Columbia tionable circumstances. This disadvantage has, however, come to their memories from nothing that reflects upon scriptural religion. They earned it by struggling for secular pre-eminence, or by adopting PREFACI . practices and principles that gradually provided the Bible with a supplement. Had no efforts been made for maintaining this pre-eminence, and this supple- mental rived, infidels would have Losl most of their pretences for aspersing Christianity. A habit should be, therefore, formed of distinguishing between a system that bounds belief by Scripture, and one which depends upon additions to the Bible. Le1 none blame the former, because men, really meritorious in the main, have under the pressure of evil times and strong temptations raised an importance for them- selves, by encouraging others in superstitious prac- tices and un spiritualised expectations. The real use of such cases is to serve as warnings against religious principles which do not flow from a source unques- tionably divine. To that cast of thought which certainly came down from heaven, they are no re- proach whatever. Stapleford Tawney, May 3. 1844. CONTENTS CHAPTKK I. GREGORY THE GREAT. Pago Introduction ---------1 Papal eagerness for influence 3 Scripture only trustworthy 6 Tradition ---------7 Invocation of saints 9 Gregory's English mission - - - - - - 12 his credulity 16 . his flattery to Phocas - - - - - 19 his contest with John the Faster - - - - 20 Evil of such an exposure - - - - - - -22 Plans marked out for Augustine "2o Historical inference 27 CHAPTER II. CONVERSIONS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. Papal claims to superiority ------ 33 Phoenician intercourse with Britain 35 Ancient religious importance of Glastonbury - - - 36 Oriental conversion of Britain - - - - - - 41 The Easter question -------- 42 The native Church's missionary services - - - - 44 Patrick 46 Britain not in the Roman patriarchate - - - - 57 Alleged miracles to favour Rome 60 Papal triumph at Whitby 69 The Easter question 71 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. ARCHBISHOP THEODORE. Pajxe Dissatisfaction after the Whitby conference - - - 78 Wighard's appointment and death - - - - - 79 Theodore's appointment to Canterbury - - - - 80 Controversy upon this -_--_-- 81 Theodore's journey to England ------ 92 His delay in Gaul -94 CHAPTER IV. CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. Theodore no authority for the efficacy of attrition - - 98 Evils of Romish confession ------ 101 Ancient absolutions precatory - - - - - -105 Ancient authorities upon confession ----- 106 Primitive penitential discipline - - - - - - 114 Penance viewed as a spiritual medicine - - - - 116 Operation of the Crusades upon penance - - - - 118 Ancient use of Lent - - - - - - - -119 Absolution before penance 120 Anglo-Saxon Lent - - - - - - - -124 Alleged sacrament of penance -.-.---- 125 Attrition 128 Delusive nature of Romish absolutions - - - - 132 Romish abuse of absolution 134 CHAPTER V. ORIGIN OF PAPAL ECCLESIASTICAL POWER. No scriptural authority for the papal power - - - 137 Worldly means that gained it- - - - - -138 The pall 139 Egbert of York 144 Archbishopric of Lichfield - - - - - -146 Council of Calcuith -------- 150 Canterbury's authority restored - ----- 154 Kenulph of Mercia - - - - - - - -156 Nature of references to Rome ------ 159 I milliard's journey to Rome - - 166 English remonstrance to the Pope - - - - - 168 CONTENTS- Xlll CHAPTER VI i Ql \i.\ n <»i i hi. LP08 i i i - i"i i i R \m» r \i i.. P Whelock's fidelity - - ... 171 Arnauld's vie* ofthe Apostles Peter and Paul - - - JT.'J Ose of Greek writers upon papal affairs - 176 Uncertainty of St. Peter's Roman residence - - - 17'' [mprobability of St. Peter's Roman episcopate - •• - l s 'i Both Peter and Paul figured on papal bulls - - - 190 Both commemorated on the same day - 192 This altered by Gregory the Greal ----- ] WiUibrord 238 Boniface in Saxony and Ilessia ------ 239 His consecration to the episcopate 240 His oath to the papacy 241 His episcopal mission 242 His connection with the Carlo vingian family - - - 246 His operations on the Gallican prelacy - - - -248 He anoints Pepin as king ofthe Franks - 250 He becomes archbishop of Mentz ----- 252 His assassination -------- 253 Controversy on his objects 254 Council of Cloveshoo - - 257 Papal compromise with Paganism 266 Evils of it 268 Mahometanism confirmed by it 272 Xiv CONTENTS. Page Leo the Isaurian - 273 His contest with the Roman see ----- 276 Image agitation of Gregory III. ----- 280 Calovingian patronage of the Roman see - - - 282 Charlemain saluted emperor 285 CHAPTER VIII. IMAGE-WORSHIP. Religious use of images unscriptural ----- 288 Abuses resulting from them 289 Their progress in the West 292 Second Council of Nice - 293 Nature of its decisions 295 Its rejection in the West ------- 298 Reasons assigned for this - 300 English rejection of the deutero-Nicenes - 303 Truncation of the Decalogue 308 Fictitious donation of Constantine 313 The forged Decretals - - - - - - 320 Their rapid progress 322 Capitulars of Adrian I. - - 323 Final exposure of the Decretals ------ 324 Popes deceived by fictitious documents - 326 Impostures in the papal church 328 Futility of the defences for them 332 CHAPTER IX. PAPAL APPEALS. Early appeals to Rome different from later - - - - 334 Origin of papal power in the accident of position - - 336 P'ame of Rome from observance of the canons - - - 337 Popes exponents of general consent ----- 338 Victor's conduct in the Easter question - 343 Papal power favoured by scriptural metaphors - - - 345 St. Peter's choice of Rome for a see 346 Papal power established by the second Council of Nice - 347 Difficulties experienced by that council - 348 Erasure from the Breviary ------ 350 Scriptural position of St. Peter 352 The Roman diocese distinct from the universal church - - 353 Christian unity universal, not local - - - - -354 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER X. WILFRID. P Papal management of Wilfrid's case ----- 356 Protestanl views of it correct ------ .:.> Objections broughl against Wilfrid ----- 359 His appeal to Rome .-._._- ;;i,-j Comminatory excommunications 364 Disregarded in England --_-.-. ;;»;»; Alleged miracles to favour Wilfrid 369 His release 370 II. is reconciled to Theodore - - - - - - ;;7l Nature of contemporary references to Rome - - - -IT 1 Wilfrid's restoration ....... 377 Gregory VII. - - - - - - - _ -378 Misled by fictitious documents 381 CHAPTER XL EUCHARISTIC QUESTIONS. The Real Presence 384 Primitive eucharistic usages 385 Altars and the like disclaimed in primitive times - - 386 The ancient basilica ....... 389 Progress of sacrificial language - - - - - -390 Difficulties about it-------- 392 Its gradual establishment 395 Paschasius Radbert - 396 The Romish mass _.. 398 Controversy raised by Radbert ---_-- 402 Mabillon's view of his doctrine --...- 404 This not identical with that of modern Rome - - - 406 Communions without communicants }()s Erigena - - - - - - - - _ -415 John of Athelney -------- 4l(j John Scot 417 Controversy upon their identity - - - - -lis Elfric 423 His orthodoxy - - - - - - - - -124 His canon of the Old Testaim nt - 42.3 His eucharistic doctrine ------- 40s Xvi CONTENTS. Page This entertained by the Anglo-Saxon Church - - 430 Novelty of Radbert's doctrine - • - 432 CHAPTER XII. DEVELOPMENT. I fse of recent religious movements - 434 Tradition found insufficient for papal purposes - 435 The development theory ------- 436 Difference in developments ------ 437 Evil germs planted in apostolic times ----- 438 The Gnostic germ 440 The Judaistic germ -------- 443 The Libert inistic germ ------- 445 The Philosophic germ ------- 448 Philosophy disapproved by many Christians - - - 45 1 Yet Christianity fused with it, and corrupted by it - - 452 The Sacerdotal germ - 455 Patristic authority for extra-scriptural belief - - - 459 Its insufficiency -------- 460 Its uncertainty „»■•■*-*■" 462 Patristic development of extra-scriptural belief - - - 464 Anglo-Saxon development ------ 465 Austin's controversy with Faustus the Manichee - 469 Uncertainty of patristic evidence - 472 Extra-scriptural belief unsatisfactory 475 Pagan developments -.«.---- 478 Sacerdotal development - 480 Evils of it - 481 Judaic adaptations .------- 482 Evils brought by them to Christians 484 Abuses of the Eucharist ------- 485 Abuses of penitential doctrine 487 Evils of extra-scriptural belief ------ 491 Advantage of scriptural religion 493 The Papacy sectarian ■■*«*-- 495 Protestant apologies for the Papacy 496 Papal authority adverse to improvement - 498 Rome flexible for her own ends 500 Conclusion - „_----_ 502 THE LATIN C II V U CM DURING ANGLO-SAXON TIMKS, CHAPTEE I. GREGORY THE GREAT. U Y. »RK. J 'uence. — Introduction. — Eagerness of the Roman See for Infli Saintship assigned to its most conspicuous Agents.— Invoca- tion of departed Spirits. — Gregory the Great. — Character of his Religion. — His disadvantageous political Appearance. — His Contest with John the Faster. — Evils of such an Exposure. — Inciting Causes of the English Mission. — Claims advanced by Augustine. — Historical Inference. Fixed in the capital of a mighty empire, and long the centre of missionary enterprise, the Church of Rome early eclipsed every other. Her position told most upon the countries to the west and north ; eventually the chief seats of civilisation. Their ad- vances in the social scale were made under an habi- tual deference for the Roman see. They even wenl so far as to treat its adherents as a sort of imper- sonation of the universal Church. Catholics is the name they gave them, as if all Christians uncon- nected with Rome laboured under some kind of religious error. The East never made any such B INTRODUCTION, concession. Christum communities are there esta- blished as old as that of Rome, if not older ; and they distinguish the Roman as the Latin Church, and its adherents as Latins. Nor is a more compre- hensive phraseology correct. Rome is no original seat of the Christian religion, no scene of its holy Founder's ministry and sufferings. These are the glories of Jerusalem. But Christianity could not root itself in an immense metropolis, without ac- quiring a voice that must be heard and respected over all the provinces. Nevertheless, primitive times do not exhibit provincial churches under subjection to that of Rome. Before the first council of Nice, there is little or no solid appearance of any official authority conceded at a distance to the Roman see. Remote Christian bodies naturally looked up to it, on account of its position. It was occupied by the most important of Christian ecclesiastics, because his con- gregation was in the most important of cities. Re- ferences were sure to flow in upon a prelacy so con- spicuous from distant parts, because it carried a decree of weight that could be found nowhere else. Rome was the city that concentrated the wealth, in- formation, and greatness, almost every way, of the Roman world. After Constantine, this world was distinctly marked out into two different hemispheres. The court had migrated eastward, and it became Greek, though continuing to call itself Roman. Still, the ancient capital retained much of its immemorial importance : enough to make it the centre of a reli- gious body, which could be designated in no manner so appropriately as Latin, in contradistinction to the [NTRODUCTION. Greek, organised elsewhere. Each of these churches took up the' language of the city in whipb its chief see was placed. The Eastern worshipped in Greek, theWestern in Latin. Tins was perfectly reasonable, when the two liturgies were severally framed, and nothing else, probably, would have been endured. But it has outlived its [towers of usefulness every- where ; and in the West, Latin devotions were thrusl upon people that never could understand them. Such pertinacity and obtrusion are incapable of any rational defence. They serve, however, to eoniirni the pro- priety of designating the two churches as they are designated in the East. None, who think of Romish services, can deny them to be remnants of the ancient Latin Church. Those who use them, therefore, may call themselves as they like ; but it is plain that Eastern usage may, with strict correctness, be adopted Westwards, and Roman Catholics receive the name of Latins. When Rome was no longer the most important of cities, her church was favoured by circumstances which were skilfully improved, in continuing to be the most important of churches. As one way to secure this position, she has constantly striven to reduce all Christian bodies under her authority. She has habitually talked of unity, and meant subjection. Her bishops never could see a church established by any other than Roman missionaries, without forming schemes for underlining its independence. Their advocates would have the world believe, that every such Christian body was originally formed by sonic sort of papal management. How far such repiv- B 2 4 PAPAL EAGERNESS S ( ntations may be true, and claims founded on them may be sound, need not be here inquired. Nothing more is wanted for present purposes than to observe, that many churches have existed from a very early date, quite unconnected with papal Rome, and owning no kind of subjection to her. When any one of these came within reach of her emissaries, it was invariably charged with something or other amiss, which re- quired Roman intervention to eradicate. A Christian church, of immemorial standing, assailed under this plea, existed in the British isles. The following pages will not only make use of this fact, but also exhibit another such in Germany. Boniface, an English mis- sionary ordinarily known as the apostle of that coun- try, went among people there already Christian, but averse from his own employer, the Roman bishop. In the ninth century, likewise, two Greek monks, Methodius and Cyril, evangelised Moravia and Bohe- mia. As their mission bore nothing of a Latin cha- racter, they could see no necessity for importing a liturgy from Rome. They w r ere also above such a party spirit as would have insisted upon a service- book in Greek. Their converts worshipped in Scla- vonic, the language which those people spoke. The two Greek missionaries, having had very considerable success, received an invitation to Rome. They went thither in the time of Adrian II., and were assailed with objections to public worship in Sclavonic. As they would not give way, it became clear that unless Koine did, her chance of gaining any footing in Bohemia and Moravia would be extremely small. Adrian, accordingly, assented to the propriety of a FOB INFLUENCE. service in those countries which the people could understand. So did John VIII.. who succeeded him. A.bove any such rational view, the impracticable llil- debrand, or Gregory VII., was lifted by his own do- mineering disposition and various temptations to in- dulge it. He could not resl withoul forcing his yoke upon Bohemia and Moravia. They were driven to receive the Roman liturgy, though quite unable to understand it. In fact, it was fasl growing beyond popular comprehension, even in Italy. Eildebrand's determination to root it in the churches founded by Methodius and Cyril evidently proved a very hazardous experiment. Innocent IV., in the middle. of the thirteenth century, was under the necessity of authorising a return to the old Sclavonic service. 1 The subsequent revocation of this concession, and complete establishment of the papal system in Bohe- mia, laid, probably, the foundation of that contempt and hatred for Latin usages which exploded in the Hussite wars of the fifteenth century. In the follow- ing century, the popes showed their impatience of any religious authority but their own, in fruitless endeavours to undermine the Church of Abyssinia, then recently become accessible. About the same time similar attempts were made, and with partial success, upon the Syrian Christians of Hindostan. 2 Thus various times and quarters of the globe exhibit papal ambition eagerly upon the watch to make all Christian bodies vassals of the Roman see. 1 L'Knfant. Cone, de Basle. Utr. 1731. i. 3. 2 Mosheim, Institutes, iii. 249- Buchanan, Christian Researches; Lond. IS 14, p. 107. b 3 (; SCRIPTURE ONLY TRUSTWORTHY. Serious minds display a short-sighted policy when they hastily dismiss these facts as mere history, or drive them away, as irritating to a large section of the Christian world. No extensive progress can be made in the regeneration of mankind, without a due estimate and use of the provision which Providence has made for that purpose. Man's own intellects are weak, his affections corrupt, and his eagerness to lower moral responsibility is excessive. He neither discerns readily the real properties of solid goodness, nor can bear to think of strenuous efforts to establish it within himself. Rather would he trust in mere advances towards amendment, religious forms, and some clerical privilege to make externals efficacious. Without strong light from on high, he will never see fully the extent of heavenly requirements, and of his own responsibility. Such light is only shot from Scripture. When men talk of it from any other source, they are talking of themselves. They mean to spare and screen themselves. They do but varnish vanity, cupidity, or sensuality; but hoodwink human nature against a due sense of its own acts. All who would give mankind a higher tone must look to Scripture. There may be seen divine communica- tions of indubitable authenticity, and nowhere else. The church of Rome denies the latter of these affirm- ;i fives. Her existence hangs upon setting up some- thing to match and master the Bible. Take all her doctrines away, that arc neither expressly contained in Scripture, nor provable by it, and she stands forth a Protestant. She cannot make any such surrender, we arc authoritatively told, because her extra-scrip- TRADITION. tural belief rests upon the sacred deposit of some divine tradition. 3 Of Late, her advocates have been driven from this plea, and sought refuge in bewilder- ing systems of development. The real authority for tenets professedly divine, bu1 unrecorded in the only book that is divine, will, however, resolve itself into the papal sec. Influential religious minds are, there- fore, deeply concerned in tracing the upward steps by which the Roman bishops gained their height. Without competently knowing this history, Protestant intelligence is armed but half. It cannot expose, as the welfare of mankind requires, that powerful system which presumes to cast a shade over the unquestion- able, because the written, Word of God. Of papal history, no portion is more; important than that between the Anglo-Saxon conversion, and the Norman conquest, Within that space of less than five hundred years, Rome secured all the pre- liminaries to her subsequent religious monarchy. 1 The council of Trent sets out upon a principle which has exactly this effect: a fact not known so widely and distinctly as it ought to be. The first among that council's decrees, passed at its fourth session, April 8. 1546, receives and venerates with a feeling of equal piety and reverence (" pari pietatis affectu et reverentia") all the book8 t as well of the Old as of the New Testament, since one God was the author of them both, and also the traditions, relating as well as to faith as to morals, inasmuch as, coming either from the mouth of Christ himself, or dictated by the Holy Spirit, they have been preserved in the Catholic church in uninterrupted succession. (Labb. et Coss. xiv. 7^6. Bp. Marsh a Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome, 23.) Tine. the differences between Romanists and Protestants do not turn, as many people fancy, upon different ways of interpreting Scripture. Romanists find an equal or a match for Scripture, in tradition. It is obvious, that in matching a circumscribed authority with an uncircumscribed one, the uncircumscribed must prove the master. More will be said upon these matters hereafter, but it was desirable to place them upon a bread in- telligible ground at the outset. B 4 8 GREGORY THE GREAT. One of her movements was eventually rewarded by a firm footing in the British Isles. Her bishop then was Gregory L, from unwearied industry, and many other qualities better still, known very fairly as the Great, Romanists also call him, Saint: a title that involves among them much more than becoming homage to departed worth. It is given to such among the dead as are thought likely to hear, if called upon for their prayers. Those who will re- ceive supernatural information from the only known record of supernatural origin, think no such thing likely in the case of any deceased person whatsoever. They view Gregory, therefore, as a good man, long out of hearing. Even his goodness had an alloy of human infirmity, that makes him scarcely fit for the mere honorary title of Saint. But had his virtues taken the highest range within reach of weak and fallible humanity, Scripture speaks of our Lord as the " one Mediator between God and man." 1 Romish divines, undoubtedly, contend for two sorts of medi- ation, and assign one of them, that of intercession, to saints. This may be an ingenious way of escaping 1 1 Tim. ii. 5. " Unus mediator Dei et hominum, homo Jesus Christus." (V»l death, but he forbears to say, that Paul speaks with hesitation ; a for- bearance in which he follows the homily: Paul -ays. Of which conver- sion (the English, namely,) as it is thought, this occasion was divinely given. Vita S. Greg. Mag. Acta SS. Ora\ Benea\ Ven, 1733. Sac. 1. 383. 2 "Can the reader divine the great object of Gregory in the establish- ment of this mission? Mr. Soames lias recently discovered that it was 14 GREGORY IN THE SLAVE MARKET. Any account fairly given of Gregory's conduct, however unfavourable to Eomish views, will probably make readers consider the venerable pope to have been actuated chiefly by higher motives than annoy- ances from Constantinople, in planning the English mission. But with Gregory, as with even greater men, virtuous purposes might need a stimulus from something lower to render them effective. 1 Of such to extend his authority in the West, as a counterpoise to the encroaching spirit of his Eastern rivals, the patriarchs of Constantinople." Lingard, i. 22. note. 1 Nor should the opinion be passed over in silence, which has come down even to our times about blessed Gregory, from the tradition of our ancestors ; as to the cause, namely, which admonished him to take such sedulous care of the salvation of our nation. (Bed. Eccl. Hist. ii. 89- cd. Stevenson,, p. $6.) Tims Bede treats this merely as an opinion ("opi- nio"), and asserts no higher authority for it than long currency (" tra_ ditione majorum.") The Anglo-Saxon church (p. 47-) mentions a fact established by one of Gregory's epistles, namely, that pope's purchase of some young Anglo- Saxon slaves, to be educated as missionaries to their native country, and it is conjectured that the slave market story originated in this fact : a very likely process at any time, but more than usually likely in an ignorant age, among gossiping monks, whose heads were full of the marvellous. The History and Antiquities of the Anglo- Saxon Church also mentions the fact established by Gregory's epistle, but gives no hint of its obvious bearing upon the wonderful story. Paul the Deacon, who lived at the beginning of the ninth century, would refer Gregory's English project to the slave market, as a probable way of accounting for it, but nothing more. Of which conversion, namely, the English, he says, as it is thought (ut putatur), this occasion was divinely given. (Vita S. Greg. Mag. Acta SS. Orel. Ben. i. 383.) John the Deacon evidently, though not expressly, attributes Gregory's act to the slave market, but he, notwithstanding, relates the tale with some degree of hesitation, introducing it thus, / have determined upon inserting sonic thing-- here with which I have become acquainted from the relation of our forefathers, and the writings of former times. (Vita S. Greg. Mag. Acta SS. Ord. Ben. i. 3,97-) Mabillon takes the same line, asserting nothing as to the origin of Gregory's design, but first telling the slave story, and then passing at once to the English mission. (Ainialf. Ord. S.Beu.i. '240. ) The Hist, and Autiq. of the Anglo-Saxon Church treads in the steps of Mabillon, thus erecting at once into authentic history what the most ancient authorities treat as a mere tra- dition, and relating as the indisputable origin of a fact, what the most ancient authorities say was merely an opinion as to that origin. HIS GENERAL CHARAC I ER. 1.", need in this case, undoubtedly, people would have no suspicion, whose beads arc full of saintship, and who desire no farther information than such as papal advocates ordinarily give. Bui those who disbelieve omniscience in any of the dead, and have read besides some of those particulars of ( iregory which Protestant writers will supply, may consider him not a1 all unlikely to have thoughl of England in conjunction with Constantinople. This class of readers having fuller information, and no superstitious prejudices, can, in fact, scarcely fail of considering Gregory, though a very good man in his way, and for his time, yet in many tilings much like other people. In order to strengthen such a view, and, at the same time, to justify Protestant history, a few more particulars of this famous pope are now required for public notice. If a completer portrait of him should rather sink his reputation, it must be pleaded as an excuse, that existing controversy required a greater fulness of detail. Gregory's religion then was altogether of a popular kind. His habits through life were of that ascetic cast which generally gains upon the unthinking mass of men. His mind's eye dwelt incessantly upon ceremonies and formalities. He seems to have been very much alive to take advantage of the greediness with which inferior understandings swallow marvels. None of these things, however, mark a man intellec- tually great, or superlatively good. They rather betoken cunning than any higher quality, and. are better fitted for making way in the world, than for improving it. The centuriators of Magdeburg, in- 1G HIS CREDULITY. deed, charge Gregory with deliberate imposture for superstitious purposes \ and undoubtedly, two of the miracles ascribed to him are exactly such as ordinary legerdemain produces every day. 2 Belief may, how- ever, fairly be denied to posthumous relations of this kind. But still, Gregory must remain answerable, either for great credulity, or for a disposition to ex- tract good, as he might think his object, out of easi- 1 He was very famous for miracles, with which he imposed upon the ignorant people, to make them receive more easily his traditions and cere- monies, which have filled the whole world. Cent. Magdebb. vi. 878. 