Columbia 23nttier^itp 
 
 tntl)eCttpof3!ettjgork 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 PURCHASED FROM 
 THE 
 
 WILLIAM C. SCHERMERHORN 
 MEMORIAL FUND 
 
DISSERTATIONS 
 
 SUBJECTS RELATING 
 
 " ORTHODOX" OR " EASTERN •CATHOLIC- 
 COMMUNION. 
 
 BY WILLIAM PALMER, Ml., 
 
 FELLOW OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN COLLKGE, OXFORD, AND DEACON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, 
 
 AND NEW POND STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLin. 
 
1^^ 
 
 
 <^ -^r 4 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PUINTKI) IIT JOSKPH lUASTKRS AVI) n 
 
 AI.IIKIISOATK STRRKT. 
 
^ 
 
 CENSORS OF THE PRESS IN RUSSIA, 
 
 OR TO 
 WHATEVER AUTHORITIES, SPIRITUAL OR CIVIL, ARE ABOVE THE CENSORS, 
 
 STljis Volume is submittcU, 
 
 WITH THE WISH TO LEARN WHETHER A TRANSLATION OF IT, 
 WOULD BE PERMITTED TO APPEAR IN THAT COUNTRV. 
 
C i\ T E N T S. 
 
 DISSERTATION I. 
 
 Of the distinctive title, present state, and apparent prospects of the 
 " Orthodox '' Communion ......... I 
 
 DISSERTATION II. 
 
 Of the present apparent conflict between "Orthodoxy " and "Catholicism " 9 
 
 DISSERTATION III. 
 
 The Aspect of the Russian part of the " Orthodox " Church at the com- 
 mencement of the Reformation of Luther ; being " An Account of the 
 religion of the Muscovites, written by John Faber for Ferdinand King of 
 the Romans, to whom he was Confessor,'" a.d. 1525 . . . .32 
 
 DISSERTATION IV. 
 
 Destinies of the Slavonic Empire. — Probation and failure of John IV. (the 
 first solemnly crowned Tsar of Muscovy) in the sixteenth century . 46 
 
 DISSERTATION V. 
 
 Destinies of the Slavonic Empire. — Probation and failure of the Tsar Alexis >r 
 
 Michaelovich, with the Nobility and Hierarchy of Russia, in the seven- 
 teenth century .......-■.■ ^ I 
 
 DISSERTATION VI 
 
 Of Civil Government, Obedience, and Liberty, in relation to orthodox 
 Christianity ...-•• ..... 74 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 DISSERTATION Vll. 
 
 Rellections on the riglit method of conductinj^ religious controversy . . 96 
 
 DISSERTATION VIII. 
 
 Remarks on tlie present state of particular controversies between the 
 
 " Orthodox " and the " Roman-Catholic'' Churches . . 102 
 
 /i. Of the Procession of the Holy Spirit 102 
 
 ill. Of the Roman and Papal Supremacy 105 
 
 III. Of Western Baptisms without Trine Immersion .... 107 
 
 IV. Of the Controversy respecting Priests applying the Holy Chrism 113 
 V. Of Azymes 117 
 
 VI. Of the Form of Consecration in the Liturgy . . . .118 
 
 VII. Of the position of the Great Oblation 121 
 
 VIII. Of Communion under one kind only ...... 123 
 
 IX. Of the state of the Saints before the last Judgment . . .124 
 
 X. Of Purgatory . . . . . • • • • .124 
 
 XI. Of Indulgences . . . . • • • • • .126 
 
 xn. Of the Last Unction 130 
 
 XIII. Of the Celibacy of the Clergy 132 
 
 XIV. Of the Latin Fasts 132 
 
 XV. Of the free use of the Holy Scriptures 135 
 
 XVI. Of Church Services in a tongue no longer understood by the people 136 
 XVII. Of Persecution .......••• 139 
 
 XVIII. Of the existence of reputed Saints and Miracles in both Com- 
 munions . • . • • • • • .143 
 
 XIX. Of Immutability and Novelty, as characteristic of the two Churches 
 
 respectively .... • • ... 144 
 
 DISSERTATION IX 
 
 Of the bearing of the theory of Doctrinal Development on the controversy 
 between the Orthodox and the Roman-Catholic Churches . . .147 
 
 DISSERTATION X. 
 
 On the Controversy respecting the Procession of the Holy Ghost 154 
 
 DISSERTATION XI. 
 
 Certain Opinions prevalent in the Greek part of the Eastern Orthodox 
 Church res))ecting Baptism .......•• lt»3 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 DISSERTATION XII. 
 
 Translation of a Memorial presented to the Patriarch of Constantinople, 
 Kyr Kyr Anthitnus, July the 24th, N.S., 1851 178 
 
 DISSERIATION XIII. 
 
 Four Documents, three against and one for the practice of rebaptizing 
 Western Christians .184 
 
 I. Extracts from the " Travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch,'' 
 (being a narrative of that Patriarch's first journey to and stay 
 in Russia, from a.d. 1654 to 1656,) written by his Archdeacon, 
 Paul, in Arabic, and published in English by the Oriental Trans- 
 lation Fund 1^^ 
 
 II. Extracts from the MS. Acts of the Synod held at Moscow, a.d. 
 1666—1667, for the deposition of the Patriarch Nicon . .188 
 
 III. "A Letter [dated August 31, 1718,] to the Emperor Peter I. 
 from Jeremiah III., Patriarch of Constantinople, directing that 
 Lutherans and Calvinists coming over to the Orthodox Greek 
 Faith are not to be rebaptized, but are to be anointed with Holy 
 Chrism " . . • . • • • • . I J7 
 
 IV. " A Constitution of the Holy Church of Christ [a.d. 1756] 
 defending the Holy Baptism given from God, and spitting upon 
 the Baptisms of the heretics which are otherwise administered " . 199 
 
 DISSERTATION XIV. 
 
