch, +were extending in the east and west of the country, and preferred the +loss of the Episcopal Succession to the reception of the Council of +Chalcedon. And while Monophysites or their favourers occupied the +Churches of the Eastern Empire, Nestorianism was making progress in the +territories beyond it. Barsumas had held the See of Nisibis, Theodore +was read in the schools of Persia, and the successive Catholici of +Seleucia had abolished Monachism and were secularizing the clergy. + + +23. + +If then there is now a form of Christianity such, that it extends +throughout the world, though with varying measures of prominence or +prosperity in separate places;--that it lies under the power of +sovereigns and magistrates, in various ways alien to its faith;--that +flourishing nations and great empires, professing or tolerating the +Christian name, lie over against it as antagonists;--that schools of +philosophy and learning are supporting theories, and following out +conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an exegetical system +subversive of its Scriptures;--that it has lost whole Churches by +schism, and is now opposed by powerful communions once part of +itself;--that it has been altogether or almost driven from some +countries;--that in others its line of teachers is overlaid, its flocks +oppressed, its Churches occupied, its property held by what may be +called a duplicate succession;--that in others its members are +degenerate and corrupt, and are surpassed in conscientiousness and in +virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very heretics whom it +condemns;--that heresies are rife and bishops negligent within its own +pale;--and that amid its disorders and its fears there is but one Voice +for whose decisions the peoples wait with trust, one Name and one See to +which they look with hope, and that name Peter, and that see Rome;--such +a religion is not unlike the Christianity of the fifth and sixth +Centuries.[322:1] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[208:1] [This juxtaposition of names has been strangely distorted by +critics. In the intention of the author, Guizot matched with Pliny, not +with Frederick.] + +[213:1] Vid. Muller de Hierarch. et Ascetic. Warburton, Div. Leg. ii. 4. +Selden de Diis Syr. Acad. des Inscript. t. 3, hist. p. 296, t. 5, mem. +p. 63, t. 16, mem. p. 267. Lucian. Pseudomant. Cod. Theod. ix. 16. + +[214:1] Acad. t. 16. mem. p. 274. + +[215:1] Apol. 25. Vid. also Prudent. in hon. Romani, circ. fin. and +Lucian de Deo Syr. 50. + +[215:2] Vid. also the scene in Jul. Firm. p. 449. + +[216:1] Tac. Ann. ii. 85; Sueton. Tiber. 36. + +[216:2] August. 93. + +[216:3] De Superst. 3. + +[216:4] De Art. Am. i. init. + +[217:1] Sat. iii. vi. + +[217:2] Tertul. Ap. 5. + +[218:1] Vit. Hel. 3. + +[219:1] Vid. Tillemont, Mem. and Lardner's Hist. Heretics. + +[221:1] Bampton Lect. 2. + +[222:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 61. + +[223:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 44. + +[223:2] Montfaucon, Antiq. t. ii. part 2, p. 353. + +[223:3] Haer. i. 20. + +[223:4] De Praescr. 43. + +[225:1] Vid. Kortholt, in Plin. et Traj. Epp. p. 152. Comment. in Minuc. +F. &c. + +[228:1] "Itaque imposuistis in cervicibus nostris sempiternum dominum, +quem dies et noctes timeremus; quis enim non timeat omnia providentem et +cogitantem et animadvertentem, et omnia ad se pertinere putantem, +curiosum, et plenum negotii Deum?"--_Cic. de Nat. Deor._ i. 20. + +[228:2] Min. c. 11. Lact. v. 1, 2, vid. Arnob. ii. 8, &c. + +[228:3] Origen, contr. Cels. i. 9, iii. 44, 50, vi. 44. + +[229:1] Prudent. in hon. Fruct. 37. + +[229:2] Evan. Dem. iii. 3, 4. + +[229:3] Mort. Peregr. 13. + +[229:4] c. 108. + +[229:5] i. e. Philop. 16. + +[229:6] De Mort. Pereg. ibid. + +[229:7] Ruin. Mart. pp. 100, 594, &c. + +[230:1] Prud. in hon. Rom. vv. 404, 868. + +[230:2] We have specimens of _carmina_ ascribed to Christians in the +Philopatris. + +[230:3] Goth. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 120, ed. 1665. Again, "Qui malefici +vulgi consuetudine nuncupantur." Leg. 6. So Lactantius, "Magi et ii quos +vere maleficos vulgus appellat." Inst. ii. 17. "Quos et maleficos vulgus +appellat." August. Civ. Dei, x. 19. "Quos vulgus mathematicos vocat." +Hieron. in Dan. c. ii. Vid. Gothof. in loc. Other laws speak of those +who were "maleficiorum labe polluti," and of the "maleficiorum scabies." + +[230:4] Tertullian too mentions the charge of "hostes principum +Romanorum, populi, generis humani, Deorum, Imperatorum, legum, morum, +naturae totius inimici." Apol. 2, 35, 38, ad. Scap. 4, ad. Nat. i. 17. + +[231:1] Evid. part ii. ch. 4. + +[232:1] Heathen Test. 9. + +[233:1] Gothof. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 121. + +[233:2] Cic. pro Cluent. 61. Gieseler transl. vol. i. p. 21, note 5. +Acad. Inscr. t. 34, hist. p. 110. + +[234:1] De Harusp. Resp. 9. + +[234:2] De Legg. ii. 8. + +[234:3] Acad. Inscr. ibid. + +[234:4] Neander, Eccl. Hist. tr. vol. i. p. 81. + +[234:5] Muller, p. 21, 22, 30. Tertull. Ox. tr. p. 12, note _p_. + +[235:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 16, note 14. + +[235:2] Epit. Instit. 55. + +[236:1] Gibbon, ibid. Origen admits and defends the violation of the +laws: +ouk alogon synthekas para ta nenomismena poiein, tas hyper +haletheias+. c. Cels. i. 1. + +[237:1] Hist. p. 418. + +[237:2] In hon. Rom. 62. In Act. S. Cypr. 4, Tert. Apol. 10, &c. + +[238:1] Apol. i. 3, 39, Oxf. tr. + +[241:1] Julian ap. Cyril, pp. 39, 194, 206, 335. Epp. pp. 305, 429, 438, +ed. Spanh. + +[242:1] Niebuhr ascribes it to the beginning of the tenth. + +[245:1] Sirm. Opp. ii. p. 225, ed. Ven. + +[247:1] Proph. Office, p. 132 [Via Media, vol. i. p. 109]. + +[247:2] [Since the publication of this volume in 1845, a writer in a +Conservative periodical of great name has considered that no happier +designation could be bestowed upon us than that which heathen statesmen +gave to the first Christians, "enemies of the human race." What a +remarkable witness to our identity with the Church of St. Paul ("a +pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition throughout the world"), of St. +Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and the other Martyrs! In this matter, +Conservative politicians join with Liberals, and with the movement +parties in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, in their view of +our religion. + +"The Catholics," says the _Quarterly Review_ for January, 1873, pp. +181-2, "wherever they are numerous and powerful in a Protestant nation, +_compel_ (sic) as it were by a law of their being, that nation to treat +them with stern repression and control. . . . Catholicism, if it be true +to itself, and its mission, _cannot_ (sic) . . . wherever and whenever +the opportunity is afforded it, abstain from claiming, working for, and +grasping that supremacy and paramount influence and control, which it +conscientiously believes to be its inalienable and universal due. . . . +By the force of circumstances, by the inexorable logic of its claims, it +must be the intestine foe or the disturbing element of every state in +which it does not bear sway; and . . . it must now stand out in the +estimate of all Protestants, Patriots and Thinkers" (philosophers and +historians, as Tacitus?) "as the _hostis humani generis_ (sic), &c."] + +[254:1] De Praescr. Haer. 41, Oxf. tr. + +[254:2] +chronitai.+ + +[256:1] Cat. xviii. 26. + +[257:1] Contr. Ep. Manich. 5. + +[257:2] Origen, Opp. t. i. p. 809. + +[258:1] Strom. vii. 17. + +[258:2] c. Tryph. 35. + +[258:3] Instit. 4. 30. + +[259:1] Haer. 42, p. 366. + +[259:2] In Lucif. fin. + +[259:3] The Oxford translation is used. + +[263:1] _Rationabilis_; apparently an allusion to the civil officer +called _Catholicus_ or _Rationalis_, receiver-general. + +[263:2] Ad. Parm. ii. init. + +[264:1] De Unit. Eccles. 6. + +[265:1] Contr. Cresc. iv. 75; also iii. 77. + +[266:1] Antiq. ii. 4, Sect. 5. + +[267:1] Antiq. 5, Sect. 3. [Bingham apparently in this passage is +indirectly replying to the Catholic argument for the Pope's Supremacy +drawn from the titles and acts ascribed to him in antiquity; but that +argument is cumulative in character, being part of a whole body of +proof; and there is moreover a great difference between a rhetorical +discourse and a synodal enunciation as at Chalcedon.] + +[268:1] Ad Demetr. 4, &c. Oxf. Tr. + +[268:2] Hist. ch. xv. + +[269:1] De Unit. 5, 12. + +[269:2] Chrys. in Eph. iv. + +[269:3] De Baptism. i. 10. + +[269:4] c. Ep. Parm. i. 7. + +[269:5] De Schism. Donat. i. 10. + +[270:1] Cat. xvi. 10. + +[270:2] De Fid. ad Petr. 39. [82.] + +[270:3] [Of course this solemn truth must not be taken apart from the +words of the present Pope, Pius IX., concerning invincible ignorance: +"Notum nobis vobisque est, eos, qui invincibili circa sanctissimam +nostram religionem ignorantia laborant, quique naturalem legem ejusque +praecepta in omnium cordibus a Deo insculpta sedulo servantes, ac Deo +obedire parati, honestam rectamque vitam agunt, posse, divinae lucis et +gratiae operante virtute, aeternam consequi vitam, cum Deus, qui omnium +mentes, animos, cogitationes, habitusque plane intuetur, scrutatur et +noscit, pro summa sua bonitate et clementia, minime patiatur quempiam +aeternis puniri suppliciis, qui voluntariae culpae reatum non habeat."] + +[272:1] Epp. 43, 52, 57, 76, 105, 112, 141, 144. + +[276:1] De Gubern. Dei, vii. p. 142. Elsewhere, "Apud Aquitanicos quae +civitas in locupletissima ac nobilissima sui parte non quasi lupanar +fuit? Quis potentum ac divitum non in luto libidinis vixit? Haud multum +matrona abest a vilitate servarum, ubi paterfamilias ancillarum maritus +est? Quis autem Aquitanorum divitum non hoc fuit?" (pp. 134, 135.) +"Offenduntur barbari ipsi impuritatibus nostris. Esse inter Gothos non +licet scortatorem Gothum; soli inter eos praejudicio nationis ac nominis +permittuntur impuri esse Romani" (p. 137). "Quid? Hispanias nonne vel +eadem vel majora forsitan vitia perdiderunt? . . . Accessit hoc ad +manifestandam illic impudicitiae damnationem, ut Wandalis potissimum, id +est, pudicis barbaris traderentur" (p. 137). Of Africa and Carthage, "In +urbe Christiana, in urbe ecclesiastica, . . . viri in semetipsis feminas +profitebantur," &c. (p. 152). + +[276:2] Dunham, Hist. Spain, vol. i. p. 112. + +[277:1] Aguirr. Concil. t. 2, p. 191. + +[277:2] Dunham, p. 125. + +[277:3] Hist. Franc. iii. 10. + +[277:4] Ch. 39. + +[278:1] Greg. Dial. iii. 30. + +[278:2] Ibid. 20. + +[278:3] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 37. + +[279:1] De Glor. Mart. i. 25. + +[279:2] Ibid. 80. + +[279:3] Ibid. 79. + +[279:4] Vict. Vit. i. 14. + +[280:1] De Gub. D. iv. p. 73. + +[280:2] Ibid. v. p. 88. + +[280:3] Epp. i. 31. + +[280:4] Hist. vi. 23. + +[280:5] Cf. Assem. t. i. p. 351, not. 4, t. 3, p. 393. + +[280:6] Baron. Ann. 432, 47. + +[280:7] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36. + +[281:1] Baron. Ann. 471, 18. + +[281:2] Vict. Vit. iv. 4. + +[281:3] Vict. Vit. ii. 3-15. + +[282:1] Aguirr. Conc. t. 2, p. 262. + +[282:2] Aguirr. ibid. p. 232. + +[282:3] Theod. Hist. v. 2. + +[282:4] c. Ruff. i. 4. + +[283:1] Ep. 15. + +[283:2] Ep. 16. + +[284:1] Aug. Epp. 43. 7. + +[286:1] Assem. iii. p. 68. + +[287:1] Ibid. t. 3, p. 84, note 3. + +[287:2] Wegnern, Proleg. in Theod. Opp. p. ix. + +[287:3] De Ephrem Syr. p. 61. + +[288:1] Lengerke, de Ephrem Syr. pp. 73-75. + +[289:1] +despotou+, vid. La Croze, Thesaur. Ep. t. 3, Sect. 145. + +[289:2] Montf. Coll. Nov. t. 2, p. 227. + +[290:1] Rosenmuller, Hist. Interpr. t. 3, p. 278. + +[290:2] Lengerke, de Ephr. Syr. pp. 165-167. + +[290:3] Ernest. de Proph. Mess. p. 462. + +[291:1] Eccl. Theol. iii. 12. + +[291:2] Professor Lee's Serm. Oct. 1838, pp. 144-152. + +[291:3] Noris. Opp. t. 2, p. 112. + +[291:4] Augusti. Euseb. Em. Opp. + +[291:5] Asseman. Bibl. Or. p. cmxxv. + +[291:6] Hoffman, Gram. Syr. Proleg. Sect. 4. + +[291:7] The educated Persians were also acquainted with Syriac. Assem. +t. i. p. 351, not. + +[292:1] Asseman., p. lxx. + +[292:2] Euseb. Praep. vi. 10. + +[292:3] Tillemont, Mem. t. 7, p. 77. + +[293:1] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[294:1] Asseman. p. lxxviii. + +[294:2] Gibbon, ibid. + +[294:3] Asseman. t. 2, p. 403, t. 3, p. 393. + +[295:1] Asseman. t. 3, p. 67. + +[296:1] Gibbon, ibid. + +[296:2] Assem. p. lxxvi. + +[296:3] Ibid. t. 3, p. 441. + +[297:1] Ch. 47. + +[298:1] Fleur. Hist. xxvii. 29. + +[299:1] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[300:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 127. + +[301:1] Petav. de Incarn. iv. 6, Sect. 4. + +[301:2] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 168. + +[301:3] Vid. the Author's Athan. trans. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. pp. 331-333, +426-429, and on the general subject his Theol. Tracts, art. v.] + +[302:1] Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxvii. 39. + +[302:2] Ibid. 41. In like manner, St. Athanasius in the foregoing age +had said, "The faith confessed at Nicaea by the Fathers, according to the +Scriptures, is sufficient for the overthrow of all misbelief." ad Epict. +init. Elsewhere, however, he explains his statement, "The decrees of +Nicaea are right and sufficient for the overthrow of all heresy, +_especially_ the Arian," ad. Max. fin. St. Gregory Nazianzen, in like +manner, appeals to Nicaea; but he "adds an explanation on the doctrine of +the Holy Spirit which was left deficient by the Fathers, because the +question had not then been raised." Ep. 102, init. This exclusive +maintenance, and yet extension of the Creed, according to the exigences +of the times, is instanced in other Fathers. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, +vol. ii. p. 82.] + +[303:1] Fleury, ibid. 27. + +[304:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 141. [A negative is omitted in the Greek, +but inserted in the Latin.] + +[304:2] Supr. p. 245. + +[304:3] Ad Const. ii. 9. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. p. 261.] + +[305:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 162. + +[307:1] Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxvii. 37. + +[307:2] Ep. 116. + +[307:3] Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 36. + +[308:1] Ep. 43. + +[308:2] Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxviii. 17, note _l_. + +[308:3] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 68. + +[308:4] Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxviii. 2, 3. + +[310:1] Ibid. 20. + +[311:1] Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 656. + +[312:1] [Can any so grave an _ex parte_ charge as this be urged against +the recent Vatican Council?] + +[313:1] I cannot find my reference for this fact; the sketch is formed +from notes made some years since, though I have now verified them. + +[313:2] Leont. de Sect. v. p. 512. + +[313:3] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 99, vid. also p. 418. + +[313:4] Renaud. Patr. Alex. p. 115. + +[313:5] Assem. t. 2, pp. 133-137. + +[315:1] Leont. de Sect. vii. pp. 521, 2. + +[315:2] Fac. i. 5, circ. init. + +[315:3] Hodeg. 20, p. 319. + +[317:1] _i. e._ Arianism in the East: "Sanctiores aures plebis quam +corda sunt sacerdotum." S. Hil. contr. Auxent. 6. It requires some +research to account for its hold on the barbarians. Vid. _supr._ pp. +274, 5. + +[317:2] Gibbon, ch. 47. + +[317:3] Assem. t. 2, de Monoph. circ. fin. + +[318:1] Leont. Sect. v. init. + +[318:2] Tillemont, t. 15, p. 784. + +[319:1] Tillemont, Mem. t. 15, pp. 790-811. + +[320:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin. + +[321:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin. + +[321:2] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 47. + +[322:1] [The above sketch has run to great length, yet it is only part +of what might be set down in evidence of the wonderful identity of type +which characterizes the Catholic Church from first to last. I have +confined myself for the most part to her political aspect; but a +parallel illustration might be drawn simply from her doctrinal, or from +her devotional. As to her devotional aspect, Cardinal Wiseman has shown +its identity in the fifth compared with the nineteenth century, in an +article of the _Dublin Review_, quoted in part in _Via Media_, vol. ii. +p. 378. Indeed it is confessed on all hands, as by Middleton, Gibbon, +&c., that from the time of Constantine to their own, the system and the +phenomena of worship in Christendom, from Moscow to Spain, and from +Ireland to Chili, is one and the same. I have myself paralleled Medieval +Europe with modern Belgium or Italy, in point of ethical character in +"Difficulties of Anglicans," vol. i. Lecture ix., referring the identity +to the operation of a principle, insisted on presently, the Supremacy of +Faith. And so again, as to the system of Catholic doctrine, the type of +the Religion remains the same, because it has developed according to the +"analogy of faith," as is observed in _Apol._, p. 196, "The idea of the +Blessed Virgin was, as it were, _magnified_ in the Church of Rome, as +time went on, but so were _all_ the Christian ideas, as that of the +Blessed Eucharist," &c.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +APPLICATION OF THE SECOND NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES. + +It appears then that there has been a certain general type of +Christianity in every age, by which it is known at first sight, +differing from itself only as what is young differs from what is mature, +or as found in Europe or in America, so that it is named at once and +without hesitation, as forms of nature are recognized by experts in +physical science; or as some work of literature or art is assigned to +its right author by the critic, difficult as may be the analysis of that +specific impression by which he is enabled to do so. And it appears that +this type has remained entire from first to last, in spite of that +process of development which seems to be attributed by all parties, for +good or bad, to the doctrines, rites, and usages in which Christianity +consists; or, in other words, that the changes which have taken place in +Christianity have not been such as to destroy that type,--that is, that +they are not corruptions, because they are consistent with that type. +Here then, in the _preservation of type_, we have a first Note of the +fidelity of the existing developments of Christianity. Let us now +proceed to a second. + + +Sect. 1. _The Principles of Christianity._ + +When developments in Christianity are spoken of, it is sometimes +supposed that they are deductions and diversions made at random, +according to accident or the caprice of individuals; whereas it is +because they have been conducted all along on definite and continuous +principles that the type of the Religion has remained from first to last +unalterable. What then are the principles under which the developments +have been made? I will enumerate some obvious ones. + + +2. + +They must be many and positive, as well as obvious, if they are to be +effective; thus the Society of Friends seems in the course of years to +have changed its type in consequence of its scarcity of principles, a +fanatical spiritualism and an intense secularity, types simply contrary +to each other, being alike consistent with its main principle, "Forms of +worship are Antichristian." Christianity, on the other hand, has +principles so distinctive, numerous, various, and operative, as to be +unlike any other religious, ethical, or political system that the world +has ever seen, unlike, not only in character, but in persistence in that +character. I cannot attempt here to enumerate more than a few by way of +illustration. + + +3. + +For the convenience of arrangement, I will consider the Incarnation the +central truth of the gospel, and the source whence we are to draw out +its principles. This great doctrine is unequivocally announced in +numberless passages of the New Testament, especially by St. John and St. +Paul; as is familiar to us all: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among +us, full of grace and truth." "That which was from the beginning, which +we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked +upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, that declare we +to you." "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though +He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His +poverty might be rich." "Not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life +which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, +who loved me and gave Himself for me." + + +4. + +In such passages as these we have + +1. The principle of _dogma_, that is, supernatural truths irrevocably +committed to human language, imperfect because it is human, but +definitive and necessary because given from above. + +2. The principle of _faith_, which is the correlative of dogma, being +the absolute acceptance of the divine Word with an internal assent, in +opposition to the informations, if such, of sight and reason. + +3. Faith, being an act of the intellect, opens a way for inquiry, +comparison and inference, that is, for science in religion, in +subservience to itself; this is the principle of _theology_. + +4. The doctrine of the Incarnation is the announcement of a divine gift +conveyed in a material and visible medium, it being thus that heaven and +earth are in the Incarnation united. That is, it establishes in the very +idea of Christianity the _sacramental_ principle as its characteristic. + +5. Another principle involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation, viewed +as taught or as dogmatic, is the necessary use of language, e. g. of the +text of Scripture, in a second or _mystical sense_. Words must be made +to express new ideas, and are invested with a sacramental office. + +6. It is our Lord's intention in His Incarnation to make us what He is +Himself; this is the principle of _grace_, which is not only holy but +sanctifying. + +7. It cannot elevate and change us without mortifying our lower +nature:--here is the principle of _asceticism_. + +8. And, involved in this death of the natural man, is necessarily a +revelation of the _malignity of sin_, in corroboration of the +forebodings of conscience. + +9. Also by the fact of an Incarnation we are taught that matter is an +essential part of us, and, as well as mind, is _capable of +sanctification_. + + +5. + +Here are nine specimens of Christian principles out of the many[326:1] +which might be enumerated, and will any one say that they have not been +retained in vigorous action in the Church at all times amid whatever +development of doctrine Christianity has experienced, so as even to be +the very instruments of that development, and as patent, and as +operative, in the Latin and Greek Christianity of this day as they were +in the beginning? + +This continuous identity of principles in ecclesiastical action has been +seen in part in treating of the Note of Unity of type, and will be seen +also in the Notes which follow; however, as some direct account of them, +in illustration, may be desirable, I will single out four as +specimens,--Faith, Theology, Scripture, and Dogma. + + +Sect. 2. _Supremacy of Faith._ + +This principle which, as we have already seen, was so great a jest to +Celsus and Julian, is of the following kind:--That belief in +Christianity is in itself better than unbelief; that faith, though an +intellectual action, is ethical in its origin; that it is safer to +believe; that we must begin with believing; that as for the reasons of +believing, they are for the most part implicit, and need be but slightly +recognized by the mind that is under their influence; that they consist +moreover rather of presumptions and ventures after the truth than of +accurate and complete proofs; and that probable arguments, under the +scrutiny and sanction of a prudent judgment, are sufficient for +conclusions which we even embrace as most certain, and turn to the most +important uses. + + +2. + +Antagonistic to this is the principle that doctrines are only so far to +be considered true as they are logically demonstrated. This is the +assertion of Locke, who says in defence of it,--"Whatever God hath +revealed is certainly true; no doubt can be made of it. This is the +proper object of Faith; but, whether it be a divine revelation or no, +reason must judge." Now, if he merely means that proofs can be given for +Revelation, and that Reason comes in logical order before Faith, such a +doctrine is in no sense uncatholic; but he certainly holds that for an +individual to act on Faith without proof, or to make Faith a personal +principle of conduct for themselves, without waiting till they have got +their reasons accurately drawn out and serviceable for controversy, is +enthusiastic and absurd. "How a man may know whether he be [a lover of +truth for truth's sake] is worth inquiry; and I think there is this one +unerring mark of it, viz. the not entertaining any proposition with +greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon, will warrant. +Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain, receives not +truth in the love of it; loves not truth for truth's sake, but for some +other by-end." + + +3. + +It does not seem to have struck him that our "by-end" may be the desire +to please our Maker, and that the defect of scientific proof may be made +up to our reason by our love of Him. It does not seem to have struck him +that such a philosophy as his cut off from the possibility and the +privilege of faith all but the educated few, all but the learned, the +clear-headed, the men of practised intellects and balanced minds, men +who had leisure, who had opportunities of consulting others, and kind +and wise friends to whom they deferred. How could a religion ever be +Catholic, if it was to be called credulity or enthusiasm in the +multitude to use those ready instruments of belief, which alone +Providence had put into their power? On such philosophy as this, were it +generally received, no great work ever would have been done for God's +glory and the welfare of man. The "enthusiasm" against which Locke +writes may do much harm, and act at times absurdly; but calculation +never made a hero. However, it is not to our present purpose to examine +this theory, and I have done so elsewhere.[328:1] Here I have but to +show the unanimity of Catholics, ancient as well as modern, in their +absolute rejection of it. + + +4. + +For instance, it is the very objection urged by Celsus, that Christians +were but parallel to the credulous victims of jugglers or of devotees, +who itinerated through the pagan population. He says "that some do not +even wish to give or to receive a reason for their faith, but say, 'Do +not inquire but believe,' and 'Thy faith will save thee;' and 'A bad +thing is the world's wisdom, and foolishness is a good.'" How does +Origen answer the charge? by denying the fact, and speaking of the +reason of each individual as demonstrating the divinity of the +Scriptures, and Faith as coming after that argumentative process, as it +is now popular to maintain? Far from it; he grants the fact alleged +against the Church and defends it. He observes that, considering the +engagements and the necessary ignorance of the multitude of men, it is a +very happy circumstance that a substitute is provided for those +philosophical exercises, which Christianity allows and encourages, but +does not impose on the individual. "Which," he asks, "is the better, for +them to believe without reason, and thus to reform any how and gain a +benefit, from their belief in the punishment of sinners and the reward +of well-doers, or to refuse to be converted on mere belief, or except +they devote themselves to an intellectual inquiry?"[329:1] Such a +provision then is a mark of divine wisdom and mercy. In like manner, St. +Irenaeus, after observing that the Jews had the evidence of prophecy, +which the Gentiles had not, and that to the latter it was a foreign +teaching and a new doctrine to be told that the gods of the Gentiles +were not only not gods, but were idols of devils, and that in +consequence St. Paul laboured more upon them, as needing it more, adds, +"On the other hand, the faith of the Gentiles is thereby shown to be +more generous, who followed the word of God without the assistance of +Scriptures." To believe on less evidence was generous faith, not +enthusiasm. And so again, Eusebius, while he contends of course that +Christians are influenced by "no irrational faith," that is, by a faith +which is capable of a logical basis, fully allows that in the individual +believing, it is not necessarily or ordinarily based upon argument, and +maintains that it is connected with that very "hope," and inclusively +with that desire of the things beloved, which Locke in the above +extract considers incompatible with the love of truth. "What do we +find," he says, "but that the whole life of man is suspended on these +two, hope and faith?"[330:1] + +I do not mean of course that the Fathers were opposed to inquiries into +the intellectual basis of Christianity, but that they held that men were +not obliged to wait for logical proof before believing: on the contrary, +that the majority were to believe first on presumptions and let the +intellectual proof come as their reward.[330:2] + + +5. + +St. Augustine, who had tried both ways, strikingly contrasts them in his +_De Utilitate credendi_, though his direct object in that work is to +decide, not between Reason and Faith, but between Reason and Authority. +He addresses in it a very dear friend, who, like himself, had become a +Manichee, but who, with less happiness than his own, was still retained +in the heresy. "The Manichees," he observes, "inveigh against those who, +following the authority of the Catholic faith, fortify themselves in the +first instance with believing, and before they are able to set eyes upon +that truth, which is discerned by the pure soul, prepare themselves for +a God who shall illuminate. You, Honoratus, know that nothing else was +the cause of my falling into their hands, than their professing to put +away Authority which was so terrible, and by absolute and simple Reason +to lead their hearers to God's presence, and to rid them of all error. +For what was there else that forced me, for nearly nine years, to slight +the religion which was sown in me when a child by my parents, and to +follow them and diligently attend their lectures, but their assertion +that I was terrified by superstition, and was bidden to have Faith +before I had Reason, whereas they pressed no one to believe before the +truth had been discussed and unravelled? Who would not be seduced by +these promises, and especially a youth, such as they found me then, +desirous of truth, nay conceited and forward, by reason of the +disputations of certain men of school learning, with a contempt of +old-wives' tales, and a desire of possessing and drinking that clear and +unmixed truth which they promised me?"