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 DEC 22 1969 
 
 
 

 

 
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ON THE RIGHT USE 
 
 THE EARLY FATHERS. 
 

 
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WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 PLAIN SERMONS PREACHED to a COUNTRY CONGREGATION. 
 Fifth Edition. Two vols. post 8vo, 12s. 
 
 UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES in the WRITINGS of the OLD and 
 Se oN an ARGUMENT of their VERACITY. Ninth Edition. 
 ost 8vo, 6s. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH during the FIRST THREE CENTURIES. 
 Fourth Edition. Post 8vo, 6s. 
 
 THE PARISH PRIEST: His Duties and Obligations. Fifth Edition. 
 Post 8vo, 63. 
 
 LITERARY ESSAYS. 8vo, 12s. 
 

 
 
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 tea EN 
 Wy, ys / 
 
 <A ogicaL sews 
 ON 
 
 THE RIGHT USE 
 
 Che ECarlp Fathers. 
 
 BY J. J. BEUNT, Ba, 
 
 LATE MARGARET PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AT CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 Chiud Crition. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STRERT. 
 1869. 
 
 [The right of Translation is reserved.] 
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PREFACE. 
 
 Ir was stated by Professor Blunt, in the Introductory Lecture 
 on the Study of the Hartly Fathers,’ which he delivered 
 shortly after his election to the Margaret Professorship, that 
 he intended to “take the Fathers successively in their order; 
 submitting to” his hearers “ the pith and body of each; some 
 portions of them abridged; but much of them, especially 
 such passages as seem to have a peculiar value and _ force, 
 literally .... translated.”? His Lectures, during the five 
 years which ensued, were in accordance with this announce- 
 ment; and it was not until he had gone through a consider- 
 able number of the Early Fathers in this way, that the 
 Course “On the Right Use” of them, consisting of two 
 Series, was delivered, the first in the October Term of 1845, 
 the second in the October Term of 1846; subsequent to 
 which, additions were made to many of the Lectures, and the 
 . Second Series, especially, was considerably enlarged. 
 
 It may be presumed, therefore, that this Course of Lectures 
 exhibits, in a connected form, the conclusions to which the 
 author intended to lead his hearers by the detailed examina- 
 tion of the Fathers, through which he had conducted them. 
 And that his own conviction of their soundness was well- 
 grounded at the first, and was never shaken afterwards, may 
 be inferred from these Lectures being, as he tells us, “ the re- 
 sults of many years’ patient reading and thought,’ *® and from 
 
 1 See “ Two Introductory Lectures on 2 First Introductory Lecture, p. 6. 
 the Study of the Early Fathers, with a On the Right Use of the Early 
 brief Memoir of the Author.” Cam- | Fathers, p. 215. 
 bridge, 1856. 
 
v1 PREFACE. 
 
 his adhering in them to the plan which he originally laid 
 down. 
 
 In pursuance of that plan, after pointing out in the first 
 Lecture of the First Series “a few of the more undeniable 
 tokens” ' of our Church’s respect for antiquity, and the causes 
 which led to its decline, he proceeds in those that follow to 
 enlarge on the observation which he had made in the Intro- 
 ductory Lecture already referred to, that “we must be careful 
 not to let our estimate of the worth, or worthlessness of the 
 Fathers, be formed at second hand, from a mere perusal of 
 such authors as Daillé and Barbeyrac, whose only object is 
 to single out whatever imperfections they present, and place 
 them before their readers in continuous succession, and with- 
 out one lucid interval of merit.” The objections of Daillé 
 are stated and answered in eight of the Lectures, and those 
 of Barbeyrac more briefly in the two last. And as it had 
 been urged that where the Romanist, the Puritan, or the 
 Socinian are at issue with ourselves respecting the true inter- 
 pretation of the inspired text, there is no better way of 
 “testing our respective opinions than by recourse to the Pri- 
 mitive Church ;”* the peculiar tenets of the Romanist are 
 here tried by this test, and it is shown that however distaste- 
 ful the testimony of the Fathers may have been to Daillé and 
 to those whose opinions he represented, it is favourable to the 
 Reformed Church of England, especially upon those points in 
 which she is opposed to the Church of Rome. 
 
 But the more complete illustration of the advantages to be 
 derived from the study of the Early Fathers is reserved for 
 the Second Series. The first five Lectures illustrate their use 
 as contributing to the Evidences ; and the insinuations thrown 
 out in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Gibbon’s His- 
 tory, are met by a review of their testimony to the early 
 diffusion of Christianity, to the rank and character of the 
 Christians, and to the nature, extent, and intensity of the 
 persecutions they underwent. In the sixth, the evidence for 
 the continuance of miraculous powers beyond the lives of 
 those on whom the Apostles laid their hands, is considered. 
 In the seventh, eighth, and ninth, the use of the Fathers is 
 shown in determining the nature and constitution of the 
 
 "On the Right Use of the Early] ? First Introductory Lecture, p. 39. 
 Fathers, p. 4. |} 3p. 35. 
 
PREFACE. vil 
 
 Church, in settlmg the Canon, and in ascertaining the text 
 of Scripture. In the next five, which relate to the interpre- 
 tation of Scripture, the Socinian and the Calvinistic schemes 
 are compared with the language of the Early Fathers, and 
 shown to be inconsistent with it, as that of the Romanist 
 was shown to be in the First Series: while, in the concluding 
 Lecture, the importance of a knowledge of the Fathers, to 
 the expositor of Scripture, is further argued from the informa- 
 tion they furnish on early heresies, and other points, obscurely 
 alluded to in the New Testament; and a few instances are 
 added of their use in the exposition of particular texts. 
 
 There is reason to think that some of the Lectures would 
 have been enriched with additional illustrations, if the author 
 had lived to perfect the work, and prepare it for the press, as 
 he had intended. It is hoped, however, that its publication 
 in the shape in which he left it, may serve to promote the de- 
 sion which he had at heart in composing it ; by inducing the 
 theological student to turn his “attention, next after the Scrip- 
 tures, to the Primitive Fathers ; not with blind allegiance, as 
 authorities to which he must in all things bow, but with such 
 respect as is due to the only witnesses we have, of the state 
 and opinions of the Church immediately after the Apostles’ 
 times, and such as the Church of England herself encou- 
 rages,” 
 
 ' First Introductory Lecture, pp. 11, 12. 
 

 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FIRST SERIES, 
 
 ‘ 
 ON THE OBJECTIONS TO THE STUDY OF THE FATHERS ADVANCED BY DAILLE 
 AND BY BARBEYRAC. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 PAGE 
 The study of the Early Fathers recommended. Their testimony appealed 
 to by the Church of England in the Prayer Book, in the Articles, in the 
 Canons; and by the Reformers, e. g. Jewel, Philpot, Grindal. Decline of 
 reverence for antiquity at the period of the Rebellion. Milton. Effect of 
 the Revolution. Influence of foreign Reformers. Treatises of Daillé and 
 
 Barbeyrac . : - : . : : ; 5 : - : 
 
 LECTURE If. 
 
 Division of Daillé’s treatise into two heads. His first argument in support 
 of his first proposition. Unfairness of it. Discussion of a passage in 
 Eusebius. Fragments of the Early Fathers collected by Dr. Routh. Tllus- 
 trations of their value. Second argument of Daillé. Incidental allusions 
 to important topics in the Fathers, overlooked by him. ‘Their evidence 
 not to be gathered without careful study. Illustration of this in establish- 
 ing the doctrine and ritual of the Church. And in the Romish contro- 
 versy, e. g. on Transubstantiation, the Papal esa Auricular Con- 
 
 fession, Image Worship. : : : ; : : a ee 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Third argument of Daille—its insufficiency to establish his proposition. 
 The quotation of the Sibyl by the Fathers explained. Vindication of 
 them from the charge of dishonesty in quoting Apocryphal books. Opin- 
 ions of Vossius, Hammond, and others, on the Epistle of Barnabas, and 
 the Pastor of Hermas. Arguments of Daillé against the Epistles of 
 
/ 
 
 ¥ 
 
 CONTENTS. ‘ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ignatius inconclusive. Comparison of passages in Irenmus, Polycarp, 
 Tertullian, with passages in those Epistles. Quotation of them by Origen. 
 Improbability that Eusebius should have been deceived as to their genu- 
 imeness . : ; . : A - i - = é “ 
 
 LECTURE IY. 
 
 Fourth argument of Daillé. Vagueness of it. The Fathers disposed of in 
 
 the same way by Priestley. Paucity of MSS. Antiquity of some of the 
 Versions. Improbability that the Fathers previous to Cyprian have been 
 tampered with by the Romanists. Discussion of passages claimed as 
 favourable to Romish views. The writings of Irenseus full of evidence 
 against them. His appeal to tradition the same as that of the Church of 
 England. The writings of Clemens occasionally corrupt. Discussion of 
 passages in them claimed by the Romanists. Germ of Romish errors dis- 
 coverable in Clemens. The same remark true of Tertullian. But neither 
 his writings nor those of Hippolytus in a condition satisfactory to a Romish 
 interpolator : ° s ° . : 4 ° - “ . 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 State of the writings of Origen. Theory of their interpolation by the Ro- 
 
 manists untenable. Their testimony against Transubstantiation; Prayers 
 in a tongue not understood by the people; the withholding of the Serip- 
 tures; Disciplina arcani; the use of Images; Vows of celibacy; the Wor- 
 ship of saints or angels; Purgatory. First instance of Romish interpo- 
 lation pointed out by James. Neglect of the Early Fathers by the 
 Romanists. Remark of Dodwell. The story of Paschasinus insufficient 
 to support the inference drawn from it by Daille : - “ : : 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Interpolation of Cyprian in the editions of Manutius and of Pamelius; 
 
 continued by the Benedictine editors. Purity of earlier editions. No 
 evidence of the corruption of MSS. Limited extent of the remaining 
 corruptions in the edition of Manutius. Mass of evidence in Cyprian 
 against the Romanists ; on the Papal Supremacy ; on Transubstantiation ; 
 on Tradition; on Absolution; on Extreme Unction; on the number of 
 the Sacraments. Germ of abuses discoverable in him; not introduced 
 by the Romanists. Estimate of patristic testimony formed by English 
 Divines since the Reformation. Causes of the outcry against the Fa- 
 thers raised by Daille and others . : : ; : ; . * 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 The Fathers objected to by Daille on account of their obscurity. Value of 
 
 incidental evidence. Clear testimony of Justin and of Tertullian on the 
 Arian question, and on the Eucharist. Charge of wilful obscurity. Occa- 
 sional reserve accounted for. Frank exposition of the Christian Ritual in 
 the Apologies. Reserve of Clemens Alexandrinus. Plan of his writings; 
 
 46 
 
 66 
 
 86 
 
CONTENTS. — 
 
 PAGE 
 and motive of it. Difficulty of Tertullian. Method of studying him 
 recommended. ‘Testimony of the Fathers to principles distasteful to 
 Daille. Further objection to their style on account of the change which 
 has taken place in the meaning of words. Corresponding changes in 
 things to be tested by comparison with the Primitive Church. Result of 
 that comparison : 2 : : : 5 0 = : : = ee 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 ; Clemens Alexandrinus the only Ante-Nicene Father charged with disinge- 
 nuousness by Daillé. His instance from Cardinal Perron. Passages 
 liable to misconstruction in Clemens and in Origen. Inference of Daillé 
 from the illogical reasoning of the Fathers disputed. Their use of the 
 argumentum ad hominem explained. Value of their testimony notwith- 
 standing. Instances of inconsistency from Clemens and from Tertullian. 
 Relative importance of different topics not confounded by the Fathers. 
 Daille’s instances to the contrary examined. The Early Fathers fair expo- 
 nents of the sentiments of the early Church; especially where they were 
 identified with their respective Churches; and where they concur with 
 each other. Allowance to be made for the peculiar character of their 
 times . : . . : : . + ° : ° ° . 146 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Second proposition of Daillé. His charges against the Fathers of inac- 
 curacy, ignorance of Hebrew, use of allegory, examined. Important 
 principle involved in the latter. Why it was so largely resorted to. Ex- 
 cessive use of it by Clemens and Origen. Doctrinal errors of the Fathers 
 insufficient to overthrow their testimony. Daillé’s instances of their dis- 
 erepancies chiefly Post-Nicene. Discrepancies of the Ante-Nicene con- 
 fined to minor points. Their concurrence in important ones the more 
 striking. Concluding objection of Daille. The appeal to the Fathers not 
 excluded by the sixth Article. Discretion of our Church in her use of 
 them. Scripture and antiquity the authorities appealed to by our Re- 
 
 formers. . 4 : 5 5 eos A é 5 5 . 164 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Occasion of Barbeyrac’s work. His imperfect acquaintance with the Fa- 
 thers, and misconstruction of their writings. His charge against Justin, 
 that he encouraged volunteering martyrdom, examined. Sentiments of 
 Clemens, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, on this subject. Warmth of their 
 language accounted for. Martyrdom instrumental in the establishment 
 of Christianity. Language of the Fathers concerning marriage explained 
 by the circumstances of their times. True view of the case given by Ter- 
 tullian in his treatise Ad Uxorem. Extrayagances of later times not 
 chargeable on the Early Fathers 
 
Xu CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 PAGE 
 Further illustration of the defect in Barbeyrac’s reasoning. Examination 
 
 of his charge against Tertullian of interdicting trades connected with 
 idolatry, the profession of arms, national customs, offices of state. Un- 
 fairness of regarding in the abstract what was meant only to apply to 
 particular circumstances. Sentiments of Tertullian and Cyprian on self- 
 defence accounted for. Justification of idolatry among the Pagans in 
 Clemens, owing to a misinterpretation of Deut. iv. 19. His real opinion 
 on that subject. Defence of writers subsequent to the third century 
 declined. Late ecclesiastical antiquity less deserving of confidence. Sub- 
 jects of the second Series Ss “ : ® : : - 20 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 On THE ADVANTAGES TO BE DERIVED FROM THE STUDY OF 
 THE Earty FATHERS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in relation to the Evidences. Their testimony to the 
 wide dispersion of the Gospel opposed to the statements of Gibbon. His 
 unfairness in citing them. Argument from their incidental allusions. 
 More direct testimony to the early establishment of Christianity on the 
 shores of the Mediterranean and Euxine, and in the countries beyond 
 the Euphrates. Its secret progress illustrated from the Acts, from St. 
 Paul’s Epistles, from the Fathers. Its disturbance of the social relations 
 instrumental to its propagation. Exposition of Phil. i. 12-18. Further 
 illustrations. Effect of the public games . ° : 5 - . 219 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 The insinuation of Gibbon respecting the rank and character of the early 
 - Christians, originally advanced by the heathen opponents of Christianity, 
 and answered by the Apologists. The fact, that many persons of wealth 
 and education were Christians, proved, from the acquirements of the 
 Fathers, from their specific assertion of it, from their addressing them- 
 selves to the rich and intelligent, from the fund at the disposal of the 
 
 Church. Variety of demands upon the pecuniary resources of the Chris- 
 tians. Remarks on the Libellatici . : : : : ‘ 238 
 
 « ._* 
 
CONTENTS. xl 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 PAGE 
 The insinuation of Gibbon, that the Church was recruited, 1°. By aban- 
 doned characters, suggested by Celsus, inconsistent with the primitive 
 discipline, the probation before Baptism, the responsibility attaching to 
 the sponsors, the appeal of the Apologists to the pure morality of the 
 Christians, their charges of laxity against the heretics and the philoso- 
 phers, the treatment of the lapsed, the frequency of excommunication : 
 2°. By mercenary persons, repudiated by Origen, inconsistent with the 
 precautions used against mercenary motives and the maladministration of 
 the Church fund, and with a passage in the Constitutions : 3°. By found- 
 lings, incapable of being substantiated by any positive evidence. Pro- 
 bability that it might happen occasionally. Negative proof that it did not 
 
 happen systematically. How the Church fund was really expended . . 257 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The opinion of Sir James Mackintosh on Gibbon’s sixteenth chapter. The 
 statements of the latter to be corrected by a review of the Early Fathers. 
 Their testimony, 1°. To the eatent of the persecutions of the Christians. 
 The classification into ten great persecutions untenable. Inquiry whether 
 the edicts of Nero and Domitian were repealed. Effect of those of Trajan, 
 Hadrian, Antoninus. Christianity a capital offence from the time of Nero 
 downwards. Martyrdom of Ignatius. Remarks of Tertullian on Trajan’s 
 edict. Subsequent activity of persecution. That at Lyons and Vienne a 
 sample of others. The assertion of Origen respecting the number of 
 martyrs relative, not positive. Motives in various quarters for setting per- 
 secution on foot , c : ° ° : : : : - - 273 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Testimony of the Fathers, 2°. To the intensity of the persecutions, unduly 
 extenuated by Gibbon. Reflections on his account of the Letter of Pliny 
 and of the martyrdom of Cyprian. Early narratives of martyrdom not 
 to be confounded with the fictions of later times. The sources of infor- 
 mation as reliable as those from which Gibbon drew his history. Expla- 
 nation of a passage in Eusebius unfairly used by him. 8°. To the nature 
 of the persecutions. Domestic as well as official ones foretold by Christ. 
 Verification in the effect of Christianity on the relations of husband and 
 wife, parent and child, master and servant. Its inconsistency with many 
 trades and occupations. Consequent pecuniary losses to the converts. 
 Their embarrassment in legal and commercial proceedings . : . 293 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Review of passages in the Early Fathers bearing witness to the exercise of 
 miraculous powers in their times. Unanimity of this testimony. Estimate, 
 which ought to be formed of it; and difficulty of resisting it. The powers 
 of exorcism and healing diseases more decidedly asserted than others. Cor- 
 respondence of this with the terms in which the powers were conferred, 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 and with the record of their exercise in the Acts. The same correspond- 
 ence between the Scriptural and Ecclesiastical records observable in an- 
 other particular. The exercise of miraculous powers by those on whom 
 the Apostles laid their hands established by inspired authority. The 
 theory of the cessation of all miracles with their lives unsatisfactory . 310 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in the inquiry concerning the nature and construction of 
 the Church. The outline of it, which may be inferred from the Acts and 
 the Apostolical Epistles, filled up by them. A standing ministry deriving 
 its authority from the Apostles, and consisting of three Orders, included 
 in their definition of it. Direct proof of this from the Fathers them- 
 selves: indirect, from the practice of heretics. Incidental character of 
 the evidence. Variety of quarters from which it is drawn. Conclusion in 
 the words of Hooker : ; : : 5 - - : - 329 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in settling the Cunon of the New Testament. Appeal to 
 them in the sixth Article. Method of establishing the Canon stated 
 by Jones. [Illustration of this method with reference to the Gospels, the 
 Acts, the Epistles, the Revelation. Discussion of questions, whether 
 the autographs of the Apostles existed in the time of Tertullian; whether 
 any Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians is missing; whether the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians is rightly so entitled; whether St. Paul was the 
 author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Use of the Fathers in proving 
 that the substance of the Canonical books, the beginnings and endings of 
 the Gospels, the incidents of our Lord’s ministry, the circumstances 
 recorded in the Acts, the tenour of the Epistles, were the same in their 
 times as they are now : - : : : ; ° 4 - . 346 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in ascertaining the teat of the New Testament. Their 
 motives for accuracy in this particular. Importance of their testimony in 
 establishing the genuineness of whole passages. The impression pro- 
 duced by it increased, when the occasion of it is known. Its use further 
 exemplified, where the genuineness of the passage is doubtful, as 1 John 
 y. 7, and the subscription of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. The 
 same testimony of still greater value in the criticism of single words ; 
 opposed to the reading of Griesbach and Wetstein in Acts xx. 28, and to 
 that of the “ Improved Version” in Rom. ix. 5. Some other examples . 365 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in unfolding the meaning of Scripture: I. Their testi- 
 mony opposed to the Socinian scheme, 1°. In the spirit of their exposi- 
 tions, which is evangelical, not rationalistic. Extent to which the Old 
 Testament is applied by them to Jesus Christ. Concurrence of our 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 Church and of our standard divines in this principle of interpretation. 
 The proof of it from the Fathers independent of the merit of their par- 
 ticular expositions. Actual uncertainty as to the extent of symbolical 
 teaching in Scripture. 2°. On the doctrine of the Trinity. Statement of 
 the Racovian Catechism. The Creed of the early Church shown to have 
 been Trinitarian from the exposition of particular texts; from the opinions 
 of early heretics ; from primitive practices and formularies ; and from the 
 correspondence of the Athanasian Creed with the writers of the first three 
 centuries. Unguarded language of these writers, especially of Origen, 
 accounted for 3 : : . . 383 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 The testimony of the Fathers opposed to the Socinian scheme, 3°. On the 
 doctrine of the Atonement. Statement of the Racovian Catechism. The 
 death of Christ, according to the Fathers, a sacrifice—expiatory, vicarious, 
 universally necessary. Unreasonableness and hardihood of rejecting a 
 doctrine thus guaranteed. 4°. On the nature and effect of Baptism. 
 Statement of the Racovian Catechism. Unanimity of the Fathers on 
 Baptismal Regeneration. Variety of forms in which they assert it. The 
 effect of Baptism, according to them, the work of the Holy Ghost. Their 
 account of it meant to apply to infants as well as to adults. Evidence for 
 Infant Baptism. The office of sponsors recognised. The benefit not 
 ascribed to the opus operatum, but represented as contingent on the obser- 
 vance of the Baptismal promises. Strictness of the Early Church in 
 this particular. : : . - 5 . : 2 . 416 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 The testimony of the Fathers opposed to the Socinian scheme, 5°. On the 
 Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Statement of the Racovian Catechism. 
 Sentiments of the Fathers. The Eucharist contemplated by them, first 
 as a sacrifice, not material (except as including an oblation of the fruits 
 of the earth), but commemorative of the Sacrifice of Christ; and secondly, 
 as the spiritual food of his Body and Blood. Their testimony unfavour- 
 able to the Romish as well as to the Socinian views. The benefit not 
 ascribed to the opus operatum, but represented as dependent on the fitness 
 of the recipient. Strictness in this particular. : 5 3 H . 445 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in unfolding the meaning of Scripture: II. Their testi- 
 mony opposed to the*Calvinistic scheme, 1°. On the freedom of the will. 
 The assertion of it by the Fathers distinct and emphatic. 2°. On the 
 degree of human corruption. The consequences of the Fall recognised 
 by the Fathers, but not in a manner satisfactory to the Calvinist. Their 
 language upon this point dubious and conflicting. Cause of their embar- 
 rassment. (Illustrations. Vindication of the Fathers from the charge of 
 Pelagianism. Their teaching on the necessity of Divine grace for the 
 recovery and restoration of man. < A - - A : . 466 
 
XVl CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 PAGE 
 The testimony of the Fathers opposed to the Calvinistic scheme of interpre- 
 tation, 8°. On the nature of spiritual influence. The language of the 
 Fathers incompatible with the Calvinistic doctrine of irresistible grace. 
 4°. On election and reprobation. What the Fathers understood by the 
 terms, foreknown, elect, predestined, saints. Their exposition of pas- 
 sages of Scripture relating to this subject. Prophecy, according to them, 
 an evidence of the Divine Foreknowledge, yet not so as to control the con- 
 tingency of events. Tenets akin to the Calvinistic ascribed by Origen to 
 the Valentinians. His exposition of Rom. ix. : : ~ - 495 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in unfolding the meaning of Scripture: IIT. Prevailing 
 mistake of applying a modern standard of interpretation to passages 
 which should be explained by reference to an ancient one. The informa- 
 tion, which the Fathers give, on early heresies, the true key to much of 
 the New Testament. The method of Dr. Hammond substantially cor- 
 rect. Succession of heresies. Observation of Tertullian. Illustration 
 of it from the writings of St. John. St. Paul explained with reference to 
 the Gnostic heresy by Irenzeus. Application of the same method by Ter- 
 tulian. Further allusions to the doctrines and phraseology of the 
 Gnostics discoverable in the Apostolical Epistles. IV. Interpretation of 
 individual texts by the Fathers. Their comments not always to be relied 
 on; yet often superior to those of modern days. Tlustrations - . 507 
 
 Passages of Scripture explained or referred to. c 4 6 5 - 523 
 
 Index F : : , a : A 5 A ‘ : - 526 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 RIGHT USK OF THE HARLY FATHERS. 
 
 ——__—. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 ON THE OBJECTIONS TO THE STUDY OF THE FATHERS 
 ADVANCED BY DAILLE AND BARBEYRAC. 
 
“ Qui divino theologis studio operam datis, qui chartis potissimum sacris im- 
 pallescitis; qui venerandum sacerdotis officium aut occupatis aut ambitis; qui 
 tremendam animarum curam suscepturiestis ; excutite preesentis seculi pruritum, 
 fugite affectatam novitatem, quod fuit ab initio querite, fontes consulite, ad an- 
 tiquitatem confugite, ad sacros Patres redite, ad Eeclesiam primitivam respicite ; 
 h. e. ut cum propheta nostro loquar ; Interrogate de semitis antiquis.”—Bp. PEARSON. 
 Concio I. Minor Theological Works, vol. ii. p. 6. 
 
 Ye who are devoting yourselves to the divine study of theology; ye who are 
 growing pale over the sacred Scriptures above all; ye who either already occupy 
 the venerable office of the priest, or aspire to do so; ye who are about to under- 
 take the awful care of souls; put away from you the taste of the times; have 
 nothing to do with the novelties that are in vogue; search how it was in the 
 beginning ; go to the fountain head; look to antiquity; return to the reverend 
 Fathers ; have respect unto the Primitive Church; that is, to use the words of 
 the prophet I am handling, Ask for the old paths. Jer. vi. 16. 
 
ON THE RIGHT USE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE EARLY FATHERS. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 The study of the early Fathers recommended. Their testimony appealed to by 
 the Church of England in the Prayer Book, in the Articles, in the Canons; 
 and by the Reformers, e. g. Jewel, Philpot, Grindal. Decline of reverence for 
 antiquity at the period of the Rebellion. Milton. Effect of the Revolution. 
 Influence of foreign Reformers. Treatises of Daillé and Barbeyrac. 
 
 DO not think that I shall be employing my time or yours 
 
 ill, if I call your attention in a Course of Lectures to the 
 right use of the early Fathers and the force of the objections 
 made against them. It is true that when on former occasions 
 I have produced an analysis of them successively, I have not 
 lost sight of this object ; and having completed the abstract 
 of each, I have briefly shown the purposes such Father might 
 serve, and the questions he might be made to illustrate. I 
 have reason to hope that a more correct estimate of the merits 
 and defects of these primitive authors has been formed, or is 
 in the course of formation, amongst many of the younger stu- 
 dents of this place. Still I cannot but observe, in mixing 
 with society in the country, that the amount of real know- 
 ledge on this subject generally dispersed is very small—very 
 small even amongst the clergy themselves—and the smallest 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE FATHERS APPEALED TO BY OUR CHURCH ([Sentss I. 
 
 of all amongst such of them as deal in the loudest declamation 
 against patristic authority, a subject still much misunderstood, 
 and regarded with a jealousy altogether unreasonable. 
 
 Now whatever may be the case with the Protestant 
 Churches on the Continent, nothing can be clearer than 
 that the Reformed Church of England does refer her mem- 
 bers very constantly to these Fathers ; does make her appeals 
 to them with great confidence ; that Isaac Casaubon, in writ- 
 ing to Salmasius, Ep. 837, a passage quoted by Dr. Words- 
 worth in his very valuable Theophilus Anglicanus,' has reason 
 to say, “Si me conjectura non fallit, totius Reformationis pars 
 integerrima est in Anglia, ubi cum studio veritatis viget stu- 
 dium antiquitatis.” So that to treat them with contempt, 
 which so many, and those even ministers of her communion 
 do, is to act as much in violation of the spirit of that Church 
 as others are represented by them to do, whose bias lies in 
 another direction. I made this appear, some time ago, in two 
 introductory Lectures to the study of the Fathers, which I 
 published, as well as since, in many incidental remarks which 
 have fallen from me in the course of my Lectures themselves. 
 Without, therefore, repeating at full all the details I may have 
 put you already in possession of, I shall still think it best to 
 remind you, at the opening of this present series, of a few of 
 the more undeniable tokens of this characteristic of our 
 Church, her respect for antiquity, in order to justify myself in 
 making the right use of the early Fathers, and the considera- 
 tion due to the objections levelled at them, the express argu- 
 ment of a Course of Lectures; in order to show that in thus 
 employing myself and you, I am acting strictly in accordance 
 with the instructions she gives me, as a Professor in her 
 schools ; and in order to vindicate our own University (if vin- 
 dication she wants) in causing the Fathers to be an element 
 in the theological examination to which she now invites those 
 amongst her students who have an intention of entering into 
 Holy Orders. 
 
 You will find our Church, then, explaining the principles 
 on which her Prayer Book is constructed, in the preface to it, 
 in the following language :—First of all she remarks that 
 “there was never anything by the wit of man so well devised, 
 or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not 
 
 ? Part II. ch. v. 
 
Lect.I.}] IN THE PRAYER BOOK, IN THE ARTICLES, 5 
 
 been corrupted : as, among other things, it may plainly ap- 
 pear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called 
 Divine Service. The first original and ground whereof, if a 
 man would search out by the ancient Fathers, he shall find 
 that the same was not ordained but of a good purpose, and 
 for a great advancement of godliness.” She then goes on to 
 lament that for “these many years passed,” (7. e. in Romish 
 times) “this godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers 
 hath been altered, broken, and neglected, by planting in un- 
 certain stories and legends, with multitude of responds, verses, 
 vain repetitions,” &c. She then proceeds to announce that 
 these inconveniences having been considered, “such an Order” 
 (in the Common Prayer Book) was “set forth, whereby the 
 same” were “redressed.” And she concludes with recom- 
 mending her Prayer Book as “an Order for Prayer, and for 
 the reading of the Holy Scripture, much agreeable to the 
 mind and purpose of the old Fathers, and a great deal more 
 profitable and commodious, than that which of late was used.” 
 Such is the spirit in which our Prayer Book was compiled ; 
 and if you examine it in detail, you will perceive at once how 
 very large a part, both of-its liturgy and ceremonial—how 
 many of its prayers and hymns—how much of its creeds— 
 how great a proportion of its sacramental offices and rules— 
 it owes to early antiquity. 
 
 The Articles, as not deriving their original construction 
 from the same primitive date, but begun and perfected during 
 the period of the Reformation itself; have naturally less of this 
 primitive complexion, and consequently find greater favour 
 than the Liturgy in the eyes of those who would have been 
 better pleased, had our Reformation proceeded upon principles 
 of more extreme Protestantism, and who would, therefore, be 
 ready to adopt the Articles, and the Articles only, as the test 
 of heresy ; thus disintegrating the Prayer Book, and deposing 
 the authority of that portion of it which, if any comparison 
 is to be instituted between the several parts, certainly occupies 
 the more direct channel of primitive tradition. It will be 
 perceived, however, that though not formed expressly out of 
 ancient models, they are to a very great degree consistent 
 with ancient patristical precedent, and have been shown to 
 correspond in the main, both in sentiment and phraseology, 
 with the writings of the Primitive Church, both by Bishop 
 
6 IN TIIE CANONS OF 1571, IN THE ORDINAL, ([Sentes I. 
 
 Beveridge in his notes on his Exposition of the Articles; by 
 Welchman ; more recently and more fully by Mr. Harvey’; 
 and still more recently by Mr. Browne.” Nor, indeed, does 
 the language itself of the Articles fail, occasionally at least, to 
 point to this fact ; sufficiently often, at any rate, to show that 
 their compilers were not under the impression which now pre- 
 vails among so many, that those writings are but dangerous 
 edge-tools. Thus, in the 6th Article, we read of the “ Canon- 
 ical Books of the Old and New Testament,” being those “ of 
 whose authority there was never any doubt in the Church ; ” 
 of the Church reading “other books (as Hierome saith) for 
 example of life and instruction of manners.” In the 24th, 
 of its being “repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom 
 of the Primitive Church to have public Prayer in the Church, 
 or to minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understanded of 
 the people.” In the 35th, of the Books of the Homilies con- 
 taining “a godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for 
 these times,” the very plan of which Books of Homilies, be it 
 remembered, from first to last, is to argue by appeals first to 
 Scripture and then to the Fathers. It would be waste of time 
 to give proofs of this. Such is the spirit of the Articles. 
 
 No wonder, therefore, that in the canons of 1571, it should 
 be enjoined on preachers, “Concionatores,” “First and fore- 
 most to take heed, that they do not teach anything in their 
 sermons as though they would have it scrupulously held and 
 believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the doctrine 
 of the Old and New Testament, and what the Catholic Fa- 
 thers and ancient Bishops have gathered from that doctrine.” 
 Or that the Bishop in the Ordination Service for Priests, is in- 
 structed to inquire of the candidate who presents himself for 
 imposition of hands, whether he will “be diligent in Prayers, 
 and in reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies as 
 help to the knowledge of the same”—what studies do help 
 to such knowledge in the estimation of the Church being made 
 sufficiently manifest by the canon just recited, which may be 
 taken, indeed, as a comment on the Bishop’s question. For 
 though these canons may not be technically binding, howbeit 
 subscribed by the Bishops of both provinces, and approved by 
 
 ' Eeclesisee Anglicans Vindex Catho- 4 Articles, by Edw. Harold Browne, M.A., 
 licus. Cantabrigize, m.deec.xli. 1850. 
 2 An Exposition of the Thirty-nine 
 
Lect. LJ IN THE CANONS OF 1603; 7 
 
 the Queen, but as it happened not ratified by her in form!'; 
 _ yet as coming out in the very year, 1571, when the Book of 
 Articles was again solemnly approved by the Queen and Con- 
 vocation, they may well be used to interpret the animus of 
 the Church. 
 
 And as if the Church would herself, by her own authori- 
 tative teaching, give her ministers an example of the man- 
 ner in which the knowledge of the primitive Fathers would 
 enable them to maintain her cause against her enemies and 
 gainsayers, and the way in which she would have it ap- 
 plied by them, she proposes in her 30th Canon to defend the 
 use of the Cross in Baptism, alleging, amongst other argu- 
 ments, that “the honour and dignity of the name of the Cross 
 begat a reverend estimation even in the Apostles’ times (for 
 aught that is known to the contrary) of the sign of the Cross, 
 which the Christians shortly after used in all their actions ;” 
 that they “signed therewith their children when they were 
 christened, to dedicate them by that badge to his service, 
 whose benefits bestowed upon them in Baptism the name of 
 the Cross did represent ;’ that “this use of the sign of the 
 Cross in Baptism was held in the Primitive Church, as well by 
 the Greeks as the Latins, with one consent and great applause ;” 
 that if at that time “any had opposed themselves against it, 
 they would certainly have been censured as enemies of the 
 name of the Cross, and consequently of Christ’s merits, the 
 sign whereof they could no better endure ;” that “this con- 
 tinual and general use of the sign of the Cross is evident by 
 many testimonies of the ancient Fathers.” And then, from 
 the particular case under consideration passing on to the ge- 
 neral principle, the canon continues, that “it must be confessed, 
 that in process of time the sign of the Cross was greatly 
 abused in the Church of Rome, especially after that corruption 
 of popery had once possessed it ;” but that “the abuse of a 
 thing doth not take away the lawful use of it. Nay, so far 
 was it from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake 
 and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, or 
 any such like Churches, in all things which they held and 
 practised, that, as the Apology of the Church of England con- 
 fesseth, it doth with reverence retain those ceremonies, which 
 do neither endamage the Church of God, nor offend the minds 
 
 1 Grindal’s Remains, edited for the Parker Society, p. 327. 
 
8 AND BY THE REFORMERS, JEWEL, (Senrtes I. 
 
 of sober men; and only departed from them in those parti- 
 cular points, wherein they were fallen both from themselves in 
 their ancient integrity, and from the Apostolical Churches, 
 which were their first founders.” And then reverting to the 
 case which gave rise to these general remarks, the use of the 
 Cross in Baptism, the canon proceeds, that accordingly, “for 
 the very remembrance of the Cross, which is very precious to 
 all them that rightly believe in Jesus Christ, and in the other 
 respects mentioned, the Church of England hath retained still 
 the sign of it in Baptism: following therein the Primitive and 
 Apostolical Churches ;” that “the use of the sign of the Cross 
 in Baptism, being thus purged from all popish superstition and 
 error, and reduced in the Church of England to the primary 
 institution of it, upon those true rules of doctrine concerning 
 things indifferent, which are consonant to the Word of God, 
 and the judgment of all the ancient Fathers,’ it is “the part 
 of every private man, both minister and other, reverently to 
 retain the true use of it prescribed by public authority.” 
 
 I have given the substance of this canon at greater length, 
 as considering it a fair specimen of the line of argument which 
 our Church suggests as the safe and judicious one for her mi- 
 nisters to take in dealing with popish antagonists, and as giving 
 evidence of the impression she wishes her members to receive 
 with respect to the principles of the Reformation, and the spi- 
 rit with which she desires to animate them. 
 
 Accordingly, if you look at Jewel (to whose Apology you 
 see this very canon refers, affording it, as it were, an indirect 
 sanction), you will perceive throughout the work this same 
 characteristic of the Reformation, a reverence for antiquity— 
 his argument, the whole Apology through, adverting to the Pri- 
 mitive Church, to Scripture and the testimony of the Catholic 
 Fathers, to the witness of the ancient Fathers and ancient 
 Councils, to the model of primitive times, to the Church of 
 the old Catholic Bishops and Fathers, for so continual are his 
 allusions to this topic, that he has to ring all the changes he 
 can think of on the terms, in order to relieve his style. Nor 
 is there anything singular in the instance of Jewel. The re- 
 verence for antiquity is a feature, more or less marked, of the 
 temperament of almost every member of the Church or Eng- 
 land of that day, of whom we know anything at all. How, 
 indeed, could it be otherwise? It was an inheritance to which 
 
Lect. 1. RIDLEY, 9 
 
 they succeeded. Instead of turning, as we do in these days, 
 to a contemporary commentator, or to one who has not pre- 
 ceded us by more than a few generations, to a Hammond, a 
 Patrick, a Whitby, a Henry, or a Scott; they as naturally 
 took from their shelves an Augustine or a Jerome, a Basil or 
 a Chrysostom, or some catena collected out of the works of 
 these or other authors of a like date. Did they want a form 
 of prayer? Instead of devising one for themselves, they be- 
 took themselves to the old liturgies, and based their own upon 
 those. All the controversies that took place at the Reforma- 
 tion, and long afterwards, are deeply involved in the investi- 
 gation of antiquity——it was a line of debate which none 
 shrank from. It is a spirit foreign to that of the Reforma- 
 tion, and one that has sprung up since the Reformation, or at 
 least which has gathered all its strength since that event, 
 which is regardless of antiquity—a spirit which various causes 
 have served to foster, which I may touch upon by and by— 
 but as a practical and easy way of convincing yourselves that 
 I am not misrepresenting the Reformers, turn to the series of 
 works edited by the Parker Society, edited, no doubt, from a 
 feeling that it was time, as it indeed was, to draw the country 
 back to the contemplation of the sentiments of the Reformers, 
 and so provide a caveat against the supposed increasing allure- 
 ments of Rome. Is it then found, that because those Refor- 
 mers resisted the Pope, and the abuses of the Church over 
 which he presided, even to the death, they flinched from the 
 test of antiquity? That they set themselves to disparage 
 and vilify the Fathers, who are the witnesses of it? If any 
 expected to discover this in them, they must by this time have 
 perceived their mistake. No such disposition is theirs, but 
 the contrary. I waive such an,example as that of Ridley, 
 one of the authors whose writings and dissertations that So- 
 ciety has published, and a very mainspring of the Reforma- 
 tion, indeed the ablest and the most learned, perhaps, of its 
 leaders. I waive him, because he may be justly considered to 
 have taken higher Church grounds than many others in that 
 great movement, probably higher than those with whom he 
 more immediately acted; and I content myself with those 
 who had the reputation of being amongst the lowest and 
 most liberal Churchmen of their time; and who on that ac- 
 count have ever been spoken of with tenderness, if not with 
 
10 PHILPOT, [Senzes I. 
 
 affection, by dissenters themselves. Even in these I observe 
 a respect for patristic authority, such as would now expose the 
 party who entertained it to reproach. 
 
 Thus, let us take the case of Philpot, ‘the friend of Brad- 
 ford'; the approver of the Church of Geneva, and the doctrine _ 
 of ‘hs same”; the admirer of Calvin and of his Institutes’; 
 one, therefore, we may be sure, who was no type of the High- 
 Church party of his time. What, then, are the sentiments 
 that we find him advocating with respect to the reverence 
 due to antiquity, and to the Fathers its expositors? I give 
 some of them in the order in which they occur in the publica- 
 tion itself. 
 
 “Why, do you not think that we have now the true faith?” 
 is one of Bonner’s questions to him. “I desire your Lord- 
 ship to hold me excused for answering at this time—I am 
 sure that God’s Word thoroughly, with the Primitive Church, 
 and all the ancient writings do agree with this faith I am of” 
 —is Philpot’s reply.‘ 
 
 “Take the book” (a copy of Irengeus) ‘“ Master Philpot, 
 and look upon that place, and there may you see how the 
 Church of Rome is to be followed of all men ;” saith to him 
 the Bishop of Gloucester. 
 
 Philpot takes the book, and sifts the passage* and then con- 
 cludes, “but the Church of Rome hath swerved from that 
 truth and simplicity of the Gospel, which it maintained in 
 Trenzeus’s time, and was then uncorrupted from that which it 
 is now: wherefore your Lordships cannot justly apply the au- 
 thority of Irenzeus to the Church of Rome now, which is so 
 manifestly corrupted from the Primitive Church.’’® 
 
 “J pray you,’ says the Bishop of Gloucester once more, 
 “by whom will you be judged in matters of controversy 
 which happen daily ?” 
 
 “ Philpot. By the Word of God. For Christ saith in St. 
 John, the Word that He spake shall be judge in the latter 
 day.” 
 
 “Gloucester. What if you take the Word one way, and I 
 another way ? who shall be judge then ?” 
 
 “ Philpot. The Primitive Church.” 
 
 . Philpot’s Examinations and Writ- 5 Treneeus, IIT. ec. iii. § 2. 
 ings, p. Xiv. © Phipot’s Examinations, p. 25. 
 2 p. 153. * p. 46. = 10 bre 
 
Lecr. I.] PHILPOT, 11 
 
 “Gloucester. I know you mean the Doctors that wrote 
 thereof.” 
 
 «“ Philpot. I mean verily so.” 
 
 “T pray you,” saith the Bishop of Coventry, “can you tell 
 what this word ‘Catholic’ doth signify ? Shew, if you can.” 
 
 “ Philpot. Yes, that I can, I thank Gop. ... I esteem the 
 Catholic Church to be as St. Augustine defineth the same: 
 “We judge,’ saith he, ‘the Catholic faith, of that which hath 
 been, is, and shall be.’ So that, if you can be able to prove 
 that your faith and Church hath been from the beginning 
 taught, and is, and shall be, then may you count yourselves 
 Catholic, otherwise not.” ? 
 
 “ All the Catholic Church (until these few years), saith 
 the Bishop of St. Asaph, “have taken him” (the Bishop of 
 Rome) “to be the supreme head of the Church, besides this 
 good man Irenzeus.” 
 
 “ Philpot. That is not likely, that Irenzeus so took him, or 
 the Primitive Church: for I am able to shew seven general 
 
 Councils after Irenzeus’s time, wherein he was never so-taken ; 
 ~ which may be a sufficient proof, that the Catholic Primitive 
 Church never took him for supreme head.’ * 
 
 “ Bishop of Coventry. Why will you not admit the Church 
 of Rome to be the Catholic Church ?” 
 
 “ Philpot. Because it followeth not the Primitive Catholic 
 Church, neither agreeth with the same, no more than an apple 
 is like a nut.” 
 
 “Coventry. Wherein doth it dissent ?” 
 
 “ Philpot. It were too long to recite all; but two things 
 I will name, the Supremacy, and Transubstantiation. .. . 
 Transubstantiation is but a late plantation of the Bishop of 
 Rome; and you are not able to shew any ancient writer, 
 that the Primitive Church did believe any such thing.” 
 
 “Coventry. How prove you that the Church of Rome now 
 dissenteth in doctrine and use of the Sacraments from the 
 Primitive Church ?” 
 
 “ Philpot. Compare the one with the other, and it shall 
 soon appear; as you may see both in Eusebius and other 
 ecclesiastical and ancient writers.” * 
 
 “London. How long hath your Church stood, I pray 
 you ?” 
 
 ' Philpot’s Examinations, p. 29. 2 pp. 87, 38. 3p. 39. 4p. 40. 
 
12 PHILPOT, [Serres I. 
 
 “ Philpot. Even from the beginning; from Christ, and 
 from his Apostles, and from their immediate successors.” 
 
 “Chancellor. He will prove his Church to be before 
 Christ !” 
 
 “Philpot. If I did so, I go not amiss: for there was a 
 Church before the coming of Christ, which maketh one 
 Catholic Church.” 
 
 “Chancellor. It is so indeed.” 
 
 “ Philpot. I will desire no better rule than the same which 
 is oftentimes brought in of your side, to prove both my faith 
 and Church Catholic; that is, antiquity, universality and 
 unity.” 
 
 “London. Do you not see what a bragging foolish fellow 
 this is? He would seem to be very well seen in the doctors, 
 and he is but a fool. By what doctor art thou able to prove 
 thy Church? Name him, and thou shalt have him.” 
 
 “ Philpot. My Lord, let me have all your ancient writers, 
 with pen, and ink, and paper, and I will prove both my faith 
 and my Church out of every one of them.” * 
 
 I had transcribed a good many passages from the writings 
 of Philpot, as published by the Parker Society, to the same 
 effect ; and meant to have produced them all, but I fear it 
 may weary you—possibly indeed you may think I have 
 quoted more than enough already; but I have laid these 
 before you, because in the first place I bear in mind, when 
 composing these Lectures, that some of my hearers are young, 
 and have not yet had time to make themselves masters of 
 points in theology which are very familiar to older heads ; 
 and I would rather be too copious than too concise, for the 
 sake of those to whose use these Lectures are chiefly dedicated 
 —and furthermore I have so done, because I could not other- 
 wise adequately possess any of you with the conviction, how 
 entirely the Church of the Reformation, so far from abandon- 
 ing or contemning the early Fathers, claimed them for her 
 own, and argued from them not incidentally and by the bye, 
 but systematically and perseveringly, producing them in her 
 controversies without stint or reserve; and not only the 
 higher Churchmen, but the very lowest and most latitudina- 
 rian, adopting this practice. 
 
 Take the case of another of the divines of that day, whose 
 
 _' Philpot’s Examinations, p. 73. 
 
Lect. I.]_ GRINDAL, 13 
 
 remains have been also edited by the same Society, Arch- 
 bishop Grindal; and whom I select for the same reason as I 
 did Philpot, his strong anti-high-church bias ; though, to say 
 the truth, his letters on the one hand, and his injunctions or 
 articles of inquiry to his clergy and others on the other, often 
 leave us a little at a loss to discover by what steady principle 
 of conduct he was governed. Without, however, entering 
 into these particulars, suffice it to say in a word, for 1t conveys 
 much in little, that he, like Philpot, was an admirer of Calvin. 
 “ Accedit etiam, uti ais,’ he writes to Zanchius, “Domini 
 Calvini calculus, qui subscriptionem tuam cum illis conditioni- 
 bus et exceptionibus approbavit : quod me multum confirmat : 
 nam illius judicio multum soleo tribuere.” “The opinion of 
 Master Calvin, moreover, as you say, is with you; who ap- 
 proved of your subscription under those conditions and 
 exceptions ; which much confirms me: for | am wont to pay 
 much deference to his opinion.” - Yet even he, in his “ fruit- 
 ful dialogue between Custom and Verity,” on the sense of the 
 words, “This is my body,” one of the few things he left 
 in print, deals in language from time to time such as the fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 “Wherefore first,’ says Verity, “I will declare the mean- 
 ing of these words, ‘This is my body ;’ and next in what 
 sense the Church and the old Fathers have evermore taken 
 them.” ? 
 
 Again. “But you will say, these are worldly reasons. 
 What, then, if the old Fathers record the same? Irenzeus 
 saith, ‘Quando mixtus calix et fractus panis percipit verbum 
 Dei, fit Eucharistia corporis et sanguinis Domini, ex quibus 
 augetur et consistit carnis nostree substantia.’” ; 
 
 Again. “Tush,” says Custom, “what speak you of the 
 Word of God? There be many dark sayings there, which 
 every man cannot attain to.” 
 
 “ Verity. I grant you, there be certain. obscure places in 
 the Scripture ; yet not so obscure, but that a man with the 
 erace of God may perceive: for it was written not for angels, 
 but for men. But, as I understand, Custom meddleth but 
 little with Scripture. How say you by St. Augustine, St. 
 Jerome, St. Ambrose? What, if they stand on our side?” 
 
 1 Grindal’s Remains, pp. 276, 277. 2 p. 40. 3p. 47. 
 
14 GRINDAL. [Serres I. 
 
 “Qustom. No, no; I know them well enough.” 
 
 “Verity. So well as you know them, for all old acquaint- 
 ance, if they be called to witness, they will give evidence 
 against you.” ? 
 
 Again. “Custom. The doctors and old writers, men in- 
 spired with the Holy Ghost, have evermore been against your 
 doctrine: yea, and in these days, the wisest men and best 
 learned call you heretics and your learning heresy.” 
 
 “Verity. As touching the old writers, I remember well 
 they speak reverently of the Sacraments, like as every man 
 ought to do; but whereas they deliver their mind with their 
 right hand, you, Custom, receive it with the left. For 
 whereas they say, that it is the body of Christ, and that it 
 must be verily eaten, meaning that it doth effectually lay 
 before the eyes Christ’s body, and that it is to the faithful 
 man no less than if it were Christ himself, and that Christ 
 must be eaten in faith, not torn nor rent with the teeth ; you 
 ‘say that, howsoever it be taken, it is Christ’s body, and that 
 there is none other eating but with the mouth. And that 
 the Fathers meant no other thing than I have said, it shall 
 appear by their words.” ? 
 
 And again, after a while: “What is so heious in these 
 days, as to call the Sacrament the token, or the remembrance 
 of Christ’s body? Yet did the old writers-in manner never 
 call it other. Tertullian, in the fourth book against the 
 Marcionites,”*® &e. 
 
 And, after many authorities cited in proof of this propo- 
 sition, it is added: “Hereby you may understand how and 
 in what sort the old Fathers, how the Primitive and begin- 
 ning Church, how the Apostles, how Christ himself, took these 
 words, ‘This is my body.’ Now, to withstand, and stoutly 
 to go against, not only ancient writers, or the congregation 
 of Christian people, which at that time was not overgrown, 
 no, neither spotted with covetousness and worldly honour, but 
 the Apostles also, and God himself, no doubt it is great fond- 
 ness.” * 
 
 And the whole Dialogue is summed up in these terms fol- 
 lowing: “Thus, so shortly, and in so few words as I could, I 
 
 ? Grindal’s Remains, p. 52. 2 p. 63. ® p. 64. oer 
 
Lect. T.] INFLUENCE OF THE PURITANS, 15 
 
 have declared to you what Christ meant by these words, 
 ‘This is my body ;’ what the Apostles taught therein, and in 
 what sort they delivered them to their successors; in what 
 sense and meaning the holy Fathers and old writers, and 
 the Universal and Catholic Church, hath evermore taken 
 them.” } 
 
 This reverence for antiquity, however, this appeal to the 
 Primitive Church, this respect for the Fathers, its witnesses— 
 so characteristic of the Reformation, as carried on in England 
 —was, by degrees, worn out; several causes, as I have said, 
 concurring to efface it; some of a violent, some of a more in- 
 sidious kind. Of the first of these kinds was the great Re- 
 bellion, which took the form of a religious contest, and was 
 conducted by the triumphant party on principles entirely 
 opposed to those which the Fathers are calculated to uphold. 
 The tendency of their teaching, as to the state, is passive 
 obedience ; for, though many of them living and writing 
 under emperors who were persecutors of the Church, they 
 manifest no disposition whatever to resist them, or to persuade 
 others to do so. They content themselves with making appeals 
 to their sense of justice; with disabusing them of many mis- 
 conceptions, with respect to the Christians, under which they 
 laboured ; with praying for them; and defending in general 
 the faith and practice of Christians ; and with reminding the 
 Christians that the powers which were ordained of God were 
 adapted to the times in which they governed—good rulers 
 sent for the benefit of a good generation ; evil rulers for the 
 correction of a bad one; but both sent by God. Again, as 
 to the Church, their tendency was clear for three orders of 
 the ministry; an Apostolical succession; definite creeds ; 
 strict unity ; as we shall see in the sequel of these Lectures. 
 How could the impatient spirits which worked out the great 
 Rebellion find satisfaction in authors like these ? 
 
 Accordingly, for the matter of fact, look at Milton—not 
 an unfair type, surely, of his party; not the coarse fanatic, 
 which was the material of which so large a portion of the 
 Puritans was composed, who had few early associations, 
 whether of literature or of birth, to soften him; but one 
 who had ever himself a certain feeling for ages gone by, 
 and the monuments they had left us. 
 
 1 Grindal’s Remains, p. 74. | 2 Treneus, V. c. xxiv. § 3. 
 
16 MILTON, [Senzes I. 
 
 “ But let my due feet never fail 
 
 To walk the studious cloyster’s pale, 
 
 And love the high embowed roof, 
 
 With antick pillars massy proof, 
 
 And storied windows richly dight, 
 
 Casting a dim religious light: 
 
 There let the pealing organ blow, 
 
 To the full-voie’d quire below, 
 
 In service high, and anthems clear, 
 
 As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
 
 Dissolve me into eestasies, 
 
 And bring all heaven before mine eyes.” 
 I say that a man who, at any period of his life, could write 
 in this spirit, may be taken as, at least, no exaggerated type 
 of the Puritan, and of the ecclesiastical sentiments which 
 animated him. How, then, does Milton speak of the Fathers, 
 howbeit in this general invective giving no indication of any 
 close knowledge or acquaintance with them? Turn we to his 
 “Treatise of Prelatical Episcopacy.” 
 
 “Notwithstanding this clearness, and that by all evidence 
 of argument, Timothy and Titus, whom our prelates claim to 
 imitate only in the controlling part of their office, had rather 
 the vicegerency of an Apostleship committed to them, than 
 the ordinary charge of a Bishopric, as being men of an extra- 
 ordinary calling ; yet, to verify that which St. Paul foretold 
 of succeeding times, when men began to have itching ears ; 
 then, not contented with the plentiful and wholesome foun- 
 tains of the Gospel, they began, after their own lusts, to heap 
 to themselves teachers; and, as if the Divine Scripture 
 wanted a supplement, and were to be eked out, they cannot 
 think any doubt resolved, and any doctrine confirmed, unless 
 they run to that undigested heap and fry of authors, which 
 they call antiquity. Whatsoever time, or the heedless hand 
 of blind chance, hath drawn down from of old to this present, 
 in her huge drag-net, whether fish or sea-weed, shells or 
 shrubs, unpicked, unchosen, those are the Fathers. Seeing, 
 therefore, some men, deeply conversant in books, have had so 
 little care of late to give the world a better account of their 
 reading than by divulging needless tractates, stuffed with the 
 specious names of Ignatius and Polycarpus; with fragments 
 of old martyrologies and legends, to distract and stagger the 
 multitude of credulous readers, and mislead them from their 
 strong guards and places of safety, under the tuition of Holy 
 Writ; it came into my thoughts to persuade myself, setting all 
 
Lecr. I.] MILTON. Lig 
 
 distances and nice respects aside, that I could do religion and 
 my country no better service for the time, than domg my 
 utmost endeavour to recall the people of God from this vain 
 foraging after straw, and to reduce them to their firm stations 
 under the standard of the Gospel ; by making appear to them, 
 first, the insufficiency ; next, the inconveniency ; and, lastly, 
 the impiety of these gay testimonies, that their great doctors 
 would bring them to dote on.” 
 
 And, again, in his Dissertation “Of Reformation in Eng- 
 land :” “Such were these that must- be called the ancientest 
 and most virgin times between Christ and Constantine. Nor 
 was this general contagion in their actions and not in their 
 writings. Who is ignorant of the foul errors, the ridiculous 
 wresting of Scripture, the heresies, the vanities thick-sown 
 through the volumes of J. Martyr, Clemens, Origen, Tertullian, 
 and others of eldest time ?’’? 
 
 Moreover, how entirely Milton was impressed with the no- 
 tion, that the Reformers, properly so called, were governed by 
 feelings on this particular question, entirely opposed to his 
 own and those of his party, is manifest from another passage 
 in the same tract—a passage, which actually, and, in some 
 degree, even unjustly, confounds the Reformers with the Fa- 
 thers—so far is Milton, at least, from having discovered, as 
 many now do, that they are utter antagonists ; the one, all 
 that we can admire ; the other, all that we should eschew. 
 
 “ And here withal I invoke the Immortal Deity, Revealer 
 and Judge of all secrets, that, wherever I have in this book 
 plainly and roundly (though worthily and truly) laid open the 
 faults and blemishes of Fathers, Martyrs, or Christian Em- 
 perors, or have otherwise inveighed against the error and 
 superstition with vehement expressions, I have done it neither 
 out of malice, nor list to speak evil, nor any vainglory, but of 
 mere necessity to vindicate the spotless truth from an igno- 
 minious bondage, whose native worth is now become of such 
 low esteem, that she is like to find small credit with us for 
 what she can say, unless she can bring a ticket from Cranmer, 
 Latimer, and Ridley ; or prove herself a retainer of Constan- 
 tine, and wear his badge. More tolerable it were for the 
 Church of Gop that all these names were utterly abolished, 
 
 ? Milton’s Prose Works, vol. i. pp. 32, 33, Birch’s ed. 2 Vol. i: p.:9. 
 Cc 
 
18 EFFECT OF THE REVOLUTION. [Serres I. 
 
 like the brazen serpent, than that man’s fond opinion should 
 thus idolize them, and the heavenly truth be thus cap- 
 tivated.”" 
 
 If there be those who sympathize with the great poet in 
 his estimate of the Fathers, are they prepared to join him too 
 in the price he thus sets on the Reformers of our Church ? 
 After contemplating his case, should they not rather be induced 
 to suspect, that the same party who are adverse to the one 
 (whether conscious of the fact or not), are, in truth, adverse to 
 both ; and would be found to be so, were the turbulent times in 
 which Milton wrote, and which removed restraints and reserve, 
 to return, and all disguise to cease? The crisis, however, of 
 the great Rebellion, which was one of extreme violence, na- 
 turally called forth in corresponding strength the principles 
 that were antagonistic to it; so that if there was then a 
 large and headstrong party who thus despised antiquity, and 
 set at nought all reverence for patristical testimony, there was 
 also a most learned and able body of divines, who vindicated 
 both—some of the greatest our Church has ever known. To 
 such men as these, and their efforts, allusion is made by Mil- 
 ton in the extracts I have read to you. They may be supposed 
 to have had the advantage in the controversy ; for they had 
 far the most knowledge of the particular kind required for it 
 on their side’; so that, had the cause of antiquity been sub- 
 jected to no further assault, it would have recovered from this 
 shock. 
 
 But, after a while, came on the Revolution ; an event which 
 shed a much more disastrous influence on the taste for patristical 
 learning, because a more enduring and insidious one, than the 
 Rebellion. “ What we did at the Revolution,” says Dr. John- 
 son, “ was necessary; but it broke our constitution.”* Much 
 more might he have said, it broke our Church, which, how- 
 ever, was possibly what he meant. Henceforward a Presby- 
 terian form of Church government was to be recognised and 
 supported by the law of the land in one division of the Island, 
 as clearly as the Episcopalian in the other. The King and 
 
 ‘ Milton’s Prose Works, vol. i. pp. 
 4, 5. 
 ; ? Milton, indeed, publishing his trea- 
 tise of Reformation expressly “ to help 
 the Puritans, who were,” he says, “ in- 
 
 ferior to the Prelates in Jearning.”— 
 Johnson’s Lives of the English Poets, 
 vol. i. p. 98. 
 
 8 Boswell’s Life of Johnson, vol. y. 
 p. 50, 8vo. 1831. 
 
 
 
 
 
Lect. I.] WESLEY. 19 
 
 Parliament were henceforward taught to halt between the 
 two; and the great landed proprietors who had estates in 
 both countries, or even private persons who were connected 
 with both by ties of marriage or of trade, were neutralized 
 upon questions of ecclesiastical polity, which would heretofore 
 have been thought vital, and of which the Fathers were the 
 undeniable witnesses. The Non-jurors were the representa- 
 tives of the old Church feelings of the country ; and became, 
 in consequence of their sentiments, now out of fashion, dislo- 
 cated from a generation which had no sympathy with them ; 
 carrying away with them (though not entirely) that regard 
 for primitive times, which with them was destined by degrees 
 almost to expire. Convocation, which might have tended to 
 keep it somewhat alive, by encouraging a learned clergy, and 
 by bringing habitually before the laity ecclesiastical topics, 
 which, from the long absence of such a monitor, have now 
 faded so entirely from their minds as simply to call forth, if 
 by chance produced, their supercilious dismissal—Convocation 
 soon ceased to have a voice. The Church sunk into the 
 Establishment ; and the fruits of the change soon began to 
 discover themselves. By the time of Wesley, the high and 
 holy spirits, which had once animated it, had so far degenerated 
 into the secular, that some revival of it was seen to be plainly 
 necessary. But it was attempted in an age when the ancient 
 ways were forgotten ; and, consequently, in a spirit new and 
 revolutionary. The old Catholic usages (as distinguished from 
 the popish), instead of being sought out again, and quickened 
 into wholesome action, were set at nought, and a system then 
 devised, vigorous for the day, but which, having no foundations 
 laid in the depth of time and sacred precedent, has long since 
 given tokens of decrepitude and decay; and so far as it is 
 likely to survive at all, seems destined to do so as a schism. 
 It has had, however, its effect on the Church itself; and has 
 helped to harden many even of its clergy in that contempt, 
 or at least dislike, for antiquity and its witnesses, which the 
 other events I have touched on had so grievously engendered 
 already. 
 
 These were all causes acting to the disadvantage of the 
 Fathers and the disparagement of antiquity within ourselves. 
 There is one more which I shall name, that operated from 
 
 c 2 
 
20 INFLUENCE OF FOREIGN REFORMERS. (Series I, 
 
 without to the same result ; and that is, the character of the 
 Reformed Churches abroad, and the influence it indirectly ex- 
 erts on the ecclesiastical spirit of our own country. The sym- 
 pathies of those Churches (as Clarendon tells us') went along 
 with the Puritans in the civil wars, and, no doubt, have at- 
 tended the Dissenters ever since; and the works, that have 
 issued from them, have been confessedly composed to damage 
 the credit of the Fathers, who were utterly adverse to much of 
 their polity. Some of these works were written with great 
 ability and knowledge of the subject, but with all the prejudice 
 of the partisan. And no books probably have contributed 
 more to depreciate the Fathers, even in this country, than 
 Daillé’s treatise on the “Right Use” of them, and Barbeyrac’s 
 on their “Morality.” Daillé’s treatise has been circulated with 
 great industry. Though written originally in French, it 
 was translated into the universal language of Latin (a transla- 
 tion revised and supplied with additional matter by the 
 author himself), to give it unrestrained currency,’ as well as 
 into local languages. It probably had its effect, even on 
 such men as Chillingworth, and contributed to give his 
 theology the bias it has.° It certainly has been read by 
 thousands who have never troubled themselves to look into a 
 page of the Fathers for themselves; nor, after reading it, 
 would they perhaps feel much inclination to do so; yet, 
 without reading the Fathers, it is impossible to see the un- 
 fairness of Daillé’s arguments ; and I well remember that all 
 the early years of my life, my impression of these authors 
 was wholly that which Daillé had given me ; as almost all the 
 labours of my later years have tended to efface it. I shall 
 not, therefore, think my pains misemployed, if I devote the 
 series of Lectures I shall deliver this term to remarks on this 
 popular treatise of Daillé, “De Vero Usu Patrum,” and on the 
 other of Barbeyrac, so far as they affect the credit of the 
 Ante-Nicene Fathers, especially as I shall thus have a con- 
 
 ' History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. | emendati. Geneve, 1656. The Latin, 
 95. Oxf. 1720. therefore should seem to be the better 
 2 Joannis Dallei de usu patrum ad ea | work to refer to. 
 definienda religionis capita que sunt 3 See Churton’s Life of Bp. Pear- 
 hodie controyersa libri duo, Latiné é | son, prefixed to his Minor Theological 
 Gallico nune primum a J. Mettayero | Works, p. Ixxiii. 
 redditi; ab auctore recogniti, aucti, et 
 
Lect. I.] SUBJECT PROPOSED. 21 
 
 venient opportunity of clearing away im limine certain ob- 
 jections to the study of the Fathers, which one constantly 
 hears alleged, for they comprise nearly all; and, at the same 
 time, whilst clearing away these objections, I shall be pre- 
 paring you for going along with me—those amongst you, at 
 least, who are so disposed—when, in the next term, I shall 
 lay before you the positive advantages of that study. 
 
22 FIRST ARGUMENT OF DAILLE. (Senies I. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Division of Daillé’s treatise into two heads. His first argument in support of 
 his first proposition. Unfairness of it. Discussion of a passage in Eusebius. 
 Fragments of the early Fathers collected by Dr. Routh. Illustrations of their 
 value. Second argument of Daillé. Incidental allusions to important topics 
 in the Fathers, overlooked by him. Their evidence not to be gathered without 
 careful study. Illustration of this in establishing the doctrine and ritual of 
 the Church. And in the Romish controversy, e. g. on Transubstantiation, the 
 Papal Supremacy, Auricular Confession, Image Worship. 
 
 I PROPOSE, in the present Lecture, to redeem the promise 
 
 I made in the last, and offer you some remarks on the 
 celebrated treatise of Daillé, a distinguished minister of the 
 French Protestant Church (published in 1631), on “The 
 Right Use of the Fathers.” 
 
 Daillé divides his treatise into two general heads. First, 
 asserting that the testimony of the Fathers, owing to various 
 causes which he enumerates, is vague, uncertain, and obscure. 
 And, secondly, that, were it more clear and decisive, it is not 
 of such authority as to settle our controversies ; the latter 
 of the two divisions very much anticipated by the other. 
 
 In support of the former proposition, he sets out with 
 affirming, in terms of some exaggeration, the paucity of the 
 writings of the first three centuries; and quotes a passage 
 from the beginning of Eusebius’ History to prove in general, 
 before he proceeds to details, that very few persons in those 
 early times addicted themselves to composing books." But it 
 will be found, on reference to Eusebius, that he does not say 
 there were few or no books then written ; but that there were 
 none written on the plan he was proposing to adopt—ain fact 
 no ecclesiastical history or regular Church annals, which would 
 serve him for a precedent. For, having described the various 
 topics his own history was meant to embrace, he proceeds to 
 
 1 Daille, p 4. 
 
Lect. I1.] HE MISREPRESENTS EUSEBIUS. 23 
 
 propitiate his readers towards any defects which they might 
 discover in it; saying, “that his subject now required him to 
 ask the candid construction of the considerate; for that it 
 was a thing, he confessed, beyond his powers to promise a 
 narrative perfect and lacking nothing ; seeing that he was the 
 first person that had engaged in that particular argument ; 
 and so had to tread a road desert and unbeaten” (the clause 
 adduced by Daillé) ; “however, that his prayer was, he might 
 have God for his Guide, and the power of the Lord to work 
 with him, for that of men who had travelled the same way 
 before him (ryv avtyv jpiv mpowSevxdtwy 6dS0v) he could 
 find no trace ; save only a few materials, by which one or 
 other had left him some partial information of the times in 
 which they themselves lived.” And, again, a little afterwards, 
 repeating nearly the same words, he continues, “that he ac- 
 counted it the more necessary for him to undertake the labour 
 he was about, because he knew no ecclesiastical writer who had 
 as yet troubled himself about that particular department of 
 literature,’ meaning the department of ecclesiastical history. 
 The thing is worth observing, because the bias of Daillé 
 is thus made to appear by the turn he gives to a passage 
 of Eusebius on the very threshold of his work. 
 
 Nor is that bias less apparent in what follows; for post- 
 poning for a while any emphatic mention of the writings of 
 the first three centuries, which have come down to us entire, 
 or nearly so, he proceeds studiously to draw attention to the 
 fragments of the early Fathers which have survived—as if, of 
 the few works we have of the Primitive Church, scarcely any- 
 thing but fragments remained. And, accordingly, he gives a 
 list of authors whose bare names and titles (says he) have 
 been preserved by Eusebius, Jerome, and others.? Doubtless 
 the remains of several of those authors (the catalogue of which, 
 by the bye, his readers will perceive to be much larger than 
 Daillé’s previous proposition might have led them to expect) 
 are inconsiderable in bulk, compared with the entire works of 
 which they formed a part: but they are often of great value, 
 nevertheless ; and are very far from being mere names and 
 
 
 
 ' Mndeva to eis Sedpo Tay exkdn- 2 Quorum nuda nobis nomina et 
 c.iastikay ovyypapéewy Steyvev epi | tituli apud Kusebium et Hieronymum 
 TovTO THS ypapns rovdny TenoMpevoy | et alios supersunt.—p. 5, 
 
 TO péepos.—LKuseb. Kecles. Hist. i, ¢. 1. 
 
24 FRAGMENTS OF DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH, =‘ [Sentes I. 
 
 titles. They have been collected, as you are aware, from 
 various quarters in which they are scattered, by Dr. Routh, 
 and, together with the notes on them, as edited by him, are 
 enough to occupy four octavo volumes: those which had been 
 previously got together by Grabe, in his “ Spicilegium,” in 
 two volumes, having been mixed up with much that is apo- 
 eryphal. The venerable President of Magdalene College, in- 
 stead of describing them, as Daillé does, as mere names and 
 titles, regards them as documents throwing great light on 
 points in the Primitive Church that were otherwise obscure ; 
 and as worthy of all acceptation from their piety, learning, 
 and authority. “Quoniam autem mihi in animo fuit, statum 
 primeevee ecclesize et dogmata et mores ex ipsius, pro facul- 
 tate med, investigare monimentis, scripta omnia sanctiorum 
 eetatum legenda esse censui. Et vero, quod nihil omnino in 
 hoe genere praetermittere statuerim, id plurimum contulisse ad 
 obscuriora queedam clarius intelligenda szepe sum expertus. 
 Certe tot negligere Scriptores, quamvis mutilatos nimium, 
 haud oportuisset, quorum reliquiz pietate, doctrina, auctori- 
 tate, nobis commendatissimee sunt.’ And assuredly, an ex- 
 amination of the fragments themselves supports his estimate 
 of them. 
 
 Take, for instance, the fragments of the writings of Diony- 
 sius of Corinth (one of the cases Daillé produces), as found 
 in Eusebius. We learn from them, short as they are, that 
 Rome was even then a wealthy Church ; able to lay poor 
 Churches under pecuniary obligation to her ; and accustomed 
 to do so from the most early times. That the Epistle of 
 Clemens to the Church of Corinth was held in such respect as 
 to be then read in the Church of Corinth. That the Church 
 of Corinth and the Church of Rome had the same Apostles for 
 their founders, Peter and Paul, who both suffered martyrdom 
 at the same time at Rome. That there were those then 
 abroad who had the audacity to corrupt not only Epistles 
 written to Churches by the Bishops, but the Scriptures them- 
 selves. That there were then existing Churches at Lace- 
 dzemon, at Athens, at Nicomedia, at Gortyna, and other parts 
 of Crete, at Amastris, at Gnossus. That the Bishops of those 
 Churches were such and such persons; and that, in some 
 instances, they stood in the relation to one another of Prelate 
 
 * Relig. Sacr. Pref. vol. i. p. vill. 
 
Lecr. IT] NEGESIPPUS AND HIPPOLYTUS. 25 
 
 and Metropolitan—information certainly of much value, and 
 amounting to much more than a mere name and title. 
 
 So again, take the case of Hegesippus, another of the in- 
 stances cited by Daillé. In the fragments, which have reached 
 us, of his work, we have a minute and interesting account of 
 the character and death of James the Just; of his abstemious 
 habits; of his ascetic devotions ; of his influence with the 
 people; of the plot framed against him by the Scribes and 
 Pharisees ; of his testimony to the Saviour; of the cireum- 
 stances of his martyrdom—how he was cast down from the 
 Temple, then stoned, then beaten with the fuller’s club. We 
 have further some very curious particulars of the last sur- 
 vivors of the family of Our Lord: two old men grandsons of 
 St Jude, in the days of Domitian, possessed of no other 
 property than a small estate, which they cultivated with their 
 own hands; and living till the age of Trajan. We further 
 learn from the same source the state of the Churches es- 
 tablished in various quarters, which Hegesippus had _per- 
 sonally visited; the general soundness of their faith; the 
 uniformity of their teaching ; the succession of their Bishops— 
 all this very far from being fairly described under the designa- 
 tion of mere “name and title.” 
 
 The fragments of some other authors, who are mentioned in 
 Daillé’s catalogue, are even more copious in their information 
 than these, but it would be tedious to produce them all. I 
 must therefore beg you to satisfy yourselves of the fact by 
 reading them in the “ Reliquize Sacre” for yourselves. Whilst 
 in the instance of Hippolytus, who, again, is another of the 
 authors included in the list of Daillé, as having left us frag- 
 ments that amount to no more than a mere name and title, we 
 have not only passages of considerable length from a variety of 
 his works, such as commentaries on different books of Serip- 
 ture, particularly the Psalms, homilies, local histories, but also 
 whole treatises; as one concerning Christ and Antichrist ; 
 another on the Patripassian heresy of Noetus, havmg much 
 in common with Tertullian adversus Praxeam, and yielding 
 (besides much else that is valuable) many clear testimonies 
 to the Divinity of the Son, as well as to the doctrine of the 
 Trinity; another, a homily probably, for it seems to have been 
 addressed to an audience, on the Baptism of the Saviour, and 
 like the last affording the strongest evidence that the Godhead 
 
 
 
26 THE APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS. (Serres I. 
 
 of the Son was a doctrine of the Primitive Church, and giving 
 clear proof that the Sacrament of Baptism was, in the estima- 
 tion of the Primitive Church, the same holy and emphatic 
 ordinance which it is always represented to be in our own. 
 
 Neither does Daillé here take any notice of the Apostolical 
 Constitutions, as they are called, and Canons of early date, 
 which may still survive, and which may perhaps be regarded 
 as consisting, though not exclusively consisting, of materials 
 that belong to the period over which his observations extend. 
 For though there is abundant internal evidence in those Con- 
 stitutions, that they were not compiled into eight books, 
 which is the form they now wear, till after the Church had 
 been strongly established and dominant, even emperors sub- 
 ject to her ; yet there are, on the other hand, indications not 
 to be mistaken, of much of their substance beg of a date 
 most remote, perhaps Apostolical. Thus observe the very large 
 share of their attention, which is occupied by the heathen ; by 
 the prescriptions necessary for regulating the conduct of the 
 Christian in his carriage towards them in the. various rela- 
 tions of life; provision made for the case of mixed marriages; 
 for the case of master and servant being heathen and Chris- 
 tian; for the case of heathen festivals, heathen tribunals, 
 heathen evidence, heathen theatres, heathen processions, 
 heathen markets—all of them furnishing subjects for canonical 
 prohibition or caution. We find the persecutions and scoffs 
 of the heathen constantly brought under consideration : the 
 relapse to heathenism of Christians, who fancied themselves 
 aggrieved by the Church, guarded against: the obstacles 
 thrown in the way of public worship, and the consequent 
 necessity of repairing to private houses for social devotion, 
 noticed: the number of Gentile proselytes: the mean con- 
 dition of the Christian community. All these are features of 
 the very early date of those portions at least of the Constitutions 
 which deal with such particulars, however there may be other 
 portions connected with them which betray a later age. And 
 assuredly a very great amount of information on the state of 
 the Primitive Church is to be derived from a judicious and 
 discriminating investigation of these remains. 
 
 But after all the disparagement to which Daillé had sub- 
 jected the fragments of the Fathers, both as to their bulk and 
 contents, there still are left for him to dispose of, a good many 
 
 
 
Lect. IT.] SECOND ARGUMENT OF DAILLE. Q7 
 
 entire volumes of their works; those even before the Council 
 of Nice, as usually edited, not being fewer than twelve folios ; 
 and accordingly he advances a second argument, that from the 
 nature of the subjects treated by the Fathers of the first 
 three centuries, they have no reference whatever to present 
 controversies.' Whereupon he enumerates the several Treatises 
 of these early authors. Justin and Tertullian, Theophilus 
 and Lactantius, Clemens and Arnobius, teach the vanity of 
 the reputed gods; show that Jupiter, Mars, Juno, &c., were 
 mere mortals, and that there is but_one true God, the Creator 
 of heaven and earth. Irenzeus puts to the rout the foul and 
 foolish theories of Basilides, the Valentinians, and the other 
 Gnostics. Tertullian refutes these same heretics, and others 
 besides them, Marcion, Hermogenes, Apelles, Praxeas, and such 
 as maintain two gods, or two principles, and confound the 
 person of the Father and the Son. Cyprian is almost entirely 
 occupied in fostering the discipline and virtues of the Christian 
 Church ; and so on. And he triumphantly asks, What has all 
 this to do with Transubstantiation—with the adoration of the 
 Host—with the supremacy of the Pope—with the necessity of 
 secret confession—with the worship of images ; or with other 
 matters agitated nowadays’? But how evident is it, that all 
 this is directed to persons, who are to know nothing of the 
 Fathers, except through his report! How far from an honest 
 and ingenuous view of them is this ! 
 
 In the first place, how utterly imperfect and defective is 
 even this table of contents of the Fathers; probably not 
 embracing even a tenth part of the subjects which they 
 directly profess to handle ; several of them, too, subjects of 
 keen controversy still. But setting this consideration aside, 
 and even supposing for argument’s sake, that Daillé’s catalogue 
 of contents is complete ; he was sufficiently read in the Fa- 
 thers to know how totally inadequate an idea of the multi- 
 farious subjects, on which they either treat or touch, would 
 be got from a mere table of contents. Indeed, if there is one 
 thing more than another characteristic of these writers, it is 
 this : the vast magazine of most valuable information they 
 communicate to us quite incidentally and by the bye, a single 
 chapter perhaps, or a single sentence of a chapter, or some- 
 
 1A quibus (sc. controversiis ho- | teres in suis illis operibus tractant. 
 diernis) plané sunt aliena, que ve- | —p. 8. 2 pp. 8, 9. 
 
28 INFORMATION GIVEN INCIDENTALLY [Serres I. 
 
 times even a single expression in a sentence, occurring in a 
 treatise of which the bare title promises nothing of the sort, 
 furnishing us with the most interesting knowledge of some 
 point or other of doctrine, discipline, ritual, or usage of the 
 Church of the day, and taking us quite by surprise—insomuch 
 that no writers whatever will bear skipping, even for a line, 
 so ill as these. A desultory reader of the Fathers, nay, a 
 reader who is not the most patient and precise, and always 
 on the watch, can never be sure that he has not suffered some 
 paragraph or phrase to escape, which would in itself have re- 
 paid him for the perusal of the whole book. Nay, perhaps it 
 is necessary that his mind should be rendered sensitive to such 
 subjects, by living in times of controversy like our own, in 
 order that he may detect in them all that they contain. And 
 accordingly I think I can discover in some careful and able 
 investigators of the works of the Fathers, but whose researches 
 happened to be carried on when the Church was quiescent, 
 that they have left many hints of great value unimproved, 
 unperceived—the moment not propitious to the seizure and 
 application of them. Indeed, a slovenly mode of study, as Iam 
 sure the audience I am addressing will admit, is safe with no 
 works whatever ; but with those of the Fathers, I must repeat, 
 it is the most unsafe of all, owing to the little method observed 
 in almost all of them, and the utter absence of it in some; so 
 that Bishop Horsley might well take advantage, as he does, 
 of Dr. Priestley’s inadvertent admission, that he was in the 
 habit of “looking through” books, and might well feel 
 strengthened in the line of argument he had adopted with 
 that antagonist, namely, to waive the merits of the question 
 itself, and contend that Dr. Priestley was incompetent from 
 ignorance of his authors, who were of a kind not to bear 
 “looking through,”’ to engage in the discussion of it. In these 
 remarks I am sure that any of my hearers, who have accus- 
 tomed themselves to this department of study, would at once 
 acquiesce ; but for the benefit of those who have not, I will 
 produce a few examples. 
 
 Justin Martyr, according to Daillé, is employed in denounc- 
 ing the folly of idol worship, exposing the mere humanity of 
 Jupiter, Mars, &c., and asserting and enforcing the unity of 
 the true God. And though this may indeed be reckoned the 
 bare outline of his Apologies, and serve as a title to them ; we 
 
Lecr. IT.) BY JUSTIN MARTYR, CLEMENS, 29 
 
 meet with much in those Apologies which comes under no such 
 head. For instance, we there stumble upon a very accurate 
 account, the earliest we possess, of the manner in which pub- 
 lic worship was conducted by the Christians on Sundays—the 
 several parts of the Service—the reading of the Scriptures— 
 the Common Prayer, even some of the clauses of the Prayers 
 —the office for the Communion—even one minute feature of 
 that office, the use of the Lord’s Prayer, in the consecration.’ 
 The whole a passage of no great length, but pregnant with 
 conclusions the most valuable to all, who feel a reverence for 
 primitive ecclesiastical usage.’ 
 
 Again, the Paedagogue of Clemens Alexandrinus contains a 
 number of precepts which the Psedagogue (who gives a name 
 to the treatise) is supposed to impart to his pupil as he takes 
 him to school. These precepts relate to the application of 
 Christian principles (for the pupil is supposed to be a convert 
 from heathenism), to the various habits and customs of ordinary 
 life. Accordingly, regulations of the dress, and decoration of 
 the person, constitute the subject of one chapter. Now, who 
 would expect to find in such a place evidence for the practice 
 of Infant Baptism? Yet such is the case. The Peedagogue 
 is speaking of the lawfulness of wearing seals: he would have 
 them worn for use, not for ornament; expressly for the pur- 
 pose of securing matters that require safe keeping. He then 
 goes on to say what device he would have engraved on them ; 
 and recommends a dove, or a fish, or a ship under sail, or a 
 lyre, or an anchor ; or, he adds, if the party be a fisherman, 
 he will remember the Apostle and the children who are drawn 
 up out of the water (Kai tav && VdaTos avacrapever 
 masiwv)—a reference, apparently, to the words of Jesus to 
 his disciples, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of 
 men,” yet a passage so expressed, as to take into account 
 the means by which this was to be effected, even by ad- 
 ministering the Rite of Baptism, and Jnfant Baptism. Surely 
 this is a subject of controversy not foreign to our own times ! 
 So, again, when he is afterwards speaking of the application 
 of cosmetics to the complexion, a practice which he condemns, 
 his argument leads him to express a clear opinion on the active 
 
 1 Try be edx7s Adyou Tov map’ avTovu 3 Clem. Alex. Pedag. III. c. xi. p. 
 
 evyapiobcioay Tpopyy.—Justin Martyr, | 289. Potter's ed, 
 Apol, I. § 66, “S816 75 
 
30 IREN AUS, [Serres I, 
 
 influence of the Spirit on the heart of the Christian.' Yet 
 this would not have been exactly the quarter in which we 
 should have thought of looking for an enunciation of that 
 doctrine. 
 
 Take another instance. Irenzeus is occupied, Daillé tells 
 ‘us in refuting the Valentinians, the Basilidians, and other 
 Gnostics—and, no doubt, the heretical speculations, that he 
 has thus to contend against, are to the last degree absurd and 
 childish, and very little like any which we should have to 
 encounter in our own day. Are we then to lay Irenzeus 
 aside, under the conviction that his argument is no concern of 
 ours? We should lose a vast deal of information on matters 
 in which we ourselves take a deep interest, were we to do so ; 
 however little we may have in common with the general ob- 
 ject of the book. Thus, the heretics, with whom he had to 
 deal, vindicated many of their senseless tenets by the authority 
 of tradition. Ivrenzeus, therefore, meets them on their own 
 ground ; challenges tradition, provided it be genuine, as ut- 
 terly against them, being coincident with Scripture, and the 
 doctrines of the Church: he therefore prescribes the circum- 
 stances which were necessary to guarantee the truth of tradition, 
 that it should be found to be uniform in the several Churches, 
 which the Apostles had founded, and which Bishops had con- 
 tinued to preside over in regular succession, since the Apostles’ 
 days, down to his own ; at the same time producing a cata- 
 logue of these Bishops in the Church of Rome, and only ab- 
 staining from doing so in other Churches, out of fear of 
 wearying his readers.” All this is in refutation of certain 
 silly fancies of the heretics he was encountering. But does 
 a passage of this sort touch no controversies of our own age, 
 and is the author, to whom it belongs, of no value, because he 
 is only employed on Valentinus and his Atons? Nay, the 
 mention of these very Afons on one occasion, furnishes an ex- 
 ample of the kind we are now in search of, and much to our 
 present purpose. For these Gnostics, looking about them for 
 arguments to support them in their notion of their Hons, find 
 one, Irenzeus tells us, in an expression of St. Paul, Ephes. iii. 
 21, els mdoas Tas yeveas TOD al@vos TOV alwvev, and another 
 even in the language of the orthodox themselves, who when 
 they say at the Eucharist, eis rods aidvas Trav aiwver, have 
 
 ’ Clem. Alex. Pedag. III. c. xi. p. 29]. * Trenxus, III. ¢. iii. § 3. 
 
Lecr. IT.] TERTULLIAN, oe 
 
 an eye (they contend) to these Aions'; a most absurd argu- 
 ment of the parties who used it, no doubt, yet clearly showing, 
 however inadvertently, that there was a set form of Service 
 for the Holy Communion in the time of Irenzus, so well 
 known as to require a mere allusion to it in order to be under- 
 stood ; and which, therefore, must have descended from more 
 ancient times still : a fact concurrent with what had previously 
 dropped from Justin. Have casual passages of this kind, and 
 the Fathers abound in them, nothing to do with the contro- 
 versies of the present day, and may the authors in which 
 they are deposited be safely neglected, because their title- 
 pages happen to promise nothing of the sort? It cannot be 
 supposed that Daillé was ignorant of this feature of patristic 
 literature ; for it is scarcely possible to read a score of pages 
 in any department of it, which do not betray it. 
 
 I shall give you other examples of it still, because I am 
 anxious to impress on you, that this remark in refutation of 
 Daillé does not apply to one or two of the Fathers only, but 
 to them all, and I multiply them the rather, because in the 
 process I shall be still unfolding to you features of the 
 Primitive Church. One of Tertullian’s tracts is entitled, “On 
 the Crown,’ De Corona, a tract, to which the following incident 
 gave occasion. At a Donation of the emperor’s, one of the 
 soldiers appeared without a wreath or chaplet on his head ; 
 holding it instead in his hand, and thereby confessing himself 
 to be a Christian. He is accordingly treated as one, and sen- 
 tence is passed on him. Tertullian then undertakes to discuss 
 the question, whether the man should have submitted to wear 
 the wreath or not; and determines it in the negative. I 
 have nothing to do with the merits of the argument, or the 
 religious sentiments of Tertullian when he penned it. I 
 simply ask whether the title is such as would seem to hold out 
 any promise of the various topics touched or handled in the 
 treatise. For I find in it many particulars relating to the 
 administration of the Rite of Baptism—reference to promises 
 and vows as even then formally made in it, similar apparently 
 to those exacted by our own Church at this day, a renuncia- 
 tion of the devil and his pomps, for such is the phrase used.” 
 I further find it speaking of the Eucharist ; the time of its 
 
 1 Trensus, I. ¢. iii. § 1. bolo, et pompe, et angelis ejus.—Ter- 
 2 Contestamur nos renuntiare dia- | tullian, De Corona, c. iil. 
 
39 -- ORIGEN, CYPRIAN. [Serres I. 
 
 celebration ; the manner in which it was communicated to all, 
 as we may infer, in both kinds ; the officiating minister, an 
 ecclesiastic.’ I find it referring to the celebration of the an- 
 niversaries of saints as even then obtaining ; to the custom of 
 signing the forehead with the Cross, as was then usual.? Cer- 
 tainly, had we been in search of information on any of these 
 points, we should not have expected & priori to discover it in 
 an essay which had for its heading, De Corona. Yet there 
 it is. 
 
 Take another instance. Origen, in his Commentary on 
 Genesis, has a long discussion on Gen. i. 14. “ And God said, 
 Let there be lights in the firmament,” &c. Now, who would 
 have supposed that this would have been just the place to 
 turn to in Origen’s works, to discover his opinion on the doc- 
 trine of necessity, of the freedom of man’s will, his consequent 
 responsibility for his actions, the bearing such doctrine has 
 upon the efficacy of prayer, the nature of God’s foreknow- 
 ledge? Yet all these points, affecting as we must at once see 
 they do affect a signal -controversy of our own day, the Cal- 
 vinistic, enter into his discussion of this text; the prevailing 
 belief in astrology, a subject connected with these lights in 
 the firmament, paving the way to it.° 
 
 How little, again, would the titles of most of the Letters 
 of Cyprian enable us to guess at the multifarious matters to 
 be found in them—much of them, too, bearing very directly 
 on the controversies of modern times. 
 
 Nor is this all. Daillé, we have seen, exclaims with much 
 self-satisfaction, after giving his own description of the con- 
 tents of the writings of the Fathers, “ What has all this to do 
 with the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the worship of the Host, 
 the supremacy of the Pope, the necessity of secret confession, 
 the worship of images, and other matters agitated nowadays !” 
 But it is not necessary that the Fathers should be expressly 
 discussing these questions, in order to their giving us a great 
 deal of light, nevertheless, on the sentiments of the Church 
 with respect to them when they wrote. If the doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation had never been dreamed of in the days of 
 Justin or Irenzeus, or Clemens, it is certain enough that it 
 would be in vain to look for an argument upon it in their 
 
 - Tertullian, De Corona, ¢. iii, ® Origen, Comment. in Gen, i, 14, 
 ? Thid. vol. ii, p. 6. 
 
Lect. 1I.] ITS USE IN THE ROMISH CONTROVERSY. 33 
 
 works ; but they may not be less effective witnesses in the 
 dispute on that account. On the contrary, they may be the 
 very best of all we could have. For if such phrases unde- 
 signedly fall from them, when they are speaking of the Eu- 
 charist, as are quite inconsistent with the notion that they 
 believed in the corporal presence, that is all that is wanted to 
 prove that the corporal presence was not a primitive doctrine. 
 It is not necessary to require from them a regular disclaimer 
 of such doctrine in order to avail ourselves of- their testimony. 
 
 For example, there is a fragment of Irenzeus, of which the 
 following is a translation. “The Greeks seizing the slaves of 
 the Christian catechumens, used force to extort from them the 
 disclosure of some secret abomination of the Christians ; these 
 slaves having nothing to tell which would gratify their tor- 
 mentors, except that they heard their masters say, the Holy 
 Communion was the body and blood of Christ, thinking it 
 was really his body and blood (vouécavres 76 OvTe aipa Kat 
 capka eivat, i.e. making this mistake), reported the same to 
 the inquirers. Accordingly these latter, supposing that this 
 was actually the Christian mystery (AaBovtes os avtoypnua 
 ToUTo TedetoOat Xpiotiavois, i.e. under this wrong impres- 
 sion), made the same report to the rest of the Greeks, and 
 forced the martyrs Sanctus and Blandina by torture to a con- 
 fession. To whom Blandina made answer well and bravely, 
 How could we endure to do such an act; we who, in the 
 practice. of our Christian discipline, abstain even from per- 
 mitted food?”' Now, I ask, is it possible that such a passage 
 as this could have been penned, and yet the doctrine of Tran- 
 substantiation have been the doctrine of the Church at the 
 time ? for, if so, it would have been really the corporal body 
 and blood of Christ, which Christians profess to partake of ; 
 and the slaves would have been perfectly correct in the infor- 
 mation they gave the Greeks ; and there would have been no 
 room for Irenzeus to explain the circumstance under which the 
 misapprehension of the Greeks, prompted by that of the slaves, 
 occurred, for there would have been no misapprehension at all by 
 either party. Surely this is more decisive of the question of 
 Transubstantiation, than any express repudiation of it by Ivre- 
 nus would have been ; for so far from repudiating it, he only 
 wonders it could have ever entered into the head of the slaves to 
 
 1 Treneeus, Fragment XIII. p. 343, Bened. Ed. 
 D 
 
34 TRANSUBSTANTIATION. (Sentes I. 
 
 imagine ; manifestly ascribing it to the dulness of apprehension 
 which naturally belonged to that class of persons. 
 
 Take another instance. Cyprian, in a letter addressed to 
 Ciecilius, is contending against the practice of certain heretics 
 or innovators, who, in celebrating the Sacrament of the Lord’s 
 Supper, made use of water only, instead of water and wine 
 mixed (for it was the custom to mix those elements in the 
 Eucharist at that time, as it was inour own Church, till the Prayer 
 Book of 1549 was superseded by that of 1552, not in all 
 respects perhaps for the better). Now, argues Cyprian, “Since 
 Christ said, I am the true vine, the Blood of Christ is not 
 water, but wine. Nor can his Blood, by which we are re- 
 deemed and quickened, seem to be in the cup, when there is 
 no wine in the cup, by which Christ’s Blood is represented, 
 and of which there is a mystical mention made all Scripture 
 through.” Nec potest videri sanguis ejus, quo redempti et 
 vivificati sumus, esse in calice quando vinum desit calici, quo 
 Christi sanguis ostenditur.'| And again in the same Epistle, 
 “For as Christ bare us all, since he bare our sins, we per- 
 ceive that the people is understood in the water; the Blood 
 of Christ is represented by the wine.” Nam quia nos omnes 
 portabat Christus, qui et peccata nostra portabat, videmus 
 in aqua populum inftelligi, in vino vero ostendi sanguinem 
 Christi?—the word ostendi in the latter clause clearly in 
 apposition to the word intelligi in the former, i. e. the ele- 
 ment in either case is used figuratively ; and to make the 
 matter still more clear, Cyprian having quoted a well-known 
 text in the Epistle to the Galatians, adds, “Since, therefore, 
 neither the Apostle himself, nor an angel from heaven, could 
 preach any other doctrine, than that which Christ and _ his 
 Apostles preached once for all, I marvel more than a little, 
 whence it could come to pass, that in some places, contrary to 
 the Evangelical and Apostolical discipline, water should be 
 offered in the Lord’s cup, when water alone cannot possibly 
 express the Blood of Christ’’—quze sola Christi sanguinem non 
 possit exprimere*—evidently implying that wine did express 
 that Blood ; not that it was the Blood itself. Here you see 
 the evidence against the doctrine of Transubstantiation is 
 furnished us, not by any explicit discussion of the subject, but 
 incidentally, whilst the author of it is engaged with settling a 
 
 1 Cyprian, Epist. Lxiii. § UB 2 § 13) 3 Cyprian, Epist. lsiii, § 125 
 
Lect. II.] - TRANSUBSTANTIATION, 35 
 
 dispute of quite another character ; but still that evidence is 
 just as decisive, as if you could have put Cyprian in the wit- 
 ness-box, and questioned him upon the doctrine of Transub- 
 stantiation directly and at once, nay, much more decisive, for it 
 is just as much to the purpose, and yet delivered by him 
 without his having any idea of the use his words might be 
 made to serve, in entire simplicity and innocence. And to 
 revert for a moment to the consideration we have just dis- 
 missed, might not Daillé have here asked, with the same air of 
 triumph, when he had cast his eye over the letter, and seen 
 that it was on the subject of substituting water for wine in 
 the Eucharist, What is all this to us? This is no concern of 
 ours ; we are no drinkers of water now—we want testimony 
 on the question of the corporal presence ! 
 
 Take another example to the same purport. Tertullian 
 writes a treatise against Marcion, who, perplexed by the origin 
 of evil, and the admixture of it he found in the world, devised 
 the expedient of two Gods; the one, the God who made the 
 world ; the other, the God whom Christ revealed, and whose He 
 was. Tertullian contends that if Marcion would examine the 
 world, he would discover it not to be so bad as he supposed. 
 “ Tmitate,” says he, “if you can, the architecture of the bee, or 
 the ant, the net of the spider, or the thread of the silkworm.” 
 Nay, further, your own God, he continues, as expressed in and 
 by Christ, is satisfied with the Creation; “he did not repro- 
 bate the water belonging to the Creator, for he washes his 
 disciples with it; nor the oil, for with that he anoints them ; 
 nor the mixture of milk and honey, with which he feeds them;” 
 (all, you will observe, portions of the Ritual of Baptism as then 
 practised) ; “nor the bread with which he represents bis own 
 very Body—quo ipsum corpus suum repreesentat’”—(in the 
 Ritual of the Eucharist); “even in his Sacraments standing in 
 need of the beggarly elements of the Creator.”" Or again, in 
 another book of the same tract against Marcion, Tertullian is 
 engaged in proving from the correspondence between the Law 
 and the Gospel—Christ foretold and typified in the one, realised 
 and produced in the other—that it is the same Christ which is 
 spoken of in both; and that Marcion is wrong in supposing 
 the God of the Law, and the God of the Gospel, not identical. 
 Accordingly he compares the Passover of Moses with the 
 
 ' Tertullian, Ady. Marcionem, I. c. xiv. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE WORSHIP OF THE HOST. (Senies I. 
 
 Passion of Christ. It was on the day of the Passover that 
 Christ suffered; He might have chosen another day: but it 
 had been designated before as the Lord’s Passover; therefore, 
 did the Lord desire with a great desire to eat it with his dis- 
 ciples. “ Professing, therefore, this great desire to eat the 
 Passover as his own—and it would have been unworthy of 
 Him, who was God, to desire that which was another’s—He 
 made the bread which He took and gave to his disciples his 
 own Body, by saying, ‘This is my Body,’ 7. e. the figure of my 
 Body, (id est figura corporis mei,) for it would not have been a 
 figure, unless it had been a veritable body; for a vacuity or 
 phantasm cannot take a figure.”' And again in a third book 
 of the same treatise, and when still engaged in the same argu- 
 ment, he appeals to the evidence of the senses against Marcion, 
 and contends that Christ’s reality “was attested by three of 
 them, the sight, the touch, and the hearing.”? But this would 
 have been very inconclusive reasoning if Marcion could have 
 turned upon him and said, “ And yet you do not believe in the 
 bread or the wine of the Eucharist which are attested by three 
 of the senses.” Here, again, the controversy is one in which 
 we are not concerned. Who doubts, Daillé might say, who 
 doubts about the Creator as represented in the Old Testament, 
 and the Creator as represented in the New Testament, being 
 the same God? Yet we see that this controversy does afford 
 us clear incidental evidence against Transubstantiation. 
 
 The worship of the host is another point singled out by 
 Daillé, as one to which the writings of the Fathers, such as he 
 describes them, have no reference, they being engaged on 
 questions of quite a different character. But, as I said in the 
 last instance, so I say again in this, that those writings do 
 furnish indirect testimony on this matter also. Indeed, does 
 not the case of Transubstantiation involve this and settle it? 
 If, as we have shown, the Fathers held no such doctrine as 
 Transubstantiation, does it not follow as a thing of course that 
 they fell into no such practice as the worship of the Host ? 
 Besides, is there nothing to be concluded from their silence 
 with respect to any such usage? Is it not argument enough, 
 for example, that it did not obtain in Justin’s time, when we 
 find him describing, with a good deal of minuteness, the mode 
 of administering the Holy Eucharist, and yet saying nothing 
 
 * Tertullian, Ady. Marcionem, IY. c. xl, = Aveo, 1x; 
 
 
 
Lecr. II.] THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. 37 
 
 whatever about the worship of the Host? Would he be likely 
 to assure his readers, that in this Sacrament, the Communicants 
 do not receive the bread as common bread, or the cup as a 
 common cup (ev yup ws KoLvoY dpToV ovdé KoLVOV Tou“a TavTa 
 AapBdvopev'), if they had actually worshipped either the one 
 or the other as God? Is it conceivable, that in such a case he 
 would have adopted language so unimpassioned as this? It is 
 true Justin has no chapter “De Hostid adoranda,” if nothing 
 less than that would suffice for M. Daillé, but is not the kind 
 of testimony presented in the few words I have extracted from 
 him—and other similar testimony might be multiplied to almost 
 any extent—tar more valuable than any direct disclaimer of 
 such idolatry ? 
 
 The Supremacy of the Pope is another subject of modern 
 controversy which M. Daillé adduces as ineapable of receiving 
 any illustration from the writings of the Fathers, being out of 
 their field of debate. Certainly none of them have composed 
 a treatise upon it like Dr. Barrow; but is not much to be 
 deduced from them on the question, which is very greatly to 
 the purpose nevertheless? Clemens Romanus, though Bishop 
 of Rome, writes his Epistle to the Corinthians not in the name 
 of the Pope, but in the name of the Church of Rome.? Irenzeus 
 speaks by implication of Jerusalem, and not of Rome, as the 
 metropolis of the citizens of the New Testament (7) untpomonus 
 TaV Ths Kawhs SiaOnKns TeALToY®), and assigns to St. Paul a 
 very pre-eminent rank among the Apostles*; and if he calls 
 the Church of Rome on one occasion “the greatest, most 
 ancient, and universally known’ (Church), and says that 
 certainly, “considering how chief and principal a Church it is, 
 all Churches, 2. e. all faithful people everywhere, must be found 
 in sentiment conformable to it, seeing that in it is preserved 
 that Apostolical tradition which has obtained always and in 
 all places ;”’° no conclusion for the supremacy of the Pope over 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 66. traditio.—Treneus, III. ¢. iii. g 2, 
 2 Clem. Rom. Ad Cor. I. § i. Bened. Ed. : 
 
 3 Treneus, ILI. ¢. xii. § 5. The translation here given from the 
 4 Til, cs xxi-7§, 2: Latin, which is all we have, may seem 
 
 5 Ad hance enim ecclesiam propter | to favour the Church of Rome in a 
 potiorem principalitatem mnecesse est | manner, which the Greek very pro- 
 omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, | bably, had that been preserved to us, 
 eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua] would not have even So much as 
 semper ab his, qui sunt undique, con- | seemed to do—possibly the “ eonvenire 
 servata est ea qua est ab apostolis | ad” of this Latin version answering to 
 
38 THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. [Sentes I. 
 Christendom can be drawn from this. For what is here his 
 argument? He is refuting the heretics on the ground of their 
 own choosing, tradition; and takes the Church of Rome as the 
 fairest and safest channel of tradition then extant, as the best 
 exponent of what tradition taught, by reason of that Church 
 being founded by illustrious Apostles, being governed uninter- 
 ruptedly by their successors, and holding so conspicuous a 
 station in the world—the “necesse est omnem convenire 
 ecclesiam ad hane ecclesiam”’ (as Mr. Evans observes), imply- 
 ing a consequence not an obligation—where tradition was so 
 guaranteed, it must needs be that an orthodox Christian would 
 accept it. For so far is Irenzeus from considering the doctrihe 
 of the Church of Rome as peremptory (except from the mere 
 fact of the peculiar circumstances of that| Church haying given 
 it advantages in the preservation of doctrine over other 
 Churches less favourably placed), that he actually goes on to 
 confirm the tradition of the Church of Rome by the tradition 
 of the Churches of Smyrna and Ephesus, which agreed with it 
 ——a work of entire supererogation, if it was needful to submit 
 to the Church of Rome, let it teach whatever it might. Nei- 
 ther is that all. If Irenzeus had felt that Christendom was 
 bound hand and foot by the Pope’s supremacy, how could he 
 have himself ventured to remonstrate with Victor, Bishop of 
 Rome, on his excommunicating the Eastern Churches for their 
 non-observance of his rule, and that of the Western Church, 
 with respect to the time of keeping Easter? This resistance 
 of Irenzeus was the more gratuitous, as in the controversy in 
 question he took the same side as Victor. 
 
 Again, the disputes in which Cyprian is engaged, constantly 
 lead him to afford us light on this subject, inadvertently and 
 by the way; for the immediate bone of contention, no doubt, 
 may not be now what it then was. The question concerning 
 the Baptism of heretics, however, on which he differed in 
 judgment from Stephanus, Bishop of Rome, incidentally ac- 
 
 ovpBadA\ew—as Mr. Evans observes 
 (Biography of the Early Church, Victor, 
 p. 257), i. e. simply “to have converse 
 with,” or “confer with ; ” ovpBadrew 
 being the word used on very similar 
 occasions to that in the text, as he 
 remarks, by Eusebins (Eccles. Hist. 
 iii. c. 28, and y. c. 24); and a still 
 
 better reference would have been to! 1 
 
 
 
 Treneus himself, who in the very next 
 section of this very chapter employs 
 this word: KAyjpns, 6 kal €wpaxads Tods 
 pakapious droord\ous Kat cUBBEBANKOS 
 avtois—Clemens, who had seen the 
 blessed Apostles, and conferred with 
 them. 
 
 } Biography of the Early Church, 
 ca 
 
Lect. II.] THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. 39 
 
 quaints us with the relation in which he considered his own 
 Church and other Churches to stand to Rome; and it is obvious 
 that he regarded it as anything but that of passive obedience 
 to it. He is not niggardly in his ascription of honours to St. 
 Peter. He repeatedly considers him as the rock on which 
 Christ founded his Church; probably in allusion to the effect 
 of his first sermon recorded in the second chapter of the Acts. 
 He contemplates him as peculiarly singled out by our Lord, 
 in order that he might be a symbol of the unity which should 
 prevail in the Church." But he did not regard this as pre- 
 cluding the discussion of ecclesiastical questions, such as Here- 
 tical Baptism, and the decision of them accordingly. “For 
 Peter,” says he, in a letter to Quintus,? “whom the Lord chose 
 first, and upon whom he built his Church, when Paul after- 
 wards disputed with him on the subject of circumcision, did 
 not make any arrogant claims for himself, and say that he had 
 obtained the Primacy, and ought to be obeyed by those that 
 were younger and later in date than himself’ And in an- 
 other to Pope Stephanus himself, still on the same subject 
 of Baptism, after expressing his own opinion which he knew 
 was opposed to that of Stephanus, he adds, “In which matter 
 we do not wish to put constraint upon any, or lay down any 
 peremptory law, seeing that every ruler (preepositus) in the 
 administration of the Church is at liberty to act according to 
 his own free will, only having to give an account to his 
 Lord.’* Has this nothing to do with the question of Papal 
 Supremacy as now debated ? 
 
 Again. Turn to the sixth canon of the Council of Nice, A.D. 
 325. “Let the ancient customs prevail,” it says, (ra apyata 
 €On Kpateitw,) “those in Egypt, and Libya, and Pentapolis, 
 to wit, that the Bishop of Alexandria have authority over them 
 all, since in the case of the Bishop of Rome the like is custo- 
 mary; and in a similar manner with respect to Antioch, and 
 in the other provinces, let the ancient customs be preserved to 
 the Churches.” * And now turn to the eighth canon of the 
 Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, and see how this prior canon 
 was acted on in a particular case. “ Rheginus, our brother 
 Bishop, well-beloved in God, and the well-beloved Bishops of 
 the province of Cyprus, Zeno and Evagrius with him, have 
 
 1 Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesiew, § 4. | 4 Routh, Scriptorum Ecclesiastic, 
 * Ep. Ixxi. 3 Ep. Ixxii. | Opuse. tom. i. p. 374, Oxon, 1840, 
 
40 TIE PAPAL SUPREMACY [Sentes I. 
 
 brought under our notice an innovation contrary to the ec- 
 dlesiastical laws and canons of the holy Fathers, and touching 
 the liberty of all . . . that the Bishop of the City of 
 Antioch holds Ordinations in Cyprus, as certain very reverend 
 men, who have come to this holy Synod, have informed us by 
 certificates, (AuBéAXwv,) and word of mouth. Therefore, since 
 public disorders have need of greater remedies, inasmuch as 
 they bring with them greater damage, and especially where 
 ancient usage does not obtain, those who preside over the 
 holy Churches of Cyprus shall, without impediment or hurt, 
 according to the canons of the holy Fathers and ancient usage, 
 hold Ordinations of their most revered Bishops, among them- 
 selves. And the same rule shall be kept in all other dioceses 
 and provinces whatever, so that no one of these Bishops well- 
 beloved of God shall occupy another province which has not 
 been subject to him from the beginning, or to those before him; 
 and if any one hath seized and subjected any such to fan 
 by force, let him restore the same, that the canons of the 
 Fathers may not be transgressed; and that under the pretext 
 of the sacerdotal office, (iepoupyias,) the pride of worldly 
 power may not creep in, nor we, by little and little, and with- 
 out being aware of it, lose the liberty which our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the liberator of all men, gave us at the cost of his own 
 Blood.”* Now, I ask, does this case of the Church of Cyprus 
 afford no conclusions for ourselves ; and because the supremacy 
 of the Pope of Rome is not, in so many words, made the sub- 
 ject of an ancient treatise, or ecclesiastical canon, are we at 
 liberty to throw away such documents, as having nothing to 
 do with it? I press these considerations the more, because 
 I have too much respect for the reading of Daillé to believe 
 that he was writing in ignorance; but most strongly suspect 
 that he was deliberately misleading people, who were not 
 likely, he thought, to look into authorities for themselves ; 
 and accordingly his book has been in the vogue it has with 
 that uncommonly large class; and, I believe, has been recently 
 republished,’ as if the times called for it ; but what times can 
 call for artifice, or what cause prosper by disingenuous defence? 
 The necessity of secret confession is another question which 
 Daillé singles out, as one which does not admit of illustration 
 
 1 Routh. _Seriptorum Ecclesiastic. | * Re-edited and amended, with a pre- 
 Opuse. tom. ii. p. 10, face by the Rey. G. Jekyll, LL.B. 1848, 
 
Lect. IT.) - AURICULAR CONFESSION. 4] 
 
 from anything the Fathers say, so alien from it are the topics 
 they handle. And, as I have observed in similar cases, there 
 certainly is no treatise expressly on the subject by any early 
 Father ; but there is that in them which bears upon it: though 
 a member of the Church of England, at least, however it might 
 be with a foreign Protestant, is not called upon to be particu- 
 larly careful in this matter, seeing that in her Communion 
 Service, though not insisting upon the necessity of ‘confession, 
 she exhorts persons, under certain circumstances, to come to 
 the Minister and open their grief, that they “may receive the 
 benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and ad- 
 vice.” And in her Service for the Visitation of the Sick, she 
 instructs the Minister to examine the sick man, whether he 
 repents him of his sins ; and at a particular part of the office, 
 to move him “to make a special confession of his sins, if he 
 feel his conscience troubled ;” and after that (and not before), 
 to absolve him. She does not go further than this, because 
 she does not see secret confession toa Priest absolutely enjoined 
 as a matter of necessity, either in Scripture, or the Primitive 
 Church the interpreter of Scripture ; for though frequent men- 
 tion is made in the early Fathers of confession, I doubt whether 
 any passage can be produced from them which does not admit 
 of being explained of public confession in the Church, and, in 
 general, which does not bear this meaning evidently on the 
 face of it, except in case of sickness. But, if so, how can 
 Daillé adduce the subject of secret confession, as another topic 
 on which the Fathers can be made of no avail, and another 
 instance of the little concern they can be persuaded to have 
 in modern polemics? Irenzeus touches upon the question of 
 confession more than once, and has been claimed indeed by 
 the Romanist as a witness in his favour—TIrenzeus, who is never 
 dreaming, be it observed, of the point we are investigating ; 
 and whose treatise, as Daillé says, is ostensibly upon heresies 
 which have long passed away and been forgotten—he then, 
 who is engaged in scourging the lives and conversation of these 
 heretics, most perfect (redevoraroz), as they called themselves, 
 charges them, amongst other things, with “ corrupting other 
 men’s wives, as the women themselves,’ he continues, “ who 
 have been seduced by them have often confessed together with 
 their other sins, when they have afterwards been converted 
 
 
 
42 AURICULAR CONFESSION. [Serres I. 
 
 to the Church of God’’ —and adds that some of them made a 
 public confession, but others, shrinking from this, through 
 shame, quietly withdrew themselves from the life of God in 
 despair ; others became apostates altogether ; and others again 
 halted between the two conditions’—evidently intimating that 
 such public confession was necessary in order to restoration to 
 the Church, when they had been baptized and relapsed into 
 notorious offences. 
 
 We should draw the same conclusion from the manner in 
 which Tertullian speaks of this é£oporoynows : “This exomo- 
 logesis or confession,” says he, “is an act of great humiliation 
 and prostration of the man; it regulates the dress, the food ; 
 it enjoins sackcloth and ashes ; it defiles the body with filth, 
 and subdues the spirit with anguish ; it restricts meat and 
 drink to the simplest possible ; it nourishes prayer by fast- 
 ing; it inculcates groans and tears, and invocations of the 
 Lord God day and night ; and teaches the penitent to cast 
 himself at the feet of his Presbyters, and clasp the knees of 
 these servants of God, and to beg of all the brethren to inter- 
 cede with God for merey. Such is the homologesis’”*—the 
 whole evidently a public act. He speaks afterwards of 
 “many shrinking from the work, more regardful of their 
 shame than of their salvation ;’* and asks, “ whether it is 
 better to conceal your sin and be damned, than to expose it 
 and receive absolution.”° 
 
 Again, Cyprian speaks of confession in numberless places, 
 but it still seems to be public confession. Thus, in several of 
 his Letters, he complains of persons who had lapsed in perse- 
 cution and renounced Christ, having been received to the Com- 
 munion furtively by certain Presbyters of his Church. This 
 he resents as a breach of all discipline. Even in the case of 
 “qninor offences, sinners,” says he, in a letter to his Clergy 
 on this scandal,° “express their penitence at a suitable season, 
 and come to Confession, according to the rules of discipline, 
 and are admitted into communion by imposition of the hands 
 of the Bishops and Clergy.” And in another letter,’ addressed 
 to the “people,” on the same affair, as though they were par- 
 
 1 Trenreus, I. c. xiii. §§ 5, 7. ayooxt 5 Tbid. 
 at ° Cyprian, Ep. ix. 7 Ep. xi. 
 3 Tertullian, De Peenitentid, ec. ix. 
 
Lect. IT.] AURICULAR CONFESSION. 43 
 
 ties concerned in it, he begs that nothing final may be settled 
 till he should himself be restored to them, when it might be 
 proceeded with, “yourselves being present and judging ;’ still, 
 except in cases of dangerous sickness, where the patient is 
 confessed and absolved at once, because there will probably be 
 no room afterwards either for confession or absolution, and 
 where Cyprian gives directions accordingly,’ public humiliation 
 seeming to be contemplated. But this discipline, however 
 severe, would be a very different thing from secret confession ; 
 and not liable to the dreadful abuses which, no doubt, the se- 
 cret confessional (whether legitimate or not in itself, and when 
 rightly restricted) was likely to lead to, and did lead to actually 
 and in fact. But however this may be, and to whatever con- 
 clusion the Fathers may lead us in this controversy, my end 
 is answered ; which is to show that Daillé is not justified in 
 representing the writings of the Fathers as altogether inappli- 
 cable to such a question ; for however casually it may present 
 itself in their writings, and whatever may be the aspect of it 
 they offer, the question of secret confession is clearly one upon 
 which they may be made to speak in one shape or other ; and 
 I could have doubled or trebled the length of this Lecture, had 
 I chosen to bring forward all the materials they would furnish 
 upon it. Daillé’s argument, which I am combating, you will 
 remark, is this, that the Fathers are of little worth to us in our 
 own controversies, because they treat of matters that have no 
 relation to them. 
 
 The worship of images is the last of the instances he hap- 
 pens to bring forward in the place I am dealing with,” to 
 prove the irrelevance of patristical literature ; but he does it 
 with no better success than before. Certainly it was reserved 
 for a much later age than that we are now treating of to 
 produce dissertations for and against the use of images in 
 Churches: nor is there any tract of an early Father, which, 
 from its title, would bespeak it to have any especial reference to 
 the question here contemplated. But again I say, are we on 
 that account to put them away, and console ourselves with the 
 reflection that, were we to trouble ourselves ever so much about 
 them, we should only have our labour for our pains? I think 
 not. If image-worship did not exist in the Primitive Church, 
 it is not to be expected that we should find anything expressly 
 
 | Epp. xii. and xxxi. 2 Daillé, p. 9. 
 
AA IMAGE WORSHIP. [Serres I. 
 
 said about it in the writers of that Church—but still we can 
 use their testimony. For instance, we learn from the Apolo- 
 gies that one of the accusations most commonly brought against 
 the Christians by the heathens, was that they were atheists. 
 Justin replies to it at length in his first “Apology,”! and 
 Athenagoras in his “ pecBea wept Xpictvavav’’*—the latter 
 using language which I shall translate, because evidently point- 
 ing to the conclusion which I am about to come to. “I have 
 made it appear,’ says he, “clearly enough, that we are no 
 atheists, accounting, as we do, God to be one, uncreated, ever- 
 lasting, invisible, impassive, incomprehensible, incapable of 
 being contained within space, comprehended by the mind and 
 reason alone, encompassed with light, and beauty, and spirit, 
 and unutterable power, by whom the universe was created, 
 and set in order, and is preserved through his Word.” The 
 very diction of the defence suggests the real ground of the 
 accusation, viz. that atheism was imputed to the Christians 
 because no images of their gods were to be found in their 
 Churches ; and therefore the heathens supposed that they had 
 no God: a supposition which the Apologists endeavour to re- 
 move by showing that their God was invisible, and of a nature 
 not to be represented by a material image. Indeed, it is 
 their boast (Origen records it) that the meanest and least in- 
 structed of the Christians could not be brought to believe that 
 the Deity could be expressed by symbols wrought by the hands 
 of base mechanics ; herein proving themselves, as they said, 
 superior even to the philosophers of the heathen.* And this 
 conclusion is further confirmed by another consideration. It 
 was actually imputed to the Christians that they worshipped 
 the Cross,‘ to which Tertullian replies by an argumentum ad 
 hominem, not unusual with him; and Minucius Felix, who 
 also adverts to it, retorts it after the manner of Tertullian, 
 though he denies it too. But whence the charge? except 
 from the Cross being the only symbol which the heathens 
 could detect, either in the Churches or out of them, for which 
 the Christians seemed to have a reverence. Could they pos- 
 sibly have entertained this belief, if they had seen images in 
 the Christian Churches? There is a passage in Irenzeus which 
 
 1 Apol. TI. §§ 6, 13. § 14, et alibi. 
 ? Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christi- 4 ‘Tertullian, Apol. e. xvi. 
 anis, § 10. | 5 Minucius Felix, Octay. ¢, xii. 
 
 * See Origen, Contra Celsum, VI. I a> Sab 
 
Lecr. IT. ] IMAGE WORSIIIP. 45 
 
 furnishes us with evidence on the same side of this question, 
 and of the same indirect kind. When speaking of a certain 
 sect of the followers of Carpocrates, he says, “they call them- 
 selves Gnostics, and adopt pictures and images of Christ, al- 
 leging that the original was made by Pilate, at the time when 
 Jesus was among men. These they crown with chaplets, and 
 expose them among the figures of the philosophers of this 
 world, such as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the rest; 
 treating them with the same kind of reverence as the heathens 
 express for their images.”’ It is impossible to believe that 
 Trenzeus would have penned a paragraph like this, if the 
 Church of his day had been in the habit of presenting pictures 
 and images of the Saviour to the devotions of the people. 
 
 Another opportunity will occur hereafter of enlarging upon 
 this subject, though under another head of the argument,” and 
 of showing, in yet more ample detail, how far Daillé is from 
 being correct, when he represents the writings of the Fathers 
 as inapplicable to present controversies ; and, above all, when 
 he exemplifies. by the questions in dispute between the Re- 
 formed Church and the Church of Rome—another opportu- 
 nity, I say, will shortly arrive for pursuing this investigation 
 further, when I come to consider the allegation which he 
 makes against the Church of Rome of corrupting the text of 
 the Fathers to serve purposes of her own. For the present, 
 let the instances I have adduced suffice to prove that the works 
 of the Fathers may certainly be turned to account in the de- 
 bate between these Churches, and that much information to 
 the purpose is to be derived from them. Yet how incidentally 
 do we get at it! How little would heads of chapters or 
 tables of contents, help us to it! And who shall say that the 
 Fathers are not to be read, because they are concerned with 
 matters which have no relation to our disputes? Rather, I 
 should say, they are not only to be read, but to be read most 
 carefully, and with a spirit thoroughly on the alert for allu- 
 sions in them which are thus latent, but which, nevertheless, 
 are assuredly there—no less careful investigation of them than 
 this sufficing for mastering the most valuable of the matter of 
 which they are made up. 
 
 1 Et reliquam observationem circa | Ireneeus, I. c. xxv. § 6. 
 eas, similiter ut Gentes, faciunt.-—— 2 In Lectures LV, and V, 
 
46 THIRD ARGUMENT OF DAILLE. [Serres IL. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Third argument of Daillé—its insufficiency to establish his proposition. The 
 quotation of the Sibyl by the Fathers explained. Vindication of them from 
 the charge of dishonesty in quoting Apocryphal books. Opinions of Vossius, 
 Hammond, arid others, on the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Pastor of Hermas. 
 Arguments of Daillé against the Epistles of Ignatius inconclusive. Com- 
 parison of passages in Ireneus, Polycarp, Tertullian, with passages in those 
 Epistles. Quotation of them by Origen. Improbability that Eusebius should 
 have been deceived as to their genuineness, 
 
 HUS far we have found Daillé decrying the use of the 
 Fathers, first by reason of the writings they have left 
 being few, and often fragmentary ; secondly, by reason of the 
 subjects of those writings being altogether alien from the con- 
 troversies of modern times. 
 
 The third ground on which he depreciates them is the sus- 
 picion of forgery and interpolation which affects many of their 
 works. 
 
 Accordingly he produces a long catalogue of spurious com-. 
 positions, bestowing a good deal of ostentatious pains on each, 
 as it passes in review, and then concludes, that it is evident 
 very many persons, and, especially, the Latin monks and 
 clergy, from the eighth century to his own, considered it law- 
 ful to invent, change, and interpolate, whenever such proceed- 
 ing might seem to conduce to the advantage of their religion, 
 And as whatever we possess of ancient books is derived to us 
 from this quarter, he does not think it so wonderful, that num- 
 bers of these are now in circulation under the title of ancient, 
 which are partly false and supposititious, partly vitiated and 
 corrupted, as that there should be any, however few, which 
 should have reached us pure and genuine.’ But though this 
 array of mendacious documents is very well calculated to pro- 
 duce an impression of distrust in antiquity on persons, who 
 have not turned their attention to patristic theology, yet 
 
 ' Daillé, p. 46, 
 
Lect. IID.] HE CHARGES THE FATHERS 47 
 
 others would know that of these writings, which he produces 
 in general the spuriousness is now and has long been univer- 
 sally admitted ; and that when we urge the advantage of 
 reading the Fathers, we are never contemplating these, but 
 far other works. Surely it does not follow that because there 
 is much that is false, there is nothing that is true: on the 
 contrary, it is the existence of the genuine that gives occasion 
 to the counterfeit. | Irenzeus expressly tells us, that the here- 
 tics “had concocted and put in circulation an unspeakable 
 number of apocryphal and spurious Scriptures, to the confusion 
 of illiterate persons and of such as were not acquainted with 
 the writings of truth.’’ And if you will look at Jones on 
 the Canon of Scripture, you will see” that the mere titles of 
 apocryphal books, which issued in the very earliest age of the 
 Church, and laid claim more or less to Apostolical authority, 
 occupy five octavo pages. Are we then on that account to 
 reject or suspect the canonical books of the New Testament ? 
 They are very few in comparison with the others; and it 
 would be a very easy thing for a sceptic, arguing in the spirit 
 of Daillé, to mislead people, too ignorant or too indolent to 
 inquire for themselves, into a notion that in the midst of such 
 a mass of moving quicksands, it was next to impossible to find 
 any solid, trustworthy footing. Certainly it is credible that 
 in the time of Daillé arguments might occasionally be drawn 
 from one or other of the works on his condemned list ; perhaps 
 it may be alleged of some of our great divines of even the 
 Augustan age of our Church, that they were not always suffi- 
 ciently scrupulous in their appeals to ancient authority : in- 
 deed, the credit of some of the tracts they rely on, had not 
 then, perhaps, been accurately tested ; now, however, and for 
 a long time past, controversialists would not have recourse to 
 any such weapons ; severer criticism and a more jealous pub- 
 lic taste having superseded the more confiding temperament of 
 former ages: so that Dailld’s inflated difficulties ° on this sub- 
 ject need not disturb us. 
 
 However, Daillé at length escapes from this cloud of false 
 witnesses, with which he has taken a good deal of trouble 
 to compass his readers about, and proceeds* to charge several 
 of those Fathers, who certainly are genuine, with ministering 
 to the system of fraud, which he is exposing, by themselves 
 
 ' Trenseus, I. c. xx. § 1. 3 Daillé, p. 48, 
 2 Jones on the Canon, Part I. c. iii. * tis Oo, 
 
48 WITH QUOTING APOCRYPHAL WRITINGS. [(Sentes I. 
 
 quoting as authority works which were of none. Thus Justin, 
 Theophilus, and others, do not scruple to fetch arguments from 
 the verses of the Sibyl; as if they were really oracular.' It is 
 not quite clear, whether Daillé means to impute a fraudulent — 
 intention to these authors in this transaction or not. For he 
 says, that the Fathers were not always gifted with powers to 
 discover these impostures; but he insinuates the worse al- 
 ternative. Now, undoubtedly, several of the early Fathers do 
 quote the Sibyl; Justin and Theophilus amongst the rest ; but 
 in the first place it must be remembered, that on these occa~ 
 sions they were addressing heathens, often literary heathens, 
 and that there was very little ground which they could occupy 
 in common. It was in vain to plead with them Scripture 
 testimony; for the authority of the Scripture they were not 
 prepared to admit. Accordingly, whenever they can do it, 
 they sustain their arguments on other evidence, which the 
 heathens were accustomed to respect. Thus for some of the 
 incidents of our Saviour’s life, they would appeal to the Acts 
 of Cyrenius or to those of Pilate”; for the mystical power of 
 the Cross, to the writings of Plato, who found it in the letter 
 X, with which he represented the world as impressed from 
 one end to the other®; and on numberless other occasions 
 they make the sentiments of that philosopher tributary to 
 establishing the facts and doctrines of the revelation they 
 taught. And so in like manner they availed themselves of 
 the writings of the Sibyl, which circulated very largely 
 throughout the heathen world and were held in much re- 
 verence as prophetic by the class for whom they were writing, 
 to give force to many arguments which might otherwise have 
 seemed strange to them, and would have hardly obtained 
 credence—such as the creation of man—the final conflagration 
 —the future Advent of the Messiah—and many of the cir- 
 cumstances which should attend it.* There was nothing neces- 
 sarily disingenuous in this. Doubtless in process of time 
 verses of the Sibyl became multiplied without end, and bore 
 on their very face the mark of the comparatively modern date 
 at which they were composed, and yet were adopted by Chris- 
 tian writers. But from the beginning it was not so. Bishop 
 
 : Daille, p. 53. 4 Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad Greeos, 
 : Justin Martyr, Apol. I. ss 34, 35. §§ 37, 38; Apol. I. § 20. 
 § 60. 
 
Lecr. IIT.] THE SIBYL. 49 
 
 Bull considers, and with the strongest grounds for doing so, 
 that the Jewish prophecies pervaded a great part of the heathen 
 world, more or less obscured, (for the Jews were dispersed 
 over nearly the whole of it,) and that out of these prophecies 
 many of the verses of the Sibyl (as they were called) were 
 fabricated from times the most ancient. The Septuagint 
 translation of the Scriptures, circulating, as it did, amongst 
 the Jews of all nations, must have communicated its contents 
 to many Gentiles’; and it may be added, that an early 
 version of the Old Testament into Greek long before the 
 Septuagint translation, of which Clemens Alexandrinus tells 
 us on the authority of Aristobulus, would materially con- 
 duce to this.” Prophetical the verses were, strictly prophetical, 
 and not unworthy in such cases of being quoted by the 
 primitive Fathers, as they were witnesses on their side; the 
 Fathers themselves ascribing, no doubt, the truth they felt to 
 be in them, either to the sacred channels, from which they 
 supposed them to be derived—Justin, when giving the history 
 of the Sibyl,* expressly makes her to be born at Babylon, and 
 thence come to Italy: where more likely that she should 
 became acquainted with the writings of the Prophets ?—or to 
 the fact of her own inspiration, which was the vulgar belief ; 
 or at least it was the belief that there was one inspired 
 Sibyl, the existence of whom occasioned a number of counter- 
 feits, she, raised up by God as a prophetess amongst the 
 Greeks, as the prophets, properly so called, were by Him to 
 the Hebrews. Is there anything in this derogatory to the 
 character of Justin for honesty, or even for judgment? What 
 was Balaam but such a Prophet amongst the nations of 
 the East, and Job amongst the Arabians, and Melchizedek 
 amongst the inhabitants of Canaan? We read of prophetic 
 
 Kpatnots THs Xwpas, kal THs GAns vopo- 
 te 
 Gecias emeénynots’ @ote eVdndov ewwat, 
 
 1 See Grinfield, Apology for the Sep- 
 tuagint. 
 
 * "ApordBovdos Sé ev TS TPOTO TO 
 mpos Tov Biountopa, xata AeEw ‘ypd- 
 ev’ ** KarneodovOnke dé 6 TAdrov 77) 
 ka” fas vowobecia Kai davepds eott 
 Teplepyardpuevos ExagTa TOV ev avTH 
 Aeyopevav. Srecpynvevtat S€ mpd Anun- 
 Tpiov, Up érépou, mpd Tov ’AXeEdvdpov 
 kat Iepoay emixpatnoews, Ta TE KaTa 
 ri e& Aiyimrov eLaywyiy Tv EBpaiav 
 TOY nueTepov ToATOY, Kal 7 TOV ‘ye~ 
 youdrav amdvtev adtois emupdvera, kat 
 
 
 
 rov mpoeipnuevov pudrdcogoy eidnpevat 
 Todd yéyove yap Todvpabys’ Kadas 
 kai IvOaydpas moAda Tov tap’ jpiv 
 petevéykas eis tiv éavTod Soyparo- 
 qrouiay.” —Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § xxii. 
 pp- 410, 411. 
 
 3 Cohort. ad Greecos, § 37. He re- 
 presents her as the daughter of Berosus. 
 
 4 Tertullian, Ad Nationes, [I. § 12, 
 and Fragment attached to the Apology, 
 Ed. Havercamp, p. 443. 
 
 i 
 
50 THE SIBYL. [Serres I. 
 
 dreams even amongst the Midianites.’ Certainly by some 
 means or other, you must account for a great deal of very 
 curious knowledge with respect to the Messiah to come, which 
 pervaded the whole heathen world—knowledge, too, which 
 the Gentiles themselves (though not understanding it of the 
 Messiah, but puzzled how to understand it at all), did consider 
 to relate to the events of futurity, and themselves assigned it to 
 the Sibyl as its author. I scarcely need remind you of the 
 Pollio of Virgil, where the incidents are expressly said to be 
 drawn from the vaticinations of the Sibyl, some of them 
 according most remarkably with those of Isaiah, and the 
 whole almost as applicable to Christ as any chapter of that 
 Prophet. The Prometheus, too, of Alschylus, though the 
 facts are not in that case avowedly referred to the same 
 source, does savour of the same original; and however dark 
 the fable might seem to those who handled it, nobody can 
 dispute that it is founded on more than human knowledge. 
 The well-known passage in Suetonius’ Life of Vespasian tends 
 to the samé point, that “there had been for a long time, all 
 over the East, a prevailing opinion, that it was in the Fates,” 
 (in the decrees or books of the Fates, says Lardner,) “some 
 one from Judea should then obtain the empire of the world.’”? 
 Where was the harm of the early Fathers taking advantage of 
 a medium like this for arresting the attention of the heathen 
 to the tidings they had to impart to them? more especially as 
 it should appear from a few words let fall by Origen, that it 
 was really debated (whether amongst the Christians one with 
 another, or amongst the heathens and Christians), what autho- 
 rity was due to the Sibyl, and whether she was to be ac- 
 counted a prophetess or not, so that there would seem to be 
 nothing clandestine or underhand in the use the Christians 
 made of the argument*; and, moreover, the passage would 
 lead us to infer that this question had been agitated even 
 as early as the times of as who lived some hundr ed years 
 before Origen.* 
 
 As another instance of the unscrupulous use made of autho- 
 rities by the Fathers, Daillé adduces the appeals, which 
 Clemens Alexandrinus makes to Apocryphal books that. cir- 
 culated under the names of Apostles and disciples of the Lord, 
 
 : Judges vii. 13, 14. * Origen, Contra Celsum, V. § 61. 
 ? Suetonius, Life of Vespasian, § 4. 41.§ 8, 
 
 
 
Lect. IIT.) THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. 51 
 
 and his quotations from the pretended works of Barnabas and 
 Hermas.' He also takes the like exceptions to Fathers of a 
 later age than I am concerned with, and which, therefore, I 
 shall not investigate ; my object being to impress you with 
 the importance of reading, not all the Fathers of every age, 
 so much as the Fathers of the first three centuries. But does 
 the manner in which Clemens avails himself of Apocryphal 
 writings affect his own credit as an author or a candid Apolo- 
 gist? Certainly he refers to the “Gospel according to the 
 Hebrews ;” to the “Gospel according to the Egyptians ;” to 
 the “ Traditions of Matthias ;” to the “ Preaching of Peter ;” 
 to a “certain Gospel ;”” and perhaps to the “ Acts of Peter.” * 
 And often he so refers without any remark whatever as to 
 the value of the document he is laying under contribution. 
 But you will bear this in mind, a fact which Daillé altogether 
 overlooks, but a very important one; that on one of these 
 occasions he expressly speaks of no Gospels being of authority 
 except the four. “On Salome inquiring,” this is the passage, 
 “when the things which she asked about would be known ; 
 the Lord replied, when ye shall tread under foot” (or have no 
 need for) “the covering of your shame; and when two shall 
 become one, and the male with the female shall be neither 
 male nor female ;” and then Clemens adds, by way of shaking 
 the effect of this paragraph, which was advocating a cause to 
 which he was opposed,* “ First, then, I contend, that we have 
 not this saying in the four Gospels delivered to us, but in the 
 Gospel according to the Egyptians.”°® I say this observation 
 must be carried along with us, when we meet with other 
 quotations from Apocryphal Gospels and like works in 
 Clemens ; for however he may not at the moment declare in 
 so many words the comparative estimation in which he holds 
 them, we have it under his own hands, that none of them 
 rank with him at all as the four Canonical Gospels do. For 
 example, he adduces this same Gospel according to the Egyp- 
 tians in another place, as follows: “But they who oppose 
 
 marriage ; Cassianus being himself op- 
 2°Q Kips & tui Evayyehig.— | posed to marriage, whilst Clemens con- 
 Clem. Alex. Stromat. V. § x. p. 684. tends for the lawfulness of it. 
 $3 VII. § xi. p. 869. See Grabe, | 5 "Ey rois mapadeSopévors nuty tér- 
 Spicilegium, vol. i. p. 79. rapow evayyeNlots ovK EXOpEV TO pyTOV, 
 4 The passage was advanced by a| dA ey T@ Kar’ Alyumtiovs.—Clem. 
 heretic, one Cassianus, as adverse to | Alex. Stromat. ILL. § xiii. p. 093. 
 
 E 2 
 
 1 Daille, p. 53. 
 
 
 
 
 
52 CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS JUSTIFIED [Serres I. 
 
 themselves to the Creation of God by their specious con- 
 tinence, allege those things which were addressed to Salome, 
 whereof I have made mention already. They occur, I think,” 
 continues Clemens, “in the Gospel according to the Egyp- 
 tians.”! Now here you see the Gospel according to the 
 Egyptians is cited without any notice of distrust in it or any 
 mark of depreciation. Yet from the other passage, already 
 laid before you, it appears, that though he is here silent 
 about its merits, Clemens had no wish to disguise his real 
 opinion of it. I may as well observe by the way, that though 
 Clemens does not specify what were the fowr Gospels to 
 which he assigns such superior weight, there can be no doubt 
 that our fowr they were; for he was contemporary with 
 Irenzeus, though probably born a few years later than that 
 author ; and the testimony of Irenzeus to the Canonical Gos- 
 pels of his day being the four we now have, and no other, 
 is undeniable* ; not to say that Clemens himself quotes St. 
 Matthew in one place as to cata Mart@aiov Evayyéov, and 
 St. Luke in another, as ro Evayyedtov 70. kata Aovkav.* 
 The same reasoning as before applies to the quotations made 
 by Clemens from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. He 
 is contending, for instance, that to admire is the first step to 
 knowledge, and therefore, “in the Gospel according to the 
 Hebrews,” says he, “it is written, he that admireth shall rule, 
 and he that ruleth shall rest,” ° without any remark added on 
 the nature of the document ; but if there were then only four 
 acknowledged Gospels (as he felt was the case), there was no 
 need for remark. The same may be said of his citation of the 
 te Evayyédov. “It belongs to few to take these things in, for 
 the Lord says in a certain Gospel, that he does not teach in a 
 niggardly spirit, ‘My mysteries are for me and the children of 
 my house:’’’® no note or comment subjoined, because none 
 was wanted. Even in the case of the Gospel according to 
 the Egyptians, where the observation respecting the Four 
 Gospels, on which I am relying so much, is made, it is made, 
 you will perceive, quite incidentally, and almost as though it 
 escaped him by the by. 
 
 * Clem. Alex. Stromat. IIT. § ix. pp. ] 409. 
 
 539, 540. * p.204. 
 2 Treneus, IIT. c. xi. § 8. Ss TD.(§ix. ps 458. 
 * Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § xxi. p. 6 'V. 6.x. pi 664, 
 
Lect. Ill.] IN QUOTING THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. aes 
 
 And if it be said, why then multiply quotations ? It may 
 be answered in the first place, that Clemens was a man of 
 enormous reading, and could not help showing it ; his reference 
 to profane as well as to sacred, or quasi-sacred authorities, 
 being most profuse ; indeed, he had a reason for the former 
 display, which I shall make appear in a future Lecture. 
 There is nothing singular or offensive in this. Look at 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor’s Life of Christ, and you will see him 
 supporting or adorning his narrative by appeals to numberless 
 authors, whose credit he leaves his readers to settle as they 
 will, contenting himself with saying who they are, or with re- 
 ferring to them in the margin. Yet how many of these authors 
 are of little or no account! And in the next place, no doubt 
 many of the documents, which were written at this very 
 early period of the Church, in the midst of much error, con- 
 tained much truth. It is the testimony of an Apostle himself; 
 that “there are also many other things” (besides those care- 
 fully recorded), “which Jesus did, the which, if they should 
 be written every one,” he supposes, “that even the world 
 itself could not contain the books that should be written.” ? 
 There is a saying assigned to Jesus in the Acts,’ which there 
 is no previous memorandum of his having ever uttered. 
 There are several other sayings preserved by the early 
 Fathers *; together with one or two incidents respecting him, 
 not taken notice of by the Evangelists.‘ There might be, nay, 
 it is highly probable that there was, much of this kind to be 
 discovered in the many unauthorized publications which found 
 their way into the world in the age immediately after our 
 Lord’s Passion, and which, however overlaid hy base materials, 
 did give to those publications a certain value nevertheless. 
 Indeed, St. Luke’s Preface to his Gospel implies, I think, that 
 the histories of our blessed Lord, which his own was meant to 
 supersede, were of this mixed character, not absolute fiction, 
 but truth adulterated. “Forasmuch as many have taken in 
 
 1 John xxi. 25. 2 Acts xx. 35. from their several sources in the Ap- 
 
 3 "Ey vis dv tuas kataddBo, év Tov- 
 Tots kat Kpw@.—Justin. Dialog. § 47. 
 
 Venient dies, in quibus vines nas- 
 centur, singule decem millia palmitum 
 habentes, et in uno palmite dena millia 
 brachiorum, &c.—Ireneus, V. c. xxxiil. 
 § 3. A collection of these sayings and 
 histories of Christ will be found gathered 
 
 pendix of the first volume of Jones on 
 the Canon. 
 
 4 °Evy omndai@ twi obveyyus Tis 
 k@pns karéA\voe.—He put up in a cer- 
 tain cave near the village.— Justin. 
 Dialog. § 78. Tatra yap Ta rexrovexa 
 epya eipyatero ev dvOpwrots vy, dpotpa 
 kat Cvyd. —Jusun. Dialog. § 88. 
 
i 
 
 L CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS JUSTIFIED (Serres T. 
 
 hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which 
 are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered 
 them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses 
 and ministers of the word ; it seemed good to me also, having 
 had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to 
 write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou 
 mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast, 
 been instructed,”! the spirit of the passage not being utterly 
 to condemn the writings he is contemplating of gross and 
 wilful falsehood, but to imply that the authors’ understanding 
 of the incidents they had related was not perfect; that their 
 opportunities of learning them had not been like his own, he 
 having had perfect knowledge of them from the first, and that 
 the knowledge therefore which he would communicate would 
 be certainty, which could not be said of that of the others. 
 Even when these early documents proceeded from heretical 
 quarters, as probably many of them did, the substance of them 
 would still, in many cases, be truth ; they would scarcely have 
 answered the purpose of their compilers had it been otherwise. 
 The “Traditions of Matthias,” the “ Preaching of Peter,” “the 
 Acts of Peter,” and something “ of Paul’s,” probably combined 
 with the “ Preaching of Peter,”? all, as I have said, quoted by 
 Clemens, were, no doubt, publications of the nature I am 
 describing ; truth mingled, or, as it might be, grossly debased 
 with error. Origen himself takes this view of the last of 
 these documents, observing, in a passage of his commentary 
 on St. John, where he has occasion to quote a saying of 
 Heracleon, who had adopted certain words from the “ Preach- 
 ing of Peter,’ we must inquire touching this work “whether 
 it is genuine, or spurious, or mixed,” * himself apparently 
 leaning to the last supposition. With respect to the first of 
 these, the “Traditions of Matthias,’ Clemens refers to it 
 several times, but not in a way to impress us with his con- 
 fidence in it; rather the contrary ; for though in one or two 
 places he simply quotes without preface, in others he intimates 
 in a manner that ought to satisfy M. Daillé himself, that its 
 character, even in his eyes, was suspicious. Thus of the 
 heresies, says Clemens, “some are called by the name of their 
 
 * Luke i. 1-4. puxtév.—Origen, vol. iv. p. 226. Be- 
 2 See Jones on the Canon, Part IT. | ned. Ed. 
 * Tidrepdv mote yynowy e€ortw jj 
 
Lect. III.) IN QUOTING THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. 55 
 
 author, as that of Valentinus, and Marcion, and Basilides, 
 although, indeed, they boast that the opinions of Matthias 
 may be adduced in support of their own. But as there was 
 but one doctrine delivered by all the Apostles, so can there be 
 but one (true) tradition.” ' Surely there is here a caveat in- 
 terposed by Clemens sufficiently intelligible to prevent any of 
 his readers from being misled by the authority of the “ Tradi- 
 tions of Matthias,” though he has occasion to refer to that 
 work. With respect to the “Preaching of Peter,’ another of 
 the ecclesiastical writings frequently cited by Clemens, it is to 
 be observed, that Clemens never cites it as Scripture, and that in 
 the long extracts he makes from it. there is nothing heterodox 
 to be found ; nothing which might not be consistent with the 
 theory, which is Dr. Grabe’s,” that it was what some or other 
 of St. Peter's hearers had committed to writing after he was 
 dead. Take the following as a specimen of the work, and say 
 whether it falls short of the character I am imputing to it. 
 The passage occurs in the sixth book of the Stromata. “And 
 the companions of Christ, who preached the word as he did, 
 lost their lives after him. Hence Peter in his Preaching, 
 speaking of the Apostles, says, ‘But when we had read the 
 books, which we possess, of the Prophets, and which now in 
 parables, now in enigmas, now again authoritatively and lite- 
 rally spealx of Jesus Christ by name; we found his presence, 
 and death, and cross, and all his other sufferings, which the 
 Jews inflicted on him (described), and his resurrection, and 
 ascension into heaven, before (the new) Jerusalem should be 
 built,’ even as it is written: ‘these things are all which he 
 ought to have suffered, and what should be after him.’ We 
 therefore, becoming acquainted with these things, believed in 
 God, by reason of the things which were written concerning 
 him.’ And presently, afterwards,” Clemens adds, “ Peter again 
 infers that the prophecies were (written) by Divine foreknow- 
 ledge, thus saying, ‘ For we know that God really appointed 
 these things, and without the Scripture we say nothing.’” * 
 
 1 Mia yap 9 mdvt@v yéyove radv | kadapeOjvat, vel tale aliquid, making 
 *Anooréday womep SidacKadia, o’Tws | the words then refer to the earthly 
 d€ kal 7 mapddoors.— Clem. Alex. | Jerusalem. 
 
 Stromat. VII. § xvii. p. 900. * Kai ovdev arep ypapns héyopev.— 
 
 2 Grabe, Spicileg. i. pp. 61, 62. Clem. Alex. Stromat. VI. § xv. pp. 804, 
 
 3 TIpd rod ‘Iepood\uvpa kro Ojvat, | 805. 
 unless we read AnPOnvar, adwOnvat, 
 
56 CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS JUSTIFIED (Serres I. 
 
 Is it then to be charged upon Clemens as an act of fraud 
 and fallacy, or even of folly and weakness, that he made use 
 of a work which expresses itself after this manner, when his 
 subject happened to remind him of a passage in it that suited 
 him, without cautioning his readers against its pretensions ; 
 what it really was being most likely notorious all the while? 
 Would it expose a man now to the charge of wilful deception, 
 if in a treatise he should quote the Apocrypha without ex- 
 pressly stating that the Apocrypha was not canonical ? 
 
 The same reasoning will apply to his use of the “ Acts of 
 Peter ;” if indeed it is to that document that a passage in the 
 Stromata refers,' as Grabe supposes,’ though the title is not 
 given by Clemens. At all events it is only quoted by him 
 with a daci—“ they say that the blessed Peter, when he be- 
 held his wife led to death, was pleased that she was sent for 
 and conducted homewards, and addressed her with a cheering 
 word of comfort and exhortation, calling her by name and 
 saying, ‘Remember the Lord.’ ” 
 
 With respect to Clemens’ citations of the writings of Hermas 
 and of Barnabas, fictitious as they are according to Daillé, 
 which is another article of impeachment that Daillé prefers 
 against him on this occasion, we may observe, that supposing 
 Clemens to have believed in the title of these writings to be 
 considered the works of the authors whose names they bear, 
 which seems to have been the case, still there is nothing in 
 this to damage his character in any way. He erred, if he did 
 err, in common with many others of the early Church ; in- 
 deed it was nothing but a general feeling of that kind pre- 
 valent in the Church that preserved them. In those times it 
 must have been beyond measure difficult to decide the canon 
 of Scripture peremptorily. All was to be done by the inspec- 
 tion of manuscripts, which circulated in the several distant 
 churches throughout the world, and a comparison of the local 
 evidence possessed by these churches for fixing each manuscript 
 upon the writer. There were then no Councils of the Church. 
 Conference was no easy matter where the parties were very 
 remote from one another and often watched with jealousy by 
 the powers of the day, and had to conduct so many of their 
 operations clandestinely, and under the constant experience or 
 
 * Stromat. VIL. § xi. p. 869. ® Grabe, Spicileg. i. p. 79. 
 
Lect. I1I.} IN QUOTING BARNABAS AND HERMAS. 57 
 
 apprehension of persecution. There was no volume of the 
 New Testament bound up as now, in ordinary use, and dis- 
 persed by millions; but some manuscript books in the keep- 
 ing of some Churches, and some in the keeping of others, as it 
 might be. And the absolute necessity for such a volume was 
 not at first so imperative, as it became shortly afterwards : 
 for the appeal was not in those days so directly and invari- 
 ably to Scripture as it now is. There was for a time a sub- 
 stitute for it to some extent in the fresh tradition, which as 
 yet ran pure and unpolluted in every Apostolical Church—a 
 tradition which the sound Churchmen were perpetually appeal- 
 ing to (as we actually find to have been the case), and were 
 compelled to appeal to in support of the truth against the 
 heretics, who often denied the authority of the Scriptures 
 which were objected to them, and were only to be refuted by 
 the living voice of the Church, which had taught otherwise 
 than they would have it, from the time of Christ and the 
 Apostles to the time in question ; against the heretics too, who 
 often again adulterated Scripture, and could only have their 
 Iniquities exposed and refuted by producing the usage and 
 language of the Church, ever since a Church there was. I 
 say that under all these circumstances, a man must have had 
 great perplexity in satisfying himself what was canonical 
 Scripture, and what was not, particularly when (as I have al- 
 ready observed) the latter was often only the truth alloyed, 
 not the truth denied—alloyed in a more or less perceptible de- 
 gree. And his perplexity would perhaps be greater, as to ex- 
 cluding certain books, than as to admitting certain others, for 
 the evidence in favour of the latter might have been at once 
 overwhelming, whilst the evidence against the former might 
 be supposed then to have come but partially to light, and it 
 might have been imagined, that further intercourse among the 
 churches would supply testimony which seemed at first lack- 
 ing. Who shall wonder therefore that, for a time, a few docu- 
 ments should have been amongst the doubtful—that the judg- 
 ment of the Church should have been suspended with respect 
 to them, waiting for further facts to transpire. It was so with 
 respect to some Scriptures afterwards admitted into the Canon. 
 It was so with respect to some (these works of Hermas and 
 Barnabas among the number), afterwards excluded from it. 
 Clemens was amongst those who, when he wrote, thought them 
 
 
 
58 OPINIONS OF MODERN SCHOLARS. (Series I. 
 
 authoritative, or at least written by the disciples to whom they 
 were ascribed. Modern scholars as great as Daillé have done - 
 the same. Isaac Vossius and Hammond both defend the 
 epistle of Barnabas. Usher and Bull both respect it; the 
 latter of whom also repels the exceptions taken against the 
 Shepherd of Hermas.' And perhaps a still greater name than 
 any of them, Bishop Pearson, does the same.? And possibly 
 one reason why Daillé and those of his school attack the au- 
 thority of these two works with such acrimony is (as Bishop 
 Bull suggests of Blondel’s dealing with Hermas), the testimony 
 one of them at least supplies against him on the subject of 
 Episcopacy*; as the other also does on the subject of the 
 freedom of the will’; and that which both of them bear to 
 the life-giving or regenerating power of Baptism.? We may 
 suspect this the rather, because though the same Clemens 
 quotes on two occasions the epistle to the Corinthians of his 
 name-sake of Rome, and ascribes it in terms just as express to 
 the Apostolic Clemens,° and though at least as much might 
 have been made by a perverse interpretation of the reference 
 to.the phcenix contained in that epistle,’ as is made by him of 
 the reference to the Sibyl found in Clemens Alexandrinus ; yet 
 inasmuch as the epistle of Clemens Romanus is not calculated 
 to alarm so much any of Daillé’s prejudices or those of his 
 persuasion, he suffers this peccadillo of his author to escape 
 scot-free, and accounts it, apparently, no matter of charge, 
 that Clemens should give his sanction to this primitive docu- 
 ment. 
 
 We may the more freely draw this inference, from the turn 
 his argument now takes against another primitive author, who 
 would, of all others, be the most natural object of his aver- 
 sion, as being the most opposed to all his ecclesiastical notions, 
 Ignatius.’ His attack upon this Father is made with all the 
 dexterity of a polemic. He endeavours to excite an evil im- 
 pression of the genuineness of the Letters in the first instance, 
 
 1 Def. Fid. Nic. sect. 1, c. ii. §§ 2, 3. 5 “Quoniam vita vestra per aquam 
 ? Vind. Ignat. Part I. ¢. iv. salva facta est, et fiet..—Hermas, Vis. 
 * “Ti sunt Apostoli et Episcopi et | iii. § 8. Maxdpor of ent rov oravpov 
 Doctores et Ministri."—Hermas, Vis. | €Amicavres, xareByoav eis 7d DOwop.— 
 lil. § 5. Barnabas, § xi. 
 * O yap tadra roar, ev ty Bacideia | © Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § vii. p. 
 Tov Ocov dogacOncera 6 exeiva ex- | 339; LV. § xvii. p. 609. 
 Aeyopevos pera TOY Epywy ad’tod auy-| 7 Clem. Rom. Ad Cor, I. § xxv. 
 
 amroXeirat.—Barnabas, § xxi. | §& Daillé, p. 57. 
 
Lect. II!.] THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS. 59 
 
 by devolving upon them the suspicion attached to all antiquity 
 whatever, which he had excited in the minds of his readers 
 by an aecumulation of the examples it supplies (many of those 
 which he names very far-fetched) of fiction or fraud. Having 
 created, therefore, this prejudice against the Epistles of Igna- 
 tius i limine, as he might against any ancient document 
 whatever, and given them a bad name, he feels the way paved 
 for the introduction of a specific objection, founded on the 
 silence of the ancients with respect to them ; confessing indeed 
 (for he will be candid), that it is possible for one or even 
 many Fathers to be ignorant of a previous writer, or know- 
 ing him, through inadvertence or design to make no mention 
 of him; but still contending that, if a grave and learned au- 
 thor was altogether silent respecting the writings of one who 
 was prior to him in date, when there was good reason for his 
 not being silent about them, when those writings were cele- 
 brated either on account of the name of the writer or the 
 subject of his argument, the probability is that no such writ- 
 ings were then in existence. He then applies this reasoning 
 to the case of Ignatius, and maintains, that had the Epistles 
 of which Eusebius speaks been extant in the time of Irenzeus, 
 he must have known of them ; and treating, as he did, of the 
 Godhead of the Creator, and the verity of Christ the Son, he 
 would have produced out of them evidence against the here- 
 tics ; as he actually does make use of Clemens’ Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, and Polycarp’s to the Philippians; whereas he 
 never mentions these at all. Neither would these Epistles, if 
 they had been genuine, have escaped the notice of Clemens 
 Alexandrinus, who frequently quotes even apocryphal books, 
 nor of Tertullian; neither of whom speaks of them." 
 
 But what if Irenzeus does refer to them? What if the fol- 
 lowing paragraph occurs in that Father—the original Greek of 
 Irenzeus preserved, too, in Eusebius in this instance, which is 
 important? ;—“ Even as one of our brethren said, when con- 
 demned to the wild beasts, through the witness which he bare 
 unto God, I am the corn of God, and I am ground by the 
 teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread—otros 
 eit Ocod Kat Sv ddSdvtwv Onpiwv adyjOopat, iva Ka0apos aptos 
 
 
 
 1 Daillé, p. 58. Trenzeus, V. ¢. xxviii. § 4. 
 2 Kusebius, Eccles. Hist. iii. c. 06; 
 
60 PASSAGES IN IGNATIUS COMPARED (Serres I. 
 
 ebpeOa.” And what if the very same passage, word for 
 word, is found in our present copies of Ignatius’ Epistle to the 
 Romans,' showing that the “one of our brethren,’ the tus 
 Tov nuerépwor, as the Greek runs, was Ignatius? Oh! writes 
 Daillé, I am aware of that passage; but it was introduced 
 into the Epistle by the forger of it, to give it a colouring of 
 truth. Ignatius is not named in it; and, moreover, it does 
 not say, ut scripsit quidam de nostris, or ut in Epistola aliqua 
 dixit, but simply, ut dixit. But how gratuitous is this! The 
 genuineness of the Epistles is denied because [renzeus does not 
 quote them. He does quote them, is the reply. Yes, is the 
 rejoinder; but as I insist that the Epistles are spurious, the 
 quotation must have been made by the forger from Irenzeus ; 
 not by Irenzeus from the Epistles. Surely this is a begging 
 of the question. With respect to the use of the expression, 
 “said,” instead of “ wrote,” as though the former term implied 
 that Irenzeus did not quote from any written document, but 
 was merely recording a hearsay; that must be felt to be an 
 objection which none would have raised but one who was 
 greatly pressed for an argument ; for who does not know that 
 the word “said” is as often used to introduce a citation from 
 a book as the word “ wrote,’ or indeed much oftener? Nor 
 is this all. Daillé is evidently not aware that any other re- 
 ference to Ignatius can be supposed to exist in the writings of 
 Trenzeus besides this one. And he may be well excused in 
 the supposition ; for Bishop Pearson is under the same impres- 
 sion. Bishop Bull, however, who gleans after Bishop Pearson, 
 has produced another passage in Irenzeus,? which he thinks 
 looks to one in the Epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp. The para- 
 graph in Irenzeus runs thus: “that it was a strange doc- 
 trine to the Gentiles that there was one God, and that his 
 Word, naturally invisible, was made palpable and visible 
 amongst men, and that he descended to death, even the death 
 of the Cross.”* The paragraph in Ignatius, which Bishop 
 Bull considers to correspond to this, is, “ Be more zealous than 
 thou art ; study the times ; be in expectation of Him who is 
 above time, not of time, invisible, yet visible to us, impalpable, 
 
 ' Ignatius, Ad Romanos, § iv. in hominibus factum, et usque ad mor- 
 ~ Def. Fid. Nic. sect. 4, ¢. iii. § 6. tem descendisse, mortem autem crucis. 
 ® Et hujus Verbum naturaliter qui- | —Lrenzeus, LV. c. xxiv. § 2. 
 
 dem invisibilem, palpabilem et yisibilem 
 
Lect. ITT.] WITH IRENAUS AND POLYCARP. 61 
 
 impassive, though a sufferer for us!’’' Moreover the coinci- 
 dence here, if one there is, is not of the same kind as the 
 other, or liable to the same objection (such as it is) which 
 Daillé advances ; for Irenzeus does not here quote, but simply 
 alludes, in the way a man might do, who, having read the 
 Epistles, found a phrase in them cleaving to his memory, which 
 he took the liberty of adopting, without considering it neces- 
 sary to make any formal acknowledgment of having done so. 
 
 But the nature of Irenzeus’ book, which was against here- 
 sies, pursues Daillé, would have caused him to find in Ignatius 
 that which might have been turned to account; and therefore 
 it is the more extraordinary that he should not speak of those 
 Epistles. The heresies, however, on which these Epistles 
 touch, are very simple ; merely that which denied the Divinity, 
 and that which denied the Humanity of Christ ; whilst those 
 with which Irenzeus deals are most elaborate and complicated. 
 Besides, why should it be more extraordinary that he should 
 not dwell on Ignatius (for allude to him, we have seen, he 
 does) than that he should not once even refer to Barnabas, to 
 Quadratus, to Aristides, to Melito, and numbers more whose 
 works might have been known to Irenzeus, or rather must 
 have been known, for many of them were very famous in the 
 Church, and some of them might have supplied him with 
 matter quite as much to his purpose as Ignatius ? 
 
 But the case does not after all rest on any such narrow 
 ground as one quotation or one allusion in Irenzeus. Polycarp, 
 in his Epistles to the Philippians, an authority rather earlier 
 than Irengeus, speaks expressly of the Epistles of Ignatius as 
 having been sent to him by Ignatius himself’; which is deci- 
 sive against Daillé and his “said,” instead of “wrote ;” and 
 proves that written Epistles there were for Irenzeus to read. 
 And not only does Polycarp give a general description of their 
 contents, but uses many phrases and peculiar forms of speech, 
 which have a close relation to others found in the Epistles, 
 and in our present copies of them. As, for instance, Polycarp 
 in his Epistle speaks of Ignatius and his companions, as persons 
 bound in bonds such as become saints (to@s dyvomperéou Seo- 
 pots,) and are unto them diadems (ativa éote Siadqwata.)° 
 
 ! Tov ddpatoy, tov du yas éparor, ® Polycarp, Ad Philipp. § xiii. 
 
 lL 
 
 Tov ayndadpnrov, tov aman, Tov de oe 
 nas maOnrov —Ad Polycarpum, § iii. 
 
62 IGNATIUS COMPARED WITH TERTULLIAN. ([Sentes I. 
 
 ~ 
 
 Ignatius speaks of his being bound Ocompemeorarots Seopois,’ 
 of wearing bonds which are ‘spiritual jewels (rovs TvevpatiKovs 
 prapyapitas).” From whence it would seem that in these cases 
 Polycarp was adopting, without any formal profession of it, 
 the phraseology of Ignatius, of whom he was speaking. This 
 is the kind of concurrence in expression which is to be detected . 
 on a comparison of their writings. Bishop Pearson will fur- 
 nish you with other examples of it.° 
 
 But Clemens Alexandrinus, continues Daillé, never quotes 
 these Epistles, and he was in the habit of citing even apocry- 
 phal books. What reasoning, however, is this! that because 
 he quotes some books, it must be expected of him to quote all 
 then in circulation ; and that it must be concluded those which 
 he did not quote did not exist ! Undoubtedly Clemens, as I 
 have said already, was one of those people that struggle with 
 whole libraries ; and numerous are the authors which he quotes 
 or mentions ; but there are very many whose works are known 
 to have been then in being, whom he passes over in silence. 
 He refers to the Epistle of Barnabas*; to the Shepherd of 
 Hermas*; to the Epistle of Clemens Romanus®; to Irenzeus, 
 though not by name’; to Tatian*®: but I do not believe he 
 has a single allusion to Justin, to Athenagoras, to Theophilus, 
 to Apollinarius, to Hegesippus, and to many more distinguished 
 writers who had preceded him, whom it would be very easy 
 to enumerate. 
 
 Tertullian, again, gives no token of knowing him, continues 
 Daillé, and Bishop Pearson acquiesces in this ; at least he brings 
 no instance to the contrary. Yet there is a passage in Ter- 
 tullian which very much resembles one in Ignatius. It is in 
 the “De Carne Christi,” and is as follows :—Tertullian is 
 speaking of the nature of Christ—“ Wherefore, the posses- 
 sion of both the one substance and the other exhibited Him 
 as Man and God: on the one hand, born; on the other, not 
 born: on the one hand, carnal; on the other, spiritual ; on 
 the one hand, weak ; on the other, exceedingly strong: on 
 the one hand, dying ; on the other, alive.”® Now certainly 
 the phraseology, as well as the antithesis, very much resembles 
 
 1 Ignatius, Ad Smyrn. § xi. 
 
 * Ad Ephes. § xi. 
 
 * Vind. Ign. Part T. e. v. 
 
 * Clem. Alex. Stromat. II. § xx. pp. 
 480, 490. 
 
 I. § xvii. p. 869. 
 
 I. § vii. p. 339. 
 
 I. § xxii: p. 410: 
 
 IIT. § xii. p. 547. 
 
 Tertullian, De Carne Christi, ec. v. 
 
 an 
 
 cowat 
 
Lect. IIT.] IGNATIUS QUOTED BY ORIGEN. 63 
 
 a passage in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians. “There 
 is one Physician, bodily and spiritual ; created and not cre- 
 ated ; God in the flesh ; a real life in death; both of Mary 
 and of God ; at first capable of suffering, then incapable.’’! 
 The resemblance, I mean, is such as would be very naturally 
 accounted for by the supposition, that Tertullian wrote the 
 paragraph with a recollection on his mind of having read 
 such a passage in Ignatius. 
 
 And why should Daillé stop suddenly short at Tertullian 2? 
 Why should he not go on to Origen, the next Father in order, 
 and being also prior to Eusebius, just as important to produce 
 as the others he had named? Can it be because Origen not 
 only bears testimony, but bears direct and repeated testimony 
 to the Epistles of Ignatius, not to the sayings in this case, 
 but, I repeat, to the Epistles of Ignatius; quoting on two 
 occasions passages now found in our copies? Surely the 
 suppression of so material a witness, of whom he must have 
 been cognisant (because he happens to be against him), may 
 be the proceeding of one who has determined to support a 
 cause right or wrong, but cannot be that of one who is in 
 the honest search of truth. The first of these passages is in 
 Origen’s Prologue to his Commentary on the Canticles. “ Fi- 
 nally, we recollect that a certain one of the saints, Ignatius 
 by name, said of Christ, ‘My love is crucified ; nor do I 
 think him deserving of reproof for this.” Accordingly, we 
 find in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans the expression, 
 “O euos epas éeotavpwra.’ It is true that his Commentary 
 on the Canticles now only exists in the Latin ; and in a work 
 of Daillé’s subsequent to this one on the use of the Fathers,* 
 a work in which he investigates the question of the authority 
 of the Epistles of Ignatius at length, and to which Bishop 
 Pearson’s “ Vindicize Ignatian” was a reply,’ he examines 
 the testimony of Origen (his subject in this instance forcing 
 him to do so, and making suppression impossible), and denies 
 that the Commentary on the Canticles was written by Origen, 
 or was ever written in Greek at all. I cannot here stay to 
 give you Bishop Pearson’s refutation of this gratuitous sup- 
 position of Daillé’s: suffice it to say, that he produces in de- 
 
 ' Tenatius, Ad Ephes. § vii. pagitee et Ignatii Antiocheni nominibus 
 2 Daillé, p. 58. circumferuntur libri duo. 4to. Geneve, 
 3 Tonatius, Ad Rom. § vil. 1666. 
 
 * De Scriptis quae sub Dionysii Areo. 5 Vind. Ign. Prowm. ¢. i. 
 
64 IGNATIUS QUOTED BY ORIGEN. [Sentes I. 
 
 tail the several characteristics of Origen’s style, which is 
 quite peculiar, and shows that the Commentary bears all the 
 marks of it—whilst the other part of the supposition, equally 
 gratuitous, that the Commentary never was composed in Greek 
 at all, receives a complete refutation from a fragment of the 
 phil Greek still preserved in the Eiflloealia.’ and which 
 perfectly corresponds to a passage (freely rendered) in the 
 second book of this disputed translation of the Commentary.’ 
 The other passage in Origen which bears testimony to the 
 Epistles of Iguatius is in a homily on St. Luke. “T meet with 
 an elegant expression in the Epistle of the same martyr,” (not 
 in this instance again, “a saying,”’) “I mean Ignatius, Bishop 
 of Antioch, second after Peter, and who suffered persecution 
 by having to fight with wild beasts at Rome, ‘the virginity 
 of Mary escaped the knowledge of the Prince of this world.’ ” 
 And accordingly the very sentence is found in the Epistle of 
 Ignatius to the Ephesians, as we have it.? But here, again, 
 the passage of Origen, like the other, was only known to exist 
 in the Latin; which again caused Daillé, in the treatise I 
 before alluded to, and which was subsequent to this book of 
 his, which we are now upon, to demur to its authority, as 
 before. Bishop Pearson replies to the objection again in a 
 manner perfectly satisfactory. But it has happened ex abun- 
 danti that since Bishop Pearson’s time the very passage in 
 question was discovered as a fragment by Grabe in the Greek. 
 and was communicated by him to the Benedictine editor of 
 Origen’s works, where it now appears.* This argument to the 
 confirmation of Bishop Pearson, and further confusion of 
 Daillé, is noticed by Dr. Routh in his preface to the “ Reliquiz 
 Sacre.” ° 
 
 The manner in which Daillé expresses himself in the part 
 of the “ De Usu Patrum,” which I am now examining, does 
 not warrant us in supposing that he disputed our copies of 
 
 ' A collection of questions and answers 
 made from different books of Origen by 
 SS. Basil and Gregory, printed at the 
 end of the Cambridge Ed. of Origen 
 against Celsus. 
 
 * Sed pro rebus aut materiis sub- 
 jacentibus, (Sol) aut illuminat aliquid 
 luce, aut infuscat et obdurat aliquid 
 ardore. Secundum hee ergo fortassis 
 et indurasse dicitur Deus cor Pharaonis, 
 &c,—Origenis Comment. in Canticum 
 Canticorum, vol. iii. p. 51, Bened. Ed. 
 
 
 
 TIpdoxes dé kat Tovrots, Ort 6 Wuos 
 Aevkds Kal apmpds wy, Soxet TY 
 airiay EXEL TOU peAavooy, ov wap 
 éavtov, GAkad mapa Toy, ws drrode- 
 doxaper, peavodpevor" ovr@ 6 Kat 
 HN) Tore okAnpvvet Kuptos THY Kapdiay 
 apaw, k.T.A.—Origenis Philocal. ¢. 
 XXVii. 
 
 3 Ignatius, Ad Ephes. § xix. 
 
 4 Origen. Homil. vi. in Lucam. vol. 
 iii. p. 938. 
 
 5 Rel. Sacr. vol. i, pp. XXi. Xxii. 
 
Lect. IIT.] EUSEBIUS A COMPETENT WITNESS. 65 
 
 these Epistles being the same which Eusebius at least saw.! 
 Indeed, he admits in his subsequent work that they are the 
 same,” as though Kusebius, a consideration which Bishop 
 Pearson presses on him with very great force, was not com- 
 petent to detect the imposture “—Eusebius, whose knowledge 
 of Greek literature was most conspicuous, woAvpabéctatos 
 toTwp, as Sozomen calls him; the intimate friend of Pam- 
 philus, who was the greatest collector of ecclesiastical authors 
 of his time ; the correspondent to whom Constantine applies 
 for manuscript copies of the Scriptures, when he wanted them 
 for his library at Constantinople; the scholar who wore his — 
 life out amongst books and parchments ; as though he was 
 taken in by these forgeries, and it was reserved for Daillé to 
 find them out. Accordingly, his argument spends itself in 
 damaging their credit before the time of Eusebius, in showing 
 that those with which Eusebius was conversant were spurious. 
 There is no need, therefore, to enter into the proofs which the 
 language of Eusebius affords, that his copies at any rate are 
 ours *: to describe how he speaks of them at length, and in 
 detail ; tells us where each of the Epistles was written (for 
 they were written in more places than one) ; who were the 
 Bishops at the time of the several Churches to which they 
 are addressed ; quotes long passages from them: thus furnish- 
 ing many data by which we can institute a comparison between 
 the Epistles known to Eusebius and those in our own posses- 
 sion—the result of which is, that they appear to be the same. 
 There is no need, I say, on the present occasion to pursue this 
 matter further. Enough has been said to show that Daillé 
 deals out his denunciations of forgery with much too liberal 
 a hand, and that the readers of his book “De Vero Usu Pa- 
 trum” need not lose all heart about the study of ecclesiastical 
 antiquity because they find him representing it as so little to 
 be trusted. Let them explore the question for themselves, by 
 mastering for themselves the primitive documents which are 
 of good repute, and I undertake to say that they will then 
 rise from the perusal of Daillé very often, perhaps generally, 
 with a feeling that he is a special pleader, and has a cause to 
 
 make good. 
 1 His words are, “ Quo exemplo non | feruntur.”—p. 58. 
 minus validé argumentamur supposi-| 7? Vind. Ign. I. e¢. ii. 3 @. viii. 
 
 titias esse eas epistolas, que jam ab| * Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. iii. c. 36. 
 Eusebii seculo Ignatii nomine circum. 
 ¥ 
 
66 FOURTIL ARGUMENT OF DAILLE. [Serres I. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Fourth argument of Daillé. Vagueness of it. The Fathers disposed of in the 
 same way by Priestley. Paucity of MSS. Antiquity of some of the Versions. 
 Improbability that the Fathers previous to Cyprian have been tampered with 
 by the Romanists. Discussion of passages claimed as favourable to Romish 
 views. The writings of Irenus full of evidence against them. His appeal to 
 tradition the same as that of the Church of England. The writings of Clemens 
 occasionally corrupt. Discussion of passages in them claimed by the Roman- 
 ists. Germ of Romish errors discoverable in Clemens. The same remark true 
 of Tertullian. But neither his writings nor those of Hippolytus in a condition 
 satisfactory to a Romish interpolator. 
 
 spurious works as distinguished from such as are genu- 
 ine; and has been expatiating upon the difficulty even in 
 this case of discriminating the false from the true; but he 
 has not yet done with this argument of forgery, and the plea it 
 affords for damaging the credit of the Fathers. Accordingly 
 he now proceeds to another branch of it, and contends that 
 if it is difficult to decide even upon the genuineness of whole 
 books (which was the consideration we were dealing with in 
 the last Lecture), how much more, upon all the component 
 parts of even unsuspected books, what has been interpolated, 
 and what expunged in them’; yet, until this has been done, 
 the real sentiments of the author can never be attained ; not 
 to speak of the errors of transcribers in the copies that have 
 been made during ten or a dozen centuries, and the depreda- 
 tions on the manuscripts occasioned by moths, worms, decay. 
 I notice all this, for the same reason I before noticed his 
 array of fictitious works (works which everybody allows to be 
 fictitious), simply in order to show the animus of the man, 
 and the determinate exaggeration with which he states his case ~ 
 against the Fathers. For who does not see that most or all 
 of these objections bear, if not with equal strength yet cer- 
 tainly with great strength, against the genuineness of all an- 
 
 pam has been hitherto chiefly contemplating entire 
 
 ? Daillé, pp. 59, 60, 
 
Lecr. IV.] USE MADE OF IT BY PRIESTLEY. 67 
 
 cient books whatever, even of the Scriptures themselves, and 
 reduce one to principles of universal scepticism? Nothing is 
 more easy than to throw out a charge that a book is interpo- 
 lated, when the subject-matter of it does not happen to suit 
 our taste ; and in the case of an ancient book, nothing is 
 more difficult than to disprove the objection by any distinct 
 evidence. The expedient may serve the turn of Daillé, in 
 order to dispose of testimony on the Romish question, which 
 he might fancy was inconvenient, and those who think with 
 him might feel inclined to favour his temerity ; but the same 
 expedient might serve the turn of a Priestley equally well, 
 and was in fact employed by him to extinguish evidence 
 which the same quarter supplies on the Socinian question and 
 the Divinity of the Son, so that it is a dangerous edge-tool 
 to use. “ We find nothing like Divinity ascribed to Christ 
 before Justin Martyr,” says Dr. Priestley.'—But the Epistle of 
 Barnabas is against you ?—Yes, but the text and translation 
 of that Epistle are interpolated. And the Epistle of Cle- 
 mens Romanus? But the manuscript of Clemens is faulty. 
 And the Epistles of Ignatius? But the numerous passages 
 in which the Divinity of Christ is clearly confessed in those 
 Epistles are foisted in, every one of them. “ Having by this 
 compendious process,” says Mr. Wilson in his “ Illustration 
 of the method of explaining the New Testament by the early 
 opinions of Jews and Christians concerning Christ,”? “ re- 
 duced the Apostolical Fathers to his own theological standard, 
 he next actually reckons on their silence, a silence of his own 
 creation, in favour of his own opinions ; and confidently 
 affirms that ‘we find nothing like Divinity ascribed to Jesus 
 Christ before the time of Justin Martyr.” “The most 
 extraordinary method,” adds Mr. Wilson, “of conducting an 
 historical inquiry that ever was adopted.” The remarks of 
 Daillé, however, ultimately settle on the question, not of acci- 
 dental, but of fraudulent interpolation or mutilation of eccle- 
 siastical authors.* 
 
 The manuscripts of the early Fathers are in general few in 
 number,‘ so that we cannot find any strong argument against 
 
 ! History of the Corruptions of Chris- 3 Daillé, pp. 63. 65, et seq. 
 
 tianity, vol. i. p. 32. 4 TI perceive almost all the editors 
 2 Wilson, pp. 282, 288. Cambridge. | complain of this. 
 