2 A noble Roman lady came to the communion, having previously brought, according to usage, some bread, as an oblation. A portion of this she recognised in Gregory's hand when it was her turn to commu- nicate, and he observed her smile, as he said, The body of our Lord Jesus' Christ profit thee for the remission of thy sins, and life ever- lasting. Her smile made him draw back his hand, put the bread by itself on the altar, and desire the deacon to take care of it until the communion was over. He then asked the lady why she smiled. Be- cause, she said, I knew the little piece in your hand to be a part of the very oblation which I made myself, and offered to you ; and 1 could not help smiling when I found you calling it the body of our Lord. Gregory then addressed the people, and exhorted them to pray God for some demonstration of this unbelieving lady's mistake. After they had done so, he went to the altar, lifted up the cloth, under which the with- drawn portion of bread had been placed, and found, instead of it, a piece of a bloody finger. (Acta SS. Ord. Ben. 38/3. 414.) It is ob- vious that these two deacons, Paul and John, who thus relate this story, lived too long after the time. The story itself has been alleged as evi- dence for transubstantiation, and might have been invented for that purpose ; but it is really of no great utility for any such object. If it be a real transaction, it would prove that many people did not believe transubstantiation at the time referred to. People were, therefore, then not in the frame of mind now universal among Roman Catholics. Re- sides, there was no ground for the lady's smile in the customary words used by Gregory. These do not assert the actual presence of Christ's body, but only pray that the communicant might be benefited by Christ's body. Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi prosit tibi. Nor does the tale itself necessarily imply transubstantiation, or the change of the elements into another substance by the means of consecration, whenever a validly-ordained consecrator intended it. Gregory is repre- sented as having obtained this miracle by the especial prayers of him- self and the congregation ; and the lady who gave occasion for it, might have really had faith, although clouded for a moment by a temporary HIS CREDULH Y. 17 aess of belief, or some petty artifice. 1 Neither sup- position will much exalt his character, or establish for him any indisputable claim to rank high among t\n> spiritual benefactors of mankind. Gregory's claim to any such distinction is invalidated besides by his fondness for relics. 2 An admiration of these impulse. Thus the story might rather be understood as a proof of tip- real presence to the faithful, than of that corporal presence which Rom eventually taught. The relation is, accordingly, found in Elfric'a famous paschal homily, which so clearly makes againsl transubstantia- tion. L'Isle, indeed, considers it an interpolation there, but the houii- list might think it useful in keeping people from confounding the consecrated elements with common food. The second miracle referred to in the text is this :— A person of dis. tinction sent to Gregory for some relics. The pope took his mi ssengers round to various tombs of martyrs, and other places deemed hoi;. . brating masses at them all. He then sent the messengers away with some small sealed coffers. On the road, one of them took it into his head to break open one of these coffers, and found nothing in it but a few little pieces of cloth. This discovery led to the violation of the other boxes, and they were found filled in the same manner. Highly indig- nant at this, the party returned to Rome, exclaiming that their journey would certainly have led them into disgrace, if it had been found, that instead of bringing bones, or other fragments of martyred saints, they had only brought shreds of cloth, which might just as well have been found at home. Gregory now desired the messengers to attend a mass, and at it he recommended in his sermon that the people should pray for some special manifestation of the divine favour. lie then struck a knife into one of the rejected cloths, and blood came out. This he ex- plained by saying, that cloths, used as these had been, at masses over the relics of apostles and martyrs, imbibed a portion of their blood. (Acta SS. Ord. Ben. i. 386.) This was, of course, quite satisfactory. But modern times would say, that, if either this or the former transac- tion ever took place at all, it might easily be managed ; and that there is nothing to make one believe that it ever did take place at all. 1 " As for the Dialogues" (Gregory's), u they are filled with miracles and stories so grossly absurd and fabulous, that it would be a reflection on the understanding and good sense of this great pope to think that hi' really believed them ; the rather as for many of them he had no better vouchers than old, doting, and ignorant people." ( Bower's Popes, in 542.) Gregory, however, most likely did believe a yj^u\ part of these tales, and gave himself little or no trouble about their pretensions to credibility. He thought them likely to do good, and considered his in- formants very good sort of people. This was ei ough. - One of the relics brought from Constantinople by Gregory, which IS HIS OTHER WEAKNESSES. debasing and ridiculous trifles might be, as it was, a general failing in his days. But a man who falls into general failings, and humours them, bears no marks about him of any especial illumination from above. Those who unquestionably had such an illumi- nation, because their title to it is established by Scripture, were never drawn in by the current of pre- vailing errors. They were, on the contrary, dis- tinguished by unceasing opposition to the sinful weaknesses of their several times. Gregory had like- wise taken very intolerant views of the Donatists, although their religious opinions were not only free from doctrinal error, but also, like his own, were ascetic and austere. Because they would not conform, how- ever, to the dominant church, he exerted himself to bring them under secular oppression. 1 In such con- duct, again, there is no appearance of any thing un- usually enlarged or holy. Another conspicuous blot, upon Gregory's character is of a political nature. After showing himself very much of a courtier, he engaged in strong opposition to the emperor Maurice, because that prince forbade men to seek an escape from military service by turning monks. It is obvious that an abuse of this kind might require some decided check, and one clearly was not given because the emperor cared little for spiritual ques- tions. Maurice, on the contrary, though accused of covetousness, was more than ordinarily moral and passed for the arm of St. Andrew, remained at Rome, in Bower's time, and is probably there still. Hist, of the Popes, ii. 4()7- 1 See his Epistles to Gennadius, exarch of Africa. Labb. et Coss. v. 1071, 1072. ins FLATTERY TO PHOCAS. 19 religious. Gregory could, however, forgel his good qualities, and even go ><> far as to salute with a flattery, to which religious language Lends additional disgust, Phocas, who usurped his throne, and after- wards murdered him. Yet the character of this usurper appears to have been decidedly bad, and un- less Gregory had been something of a time-server, it is most unlikely that Ik 1 would have written to him as he did. 1 It is useless to talk of a man from whose memory these imputations cannot be wiped away, as any miracle of goodness and wisdom. He might be far above the ordinary run of men in both respects, as Gregory undoubtedly was, but there is not a shadow of reason for bringing him into a history on any other than the ordinary historical terms. His character, as painted by himself, will fully show this. He could fret violently under mortifica- tions really but little worthy of a great man's notice. John the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople, proud of living close to the emperor, and having his ear, proud of the fame earned by his own austerities, and substantially good qualities, was bent upon lowering the bishop of the ancient capital, now deserted by the court. He insisted, accordingly, under imperial authority upon styling himself (Ecumenical Bishop. This obnoxious title had been assumed in the time of 1 See the 38th, in the 11th hook of his F.pistles. (Ih. 1529-) Ex- tracts from it have heen often made by Protestant writers. John the Deacon accounts for it hy saying, that Gregory either wished the new emperor to hear what sort of a person lie ought to l>e, and therefore act more mildly than Maurice ; or else, that, observing his devotion towards the church, he thought him unlikely to fall into tyranny. {Acta SS. Ord. Ben. i. 4?53.) Both excuses discover embarrassment. c 2 20 HIS CONTEST WITH Gregory's predecessor, Pelagius, who had remon- strated strongly against it. John was, however, un- moved, and when Gregory became pope, he found him continue the style that had already given so much offence at Rome. Gregory lost all patience, and even levelled at the Faster insinuations of hy- pocrisy, though speaking of him, with the sort of courtesy usual in such cases, as a most holy person- age. 1 But by way of letting people know pretty plainly what he really thought of his holiness, he spoke of religious teachers, in such a way, certainly, as to include himself, whose examples nullified what their tongues preached ; whose works taught wickedness, and their voices only what teas just; who fasted them- selves down to skeletons, but were big enough within ; who went about in wretched clothing, but had a haugh- tiness at heart that no purple could come up to ; who lay grovelling in ashes, but for all that looked high enough; who lectured people on humility, but led them into pride ; whose faces were a sheep's, but their teeth a wolfs? The Faster's cherished title was accordingly 1 " Vir sanctissimus consacerdos meus Joannes." (Greg. Maur. Aug. Labb. et (Joss. v. 1181.) In another letter to the emperor Maurice, Gregory says, My often-mentioned most holy brother endeavours to persuade many things to my most serene lord. lb. 1189- 2 " Quod per linguam prjedicamus, per exemplum destruimus : qui iniqna docemus operibus, et sola voce ea quae justa sunt praetendimus. Ossa jejuniis atteruntur, et mente turgemus. Corpus despectis vestibus tegitur, et elatione cordis purpuram superamus. Jacemus in cinere, et excelsa non despicinms. Doctores humilium, duces superbiae, ovina facie lupinos dentes abscondimus." {lb. 1181.) That Gregory here, though writing as if he modestly thought such language quite as fit for himself as for any body else, really meant it for John, appears not only from the purport of his letter, but also from another letter which he Avrote to the emperor. He there says, I beg that you will allow no mans hypocrisy to prevail against the truth ; because there are people, JOHN THE l Wi ER. 2 1 accounted for on the supposition thai Ajitichrisl must be close a1 band 1 , and pronounced contrary to the Gospel, contrary to the canons, a novelty, an usur- pation, a presumption, a name of blasphemy, an in- jury to the whole priesthood, a senseless arrogance. 2 // was needful, the emperor was told, to keep a man down who put an affront upon tin* holy universal church, who was puffed up at heart, who delighted in being styled like nobody else, who applied, in fact, a term to himself which placed his honour above that of the throne:'' Nothing, Gregory declared, could be more humble than his own views. He was the servanl of all priests, if they only lived like priests ', and from him, we are told, came the usage, still retained by popes, of styling themselves Servants of the servants of God? Now, it requires no great sagacity or un- who, iii the distinguished preacher 1 s language (St. Paul's to the Romans, xvi. 18.), " by good words and fair speeches dea ive the hearts of the sim~ ple, u iiiu) arc despicable in dress, but vuffi d up at heart, ami while ing to despise all things in this world, are notwithstanding at the same time seeking to get all that the world can bestow ; aim profess t<> think all men marc worthy than themselves, but cannot be contented tobe called like other people, because they want something to make thou l<»>k more worthy than any body else. lb. 1184. 1 " Seel in ejus superbia quid aliud nisi propinqua jam Antichristi esse tempora designamus ?" lb. 1 1 Sf>. 2 "Quis est ille, qui, contra statuta evangelica, contra canonum decreta, novum sibi usurpare nomen prsesumit ? Absit a cordibus Christianorum nomen istud blasphemise, in quo omnium sacerdotum honor adimitur, dum ab uno sibi dem enter arrogatur." //'. 3 " Ille coercendus est, qui sanctrc universali ecclesia> injuriam facit, qui corde tumet, qui gaudere de nomine singularitatis appetit, qui honori quoque imperii vestri se per privatum vocabulum Buperponit." lb. 4 " Ego enim cunctorum sacerdotum servus sum, in quantum ipsi sacerdotaliter vivunt." 5 See the passage in the Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 1 •!■., note. In that passage Joanne should stand for Paulo. There are two lives of Gre- gory the Great in the Benedictine Acts, the first by Paul the Deacon, c 3 22 JOHN'S HIGH CHARACTER. charitableness to consider a man who could volun- tarily sit for such a picture of mortified vanity, as very much under the decenter impulses that sway men in general. His rival, the Faster, was in reality, the same sort of person as himself ; and consequently enjoyed quite as great reputation at Constantinople, as he did at Rome. Zonaras, in mentioning that re- viled ascetic's elevation to the patriarchate, calls him, a most holy man \ and subsequently says, that after adorning that dignity more than thirteen years, he departed to the eternal mansions. 2 Yet Gregory's ancient biographer, John the Deacon, describes this patriarch as the Constantinopolitan hypocrite, and re- presenting his unexpected death as a judgment, goes on to moralise upon the ease with which he was placed in a narrow grave, after displaying such a pride as the whole world could scarcely contain. 3 This exposure is not one that a religious mind would choose to make. There is really much to respect in the memories of both John and Gregory. the second by John the Deacon. The second is more recent, and the passage cited is in the first paragraph of the second book in it. The title of Servant of the servants of God appears, about Gregory's time, not to have been confined to himself, or other occupants of the Roman see. Laurence, archbishop of Canterbury, with his two coadjutors, Mellitus and Justus, in writing to the Irish bishops and abbots, about the year 634, style themselves Servi servorum Bel. Usser. Vet. Epist. Hibern. Sylloge. Dubl. 1632, p. 18. 1 'YwawnQ o vti(ttevt>ic, ai>)p uf)wTaror. Annall. Bas. 1557- iii- $9- 2 Hpug Tag alciovg /.ietei BOTH PRELATES. 23 Each of them had many very valuable qualities. Nor is it possible to overlook the evil of bringing forward facts 90 Little creditable to persons once oi great eminence in the religious world. I ndoubtedly, those who would laugh or argue religion out oi countenance, hai] such pictures as weapons of the most serviceable kind. It is, however, an evil thai must be risked when a full display of the truth seems likely to prove the humble instrument of accomplish- ing a much greater good. John and Gregory, then, were both sadly blemished by the greediness of vain- glory. It was an infirmity of the flesh, oik.' of those things that lower us all, and it came over these two great, and on many accounts, good prelates, in the disguise of asserting a pre-eminence, due to their several sees, and beneficial to mankind. Thus, as usual, the vanity of individuals took shelter under an alleged regard for the public good. But general and pardonable as is this weakness, it must not be spared, when great principles are at stake. Such is the case when pains are taken to raise a saintly character for Gregory the Great. This undue ex- altation of him is always connected with religious principles that have no sure footing in the Bible. The facts are, that Gregory was aware of a strong disposition among the English to embrace Christianity, and of an unwillingness in the Frankish clergy to go over into the island as missionaries. 1 There were ob- 1 The passages from hi- epistles proving the former fact may be Been in The Anglo-Saxon Church. K)., note. The latter fact is established by the following clause in Gregory's letter, " sed Bacerdotes vestros c vicinio negligere, et desideria eorum cessare sua adhortatione suc- cendere." Labb. et Coss. v. 1244- c 4 24 KOMAN MISSIONS. vious reasons for a favourable feeling towards the gospel in England. It was professed by the most distinguished lady in the country, and something of a partiality for it at least must have lingered among the British population which was intermingled with the Saxons. There was, therefore, an opening for a mission ; and Rome, as became the great western seat of religion and civilisation, had been in the habit of sending one, wherever a prospect of success showed itself. 1 But such habits generally require some sti- mulus to render them active, and none presents itself so naturally as those contemporaneous mortifications from Constantinople which galled Gregory so severely. That he actually sought, in despatching Augustine, some counterbalance to the successful pretensions of his eastern rival, is, however, scarcely a matter of mere inference. One of Gregory's own letters in- structs Augustine to place under himself all the clergy of the island. 2 Now, it is not likely that i This appears from the before-cited letter of Laurence, Mellitus, and Justus/ to the bishops and abbots of Ireland, printed in Ussher's Sylloge. The joint writers thus begin, " Dura nos sedes apostolica, more suo, sicut in universo orbe terrarum, in his occidius partibus ad preedicandum gentibus Paganis dirigeret." Thus these witnesses, who must have known the truth, refer Gregory's mission neither to any especial providence, nor picturesque incident, but solely to the regular practice of the Roman see. 2 Gregory wrote to him, Your brotherhood is to have under you, not only the bishops ordained by yourself , and tho.se whom the bishop of York may ordain, but also all the priests of Britain. (Bed. i. 29. ed. Stevenson, p. 78.) This monstrous assumption is defended upon the ground, that it could plead our Lord's authority, inasmuch as the Britons were to learn right belief and right practice from the metropo- litan thus thrust upon them, and by such instruction secure the salva- tion of their souls. This reason is instructive. Gregory, it will be seen, does not shelter his attempt to gain for his own nominee a para- mount ecclesiastical authority over Britain, under any plea of vindicat- ing St. Peter's authority, and asserting rights inherent in himself. He PLANS FOB A.UG1 STTNE. -•> Gregory meanl A.ugustine to erecl himself into a sort of patriarch, independent of Rome. He musl have reckoned upon thai degree of influence for the papal Bee which it actually enjoyed in the wesl and in Africa. This, undoubtedly, was far less than Rome ultimately obtained, and than papal advocates represent as hers in Gregory's time. But, if the Bcheme could be realised, a considerable counterpoise would have come from it to the annoyances at Con- stantinople. Augustine, it was meant, should have under him, not only the church, which he mighl suc- ceed in founding, but he was also to seek means of establishing another metropolitan at York, and in his province he was likewise to enjoy a paramount au- thority. Nor was even this all. Gregory's nominee was to go beyond any Christian field won by his own exertions, and by those of missionaries under his di- rection. He was actually to claim, and obtain, if he could, an authority over the Christian church that had immemorially existed in the island. ( hie of his proposals, accordingly, which the British clergy re- jected, was, tli'it they would receive him for their - bishop. 1 The instructions, therefore, given to him, merely assumes, that all the Britons, whether Pagans or Christians, would he placed under such great spiritual obligations by Augustine, that he might justly claim a religious authority over them. The whole passage is this, " Tua vero fraternitas non solum cos episcopos, quos ordinaverit, neque hos tantummodo, qui per Eburacee episcopum Puerint or din a ti, Bed etiam omnes Brittannise sacerdotes habeat, Deo Domino nostro Jesu Christo auctore, subjectos ; quatenus ex lingua et vita tus sanctitatis et recte credendi et bene vivendi forraara percipiant, atque officium suum fide ac moiibus exsequentes ad ccelestia, cum Doroinus voluerit, regna pertingant." 1 "At illi nil horum so facturos, neque ilium />>•/> archiepiscopo kabi- turos esse respondebant. The things which the Britons refused to do 26 ANCIENT BRITISH OPPOSITION necessarily imply, either that he was to set up for himself in Britain the same sort of patriarchate that the pope held at Rome, or that he was to seek some similar kind of office which the papal see might have good prospect of influencing. The latter suppo- sition must evidently be the true one, and it is worthy of remark, that, if Gregory had seen his projects take effect, he would have acquired a hold upon a church which was in actual opposition to the papal see. The at Augustine's instances were three, namely, that they should celebrate Easter at its proper timeQ suo tempore'), administer baptism according to the Roman fashion, and join the Italian missionaries in a mission to the Pagan Saxons. If they wouM do these things, Augustine told them, he would put up with other things which they did in a manner dis- approved at Rome. These things appear to have been many. ( ff In multis quidem nostra? consuetudini, imo universalis ecclesiae, con- traria geritis.") These proposals were made at Augustine's second and final conference, to which the British clergy came after consultation among their own people. All the three things, however, they rejected, and at the same time refused to admit Augustine as their archbishop. Now, it is worthy of remark, that Augustine seems to have taken up, upon this occasion, much the same ground that Gregory's letter to him does, which authorises his assumption of the archiepiscopal dignity. There is no claim of authority put forth. Gregory founds his nominee's pretensions to a paramount ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the whole island, upon the important spiritual services that he was to render. The nominee himself recommends his reforms as called for by the practice of the universal church. You do many things contrary to our custom, nay, rather, to that of the universal church. Here again is not a word of St. Peter, and papal rights. The Britons, accordingly, rejected Augustine's proposals, because they considered them to come from a person who could not be actuated by a thoroughly Christian spirit, and hence could not be safely trusted with power. As they were going to the conference, an aged hermit advised them to give way, if the stranger were a man of God. The circumstances that followed are detailed in The Anglo Saxon Church, p. 57., and clearly show that Augustine took up no such ground as an ordinary papal advocate would advance, and as the modern papal cause requires. The Britons finally refused his proposals, because, If he would not rise, when we came to him just now, how much more offensively will he show that he thinks nothing of us, when once wc hare, placed ourselves under his authority? Bed. H. C. ii. 93. ed. Stevenson. 