[331:1] + +Presently he goes on to describe how he was reclaimed. He found the +Manichees more successful in pulling down than in building up; he was +disappointed in Faustus, whom he found eloquent and nothing besides. +Upon this, he did not know what to hold, and was tempted to a general +scepticism. At length he found he must be guided by Authority; then came +the question, Which authority among so many teachers? He cried earnestly +to God for help, and at last was led to the Catholic Church. He then +returns to the question urged against that Church, that "she bids those +who come to her believe," whereas heretics "boast that they do not +impose a yoke of believing, but open a fountain of teaching." On which +he observes, "True religion cannot in any manner be rightly embraced, +without a belief in those things which each individual afterwards +attains and perceives, if he behave himself well and shall deserve it, +nor altogether without some weighty and imperative Authority."[331:2] + + +6. + +These are specimens of the teaching of the Ancient Church on the subject +of Faith and Reason; if, on the other hand, we would know what has been +taught on the subject in those modern schools, in and through which the +subsequent developments of Catholic doctrines have proceeded, we may +turn to the extracts made from their writings by Huet, in his "Essay on +the Human Understanding;" and, in so doing, we need not perplex +ourselves with the particular theory, true or not, for the sake of which +he has collected them. Speaking of the weakness of the Understanding, +Huet says,-- + +"God, by His goodness, repairs this defect of human nature, by granting +us the inestimable gift of Faith, which confirms our staggering Reason, +and corrects that perplexity of doubts which we must bring to the +knowledge of things. For example: my reason not being able to inform me +with absolute evidence, and perfect certainty, whether there are bodies, +what was the origin of the world, and many other like things, after I +had received the Faith, all those doubts vanish, as darkness at the +rising of the sun. This made St. Thomas Aquinas say: 'It is necessary +for man to receive as articles of Faith, not only the things which are +above Reason, but even those that for their certainty may be known by +Reason. For human Reason is very deficient in things divine; a sign of +which we have from philosophers, who, in the search of human things by +natural methods, have been deceived, and opposed each other on many +heads. To the end then that men may have a certain and undoubted +cognizance of God, it was necessary things divine should be taught them +by way of Faith, as being revealed of God Himself, who cannot +lie.'[332:1] . . . . . + +"Then St. Thomas adds afterwards: 'No search by natural Reason is +sufficient to make man know things divine, nor even those which we can +prove by Reason.' And in another place he speaks thus: 'Things which may +be proved demonstratively, as the Being of God, the Unity of the +Godhead, and other points, are placed among articles we are to believe, +because previous to other things that are of Faith; and these must be +presupposed, at least by such as have no demonstration of them.' + + +7. + +"What St. Thomas says of the cognizance of divine things extends also to +the knowledge of human, according to the doctrine of Suarez. 'We often +correct,' he says, 'the light of Nature by the light of Faith, even in +things which seem to be first principles, as appears in this: those +things that are the same to a third, are the same between themselves; +which, if we have respect to the Trinity, ought to be restrained to +finite things. And in other mysteries, especially in those of the +Incarnation and the Eucharist, we use many other limitations, that +nothing may be repugnant to the Faith. This is then an indication that +the light of Faith is most certain, because founded on the first +truth, which is God, to whom it's more impossible to deceive or be +deceived than for the natural science of man to be mistaken and +erroneous.'[333:1] . . . . + +"If we hearken not to Reason, say you, you overthrow that great +foundation of Religion which Reason has established in our +understanding, viz. God is. To answer this objection, you must be told +that men know God in two manners. By Reason, with entire human +certainty; and by Faith, with absolute and divine certainty. Although by +Reason we cannot acquire any knowledge more certain than that of the +Being of God; insomuch that all the arguments, which the impious oppose +to this knowledge are of no validity and easily refuted; nevertheless +this certainty is not absolutely perfect[333:2] . . . . . + + +8. + +"Now although, to prove the existence of the Deity, we can bring +arguments which, accumulated and connected together, are not of less +power to convince men than geometrical principles, and theorems deduced +from them, and which are of entire human certainty, notwithstanding, +because learned philosophers have openly opposed even these principles, +'tis clear we cannot, neither in the natural knowledge we have of God, +which is acquired by Reason, nor in science founded on geometrical +principles and theorems, find absolute and consummate certainty, but +only that human certainty I have spoken of, to which nevertheless every +wise man ought to submit his understanding. This being not repugnant to +the testimony of the Book of Wisdom and the Epistle to the Romans, which +declares that men who do not from the make of the world acknowledge the +power and divinity of the Maker are senseless and inexcusable. + +"For to use the terms of Vasquez: 'By these words the Holy Scripture +means only that there has ever been a sufficient testimony of the Being +of a God in the fabrick of the world, and in His other works, to make +Him known unto men: but the Scripture is not under any concern whether +this knowledge be evident or of greatest probability; for these terms +are seen and understood, in their common and usual acceptation, to +signify all the knowledge of the mind with a determined assent.' He adds +after: 'For if any one should at this time deny Christ, that which would +render him inexcusable would not be because he might have had an evident +knowledge and reason for believing Him, but because he might have +believed it by Faith and a prudential knowledge.' + +"'Tis with reason then that Suarez teaches that 'the natural evidence of +this principle, God is the first truth, who cannot be deceived, is not +necessary, nor sufficient enough to make us believe by infused Faith, +what God reveals.' He proves, by the testimony of experience, that it is +not necessary; for ignorant and illiterate Christians, though they know +nothing clearly and certainly of God, do believe nevertheless that God +is. Even Christians of parts and learning, as St. Thomas has observed, +believe that God is, before they know it by Reason. Suarez shows +afterwards that the natural evidence of this principle is not +sufficient, because divine Faith, which is infused into our +understanding, cannot be bottomed upon human faith alone, how clear and +firm soever it is, as upon a formal object, because an assent most firm, +and of an order most noble and exalted, cannot derive its certainty from +a more infirm assent.[335:1] . . . . + + +9. + +"As touching the motives of credibility, which, preparing the mind to +receive Faith, ought according to you to be not only certain by supreme +and human certainty, but by supreme and absolute certainty, I will +oppose Gabriel Biel to you, who pronounces that to receive Faith 'tis +sufficient that the motives of credibility be proposed as probable. Do +you believe that children, illiterate, gross, ignorant people, who have +scarcely the use of Reason, and notwithstanding have received the gift +of Faith, do most clearly and most steadfastly conceive those +forementioned motives of credibility? No, without doubt; but the grace +of God comes in to their assistance, and sustains the imbecility of +Nature and Reason. + +"This is the common opinion of divines. Reason has need of divine grace, +not only in gross, illiterate persons, but even in those of parts and +learning; for how clear-sighted soever that may be, yet it cannot make +us have Faith, if celestial light does not illuminate us within, +because, as I have said already, divine Faith being of a superior order +cannot derive its efficacy from human faith."[336:1] "This is likewise +the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas: 'The light of Faith makes things +seen that are believed.' He says moreover, 'Believers have knowledge of +the things of Faith, not in a demonstrative way, but so as by the light +of Faith it appears to them that they ought to be believed.'"[336:2] + + +10. + +It is evident what a special influence such doctrine as this must exert +upon the theological method of those who hold it. Arguments will come to +be considered as suggestions and guides rather than logical proofs; and +developments as the slow, spontaneous, ethical growth, not the +scientific and compulsory results, of existing opinions. + + +Sect. 3. _Theology._ + +I have spoken and have still to speak of the action of logic, implicit +and explicit, as a safeguard, and thereby a note, of legitimate +developments of doctrine: but I am regarding it here as that continuous +tradition and habit in the Church of a scientific analysis of all +revealed truth, which is an ecclesiastical principle rather than a note +of any kind, as not merely bearing upon the process of development, but +applying to all religious teaching equally, and which is almost unknown +beyond the pale of Christendom. Reason, thus considered, is subservient +to faith, as handling, examining, explaining, recording, cataloguing, +defending, the truths which faith, not reason, has gained for us, as +providing an intellectual expression of supernatural facts, eliciting +what is implicit, comparing, measuring, connecting each with each, and +forming one and all into a theological system. + + +2. + +The first step in theology is investigation, an investigation arising +out of the lively interest and devout welcome which the matters +investigated claim of us; and, if Scripture teaches us the duty of +faith, it teaches quite as distinctly that loving inquisitiveness which +is the life of the _Schola_. It attributes that temper both to the +Blessed Virgin and to the Angels. The Angels are said to have "desired +to look into the mysteries of Revelation," and it is twice recorded of +Mary that she "kept these things and pondered them in her heart." +Moreover, her words to the Archangel, "How shall this be?" show that +there is a questioning in matters revealed to us compatible with the +fullest and most absolute faith. It has sometimes been said in defence +and commendation of heretics that "their misbelief at least showed that +they had thought upon the subject of religion;" this is an unseemly +paradox,--at the same time there certainly is the opposite extreme of a +readiness to receive any number of dogmas at a minute's warning, which, +when it is witnessed, fairly creates a suspicion that they are merely +professed with the tongue, not intelligently held. Our Lord gives no +countenance to such lightness of mind; He calls on His disciples to use +their reason, and to submit it. Nathanael's question "Can there any good +thing come out of Nazareth?" did not prevent our Lord's praise of him as +"an Israelite without guile." Nor did He blame Nicodemus, except for +want of theological knowledge, on his asking "How can these things be?" +Even towards St. Thomas He was gentle, as if towards one of those who +had "eyes too tremblingly awake to bear with dimness for His sake." In +like manner He praised the centurion when he argued himself into a +confidence of divine help and relief from the analogy of his own +profession; and left his captious enemies to prove for themselves from +the mission of the Baptist His own mission; and asked them "if David +called Him Lord, how was He his Son?" and, when His disciples wished to +have a particular matter taught them, chid them for their want of +"understanding." And these are but some out of the various instances +which He gives us of the same lesson. + + +3. + +Reason has ever been awake and in exercise in the Church after Him from +the first. Scarcely were the Apostles withdrawn from the world, when the +Martyr Ignatius, in his way to the Roman Amphitheatre, wrote his +strikingly theological Epistles; he was followed by Irenaeus, Hippolytus, +and Tertullian; thus we are brought to the age of Athanasius and his +contemporaries, and to Augustine. Then we pass on by Maximus and John +Damascene to the Middle age, when theology was made still more +scientific by the Schoolmen; nor has it become less so, by passing on +from St. Thomas to the great Jesuit writers Suarez and Vasquez, and then +to Lambertini. + + +Sect. 4. _Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation._ + +Several passages have occurred in the foregoing Chapters, which serve to +suggest another principle on which some words are now to be said. +Theodore's exclusive adoption of the literal, and repudiation of the +mystical interpretation of Holy Scripture, leads to the consideration of +the latter, as one of the characteristic conditions or principles on +which the teaching of the Church has ever proceeded. Thus Christianity +developed, as we have incidentally seen, into the form, first, of a +Catholic, then of a Papal Church. Now it was Scripture that was made the +rule on which this development proceeded in each case, and Scripture +moreover interpreted in a mystical sense; and, whereas at first certain +texts were inconsistently confined to the letter, and a Millennium was +in consequence expected, the very course of events, as time went on, +interpreted the prophecies about the Church more truly, and that first +in respect of her prerogative as occupying the _orbis terrarum_, next in +support of the claims of the See of St. Peter. This is but one specimen +of a certain law of Christian teaching, which is this,--a reference to +Scripture throughout, and especially in its mystical sense.[339:1] + + +2. + +1. This is a characteristic which will become more and more evident to +us, the more we look for it. The divines of the Church are in every age +engaged in regulating themselves by Scripture, appealing to Scripture in +proof of their conclusions, and exhorting and teaching in the thoughts +and language of Scripture. Scripture may be said to be the medium in +which the mind of the Church has energized and developed.[339:2] When +St. Methodius would enforce the doctrine of vows of celibacy, he refers +to the book of Numbers; and if St. Irenaeus proclaims the dignity of St. +Mary, it is from a comparison of St. Luke's Gospel with Genesis. And +thus St. Cyprian, in his Testimonies, rests the prerogatives of +martyrdom, as indeed the whole circle of Christian doctrine, on the +declaration of certain texts; and, when in his letter to Antonian he +seems to allude to Purgatory, he refers to our Lord's words about "the +prison" and "paying the last farthing." And if St. Ignatius exhorts to +unity, it is from St. Paul; and he quotes St. Luke against the +Phantasiasts of his day. We have a first instance of this law in the +Epistle of St. Polycarp, and a last in the practical works of St. +Alphonso Liguori. St. Cyprian, or St. Ambrose, or St. Bede, or St. +Bernard, or St. Carlo, or such popular books as Horstius's _Paradisus +Animae_, are specimens of a rule which is too obvious to need formal +proof. It is exemplified in the theological decisions of St. Athanasius +in the fourth century, and of St. Thomas in the thirteenth; in the +structure of the Canon Law, and in the Bulls and Letters of Popes. It is +instanced in the notion so long prevalent in the Church, which +philosophers of this day do not allow us to forget, that all truth, all +science, must be derived from the inspired volume. And it is recognized +as well as exemplified; recognized as distinctly by writers of the +Society of Jesus, as it is copiously exemplified by the Ante-nicene +Fathers. + + +3. + +"Scriptures are called canonical," says Salmeron, "as having been +received and set apart by the Church into the Canon of sacred books, and +because they are to us a rule of right belief and good living; also +because they ought to rule and moderate all other doctrines, laws, +writings, whether ecclesiastical, apocryphal, or human. For as these +agree with them, or at least do not disagree, so far are they admitted; +but they are repudiated and reprobated so far as they differ from them +even in the least matter."[340:1] Again: "The main subject of Scripture +is nothing else than to treat of the God-Man, or the Man-God, Christ +Jesus, not only in the New Testament, which is open, but in the +Old. . . . . . . For whereas Scripture contains nothing but the precepts +of belief and conduct, or faith and works, the end and the means towards +it, the Creator and the creature, love of God and our neighbour, +creation and redemption, and whereas all these are found in Christ, it +follows that Christ is the proper subject of Canonical Scripture. For +all matters of faith, whether concerning Creator or creatures, are +recapitulated in Jesus, whom every heresy denies, according to that +text, 'Every spirit that divides (_solvit_) Jesus is not of God;' for He +as man is united to the Godhead, and as God to the manhood, to the +Father from whom He is born, to the Holy Ghost who proceeds at once from +Christ and the Father, to Mary his most Holy Mother, to the Church, to +Scriptures, Sacraments, Saints, Angels, the Blessed, to Divine Grace, to +the authority and ministers of the Church, so that it is rightly said +that every heresy divides Jesus."[341:1] And again: "Holy Scripture is +so fashioned and composed by the Holy Ghost as to be accommodated to all +plans, times, persons, difficulties, dangers, diseases, the expulsion of +evil, the obtaining of good, the stifling of errors, the establishment +of doctrines, the ingrafting of virtues, the averting of vices. Hence it +is deservedly compared by St. Basil to a dispensary which supplies +various medicines against every complaint. From it did the Church in the +age of Martyrs draw her firmness and fortitude; in the age of Doctors, +her wisdom and light of knowledge; in the time of heretics, the +overthrow of error; in time of prosperity, humility and moderation; +fervour and diligence, in a lukewarm time; and in times of depravity and +growing abuse, reformation from corrupt living and return to the first +estate."[341:2] + + +4. + +"Holy Scripture," says Cornelius a Lapide, "contains the beginnings of +all theology: for theology is nothing but the science of conclusions +which are drawn from principles certain to faith, and therefore is of +all sciences most august as well as certain; but the principles of faith +and faith itself doth Scripture contain; whence it evidently follows +that Holy Scripture lays down those principles of theology by which the +theologian begets of the mind's reasoning his demonstrations. He, then, +who thinks he can tear away Scholastic Science from the work of +commenting on Holy Scripture is hoping for offspring without a +mother."[342:1] Again: "What is the subject-matter of Scripture? Must I +say it in a word? Its aim is _de omni scibili_; it embraces in its bosom +all studies, all that can be known: and thus it is a certain university +of sciences containing all sciences either 'formally' or +'eminently.'"[342:2] + +Nor am I aware that later Post-tridentine writers deny that the whole +Catholic faith may be proved from Scripture, though they would certainly +maintain that it is not to be found on the surface of it, nor in such +sense that it may be gained from Scripture without the aid of Tradition. + + +5. + +2. And this has been the doctrine of all ages of the Church, as is shown +by the disinclination of her teachers to confine themselves to the mere +literal interpretation of Scripture. Her most subtle and powerful method +of proof, whether in ancient or modern times, is the mystical sense, +which is so frequently used in doctrinal controversy as on many +occasions to supersede any other. Thus the Council of Trent appeals to +the peace-offering spoken of in Malachi in proof of the Eucharistic +Sacrifice; to the water and blood issuing from our Lord's side, and to +the mention of "waters" in the Apocalypse, in admonishing on the subject +of the mixture of water with the wine in the Oblation. Thus Bellarmine +defends Monastic celibacy by our Lord's words in Matthew xix., and +refers to "We went through fire and water," &c., in the Psalm, as an +argument for Purgatory; and these, as is plain, are but specimens of a +rule. Now, on turning to primitive controversy, we find this method of +interpretation to be the very basis of the proof of the Catholic +doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Whether we betake ourselves to the +Ante-nicene writers or the Nicene, certain texts will meet us, which do +not obviously refer to that doctrine, yet are put forward as palmary +proofs of it. Such are, in respect of our Lord's divinity, "My heart is +inditing of a good matter," or "has burst forth with a good Word;" "The +Lord made" or "possessed Me in the beginning of His ways;" "I was with +Him, in whom He delighted;" "In Thy Light shall we see Light;" "Who +shall declare His generation?" "She is the Breath of the Power of God;" +and "His Eternal Power and Godhead." + +On the other hand, the School of Antioch, which adopted the literal +interpretation, was, as I have noticed above, the very metropolis of +heresy. Not to speak of Lucian, whose history is but imperfectly known, +(one of the first masters of this school, and also teacher of Arius and +his principal supporters), Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who were +the most eminent masters of literalism in the succeeding generation, +were, as we have seen, the forerunners of Nestorianism. The case had +been the same in a still earlier age;--the Jews clung to the literal +sense of the Scriptures and hence rejected the Gospel; the Christian +Apologists proved its divinity by means of the allegorical. The formal +connexion of this mode of interpretation with Christian theology is +noticed by Porphyry, who speaks of Origen and others as borrowing it +from heathen philosophy, both in explanation of the Old Testament and in +defence of their own doctrine. It may be almost laid down as an +historical fact, that the mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will +stand or fall together. + + +6. + +This is clearly seen, as regards the primitive theology, by a recent +writer, in the course of a Dissertation upon St. Ephrem. After observing +that Theodore of Heraclea, Eusebius, and Diodorus gave a systematic +opposition to the mystical interpretation, which had a sort of sanction +from Antiquity and the orthodox Church, he proceeds; "Ephrem is not as +sober in his interpretations, _nor could it be, since_ he was a zealous +disciple of the orthodox faith. For all those who are most eminent in +such sobriety were as far as possible removed from the faith of the +Councils. . . . . On the other hand, all who retained the faith of +the Church never entirely dispensed with the spiritual sense of the +Scriptures. For the Councils watched over the orthodox faith; nor was it +safe in those ages, as we learn especially from the instance of Theodore +of Mopsuestia, to desert the spiritual for an exclusive cultivation of +the literal method. Moreover, the allegorical interpretation, even when +the literal sense was not injured, was also preserved; because in those +times, when both heretics and Jews in controversy were stubborn in their +objections to Christian doctrine, maintaining that the Messiah was yet +to come, or denying the abrogation of the Sabbath and ceremonial law, or +ridiculing the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and especially that of +Christ's Divine Nature, under such circumstances ecclesiastical +writers found it to their purpose, in answer to such exceptions, +violently to refer every part of Scripture by allegory to Christ and +His Church."[345:1] + + +7. + +With this passage from a learned German, illustrating the bearing of the +allegorical method upon the Judaic and Athanasian controversies, it will +be well to compare the following passage from the latitudinarian Hale's +"Golden Remains," as directed against the theology of Rome. "The +literal, plain, and uncontroversible meaning of Scripture," he says, +"without any addition or supply by way of interpretation, is that alone +which for ground of faith we are necessarily bound to accept; except it +be there, where the Holy Ghost Himself treads us out another way. I take +not this to be any particular conceit of mine, but that unto which our +Church stands necessarily bound. When we receded from the Church of +Rome, one motive was, because she added unto Scripture her glosses as +Canonical, to supply what the plain text of Scripture could not yield. +If, in place of hers, we set up our own glosses, thus to do were nothing +else but to pull down Baal, and set up an Ephod, to run round and meet +the Church of Rome again in the same point in which at first we left +her. . . . This doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous or +prejudicial to any, but only to those who were inwardly conscious that +their positions were not sufficiently grounded. When Cardinal Cajetan, +in the days of our grandfathers, had forsaken that vein of postilling +and allegorizing on Scripture, which for a long time had prevailed in +the Church, and betaken himself unto the literal sense, it was a thing +so distasteful unto the Church of Rome that he was forced to find out +many shifts and make many apologies for himself. The truth is (as it +will appear to him that reads his writings), this sticking close to the +literal sense was that alone which made him to shake off many of those +tenets upon which the Church of Rome and the reformed Churches differ. +But when the importunity of the Reformers, and the great credit of +Calvin's writings in that kind, had forced the divines of Rome to level +their interpretations by the same line; when they saw that no pains, no +subtlety of wit was strong enough to defeat the literal evidence of +Scripture, it drove them on those desperate shoals, on which at this day +they stick, to call in question, as far as they durst, the credit of the +Hebrew text, and countenance against it a corrupt translation; to add +traditions unto Scripture, and to make the Church's interpretation, so +pretended, to be above exception."[346:1] + + +8. + +He presently adds concerning the allegorical sense: "If we absolutely +condemn these interpretations, then must we condemn a great part of +Antiquity, who are very much conversant in this kind of interpreting. +For the most partial for Antiquity cannot choose but see and confess +thus much, that for the literal sense, the interpreters of our own +times, because of their skill in the original languages, their care of +pressing the circumstances and coherence of the text, of comparing like +places of Scripture with like, have generally surpassed the best of the +ancients."[346:2] + +The use of Scripture then, especially its spiritual or second sense, as +a medium of thought and deduction, is a characteristic principle of +doctrinal teaching in the Church. + + +Sect. 5. _Dogma._ + +1. That opinions in religion are not matters of indifference, but have a +definite bearing on the position of their holders in the Divine Sight, +is a principle on which the Evangelical Faith has from the first +developed, and on which that Faith has been the first to develope. I +suppose, it hardly had any exercise under the Law; the zeal and +obedience of the ancient people being mainly employed in the maintenance +of divine worship and the overthrow of idolatry, not in the action of +the intellect. Faith is in this, as in other respects, a characteristic +of the Gospel, except so far as it was anticipated, as its time drew +near. Elijah and the prophets down to Ezra resisted Baal or restored the +Temple Service; the Three Children refused to bow down before the golden +image; Daniel would turn his face towards Jerusalem; the Maccabees +spurned the Grecian paganism. On the other hand, the Greek Philosophers +were authoritative indeed in their teaching, enforced the "_Ipse +dixit_," and demanded the faith of their disciples; but they did not +commonly attach sanctity or reality to opinions, or view them in a +religious light. Our Saviour was the first to "bear witness to the +Truth," and to die for it, when "before Pontius Pilate he witnessed a +good confession." St. John and St. Paul, following his example, both +pronounce anathema on those who denied "the Truth" or "brought in +another Gospel." Tradition tells us that the Apostle of love seconded +his word with his deed, and on one occasion hastily quitted a bath +because an heresiarch of the day had entered it. St. Ignatius, his +contemporary, compares false teachers to raging dogs; and St. Polycarp, +his disciple, exercised the same seventy upon Marcion which St. John had +shown towards Cerinthus. + + +2. + +St. Irenaeus after St. Polycarp exemplifies the same doctrine: "I saw +thee," he says to the heretic Florinus, "when I was yet a boy, in lower +Asia, with Polycarp, when thou wast living splendidly in the Imperial +Court, and trying to recommend thyself to him. I remember indeed what +then happened better than more recent occurrences, for the lessons of +boyhood grow with the mind and become one with it. Thus I can name the +place where blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, and his goings out and +comings in, and the fashion of his life, and the appearance of his +person, and his discourses to the people, and his familiarity with John, +which he used to tell of, and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and +how he used to repeat their words, and what it was that he had learned +about the Lord from them. . . . And in the sight of God, I can protest, +that, if that blessed and apostolical Elder had heard aught of this +doctrine, he had cried out and stopped his ears, saying after his wont, +'O Good God, for what times hast thou reserved me that I should endure +this?' and he had fled the place where he was sitting or standing when +he heard it." It seems to have been the duty of every individual +Christian from the first to witness in his place against all opinions +which were contrary to what he had received in his baptismal +catechizing, and to shun the society of those who maintained them. "So +religious," says Irenaeus after giving his account of St. Polycarp, "were +the Apostles and their disciples, in not even conversing with those who +counterfeited the truth."