 1838, In summa qua laborant Patres Apos- 
 
 FQ 
 
68 
 
 those who throw out charges of interpolation or mutilation from 
 the universal consent of a multitude of manuscripts ; but then 
 we have, in several instances, the check of early translations of 
 these Fathers. We have nearly the whole of Barnabas both 
 in the Greek and Latin—the Latin barbarous enough, no doubt, 
 and occasionally defective, but early ; at least before the year 
 900, when the corruptionists, according to Daillé, had scarcely 
 begun their work.’ We have the Shepherd of Hermas in a 
 Latin version only ; but that version most ancient, probably 
 the one through which the work itself was known to the 
 Latin writers of the Primitive Church? ; and we have very 
 many passages of the original Greek text preserved in other 
 authors as fragments, by which the fidelity of the old transla- 
 tion may in general be tested. We have again a very ancient 
 version of the Epistles of Ignatius, the history of which, indeed, 
 very remarkably illustrates the argument I am now using, and 
 
 PAUCITY OF MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 [Serres I. 
 
 tolici Codicum manu scriptorum penu- 
 ria, utpote quorum non nisi singulis 
 Clementis et Ignatii uti liceat, &e.— 
 Jacobson, Patres Apostol. Monitum, p. 
 vi. 
 
 Nolite vero oblivisci codicum manu 
 seriptorum usu destitutum me id tan- 
 tum egisse, ut, &c.—Hefele, Patres 
 Apostol. Pref. p. 1. 
 
 Valde est dolendum quod pauci tan- 
 tum supersunt in bibliothecis codices 
 operum Justinianorum manu scripti.— 
 Otto, Justin. Martyr. Prolegom. p. xxxi. 
 And again—Interdum vero destitutus 
 codicum manu scriptorum auxilio—hoe 
 maxime accidit in Apologiis et in Dia- 
 logo, quorum, quod sane dolendum, 
 non extant nisi duo codices scripti 
 jlique recentiores ac sibimetipsis con- 
 simillimi, &e.—Hefele, Patres Apostol. 
 Preef. pp. xlviil. xlix. 
 
 It should appear from Archbishop 
 Potter's address to the Reader that he 
 had met with few MSS. of Clemens 
 Alexandrinus. Manu scripta, quecun- 
 que reperire potui, exemplaria diligenter 
 perlegi. And these consisted of a MS. 
 of the Cohortatio and of the two last 
 books of the Psedagogue in New Col- 
 lege Library, a MS. of the three books 
 of the Pedagogue in the Bodleian, and 
 another, almost the same, in the King’s 
 Library. Scriptum Stromatum exem- 
 
 plar nullum oculis meis perlustrare 
 hactenus licuit. But Bernard Mont- 
 faucon had sent him a list of various 
 readings, non solum ex Ottoboniano, 
 qui eorum prolixiora quedam Frag- 
 menta, sed ex Parisiensi etiam codice, 
 qui integrum Stromatum opus com- 
 plectitur. 
 
 The MSS. used in Priorius’ edition 
 of Tertullian, which has for its basis 
 
 -that of Rigaltius, are the Codices 
 
 Claudii Puteani et Petri Pithei, and 
 the Fuldensian, the Codex Agobardi, 
 the Codex Fulvii Ursini, the Codex 
 Divionensis. But these appear to have 
 been the MSS. of parts of Tertullian, 
 not of his entire works. ‘ 
 
 The MSS. of Ireneus seem to be 
 more numerous for the Latin version 
 than for the Greek text: Non minor 
 in recognoscenda ea parte Greci textis, 
 que extat, cura fuit adhibita, quamvis 
 deficientibus MSS., minori suceessu.— 
 Preef. ad Edit. Benedict. p. viii. 
 
 The MSS. of Cyprian are numerous. 
 Baluzius who furnished the text chiefly 
 or altogether of the Benedictine edition, 
 preter codices MSS. qui Pamelio, Ri- 
 galtio et Anglis usui fuerant, alios cir- 
 citer triginta in subsidium sibi adhibuit, 
 — Pref. ad Edit. Benedict. p. iv. 
 
 1 Preface to Russel’s Ed. p. viii. 
 
 ? Russel, p. 126. Cotelerius’ Opinion, 
 
Lecr. IV.] THE WRITINGS OF JUSTIN 69 
 
 shows by example the singular value of these early translations 
 in preserving the original text entire. For this version hay- 
 ing been discovered before any copy of the Greek text of the 
 shorter Epistles of Ignatius had come to light, on being com- 
 pared with the Greek text of the Interpolated Epistles, which 
 was already known, served to detect the interpolations, and 
 enabled Usher, in a new edition, to weed them all out, and 
 expose them by printing them in red ink. His corrections, 
 thus obtained, were confirmed by the discovery of the Greek 
 text of the shorter Epistles soon afterwards at Florence. We 
 may, however, observe in passing, that these interpolations bear 
 no mark of having been made for the purpose of upholding any 
 Romish articles of faith or practice ; nor is it easy to find that 
 any principle of any kind guided their contrivers in the fabri- 
 cation of them. 
 
 Of Justin Martyr we have no early Latin translation to 
 refer to; but Justin bears no marks of having been tampered 
 with by the Romanists. There is only one passage in his 
 works which could be even suspected of having been submitted 
 to their manipulation'—a passage which has certainly been 
 produced by Romanists as favouring the worship of angels, but 
 it has no appearance whatever of interpolation—the argument 
 is consecutive and unbroken—and if in reply to heathens who 
 charged the Christians with atheism, Justin, in his zeal to show 
 that they were no atheists, should say, not only that they 
 worshipped God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 but also ex abundanti should touch upon their belief in angels, 
 what wonder? But if the Romanists had introduced the 
 paragraph respecting the angels in order to cover their practice 
 of worshipping them, would they not have so worded it, as to 
 make the meaning they intended to impart to it, clear? 
 Whereas, the fact is, that many scholars, as Grabe, Cave, and 
 Le Nourry, though a Benedictine, consider the passage to admit 
 of a translation perfectly consistent with the Protestant doc- 
 trine, punctuation having much to do with it”; and Bishop 
 Bull, who discusses it at great length,’ so far from contending 
 that it is corrupt, rests his interpretation mainly on its relation 
 
 “to the context, which the Romanists, he considers, had not 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 6. Bishop Kaye’s, in p. 53 of his Justin 
 ? See the note in Chevallier’s trans- | Martyr. 
 lation of the Apology, p. 178, and 3 Def. Fid. Nic, sect..2, ¢. iv. § 8 
 
70 NOT TAMPERED WITH BY ROMANISTS.  [Sentes I. 
 
 taken sufficiently into their consideration ; a line of argument, 
 as it will be at once perceived, utterly opposed to any notion 
 of interpolation. Moreover, if the Romanists adulterated this 
 passage, how came they to leave untouched another in Justin, 
 occurring in the same Apology, and within a few pages of the 
 first,! the parallel to it and comment upon it, a passage which 
 clearly limits the objects of Christian worship to the three 
 Persons of the Trinity? Or how happened they to permit 
 another passage to stand in the “ Legatio pro Christianis” of 
 Athenagoras, which is almost the counterpart of this of Justin 
 —the same objection encountered, the same answer supplied, 
 the three Persons of the Trinity still the objects of the Chris- 
 tian worship, and the Christian belief asserted besides (just in 
 the manner it is done by Justin according to the Protestant 
 and Bishop Bull’s rendering), in the existence of angels ?? 
 How did this passage escape their mischievous pains, especially 
 as Justin’s genuine, as well as reputed works, are usually found, 
 more or fewer of them, comprised in the same manuscript as 
 the work of Athenagoras?* On the other hand, if the Ro- 
 manist was busy with Justin’s writings, how came he to leave 
 in them passages to his own confusion? Thus in opposition to 
 any doctrine of Transubstantiation, he speaks of the elements 
 in the Eucharist as food liquid and solid*—as memorials of 
 Christ’s Body and Blood °—as oblations (if oblations) of fruits 
 of the earth.° In opposition to the Communion in one kind 
 only, he expressly asserts that both the bread and the wine 
 were administered to all present.” In opposition to a Service 
 of the Church in an unknown tongue, he bears clear testimony 
 to that of the Primitive Church being in a tongue understood 
 of all—“ We all rise up together, and offer up our prayers in 
 common.” *® In opposition to the doctrine of Purgatory, he 
 represents it as a saying of Jesus, “In whatsoever state I shall 
 find you, in that shall I judge you;” 7. e. find you at the day 
 of death ; as the context plainly proves.? And in another 
 place, when declaring the freedom of the will, by which all 
 creatures, who enjoy it, are rendered responsible, he says, “We 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, Apolog. I. § 13. 5 § 70. 
 * Athenagoras, Legatio pro Chris-| © § 41. 
 
 tianis, § 10. 7 Apolog. I. § 65. 
 ® See Otto, Prolegom. p, xxxi. et seq. S58 167. 
 
 De Justini codicibus manu scriptis. ® Dialog. § 47. 
 
 4 Justin Martyr, Dialog. § 117. 
 
Lect. IV.] THE WRITINGS OF IRENAUS 71 
 
 men (and the same is true of angels) shall be self-condemned, 
 if we transgress, unless we forestall our condemnation by repen- 
 tance in time ;”! as though the work of penitence was to be 
 finished here. And in opposition to vows of celibacy, clerical, 
 conventual or monastic, occurs a paragraph scarcely consistent 
 with the exaction or recognition of such vows at that time : 
 “There are many, both men and women, sixty and seventy 
 years of age, who, having been Christians from their childhood 
 (an incidental argument, by the by, for Infant Baptism), still 
 continue undefiled.”? The term “many,” could hardly have 
 been used, had the fact been that whole classes of persons had 
 been living all their days in celibacy by the very condition of 
 their calling. 
 
 The passages in Irenzeus, to which any such suspicions as 
 these, which Daillé is starting, would be most likely to attach, 
 are very few—one which the Romanists certainly claim as 
 favouring the pretensions of the supremacy of the Church of 
 Rome, and one or two others which they claim also as favour- 
 ing the adoration of the Virgin.’ The first is the well-known 
 phrase, “ad hance enim ecclesiam propter potiorem principali- 
 tatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam.”* But I ex- 
 plained in ample detail in my second Lecture, that no such 
 doctrine as that of the supremacy of the Church of Rome, as 
 asserted in modern times, is conveyed in this phrase ; the drift 
 of the argument being against it, and other passages of Irenzeus 
 inconsistent with it. I shall not, therefore, repeat what I then 
 said, but content myself with remarking, that Romish interpo- 
 lators must have been very ill fitted for the task they had 
 imposed on themselves, if they did their work in such a manner 
 as to leave the paragraph they had to deal with, after all, not 
 only capable of receiving an interpretation against them, but 
 naturally disposed to receive it; and moreover allowed other 
 passages in the same author. to remain unerased and unmo- 
 dified, which are not to be reconciled with the doctrine they 
 were attempting to fasten on Irenzeus in one instance ; not to 
 say that anybody accustomed to the style of that most ancient, 
 but most bald and barbarous translation, in which the writings 
 of Irenzeus for the most part survive, as they do i the case 
 
 1 "kav py POacavtes petabapeba.— | * See Pref. to Benedict. Ed. of Ire- 
 Dialog. § 141. neus. 
 2 Apolog. I. § 15. 4 freneus, III. ¢. ini. § 2. 
 
72 NOT TAMPERED WITH BY ROMANISTS. [Series I, 
 
 before us, would not see any intrusive patch here, anything 
 which is not of a piece with the rest. Monkish Latin was, no 
 doubt, often bad Latin enough ; but you want here not only bad 
 Latin, but bad Latin of a very peculiar character; antiquated, 
 and at the same time hobbling under the constraint of a 
 close translation of an author not easy to be translated even 
 with latitude, and made by one whose vocabulary appears to 
 be very limited and unequal to the business before him. The 
 principal one of the passages to which I alluded is as follows, 
 — it is a parallel between the Virgin Eve and the Virgin Mary. 
 “For as she (Eve) was seduced by the discourse of the angel 
 to fly from God, and disobey his word, so the latter (Mary) 
 was instructed by the discourse of the angel to bear (portaret) 
 God, and be obedient to his word. And if the one was dis- 
 obedient to God, the other was induced to obey God, that the 
 Virgin Mary might become the advocate of the Virgin Eve. 
 And as the human race was delivered up to death by a virgin, 
 by a virgin it is saved, the scales being even, a virgin’s diso- 
 bedience and the obedience of a virgin.”' Irenzeus is here 
 engaged in refuting certain heretics, who maintained that the 
 God who created the world and gave the law, was not the same 
 as the Supreme God who gave the Gospel. He therefore shows 
 that their identity is evident from the constant connection 
 which is maintained between the Old Testament and the New, 
 and the close relation which the one bears to the other. Thus, 
 as sin was brought into the world by the disobedience of a 
 virgin (Eve), according to the Old Testament—Eve being sup- 
 posed a virgin when she ate of the tree—so according to the 
 New Testament was it abated to the world by the obedience of 
 a virgin (Mary) who was made to bear God incarnate in her 
 womb, and by so doing became the advocate of Eve, not that 
 she was herself the intercessor of Eve in heaven, but simply 
 that by having given birth to the Saviour, she became the re- 
 pairer of all the damage that Eve had done to herself and to 
 mankind. Another passage, which is nearly to the same effect, 
 occurs in Bk. III. ¢. xxii. § 4; and if rightly interpreted, con- 
 
 1 Et si ea inobedierat Deo; sed hme lis inobedientia per virginalem obedien- 
 suasa est obedire Deo, uti virginis Eve | tiam. (I take the reading as given in 
 virgo Maria fieret advocata. Et quem-| the Benedictine edition, the varie lec- 
 admodum adstrictum est morti genus | tiones not affecting the argument.)— 
 humanum per virginem, salvatur per | Ireneus, V. c. x x. § 1. 
 yvirginem, sequa lance disposita, virgina- 
 
Lecr. IV.] TESTIMONY OF IRENZUS ripe: 
 
 veys the same meaning ; viz. that the Virgin Mary was the 
 remote cause of the salvation of the human race, herself amongst 
 the number, by having given birth to the Saviour. And the 
 same meaning is to be assigned to a third paragraph of a 
 similar description, which, however, the Romanists do not claim 
 for the Virgin, thinking the term virgo, in this instance, ap- 
 ‘ plies to the Church, as it possibly does." Whilst on the other 
 hand, Irenzeus, on another occasion, shows himself so far from 
 an idolater of the Virgin, that he makes an incident in her 
 history not flattering to herself, expressly tributary to his argu- 
 ment, and treats it in a manner rather calculated to depress 
 than to exalt unduly her character and name. For when urging 
 against the Gnostics, who separated Jesus from Christ, the 
 identity of the two as manifested by the precision with which 
 Jesus Christ executed at the proper time and opportunity the 
 will of the Father, a precision which could not have had 
 effect if there had been a division in his Person, Irenzeus illus- 
 trates as follows :—“ For nothing is done by him out of order 
 and season, even as nothing is done impertinently by the Fa- 
 ther. For all things are foreknown by the Father, and are 
 wrought out by the Son, as time and circumstance suit. Ac- 
 cordingly, when Mary was making too much haste towards 
 the wonderful miracle of the wine, and was desirous to partake 
 of the cup created on the instant (compendii poculo*) before 
 the time, the Lord checked her unseasonable hurry, and said, 
 ‘What is that to me and to thee? mine hour is not yet 
 come.’”?? What I mean to observe is, that had Irenzeus been 
 impressed with those feelings for the Virgin which have pre- 
 vailed and still do prevail in the Church of Rome, he would 
 not have gone out of his way to choose this scene in her life 
 for the exemplification of his argument, when so many other 
 particulars recorded of our Lord would have served his turn 
 equally well, or having done so, he would not have volunteered 
 a description of it in terms of some aggravation. 
 
 Besides, had the Romanists meddled to, any extent with the 
 writings of Irenzeus, would they have left them, after all, full of 
 evidence against themselves? for so they are. I have already 
 produced a passage from them entirely inconsistent with the 
 doctrine of Transubstantiation*; others, with the use of the 
 
 1 Que est ex virgine per fidem, re- 2 Tie ensxt: Sie 
 generationem.—Ireneus, LY, c. xxxiil. 3 ¢. xvi. § 7. 
 § 4. * Lecture IL. p. 33. 
 
74 AGAINST ROMISII ERRORS. (Sentes I. 
 
 secret Confessional! ; another with that of images in the Ser- 
 vice of the Church? I may now add, that jealous as the 
 Romanist has been and is of the free circulation of the Scrip- 
 tures, had he been modelling Irenzeus to his taste, he would 
 not have overlooked in him the following paragraph, “ Of 
 every tree of the garden ye shall eat, saith the Spirit of God, 
 i. e. feed on every Scripture of the Lord’s.” * Or, scandalized 
 as the ecclesiastical power of Rome was, even in early times, 
 by the title of Antichrist given to it by its enemies, he would 
 scarcely have allowed the conjecture with respect to the name 
 of this mysterious agent to stand unmolested in the text of 
 Ireneeus; I mean that which intimated that it might be 
 Aatetvos, a name that answered to the number 666, and 
 was that of the last of the Prophetical kingdoms, the kingdom 
 then subsisting*; liable as such a conjecture evidently was to 
 be made use of against the Church. Would the same party, 
 being an interpolator as well as amputator of this author, have 
 suffered Irenzeus to touch repeatedly, as he does, on the inter- 
 mediate state between death and judgment, the receptacle and 
 the condition of departed spirits, without the remotest hint 
 offered of a purgatory ?° Jt might have happened, no doubt, 
 that the absence of all allusion to a purgatory would have 
 furnished no ground for the argument I am maintaining ; 
 there might have been no call or opportunity for making it, 
 but when his subject most naturally, and almost necessarily, 
 led him to speak of the doctrine, had he entertained it, his 
 silence becomes expressive, and we cannot but believe that the 
 interpolator, had there been one, would have taken care to 
 break it. Again, would he have permitted any passage to 
 stand, which might testify that the Holy Communion was ad- 
 ministered in both kinds in the days of Irenzeus, whilst his 
 own Church administered it only in one kind? And yet we 
 find Marcus, the heretic, represented as exciting in all present 
 an eager desire to taste the cup ; his own administration being, 
 no doubt, a caricature of that of the Church, and reflecting its 
 several features.” Would he have left untouched a paragraph 
 
 2 Treneeus, I. c. xiii. §§ 5. 7. num hoe habet vocabulum. Latini 
 ~ ¢. xxv. § 6. enim sunt qui nune regnant.—Y. c. 
 3 '*V. c. xx. § 2. xxx. § 3. 
 
 * Nihil de eo affrmamus. Sed et 5 See Ireneeus, V. c. xxxi. § 2; IV. 
 Acreivos nomen habet sexcentorum | ¢c. xxii. § 1; c. xxvii. § 25 c. xxxiil. § 1; 
 Sexaginta sex numerum: et valde veri- | I. c. xxvii. § 3. 
 simile est, quoniam novissimum reg- 6 TI. c. xill. § 2, 
 
Lect. IV.] TESTIMONY OF IRENAUS 75 
 
 which speaks of a certain Deacon of the brethren in Asia hav- 
 ing his wife seduced ': and another, which numbers among the 
 tenets of the heretical ’Eyxpareis, or Continents, the prohibition 
 of marriage” ; his own Church all the while showing itself ini- 
 mical to the marriage of ecclesiastics, and in general the un- 
 scrupulous abettor of vows of celibacy? Would he have found 
 no cause in the practice of his own Church with respect to the 
 invocation of angels and saints for suppressing or altering the 
 text of Irenzeus in many places in relation to this subject ? 
 Would the following passage have been left alone? “ Neither 
 does the Church do anything by the invocation of angels, nor 
 by incantations, nor by any other evil and curious art; but 
 directing her prayers to the Lord who made all things, chastely, 
 purely, openly; and invoking the name of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, she performs her great acts for the benefit, not the se- 
 duction of mankind.”* Or this other? “The Father had no 
 need of angels to make the world, and to fashion man for whom 
 the world was made. Neither, again, had he any need of 
 their services for the formation and arrangement of the things 
 pertaining to man. For he had an ample and unutterable min- 
 istration (in himself). For his own Progeny, his Word and 
 Similitude, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Word and Wis- 
 dom, whom all angels serve and are subject unto, are his 
 ministers.” * For though, possibly, the Church of Rome might 
 subscribe to the literal terms of this paragraph, yet the spirit 
 of it is adverse to the very prominent position she assigns to 
 angels in her system: as are other paragraphs in Ivenceus, 
 which ascribe whatever knowledge the angels and even arch- 
 angels possess of the Father to the disclosure of it made to 
 them by the Son,* from whom all such knowledge is entirely 
 derived. Whilst with respect to saints, would he not at any 
 rate have introduced the term itself more frequently into his 
 author? For so far from any indication of the worship of 
 saints transpiring in Irenzus, it is remarkable how very 
 sparing he is even in the designation. In quoting even the 
 Apostles, for instance, (an observation which may be extended 
 to the early Fathers in general,) his manner is almost always, 
 “ Paulus ait,” or “Petrus ait,” or occasionally “Paulus Apos- 
 
 1 Treneeus, I. c. xiii. § 5. 4 TV. ¢. vii. § 4. 
 * ¢. xxviii. § 1. So. cucxx. 919> 
 S TDL, Gesatk Gap 6 IV. ¢. vi. § 7. 
 
76 AGAINST ROMISH ERRORS. [Serres I. 
 
 tolus,”” once 6 paKapuos IlavdXos,' but even this a singular 
 expression for Irenzeus, and one that attracts our attention as 
 being such ; and though he does make use of the epithet some- 
 times, and in connection with the Apostles, it is for the most 
 part in a general way, ot waxaptoe amoatodol, and very rarely 
 as a prefix to the name of an individual. 
 
 Again on the question of tradition; it is not a phrase or 
 two in Irenzeus, that rises up to censure the Romanist, but a 
 considerable portion of his work. Several of the early chap- 
 ters of his third book are employed in discussing it, his con- 
 troversy with the heretics bringing the limits, use, and abuse 
 of it under examination ; and so little favourable is the whole 
 tenour of his argument to Romish views, that it is impossible 
 to believe a Romish interpolator could have suffered it to stand 
 as it does. Ivrenzeus first speaks of the Apostles preaching the 
 Gospel by word of mouth; but as this manner of publishing 
 it would come to an end with their lives, he says they further 
 committed it to writing. Matthew, ypadnv eEnveyxev evay- 
 yediov. Mark, ta... knpvocopeva . . . eyypapws jpiv ma- 
 padcdoxe. Luke, to vr’ éxetvov Knpvooomevov evaryyédov €v 
 BiBXio KatéOero. John, e£eOwKe TO evayyeduov.” And these 
 permanent documents, he tells us, were to be thenceforward 
 the pillar and ground of our fuith.* In case, therefore, of a 
 debate arising as to what the faith or the truth was, Scripture 
 is thus represented as the authority to appeal to. But the 
 heretics, against whom Irenzeus was contending, disputed that 
 authority ; alleged that Scripture sometimes contradicted it- 
 self, and that truth could not be come at, unless tradition were 
 resorted to.’ Irengeus describes the Church as not shrinking 
 from this reference to tradition, but on the contrary as accept- 
 ing the challenge, only demanding that the tradition be genuine. 
 For the abuses to which tradition is liable, he exposes in ano- 
 ther place. “The tradition of the elders,” says he, “ which 
 they pretended to keep in accordance with the Law, was really 
 
 ! Treneus, V. ¢. ii. § 3. mentum et columnam fidei nostre 
 2 TIL. ¢. iii. § 3. futurum.—Ibid. 
 SIC Sal's 5 Cum ex Scripturis arguuntur, in ac- 
 
 4 Non enim per alios dispositionem | cusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scrip- 
 salutis nostre cognoyimus, quam per | turarum, quasi non recté habeant, neque 
 eos, per quos evangelium pervenit ad sint ex auctoritate, et quia varié sint 
 nos ; quod quidem tune preconaverunt, | dict, et quia non possit ex his inveniri 
 postea vero per Dei voluntatem in | veritas ab his, qui nesciant traditionem. 
 Scripturis nobis tradiderunt, funda- | —III. ¢. ii. § 1. 
 
Lect. IV.] VIEWS OF IRENAUS ON TRADITION ve 
 
 contrary to the law as given by Moses. And therefore Isaiah 
 exclaims, ‘Caupones tui miscent vinum aqua,’’ 7. e. your elders 
 mix the water of tradition with the pure Word of God, adul- 
 terating the Law and resisting it, as the Lord made manifest, 
 saying to them, ‘ Why do ye transgress the commandment of 
 God for the sake of your tradition?’ And not only did they 
 make the Law of God of none effect by their prevarication, 
 mingling water with wine, but they established their own law 
 instead, which is still called the Pharisaical. By which they 
 take something from the Law ; something they add to it ; and 
 something of it they interpret after a fashion of their own.”? 
 Thus alive to the value of tradition, but aware of the defects 
 which attach to it, Irenzeus represents the Church as respecting 
 it, but first demanding a scrutiny into its character. Now the 
 tradition to which the heretics appealed, was a secret tradition 
 delivered by the Apostles per vivam vocem (as they preten¢ed) 
 to a favoured few, the tédXevoe ; of which tradition they were 
 themselves in exclusive possession; and this tradition, it is 
 needless to add, coincided with their heretical opinions. On 
 the other hand, Irenzeus describes the Church as rejecting this 
 tradition, not because it was tradition, but because it was tra- 
 dition that had no marks of being genuine.* He, with the 
 Church, maintained that the Apostles were not likely to ex- 
 ercise any reserve towards their own successors at least in the 
 Churches, men of their own choice, selected to be governors 
 of the Churches in their own stead ; that they would surely 
 have imparted to them not only the truth, but the whole 
 truth : that accordingly in investigating tradition, the tradi- 
 tion of the Churches of which the Apostles had been them- 
 selves the founders should be preferred ; its correct transmis- 
 sion should be guaranteed by the succession of its keepers 
 being thoroughly known, and capable of being traced, one 
 after another, to the time being; that such correctness would 
 be rendered further satisfactory, if it could be shown that the 
 descents through which it had passed were few, as could be 
 done, for instance, in the Church of Ephesus, where John died 
 at a very advanced age, so as to render the interval between 
 his death, and Irenzeus’ writing, inconsiderable ; or, as could 
 be done in the Church of Smyrna, where Polycarp, who was 
 
 1 Tsaiah i. 22. Sacr. vol. i. p. 8; and Eusebius’ quota- 
 2 Treneeus, IV. c. xii. § 1. tion of Clemens Alexandrinus, Eccles, 
 3 Comp. Papias ap. Routh. Reliq. | Hist. y. e. 11, 
 
78 UNFAVOURABLE TO THE ROMANISTS, (Serres I. 
 
 John’s disciple, lived to such a period, that Ivenzeus himself 
 could actually remember him and the words he used; and 
 though in the case of the Church of Rome, the series of 
 Bishops between Peter and Paul, and the time of Irenzus, 
 was longer, yet it was thoroughly well known, not a link of it 
 wanting, whilst the conspicuous position and character of that 
 Church, situated in the metropolis of the civilized world, the 
 great central exchange, as it were, to which the traditions of 
 all other Churches would be likely to converge, and be there 
 compared, were eminently calculated to give certainty and 
 consistency to the tradition which obtained in it. To these 
 three Churches, therefore, Irenzeus chooses to refer when in 
 search of sound tradition ; and thus does he fence his tradi- 
 tion about by various safeguards, by examining into its locality, 
 whether Apostolical ; into its transmission, whether through 
 few descents, and those well ascertained ; into its uniformity, 
 whether identical in divers and distant Churches. To such 
 tradition as this he will appeal as fearlessly as to Scripture 
 against the heretics; and accordingly he does appeal to it on 
 the questions at issue between the Gnostics and the Church, 
 very cardinal questions of faith and doctrine, no doubt, as he 
 would also have done on any other questions, had any others 
 been at issue, however inferior in importance to these ; for he 
 expressly says, that “even if the dispute were concerning any 
 small matter, recourse must be had to the oldest Churches.”?! 
 Now from all this it seems to me that the Romanists occupy 
 the ground taken up by the early heretics on the subject of 
 tradition, as the Church of England, for I leave the defence 
 of the foreign Protestant Churches to Daillé, occupies that 
 taken up by the Primitive Church ; and that it would be im- 
 possible for a Romish interpolator to be satisfied with the 
 general tenour of the reasoning and of the testimony of Ire- 
 nzus, or with the position in which it placed his own Church. 
 For let us very briefly recapitulate. The heretics did not re- 
 nounce the authority of the Scriptures, but contended that 
 they did not yield out the truth to such as were ignorant of 
 tradition ; and accordingly to tradition they appealed. The 
 Romanists say and do the same. The early Church did not 
 object to the heretics’ appeal to tradition, but only required 
 that it should be genuine, testing its genuineness by starting 
 
 " Et si de aliqua modicé quistione | simas recurrere ecclesias.—Ireneus, 
 disceptatio esset, oporteret in antiquis- | ILI. c. iy. § 1. 
 
Lect. 1V.} AND THE SAME AS THOSE OF OUR CHURCH. 179 
 
 it from Apostolical sources ; by tracing it through the steps of 
 its descent, where the steps were few in number; and by 
 comparing it in several independent Churches. Neither does 
 the Church of England reject the Romanist’s appeal to tradi- 
 tion, but adopts the principle herself; only she must have it 
 free from all suspicion of being spurious ; and accordingly she 
 looks for it in the age nearest the Apostles; she has respect 
 unto it only or chiefly for a few generations after the Apostles, 
 and as manifested in the primitive Fathers, not in those of 
 later date and corrupted times, her watchword being every- 
 where in the Homilies and elsewhere, “Scripture and the Pri- 
 mitive Church ;” and she further is careful to gather it from 
 the consent of those Fathers, as independent witnesses in 
 several unconnected Churches. To the tradition per vivam 
 vocem, of which the heretics represented themselves as the 
 exclusive possessors, the Church of Irenzeus demurred, as not 
 standing the tests by which the Church tried tradition. To 
 the tradition per vivam vocem, of which the Romanists regard 
 themselves as the keepers, the Church of England objects, and 
 upon the same grounds. It may be added, as a general re- 
 mark, and without reference to the controversy between the 
 Churches of England and Rome merely, that the subject on 
 which tradition was called in to judge between the parties, in 
 the case before us, was doctrines ; and the shape, in which it 
 showed itself as the witness of those doctrines, was in a creed.! 
 The Church of England uses it still for the same purpose, and 
 under the same form, viz. for the purpose of defining doctrines, 
 and under the form of creeds. But it appears from one pass- 
 age we have had before us from Irenzeus, that tradition would 
 have been called in by the early Church quite as readily, and 
 with quite as much propriety, had circumstances required it, 
 in lesser matters ; such, we may presume, as in the cases of 
 discipline, rite, or ceremony ; and the Church of England does 
 accordingly avail itself of tradition in this province also, agree- 
 ably to such precedent. On the whole, it is surely not to be 
 expected that a Romish manufacturer of Irenzeus would have 
 been satisfied to present his article in a condition so accept- 
 able to the Reformer, at least the English Reformer, and so far 
 otherwise to the Church for which he was preparing it. 
 
 1 Trencus, ITI. c. iv. § 2. 
 
80 THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS [Sentes I. 
 
 With respect to Clemens Alexandrinus, I think no one 
 could read him attentively and suppose that his text had been 
 unfairly meddled with by the Romanists at least. It is pro- 
 bably often corrupt ; and this corruption no doubt adds greatly 
 to the natural obscurity and mysticism of the writer; but 
 what is there in all his works even as they now stand, is 
 would seem to betray the hand of the Romanist ? There are 
 some four places, I think, not more, which might be supposed 
 to hint at a purifying discipline to which the soul must be 
 subjected, if not before death, after it; but they are so far 
 from explicit, that one is scarcely sure of their meaning. For 
 instance, “the fe uithful man, even if he should escape from the 
 flesh (kav 退€XOn Thv Spiel, must put away his passions in 
 order to be able to proceed to his own abiding place.”’ Again, 
 “the Gnostic withdrawn from such matters ie the hope “that 
 is in him, does not taste of the good things of this world ; 
 despising all things here ; pitying those who have to be dis- 
 ciplined after death, and brought to confession against their 
 will through punishment inflicted on them.”* Again, after 
 disparaging the offerings made to the gods, of which the poets 
 speak, offerings of fleshless bones, and burnt gall (yondjs aupov- 
 pévns), which our days would reject, and which were sup- 
 posed to conciliate favour for the parties, even though they 
 were pirates or thieves, he proceeds, “but we say that fire 
 sanctifies not the flesh, but the sinful soul—fire that is, not 
 which is mechanical and consumes, but which is discriminating 
 (ppovimov,) and pervades the soul, which passes through it.”* 
 However, in another place, it may be remarked, Clemens 
 speaks of knowledge (yv@ors) nearly in the same terms, as he 
 speaks of this zip ¢poevpov ; which I mention as indicating 
 the mystical nature of this purgation or discipline, whatever 
 it was. “ Knowledge, therefore, is quick to purify, and quali- 
 fied to work the change for the better, wherefore it easily trans- 
 lates the man to the divine and holy principle, which is con- 
 genial to the soul: and by a certain peculiar light passes him 
 through the stages of initiation, until it sets him upon the 
 crowning point of his rest, pure in heart ; and teaches him to 
 behold God with understanding and comprehension face to face. 
 For this is the perfection of a Gnostic soul, that having made 
 
 1 Clem, Alex, Stromat. VI. § xiv. 2 ee § xii. p. 879 
 p. 794, ° § vie p. 851, 
 
Lect. IV.] NOT TAMPERED WITH BY THE ROMANISTS. 81 
 
 its way through purification and ministration, it should be 
 with the Lord, and so be proximately subject to him.”? It 
 is possible, nay probable, from the general principle, which 
 rules the writings of Clemens, viz. a disposition to commu- 
 nicate, as far as may be, to the heathens the Gospel through the 
 medium of heathen philosophy, that one of the popular no- 
 tions of that philosophy suggested to Clemens the idea here 
 in question. But there is no reason to suppose for a moment 
 that any Romish interpolator had been tampering with his 
 text. A Romish interpolator meaning to uphold the doctrine 
 of Purgatory would have been much more explicit than this. 
 Neither, in general, would he have allowed so many other pass- 
 ages to keep their places in Clemens, which are utterly against 
 his own faith or practice ; which oppose, for instance, his most 
 vital doctrine of all, that of Transubstantiation, over and over 
 again, as I shall show when I come to speak of the Eucharist? ; 
 or which touch upon rites and ceremonies of heathen temples 
 in a manner so greatly reminding us of some in his own 
 Churches.’ The truth is, that in the writings of Clemens may 
 be detected the germ of several customs or opinions, which 
 eventually became corrupt as exercised in the Romish Church ; 
 but which, as presented to us in him, are generally little more 
 than unauthorized, yet still serve to intimate to us the use 
 from which the abuse proceeded—secret confession from the 
 e£oporoynots or public confession of sins—the Disciplina 
 arcani from the deep and spiritual meaning, which the Guos- 
 tic was taught to find in Scripture, as distinguished from the 
 superficial sense, which was all that was discernible in it to 
 the vulgar eye—the undue exaltation of Saint Peter above 
 the other Apostles from such a casual expression applied to 
 him in an early age, as “the blessed Peter, the elect, the cho- 
 sen, the first of the disciples, for whom only and for himself 
 the Saviour paid the tribute.”* But the general plan and 
 character of Clemens’ works would render them extremely 
 unpropitious to interpolation. What affects the Romanist at 
 all, whether for good or harm, is incidental, inferential, unob- 
 trusive. Nobody would know, from the complexion of the 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Stromat. VIT. § x. p.865, | 252; Stromat. V. § vii. pp. 670, 671. 
 2 See Lecture XII. Second Series. 4 Quis dives salvetur. § xxi. p. 947. 
 3 Clem. Alex. Pidag. III. c. ii. p. 
 
 G 
 
82 GERM OF ROMISH USAGES (Serres I, 
 
 whole volume, where to look in it for a syllable to the purpose 
 of such a controversy. 
 
 These latter remarks also hold with respect to Tertullian. 
 We should find in him several traces of the future character- 
 istics of the Church of Rome—mostly the unauthorized be- 
 ginnings ‘of customs or sentiments, which grew up to a vicious 
 excess, and the eventual mischief of which could not be then 
 foreseen (magn cunabula Rome) ; few or none of these har- 
 bingers of future corruptions introduced in a way which a 
 Romish interpolator would have propounded ; some of them 
 in a way which would have been positively offensive to him. 
 We have the frequent use of the sign of the Cross’ both on 
 the person and even on the furniture ; which was even then, 
 it seems, liable to be mistaken (though hitherto a mistake it 
 was, which could scarcely be said in the case of the Romish 
 Church), for the worship of that emblem’—Prayers and 
 offerings for the dead, and oblations in honour of the martyrs 
 on the anniversaries of their martyrdom * ; usages, which grew 
 at length into mortuary masses and the actual sacrifice of the 
 Host—Unwritten tradition, then recent, urged to the con- 
 fusion of heretics, who mutilated or denied Scripture*; and 
 urged, too, in support, not to the disparagement of Scripture? ; 
 which eventually grew to tradition as a rival of Scripture and 
 a substitute for it—The intercession of martyrs in prison 
 with the Church in behalf of persons suffering under its cen- 
 sure, to which the Church was disposed to listen with favour ° 
 (an indulgence, which even Tertullian, as a Montanist indeed, 
 already regarded with jealousy’) ; which in time ripened into 
 the merit of the works of supererogation of the saints—Celi- 
 bacy and bodily mortifications, here perhaps commended § ; 
 which, by degrees, became the forced vows of the monk and 
 nun, and produced, in fact, the crimes to which Tertullian 
 himself points as the natural consequence of such vows, if they 
 were compulsory ’—The impossibility that the Churches (Ee- 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Corona, c. iii; Adj © Ad Martyres, c. v. 
 
 Uxor. II ec. v. T De Pudicitia, c. xxii. 
 ? Apolog. c. xvi. ® De Patientid, c. xiii; De Cultu 
 * De Corona, ec. iii.; De Exhortat.| Fominar. II. ec. ix.; De Resurrec. 
 Castitat. c. xi.; De Monogam. ec. x. Carnis, ¢. viii. 
 * De Coroni, e. iii. ® De Virgin. Veland. c. xiv. 
 
 ® De Prescript. Heerct. ¢. xxv. 
 
s 
 
 Lecr. TV.] IN THE WRITINGS OF TERTULLIAN. 83 
 
 clesias) should all fall into error, that is, that there should be 
 an universal defection from the faith, asserted!; which in 
 process of time was magnified into the infallibility of the 
 Church of Rome—-The mitigated sufferings, which are to be 
 endured for the purgation of small offences (expressed by the 
 uttermost farthing in the parable) between death and judg- 
 ment intimated * ; a notion, which, in due season, was enlarged 
 into the whole apparatus of purgatory—The power of the i 
 conferred on Peter, and through him on the Church; on the 
 Church, which thenceforth daaldd give absolution ? ; ite course 
 of time exaggerated into Saint Peter and the successors of 
 Saint Peter in the Papal chair, having the exclusive possession 
 of those keys— a case which Tertullian even contemplates in 
 order to deride, and compares to that of Janus of old *—The 
 Church of Rome described as deserving of great respect, as 
 possessing the very chairs of the Apostles, perhaps the auto- 
 graph letters, certainly authentic copies of them, as the scene 
 of the martyrdom of the Apostles, as in the enjoyment of a 
 pure creed, as combining the Law and the Gospel’; these 
 reasonable claims to regard urged to the confusion of heretics, 
 who would not hold the traditions thus guaranteed to be safe ; 
 eventually puffed into unreasonable and arrogant pretensions 
 of the Church of Rome to govern the faith of the whole 
 world, ages after her traditions had become to a considerable 
 degree unworthy of trust. The Romanist would hardly have 
 contented himself with interpolations after this fashion, had he 
 interpolated at all, especially as several of these seeds of 
 Romish usages present themselves in the tracts of Tertullian, 
 written when he had evidently become a Montanist ; which is 
 not the field the Romanist would have made choice of, in 
 which to sow his tares, had he meditated doing his Church a 
 service by clandestinely foisting his own peculiar tenets into 
 the writings of this primitive author: much less would he 
 leave in them passages which strongly reflect on his own pro- 
 ceedings and principles—passages over and over again occur- 
 ring, which contradict e. g. the doctrine of Transubstantia- 
 tion®: which refute the superiority of St. Peter, who is ac- 
 
 1 De Prescript. Heret. ¢. xxviii. 6 De Oratione, ec. vi.; De Resurr. 
 * De Anima, e. lviii. Carnis, ¢. xxxvi.; Contra Marcion. I. 
 ® Scorpiace, c. x. CG. Xiv. jC ica mis Vion Cr xd, s 
 4 Thid. De Anima, ¢. xvii. 
 
 5 De Prescript. Heret. c. xxxvi. 
 
84 NEITHER THEY NOR THOSE OF HIPPOLYTUS  [Serms I, 
 
 tually vindicated in one place as not inferior to St. Paul, as it 
 might be supposed he was from St. Paul rebuking him, for 
 that he was made equal with Paul by his martyrdom’: which 
 ascribe the doctrine, that worship is to be paid to angels, 
 actually to Simon Magus; and represent it as condemned by 
 the Apostle Peter? : which are opposed to the adoration of 
 the Virgin ; so far from any undue reverence being assigned 
 to her by Tertullian, such as is her right is scarcely conceded 
 to her ; her belief in the Saviour questioned* ; her standing at 
 the. door desiring to speak with him construed into a disregard 
 of his teaching whilst it was going on in the house*; which 
 do not favour the multiplication of sacraments, the two of 
 Baptism and the Eucharist being produced by themselves, and 
 as if standing apart from all others®: which animadvert upon 
 the practices of religious mendicants among the heathen in a 
 manner which would be most unsatisfactory to the friars of 
 the Church of Rome*°: which actually designate Rome as the 
 Babylon of St. John, great, proud, and the destroyer of 
 saints’: which deny the necessity of the celibacy of the 
 clergy °—this last, I will add, a fact the more to my purpose, 
 because the Romanists actually took some pains to show, in 
 the teeth of Jerome’s assertion to the contrary, that Tertullian 
 was not a Presbyter of the Church; his treatise “to his 
 Wife” proving him at any rate to be married, and thus his 
 example, if Jerome’s testimony be admitted, opposing the 
 Church of Rome in the restriction she lays upon the clergy— 
 but still the Romanists endeavour to establish their point by 
 argument, which is all fair; by producing certain paragraphs 
 out of his works, which they contend (not, however, success- 
 fully), prove him to have been a layman® ; but they make no 
 attempt whatever to suppress the tract “Ad Uxorem,” nor 
 yet many other passages in him, which clearly testify against 
 themselves, and sanction clerical marriage. These surely are 
 not indications of an author who had been dishonestly handled 
 by Romanists. 
 
 p De Prescript. Heret. c, xxiv. Fominar. II. c. xiii. 
 : C. Xxx. Ee a 8 Ad Uxor. I. ec. iii. vii.; De Monog. 
 dj De Carne Christi, Cc. Vil. ¢. xii.; De Exhort. Castitat. c. vii. 
 Ady, Marcion. IV. ¢. xix. See also 9 De Exhort. Castitat. ¢. vii.; De 
 De Carne Christi, Cc. Xxill. Monogam. ec. xii.; but he may here be 
 . Ady. Marcion. LY. ¢; xxxiv; considered to identify himself with his 
 Apolog. ec. xiii. clients rhetorically. 
 
 7 Contra Judwos, ce. ix.; De Cultu 
 
Lecr. IV.] SATISFACTORY TO A ROMANIST. 85 
 
 In the works of Hippolytus again, however they may want 
 sifting and re-editing, there is nothing to lead us to suppose 
 that the Church of Rome has been particularly busy with 
 them. In the treatise “concerning the End of the World and 
 concerning Antichrist,” imputed to him, occurs an expression 
 with regard to the Eucharist—that the priest sacrificed every 
 day Christ’s precious Body and Blood * ;—but such an expres- 
 sion would be very far from establishing the doctrine of Tran- 
 substantiation or excluding the use of figurative interpretation ; 
 especially whilst in an exposition of Proverbs ix., which is an- 
 other of Hippolytus’ works not disputed, he speaks on this same 
 subject in such language as the following :—‘“She (Wisdom) 
 hath furnished her table, 7. e. Christ the Wisdom of God, hath 
 furnished his table ; to wit, (supplied) the knowledge of the 
 sacred Trinity, which had been promised, and his precious 
 and unpolluted Body and Blood, which, in the mystical and 
 divine table, are daily sacrificed in remembrance of that first 
 and ever-memorable table of the mystical supper” ?—the 
 furniture of the table being the knowledge of the Trinity, and 
 the precious and unpolluted Body and Blood of Christ —the 
 knowledge of the Trinity certainly a spiritual not a material 
 viand—the precious and unpolluted Body and Blood, therefore, _ 
 thus coupled with it, also spiritual and not material. There 
 is another passage in Hippolytus which seems to imply the 
 absence of such a doctrine as Purgatory from the mind of that 
 Father. And again, another,’ in which the notable conjec- 
 ture is hazarded that the name of the future Antichrist might 
 be Aartetvos, a conjecture in which Irenzus, as we have seen, 
 indulged before him, but one which, at any rate, so far as it 
 conveys any meaning at all, would not be such as a member 
 of the Latin Church would tolerate, but would be rather 
 likely, if he meddled with the work at all, to suppress. 
 
 1 Hippolytus, De Consummat. Mundi ; Ed. Fabric. 
 
 et Antichristo, § 41. * Adyersus Gracos, pp. 220-222, 
 2 Comment. in Prov. ix. 1. p. 282, 4 De Christo et Antichristo, § 1. 
 
86 THE WRITINGS OF ORIGEN [Series I, 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 State of the writings of Origen. Theory of their interpolation by the Romanists 
 untenable. Their testimony against Transubstantiation; Prayers in a tongue 
 not understood by the people; the withholding of the Scriptures; Disciplina 
 arcani; the use of Images ; Vows of celibacy ; the Worship of saints or angels; 
 Purgatory. First instance of Romish interpolation pointed out by James. 
 Neglect of the early Fathers bythe Romanists. Remark of Dodwell. _The 
 story of Paschasinus insufficient to support the inference drawn from it by 
 Daille. 
 
 ROM various causes, which I shall take another oppor- 
 tunity of dwelling a little upon, the writings of Origen 
 have come down to us very greatly injured: a large part in a 
 Latin translation avowedly unfaithful to the author: other 
 portions, in the Greek, indeed, but whether, as at first penned 
 and published by Origen himself, and not rather as notes 
 taken down at the moment by standers-by, who were listening 
 to this prolific disputant, may be doubted: even those 
 treatises of his, which he certainly committed to paper, often 
 concocted in haste, and seldom, perhaps, reviewed or revised 
 —for he appears to have been very much on the move, and 
 very careless about his manuscripts—and after all, his re- 
 corded sentiments not unfrequently maltreated, and his text 
 vitiated by contemporary or all but contemporary heretics. 
 Certainly one or other of these considerations affect many of 
 the works of Origen as we now possess them, and detract 
 from their value by shaking our confidence in their integrity. 
 But this is by no means the case with them all. Some trea- 
 tises have not been mistranslated, for we have them in the 
 Greek—have not been composed in heat or haste, for they 
 bear internal marks of care and deliberation—have not been 
 meddled with by earlv heretics, for they are not on subjects 
 
 
 
Lect. V.] NOT INTERPOLATED BY THE ROMANISTS ; 87 
 
 which invite their interference. But, however this may be, 
 assuredly the abuses to which the works of Origen have been 
 subjected, can hardly be supposed to have proceeded from the 
 Romanists— testifying, as those works do, even as they stand, 
 in so many particulars against the doctrines and practices of 
 the Church of Rome. Indeed, how distasteful they are to the 
 Romanist may be seen at once, by a perusal of the Preface 
 to the second volume of the Benedictine Edition, and by 
 the notice “caute lege,” so often entered on the margin of the 
 text. 
 
 IT will lay before you some of the evidence on which I rest 
 the assertion, that Origen cannot have suffered at the hands 
 of Romish interpolators, at least, whatever he may have done 
 at the hands of others ; and I beg you once more to consider, 
 whilst I am thus bringing the question to book, the credit due 
 to that vague and indiscriminating charge against the Ro- 
 manists, of tampering with these early authorities, circulated 
 by Daillé and others of his school down to the present day, 
 and which has the effect, as I have said, of damaging the 
 character of the Fathers, and so neutralizing their testimony 
 on subjects where it is unwelcome. 
 
 Thus, on Transubstantiation, I find Origen, when ex- 
 pounding the clause in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day 
 our daily bread,” referring, by way of illustration, to the sixth 
 chapter of the Gospel of St. John, at some length, in con- 
 firmation of his view, that the bread is spiritual bread, not 
 material ; as also to several texts in St. Paul on meats, which 
 he considers to point to the same conclusion, viz. that when ex- 
 pressing himself thus the Apostle “was not primarily speaking 
 of corporal food, but of the words of God which nourish the 
 soul.”* When we recollect how constantly the sixth chapter 
 of St. John is understood by the early Fathers in relation to 
 the Eucharist, it cannot be supposed that Origen would ex- 
 press himself as he does here—and the whole section, of which 
 this paragraph is a part, should be read, in order that the full 
 force of the argument may be perceived—had he believed in 
 the doctrine of the corporal presence. Again, on another 
 occasion he objects to a material interpretation of such phrases 
 as “the heavens were opened,” “the voice of the Lord was 
 heard,” and says, that however some may take them in that 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 Origen, De Oratione, § 27, vol. i. p. 245, Bened. Ed, 
 
88 UNFAVOURABLE TO TRANSUBSTANTIATION; (Sentes I. 
 
 light, “those who search deeper will be aware that there is & 
 certain divine perception, which the blessed discover and enjoy 
 —a perception which has several senses—that of sight, which 
 can discern things that are incorporeal ; that of hearing, which 
 can receive words not formed by the air; that of taste, which 
 uses the living bread—the bread which descends from heaven 
 and giveth light unto the world.”’ This passage, again, is 
 not conceived in the spirit of one who found the corporal 
 presence in the Eucharist. Moreover, how could that man see 
 the sacrifice of the mass in the Eucharist, who volunteers as a 
 comment on John iv. 24, “God is a Spirit, and they that 
 worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth,” the 
 remark, “by which words Jesus taught that we ought not to 
 worship God in the flesh, and with fleshy sacrifices?”? Or 
 how, when speaking of the best manner of keeping the feasts, 
 could he employ such language as that it was “by doing our 
 duty, praying, and offering to God in our prayers wnbloody 
 sacrifices ;”* the last a phrase which could scarcely be irre- 
 spective of the Eucharist? How, again, could he talk of the 
 bread after consecration becoming “a certain holy body,” * if 
 he had held it to be the actual Flesh of our Lord? Or how 
 could he be satisfied with saying, “the bread called the 
 Eucharist is a symbol of our thanksgiving to God,”’® if he 
 maintained that the material was not bread, and that the 
 symbol was lost in the corporal reality? Would passages like 
 these have been suffered to remain in a text which had been 
 modified by a Romanist ? 
 
 Or again, asserting as the Romanist does, the expediency of 
 having prayer in the Church, and administering the Sacraments 
 in a tongue not understood by the people, how could he acqui- 
 esce in a paragraph such as this? Origen is defending the 
 language of Scripture against Celsus, who describes many of 
 its maxims as not only common to the Greeks, but as having 
 been better expressed by them—‘If a Greek desired to assist 
 those who spoke Egyptian or Syrian by sound teaching, he 
 would first take care to learn the dialects of those who were 
 to be his hearers ; and, as the Greeks say, would rather bar- 
 barize his own tongue for the sake of improving the Egyptians 
 and Syrians, than be a Greek and speak in a manner that 
 
 ' Origen, Contra Celsum, I. § 48. 2 VIELAs 20; * § 33. 
 4 V1. '§ 70. sy 
 
Lucr. V.] PRAYERS IN AN UNKNOWN TONGUE; 89- 
 
 would be useless to Egyptians and Syrians: so, Divine Pro- 
 vidence not merely having respect to Greeks of education, but 
 to all others, condescended to the boorishness of the mass of 
 hearers, in order that, making use of such language as they 
 were accustomed to, it might provoke the multitude to listen ; 
 who, after this introduction, would be able to advance from 
 the simple element to the comprehension of the deeper mean- 
 ings which Scripture contained.”* Again, in another passage 
 still more apposite, Celsus having imputed to the Christians, 
 whom he confounds with some other class of worshippers, a 
 practice of invoking angels by certain barbarous names, and so 
 acquiring favour with them, Origen replies, “Be assured that 
 the Christians do not universally use in their prayers even the 
 names which are found in the Holy Scriptures, and are of 
 God’s appointment ; but the Greeks use Grecian names, and 
 the Romans Roman names, and thus each prays to God in his 
 own language, and praises him according to his power. And 
 he who is Lord of all languages hears those who pray in all 
 languages, as though he heard, if I may so express myself, 
 only one and the same voice uttering its meanings in many 
 tongues: ”’—this, surely, a sentiment which the Romanist, 
 had he been shaping the text of Origen to suit the purposes 
 of his own Church, would have thought it as well to sup- 
 press. 
 
 Again, jealous as the Romanist has shown himself of the 
 free circulation of the Scriptures, would he have been likely 
 to suffer so many passages to keep their ground in the 
 writings of Origen, which are entirely adverse to this restric- 
 tion, if he was moulding those writings to his own ends? Celsus 
 had found in one Cleomedes a person who, like Jesus, was 
 buried and had escaped from the tomb. “But the previous 
 life of this man,”’ replies Origen, “or that of other men re- 
 specting whom similar tales are told, gives no tokens of 
 Divinity ; whereas the assemblies of those who have derived 
 benefit from him testify to that of Jesus, so do the prophecies 
 spoken concerning Him, so do the cures that have been 
 wrought in his name, and so does the wisdom and knowledge, 
 which are according to Him; and so do the thoughts of the 
 sober-minded, found as they are to rise above a bare belief, 
 
 1 Origen, Contra Celsum, VII. § 60. 2 VIIL. § 37. 
 
90 THE WITHHOLDING OF THE SCRIPTURES. ([Sentes I. 
 
 and to investigate the real meaning of the Scriptures, agree~ 
 ably to the command of Jesus, who said ‘Search the Scrip- 
 tures ;’ and to the will of Paul, who teaches that ‘we ought 
 to know how to give an answer to every one ;’ and to the 
 will of him who says, ‘ Be ever ready to give an answer to 
 every one that asketh you a reason for the faith that is in 
 you.”! And he elsewhere enlarges on the happy effects 
 which flow from this study—effects greatly surpassing those 
 which proceed from application to the writings of even the 
 very chief philosophers. Plato, it is true, may speak of a light 
 suddenly kindled in the soul by long communion with the 
 chief good ; “ but observe the difference between what is said 
 by Plato, and well said, concerning the chief good, and what 
 is said by the prophets concerning the light of the blessed ; 
 and consider that the truth on this subject, as spoken by 
 Plato, neither helps ordinary persons nor even one who philo- 
 sophizes on the chief good after the manner of Plato, to 
 attain to sincere piety. Whereas the simple speech of the 
 Divine Scriptures imparts a kind of inspiration to those who 
 read them unaffectedly ; whereby the light is fed with that 
 oil of which the parable speaks in a figure, the oil which kept 
 alive the lamps of the five virgins.”’? It is evident that 
 nothing like reserve in communicating the Scriptures to the 
 people, that is to Christians in general, is here inculcated, but 
 quite the contrary : the expression, “ the simple speech of the 
 Scriptures” here used, and that of reading them “ unaffectedly,” 
 being enough in themselves to mark that Origen contemplated 
 unlearned readers of them as well as others ; which is still 
 more apparent from another passage (one which again the 
 Romanist would have been under a temptation to expunge) 
 where to a cavil of Celsus, that anger and the like terms ought 
 not to be ascribed to God, as they are in Scripture, Origen re- 
 plies, that “the word of God economises the expressions of 
 Scripture, adapting them to the capacity of the hearers, and 
 measuring what is fit in itself by what is profitable to them. 
 Touching which method of communicating the things pertain- 
 ing to God, we read in Deuteronomy,’ ‘The Lord thy God 
 bare thee, as a man doth bear his son ;’ as though the Word 
 spake after the manner of men in accommodation to men, for- 
 1 Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 33. 2 VI. § 5. 3 Deut. i. 31. 
 
Lect. V.] ORIGEN’S VIEWS ON THE DISCIPLINA ARCANI. 91 
 
 asmuch as the multitude at large (oi odXol) being what they 
 were, did not require God to address them according to the 
 Majesty of his character ;”' and he then proceeds to say that 
 the Scriptures contained deep things for the spiritual, and 
 more simple things for the weak, and that they would be 
 often found by one who knew how to construe them aright, to 
 speak to both these classes under one and the same phrase. 
 It is obvious that in all this there is none of the spirit of the 
 exclusionist. 
 
 And thus I am naturally led to the consideration of a kindred 
 subject, the Disciplina arcani ; the reserve with which the 
 mysteries of religion should be disclosed ; and which we shall 
 gather from numerous passages of Origen amounted to this, 
 and nothing more, a proper adjustment of your teaching to ~ 
 your audience, a care not to throw your pearls before swine. 
 Thus Celsus taunts the Christians with repelling from them 
 wise and thoughtful men, and canvassing only the silly and 
 servile. To this Origen replies, that on the contrary, if there 
 be any capable of receiving the deepest truths, the Gospel 
 makes provision for them ; even as Paul says, “ Howbeit we 
 speak wisdom among them that are perfect ;’” and then he 
 continues, “If Celsus with his friends maintains that Paul 
 had no particular wisdom to divulge, we make answer, first 
 explain to us his Epistles, and entering into the meaning of 
 every expression in them, (for instance, in those to the Ephe- 
 sians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians, the Philippians, the 
 Romans,) satisfy us of both points, viz. that you understand 
 the words of Paul, and that you can prove them to be foolish 
 and weak. For I well know,” continues Origen, “ that if he 
 devotes himself to reading them with attention,” (again ob- 
 serve the layman is invited to this,) “he will either be asto- 
 nished at the understanding of the man, who conceives mighty 
 thoughts, though he expresses them in homely phrase, or if he 
 does not wonder at him, he will prove himself ridiculous, 
 either by affecting to understand the mind of the man, whilst 
 he did not, or by wishing to contradict and overthrow what 
 he fancied he understood.” Origen then proceeds from the 
 case of the Epistles to that of the Gospels, which also have a 
 deep as well as an obvious meaning, “ Jesus reserving the full 
 
 1 Origen, Contra Celsum, IV. § 71. 2 1 Cor. ii. 6. 
 
92 VIEWS OF ORIGEN [Sentes I, 
 
 exposition of his parables for those who had ears more refined 
 than the common, and for his friends in thé house.” This is 
 a fair specimen of the real nature of the Disciplina arcani, as 
 taught by Origen ; indeed, he expressly introduces these as 
 examples of the esoteric and mysterious in the Church of God, 
 indignantly marking the contrast they present to the Egyptian 
 arcana, which Celsus had pretended bore a resemblance to the 
 Christian.’ Elsewhere Origen furnishes us with more of these 
 “esoteric” speculations, as he calls them, of the more learned 
 Christians, evidently mere theological imaginations, such as 
 men of curious and mercurial minds might indulge in. He is 
 affirming that the Christians, whatever might be their class, 
 would not tolerate, as the heathens did with respect to their 
 local gods, others to be obtruded on them ; nor, worshipping 
 as they did the one God and Christ, whom He hath sent, 
 would yet accept Jupiter and Apollo besides ; ‘‘some (acting 
 thus) in entire simplicity, not knowing how to give a reason 
 for what they did, but content to cleave in an honest heart to 
 what they had received ; but others able to give their reasons, 
 and those not trivial ones but profound, or, as a Greek would 
 say, esoterical and mystical, involving notions of God and of 
 those who are honoured by God through the Only Be- 
 gotten Word of God with a share of Divinity, and even with 
 the name, as well as notions of angels, whether good or such 
 as are adverse to the truth,’ with more to the same effect.” 
 The character of the questions in which these more advanced 
 members of the Christian community engaged, serves to prove 
 that the simpler sort were not the victims of any systematic 
 suppression of points of faith by their teachers, but that being 
 of a lower and less cultivated class they were not equal to 
 flights which their superiors allowed themselves. And an- 
 other passage makes this fact yet more clear. Origen is once 
 more defending the Christians against the imputation of 
 Celsus, that they sought out their converts from among the 
 weak and illiterate ; and accordingly he shows how greatly 
 Wisdom is commended in the Old Testament, as in the Psalms 
 
 ANY _avrapxn kal taira mpos| ? "Erepodé per’ odk evxarappovnrav 
 THY apirdaopor xAewnv Tov Kédaov, | Adywr, dda kal Baburépwr, Kal, @s av 
 Gpowvvros ra evdov kal puotika Tis | eioe Tis "ENAny, eo@tepiKay Kal e7- 
 exkAnoias Tov Ocod rois Aiyumtioy | omtiKGv, k.r.A.—Origen, Contra Cel- 
 aidovpos, k.t.A.—Origen, Contra Cel- | sum, LIL. § 37. 
 sum, LIT. s§ 20, 21. 
 
 
 
 
 
Lect. V.] ON THE DISCIPLINA ARCANT; 95 
 
 and in the writings of Solomon, and then coming to the New 
 Testament he proceeds, you no doubt find “the multitude of 
 the believers listening to parables as uninitiated (6s ¢&@ 
 Tuyxavovtas,) and as only capable of exoteric instruction 
 (eEwrepixav Noyav) ; but youhave the disciples learning the 
 exposition of the parables apart, for Jesus explained every- 
 thing to his disciples apart, honouring those who were destined 
 to be the receptacles of his wisdom above the multitude.”! 
 But then he subsequently adds, “ We, however, exert ourselves 
 to the utmost to have our assemblies consist of intelligent per- 
 sons; and in that case we do not scruple to produce publicly, 
 having a number of intelligent hearers about us, owr highest 
 and most divine doctrines ; but we certainly conceal by our 
 silence the deeper things of our faith from such congregations 
 as have need of what is figuratively called ‘milk.’ For our 
 Paul writes to the Corinthians—Greeks, to be sure, but not 
 as yet clear of their old customs—‘ I have fed you with milk 
 and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it.’ 
 And the same Apostle, knowing what is the more perfect good 
 of the soul, and that the instruction of novices may be com- 
 pared to the milk which children eat, says, ‘Ye are become 
 such as have need of milk and not of strong meat,’ &c. Is 
 it possible, then, for those who regard these passages as well 
 spoken, to suspect that we should decline communicating the 
 choice things of the Gospel to a congregation of intelligent 
 people ; but, when we meet with children and a mob of mean 
 and senseless men, should produce amongst them our divine 
 and venerable mysteries, and make our boast of them amongst 
 such parties as these?” ? It would be very easy to produce 
 many more extracts from Origen to the same purpose, for this 
 happens to be a subject on which he very frequently touches ° 
 
 : Origen, Contra, Celsum, IIT. § 46. 
 
 2 “Hyeis yap, don Svvapis, mavra 
 T™parTopev orep TOU Ppovipav dvépav 
 yever Bar Tov oUdoyov per’ kal Ta 
 ev np pahuora kaka kal Oeia tore 
 TOAp@pev ev Tos _ Tpos TO Kowov 
 diahdyors pepe eis peor, Or ev- 
 Topovpev guveTov akpoaT@y" drro- 
 KpuTTopev be Kal Tapaolwn@pev Ta 
 Baburepa, emay amhovarépous Oewpapev 
 Tous TUvEpXopEvous kat Seopevovs ho- 
 yov TpoTik@s dvopafopevev yadda. . . 
 
 
 
 ap’ oby oi TOUTOLS ws Kahds eipnpevors 
 MLOTEVOVTES brrodaBovev av Ta ka\a 
 Tov éyou, cis pev ppovipev dvdpeav 
 oUANoYOY ovk ay Tore ex Over Oat, 
 évOa & av épaoe poecpakta, kal oiko- 
 TpiBav oxdov Kat avOparrov dvonrey 
 dpudov, evravéa ra Ocia kal vepva 
 pepe cis pEoOY, kal Tapa Tois ToLov- 
 Tos wept avta@y eyKkadAwmifed Oat ;— 
 Contra Celsum, III. §§ 52, 53. 
 
 ® See Contra Celsum, v. § 29; VI. 
 §§ 13. 23, 
 
O+ ON THE USE OF IMAGES ; (Serres I. 
 
 but I think enough has been already advanced to prove that 
 the Disciplina arcani, as understood by Romish writers, that 
 is, a scheme of mutilated teaching, in which some articles of 
 faith are deliberately withheld, and others announced ob- 
 scurely, has no support from Origen ; and that if his manu- 
 scripts had been overhauled by unscrupulous champions of the 
 Church of Rome, they would scarcely have left so many places 
 in them, as they have done, still to bear testimony against 
 themselves. 
 
 Once more, considering the use of images, which the Ro- 
 manist defends, and which he adopts so liberally in his church 
 and in his chamber, is it to be believed that when he was en- 
 gaged in clearing the text of Origen of its inconvenient evi- 
 dence, or interpolating it with such as suited him, he would 
 have permitted numbers of paragraphs to stand untouched, 
 which are clearly opposed to such a licence? Thus in his 
 treatise on Prayer, “ He, who is no hypocrite, strips himself 
 of everything which is adventitious and not his own, and stu- 
 dying to satisfy himself in that theatre which is vastly greater 
 than every other of which I have spoken, enters into the 
 chamber of himself; where, besides any other riches he may 
 have deposited in it, he has enclosed for himself a treasury of 
 wisdom and knowledge, and regarding nothing without, and 
 longing for nothing without, and shutting every door of the 
 senses, that he may not be drawn away by them, and that no 
 image of sensible things may get admission into his mind, 
 he prays to the Father, who neither abandons, nor fails a cor- 
 rect worshipper such as this, but makes his abode in him, his 
 Only Begotten accompanying him.”* And in another of his 
 works—“ Though buffeted by the world, we have learned not 
 to faint or to forfeit our love of the God of the universe in 
 Jesus Christ. Moreover, we distinctly avow our origin, and 
 the dignity thereof, by no means, as Celsus insinuates, con- 
 cealing it: seeing that we impress upon our converts in the 
 very first instance, a contempt for idols and for all images ; 
 and elevating their thoughts from serving the creature instead 
 of God, we lead them up to Him who created all things.” ? 
 
 ' Haody re tiv Ovpay Trav cpkial 2°Endav kal trois mpwros eicayo-. 
 THpiav arokNeioas, wa pi) EAKyTar | pevors katahpdynow pev Tov €cidoov 
 ind tav aicOjceav, pydé exeivov | Kal mdvT@V Tov dyahpdareav épurrot- 
 
 pavragia TG vO adtovd émewrkpivynrat, | hooper, K.T.A.—Contra Celsum, ILL. 
 mpooevxerat, k.T.A.—De Oratione, § 20. | § 15. 
 
Lect. V.) ON MARRIAGE. 
 
 95 
 
 Again: “ Besides our faith conspires with the dictates of com- 
 mon sense ; as, €.g. however perverted custom may have put 
 it into the minds of men, that images are gods, and that ob- 
 jects made of gold, silver, ivory, are worthy of worship, still 
 common sense urges us to believe that perishable matter cannot 
 be God ; nor can God be shaped out of senseless blocks, as if 
 they could in any way represent him.”? Neither can the 
 evasion be pleaded, that Origen did not condemn the use of 
 images as incentives to devotion, but only as objects of 
 worship: for thus he expresses himself on another occasion : 
 “God therefore chose the foolish things of the world—the 
 most simple of the Christians, who lead lives more pure and 
 moderate than most of the philosophers—to confound the 
 wise, who do not blush to converse with senseless things as 
 gods, or images of gods. For who that has any understand- 
 ing would not laugh at him, who after so many fine philoso- 
 phical speeches about God or the gods, fixes his eye on their 
 images, and either puts up his prayers to them, or by means 
 of the sight of them, carries his thoughts wp to the ideal 
 Being, to whom, as he pictures to himself, they must needs 
 ascend from the visible and symbolical figure.”? More pas- 
 sages to a similar purport might be quoted from Origen, but 
 let these suffice; for certainly they are enough to show, that 
 if the writings of this Father were submitted to the pruning 
 knife of a Romish critic, it must be confessed that they had a 
 singularly fortunate escape. 
 
 Once more: with respect to marriage: it cannot be sup- 
 posed that any class of society whatever was under forced 
 vows of celibacy, when such a paragraph as the following was 
 penned. Origen, in one of his replies to Celsus, finds an argu- 
 ment for the divine character of the Gospel in the courage with 
 which it inspired its converts, and the superior morality it 
 imparted to their lives: and on this latter point he adds, 
 “Some of them animated by a desire of excessive purity, and 
 of rendering their service to God still more holy, do not even 
 
 > re , ‘ a KA 
 "ANN 9 Kown evvoia = drattei | TooovTous ev Gitocodia Tepi Geod 7} 
 
 > - a A > ~ > oo 
 
 evyoety, OTL Oeds ovdapas eatw VAN 
 
 A > ‘ -~ > 3 , La 
 POapty, ovde Tiara ev awuvyxots VAaLS 
 vmo avOpamav popdovpevos, ws Kat’ 
 eikdva ij Tiva OVpBoda ekeivou yryvo- 
 
 pevacs.—Contra Celsum, IIT. § 40. 
 2) , A a a > , 
 Tis yap vouy €xav ov Karayeda- 
 OeTal TOU peTa TOS THALKOUTOUS Kal 
 
 
 
 Oedv Aédyous evopyTos Tois dyddpact, 
 kal {rou avTOIs avaTreuTroVvTOS THY EVXTY, 
 x A a z. a > 7 A 
 
 7) Sua THs TovT@y oWews, ep ov chav- 
 
 , - > , > A a 
 
 racera Setv avaBaivew amd BeTropevov 
 kai ovpBddov ovtos, avapEepovtds Te 
 emt Tov voovpevov;— Contra Celsum, 
 VII. § 44. 
 
96 VIEWS OF ORIGEN [Serres I. 
 
 marry as the law allows.”' Suppose such had been the con- 
 dition of every ecclesiastic, would there have been no intima- 
 tion of it here? Still more might the same question be asked 
 after reading another of the objections of Celsus and Origen’s 
 answer to it: for on the former affirming, that if the Chiiatianes 
 are not prepared to do honour to those demons which preside 
 over the affairs of life, they ought to abstain from taking part 
 in those affairs—neither marry, nor have children, but reduce 
 the world to a solitude—Origen observes, “ but God has com- 
 manded us to marry, seeing that all are not able to receive 
 that which is more excellent, 7.e. total purity ; and having 
 married, to support the children which may be born to us, 
 and not destroy those whom Providence has given us. And 
 this does not interfere with the duty of abstaining from all 
 obedience to demons that occupy the earth. For, armed with 
 the panoply of God, we stand as godly wrestlers against the 
 race of demons that plot our overthrow. And though Celsus 
 by his argument would utterly drive us out of the world, that 
 so our race might become altogether extirpated from the earth, 
 still we shall persist in living according to the laws of God in 
 the precepts of our Creator, by no means content to serve the 
 laws of sin; and shall marry wives, if we choose; and take 
 care of the children which are given us of such marriage.’”? 
 Here Origen talks of “ God commanding us to marry ;” “ we 
 shall marry wives if we choose,’ &c. Is it then to be believed, 
 that if so considerable a body of persons as the Priesthood 
 were prohibited from marriage, Origen, who was one of their 
 number himself, would have afforded us no hint of so impor- 
 tant an exception? For it must be remembered, that we must 
 be content with negative evidence on a question of this 
 kind ; since, if no such rule obtained in Origen’s days, as 
 the celibacy of the, Clergy, it would be impossible that pas- 
 sages should be found in him containing direct objections to 
 such a rule. 
 
 Once more; on the subject of the worship of saints and 
 angels, there is evidence in Origen against the lawfulness 
 of such a practice much too plain to be overlooked by a 
 
 ' "Qs twas adrav dia Tov épera tis | vopou arrecOa adppodicioy.— Contra 
 irrepBadhovons kaOapdrnros, kal dia | Celsum, I. § 26. 
 TO xabaporepov Opnokeveww TO Geiov, 2 VIII. §§ 55, 56. 
 pndé tav ouyKexopnpcvay tad Tod 
 
Lect. V.] ON THE WORSHIP OF SAINTS; 97 
 
 Romanist, who was reducing his writings to the standard 
 of his own Church. It is true, that in one place where he is 
 distinguishing different kinds of prayer, he says, “It is not 
 improper to offer supplication (S€yowv), intercession (evrev£sv), 
 and thanksgiving (evyapiotiav) to saints: and two of these, 
 I mean intercession and thanksgiving, not only to saints, but 
 to ordinary men; but supplication to saints only—if any 
 Peter or Paul can be found—that they may help us ; making 
 us worthy to enjoy the licence granted to them of forgiving sins” 
 (i.e. I apprehend, as Priests do, by absolution): “nay, al- 
 though a man be not a saint, still if we do him an injury, it 
 is lawful for us, on being made sensible of our offence towards 
 him, to pray (Sen@jvas) even such a man, that he would for- 
 give us who have injured him.”’ It may be doubted whether 
 Origen in this passage had in his eye any but living saints, to 
 whom supplication was to be addressed ; the parenthesis, “ if 
 any Peter or Paul can be found,” seeming to point to such 
 limit: at the same time, I am disposed to think from other 
 parts of this same tract, that abstractedly he does contemplate 
 the lawfulness of asking for the good offices of saints who are 
 dead ; but only in the same sense as the request might have 
 been made to them when alive. It may be, that in these 
 doctrines there proved to be the seeds of an abuse: but Origen 
 could not foresee that: certainly the abuse itself, as it after- 
 wards discovered itself in the practice of the Church of Rome, 
 he would have denounced, as some passages in his works, 
 which I shall now proceed to cite, clearly testify—* Let us 
 next see,” says Origen, “ how this all-knowing Celsus slanders 
 the Jews; affirming, as he does, that they worship angels, 
 and apply themselves to magic, in which Moses first instructed 
 them. Now where in the writings of Moses,” he continues, 
 “did he find him teaching that we ought to worship angels ?”* 
 a paragraph utterly inconsistent with the practice of angel- 
 worship in the Church in Origen’s time. But decisive as 
 this is, I can bring another yet more so. For to an inquiry 
 of Celsus, what the notion of the Christians might be with re- 
 spect to angels, whether they were gods or beings of some other 
 
 
 
 1 De Oratione, § 14. | is 6 Mavons adrois yéyovev eEnyntns. 
 
 2 "Sper dé tiva rpér0v ovkoarret | rod yap Tov ypapparov Matuéws 
 "Jovdaiovs 6 mavr’ émayyeAopevos | edpe Tov vopoberny mapadiddvtTa oeBew 
 eiSévac KéAoos, Néyov aitovs oeBew | ayyeXovs ;—Contra Celsum, I. § 26. 
 dyyédous, Kal yonteia mpookeiobat, | 
 
 
 
 I 
 
98 ON THE WORSHIP OF ANGELS; [Senres I. 
 
 nature, Origen replies, “ We say and confess, that they are 
 ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall 
 be heirs of salvation ; that they ascend, taking with them the 
 prayers of mankind, to the purest celestial places, or to the 
 super-celestial, still purer than these, and that they descend 
 again, bringing down to every one the benefit which God 
 ordains should be ministered to mankind by their hands. 
 These we learn to call angels (messengers) from their employ- 
 ment ; and on account of their being divine we find them 
 called in Scripture gods; but not in such a sense as that we 
 are commanded to reverence and worship them in God’s 
 stead, being ministers unto us, and bearing to us matters of 
 God. For every supplication, and prayer, and intercession, 
 and thanksgiving, we must send up to God who is over all, 
 through the High Priest, who is above all angels, the living 
 Word and God: we shall offer our supplications also to 
 the Word himself, and our entreaties, and intercessions, and 
 thanksgivings, and our prayers, if we are capable of under- 
 standing what is prayer properly so called, and what impro- 
 perly. But to invoke angels, when we have not received a 
 knowledge of them, such knowledge being above the reach of 
 man, is not reasonable. Even supposing, however, a know- 
 ledge of them, wonderful and ineffable as it is, to be compre- 
 hended by us, this very knowledge, whilst it informs us of 
 their nature and of the purposes for which each of them is 
 ordained, will not allow us to have the audacity to pray to 
 any other being besides God, who is over all, and sufficient for 
 “r things, through our Saviour, the Son of God.”? 
 
 ' “Opodoyoupéves ev ‘yap ayyehous 
 
 paper AetroupyiKa OvTas mvevpara, Kal 
 els Suaxovias amcoteANGpeva bua Tous 
 HEdNovras K\npovopet ToTnpiay, ava- 
 Baivew pev mpocaydvras Tas TOV dv- 
 Opa ev evrevfets, ev ToIs kaBapordrors 
 TOU KOT MOV Xwptots emoupaviows, 7 7) Kal 
 Tots TOUT@Y kaapwrépots ume poupav- 
 ious, kataBaivew S exeibev, cpepovtas 
 éxdor@ kar’ d&iav Tav amd Ocod TL 
 abrois Suaxoveiv Tots evepyeToupevots 
 Tpooragvopevav. TovToUs 51) dyyéXous 
 amo Tov Epyou abt ay pepabykores 
 kaheiv, Upioxoper avrous, bia TO 
 Oeious eivat, kai Oeods ev tais iepais 
 Tore dvopatenzvous ypacais: adr’ ovx 
 wore mpooracoes bat Hpi Tods dta- 
 Kovouvtas Kal épovras Hiv ta Tod 
 
 
 
 cov ceBew Kal mpookvveiv dyri Tov 
 cov. wacav pev yap denow, kal ™poo- 
 evx7v, Kal evreve, kal evxapioTiay, 
 dvamepmreoy TO ert Trace Ge, bua 
 TOU emt TavTeY dyyéhev dpxlepews, 
 enYUXoU Adyou kal Ocov. Senoopucba 
 € Kal avuToo Tod Adyov, kal evreveopeba 
 avTe@, Kal eVxXaptorngoper, Kai mpoo- 
 evfdpeba be, eav SurdpeBa kat aKovew 
 TIS mepl Tpooevyis KuptoneEias kal 
 kataxpnoews. ayyehous yap Kadéoat 
 BN) dvadaBdvtas thy imép avOparous 
 Tept attav emiotHunv, ovK evUAoyov. 
 iva O€ xaQ’ indbcow H mepl attay 
 emery pn Oavpaoiws tis ovea al ’ 
 améppyros, karahn poy” avTn 7) emt 
 oT THN, Tapagtyoaga Thy piow auTav, 
 kal ef)’ ois eiow ExaoTor TeTaypévor, 
 
Lecr. V.] AND ON PURGATORY. 99 
 
 I think the doctrine of Purgatory would be the only one of 
 the doctrines which are characteristic of the Church of Rome, 
 that would receive countenance from Origen ; and even this 
 very little. The passages in him, which bear upon this sub- 
 ject, are many of them obscure, nor is it always easy to 
 determine whether they relate to purgation in this life or a 
 future one ; herein, as in other respects, having much in com- 
 mon with the corresponding ones of Clemens Alexandrinus, to 
 which reference has been made already. The fire, however, of 
 which Origen speaks is metaphorical; and consists of the pain 
 inflicted by the consciousness of sins past, which accumulate, 
 till they, as it were, ignite’: and it is corrective, so that 
 having done its office it ceases, all being eventually purified 
 and saved?; even those, it should seem, who have been so 
 bad as to have sunk in the successive stages of their existence 
 —for such stages Origen contemplates—into actual evil 
 spirits’; the devil himself, however, the author of all evil 
 excepted.* Meanwhile, the good are exempt from these pur- 
 gatorial sufferings ; the pains of that estate taking no effect on 
 them ; the fire finding in them no pabulum on which to feed. 
 And they are removed to Paradise, where having been fur- 
 nished with suitable instruction and prepared for heaven, in- 
 struction which will fit them in a less period or a greater for 
 a higher estate according to their respective purity, they will 
 at length ascend thither and follow Jesus Christ to his dwell- 
 ing-place.? Purgatory, therefore, as thus understood, is equi- 
 valent to the doctrine of temporal as opposed to eternal 
 punishment ; and whatever it may be, it has not the least 
 appearance of having been introduced into Origen’s writings 
 by Romanists, identified with those writings as it is in- such 
 various ways, transmitted through other Fathers to him, and 
 derived in the first instance, there can be little doubt, from 
 heathen philosophy. 
 
 ovk edoet GAA Oappeiv evxeoOat, 7) | qua ipsi viderint, quomodo illud audi- 
 T@ mpos wdavtTa SwagKet emt mace Ge@, | ant: “Neque ebriosi, neque maledici 
 Ova TOU SwTHpos Huov Yiot rot Oecov. | regnum Dei possidebunt;” licet patrem 
 
 —Contra Celsum, V. §§ 4, 5. malitize et perditionis eorum qui de 
 1 De Princip. II. c. x. § 4. regno Dei ejicientur, dicant posse sal- 
 ~ INMe Coeds Vie vari, quod ne mente quidem quis captus 
 SULET. 6. viseg: 8: dicere potest.—Epist. ad Amicos Alex- 
 # Quidam eorum, qui libenter con-| andrinos, vol. i. p. 5, Bened. Ed. 
 
 tentiones reperiunt, ascribunt nobis et 5 De Princip. II. c. xi. § 6. 
 
 nostree doctrine blasphemiam, super 
 H 2 
 
100 REMARKS ON THE CONTRA CELSUM. | (Series I. 
 
 It may be remarked, that by far the greater part of the 
 passages which I have quoted as bearing testimony against 
 the peculiar opinions and practices of the Church of Rome, are 
 found in Origen’s treatise against Celsus; much the most 
 valuable of all his works ; and which probably has commanded 
 at all times many more readers than any other: indeed the 
 integrity in which the original text has reached us, shows that 
 it was a book always appreciated. It was, in fact, perhaps 
 the first regular anti-infidel publication the world saw: in- 
 deed, I may say, it is the only one of that character of the 
 early Church, and thus from its nature was sure to excite the 
 curiosity of after ages, of which infidelity was the badge. If, 
 therefore, the Romanists were under a temptation to corrupt 
 any of Origen’s writings, it must have been this; it was a 
 very excellent channel through which to disperse their opinions ; 
 whilst any evidence which a popular work of this kind might 
 happen to furnish against them, must have been felt to be 
 doubly dangerous; yet we have seen how prolific in such 
 evidence it is. 
 
 I have pursued this argument throughout at greater length, 
 and in more ample detail, than I should have otherwise done, 
 because, whilst it serves to qualify Daillé’s assertion, that the 
 works of the early Fathers have been dressed by the Romanists, 
 it serves also to show what the sentiments of these Fathers were 
 on some of the leading articles of the Romish Creed ; and will 
 accordingly render it unnecessary at a future stage of these 
 Lectures, and when I shall treat of the interpretation of 
 Scripture, and the protection which a knowledge of the Fathers 
 affords against warping that interpretation to uncatholic pur- 
 poses, to deal again with the case of the Romanists, their 
 opinions and practices having been already proved, though by 
 this incidental process, to be at variance with early patristical 
 testimony, and therefore their peculiar understanding of Scrip- 
 ture to be probably erroneous. Such is the internal evidence 
 against Daillé yielded by Origen ; and such are some of the 
 grounds for exercising caution in admitting this same Daillé’s 
 vague and indefinite charge of Romish adulteration of the 
 early Fathers. 
 
 Indeed, James, the learned keeper of the Bodleian Library, 
 “the most industrious and indefatigable writer against the 
 Papists,” says Wood, “that had been educated in Oxford 
 
Lect. V.] OBSERVATION OF DODWELL. 101 
 
 since the Reformation,” ’ and who had investigated the subject 
 of the corruptions of the Fathers, effected by the Romanists, 
 with infinite pains, adduces no instance of any Father so 
 treated before Cyprian,” whose case I will consider presently. 
 And a very good reason why the early Fathers should have 
 escaped any taint from that quarter, suggests itself in the 
 simple fact, that those Fathers were very little read or re- 
 garded by the Romanists.* Hence the few manuscript copies 
 of the Fathers which have come down to us ; hence the origi- 
 nal texts often almost or altogether lost, and even those of 
 the translations frequently imperfect. For, as Dodwell ob- 
 serves in a passage of his Dissertation on Irengeus, which I 
 have brought to your notice on other occasions, “These men 
 of more modern days took, forsooth, for their rule of orthodoxy 
 the Fathers of the fourth and following centuries, inasmuch 
 as they who lived after the Councils observed with more ex~ 
 actness the language and phraseology of the Councils; the 
 ancient Fathers, who spoke more loosely and with greater 
 simplicity, they were so far from being accustomed to produce 
 as witnesses, that they rather held them in suspicion if they 
 chanced to make use of words foreign to the received language 
 of their favourite centuries. Accordingly Photius often ani- 
 madverts severely on the most ancient Fathers, and on that 
 account is very properly reproved by our illustrious Bull. 
 And as often as the more modern Councils confirm their 
 decrees by the testimony of the more ancient writers, as their 
 custom is, we constantly, in the Greek Councils, find the 
 names of Athanasius, Basil, both the Gregories, and Chrysos- 
 tom, but not the names of Clemens Romanus or Alexandrinus, 
 nor of Barnabas, nor of Justin Martyr, Irenzeus, Athenagoras, 
 Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Dionysius of Corinth or him of 
 Alexandria, Musanus, Miltiades, Melito, Apollinarius of Hie- 
 rapolis, or of the other Ante-Nicene Fathers, whose names and 
 works Eusebius has made a catalogue of, and after him Jerome. 
 Se in the Latin Councils we read of Hilary, and Jerome, and 
 
 'See p. xvii. of the new edition of 
 James’s Treatise of the Corruptions of 
 Scripture, Councils and Fathers, by 
 John Edward Cox, 1843. James died, 
 1629, aged 58. 5 
 
 2 See p. 75, “The second part, Cor- 
 ruption of the true Fathers. The /irst 
 
 notorious corruption out of St. Cyprian’s 
 De Unitate Ecclesie,” and p. 104, “ The 
 second place corrupted, in the 49th 
 Homily of the Author of the imperfect 
 work upon Matthew.” 
 
 3 See quotations from Erasmus in 
 Daille, p. 80. 
 
102 NEGLECT OF THE EARLY FATHERS. (Serzes I. 
 
 Ambrose, of Augustine most of all, and of those later than 
 Augustine ; but not of Irenzeus, or Tertullian, very rarely of 
 Cyprian, not of Arnobius, Lactantius, Victorinus of Petavio 
 the martyr. Thus it came to pass that the old Ante-Nicene . 
 Fathers, being in the first instance neglected and seldom cited, 
 by degrees, in most cases, dropped almost out of sight. For 
 these people were not used to test their decrees (as they ought 
 to have done) by the old Ante-Nicene Fathers, but, on the 
 contrary, indulged themselves in the most harsh censure of the 
 most ancient Fathers, on the strength of modern decrees and 
 established dogmas.” And Bishop Bull, you will remember, 
 is as much concerned in defending the authority and orthodoxy 
 of the primitive Fathers against Petavius or Petau, a Jesuit, 
 as against Zuicker, a Socinian, or Sandius, an Arian.” And in 
 the Glossa Ordinaria, or running comment on Scripture used 
 in the Romish Church in the middle ages, the references to the 
 Fathers are almost always to those of a later date. And the 
 effect of old habits may be seen even in our Homilies, for 
 whilst in the second book, which came out when the prin- 
 ciples of the Reformation had been more examined, the Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers are frequently quoted ; in the first book, if I 
 mistake not, there are but two references to Origen, and one 
 to Cyprian, and not one to any other before the Council of 
 Nice. 
 
 Of course, I do not contend that the line of argument which 
 I have been pursuing with respect to the corruptions of the 
 Ante-Nicene Fathers is conclusive as to their purity, or can 
 be taken as an answer to any particular cases of adulteration 
 which can be alleged: if such cases can be found, they must 
 stand upon their own merits; but I have urged it as 
 proper to neutralize the effect of those vague and indefinite 
 insinuations of interpolation or mutilation cast out against 
 these Fathers by Daillé, and by the Puritan and Calvinistic 
 party generally, by which it is their intention so far to under- 
 mine their credit and bring them into general suspicion, as to 
 check all curiosity about them, and divert people from a 
 course of study which would not be favourable on many ac- 
 counts to the class of opinions they are disposed to support 
 and propagate. The argument I am urging at least goes to 
 
 : Dissert. in Ireneum, V. pp. 408, 409. | 258, Oxf. Ed. and Def. Fid. Nic. sect. 
 * Life of Bishop Bull, pp. 243-246. | 2. e. iv. § 9, and sect. 3. ¢. v. 
 
Lect. V.] STORY OF PASCHASINUS. 103 
 
 show this, that the general aspect of the writings of these 
 earliest Fathers does not bear token of having been submitted 
 to the revision of Romish authorities, or of having taken mate- 
 rial harm at any rate from Romish custody—what damage 
 there was being incurred rather from neglect than from inter- 
 ference. Even if the Romanists had been restrained by no 
 scruples from debasing the manuscripts, they were in a great 
 measure saved from the temptation by their ignorance of their 
 contents. 
 
 The particular case of fraud which Daillé adduces (for in* this 
 instance he is precise'),as attempted to be practised by the Pope’s 
 legate so early as the Council of Chalcedon, in interpolating a 
 canon of the Council of Nice, which he had occasion to quote, 
 does not support the disproportionate conclusions he draws 
 from it. It appears that in citing the sixth canon of the Coun- 
 cil of Nice, the legate Paschasinus, instead of reading it ra ap- 
 yaa €On Kpatelt@, Ta ev AiyirrTo Kal AtBun kat [levramoneu, 
 @ate Tov “AreEavdpetas emickoTOV TavTwY TOUT@Y exe THY 
 e€ovatar, ered) Kat TO ev TH Popy éettoKoT@ TOdTO ciUNnbés 
 ect, x.7.r. “ Let the ancient customs prevail; those in Egypt, 
 and in Libya, and in Pentapolis; to wit, that the Bishop of 
 Alexandria have authority over them all, for the same thing is 
 usual at Rome with respect to her Bishop ;” it appears, I say, 
 that instead of reading the canon so, he ventured to cite it thus, 
 » exkrAnoia ‘Popns Tavtote eoxe Ta Tpetela, K.T.rX. “~The 
 Church of Rome hath everywhere had the primacy,” &c. But 
 it is by no means clear that there was any attempt at fraud 
 in this transaction. The legate was probably meaning merely 
 to give the substance and not the words of the canon, which 
 was to this effect, that as the Bishop of Rome had the primacy 
 everywhere in the province of Rome ; so the Bishop of Alexan- 
 dria should have the primacy throughout his province ; in short, 
 that metropolitan Bishops should everywhere have the primacy 
 over their suffragans in their own provinces, the word wavtote 
 simply meaning everywhere in his own province, not every- 
 where in the world, which made the case parallel to the one 
 under consideration, as it was intended it should be. More- 
 over, it seems probable that Paschasinus being a Latin was 
 quoting from an ancient Latin version or free interpretation of 
 the canons of the Council of Nice, and was misled by it, so far 
 
 1 Daillé, p. 71. 
 
104 DISPROPORTIONATE CONCLUSION OF DAILLE. [Senres I. 
 
 as misled he was. And at all events, the correct copy of the 
 canons was produced, and the error, whether wilful or acci- 
 dental, put to rights, so that if there was artifice in the world, 
 there was vigilance to counteract it too.’ On the whole, 
 therefore, how inordinate must we consider the conclusion 
 which Daillé draws from this single case of Paschasinus, that 
 “when the legates of the holy Pontiff did not scruple to cor- 
 rupt so venerable a canon by such ill-treatment as this, we 
 can no longer believe anything to be sound, anything unadul- 
 terated, which antiquity hath left us, unless it be what is of 
 no moment, or else what could not be contaminated without 
 the greatest infamy and universal reprobation.” ? 
 
 1 See Routh, Scriptor. Ecclesiasticor. 2 Daille, p. 71. 
 Opuse. tom. i. p. 404. 
 
Lect. VI.] INTERPOLATION OF CYPRIAN 105 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Interpolation of Cyprian in the editions of Manutius and of Pamelius; con- 
 tinued by the Benedictine editors. Purity of earlier editions. No evidence of 
 the corruption of MSS. Limited extent of the remaining corruptions in the 
 edition of Manutius. Mass of evidence in Cyprian against the Romanists ; on 
 the Papal Supremacy; on Transubstantiation; on Tradition ; on Absolution ; 
 on Extreme Unction; on the number of the Sacraments. Germ of abuses 
 discoverable in him ; not introduced by the Romanists. Estimate of patristic 
 testimony formed by English Divines since the Reformation. Causes of the 
 outcry against the Fathers raised by Daille and others. 
 
 I SAID that the first of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and in- 
 
 deed the only one, whom the Romanists are distinctly 
 charged either by Daillé or by James' with abusing by inter- 
 polations or omissions, is Cyprian; and I have reserved him 
 for a separate and fuller consideration, because in this instance 
 the accusation is made on specific grounds, and the paragraphs 
 adduced, which are supposed to sustain it. For, as I have 
 remarked, Daillé at least usually indulges in more general 
 declamation on the subject of forgery. 
 
 It seems that in the Roman edition of Cyprian printed by 
 Manutius in 1564, there were, for the first time, several words 
 introduced into a passage in the “De Unitate Ecclesize” of 
 Cyprian, with a view to support the doctrine of the Supre- 
 macy of the Pope: and that in the Antwerp edition of Pa- 
 melius in 1568, a few more to the same effect were added : 
 corruptions, we may subjoin, which have been continued in 
 the Benedictine edition, though evidently with the feelmg on 
 the part of the editor, that corruptions they are, and that the 
 words in question have no right to the place assigned them in 
 the text.2 Thus, whereas the genuine Cyprian says, “ The 
 
 1 See James’s Corruptions of Serip- ; though Baluzius, whom in general that 
 ture, Councils and Fathers, Part II. p. | edition follows, had expunged them. 
 75, and Daille, p. 83. Hee rationum momenta, de quibus 
 
 2 See a curious note in italics in p. | Critici judicabunt, Baluzium addux- 
 
 545 of the Benedict Ed., giving the | erant, ut nonnulla ex hoe testimonio ex- 
 reason why they had been restored,! pungeret. Sed reposita fuere in textu, 
 
106 IN THE EDITION OF MANUTIUS. [Serres I. 
 
 Church was built upon one (super unum),’’ meaning Peter ; 
 the interpolated Cyprian says, “upon him alone (super illum 
 unum).” Whereas the genuine Cyprian says, Christ, “ that 
 he might make manifest the principle of unity, ordered it by 
 his authority, that the origin of that same unity should begin 
 from one ;” the interpolated Cyprian says, “Christ, that he 
 might make manifest the principle of unity, established one 
 chair (unam cathedram constituit), and ordered it by his 
 authority,” &e. Whereas the genuine Cyprian says, “ Still 
 what Peter was, the same were the other Apostles also; en- 
 dowed with the same share of honour and power: but the 
 beginning proceeds from unity, in order that the Church of 
 Christ may be shown to be one; which Church the Holy 
 Spirit in the person of the Lord in the Song of Songs 
 designates to be one, and says,’ &c.: the interpolated Cy- 
 prian says, “but the beginning proceeds from unity. The 
 Primacy is given to Peter (Primatus Petro datur), in order 
 that the Church of Christ may be shown to be one, and the 
 chair one (et cathedra una). And they are all shepherds, 
 but the flock is shown to be one, which was to be fed by all 
 the Apostles with unanimous consent (et pastores sunt 
 omnes, sed grew unus ostenditur, qui ab Apostolis omnibus 
 unanimi consensione pascatur), which Church the Holy 
 Spirit in the person of the Lord,” &c. And whereas the 
 genuine Cyprian says, “ Whoso strives against and resists 
 the Church, can he trust that he is in the Church?” The 
 interpolated Cyprian says, “ Whoso strives against and resists 
 the Church ; whoso deserts the Chair of Peter on which the 
 Church is founded (qui cathedram Petri, super quam fun- 
 data est ecclesia, deserit), can he trust that he is in the 
 Church ?”? 
 
 Now, these are, no doubt, wilful interpolations of Cyprian, 
 all of them, mind you, occurring in one and the same passage 
 of the “De Unitate Ecclesiz,” so that no general adultera- 
 tion of the author is pretended. But the example, if used 
 to support Daillé in his charge of forgery, cuts both ways, 
 hinders more than helps him, since the same evidence, which 
 
 propterea quod servata fuerunt in om- | fuit in Baluzii notis non pauca mutare, 
 nibus editionibus, quae in Gallia ab an- | ac plura essent mutata, id si commode 
 nis centum et quinquaginta prodierunt, | fieri potuisset. 
 
 etiain in Rigaltiand. Quinetiam necesse 1 Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesia, § iv. 
 
Teer Wik] PURITY OF THE EARLIER EDITIONS. 107 
 
 proves this Roman edition of 1564 by Manutius to be inter- 
 polated in that particular place, proves also how free from 
 interpolation even this passage had been kept in the custody 
 of the Romanists up to that time. There had been editions 
 of Cyprian printed, one in 1477, two in 1520, one in 1525, 
 and one in 15380; all without these intrusive paragraphs. 
 Indeed, Pamelius himself testifies that he had the use of eight 
 or nine printed copies of Cyprian that were before 1564, 
 which were without them; and nine or ten MSS., but one 
 of which contained them’: so that the habit of the middle 
 ages, the ages of Daillé’s corruptors, as far as the present 
 case testifies, was to keep the ecclesiastical treasures committed 
 to them safe and unimpaired, indeed often not aware that 
 they had such in possession, however, by accident for the once, 
 it might be violated. Nor indeed was it likely that frauds 
 of this kind would be started to any great extent, so long as 
 the Church had no jealous eyes fixed upon her. It was the 
 stir of the «ra of the Reformation, which tempted her to 
 falsify antiquity for her own support, but that age which sup- 
 plied the temptation to fraud, supplied also light and opportunity 
 for detecting it. Indeed, it must have been no easy matter 
 to corrupt the manuscripts of an author (so long as his works 
 only existed in manuscript) for a specific purpose, and to make 
 those manuscripts speak uniformly. They were scattered over 
 Christendom, and copies of these would be multiplied from 
 that manuscript, which was the readiest to be had. Nothing 
 could have been more difficult than to render the errors of all 
 identical. <A translation might give an universal wrong 
 impression of the original, because all the transcripts of that 
 translation would be alike ; and whenever the translation, and 
 that only, was read, it would give the same impression of the 
 author, and that an erroneous one. Rufinus, e.g. expressly 
 tells us that he had misrepresented Origen, when he thought 
 it expedient to do so, in his version of the “ De Principiis,”? 
 and accordingly Rufinus’s Origen in the absence of the Greek 
 text is that which is now in circulation. But the heretics, to 
 whom he imputes by conjecture the interpolation of these 
 passages, which he thinks objectionable in Origen, and which 
 he therefore takes on himself to alter, would have hardly done 
 
 ! Corruptions, Pt. IT. p. 78. de Principiis and Preef. Lib. tert. pp. 45. 
 2 Origen, Prologus Rufini in Libros | 107, Bened. Kd. 
 
108 OMISSIONS OF MANUTIUS AND PAMELIUS. [Senrtes I. 
 
 so without a conspiracy to that effect amongst all of their 
 body in Christendom, wherever a manuscript of Origen then 
 was—a thing very improbable in itself. Even mutilation of 
 manuscripts though much more easy than interpolation, is 
 proved to have been very difficult to do effectually ; that is 
 to say, in a manner so universal, that all the manuscripts 
 should conspire. ‘Thus the five last chapters of Irenzeus, were 
 suppressed in all the editions of Irenzeus, which preceded that 
 of Feuardentius, and upon the faith of manuscripts. The 
 extinction of them, however, effected, as is supposed, by those 
 who disapproved of the doctrine of the Millennium, which they 
 advocated, was not so complete, but that Feuardentius found 
 them in his own manuscript, and replaced them, future editors 
 following him; and now they stand as a monument of the 
 impracticability of this kind of fraud. 
 
 There is another complaint still made by James against the 
 edition of Manutius—that it omits the 74th and 75th Epis- 
 tles ; the first, one of Cyprian “ad Pompeium contra Epis- 
 tolam Stephani;” the latter an Epistle of Firmilianus to 
 Cyprian ; and both of them taking very great liberties with 
 the Pope. But these are found in all the manuscripts, so that 
 no attempt was made to suppress them in the middle ages ; 
 and they were even restored by Pamelius in his edition, which 
 came out four years later than that of Manutius,' and are now 
 in the Benedictine edition. 
 
 Daillé also notices” a wilful omission of the sentence “ Et 
 vestram quoque sententiam’’*® in Ep. xi. to the people of 
 Carthage, in Pamelius’ edition and in the two editions which had 
 preceded it—these words showing that the people took part 
 in the affairs and deliberations of the Church, together with 
 the clergy ; on which account, says Daillé, they were sup- 
 pressed. But it wus a suppression, for the words are confessed 
 to have been in the manuscripts, which had therefore been 
 kept pure*; and they were restored in subsequent editions, 
 and now are found in the Benedictine. And the same is true 
 of the alteration of “ Petrum” for “Petram”’ made by Pame- 
 
 
 
 ' James, Pt. II. p. 87. plures, secundum Domini disciplinam 
 ¢ Daille, p. 83. et confessorum presentiam et vestram 
 * Audiant, queso, patienter consilium | quoque sententiam, beatorum martyrum 
 nostrum ; expectent regressionem nos- | literas et desideria examinare possimus. 
 tram ut, cum ad yos per Dei misericor- | —Cyprian, Ep. xi. § 3. 
 diam venerimus, conyocati coepiscopi 4 See Benedict. Ed. p. 398. 
 
Lrct. VI.] EVIDENCE AGAINST THE ROMANISTS 109 
 
 lius in the 40th Letter, also noticed by Daillé: it was made 
 against the manuscripts, and has since been corrected by the 
 Romanists themselves. 
 
 I do not observe any other charge against the Romanists 
 with respect to their treatment of Cyprian besides these ; for 
 as to the last three letters, printed in the Benedictine edition 
 of Cyprian, the editor himself does not pretend that they are 
 genuine—habes fatentem reum—and yet what a temptation 
 must they have been under in dealing with him, to mutilate 
 him, if they knew what was in him! For who can read 
 Cyprian without perceiving the strong testimony he bears 
 against the Romanists in many most vital dogmas, he a 
 Latin Father too, and therefore so much more accessible than a 
 Greek ; so that if they spared his writings, whose should 
 they spoil? Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, in the 48th Letter, 
 writes to Cyprian and tells him of the schismatical proceedings 
 of Novatianus, Novatus, and others ; and in the 49th, Cyprian 
 replies to Cornelius, approving what he had done, confirming 
 his ill opinion of Novatus by a report of his proceedings at 
 Carthage before he went to Rome, where his attempts to dis- 
 turb the Church were the same as those he had made at Car- 
 thage ; “only,” adds Cyprian, “as Rome, on account of its 
 magnitude, ought to take the lead of Carthage, his achieve- 
 ments there have been worse and more mischievous.” Is this 
 the ground on which the modern Church of Rome would have 
 its superiority established? The 55th Letter of Cyprian is 
 addressed to the same Cornelius in terms quite didactic— 
 Cornelius, it should seem, having invited his counsel in a 
 difficulty. Again, his 67th Letter is written to Stephanus, 
 the successor of Cornelius, entirely in the language of an 
 equal, the Gallic Church having appealed for advice to them 
 both as conspicuous Bishops of the Church Catholic, and 
 Cyprian in this letter suggesting what should be done. The 
 68th Letter is an answer to a similar application for counsel 
 made by the Church of Spain to Cyprian, and not made, you 
 will observe, to the Bishop of Rome. The 74th Letter, ad- 
 dressed to Pompeius, a Bishop of Tripolis, animadverts on a 
 letter of the same Stephanus on the subject of the Baptism 
 of heretics, in terms of high indignation. He bids Pom- 
 peius read this letter of Stephanus, which he incloses to him, 
 “and then,” says he, “ you will mark his error yet more and 
 
 
 
110 IN THE WRITINGS OF CYPRIAN, [Serres I. 
 
 more ; endeavouring, as he does, to assert the cause of the 
 heretics against the Christians, and against the Church of God. 
 For amongst other things either arrogant, or irrelevant, or 
 inconsistent with himself, which he has incautiously written, 
 he has added this, ‘If any one, therefore, of any heresy come 
 to you, let no innovation on tradition be attempted, and let 
 imposition of hands be allowed him on repentance.’ Not 
 innovate on tradition,” Cyprian then exclaims, “as if he was 
 not the innovator, who forgets the unity of the Church, and 
 usurps the right of imparting his mendacious and pestilent 
 dipping. . . . What obstinacy and presumption is it to prefer 
 human tradition to the Divine will, and not to perceive that 
 God is angry as often as human tradition annuls the Divine 
 precepts ; saying, ‘Ye have made the commandment of God 
 of none effect for the sake of your tradition”? ... How, 
 then, hath the gross perverseness of our brother Stephanus 
 gone to that extreme, that he should maintain, that sons may 
 be born to God even by the baptism of Marcion, of Valentinus, 
 of Apelles, and other blasphemers against God the Father ; 
 and say, that remission of sins is given in the name of Christ, 
 even by those who blaspheme the Father and Christ the Lord 
 God.” Whilst in the Epistle of Firmilianus on the same sub- 
 ject, the 75th, we have language held towards Stephanus as 
 strong as Luther’s could have been ; “I am greatly indignant 
 at the open and manifest folly of Stephanus.” “ How dili- 
 gently hath Stephanus fulfilled these wholesome mandates of 
 the Apostle ! What lowliness and meekness doth he observe ! 
 For what more meek and lowly than to disagree with so many 
 Bishops throughout the world, breaking the bond of peace 
 with each by vain words of discord!” “Thus is not Ste- 
 phanus ashamed to patronize heretics against the Church, and 
 by such patronage to divide the brethren; nay, even to call 
 Cyprian a false Christ, a false apostle, a deceitful workman ; 
 who, being conscious that he was all these himself, forestalled 
 the charge!” And much more to the same effect. Is this 
 the kind of language which Rome would wish to preserve and 
 circulate? Yet there it is in the manuscripts, which have 
 been for ages in her custody! The manner in which she is 
 disposed to deal with it (for she feels the pungency of it) is 
 by endeavouring to discredit Firmilianus himself; to how little 
 
 " Matt. xv. 6. 
 
Lect. VI.] ON THE PAPAL SUPREMACY ; Ti 
 
 purpose, however, may be seen in Bishop Pearson’s defence of 
 Firmilian, which is attached to Mr. Churton’s recent Life of 
 Pearson.’ But this attempt of the Romanists was all fair ; if 
 they could succeed in damaging the character of the testimony 
 of Firmilian by argument or historical evidence, well and 
 good. But they did not expunge the letter from the manu- 
 scripts. Again, in a letter to Quintus, a Bishop of Mauritania,” 
 on the same subject, Cyprian writes, “After all it must not be 
 merely custom, but reason, that must decide the question. For 
 Peter, whom the Lord chose first, and upon whom he built his 
 Church, when Paul afterwards disputed with him on the 
 question of circumcision, did not make any arrogant claims 
 for himself, and say that he had obtained the Primacy, and 
 ought to be obeyed by those who were younger and later than 
 himself ; neither did he despise Paul, because he had been a 
 persecutor of the Church, but listened to the sound reasons 
 by which Paul maintained his cause.” Again, a few schis- 
 matics, who had set up a Bishop of their own at Carthage, 
 had sailed to Rome, as we have already seen, and published 
 their proceedings there in the hope of finding support. In 
 the letter which Cyprian writes to Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, 
 to counteract these,’ and to which I have before had occasion 
 to refer, he asserts principles quite at variance with the pre- 
 tensions of the modern Church of Rome. “Since it is deter- 
 mined by us all,” says he, “and is a thing no more than just 
 and right, that the cause of every one should be heard in the 
 place where his offence has been committed, and that his own 
 portion of the flock should be assigned to each pastor for him- 
 self to guide and govern, having by and by himself to render 
 an account of the same to God, it becomes those whom we 
 preside over not to run about and bring Bishops into collision 
 by their temerity, but to plead their cause in the place where 
 they have both their accusers and witnesses, unless it be, that 
 to a few desperate and abandoned men the authority of the 
 Bishops of Africa may seem less, because they have already 
 passed judgment upon them, and condemned by their grave cen- 
 sure those whom their own consciences had condemned already.” 
 There is an independence here claimed for separate Churches, 
 which would not suit the Pope of Rome of later times, as 
 
 1 Bp. Pearson’s Minor Theological | 2 Ep. Ixxi. 
 Works, Vol. I. Appendix A. p. civ. [tp Ageing ee 
 
112 ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION ; (Serres I, 
 
 would neither the assertion contained in an address of Cy- 
 prian’s to the Bishops assembled at Carthage to record their 
 sentiments on heretical Baptism. ‘None of us holds him- 
 self to be a Bishop of Bishops, nor by any tyrannical threats 
 drives his colleagues to the necessity of obedience, inasmuch 
 as every Bishop must exercise his free judgment according to 
 the right of liberty he possesses.”’ I could produce abun- 
 dance of passages on the Supremacy of the same character 
 from Cyprian, and am only embarrassed by the affluence of 
 my resources. 
 
 Again, we find in the 63rd Epistle many expressions alto- 
 gether inconsistent with their author’s belief in Transubstan- 
 tiation. “Christ’s Blood seems to be in the cup (videtur 
 esse in calice)”—“is represented (ostenditur)”—“ water alone 
 cannot possibly express the Blood of Christ (que sola Christi 
 sanguinem non possit exprimere.)” But as I referred to these 
 passages at some length in the second Lecture, I now only 
 remind you of them. There is another passage, however, to 
 which I did not then advert, to the same purport, in the 76th 
 Epistle. “ When the Lord calls the bread his Body (vocat), 
 made up as that bread is of many grains, he indicates, that 
 our people, whom he bare, were to be united ; and when he 
 calls the wine his Blood (appellat), made up as that wine is 
 from many berries of the grape, he signifies that our flock is 
 composed of an wnited multitude.” The use of such terms 
 is inconsistent with the existence of a belief in Transubstan- 
 tiation in the mind of Cyprian at the time. Yet remember, 
 all these expressions, from which we draw so important a 
 conclusion, are found in manuscripts preserved for us by the 
 Romanists. 
 
 Again, observe the manner in which the question of 
 Tradition is treated of by Cyprian.. It was touched upon in 
 a former quotation, but it requires to be more distinctly pro- 
 duced: my object, you will bear in mind, being all along to 
 show that the character of the writings of Cyprian, even as 
 we have them at present, is in itself a presumption, that the 
 Romanists cannot have meddled with them to any amount ; 
 
 *Neque enim quisquam nostrim | libertatis et potestatis sum arbitrium 
 episcopum se esse episcoporum consti- | proprium, tamque judicari ab alio non 
 tuit, aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi ! possit, quam nec ipse potest alterum 
 necessitatem collegas suos adigit, quan- | judicare.—Concil. Carthag. sub Cypri- 
 do habeat omnis episcopus pro licentid } ano VIL. 
 
Lect. VI.] ON TRADITION; 113 
 
 and that it is unfair, therefore, to insinuate the charge with- 
 out some definite evidence of it. Thus, “Whence is this 
 tradition?” says Cyprian, in answer to Stephanus on one 
 occasion, when he had pleaded it against him. “Whence is 
 this tradition? Does it descend from the authority of the 
 Lord and the Gospel, or from the mandates and Epistles of 
 the Apostles? For God testifies that those things are to be 
 done, which are written ; his language to Joshua being, ‘This 
 book of the Law shall not depart from thy mouth, but thou 
 shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe 
 to do according to all that is written therein.’' And the same 
 Lord sends his Apostles and commands them to baptize all 
 nations, and to teach them to observe all things whatsoever 
 He hath commanded.’ If, therefore, it is either taught in the 
 Gospel, or is contained in the Epistles of the Apostles, or in 
 the Acts, that persons coming from whatever heresy are not 
 to be baptized, but are simply to receive imposition of hands 
 as penitents, let this Divine and holy tradition be observed. 
 But if they are always named as enemies, and antichrists, as 
 to be avoided and as self-condemned, how can they not be 
 condemned by us?”*® Again, “Let us, I say, as faithful 
 servants of God, defend the camp, committed to us from above, 
 with trustworthy valour: and let not custom, which hath be- 
 guiled some, prevail with us against truth. For custom 
 without truth is merely antiquity of error.”* Once more in 
 the same Epistle, “If a pipe, which supplied water, suddenly 
 failed, should we not go to the fountain-head to know the 
 cause, whether the spring was dry, or whether the failure was 
 between, in the middle—the pipe broken or leaky—in order 
 that this being repaired, the water might be restored to the 
 city, fresh and full? So ought the priests of God to act in 
 keeping the Divine precepts. If the truth is in any particular 
 shaken or damaged, we must revert to the Divine source, to 
 Evangelical and Apostolical tradition, that our conduct may 
 proceed according to the origin it springs from.” The terms 
 Evangelical and Apostolical tradition, pointing, it should 
 seem, to the written Gospels and Epistles, to which reference 
 had been made as a standard already in the same letter. In 
 the Council of the 87 Bishops, whose sentiments Cyprian has 
 
 ' Joshua i. 8. 3 Bp. Ixxiv. 
 2 Matt. xxviii. 20, 4 Thid. 
 
114 ON TRADITION; [Serres I. 
 
 left on record, Libosus of Vaga said, “'The Lord in the Gospel 
 declared, ‘I am the truth.’ He did not say, ‘I am custom.’ 
 Therefore, when truth is discovered, custom must give place 
 to it.”! Inthe same Council, Felix of Bussacenze said, “ Let 
 no one prefer custom to reason and truth in admitting heretics 
 without Baptism into the Church.” Further yet, in the 
 Epistle of Firmilianus the Church of Rome is boldly charged 
 with not conforming in all respects itself to tradition; and 
 tradition is again tested by Scripture. “ But that the brethren 
 at Rome themselves do not keep primitive tradition in all 
 particulars, and that they pretend to the authority of the 
 Apostles without ground, one may know from this, that with 
 regard to the time of celebrating Easter and many other mys- 
 teries of religion, they seem to observe different customs from 
 others, from the Church of Jerusalem for mstance—and so + 
 in very many provinces, many other things differ accord- 
 ing to the difference of places and names, and yet there is no 
 departure on this account from the peace and unity of the 
 Catholic Church. Whereas, Stephanus has dared to break 
 that peace with you, which his predecessors have always 
 maintained towards you in mutual love and honour ; and has 
 even dared to defame Peter and Paul, the blessed Apostles, as 
 though the tradition had come from them, whereas in their 
 Epistles they execrate heretics, and warn us to avoid them.” 
 
 I am not now determining how far Cyprian is judicious in 
 all his remarks on the subject of tradition ; or how far the ac- 
 cidental circumstance of the Bishop of Rome being against him 
 on a great question, and pressing him with tradition, which 
 that Bishop maintained was against him too, drove Cyprian, a 
 man of hot temperament, or Firmilianus, who seems to have 
 been of the same, to disparage tradition unduly, and in a 
 
 manner, which might be made to recoil on themselves ; but I 
 venture to claim these passages as conceived in a spirit utterly 
 adverse to the teaching of Rome on this difficult question ; and 
 I venture to claim them too as passages, which she would have 
 been likely to expunge from the manuscripts, had she made no 
 conscience at all about the custody of such documents; and 
 had simply used them in whatever way appeared most for the 
 advantage of the Romish Church—unless, indeed, she was 
 ignorant of the contents of Cyprian’s works; which is an 
 
 
 
 ' Concil. Carthag. sub Cypriano VII. 
 
 
 
Lect. VI.] ON ABSOLUTION ; 115 
 
 alternative that answers my purpose equally well; for she 
 could not interpolate what she did not read. 
 
 Again, on the subject of Absolution, the language of 
 Cyprian is remarkable for its moderation. Thus even Corne- 
 lius himself, the Bishop of Rome, writes in a letter found 
 in Cyprian,’ as follows. ‘“ We restored Maximus to his place 
 in the Church, and received the rest, the people greatly 
 approving. But we le/t the whole to God, im whose power all 
 things are reserved.’ In another Epistle Cyprian himself, 
 after saying that no absolution was to be had for schismaties,” 
 however they might get through the preliminary forms, pro- 
 ceeds, “ Who under such circumstances would not resign him- 
 self to despair?” and adds, the Church then is not to repel 
 penitents ; “and inasmuch as there can be no confession in 
 the grave, penitents must be received into the Church again 
 before they die, and must be reserved in it for the Lord, 
 who, when He shall come to His Church, will himself 
 determine who are they that He finds within it.”* Nor are 
 we left at a loss to know the rule by which Cyprian imagines 
 the Deity will act on such occasions. For in another place* 
 of the same Epistle, he says, “Neither do we prejudice the 
 judgement of God, who if He finds the penitence of the sinner 
 full and satisfactory, will ratify that which we have decreed. 
 But if any one have cheated us by a show of penitence, God 
 who will not be mocked, and who knows the heart, will 
 determine from matters which have escaped our eye, and 
 rectify the decision of his ministers.” There are several other 
 passages in Cyprian carefully referring to God as the fountain 
 of all pardon, however he may make his Priests the conditional 
 instruments of conveying it.” Would this be the tone in 
 which the Church of Rome would willingly speak on the sub- 
 ject of Absolution? Yet she was the guardian of the manu- 
 scripts that put us in possession of the evidence against 
 herself. 
 
 With respect to Purgatory, Cyprian may here be in some 
 degree wise beyond what is written ; but the Church of Rome 
 
 1 Ep. xlvi. § 2. cipi et in ipsa Domino reservari, qui ad 
 
 2 T. ec. as long as they continued in | Ecclesiam suam venturus de illis utique, 
 schism. Cyprian is arguing against | quos in eA intus invenerit, judicabit.— 
 those who objected to the restoration | Ep. lit. § 29. 4 Ep. hi. § 18. 
 
 of the lapsed.—Ed. 5 See De Lapsis, §§ xvi. xvii. Testi- 
 ® In Ecclesiam debent interius sus- | moniorum, III. ¢. xxviii. 
 
 r 2 
 
116 ON PURGATORY ; [Serres I. 
 
 at any rate would find no plea for the monstrous abuses, 
 which have grown up under her teaching, in the writings of 
 Cyprian at least. He appears to consider that the souls of 
 none are so free from the stain of sin when they die, as to be 
 fit at once to enjoy the presence of God, that the last farthing 
 (an expression which we have seen other of the Fathers apply 
 to the remains of sin, which are to be scoured out of the soul 
 by some discipline even after death) is to be paid by all, how- 
 ever good, except the martyrs ; they are excused the rigorous 
 exaction.' This premised, we read in him such passages as 
 the following, “ Believe then, and live ye: and ye who perse- 
 cute us for a time, rejoice with us for eternity ; when ye depart 
 hence, no place will be left for repentance, no opportunity for 
 making satisfaction will remain. Here it is, that our life 
 is lost or kept. Here we must provide for our eternal salva- 
 tion by the worship of God, and the fruits of faith. Whilst 
 we are in the world no repentance is too late. The way to 
 God’s indulgence lies open; and access is easy for those who 
 seek and understand His truth. Do you, even at the very 
 last, when this temporal life is on the point of setting, beg 
 pardon of God for your sins; beseech Him confessing and 
 believing ; and pardon is granted you: the Divine compassion 
 is accorded to your faith; and at the point of death a passage 
 is made for you to immortality.”? And again, “ Whatsoever 
 God finds you when he calls you, such will he judge you.” * 
 And again in the same tract, “Behold then the world is 
 shaking, and bespeaks its downfall, not from age, but from 
 its end being come: and do you not give God thanks, who is 
 removing you from the catastrophe?” “Who, when abroad, 
 and on his return home, does not wish for speed? And for a 
 prosperous wind, that he may the sooner embrace those who 
 are dear to him? Paradise is our country. Why do we not 
 hasten to salute our relations, who are there before us? Num- 
 bers of parents, of brothers, of sons? What a joy will it 
 be in common to them and to ourselves, to meet together 
 again !” 4 
 
 Here there may be some difficulty in reconciling the former 
 with the latter statements, though perhaps the assertions of 
 Cyprian, on the whole, may be thought to amount to no more 
 
 ' De Laude Martyrii, § xiii, 3 De Mortalitate, § xvii. 
 * Ad Demetrianum, § xxy. 4§§ XXV, XXVi. 
 
Lect. VI.] ON EXTREME UNCTION ; iy, 
 
 than this, that the fruition of the righteous spirits will not 
 be perfect, though partial fruition there will be for them, till 
 after the judgment, when soul and body shall have been united 
 again, that till then there will be an amari aliquid in ipsis 
 floribus. But however that may be, I only adduce the pas- 
 sages to show that a Romanist, who had to defend his Church 
 on the doctrine of Purgatory, as that doctrine has been prac- 
 tically held by that Church for many years past, would not 
 thank the manuscripts of Cyprian for backing him no better 
 than thus; and that if he knew their contents, and did not 
 meddle with them in order to mend them, it is fair to sup- 
 pose that it might be his honesty which stood in his way. 
 Again, the writings of Cyprian seem to furnish evidence, 
 not demonstrative, but all that could be expected under the 
 circumstances, against the practice, much more against the 
 Sacrament, of Extreme Unction.’ At least, I come to such 
 conclusion, from perceiving that on one or two occasions there 
 is no mention made of it, where mention of it might have 
 been expected. Thus, in a letter to the clergy touching the 
 treatment of the lapsed and the catechumens, having observed 
 that there appeared no likelihood of his being able to return 
 to them, and as the summer was coming on, which was a 
 season of sickness, it was necessary that provision should be 
 made respecting the brethren, Cyprian continues, “If any 
 of them shall have received recommendations from the mar- 
 tyrs, and shall find themselves in a dangerous disease, they 
 shall not wait the presence of the Bishop, but after con- 
 fession made to a Priest, or in his absence to a Deacon, 
 they shall receive imposition of hands from him, and be re- 
 
 1 There is mention made by Ireneus , Extreme Unction. It is a comment on 
 
 (I. c. xxi. § 5) of a certain party | 
 amongst the heretics, who communi- 
 cated their rite of initiation to dying 
 persons by pouring upon their heads a 
 mixture of water and oil, in order to 
 prepare their souls for passing invisibly 
 through the spiritual princedoms and 
 powers, that were opposed to them, and 
 escaping their hands; but it is not to 
 be supposed that the Romanists would 
 claim this as their precedent for Ex- 
 treme Unction. 
 In Justin Martyr there is a passage 
 
 where the closing scene of life is 
 
 touched on without any allusion to | 
 
 the 22nd Psalm, applying it in detail to 
 Christ; and when the verses 20 and 21 
 present themselves, Justin proceeds : 
 “Then his asking that his soul should 
 be saved from the sword, and from the 
 lion’s mouth, and from the paw of the 
 dog, was a petition that no one might 
 get the dominion over his soul ; in order 
 that we ourselves, when on the point of 
 departing out of life, may make the 
 same request of God, who is able to 
 turn away from us eyery shameless, 
 every evil angel, that it may not lay 
 hold of our souls.”—Dial. § 105. 
 
118 ON THE NUMBER OF THE SACRAMENTS.  [Senrms I. 
 
 stored to the Lord in peace.”’ Here the death of the par- 
 ties is contemplated, and the Pax of the Church is to be 
 communicated to them; yet no allusion is made to the rite of 
 Extreme Unction. And this admission of the sick, before 
 death, to the “ Peace” of the Church (a vestige of the custom 
 still remaining in our Service for the Visitation of the Sick, 
 which commences with “Peace be to this house!”’) is many 
 times referred to in the Epistles of Cyprian, but still without 
 any notice of Extreme Unction. In Ep. xiv. “And when 
 certain of the Lapsed, set themselves to extort by violence 
 ‘Peace’ from the Martyrs and Confessors, I so far yielded, 
 that if any who had a Martyr’s recommendation should 
 be in danger of death, his confession was to be received, 
 hands imposed on him, and he to be restored to the Lord.” 
 And in Epistle xxxi., an Epistle which those of his clergy 
 who lived at Rome wrote to Cyprian, we read, “ We have 
 thought that nothing new should be done before the appoint- 
 ment of our Bishop: that until such appointment, those of 
 the Lapsed who should be sick unto death, and whose case, 
 therefore, would admit of no delay, on their penitence and 
 tears should be comforted, but with caution, it being left to 
 God to do what He would with such persons, but we on our 
 sides taking care that no over facility should be laid to our 
 own charge.” I think that in one or more of these passages 
 it would have been natural that some mention should have 
 been made of Extreme Unction, had that rite been then an 
 established usage of the Church. And in the silence there is 
 with respect to it, I still find an argument in favour of the 
 manuscript of Cyprian not having been medicated by the 
 Romanists. 
 
 On the whole, indeed, with regard to the Sacraments, the 
 testimony of Cyprian, so far as it goes, is in favour of two 
 only as generally necessary to salvation, Baptism and the 
 Supper of the Lord. For so much I infer from the following 
 paragraph in the third book “Of the Testimonies against the 
 Jews:” “It is to little purpose to be baptized and to receive 
 the Eucharist, unless we also abound in good works.”? Why 
 single out these two ordinances as the peculiar means of salva- 
 
 1p =T . . . . 
 3 Ep. xii. proficiat.—Testimoniorum, lib. III. ¢. 
 Parum esse baptizari et Eucharis- | xxvi. 
 tiam accipere, nisi quis factis et opere 
 
Lect. VI.] THE GERM OF ROMISH USAGES 119 
 
 tion, to the exclusion of others, unless there was something 
 in them of more than common efficacy ; something in them 
 which set them above other rites of the Church, however other 
 rites might also be called in common parlance Sacramenta 
 also ?—an inference, I observe by the way, seconded by a pas- 
 sage in Justin of a similar import, where, having mentioned 
 the stick (E¥Aov) which Elisha cast into the river, and so 
 recovered the ax-head, thereby making the sons of the pro- 
 phets to proceed in building their house, he adds, “in like 
 manner did Christ recover us, when plunged into the depths 
 of sin, by being crucified on the wood, and by purifying us 
 through the wuter, and so did he make a house of prayer and 
 adoration”’'—the two Sacraments of the Eucharist and Bap- 
 tism here also represented, though indirectly, as the ordinances 
 more especially necessary to salvation. The argument is cer- 
 tainly rather founded on the silence of Cyprian, than on his 
 assertion. But we are not to expect from him a formal decla- 
 ration that there are two Sacraments (in the sense I suppose), 
 if nobody in his time imagined that there were more. The 
 negative testimony is all that the case admits of. Once more 
 I ask, Is there any symptom of Romish interference with the 
 copies of Cyprian here ? 
 
 It is true that in Cyprian, as we have found was the fact 
 with other of the Fathers before him, the germ or rudiment of 
 several opinions and practices which eventually became abuses 
 of the Church of Rome, are to be discovered. But it is the germ 
 or rudiment only, and it must be ever remembered in how 
 different a light we see these famt beginnings after the abuse 
 has become inveterate and notorious, from that in which they 
 would be regarded whilst they were yet initiative only, and 
 when no such evil consequence could have been anticipated. 
 I discover, for instance, in Cyprian’s picture of the Church, 
 the elements of the Nun; I mean in the mention he makes 
 of virgins who had dedicated themselves to Christ, not, how- 
 ever, it should seem by a vow, but rather by a resolution, and 
 conditionally.” But when Cyprian applauded such self-denial, 
 could he foresee the excess to which the system of the convent 
 was in process of time to prevail, or the evils that were to flow 
 from it? And would he not probably think he was but 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 86. ginum, §§ iv. xxii. 
 2 Cyprian, Ep. bai.; De Habitu Vir- 
 
120 DISCOVERABLE IN CYPRIAN (Series TL. 
 
 speaking in unison with St. Paul, “I say, therefore, to the 
 unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide 
 even as 17”! 
 
 Again, I detect the shadow of coming events in the lan- 
 guage which Cyprian, when speaking against premature and 
 reckless absolution, incidentally uses, with respect to the in- 
 fluence of the Martyrs—That “he believes,” ¢. g. “ that the 
 merits of the martyrs, and the works of the just, may have 
 ereat power with the Judge ; but it must be when the day of 
 judgment comes, and when, after the consummation of all - 
 things here, we shall stand before the judgment seat of 
 Christ ;”” his meaning, perhaps, explained by another pas- 
 sage, where he apostrophizes certain confessors in prison, in 
 substance as follows :—‘ Happy they who have finished their 
 course, and have gone to their Lord’s embrace! But your 
 glory is no less, whilst ye tarry and set others an example. 
 Ye fear not death, but rather desire it. Now is the time, 
 brethren dearly beloved, for you to remember me in your 
 prayers, which must be prevailing, for what can you ask from 
 the goodness of the Lord which you do not deserve to obtain?”* . 
 —the latter paragraph, I say, seeming to throw light upon the 
 former; and the two taken together to be understood as 
 affirming that the prayers of living martyrs, for the term mar- 
 tyr may be applied to the living, would find such favour in 
 God’s sight as would recommend their petitions for others to 
 God, and be found to have done them service at the judgment 
 day. Still, in such language as this, I say, it is possible we 
 may detect the intercession of departed saints, as invoked by 
 the later Church of Rome, gradually gaining a footing in the 
 Church. 
 
 As again, in the certificates of character or Libelli furnished 
 by the Martyrs to those amongst the Lapsed, whose welfare 
 they felt interested in, certificates which were honoured in the 
 Church, and which admitted the bearers of them again into 
 communion with the Church,* I can imagine I recognise traces 
 of the Indulgences of Papal Rome; more especially as these 
 Libelli themselves were greatly abused, insomuch that Cyprian 
 has to lay the issue of them under regulations®; common 
 
 1 Yow wt 7 s 
 
 * 1 Cor. Vii. 8. 4 Ep. x.. Ep. xiv. 
 2 De Lapsis, § xvii. SOR x 
 
 3 Ep. xv. 
 
Lecr. VI.} NO PROOF OF ROMISH INTERPOLATION. Lon 
 
 friends of the Martyrs and the Lapsed inducing the Martyrs 
 to give certificates on the faith of their recommendation to 
 persons with whom they were themselves unacquainted, and in 
 whose character they were often grossly deceived, and if I 
 understand a particular expression rightly these dishonest go- 
 betweens, in some instances, making a sale of their services. 
 “ But this may be brought about if you regulate those requests 
 which are made to you by religious considerations, taking care 
 to understand and repress those who, having a respect to per- 
 sons, either pay compliments by means of your favours, or 
 make a pecuniary profit by means of this unlawful negotiation 
 of theirs.” * The sanction given to these Libelli by the Church, 
 might or might not be indiscreet even at the time, though we 
 must consider of what importance it was to the Church that 
 her Martyrs in those days should be treated with the highest 
 honour—persecution warring against the Church, and bent. on 
 extirpating it—we must remember how much the propagation 
 of the true faith depended on the steadfastness of the confessor, 
 and how reasonable, therefore, it was to brace him up to his 
 arduous conflict by every subordinate motive which might 
 weigh with him. But however that may be, it would be hard 
 indeed to visit the Primitive Church with our condemnation for 
 allowing these Libelli (putting them, too, under restrictions), 
 because we happen to know, what it was impossible she 
 should, that they might be stepping-stones to Papal Indulgences. 
 
 I say that in Cyprian we may discover such foretastes of 
 future opinions and practices of the Church of Rome, as these 
 are examples of; but they are surely not of a character to 
 imply that his writings have been tampered with by Romanists. 
 The Romanists would not have been likely to content them- 
 selve with representing questionable features of their Church 
 in the distance, so very faintly as this, or have made no other 
 use of antiquity to sanction their abuses, than this imadequate 
 one. Take them all as the faithful picture of Cyprian’s own 
 times, and everything falls into its right place ; they become 
 usages very likely to prevail under the circumstances of the 
 Church at that period, and such as might be supposed to grow 
 
 1 Hoc autem totum potest fieri, si ea | pientes, in beneficiis vestris aut grati- 
 que a vobis petuntur religiosa contem- | ficantur, aut illicitee negotiationis nun- 
 platione moderemini, intelligentes et | dinas aucupantur.—Hp. x. § 3. 
 comprimentes eos, qui, personas acci- 
 
122 ESTIMATE OF PATRISTIC TESTIMONY (Serres I. 
 
 no less naturally in the course of subsequent generations into 
 the malpractices that succeeded. This theory, which is the 
 obvious one, renders all recourse to Papal interpolation as 
 needless, as such provision is inadequate to explain all the 
 particulars of the case. 
 
 In all that I have been saying in this and the two last 
 Lectures, my immediate object has been to show from internal 
 evidence, on a general survey of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, that 
 when Daillé and others would disparage these Fathers at least 
 —for I predicate nothing with respect to such as are of a later 
 date—by charging them in the mass as alloyed by Romish 
 interpolations, and, consequently, as unworthy of our trust, 
 they are not dealing fairly by them ; nor yet by those persons, 
 who, but for the false impression of them they have thus re- 
 ceived, might have been disposed to read them and judge for 
 themselves of their merits. But, for argument’s sake, let these 
 Fathers be as full of Romish interpolations and corruptions as 
 you please, they still do.bear, as you have seen, very strong 
 testimony to very many capital points in favour of the practice 
 and doctrine of the Church of England, and against those of 
 the Church of Rome. Take them as they are, with all their 
 reputed imperfections on their heads, and still this is true of 
 them ; and the more you insist on their imperfections, the more 
 you make that testimony tell: since, if carrying so much 
 weight, as you say they do, they still run for the Reformers, 
 what would they do, if they were not weighted at all ? 
 
 Surely this must have been the impression on Jewel’s mind, 
 when he ventured on his famous challenge—and the impression 
 on the minds of the Non-jurors, when they, as I believe they 
 did, renewed it—and the impression on Archbishop Wake’s, 
 when he translated and put into circulation several of their 
 writings—and on Archbishop Potter’s, when he edited one of 
 them—and the impression of both the one and the other, when 
 by their influence and example, they directed, as no doubt they 
 did, that attention to these writers at Oxford, which caused 
 several of them to be put forth from the press of that University 
 —and the impression of Bishop Pearson, Bishop Bull, and 
 Bishop Beveridge, when they respectively defended and made 
 such liberal use of them—and of Dr. Waterland, when he 
 drew so many of the weapons of his warfare from the same 
 armoury. These men did not think they were abetting the 
 
 
 
 
 
Lect. VI.] BY ENGLISH REFORMED DIVINES. 123 
 
 cause of Rome, when they were thus bringing into notice the 
 works of the Primitive Fathers ; but, on the contrary, fancied 
 that they were opposing it in a manner the most legitimate, 
 and the most likely in the long run to be successful. And it 
 would not be a thing which the Church of England would 
 have to lament, if she had these divines for her living cham- 
 pions now, in the room of many others who undertake her 
 defence on other principles. 
 
 Neither can I persuade myself to believe that the outery 
 against these Fathers, raised by Daillé and the foreign 
 Churches, and joined in by Dissenting communities at home 
 so loudly since, and to this day, is altogether prompted by 
 apprehensions of Rome, however it may be convenient to 
 make that the pretext. I suspect that this jealousy of them 
 arises from the opposition they evidently offer to the latitu- 
 dinarian notions on religious matters which have established 
 themselves both abroad and in this’ country since the Reforma- 
 tion, through causes which I enumerated in my first Lecture, 
 and which notions had not occupied the minds of the Reformers 
 themselves. How can Non-episcopalians or Anti-episcopalians 
 bear such phraseology with patience as yawpis TovTor, i. e. 
 Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, é«xAynola ov Kxanrerrar'—and 
 observe them representing, as a matter of course, secession 
 from the Episcopal Church as heresy and schism”? How can 
 they do more than pity the pains they take to trace the suc- 
 cession of the Bishops in the Churches up to the Apostles 
 themselves, and the stress they lay upon the continuity being 
 unbroken *? How can the various sects with which the country 
 abounds lend their countenance to writers, in whom are found 
 such passages as the following, passages which, if they do not 
 reflect upon their own practices throughout, they must feel do 
 so in many particulars. “In the first place, it is a matter of 
 uncertainty who is a catechumen, who a believer; they as- 
 
 1 Tenatius, Ad Trallianos, § iii., quoted 
 by Bishop Pearson onthe Creed. Article 
 be 
 
 2 Unde scire debes episcopum in ec- 
 clesia esse et ecclesiam in episcopo, et 
 si quis cum episcopo non sit, in ecclesia 
 non esse; et frustra sibi blandiri eos 
 qui pacem cum sacerdotibus Dei non 
 habentes obrepunt et latenter apud 
 quosdam communicare se credunt, 
 
 
 
 quando ecclesia, que catholica et una 
 est, scissa non sit neque divisa.—Cy- 
 prian, Ep. Ixix. § 8. 
 
 Novatianus in ecclesia non est, nec 
 episcopus computari potest, qui evan- 
 gelica et apostolica traditione contempta, 
 nemini succedens a se ipso ortus est.— 
 Ep. Ixxvi. § 3, et alibi. 
 
 3 See Ireneus, IIT. e. iii. 
 
124 WHY THE FATHERS ARE DISTASTEFUL [Serres I. 
 
 semble alike, hear alike, pray alike—heathens with them, if 
 such chance to come in. They throw what is holy to the dogs, 
 and give their pearls, though not real ones, to theswine. They 
 call that simplicity, which is, in fact, the prostration of dis- 
 cipline ; and our concern for it, pandering. They are for peace 
 everywhere, with everybody ; for they care not what differ- 
 ences there may be among themselves, provided they co-operate 
 for the destruction of the one simple truth.”* “The Catechu- 
 mens are perfect before they are taught. The very women are 
 heretics ; and how saucy are they ! how bold are they to teach, 
 to contend, to exorcize, to make promises of healing, perhaps 
 even to baptize. Then the ordinations of these heretics are 
 rash, light, inconstant. Now they appoint neophytes; now 
 persons employed in secular affairs ; now apostates from us, in 
 order that they may hold them by the love of distinction ; 
 seeing that they cannot by truth. Nowhere is promotion — 
 more easy than in the camp of the rebels; for to be found 
 there is enough to secure advancement. Accordingly, one is 
 Bishop to-day ; another, to-morrow: he is to-day a Deacon, 
 who is to-morrow a reader: to-day, a Presbyter, who is to- 
 morrow a layman (laicus) ; for they assign priestly offices even 
 to laymen.” And what shall I say touching the ministration 
 of the Word? their object being not to convert the heathen, 
 but to subvert us.”° Is not a sentence like this enough to 
 condemn the author of it in the eyes of multitudes of persons 
 in this country, letting alone the question of Popery, which is 
 the side more convenient to attack him on? And the whole 
 tract “ De Preescriptione Heereticorum,” one of the most valu- 
 able of his works, is written in a spirit like this. What quarter 
 could Tertullian expect with such a vein in him as we have 
 here? How should those who are not impressed with the 
 great dignity of Baptism be satisfied with those who call it 
 the laver in which we are regenerated*; the ordinance by 
 
 which, through the Spirit, there is regeneration to God*; the 
 
 ' Simplicitatem volunt esse prostra ? Nam et laicis sacerdotalia munera 
 tionem discipline, cujus penes nos cu- | injungunt.—Tertullian, De Prescript. 
 ram lenocinium yocant. Pacem quo- | Heret. c. xli. 
 que passim cum omnibus miscent : nihil * Cum hoe sit negotium illis, non 
 enim interest illis, licet diversa tractan- | ethnicos convertendi, sed nostros ever- 
 tibus, dum ad unius veritatis expugna- | tendi.—c. xlii. 
 tionem conspirent. — Tertullian, De 4 Justin Martyr. Apolog. I. sg 61, 62. 
 Prescript. Heret. ¢. xli. 5 Trenseus, III. c. xvii. § 1. 
 
 >. 
 
Lect. VI.] TO DAILLE AND OTHERS. 125 
 
 bath which cleanses away the filth of the soul’; that, by which 
 the likeness of him who was first formed after the image of 
 God is restored” ; that by which sin, whether original or actual, 
 is removed *; and who describe it in numberless other phrases, 
 which I may produce hereafter when the question of Baptism 
 comes before us, all calculated to enhance the importance of 
 this great mystery? Or how shall those who regard the 
 Eucharist as no more than a commemorative supper, be con- 
 tent to give currency to the opinions of those who speak of it 
 as an ordinance consisting of two parts, an earthly and a 
 heavenly *; as in some sense or other an oblation, perhaps such 
 in the unconsecrated elements, perhaps such in the repre- 
 sentation of the Passion, or perhaps such in both®; or again, 
 who love to enlarge upon it as the Communion of the Body of 
 the Lord, the Communion of his Blood®; as that which hay- 
 ing received the Logos of God’ imparts it to the soul, and, 
 through it, immortalizes the body, with more to a like effect, 
 which may be examined on a future occasion? How can 
 those whose theology inclines them to depress the virtue of 
 the Sacraments as the appointed means of grace, look with 
 favour upon authors who exalt those Sacraments so emphati- 
 cally? Or how, again, can those, who either reject our Book 
 of Common Prayer, or partially assert it, or consent to bracket 
 it, regard with any other feelings than those of distaste primi- 
 tive writers, who bear witness both to the general style of it, 
 as well as to the early observance of Saints’ Days®; of Daily 
 Prayers in the Congregation’; of Fasts”; of an Offertory”; 
 and much more? How very few of our newspapers, by which 
 our theology is now a good deal regulated, would approve of 
 any part of this evidence ; or have any opinion of men who 
 had left such matters on record ! 
 
 I have drawn your attention to this feature in the writings 
 of the early Fathers, in order that you may give them fair 
 play. They are to be read with caution, no doubt ; and there 
 are not many books of which you may not say the same with 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Pedag. IIT. c. ix. p.| 7§ 3. 
 
 282. 8 Cyprian, Epp. xXXiv. XxXvii. 
 * Tertullian, De Baptismo, ec. y. 9 Epp. xxiv. xxxiv. 
 3 Cyprian, Ep. lix. 10 Tertullian, De Jejuniis, c. xiii.; 
 4 Treneus, LV, c. xviii. § 5. Clem. Alex. Stromat. VII. § xi. p. 877. 
 5 TV. c. xvii. § 53 ¢. xvii. § 2. 11 Thid, 
 
 BV Gok 502s 
 
126 TIOW THEY SHOULD BE READ. (Senies I. 
 
 truth. But do not take for granted, that all who accuse them 
 of ministering to Popery, are set against them for that reason ; 
 for they may be set against them for ministering to many 
 other things far better than Popery. And whilst you use all 
 diligence to detect any interpolations, corruptions, or omissions, 
 by which they have been abused, and express natural indigna- 
 tion against the instruments of such frauds, be they who they 
 may, do not conclude simply because Daillé may tell you so, 
 or anybody else, that there is nothing left in them which can 
 be received with confidence ; but use your own sense, and be 
 honest enough, and industrious enough, to discriminate. 
 
Lect. VII.] THE FATHERS OBJECTED TO BY DAILLE. Ley 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 The Fathers objected to by Daillé on account of their obscurity. Value of inci- 
 dental evidence. Clear testimony of Justin and of Tertullian on the Arian 
 question, and on the Eucharist. Charge of wilful obscurity. Occasional re- 
 serve accounted for. Frank exposition of the Christian Ritual in the Apologies. 
 Reserve of Clemens Alexandrinus. Plan of his writings; and motive of it. 
 Difficulty of Tertullian. Method of studying him recommended. Testimony 
 of the Fathers to principles distasteful to Daillé. Further objection to their 
 style on account of the change which has taken place in the meaning of words. 
 Corresponding changes in things to be tested by comparison with the Primitive 
 Church. Result of that comparison. 
 
 N the last three Lectures we have seen Daillé contending 
 
 - against the value of the Fathers on the ground of the cor- 
 ruption of their writings. _ He now opens another battery 
 against them, and argues, that even supposing you have satis- 
 fied yourself as to which of these writings are genuine, a 
 further difficulty awaits you in their obscurity. So obscure 
 are they, from various causes, that it is next to impossible to 
 extract from them any meaning which shall suffice to affect 
 or settle modern controversies." And before he proceeds to 
 enumerate the causes of their obscurity, he furnishes us with 
 another instance similar to those I have already produced, 
 of the determined spirit of exaggeration which animates him 
 whilst engaged in this anti-patristic warfare. For fetching a 
 compass he actually sets out with impressing on the minds of 
 his readers the necessity of an accurate knowledge of Greek 
 and Latin in order to understand the Fathers, and gives need- 
 lessly, one might think, several examples in the Latin versions 
 of some of those written in the former language, which we 
 possess, both ancient and modern, of the mistakes which have 
 been made from the want of that kind of learning. But this 
 is not all, for he then goes on to enlarge upon the difficulty of 
 mastering those languages. “ Who does not know,” says he, 
 “what pains it takes to acquire an intimate acquaintance with 
 those two tongues? not only what assiduity, but what powers 
 
 1 Daillé, pp. 120, 121. 
 
128 ON ACCOUNT OF TILEIR OBSCURITY. [Serres I. 
 
 of mind are necessary to get possession of them? a tenacious 
 memory, a clear head, unwearied study, ready apprehension, 
 daily and diligent reading, and other qualifications of the same 
 kind, which are but rarely met with ?”’ And all this to prove 
 the obscurity of the Fathers! As if it did not tell equally 
 against all authors whatever, who have written in Greek or 
 Latin! But here, as elsewhere, Daillé likes to launch his sub- 
 ject, as he thinks, to advantage ; and holds it politic not to 
 proceed to his arguments till he has created a gentle prejudice 
 against the quarter he is about to assail. The real effect, how- 
 ever, of his tactics surely ought to be, to put us on our guard 
 against the man who adopts them, and who discloses at the 
 very outset the animus, not of a truth-seeker, but of a partisan. 
 
 The first of the causes of this obscurity in the Fathers of 
 which he complains is, that they wrote before the controver- 
 sies with which we are concerned had any existence, and con- 
 sequently that they could not have written with any reference 
 to them; nay, that the controversies, in which they were 
 themselves actively engaged, would rather have the effect of 
 leading their minds away from ours.?. Thus, that all that can 
 be gathered from the Fathers who lived before the Arian 
 question was agitated, on that subject, is incidental, and ac- 
 cordingly beset with darkness—a darkness similar to that 
 which involves their testimony, when applied to the religious 
 disputations of our times.’ But it is this very circumstance, 
 the incidental nature of their evidence, that gives it the value 
 it possesses. Suppose, for illustration’s sake, a boundary cause 
 was brought into court, and an ancient witness, who knew 
 nothing whatever of the litigation, or the parties to it, deposed 
 to facts within his own knowledge, which were found inciden- 
 tally to bear on the case, would not such testimony, however 
 incomplete it might be, weigh with the jury infinitely more 
 than the most perfect tale that could be told by any man that 
 was behind the scenes, who was mixed up with the parties 
 and the proceedings, and had taken a side? Daillé’s allusion 
 to the Arian question seems unfortunate: for though expres- 
 sions which might now be considered incautious with respect 
 to the nature of the Son, are certainly to be met with in the 
 Ante-Nicene Fathers, one or two of which he produces from 
 Justin and Tertullian, yet it seems to me impossible for per- 
 
  Daillé, p. 130. 2 p. 133. 3p. 184. 
 
Lect. VIL.] USE OF THE WRITINGS OF JUSTIN, 129 
 
 sons of plain understanding to read these Fathers, and not be 
 satisfied that the whole stream of evidence which they present 
 goes to establish the fact, that they had no doubt about the 
 Godhead of the Son ; and that though they might not use the 
 very term ouvaidios, they did believe Him to be co-eternal 
 with the Father ; and though they did not use the very term 
 opoovatos, they did believe Him to be consubstantial with the 
 Father ; and that when such incorrect expressions as those I 
 have referred to happen to drop from them, they may be ac- 
 counted for most satisfactorily, by the inartificial state of theo- 
 logical controversy at that time; the want of those technical 
 terms in which the polemics of later days learned to express 
 themselves, after Councils had tutored them, and successive 
 heresies had rendered the use of an exact nomenclature in 
 dealing with them necessary. 
 
 It is inconvenient to enter into many details in proof of 
 this at present, but I state the fixed impression on my own 
 mind ; and take which of the Ante-Nicene Fathers you will, 
 the result, I am persuaded, will bé what I say. Daillé, for 
 instance, happens to refer to Justin and Tertullian. What if 
 Justin does press the Jew with the argument that “the God 
 who appeared to Moses and the Patriarchs was the Son and 
 not the Father, inasmuch as the Father did not change place, 
 or ascend, or descend.”* Or, again, that “ No one ever saw 
 the Father and ineffable Lord of all things and of Christ him- 
 self; but only saw Him, who according to his will is God, his 
 Son and Angel from ministering to his purposes,”’? which are 
 the passages Daillé adduces, and to which I could easily add 
 a few others of the same character. They are the unguarded 
 expressions, I repeat, of a man who wrote before the Arian con- 
 troversy arose: for, with respect to the co-eternity of the Son, 
 I find Justin speaking of his being “inseparable from God in 
 power,’* as though the connection was of a kind that was 
 necessary, and must, therefore, have subsisted from everlasting: 
 of his being his only Son idéws,* xupias,’ peculiarly, properly : 
 of his being co-existent with Him, and begotten of Him before 
 all creatures®; of his being Wisdom, mentioned in the 8th 
 
 1 Daillé, p. 134. He refers to Justin 4 Apolog. I. § 23. 
 Martyr. Dial. § 60. § 127. 5 TT. § 6. 
 2 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 127. 6 [Ipod ray mounudrav Kal ourey Kal 
 3*Aydpiotos Suvdper.—Cohort. § 38. | yevvdpevos.—Apolog. IL. § &. 
 kK 
 
130 AND OF TERTULLIAN, (Serres I. 
 
 Chapter of Proverbs,’ of whom it is said, I was set up from ever- 
 lasting’: of his being the Person whom the Father addressed 
 as another self, when He exclaimed “ Let us make man :” * of 
 his being “ the Lord” of the Old Testament, where the Hebrew 
 term answering to it is “ Jehovah,” the selfexistent ; as where 
 we read, “The Lord‘ said, Shall I hide from Abraham that 
 thing which I do”’; or where we read, “The Lord rained fire 
 from the Lord:”° of his being the Person who spake to Moses 
 in the bush, and appropriated to himself the name “J am that 
 I am,”’ the necessarily existent, and therefore the existent 
 from all eternity to all eternity. And withrespect to the 
 consubstantiality of the Son, I perceive Justin representing 
 him as having been in intimate union with the Father from 
 everlasting till projected * by Him for the economy of the uni- 
 verse: this process illustrated by the imperfect figure of a 
 word emitted by us in conversation being a part of speech 
 within us, and not detracting from the latter, so as to leave 
 us speechless’; and the more complete analogy of one fire 
 lighted from another fire, without detriment or diminution of 
 that from which it proceeded '"—this second illustration one 
 which Justin advances more than once—his reasoning, be it 
 remembered, not directed to prove the consubstantiality of the 
 Son and the Father, but to meet the objection that the sub- 
 stance of the Father must needs be reduced by the severance 
 of the Son, 7. e. on the supposition that the Son is numerically 
 different from the Father, which is Justin’s sentiment; the 
 consubstantiality of the two Persons, therefore, being all the 
 while preswmed to be indisputable." Why, then, cavil about 
 an inadvertent word in an unscholastic age, when you have the 
 coeternity and consubstantiality clearly affirmed in plain and 
 intelligible language, if not in formal terms, on which two 
 propositions the whole Arian question turns ? 
 
 Again, what if Tertullian talks of the Son being projected 
 by the Father, and “the Father being the whole substance, 
 the Son a derivation and portion of the whole,” which is an- 
 other of the objectionable passages which Daillé produces—a 
 passage, however, which may be considered neutralised by an- 
 
 * Prov. viii. 23. ? Dial. § 129. %§ 62. | 8 IpoBdnbev awd rod Marpos yevyn- 
 
 * °Os fv Kal orw.—§ 126. pra.—s 62. 
 5 Gen. xviii. 17. 9 Dial. § 61. 10 Thid, 
 ® Gen. xix. 24; Dial. § 60. Il § 128, 
 
 7 Dial. § 60. 12 Tertullian, Ady. Praxeam, c. ix, 
 
Lecr. VIT.} IN THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. 131 
 
 other in the same treatise, that “though the Son was pro- 
 jected, he was not separated from the Father ;”! and what if 
 others of the same unguarded kind may be found in him— 
 which I do not deny—still try him by the general and_pre- 
 vailing character of his language on the subject of the Divinity 
 of the Son; and it will be plain, that however inaccurate he 
 might occasionally be in the use of terms, as men of after ages 
 counted inaccuracy, he did himself hold beyond all doubt or 
 dispute, the perfect Godhead of the Son. He calls the Son 
 over and over again God’; yet says that nothing which had 
 a beginning can be God’; says, therefore, that the Son must 
 have been from everlasting ; asserts, indeed, directly that God 
 never was alone, having had the Logos in Him from the first‘; 
 that the Son was called God because He was of the same sub- 
 stance with God’; whilst he elsewhere affirms that what is 
 consubstantial with another is co-equal with it®; that He is 
 God of God’; that the Son is a new name of the Father®’— 
 the expression precarious, but most emphatic for my purpose ; 
 that He is the Person of God’; that the Son is not inferior 
 to the Father."? And many other passages I could produce 
 sufficiently expounding the mind of Tertullian on this great 
 question ; but these, I think, may suffice to show that how- 
 ever the Arians might flatter themselves they had caught Ter- 
 tullian tripping in a phrase (he, like his brethren, not accus- 
 tomed to speak by the card), the whole spirit and character of 
 his teaching is thoroughly against them. 
 
 I shall content myself at present with thus suggesting these 
 very few facts to show that the testimony of the Fathers, 
 whatever Daillé may say to the contrary, is available against 
 
 1 Prolatum dicimus Filium a Patre, 
 sed non separatum.—Tertullian, Adv. 
 Praxeam, ¢. Viil. 
 
 2 Hune ex Deo prolatum didicimus, 
 et prolatione generatum, et idcirco Fi- 
 lium Dei, et Deum dictum ex unitate 
 substantise—Apolog. c. xxi. Homo etsi 
 Deus. De Resurrectione Carnis, c¢. li. 
 See also De Patientia, c. xiii. and Ad- 
 versus Marcionem, II. ¢. xxvii. 
 
 3 Ad Nationes, II. § 3. 
 
 # Ady. Praxeam, c. v. 
 
 5 Deum dictum ex unitate substantie. 
 —Apol. c. xxi. 
 
 6 Adv. Hermogenem, c. xii. Quis 
 non hance potius (sc. sophiam) omnium 
 
 fontem et originem commendet, ma- 
 teriam vero materiarum, non sibi sub- 
 ditam, non statu diversam, non motu 
 inguietam, non habitu informem, sed 
 insitam et propriam et compositam et 
 decoram, quali Deus potuit eguisse, sui 
 magis quam alieni egens ?—Ady. Her- 
 mogenem, ¢. xviii. 
 
 ™ De Deo Deus.—Apol. c. xxi. 
 
 8 Jam enim Filius novum Patris no- 
 men est.—De Oratione, e. iii. 
 
 9 Persona autem Dei Christus Do- 
 minus.—Adv. Marcion. V. e. xi. 
 
 ‘0 Non minori se tradidit omnia Filio 
 Creator.—LY. c, xxv. 
 
 K 2 
 
~ 
 
 132 CHARGE OF WILFUL OBSCURITY. (Serres I. - 
 
 the Arian, even of the Fathers who lived before the Arian ques- 
 tion was stirred, but I shall reserve the fuller development of 
 this subject till I come to treat of the general influence which 
 the primitive Fathers ought to have on our exposition of 
 Scripture. Meanwhile I have taken the two cases of Justin 
 and Tertullian rather than others of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, 
 simply because they are the cases Daillé himself chooses to 
 select,' or else others would have answered my end equally 
 well, and from others I could have brought equally strong tes- 
 timony to prove—not that they understood the language of 
 the schools on this question, for they none of them did, but 
 that they held the orthodox faith, and in language of their 
 own meant to avow it. 
 
 In like manner, then, with regard to subjects of more 
 modern controversy—(the nature of the Eucharist is the one 
 which Daillé here touches on)—-we may use the testimony of 
 the Fathers, though not delivered with all the exactness em- 
 ployed by more recent disputants—not the less valuable, 
 however, for being inartificial, but the more so—the impres- 
 sions of men who lived before human ingenuity had been ap- 
 plied to splitting hairs in theology, and who spake as they 
 believed themselves to have been taught by Christ and his 
 Apostles in the sincerity and simplicity of their hearts. The 
 particulars of that testimony on the question of the Eucharist 
 I shall also defer, foreseeing a better opportunity of entering 
 at large into it hereafter. The character of it you will suffi- 
 ciently remember from the little which I said of it in my 
 last Lecture to make it no matter of surprise to you that 
 Daillé having the bias of a foreign Protestant upon him, should 
 depreciate the authority of the Fathers, and magnify the diffi- 
 culty of getting at their sense.” 
 
 The next cause of the obscurity of the Fathers, which Daillé 
 alleges, is not accidental but wilful ; a studious intention on 
 their part to conceal or only half discover their meaning.® 
 They did not think it expedient to disclose to ordinary hearers 
 or readers the mysteries of the faith they professed, and espe- 
 cially the Sacraments of the Church. My business, I beg to 
 remind you once more, is with the primitive Fathers; and 
 whatever veil those of later ages may have been disposed to 
 throw over these subjects, the primitive Fathers (Origen I 
 
 1 Daille, p. 134, 2 p. 135. 8 p. 137, 
 
 Sa . 
 
Lect. VIL] EXPOSITION OF THE CHRISTIAN RITUAL 133 
 
 have already handled in reference to this subject’) are free 
 from any such disposition, beyond what common sense and a 
 due regard to time and circumstance dictated. They were cer- 
 tainly not inclined to cast their pearls before swine, that would 
 turn again and rend them :—this very text is used by them 
 in self-defence* on this very point. It was not likely, it was 
 not reasonable, that they should feel themselves called upon to 
 unfold all the arcana of the Gospel either to those (which was 
 one very large class of heathen with whom they had to deal) 
 who, like Theophilus’ friend Autolycus, were so absorbed in 
 their own books, and so wholly devoted to the study of pro- 
 fane authors, that they would not give themselves the least 
 pains to investigate the pretensions of the Gospel, or trouble 
 their heads about the matter,’ treating the Christians with the 
 most frigid indifference ; nor yet to those, which was a larger 
 class still, who scoffed at them as the dregs of the people‘—as 
 made up of ignorant and credulous women’—as worshippers 
 of the head of an ass, and of other symbols still more offen- 
 sive’—subjecting them to the most heartless derision ; nor 
 yet to those who only sought such knowledge in order to take 
 advantage of it, and to denounce them hereafter to an un- 
 friendly magistrate.’ To such persons they might well be 
 reserved, but where there was a fair opportunity afforded them 
 for speaking out, they did not refrain from so doing. Wit- 
 ness the language of Justin Martyr to the Emperors in his 
 Apologies: pleading before such a tribunal he seems to hope 
 that his words may not be altogether wasted, and so far from 
 being mysterious about the ways of the Christians, he is frank 
 and communicative. Those Emperors may have heard the 
 nature of their assemblies and their rites misconstrued and 
 calumniated, he therefore tells them in much detail of all the 
 proceedings of the Christians on those occasions ; what books 
 were read; what was the character of the sermons heard ; 
 what the nature of the prayers put up; even entering into 
 some of the petitions; in what attitude they were offered ; 
 in what portion of the Service the minister was accompanied 
 by the people, in what he officiated alone; what were their 
 
 Sig, 1x. 
 
 7 'Tertull. ad Uxor. II. ¢. v. e¢ seq. 
 See also “Reply to the Travels of an 
 
 Irish Gentleman, &c., by Philalethes 
 Cantabrigiensis,” pp. 95, 96 
 
 1 Lect. V. 
 
 2 Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § xii. 
 
 3 Theophilus ad Autolycum, IIT. § 4. 
 * Minucius Felix, c. v. 
 
 5c, vill. 
 
 
 
 
 
134 IN JUSTIN, TERTULLIAN AND IRENAUS. [Sentes I. 
 
 Sacraments; what was the mode of administering the Sacra- 
 ment of Baptism’; what promises they made at it; what 
 benefits they believed themselves to receive by it”; what was 
 the Eucharist ; what its ceremonial; for whom it was lawful 
 to partake of it; what were the blessings to be derived from 
 it® ;—the whole not wearing the slightest appearance of a de- 
 sire to conceal, but having all the marks of a wish to con- 
 ciliate by a frank exposition of the innocence of the Christian 
 Ritual. Indeed, in these addresses he expressly ascribes the 
 cruelty which had been exercised towards the Christians to 
 ignorance on the part of their enemies, and declares his wish 
 to disperse it, that at any rate no plea of this kind might be 
 furnished for persecution. 
 
 It would be easy to show that other primitive Fathers are 
 as little to be accused of a wish to suppress the full knowledge 
 of the sacraments as Justin. Both Irenzeus and Tertullian, 
 e. g. would supply the same sort of information respecting 
 them as he; and whilst they may omit some of the parti- 
 culars, which he gives, others they would add. Indeed, it may 
 be remarked, that the former of these authors, when rallying 
 the Valentinians on the folly of their theory respecting the 
 generation of matter, makes it a ground of charge against 
 them that they left much of it undeveloped, not wishing, he 
 presumed, to declare it openly, but reserving the more myste- 
 rious parts for such as could pay for the information ; contrary 
 to the teaching of the Lord, “freely ye have received, freely 
 give,”* language which would have scarcely been used by one 
 who was conscious that the Church too had her secrets, which, 
 if she did not sell, she would not at least divulge.” If any- 
 thing whatever be wanting to complete their picture of the 
 rites of the Primitive Church in perfect detail, it only arises 
 from their subject not happening to lead the Fathers into it, 
 or often from their taking for granted that allusions to ordi- 
 nances familiar to the readers they were addressing, were all 
 that was needed, or else from apprehension that the informa- 
 tion they furnished might be turned against themselves by 
 malicious spies. For whilst we can gather, as I said, many or 
 perhaps all the features of such mysteries from these writers, 
 
 - Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 61. ® See also I, c. xxv. § 5, and II. c. 
 2 Tbid. 3 § 65, 66. XXVi1. § 2. 
 # Trenzus, I. ¢. iv. § 3. 
 
 ™ , 
 —— | 
 
Lect. VII.] RESERVE OF CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS. 135 
 
 we have to pick them up, as they happen to transpire, one in 
 this treatise and another in that, as we should have to do at 
 this day in the works of Christian writers, when not expressly 
 engaged in handling such questions. In either case, if any- 
 thing was lacking to complete the whole, it would be the ef- 
 fect of accidental omission, not of wilful concealment, unless 
 when fear or prudence prompted it. 
 
 There is, however, one of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, to whom 
 may be ascribed an intention of speaking on the mysteries of 
 the Gospel under some reserve, with greater show of reason, 
 than can be said of the rest, Clemens Alexandrinus, and ac- 
 cordingly Daillé does produce him in vindication of his re- 
 mark, quoting a passage from the first book of the Stromata. 
 “Some matters | omit purposely, making my selection delibe- 
 rately, and fearing to write down what I am cautious even in 
 speaking ; not, indeed, jealous of communicating what I have 
 to say ; for that would be wrong; but apprehensive with re- 
 spect to my readers, lest that by any means they should be 
 misled and stumble, and lest I should be found, as the proverb 
 hath it, to be putting a sword in the hand of a child;”’ and 
 after a while Clemens adds, “accordingly this very book will 
 say many things enigmatically ; some it will dwell upon ; 
 some it will simply announce ; it will try to speak a clandes- 
 tine language, at once displaying, while it conceals, and indi- 
 cating, whilst it is silent.” There are many other passages 
 in the Stromata to the same effect. But let us consider for a 
 moment the object of the writings of Clemens, the plan he 
 pursues in them, and we shall see that it is no wish to hide 
 or mystify the truths of the Gospel, that governs him, but 
 merely a desire to communicate them in a manner which 
 should recommend them, or at any rate not render them abor- 
 tive. It is an illustration, I think, of Quintilian’s,’ that the 
 minds of children are like narrow-necked bottles, and that if 
 you would fill either the one or the other you must pour 
 gently. Such was the view Clemens took of his duties as a 
 teacher, having due regard to the parties who had to learn. 
 His works, as Mr. Evans observes, may be considered of a 
 missionary character, addressed in the first instance to heathens. 
 The three, which have come down to us, rise each upon the 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § i. p. 324. | * De Institutione Oratoria, I. c. ii. 
 2 Jbid. And again see § xi. p. 545. | 
 
136 PLAN OF HIS WRITINGS. [Series I. 
 
 other in a series of sequence: an arrangement of them which 
 he himself indicates to us more than once. The Novos Tpo- 
 tpemtixos or Hortatory Address to the Greeks, is occupied di- 
 rectly with converting the heathen from his idols, and turning 
 him to Christ. The Padagogus instructs the young convert 
 in the homely practical duties which his new faith enjoins on 
 him; the lessons supposed to be given on the way, as the 
 Peedagogue is conducting him to a school, where he is to have 
 still higher knowledge (yv@ous,) imparted to him. And it is 
 the office of his last treatise, the Stromata, to render him this 
 Gnostic. 
 
 But it is not merely the process of .converting a heathen, 
 which is a clue to the works of Clemens, but the process of 
 converting and securing the conversion of a heathen of a high 
 class; a heathen conversant with literature and philosophy ; 
 and, as was the character of the Greeks, of a fastidious tem- 
 perament ; a very delicate party to deal with, but the type of 
 a most numerous body. His Hortatory Address is full of 
 learning in various branches of it ; his appeals to heathen au- 
 thors in support of the positions he is advancing almost end- 
 less ; a fact intimating the condition of those for whom he 
 writes. So in his Peedagogus, when he applies the principles 
 of the Gospel to the minute details of daily life, and teaches 
 the effects they ought to produce on ordinary habits, it is clear 
 that Clemens is contemplating the same superior rank of peo- 
 ple. He prescribes, for instance, restraint on the employment 
 of servants; reproves the excessive multiplication of them ; 
 “some to prepare provisions, some to deck the table, some to 
 carve the meat ; their services apportioned, some having the 
 department of the palate, cooks, confectioners, makers of cakes, 
 concoctors of honey, manufacturers of syrups ; others engaged 
 in cleaning the plate and setting the table in order; others 
 cupbearers,”! and so on. Again he prescribes similar restric- 
 tions with regard to the fashion of furniture, and reprobates 
 “costly bed-clothes, spangled quilts, embroidered counterpanes, 
 purple hangings, couches with silver feet, bedsteads inlaid with 
 ivory,” and much more to the same effect.” The ornaments 
 of the person, which he reviews, seals, rings, shoes, artificial 
 hair, &., sll bespeak that the parties with whom Clemens 
 has to do are of the refined, the wealthy, the luxurious orders ; 
 
 1 Pradagogus, III. ec. iv. p. 268. 2 TI. c. ix. pp. 216, 217. 
 
Lect. VII.] HIS PECULIARITIES ACCOUNTED FOR. 137 
 
 a refutation, by the way, of one of Gibbon’s sneers. No won- 
 der therefore that when he comes to put the finishing hand to 
 his convert, and represents, as he does in the Stromata, his 
 perfect Christian ; his new man; his genuine Gnostic; the 
 spiritual character which must be his; his sublime motives’; 
 his approximation to God’; his empire over his passions and 
 appetites*; his internal devotion‘; his superiority to persecu- 
 tion, and even to death®;—no wonder, I say, that when he 
 contemplated what his heathen converts were, or very lately 
 had been, nursed in the lap of excessive luxury, and enervated 
 by the debasing and sensual influences to which they had been 
 exposed from their tenderest years, and then considered what 
 he was now exhorting them to become, what self-restraint, 
 what strong mortification, what pure and unblemished lives it 
 was now at length time to recommend to them, he should have 
 thought it prudent to come to them very delicately, and should 
 have almost started at the sound of his own steps, as he ap- 
 proached a subject so likely to irritate and alarm them. These 
 feelings, I think, are enough to account for the temper in which 
 the opening of the first book is framed; a temper certainly 
 perplexing at first sight : the long apology it contains for com- 
 posing books at all; the excessive fastidiousness, not to say 
 timidity, with which Clemens there dwells on the cireumspec- 
 tion with which he must express himself. But it was no 
 priestly love of mystification that Clemens was here indulging, 
 as Daillé would hint,® but simply a fear to give offence to very 
 squeamish persons, and so to ruin the great work he had on 
 hand. And possibly if more of this spirit had been shown 
 in our own efforts to Christianize heathendom, our success would 
 have been greater. With this key to the writings of Clemens, 
 I do not think that they would be found so unintelligible as 
 Daillé would represent them to be.’ 
 