 Of the word and doctrine of Transubstantiation 204 
 
 DISSERTATION XV. 
 
 Of the necessity of Confession to a Priest 227 
 
 DISSERTATION XVI. 
 
 On the Septenary Number of the Mysteries or Sacraments . . , 236 
 
 DISSERTATION XVII. 
 
 Of the Invocation and Worship of Saints, and especially of the Blessed 
 Virgin '^^'^ 
 
 DISSERTATION XVIII. 
 Of the Worship or Veneration of Icons and Relics 261 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 DISSERTATION XIX. 
 
 Of Credulity and Superstition ........ 272 
 
 DISSERTATION XX. 
 
 Of Formalism, as imputed to the Eastern Church ..... 284 
 
 DISSERTATION XXI. 
 
 Of the parallel and contrast existing between the Reforming Sectaries of 
 the West and the Anti- Reforming Sectaries of the East of Europe 296 
 
 DISSERTATION XXII. 
 
 An Enumeration of certain things which seem to be desirable for the Eastern 
 Orthodox Church 305 
 
 DISSERTATION XXIII. 
 
 Of the duty of making special concerted Prayers for the reunion of the 
 Eastern and Western Churches : And of a future Qicunipiiical Synod . 312 
 
 DISSERTATION XXIV. 
 
 Of the Apocaly)itic Epistles addressed to the Seven Churches nf Asi.-t . ."^22 
 
u 
 
 DISSERTATIONS 
 
 ON SUBJECTS REI.ATINf: TO THE 
 
 ORTHODOX" COMMUNION 
 
 DISSERTATION I. 
 
 OF THE DISTINCTIVE TITLE, PRESENT STATE, AND APPARENT 
 PROSPECTS OF THE " ORTHODOX '^ COMMUNION. 
 
 After the destruction of the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem 
 four heathen nations, the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the 
 Greek, and the Roman, successively subjugated and occupied 
 the fairest portion of the then inhabited earth, (t^5 olxoy/xe'vrjj,) 
 the portion which contained within itself the germs of that 
 human civilization, and of that divine religion which were in 
 after ages to overspread the whole globe. 
 
 None of those four nations ever really ruled over the whole 
 inhabited earth, or the whole eartli then built upon with fixed 
 dwellings ; but all of them claimed and aspired after universal 
 empire ; each of them in turn swallowed up and surpassed in 
 extent of dominion its predecessor ; and each in turn gave or 
 continued the name of " the world " {r^g olxou/x-svijj) to that por- 
 tion of the world (the most central and the most important) 
 which owned its sway. 
 
 In the days of the fourth Empire, the Roman, the Most High 
 set up a fifth Empire, the kingdom of heaven upon earth, or, in 
 other words, the Christian Church, which aspired, like those 
 four which it followed and in part supplanted, to subject to itself 
 the whole habitable earth, that is, to become visibly oecumenical, 
 universal, or Catholic, in respect of places, and countries, and 
 
 B 
 
a OF TtlE niSTINCTIVE TITLE 
 
 nations, and invisibly or spiritually universal in a still wider sense, 
 embracing retrospectively and prospectively the elect of all races 
 and of every religious dispensation. 
 
 The oIhov[x,svyi or world of the Roman Empire, being a compact 
 mass, and consisting of the countries lying around the Mediter- 
 ranean, was from the foundation of Constantinople or new Rome 
 divided into two great halves or lobes, the " Eastern " and 
 the " Western," Empires within an Empire, at first united, after- 
 wards separate and even hostile; in one of which the Greek, in 
 the other the Latin tongue predominated. 
 
 The Christian Church converting and incorporating into itself 
 the population of the Roman world, and triumphing openly in 
 the time of Constantine, and thenceforth entering into close 
 relations with the civil Empire, became itself also oecumenical in 
 the Roman sense, that is, the Church of the Roman v;orld, (r^j 
 olxou|X5v>);,) and with the Roman Empire came to be outwardly 
 distinguishable into two great masses or lobes, the '^ Eastern " 
 and the " Western,'' the " Greek " and the "Latin." 
 
 The Western Roman Empire being overrun by barbarous na- 
 tions came to an end ; but its language, laws, and civilization, and 
 the religion of its Christian inhabitants being communicated to 
 those nations which overran it, it was in a certain sense restored 
 and revived in the Frankish and in the German-Roman Empires 
 of the West. Thus the oixouju,=v»j or habitable world, instead of 
 being curtailed, expanded wdth the changes of the West ; and 
 the Church which expanded with it, and which was in great 
 measure the cause of its expansion, still preserved its aspect of 
 Western geographically, of Latin m ritual and language, and of 
 Roman from the seat of its central government. 
 