102. i a TO THE ROMAN SEE. 27 British Christians wholly rejected the authority of Rome upon several points which would now seem to many serious minds of very Little importance, but which Gregory and his contemporaries viewed ii widely different Light. There was, indeed, then goir on, as there has often been since, a violent struggle for unity, and this word meant, as it has commonly done, little else than uniform subjection. People could not rest contented without driving all the world besides into their ways, and under their authority. Now, if Gregory could accomplish these ends in the untrodden field of Britain, it is plain that he would secure a very satisfactory set-off against the perti- nacious Easter's galling assumptions at Constanti- nople. He would not only have to exult in the con- version of a heathen race to Christianity, but also in the forcing of Roman usages upon a Christian body which had hitherto paid no attention to the papal see. It is, undoubtedly, impossible to produce any direct evidence of these feelings in Gregory's mind. People seldom strip themselves quite stark naked in letters. Gregory's epistolary stripping went a good way; much farther, in fact, than has been found conve- nient by later partisans of Rome, but it did not go far enough to make him conclude his vituperations of the Faster in some such manner as this: — " I must seek in another direction that field for vindicating St. Peter's honour which sanctimonious patriarchs and partial emperors deny me in the East. Britain is the quarter to which I may look with a good pros- pect of success. I know that a disposition to embrace Christianity exists there even among the Saxon con- 28 HISTORICAL querors ; and I see no reason why, if the opening made through them be judiciously improved, the ancient British Christians, hitherto found so imprac- ticable, should not be reduced into conformity with Rome." In the hurry of passion, and under the de- lusions of self-love, Gregory might, indeed, scarcely be aware of any such direction in his thoughts. A distinct perception of such infirmities is commonly reserved for those moments of deepest penitence, when men see and sorrowfully acknowledge that even some of the acts upon which they can re- flect with solid satisfaction were, in a manner, ex- torted from their corrupt nature by the force of motives which man in a holier state would have never found within his breast. Probably Romish zeal may feel inclined to give such supposition a contemptuous dismissal, as little or nothing better than the colouring of romance. Let it, however, be remembered, that probable in- ferences form an integral member of historical com- position. Take them away, and annals only remain, which very few people would be found to read. All historical writers, accordingly, intersperse their nar- ratives with inferences ; and if these are only pro- bable on the face of them, the reading world does not complain. Of course, therefore, it is no hard matter with any writer of history to justify his own conduct iu drawing inferences by the example of those who have most shone in that walk of literature. One such example, and that rather of a striking kind, is to be found in the Romish history of England. In giving the miserable account of Henry the Eighth's fifth wife, i\: ER] m ::. 29 the unfortunate Catharine Howard, thai celebrated work originally pronounced her to have perished under "a plot woven by the industry" of the Re- forming party, and to have been w> a sacrifice to the manes of Amir Boleyn." ' Upon the former <>f these statements a very amiable, right-minded mini, whom we have just lost, Archdeacon Todd, said, that " a more audacious assertion, perhaps, was never made in any history of our country." - It certainly was drawing inferences with ;i high hand, inasmuch as no evidence whatever of any plot i^ producible. It might, indeed, have been reasonably inferred that the Reformers were angry at Anne Boleyifs untimely death, but to go on with an inference that such anerer must have led them into a diabolical con- spiracy against the life of another unhappy female, is rather an unusual stretch of the historian's privi- lege. In this case, accordingly, the learned writer lias been driven to the abandonment of his original ground. The edition of his history lately printed imputes Catharine Howard's misfortunes to a dis- covery made by the reformers, during Henry's ab- sence in the north ; and a note admits that there " is no direct evidence of any plot." :3 Readers of this amended version may be at a loss to understand this note exactly, but they cannot fail of collecting from it as the author's opinion, that this unfortunate 1 The passage, with remarks upon it, may be seen in the author's History of the Reformation, ii. IS;)., note. 2 Life of Archbishop Cranmer. Lond. 1831. L 315. The facta there fully ;uul satisfactorily detailed, completely negativing the Romish inferences drawn from the case. 3 Lingard's History of England, Lond 1838. vi. 311., note. 30 HISTORICAL lady really did perish on a scaffold by means of some vindictive management of the reforming party. As, however, this is merely a gratuitous inference of an eminent individual, those who agree with him in religious views may fairly be asked for some indul- gence of the inference that has been drawn in Gregory the Great's case. It, undoubtedly, intimates what can- not be proved in express terms, but still nothing that is not rendered so probable, as to be almost certain, from authentic letters yet extant. It involves no feeling of hostility to the memory of Gregory the Great. He rendered important services to England by opening a way for Roman missionaries in Kent, with its neighbouring; regions, and for native mis- © (DO sionaries in other parts of the island. He has also been pressed with good effect by Bishop Morton, into the Protestant cause. 1 As he lived when papal di- vinity was only in its infancy, and was a very copious writer, he has left much upon record which may be advantageously cited against modern Romish opi- nions. He is not, indeed, a spiritual guide at all more trust- worthy than those of his age generally. His authorship began long after many extra-scrip- tural opinions had gained a firm hold upon the church, and he strengthened their hold. But he and his contemporaries knew little or nothing of numerous matters, not unimportant, which after times believed. Hence his writings are records of con- 1 In his Catholike Appeale for Protestants, Loud. l6l0. Gregory furnishes the first article in this work,, and as it extends over more than sixty-six pages, it comprises many useful particulars of that pope's opinions. i.\ti;i;i.\< E. 31 siderable use; and his whole history is instructive, because it shows thai nothing shorl of a sounder spiritual Btate than Gregory ever attained, will effec- tually keep down the influence of human corruption, even over minds that have made greal advances towards a heavenly tone. 32 CHAPTER II. CONVERSIONS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. Papal Chums to universal Spiritual Jurisdiction. — Probable Source of early British Christianity. --Glastonbury.— Want of Deference for the Papal See.— Opposition to the Roman Easter. — Conversion of the Saxons by native Missionaries. Patrick. — Early Missions to Ireland. — Want of Papal Claims to a patriarchal Power over the British Isles. — Alleged Miracles in favour of the Papal Party. — Popular Credulity upon such Subjects.- The Whitby Conference- Grounds taken up by the Papal Party. The authentic standard of papal belief requires those who embrace it to " acknowledge the Roman church as the mother and mistress of all churches ! " 1 Within the memories of many yet alive, the British sovereign styled himself king of France, and pro- bably the king of Sardinia still calls himself king of Cyprus and Jerusalem. In both cases, the title was, or is, merely the assertion of an hereditary claim. A similar sense, perhaps, must be given to the usage of papal Rome in styling herself the Mistress of all Churches. She would have people understand, that such are her pretensions. It is not, indeed, in her power to make out so good a case for them, as the royal parties named could, or can, for their pre- 1 Profession of Faith according to the council of Trent, authorised by Pope Pius I V . PAPAL CLAIMS TO SUPEBIOR1 H . tensions to the thrones of France, Cyprus, or Jerusa- lem. Hereditary righl is oul of the question, and actual possession of this universal ecclesiastical power, at any time, cannol be substantiated by authentic history. Hence nothing else remains than to bound the religious monarchy claimed by papal Rome upon some grant divinely made to St. Peter, and trans- mitted by him to the popes. Qpon this principle, although the Roman bishops neither have a power over the whole church, nor ever had, yet they ought to have one as a matter of right. Any such plea, however, is a plain begging of the question. Scholars without the Roman pale, who have looked into thesi matters quite as narrowly as any within it, have never been able to find any evidence worthy of serious attention for the ample privileges which papal Rome shelters under the name of St. Peter. What- ever, therefore, may be thought of England's Long continued claim to the sovereignty of France and of Sardinia's claim to the crowns of Cyprus and Jeru- salem, these unsubstantial feathers really can plead something of a better title than Home can make out for styling herself the unstress of all churches. How she can be the mother of all churches, except she means the stepmother, or merely that she is en- titled to the primacy among them, is very far from evident. Jerusalem, unquestionably, is the original mother of all churches. But Rome may fairly call herself the mother of sorrii churches. She was the immense, enlightened, wealthy capital of the ancient world. Among her population, a Christian body arose very early ; and even in St. Paul's time it com- D 34 PAPAL MISSIONS. prised persons belonging to the imperial household. 1 Genuine Christianity is, in fact, a religion eminently calculated for taking hold upon that well-informed, independent, virtuous middle class, which suffers less from temptation and delusion than either the class above it, or that below it, and which is peculiarly the growth of large, busy towns. The prevailing dis- position of this class in ancient Rome towards the Christian faith is shown by the opulence which their bishop of that city early attained 2 , and by that operation upon the government which made it abandon Paganism so soon as the reign of Constan- tine. Now it is quite impossible that such a Chris- tian body as was domiciled in the capital under the Caesars should have been indifferent to missionary enterprise. Eome, therefore, must have been literally the mother of many churches. Her sphere of useful- ness, however, in this way, chiefly lay in Italy, and in regions to the westward. The east was pre-occu- pied by the apostles and their immediate disciples. But Rome could advantageously step in upon many western spots connected with her by propinquity, or habitual intercourse. These reasons did not apply to Britain. Not only was that island remote from Rome, but also the Romans were not its earliest connecting links with 1 " All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's house- hold." Phil. iv. 22. 2 '• The story is known of Pnetextatus, a zealous Gentile, designed to he consul, who reflecting upon the plenty of that see (the Roman) was wont pleasantly to tell Pope Damasus, make me /"it bishop of Home, mill T will immediately become a Christian." Cave's Dissertation con- cerning Hn Government of the ancient Church. Loud. l6S3 9 p. 25. PHOENICIAN VISITS TO BRITAIN. 35 civilised society. Phoenician merchants^ visiting it Tor the purchase of tin, were the firsl individuals w\xq raised spirit of enquiry as i<> ouy islands in the better informed classes of antiquity* 1 [n the course of time, «'t colony from A-i;i Minor founded the im- portant roiiinirivial City of M;i I'xillo, ;i)id this kept up the old eastern trading relatione with Britain. The Massilian merchants, however, opened an oyer* land communication with our island, They travelled across Gaul, and passing ove* to the Ule of Wight, obtained there tin, lead, skin-, and other commodity a, which they transported by means of pack-horses to Marseilles. 2 They used, probably, this conveyance as far as the ancient city of Challon on the Saope, and thence descended that river and the Rhone to their own home. The whole journey appears to have oc- cupied about thirty days. Thus the connecting link 1 The Phoenicians are supposed to have visited the western extre- mity of Britain more than a thousand years before our Saviour's birth. They first touched at Cadiz, and appear to have coasted Spain and Portugal as long as they could ; thence they steered for the Scilly Islands and Cornwall. Being desirous, however, of monopolising the trade, they made a great secret of the place whence their commodities were brought. Hence Herodotus (b. iii. c. 15.) professes his inability to say more of the Cassiterides (Tin islands, from cassiteros, Gr.; tin) than that they were situated in the extreme west. 2 " The tin, formed into square blocks, was brought to the Isle of Wight, where it was purchased by merchants, and carried over to Gaul, and then, in a journey of about thirty days, conveyed on horses to Marseilles. Narbonne, and the mouths of the Rhone." (Laff'enbei g's. History ef England under the Anglo r Saxon Kings. (Lond. 1 sir., i. :>.) Tin, we learn from Strabo, was brought from the British islet to Mar- seilles {Geogr. Lut. Par. 14-7.), and was bartered, as well as fead, fql pottery, peltry, salt, and brazen manufactures. (//>. 175.) In another place he mentions corn, cattle, gold, Silver, and iron, anions the pro- ducts of Britain, and says that these commodities were exported from it in his day, in addition to skins, .slaves, and dogs admirably formed for the chase. (lb. 1 <)<).) i) 2 36 GLASTONBURY of Britain with a higher civilisation than her own continued to be of Asiatic origin. While the Romans knew very little of her, and that little scarcely ex- tended beyond Kent, traders of Asiatic origin and connections had been immemorially connected with her population from the Isle of Wight to the Scilly Islands, and had been respected by it, because their business was not aggressive, but commercial. They sought not plunder and vassals, but customers for foreign luxuries, for which they gladly took native superfluities in exchange. Answerable to these facts are the first glimmerings of British Christianity t A great deal was eventually heard about its connection with Rome, but appear- ances are altogether against any very remote mission from that quarter. The earliest Christian establish- ment was not fixed in Kent, or somewhere there- abouts, where a papal advocate would wish to find it, because there was the regular channel of Roman con- nection with Britain. On the contrary, Glastonbury is the spot on which Christian clergymen first found a British home. 1 This would make an excellent sort 1 The Church of Glastonbury is the oldest, so far as I know, in England. (Malmesb. De Antiq. Glaston. Eccl. xv. Seriptores, 299-) Malmesbury then goes on to state that this church was crowded with remains of holy persons, and hence was justly called a heavenly sanctuary upon earth. One of its designations, accordingly, was saints' grave (tumulus sanctorum). Many ancient princely personages were also buried there, and among them the renowned British king Arthur. It was, in- deed, esteemed not only an honour, but also a security, to be entombed at Glastonbury, there being very little chance of infernal torments to those whose bodies lay in a spot tenanted by so many saintly frames. This is expressed in the following line, which concludes a poetical panegyric upon Glastonbury, cited by an annotator upon Peter of Blois. Fix licet inferni pcenas hie qui tumulatur* rRADITIONS. 31 of half-way house between the Hampshire coast and Cornwall, and nothing is more likely than thai missionaries who came with a mercantile train from Marseilles fco thai coasl should have gladly taken root there. The traditions at Glastonbury too were nil of an oriental character. It was nobody from Rome, thai people there named as having firsl preached in Britain; it was Joseph of Arimathea, or some others of the very earliest Christians. It is observable, besides, that a party of our Lord's most intimate connections having been cruelly put to sea by Jewish malice, without oars or sails, was reported to have come miraculously to Marseilles, and thence to have set out upon missionary enterprises. 1 Thus (ret. Blcs. Opp. Par. 1667, p. 679-) All these things point to impres- sions in favour of Glastonbury, quite easy to understand if it were the cradle of British Christianity, but otherwise unaccountable. This view had not come into the writer's mind when the Anglo-Saxon Church was in hand. It was first suggested to him by Mr. Thorpe's recent publica- tion of Mr. Laffenberg's valuable work. He had before followed Abp. Ussher and Bp. Stillingfleet in thinking die Glastonbury traditions to have chiefly come from the monks after the conquest. But it now seems to him, in spite of the silence of more ancient writers, that the monks of Malmesbury's time really did repeat traditions immemorially current on the spot. The extraordinary sanctity attributed to Glastonbury, and the differences that eventually became so famous between the ancient British Christians and the Church of Rome, seem to admit scarcely of any other solution than that Glastonbury was the earliest headquarters of the British mission, and that the first missionaries were Asiatics unconnected with Rome. 1 In the Acts of Mary Magdalen and her Companion* it is said, that after the dispersion on St. Stephen's death, Lazarus, Mary Magdalen, Martha, and Marcella, an attendant, being exceedingly obnoxious to the Jews, together with Maximin, a disciple, were put to sea in a vessel without oars ; but instead of perishing, as their enemies intended, Pro- vidence landed them safely at Marseilles. Baronius adds, from a Vatican MS., that Joseph of Arimathea was with them, and that passing from Gaul into Britain, he preached and died there. Another account says, that this party was put to sea without oars, sails, or steersman. It may be seen, from an extract in the Anglo-Saxon Church (23. note), that .. 3 38 IMPORTANCE OF GLASTONBURY. the dim light of British tradition pointed intelligibly enough to the east and Marseilles, or perhaps to the great oriental church of Lyons, as the origin of British Christianity. The parties named as its first preachers might none of them have been concerned in the work. Their pretensions to that honour have been repeatedly examined, and found incapable of standing a sufficient examination. The real truth may be, that the earliest missionaries to Britain spoke of Joseph, or others who had been in actual com- munication with our Saviour, either from their own knowledge, or from that of persons with whom they had conversed. But this is immaterial. The only things needful to observe are the unlikeliness of Glastonbury as the first Christian establishment, upon the Roman hypothesis, and the oriental character traditionally given to the first mission. The Glastonbury traditions, however, though of more value, probably, than Protestants have ordi- narily thought them, will after all do no more than lend plausibility to an hypothesis. But no such St. Philip was placed at the head of this Gallic mission, and was said to have despatched Joseph of Arimathea into Britain. Lazarus is re- ported to have become bishop of Marseilles, and Maximin of Aix. Farther to confirm the antiquity of Glastonbury, Malmesbury tells a story of a monk from that house who heard from an aged member of his order, in the abbey of St. Denis, near Paris, that Glastonbury and that abbey were of the same, and of the most venerable, antiquity. This is not unlikely upon the supposition that some truth lurked under the foregoing traditions. Strabo says, that the ordinary ways of reach- ing Britain from the continent were from the mouths of the Garonne, the Loire, the Seine, and the Rhine. People from Marseilles, there- fore, probably went by water to Challon, thence by land to Paris, or thereabouts, and thence down the Seine to cross over into Hampshire. The same missionaries, therefore, might have really given occasion both to the foundation at St. Denis and to that at Glastonbury. Usser. Brit. Eccl. Antiq 8. xv. Script. 2<)5. Strab. 199. KING LUCIUS. 39 equivocal character appliea to the Christianity found in Britain by Augustine and his companions, this displayed a fronl <>i" decided and uncompromising opposition to Rome, [n mere doctrine, the two churches do not appear to have been divided. But as bo the time of celebrating Easter, which was con- sidered a very important matter, and as to many other things, the British and BLoman Christians were utterly at variance with each other. This again points to different origins. Nor is the presumption of such difference weakened by various accounts in- tended for weakening it. Peruvian and Phagan, we are told, were sent over into Britain, by Pope Eleu- therius, in consequence of the famous application made by King Lucius. They proved very successful missionaries, and in the course of their travels came to Glastonbury, where they found a church built more than a century before, and, as they became con- vinced, by our Lord's own disciples. Glastonbury was made, in consequence, their head-quarters during a space of nine years. 1 Whatever may be the truth of this relation, it is clear that the British church must have been no stranger to that of the capital of the empire, during the time that the Romans occupied Britain. The connection could scarcely even have been quite inoperative. 2 But whatever were its i Malmsb. Antiqu. Glast. Ecci. xv. Script. 29*- 2 " Nothing can be less probable in itself, nor less supported by an- cient testimony, than the opinion that Britain was converted by oriental missionaries. 'The only foundation on which it rests is, that in the seventh century the Britons did not keep Easter on the same .lay as the Church of Rome. That, however, they did bo in the beginning oi the fourth century is plain from Eusebius {Tit. Const. Lii. 1}).) Socrates d 4 40 THE ORIENTAL CONVERSION operation, the effect appears to have been merely temporary. The insular Christians were eventually found without any trace of their former intercourse with Rome. A circumstance like this could scarcely have flowed from any thing else than from some very deeply-rooted feeling. Surely Deruvian and Phagan, with other divines from Rome, would have* infused into the native Christians a more accommodating* temper towards the divines of the mighty seat of empire, unless very strong prejudices had intervened. But suppose British Christianity to have claimed a foundation quite independent of Rome, and quite as ancient as the Roman, like the Roman too, of apos- tolic origin ; then, we can easily understand, why (Hist. v. 22.), and the Council of Aries." (Lingard. Hist. Engl i. 45. note.) The probability of Britain's oriental conversion is a matter of opinion, and the Easter question has commonly seemed to Protestants deci- sive in its favour. The Glastonbury traditions have not hitherto received much attention, but they appear to confirm not unimportantly the orien- tal hypothesis. Eusebius and Socrates are the same authority as to this matter, the latter merely giving a citation of Constantine's letter from the former. Spelman, who is cited for the Council of Aries, merely gives, as to the matter in hand, the first canon of that council (p. 40.), and the signatures of three British bishops (p. 42.) The canon enacts the uniform observance of Easter, and the bishops are those of York, London, and Colchester, exactly the places where we should look for congregations of native Romans. That such congregations would readily follow the example of their own mighty capital, there can be no doubt. Such conformity would commonly be thought quite enough to justify an official communication like Constantine's, which states that the Roman Easter was kept in the city of the Romans and likewise Africa, and all Italy, Egypt, Spain, the Gauls, the Britains, the Lybias, all Greece, the Asian diocese too, and the Pontic, and the Cilician. (De Fit. Const. Amst. l6'95, p. 407.) Now it is observable, that Britain is not spoken of like Italy and Greece. We do not read all in connection with it. The conformity, therefore, of Britain, though extending from York to London, might, probably, be confined to congregations and individuals connected more or less directly with the capital of the empire. If this conformity had been general, the opposition encountered by Augustine and his immediate successors could scarcely have happened. OF BRITAIN. 