[348:1] + + +3. + +Such a principle, however, would but have broken up the Church the +sooner, resolving it into the individuals of which it was composed, +unless the Truth, to which they were to bear witness, had been a +something definite, and formal, and independent of themselves. +Christians were bound to defend and to transmit the faith which they had +received, and they received it from the rulers of the Church; and, on +the other hand, it was the duty of those rulers to watch over and define +this traditionary faith. It is unnecessary to go over ground which has +been traversed so often of late years. St. Irenaeus brings the subject +before us in his description of St. Polycarp, part of which has already +been quoted; and to it we may limit ourselves. "Polycarp," he says when +writing against the Gnostics, "whom we have seen in our first youth, +ever taught those lessons which he learned from the Apostles, which the +Church also transmits, which alone are true. All the Churches of Asia +bear witness to them; and the successors of Polycarp down to this day, +who is a much more trustworthy and sure witness of truth than +Valentinus, Marcion, or their perverse companions. The same was in Rome +in the time of Anicetus, and converted many of the aforenamed heretics +to the Church of God, preaching that he had received from the Apostles +this one and only truth, which had been transmitted by the +Church."[349:1] + + +4. + +Nor was this the doctrine and practice of one school only, which might +be ignorant of philosophy; the cultivated minds of the Alexandrian +Fathers, who are said to owe so much to Pagan science, certainly showed +no gratitude or reverence towards their alleged instructors, but +maintained the supremacy of Catholic Tradition. Clement[349:2] speaks of +heretical teachers as perverting Scripture, and essaying the gate of +heaven with a false key, not raising the veil, as he and his, by means +of tradition from Christ, but digging through the Church's wall, and +becoming mystagogues of misbelief; "for," he continues, "few words are +enough to prove that they have formed their human assemblies later than +the Catholic Church," and "from that previously existing and most true +Church it is very clear that these later heresies, and others which +have been since, are counterfeit and novel inventions."[350:1] "When the +Marcionites, Valentinians, and the like," says Origen, "appeal to +apocryphal works, they are saying, 'Christ is in the desert;' when to +canonical Scripture, 'Lo, He is in the chambers;' but we must not depart +from that first and ecclesiastical tradition, nor believe otherwise than +as the Churches of God by succession have transmitted to us." And it is +recorded of him in his youth, that he never could be brought to attend +the prayers of a heretic who was in the house of his patroness, from +abomination of his doctrine, "observing," adds Eusebius, "the rule of +the Church." Eusebius too himself, unsatisfactory as is his own +theology, cannot break from this fundamental rule; he ever speaks of the +Gnostic teachers, the chief heretics of his period (at least before the +rise of Arianism), in terms most expressive of abhorrence and disgust. + + +5. + +The African, Syrian, and Asian schools are additional witnesses; +Tertullian at Carthage was strenuous for the dogmatic principle even +after he had given up the traditional. The Fathers of Asia Minor, who +excommunicated Noetus, rehearse the Creed, and add, "We declare as we +have learned;" the Fathers of Antioch, who depose Paul of Samosata, set +down in writing the Creed from Scripture, "which," they say, "we +received from the beginning, and have, by tradition and in custody, in +the Catholic and Holy Church, until this day, by succession, as preached +by the blessed Apostles, who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the +Word."[350:2] + + +6. + +Moreover, it is as plain, or even plainer, that what the Christians of +the first ages anathematized, included deductions from the Articles of +Faith, that is, false developments, as well as contradictions of those +Articles. And, since the reason they commonly gave for using the +anathema was that the doctrine in question was strange and startling, it +follows that the truth, which was its contradictory, was also in some +respect unknown to them hitherto; which is also shown by their temporary +perplexity, and their difficulty of meeting heresy, in particular cases. +"Who ever heard the like hitherto?" says St. Athanasius, of +Apollinarianism; "who was the teacher of it, who the hearer? 'From Sion +shall go forth the Law of God, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem;' +but from whence hath this gone forth? What hell hath burst out with it?" +The Fathers at Nicaea stopped their ears; and St. Irenaeus, as above +quoted, says that St. Polycarp, had he heard the Gnostic blasphemies, +would have stopped his ears, and deplored the times for which he was +reserved. They anathematized the doctrine, not because it was old, but +because it was new: the anathema would have altogether slept, if it +could not have been extended to propositions not anathematized in the +beginning; for the very characteristic of heresy is this novelty and +originality of manifestation. + +Such was the exclusiveness of Christianity of old: I need not insist on +the steadiness with which that principle has been maintained ever since, +for bigotry and intolerance is one of the ordinary charges brought at +this day against both the medieval Church and the modern. + + +7. + +The Church's consistency and thoroughness in teaching is another aspect +of the same principle, as is illustrated in the following passage from +M. Guizot's History of Civilization. "The adversaries," he says, "of the +Reformation, knew very well what they were about, and what they +required; they could point to their first principles, and boldly admit +all the consequences that might result from them. No government was ever +more consistent and systematic than that of the Romish Church. In fact, +the Court of Rome was much more accommodating, yielded much more than +the Reformers; but in principle it much more completely adopted its own +system, and maintained a much more consistent conduct. There is an +immense power in this full confidence of what is done; this perfect +knowledge of what is required; this complete and rational adaptation of +a system and a creed." Then he goes on to the history of the Society of +Jesus in illustration. "Everything," he says, "was unfavourable to the +Jesuits, both fortune and appearances; neither practical sense which +requires success, nor the imagination which looks for splendour, were +gratified by their destiny. Still it is certain that they possessed the +elements of greatness; a grand idea is attached to their name, to their +influence, and to their history. Why? because they worked from fixed +principles, which they fully and clearly understood, and the tendency of +which they entirely comprehended. In the Reformation, on the contrary, +when the event surpassed its conception, something incomplete, +inconsequent, and narrow has remained, which has placed the conquerors +themselves in a state of rational and philosophical inferiority, the +influence of which has occasionally been felt in events. The conflict of +the new spiritual order of things against the old, is, I think, the weak +side of the Reformation."[352:1] + + +Sect. 6. _Additional Remarks._ + +Such are some of the intellectual principles which are characteristic of +Christianity. I observe,-- + +That their continuity down to this day, and the vigour of their +operation, are two distinct guarantees that the theological conclusions +to which they are subservient are, in accordance with the Divine +Promise, true developments, and not corruptions of the Revelation. + +Moreover, if it be true that the principles of the later Church are the +same as those of the earlier, then, whatever are the variations of +belief between the two periods, the later in reality agrees more than it +differs with the earlier, for principles are responsible for doctrines. +Hence they who assert that the modern Roman system is the corruption of +primitive theology are forced to discover some difference of principle +between the one and the other; for instance, that the right of private +judgment was secured to the early Church and has been lost to the later, +or, again, that the later Church rationalizes and the earlier went by +faith. + + +2. + +On this point I will but remark as follows. It cannot be doubted that +the horror of heresy, the law of absolute obedience to ecclesiastical +authority, and the doctrine of the mystical virtue of unity, were as +strong and active in the Church of St. Ignatius and St. Cyprian as in +that of St. Carlo and St. Pius the Fifth, whatever be thought of the +theology respectively taught in the one and in the other. Now we have +before our eyes the effect of these principles in the instance of the +later Church; they have entirely succeeded in preventing departure from +the doctrine of Trent for three hundred years. Have we any reason for +doubting, that from the same strictness the same fidelity would follow, +in the first three, or any three, centuries of the Ante-tridentine +period? Where then was the opportunity of corruption in the three +hundred years between St. Ignatius and St. Augustine? or between St. +Augustine and St. Bede? or between St. Bede and St. Peter Damiani? or +again, between St. Irenaeus and St. Leo, St. Cyprian and St. Gregory the +Great, St. Athanasius and St. John Damascene? Thus the tradition of +eighteen centuries becomes a collection of indefinitely many _catenae_, +each commencing from its own point, and each crossing the other; and +each year, as it comes, is guaranteed with various degrees of cogency by +every year which has gone before it. + + +3. + +Moreover, while the development of doctrine in the Church has been in +accordance with, or in consequence of these immemorial principles, the +various heresies, which have from time to time arisen, have in one +respect or other, as might be expected, violated those principles with +which she rose into existence, and which she still retains. Thus Arian +and Nestorian schools denied the allegorical rule of Scripture +interpretation; the Gnostics and Eunomians for Faith professed to +substitute knowledge; and the Manichees also, as St. Augustine so +touchingly declares in the beginning of his work _De Utilitate +credendi_. The dogmatic Rule, at least so far as regards its traditional +character, was thrown aside by all those sects which, as Tertullian +tells us, claimed to judge for themselves from Scripture; and the +Sacramental principle was violated, _ipso facto_, by all who separated +from the Church,--was denied also by Faustus the Manichee when he argued +against the Catholic ceremonial, by Vigilantius in his opposition to +relics, and by the Iconoclasts. In like manner the contempt of mystery, +of reverence, of devoutness, of sanctity, are other notes of the +heretical spirit. As to Protestantism it is plain in how many ways it +has reversed the principles of Catholic theology. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[326:1] [E. g. development itself is such a principle also. "And thus I +was led on to a further consideration. I saw that the principle of +development not only accounted for certain facts, but was in itself a +remarkable philosophical phenomenon, giving a character to the whole +course of Christian thought. It was discernible from the first years of +Catholic teaching up to the present day, and gave to that teaching a +unity and individuality. It served as a sort of test, which the Anglican +could not stand, that modern Rome was in truth ancient Antioch, +Alexandria, and Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve has its own +law and expression." _Apol._ p. 198, _vid._ also Angl. Diff. vol. i. +Lect. xii. 7.] + +[328:1] University Sermons [but, more carefully in the "Essay on +Assent"]. + +[329:1] c. Cels. i. 9. + +[330:1] Haer. iv. 24. Euseb. Praep. Ev. i. 5. + +[330:2] [This is too large a subject to admit of justice being done to +it here: I have treated of it at length in the "Essay on Assent."] + +[331:1] Init. + +[331:2] _Vid._ also _supr._ p. 256. + +[332:1] pp. 142, 143, Combe's tr. + +[333:1] pp. 144, 145. + +[333:2] p. 219. + +[335:1] pp. 221, 223. + +[336:1] pp. 229, 230. + +[336:2] pp. 230, 231. + +[339:1] Vid. Proph. Offic. Lect. xiii. [Via Media, vol. i. p. 309, &c.] + +[339:2] A late writer goes farther, and maintains that it is not +determined by the Council of Trent, whether the whole of the Revelation +is in Scripture or not. "The Synod declares that the Christian 'truth +and discipline are contained in written books and unwritten traditions.' +They were well aware that the controversy then was, whether the +Christian doctrine was only _in part_ contained in Scripture. But they +did not dare to frame their decree openly in accordance with the modern +Romish view; they did not venture to affirm, as they might easily have +done, that the Christian verity 'was contained _partly_ in written +books, and _partly_ in unwritten traditions.'"--_Palmer on the Church_, +vol. 2, p. 15. Vid. Difficulties of Angl. vol. ii. pp. 11, 12. + +[340:1] Opp. t. 1, p. 4. + +[341:1] Opp. t. i. pp. 4, 5. + +[341:2] Ibid. p. 9. + +[342:1] Proem. 5. + +[342:2] p. 4. + +[345:1] Lengerke, de Ephr. S. pp. 78-80. + +[346:1] pp. 24-26. + +[346:2] p. 27. + +[348:1] Euseb. Hist. iv. 14, v. 20. + +[349:1] Contr. Haer. iii. 3, Sect. 4. + +[349:2] Ed. Potter, p. 897. + +[350:1] Ed. Potter, p. 899. + +[350:2] Clem. Strom. vii. 17. Origen in Matth. Comm. Ser. 46. Euseb. +Hist. vi. 2, fin. Epiph. Haer. 57, p. 480. Routh, t. 2, p. 465. + +[352:1] Eur. Civil. pp. 394-398. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +APPLICATION OF THE THIRD NOTE Of A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +ASSIMILATIVE POWER. + +Since religious systems, true and false, have one and the same great and +comprehensive subject-matter, they necessarily interfere with one +another as rivals, both in those points in which they agree together, +and in those in which they differ. That Christianity on its rise was in +these circumstances of competition and controversy, is sufficiently +evident even from a foregoing Chapter: it was surrounded by rites, +sects, and philosophies, which contemplated the same questions, +sometimes advocated the same truths, and in no slight degree wore the +same external appearance. It could not stand still, it could not take +its own way, and let them take theirs: they came across its path, and a +conflict was inevitable. The very nature of a true philosophy relatively +to other systems is to be polemical, eclectic, unitive: Christianity was +polemical; it could not but be eclectic; but was it also unitive? Had it +the power, while keeping its own identity, of absorbing its antagonists, +as Aaron's rod, according to St. Jerome's illustration, devoured the +rods of the sorcerers of Egypt? Did it incorporate them into itself, or +was it dissolved into them? Did it assimilate them into its own +substance, or, keeping its name, was it simply infected by them? In a +word, were its developments faithful or corrupt? Nor is this a question +merely of the early centuries. When we consider the deep interest of the +controversies which Christianity raises, the various characters of mind +it has swayed, the range of subjects which it embraces, the many +countries it has entered, the deep philosophies it has encountered, the +vicissitudes it has undergone, and the length of time through which it +has lasted, it requires some assignable explanation, why we should not +consider it substantially modified and changed, that is, corrupted, from +the first, by the numberless influences to which it has been exposed. + + +2. + +Now there was this cardinal distinction between Christianity and the +religions and philosophies by which it was surrounded, nay even the +Judaism of the day, that it referred all truth and revelation to one +source, and that the Supreme and Only God. Pagan rites which honoured +one or other out of ten thousand deities; philosophies which scarcely +taught any source of revelation at all; Gnostic heresies which were +based on Dualism, adored angels, or ascribed the two Testaments to +distinct authors, could not regard truth as one, unalterable, +consistent, imperative, and saving. But Christianity started with the +principle that there was but "one God and one Mediator," and that He, +"who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the +fathers by the Prophets, had in these last days spoken unto us by His +Son." He had never left Himself without witness, and now He had come, +not to undo the past, but to fulfil and perfect it. His Apostles, and +they alone, possessed, venerated, and protected a Divine Message, as +both sacred and sanctifying; and, in the collision and conflict of +opinions, in ancient times or modern, it was that Message, and not any +vague or antagonist teaching, that was to succeed in purifying, +assimilating, transmuting, and taking into itself the many-coloured +beliefs, forms of worship, codes of duty, schools of thought, through +which it was ever moving. It was Grace, and it was Truth. + + +Sect. 1. _The Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth._ + +That there is a truth then; that there is one truth; that religious +error is in itself of an immoral nature; that its maintainers, unless +involuntarily such, are guilty in maintaining it; that it is to be +dreaded; that the search for truth is not the gratification of +curiosity; that its attainment has nothing of the excitement of a +discovery; that the mind is below truth, not above it, and is bound, not +to descant upon it, but to venerate it; that truth and falsehood are set +before us for the trial of our hearts; that our choice is an awful +giving forth of lots on which salvation or rejection is inscribed; that +"before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith;" that "he +that would be saved must thus think," and not otherwise; that, "if thou +criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if +thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasure, +then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge +of God,"--this is the dogmatical principle, which has strength. + +That truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; that one +doctrine is as good as another; that the Governor of the world does not +intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we +are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; +that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of +necessity or accident; that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we +profess; that our merit lies in seeking, not in possessing; that it is +a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should +not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, and can be no harm to +fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief +belongs to the mere intellect, not to the heart also; that we may safely +trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and need no other guide,--this +is the principle of philosophies and heresies, which is very weakness. + + +2. + +Two opinions encounter; each may be abstractedly true; or again, each +may be a subtle, comprehensive doctrine, vigorous, elastic, expansive, +various; one is held as a matter of indifference, the other as a matter +of life and death; one is held by the intellect only, the other also by +the heart: it is plain which of the two must succumb to the other. Such +was the conflict of Christianity with the old established Paganism, +which was almost dead before Christianity appeared; with the Oriental +Mysteries, flitting wildly to and fro like spectres; with the Gnostics, +who made Knowledge all in all, despised the many, and called Catholics +mere children in the Truth; with the Neo-platonists, men of literature, +pedants, visionaries, or courtiers; with the Manichees, who professed to +seek Truth by Reason, not by Faith; with the fluctuating teachers of the +school of Antioch, the time-serving Eusebians, and the reckless +versatile Arians; with the fanatic Montanists and harsh Novatians, who +shrank from the Catholic doctrine, without power to propagate their own. +These sects had no stay or consistence, yet they contained elements of +truth amid their error, and had Christianity been as they, it might have +resolved into them; but it had that hold of the truth which gave its +teaching a gravity, a directness, a consistency, a sternness, and a +force, to which its rivals for the most part were strangers. It could +not call evil good, or good evil, because it discerned the difference +between them; it could not make light of what was so solemn, or desert +what was so solid. Hence, in the collision, it broke in pieces its +antagonists, and divided the spoils. + + +3. + +This was but another form of the spirit that made martyrs. Dogmatism was +in teaching, what confession was in act. Each was the same strong +principle of life in a different aspect, distinguishing the faith which +was displayed in it from the world's philosophies on the one side, and +the world's religions on the other. The heathen sects and the heresies +of Christian history were dissolved by the breath of opinion which made +them; paganism shuddered and died at the very sight of the sword of +persecution, which it had itself unsheathed. Intellect and force were +applied as tests both upon the divine and upon the human work; they +prevailed with the human, they did but become instruments of the Divine. +"No one," says St. Justin, "has so believed Socrates as to die for the +doctrine which he taught." "No one was ever found undergoing death for +faith in the sun."[359:1] Thus Christianity grew in its proportions, +gaining aliment and medicine from all that it came near, yet preserving +its original type, from its perception and its love of what had been +revealed once for all and was no private imagination. + + +4. + +There are writers who refer to the first centuries of the Church as a +time when opinion was free, and the conscience exempt from the +obligation or temptation to take on trust what it had not proved; and +that, apparently on the mere ground that the series of great +theological decisions did not commence till the fourth. This seems to be +M. Guizot's meaning when he says that Christianity "in the early ages +was a belief, a sentiment, an individual conviction;"[360:1] that "the +Christian society appears as a pure association of men animated by the +same sentiments and professing the same creed. The first Christians," he +continues, "assembled to enjoy together the same emotions, the same +religious convictions. We do not find any doctrinal system established, +any form of discipline or of laws, or any body of magistrates."[360:2] +What can be meant by saying that Christianity had no magistrates in the +earliest ages?--but, any how, in statements such as these the +distinction is not properly recognized between a principle and its +exhibitions and instances, even if the fact were as is represented. The +principle indeed of Dogmatism developes into Councils in the course of +time; but it was active, nay sovereign from the first, in every part of +Christendom. A conviction that truth was one; that it was a gift from +without, a sacred trust, an inestimable blessing; that it was to be +reverenced, guarded, defended, transmitted; that its absence was a +grievous want, and its loss an unutterable calamity; and again, the +stern words and acts of St. John, of Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenaeus, +Clement, Tertullian, and Origen;--all this is quite consistent with +perplexity or mistake as to what was truth in particular cases, in what +way doubtful questions were to be decided, or what were the limits of +the Revelation. Councils and Popes are the guardians and instruments of +the dogmatic principle: they are not that principle themselves; they +presuppose the principle; they are summoned into action at the call of +the principle, and the principle might act even before they had their +legitimate place, and exercised a recognized power, in the movements of +the Christian body. + + +5. + +The instance of Conscience, which has already served us in illustration, +may assist us here. What Conscience is in the history of an individual +mind, such was the dogmatic principle in the history of Christianity. +Both in the one case and the other, there is the gradual formation of a +directing power out of a principle. The natural voice of Conscience is +far more imperative in testifying and enforcing a rule of duty, than +successful in determining that duty in particular cases. It acts as a +messenger from above, and says that there is a right and a wrong, and +that the right must be followed; but it is variously, and therefore +erroneously, trained in the instance of various persons. It mistakes +error for truth; and yet we believe that on the whole, and even in those +cases where it is ill-instructed, if its voice be diligently obeyed, it +will gradually be cleared, simplified, and perfected, so that minds, +starting differently will, if honest, in course of time converge to one +and the same truth. I do not hereby imply that there is indistinctness +so great as this in the theology of the first centuries; but so far is +plain, that the early Church and Fathers exercised far more a ruler's +than a doctor's office: it was the age of Martyrs, of acting not of +thinking. Doctors succeeded Martyrs, as light and peace of conscience +follow upon obedience to it; yet, even before the Church had grown into +the full measure of its doctrines, it was rooted in its principles. + + +6. + +So far, however, may be granted to M. Guizot, that even principles were +not so well understood and so carefully handled at first, as they were +afterwards. In the early period, we see traces of a conflict, as well as +of a variety, in theological elements, which were in course of +combination, but which required adjustment and management before they +could be used with precision as one. In a thousand instances of a minor +character, the statements of the early Fathers are but tokens of the +multiplicity of openings which the mind of the Church was making into +the treasure-house of Truth; real openings, but incomplete or irregular. +Nay, the doctrines even of the heretical bodies are indices and +anticipations of the mind of the Church. As the first step in settling a +question of doctrine is to raise and debate it, so heresies in every age +may be taken as the measure of the existing state of thought in the +Church, and of the movement of her theology; they determine in what way +the current is setting, and the rate at which it flows. + + +7. + +Thus, St. Clement may be called the representative of the eclectic +element, and Tertullian of the dogmatic, neither element as yet being +fully understood by Catholics; and Clement perhaps went too far in his +accommodation to philosophy, and Tertullian asserted with exaggeration +the immutability of the Creed. Nay, the two antagonist principles of +dogmatism and assimilation are found in Tertullian alone, though with +some deficiency of amalgamation, and with a greater leaning towards the +dogmatic. Though the Montanists professed to pass over the subject of +doctrine, it is chiefly in Tertullian's Montanistic works that his +strong statements occur of the unalterableness of the Creed; and +extravagance on the subject is not only in keeping with the stern and +vehement temper of that Father, but with the general severity and +harshness of his sect. On the other hand the very foundation of +Montanism is development, though not of doctrine, yet of discipline and +conduct. It is said that its founder professed himself the promised +Comforter, through whom the Church was to be perfected; he provided +prophets as organs of the new revelation, and called Catholics Psychici +or animal. Tertullian distinctly recognizes even the process of +development in one of his Montanistic works. After speaking of an +innovation upon usage, which his newly revealed truth required, he +proceeds, "Therefore hath the Lord sent the Paraclete, that, since human +infirmity could not take all things in at once, discipline might be +gradually directed, regulated and brought to perfection by the Lord's +Vicar, the Holy Ghost. 