 Nor is this consideration to be neglected in estimating the 
 style of Clemens; for the style of these primitive writers is 
 another cause of their obscurity according to Daillé.* The 
 learning of Clemens, it seems, destroys his perspicuity. He 
 introduces into his Christian philosophy so many matters alien 
 
 1 Stromat. IV. § xxii. pp. 625. 629. 4 § xii. 790, 791. 
 2 § xxiii. p. 632; VII. § xvi. pp. 890. ® LV. § iii. 568; § vil. 587; § ix. 597. 
 g04. 6 Daillé, p. 187. 
 
 3 VI. § ix. pp. 775. 777. Tp, 138. 8p. 189. 
 
138 STYLE OF CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS,  [Sentes I. 
 
 from his subject, however ornamental and acceptable to 
 mere scholars, that he constantly gets into the clouds. Per- 
 haps on a perusal of the books of Clemens, without any re- 
 ference to the plan on which they are composed, we might 
 subscribe to the censure of Daillé. Yet Clemens himself, on 
 more occasions than one, distinctly apologizes for his style, not 
 as though he thought it artificial, but homely. ‘“ We have al- 
 ready said that we have taken no care, and bestowed no pains, 
 about our Greek: for this only suffices to lead away the many 
 from the truth : whereas genuine philosophy will not profit 
 the hearers of it by its language, but by its sentiment. And 
 in my opinion he who is solicitous about truth, must not com- 
 pose his phraseology with art or study, but will simply en- 
 deayour to express, as he can, what he means, for the subject- 
 matter itself escapes those who are occupied about the diction, 
 and are only intent upon that.”’ It should seem, therefore, 
 that in introducing his multifarious reading into his works 
 Clemens was regulated by some other principle than that of 
 style, and that his principle probably was the one I have al- 
 ready alluded to, a hope of recommending the Gospel to 
 learned and captious men, through the literature, which was 
 familiar to them ; a hope in which Origen, his successor in the 
 same school, participated, who writes to one of his pupils that 
 he would have him apply to the Grecian philosophy as a prelude 
 to revelation, and expresses an opinion, that as the sciences were 
 considered to be tributary to philosophy, so should philosophy 
 be considered tributary to Christianity,” and also appears to 
 have given expression to this theory in the same manner as 
 Clemens, by composing a work, which, like his, had for its title 
 the Stromata ; the fragments of which (for fragments are all 
 that we have of it) would lead us to think, that as in name, 
 so in substance, it resembled its precursor,’ and probably con- 
 tributed to secure for its author the character which Eusebius 
 tell us was assigned to him, “even by the Greeks themselves, 
 of being a great philosopher.”* Hence Clemens’ use of the 
 word philosophy for Christianity, and philosopher for Christian.° 
 
 " Stromat. IT. § i. p. 429. And com- | mata of Origen, Vol. I. p. 39, on the 
 
 pare Stromat. VII. § xviii. p. 902. subject of falsehood, with a very corre- 
 * Origen, Epist. ad Gregorium, Vol. | sponding passage in Clemens, Stromat. 
 A P. 30, Bened, Ed. VIL. § ix. p. 863, and § xii. p. 881. 
 In proof of this compare the frag- 4 Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. vi. c. 18. 
 
 ment from the 6th book of the Stro- 5 Clem. Alex. Stromat. LV. § viii. p. 590. 
 
Lecr. VII. ] HIS OBJECT IN ADOPTING IT. 139 
 
 Hence his assertion that whilst revelation came primarily from 
 God for man’s instruction, philosophy came secondarily, and 
 even primarily to the Greeks, whom the Lord had not yet 
 called, being to them what the law was to the Hebrews, the 
 schoolmaster, which had led unto Christ.‘ Hence his phrase 
 that Plato was the philosopher of the Hebrews’; that he was 
 nothing else than Moses speaking Attic. Hence his theory 
 that the Grecian philosophy had abstracted and detached for 
 itself a shred from the theology of the everlasting Word.* 
 Hence his repeated endeavours to represent Abraham as a na- 
 tural philosopher, a character which was eventually sublimed 
 into a lover of God. Hence his inclination to approximate 
 heathen, Jew and Christian ; it was one and the self-same God, 
 who was known by the Greeks €Ovuxds, by the Jews “IovSa- 
 ix@s, by the Christians cawos kat mvevpatixas.© Hence his 
 declaration in favour of an eclectie philosophy, 7. e. a philosophy 
 made up of all portions of truth which are found in all sects.’ 
 Hence his doctrine that all true philosophy that ever was in 
 the world, traces up to Christ the primeeval teacher, later 
 philosophers referring their knowledge to Zeno, Aristotle, 
 Epicurus, Socrates; they in their turn referring theirs to 
 Pythagoras, Pherecydes, Thales; the masters of these again 
 having been the Egyptians, Indians, Babylonians: the scale 
 thus ascending to the original parents of mankind: they 
 again not gathering their knowledge from the angels, for the 
 two parties had no organs adapted to mutual communication, 
 and God is above all; but imbibing all their ideas from the 
 fontal source, the everlasting Son.’ Hence again his discovery 
 of Christian allegories in heathen fables. “Sail past her song,” 
 says he, meaning the song of the Sirens, whose story he was 
 now telling with Homer, quoting his verses, and adapting 
 them to his purpose—“ Sail past her song—it works death— 
 only desire it and you have conquered death—and binding 
 yourself to the mast (ro £UXw, the mast in the case of Ulys- 
 ses, the Cross in the case of Christians) you shall be delivered 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Stromat. T. § v. p. 331. °’Avti pvaotoddyou aodds kal didrd- 
 2°O €& ‘EBpaiay pirdcodos.—l. § | Geos yevduevos.—V. § i. p. G48; and VI. 
 
 i. p. 321. § x. p. 780. 
 * Ti yap eore TAdrov 7) Mwons dr-| © VI. § v. p. 761. 
 tikiCwy ;—I. § xxii. p. 41L. 7T. § xiv. p. 851. 
 
 41. § xiii. p. 349. i §8 YI. § vii. p. 769. 
 
140 STYLE OF TERTULLIAN. (Serres I 
 
 from all corruption.” Hence his searching for testimonies in 
 the writings of the heathens even to the evangelical virtues of 
 faith, hope, and charity’; and his tracing the terms avayévynats 
 and Xoyos to a heathen nomenclature. Jn short, whatever 
 avenue seems to him likely, either directly or indirectly, to 
 tempt an educated and refined heathen to Christ he avails 
 himself of, avowedly and without scruple, and in a degree 
 which often verges upon impropriety, if it does not pass the 
 line. 
 
 This feature of the style of Clemens admits of being de- 
 veloped almost to any extent ; but let what I have said suffice 
 to show that when Clemens indulges it, he does so not caprici- 
 ously, and out of ostentation merely, but upon a principle, a 
 principle which pervades his whole work ; and that attention 
 to this principle being constantly maintained, his own hope 
 will be realised, viz. “that the seeds of truth which he has 
 scattered here and there, escaping the notice of jackdaws, who 
 might pick them up and devour them, were they more con- 
 spicuous and obtrusive, may fall in with a good and intel- 
 ligent husbandman, and by him be turned to account, and be 
 productive of a harvest.” * In other words, we may reason- 
 ably expect, that, provided with the clue I have said, we shall 
 not find in the style of Clemens that obscurity which Daillé 
 imputes to it. 
 
 The style of Tertullian he falls foul of in the same way— 
 Tertullian and Clemens being the only two of the Ante-Nicene 
 Fathers, whom he taxes by name and at any length with this 
 defect. So many novel words does Tertullian use, so many 
 legal ones, there is in him so much subtlety, so much acuteness, 
 that he requires most sagacious readers to understand him; no 
 learning, no attention being too great for such a task. I 
 should not have thought it necessary to notice this part of 
 Daillé’s treatise, as it brings no other charge against these 
 Fathers than that they are sometimes hard to construe, did I 
 not feel that he still exaggerates ; and that his exaggerations 
 have an object which we shall eventually detect. | Moreover, 
 Tam not unwilling to prevent those who might give credit to 
 all his remarks from being scared out of reading an author re- 
 
 ' Cohort. ad Gentes, § xii. p. 91. 3'V. § ii. pp. 653, 654. 
 * Stromat. V. § ii. p. 652. 4 Stromat. I. § xii. p. 318. 
 
Lecr. VII-} METHOD OF STUDYING HIM. 141 
 
 presented by him as so difficult. Let them take courage. Diffi- 
 cult he, no doubt, is ; though some of his treatises far more so 
 than others ; that difficulty often arising, as Daillé says, from 
 his use of strange words; more often from his use of common 
 words in a strange sense, or in a strange grammatical con- 
 struction. Nor is it his nomenclature only, it might be added, 
 that is in fault. The indistinctness with which he frequently 
 expresses himself is a further hindrance ; his phrase so indefi- 
 nite, or so equivocal, that nothing but the general drift of his 
 argument fixes it; his use of abstract terms, his affectation, 
 his refinement, his great love of the ironical and sarcastic, 
 a weapon which he often wields in such a way that it cannot 
 always be discovered at once whether he is in jest or in 
 earnest ; in short, the utter want of simplicity that pervades 
 him—all this, no doubt, renders him an author far from easy. 
 But it is surprising how many or all of these difficulties dis- 
 appear after you have made yourself familiar with his manner ; 
 nothing illustrates him so much as himself; and so true to 
 himself is he, so peculiar, so idiosyncratic, that after you have 
 read one or two of his tracts, and your feelings warm to him, 
 as they infallibly will, for he is a most powerful and striking 
 writer, you wonder at the obstacles you once found in him, 
 and the progress you make in him now : his strange words or 
 strange expressions being often repeated, repeated of course in 
 different combinations with the context, enable you to get at 
 their meaning before long ; and his ambiguous sentences, when 
 brought into comparison with one another, acquire a more dis- 
 tinct and definite value. If you note down extraordinary 
 terms or combinations as they occur, the chances are you will 
 find something in the further course of your reading of the 
 author which will explain them ; and thus you will be making 
 a glossary for yourselves, or at least be enlarging and rendering 
 more complete that at the end of Priorius’ edition of Rigaltius, 
 which, though very useful, is very far from perfect. You will 
 perceive, too, in dealing with this writer more than with most 
 others, that a passage which has been insuperable to-day will 
 give out its meaning to you to-morrow ; your thoughts hap- 
 pening in the latter case to fall in with your subject better ; 
 just as you catch a pattern on silk in one light, and lose it in 
 every other. It is advisable, therefore, in reading Tertullian 
 to note down your interpretation of every passage that at all 
 
 
 
142 MOTIVE OF DAILLE, (Series I. 
 
 perplexes you at the moment ; for of this you may be sure, 
 that if when your mind is heated with this author you do not 
 hit off his meaning readily and without an effort, on laying 
 him aside for a year and lighting on the same, you will not 
 have a chance of understanding it, and will be sorry you did 
 not secure your interpretation when you had it ; for, as crafts- 
 men say, your hand must be in to make anything of a work 
 like this. 
 
 On the whole, what I would have you conclude from these 
 practical hints is this, that Tertullian is difficult, but not so 
 difficult as he is reputed to be, or as he seems to be at first 
 sight, or on a casual opening of a page of him; that, in 
 general, he is to be mastered by making him his own inter- 
 preter ; and that Daillé must not alarm you. He had an 
 object beyond the obvious one, in dwelling upon the obscurity 
 of the style of the Fathers, which presently peeps out; and 
 on that account I have spoken more at length on the case of 
 Tertullian, which was, perhaps, the strongest he could pro- 
 duce. For he applies this argument of obscurity of style to 
 weaken what seems to be so evidently the testimony of the 
 Fathers to the great dignity of the Eucharist ; to the solemn 
 claims of Episcopacy ; and in general to what are called high- 
 church views on other controverted points.’ They spoke, he 
 would have you believe, on these topics in that characteristic 
 style of theirs which he had been condemning ; a style capable 
 of being greatly misapprehended ; hazy and rhetorical ; much 
 allowance therefore to be made for it, and their seeming sense 
 modified.” Possibly there may be some ground for this remark 
 afforded by inflated expressions in the Post-Nicene Fathers ; 
 and it is quite clear from the whole tenor of Daillé’s book 
 that his mind was under a strong Post-Nicene influence: his 
 examples and almost all the defects he attributes to the Fa- 
 thers speedily settling to that period. But these high-church 
 doctrines (as it is now the fashion ignorantly to call them) 
 which Daillé would thus qualify, are often advanced by the 
 Ante-Nicene Fathers in terms so simple and incidental, that 
 even where their style on the whole may be called figurative, 
 they cannot be mistaken ; and besides the same are taught 
 by those among them who have no rhetoric in them at all. 
 
 1 Daille, p. 143. 2 Ibid. 
 
Lecr. VIL] LANGUAGE OF IRENAUS. 143 
 
 Trenzeus, for instance, is a mere controversialist, and does not 
 deal in flowers of speech : yet we find these notions, of which 
 T am speaking, put forward by him without misgiving. You 
 perceive him, for example, expressing himself on the Eucharist, 
 in the language, not precise in its meaning certainly, but still 
 in the language of sacrifice’ ; and testifying to portions of its 
 ritual, such as Daillé would not approve of—an invocation or 
 émixdnats on the elements, and a mixed chalice*: and on 
 Episcopacy in terms which Daillé would object to no less; re- 
 presenting Bishops as receiving the office of government from 
 the Apostles*; as the Apostles’ successors and vicars® ; as 
 proceeding from them in an unbroken line ; as being in num- 
 ber one and only one at a time in one Church, even in so great 
 a Church as Rome°; as accompanied by Presbyters when 
 they gave Paul his meeting at Miletus,’ though the text in 
 the Acts says elders only, making no distinction between the 
 two orders. You hear him teaching the necessity of cleaving 
 to this Church, this Episcopal Church, for he knew no other ® ; 
 of the sin of secession from it; the cases of Nadab and Abihu, 
 of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, parallel to theirs, who do 
 secede®; and much more to the same effect. So that it is 
 impossible, so long as words are allowed to have any mean- 
 ing at all, to lower these Fathers to the sense to which Daillé 
 would reduce them. 
 
 The last cause of obscurity under the head of style of which 
 Daillé takes notice, and it is with great naiveté that he does 
 so, is that the changes which have taken place in the institu- 
 tions of the Church as well as of States since the days of the 
 Fathers, have given the phraseology of the early centuries 
 quite another meaning from that which it used to have. What, 
 he exclaims, is become of the ancient discipline, of the canons, 
 of the mystical ceremonies of Baptism and the Eucharist, of 
 the rites of Ordination? All these matters are defunct and 
 passed away.'? A new age has called for new customs. But 
 the writings of the ancients are replete with these subjects ; 
 how difficult, therefore, to determine their meaning now. 
 Then the very terms of former times circulate in quite another 
 
 1 Treneeus, IV. c. xviii. § 1. § Thid. OTMIE, Ge xiv. § 2. 
 eye cs xite S02 3 Thid. 8TILcxxiv. 9% IV. c. xxvi. § 2. 
 $T1I. ¢. iii. § 1. 6 Tbid. 10 Daillé, p. 149. 
 
144 WHAT WE SHOULD INFER FROM CHANGES (Senus I. 
 
 sense. We talk still of Pope, Patriarch, Mass, Oblation, Sta- 
 tion, Procession, Indulgence, &c., but no longer attach to them 
 the same ideas as they of old. Just as under the Roman 
 Emperors, the titles of the magistrates remained the same as 
 under the Republic, but their offices were altogether different. 
 If we meet with the word Pope in an old writer, as a desig- 
 nation of the Bishop of Rome, our thoughts forthwith pass to 
 the pomp and circumstance of the modern sovereign Pontiff, 
 his running footmen, his body guard, and so on'; but this is 
 not the train of thought that old writers dreamed of awak- 
 ing by the use of the term. Hence further obscurity! But 
 to what does this argument amount ? That because the Church 
 has gradually swerved from the institutions and rules, which 
 prevailed in it soon after the times of our blessed Lord and 
 the Apostles, we are not to endeavour to bring them back to 
 those purer times by a reference to the old standard and a 
 correction of the aberrations, which it indicates ; but rather ; 
 throw the standard away as antiquated, as no longer intelli- 
 gible or easily read. Surely if the term Pope, e. g. is used 
 by the primitive Fathers, as it is, indiscriminately for the 
 Bishop of Rome, or for other Bishops, and represents a person- 
 age very different in his pretensions from him who has borne 
 the same name in later times, we should not charge the origi- 
 nal term with obscurity on that account, but draw the whole- 
 some inference, that the Bishop of Rome is no longer what he 
 once was in the least corrupt period of the Church; and take 
 courage that our Reformed Church has not swerved from pri- 
 mitive usage in establishing towards him the relations she has ! 
 That he had exalted himself too highly, and was in some sort 
 to be abased! As, on the other hand, if the discipline, the 
 canons, the Sacraments, the rite of Orders, as observed in the 
 modern Church, have all sunk very greatly below the mark 
 which they attained unto in the Primitive Church, we must 
 not complain of the meaning attached to these uses and ordi- 
 nances of old being very different from that attached to them 
 now, and affect not to understand what the ancient writers 
 say of them ; but confess that the age has become less devo- 
 tional; that there is less reverence for God’s ordinances now 
 than there was in the days of Tertullian and Cyprian. That, 
 
 ' Daille, p. 149. 
 
Lect. VII.] IN THE MEANING OF WORDS. 145 
 
 in short, these holy things have been humbled too greatly and 
 must be exalted. And instead of putting the Fathers aside, 
 as Daillé would recommend, not unnaturally, and telling people 
 that they are so full of perplexities that it is not worth their 
 while to examine them, we shall cherish them as affording a 
 testimony plain enough to those who are not wilfully blind to 
 it, which is equally unpropitious to the Papist and the Puri- 
 tan, and which, on the whole, is calculated to satisfy us, that 
 the Reformed Church of England is very much nearer to the 
 Primitive than either of them. 
 
146 CHARGE OF DISINGENUOUSNESS. [Serres I. 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus the only Ante-Nicene Father charged with disingenuous- 
 ness by Daillé. His instance from Cardinal Perron. Passages liable to 
 misconstruction in Clemens and in Origen. Inference of Daillé from the 
 illogical reasoning of the Fathers disputed. Their use of the argumentum ad 
 hominem explained. Value of their testimony notwithstanding. Instances 
 of inconsistency from Clemens and from Tertullian. Relative importance of 
 different topics not confounded by the Fathers. Daillé’s instances to the con- 
 trary examined. The early Fathers fair exponents of the sentiments’ of the 
 early Church; especially where they were identified with their respective 
 Churches ; and where they concur with each other. Allowance to be made for 
 the peculiar character of their times. 
 
 fica next objection, which Daillé takes to the Fathers, is 
 
 on the ground of their disingenuousness. What they believe 
 they often suppress, and what they don’t believe they often 
 say.’ This objection has been in part disposed of in a former 
 Lecture, when we considered the reasonable causes there might 
 be, and were, for their exercising some discretion in communi- 
 cating the mysteries of the Gospel to ill-informed or ill-disposed 
 heathens, a discretion which in part exposed them to this ani- 
 madversion. But the present indictment goes beyond this, 
 and impugns their honesty, attributing to them an intention 
 of misleading, by interpreting Scripture occasionally «ar’ 
 oixovouiay, or economice, as it is called: a germ, it may be 
 considered, of the pious frauds of later times. Dailldé gives 
 no sufficient instance of such dishonesty in any Ante-Nicene 
 Father ; for the single instance he cites from the Peedagogue 
 of Clemens Alexandrinus, as suggested to him by Cardinal 
 Perron, namely, the expression, “The Flesh and Blood of Christ 
 is faith and the promise,”” as though Clemens suppressed the 
 tull force of the words in order to cast a mist before the eyes 
 of the Catechumens, who were not yet prepared for the truth, 
 is surely a very unsatisfactory one. It occurs, I conceive, for 
 
 1 Daillé, pp. 150. 158, 160, ? p. 157. 
 
Lect. VIII] INSTANCE OF IT FROM PERRON. 147 
 
 Daillé gives no reference, in the sixth chapter of the first book 
 of the Pxdagogue.’ Clemens is there employed in adapting 
 St. Paul’s phrase, “I have fed you with milk, and not with 
 meat,” to the argument of this chapter, which is to show that 
 when the Scripture speaks of Christians as children or babes, 
 it does not mean, as the Gnostics would have it, that Church- 
 men were mere novices in knowledge. But the subject of 
 meat and drink prompting him, he proceeds to remark “ else- 
 where also the Lord in the Gospel of John hath expressed 
 himself by symbols after another kind, saying, ‘ Kat my Flesh 
 and drink my Blood,’ where he makes the cup an evident 
 symbol of faith and the promise.” -~But surely it is a refine- 
 ment on Clemens to suppose that he talked in this manner, 
 because his hearers were not prepared for the doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation, which is what Cardinal Perron would in- 
 sinuate ; and which doctrine, though he secretly held it, he 
 would not venture openly to announce. Plain persons would 
 suppose that he meant what he said, and that, having found 
 St. Paul speaking of milk and meat as figures, and wishing 
 further to illustrate the use of such figurative language in 
 Scripture, he adduced the Lord’s words in St. John, when He 
 spoke of his Flesh and Blood as another example of figures. 
 For it would be singular indeed, on the supposition of the 
 truth of Perron’s hypothesis, that Clemens should over and 
 over again express himself on the subject of the Eucharist in 
 terms so clearly opposed to the doctrine of Transubstantiation 
 as these, and sometimes much more clearly,” and never in- 
 deed once speak of it in terms asserting or even implying his 
 belief or even knowledge of that doctring, and yet himself 
 have no doubt about it ail the while! Surely it is a strange 
 way of dealing with the Fathers, or with any other authors, 
 to contend without any proof whatever, that they believed in 
 this, that, or the other doctrine, only that they were withheld 
 by circumstances from saying so, and then abuse them for 
 disingenuousness. At this rate what doctrine might you not 
 ae to them, and what duplicity might you not lay to 
 their charge? And it is a singular instance of the manner 
 in which extremes meet, eat Daillé, a foreign Protestant, 
 should thus adopt the argument of Perron, a Romanist, and 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Padag. I. c. vi. p. 121. 7 See parheulashy Predag. IT. c. ii. p. 186. 
 L 2 
 
148 PASSAGES LIABLE TO MISCONSTRUCTION [Sentrs I. 
 
 that Calvinists and Romanists should thus be content to hunt 
 in couples, provided they can but run down the Fathers. 
 
 Still there do occur to me some passages in Clemens, which 
 are capable of misconstruction. Thus Clemens in one place 
 is engaged in showing that the Greeks derived their know- 
 ledge from Moses. “ Strategy,” says he, “or the art of the 
 general, is comprised in three ideas, the safe, the hazardous, 
 and that which is a combination of both ; and each of these 
 elements again is composed of three properties, words, deeds, 
 and the one and the other together. And all these will take 
 effect, if sometimes persuasion, sometimes force, sometimes 
 damage, be resorted to, when reprisals are made ; and in the 
 concerns in which we are engaged, if sometimes we act justly, 
 sometimes with deceit, sometimes speak the truth, sometimes 
 adopt certain of all these alternatives at one and the same 
 time: now all these matters, and the best manner of turning 
 each of them to account, the Greeks derived from Moses and 
 profited by.”" And then Clemens proceeds to give instances 
 of Moses’ strategies in conducting the Israelites out of Egypt. 
 Still there is here not so much an approval of artifice, even 
 in the service of a good cause, as a matter of fact stated, viz. 
 that the Greeks derived their tactics, whatever they might 
 have become in their hands, from Moses—an instance in proof 
 of the general proposition he had announced, that they de- 
 rived most of their knowledge from him. Again, he says of 
 his Gnostic, “Whatever, therefore, he has in his mind, the 
 same he has on his tongue ; both speaking and acting with 
 respect to those who are worthy to be his hearers, in a spirit 
 of concurrence and honest interest. For he at once thinks 
 truth and utters it, unless at any time he prevaricates or re- 
 peats a prevarication,” as the sophists have it, for the sake of 
 working a cure; as the physician acts by his patients for the 
 sake of recovering them.”’* But then the case by which Cle- 
 mens goes on to illustrate this principle, viz. St. Paul’s circum- 
 cision of Timothy in spite of his having said circumcision 
 availeth nothing, and thus to the Jews becoming a Jew, shows 
 the innocent kind of deception, if I may so speak, which 
 
 ' Stromat. 1. § xxiv. p. 417. parallel to ddnOn te yap dpovet Cua 
 ~ Vevoerat i) Weidos épei, perhaps, | kat ddnOever in the former clause, 
 “conceives or speaks a preyarication,” 3 Stromat. VIL. § ix. p. 863. 
 
Lect. VIII.]} IN CLEMENS AND IN ORIGEN. 149 
 
 Clemens was contemplating, when he used the expression I 
 have quoted. And this view of the subject is confirmed by 
 another passage in the same book of the Stromata. “The 
 Gnostic also is cautious in using the principle of accommodation, 
 that he may not be misinterpreted, and that accommodation 
 may not become a habit ;”’’ as though he felt that, even in its 
 most innocent form, it was a principle that required watching. 
 
 In a fragment of the Stromata of Origen (preserved, how- 
 ever, in the Latin translation of Jerome his adversary”) occurs 
 a discussion extremely similar to this of Clemens ; the same 
 startling proposition ; the same qualification of it; and the 
 same caveat: and of this too, out of candour and a desire to 
 represent the Fathers as they are, I make Daillé a present. 
 It is one, which, probably, both he and Barbeyrac would have 
 advanced, had it suggested itself to them. Having quoted a 
 paragraph from the third book of the Republic of Plato, in 
 which Plato speaks of a lie as unworthy of God, but some- 
 times profitable to men—still only to be used by them as a 
 medicine is used by physicians, which none but physicians 
 must meddle with—Origen proceeds to remark, that, though 
 God may, for the benefit of the hearer, express the truth 
 ambiguously and by parables, thus casting a veil over what 
 might be injurious in it if announced nakedly to the unin- 
 formed, “still the man on whom the necessity of telling a lie 
 presses, must be very careful so to use his lie as if it were a 
 medicine ; to make it keep within the bounds which Judith 
 observed when, using it against Holofernes, she prevailed over 
 him by a prudent craft in her words. He must imitate Esther, 
 who, by suppressing all mention of the race she belonged to, 
 changed the sentence of Artaxerxes: and still more, the Pa- 
 triarch Jacob, who, we read, obtained his father’s blessing by 
 an artful lie—whence it is clear, that, unless we so lie, as that 
 some great good is our object in so doing, we shall be con- 
 penned as the enemies of Him who said, ‘I am the truth,’ ” 
 —the whole, it will be perceived, resolving itself into a case 
 of casuistry, such as that entertained by Bishop Taylor in the 
 “Ductor Dubitantium,” Book III., ¢. ii., Rule V. “ Whether 
 it can in any case be lawful to tell a lie’”—a question in which 
 
 : "Aogahns de ev _ Tupmepupopa 6 | p. 881. ' 
 yv@orTiKkos pa haOn, 7) 7) Tupmepupopa 2 Origen, Vol. i. p. 39, Bened. Ed. 
 diddeors yevnrar.—Stromat. VIL. § xii. 
 
150 THE FATHERS AVAILABLE AS WITNESSES [Senrtes I. 
 
 he finds much room for discrimination—quoting, in the course 
 of it, the instances of the Israelitish midwives, and of Rahab. 
 
 There is another objection akin to this last, which Daillé 
 urges against the Fathers.! That in their polemics, in their 
 disputations against heathens, Jews, and heretics, they stuck 
 at nothing, in order to secure to themselves the victory: 
 urging arguments which were in their favour, though they felt 
 them to be faulty, and suppressing others, which were against 
 them, which they knew to be sound. Hence a further dif- 
 ficulty in getting at the real sentiments of the Fathers. There 
 is some truth in this remark ; but the fact itself furnishes me 
 with a different conclusion from that which Daillé draws from 
 it. For he once more chimes in with the Romanist, and con- 
 fesses, that, perplexed by such disputants, he sees nothing for 
 it but to throw oneself on the Church as the interpreter of the 
 Fathers who are so ambiguous, 7. e. on the Church of Rome? ; 
 thus implying that the Fathers must be abandoned as an 
 authority, at least by Protestants. On the other hand, the 
 conclusion I come to is this; that seeing the Fathers are such 
 writers as they are here represented to be, it is highly neces- 
 sary not only to read them, but to read them carefully, in 
 order to detect the complexion of their argument, and the 
 grounds on which it proceeds, and to make the necessary 
 allowance for circumstances: that the true redress of the 
 inconvenience is, not to throw the Fathers away in despair, 
 or apply to Rome for a key to them, but really to investigate 
 them, and not pursue Dr. Priestley’s plan of looking through 
 books,’ with which Bishop Horsley taxes him so severely ; 
 a plan which is sure to mislead, and the adoption of which is, 
 in fact, the source of so much of the perplexity which people 
 find in them. Certainly, there is no argument more common 
 with the Fathers, as I have often taken occasion to observe in 
 my Lectures on them, than the argumentum ad hominem—or, 
 in other words, the argument for victory, as Daillé says—but 
 it is one that creates no difficulty to those who approach it in 
 the course of the regular study of these authors: the context 
 and general drift of the reasoning point it out to be what it 
 is: but select out of the whole some detached passage, and it 
 
 z Daillé, pp. 158, 159, et seq. tum et emendatum. In the French the 
 p. 163. In the Latin translation, | passage is not found. 
 which was ab auctore recognitum, auc- 8 Horsley’s Letters, p. 100. 
 
Lect. VIIT.] THOUGH ILLOGICAL IN THEIR REASONING. 151 
 
 is not improbable, that a meaning may be assigned to it alto- 
 gether at variance with the real sentiments of the authors. 
 I believe that the Fathers have been often laid under con- 
 tribution by Socinians in this manner, and extracts made 
 from them, which, had those extracts been only fragments 
 that had survived their other works, would have infallibly 
 conveyed the impression that they were Socinians, though 
 nothing was more untrue. For example, “The Son of God, 
 called Jesus, may well enough be called the Son of God on 
 account of his wisdom, even if he be but a mere man, for all 
 writers call God the Father of gods and men,’’! writes Justin. 
 Suppose this had been the only paragraph in Justin that had 
 come down to us; and it had not, accordingly, been known 
 that, when uttering it, Justin was pleading the Christian 
 cause before heathen Emperors, and was fighting them with 
 their own weapons ; would not the Socinian have had very 
 specious reasons for claiming him as a witness on his side ? 
 But take all the circumstances into account, and there is no 
 fear of the peculiar nature of the argument misleading. Or 
 . take another case, much resembling this, in the Apology of 
 Tertullian. ‘Suppose him (Jesus Christ) to be a man, if you 
 will: it is God’s pleasure to be worshipped through him and 
 in him—so that we reply upon the Jews, that they also 
 learned to worship God through Moses, a man—whilst upon 
 the Greeks we retort, Orpheus bound mankind by religious 
 obligations in Pieria, Muszeus at Athens, Melampus at Argos, 
 Trophonius in Beeotia. And if I look to you, ye rulers of the 
 nations, what was Pompilius Numa, who loaded the Romans 
 with rites the most onerous, but a man?”’? Here again, we 
 have Tertullian arguing upon his adversaries’ principles, not 
 upon his own; for his own undoubted belief in the consub- 
 stantial and co-eternal Godhead of the Son we have seen 
 proved in a former Lecture by numberless passages in his 
 writings, which I shall not therefore repeat. Yet how readily 
 might the spirit of Tertullian be misunderstood by one who 
 stumbled upon this passage, and knew little of the author 
 besides. Cases of this kind might be produced out of the 
 Fathers to almost any amount; who in contending with hea- 
 thens especially, content themselves very frequently with si- 
 
 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, Apolog. I. § 22. 2 Tertullian, Apolog. c. xxi. 
 
152 INCONSISTENCIES OF CLEMENS ([Sentes I. 
 
 lencing their antagonists by arguments which do indeed serve 
 that purpose, but which cannot possibly produce any general 
 conviction—as, that if Christ was the messenger of God to 
 men, they cannot stumble at this article of the Christians’ 
 creed, for that such was the office of Mercury, according to 
 their own—that if Christ, according to the Christians, as- 
 cended into heaven, they were not in a condition to resent 
 that point of faith, for that so, according to themselves, did 
 Bellerophon. But in such reasoning there is no danger of 
 mistaking the meaning of your author, if you are reading him 
 in earnest. The context always protects you, and your general 
 knowledge of his principles. Who, for instance, in the ex- 
 amples I have cited, would really run any risk of supposing 
 that, because a Father of the Church placed the Incarnate 
 Word in apposition to the messenger Mercury, he considered 
 the evidence in one case the same as that in the other, or 
 similar to it? And the like remark holds good in other 
 instances of a less glaring character than this. In short, 
 in such circumstances his very speech bewrayeth him ; and 
 you see when he is arguing for truth, and when for victory— 
 indeed it is the perception of the difference that must have 
 preceded and suggested the complaint to Daillé. 
 
 Another incident, which Daillé alleges against the Fathers 
 as contributing to their obscurity, is their changes of opinion.' 
 He produces, indeed, no examples of this defect in the Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers at least, except a confession of Origen’s re- 
 corded by Jerome,” that in his old age he repented of many 
 things which he had taught and written in his youth, a con- 
 fession which need not, one may think, be deemed peculiar to 
 Origen or to any Father. There is no doubt, however, that 
 instances of such alteration in their sentiments will be found 
 even in the Ante-Nicene Fathers by those who shall be curious 
 in comparing them with themselves. Few writers, indeed, 
 would be proof against such a scrutiny. And often there are 
 peculiar circumstances in the case of the Fathers which would 
 explain some apparent inconsistencies. Thus we find Clemens 
 Alexandrinus, and indeed most of the primitive Fathers at 
 variance with themselves on the subject of the corruption of 
 human nature, sometimes using expressions that argue such 
 
 1 Daille, p. 165, 2 p. 166. 
 
Lecr. VIII.] ADMITTED AND ACCOUNTED FOR. AS: 
 
 corruption to be extreme, and sometimes expressions that 
 argue it to be trifling. In one place, for instance, Clemens 
 quotes, in support of his own views, the strong phraseology of 
 Barnabas, that “the heart of the natural man is an habitation 
 of devils.”’ And again he elsewhere says, that “we are not 
 good and virtuous by nature, but by training; as good 
 physicians or good pilots are made by the same.”” Whilst in 
 other places he speaks of “our evil passions as contrary to 
 nature,”* and of “man being by nature a high and lofty 
 animal that seeks after what is good.”* The truth probably is, 
 that Clemens, as well as others like him, were embarrassed on 
 this subject by the plain declarations of Scripture, and the 
 testimony of their own hearts on the one hand, and by their 
 horror of the heresy of Valentinus, Marcion, and indeed of the 
 Gnostics in general, on the other, who maintained that the 
 world was created evil by the Demiurgus, and indeed alleged 
 this fact of its corruption as their main weapon against, the 
 orthodox doctrine, that God made it®: not to speak of another 
 cause of such inconsistencies to which I have before had oc- 
 casion to advert, viz. that questions of this kind, however 
 fruitful sources of controversy in later ages of the Church, had 
 not then attracted the attention of religious disputants, nor 
 been stated in precise terms. 
 
 Again, Clemens may be thought to be inconsistent with 
 himself on the question of asceticism ; sometimes seeming, as 
 he does, to encourage habits of moderation, sometimes habits 
 of extreme mortification and self-discipline. Thus he admits 
 the use of the bath, though he denounces its excess®: does 
 not proscribe the wearing of gold, &c., and the putting on of 
 delicate clothing, but only requires a bit and a bridle to be 
 employed to curb the irrational appetites’: prescribes plain- 
 ness of attire for women in general, but says there may be 
 oceasion for relaxing this law, and that allowance must be 
 made for those women who have formed imprudent marriages, 
 and who must adorn their persons to please their husbands.® 
 All this is said in the spirit of concession. On the other hand, 
 he will have a man discipline himself into knowledge and per- 
 
 1 Stromat. IT. § xx. p. 489. 5 See especially Stromat. IV. § xiii. p. 
 2 1. § vi. p. 336. 605; V. § xiv. p. 731. 
 3 TI. § xiii. p. 460. 6 Pedag. III. c. ix. p. 282. 
 
 4 Peedag. III. c. vii. p. 276. 7c. xi. p. 285, Spane7. 
 
154 INCONSISTENCIES OF TERTULLIAN. (Series T, 
 
 fection, till he shall be able to live without a lapse.’ He will 
 have him prepare himself for the conflict, like the wrestler? 
 His whole life must be a holy festival.? Sacrifices, and 
 prayers, and praises and Scripture-readings before meals— 
 psalms and hymns at meals, and before bed—prayers again 
 at night—a continued effort to identify himself with the 
 company of heaven by contemplation, which never relaxes * ; 
 a keen pursuit after the honourable and useful, but an aban- 
 donment of pleasure to those who would lead a base and 
 trivial life.® But the former sentiments prevail in the Peeda- 
 gogue, the latter in the Stromata; and the difference in their 
 character, whatever it may be, is to be accounted for by the 
 different persons with whom those treatises have to deal, the 
 novice and the veteran Christian, rather than by any muta- 
 bility of opinion in Clemens himself. 
 
 In Tertullian certainly the inconsistencies are more nume- 
 rous.and more unequivocal. Now he represents the Christians 
 as willing to suffer, but having no delight in the danger be- 
 fore them®: then he represents them as volunteering persecu- 
 tion, and as having greater satisfaction in being condemned 
 than in being acquitted.’ Now he speaks of the man of sin as 
 hindered in his coming by the existence of the Roman com- 
 monwealth, and as about to be let loose on its cessation ®: 
 then he speaks of the Roman empire as destined to endure, as 
 long as the world itself shall endure.? Now he tells of the 
 image of God as destroyed (elisam) at the Fall” ; the spirit of 
 man as transfigured by it"; the entire substance of man as 
 changed from purity to perverseness’*: then he tells of the 
 imnocent age of children—not an accidental expression—but 
 as excusing delay in Baptism.’ Now he talks of marriage as 
 a contumelia communis '*: then he speaks of that estate as 
 one which is pronounced blessed by God in the words, Increase 
 and multiply,’ as an estate against which Paul threw out a 
 caution only because the time was short.'® Now he explains 
 
 : Stromat. VII. § vii. p. 859. 10 De Cultu Feminarum, I. c. i. 
 p. 860. ULL Css 
 
 * Taviyupts ayia.—Ibid. '2 De Spectaculis, ¢. ii. 
 
 * p. 861. 5 Tbid. 8 De Baptismo, ce. xviii. 
 
 6 Tertullian, Apol. c. xlix. '4 De Virgin. Veland. c. x. 
 
 7 Ad Scapulan, ¢. i. ¢. ii. 'S De Anima, c. xxvii. 
 
 8 Apol. c. xxxii. '6 Ady. Marcion. V. ¢. vii. 
 
 ® Ad Scapulam, ec. il. 
 
Lect. VIII.] INCONSISTENCIES OF TERTULLIAN. 155 
 
 St. Paul’s expression of being baptized for the dead, of having 
 a living person submitted to a vicarious Baptism for a dead 
 one!: then he explains it as being baptized for the body 
 (which is dead) in order that the resurrection of that body 
 may be implied by it.2 Now he understands Antichrist to 
 be the man who had denied that Christ had come in the 
 flesh *: then he understands him of the persecuting govern- 
 ment of imperial Rome.* Now he lays down his rule against 
 heretics, who were all of recent date, that “what was true 
 was first, what was spurious afterwards :”° then he elsewhere 
 explains St. Paul’s phrase of the Church being without spot 
 or wrinkle, sine rugé vetustatis, ut-virgo.° Now he quotes the 
 Shepherd of Hermas as an authority’: then he designates it 
 as “apocryphal and false.” * Now he contemplates one par- 
 don for sin after Baptism ®: then he does not allow that there 
 is even one.” Now he contends for Bishop, Priest, and Dea- 
 con, and makes it the very scandal of the heretic that he con- 
 founds them with one another, and with laymen": then he 
 is for a spiritual Church regardless of Bishops.’? Something 
 of this incongruity may doubtless be ascribed to the physical 
 constitution of Tertullian, which was hot and hasty in the 
 extreme, perfervidum ingenium—-he frequently laments it as a 
 disaster. “I confess to the Lord God,” says he, “that I have 
 rashly, not to say audaciously, ventured to compose a work on 
 Patience, a virtue which I am myself very ill qualified to re- 
 commend ;”* and he afterwards describes himself as “ most 
 miserable” by reason of this defect of temper; and his writ- 
 ings abound in similar strong expressions of self-condemnation, 
 as if it was perpetually betraying him into error,’ a tempera- 
 ment seldom connected with very fixed sentiments. But his 
 self-contradiction is chiefly to be attributed to his Montanism ; 
 those tracts which were written after his adoption of this 
 heresy, as compared with those written before it, furnishing 
 the principal instances of tergiversation. For though a few 
 of his treatises, and only a few, supply no internal evidence on 
 
 1 De Resurree. Carnis, c. xlviii. 8 De Pudicitia, c. x. 
 
 2 Ady. Marcion. V. c. x. 9 De Peenitentia, ec. v. 
 
 3 TII. c. viii.; V. c. xvi. 10 De Pudicitia, ec. xviii. 
 
 * De Fuga in Persecutione, ¢. xii. 1! De Preescript. Heret. ¢. xli, 
 5 Adv. Prax. ¢. ii. 2 De Pudie. c. xxi. 
 
 6 De Pudicitia, ¢. xviii. 13 De Patientia, c. i. 
 
 7 De Oratione, ¢. xvi. | '™ De Cultu Fominar. II. ¢. i. 
 
156 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THINGS [Senies I. 
 
 this subject either way, yet a large number furnish probable 
 evidence of what his condition was when he penned them, and 
 a still larger number certain evidence.' So that with this key 
 to them, his inconsistencies need not present to us much diffi- 
 culty on the score of the obsewrity at least, which arises from 
 them—and that is Daillé’s position—whatever else may be 
 said of them. On the contrary, in the case of Tertullian, as 
 in the case of regular heretics, the doctrines and rites of the 
 orthodox Church are indirectly brought out more vividly by 
 the mere accident of being placed in apposition with those of 
 the seceders from it. 
 
 I do not think it necessary to examine other of the Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers on this point, having produced Tertullian by 
 far the strongest case of them all; and had I been content 
 with simply replying to the proposition as Daillé advances it, 
 I needed not have given him an advantage by volunteering the 
 catalogue I have of the contradictions of Tertullian ; but I 
 wish to lay before you a candid exposition of the real aspect 
 of the Fathers, be it what it may; and feel that I shall by 
 that means convince you the rather, that Daillé, even when 
 he had some reason for an objection, greatly exaggerates its 
 force ; in short, plays the special pleader. 
 
 And this character his next objection continues to attach to 
 him ; an objection I shall not think it needful to dwell long 
 upon, namely, the difficulty there is in determining what 
 degree of relative importance the Fathers assign to the various 
 propositions they announce, and yet the necessity of knowing 
 this before any practical use can be made of their authority.” 
 Who does not see the difference, e. g. says Daillé, in import- 
 ance between the declarations, that “Christ is God,” and that 
 “Christ suffered death when he was thirty-four or thirty-five 
 years old,” though both declarations may be true? “It is 
 evident,” Daillé proceeds, “that the Fathers themselves re- 
 cognised such difference, for Irenzeus writes to Victor, Bishop 
 of Rome, when he was excommunicating whole Churches for 
 observing Easter, as he considered, at an uncanonical time, 
 that Anicetus, his predecessor, had tolerated the like observ- 
 ance of it in Polycarp, and was unwilling to disturb the peace 
 of the Church by insisting on the necessity of such a ritual.” ® 
 
 
 
 ' See Bishop Kaye's Tertullian, p. 52, 2 Daillé, p. 170. 
 Third Ed. 3 Eusebius, Eccl. 3. Hist. v. c. 24. 
 
Lecr. VIII.} NOT CONFOUNDED BY THE FATHERS. 157 
 
 So Tertullian, in his “De Preescriptione Hoereticorum,”?! after 
 having laid down his regula fidei or creed, containing the 
 cardinal articles of faith, proceeds, “This rule, established, as 
 we will prove, by Christ, has no doubtful or debatable points 
 in it, as we hold, save such as heresies introduce, and such as 
 make heretics. And let but this form stand fast in its pro- 
 portion, and then you may explore and handle what you will ; 
 you may let loose the whole licence of your curiosity, if there 
 seems to you to be anything left in ambiguity, or anything 
 imperfectly shadowed out.” And in a remarkable passage in 
 the Epistle of Firmilianus to Cyprian, we read, “ But that the 
 brethren at Rome do not keep primitive tradition themselves 
 in all respects, and that they pretend to the authority of the 
 Apostles without any ground for it, one may know from this ; 
 that with respect to the time of celebrating Easter, and many 
 other mysteries of religion, they seem to observe different 
 customs from others; from the Church of Jerusalem, for in- 
 stance ; and so in many other provinces, many other things 
 differ according to different places and names ; and yet there 
 is no departure on this account from the peace and unity of 
 the Catholic Church.”” From all these passages it is no doubt 
 evident that the Fathers did recognise a great difference in the 
 relative importance of questions they handled from time to 
 time, a point, indeed, which scarcely required proof, if the 
 Fathers were reasonable men, however they might not be pre- 
 pared to draw up a scale of the exact estimate they took of 
 each. But who could think of making this a ground of 
 charge against them, or plead it in proof of the little value 
 which attaches to their writings, by reason of the difficulty of 
 ascertaining the emphasis with which they spoke on any 
 given subject? ‘The Scriptures themselves are open to the 
 same objection. Nay, even Churches, with all their defi- 
 nite Articles, Creeds, and Liturgies, and with the pains they 
 take to circumscribe their sense of Scripture, are still open 
 to it. There must be still a very considerable margin in 
 which individual opinion is left to range. Dr. Waterland, 
 in our own Church, finds room enough for a “ Discourse on 
 Fundamentals ;” and there probably are many of its members 
 who might not agree with him after all in his selection, some 
 
 tc. xiv. ? Cyprian, Ep. Ixxy. 
 
158 DAILLES INSTANCES EXAMINED. [Serres I, 
 
 thinking his catalogue too copious, and some too sparing. 
 The discretion, therefore, which we have to exercise in other 
 cases, we must exercise on the Fathers, and not expect 
 them to be categorical on subjects which do not admit of 
 it. But before I dismiss this head, I must notice the two 
 examples which Daillé adduces from the Ante-Nicene Fathers, 
 of the manner in which they confound the relative importance 
 of things, when they sometimes do happen to declare them- 
 selves. One of them is on the case of Infant Communion. 
 Having quoted Augustine as saying that “ Innocent had laid 
 it down with respect to children, that unless they should eat 
 the Flesh of the Son of man, they could have no life in them,” 
 Daillé proceeds, “and long before his time Cyprian spake on 
 the same subject to the same purport; and that opinion, as 
 Maldonatus testifies, prevailed in the Church about 600 years. 
 I omit, are Maldonatus’ words, the sentiment of Augustine 
 and of Innocent the First; a sentiment which -prevailed 
 in the Church about 600 years, that the Eucharist is neces- 
 sary even for infants” ’; the word necessariam being printed 
 in the Latin translation of Daillé, which was made from the 
 French, revised, augmented and corrected by the author him- 
 self,” in capital letters. But Cyprian says nothing of the 
 kind, whatever Maldonatus, as quoted by Daillé, may say for 
 him. Cyprian, who is the first Christian writer that alludes 
 to Infant Communion at all, does so twice; but both times 
 are mere allusions ; the fact itself, and no more, transpiring in 
 either case incidentally, and when Cyprian was engaged in 
 other matters with respect to these children.* He says nothing 
 of its necessity. It was not the question before him. Nor 
 can his testimony be used for anything else but the bare 
 existence of such a practice in his time. Now surely this pro- 
 ceeding of Daillé’s, this shuffling of names and quotations, so 
 as to seem to get the conclusion he desires, and to make those 
 who do not refer to his authorities, believe that he does so 
 fairly, is at least as disingenuous an act as any he can lay 
 to the account of the Fathers. The other instance he pro- 
 duces from an Ante-Nicene Father of confounding the relative 
 importance of things, is on the subject of fasting. Who, says 
 he, would not suppose that the whole cause of Christianity 
 
 1 Daillé, p. 176. Geneve, 1656. 
 * See Titlepage to the Latin edition. 3 Cyprian, De Lapsis, § ix. and § xxv. 
 
Lect. VIII.) THE FATHERS TO BE TAKEN AS EXPONENTS 159 
 
 was at stake, when Ignatius utters the following tragical 
 words, “ Whosoever fasts on the Lord’s day or the Saturday 
 (one Saturday only excepted, that before Haster), the same is 
 a murderer of Christ.” Now whatever tendency terms so 
 extravagant may have to confound all distinctions of the 
 lighter and weightier matters of the law, and so to render the 
 Fathers of ambiguous value from their want of discrimination, 
 Ignatius is at any rate innocent of the charge. For this 
 Epistle to the Philippians is none of his, it is neither men- 
 tioned by Eusebius, who enters into a minute account of the 
 Epistles of Ignatius, nor by Jerome, but is a spurious Epistle, 
 written long after the time of Ignatius, and never included in 
 the collection of his Epistles.» Whether Daillé was aware 
 of this when he published his treatise “De Usu Patrum,” is 
 more than I can tell; he must have been aware of it event- 
 ually, when his attention was expressly turned, as it one day 
 was, to the subject of the Epistles of Ignatius. 
 
 But supposing this difficulty disposed of; there is still 
 according to Daillé another. How do we know that the 
 sentiment of a Father was the sentiment of his Church, and 
 not his own merely*? It is obvious that this objection is 
 much more easy to make than to refute. It might, perhaps, 
 be enough to reply that it rests with Daillé to show that the 
 Father does not express the opinions of his Church, not with 
 us to show that he does. Is it likely, however, that when so 
 few Christian writings have been preserved by the Church at 
 all, those should have happened to be preserved, which were 
 not on the whole in accordance with her? The Church was 
 their keeper ; she saw, therefore, some merit in them which 
 induced her to take on herself that office; she must have 
 considered that in general they did her service. And this 
 argument will be thought to have the more weight, if we 
 recollect that the writings of the heretics properly so called, 
 have been all suffered to perish: nothing of them remains 
 except such fragments as are preserved in the works of their 
 orthodox antagonists. For the treatise of Novatianus on the 
 Trinity, if his, is hardly in doctrine that of a heretic in the 
 ordinary sense of the word, supporting as it does the doctrine 
 
 1 Daillé, p. 177; Ignatius, Ad Phi- 1 nons, Bk. II. ¢. vii. § vii. in Cotelerius, 
 lipp. § xiii. vol. ii. p. 110. 
 2See Bishop Beveridge on the Ca-| * Daille, p. 180. 
 
160 OF TIIEIR RESPECTIVE CHURCHES, (Sentes I. 
 
 of the Church. Moreover, Eusebius, when composing his 
 Ecclesiastical History, adopts the Fathers as his authority: 
 and what is more, though taking advantage certainly of many 
 other Fathers, whose works were then in existence, he does 
 make very large use of most of those very Fathers, whose 
 volumes have descended to our times: thus showing, that 
 even when the Church was much fuller of such documents, 
 still these which we actually possess were accounted amongst 
 the most valuable, and were selected by the father of early 
 Church History for his vouchers and witnesses. He speaks of 
 the Epistle of Clemens as having great merit, and as read in 
 most Churches.’ He makes liberal use of the Epistles of 
 Ignatius, and quotes Polycarp’s commendation of them (him- 
 self a Bishop) “as being profitable to the readers of them ; 
 as containing faith and patience, and all edification pertaining 
 to our Lord.”* He draws much of the history of the Church 
 in Justin’s time, from Justin; and describes him as the most 
 noted of those who flourished in his day; and as preaching 
 the truth of God in his writings.’ He rests a very great part 
 of his account of early heresies on the authority of Irenzeus, 
 and quotes him as though he considered him to be the chief 
 writer on that subject. He refers over and over again with 
 the same confidence to Clemens Alexandrinus for the facts 
 which his works supply, and describes those works in detail 
 in terms of praise and approbation. He enters into all the 
 particulars of the life and writings of Origen, as one of the 
 most famous worthies of the Church. And what is more, he 
 speaks even of the two Latin Fathers, Cyprian and Tertullian 
 —of the former, indeed, but as a conspicuous Bishop’ ; but of 
 the latter, as the author of the Apology, of which he 
 translates a passage or two into Greek,® a circumstance 
 which renders his testimony to the value of this Latin writer 
 the more weighty, inasmuch as it seems to have been an 
 effort to him to translate from the Latin at all—for he offers 
 a sort of excuse for his manner of doing it on another occasion 
 in the case of the Epistle of Hadrian’—as though a notice of the 
 Apology was forced upon him by the celebrity of its author. 
 
 I have run through these brief particulars in order to show, 
 
 ' Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. iii. c. 16. 4 vi. c. 13, et alibi. 
 * iii. c. 36. 3 iv. c. 11. § vil.c. 3. § iii. c. 88. * 7 iv. o. 8 
 
Lect. VIT1.] AND OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 161 
 
 that in the judgment of Eusebius at least, a leading historian 
 of the Church, and one who had to lay under contribution for 
 his annals all the best authorities which existed in his own 
 day, the works of the Fathers we now possess are considered 
 worthy of being taken as exponents of the Church of their 
 respective periods. 
 
 Nor is this all. The very position and character of many 
 of these Fathers identify them with their respective Churches. 
 Clemens Romanus was Bishop of his Church, and writes his 
 Epistle in that Church’s name. Ignatius was of the same 
 rank, Theophilus of the same. Irenzeus of the same. Cyprian 
 of the same. Others among them were not indeed Bishops, 
 but distinguished Presbyters of their respective Churches. 
 And though, no doubt, there may be heterodox persons in 
 high places, yet the presumption has been usually the other 
 way; and in the Primitive Church most exceedingly the other 
 way. 
 
 Then, if it be further objected, as it is by Daillé, that even 
 allowing each Father to be in some sort a representative of 
 the particular Church to which he belonged, yet the recogni- 
 tion of a doctrine or an ordinance by the Universal Church is 
 the only guarantee for its soundness ; it may be observed, 
 that these early Fathers whose claims we have been so long* 
 canvassing, are drawn from almost all parts of the Christian 
 world—one from Rome; another from Antioch; a third from 
 the Holy Land ; a fourth from Carthage ; a fifth from Gaul ; 
 so that matters, in which they happen to concur, must have 
 been of very general acceptance in the Church. Now in all, 
 or almost all the substantial questions of Creed and of Ecclesias- 
 tical government, they will be found to concur, including many 
 points, which would touch Daillé, and come within his cate- 
 gory of controversies ; though in some subordinate particulars 
 there may be occasional difference ; or, what is more common, 
 one of them may assert a point on which another may be en- 
 tirely silent; or by implication, may be taken to be even 
 against it. Indeed, there were many differences or contra- 
 dictions among whole Churches themselves ; a whole section of 
 Churches, e. g. maintaining one side of the Paschal contro- 
 versy, and a whole section again, the other side: a large divi- 
 sion of them rejecting the Baptism of heretics, and a large 
 division of them again accepting it: incidents these in the 
 
 M 
 
162 THEIR CONCURRENCE ON VITAL POINTS. [Serres I. 
 
 early history of the Church, of which Daillé does not fail to 
 take advantage,’ turning them to the general disparagement of 
 the testimony of the Fathers, who first as individuals, and 
 next as members of particular Churches, might be involved in 
 differences with the more cecumenical voice of Christendom, 
 and so should be thought less worth listening to. But this 
 should be borne in mind; that you should regard the Fathers 
 as the raw material out of which General Councils of the 
 Church might be made ; not as equivalent to General Councils. 
 These Fathers, for whom I am pleading, lived before any Gene- 
 ral Councils, properly so called, had met; and consequently 
 in an age, when a great many questions were unsettled in the 
 Church: questions, which after the eera of General Councils 
 were finally disposed of ; uniformity and unanimity established 
 by that means. Who can doubt that the several members of 
 such General Councils, when they first met together to confer, 
 however agreeing in the main, brought along with them several 
 different sentiments on several different points ; and that it 
 was not till after long conference and mutual illumination, that 
 they could be reduced to agree upon the sense and wording of 
 the Canons or Constitutions they were met to frame? The 
 Fathers may be considered in the condition of such members 
 “when first they came together—only never having been brought 
 together themselves, they have never of themselves adjusted their 
 respective sentiments ; and you are left to do it for them. You 
 must compare them together, and by drawing deductions from 
 them, fashion for yourselves the most primitive of all Canons, 
 The conference is not at Nice, or Constantinople, or Ephesus, 
 but in your own study. The delegates are not reverend 
 speakers from divers Churches, but stately folios from your 
 shelves: and accordingly, after having compared them pati- 
 ently and without prejudice, and having heard all that each of 
 them has to say, you will combine their testimony into one. 
 And even as in other Councils, so in this, must allowance be 
 made for the peculiar character of the times in which it as- 
 sembles, a consideration which would go far to answer the ob- 
 jection, or scoff, or sarcasm of Daillé, that the Millenarians 
 themselves could boast, not of one Father, but of many Fathers 
 on their side—though it would have been only fair in him to 
 say that Justin confesses many did not hold this doctrine, 
 
 * Daillé, p. 187, et seg. 
 
Lect. VIII.] SOME EXTRAVAGANCES ACCOUNTED FOR. 163 
 
 though he and those, whom he considered orthodox, did’: 
 and that Eusebius tells us, it was propagated by Papias, who 
 took in a literal sense what the Apostles had said in a mystical 
 one.” What, however, if this doctrine has been exploded of 
 late years—quiet times have a tendency to hush all trans- 
 cendental and mysterious questions, as times of trouble have a 
 tendency to excite them: this very one revived amidst the 
 throes that attended the Reformation, and was denounced in 
 the Articles of King Edward. Still amidst the horrors of the 
 persecutions of Nero and Severus, what wonder that men, who 
 could find no resting-place on the earth they dwelt in, should 
 have cherished visions of a better Jerusalem and a resurrection 
 of the saints? For we have seen that by the time of Eusebius, 
 a. €. when the Church was beginning to enjoy peace, the Mil- 
 Jenarian doctrine was on the wane. And I will add that the 
 same consideration will account for some other conclusions in 
 the Fathers, which have been urged against their credit with- 
 out due allowance; particularly the discouraging terms in 
 which they sometimes speak of marriage—it was the “ present 
 distress” that in all probability sunk deep in their spirit and 
 tinctured their thoughts—and no man can read the history, 
 either of Rowland Taylor’s martyrdom, or of Rogers’, in our 
 own country, without feeling how poignantly the surrender of 
 wife and children, in their cases, must have added to the 
 bitterness of death. But on this subject, I shall have occasion 
 to speak again, and more at length. 
 
 
 
 ! Justin Martyr, Dial. § 80. * Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. iii. c. 39. 
 
164 SECOND PROPOSITION OF DAILLE. [Senres I, 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Second proposition of Daillé. His charges against the Fathers of inaccuracy, 
 ignorance of Hebrew, use of allegory, examined. Important principle in- 
 volved in the latter. Why it was so largely resorted to. Excessive use of it 
 by Clemens and Origen. Doctrinal errors of the Fathers insufficient to over- 
 throw their testimony. Daillé’s instances of their discrepancies chiefly Post- 
 Nicene. Discrepancies of the Ante-Nicene confined to minor points. Their 
 concurrence in important ones the more striking. Concluding objection of 
 Daillé. The appeal to the Fathers not excluded by the sixth Article. Dis- 
 eretion of our Church in her use of them. Scripture and antiquity the autho- 
 rities appealed to by our Reformers. 
 
 E_ have now reviewed the arguments of Daillé contained 
 
 in his first book, in which he had endeavoured to esta- 
 
 blish his first proposition, that the testimony of the Fathers is 
 
 obscure, uncertain, and therefore unfit to decide modern con- 
 troversies. 
 
 His second book is occupied with proving his second pro- 
 position, viz. that even supposing the testimony of the Fathers 
 was clearer, it is not of authority to decide such controversies. 
 This book, however, will not detain us so long as the other, 
 having been very much anticipated in the former one. With- 
 out staying, therefore, to debate such preliminary questions as 
 
 that the Fathers are, like other men, liable to error’; that they - 
 
 have often a bias of their own towards this conclusion or that, 
 which may mislead them in stating what they pretend to be 
 the judgment of the Church’; that their authority must rest 
 on the same ground as that of other teachers*; that we must 
 not put them on the same footing as canonical Scripture * ;— 
 dismissing, I say, such preliminary matters as these, and con- 
 sidering that they carry along with them their own answers, 
 and only present another instance of those tactics in Daillé, 
 which I have before had occasion to notice, viz. a disposition 
 to create a prejudice before he proceeds to an argument, or else 
 
 ? Daillé, p. 205, 2 p. 206. Suelo: 4 p. 220. 
 
Leer. IX], THE INACCURACY OF JUSTIN 165 
 
 satisfied that they have been already handled by us in former 
 Lectures, we will go on to examine some of the errors which 
 he imputes to them, and by which he reckons their authority 
 to be subverted. It is impossible, he thinks, that parties who 
 wrote with such incaution, carelessness, and negligence, could 
 have regarded themselves as oracles whom we were to listen 
 to.' And he then produces. examples of some errors of haste. 
 Here, however, as elsewhere, Daillé illustrates, for the most 
 part, though not altogether, from the works of the Post- Nicene 
 Fathers. . Amongst the Ante-Nicene, there is reason to believe, 
 as he states, that Origen dictated some of his Homilies off-hand ; 
 and of course the value of compositions, which were so little 
 studied, must be taken accordingly. Extempore effusions, no 
 doubt, would be poor authority for the doctrines of a Church 
 either in Origen’s days or our own. But how small a part of 
 the Ante-Nicene Theology, at least, consists in Homilies. Not 
 that the accuracy of the writers of that period, even in other 
 departments, can in all respects be vindicated. Certainly there 
 are gross mistakes to be found in them.  Daillé produces 
 several from Justin. He makes David, e. g. live 1500 years 
 before Christ”; and when treating of the Septuagint version, says 
 that Ptolemy, King of Egypt, sent messengers to Herod, King 
 of Judea, to beg of him copies of the writings of the Prophets; 
 whereas he did send to Eleazar the High Priest, some 200 
 years before Herod’s time.’ He mentions a statue erected 
 under Claudius Czesar at Rome, to Simon Magus, with the 
 inscription “Simoni Deo sancto,”’* on which Daillé observes, 
 that it is now agreed amongst learned men, that it was in 
 truth a statue dedicated Semoni Sanco Deo, one of the minor 
 Deities of Rome, and that Justin misread the legend—a fact, 
 however, not quite so certain. For Justin himself was, like 
 Simon, a native of Samaria, and would, therefore, be likely to 
 make himself master of the particulars of Simon’s history 
 beyond another man. Moreover he addresses himself, when 
 speaking of this statue, to the Emperor of Rome himself, who 
 might be supposed, or at least must have had those about him 
 who might be supposed, to be able to test. the accuracy of the 
 statement. The fragment of marble, too, dug up in the island 
 of the Tiber, in the year 1574, inscribed Semoni Sanco Deo 
 
 | Daillé, p. 234. 3 § 31. Daillé, p. 238. 
 * Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 42. * Daillé, p. 240. 
 
166 NOT SUCII AS TO IMPAIR HIS CREDIT.  [Senies L. 
 
 Fidio, and the discovery of which, and nothing whatever else, 
 gave occasion to calling Justin’s account in question, has been 
 thought by some to be too smalk to have ever had a statue 
 upon it. And finally, Justin’s story has been repeated by 
 most of the early Fathers that followed him, nearly in the 
 same terms!; so that it is at any rate far from clear that 
 Justin, in this case, at least, was in error. Daillé further 
 takes notice of his quoting Zephaniah for Zechariah,’ and 
 Jeremiah for Daniel.2 He might have added that he cites 
 Isaiah for Jeremiah,‘ and Zechariah for Malachi®; that he 
 talks of the Prophets who foretold the coming of Christ some 
 5000, some 3000, some 2000, some 1000, some 800 years 
 beforehand®; that he reads the same passage of Scripture in 
 several ways, in several places’ ; and even yet he would not 
 have exhausted his inaccuracies. Indeed, one of his editors,® 
 losing patience with his author, exclaims in one of his notes, 
 “Tneredibilis est Justini in recitandis Scripturis inconstantia ;” 
 and in his Dedication talks of “Incredibilis queedam in scri- 
 bendo festinatio” in Justin ; and yet, in spite of all this, this 
 very editor does not scruple to speak of him in the same Dedi- 
 cation as eetate antiquissimum, auctoritate gravissimum. And 
 such, I am confident, would be the impression left on the mind 
 of any man, who read him carefully through in a fair and can- 
 did spirit, and considered how accidental the greater part of 
 these lapses are, and how very small a proportion, after all, 
 they bear to the extent of his works. For this is what gives 
 effect to Daillé’s criticism in the whole of his second book, that 
 ranging over the writings of the Fathers, he selects nothing 
 whatever from them but their mistakes and defects; and 
 having done this with an air of seeming triumph, he exclaims, 
 these are the authors you are disposed to regard with reverence. 
 What if a Romanist (to avail myself of an illustration of his 
 own) were to collect together all the difficulties contained in 
 the Bible, and then ask in his turn, Is this the book which 
 you Protestants tell us he who runs may read? The inaccu- 
 racies of Justin are almost all of a kind that do not materially 
 affect his credit as a witness of the Church of his own time, 
 
 ‘See Burton’s Bampton Lectures,| * Dial. § 49. 
 
 Notes, p. 374. 8 Apol. I. § 81. 
 : Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 35, 7 Compare Apol. I. § 45; Dial. §§ 32. 
 § 51. 83 
 
 1 § 53. | 8 Thirlby, p. 75. 
 
Lect. IX.] THE FATHERS IGNORANT OF HEBREW. 167 
 
 whether as to its ordinances or doctrines. They are in general 
 mere slips of memory, perhaps occurring when he was writing 
 under difficulties, and without his references at hand. It is 
 not unreasonable to suppose, that a man who lived in such a 
 day, and who died a martyr’s death, did not compose with all 
 the advantages, which appertain to a quiet scholar in peaceful 
 times with his books about him. Indeed, the Apologies bear 
 internal evidence of having been written under persecution ; 
 and the Dialogue (if we are not to suppose the scene altogether 
 imaginary) of the author haying been on the eve of a voyage 
 when he maintained it. 
 
 There is another class of errors on which Daillé animadverts, 
 as shaking the authority of the Fathers—those which beset 
 them through their ignorance of Hebrew—ignorance which he 
 finds betrayed more particularly in their attempts at etymo- 
 logy.'. Some instances he gives; many more he might have 
 given. Thus Justin derives the word Satanas from Satan 
 (catay) an apostate, and nas (vas) a serpent,” Israel from Isra 
 (’Iopa), a man, and El (HA) power.’ Irenzeus says that in 
 the Hebrew tongue Jesus signifies “that Lord who contains 
 heaven and earth.”* He has equally strange interpretations 
 of Sabaoth and Adonai’; the former of which, he says, means 
 “voluntarium,”’ the latter “nominabile,” or perhaps it should 
 be read “ innominabile,” a substitute for the unutterable name, 
 which Irenzeus mistook for a word having the actual sense of 
 “innominabile.’” Other stumbles of the same kind may be 
 remarked in him. Clemens Alexandrinus tells us that Jacob 
 was “called Israel because he had seen the Lord God,’ ® and that 
 Moses was so called, because in the language of the Egyptians 
 water is pov,’ and Hosanna means “light and glory and 
 praise, with supplication to the Lord,’ * and that Rebecca is 
 equivalent to “patience” (v7roo0v7), where he speaks with Philo, 
 from whom he very often borrows his derivations,’ yet he else 
 where says that it is equivalent to the “glory of God.” Theo- 
 philus of Antioch, who had an unhappy taste for etymology, 
 seems to consider the Hebrew word Sabbath exactly translated. 
 
 1 Daille, pp. 248, 244. T Stromat. I. § xxiii. p. 412. 
 
 2 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 103. 8 Pedag. I. c. v. pp. 104, 105. 
 
 3\§ 125. 9J.¢. vy. p. 111, and Stromat. I. § v. 
 4 Treneus, II. c. xxiv. § 2. p. 334. 
 
 5 c, xxxv. § 3. 10 Stromat. IV. § xxy. p. 637. 
 
 ® Clem. Alex. Peedag. I. ¢. vil. p. 182. | 
 
168 ORIGEN’S KNOWLEDGE OF IT LIMITED. [Serres L. 
 
 by the Greek word é88ouds'; though certainly in his inter- 
 pretation of the word Eden, and of the word*® Noah he is not 
 liable to the same animadversion. There seems some reason to 
 think, I will add, that even Origen, the single one of the Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers, whose works have come down to us, supposed to 
 have had much knowledge of Hebrew, had but a limited amount 
 of it; for though his Hexapla proves that such as he had he 
 turned to the best account, and though the loss of that work 
 is, perhaps, the heaviest of any that biblical criticism ever 
 sustained, still his writings yield incidental evidence that his 
 acquaintance with Hebrew was not profound. Thus his cor- 
 respondent Africanus having started an objection to the 
 authority of the history of Susanna and the Elders, that it bore 
 internal marks of not having been written in Hebrew—for 
 that when one of the elders said he had seen Susanna in the 
 act of adultery under a holm-tree (do mptvov), Daniel’s answer 
 was, that the angel would saw him asunder (mpicecy) ; and 
 when the other said under a mastic-tree (d7o oxivov), Daniel's 
 answer again was, that he, too, would be cleft in twain 
 (cyicOjvat); the similarity of the Greek words mpivoy and 
 mpicew, cxivov and cyicOfvat, suggesting the turn of the 
 sentence, which similarity did not exist in the Hebrew*— 
 Origen replies, that “ Finding himself at a loss, he had re- 
 ferred the question to Jews not afew, asking them what 
 mpivos was called in their language, and what mpifewv, how 
 they would translate the plant oytvos, and how they would 
 render oxifev ; and though they profess themselves unable to 
 tell him what trees were indicated by these names, and so far 
 Origen might seem not more imperfectly informed in Hebrew 
 than themselves, seeing that what was a difficulty to him was a 
 difficulty to them ; yet, no doubt, these Jews could have readily 
 given the meaning of mpifevv and oyiferv in the Hebrew, which 
 Origen, it should appear, could not ; and altogether his mode of 
 putting the case argues that he had no confidence in his own 
 judgment on this occasion, or in his possessing the means of 
 forming one. Elsewhere he considers Sabaoth as in itself one 
 of the names of God, and couples it with Adonai as*another.® 
 And it is remarkable that though the first two books against 
 Celsus profess to be an answer to the objections of a Jew against 
 
 ' Theophilus ad Autolyeum, IT. § 12. * Origen, Ep. ad Africanum, § 6. 
 2 § 24, STINT. §/10. > Contra Celsum, I. § 25. 
 
Lect. IX.] USE OF ALLEGORY 169 
 
 Christianity,’ not a single argument in them turns upon the 
 Hebrew or touches on it ; and yet this work was written after 
 the greater part of his Commentary on the books of Scripture, 
 perhaps after the whole, except that on certain of the Pro- 
 phets ; so that we have here proof that the compositions which 
 have come down to us were principally framed by Origen when 
 his Hebrew scholarship was such as I have intimated.” But 
 allowing that the early Fathers, with one or two exceptions, 
 were ignorant of Hebrew, or at least imperfectly acquainted 
 with it, that circumstance does not shake their authority as 
 witnesses of the practices and doctrines of the Primitive Church. 
 It may make them in themselves less able expositors of the 
 Old Testament, but that is not the question. The value of 
 the Primitive Fathers arises chiefly from this, that living soon 
 after our Lord and the Apostles, soon after the times when 
 the Holy Ghost was most active in the Church leading the 
 disciples into all truth, and being themselves trusted by the 
 Church with high offices, they can scarcely fail of reflecting in 
 some considerable measure the impression which the Church 
 had taken, and must in the main communicate the notions of 
 doctrines to be taught and ordinances to be observed, not 
 which they themselves had derived from their Hebrew or other 
 scholarship, but which had been imparted to them from even 
 a higher source. 
 
 Another feature in the writings of the Fathers, which 
 Daillé produces as impairing their authority, is their heedless 
 use of allegory.? Here, again, Daillé’s instances are drawn as 
 usual, from the works of Post-Nicene Fathers: but I have no 
 wish to avail myself of that escape from his argument. The 
 same taste exhibits itself in the Ante-Nicene authors so uni- 
 versally, that if any one thing more than another can be pre- 
 dicated of the Primitive Church, it is that in the explanation 
 of ‘Scripture, and especially of the Old Testament, it was 
 governed by a principle of figurative interpretation ; but it is 
 
 1 Preefatio, § 6; IT. § 77; III. § 1. Ep. to the Thessalonians (ITI. § 65). 
 
 2 The work against Celsus was written 3 He says of them, “Scripturam in 
 after the Commentary on Genesis (VI. | vanos fumos conyertunt,” p. 248; and 
 § 49), after that on the Psalms (VII. § | again, “ quos ille (Augustinus) neglectd 
 $1), after that on Isaiah and Ezekiel, | literd, contortis allegoriis seepe frigidis 
 and some of the twelve prophets (VII. | et dilutis, vexat verius quam interpre- 
 § 11), after that on the Ep. to the | tatur.’—p, 250. 
 
 Romans (V. § 47), and on the First 
 
170 IN THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE, [Sentss I. 
 
 figurative interpretation for one object almost exclusively, viz. 
 to show that the Scriptures from first to last, even in their 
 most ordinary details, are filled with the subject of a Saviour, 
 I shall have a better opportunity of pointing this out by 
 examples at a future time, when I come to speak of the inter- 
 pretation of Scripture, and of the cast given to it by a know- 
 ledge of the F athers. At present I wall content myself with 
 saying, that this allegorical mode of understanding Scripture 
 and the facts recorded in Scripture, however indulged in by 
 the Fathers, and especially by the later Fathers to excess, is 
 certainly in itself of the very earliest date in the Christian 
 Church. For not to speak of the Epistle of Barnabas, written 
 within forty years of our Saviour’s death, which is full of it ; 
 the “senior quidam,’ to whom Ivenzeus refers from time to 
 time (not always, perhaps, the same person, but necessarily 
 contemporary or all but contemporary with the Apostles, 
 indeed called on one occasion “ senior apostolorum discipulus ”)! 
 is clearly actuated by it ; finding, as he does, in the extension 
 of the arms of Jesus on othe Cross, an emblem of the purpose 
 of God to gather unto Himself two people, the Jews and the 
 Gentiles.” So that the principle itself was no weakness in the 
 Fathers, no hallucination of theirs, but, however used by them 
 or even abused, was, as I have said, unquestionably a promi- 
 nent feature of the theology of the Primitive Church, to which 
 they merely gave expression. The tendency to this peculiar 
 character of exposition in the early Church was augmented, as 
 it should seem, by the reluctance observed in the Jews, at 
 least with the exception of those of Alexandria and of the 
 Alexandrian school, to discover in Scripture any meaning 
 beyond the literal, (whereby they cut themselves off from 
 much of the evidence it contained for a Saviour to come, and 
 hardened themselves in unbelief,* nay, often involved the 
 Law in positive contradictions, the language of it, when figu- 
 ratively intended, not answering to a strictly literal sense,*) 
 and was further augmented by a similar effect the same ad- 
 herence to the literal sense was seen to produce on the Ebion- 
 ites, (for they too disparaged the Saviour,) and by the manner 
 in which it was perceived to pave the way for heretics in 
 general to claim the authority of Scripture for doctrines the 
 
 ' Trenreus, IV. c. xxxii. § 1. SIV. c, xxvi. § 1. 
 2'V. o. Kvii. § 4, AV. c, xxxill. §/8. 
 
Lect. IX.] WHY SO FREQUENT IN THE FATHERS. La 
 
 most extravagant, (arguing, for example, as they did,’ against 
 the resurrection of the body from the text “flesh and blood 
 cannot inherit the kingdom of God,”’) and this not in a few 
 instances, but in so many, that more heresies, it was said, 
 might be referred to the process of expounding Scripture by 
 the letter, than even to the lusts and passions of mankind.” 
 Strong, however, as the appetite of the Fathers certainly was 
 on all these accounts for figures, I do not think any instance 
 can be produced from those before Origen of the literal mean- 
 ing of a passage of Scripture being evaporated in the figurative. 
 The Epistle of Barnabas, replete as it is with allegory, al- 
 ways betrays that its author regarded the incidents of the 
 Law, on which he founds his figures, as matters of fact. 
 With Justin it is the same. He may have his theory, for in- 
 stance, of the battle of the Israelites with Amalek, and of the 
 esoteric meaning it conveyed, but he evidently believes that 
 the battle was fought, and was attended by the circumstances 
 recorded in holy Writ.* Or he may find a deeper sense than 
 the apparent one in the milch kine conveying the cart which 
 contained the ark to the house of Joshua‘; but he had no 
 suspicion of the transaction itself being ideal. Theophilus 
 reviews all the details of the Creation as recorded by Moses, 
 and detects a mystical sense under almost every one of them ; 
 but he still regards the whole as a substantial history, and 
 rebukes the Greeks for the fabulous nature of their cosmogony.® 
 Irenzeus abounds in mystical applications of Scriptural inci- 
 dents, but still he cannot justly be charged with resolving the 
 fact into the figure. Take the history of Lot and his daughters, 
 a history which he construes allegorically (or rather the Pres- 
 byter does so, whose words he adopts) ; and still it will be 
 discovered, that he considers it as an actual event in that 
 patriarch’s life. And this, be it observed, belongs to a class 
 of the most trying cases of all that I could have named ; the 
 offensive character of the act putting the commentator under 
 a temptation to refine it into a parable. Still, I say, the 
 transaction is quoted as a real occurrence. It is expressly 
 
 ! Origen, De Princip. IV. § 22; Ire- 
 neeus, V. ¢. xiii. § 2. 3 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 181. 
 
 * Hereses quoque magis de carnali 41 Sam. vi. 14. 
 scripture intelligentia, quam de opere | 6 Justin Martyr, Dial. §§ 132, 133. 
 carnis nostre, ut plurimi sestimant.— 6 Theophilus ad Autol, If. ss 1), 12. 
 Origen, Fragment., vol. i. p. 41, Bened. 
 
 Ed. See also De Princip. IV. § 8. 
 
 
 
 
 
172 EXCESSIVE USE OF IT. [Serres I. 
 
 branded as a sin; and we are invited to give God thanks for 
 having provided a pardon for such sins of the patriarchs by 
 the Advent of our Lord. Tertullian has his allegories, but 
 not to the annihilation of the facts they grow out of. The 
 wise men, when they offered Jesus gold, and frankincense, and 
 myrrh, intimated that the curious arts of magic were all to be 
 surrendered, now that the infant Saviour had appeared. And 
 the command given them to return from Bethlehem by another 
 way, was expressive of the better course in which they were 
 to walk for the time to come.’ But the journey of the wise 
 men is considered to be a fact, for it is argued on as such in 
 the self-same passage. 
 
 It is not till we come to Clemens Alexandrinus, that we 
 have any misgivings whatever on the subject before us; or 
 that our suspicions are awaked of the real being sunk in the 
 allegorical. Alexandria, indeed, was the very focus of the 
 figurative exposition of Scripture; under the influence of 
 Philo the Alexandrian Jew, to whom Clemens refers, and from 
 whom he largely borrows? ; and of Aristobulus, a commentator 
 on the books of Moses of a still earlier date, he also of Alexan- 
 dria.*_ That Clemens finds mysteries in the incidents both of 
 the Old Testament and of the New, in great abundance, and 
 in very trivial matters, and refines on them to excess, is cer- 
 tain ; but whether he ever actually loses sight of the letter in 
 the spirit, may still be doubted ; though it perhaps may be 
 allowed that he does so write as to pave the way for Origen, 
 who succeeded him in the same school, and who also was 
 a great admirer of Philo, to do so in some instances ; and he 
 is the first of the Fathers, of whom it can be said that he 
 refines the fact away in the allegory; and even of him it 
 can only be said under great restriction. Origen’s general 
 notions upon this question seem to be most fairly represented 
 in his treatise against Celsus, the soberest of his works-— 
 viz. that we are to consider the narrative of Scripture as 
 having an obvious sense, but that we are not to rest in the 
 obvious ; nor in interpreting the Law are we to begin and end 
 with the letter *—and that in like manner, in contemplating 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Tdololatria, c. ix, heyopeveor ev TH mpodavei icropia, pid 
 ? Clem, Alex. Stromat. I. e. v. p, 333. | €v 77 kara Tas Aékets Kal TO ypappa 
 3 Origen, Contra Celsum, IV. § 51. voyoGecia.—Contra Celsum, LI, § 6, 
 
 a¢ ‘ , ‘ a a 
 Qs py) KaTaTavovtes TOV vouvy TaV 
 
Lect. IX.] PRINCIPLE INVOLVED IN IT. 173 
 
 the incidents related of Jesus, we shall not arrive at the 
 spectacle of the truth in full, unless we are guided by the 
 same rule.’ 
 
 Meanwhile it may be conceded to Daillé, that when the 
 Fathers wrote in the unelaborate manner they did, they could 
 have little idea that they were prescribing for our faith, or 
 settling our controversies.” But they are not the worse 
 qualified for exerting such influence on us, because they had 
 no intention of doing so. We may not be disposed to ac- 
 quiesce in the reasonableness of every allegory, which every 
 Father discovers or thinks he discovers in Scripture. The 
 Fathers themselves do not expect it. Origen expressly says, 
 that though we may be sure a fact is typical, we cannot be 
 sure that the type we see in it is the right one: we may sup- 
 pose e. g. fearlessly, that the Tabernacle in general is figurative, 
 but in applying the figure in detail we may be more or less 
 mistaken.*? But this general conclusion at least we may draw 
 from testimony so concurrent, that the spirit of the Primitive 
 Church in its interpretation, was to deal largely in allegories 
 by which the text was made continually to point to the 
 Saviour: or in other words, that an evangelical construction 
 of Scripture was the construction sanctioned by the Primitive 
 Church. And though the authority of the Fathers, as indi- 
 vidual interpreters, might be damaged by any extravagance in 
 an allegory, whilst they were in pursuit of this leading object ; 
 their authority as witnesses, that the interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture went very much upon that principle, would not suffer by 
 it; nay, would be rather promoted. And this, we must al- 
 ways remember, is the matter at issue, what authority is due 
 to the Fathers as witnesses of the character of the Primitive 
 Church. A child may produce more conviction in the minds of 
 a jury than the greatest wit, and certainly would do so, if his 
 
 10d oupBeBykevar dvayeypappeva 
 TO "Ingov OUK eV pry TH Ae Eee Kal TH 
 icropla tiv maoav exe Bewpiav THS 
 aAnGeias.—Contra Celsum, II. § 69. 
 
 # Vaile, p. 251. 
 
 3 Kal Ore pev olkovopiar eioi Twes 
 puortiKkal dyAovpevar but tav Ociov 
 ypapar, mavres kal ob dxepatdrar ot 
 TOV ™@ A6yo _Tpooidytwy memuoTev~ 
 
 kaow’ tives b€ abrat, ol eVyV@pOVvES kal | 
 
 drugor dporoyovor pup ciDEval. ev os » 
 
 emav 1) KaTacKevr) THS oKnvis dva- 
 YWOTKNT AL, TretOdjrevou TUmous elvat 
 Ta Yeypappeva, (yrotow a Surngorrat 
 epappooa éxdoT@ Toy Kara THY OKNYIY 
 Aeyopevav' 6oov pev emt TO meiBeo Oa 
 6Te TUTOS Twos eoTW 1 TKNVI), Ov 
 Suapapravovtes Goov Se emt TH TOE 
 TWh dgios THs ypaps epappdew TOV 
 oyov ov é€oTe TUTOs H oKnVn, eo 
 ére amoninrovtes, K.T.A.—Origen, De 
 
 
 
 Principlis, LY, § 9, 
 
174 DOCTRINAL ERRORS OF THE FATHERS [Serres I. 
 
 position happened to give him advantages, which the other 
 had not, for bearing testimony to the question in dispute. 
 Besides there is another light in which these allegories should 
 be regarded, as has been well observed by Dr. Waterland,! 
 viz. that they were probably in most instances not so much 
 intended to be interpretations of Scripture, as wses or im- 
 provements of it ; pious meditations upon Scripture ; spiritual 
 exercises, calculated, perhaps, beyond any other lessons to at- 
 tract attention and win the multitude of hearers. How popu- 
 lar are the Contemplations of Bishop Hall, which are of this 
 character ! 
 
 Another argument, by which Daillé detracts from the au- 
 thority of the Fathers is, that in many particulars of their 
 faith they were in acknowledged error. And then he briefly 
 recounts a list of charges of this kind, which he thinks might 
 be brought against them. Justin believed in the Millennium ; 
 regarded, as it should seem, the essence of the Deity to be 
 finite (a view which Daillé imputes to him on very insufficient 
 grounds, and by a technical construction of a loose phraseology, 
 never intended to be taken literally *); understood by the 
 sons of God going in unto the daughters of men, an inter- 
 course of fallen angels with women, of which demons were 
 the issue ; imagined that the souls even of the just and of the 
 prophets in the intermediate state, fell under some power 
 of the evil spirits, building his notion (a circumstance which 
 Daillé suppresses, though it qualifies his proposition) partly on 
 the capacity the witch enjoyed of calling up the soul of Samuel‘; 
 thought that the heathens such as Socrates, who lived up to 
 their reason, (wera Aoyou, the double sense of Adyos being, no 
 doubt, at the bottom of his argument’®) were in some sort 
 Christians. Trenzeus, besides partaking with Justin in some 
 of these errors, contended that our Lord was between forty 
 and fifty years of age when he died ; led into this mistake 
 partly, perhaps (as Augustine suspects °), by his ignorance of 
 
 ' On the Use and Value of Ecclesias- | would imply that God the Father was 
 tical Antiquity. Works, vol. v. p. 312. | not himself in heaven at that time, but 
 Oxf. Ed. 2 Daillé, p. 252. at Sodom, if it was the God the Father, 
 
 8 Daillé, p. 255. Justin is employed | who was there; Justin’s object being to 
 in convincing Trypho, that he is | foree on Trypho a recognition of God 
 wrong in supposing all that is said of | the Son.—Dial. ss 60. 127. 
 
 “the Lord” in the Old Testament ap- 4§ 105. 5 Apol. I. § 46. 
 
 pertains to God the Father—e. g. “The 6 See Dissert. Prey. p. exxxviii. Be- 
 Lord rained down fire from the Lord” | ned. Ed. 
 
 
 
Lect. IX.] NOT OF A KIND TO INVALIDATE 175 
 
 the years of the Consulate, in which Christ was born and 
 suffered, and partly by his eagerness to repel the argument of 
 the Gnostics, who found a type of their thirty Afons in the 
 age at which they maintained Christ was crucified, seeing that 
 he began to be about thirty years of age when he was bap- 
 tized, 7. e. in their reckoning twenty-nine, and that his teach- 
 ing lasted twelve months only (the number of another group 
 of their Alons) being the period which was announced for it 
 before by the prophet, when he spake of the “acceptable year 
 of the Lord.” Irenzeus, therefore, not content with showing, 
 as he does, that Christ’s ministry must have extended beyond 
 one year by the fact of his attending at least three Passovers, 
 further impugns their claim to the symbol of thirty years 
 by lengthening the life of Jesus to more than forty, relying 
 upon the reasoning that he had to sanctify every age of man 
 by the corresponding one of his own: infants, by his infancy ; 
 boys, by his boyhood ; men, by his maturity ; and old men, 
 by his incipient decay ; upon the text, “Thou art not yet fifty 
 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham ?”! and upon the 
 tradition of the elders from St. John. Irenzeus also maintains 
 that disembodied souls retain the form of the bodies they 
 occupied, so that they may still be recognised, as the soul 
 of Lazarus was by the rich man.” Again, Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus teaches that the Gentiles were in some sort justified by 
 philosophy* ; meaning, however, no more than that the virtue 
 there was in it, and which was itself supplied by God, trained 
 them for a better faith, as the Law did the Jews; that those 
 who lived before the Advent of the Saviour, could not be 
 justly condemned if they had no option with respect to ac- 
 cepting or rejecting his message ; and that therefore, after the 
 crucifixion, he descended into Hades to publish to them the 
 Gospel and its conditions *; and that punishments are purga- 
 torial, and therefore not eternal. 
 
 Daillé proceeds through the other Fathers in the same way, 
 but I shall not follow him, having now produced a number of 
 specimens of the class of errors into which the Fathers are in 
 the habit of falling, to give you a just idea of them, and to 
 satisfy you that they are not of a kind to invalidate the 
 authority of those writers as witnesses to the great character- 
 
 ' Treneeus, IT. c. xxii. 5 Stromat. I. § xx. p. 377. 
 2 ¢, xxxiv. § 1. 4 VI. § vi. p. 763, et seq. 
 
176 THEIR AUTHORITY AS WITNESSES. (Senus I. 
 
 istics of the Primitive Church, both with regard to its doc- 
 trines and ritual. If we had pretended that the Fathers were 
 infallible, it would have been another thing, but we made no 
 such claims for them. These errors, you will have seen, are 
 almost all of them private conjectures on speculative points of 
 subordinate importance, which do not affect any of the great 
 doctrines of Christianity, for on such all these parties are 
 agreed. It may be a chronological blunder to contend that 
 our Lord was between forty and fifty when he was crucified, 
 but that is all that can be said. It would have been a vital 
 matter to have disputed his crucifixion in the flesh at all, the 
 circumstance that made it availing, the union of the Godhead 
 and Manhood in the Person of the Saviour, and the redemp- 
 tion it wrought for the sins of the whole world; but in these 
 latter positions they are of one consent, and by their unanimity 
 afford us all reasonable assurance that the Primitive Church 
 was agreed on them too. So far from fundamental are the 
 questions here agitated, that it may be doubted whether our 
 own Church, with all her formularies and Articles, would 
 touch the case of one who held any or all of them, so as to 
 exclude him from her communion. When the early Fathers 
 wrote, which was before successive ages, each profiting by the 
 labours of those before it, had sifted theology, before Councils 
 of the Church had been assembled, and before nice and exact 
 Confessions of faith had been framed—all these measures, be it 
 remembered, proceeding upon the principle not of devising 
 what was new, but of determining and fixing what was taught, 
 though not technically expressed, from the beginning—when 
 the early Fathers wrote, I say, before all this investigation 
 into the details of Divinity had occurred, there must have been 
 many lesser points unsettled, and great room for the fancies 
 of individuals dispersed over the world, with not much op- 
 portunity of personal conference and with no rail to hold 
 by, to wander into peculiar thoughts. And this consideration 
 only gives greater value to their testimony when it is unani- 
 mous, as on all main things it is, and tendS even to raise their 
 authority on the subjects for which we use it. 
 
 The next circumstance which Daillé represents as invali- 
 dating the authority of the Fathers, is their disagreement one 
 with another ; the old story, in short, of Father against Father. 
 But what are these discrepancies which are supposed to be so 
 
 
 
Lect. 1X.] DISCREPANCIES OF THE EARLY FATHERS. Levi 
 
 fatal to the credit of the Fathers? None are specified of the 
 Ante-Nicene Fathers, at least one with another, save the tales 
 of Victor’s controversy with the Asiatics on the time of keep- 
 ing Easter, and Cyprian’s with Stephanus on the subject of 
 Baptism of heretics,’ unless it be that other respecting the age 
 of Jesus at his crucifixion, in which Irenzeus disagrees with 
 Tertullian”; and that still more minute one respecting the soul 
 of Samuel, which Justin represents as really called up by the 
 witch *; whilst Tertullian regards it as merely a spectral 
 illusion.* The other instances adduced by Daillé are those of 
 Ante-Nicene Fathers differing from Post-Nicene, as Tertullian 
 from Augustine on the nature of the soul’s generation, which 
 is nearly the only one of this class; for another of fasting on 
 Saturday, in which Ignatius is described as opposed to the 
 Apostolical Constitutions, is a spurious case, the Epistle of 
 Ignatius to the Philippians, on which it is founded, being, as 
 we have already observed, apocryphal’: or of Post-Nicene 
 Fathers, and many of those of quite a late date, differing from 
 one another. With such cases as these I am not careful to 
 engage ; the testimony of the Fathers becoming less interesting, 
 and our anxiety to defend it less sensitive in proportion as 
 they are removed from primitive times, and from the Church 
 of which we seek to ascertain the features. But how few and 
 how unimportant are the discrepancies between the Ante-Ni- 
 cene Fathers, is evident from the perpetual recurrence we find, 
 in the detractors from their worth, of these two cases of the 
 Paschal and Baptismal controversy. These are always put for- 
 ward as their greatest grievances, as the foremost criminations 
 under this head of which they can bethink themselves. Yet 
 how far from being matters of primary importance are these ! 
 And if the peace of the Church was disturbed to the degree in 
 which it was disturbed, by two such contests as these, both of 
 them springing out of extreme jealousy of innovation, and a 
 determination on either side to adhere to what either party 
 considered to be a primitive usage, how certain may we be 
 that the same persons would not have submitted to any un- 
 sound compromise on matters more serious; and how safely 
 may we conclude, that if on such matters they are unanimous, 
 their unanimity is the result of their confidence, that the faith 
 ' Daillé, p. 296. apne te 4 Tertullian, De Anima, e. lvii. 
 3 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 105. 5 Daillé, p. 297. 
 N 
 
178 THE APPEAL TO THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH ([Sentes I. 
 
 they hold in those particulars was that once delivered to the 
 saints ! 
 
 Finally, Daillé contends that even supposing the Fathers to 
 be not so obscwre as they are, and to deserve more authority 
 than they have, neither Romanists nor Protestants do ac- 
 knowledge them as umpires in their disputes, but accept and 
 reject them at pleasure, and in a degree which suits their own 
 convenience. Thus Protestants admit nothing but the canon- 
 ical Scriptures as their rule of faith, this dogma being the 
 very corner-stone of the Reformation'; and in confirmation 
 of the fact, he cites Calvin, Bucer, Melancthon, Luther, Beza, 
 though admitting that the chief among them (and the name 
 of Jewel he here introduces) did refer to the books of the 
 Fathers in their disputations. But it will be found, says he, 
 on an accurate examination of their manner of reasoning, that 
 they used them not to establish their own opinions, but to 
 refute those of the Romanists.* I think he would have a 
 diticulty in proving this in the case of Jewel at least. In 
 the beginning of his Apology he proposes to make the works 
 of the Fathers an element of his demonstration, that the 
 Reformers had right on their side. “Quod si docemus sacro- 
 sanctum Dei Evangelium, et veteres episcopos, atque Ecclesiam 
 primitivam nobiscum facere,’* is the language which he uses ; 
 not simply is against the Romanists, but nobiscum facere, is 
 with us ; and the whole tenour of his argument is consistent 
 with this exposition of it. Nor does the sixth Article of our 
 Chureh, which is of much more consequence, speak to the 
 exclusion of all respect for the decisions of the Primitive 
 Church in the manner Daillé understands this maxim of the 
 Reformation ; and as his reference to Jewel indicates that he 
 involves the Church of England in this observation, it is 
 proper for us to appeal to the authoritative documents of that 
 Church. There is nothing in that Article which is not per- 
 fectly consistent with what we are pleading for. “ We allow 
 no doctrine as necessary,” to use the words of one of the 
 soundest of our divines, Dr. Waterland, “ which stands only 
 on Fathers or on tradition, oral or written ; we admit none 
 
 1 Daillé, p. 306. 
 2 Sed si eorum mentem atque insti- | ad suas constituendas Patrum uti testi- 
 tutum accurate inspexeris, reperies eos | monio.—Dailleé, p. 310. 
 
 ad refutandum non ad confirmandum, 3 Bishop Jewel’s Works, vol. iv. p. 12, 
 ad evertendas opiniones Romanas, non} Oxf. Ed. 
 
Lect. IX.}] NOT EXCLUDED BY THE SIXTH ARTICLE. 179 
 
 for such, but what is contained in Scripture, and proved 
 by Scripture, rightly interpreted. And we know of no way 
 more safe in necessaries, to preserve the right interpretation, 
 than to take the ancients along with us. We think it a good 
 method to secure our rule of fuith against impostures of all 
 kinds, whether of enthusiasm or false criticism, or conceited 
 reason, or oral tradition, or the assuming dictates of an in- 
 fallible chair. If we thus preserve the true sense of Seripture, 
 and upon that sense build our faith, we then build upon 
 Scripture only ; for the sense of Scripture is Scripture. Sup- 
 pose a man were to prove his legal title to an estate, he ap- 
 peals to the Jaws; the true sense and meaning of the laws 
 must be proved by the best rules of interpretation ; but after 
 all it is the Jaw that gives the title, and that only. In like 
 manner, after using all proper means to come at the sense of 
 _ Seripture (which is Scripture), it is that and that only, which 
 we ground our faith upon, and prove our faith by. We allege 
 not Fathers as grounds, or principles, or foundations of our 
 faith, but as witnesses, and as interpreters, and faithful con- 
 veyers.”' That is the aspect in which the Church of England 
 contemplates the early Fathers. And if the Church of Rome 
 does not hold them in equal honour,—and the numerous 
 examples which Daillé adduces of this in the person of Petau 
 (Petavius), and other Jesuits, tend to show that it does not,— 
 this should only lead us to conclude that their testimony is not 
 lightly to be thrown away by those who would successfully 
 contend with the Church of Rome. For what can have 
 created this distaste for them in the minds of Romanists, but 
 consciousness that they bore witness against them? And 
 we know, in fact, what I have often suggested before, that 
 Bishop Bull, in his defence of the Nicene Creed, is as much 
 engaged in upholding the authority of the primitive Fathers 
 against this same Jesuit Petau, as he is in maintaining it 
 against Zuicker a Socinian, or Sandius an Arian.? Indeed, 
 A is precisely the same feeling which prompts the Romanists 
 to disparage the primitive Fathers, that prompts Daillé and 
 the foreign Protestants to do the same ; viz. that their autho- 
 rity is unpropitious to them both. 
 
 
 
 ! Waterland, On The Use and Value ? Works of Bishop Bull, vol. i. p. 258, 
 of Ecclesiastical Antiquity—Works, vol. | Oxf. Fd., and Def. Fid. Nie. sect. 2, ¢, 
 y. p. 316, Oxf. Ed. iv. § 9. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 DISCRETION OF OUR CHURCH [Serres T. 
 
 It is true that our Church exercises a certain discretion in 
 the use of the Fathers: some rites or doctrines she may not 
 adopt, because she may think they have only the partial sup- 
 port of primitive testimony ; such as Infant Communion, 
 which rests, as we have seen, on a single witness, and that of 
 the third century. Some, however innocent in themselves, 
 she may reject, because she finds no trace of them in Scrip- 
 ture ; such as the use of oil, milk and honey at or after Bap- 
 tism, or of water with the wine in the Eucharist ; whereas in 
 most cases, where she follows the Fathers, she sees in them 
 the development of some hint at least in Scripture. Some 
 she qualifies from an experience that they have been the 
 parents of dangerous superstitions ; such as the invocation of 
 the Holy Ghost on the elements in the Eucharist, or eri - 
 KXnows, as it is called, a primitive feature, which, though once 
 distinctly forming a part of her Communion office, and though 
 the parallel prayer is still retained in the office of Baptism for 
 consecrating the water where there could be no abuse, she has 
 not indeed withdrawn out of fear of encouraging the error 
 of Transubstantiation, but modified by using the terms, 
 “Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech Thee, 
 and grant that we, receiving these thy creatures of bread and 
 wine according to thy Son our Savicur Jesus Christ’s holy 
 institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be 
 partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood ;”’ such, again, 
 as prayers and offerings for the dead, another primitive cus- 
 tom which she has reduced in her Communion office to a 
 thanksgiving for those that are departed in the faith and fear 
 of God, and a prayer that “with them we may be partakers 
 of God’s heavenly kingdom ;”’ not venturing to go further 
 in that office more especially, remembering the masses for the 
 dead of old; but in the Burial Service praying “that we, 
 with all those that are departed in the true faith of God’s 
 holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, 
 both in body and soul.” 
 
 I adduce these instances as furnishing an idea of the man- 
 ner in which the Church of England exercises a judgment of 
 her own in handling the Fathers ; now and then, for reasons 
 I have said, walking with them delicately ; in general, where 
 their evidence is clear and unanimous, and especially where it 
 responds to some intimation in Scripture otherwise scarcely 
 
Lect. IX.) IN HER APPEAL TO ANTIQUITY. 181 
 
 intelligible from its brevity, greatly resting upon it. The 
 questions of Infant Baptism, sponsors at Baptism, promises at 
 Baptism, a confession of faith at Baptism ; the precise nature 
 of the Eucharist, whether in any sense sacrificial or not, 
 whether to be partaken of in both kinds and by all; a Clergy, 
 whether an order distinct from the Laity, whether distin- 
 guished into three ranks; a form of Common Prayer in a 
 language understood by the people; the Apostolical succes- 
 sion, the virtues of absolution, the character of schism—all 
 these are subjects which enter into the composition of the 
 Church of England, and are to be resolved more or less by 
 antiquity. Accordingly, to enumerate them, is enough to 
 point out the expediency of abiding by the watch-word of the 
 best champions of our form of faith, and of upholding what it 
 has been the great object of these Lectures to ‘assert—Scrip- 
 ture and the Primitive Church. For we may be quite sure 
 that if the Reformers drew their conclusions from these two 
 premises, we shall not be able to defend those conclusions, 
 _if we repudiate one of them. 
 
182 OCCASION OF BARBEYRAC’S WORK. [Sentes I. 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Oceasion of Barbeyrac’s work. His imperfect acquaintance with the Fathers, 
 and misconstruction of their writings. His charge against Justin, that he en- 
 couraged volunteering martyrdom, examined. “Sentiments of Clemens, Ter- 
 tullian, Origen, Cyprian, on this subject. Warmth of their language accounted 
 for. Martyrdom instrumental in the establishment of Christianity. Language 
 of the Fathers concerning marriage explained by the circumstances of their 
 times. True view of the case given by Tertullian in his treatise Ad Uxorem. 
 Extravagances of later times not chargeable on tlie early Fathers. 
 
 HE work which, next to that of Daillé, has produced an 
 
 - unfavourable impression of the Fathers on the minds of a 
 great number of persons, is Barbeyrac’s “ On the Morality of 
 the Fathers.” ’ And to complete my review of the objections 
 which have been brought against these authors, I shall now 
 bestow a short notice upon that treatise. This was originally 
 an incidental attack upon them, made by a Professor of Law 
 at Groningen in the course of a Preface which he wrote to 
 Puffendorf's “Right of Nature and Nations.” This Preface, 
 so far as it related to the Fathers, was replied to by Ceillier, 
 a French Benedictine ; and Barbeyrac, finding a rejoinder to 
 Ceillier, which he set himself to compose, grow too bulky to 
 be included in a new edition of his Puffendorf, published it as 
 an independent essay, with the title I have given. It will be 
 perceived, therefore, that the treatise originated under juris- 
 prudential rather than ecclesiastical auspices. Moreover, it 
 seems very doubtful whether its author had carefully read the 
 Fathers, on whose morality it comments; or had his mind 
 imbued with the spirit, which the actual perusal of them 
 would have left on it. Indeed the review of them which he 
 1 Traite de la Morale des Peres de | on fait diverses réflexions sur plusieurs 
 I'Eglise : of en defendant un article de | matitres importantes. Par Jean Bar- 
 Ja Preface sur Puffendorf, contre I’ Apo- beyrac, Professeur en Droit a Groningue, 
 logie de la Morale des Péres du P. Ceil- | et Membre de la Société Royale des Sci- 
 
 lier, religieux Bénédictin de la Congre- | ences a Berlin. Amsterdam, 1728. 
 gation de St. Vanne et de St. Hydulphe, | 
 
 
 
Lect. X.} HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE FATHERS 183 
 
 takes, extending over the first six centuries, renders it impos- 
 sible that he should have mastered all the Fathers on his list ; 
 or should have known more of many of them than he could 
 get at second hand from indexes, abridgments, and extracts, 
 which others might have furnished him with. Moreover, on 
 his antagonist accusing him of having stolen from Daillé’s 
 treatise, and from the Bibliotheque Universelle, Barbeyrac’s 
 answer is, “‘ Why does he not add M. Dupin, Usher, Bayle, Ber- 
 nard, Claude, La Placette, Buddeus, Noodt, the Abbé Fleury, 
 Grabe, La Croze, and others, whom I quote, some more, some 
 less often? Why does he not produce my own declaration in 
 the Preface, that ‘I had purposely chosen such examples as 
 have been advanced before; and are found cited in very com- 
 mon books ?’”? And, in fact, on one occasion, he pleads guilty 
 to having been misled by M. Dupin, on whose authority he had 
 relied, to charge Athenagoras wrongfully with teaching the 
 _ worship of angels “—a confession which may also perhaps lead 
 us of ourselves to conclude that he had not examined for him- 
 self Justin any more than Athenagoras; for the passage in 
 Justin, which is singularly parallel to this one cited from 
 Athenagoras, on the same subject, the worship of angels, 
 would, in fact, have offered him very much more plausible 
 reasons for laying that error to the account at least of Justin 
 (and for Barbeyrac’s argument it was quite immaterial which 
 of the two was the culprit’), the Romanists having positively 
 laid claim to the paragraph as teaching this doctrine ; and 
 though Bishop Bull and other Protestant scholars have suc- 
 cessfully resisted their claim to it, yet certainly the Romanists 
 have more to say for themselves in this instance than they 
 often have when referring to antiquity. The place, how- 
 ever, in Justin is so well known, and is so notorious a 
 bone of contention between the two parties, that it is not 
 likely it should have escaped the notice of Barbeyrac (for it 
 does escape it, both when he is speaking of Athenagoras 
 here, and afterwards when animadverting on the defective 
 morality of Justin), had he ever read Justin’s works for 
 himself; and it is in relation to this conclusion that I ad- 
 vert to it. Again, from the way in which he asserts dog- 
 matically and of himself, that St. Paul was reprobating the 
 
 
 
 1 Barbeyrac, p. 11. 2p. 20. % Justin Martyr, Apol. I. g 6. 
 
184 NOT DERIVED FROM PERSONAL STUDY. [Senres I. 
 
 allegorical spirit adopted by the Fathers! from the Jews, 
 when he cautioned Timothy against giving “ heed to fables and 
 endless genealogies,” ” he would seem to be unconscious of the 
 text being usually applied to the system of Afons of the Gnos- 
 tic heretics, which Irenzeus is engaged in exposing, and that 
 Irenzeus himself so understands it, claiming it in that sense in 
 his very first paragraph,* as he does elsewhere in his work—I 
 say, from the way in which Barbeyrac overlooks all this, it 
 might seem that he was not conversant with the writings of 
 Irenzeus, however he might collect together a few paragraphs 
 from him, which furnished the ground of his objection ; which, 
 however, in that Father are extremely few. Again, from his 
 manner of speaking of Clemens Alexandrinus, I should be dis- 
 posed to draw the same inference, viz. that he had not made 
 himself thoroughly acquainted with his works from his own 
 perusal of them. Thus Barbeyrac gives an analysis of the 
 Peedagogue of Clemens, and then concludes, “ Now let them 
 show me in this Peedagogue a single virtue of which Clemens 
 has explained the nature and office in such a manner and to 
 such an extent as to enlighten, to convince, to touch, in a word, 
 to put a man in a condition to practise it as he ought. Let 
 them point out to me a single duty, which is there set on its 
 right foundation and developed as it should be.”* But what 
 could be more foreign to the purport of Clemens’ work than to 
 do this? In his Hortatory Address he had converted his hea- 
 then. In his Pzedagogue he initiates his new convert into the 
 practical effects which his conversion to Christianity must have 
 on him in all the details, even the most ordinary, of his daily 
 life. And no doubt it was a matter of the first importance, 
 that a strong line of distinction like this should be drawn be- 
 tween the Christian and the Pagan. A person imbued with the 
 writings of Clemens could scarcely have raised against him 
 such an objection as this of Barbeyrac’s.° Again, Barbeyrac 
 would have found nothing extraordinary in Clemens making 
 his Gnostic a Stoic by exempting him from all passions,° and 
 yet at other times denouncing the Stoics as holders of impious 
 opinions’ ; nor would have seen any contradiction in this for 
 his admirers to reconcile ; had he been aware from the perusal 
 
 ' Barbeyrac, p. 98. ea Fanis 1. As 5 See Bishop Kaye. Clemens, p. 110. 
 3 Treneus, Preef. ad Lib, I. ® Barbeyrae, p. 62. 
 4 Barbeyrac, p. 53. T pp. 63, 64. 
 
Leor. X.] KEY TO HIS OBJECTIONS. 185 
 
 of his writings, that Clemens himself over and over again pro- 
 fesses his own attachment to an eclectic philosophy ; a philo- 
 sophy which enabled him to pick and choose out of all the 
 schools whatever he found to be good in any; holding that 
 whatever was so, was dispersed amongst them by the dis- 
 pensation of God, from whom all good emanates ; and who 
 was thus sowing the world with good principles, which were 
 by degrees to be ripened into a perfect knowledge of his will 
 through direct revelation." Much other internal evidence of 
 the proposition, for which I am contending, viz. that Barbeyrac 
 had taken his information at second hand, and was not master 
 of his authors, will transpire in the course of my remarks on 
 his treatise. I dwell on it in the first instance, because it 
 seems to me to be the key by which the argument of his book 
 is almost always to be turned. He disputes on abstract prin- 
 ciples without any allowance for, or, apparently, any sufficient 
 knowledge of the accidents, which were necessarily to be taken 
 into account in the application of them to the writings of the 
 Fathers. Yet what is consistent with morality under certain 
 circumstances, is not so under others. An act that would be 
 wrong in the way of aggression is right in the way of self- 
 defence. David and his men would not have been justified in 
 eating the shewbread under ordinary circumstances, but under 
 the pressure of hunger they were so. St. Paul would not 
 have done well to cast the wheat into the sea, had he been 
 sailing in smooth water; but when the tempest put men’s 
 lives in danger, he was right in doing so.? Accordingly, in 
 judging of the morality of the Fathers, before we pronounce 
 our verdict we must know their position. There is no evi- 
 dence that Barbeyrac had properly acquainted himself with 
 this ; rather, evidence that he had not; and it may be pre- 
 sumed that much of the unfairness with which he treats them, 
 is imputable to that cause. 
 
 I shall not think it necessary to follow him through the in- 
 stances he gives of what he considers to be defective morality 
 in the Fathers, according to the order in which he states them, 
 but produce them, as may be most convenient for the illustra- 
 tion of the proposition I have just laid down. And, indeed, 
 many of them seem to be rather cases of misunderstanding 
 
 1 See Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. ¢. vii. p. 338, et alibi. 
 2 Hooker, Eccl. Polity, V. c. ix. § 1. 
 
186 THE DISPOSITION TO COURT MARTYRDOM [Serres I. 
 
 of Scripture, or errors of judgment, than evidences of bad 
 morality. For example, Irenzeus may have given very weak 
 reasons for there being four Gospels, and only four (though, 
 weak as the reasons are, we are very thankful for this early 
 testimony of the fact itself). But how can it serve the pur- 
 pose of Barbeyrac, who alludes to it, p. 20; his business pro- 
 fessing to be with the morality of the Fathers? So again, 
 numerous allegories, particularly those of Origen, might be 
 adduced by Barbeyrae in proof, if he pleased, of want of 
 judgment in the Fathers; but they can scarcely be used by 
 him, as they are,' in evidence of their bad morality without 
 great straining of the argument. 
 
 I will first advert, then, to the accusation he brings against 
 Justin, and eventually, indeed, against other Fathers, of en- 
 couraging in the Christians a disposition to volunteer martyr- 
 dom, “Lest any one should say,” writes Justin,’ “away, 
 then, with you all, and put yourselves to death, and go to 
 God, and do not give us the trouble. I will tell you why we 
 do not do this; and why, when we are questioned, we boldly 
 confess that we are Christians. We have been taught that 
 God did not make the world to no purpose, but for the sake 
 of the human race, and we have already said that he has 
 pleasure in those who imitate his attributes, and is displeased 
 with those who embrace what is wicked, whether in word or 
 deed. If, then, we should all destroy ourselves, we should be 
 the cause, as far as in us les, of preventing any from being 
 born, or from learning the Divine doctrines, or should even 
 stop the existence of the race of man, herein acting contrary 
 to the will of God. No, being questioned we do not deny, 
 being conscious of nothing wrong, and accounting it impious 
 not to tell the truth in all things, for this we know to be ac- 
 ceptable to God.” Here, says Barbeyrac, Justin, so far from 
 expressing any disapproval of the- act of  self-immolation, 
 rather may seem to commend it.’ But had he considered the 
 circumstances which gave occasion to these reflections of Jts- 
 tin, he would have found that his censure is misplaced. Jus- 
 tin had been calling the attention of the Roman Emperors to 
 the sufferings the Christians had been undergoing at Rome at 
 the hands of Urbicus. He states the case of a woman, her- 
 
 ' Barbeyrac, p. 103. 2 Justin Martyr, Apol. II. § 4. 3 Barbeyrac, p. 18. 
 
Lect. X.] NOT ENCOURAGED BY JUSTIN. 187 
 
 self a convert to Christianity, who had a wicked and _ sottish 
 husband. She wished to separate from him, but was dis- 
 suaded for a time by her friends. Eventually, however, she 
 procured a divorce and released herself from him. He then 
 denounced her as a Christian. She appealed to the Emperor ; 
 and whilst the appeal was pending, was safe. He then turned 
 his attack upon Ptolemy, her teacher. Through a friend of 
 Ptolemy’s he got at a confession of his own, that he was a 
 Christian ; and on Urbicus charging Ptolemy with the fact he 
 did not deny it. Accordingly Urbicus ordered him away to 
 punishment. Whereupon one Lucius presumed to ask Urbicus, 
 how he could let thieves, adulterers, and murderers go free, 
 whilst he proceeded so severely with a man who bore the name 
 of Christian. Thou, too, art one of them, was the reply of 
 Urbicus. Yes, was the answer; and he was condemned.! 
 It is clear, therefore, that the confession of Lucius was made 
 ina moment of indignation, and that he had no deliberate 
 intention of inviting martyrdom, but that being directly 
 charged with being a Christian, he admitted that a Chris- 
 tian he was ; whilst Justin, having affirmed the unlawfulness 
 of suicide, affirms further the unlawfulness of saving life by 
 telling a lie; so far justifying Lucius, as he elsewhere does the 
 Christians in general when reduced to that alternative ; and 
 abjuring the evasion, 
 
 7 yAaoo 6uopoxev, 1 Sé ppyyv dvaporos.? 
 
 Would M. Barbeyrac have found better morality in a different 
 course ? Here we see the circumstances of the case entirely 
 alter the complexion of Burbeyrac’s argument. Nor, indeed, 
 is there in the Fathers that blind sanction of the merit of 
 martyrdom which has been sometimes ascribed to them. Cer- 
 tainly some strong passages in admiration of the martyrs may 
 be occasionally met with in them; excused, perhaps, if not 
 defended, by considerations which I will offer by and by. 
 But the language of Clemens Alexandrinus is this, “ When 
 the Lord says, when they persecute you in one city, tee into 
 another, he does not encourage us to fly from persecution as 
 though it were an evil; neither does he command us to escape 
 it by flight, as if we were fearful of death; but he wishes 
 us not to be the cause, sole or concurrent, of ill to any man, 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, Apol. IT. § 2. 21. § 89. 
 
188 SENTIMENTS OF CLEMENS, TERTULLIAN,  ([Sentes I. 
 
 whether to ourselves, or to the persecutor and murderer. For 
 in some sort he proclaims that we must take care of ourselves ; 
 and he who is disobedient (to this precept) is rash and fool- 
 hardy : and if he who slays man, who is God’s (property), 
 sins against God ; so he who offers himself to the tribunal is 
 accounted guilty of slaying man (viz. himself) ; and such an 
 one would he be, who does not avoid persecution, but allows 
 himself to be taken, out of mere bravado.’’' And again, still 
 more explicitly, “A man is not a Gnostic” (a perfect Christian, 
 in Clemens’ sense) “ merely because he possesses blind courage ; 
 for children are bold through mere ignorance, and will, for in- 
 stance, touch fire; and wild beasts will rush against a spear. 
 ; He who is truly brave, when brought into manifest 
 danger through the malignity of the multitude, takes with a 
 good courage whatever befalls him: herein differing from 
 others called martyrs, inasmuch as these make the occasion for 
 themselves, throwing themselves into danger’s way, I know 
 not how, for we do not wish to speak harshly of them ; 
 whereas he taking care of himself, as reason directs, in the 
 first instance, afterwards when God really calls him, gives 
 himself up freely, and confirms the call, conscious that he has 
 not been precipitate on his own part, and plays the man ready 
 to be tested in that fortitude which is according to truth.”” 
 In Tertullian we find several passages to the same effect: one 
 in the Apology,’ “Why do you complain that we persecute 
 you,” is the taunt put into the mouth of the oppressors of the 
 Christians, “if it is your pleasure to suffer? Certainly we 
 are willing to suffer,” is the reply, “but after the fashion of 
 one engaged in war, who does not delight in the danger he is 
 running, but nevertheless fights with all his might; and if he 
 conquers, rejoices in the battle, which has brought him glory 
 and spoil, howbeit he liked it not beforehand:” another in 
 the De Corona, where Tertullian, having himself become a 
 Montanist, is sneering at this very moderation as characteristic 
 of the Church; and which, therefore, was once his own.* 
 “ Sentence,” says he, “is passed on him, (7. e. on this refractory 
 soldier who would not wear the wreath,) whether by Chris- 
 tians or heathens, I know not, for they would not differ, as on 
 a foolhardy person, who by his scruples was troubling the 
 
 c 
 
 ' Clem. Alex. Stromat. IV. ¢. x. * Tertullian, Apol. ec. ]. 
 a Villveciexis poy Ls * De Corona, e¢. i. 
 
Lect. X.] ORIGEN AND CYPRIAN ON MARTYRDOM. 189 
 
 Christian name ;” and in his De Idololatria,’ he intimates in 
 the same manner that many (multi) Christians were of opinion 
 that no man should volunteer to produce himself. Origen, 
 though more unguarded in his language, in one of his treatises 
 at least, on the subject of martyrdom and its merits than any 
 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, still administers the same caution 
 to those who would needlessly court it. In commenting on 
 John xi. 54, “Jesus, therefore, walked no more openly among 
 the Jews, but went thence into a country near to the wilder- 
 ness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his 
 disciples,” he expresses himself as follows: “This and the like, 
 I suppose, was left on record, because the Word wished to di- 
 vert us from rushing wildly and unreasonably on a trial to the 
 death for the truth and on martyrdom. For though it is well 
 that one who happens to encounter the trial for the confession 
 of Jesus should not shrink from such confession, nor hesitate 
 to die for the truth, it is no less well that he should not give 
 occasion for any such temptation, but by every means avoid it, 
 not only because the issue of it as regards himself is uncertain, 
 but in order that we may not be the cause of others becoming 
 more wicked who may not actually be guilty of shedding our 
 blood, if we do our best to get out of the way of those who 
 are plotting against our lives, but who would suffer the hea- 
 vier punishment on our account, if, through self-conceit and a 
 want of consideration for them, we give ourselves up to be 
 slain without any urgent necessity.” In Cyprian we have 
 still the same language : “ Meanwhile, brethren, do ye accord- 
 ing to the discipline in which ye have been instructed by me, 
 and agreeably to the Lord’s precepts, keep quiet ; nor let any 
 among you stir up any commotion amongst the brethren, nei- 
 ther offer himself to the Gentiles of his own accord. For his 
 turn to speak is when he has been apprehended and delivered 
 up. Since in that hour the Lord who is in us will speak, and 
 who would rather that we should confess than profess.”* 
 And, again, in his treatise De Lapsis: “Therefore the Lord 
 hath commanded us to flee in persecution, instructing us so to 
 do by word and by example. For since the crown (of mar- 
 tyrdom ?) descends by the favour of God, and cannot be re- 
 ceived unless the hour for wearing it is come, whosoever with- 
 
 1 De Idololatria, c. xxii. 
 * Origen, Comment. in Joannem, vol. 
 
 iy. p. 397, Benedict. Ed. 
 % Cyprian, Ep. Ixxxiii. 
 
 
 
190 STRONG LANGUAGE OF THE FATHERS  (Sentss I. 
 
 draws himself meanwhile, still, however; abiding in Christ, 
 does not renounce his faith, but only awaits his turn.”? 
 Moreover, Cyprian sets an example in his own person of de- 
 clining for a season instead of courting the martyr’s lot; re- 
 moving from Carthage, when persecution was at hand’; writ- 
 ing directions to his clergy from his place of concealment? ; 
 waiting to be informed when it is safe to return*; and con- 
 tinuing in his retreat more than two years.’ Not to say that 
 numerous Apologies composed by the Fathers bespeak the 
 same moderation, the very object of them being, by explain- 
 ing the real tenets of the Christians, and clearing them of the 
 calumnies under which they suffered, to propitiate the magis- 
 trates towards them, and abate persecution. There can be no 
 doubt, therefore, that they were as well aware of the duty of 
 not throwing away their lives without a reason, as M. Bar- 
 beyrac himself is. 
 
 Why then, it may be asked, do we meet in them with so 
 many extravagant eulogies of the virtue of the martyr: so 
 many expressions in them, which would seem to inflame his 
 zeal: and which lay them open to the censure of this critic of 
 morals? Why do we hear Tertullian, e. g., the same Tertullian, 
 exultingly exclaim, “We struggle against all your cruelty, 
 even voluntecring to present ourselves; and better pleased 
 when we are condemned than when we are acquitted ?”® And 
 again, “ Be it far from us to take as a hardship those things 
 which we desire to suffer.”’ Why do we hear him represent 
 martyrdom again and again as a second Baptism, secunda in- 
 tinctio,®> secundum lavacrum’? Why have we Origen, the 
 same Origen, in his Exhortatio ad Martyrium, as the tract is 
 called by a title likely to mislead, for it is no general exhorta- 
 tion to martyrdom, but an address to two Christians, one of 
 them a man of fortune’® and conspicuous character in the 
 Church, perhaps, too, a Presbyter ; the other certainly one” 
 encouraging them to stand fast in a persecution that had ac- 
 tually overtaken them? Why, I say, have we Origen calling 
 martyrdom “ the cup of wea °™ “the Baptism int metdige 
 
 C yprian, De Lapsis, § x. ' Ambrosius is called éepds by Origen, 
 2 py als 3 Ep. xii. § 36, and Ocompeméararos, § 1; and 
 4 Ep. xxxvi. Ep xe Protoctetus is expressly called mpeoBv- 
 ® Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, e. i. tepos by Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. vi. ¢, 
 PTE 8 De Patientid, ec. xiii. 28. 
 
 ® De Baptismo, ec. xvi. 2 Exhort. ad Martyr. § 27. 
 
 © Origen, Exhort. ad Martyr. § 14, 
 
Lecr. X.] ON MARTYRDOM ACCOUNTED FOR. 191 
 
 dom,” which cleanses the sufferer,’ the act which places him 
 near the altar of heaven, and so fits him like the priests of old 
 for ministering remission of sins’; nay, by astill bolder flight 
 (for 1 do not wish to keep anything back) which makes his 
 blood, as the blood of the victims under the Law, precious in 
 God’s sight to the redemption of others ; the martyr regarded 
 as the ram, efficacious through Christ’? And why have we 
 Cyprian, the same Cyprian, using phraseology no less emphatic, 
 describing it as the most glorious Baptism of blood*; and 
 elsewhere saying in terms evidently loose and rhetorical, but 
 still to our purpose,’ “Let us also, who, by God’s permission, 
 have administered Baptism to believers, prepare each and all 
 of them for another Baptism, teaching them that this latter 
 Baptism is greater in grace, more sublime in efficacy, more 
 precious in honour ; the Baptism with which the angels bap- 
 tize ; the Baptism in which God and his Christ rejoice ; the 
 en after which no one sins again; the Baptism which 
 consummates the growth of our eaehs the Baptism which 
 unites us at once, as we depart from the world, unto God. In 
 the Baptism of water is received the remission of sins; in the 
 Baptism of blood the crown of virtue. It is a thing to be 
 desired and sought for in all our prayers and petitions, that 
 being the servants of God we may become his friends.” And 
 other passages might be found in him equally strong—whence, 
 I say, comes it, that the same parties, who, as we have seen, 
 were quite alive to the immorality of rushing headlong upon 
 martyrdom, should have still used expressions such as these, 
 which expose them to Barbeyrac’s strictures ? Doubtless, they 
 did not forget the language of Scripture on this exciting subject 
 —our Lord’s words, “Can ye be baptized with the Baptism 
 that I am baptized with ’”’—words to which much of the lan- 
 guage I have quoted may be referred °—the encouragement 
 addressed to the angel of the Church of Smyrna in the Reve- 
 lation, “ Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the 
 crown of life’—the testimony borne in the same book, that 
 “the souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God” 
 were seen “ under the altar” ’—the high-spirited remonstrance 
 
 1 Exhort. ad Martyr. § 30. * Thid. 5 Epistola ad Fortunatum de Exher- 
 3 Compare § 50, and Homil, xxiv, in } tatione Martyrii, raf. § iv. 
 
 Numeros, vol. 1). p. 562. § Origen, Exhort. ad Martyr. § 28. 
 4 Cyprian, Ep. Ixxiii. § 22. 75 30. Rev. vi. 9. 
 
192 MARTYRDOM INSTRUMENTAL (Serzes I, 
 
 ~ 
 
 of St. Paul, ‘““ What mean ye to weep and break mine heart ? 
 For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at 
 Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus ”°—and the sharp 
 rebuke of our Lord himself, when Peter would have heedlessly 
 withdrawn his thoughts from his Passion, “Get thee behind 
 me, Satan.’ These passages of holy Writ, and many more, 
 which were, or which they considered to be of like import, 
 they did not, I say, forget ; but it was the circumstances in 
 which they found themselves placed, that chiefly prompted 
 these glowing eulogies of the martyr. Origen’s treatise, 
 abounding in incautious terms beyond any other, as I have 
 remarked, was written on the spur of the moment. So was 
 Cyprian’s De Exhortatione Martyrii. So probably would it 
 be perceived from internal evidence were all the works of the 
 Fathers which have this subject chiefly for their theme. Their 
 heart was hot within them, and so they spake with their. 
 tongue ; much in the spirit of Latimer in a like condition, 
 “Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man.” 
 Those circumstances, I repeat, Barbeyrac does not allow for ; 
 is not, it should seem, adequately acquainted with : his reading 
 had not put him in possession of a minute knowledge of the 
 critical times, in which the Fathers lived—times when the 
 infant Church in the midst of hostile powers was struggling 
 for existence ; when, to use the words of Irenzeus, “there was 
 a movement of the whole earth against it ;” ' and when under 
 God it mainly owed its survival and growth to the example of 
 its professors, the severity with which they lived, and above all, 
 the courage with which many among them took their deaths. 
 These were days in which the value of the martyr was ineal- 
 culable. For only look at a few of the many hints to this 
 effect, with which the writings of the Fathers abundantly sup- 
 ply us, and which never could have been permitted to produce 
 their due impression upon the mind of Barbeyrac, or he weuld 
 have written on this subject of martyrdom in a different spirit. 
 Clemens somewhere remarks” that to see an Indian burn would 
 be worth many treatises on patience. And most truly does 
 Tertullian say in terms which a little altered have become an 
 apophthegm, “the blood of the martyr is the seed of the 
 Church.”* It was the spectacle of the constancy of the Chris- 
 
 
 
 ' frenseus, IV. c. xxiii. § 13. 3 Semen est sanguis Christianorum. 
 2 Clem. Alex, Stromat. IT, § xx. —Tertullian, Apol, c. 1. 
 p. 494, 
 
Lect. X.] IN THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL. 193 
 
 tians under persecution to the death that first moved Justin 
 (a type of thousands no doubt) to examine and adopt their 
 faith.’ It was a test, Irenzeus tells us, which none but Chris- 
 tians could sustain: their faith, such was its force, furnishing 
 a multitude of martyrs at all times and in every place ; whilst 
 that of all other men flinched from this rigorous touch-stone ?— 
 a distinction, which could not fail to be observed and to pro- 
 duce its fruits. How strong is the evidence of this in Tertul- 
 lian’s appeal to Scapula, the President of Africa! “ How 
 will you deal,” says he, “with so many thousands of either 
 sex, men and women, of all ages, of all ranks? What fires, 
 what swords will you need! How will Carthage bear the 
 decimation, when everybody will find included in it some re- 
 lation or friend! when there will be numbered in it men and 
 matrons of your own order, chief persons in the state, the 
 kindred perhaps of yours and of you! Spare then yourself, 
 if you will not spare us. | If you will not spare yourself, spare 
 Carthage.” “ Never will this sect fail: but will flourish the 
 more, the more it is cut down. For whoever is a spectator of 
 such sufferings and of such patience under them, will be stag- 
 gered ; will be led to inquire what there is in this cause ; and 
 when he shall have learned the truth will forthwith become 
 himself a convert.” “TI have felt,” says Cyprian, writing to 
 the same effect, but in a yet more graphic manner, “I have 
 felt, nor has the truth deceived me, when the ruthless hands of 
 the executioner have been tearing the limbs asunder ; when 
 the savage tormentor has been ploughing up the lacerated 
 members, and still been unable to prevail over his victim—I 
 have felt by the words of the bystanders that there was something 
 majestic in not being subdued by pain, in not being broken by 
 penal anguish. Then might be heard the words of those 
 who said, And I think he has children! for he has a wife, 
 the companion of his home! and yet he does not yield to the 
 attachment of these pledges ; nor seduced by the influence of 
 affection does he falter in his purpose. His mettle is to be 
 tried ; his virtue is to be proved to the very bowels. That is 
 no light confession, be it what it may, for which a man en- 
 dures the possibility of dying. And indeed, brethren dearly 
 beloved, such is the power of martyrdom, that by force of it 
 1 Justin Martyr, Apol. IT. § 12. 3 Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, ec. v. 
 
 2 Treneeus, IV, c. xxxiii. § 9. 
 0 
 
194 POWER OF MARTYRDOM. [Serres I. 
 
 even he who has undertaken to be thy executioner is con- 
 strained to become a believer.’! Such was the effect, the 
 powerful effect of the martyr’s death on the cause of the 
 Gospel in those days. What a price would naturally, would 
 justly be set upon it! especially when to this consideration is 
 added on the other hand that of the numbers, who, put to the 
 trial, flinched and fell away*; in many cases too attempting 
 to justify or excuse their lapse by an argument the most 
 jesuitical ; that the name of the Deity being merely a matter 
 of convention, it could be of no consequence whether they said, 
 I worship the Supreme God, or whether they called him Jupi- 
 ter, or Apollo, or any other designation of heathen mythology * 
 —an equivocation, which Origen would not have taken so 
 much pains to expose on so many occasions as he does, idle as 
 it is in itself, unless it had been working much mischief to the 
 Church.* I repeat then, how inevitably would the death of 
 the martyr be held in the highest honour, when numbers, 
 whether thus trifling with their consciences, or at once confess- 
 ing their fears, fell away ; numbers so great, that it became a 
 subject of anxious controversy in the Church how to deal with 
 them, shedding their disastrous influence on the faith they were 
 abandoning ; and whose apostacy only rendered the constancy 
 of those who were true to the last still more matter for eulogy 
 and praise: that they should have withstood the lash, the club, 
 the hook, the flame, which had shaken the spirits of others 
 who had made up their minds to die, till the instruments of 
 suffering were applied’; that they should have been proof 
 against the pardon which was still offered them in the face of 
 their danger and distress,’ and even against the supplication of 
 the magistrates to have mercy on themselves’; nay, some- 
 times of magistrates who would go so far as to suggest to 
 them how they should shape their answers in order to gain an 
 acquittal!® All these things might well give a tincture to the 
 sentiments of the Fathers, when speaking of their martyrdom : 
 and candid critics, taking them into account, would be slow to 
 censure the morality of such men, if after administering due 
 
 1 Cyprian, De Laude Martyrii, §§ xv. * See Contra Celsum, I. § 24 et seq. ; 
 
 XVI. IV. § 48; V. § 46. 
 
 2 Ep. ii. Ad prima statim verba mi- 5 Cyprian, De Lapsis, § xiii. 
 nantis inimici maximus fratrum numerus 6 Ep. xv. 
 fidem suam prodidit.—De Lapsis, § vii. T Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, c. v. 
 
 3 Origen, Exhort. ad Martyr. § 46, 8 eniy. 
 
Lect. X.] CELIBACY AND SINGLE MARRIAGE 195 
 
 caution, as we have seen, against volunteering a confession 
 which would cost the parties their life if persisted in, they did 
 applaud in language the most animated and glowing, lan- 
 guage perhaps barely to be justified in tranquil times, the 
 maintenance of that confession to the death, when once it had 
 been made. 
 
 Another conspicuous charge against the morality of the 
 Fathers, alleged by Barbeyrac, is the unfavourable manner in 
 which they sometimes express themselves on the subject of 
 marriage, and especially of second marriage. Dr. Waterland 
 takes notice of the complaint of M. Barbeyrac against Athena- 
 goras for disallowing second marriages. “The fact,” says he, 
 “is true in some sense or other ; but what second marriages is 
 the question. Might not Athenagoras mean, marrying again 
 after wrongful divorce? A very learned man” (Suicer under 
 the word Séyapos is the one referred to) “has pleaded much 
 and well for that construction; and it is favoured by 
 Athenagoras’s grounding his doctrine upon our Lord’s own 
 words relating to swch second marriages.”* I think, from ex- 
 pressions that drop from Dr. Waterland in the course of his 
 remarks, that he had some misgivings about the soundness of 
 this defence ; and there are many places in the Fathers which 
 seem to me to indicate in them a distaste for second marriages, 
 without any distinction of the kind here intimated by Dr. 
 Waterland.? And when we combine these with others even 
 commending abstinence from marriage altogether, when it can 
 be abstained from with continence, we may be induced the 
 rather to believe that there was an objection amongst them to 
 second marriages in general.* I will not affirm that the 
 Fathers do not bring many collateral arguments to support 
 their views on this subject that are feeble and unsatisfactory. 
 It is often their way, when debating a great question, and 
 when they have strong grounds to stand upon, to adduce sup- 
 plemental reasons for the side they take, which, with readers 
 in these days, would rather weaken their cause than strengthen 
 it—howbeit there was, no doubt, often a peculiarity in the 
 people they were addressing and the times in which they wrote, 
 that caused such arguments to be then very differently appre- 
 
 1 Waterland, On the Use and Value 2 Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, I. c. vii.; 
 
 of Ecclesiastical Antiquity. Works, vol. | Canon, Apostol. xvii. 
 V. p. 297. 3 Ady. Marcion. V. ¢. xv. 
 
 a 3 
 
196 WHY INCULCATED BY THE FATHERS. (Senres I. 
 
 ciated. But again, I say, it was the cirewmstances of the 
 times in which their lot was cast that coloured their sentiments 
 on the question of marriage: that however other adventitious 
 notions might have operated in a subordinate degree, it was 
 the circumstances of the times which constrained them to speak 
 of marriage, whether first or second, in the temper they did— 
 circumstances which, I still repeat, Barbeyrac does not take 
 into account as he should, when pronouncing his opinion—and 
 those circumstances the same which modified St. Paul’s own 
 views on the subject, “the present distress.” And this latter 
 consideration appears to have crossed the mind of Barbeyrac 
 himself, who is disposed to qualify the language even of the 
 Apostle, as though, according to the ordinary translation of it, 
 he was himself too hard upon marriage, objecting to the usual 
 translation of yvounv Siem, “I give my judgment,”’ and 
 alleging that it means no more than “I give you my thoughts,” 
 —“je vous dis ma pensée.”” The very passage indeed which 
 he cites from Athenagoras turns upon these circumstances. It 
 was a notorious slander against the early Christians, a slander 
 arising either from the secrecy with which they found it neces- 
 sary to hold their assemblies for religious worship,’ or from the 
 reputed profligate practices of certain antinomian heretics who 
 were confounded with them, for the fact does not seem to have 
 been proved even against them—it was a notorious charge, I 
 say, against the early Christians that they met for the purpose 
 of the grossest debauchery. The line of argument, which the 
 Fathers in general pursue when replying to this accusation, is 
 to assert the peculiarly pure precepts of the Gospel which 
 governed the Christians ; precepts which, so far from allowing 
 any such turpitude, laid even the lawful gratification of the 
 passions under severe restraint, and, not content with regulating 
 the actions, reached even to the very motions of the heart.* 
 The more to enforce this exposition of the chastity required by 
 the Gospel, they, in some instances, call attention to the num- 
 ber of persons of both sexes who lived in a state of celibacy, 
 because they thought that condition favourable to religious 
 impressions® ; not unnaturally, perhaps, construing our Lord’s 
 own words on this subject to that effect, “He that is able to 
 
 11 Cor, vii, 25. * Athenagoras, Legat. pro Christianis, 
 
 2 Barbeyrac, p. 11]. § 83. 
 * Minucius Felix, Octay, c. x. 5 Tbid. 
 
Lxcr. X.J PERSECUTION A REASON OF IT. 197 
 
 gd] 
 
 receive it, let him receive it. Such, then, being the jealousy 
 with which the Christians were watched by their heathen 
 enemies, and such one of the most common, popular, and 
 effective of the accusations brought against them, were the 
 Fathers to be blamed if they encouraged, as far as was con- 
 sistent with the observance of continence in the parties (for 
 they utterly denounce all breach of it), celibacy rather than 
 marriage, and one marriage rather than two? It was the 
 peculiar position of the Christian Church at the time, which 
 instigated them to proclaim this preference ; it was a pruden- 
 tial consideration for the good of the Church under existing 
 circumstances : and though, as I have said, they may have 
 supported this preference by other subordinate arguments, 
 feeble and futile in themselves, the main cause of their assert- 
 ing it at all was what I have alleged, “the present distress.” 
 And Barbeyrac must not condemn their morality in coming 
 to the decision they did, without having more regard to the 
 nature of the case than he displays. The question was not 
 whether celibacy in the abstract was a better estate than 
 marriage, or one marriage better than two ; but whether, at 
 that especial crisis, the inculcation of such forbearance from a 
 lawful indulgence was not wholesome. 
 
 But a desire to meet this popular calumny was not the only 
 cause which operated on the minds of the Fathers when they 
 encouraged single life and single marriage. There was ano- 
 ther which probably moved them yet more powerfully, still 
 connected with the times in which they wrote—a due consi- 
 deration for the effects of persecution on all the domestic re- 
 lations. “ Woe unto them that are with child, and to them 
 that give suck in those days,” says our Lord himself, when 
 anticipating the troubles that were coming on Jerusalem. 
 Age was not a protection: girls and boys were among the 
 victims.” Was it not natural that the Fathers of the Church 
 should not encourage parental ties to be multiplied when liable 
 to such violent disruption ? Would they not very reasonably 
 think that love for wife and child would constantly prove too 
 strong a temptation for the courage and constancy of men 
 who would otherwise have borne the cross and flame without 
 a shudder? What a world it was, must any husband or pa- 
 rent have thought, to cast those that were nearest and dearest 
 
 
 
 ) Matt, xix, 12, 2 Cyprian, Ep. Ixxvii. § 6; Ixxxi. § 3; De Lapsis, § ii. 
 
198 THE CASE STATED BY TERTULLIAN (Sens I. 
 
 to him upon! What a scene of trial and trouble to which 
 to commit them, to struggle through alone! Look at Ter- 
 tullian’s address to his wife, written on the prospect of her 
 becoming a widow ; written, certainly, after he became a fol- 
 lower of Montanus, but dictated by the feelings, not of a 
 Montanist, but of a Christian man. See the particular 
 sources of anxiety beyond those which would oppress the 
 mind of a husband in ordinary times, when contemplating 
 the future fortunes of his partner, with himself no longer for 
 her guide and guardian—the particular sources of anxiety, I 
 say, he found in the character of his own days and the perils 
 with which they were beset! It is a document well worth 
 the perusal of those who, with Barbeyrac, discover cause for 
 blame in the sentiments of the Fathers on the subject of mar- 
 riage. He bequeaths to his wife, he says, the legacy of his 
 recommendation that she should not marry again; not urging 
 this for his own sake, or out of any jealousy of her, but sim- 
 ply with a view to her own welfare. What were children, but 
 the most bitter of pleasures, (liberorum amarissima voluptas ?)" 
 so much so, that Christian parents are only anxious that their 
 children should go before them to Heaven, and escape the 
 temptations of a longer life (the dangers and trials to which 
 they were then exposed prompting, no doubt, so unnatural a 
 sentiment as this)—and well they might, for, apart from all 
 fears they might entertain of their becoming the victims of the 
 persecutor, there was the apprehension that they could hardly 
 help becoming the victims of the heathen society amongst 
 which their forlorn lot was in a great measure cast; and 
 those ecclesiastical constitutions? which have reference to or- 
 phans, and which enjoin the brethren (often we may suppose 
 without effect) that they who have no children themselves 
 should adopt such outcasts, and the Bishops that they should 
 endeavour to see to them, giving assistance to such children 
 that they may learn a trade, and so be enabled to buy them- 
 selves tools, and be put in a condition to earn their bread, 
 and no longer burden the Church—these regulations, I say, 
 though most humane in themselves, bespeak the aspect of the 
 times, and go but a little way towards relieving a dying 
 father’s heart as to the future fortunes of his family. But to 
 return to the tract of Tertullian. What if she should marry 
 
 ? Ad Uxorem, I. c. v. ? Constit. Apostol. LV. ce. i. ii. 
 
Lect. X.] IN HIS TREATISE AD UXOREM. 199 
 
 a heathen, forgetting the Apostle’s injunction, “only in the 
 Lord ’’—a thought, which then obviously embittered Tertullian’s 
 contemplations of the future, more than any other; and one 
 on which he bestows his advice at great length, appropriating 
 to it a second book of this address. It was in those days no 
 chimerical fear. The Christians were then in a minority ; 
 they had to do with heathens intimately in the most ordinary 
 affairs of life. “I wrote unto you,” saith the Apostle, “not 
 to company with fornicators : yet not altogether with the for- 
 nicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, 
 or with idolaters ; for then must ye needs go out of the 
 world.’ That was then the state of things; the Christians 
 bearing so small a proportion to the heathens, that they 
 could not avoid mixing with them, and taking the chance of 
 the contamination such society might effect. Tertullian 
 presses on his wife’s attention St. Paul’s forbiddal of such 
 unhallowed bands: dwells on the excommunication of the 
 party by the Church? ; reminds her of the impossibility there 
 would be, under such circumstances, that she should continue 
 to serve God. Is a meeting for prayer appointed (statio 
 facienda) ? her husband will propose a resort to the bath. A 
 fast ? he will have a feast instead. A procession? house- 
 hold matters forbid it. Would he allow her to go from street 
 to street, and from cabin to cabin, to visit the brethren? 
 * Would he permit her to take part in the nightly assemblies, 
 when her turn came? Or when Easter called her? To 
 partake of the Lord’s Supper; an institution which they sus- 
 pect? To creep to prison to kiss the chains of the martyrs ? 
 To salute the brethren? To wash the feet of the saints? 
 To offer them hospitality? To minister unto them when 
 sick*? Or if he did endure all or any of these proceedings 
 in silence, what else would it be for, but to treasure up in his 
 memory the means of taking revenge on his wife, if at any 
 future time she might happen to provoke him*? Would she 
 be prepared for the unseemly scenes in which she would have 
 to participate with him, the tavern revel, the obscene song? ? 
 He might tempt her by his wealth, trappings, equipage, 
 chamberlains ; she was but receiving a husband at the devil’s 
 hands. These were some few of the many sad forebodings 
 
 11 Cor: v: 9, LO: 25¢5, iV. Pa 5c. vi, 
 2 Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, IL. ec. iti. 8 ¢, vill. 
 
200 MISAPPLICATION OF HIS PRINCIPLES. [Series I. 
 
 which crossed, it seemed, a Christian husband’s mind in those 
 days on the prospect of his own death; forebodings engen- 
 dered altogether, or almost altogether, by the state of the 
 times ; and was it not reasonable and right that the leaders 
 of the Church should not encourage men to contract marriage 
 without carefully beforehand counting the cost, and consider- 
 ing what deep interests, indeed what everlasting interests, 
 were probably concerned in the issue of a marriage? Bar- 
 beyrac lived after the temperate recommendation of celibacy 
 dictated by the severity of the times of the early Church 
 had been carried to excess; and the compulsory vow of the 
 convent and the monastery had been the abuse that had 
 grown out of it; but the Fathers could not possibly foresee 
 the practical extravagance to which a principle, innocent in 
 itself, will proceed, and are not answerable for it. Let us 
 not, in our hostility to popish corruptions, be unjust to the 
 memory of those who did not contemplate them ; and yet to 
 whom, in some instances, those corruptions, taking their be- 
 ginning from some harmless or even praiseworthy origin, may 
 be traced. 
 
Lect. XI.] TERTULLIAN BLAMED BY BARBEYRAC. 201 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 Further illustration of the defect in Barbeyraec’s reasoning. Examination of his 
 charge against Tertullian of interdicting trades connected with idolatry, the 
 profession of arms, national customs, offices of state. Unfairness of regard- 
 ing in the abstract what was meant only to apply to particular circumstances. 
 Sentiments of Tertullian and Cyprian on self-defence accounted for. Justifi- 
 cation of idolatry among the Pagans in Clemens, owing to a misinterpretation 
 of Deut. iv. 19. His real opinion on that subject. Defence of writers’ subse- 
 quent to the third century declined. Late ecclesiastical antiquity less deserv- 
 
 - ing of confidence. Subjects of the second Series. 
 
 OU will remember that my object in the remarks I am 
 
 making on Barbeyrac’s treatise on the morality of the 
 Fathers is not to follow him through every particular case 
 which he adduces in detail, but to show that one defect per- 
 vades his reasoning throughout almost all of them, that of 
 not taking into account the peculiar character of the times 
 in which the Fathers lived—a defect arising, as I suggested, 
 from Barbeyrac not having carefully read their writings for 
 himself, and so not having possessed his mind thoroughly with 
 a full and correct impression of those times, but having con- 
 tented himself with using passages with which others supplied 
 him—passages detached from the authors to which they be- 
 longed, and which simply served as texts for his Philippics. 
 I gave proof of this fact from his animadversions on the 
 manner in which they speak of martyrdom, and of marriage, 
 and especially of second marriage. I pursue my observa- 
 tions, and I find further proof, in his strictures on Tertullian 
 more particularly for the blame that Father casts on those 
 who minister to what is wrong, however indirectly and how- 
 ever incidentally. Thus, says Barbeyrac, Tertullian, in his. 
 treatise on Idolatry, absolutely condemns every trade, profes- 
 sion, and calling which can in any way be of use to the 
 heathens in carrying on their idolatrous worship, however 
 difficult it may be for the parties to earn a maintenance by 
 any other means ; and Barbeyrac adds that he might as well 
 interdict the sale of wine or of arms, because the one may 
 
 
 
202 FOR DENOUNCING CERTAIN TRADES.  [(SentesI. 
 
 serve for debauchery and the other for violence. Possibly 
 Tertullian may show himself over sensitive and impracti- 
 cable in the restrictions he thus lays on the occupations of 
 the Christian, nor may have sufficiently distinguished the 
 circumstances which render the dealer accountable for the 
 buyer’s use of the articles which he sold him; but, at all 
 events, the side he took was the safe one ; nor, if we consider 
 how idolatry had then wormed itself into the whole struc- 
 ture of society, shall we, perhaps, think that his interdicts were 
 extravagant. He found, for instance, the carver by trade, 
 though professing himself to be a Christian, tempted to make 
 images for heathen temples’, arguing as his excuse the diffi- 
 culty of getting a living, and the Apostle’s precept, “ Let 
 every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called”? ; 
 nay, in some cases these excuses of his connived at, and men 
 who had so exercised their craft permitted to discharge inferior 
 offices in the Church.2 He found the schoolmaster—he, too, 
 being a Christian—teaching the adventures of the heathen 
 gods, not after those gods had become despised and obsolete, 
 but whilst they were yet the actual gods of the multitude ; 
 and continuing, from custom, perhaps, the old-established 
 usages of the school, dedicating the first payments of the 
 scholars to Minerva; receiving presents from the friends of 
 his boys on heathen festivals* ; keeping the holidays of Flora 
 at the appointment of the Flamen or Aidile. He found the 
 cattle-jobber, still a professing Christian, not scrupling to 
 purchase victims for the use of the heathen temples*®; and 
 the dealer in incense—he too, a Christian—having for his 
 principal customers (a thing of which he must have himself 
 been perfectly aware) the heathen priests.© It msut be con- 
 fessed that it was very difficult to correct callings of this 
 kind, which had so close, though not a necessary connection 
 with idolatry, by any other means than denouncing them 
 altogether. Tertullian does denounce them, certainly, con- 
 tending that the exercise of an idolatrous trade cannot be 
 justified by the plea of getting a maintenance by it. The 
 cost should have been counted before it was engaged 
 in’; the cross, which the renunciation of that trade imposes, 
 must be borne. James and John forsook their calling: a 
 
 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Idololatri, ¢. iv. ap 6 Tbid. 
 ey, 3 ¢, vii, Sex. (onxil. 
 
Lect. XI.] WHY HE DISSUADED THE CHRISTIANS 203 
 
 sound faith has no fear of lacking food.' At the same time 
 he suggests that mechanics might often turn their hands to 
 other branches of their business. The mason, for instance, 
 can repair houses, plaster walls, line cisterns, coat columns, 
 and work in stucco upon walls other ornaments besides 
 images. He who can draw a figure, can paint a slab: he, 
 who can carve a Mercury, can put together a chest of drawers. 
 There are few temples to be built, but many houses; few 
 Mercuries to be gilded, but many sandals and _ slippers: 
 “luxury and vainglory,” he adds in one of the many sen- 
 tences in him which strongly remind us of Tacitus (an author, 
 however, who does not appear to have enjoyed his sympathy, 
 for he denounces him as a most mendacious writer,”) “luxury 
 and vainglory are worth far more to the artist than all kinds 
 of superstition.’’® 
 
 Barbeyrac further exemplifies this confounding of morality 
 by Tertullian, in the condemnation he passes on the profession 
 of arms*: and he quotes some strong passages to this effect 
 from the same tract on Idolatry. “How can a Christian,” 
 argues Tertullian, “go to war; nay, how can he serve even 
 in peace without a sword; which the Lord has taken away 
 from him? For though soldiers came to John and were in- 
 structed by him in their duty; and though a centurion was a 
 believer ; yet Jesus declared against the profession of arms, 
 when he bade Peter put his sword into its sheath.”* Nor 
 can it be said that his Montanism narrows his view upon this 
 subject; for even before his Montanism he seems to have 
 demurred to the lawfulness of this calling ; as appears from a 
 few words in his “De Patientid.”® No doubt some of the 
 reasons, the subordinate reasons, or rhetorical reasons one 
 would rather call them, with which he underprops his main 
 one, are puerile enough. I have before acknowledged in a 
 similar case this propensity in the Fathers to accumulate poor 
 arguments, as if they strengthened good ones. Thus here, in 
 the “De Corona,”’ Tertullian asks in his declamatory manner, 
 “Shall the soldier rest upon his spear, when it was a spear 
 which pierced his Saviour’s side? Shall he have the trumpet 
 
 1 Tertullian, De Idololatria, c, xii. | ¢, viii. 
 2 Tlle mendaciorum loquacissimus.— | * Barbeyrac, p. 74. 
 
 Apol. ¢. xvi. 5 Tertullian, De Idololatria, ¢. xix. 
 3 Frequentior est omni superstitione | ® De Patientid, ¢. vii. 
 
 luxuria et ambitio—De Idololatria, 7 De Corona, ¢. xi. 
 
204 FROM ADOPTING THE PROFESSION OF ARMS, [Senies I. 
 
 to sound over his corpse, when he expects the archangel’s ?” 
 and so on. But still it is easy to see that the cardinal objec- 
 tion, which weighed with him was the close contact, which 
 the calling of the soldier brought him into with idolatry, 
 and the species of sanction, which, under certain circumstances, 
 he seemed compelled to afford it. For example, it was his 
 duty to carry the standard, which was a rival of Christ, for 
 with the soldiers the standard was an object of worship. 
 
 He had to swear by false gods when he took the military 
 oath.2 It was a part of his business to mount guard before 
 the temples over idols which he had renounced at his Baptism. 
 Barbeyrac, however, contends that it was a needless scruple 
 in Tertullian to make the mounting guard over a temple a 
 matter of objection. The temples of the false gods, says he, 
 were only public buildings which belonged to the sovereign ; 
 and as sovereign he had a right to entrust the custody of 
 them to any of his subjects, whether soldiers or not. It was 
 a service purely civil. There may be many who will prefer 
 the scrupulosity of Tertullian to the liberality of Barbeyrac, 
 particularly when the character of these temples, over which 
 the Christian soldier was to stand sentry, is taken into ac- 
 count. These temples, as Barbeyrac might have learned from 
 the Fathers, were made to produce a considerable revenue to 
 the emperor, and were farmed by speculating contractors,’ 
 who usually took them on five years’ leases,*> and by auction.® 
 They were regular brothels; the priests themselves the 
 panders’; nothing being so natural, as that the heathen lessees 
 who stood at rack rent, like our toll-bar keepers, bent on 
 making the most of their bargain, should furnish them with 
 such attractions as would draw to them the populace, and 
 rival one another in all the profitable arts of seduction. And 
 these were the places, over which the Christian soldier had to 
 mount guard ; and this the society to which he was to be ex- 
 posed, whilst performing his duty. Do not the circumstances 
 of the case and the times, I again say, go very far to excuse 
 or even to justify Tertullian in diverting by any means 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Corona, ec. xi. 4 Tertullian, Apol. ec. xiii.; Theo- 
 2 So I interpret, credimusne huma- | philus, I. § 10 
 num sacramentum divino superinduci 5 Tertull. Ad Nationes, I. § 10. 
 licere, et in alium Dominum respondere ® Apol. ¢. xiii. 
 post Christum ?—TIbid, 7 Minucius Felix, Octay, ¢. xxv. 
 
 % Barbeyrac, p. 76. 
 
 ’ 
 
Lect. XI.}] FROM FOLLOWING HEATHEN CUSTOMS, 205 
 
 Christians from a profession which put them necessarily in 
 the way of such contamination? And is his morality to be 
 so very much condemned because he does so? It is a very 
 different. question from the lawfulness of the’ military service 
 in the abstract, and as that service is at present constituted 
 and practised. 
 
 So, again, with respect to the Christian adorning his ‘door 
 with lamps and laurels ; a custom, which Tertullian denounces 
 in Christians, and for which sentiment Barbeyrac reproves 
 him, saying that the festival which occasioned the display of 
 such emblems, was ordered by the prince, and that they had 
 no necessary connection with idolatry’; with respect to this 
 custom, I say, allowance must be made as before for the state 
 of the times. In the lamp and the laurel there was nothing, 
 but if on such occasions the door was universally regarded by 
 the people as a shrine, and the decorations as offerings to the 
 Divinity, which presided over it, whether Cardea, or Forculus, 
 or Limentinus, or Janus himself’ (for all these were Deities 
 whiclr appertained to that quarter of the house), then the law- 
 fulness of the custom wears quite another aspect. If it was 
 understood that what was done in honour of the door was 
 done in honour of the idol, to whom the door was consecrated, 
 as Tertullian affirms was the case, his argument seems sound, 
 that having renounced the idol temple, you must not make an 
 idol temple of your door ; and at all events the matter is far 
 from being the simple civil affair which Barbeyrae would 
 represent it. Nor, in fact, does Tertullian in this instance 
 write in any extreme or extravagant spirit ; for almost in the 
 same breath, he makes a concession to social convenience, 
 such as shows that in the other instance he was advising in 
 no morose temper of mind; and allows the Christian to attend 
 the private and ordinary days of festivity in heathen families, 
 such as the assumption of the toga, a marriage, or the naming 
 of a child: and though sacrifices usually attended these 
 solemnities, yet merely to the spectator of them, he thinks 
 they could hardly be considered to involve the party in the 
 guilt of them. But even here Tertullian naturally subjoins a 
 wish ; “ Would to God we were not called upon to witness 
 what it is not lawful for ourselves to do! But since through 
 the devices of the evil one, idolatry compasses the world on 
 
 1 Barbeyrac, p. 77. 2 Tertullian, De Idololatria, ec. xv, 
 y ? ? ? 
 
206 AND FROM HOLDING CIVIL OFFICES. (Senzes I. 
 
 every side, we may be permitted to be present on some occa- 
 sions, which are calculated to show our kindly and dutiful 
 feelings, not for idols, but for our fellow-creatures.” * 
 Barbeyrac finds similar fault? with Tertullian for what he 
 says on the subject of a Christian holding office or magisterial 
 function in the state. And-here, I think, his animadversions 
 may be qualified by the same means as before, 7. ¢. by a due 
 regard to the circumstances of the times. It is obvious that 
 Tertullian, in all the remarks which he makes upon this and upon 
 other kindred subjects, exhibits a mind thoroughly possessed 
 with the enormous difficulties which the idolatry that sur- 
 rounded them, threw in the way of the Christians, and em- 
 barrassed them in all their movements, however otherwise 
 blameless or indifferent. It is not the lawfulness or unlaw- 
 fulness of acting as a judge or magistrate in the abstract, 
 which Tertullian debates (as Barbeyrac would seem to re- 
 present the question®) ; but whether a Christian should under- 
 take such a province, as things then were, and with the 
 obstacles before him which such a position would evittently 
 expose him to. This is the proposition in his thoughts, how- 
 ever he may fail to express it in so many words. It is true 
 that Tertullian may appear to lay undue stress on the parti- 
 culars of pomp and parade with which such an office was 
 accompanied, the pretexta, the trabea, the laticlave, the fasces, 
 the wands, the purple, as if the gravamen lay in these; and 
 it is true, also, that Tertullian, the better to reconcile his 
 readers to the recommendation that they should have nothing 
 to do with such offices, suggests the modest and humble 
 aspect of our Lord, and his indisposition to be treated 
 with kingly honours*; but even here the main objection to 
 these trappings is the relation they bore to idolatry—the 
 question of the habits at the period of the Reformation, deeply 
 aggravated, as it might well be, being even then the matter of 
 offence—they were to be shunned because, in the eye of the 
 people, they were associated intimately with the worship of 
 false gods; the figures of those gods were dressed in these 
 robes ; the processions, in honour of them, were attended by 
 these insignia.” It is impossible to say what weight should 
 be ascribed to this argument, unless we knew more intimately 
 
 Tertullian, De Idololatria, ¢, xvi. * Tertullian, De Idololatria, ¢. xviii. 
 ? Barbeyrae, p, 83, 3 pp. 85, 86. 5 Ibid. 
 
Lect. XI.) THE POSITION OF A CHRISTIAN ACTING 207 
 
 than we possibly can know, the state of public feeling upon 
 this point, and how far it really did identify these pageants 
 with idolatry, and especially in the estimation of the weaker 
 brethren, for whom St. Paul himself tells us consideration is 
 to be had. But independently of this argument, Tertullian 
 puts forward a number of inconveniences which would distress 
 the Christian in the discharge of such duties, though he puts 
 them ex abundanti and with a proviso, that even if they 
 could be escaped, there was still cause enough left in such 
 matters as I have just been adverting to, to deter him from 
 embarking in such an occupation. “Let us admit,” says 
 Tertullian, for argument’s sake, (that is his way of stating it,) 
 “let us admit that by possibility it may happen to a man to 
 enjoy an honour of this kind, and to make his way unencum- 
 bered by anything but the honour ; neither called upon to do 
 sacrifice, nor to sanction sacrifice by his authority, nor to 
 deal in the victims for sacrifice, nor to appoint to the charge 
 of the temples, nor gather the revenues derived from them, nor 
 exhibit shows and games on his own account or on that of the 
 public, nor preside over them, by whomsoever exhibited ; let 
 him have no judgment to pronounce, no edict to put forth, 
 no oath to take; nay, let him be exempt from matters which 
 strictly fall under magisterial duty ; let him adjudicate on no 
 man’s life or character (I say nothing about fines) ; let him 
 neither condemn nor make damnatory laws; let him consign 
 no man to fetters, to prison, or to torture: ¢f it is credible 
 that such a state of things could subsist,'—still, even allow- 
 ing all this,” contends Tertullian, “the very pomp and decora- 
 tion of his office is so associated with idolatry, that that alone 
 should induce him to refrain from it.”* He may seem to 
 waive the stronger argument, and rely upon the weaker, but a 
 sense of the enormous hindrance in the way of a Christian 
 magistrate, which a state of heathen society would present, is 
 at the bottom of the whole reasoning. Nor can he be said to 
 waive the other; for he expressly, you see, affirms, that ex- 
 emption from such embarrassments, as he is supposing, is a 
 thing incredible ; that in point of fact, the party would have 
 to do sacrifice, to preside over sacrifices, to exhibit spectacles, 
 and so on, or in other words to be himself an idolater ; and 
 again, in point of fact, would have to adjudicate on men’s lives 
 
 ' Si hee credibile est fieri posse. ? Tertullian, De Idololatria, ¢. xvii. 
 
208 AS A MAGISTRATE IN A HEATHEN COURT [Sentes I. 
 
 and characters, to fine, imprison, and torture. And who, may 
 we presume, would be the parties between whom he would be 
 perpetually called to judge? Would it not be between hea- 
 thens and Christians? We have already discovered incident- 
 ally what a disturbing force in the world the introduction of 
 Christianity proved ; and I could add to the proof of this to 
 almost any extent by going into details: how truly our 
 Lord’s prophecy came to pass, that he was not about “ to send 
 peace on earth, but a sword.” There were endless calls for 
 the interposition of the law to settle disputes and troubles 
 which arose from the husband being a pagan, and the wife 
 a believer ; from the master and servant standing to one an- 
 other in the like relation, and so on. There were contentions 
 continually brewing from the consciousness of the heathen 
 party on such occasions that he had the laws in his favour, 
 and had his victim at his mercy; that he could treasure up a 
 grievance to a future day, and produce it when the time served. 
 There must have been numberless civil suits between the pagan 
 and Christian most painful for the latter to decide. The mere 
 debtor and creditor business between them must have been 
 full of perplexity. The bond required an oath, a heathen oath ; 
 necessity on the one hand urging to it, conscience on the other 
 resenting it'; Tertullian himself almost at a loss how to ad- 
 vise, and ending what he has to say on the subject with a 
 prayer that Christians may not be driven to the extremity of 
 borrowing from heathens, but may find those who could lend 
 amongst the brethren. 
 
 How could a Christian reconcile it to himself to volunteer 
 placing himself in a position of such enormous difficulty by 
 acting as a magistrate in these courts? And how can we find 
 fault with Tertullian for dissuading him from so doing by every 
 argument he can devise, however little to the purpose some of 
 them may be? We are not, I must again remind you, to 
 consider the question as Barbeyrac does, in cool blood, whether 
 it is convenient for a Christian under any circumstances, and 
 at any time, to bear the sword, to pass sentence of death, 
 and so on; but whether under those circumstances, and at 
 that time, it was convenient to do so. I repeat, it was the 
 idolatry of the day that was influencing the mind of Tertul- 
 lian in all the decisions we are now considering, as is obvious 
 
 1 Tertullian, De Idololatria, ¢. xxiii. 
 
Lect, XI.] ONE OF GREAT EMBARRASSMENT. 209 
 
 from the passage with which he closes his treatise on idolatry, 
 where they are all found. “These,” says he, “are the rocks 
 and bays ; these the shores and straits of idolatry, amidst 
 which faith, with sails filled by the Spirit of God, makes her 
 voyage, safe, if cautious, secure, if wide awake.’ But for 
 those who are unshipped, there is in idolatry a deep which 
 cannot be swum out of ; for those who are dashed against it, 
 a wreck which cannot be cleared ; for those who are swallowed 
 up, a submersion? which cannot be breathed in ; whoever are 
 choked by its waves, every vortex which it hath sucks them 
 under to hell. Let no man then say, who can take all the 
 precautions necessary for safety, unless he retired altogether 
 from the world? as if it were not better to retire from it, 
 than to live in it and be an idolater. Nothing can be more easy 
 than precaution against idolatry, if there is a real fear of it.® 
 Any necessity is a trifle compared with peril so vast. There- 
 fore did the Holy Spirit, when the Apostles held their council, 
 relax for us the bond and the yoke, in order that we might be 
 at leisure for avoiding idolatry. This will be our law; the 
 more fully to be observed and required, in proportion as it is 
 itself more simple and unembarrassed ; the law proper to 
 Christians ; the law by which we are recognised and tested by 
 heathens ; the law which is to be propounded to those who 
 are approaching towards the faith, to be inculcated to those 
 who are entering on the faith, in order that those who are ap- 
 proaching the faith may ponder, and those who are keeping 
 the faith may continue to do so, and those who are not keep- 
 ing it may renounce themselves (and their profession). For we 
 may consider whether according to the figure of the ark, the 
 crow, and the kite, and the wolf, and the dog, and the serpent, 
 may not be in the Church. But there can be no doubt that 
 in the figure of the ark the idolater is not found. No animal 
 can be made to represent the idolater. And what was not in 
 the ark, let not the same be in the Church.” * I have given 
 this winding up of the Treatise on Idolatry at full, in order 
 to show how entirely the practical speculations of Tertullian, 
 in the course of it, had been governed by his horror of a sin 
 which, as he had said at the opening of his essay, comprised 
 every other.’ 
 
 1 Attonita. ““"* 2 Hypobrychium. * Tertullian, De Tdololatria, ¢. xxiv. 
 3 Or, a fear to begin with, in capite. 5 Summus szeculi reatus.—e. i. 
 
 P 
 
210 VIEWS OF TERTULLIAN AND CYPRIAN [Sertes I. 
 
 On the subject of self-defence Barbeyrac regards the mo-_ 
 
 rality of the Fathers, of Tertullian and Cyprian more especi- 
 ally, to be utterly faulty’; carrying as they do the duty 
 of patience to such an extreme, as to be scarcely compatible 
 with self-preservation. A passage or two to this effect 
 he produces, written, however, in that loose and rhetorical 
 manner, for which allowance is always to be made. For 
 instance, “The soldiers of Christ cannot be conquered, but 
 can die ; and by this very thing they prove themselves to be 
 invincible, viz. by having no fear of death. Neither do they 
 resist those who assail them, seeing that, it is not lawful even 
 for the innocent to slay the guilty; but they deliver up their 
 lives and their blood with alacrity, in order that they may 
 the sooner retire from the ills and cruelties of a world wherein 
 so much malice and barbarity prevails.”? But a paragraph of 
 this kind is a very insufficient foundation of any serious 
 charge. The fact is, that at the time when these Fathers 
 wrote, the Christians were in a minority, surrounded by 
 fierce and watchful enemies ; as our Lord expresses it, “sheep 
 in the midst of wolves.’’ In such a condition, the only chance 
 for them was patience; patience proceeding almost to the 
 degree of non-resistance ; it was by far the most effectual de- 
 fence that could be set up. Vincit qui patitur, was the best 
 motto for them. And accordingly we find both Cyprian and 
 Tertullian furnishing express essays on this virtue: but they 
 are not philosophical essays: they were not dreaming of 
 writing like Puffendorf and Barbeyrac on “natural rights :” 
 the times in which they lived and the scenes in which they 
 were concerned invited to no such tranquil speculations. Both 
 these compositions are of the nature of Sermons or Homilies; 
 “Fratres dilectissimi” is indeed the pulpit phraseology with 
 which Cyprian interlards his address: they have for their ob- 
 ject to brace up the hearers or readers of them to meet the 
 distresses and dangers of the times; and to teach them not 
 to faint in the day of trial. “ And as we are all involved in 
 the sentence ” (on Adam) such is their language, “we can es- 
 cape from it only by death. Therefore it is that we naturally 
 weep when we are first brought into the world, testifying in- 
 stinctively that it is a world of trouble: and patience sup- 
 plies the only remedy to all; but most of all to us, whom 
 ' Barbeyrac, pp. 91. 128. ? Cyprian, Ep. lvii. § 2. 
 
Lecr. XI] ON SELF-DEFENCE EXPLAINED. 214 
 
 persecutions, the gaol, the sword, the wild-beast, the fire, the 
 cross, and whatever other engine of torment there may be, as- 
 sail. Even as our Lord said, ‘In the world ye shall have 
 tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’”’! 
 And if Abel is adduced as a praiseworthy example of patient 
 sufferance, who, when attacked by Cain, made no resistance ” 
 —for it is presumed of him from the silence of Scripture— 
 surely this is scarcely to be drawn into a grave argument (as 
 it is by Barbeyrac), that by such reasoning Cyprian was sub- 
 verting the natural right of self-defence? In the eloquent 
 eulogy on patience with which Tertullian closes his treatise on 
 it, it is significantly said, in a long catalogue of its merits, 
 “Tt strengthens faith *—“it rules the flesh “it bridles the 
 tongue ”—“ it subdues temptations ”—“ it consummates mar- 
 tyrdom ’’—“it charms the believer ”’—‘“it attracts the unbe- 
 liever ”*—the virtue evidently presenting itself to the mind of 
 Tertullian in those aspects which a state of risk and danger 
 in the times in which he lived suggested to him. 
 