 From the middle of the ninth at the earliest, or of the eleventh 
 century at the latest, the Churches of the original Eastern and 
 of the renewed Western Euipire, which had been before as two 
 great lobes of one body, were separated in communion the one 
 from the other. Still, the idea of there being but one olxoup.evij or 
 civilized world, consisting of the double Roman Empire, survived ; 
 and also the idea of there being but one Church, corresponding 
 to the oBcumenicity of the double Roman Empire, and aspiring in 
 principle to be also Catholic or universal in the widest sense, 
 subsisted still on both sides. 
 
OF THE "ORTHODOX COMMUNION. 6 
 
 The Western part of tlie civil and religious " world " lost 
 some ground in Africa and in Spain from the inroads of the 
 infidels, and gained still more by the accession of the Teutonic 
 and Scandinavian nations, partly after but chiejly before the sepa- 
 ration of the two Chui'ches. The Eastern part of the civil and 
 religious world suffered much greater losses from the inroads of 
 heresy and Mahometanism, and gained more in extent, but less 
 in population, by the gradual accession of the Slavonian tribes 
 and countries ; and these losses and gains of the Eastern Church 
 occurred imrtly before but mainly after the separation of the two 
 Churches. 
 
 With some inconsiderable and temporary exceptions, those 
 civil and rehgious developments and expansions which arose out 
 of the destruction and restoration of the Empire of the West and 
 the conversion of the Teutonic nations, continued to be geogra- 
 phically Western in relation to the Eastern Empire and Church. 
 And those expansions of Christianity and of the ideal civil oixou- 
 jxevrj, or world, towards the North, which were owing to the Eastern 
 Church and Empire, were all still geographically Eastern in 
 relation to the Western Church, so that these two distinctive 
 epithets of " Eastern " and " Western " down to the fall of 
 Constantinople in the fifteenth century lost nothing of their 
 relative propriety. 
 
 In like manner, the Western developments and expansions 
 carried with them everywhere both ecclesiastically and civilly 
 the use of the Latin tongue, the Latin ritual, and much of Latin 
 law and civilization. And the Eastern expansions carried with 
 them ecclesiastically if not the Greek tongue yet at least the 
 Greek ritual, and civilly from the first much of Greeco-Roman 
 law and civilization, and eventually (after the fall of Constanti- 
 nople in 1453,) the idea of a Slavonic representation, restora- 
 tion, and enlargement of the Grseco-Eastern Empire analogous 
 to the revival and enlargement of the Latin Western Empire by 
 the Franks and Germans. 
 
 Thus the two Churches, which originally corresponded to the 
 two lobes of one united Roman " world " and Empire, and whose 
 union outlasted the civil separation of the East and West, survived 
 at length each of them those parts or subordinate Empires in the 
 Roman duality with which they had been respectively connected, 
 
 B 2 
 
4) OP THE DISTINCTIVE TITLE 
 
 and came to be associated with a new civil duality, the Gcr 
 man Latin and the Grrcco-SlavoniCj in a wider and expanded 
 world or oUov jxivr), without there ensuing in consequence down 
 to the end of the fifteenth century any change of relative atti- 
 tude in the two bodies, or any considerable impropriety in 
 the continued application of their former distinctive titles of 
 Greek and Latin, Western and Eastern, to each Communion 
 respectively. 
 
 But the discovery of America, the circumnavigation of the 
 globe, the vast extension of commerce, conquests, and colonies, 
 over all parts of its surface, has expanded the ideal oixou/xs'v); to 
 its natural and utmost possible extent. The " world," the ha- 
 bitable or civilized world, that world, or society, which has been 
 expanded and improved out of the "world" of the Roman 
 Empire, is now, though not equally so in all parts, nor reduced 
 under one rule, yet in a true sense commensurate with the 
 accessible surface of our planet. And Christianity having had 
 the benefit of this vast expansion, and having become in some 
 sense commensurate with the new and modern oixou/xe'vjj, that is, 
 with the whole surface of the habitable globe, the result is that 
 the distinctive terms of " Eastern " and " Western " as applied 
 to any particular Churches or Communions can have no longer 
 any geographical but only an historical propriety. And the 
 relative position of the two Churches themselves has hereby 
 undergone a most material change. Instead of two great 
 compact masses of Christians lying the one over against the 
 other, their duality of language, I'ite, races, and geographical 
 position corresponding with the two halves of what was prac- 
 tically considered as the world, nearly equal in the number of 
 their Bishops and Christians, balancing one another in vicissi- 
 tudes of fortunes, in their gains and losses, we have since the 
 sixteenth century one Church only of the two become some- 
 thing like universal, incapable in consequence of being called any 
 longer with geographical propriety " Western " by its rival, and 
 incapacitating its rival from being any longer called " Eastern " 
 with respect to it, embracing, surrounding, interpenetrating, 
 and overwhelming the other from on all sides ; while that which 
 was before the Eastern remains sullenly on the defensive, one 
 compact territorial mass as before ; an enormous mass in ex- 
 
or THE "orthodox communion. o 
 
 tent, no doubt, but without any prospect of rivalling the quasi- 
 universality of the Roman Communion. 
 
 The titles of " Greek " and " Latin " too have lost much of 
 their distinctive propriety when applied to the two rival Com- 
 munions. A Communion which now contains within its pale 
 millions of Christians using Liturgies of Oriental origin in the 
 Greek, Syriac, Armenian, and other tongues, cannot be called 
 strictly or exclusively Latin. Nor can a Communion which 
 embraces several other nations and languages besides the Greek, 
 each performing Divine worship in its own tongue, and in which, 
 out of seventy millions of Christians, perhaps sixty-four millions 
 are Slavonians, and pray in the Slavonic tongue, be properly 
 called Greek, merely because its ritual is derived in great mea- 
 sure (by no means exclusively,) from Greek sources, and be- 
 cause it was once (and that not within its present limits,) closely 
 united with the Grseco- Roman Empire. 
 