'I have yet many things to say to you,' He saith, +&c. What is this dispensation of the Paraclete but this, that discipline +is directed, Scriptures opened, intellect reformed, improvements +effected? Nothing can take place without age, and all things wait their +time. In short, the Preacher says 'There is a time for all things.' +Behold the creature itself gradually advancing to fruit. At first there +is a seed, and a stalk springs out of the seed, and from the stalk +bursts out a shrub, and then its branches and foliage grow vigorous, and +all that we mean by a tree is unfolded; then there is the swelling of +the bud, and the bud is resolved into a blossom, and the blossom is +opened into a fruit, and is for a while rudimental and unformed, till, +by degrees following out its life, it is matured into mellowness of +flavour. So too righteousness, (for there is the same God both of +righteousness and of the creation,) was at first in its rudiments, a +nature fearing God; thence, by means of Law and Prophets, it advanced +into infancy; thence, by the gospel, it burst forth into its youth; and +now by the Paraclete, it is fashioned into maturity."[363:1] + + +8. + +Not in one principle or doctrine only, but in its whole system, +Montanism is a remarkable anticipation or presage of developments which +soon began to show themselves in the Church, though they were not +perfected for centuries after. Its rigid maintenance of the original +Creed, yet its admission of a development, at least in the ritual, has +just been instanced in the person of Tertullian. Equally Catholic in +their principle, whether in fact or anticipation, were most of the other +peculiarities of Montanism: its rigorous fasts, its visions, its +commendation of celibacy and martyrdom, its contempt of temporal goods, +its penitential discipline, and its maintenance of a centre of unity. +The doctrinal determinations and the ecclesiastical usages of the middle +ages are the true fulfilment of its self-willed and abortive attempts at +precipitating the growth of the Church. The favour shown to it for a +while by Pope Victor is an evidence of its external resemblance to +orthodoxy; and the celebrated Martyrs and Saints in Africa, in the +beginning of the third century, Perpetua and Felicitas, or at least +their Acts, betoken that same peculiar temper of religion, which, when +cut off from the Church a few years afterwards, quickly degenerated into +a heresy. A parallel instance occurs in the case of the Donatists. They +held a doctrine on the subject of Baptism similar to that of St. +Cyprian: "Vincentius Lirinensis," says Gibbon, referring to Tillemont's +remarks on that resemblance, "has explained why the Donatists are +eternally burning with the devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven +with Jesus Christ."[364:1] And his reason is intelligible: it is, says +Tillemont, "as St. Augustine often says, because the Donatists had +broken the bond of peace and charity with the other Churches, which St. +Cyprian had preserved so carefully."[364:2] + + +9. + +These are specimens of the raw material, as it may be called, which, +whether as found in individual Fathers within the pale of the Church, or +in heretics external to it, she had the power, by means of the +continuity and firmness of her principles, to convert to her own uses. +She alone has succeeded in thus rejecting evil without sacrificing the +good, and in holding together in one things which in all other schools +are incompatible. Gnostic or Platonic words are found in the inspired +theology of St. John; to the Platonists Unitarian writers trace the +doctrine of our Lord's divinity; Gibbon the idea of the Incarnation to +the Gnostics. The Gnostics too seem first to have systematically thrown +the intellect upon matters of faith; and the very term "Gnostic" has +been taken by Clement to express his perfect Christian. And, though +ascetics existed from the beginning, the notion of a religion higher +than the Christianity of the many, was first prominently brought forward +by the Gnostics, Montanists, Novatians, and Manichees. And while the +prophets of the Montanists prefigure the Church's Doctors, and their +professed inspiration her infallibility, and their revelations her +developments, and the heresiarch himself is the unsightly anticipation +of St. Francis, in Novatian again we discern the aspiration of nature +after such creations of grace as St. Benedict or St. Bruno. And so the +effort of Sabellius to complete the enunciation of the mystery of the +Ever-blessed Trinity failed: it became a heresy; grace would not be +constrained; the course of thought could not be forced;--at length it +was realized in the true Unitarianism of St. Augustine. + + +10. + +Doctrine too is percolated, as it were, through different minds, +beginning with writers of inferior authority in the Church, and issuing +at length in the enunciation of her Doctors. Origen, Tertullian, nay +Eusebius and the Antiochenes, supply the materials, from which the +Fathers have wrought out comments or treatises. St. Gregory Nazianzen +and St. Basil digested into form the theological principles of Origen; +St. Hilary and St. Ambrose are both indebted to the same great writer in +their interpretations of Scripture; St. Ambrose again has taken his +comment on St. Luke from Eusebius, and certain of his Tracts from Philo; +St. Cyprian called Tertullian his Master; and traces of Tertullian, in +his almost heretical treatises, may be detected in the most finished +sentences of St. Leo. The school of Antioch, in spite of the heretical +taint of various of its Masters, formed the genius of St. Chrysostom. +And the Apocryphal gospels have contributed many things for the devotion +and edification of Catholic believers.[366:1] + +The deep meditation which seems to have been exercised by the Fathers on +points of doctrine, the disputes and turbulence yet lucid determination +which characterize the Councils, the indecision of Popes, are all in +different ways, at least when viewed together, portions and indications +of the same process. The theology of the Church is no random combination +of various opinions, but a diligent, patient working out of one doctrine +from many materials. The conduct of Popes, Councils, Fathers, betokens +the slow, painful, anxious taking up of new truths into an existing body +of belief. St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Leo are conspicuous for +the repetition _in terminis_ of their own theological statements; on the +contrary, it has been observed of the heterodox Tertullian, that his +works "indicate no ordinary fertility of mind in that he so little +repeats himself or recurs to favourite thoughts, as is frequently the +case even with the great St. Augustine."[366:2] + + +11. + +Here we see the difference between originality of mind and the gift and +calling of a Doctor in the Church; the holy Fathers just mentioned were +intently fixing their minds on what they taught, grasping it more and +more closely, viewing it on various sides, trying its consistency, +weighing their own separate expressions. And thus if in some cases they +were even left in ignorance, the next generation of teachers completed +their work, for the same unwearied anxious process of thought went on. +St. Gregory Nyssen finishes the investigations of St. Athanasius; St. +Leo guards the polemical statements of St. Cyril. Clement may hold a +purgatory, yet tend to consider all punishment purgatorial; St. Cyprian +may hold the unsanctified state of heretics, but include in his doctrine +a denial of their baptism; St. Hippolytus may believe in the personal +existence of the Word from eternity, yet speak confusedly on the +eternity of His Sonship; the Council of Antioch might put aside the +Homousion, and the Council of Nicaea impose it; St. Hilary may believe in +a purgatory, yet confine it to the day of judgment; St. Athanasius and +other Fathers may treat with almost supernatural exactness the doctrine +of our Lord's incarnation, yet imply, as far as words go, that He was +ignorant viewed in His human nature; the Athanasian Creed may admit the +illustration of soul and body, and later Fathers may discountenance it; +St. Augustine might first be opposed to the employment of force in +religion, and then acquiesce in it. Prayers for the faithful departed +may be found in the early liturgies, yet with an indistinctness which +included the Blessed Virgin and the Martyrs in the same rank with the +imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet unexpiated; and succeeding +times might keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient. +Aristotle might be reprobated by certain early Fathers, yet furnish the +phraseology for theological definitions afterwards. And in a different +subject-matter, St. Isidore and others might be suspicious of the +decoration of Churches; St. Paulinus and St. Helena advance it. And thus +we are brought on to dwell upon the office of grace, as well as of +truth, in enabling the Church's creed to develope and to absorb without +the risk of corruption. + + +Sect. 2. _The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace._ + +There is in truth a certain virtue or grace in the Gospel which changes +the quality of doctrines, opinions, usages, actions, and personal +characters when incorporated with it, and makes them right and +acceptable to its Divine Author, whereas before they were either +infected with evil, or at best but shadows of the truth. This is the +principle, above spoken of, which I have called the Sacramental. "We +know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness," is an +enunciation of the principle;--or, the declaration of the Apostle of the +Gentiles, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are +passed away, behold all things are become new." Thus it is that outward +rites, which are but worthless in themselves, lose their earthly +character and become Sacraments under the Gospel; circumcision, as St. +Paul says, is carnal and has come to an end, yet Baptism is a perpetual +ordinance, as being grafted upon a system which is grace and truth. +Elsewhere, he parallels, while he contrasts, "the cup of the Lord" and +"the cup of devils," in this respect, that to partake of either is to +hold communion with the source from which it comes; and he adds +presently, that "we have been all made to drink into one spirit." So +again he says, no one is justified by the works of the old Law; while +both he implies, and St. James declares, that Christians are justified +by works of the New Law. Again he contrasts the exercises of the +intellect as exhibited by heathen and Christian. "Howbeit," he says, +after condemning heathen wisdom, "we speak wisdom among them that are +perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world;" and it is plain that nowhere +need we look for more glowing eloquence, more distinct profession of +reasoning, more careful assertion of doctrine, than is to be found in +the Apostle's writings. + + +2. + +In like manner when the Jewish exorcists attempted to "call over them +which had evil spirits the Name of the Lord Jesus," the evil spirit +professed not to know them, and inflicted on them a bodily injury; on +the other hand, the occasion of this attempt of theirs was a stupendous +instance or type, in the person of St. Paul, of the very principle I am +illustrating. "God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so +that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, +and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of +them." The grace given him was communicable, diffusive; an influence +passing from him to others, and making what it touched spiritual, as +enthusiasm may be or tastes or panics. + +Parallel instances occur of the operation of this principle in the +history of the Church, from the time that the Apostles were taken from +it. St. Paul denounces distinctions in meat and drink, the observance of +Sabbaths and holydays, and of ordinances, and the worship of Angels; yet +Christians, from the first, were rigid in their stated fastings, +venerated, as St. Justin tells us, the Angelic intelligences,[369:1] and +established the observance of the Lord's day as soon as persecution +ceased. + + +3. + +In like manner Celsus objects that Christians did not "endure the sight +of temples, altars, and statues;" Porphyry, that "they blame the rites +of worship, victims, and frankincense;" the heathen disputant in +Minucius asks, "Why have Christians no altars, no temples, no +conspicuous images?" and "no sacrifices;" and yet it is plain from +Tertullian that Christians had altars of their own, and sacrifices and +priests. And that they had churches is again and again proved by +Eusebius who had seen "the houses of prayer levelled" in the Dioclesian +persecution; from the history too of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, nay from +Clement.[370:1] Again, St. Justin and Minucius speak of the form of the +Cross in terms of reverence, quite inconsistent with the doctrine that +external emblems of religion may not be venerated. Tertullian speaks of +Christians signing themselves with it whatever they set about, whether +they walk, eat, or lie down to sleep. In Eusebius's life of Constantine, +the figure of the Cross holds a most conspicuous place; the Emperor sees +it in the sky and is converted; he places it upon his standards; he +inserts it into his own hand when he puts up his statue; wherever the +Cross is displayed in his battles, he conquers; he appoints fifty men to +carry it; he engraves it on his soldiers' arms; and Licinius dreads its +power. Shortly after, Julian plainly accuses Christians of worshipping +the wood of the Cross, though they refused to worship the _ancile_. In a +later age the worship of images was introduced.[370:2] + + +4. + +The principle of the distinction, by which these observances were pious +in Christianity and superstitious in paganism, is implied in such +passages of Tertullian, Lactantius, and others, as speak of evil spirits +lurking under the pagan statues. It is intimated also by Origen, who, +after saying that Scripture so strongly "forbids temples, altars, and +images," that Christians are "ready to go to death, if necessary, rather +than pollute their notion of the God of all by any such transgression," +assigns as a reason "that, as far as possible, they might not fall into +the notion that images were gods." St. Augustine, in replying to +Porphyry, is more express; "Those," he says, "who are acquainted with +Old and New Testament do not blame in the pagan religion the erection of +temples or institution of priesthoods, but that these are done to idols +and devils. . . True religion blames in their superstitions, not so much +their sacrificing, for the ancient saints sacrificed to the True God, as +their sacrificing to false gods."[371:1] To Faustus the Manichee he +answers, "We have some things in common with the gentiles, but our +purpose is different."[371:2] And St. Jerome asks Vigilantius, who made +objections to lights and oil, "Because we once worshipped idols, is that +a reason why we should not worship God, for fear of seeming to address +him with an honour like that which was paid to idols and then was +detestable, whereas this is paid to Martyrs and therefore to be +received?"[371:3] + + +5. + +Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of +evil, and to transmute the very instruments and appendages of +demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages +had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of +nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what +they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were +moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted +the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, +should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the +existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of +the educated class. + +St. Gregory Thaumaturgus supplies the first instance on record of this +economy. He was the Apostle of Pontus, and one of his methods for +governing an untoward population is thus related by St. Gregory of +Nyssa. "On returning," he says, "to the city, after revisiting the +country round about, he increased the devotion of the people everywhere +by instituting festive meetings in honour of those who had fought for +the faith. The bodies of the Martyrs were distributed in different +places, and the people assembled and made merry, as the year came round, +holding festival in their honour. This indeed was a proof of his great +wisdom . . . for, perceiving that the childish and untrained populace +were retained in their idolatrous error by creature comforts, in order +that what was of first importance should at any rate be secured to them, +viz. that they should look to God in place of their vain rites, he +allowed them to be merry, jovial, and gay at the monuments of the holy +Martyrs, as if their behaviour would in time undergo a spontaneous +change into greater seriousness and strictness, since faith would lead +them to it; which has actually been the happy issue in that population, +all carnal gratification having turned into a spiritual form of +rejoicing."[372:1] There is no reason to suppose that the licence here +spoken of passed the limits of harmless though rude festivity; for +it is observable that the same reason, the need of holydays for the +multitude, is assigned by Origen, St. Gregory's master, to explain +the establishment of the Lord's Day also, and the Paschal and the +Pentecostal festivals, which have never been viewed as unlawful +compliances; and, moreover, the people were in fact eventually reclaimed +from their gross habits by his indulgent policy, a successful issue +which could not have followed an accommodation to what was sinful. + + +6. + +The example set by St. Gregory in an age of persecution was impetuously +followed when a time of peace succeeded. In the course of the fourth +century two movements or developments spread over the face of +Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one +ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by +Eusebius,[373:1] that Constantine, in order to recommend the new +religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to +which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go +into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made +familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to +particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; +incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; +holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, +processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, +the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, +perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison,[373:2] are all +of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. + + +7. + +The eighth book of Theodoret's work _Adversus Gentiles_, which is "On +the Martyrs," treats so largely on the subject, that we must content +ourselves with only a specimen of the illustrations which it affords, of +the principle acted on by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. "Time, which makes +all things decay," he says, speaking of the Martyrs, "has preserved +their glory incorruptible. For as the noble souls of those conquerors +traverse the heavens, and take part in the spiritual choirs, so their +bodies are not consigned to separate tombs, but cities and towns divide +them among them; and call them saviours of souls and bodies, and +physicians, and honour them as the protectors and guardians of cities, +and, using their intervention with the Lord of all, obtain through them +divine gifts. And though each body be divided, the grace remains +indivisible; and that small, that tiny particle is equal in power with +the Martyr that hath never been dispersed about. For the grace which is +ever blossoming distributes the gifts, measuring the bounty according to +the faith of those who come for it. + +"Yet not even this persuades you to celebrate their God, but ye laugh +and mock at the honour which is paid them by all, and consider it a +pollution to approach their tombs. But though all men made a jest of +them, yet at least the Greeks could not decently complain, to whom +belonged libations and expiations, and heroes and demi-gods and deified +men. To Hercules, though a man . . . and compelled to serve Eurystheus, +they built temples, and constructed altars, and offered sacrifices in +honour, and allotted feasts; and that, not Spartans only and Athenians, +but the whole of Greece and the greater part of Europe." + + +8. + +Then, after going through the history of many heathen deities, and +referring to the doctrine of the philosophers about great men, and to +the monuments of kings and emperors, all of which at once are witnesses +and are inferior, to the greatness of the Martyrs, he continues: "To +their shrines we come, not once or twice a year or five times, but often +do we hold celebrations; often, nay daily, do we present hymns to their +Lord. And the sound in health ask for its preservation, and those who +struggle with any disease for a release from their sufferings; the +childless for children, the barren to become mothers, and those who +enjoy the blessing for its safe keeping. Those too who are setting out +for a foreign land beg that the Martyrs may be their fellow-travellers +and guides of the journey; those who have come safe back acknowledge the +grace, not coming to them as to gods, but beseeching them as divine men, +and asking their intercession. And that they obtain what they ask in +faith, their dedications openly witness, in token of their cure. For +some bring likenesses of eyes, others of feet, others of hands; some of +gold, others of silver; and their Lord accepts even the small and cheap, +measuring the gift by the offerer's ability. . . . . Philosophers and +Orators are consigned to oblivion, and kings and captains are not known +even by name to the many; but the names of the Martyrs are better known +to all than the names of those dearest to them. And they make a point of +giving them to their children, with a view of gaining for them thereby +safety and protection. . . . Nay, of the so-called gods, so utterly have +the sacred places been destroyed, that not even their outline remains, +nor the shape of their altars is known to men of this generation, while +their materials have been dedicated to the shrines of the Martyrs. For +the Lord has introduced His own dead in place of your gods; of the one +He hath made a riddance, on the other He hath conferred their honours. +For the Pandian festival, the Diasia, and the Dionysia, and your other +such, we have the feasts of Peter, of Paul, of Thomas, of Sergius, of +Marcellus, of Leontius, of Panteleemon, of Antony, of Maurice, and of +the other Martyrs; and for that old-world procession, and indecency of +work and word, are held modest festivities, without intemperance, or +revel, or laughter, but with divine hymns, and attendance on holy +discourses and prayers, adorned with laudable tears." This was the view +of the "Evidences of Christianity" which a Bishop of the fifth century +offered for the conversion of unbelievers. + + +9. + +The introduction of Images was still later, and met with more opposition +in the West than in the East. It is grounded on the same great principle +which I am illustrating; and as I have given extracts from Theodoret for +the developments of the fourth and fifth centuries, so will I now cite +St. John Damascene in defence of the further developments of the eighth. + +"As to the passages you adduce," he says to his opponents, "they +abominate not the worship paid to our Images, but that of the Greeks, +who made them gods. It needs not therefore, because of the absurd use of +the Greeks, to abolish our use which is so pious. Enchanters and wizards +use adjurations, so does the Church over its Catechumens; but they +invoke devils, and she invokes God against devils. Greeks dedicate +images to devils, and call them gods; but we to True God Incarnate, and +to God's servants and friends, who drive away the troops of +devils."[376:1] Again, "As the holy Fathers overthrew the temples and +shrines of the devils, and raised in their places shrines in the names +of Saints and we worship them, so also they overthrew the images of the +devils, and in their stead raised images of Christ, and God's Mother, +and the Saints. And under the Old Covenant, Israel neither raised +temples in the name of men, nor was memory of man made a festival; for, +as yet, man's nature was under a curse, and death was condemnation, and +therefore was lamented, and a corpse was reckoned unclean and he who +touched it; but now that the Godhead has been combined with our nature, +as some life-giving and saving medicine, our nature has been glorified +and is trans-elemented into incorruption. Wherefore the death of Saints +is made a feast, and temples are raised to them, and Images are +painted. . . For the Image is a triumph, and a manifestation, and a +monument in memory of the victory of those who have done nobly and +excelled, and of the shame of the devils defeated and overthrown." Once +more, "If because of the Law thou dost forbid Images, you will soon have +to sabbatize and be circumcised, for these ordinances the Law commands +as indispensable; nay, to observe the whole law, and not to keep the +festival of the Lord's Pascha out of Jerusalem: but know that if you +keep the Law, Christ hath profited you nothing. . . . . But away with +this, for whoever of you are justified in the Law have fallen from +grace."[377:1] + + +10. + +It is quite consistent with the tenor of these remarks to observe, or to +allow, that real superstitions have sometimes obtained in parts of +Christendom from its intercourse with the heathen; or have even been +admitted, or all but admitted, though commonly resisted strenuously, by +authorities in the Church, in consequence of the resemblance which +exists between the heathen rites and certain portions of her ritual. As +philosophy has at times corrupted her divines, so has paganism +corrupted her worshippers; and as the more intellectual have been +involved in heresy, so have the ignorant been corrupted by superstition. +Thus St. Chrysostom is vehement against the superstitious usages which +Jews and Gentiles were introducing among Christians at Antioch and +Constantinople. "What shall we say," he asks in one place, "about the +amulets and bells which are hung upon the hands, and the scarlet woof, +and other things full of such extreme folly; when they ought to invest +the child with nothing else save the protection of the Cross? But now +that is despised which hath converted the whole world, and given the +sore wound to the devil, and overthrown all his power; while the thread, +and the woof, and the other amulets of that kind, are entrusted with the +child's safety." After mentioning further superstitions, he proceeds, +"Now that among Greeks such things should be done, is no wonder; but +among the worshippers of the Cross, and partakers in unspeakable +mysteries, and professors of such morality, that such unseemliness +should prevail, this is especially to be deplored again and +again."[378:1] + +And in like manner St. Augustine suppressed the feasts called Agapae, +which had been allowed the African Christians on their first conversion. +"It is time," he says, "for men who dare not deny that they are +Christians, to begin to live according to the will of Christ, and, now +being Christians, to reject what was only allowed that they might become +Christians." The people objected the example of the Vatican Church at +Rome, where such feasts were observed every day; St. Augustine answered, +"I have heard that it has been often prohibited, but the place is far +off from the Bishop's abode (the Lateran), and in so large a city there +is a multitude of carnal persons, especially of strangers who resort +daily thither."