41 divines from the capital should have found the insular Christians immoveably fixed in their immemorial usages. Now we know them not onlv to bave been so fixed, but also to have pleaded antiquity and an apostolic origin as grounds thai forbade them to give way. These facts have reasonably appeared all bul absolutely eonelusive anions Protestants as to the conversion of Britain directly from the East '; and really they are confirmed by Romish traditions of emissaries in ancient Britain from the principal bishop 1 " The peculiarities of the latter church in Britain are an argument against its deriving its origin from Home ; for that church departed from the Romish in many ritual points; it agreed far more with the churches of Asia Minor ; and it withstood for a long time the authority of the Romish church. This appears to prove that the British received, either immediately, or by means of Gaul, their Christianity from Asia Minor; which may easily have taken place through their commercial intercourse." (Rose's Neander, Lond. 1831, i. 80.) "The agree- ment of the British with the eastern churches respecting the celebration of Easter shows a conformity most satisfactorily, perhaps, to be ac- counted for by the supposition of an historic basis for the several legends respecting the preaching of the doctrines of Christ by oriental apostles. It is even probable that the first tidings of the new faith did not come from Rome, where it was still under oppression, but rather from one of the congregations of Asia Minor, which the Mediterranean had long held in connection with Gaul, and from whence, by the great public roads, the spirit of conversion easily found its way to Britain.*' (Lap- penberg. i.4-8.) It appears that tradition made a Christian church to have been erected by the merchants of Paris, on the ruins of an ancient temple, upon the spot now filled by Notre Dame, in the reign of Tibe- rius. This church is said to have been dedicated to St. Denis, whose martyrdom is placed upon Mont Martre. The reign of Tiberius has been also assigned to the first English mission. The improbability of such an early date in either case need not be here discussed ; but the coincidence of tradition is worth notice ; and it really may be true that Christian preachers, who landed at Marseilles from the Bast, succeeded in forming something like missionary head-quarters both at l*ai is and Glastonbury, even at a time when such an establishment, though prac- ticable in obscure spots at an immense distance from the seat of empire, could not be formed at Rome itself, within a stone's throw almost of the imperial palace. Glastonbury, besides, was not under the Roman power until long after the time indicated. 42 THE EASTER in the empire. If such persons had not found British prepossessions hopelessly turned another way, they could scarcely have failed of leaving impressions behind, upon which Augustine might have worked without any great difficulty. He encountered, however, the most resolute oppo- sition. Nor does this appear to have rested on his assumption of superiority. That, no doubt, rendered him additionally obnoxious. But the British Christians declined an alteration in their customs, because these were ancient x , and supported, as they alleged, by St. John's authority. 2 For the Roman Easter was pleaded a sanction from St. Peter. But neither party, Socrates says, could produce any thing written. Hence he concludes that nothing had been done in the matter by any apostle, and that Christians, there- fore, conscientiously enough might follow their own customs in the case. 3 The reason why a different 1 At the conference of Augustine's Oak, the British clergy said, that they could not give up their ancient customs without the consent and licence of their people. Bede, H. C. ii. 91. p. 100. 2 See the Anglo-Saxon Church, 72. '-'' The Quartodecimans say that the keeping of the fourteenth day was handed down to them from the apostle John ; but the people in Rome and the western parts say that the apostles Paul and Peter delivered their usage to them. Neither party, however, is able to bring forward a writing to settle the question. {Socrates, Eccl. Hist. v. 22. p. 234.) Thus the historian seems to consider this Easter question a distinction between the eastern and the western churches. Why did Britain side with the eastern church ? He also names St. Paul concurrently with St. Peter as an authority for the western usage, and before St. Peter ; a very un- papal proceeding. He appears, too, very moderately impressed with the importance of unwritten tradition, and reasons from several varia- tions in usage among churches, which he specifies, that there is no harm in regulating such things according to circumstances. As for the Apos- tles, he says, thAr object was not to lay down laws about feast days, but t<, lead people Into right living and piety. Hence he supposes that so many things, and Easter among them, are regulated by different cus- QUESTION. 13 opinion prevailed so widely, and was advocated so hotly, was not merely the lust of giving law to pro- vincials, which is natural to those who look down upon them from a metropolis, but also a notion, that the system of A.sia Minor, being regulated by the Jewish Passover, was a concession to an odious and infatuated race, which had no claim to the smallest countenance from Christians. 1 But, as usual, party ami prepossession did no1 easily give way to argu- ment. Some men, however, cannot wait, or make allowances. Victor, bishop of Koine, accordingly, sent a message to the Christians of Asia Minor that he would no longer hold communion with them un- less they kept Easter as he did. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, was scandalised, and rebuked him severely* 2 The church of Lyons was notoriously of the most venerable antiquity, and the Christians, probably, all along the Rhone and Saone respected Asia Minor as their spiritual mother. Hence Irenaeus couLJ not toms, because no one of the Apostles laid down a law in any guartt r about the matter, p. 232. 1 Let as have, therefore, nothing in common with the most hateful crowd of Jews. (Euseb. De Fit. Const, iii. 18. p. 1()().) This is from Constantine's letter, or manifesto, before cited ; and it also appears from this that the Jews jeered their Christian neighbours as unable to keep their own Easter without borrowing the time from them. Con stan tine, accordingly, cbiefly argues from the Jews in this communication ; then he urges the impropriety of keeping Easter in one place, but Lent in another ; and then he passes off to the majority. How came he to ov< r- look the pope ? Surely a reference to papal authority would have been shorter and more effectual than arguments mostly drawn from the .bus, and reinforced by adverting to the propriety of feasting and fasting at uniform times approved by the majority. 2 Or spiritedly : yEvvaitaq jcarifya/zcv (Socrates, 233.). The histo- rian says, that until this aet of Victor's, one church did not separate from another upon the Easter question. IK' speaks of Victor as im- moderately hot in the matter. 'O rrJQ ' '<•'/"/<: EWter#:07ro£ BiKTOjp Utierpm ^epuav$€ig. 44 CONVERSION OF ENGLAND endure the domineering indiscretion which threatened a breach between his own Christian neighbours and their brethren in the capital. But southern Gaul was too near Rome for any very obstinate resistance. With Britain it was very different, especially after the Romans left it, Among the British Christians, accordingly, the Roman Easter had not gained a step when Augustine set his foot in Kent. It was the same with other Christian inhabitants of the British isles. What outward connection there might be between the different native Christian bodies, or whether there was any, cannot, probably, be ascer- tained. The British and the Irish churches might not be connected as the established churches of England and Ireland now are. In fact, they hardly could be, because they were not under the same government. But they might be connected as are the Church of England and the episcopal Protestant church of North America ; as also are the churches of Italy and Spain. Nor, if they were so connected, would any hesitation ordinarily be felt in speaking of them as of one religious body. An exception is, however, taken to such language. It is thought likely to make readers consider the Christians of AValcs, Ireland, and Scotland as nothing else than members of a single corporation. Romanists would not leave the smallest opening for any such impres- sion. But one such, it seems, may be given by in- accurate language in the Anglo-Saxon Church. The words were used solely to disabuse the public mind from an exaggerated estimate of the benefits confer- red upon England by the Roman mission. Their BY NATIVE MISSIONARIl S. 45 intention was to le1 people know thai the country was chiefly converted by native missionaries. Lne narrative shows these individuals to have come from Scotland. Bu1 it is represented as faulty, because the missionaries, it seems, were members of the church of Ireland, and not of any church strictly British. Their head-quarters, unquestionably, were in Iona, which is neither upon the main Land of [re- land, nor upon that of Scotland. Perhaps, therefore, it may not be very unreasonable to call it a British island, and to speak of the Christians in it as mem- bers of a British church. But it docs not suit Romish views to speak of England as extensively converted by any native church. Language, therefore, gives offence which states, that the whole country from London to Edinburgh was converted by such a church. Inaccuracy seems particularly to be charged upon the word the. (July the Welsh church ought to be called, it seems, the ancient church of Britain. Any other native Christian body must be designated an ancient church of the island. Be it so. This nicety is of no great importance. Protestants merely wish to have it generally known that native mis- sionaries, and not Roman ones, converted most o\' our Saxon forefathers to Christianity. No denial can be attempted of this fact : all that can be done is to deny that these missionaries were of Welsh origin. No author has ever said a word that makes them so. 1 1 " Mr. Soames, throughout his narrative of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, appears to have taken it for granted, that the Scots were the descendants of the ancient Britons, and their bishops the successors of the ancient British bishops. Aidan and his successors were, he tells 40 THE NATIVE By making the native preachers of Irish origin is discerned an opening for connecting them with Rome, and hence readers may escape all suspicion that Au- gustine's Italian mission did most service by paving the way for an anti-papal party to set on foot a much more successful indigenous mission. Any such in- us, prelates of British origin, and brought with them a religious system of native growth ; that Diiona and his three successors, under whom all the midland counties were converted, were also members of the national church : and that, with the exception of Norfolk and Suffolk, every county, from London to Edinburgh, has the full gratification of pointing to the ancient church of Britain as its nursing mother in Christ's holy faith. Now the fact is, that these prelates, of supposed British origin, were bishops of Irish origin ; and that their religious system was not of native growth, but the same which St. Patrick had taken with him to Ireland from Rome ; and that the national church, of which Diuma and his successors were members, was the church of Ireland, and that not a single county from London to Edinburgh can point to the ancient church as its nursing mother in the faith of Christ, because the British church of that age on the western coast refused, through national animosity, to communicate the doctrines of the Gospel to the Saxons, and continued so late as a century after the arrival of Aidan to look upon the Saxon Christians, even on those who had been converted by the Scottish missionaries, as no better than Pagans, and treated them on all occasions as aliens from Christianity. Quippe, says Beda, cum usque hodie moris sit Britonum fidem religionamque Anglorum pro nihilo habere, neque in aliquo eis magis communicare quam cum paganis." (Lingard, i. 43. note.) To the citations made from the Anglo-Saxon Church should have been added the facts, also stated there, that East Anglia, Wessex, and Sussex, though for the most part Roman conversions, were aided, perhaps not unimportantly, in passing from paganism to Christianity, by native help. Those who took the lead in giving this help are stated to have been Scats (p. 68,) j a term that will apply to the people of Ireland in that age, and certainly cannot be misapplied to individuals from Iona. No hint is given that any of these individuals were supplied by the British church on the western coast. But that church might agree with them, as it undoubtedly did, while they were evangelising England. The reason of its disagreement afterwards is very easy to see. The Roman party prevailed in the course of a few years over the native one among the Anglo-Saxons. Hence the Christians in "Wales and Corn- wall, who remained steadfast to their ancient traditions, naturally re- garded those who had forsaken them as renegades. To mix up, there- fore, the feelings of one century with those of another when matters had wholly changed, is obviously fallacious. MISSION. 1< Bular mission, we are given to understand, must have borne in reality very much of a Romish character. h was conducted, we are bold, by parties nol onl} of [rish origin, but also, in consequence, by such aa pro- fessed a religion that St. Patrick took from Rome to Ireland. This information is not fortified with any reference, and hence ordinary readers must fall back upon their old authorities. These will throw con- siderable doubts upon the question of Patrick's journey to Rome. Archbishop CJssher, it is true, felt none ot* this hesitation, and certainly, Ireland's great apostle might have gone to Rome without bringing away any new opinions. Protestants now go to the pontifical city, and come home again with Protestantism unimpaired. Probably, however, in Patrick's time, there was no great difference of belief among Christians generally. But adherents of the Roman church have been, during many ages, so very anxious to make every successful religious movemenl come directly from the papacy, that Patrick's visit to Rome, and mission from the pope, are assumed as absolute certainties by all Komish authors who treat upon his history. When they come, however, to details, difficulties and discrepancies arise immedi- ately. Hence it has even been maintained, that Patrick's existence is nothing better than a monkish fiction. 1 This is going too tar; but really the [rish 1 Struck with various anachronisms, contradictions, and other diffi- culties in current accounts, Dr. Ledwich " boldly denied the existence of St. Patrick." {Case of the Church of Ireland, by Declan. DubL 1824, p. G L 2.) The late Mr, Phelau is regarded as the author of this very able pamphlet. 48 Patrick's history. apostle's journey to Rome is not among the things that unprejudiced enquirers will readily receive as unquestionable. A very ancient authority was once thought to make him cross the Alps, but Albion is now known to be true reading, Again, the same piece was formerly translated so as to make him go to the south of Latium. But Letha is the original word, and this means Armorica, or Britany. From this region he went to live with Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, under whom he studied the canons, and from that celebrated prelate he proceeded to the isles of the Tuscan sea, and made some stay there. 1 He probably repaired to the religious establishment of Lerins, then in very high repute." 2 From this point he might, un- doubtedly, have easily taken ship for Rome, and such 1 The following is Declan's version of two stanzas in the very ancient hymn of Fiech, which relate these particulars in Patrick's life. {Case of the Church of Ireland, 72.) " He traversed the whole of Alhion ; He crossed the sea — it was a happy voyage. He took up his abode with German, Far away to the south of Armorica. Among the isles of the Tuscan sea, There he abode, as I pronounce ; He studied the canons with German ; Thus it is that the churches testify." 2 The monastery of Lerins was founded about the year 410, by Ho- noratus, who has given name to the isle on which it was built. This, and a larger isle, called St. Margaret's, are opposite Cannes. Patrick is expressly said to have resided in the isle of Aralanensis by an ancient authority. This isle can scarcely be any other than Lerins. To be sure, this authority makes him to have spent thirty years there, which is absurd. But the spot itself is, probably, indicated correctly enough. Lupus, bishop of Troyes, the coadjutor of Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, in the British mission against Pelagianism, had been among the residents at Lerins. As Germanus was Patrick's friend and instructor, nothing is more likely than that conversation with Lupus should have made him think of Lerins as a place for the young Briton's improvement. Ussher, Brit. Eel. Antiqu. %S5. Newman's Floury, iii. 30. Patrick's foreign resided i . 49 a voyage would be to mosl young men a considerable temptation, bul il is not established l>\ sufficienl evidence that Patrick ever undertook it. Germanus was, in fact, his greal friend ; he it svas who took him over into Gaul, and sent him back properly ordained as a missionary into the British isles. 1 That Patrick should have been seni by this kind patron to finish his religious education at a famous establishment of learned ascetics, just off the coast of Gaul, is likely enough; but it is far from following that a consider- able voyage hence across the Mediterranean, or a long overland journey through Italy, was ever contem- plated by either master or pupil. Nor does it seem likely, that if this additional peregrination had really been aeeomplished, and have left no known traces on Patrick's Irish mission, it should be found unnoticed exactly where it should naturally be recorded.- But 1 When Germanus was meditating a return into his native country, he formed an intimate acquaintance with Patrick, whom In- sent after some years t<> the Irish as a preacher, at the 1>i food with us, but not even in the same house in which we were eating. Laurcntius, archbishop of Canterbury, to the Scots inhabiting Ireland. Ussher, Sylloge, 1 {). 52 PAPAL PRINCIPLES does appear to have brought home a different mode of computing Easter from that which prevailed in the British isles. 1 At all events, there is reason to believe that he used a different computation, whether it was imported by him from the continent or not. Yet here he was disregarded by his attached spiritual children in Ireland. Hence there appears reason for suspecting that he considered this Easter question as a matter cf no great importance. He might have taken that oriental view of the dispute which Socrates so sensibly unfolds, and which proceeds upon the ground, that proof of apostolical authority, in this and some other points of discipline, being not in existence, Christians might allowably act in such cases according to their several habits and preju- dices. 2 But this view did not prevail at Rome. More than two centuries before Patrick could have gone thither, Pope Victor, with a hasty intemperance generally condemned, had thundered out his denun- ciations against Asia Minor, because that country would not conform to his unbending notions of ca- nonical regularity. May we not hence reasonably infer that Patrick never was at Rome ? If he were, 1 I have found cycles contrary to that which you hold; first, that wMch St. Patrick, our pope (a general name for bishops), brought and makes, in which it is kept by the moon from the 14-th to the 21st regularly, and the equinox from the 12th before the calends of April. Cummian, an Irishman, to Segienus, abbot of Hy, or Iona. Ussher, Sylloge, 32. 2 Socrates (v. 22.) enumerates a great many varieties in discipline and rites among Christians, and disposes of them by reference to the decision recorded in the Acts of Apostles (xv. 28, 29.), which merely binds believers to a few necessary things. Hence he condemns a great stress upon externals as an oppressive slavery 3 and keen arguments upon them as a vain contention; the real objects of apostolic teaching, he says, are a right conversation and true piety. Ed. Vales. 236. NOT ROOl ED i:v PA PRICK. events might make him to have come away with no very deep conviction thai al] Christiana must do exactly as the Roman bishop bade. Bui why, as he really seems to have disagreed with the Later [rish upon the Easter question, did he not infuse his own views into them? The answer musl be conjectural Still, conjecture here is not without f;;< if - to guide it. The truth is, then, that a few Christian congre- gations, regularly organised under bishops, had existed in the south o[' Ireland from some very remote period ; and that Palladius, once a deacon in the church of Koine, was despatched into the island by Pope Ccles- tine, upon a mission to them, which all but wholly failed. 1 Patrick's mission soon followed, and it com- pletely succeeded. The failure of Palladius is attri- buted to the hostility of a chieftain, and in this re- presentation there is probably some truth. But the Roman missionary might also have to thank his own uncompromising opposition to the prejudices of those Christian communities who are mentioned as the sole object of his visit, and whose co-operation undoubtedly was necessary for the success of any endeavours to christianise their pagan neighbours. It may now be asked, Whence came these Christian communities? Conjecture must again suggest an answer. They 1 Palladius is said to have founded three churches in Ireland before his expulsion by one of the native chieftains. The second of these was named Teachna Roman, or Church of the Romans. This may seem to confirm the notion that his ohjecl in Ireland was to extend the influence of the Roman see, as well as to christianise the island. After his re- pulse he went into Britain for the purpose of passing through the island m his way to Rome, hut death overtook him at Fordun in Mcarns. Ussher, Brit. Eccl. Antiqu. t23, t24. . 3 54 Patrick's were in the south of Ireland 1 ; exactly, therefore, where missionaries sailing from the Somersetshire, Devonshire, or Cornish coast, or from South Wales, would naturally fix themselves. They were, in fact, precisely where one would expect to find offshoots from Glastonbury, and that very place continued, even down to Dunstan's days, a prominent object of Irish veneration. 2 This it could scarcely fail of being, if it were the spot in which Germanus found Patrick, and whence he took him into Gaul. After his resi- dence in that country, the future apostle of Ireland began his evangelical labours in Cornwall 3 ; and some accounts make him to have finished his days at Glas- tonbury, and to have been buried there. 4 These ac- counts are, indeed, considered by Archbishop Ussher as not applicable to him, but to his nephew, who is known as the younger Patrick. 5 But this is imma- terial. The only points for consideration are the 1 Church of St. Patrick, Lond. 1845, p. 14. 2 Anglo-Saxon Church, 170. s Ussher, Brit. Eccl. Antiqu. 429. 4 Anglo-Saxon Church, 170. 5 Ussher, Brit. Eccl. Antiqu. 429- Patrick, originally named Suc- cath, was born at a place in the modern Scotland, since called from him Kirk-Patrick, or Kil-Patrick, between Glasgow and Dumbarton. His father was Calpurnius, a deacon, and his grandfather, Potitus, a pres- byter. Thus his connections were Roman colonists professing Chris- tianity. He seems to have been sold into slavery in Ireland when young, and this, probably, put into his head the plan of evangelising that country when free at a subsequent period of his life. He appears to have taken the name of Patricius, or Patrick, on his episcopal conse- cration in Gaul. Some accounts make him sixty at the time of his arrival as a missionary in Ireland, and to have lived another sixty years in the country ; the first thirty in active employment, the remainder in religious contemplation. Upon this principle he must have died about the year 492. But most probably he died long before, and was not near sixty when lie embarked upon his Irish mission. Ussher, Brit. Eccl. Antiqu. L26. 437. 453. HISTORY. indisputable connection of the Patrick family with Glastonbury, and the warm attachment bence enj dered in the [rish Christians to thai place. IT th< se facts l)c viewed in conjunction with the high antiquity of the religious establishment al Glastonbury, and its probable origin from an oriental mission, a clue is found to those Easter prejudices which Augustine met with in Ireland. Patrick's religious education might have begun amidst such prejudices at ( ilastonbury. Bis great friend Germanus was, probably, tolerant of them: if he had been otherwise, his mission to England would scarcely have been so successful as it was; nor would his memory be preserved as it is, by the dedication of Welsh churches to him. The Pelagian party might easily have raised a clamour against him, if he had shown himself an overbearing enemy to native prepossessions. Again, the monastery of Lerins might be pervaded by no very violent anti- pathies to the religious usages of Asia Minor. Mo- nachism was of oriental origin, and a taste for it was awakened in Western Europe by admirers from Egypt and the East. Lerins, besides, was within a short distance of Marseilles, and probably, therefore, not unfavourable to the Levantine cast of thought which was the traditional inheritance of that celebrated mart, and which originally prevailed in the more important church of Lyons, 1 Thus Patrick's conti- 1 e: It is admitted by all the learned, and supported by irresistible evidence that the church of Lyons was founded by missionaries from Asia. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, was a discipleof Polycarp of Smyrna. Several missionaries of the church of Lyons and the neighbourhood are also said, in memorials of authority, to have been disciples of Polycarp. e 4 56 THE BBITISH nental residence, though it seems to have taught him a more accurate mode of computing Easter than that which prevailed at home, might also teach him to regard the question with a philosophic oriental eye. He might be above the party weakness of refusing help in a work really useful, because those who could give it obstinately clung to some ancient mode of settling a festival. lie might even have owed success to a manly declaration that he was no second Palla- dius, come to preach up conformity with Rome. His object was to find subjects for the Saviour, not for the pope. Hence, if the latter's importance must give way, in order to spread salvation from the former, Patrick either came over upon the principle of disregarding that importance, or seems to have been the man to let it fall at once. No doubt such conduct shows a wise and Christian spirit in any man ; but if it were learnt by the Irish apostle at Jiome, it must have been from those who considered many things more useful to the religious world than the foundation of an ecclesiastical monarchy for the bishop there. Now this is all that Protestants re- quire to have generally understood as to the Roman mission. They would have people to know that Augustine, with his coadjutors and immediate suc- cessors, made their ground good from the North Pothinus, the predecessor of Irenaeus, seems to have come from the cast ; and several of the early members of the church testify by their names an eastern origin. Accordingly, when the great persecution took place in a.o. 177, and their bishop, with many other Christians, suf- fered martyrdom, the church of Vienne and Lyons wrote an account of their sufferings to the churches of Asia and Phrygia, and to no others." Palmer's Origines Liturgicce, Oxf. 1833, i. 154. NATIVE MISSIO •"> < Foreland to the confines of Devonshire, and from the Channel to the Thames; but thai out of this district native missionaries, opposed to Rome, did mosl of the work. Whether these valuable men are to In- called, ns ;i whole, British, or Scots, or [rish, is imma- terial. Those who wish accurately to know their origin, have no occasion to seek for it in Romish books. Protestant authors tell us who they w< re, bul (hey also put readers on their guard against a hasty notion that England generally was reclaimed from heathenism by the direct auviicy <>f papal Koine. In a strict sense, therefore, the Church of Rome cannot be mother to that of England. Nor can the papal see establish any claim to this distinction in the looser sense of possessing from the first a patri- archal jurisdiction over the British isles. Learned men have repeatedly shown this ; but their arguments need not here be recapitulated 1 , especially as early Anglo-Saxon history, from its eloquent silence, will not allow us to believe that our islands were con- sidered in the Roman patriarchate. If they had been so inclined, how came the Easter question and other matters to be regulated so completely against the will of Rome ? Surely the ancient capital must have possessed both will and means to influence the Britons, remote as they were. We know, in fact, that in Constantine's time the prevailing arrangement of the Easter festival actually had made some prog in Britain. Hut it seems to have been no more than 1 Those who wish to understand these questi them sufficiently discussed in Cave's Dissertation concerning tht Goven of the Ancient Church, 58 NO ROMAN PATRIARCHATE a partial adoption of the foreign system, which, there- fore, fell again as soon as Roman society disappeared from the island. If the patriarchal powers of Rome, however, had been recognised by the ancient British church, it is not likely that Augustine would have encountered the opposition that he did. The Roman civil authority continued long enough to allow the papal see, under support of any recognised ecclesias- tical authority, to root a very different state of feeling in the insular Christians. Nor after these islands again became independent of the imperial power, did inter- course with a Roman authority merely spiritual be- come at all impracticable. Nor can we believe that means would not have been found of keeping up such an intercourse, if any religious dependence on the see of Rome had been immemorially admitted in the Bri- tish islands. The presumption against such admission is, however, made all but irresistible by the total want of reference to it in the discussions that Augustine's mission engendered. We do not, indeed, know the ground on which the Roman missionary placed his claim to the primacy of Britain. He, therefore, might have rested it upon the pope's patriarchal privileges. But these were quite as useful in arguing the Easter question, and other matters which the Roman party wished to carry. In these cases, however, some, if not most, of the arguments have been preserved, but we find no notice taken in them of any patriarchal power vested in the pope. It is hence reasonable to infer that no argument of this kind came forward in any of the disputes which arose from the Roman mission. But this is much like saying that no claim ESTABLISHED IN BRITAIN. 59 fco patriarchal jurisdiction over Britain had ever then been se1 up by the papal see. The same may be said of [reland. Whether Patrick was ever a1 Home or no, if he had broughl away from thai city any aotion thai its bishop was entitled to a patriarchal jurisdic- tion over the future scene of his missionary Labours, it is most unlikely that his spiritual children should have been found in Augustine's days obstinately bigot- ed againsl Romish usages, and that [reland should have been among the Latesl of western countri< acknowledge the papal authority. 1 1 Patrick " did not apply to the papal see to have the election of the bishops appointed by him confirmed ; nor is there extant any 1 from the apostolic see to him, or any epistle of his to Rome. St. .V of Canterbury corresponded with his master, St. Gregory, about a century and a half later ; and it is only natural to suppose that St. Patrick might have done the same with the Roman bishops of his day. But the fact is, that we have no record or hint of his having kept up any communi- cation with Rome from the time of his arrival in Ireland until his death." (Todd's Church of St. Patrick, 30.) " I have not been abb' to discover any fair instance of a bishop being elected to an [rish - the interference of the pope, from the mission of St. Patrick until after the English invasion ; and it is a fact admitted by a learned Roman Catholic antiquarian^ that our episcopal clergy never applied to th for hulls of ratification, provisions, <>)• exemption." {lb. 35.) The real origin of Irish popery is the English invasion under Henry II. The Irish prelates before that time had been kept in a state of sub- serviency by the native chieftains, which was the more distasteful, because their brethren elsewhere, under the patronage of Rome, had risen into a very different position. The inferior clergy too found them- selves unable to enforce the payment of tithes, which in other countries was regularly made under legal sanction, and which they r as divinely conferred upon themselves. These selfish considerations made nearly the whole clerical body of Ireland anxious to welcome the English invaders, who pretended to come over under a grant from the pope. How that Italian prelate became ; "1" any right to make such a grant, few people, or probably none, then took any trouble to think. \n after times the difficulty has been solved in four d ways. Either Constantino gave all islands to the pope, or tl destined by ancient prophec) for the dominion of all islands, or king of Munster and other chieftains had, seme til ven up their dominions to the pope, on some pilgrimage to Koine, or the whole 60 ALLEGED MIRACLES When such facts are duly weighed, surely no native of these islands need fear to be driven by authentic history to acknowledge the Church of Rome as the mother of his own church, in any sense of the word. That the papal church became eventually the mistress of his own, as she did of all the other western churches, is true, indeed, enough. But it is very well known how this power was gained. Every step towards the acquisition is recorded by unexceptionable witnesses, and they show that it was made in the ordinary man- ner. Worldly ends were accomplished by worldly men, through worldly means, and generally were used for the selfish objects which engross the affec- tions of worldly men. Among the means that have been repeatedly used by religious parties to gain power, are appeals to miracles in their favour. Such appeals, accordingly, are among the earliest engines used by the papal party in England. It might, un- doubtedly, seem very unlikely that Providence shonld break through the ordinary course of nature, in order to make Augustine primate of Britain, and gain an influence for the Roman church, which was to show itself at once in regulating the time of a festival, and in forcing an unwilling people into various formalities Irish nation, in St. Patrick's time, from gratitude for that missionary's labours, had made over the sovereignty of their island to the pope. But whatever might be the pontiff's title to interfere, his countenance of the English invasion answered the purposes of the native clergy, until England, soon after the Reformation, set to work in earnest upon the conquest and civilisation of the country. Then the chieftainry became zealous papists, and popular hatred of the English was inflamed by re- presenting, that however bad they might always have been by being oppressors, they were now become incalculably worse from having turned heretics. Phelan's Policy of the Church of Rome in Ireland, 12. TO FAV< >UR ROME. 6 1 after a foreign fashion. Very different arc such ob- jects, and of a very much lower order than those thai were proposed by the well-authenticated miracles thai Scripture details. Bui parties open to the marvellous never seem to take such views, even in times of greal general enlightenment. In the vein- <;<»<> 7 or there- abouts, cool arguers and keen discerners musl have been very rare indeed. Augustine, accordingly, if inclined to shine as a thaumaturge, migh! fairly reckon upon doing so with credit. He seems to have had this inclination. At all events, a place is claimed for him among workers of miracle-, although some of those which are recorded by the second-rate class < ■. his biographers have rather a tendency to make him look ridiculous. Most probably a cautious Romanist would gladly refrain from any notice of this illus- trious missionary's alleged power to override the laws of nature At all events, the recent advocacy of his miracles is rather elaborate than full, and is not very direct. But it appears in both volumes of Dr. Lingard's work, and might impress hasty readers with a notion that the learned author wished to place the Kentish apostle's extraordinary doings upon some- thing like a level with Scripture miracles. lie firsl mentions the belief of the missionaries and of their disciples in these English prodigies. This may 1 e readily conceded ; but it leaves the question exactly where the historian found it: not so what follows. We read of Augustine's gifts, as if the stories of his marvels were taken for irrefragable testimonies to his possession from above of especial pow< rs over nature. Undoubtedly, the term gifl is often employed in Ludi- 62 AUGUSTINE EXHIBITED crous irony. But such can scarcely be the employ- ment of it in this place. Not only is the writer's object adverse to such a supposition, but also, in his second volume, Scripture comes forth again to suggest a parallel favourable to the Romish missionary, and we find it then pronounced fair to draw such a parallel. 1 Those who live in habitual reverence of Scripture, think few things more objectionable than to push forward God's undoubted word, when men want help out of some difficulty of their own creation. The Bible, therefore, is not likely to come into their heads while they are considering such cases as Augustine's alleged miracles. They naturally think of other things which may account for stories of this kind, without supposing any thing miraculous. Upon this principle the Anglo-Saxon Church has gone in treating of the Kentish apostle's thaumaturgic fame. Such matter-of-fact views do not, however, suit Romish 1 " It was their conviction" (that of the missionaries) " and that of the proselytes, that signs and wonders, similar to those which ushered in the Gospel among the Jews, had been repeated in England through their ministry. The report had even reached the ears of Gregory in Rome, who began to fear that such distinguished gifts might generate a spirit of pride in his disciple." (i. 41 .) " Of the facts themselves it is plain that he" (Gregory) "entertained no doubt. He compared them to the signs and prodigies which had accompanied the preaching of the Apostles, and it will be no easy matter to shew why he should not. The cases were parallel. In each the object was the same, the conversion of an unbelieving people to the faith of Christ." (ii. 100.) Persons without Romish, or quasi-Romish prepossessions, will find it an easy matter to shew reason for placing Augustine's miracles and those of the Apostles on grounds wholly different. With all due submission to no ordinary mind, it may be argued that the cases were any thing rather than parallel. In one case, Paganism and Judaism were to be wholly superseded by a new system. In the other case, an opening made by Roman means, but immensely improved without them, was to be closed against the improving party by means of help from these alleged miracles. AS A THAUMATURGE. ( '""> purposes; and, accordingly, Augustine cannol 1" hibited as an ordinaryman withoul a1 Least extorting a uote of admiration. 1 Yel it is easy bo show the hollowness of his claims to any supernatural endow- ments. His recorded miracles, and those detailed in Scripture, are parted from each oth< v inctions very obvious and wry wide. One of these is, thai Scripture miracles are detailed by contemporaries, which Augustine's are not. Another is, thai the Bible is qo1 one continuous history of miracle. On the contrary, it mighl Lead us to believe thai miracu- lous powers have rarely been exhibited unless for facilitating some of those mighty religious changes that society witnesses only now and tli< :i. If Israel is to be preserved from farther contamina- tion in idolatrous Egypt, a Moses rises up with mira- 1 Dr. Lingard tells us that Dr. Aikin, in the General Biography, " dances from one unsatisfactory hypothesis to another, till at length he rests, but with apparent reluctance, in the notion, that the pontiff and the missionary were engaged in a conspiracy to seduce- the infidels from error to truth by imaginary miracles. But then would these conspira- tors have been careful to conceal the real fact from each other in their confidential correspondence? Would St. Gregory have thought such miracles of sufficient importance to write an account of them to the patriarch of Alexandria? Mr. Soames has adopted a different explica- tion, lie tells us that Jutish Kent presented u most inviting field t<> one possessed of the public eye, unit disposed to gratify it by the assumption of miraculous endowments. Augustine appears to have been sufficiently forward in thus amusing his adopted countrymen. He might, •' have reaUy suspected some degree of truth in his pretensions. /' among parties us of his wonder-working intervention, some must have laboured under nervous ailments. In such cases strong excitement andfirm conviction would naturally render any juggling process productive <>/' temporary benefit. In cases positively hopeless, he lulled his con- science probably under a little pious fraud {as language poisoi runs), by the false and execrable maxim, that the end justifies the i Gregory's disposition for scrutiny was equally dormant. ll< seems to have heard of Augustine s miracles with all that implicit credulity which was thru generally prevalent. His indeed, apparently, was a mind en- G4 SCRIPTURE MIRACLES. culous powers. If the chosen seed itself so yields to the facination of paganism as to be all but wholly per- verted by it, an Elijah comes forward, and miracles give him influence enough to stay the plague. If the time is come for superseding the law by the gospel, miracles announce the change, and supply facilities for effecting it. Other instances of miraculous agency in the inspired, and therefore the only safe, record of it, may similarly be connected with objects of unques- tionable importance. Now the papal party's triumph over native opposition in Anglo-Saxon times is no such object. The gaining of this triumph was not even necessary for completing the conversion of England. The heathens of that country had Christian neigh- bours on the north and west, to say nothing of those on the opposite continent. Their eventual conversion, and at no very distant time, was, therefore, a matter of reasonable calculation, without any aid from miracles. Nor does Bede attribute any miracles to Augustine, which might obviously not have been a mere collusion. A man was produced who could see, but had been amoured of the mar villous. At all events, his politic habits readily itiu ill' him patronise a wonderful tale, whenever it seemed likely to raise the dignity of Rome, or advance a favourite notion ! (Soames' Hist. 51, ;~>2.) L'pon the preliminary matter it may be remarked, that a few formal letters between public men differ considerably from confidential come- spondence. Probably, however, a confidential letter, if one ever existed at all, might have told much the same tale that appears in the extant letters. Nothing else was to be expected from the men and their age. Such men, undoubtedly, and people to believe them, are always to be be found. But, of late, the men soon sink into insignificance, and the age becomes ashamed of itself for celebrating their proceedings. To these things Prince Hohenlohe and his miracles bear witness. Twenty years ago the newspapers were full of both. Now the thaumaturge is sobered down into an ordinary Hungarian bishop, and he has allowed his amazing qualities either to go out, or lie asleep. ALLEGED MIRACL1 B. 65 Mind, it was said, and owed his cure to A.ugustine. He was thua benefited, however, to overcome the op- position of the Christian Britons to the dictation and pretensions of a foreign missionary. Tims the alleged miracle was wroughl for the purpose of bringing about a party triumph. No wonder that, in spite of it, British opposition continued unabated. Other miracles, attributed in after times to Augustine, arc little else than those of Scripture with his name ap- pended to them. In one of them he represents Elijah, but in caricature, and encumbers the scoffers of a Dorsetshire village with tails; an encumbrance that, we are told, became hereditary. 1 The authority for this ridiculous relation is, undoubtedly, not older than the 1 This ridiculous account is preserved by Gotselin, or Gocelin, evidently the modern Gosling, who was a French monk that seems to have come into England in the eleventh century. It may be seen in the Anglia Sacra, ii. ()7. The piece in which it stands is entitled Historia Minor de Vita S. Aug. Archiep. Cant. The Historia Major is printed in the Acta SS. Ord. Bened. s«c. i. p. 486. ed. Yen , and is followed (p. 520.) by Libcllus dc Miraculis S. Aug. The Historia Major treats the tail story as a report, but the Historia Minor speaks of it as a fact. Gotselin says that he found his materials partly in Bede, partly in other old books. But we know not how old these were, and even Bede is not old enough to testify of Augustine's miracles, as he was not born until thirty years or more after that missionary was dead. He does really, however, testify to no miracles of his at all, the blind man's cure being quite easy to understand without recourse to any thing miraculous. It is clear, however, that Augustine laid claim to miracu- lous powers. How then are we to account for this claim, and for the ab- sence of any thing like contemporary testimony to substantiate it ? The claim having been made, it is easy enough to see its operation afterwards in the production of such stories as we find. Idle, artful, superstitious, gossiping monks, secluded in a cloister, had only to pick up accounts of missionaries, fit them to miracles recorded in Scripture, and suppose that Augustine, or any other personage highly venerated, must be the party intended. Such a process applied to some missionary in Dorset- shire, to whom the rabble fastened a fish-tail in derision, would readily bring Augustine upon the scene, and make him act, or rather caricature, Elijah. (jQ ALLEGED eleventh century, and even Bede was no contemporary. It is, however, certain that Augustine really did lay claim to miraculous powers, and that Gregory the Great admitted this claim. In these things, neither might have been a party to a deliberate deception. Men are often found willing to believe strange things if their own vanity be fed by them. Hence both pope and missionary might easily be decoyed by self- love into giving countenance to fine stories about themselves, which cool observers would see at once were bottomed in delusion. There had been, besides, introduced into the church, among other evils from pagan philosophy, a notion that deception was allow- able when it served the cause of truth. 1 There is no doubt that both the pope and his friend attributed this service to the alleged English miracles. Hence 1 This subject is treated with his usual learning and ability by Mosheim in his treatise De Turbata per Recentiores Platonicos Ecclesia, printed among his Dissertationes ad Historiam Ecclesiasticam perti- nentes, i. 89. He there shews that deception for the sake of doing good was a principle long in good repute among the Pagans. iEschylus could talk of that righteous deceit (anarr] ciKtiia) which God approves; and Plato allowed falsehood in the chiefs of a state for the public good, although he condemned it in inferior persons. When philosophers of Ins sect became Christians, they brought this principle among others highly objectionable with them ; and Origen, accordingly, lays it down, that we are not to lie unless some great good be sought hy it. A deceit of this kind Chrysostom will scarcely allow to be called a deceit at all ; but he says that it should rather go by the name of a sort of management and sagacity (piKOvopia r\c tcai e easily awakened in quar- ters that might seem to be above it. Society abounds, besides, with vapoured, fanciful, excitable, self-import- ant valetudinarians ; and it is in that class chiefly that materials arc found for operations deemed miraculous. It is quite lately that a young German lady was im- pelled by a delirious fit of fanatical excitement into a muscular effort, which gave relief under a contraction that surgeons had long found intractable. 1 The holy coat of Treves, which shamed so many of her country- men out of Romanism, gave in this case a salutary stimulus, at least for a time. A like thing happened in our own country some years ago, when the late Edward Irving set enthusiastic brains to work upon unknown tongues, and other extravagancies considered religious. A young woman, it was then said in print, 1 This young lady, whose family, which is noble, need not be pained by any further allusion to their name, had a contraction of the knee- joint of several years standing. She was carried to the church, but re- turned to the inn with no other help than leaning on her grandmotht r's arm. Her cure continued, and she was able to walk about her room without support, but she required it elsewhere. In straightening her leg at the cathedral, she ruptured some of the tendons, which produced an effusion of blood and inflammation. Physicians reasonably said, thai if one of them could have gotten that hold upon her mind, which was gained by the holy c<>nt, she might have straightened her leg at his bidding, as she did in gazing ecstatically on the relic Laing's Notes on the Rise, Progress, flate, undoubtedly, the public mind has been extensively imbued with a more reverential feeling for every thing thai has benefited Rome. But even now most Englishmen think of papal questions much as they and their lathers did heretofore ; and all such people will consider nothing more likely than that grave men who had been joked out of grave and loved employments by a semi-bar- barous chieftain, eager to escape farther importunities from his wife, really were trifled with most shamefully, and must have left in deep disgust the scene on which they had been so unworthily requited. Nor when they see the joke omitted on which the triumph turned, will such readers generally account for the omission on any other principle, than that their author, how- ever he might love the cause, was ashamed of the misplaced wit that gained it. It is undoubtedly true, that Rome introduced into Thus men to whose virtues and services the strongest commendations are universally given, were driven away in disgust from the people who had long known and valued them, because they would not keep a festival and shave their heads according to a foreign fashion, which was decidedly adverse to their hereditary prejudices. They might well he angry at such treatment, especially when they saw it come from a prince who had hitherto protected them, and shared their prejudices, bat who was now- tired of wrangling with his wife, and, therefore, gladly took hold of an opening in the debate to justify his change of conduct, although he thereby turned the whole proceedings into a farce which modem Romanists are ashamed of. i l 72 THE EASTER Britain a more accurate paschal cycle than the one which had hitherto been in use there. 