 At the present day the only distinctive epithets in use which 
 are not manifestly inapplicable or defective are those of " Ro- 
 man," " Roman-Catholic,'' or " Catholic" on the one side, and 
 those oS '' Orthodox-Catholic," or ''Orthodox" on the other. 
 The titles of " Catholic " and " Orthodox " are indeed claimed 
 and used by both Communions; but practically the one side 
 insists on the title and idea of Catholicism, the other on the 
 title and idea of Orthodoxy. And it is this latter word, and 
 the idea which it represents, which must sooner or later come 
 into final conflict with the word and idea of Catholicism, as 
 evolving itself from the Roman Supremacy. 
 
 And thus much of distinctive titles. We may now offer a 
 brief sketch of the present state and probable future prospects 
 of the so-called "Orthodox^' Communion. 
 
 This Communion in respect of population has now about 
 seventy million souls, under rather less than three hundred 
 Bishops. It has five Patriarchates; of which one, that of 
 Alexandria, the first anciently in dignity after old Rome, has 
 now only five thousand souls, and one suff'ragan Bishop, while 
 the most recent, that of Russia, has perhaps fifty million souls; 
 that of Constantinople having eleven million, that of Antioch 
 (ifty thousand, and that of Jerusalem twenty-five thousand. 
 There are also several lesser independent or autocephdious 
 
6 OF THE PRESENT STATE 
 
 Churches, as those of Cyprus, of Austrian Scrvia, of Monte- 
 negro, and of the kingdom of Greece, and the Lavra of Mount 
 Sinai. Six languages are used in this Communion in the Services 
 of the Church on a large scale, namely, the Hellenic, Georgian, 
 Slavonic, Arabic, Wallachian, and Turkish ; and three or four 
 more may be used in particular localities, namely, the Lettish, 
 Esthonian, German, and Chaldean or Syriac. In the Turkish 
 Empire the hierarchy are jealously controlled by an infidel 
 power, and cannot proselytize, nor even educate freely their owu 
 people. They cannot hold synods. Yet they exercise by con- 
 cession from the infidel government a certain jurisdiction over 
 their people, from whom they are required as tax gatherers to 
 collect certain dues which were formerly payable under the 
 Greek Emperors for their own support. In Austria the "Or- 
 thodox'' are under a Roman-Catholic Christian government, 
 which without any very outrageous violence has found means to 
 unite more than three millions of Christians originally " Or- 
 thodox" to the Roman Church. A like success had attended 
 in former times the efforts of the Sovereigns of Poland and 
 Lithuania ; and still attends, on a smaller scale, those of the 
 French Consuls in Syria and other parts of the Levant. In 
 the Russian Empire the " Orthodox " Church is governed by a 
 standing spiritual Synod, the members of which, seven or eight 
 in number, are nominated and removed by the Crown : nor are 
 any other synods of the Clergy permitted to meet for delibera- 
 tion, or to make canons. All the oflficers or servants of the 
 Synod, and those of the Diocesan Bishops, are nominated, paid, 
 and removed by the civil government, and are under its imme- 
 diate orders : and all the real and funded property belonging to 
 the Church, as well as all Educational funds and establishments, 
 spiritual as well as secular, are under the control of the same. 
 The population of that territorial area which is occupied by 
 the " Orthodox" Church is " Orthodox " in very different pro- 
 portions. In Great Russia it may be regarded as almost one 
 homogeneous mass. In the Danubian provinces also, and in the 
 kingdom of Greece, the '' Orthodox " form the great bulk of 
 the population. In Georgia, and in European Turkey, the 
 "Orthodox" Christians arc as two-thirds of the whole, the 
 remaining third being Mahometan. In Austrian Servia they 
 
OV THE "ORTHODOX COMMUNION. 7 
 
 are mixed with Uniats and other Roman -Catholics. In Asiatic 
 Turkey they are a small minority : while in Egypt and Syria 
 they hardly exist as a native population, being outnumbered not 
 only by the Monophysites, but also in many places even by the 
 Uniats or others of the Roman-Catholic Communion. 
 
 Such being the present state of the " Orthodox " Commu- 
 nion, its destinies may be said to be practically wrapped up with 
 those of the Slavonic race, and so again with those of the 
 Russian Empire. And we may affirm it to be probable that 
 in the course of time it will, through the Russian power, regain 
 the whole of those countries which formerly constituted the 
 Grseco-Eastern Empire ; and not only so, but that it will cover 
 the whole of Asia to the uttermost shores of the Eastern and 
 Southern Ocean ; while North America, Australia, and the vast 
 and numerous islands scattered between New Holland and 
 China, will be filled by a people or race partly Protestant or 
 infidel, and partly Roman-Catholic, of Anglo-British origin. 
 
 It is also highly probable that the ignorance and want of 
 education and learning now complained of among the " Or- 
 thodox " Clergy of the Levant will gradually disappear under 
 more favourable circumstances, and that they, no less than 
 their brethren the Russian Clergy, will become worthy of being 
 compared with the most enlightened Clergy of the West. 
 