 There is one particular more in the essay of M. Barbeyrac 
 to which I think it needful to draw your attention ; and 
 though differing in character from some of them already no- 
 ticed, it still serves to confirm me in my affirmation that 
 Barbeyrac, in passing judgment on the morality of the Fa- 
 thers, did not take sufficiently into account the condition of 
 the times and of public opinion when they wrote. It is this ; 
 the justification of idolatry amongst the Pagans, which Bar- 
 beyrac imputes to Clemens Alexandrinus,’ when that Father 
 says, that “God had given them the sun, the moon, and the 
 stars, to worship (ets Opnoxecav).” I have, indeed, touched on 
 this question before, and shown that Clemens, whose principle 
 it was to make the heathen philosophy a stepping-stone to 
 Christian truth, and so to tempt the learned Gentiles to a 
 purer faith, did consider the heavenly bodies as objects set up 
 for the religious contemplation of the Gentiles, in order that 
 they might be saved, as he expressly says, from becoming 
 vicious atheists, and that, carrying their thoughts up from 
 these glorious creatures to God their Creator, they might be 
 delivered from fallmg down and worshipping images, wood, 
 
 ' Cyprian, de Bono Patientie, § xii. | 4 Tertullian, De Patientia, c. xv. 
 2 De Zelo et Livore, § v. 5 Stromat. VI. ¢, xiv. p. 795. 
 3 Barbeyrac, p. 128. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 DEUT. IV. 19. MISUNDERSTOOD BY CLEMENS. [Sentes I. 
 
 and stone—even the worship of the stars being thought 
 better than the worship of stocks, as being more likely to 
 advance the worshipper to the contemplation of God himself. 
 But what led Clemens into this particular error was no obli- 
 quity in his morality, but simply a misinterpretation of a verse 
 in Scripture,’ “ And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, 
 and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, 
 even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship 
 them and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided 
 unto all nations under the whole heaven. But the Lord hath 
 taken you” (i.e. the Israelites, as opposed to the Gentiles), 
 “and brought you forth’—as though Moses had said, that 
 the Israelites were not to worship the host of heaven, they 
 having been furnished with better knowledge and a holier 
 creed ; but that to all the nations (7. e. the Gentiles as dis- 
 tinguished from the Jews) God had permitted these heavenly 
 bodies to be objects of worship. Moreover, the Septuagint, 
 which was the Scripture Clemens knew, was capable of bemg 
 drawn into this meaning much more easily—-a arévete Kvpios 
 6 Qeds cov avta Tact Tois Evert TOls UTOKATw Tov OUpavod. 
 buds b& édaBev 6 Ocos, kai cEnyayev vwas, x. tT. %. Now we 
 know that Clemens entertained the same opinion as the Fathers 
 before him, an opinion which had come down to the modern 
 Jews, that the Septuagint translation was made by miracle, 
 and was the work of inspiration, even as the original itself 
 was.” What, therefore, appeared to him to be the sense of 
 the text in Deuteronomy he could not but bow to, however 
 he might have felt difficulties about it. And that difficulties 
 he did feel, and put the interpretation upon it he did, not be- 
 cause he wished to warp a text to support a theory, but because 
 he was not aware of any other exposition,® seems to be proved 
 by tlie manner in which he expresses himself on two other 
 occasions on the same subject, where the text of Deuteronomy 
 does not happen to present itself to his mind, and where he 
 speaks therefore under no constraint. For in the Exhortation 
 to the Gentiles* he declares his surprise that men should have 
 been found who worshipped the Divine workmanship, instead 
 of God himself, absurdly supposing the sun, the moon, and the 
 
 1 Deut. iv. 19. Dial. §§ 55. 121. 
 2 Stromat. I. ¢. xxii. pp. 409, 410. * Cohort. ad Gentes, § iv. pp. 54, 55. 
 § The same indeed was that of Justin, 
 
Lect. XI.]} DEFENCE OF LATER FATHERS DECLINED. 213 
 
 chorus of the stars to be gods, whereas they were only instru- 
 ments whereby to measure time. And in another passage in 
 the same work, where he is describing the several sources from 
 which idolatry took its beginning, he makes one of them to 
 be this very admiration of the heavenly bodies, “Some, de- 
 ceived by the spectacle of the heavens, or trusting to the eye 
 alone, contemplated the motions of the stars, and admired and 
 deified them, calling the stars gods (@eovs) from their motion 
 (逫 tod Oetv) ; and worshipped the sun, like the Indians, 
 and the moon, like the Phrygians.’’' The conclusion, there- 
 fore, we come to on the whole is, that the faulty views he 
 puts forward on one single occasion, he does so put forward 
 in deference to what he supposed to be Scripture ; and only 
 in deference to it: some constraint seeming to be laid upon 
 his own judgment, as we gather from other parts of his writ- 
 ings, where the text of Scripture does not seem to occur to 
 him. 
 
 I feel that I have now furnished you with the key by 
 which, as it appears to me, the greater part of the objections 
 of Barbeyrac may be solved; viz. his want of consideration 
 for the popular character of the writings of the Fathers, and 
 for the peculiar circumstances of the age in which they lived. 
 I must, however, again remind you, that my remarks through- 
 out these Lectures have been confined altogether to the Fathers 
 of the first three centuries. I do not pretend to clear those 
 of a later date, and particularly those of a much later, from 
 all the charges which Daillé and Barbeyrac have brought 
 against them; for their field is much wider than mine. My 
 object has been in these Lectures, and in all that I have de- 
 livered on similar subjects, since I occupied my present post 
 here, to interest my hearers on behalf of the Ante-Nicene Fa- 
 thers ; feeling as I do, that they are by far the most valuable 
 of all, as being nearest the times of the Apostles; and feeling 
 too, that their testimony, instead of unsettling your minds 
 with respect to the doctrine and ritual of your own Church, 
 will on the whole lead you to think, that you could betake 
 yourself to no other, which so nearly resembles that of the 
 primitive ages. I have said it before from this place, and I 
 repeat it now, that it is not the reference to ecclesiastical an- 
 tiquity, which has of late prevailed to such an extent, that has 
 
 1 Cohort. ad Gentes, § ii. p. 22. 
 
214 USE OF THE FATHERS EXEMPLIFIED [Series I. 
 
 disturbed us, and given cause for jealousy and apprehension to 
 so many, but it has been the reference to ecclesiastical anti- 
 quity of too low a date; a date, when the Church had lost 
 much of the simplicity both of its faith and constitution. 
 Such popular objections as are urged against the study even 
 of these primitive Fathers, I trust I have in this Course of 
 Lectures in a great measure removed. It will be my business 
 in my Lectures next Term to follow up my present argument 
 by an exposition of the positive advantages of many kinds 
 which result from the study of the writers of the Ante-Nicene 
 Church ; and thus redeein the title which Daillé adopted “ On 
 the Use of the Fathers,” whilst the only or chief object of 
 his book proved to be, to persuade us that the Fathers are of 
 no use at all. 
 
 Accordingly I shall show in these Lectures the light 
 the study of the early Fathers casts upon the Hvidences— 
 the weapons with which they Gn a peculiar manner) arm us 
 against the infidel, and against Mr. Gibbon’s infidelity more 
 especially ; by proving the rapid spread of Christianity over 
 the world; by exhibiting the classes of society out of which 
 its converts were made, and the mistake it is to suppose that 
 they were exclusively of the lowest ; by developing the care 
 and caution with which their characters were sifted before 
 their allegiance was received ; by furnishing us with a true 
 estimate of the extent and intensity of persecution they en- 
 countered and sustained, and the trying nature of some modes 
 of it less obvious, and therefore less adverted to, but not less 
 searching. I shall treat of the miraculous powers ascribed 
 to the Primitive Church ; and of its ecclesiastical construction. 
 I shall explain the good offices the Fathers render us in our 
 investigation of the Canon of Scripture—the substance of 
 Scripture—the teat of Scripture—and above all, the meaning 
 of Scripture on great cardinal points, by retlecting to us the 
 sense of the Primitive Church on them all, on the last of 
 which subjects I shall have to dwell at some length. 
 
 I cannot but persuade myself that young men about to 
 undertake the occupation of Ministers in Christ’s Church, of 
 teachers of the people in theological and ecclesiastical truth, 
 particularly in times like owr own, when so much error is 
 abroad on such topics, and so many foundations subverted or 
 shaken, which they may find themselves soon in a position to 
 
Lect. XI.] IN THE SECOND SERIES. 215 
 
 restore or repair—I say, I cannot but persuade myself, that 
 ingenuous men, with such prospects before them, may feel it 
 a duty—an interesting duty—to make themselves acquainted 
 with such questions as I have enumerated; and though no 
 longer compelled to hear what I have to say on them by con- 
 straint, may be disposed to do so of good-will: and that I 
 shall have the satisfaction of feeling, that in composing these 
 Lectures, the results of many years’ patient reading and 
 ~thought, I have not been labouring in vain; but have a 
 chance of diffusing the conclusions of my own experience 
 through the country by the best of all channels, that of an 
 enlightened and intelligent Clergy. 
 
 
 

 
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LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 RIGHT USK OF THE EARLY FATHERS. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 ON THE ADVANTAGES TO BE DERIVED FROM THE STUDY 
 OF THE EARLY FATHERS. 
 

 
 
 
ON THE RIGHT USE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE EARLY FATHERS. 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in relation to the Evidences. Their testimony to the wide 
 dispersion of the Gospel opposed to the statements of Gibbon. His unfairness 
 in citing them. Argument from their incidental allusions. More direct testi- 
 mony to the early establishment of Christianity on the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean and Euxine, and in the countries beyond the Euphrates. Its secret 
 progress illustrated from the Acts, from St. Paul’s Epistles, from the Fathers. 
 Its disturbance of the social relations instrumental to its propagation. Ex- 
 position of Phil. i. 12-18. Further illustrations. Effect of the public games. 
 
 VHE Course of Lectures which I delivered last Term on the 
 Use of the Fathers, was entirely occupied in removing or 
 abating those charges against them, which are advanced by 
 Daillé and Barbeyrac: for I thought it would be well to clear 
 away objections to the study of them, before I proceeded -to 
 enforce their value ; and I thought too, that it would not be 
 easy to find any which had escaped the notice of those two 
 unsparing critics. I now propose to redeem the promise I 
 made at the close of that course, and to show some of the 
 positive benefits which accrue from an examination of the 
 Fathers ; still limiting my subject to the Fathers of the first 
 three centuries. A portion of the present argument indeed 
 was forestalled in that course, and the use of the Fathers was 
 incidentally proved in various particulars, whilst I was more 
 immediately engaged in relieving them from abuse. Such was 
 especially the case with respect to questions involved in the 
 Romish controversy ; most of which have already passed in 
 review whilst I was in fact engaged in answering Daillé and 
 Barbeyrac. I shall endeavour, therefore, not to repeat myself 
 in this continuation of my remarks, and omit such proofs of 
 
220 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS TO (Series IT. 
 
 ~ 
 
 the value of the Fathers as have already been offered under 
 the other head of my subject. 
 
 Now, if we contemplate them in relation to the Hvidences 
 for the truth of our religion, it would be difficult to overrate 
 their worth. It is obvious, that the very period at which 
 they lived, would be enough in itself to make their testimony 
 most precious. Whatever gives us a better command of the 
 circumstances under which Christianity established itself in 
 the world improves the field of evidence. For a vast number 
 of infidel arguments are founded on ignorance or imperfect 
 information of primitive times. I feel that the matter which 
 belongs to this single branch of the subject is so overwhelming 
 that I cannot attempt to produce a tithe of it. My object, 
 indeed, is not to exhaust any of the topics I handle; the 
 limits, within which these Lectures must be compressed, would 
 not admit of it. All I can do is, to adduce so much proof as 
 shall satisfy my hearers that I have a reason for what I say ; 
 and encourage them to pursue the further investigation of the 
 subject for themselves. 
 
 Thus it bas always been considered a very strong argument 
 for the truth of the Christian religion, that though backed by 
 no secular power whatever, and propagated by a few unlet- 
 tered fishermen, it should have so soon made a lodgement in 
 the world, overrun the nations so wonderfully fast as it did, 
 till it made kings proud to be its nursing-fathers, and queens 
 its nursing-mothers. But suppose to this it was replied that 
 the assertion was not true—that it did not in fact begin to 
 take possession of the earth till it became the religion of the 
 empire, and was accordingly upheld by secular authority, and 
 owed, indeed, its success to secular support—how is the ob- 
 jection to be met, but by an appeal to early Christian history? 
 The objection itself is no imaginary one, you are well aware, 
 but in the hands of a subtle historian has been no doubt made 
 instrumental to shaking the faith of thousands: the rather 
 because Gibbon lived at a time when few, if even any, scholars 
 knew much about primitive ecclesiastical antiquity. Indeed, 
 I can scarcely imagine he would have ventured on the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth chapters of his book in their present form, had 
 not the theology of his age invited him to run risks, and take 
 liberties with truth. For how ample is the testimony borne 
 by the Fathers of the first three centuries to the wide dis- 
 
Lect. 1.] . THE WIDE DISPERSION OF CHRISTIANITY 227 
 
 persion of the Gospel even then. It transpires perpetually ; 
 not directly only, but often in a manner the most circuitous 
 and incidental—in such a manner as could only result from 
 the fact itself being a settled conviction in the writer’s mind. 
 
 Thus Clemens (even so early a witness as he) having occa- 
 sion to produce some examples of the virtue of patience in 
 support of his exhortation to the Corinthian Church to en- 
 courage it in themselves, mentions St. Paul. “Seven times,” 
 says he, “he was in bonds, he was scourged, he was stoned, 
 he preached both in the east and m the west, leaving behind 
 him a glorious report of his faith: and so, having taught the 
 whole world righteousness, and having travelled even to the 
 utmost bounds of the west, he at last suffered martyrdom.”! 
 
 Again, Justin Martyr tells us that the bells attached to 
 the high priest’s garment were a figure of the twelve Apostles 
 who were dependent on Christ the Priest for ever ; the whole 
 earth through their preaching haying been filled with the 
 glory and grace of God and of his Christ. | Wherefore it was 
 that David said, “Their sound is gone out into all lands, and 
 their words into the ends of the world.”* Here we have 
 another instance of the fact we are investigating, bemg com- 
 municated in the same unobtrusive way as before. Again, in 
 the same author’s exposition of Moses’ blessing on Joseph, 
 “his horns are like the horns of an unicorn, with them he 
 shall push the people together to the ends of the earth,’* the 
 horn of the unicorn is the Cross, and its pushing the nations 
 to the ends of the earth is but significant, says he, “of what 
 has already come to pass among all nations. For they of 
 all nations, pushed by the horn, that is, pricked to the heart 
 by this mystery, have turned from their vain idols to the wor- 
 ship of God.” # 
 
 Once more, Irenzeus in commenting on the parable of the 
 grain of mustard seed, remarks that in that parable, “the 
 Judge of the whole world was announced—that he, in the 
 heart of the earth and buried in the tomb, in three days be- 
 came the greatest of trees, and stretched forth His branches 
 to the ends of the world—that the twelve Apostles, shooting 
 from the stem, like goodly and flourishing boughs, became a 
 shelter for the nations, as those boughs are to the birds of 
 
 
 
 1 Clem. Rom. Ad Cor. I. § v. 3 Deut. xxxiii. 17. 
 2 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 42. 4 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 91. 
 
222 OPPOSED TO THE STATEMENTS OF GIBBON. [Sentms HU. 
 
 heaven ; under which boughs, all finding shelter, like birds 
 gathered into the nest, have partaken of that food nutritious 
 and heavenly which proceeded from them.” ’ It is most im- 
 probable that Irenzeeus would have used expressions of this 
 sort, if the Gospel had not actually made great progress when 
 he penned them. Again, he is speaking of the uniformity of 
 tradition in the orthodox Church, to whatever branch of it 
 you turn, as presenting an insuperable objection to the novel- 
 ties of the heretics. That is his argument; but in treating 
 it, he incidentally touches on the actual superficial extent of 
 that Church in the following terms; “so that the faith and 
 tradition of the Churches is one and the same, whether they 
 be established in Germany, in Spain, in Gaul, in the East, in 
 Egypt, in Libya, or in the middle of the world.”? And here 
 may be the proper place for remarking by the way the ani- 
 mus with which Gibbon handles such early evidence as this for 
 the wide dispersion of the Gospel. We see Spain is one of 
 the countries here enumerated as having received the Gospel, 
 and in such a measure as to have her Churches appealed to on 
 the subject of Tradition ; a circumstance indicating both that 
 the spread of the Gospel in that country was considerable, 
 and also that its date was even then of some standing. And 
 yet Gibbon casts a doubt upon the Gospel having penetrated 
 Spain even in Tertullian’s time, whose testimony to that effect 
 he produces in order to disparage it, as if it was the earliest 
 which existed on the question, altogether sinking this of 
 Irenzeus which preceded Tertullian’s and concurred with it. 
 “From Gaul,” says Gibbon, “which claimed a just pre-emi- 
 nence of learning and authority over all the countries on this 
 side‘of the Alps, the ight of the Gospel was more faintly re- 
 flected on the remote provinces of Spain and Britain ; and if 
 we may credit the vehement assertions of Tertullian,’ they 
 had already received the first rays of the faith, when he ad- 
 dressed his Apology to the magistrates of the Emperor 
 Severus.” * Now, why advert to a rhetorical passage of Tertul- 
 lian, a later witness, and suppress this sober one of Irenzeus, 
 an earlier? I say suppress, because though not taking the 
 slightest notice of it in his text, where if Tertullian was 
 
 1Treneus, Fragm. xxxi. or p. 347, 4 Gibbon’s History of the Decline 
 Jened. Ed. and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. 
 ? Ireneus, I. c. x. § 2. p. 368. 
 
 5 Tertullian, Ady. Judmos, ec. vii. 
 
Lecr. I.] HIS UNFAIRNESS IN CITING THEM. Lee 
 
 worth producing, surely Ivenzeus was, he has a reference to 
 it afterwards in a note'; in a note, however, annexed to a 
 sentence which has no particular relation to Spain, and the 
 reference in that note confined to a bare citation of the book 
 and chapter of Irenzeus, without a word about the substance 
 of the passage referred to, nothing in short done to invite us 
 to examine it; as though on the one hand, Gibbon was _ re- 
 luctant to put his readers in full possession of an authority 
 which was against him ; and on the other, was willing to pre- 
 pare for himself a retreat against the charge of ignorance of 
 that authority, by barely jotting down the chapter and verse. 
 The very next page furnishes an instance of the same disin- 
 genuousness in the case of Armenia. “It will still remain 
 an undoubted fact, that the barbarians of Scythia and Ger- 
 many, who afterwards subverted the Roman monarchy, were 
 involved in the darkness of Paganism; and that even the 
 conversion of Iberia, of Armenia, and of Aithiopia, was not 
 attempted with any degree of success till the sceptre was in 
 the hands of an orthodox emperor.”? But Armenia is one 
 of the nations expressly enumerated by Tertullian® as be- 
 lieving in Christ, and Mr. Gibbon himself, convinced that in 
 this case at least his assertion was not true, expressed his 
 intention of correcting his error in future editions. “Yet,” 
 remarks Professor Porson in the Preface to his Letters to 
 Archdeacon Travis, a Preface in which he pronounces an 
 ewogium with certain exceptions on Mr. Gibbon’s history, 
 “to say the truth, I have one censure in reserve. A candid 
 acknowledgment of error does not seem to be Mr. Gibbon’s 
 shining virtue. He promised (if I understand him rightly) 
 that in a future edition he would expunge the words, of Ar- 
 menia, or make an equivalent alteration. A new edition 
 has appeared ; but I have looked in vain to find a correction 
 of that passage.” ° 
 
 But to return to our proof that the early Fathers bear 
 testimony to the wide dispersion of the Gospel in their time; 
 that of Tertullian, which has already been advanced in one 
 instance, does not terminate with that one; on the con- 
 trary, it presents itself in many of his works, written no 
 
 1 Gibbon’s History of the Decline 3 Tertullian, Adversus Judios, c. vii. 
 and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 4 Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works, vol. 
 li. p. 369, note 177. iv. p.577. 8vo. 1814. 
 
 *p. 869. 5 Porson’s Letters to Travis, p. xxxi. 
 
294 TESTIMONY OF TERTULLIAN AND ORIGEN TO [Series I. 
 
 doubt at considerable intervals of time. One while he tells 
 us, as in his Apology, that people were exclaiming, the 
 state was besieged by the Christians ; that it was deplored 
 as a misfortune, that every sex, age, condition, rank, was 
 passing over to their name.' At another time he talks of 
 the Christians, however unobtrusive their lives, in numbers 
 constituting the major part of every state.” Elsewhere he 
 produces a catalogue of distinguished princes, and shows that 
 they after all only governed limited districts, Solomon, e. g. 
 from Dan to Beersheba, “whereas the kingdom and name of 
 Christ extends everywhere, is believed everywhere, is wor- 
 shipped by all the nations already enumerated;’’* those nations 
 being “the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, the dwellers in Meso- 
 potamia, in Armenia, in Phrygia, in Cappadocia, the inhabi- 
 tants of Pontus, Asia, and Pamphylia; of Egypt and of the 
 country of Africa about Cyrene ; Romans, Jews, the various 
 tribes of the Getuli, many districts of the Moors ; the whole 
 boundary of Spain ; divers nations of the Gauls; and parts 
 of Britain which had been inaccessible to the Romans.” * 
 And on another occasion, when arguing that the prophecies 
 which related to the events that were to follow the appear- 
 ance of Christ, were fulfilled after Jesus of Nazareth, he 
 proceeds, “for behold all the nations emerging out of the 
 vortex of human error, to God the Creator and to God the 
 Christ ;”” and then having quoted the Psalm, “I shall give 
 thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts 
 of the earth for thy possession,” he observes that this pre- 
 diction was not accomplished in David, whose empire was 
 limited to Judeea, but in Christ, “who hath already pos- 
 sessed,” says he, “the whole world with a faith in his Gos- 
 pel.’ Some of the treatises in which these passages occur 
 were composed before he was a Montanist ; some afterwards ; 
 some in which there is no internal evidence to show whether 
 it was before or after ; but all of them, we see, concur in the 
 assertion of the extensive dispersion of the Gospel in his time. 
 
 Origen in his turn speaks to the same effect. In his 
 treatise against Celsus, one of the works of his maturer age, 
 and perhaps the most sober of them all, in replying to the 
 objection that Christianity is but of yesterday’s date, he 
 
 1 Tertullian, Apol. e. i. 3 Adversus Judmos, ¢. vii. 4 Thid. 
 
 2 Ad Scapulam, ec. ii. 5 Adversus Marcionem, III. ¢, xx. 
 
Lxcr. I.) THE WIDE DISPERSION OF THE GOSPEL. 225 
 
 draws a conclusion in favour of Christianity from this very 
 circumstance ; that recent as was its introduction among men, 
 it had made a progress, which nothing could account for but 
 its Divine origin. “And though at the first,” says he, “the 
 kings of the day, and the chief officers under them, and the 
 magistrates, and in short all who were in any post of authority, 
 and the governors in cities, and the military, and the popu- 
 lace, resisted the dispersion of it over the world, it still pre- 
 vailed, for it could not be hindered, as being the Word of God, 
 and stronger than all its antagonists ; so that it took posses- 
 sion of the whole of Greece, and the greater part of the world 
 of the barbarians, and converted myriads of souls to that form 
 of worship.’ And again, in the same treatise, when showing 
 how faithfully our Lord’s prediction was fulfilled, that the 
 Gospel should “be preached in all the world for a witness 
 unto all nations,’? Origen remarks, “ Who that reverts to 
 the time when Jesus used these words, will not wonder when 
 he perceives that according to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 has been preached in all the world under heaven, to Greeks 
 and barbarians, to wise and foolish? For the Word spoke 
 with power that prevailed over the whole race of mankind ; 
 and one can find no nation amongst them, which has escaped 
 receiving the doctrine of Jesus.”* And on another occasion 
 in the same treatise, he considers the Churches established all 
 the world over, in every city, as ordained to be the antago- 
 nists and correctives of the heathen assemblies (é««Anolae 
 the term applied to both), and challenges a comparison be- 
 tween their respective leaders and governors.* So again in 
 his De Principiis, and in a part of that treatise where the 
 Greek is preserved, so that the testimony cannot be that of 
 Rufinus, who might be supposed to speak of the condition of 
 Christianity at a later date, the argument and almost the 
 language is the same. “And if we consider, how in a very 
 few years (év ofddpa orLyots éTect), whilst those who confessed 
 Christianity were plotted against, and some of them were 
 slain for it, and others were spoiled of their property, and 
 though the teachers of it were not very numerous, the Word 
 
 1 Tlaons pev ‘ENAddos, emt meiov | sum, I. § 28. 
 
 d€ tis BapBapov expatnoe, Kal pererroi 2 Matt. xxiv. 14. 
 noe puplas doas Wuxas ent thy Kar’ * Contra Celsum, IT. § 13. 
 avtoy JeoveBecay.— Origen, Contra Cel- 4 III. § 30. 
 
 Q 
 
226 INCIDENTAL TESTIMONY OF CYPRIAN, [Serres Is 
 
 found means to be proclaimed everywhere throughout the 
 world, so that Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish, were 
 added to the religion of Jesus, we cannot hesitate to affirm 
 that the thing was above what was of man.”' Jacob’s 
 prophecy, he afterwards argues, is seen to be fulfilled “ by the 
 multitude of the nations who have believed in God through 
 Christ,’’? and also that in Psalm Ixxii. 8. “His dominion 
 shall be also from the one sea to the other, and from the 
 flood unto the world’s end.’’® 
 
 Again, Cyprian in his tract addressed to Demetrianus, a 
 heathen scoffer, still leads us to the same conclusion. The 
 very charge which this antagonist alleges against the Christians 
 is in itself a proof of their numbers. The greater frequency 
 of wars, the greater severity of plague and famine, the long 
 lack of rain and showers were calamities, it seems, according 
 to him, which were imputed to the Christians.* But there 
 would have been nothing even plausible in such an accusation 
 as this, unless the Christians had been so large a portion of 
 the population as materially to affect the number of the wor- 
 shippers of the heathen gods. And in fact, Cyprian in the 
 course of this essay, hints that the Christians are so formi- 
 dable a body, that though it was their custom and their glory 
 to take the persecution they suffered, patiently, they were in 
 strength to resent it. “Therefore, it is, that none of us 
 when apprehended resists, none rises against your unjust 
 violence, quamyvis nimius et copiosus noster sit populus.”® And 
 a modest expression in Minucius Felix, perhaps, does not 
 indicate the same fact the less forcibly on account of its unpre- 
 tending character. “Neither let us pride ourselves upon our 
 numbers, seeing that in the sight of God, before whom the 
 whole world is stretched out, we are few.’’ ° 
 
 It is not, however, merely on phrases of this kind which 
 escape from the Fathers, one and all, that we build; though, 
 considering how uniform their language is upon this point, 
 and how distant from one another are the parties in many 
 instances when they use it, such concurrence in them is in 
 itself very satisfactory; but the facts, which these early 
 documents furnish, establish the same conclusion. Asia 
 
 1 De Principiis, IV. § 2. 5 § xvii. 
 
 “3870. 355. § Minucius Felix, Octav. ¢. xxxiii. 
 * Cyprian, Ad Demetrianum, § ii. 
 
Lect. I.] MORE DIRECT TESTIMONY TO OM i 
 
 Minor was evidently full of Christian communities. The 
 epistles of Ignatius testify it. For though those epistles are 
 addressed directly to five Churches only of that country, yet 
 it is evident that there were in it numbers besides. These 
 five happened to he on or near the march of Ignatius, when 
 he was conveyed from Antioch to Rome, and so were honoured 
 by his more immediate notice. But he speaks of Churches 
 which did not belong to him forwarding him on his journey 
 city by city’; and tells Polycarp that as he has not been able 
 to write himself to all the Churches, he trusts he will do it 
 for him to such as were in his own neighbourhood.? Indeed, 
 as on the one hand, several of the Churches to which Ignatius 
 appeals are not mentioned in the Revelation ; so on the other, 
 several of those mentioned in the Revelation are not found in 
 the list of the Ignatian Churches, Then, Polycrates, a Bishop 
 of Kphesus in the second century, writes a synodical epistle to 
 Victor, Bishop of Rome, on the subject of Easter,’ of which 
 epistle a fragment is come down to us in Eusebius. Now in 
 this fragment it is said, that if the names of the Bishops 
 assembled at that convocation were put down, they would be 
 found to be great multitudes (7odArAa wAjOn). The same 
 ecclesiastical history contains a portion of an epistle addressed 
 by Serapion, a Bishop of Antioch of the same date, to Rhossus, 
 a city of Cilicia, on the subject of a spurious Gospel of St. 
 Peter*; and mention is made in it too of a Bishop of Hiera- 
 polis in Phrygia. Again, the epistle from the Churches of 
 Lyons and Vienne is written to the Churches of Asia and 
 Phrygia ; not merely showing that Churches there were in Asia 
 and Phrygia, but vigorous Churches, Churches holding close 
 connection with the Churches of Gaul, and deeply interested in 
 their sufferings—all this still within the second century.’ 
 The work of Irenzeus who was eventually Bishop of Lyons, 
 as he had been previously Presbyter of the same Church, gives 
 us the impression of having been composed in a country 
 where the Gospel was not weak even then, or confined to very 
 narrow bounds. It bespeaks its author not to be buried 
 alive in a corner of the Church, but to be master of all the 
 great heresies of the day. And though it is true he had 
 
 1 Tonatius, Ad Rom. § ix. 4p. 470. 
 2 Ad Polycarpum, § viii. 5 Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. v. ce. 1, 2, 3. 
 
 ® Routh. Rel. Sacr. vol. i. p. 369. 
 Q 2 
 
228 THE EARLY ESTABLISHMENT OF (Serres II. 
 
 visited Rome, and no doubt kept up an intercourse with the 
 East, yet the book was composed in Gaul ; and though in the 
 preface of it he apologizes for his style, on the plea that he 
 was living among Celts, and was in the habit, therefore, of 
 using a barbarous language, he makes no allusion to any other 
 disadvantage which his position entailed upon him ; and it is 
 manifest that he is combating an evil even at his own doors, 
 certain of these Gnostics having been busy even in his own 
 district about the Rhone’; the proximity of the mischief pro- 
 bably stimulating him to write against and expose them ; but 
 there scarcely would have been vigorous heresies subsisting in 
 a country where the Church had not made effectual lodgement. 
 The frequent allusions too, which we find in him, to ritual 
 and ecclesiastical organization lead to the same conclusion. 
 Indeed, we shall presently see, that by the time of Cyprian 
 there is evidence indisputable, that there were numerous sees 
 in Gaul. Again, fragments of writers of the second century, 
 preserved by Eusebius, still continue to afford occasional 
 glimpses of this wide dispersion of the Gospel over districts 
 I have not yet touched ; nor can we read them without feeling, 
 how much evidence on this question must have perished to- 
 gether with the early Christian documents which contained it, 
 and without lamenting the loss of them for this as for many 
 other reasons. Thus Dionysius, a Bishop of Corinth of that 
 period, writes Catholic epistles to the Lacedzemonians, to the 
 Athenians, to the Nicomedians, to Gortyna and the Gnossians, 
 Churches in Crete, as well as to Churches in other regions of 
 which I have spoken already.?, And Serapion, whilst com- 
 municating with two correspondents on the subject of the 
 Montanists, incidentally speaks of a Bishop of Debeltum in 
 Thrace, and also of a Bishop of Anchialus in the same 
 country. But what need is there to pick up the state of 
 religion in Greece piecemeal? Tertullian in a manner the 
 most incidental, for when he writes he is a Montanist, and 
 is engaged in defending the assemblies of the Montanists, 
 extra-scriptural though they might be—Tertullian in self-de- 
 fence tells us that “Councils of all the Churches (7. ¢. the 
 orthodox Churches) were held in stated places throughout 
 Greece (per Greecias), at which all weightier matters were dis- 
 cussed ; and the representation of the whole Christian com- 
 
 ' Trenseus, I. ¢. xiii. § 7. ? Rel. Sacr. vol. i. p. 170. 
 
Lect. I.] CHRISTIANITY ON THE SHORES 299 
 
 munity took place with vast solemnity.”! Irenzeus twice 
 refers to the Church in Aithiopia as first established by the 
 eunuch,” and in such terms as would indicate that it could 
 then be appealed to for the orthodox doctrine, that no other 
 God was taught by the Apostles save God the Father, nor 
 any Christ but Jesus. What stronger proof again is it possi- 
 ble to have of the vigorous condition of Christianity at Alex- 
 andria and in that region, than the writings of Clemens 
 Alexandrinus afford, or those of Origen who succeeded him 
 for a time? The greater part of the works of both these 
 authors, and especially of the former and earlier, is character- 
 istic not merely of the Gospel having taken the deepest root 
 among all classes, but even of very refined and transcendental 
 views of it prevailing amongst them—so far was it even 
 then from being in the cradle of its existence in that district. 
 And once in possession of Alexandria and its schools, what 
 could stop its wide and rapid diffusion over the world? For 
 if there was one place more than another calculated as a pro- 
 pitious starting-point for a new doctrine, it was Alexandria. 
 Its position secured full and free intercourse with Asia, Africa, 
 and Europe ; and it seems to have been a neutral ground on 
 which all sects and opinions met together—LKastern sophists 
 who probably introduced by that channel their Gnostic 
 doctrines into circulation in the West, Platonists, Jews in 
 very great numbers, speculative teachers of all sorts, abound- 
 ing there ; and the great library of the Ptolemies furnishing 
 magazines of materials for all. In a society such as this, 
 would not Clemens have been exposing himself to ridicule in 
 the use of such language as the following, if he spoke without 
 good grounds for what he said? He is encouraging the 
 heathen to embrace the truth by reminding them that they 
 might infer the Gospel to be from God by reason of the rapid- 
 ity with which it had overrun the world. ‘ The power of 
 God,” says he, “illuminating the earth with amazing speed 
 and a benevolence within the reach of all hath filled the wni- 
 verse, (everAnae TO Tav,) with the seed of salvation. For 
 the Lord did not achieve so great a work as this in so short a 
 time without the Divine Providence. . . . He was the 
 true wrestler, and wrestled in conjunction with the creature ; 
 and very quickly distributed to all mankind (rayiora 8é 
 
 
 
 ! Tertullian, De Jejuniis, ¢. xiii, . * Irenaeus, ILI. c. xii. § 8; IV. c. xxiii. § 2. 
 
230 OF THE MEDITERRANEAN AND EUXINE.  [Sentes I. 
 
 els TavTas avOpwrous SiadoGels), and rising according to his 
 Father’s will more swiftly than the sun,” (the wrestler pro- 
 bably referring to the giant, to whom the sun is compared in 
 the 19th Psalm,) “he readily made the Godhead to shine 
 upon us, showing us whence he was and who he was by the 
 things which he taught and exhibited ; the Maker of the 
 Covenant, the Reconciler, our Saviour the Word, the Fountain 
 which giveth life, which giveth peace, Himself poured over 
 the whole face of the earth ; through whom in short all 
 things are become a sea of good.”' So much for Alexandria 
 and that region. Again, what a surface does Cyprian repre- 
 sent directly and indirectly as occupied by Christianity. He 
 talks to Stephanus of Faustinus, a Bishop of Lyons, and of 
 the other brother Bishops of the same province.* He com- 
 municates with the Clergy and people of Spain’; with 
 Firmilianus, a Bishop of Czesarea in Cappadocia,* in which 
 latter communication the elders and overseers of the Church 
 are described as meeting together once a year to settle grave 
 matters at a common Council.’ And he actually assembles 
 no less than 87 Bishops at Carthage from the province of 
 Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, to discuss the subject of 
 heretical Baptism.*® 
 
 In short, the evidence on this question derived from the 
 early Fathers alone can leave no doubt, that the countries 
 bordering on the Mediterranean and Euxine seas were full of 
 Christians long before Constantine was born. And ‘is it pos- 
 sible to believe, that occupying such a region as this, the 
 choicest that can be imagined for commanding the world, it 
 could be confined to it? Indeed, there is proof that it was 
 not. Such a document, e. g. as the spurious letter of King 
 Abgarus to Jesus given in Eusebius,’ being in itself enough to 
 show that Christianity had been established from an ancient 
 date in the kingdoms beyond the Euphrates: as the memo- 
 randum in Hippolytus of the countries, to which the Apostles 
 were scattered, bespeaks the same fact ; for it assigns India 
 to Bartholomew, and Albanus a city in Armenia for the scene 
 of his martyrdom ; to Thomas it gives Parthia, Media, Persia, 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Cohort. § x. p. 86. 4 Ep. Ixxy. 
 
 * Ceeteris coepiscopis nostris in eadem 55 4. 
 provincia constitutis—Cyprian, Ep. ® Concil. Carthag. sub Cypriano, VII. 
 Ixvii. § i. Procm. 
 
 ® Ep. lxviii. i 7 Eusebius, Eecles. Hist. i. e. 13. 
 
Lect. I.] ITS SECRET PROGRESS ILLUSTRATED 231 
 
 Hyrcania, the Bactri, the Mardi, and Calamina, a city of India, 
 for the place where he suffered death ; to Lebbzeus Mesopo- 
 tamia’: as a passage of Origen gives Scythia to St. Andrew.” 
 And whatever may have been the authority on which such 
 tradition rested, there can be no doubt that when these 
 documents were written which have preserved it, Christianity 
 must have extended itself to the countries enumerated in them 
 as the fields of the Apostles’ labours.? And numerous touches 
 of early ecclesiastical history found in Eusebius all support the 
 same conclusion.* 
 
 The manner, in which the Gospel actually worked its way 
 over the earth, is not easily traced. It came not of observa- 
 tion. The direct preaching of the missionary, though the 
 obvious, was probably very far from being the only, or per- 
 haps even the most ordinary channel ; an expression which 
 drops from Origen in a passage I have already cited, perhaps 
 intimates as much—the rapid dispersion of the Gospel mark- 
 ing its Divine origin, says he, the more, as the number of its 
 teachers was limited.’ Justin Martyr finds a prediction of 
 the unobtrusive character of the advent of the Gospel in the 
 Lord smiting Amalek with a secret hand (év yeupt kpupaia,)® 
 and certainly this expression is very indicative of its noiseless 
 yet effectual course. It. was so from the very beginning. 
 When Paul approaches Italy the first time, he finds it already 
 inhabited by many Christians. The brethren at Puteoli desire 
 him to tarry with them; and the brethren from Rome come 
 to meet him. How or when they had been converted to the 
 Gospel is a mystery. Again, the interval between his release 
 from his first confinement at Rome and his return to that place 
 is uncertain, it might be three years, or it might be more.’ 
 
 1 Hippolytus, De Duodecim Apostolis, 
 Ed. Fabr. Append. p. 30. 
 
 ? Origen, vol. ii. p. 24, Bened. Ed. 
 
 3 Eusebius enumerates several of 
 Hippolytus’ works; and though this 
 memorandum is not specified amongst 
 them, he says that there were very 
 many other writings of his in different 
 hands, wAetora Te ada kal mapa Trod- 
 Aois evpors dv cw(opeva.—Eccles. Hist. 
 V1. C. 22. 
 
 * E.g.he speaks of Pantenus havy- 
 ing penetrated even to India, and of 
 Bartholomew haying preceded him, as 
 report said.—Eccles. Hist. v. ¢. 10. 
 
 
 
 5 OVde trav SidacKddov meovatov- 
 teov.—Origen, De Principiis, IV. § 2. 
 This may possibly refer to the number 
 of the first Apostles. Compare IY. 
 
 5. 
 
 ® So the LXX. Exod. xvii. 16. 
 
 T Lardner releases him from Rome in 
 the early part of 63, and puts him to 
 death. in 65. Credibility, Part II. 
 Supplement, c. xi. §§ xi. xii. Cave 
 makes the former date 59, the latter 63, 
 Hist. Lit. p. 6; Burton, the former 58, 
 the latter 67 or 68, Hist. of the Chris- 
 tian Church, pp. 203. 241, 3rd Ed.; 
 Pearson, the former 63, the latter 68, 
 
932 IN THE CONVERSION OF JUSTIN, (Serts II. 
 
 But how active seems to have been the progress of the Gospel 
 there during that interval ; an interval during which this great 
 Apostle himself at least, having been absent from Rome, could 
 not personally have contributed to the movement, yet, I say, 
 how active does its progress seem to have been during that 
 brief interval! Both St. Paul’s visits were made during the 
 reign of the same emperor, Nero; yet how different is the 
 reception at the one and at the other! In the first he “ was 
 suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him,” 
 “to dwell in his own hired house, and to receive all that came 
 in unto him ;” and then he made a favourable impression on 
 some even “of Cvesar’s houshold.”! In the second he “ suf- 
 fered trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds,”” he was 
 “ready to be offered, and the time of his departure was at 
 hand ;”* and in accordance with these anticipations of his 
 own, he was actually put to death. For the success of the 
 Gospel had been such within this short space of time, that 
 the powers of the empire, indifferent to it in the first instance, 
 had meanwhile taken alarm; and it had begun to be per- 
 ceived that Gallio’s view of the question at any rate could no 
 longer be maintained. Yet how silently had the leaven been 
 working all this while. Justin tells us the history of his own 
 conversion : it was apparently quite accidental, as we should 
 say. He had retired to a secluded region near the coast for 
 the indulgence of uninterrupted meditation, being then en- 
 gaged in the study of Plato’s philosophy. Here an old man 
 of mild and venerable aspect, who was on the look-out for 
 some friends whom he had lost, met with him and fell into 
 conversation with him. He proved to be a Christian ; and 
 accordingly in the course of the dialogue which ensued _ be- 
 tween them, he drew Justin’s attention to the Scriptures, 
 and to the dispensation of the Gospel, of which they spake ; 
 and, his discourse ended, he went away, and Justin saw him 
 no more. Yet the effects of this encounter did not terminate 
 here.* This casual adventure had predisposed Justin to ex- 
 amine the Scriptures; and having done so, he became con- 
 verted and a Christian. Probably this is the history of 
 thousands. There is another account of a conversion in 
 
 Minor Theological Works, vol. i. pp. 22 Tim. ii. 9. 
 391. 396. *iveG: 
 1 Philippians iy. 22, 4 Justin Martyr, Dial gs 3-8. 
 
Lect. 1.] IN THE OCTAVIUS OF MINUCIUS FELIX. 239 
 
 Minucius Felix—indeed it forms the plot of his Dialogue— 
 which again may be considered characteristic of the incidental 
 manner in which it was effected in numberless instances. 
 Minucius tells us that there was nothing, which he remem- 
 bered of his friend Octavius (whose name gives the title to his 
 little work) so vividly, as a conversation which Octavius had 
 held with one Ccecilius a heathen, at which he was himself 
 present ; a conversation at which Octavius won Ceecilius to 
 the Gospel.' This Czecilius, it happened, had come to Rome 
 on a visit to Minucius ; and after they had spent a few days 
 there together in talking over old times, they all three repaired 
 to Ostia for sea-bathing, Minucius having occasion to recruit 
 his health, and the vacation during the short vintage having 
 caused the courts to be shut, for Minucius was a lawyer. Here 
 it chanced, as they were pacing the shore, that on passing an 
 image of Serapis, Ceecilius put his hand to his lip and saluted 
 it, as was the practice with the superstitious vulgar.” Where- 
 upon, says Octavius to Minucius, “it is not the part of a good 
 man, my brother, to allow his friend and companion to con- 
 tinue in such darkness, as that he should be left to stumble 
 against a stone in broad day—a stone fashioned, and anointed, 
 and crowned with garlands, it is true—seeing that the disgrace 
 falls upon you as much as upon him.” Meanwhile, the party 
 pursued their walk along the shore in desultory conversation ; 
 and as they returned paused, where the boats were drawn up 
 on the beach, to watch some boys playing at ducks and drakes 
 on the surface of the water.’ Whilst they were amusing 
 themselves with looking at the sport, Minucius remarked that 
 Ceecilius took no interest in it, but, on the contrary, was silent 
 and thoughtful. What ails you? said he. I am annoyed, 
 replied Czecilius, at the observation of Octavius, which con- 
 veyed to me a reproach of ignorance. Now I am prepared to 
 debate this subject with him, and I will show him that it is 
 an easier matter to babble among friends than to argue with 
 philosophers. Suppose, therefore, we seat ourselves. on the 
 mole, and discuss the question. Accordingly they took their 
 places, and the argument proceeded.* I have produced the 
 passage somewhat at full, because all the details of it answer 
 the purpose for which I cite it; viz. to point out the very 
 casual manner in which the Gospel was often propagated, and 
 
 
 
 1 Minucius Felix, Octay. ec. i. 3 ¢, il. 5°o; iil. 4c, iv. 
 
234 DISTURBING EFFECT OF CHRISTIANITY [Series I. 
 
 the multitude of channels it was stealing through, besides the 
 direct one of missionary exertions. The accidental visit of 
 the heathen to his friend at Rome—their going together to 
 the coast at vacation time, all of them, perhaps, being lawyers, 
 one of them certainly being so—the passing salutation of the 
 image—the apparatus so different from a pulpit and a con- 
 gregation—the whole, I mean, serving to show, what 
 numerous springs of all sorts were in motion to disperse 
 Christianity, and to account for the very rapid progress it 
 made ; so many hands, it appears, forwarding it who were 
 not expressly charged with the work, nor even suspected of 
 being engaged in it. 
 
 Moreover, the very nature of Christianity was such as to 
 excite attention and awake discussion wherever it planted 
 itself It was a disturbing force. It could not exist, and 
 not make itself felt. Even so early as the Canonical Epistles, 
 one detects this feature of it. From a passage in the first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, we find there was already felt to 
 be a difficulty about carrying on legal suits, when the tribunal 
 was heathen and the litigants Christian. “ Dare any of you, 
 having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust ?”? 
 In the same Epistle (for the social character of many of the 
 questions handled in that Epistle causes it to supply us with 
 much evidence of the qualities there were in the Gospel to 
 make it talked about), in that same Epistle, I say, we have 
 another contingency provided for, which must have been of 
 constant occurrence, that of unequal marriage, one party a 
 believer, the other an infidel.? What a fruitful field of dis- 
 cussion would either of these occurrences furnish, the one 
 bringing the question of Christianity under consideration in 
 all its bearings’on property and person, the other in all its 
 bearings on the social relations of life. And it is this view of 
 the stirring nature of the Gospel, the vibration, as it were, 
 which it occasioned throughout the system into which it was 
 admitted, that is, perhaps, the true key to a passage in the 
 Epistle to the Philippians, often quoted for another purpose. 
 “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things 
 which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the 
 furtherance of the Gospel (7. e. his imprisonment) ; so that 
 my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all 
 
 1 1 Cor. yi. 1. 21 Cor. vii. 12, 18. 
 
 
 
Lect. J.] ON THE RELATIONS OF SOCIETY 200 
 
 other places ; and many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing 
 confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the 
 word without fear. Some, indeed, preach («npvocovow) 
 Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: 
 the one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing 
 to add affliction to my bonds: but the other of love, knowing 
 that I am set for the defence of the Gospel. What then ? 
 notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or in truth, 
 Christ is preached (catayyéAXerat) ; and therein do I rejoice, 
 yea, and will rejoice” '—the terms xnpvcow and KaTayyéedro 
 not used in any technical sense, I apprehend, or having here 
 the meaning of preach as usually. understood ; but simply 
 conveying the idea, that St. Paul’s imprisonment had excited 
 a strong sensation (as we say in these days), and led to the 
 discussion of the merits of the cause for which he suffered ; 
 ‘ one party assailing and vilifying it and him, and another 
 party warmly defending both ; and thus both parties, whether 
 actuated by spite or by charity still serving by their disputes 
 to spread the knowledge of Christ and to proclaim Him; a 
 good result at all events, in which St. Paul rejoices. The 
 passage, thus explained, holds out no sanction for heretical 
 preaching, as it is often made to do. These commotions, 
 which attended on the progress of the Gospel, and which we 
 thus see had begun in the Apostles’ days, increased in an 
 enormous ratio, as it proceeded and gathered strength ; and 
 by consequence interfered more and more with all the habits, 
 and arrangements, and laws, and occupations, and amusements 
 of mankind: so that the subject soon forced itself upon all 
 who came within the range of its influence, whether they 
 would or not: it could not be blinked ; and thus overran the 
 world with a rapidity, which nothing could stop. The 
 absence of the Christians from all public spectacles,’ from ex- 
 ecutions,’ their scruples about wearing garlands at a feast,* 
 and ointments’; their care about their own poor®; their 
 hesitation to take a heathen oath’; their reluctance to burn 
 their dead*; their refusal to partake of meats which had 
 
 1 Philippians i. 12-18. 6 Stromat. I. § i. p. 319. 
 
 2 Clem. Alex. Pad. III. ¢. xi. p. 298. 7 Tertullian, De Idololatria, ¢. xvii. 
 
 ® Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christianis, 8 De Corona, ¢. xi.; Epistle of the 
 § 35. Churches of Lyons and Vienne, Routh. 
 
 4 Clem. Alex. Ped. II. ¢. viil. p. 213. | Rel. Sacr. vol. i. p. 290. 
 5 p. 205. 
 
236 INSTRUMENTAL TO ITS PROPAGATION.  [Senzzs IT. 
 
 been offered at heathen altars’; their objections to having 
 their children taught at school heathen mythology”; their 
 use on all occasions of the sign of the Cross,’ on their beds, 
 on their persons ; all these peculiarities and numbers more of 
 the same kind, great and small, which might be mentioned, 
 must have been so many challenges to the curiosity of the 
 world they mixed with; must have drawn attention to them 
 and their doctrines: the feeling which accompanied their 
 march, go where they would, must have been more or less 
 that of the people of Thessalonica, “ these that have turned 
 the world upside down are come hither also.” * We saw from 
 Minucius, that the casual salutation of an image of Serapis 
 was the primary cause of a discussion on the merits of Chris- 
 tianity and of the conversion which ensued ; how much more 
 likely would the casual crossing of the person (to take the 
 least of the peculiarities of the Christians I enumerated) be 
 a trifle calculated to lead to similar results ! 
 
 The ordinary progress of the Gospel promoted through all 
 these unobtrusive channels, must have been greatly accelerated 
 by the frequent resort of the people in those days, in multi- 
 tudes, to the public games. The mere union of persons from 
 all quarters with little to do, whilst the games lasted, but to 
 talk over the events of the day, was propitious to the diffusion 
 of the knowledge of this rising sect. The case was similar in 
 this respect to the feast of the Passover, and the effects were 
 similar. We learn from St. John the active inquiries, which 
 were made about Jesus by the crowds assembled at that feast. 
 “Many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the 
 Passover,” and they “spake among themselves as they stood in 
 the temple, what think ye, that he will not come to the 
 feast?”° But in the case of these shows, there were other 
 reasons why this topic, the dispersion of Christianity, should 
 be eagerly and zealously discussed at them; such seasons 
 being often chosen for the execution of the Christians, none 
 other being better suited for making a public example. Thus 
 we read, that the soldiers who had the custody of Ignatius 
 were not content with simply discharging their office and con- 
 veying him to Rome, but were anxious to do so “before the 
 
 ’ Minucius Felix, Octav. ¢. xxxviii. | 4 Acts xvii. 6. 
 
 2c. xxii. 5 John xi. 55, 56. 
 3 Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, II. e. v. | 
 
Luce: 1] EFFECT OF THE PUBLIC GAMES. 237¢ 
 
 games were over ;”! and it wasat a great festival of this kind 
 at Smyrna, that Polycarp was burned.? And the voice which 
 issued from aloft, when the old man entered the arena, “ Be of 
 good heart, and play the man, Polycarp,” sustained as it was 
 by the courageous carriage of the martyr, probably preached 
 a sermon which made more converts, and circulated far more 
 widely than appeared—lighted up a candle which would not 
 readily be put out. | 
 
 1 Acts of Tgnatius, § v. considered | ce. v., vi. 
 genuine by Pearson, Vind. Ign. Part I. * Acts of Polycarp, § ix. 
 S ny ’ g J »S 
 
238 THE INSINUATION OF GIBBON RESPECTING [Sens II. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 The insinuation of Gibbon respecting the rank and character of the early Chris- 
 tians, originally advanced by the heathen opponents of Christianity, and an- 
 swered by the Apologists. The fact, that many persons of wealth and education 
 were Christians, proved, from the acquirements of the Fathers, from their 
 specific assertion of it, from their addressing themselves to the rich and intel- 
 ligent, from the fund at the disposal of the Church. Variety of demands upon 
 the pecuniary resources of the Christians. Remarks on the Libellatici. 
 
 WE saw in the last Lecture that the authority of the 
 
 Fathers tends to establish the fact, that the Gospel 
 was dispersed very widely indeed before Constantine, and that 
 the numbers of the Christians were already very great; an 
 inference to which they cannot minister without fairly win- 
 ning for themselves our esteem, as being at least valuable con- 
 tributors to the Evidences. But they have further claims on 
 us of the same kind from the light they throw on the rank, 
 condition, and character of the early Christians, a point to the 
 illustration of which, I am anxious to make these Lectures 
 tributary. For the sceptic, you are well aware, has used 
 this weapon against the faith, and insinuated, that they con- 
 sisted “almost entirely of the dregs of the populace, of peasants 
 and mechanics, of boys and women, of beggars and slaves ” ; 
 and that accordingly the Christian missionaries were as “ loqua- 
 cious and dogmatical in private”, as they were slow to encounter 
 philosophers and persons of education in debate.' 
 
 Now in the first place this accusation is almost or altogether 
 founded on information supplied by the Fathers themselves ; 
 and it is scarcely credible that they would have volunteered it, 
 had they thought it formidable to the cause they advocated. 
 It has come down to us, in fact, as an objection found by 
 them in infidel publications, to which they are replying, and 
 which their replies have so far preserved, or as an objection, 
 which in the treatises they sometimes drew up in the form of 
 dialogues, they put into the mouths of their ignorant adver- 
 
 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 372. 
 
Lecr. II] THE RANK OF THE CIIRISTIANS 939 
 
 saries. Origen, é@. g. gives it to Celsus in more places than 
 one'; and Minucius Felix assigns it almost in the terms I 
 have stated it in, and which are nearly those of Gibbon, to 
 Crecilius the Heathen antagonist of his friend Octavius. I 
 need scarcely tell you, how very ill-informed on the affairs of 
 the Christians these heathens are represented to have been ; and 
 how apt they were to undertake to refute them, without giving 
 themselves any previous pains to master the character and 
 tenets of those they were bent on overthrowing. Justin com- 
 plains of this in the case of Crescens. The description he 
 gives of him is this: “It is not fit to call the man a philoso- 
 pher,” says he, “testifying against us, as he does, publicly, facts 
 of which he knows nothing ; charging the Christians with being 
 atheists and impious persons ; and acting thus in order to curry 
 favour with the multitude who have been led astray. For if he 
 calumniates us without having read the precepts of Christ, he 
 is utterly base, and worse than the boors ; for they generally 
 have scruples about talking and telling les on subjects with 
 which they are unacquainted. Or if he has read them, then he 
 does not understand the majesty there is in them. Or if he un- 
 derstands this, and acts as he does in order that no suspicion 
 may attach to himself, he is still more infamous and mean ; for 
 he is truckling to an ignorant and senseless prejudice, and to 
 fear.”* And Theophilus makes a similar complaint of Auto- 
 lycus, the friend to whom he addresses his defence of the 
 Christians ; very greatly surprised that one who spared no 
 pains in mastering all the profane and worthless books that 
 came out, would give himself no trouble about the Christian 
 writings*; and though, in other matters, he was so curious as 
 to investigate them all with the utmost care, he should feel no 
 concern about Christianity.” And Origen expresses himself 
 in very similar terms of Celsus, alleging that “ whoever would 
 examine the uniform purport of our Scriptures, would perceive 
 that Celsus, whose hatred to the Christians was like that of 
 the most ignorant vulgar, brought these charges of his against 
 them without inquiry or regard for truth.”° It need not 
 therefore be a case for wonder, if, under such circumstances, 
 
 1 Origen, Contra Celsum, IIT. § 44, S’AveEerdotws Kal wevddpevos.— 
 2 Minucius Felix, ¢. viii. - Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 53. See 
 3 Justin Martyr. Apol. II. § 3. also V. § 20. Kédoov pire vonoavros 
 
 4 Theophilus ad Autolycum, III. ¢ 1 | rd wap’ tiv yeypappevoy, pyre xpi- 
 Sg 4. vat Ouvapevov, K,T.A, 
 
24.0 ANSWERED BY ORIGEN. (Series ITI. 
 
 we find many idle imputations cast upon the Christians, and 
 much exaggeration and distortion of features, that might 
 really in some degree belong to them, attempted. For philo- 
 sophers, it seems, to which class all these men belonged,’ were 
 in no other way difficult to deal with, than as they were 
 totally ignorant of the subject they were disputing about. 
 Certainly, the canonical Scriptures of the New Testament imply 
 that in the first instance Christians were in general, though by 
 no means exclusively, of the poorer ranks ; and Origen, in re- 
 plying to this charge, for it is one which Celsus advances, 
 remarks on one of these occasions when he does so, that it 
 must needs be so, inasmuch as the ignorant and uneducated 
 being more in number than the literate, there must be among 
 the multitudes converted to Christianity, more ignorant and 
 uneducated persons than intelligent ones; but he adds, that 
 even Celsus confessed that there were temperate and gentle, 
 and understanding persons among them, and persons capable 
 of penetrating allepories* that Nie the Churches had few 
 wise men (sodovs) who abandoned that wisdom which was 
 after the flesh to come to them, yet that such persons they had 
 who left the carnal for the divine’: and in another passage in 
 the same treatise he inverts the objection, and in language 
 bespeaking in a very remarkable manner the impression the 
 Gospel had then made upon the best informed, says, “ More- 
 over, how could a mere man and no more,” (the Jew in Celsus 
 having been representing Jesus as such,) “how could a mere 
 man and no more, effect the conversion of such multitudes, 
 not of thoughtful persons merely, for there would have been 
 no wonder in that (cai ov Oavpacrov ei tov dpoviwwv), but 
 even of the most unreasonable and the most enslaved to their 
 passions, and through such want of sense, the most difficult to 
 turn to a course of greater sobriety ?’?* “TI have no wish,” 
 
 ' Origen speaks of Celsus as such, 
 "Apa ov tmpocdywv avOpmmovs dido- 
 codia.—Contra Celsum, ILI. § 74, et 
 alibi. He was an Epicurean (I. § 8; 
 ILL. § 75), though apparently unwilling 
 to avow it, dyourds bo ovv pnkere 
 Kpomrov Tiv €avToU aiperw, adX’ bpo- 
 ANoyav "Emtxovpetos tag K.7T.A.—LLI. 
 § 80; and again LV. And how im- 
 perfectly informed on Jon affairs of the 
 Christians were even the most curious 
 of these infidel philosophers, appears 
 
 
 
 from many of the objections of Celsus, 
 probably the least ignorant of them all; 
 and which as they are generally given 
 by Origen as quotations in Celsus’ own 
 words cannot be misrepresented; et 6€ 
 dua ra Bi) peoxovra Kedow Xpwort- 
 avav kal "Iovdaiwv Séypara, a pyde 
 
 THY apxny enicracba caiverat, K.T.r. 
 —IV. § 26. 
 21. § 27. SV in ge lat) 
 “TIS FO! 
 
Lecr, IT.) ATTAINMENTS OF THE FATHERS. Q41 
 
 says he again on another occasion, “that the ranks of the 
 Christians should be made up of dolts, on the contrary, I seek 
 for the lively and acute, as persons better able to attain to 
 the meaning of mysteries (aiveypdatwyv) and of such things as 
 are spoken darkly in the law and the prophets and the Gospels, 
 writings which you, Celsus, despise, as containing nothing 
 worthy of a thought ; because you do not fathom the sense, 
 nor try to penetrate the intention of the writer:”! to be sure 
 a system which applied to the feelings and wants of the poor 
 above all others, and was so constructed as only to find favour 
 with the humble of heart, would naturally in the first instance 
 meet with acceptance from them rather than from others : but 
 its own intrinsic excellence soon recommended it to all; and 
 the writings of the Fathers most abundantly testify that in a 
 very short time it made an effectual inroad amongst the most 
 intelligent and opulent. 
 
 The great acquirements of many of the Fathers themselves, 
 to which their works bear witness, would indeed be enough to 
 show that there were many amongst the early Christians of 
 sound education and liberal attainments : Gibbon, indeed, him- 
 self, allows that “the faith of Christ’? “was embraced by 
 several persons who derived some consequence from the advan- 
 tages of nature and fortune ;”? at the same time himself offer- 
 ing a catalogue of them, such as it is—but undoubtedly the 
 fair way of regarding each of the Fathers is, that he was a 
 type of numbers, who being of like circumstances with him- 
 self adopted a like course. Justin Martyr, for instance, had 
 been under the hands of teachers of almost every school of 
 philosophy that existed, and found, as he tells us, satisfaction 
 in none; nor could he rest, till directed to the writings of the 
 prophets he discovered in them at last a footing on which he 
 could fix.2 From the account that Tatian gives of his own 
 conversion we see that he went through the same process. He 
 too, after having examined the creeds of various sects of the 
 heathens, and after meeting with evil in them all, at length 
 fell in with the Scriptures, and felt that then at length he had 
 arrived at truth which he was in search of. What was there 
 in the cases of these two persons to make them peculiar? They 
 
 1 Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 74. 4Tatian, Oratio contra Greecos, §§ 
 2 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 372. 28, 29, Paris Ed. 
 3 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 2, et seq. 
 
 R 
 
242 THE RANK OF THE CHRISTIANS ARGUED [Series I. 
 
 happen to be specific instances of learned men who turned 
 Christians, but is it not reasonable to suppose that multitudes 
 did the same, of whom no records remain ; particularly as the 
 course of incidents which“led to the change in the instances 
 we are contemplating, is the most natural and ordinary that 
 can be imagined ? 
 
 Again, the passages in the Fathers, which directly and 
 without circumlocution assert that many among the Christians 
 were of superior birth and breeding—one or two of which, 
 indeed, Gibbon notices,’ though in a manner to attach to them 
 little weight—-would not be so easily disposed of by a candid 
 inquirer after truth as he thinks. Tertullian in one place 
 speaks of it as an alleged popular grievance that “ persons of 
 every sex, age, condition, and now,” he adds (as if that was a 
 more recent feature of the case) “rank, are passing over to the 
 Christians.”? There is something characteristic of accuracy of 
 statement in the introduction of the “jam” ; the titled were 
 not the very earliest converts; and if we adopt the other 
 reading “etiam,” the inference would not be very different. 
 Again, in his appeal to Scapula, the president of Africa, in 
 behalf of the Christians, Tertullian, whilst reminding this 
 magistrate of others in authority, who had acted mercifully 
 towards the Christians, speaks of Severus “ having left un- 
 harmed certain most illustrious women, and most illustrious 
 men, who belonged to this sect.’’* Gibbon refers to a passage 
 in this short tract, where Tertullian asks how Carthage could 
 bear the decimation, if Scapula should proceed to despatch the 
 Christians, seeing that it contained so many thousands of them 
 of all ranks*; and yet using it as he does for a purpose of his 
 own, he takes no notice of the phrase I have just cited ; nor yet 
 by the by (for I will name it in passing, though it rather belongs 
 to the subject of my last Lecture, the number of the early 
 Christians), of another which occurs in that tract, and which 
 would serve to qualify the conclusion he draws from the one 
 he does quote. “ Even Tertullian’s rhetoric” (such this conclu- 
 sion is) “rises no higher than to claim a tenth part of Car- 
 thage”’—the term decimate taken literally. But it should 
 
 1 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 375. ° Clarissimas foeminas et clarissimos 
 ? Omnem sexum, wtatem, conditio- | viros—aAd Scapulam, e. iv. 
 nem, et jam dignitatem transgredi ad aioeive 
 ? “ t=) 5 
 
 hoe nomen.—Tertullian, Apol. c, i. 5 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 374, note 189. 
 
Lect. II.) FROM THEIR EXPRESS ASSERTIONS, a 
 
 seem to be a term loosely used, and as equivalent to “put to 
 death ;”’ for only the page before, Tertullian had described the 
 Christians as “pars pene major civitatis cujusque,”’ “almost 
 the majority of every state,” that of Carthage, therefore, in- 
 cluded, as it needs must be from the nature of the argu- 
 ment, which is to show Scapula how inoffensive they were, 
 notwithstanding their numbers. Perhaps neither the one ex- 
 pression nor the other was meant to be construed rigorously ; 
 all I contend for is, that if Gibbon chose to draw an inference 
 from the word decimate, that Tertullian in his flights did not 
 dream of more than a tenth of the population of Carthage 
 being Christian, he should not have suppressed his other asser- 
 tion in the very same treatise, that they were almost a ma- 
 jority. But to return: again, in his treatise “De Fuga in 
 Persecutione,’? one of the questions which Tertullian enter- 
 tains is, whether it is lawful to buy off persecution ; for he 
 had already determined that it was not lawful to flee from it : 
 and this, also, for various reasons which he assigns, good and 
 bad, he decides in the negative. But in arguing the question, 
 it evidently never enters into his account that funds would be 
 wanting for such a purpose, which would have been a thought 
 at any rate likely to present itself to him when treating on 
 such a subject, had any such difficulty occurred to his mind ; 
 in the absence, therefore, of it, we must conclude that there 
 was no such difficulty, or in other words, that the Christians 
 were not altogether of the mean condition ascribed to them. 
 But on this point I shall have more to say after a while. In 
 the Epistle of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, describing 
 to their friends in Asia the persecution that had befallen them, 
 one of the victims, whose name is given, Vettius Epagathus, 
 is expressly spoken of as a person of distinction.” And it 
 appears incidentally in Origen’s “ Exhortatio ad Martyrium,” 
 that Ambrosius, one of the two persons to whom he addresses 
 that treatise, as indeed he does other of his writings,* was a 
 man of large possessions, it being one of Origen’s arguments 
 that those who are called to suffer of such a class have reason 
 to rejoice at having greater sacrifices to make, and greater en- 
 joyments to resign than others ; and by consequence, according 
 
 ' Ad Scapulam, ec. ii. Raps: 
 2 De Fuga in Persecutione, c. xii. 4 Origen, Prefatio ad Libros contra 
 3 Kal yap jv éenionpos.—Reliq. Sacr.| Celsum, § 1. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 THEIR TREATISES BEING ADDRESSED [Serres II. 
 
 to our Lord’s promise,’ at having higher rewards to receive.” 
 Nay, in his treatise against Celsus, when defending the early 
 Christian teachers against the charge of having been influenced 
 in their views by the hope of gain, he says, “In these days, 
 perhaps, when by reason of the multitude of converts to the 
 word, rich persons, and some in offices of dignity and dis- 
 tinction, and delicate and noble women, receive the Christian 
 teachers ; one or other may dare to affirm that some under- 
 take the task of teaching Christianity for the credit of the 
 thing (ua To So€apsov), but no such suspicion can attach to 
 the first. teachers, when the risk they ran was great: and even 
 now the ill name they get amongst the rest of mankind is 
 more than an equivalent to the credit they acquire with those 
 of the same way of thinking as themselves; nor indeed do 
 they get this credit universally.”* 
 
 But the fact itself may be established upon much broader 
 grounds. Let us look at much of our early ecclesiastical litera- 
 ture, and gather from that the condition of the parties to whom 
 it addresses itself. It will be evident to every candid reader 
 of it that they could have been no mere peasants or artisans, 
 but must have been, to a very large extent, persons of refine- 
 ment and easy circumstances. The writings of Clemens Alex- 
 andrinus bear most ample testimony to this fact—the 
 Pzedagogue especially. It would be impossible for any one to 
 peruse this treatise, which professes to instruct the converts to 
 Christianity in the application of their new faith to the details 
 of every-day life, without being convinced that its author had 
 in his eye principally, almost exclusively, converts of the upper 
 classes of society. Why else should he lay down the rules he 
 does for the regulation of the table? If he was writing for 
 the poor, why caution them against the use of recondite dishes 
 drawn from the most remote corners of the world ? “ Lampreys 
 from Sicily ; eels from the Meander; kids from Melos ; mul- 
 lets from Sciathus ; shell-fish from Pelorum; oysters from 
 Abydos; anchovies from Lipara; turnips from Mantinea ; 
 beets from Ascra” ; “soles from Attica ; thrushes from Daphne ; 
 Chelidonian figs” ; “fowls from Phasis (pheasants) ; quails from 
 Egypt ; peacocks from Media’’*? or against indulgence in ex- 
 quisite wines ?—* Be not over curious about the Chian, nor 
 
 E Matt. xix. 27. | 3 Contra Celsum, III. § 9. 
 * Exhortatio ad Martyrium, § 14. 4 Clem. Alex. Padag. II. ¢. i. p. 164. 
 
Lect. II.] TO THE RICH AND LUXURIOUS, Q45 
 
 yet about the Ariusian: thirst only claims a supply to meet 
 it, not delicate liqueurs. Foreign wines are for an appetite 
 palled through satiety. The Thasian, the fragrant Lesbian, 
 the sweet Cretan, the luscious Syracusan, that of Mendes in 
 Egypt, and that of the insular Naxos, and the odoriferous 
 wine of Italy, all these are many kinds, but to a temperate 
 liver all wines are one, the produce of one God. For why 
 should not the wine of the country serve to satisfy the taste ?’’? 
 His restrictions on furniture still lead to the same inference. 
 “ Away,” says he, “with Thericlean and Antigonian cups, with 
 tankards and saucers and shells, and vessels of ten thousand 
 other sorts ; coolers and flagons ; silver and gold, both in pri- 
 vate and public, are an invidious possession—a possession 
 hard to acquire, not easy to retain, and inconvenient to use. 
 Furthermore, vain and curious manufactures of glass, the more 
 easily broken by reason of the delicacy of the fabric, teaching 
 you to fear for them whilst you drink out of them, must be 
 banished from our ssystem—and couches of silver, and ewers, 
 and cruets, and plates and dishes, and other utensils of silver 
 and gold . . . . tripods of ivory, and sofas inlaid with the 
 same, and with silver feet ; chamber doors studded with gold, 
 and variegated with tortoiseshell ; counterpanes of purple, and 
 other rare colours, emblems of unseemly luxury, superfluities 
 conducing to envy and sloth, ought all to be put away as not 
 worthy our notice ; for ‘the time,’ saith the Apostle, ‘is short.’ 
 oe ae Will not a table-knife cut without golden rivets and 
 an ivory handle? Cannot a joint be carved without steel 
 from India? What if the ewer be of earthenware, will it not 
 hold the water for washing the hands? and the foot-bath that 
 fortthemfect? 2 2 4. Furniture of all kinds should be in 
 harmony with the character of the Christian, and be duly 
 adapted to the person, the age, the pursuits, the season® . . . 
 ill-regulated wealth is an arsenal of mischief... . . all pro- 
 perty is given us to be used rightly .... . the best riches 
 is to have few wants; the truest magnanimity not to take 
 pride in wealth, but to despise it.” * Surely it would be wast- 
 ing words to talk thus to labourers and mechanics. Tertullian’s 
 treatise “ De Cultu Foeminarum,” on female dress, reads us the 
 
 
 
 ' Clem. Alex. Peedag. II.c.ii, pp. 184,] * p. 190, 
 185. 4p, LOL. 
 2 ¢. ili. p. 189. 
 
[Sertes II. 
 
 24.6 THEIR REMARKS ON FEMALE DRESS, 
 
 same lesson. It could not have entered that author’s head to 
 compose such a treatise on such a subject, if Christian women 
 had consisted exclusively, or anything like it, of the poorer 
 orders. The occasion of the essay was this. The Christian 
 females, jealous of the superior ornaments of the heathen, 
 were indulging a taste for personal decoration beyond what 
 Tertullian thought was seemly, and accordingly they provoke 
 him to address to them a word of advice. He disparages sil- 
 ver, gold, and jewels, to the utmost. “Silver and gold are 
 less noble than earth ; for they are earth wrought by the hands 
 of wretches in the mines ; earth transmuted from purposes of 
 torment to purposes of ornament ; from affliction to affectation ; 
 from ignominy to honour.”' “The pearl is but the pustule 
 of a bad oyster. Gems are extracted from the forehead of 
 the snake . This forsooth was lacking to the Christian 
 woman, to owe her toilet to the serpent! Thus was she to 
 bruise its head by drawing forth a decoration for her own !”? 
 “Ten thousand sesterces shall be strung on a single thread. 
 A delicate neck shall carry about it woods and islands.? The 
 slender skin of the ear shall bear a whole ledger ; and every 
 left-hand finger play with bags of coin.”* It is needless to 
 make further extracts from this characteristic appeal. Cyprian 
 follows the same subject up in his “De Habitu Virginum ;” 
 the whole of which offers the clearest testimony to the supe- 
 rior rank and condition of the Christians. “But some women 
 are rich and affluent, who are not for concealing the fact, but 
 contend that they ought to make use of their wealth. Let 
 such be assured that that woman is truly rich who is rich in 
 God and in Christ—that those are the true riches which are 
 heavenly, and which are laid up for us with God as a per- 
 petual possession. You say you are rich. Paul 
 meets your case, and prescribes moderation in your ornaments. 
 Let your ‘women adorn themselves in modest apparel,’ says 
 he, ‘with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with broidered 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Cultu Fominarum, 
 IL, Gv. 
 
 2 ¢. vi. 
 
 * Tt is curious to find a coincidence 
 between this passage and the paper in 
 the Spectator where Sir Roger de Co- 
 verley tells of the ornaments and pre- 
 sents he meant to layish on the widow, 
 had she consented to be his wife. “He 
 
 had disposed of an hundred acres in a 
 diamond ring . . . upon her wedding- 
 day she should have carried on her 
 head fifty of the tallest oaks upon his 
 estate . . . he would have given her a 
 coal-pit to keep her in clean linen .. . 
 he would have allowed her the profits of 
 a windmill for her fans.”—No. 295. 
 
 4 De Cultu Feminarum, I. ¢. ix. 
 
Lect. Il.] THEIR REMARKS ON FEMALE DRESS, Q47 
 
 hair or gold.’* Peter writes after the same fashion? .... . 
 and if they lay such restraints even upon married women, who 
 have the excuse of having husbands to please, what defence 
 can be set up for virgins? . . . You say you are rich. But 
 all things are not expedient that are lawful... .. . If you 
 adorn your persons so as to attract and inflame young men, 
 you cannot be said to be of a chaste mind yourselves. Neither 
 can you be reckoned among the virgins of Christ, whilst you 
 live to be admired. ... . . You say that you are rich, and 
 ought to make use of the goods which God has given you. 
 Do so in the manner God wishes. Let the poor know that you 
 are rich. Lend to God your estate. Secure to yourselves the 
 prayers of many. Lay up treasure in heaven. You offend 
 against God, if you abuse his gifts, instead of using them for 
 the purposes he intends. The voice is God’s gift ; but it is 
 not to be used in lewd songs. Iron is God’s gift; but it is 
 not to be turned to murder. . . . . . Let chaste virgins flee 
 such decorations as are only the emblems of a brothel. 
 
 Those who put on silk and purple, cannot put on Christ. Those 
 who are adorned with gold and pearls and necklaces, have lost 
 the ornaments of the heart.”’ Is it fair to affect to reply to 
 the objection, that the early Christians were of mean station, 
 by producing three or four solitary instances to the contrary, 
 and leave unnoticed whole treatises like these ? quite a section 
 of Christian literature ? which, by their very nature and sub- 
 ject, prove to demonstration, though in a manner the most 
 incidental and satisfactory, that there must have been multi- 
 tudes of a higher grade? Indeed, as far as Mr. Gibbon is 
 concerned, there are passages in his autobiography where he 
 touches upon the course of his studies, which would lead us 
 to suspect that his acquaintance with the Fathers, though he 
 does speak of them as entering into the plan of his reading, 
 was limited ; that this was a mine of materials for his history, 
 which he did not labour with the same care as some others ; 
 and that of their writings, the Apologies, or such treatises as 
 without bearing the name are of the nature of Apologies, were 
 those he had chiefly consulted ; naturally expecting to find in 
 that division of their works the chief information of which 
 
 i Weibeay, ate, UP 3 Cyprian, De Habitu Virginum, §§ 
 21 Pet. iii. 3, 4. Vii. Vill. 1X, Xi. X11. XU. 
 
248 THEIR TREATISES BEING ADDRESSED  ([Serms fT. 
 
 he was in search’: but I have often observed in the course of 
 my Lectures, how much of the knowledge you derive from the 
 Fathers, comes upon you by surprise ; and, as in the present 
 instance, how frequently you are able-to draw most important 
 conclusions from treatises, the titles of which promise no such 
 results: and accordingly I believe that Mr. Gibbon, in reckon- 
 ing upon the Apologies as containing most or all the facts 
 which would be of value to him, if he did so reckon, was 
 deceived ; and did not fully apprehend the miscellaneous cha- 
 racter of the writings of the Fathers in general. But this by 
 the way. 
 
 Then the very style of many of the early Christian writings 
 is indicative of the position of those to whom it speaks, and 
 for whom it is adopted. We naturally judge of the condi- 
 tion of a party to whom a letter is addressed, in the opinion 
 at least of his correspondent, by the language in which he 
 communicates with him, and the subjects he chooses for his 
 communication. And judging of the early Christians by 
 this test, they will not appear to have been, as a body, mean 
 and ignorant, but far otherwise. Take, for instance, the 
 treatise of Athenagoras on the Resurrection. We may 
 gather from a passage near the close of it, that it was deli- 
 vered before a congregation ; was perhaps a kind of sermon. 
 He had endeavoured, he there says, to point out in a summary 
 way to those who were assembled (tots cuveXOodarv), what 
 they ought to think of a resurrection; and to suit his 
 argument to the capacity of his hearers (77 Suvawer tov 
 mapovrwy ). That these hearers were a mixed audience is 
 certainly probable; that there were unbelievers present as 
 well as Christians: indeed, in the beginning of the address, 
 he speaks of some persons being altogether incredulous on the 
 subject of the resurrection; others doubtful; and even of 
 those who received certain hypotheses (i.e. of the Christian 
 faith), some being in difficulty about this one ; their hesita- 
 tion the result of feeling more than of reason.* But it was 
 not a heathen audience. He quotes in one place a verse from 
 the first Epistle to the Corinthians*; founds his argument in 
 
 ' See Gibbon’s Life, pp. 135. 224. 287,) Paris Ed. 
 Milman’s Ed. Sige 
 2 Athenagoras, De Mort. Resur. § 23,| 4 § 19. 
 
Lect, IT.) TO PERSONS OF EDUCATION, 249 
 
 part upon a future judgment, when the sins of which both 
 body and soul have partaken having to be accounted for, it is 
 only just that both body and soul should be present to receive 
 sentence’; and those sins he refers to the breach of God’s 
 commandments as revealed in Scripture, which he quotes.’ 
 I say, therefore, that all this bespeaks the audience not to 
 have been heathen, or not to have been exclusively heathen. 
 It was made up at all events of a class which either actually 
 were Christians, or were likely to become such. But who 
 can read this essay without being satisfied that it could not 
 have consisted of unlettered boors? It is evidently delivered 
 to a very intelligent audience. I cannot afford to give you 
 even a summary of the treatise, for it is a summary itself, 
 and therefore must be produced at length, if it is to have its 
 just effect ; but there are not many objections which can be 
 urged against the resurrection of the body which it does not 
 encounter and remove ; nor many arguments which can be 
 advanced in its favour (for it takes both lines) which it does 
 not press; many of them too refined ones, and such as would 
 be lost upon an unlettered assembly. Or take the case of 
 the Stromata of Clemens, its very principle is a transcendental 
 one. It leads to the truths of revelation through philosophy.® 
 It purposes to contain truth under a disguise*; under a dis- 
 guise which none will be able to penetrate but the thoughtful 
 and reflecting.” How could Clemens contemplate any other 
 readers than sagacious ones for a work constructed upon a 
 plan like this? Again, “We have no desire,’ writes Origen, 
 who is actuated by the same views as Clemens, “we have no 
 desire to divert the young from the study of philosophy, but 
 such as have been already trained in the cycle of the sciences, 
 we endeavour to elevate to that majestic and sublime elo- 
 quence, hidden though it be from the vulgar, which discusses 
 questions the greatest and most important of all, and shows 
 that their philosophy is founded on the prophets of God, and 
 the Apostles of Jesus.”’® And turn to the treatise of this 
 same Father epi Evy7js, in which he gives a copious com- 
 mentary on the Lord’s Prayer, and consider whether it would 
 be level to the capacity of the uninformed and ignorant ; 
 
 1 Athenagoras, De Mort. Resur. §§ 4§ xii. p. 348. 
 90), 21. age 233 5 Ibid. 
 3 Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § i. p. 326. § Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 58. 
 
250 AND FROM THE PAYMENTS CHARGED  [Senrms II. 
 
 whether his metaphysical disquisition, for instance, charac- 
 teristic enough of its author, on the term oveéa or essence, 
 when he is employed in explaining the term émovcvos, which 
 occurs in that prayer; or his discussion on the right posture 
 of prayer, where he comments on the text, “Every knee shall 
 bow of things in heaven,” &c., and gives it a spiritual mean- 
 ing; taking that opportunity to be sure of announcing that 
 all who had treated of heavenly bodies with most accuracy, 
 had demonstrated that they were spherical, and consequently 
 concluding that they cannot be understood to have knees in 
 a literal sense'—whether speculations like these could pos- 
 sibly be meant for artisans? I do not think it worth while 
 to illustrate this proposition by further examples of the 
 writings of the Fathers, though nothing would be more easy 
 than to multiply them to any extent. 
 
 I will add another consideration quite distinct from any of 
 the previous ones, which still leads us to the same result. If 
 the body of Christians in very early times was composed so 
 exclusively of the meanest of the people as some pretend, 
 whence were the funds derived which ministered to its sup- 
 port and extension, for that they must have been very consi- 
 derable indeed, is clear? 
 
 In the first place, the clergy had to be maintained. They 
 were in general supported by a monthly fixed payment,’ as 
 we learn from Cyprian, who directs it in the instance of 
 certain clergy under accusation to be suspended. The same 
 Bishop seems to be speaking of his own share in the Church 
 revenues, when he uses on one occasion the term “ sua propria 
 quantitas ;” desiring it, when he was in concealment, to be 
 distributed amongst the widows, sick, and poor; and perhaps 
 distinguishing it from an additional sum which he remits for 
 the same purpose, but which he calls “portio;”* as on ano- 
 ther occasion he speaks of “ quantitas propria nostra,” as dis- 
 tinguished from the “summulz” of his colleagues and brother- 
 priests’; and on a third he talks of having sent alms “ de 
 sumptibus propriis,”® and of a Deacon who was with him 
 having done the same.° The amount of the provision for 
 the clergy, though it would be a matter of great curiosity to 
 
 1 Origen, De Oratione, § 31, vol. i. p. | xxviii. 
 268, Benedict. Ed. 3 Ep. xxxvi. 4 Bp. Ix. 
 ? Divisio mensurna.—Cyprian, Ep. 5 Ip. vi. 6 (bid. 
 
Lxcr. ID] ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL FUND. 951 
 
 ascertain it, I do not think we have the means of determining 
 from testimony afforded by any of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. 
 Indeed it is singular, when you come to investigate the minute 
 details of social life in ancient times, how difficult it is to 
 arrive at any certain conclusions: so much less does the 
 most learned antiquary now know than the veriest peasant, 
 who was an actor in the scene. The single fact which has 
 been referred to, in elucidation of the question now before us, 
 is one incidentally mentioned by Eusebius, who tells us that 
 certain heretics at Rome, in the reign of Severus, about the 
 end of the second century, or beginning of the third, per- 
 suaded one Natalius to be their Bishop, with a salary of 150 
 denarii a month,’ or some 60/. a year. It has been argued 
 that this may give us some idea of the salary of a Bishop of 
 the Church in those days.’ The humanitarian heretics, how- 
 ever, to which class these belonged, we must remember, were 
 a very insignificant number of persons—ruvés as opposed to 
 mretotos the orthodox’—and probably, therefore, had very 
 limited means at their command. And even apart from this, 
 we must bear in mind, in estimating the force of the Christian 
 exchequer, which is the object for which I am bringing for- 
 ward the case of Natalius, that even £60 was the represen- 
 tative then of very much more value than it would be now.? 
 Moreover, the number of these Bishops was very great ; 
 every town of any size possessing one—as again, the Pres- 
 byters and Deacons who were subject to him, apparently bore 
 a much larger proportion to their congregations than they 
 would do at present. very one of the epistles of Ignatius 
 addressed to an Asiatic Church, seems to contemplate a plu- 
 rality of Presbyters.and Deacons*; and so does the epistle 
 of Clemens addressed to the Church of Corinth’; so that the 
 payments, though individually they may have been small, 
 must have been collectively very great. Add to this, that 
 certainly in Cyprian’s time, and probably down from the time 
 of the Apostles (for we find the distinction between the 
 clergy and the laity obtaining even so early as the epistle 
 
 
 
 ! Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. v. c. 28. §§ ii. iii. iv.; Ad Magnes. § vi.; Ad Phil- 
 2 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 48. adelph. § iv.; Ad Smyrn. § viii.; Ad 
 3 See Greswell on the Parables, vol. | Polycarp. § vi. 
 
 iv. p. 334, note. 5 Clem. Rom. Ad Corinth. I. §§ xl. 
 
 4 jenatius, Ad Trall. § iii, Ad Ephes. | xliy. lvii. 
 
a3) 
 
 52 CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH INCREASED  [Sentes II. 
 
 of Clemens,! nay, probably in the use of the word idvarns by 
 St. Paul himself,*) the clergy properly so called were exclusively 
 devoted to the work of the ministry, and were not concerned 
 in secular business, so that the whole of their maintenance 
 must have devolved upon the fund. Indeed, so rigorous was 
 the rule of the Church upon this point, that the clergy of the 
 Church of Carthage at least were not allowed to: be executors 
 of wills; and Cyprian complains loudly of a particular in- 
 stance in which this injunction had been violated*; expressly 
 affirming that the minister of God ought to be wholly occu- 
 pied in serving at the altar, and alleging that it was in order 
 that the clergy might so devote themselves that they had their 
 wants supplied by the brethren ; such supply being an equi- 
 valent for tithes of old, as the position of the clergy was 
 ‘ similar to that of the Levites. But the view here propounded, 
 that the ecclesiastical fund, out of which the clergy were paid, 
 was a substitute for the tithes under the law, would seem to 
 lead to the inference that there was some resemblance in the 
 amount. 
 
 I think, too, there were some peculiar circumstances in the 
 position of the clergy in those primitive times, which would 
 serve to increase their expenditure. So many difficulties and 
 unforeseen contingencies were then arising in the Church from 
 the novelty of its action, that a good deal of conference and 
 intercourse between distant branches of it, was necessary in 
 order to meet them, and establish uniformity in its proceed- 
 ings, or even to provide for its wants. This had to be effected 
 very generally by personal interviews ; and accordingly long 
 and expensive journeys had perpetually to be taken by parties 
 intrusted with the management of ecclesiastical affairs. Thus 
 it is probable that Clemens had been appealed to by deputa- 
 tion from the Church of Corinth to advise respecting the 
 schisms in that Church.* It is certain that when after an 
 interval he returned it his answer, it was done not merely 
 by letter, but also by three messengers who bore that letter, 
 and whom he desires the Corinthians to send back with all 
 the speed they could, in order that he might the sooner learn 
 
 1 cl col mm ” r 
 
 ; Tois lepedow iSvos é TOmos ™poo~ Aaixots mpooraypaow déderau.—s xl. 
 TeraxTa, kal Nevirars rac Staxoviac * 1 Cor. xiv. 16. 3 Cyprian, Ep. lxvi. 
 emixewtav 6 Raikds avOpwmros trois! * Clem. Rom. Ad Corinth. L.§ 1. 
 
Lect. II.” THE EXPENDITURE OF THE CHRISTIANS. 2538 
 
 from them the condition of the Corinthian Church.’ From a 
 fragment of a work written by Serapion, a Bishop of Antioch 
 of the second century (the same to whom I have before had 
 occasion to refer), and preserved by Eusebius” on the Gospel 
 of Peter, we find that Serapion had visited in person the 
 Church of Rhossus in Cilicia, and that having then dropped 
 a hasty opinion respecting this Gospel, which he afterwards 
 discovered needed correction, and which had been acted upon 
 by some heretically-disposed persons in the Church to the 
 damage of religion, he meant to visit the Church again to 
 redress the mistake. I am mentioning these incidents as 
 showing the locomotion to which the duties of these primi- 
 tive Bishops gave occasion. From another imperfect document 
 by the same author, we conjecture that Sotas, a Bishop of 
 Thrace, had travelled to Phrygia to satisfy himself with respect 
 to the pretensions of the Montanists on the spot where their 
 chief strength lay.* Again, a manuscript had been circulated 
 by a heretic as containing a disputation which he had _ held 
 with Origen, greatly misrepresenting his sentiments; and 
 accordingly Origen tells us that the brethren in Palestine 
 despatched a messenger to Athens, where he was staying, 
 to procure from him a correct copy of the dialogue.* Trenzeus 
 was charged with a mission to Eleutherus, Bishop of Rome, 
 from the suffering Church of Lyons, probably in reference to 
 this same heresy of Montanus, which at that time was con- 
 vulsing Christendom.’ Ignatius entreats Polycarp to call . 
 together a Council at Smyrna on the subject of the Church 
 of Antioch: and this Council was to be assembled by mes- 
 sengers despatched by Polycarp to the neighbouring Churches ; 
 who in their turn were to depute representatives in person 
 (wefouvs) to Antioch, when they were able; or otherwise to 
 send letters °—perhaps the distinction made with reference to 
 economy. These congresses of clergy not amounting to 
 General Councils appear to have been of frequent occurrence. 
 The light in which Irenzeus represents the interview of St. 
 Paul with the elders of the Church at Miletus is no doubt 
 characteristic of such assemblies in his own day. “ And from 
 
 ' Clem. Rom. Ad Corinth. I. § lix. Alexandrinos, vol. i. p. 6, Benedict. Ed. 
 * Kecles. Hist. vi. 12. 5 Kuseb. Eccles. Hist. v. ec. 4. 
 
 Sy IP ® Ignatius, Ep. ad Polycarp. § viii. 
 
 4 Origenis Epist. ad quosdam amicos 
 
254 INTERCOURSE BETWEEN CHURCHES.  [Sentes II. 
 
 Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the 
 Church,”! is the account of it in the Acts: but Irenzeus 
 construes this to mean that the “ Bishops and Presbyters who’ 
 were of Ephesus and all the neighbouring cities were called 
 together at Miletus.”? We have an intimation of a synod of 
 clergy at Czesarea in the second century, met to take measures 
 with respect to the Easter controversy; and a fragment of 
 the circular letter they concocted.* We have a portion of 
 another similar epistle of about the same date, on the same 
 subject, addressed to Victor, Bishop of Rome, by a synod of 
 Bishops assembled at Ephesus, they having been called to- 
 gether by Polycrates, a Bishop of that place.* Tertullian, in 
 a passage I have already cited, speaks of Councils of all the 
 Churches held at stated places throughout Greece, which 
 represented the whole Christian community in those parts, 
 and where great questions were settled’; and in another of 
 his treatises® he intimates that the Canon of Scripture was 
 one, and no doubt a most important subject of discussion at 
 those Councils. I could bring numberless passages from 
 Cyprian (from whose writings we derive a fuller insight into 
 the organization of the Church than from those of any other 
 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers), to show the personal intercourse 
 which subsisted both between scattered members of the same 
 Church, and between distant Churches ; the care with which 
 the accredited parties were convened to confer on critical 
 ecclesiastical questions, such e. g. as the readmission of the 
 lapsed to communion’ ; or the zeal with which messengers 
 were sent even to very remote quarters for intelligence, to 
 witness, for instance, the consecration of a Bishop,® that 
 there might be no loophole left to schismatics for denying its 
 validity® ; but I shall forbear, feeling that I have already said 
 enough to establish my point, which was to show, that the 
 locomotion which was called for in the early Church was such 
 as to entail on it a peculiar expenditure ; for whether all these 
 journeys were to be borne by the private finances of the parties, 
 or by the Church’s exchequer, the conclusion is equally valid, 
 
 1 Acts xx. 17. 5 De Jejuniis, ec. xiii. 
 
 2 Trenreus, IIT. c. xiv. § 2. § De Pudicitiad, c. x. 
 
 3 Reliq. Sacr. vol. i. p. 359. Euseb. 7 Cyprian, Ep. xi. 
 Eccles. Hist. v. c. 25. 8 Ep. xii: 
 
 * Relig. Sacr. vol. i. p. 872. Euseb. 9 Ep. xlii. 
 Eccles. Hist. v. c. 24. 
 
Lect. IIl.}] MAINTENANCE OF SICK AND NEEDY. 255 
 
 that there must have been many opulent persons in the Church 
 to furnish the means. 
 
 But it was not a numerous clergy only that had to be 
 maintained, or peculiar duties which then devolved upon them 
 to discharge, which drew upon this fund. It was applied to 
 many other purposes—to the relief of the orphans, the widows, 
 the sick, the indigent, the prisoners, the strangers, who hap- 
 pened to be sojourning within its reach; and in short, as 
 Justin Martyr tells us, to all who were in want,!—Tertullian 
 adds, to burying as well as feeding the poor’ and enumerates 
 among the objects to whom it extended its aid, aged servants, 
 shipwrecked persons, those condemned to the mines or to exile 
 for the sake of religion.* And if the details of this expendi- 
 ture were followed up, they would still serve to aggravate our 
 notions of its amount. Thus we learn from one of the Con- 
 stitutions,*® that it entered into the Church’s notion of the care 
 of an orphan, that he should be taught a trade, and be enabled 
 to buy tools and discharge himself from being longer burden- 
 some to the Church: and from a passage in Cyprian, that the 
 Church comprehended within its idea of ‘indigent,’ persons 
 whom it was desirable to release from an unlawful calling, 
 and for whom it was necessary to make a provision under 
 prudent restrictions, to which I may hereafter have occasion 
 to advert, as players for example*; and from another passage 
 in the same author, we have a glimpse afforded us of the drain 
 upon the purse of the Church, which the redemption of Chris- 
 tians from captivity amongst barbarian nations proved; for 
 we find on one single occasion of this kind there recorded, no 
 less a sum than 800/. (sestertia centum millia nummorum)?’ 
 sent by the Church of Carthage to the Bishops of Numidia 
 to be applied to this charitable purpose.® And _ besides all 
 these demands upon the Church’s chest, there was another 
 which must have eventually become a very heavy tax on 
 individuals ; for as the act it involved was not sanctioned by 
 the Church, it would not of course provide for it out of its 
 exchequer ; that of buying off the victims of persecution from 
 the fate that awaited them—a provision, which probably in 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 67. 5 See Evans’ Biography of the Early 
 ? Tertullian, Apol. c. xxxix. Church, vol. ii. p. 196. 
 
 ® Constitutionum Apost. IV. ¢. ii. 6 Cyprian, Ep. lx. § 3, 
 
 4 Cyprian, Ep. lxi. | 
 
256 PAYMENTS TO THE MAGISTRATES. (Serres IT. 
 
 part defeated its own end, the prospect of a bribe often no 
 doubt stimulating the persecution. Symptoms of this abuse 
 had shown themselves even during the lives of the Apostles ; 
 Felix “hoped that money should have been given him of 
 Paul, that he might loose him ; wherefore he sent for him 
 the oftener.”! Tertullian, indeed, in a treatise, to which I 
 have already had occasion to refer, gives the Roman govern- 
 ment credit for never having extorted, officially at least, a 
 fund from the Christians by allowing them to redeem their 
 lives at a fixed sum, various as its modes were ‘of raising a 
 revenue, and profitable as such an impost might be made 
 owing to the vast numbers of Christians ?; and he ascribes 
 it to the over-ruling Providence of God, in whose hand is 
 the heart of the Prince, that it had so come to pass. But 
 the time afterwards arrived, as we learn from Cyprian, when, 
 whether overtly or clandestinely, large sums were received 
 by the Roman magistrates on this account, the Libellatici, or 
 persons who had purchased certificates of exemption from 
 suffering, proving to be a considerable class in the Church, 
 Bishops even amongst the number ; and the proper manner 
 of dealing with them becoming one of the most serious diffi- 
 culties of the early Church *—a difficulty, which evidently 
 perplexes Cyprian, who, though in one of his earlier letters 
 treating it with a certain degree of indulgence or at least 
 forbearance,‘ is induced at length (the abuse probably becom- 
 ing flagrant, and the persons, who took advantage of it, 
 numerous), to denounce the practice with great warmth, ac- 
 counting it equivalent to apostacy.” My object in referring 
 to it is distinct from any consideration of its lawfulness or the 
 contrary ; and is simply to prove, that the early Christians 
 had pecuniary resources to a greater amount than is some- 
 times supposed. 
 ’ Acts xxiv. 26. 3 Ep. Ixviii.; De Lapsis, § xxvii. 
 ? Tertullian, De Fuga in Persecutione, “Ep. lii. §§ 17. 22. 
 c. Xii. ‘ ; 5 De Lapsis, § xxvii. 
 
Lect, I1I.]} THE INSINUATION OF GIBBON RESPECTING 257 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 The insinuation of Gibbon, that the Church was recruited, 1°. By abandoned 
 characters, suggested by Celsus, inconsistent with the primitive discipline, the 
 probation before Baptism, the responsibility attaching to the sponsors, the ap- 
 peal of the Apologists to the pure morality of the Christians, their charges of 
 laxity against the heretics and the philosophers, the treatment of the lapsed, 
 the frequency of excommunication : 2°. By mercenary persons, repudiated by 
 Origen, inconsistent with the precautions used against mercenary motives and 
 the maladministration of the Church fund, and with a passage in the Consti- 
 tutions: 3°, By foundlings, incapable of being substantiated by any positive 
 evidence. Probability that it might happen oceasionally. Negative proof that 
 it did not happen systematically. How the Church fund was really expended. 
 
 I CONTINUE my investigation of the character of the early 
 
 Christians, as discoverable in the writings of the early 
 Fathers—a topic bearing upon the Evidences in various ways, 
 and at the same time tributary to the history of the Primi- 
 tive Church. I have shown that their numbers were much 
 more considerable, and their condition much less exclusively 
 mean and low, than the enemies of Christianity have’ repre- 
 sented them to be. But there are some other arguments to 
 their disparagement which I have not yet noticed, that touch 
 upon these two features of the Primitive Church, though in a 
 manner still further to misrepresent it. It is said, that you 
 may account for such numbers of Christians as there were, Ist, 
 by the free invitations that were given to the most abandoned 
 characters to join their ranks; and 2nd, by the bribes that 
 were held out to all. I will take these two objections in 
 their order ; and I am the more disposed to examine them, 
 as in so doing, I shall incidentally have to lay before you 
 much of the discipline of the early Church. 
 
 You will remember, no doubt, a remarkable passage in the 
 History of the Decline and Fall, in which the first of these 
 insinuations is thus insidiously conveyed. “It is a very an- 
 cient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the malice of 
 infidelity, that the Christians allured into their party the 
 
 S 
 
258 THE CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIANS, [Senms II. 
 
 most atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were touched 
 by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to wash away, 
 in the water of Baptism, the guilt of their past conduct, for 
 which the temples of the gods refused to grant them any ex- 
 piation. But this reproach, when it is cleared from misrepre- 
 sentation, contributes as much to the honour, as it did to the 
 increase of the Church.”? This accusation, that the Christians 
 in the first instance swelled their ranks by very readily ad- 
 mitting into them the outcasts of society, who on a slight per- 
 suasion were prepared to express a touch of remorse, and be 
 baptized, appears to have been suggested to this author by a 
 hint from Celsus, which transpires in Origen’s treatise against 
 that unbeliever,? and to have been improved by Gibbon. 
 There is, indeed, a history told of St. John, by Clemens in his 
 “Quis dives salvetur,’* which tradition, he says, had pre- 
 served ; that St. John, after his return from Patmos visited 
 the Churches in the neighbourhood of Ephesus—that on that 
 occasion he consigned to the care of the Bishop of one of 
 those Churches (Smyrna, it is supposed) a youth, whom he 
 had met with, of some promise—that the Bishop undertook 
 the charge—received him into his house—nurtured, trained, 
 and finally baptized him—that after this, the Bishop having 
 lost sight of him, the youth got into bad company, and be- 
 came eventually a captain of banditti—that after a season St. 
 John returned to those parts—inquired after the young man 
 —heard his history—reproached the Bishop with neglect— 
 and went in pursuit of him—that the youth on recognising 
 him at first fled from him, but persuaded to stay and implored 
 to turn again to Christ, he at length consented with bitter 
 tears, baptized by them, as it were, a second time—that ac- 
 cordingly the Apostle, after praying, and after frequent fast- 
 ings with the penitent, restored him to the Church before he 
 went away; and left him a signal example of genuine re- 
 pentance. But this case does not support Gibbon’s reproach, 
 if, indeed, it occurred to him; for the party was not received 
 into the Church at first till after due examination and in- 
 struction, and was at that time of irreproachable character ; 
 nor is he reported to have been reconciled with the Church, 
 even by an Apostle, till after deep and protracted humiliation. 
 
 : Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 316, ® Clem. Alex. Quis dives salvetur, § 
 ? Origen, Contra Celsum, LIL. § 59. | xlii. pp. 959, 960. 
 
Lxcr. IIT.] INCONSISTENT WITH PRIMITIVE DISCIPLINE, 259 
 
 The truth is, the whole stream of primitive testimony runs 
 counter to this hypothesis of the sceptic. If the Church was 
 so anxious to multiply her members at any rate; and pro- 
 vided she had recruits cared not to what class they belonged, 
 how came she to insist on so much probation, as she did, be- 
 fore she admitted them? The barriers she set up were many; 
 and were evidently constructed for the express purpose of keep- 
 ing improper persons out. Candidates for Baptism were most 
 carefully prepared. There seems to have been an interval 
 even before they were allowed to become catechumens: an in- 
 terval, during which they were called “auditores,” hearers,! 
 or “novitioli,” novices? ; and a Lector or Reader was ap- 
 pointed to teach them.’ After this, they were pronounced 
 catechumens; but before admission even into this humble 
 class they had to make a profession similar to that now made 
 at Baptism,* a profession in which they declared a belief in 
 the words of the Christian law, and in which they renounced 
 the devil and his pomp and his angels (the very phraseology, 
 you see, still in use*). Then, whilst they were in the condi- 
 tion of catechumens, oral and other elementary instruction 
 was regularly imparted to them, as the very name implies ; 
 and allusions to the practice abound in the Fathers; indeed, 
 this quiet, but laborious process it was, that no doubt under 
 God laid the foundations of the Church ; and is one which 
 can never safely be dispensed with in any age of it—yana 
 fev ) KaTHYNOLs, Olover mpwTH WuyXs Tpody vonOjceTat,° 
 “milk must be understood to be catechizing, the soul’s first 
 food, as it were,” is the language of Clemens Alexandrinus. 
 The period during which the catechumen continued in that 
 state, was in the time of the Constitutions three years’; and 
 it is not improbable that the interval during which the cate- 
 chumen was undergoing preparation for Baptism is implied in 
 the expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews,® pa waduv 
 Oeweduov KataBadropevor... .Barticpav didax7js—not as 
 our translation has it, “laying again the foundation . . . of 
 the doctrine of Baptisms,” but of the “teaching of Baptisms ;”’ 
 the previous instruction, which might well be called “the 
 
 ! Tertullian, De Peenitentiad, ¢. vi. 6 Clem. Alex. Stromat. V. § x. p. 685. 
 2 Ibid. 3 Cyprian, Ep. xxiv. ™ Tpla €rn xatnxeioOw.—Constit. 
 4 Tertullian, De Corona, c. tii. VIII. c. xxxii. 
 
 5 De Spectaculis, c. iv. SsElebs Vitel as 
 
260 TILE RESPONSIBILITY OF SPONSORS,  [Sentes II. 
 
 ~ 
 
 principles of the doctrine of Christ,’ ! or “the foundation.’”? 
 Then after being thus maturely prepared for Baptism, he was 
 called upon to make the same profession of faith and duty as 
 before, a second time, previous to the administration of the 
 Sacrament itself.2 What could be more remote from a pre- 
 cipitate canvassing for recruits of any description, however 
 abandoned, than all this? Neither were these all the pre- 
 cautions observed. Sponsors were required, who should look 
 to the parties fulfilling their promises ; and should vouch for 
 their character and circumstances. Tertullian evidently con- 
 siders the office as one of great charge: so much so, that on 
 one occasion, he urges some delay in the administration of the 
 rite of Baptism to children, on the ground that sponsors ought 
 not to be loaded with needless responsibility ; seeing that 
 having so long time to continue in the office (supposing the 
 party baptized to be an infant), they might die before they 
 could fulfil the duties they had undertaken ; or might be de- 
 ceived in the disposition of the child* And the Apostolical 
 Constitutions regard these sponsors as provided in a great 
 measure to afford guarantees for the character of the catechu- 
 men.’ “Let those who first come to the holy mystery be led 
 by the Deacons to the Bishop or to the Presbyters ; and let 
 them examine into the reasons wherefore they are come to 
 the Word of the Lord. And let those who bring them bear 
 witness unto them, knowing accurately what concerns them. 
 And let their manners and life be examined into, and whether 
 they be slaves or freemen.” Whence could all this precaution 
 have originated, but from a very anxious wish on the part of 
 the authorities of the Church to keep it pure, rather than to 
 keep it full? And how well these prudential measures an- 
 swered is testified by the fact of which the Apologists re- 
 peatedly boast, and challenge their adversaries to dispute it, 
 that Christians were never found in the calendar of criminals.® 
 But is it credible that such a character could have been main- 
 tained by them as a body, had they consisted in any consider- 
 
 A Heb ayia. etiam periculo ingeri? quia et ipsi per 
 * Ibid. See Bp. Pearson's Minor | mortalitatem destituere promissiones 
 Theological Works, vol. ii. p. 45. Concio. | suas possunt, et proventu male indolis 
 
 1 OYE falli— De Baptismo, ec. xviii. 
 * Tertullian, De Spectaculis, ¢. xiii. 5 Constitut. VIII. c. xxxii. 
 and De Corona, e. iii. ® Tertullian, Apol. c. xliv.; Minucius 
 
 4 Quid enim necesse est, sponsores | Felix, Octay. c. xxxv. 
 
Lecr. I1I.}] THE CHALLENGE OF THE APOLOGISTS, 261 
 
 able proportion of such converts as is here alleged? Would 
 there not of necessity have been many backsliders in such a 
 community ? And, indeed, Origen flatly denies the fact, af- 
 firming expressly, that it was not true that the majority of 
 Christian converts consisted of reformed rakes; but on the 
 contrary, that those whose consciences were clearest were best 
 disposed to accept a Gospel, which held out such rewards for 
 the good." Besides, so far from exhibiting a desire to catch 
 recruits by any unworthy concessions, the early Christians be- 
 tray the very contrary tendency. Irenzeus makes it a matter 
 of charge against the Valentinians, that they grafted their 
 religion on heathenism, in order to win proselytes.? Would 
 he have ventured on this reproach, had the Church itself beat 
 up for converts, by offering Baptism upon easy terms to every 
 outcast ? Tertullian is singularly animated against the here- 
 tics for the latitudinarian and popular arts they exercised in 
 order to swell their congregations. “Nowhere is promotion 
 more easy than in the camp of the rebels; for to be found 
 there is enough to secure advancement ;’’* with much more to 
 the same effect. He would scarcely have spoken thus, had he 
 felt that the heretics could recriminate. Indeed, Origen him- 
 self, in animadverting upon this and similar charges advanced 
 by Celsus, appeals, as | have been doing, to the cautious dis- 
 crimination used by the Christians in their admission of can- 
 didates to their assemblies, the classes into which they divided 
 them, and the exceptions they made to them: their practice 
 in this respect, says he, contrasting remarkably with that of 
 the Grecian philosophers, who were only too ready to welcome 
 to their benches all who would present themselves.‘ 
 
 Again, the rigour with which the early Church treated the 
 lapse of those she had succeeded in securing to herself as 
 members ; the severity with which she excluded them from 
 her body after delinquency, argues that she was not intent 
 upon improving her nominal muster-rolls, but upon having all 
 who belonged to her faithful and true. How easily does she 
 allow the communion with her, which Baptism established, to 
 be forfeited; and the relation accordingly to cease—public 
 
 1 Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 65. 3 Tertull., De Preescript. Heret. ec. xli. 
 2 Trenxus, LI. ¢. xiv. § 8. 4 Origen, Contra Celsum, ILL. § 51. 
 
262 THE TREATMENT OF THE LAPSED,  [Sentes I. 
 
 absolution of the Church to be conceded but once," if, indeed 
 once, after deadly and wilful sin’—no encouragement offered 
 to accept it, till after severe mortification undergone. Cyprian 
 is most resolute upon this point: keenly reproves certain 
 Presbyters, who, from a desire to be popular, had received 
 again the Lapsed, prematurely as he thought. They were 
 unmindful, says he, of the Gospel, who so acted.* He re- 
 proaches the heretics with this facility of restoring to their 
 favour parties who had disgraced themselves.’ He would 
 have obstacles thrown in the way of their reception as peni- 
 tents. They must wait till the Bishop, Clergy and people 
 had been convened.’ He would relax so far as that they 
 should not be suffered to die without the Pax of the Church 
 being conceded to them.’ And in one place he wes | = 
 dentally of this probation having lasted three years*; as 
 Origen does of its extending to a longer period than ‘that 
 assigned to the first process “of conversion to Christianity.® 
 Even then, and when all this preliminary ordeal had been 
 gone through, the confession exacted was a public and most _ 
 humiliating act ; the penitent placed in the vestibule of the 
 Church, previous to readmission, a spectacle to others"; 
 clothed in sackcloth ”; at length introduced within the walls ; 
 prostrated before the congregation ; and the Priest charged to 
 deliver over him an admonitory lecture for the edification of 
 all present ; a moral dissection of a living subject *; and after 
 all, the party never again to be admitted to any office or dig- 
 nity in the Church.'* All this was a discipline calculated to 
 deter many from seeking restoration; and, as we know in 
 fact, did deter many: and the whole, I repeat, is utterly in- 
 consistent with a disposition to receive into the Church with 
 open arms persons of previous vicious lives, simply with a 
 view to numerical display. 
 
 Then the many offences against which excommunication 
 was levelled by the laws and regulations of the Church tend to 
 
 1 Tertullian, De Peenitentia, c. ix. and 8 EEp. lili. § 1, 
 c. vii.; Hermas, IT. Mandat. iv.; Clem. ® Origen, Contra Celsum, ITI. § 51. 
 Alex. Stromat. IT. § xiii. pp. 459, 460. 10 Tertullian, De Poenitentia, c. xi. 
 
 2 Tertullian, De Pudicitia, ¢. xviii. INGavile 12 Gyexle 
 
 p Cyprian, Ep. ix. '8 De Pudicitid, c. xiii. and e. iii. 
 
 4 Ep. xi. § 2. 5 Ep. lv. § 12. 4 Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 51. 
 
 ° Ep. xiii. * Ep. xiv. § 3. et alibi. 
 
Lect. IlI.] THE FREQUENCY OF EXCOMMUNICATION. 263: 
 
 prove the same point, and to show that the Church never 
 thought of governing herself by calculations of how this or 
 that would tell upon her numerical strength. It was not for 
 direct immorality merely that this judgment of the Church 
 was pronounced, though for that it was pronounced '; but 
 for other matters also; as under some circumstances for 
 marrying a Gentile”; for making idols®; for selling incense 
 for the temples‘; perhaps for teaching the art of fencing.’ 
 It is. obvious that all this arrangement is that of a 
 Church which was not engaged in counting its rank 
 and file, but im securing good soldiers and servants of 
 Jesus Christ, at whatever apparent cost. Nay, it should 
 seem that the penalty of excommunication had been inflicted 
 too freely in the early Church, and withdrawn too grudgingly ; 
 insomuch that one of the Constitutions ° is expressly framed 
 for the purpose of mitigating an evil which was proving 
 itself of such magnitude as to call for interference. That 
 Constitution begins with recommending the Bishop to be 
 gentle, “not to be overhasty to thrust out and eject . . . not 
 to be content with the testimony of less than three wit- 
 nesses against the accused; and to examine the character 
 and motives of those witnesses : for there are many,” it adds, 
 “who hate the brethren, and make it their business to scatter 
 the flock of Christ; to receive the evidence of such men 
 without sifting it, would be to break up the fold, to deliver it 
 over as a prey to wolves, z.e. to evil spirits and to evil men, 
 to Gentiles, Jews, and godless heretics ; for ravening wolves 
 instantly assail one who is cast out of the Church, counting 
 his destruction their gain . . . and he who through a want 
 of discrimination has been unjustly excommunicated, through 
 despondency and dejection will either stray away to the 
 heathen, or will get entangled in heresy, and become alienated 
 altogether from the Church and from hope in God ; fast 
 bound in ungodliness ; and thou all the while” (the Constitu- 
 tion is addressed to the Bishop), “the author of his ruim: for 
 it is not right to be overready to cast a sinner out, and to be 
 slow to receive him again on his repentance ; to be prompt 
 to cut off, but reluctant to heal . ... Be assured, that he 
 
 ' Tertullian, Apol. ce. xlvi.; Ad Na- % De Idololatria ¢. v. 
 tiones, I. § 5. 49 x1. 5 Thid. 
 2 Ad Uxorem, LI. ¢. iii. ® Constitut. IL. ¢.. xxi. 
 
264 SECOND INSINUATION OF GIBBON,  (Senmes II. 
 
 who casts out a brother wrongfully, or who does not admit 
 him again on his turning back, is the murderer of his brother, 
 and sheds his blood, as Cain did Abel’s, and it will ery out 
 against him to God . . . And so is it with him who is un- 
 justly excommunicated by the Bishop”. . . with more to the 
 same effect. From all which it should appear, that so far 
 from the Primitive Church augmenting her forces by an array 
 of atrocious criminals, persuaded to express penitence and 
 receive Baptism, she was rather falling into the opposite 
 extreme, of sometimes expelling, upon doubtful testimony, 
 members that were really blameless. 
 
 To advert to the second insinuation respecting the expe- 
 dients resorted to by the Christians to attach to themselves 
 conyerts—the bribes they dispensed in the shape of alms. In 
 speaking of the distribution of the revenues of the early 
 Church Gibbon, you will recollect, remarks, “such an institu- 
 tion, which paid less regard to the merit than to the distress 
 of the object, very materially conduced to the progress of 
 Christianity. The Pagans, who were actuated by a sense of 
 humanity, while they derided the doctrines, acknowledged the 
 benevolence of the new sect. The prospect of immediate 
 relief and of future protection allured into its hospitable 
 bosom many of those unhappy persons whom the neglect of 
 the world would have abandoned to the miseries of want, of 
 sickness, and of old age.” Before I offer you any other 
 remarks on this question, I must observe that Origen in his 
 work against Celsus repudiates this insinuation in a manner 
 which must satisfy us he had no fear of it. “No man can 
 say that the early teachers of Christianity undertook their 
 task for the sake of lucre. For sometimes they would not 
 accept so much as their food ; and if they were occasionally 
 compelled to do so through want, they were content with 
 mere necessaries, although there were many who would have 
 been willing to furnish them with more.’? No doubt the 
 Fund of the Church, devoted as it was in great measure to 
 relieving the indigence of members of the Church, might offer 
 a temptation to the poor to avail themselves of it if they 
 could. It would be idle to deny it. And though the objec- 
 
 ' Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 347. treatise of Origen’s for purposes of his 
 2 Origen, Contra Celsum, IIT. § 9. | own, 
 Gibbon knows how to refer to this 
 
Lecr. III.} REPUDIATED BY ORIGEN. 265 
 
 tion comes with an ill grace from those who would represent 
 the Christian congregations as composed pretty exclusively of 
 the lowest of the people, who could not therefore be supposed 
 to possess an exchequer that would furnish much means of 
 corruption ; still if the early Christians were not so entirely 
 of that class (which I have shown was the case), they might 
 possibly have a public purse which would prove a decoy to 
 some. But those who managed the affairs of the early 
 Christians were perfectly aware of this danger; were quite 
 alive to the necessity of guarding the Church from an influx 
 of mercenary converts. Thus Clemens Alexandrinus,! after 
 having cautioned the teacher against acting on his part for 
 the sake of lucre, or from any lower motive than a desire for 
 the salvation of his hearers, goes on to say of the taught, 
 “On the other hand, they who participate in the Divine 
 Word must look to it, that they do not search it for curiosity’s 
 sake merely ; approaching their subject as they might ap- 
 proach the edifices of a city ; nor yet for the sake of getting 
 a share im this world’s goods ; and under the knowledge that 
 those who are consecrated to Christ, are ready to communi- 
 cate to others the necessaries of life. But,’ adds Clemens, 
 “such persons are hypocrites, and so let us pass them by ”— 
 a paragraph, which shows that the Christians of those days 
 were on the alert against the abuse, and prepared to investi- 
 gate the real object the novice had in view in professing him- 
 self a Christian. And the same fact we gather from a passage 
 in Cyprian. It appears that one Fortunatianus, once a Bishop 
 of Assurze, but who had fallen away, having yielded to the 
 temptation of sacrificing to the idol and so saving his life, 
 after the danger was past, claimed to be admitted again to 
 his Bishopric. Cyprian addresses a letter on this occasion to 
 Epictetus apparently the successor of Fortunatianus, and to 
 the people of Assurze, m the course of which he remarks, 
 “What wonder is it that those make light of our admoni- 
 tions”? (which seems to have been the case with Fortuna- 
 tianus) “who have denied the Lord? They are bent” (the 
 letter continues) “on ducre, and even at this moment are 
 given to debauch, thus making it manifest that even formerly 
 it was not religion they were looking to, but their belly and 
 their gain. Therefore, God has applied to them this touch- 
 1 Stromat. I. § i. p. 319. 
 
266 PRECAUTIONS OF THE CHURCH (Serres II. 
 
 stone, in order that they may no longer serve at the altar 
 which they disgraced. We must watch, therefore, with all 
 diligence, that these men act no more as Priests, who have 
 fallen to a depth even beyond the lapsed laity themselves.”? 
 Here, again, you see the jealousy with which the Church 
 guarded its own revenues. An unworthy person might, no 
 doubt, introduce himself into it, nay even into the ministry of 
 it, for the sake of a maintenance. St. Paul had himself fore- 
 seen the danger, when he required that the Bishop should 
 “not be greedy of filthy lucre ;”’ but then you observe, by 
 the instance before you, what a scandal it was considered ; 
 how sure of a repulse the party would have been at the first, 
 could the thoughts of his heart have been discovered ; and 
 how effectual an obstacle to his re-admission it was considered 
 to be, in case he forfeited his position in the Church, as such 
 a person would be very likely to do. In short, you perceive, 
 that the authorities of the Church were as well aware of the 
 snare, as we are ourselves; and as much bent upon protecting 
 the Church from suffering by it, as we could ourselves be. 
 And, therefore, we may safely conclude that no such result 
 did practically ensue from the action of this fund, as Mr. Gib- 
 bon would persuade us, did. It might scarcely seem needful 
 to say more in vindication of the Primitive Church from the 
 suspicion of drawing her members by the tooth. But there is 
 a case recorded by the same Cyprian, which very distinctly 
 proves how considerately the Church was wont to proceed in 
 the administration of this fund ; how solicitous she was to 
 protect herself from being imposed upon by pretenders to 
 religion, whilst they were in reality seeking after the loaves 
 and fishes. I had occasion to refer to this case before for 
 another purpose. It had been submitted to Cyprian as a 
 matter for his judgment, whether a player who still exercised 
 his calling and taught it others, should be allowed to commu- 
 nicate with the Christian congregation to which he belonged. 
 Cyprian decides against it, but adds, “if, however, he alleges 
 that poverty drives him to this, his necessities may be 
 relieved amongst those of others who are supported by the 
 alms of the Church, only he must be content with frugal, 
 howbeit with innocent victuals, (frugalioribus sed innocentibus 
 cibis.) Nor must he imagine that he is to be bought off from 
 
 ' Cyprian, Ep. Ixiv. § 3. 
 
iD op ge CL AGAINST MERCENARY CONVERTS. 267 
 
 his sins by a salary, (nec putet salario se esse redimendum ut 
 a peccatis cessat,) when the gain is to be his, not ours. With- 
 draw him however, if possible, from this wicked course to 
 better things; and let him be content with poor but honest 
 provision, which the Church will offer him, (ut sit contentus 
 ecclesiee sumptibus, parcioribus quidem sed salutaribus.) Or 
 if the Church with you” (he says to his correspondent) 
 “has not the means, he may transfer himself to us, and 
 receive with us such food and clothing as is necessary, and 
 learn what is edifying in the Church, instead of teaching 
 others what is deadly out of it.’' Again, on another occa- 
 sion, Cyprian writes to the Presbyters and Deacons in his 
 absence to have a careof the poor. But what poor? “Such 
 as have stood fast in the faith.” And with what particular 
 object? ‘That means may not be lacking unto them; and 
 so necessity subdue those whom persecution has not shaken ’’? 
 —the parties, you observe, to be kept just above want, lest 
 that temptation should drive them astray. It should seem 
 too, as we learn from the same author, that some little addi- 
 tion was occasionally made from this fund to eke out the 
 scanty wages of one, who, whilst he exercised some subordi- 
 nate office in the Church, still continued to follow a trade.® 
 But surely no reasonable fault can be found with the admin- 
 istration of a fund conducted upon such principles as are here 
 discovered ; nor can any suspicion attach to it of being made 
 an instrument for purchasing proselytes. But here again 
 there is a Constitution to our purpose ; for these Constitu- 
 tions in many cases are very valuable as pointing out the 
 issues of precepts and practices, of which we see the be- 
 ginnings in passages of the Primitive Fathers; or at least 
 they often exhibit the ends toward which they are practically 
 tending. Thus the seventh chapter of the third book of the 
 Apostolical Constitutions is on the subject of the widows of 
 the Church; some of whom it censures, because instead of 
 staying at home and conversing with God, they were running 
 about in search after gain ; and they had begged so shame- 
 lessly and: been so successful in their mendicancy, “ that they 
 had caused people in general to be more slow to contribute to 
 the ecclesiastical fund.* For they ought to be satisfied,” 
 
 ' Cyprian, Ep. 1xi. 8 Ep. xxxviii. § 1. 
 
 * Ep. v. § 2. 4So I understand kat e€ ov dva 
 
268 THIRD INSINUATION OF GIBBON, (Serres II. 
 
 the Constitution continues, “by reason of the moderation of 
 their wishes with the ecclesiastical allowance ; whereas, they 
 were gadding about, making for themselves a handsome purse, 
 lending money at high interest, and thinking of nothing but 
 Mammon.” Here, therefore, it once more appears, that the 
 dole of the Church was a bare maintenance and nothing more: 
 nay, so small that those who were known to receive it, were 
 still regarded by many as objects of charity ; for otherwise, 
 they could not have begged with the advantage they are 
 here represented to do; people would have at once closed 
 their doors against widows already well provided for. More- 
 over, the Constitution shows that the managers of the ecclesi- 
 astical fund were acting under a strong politico-economical 
 check, even if no higher motive had influenced them ; seeing 
 that any abuses in the administration were sure to recoil 
 upon the treasury, and reduce its amount; just as the notion 
 which some time ago had obtained in this country, that 
 Briefs were farmed and otherwise mismanaged, eventually 
 almost dried up the supply, and naturally, though unhappily, 
 perhaps, as events have since turned out, paved the way for 
 their abolition. 
 
 There is yet another surmise of Gibbon’s with respect to 
 the materials of which the early Church was composed, akin 
 to these last we have been considering, and meant, like them, 
 to depreciate its character: and as the consideration of the 
 fiscal question enters into this also, it may be convenient to 
 mention, and reply to it here—the Fathers, you will observe, 
 still furnishing us with the means of doing so: for I am 
 engaged in representing to you the use of the Fathers, and at 
 present, as it exhibits itself in the service they do on the 
 Evidences, enabling us to supply arguments for the truth of 
 Christianity, or to meet objections against it. “There is some 
 reason likewise to believe,’ continues Gibbon, “that great 
 numbers of infants, who, according to the inhuman practice of 
 the times, had been exposed by their parents, were frequently 
 rescued from death, baptized, educated, and maintained by 
 the piety of the Christians, and at the expense of the public 
 treasure” '—as though the Christian body, already described 
 as replenished by atrocious criminals, who found more ready 
 
 U > a ee LA , \ A / , 
 
 oxvvT@s airovct Kal dmAnoT@s NapBa- | mpos 76 Siddvat KaTéoTnoay. 
 > , aie ae Pere 
 
 vovow 5n Kal OxvoTépous Tovs 7roAAovs ' Gibbon, yol. ii. p. 347, 
 
Lect. III.] UNSUPPORTED BY FACTS. 269 
 
 admission to the Church, than to the heathen temple itself, 
 and by needy persons disposed to swallow the bribe which the 
 Church’s exchequer furnished, found another supply in a 
 quarter no less humiliating to contemplate, in the infants that 
 had been abandoned, and whom the Christians adopted, and 
 quartered upon the ecclesiastical exchequer. Gibbon’s autho- 
 rity for this is analovy—similar conduct of modern mis- 
 sionaries may be observed under the same circumstances— 
 and he names those of China.’ It is dangerous to charge 
 one’s memory with the contents of many volumes, and some 
 of them ample ones, but I do not remember the slightest 
 ground for this suggestion of Gibbon’s in any Ante-Nicene 
 Father whatever ; nor do I believe, that any hint to that 
 effect can be met with in any one of them. Whereas, I can 
 bring several passages from them which would seem to be 
 inconsistent with such a fact; I mean inconsistent with the 
 fact that the Church was sensibly recruited from this source : 
 for it is likely enough that a foundling or two might be 
 reared by humane Christians under particular circumstances ; 
 as they occasionally were, even by humane heathens. Of 
 course, In what I am about to say, I am not careful to clear 
 the Christians from the charge of rescuing exposed infants 
 from death, baptizing and rearing them, as though the thing 
 was a reproach, whereas it would really have been an act of 
 signal charity ; but I am simply speaking to the fact, and 
 replying to Gibbon, who would have his readers believe that 
 Christianity, instead of making progress on adult minds by 
 the force of evidence and reason, did in truth advance by 
 catching its converts, and those, too, outcasts in their tenderest 
 years, feeding and appropriating them, and so breeding them 
 into Christians when they had no will or judgment of their 
 own. Now I find Justin Martyr, when engaged in defending 
 the Christians from the calumnies vulgarly circulated against 
 them—one of which was, that in their secret assemblies they 
 devoured the flesh of infants—I find him, I say, contending 
 that so far were Christians from doing any such deed, that 
 they taught the great sin of exposing children ; and I further 
 find him alleging, in aggravation of this sin, that the fate of 
 these children commonly was, not to be rescued by Christians, 
 but to be picked up by their fellow-heathens and reared for 
 ! Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 347, note 144. 
 
270 NEGATIVE EVIDENCE AGAINST IT (Serres II. 
 
 prostitution.’ Is it credible that, had the Christians been in 
 the habit of saving them from death for the purpose of raising 
 up seed for the Church, he would have made no mention of 
 the practice on an occasion which so strongly invited him to 
 advert to it ? a practice which would have placed the Christians 
 in such an advantageous contrast with the heathens; the 
 ordinary humanity of the Christian actually protecting the 
 child from the unnatural barbarity of the heathen parent in 
 abandoning it, or the baser cruelty of the heathen pander in 
 preserving it. Again, I find Tatian assigning as a reason for 
 quitting the heathens and uniting himself with the Christians, 
 the superior morality of the latter; and im enumerating the 
 vices of the former, which had inspired him with disgust, I 
 hear him speaking of the exposure of their children and of the 
 fate which usually awaited them, and which he represents to 
 be the same as Justin does.” But neither does he drop the 
 least allusion to any interference of the Church for the pre- 
 servation of these infants; though, I repeat, his argument 
 would naturally have led him to speak of it, had any such 
 practice prevailed. It would have been making out a very 
 strong case if he could have said, that whilst heathen parents 
 left them to perish, or heathen panders saved them for the 
 brothel, the Christians interposed to repair the mischief, and 
 cherished them for the fold of Christ. There were many 
 reasons why the Fathers should have claimed the merit for 
 the Christians had it belonged to them, especially when 
 writing Apologies for them ; and none, why they should have 
 suppressed it. Tertullian also reproaches the heathen with 
 the crime of exposing their children, and dwells on the 
 incestuous consequences which often resulted when they 
 chanced to be picked up and reared through the compassion 
 of some passing stranger,® contrasting such defilement with 
 the purity which characterised the Christians; but he does 
 not hint that the compassionate stranger was usually a 
 Christian, or that in these children there was provided a 
 nursery for the Church. Yet, had such been the case, it 
 would have been precisely according to the style of Tertullian 
 to make the very utmost of such an antithesis ; the unnatural 
 barbarity on the one side, the gratuitous humanity on the 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 27. 3 Tertullian, Apol. ec. ix. 
 * Tatian, Oratio Contra Graecos, § 28, 
 
Lecr. III.] IN TERTULLIAN AND CYPRIAN. Orit 
 
 other. It would have been a subject which Tertullian above 
 all the Fathers would have delighted to enlarge upon, and 
 would have lavished upon it with a relish his most impas- 
 sioned rhetoric. Yet he is silent. I could produce other 
 testimony to the same effect,'—negative testimony, it is true, 
 but the case does not very well admit of any other. You 
 cannot expect the Fathers to make positive affirmation that 
 the Church did not recruit its numbers from this source, if the 
 practice never existed in their day; and they could not, of 
 course, divine that it would be ever imputed to the Church. 
 Nor is this all. There is an incident recorded by Cyprian 
 which has been often quoted for other purposes, but which 
 bears also on the question before us—the case of a little child, 
 whose parents had fled in haste, (apparently from persecution, 
 being Christians,) and left it in the hands of a nurse. The 
 nurse took the deserted infant to the magistrates, (relictam 
 nutrix detulit ad magistratus,) who administered to it bread 
 steeped in wine, the remains of an idol offermg. The tale 
 goes on to tell of the mother of the child at length returning, 
 resuming the care of her child, and carrying it with her to 
 the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, when, on the cup being 
 given the child, it rejected it, the Eucharist not being found 
 to remain in a body which had been defiled by having par- 
 taken of an idolatrous sacrifice.” Such is the history. But 
 the feature of it to which I advert is this—that the deserted 
 infant was not taken to the Church, to be supported out of 
 the Church fund, even though it was the child of Christian 
 parents, or at least of a mother who was a Christian, but was 
 taken to the magistrates. This, I think, is an incident which, 
 though not conclusive of the question, rather tends to show 
 that the Christians were not disposed to appropriate deserted 
 children to themselves, and in default of other converts make 
 Christians of them. Then there is a Constitution which 
 exhorts one or other of the brethren, who might happen to 
 have no child of his own, to adopt an orphan child*®; and 
 another, which encourages the Bishop to cherish and protect 
 such children, and have them taught a trade *—the provision 
 in the latter case to be made for them, no doubt, out of the 
 Church’s fund, of which the Bishop was the chief admini- 
 
 ' Clem. Alex. Pedag. ITT. ec. iii. p. 265. 3 Constitut. LY. ¢. 1. 
 * Cyprian, De Lapsis, § xxy. 4-0; il. 
 
272 CONSTITUTION RESPECTING ORPHANS.  [Sertes I. 
 
 strator. But these regulations are still unpropitious to Mr. 
 Gibbon’s theory, for they serve to prove that the Church had 
 enough to do, and apparently much more than enough, in 
 taking care of the orphans even of Christian parents, and 
 never contemplated laying itself out for systematically gather- 
 ing other outcast children about her. Indeed, such a drain 
 upon her treasury would soon have become quite exhausting ; 
 for had parents, in that state of society, and in that condition 
 of public feeling on the subject of the exposure of children, 
 once found out that they might cast out their children with 
 impunity, seeing that the Christians would not let them die, 
 there is no telling the extent to which the abuse might not 
 have proceeded. 
 
 In conclusion, I submit that the Fathers are of wse, when 
 they thus put us in possession of an intimate knowledge of 
 the condition of the early Church, and thereby furnish us with ~ 
 the means of neutralizing the mischievous insinuations of an 
 unscrupulous but wary assailant of the truth of that Gospel 
 we desire to live and die by. 
 
Lect. IV.} OPINION OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH 273 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The opinion of Sir James Mackintosh on Gibbon’s sixteenth chapter. The 
 statements of the latter to be corrected by a review of the early Fathers. Their 
 testimony, 1°. To the extent of the persecutions of the Christians. The classi- 
 fication into ten great persecutions untenable. Inquiry whether the edicts of 
 Nero and Domitian were repealed. Effect of those of Trajan, Hadrian, Anto- 
 ninus. Christianity a capital offence from the time of Nero downwards. Mar- 
 tyrdom of Ignatius. Remarks of Tertullian on Trajan’s edict. Subsequent 
 activity of persecution. ‘That at Lyons and Vienne a sample of others. The 
 assertion of Origen respecting the number of martyrs relative, not positive. 
 Motives in various quarters for setting persecution on foot. 
 
 I STILL pursue the subject of Evidences, and the manner 
 in which the Fathers minister to this argument: and in 
 doing so I shall now turn to the question of persecution. 
 There is a passage in the life of Sir James Mackintosh— 
 himself, you will remember, a man of very liberal views—— 
 quoted by Mr. Milman in his edition of Gibbon, and which I 
 had myself transcribed into my own copy before his edition 
 appeared, for I thought it remarkable, coming from the author 
 it did, to the following effect. “The sixteenth chapter,” 
 (i. e. of the history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire,) “I cannot help considering as a very ingenious and 
 specious but very disgraceful extenuation of the cruelties 
 perpetrated by the Roman magistrates against the Christians. 
 It is written in the most contemptibly factious spirit of pre- 
 judice against the sufferers ; it is unworthy of a philosopher 
 and a man of humanity. Let the narrative of Cyprian’s 
 death be examined. He had to relate the murder of an 
 innocent man of advanced age, and ina station deemed vene- 
 rable by a considerable body of the provincials of Africa, put 
 to death because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead 
 of pointing the indignation of posterity against such an atro- 
 cious act of tyranny, he dwells with visible art on the small 
 circumstances of decorum and politeness which attended this 
 murder, and which he relates with as much parade as if they 
 1 
 
O74 ON GIBBON’S SIXTEENTH CHAPTER. [Serres II. 
 
 were the most important particulars of the event. Dr. 
 Robertson has been the subject of much blame for his zeal or 
 supposed lenity towards the Spanish murderers and tyrants in 
 America. That the sixteenth chapter of Mr. Gibbon did not 
 excite the same or greater disapprobation is a proof of the 
 unphilosophical and, indeed, fanatical animosity against Chris- 
 tianity, which was so prevalent during the latter part of the 
 seventeenth century.” ? 
 
 I think, then, that the testimony of the early Fathers will 
 go far to dissipate the impression made by this famous 
 chapter of the historian of the Decline and Fall. I say dis- 
 sipate the impression, for in dealing with Mr. Gibbon we ~ 
 must not reckon upon convicting him of positive falsehood or 
 of inaccurate references ; but, it may be, of so packing his 
 materials as on the whole to leave a fair picture on the mind, 
 a picture which can only be qualified by the substitution for 
 it of another, drawn from materials as authentic as his own, 
 and indeed for the most part from (I do not scruple to say it) 
 a larger survey of the very same. For I am of opinion that 
 a candid review of the writings of the early Fathers will cor- 
 rect many notions we may have derived from Mr. Gibbon, 
 both as to the extent, as to the intensity, and as to the nature 
 of the persecution encountered by the early Christians. 
 
 First, with reference to the extent, it is not very easy to 
 determine the specific idea which Mr.-Gibbon had upon this 
 subject ; but, on the whole, that which he seems desirous to 
 leave on the minds of his readers probably is, that though 
 partial persecutions of the Christians there were from time to 
 time, there was none which deserved the name of a general 
 persecution before Diocletian, about the beginning of the 
 fourth century. No doubt the notion to which he studiously 
 draws attention, that there were ten great persecutions, as set 
 forth first by a writer of the fifth century, and afterwards 
 followed by others, in correspondence with the ten plagues 
 of Egypt, is a fanciful classification of them; too many, as 
 Mosheim observes,” if general persecutions are meant; much 
 too few, if particular. The truth seems to be, that when- 
 ever the first edict for an universal and contemporaneous 
 attack upon the Christians throughout the provinces of the 
 
 ' Life of Sir James Mackintosh, vol. ? Mosheim, De Rebus Christianorum 
 1, p. 244, ante Constant. sec. I. § xxvi. p. 98. 
 
Eroz: FV.] LAWS OF NERO AND DOMITIAN 275 
 
 Roman Empire might have been promulgated, a system of 
 persecution sometimes smothered, sometimes breaking out in 
 greater or less severity in various quarters of the world, now 
 in one part, now in another, according to the temper of the 
 Emperor of the day, or much more frequently according to 
 that of the local magistrate, or even of the populace itself, 
 was almost constantly at work or in agitation ; the doctrines 
 and the habits of the Christians being such as would readily 
 furnish a plea for an assault upon them under the sanction of 
 the laws; and even such laws as were meant in some mea- 
 sure to protect them, and framed by humane Emperors, so 
 loosely worded as to answer this purpose very inadequately. 
 Laws were made against them by Nero and Domitian, the 
 character of which is bespoken by that of their authors; for 
 Tertullian, in his Apology, speaks of previous laws which 
 were in part frustrated by Trajan.’ But if such laws there 
 were, they must have been made for the Empire, and accord- 
 ingly any and every part of it must have been liable to their 
 action. And however the persecution under them might have 
 been, and probably was, most intense at Rome, a door was 
 opened to it everywhere. I do not think that there is any 
 evidence that those edicts of Nero and Domitian had been 
 abrogated. Mosheim says they had; those of Nero by the 
 Senate, those of Domitian by Nerva’; but he quotes no 
 authority. Lardner more cautiously says, I suppose they had 
 been abrogated.’ On the contrary, in Tertullian’s first book 
 “ Ad Nationes,” there is a passage, quoted by Bishop Kaye* 
 —whose views, as far as he discovers them, coincide with my 
 own, of which I was not aware when I drew up this Lecture 
 —in Tertullian’s first book “Ad Nationes,” there is a pas- 
 sage, I say, which expressly affirms, that whilst all the other 
 edicts of Nero had been repealed, that against the Christians 
 alone remained in force—‘“et tamen permansit, omnibus 
 erasis, hoe solum institutum Neronianum.”’ Indeed, were it 
 otherwise, how could Tertullian use the expression in the 
 Apology, “quas Trajanus ex parte frustratus est’? Trajan 
 
 1 Quales ergo leges iste, quas adver- | orum, see. II. § vill. p. 231. 
 
 sus nos exsequuntur impli. . .? quas 3 Lardner, Credibility, Pt. II. Hea- 
 
 Trajanus ex parte frustratus est.—Ter- | then Testimonies, ch. ix. § 4. 
 
 tullian, Apol. c. v. 4 Bp. Kaye’s Tertullian, p. 108 ef seq. 
 2Neronis nimirum leges Senatus, | 3rd Ed. 
 
 Domitiani Nerva imperator, abroga- 5 Tertullian, Ad Nationes, T. § 7. 
 
 verat.—Mosheim, De Rebus Christian- 
 
 T B) 
 
276 MITIGATED BUT NOT REPEALED (Senirs II. 
 
 could not have winked at the evasion of laws which had no 
 existence. Or how could he complain that when the simple 
 statement of the truth met all objections that could be made 
 against the Christians, they were then borne down by the 
 authority of the laws, and the prejudice that when laws 
 had once been established they were not to be altered: this 
 last an idea, be it observed, which he is at much pains to 
 correct '—a superfluous labour, if these statutes had been 
 already abrogated? And how could he speak of the Romans 
 spending their fury on the Christians partly in obedience to 
 their own inclinations, and partly in obedience to the laws? ? 
 Neither is it a safe inference from Pliny’s letter to Trajan 
 that there could be no edicts in force against the Christians 
 when Pliny came into his province, because if there had been, 
 he would have known what to do without writing to Trajan 
 for advice, though this inference is drawn both by Mosheim,’ 
 Lardner,’ and Gibbon.’ On the contrary, I should infer, 
 from «a phrase which occurs in that letter, “Cognitionibus 
 Christianorum interfui nunquam, ideo nescio quid et quatenus 
 aut puniri soleat, aut queeri,’® “I have never been present at 
 any trials of Christians, so that I know not well what is the 
 subject-matter of punishment or inquiry,’’ a circumstance on 
 which Pliny partly grounds his application to Trajan—I say 
 that I should infer from this phrase not that there were no 
 edicts against Christians then existing; but that there un- 
 doubtedly were such, only that Pliny had never happened. to 
 see them actually executed. His perplexity seems to have 
 arisen not from the absence of laws, but from his humanity 
 revolting at carrying out severe ones against parties often of 
 tender years (“ teneri,” “omnis eetatis,”) and in numbers very 
 great, “visa est mihi res digna consultatione, maxime propter 
 periclitantium numerum.” I can have very little doubt, 
 therefore, that the edicts of Nero and Domitian were in force, 
 and had been hanging over the heads of the Christians till 
 then. These laws in their action, it appears from Trajan’s 
 answer to Pliny, that Emperor somewhat mitigated, enacting 
 indeed that the Christians upon conviction of being such 
 
 ' Apol. e. iv. ‘Lardner, Credibility, Pt. II. Hea- 
 2 ©. Xxxvil. then Testimonies, c. ix. § 4. 
 * Mosheim, De Rebus Christianorum, 5 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 418. 
 
 sec. II. § viii. p. 231. 6 Plin. Epistolar. lib. X. Ep. xevii. 
 
Lect. 1V.] BY TRAJAN AND HADRIAN. Qh 
 
 should be punished, but that they should not be sought for ; 
 and moreover, that the bill of information should be signed 
 by the party preferring it.’ Such was the condition of the 
 law with respect to the Christians as Trajan left it, Trajan’s 
 law does not seem to have been substantially changed, though 
 it is sometimes represented to have been so, by the rescript of 
 Hadrian ; the sole effect of the latter appearing to be to put 
 down mere mob law with regard to the Christians, and to 
 place them more effectually under Trajan’s; the gravamen 
 alleged by Serenius Granianus, Proconsul of Asia, which pro- 
 duces this rescript,’ being that it was unjust to put the 
 Christians to death merely to gratify the clamours of the 
 people, which, it appears, had been the practice of late; and 
 the corrective administered by Hadrian being that they 
 should be legally tried, and if they were proved to have com- 
 mitted anything contrary to the laws (and it was contrary to 
 the laws to be a Christian under Trajan’s edict) they should 
 be dealt with accordingly—at the same time, when the charge 
 turned out to be only a calumny, the author of it was to 
 be punished.’ The purpose of this edict, as I have said, is to 
 rescue the Christians from being made victims of the populace, 
 and to require that they be disposed of by law, but not to 
 alter the law itself. With this additional caution attached to 
 it, Trajan’s law now came into the hands of Antoninus Pius, 
 who in his turn, in his edict to the Commune of Asia, (if on 
 the authority of Eusebius we ascribe this edict to him,’ and 
 Lardner takes this view,’) refers to the edict of Hadrian, 
 and fully confirms it. ‘There are incidents in the account of 
 the martyrdom of Polycarp,° and in the history of the perse- 
 cution at Lyons,’ both of which events took place in the reign 
 of Aurelius, that would lead to the conclusion that under that 
 Emperor it was still against the law to be a Christian, or 
 in other words that Trajan’s edict, founded primarily upon 
 Nero’s, still held good. Commodus made few martyrs ; but 
 the case of Apollonius® seems to show that the law continued 
 as it was, though in this instance the clause of it added by 
 Hadrian, and confirmed by Antoninus Pius, which punished 
 
 1 Plin. Epistolar. lib. X. Ep. xeviii. then Testimonies, ¢. xiv. § 3. 
 
 * Husebius, Eccles. Hist. iv. c. 8, § Husebius, Eccles. Hist. iy. c. 14. 
 STC 9: ai verCal: 
 
 Srna. Seco ol 
 
 > Lardner, Credibility, Pt. II. Hea- 
 
278 CHRISTIANITY A CAPITAL OFFENCE  [Senies II. 
 
 the informer, was also acted on, and he put to death as well 
 as his victim.’ And if we examine the cases of persecu- 
 tion recorded by Eusebius, as occurring under subsequent 
 Emperors, as that of Basilides under Severus’; that of the 
 heads of the Churches under Maximin*®; that of Nemesion, 
 under Decius,* though Decius seems to have aggravated 
 matters by some sanguinary edict of his own’; that of Diony- 
 sius and those in Egypt, under Valerian®; that of Marinus 
 at Ceesarea, under Gallienus’; down to Diocletian himself ; 
 we shall see reason to believe, from expressions let fall in 
 these several histories, that Eusebius considered the law, 
 which constituted the profession of Christianity as a crime, to 
 be constantly in force, and the several parties to be proceeded 
 against from time to time under that law. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, my impression is, that Christianity 
 was still a capital offence from Nero’s time downwards, or, as 
 Tertullian expressly represents it, “non licet esse eos,”* “it 
 was not legal for Christians to live,” that their religion con- 
 trasted with that of the Jews, as not being a licita religio,’ 
 that Minucius Felix speaks with the accuracy of a lawyer, 
 when he puts in the mouth of Ceecilius a phrase describing the 
 Christians as “ homines illicitze factionis,’’® and that Mosheim’s 
 phrase is more literally true than he himself understood it, 
 “Nero Imperator Christianos Rome degentes atrocissimis 
 legibus et suppliciis aggressus erat. Ejus vestigia sequentium 
 Imperatorum plerique per tria seecula, diversa licet ratione, 
 presserunt.”" Nero and Domitian might hunt the Christians 
 out ; Trajan might only condemn them when they fell in his 
 
 ! Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. v. c. 21. 
 There seems to have been something 
 peculiar in this case. “The charge 
 was made out of season,” is the sin- 
 gular expression of Eusebius. 
 
 2 vi. c. 5. 
 
 3 6, 28, 
 
 4o, 41. 
 
 5 Thus in the case of the martyrs of 
 Alexandria, the expression occurs, “ The 
 persecution with us did not begin with 
 the imperial edict, but preceded it a 
 whole year.”—Ibid. And again, “ But 
 soon a change in the Government to- 
 wards us was announced” (i. e. Philip 
 was dead, and was succeeded by Decius) 
 “and great danger threatened us. 
 
 The | 
 
 decree had arrived, very like that fore- 
 told by our Lord,” &c.—Ibid. 
 
 Soy Tne 
 
 7c. 15. Gallienus appears to have 
 fayoured the Christians personally, and 
 to have even published edicts in their 
 favour, and allowed them their ceme- 
 teries (c. 13), but still to have left the 
 standing laws against them unrepealed 
 (c. 15). Gibbon seems to admit this 
 fact, vol. ii. p. 454. 
 
 § Tertullian, Apol. ¢. iv. 
 
 ose: 
 
 '0 Minucius Felix, ¢. viii. 
 
 1! Mosheim, De Rebus Christianor. 
 seec. J. § xxvi. p. 97. 
 
Lect. IV.] FROM THE TIME OF NERO DOWNWARDS. 279 
 
 way; Hadrian and Antoninus might even punish those who 
 accused them falsely ; it was necessary even for the safety of 
 the heathens themselves that some check should be put upon 
 vague charges of Christianity ; but the law still substantially 
 was, that to be a Christian was to be guilty of a capital 
 crime, whether that law were executed or not. And this view 
 of the question accords, I think, with the representation we 
 find of it in a passage of the Apology of Tertullian to which 
 I have referred already. ‘“ Quales ergo leges iste, quas ad- 
 versus nos soli exsequuntur impii, injusti, turpes, vani, 
 dementes? Quas Trajanus ex parte frustratus est vetando 
 inquiri Christianos, quas nullus Adrianus, quanquam curiosi- 
 tatum omnium explorator, nullus Vespasianus, quanquam 
 Judzeorum debellator, nullus Pius, nullus Verus impressit.’”? 
 ‘What sort of laws are those which none put in force (exse- 
 quuntur) against us, but the impious, the unjust, the vile, the 
 vain, the mad? of which Trajan partly frustrated the effect 
 by forbidding inquiry to be made for the Christians, which 
 neither Hadrian, though an explorer of everything curious ; 
 nor Vespasian, though the conqueror of the Jews; nor Pius, 
 nor Verus carried into execution” (impressit): the several 
 terms “exsequuntur,” “frustratus est,” “impressit,”’ all having 
 reference to laws already existing, which these several empe- 
 rors, with all their humanity, mind, would not abrogate ac- 
 cording to Tertullian, but only did not enforce. Indeed in a 
 previous sentence relating to M. Aurelius, this is alleged in so 
 many words,—“ Qui sicut non palam ab ejusmodi hominibus 
 peenam dimovit, ita alio modo palam dispersit, adjecté etiam 
 accusatoribus damnatione, et quidem tetriore’”—‘“ which em- 
 peror, though he did not publicly abrogate the punishments 
 directed against the Christians, did publicly avert them by 
 another method, subjecting the accusers to punishment even 
 yet more severe.” One would have thought that the simple 
 way of relieving the Christians, if the Emperors had been in 
 earnest in their feeling for them, would have been to rescind 
 the laws that were against them. But this step, it should 
 seem, the most merciful of the Emperors hesitated to take ; 
 whether having misgivings themselves about the principles and 
 proceedings of the Christians, which were of necessity in- 
 volved in a certain degree of mystery, and which might be 
 
 1 Tertullian, Apol. c. vy. 
 
280 PERSECUTION STILL AT WORK UNDER [Series II. 
 
 brought into bad repute by those of the heretics ; whether re- 
 luctant to afford a plausible pretext for the suspicion that 
 they were themselves lukewarm towards the gods of their own 
 country ; or whether overruled by strong popular opinion, 
 which was utterly hostile to the Christians. Origen appears 
 to me to write with this impression on his mind in his treatise 
 against Celsus. He is detailing one of the many charges 
 against the Christians which Celsus advances, namely, that of 
 their acting and teaching in a clandestine manner, and “no 
 wonder they do so,” he continues, still stating Celsus’ argument, 
 “it is to avert from themselves the punishment of death which 
 hangs over their heads.” ' The accusation is a general one, against 
 Christians not of one generation, but of every generation, and 
 accordingly the law against which they had to protect them- 
 selves by such precaution not a temporary, but a permanent 
 cause of alarm ; however it might be more actively enforced at 
 one time than at another. And indeed, whilst Origen was 
 writing the work in which this language is used, there was, he 
 tells us, neither actual persecution,? nor prospect of it; the 
 powers at that time happening to have no passion for blood. 
 We should arrive at the same conclusion from an expression 
 which drops from him in the “ De Principiis,” when, speaking of 
 the rapid growth of the Christians, he adds, that this occurred 
 in spite of the hatred in which they were held by idolaters, 
 and of “the risk they ran, besides such hatred, of being put to 
 death ”’ *—as though, under the circumstances of the law, the 
 profession of Christianity at once involved a capital hazard. 
 Accordingly we find, as we might expect to find under the 
 circumstances I have described, that under all these Emperors, 
 whether humane or otherwise, persecution was in fact going 
 on more or less—why should it not, when they would not 
 plainly declare it to be illegal? If they plausibly encumbered 
 it with indirect checks, those checks were easily evaded; and 
 when a provincial magistrate owed the Christian cause a grudge 
 or wished to please the people (as that class were often dis- 
 posed to do in order to bribe them not to expose their mis- 
 
 
 
 * Od padrny Toiro mowiow, dre | Tod Kal rTodro, BovdnOévros CecoU, 
 Siobovpevor tiv emnprnpéevny aitois | weradcba HSy xpov@ mAelove. — Ori- 
 dikny rod Oavarov.— Origen, Contra | gen, Contra Celsum, III. § 15. 
 Celsum, I. § 3. ° °Eml Oavdre@ Sé mpos TO poeta Oar 
 
 *"Ore d€ odd rd rdv CEwhey Séos | Kwvdvvevdvr@v.—De Principiis, LV. § 1. 
 TO avvOnpa Hav Svaxpatei, SyAov &x | 
 
Lect. 1V.] TRAJAN, HADRIAN AND THE ANTONINES. 288 
 
 deeds) by proceeding against them, he could easily find a 
 way to do it without incurring much or any risk himself. 
 For certain it is that under Trajan there was in fact perse- 
 cution—“a great persecution in most places,” is the phrase 
 which Eusebius uses to describe that which caused Pliny’s 
 address to that Emperor.’ In that reign it was that Ignatius 
 suffered; condemned at Antioch, executed at Rome; so far 
 from clandestine was the transaction. It may be said that 
 he was voluntarily brought before Trajan (éxovciws myero,) ” 
 but it was éxwy aéxovti ye vue, he was constrained by a 
 sense of honour; he had led others to their death by the 
 principles he had taught them’; how could he flinch from 
 avowing them to be his own? The mockery of mercy which 
 the law of Trajan exhibited, is exposed as it deserved to be 
 by Tertullian. “The Christians are not to be searched for, but 
 to be punished when found! What a necessary contradiction 
 is this! He forbids them to be searched for, because they are 
 innocent ; he consigns them to punishment, because they are 
 guilty. He spares and he despatches ; he dissembles and he 
 denounces ! Why do you embarrass yourself with your own 
 decree? If you condemn, why do you not search? If you 
 do not search, why do you not*acquit them? Military posts 
 are established throughout the provinces for detecting rob- 
 bers. Against traitors and public enemies every man takes up 
 arms. The search, in their case, extends even to their com- 
 panions and accomplices. But for the Christian, and for 
 him only, no search is to be made, and yet he is to be 
 accused ; as though the search was good for anything, if it 
 was not for his accusation.”* It is evident from this indig- 
 nant remonstrance, how poor a boon the Christians found 
 themselves to have gained in the edict of Trajan. Again, 
 persecution was active under Hadrian, however he might 
 have personally had no ill-will towards them, persecution so 
 cruel and unjust as to call forth, we have seen, a request 
 from one of his own governors, Serenius Granianus, for his 
 interposition: and it was to this Emperor that Quadratus 
 and Aristides addressed their Apologies, documents always 
 drawn forth by hard times.’ Under the Antonines, perse- 
 cution was still on the alert. The first Apology of Justin 
 
 1 Kecles, Hist. iii. ¢. 33. “ Tertullian, Apol. e. ii. 
 * Martyr. Ignat. § 2. 3 [bid. 5 Husebius, Eccles. Hist. iv. ¢. 3. 
 
282 PERSECUTION UNDER AURELIUS, (Series IT, 
 
 Martyr, which was the effect of it, bears testimony to its 
 severity under Antoninus Pius; his very prologue setting 
 forth that Justin made that appeal ‘in behalf of men un- 
 justly hated and persecuted, he being himself one of them ; 
 and the whole tenour of it bespeaking that the persecution 
 against which he was pleading, was to the death—* You can 
 do no more than put us to death.”' Under Aurelius, matters 
 were yet worse. At this period Justin’s second Apology 
 dates; and his argument in it indicates the sufferings of 
 the Christians at Rome to have been then most lively at the 
 hands of Urbicus, a city magistrate, of whose proceedings he 
 gives some details, with the names of several of his victims, 
 and the circumstances of their conviction,’ and expresses fears 
 for himself, as it proved, not without reason.’ The saime reign 
 drew forth the Apology of Athenagoras; that again bears 
 testimony to the activity of a deadly persecution no less than 
 Justin’s. “The loss of goods and credit, the Christians 
 knew how to bear, and to him who had defiled one cheek 
 to turn the other, and to give the cloak when the coat had 
 been taken, but they were attacked in life and limb.” * 
 Accordingly, Justin fell at Rome; Polycarp and others at 
 Smyrna; a multitude of persons of either sex with Pothinus, 
 the Bishop of Lyons, at their head at Lyons and Vienne 
 in Gaul. So wide-wasting was the scourge in this reign.° 
 Again under Severus, though he, as had been the case with 
 some of his predecessors, had no vindictive feelings against 
 the Christians himself, the war against the Christians was 
 carried on with even greater fury than ever. The Apology 
 of Tertullian, which was then put forth, bears the most un- 
 equivocal testimony to this fact—a document not written in 
 a spirit of exaggeration of the wrongs done them®; indeed 
 in a spirit, so far as the imperial authority was concerned, 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 45. among the martyrs; not so Tertullian, 
 211.69 te0.8: though evidently having the most 
 3 3. friendly feeling towards him; and 
 ‘Kis ta o@para kal ras Wuxds.—| though ascribing the title of martyr 
 Athenagoras, Legat. pro Christianis,| to Justin, whom he names with him: 
 ee 
 5 
 6 
 
 ewe 
 
 “ Ut Justinus philosophus et martyr, ut 
 Eusebius, Eecles. Hist. v. c. 1. Miltiades Eeclesiarum sophista, ut Ire- 
 Tertullian, it may be observed, in} neus omnium doctrinarum curiosis- 
 
 an age when the martyr was so honour-| simus explorator,”—Ady. Valentin. ec. v. 
 
 able a title, is chary of it. Thus, writers | See Dodwell, Dissertat.in Ireneum, ITI. 
 
 of a later period have classed Irenieus! § xxi. 
 
 
 
Lect. LV.] SEVERUS AND CARACALLA. 283 
 
 rather disposed to extenuate than inflame; as appears from 
 a passage I have already had occasion to quote’; and even 
 in relation to the local magistrates, the governors of Procon- 
 sular Africa, to whom it is probably addressed, though the 
 proximate movers of the mischief, it speaks in language 
 of moderation, imputing their conduct to their ignorance of 
 the Christian character, at once their condemnation and their 
 excuse,” rather than to any malignant feeling. Yet what scenes 
 of suffering does it open! The Christians, compelled by 
 torture to renounce their confession*®; crucified; beheaded ; 
 thrown to wild beasts; burned; condemned to the mines; 
 banished to the islands.* The fourth book of the Stromata 
 of Clemens’ incidentally demonstrates that persecution, during 
 this same period of which Tertullian speaks, had also broken 
 out in the quarters where his lot was cast. It is the property 
 of the true Gnostic (whose character he is teaching and recom- 
 mending) to be above persecution®: even virtuous heathens 
 have attained to this high estate in a degree: “pound the husk 
 of Anaxarchus, if you will, you do not pound Anaxarchus’’’: 
 “but the Church is full of persons who have meditated all 
 their lives a death which quickens them unto Christ, as well 
 men as discreet women’’*: “the Lord drank the cup ; the 
 Apostles imitate him ; the Gnostics them”’: “why are not 
 Christians rescued from above? because no harm is done 
 them ; they are removed by a quick migration to God”; and 
 much more to the same effect. I merely hint it, to show that 
 Clemens writes with persecution about him. Under Caracalla, 
 persecution was still doing its work, as the “ Ad Scapulam ” of 
 Tertullian makes evident, for that address bears internal marks 
 of having been composed after the death of Severus, and pro- 
 bably during the life of Caracalla, whose nurse nevertheless, it 
 should seem from an expression let fall in it, had been a Chris- 
 tian.” Origen, who lived in this and in several succeeding 
 reigns, still was familiar with persecution, (however there 
 might be a lull when he was writing .the work itself, which 
 supplies the authority,) and to an objection of the Jew in 
 
 ' Apol. c. v. = (0 a 7 4 viii. p. 589. 
 
 “Noun: 4 ¢.-xil. 8 p. 590. 
 
 5 Clem. Alex. Stromat. IV. § iii. p. | 9 § ix. p. 597. 
 568, et seq. 10 § xi. pp. 598, 599. 
 
 6 § vii. p. 587. | | Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, ec. iv. 
 
284 ITS SEVERITY UNDER THEIR SUCCESSORS. [Series HL. 
 
 Celsus against the conduct of Jesus, that any god or demon, 
 or prudent man, on foreseeing that troubles were approaching, 
 would get out of their way, replies by citing instances to the 
 contrary, such as Socrates and Leonidas, and Paul; and then 
 adds, “And many in our own time, aware that if they confessed 
 Christianity, they should be put to death, but if they denied 
 it, they should be set free and have their property restored, 
 nevertheless despised life, and willingly took their deaths for 
 religion’s sake.”' Whenever and wherever Hippolytus wrote, 
 whether in Italy or Arabia, whether under Maximin or Decius, 
 his pen bears witness to persecution. In his commentary on 
 the History of Susanna, whom he considers a type of Christ, 
 the two elders represent the two adverse parties of Jew and 
 Gentile, yet both are agreed on the subject of destroying the 
 Saints, whom they watch to the house of God, and then seize 
 and drag them before the tribunals, and condemn them to 
 death. Such is its language.” Under Decius, Gallus, Volu- 
 sianus, Valerian, persecution was not only alive, but rampant ; 
 as the writings of Cyprian, who lived under all those Emperors, 
 and was put to death under the last of them, abundantly tes- 
 tify. In him we read of the Christians being driven into 
 exile, and their goods confiscated * ; of some, whose names are 
 given, dying in prison of starvation*; of the arrival of anti- 
 christ being realised in the times of Gallus and Volusianus °; 
 of their consignment to the mines®; of virgins and boys 
 being amongst the victims’; of Xystus and four Deacons 
 suffering death on the 8th of the Ides of August*; of the 
 havock of the brethren, of the multiplied losses of that once 
 numerous people °; and much more to the same effect. 
 
 So ample is the evidence of the extent of persecution, 
 though I have produced only a small portion of that evidence 
 during the first three centuries ; scarcely a Father we possess 
 during that period failing directly or indirectly to give proof 
 of it ; and indeed, it is a remark of Eusebius in the Preface 
 to the fifth book of his history, introductory to the Epistle of 
 the Churches of Lyons and Vienne to their brethren in Asia and 
 
 ’ Origen, Contra Celsum, IT. § 17. 5 Ep. lv. 6 Tipp. Ixxvii. xxx. 
 * Hippolytus, In Susannam, p. 276, 7 Epp. Ixxvii. § 6, Ixxxi.§ 3; De 
 Ed. Fabric. Lapsis, § ii. 
 
 3 Cyprian, Ep. xviii. Sipe XE 8 Ep. lxxxii. 9 De Lapsis, § iv. 
 
Exou.0Vs] A CASUAL EXPRESSION OF ORIGEN 285 
 
 Phrygia given in that book, and to which I have had occasion 
 to allude, “that one may infer by conjecture the multitude of 
 martyrs there must have been throughout the world, from the 
 events which occurred in one single community ”—as though 
 the persecution in Gaul, which happened thus to be recorded, 
 was only a sample of what was going on elsewhere, but with 
 less notoriety. And to all this Gibbon would oppose a casual 
 expression of Origen, “who from his experience as well as 
 reading, was intimately acquainted with the history of the 
 Christians,” and who “ declares in the most express terms that 
 the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable’ ; his autho- 
 rity alone sufficient to annihilate that formidable army of 
 martyrs,” &.? And yet it is strange, that when it answers 
 his purpose, Gibbon can dwell upon the style of a Father, 
 as on that of Tertullian for instance, with vast parade 
 in order to neutralize the force of testimony, which he 
 dislikes; whilst here, because the phrase suits him, he 
 would have us believe that Origen — Origen of all writers 
 in the world—is the most careful of his terms, and the most 
 exact in his computations. But that is true of Gibbon, 
 which was said by Tertullian of another, and of a class, “ oc- 
 casiones sibi sumpsit quorundam verborum, ut heereticis fere 
 mos est, simplicia queeque torquere.” * And yet what are the 
 circumstances of the case? Celsus had charged the Christians 
 with being a mere seditious confederacy, of which Christ was 
 the head ; as he had before charged the Jews with being a 
 mere seditious confederacy, of which Moses was the head. To 
 which Origen replies, “Touching the Christians, they, having 
 been taught that they were not to avenge themselves of their 
 enemies, observe a mild and gentle polity. Accordingly, that 
 which they could not have effected, even had they been per- 
 mitted to fight, and had they been ever so powerful, they were 
 enabled to accomplish by God who always fights for them, and 
 puts a timely stop to those who rise up against the Christians, 
 and desire to slay them. Yet, for the sake of a memento, and 
 in order that seeing a few contending for their religion, they 
 may be the more approved, and may despise death, a few of 
 them from time to time, in numbers readily reckoned, have 
 died for the Christian faith ; God having taken care that their 
 
 ' Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 8. * Tertullian, Adv. Hermogenem, c. 
 * Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 427. xix, 
 
286 MISREPRESENTED BY GIBBON. [Serres IT. 
 
 ~ 
 
 whole race should not be exterminated. For it was his plea- 
 sure that they should continue, and that the whole earth 
 should be filled with their salutary and wholesome doctrine.” 
 So that what Origen affirms is this, that the number of those 
 who suffered martyrdom was inconsiderable, compared with 
 the whole Christian body—such a number as would lead to no 
 fears for the extermination of the sect, patient as it was—the 
 assertion relative, not positive ’'— a very different thing from 
 Gibbon’s representation of it—and an assertion, it may be 
 added, made at the time when the Christian world happened 
 to be blessed with a more than common calm, as appears 
 from several passages in the treatise against Celsus?; a 
 circumstance, which might produce its effect on the pen of 
 the writer at the moment, and which ought to be taken into 
 account in estimating the force of a particular phrase used 
 by him. 
 
 The Emperors were by no means the sole or even the chief 
 enemies the Christians had to dread. Several of them were 
 indifferent or even favourably disposed to them. But there 
 were other quarters from which persecution issued, far more 
 fatal than the emperors—the local magistrates and the popu- 
 lace. Origen points to this plainly enough in the continuation 
 of the passage just cited. “God,” says he, “took thought 
 for the faithful, by his own single will dispersing every plot 
 which was. formed against them, so that neither emperors 
 (01 Baorets) nor local governors (of Kata ToTous nyovpevot) 
 nor the populace (01 djor) could be influenced against them 
 further.” * In another passage of the same treatise, he en- 
 larges still more the catalogue of their assailants—“the 
 Roman Senate, the Emperors for the time being, the army, 
 the populace, and the kindred of the believers.” * And again 
 in another, where he is arguing for the Divinity of Jesus from 
 the wonderful manner in which his religion had surmounted 
 all the obstacles presented to its progress, he says, that “he 
 overcame every hindrance which opposed itself to the dis- 
 
 1 Just as on another occasion, in a | Series), he had said the direct contrary 
 passage which has, however, escaped | —but “very few” he means, as the 
 Mr. Gibbon’s notice, he represents the | context proves, when compared with 
 Christians as “very few,” though in| the whole population of the Roman 
 numerous other places in the same | Empire.—Contra Celsum, VIII. § 69. 
 treatise, as well as elsewhere in his *TII. § 15; VIII. §§ 44. 70. 
 works (see the passages to this effect; III. § 8. 
 quoted from Origen in Lect. I. 2nd! 41.83, 
 
Lect. IV.}] PERSECUTION BY LOCAL MAGISTRATES, 287 
 
 persion of his doctrine, emperors, governors, the Roman 
 Senate, magistrates in all parts, and the populace.”’ It was 
 from some of these latter regions, that the storm principally 
 came. Doubtless, among the local magistrates there were 
 men of humanity, who so far from wishing to persecute the 
 Christians, did their best to shield them from persecution. 
 The Apologists make honourable mention of several such ; 
 and it is a feature in the testimony of the Fathers, which 
 stamps it with credit, and disposes us to receive it with con- 
 fidence when it complains of wrongs done, that it should be 
 thus candid and dispassionate, and not condemn its supposed 
 enemies in the gross. Thus Tertullian” expressly speaks of 
 the subterfuges to which merciful magistrates had recourse in 
 order to avoid shedding Christian blood; of one Cincius 
 Severus, who suggested to the Christians, how they should 
 frame their answers on their trials, with a view to their 
 acquittal ; of one Vespronius Candidus, who, when the mob 
 clamoured for the death of a Christian, replied that it would 
 be out of order to yield to such violence, and dismissed him ; 
 of one Asper, who let a Christian go, when he began to flinch 
 from the torture, without compelling him to do sacrifice, and 
 expressed his own sorrow for having gone into the case at all; 
 of one Pudens, who discovering that the charge was brought 
 against the prisoner by a conspiracy, tore up the record of 
 accusation, and refused to hear the matter. And in more 
 general terms, he tells of the magistrates exhorting the 
 Christian prisoners brought before them to deny their pro- 
 fession, saying to them, “Save thy life,’ “Do not throw thy 
 life away ;’ * though here we may observe, we have evidence 
 how strong must have been the law and the popular cry 
 against the Christians, when even compassionate magistrates 
 were driven to shifts and evasions to spare them. But if 
 there were some magistrates thus humane, what multitudes 
 must there have been in the Roman provinces without any 
 such touch of pity, only too glad to work the law as it stood, 
 nay, perhaps, with some personal animosity against the 
 Christians to gratify; as in the case of Herminianus, Go- 
 vernor of Cappadocia, who was provoked, Tertullian tells us, * 
 by the conversion of his wife, to wreak his spleen on the 
 
 ' Contra Celsum, II. § 79. 3 Scorpiace, ¢. xi. 
 ? Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, c. iv. 4 Ad Seapulam, c. iii. 
 
288 PERSECUTION BY LOCAL MAGISTRATES, [Serres [1. 
 
 Christians; or with some lurking apprehension of the people's 
 displeasure’ (which they could often ill afford to incur) if they 
 allowed them to escape. “Torment us, good my lords,” is 
 Tertullian’s exclamation to the magistrates, “rack us, crush us 
 in the dust, you will be all the more acceptable to the mob 
 for immolating the Christians.” ' Look, for instance, at the 
 temper displayed by Urbicus, he too a Preetor of the city, as 
 discovered in the second Apology of Justin. He gets at the 
 fact of one Ptolemy being a Christian, by stealth and the 
 evidence of a person who betrays him. On another party, 
 one Lucius, presuming to put a question to Urbicus on behalf 
 of Ptolemy, the reply of the magistrate is, “Thou too art one of 
 them,” and he also is condemned. A third party comes up, 
 and is involved in the same affair, probably by some such 
 incaution as the last, and he also suffers the same fate. ? 
 This is at Rome, the very seat of the government; and yet 
 we should gather from Justin’s language, that he considered 
 the case to be unknown to the Emperor*® or the Senate, * 
 and that he composed his Apology chiefly for the purpose of 
 exposing so flagrant a proceeding on the part of an officer of 
 justice, and exciting some indignation at the iniquity of it. 
 What then must have been the abuses of the magistrates in 
 their transactions with the Christians in the remote provinces 
 of the empire! We happen to have a case very similar to 
 this of Urbicus, relating to the Prefect of Lyons, recorded in 
 the Fragment of the Epistle of that Church. One Vettius 
 Epagathus, touched by the injustice to which the Christians 
 were exposed by the magistrates, begged to be heard in their 
 defence. But the Prefect would listen to no such proposal, 
 simply contenting himself with asking him whether he was a 
 Christian, and on his confession, adding him to the number of 
 martyrs.’ What check, indeed, was there upon these pro- 
 vincial magistrates? We know from other sources how 
 audaciously they were in the habit of running riot at a 
 distance. Look, for instance, at the manner in which Verres 
 administered the province of Sicily—a province almost at the 
 very doors of Rome. At what did he scruple? giving corrupt 
 judgment in causes that came before him ; inflicting illegal 
 
 1 Tertullian, Apol. ¢. 1. 470 ‘Popaior.—s 1. 
 2 Justin Martyr, Apol. IT. § 2. 5 EKusebius, Eccles. Hist. y. c. 3. 
 * Sol r@ abroxpdropi—s 2. 
 
Lect. 1V.] THEIR PROCEEDINGS UNCONTROLLED. 289 
 
 and tyrannical punishments ; extorting enormous revenues ; 
 plundering plate and statues ; fleecing the Sicilians in short, 
 to the amount of some £400,000 sterling. It was a mere 
 chance that there was a Cicero to bring his transgressions to 
 light, and that he was willing to undertake the office. But 
 for this nothing would have been known of his dark deeds. 
 Nay, there is an amusing instance in the case of Cicero himself 
 of the little interest the people of Rome seemed to take in the 
 affairs of the provinces. He had been Questor of this same 
 island ; and indeed, it was probably this circumstance that 
 gave him the concern for its future fortunes, which prompted 
 him to defend it against Verres. He acquitted himself, as he 
 thought, in his office wonderfully well. He landed at Puteoli 
 on his return home, imagining that all Rome was ringing 
 with his praises. <A friend accosts him, and asks him, what 
 news from Rome? He came from the provinces. From 
 Africa, perhaps? says another. No, replies he, pettishly, from 
 Sicily. How, said a third, who stood by, and wished to be 
 thought wiser than his neighbours ; how, don’t you know, he 
 is Queestor of Syracuse? And what is Cicero’s reflection ? 
 That this little mortification did him more good than if he 
 had received all the compliments he expected; for it made him 
 consider, that the people of Rome had dull ears, but quick 
 eyes, and that it was his business to keep himself always in 
 their sight, not to be so solicitous how to make them hear of 
 him, as how to make them see him: so that from this moment 
 he resolved to stick close to the forum, and to live perpetually 
 in the view of the city.’ Was it likely that the wrongs of 
 the Christians in a remote part of the empire, in Africa, e. g. 
 would trouble such a people as this; or that the magistrates 
 of that country would feel themselves under any particular 
 awe of their masters at home; whatever excesses they might 
 commit against that defenceless body? Moreover, where the 
 sale of Libelli or certificates of exemption was in their hands, 
 were they to be expected to forbear the active working of all 
 the enginery of persecution, calculated as it was to raise the 
 price of those certificates, and to enable them to fill their 
 pockets to almost any extent ?* 
 
 But even had all the provincial magistrates been as well 
 
 1 Pro Plancio, § 26; Middleton’s Life | 2 Cyprian, Ep. li. § 14. 
 of Cicero, vol. i. p. 65. to. 
 
290 PERSECUTION BY THE POPULACE, (Serms II. 
 
 disposed towards the Christians, and as dead to the tempta- 
 tions of money, as they were notoriously the contrary, still 
 there was another party to persecution even more difficult to 
 deal with than these, for they were evidently often above the 
 laws,! the populace. There were various causes which 
 excited them. The sanguinary taste engendered in them by 
 the amphitheatre was gratified. The universal shout from the 
 spectators of “ Christianos ad leonem,”” was not prompted 
 simply by a hatred of the Christians, but by an inveterate 
 love for these scenes of butchery. What a picture do the 
 Fathers give us of the details of the arena! Persons rushing 
 to devour the beasts that had been slaughtered, still reeking 
 with the gore of the gladiator they had despatched before 
 their own lives were forfeited—the boar smeared with the 
 blood of the miserable man he had ripped up, thus seized on 
 for a meal—others again hastening to catch the life blood as 
 it issued from the wound of the dying man as a specific for 
 epilepsy.* In the pause from the games at noon, some mis- 
 creant dressed up as Mercury, amidst the laughter of the 
 crowd, testing the bodies of the victims by a red-hot caduceus, 
 to see whether they were really dead,* death being sometimes 
 assumed * ; and another in the habit of Pluto, dragging out 
 the corpses of the combatants with his mallet in his hand to 
 pound out of them any remains there might be of life, before 
 he conveyed them to the infernal regions.° What an appetite 
 for horrors on the part of the people does all this testify, this 
 mixture of sport and bloodshed, and what food for it were 
 the Christians ! 
 