1 This is, however, a mere matter of antiquarian curiosity. Not so are the arguments upon which the Roman pleadings rested. These, it is interesting and needful to remark, did not bring forward any allegation, that the papal see was entitled of itself to decide the question. The Roman chair was, indeed, mentioned as worthy of extreme deference in the matter, but only as one ingredient in a weight of authority con- jointly vested in four apostolical sees 2 ; the whole 1 « The Romans kept the memorial of our Lord's resurrection upon that Sunday which fell betwixt the 15th and 2 1st day of the moon (both terms included) next after the 21st day of March, which they accounted to be the seat of the vernal cequinoctium ; that is to say, the time of the spring wherein the day and night were of an equal length. And in reckoning the age of the moon they followed the Alexandrian cycle of nineteen years (whence our golden number had its original), as it was explained to them by Dionysius Exiguus. The northern Irish and Scottish, together with the Picts, observed the custom of the Britons, keeping their Easter upon the Sunday that fell betwixt the 14th and the 20th day of rhe moon, and following in their account thereof, not the nineteen years' computation of Anatolius, but Sulpicius Severus's circle of eighty-four yeais. For howsoever they extolled Anatolius for appointing, as they supposed, the bounds of Easter betwixt the 14th and 20th day of the moon, yet Wilfrid, in the synod of Strenshal, chargetli them utterly to have rejected his cycle of nineteen years • from which, therefore, Cummianus draweth an argument against them, that they never can come to the true account of Easter, who observe the cycle of eighty-four years." Abp. Ussher's Religion of the Ancient Irish, Camb. 1835, p. 6*00. 2 I found it written that they are to be excommunicated, and driven out of the church, and anathematised, who go contrary to the canonical statutes of the fourfold apostolical see (the Roman, that is, the Hieroso- lymitan, the Antiochian, the Alexandrian), these all agreeing in the unity of Easter. (Cummian, an Irishman, to Segienus, abbot of Hy, about the Paschal Controversy. Ussher, Sylloge, 27-) These four sees are taken in another place as a sort of impersonation of the church. It is written in the law, He that shall curse father or mother, let him die the death. What can be thought worse of mother church than to say, Rome errs, Jerusalem errs, Alexandria errs, Antioch errs, all the world errs. It is only the Scots and Britons who know what is right? (lb. 31.) Ql ESTION. (6 four, it is argued, concurring in an Easter arrange- men! at variance with the British: and it musl be a Who this Cummian, or Cummin, was, ia disputed; bul Mr. Todd considers him ti> have been a monk in St. ( lolumba's monastery ;it Durrow, who lived and died in Ireland. (Church of St. Patrick, 104.) He was no early, or hasty, convert to the Roman system, but adopted it after much reading and inquiry, which he details in a manner very creditable for his age. A person capable of writing bo, tedious as he would now seem, naturally had considerable weight in the Beventh cen- tury. Cummin, accordingly, having become a convert to the Roman system, asked five Irish bishops, whom he calls successors of our first fathers, what they thought of our excommunication incurred from the foresaid apostolic sees ? Of course this question was reinforced by his reasons for taking the view that hi- had adopted J and the prolan s addr< in consequence, convoked a synod "at Magh Lene, 01 ( 'ampusljene, n< ar Old Leighlin." They professed to do this, because they had been tra- ditionally instructed to receive humbly, without scruple, things proved to he better, and improvements, from the fountain of our baptism and wis- dom, and from the successors of the Lord's apostles. It is plain, there- lore, that those who convoked this synod had first made up their minds to abandon the old Irish system for the Roman, and being leading per- sons, their scheme was very nearly carried. But a whited >e true that John's letter is said to have been written with great authority. But this might be said, and is said, of any very able letter. Now John's letter was considered to be of that kind. It evidently contained statements to convince the insular Christians of error. Any authority, farther than as a leading prelate, and a well-prepared letter-writer, the pope was not likely to claim. His predecessor Ilonorius had been disregarded, and nothing was more likely to secure the same fate for him -elf', than the assertion of a claim which must have been considered offensive. 1 The following is Colman's defence of the native Easter. The Faster which I am in the habit of keeping, I received from greater men than myself, who sent me hither as bishop, and all our fathers, men beloved of God, arc known t<> hare celebrated it in the same way. Which, lest any one should think it to he dc.yti.scd and reprobated, is the very one that the blessed evangelist John, the disciple specially loved by the Lordj is said t<> hare celebrated, with all the churches over which he preside/. Bed. iii. 25. p. 222. - "Wilfrid's answer is too long for translation. It first urges, that the speaker had seen the Roman Easter kept at Rome, where the apostles Peter and Paul lived, taught, suffered, and wire buried ; had seen it also in Italy and Gaul, through which he had travelled ; and that it was kept in Africa, Asia. Egypt, Greece, and in every ( hristian country besides, except among the Irish, Picts, and Britons, who are taxed with folly for lighting against all the rest of the world. Colraan observed, that folly was an improper term to use in describing those who followed the example of the disciple who was thought worthy of leaning upon our Lord's breast, and whom all the world knew to have lived in the wisest way. Wilfrid now disclaimed any intention of 7G THE EASTER This account might make one think that Britain was converted not only by missionaries from Asia, but also while John still lived. Nothing, indeed, can be more unfavourable than the whole of this obscure mass of information, to any hypothesis that would charging John with folly, but attributed his conduct to the necessity of conciliating Jewish prejudice, at a time when judaising was very rife in the church. To this necessity he attributed the repudiation of images, which were invented by demons, lest, namely, offence should be given to the Jews who were among the Gentiles. This is a curious passage, as it shews that the pagan leaven had begun to work vigorously among Wilfrid's Roman friends, and that excuses were already found for its inconsistency with Scripture. Wilfrid goes on with his argument by citing St. Paul's circumcision of Timothy, his sacrifices in the temple, and his shaving his head at Corinth (Cenchrea). Upon this principle he puts St. John's usage in the celebration of Easter ; but the usage, he maintains, in the apostle's hands, was strictly Jewish, no notice being taken of any day in the week, whereas the British party kept Easter only on a Sunday. He, therefore, charges them with disregarding St. John in this matter, quite as much as they did St. Peter. They agreed, he said, neither with John, nor Peter, nor the law, nor the gospel. Colman then cited Anatolius and Columba as authorities. But W r ilfrid maintained that Anatolius was against them, as they would have known, if they had been better informed. As for Columba, he said, people might do many things in the Lord's name, whom the Lord would disown as unknown to him. But he added, that it was better to be- lieve good than harm of parties with whom one is not acquainted ; and hence the good persons mentioned were to be considered as fixed in the old way, because no one had penetrated their rustic obscurity to teach them a better. In fine, Wilfrid charged his opponents with sin, if they contemptuously would not follow the decrees of the apostolic see, nay rather of the universal church, and these confirmed by Scripture. Although your fathers, he added, were holy men, is their fewness in one corner of a remote island to be preferred to the universal church of Christ, which is all over the world? He then went on to compare Columba with Peter, and thus brought about the ridiculous termination which expelled the native Easter from Northumbria. The whole debate is particularly worthy of notice, because papal authority to decide the question is not pleaded. The papal see's importance is made to him upon its agreement with the church generally, upon the consonance of that agreement with Scripture, and upon St. Peter's privileges. These last are an evident set off against St. John, the loved disciple. But the king chose to draw the parallel between St. Peter and Columba, and thus found a ludicrous opportunity for terminating a debate, of which he must long have been weary. ni ESTION. i ( connect Rome with early British Christianity. Pal- ladius, we know, came from Rome, and failed. ( M" those who succeeded, and Patrick appears to have been among the mosl successful of them, Bcarcelyany thing is ascertainable beyond the fact, thai when their labours came to li.u'ht, not a trace could be discerned in them of any connection with the papal sec. The Ephesine church may, therefore, be the mother of the British, hut the Roman can have no claim to anv such distinction. 78 CHAPTER III. ARC1IBTSIIOP THEODORE. Appointment of Archbishop Theodore.— Controversy upon its nature. Bedes account of it. — Theodore's delay in reaching England. — Construction of Pope Vitalian's letter. — Theo- dores Oriental predilections. — His long stay in Gaul. It will not be supposed in any well informed quarter, that all dissension upon the Roman usages was ended by the Whitby triumph. After the auditors, both high and low, who had applauded, as both did, Oswy's dexterous and amusing escape from any farther public discussion, and from any more private arguments with his wife, upon such a great mistake as hearing rustic Northumbria rather than polished Rome, the more serious among them could not fail of entertaining doubts upon the propriety of recent events. The departure of a man so highly venerated as Colman, with others who commanded, probably, quite as much respect in their several degrees, must have been deeply felt, after a time, among the graver spirits in northern England. It is true that a better system of computing Easter had been gained for the country, and that its adoption had been pressed upon unexceptionable grounds. But none of the arguments had convinced Colman and his adherents. Hence those who knew the great value of these disinterested men, were certain eventually to take some blame upon themselves for turning round so abruptly upon WIGHAHD. r9 their old instructors. As these respected individuals were members of a party thai sheltered itself under the most venerable traditions, and had ramifications, more or less vigorous, all over England, the native princes must soon have found themselves still at a distance from religious pence. Hence they naturally continued on the watch for some incident which might obliterate all traces of recent animosities. Such an incident was afforded by the death of Deusdedit, archbishop of Canterbury. The two mosl powerful Anglo-Saxon sovereigns, namely, those of Northumbria and Kent, then concurred in choosing Wighard, a native priest, for the metropolitical see, and in sending him to Home for consecration. He thus might re-appear in England, not only quite unconnected with the party that had been stigmatised as rustic, ignorant, and self-willed, but also with the recommendations of having visited the great metro- polis of western Europe, where lay entombed, as every body thought, St. Peter and St. Paul ; and of coming home, approved and consecrated by the former apostle's acknowledged successor. The scheme. was, however, frustrated by the death of Wighard. On reaching Rome, he died of a pestilence that was raffing there, as did also most of those who came with him. Vitalian, then pope, made use of this opportunity to confer, as it proved, a very great benefit upon England. After some delay, he induced Theodore to accept the see of Canterbury, and ii never had a more valuable occupant. Upon this great prelate's very useful qualities, there is, however, little or no difference of opinion. But it is otherwise 80 APPOINTMENT OF THEODORE. as to the preliminaries by which England gained his important services. Romanists represent his appoint- ment as a proof that England acknowledged herself under papal authority. Most Protestants consider the facts open to no such inference. The two kings despatched a letter, not extant, with Wighard to Yitalian. The Romish hypothesis requires this communication to have described the bearer, and to have contained, besides, some such language as this, " If he should die at Rome, have the goodness to find another such, and send him over, properly ordained." Upon any other supposition Wighard was, of course, described, and said to be j ust the sort of man that England wanted. But it is not needful to imagine, likewise, that Yitalian was requested to look out such another, if he should happen to die abroad. On the contrary, it is very reasonable to suppose, that his death was considered at Rome as highly inopportune, unless the pope should adopt some plan for retaining, and perhaps improving, the advantages which his visit promised. Protestant readers of papal history can easily see ground for thinking that popes, or those who advise them, always have been eminently fit for improving such incidents ; nor do those who suspect all religion that is not to be found in Scripture, account in any other way for very much of the greatness that papal Rome gradually gained. The Romish view of Theodore's appointment has, however, been approved by one recent Protestant authority. 1 But another agrees with the Anglo-Saxon 1 Early English Church, p. 6j. note. Mr. Churton grounds this opinion upon the words in the pope's letter, secundum vestrorum scrip- WIGHARD REGULARLY I 81 Church 1 ^ and much unquestionably may be said in corroboration of this. One reason in it- favour Is the improbability thai Wighard should have taken a letter, providing for such a contingency as his death, and surrendering, in thai case, the nomination of his successor to Vitalian. Even if the two kings had the inclination, they do not appear to have had the power of making any such surrender. Wighard, although senl with a Letter from the two kings, had been pre- viously elected and approved by the English church generally. 2 The national authorities, lay and clerical, torum tenorem, which he translates such as your letter asks for ; and then he proceeds to censure some modern writers, without naming any, but citing words used in the Anglo-Saxon Church, for thinking thai the Saxon kings made no contingent request to Vitalian. Let the author of that work beg to be excused in saying that he still ventures to think so, and cannot accept the version put upon the pope's words. 1 " The death of Wighard, who fell a victim to the pestilence then raging, soon after his arrival at Rome, was taken advantage of by the pope to set over the Anglo-Saxon bishops a primate devoted to his views." Lappenberg's Anglo-Saxon Kings, i. 172. - At this time the noblest kings of the English, Oswiu <>/ the province of the Northanhymbrians, and Ecgberct <>/' the Cantuarians, having taken counsel together, as to what was t<> be done about the state of the church of the English (fir Oswiu had nulla understood, nil I educated by the Scots, that the Roman was o catholic nml apostolical churcK), took, with the election iintl consent of the holy church of the notion of the English, a good man, nml a presbyter fit for the episcopate, l>!l name Wighard, from the clergy of Bishop Deusdedit, nml sent him to Rome tobeordained as bishop, in order (hot he, having received the grade of archbishopric, might himself ordain catholic bishops for the churches of the English through oil Britain. (Bede, iii. 29« p. S.'Jh'.) Thus the kings of Nbrthumbria and Kent consulted upon the mode of terminating an embarrassing state of religious dissension, and procured from a body, or hodies of clergy and laity, constitutionally assembled, the nomination of Wighard to the see of Canterbury, evidently with an understanding that lie was to he primate of the island, and hence to exercise an autho- rity over all parts of it. ( tswy's early prejudices were all against Rome, but they had been undermined by his wife, and were now shaken by the difficulty of governing two religious parties violently at variance with each other. A mind like Ids could not fail of seeing the Roman party already so successful that its eventual ascendency v. a- certain. G 82 NATURE OF were regularly consulted upon episcopal vacancies 1 ; and the sending of him whom they now chose to Rome, was obviously suggested by the religious dis- sensions that prevailed in England. The see of Can- terbury had been some time vacant, and it became important to fill it in some way that seemed likely to still the voice of controversy. 2 Wighard was not merely furnished with credentials, he took also with him very handsome presents for the pope. 3 He lived, we learn from Becle, quite long enough to explain the cause of his journey ; in other words, to make the papal court fully aware of the anxiety that prevailed in the more influential English circles, for a final set- tlement of the questions which had caused so many heart-burnings. Hence Vitalian might reasonably calculate upon the success of some bold stroke of policy, if it were only guided by an eye to real utility. In this way, accordingly, do ancient authorities speak of the pope's act. They do not, of course, trace it, as the Anglo-Saxon Church does, to Italian subtlety. As, therefore, every body knew the Roman see to be of apostolic origin, and Oswy gave it credit for maintaining only those things which were maintained by the church generally, he was anxious to use its inter- vention under the difficulties that caused him so much uneasiness. It is, however, too much to suppose that he should have been such a thorough proselyte as to beg the pope to send somebody else in case Wighard should die abroad, or that he should have had so little national feeling as to make this request, or that he should have forgotten the constitutional approbation which had been given to Wighard, and was indispensable in every case. 1 It rather seems that the crown nominated, and that legislative or diocesan assemblies confirmed. See the Anglo-Saxon Church, 26l. Bampton Lectures for 1830, 177- 2 Bede says the bishopric being unsupplied no small time. (iv. 1. }). 242.) The vacancy appears to have continued about three years. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. {)'>. :i Presents being sent with him (Wighard) for the apostolical pope, (i)i(t gold a ml .silver vessels not a few. Bede, iv. 1. p. 2 l-.'i. VII Al.l.W s NOMINATION. I hey lived after the papacy had made mosl important strides, and fell more or less interested in its great- ness. Bui they say do1 ;t word of any request \<> \ i t : 1 1 i ; 1 1 1 , contingent upon Wighard's death. 1 [m- 1 Florence of Worcester, though copying Bede pretty < lo i lv, \ from him so much as to say nothing aboul Wighard's election, but makes him sent to Rome with the consent <>f the holt/ church of the nation of the English. He says nothing of the cause that moved Vitalian to choose Theodore, but merely gives the date of his eons< cration. (Francof. 1601, p. 562.) Malmesbury merely speaks of Theod< sent by the apostolical see. (IV Pontiff. Script, post Bed. iii.) Hunting- don says. Pope Vitalian, being consulted about the state of the church and Master, sent . lf)l.) Brompton merely says, after the see had been vacant thret years, Theodore is ordained at Rome for archbishop of Canterbury. ( \. Script. 7 l' :) Gervaseof Canterbury closely follows Bede, and s] ol* Theodore's consecration at Rome, without a word as to the cause thai moved Vitalian. (lb. 1637«) Thorn merely says that blessed Theodore was sent by pope Vitalian. (lb. 17t>90 The Peterborough Chronicle says (a.d. 667), Wiard was chosen for archbishop of Canterbury, who, being sent lo Route to be consecrated, died there ; and my lord poj • ordaining for archbishop, Theodore, o monk, famous for morals and knowledge, sends him into England with Abbot Adrian. (Loud. 1845, p. 2.) Mabillon says, Hut Vitalian, lest, Wighard being dead, the English church, being deprived of a pastor, should suffer loss, counsel being token, chose one of his own friends to send in his place. (Annall. Bened.i. 4770 This is the true reason, or at least the one that was publicly assigned,, as it will appear, and not any letter from England requesting the pope to choose, in case Wighard should die. Jocelin accordingly, or whoever else compiled the Antiquitates Britannicce, under Archbishop Parker's direction, says nothing of this supposed letter, but refers Theodore's appointment to a deliberation of Vitalian with those about him, on Wighard's death, of which, it is said, an account was sent by the pope to Oswy. (p. 7. ( )-) Godwin says, that when the pope understood the .see to have been long vacant, ami he was on,) ions about setting over it a fit pastor, he first chose Adrian, and on his refusal Theodore, (p. 41.) Lastly Inett says that Wighard's death " furnished Vitalian, bishop of Rome, with a very advanti and desirable opportunity to bring about that which his predecessors and the missionaries from R me had, for abow three-score year-, been labouring for in vain." (Origines Anglican ce, i. T-' ; -) Thus it - that modern writers are not alone chargeable with viewing Vitalian's act as unauthorised. Inett is no modern. It is true that he afterwards says, "having now commission from the greatest o\' the Saxon princes to send them an archbishop consecrated at Rome, Vitalian presently casts 84 REASON FOR SENDING partial readers may think that modern books would conspire in keeping a similar silence, if Vitalian' s ap- pointment had not been represented as one of those spirited pieces of dexterity which account in a very homely way for the enormous weight eventually gained by papal Home, and which, to the dismay of her partisans, furnish ample matter for authentic his- tory. The French have a proverbial saying, Ce rtest que hi rrritr qui blesse. This may confirm a Protestant in considering Vitalian's nomination of Theodore as the skilful improvement of an unexpected opening. The object of Wighard's journey to Rome is thus stated by Bede. His sovereign, Egbert, king of Kent, sent him thither to be ordained bishop, in order that, having a prelate of Ids own nation and tongue, he, with his subjects, might be more perfectly imbued with the words and mysteries of our faith, inasmuch as these things would be received, not through an interpreter, but by the tongue and hand as well, of a kinsman and tribe- fellow. 1 As this account is taken from Becle's life of Benedict Biscop, who was actually at Rome during about to find a man lit to be trusted with the interests of the see of Rome." (lb.) But it is plain that nothing like a letter offering any con- tingent nomination was here in Inett's head. His words, to be reconciled with those that he had used before, will only bear to be construed as expressing a conviction, that Vitalian eagerly made use of an opportunity which had unexpectedly fallen in to his hands. Collier too says, " Vitalian, upon this accident (Wighard's death) thought it proper to provide an archbishop for the English church." (Eccl. Hist. i. 100.) Thus, in fact, it is the supposed letter, offering a contingent nomination to the pope, that the world owes to modem writers. No such thing appears to have entered into any body's head until quite lately. 