 Looking forward to such a development of the " Orthodox " 
 Church, there will still remain to be considered the following 
 questions : 
 
 After all, will not the " Orthodox " Communion, when it 
 shall have spread over the whole of Asia, be as far as ever from 
 being visibly universal or Catholic in that sense in which the 
 Roman-Catholic Communion is universal even now ? 
 
 Will it even then send out missionaries, or will its mission- 
 aries have any success, beyond the limits of the Russian or other 
 " Orthodox" empires or states ? 
 
 Will it be more able than it has been hitherto to preserve any 
 part of its population which may pass under a Roman-Catholic 
 ruler from being persuaded or forced to submit to Rome ? 
 
 Will it evolve from among its clergy any enlightened and 
 zealous reaction against the spread of that immorality and infi- 
 delity which accompanies civilization, such as we have seen in 
 
8 or Tiii; riiosi'ECTs of tiii: "orthodox" communion. 
 
 the Western Church, and especially in the Galilean, which at 
 the very time that France, as a nation, was apostatizing from 
 Christianity, could send out missionaries to preach the Gospel in 
 China ? 
 
 Will its relations to the civil power \n the immense Slavonic 
 Empire, or in the states into which after centuries that Empire 
 may be divided, be such as arc compatible with the true mission 
 and spiritual efficiency of an Apostolic Hierarchy ? Or, will it be 
 upon the whole the political instrument of a worldly or infidel 
 state-supremacy, which will find its only antagonist in the 
 Roman Pontiff, and which, being raised to such an unparalleled 
 height of worldly greatness, will attempt to put down by force 
 Roman-Catholic Christianity, and so, perhaps, set a crowning 
 seal to its truth ? 
 
 These are the questions which will suggest themselves to the 
 mind of any Latin who feels his own strength in the word and 
 idea and consciousness of " Catholicism," and who cannot con- 
 template any other alternative ; such as that of Russian Emperors 
 and Bishops returning from the spirit and examples of the 
 Peters, Catherines, Procopovichcs, and Leforts, to the spirit and 
 principles of such sovereigns as St. Vladimir, and Vladimir 
 Monomachus, Alexander Nefsky, Demetrius Donskoy, and 
 Michael Theodorovich, of such counsellors as the priest Silvester 
 and Alexis Adashefl", and of such hierarchs as the Patriarch 
 Nicon. 
 
DISSERTATION II. 
 
 ON THE PllKSKNT APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN "ORTHO- 
 DOXY" AND "CATHOLICISM." 
 
 As there is cue God and Father, one Lord Jesus Christ, one 
 Holy Ghost, and one Baptism, so also there is One Body of 
 the Church, the essential attributes of which are all inseparably 
 united together. The Church is Hohj : the same Church is 
 Catholic, or Universal: the same is Apostolic: the same is 
 Orthodox, or rightly -believing : the same is One. If there can 
 be two Gods, one Almighty and the other all-merciful, then there 
 may be two Churches, one Catholic or Universal, and the other 
 Orthodox. 
 
 Yet at a certain point of time, or between two certain points 
 of time, we see that great body of the visible Catholic or 
 Oecumenical Church, which from the division of the (Ecumenical 
 Roman Empire (Trjj oUou|U,lvr)c,) was distinguished superficially 
 into two branches, Eastern and Western, Greek and Latin, 
 without detriment to its essential unity, splitting into two sepa- 
 rate and hostile communities, one of which insisting upon 
 " Orthodoxy'' was nevertheless unable to enforce that Orthodoxy 
 upon the consciences of men by the weight of manifest Catholi- 
 cism, the other insisting at the time on the Roman pre-eminence 
 and the indivisible unity of the Church (and now also upon the 
 note of a greater appearance of Catholicism,) was little careful or 
 able to meet the charge brought against it with regard to 
 Orthodoxy. 
 
 The Eastern section of Christendom in condemning the Latins 
 urged openly that they had become heterodox, and assumed or 
 unplicd tacitly thai therefore they could not be Catholic, while 
 their own Eastcin Church, in spite of any appearances to her 
 
10 ON TUE PUESENT APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 disadvantage, must be also Catholic, because she was unquestion- 
 ably Orthodox. The Latins retorted that having on their side 
 the See of Peter (to which was attached the unity and Catho- 
 licity of the Church), they must therefore, in spite of any 
 appearances to their disadvantage, be also Orthodox, while the 
 Easterns refusing to follow them, and so breaking off from 
 unity, could not really have any advantage in respect of Ortho- 
 doxy, whatever appearances they might think they had in their 
 favour. 
 
 Each side had its own strong point, on which it insisted : 
 neither side answered fairly or adequately to the objection of the 
 other. Each alike dissembled the point of its own apparent dis- 
 advantage, and trusted to that point on which it felt itself strong 
 to overbalance and hide its weakness. 
 
 Under such circumstances if the two contending bodies had 
 been at the first equal in strength the one to the other, and had 
 remained so since, the two forces would have absolutely neu- 
 tralized one another, and it would have seemed to us now that 
 either there is no such thing in existence as the Church of the 
 Creed, at once Orthodox and universal, (the two destroying one 
 another,) or else that the two conflicting bodies are both equally 
 the Church, that is parts of the Church, their conflict and ex- 
 ternal separation being only a superficial accident and disease, 
 and not reaching to the essential orthodoxy and Catholicity 
 inherent in them both. 
 