 Then the superstition of the populace inflamed them 
 further. Whatever calamity the state happened to be suffer- 
 ing under, flood, drought, earthquake, famine, or pestilence, 
 was imputed to the Christians’; the heathen priests, whose 
 altars were deserted and their gains reduced, ‘fostering the 
 delusion. Then a natural horror was excited amongst them 
 by interested parties of the secret crimes said to be committed 
 in the assemblies of the Christians; their feasts on human 
 flesh, and indulgence in the grossest incest.* Then, in many 
 
 1 Tertullian, Ad Seapulam, ec. iy. 5 Ad Nationes, I. § 10. 
 
 2 De Polycarpi Martyrio, § xii.; Ter- 6 Thid. 
 tullian, De Resurrec. Carnis, ¢. xxii. ; d Apol. c. xl.; Cyprian, Ad Demetri- 
 Cyprian, Ep. lv. § 6. anum, § il. 
 
 ® Tertullian, Apol. c. ix. 4 0. xv. 8 Eusebius, Eccles, Hist. v. c. 1. 
 
Lect. IV.] AND BY HERETICS AND JEWS. 291 
 
 instances, the trades of the people suffered by the progress of 
 the Christian cause. Their worldly interests, therefore, stimu- 
 lated them to exterminate the Christians, if they could. The 
 makers of shrines for Diana of Ephesus were the types of 
 future multitudes in their feelings and in their mode of prose- 
 cuting them. Indeed, it is curious to see in how many cases 
 the great disturbing forces, which bear on Christianity on a 
 large scale, as represented in the Fathers of the first three 
 centuries, are found in incipient action in the history of 
 the Acts of the Apostles. Thus the makers of idols, a 
 very numerous class of mechanics amongst the heathens, in- 
 cluding workers in metals as well as wood, manufacturers of 
 amulets, charms,’ dealers in incense?; builders employed in 
 the erection and repair of temples, of which the number was 
 enormous ; painters, gilders, weavers ; all, in short, who found 
 a bread by decorating them when built; the multitude of 
 tradesmen, for whose articles of merchandise the heathen 
 festivals created a demand’; the still larger class, perhaps, 
 connected with theatres and amphitheatres * ; all these parties, 
 and many more, whom it would be tedious to enumerate, 
 would feel themselves interested in suppressing the Christians 
 who were spoiling their several trades, denouncing the use of 
 idols, emptying the temples, seceding from the processions, 
 abstaining from public shows and spectacles. 
 
 Besides all these, the heretics helped to swell the ery against 
 them’; and the Jews yet more, scattered as they were 
 throughout all the nations and cities of the world, the bitterest 
 persecutors of them all—another coincidence with the history 
 of the Acts—none so active, we read, in fetching fuel from 
 the manufactories and baths to burn Polycarp as they, .as 
 €00s avrois, says the circular epistle of the Church of Smyrna, 
 which records this martyrdom.° So that on the whole, 
 Irenzeus, in expounding the 99th Psalm, “the Lord sitteth 
 between the Cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet,” may 
 well speak of “the wrath of the people, vented against those 
 who believed in Christ, and the movement of the whole earth 
 against the Church” (motum universe terre adversus eccle- 
 
 
 
 siam).’ 
 
 1 Tertullian, De [dololatria, c. vii. ¢. 5 Cyprian, De Bono Patientime, § xxi. 
 Vili. 5 De Polycarpi Martyrio, § xiii. 
 
 “1s Sat, s/c: xii, 7 Treneus, IV. c. xxxili. § 18. 
 
 4 Apol. ¢. xxxvili. ¢. xlii. 
 
 uU 2 
 
292 EXTENT OF THE PERSECUTIONS. [Sentes II. 
 
 Taking all these circumstances, then, into account, I think 
 we shall be disposed to consider the extent of the persecution 
 of the early Church to have been very wide and wasting, even 
 though it should not appear (which, however, may be doubted, 
 for a great number of Apologies are in one instance nearly 
 coincident in date, those by Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, 
 Theophilus, Melito, Apollinarius,’ all in the reign of Aurelius) 
 that any simultaneous movement against the Church took 
 place throughout the empire so early as some suppose. 
 
 ! Evans, Biography of the Early Church, vol. i. p. 153. 
 
Lecr. V.] INTENSITY OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 293 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Testimony of the Fathers, 2°. To the intensity of the persecutions, unduly ex- 
 tenuated by Gibbon. Reflections on his account of the Letter of Pliny and of 
 the martyrdom of Cyprian. Early narratives of martyrdom not to be con- 
 founded with the fictions of later times. The sources of information as reliable 
 as those from which Gibbon drew his history. Explanation of a passage in 
 Kusebius unfairly used by him. 3°. To the nature of the persecutions. Do- 
 mestic as well as official ones foretold by Christ. Verification in the effect of 
 Christianity on the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, master 
 and servant. Its inconsistency with many trades and occupations. Consequent 
 pecuniary losses to the converts. Their embarrassment in legal and com- 
 mercial proceedings. 
 
 HAVE said that the writings of the early Fathers would 
 
 convince us, that not the extent only of the persecution 
 suffered by the early Christians had been greatly underrated 
 by Mr. Gibbon ; but that the intensity of it had been unduly 
 extenuated, and the nature of it but partially exposed. 
 
 The feeling with which he sat down to write on the subject 
 of persecution may be incidentally discovered by the view he 
 takes of Pliny’s famous correspondence with Trajan. “The 
 learned Mosheim,” says he, “expresses himself with the highest 
 approbation of Pliny’s moderate and candid temper. Not- 
 withstanding Dr. Lardner’s suspicions, I am unable to discover 
 any bigotry in his language or proceedings.” ' I have already 
 admitted that Pliny’s reluctance to execute the laws against the 
 Christians to the uttermost, arose from a natural horror of con- 
 demning such multitudes of persons, many of them of a tender 
 age, to death, upon so inadequate a charge. Let that measure 
 of praise be conceded to him. But what can we think of an 
 author who undertakes to give a candid representation of the 
 affairs of these early Christians, and informs us at the outset 
 that he is unable to discover any bigotry in the proceedings of 
 Pliny—of Pliny who actually tells us with great composure 
 that he had considered it necessary to put to the rack two 
 
 1 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 417, note. 
 
294 THE MARTYRDOM OF CYPRIAN (Serres I. 
 
 female attendants of the Christians, probably Deaconesses, in 
 order to ascertain the nature of their meetings ; “ necessarium 
 eredidi ex duabus ancillis, quee ministrze dicebantur, quid esset 
 veri, per tormenta querere.”' No wonder, therefore, that 
 writing in this temper he should be found detailing the par- 
 ticulars of Cyprian’s martyrdom in the manner he does; 
 choosing that case, it should seem, for reasons which will 
 appear, as a fair specimen of the treatment the martyrs 
 in general received at the hands of their oppressors. “A 
 short abstract of the most important circumstances” (of 
 Cyprian’s death), he writes, “will convey the clearest in- 
 formation of the spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman 
 persecutions.”’? Now how does he treat this pattern case ? 
 Cyprian was banished ; but, says he, it was to “a pleasant 
 situation, a fertile territory” (apricum et competentem 
 locum®). “He was recalled from banishment,” but it was 
 to “his own gardens”? near Carthage that he was now con- 
 fined. “The frailty of nature tempted him to withdraw him- 
 self by a secret flight from the danger and the honour of 
 martyrdom,’’ so proceeds Gibbon *: but why should Cyprian’s 
 own account of the transaction be suppressed, given in his 
 88rd Epistle, that he fled because agents had been sent to 
 carry him to the Proconsul at Utica, whereas he preferred to 
 die at Carthage, and suffer in the midst of his flock ? for on 
 the removal of that magistrate to Carthage, he voluntarily 
 returned to his former quarters, and waited the event. He 
 was summoned to die, but he was conducted by the ministers 
 of death “not to a prison, but to a private house,” and “an 
 elegant supper was provided’’ for his entertainment ; so 
 Gibbon dresses up the phrase in Pontius’ narrative, “ una nocte 
 continuit custodia delicata.’’ Sentence was passed on him, but 
 it was to be beheaded, “the mildest and least painful ” man- 
 ner of execution—only to be beheaded! no “use of torture 
 admitted, to obtain from the Bishop of Carthage either the 
 recantation of his principles, or the discovery of his accom- 
 plices ;”’° and yet that was the very thing that Gibbon could 
 see no harm in Pliny’s having recourse to. “ His corpse 
 remained during some hours exposed to the curiosity of the 
 Gentiles ;’ but then it was removed “in a triumphal pro- 
 
 ' Plinii Epist. lib. X. Ep. xevii. * Pontius, De Vita Cypriani, ¢. xii. 
 ? Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 480, 4 p. 482. 5 p. 433. 
 
Lect. V.] EXTENUATED BY GIBBON. 995 
 
 cession,” the friends who had performed for him the last 
 offices “secure from the danger of inquiry, or of punishinent.’”! 
 Another man might have thought of the agony of the martyr, 
 or the tyranny of the martyrdom ; Gibbon is occupied with 
 the merits of the executioner. One remembers no parallel to 
 this, but the well-known passage of Isaac Walton’s Fisherman, 
 so often quoted, because so often pertinent, who was to put 
 the hook through the mouth of the live frog, and out at his 
 gills, and with a fine needle and silk sew up the upper part 
 of his leg with only one stitch to the arming wire of the hook, 
 and in so doing, all the while to wse him as though he loved 
 him. I ask, is it possible for a man composing his history in 
 a frame of mind such as this, to be capable of fairly stating 
 the amount of suffering allotted to the martyrs, or to do 
 justice to their terrible wrongs? There is, too, a little cir- 
 cumstance connected with Mr. Gibbon’s mode of handling his 
 authorities in this narrative, which I regard as characteristic. 
 In this instance, he is very much more than commonly civil 
 to the biographer of a martyr; such parties seldom finding 
 much favour in his eyes; but the document happening to 
 furnish him with points on which he could plausibly con- 
 struct his pleasant picture of the martyrdom we have seen, it 
 becomes his interest to exalt the merits of this piece of bio- 
 graphy ; and accordingly in a note he says, “ We have an 
 original Life of Cyprian by the Deacon Pontius, the companion 
 of his exile, and the spectator of his death ; and we likewise 
 possess the ancient proconsular acts of his martyrdom. These 
 two relations are consistent with each other, and with pro- 
 bability ; and what is somewhat remarkable, they are both 
 unsullied by any miraculous circwmstunces.”* And yet 
 Pontius writes in this very same memoir, which supplies 
 Gibbon with the particulars of these transactions in a manner 
 so much to his mind, that “on the day of Cyprian’s arrival 
 at the place of his exile, there appeared to him, before he was 
 yet asleep, a youth of more than common stature, who seemed 
 to him to lead him to the hall of justice, and place him before 
 the tribunal of the Proconsul. The Proconsul beheld him, 
 and instantly, without asking him a question, began to make 
 a note of his sentence. _ But the youth who stood at his back, 
 with great curiosity, read what he had written down, And 
 1 Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 434. * p. 430, note. 
 
296 EARLY RECORDS OF MARTYRDOM (Serres II. 
 
 when he could not declare in words what it was, he did so 
 by a sign. For spreading his hand like a broadsword, he 
 imitated the blow of the executioner ; and so conveyed his 
 meaning as clearly as if he had uttered it. Cyprian under- 
 stood the sentence, and entreated for a respite, if but of one 
 day, that he might set his affairs in order. And when he 
 had repeated this petition many times, the Proconsul again 
 began to write on his tablet: but what it was he knew not, 
 but he conjectured from the calmness of the judge’s counte- 
 nance, that he had been moved by so reasonable a request. 
 The youth, who had already informed him by a gesture of his 
 sentence, speedily, but secretly, apprised him by a twist of his 
 fingers, that the day’s delay was granted.”’ “ All that was 
 thus predicted,” adds Pontius, “ came to pass ; the words of the 
 Deity were in no degree falsified; only the single day signified the 
 single year which Cyprian was to live after the vision.”? Now 
 certainly there are many persons who would not see anything 
 miraculous in this incident, anything which might not be ac- 
 counted for naturally by the circumstances of the case. But sup- 
 posing the life on the whole had not suited Gibbon’s purpose so 
 well as it did, and supposing that instead of relating the last 
 scenes of Cyprian’s career in the unimpassioned manner it does, 
 it had painted the punishment of the martyr in the revolting 
 colours it might have done with strict truth, can we believe 
 that Mr. Gibbon, knowing what we do of him, would have 
 suppressed all allusion to this vision, and even have gone out 
 of his way to say of the biography, that “what was remark- 
 able, it was unsullied by any miraculous circumstances ”’? 
 Would he not have been the very man to make himself merry 
 with it ; to attempt, by means of it, to cast discredit on the 
 whole history, by distorting what he would have called this 
 supernatural part of it; and would he not have asked 
 triumphantly, whether any authority could be assigned to 
 such a manifest legend ? 
 
 The vivid imaginations of the monks of the middle ages 
 may have peopled the literature of that period with many 
 fictitious scenes in the tragedies of martyrdom ; and this fact 
 may have given scoffers an advantage in misinterpreting 
 the character of the earlier martyrologies, confounding all to- 
 gether. But those of the first three centuries are, for the 
 
 ? Pontius, De Vita et Passione Cypriani, ¢. xii, ? o. xiii. 
 
Lect. V.] VINDICATED FROM SUSPICIONS 297 
 
 most part, sober matter-of-fact narratives, and in general very 
 brief ones. Eusebius has given a great many in a summary 
 detail, such as the martyrdom of James, from Hegesippus’ ; 
 of Simeon, from the same’; of Ignatius, from tradition,’ of 
 whom also we have a distinct Martyrology ; of Polyearp, from 
 the contemporary Epistle of the Church of Smyrna‘; of 
 Blandina, of Sanctus, of Attalus, of Pothinus, of Alexander 
 and Maturus, from the contemporary Epistle of the Churches 
 of Lyons and Vienne’; of Origen,® of Metras, of Quinta, of 
 Apollonia, of Julian, of Epimachus, of Alexander, of Ammo- 
 narium, of Mercuria, of Dionysia, of Heron and Ater, of 
 Dioscorus and Nemesion, and others by name, from Dionysius, 
 a contemporary Bishop of Alexandria’; with many more 
 which might be mentioned. But on looking them over, you 
 will not find them in general disgraced by any fantastic 
 fictions. The visions—for visions there are connected with 
 the deaths of Ignatius and Polycarp, and perhaps others— 
 are such as would be well accounted for by the circumstances 
 of the cases, and certain unusual rather than marvellous events 
 which attended some of these instances of martyrdom—such 
 as the indisposition of the wild beasts to meddle with the 
 culprit, or the agitation of the elements at the moment of his 
 execution—might very well have happened, and been imputed 
 by the excited bystanders to some providential sympathy with 
 the victims. Possibly an incident in the death of Polycarp, 
 however, may be thought to bear the aspect of a tale of these 
 later times. The executioner stabbed him, and then é&4\@e 
 Tepiotepa Kat TANOos ul“atos woTe KatacBécat TO Tp, 
 “there came forth a dove, and a rush of blood enough to 
 extinguish the fire.’’* But no mention is made of this dove 
 by Eusebius, who also gives the particulars of the history 
 much as we have it in the Martyrology ; nor does it seem to 
 combine with the context. It is scarcely possible that the 
 author of the account should not have added a word more on 
 the subject of this strange event, but having said that a dove 
 and some blood enough to extinguish the fire proceeded from 
 the martyr, should have left us in this surprise just as if he 
 
 1 Rusebius, Eccles. Hist. ii. ce. 28. Gry 5 Cn lle 
 7 ji1. c. 32. o vi... 39. 
 0. 36. Te, 41. 
 
 ae, Op lias ’ De Polycarpi Martyrio, ¢. xvi. 
 
298 WHICH ATTACH TO LATER NARRATIVES. [Sermms I. 
 
 had been relating the most ordinary occurrence imaginable. 
 It seems therefore, a very natural conjecture which has been 
 suggested, that there is here an error in the reading, and that 
 instead of €£9NOe wepiotepa Kat TAHOos aiwartos, K.T.r., it 
 should be é&4\Oev éw apiotepa Kai wAHOos aipatos, K.T.r. 
 “There issued out on the left side (the region of the heart) 
 even so much blood as was enough to extinguish the fire.” 
 There is also, I will add, in Tertullian the record of a fact, 
 which has been thought to be of the same character: that of 
 the Apostle John having been cast by Domitian into a bath 
 of hot oil, out of which he escaped unhurt '—an incident 
 which rests upon his authority alone, though repeated by 
 others after him. The truth of it has been called in question 
 by modern critics, and possibly Tertullian may have admitted 
 an occurrence of which the scene was neither in his own 
 country nor in his own time without sufficient evidence, or 
 as Mosheim? conjectures, he may have taken literally an 
 account of some persecution which befell John, conveyed to 
 him in the figurative language of the East. But at the same 
 time we must remember, that with respect to all such events 
 we have been long under the strong bias of a sceptical age— 
 that our Lord certainly gave unto his disciples, John amongst 
 the number (for it is not of any indifferent person that the 
 story is told, but of one that we know of a certainty bore a 
 charmed life), “power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and 
 over all the power of the enemy’’*; and that “if they drank 
 any deadly thing, it should not hurt them” *; or, as it is more 
 fully expressed by the other Evangelist, that “nothing should 
 by any means hurt them,”’ that is, until their hour was come, 
 and they had fulfilled their mission, which John would not 
 have done in the case before us, for he had his Revelation still 
 to write ; and that under this guarantee, as Papias tells us, 
 Barsabas called Justus, having drunk a poison, sustained no 
 harm from it®; and that certainly Paul was enabled to shake 
 off the viper, one of the few incidents of this nature recorded 
 of the Apostles in Holy Writ ; and yet many similar ones we 
 must suppose to have occurred in fulfilment of our Lord’s 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Preescript. Heret. c. 5 Luke x. 19. 
 XXXvi. * Mark xvi. 18. 
 2 Mosheim, De Rebus Christian. ante 5 Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. iii. c. 39; 
 
 Constant. p. 111. Routh. Rel. Sacr. vol. i. p. 12. 
 
Lect. V.] TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORIANS 299 
 
 contemplations when he uttered the words I have cited ; and 
 this one of St. Paul, like the one in question of St. John, 
 would certainly have been made matter of debate, had it been 
 related by an early ecclesiastical historian, and omitted by an 
 Evangelist. 
 
 But the statements of the sufferings of the early Christians, 
 as I have already hinted, are far from being confined to the 
 regular Martyrologies. They enter incidentally, but very 
 largely, nto almost all the writings of the early Fathers, the 
 Apologies above all; and are derived from so many quarters, 
 and relate to so many districts, that to set them aside would 
 be an act purely arbitrary, and such as no materials for his- 
 tory whatever would be proof against. How can we feel 
 ourselves justified in refusing to give credence to unvarnished 
 accounts of suffering recorded in many instances by men who, 
 as I have said before, show no disposition to aggravate them, 
 but with the account of the persecution supply at the same 
 time any circumstances of mitigation on the one side or of 
 failure on the other, that attended it; any instances of the 
 humanity of the magistrate as well as of the weakness of the 
 victim? The greater part of the facts of Mr. Gibbon’s his- 
 tory would not rest upon better testimony than the following 
 ones, for all of which I have references: that in the early 
 times of Christianity, the calumny which represented the 
 Christians as guilty of infanticide and incestuous intercourse 
 in their assemblies, had been so industriously circulated, and 
 taken such effect, as to set multitudes against them ; imsomuch 
 that even in Origen’s day, when experience had abated it, 
 there were some who would not even speak to Christians on 
 the commonest subject from a horror of their character’; that 
 the Christians were beheaded, crucified, cast to wild beasts, 
 consigned to bonds and fire, and all other torments, and yet 
 did not shrink from their confession” ; that they were some- 
 times stoned by the populace® ; that they were furiously driven 
 by them from their houses, from the markets and baths, and 
 were hunted whenever they appeared in public‘ ; that they were 
 
 1 Origen, Contra Celsum, VI. § 27. | as KareWevopeva Xpiotiavav.— § 40. 
 g§ ? b] 
 
 Origen again speaks of the calumny * Justin Martyr, Dial. § 110. 
 
 as having been exploded in his time. 3 Tertullian, Apol. c. xlviii.; Theo- 
 ‘Qs yap tatta heyopeva Sn Kai tr | philus, Ad Autol. ITT. § 80. 
 
 T@v TOANGY, Kal TavTn G\AoTpioy THs | * Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. v. ¢. 1. 
 
 xaQ’ juav OcoveBelas, Katayryveckerat | 
 
300 TO THE SUFFERINGS OF THE CHRISTIANS. [Serres I. 
 
 known by the nick-name of Sarmenticii, from the faggots or 
 sarmenta with which they were burnt, and Semaxii, from the 
 split axles which served for the stakes'—designations which 
 would scarcely have been assigned to them had not the punish- 
 ment they indicated been very familiar to the people; that 
 “ Down with the sepulchres of the Christians” was one of the 
 war-cries of their oppressors” ; that their women were con- 
 demned to defilement, in spite of Mr. Gibbon’s insinuation 
 that such imputations were the inventions of the monks and 
 of a later age® ; so that it was a matter of consolation in a 
 season of unusual mortality, that the Christian virgins would 
 thus depart to their glory, nor have before them the fear of 
 threats of violation or of the brothel*; that the lash, the 
 club, the flames,’ the prison, the sword, the wild beast, the 
 cross,° the chains, the rack, the hot metal plates,’ the stocks,® 
 are all spoken of as instruments of the torture of the Christians 
 in a manner that shows they were ordinary and accustomed 
 weapons used in this savage warfare; that women as well 
 as men, whose names are given, for these things were not 
 done in a corner, were submitted to these engines of pain and 
 death ; that they were branded by the hot plates of brass 
 applied to the more sensitive parts of the person ; left for a 
 few days for their wounds to fester and inflame ; tortured 
 again ; torn by the wild beasts in the amphitheatre; tossed 
 in nets by furious bulls; fried in an iron chair; in some in- 
 stances the same individual made to pass through a series of 
 these sufferings, if life lasted ; and these matters, too, brought 
 to our knowledge, not by Christians writing in indignation to 
 heathens, but in confidence to Christians ; contemporaries not 
 talking at second-hand, but speaking of events which they 
 had witnessed with their own eyes.’ Again, that others (and 
 here, once more, in the instance I am alluding to, we have the 
 names of several of the sufferers recorded) died of starvation 
 in prison” ; and that ordinary pains not sufficing to glut the 
 vengeance of the persecutors, methods were devised for pro- 
 tracting the pangs of their victims, and tedious tortures applied 
 
 ' Tertullian, Apol. ec. 1. | ° De Bono Patientis, § xii. 
 
 * Ad Scapulam, ec. iii. | 7 De Laude Martyrii, § xv. 
 
 * Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 424; Tertullian, ® Eusebius, Eccles, Hist. v. c. 1. 
 Apol. ¢. 1. ® Thid. 
 
 4 Cyprian, De Mortalitate, § xv. 10 Cyprian, Ep. xxi. 
 
 5 De Lapsis, § xii. 
 
Lect. V.] NATURE OF PERSECUTION 301 
 
 to the body by a refinement of cruelty’: not to speak of ex- 
 cesses, if possible, even greater than these, which are described 
 in the twelfth chapter of the eighth book of the history of 
 Eusebius, to which I must refer you ; and the effect of which 
 even Mr. Gibbon seems to have felt to be so staggering, that 
 he endeavours to destroy the authority of the historian on 
 this subject by a disingenuous note, as though he had con- 
 fessed that in his narrative he was governed by the principle 
 of relating whatever would redound to the glory, and sup- 
 pressing all that would be to the disgrace of religion*—a 
 version of his confession which the references Gibbon gives 
 to passages in that writer's works are far from supporting. 
 For what does the confession amount to? That he will not 
 be instrumental to publishing the weakness of those who 
 shrunk from the trial and fell away, but will act the better 
 and more profitable part of preserving the memory of the 
 confessors of the truth that stood fast®; in other words, that 
 it is his plan to give a catalogue of martyrs, not of apostates. 
 Where is the duplicity? There was no absolute call on him 
 here to state that apostates there were; and the statement should 
 be taken rather as an argument of the candour and veracity 
 of the historian than of his partial dealing and suppression 
 of testimony. 
 
 But there is another view of persecution, which Mr. Gibbon 
 overlooks, but which is one of the most serious of all, and in 
 reference to which it was that I said the natwre of the per- 
 secution which the early Christians suffered was very par- 
 tially set forth by that writer ; nor, indeed, is it sufficiently 
 developed by authors in general, who treat of these times of 
 trouble. And yet it is the one, which the words of our 
 blessed Lord point to and anticipate. He does not simply 
 tell his followers that people “shall lay their hands on them 
 and persecute them, delivering them up to the synagogues and 
 into prisons, and bringing them before kings and rulers for 
 his name’s sake ;”* it shall not be simply official persecution, 
 which they shall have to endure, but domestic. “I came not 
 to send peace,” says he, “but a sword. For I am come to set 
 a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against 
 her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in- 
 
 1 Ad Demetrianum, § xii. 3 Husebius, Eccles. Hist. viii. c. 2. 
 ? Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 490, note 178. 4 Luke xxi. 12. 
 
302 WHICH AROSE FROM THE (Serzes II. 
 
 law. Anda man’s foes shall be they of his own household,”? 
 A great deal of what we read in the early Fathers, is but a 
 comment on these words. And though, no doubt, the public 
 and legal, or the popular persecution to which the primitive 
 Christians were subjected, was the form of it which makes 
 the impression in history ; still probably that which was far 
 more felt, and which was far more extensive in its influence 
 was the fireside troubles, which the profession of the Christian 
 faith fostered. I touched upon some of these in a Lecture of 
 my last Course, when I was defending the Fathers against the 
 animadversions of Barbeyrac ; but I did not then exhaust the 
 subject, nor indeed had I then to contemplate it from quite 
 the same position as at present. Thus the Christian member 
 of a family otherwise heathen (and this sort of intermixture 
 was of course the most ordinary and usual of combinations), 
 was constantly living in a state of uneasiness and discom- 
 fort. Sympathy with his nearest kindred would be greatly 
 weakened by the enormous difference in their respective feel- 
 ings, and in their notions of right and wrong; and even his 
 personal safety would be constantly in jeopardy. Suppose a 
 wife to have an unbelieving husband, his crimes might revolt 
 her and lead her to seek a divorce ; but he has her at his 
 mercy, for he can denounce her as a Christian? : in the mean- 
 while there is not a religious exercise which she may desire to 
 discarge, in which he cannot thwart her®; not an offensive 
 heathen practice, sight, or sound, to which he may not expose 
 her.* Nor is this all ; so utterly odious was Christianity in 
 the eyes of some of these husbands, that they could not bear 
 to have a Christian under the same roof with them, and would 
 put away their wives for this cause, when their chastity was 
 above all suspicion’: nay more, husbands who in time past 
 had watched their wives with the utmost jealousy, on finding 
 them become sober and domestic, and discovering that the 
 cause of their change was their conversion to the Christian 
 faith, putting away all their former feelings, would now give 
 them every opportunity of licence and excess, preferring to 
 have for their partners those who were prostitutes rather than 
 those who were Christians. On the other hand, does the 
 
 1 Matt. x. $4, 35, 36. 20. Vie 
 * Justin Martyr, Apol. IT. § 2. 5 Tertullian, Apol. e. iii. 
 * Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, IT. e. iv. 6 Ad Nationes, I. § 4. 
 
Lect. V.} DISTURBING EFFECT OF CHRISTIANITY 303 
 
 wife endeavour to conceal her faith from her heathen husband, 
 the concealment is itself an intolerable restraint ; nor can it be 
 done effectually ; and the very attempt excites his jealousy 
 and suspicion. What can she mean by crossing herself? Why 
 does she rise from her sleep to pray? Is she engaged in some 
 magical craft? What can that bread be which she eats with 
 so much reverence? Can it be what she says it is? But he 
 will keep his own counsel till occasion may serve, and she may 
 provoke him to produce the weapons, with which she has 
 armed him.’ I am not putting imaginary cases, as you will 
 perceive by the nature of the details I have given; but such 
 cases as the Fathers supply us with. How much fortitude, 
 how much self-restraint, how much patient tribulation, how 
 much suffering, in short, for righteousness’ sake, would be re- 
 quired of her who should realise the following deportment 
 recommended by Clemens probably in anticipation of a case of 
 unequal yoke-fellowship ! “Scripture very well says that the 
 woman is given by God to the man as a helpmeet for him. It 
 is plain, therefore, I conceive, that if anything falls out amiss 
 from her husband in her household, she will adjust it by reason 
 and persuasion: but if he will not listen to her, then she will 
 endeavour, so far as human nature is capable of it, to lead a 
 life void of offence, whether it be required of her by the Word 
 (or reason) to die or to live; knowing that she has God for 
 her ally and partner in such a course of conduct, a real Cham- 
 pion and Saviour both for the present and the future.”* And 
 again, where other relations are contemplated as well as that 
 of husband and wife, “ Often do we see sons and wives and 
 servants, even in spite of fathers and masters and husbands, 
 become of the number of the best of persons (7. e. Christians). 
 It is not the less a duty, therefore, to be zealous to lead godly 
 lives, because some may seem to forbid it. But in my opinion, 
 it becomes us to strive the more with all zeal and alacrity that 
 we may not be overcome, and fall away from those counsels, 
 which are the best and most needful of all.’* These are sim- 
 ple words, but what disruption of family ties do they imply ! 
 This distress had begun to show itself even in the Apostles’ 
 time, as, indeed, had most of the other difficulties, which 
 
 Ad Wixoremt. sMleic-sv. 3 Clem. Alex. Stromat. IV. § viii. p. 
 2 Clem. Alex. Stromat. IV. § xx. p. | 594. 
 622. 
 
304 ON THE DOMESTIC RELATIONS. (Series II. 
 
 attended the intimate social connection of Christians and 
 heathens ; and most of the seventh chapter of St. Paul’s 
 first epistle to the Corinthians relates to it. The position of 
 parent and child, when the parties differed in faith, a case 
 which is also alluded to in the passage of Clemens just 
 cited, is full of similar embarrassments. Thus to go for a 
 moment into details; we are told of the father abandoning 
 his son, who had been to him the most dutiful of children, on 
 becoming aware that he was turned Christian’: or even for 
 the like reason disinheriting him at the very moment when 
 his conduct was no longer (as it had been formerly) a cause 
 for complaint.?, The relation of master and servant under the 
 circumstances also touched on in the same paragraph of Cle- 
 mens is encompassed with the like perplexities. The slave or 
 domestic servant, supposing him to be a heathen, could not be 
 the inmate of his Christian master’s house, without becoming 
 aware of his master’s faith more or less distinctly ; whilst the 
 latter must have felt that he had a spy under his own roof, 
 and that he had to act accordingly. What a perpetual source 
 of apprehension and solicitude must this have proved! How 
 must this single ingredient have poisoned the security of home ! 
 The sentiments of distrust engendered by it transpire in seve- 
 ral places in the early Fathers. “We have servants,” says 
 Athenagoras, in defending the Christians against the horrid 
 accusations of incest and cannibalism laid to their charge, 
 “we have servants; how can we conceal such things from 
 them? Yet none of them have testified against us to any- 
 thing of the sort”*; as though the Christians considered them- 
 selves even in their greatest privacy to be under inspection. 
 And Tertullian, when challenging the same testimony on the 
 same occasion, “ Could not the curiosity of our servants steal 
 a peep at us through chinks and holes?”* And again, in lan- 
 guage still more calculated to impress us with the precarious 
 situation in which Christian masters felt themselves standing, 
 who had heathen servants, “The date of our religion, as we 
 have shown, is from the time of Tiberius. From its very first 
 appearance the truth was opposed through that hatred which 
 always exists towards truth. There were as many enemies 
 
 ' Tertullian, Apol. e¢. iii. § 35, Paris Ed. 
 ? Ad Nationes, I. § 4. * Tertullian, Ad Nationes, I. § vii. 
 3 Athenagoras, Legat. pro Christianis, 
 
Lect. V.] PECUNIARY LOSSES 305 
 
 to it as there were strangers; the Jews peculiarly out of 
 jealousy ; the soldiers, out of a spirit of extortion ; even our 
 very servants, out of that nature which belongs to their con- 
 dition. We are daily beset, we are daily betrayed.”' And 
 we in fact find that the servants of the Christians at Lyons 
 under apprehension of the torture did pretend to disclose 
 the secret habits of their Christian masters, and uttered un- 
 founded calumnies against them which brought them to their 
 deaths? : nay, perhaps, they really themselves misunderstood 
 much that they saw and heard, and honestly thought there 
 was mischief in what was at any rate mysterious,’ as ¢. g. a 
 Thyestean feast in the spiritual participation of the Body and 
 Blood of Christ. But even when matters did not proceed to 
 extremities after this manner, the relation of master and ser- 
 vant must have been almost reversed, when the latter felt that 
 the law gave him a hold over the other, which whenever it 
 suited his purpose he could turn to account. Or take it the 
 other way, and let the servant be a Christian; and now the 
 master who has been ever humane to him in time past, and 
 who probably for that reason will not proceed further against 
 him still, will nevertheless drive him from his sight, however 
 faithful he has been to him; the abhorrence of the Christian 
 prevailing over every sense he may have of the virtues of the ~ 
 man.* Or, if he has had the good fortune to conceal his pro- 
 
 fession from his master’s knowledge, then he will have perhaps 
 
 to attend him to the temple and the sacrifice. What is he to 
 
 do in that case ; and how is he to act, so as to have a con- - 
 science void of offence? I do not invent these difficulties.° 
 
 They. are facts left on record. 
 
 Neither is this all. There is another trouble which pressed 
 hard upon the early Christians, scarcely, perhaps, coming 
 under the head of persecution, but still akin to it; and as 
 constituting one of the fines which the Christians had to pay 
 for their calling, one of the hardships they had to endure for 
 the profession they had made, may be here conveniently con- 
 sidered : for, like positive persecution, it was calculated to try 
 the faith to the uttermost; to shake it where it was waver- 
 ing; and to minister to the Evidences by showing how sound 
 
 1 Tertullian, Apol. c. vii. Ed. 
 * Eusebius, Eecles. Hist. v. c. 1. * Tertullian, Apol. ¢. iii. 
 3 Treneeus, Fragm. xiii. p. 843, Bened. 5 De Idololatria, ¢. xvii. 
 
 xX 
 
306 AND SACRIFICE OF WORLDLY PROSPECTS [Serres I. 
 
 the early Christians must have felt the ground to be under 
 them, in order to be induced to submit to such penalties as 
 they did for the purpose of maintaining it. I mean the pecu- 
 niary losses, the absolute poverty, the dislocation in society, 
 the interruption of the old habits of life, which the profession 
 of Christianity often exacted of the converts as a deodand. 
 We have seen that one effect of it was to induce fathers some- 
 times to disinherit their children ; but the evil I speak of was 
 not confined to this form of it. There were many trades and 
 occupations, the exercise of which was scarcely compatible 
 with the Christian calling ; so that the conversion to Christi- 
 anity entailed on a convert belonging to those classes many 
 scruples of conscience and much trouble of mind, if he con- 
 tinued in his craft ; whilst, on the other hand, the resignation 
 of it was the surrender of that by which he altogether gained 
 his bread. For idolatry had wormed itself so thoroughly 
 into the system of life, that there might be many such trades. 
 We have seen in the passage I have already had occasion to 
 refer to, that a certain Christian who was a player, was not 
 permitted to communicate ; and that, by consequence, it was 
 proposed to make him a frugal allowance, a bare maintenance 
 out of the fund of the Church, to secure him at least from 
 starvation, whilst he followed the dictates of his conscience." 
 This case must have, no doubt, been a common one. How 
 many statuaries, for instance, must have felt it impossible to 
 reconcile their employment of making idols with their alle- 
 giance to Christ, and yet the abandonment of such a calling 
 proved so costly, that some even in ecclesiastical orders, 
 Deacons probably or of lower rank, could not find in their 
 hearts to give it up*! The seller of incense must have been 
 as common a trade as the tobacconist now is, he had a desig- 
 nation of his own, “Turarius ;”” yet how would he reconcile 
 it to himself to minister to the worship of idols, for the article 
 he dealt in was bought for scarcely any other purpose *? 
 What a trying situation, again, was that of the schoolmaster ; 
 to read with his scholars works of mythology, 7. e. of idolatry 
 still flourishing ; to keep heathen holidays: the Minervalia in 
 honour of Minerva, the Saturnalia in honour of Saturn; to 
 decorate his school with garlands in honour of Flora‘; for to 
 
 1 Cyprian, Ep. Ixi. * 0, x1, ao 
 * Tertullian, De Idololatria, ec. vii. 
 
‘Laer. V.] ENTAILED ON THE CHRISTIAN CONVERTS. 307 
 
 renounce all this would be to ruin his school and proclaim 
 himself a Christian! “What an intolerable compunction must 
 the Christian soldier have felt at mounting guard on a heathen 
 temple, a mere brothel, let to the highest bidder, as our turn- 
 pike gates, or, indeed, at making one of a camp, where signa 
 venerari, signa jurare, signa omnibus diis praeponere erat tota 
 religio.! Yet what an act of self-surrender was it to leave 
 the profession of arms! Eusebius thinks it matter for high 
 commendation that Christian soldiers under Diocletian suf- 
 fered themselves to be turned out of the army rather than re- 
 nounce their religion, and represents their station as very 
 honourable and very lucrative.” It would be easy to pursue 
 this subject still further into its details, but these I have given 
 may suffice to put my hearers on following them out for 
 themselves: and are enough, I am sure, to satisfy them that 
 the secret and unobtrusive sacrifices which the early Christians 
 must have been called on to make for the sake of holding fast 
 their faith, were, perhaps, the most trying, as they were 
 certainly the most universal of all. Indeed, the self-denial 
 they required is acknowledged by Tertullian, who supplied 
 me with the facts*; and who argues in the uncompromising 
 manner, which is usual with him, that the cost to be sure is 
 ereat, but that it ought to have been counted before the 
 Christian profession was embraced; that the cross was to be 
 borne by the followers of the crucified ; that James and John 
 forsook their calling for the Lord’s service ; and that a sound 
 faith has no fear of lacking bread. But all this is more easily 
 said than reduced to practice. 
 
 I have already observed that these troubles do not directly 
 fall under the head of persecution ; but they do fall under 
 the head of sufferance inflicted on the Christians by cireum- 
 stances, if not by magistrates or mobs ; and besides develop- 
 ing the condition of the Primitive Church, which is an object 
 I have before me, redound to the Evidences (which is the 
 topic I am now handling, and showing how the Fathers fur- 
 nish a valuable contingent to it) by manifesting yet more, how 
 entire must have been the conviction of the early Christians 
 of the truth of the religion they had adopted, to have in- 
 duced them, as it did, to submit to trials so many, so various, 
 
 ' Apol. ¢. xvi. vw a | * Tertullian, De Idololatria, c. xii. 
 
 2 Kusebius, Eecles, Hist. viii. c. 4. 
 ae 
 
308 THEIR EMBARRASSMENT IN LEGAL [Sentes II. 
 
 and so protracted. Perhaps it scarcely adds to the portrait 
 of the rigour of the position of the Christians to remark how 
 effectually all the avenues to advancement in the state were 
 closed, and particularly how completely the discharge of all 
 judicial and magisterial functions was interdicted to them by 
 the idolatrous rites with which they were attended, and at 
 which it was impossible that the Christians could connive. 
 But as I dwelt at some length on this part of the subject in 
 a former Lecture,’ I shall be content with merely hinting 
 at this further tax which they had to pay for the faith they 
 had followed. 
 
 There is, however, one consideration more, which it be- 
 hoves us to bear in mind, as affecting most disastrously, and 
 in a very high degree, the nearest and dearest interests of the 
 Christian, the little use he eould make of the courts of law, 
 as well for other reasons as because the heathen oaths there 
 administered were effectual obstacles in his way.?. He was, in 
 fact, virtually an outlaw; one with respect to whom the 
 paternal influence of the law was suspended ; and this dis- 
 tressing position, we must remember, he chose to place himself 
 in for the sake of Christ. This difficulty again, like so many 
 others, discovered itself whilst the Apostles were yet living. 
 “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to 
 law before the unjust, and not before the saints?”° “Is it 
 so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one 
 that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But 
 brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the un- 
 believers.” * It is the ingenious and very probable conjecture 
 of Professor Dobree, that the incestuous union mentioned in , 
 the chapter before that in which this passage occurs, had 
 given rise to some question of property, and that thus is 
 supplied the connection between the two subjects, otherwise 
 apparently incongruous. ‘This, too, would further account for 
 St. Paul’s impassioned animadversions on this matter, a matter 
 which was so well calculated, when carried before a heathen 
 tribunal, to bring a scandal on the Christian cause. Similar 
 difficulties were, no doubt, perpetually arising in the Church 
 in subsequent times, the more likely indeed, as the social re- 
 lations of the Christians became more complicated. And 
 
 1 The XIth of the former Series. 31 Cor. yi. 1. 4 vy. 5, 6. 
 2 Tertullian, De Idololatria, ¢. xvii. 
 
Teor. Vie] AND COMMERCIAL PROCEEDINGS. 309 
 
 when we take into account that whatever decisions, whether 
 in civil or criminal cases, were come to by Christians amongst 
 themselves, were after all merely private agreements, having 
 no foree of law, nor capable of being pressed, should either 
 party swerve from the award, we may well imagine how much 
 this must have contributed to the hardships under which the 
 early Christians laboured ; whilst the reluctance thus felt to 
 go before heathen tribunals, or to be contaminated by heathen 
 forms, must have perpetually stood in the way of advan- 
 tageous contracts which Christians might otherwise have made 
 with heathens (who would of course naturally insist on their 
 own securities), precluding them, for instance, from executing 
 bonds as creditors (the case is put by Tertullian himself‘), 
 and so rescuing themselves from embarrassments which the 
 extension of credit often removes; and, indeed, intercepting 
 in a very great measure the mutual advantages which result 
 from the free intercourse of man with man, to the damage of 
 both, but to the ruin of what the Christian probably was, the 
 poorer party. 
 
 ! Tertullian, De Idololatria, c. xxiii. 
 
310 WHETHER THE APOSTOLICAL FATHERS [Sentes I. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Review of passages in the early Fathers bearing witness to the exercise of mira- 
 culous powers in their times. Unanimity of this testimony. Estimate, which 
 ought to be formed of it; and difficulty of resisting it. The powers of exor- _ 
 cism and heuling diseases more decidedly asserted than others. Correspondence 
 of this with the terms in which the powers were conferred, and with the record 
 of their exercise in the Acts. The same correspondence between the Scriptural 
 and Eeclesiastical records observable in another particular. The exercise of 
 miraculous powers by those on whom the Apostles laid their hands established 
 by inspired authority. The theory of the cessation of all miracles with their 
 lives unsatisfactory. 
 
 HE next point we have to consider, in which the Fathers 
 
 may be made instrumental to the Evidences, is one of 
 
 great difficulty and perplexity ; the miraculous powers which 
 subsisted in the Primitive Church. ~ 
 
 I shall review as briefly as possible some of the principal 
 passages in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, which bear on this sub- 
 ject, and endeavour to draw a conclusion from an induction of 
 particulars. 
 
 It has been disputed whether the Apostolical Fathers, pro- 
 perly so called, speak of contemporary miracles at all. Con- 
 sidering how short are their works, and the practical purpose 
 for which most of them are written, the absence of all al- 
 lusion to miracles in them would prove little or nothing, and 
 might well be accidental. Such an expression, however, as 
 that of Clemens Romanus,! that there was in the Church of 
 Corinth “a plentiful outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon all” 
 (rAnjpyns Uvevparos ‘Ayiou exyvars ert Travras eyivEeTo,) or 
 that of Ignatius addressed to the Church of Smyrna, “that it 
 was mercifully blessed with every good gift” (év zavti 
 xapiopatt,) “that it was wanting in no good gift,” 
 (avuctépntos ovca mavtos yapicpatos)—such phraseology, 
 I say, being compared with that of times both before and 
 
 1,Ad Corinthios, I. § ii. 
 * Salutation of the Epistle of Ignatius to the Church of Smyrna. 
 
Lxcr. VI.] SPEAK OF CONTEMPORARY MIRACLES. $11 
 
 after, when it undoubtedly had miraculous as well as other 
 gifts in contemplation, would lead us to think, I agree with 
 Dodwell,’ that Clemens and Ignatius did not exclude such 
 gifts from their account. 
 
 Justin Martyr’s testimony is not to be mistaken. He 
 challenges a denial of the fact. “It is manifest to all ” 
 (waot pavepov éott), says he, “that the Father has given 
 Christ so much power, that even the demons are subject to 
 the dispensation of his Passion.”* “That Jesus was born 
 for those who believe in him, and for the overthrow of devils, 
 you may learn,” says he again, “ from the things which even 
 now («at viv) are coming to pass under your own eyes. For 
 many of our people (¢. e. Christians) having adjured by the 
 name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, 
 many persons possessed with devils (Sacpovvodjrrovs) all over 
 the world and in your city, have healed them when they had 
 not been healed by all other exorcists and enchanters and 
 magicians, reducing and expelling the demons that had pos- 
 session of the men.” * And again, “and now (ai viv) we 
 who believe in Jesus our Lord who was crucified under 
 Pontius Pilate, when we adjure all, devils and evil spirits, 
 have them obedient to us.”* Exorcism, you see, is the gift 
 which he attributes to the Christians. In one passage, how- 
 ever, of the Dialogue? he ascribes to them mpodntixa 
 xapicpata in general, as if they had been transferred to the 
 Christians from the Jews, who once possessed but had since 
 lost them. And in another of the same treatise,’ he enume- 
 rates healing and foreknowledge amongst their supernatural 
 endowments. 
 
 Here is one witness, now writing at Rome, now at 
 Ephesus or elsewhere,’ who testifies to the existence of cer- 
 tain miraculous powers in the Church, of exorcism more 
 especially ; which latter faculty he speaks of in a manner 
 which must convince us that he thought the fact indispu- 
 table, however reluctant the parties he addressed might be to 
 draw from it the conclusion he pressed. And yet Justin 
 
 1 Dodwell, Dissert. in Irenzeum, IT. § 6 § 39. 
 
 vii. ™The Dialogue, however, though 
 2 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 30, held, it is said, at Ephesus, does not 
 3 Apol. II. § 6. appear to have been committed to writ- 
 * Dial. § 76. ing for publication till some time after- 
 5 5 82. wards. 
 
312 EXORCISM, HEALING, FOREKNOWLEDGE, [Serres II. 
 
 was a man of education ; had been a philosopher; and was 
 writing in two of the tracts where these statements are 
 made, to philosophical Emperors, and to the people of Rome ; 
 and was sufficiently a lover of truth to die for it. 
 
 Irenzeus expresses himself to the same effect. Speaking of 
 the heretics, he says, “they cannot give sight to the blind, 
 nor hearing to the deaf, nor can they cast out evil spirits, 
 except such as they have themselves introduced, if even that ; 
 nor heal the sick, the lame, the palsied ; nor remove diseases 
 which may happen to afflict any other part of the body. 
 And so far are they from raising the dead, as the Lord did 
 and his Apostles, by prayer, and as hath come to pass often 
 among the brethren, when the spirit of the dead hath returned, 
 and the man been restored to the prayers of the saints, the 
 whole Church of the place on the necessary occasion entreat- 
 ing for him with much fasting and supplication—so far have 
 they been from doing this, that they do not even believe that 
 it can be done.’’? And again, having vindicated the miracles 
 of our Lord from the charge of being ocular deceptions, he 
 proceeds, “ Wherefore his true disciples receiving grace from 
 him, work benefits in his name for mankind, according to the 
 gifts which each of them have received from him. For some 
 really and truly eject evil spirits, so that those very persons 
 who have been possessed, now purged of these demons, 
 become believers, and are added to the Church. Others have 
 foreknowledge of future events, see visions, and prophesy. 
 Others, again, heal the sick by imposition of hands, and 
 restore them.-to health ; nay, as we have said, even the dead 
 have been raised wp, and continued with us many years.” ? 
 And he elsewhere assigns to the Jews also the power of 
 exorcism, on the principle that all created beings are afraid of 
 an appeal to Him who created them. Again, with respect to 
 the gift of tongues and the discerning of spirits, he writes, 
 “as we have heard even many brethren in the Church pos- 
 sessing prophetical gifts, and speaking by the Spirit in all 
 manner of tongues, and bringing to light advantageously the 
 secrets of men.” ® , 
 
 Here we have another witness, him also a man of educa- 
 tion and research, and though perhaps not a martyr to the 
 
 ’ Treneeus," IT. ¢, xxxi, § 2. P51) vik SIP 
 2'c. xxxi0. 64, 
 
Lect. VI.] RAISING THE DEAD CLAIMED BY 313 
 
 death, a man who, for the sake of teaching the truth, was con- 
 tent to forego the charms of his native land, and migrate to 
 a distant, a barbarous, and as it proved a dangerous station ; 
 we have this man, I say, still testifying, in Meee quarter of 
 the world too, in Gaul, to the existence of miraculous powers 
 in the Church ; exorcism ; healing both of natural infirmities 
 and sickness; prophecy ; tongues; discerning of spirits ; 
 and even raising the dead: but perhaps expressing himself 
 with different degrees of confidence whilst treating of these 
 several gifts. Thus, with respect to exorcism, “some really 
 and truly eject evil spirits”? (ot pev yap Saiuovas édadvovaer 
 BeBaiws kat adnOas), is his language—“we have heard 
 brethren speak with tongues, and detect spirits,’ so I under- 
 stand KaOas Kal ToANwY akovopev adeAdov ev TH exkAnola 
 Tpopytika Yaplapata €YovT@OY, Kal TavTOSaTTais NadovYT@V 
 dia Tov IIvevpatos yAoooats, Kal Ta KpUdia TOV avOpoTov 
 els havepoyv ayovtwy emt TO cuppepovte. And in these in- 
 stances, as well as in some others which I have named, me uses 
 the os tense, Saiwovas edad vouct, mpoyvooty EXYOUCL, 
 Tous Kapvovtas Lavra, Xapiopara exovTor, mavrooaTrais 
 yroocats NadovvT@V, TH Kpudia TOV avOporav els avepov 
 ayovrwv. But when the miracle of raising the dead is 
 touched on, the expressions are less definite, seepe evenit fieri, 
 moAAakes, the phrase indefinite as to time—o Kupsos, o& 
 amootoXol, 1) Taga exkdAnoia, the language again indefinite 
 as to agents—So the tense in these cases is no longer the 
 present, but the aorist, ro mvetua tov TeTeNeUTNKOTOS 
 emécotpewe, the spirit of the dead returned—éyapioOn, he was 
 granted to the prayers of the saints—vexpot yépOnoav Kab 
 Tapéemewav ovv rpuiv, the dead have been raised up, and have 
 continued with us. There is something remarkable, at least, 
 in the change of tense, something which, when coupled with 
 the looser construction of the sentences, would lead us to 
 think that though Ivenzeus had no doubt of the fact of the 
 resurrection of the dead having been effected by the brethren, 
 he had not witnessed a case with his own eyes. 
 
 Papias, a Bishop of Hierapolis of the second century, has 
 left it on record, through Eusebius, who has preserved his tes- 
 timony,' that he had received it from the daughters of 
 Philip the Apostle, that one was raised from the. dead in 
 
 1 (usebius, Kecles. Hist. iii. c, 39; Routh. Relig. Sacr. vol. i. p. 12. 
 
314 IRENAUS, PAPIAS, AND THEOPHILUS. ([Sents Il. 
 
 Philip’s time'; by whom, or in what place, is not specified, 
 though we might suppose that Hierapolis was the scene’: but 
 the manner in which it is mentioned by Papias, would lead 
 to the conclusion that even in his day, and he was a hearer of 
 John, that particular miracle, though wrought, was rare. But 
 here we have a witness to miracles in another part of the 
 world, Asia Minor. 
 
 Theophilus, he too of the second century, a man of learning, 
 a Bishop, and still in another region, Antioch, affirms the 
 same fact, and much in the same way as the last two. He 
 introduces his correspondent Autolycus saying, “Show me 
 aman who has been raised from the dead, and I will believe ;” 
 to which challenge Theophilus replies, “Much thanks to you 
 for such a belief, and yet you believe in Hercules and A’scula- 
 pius coming to life again. Perhaps I shall even show you 
 a dead man raised and living, and yet you will not believe 
 this.”* We must remember that the challenge, put into the 
 mouth of Autolycus, is in fact introduced to the reader by 
 Theophilus himself; who would not, we may suppose, have 
 volunteered it, had he felt the question to be a staggering one. 
 The fair inference from his words seems to be, that he, like 
 Papias and Irenzeus, made no doubt of instances of resurrec- 
 tion from the dead having occurred, though he had none to 
 give of his own experience. 
 
 Tertullian is another witness to the existence of miracu- 
 lous powers in the Primitive Church in his own time, and 
 still in a district far removed from any we have yet referred 
 to, Carthage and its neighbourhood. His testimony is given 
 with the same confidence as to some of the miracles, and the 
 same reserve as to others, which we have already discovered 
 in other of the Fathers. In his Apology addressed to the 
 governors of proconsular Africa, persons of intelligence, there- 
 fore, and not to be duped by a bold claim laid by Christians 
 to faculties which they did not in reality enjoy ; writing, 
 I say, to such men as these, Tertullian uses language like the 
 following. “Let any one who is confessedly under the in- 
 fluence of demoniacal possession, be brought here before your 
 
 ‘ > . 
 ' So I construe xar’ a’rév with Dod- ?"Tows kal emdei~w wor vexpov éeyep= 
 well, Pref. Dissert. in Ireneum, § 8. | Oévra,xal (@vta, Kai TodTO amLoTHC ELS. 
 - ‘ > Ul > > 4 ’ : ‘ 
 Nekpov yap avagtagw kat avrov ye- | —'Theophilus Ad, Autolycum, I. § 13. 
 
 yovutay toropei. 
 
Lect. VI.] HEALING, EXORCISM, AND VISIONS, 315 
 
 tribunal. If the spirit be commanded by any Christian to 
 speak, he shall as truly confess himself to be a demon as in 
 other places he falsely professes himself to be a god ;”' with 
 much more to the same purpose. There may be some extra- 
 vagance or incaution in the mere wording of the passage, but 
 it is impossible not to believe that Tertullian considered he 
 was perfectly safe in the challenge ; and that his substantial 
 meaning was, that exorcism was practised so successfully by 
 Christians, that the result could not be denied by heathens. 
 Again, in his “ De Exhortatione Castitatis,”? whilst describing 
 the advantages which accrue from the exercise of the virtue 
 of chastity, he says, “Then if a man prays, he finds himself 
 near heaven; if he applies himself to the Scriptures, he is 
 wholly intent on them ; if he adjures a devil, he has confi- 
 dence in himself (si deemonem adjurat, confidit sibi).” There 
 is something in the very natural and casual way in which he 
 here mentions exorcism, that gives one the utmost reliance in 
 his own belief at least in the possession of that virtue by 
 the Church. The same may be said of another passage in 
 the De Idololatrid, “Can he (7. e. he whose trade minis- 
 ters to idolatry) exorcise with any degree of consistency, 
 when he is the very man, who has been feeding these evil 
 spirits, whom he evokes? If he casts out a devil, let him not 
 flatter himself that it is effected by his faith.’* The same of 
 a third in the “De Spectaculis,” * “ Want we pleasure (which 
 those are in pursuit of who frequent these spectacles), what 
 higher pleasure than the contempt of pleasure? the spurning 
 of the world? true liberty? a clear conscience? a contented 
 life? no fear of death? to trample upon the gods of the 
 nations ? to expel demons? to work cures? to seek revela- 
 tions ? to live to God ? These are the spectacles of Christians.” 
 Again, Tertullian speaks without any hesitation on the subject 
 of visions; “I know that one of the brethren,” says he “was 
 grievously chastised by a vision the same night that the slaves 
 had decorated his house with garlands... . . yet he had 
 not ordered it to be done; ”° as though the party had him- 
 self informed him of the fact. And again, “ There is at this 
 
 1 Tertullian, Apol. ¢. xxiii. —De Spectaculis, c. xxix. 
 2 De Exhortatione Castitatis, c. x. 5 Scio fratrem per visionem eadem 
 3 De Idololatria, c. xi. noete castigatum graviter, &e.—De Ido- 
 
 4 Quod demonia expellis ? quod me- | lolatria, c. xv. 
 dicinas facis? quod revelationes petis ? 
 
316 CONFIDENTLY ASSERTED BY TERTULLIAN. [Senzes II. 
 
 day amongst us a sister who is endowed with the gift of 
 revelations. These she experiences by ecstacy in the spirit at 
 church amidst the solemnities of the Lord’s day.” ' And then 
 follows an account of her having seen a disembodied soul in 
 one of these trances; the woman, no doubt, having herself 
 related the incident. Again, in a still more remarkable pas- 
 sage, if I understand it right, “Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a 
 dream from God, and almost the greater part of mankind get 
 a knowledge of God through visions ;”’’ as though the Spirit 
 of God was very active in those days in producing an im- 
 pression on the world through this channel. He, too, speaks 
 of the miracle of raising the dead, but in terms which lead 
 us to think that he knew of no case since the Apostles’ time. 
 Having argued that demons cannot evoke the spirits of the 
 dead, but must have counterfeited them when they seemed to 
 do so; and that the case of the rich man and Lazarus shows 
 that the spirits of the dead cannot visit the earth, he pro- 
 ceeds, “ besides, in the instances of the resurrection, when the 
 power of God by the Prophets, or by Christ, or by the 
 Apostles, restored souls to their bodies, it was done according 
 to such substantial, palpable, satisfactory truth, as decided 
 that such ought to be the form that truth on such occasions 
 should take ; and that whenever any exhibition of the dead, 
 of an incorporeal nature was pretended, it was to be regarded 
 as a fraud.”* Here, we see, he makes the agents of these 
 resurrections the Prophets, Christ, and his Apostles; but no. 
 others. 
 
 It is evident that Tertullian, like several of these authors 
 before him, is not indiscriminate in his assertion of miracu- 
 lous powers in the Church, but that whilst he is positive with 
 respect to some, with respect to others he is cautious. 
 
 The only passage, says Bishop Kaye,* which he had found 
 in the writings of Clemens Alexandrinus, that has any bear- 
 ing on the question of the evidence of miraculous powers in 
 the Church, is in the extracts from the writings of Theodotus,° 
 if that epitome be justly ascribed to him—*“ The Valentinians 
 
 : De Anima, ec. ix. Clemens Alexandrinus, p. 468. 
 
 ? Nabuchodonosor divinitus somniat : 5 Excerpta ex scriptis Theodoti et 
 et major pene vis hominum ex visio- | doctrina orientali—g xxiv. p. 975, Pot- 
 nibus Deum discunt.—e, xlvii, ter’s Ed. of Clemens. This Theodotus 
 
 * c. Ivii. was probably a Valentinian, anterior in 
 
 * Bishop Kaye on the Writings of |! date to Clemens. 
 
Lect. VI.] EXORCISM CLAIMED BY MINUCIUS. 317 
 
 say that the Spirit which each of the Prophets specially pos- 
 sessed for the purposes of his ministry, was poured forth on 
 all the members of the Church. Hence the signs of the 
 Spirit, cures of diseases and prophecies, are accomplished 
 through the Church.” Clemens’ comment then is (supposing 
 _this work to be his), “they are ignorant that the Paraclete, 
 who now works proximately in the Church, is of the same 
 essence and power with him who worked proximately under 
 the Old Testament.” 
 
 There is, however, a paragraph in an undisputed writing of 
 Clemens, the Stromata, which may be considered, I think, to 
 have some relation to this question. “The proof that our 
 Saviour is the very Son of God is this—the prophecies preceding 
 his advent, and proclaiming him ; the testimonies concerning 
 him, accompanying his sensible birth ; and his powers preached 
 and openly shown after his ascension’? \—miracles subse- 
 quent to his ascension certainly affirmed, but nothing deter- 
 mined as to how long subsequent, or whether active even at 
 that time. Whatever this testimony may amount to, it is 
 that of a very learned and inquisitive man, and is drawn 
 from yet another district of Christendom, Alexandria. 
 
 Minucius Felix, a layman and a lawyer, and a dweller at 
 Rome, challenges in the same uncompromising language as we 
 have seen so many before him employ, any denial of the 
 notorious fact that the Christians had the power of exorcism? ; 
 “Saturn and Serapis and Jupiter, and whatever other demon 
 ye worship, subdued by pain, declare what they are, and 
 cannot be supposed to tell lies to their own discredit, especially 
 when many of you are standing by. Believing them to be 
 demons on their own testimony, for when adjured by the 
 true, the very God, they reluctantly tremble in the bodies 
 they possess, and come out, either forthwith or by degrees, 
 according to the faith of the sufferer or the grace of the 
 healer.” 
 
 Origen, whether we regard his evidence as that of an in- 
 habitant of Egypt, of Palestine, of Cappadocia, of Nicomedia, 
 of Athens, or of Arabia, for during the course of his unsettled 
 life he appears to have been a sojourner jn all these countries, 
 
 1 TIpos d€ kai pera thy dvadnyw | Stromat. VI. § xv. p. 801. 
 Knpvoodpeval Te Kal eu:bavas Seixvv- ? Minucius Felix, Octay. ¢. xxvii. 
 pevac Suvdpers avtov.— Clem. Alex. 
 
318 ORIGEN A WITNESS OF EXORCISM [Series II. 
 
 furnishes evidence to the same effect as before—indeed, much 
 more copiously than any other of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, 
 and in terms so moderate and unimpassioned as to entitle 
 it to the greater attention. Thus, in his treatise against 
 Celsus, he speaks of the spirit of Christianity being demon- 
 strated by prophecies, and “its power by those miraculous 
 powers which we may show to exist both by many other 
 arguments, and by the traces of them being yet preserved 
 amongst those who lived according to the preaching of the 
 Gospel.”! And again, in the same treatise, in the same 
 remarkable phrase, he objects to the Jews, that “There is no 
 longer any sign of Divinity being amongst them, for that there 
 are no longer prophets nor miracles, of which the traces, at 
 least, are in some sort found amongst Christians, and even 
 more than the traces; and if we are to be believed who 
 say so,” he adds, “we have ourselves seen them.”* And 
 again, “The signs of the Holy Ghost were displayed at the 
 beginning of the preaching of Jesus; after his assumption, 
 more ; afterwards, fewer; though even now there are traces 
 of it with a few persons who have their souls purged by reason 
 (or the Word) and by behaviour according to it.”’* And - 
 again,* “And still traces (¢yvn) of that Holy Spirit, which was 
 seen in the form of a dove, are retained (cwferar) amongst 
 Christians. They eject demons, they perform cures, and they 
 enjoy some visions of things future, according to the will of 
 the Word. And though Celsus, or the Jew whom he intro- 
 duces, may laugh at what I shall say, nevertheless it shall be 
 spoken, because many, as it were, against their will have 
 come over to Christianity, a certain spirit suddenly turning 
 their minds from hating the word to being ready to die for it, 
 and presenting them with the phantasm of a vision or dream. 
 For we have ascertained many such things, which if we should 
 write down, though ourselves having been present with them 
 and seen them, we should afford matter of derision to un- 
 
 '°Ex rov ixyn S€ adrav ere oo- 
 \ “ 4 4 ’ 
 ¢eoOa mapa trois kata rd BovdAnpa 
 Tov Adyou Brovor.—Origen, Contra Cel- 
 sum, I. § 2. 
 
 Qo? * cad 2s ‘ A 
 Qv kav txyn emt tTrocov Tapa | 
 
 Xpworiavois evpioxerat, Kai Twa ye 
 pelCova, kal ei muoToi eopev A€yovTes 
 éwpdkapev kal mpeis.—Origen, Contra 
 Celsum, IJ. § 8. The Benedictine edi- 
 
 tor would translate peifova “ majora 
 quam olim apud Judwos.” See the in- 
 dex to that edition, p. 971, “ Miracula.” 
 
 8 "Yorepov Sé €dattova’ wry Kal 
 vov ert ixyn eotw av’rov map dAlyos, 
 Tas Wuxas TO Ady kal rais Kat’ avTov 
 mpageot Kekadappevors-—Origen, Con- 
 tra Celsum, VII. § 8. 
 
 41. § 46. 
 
Lecr. VI.] AND OF MIRACULOUS CURES. 319 
 
 believers ; for they suppose that we, like those whom they 
 know to invent such things, invent them also. But God is 
 the witness of our conscience, that it does not desire to recom- 
 mend the divine doctrine of Jesus by false tales, but by clear 
 and various arguments.” Once more,' when replying to the 
 objection of Celsus, that Jesus did no magnificent action which 
 bespoke him to be God, he observes, “It is a magnificent act 
 of Jesus, that even to this day those whom God pleases are 
 healed in his name.” And again, when contending against 
 the same antagonist for the superior claims of Jesus to be 
 accounted a God over those of Aisculapius, he observes how 
 few there were who believed in Atsculapius, “whereas we can 
 exhibit an unspeakable number of Greeks and barbarians, 
 who confess Jesus. And some show signs of having received 
 extraordinary endowments through that faith by their powers 
 of healing ; using over the patients no other invocation than 
 God above all, and the name of Jesus, together with the 
 history concerning him. For we have ourselves seen many 
 thus delivered from severe maladies, and frenzies, and in- 
 sanity, and numberless other complaints, such as neither man 
 nor demon could cure.”” Here, then, we see that Origen 
 asserts a residue only of the miraculous Spirit which was once 
 so operative in the Church to be then remaining in it, and 
 speaks of traces only of it as then to be found, as though the 
 age of miracles was passing away ; but he still does insist on 
 the actual existence of that spirit of miracles, and affirms that 
 demons were still ejected, cures still wrought, and visions still 
 vouchsafed, of which he himself, whatever scoffers might say to 
 the contrary, had been a living witness—the moderation of 
 the language in which this announcement is made, I repeat, a 
 strong pledge for the truth of the facts it announces, and of the 
 competency of the testimony. 
 
 The last contemporary authority which I shall produce is 
 Cyprian. His testimony to the continuance of a miraculous 
 interference in the affairs of the Church, I would say, rather 
 
 : Origen, Contra Celsum, TI. § 33. pavera ovK edxarappdrnrot emuredovv- 
 * Tovrows yap Kal teis éwpaxapev tat. And § 36. Ei yap HI) deddev 7 nv 
 moAXovs amahhayévtas xahen@y oup- | alto bo8cioa gboracts, ovK adv Kal 
 mTopatov.—lII. § 24. See also Con- Saipoves TO dvdpare avrou dmayyeho- 
 tra Celsum, III. § 28. Kara rovs é&ns HEV povoy ‘cikovres d avEX@povy amo Tv 
 xpévous* ev ois ovK Odéiyat Oeparetac um avTay Tokepoupevar. 
 T@ Ingod dvdpate Kal adda tives ere | 
 
820 VISIONS MENTIONED BY CYPRIAN. (Sentes II. 
 
 than the continuance of miraculous powers in it, is express 
 and positive, chiefly, however, manifested by visions vouchsafed 
 to himself or other conspicuous members of it. 
 
 In Ep. liv. he writes,’ “We are aware that another perse- 
 eution is coming on, and are admonished by visions to prepare 
 for the conflict, and draw together Christ’s soldiers into the 
 camp.” Again, in the same,” “Wherefore, at the suggestion 
 of the Holy Spirit, and after that the Lord hath admonished 
 us by many and clear visions that the enemy is at hand, we 
 have thought well to gather Christ’s soldiers into the camp.” 
 Again, in Ep. lxiii.,* “Wherefore, my brethren, if any of our 
 predecessors, through ignorance, did otherwise than Christ's 
 example in this teaches, let us who have been admonished by 
 Christ (to this effect) mia the cup, and direct by letter our 
 colleagues to do the same, that the rule may be uniform.” 
 Again, in Ep. Ixix., to Pupianus, who had slandered him,* 
 “Tf you show penitence, I may receive you again into com- 
 munion, respect, however, being still had to this, that I first 
 consult the Lord, whether by some ostensible warrant he will 
 allow the peace of the Church to be granted you, and your 
 readmission to be ratified, for I remember what manifestation 
 hath been made to me already,” &c.; and then he adds,’ 
 “although I am aware that dreams seem ridiculous to some, 
 and visions foolishness, but it is so to those who had rather 
 believe what is against the Priest than the Priest. But no 
 wonder, since Joseph’s brethren said to him, ‘ Behold this 
 dreamer cometh, come let us slay him ;’ and yet that dreamer 
 was confirmed, and his murderers were confounded.” Again, 
 in the “De Mortalitate,’® “when-a certain colleague and 
 brother Priest of ours anxious for death, prayed for his pass- 
 port, there stood near him, when now at the point of death, 
 a youth of venerable aspect, tall and striking ...... and 
 said, Are you afraid to suffer?” Gc. This, however, is a 
 vision experienced by another, and by him when at the point 
 of death. 
 
 Finally, there is a passage in Eusebius,’ which occurs in a 
 short preface with which he introduces the fragment of the 
 letter of the martyrs of Lyons, to the following effect. “ Mon- 
 
 1 Ep. liv. § 1. 5 § 10. 
 : N 5. § De Mortalitate, § xix. 
 3 )xiii. § 17. 7 Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. y. ¢. 3. 
 
  Ixix. §§ 9, 10. 
 
Lect. VI.} CONSIDERATIONS WHICH ADD WEIGHT 321 
 
 tanus and Alcibiades and Theodotus in Phrygia being then 
 for the first time accounted by many to have the power 
 of prophesying, for as there were very many other miracles of 
 Divine grace even yet at that period wrought in different 
 Churches, these created a belief in many that those persons 
 also possessed the power of prophesying,’—a passage which, 
 as on the one hand it seems to show that Eusebius had no 
 idea that miracles were wrought in his own time, so does it 
 seem equally to show, on the other hand, that he had no 
 doubt they were wrought in the time of Montanus, Alci- 
 biades, and Theodotus, or in the second century. 
 
 These, then, are not, indeed, all the notices we have of con- 
 temporary miracles, or supernatural agency, in the writings 
 of the Fathers of the first three centuries, but they are a very 
 large portion of them, and are the facts in kind, if not quite in 
 number, on which we have to build up our conclusions. 
 
 Now, in the first place, I must remark, what, indeed, I have 
 partly done already in the course of the short comments I have 
 given on the passages I have produced,—I must remark, that 
 the witnesses, in many cases the eye-witnesses, who thus 
 speak to the existence of extraordinary powers and extra- 
 ordinary visitations in the Church of their own times, are 
 men of various natural temperaments ; their very writings 
 prove it; calm, as Irenzeus ; or impetuous, as Tertullian—are 
 men of more than one profession, for Minucius was a lawyer 
 and so was Tertullian in his early days—are men, several of 
 them, of great reading and knowledge, and of much expe- 
 rience ; the infinite number of authors they some of them 
 cite, the course of studies they describe themselves as having 
 in several instances passed through, and the wide extent of 
 the travels through which we can trace them, whether taken 
 of choice or of necessity, and taken, moreover, in times the 
 most stirring, being all pledges of that knowledge and expe- 
 rience—are men quite alive to the necessity of distinguishing 
 between miracles and works of magic and conjuration, so 
 common in their days ; and of sifting the cases, which claimed 
 to be supernatural, with that object especially in view' 
 
 
 
 1 See, e.g. Contra Celsum, I. § 68, trovoias yonreias), and elsewhere when 
 and II. § 50 (Aeyéro Tis ouv np ei | he replies to the charge of the Jew in 
 divarai TLT@V EV TO edayyedio 7} 7 tay | Celsus, that the miracles of Jesus were 
 Tapa T@ droordho x@pav mapéxe | wrought by magic. 
 
 ¥ 
 
322 TO THE TESTIMONY ABOVE CITED. (Serres II. 
 
 ‘oO 
 
 dwelling particularly, as some of them do, on the moral 
 reformation which the proceedings of Jesus wrought on his 
 followers, an effect so contrary even to that produced by 
 magicians and conjurers on their dupes'—are men of un- 
 questionable love for truth, enthusiastic zeal for it, submitting 
 as they did for its sake to innumerable hardships and dangers 
 in life, and some amongst them even to death itself—I say 
 that when we consider that men of this character are the 
 witnesses to the existence of these supernatural agencies in 
 that age, we cannot but think their testimony weighty, or as 
 our old writers would say, considerable, more especially when 
 we call to mind that they speak from so many different 
 quarters of the world, and still concur in the assertion of the 
 fact itself—from Asia Minor, from Palestine, from Africa, 
 from Gaul, from Italy. It is almost impossible, I repeat, to 
 believe that there are not some substantial grounds for such 
 a mass of assertion: and however some particulars of it may 
 embarrass us, as ¢. g. the affirmation of Tertullian that the 
 exorcism could be practised by any Christian, “a quolibet 
 Christiano ;”” whether the expression be a mere loose one, or 
 whether’ the word “ quolibet” be used by him in a sense of 
 his own, which any one familiar with his style may well con- 
 sider probable ; or, as that other declaration of Irenzeus, that 
 even Jews could eject evil spirits too in the name of Jehovah, 
 though the case of the Jews, who were exorcists, in the Acts,’ 
 proves that the evil spirits were indifferent to their adjuration 
 by that name; or, as that of Origen, who ascribes a virtue to 
 the name of the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, 
 by which demons were ejected by those who were not Jews as 
 well as by Jews*—however, I say, these and other like diffi- 
 
 
 
 1 See Contra Celsum, IT. § 44, and 
 . ne ips , \ \ M4 
 again § 50. Tis yap Tov kpeirrova Bidy, 
 kal ovoteh\ovTa Ta THS Kakias 6onpe- 
 a ‘ > , ‘\ > A 
 pat emt TO EXartrov, evAdyos yoy ard 
 ararns yiver Oat ; 
 
 is remarkable that when giving further 
 instances of the like effect produced by 
 the names Israel, Sabaoth, Adonai, 
 whilst expressed in the Hebrew, and of 
 the inefficacy of the same when trans- 
 
 * Tertullian, Apol. ¢. xxiii. 
 ® Acts xix. 18, 
 
 4 See Contra Celsum, IV. §§ 33. 35, 
 
 and Y. § 45, in which latter passage he | 
 
 says, “if the names Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob were translated into their 
 equivalent meaning in the Greek, the 
 phrase would have no more effect than 
 the most indifferent words :” though it 
 
 
 
 lated, he uses the expression ds pacw 
 ot mept TavTa Sewoi, and again, eay be 
 THPHT@pED avro, mpoodarrovres ois oi 
 mepi Tavta Sewwot oupme Kew avr 
 @nOnoar, “ but if we retain the original 
 word, coupling it with such other words 
 as those who are skilful in such matters 
 are used to couple it,” as though Ori- 
 gen disclaimed all such powers of 
 
Lect. VI.} EXORCISM AND HEALING MORE FREQUENT 323. 
 
 culties may present themselves, and may no doubt be turned to 
 account by those who are disposed to disparage these early re- 
 puted miracles ; still the whole stream of primitive testimony 
 sets in so strongly for the fact, that extraordinary powers were 
 exercised by the Church of those days, that the truth of that 
 fact in the main it is extremely hard to resist. 
 
 In the next place I will observe, that the miraculous powers 
 of exorcism and of healing diseases, are those which the Fathers 
 are far the most unanimous, as well as the most peremptory 
 upon ; that the speaking with tongues, prophesying, discern- 
 ing of spirits, and above all, the raising the dead, are powers 
 asserted by them indeed, but not near so universally or so de- 
 terminately as the others. And this has been made matter of 
 charge against the Fathers. But, on the other hand, it may 
 be, and has been contended, that the terms in which our 
 blessed Lord conferred miraculous powers on his immediate 
 followers, and the manner in which they are related to have 
 exercised those powers, coincide with such a condition of 
 things ; that they lead us to think, that the ejection of evil 
 spirits and the curing of sicknesses were in fact to be, not the 
 sole, but the principal fields in which the operation of the su- 
 pernatural faculties, with which those followers were endowed, 
 were to lie: thus, that St. Matthew tells us that our Lord’s 
 charge to the Apostles, when He sent them on their first mis- 
 sion, was this, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the 
 dead, cast out devils ;”? but when the Evangelist at the be- 
 ginning of the same chapter had been giving a sort of head- 
 ing of his own to this transaction, which he was about to 
 describe a few verses afterwards, he, from whatever cause, per- 
 haps because two only of the four faculties here vouchsafed 
 were to be principally called into action, names but two of 
 them, and those two the ejection of evil spirits and the heal- 
 ing of diseases ; these are his words, “And when he had called 
 unto him his twelve disciples he gave them power against un- 
 clean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sick- 
 ness and all manner of disease: ”” and that St. Mark, whether 
 speaking of the same scene or of another, writes, “And he 
 goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would ; 
 
 incantation for himself, and devolved | testimony, where it is not so qualified, 
 the onus of supporting the facts on | more valuable in other instances. 
 other parties: this candour, however, ! Matt, x. 8. 
 
 in one instance, only making Origen’s ses dl, 
 
324 THAN OTITER MIRACLES IN THE ACTS (Serres IT. 
 
 and they came unto him; and he ordained twelve that they 
 should be with him, and that he might send them forth to 
 preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out 
 devils ;’’! taking no notice of any other miraculous gifts, that 
 were imparted to them: that when we look to the result of 
 this mission of the Apostles, we find it recorded in these terms, 
 “And they went out and preached that men should repent. 
 And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many 
 that were sick, and healed them ;”? no mention being made of 
 their having had occasion to exercise the other two faculties 
 with which they had been endowed, that of cleansing the leper, 
 or of raising the dead: that so again when our blessed Lord 
 despatched the other seventy, two and two, to spread the 
 Gospel, his charge to them was, as St. Luke informs us, “ Heal 
 the sick ;”* and when they return and communicate to the 
 Lord the success of their labours, it is in these terms, “ Lord, 
 even the devils are subject unto us through thy name:”* still 
 the cure of diseases, and the casting out of unclean spirits the 
 two miraculous gifts to which our attention is exclusively 
 drawn: that such were the commissions, and such the issue of 
 them, as they were first given by our Lord to his disciples 
 when they had to act on them during his sojourn ainongst men, 
 as we find the facts recorded in the Gospels: but that after 
 his resurrection, and before He went away, the final charge 
 which He delivered to them was this, “Go ye into all the 
 world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that be- 
 lieveth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth 
 not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that 
 believe ; in my name shall they cast owt devils ; they shall 
 speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if 
 they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall 
 lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover ;”° and if we 
 consider the former charge as still in force, which we must, to 
 the several powers here put into the disciples’ hands, those of 
 cleansing the leper, and of raising the dead must be added : 
 that if, however, we examine the manner in which this charge 
 was actually carried into effect, the actual use that was made 
 of these gifts in the Acts of the Apostles ; just as in the other 
 case we traced the result of the mission in the Gospels ; we 
 
 ? Mark iii. 13, 14, 15. 3 Luke x. 9. srs ea lyf 
 3 vi, 12, 18. 5 Mark xvi. 15-18. 
 
Lect. VI.} AS WELL AS IN THE FATHERS. 325 
 
 shall find, as before, that of all the powers here allotted to the 
 disciples, those of casting out devils and healing disease were 
 still the two primary ones: that we have indeed instances of 
 the dead being raised, but only two such instances, that of 
 Tabitha, and that of Eutychus ; three instances of the gift of 
 tongues, that at Pentecost; that at Cornelius’ house!; and 
 that, when Paul laid his hands on John’s disciples at Ephesus, 
 twelve in number’; though in the Epistle to the Corinthians’ 
 there is incidental evidence of the use of tongues in that 
 Church : that we have no instance of the cleansing of a leper : 
 and none of poison having been drunk by a disciple with im- 
 punity ; and but one of protection from the bite of a serpent : 
 yet that numbers of instances of the ejection of devils, and of 
 the cure of diseases are presented to us! ‘They brought forth 
 the sick into the streets, and Jaid them on beds and couches, 
 that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might over- 
 shadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of 
 the cities round about Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and 
 them that were vexed with wnclean spirits; and they were 
 healed every one ;’’* and again, when Philip went down to 
 Samaria, and the people gave heed to the things which he 
 spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did; what 
 were those miracles? “ Unclean spirits, crying with loud 
 voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and 
 many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed ; 
 and there was great joy in that city ;”° and again, when 
 special miracles were wrought by the hands of Paul at 
 Ephesus, we are told that “from his body were brought unto 
 the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed 
 from them, and the evil spirits went out of them:”® that if 
 then we find the instances of the gift of tongues, of prophecy, 
 and above all of raising the dead, few in number as recorded 
 in ecclesiastical writings, as compared with the instances of 
 casting out devils and healing diseases ; the same is true with 
 respect to the Canonical Scriptures ; and that the coincidence 
 is in itself remarkable, if we consider that the fact does not 
 perhaps strike us even in the Canonical Scriptures till our 
 attention happens to be called to it, and we investigate the 
 question: and that if such be the case, it is no matter for 
 
 ' Acts x. 46. a Saoe (oF 4 Acts v. 16. 4 vill. 7, 8. 
 SAIS COLrs ave {e Sence ee 
 
326 VISIONS FREQUENT IN THE ACTS. (Serres II. 
 
 wonder, if miracles which were more sparingly wrought, and 
 which therefore had been witnessed by comparatively few 
 persons, should be spoken of with less certainty by the 
 Fathers ; none of whom profess to have been themselves the 
 agents of them: and that it is not reasonable to expect that 
 Theophilus, e. g. or Irenzeus should affirm contemporary cases 
 of resurrection from the dead, as if they were things of 
 ordinary occurrence, when even in the Acts of the Apostles, 
 the number of such cases left on record is extremely limited, 
 though the accounts of such as are found there are so circum- 
 stantial, in this respect so greatly differing from those of 
 the Fathers, as to carry conviction to the mind at once. 
 Furthermore, it is argued, that though there is something 
 distinct from miraculous agency in visions and dreams, of 
 which, as we have seen, the later of the Ante-Nicene Fathers 
 more especially speak very positively and very often; and 
 though some may be enumerated which have no pretension 
 to be reckoned amongst Divine communications, yet it is not 
 easy to reject them all, attested as they are by persons of 
 credit, who had the means of judging from results, and in 
 action, as they are represented to have been, at peculiarly 
 critical periods of the Church: that certainly the vision may 
 often seem prompted by the circumstances of the party at 
 the moment, as the visions which informed Cyprian of an ap- 
 proaching persecution, and might be resolvable into natural 
 causes; but that still the same might be said of St. Peter’s 
 vision, which was no doubt closely connected with his physical 
 wants at the time, for there is evidently a relation between 
 his being “hungry” before the vision came on, and the 
 character of the vision itself, which exhibited to him “ four- 
 footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, 
 and fowls of the air,” which he was to “kill and eat; ”! and 
 the sacred narrative clearly means to mark that relation ; and 
 yet after all, that vision was made the vehicle of a revelation 
 from God to guide his future conduct : and that we may say 
 in general of early ecclesiastical visions, what we have said of 
 early ecclesiastical miracles, that such phenomena are precisely 
 in accordance with the proceedings of God as described in 
 the Acts ; of which visions are as remarkable a characteristic 
 as casting out devils or healing diseases: and indeed, that 
 * Acts x, 10-12, 
 
Lect. VI.] MIRACLES OF STEPHEN AND PHILIP. 327 
 
 St. Peter’s first sermon prepares us for them, where he quotes 
 from the prophet Joel, that “it shall come to pass in the last 
 days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh : 
 and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your 
 young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream 
 dreams :”' that accordingly, St. Stephen sees our Lord before 
 he is dragged forth to martyrdom ?: and Saul was converted 
 by a vision*: and there was the vision of Cornelius‘: and a 
 vision appeared to Paul, when “ there stood a man of Mace- 
 donia ;”° and at Corinth Christ spake to Paul “by a vision, 
 Be not afraid :” ° and in prison “the Lord stood by Paul and 
 said, Be of good cheer :”’ and aboard ship an angel stood by 
 him “saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before 
 Cresar :” ® and more examples might be added. 
 
 All this, I say, is contended ; with what success I will not 
 peremptorily pronounce ; but leave it to thoughtful men to 
 weigh and consider; at the same time adding, in conclusion, 
 that whilst we contemplate this difficult question on the whole, 
 we must remember that we do not rest ecclesiastical miracles 
 or visions merely on the testimony of the Fathers to the facts, 
 but we have it on the authority of revelation itself, that as 
 the Apostles received the power of working miracles from 
 Christ, so did some of those at least on whom the Apostles 
 laid their hands, receive a power of doing the same from them. 
 Thus we read in the sixth chapter of the Acts,°? that the 
 Apostles laid their hands on the seven Deacons ; and we are 
 then told,” that forthwith Stephen, one of the seven, “ did 
 great wonders and miracles among the people :” and again," 
 that the people of Samaria “with one accord gave heed unto 
 these things which Philip spake,” another of the seven, 
 “hearing and seeing the miracles which he did ;” so that the 
 question only is, how far this virtue was transmitted ; through 
 what successive generations it lived. And though the Bishop 
 of Lincoln’s theory” is one which is well calculated to reconcile 
 a sceptical age to the acceptance of ecclesiastical miracles in a 
 degree, and though I have sometimes felt inclined to adopt it 
 myself, yet on further reading and further examination of the 
 subject, I am led to doubt if the testimony of the Fathers can 
 
 ! Acts ii. 17. ivile DD. 9 vi. 6. Wares) 
 3 ix. 3-6. bab Ra N viii. 6. 
 5 xvi. 9. 6 xviii. 9. 2 Account of the writings of Tertul- 
 
 @xxay Ws 8 xxvii. 23, 24. lian, p. 92, 3rd edit. 
 
328 THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN’S THEORY. (Serres II. 
 
 be squared to it, if it will satisfy the conditions of the case. 
 The cessation of all miracles with the lives of those persons, 
 on whom the Apostles themselves Jaid their hands, for that 
 is the theory, would imply that miracles could not have been 
 wrought in the middle of the third century, and yet Origen’s 
 testimony, which, as we have seen, is singularly candid and 
 cautious, and on that account is deserving of more than 
 ordinary respect, clearly and repeatedly, indeed more fre- 
 quently than any other of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, affirms 
 them to have co-existed with him, though in a less abundant 
 measure than they once did ; and Cyprian supports him: nor 
 can such testimony be satisfactorily or safely explained away, 
 I think, by the supposition of “a combined operation of pre- 
 judice and policy; of prejudice, which made the parties 
 reluctant to believe the cessation of miracles ; of policy, which 
 made them anxious to conceal it.’’ ! 
 
 ? Account of the writings of Tertullian, p. 93. 
 
Lect. VII.} USE OF THE FATHERS IN ASCERTAINING 329 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in the inquiry concerning the nature and construction of the 
 Church. The outline of it, which may be inferred from the Acts and the Apos- 
 tolical Epistles, filled up by them. A standing ministry deriving its authority 
 from the Apostles, and consisting of three Orders, included in their definition 
 of it. Direct proof of this from the Fathers themselves: indirect, from the 
 practice of heretics. Incidental character of the evidence. Variety of quarters 
 from which it is drawn. Conclusion in the words of Hooker, 
 
 HERE is another field of theological inquiry, which it is 
 impossible to occupy with any effect without the aid of 
 the early Fathers: that relating to the nature and con- 
 struction of the Church. Antiquity becomes in this province 
 more especially the hand-maid of Scripture, and the Priest of 
 the Church of England will find it eminently to his advantage 
 here to fulfil his Ordination vow, and be diligent not only in 
 reading the Holy Scriptures, but also “In such studies as 
 help to the knowledge of the same.” Our blessed Lord, 
 indeed, remained upon earth after his resurrection forty days, 
 and during that time was “Speaking of the things pertaining 
 to the kingdom of God.”! But what his injunctions probably 
 were, we have to gather from the course of events which 
 followed, and from the shape which the Church began to take; 
 the formation of it partly discovered in the Acts of the 
 Apostles and the Epistles (for in these writings it exhibits a 
 much more organized aspect than it did in the Gospels), and 
 more fully developed in the writings of the Sub-Apostolic 
 Fathers; these latter, however, be it remembered, not engaged 
 in proclaiming and enforcing peculiar views of their own on 
 this subject in the spirit of polemics, but simply betraying the 
 structure which the Church had assumed in their time, its 
 orderly uniformity,’ the elements of it, as represented in the 
 Acts and Epistles, thus completed and filled up. 
 1 Acts i. 3. There may seem to be | nus, Epist. I. § xliv. 
 an allusion to one of these conversa- ? See Irenxus V. ¢. xx. § ]. Eandem 
 
 tions of our Lord on the future struc- | figuram ejus, que est erga ecclesiam, 
 ture of the Church in Clemens Roma- | ordinationis custodientibus, 
 
THE STRUCTURE OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 330 (Serres IT. 
 
 The Fathers, then, understand the Church to be a body 
 of persons called out of the world, amongst whom the doc- 
 trine is taught and the Sacraments administered, which Christ 
 delivered, and which his Apostles and their successors per- 
 petuated from generation to generation.’ This standing 
 ministry they ever represent, right or wrong, as deriving its 
 virtue and authority from the commission first conveyed to 
 the Apostles by Christ himself, and passed on from them to 
 those who did or should succeed them by imposition of hands,? 
 by vicarious ordination. They appeal to this succession as 
 the test of the validity of that ministry,* as the guarantee 
 for the interpretation of Scripture sanctioned by the Church 
 being Apostolical, and accordingly sound; no other inter- 
 pretation having the same safeguard.° They actually trace 
 it down to their own times in some instances, and profess to 
 abstain from doing so in all other instances simply as being 
 withheld by the tediousness of the task,® the succession in 
 every Church being regular.’ Those who withdrew from 
 this ministry, thus limited, they regard as withdrawing from 
 the Church, falling away from the truth, and as guilty of 
 heresy and schism.* This ministry they uniformly describe 
 as consisting of three Orders, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. 
 They do not assert it in direct terms only, though in direct 
 terms they do assert it, but incidentally also. They evidently 
 presume it on all occasions. Nor is it one Father only that 
 does so, but all; or, at least, all who touch upon the subject. 
 The question does not rest upon any narrow basis, but if any 
 one testimony were withdrawn, ample would remain. Here, 
 as in so many other cases, the Fathers only take up a matter 
 where the Scripture bas laid it down. The dawn is in the 
 one, the day in the other. We find Deacons mentioned in 
 Scripture’; we find Presbyters'?; we find Presbyters and 
 
 ' Trenreus, Pref. lib. V. 
 
 2 IV. o. xxvi. § 2. 
 3 Cyprian, Ep. Ixix. § 4; Ixxv. § 16. 
 
 ibi discere oportet veritatem, apud quos 
 est ea quae est ab apostolis ecclesie suc- 
 cessio . . . qui. . . Scripturas sine 
 
 4 Treneus, Pref. lib. V.; Cyprian, 
 Ixxvi. § 3; Concil. Carthag. VII. Sen- 
 tent. Clari 4 Maseula. 
 
 5 See Origen De Principiis, Pref. 
 lib. I. ¢ 2, and IV. § 9, "Exopévois rod 
 kavévos tHS "Incod Xpiorod kara dia- 
 doxnv tay aroaré\@y ovpaviov &xk\n- 
 gias. And irensus, LV. c. xxvi. § 5. Ubi 
 igitur charismata Domini posita sunt, | 
 
 
 
 periculo nobis exponunt. 
 
 6 Treneus, ITT. e. iii. § 2. 
 
 7 Hegesippus, Routh. Reliq. Sacr, 
 vol. i. p. 201, or Euseb. Eccles. Hist. 
 
 | iv ‘ec. 22. 
 
 8 Treneeus, IV. c. xxvi. § 2; V. c. xx. 
 Sell 
 
 ® Acts vi.; 1 Tim. iii. 12, 
 
 '9 Acts xiv. 28. 
 
Lect. VII.J TESTIMONY OF HERMAS, 331 
 
 Apostles as united in act, yet distinguished in order'; we 
 find those who were commissioned to rebuke some Pres- 
 byters and to reward some others with double honour? ; to 
 regulate the supply of ministers to the Church by a careful 
 imposition of hands’; one such superior person or angel 
 having the superintendence in each local Church. * 
 
 We discover these same distinctions reappearing in the 
 short work of Hermas, which, whether the composition of 
 St. Paul’s friend or no, is certainly a work of the first 
 century : Apostles,sand Bishops, and Doctors, and Ministers 
 (Apostoli, et Episcopi, et Doctores, et Ministri*) being, 
 according to him, the several divisions of the hierarchy ; 
 Ministri an obvious translation of Ssaxovot; Doctores being 
 no less equivalent to Presbyteri, for Tertullian uses the same 
 word in this sense, “si Episcopus, si Diaconus . . . si Doctor 
 lapsus fuerit ;”° and Cyprian actually talks of Presbyteri 
 Doctores, explaining the one term by the other.’ 
 
 Clemens Romanus leads us to draw the same inference with 
 respect to the ranks of the clergy. He is enforcing on the 
 quarrelsome Church of Corinth greater subordination and 
 harmony. He intimates that it is God’s pleasure that 
 prayers should be offered at stated seasons, at stated places, 
 and by stated persons. “They, therefore, who make their 
 oblations,” he continues, “at the times appointed, are 
 accepted and blessed, for following the laws of the Lord they 
 err not. For to the chief Priest are assigned his proper 
 offices, and their proper part is assigned to the Priests, and 
 their proper services are imposed upon the Levites. The lay- 
 man is bound by the laws of the layman. Let each of you, 
 then, brethren, in his own order (é€v T@ id/@ Tayparte) give 
 thanks to God with a good conscience, not overstepping the 
 appointed rule of his ministration, in all gravity.”* What 
 could the illustration mean, when addressed to a Christian 
 congregation quarrelling about their pastors, but a parallel 
 between the Jewish and the Christian Priesthood? He then 
 proceeds to tell historically of the Apostles planting in 
 countries and cities the first fruits of their disciples as Bishops 
 
 P Acts’ xv, 2, 4. ® Tertullian, De Prescript. Heret. c. 
 qh Gunns Ae Ue Le i. 
 
 Taye ™ Cyprian, Ep. xxiv. See Bishop 
 4 Rey. ii. 1, 8, &e. Pearson’s Vind. Ignat. P. IT. c. xiii. 
 
 5 Hermas, Vis. IIT. § v. | §® Clem. Rom. Ep. I. §§ x1. xli, 
 
332 CLEMENS ROMANUS AND IGNATIUS _ [Serres I. 
 
 and Deacons’: the term Bishops, here synonymous with Pres- 
 byters, the Apostles yet being alive, and consequently the 
 terms Bishop and Presbyter being yet confounded ; the three 
 orders, Apostles, Bishops (7. e. Presbyters), and Deacons, cor- 
 responding to the High Priest, Priest, and Levite, of whom 
 Clemens has spoken just before ; as after the death of the 
 Apostles and the distinction established between the Bishop 
 and Presbyter, the Bishop, Priest, and Deacon were the 
 designations of the same. 
 
 The testimony of Ignatius on this subject is notorious. 
 I confess I have seen nothing yet in the revived controversy 
 on the genuineness of the ordinary copies of the Epistles of 
 Ignatius, which seems to me weighty enough to set aside the 
 verdict of Bishop Pearson—a verdict arrived at after an 
 investigation the most elaborate, and by one whose quali- 
 fications for such a task (as all parties, I suppose, would 
 allow) have never been approached by any theologian since 
 his time. Bishop Pearson, then, not only is satisfied with the 
 authority of the shorter Epistles, but further records his calm 
 opinion of them, by deliberately quoting from the Epistle to 
 the Trallians one of the most pointed passages in the whole 
 series in his Exposition of the Creed, when, to support his 
 assertion in the text, “As there is no Church where there is 
 no order, no ministry ; so where the same order and ministry 
 are, there is the same Church,’? he adduces in the notes the 
 saying of Ignatius, that “Without Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, 
 there cannot be said to be a Church’*’—a maxim which, 
 strange as it may sound in many ears, is repeated by Cyprian, 
 “Tf any one is not with the Bishop, he is not in the Church.” * 
 But even if we reduce Ignatius to the Syriac text recently 
 discovered (which, for aught that appears to the contrary, 
 might be just as well supposed to be an abridgment of the 
 three letters, for it gives no more, as the three letters them- 
 selves), even thus his testimony to the three Orders cannot be 
 stifled. ‘“ My life,” says he, even according to this reading 
 of the Epistle to Polycarp, “My life for those who are 
 obedient to the Bishop, the Priests, and the Deacons; may it 
 
 
 
 ‘Clem. Rom. Ep. I. § xlii. 4 Si quis cum episcopo non sit, in 
 
 2 ixposition of the Creed, p. 341, | Ecclesia non esse.—Cyprian, Ep. xix. 
 Lith adit. ; 8. 
 
 § Iguat. Wp. ad Tralliapos, § iii. 
 
 3 
 
Lect. VII.] TO A MINISTRY OF THREE ORDERS, 333 
 
 be mine to have my portion in God with them. Co-operate 
 with one another,” he then continues, “striving together, run 
 together, suffer together, repose together, watch together as the 
 stewards of God, the assessors, the ministers,” (otcovopos, 
 mapedpot, vmnperat,') these three terms evidently answering to 
 Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, each to each, and illustrat- 
 ing the difference understood to subsist among them in the 
 mind of the writer. What need is there of further witness 
 from him ? 
 
 We next come to Irenzus, a Father of the highest value, 
 from the light his writings cast on the state and structure of 
 the Primitive Church, though composed with no such inten- 
 tion, but simply in order to expose the wild and mischievous 
 features of heresies, most of them long since passed away. 
 Still, as these heresies violated the principles of the Church in 
 so many different ways, the reply to them naturally gives 
 occasion to the production and assertion of those principles ; 
 -and thus we obtain numerous glimpses of a Church, which 
 might otherwise have been lost to us. Now, in the first 
 place, it must be admitted that on several occasions where 
 Irenzeus is speaking in a loose and popular sense he uses the 
 terms Bishops and Priests indifferently, as we might ourselves 
 do at this day, when under the word Priesthood we might 
 include the Episcopate, and call in colloquial language a 
 Bishop, a Priest ; and correctly enough. Thus, in one passage 
 the expression “ cum episcopattis successione,’” appears to be 
 changed for “cum Presbyterii ordine,’ which occurs shortly 
 after.° Again, if we compare a paragraph in Book III. e. ii. 
 § 2, with another in ¢ i. § 1, we read in the former of the 
 tradition preserved in the Churches by a succession of Pres- 
 byters (quee per successiones Presbyterorum in ecclesiis custo- 
 ditur) ; in the latter “by Bishops ordained in the Churches 
 by the Apostles and their successors.”” And in a fragment of 
 an Epistle of Irenzeus to Florinus, Polycarp is designated as a 
 blessed and Apostolical Presbyter*; whereas the same Poly- 
 carp is designated in the work against heresies as “ Bishop of 
 the Church of Smyrna.”*® I cite these passages in pure 
 candour, for no man, I think, can peruse the pages of Irenzeus 
 
 1 Tenat. ad Polycarp, § vi. 4 Fragm. Il, p. 340, Bened. Ed. 
 2 Trenaus, IV. c. xxvi. § 2. STI. c. it. §74. 
 3 § 4, 
 
334 A MINISTRY OF THREE ORDERS (Serres IT, 
 
 at full, and have a doubt of the evidence he affords to the 
 fact of the Primitive Church being Episcopalian. Indeed, in 
 these very instances there is nothing, as I have already said, 
 to the contrary. For nobody disputes that in the Church 
 there is a succession of Priests as well as a succession of 
 Bishops, or that a Bishop may be properly called a blessed 
 and Apostolical Priest. Turn we, then, to other passages in 
 Irenzeus more precise and technical in their character. He 
 has occasion to challenge the heretics to test their tenets by 
 tradition ; by tradition properly guaranteed, beginning from 
 the Apostles and continued by the Bishops, the successors of 
 the Apostles, in all the Churches." He takes the instance of 
 the Church of Rome, and traces the succession of the Bishopric 
 in that see, using in every case the term éwicxomos. “They 
 conferred the ministration of the Bishopric on Linus, Ana- 
 cletus succeeds him, After him, in the third place from the 
 Apostles, Clemens receives the Bishopric . . . Evarestus 
 succeeds Clemens, and Alexander Evarestus. Then Xystus is 
 in the same manner appointed, being the sixth from the 
 Apostles. After him Telesphorus, who suffered a glorious 
 martyrdom. Then Hyginus; then Pius; after him Anicetus. 
 Soter succeeded Anicetus. And Eleutherus has at this 
 moment the office of the Bishopric, the twelfth im succession 
 from the Apostles.”’? One Bishop and one Bishop only at a 
 time, we perceive, recorded as presiding over the Church of 
 Rome during this whole period. Yet the Christians, we know 
 beyond all doubt, were already most numerous at Rome; 
 “multitudo ingens” is the expression by which Tacitus 
 designates them*; already requiring and receiving the services 
 of a large number of Presbyters. Indeed, Eusebius happens 
 to tell us, on the authority of a letter written by Cornelius 
 Bishop of Rome to Fabius Bishop of Antioch, not more than 
 sixty or seventy years later than the period we are upon, that 
 there were then at Rome forty-six Presbyters, seven Deacons, 
 and seven Sub-deacons, though still only one Bishop, viz. 
 Cornelius. Indeed, Cornelius, as thus reported, makes it a 
 matter of keen pleasantry that Novatus, of whose schismatical 
 proceedings at Rome he was writing to Fabius, whilst setting 
 himself up as he did for a champion of the Gospel, 6 é«Scanrns 
 
 ‘See also Tertullian, De Fuga in 2 Trenwus, III. c. iii. § 3, 
 Persecutione, § xiii. 3 Annal. XV. c. 44. 
 
Enc, VI] INTIMATED BY IRENAUS. 335 
 
 Tov evaryyediov,' or as Cyprian has it “assertor evangelii,”’? 
 did not, to be sure, know that there ought to be in a Catholic 
 Church but one Bishop ; Cornelius evidently thinking that for 
 a man to plume himself upon being evangelical or a scrupulous 
 assertor of the Gospel, and at the same time so far to forget 
 the Gospel as to imagine that there could be more than one 
 Bishop in one Church, is an extreme anomaly. Look again 
 at the character of the synod assembled by St. Paul at Miletus, 
 as understood by Irenzeus. “The Bishops,’ says he, “and 
 Presbyters who were of Ephesus, and of the other neighbour- 
 ing cities, having been called together.” * Yet the verse in 
 the Acts runs, “He sent to Ephesus and called the elders of 
 the Church.”* But in those other expressions in the same 
 chapter, ‘Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the 
 flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you over- 
 seers’ (€mioxomous),” and “I know that ye all, among whom 
 I have gone preaching the kingdom of God,’”’® Irenzeus evi- 
 dently read a convocation of the ruling clergy, not of Ephesus 
 only, but of all the towns about, both Bishops and Priests ; 
 those Bishops, for instance, of whom St. John tells in the 
 Revelation, the Bishop of Ephesus, the Bishop of Smyrna, the 
 Bishop of Philadelphia, the Bishop of Sardis, the Bishop of 
 Laodicea, the Bishop of Thyatira: or those of whom Ignatius 
 makes mention even according to the recital of the substance 
 of his Epistles in Eusebius, letting alone the Epistles them- 
 selves which we actually possess, the Bishop of Magnesia and 
 the Bishop of Tralles.’ Neither does Irenzeus supply testi- 
 mony for the existence of Bishops and Priests only, but of 
 Deacons too; though here again by the way ; for he tells us 
 of a Deacon of Asia, who had been reported to him as having 
 lost his wife through the intrigues of Marcus the heretic.*® 
 It is impossible that this sort of unobtrusive evidence for the 
 three Orders in the Primitive Church should thus escape from 
 these Fathers, one after another, without the fact being sub- 
 stantially true. 
 
 We next come to the evidence furnished on this question 
 
 1 ‘0 exduan tis oy TOU evayyeiou 3 Treneeus, IIT. c. xiv. § 2. 
 ovK nmiorato eva emioxoroy Sew eivar| 4 Acts xx. 17, 
 ev ka0odiky ékkAnolia. — Eusebius, Were, BASh 
 Eecles. Hist. vi. c. 43. Green cs 
 
 2 Novatus is called Novatianus by 7 Eusebius, Eccles. Hist, iii. c. 36. 
 Cyprian, Ep. xli. z 8 Treneeus, I. c. xiii. § 5. 
 
336 INCIDENTAL EVIDENCE OF THE SAME _ [Sentes Il. 
 
 by Clemens Alexandrius, a writer on the whole as little con- 
 cerned, from the nature and object of his works, with questions 
 purely ecclesiastical as any that can be named. It would not, 
 indeed, have been matter of surprise, if no passage in the 
 whole of them had occurred illustrating the subject before us : 
 and as it is, the passages are very few, and the information 
 communicated in a manner the most informal and oblique ; 
 indeed, in a manner evidently bespeaking that the author was 
 living in an Episcopal Church, and consequently had his 
 casual thoughts occasionally tinged by the subject, as they 
 might be by any other which was habitually present before 
 him, but nothing more. Thus the Predagogue (the title of 
 one of his treatises,) whose office is merely elementary and 
 practical, is represented, whilst conducting his children to 
 school, to deliver them into the hands of a more profound 
 master, as throwing out for their benefit a few of the precepts 
 of the Gospel, and with that contenting himself; his province 
 not extending further ; and though there are “maxims,” says 
 he, “in the sacred books, relating to particular persons, written, 
 some for Presbyters, others for Bishops, others for Deacons, 
 and others for widows,” yet he declines for his part engaging 
 with them, leaving the application of them to other hands.’ 
 It will be seen at once that Clemens, when he penned these 
 words, had no idea of proving to posterity that there were 
 three Orders in the Church ; it is not the point his mind was 
 adverting to; his object simply was to put into the mouth of 
 his Peedagogue a characteristic speech, namely, that he would 
 not meddle with matters which belonged rather to the head- 
 master’s task, to whom he was about to turn over his young 
 charge. At the same time, that when he used the terms 
 Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, he used them distinctively, as re- 
 presenting the several grades of the hierarchy, is evident both 
 from the turn of the passage itself, which asserts that the 
 Scriptures contained precepts calculated for the guidance of 
 different persons whose duties were different, each adapted to 
 each, ai pev (sc. vroOjKat) mperButépo.s, at Sé émicKdrots, 
 ai de Svaxcvous, as though each order had its own work; but 
 also the same inference follows from another passage not less 
 incidental in its tenour than this, but equally conclusive. It 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Padag. ILI. ¢. xii. p. 309. 
 
Lect. VII.] IN CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS. 337 
 
 occurs in the Stromata.' Clemens is inculcating what is his 
 ereat object in that treatise, the possibility of a progressive 
 advance of the Divine character amongst men, and he urges 
 in proof of this the example of the Apostles; “for the 
 Apostles,” says he, “were not chosen from any particular 
 coneruity of nature; for Judas was chosen with them; but 
 they were qualified to become Apostles, being chosen by Him 
 who could foresee events. Wherefore Matthias, who was not 
 chosen with them, having shown himself worthy of being an 
 Apostle, was substituted for Judas. So that it is still open for 
 those who exercise themselves in the Lord’s precepts, and live 
 according to the Gospel in perfection and knowledge, to be 
 numbered amongst the elect Apostles. That man is, in truth, 
 the Presbyter of the Church, and the real Deacon (or minister) 
 of the will of God, who does and teaches the commandments 
 of the Lord; himself not ordained of man, nor accounted 
 just, because he is a Presbyter, but numbered amongst the 
 Presbyters because he is just ; and though he should not be 
 honoured in this world with the primacy (apwroxabedpia), 
 yet will he sit among the four and twenty thrones, and judge 
 the people, as saith John in the Revelation.” And _ after- 
 wards there is added, “for the several grades of the Church 
 here of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, are imitations, I 
 imagine, of the glories of the angels; and they attain unto 
 that dispensation which the Scriptures say awaits those who 
 live according to the Gospel in the steps of the Apostles in 
 perfect righteousness.” The Apostle writes that these being 
 taken up into the clouds, shall first of all minister, or serve 
 the office of Deacon; then be numbered amongst the Pres- 
 bytery by an advance in glory, for glory differs from glory, 
 until they arrive at the perfect man.” Here, I repeat, as in 
 the former case, the information we obtain on the question 
 we are investigating, is altogether incidental. Clemens is not 
 engaging in a debate on Episcopacy, or evincing the slightest 
 intention of conveying to us any testimony whatever with 
 respect to it; but having occasion to enforce the duty of 
 going on unto perfection, he casually illustrates the stages of 
 
 1 Stromat. VI. § xii. p. 793. plas Tuyxavovow, iy dvapevew paciv 
 
 2 Eel cat ai éevtavOa xara thy | at ypapal rods Kar ixvos tay 
 exkAnolay TpoKorral, ETLTKOT OV, mpeo- dmooTéhov ev Tedeooer Sikacomvyns 
 
 Burépor, Siakdvey, Hipnpara, orpat, 
 ayyedukns dds, Kakelyns THs olKOVO- 
 
 A A > / / 
 kara TO evayyeAioy BeBioxdras. — 
 Ibid. 
 
 Z 
 
338 A MINISTRY OF THREE ORDERS (Sentrs IT. 
 
 which the Christian life admits by the grades the Christian 
 Church adopts in her ministry ; an image familiar to his own 
 mind, and familiar, as he felt, to those whom he was address- 
 ing; the very nature of his argument meanwhile requiring 
 that these grades should rise one above another ; and that as 
 the Priest was superior to the Deacon, so was the Bishop to the 
 Priest. 
 
 And here may be a proper place to remark, that we have 
 clear proof there is no arguing, that the Fathers confound the 
 Bishop and Presbyter, oe they occasionally include both 
 under the latter name ; for I look upon it as shown to a de- 
 monstration that Clemens drew a positive distinction between 
 the Bishop and Presbyter, and yet we shall find him in 
 another place, when descanting on the nature of the service 
 which the true Gnostic renders to God, dividing all service 
 into the emendatory and the ministerial, and having illus- 
 trated this division in some other ways, he goes on to say, 
 “in like manner with respect to the Church, the Presbyters 
 maintain the emendatory character, the Deacons the minis- 
 terial,’’ as though these were the only two orders in the 
 Church; whereas the truth evidently is, from what has 
 already transpired, that he must have included the Bishop in 
 the Presbyter. 
 
 The language of Tertullian, on this see is coincident 
 with that = every other Father we have adduced; but still 
 be it remembered, it is not the language of a man debating a 
 point, but of one touching on it im the course of the argument 
 he happens to have in hand, whatever it may be. And what- 
 ever obscurity there may have been thought to attach to this 
 whole question of Church government arises mainly from this, 
 that the Fathers are in no instance making it the express 
 topic of discussion. They are not, any of them, writing 
 treatises on Episcopacy. Even Ignatius himself is doing no 
 such thing as this ; but carried away from his diocese to suffer 
 death, leaving it in the meanwhile without a head, the duties 
 of his own office and position, and solicitude about a suc- 
 cessor trouble him, and naturally turn his thoughts to the more 
 immediate contemplation of the mutual relations of the Bishop 
 and clergy. Hence the fuller information his writings are 
 calculated to afford us on the structure of the Church. To 
 
 ' Stromat. VII. § i. p. 830. 
 
Lect. VII.] INTIMATED BY TERTULLIAN. 339 
 
 return, however, to Tertullian. In his “De Prescriptione 
 Hereticorum,” he is meeting the objection that some may pro- 
 bably be scandalized at seeing an example of defection from 
 the faith, even amongst confirmed Christians; but “what,” 
 says he, “if a Bishop, or a Deacon, or a widow, or a virgin, 
 or a Doctor (Presbyter), or even a martyr, should fall from 
 the rule, must heresies on that account be considered the 
 truth? Do we prove the faith from the man, or the man 
 from the faith?” * And again in the tract “De Fuga in Per- 
 secutione,’ in a passage, the purport of which corresponds 
 with that of this passage, he is maintaining the duty of stead- 
 fastness under persecution, and especially on the part of the 
 more distinguished members of the Church, “for when the 
 leaders themselves,” says he, “that is, the very Deacons, 
 Priests, and Bishops flee, how can the laity understand in 
 what sense it was said, Flee from city to city?”? His argu- 
 ment on both these occasions, it is perceived, requires him to 
 speak of persons who held conspicuous stations in the Church, 
 and accordingly his pen at once puts down Bishops, Doctors 
 or Presbyters, and Deacons, as of that number. What the 
 difference between them might be, he does not hint, as the 
 arguinent does not lead him to do so; but the very array of 
 the names suffices to show that he contemplated a difference. 
 This difference is yet more marked in another celebrated pas- 
 sage in the former tract, for it happens to constitute the force 
 of it, to which I have before had occasion to refer.2 He 
 is animadverting upon the prostration of all discipline, the 
 confusion of all order, which characterised the constitution 
 and proceedings of the heretics. “ Accordingly,’ says he, 
 “one is Bishop to-day, another to-morrow ; he is to-day a 
 Deacon, who is to-morrow a Reader ; to-day a Presbyter, who 
 is to-morrow a layman; for they assign priestly offices even 
 to laymen.” * The distinction of these offices, according to the 
 Church, is evidently represented as forming a strong contrast 
 with the confusion made in them by the heretics. Tertullian 
 does not labour, be it observed, to prove that such distinction 
 did subsist, but takes it for granted ; regards it as a point 
 on which there cannot be two opinions. But there is yet 
 
 1 Tertullian, De Prescript. Heret. ® Lecture VIII. First Series. 
 c. iii. * Tertullian, De Preescript. Heret. ec. 
 2 De Fuga in Persecutione, c. xi. xii. 
 
 Ro 
 
340 A MINISTRY OF THREE ORDERS (Series IT. 
 
 another passage in the same author which conveys to us the 
 clear impression on his mind, that the order of Bishop was su- 
 perior to the other orders of the clergy, as much as if he had 
 declared it in so many words, and had penned the paragraph 
 for no other purpose. Yet he had no such intention when he 
 wrote it, but simply that of accounting for the secession of Va- 
 lentinus, the founder of the sect which went by his name, from 
 the Church.' “ Valentinus,’’ says he, “ had expected a Bishopric 
 (Episcopatum), being a man of genius and eloquence, but in- 
 dignant that another, who had a martyr’s” (or rather con- 
 fessor’s) “prerogative to show, had obtained the office, he 
 broke away from the canonical Church, after the manner of 
 persons ambitious of precedence who are wont to seek revenge, 
 and set about assailing the truth” ; not to speak of the same 
 Father assigning to the Bishop potential rights peculiar to 
 him ; as, for instance, that of appointing to the order of 
 widows, and so assigning to the party a maintenance”; that 
 of enjoining public fasts on special occasions, and collections 
 of alms to be made at them.“ 
 
 And here, again, the remark which I threw out with respect 
 to the testimony of Clemens is equally pertinent, that it is 
 impossible to draw an argument against Episcopacy from the 
 Fathers expressing themselves from time to time on the sub- 
 ject of Church government in such language as does not ne- 
 cessarily imply it. For we have just seen that Tertullian 
 repeatedly distinguishes between the order and functions of 
 the Bishop and of the Priest ; yet we find him in the Apology, 
 when he was addressing heathens on whom these distinctions 
 would be lost, designating the leaders of the Church in the 
 general terms, “ president probati quique seniores,’* as 
 though the government might have been Presbyterian ; and 
 for the same reason we may have observed Justin Martyr 
 before him employing the comprehensive word 6 mpoeotas,° 
 for the ecclesiastic who administered the Christian rites; not 
 that he confounded Bishops and Priests, but that the cireum- 
 stances of the case did not induce him to be more specific in 
 the mention of them, 
 
 Turn we next to Origen, and still we have another testi- 
 
 ' Adversus Valentinianos, c, iy. * Apol. c. xxxix. 
 
 ? De Virginibus Velandis, ec. ix. 5 Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 67. 
 3 De Jejuniis, c. xiii, : 
 
Lecr. VIL.] INTIMATED BY ORIGEN. SAS 
 
 mony on the side of the three Orders, and of as incidental a 
 kind as that just cited from Tertullian ; leading us to the in- 
 ference, that, in his mind, the difference of: rank between the 
 Bishop and Priest was wide. It occurs in his treatise con- 
 cerning Prayer, and whilst he is engaged in explaining and 
 enlarging upon the Lord’s Prayer. Accordingly he approaches 
 in its turn the clause of that prayer, “and forgive us our debts 
 as we forgive our debtors,’ and having set forth various ways 
 in which we are all debtors to God and Christ, he adds, “then 
 besides these more Catholic parties, there is the debt of the 
 widow, which is provided for by the Church, and another of 
 the Deacon, and another of the Presbyter, and the heaviest 
 debt of all of the Bishop, a debt required by the Saviour of 
 the whole Church, and to be judicially exacted by him, unless 
 it be paid: ”' the magnitude of the debts of the Bishop 
 proportioned to the dignity, authority, and responsibility of his 
 office ; the latter, therefore, regarded by Origen as much sur- 
 passing, in these respects, that of the Presbyter, and of course 
 still more that of the Deacon. Again, Origen finds a difli- 
 culty in St. Paul’s injunction with respect to single marriage, 
 and suggests (for it is confessedly a speculation, a sort of ran- 
 dom thought thrown out till something better occurred to some 
 other interpreter of Scripture) whether this monogamy might 
 not have some symbolical meaning. But he introduces his 
 theory thus. “From what has been said, I am disposed to 
 turn my attention to the law respecting the writing of di- 
 vorcement, whether, since the Bishop, the Priest, and the 
 Deacon, are symbols of certain matters of faith in accordance 
 with those names, (Paul) might not mean that those parties 
 should be symbolically monogamists:”” the three orders ob- 
 viously presenting themselves to his mind spontaneously, as 
 expressing the ecclesiastical body to whom the precepts of the 
 Apostles appertained ; Origen, at the moment, never dreaming 
 of furnishing us with evidence on the question of Episcopaey. 
 
 : Xopls de TOUT@Y cabohixor epav ? "Ek O€ ray eipnuever els Tov mept 
 aT ov, €ore Tis xNHpas Tpovoouperns TOU By3diov TS dmooragias vdpov 
 wmo THs exkyo las oped, Kal érépa epiornpe, pntrore émel obpBorov €oTL 
 dtaxdvov, kat GAXn mpeoBurepov, kal kal 6 émioKomos, kal 6 mpeaBvrepos, 
 emurkOTrou be deperdy Bapurary est kal 6 didkovos ad\nOwav kata Ta ove- 
 dmrauroupevn v7 rob THs OAs ek pata Tava mpaypatev, €BovAnén 
 aias oeripos Kat exduxoupern ef py adtod’s oupBoiKk@s povoyduous KaTa- 
 amrodwW@tat.— Origen, De Oratione, § 28, oTHoat, k.r.A.— Comment. in Matt. 
 vol. 1. p. 253. tom, xiy. vol, iii, p. 646. 
 
342 TESTIMONY OF CYPRIAN; (Serres II. 
 
 The Father we come next to in order—for I am showing 
 that I spoke accurately when I said in the beginning of this 
 Lecture, that the question rested upon no narrow basis, but 
 was supported by the universal testimony of the Primitive 
 Church—is Cyprian. The light he throws upon the subject 
 of Episcopacy is very great. Many controversies had by his 
 time risen in the Church, which called forth Episcopal inter- 
 ference, and thus became the means of conveying to us an ample 
 knowledge of the Episcopal character and functions of those 
 times. The treatment of the lapsed, the recommendations (or 
 libelli) of the confessors, Baptism by heretics, and a variety of 
 other debatable points both ecclesiastical and theological, in 
 which Cyprian is consulted, serve to develope the construction 
 of the Church of his day, almost as fully as an explicit treatise 
 would have done; more especially as a persecution had with- 
 drawn the Bishop for some interval from his Diocese, and 
 consequently had given occasion to much intercourse by letter 
 between Cyprian and his Church, a correspondence which is 
 still preserved. It would be tedious to produce the numberless 
 passages in which this Father refers to the three Orders. He 
 writes to the Priests and Deacons of Rome on the event of 
 their Bishop’s death.’ He repeatedly addresses as their 
 Bishop the Priests and Deacons of his own Church during his 
 temporary absence from them, and urges on them various 
 duties.” We gather from his Epistles, that a Bishop was in a 
 position to command the Priests and Deacons, to reprove, to 
 admonish them, to proceed against the refractory, to provide 
 against irregularities in the Church of all kinds’ ; to administer 
 the Church in many matters according to his own discretion.‘ 
 We perceive from them that in the vacancy of a see many eccle- 
 siastical affairs were suspended till the appointment of a suc- 
 cessor °; that for Presbyters to act on their own account and 
 without reference to their Bishop was a thing unprecedented ° : 
 above all, that it was his prerogative to ordain; and _ that 
 with a view to this he examined the qualifications of the 
 
 ' Cyprian, Ep. iii. j qui de presbyteris, nec evangelii nec loci 
 2 Epp. iv. v. xvii. sui memores, sed neque futurum Do- 
 * His literis et hortor et mando.—Ep. | mini judicium neque nunc sibi prepo- 
 v. § 2. Epp. ix. xxviii. lxv. situm episcopum cogitantes, quod nun- 
 + Ep. lxxii. quam omnino sub antecessoribus factum 
 5 Ep. xxxi. § 5. est, cum contumelia et contemptu pre- 
 
 ® Quod enim non periculum metuere | positi totum sibi vindicent—Ep. ix. § 1. 
 debemus de offensd Domini quando ali- 
 
Lecr. VII.] AND OF THE EARLY HERETICS. 343 
 
 candidates'; consulted the clergy and even the people upon 
 them’; yet was competent to ordain of his own knowledge 
 without this appeal, when the merits of the candidate were 
 conspicuous.? 
 
 Moreover, it would appear, which is a distinct and very 
 powerful argument on the side of the Episcopal being the 
 primitive form of Church government, that the primitive here- 
 tics themselves, dissatisfied after all with the position they had 
 chosen, affected a similar hierarchy of their own; thus in spite 
 of themselves offering a testimony to the stringency of that 
 institution, and the obligation there was upon all Christians to 
 abide by it; and adopting the names of the several orders of 
 clergy in the Church, they exposed themselves to the censure 
 of the Church Catholic, which uniformly affirmed that to make 
 those names of value, they must represent a clergy who had 
 derived their authority by uninterrupted succession from the 
 Apostles; and that wanting that, they wanted everything 
 which constituted the call.* 
 
 In conclusion, I would once more draw the attention of my 
 hearers to the nature of the evidence for the three Orders and an 
 Episcopal Church, which has been submitted to them, because I 
 think the character of it gives it a weight of its own. None of 
 the Fathers, it will be observed, wrote expressly on the sub- 
 ject of Episcopacy ; I mean as controversialists, or with a view 
 to determine a debatable question. They none of them ap- 
 peal, as we should now do, in discussing this point, to texts 
 in the Epistles to Timothy or Titus, or to other texts else- 
 where of a similar import, construing them in this way or 
 that, in order to support their side of the argument, whichever 
 it might be. They afford no tokens of having any misgivings 
 in their mind upon the question; and consequently the evi- 
 dence which they furnish upon it, is simply that which 
 escapes from them when they are handling other matters, or 
 matters bearing more or less upon the principles of Church 
 government. I do not remember any passage which would 
 
 ! Cyprian, Ep. xxiv. charissimi, solemus vos ante consulere, 
 
 2 Quod et ipsum videmus de divina | et mores ac merita singulorum com- 
 auctoritate descendere, ut sacerdos plebe | muni consilio ponderare. Sed expec- 
 presente sub omnium oculis deligatur et | tanda non sunt testimonia humana cum 
 dignus atque idoneus publico judicio ac | precedunt divina suffragia—Ep. xxxiii. 
 testimonio comprobetur.—Ep. Ixyviii. § 4. 4 See, e.g. Ireneus, V. c. xx. § 1. Ter- 
 
 3 In ordinationibus clericis, fratres | tullian, De Preseript. Heret. c. xxxii. 
 
344 NATURE AND VARIETY OF THE EVIDENCE. [Semes Il. 
 
 seem to militate against this opinion, unless it be one in 
 Clemens Romanus, and this only seems to do so. “So 
 likewise our Apostles knew by our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 contentions would arise on account of the overseership or 
 episcopacy (éwt ToD ovepatos ths éemicxorys). For which 
 reason, having perfect foreknowledge, they appointed persons 
 such as we have before said, and then gave directions how, 
 when they should die, other chosen and appointed men should 
 succeed to their ministry ;”' that is, not that there would be 
 debates about the term ’Esioxozos and its meaning, but that 
 there would be strifes about who should have the pre-eminence 
 in the Church: to prevent which the Apostles laid down a 
 rule of ecclesiastical succession, which should obviate the in- 
 convenience. Accordingly, it is the incidental manner in 
 which we have to possess ourselves of such testimony as the 
 Fathers bear to an Episcopal Church, which produces what- 
 ever defect there may be, or may be supposed to be, in its 
 clearness. But on the other hand, in proportion as this cir- 
 cumstance may deduct from its precision, it augments its value; 
 for it is supplied without any reference to serving a cause, or 
 maintaining a party; and if after all it proves, as I cannot 
 help thinking it does, conclusive of the question of an Epis- 
 copate, it is so in a very abundant degree. 
 
 In the next place, I would direct consideration to the 
 great variety of quarters from which this evidence is drawn. 
 It speaks to the structure not of one local Church, but of 
 Churches the most unconnected and remote, of those in 
 France, in Italy, in Greece, in Asia Minor, in Egypt, in 
 Mauritania; in short, in almost all the countries on the 
 borders of the Mediterranean, the choicest and earliest of 
 Christendom ;. and it is furnished by men of all tempera- 
 ments, sober and impassioned, philosophical and visionary ; 
 in works of various kinds ; in Apologies, in letters, in specu- 
 lative treatises, in controversial ones; by men who lived one 
 or other of them from the age of the Apostles to nearly that 
 of Constantine ; the only period during which the question of 
 Kpiscopacy could admit of any doubt or debate whatever. 
 
 And thus, I finally think we may adopt towards the Dis- 
 senters the language which Hooker addressed to the learned 
 among the Puritans, and say, “A very strange thing sure it 
 
 "Clem, Rom. Ep. I. § xliy. 
 
Lect. VII.] CONCLUSION IN THE WORDS OF HOOKER. 345 
 
 were, that such a discipline as ye speak of should be taught 
 by Christ and his Apostles in the Word of God, and no 
 Church ever have found it out, nor received it till this present 
 time ; contrariwise, the government against which ye bend 
 yourselves be observed everywhere throughout all generations 
 and ages of the Christian world, no Church ever perceiving the 
 Word of God to be against it. We require you to find out 
 but one Church upon the face of the whole earth, that hath 
 been ordered by your discipline, or hath not been ordered by 
 ours, that is to say, by episcopal regiment, sithence the time 
 that the blessed Apostles were here conversant.”? 
 
 1 Hooker’s Eccles. Pol. Pref. ch. iy. § 1, vol. i. p. 193, Keble’s Ed. 
 
346 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS TO (Series II, 
 
 LECTURE VIII.* 
 
 Use of the Fathers in settling the Canon of the New Testament. Appeal to them 
 in the sixth Article. Method of establishing the Canon stated by Jones. 
 [llustration of this method with reference to the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, 
 the Revelation. Discussion of questions, whether the autographs of the 
 Apostles existed in the time of Tertullian; whether any Epistle of St. Paul to 
 the Corinthians is missing; whether the Epistle to the Ephesians is rightly 
 so entitled; whether St. Paul was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 Use of the Fathers in proving that the substance of the Canonical books, the 
 beginnings and endings of the Gospels, the incidents of our Lord’s ministry, 
 the circumstances recorded in the Acts, the tenour of the Epistles, were the 
 same in their times as they are now. 
 
 staal next subject on which the use of the Fathers will 
 discover itself—a subject indeed which may still be ranged 
 under the head of Evidences, if we take that term in an 
 extended sense—is the Canon, the substance, the text, and 
 the meaning, of Scripture. On these points the writings 
 of the Fathers will be found to give us most invaluable 
 information. 
 
 I can only undertake to call your attention to a question 
 so prolific; a question, which in itself and alone would require 
 volumes to exhaust. But far less than this will suffice to 
 convince you, that these most important topics cannot be 
 investigated fully, and some of them scarcely at all, without 
 the help of the Fathers. 
 
 Thus, with respect to the Canon, our sixth Article chal- 
 lenges an examination of early ecclesiastical authors for the 
 purpose of establishing it. “In the name of the holy Serip- 
 ture we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and 
 New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in 
 the Church,’ is its language. Our Church, therefore, directs 
 
 * I might here have introduced a Lecture on the use of the Fathers as minis- 
 tering to our knowledge of our Liturgy and showing that the foundations of our 
 Prayer Book were laid in Apostolic and Sub-Apostolic times; but as Ldid this at 
 length in my Lectures on the Prayer Book, and shall do it again when I repeat 
 that course, I shall proceed to another topic. 
 
Lect. VIII.) THE AUTHORITY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS, 347 
 
 or at least encourages us to acquaint ourselves with ecclesias- 
 tical antiquity, in order to see what Scriptures were received 
 from the earliest times without hesitation, and what were 
 rejected ; and so to satisfy ourselves of her own catalogue. 
 And Mr. Jeremiah Jones, who discusses this question with great 
 learning and ability, sets out with this proposition; that “the 
 principal means whereby we can know whether any books be 
 canonical is by tradition; or the well-approved testimonies 
 of those who lived in or near the time of their being first 
 written.” } 
 
 Thus amidst the number of Gospels which swarmed in the 
 first ages, many-of them apparently as early as St. Luke 
 himself, who alludes to them in the Preface to his own Gospel, 
 we learn from ecclesiastical antiquity, there were four, and 
 four only, canonical; and those four we further learn, as I 
 shall presently show, were the same we now possess. You 
 are, no doubt, aware of the remarkable testimony to this 
 effect, of Irenzeus; who maintains that as there are four 
 cardinal points, and as the Church is dispersed over the whole 
 earth, there must be four pillars to support it; and that, 
 therefore, the Word gave four Gospels. The theory, to be 
 sure, is puerile, but the fact is conclusive; as may be the 
 reason assigned by the same author for the omission of the 
 tribe of Dan from the number of the sealed—viz. that Anti- 
 christ was to come of that tribe—still the testimony is 
 complete, that in the time of Irenzeus the text of the Revela- 
 tion in this instance was what it now is.* And Clemens 
 Alexandrinus in a paragraph, which I brought before you on 
 a former occasion, confirms the statement of Irenzeus ; and in 
 a manner no less incidental ; for having cause to reply to a 
 passage in a document which professed to report a saying of 
 our Lord, Clemens observes, “in the first place we do not find 
 this saying in our four Gospels ;’* as though no others were 
 of authority. 
 
 The same Irenzeus clearly announces the Acts of the Apostles 
 as a canonical book ; assigns it to St. Luke’; quotes it largely 
 as furnishing the sentiments of the Apostles, to the confusion 
 of those of his heretical antagonists, and to the support of 
 
 ' Jones on the Canon, Part I. ch. vii. | SeSopevors jyiv rérrapow evayyedious 
 ? Treneus, III. c. xi. § 8. ovK €xopevy TO pytdv.— Clem. Alex. 
 DIVE Gs SR See Stromat. III. § xiii. p. 553. 
 
 4 TIp@rov pev ody ev tots mapa-' °* Ireneus, III. ¢, xiv. § 1. 
 
$48 THE ACTS, AND THE EPISTLES. (Sentes IT. 
 
 his own.! He speaks of the Epistles of Paul as among the 
 Scriptures ; objecting to the heretics the mutilation of these 
 Epistles, as the mutilation of the Scriptures.? He ascribes 
 the Epistle to the Romans to St. Paul*; both the Epistles to 
 the Corinthians to the same author*; the Epistle to the 
 Galatians *; the Epistle to the Ephesians®; the Epistle to the 
 Philippians’; the Epistle to the Colossians*; still to the 
 same. The first Epistle to the Thessalonians he quotes more 
 than once, and introduces the quotation by the phrase “ the 
 Apostle in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians ;” doubtless 
 meaning St. Paul by the Apostle, though in these cases not 
 happening to name him, as would probablysbe our own way 
 of reference to that Scripture.” The second Epistle to the 
 Thessalonians, however, which he quotes yet more frequently, 
 he actually assigns to St. Paul; and by calling it the second 
 Epistle, which he does, proves that he knew the first to be by 
 the same hand.’ The first Epistle to Timothy he cites, as in 
 the last case, under the general designation of the Apostle’s.” 
 The second Epistle also as in the last case he cites, giving it 
 to St. Paul as its author”; and in one passage comprises the 
 two under the term év tats mpos TyoOeov erictonais.” The 
 Epistle to Titus he refers to as St. Paul’s."* To the Epistle to 
 Philemon he has no allusion, the only Epistle of St. Paul of 
 which this can be predicated: but the extreme brevity of 
 that Epistle, and its unfitness for controversial purposes, which 
 were those of Irenzeus, may very well account for the omission. 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews he appeals to, but without hap- 
 pening to name either its title or its author’; though in 
 another of his works entitled wept diare£ewv Svadopwr, “con- 
 cerning different dissertations,’ now lost, Eusebius tells us he 
 did make positive mention of the Epistle to the Hebrews." 
 The Epistle of St. James he also quotes from; but, as in the 
 last instance, neither names the title nor the writer.” The 
 commentators, indeed, assign but one reference to this Epistle ; 
 
 1 Trenseus, III. c. xii. §§ 1, 2, 3. 8 Compare V. c. xiv. § 2; L. ¢. iii. § 4. 
 
 “"TL, es 2xils Se UU VaRGnVicasile . 
 
 Si Cex Reese LVenG. kxxIY. § 2. 10 TIT. c. vii. Compare §§ 1, 2. 
 
 A Tic. wis Sep onevie ss 1: V,.c. YT, Pref. § 1:i lV... sie 6a 
 xiii. Compare § 1 and § 3; and com. | '2 TTT. e.xiv. § 1. 13 TU can. Soe 
 pare IV. c. xxviii. § 3. MS rcs xvie§. Sigel ering 
 
 5 TIL. c. vii. §§ 1, 2. IS TT. ic. xxx. 599) Tee. eversibe 
 
 6 T. c. viii. § 4. | '8 Rusebius, Eccles. Hist. v. c. 26. 
 
 7 V.c. xiii, Compare § 2 and gg 3, 4. | 7 Treneeus, IV. c. xvi. § 2 
 
 ~e 
 
Lecr. VIII.] THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON REFERRED TO 349 
 
 I think, however, there is clearly a second.’ The first Epistle 
 of St. Peter he produces, and gives it to that Apostle?; and 
 adopts a phrase from the second Epistle without saying from 
 whence he took it. The first and second Epistles of St. 
 John he cites, assigning them to that Apostle.* To the third 
 Epistle he has no allusion ; probably for the same reason as he 
 has none to the Epistle to Philemon: nor yet to the Epistle 
 of St. Jude. The book of the Revelation he uses very largely, 
 and as the writing of St. John.’ 
 
 Only observe, therefore, of how great value is even this 
 single Father in assuring our minds with respect to the 
 Canon, the groundwork of everything °; who, without the 
 most remote intention of conveying to us any information 
 on this most important matter, and merely quoting such 
 Seriptures as happened to be of use to his argument, actually 
 bears testimony, and in most of the cases very abundant 
 testimony, to every book of the New Testament included in 
 our Canon, except the Epistle to Philemon, the third Epistle 
 of St. John, and the Epistle of St. Jude; all of which 
 would not occupy more than a couple of octavo pages ; and 
 for which, short as they are, similar testimony may be ga- 
 thered from other quarters, but those quarters still the 
 Fathers. 
 
 Thus a phrase in Theophilus, and a very remarkable 
 phrase, bears every appearance of having been borrowed 
 from one in the Epistle to Philemon; though I do not 
 perceive any notice taken of it by the Editors of Theophilus. 
 “You object to me,’ says he to Autolycus, “the name of 
 Christian, as though it were a bad name to bear. But I 
 confess myself a Christian, and I bear that name which is 
 beloved of God, for I hope to be acceptable to God (evypnatos 
 T@ Mew). For it cannot be, as you suppose, that the name 
 of God should be an evil. But, perhaps, you think as you 
 do concerning God, being yourself unacceptable to God” 
 (aypnotos T® Oew'). The play of the words is exactly the 
 
 1Treneus, I. c. iv. § 4. Compare | pare 2 Pet. i. 19. 
 
 James iii. 11. 
 MING (G, ibe, 1 PE 
 3 V. c. xxiii. § 2. As it may be ob- 
 served, by the way, Theophilus does 
 also, Ad Autolyeum, II. § 13. Todro 
 éotw 6 Adyos avitov, paivev aomrep 
 AUxvos ev oixnpate TUVEXopEv@.—Com- 
 
 
 
 4 TO. ¢. xvi § 55 Uo: xvi. '§ Sis Lu 
 c. Xvi. § 8. 
 
 OTL Vier Ciexe snl 
 
 ® Hooker’s Eecles. Pol. ITT. e. viii. §§ 
 13, 14. 
 
 7 Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, I. § 1. 
 
350 BY THEOPHILUS AND TERTULLIAN.  [Senies II. 
 
 same as in the 11th verse of the Epistle to Philemon. “I 
 beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in 
 my bonds, which in time past was to thee unprofitable (rév 
 more cot axpnotov) but now profitable to thee and to me” 
 (vuvt S¢ cor kat ewot evypnorov). Tertullian, however, fur- 
 nishes still clearer evidence to this book of Scripture, short 
 and domestic as it is. For when making himself merry with 
 the absurdities of the Valentinians, he supposes that at the 
 final consummation one of their choice partisans, Marcus or 
 Caius, by a spiritual conjunction with the angels (according to 
 the Valentinian theory) may chance to bring forth an Onesi- 
 mus!; in evident allusion to St. Paul’s phrase with respect to 
 him which he uses to Philemon, that he had “ begotten Onesimus 
 in his bonds.’’? Moreover, there is the strongest reason for 
 believing that some words, which made mention of the Epistle 
 to Philemon, have dropped out of the text of this same author 
 in the conclusion of his fifth book against Marcion*; the para- 
 graph immediately following such lacuna being this, “The 
 brevity of this Epistle alone” (no Epistle having been pre- 
 viously named as the text now stands) “has saved it from the 
 mutilating hands of Marcion. Yet I wonder, when he admits 
 a letter addressed to one individual, why he should reject two 
 addressed to Timothy, and one to Titus, all composed on the 
 state of the Church. But he affected, I presume, to innovate 
 as to the number of the Epistles.” It is difficult to under- 
 stand this paragraph in any other way, than as containing a 
 reference to the Epistle to Philemon: for it is clearly a re- 
 ference to some brief Epistle of St. Paul addressed to an 
 individual, and that individual neither Timothy, nor Titus ; 
 of which Epistle mention had been previously made, which 
 mention, therefore, must have escaped from the text. It is 
 to our present purpose also to observe, that the expression, 
 “but he affected, I presume, to innovate as to the number of 
 the Epistles,” in this passage of Tertullian, clearly shows that 
 the number of the Canonical Epistles of St. Paul was fixed 
 and notorious when Tertullian wrote ; for he intimates, we 
 see, that as Marcion was in other respects a mutilator of 
 Scripture, so might he be disposed to have an opinion of his 
 
 ' Tertullian, Ady. Valentinianos, c. * Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem, V. ce. 
 XXXil. XXi. 
 * Philemon, 10. 
 
Lecr, VIIT.] WHETHER THE AUTOGRAPH OF ST. PAUL oom 
 
 own, and contrary to that commonly entertained, on the 
 Canon of that Apostle’s Epistles. 
 
 But to proceed ; I doubt whether any reference, unques- 
 tionably such, can be found to the third Epistle of St. John 
 in any Ante-Nicene Father. For the phrase, eipyvn cor, 
 “Peace be to thee,” which occurs, and apparently as a quo- 
 tation, in Clemens Alexandrinus,' and is by some supposed to 
 be taken from the 14th verse of the third Epistle of St. John, 
 is so short and so trivial a one, that it may be disputed 
 whether it bears out the reference. Clemens, however, cer- 
 tainly speaks of what John says “in his greater Epistle,” * thus 
 implying that there was another, or others: and Origen (who 
 by the way speaks of the Scriptures of the Old and the New 
 Testament in the familiar phrase of our own day,’ and pro- 
 nounces the inspiration of the one as emphatically as of the 
 other,*) in Eusebius expressly makes mention of the third.’ 
 The Epistle of St. Jude is quoted abundantly and under the 
 name of the author both by Clemens,® and Tertullian.’ 
 
 This may suffice to show the manner in which the Fathers 
 may be made tributary to establishing the Canon of Scripture: 
 I say the manner, for I have done little more than take the 
 case of one of them for an example. It could not, indeed, be 
 otherwise. The Fathers were living (those at least whom I 
 am particularly contemplating), whilst the Canon was in the 
 act of formation—witnesses, perhaps agents in the process. 
 The hand-writing of St. Paul, for instance, was probably still 
 known and preserved. He had himself expressly drawn 
 attention to it, as a pledge of the authenticity of the docu- 
 ments that presented it. “The salutation of Paul,” says he 
 in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians,® “ with mine own 
 hand (77 €uy xeept), which is the token (onpevov) in every 
 Epistle ”—a notice, it may be observed, which when dropped 
 in this place supplies an undesigned coincidence ; for in an 
 earlier part of the same Epistle St. Paul had been cautioning 
 the Thessalonians against a fictitious letter circulated as from 
 him.’ This familiar signature then authenticated the Epistles 
 
 
 
 1 Peedag. II. ¢. vii. p. 2038. + Busebius, Eccles. Hist. vi. ¢. 25. 
 
 2°’Ey rH peitove émuotoAy.—Stro| © Clem. Alex. Peedag. III. c. viii. p. 
 mat. IT. § xv. p. 464. 280; Stromat. IIT. § i. p. 515. 
 
 3 Origen, De Principiis, TIT. ¢. i. § 7 Tertullian, De Cultu Foeminarum, 
 LG DVS ale | T. cs iia: 
 
 4 De Principiis, IV. §§ 9, 10. | 82 Thess. iii. 17. LIT Be 
 
352 EXISTED IN THE TIME OF TERTULLIAN. [Senies I. 
 at the first; and whether the original manuscripts had sur- 
 vived to the times of the Fathers, or not, the traditional 
 value of it must have reached them. But many understand 
 the expression of Tertullian, when speaking of the Epistles 
 which subsisted in the Apostolical Churches to which they 
 were severally addressed, “ipsee authenticee litterae,” of the 
 autographs of the Apostles. Dodwell so understood it ; and 
 is evidently under the impression that no other sense could 
 be put on it.? Bishop Kaye, however, leans to the notion 
 that nothing more was here meant than the genuine unadul- 
 terated Epistles’; and he produces a passage from the “ De 
 Monogamia”’* of Tertullian, where the term “in Graco au- 
 thentico” simply means in the original Greek, as contradis- 
 tinguished from a translation ; and other passages in the same 
 author where “originalia instrumenta Christi,” “originale 
 instrumentum Moysi’’’ merely signify the Gospels and the 
 Pentateuch, as they were originally written, not the auto- 
 Still Bishop Kaye may be thought not to have 
 
 3 
 
 graphs. 
 taken sufficiently into account the force of the word “ ipsze’ 
 in the paragraph in question, for the emphasis does not rest on 
 the word “authentic ” altogether—“ipse authentic litterze ” 
 certainly seeming to point to something more than correct 
 copies—and undoubtedly in Cyprian, whose Latin bears re- 
 semblance to Tertullian’s, and who, as we learn from Jerome, 
 was a constant reader of him,° I’ have met with a passage 
 where the term “authentica epistola” is used to express the 
 autograph of the writer. Cyprian is replying to the Presby- 
 ters and Deacons of Rome who had sent him a letter inform- 
 ing him of the death of the Bishop of Rome. “TI have read 
 also other letters,” says he, not, however, clearly expressing 
 who wrote them or to whoin they are written. ‘“ And since 
 in these same letters” (7. e. both that which he had received 
 from the Priests and Deacons, and these which had reached 
 him from other quarters) “ both the writing, the sense, and the 
 
 1 Percurre ecclesias apostolicas, apud 
 quas ips adhue cathedree Apostolorum 
 suis locis president; apud quas ips 
 authentice litteree eorum recitantur, so- 
 nantes vocem et representantes faciem 
 unius cujusque.—De Preescript. Heret. 
 C. XXxvi. 
 
 * Dissert. in Ireneum, I. § xli. p. 74. 
 
 3 Bishop Kaye on Tertullian, p. 293, | 
 
 
 
 3rd Ed.; Porson’s Letters to Travis, 
 pp. 276-7. See some remarks on the 
 same side in Hug’s Introduction, vol. i. 
 p. 105, in Mr. Wait’s translation. 
 
 ‘ Tertullian, De Monogamia, ec. xi. 
 
 5 De Carne Christi, ¢c. ii.; Ady. Her- 
 mogenem, ¢. xix. 
 
 § See Porson’s Letters to Travis, pp. 
 262-3. 
 
Lror. VITI.] WHETHER ANY EPISTLE IS MISSING. ooo 
 
 very paper have made me anxious to ascertain that nothing has 
 been added to the truth, or diminished therefrom, I have sent 
 back the same original letter (eandem authenticam epistolam) 
 to you, that you may know whether it is that very one which 
 you gave to Crementius the Subdeacon to bear. For it is a 
 very grave matter, if the truth of a clerical epistle be corrupted 
 by any lie or fraud. In order, therefore, to satisfy us, see 
 whether the writing and subscription be yours, and write us 
 word back what is the fact.”' The meaning of the term 
 “authentica” therefore here is indisputable; and therefore 
 there is nothing in the Latin of Tertullian which should deter 
 us from understanding that the autographs of the Apostles 
 were preserved in the Apostolic Churches in the days of Ter- 
 tullian. And though the establishment of this fact is not 
 necessary in order to give the testimony of the Fathers to the 
 construction of the Canon authority and weight ; for under 
 any circumstances their date would give it them, if nothing 
 else ; still it is not to be denied, that such testimony would 
 derive additional importance from any opportunity they might 
 have of examining the manuscripts of the Apostles, or of con- 
 ferring with others who had examined them. 
 
 Nor is this all. There are many difficulties and doubts 
 which arise* collaterally out of the subject of the Canon of 
 Scripture, which are still to be resolved in a great measure by 
 the same means, an appeal to the primitive Fathers. 
 
 For instance, it has been contended from an expression 
 which occurs in 1 Cor. v. 9. “1 wrote unto you in an epistle” 
 (such is our translation, éypawa viv év TH éervotody, in the 
 Greek), that an Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians must 
 have been lost, and that to this lost Epistle it is that refer- 
 ence is here made. Bishop Middleton, however, contends 
 that the translation should be, “I write unto you in my 
 epistle,” 7.¢. in the Epistle then under his hand; and that 
 there is no allusion in the passage to any other Epistle. For 
 this rendering he gives grammatical and philological reasons, 
 and these are confirmed and supported by Professor Schole- 
 field. But independently of these, how strong is the external 
 evidence, even if we rest that evidence on Irenzeus alone, that 
 
 1 Cyprian, Ep. iii. ® Hints for an Improved Translation, 
 2 On the Greek Article, note on 1 | p. 56. 
 Cor. v. 9. 
 
354 WUHETUER THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS [Sentes II. 
 
 no Epistle of St. Paul’s to the Corinthians can be missing ! 
 For it is scarcely possible to imagine that he should have 
 quoted the first and second Epistles to the Corinthians so 
 largely as he does, and yet should not have made the slightest 
 reference to another of his Epistles, written to the saine 
 Church, prior to these, had any existed in his time, or at 
 least had he ever heard of any other; especially as he lays 
 under contribution every other Epistle to a Church according 
 to our Canon, which St. Paul wrote, as well as the two to the 
 Corinthians. 
 
 Again, it is well known that another question has been 
 agitated relating to one of the Epistles of St. Paul, viz. 
 whether the Epistle to the Ephesians is properly so entitled 
 —whether the Epistle which we call that to the Ephesians is 
 not in fact an Epistle to the Laodiceans ; the same to which 
 allusion is made in Col. iv. 16, “Cause .... that ye like- 
 wise read the epistle from Laodicea;” as if St. Paul had 
 said, “Cause the epistle, which I sent to Laodicea with direc- 
 tions that it should be forwarded to Colossz, to be read in 
 your congregation at Colosse.” But it is plain that Irenzeus 
 has no such understanding of the passage; but only knows of 
 an Epistle to the Ephesians, whilst his quotations from ‘it 
 plainly identify it with our own of the same title. Still less 
 does he afford any ground for the notion that a distinct 
 Epistle to the Laodiceans ever existed, which has since disap- 
 peared. For copious as are his extracts from the various 
 writings of St. Paul, his very plan, as I shall show presently, 
 leading him to overlook none of them, there is not one that is 
 not to be found in our present copies of them. And in 
 - another of the Fathers, Tertullian, we have more than ne- 
 gative evidence upon this question ; for in his treatise against 
 Marcion, in the fifth book of it," in which he is refuting that 
 heretic out of the Epistles of St. Paul, on arriving at the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians, he observes, “We now come to yet 
 another Epistle, which we entitle the Epistle to the Ephe- 
 sians, but the heretics entitled it, to the Laodiceans.” And 
 he afterwards adds,’ that it was Marcion’s pleasure to change 
 the title of this Epistle, as a proof of his own profound in- 
 
 ! Adv. Marcionem, V. c. Xi. tulum aliquando interpolare  gestiit, 
 * Eeclesiw quidem yeritate epistolam | quasi et in isto diligentissimus ex- 
 istam ad Ephesios habemus emissam, | plorator,—c, xvii. 
 non ad Laodicenos; sed Marcion ei ti- 
 
Leer. VIII.) IS PROPERLY SO ENTITLED. 3995 
 
 vestigation of the subject. With respect to the text, there 
 fore, in the Epistle to the Colossians, which gave occasion to 
 the doubt we are now discussing, we may be disposed to con- 
 clude with Bishop Middleton,’ that nothing is more probable 
 than Macknight’s conjecture, viz. that the Apostle sent the 
 Ephesians word by Tychicus, who carried their letter, to send 
 a copy of it to the Laodiceans, with an order to them to com- 
 municate it to the Colossians. “This hypothesis,” continues 
 the Bishop, “ will account for the want of those marks of per- 
 sonal acquaintance which the Apostle’s former residence at 
 Ephesus might lead us to expect; for everything local would 
 be purposely omitted in an Epistle which had a further desti- 
 nation’’—a difficulty which had induced Dr. Paley, in his 
 “ Horse Pauline,” to adopt the theory of our Epistle to the 
 Ephesians being, in fact, the Epistle to the Laodiceans. So 
 important is the testimony of a Father in such a controversy 
 as this about the Canon. 
 
 I do not say that questions of this kind, arising out of the 
 Canon, can always be settled by the simple authority of the 
 Fathers ; but I do say that by rejecting all help from that 
 quarter, we are depriving ourselves of one very important 
 means of settling them. 
 
 Again, we are all aware that the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 has been a very fruitful subject of controversy ; who was its 
 author, and what its authority? No doubt many ingredients 
 will enter into this discussion besides patristical evidence ; 
 but it is obvious that if the discussion be conducted to the ex- 
 clusion of that evidence, there will be infinite difficulty in 
 coming to any result. The repeated reference to the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, though not by name, in the Epistle of 
 Clemens, marks at least its very early circulation, and the 
 weight attached to it. It is true that the absence of the 
 ordinary salutation with which all St. Paul’s other Epistles 
 begin, may have caused its establishment in the Canon to be 
 more tardy; especially when to this circumstance we add, that 
 being addressed to no particular Church, the original copy 
 would not be necessarily kept in the archives of that Church, 
 or be publicly read in any, at least as having a local interest. 
 But Clemens Alexandrinus in his Hypotyposes, as Eusebius 
 informs us,’ assigns a very probable reason for this omission 
 
 ' On the Greek Article, note on Ephes. i. 1. ? Eccles. Hist. vi. c. 14, 
 ha a 
 
356 WHETHER ST. PAUL WAS THE AUTHOR _ [Sentes Il. 
 
 of the salutation ; viz. that as Paul wrote it to the Hebrews 
 who had contracted prejudices against him, and held him in 
 suspicion, he prudently avoided revolting them by putting 
 his name at the beginning. Under these circumstances it 
 might well enough be ascribed by Tertullian,’ yet uncertain 
 about its author, to Barnabas ; and (as though the Church of 
 Carthage was less informed on the subject than other Churches) 
 it might not be once quoted by Cyprian, who nevertheless 
 quotes all the other Epistles of St. Paul, except the short one 
 to Philemon. Still, as time advanced, and gave opportunity 
 for further investigation of its claims, the ascription of it to 
 St. Paul, we find (but still we find it from the testimony of 
 the Fathers), became more positive ; so that Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus, in his Stromata, cites it not only as St. Paul’s, but in 
 such a manner as to imply that the Church of his day fully 
 acquiesced in that judgment. For says he, “‘ Faith is the 
 substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
 seen, ? according to the Divine Apostle,”*® as though the author 
 of the passage was perfectly known, and as though there was 
 no need to name St. Paul. For of St. Paul he was thinking 
 beyond a doubt, since, in another place, after adverting to a 
 paragraph in the Epistle to the Hebrews beginning,* “And 
 we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence 
 to the full assurance of hope,” and ending,’ “made an high- 
 priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,” he adds, “ And 
 the book of Proverbs speaks in language similar to that of 
 Paul” °®; evidently implying that Paul was the author of 
 the passage from the Epistle to the Hebrews he had just been 
 quoting. An intimation of this kind is more than an asser- 
 tion, and betrays that on Clemens’ mind there was no ques- 
 tion about the writer. 
 
 Again, we find Origen, in his Epistle to Africanus, quoting 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews,’ “they were stoned, they were 
 sawn asunder, ... were slain with the sword,” in proof of 
 Isaiah having suffered by the saw; to which circumstance, 
 says he, reference is made in this verse; though possibly, he 
 then adds, the Jews (who were interested in suppressing a 
 fact disgraceful to themselves) might here demur to the autho- 
 
 'De Pudicitid, c. xx. 4 Heb. vi. 11. 5 vi. 20. 
 * Heb. xi. 1. ® Stromat. IT. § xxii. p. 501. 
 3 Stromat. IL. § ii. pp. 482-3. 7 Heb. xi. 37. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. oe 
 
 rity, “availing themselves of the decision of those who reject 
 this Epistle, as one which was not written by Paul. How- 
 ever, as this objection,” continues Origen, “requires of me a 
 distinct argument in order to demonstrate that Paul’s it is 
 (eis arrodevEwy Tod elvas LLavAov rHv émicrodnv), I will pro- 
 ceed, for the present, to another authority, that of Jesus 
 Christ himself; as witnessed in the Gospel.”! Origen’s own 
 judgment would seem here to be clear that it was Paul’s. 
 However, in a paragraph of his Homilies on the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, preserved by Eusebius,’ for the Homilies them- 
 selves are lost, he expresses himself to this effect, “that the 
 thoughts are the Apostle’s, but the phraseology rather that of 
 one who had noted down at his leisure what the Apostle 
 had said”—and then he concludes as follows—“ If, then, any 
 Church holds this Epistle to be Paul’s, let it be commended 
 for so doing; for the men of old time have not delivered it 
 down to us as his without a reason for it. Who, however, 
 did write the Epistle, truly God knows. The history which 
 has reached us is, according to some, that Clemens, Bishop of 
 Rome, wrote it; according to others, Luke, who wrote the 
 Gospel and the Acts.” There may seem to be some dif- 
 ference in the tenour of these two passages of Origen; the 
 former more decided than the latter in favour of Paul’s being 
 the sole author of the Epistle. Which of the two is the later 
 in date, and consequently the passage which conveys Origen’s 
 maturer judgment (often a matter of importance to establish, 
 where we are dealing with his writings), I am not able 
 to say. But in his treatise against Celsus, probably one of 
 his latest (indeed he frequently refers in it to other of his 
 writings), and certainly one of the soberest, and best advised, 
 and most valuable of all his works, he quotes the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews as St. Paul’s without the least symptom of 
 hesitation ; indeed, on the contrary, in a manner which satis- 
 fies us that it was the habitual feeling of his mind ; for 
 having had occasion to cite a passage from St. Paul’s first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, he goes on to confirm that text by 
 a second to the same effect from the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 which he introduces with this preface, “and the same Apostle 
 a eee says” (6 8 avtos..... nat), thus incidentally be- 
 
 
 
 2 Keeles. Hist. vi. c. 25. 
 
 ' Origen, Epist. ad Africanum, vol. i. 
 * Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 53. 
 
 p. 20. 
 
 
 
358 WHETHER ST. PAUL WAS THE AUTHOR [Serres IT. 
 
 traying, as we have seen Clemens doing before him, that he 
 regarded the Epistle to the Corinthians, and that to the 
 Hebrews, as by the same author, and that author Paul, for 
 he actually names him. And in his treatise “De Principiis,” 
 which also appears to have been one of his later works,’ he 
 again alludes to the Epistle to the Hebrews in a way which 
 would lead us to the conclusion that he then entertained no 
 doubt about the author, simply saying, “the Apostle in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews ;”” as if it was unnecessary to name 
 him ; and which accordingly Rufinus actually renders, “in 
 epistolA ad Hebraeos Apostolus Paulus ;” as he also makes 
 Origen in another place, where the Greek, however, is lost, 
 ascribe the same Epistle expressly to that Apostle*; and in 
 another* yet more casually, and therefore more satisfactorily, 
 Origen, according to him, refers to this Epistle, saying, “ And 
 John declares that God is light, and Paul intimates that the 
 Son is the brightness of the eternal light.”° But indeed, in 
 Book IV. § 13, we have the Greek itself as a voucher to the 
 same fact. 
 
 Moreover, Eusebius himself, who must have been aware of 
 the whole controversy, and in a position to review all the 
 facts which bore upon it, uses an expression which appears to 
 convey, that by his time it had subsided into a general 
 acquiescence in the Epistle being the work of St. Paul. 
 “There hath also come down to us,” says he, “a disputa- 
 tion of Gaius, a very eloquent man, held at Rome in the time 
 of Zephyrinus against Proclus, who contended for the Cata- 
 phrygian heresy, in which, whilst rebuking the temerity and 
 audacity of his adversaries in composing new Scriptures, he 
 nakes mention of only thirteen Epistles of the holy Apostles, 
 
 1 ¥rom De Principiis, I. c. ii. § 6, it | from IT. e. iii. § 6, “verum de hujusce- 
 
 should seem according to Rufinus to 
 have been written before his Commen- 
 tary on Genesis, “De quo diligentius, 
 favente Deo, cum locum ipsum in Genesi 
 exponere cceperimus, videbimus.” Yet 
 from I. ec. iii. § 3, it would appear to 
 have been written after it, ‘“ Spiritus 
 igitur Dei qui super aquas “ferebatur, 
 sicut scriptum est in principio facture 
 mundi, puto quod non sit alius quam 
 Spiritus Sanctus, secundum quod ego 
 intelligere possum, sicut et cum ipsa loca 
 exponeremus ostendimus ;" and still more 
 
 modi opinionibus plenius in illo loco 
 tractavimus, cum requireremus quid esset 
 quod in principio fecit Deus ccelum et 
 terram:” so that Rufinus probably 
 mistranslated the first passage. More- 
 over in IT. c. x. § 1, Origen refers to 
 other publications which had preceded 
 the De Principiis, “de quo in aliis qui- 
 dem libris, quos de Resurrectione serip- 
 simus, plenius disputavimus.” 
 
 ? De Principiis, ITI. ¢. i. § 10. 
 
 SPretlibssle spe 
 
 4 IV. § 28. 5 Heb. i. 2. 
 
Lect, VIII.] OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 359 
 
 not counting that to the Hebrews with the rest; And 
 even to this day,” continues Eusebius, “among certain 
 Romans (rapa ‘Popatwr ticiv), it is not thought to be that 
 Apostle’s ;”* a form of expression which evidently leads us 
 to conclude that there were few who did not then believe it 
 to be St. Paul’s. But there is a further circumstance to be 
 remarked in this paragraph of Eusebius. The party who is 
 here represented as omitting the Epistle to the Hebrews from 
 the list of St. Paul’s Epistles is a man who was engaged in 
 controversy against the Montanists. Now the Montanists 
 defended their dogma, that persons who had been guilty of 
 great crimes were not to be readmitted into the Church, by a 
 passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews,’ “ For it is impossible 
 for those who were once enlightened, .... if they shall fall 
 away, to renew them again unto repentance,’ their chief 
 argument ; and this, perhaps, may in some degree account 
 for even orthodox Churchmen, whose lot it was to be brought 
 often into conflict with these heretics, being less anxious than 
 they would otherwise have been to acknowledge this Epistle 
 as Canonical. 
 
 Enough, therefore, I trust, has been said, to show that it 
 is impossible to settle the question of the authority of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews (so far as it admits of -being settled), 
 without careful reference to external evidence, such as this 
 which I have been adducing, as bearing upon it ; whatever 
 may be the internal: So much for the Canon. 
 
 Then with regard to the substance of the Canonical books, 
 and the proof that it was in the earliest times what it is now 
 —a very weighty question—where are you to turn for evi- 
 dence of it, but to the Fathers, and what can be more satis- 
 factory than the result ? Thus, for the identity of our Gospels 
 with those of the first centuries, who can dispute it, who 
 looks at such facts as the following? When Irenzeus is de- 
 monstrating how entirely the Gospel of Mark upheld the 
 doctrine of the unity of God, he quotes three verses as the 
 beginning “initium” of that Gospel—they are the beginning 
 of our own; and one verse as at the end, “in fine ”—it ds 
 the penultimate verse of our own.* And more fully yet he 
 speaks of the fowr forms of the Cherubim—the lion, “ giving 
 
 ' Eecles. Hist. vi. c. 20. 5 Trenseus, III. c. x. § 6. 
 
 * Heb. vi. 4. 6. 
 
360 USE OF THE FATHERS IN PROVING THE  [Senies II. 
 
 token of the active, directive, and regal character of him who 
 sitteth on the Cherubim ; the calf, of his priestly and sacri- 
 ficial office ; the man, of his incarnate presence ; the eagle, of 
 his spirit rushing upon the Church—forms characteristic of 
 the four Gospels ; that of St. John, which relates his princely 
 and glorious generation, saying, ‘In the beginning was the 
 Word’... that of St. Luke, his sacerdotal office, commenc- 
 ing with Zacharias the priest, and his sacrifice . . . that of St. 
 Matthew, teaching his birth as a man, and saying, ‘The book 
 of the generation of Jesus Christ,’ .. . that of St. Mark, 
 opening with the announcement of the prophetical Spirit 
 coming upon man from above, ‘The beginning of the Gospel 
 of Jesus Christ, as it is written’ in Isaiah the prophet.”’ The 
 entire correspondence of these headings of the several Gospels 
 according to Irenzeus with those of our own is obvious. 
 
 Again, when refuting the Gnostic opinion that Jesus 
 preached but one year after his Baptism, Irenzeus investigates 
 the number of Passovers he attended, as he could gather his 
 facts from the Gospel of St. John, after this manner. “ After 
 having made the water wine, he went up to a Passover”... 
 After his conversation with the woman of Samaria, and the 
 cure of the Centurion’s son, he went up to another Passover, 
 and healed the paralytic at the pool’... ‘Six days before a 
 Passover he came to Bethany’*; then went up to Jerusalem 
 to eat the Passover ; and the day following suffered.”> Now 
 all these facts here enumerated as marking the several journeys 
 of our Lord, as occurring before and after them, precisely 
 agree with the particulars in our own Gospel of St. John. 
 
 So again, when he is exposing the abuse of certain texts of 
 Scripture by the Gnostics to the support of certain theories of 
 their own respecting the number of their fons, or of the 
 combinations of their Alfons, such as 12, 30, &c., he asks 
 them why they do not deal with the number 5, e. g. in the 
 same manner; for though that number does not enter into 
 their system of Alfons, it occurs just as frequently in Scripture 
 as other numbers. He then proceeds to give proof of this. 
 Thus the Lord took five loaves, fed five thousand men, had five 
 persons with him at his transfiguration, was the fifth person 
 
 1 Treneeus, III. ¢c. xi. § 8. eat ie 
 2 John ii. 18. 23. 5 Treneeus, II. ¢. xxii. § 3. 
 8 iv. 7, ef seg.; iv. 46, et seg.; v. 1. 
 
Lect. VOI] SUBSTANTIAL IDENTITY OF OUR GOSPELS, 361 
 
 present at the raising of the girl from the dead ; then the rich 
 man in hell had five brethren ; the pool had five porches! ; 
 all of them incidents in perfect accordance with those of our 
 own Gospels, except in the single instance of the number of 
 persons present at the raising of the maiden,” where, probably 
 by lapse of memory, he seems to have overlooked John, for 
 he omits his name in the quotation of St. Luke, as by a 
 similar lapse Origen affirms that Jesus is nowhere called in 
 the Gospels received by the Churches the carpenter (réxrwv’*), 
 though the evidence is overwhelming that our Gospels were 
 his; still the substantial fact is agreeable to our own record 
 of it. There is another passage in the same author so very 
 decisive of the question before us, that I cannot forbear pro- 
 ducing it. The heretics, against whom he was contending, 
 were playing fast and loose, it appears, with the authority 
 of the Gospel of St. Luke; rejecting it in part, and yet 
 building on it as a whole. To these, he remarks, that they 
 must either do one thing or the other; either accept or dis- 
 card it altogether; and in the latter case they must be con- 
 tent to forego the knowledge of a great many incidents which | 
 are related by St. Luke exclusively. He then goes on to 
 enumerate these incidents, as the -generation of John, the 
 history of Zacharias, the visitation of the angel to Mary, and 
 the exclamation of Elizabeth, the descent of the angels to the 
 shepherds, and the salutation they uttered ; the testimony of 
 Anna, and of Simeon, to Christ ; the fact of Jesus being left 
 behind at Jerusalem when twelve years old ; John’s baptism, 
 and at what age our Lord was baptized, and that it was the 
 fifteenth year of Tiberius ; and his denunciation of woe to the 
 rich, and the miracles of the fishes which Peter and his com- 
 panions caught, and many more circumstances ; for he goes 
 through the whole Gospel of St. Luke, detaching from it the 
 incidents which belonged peculiarly to that Evangelist.‘ 
 Now what an invaluable testimony have we here to the 
 substance of the Gospels being the same now that it was in 
 the days of Irenzeus! For the passage points out to us not 
 merely what was recorded by one of the Evangelists, but what 
 was omitted by the other three ; and we find both the conditions 
 
 1 Treneus, II. c. xxiv. § 4. See Mark vi. 3. 
 2 Luke viii. 51. * Trenwus, III. c. xiv. § 3. 
 3 Origen, Contra Celsum, VI. § 36. 
 
362 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES AND EPISTLES ([Sentes II. 
 
 fulfilled in every particular by the Gospels we at present 
 possess. 
 
 Or if you turn to Justin Martyr, you will discover in 
 him also similar incidental evidence of the substantial identity 
 of the Gospels with which he was acquainted, and those 
 with which we are. ‘This appears, indeed, throughout his 
 works ; but more especially in his long comment on the 22nd 
 Psalm, which occurs in his Dialogue with Trypho,’ where, 
 whilst pressing the Jew with the peculiar aptness of the de- 
 tails of that Psalm to the events of our Lord’s life, death, 
 resurrection and return to his disciples, he reviews to a very 
 great extent indeed the scenes described in the Gospels, so as 
 to leave no reasonable doubt on the mind of any man, that the 
 documents from which he draws his knowledge of these in- 
 cidents are the same as those which furnish it to ourselves. 
 Nay, more, a passage in Origen would lead us to infer, that 
 he knew of no authentic sources of information whatever re- 
 specting Jesus except the Gospels, our own Gospels. Celsus 
 (or the Jew in whose person he here speaks) had been 
 vapouring “that he had many things to tell of Jesus, and 
 true things too, though not like those which had been com- 
 mitted to writing by his disciples ; which, however, he would 
 not trouble himself to produce. What, then, may these 
 true things be,” replies Origen, “which are not like those 
 written in the Gospels, and which Celsus’s Jew will pass 
 over? Are we to suppose,” he then adds, “that he makes 
 use of a rhetorical figure of speech, and only pretends that he 
 has something to tell; having all the while nothing to pro- 
 duce which is not in the Gospels, that could strike any reader 
 as true, or as conveying any charge against Jesus or his 
 doctrine?”? So much for the Gospels. 
 
 In like manner, and from the like authorities, we can 
 prove the substance of the Acts of the Apostles to be now 
 what it was in the second century. For here again we have 
 Irenzeus, whilst pursuing his argument in demonstration of 
 there being no other God besides God the Father, nor any 
 other Christ besides Jesus who died and rose again, and 
 whom the prophets foretold; in opposition to the Gnosties 
 who held a primeval God distinct from the Creator, and a 
 Jesus who suffered, and a Christ who escaped from the 
 
 ' §§ 98-106. ? Origen, Contra Celsum, II. § 13. 
 
Lucr. VIII.] WITH THOSE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 363 
 
 Passion—we have Irenzus, I say, refuting these notions by a 
 series of appeals to the Acts of the Apostles; to the scene of 
 the election of Matthias in the first chapter; to St. Peter’s 
 speech in the second chapter; to the cure of the impotent 
 man by Peter and John in the third chapter with all the cir- 
 cumstances of it; to the cry of exultation of all the brethren, 
 when, in consequence of this miracle, they lifted up their 
 voice to God with one accord and said, “Lord, thou art 
 God,” &c., in the fourth chapter; and so on,’ the quotations 
 too, often extending to half a chapter at a time. 
 