[378:2] And in like manner it certainly is possible that +the consciousness of the sanctifying power in Christianity may have +acted as a temptation to sins, whether of deceit or of violence; as if +the habit or state of grace destroyed the sinfulness of certain acts, or +as if the end justified the means. + + +11. + +It is but enunciating in other words the principle we are tracing, to +say that the Church has been entrusted with the dispensation of grace. +For if she can convert heathen appointments into spiritual rites and +usages, what is this but to be in possession of a treasure, and to +exercise a discretionary power in its application? Hence there has been +from the first much variety and change, in the Sacramental acts and +instruments which she has used. While the Eastern and African Churches +baptized heretics on their reconciliation, the Church of Rome, as the +Catholic Church since, maintained that imposition of hands was +sufficient, if their prior baptism had been formally correct. The +ceremony of imposition of hands was used on various occasions with a +distinct meaning; at the rite of Catechumens, on admitting heretics, in +Confirmation, in Ordination, in Benediction. Baptism was sometimes +administered by immersion, sometimes by infusion. Infant Baptism was not +at first enforced as afterwards. Children or even infants were admitted +to the Eucharist in the African Church and the rest of the West, as now +in the Greek. Oil had various uses, as for healing the sick, or as in +the rite of extreme unction. Indulgences in works or in periods of +penance, had a different meaning, according to circumstances. In like +manner the Sign of the Cross was one of the earliest means of grace; +then holy seasons, and holy places, and pilgrimage to them; holy water; +prescribed prayers, or other observances; garments, as the scapular, +and sacred vestments; the rosary; the crucifix. And for some wise +purpose doubtless, such as that of showing the power of the Church in +the dispensation of divine grace, as well as the perfection and +spirituality of the Eucharistic Presence, the Chalice is in the West +withheld from all but the celebrant in the Holy Eucharist. + + +12. + +Since it has been represented as if the power of assimilation, spoken of +in this Chapter, is in my meaning nothing more than a mere accretion of +doctrines or rites from without, I am led to quote the following passage +in further illustration of it from my "Essays," vol. ii. p. 231:-- + + "The phenomenon, admitted on all hands, is this:--That great + portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, + in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in + heathen philosophies and religions. For instance, the doctrine + of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West; so is + the ceremony of washing; so is the rite of sacrifice. The + doctrine of the Divine Word is Platonic; the doctrine of the + Incarnation is Indian; of a divine kingdom is Judaic; of + Angels and demons is Magian; the connexion of sin with the + body is Gnostic; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin; a + sacerdotal order is Egyptian; the idea of a new birth is + Chinese and Eleusinian; belief in sacramental virtue is + Pythagorean; and honours to the dead are a polytheism. Such is + the general nature of the fact before us; Mr. Milman argues + from it,--'These things are in heathenism, therefore they are + not Christian:' we, on the contrary, prefer to say, 'these + things are in Christianity, therefore they are not heathen.' + That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears + us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor + of the world has scattered the seeds of truth far and wide + over its extent; that these have variously taken root, and + grown up as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living; + and hence that, as the inferior animals have tokens of an + immaterial principle in them, yet have not souls, so the + philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain + true ideas, though they are not directly divine. What man is + amid the brute creation, such is the Church among the schools + of the world; and as Adam gave names to the animals about him, + so has the Church from the first looked round upon the earth, + noting and visiting the doctrines she found there. She began + in Chaldea, and then sojourned among the Canaanites, and went + down into Egypt, and thence passed into Arabia, till she + rested in her own land. Next she encountered the merchants of + Tyre, and the wisdom of the East country, and the luxury of + Sheba. Then she was carried away to Babylon, and wandered to + the schools of Greece. And wherever she went, in trouble or in + triumph, still she was a living spirit, the mind and voice of + the Most High; 'sitting in the midst of the doctors, both + hearing them and asking them questions;' claiming to herself + what they said rightly, correcting their errors, supplying + their defects, completing their beginnings, expanding their + surmises, and thus gradually by means of them enlarging the + range and refining the sense of her own teaching. So far then + from her creed being of doubtful credit because it resembles + foreign theologies, we even hold that one special way in which + Providence has imparted divine knowledge to us has been by + enabling her to draw and collect it together out of the world, + and, in this sense, as in others, to 'suck the milk of the + Gentiles and to suck the breast of kings.' + + "How far in fact this process has gone, is a question of + history; and we believe it has before now been grossly + exaggerated and misrepresented by those who, like Mr. Milman, + have thought that its existence told against Catholic + doctrine; but so little antecedent difficulty have we in the + matter, that we could readily grant, unless it were a question + of fact not of theory, that Balaam was an Eastern sage, or a + Sibyl was inspired, or Solomon learnt of the sons of Mahol, or + Moses was a scholar of the Egyptian hierophants. We are not + distressed to be told that the doctrine of the angelic host + came from Babylon, while we know that they did sing at the + Nativity; nor that the vision of a Mediator is in Philo, if in + very deed He died for us on Calvary. Nor are we afraid to + allow, that, even after His coming, the Church has been a + treasure-house, giving forth things old and new, casting the + gold of fresh tributaries into her refiner's fire, or stamping + upon her own, as time required it, a deeper impress of her + Master's image. + + "The distinction between these two theories is broad and + obvious. The advocates of the one imply that Revelation was a + single, entire, solitary act, or nearly so, introducing a + certain message; whereas we, who maintain the other, consider + that Divine teaching has been in fact, what the analogy of + nature would lead us to expect, 'at sundry times and in divers + manners,' various, complex, progressive, and supplemental of + itself. We consider the Christian doctrine, when analyzed, to + appear, like the human frame, 'fearfully and wonderfully + made;' but they think it some one tenet or certain principles + given out at one time in their fulness, without gradual + enlargement before Christ's coming or elucidation afterwards. + They cast off all that they also find in Pharisee or heathen; + we conceive that the Church, like Aaron's rod, devours the + serpents of the magicians. They are ever hunting for a + fabulous primitive simplicity; we repose in Catholic fulness. + They seek what never has been found; we accept and use what + even they acknowledge to be a substance. They are driven to + maintain, on their part, that the Church's doctrine was never + pure; we say that it can never be corrupt. We consider that a + divine promise keeps the Church Catholic from doctrinal + corruption; but on what promise, or on what encouragement, + they are seeking for their visionary purity does not appear." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[359:1] Justin, Apol. ii. 10, Tryph. 121. + +[360:1] Europ. Civ. p. 56, tr. + +[360:2] p. 58. + +[363:1] De Virg. Vol. 1. + +[364:1] Hist. t. 3, p. 312. + +[364:2] Mem. Eccl. t. 6, p. 83. + +[366:1] Galland. t. 3, p. 673, note 3. + +[366:2] Vid. Preface to Oxford Transl. of Tertullian, where the +character of his mind is admirably drawn out. + +[369:1] Infra, pp. 411-415, &c. + +[370:1] Orig. c. Cels. vii. 63, viii. 17 (vid. not. Bened. in loc.), +August. Ep. 102, 16; Minuc. F. 10, and 32; Tertull. de Orat. fin. ad +Uxor. i. fin. Euseb. Hist. viii. 2; Clem. Strom. vii. 6, p. 846. + +[370:2] Tertull. de Cor. 3; Just. Apol. i. 65; Minuc. F. 20; Julian ap. +Cyr. vi. p. 194, Spanh. + +[371:1] Epp. 102, 18. + +[371:2] Contr. Faust. 20, 23. + +[371:3] Lact. ii. 15, 16; Tertull. Spect. 12; Origen, c. Cels. vii. +64-66, August. Ep. 102, 18; Contr. Faust. xx. 23; Hieron. c. Vigil. 8. + +[372:1] Vit. Thaum. p. 1006. + +[373:1] V. Const. iii. 1, iv. 23, &c. + +[373:2] According to Dr. E. D. Clarke, Travels, vol. i. p. 352. + +[376:1] De Imag. i. 24. + +[377:1] Ibid. ii. 11. 14. + +[378:1] Hom. xii. in Cor. 1, Oxf. Tr. + +[378:2] Fleury, Hist. xx. 11, Oxf. Tr. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +APPLICATION OF THE FOURTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +LOGICAL SEQUENCE. + +Logical Sequence has been set down above as a fourth test of fidelity in +development, and shall now be briefly illustrated in the history of +Christian doctrine. That is, I mean to give instances of one doctrine +leading to another; so that, if the former be admitted, the latter can +hardly be denied, and the latter can hardly be called a corruption +without taking exception to the former. And I use "logical sequence" in +contrast both to that process of incorporation and assimilation which +was last under review, and also to that principle of science, which has +put into order and defended the developments after they have been made. +Accordingly it will include any progress of the mind from one judgment +to another, as, for instance, by way of moral fitness, which may not +admit of analysis into premiss and conclusion. Thus St. Peter argued in +the case of Cornelius and his friends, "Can any man forbid water that +these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well +as we?" + +Such is the series of doctrinal truths, which start from the dogma of +our Lord's Divinity, and again from such texts of Scripture as "Thou art +Peter," and which I should have introduced here, had I not already used +them for a previous purpose in the Fourth Chapter. I shall confine +myself then for an example to the instance of the developments which +follow on the consideration of sin after Baptism, a subject which was +touched upon in the same Chapter. + + +Sect. 1. _Pardons._ + +It is not necessary here to enlarge on the benefits which the primitive +Church held to be conveyed to the soul by means of the Sacrament of +Baptism. Its distinguishing gift, which is in point to mention, was the +plenary forgiveness of sins past. It was also held that the Sacrament +could not be repeated. The question immediately followed, how, since +there was but "one Baptism for the remission of sins," the guilt of such +sin was to be removed as was incurred after its administration. There +must be some provision in the revealed system for so obvious a need. +What could be done for those who had received the one remission of sins, +and had sinned since? Some who thought upon the subject appear to have +conceived that the Church was empowered to grant one, and one only, +reconciliation after grievous offences. Three sins seemed to many, at +least in the West, to be irremissible, idolatry, murder, and adultery. +But such a system of Church discipline, however suited to a small +community, and even expedient in a time of persecution, could not exist +in Christianity, as it spread into the _orbis terrarum_, and gathered +like a net of every kind. A more indulgent rule gradually gained ground; +yet the Spanish Church adhered to the ancient even in the fourth +century, and a portion of the African in the third, and in the remaining +portion there was a relaxation only as regards the crime of +incontinence. + + +2. + +Meanwhile a protest was made against the growing innovation: at the +beginning of the third century Montanus, who was a zealot for the more +primitive rule, shrank from the laxity, as he considered it, of the +Asian Churches;[385:1] as, in a different subject-matter, Jovinian and +Vigilantius were offended at the developments in divine worship in the +century which followed. The Montanists had recourse to the See of Rome, +and at first with some appearance of success. Again, in Africa, where +there had been in the first instance a schism headed by Felicissimus in +favour of a milder discipline than St. Cyprian approved, a far more +formidable stand was soon made in favour of Antiquity, headed by +Novatus, who originally had been of the party of Felicissimus. This was +taken up at Rome by Novatian, who professed to adhere to the original, +or at least the primitive rule of the Church, viz. that those who had +once fallen from the faith could in no case be received again.[385:2] +The controversy seems to have found the following issue,--whether the +Church had the _means_ of pardoning sins committed after Baptism, which +the Novatians, at least practically, denied. "It is fitting," says the +Novatian Acesius, "to exhort those who have sinned after Baptism to +repentance, but to expect hope of remission, not from the priests, but +from God, who hath power to forgive sins."[385:3] The schism spread into +the East, and led to the appointment of a penitentiary priest in the +Catholic Churches. By the end of the third century as many as four +degrees of penance were appointed, through which offenders had to pass +in order to a reconciliation. + + +Sect. 2. _Penances._ + +The length and severity of the penance varied with times and places. +Sometimes, as we have seen, it lasted, in the case of grave offences, +through life and on to death, without any reconciliation; at other times +it ended only in the _viaticum_; and if, after reconciliation they did +not die, their ordinary penance was still binding on them either for +life or for a certain time. In other cases it lasted ten, fifteen, or +twenty years. But in all cases, from the first, the Bishop had the power +of shortening it, and of altering the nature and quality of the +punishment. Thus in the instance of the Emperor Theodosius, whom St. +Ambrose shut out from communion for the massacre at Thessalonica, +"according to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were +established in the fourth century," says Gibbon, "the crime of homicide +was expiated by the penitence of twenty years; and as it was impossible, +in the period of human life, to purge the accumulated guilt of the +massacre . . . the murderer should have been excluded from the holy +communion till the hour of his death." He goes on to say that the public +edification which resulted from the humiliation of so illustrious a +penitent was a reason for abridging the punishment. "It was sufficient +that the Emperor of the Romans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, +should appear in a mournful and suppliant posture, and that, in the +midst of the Church of Milan, he should humbly solicit with sighs and +tears the pardon of his sins." His penance was shortened to an interval +of about eight months. Hence arose the phrase of a "_poenitentia +legitima, plena, et justa_;" which signifies a penance sufficient, +perhaps in length of time, perhaps in intensity of punishment. + + +Sect. 3. _Satisfactions._ + +Here a serious question presented itself to the minds of Christians, +which was now to be wrought out:--Were these punishments merely signs +of contrition, or in any sense satisfactions for sin? If the former, +they might be absolutely remitted at the discretion of the Church, as +soon as true repentance was discovered; the end had then been attained, +and nothing more was necessary. Thus St. Chrysostom says in one of his +Homilies,[387:1] "I require not continuance of time, but the correction +of the soul. Show your contrition, show your reformation, and all is +done." Yet, though there might be a reason of the moment for shortening +the penance imposed by the Church, this does not at all decide the +question whether that ecclesiastical penance be not part of an expiation +made to the Almighty Judge for the sin; and supposing this really to be +the case, the question follows, How is the complement of that +satisfaction to be wrought out, which on just grounds of present +expedience has been suspended by the Church now? + +As to this question, it cannot be doubted that the Fathers considered +penance as not a mere expression of contrition, but as an act done +directly towards God and a means of averting His anger. "If the sinner +spare not himself, he will be spared by God," says the writer who goes +under the name of St. Ambrose. "Let him lie in sackcloth, and by the +austerity of his life make amends for the offence of his past +pleasures," says St. Jerome. "As we have sinned greatly," says St. +Cyprian, "let us weep greatly; for a deep wound diligent and long +tending must not be wanting, the repentance must not fall short of the +offence." "Take heed to thyself," says St. Basil, "that, in proportion +to the fault, thou admit also the restoration from the remedy."[387:2] +If so, the question follows which was above contemplated,--if in +consequence of death, or in the exercise of the Church's discretion, +the "_plena poenitentia_" is not accomplished in its ecclesiastical +shape, how and when will the residue be exacted? + + +Sect. 4. _Purgatory._ + +Clement of Alexandria answers this particular question very distinctly, +according to Bishop Kaye, though not in some other points expressing +himself conformably to the doctrine afterwards received. "Clement," says +that author, "distinguishes between sins committed before and after +baptism: the former are remitted at baptism; the latter are purged by +discipline. . . . The necessity of this purifying discipline is such, +that if it does not take place in this life, it must after death, and is +then to be effected by fire, not by a destructive, but a discriminating +fire, pervading the soul which passes through it."[388:1] + +There is a celebrated passage in St. Cyprian, on the subject of the +punishment of lapsed Christians, which certainly seems to express the +same doctrine. "St. Cyprian is arguing in favour of readmitting the +lapsed, when penitent; and his argument seems to be that it does not +follow that we absolve them simply because we simply restore them to the +Church. He writes thus to Antonian: 'It is one thing to stand for +pardon, another to arrive at glory; one to be sent to prison (_missum in +carcerem_) and not to go out till the last farthing be paid, another to +receive at once the reward of faith and virtue; one thing to be +tormented for sin in long pain, and so to be cleansed and purged a long +while by fire (_purgari diu igne_), another to be washed from all sin in +martyrdom; one thing, in short, to wait for the Lord's sentence in the +Day of Judgment, another at once to be crowned by Him.' Some understand +this passage to refer to the penitential discipline of the Church which +was imposed on the penitent; and, as far as the context goes, certainly +no sense could be more apposite. Yet . . . the words in themselves seem +to go beyond any mere ecclesiastical, though virtually divine censure; +especially '_missum in carcerem_' and '_purgari diu igne_.'"[389:1] + + +2. + +The Acts of the Martyrs St. Perpetua and St. Felicitas, which are prior +to St. Cyprian, confirm this interpretation. In the course of the +narrative, St. Perpetua prays for her brother Dinocrates, who had died +at the age of seven; and has a vision of a dark place, and next of a +pool of water, which he was not tall enough to reach. She goes on +praying; and in a second vision the water descended to him, and he was +able to drink, and went to play as children use. "Then I knew," she +says, "that he was translated from his place of punishment."[389:2] + +The prayers in the Eucharistic Service for the faithful departed, +inculcate, at least according to the belief of the fourth century, the +same doctrine, that the sins of accepted and elect souls, which were not +expiated here, would receive punishment hereafter. Certainly such was +St. Cyril's belief: "I know that many say," he observes, "what is a soul +profited, which departs from this world either with sins or without +sins, if it be commemorated in the [Eucharistic] Prayer? Now, surely, if +when a king had banished certain who had given him offence, their +connexions should weave a crown and offer it to him on behalf of those +under his vengeance, would he not grant a respite to their punishments? +In the same way we, when we offer to Him our supplications for those who +have fallen asleep, though they be sinners, weave no crown, but offer up +Christ, sacrificed for our sins, propitiating our merciful God, both +for them and for ourselves."[390:1] + + +3. + +Thus we see how, as time went on, the doctrine of Purgatory was brought +home to the minds of the faithful as a portion or form of Penance due +for post-baptismal sin. And thus the apprehension of this doctrine and +the practice of Infant Baptism would grow into general reception +together. Cardinal Fisher gives another reason for Purgatory being then +developed out of earlier points of faith. He says, "Faith, whether in +Purgatory or in Indulgences, was not so necessary in the Primitive +Church as now. For then love so burned, that every one was ready to meet +death for Christ. Crimes were rare, and such as occurred were avenged by +the great severity of the Canons."[390:2] + + +4. + +An author, who quotes this passage, analyzes the circumstances and the +reflections which prepared the Christian mind for the doctrine, when it +was first insisted on, and his remarks with a few corrections may be +accepted here. "Most men," he says, "to our apprehensions, are too +little formed in religious habits either for heaven or for hell, yet +there is no middle state when Christ comes in judgment. In consequence +it is obvious to have recourse to the interval before His coming, as a +time during which this incompleteness may be remedied; as a season, not +of changing the spiritual bent and character of the soul departed, +whatever that be, for probation ends with mortal life, but of developing +it in a more determinate form, whether of good or of evil. Again, when +the mind once allows itself to speculate, it will discern in such a +provision a means, whereby those, who, not without true faith at bottom, +yet have committed great crimes, or those who have been carried off in +youth while still undecided, or who die after a barren though not an +immoral or scandalous life, may receive such chastisement as may prepare +them for heaven, and render it consistent with God's justice to admit +them thither. Again, the inequality of the sufferings of Christians in +this life, compared one with another, leads the mind to the same +speculations; the intense suffering, for instance, which some men +undergo on their death-bed, seeming as if but an anticipation in their +case of what comes after death upon others, who, without greater claim +on God's forbearance, live without chastisement, and die easily. The +mind will inevitably dwell upon such thoughts, unless it has been taught +to subdue them by education or by the fear or the experience of their +dangerousness. + + +5. + +"Various suppositions have, accordingly, been made, as pure +suppositions, as mere specimens of the capabilities (if one may so +speak) of the Divine Dispensation, as efforts of the mind reaching +forward and venturing beyond its depth into the abyss of the Divine +Counsels. If one supposition could be hazarded, sufficient to solve the +problem, the existence of ten thousand others is conceivable, unless +indeed the resources of God's Providence are exactly commensurate with +man's discernment of them. Religious men, amid these searchings of +heart, have naturally gone to Scripture for relief; to see if the +inspired word anywhere gave them any clue for their inquiries. And from +what was there found, and from the speculations of reason upon it, +various notions have been hazarded at different times; for instance, +that there is a certain momentary ordeal to be undergone by all men +after this life, more or less severe according to their spiritual +state; or that certain gross sins in good men will be thus visited, or +their lighter failings and habitual imperfections; or that the very +sight of Divine Perfection in the invisible world will be in itself a +pain, while it constitutes the purification of the imperfect but +believing soul; or that, happiness admitting of various degrees of +intensity, penitents late in life may sink for ever into a state, +blissful as far as it goes, but more or less approaching to +unconsciousness; and infants dying after baptism may be as gems paving +the courts of heaven, or as the living wheels of the Prophet's vision; +while matured Saints may excel in capacity of bliss, as well as in +dignity, the highest Archangels. + + +6. + +"Now, as to the punishments and satisfactions for sin, the texts to +which the minds of the early Christians seem to have been principally +drawn, and from which they ventured to argue in behalf of these vague +notions, were these two: 'The fire shall try every man's work,' &c., and +'He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' These +passages, with which many more were found to accord, directed their +thoughts one way, as making mention of 'fire,' whatever was meant by the +word, as the instrument of trial and purification; and that, at some +time between the present time and the Judgment, or at the Judgment. + +"As the doctrine, thus suggested by certain striking texts, grew in +popularity and definiteness, and verged towards its present Roman form, +it seemed a key to many others. Great portions of the books of Psalms, +Job, and the Lamentations, which express the feelings of religious men +under suffering, would powerfully recommend it by the forcible and most +affecting and awful meaning which they received from it. When this was +once suggested, all other meanings would seem tame and inadequate. + +"To these may be added various passages from the Prophets, as that in +the beginning of the third chapter of Malachi, which speaks of fire as +the instrument of judgment and purification, when Christ comes to visit +His Church. + +"Moreover, there were other texts of obscure and indeterminate bearing, +which seemed on this hypothesis to receive a profitable meaning; such as +our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount, 'Verily, I say unto thee, +thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost +farthing;' and St. John's expression in the Apocalypse, that 'no man in +heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the +book.'"[393:1] + + +7. + +When then an answer had to be made to the question, how is +post-baptismal sin to be remitted, there was an abundance of passages in +Scripture to make easy to the faith of the inquirer the definitive +decision of the Church. + + +Sect. 5. _Meritorious Works._ + +The doctrine of post-baptismal sin, especially when realized in the +doctrine of Purgatory, leads the inquirer to fresh developments beyond +itself. Its effect is to convert a Scripture statement, which might seem +only of temporary application, into a universal and perpetual truth. +When St. Paul and St. Barnabas would "confirm the souls of the +disciples," they taught them "that we must through much tribulation +enter into the kingdom of God." It is obvious what very practical +results would follow on such an announcement, in the instance of those +who simply accepted the Apostolic decision; and in like manner a +conviction that sin must have its punishment, here or hereafter, and +that we all must suffer, how overpowering will be its effect, what a new +light does it cast on the history of the soul, what a change does it +make in our judgment of the external world, what a reversal of our +natural wishes and aims for the future! Is a doctrine conceivable which +would so elevate the mind above this present state, and teach it so +successfully to dare difficult things, and to be reckless of danger and +pain? He who believes that suffer he must, and that delayed punishment +may be the greater, will be above the world, will admire nothing, fear +nothing, desire nothing. He has within his breast a source of greatness, +self-denial, heroism. This is the secret spring of strenuous efforts and +persevering toil, of the sacrifice of fortune, friends, ease, +reputation, happiness. There is, it is true, a higher class of motives +which will be felt by the Saint; who will do from love what all +Christians, who act acceptably, do from faith. And, moreover, the +ordinary measures of charity which Christians possess, suffice for +securing such respectable attention to religious duties as the routine +necessities of the Church require. But if we would raise an army of +devoted men to resist the world, to oppose sin and error, to relieve +misery, or to propagate the truth, we must be provided with motives +which keenly affect the many. Christian love is too rare a gift, +philanthropy is too weak a material, for the occasion. Nor is there an +influence to be found to suit our purpose, besides this solemn +conviction, which arises out of the very rudiments of Christian +theology, and is taught by its most ancient masters,--this sense of the +awfulness of post-baptismal sin. It is in vain to look out for +missionaries for China or Africa, or evangelists for our great towns, or +Christian attendants on the sick, or teachers of the ignorant, on such a +scale of numbers as the need requires, without the doctrine of +Purgatory. For thus the sins of youth are turned to account by the +profitable penance of manhood; and terrors, which the philosopher scorns +in the individual, become the benefactors and earn the gratitude of +nations. + + +Sect. 6. _The Monastic Rule._ + +But there is one form of Penance which has been more prevalent and +uniform than any other, out of which the forms just noticed have grown, +or on which they have been engrafted,--the Monastic Rule. In the first +ages, the doctrine of the punishments of sin, whether in this world or +in the next, was little called for. The rigid discipline of the infant +Church was the preventive of greater offences, and its persecutions the +penance of their commission; but when the Canons were relaxed and +confessorship ceased, then some substitute was needed, and such was +Monachism, being at once a sort of continuation of primeval innocence, +and a school of self-chastisement. And, as it is a great principle in +economical and political science that everything should be turned to +account, and there should be no waste, so, in the instance of +Christianity, the penitential observances of individuals, which were +necessarily on a large scale as its professors increased, took the form +of works, whether for the defence of the Church, or the spiritual and +temporal good of mankind. + + +2. + +In no aspect of the Divine system do we see more striking developments +than in the successive fortunes of Monachism. Little did the youth +Antony foresee, when he set off to fight the evil one in the wilderness, +what a sublime and various history he was opening, a history which had +its first developments even in his own lifetime. He was himself a +hermit in the desert; but when others followed his example, he was +obliged to give them guidance, and thus he found himself, by degrees, at +the head of a large family of solitaries, five thousand of whom were +scattered in the district of Nitria alone. He lived to see a second +stage in the development; the huts in which they lived were brought +together, sometimes round a church, and a sort of subordinate community, +or college, formed among certain individuals of their number. St. +Pachomius was the first who imposed a general rule of discipline upon +the brethren, gave them a common dress, and set before them the objects +to which the religious life was dedicated. Manual labour, study, +devotion, bodily mortification, were now their peculiarities; and the +institution, thus defined, spread and established itself through Eastern +and Western Christendom. + +The penitential character of Monachism is not prominent in St. Antony, +though it is distinctly noticed by Pliny in his description of the +Essenes of the Dead Sea, who anticipated the monastic life at the rise +of Christianity. In St. Basil, however, it becomes a distinguishing +feature;--so much so that the monastic profession was made a +disqualification for the pastoral office,[396:1] and in theory involved +an absolute separation from mankind; though in St. Basil's, as well as +St. Antony's disciples, it performed the office of resisting heresy. + +Next, the monasteries, which in their ecclesiastical capacity had been +at first separate churches under a Presbyter or Abbot, became schools +for the education of the clergy.