1 " Cupiens cum sibi Roma? ordinari episcopum, quatinus sua gentis et lingua? habens antistitem, tanto perfectius cum subjectis sibi populis, vol verbis imlmeretur fidei, vel mysteriis, quanto haec non per interpre- ter^ sed per cognati ct contribulis viri linguam siraul manumque susci- peret. Bed. Vita S. Bened. Opp. Miu. Loud. 1841, p. Ml. WH.ilAKl) TO ROME. the very transactions recorded, and of whom the ve- nerable biographer had, in all probability, authentic particulars, i( is worthy of implicil reliance. But it tells a tale nol very useful in Romish argumentation. Wiffhard, il seems, wenl to Rome much for the same purpose as a modern artisl doc-. Painting and sculp- ture may be Learnl in London, and with helps derived from Rome. Bui learners, nevertheless, go to Rome it' they ran, -and find their accounl in it. So in England, during the strife of parties aboul Romish and native religious usages, the Archbishop of Can- terbury, whom Wighard was appointed to succeed, might appear to have been impeded in gaining popu- larity for the foreign system, because he could only enforce it by information gained at second hand. He is generally known as Deusdedit, but his original name was Friihona, and his birth was Anglo-Saxon. The disadvantages under which he had laboured, or perhaps, more correctly, the objections taken to him, were now to be removed by giving his successor a re- commendation which one who never had been abroad could not possess. The new archbishop was no1 to depend upon others for information as to opinions and usages approved in Rome. He was to go thither himself, not because his countrymen thought papal authority to be required for any Anglo-Saxon pur- pose, but in order that he might come home under the combined advantages of domestic birth and foreign instruction. The same unexceptionable authority that has given us this piece of information, also assigns a very plausible ground for Vitalian's nomination of Theodore. This may reasonably be considered as . 86 CONTROVERSY ON then current in Rome, and it is, lest a religious embassy should fail of serving the faithful effectively from the deaths of those who brought it 1 Thus Benedict Biscop does not seem to have heard of any letter giving a contingent nomination to the pope, such as we are now told was undoubtedly written. He might, in- deed, have- found it no easy matter to reconcile such a communication with his knowledge of England, and of the objects that had brought Wighard to Rome, lie knew that prelate to be more than the mere no- minee of two sovereigns. Their nomination had been constitutionally approved in some assembly or assem- blies of their subjects, according to the regular prac- tice in such cases. If any body had talked of a letter proposing to set these established formalities uncere- moniously aside, what would Biscop have thought of the party's information ? He was well aware, how- ever, of the desire that prevailed in England for a final close to religious dissension, and hence could foresee the disappointment which Wighard's death would occasion at home. Hence he could scarcely fail of looking at Vitalian's act as the best which cir- cumstances allowed. Still his countrymen might not be pleased with it. They were not to have an arch- bishop who combined the advantage of Anglo-Saxon birth with that of Roman knowledge, personally gained. Hence the pope must have been under some doubt as to eventual success, and must have been anxious to gain time for negociation to carry his 1 " Ne legatariis obeuntibus, legatio religiosa fidelium fructu compc- tente careret. Bed. Vita S. Bencd. Opp. Mm. Lond. 1841, p. 141. THEODORE S APPOINTMENT. - s 7 objects. The fact, accordingly, is, thai Theodore did qoI reach England until more than twelve months after his consecration. 1 The Romish mode of ;i ( '- counting for this delay requires attention. It may however, previously, be well to remark farther upon the assertion, or opinion, thai the two kings requested Vitalian k> to choose a bishop for them in the case of Wighard's death." 2 This view is based upon the following passages in Bede. While Theodore, then on his way to England, was staying with A.gilbert, bishop of Paris, messengers to be de- l<, nded upon told king Egberct that the bishop whom they had sought from the Roman prelate was in the kingdom of the Franks? On this, Egbert sent an officer of his to bring Theodore over. This is the strongest testi- mony adduced in favour of the supposed requesl to Yitalian. But it is obviously not conclusive. There is no doubt that advices had been sent to England, before this time, of Theodore's consecration, and that it had been determined to admit him. That he should have been the identical person whom the Anglo-Saxon authorities had asked or sought^ is impossible. When nominated by the pope, they did not know of his existence. He could only have been the sort of per- son desired; and Bede's words, therefore, can mean no more. That such is really their import, appears pretty clearly from the next passage cited in favour 1 He was consecrated in March, 668, ami readied England in May< 669. - Lingardj i. T-" 1 - note. 3 "Cum nuncii certi narrassenl regi Ecgb scilicet ep punij quern petierant a Romano antistite, in regno Francorum." //. /■ . iv. 1. i». '2 1,k 88 CONTROVERSY ON of the supposed request to Vitalian. That pope, after ordaining Theodore, desired Benedict Biscop, then at Home on a pilgrimage, to attend him into England, representing that he could do no act more thoroughly religious than return into his own country, and lead to it a teacher of the truth whom it had anxiously looked for} This might seem susceptible of no other mean- in^ than that Theodore was the sort of teacher that England felt herself in need of. The third authority cited for the Romish hypothesis is from Vitalian' s own Letter to the two kings. This says, / could not find now a man fit for teaching, and for making an accom- l>lish<><"■ purposes, as you detail them,< vcept on th score of birth among you, and of consequent acquaintance with your language; but quite able, as I think, to get over disadvantages. It* Letters are to be supposed in this case, why should not these words express the U nor of that written by the two kings to Vitalian? A Romanist may think the term tenor, certain evidence of a request from the Anglo-Saxon princes, thai some other lit person should be found by the pope, in case of Wighard's death. 1 A Protestant will naturally be 1 "That such was their request" (that of the kings) is certain. Beda calls Theodore, who was selected hy Vitalian, the archbishop asked for by the kings {episcopum quern petierant a Romano pontifke), and the bishop whom the country had anxiously sought {doctorem veritatis quern patria sedula quassierat). Vitalian, in his answer to the two kirn minds them that their letter requested him to choose a bishop for them, in the case of Wighard's death, secundum vestrorum scriptorum tenorem. Certainly these passages must have escaped the eye of Mr. Soames, who boldly, and without an atom of authority for his statement, ascribes the choice of a bishop hy Vitalian to Italian subtlety. The death of Wig- hard, he tells us, was not lost on Italian subtlety. For Vitulia\ pope, determined upon trying whether the Anglo-Saxons would rea archbishop nominated by himself." (Lingard, i. 75. note.) Of these three authorities, it may be farther observed, that the first, which con- tains the word petierant, is the only one that wears any thing like an appearance of conclusiveness. This, however, is not from Benedict Biscop's biography as the second is, or from an authentic letter as the third is; it comes from Bede's history, and relates to a period when any difficulties as to Theodore's reception, if there ever were such, must have ceased. Theodore was then at Paris, and Egbert, king of Kent, being apprised of this, sent Redfrid, his prelect, to bring him Of course, therefore, he was considered the sort of person that the two kings had sought from the pope. He could not be the actual p Hence theboldness charged upon the author of the Anglo-Saxon Church is necessary to all writers of history, and can be fixed up ; them. Instead of being without an atom of authority, there is i for considering it al undantly authorised ; but of that the citations given will enable aU readers to judge. As for the second \ taken from Biscop's life, it should be said, for the information i (JO CONTROVERSY ON struck with the improbability of supposing that any such contingency as his death was contemplated when he set out from England ; and, likewise, that any thought could be entertained of blindly receiving somebody else without reference to those regular national authorities which had approved Wighard. Nor, again, does it appear probable, if Theodore had been appointed in consequence of a contingent request to the pope, that an English visitor at Home should have heard nothing about it. Now this, as has been already shown, might seem to be the case with Bene- dict Biscop, whose biography says nothing of this imaginary request, but puts Vitalian's act solely upon a desire to prevent an unforeseen accident from ren- dering a well-meant errand fruitless. It was, un- doubtedly, a great point gained by the papal see, that a mere nominee of its own should have been accepted in England; but it would have been still more in its favour, if it could plead express and sufficient au- thority sent over from that country for such a nomi- nation. The pope's nomination, besides, wears no appear- ance of being, what is called, an independent one. It reader who may not understand Latin, that in that language there are no articles ; hence, in translating it, whether the or a is to he used, must depend upon the context. Now Dr. Lingard has translated doctorem with the, it may he translated with a. This is not, however, very material, hecause Theodore, a person never heard of in England, could not he the actual person desired there ; he could only he the sort of per- son ; but in verbal disputes nothing can go unnoticed. Mabillon seems to have understood this passage; as in the Anglo-Saxon Church, he para- phrases it a teacher of the truth so much desired (" Doctorem veritatis tantopere expetitum"). (Annatt. Bened. i. MM. 1.) Concerning the am- plification of tenorem (tenor) into a contingent request, enough has been already said. Theodore's appointmi 91 was no1 an Italian Like Augustine, thai was chosen, or any other person inseparably mixed up with Rome. On tin' contrary, \ Italian acted just as a man gene- rally does when he is anxious to avoid any appearance of selfish views. He first selected Adrian, an African connected with the Greeks. 1 When thai individual refused, and recommended Theodore, the pope I his recommendation, although Theodore was a mem- ber of the eastern church, and had not adopted even the Roman tonsure, but wore little or no hair upon his head, according to the fashion of the eastern monks and clergy. 2 The tonsure, however, was one of the formalities upon which the native and Italian parties had lately been at strife in Britain. The peacemaker, therefore, could scarcely appear with his grecianised head, and Theodore seems to have been above the folly of erecting such trifles into insur- mountable difficulties. He allowed his hair, accord- ingly, to grow, and was then duly tonsured in the Roman fashion. In this growth, four months were consumed. Still the pope was not completely at his ease. He could not, evidently, divot himself of doubts upon the wisdom of entrusting Rome's rising influence in England to one so thoroughly oriental. 1 But Ebroin detained Hadrian some time, as a man given up to the emperor of the Greeks, and on that account suspicious, because he might he carrying mandates from the emperor against the kingdom of the Franks to the kings of Britain. Mabillon, Annall. Bened i. -I'M-. - It appears from the Theoria of Germ anus, patriarch of Constanti- nople, in the eighth century, that the Greek monks wore their 1 Bhaven, alleging for the fashion the example of St. James, cur Lord's brother, of St. Paul, and of others. Ratramn oftheGreek clergy, who wore, however, the beard. See the citations in th SS. Bened. see. ii. p. 287- note. 92 Theodore's journey Adrian's appointment might have been unexcep- tionable, because he was thought one of the Greek emperor's dependents, and hence was likely to disarm Anglo-Saxon suspicion, while his religious habits appear to have been perfectly Roman. But Theodore had not hitherto shown himself so tractable. He lived at Rome, but would not give up the appearance of a Greek, until actually won over to accept an appointment from the pope. He might still display some of those prepossessions which had attended him from youth to senility, and thus might disappoint Roman expectations, when once firmly established in his new preferment. Hence his friend Adrian received not only instructions from the pope to accompany him into Britain, but also to watch his proceedings there, lest he should introduce Grecian usages into the church of England. 1 All these things look very little like the act of a man who merely did what was requested of him, and what consequently he felt sure of carrying through, without opposition. Another circumstance to confirm this view is the long delay that intervened between Theodore's conse- cration and his arrival in England. For this various reasons are given ; some political, others from the seasons, and an attack of illness. These hindrances indisputably arose, and would have caused a delay where none was likely to be desired, which, probably, was not the case in this instance. Theodore, Adrian, and Benedict Biscop sailed for Marseilles about the end of May, G(>8. On reaching that port, they went 1 Anglo-Saxon Church, 85. TO i m.i.ami. :>>; on to Aries by Land 1 , and presented a letter from the pope to John, bishop of thai city. He would qoI allow them to leave it, until they had received per- mission from Ebroin, then mayor of the palace. From him license to proceed was given to the party after some unspecified interval. 2 Bu1 -till Adrian continued an objecl of suspicion. il«' had been twice in Gaul before, and whatever may be the reason, Ebroin thought him now- likely to have come on some political errand from the Greek emperor to the A.nglo-Saxon princes. He was, accordingly, detained in Gaul, some months after his friends had actually crossed over into England. They did not arrive there until the end of May, G69, which was something later than they once had reason to expect, Theodore having been seized with illness, when waiting on the 1 Per terrain. (Bed. 77. E. iv. 1. p. 244.) Mabillon considers this journey to have been made on foot (pedibus Arelate accedunt). Bui Bede may merely mean to signify, that instead of going from Mai to Aries by water, as the travellers might, they went by land acr< country. As the Rhone is a very rapid river, and Aries must be reached against the stream, a land journey was, probably, thought more advisable than one by water. 2 * The History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church "■ Before winter they obtained permission to leave the roof of the apos- tolic vicar, and to separate, that they might not, accompanied by a numerous retinue, prove too great a burthen to those whose hospitality they solicited."' (Lingard, i. 77.) For this the authority assigned are Bede's words, which, after detailing where they were severally located for the winter, proceed, for winter, being (it hand, had forced them ti> stay quiet wherever they could. {II. /•.'. L 2 \~>.) This, however, lets us know nothing of the time whi n the ; arty hail permission to ! Of course, it was before winter; the question is, how much before? Aries was the metropolis of Gaul for civil purposes, and her church was said to have been founded by Trophimus, the disciple of St. Paul. It was not however, on this account, that the Roman bishops made the bishop of Aries their agent or vicar in Gaul, but because Aries was the centre of political authority in the country. De Marca, Opp. Bai 17SS, ii. 539. 5 !■>'. 94 Theodore's delay French coast ready for embarkation. He did not land in England until fourteen months after his con- secration. As he had spent nearly a year of this time in Gaul, speculation has naturally been afloat as to the causes of so long a delay. His illness did not occur until he was on the point of embarkation for England. Impediments from winter could not have begun to operate before November, and he could scarcely have reached Aries later than the latter end of June. Upon the Romish hypothesis, therefore, he must have been detained four months, at least, by Ebroin. But Bede's language would not lead one to suspect a detention of such length from this cause. Indeed it seems to point out Adrian as the sole object of Ebroin's uneasiness. 1 Theodore's wintering with Agilbert, bishop of Paris, was on every account very desirable. Agilbert had been long in England, and 1 Who, when they had come together by sea to Marseilles, and then by land to Aries, and had delivered to John, archbishop of that city, the letter of recommendation from the pontiff Vitalian, they were detained by him an til Ebrinus, mayor of the royal house, gave them leave to go where they slu, ill, I irish. This briny received, Theodore ivent to Agilberct, bishop of Paris, about whom we hare spoken above, and by him was kindly re- ceived, ond kept a long while. Hadrian went to the bishops, first, Emme of Sr,,s. a„d afterwards Faro of Meaux, and was well off under them a long while ; for winter being at hand had forced them to stag quiet wherever they could, lint when sure messengers had told king Ecgberct that the bishop, to "-if, whom they had sought from the Roman prelate, was in the king- dom of the Franks, he sent thither immediately Radfrid, his prefect, to bring him over ; whither, when he had come, In' took with him Theodore, with the license of Ebrinus, and led him to a port, the name of which is Quentavic, where, being troubled by an indisposition, he staid some time, and when h<' bad begun to grow better, he sailed for Britain. Hadrian, however, Ebrinus detained, since he suspected him to have some legation of the emperor to the kings of Britain, against the kingdom of which he then had himself the chief care. But when he had satisfactorily discoi ered that he never had any thing of the kind, he released him, and permitted hi))} to go after Theodore. H. E. iv. 1 . p. 245. must bave had interesl with some of the Anglo-Saxon princes. Theodore, therefore, could not only obtain from him a greal deal of information thai he would be sure to need, bul likewise, if any negotiation for his reception were on foot, Agilbert's influence must have been found very useful for bringing ii to a favourable issue. Thai such a negotiation really was on foot, mosl Protestant readers will readily believe. They are Likely to think it necessary under the circumstances of the case, and to be the most obvious way of accounting for Theodore's delay in Gaul, during the summer and autumn. This view, un- doubtedly, cannot be conclusively sustained by any express ancient authority. It lies, therefore, open to contemptuous dismissal as a draught upon the imagina- tion. 1 I nit its mortifying position must be shared with numerous passages in all historical works, even the best. If driven to seek companions in misfortune, it has to look no farther than the very able modern Romish version of these identical transactions. This involves two draughts upon the imagination. It repre- sents Theodore's appointment as made by Vitalian in conformity with a request from the Anglo-Saxon kings, that somebody else should be found at Koine for archbishop in case of Wighard's death. All this may pass with severe people for an example of the i " I have entered into this detail (of the detention in Gaul) that the reader may notice the real cause of Theodore's long stay in France. Mr. Soamesj slmttin : r his eyes to the pages o\' Beda, and draw-:: before, from his own imagination, hints that it was owing to prudential considerations ; for, as former nominations to Anglo-Saxon sees had been domestic, some doubt would naturally arise as t<> hu reception." Lingard, i. 77- note. 96 BISCOP'S TESTIMONY. bill-system in literature. Unfortunately for those who would wish to see the bill honoured, nothing of the kind is likely. Benedict Biscop was upon the spot, and he seems, as the reader already knows, never to have heard a syllable of the supposed Anglo- Saxon application to Vitalian. On the contrary, his biographer expressly attributes the appointment of Theodore to Yitalian's wish, that a religious embassy should not be frustrated by an inopportune decease. Again : something is drawn upon which is not history, when we hear of a request from the two kings, that Wighard should be consecrated archbishop, in order that all England should be placed under the see of Can- terbury. 1 In this case, Benedict Biscop comes forward once more to prevent payment. His life, it has been before shown, says that Wighard was sent to Rome, in order that information might be brought thence by an Englishman, whom, of course, all his country- men could readily understand. If these hinderances to payment had been duly weighed, probably, two Romish draughts upon the imagination would never have been drawn ; or, if drawn, would have only travelled from the study table to the fire-place. 1 " Wighard proceeded to Rome for consecration, carrying with him presents from the two kings, and a letter of request, if we may judge from the result, that all the bishops of the Anglo-Saxons might be placed under the authority of the successor of St. Augustine." (Lingard, i. 75.) To judge of intentions by results is evidently an unsafe principle, and in this case the inference is inconsistent with Biscop's biography. 1)7 CHAPTEB IV. I « >\FKSSlO\ \M> IBS0L1 IK ».\. Theodore's Penitential. Evils of the Romish Confessional, lis deficiency in ancient authority. - Appeals to Theodore. — Contrition alone anciently considered sufficient. — Origin of the Romish system. — Rise of its modern form. Scholastic treatment of it.- Theological objections to it. Attrition. — Popularity of this doctrine. — General mew of the question. Theodore's name is not merely connected with a controversy upon Anglo-Saxon concessions to the papacy. It also conies forward in a system which deeply involves the morality and happiness of man- kind. His reputation long stood very much upon his Penitential, the first book of the kind that appeared in the West, and placed by many generations among the best of authorities upon the subjects which it handles. 1 Upon his doctrine rose that of modern Home as to confession, satisfaction, and absolution. Still the two doctrines are not identical. Nor is there any absolute necessity for the progress of one into the other. Theodore's object is to provide a proportionate penance for every shade of sin. Modern Romanists make men easy under sin by letting them trust in a half-authorised principle. 1 Of all the Penitential* that existed in the West, it is (Theodore's) the most ancient and celebrated. Preface to Petit's edition of it, Lut. Par. 1(5? 7. 11 08 CONFESSION. technically known as attrition} When Romish divines encounter this word in ordinary or unfriendly quarters, they begin immediately to feel sore. Hence Theodore's obvious ignorance of the principle which it designates, could not be pointed out without giving offence. This is, however, one of the questions which require men to disregard offence. 2 A belief in sacer- 1 The term attrition became common among the schoolmen after the year 1220. The principle of it is defined to be a servile fear, or such a desire to obey, as a slave has who thinks of the lasb. Aquinas, accord- ingly, says, Attrition, in spiritual matters, signifies a certain dislike of .sins committed; contrition a perfect dislike. (See the original passages in the Author's Bampton Lectures for 1830.) It is obvious that outward formalities of penitence gone through at the approach of death, or in the course of life, merely from a consciousness that spiritual safety has been endangered, can be no principle to renovate mankind. The bulk of men, who hate any effective care of their salvation, would be much con- firmed in their irreligious habits, by a notion that some ceremonies, at the edge of the grave, will make every thing safe. Protestants who have, or ought to have, no encouragement in such a notion, are not easily kept out of it. But, clearly, all such formalities might be duly acquiesced in, without any of that inward change which Scripture makes essential for the soul's admittance above. The attrite sinner who con- fessed, and so forth, merely because he thought his hour of life expired, and that of reckoning come, would be likely to relapse into his old habits, if it should prove that years on earth yet lay before him. But much worse is the case of those who habitually go through these penitential forms. It is impossible that gross, ignorant, vicious Romanists should not be liable to the censure often jocularly laid upon them by Protest- ants — they ml) off, as they go on. One may sometimes hear the lower and stupider Protestants themselves utter an oath, and then say God forgive me, as if they thought such an attrite acknowledgment a full acquittance. A formal confession, therefore, and a regular assignment of penance, must necessarily have a very bad effect in deadening the sense of moral responsibility. The early French missionaries in Canada re- late an instance which shows the operation of this principle upon the keen observation of an Indian. He wished to persuade one of his own people, who had turned Christian, to join him in some pagan holiday ; and when the convert refused, on the ground of religion, the other said, why, if you do something that you think amiss to-day, the black gowns will clear you to-morrow. Dallceus, De Sacrum, vel Aurical, Conf Genev. 1661, p. 186. 