 The identity of the substance of the present Epistles with 
 that of those bearing the same name in the Primitive Church, 
 admits of proof of the same kind more or less copious. For 
 you will bear in mind that the task which Irenzeus imposes on 
 himself in his fifth book is this: after having refuted the 
 heretics by authorities drawn from other quarters, to do it 
 now by portions of our Lord’s own teaching, which he had 
 not as yet touched, and by the Apostolical Epistles “ex reli- 
 quis doctrine Domini nostri et ex apostolicis epistolis co- 
 nabimur ostensiones facere:”” so that his subject led him to 
 range largely over those Epistles, and lay them liberally under 
 contribution. And this circumstance accounts, as well for the 
 very full testimony he supplies on the question of the Canon 
 of Scripture, as on that other question, no less important, 
 with which we are now engaged, the identity of the substance 
 of the Epistles we at present possess, with that of those 
 familiar to this Father. 
 
 The controversies of those days place us exactly in the 
 same advantageous position for drawing information on this 
 subject from Tertullian. For besides his innumerable re- 
 ferences to the Epistles, throughout his writings in general, in — 
 his fifth book against Marcion he conducts his argument upon 
 precisely the same principle as Ireneus in his fifth book 
 against the Gnostics in general; viz. on the principle of 
 proving his case out of the Epistles of St. Paul. He will 
 show that “as Christ himself had made no such revelation 
 respecting God as Marcion contended for, there was the more 
 need it should be made by that Apostle; and he had ar- 
 ranged his reasonings in the order he had done, for the pur- 
 pose of demonstrating, that as no other God besides the 
 
 ' Treneus, III. ¢. xii. 27 Prat 
 
364 IMPORTANCE OF THIS TESTIMONY. (Serres ITI, 
 
 Creator had been set forth by Christ, so had none other been 
 set forth by the Apostle ; as will appear,” says he, “from, the 
 Epistles themselves of Paul ; which however, like the Gospel, 
 had been mutilated by the heretics, because they were per- 
 ceived to be against them.”’* Here, therefore, as before, the 
 very plan of the argument of the Father developes, not the 
 Canon only of the Epistles, but the substance of them, which 
 is what we are now considering ; proving to a demonstration, 
 and by quotations so ample and so numerous, that it is out of 
 the question to recite them, the substance of the Epistles 
 known to us, to be the substance of the Epistles known to 
 Tertullian. 
 
 Before I make an end, I cannot forbear once more drawing 
 your attention to the folly of those, for I can call it by no 
 gentler term, who would drive the Fathers out of the field of 
 ecclesiastical literature, and regard all such as take an interest 
 in them with suspicion ; pregnant as you see they are with 
 
 conclusions of such enormous 
 
 importance as those which I 
 
 have been deducing from them to-day. 
 
 1 Sive nihil tale de Deo Christus re- 
 velaverat, tanto magis ab apostolo debu- 
 erat revelari, qui jam non posset ab 
 alio; non credendus sine dubio, si nee 
 ab apostolo revelatus. Quod idcirco 
 prestruximus, ut jam hine profiteamur 
 nos proinde probaturos, nullum alium 
 
 Deum ab apostolo cireumlatum, sicut 
 probavimus, nec a Christo; ex ipsis uti- 
 que epistolis Pauli, quas proinde muti- 
 latas etiam de numero, forma jam he- 
 retici Evangelii praejudicasse debebit.— 
 Ady. Marcionem, V. c. i. 
 
Lect. IX.] USE OF THE FATHERS IN ASCERTAINING 365 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in ascertaining the text of the New Testament. Their mo- 
 tives for accuracy in this particular. Importance of their testimony in estab- 
 lishing the genuineness of whole passages. The impression produced by it 
 increased, when the occasion of it is known. Its use further exemplified, where 
 the genuineness of the passage is doubtful, as 1 John v. 7, and the subscription 
 of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. The same testimony of still greater 
 value in the criticism of single words; opposed to the reading of Griesbach 
 and Wetstein in Acts xx. 28, and to that of the “ Improved Version” in Rom. 
 ix. 5. Some other examples. 
 
 HE next advantage which I said resulted from the testi- 
 mony of the Fathers, was the light they throw on the 
 text of Scripture. It must be so with writers who lived 
 at so very early a date, whose works are filled with quotations 
 from the books of the New Testament, and with dissertations 
 on the meaning, and who were under the strongest impressions 
 of the grievous sin there was in taking any liberty with the 
 sacred text.' Neither was it enough for them to have a 
 general acquaintance with Holy Writ: the various forms of 
 heresy, with which they had to contend, exacting more from 
 them than this. Many of the heretics mutilated Scripture to 
 serve their purposes; it was the more necessary, therefore, 
 that they should be prepared with the genuine text. Many 
 misinterpreted and perverted it; it was required of them, 
 therefore, to wrest the passages thus distorted from their 
 hands, on which occasions the disputes would sometimes turn 
 on so small a matter as the position of a point. A particular 
 knowledge, therefore, of Scripture was absolutely demanded 
 of the champions of orthodoxy and the Church: and I think 
 we must be often struck, especially when reading the works 
 of the early Fathers, with the microscopic eye, which they 
 1 See Trenwus, V. c. xxx. § 1. | be remarked, the observation is called 
 ”Eretra S€ rod mpoabertos, 7) apeddv- | forth by a question respecting a text in 
 Tos Tt THs ypadns, emitiplay ov tiv | the New Testament and not the Old; 
 
 Tvxovcay €xovTos, eis avtiy eumeoeiy | the number of the beast in the Reve- 
 avaykn tov Towodroy, Where it may | lation, ch, xiii. 18, 
 
366 THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.  ([Senrtes II. 
 
 cast on Scripture, and the conclusions—the fair conclusions— 
 they frequently extract from texts, which would not have 
 suggested themselves to listless or superficial readers. 
 
 In treating of the subject before us, [ am only overwhelmed 
 by the mass of matter proper to illustrate it, which lies at 
 the command of any man even moderately informed in these 
 early authors. I will, however, endeavour to lay before you 
 some examples of the use of the Fathers in this particular, 
 not, perhaps, the best that might be furnished—for the best 
 will not always come at one’s call; and one often has to 
 regret, after having delivered a Lecture, that such and such 
 passages to the purpose did not present themselves at the 
 time of composing it—but at all events examples sufficiently 
 in point to establish the proposition before us, and to increase 
 your respect for the study of authors so conducive to the 
 most important interests of sound theology. Our own sense, 
 indeed, would dictate to us that such use as I am now draw- 
 ing from the Fathers must naturally belong to them, and 
 some may think that it is superfluous to enter into details in a 
 case so clear; but that sort of general acquiescence in a truth 
 is a very different thing from a conviction of it wrought by 
 the effect of specific illustrations in point, and with these 
 present in our minds we become far more able to contend 
 with gainsayers. 
 
 Now in the first place, whole passages of the New Testa- 
 ment have been objected against as spurious or of doubtful 
 authority by persons who would understand the Scriptures in 
 a sense of their own, and in no other, and who were, there- 
 fore, under a temptation to decry portions of it which stood. 
 in the way of their theory. For instance, modern Unitarians 
 have called in question large portions of the two first chapters 
 of the Gospel of St. Matthew.’ The “Improved Version” of 
 the New Testament pronounces it impossible that the gene- 
 alogy and the history which follows the genealogy, and ex- 
 tends to the end of the second chapter, and which contains an 
 account of the miraculous conception, could have been written 
 by the same author.” Certainly it would be enough to reply, 
 as it may be replied with truth, that the manuscripts “are 
 altogether against them. But two witnesses are better than 
 
 ' Bloomfield’s Greek Testament, vol. * The New Testament in an Im- 
 pase proved Version, p. 1, 4th Ed. 
 
_ 
 
 Lect. IX.) THE FIRST CHAPTER OF ST. MATTHEW 367 
 
 one nevertheless, and it is satisfactory to be able to confirm 
 the manuscripts by the testimony of the Fathers, who lived 
 almost as early as when manuscripts of the New Testament 
 began to have any existence—especially as such testimony is 
 of a popular character, more readily remembered, and more 
 easily appreciated, than the number and value of the manu- 
 scripts. Such a Father is Irenzeus ; fortunately, providentially 
 we may say, he was engaged in controversy with parties whose 
 faith was unsound as to the nature of Jesus Christ: not that 
 they denied or doubted the Divinity of Christ (with the 
 exception of a small and inconsiderable sect of heretics’) ; but 
 instead of believing that “Though he be God and Man, yet 
 he is not two, but one Christ,’ maintained that Jesus and 
 Christ were separate beings, Christ descending upon Jesus at 
 his baptism and quitting him before his crucifixion. In re- 
 futing this absurd notion, Irenzeus appeals, amongst other 
 proofs, to the whole of the first chapter of the Gospel of 
 St. Matthew, both to the genealogy and to the history of 
 the miraculous conception which follows it, and evidently 
 without the least suspicion that its genuineness could be dis- 
 puted. “I have already sufficiently proved,” says he, “ from 
 the language of John, that he understood the Word of God 
 to be one and the same, to be the Only Begotten ; to be the 
 same who took flesh for our salvation, even Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. However, Matthew knowing that Jesus is one and the 
 same, when setting forth his human generation of a virgin (even 
 as God promised David, that of the fruit of his body he would 
 raise up an everlasting king ; and again, long before, gave the 
 same promise to Abraham), saith, ‘The book of the generation 
 of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham ;’ 
 afterwards, in order, to set our minds free from all suspicion 
 about Joseph he saith, ‘Now the birth of Christ was on this 
 wise ; when as his mother was espoused unto Joseph, before 
 they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy 
 Ghost ;’ afterwards, when Joseph was thinking of putting 
 Mary away because she was pregnant, an angel of God ap- 
 peared unto him and said, ‘Fear not to take unto thee Mary 
 thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy 
 Ghost ; and she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call 
 his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. 
 
 ' Twés.—Justin Martyr, Dial.-s 48. 
 
368 QUOTED BY IRENZAUS, (Series IT. 
 
 Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was 
 spoken of the Lord by the Prophet, Behold a virgin shall be 
 with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his 
 name Emmanuel, which is, God with us ;’ manifestly signify- 
 ing,” continues Ivenzeus, “that the promise which had been 
 made to the Fathers had been fulfilled, that the Son of God 
 had been born of a virgin, and that this same was the Saviour 
 Christ, whom the prophets foretold; not, as they say, that 
 Jesus was he who was born of Mary, but Christ, he who 
 descended upon him. For whereas Matthew might have 
 written, ‘The birth of Jesus was on this wise,’ the Holy 
 Ghost, foreseeing corrupters (of the truth), and providing 
 against their artifice, says, by Matthew, ‘Now the birth of 
 Christ was on this wise,’” (Irenzeus reading Xpiorod and not 
 *Incod Xpiotov,) “and says, too, that this is Emmanuel, lest 
 perchance we should suppose him to be only a man . . . and 
 in order that we should not suspect Jesus to be one person 
 and Christ another, but be assured that they were one and 
 the same.”" 
 
 Who can read this passage and entertain a doubt that 
 Treneus had no misgiving whatever respecting the genuine- 
 ness of the first chapter of St. Matthew ; that he felt in using 
 it he was building his argument against the Valentinians 
 on a foundation that could not be shaken? And who can 
 help being struck with the thought that these imaginations of 
 the heretics of the first and second centuries, wild and base- 
 less as they seem, so wild and so baseless that we wonder 
 they should have called up such a patient antagonist as Ire- 
 neeus, were just the very crotchets which were calculated to 
 cause him and others, in refuting them, to put their testimony 
 on record to portions of Scripture, which have the nature of 
 Jesus Christ for their subject ; passages on that very account 
 of infinite value, and worthy of every guarantee that could 
 be devised for their authority, and thus to preserve to the end 
 of time weapons of war against any Anti-Christian heresy 
 which, in the lapse of ages, might discover itself. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus affords us similar evidence, and of 
 the same incidental character as the last, to the genuineness of 
 the first chapter of St. Matthew. Indeed, all the evidence 
 these very early Fathers furnish on these most interesting 
 
 2 Irenwus, III. c, xvi. § 2, 
 
 r 
 
Lxcr. IX.] CLEMENS AND ORIGEN. 369 
 
 topics is incidental, and on that very account is the more 
 precious ; for they are pursuing other inquiries of their own— 
 inquiries for the most part of little concern to us—when the 
 information of which we are in search escapes them by the 
 way. Clemens, I say, is engaged in a very copious and 
 favourite argument of his, that of proving that all heathen 
 literature is long subsequent to Jewish. In the course of it 
 he gathers some dates which answer his purpose from Jose- 
 phus, which show that from Moses to the tenth of Antoninus 
 were 1933 years, so far back was the Law given. “ Others,” 
 he proceeds, “reckoning from Inachus and Moses to the death 
 of Commodus, say that there were 2942 years; others, again, 
 2821. But in the Gospel according to Matthew,’ he con- 
 tinues, which is the passage I am submitting to your atten- 
 tion, “the genealogy is carried on from Abraham to Mary the 
 mother of our Lord. For from Abraham to David, it says, 
 are fourteen generations ; and from David until the carrying 
 away into Babylon, fourteen generations ; and from the carry- 
 ing away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations ; 
 —three mystical mtervals completed in six weeks.”' And 
 though the argument of Clemens does not lead him in this 
 place to quote the first chapter of St. Matthew further than 
 the genealogy, he elsewhere acknowledges the fact of the 
 miraculous conception, the stumbling-block of the “ Improved 
 Version,” saying, for instance, “That the Word proceeding 
 (7poeXOwv) was the author of Creation ; for when the Word 
 took flesh in order that he might be visible, he begat himself.”* 
 I have given the argument on which Clemens is employed, 
 and the paragraph itself at full, in order that you may see 
 the better the entire assumption there is on the part of 
 Clemens, though impressed with the truth of the miraculous 
 conception, that this genealogy cannot be gainsaid ; the utter 
 absence of all suspicion from his mind that the genuineness 
 of it can be questioned. Much of the force of the evidence 
 would be lost, did I content myself with this single assertion, 
 that Clemens evidently regards the first chapter of St. Mat- 
 thew as genuine. You want the setting in order to do the 
 jewel justice. I fear my Lectures are sometimes protracted by 
 these amplifications ; but I presume that there are some here to 
 whom these investigations are new, and I know I can reckon 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § xxi. p. 409. 2 V. § ili. p. 654. 
 
 BB 
 
370 MATT. XXVII. 52, REFERRED TO BY IGNATIUS. [Sens II. 
 
 on the forbearance of those whose knowledge is more mature, 
 whilst I amplify for a good purpose. 
 
 Nor is this all. The “ Improved Version” further reminds 
 its readers that Archbishop Newcome, whose translation is 
 taken for the basis of that version, suspects the seventeenth 
 verse of the first chapter of St. Matthew’ to be a marginal 
 note anciently taken into the text; but we see Clemens in 
 this place not only quoting this verse, but actually discovering 
 in it a mystical meeting. And Origen, it may be added, on 
 one occasion without quoting, evidently in a loose manner 
 refers to the verse’; and on another represents Celsus as 
 founding one of his infidel arguments.on the Saviour’s gene- 
 alogy as given in the Evangelists, and in replying to him, so 
 far is he from intimating that the genealogies are spurious, 
 that he actually retorts upon him that he was not even in- 
 timately acquainted with the argument he was handling ; for 
 that had he been he would have known, which it seemed he 
 did not, that the Christians themselves had found a difficulty 
 and a subject of investigation in the discrepancy of the gene- 
 alogies ; thus clearly suggesting to us that the genealogies both 
 of St. Matthew and St. Luke were in his days what they are 
 in ours, and were undisputed passages of the New Testament, 
 both of them.’ 
 
 - Again, I observe it stated* that some modern Germans 
 pronounce, in the same spirit of rash and presumptuous con- 
 jecture which dictated the last objection, the passage in the 
 twenty-seventh chapter of St. Matthew,® where it is said, 
 “The graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints 
 which slept arose and came out of the graves,’ &e.—an 
 incident not mentioned by any other of the Evangelists—to 
 be spurious. Here, again, it might be enough to reply, that 
 the manuscripts are all against them. But still it is satisfac- 
 tory to know, that so early as Ignatius there is allusion made 
 to the fact, though not a quotation of the words, the allusion, 
 perhaps, carrying even more conviction to the mind that the 
 verse existed in the copy of St. Matthew’s Gospel which was 
 in the hands of Ignatius, than the insertion of the text itself 
 
 would have done. ‘“ How shall we be able to live without 
 1“ So all the generations from Abra- 2 TI..§/92: 
 
 ham to Dayid are fourteen generations,” 4See Bloomfield’s Edition of the 
 
 &e. Greek Testament, in loc. 
 
 * Origen, Contra Celsum, VI. § 5. 5 vy. 52, 538. 
 
 
 
Lect. IX.] USE OF THE FATHERS IN INVESTIGATING 371 
 
 him?” writes he to the Magnesians, “whose disciples the 
 very prophets were, and whom by the Spirit they expected as 
 their teacher ; and therefore he, whom they righteously waited 
 for, being come, raised them up from the dead.’ 
 
 Thus will the Fathers often supply a ready and intelligible 
 answer to rash charges indeed, thrown out against the received 
 text of Scripture, but such charges nevertheless as it is desi- 
 rable to meet and silence. 
 
 Again, they will be equally important in the investigation 
 of passages of doubtful character. How greatly is their 
 testimony concerned, for instance, in determining the genuine- 
 ness of 1 John v. 7. I am not of course, about to embark 
 upon this elaborate controversy, a portion of which has nothing 
 to do with the subject now before us, which is to show the 
 value of the Fathers in determining the text of Scripture : 
 though, indeed, this case of the disputed verse pretty much 
 resolves itself eventually into a scrutiny of two passages of 
 the Fathers, one in Tertullian, and the other in Cyprian. 
 Annihilate these, and the support of the verse from other 
 quarters greatly fails: on the other hand, prove that they 
 certainly contemplate the verse, and in spite of the argument, 
 from the manuscripts there would have been great difficulty 
 in rejecting a passage which could be vindicated by testimony 
 so early. Show that the resemblance to the verse certainly 
 discoverable in those two passages can be accounted for with- 
 out supposing Tertullian and Cyprian to have seen it, and the 
 probability of its spuriousness will augment in proportion to 
 the success with which that proposition is made out. This is 
 the passage in Tertullian: “Czeterum, de meo sumet, inquit ; 
 sicut ipse de Patris. Ita connexus Patris in Filio, et Filii in 
 Paracleto, tres efficit coheerentes, alterum ex altero, qui tres 
 unum sunt, non unus: quo modo dictum est, Ego et Pater 
 unum sumus, ad substantize unitatem, non ad numeri singu- 
 laritatem.”* “He shall take, says the Son, of mine,’ as I 
 myself took of the Father’s. Thus the connection of the Father 
 in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, makes three Per- 
 sons cohering one with another, which three are one substance 
 (unum), not one Person (unus), as it is written, ‘I and my 
 Father are one, * 2. e. as to unity of substance not as to 
 
 1 Tenat. ad Magnes. § ix. | 3 John xvi. 14. 
 * Tertull. Adv. Praxeam, ¢. xxv. | 4x. 30. 
 
372 THE GENUINENESS OF DISPUTED PASSAGES. [Series II. 
 
 singularity of number.” Here, says one party, in the expression, 
 “tres unum sunt,” you have a quotation from the disputed verse 
 1 John v. 7. No, replies the other, Tertullian does not mark 
 it as a quotation, which, had it been one, he would have 
 done ; for he had done so just before, when he had quoted 
 John xvi. 14, using an “inquit;’’ and again he does so just 
 after, when he quotes John x. 30, using a “dictum est:” yet 
 here he gives no intimation of the kind. Moreover, if the 
 three heavenly witnesses were in Tertullian’s copy, why does 
 he content himself with so slight an allusion as this to a text 
 so much to his*purpose; so much more to his purpose than 
 that of John x. 30, which he instantly after proceeds to cite ? 
 And how comes it, that in a treatise of some length, such as 
 this against Praxeas is, and where the course of the argument 
 is constantly forcing him upon this disputed text, he never 
 advances it but in this one supposed case? The words “ qui 
 tres unum sunt,” therefore, they maintain, are Tertullian’s 
 own ; as if he had argued, “ which three are one, wnum I say, 
 not wus ; just as in St. John’s Gospel we have, ‘I and my 
 Father are one,’ where it is also unum; for it is meant unity 
 of substance, not singularity of person.” 
 
 The passage of Cyprian is in his “De Unitate Ecclesize,”? 
 “Dicit Dominus, Ego et Pater unum sumus; et iterum de 
 Patre et Filio et Spiritu Sancto scriptum est, Et hi tres unum 
 sunt.” “The Lord says, I and my Father are one; and 
 again concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost 
 it is written, And these three are one.” Here once more the 
 defenders of the verse contend, you have it quoted by Cyprian. 
 No, rejoin their antagonists ; it is only an application of his of 
 the 8th verse, not a quotation of the 7th, a mystical application 
 quite characteristic of him and of his school: just as Facundus, 
 a Bishop of the African Church of the sixth century applies it, 
 saying, “Joannes Apostolus in epistolA sud de Patre et Filio 
 et Spiritu Sancto sic dixit, tres sunt, qui testimonium dant 
 in terra,’ spiritus, aqua, et sanguis, et hi tres unum sunt, in 
 spiritu significans Patrem, in aqué vero Spiritum Sanctum 
 
 1 § vi. son: “In Facundus, it is true, the edi- 
 
 ? It may be said that “in terra” is in | tions six times repeat in terra; but 
 itself a part of the interpulated verse, | these words are so inconsistent with 
 which is from €v T@ odpayad to év rH | the interpretation which Facundus is 
 yi inclusive. But hear Professor Por- | labouring to establish, that Bengelius 
 
Lecr. IX.} USE OF THE FATHERS IN INVESTIGATING 378 
 
 significans, in sanguine vero Filium significans.”’ “The 
 Apostle John in his Epistle writes thus of the Father, and 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost, ‘There are three that bear 
 witness in earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood, and 
 these three are one ;’ by the spirit signifying the Father, by 
 the water the Holy Ghost, and by the blood the Son”’—a 
 passage they further argue, which very strongly implies that 
 Facundus at least knew nothing of the seventh verse ; other- 
 wise, why should he prove the point, which the seventh verse 
 affirms in plain words, by a mystical interpretation of the 
 eighth? Moreover, they add, Facundus confirms his own 
 mystical interpretation of the eighth verse by an express 
 appeal to Cyprian, as one who understood it in the same 
 way as himself, and accordingly he quotes the paragraph in 
 Cyprian from the “De Unitate Ecclesiz ” just brought before 
 you; only he assigns it to a work of his “De Trinitate,”’ 
 whether by a mistake, or whether Cyprian had used it in 
 both treatises, the latter of the two being now lost, a point at 
 all events of no importance to the argument. This appeal to 
 Cyprian by Facundus is a continuation of the foregoing pas- 
 sage, and is as follows, “which testimony of the Apostle John, 
 Cyprian in an Epistle or book, which he wrote concerning the 
 Trinity, understands to have been said of the Father, and 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for he says,” &c.; and then 
 comes the paragraph from Cyprian already given. This shows 
 that Facundus knew nothing of the seventh verse, and that 
 he supposed Cyprian’s allusion to be to the eighth and not to 
 the seventh. But how, rejoin the defenders of the verse, do 
 you explain the term, “it is written,’ with which Cyprian 
 ushers in the phrase, “And these three are one?”” Does 
 not this prove that Cyprian at any rate considered it a quota- 
 tion, and is not the sentence in fact found in the disputed 
 verse? No doubt Cyprian considered it a quotation, is the 
 reply, but the eighth verse supplies a similar phrase, cat ot 
 Tpets eis TO tv evowv, and is the one which Cyprian was 
 thinking of and citing. And you will have the less difficulty 
 in allowing this as Facundus, who unquestionably cites the 
 
 fairly allows them to have been added | p. 386. 
 
 by transcribers. We ought also to con- 'Facundus, Pro Defensione Trium 
 sider that Facundus has been published | Capitulorum, T. ¢. ii. 
 
 from a single MS.’—Letters to Travis, * Kal otro. of rpeis ev eat 
 
374 THE GENUINENESS OF DISPUTED PASSAGES, [Senres IT. 
 
 eighth verse and not the seventh, cites these words exactly 
 as Cyprian does, “et hi tres unum sunt.” 
 
 I shall not pursue this subject further, nor am I called 
 upon to express any positive opinion on the disputed verse, 
 whether it is genuine or not; but I say that the short state- 
 ment I have made of a main feature of the controversy must 
 suffice to satisfy you, that the Fathers have a great deal to 
 do in determining it; and that he would be a strange critic 
 of the New Testament who should undertake to fix the true 
 text in this place, and banish the Fathers from all share in 
 his reasoning. 
 
 Again, to take another case of a different kind; the date 
 of the first Epistle to the Corinthians subscribed at the foot 
 of it in our ordinary copies runs thus: “The First Epistle to 
 the Corinthians was written from Philippi by Stephanas, and 
 Fortunatus, and Achaicus, and Timotheus.” Now it is evi- 
 dent from an argument of Origen’s in his treatise epi Evyjjs,' 
 that no subscription of this kind was known to him; for he 
 takes it for granted that St. Paul wrote this Epistle from 
 Ephesus and not from Philippi. He is speaking of the 
 congregation in which prayer is made; and is contending 
 that besides the visible worshippers there are present also 
 invisible angels, and the power of the Saviour, and the blessed 
 spirits of the departed ; and to prove the latter he adduces a 
 text from the first Epistle to the Corinthians,? where “Paul 
 says, ‘when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with 
 the power of our Lord Jesus Christ ;’ as though the power 
 of the Lord Jesus,’ proceeds Origen, “was connected not 
 only with the Ephesians” (¢. e. those amongst whom Paul 
 was at the time) “but with the Corinthians” (7. e. those to 
 whom he was writing). ‘Now, if Paul,’ he continues, 
 “being yet enclosed in the body,” and, as appears from the 
 last paragraph, at Ephesus, “considered that he could help 
 them with his spirit who were in Corinth, we must not deny 
 that in ike manner the blessed souls departed may come in 
 the spirit to the Churches yet more readily than one who is 
 in the body.” Origen’s date of the Epistle, it is true, is per- 
 fectly consistent with the internal evidence of the Epistle 
 itself, as appears by comparing ch. xvi. 8 and 19; but it is 
 entirely at variance with the subscription of the Epistle ; and 
 
 1's 31, p. 269, Bened. Ed. 21 Cor. v. 4. 
 
Lect. IX.] THE RECEIVED READING IN ACTS XX. 28, afo 
 
 confirms Paley’s view of that subscription given in his “ Horee 
 Pauline.” ! 
 
 I have hitherto been contemplating the case of whole pas- 
 sages of the text of the New Testament affected by the evi- 
 dence of the Fathers ; sustained, suspended, or proscribed by 
 it. When we come to particular expressions and various 
 readings, in proportion as they are vastly more numerous 
 than the former, the value of that evidence becomes still 
 more apparent. 
 
 Look at the well-known text, the 28th verse of the xxth 
 chapter of the Acts. “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, 
 and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath 
 made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he 
 hath purchased with his own blood,” vowpaivewy rHv éxxXnolav 
 Tod Qcovd nv wepreouncato Sia Tod idiov aiwaros. Here the 
 evidence of the manuscripts is conflicting. Wetstein and 
 Griesbach decide in favour of tod Kupiov, the latter par- 
 ticularly affirming that no MS. of very ancient date or high 
 character presents the received reading @eod.” And yet the 
 Vatican MS., perhaps that of the highest authority of all, 
 was examined for the London edition of Griesbach’s New 
 Testament published in 1818, Dr. Burton tells us, and was 
 found to contain this reading.’ It has been observed by a 
 very able writer in the “ Monthly Censor,” a shortlived peri- 
 odical which appeared a few years ago, Number VIII., 1823, 
 in a Review of Mr. Belsham’s translation of St. Paul’s Epistles, 
 “We have been long aware that by those most hostile to the 
 established faith, the labours of Griesbach have been looked 
 upon with peculiar complacency.” * But however that may 
 
 Wen evs Sil. 
 
 * Griesbach, in loc. 
 
 3 See Monitum ante Pref. p. ii.; 
 Burton’s Testimonies of the Ante-Ni- 
 cene Fathers, p. 17. 
 
 4 See e. g. Griesbach, 1 Tim. iii. 16, 
 ds eavep@On. Yet see Porson’s Letters 
 to T'ravis, p. 143. “ You will probably 
 defend the latter reading (i. e. Oed¢ in- 
 stead of ds), nor shall I dispute it.” 
 
 Rom. ix. 5. ’O dv emt mavrov Ocds 
 evAoyntés. Griesbach, Oeds = Cypr. 
 ed. Does this mean, Cyprian omits 
 @cds ? = is the sign of omission; but 
 what does ed. mean? Certainly the 
 Benedictine Edition of Cyprian (Tes- 
 
 tim. Contra Judeos, II. ¢. vi.) has Deus. 
 Bishop Middleton, after making some 
 remarks on the Socinian conjecture on 
 the text of this verse, viz. that we should 
 read oy 6—a conjecture, says he, inyoly- 
 ing an argument which is improbable, 
 and Greek which is impossible, adds, 
 “Yet Griesbach has, in his new edition, 
 honoured this conjecture with a place 
 among his various readings.”—On the 
 Greek Article, in loc. In a paper in 
 the Quarterly Review, No. 65, p. 80, on 
 the controversy on 1 John y. 7 (written 
 
 
 
 I conclude by Dr. Turton, now Bishop 
 | of Ely), is the following passage :—“ It 
 |is the fashion to extol Griesbach’s la- 
 
376 CONFIRMED BY THE EARLY FATHERS. [Serres I, 
 
 be, the evidence of the Fathers certainly tends very much to 
 turn the scale in favour of @eod, and the received text: and 
 so far from being fairly represented by Griesbach, who says, 
 “neque apud Patres certa lectionis istius vestigia deprehen- 
 duntur ante Epiphanium,”’ the contrary is the truth. It is 
 possible, nay probable, that Griesbach trusted to Wetstein’s 
 note upon this verse of the Acts, in which he professes to 
 produce the authorities from the Fathers for and against the 
 expression aia @eovd. But even then he could not have felt 
 safe in making so unqualified an assertion. And besides, Wet- 
 stein’s list itself is far from being either complete or accurate 
 —not complete, for it omits several authorities in favour of 
 the ordinary reading, as that of Clemens Alexandrinus ; 
 quotes partially that of Tertullian; omits several places in 
 Origen which involve the term, whilst he extracts two which 
 indirectly seem to resent it—not accurate, for he probably 
 misquotes a passage from Athanasius contra Apollinarium, 
 and by reading xa@ spas instead of ca& vuas reverses the 
 meaning. “According to you,” says Athanasius (not according 
 to us), “the blood of God is not mentioned in Scripture, but 
 this is the daring of the Arians.” ? 
 
 Let us turn then to the phraseology of the early Fathers 
 in succession, and so judge for ourselves of the value of this 
 assertion of Griesbach’s “that no certain traces of the ordi- 
 nary reading are to be found in them before Epiphanius.” 
 
 In the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians,’ we have the 
 following paragraph: “ Being imitators of God ; having ani- 
 mated yourselves by the blood of God, ye have performed 
 perfectly the congenial work ;” and if it be any satisfaction 
 to any of my hearers to know it, the passage is found in the 
 recently-discovered Syriac copy of this Epistle. 
 
 In the ‘‘Quis dives salvetur” of Clemens Alexandrinus 
 occurs this sentence: “For they know not what a treasure 
 we bear about us in our earthen vessels ; a treasure protected 
 
 bours in that department. In matters | the editions in common use.” 
 
 of this moment it would be wrong to ! Griesbach, vol. ii. p. 115, 8vo. 
 disguise our sentiments; and therefore, 2 See the Review of Mr. Belsham’s 
 so far from expressing any admiration | Translation of St. Paul's Epistles in 
 of his system, we avow our opinion | the Monthly Censor, No. VIII., 1823. 
 that an edition of the Greek Testament | This Review is recommended strongly 
 which should adopt all his notions of | in a note to the above paper in the 
 the best readings, would vary much | Quarterly Review. 
 
 more from the original standard than; *s§ 1. 
 
Lecr. IX.] THE RECEIVED READING IN ACTS XX, 28, OTe 
 
 by the power of God the Father, and the blood of God the 
 Son, and by the dew of the Holy Ghost.”! 
 
 In Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, II. c. iii., “I know we are not 
 our own, but bought with a price ; and what sort of price ? 
 the blood of God.” This passage Wetstein quotes, but there 
 are several other passages in this author most concurrent in 
 meaning with this, which he overlooks. Thus Tertullian 
 speaks of “God being crucified”’ over and over again. In 
 his “De Carne Christi,” he is bantering Marcion: “You 
 talix of the folly of believing this and that.? . . . But God 
 hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the 
 wise . . . Foolish things are they which relate to the insults 
 and sufferings of God. Or will they call it wisdom to say 
 that God was crucified? You must get rid of this, Marcion ; 
 yes, in the very first place. For which is the most unworthy 
 of God? which must we blush for most; that he should be 
 born, or that he should die? that he should bear flesh, or 
 bear the cross? that he should be circumcised or crucified ? 
 
 . . Make answer to this, thou slayer of the truth! Was 
 not God truly crucified? Having been truly crucified, did he 
 not truly die? As he was truly dead, was he not truly 
 raised to life? It was a fallacy, to be sure, of Paul’s, when 
 he determined to know nothing amongst us, save Jesus cruci- 
 fied: he falsely taught that he was buried; falsely inculcated 
 that he was raised again. False, then, is our faith; and all 
 that we hope from Christ is a vision! Most wicked of men to 
 excuse the murderers of God.” * Whatever may be thought of 
 the temerity of these words (a temerity characteristic of their 
 author), we cannot deny that they lend the most unflinching 
 support’ to the reading aiwa @cod. Neither is it on one occasion 
 only, or in a moment of peculiar heat, that this expression of 
 Tertullian escapes him ; he recurs to it elsewhere ; and in his 
 treatise against Marcion, uses the following language: “God 
 acted with man that man might be enabled to act with God. 
 God was made little, that man might be made great. If you 
 despise such a God, I am at a loss to know whether you truly 
 believe that God was crucified.”° And once more in the 
 same treatise: ° “Well is it with Christians who believe that 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Quis dives salvetur, § Sica tvs 4c, v. 
 XXxiv. p. 954. 5 Adv. Marcionem, II. c. xxvii. 
 2 Tertullian, De Carne Christi, c. y. Or Crexyie 
 
 
 
378 CONFIRMED BY THE EARLY FATHERS.  [Sentes Il. 
 
 God did die, and yet that he lives for ever.” It is evident 
 that, from whatever source derived, the mind of Tertullian is 
 familiar with the idea of the aiwa@eod. There is not one of 
 
 these passages, except the first, of which Wetstein takes any 
 
 notice. 
 On the other hand it is said, that Irenzeus quotes the verse, 
 
 and reads “ecclesiam Domini,’ as though Kvupéov were in 
 his copy. But it must be borne in mind that we have not 
 here the original text of Irenzeus, but merely the language of 
 his barbarous translator ; which, though in general probably 
 giving the substantial meaning of the author, cannot be de- 
 pended upon as an authority for a various reading: more- 
 over, that in several passages, where we happen to have the 
 Greek as well as the translation, it appears that the trans- 
 lator was not nice in rendering either the term “ God,” or 
 “Lord.” Thus in Book V. ¢. iii. § 2, the Greek runs, ta 6€ 
 rexyns Kat copias peTéexovta @eod, “things which partake of 
 the art and wisdom of God ;” but the translation has it, 
 “quae autem sapientiam participant Domini.” So in Book V. 
 c. ii. § 3, the Greek has it, “the body and blood of the Lord 
 (rod Kupcov) ;” the Latin, “the body and blood of Christ.” 
 In the Preface to Book I. § 2, the Greek speaks of blasphemy 
 against Christ, the Latin of blasphemy against God. So that 
 it is clear in the case before us it cannot be concluded that 
 Irenzeus did not say éxxAnolav tod @eov, because the trans- 
 lator happens to say, “ecclesiam Domini.” These instances 
 of loose translation I have taken from Dr. Burton’s “ Testi- 
 monies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ;”? 
 and I have little doubt many others might be added to 
 them: indeed one I will name, in Book II. c. xxvi. § 1, 
 where we have in the Greek, “blasphemers against their 
 Lord or Master (Seo7rornv) ;” but in the Latin, “ blasphemers 
 against their God.” 
 
 Moreover, though it is true we do not find in Irenzeus the 
 exact phrase, “the blood of God,” yet we do find in him 
 language which approaches it very closely. Thus he says, 
 This is the mystery which he” (Paul) “tells us was made 
 known to him by revelation, that he who suffered under 
 Pontius Pilate, the same is Lord of all, and King, and God.’* 
 And another expression which Irenzeus uses may be con- 
 
 " Irenwus, III. c. xiv. § 2. 2 ‘p. 19. * Trenseus, III. c. xii. § 9. 
 
Lect. IX.] THE RECEIVED READING IN ROM. IX. 5, 379 
 
 sidered as belonging to the same class, “that the Virgin Mary 
 received the glad tidings by the word of the angel that she 
 should conceive God.”' For it is probable that the same 
 author who would speak of conceiving God, would find 
 nothing objectionable in the phrase, blood of God. 
 
 But whatever may be the weight, be it more, or be it less, 
 that we attach to the several passages from the Fathers 
 which I have adduced on this subject, the purpose for which 
 I have adduced them is answered; since none can deny, 
 that, in determining the probable reading of Acts xx. 28, 
 their testimony is of great importance ; testimony which 
 proves that the phrase aiwa @ecod, so far from being strange 
 to the early Church, is thoroughly familiar to it, from what- 
 ever source derived. 
 
 I will take another example in illustration of the subject 
 before us. In Rom. ix. 5, we have the text, according to 
 our version, “ Whose are the fathers, and of whom as con- 
 cerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed 
 for ever,’ 6 Ov emt TavtT@v Oeds evrAoynTos eis TOUS alavas. 
 “Of whom, by natural descent, Christ came, God who is 
 over all be blessed for ever,’ is the translation of the “ Im- 
 proved Version :”’ and there is added in a note, “The early 
 Christian writers do not apply these words to Christ, but 
 pronounce it to be rashness and impiety to say that Christ 
 was God over all. The word God,” it continues, “appears 
 to have been wanting in Chrysostom’s, and some other ancient 
 copies ; see Grotius, Erasmus, and Griesbach. It is a very 
 plausible conjecture,” it proceeds, “ of Crellius, Schlichtingius, 
 Whitby, and Taylor, that the original reading was @y 6, in- 
 stead of 6 dv. This would render the climax complete, év 
 9 viobecia, wv ob TmaTEpEs, OY O Xpictos, dv 6 Oeos, ‘of 
 whom was the adoption, of whom were the Fathers, of whom 
 was Christ, of whom was God, who is over all.’ Nor is it 
 likely, when the Apostle was professedly summing up the pri- 
 vileges of the Jews, that he should have overlooked the great 
 privilege which was their chief boast, that God was in a pecu- 
 liar sense their God.” Such are the sentiments of the author 
 of the “Improved Version,” sentiments which one may re- 
 mark, in passing, even the Greek subverts, requiring as it 
 
 1 Treneus, V. c. xix. § lL. 
 
380 CONFIRMED BY THE EARLY FATHERS. ([Sents II. 
 
 would ‘a repetition of the article, dv 6 eri mavtwv Ocos 6 
 evroyntos, for which it makes no provision. 
 
 With respect to the omission of the word “God” in. 
 Chrysostom’s, and other ancient copies, even Wetstein does 
 not think it worth while to take any notice of it; and 
 Griesbach, who does, and to whom the note in the “Im- 
 proved Version” refers us, does so in a manner which only 
 shows how frivolous is the argument drawn from that omis- 
 sion; for though Chrysostom, as Griesbach says, omits the 
 clause, 6 ov €7t Ttavtov Oeos, in his commentary on the 
 passage ; in the text, on which he is commenting, as given 
 by him it stands ; and so it does in other places in his works ; 
 the omission, which you see is not of @eos merely, but of the 
 whole paragraph, being here made by him no doubt for short, 
 and to save writing. But no early Christian writers apply 
 the words to Christ! What then says Ireneus? We have 
 the passage only in the Latin translation it is true; but what 
 is that translation? “Ex quibus Christus secundum carnem, 
 qui est Deus super omnes benedictus in secula,”? “of whom 
 as concerning the flesh is Christ, who is God over all blessed 
 for ever ;” the reading oy o also disposed of by it as effectually 
 as the assertion that the early Fathers do not apply the text 
 to Christ. And Tertullian’s authority is as clear upon the 
 point as that of Ivenzeus; nay, even yet more satisfactory ; 
 not only because we have not to get at him through a trans- 
 lation, but because, though his rendering of the verse is not 
 the same as that of Irenzeus, it nevertheless points to the 
 same Greek text of the verse; gives the same meaning to it; 
 and what is more still, whilst it presents to us the verse 
 twice, it is not in the two cases in exactly the same words or 
 order of words, yet in both cases the signification is the same 
 as before ; the same as that of our own version ; and in both 
 cases there is still the same evidence as before that the Oeds 
 was in his copy; and that his punctuation was the same as 
 our own. “Ex quibus Christus, qui est Deus super omnia 
 benedictus in evum omne ;”? and again, “quorum patres, et 
 ex quibus Christus secundum carnem, qui est super omnia 
 Deus benedictus in evum.”* Testimony to the same effect is 
 
 ' Trenwus, IIL. ¢. xvi. § 3. SGA Ve 
 ? Tertullian, Ady. Praxeam, ¢. xiii. 
 
Lect. IX.] SOME OTHER EXAMPLES. 38 L 
 
 afforded by Hippolytus ;' by Origen,? though in this instance 
 only in the Latin of Rufinus ; by Cyprian’ ; and by others.‘ 
 
 I will just point to a few other examples of readings of 
 Scripture, affected one way or other by the testimony of the 
 Fathers, without entering on any comment. Thus in 1 Cor. 
 x. 9. “Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also 
 tempted,” Kvpsov is a reading recognised by Griesbach as 
 bearing a comparison in authority with Xpscrov. However, 
 “Nec tentemus Christum, quemadmodum quidam eorum ten- 
 taverunt,” is the translation of Irenzeus®; which, though not 
 decisive of the question for reasons already assigned, must be 
 taken into account in the discussion of it, valeat quantum 
 valet. 
 
 In Rom. vii. 25, we have, “Who shall deliver me from 
 the body of this death? I thank Ged through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord:” evyapictd 1é Oc@ is the received reading ; 
 xapis T® Oe@ a reading, according to Griesbach, not inferior 
 to it; » xapis Tod Ocod a reading given by him in the notes 
 as that of the Clermont, and St. Germain MSS. “Quis me 
 liberabit de corpore mortis hujus?” is the way in which 
 Irenzeus renders the text; adding, “deinde infert libera- 
 torem, gratia Jesu Christi Domini nostri:”° as though Ire- 
 nzeus understood it, ‘“‘ Who shall deliver me from the body of 
 this death? The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ”; which, 
 though not answering exactly to 7 yapis Tod Oeod, comes 
 nearest to that reading. 
 
 In 1 John ii. 23, “ Whosoever denieth the Son, the same 
 hath not the Father:” this is the received text according 
 to the Greek; there is added in our translation, “ but he 
 that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also”: and 
 Griesbach marks it as a probable addition to the received 
 text, 6 dfodoyav Tov viov Kat Tov TaTépa éxer. Cyprian 
 supports this supplement, reading, “qui confitetur Filium, et 
 Filium et Patrem habet.”’ 
 
 In Rey. xviii. 5, we have, according to the common read- 
 
 . . a 
 ing, “ For her sins have reached unto heaven” (7xoXov@ycayr), 
 
 1 Hippolytus, Contra Noetum, ec. ii. | Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 87, et seq. 
 
 2 Origen, Comment. in Rom. lib. vii. 5 Treneus, LV. c. xxvii. § 8. 
 § 13, vol. iv. p. 612. UIs oS 8} 
 
 3 Cyprian, Testim. contra Judios, IT. 7 Cyprian, Testim. adv. Judxos, IT. 
 @. Vi. C. XXV1i. 
 
 See Burton’s Testimonies of the 
 
382 IMPORTANCE OF THIS EVIDENCE. (Serres II. 
 
 “cleaved to the parties (ékorrAjOnoav), even appearing against 
 them in heaven,” is the reading of the Alexandrine and Royal 
 Paris MSS., and is adopted by Griesbach. Hippolytus in his 
 treatise on Antichrist’ confirms this latter reading.” 
 
 These examples, which might be multiplied to a very great 
 extent, may suffice for the purpose of these Lectures. 
 
 I again entreat you to look at the great religious interests 
 concerned in the question of patristical evidence—in the 
 question of the use of the Fathers; and to observe how 
 frequently the defence of the text of Scripture, where a 
 various reading even may touch upon a serious heresy, de- 
 volves in a considerable degree upon them ; and then to ask 
 yourselves whether the study of them can be safely abandoned. 
 
 ' Hippolytus, De Antichristo, § xl. dations of the ordinary text, which 
 2 T take it from Mill, who, in his Pro- | Hippolytus suggests. See Hippolytus, 
 legomena to the New Testament, p. | Ed. Fabricii, p, 33. 
 Ixii., notices this and some other emen- 
 
Lect, X.] THE SPIRIT OF PATRISTIC EXPOSITION. 383 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in unfolding the meaning of Scripture: I. Their testimony 
 opposed to the Socinian scheme, 1°. In the spirit of their expositions, which is 
 evangelical, not rationalistic. Extent to which the Old Testament is applied 
 by them to Jesus Christ. Concurrence of our Church and of our standard divines 
 in this principle of interpretation. The proof of it from the Fathers inde- 
 pendent of the merit of their particular expositions. Actual uncertainty as to 
 the extent of symbolical teaching in Scripture. 2°. On the doctrine of the 
 Trinity. Statement of the Racovian Catechism. The Creed of the early 
 Church shown to have been Trinitarian from the exposition of particular texts ; 
 from the opinions of early heretics; from primitive practices and formularies ; 
 and from the correspondence of the Athanasian Creed with the writers of the 
 first three centuries. Unguarded language of these writers, especially of Origen, 
 accounted for. 
 
 pe the last Lecture we discussed the question of the use of 
 
 the Fathers in establishing the genuine teat of Scripture. 
 We will now consider the value they are of in helping us to 
 unfold its meaning, remembering that they are in a very 
 great degree the depositories of that traditional knowledge in 
 the Church which, descending from the Apostles through a 
 succession of ministers has served to maintain orthodoxy in 
 the interpretation of Scripture on all the great fundamental 
 articles of our faith." 
 
 No doubt this subject was intimately involved in the last, 
 the purport of Scripture being, of course, closely connected with 
 the correctness of our own readings of the Scripture. Still 
 there is a department of exposition, which the Fathers occupy, 
 quite independent of disputed readings, supplying us, as they 
 often do, with important information as to the general spirit 
 which animated the early Church in handling Scripture, with 
 keys to the interpretation of it found in the peculiar cireum- 
 stances of the early Church, and certainly with many probable 
 expositions of individual texts. 
 
 ' See Origen, De Principiis, IV. § 9. 
 
384 _ EVANGELICAL NOT RATIONALISTIC.. ([Senms II. 
 
 if 
 § 1. On the spirit of Patristic Exposition. 
 
 Thus it is a matter of the utmost consequence in the 
 examination of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and 
 particularly of the prophetical parts of it, whether we take 
 for our principle the Evangelical or the rationalistic scheme of 
 interpretation. A tendency to the one or the other has been 
 characteristic of certain theological schools from ancient times 
 to our own. There may be a risk either way in extremes. 
 The one may result in a low, barren, and unworthy view of a 
 most mysterious book—the view, in short of a Socinian ; the 
 other in a wild, illogical, and imaginative theory of it, such 
 as may seem to justify any excesses of the fanatic, and enable 
 him to extract from Scripture conclusions of almost any form 
 or fashion. But be the latter danger what it may, the prin- 
 ciple of interpretation which the Fathers encourage is certainly 
 the Evangelical principle, the principle of making Jesus Christ 
 the focus, as it were, to which the rays of Scripture almost 
 universally tend. “The Son of God is sown everywhere, all 
 through the writings of Moses,” is their dogma'; and again, 
 “The Law as read by the Jews at this very time is but a 
 fable ; for they have not the key to the whole, which is the 
 Advent of the Son of God to man ; whereas, read by Chris- 
 tians, it is a treasure, hid indeed in the field, but revealed to 
 them.’”? 
 
 Their position, it must be admitted, helped to foster in 
 them this spirit. In contending with the Jews they could 
 approach them by no other channel than the Old Testament : 
 this was the only ground they and their antagonists could 
 occupy in common, and accordingly they certainly do discover 
 the Scriptures of the Old Testament to speak of Jesus Christ 
 of Nazareth in season and out of season. For they hoped to 
 arrive at the heart of the Israelite through the word that was 
 
 ‘Inseminatus est ubique in Scrip- | od yap éyovor ray e&nynow Tov TavTOV, 
 turis ejus (se. Moysi) Filius Deii—Ire- | iris eoriv 7 Kar’ ovpavov Tapovoia Tov 
 neus, [V.¢c. x. § 1. And again, shortly Yiov Tov Geov' wd Se Xpuotiavav 
 after, Et non est numerum dicere in dvaylvooKopevos, Onoavpds €OTl, Ke- 
 quibus a Moyse ostenditur Filius Dei. Kpuppevos pev ev dyp@, avrois de 
 
 2"¥ md "Tovdatov prev dvayivooKdpevos arrokekauppevos, — Irenseus, LY. c. 
 6 vopos ev TO pov Kaip@, pv0e@ € €oukey | xxvi. § 1. 
 
Lecr. X.] THE SPIRIT OF PATRISTIC EXPOSITION 385 
 
 dear to him, and so to persuade him to listen to the Gospel 
 which they had to disclose. Again, in contending with 
 heretics, they had, to a very great extent, to disabuse them 
 of a notion that the God of the Old Testament was not the 
 God of the New ; that the one was a God of justice, the 
 other a God of mercy ; and accordingly, in showing the har- 
 mony of the two Testaments, they certainly do push to the 
 utmost the theory of their approximation. At the same time 
 we probably owe it to the existence of this feeling, that les- 
 sons both from the Old and New Testament—the new and 
 old things of the instructed scribe’—were appointed to be 
 read in the same Services of the Church from the very first *; 
 since a practical declaration was by this means made by the 
 Church, that the Law was but the Gospel foreshowed—the 
 Gospel but the Law fulfilled.® 
 
 Still, though the character of the sentiments of these several 
 antagonists, with whom the early Fathers had to struggle, 
 might tempt them sometimes to strain the principle of Evan- 
 gelical interpretation beyond the bounds of discretion, the 
 principle itself was most amply recognised by them, inde- 
 pendently of all reference to heretic or Jew, and manifests 
 itself in works of the Fathers which have no peculiar connec- 
 tion with either: the manner in which they used it for the 
 refutation of the Jew and the heretic only fallmg in with 
 their method of expounding Scripture at all times and under 
 all circumstances. For, indeed, their impression was, that the 
 Scriptures, being the work of the Holy Spirit, are not to be 
 read as ordinary books ; and that a mere literal interpretation 
 of them would be derogatory to’that Spirit.* “The Spirit of 
 God,” says Origen, when succinctly describing the subjects of 
 prophecy, “ the Spirit of God moved the prophets to foretell 
 some things for their own times ; others for future times ; but 
 above all (e€auperds) to speak of a certain Saviour of the 
 human race, who was to come and dwell amongst men.’® 
 Accordingly (to name a few instances of a style characteristic 
 
 1 Treneeus, IV. c. ix. § 1. 4 Ad quam regulam etiam divinarum 
 
 2 Compare Justin Martyr, Apol. I, § | literarum intelligentia retinenda est, quo 
 67, with Tertullian, De Prescript. Hee- | scilicet ea quee dicuntur, non pro yilitate 
 ret. @, Xxxvi. sermonis, sed pro divinitate sancti Spi- 
 
 3 Quest. et Respons. ad Orthodoxos, | ritus qui eas conscribi inspiravit, cen- 
 ci. p. 482. Paris Ed. of Justin Martyr. | seantur.—Origen, De Principiis, LV. § 27, 
 See Hooker, Eccles. Pol. V. ¢. xx. § 6. > Contra Celsum, III. § 3. 
 
 CC 
 
 
 
386 EVANGELICAL NOT RATIONALISTIC. [Serres IT. 
 
 of all the Fathers), so sober a writer as Clemens Romanus 
 finds in the purple thread which Rahab was directed to 
 hang out of her window, a sign, “ That there will be re- 
 demption for all who believe and hope in God, through the 
 blood of the Lord.”* Justin Martyr explains the expression, 
 “The government shall be upon his shoulder,” to have relation 
 to the Cross, against which the shoulder of the Saviour was 
 fixed.” The spit on which the Paschal Lamb was roasted, 
 and which he says was cruciform, he construes into the same 
 emblem.’ The staff by which Moses wrought his miracles, the 
 tree planted by the water-side, the wood cast by Elisha into 
 the Jordan, which raised up the head of the axe,* and many 
 more incidents of the same kind, he still considers significant 
 of the Cross. Theophilus discovers in the three days that 
 elapsed before the creation of the heavenly bodies a type of 
 the Trinity ;° and in the blessing which God bestowed on 
 the creatures which were made out of the water, whilst no 
 blessing is recorded with respect to those made out of the 
 earth, man excepted, he perceives a figure of Baptism and its 
 benefits.° Irenzeus, by no means a fanciful writer, and indeed 
 chiefly engaged in the refutation of the fancies of others, still 
 furnishes examples of the same method of interpreting 
 Scripture. Jacob held fast by the heel, so Christ came forth 
 conquering and to conquer. Jacob got the birthright; the 
 Gentiles, the younger people, received Christ the first-born. 
 Jacob gained the blessing; the Gentiles a greater blessing, 
 which the Jews, the elder, despised. Twelve tribes were the 
 foundations of the people of Israel ; twelve Apostles pillars of 
 the Gospel. Jacob had for his wages spotted sheep ; Christ, 
 a variety of people. Jacob married two sisters, that his off- 
 spring might be numerous ; Christ begat a numerous race of 
 the two laws. Jacob loved the younger sister best, so did 
 Christ the younger Church. Such is the spirit of Ivenzeus : 
 “ Nihil enim vacuum,” says he, “ neque sine signo apud 
 Deum.” ” 
 
 But the Psalms are the portion of Scripture in which the 
 Fathers trace this secondary meaning in the most lively man- 
 ner, and in the amplest detail. There they find all the par- 
 
 : Ad Corinthios, T. § xii, 4 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 86. 
 Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 35. 5 Theophilus, IT. § 15. STs 
 * Dial. § 40, 7 Ireneeus, IV. ¢, xxi. § 3. 
 
 
 
Lecrx.* ILLUSTRATION OF THIS PRINCIPLE 
 
 387 
 
 ticulars of the Birth, Life, Passion, Resurrection, Ascension of 
 Jesus, and his final triumph over the world. Did a Psalm say, 
 “The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning,” or 
 as the Septuagint has it, é~ yaortpos mpo éwopopov éyevynca 
 ge, the early Fathers saw in it the miraculous Conception of 
 Jesus.' Did another say, “ The Lord is my light and my sal- 
 vation ; whom then shall I fear ?” they saw in Jesus that light, 
 lighting, as He did, every man that came into the world.’ 
 Did another say, “Thou wast my hope, when I hanged yet 
 upon my mother’s breasts ;’’ they saw in it the Providence of 
 God, which protected Jesus from Herod, whilst he was yet a 
 babe at Bethlehem.*? Did another say, “The kings of the 
 earth stood up, and the rulers took counsel together against 
 the Lord and against his anointed ;” they saw in it the com- 
 bination of Herod and the Jews, of Pilate and the soldiers 
 against Jesus.‘ Did another say, “My heart also in the 
 midst of my body is even as melting wax ;” they saw in it 
 the bloody sweat in which Jesus was dissolved the night 
 before the Passion. Did another say, “ Hold not thy tongue, 
 O God of my praise, for the mouth of the ungodly, yea the 
 mouth of the deceitful is opened upon me ;” they saw in it the 
 complaint of Jesus touching the treachery of Judas.° Did 
 another say, “Thou hast heard me also from among the horns 
 of the unicorns ;” they saw in the horns of the unicorns the 
 arms of the Cross of Jesus.’ Did another say, “I laid me 
 down and slept, and rose up again, for the Lord sustained 
 me ;”’ they saw in it the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of 
 Jesus.2 Did another say, “ Lift up your heads, O ye gates, 
 and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of lor y 
 shall come in ;” they saw in it he Ascension of Jesus, a his 
 entrance once more into heaven.° aa another say, “ He re- 
 Joiceth as a giant to run his course ;” they saw in it the glo- 
 rious race of a esus and his Gospel over all the world." Did 
 
 1 Psalm ex. 3; Contra Cel- 
 § 63, et alibi. 
 
 2 Psalm xxvii. 1; Origen, Contra Cel- 
 
 Justin Martyr, Dial. 6 Psalm cix. 1; Origen, 
 sum, IT. § 11. 
 
 7 Psalm xxii. 21; Justin Martyr, Dial. 
 
 sum, VI. § 5 
 
 § 105. 
 
 3 Psalm xxii. 9; Justin Martyr, Dial. § Psalm iii. 5; Justin Martyr, Dial. 
 § 102, § 97. 
 
 4 Psalm ii. 2; Justin Martyr, Apol. 9 Psalm xxiv. 7; Justin Martyr, Dial. 
 I. § 40. § 85. 
 
 5 Psalm xxii. 14; Justin Martyr, Dial. 
 
 § 103. 
 
 
 
 10 Psalm xix. 5; Justin Martyr, Dial. 
 § 69. 
 eo 2 
 
388 IN THE EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS. [Serms Il. 
 
 another say, ‘“‘My tongue is the pen of a ready writer ;” they 
 saw in it the rapid dispersion of the Gospel effected by the 
 short iinistry of Jesus.' Did another say, “He sent his 
 Word and healed them, and titey were s.ved from their destruc- 
 tion ;” they saw in it the mission of Jesus, and the blessed 
 ends it effected. This is the manner in which the Fathers 
 understood the Psalms, herein not exhibiting their own senti- 
 ments merely, but certainly reflecting those of the Primitive 
 Church itself, which caused the book of Psalms, on account of 
 this its Evangelical character, to be read constantly in the 
 congregation. For that it did so seems certain, both from the 
 accuracy with which Justin Martyr quotes the Psalms, as com- 
 pared with his mode of citing any other book of Scripture, an 
 accuracy apparently derived from constant use*®; from the 
 incidental way in which he sometimes touches on a Psalm, as 
 though he presumed that this portion of Scripture was familiar 
 to every Christian worshipper, and only needed to be named 
 in order to be remembered*; and from what would seem to be 
 the express testimony of Tertullian°—a testimony which, per- 
 haps, we may consider to be confirmed by Pliny, who, when 
 describing to Trajan the principal feature of the devotions of 
 the Christians, tells him that “they sung, or said hymns to 
 Christ as God, repeating them by turns.”® There were those 
 at that time who would have preferred a more trivial mode of 
 interpretation—who would rather have construed one of the 
 Psalms, for instance, of Hezekiah, or another of Solomon, than 
 either of them of Jesus.’ But the early Fathers, and the 
 Church of which they were in this the exponents, had no sym- 
 pathy with such commentators ; neither has our own Church, 
 as we nay conclude from her application of particular Psalms to 
 the services on her great Fasts and Festivals; the day itself a 
 sufficient argument of the sense in which she understands them, 
 
 
 
 ' Psaln xly. 2; Origen, De Principiis, 
 EV) S) 5: 
 
 2 Psalm evil, 20; Origen, Contra Cel- | 
 Suny, LiSioils | legantur, &¢.—De Anima, ¢. ix. 
 
 ® See Justin Martyr, Dial. § 22. Otto,/ 6 Carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, di- 
 n. 7; and 'Thirlby, in loc. | cere secum invicem.—Plinii Epistolar. 
 
 c. xvii. Jam vero, prout Scripture le- 
 guntur, aut Psalmi canuntur, aut adlo- 
 cutiones proferuntur, aut petitiones de- 
 
 
 
 * See Justin Martyr, Dial. § 30. lib. X. ep. xevii. 
 
 5 Quantam autem castigationem me- 7 Psalm ex.; Justin Martyr, Dial. § 
 rebuntur etiam ille, quae inter Psalmos, | 33. Psalm Ixxii.; Justin Martyr, Dial. 
 vel in quacunque Dei mentione retecte | § 34. 
 perseverant !—De Virginibus Velandis, 
 
 
 
 
 
Lect. X.] REMARKS OF DR. SOUTH ON GROTIUS. 389 
 
 as it also # of her interpretation of the Lessons which she 
 selects on such occasions from the Old Testament, and which 
 must have an Evangelical meaning in order to be appropriate. 
 
 Nor have the greatest or even the most sober of our stan- 
 dard divines failed to show their respect for the same prin- 
 ciple—those divines who flourished at a period so different 
 from our own, when the writings of the Fathers formed a 
 staple in the study of theology, and imparted to it something 
 of the spirit which breathed forth from themselves. No man, 
 I presume, will class Dr. South with fanatics, or feel that he 
 was a person to be run away with by any vain and visionary 
 system of Scripture interpretation. . Indeed, we shall find, 
 perhaps, no one of our Church more sound upon all the great 
 points of theology, as we shall find none bringing to the ex- 
 amination of them more masculine powers of mind, or a more 
 thorough contempt for nonsense of any kind. Look, then, at 
 the view he takes of the principle of Scriptural exposition 
 which I have been setting forth, as recommended by the 
 authority and practice of the Fathers, in his sermon on the 
 fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.' After exposing in some detail 
 the absurdity of one Rabbi Saadias, in supposing this famous 
 chapter to be spoken of Jeremiah, he proceeds to deal out 
 some heavy blows against a more illustrious name for adopt- 
 ing the same exposition of this particular text, and in general 
 for the tone of his annotations on Scripture, Grotius. “So, 
 then, we have here an interpretation,” says he, “but as for the 
 sense of it, that, for aught I see, must shift for itself. But 
 whether thus to drag and hale words both from sense and con- 
 text, and then to squeeze whatsoever meaning we please out 
 of. them, be not (as I may speak with some change of the 
 prophet’s phrase) to draw lies with cords of blasphemy, and 
 nonsense as it were with a cart rope, let any sober and impar- 
 tial hearer or reader be judge. [or whatsoever titles the 
 itch of novelty and Socinianism has thought fit to dignify such 
 immortal, incomparable, incomprehensible interpreters with, 
 yet if these interpretations ought to take place, the said pro- 
 phecies (which all before Grotius and the aforesaid Rabbi 
 Saadias unanimously fixed—in the first sense of them— 
 upon the sole person of the Messiah) might have been actually 
 
 1 Vol. ii. p. 472, Oxf. Ed.} 
 
390 UNCERTAINTY AS TO THE EXTENT  [Sentes II. 
 
 fulfilled, and consequently the veracity of God tn the said 
 prophecies strictly accounted for, though Jesus of Nazareth 
 had never been born. Which being so, would any one have 
 thought that the author of the book ‘De Veritate Religionis 
 Christianz et de Satisfactione Christi’ could be also the author 
 of such interpretations as these? No age certainly ever pro- 
 duced a mightier man in all sorts of learning than Grotius, 
 nor more happily furnished with all sorts of arms, both offen- 
 sive and defensive, for the vindication of the Christian faith, 
 had he not in his Annotations too frequently turned the edge 
 of them the wrong way.’’' 
 
 Now I confess it seems to me a matter of great importance 
 to establish the fact that the early Fathers, in their method 
 of interpreting Scripture, did, as a general rule, embrace this 
 Evangelical principle : that they are thoroughly Anti-Socinian ; 
 that the sense in which Scripture was understood by the best- 
 informed Christians, who lived in the times immediately after 
 those of the Apostles themselves, was an Anti-Socinian sense. 
 IT am not prepared: to defend their interpretations in every 
 case. I will not even deny that a collection of instances of 
 exposition of Scripture might be made from them, where this 
 principle is pushed to a point which might expose them to 
 profane ridicule ; but I do say it is a great support to the 
 orthodox faith that a fundamental feature of the primitive 
 exegetical theology is found to be, the persevering manner in 
 which it ceases not to teach and preach Jesus Christ ; and this 
 fact we ascertain through the primitive Fathers. Doubtless 
 it may be a question whether the scarlet thread which Rahab 
 hung out at the window was a type of the saving nature of 
 the Blood of the Atonement, as the Fathers represent it ; yet 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews appears to contemplate a signifi- 
 cancy of this sort in the scarlet wool of the Law, for “ when 
 Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to 
 the Law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, 
 
 ' Dr. South then adds in a note, “ The | way in his Annotations, which also was 
 truth is the matter lay deeper than so, | the true reason that he never answered 
 for there was a party of men whom | Crellius; a shrewd argument, no doubt, 
 Grotius had unhappily engaged himself | to such as shall well consider these 
 with, who were extremely disgusted at | matters, that those in the Low Countries, 
 the book De Satisfactione Christi, writ-| who at that time went by the name of 
 ten by him against Socinus, and there- | Remonstrants and Arminians, were in- 
 fore he was to pacify (or rather satisfy) | deed a great deal more.” 
 these men, by turning his pen another | 
 
 
 
Lect. X.] OF SYMBOLICAL TEACHING IN SCRIPTURE. 391 
 
 and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book 
 and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the Testament 
 which God hath enjoined unto you.”’ Or it may be still 
 more a question whether the number ten, that of the Com- 
 mandments, being expressed by the letter ¢, indicated Jesus” ; 
 yet there is a mystery in the number of the beast. Or it 
 may be disputed whether the breaking of the first set of 
 Tables, and the renewal of the same, intimated that the Law 
 was to be superseded by the Gospel*; yet the veil on Moses’ 
 face indicated the eclipse of the Grane under the Law.* 
 Moreover, it would certainly have been made a subject of 
 debate, too, had not St. Paul himself resolved the doubt, 
 whether, when in the Levitical Law, God commanded that 
 the ox should not be muzzled which trod out the corn, he 
 was contemplating in that injunction any sanction to a pro- 
 vision for a Christian Priesthood; yet we know he was.’ 
 The truth may seem to be, that we are not to assert that 
 ritual or historical facts in the Old Testament are symbols of 
 such or such Christian duties or ordinances, except where they 
 are expressly declared to be such by competent authorities in 
 the New Testament; but we may be allowed to suspect that 
 God intended us to draw inferences of a similar kind to those 
 he has himself thought fit to put on record, from similar 
 passages for ourselves, as a wholesome exercise of our minds, 
 and an exercise calculated to strengthen our faith in the 
 leading doctrines of Christianity—and this appears from a 
 passage already referred to, to have been the distinction of 
 Origen himself °—that it may be a part of God’s scheme of 
 
 mreiBerOau ore TUmos Twds eoTW 7 
 oKNVI), ov Stapapravovtes” éaov be 
 emt TH TOOE Tit dfios Tis ypagpns 
 epappscew tov éyor ov €oTL TUTOS 
 7) oKnvi, €o0 ote aronintovtes. “That 
 there are certain mystical dispensations 
 indicated by the Divine Scriptures, every 
 Christian, however simple, believes ; but 
 what they may be, sensible and modest 
 men confess that they know not. 3 
 But when the structure of the Taber- 
 nacle is read of, those who are persuaded 
 
 Peds iz. 19. 
 
 2 Clem. Alex. Pedag. III. c. xii. p. 
 305; and compare II. ec. iv. p. 194. 
 
 * Stromat. VI. § xvi. pp. 807-8. 
 
 a2) Gorm sites.) Lo. 51) tim: ve 18: 
 
 6 De Principiis, IV. § 9. Kat 6re 
 Mev oikovopiat eioi Twes pvotiKal 
 Spot pevae dua tev Ociav ypapar, 
 mavres Kal ot dxepatorarot TOV TO 
 AOyo_ mpoosyTov METLOTEVKATE’ tives 
 d€ atta, of evyv@poves Kat arupor 
 podoyovge par) €tO€vae adnra kal 
 
 emay 1) KaTAaOKEUT) TIS oni _avayt- 
 vooKNTaL, metOopevou romous elvar Ta 
 yeypappeva, (yrovow a Suvprovrae 
 
 
 
 ihat the description is typical try to find 
 out what they can adapt to several 
 things said of the Tabernacle. Now, 
 
 epappdoa ExdoT@ TOV Kara ry oKN- | SO far as they are persuaded that, the 
 
 vip Aeyopevav* ogov pev emt TO 
 
 Tabernacle is a type of something, they 
 
392 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHURCH [Serres II. 
 
 revelation to leave us in some uncertainty with respect to 
 the extent of lis teaching by types, in order to test the spirit 
 we are of, by the application we are disposed to make of 
 what may, or may not be, hints from him, and thus to elicit 
 tokens of our indifference or our zeal. Our blessed Lord 
 himself seems to point to some such dispensation on several 
 occasions: “ Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures,” said he 
 to the Sadducees, and yet the proof of their ignorance con- 
 sisted in their not having perceived the resurrection of the 
 dead to be taught in the words, “I am the God of Abraham, 
 and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob:” and again, 
 when the disciples were desponding, as they walked to 
 Emmaus, he charged them with foolishness, because they had 
 not detected all the incidents of the closing scene of his 
 earthly life in Moses and the prophets. 
 
 § 2. 
 On the Doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 I THINK what has already been said may suffice to prove that 
 the general complexion of the theology of the early Fathers 
 is Anti-Socinian. But the question being so vital a one, I 
 will not leave it here, but will pursue a inquiry somewhat 
 further, and show that the primitive Fathers are in spirit 
 thoroughly opposed to the several leading doctrines of 
 the Socinians—I say in spirit, because writing as they do 
 before the subtleties of captious religionists had taught the 
 defenders of the faith once committed to the saints, terms of 
 precision in their arguments, it frequently happens that ex- 
 pressions escape them, of which advantage may be taken by 
 those who seek occasion for it, and who are not at the pains, 
 or perhaps have not the necessary reading, to balance those 
 expressions by others less equivocal in the same Father, and 
 by the stream of testimony his works supply, to correct any 
 occasional and incidental obliquity. 
 
 The doctrine of the Godhead, as laid down in the Racovian 
 
 cannot mistake; but so far as they ap- | particular or that, they certainly may get 
 ply the word of Seripture rightly to this | into error.” 
 
 | 
 ) 
 
Lect. X.]|. PROVED TO HAVE BEEN TRINITARIAN 393 
 
 Catechism is this, that “in the essence of God there is but 
 one Person;” and that “inasmuch as the essence of God is 
 but one in number, there cannot be so many Persons therein, 
 since a Person is nothing but an individual intelligent es- 
 sence.”’* 
 
 Now, in spite of many unguarded phrases which from time 
 to time fall from the Fathers—unguarded, I say, because en- 
 tirely at variance with their ordinary teaching—it is not to 
 be denied that the faith of the Sub-Apostolic Church was 
 Trinitarian. 
 
 Thus the caswal language of the very earliest Fathers we 
 have is Trinitarian ; even where there is no direct intention of 
 insisting on the doctrine. I allude to such passages as the 
 following: in Hermas,’ “The farm is the world: the Son of 
 the owner is the Holy Spirit: the servant is the Son of God.” 
 —In Clemens Romanus,’ “Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sceptre 
 of the Majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of splendour 
 and pride, although having this within his reach, but in 
 humbleness of mind, as the Holy Spirit speaks concerning 
 him.” And here I may observe that the Holy Spirit, when 
 thus introduced, is certainly understood as a Person; for in 
 the Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians,* when a similar 
 use of the name occurs, to IIvedua is coupled with a mascu- 
 line particle, ro 5é Ilvetdpa exipuocer eyo, as is the case in 
 the Gospel of St. John,’ and in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Behe: 
 sians®; a similar construction is found in Justin Martyr,’ 
 and in Clemens Alexandrinus.§ And it my be further re- 
 marked, in support of this inference, that “verbum,” as used 
 in the early translation of Irenzeus, is frequently joined to a 
 masculine adjective, where “verbum” stands for the second 
 Person of the Trinity.? But to return—In Ignatius,'® “Our 
 God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary according to the 
 
 ' Racovian Catechism, Of the Know- 
 ledge of God, ce. i. The Racovian 
 Catechism was drawn up by Socinus, 
 and is accounted the common creed of 
 the whole sect, to which he gives a 
 name.—Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. Cent. 
 OVI Sec. WM EP t. Wi. cs wil. 6 12. 
 
 2 Lib. IIT. Similitud. V. § 5. 
 
 83 Ad Corinth. I. § xvi. 
 
 4 Ad Philadelph. § vii. 
 
 5 "Orav dé €Oy exeivos, TO Ivedpa 
 THs adnOelas.—Jolin xvi. L3. 
 
 . "Eo ppayio One TO Tvetpare THS 
 emaryyeNias TO ayig 6s eoTw SP aa 
 oe 5 alse 
 
 7 Dial. § 2 
 
 ‘3 Peedag. IT. c. iv. p. 193; Se emiate 
 IT. § xx. p. 495. 
 
 9 Idoneus est et sufficiens ad forma- 
 tionem omnium proprium ejus Verbum. 
 —Ireneus, II. c. ii. § 5. Si autem 
 Verbum Patris, qui descendit, ipse est 
 et qui ascendit.—I. ¢. ix. § 3. 
 
 10 Tenatius, Ad Ephes, § xviii. 
 
 
 
394 FROM THE LANGUAGE OF THE FATHERS, [Serres I. 
 
 dispensation of God (7. e. the Father) of the seed of David, 
 and of the Holy Ghost; and again,’ “Give all diligence, 
 therefore, to confirm yourselves in the doctrine of the Lord 
 and of the Apostles, that in whatever ye do ye may prosper 
 both in body and soul, by faith and love, in the Son, and 
 the Father, and the Spirit ;” and once more,’ “ Be obedient 
 to the Bishop and to one another, even as Jesus Christ in the 
 flesh was obedient to the Father, and the Apostles to Christ, 
 and the Father, and the Spirit.” The martyrdom of Poly- 
 carp furnishes evidence of the same unobtrusive but most 
 satisfactory character for the Trinitarian creed of the early 
 Church. We cannot, I think, read that authentic and most 
 interesting document without feeling that such form of faith 
 transpires through it, as in undisputed possession of the 
 Church in Polycarp’s time. This is some of the language of 
 the martyr’s prayer. “O Lord God Almighty, Father of 
 thy blessed and beloved Son Jesus Christ. ... . . I bless thee 
 for that thou hast counted me worthy of this day and of this 
 hour, that I should have part in the number of thy martyrs, 
 in the cup of thy Christ, unto the resurrection of life ever- 
 lasting, of soul and body, in the incorruption of the Holy 
 Ghost. 0 te For this, and for all things else, I praise thee, 
 I bless thee, I glorify thee together with Jesus Christ, the 
 Eternal, the Celestial, thy beloved Son ; with whom be glory 
 to thee and the Holy Ghost now and ever.”* The Liturgical 
 fragment of the Ter-Sanctus, here, no doubt, quoted by the 
 martyr, itself running in a triplet, is still a subordinate in- 
 gredient in the proof. 
 
 Then the manner in which the early Fathers interpret 
 certain texts as appertaining to the Trinity, even where it 
 may be matter of question whether those texts strictly bear 
 such meaning, is very satisfactory, though still oblique, testi- 
 mony to the doctrine being settled and dominant in their 
 minds. Such is the exposition Irenzeus gives of Ephes. iv. 6. 
 “One Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in 
 us all.” “The Father is above all, and he is the head of 
 Christ ; the Word is through all, and he is the head of the 
 Church ; the Spirit is in us all, and he is the living water 
 which the Lord vouchsafes to all who rightly believe in him 
 
 1 a aewe ° . . 
 \d Magnes, § xiii. 3 Martyrium Polyearpi, § xiv.; Euse- 
 2 Thid. ius. Eecles ist. iv. § 15 
 ius, Eccles. Hist. iv. § 15. 
 
Lect.X.| FROM THE HERESY OF SIMON MAGUS, 395 
 
 and love him.”' And Hippolytus understands the text in the 
 
 same way.” Who but a member of a Trinitarian Church 
 would have ventured to propound this comment, without the 
 slightest misgiving or apology? Of a similar character is the 
 comment of Theophilus on an incident in the Mosaic history 
 of the creation.’ “The three days,” says he, “which elapsed 
 before the lights in the firmament were made, are types of the 
 Trinity, of God, of his Son, and of his Wisdom.” _ It is incre- 
 dible that a casual remark of such a nature as this should 
 have been dropped, except the doctrine of the Trinity had 
 been generally known and acknowledged. And the same 
 conclusion would seem to follow from the adoption of the term 
 “holy trinity,” as a metaphor, which we find as early as 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, who applies 7 aya tpas to the three 
 virtues, faith, hope, and charity.* 
 
 Again, the heresy of Simon Magus supplies us with another 
 areument to the same effect, quite independent of these last, 
 but of the like incidental kind; the more valuable, too, as 
 being the unintentional witness of an enemy. Simon Magus 
 is always represented as the first of the heretics, being, indeed, 
 the contemporary of the Apostles themselves. Whatever light, 
 therefore, his proceedings may serve to cast upon the orthodox 
 faith, is from a quarter entitled to the utmost attention ; 
 the date of the testimony considered. Now Simon Magus 
 gave himself out as the most High, who appeared amongst the 
 Jews as the Son ; in Samaria as the Father ; and amongst the 
 Gentiles as the Holy Ghost.? But it is scarcely possible to 
 suppose that he would have made this representation of him- 
 self, unless the orthodox doctrine of the Church (of which 
 that of the heretics was in general a caricature) had furnished 
 him with some pretence for it; and unless the Godhead of 
 the Son, of the Father, and of the Holy Ghost, and their 
 Unity, in some shape had been an article of belief familiar to 
 men’s minds. So great is the force which Mr. Wilson 
 ascribes to the argument, that “from this historical fact,” 
 says he, “without any reference to the New Testament, had 
 the Gospels even never been written, we might conclude, with 
 some probability, that Christ himself had claimed Divinity, 
 
 1 Treneeus, V. ¢: xviii. § 2. 4 Stromat. IV. § vii. p. 588. 
 * Hippolytus, Contra Noetum, § xiv. 5 Treneus, I. ¢, xxiii. § 1. 
 3 Theophilus, Ad Autolyeum, II. § 15. 
 
396 AND FROM THE FORMULARIES BY WHICH ([Senies II. 
 
 and tauglit the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity in some sense 
 or other.’’' 
 
 The truth, no doubt, was, that the perpetual recurrence of 
 formularies that embodied this doctrine kept it constantly 
 before the eyes of Christians. Baptism, for instance, was 
 notoriously administered in the name of the Father, and of 
 the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, from the first—even trine 
 immersion is a practice attending it so early, as to be lost in 
 antiquity—and a public confession of faith was made at it, 
 expressive, as we know, of the three Persons of the Godhead ; 
 a confession directly affirmed to have commenced with the 
 very Gospel itself’—nec meus hic sermo—Basil, a Father of 
 the fourth century, expressly asserts, when writing on the 
 subject of the Holy Spirit, that such was the force of custom, 
 such the strength of tradition on this question, that the spe- 
 culations of private individuals were controlled by it, and that 
 they would not venture to set up their own opinions against 
 an authority, which bore them down.? 
 
 So many elements, then, of evidence for a Trinitarian creed 
 —(I have only given examples of whole classes)—are afloat 
 in patristic theology from the most primitive times; and 
 these, again, insensibly as it were, give place to distinct and 
 technical expressions of such a creed, as heresies spring up, and 
 controversies with them, calculated to call forth such mani- 
 festoes, and to bring ideas previously existing to a point— 
 and all this, before the more formal symbols of faith which 
 we now possess, agreed upon in Councils, had made their 
 appearance, as far as we know—though these latter, again, 
 are still to be regarded simply as exponents of the truth as 
 it was held from the beginning, and not as any new disco- 
 veries of it, and are probably very much more ancient in sub- 
 stance than the dates formally assigned to them. It will be 
 convenient, then, to show the further development of the 
 question by taking the more prominent clauses of the Athana- 
 
 
 
 
 
 ? Tilustration of the method of ex- 
 plaining the New Testament by the 
 early opinions of Jews and Christians 
 concerning Christ, p. 230, Cambridge, 
 L838, 
 
 * Hane regulam ab initio evangelii de- 
 cucurrisse, Tertullian, Adversus Prax- 
 eam, ¢. ii, 
 
 
 
 % TIAjy dda wodAaxod Kal ards 
 THs ovvnbeias TO io xupov dvownov- 
 pevos, evoe Bets devas apne mept TOU 
 Ilvevpatos .... otras,” oipat, TO THS 
 mapaddaews loxupov evijye moAakis 
 TOUS dvSpas kal Tots olkeiows éavT@y 
 Sdypacw avrideyew.—Basil, De Spi- 
 
 ritu Sancto, ¢. xxix. 
 
Lect. X.] PRIVATE OPINION WAS CONTROLLED. 397 
 
 sian Creed, those, I mean, which relate more particularly to 
 the metaphysical qualities of the Deity, and demonstrate that 
 the raw material of them is discoverable in the writings of 
 the first three centuries; thus antedating Dr. Waterland’s 
 valuable illustrations of the same document, who draws his 
 vouchers almost altogether from Augustine, a Father whose 
 phraseology, no doubt, being more dressed by theological rule, 
 comes closer to that of the Creed.’ 
 
 Trenzeus, IV. c. xxxiii. § 7.—“ Moreover he” (7. e. the true 
 believer, § 1) “will condemn all those 
 who are without the truth; that is, 
 without the Church: but he will be 
 
 Whosoever will be 
 saved: before all things 
 it is necessary that he 
 
 hold the Catholic Faith. himself condemned of none. For with 
 Thie 19] re ~, . . . 
 Which Faith except him all things will be consistent. And 
 every one do keep whole 5 : i : 
 and undefiled: without he has perfect faith in one God Almighty, 
 doubt he shall perish of whom are all things; and in the Son 
 
 everlastingly. 
 
 And the Catholic Faith 
 is this: that we worship 
 one God in Trinity, and 
 ‘lrivity in Unity; 
 
 of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, by whom 
 are all things ; and his persuasion is firm 
 touching his Incarnation, whereby the 
 Son of God becaine man: and in the 
 Spirit of God, who supplies a knowledge of the truth, and 
 expounds the dispensations of the Father and the Son through- 
 out all generations of men, according to the pleasure of the 
 Father.” ” 
 
 Cyprian, Ep. lxxiiii—‘ How then can some who are with- 
 out the Church, nay against the Church, maintain, that pro- 
 vided a Gentile be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ in 
 any way whatever, he will obtain remission of sins? whereas 
 
 'T have contented myself with quot- 
 ing a limited number of authorities 
 under each clause. It would haye been 
 
 easy to have accumulated them to al- | 
 
 most any extent, as may ke seen by 
 turning to Mr. Bailey’s Rituale Anglo- 
 Catholicum, which by no means exhausts 
 them—a most useful work to all who 
 study the elements of our Prayer Book 
 —from which indeed, and from Dr. 
 3urton’s Ante-Nicene Testimonies to 
 the doctrine of the Trinity, I have oc. 
 casionally borrowed a reference, where 
 one happened to present itself, more ap- 
 posite, as I thought, than any which 
 my own notes supplied, 
 
 judieahitur. 
 
 
 
 * Tudicabit autem et omnes eos qui 
 sunt extra veritatem, id est qui sunt 
 extra ecclesiam; ipse autem a nemine 
 Omnia enim ei constant: 
 els eva Ocdv mavtokpatopa, €& ob Ta 
 mavra, Tiotis OhOKAnpos’ Kal eis Tov 
 Yiov rov Ocod Inoovy Xpurrdy, rov 
 Kuptov nav, 60 06 tra mavra, Kal Tas 
 oikovopias avtov, 6” ay dvOpwmos 
 eyevero 6 Yids trod Ceod, meopory) 
 BeBaia’ Kai cis ro Tvedpa rod Ccod, 
 qui preestat agnitionem veritatis, 7d 
 Tas oixovopias Ilarpés te Kai Yiod 
 axnvoBarovy Kal’ éxaorny yeveay év 
 Tois dvOparos, Kabas Bovdvera 6 
 Ilarnp. 
 
398 TOE ATHANASIAN CREED COMPARED WITH [Sentes II. 
 
 Christ himself commands the nations to be baptized in the 
 name of the full and united Trinity.” * 
 Tertullian, Adv. Praxeam, ¢. i11—“‘ Why then should God 
 seem to suffer division and dispersion 
 Neitherconfounding the jn the Son and the Holy Ghost, who 
 ert the ‘have the second and third places allotted 
 them, consubstantial as they are with 
 the Father; when He suffered no such thing in the angels 
 who are many in number and are not of the same substance 
 as himself?” ? 
 
 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 128.—“ And that that Power 
 which the prophetic word calls also God, as hath been in like 
 manner shown at large, and Angel, is not nominally different 
 only, as the light is nominally different from the sun” (in 
 allusion to a previous illustration), “but is nwmerically 
 different, I have briefly shown already, when I said that 
 this Power is begotten of the Father, by his power and will, 
 not however by division, as though the substance of the 
 Father was separated, even as all other things when separated 
 and divided are not the same as they were before such divi- 
 sion. And I took as an example this fact, that from one , 
 fire we see other fires lighted; the fire, from which many 
 may be lighted, suffering no diminution, but still continuing 
 the same.’’? 
 
 Origen in Joannem, tom. 1. § 6, vol. iv. p. 62. (When 
 commenting on the text, “All things were made by him,” # 
 Origen volunteers to discuss whether the Holy Ghost is in- 
 
 " Quomodo ergo quidam dicunt foris | roAA@y ooairas drodedeuxra, kat 
 extra Ecclesiam immo et contra Kecle- dyyedov, ovx @s TO Tov HAioU pas 
 siam, modo in nomine Jesu Christi, | 6vépare _povov dp.Opetrat, aha kal 
 ubicumque et quomodocumque gentilem | dpidu@ Erepov Tt eoTi, Kal év Tois 
 baptizatum remissionem peccatorum Tpoeipypevors dua Bpaxéov | Tov Aéo-yor 
 consequi posse, quando ipse Christus | e€jraca, eimay THY dvvanw tadtyy 
 gentes baptizari jubeat in plena et adu- | yeyevyno@ar amd rod Tlarpos Suvdpec 
 nata Trinitate. kat BovAy avtod, GAN ov Kata azro- 
 
 * Quale est ut Deus divisionem et dis- TOmNY, os drropepeCoperns THs TOU 
 persionem pati videatur in Filio et in | Marpds ovoias, omota Ta GANA TavTa- 
 Spiritu Sancto, secundum et tertium | HepiCopeva kat Tepvopeva ov Ta ad’rTa 
 Sortitis locum, tam consortibus sub- | €or a Kai amp tpnOnvar’ Ka mapa- 
 stantis Patris, quas non patitur in tot | Sefyparos Xap maperdnpew ra os 
 angelorum numero, et quidem tam a | azo Tupos avarTépeva mupa erepa 
 substantia alienis. | dp@pev, ovdev ehatroupevov exeivou, e& 
 
 | 
 
 
 
 3 
 2 Kai ore Sdvapyis avr, fy Kai Ccdv | od dvapbijvat mokAa Svvavrat, adda 
 Kahet 6 mpodntikds Adyos, as Sd | radTod LevovTos. * John i. 3. 
 
Lecr. X.] THE LANGUAGE OF THE EARLY FATHERS. 399 
 
 cluded, and proceeds), “ There will still, however, be a third 
 opinion besides the two which maintain, one of them 
 that the Holy Ghost was made by the Word, the other 
 that it was uncreated; and this third opinion is, that the 
 Holy Ghost is not by itself a Person, distinct from the 
 Father and the Son . We, however, are persuaded that 
 there are three Persons, the Father and the Son and the 
 Holy Ghost, and believing that there is nothing unproduced, 
 besides the Father, we accept it as the more pious notion and 
 as the true one, that whereas all things were made by the 
 Word, the Holy Ghost is of more honour than them all, and 
 in rank higher than all things that. were made by the Father 
 through Christ. And this, perhaps, is the reason why he is 
 not called the very Son of God; the Only Begotten alone be- 
 ing by nature the Son from the beginning; of whom the Holy 
 Ghost seems to have stood in need, as having ministered to 
 his Hypostasis (or Personality), not merely as to his existing, 
 but as to his being wise, and rational, and just, and all that 
 one ought to think Him to be, as the sharer of those qualities 
 which we have already described to belong to Christ.’’! 
 Tertullian, Adv. Praxeam, ¢c. xii Thus briefly, but evi- 
 dently is the distinction of the Trinity set 
 
 For there is one Per- 
 
 eee ie Father, an- forth. For it is the Spirit himself, who 
 
 other of the Son: and speaks ; the Father, to whom he speaks ; 
 
 pie of the Holy the Son, of whom he speaks. In like 
 st. 
 
 manner, other things which are spoken, 
 sometimes to the Father of the Son, or to the Son; some- 
 
 "Eorat O€ Tus Kal Tpitos Tapa Tovs 
 
 cov, pdvov Tod Movoyevods dvcet 
 Bo, Tov Te Oud TOU Adyov mapadexope~ 
 
 _ Yiod dpxnbev truyxavovtos, ob xpycew 
 
 vov TO Tyevpa TO aytov yeyovevat, kat 
 
 vovTa, Soyparifer pode ovolay Twa iSiay 
 iqpeordvat TOU eyiou TIvevpparos érepay 
 mapa Tov Tarépa Kal TOV Yiov 
 Hpeis pevTovye Tpeis UToaTacets merO6 pe 
 vot TUYXavEW, TOV Ilarépa, Kat Tov Yiov, 
 kal TO _ayov Tvevpa, kal ceyevynT ov 
 pdev erepov TOU Ilarpos etvat Tuo 
 TEVOVTES, WS eboeBeorepov Kal addnOes 
 mpoorepeba 70, mavT ov Sua Tov Adyou 
 YEVOMEVOY, TO ayo Tvedpa TavT@V 
 civat TLMLOTEPOV, kal Takeu TaVT@V TOV 
 imo TOU Tlarpos dua _Xperrov yeyeryn- 
 HEVOY. Kai Taxa avrn éoTw 1 airia 
 TOU pay Kal auto vioy xpnparigew TOU 
 
 
 
 »” aie A A 
 foie 7d Gyov Tvevpa, Stakovovvros 
 TOV dyevnrov auTov etvat UmoAapBa- | 
 
 avrov 77 brooracet, ov povov eis TO 
 civat, aA Kat ooov eivat Kal Aovyuxov 
 Kal Sikavov, Kal may OTUTOTOUV XP?) avTo 
 Yoel TUyXaveLy, Kata peToxXny TOV Tpo- 
 elpnpevear nuiv Xpiorod emworor. 
 
 In which passage it must be borne in 
 mind that ovoiay means Person; the 
 parties Origen had in his eye being the 
 disciples of Noetus, the precursors of 
 the Sabellians; and that taooraces 
 has the same signification; the argu- 
 ment continuing to glance at the same 
 heresy which confounded the Persons. 
 See Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. sec. 2, ¢. ix. 
 § 11, p. 117, fol. 
 
400 THE ATHANASIAN CREED COMPARED WITH [Sentes Il. 
 times to the Son of the Father, or to the Father ; sometimes 
 to the Spirit ; establish each Person in his own proper self.” 
 e. xii.‘ But if the number of the Trinity stagger thee, as 
 if the Trinity were not, therefore, knit together in simple 
 Unity, I ask, how does the one single Being speak in the 
 plural, where he says, Let us make man after our image 
 and likeness ; instead of saying, I will make man after my 
 image and likeness, as being himself one and singular ? fo 
 Irenzeus, IV. c. xx. § 1.—“ For there is ever present with 
 him” (the Father), “the Word and 
 Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by 
 whom and in whom he made all things 
 freely and of his own accord; and to 
 
 whom he speaks when he says, Let us make man after our 
 2 
 
 The Father uncreate, 
 the Son uncreate: and 
 the Holy Ghost uncreate. 
 
 image and likeness.” 
 
 Ill. ¢. viii. § 3.—“ But that he made all things freely 
 and as he pleased, David again asserts, ‘Our God is in heaven 
 above, and in earth he doeth all things according to his 
 pleasure.’* Now the things constituted differ from him 
 who constitutes them, and the things made from him who 
 made them. For he is himself not made, and is without 
 beginning and without end, and has need of nothing, himself 
 sufficing for himself, and for all other things, imparting to 
 them, indeed, the very privilege of existing. But the things 
 which have been made by him had a beginning ; and the 
 things which had a beginning may have an end, and are in 
 subjection, and have need of him who made them: it is 
 altogether necessary, therefore, that they should be distin- 
 cuished by a different term, by all who have any moderate 
 sense of discrimination ; so that he, who made all things, 
 together with his Word should be justly called God and Lord 
 
 ' His itaque paucis tamen manifeste 
 distinctio Trinitatis exponitur. Est 
 enim ipse qui pronuntiat Spiritus, et 
 Pater ad quem pronuntiat, et Filius de 
 quo pronuntiat. Sie et cetera que 
 nune ad Patrem de Filio, vel ad Filium, 
 nune ad Filium de Patre, vel ad Patrem, 
 nune ad Spiritum pronuntiantur ; unam- 
 quamque personam in sua proprietate 
 constituunt. 
 
 Si te adhue numerus scandalizat 
 Trinitatis, quasi non connexe in uni- 
 *“«te simplici, interrogo quomodo unicus 
 
 | et singularis pluraliter loquitur: Facia- 
 mus hominem ad imaginem et similitu- 
 dinem nostram; cum debuerit dixisse, 
 Faciam hominem ad imaginem et simili- 
 tudinem meam, utpote unicus et singu- 
 laris ? 
 
 2 Adest enim ei semper. Verbum et 
 Sapientia, Filius et Spiritus, per quos et 
 in quibus omnia libere et sponte fecit, 
 ad quos et loquitur, dicens : Faciamus 
 hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem 
 nostram. 
 
 5 Psalm exy. 3. 
 
 
 
Lect. X.] THE LANGUAGE OF THE EARLY FATHERS. 401 
 
 alone: but that the things which are made should not be ex- 
 pressed by the same term, nor have a word applied to them 
 which belongs to the Creator.” ! 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, Padag. I. ¢ vi. p. 123.—“0O mys- 
 terious wonder! The Father of the 
 universe is one; and the Word of the 
 
 The Father incompre- 
 hensible, the Son incom- 
 
 prehensible: and the z ; é 
 Holy Ghost incompre- Universe is one; and the Holy Ghost is 
 hensible. et 
 
 one and the same everywhere. 
 Jreneus, IV. ¢. iv. § 2.—“ And well he spake who said, 
 that the measureless Father is measured in the Son, for the 
 Son is the measure of the Father, since he contains him.” 3 
 c. xx. § 3.—“That the Word, that is the Son, was ever 
 with the Father, we have demonstrated 
 at length: and that Wisdom, which is 
 
 the Spirit, was with him before all 
 vy4 
 
 The Father eternal, th» 
 Son eternal: and the 
 Holy Ghost eternal. 
 worlds, it saith by Solomon. 
 
 Origen, Comment. in Genes., vol. ii. p. 1.—“For God did 
 not begin to be a Father, having been hindered from being so 
 for a time, like human fathers, who must wait to be fathers ; 
 for if God was always perfect, and his power of being a 
 Father was always present with him, and if it was good for 
 him to be the Father of such a Son, why should he defer it, 
 and deprive himself of the good from time to time, so to speak, 
 when he might have been the Father of a Son, and was not ? 
 
 And the same may be said concerning the Holy Ghost. 
 
 ? Quoniam autem ipse omuia fecit li- 
 bere et quemadmodum voluit, ait iterum 
 Dayid: Deus autem noster in ceelis sur- 
 sum et in terra, omnia quecunque vo- 
 luit, fecit. Altera autem sunt, que con- 
 stituta sunt, ab eo qui constituit, et que 
 facta sunt, ab eo qui fecit. Ipse enim 
 infectus, et sine initio et sine fine et 
 nullius indigens, ipse sibi sufliciens, et 
 adhue reliquis omnibus, ut sint, hoe ip- 
 sum preestans; que vero ab eo sunt 
 facta initium sumserunt. Quecunque 
 autem initium sumserunt, et dissolu- 
 tionem possunt percipere et subjecta 
 sunt et indigent ejus, qui se fecit; ne- 
 cesse est omnimodo, ut differens voca- 
 bulum habeant apud eos etiam, qui vel 
 modicum sensum in discernendo talia 
 habent: ita ut is quidem, qui omnia fe- 
 
 , cerit, cum Verbo suo juste dicatur Deus 
 
 »5 
 
 et Dominus solus; que autem facta 
 sunt, non jam ejusdem vocabuli partici- 
 pabilia esse, neque juste id vocabulum 
 sumere debere, quod est creatoris. 
 
 2 Q Oavparos protixod’ eis pev 6 
 tay Odwv Tlatnp eis b€ kal 6 tev 
 Ohwv Adyos’ kai 7d Lvedpa rd ay.ov 
 €v, Kat TO av’TO TavTaxoD. 
 
 * tit bene, qui dixit ipsum immensum 
 Patrem in Filio mensuratum : mensura 
 enim Patris, Filius, quoniam et capit 
 eum. 
 
 4 Quoniam Verbum, id est Filius, 
 semper cum Patre erat, per multa de- 
 monstravimus. Quoniam autem et Sa- 
 pientia, quee est Spiritus, erat apud eum 
 ante omnem constitutionem, per Salo- 
 monem ait. 
 
 5 OU yap 6 eds Tarp eivat ijpéaro, 
 kodvdpevos ws of yuvdpevor marépes 
 
 DD 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED COMPARED WITH ([Sentes IL. 
 
 402 
 
 De Principiis, IV. § 28.—* But this very expression of 
 ours, that there never was a time when (the Son) was not, 
 must be received with allowance (for the imperfection of 
 language). For these very words ‘never’ and ‘when’ are 
 significant of a temporal duration ; but those things, which 
 are predicated of the Father and the Son and the Holy 
 Ghost, must be understood as above all time, above all ages, 
 and above all eternity. For that only is the Trinity, which 
 exceeds not only all meaning of a temporal nature, but even 
 of an eternal. But other things which do not belong to the 
 Trinity are to be measured by ages and times.”’ * 
 
 Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christianis, § 10.—“ Who then 
 would not be perplexed on hearing us 
 called atheists : confessing as we do, God 
 the Father, and God the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost; discovering their power 
 in their unity, and their distinction in their order ?” * 
 
 § 24.—“ We acknowledge God, and the Son his Word, 
 and the Holy Ghost, united in power, being Father, Son, 
 and Spirit: for the Son of the Father is Mind, the Word, 
 Wisdom ; and the Spirit is an emanation, as light from fire.” * 
 
 Hippolytus, Contra Noetum, § xi.— Wherefore we behold 
 the Word incarnate; and we know the Father through him; and 
 
 So the Father is God, 
 the Son is God: and the 
 Holy Ghost is God. 
 
 we believe in the Son ; 
 
 avOporor, | tnd Tov a divac bat To 
 marépes eivat’ el yap det TEédeLos 6 
 @cds, Kal mapeory abt Svvapus Tov 
 Tareépa avrov eivat, kal Kadov avrov 
 eivat Ilarépa Tou Towourou Yiod, Tl 
 dvaadnerat, kal éavTov TOU kahov 
 ornpioKet, Kal, @s €oTW elmeiy, Ee ov 
 duvarat Tariip eivat Yiov 5 TO avTo 
 HEevTOLye Kal Trept TOU ayiou TIvevpa- 
 Tos NexTEéov. 
 
 ‘Hoe autem ipsum quod dicimus, 
 quia nunquam fuit quando non fuit, 
 cum venia audiendum est. Nam et 
 hee ipsa nomina temporalis vocabuli 
 significationem gerunt, id est quando 
 vel nunquam ; supra omne autem tem- 
 pus, et supra omnia srecula, et supra 
 omnem ternitatem intelligenda sunt 
 ea que de Patre et Filio et Spiritu sancto 
 dicuntur. Fec enim sola Trinitas est 
 que omnem sensum intelligentie non 
 solum temporalis verum etiam eter- 
 
 
 
 and we worship the Holy Ghost.” * 
 
 nalis excedit. Csetera vero que sunt 
 extra Trinitatem in seculis et tempor- 
 ibus metienda sunt. 
 
 * Tis ody ovK dropnrat, A€youras 
 Ocov Tarépa kat Yiov Ocdy kal 
 Tvetvpa dyvov, Secxvuytas abréy kal 
 THY ev TH EVOOEL Svvamwy, kal TH ev ™ 
 tafe. Siaipeow, axovoas dééovs xa- 
 Aoupevous ; 
 
 ‘Qs yap Oecdv paper, kal Yidv 
 Toy _ Adyor avtov Kal Tlvetpa dy.oy, 
 evobpeva pev kata Svvapmy, Tov Tla- 
 Tépa, Tov Yidy, Td Ilvevpa, ore vous, 
 Adyos, corpic, Yios Tov Harps, kat 
 amdppoa, ws pas amd mupds, rd 
 Tvevdpa. 
 
 4 Ovxody évorapKov Acyor Gewpov- 
 pev, Tarépa 80 avtod vOOUMED, Yio 
 dé morevoper, Uvetpare ayia 7 poo ~ 
 kuvovpevy.—Apud Routh, Opuse, tom. i. 
 p. 68, 
 
Lect. X.] THE LANGUAGE OF THE EARLY FATHERS. 403 
 
 Origen, Comment. in Joannem.—‘ The laver of water is 
 a symbol of the purification of the soul, which has all the 
 filth contracted by sin washed away: nevertheless, for him 
 who gives himself up to the Divinity of the adorable Trinity, 
 through the power of invocations, it has of itself the begin- 
 ning and fountain of graces.” ? 
 
 Comment. in Epist. ad Romanos.—“ The sacred powers 
 are capable of being the receptacles of the Only Begotten, and 
 of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit.” ? 
 
 De Principiis, IT. ¢. vii. § 3.—“ But those (heretics), such 
 is the slowness of their understandings—for they are not only 
 unable to explain what is right, but cannot even lend an ear 
 to the things which are said by us—thinking more lowly 
 than they ought of his Divinity (i.e. the Divinity of the Holy 
 Ghost), have abandoned themselves to errors and deceptions.” ° 
 
 Tertullian, Adv. Praxeam, ¢. xiii. (Praxeas had objected 
 that if it was God who gave the com- 
 mand for the creation, and as John says, 
 the Word who executed the command 
 was God, there must be two Gods. In 
 the course of Tertullian’s reply to this, 
 there occurs,) “ We never give utterance 
 to the expression two Gods or two 
 Lords; not, however, as though the 
 Father were not God, and the Son God, and the Holy Ghost 
 God, and each of them God.” * 
 
 Irenzeus, III. ¢. viii. § 3.—“For he (the Father) is not 
 made, and is without beginning, and 
 without end, and is in need of nothing, 
 
 Like as we are com- 
 pelled by the Christian 
 verity: to acknowledge 
 every Person by himself 
 to be God and Lord ; 
 
 So are we forbidden by 
 the Catholic Religion: to 
 say, There be three Gods, 
 or three Lords. 
 
 The Father is made of 
 none: neither created, 
 nor begotten. 
 
 1'TS rod wdatos Novtpdy TvpBodov 
 Tuyxdvet kabapoiov wWuxijs, mavTa 
 porov tov amd Kakias dmomuvapevys” 
 ovdey dé frrov Kal Ka éavTo, TO 
 €umapéxovte éavrdoy TH Oedtyte THs 
 mpookurytns Tpiados, dua tis duvd- 
 pews TOY eTUKAIT E@Y, Xapioparev 
 See 
 dpxiy exer Kal mnyny. 
 
 = Ai iepat Suvdpers xopytixal Tov 
 Movoyevovs, kal THs Tov ayiov Tvev- 
 patos Oedrntos. ‘These passages of 
 Origen are preserved in Basil, De Spi- 
 ritu Sancto, c, xxix. . 
 
 3 [sti vero pro imperitia sui intellec- 
 tus, quia non solum ipsi quod rectum 
 est consequenter non valent exponere, 
 
 sed ne his quidem que a nobis dicuntur, 
 possunt audientiam commodare, minora 
 quam dignum est de ejus divinitate sen- 
 tientes, erroribus se ac deceptionibus 
 tradiderunt. 
 
 There is reason to think this passage 
 correctly rendered, from the correspon- 
 dence of its expression with that of the 
 two last quotations, which are in the 
 original Greek. 
 
 4 Duos tamen Deos et duos Dominos 
 nunquam ex ore nostro proferimus : 
 non quasi non et Pater Deus, ‘et Filius 
 Deus, et Spiritus sanctus Deus, et Deus 
 unusquisque, 
 
 DD 2 
 
404 THE ATHANASIAN CREED COMPARED WITH  [Sentes II, 
 
 and sufticeth for himself, and furnishes so ia to all other 
 things this property, viz. that they exist.” 
 
 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 129.—* You will have perceived 
 then, O hearers, if you have paid any 
 attention at all, that Scripture declares 
 this offspring to have been begotten of the 
 Father absolutely before all worlds ; and 
 every one must confess, that that which is begotten is nume- 
 rically different from that which begets. aa 
 
 Irenzeus, II. c. xxviii. § 6.—*“ If any one then shall say to 
 us, How is the Son produced by the Father? We reply to 
 him, that no one knows his emission, or generation, or nuncu- 
 pation, or revelation, or by whatever other name you may call 
 his ineffable generation ; neither Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor 
 Saturninus, nor Basilides, nor angels, nor archangels, nor 
 princes, nor powers, but God only io begat him, and the 
 Son who was begotten.” ° 
 
 Tertullian, Adv. Praxeam, ec. iv.“ But when I derive the 
 Son from no other quarter, than from 
 the substance of the Father; when he 
 does nothing without the Father's will, 
 and derives all power from the Father ; 
 how can I be said to be driving the 
 Monarchy of God out of the Creed ; that 
 Monarchy, which as it was committed to the Son by the Fa- 
 ther, so do I preserve it in the Son? And let me add this as to 
 the third order, that I do not consider the Spirit to be derived 
 from any other quarter, than from the Father through the 
 
 The Son is of the Fa- 
 ther alone: not made, nor 
 created, but begotten. 
 
 The Holy Ghost is of 
 the Father, and of the 
 Son: neither made, nor 
 created, nor begotten, but 
 proceeding. 
 
 Son.” * 
 
 ' Tpse enim infectus et sine initio et 
 sine fine et nullius indigens, ipse sibi 
 sufficiens et adhuc reliquis omnibus, ut 
 sint, hoc i ipsum prestans. 
 
 2 Noeire, ray dxpoarat, el Yێ kal TOV 
 voov TPOoeXeETe, kal OTL yeyevunja Oa 
 tm tov Iarpos rovto 76 yevynpa 
 ™po mavTev amos TOV KTU HAT @Y 6 
 Adyos ednAov, Kal TO yevva@pevov TOU 
 yevvavros apOpe €repov €oTt mas 
 ooTirovy Spodoyhoese. 
 
 8 Si quis itaque nobis dixerit: Quo- 
 modo ergo Filius prolatus a Patre est ? 
 dicimus ei, quia prolationem istam, sive 
 generationem, sive nuncupationem, sive 
 adapertionem, aut quolibet quis nomine 
 
 vocaverit generationem ejus inenarra- 
 bilem exsistentem nemo noyit; non Va- 
 lentinus, non Marcion, neque Saturninus, 
 neque Basilides, neque angeli, neque 
 archangeli, neque principes, neque po- 
 testates, nisi solus qui generavit Pater 
 et qui natus est Filius. 
 
 4 Ceterum, qui Filium non aliunde 
 deduco, sed de substantia Patris, nihil 
 facientem sine Patris voluntate, omnem 
 a Patre consecutum potestatem, quo- 
 modo possum de fide destruere monar- 
 chiam, quam a Patre traditam in Filio 
 servo? Hoe mihi et in tertium gradum 
 dictum sit, quia Spiritum non aliunde 
 puto, quam a Patre per Filium. 
 
Lecr. X.] THE LANGUAGE OF THE EARLY FATHERS, 405 
 
 e. vill.—“ Whatever proceeds from another must be 
 second to that from which it proceeds, yet it is not on 
 that account separated from it. But where there is a second 
 there must be two; and where there is a third, there are 
 three. For the Spirit is a third from God and the Son ; 
 as the fruit is third from the branch and from the root ; 
 the river third from the stream and from the fountain ; 
 the sparkle from the ray and from the sun. 
 ever, assumes a nature alien to that from which it derives 
 its properties. Thus, the Trinity, proceeding through close 
 and connected gradations from the Father, is not Gapueed to 
 the Monarchy, and leaves the condition of the economy un- 
 
 Nothing, how- 
 
 damaged.” ! 
 Ady. Hermogenem, ¢. viii— For the Godhead has not 
 
 degrees, forasmuch as it is One.” ” 
 
 Origen, De Principiis, I. ¢. ui. § 7.— 
 “Lest, however, any one should think 
 that, because we say the Holy Ghost is 
 given to the saints only, whilst the blessings and operations 
 of the Father and the Son are experienced by the good 
 and bad, the just and unjust, we hereby set the Holy 
 Ghost before the Father and the Son, or ‘affirm his dignity 
 to be greater; this is by no means a consequence. For 
 we have simply been describing the peculiar character of 
 his grace and agency. But wm the Trinity nothing must 
 be said to be greater or less, since the fountain of the one 
 Godhead grasps the world by his Word and Reason, and 
 sanctifies by the Spirit of his mouth whatever is worthy 
 of sanctification.” * 
 
 And in this Trinity 
 none is afore or after 
 other: none is greater 
 
 or less than another. 
 
 ' Omne quod prodit ex aliquo, secun- 
 dum sit ejus necesse est de quo prodit, 
 non ideo tamen est separatum. Secun- 
 dus autem ubi est, duo sunt. Et tertius 
 ubi est, tres sunt. Tertius enim est 
 Spiritus a Deo et Filio, sicut tertius a 
 radice fructus ex fructice. Kt tertius a 
 fonte, rivus ex flumine. Et tertius a 
 sole, apex ex radio. Nihil tamen a 
 matrice alienatur, a qua proprietates 
 suas ducit. Ita Trinitas per consertos 
 et connexos gradus a Patre decurrens, 
 et monarchie nihil obstrepit, et cecono- 
 riz statum protegit. 
 
 2 Divinitas autem gradum non habet, 
 utpote unica. 
 
 3 Ne quis sane existimet nos ex eo 
 quod diximus Spiritum sanctum solis 
 sanctis preestari, Patris vero et Filii 
 beneficia vel inoperationes pervenire et 
 bonos et malos, justos et injustos, pre- 
 tulisse per hoe Patri et Fillo Spiritum 
 sanctum, vel majorem ejus per hoe as- 
 serere dignitatem; quod utique yalde 
 inconsequens est. Proprietatem nam- 
 que gratiz ejus operisque descripsimus, 
 Porro autem nihil in Trinitate majus 
 minusve dicendum est, quum unius 
 
406 THE ATHANASIAN CREED COMPARED WITH 
 
 [Sentes II. 
 
 Contra Celsum, VIII. § 12.—%“ We then worship the 
 
 So that in all things, 
 as is aforesaid: the Unity 
 in Trinity, and the Tri- 
 nity in Unity is to be 
 worshipped. 
 
 will 1 
 
 Father of truth; and the Son who is 
 truth, being two in Person, but one in 
 unanimity, in symphony, in identity of 
 
 Tertullian, De Oratione, ¢. xiii Nor ought earnest prayer 
 merely to be clear of all angry feeling, but even of every 
 commotion of mind; for it should be sent forth from a spirit 
 
 like unto that Spirit unto whom it is sent. 
 
 For a spirit 
 
 that is defiled will not be acknowledged by the Holy Spirit, 
 
 nor the sad by the cheerful, nor the bond by the free. 
 
 222 
 
 Justin Martyr, Dial. § 71.—“I would have you to know, 
 
 Furthermore, it is ne- 
 cessary to everlasting 
 salvation: that he also 
 believe rightly the Incar- 
 nation of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 For the right Faith is, 
 that we believe and con- 
 fess: that our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of God, is 
 God and Man; 
 
 God, of the Substance 
 of the Father, begotten 
 before the worlds: and 
 Man, of the Substance of 
 his Mother, born in the 
 world; 
 
 _ virgin. 
 
 that they have altogether expunged many 
 passages from the translation of the Sep- 
 tuagint, wherein it might be clearly 
 shown that this same (Jesus) who was 
 crucified, was both God and man.” ® 
 
 Dial. § 87.—“ Now confessing that 
 these things were spoken of Christ, you 
 still affirm that he pre-existed as God, 
 and that he took flesh according to the 
 will of God, and was made man of a 
 24 
 
 Origen, Contra Celsum, I. § 60.— 
 “And they brought gifts such as they 
 
 might offer symbolically to a Being, so to speak, compounded 
 of God and mortal man; gold, as to a king; myrrh, as to 
 one about to die; incense, as to God.” * 
 
 Divinitatis fons Verbo ac Ratione sua 
 teneat universa, Spiritu yero oris sui 
 que digna sunt sanctificatione, sancti- 
 ficet. 
 
 * Opnokevopev ovv Tov Iarépa tis 
 aAnOeias, Kal tov Yidv thv ddnéeiar, 
 ovra Ovo TH UmooTave mpdypara, Ev 
 d€ 7H Spovoia, kal TH cvudevia, Kat 
 TH TavTéTnTL Tov BovAnparTos. 
 
 2 Nec ab ira solummodo, sed omni 
 omnino confusione animi libera debet 
 esse orationis intentio, de tali spiritu 
 emissa, qualis est Spiritus, ad quem 
 mittitur. Neque enim agnosci poterit a 
 Spiritu Sancto spiritus inquinatus ; aut 
 tristis a lato, aut impeditus a libero. 
 
 
 
 * Kai dre modd\ds ypadas tédeov 
 mepteiov amo Tay eknynoewv Tov 
 YeyernHEvev bro TOV mapa TIrohe- 
 paim yeyevnuevov mpecBurepar, && 
 av Suappydnv otros avrés 6 oravpe- 
 Ocis Ott Oeds Kat GvOpwros Kai orav- 
 povpevos kai aroOvnoKay Keknpvyevos 
 a7rodetkvutat, eidevat tas BovAopat. 
 
 * Kai 6uodoynoas tatta .. . eis 
 Xpicrov eipnoOa, Kal Ocdv adrov 
 mpovmapxovta eyes, kal kata Ti 
 BovAny .rov Ocod aapxorromnbevra 
 avtov Réyers Sua THs tmapOevov -ye- 
 yevvjr Bar avOperov. 
 
 5 @épovres pev Sapa, a 
 
 a”? o 
 
 (Ww ovUT@S 
 > , , A > be) 
 ovopacw) cuvOer@ Tiwi ek OEod Kat 
 
Lecr. X.] THE LANGUAGE OF THE FARLY FATHERS. 407 
 
 Melito, De Incarnatione Christii— The same being God 
 Perfect God, and per- sal ake poe man,” | ; 
 iGoe aia ct Airédsork: Hippolytus, Contra Beronem et Heli- 
 able soul and human ¢em, p. 226.—“ Being and thought to 
 Peay subsisting. be at once the Infinite God, and circum- 
 scribed man, having the perfect being of both perfectly.” * 
 Origen, De Principiis, II. c. vi. § 3.—* This substance 
 then of the soul mediating between God and flesh (for it was 
 not possible that the nature of God should be mingled with 
 body without a mediator), there is born, as we have said, 
 God-man ; that substance being the medium, its nature not 
 being opposed to the assumption of a body.” ® 
 § 5.—“But if it should appear to any one to be a dif- 
 ficulty, that we assign a reasonable soul to Christ, and in 
 all our arguments represent the nature of the soul as capable 
 of good and evil, that difficulty may be thus explained.” * 
 Ignatius, Ad Ephesios, § vii—‘“ There is one physician 
 fleshly and spiritual, made and not made, 
 cc eee God born in the flesh, true life in death, 
 not two, but one Christ, both of Mary and of God, first capable 
 of suffering, and then incapable.” ° 
 Tertullian, Ady. Praxeam, ce. xxvii‘ We must inquire 
 One; notby conversion about this; how the Word was made 
 ca ean nouns flesh ; whether as transfigured into flesh, 
 hood into God; or as putting on flesh? Certainly he 
 must have put on flesh. For we must consider God to be 
 immutable and incapable of taking shape, as being eternal. 
 But transfiguration is the extinction of the previous estate. 
 
 dvOporov Ovnrov m poonveyKay oop tente, cui utique contra naturam non 
 Boka fev, os Bacrret TOY xpuaor, erat corpus assumere. ; 
 as O€ reOvn Eopevp Tiv opopvav, os | * Quod si alicui difficile videbitur, pro 
 de Oca Tov \iBavordv. eo quod rationabilem animam esse in 
 ' Geds oy 6pov tre kat avOpamos | Christo supra ostendimus, quum utique 
 réXewos 6 a’rés.—Apud Routh, Relig, | animarum naturam boni malique capa- 
 Sacr. vol. 1. p. 115. cem per omnes disputationes nostras 
 2 Ocov cirretpov dod Kal meprypanTov | frequenter ostendimus, hoe modo rei 
 avOponov ovra Te Kal voutpevor, THY | hujus explanabitur difficultas. 
 ovaiay €katépov Teheiws TeNelay | 5 Bis larpds €or, TapKiKss Te Kal 
 e€xovra. TVEVHATLKOS, yevunros Kat ayevynros, 
 ’ Hae ergo substantid anime inter | ev oapkt YEVOpEVOS | Ocds, ev abavareo 
 Deum carnemque mediante (non enim | (7 ahnOu), Kal ek Mapias kal €k 
 possibile erat Dei naturam corpori sine | cov, mpatov maOynros Kal tore ama- 
 mediatore misceri) nascitur, ut diximus, Ons. 
 Deus homo, illa substantia media exis- 
 
 
 
408 THE ATHANASIAN CREED COMPARED WITH ([Sentes I. 
 
 For whatever is transfigured into something else, ceases to be 
 what it had been, and begins to be what it was not. But 
 God cannot cease to be, nor can he be different from what he 
 
 ») 
 
 was. 
 
 Origen, Contra Celsum, III. § 41.—“ Let those, however, 
 who accuse us know, that he whom we believe and are per- 
 suaded to have been God from the beginning and the Son of 
 God, the same is the very Word, very Wisdom, and very 
 Truth. And we say that his mortal body, and the human 
 soul within it, not merely by communion with him, but by 
 union and commixture, acquired the highest gifts, and that 
 sharing his Divinity they passed into God.” * 
 
 Tertullian, Adv. Praxeam, c. xxvii.—‘The Word was no 
 
 other than God: the flesh no other than 
 One altogether; notby man..... It is a double estate, not by 
 confusion of Substance: . : . . 
 but by Unity of Person. Confusion, but by conjunction im one 
 Person, of God and the man Jesus.” ® 
 
 Such is the clear complexion of the testimony borne by the 
 Ante-Nicene Fathers to the doctrine of the Trinity. Such 
 the impression which their writings convey in the gross to the 
 careful reader of them. He would rise from them with the 
 conviction fixed in his mind that they held substantially the 
 faith set forth in the Athanasian Creed ; however particular 
 phrases may have presented themselves to him, from time to 
 time, which seemed repugnant to it—a circumstance which 
 he will account for partly from the loose mode of expressing 
 themselves, which untutored theologians were content to adopt, 
 partly from the extreme difficulty of finding words exactly 
 adapted to the ideas, and such as should not impart defective 
 
 * De hoe querendum, quomodo Ser- dpxndev eivat Gedy Kat Yiov cod, 
 mo caro sit factus; utrumne quasi | otros 6 abrohdyos eoTl kal 7) avro- 
 transfiguratus in carne, an indutus | codia kai 4 aiTd ddnéeiat Td Oe 
 earnem? Immo indutus. Ceterum, | Oynrov aitod capa, kal tiv avOpe- 
 Deum immutabilem et informabilem | rivny ev aité Wuxi, TH mpos exeivov 
 credi necesse est, ut sternum. Trans- | od povov Kowvovia, ada kal évorer 
 figuratio autem interemptio est pristini. | kal dvaxpdoeu Ta peyord dapev mpoc- 
 Omne enim quodeunque transfiguratur | eAndévar, Kab Ts exeivov OedtnTos 
 in alind, desinit esse quod fuerat, et in- | kexowevnkdra eis Gedy peraBeBnxevat. 
 cipit esse quod non erat. Deus autem ® Quia neque Sermo aliud quam Deus, 
 
 neque desinit esse, neque aliud potest | neque caro aliud- quam homo 
 ox 
 
 Videmus duplicem statum non confu- 
 “Opes dé iatwoay of €ykadowvtes, | sum, sed conjunctum in una persona, 
 Ore dy pep vomigoper, kat memeiopea | Deum et hominem Jesum. 
 
 
 
Lecr. X.] THE LANGUAGE OF THE EARLY FATHERS. 409 
 
 notions of the Godhead, owing to the material sense in which 
 they were ordinarily used: but, above all, from the mystery 
 of the subject itself, one so far surpassing the capacity of man. 
 The whole question, therefore, had to be filtered in Councils, 
 even as the question of the circumcision of the Gentiles was 
 debated and the decree issued accordingly in those remarkable 
 terms, “ It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.”! In 
 the meantime we must be prepared to see the doctrine in the 
 ore, if I may so speak, encumbered with dross. Hence the 
 several expressions Which Arians and other schismatics press 
 into their service, deriving from them, taken singly and alone, 
 arguments for their dogmas the most plausible, and which 
 sciolists in these matters repeat with triumph; but which, 
 upon minds thoroughly imbued with the spirit of these au- 
 thors and intimately conversant with their works, produce no 
 effect at all. 
 
 Thus, in spite of the substance of the Athanasian Creed 
 manifested as I have shown it to be in the writings of the 
 Primitive Fathers, you will find it nevertheless said by one 
 or other of them, on one or other occasion, that the Son has 
 the second place, the Holy Ghost the third’; that the Son 
 ministers to the Father’; that God was the Author of the 
 power, divinity, and even salvation of the Son*; that he was 
 Wisdom, the second person created, in allusion to Proverbs 
 viii. 22 (LXX)° ; that he was first created by God to plan, 
 then generated to execute®; that there was a treatise written 
 by one of them, “Concerning the Creation and Generation of 
 Christ ”’’ that the Father is known by himself more intimately 
 than he is known by the Son*; that we are not to pray to 
 Christ, but only to God the Father through Christ®; that 
 God the Father rules the Saviour”; that the Son was the 
 oldest of created things’'; and much more to the like effect. 
 These latter passages are all of them from Origen, from whom 
 alone might be collected more expressions of this unguarded 
 kind than from any other Ante-Nicene Father, or, perhaps, all 
 
 1 Acts xy. 28, 7 Melito, ap. Routh. Rel. Saer, vol. i. 
 * Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 13. p. Lid. r 
 
 3 Dial. § 60. 8 Origen, De Principiis, IV. § 85, 
 
 4 §5 102. 129. 9 De Oratione, § 15. 
 
 5 Tertullian, Adv. Praxeam, c. vi. 10 Contra Celsum, VIIT. § 15, 
 
 Cc. vil. '' TipeaBuraroy yap adtoy mdvTov 
 
410  UNGUARDED LANGUAGE IN THE WRITINGS ([Sertes II. 
 
 the Ante-Nicene Fathers put together. And yet it would be 
 easy to produce others from him (often scores of them, many I 
 have produced already) diametrically opposed in meaning to 
 that which any or all of these seem to bear; and it may be 
 observed as a very frequent argument on this subject, that 
 throughout his book against Celsus, Origen evidently con- 
 siders that every objection which Celsus can raise against 
 Christianity, founded on difficulties resulting from the doc- 
 trine of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, was a legitimate objec- 
 tion, and required an answer; a line of defence which he 
 would never have adopted had he felt himself in a condition 
 to dispute or to deny the premises; and a great number of 
 such objections Celsus actually does advance.’ 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that in the instance of Origen 
 more than the usual causes to which I have adverted must 
 have operated to produce so large a proportion of blemishes ; 
 that there must have been more disturbing forces acting on 
 his theology, as it has reached us at least, than appears at 
 first sight. We may trace several such from evidence con- 
 tained in his own writings. First, it appears that he was 
 much resorted to by philosophers and heretics; that he held 
 conferences with them and studied their works.” It is pos- 
 sible that this communication left some tokens of itself behind 
 on his book. Secondly, it is clear that he often wrote in 
 haste, and on the move, both time and place against him ; 
 that under such disadvantages, for example, he penned his 
 Epistle to Africanus on the authority of the history of Su- 
 sanna, which he composed, he says, at a short notice, when 
 sojourning for a few days at Nicomedia, and for the defects of 
 which he begs his correspondent’s indulgence on this very 
 ground; and it may be added, that the history which he 
 here defends in his haste as canonical, he elsewhere in his 
 haste seems disposed to abandon.’ And when speaking of a 
 certain diagram of which Celsus had made use, he avers that 
 he could find no key to it anywhere, many as were the parts 
 
 Tov Onovpynpdray toacw ot Oetor | 2nd Ed, 
 
 Adyou.u—V. § 37. ‘This is the passage 1 See especially IT. § 17, et seq. 
 apparently referred to by Dr. Clarke, 2? Ex Origenis Epistola, vol. i. p. 4. 
 and overlooked by Dr. Burton. See ’ Fragm. ex libro decimo Stromatum 
 Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fa. | Origenis, vol. i. p. 40. 
 
 thers to the Divinity of Christ, p. 300, 
 
Lect. X.] OF ORIGEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 411 
 
 of the earth over which he had travelled, as though it was his 
 habit to prosecute his studies on the wing.’ And in the con- 
 struction of his work against this same Celsus, he discovers in 
 a still more remarkable manner this habit of precipitation ; 
 for though he eventually took more pains, perhaps, with this 
 work, than with any other he composed, or, at least, any other 
 that has descended to us, yet having commenced it on one 
 plan, and soon finding it expedient to continue it on another, 
 he could not prevail on himself to recast the beginning, but re- 
 tained it as it was, for the sake of expedition and economy of 
 time ; and apologized in a preface to his readers for the in- 
 congruity it would occasion.” We may detect similar marks 
 of hurry in the opening of the second book against Celsus, as 
 compared with that of the third. For, whilst in the opening 
 of the second, he professes to confine himself in that book to 
 the charges which Celsus, in the fictitious character of a Jew, 
 brings against the Jews who believed in Jesus ; in the opening 
 of the third, where he recapitulates the subjects of the two for- 
 mer books, he overlooks this limitation of the argument of the 
 second, and says, “In the second we met, as well as we could, 
 all the objections made against ws who believe in God through 
 Christ, by Celsus asa Jew.”* Accordingly, it would seem that, 
 in writing the second book, he did in fact forget the prospectus 
 with which he started ; the reasoning not having an exclusive 
 reference to the Jewish believer; and in no single instance 
 founded peculiarly on Hebrew criticism. Thirdly, it is plain 
 - that Origen propounded a great many of his notions as pure 
 speculations, in which he had himself no particular confidence, 
 the freaks of a mercurial mind, and represented by himself as 
 little else. Thus he introduces his chapter “concerning the 
 end,” in his “ De Principiis”’ with the remark, that what he 
 was about to suggest “would be said with great fear and 
 caution, rather in the spirit of one who discusses and debates 
 a subject, than of one who ventures to affirm on it.”* So in 
 the next chapter, “concerning things corporeal and incor- 
 poreal,” when launching into a disquisition on the nature of 
 the heavenly bodies, or on the probability of their being ani- 
 
 1 Contra Celsum, VI. § 24. metu et cautela dicuntur, discutientibus 
 2 Pref. ad libros contra Celsum, § 6, | magis et pertractantibus quam pro cer- 
 3 Compare IT. § 1, and III. § 1. to ac definito statuentibus.—De Princi- 
 
 4 Que quidem a nobis cum magno | piis, I. c. vi. § 1. 
 
412 UNGUARDED LANGUAGE IN THE WRITINGS ([Sentzs II. 
 
 mated, he adds: “Although to institute such an inquiry as 
 this may seem to have in it a certain audacity, still, since we 
 are impelled by the desire of laying hold of truth, it does not 
 seem absurd to examine and try such matters as it may be 
 possible to attain unto, according to the grace of the Holy 
 Spirit.”’ Again, “concerning the Incarnation of Christ,” we 
 find him preparing his readers for his remarks by the following 
 appeal: “Touching which, we will produce as briefly as pos- 
 sible, not with any temerity, but simply because the course of 
 our subject calls for it, the things which our faith rather holds 
 than those which human reason dogmatically asserts for itself; 
 rather advancing our own suspicions than making any positive 
 assertions.”” Again, in the same chapter, “ Meanwhile this is 
 what has otcurred to us at present, whilst discussing so diffi- 
 cult a subject as the Incarnation and Divinity of Christ. If, 
 however, any one can discover anything better, and confirm 
 what he says by clearer arguments from: the Holy Scriptures, 
 let his conclusions be received rather than ours.”* Again, in 
 another chapter “concerning the soul,” “ However, as to what 
 we have said touching the vovs (mens) of man, when changed 
 for the worse, becoming a yuy7 (anima), or aught else per-— 
 taining to the same question, let him who reads diligently 
 discuss the matters in his thoughts, and conclude on it; but 
 let not what we have just put forward be understood as 
 spoken dogmatically, but rather as produced in the way of 
 discussion and inquiry.” * Again, in another chapter “con- 
 cerning human temptations,” Origen starts various theories to 
 account for “the flesh lusting against the spirit,” and then 
 concludes, “The reader may choose which theory he lkes 
 
 " Quamvyis hoc inquirere audacize cu- 
 jusdam videatur, quoniam tamen cap- 
 tande veritatis studio provocamur, que 
 possibilia nobis sunt, secundum gratiam 
 Spiritus sancti scrutari et pertentare 
 non videtur absurdum.—De Principiis, 
 I. vii. § 3. 
 
 * De quo nos non temeritate aliqua, 
 sed quoniam ordo loci deposcit, ea ma- 
 
 gis quee fides nostra continet, quam que | 
 
 humans rationis assertio vindicare solet, 
 quam paucissimis proferemus, suspi- 
 ciones potius nostras quam manifestas 
 aliquas affirmationes in medium profer- 
 entes.—II. c. vi. § 2. 
 
 3 Hee interim nobis ad presens de 
 rebus tam difficilibus disputantibus, id 
 est de incarnatione, et de deitate Christi 
 occurrere potuerunt. Si quis sane me- 
 lius aliquid poterit invenire, et eviden- 
 tioribus de seripturis sanctis assertio- 
 nibus confirmare qui dicit, illa potius 
 quam hee recipiantur.—II. ec. vi. § 7. 
 
 4 Verum tamen quod diximus, men- 
 tem in animam verti, vel si qua alia in 
 hoe videntur aspicere, discutiat apud se 
 qui legit diligentius et pertractet: a no- 
 bis tamen non putentur velut dogmata 
 esse prolata, sed tractandi more ae re- 
 quirendi esse discussa.—II. ¢. vill. § 4. 
 
Lect. X.] OF ORIGEN ACCOUNTED FOR. ALS 
 
 best.”' And once more, in a chapter “concerning the end of 
 the world,” Origen closes his lucubrations, “ Having thus far 
 discussed the system of corporeal nature or spiritual body, we 
 leave the matter to the judgment of the reader, that he may 
 choose whichever theory he likes best; and so we make an 
 end of our third book.”* These passages, though taken from 
 the “ De Principiis,” I have no doubt are correct versions of 
 the Greek ; for besides being of a kind to provoke no meddling 
 of Rufinus, they are perfectly consistent with other places still 
 existing in the Greek. Thus he ends a comment on the 
 question of ecclesiastical Digamy as follows: “It is probable 
 that other notions will be started by persons much wiser than 
 ourselves, and better able to see into such things, whether as 
 relates to the law touching the writing of divorcement, or 
 whether as to the Apostolical precepts, which forbid Digamists 
 to have any rule in the Church, or to preside over it in any 
 post of honour: we, however, have expressed what has occur- 
 red to ourselves on this subject, waiting till something better 
 can be made out, and something which, by the superior lustre 
 of knowledge, may eclipse what has been said by us.”* I 
 have multiplied these quotations, because I think they throw 
 a light on the character of Origen’s writings; and supply a 
 key to much that is otherwise perplexing in them. 
 
 All these circumstances, then, taken into account, we might 
 expect that the works of Origen, even as they came fresh from 
 his pen, would exhibit many of those symptoms of heat and 
 confusion which certainly appear in them at present, and we 
 might be disposed to think that there never was a time, even 
 from their first publication, when they could be adopted as 
 safe and consistent guides from beginning to end; however 
 particular treatises might justly be thought such ; and how- 
 ever cognisable, after all, the fundamental features of the 
 truth and of the Church might be, and indeed still are, 
 throughout them as a whole. 
 
 But even these drawbacks to the implicit reception of them 
 
 1 Et nos quidem prout potuimus ex | ture vel spiritalis corporis ratione dis- 
 singulorum personis que dici possunt | cussa, arbitrio legentis relinquimus, ex 
 disputationis modo de singulis dogma- | utroque quod melius judicaverit eligen- 
 tibus in medium protulimus: quiautem | dum. Nos vero in his finem libri tertii 
 legit, eligat ex his quee magis amplec- | faciamus.—e. vi. § 9. 
 tenda sit ratio.—III. c. iv. § 5. * Origen, Comment.in Matt. tom. xiv. 
 
 * Hactenus nobis etiam corporex: na- | § 22, vol, ili, p. 646. 
 
414 UNGUARDED LANGUAGE IN THE WRITINGS  [Sentes I. 
 
 are aggravated by other considerations. We have not, in 
 many cases, the work as Origen composed it—if the original 
 concoction had its alloy, the mixture which has resulted from 
 subsequent vitiation of it is much more debased. In the first 
 place, the text is corrupt ; how much so, and how much might 
 be done to correct it, may be perceived by comparing that of 
 the treatise ‘De Oratione,” as revised by Bentley, with that 
 which he found it. But the grievance lies deeper even than 
 this. Origen was himself careless about his manuscripts. 
 On one occasion he tells us of a heretic who, having held a 
 dispute with him, availed himself of the notes of it which had 
 been taken down by the bystanders; and then dressing them 
 up to suit his purpose, gave them circulation as a treatise of 
 Origen’s. Meanwhile, his friends, shocked at the publication, 
 apply to him for the authentic copy, which, says Origen, 
 though it had never been read over by him or revised, but 
 had been thrown aside, so that it was with difficulty 
 recovered, he at length found and sent them.' It is possible 
 that several of his treatises, as we now possess them, are not 
 the deliberate penning of Origen himself, but memoranda of 
 oral addresses, committed to paper by his hearers, in the 
 manner here alluded to; a process sure to misrepresent him 
 more or less.? And it is certain, that in the very earliest 
 times his writings were tampered with by heretics. His 
 “De Principiis,’ which is said to have suffered in this way 
 above the rest, underwent further manipulations at the hands 
 of Rufinus (as he himself confesses*) in his translation of it, 
 in which alone the greater part of it has been preserved to 
 us; and which must be estimated accordingly: for though 
 the substance of it is, no doubt, Origen’s; and may often be 
 confirmed as being so by a reference to similar opinions 
 expressed in other of his works ; yet the liberties taken with 
 it may sometimes involve Origen in contradictions, which are 
 not really to be laid at his door. And in the Comment on 
 the Epistle to the Romans, which also has descended to us 
 only in the Latin version of Rufinus, the translator tells us in 
 his Preface that he made bold with his author in the same 
 way.‘ I have entered into these details for the purpose of 
 
 ' Ex Epist. Origenis, vol. i. p. 5. ® Origen, Prologus Rufini in libros 
 “See Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. vi. | wept dpxav. 
 c. 36. 4 Vol. iv. p. 458. 
 
Lect. X.] OF ORIGEN ACCOUNTED FOR. 415 
 
 accounting for the number of expressions occurring in Origen’s 
 writings, as we now have them, which jar with the general 
 tone of his teaching; a number much greater in proportion 
 than those of a like kind, which present themselves to us in 
 any other of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. 
 
416 THE EARLY FATHERS OPPOSED TO  [Senies Il. 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 The testimony of the Fathers opposed to the Socinian scheme. 3°. On the doc- 
 trine of the Atonement. Statement of the Racovian Catechism. The death 
 of Christ, according to the Fathers, a sacrifice—expiatory, vicarious, universally 
 necessary. Unreasonableness and hardihood of rejecting a doctrine thus 
 guaranteed. 4°. On the nature and effect of Baptism. Statement of the 
 Racoyian Catechism. Unanimity of the Fathers on Baptismal regeneration. 
 Variety of forms in which they assert it. The effect of Baptism, according to 
 them, the work of the Holy Ghost. Their account of it meant to apply to in- 
 fants as well as to adults. Evidence for Infant Baptism. The office of spon- 
 sors recognised. The benefit not ascribed to the opus operatum, but represented 
 as contingent on the observance of the Baptismal promises. Strictness of the 
 early Church in this particular. 
 
 §.-8: 
 
 On the Doctrine of the Atonement. 
 
 ee next great doctrine on which the testimony of the 
 
 early Fathers is directly opposed to the Socinian scheme, 
 and which has already been incidentally touched in one or 
 two quotations made for other purposes, is that of the Atone- 
 ment by the Blood of Christ. The Racovian Catechism, after 
 assigning as causes for the death of the Saviour, that it was 
 necessary in order to his subsequent resurrection and exalta- 
 tion, and as a proof of God’s love and Christ’s own towards 
 us, proceeds to ask, “Is there not some other cause for the 
 death of Christ?” To which it makes answer, “None at all; 
 although Christians at this day commonly think that Christ 
 by his death merited salvation for us, and fully satisfied for 
 our sins, which opinion is fallacious, erroneous, and very per- 
 nicious.”’ And Dr. Priestley, a leader of a section of the 
 same school in modern times, affirms that “The whole doctrine 
 of the Atonement, with every modification of it, has been a 
 departure from Primitive Christianity.” ? 
 
 " Racovian Catechism, Of Christ’s ? History of the Corruptions of Chris- 
 Prophetic Office, ch. viii. tianity, vol. i. p. 154. 
 
Lecr. XI.} THE SOCINIANS ON THE ATONEMENT. 417 
 
 Now certainly if the unanimous voice of the early Church is 
 to rule us at all in the interpretation we put upon Scripture, it 
 is clear that neither the Catechism of Socinus, nor the dogma 
 of the disciple of Socinus, is to be received for a moment. 
 The array of authorities which might be produced from the 
 Fathers in support of this assertion is absolutely overwhelm- 
 ing. One knows not which to select, or where to stop in the 
 selection. 
 
 We find Barnabas seeing in the Law intimations that “The 
 Lord was eventually to offer up his flesh (the receptacle of his 
 Spirit) as a sacrifice for our sins ;’’' that when the heifer 
 was burned, the ashes put into vessels, and the people sprinkled 
 with the ashes that they might be purified from their sins, 
 the heifer meant Christ.’ 
 
 We find Clemens Romanus saying that the spies required of 
 Rahab a sign, namely, “ that she should hang a purple thread 
 out of her house, thereby signifying that there would be re- 
 demption through the blood of the Lord for all who believe 
 and hope in God.”* We perceive him applying the language 
 of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah to Christ, “He was 
 wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniqui- 
 ties, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with 
 his stripes we are healed.”* We have him declaring that 
 “Through the charity which Jesus Christ our Lord felt for 
 us he gave his blood for us; his flesh for our flesh ; his life 
 for our lives.’’° 
 
 We hear Jenatius talk of “ purging the water (d. e. of Bap- 
 tism) by his Passion” ® ; boast that “the archives which he for 
 his part consulted were those uncorrupted ones of the cross, 
 death, resurrection of Christ, and faith in him, by whom he 
 hoped to be justified.’’” 
 
 We discover Justin Martyr speaking of the death of Christ, 
 not as an event which “ Procured the reversion of death passed 
 upon Adam and his posterity at the Fall, and so the resur- 
 rection of mankind in general, the wicked as well as the 
 righteous to a future life,’ which was what Dr. Priestley saw 
 in it,® but as a sacrifice expurgatory of moral guilt. By the 
 
 ' Barnabas, § 7. 6 Tenatius, Ad Ephes. § xviii. 
 
 MAS 8 7 Ad Philadelph. § viii. 
 
 ® Clem. Rom. Ad Corinth. I. § xii. 8 History of the Corruptions of Chris- 
 SoS KV1s 6 § xlix. tianity, vol. i. p. 237. 
 
 KE 
 
* 
 418 TESTIMONIES OF JUSTIN, IRENUS, [Senms I. 
 
 ‘serpent on the pole or cross in the wilderness, “It was pro- 
 claimed that the power of the serpent which wrought the fall 
 of Adam was dissolved, and that there was salvation for 
 those who believed in him whom the cross expressed, from 
 the wounds of the serpent, which are evil deeds, idolatries, and 
 other iniquities.”* “The Father of all chose that his Christ 
 should take on himself the universal curse for all men of 
 every nation.” * The prophecy of Jacob pointed to “The 
 passion which Christ should undergo, when he would purge 
 by his blood those who believed in him ;’’* the word xabaipey, 
 (and the same may be said of xa@apifew in a previous quo- 
 tation from Ignatius,) evidently having a reference to the 
 defiling quality of sin, which Christ came to put away by the 
 sacrifice of himself; and not at all to the purpose, if by the 
 offering of Christ nothing more was meant than his delivering 
 himself to die as a preliminary to his entering into heaven, 
 there to discharge his priestly functions for us*; or his revers- 
 ing the sentence of death passed at the Fall, and procuring 
 the resurrection of mankind. “Those who have not clean 
 hands should wash and be clean .... not as though all the 
 waters of the sea could cleanse sin, but as though the bath 
 of salvation could . . . through faith in the blood of Christ ;”° 
 still aroXovec Oar and KaOapifew the terms used ; and in rela- 
 tion solely to the effect of the bloodshedding of Christ. Finally, 
 the mystery contained in Joshua the high priest having his 
 filthy garments taken from him, as recorded in the third chapter 
 of Zechariah, was significant of our sins being put away from 
 us through the name of Jesus.° 
 
 We find Ivenzeus, in his turn, insisting on the same doc- 
 trine over and over again, as if it was above all doubt or 
 dispute, affirming that “The Lord suffered for our salva- 
 tion ;”’ “ransomed us by his own blood ;’® “redeemed us from 
 the Fall by his blood, to the end that we might be a holy 
 people ;”° that he “reconciled us to God by his Passion; ” ” 
 that he “called to him all that mourned, and gave remission 
 of sins to those who had been led captive, and loosed them 
 
 ‘ Justin Martyr, Dial. § 94. 6 ss 115, 116. 
 2695, “ Ireneus, II. ¢. xx. § 2. 
 8 Apol. I. § 82. VG (chatiee Se Ul 
 ¥ Racovian Catechism, Of Christ’s SPUNMES CS aus 1S 8h 
 Priestly Office, pp. 163, 164. lO ELI, G. KVL 5.0! 
 
 5 Justin Martyr, Dial. ss 12; 18: 
 
Lect, XI.] AND MELITO ON THE ATONEMENT. 419 
 
 from their bonds ;’’’ that “God made the Gentiles clean by 
 the blood of his Son ;”? that “he descended from the Father, 
 tool: flesh, suffered death, and consummated the scheme of 
 our salvation ;”* that “David, when he said, Blessed is the 
 man unto whom the Lord imputeth no sin, was setting forth 
 beforehand the forgiveness through his advent, whereby he 
 blotted out the hand-writing of our debt and nailed it to the 
 cross ; so that as by the tree we were made debtors to God, 
 by the tree we should obtain remission of our debt ;”* that 
 “Jesus who suffered for us, who sojourned among us, the 
 same is the Word of God;”° that “we should declare with 
 thanksgiving wherefore the Word of God took flesh and suf- 
 fered.” ° 
 
 We read in Melito’ that “God suffered with Israel-on his 
 right hand,” the Gentiles being on his left. How could such 
 an awful phrase as this present itself, except to a mind con- 
 scious of the immense difficulty attending the expiation of 
 sin, and the precious offering required in order to effect it ? 
 Indeed, the true nature of those sufferings is expressly 
 asserted in the next fragment of the same author, taken from 
 a catena or running commentary on Genesis—“ There came 
 a ram for the slaughter instead of Isaac the just man, that 
 Isaac might be loosed from his bonds. This ram being put. 
 to death ransomed Isaac. In like manner the Lord being 
 slain saved us, and being bound set us free, and being sacri- 
 ficed became our ransom” ’—where Christ’s sacrifice is clearly 
 designated as vicarious, Christ substituted in our stead as 
 the ram was in Isaac’s—an. authority completely in contra- 
 diction to the Racovian Catechism, which, having asked the 
 question, “ What is the meaning of these words, that Christ 
 died for us?” makes answer, “This expression, ‘for us, does 
 not signify in our stead, but on our behalf.” ® 
 
 We observe that Clemens Alexandrinus, different as his 
 mode of writing and reasoning is from that of the Fathers 
 we have been hitherto considering, still agrees with them in 
 giving clear expression to this fundamental doctrine. Like 
 Melito, he finds the scene of Calvary in that of Mount 
 
 1 Trenzeus, III. c. ix. § 3. OTe. eas a 
 
 RL Cacxile Sas 7 Routh. Rel. Sacr. vol. i. p. 116. 
 
 ® TEL. ¢. xviii. § 2. ‘8 Ibid. p. 117. 
 
 4V.c. xvii. § 3. 9 Racovian Catechism, Of Christ’s 
 5 T. co ix. 9/8. | Prophetie Office, ch. vili. p. 134. 
 
 EE 2 
 
420 TESTIMONIES OF CLEMENS, BARNABAS, ([Senres Il. 
 
 Moriah —“ Isaac was the son of Abraham, as Christ was 
 the Son of God; he was a victim as the Lord was, yet was 
 not offered up, as was the Lord ; only Isaac bare the wood of 
 the sacrifice, as the Lord bare the cross, and he laughed in a 
 figure, prophesying that the Lord would fill us with joy, 
 redeemed as we are from destruction by the Lord’s blood. 
 Isaac, however, did not actually suffer, which was well, for 
 he resigned the initiative of the Passion to the Word. More- 
 over, by not being put to death he intimated the Divinity of 
 the Lord ; for Jesus after his burial rose again, not haying 
 suffered” (7. e. either not in his Godhead or not permanently) 
 “even as Isaac was released from the sacrifice.”' Again, 
 how undeniably is the vicarious nature of Christ’s sacrifice 
 declared in the following paragraph, the very antithesis turn- 
 ing on it! “He who suffers for his love of God, suffers for 
 his own salvation ; and again, he who dies for his own salva- 
 tion, endures for the love of the Lord. For he for whom he 
 suffered being himself Life, was content to suffer, in order that 
 by his Passion we might live.” ? And the same may be said of 
 this other, “I will give thee daily the drink of immortality,” 
 (it is the Saviour who is represented as speaking,) “I will 
 be thy teacher in heavenly lore. I contended for thee unto 
 death. I paid thy death which thou owedst for thy sins 
 aforetime and for thy unfaithfulness unto God.”* Once more, 
 how universal is the necessity of this sacrifice! “The Apostle, 
 though he had distinctly said already that he regards the 
 salvation in Christ of the just (7. e. of the just who lived before 
 Christ) and of us to be one and the same, nevertheless adds, 
 when speaking of Moses, that he ‘esteemed the reproach of 
 Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt’” 4_~ this 
 again a sentiment altogether opposed to that of the same 
 Catechism on the same subject; where to the question, “Is 
 none justified without faith in Christ?” (i. e. however, a 
 Socinian faith,) the answer supplied is, “ None at all. But 
 this is to be understood of that time since Christ hath been 
 revealed . . . Foras to the time that went before the revela- 
 tion of Christ, this cannot be affirmed thereof.” 5 
 
 Nay more, as I argued in the last section, that the Trinita- 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Peedag. I. c. v. p. 111. 
 
 ? Stromat. IV. § vii. p. 583. 
 ® Quis dives salvetur, § xxiii. 
 
 + Stromat. IV. § xvi. p. 609. 
 5 Racovian Catechism, Of Christ's 
 Prophetic Office, ch. xi. p. 152. 
 
Lecr. XI.] AND TERTULLIAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 421 
 
 rian sense imposed by the early Fathers on texts which, 
 strictly speaking, perhaps, could not be adduced in evidence 
 of it, or where the correctness of such application might be 
 disputed, served to show very clearly that the doctrine of the 
 Trinity was in undisputed possession of their minds, so may 
 I say the same with respect to the doctrine of the Atone- 
 ment. Thus it is a well-known fancy of Barnabas, that when 
 Abraham circumcised all the males in his house, being in num- 
 ber 318, thereby saving them from being cut off from the 
 congregation, the incident typified the crucifixion of Jesus 
 and its consequences—the 18 being expressed by the letters 
 tn, the initials of Jesus, and the 300 by the letter 7, the 
 figure of the cross, so that the number 318 translated meant 
 Jesus crucified.’ No one would think of accepting this rea- 
 soning of Barnabas as sound and trustworthy, or be satisfied 
 that the doctrine of Christ crucified and its results are fairly 
 deduced from the premises ; but every one would, neverthe- 
 less, draw this conclusion from the commentary of Barnabas, 
 that the doctrine of the Atonement was considered by him to 
 be a very prominent feature in the Gospel scheme, and to be 
 true beyond denial; and this the rather from his daring to 
 find it where he does. Had it been one of doubtful accept- 
 ance, he would not have ventured upon so questionable an 
 expression of it ; still less would this notion of his have main- 
 tained its ground so long as to be repeated by Clemens, and 
 with as little misgiving as it had been broached by Bar- 
 nabas.? 
 Tertullian adds his testimony to that of those we have 
 already reviewed. “What, then,” says he, in his “ De Corona,” 
 “was the crown which Christ Jesus wore for either sex? It 
 was a crown of thorns and briars, in token of the sins which 
 the earth of our flesh hath brought forth unto us and which 
 the power of the cross hath taken away, overcoming the sharp- 
 ness of every sting of death in the sufferings of the head of 
 the Lord.”* How emphatic a declaration of the doctrine of 
 the Atonement is contained in the following passage! How 
 difficult would it be to devise expressions that should convey 
 
 1 Barnabas, § 9. | lis, in figuram delictorum, que nobis 
 2 Clem. Alex. Stromat. VI. § xi. p. | protulit terra carnis, abstulit autem vir- 
 781. tus ecrucis, omnem aculeum mortis in 
 
 * Quale, oro te, sertum pro utroque | Dominici capitis tolerantia obtundens.— 
 sexu subiit? Ix spinis, opinoy, et tribu- | Tertullian, De Corona, c. xiv. 
 
422 TESTIMONIES OF TERTULLIAN, HIPPOLYTUS, [Sens II. 
 
 it with greater authority! Tertullian is arguing against the 
 early heretical notion that Jesus was merely a phantom, and 
 in setting forth the consequences which would ensue from such 
 a-fact if it were true, There could be no such thing in that 
 case, says he, as faith in Christ’s passion, “ because a phantasm 
 could not really suffer ; so that the whole work of God would 
 be overturned. The death of Christ, the whole weight and 
 benefit of the Christian profession, that death which the Apos- 
 tle insists upon so impressively as real, making it the entire 
 foundation of the Gospel, of our salvation, and of his preach- 
 ing, would be denied ; for ‘I have delivered unto you, says 
 he, ‘first of all how that Christ died for our sins, and that he 
 was buried, and that he rose again the third day.’”’ How 
 could the sacrifice of the death of Christ be more amply 
 estimated than by such terms—that the whole weight and 
 benefit of the Christian profession was derived from it—that 
 it was the entire foundation of the Gospel and of our salva- 
 tion? And how naturally does the Apostle’s language, as 
 quoted to confirm these views, conspire with them! Certainly 
 if we must look anywhere for a fuller declaration of the mo- 
 mentous doctrine we are contemplating, it must be Tertullian 
 himself, who in another place, when dealing with the same 
 heresy, exclaims against its advocate with a vehemence scarcely 
 excusable, but still most apt for my present purpose,” “O most 
 wicked of men, who” (by supposing Jesus a phantom) “ ex- 
 cusest the murderers of God. For unless Christ really suf- 
 fered, he did not suffer at their hands at all. Spare the one 
 single hope of the whole world.” It is not necessary, I think, 
 to produce further evidence (which, however, might most 
 easily be done) from this Father. Let us, then, turn to ano- 
 ther. 
 
 “The body” (of Jesus), says Hippolytus, “though dead as 
 to its human nature, has in it a mighty virtue of life; for 
 
 ' Sic nee passiones Christi ejus fidem 
 merebuntur: nihil enim passus est qui 
 non vere est passus. Vere autem pati 
 phantasma non potuit. Eversum est 
 igitur totum Dei opus. Totum Chris- 
 tiani nominis et pondus et fructus, mors 
 Christi negatur, quam tam impresse 
 Apostolus demandat, utique veram, sum- 
 mum eam fundamentum Evangelii con- 
 Stituens, et salutis nostra, et pradica- 
 
 tionis sue. Tradidi enim, inquit, vobis 
 in primis, quod Christus mortuus sit 
 pro peccatis nostris, et quod sepultus 
 sit, et quod resurrexerit tertia die.—Ad- 
 versus Marcionem, ITT. ec. viii. 
 
 ? Scelestissime hominum, qui inter- 
 emptores excusas Dei. Nihil enim ab 
 eis passus est Christus, si nihil vere 
 est passus. Parce unice spei totius or- 
 bis—De Carne Christi, ¢. v. 
 
Lect. XI.] AND ORIGEN ON THE ATONEMENT, 423 
 
 that which does not proceed from dead bodies in general, pro- 
 ceeded from it, even blood and water, in order that we might 
 know what power unto life the virtue possessed which was 
 enshrined in that body, so that it did not seem like other 
 dead bodies, but could pour forth for us the causes of life.” ' 
 Proceed we next to Origen; and still we shall find the 
 argument for this vital doctrine only gathering further 
 strength. “ Let aman once lose his soul,” says he, “or damage 
 it, and if he gain the whole world he cannot find a ransom 
 for it. For the soul which is made in the image of God is 
 more precious than all things. ‘There is only one who hath 
 been able to give a ransom for a soul already lost, even he 
 who hath purchased us by his own precious blood.” ? Again, 
 “ We maintain that he received a human body from a woman, 
 that he might live in it; and which might be capable of a 
 human death. Accordingly, we say, that besides other matters, 
 he fought a great fight by means of his human body, tempted 
 in all things like other men, but not like other men a sinner, 
 but totally without sin; for it is clear to us that he did no 
 sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; and that not 
 knowing sin, God delivered him up as pure for all that had 
 sinned.”’*® Again, Celsus objects that Jesus, after disgrace- 
 fully hiding himself, was taken. To this Origen replies by 
 showing that the surrender of Jesus was voluntary. “I con- 
 tend that if by ‘being taken’ be understood that he suffered 
 capture against his will, he was not taken, for at the fitting 
 time he allowed himself to fall into the hands of men, as the 
 Lamb of God, in order that he might take away the sin of 
 the world.” * And again, shortly afterwards, “to the sequel 
 of the argument,’ says he, “we have already made answer, 
 by showing that Jesus was not taken as a fugitive, but that 
 of his own accord he gave himself for us all.’* And again, 
 
 ‘ Hippolytus, p. 281. In a fragment mapedaxev omep TavT@Y TOY TLapTn= 
 of one of his Homilies. Kétov 6 Oeds.—Contra Celsum, I. 
 
 2 Kis pdvos Sedivytat Sodvar avrdd- | § 69. 
 Aaypa Tis drrodhupevns mporepov 4 "AN evel gnoe Kal Ore edo 
 yuxns nhaY, é Oyncdpevos pas TO etroup ay, ore elrep TO ad@vat dKov- 
 €avTovd Tipi@ aipart. —Urigen, fxhor- ody cot, ovK €dd@ 6 Iyoovs* éauTov 
 tatio ad Martyriuim, § 12. | yep ev enurndei@ Kaip@ eis Xeipas 
 
 * Tpavas yap ie daivera, Ore dvOporov yevéo Oat oUK exahugey, os 
 apaptiav ovK emoinoev, ovde evpeOn | apvos Tov Ocov, Ww apy Thy awapriay 
 
 TOU KOO HOU. —jJ.§ 10. 
 
 dddos ev TO oTdpate avTov' Kal pr) | 
 yvovra avtoy dpaptiav, es Kabapoy 5 ’Amedoynodpeba mept tav ééqs 
 
42 4 TESTIMONIES OF ORIGEN (Series IT. 
 
 in nearly the same terms, “The Son of the Mighty God 
 suffered of his own free will for the salvation of mankind.”? 
 And in another place he adopts an opinion respecting the 
 Messiah to come, which Celsus had assigned in the first 
 instance to the Jews; “that the world had been so full of 
 wickedness, as to make it necessary that one should be sent 
 from God in order that the unrighteous might be punished, 
 and that all things might be purged similarly to what hap- 
 pened formerly at the flood”’—a very strong declaration 
 surely of the scale on which the Passion of Christ acted in 
 expiating the sin of man. Again, Celsus having suggested that 
 Jonah was more fit to be exalted to a Deity than Jesus, 
 Origen observes that Celsus must have written this merely to 
 fill his book, “preferring Jonah who preached repentance to 
 the single city of Nineveh, to Jesus who preached repentance 
 to the whole world, and who effected far more than Jonah: 
 and wishing us to proclaim him a God who certainly lived 
 three days and three nights marvellously and wonderfully in 
 the belly of the fish ; yet not thinking that he who undertook 
 to die for mankind, and to whom God had borne witness by 
 the prophets, was worthy of the honour next after the God of 
 the universe, on account of the great things he had done in 
 heaven and earth.” * And once more, “ Touching Jesus, there- 
 fore, so far as the things done in him are done by the Godhead 
 in him, they are holy ; but so far as he was man, being en- 
 dowed above any other man with a consummate share of self- 
 reason and self-wisdom, he endured, as a wise and perfect man, 
 whatever it was necessary for one to endure, who was doing 
 everything for the whole human race, or rather for all reason- 
 able creatures. And there is nothing incongruous in his dying 
 as a man, and in his death being set forth not only as an ex- 
 ample of dying for religion, but also as a thing which effected 
 the beginning and progress of the overthrow of evil and of the 
 
 4 > Cal , 
 kat €v Tois mpd TovTav, Sekvvyres, 
 
 éte ov chevyav Eddw 6 "Inaovs, add | 
 
 Exov Urep jay mavroy mapéeSoxev 
 éavtov.— Origen, Contra Celsum, § LL. 
 
 ' Tlaoyer ye 6 Yids rod peyiorov 
 Gcov BovdnOeis irep trav avOporor 
 owrtnpias.—1V. § 73. 
 
 * "Iovdaioe 81) map’ aité déyovor, 
 mAnpwbevra tov Biov mdaons kakias 
 SeicOa Tov Kararreprropevov ard cov" 
 
 
 
 iv of pev adtxor KodacO@or, Ta de 
 mavta ka@ap0j, avddoyoy TO mpoT@ 
 oupBavTe KatakAvop@.—S 20. 
 
 * Tov & dvadeEdpuevov trép avOpo- 
 mov amobavety, ovK OeXe Kédoos, 
 HapTupovpevov vd Tod Ocod did Tov 
 mpopntav av eivac tis Sevrepev- 
 ovons peta Tov Ocdy Tov Orv, SU A 
 emoingev €v ovpav@ Kal emt ys av- 
 
 SpayaOnpara, tiuns.—VIL. § 7. 
 
Lect. XT.] AND CYPRIAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 425 
 
 devil, who had got posssesion of the whole world.”! Let this suf- 
 fice, though numberless other passages might be produced from 
 Origen bearing upon the same subject, and to the same effect. 
 
 If we appeal to Cyprian, we still only receive further tes- 
 timony to the primitive character of the doctrine of the 
 Atonement. For instance, “ Let us then,” says he, “ betake 
 ourselves to prayer ...., after our Lord’s example, who 
 went out into a mountain to pray; and his prayer was for 
 us, and not for himself... .; but if he laboured and 
 watched in prayer for us, how much rather ought we to do | 
 so for ourselves; first of all entreating the Lord himself, and 
 then making satisfaction to the Father through him.”? 
 Again, “Let it not be matter for our execration, that you 
 have begun the glorious first-fruits of your confession, by 
 being beaten with clubs. The body of the Christian does not 
 shudder at the club; for all the hope of the Christian lies 
 in the tree. The servant of Christ hails the symbol of his 
 salvation. Redeemed by the tree to life eternal, by the tree 
 is he advanced to his crown.’ Cyprian’s several books of 
 “ Testimonies against the Jews,” are dictated from first to 
 last in a thoroughly Anti-Socinian spirit. Thus chap. xvi. of 
 the first book has for its title, “That the old sacrifice is done 
 away, and the new sacrifice established ;” chap. xxiv. “That 
 the Jews can obtain pardon of their sins in this manner only, 
 by washing away the blood of Christ, whom they slew, in 
 Christian Baptism, and by passing over to the Church and 
 obeying its precepts ;°’ chap. vil. of the second book, “ That 
 Christ is God who was to come, the Illuminator and Saviour 
 of the human race ;” chap. xxi. “That in the Passion and 
 sign of the Cross is all virtue and power;” chap. xxvii. 
 
 z ‘Y¥rrepewvev, os copes kal Tehevos, precibus et orare, et primo ipsum Do- 
 cimep expr bmopeivat TOV bmep mavTos minum orare, tum deinde per ipsum Deo 
 TOU yevovs TOV wOporer, i 7) Kal Tov | Patri satisfacere debemus ?—Cyprian, 
 oytk@v, Tavta Tpattovta. Kai ovdev | Ep. vii. § 5. 
 dromov, kal amoreOynkéva Tov avOpw- , * Quod autem fustibus esi prius 
 qov, Kal Tov Oavaroy avTov ov povoy eraviter et afilicti, per ejusmodi ponas 
 mapddevypa exketoOar Tod breép evoe- | initiastis confessionis vestre gloriosa 
 Betas dr obvno Kew, aha yap kat | primordia, execranda nobis ista res non 
 <ipyao Bat apxny Kal TpoKoriy Ths | est. Neque enim ad fustes Christianum 
 karahvoews TOU movnpov kat OtaBoXov, | corpus expavit, cujus est spes omnis in 
 magav THY yy veveunuevov.—Origen, | ligno, Sacramentum salutis sue Christi 
 Contra Celsum, VIL. § 17. servus agnovit. Redemptus ligno ad 
 
 2 Quod si pro nobis ac pro delictis | vitam seternam ligno proyectus est ad 
 nostris ille et laborabat, et vigilabat, et | coronam.—Ep, Ixxvii. § 2. 
 precabatur, quanto nos magis insistere | 
 
 
 
4.26 THE EARLY FATHERS OPPOSED TO (Series II. 
 
 “That no one can come to God the Father, but through his 
 Son Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Now it certainly does appear to me that it is impossible to 
 withstand such a cloud of witnesses as this; of whose evi- 
 dence, however, be it remembered, I have only laid a small 
 part under contribution. It seems most unreasonable, in the 
 face of so clear an assertion of the Atonement, so universally 
 made by the Christian writers of the first three centuries, to 
 pretend that this doctrine does not really exist in Scripture 
 after all; that the texts which are supposed to express it 
 (and a vast number of such texts it must be admitted there 
 are) are quite misunderstood when such a doctrine is deduced 
 from them; and that all the Fathers who lived during the 
 generations which immediately succeeded Christ and the 
 Apostles, were under a mistake in imagining that they taught 
 it. And accordingly, though we may not be always disposed 
 to acquiesce in the interpretation which a particular Father 
 imposes upon a particular passage of holy writ ; yet when all 
 of them, whether dwelling in Judzea, in Rome, in Asia Minor, 
 in Gaul, in Alexandria, in Carthage, or elsewhere, concur in 
 construing a large class of texts, which the Bible contains, as 
 significant of the Atonement, without any misgiving at all; 
 the Church, too, testifying to the same in her Councils, Creeds, 
 and Liturgies, from the beginning—can we imagine that there 
 is room for error? And can we contemplate the hardihood 
 of those who reject a doctrine thus guaranteed, and take the 
 consequences, without wonder and alarm? I, for one, am fully 
 persuaded that numbers of Socinians have been made by the 
 study of the early Fathers having passed into desuetude— 
 speculation usurping the place of testimony—and, if I am 
 right in this persuasion, need we inquire further into “the 
 Use of the Fathers ?” 
 
 § 4 
 
 On the Sacrament of Baptism. 
 
 ANOTHER leading feature in the Socinian school is the gross 
 manner in which it depresses the nature and efficacy of the two 
 Sacraments: and here, again, the Fathers are entirely opposed 
 
Lect. XI.] THE SOCINIANS ON BAPTISM. 427 
 
 to its teaching. “ What think you concerning the baptism of 
 water?” is a question in the Racovian Catechism. A. “That 
 it is an external rite, whereby men, coming from Judaism or 
 Gentilism to the Christian religion, did profess openly, that 
 they acknowledge Christ for their Lord. Q. Do infants 
 belong to that rite? A. By no means, for neither have we 
 in the Scripture either precept or example thereof; nor can 
 they, as the thing itself showeth, acknowledge Christ for their 
 Lord. . . . Q. What think you of them that think they are 
 regenerated by this rite? A. They are exceedingly mistaken, 
 for regeneration is nothing but the transformation of our 
 mind and will, and composure of them to the doctrine of our 
 Saviour Christ, as the very word (regeneration) doth intimate. 
 But such a transformation cannot have place in infants who 
 know not good and evil, much less that a thing of so great 
 moment should be incident to them. But that those of per- 
 fect age, in whom the transformation of mind and will hath 
 place, should be regenerated by water, is so distant from truth, 
 that it seemeth to carry a face of idolatry with it, whilst that 
 is ascribed to a gross elemental thing, which is only to be 
 ascribed to God himself and his Word,” &c.! 
 
 Of original sin, which lies very much at the root of this 
 question, I shall have a more convenient occasion to speak 
 presently, when I come to consider the bearing of the Fathers 
 on the subject of Calvinism ; and when in showing that they 
 did not hold the total corruption of our nature by the Fall, 
 I shall necessarily show that they did hold, in a very ample 
 manner, the doctrine of original sin, which the Socinian ex- 
 pressly denies. “There is no such thing as original sin,” says 
 this Catechism.” Taking credit, then, for being able to prove 
 this point when the time arrives, I will in the meanwhile 
 request my hearers to accompany me in the development of 
 the sentiments of the Fathers on the Sacrament of Baptism ; 
 on the great dignity of the mystery, and on the persons to 
 whom it is fitting to administer it. 
 
 Now there is scarcely a form in which the doctrine of re- 
 generation in Baptism can be asserted, directly or indirectly, 
 “whieh we do not discover in the early Fathers. Thus Hermas, 
 without using the term itself, fully appropriates the meaning 
 
 1Racovian Catechism, Of Christ’s 2¢. x. Peccatum originis nullum 
 Prophetic Office, ch. iv. prorsus est, 
 
428 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM ASSERTED [Sentes II. 
 
 of it, as in other passages, so in the following, “ Before a man 
 receives the name of the Son of God, he is subject to death ; 
 but when he receives that seal, he is freed from death, and 
 given over to life. But that seal is water ; into which man- 
 igwil descend, in bondage to death, but come out of the same 
 made over to life.”? 
 
 “Then they are led by us to the water,’ says Justin Mar- 
 tyr, “and are regenerated by the same process of regeneration 
 by which we were ourselves regenerated : for they then receive 
 the laver in the water, in the name of God the Father and 
 Master of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and 
 of the Holy Ghost. For Christ said, ‘Unless ye be born 
 again, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ an 
 
 “When our Lord gave to his disciples the power of rege- 
 neration to God,’ writes Irenzeus, “ he said to them, Go teach 
 all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
 the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”* Again, in commenting on 
 the history of the blind man, whom Jesus restored to sight, 
 Irenzeus considers Jesus to have created the blind man’s eyes 
 out of the clay, that member having been left imperfect at his 
 creation in the womb: and argues that as he was born defec- 
 tive in his frame through original mal-formation, and was 
 born in sin through the original transgression, he had not only 
 need of his generation being completed by the clay, but of 
 his regeneration being effected by the laver ; and therefore 
 Jesus sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam, in virtue of 
 which he was able to see and recognise his Saviour.* Again, 
 having charged the heretics with inventing rites of initiation 
 of their own, he says they had acted thus at the suggestion 
 of Satan, “to the rejection of Baptism, which is regeneration 
 
 : ‘ Hermas, IIT. § 16. | cete omnes gentes, baptizantes eos in 
 "Emetra dyovrat ip’ wav évOa | nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti. 
 Sup éori, Kal Tpdmov dvayevynrews, —TIreneus, ILI, c. xvii. § 1. 
 dv kal mpeis adrol dveyevv Onpev, 4 Et quoniam in illa plasmatione, que 
 avayevvavra’ én’ dvéparos yap Tov secundum Adam fuit, in transgressione 
 Ilarpds rév Gv Kal Seamdrov Ocov factus homo indigebat lavacro regene- 
 kal Tov TeTNpos wav "Iyoov Xpio- rationis; postquam Jinivit lutum super 
 Tov kal Lvevparos ayiov TO ev T@ | ocnlos ejus, dixit ei: Vade in Siloam, 
 vdare tére Aoutpoy Trovodyrat. Kai | et lavare; simul et plasmationem et 
 yap 6 Xpuoros eimev" "Av Hi) avayev- | eam, que est per lavacrum, regenera-~ 
 vnOire, ov py eloeAOnre eis THY Bact- | tionem restituens ei. Et propter hoe 
 Aelay Tov ovpavoy.—Justin Martyr, | lotus venit videns, ut et suum cognos- 
 Apol. 1. § 61. See also § 66. ceret plasmatorem, et disceret homo 
 
 4 Putcetatars regenerationis in Deum eum, qui donayit ei vitam.—Y. c. xv. 
 dans discipulis dicebat eis: Euntes do- | § 3. 
 
Lect. XI.] BY JUSTIN, IRENAUS, AND THEOPHILUS. 429 
 
 to Godward ;’’' whilst the very ceremony which these heretics 
 thus substituted for Baptism, and the effects they ascribed to 
 it, reflect light, as is usual in such cases, on the Sacrament 
 itself, as understood by the Fathers and the Church. For 
 they affirmed that this initiation of theirs, or aaodvtpwots 
 “was necessary for those who had received perfect knowledge, 
 in order that they might be regenerated unto that virtue or 
 power which is above all; indeed, that without it, it would 
 be impossible to enter the Pleroma, since it is that which con- 
 ducts them to the depths of Bythus.”* But it is not to any 
 mechanical properties of water that Irenzeus ascribes these 
 spiritual results, as the Socinian Catechism would intimate 
 was the Catholic prejudice ; it would be strange if he did; 
 but to the operation of the Holy Ghost, which, when con- 
 nected with the washing of water by a mystical union, that 
 derives all its virtue from God’s appointment, regenerates. 
 “Our bodies,” says he, “receive that union which is to incor- 
 ruption through the daver; our souls, through the Spirit ; 
 wherefore both are necessary, since both avail to the life which 
 is of God;”* the meaning being this, that the body is in- 
 vested with a capacity for rising again, and becoming immortal 
 together with the soul, by means of the Spirit operating upon 
 it through the soul, the confederate of the body, in the laver 
 of Baptism. 
 