 But whatever may have seemed to be the case at the first 
 separation, when the two sides were in point of extent and in the 
 number of their Bishops nearly equal, (though even then the 
 dignity of the elder Rome and the pre-eminence of the See and 
 Martyrion of Peter turned the balance of mere authority much 
 in favour of the West,) there is certainly no such equality exist- 
 ing now. As time has gone on the evidences of Eastern supe- 
 riority in respect of Orthodoxy have remained much what they 
 were, while changes have taken place in the world and in Chris- 
 tendom which have greatly increased the advantages of the 
 Westerns in respect of Catholicism. 
 
 The so-called " Catholic" or '' Roman- Catholic" Church appears 
 now plainly to all men to be really Catholic or universally diffused 
 (and this is one part nt least of the idea of Catholicism,) in a 
 
"orthodoxy" and "CATHOLICISM." 11 
 
 degree in which the so-called " Orthodox'^ Church does not 
 appear to be so. This is a fact, about which there can be no 
 doubt, and no mistake. But on the other side it is onhj to those 
 who think so that the so-called " Orthodox'^ Church appears to 
 be really orthodox in a degree in which the so-called " Catholic" 
 Church does not appear to be so ; or that the apparent identity 
 of the spirit of domination in Christian Rome with that of Pagan 
 Rome, and the perpetual self-preaching of the Roman See seem 
 to be strong arguments against the Roman side. 
 
 If one is forced to choose upon such data alone, it is clear 
 that we may more easily and more properly suspect of error 
 even the strongest convictions of individuals or minorities as to 
 a deep question of orthodoxy or heterodoxy, than doubt the 
 common sense and sight of all men as to the advantage of 
 superior visible Catholicity, which is a plain matter of fact. 
 
 Either then our personal or inherited opinion that the self- 
 called " Orthodox " Church is really orthodox, and the self-called 
 " Catholic " Church heterodox, umst be sacrificed and reversed, 
 so as to make a superior Orthodoxy about which we can doubt 
 submit to a superior Catholicism about which we cannot doubt ; 
 or else, if we cannot rid ourselves of our convictions, and yet see 
 the absurdity of supposing a greater apparent Catholicism to be 
 for centuries opposed to true Catholicism and to Orthodoxy, we 
 must infer that the opinion and assumption of there being an 
 essential difference between the two sides (seeing that it leads to 
 such difficulties and absurdities,) is itself false : and we must re- 
 concile the conflicting phsenomena of superior Orthodoxy on the 
 one side and superior Catholicism on the other by supposing 
 that the quarrel and schism of the East and West, of the Greeks 
 and Latins, is superficial only, and not essential ; and that in 
 some way or other both parts together have continued since their 
 quarrel to constitute the Universal Church, just as they did be- 
 fore the quarrel ; and that their true inward unity has no moi-e 
 been broken by their long-standing outward schism, than the 
 true inward unity of the Latin Church was suspended or broken 
 by its disruption into two or even three outward Obediences 
 during seventy years, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
 
 Against such an hypothesis as this there are, no doubt, for- 
 midable objections : 
 
12 ON THE rilKSENT Arr.VRENT CONFLICT 15ETWEEN 
 
 In the first place tlie Latins, fully conscious of their own ad- 
 vantage in the present position of the controversy, will be for- 
 ward to argue that the outward as well as inward unity of the 
 Church is necessarily always visible and perfect, or, at the least, 
 not liable to such obscuration and interruption as this theory 
 supposes, nor for so long a time : that the theory in question is 
 clearly and peremptorily rejected by both parties ; so that any 
 one maintaining it rests upon the merest private judgment 
 against all that either is or pi'etends to be authority : in fine, 
 that one must choose simply between the two. If it is impossi- 
 ble to embrace as oecumenical an " Orthodoxy " which plainly is 
 not oecumenical, you must be content to stifle all misgivings and 
 receive as orthodox a "Catholicism" which may possibly be or- 
 thodox, even though it has strong appearances, and the voice of 
 a large minority, and private judgment against it. 
 
 The Easterns, on the other hand, little used to abstract con- 
 troversy, are either insensible to the disadvantages of their the- 
 ological position, and careless to improve it ; or, if they ever feel 
 that Rome has some advantage, this excites only a perplexity 
 and indignation like what they may feel at the temporary exal- 
 tation and tyranny of infidel Empires. Truth, they say, is not 
 at any moment, nor even during any given course of centuries, 
 to be measured by mere geographical extent, or by numbers : 
 nor, so long as God^s promises given to the true Church are ge- 
 nerally and sufficiently accomplished to Orthodoxy, is another 
 community, which plainly rebels against the oecumenical law, to 
 be preferred merely because it is larger, even though it may con- 
 tinue to be larger for centuries. Rather, on the contrary, the 
 very zeal of those who are perpetually crying, " The Temple of 
 the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord 
 are we," and who in this zeal are ever compassing sea and land 
 to make one proselyte, is a great sign that they are far from the 
 true Temple of the Lord, and rather like to the Jews of old, 
 who boasting of the Temple, and confidently identifying it with 
 themselves as children of Abraham, but making it subservient 
 to their own wills, destroyed the true Temple, and crucified as a 
 bla5>i)hemer against the Temple the Lord of the Temple Him- 
 self. While, on the other hand, the Orthodox, though failing 
 greatly, no doubt, in respect of that zeal and charity which they 
 
"orthodoxy" and " catiioltcism/' 13 
 
 ought to show for the conversion of the worhl, and for the re- 
 union in one of all Christians, yet in this are faulty only as 
 almost all men in this evil age (and the Latins equally with 
 others,) are faulty with respect to all virtues and duties which 
 are simply debts to God and man, and which find no adventi- 
 tious incitements from interest, ambition, or rivalry, within our- 
 selves. 
 