2 " To these passages " (from some anonymous Anglo-Saxon Insti- tutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical, edited by Mr. Thorpe, in the C0NF1 SSK >N, 99 dotal power to procure acceptance above for those who merely feel a servile fear of divine wrath, and Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, ii. 330.; and from some £ Homilies, printed by Whelock, as illustrations to hia Bede 3 341. 34 :. 1,23.), « l mighl have added many more of similar imporl ; bul they are sufficient to show with how little reason Whelock maintained, that, in the Anglo-Saxon as in the Protestant church of England, confession was advised only, and not commanded. Mr. Soames is delighted to find in an old manuscripl (Veep. I>. I 5. f. I<><>.), and in Petit's Capitula coU lecta ex Fragmentis (torn. i. p. 17.) that, according to Theodore., in case of necessity, a man may make his confession to God alone. Con- fessionem suam Drn.su/;, si necesse est, licebit facere (Bampton Lectures, j). 287.) ; and in his history is highly amused at the embarrassment which this passage has afforded t<> Romanism. {Hist. p. 87.) It is - however, difficult to understand the canst' of this exultation, for the doctrine of Theodore then, is the doctrine of Catholic divines yet ; that, in cast necessity, confession to God alone is sufficient." (Lingard, i. 332. note.) The first passage referred to is thus translated hy Mr. Thorpe, God " will be merciful to him who turns from sins, if ho, with inward heart's repentance, turn to penance, and earnestly amend what he did unright- eously. The medicine of a sinful man is that he confess, and earnestly atone, and ever cease from sin." To this doctrine Protestants can make no objection; but, as it will appear, a very different doctrine is maintained by the modern church of Rome. The passages referred to in Whelock are these, " Oft n Holy Scripture teacheth us that we flee to the medicine of a true confession of our sins ; not that Cod needs our confession, for all to him is known that we do, and say, and even think, but because else we cannot be whole unless we confess sorrowing that which we /"in- done unrighteously through carelessness. He that accuseth himself to his confessor, the devil cannot ae-ase him at the day of judgment. (341.) Then follow citations from Scripture, namely, St.James,v. ID., Rom. x. K)., Prov. xxviii. 13., 1 St. John, i. 9., Psal. xxxii. 5. ; but the text, St John, xx. 23 , upon which Romanists chiefly found their notion of the keys, and which they chiefly cite in favour of their penitential doctrines,' is not cited here'. All the texts cited will, in fact, apply to confession to God, except St. James, v. l6., and this is, not, confess your /units or sins to a priest, but to one another. In p. 343. the strongest passage in favour of Romish views is, How can the physician heal the wounds which the sick man is ashamed of showing to him ? Soon after- wards the following text, are cited, St. Matt. iii. 2., Eccles. xxi. I., Tea. 1. Hi.. 2 St. Peter, ii. 22. The first of these has been applied arbitrarily to sacramental confession; the others have not even the semblance of a bearing upon it. In p. 423. is found Truly no man gets forgivi his sins from God unless he confess to some one of God's men, and do satisfaction by his judgment. This passage is the only one referred to that' makes at all effectively for Romish purposes ; but it stands con- nected with various texts of Scripture, which have no such effect A 100 CONFESSION. would have a clergyman's acts excuse their own amendment, is one of those things that require to be plucked up by the roots. Human society will never discerning person, therefore, might hear these homilies, and collect from them that there was no divine command to confess except to God him- self. Whelock, consequently, was justified, as might be expected of a learned man who printed passages and not references, in representing auricular confession as more properly advised than commanded. He does not restrict, however, this representation to the Anglo-Saxon Church of England. He says, Confession of this hind to be made before a priest^ before the year of Christ 1200, the church held free, but then Innocent III. would have it compulsory, (p. 215.) Aquinas will justify this. That great schoolman and reputed saint says, We are bound to confession two ways : one way by divine right, from this very thing that it is a medicine, and according to this all are not held to confession, but those only who run into mortal sin after baptism : another wag from a precept of positive law, and so all arc held by the institution of the church issued in a general council under Innocent III. (Suppl. part iii. p. 9* S. Thorn. Aqu. Summa Col. Agr. \6 C 22.) Whelock, therefore, did not talk at random, when he referred compulsion, in the case of confession, to Innocent's famous canon. This will appear more fully in the end, when the reader will be better able to judge how far the writer may be ex- cusable for the delight, amusement, and exultation attributed to him. He begs leave to add, that the offence given by him is from the mention of attrition in the Anglo-Saxon Church, and a sermon on that express subject in the Bampton Lectures. It may be observed, that this scholastic term, which is a key to the whole matter, is left out of the censure passed upon him. As for the identity of Theodore's admission with " the doctrine of Catholic divines yet," it cannot be established until Theodore shall be shown to have insisted upon the necessity of a wish to confess where the power of doing so is wanting. This is, how- ever, asserted by a no less authority than the Council of Trent. That body took upon itself to say of complete contrition, that although it reconciles man to God before this sacrament (of penance) is actually re- ccired, get, nevertheless, that the reconciliation itself is not to be ascribed to the contrition itself without the wish of the sacrament, which i.s in- cluded in it. (Labb. ct Coss. xiv. 817.) There may be something evasive in the term ascribed, but there can be nothing of the kind in the assertion that a wish for these Romish formalities is included in con- trition : sine sacramenti voto quod in ilia includitur. The Roman cor- rectors accordingly, under Gregory XIII., in dealing with some of the unmanageable testimonies against their alleged sacrament of penance, tell us, " Nay, it is most true, that without confession, in desire at least, the sin is not forgiven." (Ussher's Answer to a Jesuit's Challenge, Camb. 1835, p. 97.) Something, therefore, is to be done beyond a bare assertion, before the divinity of Theodore's days can be made to square with that of so-called Catholic divines get. CON] l. 5SION. 1"1 substantially improve, until thai notion is driven quite <>tn of ordinary sight into the neglected corners of libraries. [faRomish populace !><• worse, as many people say it is, than a Protestant populace, nothing is more likely to cause this greater depravity than an habitual reliance upon sacerdotal claims t<» temper or disarm heavenly vengeance against sin. From this dependence of one sinner upon another, well- conducted, well-informed persons may receive little or no harm. But practical religion is most wanted for the thoughtless, ignorant, busy, corrupt, sensual, impetuous, procrastinating, needy mass of men. These are the elements with which religious teachers chiefly have to deal, and no doctrine is less lit for improving them, than one which flatters evanescent tears with hopes of escape from serious liabilities. Those who deeply feel this, will not be. sorry for any opening that may turn serious minds to the real nature of modern Romish penitential discipline, and the authority which it has to [dead. Its utter failure as a moral instrument is undeniable. 1 Suppose the i Duppa says, that during the reign of Pius VI. a period of twenty- two years, "not less than eighteen thousand persons were murdered in public and private quarrels, in the ecclesiastical state alone, according to the bills of mortality in the governor's office." {Brief Account <>/*/<>' Subversion of the l } "j>'a/ Government, Lond. lTfin, p. 87-) Mrs. Trol- lope, too, was shocked by a gang of convict murderers in Rome. {Italy, ii. 290.) And the parts of Ireland where the populace is almost entirely Romish, are disgraced, impoverished, and barbarised by a succession ol atrocious and cowardly assassinations. Common and accredited report also taxes Romanists of some station abroad with a degree of licentious- ness that is unknown among Protestants of similar condition. In- fluenced, perhaps, partly by a monrni'11! consciousness of this greater depravity, and partly by weariness of a tbeatrical worship, an Italian lady said m an English one of the writer*- acquaintance, u You have a religion, we have none." 11 3 102 CONFESSION. headlong, vicious crowd in Romish countries to be no worse than in Protestant, it is unquestionably no better. The Roman Church, therefore, has at least pro- vided an embarrassing, delusive, unauthorised engine for domineering over, polluting, and insulting man- kind, without any compensatory benefit. A confessor's office, besides, is completely fit for no man. For most men it is most unfit. Youth, vanity, inexperience, prurience of curiosity, or of animal appetite, ignorance, grossness, officiousness, lust of power or of meddling, are total disqualifications for the confessional chair. There are very few, however, perhaps none, who are not disqualified upon one, or more, of these accounts. The moral nudity, too, which the confessional invites, or exacts, from females of every age and condition, is but little suitable for the eyes even of discreet, elderly, and grave men. For most men, the exposure is most shameful. It must often elicit senseless, disgusting, and ludicrous relations, defiling both speaker and hearer. Such disclosures, likewise, in- volve a palpable breach of conjugal confidence in married women. If people thus laid bare all that was done, and said, and thought amiss, before con- fessors of their own sex, more harm would be done than good. But when females of all ages make these disclosures to men of all ages, and single men too, much of the evil that is popularly charged upon con- fession must necessarily flow from it. So long as mankind remains impure, impurity will very seldom be detailed or listened to without either communi- cating or confirming a taint both to the giver and the receiver. As the grossness, therefore, of older jion. L03 times wears away, and knowledg its empire over the public mind, sacramental penance, or rather sacramental confession, for the whole thing is Little else, must be gradually undermined. Fathers will know better than to suffer the expanding mental energies of their children to be debauched, from seven years old, by needless revelations to a stranger who calls himself a spiritual father, bul who really is no father a1 all, and has nol the genuine feelings of one. Men will think, thai females who desire to whisper secrets into the ears of other men, can be no lit wives for them. Any serious and attentive mind can clearly see that the Bible makes every body responsible, but that Romish confessionals make nobody responsible. The penances, and other formalities, prescribed by confessors, really shift off responsibility. If some irksome thing that has been enjoined be left unper- formed, it only serves for an ingredient in the next confession; and if such neglects go through life, they merely run up a longer score for purgatory. This prospect, indeed, may seem alarming, and it is often felt so, but a little inquiry soon places purgatorial questions among the visionary departments in theo- logy. Scripture throws no light upon them, and even the Council of Trent can find nothing better in support of them than vague and bare assertions. But let purgatorial evils be ever so real and intolerable, the same authority that inculcates the dread of them, offers to lessen them by mean- of masses, which money can command. Thus the Romish sacramenl of penance as habitually administered, obviously tends to lower that sense of responsibility, which is the 11 4 104 ABSOLUTION. most effective check to the corruption of human nature. Any opportunity, therefore, for calling at- tention to its baneful operation, and glaring want even of Romish authority, is gladly to be received by all who would fain see men better than they are. Nor is it among the least striking indications of a cause radically weak, that a Romanist of high talent can approach unfriendly observation on his church's penitential attitude with supercilious pleasantry, and an evident wish to keep the real point at issue out of sight. The great object with advocates of theLatin system is to show that confession was always used in the church. Upon the general use of it up to a very early period, and the exertions of clergymen to enforce it, there is no question. But these admissions will not serve the Romanism of Trent, unless it be shown that ancient confessions had the same end in view that modern ones have. Now this can hardly be the case, as may be seen at once from the manner in which confessional formalities now are concluded. Before a person leaves his confessor, he receives absolution from him, and this in the form called indicative. It is represented as a judicial act. The confessional chair is to pass for the seat of judgment, and the party who tenders a confession is to go away formally absolved. One might suppose that such a practice, in which one sinner professes to relieve another authoritatively from the eternal consequences of iniquity, must at least be of immemorial standing in the Christian Church. But such is not the fact. Morin, perhaps the most learned Romish writer upon his church's penitential doctrine, ABSOLUTION. L05 says, All //>> monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity that I have hitherto read, or heard oj \ testify that tlu ordi- nary form of absolution, or of the reconciling oj pent' tents j was deprecatory, down to th( year of grace L200. Thus, until thai comparatively late year, there were, in fact, no absolutions used al all, only release - from canonical penance, and prayers thai penitenl parties might be pardoned above. Aquinas, accordingly, who lived in the thirteenth century, says, this form, / absolve thee, is not in common use. 2 Hence be rea- sons, it is as little commanded by the church as it is by Scripture. It was, however, evidently by his men- tion ot'it, making its way, and no wonder thai it gained in time full possession of the ground. The same pre- sumptuous vanity that had put it into the heads of 1 Sec the original passage in the Bampton Lectures for 1830 } p. 293. 2 " Videtur quod luec non sit forma hujus sacramenti, Ego te dbsolvo. Forma: enim sacramentorum ex institutione Christi, et ecclesiae usu habentur. Sed Chris tus 11011 legitur banc form am instituisse, neque etiam in com muni usu habetur." (Tert. P. S. Thomse, Summa, lj Mi. | "Yea, in the days of Thomas Aquinas there arose a learned man among the Papists themselves, who found fault with that indicative form of absolution then used by the priests, / absolve titer from (ill thy sins, and would have it delivered by way of deprecation, alleging that this was not only the opinion of Gulielmus Altisiodorensis, Gulielmus Parisiensis, and Hugo Cardinalis, but also that thirty years were scarce passed since all did use this form only, Absolutionem et remissi tribuat tibi Omnipotens Dens {Almighty God give unto thee absolution and forgiveness). What Thomas doth answer hereunto, may be seen in his little Treatise on the Form of Absolution, which upon this occasion he wrote unto the general of his order." (Ussher's Anxir. t<> a J. 108 THEODORE AND holy church} Thus Theodore and Gratian, between them, cut up the modern Romish penitential doctrine by the roots, showing its total want of traditional support. Bellarmine evidently felt this. He was commonly accused of doing almost as much harm as o-ood in his controversial pieces, by quoting with a fulness and candour that let people sec the force of Protestant objections, and know where to find more. But the awkward revelations of Theodore and Gratian were an overmatch for the learned cardinal's candour. He does not venture upon the setting down of such unmanageable testimony, but flies off to a pedling criticism upon the words, as the Greeks. These give him occasion to say, that no slight is passed upon sacerdotal confession by the Greeks, as appears by the little notice taken of it at the Council of Florence, where it merely formed matter for an unofficial conversation with the pope. 2 The Greeks came to Florence chiefly for Latin aid against the Turks, who then held them nearly at the last gasp, and they were 1 " Gratianus hanc, ut dixi, qusestionem in medio relinquens, sub- jicit, Unde Theodoras, Cantuariensis archiepiscopus, ait in Pcenitentiali suo, quidam Deo solummodo confiteri debere peccata dicunt, ut Grceci ; quidam vero sacerdotibus confitenda esse percensent, ut tota fere sancta ecclesia ; quod utrumque non sine magno fructu intra sanctum fit eccle- siam." Gratian, after going into various arguments from scripture, in favour of a divine obligation, attributed to sacramental confession, and acknowledging their weakness, rests the question upon tradition, and adds, Among the Greeks confession is not necessary, because such a tradition tins not flowed to them. (Chemnit. Exam. Cone. Trid. Genev. 16'14, ii. 179-) Chemnitz assigns this famous work of Gratian to 1 150, or thereabouts. - " Neque in concilio Florentino ulla fuit controversia de confessione cum Grsccis, eo excepto, quod Eugenius pontifex a nonnullis Gra?corum doctoribus privatim qurcsivit, cur sacerdotes ipsoruni ante sacrificii cele- brationem peccata sua non confitercntur." Controv. iii. 443. GRATIAN. 1<' ( .) consequently anxious to make as few objections to Latin divinity as possible. The words, however, Bellarmine says, which make I heodore give this testi- mony aboul the Greeks, ar< an interpolation. Some ignorant person or other attributed this view of con- fession to tin 1 Greeks, and, in consequence, wrote ut Greed in the margin of Theodore's paragraph, and somebody else, as is usual enough in such cases, trans- ferred this marginal gloss into the text. The cardinal is quite sure that such is the fact, because Theodore took the canon from the Second Council of Challon, which docs not use the words ut Greed? Unluckily for this ingenious hypothesis, Theodore died in 690, and the Council of Challon did not sit until 813. The fathers, therefore, ini<>;lit have taken the canon from Theodore, and probably did, but he could not have taken it from them. 2 The words ut Grceci are quite 1 " Illiul ut Grceci videtur irrepsisse in textum ex margine, et mar- ginalem annotationem imperiti alicujus fuisse, qui ex facto Nectarii collegit sublatam omnino confessionem sacramentalem apud Grsecos. Nam alioqui in ipso Capitulari Theodori, undo canon ille descriptus est, non habentur (hue illee voces ut Grceci, neque etiain habentnr in Con- cilio II. Cabilcnensi, c. 33. 3 unde Theodorus capituluin illud accepisse videtur." lb. 2 " The cardinal's conjecture of the translating of these words out of the margin into the text of Gratian is of little worth, seeing we find them expressly laid down in the elder collections of the decrees made by Burchardus and Ivo ; from whence it is evident that Gratian borrowed this whole chapter, as he hath done many a one beside, For as for the Capitular itself of Theodorus, whence the cardinal too boldly affirmed) that canon was transcribed, as if he had looked into the book itself, we are to know that no such Capitular of Theodorus is to be found ; only Burchardus and Ivo (in whom, as we Eaidj those controverted words are extant) set down this whole chapter as taken out of Theodore's Peni- tential, and so misguided Gratian ; for, indeed, in Theodore's Peniten- tial, which I did lately transcribe out of a most ancient copy kept in Sir Robert Cotton's treasury, no part of the chapter can be Been ; nor yet any thing else tending to the matter now in hand, this short sen- HO ANCIENT likely to be his, because lie was from the Levant him- self, and hence must have often thought of the reli- gious usages which had been before him in early life, and to many of which lie long continued attached, as is evident by his retainment of the Greek tongue until he was upon the point of setting off for England. At the Council of Challon, probably, no one was pre- sent who thought any thing about the Greeks : hence, when the fathers there gave another hard knock to the doctrine that was eventually to spring up in the Church of Rome, they might consider it quite unne- cessary to take any notice of the eastern Christians. Theodore himself, it should be borne in mind, had any thing rather than a disposition to disparage sacerdotal confession. From such a man, therefore, the testi- mony against modern Romish principles is doubly valuable. It is in vain to deny, that any such testi- mony has been given by him. Cardinal Bellarmine seems to have been sorely pressed by reasons for thinking otherwise ; nor will any one wonder, until proof is given, that in Theodore's clays, and in the ages immediately succeeding, divines insisted upon modern Romish views of sacramental penance, as in- dispensable for salvation. The difficulty, however, of proving this may soon be rendered plain enough. Anxious as Alcuin was, for instance, to establish tencc only excepted, Confessionem suam Deo soli, si necesse est licebit. agere. It is lawful that confession be made unto God alone, if need re- quire. And to suppose, as the cardinal doth, that Theodorus should take this chapter out of the Second Council of Cavaillon, were an idle imagination, seeing it is well known that Theodore died archbishop of Canterbury in the year of our Lord 690, and the Council of Cavaillon was held in the year 8 1 3, that is, 1 c 23 years after the other's death." Ussher's Answ. to a Jes. Chal. [)l. VIEWS OF CONFESSION. I I 1 the practice of confession, he does nol go the length of pronouncing it absolutely necessary. lit; merely s;i\'s, 1 1 no on is without sin, who is hi that docs not want repentance, which without confession can scarcely be made fruitful) This is no positive judgment : it is no more than a strong recommendation, which, after all, Leaves the matter open to opinion. It ap- pears, accordingly, from Raban Maur, thai confes- sions of secret sins were considered as optional, how- ever desirable they might be thought. Now this, if the remission of iniquity were placed upon modern Romish grounds, could never have been intimated. The celebrated archbishop says, however, Of those whose sins are secret, and by spontaneous confession have been revealed by them only to the presbyter, or bishop, the penance ought to be secret, according to the judgment of the presbi/ter or bishop to vltoin they hire confessed, lest weak members in th< church should /" j scandalised, seeing tin- penances of those whom they do not know at all to be in fault 2 People are told now. however, that confession is absolutely necessary, un- less the services of a clergyman should be unattainable, and then that the party must have a wish to confess. Thus confession of secret faults, although still styL d spontaneous by the Council of Trent, is really made 1 "Si nullus est sine peccato, quis est, qui poenitentia non indigeat, quae sine confessione viz fructuosa fieri valet." Christ ad Pueros, S. Mart. Opp. ii. 156. - " Quorum ergo peccata occulta sunt, et spontanea confessione soli tantummodo presbytero, sive episcopo ab eis fuerint revelata, horura occulta debet esse poenitentia, secundum judicium presbyteri, sive epis- copi, cui confessi sunt : ne infirmi in ecclesia scandalizentur, videntes eorum poenas quorum penitus ignorant causas." De Institutione Cleri- cum. Col. 1532. p. 92. 112 ANCIENT necessary. 1 But Ivo of Chartres, who died in 1115, wholly destroys this plea of necessity, by maintaining as Protestants now do, that internal contrition secures at once the pardon of sin ; and he accounts for the exaction of penance, as Austin has previously done, before offenders were re-admitted to the communion, upon the principle, that men, who cannot see the hearts of each other, have no means of knowing an alteration for the better to have taken place, until they see a sinner humbled as a penitent. 2 This, again, is a plain denial of any spiritual necessity for the penitential forms of modern Romanism. It refers formalities of this kind merely to the necessity of satisfying the just expectations of a religious body-. Peter Lombard also, the great fountain head of school divinity, and so long famed as the Master of the Sentences, though he will not admit such as refuse sacerdotal confession to be in a proper state of mind for obtaining mercy above, yet merely places clerical power in dealing with sin upon the footing of an 1 De Sanctiss. Poenit. Sacram. can. 10. The term spontaneous is used in this canon to distinguish public scandals from secret sins. It is evi- dent that the latter can only be known by the party's spontaneous dis- closures, but if he is to believe that salvation depends upon such disclo- sures, they are much like revelations extorted by the rack. 2 " Ivo, bishop of Chartres, writeth, that by inward contrition" (]>