[396:2] + + +3. + +Centuries passed, and after many extravagant shapes of the institution, +and much wildness and insubordination in its members, a new development +took place under St. Benedict. Revising and digesting the provisions of +St. Antony, St. Pachomius, and St. Basil, he bound together his monks by +a perpetual vow, brought them into the cloister, united the separate +convents into one Order,[397:1] and added objects of an ecclesiastical +and civil nature to that of personal edification. Of these objects, +agriculture seemed to St. Benedict himself of first importance; but in a +very short time it was superseded by study and education, and the +monasteries of the following centuries became the schools and libraries, +and the monks the chroniclers and copyists, of a dark period. Centuries +later, the Benedictine Order was divided into separate Congregations, +and propagated in separate monastic bodies. The Congregation of Cluni +was the most celebrated of the former; and of the latter, the hermit +order of the Camaldoli and the agricultural Cistercians. + + +4. + +Both a unity and an originality are observable in the successive phases +under which Monachism has shown itself; and while its developments bring +it more and more into the ecclesiastical system, and subordinate it to +the governing power, they are true to their first idea, and spring fresh +and fresh from the parent stock, which from time immemorial had thriven +in Syria and Egypt. The sheepskin and desert of St. Antony did but +revive "the mantle"[397:2] and the mountain of the first Carmelite, and +St. Basil's penitential exercises had already been practised by the +Therapeutae. In like manner the Congregational principle, which is +ascribed to St. Benedict, had been anticipated by St. Antony and St. +Pachomius; and after centuries of disorder, another function of early +Monachism, for which there had been little call for centuries, the +defence of Catholic truth, was exercised with singular success by the +rival orders of Dominicans and Franciscans. + +St. Benedict had come as if to preserve a principle of civilization, and +a refuge for learning, at a time when the old framework of society was +falling, and new political creations were taking their place. And when +the young intellect within them began to stir, and a change of another +kind discovered itself, then appeared St. Francis and St. Dominic to +teach and chastise it; and in proportion as Monachism assumed this +public office, so did the principle of penance, which had been the chief +characteristic of its earlier forms, hold a less prominent place. The +Tertiaries indeed, or members of the third order of St. Francis and St. +Dominic, were penitents; but the friar himself, instead of a penitent, +was made a priest, and was allowed to quit cloister. Nay, they assumed +the character of what may be called an Ecumenical Order, as being +supported by begging, not by endowments, and being under the +jurisdiction, not of the local Bishop, but of the Holy See. The +Dominicans too came forward especially as a learned body, and as +entrusted with the office of preaching, at a time when the mind of +Europe seemed to be developing into infidelity. They filled the chairs +at the Universities, while the strength of the Franciscans lay among the +lower orders. + + +5. + +At length, in the last era of ecclesiastical revolution, another +principle of early Monachism, which had been but partially developed, +was brought out into singular prominence in the history of the Jesuits. +"Obedience," said an ancient abbot, "is a monk's service, with which he +shall be heard in prayer, and shall stand with confidence by the +Crucified, for so the Lord came to the cross, being made obedient even +unto death;"[399:1] but it was reserved for modern times to furnish the +perfect illustration of this virtue, and to receive the full blessing +which follows it. The great Society, which bears no earthly name, still +more secular in its organization, and still more simply dependent on the +See of St. Peter, has been still more distinguished than any Order +before it for the rule of obedience, while it has compensated the danger +of its free intercourse with the world by its scientific adherence to +devotional exercises. The hermitage, the cloister, the inquisitor, and +the friar were suited to other states of society; with the Jesuits, as +well as with the religious Communities, which are their juniors, +usefulness, secular and religious, literature, education, the +confessional, preaching, the oversight of the poor, missions, the care +of the sick, have been chief objects of attention; great cities have +been the scene of operation: bodily austerities and the ceremonial of +devotion have been made of but secondary importance. Yet it may fairly +be questioned, whether, in an intellectual age, when freedom both of +thought and of action is so dearly prized, a greater penance can be +devised for the soldier of Christ than the absolute surrender of +judgment and will to the command of another. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[385:1] Gieseler, Text-book, vol. i. p. 108. + +[385:2] Gieseler, ibid. p. 164. + +[385:3] Socr. Hist. i. 10. + +[387:1] Hom. 14, in 2 Cor. fin. + +[387:2] Vid. Tertull. Oxf. tr. pp. 374, 5. + +[388:1] Clem. ch. 12. Vid. also Tertull. de Anim. fin. + +[389:1] Tracts for the Times, No. 79, p. 38. + +[389:2] Ruinart, Mart. p. 96. + +[390:1] Mystagog. 5. + +[390:2] [Vid. Via Media, vol. i. p 72.] + +[393:1] [Via Media, vol. i. pp. 174-177.] + +[396:1] Gieseler, vol. ii. p. 288. + +[396:2] Ibid. p. 279. + +[397:1] Or rather his successors, as St. Benedict of Anian, were the +founders of the Order; but minute accuracy on these points is +unnecessary in a mere sketch of the history. + +[397:2] +melotes+, 2 Kings ii. Sept. Vid. also, "They wandered about in +sheepskins and goatskins" (Heb. xi. 37). + +[399:1] Rosweyde, V. P. p. 618. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE. + +It has been set down above as a fifth argument in favour of the fidelity +of developments, ethical or political, if the doctrine from which they +have proceeded has, in any early stage of its history, given indications +of those opinions and practices in which it has ended. Supposing then +the so-called Catholic doctrines and practices are true and legitimate +developments, and not corruptions, we may expect from the force of logic +to find instances of them in the first centuries. And this I conceive to +be the case: the records indeed of those times are scanty, and we have +little means of determining what daily Christian life then was: we know +little of the thoughts, and the prayers, and the meditations, and the +discourses of the early disciples of Christ, at a time when these +professed developments were not recognized and duly located in the +theological system; yet it appears, even from what remains, that the +atmosphere of the Church was, as it were, charged with them from the +first, and delivered itself of them from time to time, in this way or +that, in various places and persons, as occasion elicited them, +testifying the presence of a vast body of thought within it, which one +day would take shape and position. + + +Sect. 1. _Resurrection and Relics._ + +As a chief specimen of what I am pointing out, I will direct attention +to a characteristic principle of Christianity, whether in the East or in +the West, which is at present both a special stumbling-block and a +subject of scoffing with Protestants and free-thinkers of every shade +and colour: I mean the devotions which both Greeks and Latins show +towards bones, blood, the heart, the hair, bits of clothes, scapulars, +cords, medals, beads, and the like, and the miraculous powers which they +often ascribe to them. Now, the principle from which these beliefs and +usages proceed is the doctrine that Matter is susceptible of grace, or +capable of a union with a Divine Presence and influence. This principle, +as we shall see, was in the first age both energetically manifested and +variously developed; and that chiefly in consequence of the +diametrically opposite doctrine of the schools and the religions of the +day. And thus its exhibition in that primitive age becomes also an +instance of a statement often made in controversy, that the profession +and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the +time, and that silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not +then held, but that it was not questioned. + + +2. + +Christianity began by considering Matter as a creature of God, and in +itself "very good." It taught that Matter, as well as Spirit, had become +corrupt, in the instance of Adam; and it contemplated its recovery. It +taught that the Highest had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon +Himself, in order to the sanctification of the whole; that, as a +firstfruits of His purpose, He had purified from all sin that very +portion of it which He took into His Eternal Person, and thereunto had +taken it from a Virgin Womb, which He had filled with the abundance of +His Spirit. Moreover, it taught that during His earthly sojourn He had +been subject to the natural infirmities of man, and had suffered from +those ills to which flesh is heir. It taught that the Highest had in +that flesh died on the Cross, and that His blood had an expiatory power; +moreover, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had carried that +flesh with Him into heaven, and that from that flesh, glorified and +deified in Him, He never would be divided. As a first consequence of +these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of the bodies of +His Saints, and of their future glorification with Him; next, that of +the sanctity of their relics; further, that of the merit of Virginity; +and, lastly, that of the prerogatives of Mary, Mother of God. All these +doctrines are more or less developed in the Ante-nicene period, though +in very various degrees, from the nature of the case. + + +3. + +And they were all objects of offence or of scorn to philosophers, +priests, or populace of the day. With varieties of opinions which need +not be mentioned, it was a fundamental doctrine in the schools, whether +Greek or Oriental, that Matter was essentially evil. It had not been +created by the Supreme God; it was in eternal enmity with Him; it was +the source of all pollution; and it was irreclaimable. Such was the +doctrine of Platonist, Gnostic, and Manichee:--whereas then St. John had +laid it down that "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is +come in the flesh is the spirit of Antichrist:" the Gnostics obstinately +denied the Incarnation, and held that Christ was but a phantom, or had +come on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him at his passion. The +one great topic of preaching with Apostles and Evangelists was the +Resurrection of Christ and of all mankind after Him; but when the +philosophers of Athens heard St. Paul, "some mocked," and others +contemptuously put aside the doctrine. The birth from a Virgin implied, +not only that the body was not intrinsically evil, but that one state of +it was holier than another, and St. Paul explained that, while marriage +was good, celibacy was better; but the Gnostics, holding the utter +malignity of Matter, one and all condemned marriage as sinful, and, +whether they observed continence or not, or abstained from eating flesh +or not, maintained that all functions of our animal nature were evil and +abominable. + + +4. + +"Perish the thought," says Manes, "that our Lord Jesus Christ should +have descended through the womb of a woman." "He descended," says +Marcion, "but without touching her or taking aught from her." "Through +her, not of her," said another. "It is absurd to assert," says a +disciple of Bardesanes, "that this flesh in which we are imprisoned +shall rise again, for it is well called a burden, a tomb, and a chain." +"They execrate the funeral-pile," says Caecilius, speaking of Christians, +"as if bodies, though withdrawn from the flames, did not all resolve +into dust by years, whether beasts tear, or sea swallows, or earth +covers, or flame wastes." According to the old Paganism, both the +educated and vulgar held corpses and sepulchres in aversion. They +quickly rid themselves of the remains even of their friends, thinking +their presence a pollution, and felt the same terror even of +burying-places which assails the ignorant and superstitious now. It is +recorded of Hannibal that, on his return to the African coast from +Italy, he changed his landing-place to avoid a ruined sepulchre. "May +the god who passes between heaven and hell," says Apuleius in his +_Apology_, "present to thy eyes, O Emilian, all that haunts the night, +all that alarms in burying-places, all that terrifies in tombs." George +of Cappadocia could not direct a more bitter taunt against the +Alexandrian Pagans than to call the temple of Serapis a sepulchre. The +case had been the same even among the Jews; the Rabbins taught, that +even the corpses of holy men "did but serve to diffuse infection and +defilement." "When deaths were Judaical," says the writer who goes under +the name of St. Basil, "corpses were an abomination; when death is for +Christ, the relics of Saints are precious. It was anciently said to the +Priests and the Nazarites, 'If any one shall touch a corpse, he shall be +unclean till evening, and he shall wash his garment;' now, on the +contrary, if any one shall touch a Martyr's bones, by reason of the +grace dwelling in the body, he receives some participation of his +sanctity."[404:1] Nay, Christianity taught a reverence for the bodies +even of heathen. The care of the dead is one of the praises which, as we +have seen above, is extorted in their favour from the Emperor Julian; +and it was exemplified during the mortality which spread through the +Roman world in the time of St. Cyprian. "They did good," says Pontius of +the Christians of Carthage, "in the profusion of exuberant works to all, +and not only to the household of faith. They did somewhat more than is +recorded of the incomparable benevolence of Tobias. The slain of the +king and the outcasts, whom Tobias gathered together, were of his own +kin only."[404:2] + + +5. + +Far more of course than such general reverence was the honour that they +showed to the bodies of the Saints. They ascribed virtue to their +martyred tabernacles, and treasured, as something supernatural, their +blood, their ashes, and their bones. When St. Cyprian was beheaded, his +brethren brought napkins to soak up his blood. "Only the harder portion +of the holy relics remained," say the Acts of St. Ignatius, who was +exposed to the beasts in the amphitheatre, "which were conveyed to +Antioch, and deposited in linen, bequeathed, by the grace that was in +the Martyr, to that holy Church as a priceless treasure." The Jews +attempted to deprive the brethren of St. Polycarp's body, "lest, leaving +the Crucified, they begin to worship him," say his Acts; "ignorant," +they continue, "that we can never leave Christ;" and they add, "We, +having taken up his bones which were more costly than precious stones, +and refined more than gold, deposited them where was fitting; and there +when we meet together, as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate +with joy and gladness the birthday of his martyrdom." On one occasion in +Palestine, the Imperial authorities disinterred the bodies and cast them +into the sea, "lest as their opinion went," says Eusebius, "there should +be those who in their sepulchres and monuments might think them gods, +and treat them with divine worship." + +Julian, who had been a Christian, and knew the Christian history more +intimately than a mere infidel would know it, traces the superstition, +as he considers it, to the very lifetime of St. John, that is, as early +as there were Martyrs to honour; makes the honour paid them +contemporaneous with the worship paid to our Lord, and equally distinct +and formal; and, moreover, declares that first it was secret, which for +various reasons it was likely to have been. "Neither Paul," he says, +"nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor Mark, dared to call Jesus God; but honest +John, having perceived that a great multitude had been caught by this +disease in many of the Greek and Italian cities, and hearing, I suppose, +that the monuments of Peter and Paul were, secretly indeed, but still +hearing that they were honoured, first dared to say it." "Who can feel +fitting abomination?" he says elsewhere; "you have filled all places +with tombs and monuments, though it has been nowhere told you to tumble +down at tombs or to honour them. . . . . If Jesus said that they were +full of uncleanness, why do ye invoke God at them?" The tone of Faustus +the Manichaean is the same. "Ye have turned," he says to St. Augustine, +"the idols" of the heathen "into your Martyrs, whom ye honour +(_colitis_) with similar prayers (_votis_)."[406:1] + + +6. + +It is remarkable that the attention of both Christians and their +opponents turned from the relics of the Martyrs to their persons. +Basilides at least, who was founder of one of the most impious Gnostic +sects, spoke of them with disrespect; he considered that their +sufferings were the penalty of secret sins or evil desires, or +transgressions committed in another body, and a sign of divine favour +only because they were allowed to connect them with the cause of +Christ.[406:2] On the other hand, it was the doctrine of the Church that +Martyrdom was meritorious, that it had a certain supernatural efficacy +in it, and that the blood of the Saints received from the grace of the +One Redeemer a certain expiatory power. Martyrdom stood in the place of +Baptism, where the Sacrament had not been administered. It exempted the +soul from all preparatory waiting, and gained its immediate admittance +into glory. "All crimes are pardoned for the sake of this work," says +Tertullian. + +And in proportion to the near approach of the martyrs to their Almighty +Judge, was their high dignity and power. St. Dionysius speaks of their +reigning with Christ; Origen even conjectures that "as we are redeemed +by the precious blood of Jesus, so some are redeemed by the precious +blood of the Martyrs." St. Cyprian seems to explain his meaning when he +says, "We believe that the merits of Martyrs and the works of the just +avail much with the Judge," that is, for those who were lapsed, "when, +after the end of this age and the world, Christ's people shall stand +before His judgment-seat." Accordingly they were considered to intercede +for the Church militant in their state of glory, and for individuals +whom they had known. St. Potamiaena of Alexandria, in the first years of +the third century, when taken out for execution, promised to obtain +after her departure the salvation of the officer who led her out; and +did appear to him, according to Eusebius, on the third day, and +prophesied his own speedy martyrdom. And St. Theodosia in Palestine came +to certain confessors who were in bonds, "to request them," as Eusebius +tells us, "to remember her when they came to the Lord's Presence." +Tertullian, when a Montanist, betrays the existence of the doctrine in +the Catholic body by protesting against it.[407:1] + + +Sect. 2. _The Virgin Life._ + +Next to the prerogatives of bodily suffering or Martyrdom came, in the +estimation of the early Church, the prerogatives of bodily, as well as +moral, purity or Virginity; another form of the general principle which +I am here illustrating. "The first reward," says St. Cyprian to the +Virgins, "is for the Martyrs an hundredfold; the second, sixtyfold, is +for yourselves."[407:2] Their state and its merit is recognized by a +_consensus_ of the Ante-nicene writers; of whom Athenagoras distinctly +connects Virginity with the privilege of divine communion: "You will +find many of our people," he says to the Emperor Marcus, "both men and +women, grown old in their single state, in hope thereby of a closer +union with God."[408:1] + + +2. + +Among the numerous authorities which might be cited, I will confine +myself to a work, elaborate in itself, and important from its author. +St. Methodius was a Bishop and Martyr of the latter years of the +Ante-nicene period, and is celebrated as the most variously endowed +divine of his day. His learning, elegance in composition, and eloquence, +are all commemorated.[408:2] The work in question, the _Convivium +Virginum_, is a conference in which ten Virgins successively take part, +in praise of the state of life to which they have themselves been +specially called. I do not wish to deny that there are portions of it +which strangely grate upon the feelings of an age, which is formed on +principles of which marriage is the centre. But here we are concerned +with its doctrine. Of the speakers in this Colloquy, three at least are +real persons prior to St. Methodius's time; of these Thecla, whom +tradition associates with St. Paul, is one, and Marcella, who in the +Roman Breviary is considered to be St. Martha's servant, and who is said +to have been the woman who exclaimed, "Blessed is the womb that bare +Thee," &c., is described as a still older servant of Christ. The latter +opens the discourse, and her subject is the gradual development of the +doctrine of Virginity in the Divine Dispensations; Theophila, who +follows, enlarges on the sanctity of Matrimony, with which the special +glory of the higher state does not interfere; Thalia discourses on the +mystical union which exists between Christ and His Church, and on the +seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians; Theopatra on +the merit of Virginity; Thallusa exhorts to a watchful guardianship of +the gift; Agatha shows the necessity of other virtues and good works, in +order to the real praise of their peculiar profession; Procilla extols +Virginity as the special instrument of becoming a spouse of Christ; +Thecla treats of it as the great combatant in the warfare between heaven +and hell, good and evil; Tysiana with reference to the Resurrection; and +Domnina allegorizes Jothan's parable in Judges ix. Virtue, who has been +introduced as the principal personage in the representation from the +first, closes the discussion with an exhortation to inward purity, and +they answer her by an hymn to our Lord as the Spouse of His Saints. + + +3. + +It is observable that St. Methodius plainly speaks of the profession of +Virginity as a vow. "I will explain," says one of his speakers, "how we +are dedicated to the Lord. What is enacted in the Book of Numbers, 'to +vow a vow mightily,' shows what I am insisting on at great length, that +Chastity is a mighty vow beyond all vows."[409:1] This language is not +peculiar to St. Methodius among the Ante-nicene Fathers. "Let such as +promise Virginity and break their profession be ranked among digamists," +says the Council of Ancyra in the beginning of the fourth century. +Tertullian speaks of being "married to Christ," and marriage implies a +vow; he proceeds, "to Him thou hast pledged (_sponsasti_) thy ripeness +of age;" and before he had expressly spoken of the _continentiae votum_. +Origen speaks of "devoting one's body to God" in chastity; and St. +Cyprian "of Christ's Virgin, dedicated to Him and destined for His +sanctity," and elsewhere of "members dedicated to Christ, and for ever +devoted by virtuous chastity to the praise of continence;" and Eusebius +of those "who had consecrated themselves body and soul to a pure and +all-holy life."[410:1] + + +Sect. 3. _Cultus of Saints and Angels._ + +The Spanish Church supplies us with an anticipation of the later +devotions to Saints and Angels. The Canons are extant of a Council of +Illiberis, held shortly before the Council of Nicaea, and representative +of course of the doctrine of the third century. Among these occurs the +following: "It is decreed, that pictures ought not to be in church, lest +what is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls."[410:2] Now these +words are commonly taken to be decisive against the use of pictures in +the Spanish Church at that era. Let us grant it; let us grant that the +use of all pictures is forbidden, pictures not only of our Lord, and +sacred emblems, as of the Lamb and the Dove, but pictures of Angels and +Saints also. It is not fair to restrict the words, nor are +controversialists found desirous of doing so; they take them to include +the images of the Saints. "For keeping of pictures out of the Church, +the Canon of the Eliberine or Illiberitine Council, held in Spain, about +the time of Constantine the Great, is most plain,"[410:3] says Ussher: +he is speaking of "the representations of God and of Christ, and of +Angels and of Saints."[410:4] "The Council of Eliberis is very ancient, +and of great fame," says Taylor, "in which it is expressly forbidden +that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls, and that +therefore pictures ought not to be in churches."[411:1] He too is +speaking of the Saints. I repeat, let us grant this freely. This +inference then seems to be undeniable, that the Spanish Church +considered the Saints to be in the number of objects either of "worship +or adoration;" for it is of such objects that the representations are +forbidden. The very drift of the prohibition is this,--_lest_ what is in +itself an object of worship (_quod colitur_) should be worshipped _in +painting_; unless then Saints and Angels were objects of worship, their +pictures would have been allowed. + + +2. + +This mention of Angels leads me to a memorable passage about the honour +due to them in Justin Martyr. + +St. Justin, after "answering the charge of Atheism," as Dr. Burton says, +"which was brought against Christians of his day, and observing that +they were punished for not worshipping evil demons which were not really +gods," continues, "But Him, (God,) and the Son who came from Him, and +taught us these things, and the host of the other good Angels who follow +and resemble Him, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, paying +them a reasonable and true honour, and not grudging to deliver to any +one, who wishes to learn, as we ourselves have been taught."[411:2] + +A more express testimony to the _cultus Angelorum_ cannot be required; +nor is it unnatural in the connexion in which it occurs, considering St. +Justin has been speaking of the heathen worship of demons, and therefore +would be led without effort to mention, not only the incommunicable +adoration paid to the One God, who "will not give His glory to another," +but such inferior honour as may be paid to creatures, without sin on the +side whether of giver or receiver. Nor is the construction of the +original Greek harsher than is found in other authors; nor need it +surprise us in one whose style is not accurate, that two words should be +used in combination to express worship, and that one should include +Angels, and that the other should not. + + +3. + +The following is Dr. Burton's account of the passage: + +"Scultetus, a Protestant divine of Heidelberg, in his _Medulla Theologiae +Patrum_, which appeared in 1605, gave a totally different meaning to the +passage; and instead of connecting '_the host_' with '_we worship_,' +connected it with '_taught us_.' The words would then be rendered thus: +'But Him, and the Son who came from Him, who also gave us instructions +concerning these things, and concerning the host of the other good +angels we worship,' &c. This interpretation is adopted and defended at +some length by Bishop Bull, and by Stephen Le Moyne; and even the +Benedictine Le Nourry supposed Justin to mean that Christ had taught us +not to worship the bad angels, as well as the existence of good angels. +Grabe, in his edition of 'Justin's Apology,' which was printed in 1703, +adopted another interpretation, which had been before proposed by Le +Moyne and by Cave. This also connects '_the host_' with '_taught_,' and +would require us to render the passage thus: '. . . and the Son who came +from Him, who also taught these things to us, and to the host of the +other Angels,' &c. It might be thought that Langus, who published a +Latin translation of Justin in 1565, meant to adopt one of these +interpretations, or at least to connect '_host_' with '_taught these +things_.' Both of them certainly are ingenious, and are not perhaps +opposed to the literal construction of the Greek words; but I cannot say +that they are satisfactory, or that I am surprised at Roman Catholic +writers describing them as forced and violent attempts to evade a +difficulty. If the words enclosed in brackets were removed, the whole +passage would certainly contain a strong argument in favour of the +Trinity; but as they now stand, Roman Catholic writers will naturally +quote them as supporting the worship of Angels. + +"There is, however, this difficulty in such a construction of the +passage: it proves too much. By coupling the Angels with the three +persons of the Trinity, as objects of religious adoration, it seems to +go beyond even what Roman Catholics themselves would maintain concerning +the worship of Angels. Their well-known distinction between _latria_ and +_dulia_ would be entirely confounded; and the difficulty felt by the +Benedictine editor appears to have been as great, as his attempt to +explain it is unsuccessful, when he wrote as follows: 'Our adversaries +in vain object the twofold expression, _we worship and adore_. For the +former is applied to Angels themselves, regard being had to the +distinction between the creature and the Creator; the latter by no means +necessarily includes the Angels.' This sentence requires concessions, +which no opponent could be expected to make; and if one of the two +terms, _we worship_ and _adore_, may be applied to Angels, it is +unreasonable to contend that the other must not also. Perhaps, however, +the passage may be explained so as to admit a distinction of this kind. +The interpretations of Scultetus and Grabe have not found many +advocates; and upon the whole I should be inclined to conclude, that the +clause, which relates to the Angels, is connected particularly with the +words, '_paying them a reasonable and true honour_.'"