 Theophilus teaches the same doctrine of regeneration, 
 though under a figure of his own, and it adds very greatly to 
 the force of the evidence, by which it is shown that the 
 doctrine itself was fully acknowledged and received in the 
 Primitive Church, that it should be asserted under such a 
 vast variety of forms. Thus Theophilus finds it in the very 
 history of the creation: “ God blessed the creatures,” says he, 
 “that were made out of the waters,’ for a token that men 
 would receive repentance and remission of sins by water and 
 the bath of regeneration ; even all those who come to the 
 
 u Eis efdpynow TOU Banrivparos, 
 Tijs els Ocdy dvayevynoews.—lreneus, 
 Is (ep pea alls 
 
 : Aéyouce dé avrny dvaykaiay eivat 
 Tots Ty Teheiay yroow eiAnpoow, 
 iva eis THY imep Tavta Svvapw oow 
 dvayeyevynpevor. “Aos yap advva- 
 tov evtos UAnpwpatos  elaedOeiv’ 
 > \ 7 > ‘ c > ‘ 10 
 emeioi) alTn eoTiv 9 els TO Baos 
 
 (rod BvOov) Katayovoa airovs.—I. ec. 
 sex Suet 
 
 * Corpora enim nostra per lavacrum 
 illam, quae est ad incorruptionem, uni- 
 tatem acceperunt; animee autem per 
 Spiritum. Unde et utraque necessaria, 
 quum utraque proficiunt in yitam Dei. 
 —III. c. xvii. § 2. 
 
 4 Gen. 1, 21, 22. 
 
430 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM ASSERTED [Senies II. 
 
 truth and are born again, and experience a blessing from 
 God ;”! whereas the creatures made out of the earth he did 
 not bless.2 And here I may repeat an observation which I 
 have already had occasion to make more than once, that an 
 application of this kind of a text to the illustration of a 
 doctrine, which it is difficult to believe had any relation to it 
 whatever, argues very strongly how thoroughly established in 
 the Church that doctrine was, since it even found its way into 
 the earliest commentators on Scripture In a manner which 
 nothing but its universal prevalence could account for. Pro- 
 bably the fact may have escaped the observation of many, 
 that God is said to have blessed the creatures which the 
 waters brought forth, and not to have blessed those which the 
 earth did; but had it been noticed, the inference that the 
 virtues of the Sacrament of Baptism were prophetically set 
 forth in it, even before man himself, the subject of Baptism, 
 was created, could never have presented itself to the mind of 
 any one who had not assigned to Baptism a most prominent 
 position in the Christian scheme. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus is equally clear in his testimony, and, 
 -like those who have gone before him, often gives it additional 
 effect by the unstudied way in which he supplies, and the 
 unlooked-for quarters from which he draws it. Thus, in de- 
 scribing the training to which Christ the Peedagogue submits 
 the new convert, “ He seems to me,” says he, “to form man 
 of the dust ; to regenerate him by water; to make him grow 
 by his Spirit ; to instruct him by his word ; directing him 
 to adoption and salvation by his holy commandments ; that 
 transforming by his advent the earthly man into the heavenly, 
 he might eminently fulfil that Divine expression, ‘Let us 
 make man in our image, after our likeness.” * Again, when 
 phe to females rules for the decoration of the person, 
 
 "Ere pay kal ethoyOn bad Tov pev Tov dvOpomoy ek yods" dvayev- 
 cov re €k TOV dddrov yevdpeva, vipra dé vdare ad&nrar be Tvevpare 
 ém@s 9 Kal TovTO eis Seiypa Tov mawWayoynoat dé pypari, eis viobeciav 
 pedrew apBavew rods avOpemovs kai Ternpiay, ceyiaus evrohais kaTeu- 
 petavolay Kal adeow apapti@ay dia Oiver, wa 6) Tov ynyevn cis a@y.ov 
 vdaros Kal ovrpod maduyyevedias | kal emoupdvioy petamAdoas €k Tpo- 
 
 , A ‘ - > , , ed > ‘ * 
 mdvTas Tovs mpoolovtas Ti} adnOecia, Bacews avOparor, éxeivny tiv Oeixiy 
 ‘ 
 kal avayevy@pevovs Kat AapBavovras padiora mAnpoon povny: Toujoopev 
 
 evAoyiay mapa Tod Oeod. —'Lheophi- cv Opamov kar eixéva Kal xaé’ dpoiw- 
 lus, Ad Autol. IT. § 16. (ow npov.—Clem. Alex. Pedag, I. 
 SONA. De, Cus Pawowe 
 
 r , cal lol 
 3 Kat pot doxei adrds odros mda 
 
Lect. XI.] BY CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS. 431 
 
 and laying them under certain restrictions, Clemens betrays 
 even here how completely the doctrine we are considering had 
 possession of his mind. “Nor are these infatuated women,” 
 says he, “ashamed to set all their affections on this bauble of 
 an oyster shell ; whereas they have it in their power to adorn 
 themselves with the holy stone, the Word of God, which 
 Seripture somewhere calls a pearl, even the bright and pure 
 Jesus, the eye in the flesh which is fixed on us, the trans- 
 parent Word ; by whom the flesh is made precious, being ‘re- 
 generated wm the water: for that shell, engendered in the 
 water, encloses the flesh, and from that flesh the pearl is con- 
 ceived.” + Again, still more emphatically, “‘Call no man 
 your father upon the earth,’ ? said the Lord ; 7. e. do not ac- 
 count him who sows you according to the. fleshly seed, the 
 author of your being, but rather the concurrent cause or 
 minister of your birth. Accordingly he desires that we being 
 converted, should again become as children, knowing him who 
 is truly our Father ; regenerated by water, which is a sowing 
 after another sort than the common.” * Moreover Clemens 
 enters into many details with respect to this Sacrament, 
 details analogous to those of the birth in the flesh; thus 
 giving a peculiar propriety to the term regeneration, and 
 rescuing it from being thought a mere figure of speech, which 
 would bear no close interpretation ; details which, I may add 
 in passing, our own Church shows that she does not flinch 
 from, by adopting the terms Godfathers and Godiothers to 
 designate the parties who promote the spiritual generation of 
 the infant, by taking for him the pledges, or engaging to re- 
 mind him of them, or both. Thus, “this was the saying, 
 ‘Unless ye be converted, and become as little children,’ 7. e. 
 pure in body and holy in soul, by abstaining from all evil 
 
 - i , * wee 
 ' Kal ovx aizyvvoyvra ai Kaxodai- 2 Matt. xxiii. 9. 
 , a | 2 > - a 
 pooves, Tept daTpioy OAtyov TovTO THY ° Mn xadéonte ovy tpiv emt tis 
 
 macay oTrovory TeTrounpevae’ efov aylo yas matépa, ynoiv® otov, py atrioy 
 Koo peta Bat NiGo, TO Ady@ TOU Ceod, nyjono de TOV oneipavra bpas THY 
 ov Mapyapirny 1 ypacpr) KEKAIKEV mov, KaTa odpka oTopay Tijs ovolas buav, 
 Tov Savy kat kaOapov ‘Ingovy, Tov adda ovvatrioy Yevercas, HaNAov Oe€ 
 ev oapkt emonTny opOarpor, TOV Ab~ Oudkovov yeverews® oUTas ovy ém- 
 yov Tov Seadbavn’ Sv ov 7) ape Tywia orpapevras ajpas avis as Ta madia 
 voate dvayevvopern’ kat yap TO OG- yeveo Bat Bouherat, Tov ovT@s Tlarépa 
 T pov exeivo ev UOarTe yeyvopevor Tepe emyvovras, dv vdaros dvayevynOevras, 
 oreyer THY wapKa’ ex O€ rav7ns 6 ays TavTns ovans ev TH KTIOEL 
 
 papyaptrns kuloxerat.—Pedag. 11. ¢.| omopas.—Stromat. LIT. ¢. xii. p. 551. 
 Xi. P- 221. 
 
~ 
 
 432 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM [Serres II. 
 
 deeds ; whereby he shows that he wishes us to be such as he 
 begat us out of the womb of the water ; for the one birth 
 succeeding the other birth has for its object to advance us to 
 immortality.” ' Moreover, on the natural birth of an infant, 
 it was usual to give it milk and honey®; and accordingly in 
 reference to the same food, says Clemens, “As soon as we are 
 regenerated, we are nourished with the good tidings of the 
 hope of rest, even of the Jerusalem that is above ; where, 
 Scripture tells us, it rains milk and honey.”* And again, in 
 a subsequent part of the same chapter, Clemens touches upon 
 the same custom, and further enlarges on it in the mystical 
 way which is usual with him; findmg in the milk which 
 mixes with water (the only liquid according to him which 
 does so) a parallel to the word which has a like affinity to 
 Baptism, as in the honey which has the property of a cath- 
 artic, a parallel to the effect of that Sacrament which purges 
 away sin.* So that all the incidents of a birth are described 
 as attaching to Baptism, as though the resemblance of the 
 spiritual and the natural process was substantial. How 
 entirely opposed is all this to the character of a theology 
 which finds in Baptism nothing but an external rite, that 
 announces a new convert; representing as it does so mani- 
 festly the Holy Ghost as the active mover in it, and the 
 cleansing from all sin as the blessed effect of it. Regenera- 
 tion being thus connected with Baptism, it follows that the 
 regenerated are those who are rightly baptized ; or, in other 
 words, are the body of Christians. “ We call those who are 
 regenerated by the same Word, brethren.” 
 Tertullian furnishes still further information on this Sacra- 
 1 Tovto yap nv TO cipnpevor, "Edy | Cépevor' ev 7 pede kal yadda bpBpeiv 
 py) orpaperres yerna be os Ta madia’ | avayéypantat.—Clem. Alex. Predag. I. 
 kabapot wey ry oapKa, Gyvoe be THY | C. Vi. p: 124. Compare also p. 128, note 3, 
 Poxnys Kara amoxny KaK@v epyov, | 4 Kal nv 6 Adyos ¢ Exel mpos To Bar- 
 OeuxvivTes ore ToLovTOUS 7pas evar BLOG Koweviav, ravrny exel TO yaa 
 Bovherat, olovs kal yeyevnkey ek TY ouvadhayiy mpos TO Uap" bexerae 
 pytpas vdarTos* yeveoes yap yeverw yap pévov TOV vypev TOUTO Kal THY 
 Siadexopevn Kata mpoKorny dmabava- mpos Td Vdap pikw, émiKaPapow Tapa- 
 ritew Bovrera.—Suromat. LV. § xxv. AapBavdpevov? kabarep TO Banrispa 
 pp. 636, 637. ent apéoer Gpapti@y. Miyvuvrat dé cat 
 2 Barnabas. § 6. pedite Mpoopves, Kai ToUTO emt Kabap- 
 3 EvOds b€ dvayevynOevtes Terysy- oer wad peta yuxelas THs Tpopjs.— 
 pea ('. riOnvotpeba, repeating this | Padag, I. ec. vi. p. 128. 
 word from the se ntence immediately 5 “He kal ddehgots trois TH adr@ 
 
 preceding) Ths dvaravceas TIV €dX- Adyw dvayevyynbevras mpooayopevouer. 
 mida, Ti tive ‘lepovoa\ je evayyedt- —Stromat. LI. § ix. p. 450. 
 
Lect. XI.] ASSERTED BY TERTULLIAN. = 4335 
 
 ment ; and so far is he from depressing it, that references 
 to it abound throughout his works, to say nothing of the 
 treatise which he expressly writes on it. He, too, finds in it 
 the new birth. “Blessed are ye whom the grace of God 
 awaits, as ye come up out of that most sacred laver of the 
 new birth, and stretch out your firstling hands to your mother 
 Church with your brethren.”’ Again, “ When the soul attains 
 unto the faith, fashioned anew by a second nativity of water 
 and the virtue from above, the veil of former corruption is 
 drawn aside, and it beholds the perfect light. And in this 
 birth it is received by the Holy Spirit, as in the former birth 
 it was received by the spirit of evil.’’? There is a remarkable 
 passage in the treatise against Marcion, which brings together 
 the several aspects in which Baptism was contemplated by the 
 early Church ; and it is impossible to conceive anything more 
 adverse than it is to the Socinian views of this Sacrament 
 throughout. Tertullian is objecting to Marcion the various 
 obstacles which opposed themselves to the theory of two Gods 
 —the one God, the original Creator, of a mixed character— 
 the other not known till Christ revéaled him, a God of pure 
 goodness or mercy. “There can be no sacrament of faith,” 
 says he, “in this latter ; for to what purpose is Baptism unto 
 him enjoined? If it is the remission of sins, how shall he 
 be thought to remit sins, who is not thought to retain them, 
 for he would retain them, if he judged them. If it is absolu- 
 tion from death, how should he loose from death, who hath 
 never bound unto death? For he would have bound, if he 
 had condemned from the beginning. If it is the regeneration 
 of man, how does he regenerate, who hath never generated ? 
 For the repetition of an act cannot be predicated of him who 
 hath never done the act at all. If it is the procurement of 
 the Holy Spirit, how will he add the Spirit who did not in 
 the first instance contribute the soul? For the soul is, as it 
 
 were, the substratum of the ii 
 
 1 Tgitur benedicti quos gratia Dei ex- 
 pectat, cum de illo sanctissimo lavacro 
 novi natalis ascenditis, et primas manus 
 apud Matrem cum fratribus aperitis.— 
 Tertullian, De Baptismo, c. xx. 
 
 2 Proinde cum ad fidem pervenit re- 
 formata per secundam nativitatem ex 
 aqua et superna yirtute, detracto corrup- 
 
 Spirit. We have here, no 
 tionis pristins auleo totam lucem suam 
 conspicit. Excipitur etiam a Spiritu 
 sancto, sicut in pristina nativitate a spi- 
 ritu profano.—De Anima, ec. xli. 
 
 3 Jam nec ipsum fidei ejus sacra- 
 mentum. Cui enim rei baptisma quo- 
 que apud eum exigitur? Si remissio 
 delictorum est, quomodo vyidebitur de- 
 
 FF 
 
434 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM (Sentes II, 
 
 doubt, all the aspects in which Baptism was regarded ; and 
 what is remarkable, and gives great force to the passage, is 
 this, that it is not intended by Tertullian to be exponential of 
 Baptism ; but all these acknowledged features of Baptism are 
 touched on, and severally laid under contribution for the pur- 
 pose of refuting a theory of Marcion’s, which had no direct 
 reference to Baptism. I certainly cannot see how Socinian 
 notions of this Sacrament could have possibly established 
 themselves, had the study of the Fathers been habitually 
 pursued, and that weight been attached to their testimony on 
 such a subject, which can hardly be denied to persons who 
 lived so very soon after Jesus had uttered the command, 
 “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
 the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost.” And I do think that they take upon themselves 
 a deep responsibility who discourage the reading of these 
 authors; and that at their door may be laid much of the 
 Socinian heresy, which, under a modified form, has affected, 
 and still does affect, the opinions of Churchmen, even of 
 those who in the abstract would be shocked at the idea of 
 being partakers with that sect. In further pursuance of this 
 idea of regeneration in Baptism, or of the life engendered in 
 that Sacrament out of the state of death which preceded it, 
 might be quoted such other passages from Tertullian as the 
 following. “And God said, Let the waters bring forth 
 abundantly the moving creature that hath life,’' on which 
 observes Tertullian, “This element was in the first instance 
 commanded to bring forth whatever had life, in order that it 
 might not seem strange if water in Baptism should be found 
 to give life.”* “Blessed Sacrament,” he again exclaims, in 
 the same treatise, “of this water of ours, by which being 
 washed from the offences of pristine blindness, we are libe- 
 
 rated unto life eternal.”*® And again, when extolling the 
 
 licta dimittere, qui non videbitur reti- 
 nere? quia retineret, si judicaret. Si 
 absolutio mortis est, quomodo absol- 
 veret a morte, qui non deyinxit ad mor- 
 tem? devinxisset enim, si a primordio 
 damnasset. Siregeneratio est hominis, 
 quomodo regenerat qui non generavit ? 
 Iteratio enim non competit ei a quo quid 
 nec semel factum est. Si consecutio est 
 Spiritus sancti, quomodo Spiritum at- 
 
 tribuet, qui animam non prius contulit? 
 quia suffectura est quodammodo Spiri- 
 tus anima.—Adversus Marcionem, I. ec. 
 XXVili. 
 
 1 Gen. i. 24. 
 
 2 Primis aquis preceptum est. animas 
 proferre. Primus liquor quod viveret edi- 
 dit, né mirum sit in Baptismo, si aque 
 animare noverunt.—De Baptismo, ce. 11. 
 
 3 Felix sacramentum aque nostree qua 
 
Lect. XT.) ASSERTED BY TERTULLIAN. 435 
 
 merits of martyrdom, which he regards as a Baptism of blood, 
 he concludes, “For it is peculiar to the martyr, that nothing 
 can be imputed to him, seeing that he puts off life in the very 
 laver,’' which implies that so life-giving is Baptism, that he 
 who dies on the act, no subsequent interval ensuing during 
 which its virtues might be neutralized by sin, would at once 
 find himself in a blessed immortality. Nay, more, in reply 
 to an objection conceived very much in the spirit of the clause 
 of the Racovian Catechism prefixed to these remarks on Bap- 
 tism, the objection that it is a thing incredible for eternal life 
 to be obtained by our being let. down into the water, dipped 
 whilst a few words are said, and raised out of it again, 
 apparently little or not at all more clean, Tertullian asserts 
 that nothing so much hardens men’s hearts as the simplicity 
 which appears in the act of God’s operations, and the mag- 
 nificence, under his guarantee, of the effect. “ Miserable 
 unbelief,” he then exclaims, “which denies to God his own 
 attributes, simplicity and power. Why, no doubt, it is a 
 wonder that death should be washed away by the laver !”? 
 Not that he would ascribe such vast results to “a gross 
 elemental thing like water,’ as the Catechism expresses it, 
 but that the Holy Spirit, having moved on the water at the 
 first, in anticipation of its future field of action—all water 
 receiving from this its original prerogative, the mystery of 
 sanctification, when God has been invoked on it—descending 
 from heaven rests on it and sanctifies it, and being thus 
 sanctified, it at the same time imbibes the power of impart- 
 ing sanctification.” Wherefore, in further token that Ter- 
 tullian assigns the efficacy, not to the element but to the 
 Sacrament, he designates the water which the heathens used 
 
 abluti delictis pristine ceecitatis, in vitam 
 eternam liberamur.—De Baptismo, ¢.i. 
 
 1 Proprie enim martyribus nihil jam 
 reputari potest, quibus in lavacro ipsa 
 (1. ipso) vita deponitur.—Scorpiace, ¢. vi. 
 
 2 Nihil adeo est quod tam obduret 
 mentes hominum, quam simplicitas di- 
 yinorum operum que in actu videtur, 
 et magnificentia quae in effectu repro- 
 mittitur: ut hie quoque, quoniam tanta 
 simplicitate sine pompa, sine apparatu 
 novo aliquo, denique sine sumptu homo 
 in aqua demissus, et inter patica verba 
 tinctus, non multo vel nihilo mundior 
 
 
 
 resurgit, eo incredibilis existimetur con- 
 secutio eeternitatis . . . Pro! misera in- 
 credulitas, quee denegas Deo proprietates 
 suas, simplicitatem et potestatem. Quid 
 ergo? nonne mirandum et lavacro dilui 
 mortem ?—De Baptismo, ec. i. 
 
 3 Sed ea satis erit preecerpsisse, in qui- 
 bus et ratio Baptismi recognoscitur pri- 
 ma illa, quee jam tune etiam ipso habitu 
 prenotabatur ad Baptismi figuram, Dei 
 Spiritum, qui ab initio supervectabatur, 
 super aquas intinctorum moraturum.— 
 Calve 
 
 FF Q 
 
436 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM ASSERTED (Sent II. 
 
 in their rites of initiation, “ aque viduee.’’’ He would have 
 expressed himself (as would other of the Fathers when speak- 
 ing on the same subject) more correctly, had he represented 
 the Holy Ghost as descending on the recipients in their use 
 of the Sacrament, rather than on the element. It is probable, 
 however, and so Dr. Waterland thinks,? that they were all 
 right in the main thing, “It being all one with them to say, 
 in a confused general way, either that the Holy Ghost sancti- 
 fied the receivers in the use of the outward symbols, or that 
 he sanctified the symbols to their use ;” and our own Church 
 seems to recognise the other way of expressing the meaning, 
 when she says, “ Sanctify this water to the mystical washing 
 away of sin.” 
 
 Origen ascribes the same importance to Baptism, and speaks 
 of it in the same terms. “Let us bear in mind,” says he, in 
 his “ Exhortatio ad Martyrium,” “of what sins we have been 
 guilty, and that we cannot receive remission of sins without 
 Baptism ; and that it is not possible, according to the laws 
 of the Gospel, to be a second time baptized for the remission 
 of sins, with water and the Spirit; and that to us is given 
 the Baptism of martyrdom,”* the argument being that martyr- 
 dom would replace the baptized party who had contracted sins 
 since his Baptism in the same position which Baptism had 
 left him in, namely, absolved from sin. Again, in the “De 
 Principiis,’ when speaking of several ways in which the 
 Spirit is given, he sets Baptism in the foremost place.* And 
 again, the necessity of Baptism being administered in the name 
 of the undivided Trinity is thus expressed in the same treatise, 
 “Tt seems right to inquire what is the reason why he who is 
 regenerated by God unto salvation had need of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and will not receive 
 salvation unless this undivided Trinity be there; and why it 
 is not possible that he should be partaker of the Father and of 
 
 ' De Baptismo, ec. v. 
 
 2 Waterland, Review of the Doctrine 
 of the Eucharist, ch. v. Works, vol. vii. 
 p. 94, Oxf. Ed, 
 
 8 c ~ ‘4 A 2 c , 
 
 Yropynobdpev S€ Kat oy nuaprn- 
 kapev’ Kal OTe ovK €ote aheow apap- 
 Thpatov yxwpis Barricpatos aPetv: 
 kal Ore ovk €ore Suvarov Kata Tovs 
 evayyedtkods vdpnouvs avis Barricac- 
 Bar Vdare Kal Tvedpate eis aherw 
 
 
 
 Guaptnudrav’ Kal ore Bamticpa piv 
 didorac TO Tod paprupiov. — Origen, 
 Exhortatio ad Martyrium, § 30. 
 
 * Qui spiritus siquidem divine na- 
 ture, id est Spiritus sanctus intelli- 
 gendus est, sentiemus hoe dictum de 
 dono Spiritus sancti: quod, sive per 
 Baptismum, ete.—De Principiis, IT. ec. 
 > eal le 
 
Lecr. XI.] BY ORIGEN AND HIPPOLYTUS. 437 
 
 the Son, without the Holy Ghost.”! And once more, in the 
 comment on the Song of Solomon, “ The season for pruning 
 is come by faith in my passion and resurrection, for sins are 
 pruned and cut away from men, when remission of sins is 
 given in Baptism ;” or, as the Greek has it (for the Greek of 
 the last clause has been preserved), “the season of pruning 
 and putting away sins is by the laver of regeneration,” ? 
 which is even more to my purpose than the Latin of Rufinus, 
 whose translation, therefore, in the previous quotation from 
 the “De Principiis” is the less liable to suspicion, inasmuch 
 as the purport of it is confirmed by this fragment still ex- 
 isting in the original language. 
 
 Hippolytus happens to be more than usually explicit in the 
 declaration of his sentiments on this question—the manifesta- 
 tion of the Godhead of Jesus at his Baptism, which is the 
 subject of one of his dissertations, leading him to speak of it 
 at some length. “The Father of Immortality,” says he, “sent 
 his Immortal Son and Word into the world, who, coming 
 amongst men to wash them with water and the Spirit, and 
 begetting them again to immortality of soul and body, breathed 
 into us the breath of life, clothing us with an immortal panoply. 
 If, therefore, man is made immortal, he will be God.’ If 
 he is made God through water and the Holy Ghost after 
 regeneration of the laver, he is found to be fellow-heir with 
 Christ after his resurrection from the dead. Wherefore I make 
 proclamation and say, Come all ye families of the earth to the 
 immortality of Baptism. I bring good tidings of life to you 
 who dwell in the darkness of ignorance. Come out of slavery 
 to freedom ; out of tyranny to a kingdom ; out of corrup- 
 tion to incorruption. And how shall we come? it is said. 
 By water and the Holy Spirit. This is the water in com- 
 munion with the Spirit by which Paradise is watered, the 
 earth enriched, the plants are nourished, animals are generated, 
 and ina word man is born again and quickened, in which 
 
 ' Rectum tamen videtur inquirere quid 
 cause sit, quod quiregeneratur per Deum 
 in salutem, opus habet et Patre et Filio 
 et Spiritu sancto, non percepturus salu- 
 tem nisi sit integra Trinitas: nec pos- 
 sibile sit participem fieri Patris vel Filii 
 sine Spiritu sancto.—Origen, De Prin- 
 cipiis, I. c. iii. § 5. 
 
 ? Sed et putationis tempus per fidem 
 
 
 
 mex passionis et resurrectionis adye- 
 nit. Amputantur enim et exsecantur 
 ab hominibus peccata, cum in Baptis- 
 mo donatur remissio peecatorum. But 
 in the Greek we have, xaipds dé mahw 
 kal THs TOY awapTnpatewy exkoTs kal 
 apéoews Sia Aovtpod maduyyevecias. 
 —In Cantic. Canticor. yol. ii. p. 88. 
 3. 2°Pet. 1.4: 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM (Series II. 
 
 438 
 Christ was baptized, on which the Spirit descended in the 
 form of a dove.”! Again, the old prophets declared, through 
 the Spirit, things to come. “ Accordingly they proclaimed 
 the advent of God in the flesh; his advent by means of a 
 birth, growth, conversation among men, and life, from the 
 undefiled and God-bearing Mary ; and his demonstration by 
 Baptism, that there was to be a new birth for all men, through 
 the laver of regeneration.”” 
 
 Cyprian furnishes such a profusion of evidence for the 
 dignity of the Sacrament of Baptism, to the same effect as 
 I have already adduced from Fathers before him, that it is 
 impossible to collect all or half of it within the limits I pre- 
 scribe myself. ‘“ Baptism is a second and gpiritual birth 
 whereby we are born in Christ by the laver of regenera- 
 
 tion .. 
 
 . The water alone cannot wash away sins and sanctify 
 the man, unless it has the Holy Spirit.... 
 
 That is Baptism, 
 
 according to the Apostle, wherein the old man dies, and the 
 new man is born, for he says, By the washing of regenera- 
 
 tion he saved us.’’? 
 
 '*O ys aOavacias Tlatip Tov 
 aavaroy Yiov kal Adyov améorethev 
 eis Tov KOopov. “Os acpixopevos cis 
 TOV a0peroy, Aovoacbat vdare kal 
 IIvetpare, Kat dvayevnoas mpos agp- 
 @apoiay vxijs Te Kal Toparos, evepv- 
 onoev Hpi Tvedpa Cans, meprapipidoas 
 npas apOapre mavotAia. Ei ovv a@a- 
 varos yeyovev 6 dv6paros, éora Kal 
 Océs. Ei be cos be vdaros kat 
 Tvetparos ayiou pera Thy THs KoAUp~ 
 BrOpas a avayevynow yiverau, ebpioxerat 
 kal ovyKAnpovdpos Xpuorov perce THY 
 €k vexpav avastacw. Ao Knpvoow 
 Aeyor, devre maca ai tmatpial Toy 
 cOvaev emt TY tov Bamtioparos aéa- 
 vagiay. Zory byw evayyehigopat, Tots 
 ev TO Cog THs. ayvooias evar pi- 
 Bovow. Acdre eis ehevOepiay ek Sov- 
 Kelas, eis Bao deiav €x tupavvidos, eis 
 apOapoiay ex THs pOopas. Kai 7s, 
 pyow, eRevodpeba ; mas; & wvdaros 
 Kal aylov Ilvevparos. Tovto O€ eorw 
 7) Uep To Tvevparte Kowwvody be ot 
 mapaderros moriferat, & od ” vi 
 maivera, 0 ob cpurdy av Ect, b0 ov 
 (oa TeKvoryovel, kal iva mdvra ovvedov 
 eliza, Sv od avayevvepevos Cwoyoveirae 
 dvOpwmos, ev @ kal 6 Xpioros Bar- 
 Tigaro, ev ® kai TO Ilvetpa Katnpxero 
 
 
 
 
 
 Again, “ All, indeed, who come to the 
 
 ev cide Tepiotepas.—Hippolytus, Ho- 
 moilia in Theophania, § vili. 
 
 a Avo bi) Kal thy Tod Oecd dua 
 oapkos émdnpiay TO KOoBO Knpo§- 
 avTes, THY eK THS mavaxpavtov kal 
 @eotéxov Maplas, yevyioeds Te Kal 
 av&joews, kai THs peta dvOparav 
 dvactpopys Kal Biwoews, kal thy dia 
 Barticpatros avadeéw adtov, kat 
 maow avOparois yevnoopévny avayév- 
 vnow, Sua Aovtpov maduyyevedias.— 
 De Consummatione Mundi et Anti- 
 christo, § i. 
 
 Jewel accounts this treatise clearly 
 spurious (the view of Antichrist, per- 
 haps, not serving the ultra-reformers). 
 Bishop Bull, on the other hand, ac- 
 counts it genuine, and replies to the ar- 
 suments of its impugners. Def. Fid. 
 Nic. Sect. 3. ¢. viii. § 4. There are some 
 expressions in it, certainly, with which 
 later times became much more familiar, 
 as @OeoréKos, § i. and povaxol, § Vii. 
 That the former expression, however, 
 was in use long before the Nestorian 
 controversy is certain. 
 
 3 Nativitas secunda spiritalis sit, qua 
 in Christo per layacrum regenerationis 
 nascimur .... Peccata purgare et ho- 
 minem sanctificare aqua sola non potest, 
 
Lecr. XL] ASSERTED BY CYPRIAN. 439 
 
 Divine layer, in the sanctification of Baptism, put off there the 
 old man by the grace of that laver unto life ; and being re- 
 newed by the Holy Spirit are purged from the defilement of 
 original sin by this second birth. But the sanctity and truth 
 of this second birth appertains still more to you, in whom the 
 lusts of the flesh and of the body are now no more.”’ And 
 again, in the same treatise, he speaks of “ Our members, which 
 are the temple of God, being purged from all filth of original 
 sin by the sanctification of the vital laver.’* Once more, 
 “ Whilst I was lying in darkness and blind night, and floating 
 on the unstable sea of this world, ignorant of my life, and a 
 stranger to truth and light, I thought (such at that time were 
 my habits) that the merciful promise of God touching my sal- 
 vation would be altogether hard to be accomplished, namely, 
 that one should be born again: that quickened unto new life 
 by the laver of the bath of salvation, one might put off what 
 one was before, and whilst the frame of the body remained the 
 same, the man might be changed in spirit and in mind. How 
 is so great a change possible, said I,’* &c¢., with much more to 
 the same purpose equally strong. “By the generation of Bap- 
 tism we are made children of God,” “an elect people of God.’’* 
 Baptism is the beginning and “ origin of all faith, the salutary 
 
 entrance to the hope of life eternal.” ® 
 Such is the character which the early Fathers assign to the 
 
 nisi habeat et Spiritum sanctum.—Cy- 
 prian, Ep. Ixxiv. § 5.—Baptisma enim 
 esse in quo homo vetus moritur et no- 
 vus nascitur manifestat et probat beatus 
 Apostolus dicens: “Servavit nos per 
 lavacrum regenerationis.”—§ 6. 
 
 1 Omnes quidem qui ad divinum la- 
 vacrum Baptismi sanctificatione perve- 
 niunt, hominem illic veterem gratia la- 
 vacri salutaris exponunt, et innovati 
 Spiritu sancto, a sordibus contagionis 
 antique iterataé nativitate purgantur. 
 Sed nativitatis iteratee vobis major sanc- 
 titas et veritas competit, quibus desideria 
 jam carnis et corporis nulla sunt.—De 
 Habitu Virginum, § xxiii. 
 
 * Scientes quod templa Dei sint mem- 
 bra nostra, ab omni frce contagionis 
 antique lavacri vitalis sanctificatione 
 purgata.—sg ii. 
 
 3 Ego cum in tenebris atque in nocte 
 cea jacerem, cumque in salo jactantis 
 
 
 
 seeculi nutabundus ac dubius vestigiis 
 oberrantibus fluctuarem, vite mes nes- 
 cius, veritatis ac lucis alienus, difficile 
 prorsus ac durum pro illis tune moribus 
 opinabar quod in salutem mihi divina 
 indulgentia pollicebatur, ut quis renasci 
 denuo posset, utque, in novam vitam la- 
 vacro aqui salutaris* animatus, quod 
 prius fuerat exponeret, et corporis licet 
 manente compage hominem animo ac 
 mente mutaret. Qui possibilis, aiebam, 
 est tanta conversio, etc.— Cyprian, Ep. 
 i. § 3. 
 
 “ Prenuntiavit illic per prophetam 
 Deus quod apud gentes in locis quee in- 
 aquosa prius fuissent, flumina postmo- 
 dum redundarent et electum genus Dei, 
 id est per generationem Baptismi filios 
 Dei factos, adaquarent.—Ep. Ixii. § &. 
 
 § Cum inde incipiat omnis fidei origo, 
 et ad spem vits «terns salutaris in- 
 gressio.—p. Ixxii. § 12. 
 
440 EVIDENCE FOR INFANT BAPTISM. (Sentrs IL.. 
 
 Sacrament of Baptism; such are the effects, which according 
 to them flow from it, when nothing interferes to abate its 
 natural force : and this is evident, because whilst they designate 
 it and describe its office in the emphatic terms we have seen 
 they do, they still contemplate it in relation to infants amongst 
 others. In them, therefore, it must operate of its own in- 
 trinsic virtue: they are passive récipients of the rite; as they 
 were of the evil nature which renders the administration of it 
 in their case necessary. You will remember that Justin 
 Martyr speaks of persons of 60 and 70 years of age, of his 
 own time, who had been disciples of Christ from their child- 
 hood; that Irenzeus tells of the Saviour having “ come to 
 save all men by himself, all, that is, who by him are born 
 again to God, infants, children, boys, youths, and elder men:’’? 
 that Clemens Alexandrinus talks of “the children that are 
 drawn up out of the water” * in a passage certainly alluding to 
 Baptism: that Cyprian is quite express on the duty of baptiz- 
 ing infants, having written a letter* on the very subject ; 
 indeed, the question to which the letter is a reply is not, 
 whether Baptism ought to be administered to infants, but 
 whether it ought to be administered before the eighth day 
 after the birth, and this he decides in the affirmative: that an 
 Apostolical Constitution runs thus, “ Baptize too even your 
 infants, and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord, for he saith, Suffer the children to come unto me.” ® 
 
 In order, however, to protect the Fathers from misconstruc- 
 tion, and from the imputation often alleged against them by 
 those who know little of their spirit, that the mere opus 
 operatum was all they looked to in Baptism ; and that such 
 formalists were they, that in all cases they rested the efficacy 
 of the Sacrament in the mere act and administration ; I 
 would remind you of the solemn obligations they considered 
 it to lay the parties under, when they were of an age capable 
 of understanding them ; and even of the excessive stringency 
 with which in one particular they drew those obligations 
 tight. These obligations were in abeyance only during child- 
 
 . , -~ - 
 ' Ot &€k maidwy epabnrevOnoay To 5 Banriere S€ tyav kal ra vyma, 
 Xpiorg@.—Justin Martyr, Apol. 1. § 15.| Kal exrpépere atta é€v madcia kai 
 * Ireneus, II. c. xxii. § 4. vovdecia Geod. "Adete yap, pol, Ta 
 
 * Clem. Alex. Padag. IIL c. xi. p.| mawdia épxerOa mpds pe.—Constitut. 
 289. + Ep. lix. Apost. VI. c. xv. 
 
Lect. XI.] BAPTISMAL PROMISES. 441 
 
 hood. The sponsors of the child (for sponsors he had),' de- 
 volved them all upon him, when his years and understanding 
 allowed him to be aware of his debt ; the child then succeed- 
 ing to the position of one, who was baptized in his maturer 
 age. Now only bear in mind the precautions by which the 
 Church—as the Fathers represent it, themselves concurring 
 in the propriety of such measures—protected the approach of 
 adults to Baptism : the anxiety she evinced according to them, 
 to impress them with the idea of the weight of personal ob- 
 ligation they were about to incur by participation in that 
 Sacrament. I had occasion to investigate the particulars of 
 the process in a previous Lecture’; and I shall content 
 myself, therefore, with simply reminding you, that they had to 
 go through repeated stages of probation, first as “auditores,”’ 
 then as “catechumeni ;” the whole period occupying several 
 years: that during this novitiate, confessions and promises 
 were exacted of them, to be again repeated when they were 
 to be actually baptized ; and considered to form so integral a 
 part of Baptism that the Sacrament itself is sometimes called 
 oporoyia *—confessions of faith, promises of obedience to 
 Christ’s laws: that these confessions and promises were to be 
 binding on them for life; Baptism, so far from having done 
 its office when the rite was completed, having but then begun 
 it. It was the habit of the Christians to keep themselves 
 true to their profession, by calling to each other’s recollection 
 from time to time the pledges they had given for their good 
 behaviour on this momentous occasion, as well as at the other 
 of the Eucharist. “We are ever after reminding each other 
 of these things,” * is the emphatic language of Justin Martyr, 
 when he had described the particulars of the administration of 
 Baptism and of the Eucharist in detail. And Tertullian puts 
 the case very vividly by representing baptized persons as 
 fishes, the enigmatical name of Christ (iy@vs) impressed on 
 Christians, “fishes born in the water, which are only safe 
 whilst they continue in the water.” ° And Clemens extends 
 
 1 Tertullian, De Baptismo, ¢. xviii. 5 Sed nos pisciculi secundum iyédy 
 2 Lecture III. Second Series. nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nas- 
 3 Clem. Alex. Stromat, V. § xi. p.689. | cimur, nec aliter quam in aqua perma- 
 + ‘Hyeis b€ pera radra dowry det | nendo salvi sumus.— Tertullian, De 
 rovT@v GAAnAous avapimvnoKopev. — | Baptismo, c. i. 
 Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 67. 
 
442 BAPTISMAL PROMISES. (Serres IT. 
 
 the figure and is not satisfied even with their being in the sea, 
 unless they imbibe and appropriate its “salt ;” alleging that 
 in this respect the salt-water fish are faulty, because though 
 living in brine from their birth, when cooked they have no 
 savour in themselves.’ Tertullian considers that by forfeiting 
 the confessions and promises made at Baptism, we forfeit 
 Baptism.2_ And nothing is more common in the practical 
 treatises of the Fathers, than to find appeals to Christians to 
 act up to their Baptismal vows. It is quite in the spirit of 
 these early authors that our own Church acts, when in the 
 Service for the Visitation of the Sick she urges the sufferer, 
 not merely in general terms, to call up his self-accusing 
 thoughts, but to do this “by remembering the profession 
 which he made to God at his Baptism,” and the more to en- 
 courage him to do this, she continues, “Therefore I shall 
 rehearse unto you the articles of your faith,” &&. Thus Ter- 
 tullian, when pressing upon Christians the duty of habitually 
 abstaining from the heathen spectacles, has at once recourse 
 to this argument. “I will advert,” says he, “to the obliga- 
 tions our seal imposes. When we enter the water, we profess 
 our belief in the words of the Christian law ; and we witness 
 with our mouths that we have renounced the devil, his pomps, 
 and his angels . . . . Now if it is apparent that the whole 
 apparatus of the spectacles consists of idolatry, undoubtedly 
 it must be already determined that the testimony of our 
 renunciation in the laver appertains to these spectacles.” * 
 Again, when addressing the martyrs, “ We were enlisted ”’ (so 
 he reminds them), “in the service of the living God, when 
 we made our vesponses at the Sacrament.’’* Again, when de- 
 nouncing various forms of idolatry in which Christians were 
 
 1 28 , - \ a , 
 Eigt yap tives T@v Kat Tov Adyou 
 eraxnkodtay Tots ix@vau tois Oadac- 
 / > , a A > or > 
 giows éoudres, ot O1 ev aApn eK 
 yevetiis tpepdpevor, Gddv Gpas mpds 
 TV okevaciay Séovrar.— Clem, Alex. 
 Stromat. 1. § vill. p. 340. 
 2 Cxterum nonne ejeramus et re- 
 scindimus signaculum, rescindendo tes- 
 
 legis sum verba profitemur, renuntiasse 
 nos diabolo et pomp et angelis ejus 
 ore nostro contestamur ... . Igitur si 
 ex idololatriad universam spectaculorum 
 paraturam constare constiterit, indubi- 
 tate prajudicatum erit etiam ad spec- 
 tacula pertinere renuntiationis nostre 
 testimonium in layacro.—Tertullian, De 
 
 tationem ejus ?—Tertullian, De Spec- 
 taculis, ¢. xxiv. 
 
 * Ad principalem auctoritatem con- 
 vertar ipsins signaculi nostri. Cum 
 aquam ingressi Christianam fidem in 
 
 Spectaculis, ec. iv. 
 
 4 Vocati sumus ad militiam Dei vivi 
 jam tune, cum in sacramenti verba re- 
 spondimus.—Ad Martyres, ¢. il. 
 
. Leor. XI.J STRICTNESS OF THE FATHERS 
 
 4.43 
 
 apt to get indirectly implicated—as for instance in the manu- 
 facture of idols, as carvers or sculptors—he once more presses 
 the same consideration ; and contends that they who fashion 
 these images which are for the devil’s service cannot be said 
 to have renounced the devil’; the habitual influence which 
 Baptism must have upon the life in order to be availing, 
 forming quite a feature of patristic teaching, which speaks far 
 more objectively than modern schools of theology have been 
 disposed to do, and thereby produces a practical impression 
 on the mind, which general exhortation without any such de- 
 finite reference cannot do. But there is another consideration 
 which proves in a still more undeniable manner how far the 
 Fathers were from regarding Baptism as a mere opus opera- 
 twm—a consideration which shows that their bias was quite 
 in another direction ; and, as I said, that they were disposed 
 to regard its obligations as peremptory to a very alarming 
 degree. For it was a notion entertained by several of them, 
 that not more than one heinous sin (if even one) after Baptism 
 could obtain pardon; a notion, which they seem to have 
 formed on Hebrews x. 26, 27,’ or on the other still more fre- 
 quently quoted text to the same effect, Hebrews vi. 4, 5, 6° ; 
 so rigorous a fulfilment of the vows of Baptism during the 
 whole subsequent life did they exact. And though some may 
 be disposed to mitigate the harshness of this decree by sup- 
 posing that they spoke of one public act of absolution by the 
 Church when they spoke of one pardon ; and that they were 
 only declaring the impossibility of the Church encouraging a 
 system of sinning and repenting, by frequent condonations, to 
 
 the hardening of men’s hearts 
 the language of Tertullian * 
 
 1 Quomodo enim renuntiavimus dia- 
 bolo et angelis ejus, si eos facimus ?— 
 De Idololatria, ¢. vi. 
 
 2 Wor if we sin wilfully after that 
 we haye received the knowledge of the 
 truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice 
 for sins, but a certain fearful looking 
 for of judgment, and fiery indignation 
 which shall devour the adversaries.”— 
 See Clem. Alex. Stromat. II. § xili. p. 
 459. 
 
 8 « Tor it is impossible for those who 
 were once enlightened, and have tasted 
 of the heavenly gift, and were made 
 
 
 
 
 
 a view of the subject, which 
 
 very strongly confirms, as well as 
 
 partakers of- the Holy Ghost, and have 
 tasted the good Word of God, and the 
 powers of the world to come, if they 
 shall fall away, to renew them again 
 unto repentance.” 
 
 4 Hujus igitur peenitentie secunde et 
 unius, quanto in areto negotium est, 
 tanto operosior probatio, ut non sola 
 conscientia proferatur, sed aliquo etiam 
 actu administretur. Is actus, qui magis 
 Greco yocabulo exprimitur et frequen- 
 tatur, exomologesis est, qua delictum 
 Domino nostrum confitemur; non qui- 
 dem ut ignaro, sed quatenus satisfactio 
 
Ak 
 
 ON THE OBLIGATIONS OF BAPTISM. (Serres I. 
 
 that of Socrates,’ quoted by Bishop Bull—still in any case 
 the Fathers are proved to have contemplated Baptism in its 
 future obligations with the utmost severity ; to have been 
 as far as possible from confining their notion of it to its posi- 
 tive and present grace; and to have been utterly indisposed 
 to relax moral duties, by elevating the dignity of the Sacra- 
 
 ment. 
 
 confessione disponitur, confessione po- 
 nitentia nascitur, penitentia Deus miti- 
 gatur. Itaque exomologesis proster- 
 nendi et humilificandi hominis disci- 
 plina est . . . . sacco et cineri incubare 
 
 . . . presbyteris advolvi et caris Dei 
 . - . . | 
 adgeniculari, omnibus fratribus lega-) 
 
 tiones deprecationis su# injungere.— 
 Tertullian, De Poenitentia, c. ix. 
 Ae a” > s A A \ 
 Qs apa ov xp Tovs peta TO 
 Banricpa jpaptnkoTas dpaptiay, hv 
 
 
 
 dal, Tis kowevias Tdv Ociov puotnpiov 
 agtotcba: adN ent peravoiay pev 
 avtovs mpotpenew* edmida b€ rhs 
 ddécews pu) Tapa Tov tepewv, dda 
 mapa Tov Qeov exdéxecOa, Tod Suva- 
 pevou kal e€ovolay €xovtos ovyx@pew 
 apaptnpara.—Socrates, Eccles. Hist. I. 
 c. 10. 
 
 This is represented in Socrates as a 
 tenet of the Novatiani, asserted by 
 Acesius, one of their Bishops.—See 
 
 mpos Oavarov Kadovow ai Oeiac ypa- | Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. Sec. 1, ¢. ii. § 4. 
 
Lect. XII.] THE EARLY FATHERS OPPOSED TO 445 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 The testimony of the Fathers opposed to the Socinian scheme. 5°. On the 
 Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Statement of the Racovian Catechism. 
 Sentiments of the Fathers. The Eucharist contemplated by them, first as a 
 sacrifice, not material (except as including an oblation of the fruits of the earth), 
 but commemorative of the sacrifice of Christ; and secondly, as the spiritual 
 food of his Body and Blood. Their testimony unfavourable to the Romish as 
 well as to the Socinian views. The benefit not ascribed to the opus operatum, 
 but represented as dependent on the fitness of the recipient. Strictness in this 
 particular. 
 
 § 5. 
 On the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. 
 
 HE Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is estimated as lowly 
 as that of Baptism by the Socimians. They represent it 
 as a mere commemoration of the death of Christ, the most 
 signal of his acts: and not possessing any virtue in itself to 
 serve us; whatever benefits we receive from Christ being 
 independent of it, and enjoyed by us already’; a doctrine, in 
 both its features different from that of our Church, which 
 maintains that the Lord’s Supper is a continual remembrance 
 of the sacrifice of the death of Christ ; and that in it our 
 souls are strengthened and refreshed by the body and blood of 
 Christ. Let us see, then, on which side are the Fathers. 
 Now, whatever difficulty there may be in fixing with pre- 
 cision the notion of the Eucharist entertained by the Fathers, 
 and reducing the numberless passages in which they speak of 
 it to a perfect whole; this may be safely affirmed, that the 
 entire current of their testimony is as much opposed to the 
 Socinian Catechism as it is possible to imagine testimony to 
 be : it sets quite in another direction. Bearing the Socinian 
 theory in mind, let any man contemplate the following passages 
 of the Fathers, and consider for himself whether they are not 
 altogether conceived in a different spirit. 
 
 ’ Racovian Catechism, Of Christ’s Prophetic Office, ch. iii, 
 
446 THE SOCINIANS ON THE EUCHARIST. ([Senms Il. 
 
 “We ought to do all things,” says Clemens Romanus, “in 
 order, whatever the Lord hath commanded us to do. He 
 hath commanded that our oblations and liturgical offices be at 
 stated seasons, and not be an affair of chance . . .. They, 
 therefore, who make these oblations at the stated seasons are 
 accepted and blessed.” ? It is impossible not to suppose that 
 these oblations referred to the Eucharist, and consequently 
 that the term mpoodopa was applied to it even in the time of 
 Clemens in some sense or other. The case is rendered more 
 certain by a similar but fuller expression which occurs subse- 
 quently, “It will be no small sin, if we cast out of their Epis- 
 copal office men who have offered their gifts holily and with- 
 out blame.” ” 
 
 Justin Martyr, after quoting Malachi i. 11, where God 
 says, that he will not accept the offering of the Jews, but will 
 have in every place incense offered to his name and a pure 
 offering (@vcia xaapa),—explains, that God is here prophesy- 
 ing of the sacrifices which are offered to him by the Gentiles, 
 namely the bread of the Eucharist and the wine of the 
 Eucharist *: moreover, the quotation, and the application of 
 it too, is made three several times in the course of this 
 Dialogue. Again, after alluding to the type contained in 
 the Paschal Lamb, and that in the scape-goat, and the goat 
 for sacrifice, he adds, “The oblation also of the fine flour, 
 which those who are cleansed from leprosy were required to 
 make, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, which Jesus 
 Christ our Lord commanded us to offer in remembrance of the 
 Passion which he suffered for men, who have their souls thus 
 purged from all evil; so that at one andthe same time we 
 may give God thanks for having created the world and all 
 things in it for man, and for having delivered us from the 
 evil in which we were born.”* But in the Apology, addressed 
 to Gentiles, with whom the sacrificial texts of the Levitical 
 law, which give a complexion to his whole argument in the 
 Dialogue addressed to the Jews, would be out of place, he 
 rather advances the other view of the mystical character of 
 
 "Clemens Romanus, Ad Corinth. I. | peorias cal tod mornpiov 6potws tis 
 § xl. evxaptotias, mpohéyer Torte eimav Kal 
 ~ Bie erated: TO dvopa avrod “Soédlew as, tuas 
 _ Hepi be Tov ev mavtt Tén@ Vp | dé BeSnrodv.—Justin Martyr, Dial. 
 npOY Tov eOvav mpoopepopevar avT@ § 41. 
 Ovorav, Touréare TOD aptov THs €vxa- 45 28, § 117. 5341. 
 
 
 
Lect. XII.] LANGUAGE OF JUSTIN MARTYR. 44.7 
 
 the Eucharist, as communicating to us the Body and Blood of 
 Christ ; saying, “ And this food is called by us the Eucharist, 
 whereof it is not lawful for any to partake except those who 
 believe that the things taught by us are true, and who have 
 been washed in the laver for the remission of sins, and for 
 regeneration, and who live as Christ hath commanded, For 
 we do not receive these things as common bread, or as a 
 common cup; but, as through the word of God, Jesus Christ 
 our Saviour becoming incarnate, took flesh and blood for our 
 salvation, so are we taught that the food over which thanks- 
 giving has been made through the prayer of that word which 
 came from him—by which food our blood and flesh are 
 nourished, by its conversion into them—is the Body and 
 Blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”’' Justin did not 
 exclude from his meaning of the word “oblations” the 
 material elements before consecration, which were brought 
 to the altar; and a fragment of Lrenzeus, to which I shall 
 presently advert, seems to encourage this notion ; still the 
 main feature of his picture of the Eucharist is this, that it 
 is a commemoration only of the sacrifice of Christ, though 
 itself called, by a common metonymy, a sacrifice. That such 
 is Justin’s view, and that he had no intention of representing 
 the Eucharist to be a material sacrifice (whatever he might 
 say of the fruits as a material oblation), is plain from a well- 
 known passage in the Dialogue ; where he understands the 
 Eucharist as a sacrifice in no other sense than as prayer is a 
 sacrifice. “That prayers and thanksgivings made by the 
 worthy are the only sacrifices which are perfect and well- 
 pleasing to God, I myself admit, for these are the only ones 
 which Christians have received it in charge to offer, even in 
 the commemoration of their food, dry and liquid, in which 
 remembrance is made of the Passion which the Son of God 
 suffered for them.”? But it is obvious that in thus analysing 
 the meaning of Justin, the temptation to rescue him from the 
 Socinian is not the smallest possible. The Socinian, so far 
 from considering the Eucharist a sacrifice, does not even con- 
 
 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, Apol. T. § 66. Tovey, Kal er avapynoer S€ THs Tpo- 
 2 "Ore péev ovv Kal evxal Kal evya-| pis aitav Enpas te Kal bypas, ev 7 
 piotia, vmo Tay dkéiov ywopevat, | kal rod mdbovs, 6 mérovOe SV adrods 
 TéXerae pdvat Kal evdpertoi ciate TH | 6 Yios Tod Ocod, peuynrar.— Justin 
 Gcd Ovoia, Kai airds yp. Tatra | Martyr, Dial. g 117. 
 yap pova kal Xpwrriavol mapédaBov 
 
 
 
 
 
448 NATURE OF THE EUCHARIST [Series II. 
 
 sider it symbolical of a sacrifice ; whilst our only difficulty 
 with respect to Justin is to discover the sense in which he 
 understands it to be a sacrifice ; for that he does so under- 
 stand it in some sense or other is indisputable. The Socinian, 
 so far from teaching that we are partakers of Christ’s body 
 really but spiritually, pronounces such opinion to be “out of 
 the question ;”’’ whilst in Justin’s case, his assertion of 
 Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is so marked, that our 
 only care is to show (and it most clearly can be shown) by 
 such expressions used by him as “food liquid and _ solid,’’” 
 “ memorials of Christ’s Body and Blood,” * “ sacrifice” of the 
 same kind as prayer,* in relation to the Eucharist, that he 
 could have no idea of a corporal presence. 
 
 Turn we next to Irenzeus, whose language, inartificial as it 
 is, like that of Justin, will be found substantially to convey 
 the same impressions; the argument often drawn from the 
 same premises, and requiring the same construction to be put 
 on it. “The Lord took of his creatures, even bread, and 
 gave thanks, and said, This is my Body ; and in like manner 
 the cup, another of his creatures, he pronounced to be his 
 Blood; and set forth this new oblation of the New Testa- 
 ment: an oblation which the Church, having received it from 
 the Apostles, offers up to God the whole world through ; to 
 God, who provides us with food ; these being the jirst-fructs 
 of his gifts under the New Testament, touching which Malachi 
 spake, saying, ‘In every place incense shall be offered unto 
 my name and a pure offering, for my name shall be great 
 among the Gentiles.’”° And again, “ Moreover, oblations are 
 not reprobated in themselves” (Irenzeus is here alluding to 
 expressions in the prophets, which he had been quoting, to 
 the disparagement of sacrifice) “for there were oblations 
 amongst the Jews, and there were oblations amongst us ; 
 sacrifices amongst the people, and sacrifices in the Church ; 
 only the nature of them is changed.”® And again, in a re- 
 markable passage, “ This oblation the Church, and the Church 
 only, offers pure to the Creator, when she offers him a portion 
 of his own creatures with thanksgiving. For the Jews make no 
 
 ' Racovian Catechism, Of Christ’s 35 70. 
 Prophetical Office, ch. iii. Locum ha- 4§ 117. 
 bere nequit. 5 Treneus, IV. c. xvii. § 5. 
 
 * Justin Martyr, Dial. § 117. 6 ¢. xviii. § 2. 
 
Lecr. XII.] AS REPRESENTED BY IRENZUS. 449 
 
 such offering, their hands being full of blood, neither have 
 they received the Word which is offered to God.’’! Now cer- 
 tain terms in these extracts from Irenzeus seem to imply, as 
 before, that the bread and wine brought to the altar, and out 
 of which the elements were to be taken, are to be considered a 
 material offering of the fruits of the earth ; an emphasis being 
 laid on them as God’s creatures, and as our food ; Irenzeus (as 
 was the case with Justin before him, perhaps,) having probably 
 in contemplation the Gnostic heresy, which denied to God his 
 own creation, assigning it to a Demiurgus, and so finding a 
 token of the orthodox Christian’s allegiance to the one true 
 God in his oblation of the first-fruits of the earth. But, how- 
 ever we may admit this partial and subordinate view of the 
 elements to have entered into the contemplation of Irenzeus, 
 as it seemed before to do into that of Justin, still the broad 
 light in which he also regarded the Eucharist, was that of a 
 commemorative, not a material sacrifice. And the distinction 
 IT am taking appears to be in harmony with a fragment of 
 Trenzeus given by Pfaffius, “ For the offering of the Eucharist 
 is not carnal, but spiritual ; and so, pure. For we offer to God 
 the bread and the cup of blessing, giving thanks unto Him 
 for having commanded the earth to bring forth these fruits for 
 our food. And then, having completed the oblation, we invoke 
 the Holy Ghost that He would render this same sacrifice, the 
 bread the Body of Christ, the cup the Blood of Christ ; in order 
 that those who partake of these figures, may obtain remission 
 of sins and everlasting life. They, therefore, who bring these 
 offerings in remembrance of the Lord, do not approach the 
 opinions of the Jews, but performing a spiritual service will 
 be called sons of wisdom.”? Accordingly, the phrase of Ire- 
 
 1 Et hance oblationem ecclesia sola 
 puram offert fabricatori, offerens ei cum 
 gratiarum actione ex creatura ejus. Ju- 
 dei autem non offerunt: manus enim 
 eorum sanguine plene sunt: non enim 
 receperunt Verbum, quod offertur Deo. 
 —Ireneus, IV. c. Xvill. § 4. 
 
 2 Avdre Kal 7 mpoopopa THS evxa- 
 prorias ovK fore oapKiKn, ada Tvev- 
 pare) Kal ev TOUT@ xaBapd. 
 pepopev yap TO Gd TOV dprov kal 
 TO TOTHpLoy THs ebhoyias evxXapio- 
 TOUTES avT@, ore’ TH Yh exe heurev 
 expicar rovs kaprrous TOUTOUS eis 
 tpopiy perepav, kat evtavda tiv 
 
 IIpoo- | 
 
 
 
 mpoopopav tehecarres exkaovpev To 
 TIvedpa TO aytov, orras drrohnyn TY 
 @vaiay ravtny Kal roy dproy o@pa 
 Tov Xpiatod Kal rd ToTnpLov TO aia 
 Tov Xpurrov, wa oi petadaBdvres 
 TOUT@Y TOV ayririTroy, THs apérews 
 TOY dpaptioy Kal Tis ons alwviou 
 TUXooW,. Oi ov ravTas Tas ™poo- 
 popas €v TH avauynoer tov Kupiou 
 ayovres, ov tots tav “lovdaley Ody- 
 pace ™porepxovrat, aha TVEVPATLKaS 
 Aevroupyourtes Tis coias viol KAY 
 O@noovra.—lIreneus, Frag. xxxvili. p. 
 26, Bened. Ed. , 
 
 GG 
 
450 NATURE OF THE EUCHARIST (Senzes IT. 
 
 nus in reference to the ulterior progress of the rite is, not 
 merely that the bread and the wine were offered to God as crea- 
 tures, though this he says, but “as creatures with thanksgiv- 
 ing,” i.e. the elements, together with their consecration, were 
 offered ; the Eucharist in short was the oblation ; but in no 
 material sense: for he himself explains the “incense,” which 
 Malachi couples with the “pure offering,” of the “prayers of 
 the saints;”! and “the altar,’ to which the gifts are to be 
 brought, as an altar in heaven’ ; what forbids, then, “the pure 
 offering” to represent the clean heart, the cheerful alms, the 
 grateful service of the communicants ; to all which portions 
 of the rite he himself points, in commenting upon the expres- 
 sion of Malachi*®; and which must go along with that lively 
 representation or showing forth of the death of Christ, which 
 the Lord himself appointed, and which Irenzeus describes by 
 the phrase, “ The Lord took of his creatures, gave thanks over 
 them, called them his Body and Blood, and so instituted the 
 new oblation of the New Testament ;”* “an oblation,”’ he after- 
 wards adds,’ “which the Jews could not make, because they 
 had not received the Word which is offered ;” not, however, 
 in this instance, perhaps, offered in the Eucharist, even com- 
 memoratively, though such may be the sense, but offered on 
 the Cross: unless indeed another reading be preferred, per 
 quod offertur Deo, “through whom it is offered to God.” So 
 much for the commemorative nature of this right as understood 
 by Irenzeus. With respect to the other aspect of it, the com- 
 munion which it is of the Body and Blood of Christ, this 
 doctrine is asserted plainly enough in the following places : 
 “ For if the flesh be not saved, then did not the Lord redeem 
 us by his Blood, neither is the cup of the Eucharist the com- 
 munion of his Blood, nor the bread which we break the com- 
 munion of his Body.”® And again, “ Christ has declared the 
 cup, which is of the creature, to be his own Blood which was 
 shed, wherewith he moistens our blood ; and the bread, which 
 is of the creature, to be his own Body, with which he causes 
 
 'Tncensa autem Joannes in Apoca-, Si autem non salyetur hee, videlicet 
 lypsi orationes esse ait sanctorum.— | nec Dominus sanguine suo redemit nos ; 
 Contra Heret. IV. ¢. xvii. § 6. neque calix eucharistizs communicatio 
 
 * Altare in ccelis, illue enim preces |sanguinis ejus est, neque panis quem 
 nostre et oblationes diriguntur.—c. |frangimus, communicatio corporis ejus 
 xviii. § 6. SRS kas est.—V. c. il. § 2. 
 
 “c. xvii. § 5. 5c, xvili. § 4. 
 
 
 
 
 
Lecr. XII.] AS REPRESENTED BY IREN AUS. 451 
 
 our bodies to grow,” 2. e. not materially through transubstan- 
 tiation, for he had just before said, it was by God’s creatures 
 that our bodies were nourished, no substantial change there- 
 fore taking place in the elements’; but, as he himself goes 
 on to tell us in explanation, “the true man, consisting of 
 flesh, and nerves, and bones, is nourished by the eup which is 
 his Blood, and is increased by the bread which is his Body. 
 And like as a branch of the vine, put into the ground, brings 
 forth fruit in its season ; and a grain of wheat, falling to the 
 ground and there dissolved, riseth again with manifold increase 
 by the Spirit of God which containeth all things ; and they 
 afterwards, by Divine wisdom, serve for the use of man, and 
 receiving the Word of God, become the Eucharist, which is 
 the Body and Blood of Christ ; so, also, our bodies being fed 
 by it (viz. the Eucharist), and laid in the ground, after dis- 
 solving there, shall yet rise in their season by means of the 
 Divine Logos vouchsafing them a resurrection to the glory of 
 God the Father.” ? That is, the elements after consecration 
 receiving the Word, become the Body and Blood of Christ, 
 and impart by virtue thereof to the flesh a principle of im- 
 mortality. For the Word communicating through the Eucha- 
 rist with the soul, is thus brought into connection with the 
 flesh, and so renders the flesh capable of rising again; the 
 spiritual man made “a member of the Body of Christ, of his 
 flesh and of his bones, not by a natural, but by a spiritual 
 union.”* The faulty part of this view of the Eucharist, Dr. 
 Waterland, in a passage I have already applied from him to 
 Baptism, considers to be this, that Irenzeus seems to superin- 
 duce the Logos upon the symbols themselves, rather than 
 
 1 °Eareid1) peAn avTod eopev, kal | 
 
 dia THs Krivews Tpepopeba.—lreneus, 
 V. c. ii. § 2. See Philalethes Cantabri- 
 giensis, p. 118. 
 2 > \ ~ \ ‘ 
 Ov wept mvevpatiKoU Tivos Kal 
 dopatov avOpanrov éywv taita’ TO 
 yap mvedpa ovre dotrea ote odpKa 
 a e > A A a ‘ A > A 
 exer’ GAA Tepl THS KaTa Toy adnOwov 
 dvOpwrov oikovouias, THs €kK GapKds 
 kal vevpov kal daTé@y cuvETToONS 
 ris Kal ek TOU moTyplov avTov, 6 
 €oTe TO aia avTuv, TpEedeTat, Kal ek 
 Tov adprov, 6 eat TO Gapu avTod, 
 a» \ is , A , 
 avéerat. Kat 6vmep rpdmov 70 Evdov 
 THs dpmédou KAOev eis THY yyV TO 
 . , ~ > , ‘4 c , 
 idi@ Kaip@ exapropdpyce, Kai 6 KéKkos 
 
 
 
 Tov oirov meray eis thy ynv kal 
 Siadveis, mokoaTds iyyépOn Sia Tod 
 mvevpatos TOU Qed Tov auvexovTOS 
 Ta mavta* éneita Se Out THs codias 
 Tot’ Ocovd eis xpnow eOdvra avOpo- 
 mav, kat TpooAapBavdpeva Tov Adbyov 
 ToU Oecov, evxapioTia yivera, Smep 
 €ort oGpa Kai aia tod Xpucrov 
 oUT@s kal Ta NuéTEpa G@pata e£ adTns 
 Tpepopeva kat reOevra cis thy yh 
 kat Scadvevra ev adr dvacrnoera 
 ev 7 iim Kaip@, TOD Adyou rod 
 Ocov thy eyepow avtois xapiCopevou 
 eis Od£av Ocov kal Iarpés.—Ireneus, 
 Verena. Sass 
 
 3 Philalethes Cantabrigiensis, p.119, 
 
 GG 2 
 
452 NATURE OF THE EUCHARIST (Serres IT. 
 
 upon the recipients. I agree with him, however, in the 
 remark which he subjoins, that the inaccuracy is rather verbal 
 than real; for certainly, when Irenzeus was enlarging on the 
 Eucharist in its other character, as a commemorative offering, 
 he insisted on the purity of the parties as necessary in order 
 to render the commemorative oblation effective. “It must 
 be made,” says he, “with a clean heart, in faith, without 
 hypocrisy, in steadfast hope, in fervent charity.”' And he 
 then adds, that the Jews did not make it, nor yet many of 
 the heretics; the rite in both these instances, according to 
 Trenzeus, being vitiated by a defective faith. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus does not happen to enlarge on the 
 Eucharist in its aspect as a commemorative sacrifice. Casual 
 expressions, however, occasionally escape from him, which 
 show that the idea itself was familiar to his mind. For 
 instance, “To those who lack understanding, saith Wisdom, 
 that is to the heretics, I suggest, touch the bread which is 
 secret, for it is pleasant, and the theft of water, which is 
 sweet”; where Scripture evidently speaks of the bread and 
 the water in reference to the heretics who adopt bread and 
 water for an oblation, contrary to the Canon of the Church. 
 For some persons there are who celebrate the Eucharist in 
 water only.”* We have certainly here a sacrificial view of 
 the Eucharist presented to us, and the defect of those pointed 
 out who used water instead of wine, or rather instead of wine 
 and water, for a symbol; that defect consisting in an element 
 being chosen which did not express the blood of the victim 
 that purged away sin; the offenders appearing to have been 
 Humanitarians.* But of the Eucharist in its other character 
 of sacramental or symbolical food, as the Body and Blood of 
 Christ by which our souls are strengthened and _ refreshed, 
 
 ' Oportet enim nos oblationem Deo 
 facere, et in omnibus gratos inveniri fa- 
 bricatori Deo, in sententiaé pura et fide 
 sine hypocrisi, in spe firma, in dilectione 
 ferventii—Ireneus, LV. ¢. xviii. § 4. 
 
 *sBrow. 1x. live 
 
 ® Kal trois evdeéor pevav, mapa- 
 KeAevouat, héyovoa, hynow 7 Sodia, 
 Tots Gupi tas aipéoes Sndovore 
 aptav Kpudhiov ndews dayracbe, Kat 
 Udaros Kons yAuKepod" dprov Kai 
 8p ovk em Gov twav, GAN 7 
 ext tav dpro kat date xara Tip 
 
 mpooopay, px) Kata Tov Kavéva TIS 
 "ExkAnolas, xpwpéevev aipeoewv, €p- 
 aves tatrovens ths ypapns. Eiot 
 yap ot kai Vdwp Wirdy evxapiorovow. 
 —Stromat. I. § xix. p. 375. 
 
 4 Vani autem et Ebionzi, unctionem 
 Dei et hominis per fidem non recipien- 
 tes in suam animam... . Reprobant 
 itaque hi commixtionem vini cclestis, 
 et solam aquam szcularem volunt esse ; 
 non recipientes Deum ad commixtionem 
 suam.—lIreneus, Y. ¢. i. § 3. 
 
Lect. XII] AS REPRESENTED BY CLEMENS. 453 
 
 Clemens repeatedly tells us: indeed, the temper of his mind 
 would naturally lead him to dwell on such a subject. Thus, 
 in common with the early Fathers in general, and in direct 
 opposition to the Racovian Catechism,’ he applies our Lord’s 
 language in the sixth chapter of St. John to the Eucharist. 
 “ But since he said, ‘And the bread which I will give is my 
 flesh ;’ and the flesh is moistened by blood; and wine is 
 figuratively called blood ; we must understand that as bread 
 crumbled into the mixed cup appropriates the wine, but 
 rejects the aqueous portion; so the flesh of the Lord, the 
 bread from heaven, absorbs the blood ; 7. e. nourishes heavenly 
 men unto immortality, but rejects carnal lusts, and leaves 
 them to destruction. Thus the Word is expressed by different 
 figures, as meat, flesh, food, bread, blood, milk.”? Again, the 
 . Pabject of drinking, one of the themes of the Peedapaene, leads 
 to a still more tines enunciation of the doctrine of ae Com- 
 munion of Christ’s Body and Blood, whereby the soul, as our 
 Catechism affirms, and as the Racovian Catechism denies, is 
 strengthened and refreshed. “The wine is mingled with the 
 water, the Spirit with the man; the one, the mixture, cheers 
 to faith; the other, the Spirit, guides to incorruption. But 
 the mingling of both, that is, of the drink and of the Word, is 
 called the Eucharist, a famous and excellent grace; whereof 
 they who partake in faith, are sanctified by it both body and 
 soul: the paternal will mystically combining man, the divine 
 mixture, with the Spirit and the Word.”’* I know not that 
 it is worth while to multiply quotations to the same effect ; a 
 large proportion of which would be found, at the same time 
 
 1 Quid vero statuendum est de corpo- 
 ris et sanguinis Christi usu, John vi. 
 35, 48, 54... .? Non agit eo loco 
 Christus de econd sua.—Racovian Cate- 
 chism, Of Christ’s Prophetic Office, 
 c. lil. 
 
 2 Eset be eimev, Kal 6 aptos ody 
 eyo Sore, 7 ape pov eoTw" oapé 
 6€ aiparte apderav TO Be aipa owvos 
 adnyopetrar iotéov ovv Ort ws dipros 
 eis Kpapa kataOpuBeis, Tov oivoy ap- 
 mater, TO O€ UaTades drroNetrren’ ovT@ 
 Kal 7 aps Tou Kupiou, 6 apros TOV 
 ovpavar, dvarivet TO aipa Tovs oupa- 
 viovs tav avOpamrav eis apbapoiay 
 extpépov, amodcimav dé pdvas éxeivas 
 eis POopayv, tas oapkikas emOvpias” | 
 
 oUT@s modaxos adAnyopetrat 6 Ad- 
 yes kal Bp&pa, k Kal vapé, kal Tpoi, 
 kal dpros, Kat aipa, kat yada.—Clem. 
 Alex. Pidag. I. ¢. vi. p. 125. 
 
 3 Kipvara 6 pev olvos TO ddart, 
 TO be avOpare TO Tvetpar kal TO 
 pev eis TioTw evwyel, TO Kpapa™ TO 
 be eis apbapaiay ddnyet, TO Lvedpar 
 9 O€ apo avéis Kpaois, MoTOU Te 
 kat Adyov, Evxapioria Kexhyrat, Xapes 
 emawvoupern kal Kady fs of Kara 
 mioT perahapBdvorres ayidCovrae Kat 
 o@pa Kat poxny TO Oetoy kpapa, TOV 
 iwOparor, TOU Tar puKow Bovdevpatos 
 Tvevpare kat Ady@ — ovykipvayros 
 pvotik@s.—IT. c. i. p. 177. 
 
454 NATURE OF THE EUCiIARIST (Serres II. 
 
 that they assert the real presence, to imply that the corporal 
 presence was not thought of. Thus, “he shall bind his foal 
 to the vine, that is,’ says Clemens, “he shall bind this simple 
 and infant people (the Christian converts) to the Word, which 
 is called the vine by a figure ; for the vine bears wine, as the 
 Word, Blood ; and both are drunk by man to his salvation : 
 the wine being for his body’s health, the Blood for his 
 spirit’s :”! where the Blood of Christ is evidently understood 
 in a epiiual and not in a physical sense. “Scripture calls 
 the wine the mystical symbol of the holy Blood.”? “The 
 holy fluid of joy expresses, in a figure, the Word who was 
 poured forth for many, for the remission of sins.”’* “ Mel- 
 chizedek” (whom Clemens appears to regard as a personi- 
 fication of the Saviour himself) “was king of Salem, and 
 Priest of the most high God, and gave wine and bread, con- 
 secrated food, as a type of the Eucharist.”* From such early 
 times, according to the Fathers, was this great mystery of the 
 Eucharist announced, and with such solemnity was the way 
 prepared for it. How altogether unlike the Socinian reading 
 of it! 
 
 In Tertullian, who is our next witness, we have both views 
 of the Sacrament upheld—the commemorative sacrifice—the 
 spiritual food. Thus he speaks of the “wine which Christ 
 consecrated to the memory of his Blood.” Again, on another 
 occasion, after contending for the Pax or salutation not being 
 withheld under certain circumstances, when some hesitated to 
 admit it, he proceeds to touch on a kindred scruple—whether 
 on the regular service days, Wednesdays and Fridays, the Sa- 
 crament of the Lord's Supper was to be attended, superseding, 
 as it might seem to do, the Office of the day. “ Many 
 think,” says he, “that on the days of the stations they ought 
 
 ' Kai tov m@Xov, gnot, mpooednoev 
 GuméX@ amdodv TovTov Kat _Uimeov 
 Aadp TO Adyo mpoancas, ov ap 
 Teov aAnyopei. Peper yap oivoy 7 
 apredos, as aipa 6 Aéyos* appo be 
 dvOporos ToTov eis carnpiay™ 6 per 
 oivos, T® oopare TO Oe aipa, T@ 
 mvevpate—C lem. Alex. Peedag. I. c. 
 v. pp. 106, 107. 
 
 %3 Mvorixdy ipa ovpBodov i ypadr 
 aiparos dyiov owoy @vdpacey.—il. 
 Cc. 11. p. 184. 
 
 * Kal edAdynoev ye roy olvoy, etry, 
 
 AdBere, mete’ TovTd pov eotiy rd 
 aipia, aipa THs dprrehov" Tov Aédyov, 
 TOV Tepl TOAN@Y exxedpevoy eis ap- 
 ecw apaptiay, evdpooivns ayo 
 adAnyopet vapa.—l1. c. ii. p. 186. 
 
 4 Baow\ev’s Tahnjp, 6 iepeds Tov 
 Ocod TOU tyiorov, 6 Tov oivoy kat 
 Tov aprov Tp Nyeaopevny diwdovs tpo- 
 py «is TUTov evXaptorias.—Stromat. 
 LV. § xxv. p. 637. 
 
 5 Quod in sanguinis sui memoriam 
 consecravit.—Tertullian, De Anima, c. 
 Xvii. 
 
Lect. XII.] AS REPRESENTED BY TERTULLIAN. 455- 
 
 not to attend the Prayers of the Sacrifices, because the station 
 ought to be broken up, when the Body of the Lord has been 
 received. Does, then, the Eucharist break up a Service devoted 
 to God? Nay, does it not rather bind it to God? Will not 
 your station be the more solemn, if you stand at the altar of 
 God too? 'The Body of the Lord received and reserved, both 
 are safe, the participation in the sacrifice, and the performance 
 of the Service” '—the Eucharist a sacrifice; the place of its 
 celebration an altar. But how do we read elsewhere? “We 
 sacrifice for the safety of the Emperor, but it is to our God 
 and his; and it is after the manner our God prescribes, by 
 pure prayer ;”? that is, by the prayer for the Catholic Church 
 in the primitive Communion Service, one clause of which was 
 in behalf of the Emperor, as the corresponding clause is still 
 retained in our own; and this is here represented by Ter- 
 tullian as an integral part of the sacrifice. 
 
 And, indeed, how far this Father was from seeing the 
 material flesh of Christ in the oblation will be evident from 
 the sense in which he understood the real presence, or the 
 Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist ; the other phase 
 of this Sacrament, to which we will now turn. Thus he 
 speaks of Christ “having consecrated his Blood in the 
 wine ;”* of “feeding on the fatness of the Lord’s Body in 
 the Eucharist ;’* of “the flesh feeding on the Body and 
 Blood of Christ, that the soul may be fatted of God ;”° 
 strong expressions, certainly ; the last argument, however, 
 being, that the flesh, for the resurrection of which he is 
 pleading, possessed a dignity which would make it a fit 
 subject for being raised again; a dignity derived to it, as 
 from other circumstances, so from the circumstance of its 
 Sacramental alliance with the Body and Blood of Christ in 
 the Eucharist ; whereby, whilst the bread and wine are con- 
 
 1 Similiter et stationum diebus non | Imperatoris, sed Deo nostro et ipsius: 
 
 putant plerique sacrificiorum orationibus 
 interveniendum, quod statio solyenda 
 sit, accepto corpore Domini. Ergo de- 
 votum Deo obsequium Eucharistia re- 
 solyit? An magis Deo obligat?*» Non- 
 ne solemnior erit statio tua, si et ad 
 aram Dei steteris? Accepto corpore 
 Domini, et reservato, utrumque salyum 
 est, et participatio sacrificii, et executio 
 officii—De Oratione, ¢. xix. 
 
 2 Itaque et sacrificamus pro salute ' 
 
 sed quomodo precepit Deus, pura prece. 
 —Ad Scapulam, ec. ii. 
 
 * Sanguinem suum in vino consecra- 
 vit.—Adversus Marcionem IV, c. xl. 
 
 4 Atque ita exinde opimitate Domi- 
 nici corporis vescitur, Eucharistia scili- 
 cet.—De Pudicitia, c. ix. 
 
 5 Caro corpore et sanguine Christi 
 vescitur, ut et anima Deo saginetur.— 
 De Resurrectione Carnis, ¢. viii. 
 
456 NATURE OF THE EUCHARIST (Serres II. 
 sumed by the flesh, the spiritual Body and Blood of Christ 
 are conveyed to the soul through its connection with the 
 flesh. But in the same treatise, when answering an objection 
 to the disparagement of the flesh, deduced from the text, “the 
 flesh profiteth nothing,” he contends that the apparent mean- 
 ing of it is to be qualified; that inasmuch as the Jews 
 thought Christ’s saying hard and intolerable, as though he 
 had affirmed that his flesh was really to be eaten by them, he 
 premised, in order to refer the state of salvation to the spirit, 
 “the spirit it is which giveth life,” and then he added, “the 
 flesh profiteth nothing,” that is, so far as giving life was con- 
 cerned. . . . . Thus constituting the Word the giver of life, 
 because the Word is spirit and life, he called the same his 
 flesh, because the Word was made flesh, and so was to be 
 sought after for the sake of life, and to be devoured by hear- 
 img, and to be masticated by the understanding, and to be 
 digested by faith.”* Tertullian, it is true, does not here 
 speak of the Eucharist in direct terms, but he alludes to the 
 language of the sixth chapter of St. John, which the Fathers 
 in general, as we have seen, interpret of the Eucharist, and 
 which, in the next quotation I shall make, seems to be so 
 understood by Tertullian himself; nor could that Sacrament 
 be out of his thoughts when he was writing ; and his reason- 
 ing, we see, is, that it was not the material flesh of Christ 
 which was to be eaten to give life; but the Word, which is 
 spirit, to be eaten by the spiritual part of the man, through 
 faith. The passage in which he considers the sixth chapter 
 of St. John as bearing on the Eucharist, and which itself also 
 illustrates his idea of the real. presence, and confirms what I 
 have said already, is in his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer. 
 The clause, “Give us this day our daily bread,’ he would 
 have taken in a spiritual sense ; “for Christ is our bread, 
 because Christ is life, and bread is life. I am the bread of 
 life, saith he. And a little before, the bread is the Word of 
 
 ' Sic etsi carnem ait nihil prodesse, ex 
 materia dicti dirigendus est sensus. 
 Nam quia durum et intolerabilem ex- 
 istimaverunt sermonem ejus, quasi vere 
 carnem suam illis edendam determi- 
 nasset; ut in spiritum disponeret sta- 
 tum salutis, premisit: Spiritus est qui 
 Vivificat; atque ita subjunxit, Caro nibil 
 prodest; ad vivificandum scilicet .. 
 
 
 
 Itaque sermonem constituens vivifica- 
 torem, quia spiritus et vita sermo, eun- 
 dem etiam carnem suam dixit, quia et 
 sermo caro erat facta, proinde in cau- 
 sam vite appetendus et devorandus au- 
 ditu, et ruminandus intellectu, et fide 
 digerendus——De Resurrectione Carnis, 
 Cc. XXXVii. 
 
Lect. XII] AS REPRESENTED BY HIPPOLYTUS. 457 
 
 the living God which came down from heaven. Then again, 
 because in the bread is understood his Body. This is my 
 Body. Wherefore in praying for daily bread, we pray to be 
 perpetually in Christ, and undivided from his Body.”' The 
 juxta-position in which Tertullian here places the Lord’s ap- 
 pointment of the Eucharist, and his speech in the sixth chapter 
 of St. John, shows that he considers the latter to involve that 
 Sacrament. The passages I have adduced, then, may suffice 
 to prove on the one hand that Tertullian believed in the real 
 presence, on the other that he did not believe in the corporal. 
 Other conclusions against the Romish doctrine I have ex- 
 tracted from him in a former Lecture,’ and shall not repeat 
 them now. 
 
 Hippolytus, in a fragment of a commentary on Prov. ix. 1, 
 offers us the two views of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, 
 which I have been bringing before you, very distinctly in one 
 and the same paragraph. “‘She hath furnished her table,’ 
 2. € the knowledge of the Holy Trinity which had been 
 promised ; and his precious and unpolluted Body and Blood, 
 which in the mystical and Divine table ave daily sacrificed 
 im remembrance of that first and ever memorable table of 
 the mystical and Divine supper. ‘ She hath sent forth her 
 servants, 7. €. Wisdom or Christ hath called them together 
 with a loud cry, saying, ‘ Whoso is simple, let him turn in 
 hither to me ;’ by those servants meaning the holy Apostles 
 who were to traverse the whole world, and call the nations 
 truly to the knowledge of him by their sublime and divine 
 publication of these things. ‘To them that want understand- 
 ing,’ z. e. to those who did not yet possess the power of the 
 Holy Ghost, she saith, ‘Come, eat of my bread, and drink of 
 the wine which I have mingled,’ 2. e. his Divine Flesh and 
 his precious Blood, which he hath given us to eat and to 
 drink for the remission of sins.” * 
 
 1 Quanquam panem nostrum quotidi- | lamus in Christo, et individuitatem a 
 anum da nobis hodie, spiritualiter po- | corpore ejus.—De Oratione, ec. vi. 
 tius intelligamus. Christus enim panis 2 Lecture IT. First Series. 
 noster est, quia vita Christus, et vita] * Kai jroumdoaro tiv éavtijs tpd- 
 panis. Ego sum, inquit, panis vite. | re€av, rHy emlyveow Tijs ayias Tpid- 
 
 Et paulo supra: Panis est sermo Dei 
 vivi, qui descendit de ccelis. Tum quod 
 et corpus ejus in pane censetur. Hoe 
 est corpus meum,. Itaque petendo pa- 
 nem quotidianum, perpetuitatem postu- 
 
 dos katemayyehoperny. Kal rd tipcov 
 kal Gxpavtov avtov o@pua kal aipa, 
 arep ev Ti pvotih Kal beia rparéty 
 kaO’ éxdorny emtrehodvra Ovdpeva eis 
 dvdpynow Tis dewynorov Kal mporns 
 
458 NATURE OF THE EUCHARIST (Serres IT. 
 
 Origen yields a similar testimony to that of the other 
 Fathers on both the features of the Eucharist I am investi- 
 gating. First, with respect to the commemorative sacrifice. 
 “The divine Scripture saith, ‘And he shall put the incense 
 upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense 
 may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he 
 die not ; and he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and 
 sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward.’ 
 This shows how the rite of propitiation for men to Godwards 
 ‘was celebrated. But do not you, who are come to Christ, 
 the true High Priest, who hath rendered God propitious to 
 you by his Blood, and reconciled you to his Father, do not 
 you stop short in the blood of the flesh ; but rather acquaint 
 yourself with the Blood of the Word, and hear him saying 
 unto you, ‘for this is my Blood which shall be shed for you 
 for the remission of sins.’ He who hath been imbued with 
 the mystery, knows both the Flesh and the Blood of the 
 Word of God. Let us not then pause on these matters, 
 which are known to the initiated, and cannot be laid open to 
 the ignorant. Moreover do not suppose this sprinkling to the 
 eastward had no meaning. The propitiation came to you from 
 the east. For from that quarter came the man whose name 
 is Oriens (avatoAn), who was made the Mediator between 
 God and man.”! This passage, it is true, has reached us only 
 
 é€xeivns tparé(ns Tod puaotiKod Oelov 
 Seinvov. To be améoreuWe Tovs éav- 
 ths Sovdovs 7 Sodua, é Xpioros 
 dnAovore, ovykahdvoa peta vndov 
 Knpvyparos* és eoTw appov, eK) 
 vdT@ mpos pe, pacKovaa, Tovs tepods 
 amoardhovs mpodnrov, Tous eis Tov 
 ovpmravra KOT OV dvadpapdvras kal 
 mpookahecavras Ta €Ovn eis THY ékel~ 
 vou emiyvoow adnbas TO dyr@ kat 
 Oeig rovtav Knpvypare. To d€ Kal 
 Tols evdeeot ppevov ele, Tois pyre 
 KEKTNMEVOLS THY TOU aylov Tvedparos 
 Svvapu Snovére, eee, payere Tov 
 enov prov, kal mere oivov Ov Ké- 
 Kpaka tpi, tiv Ociay aitod odpKa 
 kat TO Tipioy adrod aipa dedaxev 
 Hetv, gyno, eoOiew Kal mivew eis 
 aperw dpapti@y.—Hippolytus, Frag. 
 p. 282. 
 
 ? Ait ergo eloquium divinum, et im- 
 ponet incensum super ignem in con- 
 
 spectu Domini, et operiet fumus incensi 
 propitiatorium quod est super testimo- 
 nia, et non morietur, et sumet de san- 
 guine vituli, et resperget digito suo su- 
 per propitiatorium contra orientem 
 (Levit. xvi. 13.) Ritus quidem apud 
 yeteres propitiationis pro hominibus, 
 qui fiebat ad Deum, qualiter celebra 
 retur, edocuit: sed tu qui ad Christum 
 yenisti, Pontificem verum, qui sanguine 
 suo Deum tibi propitium fecit, et recon- 
 ciliavit te Patri, non hereas in sanguine 
 carnis: sed disce potius sanguinem 
 Verbi, et audi ipsum tibi dicentem, quia, 
 Hic sanguis meus est, qui pro vobis ef- 
 fundetur in remissionem peccatorum. 
 Novit, qui mysterlis imbutus est, et car- 
 nem et sanguinem Verbi Dei. Non ergo 
 immoremur in his que et scientibus 
 nota sunt, et ignorantibus patere non 
 possunt. Quod autem contra orientem 
 respergit, non otiose accipias. Ab ori- 
 
Lror. XIL] AS REPRESENTED BY ORIGEN. 459 
 
 in the Latin translation of Rufinus (for probably his it is’), 
 but as a part of the second Homily upon Genesis is preserved 
 in the Greek, and as the version is there found to be close to 
 the original, it is to be presumed that it is generally trust- 
 worthy in these Homilies on the books of Moses. And the 
 paragraph before us seems to point plainly enough to the 
 Eucharist as a commemorative sacrifice. It had the nature of 
 a sacrifice in some sense, for the parallel runs between that 
 and the Levitical one, even to minute matters; and it is ex- 
 pressly denied to be a material sacrifice, for the Christian is 
 enjoined not to take so low a view of it as that. What could 
 it be else, then, but commemorative, and significant of the 
 Passion which it represented? The same conclusion would 
 follow from another place in Origen, where the original text 
 is preserved. ‘“ ‘God is a Spirit, and they that worship him 
 must worship him in spirit and in truth:’ by which the 
 Saviour taught that we are not to worship God in the flesh, 
 and by jfleshly sacrifices, but im the spirit. For he would be 
 understood to be a Spirit, in proportion as he is worshipped in 
 spirit and with the understanding : but we must not worship 
 the Father in types” (i. e. with carnal sacrifices), “but in 
 truth ; which truth came by Jesus Christ, subsequent to the 
 law given by Moses.”* The service which the Christian has 
 to offer is here distinguished from the Judaical in this, that 
 whilst in the one the sacrifices were material, in the other 
 they were spiritual—that of the Eucharist, the very foremost 
 of the Christian offices, of course included, unless Origen, like 
 several of the Fathers before him, may be thought to see in 
 the elements an oblation of fruits; a testimony against the 
 heretics that the earth is the Lord’s and not a Demiurgus’s, 
 and that our food is from him.° 
 
 ente tibi propitiatio venit. Inde est 
 enim vir, cui Oriens nomen est, qui 
 Mediator Dei et hominum factus est.— 
 Origen, Homil. ix. in Levit. § 10, vol. 
 i. p. 243. 
 
 1 See Huetii Origeniana, p. 298, re- 
 ferred to by Dr. Burton, Testimonies of 
 the Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 3807, 2nd 
 Ed. 
 
 2 TIvedpa 6 Ocds, Kal Tous mpoo- 
 KUVOUVTQS avrov ev Mev pare kal aAn- 
 Ocia Seu mpookuveiv’. dv av edidaker, 
 61 cUK ev GapKki Set mpookuvely Kat 
 
 TapKivas Buoias Tov cdr, avn év 
 mvevpatt. Kai yap avros dvddoyov év 
 myevpare kal vonT@s ar pevew Twa 
 avT@ mvevpa vonOein av. “ANAa kal 
 ovK ep TUrots MpooKuvey det TO 
 Ilatpt, a@dXN ev adnéeia, Aris duc 
 *Inood Xpiorod eyévero, petra To do- 
 Onvac Toy vopov Sia Motoéas. — 
 Origen, Contra Celsum, VI. § 70. 
 
 $ "Eore dé Kal wvpBodov np THs 
 mpos Tov Ocov ebxaptoTias, apros 
 eUxapioria kahovpevos. "ANN ovde 
 Oaipoves €Exovow, ws Kal ev Tots 
 
460 NATURE OF THE EUCHARIST [Serres II. 
 
 That Origen further contemplated the Eucharist as convey- 
 ing to the communicant who received it in faith the Body and 
 Blood of Christ to his soul’s health, appears from the follow- _ 
 ing passage. “ Let Celsus, then, since he is ignorant of God, 
 render his oblations to demons ; we, however, studying to 
 please the Maker of the universe, eat the bread which is pre- 
 sented with prayer and thanksgiving for God’s good gifts— 
 the bread, I say, which by reason of the prayer becomes a 
 certain Body, holy in itself, and making holy those who par- 
 take of it with a good purpose of heart.’* And again, the 
 same view, or nearly the same, is maintained in a remarkable 
 paragraph, in which Origen, who is fond of expatiating and 
 losing himself in a mystical subject, endeavours to explain the 
 nature of the faculty by which the prophets are enabled to 
 foretell future events. There may be simple people who in- 
 terpret mechanically certain scenes of Scripture, as when it is 
 said that the prophets saw the heavens opened or heard the 
 Lord’s voice. “But he who searches deeper will say, that 
 whereas there is a certain generic Divine sense, as Scripture 
 calls it, which none but the blessed find out, according to the 
 words of Solomon, ‘Thou shalt find out a Divine sense’ 
 (atcOnow Octav evpyces).” And whereas there are several 
 kinds of this sense—that of sight, which is fitted to discern 
 better things than those which are corporeal, as the Cherubim 
 and Seraphim ; that of hearing, which receives words that do 
 not derive their being from the air; that of taste, which 
 relishes the living bread, the bread which cometh down from 
 heaven, and giveth life unto the world®; that of smell, 
 which smelleth such smells as that which Paul calls a sweet 
 savour of Christ unto God*; that of touch, according to 
 which John says, that his hands had handled the Word of 
 life*®; the blessed prophets, I repeat, finding out this Divine 
 sense, both seeing divinely, and hearing divinely, and tasting 
 divinely, and smelling (so to speak) by this unsensual sense, 
 mavTos Snpuoupy@ edxapioroduTes, kat 
 Tous per” evxaplorias kal edxis THs 
 
 emt tois Sodeior _Tporayopevous dip- 
 Tous eo diopev, oGpa yevopevous bua 
 
 dyarépo éhéyoper, THY oikovopiay TOV 
 mpos Tas Hperépas xpeias Sednptoup- 
 ynpevey" 610 ovS GdiKdy Te MparT oper, 
 HeTEXoVTES Toy Snpuovpynparov, Kal 
 
 
 
 Tois pi) mpoonkovaw avtois pr Ov- | THY edn aysdv Te Kal ayidCov Tovs 
 
 ovres.—Contra Celsum, VIII. § 57. pera vy.ovs mpobevews avT@ Xpo- 
 * Kai bud Toatra de Kairos pev, | pevovs.—VILI. § 33. 
 
 os dyvody Cecdy, ra Xapeornpra dai- * See Prov. ii. 5. 3 John vi. 33. 
 
 Hoow anodiwWdrw ipeis dé TO TOV 42 Cor. ii. 15. 51 Johni. 1. 
 
Lect. XII] AS REPRESENTED BY ORIGEN. 461 
 
 and touching the Word by faith, so that the efflux of it came 
 unto them to heal them, by this means saw what they de- 
 scribe themselves to have seen, and heard what they report 
 themselves to have heard, and were affected in other like 
 ways, as when they eat (so they tell us) the roll of the book 
 that was given them.”' Moreover the spirit of this passage 
 will serve to correct that of some previous extracts from other 
 Fathers, where the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist 
 seemed to be assigned to the elements rather than to the re- 
 cipients, and confirms what was observed on one of those 
 occasions, that the error was rather apparent than real, and that 
 the Fathers meant in general to convey the notion without any 
 technical nicety, that whatever might be the mode, the Body and 
 Blood of Christ were certainly to be found in that Sacrament. 
 
 Of all the early Fathers, none, perhaps, are so full and 
 emphatic on the sacrificial character of the Eucharist as 
 Cyprian, insomuch that it may be best to place in the fore- 
 front of our quotations from that Father passages which 
 clearly prove, that however strong his language, he neverthe- 
 less was all the while regarding the Eucharist not as a repeti- 
 tion of the oblation of Christ once offered, but as a lively 
 commemoration of that sacrifice. “ Know, then,” says he, in a 
 letter to Ceecilius on the Sacrament of the cup, “ that we have 
 been admonished, that in offering the cup the tradition of the 
 Lord be observed, and that no other thing be done by us than 
 what the Lord did for us first ; to wit, that the cup which is 
 offered in remembrance of him, be mixed with wine. For 
 since Christ said, ‘I am the true vine,’ the Blood of Christ is 
 
 LO be Baborepov TO TowobTov e&e- | TladAos* xal aps, Kad” iy Todvyns 
 TaCov epel, OTL ovons, ws a ypapn) pnot Tals xepow EY apykevar mept 
 dydpace, Ocias TLVOS yevexijs aio On- Tob Adyou THs Cans’ of paxdpvot 
 cvEws, vy pvos 6 paxdptos eb ploxer mpopynra thy Geiay atoOnow evpdvtes, 
 non, KaTa TO Aeydpevoy Kal mapa TO kal Bdémovtes Oeiws, Kai dxovovTes 
 LoAopavrt, ore aio Onow Oeiay evpn- | Ocias, Kat yevdpevor o6poiws, kal 
 gels’ Kal OvtT@y eid@y TavTns THS doppawopevor (iw otras dvopdow) 
 aio Onoews, 6 épdcews mecuvias Pemew aig Onoet OUK aio On77, kal amrdpevo 
 Ta kpeiTTova Topdrov mpdypara ev rob Adyou pera TOT EDS, oor amrop- 
 ois Snhodrac Ta XepouBlp i) ta Sepa- pory avuTov cis avrovs Kew Oepa- 
 pips Kat dons avrinnTiKAs Paver, | mevovcav aitovs, ovT@s Eéwpav G4 
 odxi ev dépe THy ovciay exovcay Kal | dvaypapovow Ewpakévat kali FKovov 
 yevoews xpoperns apro (ovrt, kal €& | Aeyouow adxnkoevar, Kal Ta TapumTAn- 
 ovpavod karaBeBnkore, Kal Cony bu- ova €racxor, ws avéypapov, keadida 
 Sdvte TH Kop" ovTas b€ Kai do- | ecOiovres Sidopevnv avtois BiBAtov.— 
 ppioeas darpawwoperns rovavbe, kao | Origen, Contra Celsum, I, § 48. 
 Xpiorod evwdia heyer civar TH OO 
 
 
 
462 NATURE OF THE EUCHARIST Senres Il. 
 
 not water but wine. Nor can his Blood, by which we are re- 
 deemed and quickened, seem to be in the cup when there is no 
 wine in the cup, by which the Blood of Christ is set forth,” ' 
 The purport of this passage is to represent the Eucharist as a 
 commemorative sacrifice, but nothing more. And the same is 
 expressed in another paragraph of the same letter still more 
 unequivocally. “If Jesus Christ our Lord and God is him- 
 self the High Priest of God, and offered himself first of all a 
 sacrifice to his Father, and commanded this (rite) to be per- 
 formed in commemoration of him, surely that Priest truly 
 discharges his functions in Christ’s stead who copies that 
 which Christ did; and then it is he offers a true and full 
 sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when he is found 
 making his oblation as he has seen Christ make it... . 
 Wherefore, as often as we offer the cup in commemoration of 
 the Lord and of his Passion, let us do what it appears that 
 our Lord did ;’’? with much more to the same purpose ; for 
 though the subject of the letter is the necessity of using wine 
 as a symbol in the Eucharist and not water, still the line of 
 reasoning adopted proves very satisfactorily that the whole 
 was regarded as a commemorative act. Taking these passages, 
 then, as keys to others, we shall be able to construe correctly 
 such expressions as the following, of which Cyprian is full— 
 “The Presbyters who make the oblations with the Confes- 
 sors—’* “We ask God’s ample blessing upon you, both 
 when in the sacrifice we make prayers with the congregation, 
 and when we offer up our petitions in private’ *—“ Priests 
 who daily perform the sacrifices of God;”° a parallel to, 
 
 memorationem precepit, utique ille sa- 
 cerdos vice Christi vere fungitur qui id 
 
 1 Admonitos autem nos scias ut in 
 calice offerendo Dominica traditio ser- 
 
 vetur, neque aliud fiat a nobis quam 
 quod pro nobis Dominus prior fecerit, 
 ut calice qui in commemorationem ejus 
 offertur, mixtus vino offeratur. Nam 
 cum dicat Christus, Ego sum yitis vera, 
 sanguis Christi non aqua est utique, sed 
 vinum. Nec potest videri sanguis ejus, 
 quo redempti et vivificati sumus, esse in 
 calice, quando vinum desit calici, quo 
 Christi sanguis ostenditur.—Cyprian, 
 Ep. Ixiii. § 2. 
 
 ? Nam si Jesus Christus Dominus et 
 Deus noster ipse est summus sacerdos 
 Dei Patris, et sacrificium Patri seipsum 
 primus obtulit, et hoe fieri in sui com- 
 
 quod Christus fecit imitatur, et sacrifi- 
 cium yverum et plenum tune offert in 
 Ecclesia Deo Patri, si sic incipiat offerre 
 secundum quod ipsum Christum videat 
 obtulisse. . . —g§14. 
 
 Quotiescunque ergo calicem in com- 
 memorationem Domini et passionis ejus 
 offerimus, id quod constat Dominum fe- 
 cisse faciamus.—s 18. 
 
 3 Presbyteri qui apud confessores of- 
 ferunt.—Ep. iv. 
 
 4 Quando in sacrificiis preceem cum 
 pluribus facijmus.—xv. § 1. 
 
 5 Sacerdotes, qui sacrificia Dei quo- 
 tidie celebramus.—liy. § 3. 
 
Lucr, XII.] AS REPRESENTED BY CYPRIAN. 463 
 
 “daily drinking the cup of the Blood of Christ.””! We find 
 the analogy repeatedly drawn between the Levitical sacrifice 
 and the Eucharist.2 Mention is repeatedly made of the 
 “altar” in the Church: of “the altar being set up: ” * of 
 “assisting at God’s altar:”* of “the Priestly order being 
 wholly occupied in serving at the altar and at the sacrifice : ”’ 
 of “the Priesthood offering sacrifices at the altar: ’’ ° of one 
 who is “an enemy to the altar, and a rebel against the sacri- 
 fice of Christ.” ’ 
 
 Again, we discover Cyprian recognising no less clearly the 
 Body and Blood of Christ as spiritually present in the Eucha- 
 rist, and as serving to strengthen the souls of the communi- 
 cants. “ But now it is not for the weak, but for the strong 
 that the Pax is necessary: it is not to the dying, but the 
 living that we have to give the Communion, in order that we 
 may not leave unarmed and naked those whom we excite and 
 exhort to the battle ; but may fortify them by the protection 
 of the Body and Blood of Christ. And since the Eucharist 
 is expressly for this, that it may be a defence to those who 
 receive it, let us arm those who wish to be safe against the 
 enemy with the muniment of the fatness (or plenteousness) of 
 the Lord.”*® Cyprian too in his turn applies the language of 
 the sixth chapter of St. John to the Eucharist—*“ We pray 
 that this bread may be given us daily, in order that we who 
 are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist as the food of 
 salvation, may not be separated from Christ’s body by reason 
 of any grievous sin intervening, so that we should be pro- 
 hibited from partaking of the heavenly bread. For Christ 
 himself tells us, I am the bread of life which came down from 
 
 ' Quotidie calicem sanguinis Christi 
 bibere. —Ep. lvi. § 1. 
 
 * De Lapsis, § xv.; Testimoniorum, 
 III. c. xciv. 
 
 3 Considentibus Dei sacerdotibus et 
 altari posito.—Ep. xlii. § 2. 
 
 4 Ut altari Dei assistat antistes.— 
 lviii. § 2. 
 
 Quando singuli divino sacerdotio 
 honorati et in clerico ministerio consti- 
 tuti non nisi altari et sacrificiis deser- 
 vire et precibus atque orationibus va- 
 care debeant.—lxvi. § 2. 
 
 § Aut quia Novatianus altare collocare 
 et sacrificia offerre contra fas nititur, ab 
 altari et sacrificiis cessare nos oportet ? 
 
 —Ixxili. § 2. 
 
 7 Hostis altaris, adversus sacrificium 
 Christi rebellis—De Unitate Ecclesia, 
 § Xvil. 
 
 8 At vero nune non infirmis, sed for- 
 tibus pax necessaria est: nee morien- 
 tibus, sed viventibus communicatio a 
 nobis danda est: ut quos excitamus et 
 hortamur ad prelium, non inermes et 
 nudos relinquamus, sed protectione san- 
 guinis et corporis Christi muniamus : et 
 cum ad hoe fiat Eucharistia, ut possit 
 accipientibus esse tutela; quos tutos 
 esse contra adversarium volumus, mu- 
 nimento dominice saturitatis armemus, 
 —Ep. liv. § 2. 
 
(Serres II. 
 
 464 FITNESS IN THE RECIPIENT 
 
 heaven. If any one shall eat of my bread he shall live for 
 ever ; but the bread which I will give him is my flesh for life 
 eternal.! Since then he says, that he who shall eat of this 
 bread, lives for ever; as it is manifest that they live who 
 touch his body and receive the Eucharist by virtue of the 
 Communion (or by being entitled to communicate) ; so on the 
 other hand is it to be feared that he who is prohibited from 
 the Body of Christ is not in a state of salvation.”? This 
 mystical presence in the Eucharist is further represented by 
 Cypriany as effected through the agency of the Holy Ghost, 
 who is invoked upon it. “For the oblation,” says he, “ can- 
 not be sanctified where the Holy Spirit is lacking.” * 
 
 Neither can it be alleged with truth of this Sacrament any 
 more than of the other, that the Fathers regard the opus ope- 
 ratum as sufficient to secure the benefits which belong to it. 
 For their language still is, that there must be a fitness in the 
 recipient in order to render its virtues availing. This, indeed, 
 has appeared from quotations already made. According to 
 Justin Martyr, none can partake of it but the faithful and 
 such as are living in obedience to Christ. According to Ire- 
 neeus, the heart of the worthy communicant must be clean, 
 his faith without hypocrisy, his hope steadfast, his charity fer- 
 vent.’ Clemens Alexandrinus considers the previous searching 
 of the heart so much a matter of course, that he takes for 
 granted it is submitted to by all who propose to themselves to 
 partake of the Eucharist—persons actually partaking or not, as 
 their conscience, which is the safest guide, directs: and he 
 uses their case in illustration of another which he considers 
 parallel to theirs.° Tertullian expressly calls to the recollection 
 
 1 John vi. 51. 
 ? Hune autem panem dari nobis quo- 
 
 jure communicationis accipiunt, ita con- 
 tra timendum est et orandum ne, dum 
 
 tidie postulamus, ne qui in Christo su- 
 mus, et Eucharistiam quotidie ad cibum 
 Salutis accipimus, intercedente aliquo 
 graviore delicto, dum abstenti et non 
 communicantes a celesti pane prohi- 
 bemur, a Christi corpore separemur, 
 ipso preedicante et monente: Ego sum 
 panis vitse qui de ccelo descendi. Si quis 
 ederit de meo pane, vivet in sternum. 
 Panis autem quem ego dedero caro mea 
 est pro seeculi vita. Quando ergo dicit 
 in #ternum vivere si quis ederit de ejus 
 pane, ut manifestum est eos vivere qui 
 corpus ejus attingunt et Eucharistiam 
 
 quis abstentus separatur a Christi cor- 
 pore, procul remaneat a salute.—De 
 Oratione Dominica, § xviii. 
 
 3 Quando nec oblatio sanctificari illic 
 possi ubit Spiritus sanctus non sit.— 
 Ep. Isiv. § 4. 
 
 # Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 66. 
 
 5 Trenzeus, LV. c. xviii. § 4. 
 
 ® ’Avayxn Tolvuy aude rtoitw do- 
 kuud¢ew odas avrovs* Tov pev, et 
 | d&vos Néyew Te Kai brouyjpata Kata- 
 Auysmaver? tov dé ei dxpoacbai re 
 kal evrvyxavew Sixaos. “H_ kai ry 
 Evxapiotiav twes duaveiwavtes, ws 
 
 
 
Lect. XII.] INSISTED ON BY THE FATHERS, 
 
 465 
 
 of parties, who might be tempted to attend the shows, the 
 manner in which they would forfeit by so doing, the engage- 
 ment this Sacrament had laid them under ; quoting pointedly 
 passages from its Service'; a use of it in a particular case, 
 which Justin had told us was made of it in general; his 
 testimony being, that Christians were wont to remind one an- 
 ther of their fates by a reference to the Eucharist and the 
 life it pledged them to.? Origen, we saw, gave it a sanctify- 
 ing power for those only who partook of it “with a good 
 purpose of heart.” * Cyprian insists upon the fear and reve- 
 rence with which it should be approached, and the purity 
 which should characterize the communicants if they would not 
 draw down upon themselves a curse instead of a blessing.* 
 And on another occasion, after enumerating the preparations 
 which were to be made, if we would not be guilty of the 
 Body and Blood of the Lord, he continues, “If all these pre- 
 cautions be despised ; if they partake ’’ (it is of the lapsed he 
 is speaking), “before they have expiated their offences, before 
 they have made confession of their sin, before they have 
 purged their consciences by the prayer and imposition of hands 
 of the Priest ; they do violence to the Body and Blood of the 
 Lord, and offend more against him both by their hands and 
 by their mouth, than when they denied the Lord.” * So that 
 nothing can be more wide of the mark than to suppose, that 
 because the Fathers, in opposition to the Socinian, assign to 
 the Sacrament of the Eucharist a very high position in the 
 scale of the means of grace, they make the virtue which be- 
 longs to it, begin and terminate with the act, instead of con- 
 sidering it an incentive to a good life, a powerful auxiliary to 
 it, and a guarantee that it shall be laboured after. 
 €6os, adr ov 67 €xkaoroy Tov )aov 
 AaBew THY poipay emirpemovow. 
 "Apion yap mpos Ti akpiBn atpeciv 
 
 Te kat vyny 4 ovvetdnots.— Clem. 
 Alex. Stromat. I. § i, p. 318. 
 
 panem aut biberit calicem Domini in- 
 digne, reus erit corporis et sanguinis 
 Domini.” — Cyprian, Testimoniorum, 
 TLL. ce. xciv. 
 
 5 Spretis his omnibus atque con- 
 
 1 Tertullian, De Spectaculis, ¢. xxv. 
 
 ? Justin Martyr, Apol. I. § 67. 
 
 3 Origen, Contra Celsum, VIII. § 33. 
 
 4 Cum timore et honore Eucharistiam 
 accipiendam. In Levitico : “ Anima au- 
 tem quiecunque manducaverit ex carne 
 sacrificii salutaris, quod est Domini, et 
 immunditia ipsius super ipsum est, pe- 
 ribit anima illade populo suo.” Item ad 
 Corinthios prima: “ Quicunque ederit 
 
 temptis, ante expiata delicta, ante exo- 
 mologesin factam criminis, ante pur- 
 gatam conscientiam sacrificio et manu 
 sacerdotis, ante offensam placatam in- 
 dignantis Domini et minantis, vis in- 
 fertur corpori ejus et sanguini, et plus 
 modo in Dominum manibus atque ore 
 delinquunt, quam cum Dominum nega- 
 verunt.—De Lapsis, § xvi. 
 
 H H 
 
466 TESTIMONIES OF JUSTIN, IRENZUS, [Serres I. 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in unfolding the meaning of Scripture: IT. Their testimony 
 opposed to the Calvinistic scheme, 1°. On the freedom of the will. The as- 
 sertion of it by the Fathers distinct and emphatic. 2°. On the degree of hn- 
 man corruption. The consequences of the Fall recognised by the Fathers, but 
 not in a manner satisfactory to the Calvinist. Their language upon this point 
 dubious and conflicting. Cause of their embarrassment. Illustrations. Vin- 
 dication of the Fathers from the charge of Pelagianism. Their teaching on 
 the necessity of Divine grace for the recovery and restoration of man. 
 
 De. 
 
 T is a further matter of much consequence in our interpre- 
 tation of Scripture, whether we are disposed to adopt as 
 a general principle the Calvinistic system or not. I mean 
 that the bias on our minds which this system impresses would 
 insensibly make itself felt in the turn we give to our exposi- 
 tion of a great number of texts, the meaning of which admits 
 of debate. Thus as the effect of the former bias discovered 
 itself in the Annotations of Grotius, so the effect of this bias 
 discovers itself in Beza’s translation of the New Testament, 
 and through that, in some degree on our own. Now I do 
 not say, that the early Fathers are to decide us peremptorily 
 on this question, but I do think that their testimony upon it, 
 and especially if that testimony be unanimous, is entitled to 
 great consideration. But unanimous it is against the leading 
 doctrines of Calvin. I could produce pages after pages from 
 the early Fathers in support of this assertion, but must confine 
 myself to a few references ; a sample from a whole magazine. 
 
 he. 
 On the Freedom of the Will. 
 
 Thus Justin Martyr maintains the doctrine of the freedom 
 of the will, against the doctrine of necessity, over and over 
 
Lect. XII.] TERTULLIAN AND CLEMENS ON FREE-WILL. 467 
 
 again. He talks of man “making choice of the better part 
 according to that freedom of will which belongs to him.”' He 
 insists upon such freedom being requisite in order that man 
 should be rendered accountable for his actions. “If it were 
 decreed that one man should be good and another bad, the 
 former would not be a subject for praise, nor the latter for cen- 
 sure ;”? with much to the same effect in other places ; for the 
 antinomianism of some of the early heretics led the Fathers to 
 express themselves more fully upon this point than perhaps 
 they otherwise would have done. 
 
 Trenzeus is equally explicit. He maintains the justice of 
 man’s condemnation, if condemned he is, on the ground of 
 his will being free.* A considerable part of the thirty-seventh 
 chapter of the fourth book is occupied in a discussion of this 
 subject. He argues that they who do good or who do evil, 
 will properly receive reward or punishment, because they re- 
 spectively had it in their power to do otherwise: that the 
 Scriptures urge men to act right, as if it rested with themselves 
 to do so: and he infers from such texts that God encourages 
 to obedience, but does not force.* 
 
 _ Tertullian repeatedly expresses himself to the same purport. 
 
 “Tt is not the part of a sound faith,” says he, “to refer every- 
 thing to God’s will after such a manner as this; and flatter 
 ourselves that nothing is done without his consent, as though 
 we had no power in ourselves ; for at that rate every crime 
 would have its excuse.... God sets before us what is and 
 what is not his will, and then we have full choice to follow 
 the one or the other.”® “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart,” 
 says he in another place, “but then Pharaoh had deserved his 
 ruin to be thus prepared for him, because he had denied God, 
 and repeatedly rejected his ambassadors.”° I could multiply 
 extracts from him to a great extent, but refrain for the sake 
 of brevity. 
 
 Those which Clemens Alexandrinus furnishes of the same 
 character are still more numerous. “God is not to be blamed 
 for the offence of him, who will not choose the best. It is 
 the business of the one party (those who preach) to put out 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, De Monarchia, § 6. 5 Tertullian, De Exhortatione Casti- 
 2 Apol. I. § 43. tatis, ¢c. ii. 
 3 Treneus, IV. c. iv. § 3; ¢. xv. § 2. 6 Adversus Marcionem, II. ¢, xiv, 
 
 4 IV. c. xxxvil. §§ 2, 3, 4. . 
 HH 2 
 
468 TESTIMONIES OF ORIGEN (Serres IT. 
 
 his word to interest ; it is the business of the other party 
 (those who hear) to prove it, and choose it or not; but by 
 their own judgment will they be judged.”' “To them which 
 are called, both Jews and Gentiles, (we preach) Christ, the 
 power of God and the wisdom of God :” on which again 
 Clemens remarks, “All mankind then being called, they who 
 are willing to obey, are named the called: for there is no 
 unrighteousness with God: but they of either race, who 
 believe, are his peculiar people.” ” 
 
 Origen is of the same mind. Celsus has suggested that 
 the moral world, like the physical, is made up of a series of 
 revolutions ; the positive amount of evil in it being a constant 
 quantity. In reply to this, Origen contends that such a 
 theory would be destructive of the principle of free-will: 
 that in such case it became a matter of necessity that Socrates 
 should philosophize, and be accused of introducing new Gods, 
 and of corrupting the youth; and that Anytus and Melitus 
 should bring the charge against him; and the Areopagus 
 condemn him to death ; and in like manner, that when the 
 cycle came round, Phalaris should play the tyrant, and so on: 
 under which circumstances, adds Origen, “I know not how. 
 our volition can be secured, or how there will be any room 
 for praise or blame.”’* “Take away volition,” says he, “from 
 virtue and you take away its very essence.” * In his treatise 
 on prayer he has an express dissertation on the freedom of the 
 will; naturally led to it by his subject, and the necessity of 
 showing that the effect of prayer was not destroyed, as it 
 would be by fixed decrees.° Numerous other extracts might 
 be produced from this Father of a similar kind ; but it may 
 suffice to refer once for all to the first chapter of the third 
 book “ De Principiis,” of which the Greek is preserved (and 
 therefore the evidence above suspicion) in the Philocalia ; the 
 title of the chapter being, “ Concerning the freedom of the 
 will, with a solution and explanation of those passages in 
 Scripture which may seem to deny it ;” and the character of 
 it to be gathered from the following paragraph, “Since then 
 there are myriads of texts in Scripture which very clearly set 
 
 : Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § i. p. 318. | Exovovov, dveides adTis Kal THY ovolay. 
 Stromat. I. c. xviii. p. 871. —§ 3. 
 
 3 * ‘ 1 T 7 } 
 3 Origen, Contra Celsum, IV. § 67. 5 De Oratione, §§ 5, 6. 
 Ort adperijs pev éedv avedAns TO 
 
Lecr. XIII.] AND CYPRIAN ON FREE-WILL. 469 
 
 forth the freedom of the will; but at the same time there are 
 certain expressions in the Old and New Testament which tend 
 to the contrary, that is to say, imply that it does not rest 
 - with ourselves to keep the Commandments and be saved, or 
 to transgress them and perish ; let us produce several of these, 
 and consider the solution of them: that so, in like manner, 
 any man may understand for himself the solution of all those 
 which seem to extinguish the freedom of the will.’’! 
 
 Cyprian is no less decided on the question than the others. 
 “What wonder is it,” writes he to Cornelius, “that the 
 Lord’s minister, the Bishop, should be forsaken, when the Lord 
 himself was, who said to his disciples, ‘ Will ye also go away ?’ 
 where he had regard to that law by which a man, left to his 
 liberty, and established in his own fiee-will, chooses for 
 himself either death or salvation.”* “The Apostle John,” 
 says he again, “execrates and reproves those who depart from 
 the Church—‘ They went out from us, but they were not of 
 us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have 
 continued with us’-—but the Lord permits these things, by 
 reason that our own free-will subsists, in order that whilst 
 the test of truth is applied to our minds, the sound faith of 
 such as are approved may be made manifest.”* Much more I 
 could add to our purpose from this same Father ; but let this 
 suffice. 
 
 On the Degree of the Corruption of Human Nature. 
 
 Such emphatic enunciation of the freedom of the will is in 
 itself enough to prove that the early Fathers did not hold the 
 total corruption of human nature, in the Calvinistic sense, as 
 the result of the Fall. Other arguments, however, to the 
 same effect, are not wanting; though it is to be observed 
 that nothing can be less systematic or less organized than 
 their notions on this subject: I might say, often even contra- 
 dictory ; such inconsistency partly, perhaps, arising from the 
 point never having been canvassed by men with any care, as 
 
 1De Principiis, TIT. c. i. §§ 6.7. on Gen 1. 14. 
 Origen has also a dissertation on the 2 Cyprian, Ep. lv. § 7. 
 freedom of the willin his commentary 3 De Unitate Ecclesiw, §§ ix. x. 
 
470 SENTIMENTS OF BARNABAS, TATIAN, [Senms IT 
 it eventually was by controversialists of a later day—a re- 
 mark which applies to many other theological topics as han- 
 dled by the Fathers—and partly from the embarrassment of 
 their position; for whilst Scripture and self-experience com- 
 pelled them to admit the grievous corruption of our nature, 
 they had perpetually to contend against a powerful body of 
 heretics who made such corruption the ground for affirming 
 that a world so evil could not have been created by a good 
 God, but was the work of a Demiurgus. The embarrassment 
 itself, and the nature of it, is very perceptible in Tertullian’s 
 treatise against Marcion; the Marcionites disparaging the 
 creation, which Tertullian undertakes to defend’; as well as 
 in several passages of the Stromata of Clemens.’ 
 
 Accordingly Barnabas represents the heart of the natural 
 man as “a house of devils’’*; but then he also represents the 
 natural man as being still “the image of God.” * 
 
 Tatian considers the soul to have been created of two prin- 
 ciples ; the one called apux7, Which was material, being a por- 
 tion of the material substance which pervaded the universe ° ; 
 the other not material, called “the image and likeness of 
 God,” ® the “holy spirit,’’ the “perfect spirit.”* He main- 
 tains that man, by the abuse of his free-will (for with freedom 
 of will he was created®) lost this latter spirit’®; or retained 
 only as it were a spark of it": that his soul consequently 
 became mortal through privation of the spirit ; that hence it 
 gravitates downwards towards matter, itself material; dies, 
 and is dissolved with the body, but will rise again at the end 
 of the world and receive punishment eternal” ; that this natural 
 tendency of the deserted soul downwards is aggravated by 
 matter which seeks to subdue it to itself, and by demons 
 who would willingly prevent its ever rising towards heaven 
 again ; nevertheless, that man has it in his power to recover 
 the spirit, to unite the soul with it again; when, if the body 
 
 ' See especially Adversus Marcionem, 
 I. c. xiv. Postremo te tibi cireumfer, 
 intus ac foris considera hominem, ete. 
 2 See Clem. Alex. Stromat. IV. § vii. 
 p- 584. “Iva po) @s Mapkiwy ayapioc- 
 , 
 tas exdeEnrat tis Thy Snmovpyiav 
 , r eee 
 kaxynv. And IV, § xiii. p. 605. To 
 b€ dyanav rods exOpodvs, ovk ayamay 
 TO Kakov Neyer. And V. § xiv. p. 731. 
 , , ia , A , , 
 Alria €\opevov' Geos avairwos. 
 
 
 
 3 Barnabas, § Xvi. 
 
 * § xx. 
 
 5 Tatian, Oratio contra Grecos, § 12. 
 
 6 Thid. Ts 15. 8 ¢ 20, 
 
 LENS ie I 
 
 10 “Avrok@A€xapev.—§ 15. 
 
 "'"Oumep €vavopa tis Svvapews 
 avrov.—§ 13. 
 
 12 gg 13, 17. 
 
Lecr. XIII.] AND ATHENAGORAS ON THE FALL, A471 
 
 be kept clean, the spirit will dwell in it, as in a temple; that 
 it is open to all thus to recover this spirit; and to revert to 
 man’s ancient estate." 
 
 Athenagoras gives token, whenever his argument leads him 
 to touch on the question, that his ideas of the corruption of 
 our nature are anything but those of Calvin—indeed are very 
 unsettled, very imperfect. Thus in one place he says, that 
 man, “according to the determination of his own reason, and 
 the operation of the ruler who has obtained dominion over 
 him, and of the attendant demons, is carried in different direc- 
 tions, though the power of reasoning is common to all.” ? 
 When it is considered that by this ruler, who had obtained 
 dominion over man, Athenagoras meant (as he defines him 
 elsewhere *) the spirit who is opposed to God and his good 
 designs, we must regard him as having here in contemplation 
 the Fall and its fatal effects. Nevertheless, he elsewhere con- 
 tends, that man not being called into existence for a time, but 
 for eternity, must accordingly have his nature permanently 
 secured ; his nature, which consists of body as well as soul; 
 the two together forming man ; in this respect distinguished 
 from animals, as he is distinguished from them “by bearing 
 in himself the image of his Maker; by being endued with 
 understanding, and by partaking of reason and judgment.” * 
 And again, that “if the understanding and reason are given 
 to man for the discernment, not of substances merely, but of 
 ideas too ; of the goodness, for instance, the wisdom, the jus- 
 tice of the Giver ; it follows that whilst those objects remain, 
 on account of which the rational faculty of discrimination was 
 given, the faculty itself, so given, will remain. But this can- 
 not remain, unless the nature which is its receptacle re- 
 main; but the receptacle of the mind is the man; therefore 
 the man must remain, compounded as he is of both parts ; 
 but that cannot be without a resurrection.”° The reasoning 
 evidently turns on the presumption that certain moral percep- 
 tions are to be found in the souls-of all mankind ; or, in other 
 
 1 Tatian, Oratio Contra Grecos, | Christianis, § 25. 
 
 SS; 16) 115 20: 3 Thid. See also Bishop Kaye's Jus- 
 2 Kara 6€ tov idvov éavtod Adyov | tin Martyr, p. 105. 
 ‘ \ ~ > ’ LA ‘ 4 ] = = M “ E- 
 
 Kal THY TOU EMEXOVTOS APXUVTOS, Kat Athenagoras, De Mortuorum Re- 
 nw U > . ¢ 
 
 Tav TapakodovOovvray Saydvev €v-  surrectione, § 12. 
 
 epyetay Gddos GANos heperae kai) &§ 15, 
 
 kivetrac. — Athenagoras, Legatio pro 
 
 
 
472 SENTIMENTS OF THEOPHILUS AND IRENAUS [Sentes IT. 
 
 words, that the corruption of our nature is not total. Indeed, 
 in one passage, written however probably without much 
 thought, he seems to overlook original in actual sin ; and as- 
 serts that infants will not be brought to judgment, seeing 
 that they have done neither good nor evil.’ 
 
 Theophilus describes the Fall as causing “blindness of soul 
 and hardness of heart in man ;”? and postpones the concep- 
 tion of Cain to a period later than that event*: yet he teaches 
 that every one who pleases (6 BovAcwevos) may attain everlast- 
 ing life*: and tells Autolycus, that, if he wishes it, he may be 
 healed.’ 
 
 Trenzeus speaks repeatedly of the image and likeness of 
 God having been “lost” at the Fall®; “cast away ;”’’ of the 
 Fall having “alienated” us from God*; of man being “ van- 
 quished and demolished” by the Fall’; of the recovery from 
 the Fall being altogether owing to God, “man having by his 
 own nature nothing incorruptible about him, no natural 
 similitude to God.” '® And yet elsewhere we find him ex- 
 tenuating the disastrous effects of the Fall; quoting with 
 approbation, for instance, against Tatian and those who 
 maintained that Adam perished for his sin, even in spite of 
 the advent of Christ, the remark of an ancient writer, that 
 God devolved the curse upon the ground in order that it 
 might not rest on man; and adding that Adam and Eve had 
 their troubles in the toil to which the one, the pains of child- 
 birth to which the other was subjected, and in the death 
 which was awarded to them both, but that the weight of the 
 curse fell on the serpent; that Adam was still in a con- 
 dition to feel at once strong compunction for his sin ; become 
 
 1 Ei yap povoy TO KaTa my kpiow nem esse Dei, hoe in Christo Jesu 
 Sixavoy THs dvaordcews ny airvor, reciperemus.—Ireneus, ILI. ¢. xviil. § 1. 
 expny Snmov rods pndev nuaptykdras, 7 Ava rovro 81 Kal tHv dpoiwow 
 7 karopOacavras, pnd avioracba, | padiws améBadev.—V. c. xvi. § 2. 
 Touréate TOUS KopLdN vEeoUS maidas. 5 it quoniam injuste dominabatur 
 ’Kéov b€ mavtas aviotracGa, tovs re | nobis apostasia, et quum natura esse- 
 
 @Adovus, Kat 57 kai tols kata tiv} mus Dei omnipotentis, alienavit nos 
 
 , € , , = 5 
 mpatnvy nAtkiay TedevTHoavras. — | contra naturam.—V. c.i. § 1. 
 Athenagoras, De Mortuorum Kesur- 9 Victus et clisus per inobedientiam. 
 rectione, § 14. —III. c. xviii. § 2. 
 * Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, I. § 7. 10Nec unquam de Deo contrarium 
 STII. 5 28 
 
 sensum accipiat homo, propriam natu- 
 Ne ey © raliter arbitrans eam, que cirea se esset, 
 Ie incorruptelam, et non tenens veritatem, 
 6 Ut saat perdideramus i in Adam, id | inani supercilio jactaretur, quasi natu- 
 est, secundum im»ginem et similitudi-| raliter similis esset Deo.—III. ¢. xx. § 1. 
 
 
 
Lecr. XIII.] ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL. 473 
 
 penitent ; submit himself to sharp penance; and so to obtain 
 merey.' In the same spirit we perceive him on another 
 occasion applying the language of St. Paul in the seventh 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, descriptive of the 
 struggle between the will and the conscience, apparently to 
 the natural or unregenerate man, as though there were virtue 
 enough left in him, even since the Fall, to be productive of 
 this conflict.” And again, when speaking of the mysteries 
 which mankind must expect to encounter in the Scriptures 
 from their incapacity to fathorn writings dictated by the Word 
 of God and his Spirit, his phrase is, “inasmuch as we are 
 defective and very far removed from the Word of God and 
 his Spirit’ *—an obscure sentence certainly in the Latin, 
 and the Greek is lost, but still not calculated to convey the 
 extremest notions of the amount of damage caused by the 
 Fall. 
 
 If we turn to Tertullian, we shall discover him evidently 
 recognising on the whole the evil consequences of the Fall, 
 but not in a manner satisfactory to the Calvinist—indeed, 
 his trumpet, like that of the other Fathers, giving an un- 
 certain sound. On the one hand he tells us that man had 
 “departed” from a good God *: that man was at first cireum- 
 vented by Satan, “the corrupter of the whole world ; so that 
 he transgressed the command of God, and was therefore con- 
 signed to death; and thence made the whole human race, 
 now contaminated by being sprung from his seed, partakers 
 also of that condemnation which befell him ;”° as offsets are 
 partakers of the properties of the stock—it is not easy for 
 words to convey a more ample acknowledgment of original or 
 birth-sin than this, or one more thoroughly Anti-Pelagian— 
 that at the Fall man was lost wholly and not merely in part, 
 “since the transgression which was the cause of his being lost 
 was committed both by a desire of the mind and by an act 
 of the flesh, and so made the whole man fully deserve per- 
 
 
 
 1 Treneus, III. ¢c. xxiii. §§ 3, 4, 5. 
 
 2 TIT. c. xx. § 3. 
 
 3 Nos autem secundum quod minores 
 sumus et novissimi a Verbo Dei et 
 Spiritu ejus, secundum hoe et scientia 
 mysteriorum ejus indigemus.—II. c. 
 XXVILI. § 2. 
 
 _ 4Tdeo malum hominem, quia a Deo 
 bono abscesserit.—Tertullian, De Tes- 
 
 timonio Anime, ¢. ii. 
 
 > Quem “se. Satanam) nos dicimus 
 malitiz angelum, totius erroris artificem, 
 totius seeculi interpolatorem, per quem 
 homo a primordio cireumyentus, ut pree- 
 ceptum Dei excederet, et propterea in 
 mortem datus, exinde totum genus de 
 
 
 
 suo semine infectum, suze etiam dam- 
 | nationis traducem fecit.—c. ill, 
 
474 SENTIMENTS OF TERTULLIAN [Serres II. 
 
 dition,” '—the latter clause serving to explain the sense in 
 which wholly is to be here understood ; namely, that the Fall 
 affected both the soul and body of man—that the enemy of 
 God, the destroyer, “when he succeeded in casting man down 
 from his innocence at first, the image and workmanship of 
 God as he was, and the possessor of the universe, changed 
 also his entire substance, which was created pure as his own, 
 into perverseness against his Maker, like his own:’’* that 
 “man departed from his Maker both in body and soul:” ® 
 that “the devil transfigured the spirit of man by his malice : 
 that we cannot safely take nature for our guide, seeing that 
 “the devil has corrupted the whole creation which ministers 
 to man’s use, together with man himself; for the Apostle 
 speaks of the creation as made subject unto vanity: ” that 
 “accordingly touching spectacles, the world is abused by those 
 who maintain that all the component parts of these spectacles 
 
 294 
 
 are of God; forgetting all the while that all things have been 
 
 changed by the devil : 
 
 ”5 that “man had been innocent, the 
 
 close friend of God, the inhabitant of paradise ; but that when 
 
 he once gave way to impatience ” 
 
 (this passage occurs in the 
 
 tract “De Patientid’’) “he ceased to be wise unto God ; he 
 
 ceased to be able to sustain heavenly things ; 
 an outcast from the sight of God ; 
 
 ‘was given to the earth, 
 
 1 Tmprimis, cum ad hoe venisse se di- 
 cit, uti quod periit, salvum faciat, quid 
 dicas perisse? Hominem sine dubio. 
 Totumne, an ex parte? Utique totum : 
 siquidem transgressio, que per ditionis 
 humane causa est, tam anime in- 
 stinctu ex concupiscentia, quam et car- 
 nis actu ex degustatione commissa, to- 
 tum hominem elogio transgressionis in- 
 scripsit, atque exinde merito perditionis 
 implevit—De Resurrectione Carnis, ¢. 
 XXXIV. 
 
 2,Nos igitur qui, Domino cognito, 
 etiam emulum ejus inspicimus, qui, in- 
 stitutore comperto, etiam inter polator em 
 una deprehendimus; neque mirari, neque 
 dubitare oportet, quam ipsum homi- 
 nem, opus et iiiaginerm Dei, totius uni- 
 versitatis possessorem, illa vis interpo- 
 latoris et «emulatoris angeli ab initio de 
 integritate dejecerit, universam substan- 
 tiam ejus pariter cum ipso integritati in- 
 stitutam, pariter cum ipso in perversi- 
 tatem demutarit adversus institutorem. 
 
 
 
 henceforth man 
 
 —De Spectaculis, ec. ii. 
 
 3 Tpse homo omnium flagitiorum aue- 
 tor, non tantum opus Dei, verum etiam 
 imago est, et tamen et corpore et spiritu 
 descivit a suo institutore.—Ibid. 
 
 41s est diabolus. Nam quis corpus 
 mutare monstraret, nisi qui et hominis 
 spiritum malitia transfiguravit ?—De 
 Cultu Foeminarum, IT. ¢. v. 
 
 5 Queris an conditioni ejus fruende 
 natura nobis debeat priire, ne illa ra- 
 piamur qua Dei smulus uniyersam con- 
 ditionem certis usibus homini manci- 
 patam, cum ipso homine corrupit, unde 
 eam et apostolus inyitam ait vanitati 
 suceidisse, vanis primum usibus, tam 
 turpibus, et injustis, et impiis, subyer- 
 sam? Sic itaque et circa voluptates 
 spectaculorum infamata conditio est ab 
 eis qui natura quidem, Dei omnia sen- 
 tiunt, ex quibus spectacula instruuntur ; 
 scientia autem deficiunt illud quoque in- 
 telligere, omnia esse a diabolo mutata. 
 —De Corona, ¢. vi. 
 
~ 
 
 Lecr. XIII.] ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL, 475 
 
 and began to be made subservient, through impatience, to 
 whatever would offend God:”! that the image and likeness of 
 God was taken away at the Fall by the devil”; was ruined °; 
 was destroyed *; was lost by sin® ; was stolen by the serpent.® 
 And yet, on the other hand, this same Tertullian writes, 
 “Render therefore unto Cesar the things that are Czsar’s, 
 and unto God the things that are God’s; that is, Ceesar’s 
 image, which was on the money, to Ceesar ; God’s image, which 
 is in man, to God.”’ Again, after man had been driven out 
 of Paradise, “ God,” says he, “made a covenant to pardon his 
 handiwork, his image.”*® Again, the treatise “De Anima” 
 clearly recognises the existence of virtue, more or less, in the 
 natural man. ‘Tertullian is here disposed to admit Plato’s 
 division of the substance of the soul into the rational and the 
 irrational, though not to assign both parts to it in its original 
 creation : maintaining that, rational in its first constitution, 
 the irrational portion was added to it at the Fall, and coa- 
 lesced with it as completely as if it had belonged to it from 
 the beginning’; that, since the Fall, it has ever been brought 
 into existence of this mixed character; and being besides 
 waylaid at its birth by the evil spirit, sustains further damage 
 in that shape”; nevertheless, that there is virtue in it still ; 
 what came from God not so much extinguished as over- 
 shadowed ; the worst soul having in it some good, the best 
 some evil; that it is the remains of its primitive nature, which 
 prompts it to bear witness of God by sudden and involuntary 
 exclamations, such as “God is good ;” “God sees ;” “I com- 
 mend it unto God;”" that hence even heathen philosophy 
 
 sed post amiserat per delictum.—De 
 Baptismo, ¢. v. 
 6 Tlle (sc. serpens) a primordio divinze 
 
 1 TInnocens erat, et Deo de proximo 
 amicus, et Paradisi colonus. At ubi se- 
 mel succidit impatientize desivit Deo sa- | 
 
 pere, desivit ccelestia sustinere posse. 
 Exinde homo terre datus, et ab oculis 
 Dei ejectus, facile usurpari ab impa- 
 tientid cceepit in omne quod Deum of- 
 fenderet.—De Patientia, ec. v. 
 
 2A diabolo captam.— De 
 Christi, ¢. xvii. 
 
 Carne 
 
 3 Tu imaginem Dei, hominum, tam 
 
 facile elisisti—De Cultu Fominarum, 
 Ne Cae 
 
 4 Abierat in perditionem.—De Carne 
 Christi, ¢. xvii. 
 
 > Recipit enim illum Dei spiritum, 
 quem tune de afllatu ejus acceperat, 
 
 imaginis prsedo.—Adversus Valentinia- 
 | nos, ¢. il. 
 
 T Reddite, ait, que sunt Cesaris, Cx- 
 | sari, et quee sunt Dei, Deo; id est ima- 
 | ginem Oresaris Cisari, que in nummo 
 est, et imaginem Dei Deo, que in ho- 
 mine est.—De Idololatria, ¢. xy. 
 
 8 Rescissa sententia irarum pristina- 
 |rum, ignoscere pactus operi et imagini 
 | sue.—De Poenitentia, ¢. il. 
 
 9 De Anima, c. xvi. 
 
 10 cc, xxxix. xli. 
 
 'l Quod enim a Deo est, non tam ex- 
 ‘Uinguitur, quam obumbratur. Potest 
 
 i 
 
 
 
476 SENTIMENTS OF CLEMENS (Series IT. 
 
 presents sometimes elements of the true faith.’ Much of this 
 argument for the qualified corruption of the soul in its 
 natural state is repeated in other of Tertullian’s treatises ; in 
 the “De Resurrectione Carnis ;”” in the “ De Testimonio Ani- 
 me ;”* in the tract against Marcion*; and in the “Apology ;”° 
 with references to which I shall content myself. But there 
 is one passage more on the same side, to which I cannot 
 help adverting more explicitly, because its inconsistency 
 with so many other places in Tertullian, several of which I 
 have already adduced, is flagrant. It occurs in his tract “ De 
 Baptismo,”® where he recommends delay in administering 
 that Sacrament, in the case of children especially, and adds, 
 “Why should an innocent age (i. e. infancy) be in haste for 
 the remission of sins?” as though he had entirely forgotten 
 that there was such a thing as original sin—he, the same 
 Tertullian, who had elsewhere urged our Lord’s declaration, 
 that “‘unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven,’ 7. e. cannot be 
 holy ; every soul being numbered in Adam, until it is num- 
 bered anew in Christ, and filthy until it is thus numbered 
 anew.’’’ It has been supposed with some probability that 
 Tertullian might be here influenced by a strong feeling of the 
 moment as to the irremissible nature of heinous sins com- 
 mitted after Baptism ; and so overlooked the alternative which 
 he had elsewhere so fully admitted, that provision has to 
 be made for the remission of original sin, in contemplation of 
 early death.’ But, however that may be, it is evident that 
 Tertullian’s views were not, on the whole, Calvinistie. 
 Clemens Alexandrinus stands in nearly the same position 
 as those before him with regard to this question ; recognising 
 the Fall, and the corruption of our nature which ensued from 
 it; but in no such manner as to satisfy the Calvinists ; 
 expressing himself elsewhere in terms which necessarily qualify 
 any conclusion which they could draw from detached pas- 
 
 enim obumbrari, quia non est Deus; % De Testimonio Anime, ce. ii. iii. 
 extingui non potest, quia a Deo est . . | iv. v. 
 
 . . Sic et divinitas anime in presagia| * Adversus Marcionem, I. ¢. x. 
 erumpit, ex bono priore, et conscientia 5 Apol. c. xvii. 
 
 Dei in testimonium prodit : Deus bonus! 8 De Baptismo, ec. xviii. 
 Deus videt, et Deo commendo.—e. xli. ™ De Anima, cc. xxxix. xl. 
 iC aale 8 See Bishop Kaye’s Tertullian, pp. 
 
 ? De Resurrectione Carnis, ¢. iii. 122, 423. 8rd Ed. 
 
Lect. XIII.} ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL. 477 
 
 sages ; and on the whole, giving evidence, perhaps, more than 
 any previous Father, that the question itself, destined to be 
 such a crux for future polemics, had not yet been technically 
 determined, or even carefully examined ; very far from it. 
 Thus he quotes and adopts the expression of Barnabas, that 
 before conversion to the faith, the heart is “a house of devils, 
 wherein everything is done that is opposed to God.”' He 
 affirms that we are “not by nature the children of God ; 
 
 that it is the chief proof of all the goodness of God, that 
 whilst we behave ourselves towards him as we do, and are by 
 nature utterly estranged from him, he cares for us:”? that 
 the language of Christ to man is this, “born as thou un- 
 happily wast unto death through the world, I gave thee a new 
 birth, set thee free, healed, ransomed thee, will show thee the 
 face of thy good Father ; let the dead bury their dead, follow 
 thou me:”* that “we are by nature fitted for virtue, not 
 indeed so as to have it from our birth, but so as to be fitted 
 for aequiring it:”* that “the Advent of the Saviour was 
 necessary in order that our nature might be able to shine 
 again :”° that “none but the Word is without sin ; for that 
 to sin is planted in all, and common to all ; but to recover 
 after sin is not the act of an ordinary, but of an extraordinary 
 man.’ ® On the other hand, when animadverting on the 
 heretics who applied texts of Scripture to the disparagement 
 of marriage, this amongst the number, “No one is clean from 
 defilement,” says Job, “even though his life be but one day,’ 
 he observes, “let them tell us where it was that the new-born 
 child committed fornication? or how that which had done 
 nothing, fell under the curse of Adam? It rests with them, 
 as it should seem, in order to make their assertion logical, (to 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Stromat. II. § xx. p.| context contemplates the sin of man 
 490. as entering into that difference. 
 2 , con , , ey | 3 On, JS > , a Cun 
 Knberae NP@V, HITE Mopl@v ovT@Y Ey@ oe aveyevynoa, -Kak@s vuTO 
 avrou, pate puoe téxvov. Kai 61) | Koopov mpos Odvarov yeyevynpevor, 
 ) peyloTn Ts Tov Ocov dyabdrnros k.T.A.—Clem. Alex. Quis dives salve- 
 evdergus avrn Tuyxaver’ 6Tt ovTas | tur, § xxiii. p. 948. 
 
 exovT@v Hpav mpds avtov, Kat pooer 4 duce pev emer Devoe _ Yeyovapev 
 amor pLopevov TavTeh@s, O4os KN- mpos aperny" ov py woTe exew avTny 
 Serat.—S xvi. p. 468. ek yeveTns, G\Aa pos TO KTHTaTbat 
 
 
 
 The Fall is not here directly referred | émurndecou.—Stromat. VI. § xi. p. 788. 
 to, and the reasoning might be at first 5 Stromat. V. § i. p. 645. 
 supposed to turn on the mere dissimi- § Pedag. IIT. c. xii. p. 807. 
 larity which subsisted between the es- 7 Job xiv. 4,5. LXX. 
 sence of God and of man. Yet the 
 
478 SENTIMENTS OF CLEMENS, [Series IT. 
 prove) that generation, not of the body only, but of the soul 
 too, is an evil And then he proceeds to argue, “ And 
 when David says, ‘in sin did my mother conceive me,’ he 
 considered Eve his mother by anticipation. Yet Eve was the 
 mother of all living ; and though he was conceived in sin, he 
 was not in sin himself, nor was he himself sin.”* Nothing 
 can be more perplexed than the reasoning in this passage, or 
 indicate greater vacillation on the question of original sin ; 
 carping, as it does, at an opinion of Basilides, elsewhere more 
 distinctly expressed,’ which affirmed that doctrine—affirmed 
 it, no doubt, for heretical purposes of his own—and yet 
 admitting it in the case of David, by explaining his confession 
 as relating to the debasement occasioned to her race by the 
 lapse of Eve; and again qualifying this concession by the 
 supposition that still Eve was the mother of all living. On 
 the whole, we have here a very notable example of that em- 
 barrassment felt by the Fathers when dealing with this 
 question, that arose, as I have said, out of a fear of giving an 
 advantage to the heretics ; and which certainly is the key to 
 most of their inconsistencies upon it. Again, when tracing 
 the origin of idolatry, Clemens tells of “a certain primitive 
 communion with heaven planted in man, darkened, indeed, 
 by ignorance, but suddenly in some way creeping forth from 
 the darkness, and again shining out.” * Once more, denouncing 
 the lustful appetites which the heathen cherished in themselves 
 by the emblems of their gods, he exclaims, “‘O what violence 
 ye do to man! even offering up to reproach whatever there 
 is of divine in the creature.”’° Again, “man is an animal 
 that loves God.”® Again, “man is by nature a high and 
 lofty animal that seeks after what is good, as being the work- 
 manship of the One.”’ Again, “God hath made us by nature 
 social and just ; so that justice must not be said to come of 
 
 : Aeyér@oar Hiv, mov erropvevoey p. 21. 
 
 TO yevunbev matdiov ; i) 7) TOs vd THY 
 Tov “Adap v imorenrexey apav TO pnOev 
 evepynoav ; k.T.A.—Clem. Alex. Stro- 
 mat, LIT. § xvi. p. 556. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 Stromat. LV. § xii. p. 600. 
 
 4°Hv d€ Tus ikditus dpxata mpos 
 ovpavoy dvOpadrrous Kowevia, ayvoia 
 pev eoxotispevn, ava Sé mov duex- 
 OpmoKovca tod oKdTovs, Kal avadap- 
 movoa.—Cvlortatio ad Gentes, § i. 
 
 5 °Q Biacdpevor tov avOpwrov" Kal 
 TO e€vOcov Tov mAdoparos éhéyxet 
 drdpEavres —§ iv. p. 53. 
 
 ®° To KadNucrov Tay bm’ adrod Sn- 
 puoupynOevtay, Kai dirddeov (Gov.— 
 Preday. I. ¢. viii. P- 135. 
 
 7 dice yup 6 avOpwros bymrdov 
 eote C@ov kal yadpor, kal TOU Kadovd 
 (ntntixoy, Gre tov Moévov Snptovp- 
 ynpa.—ILL. c. vil. p. 276. 
 
Lecr. XIII.] CYPRIAN AND ORIGEN ON THE FALL. 
 
 479 
 
 position” (to be the creature of circumstances), “but must 
 rather be considered the good which belonged to our original 
 creation, quickened by precept ; the soul trained by education 
 to a desire of choosing the best.”! 
 
 Turn we next to Cyprian. He speaks of the Divine 
 image having been lost by the Fall.” And after remarking 
 on the death of the combatants in the arena being sometimes 
 demanded as a gratification to the spectators, he ejaculates, 
 “as though man’s own nature were not cruel enough, and had 
 to be taught brutality in public.”*® Yet he elsewhere contents 
 himself with such moderate estimate of man’s corruption as 
 the following, “the mind of man is itself prone to vice, what 
 then will it do if it have the example before it? If the 
 nature of the body be so unsteady as to fall of its own accord, 
 what will it do if it is impelled?” * 
 
 The language of Origen on this subject is of the same con- 
 flicting character, but still on the whole clearly opposed to 
 that of Calvin. Thus, in his treatise against Celsus, “Cel- 
 sus,” says he, “has not shown how transgression is connected 
 with our very generation: nor has he pointed out what he 
 wishes himself, and so given us an opportunity of comparing 
 his system with ours. Whereas the prophets intimating that 
 view of the circumstances even of our generation which is the 
 wise one, say that sacrifice is offered for sin, even the sin of 
 those just born, as though even then they were not free from 
 sin: for it is written, ‘I was shapen in wickedness, and in 
 sin did my mother conceive me:’ and again, as sinners they 
 were ‘estranged even from their mother’s womb ;’ so extra- 
 ordinary an expression used as this, ‘ they go astray from the 
 womb, they speak lies.”°’ Again, in the same, “ Celsus 
 
 1 dices 8 ad Kowwvixols kai di- | parum sit homini privata sua rabies, 
 
 kalous 6 Qeds Huas ednpLovpynzer, 
 dOev ovde TO Sixavov ek porns cpaiver- 
 Oar trys Oeoews pynteov’ ex de ris 
 evronijs dvafwmupetabar TO THs Sy- 
 puovpylas dyaboy vonréov, pabhcer 
 mardevdeions THs Wuxns eOedew ai- 
 peioOac TO KaddAACTOY. —Stromat. 1. 
 § vi. p. 336, 
 
 2 Si similitudo divina, quam peccato 
 Adam _ perdiderat, manifestetur.—Cy- 
 prian, De Bono Patientia, § v. 
 
 2 Tnter voluptates spectantium quo- 
 rumdam mors erogatur, ut per cruen- 
 tum spectaculum seevire discatur, quasi 
 
 | €ornoey 6, Tl ep eBovdero" iva 
 
 
 
 | VUTTOLEVOL 
 
 nisi illam et publice discat.—De Spec- 
 taculis, § v. 
 
 4 Nam,* cum mens hominis ad vitia 
 ipsa ducatur, quid faciet, si habuerit 
 exempla? natura corporis caduca, que 
 sponte corruit, quid faciet, si fuerit im- 
 pulsa ? reading natura instead of nature. 
 as Vili. 
 
 ‘oO pev ovv ovK eaadpnvice 
 pera Yeverews €oTe mavy: ovde 
 
 TOS 
 Tap- 
 KaT- 
 Ta adrod 
 Oi be mpopirat ai- 
 mept Tav yeverews 
 
 avono@per ovyKpivovres 
 Tols TpeTEpols. 
 6, TL 
 
SENTIMENTS OF ORIGEN [Series IT, 
 
 480 
 
 mischievously represents us as saying, that God will receive 
 the unrighteous man, if he humble himself under his iniquity ; 
 but that he will not receive the righteous man if he should 
 virtuously look up to him from the very first. Whereas we 
 say that it is impossible for man to look up to God vir- 
 tuously from the very first ; for that wickedness must needs 
 be in man at the first.”’ Again, “Celsus often scoffs at the 
 resurrection Which he does not comprehend ; but not content 
 with that, he says that we talk of a resurrection of the flesh 
 from the tree ; misunderstanding, I presume, what is spoken 
 figuratively, that as by the tree came death, so did lite come 
 by the tree—death in Adam—tife in Christ :”? the effect of 
 the Fall balanced by the effect of the Passion: the effect of the 
 latter event, therefore, being the recovery of man, the effect 
 of the former must be here represented to be his ruin. But 
 indeed there is no need to establish this conclusion by infer- 
 ence ; since, in another place, where Origen is meeting an 
 objection made by Celsus against the Mosaic account of the 
 creation—that Moses exhibits God so powerless as to have 
 been unable to secure the obedience even of a single man 
 whom he had himself created—he replies that “in the He- 
 brew Adam means man; and that Moses, when he speaks of 
 Adam, speaks, in fact, of the nature of man ; inasmuch as all 
 died in Adam, and were condemned under the similitude of 
 Adam’s transgression ; and that accordingly Scripture, in re- 
 lating this event, does not so much speak of the individual as 
 of the whole species ; for that the curse of Adam, which in 
 the history is described as that of an individual, is, in fact, 
 common to all mankind.”’ Yet this same Origen writes, 
 “ Man loves life, having a persuasion that the rational soul 
 has something in its essence akin to God. For both are in- 
 tellectual and invisible ; and as reason irresistibly shows, in- 
 corporeal. And why did he who fashioned us, put into us a 
 desire of piety and of communion with him ; a desire which 
 
 Tm paypar ov coor, Ovoiav mept cpap - 
 Tlas éeyovow dvapeper Oar, kal Trept 
 Tov aipre YEyErUnHEVOY, @s ov Kkabapay 
 amd dpaprias. Pact be kal TO, eV 
 dvopiaes avery peny, kal é€v apaptias 
 exitonoe pe 1) patnp pov. “AAA kat 
 amocaivovrar OTe amnddor proOn cay ot 
 dpaptodot amd pytpas, tmapaddéws 
 heyovres kal 7d, emAavnOnoav ard 
 
 
 
 yaotpos, eddAnoay wWevdy.— Origen, 
 come a Celsum, VIT. § 50. 
 
 "Advvarov yap paper etvat dy - 
 dante per” dpetns dm apxns mpos 
 Tov Oedv iyo Bderetv. Kaxiay yap 
 tpisracda hice poet mp@tov ev dv- 
 Oparots.—II1. § 62. 
 
 2 VI. § 36. 3 IV. § 40. 
 
Lecr. XIII.}] ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL. 481 
 
 even in those who have gone astray, preserves some traces of 
 the Divine will ; if it was not possible for beings thus ra- 
 tional to attain unto that which they natwrally desire ?”? 
 Again, the following passage, like the last, seems to recognise 
 some remains of the original character of man as having sur- 
 vived the Fall. “But if any one dares assign essential cor- 
 ruption to a beg who was made in the image and likeness 
 of God, in my opinion he includes in this impious charge, 
 even the Son of God himself; for he, too, is called in Scrip- 
 ture the image of God. At least, let him who entertains 
 this opinion, question the authority of Scripture, which says 
 that man was made in the image of God—man, in whom 
 indications of the Divine image are clearly discovered, not 
 by the figure of the body which is corrupted, but by pru- 
 dence of mind, by justice, by moderation, by virtue, by wis- 
 dom, by discipline, by a whole company, in short, of virtues, 
 which, existing essentially in God, may exist also in man by 
 industry and imitation of God.” ? 
 
 But in order to prevent mistakes, and the imputation of 
 mere Pelagianism to the Fathers, a charge which has some- 
 times been made against them by partial and desultory 
 readers, I shall suspend, for a moment, the prosecution of the 
 subject immediately before us, to remark that peremptory as 
 we see the Fathers are on the question of free-will, and far 
 as they are from giving countenance to the sentiments of Cal- 
 vin on that of human corruption, they still entertain such a 
 sense of the effects of the Fall on the soul of man, as to 
 teach the absolute necessity of the active influence of the 
 Holy Spirit upon it, for its recovery and restoration. At the 
 same time they regard that influence as a persuasive, not a 
 compulsive principle; a fact determined both by their doc- 
 trine of the freedom of the will, and by express assertions to 
 that purpose; a reference to some of which, in due season, 
 will again bring us back to the topic I am pursuing. There 
 is, indeed, no absolute call to produce an array of testimonies 
 
 1’Ere Se Kal prrogoct avOpwmos, ; evoeBeias Kai Kolv@vias, 6s Tis Kal 
 
 elo pa haBeov _Tepl ovolas Royexns 
 Prxis, os exovons TL ovyyeves Oca. 
 Noepa yap éxdrepa kal adpara’ Kal 
 @s 6 emikpat@v amodeikyuat Néyos, 
 tL , , ‘ \. (. tv) 
 
 dowpara. Ti d€ Kai 6 katackevdgeoy 
 
 c ~ > , , fad A > \ 
 nas everroies méOov THs mpos avTor | 
 
 ev Tois eodradpevars tyvn Twa coer 
 tov Oeiov Bovdevparos, elmep pr) Vv 
 duvatoy TO dvaotkas Tobovpevoy Tois 
 Aoytkois KaradaBeiv ;— Exhortatio ad 
 Martyrium, § 47. 
 2 De Principiis, IV. § 37. 
 Mal 
 
482 TESTIMONIES OF THE EARLY FATHERS ([Senes 1. 
 
 from the Fathers, in order to prove that they believed in the 
 doctrine of grace, and in the necessity fallen man is under of 
 seeking its aid. The single fact of their holding that of re- 
 generation in Baptism, as we have found them doing, and yet 
 admitting Infant-Baptism, being enough in itself to establish 
 the other conclusion. For where was the need to be “ born 
 again” (a very strong expression), even where no actual sin 
 had been committed by the parties, unless there was under- 
 stood to be very gross evil in the first birth? And how 
 could a spiritual evil, as this must be, have been supposed to 
 find a remedy, except in a spiritual agency ?—the Fathers 
 themselves perfectly alive to this inference, as is evident 
 from a remarkable passage in Tertullian already cited.’ 
 Waiving, however, this argument, I will proceed to prove 
 my point by other evidence in detail. 
 
 Thus Barnabas, having described the way of good, and the 
 way of evil, of light and of darkness, goes on to apprize him 
 who would walk in the better path, that “he must be simple 
 in heart, and must abound in the Spirit... . that he must 
 not rule his servants with austerity, seeing that both he and 
 they hope in the same God, who came not to call them with 
 respect to persons, but even as the Spirit had prepared 
 them.” ?” 
 
 Hermas advises to test those who profess to be in possession 
 of the Holy Spirit by their life and works’ ; as though our 
 virtues were to be ascribed to the presence of that Holy Spirit 
 within us. 
 
 Clemens Romanus, though announcing no formal opinion on 
 the subject, uses language which shows plainly enough, that 
 the doctrine of spiritual influence was familiar to his mind. 
 As thus, “Let us cleave to those to whom grace has been 
 given by God.”* And in a prayer at the close of his epistle 
 he says, “The all-seeing God, and Master of spirits, and Lord 
 of all flesh, who hath chosen the Lord Jesus Christ and us 
 through him for a peculiar people, grant to every soul that 
 calls upon his great and holy Name, faith, fear, peace, patience, 
 long-suffering, continence, chastity, temperance, that they may 
 be acceptable in his sight, through our High Priest and Advo- 
 
 ' Tertullian, De Anima, c. xli. 4 Clem. Rom. Ad Corinthios, I. § 
 Z Barnabas, § xix. Sk 
 * Hermas, JI. Mandatum xi. 
 
Lecr. XIII.] ON THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE GRACE. 483 
 
 9] 
 
 cate Jesus Christ,’’" as though the graces here enumerated 
 were not of ourselves, but of God. 
 
 I will content myself with one passage from Ignatius, but 
 that a most remarkable one ; for though expressing the doc- 
 trine we are investigating under a figure the most homely and 
 mechanical, it is undeniable as to its meaning. He is com- 
 mending the Ephesians for not having allowed themselves to 
 be led astray by certain false teachers who had been among 
 them. Against these, says he, “ Ye stopped your ears, so as 
 not to entertain the mischievous seed they scattered about ; 
 feeling yourselves to be stones of the temple of the Father, 
 prepared for the building of God the Father, drawn up aloft 
 by the engine of Jesus Christ, even the cross, using the Holy 
 Spirit for your rope, your faith the pulley.” ? 
 
 Justin Martyr recognises the doctrine in various places. 
 Thus, in his “ Cohortatio ad Greecos,” when tracing many of 
 Plato’s statements to his knowledge of Revelation, he repre- 
 sents those on virtue as derived from what he had read in the 
 prophets respecting the Spirit. “For fearing to call this gift 
 of God the Holy Ghost, lest by following the doctrine of the 
 prophets he should seem to be an enemy to the Greeks, he 
 confesses, indeed, that it comes down from above from God, 
 but thinks it best to call it virtue, and not the Holy Ghost. 
 For in his dialogue with Meno on the subject of memory, 
 after many preliminary inquiries concerning virtue, whether it 
 could be acquired by instruction, or by use, or by neither, but 
 came to men by nature, or by some other means, he expresses 
 himself in the following terms. ‘If, then, in the course of 
 this dissertation we have conducted our investigation well, 
 and worded it rightly, virtue would appear to come neither 
 by nature, nor by instruction ; but to present itself to those 
 who enjoy it, by a Divine allotment independent of the under- 
 standing.’”* Whatever we may think of Justin’s notion, 
 
 1 Clem. Rom. Ad Corinthios, I. § lviii. 
 
 ? Tenatius, Ad Ephesios, § ix. 
 
 ’ Justin Martyr, Cohortatio ad Grecos, 
 § 82. Bishop Kaye doubts the genuine- 
 ness of this work, pointing out several 
 passages in it which present discrepan- 
 cies when compared with other works of 
 Justin, of which the authority is above 
 suspicion. But would such discrepan- 
 cies be found greater than those which 
 
 exist amongst his several genuine writ- 
 ings? Compare e. g. the prophecy of 
 Gen. xlix. 10, as given in Apol. I.-§ 32, 
 and in Dial. § 52; or Psalm ex. 1-3, as 
 quoted in Dial. § 32, and in § 83. And 
 is close consistency to be expected in a 
 writer exhibiting such marks of care- 
 lessness, or possibly want; of leisure, 
 opportunity, or books (for the times in 
 which he lived were troubled) as Justin ? 
 
 ie ee: 
 
48 4 TESTIMONIES OF THE EARLY FATHERS  (Sentes Ul. 
 
 that Plato gained his idea of virtue from the prophetical de- 
 scriptions of the Holy Ghost, this at least must be admitted, 
 that the argument proves Justin himself to have had no doubt 
 about the active energies of the Holy Ghost among men. 
 This, however, further appears from other passages in Justin’s 
 works: as, that the grace of God is necessary to make us 
 fully understand the words and deeds of,the prophets’; that 
 he was himself indebted to it for whatever sound knowledge 
 of the Scriptures he possessed * ; that we should pray, above 
 all things, to have the gates of light opened to us, for that 
 (the truth) is not to be perceived or comprehended by any, 
 save by those to whom God and his Christ gave the faculty 
 of perceiving and comprehending it*: that it is by the help 
 of those gifts which Christ promised he would send to man- 
 kind after his ascension, that he (Justin) hopes to convince 
 Trypho.* 
 
 Tatian’s sentiments on this subject, so far as they are 
 intelligible, were involved in his notions of the corruption of 
 our nature, and have already been noticed ; the sum of them 
 being, that the Holy Ghost which was lost at the Fall, and 
 which constituted the soul’s life, must be recovered before the 
 soul can rise again to its lofty estate, and find its wings.’ 
 
 Athenagoras, in his short works, does not happen to have 
 occasion to speak of the ordinary effects of the Spirit, but he 
 is so explicit on the extraordinary, that we cannot doubt he 
 held both ; representing the Holy Ghost to breathe into the 
 prophets, as a piper into his reed.° 
 
 Theophilus attributes his own conversion to the prophetical 
 Scriptures,’ which the Holy Ghost dictated through their 
 authors.’ He prays God to give him grace to declare the 
 truth ; and to Autolycus (to whom he writes) and his other 
 readers, grace to receive and follow it’; and he speaks of the 
 Christian being one whom grace preserves."” 
 
 As we proceed, we discover the Fathers to become more 
 
 See e. g. his errors of chronology, Apol. 5 Tatian, Oratio contra Grecos, §§ 
 I. § 31; his misquotation of names, } 13. 15. 20. 
 Apol. I. § 51; Dial. § 12; his mistakes ® Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christi- 
 about historical facts, Dial. § 86; not | anis, §§ 9, 10. 
 to speak of the indications he affords 7 Theophilus, Ad Autolyeum, I. § 
 of having forgotten in one place what | 14. 
 he had said in another. Sr eisio: ® TEL. §, 28. 
 
 ' Dial. § 92. 2 9s 58. 119. 10 TIT. § 15. 
 
 es 45 39. 
 
Lect. XIII.] ON THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE GRACE. 485 
 
 and more copious on this great article of faith; insomuch 
 that it is even difficult to compress their declarations of it 
 within any reasonable compass. Such is the case with 
 Trenzeus. He makes frequent confession of it whenever he 
 is invited to ‘do so by the course of his argument. The 
 seventeenth chapter of his third book is almost entirely 
 occupied with it. The Gnostics, by understanding the 
 descent of the Holy Ghost upon Jesus at his baptism, as re- 
 corded in the Gospel, to be that of their AZon Christ, upon the 
 man Jesus, had virtually excluded the Holy Ghost from their 
 system! ; a defect in it of which Irengeus proceeds to point out 
 the magnitude, and in so doing necessarily is led to describe 
 the offices of that Holy Spirit. “It works in the human race 
 the will of the Father, and renews them from their old estate 
 to the newness of Christ.”? “It prepares them for God.’’?® 
 “ As the flour cannot be consolidated and formed into a loaf 
 without moisture, so we, being many, cannot be made one 
 with Christ Jesus without the water which is from heaven : 
 and as the parched earth brings forth no fruit, if it receives 
 no dew; so we, being dry trees at first, should never bear 
 the fruit of life without rain freely imparted from above. 
 For our bodies derive that union (with Christ) unto immor- 
 tality through the laver ; but our souls through the Spirit.” * 
 ~ “This dew of God,” Irenzeus afterwards adds, “ is necessary 
 for us, that we be neither burned up, nor unfruitful, and that 
 where we have an accuser we may have also an Advocate ;”’ ° 
 an Advocate of such power, too, that at his coming, Satan 
 fell like lightning. Nor is this all: in that taste for seeing 
 typical meanings in everything, to which I have already ad- 
 verted as characteristic of the Fathers, Irenzeus discovers, in 
 
 terra, si non percipiat humorem, non 
 fructificat: sic et nos, lignum aridum 
 existentes primum, nunquam fructifica- 
 remus vitam sine superna voluntaria 
 pluvid. Corpora enim nostra per lava- 
 crum illam, que est ad incorruptionem, 
 unitatem acceperunt ; anime autem per 
 
 ' Spiritum quidem interimunt, alium 
 autem Christum et alium Jesum intelli- 
 gunt.—Ireneus, III. c. xvii. § 4. See 
 also, ¢ xi. § 9. Ut donum Spiritus 
 frustrentur. 
 
 2 Voluntatem patris operans in ipsis 
 et renovans eos a yetustate in novitatem 
 
 Christi.— ITI. ¢. xvii. § 1. 
 
 3 Qui nos aptaret Deo.—§ 2. 
 
 * Sicut enim de arido tritico massa 
 una fieri non potest sine humore, neque 
 unus panis: ita nec nos multi unum 
 fieri in Christo Jesu poteramus sine 
 aqua, que de celo est. Kt sicut arida 
 
 
 
 Spiritum.—Ibid. 
 
 5 Quapropter necessarius nobis est ros 
 Dei, ut non comburamur, neque infruc- 
 tuosi efficiamur, ut ubi accusatorem ha- 
 bemus, illic habeamus et Paracletum.— 
 § 3. 
 
 6 Thid. 
 
486 TESTIMONY OF CLEMENS (Serres II. 
 
 the two imperial coins which the good Samaritan gave to the 
 innkeeper, “ the image and superscription of the Father and the 
 Son, which the Spirit imparts to us, that we may profit 
 withal ;’! as though all our holy impressions were derived 
 from the influence of the Spirit. And when explaining the 
 text, “for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
 God,” and taking it out of the hands of the Gnosties, he pro- 
 ceeds, “ For since without the Spirit of God we cannot be saved, 
 the Apostle exhorts us by faith and a chaste conversation to 
 cherish that Spirit of God, that we may not fall short of the 
 kingdom of heaven through not being partakers of the Spirit 
 of God, and so he exclaims, ‘but flesh and blood cannot of 
 itself enter into the kingdom of God.’”? And in a short 
 prayer, into which on one occasion he is betrayed, he cries, 
 “OQ Lord God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, .... 
 I beseech thee, by our Lord Jesus Christ, give unto me the 
 guidance of the Holy Spirit, and grant that all who read 
 these writings of mine, may acknowledge thee the only God ; 
 may be steadfast in thee ; and turn away from every hereti- 
 cal, godless, and impious thought ;”* a clear testimony to the 
 need we have, both teacher and taught, of the Spirit of God, 
 to direct and purify the heart. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, given as he is to philosophize, still 
 furnishes ample proof that the doctrine of grace was recog- 
 nised by him also. Having said that the advent of the 
 Word, and the sacred virtues he diffused, had superseded all 
 other teaching, that even of Athens and Greece merged in it ; 
 he continues, “ Wherefore, so to speak, Christ is whole and 
 not divided ; there is neither barbarian, nor Jew, nor Greek, 
 neither male nor female, but a new man, transfigured by the 
 Holy Spirit of God.”* And shortly afterwards follows the 
 illustration, “As, if there were no sun, the other stars would 
 leave all in night ; so, if we did not know the Word, and 
 were not enlightened by it, we should be in the condition of 
 fowls put up to feed, which are fattened in the dark, and 
 
 ‘Dans duo denaria regalia, ut per | juas 6 dmdorodos, x.T.A.— Ireneus, 
 Spiritum imaginem et inscriptionem | V. c. ix. § 3. 
 Patris et Filii accipientes, fructificemus 8 TIT. c. vi. § 4. 
 creditum nobis denarium.—Ireneus,| 4 Kawds dé dvOpwros, Ccod Ivev- 
 IIT. c. xvii. § 3. pate ayio petatemducpevos. — Clem. 
 5 "Emel dvev Tlvevpatos Ocod ow-| Alex. Cohortatio ad Grecos, § xi. p. 87. 
 Ojvac ov duvdpeOa, mporpendpevos 
 
Lect. XIII.] ON THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE GRACE. 487 
 
 nourished for death. Let us receive the light that we may 
 receive God.”' Again, the quickening and purifying power 
 of the Spirit is confessed in the following sentiment, “ Where- 
 fore, he who commits fornication dies altogether unto God, 
 and is left by the Word, as well as by the Spirit, lifeless.” ? 
 Again, whilst objecting to cosmetics for the face, Clemens 
 adds a sentence expressing in strong terms the doctrine of 
 spiritual influence : “ But the best beauty is that of the soul, 
 as we have often declared, when it is adorned with the Holy 
 Ghost, and is breathed into by those graces which proceed 
 from the Spirit—righteousness, wisdom, fortitude, prudence, 
 goodness, modesty ; never was there a complexion more beau- 
 tiful than this.’’’ Again, “since some are unbelieving and 
 some contentious, all do not attain unto the perfection of 
 goodness, for it is not possible to attain unto it without a 
 disposition to do so, Nevertheless it does not altogether de- 
 pend on our own will, how it will turn out ; for by grace are 
 we saved : not, however, without good works, but bemg born 
 for what is good we must feel a zeal for it; and we must 
 possess ourselves, too, of a sound mind, such as will not draw 
 back in its pursuit of goodness. To which end we have 
 ereat need of Divine grace, and of right instruction, and of 
 holy and sensitive affections, and of the Father to draw us 
 unto himself.’* Again, of his Gnostic, or perfect Christian, 
 Clemens asserts, that “real good, the good which appertains 
 to the soul, is what he prays may belong unto him, and 
 abide with him. For this cause he covets nothing which he 
 has not, being content with what he has: for he is not want- 
 ing in goods of his own, seeing he has that which suffices for 
 
 ' Clem. Alex. Cohortatio ad Greecos, | éparikoi, ov mavTes TUyXdvovCL THs 
 Sas [ns ie TeetdTyTOS Tou ayabov. Oure yap 
 2 Aw kat mavT@s 6 Topvevev amreé- | avev mpoatpeoews Tuxe ody Te ov 
 Oaveyv Oc€@, kal karaheheumra amo pay ovde TO Tay €mt Th youn TH 
 TOU Aédyou, kabdrep brd Tod IIvev- | nperepa keirau olov TO drronropevov" 
 patos, vexpos.—Pidag. IL. ¢. x. p.230. | xapere yap oa@tdpeba ovK avev peév- 
 * Kaddos yap dpiotoy, mp@tov pev | tor Tav Kad@v epywv" adda Set pev 
 TO Wuxexov, os moANakes emeonpnvayny® mepukdtas mpos TO ayaboy, omrovdnv 
 or iv 7 KeKoo Levy Wexn, ayia Twa Tepuromoac bat mpos av7ro> bei 
 Tvevpare, kal Tois ek TOUTOU ewmveo- | b€ Kal THY yvopny bye KexTo Oat, 
 pern padpiopacw, Sixacocvyn, ppo- | thy dperavéntov Tpos THY Onpav TOU 
 VNTEL, av6pia, coppoovyy, dirayabia Kadov* mpos émep paiota THs Oeias 
 Te, Kal aidot’ As ovdev evavO€aTepor | xpngopev xaperos, 8WackaXias Te dp- 
 XpOpa éwparar morore.—Pwdag. LLL. | Ons, Kal ebrradeias ayvns, Kal THs TOU 
 c. xi. p. 291. | Ilarpos mpos avroyv 6AKijs.-—Stromat. 
 4°Emel O€ of pev amorot, ot de | V. § i. p. 647. 
 
 
 
 i} 
 
488 TESTIMONY OF TERTULLIAN (Senrzes II. 
 
 himself, through the Divine grace, and through knowledge: 
 but being satisfied, and having no wants, acquainted with the 
 Almighty Will, in what he has, and in what he prays for, 
 he cleaves to the Power Omnipotent, and striving to be 
 spiritual, through unbounded love, to the Spirit he is 
 united.” Once more, the same doctrine discovers itself in 
 the following paragraph; he is commenting on the text, “If 
 thou wilt be perfect :” ?—“ Divinely does that expression, ‘ if 
 thou wilt,” says Clemens, “indicate the freedom of will of 
 the soul who was conversing with (Jesus), for in man, as 
 being free, subsists the choice, but to God, as Lord, belongs 
 the gift; and he gives to those who wish it, and who desire 
 it earnestly, and who intreat him for it, that so salvation 
 may be still their own,” *° Indeed, the Gnostic, or true Chris- 
 tian, as presented to us in the portraiture of Clemens, ex- 
 hibits one perpetually going on unto perfection under the 
 guidance and influence of the Spirit: so that to produce pas- 
 sages which testify to the doctrine of spiritual influence would 
 be to transcribe a great part of the “Stromata.” Thus, to 
 take him at his devotions; “he prays every hour internally, 
 familiarizing himself with God through love. And first of 
 all, he will ask for remission of his sins ; then that he may sin 
 no more ; then that he may be able to do good, and to compre- 
 hend the whole creation and dispensation of the Lord ; and 
 that becoming pure in heart by the knowledge which he has 
 through the Son of God, he may be initiated into the blessed 
 spectacle face to face, listening to the Scripture which saith, 
 Fasting together with prayer is good.”’* It is evident that 
 language of this kind could not be held by one who did not 
 acknowledge in a very unequivocal manner the doctrine of 
 erace. And though it is true that the phraseology of Clemens 
 is often borrowed from the schools of philosophy, yet that is to 
 be regarded as his peculiar nomenclature ; Christianity, as I 
 have before said, being with him philosophy of the sublimest 
 kind. 
 