 This is what is said on both sides : and once more we must 
 allow that the Latin arguments are the stronger. For, in spite 
 of all that can be said, if the true Church is " u city set on a 
 hill, which cannot he hid,'' it must be perplexing to the eyes of a 
 man seeking the true Church to see at once two hills and two 
 cities more or less answering in appearance to what he seeks : 
 and it must sound paradoxical to such an one to hear himself in- 
 vited to the smaller city and to the lesser hill, rather than to the 
 greater. Even a Greek Christian must feel this, if he chances to 
 hear a member of t\c Nestorian Church, now reduced to sixty 
 thousand souls in the mountains of Kurdistan, use his own ar- 
 gument that the true Church is not to be discerned by mere 
 extent or numbers. And though there is, doubtless, a vast dif- 
 ference between the self called "Orthodox" Church and the 
 Nestorian, yet, so far as this argument goes, the difference is 
 not in kind but only in degree. They are both minorities; the 
 one a very small, the other a very large minority ; the one 
 making a preposterous demand, the other a less exorbitant de- 
 mand on private judgment to unite with it against a greater 
 apparent authority. But if a certain degree of inferiority in num- 
 bers and extent reduces the claim of the Nestorian Church to an 
 absurdity, then it is clear that any degree of such inferiority must 
 involve some disadvantage to that Church or side to which it at- 
 taches. And that this is so is further shown by the fact that men 
 of virtue and piety are often found to pass from the Eastern to 
 the Roman-Catholic Communion : and such men almost always 
 give this as their chief reason, that the apparent authority and 
 universality of the Roman-Catholic Church outweighs the self- 
 asserted Orthodoxy of the Easterns who are only a minority : 
 while no instance, perhaps, or scarcely any instance, can be 
 adduced even of an individual Latin Bishop, Priest, or layman 
 of acknoivledged piety and learning passing over to the Eastern 
 
14 ON THE PRESENT APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 Church from a conviction that it alone is Orthodox, and there- 
 fore, in spite of all appearances, also Catholic. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the above objections from the two 
 sides, and the confessed advantage of the Latins if one is forced 
 to a choice, the theory that the two bodies together constitute 
 the Catholic Church may still be true, and to be accepted. 
 The existence of great difficulties and objections against it is 
 no reason for rejecting it, unless we arc also convinced that 
 those difficulties and objections are greater than those which 
 make against either the exclusive Greek or the exclusive Latin 
 theory. 
 
 For, without describing them at length, it is plain that the 
 phsenomena of the Eastern Church (to say nothing of internal 
 phsenomena within the Latin Church herself, or of the view any 
 man may take of particular controversies,) do oppose consider- 
 able difficulties to the exclusive Latin theory, difficulties not to 
 be summarily dismissed in a couple of lines. On the other 
 hand, it is also plain that the phseuomeua of the Latin or 
 Roman-Catholic Church oppose still greater difficulties to the 
 exclusive Eastern theory. The question then is not whether 
 the difficulties and objections making against the third theory 
 (that the two Churches are after all intrinsically one, and their 
 estrangement only superficial,) are great, but whether they are 
 greater than those which lie against either the exclusive Greek 
 or the exclusive Latin theory, and especially against the latter 
 which is confessed to be the stronger of the two. 
 
 If any one agrees with the writer that, upon the whole, the 
 difficulty of supposing that the Greek and Latin Churches 
 together still continue to constitute now after their quarrel, as 
 before, the universal Church, is less than the difficulty of sup- 
 posing that either the Greeks or the Latins are simply and 
 absolutely cut ofi" (as the Arians, Nestoriaus, and Monophysites 
 have been cut off,) from Orthodoxy and Catholicism, to such a 
 one it will be natural to inquire what signs there may be in 
 ecclesiastical history, or in the present language and feelings of 
 Greeks and Latins respectivelj^, to corroborate that theory which 
 he is inclined for its own sake to accept. 
 
 I. In the first place, it must strike every one as extraordinary, 
 and contrary to all experience of ecclesiastical history, if cither 
 
"orthodoxy" and "CATHOLICISM." 15 
 
 the Greek or the Latin Church had really fallen into heresy, 
 that the process of their outward alienation and separation should 
 have been so gradual and indistinct, extending from Photius to 
 Cerularius, and even beyond, over a space of more than two 
 hundred years : whereas in the case of all other heresies there 
 have always been holy and learned Bishops and Doctors who 
 denounced them as such from the very time of their first ap- 
 pearance, and who from first to last constantly refused to com- 
 municate either with the hei'etics themselves, or with such as 
 from weakness communicated with them, till they procured the 
 complete and final condemnation of the heresy by the Church at 
 large. But in this case Photius himself, who so publicly and 
 with such effect anathematized the maintainers of the Filioque 
 when he had reasons for attacking Rome, had only a little be- 
 fore, when it suited him to be at peace, thought himself justified 
 in writing that the Greeks and Latins diff'ered only " Trsp] 
 ju-jxpw!/ Tivoov," alluding then unquestionably to this same difi"er- 
 ence of the Filioque as much as, or more than, to any other. And 
 on the other hand, if the denial of the Filioque by the Greeks 
 was a heresy, (as was maintained afterwards by the Papal 
 Legate Cardinal Humbert, who absurdly charged them with 
 having expunged it from the Creed,) then how could the Popes 
 of Rome come, as they did by their Legates, into the East after 
 Photius and the Easterns had so publicly condemned the 
 Filioque as an error and even as heresy, and take part in and 
 preside in Eastern Councils without saying a word in defence of 
 the truth or for the condemnation of error on this point ? dis- 
 sembling upon it altogether, deposing Photius only on grounds 
 of irregularity, without hinting any suspicion of his orthodoxy, 
 reciting the Creed in the form defended by his Anathemas, and 
 even, as it seems, silently assenting to the repetition of the 
 same Anathemas against the insertion of the addition ? 
 