[414:1] + +Two violent alterations of the text have also been proposed: one to +transfer the clause which creates the difficulty, after the words +_paying them honour_; the other to substitute +strategon+ (_commander_) +for +straton+ (_host_). + + +4. + +Presently Dr. Burton continues:--"Justin, as I observed, is defending +the Christians from the charge of Atheism; and after saying that the +gods, whom they refused to worship, were no gods, but evil demons, he +points out what were the Beings who were worshipped by the Christians. +He names the true God, who is the source of all virtue; the Son, who +proceeded from Him; the good and ministering spirits; and the Holy +Ghost. To these Beings, he says, we pay all the worship, adoration, and +honour, which is due to each of them; _i. e._ worship where worship is +due, honour where honour is due. The Christians were accused of +worshipping no gods, that is, of acknowledging no superior beings at +all. Justin shows that so far was this from being true, that they +acknowledged more than one order of spiritual Beings; they offered +divine worship to the true God, and they also believed in the existence +of good spirits, which were entitled to honour and respect. If the +reader will view the passage as a whole, he will perhaps see that there +is nothing violent in thus restricting the words _worship and adore_, +and _honouring_, to certain parts of it respectively. It may seem +strange that Justin should mention the ministering spirits before the +Holy Ghost: but this is a difficulty which presses upon the Roman +Catholics as much as upon ourselves; and we may perhaps adopt the +explanation of the Bishop of Lincoln,[414:2] who says, 'I have sometimes +thought that in this passage, "_and the host_," is equivalent to "_with +the host_," and that Justin had in his mind the glorified state of +Christ, when He should come to judge the world, surrounded by the host +of heaven.' The bishop then brings several passages from Justin, where +the Son of God is spoken of as attended by a company of Angels; and if +this idea was then in Justin's mind, it might account for his naming the +ministering spirits immediately after the Son of God, rather than after +the Holy Ghost, which would have been the natural and proper +order."[415:1] + +This passage of St. Justin is the more remarkable, because it cannot be +denied that there was a worship of the Angels at that day, of which St. +Paul speaks, which was Jewish and Gnostic, and utterly reprobated by the +Church. + + +Sect. 4. _Office of the Blessed Virgin._ + +The special prerogatives of St. Mary, the _Virgo Virginum_, are +intimately involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation itself, with +which these remarks began, and have already been dwelt upon above. As is +well known, they were not fully recognized in the Catholic ritual till a +late date, but they were not a new thing in the Church, or strange to +her earlier teachers. St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, and others, had +distinctly laid it down, that she not only had an office, but bore a +part, and was a voluntary agent, in the actual process of redemption, as +Eve had been instrumental and responsible in Adam's fall. They taught +that, as the first woman might have foiled the Tempter and did not, so, +if Mary had been disobedient or unbelieving on Gabriel's message, the +Divine Economy would have been frustrated. And certainly the parallel +between "the Mother of all living" and the Mother of the Redeemer may be +gathered from a comparison of the first chapters of Scripture with the +last. It was noticed in a former place, that the only passage where the +serpent is directly identified with the evil spirit occurs in the +twelfth chapter of the Revelation; now it is observable that the +recognition, when made, is found in the course of a vision of a "woman +clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet:" thus two women are +brought into contrast with each other. Moreover, as it is said in the +Apocalypse, "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went about to make +war with the remnant of her seed," so is it prophesied in Genesis, "I +will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her +Seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." Also +the enmity was to exist, not only between the Serpent and the Seed of +the woman, but between the serpent and the woman herself; and here too +there is a correspondence in the Apocalyptic vision. If then there is +reason for thinking that this mystery at the close of the Scripture +record answers to the mystery in the beginning of it, and that "the +Woman" mentioned in both passages is one and the same, then she can be +none other than St. Mary, thus introduced prophetically to our notice +immediately on the transgression of Eve. + + +2. + +Here, however, we are not so much concerned to interpret Scripture as to +examine the Fathers. Thus St. Justin says, "Eve, being a virgin and +incorrupt, having conceived the word from the Serpent, bore disobedience +and death; but Mary the Virgin, receiving faith and joy, when Gabriel +the Angel evangelized her, answered, 'Be it unto me according to thy +word.'"[416:1] And Tertullian says that, whereas Eve believed the +Serpent, and Mary believed Gabriel, "the fault of Eve in believing, Mary +by believing hath blotted out."[416:2] St. Irenaeus speaks more +explicitly: "As Eve," he says . . . "becoming disobedient, became the +cause of death to herself and to all mankind, so Mary too, having the +predestined Man, and yet a Virgin, being obedient, became cause of +salvation both to herself and to all mankind."[417:1] This becomes the +received doctrine in the Post-nicene Church. + +One well-known instance occurs in the history of the third century of +St. Mary's interposition, and it is remarkable from the names of the two +persons, who were, one the subject, the other the historian of it. St. +Gregory Nyssen, a native of Cappadocia in the fourth century, relates +that his name-sake Bishop of Neo-caesarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, in the +preceding century, shortly before he was called to the priesthood, +received in a vision a Creed, which is still extant, from the Blessed +Virgin at the hands of St. John. The account runs thus: He was deeply +pondering theological doctrine, which the heretics of the day depraved. +"In such thoughts," says his name-sake of Nyssa, "he was passing the +night, when one appeared, as if in human form, aged in appearance, +saintly in the fashion of his garments, and very venerable both in grace +of countenance and general mien. . . . Following with his eyes his +extended hand, he saw another appearance opposite to the former, in +shape of a woman, but more than human. . . . When his eyes could not +bear the apparition, he heard them conversing together on the subject +of his doubts; and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of the +faith, but learned their names, as they addressed each other by their +respective appellations. And thus he is said to have heard the person in +woman's shape bid 'John the Evangelist' disclose to the young man the +mystery of godliness; and he answered that he was ready to comply in +this matter with the wish of 'the Mother of the Lord,' and enunciated a +formulary, well-turned and complete, and so vanished." + +Gregory proceeds to rehearse the Creed thus given, "There is One God, +Father of a Living Word," &c.[418:1] Bull, after quoting it in his work +upon the Nicene Faith, refers to this history of its origin, and adds, +"No one should think it incredible that such a providence should befall +a man whose whole life was conspicuous for revelations and miracles, as +all ecclesiastical writers who have mentioned him (and who has not?) +witness with one voice."[418:2] + + +3. + +It is remarkable that St. Gregory Nazianzen relates an instance, even +more pointed, of St. Mary's intercession, contemporaneous with this +appearance to Thaumaturgus; but it is attended with mistake in the +narrative, which weakens its cogency as an evidence of the belief, not +indeed of the fourth century, in which St. Gregory lived, but of the +third. He speaks of a Christian woman having recourse to the protection +of St. Mary, and obtaining the conversion of a heathen who had attempted +to practise on her by magical arts. They were both martyred. + +In both these instances the Blessed Virgin appears especially in that +character of Patroness or Paraclete, which St. Irenaeus and other Fathers +describe, and which the Medieval Church exhibits,--a loving Mother with +clients. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[404:1] Act. Arch. p. 85. Athan. c. Apoll. ii. 3.--Adam. Dial. iii. +init. Minuc. Dial. 11. Apul. Apol. p. 535. Kortholt. Cal. p. 63. Calmet, +Dict. t. 2, p. 736. Basil in Ps. 115, 4. + +[404:2] Vit. S. Cypr. 10. + +[406:1] Act. Procons. 5. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 22, 44. Euseb. Hist. +viii. 6. Julian, ap. Cyr. pp. 327, 335. August. c. Faust. xx. 4. + +[406:2] Clem. Strom. iv. 12. + +[407:1] Tertull. Apol. fin. Euseb. Hist. vi. 42. Orig. ad Martyr. 50. +Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 122, 323. + +[407:2] De Hab. Virg. 12. + +[408:1] Athenag. Leg. 33. + +[408:2] Lumper, Hist. t. 13, p. 439. + +[409:1] Galland. t. 3, p. 670. + +[410:1] Routh, Reliqu. t. 3, p. 414. Tertull. de Virg. Vel. 16 and 11. +Orig. in Num. Hom. 24, 2. Cyprian. Ep. 4, p. 8, ed. Fell. Ep. 62, p. +147. Euseb. V. Const. iv. 26. + +[410:2] Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur +aut adoratur, in parietibus depingatur. Can. 36. + +[410:3] Answ. to a Jes. 10, p. 437. + +[410:4] P. 430. The "colitur _aut_ adoratur" marks a difference of +worship. + +[411:1] Dissuasive, i. 1, 8. + +[411:2] +Ekeinon te, kai ton par' autou hyion elthonta kai didaxanta +hemas tauta, [kai ton ton allon hepomenon kai exomoioumenon agathon +angelon straton,] pneuma te to prophetikon sebometha kai proskynoumen, +logo kai aletheia timontes kai panti boulomeno mathein, hos +edidachthemen, aphthonos paradidontes.+--_Apol._ i. 6. The passage is +parallel to the Prayer in the Breviary: "Sacrosanctae et individuae +Trinitati, Crucifixi Domini nostri Jesu Christi humanitati, beatissimae +et gloriosissimae semperque Virginis Mariae foecundae integritati, et +omnium Sanctorum universitati, sit sempiterna laus, honor, virtus, et +gloria ab omni creatura," &c. + +[414:1] Test. Trin. pp. 16, 17, 18. + +[414:2] Dr. Kaye. + +[415:1] Pp. 19-21. + +[416:1] Tryph. 100. + +[416:2] Carn. Christ. 17. + +[417:1] Haer. iii. 22, Sect. 4. + +[418:1] Nyss. Opp. t. ii. p. 977. + +[418:2] Def. F. N. ii. 12. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CONSERVATIVE ACTION ON ITS PAST. + +It is the general pretext of heretics that they are but serving and +protecting Christianity by their innovations; and it is their charge +against what by this time we may surely call the Catholic Church, that +her successive definitions of doctrine have but overlaid and obscured +it. That is, they assume, what we have no wish to deny, that a true +development is that which is conservative of its original, and a +corruption is that which tends to its destruction. This has already been +set down as a Sixth Test, discriminative of a development from a +corruption, and must now be applied to the Catholic doctrines; though +this Essay has so far exceeded its proposed limits, that both reader and +writer may well be weary, and may content themselves with a brief +consideration of the portions of the subject which remain. + +It has been observed already that a strict correspondence between the +various members of a development, and those of the doctrine from which +it is derived, is more than we have any right to expect. The bodily +structure of a grown man is not merely that of a magnified boy; he +differs from what he was in his make and proportions; still manhood is +the perfection of boyhood, adding something of its own, yet keeping +what it finds. "Ut nihil novum," says Vincentius, "proferatur in +senibus, quod non in pueris jam antea latitaverit." This character of +addition,--that is, of a change which is in one sense real and +perceptible, yet without loss or reversal of what was before, but, on +the contrary, protective and confirmative of it,--in many respects and +in a special way belongs to Christianity. + + +SECTION I. + +VARIOUS INSTANCES. + +If we take the simplest and most general view of its history, as +existing in an individual mind, or in the Church at large, we shall see +in it an instance of this peculiarity. It is the birth of something +virtually new, because latent in what was before. Thus we know that no +temper of mind is acceptable in the Divine Presence without love; it is +love which makes Christian fear differ from servile dread, and true +faith differ from the faith of devils; yet in the beginning of the +religious life, fear is the prominent evangelical grace, and love is but +latent in fear, and has in course of time to be developed out of what +seems its contradictory. Then, when it is developed, it takes that +prominent place which fear held before, yet protecting not superseding +it. Love is added, not fear removed, and the mind is but perfected in +grace by what seems a revolution. "They that sow in tears, reap in joy;" +yet afterwards still they are "sorrowful," though "alway rejoicing." + +And so was it with the Church at large. She started with suffering, +which turned to victory; but when she was set free from the house of her +prison, she did not quit it so much as turn it into a cell. Meekness +inherited the earth; strength came forth from weakness; the poor made +many rich; yet meekness and poverty remained. The rulers of the world +were Monks, when they could not be Martyrs. + + +2. + +Immediately on the overthrow of the heathen power, two movements +simultaneously ran through the world from East to West, as quickly as +the lightning in the prophecy, a development of worship and of +asceticism. Hence, while the world's first reproach in heathen times had +been that Christianity was a dark malevolent magic, its second has been +that it is a joyous carnal paganism;--according to that saying, "We have +piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye +have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they +say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they +say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and +sinners." Yet our Lord too was "a man of sorrows" all the while, but +softened His austerity by His gracious gentleness. + + +3. + +The like characteristic attends also on the mystery of His Incarnation. +He was first God and He became man; but Eutyches and heretics of his +school refused to admit that He was man, lest they should deny that He +was God. In consequence the Catholic Fathers are frequent and unanimous +in their asseverations, that "the Word" had become flesh, not to His +loss, but by an addition. Each Nature is distinct, but the created +Nature lives in and by the Eternal. "Non amittendo quod erat, sed +sumendo quod non erat," is the Church's principle. And hence, though the +course of development, as was observed in a former Chapter, has been to +bring into prominence the divine aspect of our Lord's mediation, this +has been attended by even a more open manifestation of the doctrine of +His atoning sufferings. The passion of our Lord is one of the most +imperative and engrossing subjects of Catholic teaching. It is the great +topic of meditations and prayers; it is brought into continual +remembrance by the sign of the Cross; it is preached to the world in the +Crucifix; it is variously honoured by the many houses of prayer, and +associations of religious men, and pious institutions and undertakings, +which in some way or other are placed under the name and the shadow of +Jesus, or the Saviour, or the Redeemer, or His Cross, or His Passion, or +His sacred Heart. + + +4. + +Here a singular development may be mentioned of the doctrine of the +Cross, which some have thought so contrary to its original +meaning,[422:1] as to be a manifest corruption; I mean the introduction +of the Sign of the meek Jesus into the armies of men, and the use of an +emblem of peace as a protection in battle. If light has no communion +with darkness, or Christ with Belial, what has He to do with Moloch, who +would not call down fire on His enemies, and came not to destroy but to +save? Yet this seeming anomaly is but one instance of a great law which +is seen in developments generally, that changes which appear at first +sight to contradict that out of which they grew, are really its +protection or illustration. Our Lord Himself is represented in the +Prophets as a combatant inflicting wounds while He received them, as +coming from Bozrah with dyed garments, sprinkled and red in His apparel +with the blood of His enemies; and, whereas no war is lawful but what is +just, it surely beseems that they who are engaged in so dreadful a +commission as that of taking away life at the price of their own, +should at least have the support of His Presence, and fight under the +mystical influence of His Name, who redeemed His elect as a combatant by +the Blood of Atonement, with the slaughter of His foes, the sudden +overthrow of the Jews, and the slow and awful fall of the Pagan Empire. +And if the wars of Christian nations have often been unjust, this is a +reason against much more than the use of religious symbols by the +parties who engage in them, though the pretence of religion may increase +the sin. + + +5. + +The same rule of development has been observed in respect of the +doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. It is the objection of the School of +Socinus, that belief in the Trinity is destructive of any true +maintenance of the Divine Unity, however strongly the latter may be +professed; but Petavius, as we have seen,[423:1] sets it down as one +especial recommendation of the Catholic doctrine, that it subserves that +original truth which at first sight it does but obscure and compromise. + + +6. + +This representation of the consistency of the Catholic system will be +found to be true, even in respect of those peculiarities of it, which +have been considered by Protestants most open to the charge of +corruption and innovation. It is maintained, for instance, that the +veneration paid to Images in the Catholic Church directly contradicts +the command of Scripture, and the usage of the primitive ages. As to +primitive usage, that part of the subject has been incidentally observed +upon already; here I will make one remark on the argument from +Scripture. + +It may be reasonably questioned, then, whether the Commandment which +stands second in the Protestant Decalogue, on which the prohibition of +Images is grounded, was intended in its letter for more than temporary +observance. So far is certain, that, though none could surpass the later +Jews in its literal observance, nevertheless this did not save them from +the punishments attached to the violation of it. If this be so, the +literal observance is not its true and evangelical import. + + +7. + +"When the generation to come of your children shall rise up after you," +says their inspired lawgiver, "and the stranger that shall come from a +far land shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its +sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it; and that the whole land +thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor +beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, . . . even all nations shall +say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the +heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken +the covenants of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them +when He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; for they went and +served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and +whom He had not given them." Now the Jews of our Lord's day did not keep +this covenant, for they incurred the penalty; yet they kept the letter +of the Commandment rigidly, and were known among the heathen far and +wide for their devotion to the "Lord God of their fathers who brought +them out of the land of Egypt," and for their abhorrence of the "gods +whom He had not given them." If then adherence to the letter was no +protection to the Jews, departure from the letter may be no guilt in +Christians. + +It should be observed, moreover, that there certainly is a difference +between the two covenants in their respective view of symbols of the +Almighty. In the Old, it was blasphemy to represent Him under "the +similitude of a calf that eateth hay;" in the New, the Third Person of +the Holy Trinity has signified His Presence by the appearance of a Dove, +and the Second Person has presented His sacred Humanity for worship +under the name of the Lamb. + + +8. + +It follows that, if the letter of the Decalogue is but partially binding +on Christians, it is as justifiable, in setting it before persons under +instruction, to omit such parts as do not apply to them, as, when we +quote passages from the Pentateuch in Sermons or Lectures generally, to +pass over verses which refer simply to the temporal promises or the +ceremonial law, a practice which we allow without any intention or +appearance of dealing irreverently with the sacred text. + + +SECTION II. + +DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN. + +It has been anxiously asked, whether the honours paid to St. Mary, which +have grown out of devotion to her Almighty Lord and Son, do not, in +fact, tend to weaken that devotion; and whether, from the nature of the +case, it is possible so to exalt a creature without withdrawing the +heart from the Creator. + +In addition to what has been said on this subject in foregoing Chapters, +I would here observe that the question is one of fact, not of +presumption or conjecture. The abstract lawfulness of the honours paid +to St. Mary, and their distinction in theory from the incommunicable +worship paid to God, are points which have already been dwelt upon; but +here the question turns upon their practicability or expedience, which +must be determined by the fact whether they are practicable, and whether +they have been found to be expedient. + + +1. + +Here I observe, first, that, to those who admit the authority of the +Fathers of Ephesus, the question is in no slight degree answered by +their sanction of the +theotokos+, or "Mother of God," as a title of St. +Mary, and as given in order to protect the doctrine of the Incarnation, +and to preserve the faith of Catholics from a specious Humanitarianism. +And if we take a survey at least of Europe, we shall find that it is not +those religious communions which are characterized by devotion towards +the Blessed Virgin that have ceased to adore her Eternal Son, but those +very bodies, (when allowed by the law,) which have renounced devotion to +her. The regard for His glory, which was professed in that keen jealousy +of her exaltation, has not been supported by the event. They who were +accused of worshipping a creature in His stead, still worship Him; their +accusers, who hoped to worship Him so purely, they, wherever obstacles +to the development of their principles have been removed, have ceased to +worship Him altogether. + + +2. + +Next, it must be observed, that the tone of the devotion paid to the +Blessed Mary is altogether distinct from that which is paid to her +Eternal Son, and to the Holy Trinity, as we must certainly allow on +inspection of the Catholic services. The supreme and true worship paid +to the Almighty is severe, profound, awful, as well as tender, +confiding, and dutiful. Christ is addressed as true God, while He is +true Man; as our Creator and Judge, while He is most loving, gentle, and +gracious. On the other hand, towards St. Mary the language employed is +affectionate and ardent, as towards a mere child of Adam; though +subdued, as coming from her sinful kindred. How different, for instance, +is the tone of the _Dies Irae_ from that of the _Stabat Mater_. In the +"Tristis et afflicta Mater Unigeniti," in the "Virgo virginum praeclara +Mihi jam non sis amara, Poenas mecum divide," in the "Fac me vere +tecum flere," we have an expression of the feelings with which we regard +one who is a creature and a mere human being; but in the "Rex tremendae +majestatis qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me Fons pietatis," the "Ne +me perdas illa die," the "Juste judex ultionis, donum fac remissionis," +the "Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis," the "Pie Jesu +Domine, dona eis requiem," we hear the voice of the creature raised in +hope and love, yet in deep awe to his Creator, Infinite Benefactor, and +Judge. + +Or again, how distinct is the language of the Breviary Services on the +Festival of Pentecost, or of the Holy Trinity, from the language of the +Services for the Assumption! How indescribably majestic, solemn, and +soothing is the "Veni Creator Spiritus," the "Altissimi donum Dei, Fons +vivus, ignis, charitas," or the "Vera et una Trinitas, una et summa +Deitas, sancta et una Unitas," the "Spes nostra, salus nostra, honor +noster, O beata Trinitas," the "Charitas Pater, gratia Filius, +communicatio Spiritus Sanctus, O beata Trinitas;" "Libera nos, salva +nos, vivifica nos, O beata Trinitas!" How fond, on the contrary, how +full of sympathy and affection, how stirring and animating, in the +Office for the Assumption, is the "Virgo prudentissima, quo progrederis, +quasi aurora valde rutilans? filia Sion, tota formosa et suavis es, +pulcra ut luna, electa ut sol;" the "Sicut dies verni circumdabant eam +flores rosarum, et lilia convallium;" the "Maria Virgo assumpta est ad +aethereum thalamum in quo Rex regum stellato sedet solio;" and the +"Gaudent Angeli, laudantes benedicunt Dominum." And so again, the +Antiphon, the "Ad te clamamus exules filii Hevae, ad te suspiramus +gementes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle," and "Eia ergo, advocata +nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte," and "O clemens, +O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria." Or the Hymn, "Ave Maris stella, Dei Mater +alma," and "Virgo singularis, inter omnes mitis, nos culpis solutos, +mites fac et castos." + + +3. + +Nor does it avail to object that, in this contrast of devotional +exercises, the human will supplant the Divine, from the infirmity of our +nature; for, I repeat, the question is one of fact, whether it has done +so. And next it must be asked, whether the character of much of the +Protestant devotion towards our Lord has been that of adoration at all; +and not rather such as we pay to an excellent human being, that is, no +higher devotion than that which Catholics pay to St. Mary, differing +from it, however, in often being familiar, rude, and earthly. Carnal +minds will ever create a carnal worship for themselves; and to forbid +them the service of the Saints will have no tendency to teach them the +worship of God. + +Moreover, it must be observed, what is very important, that great and +constant as is the devotion which the Catholic pays to the Blessed Mary, +it has a special province, and has far more connexion with the public +services and the festive aspect of Christianity, and with certain +extraordinary offices which she holds, than with what is strictly +personal and primary in religion. + +Two instances will serve in illustration of this, and they are but +samples of many others.