 Tertullian was so far from disallowing the doctrine of the 
 influence of the Spirit, that probably his zeal for it partly 
 prepared him for the reception of the errors of Montanus ; 
 
 1 Stromat. VII. § vii. p. 857. *Stromat. VI. § xii. p. 791; Tobit, 
 2 Matt. xix. 21. sali Sh 
 * Quis dives salvetur, § x. p. 940. 
 
Lect. XIII.] ON THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE GRACE. 
 
 errors in which this very subject was deeply involved. 
 
 489 
 For 
 
 the Paraclete of Montanus appears to have been understood 
 of no other being than the Holy Ghost; the same who 
 
 inspired the Apostles, though 
 tanus.' Accordingly, in his 
 
 1 Bishop Kaye, who investigates the 
 precise nature of the pretensions of 
 Montanus, remarks that Mosheim ap- 
 pears at different times to have held 
 different opinions on the subject. In 
 his De Rebus Christianorum ante Con- 
 stantinum (Szculum secundum, c. 66) 
 he considers Montanus to have asserted 
 himself to be inspired by the same Holy 
 Spirit as the Apostles: in his Ecclesi- 
 astical History (Century ii. ¢. 5, p. 237, 
 note) to have pretended to be himself 
 the Paraclete; the Paraclete promised 
 by the Saviour, and distinct from the 
 Holy Spirit which spake by the Apostles. 
 Bishop Kaye coincides with the former 
 opinion, and gives his reasons for think- 
 ing that Mosheim misunderstood Ter- 
 tullian, when he imputed to him the 
 other. It is certainly difficult to read 
 the writings of Tertullian—those, I 
 mean, evidently composed after his ac- 
 cession to the Montanists, and in which 
 the expression “nova prophetia,” or the 
 like, occurs, marking their date in this 
 respect with precision—it is difficult, I 
 say, to read these writings, and fail to 
 perceive that Tertullian, when penning 
 them, was unconscious of his creed be- 
 ing inconsistent with the fundamental 
 articles of the Catholic faith. And yet 
 this sentiment he scarcely could have 
 entertained, had he swerved from it so 
 widely, as to hold that there were two 
 Holy Ghosts, the one the Spirit who 
 animated the Apostles, the other Mon- 
 tanus himself. Moreover, in his trea- 
 tise, De Jejuniis, § 1, written as a Mon- 
 tanist, he boldly accuses the orthodox, 
 or animalists (psychicos), as he calls 
 them, of “raising a debate about the 
 Paraclete, and resisting the new pro- 
 pheecy, not because Montanus, Priscilla, 
 and Maximilla, preached any other God 
 than the true, or rejected Jesus Christ, 
 or overturned any rule of faith or hope; 
 but simply because they taught, it was 
 better to fast than to marry;” words 
 which would surely seem to imply a 
 confidence in his own substantial ortho- 
 doxy, as well as in that of bis sect. Fur- 
 
 
 
 in a lower degree than Mon- 
 tract “De Spectaculis,’ Ter- 
 
 thermore, in some of his treatises clearly 
 composed after he turned Montanist, he 
 is as free as possible in his animadver- 
 sions on heretics ; plainly showing that 
 he felt no imputation of that kind could 
 fairly rest on himself. Thus in his De 
 Resurrectione Carnis, ¢. iii. he classes 
 them with heathens. In his De Carne 
 Christi, c. xv., another of his tracts 
 written after his lapse, he speaks of 
 them in the same language, as well as » 
 accuses them of mutilating Scripture, 
 ec. ii. And in his Scorpiace, a third, 
 still written after the same event, he 
 designates them as “scorpions,” the 
 very title, indeed, of the treatise being, 
 an antidote against their poison, ec. i. 
 And yet, on the other hand, in his De 
 Prescriptione Heereticorum, c. li, a 
 work, I think, certainly composed by 
 him whilst he was an acknowledged 
 member of the Church, he apparently 
 does ascribe to the Montanists the very 
 doctrine which I before said it seems 
 hardly possible that any one could hold 
 and yet suppose that he was true to the 
 Catholic Church, viz. that there were 
 two Holy Ghosts; or in other words, 
 that the Holy Ghost was one, and the 
 Paraclete another. ‘ There are other 
 heretics,” says he in the passage in 
 question, “after the manner of the 
 Phrygians, as it is called; but they 
 differ one from another...... They 
 hold one blasphemy, however, in com- - 
 mon, that the Apostles had the Holy 
 Ghost, but had not the Paraclete; and 
 that the Paraclete revealed more through 
 Montanus than Christ through the Gos- 
 pel.” ‘“Accesserunt alii heeretici, qui 
 dicuntur secundum Phrygas ; sed horum 
 non una doctrina est. Sunt enim qui 
 kara Proclum dicuntur, sunt qui secun- 
 dum A‘schinem pronuntiantur. Hi ha- 
 bent aliam communem blasphemiam, 
 aliam blasphemiam non communem, 
 sed peculiarem suam: et communem 
 quidem illam, qua in Apostolis quidem 
 dicant Spiritum Sanctum fuisse, Para- 
 eletum non fuisse: et qua dicant Para- 
 cletum plura in Montano dixisse, quam 
 
490 TESTIMONIES OF TERTULLIAN AND CYPRIAN [Sentes I. 
 
 tullian expresses himself thus :—“ God hath commanded us to 
 use the Holy Spirit with gentleness and meekness, in quiet 
 and in peace, seeing that from the excellency of its own 
 nature, it is tender and delicate ; and not to disturb it by 
 rage or ill-humour, by anger or grief. Now how does this 
 comport with attendance at the shows ?’’’ The reference here 
 made to Ephes. iv. 30, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,” 
 proves that Tertullian, when writing thus, had the third 
 Person of the Trinity in contemplation; and the passage 
 affirms the doctrine of spiritual influence. Again, in his 
 “De Virginibus Velandis,” he describes the several offices of 
 the Paraclete, there, too, identified with the Holy Ghost. 
 Having briefly recited the substance of the primitive creed, 
 he continues, “This rule of faith, then, remaining fixed, other 
 matters, touching discipline and deportment, admit of cor- 
 rective innovations, for the grace of God operates and improves 
 even unto the end of time. For how could it be that, whilst 
 the devil is always at work, and adding every day to his 
 schemes of mischief, the operations of God should either 
 expire or cease to advance? Whereas God sent the Paraclete 
 for this very thing, that as the moderate capacity of man could 
 not receive all things at once, it might by degrees be guided 
 and ordered, and perfected by discipline, through the Holy 
 Ghost, who was to be in the Lord’s stead. ‘I have yet 
 
 Christum in Evyangelio protulisse.” 
 Here, I say, Tertullian asserts that the 
 Montanists made a distinction between 
 the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete; and 
 calls such distinction blasphemy. Yet 
 we have seen, that when a Montanist 
 himself he had not ceased to regard 
 himself as substantially orthodox ; nor 
 felt his hands tied from denouncing he- 
 retics. A recollection of passages on 
 both sides of this question probably 
 perplexed Mosheim, and caused him to 
 hold one opinion upon it at one time, 
 and another at another. Might not the 
 inconsistency of Tertullian (for incon- 
 sistency I think I have shown there is) 
 have arisen from this; that when he 
 charges the Montanists with holding a 
 Paraclete distinct from the Holy Ghost, 
 and which sentiment he calls a blas- 
 phemy, he was a Churchman, and was 
 attacking the Montanists without hay- 
 ing more than a general knowledge of 
 
 
 
 their reputed principles: but that when 
 he identifies the Paraclete with the Holy 
 Ghost, and claims, for the Montanists 
 substantial soundness of doctrine,“ he 
 was himself a Montanist, and so more 
 accurately informed in their opinions ? 
 And it may be added, that those opi- 
 nions admitted of being correctly ascer- 
 tained, inasmuch as they were commit- 
 ted to writing; references to such docu- 
 ments occurring in three treatises of 
 Tertullian; that De Resurrectione Car- 
 nis, ¢. xi.; that De Fuga in Persecutione, 
 c. ix.; and that De Pudicitia; all of 
 them, it may be remarked, written after 
 Tertullian became a Montanist; and 
 thus confirming my notion, that after 
 his conversion he had studied the tenets 
 of the sect more carefully, and was ac- 
 cordingly better able to pronounce with 
 truth upon them, and more interested in 
 seeing that justice should be done them. 
 1 Tertullian, De Spectaculis, c. xv. 
 
Lecr. XIII.] ON THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE GRACE. 491 
 
 many things to say unto you,’ he exclaimed, ‘but ye cannot 
 bear them now. When he the Spirit of Truth is come, he 
 will lead you into all truth, and he will show you things to 
 come.’ And he had before spoken of his office. What, 
 then, is the business of the Paraclete but this, to direct dis- 
 cipline, to open the Scriptures, to reform the understanding, 
 to make the world better.”? Elsewhere he gives several 
 clauses of the creed as follows: “On the third day he (Jesus 
 Christ) rose again ; ascended into heaven; sat at the right 
 hand of God; and sent the vicarious influence of the Holy 
 Ghost to actuate the faithful.”* And again, in other places, 
 he designates the Holy Ghost as the Vicar of Christ, “ Christi 
 Vicarius ;” the Steward of God, “Dei Villicus;” and asks 
 whether it is credible that he will allow the Churches to fall 
 into error, being sent to lead them into all truth*; surely a 
 very ample assertion of the doctrine we are in search of. 
 Cyprian bears witness to the same article of the faith. 
 Advocate as we saw he was, like the other Fathers, for the 
 freedom of the will, he nevertheless writes, when explaining 
 the clause of the Lord’s Prayer, “'Thy will be done on earth 
 as it is in heaven;” “here we pray that God’s will may be 
 done by us; in order to which we must have God’s will in 
 us, that is, his help and protection, seeing that no one is 
 strong in his own strength, but is only strong wm the im- 
 dulgence and compassion of God.”*® Again, his “ Testi- 
 monies against the Jews,” a summary of Christian doctrines 
 and precepts succinctly collected by Cyprian out of Scripture, 
 at the request and for the benefit of Quirinus, furnishes the 
 following apothegm: “the grace of God is a free gift.”® And 
 that the grace of God is not here to be understood irrespec- 
 tively of the Holy Ghost, is plain from the first text of Serip- 
 ture cited by Cyprian in support of his proposition, namely, 
 St. Peter’s rebuke to Simon, “Thy money perish with thee, 
 because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be pur- 
 chased with money.”’ And once more, where, as in the last 
 
 1 John xvi. 12. protectione : quia nemo suis viribus fortis 
 
 2 De Virginibus Velandis, ec. i. est, sed Dei indulgentia et misericordia 
 
 ® De Prescriptione Hereticorum, c.| tutus est—Cyprian, De Oratione Do- 
 xiii. 4c, xxviii. minica, § xiy. 
 
 5 Oramus et petimus, ut fiat in nobis ® Testimoniorum, ITI. cap. ¢. 
 voluntas Dei, que ut fiat, in nobis opus T Thid. 
 
 est Dei voluntate, id est ope ejus et 
 
492 TESTIMONIES OF CYPRIAN (Series II. 
 
 quotation, not merely the doctrine of spiritual influence is 
 recognised, but the freedom with which it is vouchsafed to all. 
 who seek it. ‘As the sun shines freely, the day disperses its 
 light, the fountain its waters, the shower its dew, so doth 
 the heavenly Spirit infuse itself. When the soul, looking 
 up to heaven, hath learned to know its Author, then it is 
 that, higher than the sun, more sublime than any or every 
 power upon this earth, it begins to be that which it believes 
 it is. Only do thou, whom the heavenly warfare hath en- 
 listed by its mark into the spiritual camp, cleave to its dis- 
 cipline, uncorrupt as it is, and sober as it is, with every 
 religious virtue. Pray or read without ceasing. Now con- 
 verse with God; now God converses with thee. Let him 
 instruct thee in his precepts, let him dispose of thee. Whom 
 he hath made rich, none can make poor. He can feel no 
 poverty, whose breast the heavenly banquet has satisfied once 
 for all. Roofs adorned with gold, houses empanelled with 
 slabs of precious marble, will be mean in thy sight, for thou 
 wilt know rather that it is thyself which is to be dressed, 
 thyself to be ornamented, that thou hast in thyself a better 
 house, a house in which the Lord hath seated himself, instead 
 of a temple, and in which the Holy Spirit hath begun to 
 dwell.”’' Again, “ Patience, brethren beloved, not only guards 
 the good, but repels the evil. Seconding the Holy Spirit, 
 and allying itself with the divine and heavenly principle, in 
 opposition to the deeds of the flesh and body, by which the 
 soul is vanquished and taken captive, it struggles in the de- 
 fence of its own virtues.” ? 
 
 Origen bears testimony to the same truth. Thus he ex- 
 plains John xiv. 12, “Greater works than these shall he do, 
 because I go unto the Father,” by the spiritual effects on the 
 souls of men which the disciples were to be enabled to ac- 
 complish—effects far more striking than the physical miracles 
 wrought by Jesus—thus, “the eyes of those who were blind 
 in soul were to be opened ; the ears of those who had been 
 deaf to the accents of virtue were to be made to listen with 
 eagerness to the things pertaining unto God and everlasting 
 life with him ; those who were lame in the inner man were 
 not only to leap, but to leap like a stag, an animal hostile to 
 serpents, and which the poison of vipers cannot hurt,” and so 
 
 ' Epist. i. gg 14, 15. 2 De Bono Patienti, § xiv. 
 
Lecr. XYII.J AND ORIGEN 4.93 
 
 on.’ Again, in commenting on the text, “My speech and 
 
 my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, 
 but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power,”’? he says, 
 “What is spoken, however true and worthy of all belief, is 
 not competent of itself to reach the human soul, unless @ cer- 
 tain power from God be vouchsafed the speaker, and grace 
 give a beauty to what he utters; such grace as must come 
 from God, in order to render the speaker effective. 
 
 Accordingly, if it should seem to be granted that in some 
 particulars the same sentiments are expressed by the Greeks 
 and by the Christians” (which was what Celsus had as- 
 serted), “still their effect would not be the same; so as to 
 lead and dispose men’s souls to the same ends.” * Once more, 
 in another of his works, “ He who is not aware of his own 
 weakness, and of the divine grace, not having proved himself, 
 nor condemned himself; such an one, even if he should receive 
 the blessing, will suppose that the virtue vouchsafed him from 
 the heavenly grace is, in fact, his own. And this supposition, 
 puffing him up, will be the cause of a fall... .. Know 
 then that divine things are hidden from the wise and prudent, 
 that, as the Apostle says, no flesh may glory before God ; and 
 they are revealed unto babes, who have advanced beyond 
 their infancy, and are mindful that they have arrived at the 
 point of blessedness they have reached, not so much through 
 any power of their own, as through the unspeakable good- 
 will of God.’ * And again, in the same treatise, “So that 
 neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, 
 but God that giveth the increase. And we could not say 
 with reverence that an abundant harvest is the domg of him 
 who plougheth, or of him who watereth ; but must confess it 
 to be the work of God. And in like manner therefore our 
 perfection is not brought about, whilst we are ourselves alto- 
 gether inactive, neither again is it consummated by our- 
 selves; but God works out the chief part of it.”® And 
 again, in another of his treatises, that on prayer, “If no one 
 knows the things of God, save the Spirit of God, it is impos- 
 sible for man to know the things of God. And yet learn 
 how this impossibility is rendered possible; ‘now we have 
 
 1 Origen, Contra Celsum, II. § 48. 4 De Principiis, III. ¢. i. § 12. 
 21 Cor. ii. 4. 5s 18. 
 ® Contra Celsum, VI. § 2. 
 
49 4 ON THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE GRACE. [Sentes II. 
 
 received not the spirit of the world, says the Scripture, ‘ but 
 the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things 
 that are freely given to us of God.’”?* And once more in 
 the same, “‘I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with 
 the understanding also; I will sing with the Spirit, and I 
 will sing with the understanding also.’’ For our understand- 
 ing cannot pray, unless the Spirit precede it in prayer, and do 
 so, as ib were, within hearing of it.” ° 
 
 ' 1 Cor. ii. 12; Origen, De Oratione, 21 Cor. xiv. 15. 
 Selle 3 De Oratione, § 2. 
 
Lect. XIV.] THE FATHERS OPPOSED TO THE CALVINISTS 495 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 The testimony of the Fathers opposed to the Calvinistic scheme of interpretation, 
 3°. On the nature of spiritual influence. The language of the Fathers incom- 
 patible with the Calvinistic doctrine of irresistible grace. 4°. On election and 
 reprobation. What the Fathers understood by the terms, foreknown, elect, 
 predestined, saints. Their exposition of passages of Scripture relating to this 
 subject. Prophecy, according to them, an evidence of the Diyine Foreknow- 
 ledge, yet not so as to control the contingency of events. Tenets akin to the 
 Calvinistic ascribed by Origen to the Valentinians. His exposition of Rom. ix. 
 
 § 3. 
 On the Nature of Spiritual Influence. 
 
 i HAVE already said that the language of the Fathers, how~ 
 ever decisive on the subject of spiritual influence, and de- 
 cisive we have seen it is, nevertheless does not represent that 
 influence as irresistible, but simply as persuasive. There will be 
 no need to enter into much detail upon this point. The free- 
 dom of the will, on which we have found all the Fathers so 
 emphatic, is in itself incompatible with the Calvinistic doc- 
 trine of irresistible grace. Moreover, the terms in which the 
 sentiments of the Fathers on the question before us are con- 
 veyed, as already cited, imply as much.’ Still, if direct evi- 
 dence to this effect be required, it is easy to produce it. Thus 
 Trenzeus: “ It is not the light that fails when people put out 
 their own eyes. But the light remaining as it was, they who 
 have blinded themselves are in darkness through their own fault. 
 Neither does the light force a man to be led by it of necessity, 
 
 1See e. g. those from Tertullian. | culis, c. xv. 
 Deus precepit Spiritum sanctum, ut-| Que est ergo Paracleti administratio 
 pote pro naturse suse bono tenerum et | nisi hc, quod disciplina dirigitur, quod 
 delicatum, tranquillitate, et quiete et | Scripture revelantur, quod intellectus 
 pace tractare, non furore, non bile, non | reformatur, quod ad meliora proficitur ? 
 ira, non dolore inquietare.—De Specta- | —De Virginibus Velandis, c. 1. 
 
496 ON THE NATURE OF SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE, [Series II. 
 
 nor does God constrain him against his will to receive his 
 influence.” Again, “ All which things discover the freedom 
 of man’s will, and the persuasive power of God, who exhorts 
 us to obey him, turns us from unbelief, but still does not 
 force us.”* And he afterwards makes it characteristic of 
 brutes as distinguished from man, “to be dragged to what 
 is good by necessity and force.”* 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus (to name one authority more on the 
 same subject), after insisting on the gift or grace of God being 
 necessary in order to make the Christian perfect, adds, that in 
 imparting this gift, God is regulated by the desire man evinces 
 to obtain it, still, however, having respect to the freedom of 
 the will. “For God does not compel, since force is hateful 
 to God : but he gives to those who seek; supplies those who 
 beg ; and opens to those who knock.” * 
 
 § 4. 
 
 On Election and Reprobation. 
 
 The same reason which rendered it unnecessary to enlarge 
 very much on the last head, renders it equally so to dwell at 
 great length on the doctrine of election and reprobation, as 
 viewed by the Fathers: their unequivocal assertion of the 
 freedom of the will applying alike to this, as to the doctrine 
 of irresistible grace, and compatible with neither. However, 
 as this question has long occupied, and still does occupy, so 
 prominent a position in the field of theological controversy, I 
 will produce a few quotations from the Fathers directly indi- 
 cating their opinion on it. 
 
 Justin Martyr speaks often of “the foreknown” (oi rpoeyvac- 
 pévor), sometimes in the sense of future Christians, “ All the 
 other institutions of Moses I could enumerate, and point them 
 out as types and symbols and declarations of things which 
 
 1 Ovre 7d has eacbevet dia rods | Trenwus, IV. c. xxxix. § 3. 
 €avTois Tuphorrovras: GX’ éxeivov| 2 1V.c. xxxvii. § 8. 
 HevoyTos érroiov kal cor, ot Tupho- 8s 6. 
 Oevres Tapa Thy aitiay Ty €avT@y ev * Ov yap dvayxager 6 Geds, Bia 
 dopacia kadiorayrat, pyre Tov dards | yap €xOpov Ge, aha Tots (nrovor 
 per’ avaykns Sovdaywyowvrds Twa, mopicet, kal Tots airovor Tapexet, 
 HyTe TOU Ocod Brafopevov, ei HH Oedou | Kal Tois Kpovovaw avotyer, — Clem. 
 Tis KaTarxetv avTod thy Téxvnv.— | Alex. Quis dives salvetur, § x. p. 940. 
 
 
 
Lecr. XIV.] AND ON THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION. 497 
 
 were to happen to Christ, of persons who were foreknown as 
 about to believe in him, and of acts which were to be done 
 by Christ himself :’’' sometimes in the sense of good persons 
 who were to be saved ; not, however, because they were A or 
 B, but because they were virtuous: “But that God, the Fa- 
 ther of all things, was to take up Christ to heaven after his 
 resurrection from the dead, and to keep him there till he 
 should have smitten down the evil spirits that hate him, and 
 the number of good und virtuous foreknown to him should 
 be wholly completed, for whose sakes he has not yet brought 
 on the conflagration of the world, learn from the words of the 
 prophet David ;”* “the foreknown”’ here used in the same 
 manner as the “elect” in our Burial Service, in which we 
 pray that God would “shortly accomplish the number of his 
 elect, and hasten his kingdom.” As again Justin also speaks 
 of those respecting whom it was foreknown that they would 
 be wicked, and suffer punishment, “not, however, through any 
 fault of God’s, but through their own fault ;’’* the salvation 
 of the parties foreknown ex preevisis meritis, the condemna- 
 tion ex preevisis delictis. 
 
 Irenzeus is of the same mind. “The Father,” says he, 
 “revealed himself to all, by making his Word visible to all; 
 and the Word again manifested the Father and the Son to 
 all, by being himself seen of all. Wherefore the judgment 
 of God is just towards all, who though they have seen 
 alike do not alike believe.”* And again, “As at the first, by 
 the first man all were brought into bondage by the debt of 
 death, so at the last, by the last man, a/l who had been his 
 disciples from the beginning of time, cleansed and purified 
 from mortality, come to the life of God. For he who washed 
 only the feet of his disciples, sanctified and made clean the 
 whole body. .... For it was not for those only who believed 
 in him in the days of Tiberius Ceesar that Christ came, nor 
 for those only that are now alive, that the Father was making 
 provision, but for all men whatever who from the beginning 
 by virtue in their generations feared and loved God, carried 
 themselves justly and charitably towards their neighbours, and 
 desired to see Christ and to hear his voice.”° Again, 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, Dial. § 42. And see 3 Dial. § 140. 
 also § 70. : 4 Treneus, IV. c. vi. § 5. 
 2 Apol. I. § 45. Sr oem 6 Seley ce 
 K K 
 
4938 VIEWS OF IRENAUS AND TERTULLIAN ([Sentes II. 
 
 Irenzeus finds a type of the dispensation of grace in the pro- 
 ceedings with regard to the fleece of Gideon ; on which only 
 there was dew at first, whilst all the earth besides was dry ; 
 but presently it was so ordered, that the fleece only was dry, 
 and there was dew on all the ground: whereby was signified 
 ina figure, that whilst the chosen people, who once enjoyed 
 the Holy Spirit, were bereaved of it, “the Lord committed it 
 to ‘the Church, imparting it to the whole world.”’ It is 
 remarkable, too, that St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, which 
 has furnished the Calvinist with so many of his arguments for 
 the doctrine of election and reprobation, is actually singled 
 out by Irenzeus as the very ground on which he contends for 
 the doctrine of man’s liberty of choice to do good or evil; 
 and of God’s consequent right to assign him his reward 
 accordingly.? There is, however, one passage in Irenzeus, 
 and I think only one, which might at first sight seem to 
 favour the Calvinistic notion of election. He is combating 
 the idea of the transmigration of souls, which some of the 
 heretics, it seemed, entertained ; and having observed that 
 God is not needy or in difficulties, so as not to be able to 
 supply its proper soul to each body, he continues, “ wherefore 
 when the number which he has of himself predetermined, is 
 completed, all who are put down for life will rise again with 
 their own bodies, their own souls, and their own spirits, the 
 same in which they have pleased God: and they who deserve 
 punishment will depart to it; they, too, having their own 
 bodies, souls, and spirits, the same in which they fell away 
 from the grace of God ; and both the one and the other will 
 cease to beget or to be begotten, to marry or to be given in 
 marriage, in order that the nwmber of mankind measured 
 according to the predestination of God being filled up, may 
 harmonize with the plan of the Father.’* Here, however, 
 we have simply the sentiment expressed by Justin repeated ; 
 namely, that when the number of souls which God has decreed 
 in his seeret counsels to be created or saved, shall have been 
 made up, no more will be produced ; a position perfectly con- 
 sistent with a free offer of salvation to all. 
 
 Tertullian is as explicit on this question as the Fathers 
 
 1 Quem ipsum iterum dedit ecclesia, 450, Ca scevil ase. 
 in omnem terram mittens de coelis Pa- ST. Go xxx § pe 
 racletum.—Treneeus, III. ¢. xvii. § 3. 
 
Lecr. XIV.] ON ELECTION AND PREDESTINATION. 4.99 
 
 before him. Thus, in his treatise “De Cultu Foeminarum,” ? 
 
 the predestined are the future body of Christians. “Ye, too, 
 have had use enough of riches and luxuries; ye gathered 
 fruit enough of the gifts with which ye are endowed, before 
 the doctrines of salvation became known to you. We are 
 they on whom the ends of the world are come. We are 
 they who were destined of God for the last times, before the 
 world was. Therefore by chastening and emasculating the 
 world, so to speak, we are taught of the Lord.” Elsewhere 
 he expresses the Christians by the word “saints ;” “ foeminze 
 sanctee” in his vocabulary being evidently equivalent to 
 Christian women in general, as contrasted with heathen? ; 
 his advice respecting marriage, though addressed to his wife 
 in contemplation of her widowhood, being intended for all 
 Christian women whatever. In his treatise against Marcion,® 
 who disparages the Deity by various arguments drawn from 
 the existence of evil, he says, “God, by now desiring that 
 man should be restored to life, gives proof that he never 
 was appointed unto death; for he would rather have the 
 repentance than the death of the sinner. Wherefore, as God 
 imparted to man a state of life, so did man draw upon him- 
 self a state of death.” “God,” he tells us in the same trea- 
 tise,* “hardened Pharaoh’s heart ; but then he had deserved 
 his ruin to be thus prepared for him, because he had denied 
 God, and repeatedly rejected his messengers.” In a similar 
 spirit he interprets St. Matthew xii. 15. “For this people’s 
 heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and 
 their eyes they have closed ; lest at any time they should see 
 with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should under- 
 stand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should 
 heal them ;” saying,’ “For they had deserved to have their 
 senses which would have ministered to their salvation thus 
 blunted, because they only loved God with their lips, whilst 
 their hearts were far from him.” And in another place of the 
 same tract (for the character of the heresy he was opposing 
 in it causes it to be prolific in passages to my present purpose) 
 he writes, Marcion accuses the Deity of fickleness with respect 
 to persons, rejecting those whom he had approved, and of im- 
 
 1 Tertullian, De Cultu Fominarum, =e Bae 
 Is Gh ab 2 Ad Uxorem, II. ¢. i. 5 Hane enim obtusionem salutariuiun 
 3 Adversus Marcionem, II. ec. viii. sensuum meruerant, ete.—III. e. vi. 
 
 lok’ 2 
 
ATE ([Senzes II. 
 
 500 MEANING OF ELECT AND PREDESTIN 
 providence, approving those whom he had rejected. But 
 replies Tertullian,’ “Saul was chosen when he had not yet 
 despised the prophet Samuel ; and Solomon was rejected, but 
 it was when he had become enslaved to strange women, and 
 to Moabitish and Sidonian idols. What would the Marcionites » 
 have the Creator do to escape their censure? Should he con- 
 demn beforehand for offences hereafter to be committed, those 
 who are at present acting well? Surely it would not be the 
 part of a good God to condemn beforehand those who do not 
 yet deserve condemnation.” And the absolute repugnance to 
 the doctrine of asswrance—a doctrine so intimately connected 
 with that of election and reprobation—which we elsewhere 
 find in him, is a further argument that the passages I have 
 already extracted from him bespeak his mind correctly. De- 
 corating the person, argues Tertullian,” invites the appetite ; 
 produces, therefore, temptation to the party ; should con- 
 sequently be avoided. “ We ought to walk in the fulness of 
 a substantial faith, that we may be secure in a good conscience, 
 hoping that this may continue in us, but not presuming that 
 it will. For he who presumes has the less fear: he who 
 fears little has the less caution: he who has little caution is 
 in the greatest danger. Fear is the foundation of safety ; 
 presumption is the preventive of fear. It is more profitable, 
 therefore, for us to hope that we cannot transgress, than to 
 presume that we cannot.’’ 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus presents himself to us next, and 
 offers the same testimony on this important question, as the 
 other primitive writers who have gone before him. He, too, 
 regards “the elect’ as the whole body of Christians. It had 
 been objected to the Christians that if God had any regard 
 for them he would not expose them, as he did, to persecution 
 and violent death. To this Clemens makes answer, that no 
 
 1 Adlegitur Saul, sed nondum de- 
 spector prophets Samuelis. Rejicitur 
 Salomon, sed jam a mulieribus alienis 
 possessus, et idolis Moabitarum et Sido- 
 niorum mancipatus. Quid faceret Cre- 
 ator, ne a Marcionitis reprehenderetur ? 
 Bene adhue agentes predamnaret jam 
 propter futura delicta? sed Dei boni 
 
 non erat, nondum merentes predam- | 
 
 nare.—Adversus Marcionem, II. ¢. xxiii. 
 * Debemus quidem ita sancte et tota 
 
 
 
 fidei substantia incedere, ut confess et 
 secure simus de conscientia nostra op- 
 tantes perseverare id in nobis, non ta- 
 men presumentes. Nam qui presumit, 
 minus vyeretur, minus preecavet, plus 
 periclitatur. Timor fundamentum sa- 
 lutis est, presumptio impedimentum 
 timoris. Utilius ergo, si speremus non 
 posse delinquere, quam si preessumamus 
 non posse, ete.—De Cultu Feminarum, 
 Te vevai. 
 
Lecr. XIV.} AS UNDERSTOOD BY CLEMENS. 501 
 
 real injury is done them in a removal by a quick migration 
 to God; and moreover, that “unless the Christians were 
 generally looked upon as bad men, all mankind would come 
 to the truth; rush into the right way; and there would be 
 no election at all. Whereas their faith being set as the light 
 of the world, puts infidelity to rebuke.” ' I do not quote the 
 passage for the value of the argument, but for the indication 
 it affords of the meaning of the term “elect.” And accord- 
 ingly these are they whom God is described as foreseeing 
 before their birth ; he knowing what shall be, just as well as 
 what is.? The “predestinate’” Clemens understands in the 
 Same sense ; and actually, in speaking of them, alludes to the 
 Epistle to the Romans as confirming his views, and to the 
 eighth chapter of it; apparently unconscious of any such 
 doctrine being in it as that extracted from it by the Cal- 
 vinist.* “He who positively assumed for our sake a body 
 that could suffer, cannot be indifferent towards us out of 
 apathy or self-indulgence. Surely he cares for all men, as 
 befits one who is himself Lord of all. For he is a Saviour— 
 not a Saviour of some, and no Saviour of others, but he dis- 
 penses his benefits in proportion as every one is prepared for 
 them, both to Greeks and barbarians, to the predestined out 
 of either race, called according to his own time, faithful, elect. 
 Neither can he, who hath called all alike, and assigns peculiar 
 rewards to such as have peculiar faith, be jealous of any.” 
 Elsewhere, in numerous places, he represents salvation as 
 within the reach of all. Thus, having alluded to the 
 reproach levelled against the hypocrites in the text which 
 designates them “a generation of vipers,” he adds, “yet if 
 any even of these serpents is willing to repent, and to follow 
 the Word, he becomes a man of God.”* And in the Peeda- 
 gogue, “ ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
 ness, and all these things shall be added unto you’... . for 
 God hath communicated with our race, imparting to us spon- 
 taneously his own, and supplying his own Word to all man- 
 kind alike, doing all things for all men.’ And in his “ Quis 
 dives salvetur,” he is at pains to vindicate the Deity from 
 being supposed to be exclusive. “I think, then,” says he, “I 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Stromat. IV. § xi. p. S VII. § ii. p. 882. 
 BOO. i 4 Cohortatio ad Greecos, § x. pp. 82, 
 2 VII. § vii. p. 853. 83. © Pedag. Il. c. xii. p. 242. 
 
‘ 
 502 VIEWS OF CYPRIAN INCONSISTENT WITH [Sertes I. 
 
 have redeemed my promise, and have shown that the Saviour 
 has by no means excluded the rich on account of their wealth 
 and ample possessions, nor has fixed any gulf between them 
 and salvation, if only they are able and willing to submit 
 their lives to God’s commandments, and set these before all 
 temporal concerns, and look to the Lord with a steady eye, as 
 men look to the nod of a skilful pilot, marking what he 
 wishes, what he commands, what signal he gives his crew, 
 what port he makes for.”’ But if Clemens thus causes it to 
 appear that he cannot bear God’s mercy to be circumscribed 
 with respect to one class, we must feel satisfied that he would 
 be equally loath to deny it to any other. 
 
 If we compare the several passages of Cyprian which bear 
 on this subject, we shall come to the conclusion that his 
 authority still ranges on the same side. In the epistle which 
 he writes to Cornelius on the affair of Novatus, a paragraph 
 occurs which, taken by itself, might seem to imply the con- 
 trary. “Touching the other brethren, whom to our sorrow 
 he hath circumvented, we are striving to detach them from 
 the side of this impostor, that they may escape the deadly 
 snare of the seducer, and may again return to the Church, 
 from which he justly earned it of God to be expelled ; which 
 persons, we have good hope, with God’s help, and of his 
 mercy, may retrace their steps. For none can perish except 
 him who it is plain must perish, since the Lord says in his 
 Gospel, ‘Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not 
 planted shall be rooted up.’’’? But then Cyprian adds a 
 sentence which qualifies the apparent meaning of the previous 
 words ; “ He who is not planted in the precepts and admoni- 
 tions of. God the Father, and he only, can depart from the 
 Church ;” the apostacy not depending on a decree of God, 
 but on the precepts and admonitions of God never having 
 taken root in the heart of the apostate; and accordingly 
 Cyprian considers that a door was open to the return of all 
 those who had been led astray by the heretic he is speaking 
 of, This view is confirmed by many other places in Cyprian. 
 Thus, in his treatise on Patience, after pressing the signal 
 
 1 Quis dives salvetur, § xxvi. p. 950. | eradicabitur. Qui plantatus non est in 
 
 2 Neque enim potest perire, nisi quem | preeceptis Dei Patris et monitis, solus 
 constat esse periturum, cum Dominus | poterit de ecclesia illa discedere, &¢.— 
 
 in evangelio suo dicat : Omnis plantatio, | Cyprian, Epist. xlix. § 4. . 
 quam non plantavit Pater meus celestis, 
 
Lecr. X1V.] THE CALVINISTIC DOCTRINES OF ELECTION . 503 
 
 example of this virtue yielded by the Saviour, and recounting 
 the several proofs of it which the circumstances of his life, 
 and especially those of his Passion, afforded, he concludes, 
 “ And after all these things, he still receives his murderers, if 
 they turn and come to him; and in his patience, mild and 
 merciful to save, he closes his Church against no one.’’' 
 Again, in an Epistle to Fidus on Infant Baptism, he describes 
 the freedom with which God’s grace is vouchsafed to all with- 
 out respect to persons, in a manner quite inconsistent with a 
 belief in the Calvinistic doctrine of election and reprobation. 
 “ Moreover, holy Scripture teaches us that the Divine gift is 
 assigned in an equal measure to all, whether infants or adults. 
 For Elisha stretched himself on the widow’s dead child in 
 prayer so as to apply hand to hand, face to face, feet to feet. 
 Now if this incident be considered in reference to the bodily 
 size of the parties, the infant cannot be measured against the 
 man. But a Divine and spiritual equality is expressed by it, 
 as though all men, when they have been once made by God, 
 are equal and alike ; any subsequent difference, through the 
 growth of the body, being assignable to nature and not to 
 God. Unless, indeed, the grace which is given in Baptism is 
 to be accounted greater or less, according to the age of the 
 recipient. Whereas the Holy Spirit is not given by measure, 
 but by the pity and indulgence of the Father is given in an 
 equal degree to all. For as God does not accept the person, 
 so neither does he accept the age, but shows himself a Father 
 to all alike, with regard to their acquirement of celestial 
 grace.”? Once more, when speaking of the case of a con- 
 fessor who had afterwards fallen away, he says, “Such a man 
 must not flatter himself on his confession, as though he was 
 elected to the glorious prize, seeing that this very circumstance 
 only rendered him more worthy of punishment. For the 
 Lord elected even Judas amongst the Apostles, and Judas 
 afterwards betrayed the Lord. But the faith and constancy 
 of the Ajstles did not fail, because Judas fell away from. 
 them, a traitor. And so in this case, the sanctity and dignity 
 of the confessors does not take damage, because the faith of 
 
 1 Et post ista omnia, adhue interfec- | siam suam nemini claudit—De Bono 
 tores suos, Si conversi ad eum venerint, | Patientie, § viii. 
 suscipit; et patientia salutari ad con- 2 Epist. lix. § 3. 
 servandum benignus et patiens, eecle- 
 
504 AND FINAL PERSEVERANCE. (Sentes II. 
 
 certain amongst them had been wrecked.’’' The whole argu- 
 ment, both here and as it advances, is inconsistent with the 
 Calvinistic doctrine of election. And finally, in the Epistle 
 to Fortunatus, while at the request of that friend he en- 
 deavours to prepare the minds of the brethren for the perse- 
 cution they might be called upon to encounter, by exhortations 
 taken from Scripture, he reminds them in chapter vii., that 
 being once delivered from the jaws of the devil, and from the 
 snares of the world, they must not relapse, “for that no one 
 who has put his hand to the plough, and looketh back, is fit 
 for the kingdom of God ;” and in chapter viii., that at is only 
 by continuance in the faith that the crown can be won, for 
 that “he that endureth to the end shall be saved:” with 
 much more to the same purpose ; the whole reasoning proceed- 
 ing upon the assumption that no Divine decrees stood in the way 
 of the success of the personal efforts he was recommending. 
 
 Hippolytus discovers his sentiments by the typical meaning 
 he assigns to. the posture of Jesus on the cross, who, by 
 stretching out his arms right and left, invited all who believed 
 to come to him.” 
 
 Origen is perhaps the last man of all the Fathers to whom 
 the Calvinist can appeal with success, whether upon the ques- 
 tion before us, or,on any other which is peculiar to him. So 
 far from the exclusionist, he is almost always the latitudina- 
 rian. Accordingly, in the present case, we find him contend- 
 ing against the doctrine of necessity, and maintaining that 
 Christ “came the Saviour of all men: ” * that “ for the salva- 
 tion of our race he at once gave himself up for the whole 
 world, according as every one could receive him: ”’* nay, that 
 after a succession of existences in which the souls of men will 
 sink or rise according to their behaviour in each preceding 
 stage, all will be saved ; for that as “all enemies are finally to 
 be subjected to him, the salvation of them all is implied, and 
 an ultimate restoration of the lost”’ ; though it should seem 
 to be an abuse of Origen’s liberality to ascribe to #im, as has 
 
 ' De Unitate Ecclesia, §§ xxi. xxii. 3 Origen, Contra Celsum, IV. § 4. 
 _ . Os exreivas tas dylas xeipas €v| * Tov emt cwrnpia rod yévous pov 
 ayio E\Xe Hrdooe Sto mrepvyas|Tavti TO Kdopo abpdos éavrdy dvta 
 deEuav Kai edovupov, mpookadovpevos | Adyov ws éxacros xapei émidedaxéra. 
 mavtas Tovs eis adTov murrevovtas.— | —VIII. § 11. 
 hae De Christo et Antichristo, 5 De Principiis, III. ¢. v. § 7. 
 § Ixi. 
 
Lecr. XIV.) SENTIMENTS OF ORIGEN. 505 
 
 been done, the doctrine that the devil himself is to be in- 
 cluded in this amnesty—a notion which he rejects with 
 abhorrence, as one which even a madman would not enter- 
 tain.' We further discover him maintaining that prophecy, 
 however it may and does prove God’s foreknowledge, has no 
 effect on the event, which would have been just the same, had 
 there been no prophecy or no foreknowledge respecting it ; 
 that accordingly as the Psalm foretold of Judas, “he remem- 
 bered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy 
 man, it was in his own power to have remembered mercy, 
 and it was in his own power to have forborne persecuting 
 him whom he persecuted ; and therefore that his condemna- 
 tion was just: as in like manner the oracle having fore- 
 warned Laius not to sow tbe furrow for children, for that so 
 doing he should be slain by his child, he might have abstained 
 and lived, and therefore that his death was of his own seek- 
 ing.” Again, when commenting on the parable of the sower, 
 he remarks, “ And this same rock is the human soul hardened ~ 
 through neglect, and petrified through wickedness ; for no 
 man’s heart was created stony by God, but it became so 
 through sin.” * Thus the obduracy of the impenitent, accord- 
 ing to Origen, is the effect of culpable negligence on their 
 own part, and not of any Divine decrees. Nay, more, Origen 
 actually ascribes it to the Valentinians, as an heretical opinion 
 which the Church denounced, that some were animal, and 
 some spiritual, some created to be saved, and some created to 
 perish. And what is more yet, he expressly claims St. Paul, 
 as Irenzeus had done before him,’ as an advocate of his own 
 views, even appealing to the ninth chapter of the Epistle to 
 the Romans, and explaining away such passages in it as 
 seem to imply the contrary®; and, indeed, positively im- 
 
 
 
 1 Quidam eorum qui libenter conten- 
 tiones reperiunt, adscribunt nobis et 
 nostre doctrine blasphemiam, super 
 qua ipse viderint, quomodo illud au- 
 diant: Neque ebriosi, neque maledici 
 regnum Dei possidebunt; licet patrem 
 malitize et perditionis eorum qui de reg- 
 no Dei ejicientur, dicant posse salvari, 
 quod ne mente quidem quis captus di- 
 cere potest.—Epistola ad Amicos Alex- 
 andrinos, vol. 1. p. 5. 
 
 2 Contra Celsum, IT. § 20. 
 
 3 De Principiis, III. c. i. § 14. 
 
 4"Eotrw 8 €rt Kat tpirov yévos 
 Tav dvopatéyT@y WuxiKous Tivas, Kal 
 mvevpatikows €Tepous* ofa & avrov 
 Aéyew tors amd Ovadevrivov. Kai 
 Ti TovUTO mpos nuas, Tos amd THs 
 exkAnolas, KaTnyopovytas Tay eica- 
 yovrav puoers €k KaTac Kes owo- 
 pévas, 7) eK KaTacKeuns amo\AupeEvas ; 
 —Contra Celsum, V. § 61. Compare 
 De Principiis, If. ¢. ix. § 5. 
 
 5 See p. 498. 
 
 6 De Principiis, III. c. i. §§ 6, 7. 18. 
 | 20. 
 
 
 
506 HIS INTERPRETATION OF ROMANS IX. (Serres Tk: 
 
 puting what would be now called the Calvinistic interpreta- 
 tion of it, to the heterodox or heretics.’ And the meaning, 
 which he thus assigns to this chapter, he confirms in his com- 
 mentary on the Epistle to the Romans, which was of a date 
 subsequent to the “De Principiis ;” and there refers his 
 readers to what he had said on the former occasion” ; so that 
 nothing can be more deliberate in this instance, at least, than 
 his conclusions. Indeed, it may be added that this chapter 
 of St. Paul, on which so much of the Predestinarian contro- 
 versy is now made to rest, was never expounded by the 
 Fathers for nearly four centuries with any direct reference to 
 it. It is true that Origen* is not content with neutralizing 
 Romans ix. 21, “ Hath not the potter power over the clay, to 
 make one. vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour ? ”’ 
 by comparing it with 2 Tim. ii. 21, “If a man purge him- 
 self from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour,” but pro- 
 ceeds to vindicate the justice of God by the theory (to which 
 I have already alluded) that souls have pre-existed in other 
 estates of being, and have been ushered by him into a suc- 
 ceeding estate, as vessels unto honour, or vessels unto dishonour, 
 according to their own conduct in their previous scene of trial ; 
 still, a forced theory like this, only shows how repugnant to the 
 Primitive Church the doctrines of fatalism were. Nor is it a 
 less striking proof of the same fact, that Origen,’ in his com- 
 ment on such a text as Genesis i. 14, should think it necessary 
 to argue at very great length, that God has given no dominant 
 influence to the planets, and that mankind are under no 
 mechanical constraint. 
 
 1’ ApEopcOa roivyy amd tay tmept | * Comment.in Roman. vol. iv. p. 614. 
 Tou Papaw cipnmeveov os okAnpuvo- |  * Observandum 4°. Nonum caput ad 
 Hévou tmd Oeov, iva py) eLamorreihy | Romanos, quod nune fundus videtur to- 
 Tov adv? @ owveberarhirerat dpa | tius doctrine de predestinatione et re- 
 TO droaroNuxdv" ap ovv ov Oédet 6 | probatione, non fuisse per quatuor pene 
 cds eheet’ dv Se Oeher oKAnpvver. | srecula ita expositum a SS. Patribus, ut 
 
 Kat émixp@vrat rovros tay érepo- | ad hoc argumentum directe pertineret. 
 
 
 
 ddfov twes, cxeddov kai adroit rd | —Bishop Pearson, Minor Theological 
 avreEovawoy avaipovrtes, dua TO Piaes | Works, vol. i. p. 251. 
 
 clodyew drrohupevas, diver WeKTous * Origen, De Principiis, III. ¢. i. 
 TOU racer Gat, Kal érépas ow Copevas, § 20. 
 
 dduvatas exovoas mpos TO aTroheo Oat, 5 Comment. in Genes, vol. ii. p. 3. 
 
 K.T.A—S 8. | 
 
Lecr. XV.] VALUE OF A KNOWLEDGE OF THE FATHERS 507 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 Use of the Fathers in unfolding the meaning of Scripture: IIT. Prevailing mis- 
 take of applying a modern standard of interpretation to passages which should 
 be explained by reference to an ancient one. The information which the Fa- 
 thers give on early heresies the true key to much of the New Testament. The 
 method of Dr. Hammond substantially correct. Succession ‘of heresies. Ob- 
 servation of Tertullian. Tlustration of it from the writings of St. John. St. 
 Paul explained with reference to the Gnostic heresy by Ivenreus. Application 
 of the same method by Tertullian. Further allusions to the doctrines and 
 phraseology of the Gnostics discoverable in the Apostolical Epistles. IV. In- 
 terpretation of individual texts by the Fathers. Their comments not always 
 to be relied on; yet often superior to those of modern days. Illustrations. 
 
 IUDs 
 
 HERE is another bias which affects the general interpre- 
 * tation of Scripture perhaps as much as the Socinian or the 
 Calvinistic does; and that is, a disposition to regulate the 
 meaning of Scripture by a modern. rather than an ancient 
 standard ; to contemplate it from a late rather than an early 
 position ; and refer it to events of a contemporary rather than 
 a primitive period—a bias the more to be provided against, 
 because it suits the indolent; is easy and natural; re- 
 quires little or no reading, study or penetration to follow : 
 and accordingly it has made itself felt on the theology of the 
 day, and especially on our Scripture commentators, with dis- 
 astrous effect. 
 
 The Fathers prove of eminent use as guides to the interpre- 
 tation of Scripture by moderating this principle: and this 
 they do, as in other ways which I have noticed, so by furnish- 
 ing us with accurate information concerning the heresies which 
 prevailed in the Sub-Apostolic, and even the Apostolic times ; 
 that information supplying the true key to much of the New 
 Testament. I have already touched from time to time on 
 probable conclusions which such knowledge enables us to draw 
 incidentally with respect to questions of great importance both 
 ecclesiastical and religious ; though I might have done so to a 
 
508 TO THE EXPOSITOR OF SCRIPTURE. (Serres IT. 
 
 much greater extent: as, that the Episcopal form of Church 
 government was that sanctioned by Scripture, since even the 
 heretics adopted it, only in their case futile, because wanting 
 the succession’: that the doctrine of the Trinity was scrip- 
 tural, even Simon Magus, so primitive a heretic, caricaturing it 
 in his crazy system”: that the Sacrament of Baptism was ac- 
 cording to Scripture a mystery of the highest virtue, seeing 
 that the heretics had their Initiation corresponding to it, their 
 Redemptio or aTONUTPwOLS, as they called it,? and which, as 
 some of them pretended, gave exemption from natural death‘: 
 that the Sacrament of the Eucharist was, according to Serip- 
 ture, sanctified by the peculiar presence of God ; even the here- 
 tics representing that Charis of their Pleroma dropped her 
 blood into the cup, and imparted herself in it to her worship- 
 pers®: that faith and the Cross enter largely into the scheme 
 of Scripture, since even the heretics must have amongst their 
 fons riotis and oravpos®: that the miraculous Conception must 
 have been an acknowledged and well-known Scripture doctrine, 
 since the same parties, instead of denying the fact, taught that 
 Jesus passed through Mary as water through a tube.’ But, be- 
 sides these broader features of revelation, which the heresies of 
 primitive times serve to illustrate, confirm and fix ; they further 
 act as exponents of many of the more obscure parts of holy Writ, 
 and particularly of many passages in the Gospel of St. John, 
 and in the Epistles whether of him or of other of the Apos- 
 tles, passages which require the most delicate investigation, 
 and often experience the most trivial. Indeed, Dr. Hammond, 
 you are aware, considered the Gnostic heresy to be the solvent 
 of almost all the difficulties of those portions of Scripture ; 
 as though St. John and St. Paul had it constantly in contem- 
 plation. Here again, as in a former instance, the principle of 
 interpretation may have been occasionally overstrained ; and 
 may have been exercised on texts which possibly were to be 
 explained by some other theory. But our own common sense 
 must tell us, that the early heresies of the Church could not 
 fail to enter largely into the views of the Apostles; and that 
 though the question of more or less may admit of debate, the 
 
 iS 
 
 1 Treneus, V.c.xx.§ 1. Tertullian, #1. c xxi. § 5. 
 De Prescriptione Hereticorum, c. xxxii. Sic. xalitsg 2. 
 ? Treneus, I. ¢. xxiii. § 1, S) c..1..8 26 C5 iln§ D- 
 
 aa iGs SEI, 6 SL eee TG. vil. § 2. 
 
Lecr. XV.] ST. JOUN TO BE INTERPRETED - 509 
 
 substantial fact can admit of none: heresies begun by Simon 
 Magus, the founder, as he is ever represented to. be, of Gnostic 
 doctrines, which prevailed so widely over Christendom!; pur- 
 sued successively by Menander®; Saturninus®; Basilides? ; 
 Carpocrates’; Cerinthus®; the Ebionites’; the Nicolaitans® ; 
 Cerdon®; Marcion”®; Tatian with his “Ey«parets or Conti- 
 nents ''; and consolidated and reduced to a system by Valen- 
 tinus”; against whom, as the champion of the whole, the 
 Fathers level their chief attacks." I have given a short pedi- 
 gree of heresy, in order to show how very soon after the pub- 
 lication of the Gospel, it became active ; and how sure, there- 
 fore, it was to draw to itself the attention of the Apostolic 
 writers. “ Fabulas .... quas Apostoli spiritus, his jam tune 
 pullulantibus seminibus heereticis, damnare preevenit,”’ as Ter- 
 tullian expresses it '*; “Fables which the spirit of the Apostle 
 (for the germs of these heresies were even then beginning to 
 sprout), condemned by anticipation.” 
 
 Thus take the opening of the Gospel of St. John: “In the 
 beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
 the Word was God.” But the Gnostic theory was that the 
 Word was not “in the beginning,” but was an Aon, one of 
 a succession of beings, which originated from Bythus, the 
 primeval God of all—was not “with God,” for according to 
 that, he did not even fully know God—was not “God,” for 
 he was produced by him, and there was a time when he was 
 not ; hence St. John’s repetition of the assertion, “ the same 
 was in the beginning with God.” Again, “ All things were 
 made by him, and without him was not anything made that 
 was made.” But the Gnostic creed was that all things were 
 made by Demiurgus, an Alon far lower in the scale than even 
 the Word. “In him was life.” But Life or Zw in the 
 Gnostic genealogy was the mate of the Word, not itself the 
 Word ; the two being one of the earliest Alonic couples or 
 syzygies. “And the life was the light of men.” But the 
 Gnostic would have the Light to be a substance which Acha- 
 moth attempted to grasp in vain, being hindered by Horus.” 
 
 1 Treneus, I. ¢. xxiii. § 4. | Me, xxviii. § 1. 12 ©, xxxi. § 3. 
 Cty 8 o, xxiv. § 1. 13 TV. Pref. § 2. 
 
 453. 5) Clhoxxy. § 1, 14 Tertullian, Adversus Valentinianos, 
 6 ¢. xxvi. § 1. C. li. 
 
 fy ih Biers: 15 Trenreus, I. ¢. iy. § 1. 
 
 9S 1, 10 5 2, | 
 
510 WITH REFERENCE TO EARLY HERESIES. [Serres IT. 
 
 I simply touch on these features of the Gnostic hypothesis in 
 order to turn your thoughts to a further investigation of the 
 relation between that hypothesis and the Gospel of St. John ; 
 and to apprize you of the quarter to which you must direct 
 your attention in order to develope much of the mystical lan- 
 guage which prevails in the opening of that Gospel. 
 
 Or take the first Epistle of the same Apostle ; and observe 
 how obscure is the following phraseology, when considered 
 without any reference to the peculiar condition of the re- 
 ligious world at the time; and how strongly it shows the 
 need there is for commentators on the Epistles to make 
 themselves acquainted with primitive ecclesiastical history. 
 “Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the 
 Christ ?”' “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son 
 of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.”? “ Whoso- 
 ever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”? — 
 But if we recollect that in the earliest intimations we have 
 of the doctrines of the Gnostics, we find those heretics mak- 
 ing a separation between Jesus and Christ ; affirming the 
 former to be a mere man, the latter to be a superior being 
 which entered him by an illapse at his Baptism, and quitted 
 him before his death ; we may well believe that the same or 
 similar sentiments prevailed even in St. John’s own time, and 
 were probably the sentiments which called forth from him 
 these emphatic declarations of the unity of the Godhead and 
 the Manhood in one Jesus Christ.‘ 
 
 Again, in the Epistles of St. Paul there should seem to be ~ 
 still more allusions to this Gnostic heresy, so amply developed 
 by the Fathers, but of which we at present know nothing ex- 
 cept through them. JIrenzeus constantly speaks in a manner 
 which shows that he entertained no doubt whatever, that St. 
 Paul had the Gnostic in his mind when he offers so many 
 cautions against the search after spurious knowledge. Thus, 
 as one instance out of many. “It is better,’ says Irenzeus, 
 “that men should continue ignorant and unlearned, and yet 
 by reason of charity be near to God, than have the appear- 
 ance of being learned and skilful, and yet be found blas- 
 phemers of their Lord, by fashioning for themselves another 
 God the Father. And therefore Paul exclaimed, ‘knowledge 
 puffeth up, but charity edifieth ;’ not that he would blame a 
 
 1 ** ne E 3 
 1 John ii. 22. 3 iv. 15. Sivas 4 Treneus, IIT. ec. xvi. 
 
Lect. XY.] ST. PAUL TO BE INTERPRETED a 
 
 real knowledge concerning God, for in that case he would be 
 his own accuser ; but that he knew some persons who under a’ 
 pretence of knowledge were puffed up so as to fall from the 
 love of God; and thus to imagine themselves to be perfect, 
 whilst they were introducing an imperfect Demiurgus ; there- 
 fore, the Apostle, with a view to abate their pride about 
 knowledge of this sort, says, ‘knowledge puffeth up, but 
 charity edifieth.’”* I bring forward this passage simply to 
 show, that Irenzeus made no question whatever of St. Paul 
 having the Gnostics in his eye, in many of his observations in 
 his Epistles ; and to prove it is not merely a fancy of mo- 
 dern times that we may find the key to much of the Apostle’s 
 meaning in the sentiments of these heretics. Thus in the 
 first Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul uses the following language,’ 
 “QO Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, - 
 avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of 
 science falsely so called, which some professing have erred 
 concerning the faith.” This is a passage, which amongst 
 others Irenzeus recognises as referring to this Gnostic heresy. 
 
 He adopts the terms of it indeed for the title of his work, as 
 the preface to his fifth book imdicates. “In hoc libro quinto 
 operis universi quod est de traductione et eversione falsd 
 
 cognominate agnitionis.”’ And surely nobody can read the 
 
 strange speculations of the Gnostics, their Pleromas and their 
 Hons, having no foundation in facts, and dethroning both 
 God and Christ, without admitting that they could not be 
 more aptly described than “as profane and vain babblings ;” 
 or remark the antagonistic principles of which their scheme is 
 full, Light and Darkness, God and Matter, a Supreme Deity 
 and a refractory Demiurgus ; without acknowledging that the 
 term avtiecers was descriptive of its character. But if so, 
 
 is it not an affair of great practical importance that the real 
 enemy, against which the Apostle was in the first imstance 
 contending, should be thus unmasked ; and that it should be 
 
 no longer supposed that his argument was meant to encourage 
 in Timothy and his successors a contempt for human learning, 
 as many have imagined, and lead ignorant teachers to shelter 
 their incapacity to instruct under the precepts of an Apostle ? 
 
 . ~ , a 
 1 Treneeus, II. ¢. xxvi. § 1. ? “Avrideces Ths Wevdavipov yvo- 
 oews.—] Tim. vi. 20, 21. 
 
512 WITH REFERENCE TO EARLY HERESIES. (Senies Il. 
 
 Again, in the Epistle to Titus,’ St. Paul cautions him to 
 “avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, 
 and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable,” says 
 he, “and vain. A man that is an heretic,” he then proceeds, 
 “after the first and second admonition, reject:” as though 
 there was some connection between the former and the latter 
 clause: between the “foolish questions and genealogies’ and 
 “heresy ;”’ which there would be, if by these foolish questions 
 and genealogies we understand the Gnostic doctrines and the 
 genealovies of the Afons, which form so prominent a feature of 
 that school; for the Apostle could scarcely condemn any 
 attention that might be paid to Jewish genealogies ; in which 
 sense some have understood the passage, when two of the 
 Gospels have been careful to preserve such, and when St. Paul 
 himself appears to have been anxious in his preaching to 
 establish the descent of Jesus Christ from David and from 
 Abraham.’ The “contentions and strivings about the law” 
 therefore which succeed to the “foolish questions and genea- 
 logies,” may be very well supposed, consistently with the 
 view I am now taking of this passage of St. Paul, to be those 
 fables about successive emanations from God of which the 
 Jewish Cabbala was full, and which fraternized with the 
 dreams of the Gnostics. At any rate interpreters of St. Paul 
 should be perfectly aware of these things, whatever weight 
 they may attach to them; and not come to their work, the 
 most difficult work of explaining these Epistles, and one which 
 requires every help that can be found, unacquainted with any 
 times but their own, and unimbued with any spirit but that 
 of their own day. 
 
 Again, what can. be the meaning, it may be asked, of St. 
 Paul’s saying to Timothy,* “And their word will eat as doth 
 a canker, of whom is Hymenzeus and Philetus; who con- 
 cerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is 
 past already: and overthrow the faith of some?” Possibly 
 this passage also is to be explained by taking into account a 
 tenet of the Gnostics, some of whom made a resurrection to be 
 Syhonymous with Baptism as administered by them, when 
 
 A Dats ao sel 0: Burton’s Bampton Lectures, p. 114. 
 22'Tim. ii. 8; Acts xiii. 23; Rom. i. BY Miampalesveelse 
 3; ix. 5; Heb. vii. 18, 14. See Dr. 
 
Ticr. XV.] APPLICATION OF THIS METHOD 51s 
 
 raised up from their previous state of ignorance, the parties 
 who submitted to it became filled with knowledge, and in a 
 certain sense died no more.’ Indeed, Tertullian expressly 
 affirms that St. Paul is contemplating a tenet of the Valen- 
 tinians when he uses these expressions, as he is contemplating 
 extravagancies of other sects of the Gnostic heretics when he 
 uses other peculiar terms elsewhere. The whole paragraph is 
 curious as proving even more conspicuously than the one I 
 have just quoted from Irenzeus, that the early Fathers 
 regarded, as I have said, these primitive heresies, as the true 
 key to much of the writings of the Apostles. It will be 
 observed, it glances at some portions of those writings, which 
 have already furnished me with examples. “Paul in his 
 Epistle to the Corinthians,” says Tertullian, “takes note of 
 those who denied or doubted a resurrection; an opinion 
 proper to the Sadducees: Marcion, Apelles and Valentinus 
 adopted it in part, and such other persons as dispute the 
 resurrection of the flesh. In writing to the Galatians he 
 inveighs against the observers of cirewmcision and the law: 
 this is the heresy of Hebion. To Timothy he complains of 
 those who forbid marriage: Marcion and Apelles his follower, 
 held this tenet. He also touches those who said, that the 
 resurrection is already past ; such was the assertion of the 
 Valentinians. Moreover, when he speaks of endless genea- 
 logies, Valentinus falls under his reprimand ; whose Aon of 
 some new name or other, and indeed several names, generates 
 of his own Charis, Sense and Truth; these beget the Word 
 and Life; they, Man and the Church: and such is the 
 Ogdoad of ons. Thence proceed ten other ons; and from 
 them twelve more, of strange names to make up the fable of 
 thirty Afons. The same Apostle, when he rebukes those 
 who are in bondage to the elements, points to a notion of 
 Hermogenes, who holds that matter was not created, and 
 compares it to God who was not created; and thus making 
 as he does a goddess of the mother of the elements he 
 may very well do service to her whom he likens unto God. 
 John in the Revelation is ordered to reprove those, who ate 
 things offered to idols and committed fornication : the Nico- 
 laitans of that time are now the heresy of the Cainites. And 
 
 1 Trenewus, I. c. xxiii. § 5. Origen | —Contra Celsum, V. § 22. 
 
 probably alludes to the same parties. 
 
 
 
 i. 
 
514 OF INTERPRETATION BY TERTULLIAN.  (Sentés I. 
 in his Epistle he calls those especially Antichrists, who denied 
 that Christ had come in the flesh, and who did not think that 
 Jesus was the Son of God: the former opinion Marcion held ; 
 the latter Hebion. But the system of sorcery of Simon, 
 which does service to angels, and was itself counted among 
 idolatries, was condemned by the Apostle Peter, in the person 
 of Simon.”! In other places Tertullian expresses the same 
 sentiment no less confidently.. In his “ De Carne Christi,” 
 “When the Holy Spirit by one prophet says, ‘I am God and 
 beside me there is none other, it looks forward to Marcion. 
 When it exclaims in another to the same purport in the same 
 manner, ‘There was no God before me, it hits the genea- 
 logies, as they call them, of the Alons of Valentinus. When, 
 ‘born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
 of man, but of God,’ it replies to Hebion, When, ‘ Whoso- 
 ever shall preach any other Gospel, even if he should be an 
 angel from heaven, let him be accursed,’ it directs its speech 
 to the workings of the evil spirit of Apelles’ virgin Philumene. 
 When, ‘ he who denies that Christ is come in the flesh is anti- 
 christ,’ it affirms the simple absolute quality of his flesh, in 
 the ordinary acceptance of the term flesh, against all who 
 
 cavil at it.” ? 
 
 1 Paulus in prima ad Corinthios notat 
 negatores et dubitatores resurrectionis. 
 Heee opinio propria Sadducseorum ; par- 
 tem ejus usurpat Marcion, et Apelles, 
 et Valentinus, et si qui alii resurrec- 
 tionem carnis infringunt. Et ad Gala- 
 tas scribens, invehitur in observatores 
 et defensores circumcisionis et legis: 
 Hebionis heresis est. Timotheum in- 
 struens, nuptiarum quoque interdictores 
 suggillat: ita instituunt Marcion et 
 Apelles ejus secutor. Aique tangit eos, 
 qui dicerent factam jam resurrectionem : 
 id de se Valentiniani asseverant. Sed 
 et cum genealogias indeterminatas no- 
 minat, Valentinus agnoscitur; apud 
 quem Avon ille nescio qui novi et non 
 unius nominis generat e sua Charite 
 Sensum et Veritatem; et hi eque pro- 
 creant duos, Sermonem et Vitam; de- 
 hinc et isti generant Hominem et Eccle- 
 siam : estque hee prima ogdoas monum. 
 Exinde decem alii, et duodecim reliqui 
 ones miris nominibus oriuntur in me- 
 ram fabulam triginta wonum. Idem 
 Apostolus, cum improbat elementis ser- 
 
 vientes, aliquid Hermogenis ostendit, 
 qui, materiam non natam introducens, 
 Deo non nato eam comparat, et ita ma- 
 trem elementorum deam faciens, potest 
 ei servire quam Deo comparat. Joan- 
 nes yero in Apocalypsi idolothyta eden- 
 tes et stupra committentes jubet casti- 
 gare: sunt et nunc alii Nicolaite, Cai- 
 ana heeresis dicitur. At in epistola eos 
 maxime antichristos vocat, qui Chris- 
 tum negarent in carne yenisse, et qui 
 non putarent Jesum esse Filium Dei: 
 illud Marcion, hoe Hebion vindicavit. 
 Simonianz autem magi disciplina, an- 
 gelis serviens, utique et ipsa inter idolo- 
 latrias deputabatur, et a Petro Apostolo 
 in ipso Simone damnabatur.—Tertul- 
 lian, De Prescriptione Heereticorum, ec. 
 XXXiil. 
 
 2 Ideo etiam Marcionem prospiciens : 
 Ego sum, inquit, Deus, et alius absque 
 me non est. Et cum in alio idipsum’ 
 eodem modo dicit: Ante me Deus non 
 fuit, nescio quas illas Valentinianorum 
 Aonum genealogias pulsat. Et, Non 
 ex sanguine, neque ex carnis et viri 
 
Lect. XV.] ALLUSIONS TO GNOSTIC DOCTRINES 55 
 
 I think these paragraphs clearly prove, that in the opinion 
 of the early Fathers at least, the heresies of their days (which 
 in many of their features were those of the days of the 
 Apostles themselves more fully developed) did impress the 
 writings of the Apostles; that they must accordingly be 
 taken into account by those who would get at the full mean- 
 ing of those writings ; and that to refer them entirely to the 
 events of comparatively modern date, as though no others 
 suited them, is to presume a good deal. Certainly torepor 
 Kalpot, “the last times,’ is a phrase which relates, as it is 
 very well known, to the times which immediately preceded 
 the dissolution of the Jewish commonwealth, the last of that 
 ancient kingdom. And when St. Paul tells Timothy that in 
 those times some should come who would “forbid to marry 
 and command to abstain from meats ;”* and when we have it 
 on record that these two features were characteristic of a 
 school of the Gnostics so early as Irenzeus,? and that the 
 principle which prompted these restrictions was a notion that 
 all matter was radically corrupt, and that the less it was 
 propagated or meddled with the better ; we shall at once see 
 the force of the Apostle’s remark, which immediately follows, 
 viz. “ Every creature of God is good,”’* and the idea which 
 was in his mind at the moment, connecting the former elause 
 with this; his argument taking precisely the same turn as 
 that of Irenzeus, where he says, “the followers of Saturninus 
 and Marcion, or Continents as they are called, preached 
 abstinence from marriage and from animal meats, thus 
 showing themselves ungrateful to God who made all things;”* 
 and we shall feel that there is no need perhaps to go further 
 for the solution of the passage, and that if we do so we 
 may fare worse.° 
 dicunt esse. Multi autem ex iis, qui 
 
 sunt ab eo, et ab animalibus abstinent, 
 per fictam hujusmodi continentiam se- 
 
 voluntate, sed ex Deo natus est, Hebi- 
 oni respondit. Aique, etiamsi angelus 
 de cclo aliter evangelizaverit vobis 
 
 quam nos, anathema sit; ad energema 
 Apelleiace virginis Philumenes filum 
 dirigit. Certe, qui negat Christum in 
 carne yenisse, hic antichristus est; nu- 
 dam et absolutam et simplici nomine 
 nature sue pronuntians carnem, omnes 
 disceptatores ejus ferit—De Carne 
 Christi, ¢. xxiv. 
 
 IS euimienivenlseoe 
 
 2 Nubere autem et generare a Satana 
 
 ducentes multos,—Ireneeus, I. c, xxiv. 
 
 Sime ive 
 
 4 Amo Saropvivov kal Mapkiovos 
 of Kahovpevou’ Eykpareis dyapiay eki= 
 pugay . . kal Trav eyopevav Tap” 
 abrvis eupixov arroxiy clonynoarro 
 dxapiorovvtes TO TavTa TWemouKore 
 Gca. —Irenreus, I. c. xxviii. § 1. 
 
 See Dr. Burton's Bampton Lee- 
 
 Tekin 
 
AND PHRASEOLOGY IN ST. PAUL. [Serus II. 
 
 516 
 
 It is not improbable that the very phraseology of the Apos- 
 tolical Epistles has been tinged by the technical terms of the 
 Gnostic school, and that, accordingly, some acquaintance with 
 those terms is necessary to the full understanding of much of 
 the language of those Epistles. Thus, “That ye may be able 
 to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length, 
 and depth (Ba@os), and height, and to know the love of 
 Christ, which passeth knowledge (yvavai te thy vrepBar- 
 Noveay Tis yvooews ayarnv Tod Xpictov), that ye may be 
 filled with all the fulness of God (eis wav To wANpopa Tod 
 @cod).”' Here Bados akin to Bvbos, yvaats, TANpoOpma, are 
 all of them terms of the most common use in the Gnostic 
 vocabulary: as if the Apostle intended to suggest that the 
 “love of Christ,’ which he was endeavouring to foster in the 
 Ephesians, would impart to them far higher and nobler 
 thoughts than all these heretical mysteries with their Budos 
 or primeval God, their yv@ous, or knowledge, falsely so called, 
 and their wAnpopa, or dwelling-place of their Mons. Or 
 again, these Alons themselves seem to enter into the language 
 of the Apostle, as when he says, “God hath spoken unto us 
 by his Son, by whom also he made the worlds (rovs ai@vas) :” 
 as though he would imply that Christ was the Maker, not — 
 only of the universe, but of the AZons themselves; of all 
 spiritual beings; whether they were, as he expresses it in 
 another place,’ “thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
 powers.” 
 
 Ly? 
 
 I said that, besides developing the spirit in which the early 
 Church interpreted the Old Testament, especially the ritual 
 and prophetical parts of it ; and besides affording a guide to 
 much of the New Testament, by showing the opinions held 
 by the early Church upon many leading questions since made 
 matters of debate ; anda key to much more of it by putting 
 
 tures, notes 60 and 61, and Bishop 
 Pearson, Minor Theological Works, vol. 
 ii. pp. 41-55. Concio IV. on 1 Tim. iv. 
 1. It may be here observed that Bi. 
 shop Pearson, in his Vindiciw, Pt. I. e. 
 vi., understands the avrideos mavovpyia 
 mentioned in some verses quoted by 
 Ireneus from a Senior quidam, I. e. xv. 
 § #, to mean Anti-Christ. He might 
 
 have proved that to be the meaning by 
 a reference to I. c. xiii. § 1, where Mar- 
 cus is called apddpopos tod ’Avrixpio- 
 TOU, as in the passage in question he is 
 called apédpopos avtiféov mavoupyias, 
 Anti-Christ being identified with these 
 early heresies. 
 
 ' Ephes. iii. L8, 19. 
 
 2 iCole ie 0h, 19s 
 
Lect. XV.] USE OF THE FATHERS AS EXPOSITORS. an iy, 
 
 us in possession of the heresies which infested the Church 
 from the most primitive times, to which the Apostles often 
 have an eye; the Fathers were further of use by furnishing 
 many probable expositions of individual texts. I am far 
 from maintaining that their comments are to be received in 
 all instances : the aptness of the comment of course will de- 
 pend in a great measure on the judgment and ability of the 
 particular commentator: but I do say that, owing to the 
 period at which they lived ; following so closely in the wake of 
 the Apostles themselves, as they did; and cast into a social 
 position so similar to that in which the Epistles were written ; 
 there is a freshness and spirit in much of their expositions 
 which distinguish them very greatly from those of more 
 modern days ; and a charm in the absence of all that mani- 
 pulation of the meaning, which texts undergo at the hands of 
 schools of theology in later times. I may not be able, on the 
 spur of the moment, to produce the happiest examples of the 
 interpretation of texts which the Fathers supply ; but such as 
 I may offer will serve to direct the attention to the kind 
 of assistance they often yield us in mastering Scripture. 
 
 Thus, to take a simple case: “ The Lord of that servant 
 shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an 
 hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder 
 (Seyoropyoes avrov).”' The term duvyotoujoes, as applied 
 to the servant who had forfeited his trust, and abused his 
 master’s property in his absence, finds an illustration in Ter- 
 tullian, who speaks of an obsolete Roman law, by which the 
 bankrupt debtor was condemned to be cut asunder by his 
 creditors.” 
 
 Again, John’s caution to the soldiers, “ Do violence to no 
 man, neither accuse any falsely,’ * is shown to be strictly ap- 
 propriate to that class of his hearers, and in keeping with the 
 times, by another phrase which drops from the same Father. 
 He is enumerating the several enemies truth and the Gospel 
 encountered. “As many as are strangers to it,” says he, 
 “are its foes: the Jews indeed naturally out of rivalry ; the 
 soldiers ex concussione,’ a legal term, implying extortion by 
 threats or violence.‘ 
 
 1 Matt. xxiv. 51. tullian, Apol. ¢. iv. 
 
 2 Sed et judicatos retro in partes 3 Luke iii. 14. 
 secari a creditoribus leges erant.—Ter- 4 Tertullian, Apol. c. vii. 
 
518 USE OF THE FATHERS AS EXPOSITORS, (Sentes I. 
 
 Again, “and they sent unto him their disciples with the 
 Herodians,” to put the insidious question to Jesus about 
 the tribute money.’ Tertullian tells us? (though not in re- 
 ference to this text) that the Herodians were persons who 
 believed Herod to be the Christ. If so, the selection of these 
 men by the Pharisees for their malicious errand was peculiarly 
 well suited to the end they had in view. 
 
 Once more, “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that be- 
 lieveth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and 
 greater works than these shall he do ; because I go wnto my 
 Father.’’* Thus the disciples were to do greater works than 
 Jesus himself had done, prodigious as were his miracles. How 
 so? Origen, no doubt, gives the true solution; that the 
 spiritual wonders which the disciples would be able to effect 
 on the souls of mankind, after the Comforter should have come, 
 would exceed in dignity the physical ones of the Saviour him- 
 self. “I would venture to say that, according to the promise 
 of Jesus, the disciples have done greater things than those 
 sensible ones which Jesus did: for the eyes of the blind in 
 soul are constantly opened ; and the ears of those who have 
 been deaf to the accents of virtue, listen eagerly to instruc- 
 tion concerning God and a blessed life with him; and many 
 who were lame in the gait of their ‘inner man,’ as Scripture 
 terms it, now that the Word hath healed them, not only leap, 
 but leap as a stag, an animal hostile to serpents, and superior 
 to all the poison of vipers ; and cured of their former halting, 
 they receive from Jesus authority to trample under their feet 
 —those very feet which were infirm before—the malice of 
 snakes and scorpions, and, in a word, all the power of the 
 enemy, without injury to themselves.” 
 
 Again, “ For this cause ought the woman to have power 
 (or a covering) on her head, because of the angels.” ° Modern 
 interpreters of this text have resorted to various explanations 
 of the term “angels,” in order, apparently, to evade the lite- 
 ral one ; the Romish abuse of worshipping angels having, as it 
 should seem, excited a prejudice against acknowledging their 
 
 ’ Matt. xxii. 16. qui Christum Herodem esse dixerunt. 
 
 ? Pretermitto Phariswos, qui addita- | —De Prescriptione Hereticorum, ec. 
 menta quiedam legi adstruendo a Ju- | xlv. 
 deis divisi sunt: unde etiam hoe acei- 3 John xiy. 12. 
 pere ipsum quod habent nomen, digni 4 Origen, Contra Celsum, II. § 48. 
 
 fuerunt: cum hie etiam Herodianos, 5 | Cor. xi. 10. 
 
Lect. XV.] A DIFFICULTY IN JEWISH HISTORY 519 
 
 reasonable presence about men, and their legitimate offices. But 
 the Fathers in general take the text in its strict sense, for the 
 most part evidently unconscious that it would admit of any 
 other, and regard the angels as invisible partakers in the congre- 
 gations of the faithful’; present at their prayers”; ministers 
 at their Baptism*; witnesses of their marriage *; and, accord- 
 ingly, the admonition in the Marriage Service of the Salisbury 
 Ritual runs thus: “ Dearly beloved, we are gathered together 
 here in the sight of God, of the angels, and all his saints, m 
 the face of the congregation,” &. ; some such form having no 
 doubt existed from the earliest times. 
 
 Take one instance more. Few questions relating to the 
 New Testament history have given rise to more intricate con- 
 troversy than the amount of power left with the Jewish 
 magistrates under the Roman government; whether it ex- 
 tended to the infliction of capital punishment or not. Lard- 
 ner, in his “ Credibility of the Gospel History,” at great length 
 denies it.© Mr. Biscoe, in his “ History of the Acts of the 
 Apostles,” at no less length maintains it.° The texts intro- 
 duced into the discussion are thoroughly conflicting. Thus 
 we read on the one hand of Saul going with letters from the 
 High Priest to Damascus, and on that authority prepared to 
 bring men and women, who were Christians, bound to Jeru- 
 salem: of his “breathing out threatenings and slaughter :”’ 
 of his “persecuting that way unto the death.”* We read 
 of Tertullus saying concerning Paul, “Whom we took, and 
 would have judged according to our law. But the chief cap- 
 tain Lysias came upon us, and with great violence took him 
 out of our hands.”® And we read of the Jews declaring, 
 “We never were in bondage to any man.” '? On the other 
 hand, we have these same Jews, when Pilate bid them “ take 
 Jesus and judge him according to their law,” replying, “it 
 
 1 Treneeus, I. ¢. viii. § 2. Origen, De | felicitatem ejus matrimonii, quod Ke- 
 Oratione, § 31. Theophylact, it is true, | clesia conciliat, et confirmat oblatio, et 
 refers to an opinion of Clemens that | obsignat benedictio, angeli renuntiant, 
 
 they were rovs Ths "ExkAnolas Sikaious, | Pater rato habet ?—Ad Uxorem, II. 
 but he pronounces it to be too refined | ¢. ix. 
 
 a notion. > Lardner, Credibility, Pt. I. Bk. J. 
 2 Angelo adhue orationis adstante.— | ¢c. il. 
 
 Tertullian, De Oratione, ¢. xvi. § Biscoe on the Acts, ch. vi. 
 3% Sed in aqua emundati sub angelo, (Kets, 132% 
 
 Spiritui Sancto preparamur.—De Bap- 8 Acts xxii. 4. 
 
 tismo, ¢. vi. 9 Acts xxiv. 6, 7. 
 
 4 Unde sufticiamus ad enarrandam 10 John viii. 33, 
 
520 SOLVED BY A REMARK OF ORIGEN.  [Sentes II. 
 
 1 
 
 is not lawful for us to put any man to death. The cireum- 
 stances attending the death of Stephen are a practical example 
 of the difficulty of coming to a conclusion on the one side or 
 the other ; some of the incidents seeming to indicate that the 
 proceeding was a legal one ; others, that it was a violent and 
 tumultuous one; and all of them taken together perhaps 
 arguing that it was a mixture of both. And, accordingly, our 
 Church historians are at a loss what view to give of this 
 transaction. Now there is a passage in Origen’s Epistle to 
 Africanus, which I have not seen noticed by any of the dis- 
 putants, that appears to me to furnish a clue to the whole 
 question. In this Epistle, Origen is undertaking a sort of 
 hasty defence (for he professes that he was not at the time in 
 a condition to examine the matter with care) of the genuine- 
 ness of the History of Susanna: and one of the objections to 
 its genuineness urged by his friend being this, “ How could 
 they who were in captivity pass a sentence of death” (for 
 sentence of death was passed on the elders”)? Origen makes 
 answer, “It is no extraordinary thing, when great nations 
 have been conquered, for the victorious sovereign to allow his" 
 captives to make use of their own laws and courts. At this 
 moment,” he then adds, “under the empire of the Romans, to 
 whom the Jews are tributary, we know from our own expe- 
 rience what power the Ethnarch is permitted by Ceesar to 
 exercise over them, so that he differs nothing from their king. 
 And they have their trials according to law by stealth ; and 
 some are even condemned to death: all this not done, to be 
 sure, with perfect boldness ; but still with the connivance of 
 the Emperor. Now this we can speak to with confidence, 
 having been ourselves long living in the country of this people. 
 And yet only two tribes, those of Judah and Benjamin, and 
 perhaps that of Levi, are reported to have come under the rule 
 of the Romans: whereas the Israelites consisted of ten other 
 tribes besides Judah ; and it is probable the Assyrians were 
 satisfied with having them captives, and let them retain their 
 own courts.’ * The Jews, therefore, it should seem from 
 Origen’s account, who speaks like one intimately acquainted 
 with the facts of the case, were and were not in the enjoy- 
 ment of their own laws, and their own tribunals. Their 
 
 _ John xviii. 31, * Origen, Epist. ad Africanum, § 14. 
 * History of Susanna, y. 62. 
 
Lect. XV.] CONCLUSION. 5a 
 
 magistrates acted, but still under sufferance : the Romans at 
 any moment ready to declare their own supreme authority, 
 and suspend their functions. A position like this explains 
 the equivocal language we find used on the subject; as well 
 as the indecent haste with which the Jew sometimes hurried 
 on the consummation of his own decree. And a phrase in 
 Justin confirms the information furnished by Origen. For in 
 his “Dialogue with Trypho,” when applying a reproachful 
 passage of Isaiah to the Jews, against whom that treatise is 
 directed, “ And truly,” says he, “ your hand is lifted up to do 
 evil” (as the prophet had described), “since even when ye 
 had slain Christ, ye do not repent, but hate and mwrder us, 
 who through him believe in the God and Father of the uni- 
 verse, as often as ye receive the power.” * 
 
 Who can deny that authors who enable us to clear up ob- 
 securities of this kind are of great value? or fail to see that it 
 is their early date, and that alone, which very often qualifies 
 them for doing this; and that no substitute or equivalent can 
 be found for that advantage in commentators of modern days, 
 let their sagacity and other accomplshments be what they 
 mnay ? 
 
 1 “Ogadxis av AaByre e€ovoiav.—Justin Martyr, Dial. § 133, 
 

 
PASSAGES 
 
 EXPLAINED OR REFERRED, TO. 
 
 Genesis i. 14 5 
 
 i 20 
 
 ily abe 243) 
 Ted es : 
 126) = 6 
 1. 28 
 
 Xvili. 17 
 
 Kix. 24, i 
 
 xix. 30-38 . 
 xxxvir. 19 
 
 xlix. 10 ‘ 
 Exodus iii. 14 . 
 xvii. 16 : 
 
 Leviticus x. 1-3 . 
 xvi. 13, 14 
 
 Numbers xvi. 
 
 Deuteronomy i. 31 
 
 Ive LO. 4 
 Xxx: U7 -.. 
 Joshuai. 8. 
 
 Judges vi. 37-40. 
 1 Samuel vi. 14 . 
 2 Kings iy. 34, 35 
 
 Job xiv. 4, 5 . 
 
 Psalms ii. 2 . 
 TKS) IB S 
 Tit. 0 =< c 
 xix. 4. : 
 XIX. 5! s ° 
 KIS) * 6 
 Xxil. 9 
 xxii, 14 
 Xxil. 21 ' 
 5 Oahu h : 
 xxvi. 1 5 
 xlv. 2 ‘ 
 li. 5 : 
 lyiii. 3 é 
 Ibeath 6 A 
 Ixxii. 8 A 
 xcix. 1 ; 
 evil. 20 é 
 cix. 1 5 
 cix. 16 ‘ 
 cx. 3 -. ; 
 exv. 3. ° 
 
 Proverbs ii. 5 
 Vili. 22 
 Vill. 23 2 
 
 PAGE 
 
 C . 506 
 - 4384 
 
 pA . 429 
 : . 430 
 130, 400, 430 
 5 4 Uist 
 fs . 130 
 130}, W745 we 
 eo eh 
 
 c - 320 
 ‘ 226 
 130 
 
 231 
 
 ° . 143 
 458 
 
 s 143 
 : - 90 
 212 
 5 Bul 
 
 > 1138 
 - 498 
 
 : g alyal 
 2 - 503 
 c ee eee 
 5 . 397 
 ; - 224 
 387 
 
 5 meee 
 - 230, 387 
 - 362 
 A . 387 
 : 387 
 . - 387 
 387 
 
 387 
 
 a 388 
 . 478, 479 
 0 479 
 388 
 
 226 
 
 - 291 
 
 C - 388 
 : 387 
 505 
 
 c 387 
 : 400 
 ° 460 
 409 
 
 130 
 
 OF 
 
 SCRIPTURE 
 
 Proverbs ix. 1 ° 
 
 nb coal Wie 
 Isaiah i. 22 
 ix. 6 é 
 xiii. 10 
 ade ty 4 
 liii. : 
 lib GG 
 Ibs laeetie 
 
 Ezekiel ii. 8 
 Malachi i. 11 
 
 St. Matthew i. I 
 
 rete 
 a 
 i. 20, 21 
 ii, 11, 12 
 
 : 34, 35, 36 
 
 Dab Hye 
 
 xiii. 31, 32 
 
 xv. 3 
 
 XVic Gia 
 xy. 13 
 Veo « 
 Xvl.0L9) < 
 KV. oe 
 KK) 2) 
 rab PAL A 
 xix. 27 
 XXli. 16. 
 SE. 21. 
 
 KX. 29), 92 
 
 ELI Os 
 xxill, 33 
 xxiv. 14 
 xxiv. 19 
 xxiv. 51 
 XXVi. 28 
 Xxvi.! 
 
 . ae 
 
524 PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE 
 
 St. Matthew xxvii. 52, 53 
 
 xxvili. 20 re é 
 St. Mark i, 1 ' - 
 ii. 26 ; ‘ ° 
 li. 13, 14, 15 ‘ 
 vi. 3 2 . . 
 
 vi. 12, 18 ; ° 
 x14 . . . 
 
 x. 39 rs e ° 
 xvi. 15-18 . c 
 > 4) md bts teas . : 
 St. Luke i.1—4  . : 
 1.5 < - 5 
 ite 4 oe : - 
 vill. 13 . : C 
 Vill Dulewe : 
 ixs0e0 : 5 
 x19 e : - 
 reply 95 : 5 
 xO)” : e 
 =e FY . * 
 xX. 00” i 
 0.2.41 yal Ls : s 
 xxi. 19. . A 
 XXiv. 25 - 5 
 St. John i. 1 A rs 
 ify) : 5 > 
 1.3 : : 
 ry cil : : = 
 1. 13 A - 5 
 1. LY ‘ 2 
 ni. 4 : ; 
 ii. 13, 23 : 
 i. 5 e 
 iv. 7, 46 
 1y.24 . 5 
 Va: fs 
 v. 39 . 
 Vigo : 
 
 vi. 35, 48, 51 . : 
 vi.48 . A c 
 
 vi. 51. 2 
 
 5a rd: rs s c 
 Vie Go i : : 
 VIGO sc c 
 
 vill. 33 . : 
 
 vill. 57 . é : 
 R70) 4 fe 5 : 
 xi.54 . - : 
 Xl, du;100 
 
 >of el be é 5 
 san 10) 
 
 xiv..6 g 
 XIV-0L2) os , 
 
 xvi. 12 
 
 xvi. 13 
 
 xvi. 14 
 
 . 860, 
 
 . 898, 509 
 
 PAGE 
 . 370 
 
 113, 
 
 434 
 360 
 185 
 B24 
 361 
 B24 
 440 
 191 
 B24 
 298 
 
 53, 54 
 
 360 
 
 aol 
 - 505 
 
 361 
 504 
 324 
 485 
 298 
 B24 
 
 . 486 
 
 B01 
 
 14, 15 
 
 463, 
 
 392 
 509 
 509 
 
 509 
 
 456 
 464 
 147 
 456 
 469 
 
 . O19 
 Felis. 
 
 114, 
 
 371 
 189 
 236 
 360 
 497 
 149 
 
 . 492, 518 
 
 . 
 
 491 
 
 . 398 
 
 371 
 
 St. John xvi. 33 
 xviii. 31 . 
 XXL 20 
 
 U7 . - 
 Iv. 24 « - 
 v. 16 . 5 
 vi. A - 
 vi. 6 ° : 
 v1. 8 - a 
 vii. 55 z 
 vili.6 - 
 Ville 75.56 & 
 viii. 20 . f: 
 ix: l52)* - 
 1X /G=0) 6 5 
 Xo 5 ‘ 
 x. 10-12 - 
 x. 46 6 5 
 M520 te 
 Xie cus A 
 xy. 2-4 . 4 
 KVseo) ve = 
 XVi9 = 
 XvilenG) ve 3 
 Xvili. 9 . 5 
 bab-65 0) og A 
 Kiko ler A 
 xix, US . 
 KK 4 — oy) 
 
 DO.ce ILA ; 
 RO ae 7 
 oe) Ue: 
 
 xx. 35 a 
 xxi. 13 5 
 Othe on : 
 56.ori ey IAL : 
 
 xxvii. 23, 24 . 
 
 Xxvil. 38 C 
 Xxviil. 5 
 xxviii. 16 : 
 Romans i. 3 - 
 Vili. 15-23 : 
 Vil. 2D) “ 
 vibe fs} F ‘ 
 ao we 
 1 Corinthians i, 24 
 re 27 C 
 li. 4 5 5 
 n. 6 : é 
 n. 12 : 
 ili. 2 
 ili. 7 
 v. 4 
 y. 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 211 
 
 e 520 
 ae 
 . 829 
 .  « BF 
 : 363 
 : 325 
 ; 330 
 . \ euday 
 +, Neon 
 ‘ 327 
 5 827 
 a eee 
 + AOE 
 ia 
 ; 327 
 <<} ieee 
 3h ane 
 . «825 
 cf eon 
 aie 
 . eaeed 
 =) te 200 
 . anes 
 cup ces 
 4) eee 
 wi ae BRB 
 ; 325 
 : Ty aS 
 ; 291 
 254, 335 
 
 : 335 
 . 335, 875 
 shoe 
 : 192 
 z 519 
 . 827 
 
 . sess 
 .  « 256 
 : 327 
 185 
 
 : 298 
 : 232 
 : 512 
 . ae 
 ; 381 
 375, 379, 512 
 ; 506 
 etre lb 
 ee: 
 . 493 
 if bea 
 494 
 
 93, 147 
 493 
 374 
 
. EXPLAINED OR REFERRED TO. 525 
 
 ; PAGE PAGE 
 
 1 Corinthians v.9, LO . ‘ - 199 | 1 Timothy iy. 4 2 515 
 Ties | 4 284..808 Vi 1, 12s gee ae et ee 
 Vio a Glas ‘ 6 A . 308 Verl Shae A - 5 . 391 
 vii. era x. tak e808: Vi 28) 00 = mes Oa ary 
 “Fie SOE ear 110) Vit, 20 DALI eave = ee pi 
 wa I2s4Sh 5 % 1 40 284 | 2 mothy aoe ema aye 5a 
 PPA ow eA Go we ~asb onS iO. 4p Re ee 2299 
 tS ae ante nee 7 ii 17,1 ee 512, 513 
 vi. 29 . 6 - c . 154 i, 2) . 506 
 ypthe Ih A 2 ' 5 tl ly. 6 ‘ Ys é 2 939 
 x. 9 5 ° ° . - Soll) | Ditus 105 910m he ‘ ; . 512 
 
 XI LOL es . * A - 518 Philemon 10 : - . 3d0 
 xiv. 15 . 5 ~ “ - 494 | Hebrews i, 2 : 2 5 . 858 
 
 X1V. 5 . . . 5, O2, v. 4, 5, 6 : 4 5 . 443 
 XV vs 3 ° 5 - 422 ily Ie Oe A : - 259, 260 
 xv.12 ., : - : 7 O's Vin One - > : . 359 
 ey oO ee te a ee ae Vi 5 ca” See geannen 
 VEOO! ve ° : ° ss llral vin 20 ° 5 4 . 356 
 yi tg Se a ee VPN 2T sai sah ead Mapetaes 
 2 Corinthians ii.15  . : . 460 Vilaplos el Aon ee ;: . 512 
 HS: Thee; ey. Ok eo TNO AG heeds OR SST 
 Galatians i. 8 5 5 A SONA: of ie : - : = 056 
 Ve, 35191 - : = oles xi26) |: 5 2 - 420 
 he OLE : A 5 ls} | XI owo 5 ; . - 356 
 Vie i : 2 5 3 bs |S ePeteriiie ds 40. ‘ A a Bay 
 aly I) A 4 3 . 518 nobel 2 . 5 - 90 
 Ephesiansi.1 : 4 . 805 | 2 Peteri.4. : . é . 437 
 rls ieee 2 < 5 . 393 1.19 : > = ° - 349 
 iii. 18, 19 - ; 5 5 Gy | doers pil - 5 - . 460 
 vb PL ; - A 5 a0 mes) 5 ; : . 469 
 iv. 6 ; . - , . 394 Tip22.” Fe * 5 5 - 510 
 iv. 380 . : 5 4 . 490 by eA 5 > : . 381 
 Philippians i1.12-18 . . 234, 235 Val oan te . . . - 514 
 me I) A > - - . 250 ivepliou es 5 - = . 510 
 Th OP) ee A 5 9 . 232 Wop! : : 5 . - 510 
 Colossians i.16,17 . 5 . 516 Vv. 7 5 . Sl, 372, 375, n. 
 iv. 6 A . “ : - 90 | Jude 3 . “ - 5 . 178 
 rhyey U3) ; 3 3 . 354 | Revelation ii. 1, 8. 5 ool 
 2 Thessalonians li, 2 . 3 . 351 Tipe Ome 5 4 “ - 191 
 is ulis 3 > a . 351 re Web y= 4 - 2 Ds 
 1 Timothyi.4 . 5 . 184, 513 iv.4 . - ° ° - 337 
 ii. 9 3 : 5 5 . 247 VieOe Xe 4 : ; .- 191 
 Heth | F r - ; - 266 Vile : 5 - . 347 
 IL P ; : . 330 xO) ts 5 . 5 - 461 
 MiG) 5 5 5 Siiby ie ai Itsy 5 4 74, 85, 365 
 vaste cay ave A , Bay! fs) Xvili. 5 . A < . . 381 
 
 inet © oc : - - . 513 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Anaarvus, King of Edessa, the spurious 
 letter of, 230. 
 
 Absolution, language of Cyprian on, 
 115; how often, and on what terms 
 conceded, 262. 
 
 Acts of Cyrenius, 48; of Pilate, ibid, 
 
 Acts of Peter, 51, 54, 56: 
 
 Acts of the Apostles, testimony of the 
 Fathers to the Canonical authority 
 of the, 8347; the substance the same 
 in their time as it is now, 362. 
 
 Alexandria, condition of Christianity 
 at, 229; influence of its schools, ibid. 
 
 Allegory, the use of, objected against 
 the Fathers by Daille, 169 ; unques- 
 tionably a prominent feature in primi- 
 tive theology, 170; Origen the first 
 of the Fathers who refines away the 
 fact in it, 172; observation of Dr. 
 Waterland, 174. 
 
 Altar, use of the word by Origen, 191; 
 by Irenreus, 450 ; by Tertullian, 455 ; 
 by Cyprian, 463. ° 
 
 avaroAn, a name of ‘Christ, 458, 
 
 Andrew, St., 231. : 
 
 Angels, worship of* the, not favoured 
 by the Fathers, 69, 75, 84,97; be- 
 lieved by them to be present in 
 Christian congregations, 519. 
 
 Anicetus, tolerated the observance of 
 Easter at an uncanonical time, 156. 
 
 Antichrist, conjecture with respect to 
 the name of, 74, 85; inconsistency 
 of Tertullian respecting, 155. 
 
 Antiquity; the English’ Reformation 
 characterized by reverence for, 4,15; 
 causes acting to the disparagement 
 of, 15-19; its value maintained by 
 Dr. Waterland, 178, 179 ; subjects on 
 which the Chureh of England ap- 
 peals toit, 180,181; jealousy of refer- 
 ence to it explained, 213, 214. 
 
 Antoninus Pius confirmed the edict of 
 Hadrian, 277, 282. 
 
 Arians, the, made use of unguarded 
 expressions of the Fathers, 131. 
 
 Aristides, addressed his Apology to 
 Hadrian, 281, 
 
 Aristobulus, a commentator on the 
 
 books of Moses, quoted by Clemens, 
 49, 172. 
 
 Arms, the profession of, why objected 
 to by Tertullian, 204, 205, 
 
 Articles, the thirty-nine, correspond 
 with the writings of the Primitive 
 Church, 5. 
 
 Article, the sixth, does not exclude the 
 appeal to antiquity, 178, 346. 
 
 Assurance, the language of Tertullian 
 is repugnant to the Calvinistic doc- 
 trine of, 500, 501. 
 
 Athenagoras replies to the charge of 
 atheism, 44; a passage of his the 
 counterpart of one in Justin, 70; 
 disallowed second marriages, 195; 
 to whom his treatise on the resur- 
 rection was addressed, 248; bears 
 testimony to the activity of persecu- 
 tion in his time, 282; and to the 
 domestic troubles of the Christians, 
 304; his sentiments on the Trinity, 
 402; on the effects of the Fall, 471; 
 on inspiration, 484, 
 
 Atonement, testimony of Barnabas to 
 the, 417, 421; of Clemens Romanus, 
 417; of Ignatius, ibid.; of Justin 
 Martyr, ibid.; of Irensus, 418; of 
 Melito, 419; of Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus, 419-421; of Tertullian, 421, 
 422; of Hippolytus, 422; of Origen, 
 423, 424; of Cyprian, 425. 
 
 Auditores, 259, 441. 
 
 Aurelius, the edict’ of Trajan in force 
 under, 277, 279; several Apologies 
 put forth in the reign of, 282, 292. 
 
 Autographs ofthe Apostles, many un- 
 derstand ‘Tertullian to speak of the, 
 352. 
 
 Baptism, particulars relating to the 
 administration of, 31, 1384; language 
 of the Fathers respecting, 124; 
 must be in the name of the Trinity, 
 398 ; Regeneration in, denied by the 
 Socinians, 427; asserted by Hermas, 
 ibid. ; by Justin Martyr, 428; by 
 Treneus, 428, 429; by Theophilus, 
 429; by Clemens Alexandrinus, 430- 
 
INDEX, 
 
 432; byTertullian,432-436 ; byOrigen, 
 436; by Hippolytus, 437 ; by Cyprian, 
 438,439; the efficacy of it not ascribed 
 to the opus operatum, 440; probation 
 of Candidates, 259, 260, 441; spon- 
 sors required, 260, 440; confessions, 
 promises, and renunciations made in, 
 259, 441, 442; the benefit contingent 
 on the observance of the vow, 442; 
 strictness of the early Church on 
 the obligations of, 443, 444; why the 
 delay of it was recommended by Ter- 
 tullian, 476. 
 
 Baptism, heretical, Cyprian differed 
 from Stephanus on, 38. 
 
 Baptism of Infants, evidence for the, 
 in Clemens Alexandrinus, 29, 440; 
 in Justin Martyr, 71,440; in Cyprian, 
 440 ; in the Apostolical Constitutions, 
 ibid. 
 
 Barbeyrac, Jean, origin of his treatise 
 “on the Morality of the Fathers,” 
 182; took his information at second- 
 hand, 185, 201; not conversant with 
 Justin Martyr or Clemens Alexan- 
 drius, 188, 184; does not allow for 
 circumstances which ought to be con- 
 sidered in reading the Fathers, 185, 
 186,196, 197,201, 213; some of his ob- 
 jections have no relation to morality, 
 186; charges the Fathers with en- 
 couraging the Christians to volunteer 
 martyrdom, ibid.; with disparaging 
 marriage, especially second, 195; with 
 denouncing certain trades, 201; the 
 profession of arms, 203; heathen 
 customs, 205; offices of state, 206 ; 
 regards their morality faulty on self- 
 preservation, 210; imputes to Cle- 
 mens Alexandrinus the justification 
 of idolatry among the Pagans, 211. 
 
 Barnabas, the Epistle of, considered 
 fictitious by Dailleé, 56; defended 
 by Vossius, Hammond, &c., 58; we 
 have most of it both in Greek and 
 Latin, 68 ; contains strong language 
 on the corruption of man, 153 ; is 
 full of allegory, 170, 171; bears tes- 
 timony to the Atonement, 417, 421 ; 
 the effect of the Fall, 470,477; the 
 doctrine of spiritual influence, 482. 
 
 Bartholomew, St., 230, 231, note. 
 
 Basil, remarks on the strength of tra- 
 dition in controlling private specu- 
 lation, 396. 
 
 Beveridge, William, Bishop of St. 
 Asaph, shows that the Articles cor- 
 respond with the writings of the 
 
 527 
 
 Primitive Church, 6; defended and 
 made use of the Fathers, 122. 
 
 Beza, the bias of his Translation Cal- 
 vinistic, 466. 
 
 Bishops, how maintained in the Pri- 
 mitive Church, 250; amount of their 
 salaries, 251 ; their frequent journeys, 
 252, 253; admonished not to be too 
 hasty in excommunicating, 263, 264; 
 their succession in the Church of 
 Rome, 334. See Episcopacy. 
 
 Bull, George, Bishop of St. David's, 
 his method of accounting for the 
 Sibylline verses, 49; defends the 
 Shepherd of Hermas, 58; produced 
 a passage in Irenzeus which refers to 
 the Epistles of Ignatius, 60; dis- 
 cusses a passage in Justin Martyr 
 claimed by the Romanists, 69, 183; 
 upholds the authority of the Primitive 
 Fathers against Petavius, Zuicker, 
 and Sandius, 162, 179; his opinion 
 on the treatise “ De Consummatione 
 Mundi” ascribed to Hippolytus, 438, 
 note; quotes the language of Socrates 
 on sin after Baptism, 443. 
 
 Burial Service, in what sense the word 
 ‘elect’ is used in the, 497. 
 
 Burton, Dr. Edward, his remarks on the 
 various readings in Acts xx. 28, 375; 
 gives instances of loose translation 
 in the Latin version of Irenus, 
 378. 
 
 BuGos, 516. 
 
 Calvin, admired by Philpot, 10; and by 
 Grindal, 13 ; the early Fathers unani- 
 mous against his leading doctrines, 
 466, 469, 471, 479, 481, 495, 503, 
 504, 506. 
 
 Cambridge, the University of, makes the 
 Fathers an element of Theological 
 examination, 4. 
 
 Canon of Scripture, the, a subject of 
 discussion at the early Provincial 
 Councils, 254; use of the Fathers in 
 establishing it, 346-351. 
 
 Casaubon, Isaac, his remark on the 
 English Reformation, 4. j 
 
 Karayyeddo, 235. 
 
 KaTnxnows, 259. 
 
 Catechumens, admission to the class 
 of, 259,441 ; nature of the instruction 
 imparted to, ibid. 
 
 Catholic, Philpot questioned on the 
 meaning of the word, 11. 
 
 Celibacy, vows of, a passage opposed to 
 them in Justin Martyr, 71; another 
 
528 
 
 in Trenmus, 75; origin of them in 
 Tertullian, 82; yet their necessity 
 denied, 84; the Clergy not under 
 them in the time of Origen, 96. 
 
 Celsus, remarks on Origen’s treatise 
 against, 100,411 ; was an Epicurean, 
 240, note; objections of his answered 
 by Origen, 88, et seg., 239, 240, 258, 
 261, 280, 285, 428, 424, 479; some of 
 them have reference to the Divinity 
 of Christ, 410. 
 
 xnpvooe, 235. 
 
 Chalcedon, conduct of Paschasinus at 
 the Council of, 103. 
 
 Cherubim, the, were considered by Ire- 
 neus characteristic of the four Gos- 
 pels, 359, 360. 
 
 Chillingworth, William, effect of Daille’s 
 treatise on, 20. 
 
 Christ, the remembrance of the Cross 
 is precious to all who rightly believe 
 in, 8; how his meaning in saying, 
 “ This is my Body,” is to be ascer- 
 tained, 13, 14; some expressions of 
 the Fathers respecting him liable to 
 misconstruction, 151, 152; they inter- 
 preted the Old Testament with refer- 
 ence to him, 384-386 ; especially the 
 Psalms, 886-388; testimonies to the 
 unity of his Person, 73, 367, 399; to 
 his Divine Nature, 61, 67,89, 129, 131, 
 377-3880, 393-395, 400-405, 410, 
 412; to his Incarnation, 406-408, 
 412. See Atonement. 
 
 Christianity, use of the Fathers in re- 
 lation to the evidences of, 220; their 
 testimony to its wide dispersion in 
 their time, 220-230 ; secret progress 
 of it, 231-233; its disturbing effect 
 on the relations of society instru- 
 mental to its propagation, 234, 235; 
 its progress assisted by the resort 
 of people to the games, 236, 237; 
 a capital offence from the time of 
 Nero downwards, 278; entailed do- 
 mestic troubles on those who pro- 
 fessed it, 301-305; pecuniary losses, 
 306 ; and other embarrassments, 308. 
 
 Church, the Catholic, its peace and 
 unity not broken by difference of 
 customs, 114, 157; definition of it 
 as understood by the Fathers, 330. 
 
 Church, the Primitive, appealed to in 
 the Articles, 5, 6; in the Canons, 7; 
 by Jewel, 8; by Philpot, 10,11; by 
 Grindal, 14; the writings of the 
 early Fathers acquaint us with its 
 doctrines and discipline, 24, 28; 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 adopted the allegorical method of 
 interpreting Scripture, 170, 173; in- 
 sisted on the previous probation of 
 candidates for Baptism, 259; treated 
 the lapse of her members with se- 
 verity, 261; did not easily receive 
 them again, 262; inflicted excom- 
 munication without calculating its 
 effect on her numerical strength, 
 263; used precautions against mer- 
 cenary converts, 265-268; its nature 
 and construction, as represented in 
 the Acts and Epistles filled up by 
 the Fathers, 329; its Creed Trini- 
 tarian, 393, 394, 395. 
 
 Church of England, the, refers her 
 members to the Fathers, 4, 5, 346; 
 explains the principle of her Prayer 
 Book, 4; suggests the method of 
 dealing with the Romanists, 8 ; effect 
 of the Revolution on, 18; occupies 
 the same ground as the Primitive 
 Church on tradition, 78; her dis- 
 cretion in the use of the Fathers, 
 180, 181; concurs with them in their 
 application of the Psalms to Jesus 
 Christ, 388. 
 
 Church of Rome, followeth not the 
 Primitive, 10, 11: a passage of Ivre- 
 nus supposed favourable to the, 
 87, 71; traces of its characteristics 
 and pretensions in Tertullian, 82, 
 83. See Romanist. 
 
 Churches, independence of, claimed by 
 Cyprian, 111. 
 
 Churches, of Ephesus, Smyrna, and 
 Rome, appealed to by Irenzeus, 77, 78. 
 
 Cicero, incident in the life of, 289. 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, a remark of, 20. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, account of his 
 writings, 29, 135, 244, 249; use of 
 them illustrated, 29; profuse in his 
 references, 53; justified in quoting 
 the Apocryphal Gospels, 53-56 ; dis- 
 cussion of four passages supposed 
 favourable to Purgatory, 80; his 
 language opposed to Transubstantia- 
 tion, 81, 147, 454; the germ of future 
 abuses may be traced in his writings, 
 81; some of his peculiarities ac- 
 counted for, 136, 137; charged by 
 Daillé with disingenuousness, 146 ; 
 some passages of his liable to mis- 
 construction, 148 ; instances of con- 
 flicting language, 153; ignorance of 
 Hebrew, 167; excessive use of alle- 
 gory, 172; his doctrinal errors not 
 of a kind to invalidate his testimony, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 175; his language moderate on mar- 
 tyrdom, 187, 188; his justifying 
 heathen idolatry explained, 211, 212; 
 his writings exhibit the state of Chris- 
 tianity at Alexandria, 229; and the 
 activity of persecution there, 283; 
 addressed himself to the upper and 
 educated classes, 244, 249; relates 
 the restoration of a lapsed youth by 
 St. John, 258; mentions precautions 
 taken against mercenary converts, 
 265; advises on domestic troubles 
 arising from the profession of Chris- 
 tianity, 303; alludes to the con- 
 tinuance of miraculous power, 316, 
 317; is not concerned with eccle- 
 Slastical questions, yet intimates the 
 three Orders, 336, 337 ; his testimony 
 to the Canonical books of the New 
 Testament, 51, 52, 347, 351; and to 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews being St. 
 Paul’s, 3855, 356; quotes the genea- 
 logy in St. Matthew and his account 
 of the Conception, 361,369; confirms 
 the received reading in Acts xx. 28, 
 376; his testimony to the doctrine of 
 the Athanasian Creed, 401; to the 
 Atonement, 419-421; toregeneration 
 in Baptism, 430-432; to Infant Bap- 
 tism, 29, 440; to the obligations of 
 Baptism, 441 ; his sentiments on the 
 Eucharist, 81, 452-454, 464; on the 
 freedom of the will, 467, 468; on 
 the corruption of our nature, 152, 
 476; on the doctrine of grace, 29, 
 486-488, 496; his use of the term 
 elect, 500, 501. 
 
 Clemens Romanus writes in the name 
 of the Church of Rome, 37, 161; 
 his Epistle commended by Eusebius, 
 160; describes the extent of St. 
 Paul’s travels, 221; distinguishes 
 between clergy and laity, 252; pro- 
 bably refers to miraculous gifts, 310; 
 intimates three orders, 331; what 
 he meant by emt rod dvdparos tis 
 émuokomns, 344; refers to the Epis- 
 tle to the Hebrews, 355; his inter- 
 pretation of the purple thread, 386 ; 
 his testimony to the Trinity, 393; 
 to the Atonement, 417; applies 
 mpoopopa to the Kucharist, 446 ; 
 held the doctrine of spiritual influ- 
 ence, 482. 
 
 Clergy, how maintained in the Primi- 
 tive Church, 250; their number 
 ereater in proportion to that of the 
 people than at present, 251; were 
 
 529 
 
 devoted exclusively to the work of 
 the ministry, 252. 
 
 Commodus, the reseript of Hadrian 
 acted on in the reign of, 277. 
 
 Communion, the Holy, a set form of 
 service for in the early Church, 31; 
 administered in both kinds, 70, 74, 
 See Eucharist. 
 
 Confession, auricular, evidence against 
 the necessity of, 41-43; germ of it, 
 81. 
 
 Confession, public, a part of the primi- 
 tive discipline, 41-43; proceedings 
 connected with, 262. 
 
 Constitutions, the Apostolical, not men- 
 tioned by Daillé, 26; their date, ibid. ; 
 and use, 267; contain rules concern- 
 ing orphans, 198, 255, 271; sponsors 
 in Baptism, 260; Baptism of infants, 
 440; the duties of a Bishop, 263; 
 the distribution of alms, 267, 268. 
 
 Convocation, abeyance of, 19. 
 
 Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, language 
 of Cyprian towards, 111; speaks mo- 
 derately on absolution, 115 ; his let- 
 ter to Fabius quoted by Eusebius, 
 334. 
 
 Corruption of human nature, the 
 Fathers at variance with themselves 
 on the degree of the, 152, 153, 469, 
 et seqq. 
 
 Councils, General, appealed to by Phil- 
 pot, 11; were subsequent to the early 
 Fathers, 162. 
 
 Councils, not amounting to General, 
 frequent in the early Church, 253. 
 Creed, the Athanasian, compared with 
 the language of the early Fathers, 
 
 397-408. 
 
 Creed, the primitive, given by Tertul- 
 lian, 157, 491; his remarks on, 157, 
 490. 
 
 Creeds, definite, 15 ; the form in which 
 tradition bears witness to doctrine, 79. 
 
 Cross, the use of it in Baptism de- 
 fended by an appeal to the Fathers, 
 7; the early Christians were accused 
 of worshipping it, 44; custom of 
 signing the forehead with, 32; abuse 
 of it, 82. 
 
 Custom and Verity, Grindal’s Dialogue 
 between, 138, 
 
 Custom, distinguished from Apostolical 
 tradition, 113, 114 
 
 Cyprian, use of his letters in modern 
 controversies, 32, 34, 88, 42; his “De 
 Unitate Ecclesis” interpolated, 105 ; 
 other omissions and alterations have 
 
 MM 
 
530 
 
 been corrected, 108; evidence against 
 the Romanists in his writings, 109- 
 119; germ of Romish errors dis- 
 coverable in them, 119-121; alludes 
 to, but does not insist on Infant 
 Communion, 158; his sentiments on 
 martyrdom, 189, 190, 191,193; on 
 patience, 210, 211; his testimony to 
 the progress of Christianity in his 
 time, 226, 228, 280; and to the rank 
 of the Christians, 246; furnishes in- 
 formation on the maintenance of the 
 clergy, 250; and the organization of 
 the early Church, 254; regulates the 
 application of Church funds, 255, 
 266; denounces the buying off per- 
 secution, 256; instances of the ad- 
 ministration of Church discipline by 
 him, 262, 265, 267, 306; records 
 an incident respecting a deserted 
 child, 271; his martyrdom under Va- 
 lerian, 284; circumstances of it, 294- 
 296; details of persecution in his 
 time, 300; visions related by him, 
 820; his testimony on the Apo- 
 stolical succession, 330; on Epis- 
 copacy, 3842; on Baptism in the 
 name of the Trinity, 397; on the 
 doctrine of the Athanasian Creed, 
 ibid.; on the Atonement, 425; on 
 Baptismal Regeneration, 438; on 
 Infant Baptism, 440; his language 
 on the Eucharist, 461-464; he in- 
 sists on fear and reverence in com- 
 ing to it, 465; his views on the free- 
 dom of the will, 469; on the Fall, 
 479; on the necessity of Divine 
 Grace, 491, 492; on the offer of 
 grace and salvation to all, 502; at 
 variance with those of Calvin, 503. 
 
 Daillé, no book has contributed more 
 to depreciate the Fathers than his 
 treatise, on the right use of them, 
 20; its republication, 40; he divides 
 into two heads, 22; i. That the testi- 
 mony of the Fathers is obscure and 
 uncertain, ibid,; exaggerates the 
 paucity of early writings, 22, 23; 
 gives an imperfect account of their 
 contents, 27, 28, 30; represents the 
 Fathers to be of no use in modern 
 controversies, 27, 32, 36, 37; depre- 
 ciates them on the suspicion of for- 
 gery and interpolation, 46; charges 
 them with quoting apocryphal 
 books, 48, 50, 56; account of his 
 argument against the epistles of 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ignatius, 58-65; exaggerates the 
 difficulty of ascertaining the text 
 of the early Fathers, 66; charges 
 the Romanists with mutilation of 
 them, 67, 102; adduces a case of 
 fraud attempted by Paschasinus, 
 103; Cyprian, the first Father against 
 whom the charge is distinctly main- 
 tained, 105, 108; objects that the 
 Fathers are obscure, 127, from their 
 writing before controversies arose, 
 128, 129, 132; from design, 132; from 
 the peculiarity of their style, 137, 140; 
 from the change in the meaning of 
 words, 143; charges them with dis- 
 ingenuousness, 146 ; illogical reason- 
 ing, 150; changes of opinion, 152; 
 confounding the importance of 
 things, 156; questions whether their 
 opinions were those of their 
 Churches, 159; or of the universal 
 Church, 161; ii. That the testimony 
 of the Fathers is not of authority to 
 decide modern controversies, 22, 164; 
 charges them with inaccuracy, 165, 
 166; ignorance of Hebrew, 167; 
 heedless use of allegory, 169; doc- 
 trinal errors, 174; disagreement with 
 each other, 176; contends that 
 neither Romanists nor Protestants 
 acknowledge them as umpires, 178 ; 
 his motives, 58, 87, 102, 123, 142,179. 
 
 Dan, the tribe of, why omitted from the 
 number of the sealed, 347. 
 
 Deacons, called Ministri, 331; men- 
 tioned by Hermas, ibid.; Clemens 
 Romanus, 332; Ignatius, ibid.; 
 Trenseus, 334, 335. 
 
 Decius, aggravated persecution by an 
 edict, 278. 
 
 denou, 97. 
 
 diyorounoer, 517. 
 
 diyapos, 195. 
 
 Dionysius of Corinth, information con- 
 tained in a fragment of, 24. 
 
 Disciplina arcani, germ of the, 81; 
 nature of it as taught by Origen, 91- 
 94; and other early Fathers, 133. 
 
 Dissenters, the outcry against the 
 Fathers joined in by, 123; why the 
 Fathers are distasteful to them, 124, 
 125. 
 
 Dobree, Professor, an ingenious con- 
 jecture of, 308. 
 
 Dodwell, observation of, no the neglect 
 of the early Fathers, 101; under- 
 stands Clemens and Ignatius to 
 speak of miraculous gifts, 311; under- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 stood “ipss authentice literm” of 
 the autographs of the Apostles, 352. 
 
 Domitian, made laws against the 
 Christians, 275. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Fund, its amount con- 
 siderable, 250; applied to the main- 
 tenance of the clergy, ibid.; ex- 
 penses of journeys and of confe- 
 rences, 252-254; relief of orphans, 
 widows, the sick and others, 255, 256. 
 
 Egyptians, the gospel according to, 51, 
 52. 
 
 Election; how understood by Justin 
 Martyr, 496; by Irenseus, 497, 498 ; 
 by Tertullian, 499, 500; by Clemens 
 Alexandrinus, 500, 501; by Cyprian, 
 502, 503; by Origen, 504-506. 
 
 . Eleutherus, Bishop of Rome, Irenzeus 
 was charged with a mission to, 253. 
 
 evrevé, 97. 
 
 Ephesians, the Epistle of St. Paul to 
 the, whether properly so entitled, 354. 
 
 Ephesus, the eighth Canon of the 
 Council of, 39. 
 
 érikAnots, 148, 180, 
 
 *govotos, 250. 
 
 Episcopacy, the primitive form of 
 Church Government, 330-343; the 
 Fathers did not write treatises on it, 
 338, 343; imitated by the heretics, 
 843; nature of the evidence for 
 it, 844; variety of quarters from 
 which it is drawn, ibid. ; language of 
 Hooker on it, 345. 
 
 Eucharist, particulars relating to the 
 celebration of, given by Tertullian, 
 31, 32; spoken of by the early 
 Fathers in terms inconsistent with 
 Transubstantiation, 33-36; 70, 87, 
 88; their language respecting it, 
 125; its ceremonial described by 
 Justin Martyr, 134; invocation of 
 the Holy Ghost on the elements 
 modified by our Church, 180; the 
 term mpoogopa applied to it by Cle- 
 mens Romanus, 446; nature of it as 
 represented by Justin Martyr, 446— 
 448; by Ireneeus, 448-452; by Cle- 
 mens Alexandrinus, 452-454; by 
 Tertullian, 454-457 ; by Hippolytus, 
 4573; by Origen, 458-461; by Cy- 
 prian, 461-464; preparation before 
 it, and consistency of life after, 
 taught by these Fathers, 464, 465. 
 
 evxaptoriay, 97. 
 
 Eusebius, appealed to by Philpot, 11; 
 misrepresented by Daille, 22; a 
 
 wm) 
 
 531 
 
 ss 
 competent witness to the genuine- 
 ness of the Epistles of Ignatius, 65; 
 adopts the Fathers as his authori- 
 ties, 160; quotes writers of the second 
 century bearing testimony to the 
 diffusion of Christianity, 227, 228, 
 231; considered the laws against the 
 Christians to be in force from Nero 
 downwards, 278 ; represents the per- 
 secution in Gaul as a sample of 
 others, 284; records instances of 
 martyrdom, 297; and details of per- 
 secution, 299, 301; bears witness to 
 miraculous powers in the second 
 century, 320; enumerates the-clergy 
 at Rome, 334; intimates that the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews was gene- 
 rally attributed to St. Paul, 358. 
 
 Excommunication, offences against 
 which it was levelled, 262. 
 
 e£opoddynors, 42, 81. 
 
 Exorcism, claimed as existing in the 
 early Church, by Justin, 311; by 
 Ireneus, 312; by Tertullian, 315; 
 by Minucius Felix, 317; by Origen, 
 318; more decidedly than other 
 powers, 323. 
 
 efwrepixav Adyar, 93. 
 
 Expenditure of the early Christians, 
 circumstances which increased the, 
 252-256. 
 
 Extreme Unction, evidence in the early 
 Fathers against, 117, 118. 
 
 Evans, Robert Wilson, remarks of, on 
 a passage in Treneus, 38; on the 
 works of Clemens, 135. 
 
 Faith, Philpot offers to prove his from 
 the Fathers, 12; their unanimity on 
 the fundamental articles of the, 177; 
 their use In maintaining orthodoxy, 
 383; that of the Sub-Apostolic 
 Church Trinitarian, 3938. See Creed. 
 
 Fall of man, sentiments of the Fathers 
 on the, 470-481. 
 
 Fathers, the early, appealed to by our 
 Church, 4-7, 178-181, 346; and by 
 our Reformers, 8—-l4; estimate of 
 them by English Reformed Divines, 
 122, 178, 179; little regarded by the 
 Romanists, 101, 179; and by the 
 later Councils, 101; depreciated by 
 the Puritans, 15; and foreign Re- 
 formers, 20; and why, 15, 123-125, 
 
 Objections of Daille against 
 
 them stated and answered, 22, 27, 
 
 46, 47, 58, 66, 105, 127, 182, 137, 
 
 146, 150, 152, 156, 159, 161, 164, 
 
 MM 2 
 
 
 
532 
 
 165, 167, 169, 174, 176. Principal 
 objections of Barbeyrac against them 
 stated and answered, 186, 195, 201, 
 203, 205, 206, 210, 211. Remarks 
 on the nature of their testimony, 27, 
 28, 128; on their value, 169, 213, 
 214; and on the proper method of 
 studying them, 28, 45, 125, 162. 
 Use of their writings in relation to 
 the evidences of Christianity, 220; 
 their testimony to its wide diffusion, 
 221-230; to its secret progress, 
 231-236; to the rank of the Christians, 
 238-244; to their wealth, 245-256; 
 to their character, 259-263; to their 
 disinterestedness, 264-268; to the 
 extent of persecution, 280-284; to 
 its intensity, 293; to its nature, 301 ; 
 to the continuance of miraculous 
 powers, 310-321: to a Ministry of 
 three Orders and an Episcopal 
 Church, 329-343; to the Canon of 
 Seripture, 346-351; to its substance, 
 359-364; to its text, 365-370, 375— 
 382; their principle of interpreta- 
 tion evangelical not rationalistic, 
 384, 885, 390; their language com- 
 pared with the Athanasian Creed, 
 897-408; their testimony on the 
 Atonement, 417-426; on Baptism, 
 124, 426; on Baptismal Regenera- 
 tion, 427-439; on the Baptism of 
 Infants, 440; on the Eucharist, 
 125, 445-464; on the freedom of 
 the will, 466-469; their language 
 on the degree of human corruption, 
 152, 153, 469-481; on the necessity 
 of Divine grace, 482-494; on the 
 nature of it, 495, 496; on election, 
 496-506 ; interpret the New Testa- 
 ment with reference to early heresies, 
 507; their value as expositors, 517. 
 
 Fathers, the defence of the later, not 
 undertaken in this work, 51, 122, 
 132, 177, 218. 
 
 Feuardentius replaced the five last 
 chapters of Irenzus’ work on here- 
 sies, 108. 
 
 Figures, the bread and the cup in the 
 Eucharist so called, 36, 147, 449, 
 454. 
 
 Firmilianus, language of, towards Ste- 
 phanus, 110, 114; defended by 
 Pearson, 111. 
 
 Freedom of the will, testimony of the 
 Fathers on the, 466-469. 
 
 Friars, mendicant, the language of Ter- 
 tullian not satisfactory to, 84. 
 
 
 
 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Foreknown, who are meant by the, 
 496, 497. 
 
 Games, the public, their effect on the 
 propagation of Christianity, 236, 
 237; revolting details of, 290. 
 
 Genealogies of Christ, the, are referred 
 to by Clemens, 369; and by Origen, 
 370. 
 
 Gibbon, remarks on the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth chapters of his History, 
 220, 273; his unfairness in handling 
 the evidence for the early dispersion 
 of Christianity, 222, 223, 243; insi- 
 nuates that the early Christians were 
 almost all of the lower classes, 238 ; 
 allows that a few were intelligent and 
 wealthy, 241, 242; his acquaintance 
 with the Fathers partial, 247; 
 charges the Christians with receiving 
 into their number abandoned cha- 
 racters, 258; mercenary persons, 
 264; and foundlings, 268 ; misrepre- 
 sents the extent, 274; and the inten- 
 sity of the persecutions, 293; his 
 view of Pliny’s correspondence with 
 Trajan, ibid.; and of the martyrdom 
 of Cyprian, 294; commends the nar- 
 rative of Pontius, 295; endeayours 
 to impair the authority of Eusebius, 
 301; overlooks the disturbing effect 
 of Christianity on the domestic rela- 
 tions, ibid. 
 
 Gideon, the fleece of, how interpreted 
 by Irenzeus, 498. 
 
 Glossa ordinaria, refers to Fathers of 
 a later date, 102. 
 
 yvaors, 80, 136, 516. 
 
 Gnostic, or perfect Christian, described 
 by Clemens Alexandrinus, 184, 188. 
 
 Gnostics, the, appealed to an expression 
 in the primitive Communion Service, 
 30, 31; notices of their tenets and 
 practices, 45, 73, 153, 360, 485, 508, 
 509, 513; Seripture interpreted by 
 the Fathers with reference to them, 
 508-516. 
 
 Godfathers and Godmothers, signifi- 
 cance of the title of, 431. 
 
 Gospel, testimony to its early disper- 
 sion, 220-230; its secret progress 
 illustrated, 231-236. 
 
 Gospels, the apocryphal, are quoted by 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, 50; and why, 
 53. 
 
 Gospels, the Four, are distinguished 
 from apocryphal writings, 51, 52; 
 testimony of Irenzeus to their number, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 76, 347; identity of ours with those 
 of the first centuries, 359-362. 
 
 Grace, the Fathers believed in the doc- 
 trine of, 481-494. 
 
 Grace, irresistible, the statements of 
 the Fathers inconsistent with the 
 Calvinistie doctrine of, 495. 
 
 Griesbach, remarks on his Edition of 
 the New Testament, 375, 376. 
 
 Grindal, Archbishop, passages from his 
 Dialogue of Custom and Verity,13—L5. 
 
 Grotius, remarks of Dr. South on his 
 Annotations, 389, 390; his rational- 
 istic bias, 466. 
 
 Hadrian made no substantial change 
 in Trajan’s law, 277, 279; persecu- 
 tion was active under, 281. 
 
 Hall, Joseph, Bishop of Norwich, popu- 
 larity of his Contemplations, 174. 
 Hammond, Dr. Henry, interprets St. 
 John-and St. Paul with reference to 
 
 the Gnostic heresy, 508. 
 
 Healing, the miraculous gift of, claimed 
 for the early Church by the Fathers, 
 311, 312, 315, 318; more decidedly 
 than other powers, 323. 
 
 Heathen customs, why Tertullian dis- 
 suaded the Christians from, 205. 
 
 Heathens, were ill-informed on the 
 affairs of the Christians, 239. 
 
 Hebrews, whether St. Paul was the 
 author of the Epistle to the, 355-359. 
 
 Hegesippus, information contained in 
 the fragments of, 25. 
 
 Heretics appealed to oral tradition, 30, 
 77; account of them in Tertullian, 
 123, 124; used arts to swell their 
 congregations, 261; adopted the 
 literal as opposed to the allegorical 
 mode of interpretation, 170, 171; 
 swelled the cry against the Chris- 
 tians, 291; affected a hierarchy, 339, 
 343; mutilated Scripture, 57, 564, 
 365; held that the God of the Old 
 Testament was not the God of the 
 New, 385; their doctrine a caricature 
 of that of the Church, 395; informa- 
 tion on the Sacrament of Baptism 
 derived from their proceedings, 156, 
 428, 429; some of them Antinomians, 
 196,467; their tenets a key to much 
 of the New Testament, 507; succes- 
 sion of them, 509; condemned by 
 anticipation in St. John, ibid. 
 
 Hermas, the Shepherd of, quoted by 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, 56; opinions 
 of scholars on, 58; we have it only 
 
 533 
 
 in a Latin version, 68; distinguishes 
 the three Orders, 331; his language 
 Trinitarian, 393; regeneration im- 
 plied in his account of Baptism, 427 ; 
 ascribes the virtues of Christians to 
 the Holy Spirit, 482. 
 
 Herodians, why sent to Christ, 518. 
 
 Hippolytus, remains of, more consider- 
 able than Daille represents them, 25; 
 require re-editing, 85; not satisfac- 
 tory to the Romanists, ibid.; the 
 memorandum ascribed to him, an 
 evidence of the early dispersion of 
 Christianity, 230; bears witness to 
 persecution in his time, 284; con- 
 firms a reading in the Revelation, 
 382; his testimony on the Trinity, 
 402; on the Incarnation, 407; oui! e 
 Atonement, 422; on regeneration in 
 Baptism, 437 ; on the Eucharist, 457 ; 
 on the uniyersality of Redemption, 
 504. 
 
 Holy Ghost, the Scriptures believed by 
 the Fathers to be the work of the, 
 385; their testimonies to his Per- 
 sonality, 393, 399, 400; to his Di- 
 vinity, 403; to his Procession, 404, 
 405; to his operation in Baptism, 429, 
 432-439; in the Eucharist, 180, 449, 
 464; and to the necessity of his in- 
 flnence for the restoration of man, 
 481-494. Sve Spiritual Influence. 
 
 Homilies, the, appeal to Scripture and 
 the Fathers, 6; the Ante-Nicene 
 often quoted in the seeond Book, 
 only three times in the first, 102. 
 
 Hooker, Richard, a point in morality 
 illustrated by, 185; his language to 
 the Puritans on Episcopaey, 344, 345. 
 
 Horsley, Samuel, Bishop of St. Asaph, 
 his method of dealing with Dr. 
 Priestley, 28. 
 
 Host, the worship of the, evidence 
 against, in the early Fathers, 36, 37. 
 
 ixOvs, 441. 
 
 idi@s, 129. 
 
 idv@rns, 252. 
 
 Idolatry, connection of, with heathen 
 trades, 202, 291; professions, 202, 
 203; customs, 205; offices of state, 
 206 ; passage from Tertullian’s trea- 
 tise on, 209. 
 
 iepoupyias, 40. 
 
 Ignatius, the Epistles of, considered 
 spurious by Daille, 58; referred to 
 by Ireneus, 59; by Polyearp, 61; 
 by Origen, 63; ours the same as 
 
534 
 
 those known to Eusebius, 65; not 
 the author of an Epistle to the Phi- 
 lippians, 159; his testimony to the 
 number of Christian communities in 
 Asia Minor, 227, 251; suffered in 
 Trajan’s reign, 281; probably refers 
 to miraculous gifts, 310; remark on 
 the Syriac text, 332; his testimony 
 to the three Orders, ibid.; confirms 
 the ordinary reading in Matt. xxvii. 
 52, 53, 370; and in Acts xx. 28, 376; 
 his testimony on the Trinity, 393; 
 on the Atonement, 417; on the in- 
 fluence of the Holy Spirit, 483. 
 
 Image-worship, use of the early Fathers 
 in the argument against it, 43-45, 
 94, 95. 
 
 Improved Version, of the Unitarians, 
 366, 370, 379. 
 
 Inearnation, testimonies to the, 367, 
 369, 406, 407, 408, 412. 
 
 Indulgences, Papal, germ of in 
 Cyprian, 120. 
 
 Infallibility of the Church of Rome, the 
 impossibility of an universal defec- 
 tion from the faith magnified into 
 the, 83. 
 
 Infant Baptism. See Baptism. 
 
 Infant Communion, alluded to by 
 Cyprian, 158; not adopted by our 
 Church, 180. 
 
 Interpretation, allegorical, of early date 
 in the Church, 169; object of it, 170; 
 no instance of historical truth being 
 lost in it before Origen, 171; the 
 literal, as opposed to it, preferred by 
 Jews and heretics, 170, 171. 
 
 Interpretation of Scripture, the, de- 
 pends much upon the _ principle 
 adopted, 384, 389, 390, 466; and 
 upon the standard referred to, 507. 
 
 Invocation of departed saints, how it 
 gained a footing in the Church, 120. 
 
 Ireneus, referred to by Philpot, 10; 
 by Grindal, 13 ; furnishes testimony 
 bearing on Transubstantiation, 33 ; 
 the Papal Supremacy, 37-38; the 
 confessional, 41; image worship, 
 44, 45; refers to the Epistles of 
 Tenatius, 59, 60; the Latin version 
 not interpolated by the Romanists, 
 71, 72; his conjecture as to the 
 name of Antichrist, 74; his language 
 inconsistent with the Romish doe- 
 trine of Purgatory, ibid.; communion 
 in one kind, ibid.; clerical celibacy, 
 75; worship of saints and angels, 
 ibid.; tradition, 76-79; account of 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 the last five chapters of his “Contra 
 Heereticos,” 108; mentions a practice 
 akin to Extreme Unction, 117, note; 
 his language on the Eucharist, 143 ; 
 on Episcopacy, ibid.; on secession 
 from the Church, ibid.; quoted by 
 Eusebius as a chief writer on heresies, 
 160; his ignorance of Hebrew, 167; 
 allegorized Scripture, 170; but be- 
 lieved the incidents to be real, 171 ; 
 errors imputed to him by Daille, 174, 
 175; his testimony to the constancy 
 of the Christians under persecution, 
 193; to the progress of the Gospel, 
 221, 222, 227, 229; to the inter- 
 course of the Churches, 254; to the 
 extent of the persecutions, 192, 291; 
 to the continuance of miraculous 
 power, 312; appeals to the succes- 
 sion as a guarantee for the right in- 
 terpretation of Scripture, 329; uses 
 the terms Bishop and Priest indif- 
 ferently, 333; yet bears witness to 
 the Primitive Church being Episco- 
 palian, 334, 335; mentions the 
 order of Deacons, 335; his testimony 
 to the authority of the four Gospels, 
 347; the Acts, ibid.; the Epistles, 
 848; the Revelation, 349; and to 
 their substance, 359-361; quotes a 
 great part of the first chapter of St. 
 Matthew, 367, 368; confirms various 
 readings, 380, 381; finds the key to 
 the Old Testament in the Advent of 
 Christ, 884; interprets several inci- 
 dents in it as significant of him, 386; 
 understood Ephes. iv. 6, of the 
 Trinity, 394; confirms the doctrine 
 of the Athanasian Creed, 397, 400, 
 401, 403, 404; his testimony on the 
 Atonement, 418; on Regeneration 
 in Baptism, 428; on Infant Baptism, 
 440; on the Eucharist, 448-452; 
 teaches how to communicate wor- 
 thily, 464; his views on free-will, 
 467; on the Fall, 472; on the neces- 
 sity of Divine Grace, 485, 486; on 
 the nature of spiritual influence, 495 ; 
 on the possibility of salvation to all, 
 497; on predestination, 498; gives 
 the succession of heretics, 509; 
 understands St. Paul and St. John 
 to speak with reference to the Gnos- 
 ties, 184, 509-511. 
 
 James, St., 202. 
 James, St., the Epistle of, quoted by 
 Trenzeus, 348. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 James the Just, account of, in the frag- 
 ments of Hegesippus, 25. 
 James, Thomas, adduces no instance 
 of Romish interpolation in any 
 Father before Cyprian, 100, 105, 108. 
 Jewel, John, Bishop of Salisbury, the 
 Apology of, 8; his estimate of pa- 
 tristic testimony, 122; his use of it, 
 178. 
 Jews, the bitterest persecutors of the 
 Christians, 291; method of the 
 Fathers in contending with, 384, 
 385. 
 John, St., 202; restored a penitent 
 to the Church, 258 ; credit due to the 
 story of his being cast into a bath of 
 hot oil, 298; the first and the second 
 Epistles, and the Revelation of, 
 quoted by Ireneus, 349; the third 
 mentioned by Eusebius, 351; the 
 substance of the Gospel the same in 
 the earliest times as it is now, 360; 
 many passages have reference to the 
 early heresies, 509, 510. 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, a remark of on 
 the Revolution, 18. 
 Jones, Jeremiah, gives the titles of apo- 
 eryphal books, 47, 54; establishes 
 the canon of Scripture by an appeal 
 to tradition, 347. 
 Jude, St., particulars respecting the 
 erandsons of, 25; his Epistle quoted 
 by Clemens and Tertullian, 351. 
 Judas, use of his example in Cyprian, 
 503; and in Origen, 505. 
 
 Justin Martyr, Daillé’s account of his 
 writings imperfect, 27, 28; informa- 
 tion derived from his Apologies, 29; 
 deseribes the administration of the 
 Eucharist, 36; and other parts of the 
 Christian ritual, 133; replies to the 
 charge of atheism, 44; and other 
 calumnies, 239, 269; quotes the Si- 
 bylline verses, 48; a passage sup- 
 posed favourable to the worship of 
 angels, 69; his language inconsist- 
 ent with Romish tenets, 70, 117, 
 note; how made use of by the 
 Socinians, 151; his inaccuracies, 
 165, 166, 483, note; ignorance of 
 Hebrew, 167; use of allegory, 171; 
 doctrinal errors, 174; does not en- 
 courage the Christians to volun- 
 teer martyrdom, 186; his personal 
 history, 193, 232, 241, 282; bears 
 witness to the diffusion of Christian- 
 ity, 221; occasion of his Apologies, 
 186, 187, 282, 288; gives details of 
 
 
 
 
 
 535 
 
 persecution, 299 ; attributes miracu- 
 lous powers to Christians in his 
 time, 311; the Gospels known to 
 him the same as ours, 362; inter- 
 prets several things in the Old Tes- 
 tament as significant of the Cross, 
 386; his testimony to the coeternity 
 and consubstantiality of the Son, 
 129, 130; to the doctrine of the 
 Athanasian Creed, 398, 404, 406; 
 the Atonement, 417; Regeneration 
 in Baptism, 428; Infant Baptism, 
 440; the obligations of Baptism, 
 441; the qualifications and obliga- 
 tions of communicants, 464, 465; 
 the freedom of the will, 466; the 
 doctrine of spiritual influence, 483, 
 484; what he understood by the 
 foreknown, 496; confirms a state- 
 ment of Origen, 521. 
 
 Kaye, John, Bishop of Lincoln, shows 
 that the edicts of Nero remained un- 
 repealed, 275; produces a passage 
 in Clemens Alexandrinus on the con- 
 tinuance of miraculous powers, 316 ; 
 his theory respecting them, 327; his 
 interpretation of “ Ipss Authentics 
 Litere,’ 352; doubts the genuine- 
 ness of the “ Cohortatio ad Greecos” 
 ascribed to Justin Martyr, 483, note ; 
 inyestigates the pretensions of Mon- 
 tanus, 489, note. 
 
 Laius, the story of, made use of by 
 Origen, 505. 
 
 Last times, meaning of the, 515. 
 
 Lebbeus, Mesopotamia assigned to, 231. 
 
 Lector, 259. 
 
 Libellatici, a considerable class in the 
 time of Cyprian, 256. 
 
 Libelli, furnished by the Martyrs to the 
 lapsed, 120, 121, 342 ; abuse of, 120. 
 
 Libelli, or certificates of exemption 
 from persecution, 289. 
 
 NiBedr@y, 40. 
 
 Liturgy. See Prayer Book. 
 
 Lord’s Supper, water instead of wine 
 and water, used by certain heretics 
 in the, 34; the doctrine of the So- 
 cinians on it opposed to the early 
 Fathers, 445. See Eucharist. 
 
 Luke, St., the Gospel according to, 
 quoted by Ciemens Alexandrinus, 
 52; the preface implies the existence 
 of other histories, 53; the substance 
 the same now as in the time of 
 Trenzeus, 361, 
 
536 
 
 Lyons and Vienne, the Epistle from 
 the Churches of, shows the progress 
 of Christianity in Gaul and Asia, 
 227; speaks of Vettius Epagathus 
 as a person of rank, 243; and of his 
 martyrdom, 288 ; illustrates the dis- 
 turbance of domestic relations, 305. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, his remark on 
 Gibbon, 273. 
 
 Macknight, James, a conjecture of, 355. 
 
 Magistrate, the office of a, why it was 
 objectionable for a Christian to hold, 
 206-209. 
 
 Magistrates, the Roman, persecution of 
 the Christians by, 286; some severe, 
 some lenient, 287; their proceedings 
 uncontrolled, 288, 289. 
 
 Manuscripts of the early Fathers 
 generally few in number, 67, 68; 
 those of Cyprian numerous, 68, note ; 
 impracticability of corrupting them 
 so that all should conspire, 107. 
 
 Marcion, tenets of, 35, 153, 363, 377, 
 433, 470,499, 513, 514, 515 ; changed 
 the title of the Epistle to the Ephe- 
 sians, 354. 
 
 Mark, St., the Gospel according to, the 
 same now as in the time of Irenzeus, 
 359. 
 
 Marriage, terms in which some of the 
 Fathers speak of it accounted for, 
 163, 195-200. 
 
 Marriage of the Clergy, not prohibited 
 in Origen’s time, 95, 96. 
 
 Martyr, the title of, not easily bestowed, 
 282, note. 
 
 Martyrdom, a disposition to court it 
 not encouraged by the Fathers, 186-— 
 190; their language respecting it ac- 
 counted for, 190-192 ; instrumental in 
 the propagation of the Gospel, 192- 
 194; early records of it not to be 
 confounded with the fictions of later 
 times, 296. 
 
 Mary, the Virgin, language of Irenzeus 
 respecting, 71-73. 
 
 Matthew, St., the Gospel according to, 
 mentioned by name in Clemens 
 Alexandrinus, 52; the first chapter 
 quoted by Irenreus, 367, 368; the 
 genealogy by Clemens, 369. 
 
 Matthias, St., Ivrenseus refers to the 
 election of, 363. 
 
 Matthias, the traditions of, 51, 54. 
 
 Melchizedek, a prophet among the 
 nations of the East, 49; a personifi- 
 cation of the Saviour, 464. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Melito, confirms the doctrine of the 
 Athanasian Creed, 407; yet wrote 
 concerning the creation and genera- 
 tion of Christ, 409; his testimony on 
 the Atonement, 419. 
 
 Middleton, Thomas Fanshawe, Bishop 
 of Calcutta, interprets 1 Cor. v. 9, 
 353; confirms a conjecture of Mack- 
 night, 355; remarks on the Socinian 
 view of Rom. ix. 5, 375, note. 
 
 Millenarians, how far countenaneed in 
 the Fathers, 162, 163. 
 
 Millennium, Justin believed in the, 
 174. 
 
 Milton, John, his opinion of the Fa- 
 thers, 16, 17; and of the Reformers, 
 ip 
 
 Ministry, the, described by the Fathers 
 as consisting of three Orders deriy- 
 ing their authority from the commis- 
 sion of Christ to his Apostles, 330 ; 
 those who withdraw from it considered 
 by the Fathers to withdraw from the 
 Church, 330, 332. 
 
 Minucius Felix, replies to the charge 
 of worshipping the Cross, 44; bears 
 testimony to the number of the 
 Christians, 226; the incidental pro- 
 gress of the Gospel illustrated from 
 his Octavius, 233; assigns to Ceci- 
 lius an insinuation repeated by 
 Gibbon, 239; makes him eall the 
 Christians “homines illicit facti- 
 onis,’ 278; claims the power of 
 exorcism, 317. 
 
 Miraculous powers, difficulty of ascer- 
 taining how long they continued in 
 the Church, 310; testimony of the 
 early Fathers to their continuance, 
 310-320; those of exorcism and 
 healing most generally claimed by 
 them, 323; and most frequently ex- 
 ercised in the Acts, 3824, 325; theory 
 of Bishop Kaye respecting them, 
 327. 
 
 Montanists, pretensions of the, 2538, 
 359, 489, 490. 
 
 Moses, mistake of Clemens respecting 
 his name, 167; he shows that the 
 Greeks derived their knowledge from, - 
 148, 369. 
 
 Mosheim, quotes no authority for the 
 repeal of the laws against the 
 Christians, 275; referred to by Gib- 
 bon, 293; attributes a misapprehen- 
 sion to Tertullian, 298; changed his 
 opinion respecting Montanus, 489, 
 note. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Nero, made laws against the Christians, 
 275. 
 
 Newcome, William, Archbishop of Ar- 
 magh, his translation made the basis 
 of the Improved Version, 370. 
 
 Nice, the sixth Canon of the Council 
 of, 103. 
 
 Nonjurors, the, represent the old 
 Church feeling, 19; renewed Jewel’s 
 challenge, 122. 
 
 Novatianus, Cornelius writes to Cy- 
 prian concerning, 109; his treatise 
 on the Trinity, 159. 
 
 Novitioli, 259. 
 
 Oblation of fine flour, a type of the 
 bread in the Kucharist, 446. 
 
 Oblations, mpoogopds, applied to the 
 Eucharist by Clemens Romanus, 
 446, the material elements included 
 in them by Justin, 447; by Irenzeus, 
 448; by Origen, 459. 
 
 Offering, a pure, Mal. i. 11, applied to 
 the Eucharist by Justin, 446. 
 
 oikovopiay, 146. 
 
 dpodoyia, 441. 
 
 6poovaros, 129. 
 
 Opus operatum, the efficacy of the 
 Sacraments not attributed to the, 
 440, 464. 
 
 Orders, the Christian ministry de- 
 seribed by the Fathers as consisting 
 of three, 330. 
 
 Ordination, the mode of transmitting 
 the authority conveyed by Christ to 
 the Apostles, 330; the prerogative 
 of the Bishop, 342, 343. 
 
 Ordinations, not to be held by Bishops 
 out of their own Dioceses, 40. 
 
 Oriens, a name of Christ, 458. 
 
 Origen, his opinion on the “ Preaching 
 of Peter,” 54; quotes the Epistles 
 of Ignatius, 63; state of his writings, 
 86, 107, 413, 414; they are not in- 
 terpolated by the Romanists, 87-99 ; 
 his testimony unfayourable to the 
 corporal presence, 87,88; to prayers 
 in a tongue not understood by the 
 people, 88; to the withholding of 
 the Scriptures, 89; his views on the 
 Disciplina areani, 91-94; his lan- 
 guage clearly opposed to the use of 
 images, 94; the celibacy of the 
 clergy, 95; the worship of angels, 
 97,98; his notion of Purgatory, 99 ; 
 remarks on the Contra Celsum, 100; 
 some of his Homilies dictated off- 
 hand, 165; his acquaintance with 
 
 537 
 
 Hebrew limited, 168; his use of al- 
 legory, 172; luis views on martyrdom, 
 189, 190; bears testimony to the 
 progress of Christianity, 224, 225 ; 
 to the rank of the Christians, 239, 
 243; to their character, 261; and 
 disinterestedness, 264; to the extent 
 of the persecutions, 283; is misre- 
 presented by Gibbon, 285; describes 
 the different quarters from which 
 persecution issued, 286, 299; speaks 
 of miraculous powers in his time, 
 317-319; appeals to the succes- 
 sion, 330, note; gives testimony to a 
 ministry of three Orders, 341; men- 
 tions the third Epistle of St. John, 
 351; assigns the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews to St. Paul, 356-358; as- 
 serts the authority of the Gospels, 
 362; dates the first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians from Ephesus, 874; con- 
 sidered the Saviour the chief subject 
 of ancient prophecy, 385; confirms 
 the Athanasian Creed, 398, 401, 402, 
 403,405, 406,407, 408 ; his unguarded 
 language accounted for, 410-415; 
 his testimony on the Atonement, 
 423, 424; on regeneration in Bap- 
 tism, 436 ; on the Eucharist, 458-461 ; 
 on the qualifications of the com- 
 municant, 465; on the freedom of 
 the will, 82, 468, 505; on the conse- 
 quences of the Fall, 479; on the 
 necessity of Divine grace, 492; his 
 sentiments on election, 504-506; 
 ascribes Calvinistic tenets to the 
 Valentinians, 505; furnishes a clue 
 to the question whether the Jews pos- 
 sessed the power of capital punish- 
 ment, 520. 
 
 Paley, Archdeacon, thought that the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians was written 
 to the Laodiceans, 355; dated the 
 first Epistle to the Corinthians from 
 Ephesus, 375. 
 
 Papias, tells us that Barsabas having 
 drunk a poison sustained no hurt, 
 298; and that one was raised from 
 the dead in Philip’s time, 313. 
 
 Paschasinus, conduct of, at the Council 
 of Chaleedon, 103. 
 
 Passover, the, is compared with the 
 Passion by Tertullian, 55, 36. 
 
 Patience, necessary to the early Chris- 
 tians, 210; Cyprian and Tertullian 
 composed essays on it, 211. 
 
 Paul, St., pre-eminence assigned to, by 
 
538 
 
 Ireneus, 37; his example in risking 
 martyrdom, 192 ; found Italy already 
 inhabited by Christians, 231; met 
 with different treatment at his two 
 visits to Rome, 232; dates of his 
 release and of his death, 231, note ; 
 the disturbing effect of Christianity 
 shown from his writings, 234; con- 
 nection of a passage in his first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, 308; 
 several visions of his mentioned in 
 the Acts, 327; use of the Fathers in 
 proving the genuineness of his 
 Epistles, 348-350; whether his au- 
 tograph was preserved in Tertullian’s 
 time, 352; whether he was the author 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 355— 
 859; whether any Epistie to the 
 Corinthians is missing, 353 ; his first 
 Epistle to that Church written from 
 Ephesus, 374; use of the Fathers 
 in interpreting his Epistles, 510-515. 
 
 Pearson, John, Bishop of Chester, 
 defends the Epistle of Barnabas, 58 ; 
 was not aware of the second reference 
 in Ireneus to Ignatius’ Epistles, 60 ; 
 gives instances of their coincidence 
 with that of Polycarp, 62; argues 
 that the Commentary on the Can- 
 ticles was Origen’s, 63; asserts the 
 competency of Eusebius, 65 ; defends 
 Firmilian, 111. 
 
 Pelagianism, the 
 charged with, 481. 
 
 Penitents, method of re-admitting, 262. 
 
 Perron, Cardinal, a suggestion of, 
 adopted by Daille, 146. 
 
 Persecution, its effect on the domestic 
 relations, 197, 8301-305; money given 
 to magistrates to buy it off, 256, 289; 
 extenuated by Gibbon, 273, 293 ; the 
 notion of ten great ones untenable, 
 274; continued with some inter- 
 missions during the first three cen- 
 turies, 278-284 ; proceeded not only 
 from the Emperors, but from the 
 Magistrates, 286-289; and the po- 
 pulace, 290, 291; details of it in the 
 Fathers, 299-301. 
 
 Peter, St., how spoken of by Cyprian, 
 39, 106, 111; germ of the undue 
 
 . exaltation of, 81, 83; remarks on his 
 vision, 326; both his Epistles quoted 
 by Irenseus, 349; the second by 
 Theophilus, 349, note. 
 
 Peter, the Preaching of, 54, 55; the 
 Acts of, 54, 56. 
 
 me{ovs, 253. 
 
 Fathers unjustly 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Pharaoh, his heart hardened judicially, 
 499. 
 
 Philemon, the Epistle of St. Paul to, 
 is referred to by Theophilus, 349 ; 
 and Tertullian, 350. 
 
 Philip, St., 313. 
 
 Philo, influence of, on the interpreta- 
 tion of Seripture, 172. 
 
 Philocalia of Origen, 64. 
 
 Philpot, John, appealed to antiquity, 
 10-12. 
 
 Plato, why referred to by the Fathers, 
 48; called the philosopher of the 
 Hebrews, 139 ; says a lie is unworthy 
 of God, but sometimes profitable to 
 men, 149. 
 
 TAnpopa, 516. . 
 
 Pliny, the laws against the Christians 
 unrepealed in the time of, 276; re- 
 marks on his Letter, 293; mentions 
 hymns to Christ, 388. 
 
 Polyearp in his Epistle to the Phi- 
 lippians speaks expressly of Igna- 
 tius’ Epistles, 61; is quoted by 
 Eusebius, 160; an incident at his 
 martyrdom, 237; suffered in the 
 reign of Aurelius, 282. 
 
 Polycarp, the Martyrdom of, a clause 
 in it respecting a dove probably cor- 
 rupt, 298. 
 
 Polyerates, Bishop of Ephesus, his 
 Epistle to Victor an evidence of the 
 progress of Christianity, 227 ; called 
 a synod at Ephesus, 254. 
 
 Pontius, the Deacon, his narrative of 
 Cyprian’s martyrdom, 294, 295; com- 
 mended by Gibbon, 295; mentions 
 a vision of Cyprian, ibid. 
 
 Pope, change in the meaning of the 
 word, 144. See Supremacy. 
 
 Porson, Professor, points out an error 
 in Gibbon’s History, 223. 
 
 Portio, 250. 
 
 Pothinus, Bishop of Lyons, suffered in 
 the reign of Aurelius, 282. 
 
 Prayer Book, the principles of its con- 
 struction explained in the Preface, 
 4,5; amore direct channel of pri- 
 mitive tradition than the Articles, 5; 
 the Fathers bear witness to its gene- 
 ral style and particular observances, 
 125; Lectures on it delivered by the 
 author, 346, note. See Ritual. 
 
 Prayers for the dead, grew into mor- 
 tuary masses, 82. 
 
 Prayers in a tongue not understood by 
 the people inconsistent with the sen- 
 timents of Origen, 88. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Predestinate, meaning of the, as under- 
 stood by Clemens, 501. 
 
 Predestination. See Election. 
 
 Presbyters, how spoken of in Scripture, 
 330,331; called Doctores by Hermas, 
 331; this term and that of Bishops 
 at first synonymous, 332, 333; yet 
 the offices distinct, 334-338, 341; 
 number of them at Rome, 334; did 
 not act without reference to their 
 Bishop, 342. 
 
 Priesthood, a parallel between the 
 Jewish and the Christian in Clemens 
 Romanus, 331. 
 
 Priestley, Dr. Joseph, his method of 
 reading, 28; employed the same ex- 
 pedient as Daillé to extinguish eyi- 
 dence on Christ’s Divinity, 67; 
 affirms that the doctrine of the 
 Atonement is a departure from pri- 
 mitive Christianity, 416. 
 
 mpoeaTas, 340. 
 
 Prometheus of Aischylus, remark on 
 the, 50. 
 
 Promises in Baptism, alluded to by the 
 Fathers, 31, 441; sponsors to look 
 to their fulfilment, 260. 
 
 mpereta, 103. 
 
 Protestants, principles of, according to 
 Daillé, 178. 
 
 mparokabedpia, 337. 
 
 Psalms, the, applied by the Fathers to 
 Jesus Christ, 386—388; used in 
 Christian assembles, 388. 
 
 Purgatory, a saying of Jesus preserved 
 by Justin opposed to, 70; the lan- 
 guage of Irensus inconsistent with 
 a belief of it, 74; as is that of Hip- 
 polytus, 85; four passages of Cle- 
 mens Alexandrinus supposed to refer 
 to it, 80; germ of it in Tertullian, 
 83; derived in the first instance 
 from heathen philosophy, 99; coun- 
 tenanced by Origen, 99 ; and by Cy- 
 prian, yet not so as to satisfy a Ro- 
 manist, 115-117. 
 
 Puritans, the, opposed to the respect 
 for antiquity, 15; the sympathies of 
 the foreign Reformed Churches went 
 along with, 29; language of Hooker 
 towards, 345, 
 
 Quadratus, addressed his Apology to 
 Hadrian, 281. 
 
 Racovian Catechism, statements of the, 
 on the Godhead, 392; on the death 
 of Christ, 416, 418, 419; on the 
 
 539 
 
 necessity of faith, 420; on Baptism, 
 426, 427; on original sin, 427; on 
 the Lord’s Supper, 445, 448; on the 
 interpretation of St. John, vi. 35, 48, 
 01, 455, note. 
 
 Rebellion, the Great, its effect on the 
 study of antiquity, 15. 
 
 Reformation, principles of the English, 
 5, 8, 9, 178; reverence for antiquity 
 a characteristic of, 15. 
 
 Reformation, the stir of the, tempted 
 the Romanists to falsify tradition, 107. 
 
 Reformers, the English, appealed to an- 
 tiquity, 8-14; Milton’s opinion of, 
 171g. 
 
 Revelation of St. John, testimony of 
 Treneus to the canonical authority 
 of the, 349. 
 
 Revolution, influence of the, on the 
 taste for patristic learning, 18. 
 
 Ridley, Nicholas, Bishop of London, 
 took higher Church grounds than 
 others, 9. 
 
 Ritual, the primitive, exposition of in 
 Justin, Tertullian and Lreneus, 133, 
 134. 
 
 Romanists, the, have not tampered 
 with the writings of the Fathers 
 before Cyprian, 69-100; the early 
 Fathers little read or regarded by 
 them, 101, 103; their corruption of 
 Cyprian limited to a few known in- 
 stances, 105-108; evidence against 
 them in his writings, 109-119. 
 
 Jtomans, the Epistle of St. Paul to the, 
 
 understood in a sense unfavourable 
 to the Calvinistic interpretation by 
 Trenreus, 498; and by Origen, 505. 
 
 Routh, Dr. M. J., President of Mag- 
 daiene College, Fragments of the 
 early Fathers collected by, 24; his 
 estimate of them, ibid.; notices a 
 fragment of Origen discovered by 
 Grabe, 64. 
 
 Rufinus, admits that he misrepresented 
 Origen, 86, 107; and modified the 
 “ De Principiis,* 414; his version of 
 the Homilies on the books of Moses 
 generally trustworthy, 459. 
 
 Sacraments, prominence given to the 
 Two by Tertullian, 84; by Cyprian, 
 118; their administration described 
 by Justin, 134; more reverenced in 
 the Primitive Church than at present, 
 144; depression of them by the So- 
 cinians, 426. See Baptism, Eucha- 
 rist. z . 
 
540 
 
 Sacrifice, the Eucharist so called in a 
 spiritual sense by Justin, 446; by 
 Ireneus, 448, 449; by Tertullian, 
 455; by Hippolytus, 457; by Origen, 
 459. 
 
 Saints, what Tertullian meant by, 499. 
 
 Saints’ Days, the Fathers bear witness 
 to the early observance of, 125. 
 
 Saints, anniversaries of, mentioned by 
 Tertullian, 32; abuses connected 
 with, 82. 
 
 Scripture, appealed to in conjunction 
 with antiquity by our Church, 6, 79, 
 178; by our Reformers, 8, 13; diffi- 
 culty of deciding the Canon of, in 
 early times, 56; the early Fathers 
 favourable to a free circulation of, 
 74, 89, 90, 91; represented as the 
 authority to appeal to, by Ireneus, 
 76; use of the Fathers in settling 
 the Canon, 346-3859; and in as- 
 certaining the substance, 359-864; 
 the text, 365-382; the meaning, 
 383-521. 
 
 Senior quidam, quoted by Irenzus, 170. 
 
 Septuagint version, the, made known 
 the Scriptures to the Gentiles, 49 ; 
 mistake of Justin respecting it, 165; 
 reverence in which it was held, 212. 
 
 Serapion, Bishop of Antioch, 227, 228; 
 visited Rhossus, 253. 
 
 Serenius Granianus, Proconsul of Asia, 
 277, 281. 
 
 Severus, the persecution of the Chris- 
 tians continued in the reign of, 282. 
 
 Sibyl, account of the, in Justin, 49. 
 
 Sibyl, the verses of the, quoted by 
 Justin and Theophilus, 48; Bishop 
 Bull’s opinion of their origin, 49 ; 
 made use of by Virgil, 50; their au- 
 thority debated by the early Chris- 
 tians, ibid. 
 
 Simon Magus, statue of, 165; the first 
 of the heretics, 395; an wninten- 
 tional witness to the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, ibid. 
 
 Socinians, the Fathers have been laid 
 under contribution by the, 151; adopt 
 a rationalistic system of interpreta- 
 tion, 884; the Fathers opposed to 
 their leading doctrines, 392, 416; 
 their numbers increased by the neg- 
 lect of the study of the Fathers, 
 426; depress the nature and efficacy 
 of the Sacraments, ibid. ; deny origi- 
 nal sin, 427; the study of the Fathérs 
 a safeguard against their opinions, 
 434; differ from the Church of Eng- 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 land on the Lord’s Supper in two 
 particulars, 445. 
 
 Socrates, language of, on sin after Bap- 
 tism, 443. 
 
 South, Dr. Robert, his opinion of Gro- 
 tius, 389, 390, note. 
 
 Spectator, coincidence between a pas- 
 sage in Clemens and a paper in the, 
 246, note. 
 
 Spiritual influence, nature of, gt tee 
 to the Fathers, 495. 
 
 Stephanus, Bishop of Rome, Cyprian 
 differed from, 38, 39; language of 
 Cyprian towards, 109, 110, 
 
 Suetonius, a passage from his Life of 
 Vespasian, 50. 
 
 ovvaidws, 129. 
 
 Superstition, a motive of persecution, 
 290. 
 
 Supremacy, the Papal, objected against 
 the Romanists, by Philpot, 11; evi- 
 dence against it in the early Fathers, 
 37-40; germ of it, 83. 
 
 Susanna, a difficulty in the history of, 
 168, 
 
 Symbolical language of Holy Scripture, 
 a remark of Origen on the, 391. 
 
 Symbols, the elements in the Eucha- 
 rist called, 147, 454. 
 
 Synods of the clergy, frequent in the 
 early Church, 254. 
 
 Tatian, gives an account of his conver- 
 sion, 241; mentions the exposure 
 of children, 270; his tenets on the 
 consequences of the Fall, 470; and 
 on the necessity of Divine grace, 484. 
 
 Taylor, Bishop Jeremy, adorned his 
 writings by appeals to numberless 
 authors, 53; a case of casuistry en- 
 tertained by, 149. 
 
 Texto, 361. 
 
 TéNeLot, 77. 
 
 Temples of false gods, character of the, 
 204, 
 
 Oeovs, why so called according to Cle- 
 mens, 213. 
 
 Tertullian, appealed to by Grindal, 14; 
 information on questions of modern 
 controversy in his “ De Corona,” 31, 
 32; and “ Ady. Marcionem,” 35, 36 5. 
 the Confession described by him a 
 public act, 42; replies to the charge 
 of worshipping the Cross, 44; was 
 acquainted with the Epistles of Ig- 
 natius, 62; germ of Romish errors 
 discoverable in his writings, 82, 83; 
 especially in those written after he 
 
INDEX. 
 
 became a Montanist, 83; the pecu- 
 liar tenets of the Romanist contra- 
 dicted in others, 83, 84; use of his 
 writings in the Arian controversy, 
 131; though some passages are liable 
 to misconstruction, 130, 151; diffi- 
 culty of his style, 140; method of 
 studying him, 141, 142; his incon- 
 sistencies, 154, 155; use of allegory, 
 172; views on martyrdom, 188, 189, 
 192; and appeal to Scapula, 193; 
 some of his treatises composed be- 
 fore he became a Montanist, some 
 after, 198, 224, 228; his treatise “Ad 
 Uxorem” exhibits the forebodings of 
 a Christian husband, 198, 199; why 
 he denounced certain trades, 201, 
 202, 306; professions, 203; customs, 
 205; offices, 206; his testimony to 
 the wide dispersion of Christianity 
 in his time, 223, 224, 254; to the 
 rank and wealth of the Christians, 
 242, 243, 246, 255; charges the he- 
 retics with using arts to swell their 
 congregations, 261; reproaches the 
 heathen for exposing their children, 
 270; his remarks on the laws against 
 the Christians, 275, 278, 281; ac- 
 count of his Apology, 282; and “Ad 
 Secapulam,” 283; mentions the differ- 
 ent dispositions of heathen magis- 
 trates, 287; details of persecution, 
 299, 300; the disturbing effect of 
 Christianity on the domestic rela- 
 tions, 302, 304; injury to worldly 
 prospects, 306; embarrassment in 
 legal and commercial transactions, 
 308 ; bears testimony to the continu- 
 ance of miraculous powers, 316; and 
 to the three Orders of the Ministry, 
 338; refers to St. Paul's Epistle to 
 Philemon, 350; quotes St. Jude, 351; 
 what he meant by “ips authentice 
 litter,” 852; the substance of St. 
 Paul’s Epistles the same in his time 
 as it is now, 363; the controversy on 
 1 John y. 7. turns on a passage in 
 his “ Ady. Praxeam,” 3871; confirms 
 the received reading in Acts xx. 28, 
 877; and the authorized translation 
 in Rom. ix. 5, 3880; his testimony to 
 the doctrine of the Athanasian Creed, 
 398, 399, 408, 404, 405, 406, 407, 
 408; though his language is some- 
 times unguarded, 409 ; to the Atone- 
 ment, 421; the effects of Baptism, 
 433; the use of sponsors, 440; the 
 obligations of Baptism, 441; his 
 
 541 
 
 sentiments on the Eucharist, 454— 
 457; and the obligations of Commu- 
 nicants, 464; on thé freedom of the 
 ‘will, 467; on the consequences of 
 the Fall, 473-476; on the necessity 
 of Divine grace, 490, 491; on elec- 
 tion and predestination, 499; and on 
 assurance, 500; explains the New 
 Testament with reference to early 
 heresies, 513, 514. ; 
 
 Ter-Sanctus, the Liturgical use of the, 
 an evidence of a Trinitarian Creed, 
 394. 
 
 Testament, the harmony of the Old 
 and the New argued against the he- 
 retics, 385. 
 
 Testimony of the Fathers, incidental 
 and undesigned, 27, 28; its value 
 arising from that circumstance, 33, 
 128. 
 
 Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, quotes 
 the Sibyl, 48; his mistakes in ety- 
 mology, 167; his use of allegory, 
 171; complains that Autolycus was 
 unacquainted with Christian writ- 
 ings, 239; mentions the Christians 
 being stoned, 299; alludes to the 
 miracle of raising the dead, 314; 
 quotes St. James, 349, note; and St. 
 Paul to Philemon, 349; finds types 
 of the Trinity and of Baptism in 
 Genesis i., 386, 395; his testimony 
 on regeneration in Baptism, 429; 
 the effects of the Fall, 472; the ne- 
 cessity of grace, 484. 
 
 Thomas, St., 230. 
 
 Trades, why certain are denounced by 
 Tertullian, 202, 203; those connected 
 with idolatry injured by the progress 
 of Christianity, 291; some incompa- 
 tible with it, 306. 
 
 Tradition, in what sense appealed to 
 by Iveneeus, 76-78; his views of it 
 unfavourable to the modern Church 
 of Rome, and agreeing with those of 
 the Church of England, 78, 79. 
 
 Tradition, unwritten, eventually grew to 
 tradition as the rival of Scripture, 82. 
 
 Trajan, did not repeal, 275; only miti- 
 gated the laws against the Christ- 
 ians, 276, 278; persecution went on 
 in his reign, 281. 
 
 Translations of the Fathers, value of 
 early, 68. 
 
 Transubstantiation, a late plantation of 
 the Bishop of Rome, 11; testimony 
 against it in the early Fathers, 32; 
 in Ireneus, 33; in Cyprian, 34, 35, 
 
542 
 
 112; in Tertullian, 35; inyolves the 
 worship of the Host, 36; language 
 of Justin inconsistent with it, 70; 
 passages in Tertullian which contra- 
 dict it, 83, note ; not held by Hippo- 
 lytus, 85: nor by Origen, 87, 88. 
 See Eucharist. ‘ 
 
 Trinity, testimonies to the doctrine of 
 the, 392-406. 
 
 ‘Types, the application of, a trial of faith, 
 391, 392. 
 
 Unitarians deny the genuineness of St. 
 Matthew’s account of the miraculous 
 conception, 366. 
 
 Unity of God, the, argued by Irenzus, 
 359; testimonies to, 400, 408, 404, 
 405, 406. 
 
 Unity of the Church, taught by the 
 Fathers, 15; not broken by differ- 
 ence of customs, 114. 
 
 Usher, James, Archbishop of Armagh, 
 respects the Epistles of Barnabas, 58. 
 
 Valentinians, tenets of the, 30, 153, 
 261, 350, 367, 368. 
 
 Victor, Bishop of Rome, remonstrated 
 with by Irenzeus, 38. 
 
 Visions, mentioned by Tertullian, 315; 
 by Cyprian, 320; evidence of them 
 not easy to be rejected, 326; their 
 frequency in the Acts, 326, 327; 
 foretold by Joel, 32 
 
 Visitation of the sick, the Service for 
 the, moves the sick man to make a 
 special confession, 41; recalls the 
 profession made in Baptism, 442. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Walton, Isaac, a well-known passage 
 of his Fisherman, 295. 
 
 Waterland, Dr. Daniel, finds room fora 
 “ Discourse on Fundamentals,” 157; 
 his remarks on the allegorical me- 
 thod of interpretation, 174; on the 
 use of the Fathers in interpreting 
 ‘Scripture, 178; on Barbeyrae’s charges 
 against Athenagoras, 195; draws his 
 vouchers for the Athanasian Creed 
 chiefly from Augustine, 397, explains 
 what the Fathers meant by the sane- 
 tification of the symbols in the Sacra- 
 ments, 456, 451. 
 
 Wesley, John, revival attempted by, 19. 
 
 Wetstein, John James, his list of vari- 
 ous readings on Acts xx. 28, incom- 
 plete and inaccurate, 376. 
 
 Will, the freedom of the, asserted by 
 the Fathers, 466-469; their state- 
 ments on it incompatible with Calvi- 
 nistic doctrines, 495, 496. 
 
 Wilson, William, remarks of, on Priest- 
 ley, 67; on the testimony of Simon 
 Magus to the doctrine of the Tri- 
 nity, 895. 
 
 Worship of angels, not favoured by 
 Justin, 69; nor by Ireneus, 75; 
 Simon Magus charged with teaching 
 it, 84; language of Origen incon- 
 sistent with it, 97. 
 
 Worship of Saints, opposed to the 
 teaching of Irenzeus, 75; views of 
 Origen on the, 96, 97. 
 
 Worship of the Virgin Mary, the lan- 
 guage of Irenzeus not favourable to, 
 71-73; nor that of Tertullian, 84. 
 
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