[428:1] + + +4. + +(1.) For example, St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises are among the most +approved methods of devotion in the modern Catholic Church; they proceed +from one of the most celebrated of her Saints, and have the praise of +Popes, and of the most eminent masters of the spiritual life. A Bull of +Paul the Third's "approves, praises, and sanctions all and everything +contained in them;" indulgences are granted to the performance of them +by the same Pope, by Alexander the Seventh, and by Benedict the +Fourteenth. St. Carlo Borromeo declared that he learned more from them +than from all other books together; St. Francis de Sales calls them "a +holy method of reformation," and they are the model on which all the +extraordinary devotions of religious men or bodies, and the course of +missions, are conducted. If there is a document which is the +authoritative exponent of the inward communion of the members of the +modern Catholic Church with their God and Saviour, it is this work. + +The Exercises are directed to the removal of obstacles in the way of the +soul's receiving and profiting by the gifts of God. They undertake to +effect this in three ways; by removing all objects of this world, and, +as it were, bringing the soul "into the solitude where God may speak to +its heart;" next, by setting before it the ultimate end of man, and its +own deviations from it, the beauty of holiness, and the pattern of +Christ; and, lastly, by giving rules for its correction. They consist of +a course of prayers, meditations, self-examinations, and the like, which +in its complete extent lasts thirty days; and these are divided into +three stages,--the _Via Purgativa_, in which sin is the main subject of +consideration; the _Via Illuminativa_, which is devoted to the +contemplation of our Lord's passion, involving the process of the +determination of our calling; and the _Via Unitiva_, in which we proceed +to the contemplation of our Lord's resurrection and ascension. + + +5. + +No more need be added in order to introduce the remark for which I have +referred to these Exercises; viz. that in a work so highly sanctioned, +so widely received, so intimately bearing upon the most sacred points of +personal religion, very slight mention occurs of devotion to the Blessed +Virgin, Mother of God. There is one mention of her in the rule given for +the first Prelude or preparation, in which the person meditating is +directed to consider as before him a church, or other place with Christ +in it, St. Mary, and whatever else is suitable to the subject of +meditation. Another is in the third Exercise, in which one of the three +addresses is made to our Lady, Christ's Mother, requesting earnestly +"her intercession with her Son;" to which is to be added the Ave Mary. +In the beginning of the Second Week there is a form of offering +ourselves to God in the presence of "His infinite goodness," and with +the witness of His "glorious Virgin Mother Mary, and the whole host of +heaven." At the end of the Meditation upon the Angel Gabriel's mission +to St. Mary, there is an address to each Divine Person, to "the Word +Incarnate and to His Mother." In the Meditation upon the Two Standards, +there is an address prescribed to St. Mary to implore grace from her Son +through her, with an Ave Mary after it. + +In the beginning of the Third Week one address is prescribed to Christ; +or three, if devotion incites, to Mother, Son, and Father. In the +description given of three different modes of prayer we are told, if we +would imitate the Blessed Mary, we must recommend ourselves to her, as +having power with her Son, and presently the Ave Mary, _Salve Regina_, +and other forms are prescribed, as is usual after all prayers. And this +is pretty much the whole of the devotion, if it may so be called, which +is recommended towards St. Mary in the course of so many apparently as a +hundred and fifty Meditations, and those chiefly on the events in our +Lord's earthly history as recorded in Scripture. It would seem then that +whatever be the influence of the doctrines connected with the Blessed +Virgin and the Saints in the Catholic Church, at least they do not +impede or obscure the freest exercise and the fullest manifestation of +the devotional feelings towards God and Christ. + + +6. + +(2.) The other instance which I give in illustration is of a different +kind, but is suitable to mention. About forty little books have come +into my possession which are in circulation among the laity at Rome, and +answer to the smaller publications of the Christian Knowledge Society +among ourselves. They have been taken almost at hazard from a number of +such works, and are of various lengths; some running to as many as two +or three hundred pages, others consisting of scarce a dozen. They may be +divided into three classes:--a third part consists of books on practical +subjects; another third is upon the Incarnation and Passion; and of the +rest, a portion is upon the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, +with two or three for the use of Missions, but the greater part is about +the Blessed Virgin. + +As to the class on practical subjects, they are on such as the +following: "La Consolazione degl' Infermi;" "Pensieri di una donna sul +vestire moderno;" "L'Inferno Aperto;" "Il Purgatorio Aperto;" St. +Alphonso Liguori's "Massime eterne;" other Maxims by St. Francis de +Sales for every day in the year; "Pratica per ben confessarsi e +communicarsi;" and the like. + +The titles of the second class on the Incarnation and Passion are such +as "Gesu dalla Croce al cuore del peccatore;" "Novena del Ss. Natale di +G. C.;" "Associazione pel culto perpetuo del divin cuore;" "Compendio +della Passione." + +In the third are "Il Mese Eucaristico," "Il divoto di Maria," Feasts of +the Blessed Virgin, &c. + + +7. + +These books in all three divisions are, as even the titles of some of +them show, in great measure made up of Meditations; such are the "Breve +e pie Meditazioni" of P. Crasset; the "Meditazioni per ciascun giorno +del mese sulla Passione;" the "Meditazioni per l'ora Eucaristica." Now +of these it may be said generally, that in the body of the Meditation +St. Mary is hardly mentioned at all. For instance, in the Meditations on +the Passion, a book used for distribution, through two hundred and +seventy-seven pages St. Mary is not once named. In the Prayers for Mass +which are added, she is introduced, at the Confiteor, thus, "I pray the +Virgin, the Angels, the Apostles, and all the Saints of heaven to +intercede," &c.; and in the Preparation for Penance, she is once +addressed, after our Lord, as the Refuge of sinners, with the Saints and +Guardian Angel; and at the end of the Exercise there is a similar prayer +of four lines for the intercession of St. Mary, Angels and Saints of +heaven. In the Exercise for Communion, in a prayer to our Lord, "my only +and infinite good, my treasure, my life, my paradise, my all," the +merits of the Saints are mentioned, "especially of St. Mary." She is +also mentioned with Angels and Saints at the termination. + +In a collection of "Spiritual Lauds" for Missions, of thirty-six Hymns, +we find as many as eleven addressed to St. Mary, or relating to her, +among which are translations of the _Ave Maris Stella_, and the _Stabat +Mater_, and the _Salve Regina_; and one is on "the sinner's reliance on +Mary." Five, however, which are upon Repentance, are entirely engaged +upon the subjects of our Lord and sin, with the exception of an address +to St. Mary at the end of two of them. Seven others, upon sin, the +Crucifixion, and the Four Last Things, do not mention the Blessed +Virgin's name. + +To the Manual for the Perpetual Adoration of the Divine Heart of Jesus +there is appended one chapter on the Immaculate Conception. + + +8. + +One of the most important of these books is the French _Pensez-y bien_, +which seems a favourite, since there are two translations of it, one of +them being the fifteenth edition; and it is used for distribution in +Missions. In these reflections there is scarcely a word said of St. +Mary. At the end there is a Method of reciting the Crown of the Seven +Dolours of the Virgin Mary, which contains seven prayers to her, and the +_Stabat Mater_. + +One of the longest in the whole collection is a tract consisting +principally of Meditations on the Holy Communion; under the title of the +"Eucharistic Month," as already mentioned. In these "Preparations," +"Aspirations," &c., St. Mary is but once mentioned, and that in a prayer +addressed to our Lord. "O my sweetest Brother," it says with an allusion +to the Canticles, "who, being made Man for my salvation, hast sucked the +milk from the virginal breast of her, who is my Mother by grace," &c. In +a small "Instruction" given to children on their first Communion, there +are the following questions and answers: "Is our Lady in the Host? No. +Are the Angels and the Saints? No. Why not? Because they have no place +there." + + +9. + +Now coming to those in the third class, which directly relate to the +Blessed Mary, such as "Esercizio ad Onore dell' addolorato cuore di +Maria," "Novena di Preparazione alla festa dell' Assunzione," "Li +Quindici Misteri del Santo Rosario," the principal is Father Segneri's +"Il divoto di Maria," which requires a distinct notice. It is far from +the intention of these remarks to deny the high place which the Holy +Virgin holds in the devotion of Catholics; I am but bringing evidence of +its not interfering with that incommunicable and awful relation which +exists between the creature and the Creator; and, if the foregoing +instances show, as far as they go, that that relation is preserved +inviolate in such honours as are paid to St. Mary, so will this treatise +throw light upon the _rationale_ by which the distinction is preserved +between the worship of God and the honour of an exalted creature, and +that in singular accordance with the remarks made in the foregoing +Section. + + +10. + +This work of Segneri is written against persons who continue in sins +under pretence of their devotion to St. Mary, and in consequence he is +led to draw out the idea which good Catholics have of her. The idea is +this, that she is absolutely the first of created beings. Thus the +treatise says, that "God might have easily made a more beautiful +firmament, and a greener earth, but it was not possible to make a higher +Mother than the Virgin Mary; and in her formation there has been +conferred on mere creatures all the glory of which they are capable, +remaining mere creatures," p. 34. And as containing all created +perfection, she has all those attributes, which, as was noticed above, +the Arians and other heretics applied to our Lord, and which the Church +denied of Him as infinitely below His Supreme Majesty. Thus she is "the +created Idea in the making of the world," p. 20; "which, as being a more +exact copy of the Incarnate Idea than was elsewhere to be found, was +used as the original of the rest of the creation," p. 21. To her are +applied the words, "Ego primogenita prodivi ex ore Altissimi," because +she was predestinated in the Eternal Mind coevally with the Incarnation +of her Divine Son. But to Him alone the title of Wisdom Incarnate is +reserved, p. 25. Again, Christ is the First-born by nature; the Virgin +in a less sublime order, viz. that of adoption. Again, if omnipotence is +ascribed to her, it is a participated omnipotence (as she and all Saints +have a participated sonship, divinity, glory, holiness, and worship), +and is explained by the words, "Quod Deus imperio, tu prece, Virgo, +potes." + + +11. + +Again, a special office is assigned to the Blessed Virgin, that is, +special as compared with all other Saints; but it is marked off with the +utmost precision from that assigned to our Lord. Thus she is said to +have been made "the arbitress of every _effect_ coming from God's +mercy." Because she is the Mother of God, the salvation of mankind is +said to be given to her prayers "_de congruo_, but _de condigno_ it is +due only to the blood of the Redeemer," p. 113. Merit is ascribed to +Christ, and prayer to St. Mary, p. 162. The whole may be expressed in +the words, "_Unica_ spes mea Jesus, et post Jesum Virgo Maria. Amen." + +Again, a distinct _cultus_ is assigned to Mary, but the reason of it is +said to be the transcendent dignity of her Son. "A particular _cultus_ +is due to the Virgin beyond comparison greater than that given to any +other Saint, because her dignity belongs to another order, namely to one +which in some sense belongs to the order of the Hypostatic Union itself, +and is necessarily connected with it," p. 41. And "Her being the Mother +of God is the source of all the extraordinary honours due to Mary," p. +35. + +It is remarkable that the "Monstra te esse Matrem" is explained, p. 158, +as "Show thyself to be _our_ Mother;" an interpretation which I think I +have found elsewhere in these Tracts, and also in a book commonly used +in religious houses, called the "Journal of Meditations," and +elsewhere.[436:1] + +It must be kept in mind that my object here is not to prove the dogmatic +accuracy of what these popular publications teach concerning the +prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin, but to show that that teaching is +not such as to obscure the divine glory of her Son. We must ask for +clearer evidence before we are able to admit so grave a charge; and so +much may suffice on the Sixth Test of fidelity in the development of an +idea, as applied to the Catholic system. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[422:1] Supr. p. 173. + +[423:1] Supr. p. 174. + +[428:1] _E. g._ the "De Imitatione," the "Introduction a la Vie Devote," +the "Spiritual Combat," the "Anima Divota," the "Paradisus Animae," the +"Regula Cleri," the "Garden of the Soul," &c. &c. [Also, the Roman +Catechism, drawn up expressly for Parish instruction, a book in which, +out of nearly 600 pages, scarcely half-a-dozen make mention of the +Blessed Virgin, though without any disparagement thereby, or thought of +disparagement, of her special prerogatives.] + +[436:1] [Vid. Via Media, vol. ii. pp. 121-2.] + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +APPLICATION OF THE SEVENTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. + + +CHRONIC VIGOUR. + +We have arrived at length at the seventh and last test, which was laid +down when we started, for distinguishing the true development of an idea +from its corruptions and perversions: it is this. A corruption, if +vigorous, is of brief duration, runs itself out quickly, and ends in +death; on the other hand, if it lasts, it fails in vigour and passes +into a decay. This general law gives us additional assistance in +determining the character of the developments of Christianity commonly +called Catholic. + + +2. + +When we consider the succession of ages during which the Catholic system +has endured, the severity of the trials it has undergone, the sudden and +wonderful changes without and within which have befallen it, the +incessant mental activity and the intellectual gifts of its maintainers, +the enthusiasm which it has kindled, the fury of the controversies which +have been carried on among its professors, the impetuosity of the +assaults made upon it, the ever-increasing responsibilities to which it +has been committed by the continuous development of its dogmas, it is +quite inconceivable that it should not have been broken up and lost, +were it a corruption of Christianity. Yet it is still living, if there +be a living religion or philosophy in the world; vigorous, energetic, +persuasive, progressive; _vires acquirit eundo_; it grows and is not +overgrown; it spreads out, yet is not enfeebled; it is ever germinating, +yet ever consistent with itself. Corruptions indeed are to be found +which sleep and are suspended; and these, as I have said, are usually +called "decays:" such is not the case with Catholicity; it does not +sleep, it is not stationary even now; and that its long series of +developments should be corruptions would be an instance of sustained +error, so novel, so unaccountable, so preternatural, as to be little +short of a miracle, and to rival those manifestations of Divine Power +which constitute the evidence of Christianity. We sometimes view with +surprise and awe the degree of pain and disarrangement which the human +frame can undergo without succumbing; yet at length there comes an end. +Fevers have their crisis, fatal or favourable; but this corruption of a +thousand years, if corruption it be, has ever been growing nearer death, +yet never reaching it, and has been strengthened, not debilitated, by +its excesses. + + +3. + +For instance: when the Empire was converted, multitudes, as is very +plain, came into the Church on but partially religious motives, and with +habits and opinions infected with the false worships which they had +professedly abandoned. History shows us what anxiety and effort it cost +her rulers to keep Paganism out of her pale. To this tendency must be +added the hazard which attended on the development of the Catholic +ritual, such as the honours publicly assigned to Saints and Martyrs, the +formal veneration of their relics, and the usages and observances which +followed. What was to hinder the rise of a sort of refined Pantheism, +and the overthrow of dogmatism _pari passu_ with the multiplication of +heavenly intercessors and patrons? If what is called in reproach +"Saint-worship" resembled the polytheism which it supplanted, or was a +corruption, how did Dogmatism survive? Dogmatism is a religion's +profession of its own reality as contrasted with other systems; but +polytheists are liberals, and hold that one religion is as good as +another. Yet the theological system was developing and strengthening, as +well as the monastic rule, which is intensely anti-pantheistic, all the +while the ritual was assimilating itself, as Protestants say, to the +Paganism of former ages. + + +4. + +Nor was the development of dogmatic theology, which was then taking +place, a silent and spontaneous process. It was wrought out and carried +through under the fiercest controversies, and amid the most fearful +risks. The Catholic faith was placed in a succession of perils, and +rocked to and fro like a vessel at sea. Large portions of Christendom +were, one after another, in heresy or in schism; the leading Churches +and the most authoritative schools fell from time to time into serious +error; three Popes, Liberius, Vigilius, Honorius, have left to posterity +the burden of their defence: but these disorders were no interruption to +the sustained and steady march of the sacred science from implicit +belief to formal statement. The series of ecclesiastical decisions, in +which its progress was ever and anon signified, alternate between the +one and the other side of the theological dogma especially in question, +as if fashioning it into shape by opposite strokes. The controversy +began in Apollinaris, who confused or denied the Two Natures in Christ, +and was condemned by Pope Damasus. A reaction followed, and Theodore of +Mopsuestia suggested by his teaching the doctrine of Two Persons. After +Nestorius had brought that heresy into public view, and had incurred in +consequence the anathema of the Third Ecumenical Council, the current of +controversy again shifted its direction; for Eutyches appeared, +maintained the One Nature, and was condemned at Chalcedon. Something +however was still wanting to the overthrow of the Nestorian doctrine of +Two Persons, and the Fifth Council was formally directed against the +writings of Theodore and his party. Then followed the Monothelite +heresy, which was a revival of the Eutychian or Monophysite, and was +condemned in the Sixth. Lastly, Nestorianism once more showed itself in +the Adoptionists of Spain, and gave occasion to the great Council of +Frankfort. Any one false step would have thrown the whole theory of the +doctrine into irretrievable confusion; but it was as if some one +individual and perspicacious intellect, to speak humanly, ruled the +theological discussion from first to last. That in the long course of +centuries, and in spite of the failure, in points of detail, of the most +gifted Fathers and Saints, the Church thus wrought out the one and only +consistent theory which can be taken on the great doctrine in dispute, +proves how clear, simple, and exact her vision of that doctrine was. But +it proves more than this. Is it not utterly incredible, that with this +thorough comprehension of so great a mystery, as far as the human mind +can know it, she should be at that very time in the commission of the +grossest errors in religious worship, and should be hiding the God and +Mediator, whose Incarnation she contemplated with so clear an intellect, +behind a crowd of idols? + + +5. + +The integrity of the Catholic developments is still more evident when +they are viewed in contrast with the history of other doctrinal systems. +Philosophies and religions of the world have each its day, and are parts +of a succession. They supplant and are in turn supplanted. But the +Catholic religion alone has had no limits; it alone has ever been +greater than the emergence, and can do what others cannot do. If it were +a falsehood, or a corruption, like the systems of men, it would be weak +as they are; whereas it is able even to impart to them a strength which +they have not, and it uses them for its own purposes, and locates them +in its own territory. The Church can extract good from evil, or at least +gets no harm from it. She inherits the promise made to the disciples, +that they should take up serpents, and, if they drank any deadly thing, +it should not hurt them. When evil has clung to her, and the barbarian +people have looked on with curiosity or in malice, till she should have +swollen or fallen down suddenly, she has shaken the venomous beast into +the fire, and felt no harm. + + +6. + +Eusebius has set before us this attribute of Catholicism in a passage in +his history. "These attempts," he says, speaking of the acts of the +enemy, "did not long avail him, Truth ever consolidating itself, and, as +time goes on, shining into broader day. For, while the devices of +adversaries were extinguished at once, undone by their very +impetuosity,--one heresy after another presenting its own novelty, the +former specimens ever dissolving and wasting variously in manifold and +multiform shapes,--the brightness of the Catholic and only true Church +went forward increasing and enlarging, yet ever in the same things, and +in the same way, beaming on the whole race of Greeks and barbarians with +the awfulness, and simplicity, and nobleness, and sobriety, and purity +of its divine polity and philosophy. Thus the calumny against our whole +creed died with its day, and there continued alone our Discipline, +sovereign among all, and acknowledged to be pre-eminent in awfulness, +sobriety, and divine and philosophical doctrines; so that no one of this +day dares to cast any base reproach upon our faith, nor any calumny, +such as it was once usual for our enemies to use."[442:1] + + +7. + +The Psalmist says, "We went through fire and water;" nor is it possible +to imagine trials fiercer or more various than those from which +Catholicism has come forth uninjured, as out of the Egyptian sea or the +Babylonian furnace. First of all were the bitter persecutions of the +Pagan Empire in the early centuries; then its sudden conversion, the +liberty of Christian worship, the development of the _cultus sanctorum_, +and the reception of Monachism into the ecclesiastical system. Then came +the irruption of the barbarians, and the occupation by them of the +_orbis terrarum_ from the North, and by the Saracens from the South. +Meanwhile the anxious and protracted controversy concerning the +Incarnation hung like some terrible disease upon the faith of the +Church. Then came the time of thick darkness; and afterwards two great +struggles, one with the material power, the other with the intellect, of +the world, terminating in the ecclesiastical monarchy, and in the +theology of the schools. And lastly came the great changes consequent +upon the controversies of the sixteenth century. Is it conceivable that +any one of those heresies, with which ecclesiastical history abounds, +should have gone through a hundredth part of these trials, yet have come +out of them so nearly what it was before, as Catholicism has done? Could +such a theology as Arianism have lasted through the scholastic contest? +or Montanism have endured to possess the world, without coming to a +crisis, and failing? or could the imbecility of the Manichean system, as +a religion, have escaped exposure, had it been brought into conflict +with the barbarians of the Empire, or the feudal system? + + +8. + +A similar contrast discovers itself in the respective effects and +fortunes of certain influential principles or usages, which have both +been introduced into the Catholic system, and are seen in operation +elsewhere. When a system really is corrupt, powerful agents, when +applied to it, do but develope that corruption, and bring it the more +speedily to an end. They stimulate it preternaturally; it puts forth its +strength, and dies in some memorable act. Very different has been the +history of Catholicism, when it has committed itself to such formidable +influences. It has borne, and can bear, principles or doctrines, which +in other systems of religion quickly degenerate into fanaticism or +infidelity. This might be shown at great length in the history of the +Aristotelic philosophy within and without the Church; or in the history +of Monachism, or of Mysticism;--not that there has not been at first a +conflict between these powerful and unruly elements and the Divine +System into which they were entering, but that it ended in the victory +of Catholicism. The theology of St. Thomas, nay of the Church of his +period, is built on that very Aristotelism, which the early Fathers +denounce as the source of all misbelief, and in particular of the Arian +and Monophysite heresies. The exercises of asceticism, which are so +graceful in St. Antony, so touching in St. Basil, and so awful in St. +Germanus, do but become a melancholy and gloomy superstition even in the +most pious persons who are cut off from Catholic communion. And while +the highest devotion in the Church is the mystical, and contemplation +has been the token of the most singularly favoured Saints, we need not +look deeply into the history of modern sects, for evidence of the +excesses in conduct, or the errors in doctrine, to which mystics have +been commonly led, who have boasted of their possession of reformed +truth, and have rejected what they called the corruptions of +Catholicism. + + +9. + +It is true, there have been seasons when, from the operation of external +or internal causes, the Church has been thrown into what was almost a +state of _deliquium_; but her wonderful revivals, while the world was +triumphing over her, is a further evidence of the absence of corruption +in the system of doctrine and worship into which she has developed. If +corruption be an incipient disorganization, surely an abrupt and +absolute recurrence to the former state of vigour, after an interval, is +even less conceivable than a corruption that is permanent. Now this is +the case with the revivals I speak of. After violent exertion men are +exhausted and fall asleep; they awake the same as before, refreshed by +the temporary cessation of their activity; and such has been the slumber +and such the restoration of the Church. She pauses in her course, and +almost suspends her functions; she rises again, and she is herself once +more; all things are in their place and ready for action. Doctrine is +where it was, and usage, and precedence, and principle, and policy; +there may be changes, but they are consolidations or adaptations; all is +unequivocal and determinate, with an identity which there is no +disputing. Indeed it is one of the most popular charges against the +Catholic Church at this very time, that she is "incorrigible;"--change +she cannot, if we listen to St. Athanasius or St. Leo; change she never +will, if we believe the controversialist or alarmist of the present day. + + * * * * * + +Such were the thoughts concerning the "Blessed Vision of Peace," of one +whose long-continued petition had been that the Most Merciful would not +despise the work of His own Hands, nor leave him to himself;--while yet +his eyes were dim, and his breast laden, and he could but employ Reason +in the things of Faith. And now, dear Reader, time is short, eternity is +long. Put not from you what you have here found; regard it not as mere +matter of present controversy; set not out resolved to refute it, and +looking about for the best way of doing so; seduce not yourself with the +imagination that it comes of disappointment, or disgust, or +restlessness, or wounded feeling, or undue sensibility, or other +weakness. Wrap not yourself round in the associations of years past; nor +determine that to be truth which you wish to be so, nor make an idol of +cherished anticipations. Time is short, eternity is long. + + NUNC DIMITTIS SERVUM TUUM, DOMINE, + SECUNDUM VERBUM TUUM IN PACE: + QUIA VIDERUNT OCULI MEI SALUTARE TUUM. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[442:1] Euseb. Hist. iv. 7, _ap._ Church of the Fathers [Historical +Sketches, vol. i. p. 408]. + + +THE END. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + +The abbreviations i. e. and e. g. have been spaced throughout the text +for consistency. + +The following corrections have been made to the text: + + Page 5: or the vicissitudes[original has vicissisudes] of + human affairs + + Page 20: St. Justin was ready to concede to creatures.[period + missing in original] + + Page 39: but is modified, or[original has or or] at least + influenced + + Page 100: professes to accept,[original has period] and which, + do what he will + + Page 102: and more explicit than the text.[period missing in + original] + + Page 118: which is unsuitable to the Ante-nicene[original has + Antenicene] period + + Page 133: almost universality in the primitive Church.[133:1] + [footnote anchor missing in original--position verified in an + earlier edition] + + Page 172: whether fairly or not does not interfere[original + has interefere] + + Page 227: a good-humoured superstition[original has + supersition] + + Page 288: He explained St. Thomas's[original has extraneous + comma] + + Page 306: of Himeria in Osrhoene[original has Orshoene] + + Page 309: During the interval, Dioscorus[original has + Discorus] was tried + + Page 320: to contain scarcely[original has scarely] a single + inhabitant + + Page 336: derive its efficacy from human faith."[quotation + mark missing in original] + + Page 344: orthodoxy will stand or fall together.[period + missing in original] + + Page 365: true Unitarianism of St.[period missing in original] + Augustine. + + Page 416: as it is said in the Apocalypse,[original has + extraneous quotation mark] "The dragon + + [13:2] British Critic, July, 1836, p. 193.[period missing in + original] + + [18:3] Basil,[original has period] ed. Ben.[period missing in + original] vol. 3,[comma missing in original] p. xcvi. + + [81:2] _Essay on Assent_, ch. vii. sect. 2.[period missing in + original] + + [148:1] In Psalm 118, v. 3,[original has period] de Instit. + Virg. 50. + + [162:1] Serm.[period missing in original] De Natal. iii. 3. + + [213:1] p. 296, t. 5, mem. p. 63, t. 16,[comma missing in + original] mem. p. 267 + + [216:1] Sueton. Tiber.[period missing in original] 36 + + [234:3] [footnote number missing in original] Acad. Inscr. ibid. + + [235:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch.[period missing in original] 16, note + 14. + + [237:2] In hon. Rom. 62.[original has comma] In Act. S. Cypr. + 4 + + [259:1] Haer. 42,[original has period] p. 366. + + [280:1] De Gub.[period missing in original] D. iv. p. 73. + + [288:1] Lengerke, de Ephrem[original has extraneous period] + Syr. pp. 73-75. + + [302:2] overthrow of all heresy, _especially_ the + Arian,[original has period] + + [331:2] _Vid._ also _supr._[period missing in original] p. + 256. + + [369:1] Infra,[original has period] pp. 411-415, &c. + + [371:1] Epp.[period missing in original] 102, 18. + + [371:2] Contr. Faust.[original has comma] 20, 23. + + [371:3] August.[letter "s" not printed in original] Ep. 102, + 18 + + [399:1] Rosweyde,[original has period] V. P. p. 618. + + [442:1] Euseb.[period missing in original] Hist. iv. 7 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Development of Christian Doctrine, by +John Henry Cardinal Newman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE *** + +***** This file should be named 35110.txt or 35110.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/1/35110/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lisa Reigel, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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