 Again, if the Latins were heretics, how could the Greeks so 
 publicly and so repeatedly, from the time of Photius to the pre- 
 sent day, offer to make union with them if only the interpola- 
 tion were omitted from the Creed, without insisting on any 
 condemnation or retractation of the doctrine itself as heresy ? 
 And on the other hand, if the Greek denial of the Filioque was 
 heresy or heterodoxy, how could Pope Leo IIL by setting up in 
 
16 ON THE PRESENT APPAKENT CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 his two silver shields or tables a public protest against that ad- 
 dition to the Creed which was pressed for by the envoys of 
 Charlemagne, have been showing his love for orthodoxy, and his 
 care lest it should be tampered with ? " Hjec Leo posui amore. et 
 cauteld orthoduxce Fidei." Or if it were schism and apostacy 
 from the unity of the Catholic Church for the Easterns to resist 
 the See of Peter when afterwards it countenanced and adopted 
 and even enjoined that novelty, how could the same Pope 
 Leo IIL who has just been mentioned insist that both he, the 
 Pope himself, and all other Catholic Christians were so subject 
 to the decrees of the CEcumenical Councils forbidding all altera- 
 tion of the Creed, that if they inserted the clause m question, 
 however orthodox they might think it, they would make it im- 
 possible for any man afterwards either to teach, or sing, or say 
 the Creed without blame ? Or how could another Pope, John 
 VIIL, half a century later, write to Photius, as he did, agreeing 
 with him on this point, condemning strongly the authors of the 
 innovation, and only demanding time and patience on the part 
 of the Easterns, till they should be able to correct in the West 
 so great a prevarication ? Or, how could the same Pope, after 
 having summoned to Rome the Apostles of the Slavonians, 
 St. Cyril and St. Methodius, accused as heretics by German 
 Bishops for refusing the interpolation and condemning the doc- 
 trine it embodied, how, I say, could the same Pope, John the 
 Eighth, have justified those holy men merely because Rome had 
 not yet herself adopted, though she tolerated in others, the in- 
 terpolation ? 
 
 IL Assuming it to be true (what it would need a separate 
 dissertation to prove at length,) that the alienation of the two 
 Churches was owing in great measure to a spirit which grew up 
 gradually within each of them from below, and that, important 
 as were the acts and motives and pretexts of Photius and Ceru- 
 larius and the Byzantine Court (and especially the matter of 
 the Filioque,) on the one side, and the swellings of Papal Supre- 
 macy on the other, still the main forces causing the ultimate 
 separation were rather of a popular kind, consisting in national 
 antipathies between the German-Latins, and the Greeks and 
 Slavonians, and mixed with these ritual prejudices and anti- 
 pathies, then, in whatever degree any man comes to see and 
 
"orthodoxy" and "CATHOLICISM." 17 
 
 understand this, he will he the more strengthened in the opinion 
 that there is not, prohahly, besides at the root of this vast and 
 unhappy and long-standing schism any essential theological 
 error either on the one side or the other, but rather moral and 
 spiritual degeneracy on both sides, which has been permitted to 
 work out its own punishment. Because iniquity abounded 
 therefore the love of the brethren waxed cold : and those power- 
 ful natural principles of alienation and divergence which though 
 they had early apj)eared in the Church, and had been on the 
 increase, had yet for centuries been overcome and held to- 
 gether into unity by grace, have rent the visible Church, 
 like the twelve tribes of Israel of old, into two great separate 
 branches. 
 
 III. But to leave these general considerations, and to come to 
 matters of fact and history : we find that even after Cerularius, 
 and down to the present day, both the Latins and the Greeks 
 have shown many signs of a deep consciousness that their rivals 
 still belong to the Catholic Church in a sense in which no other 
 heretics or schismatics can be said to do so. 
 
 As for the Latins, we see this truth well illustrated by the 
 inconsistent expressions of Pope Gregory VII. and Pope Urban 
 II. in proposing and preaching the first Crusade. As it were in 
 the same breath Pope Gregory VII. writes that a main object 
 with him is to force upon the Eastern Church, which differs 
 from us about the Holy Ghost, and by the instigation of the 
 devil falls away from the Catholic faith, the decision of the faith 
 of Peter, while Pope Urban exhorts all the West to dehver 
 from the oppression of the infidels in Palestine our dear breth- 
 ren, our very true brethren, and co-heirs of the heavenly king- 
 dom ; to save the Church of God from sufi'ering loss to the 
 faith ; to defend the Eastern Church, from which hath flowed 
 all our salvation, which suckled us with the divine milk, and 
 first delivered to us the sacred doctrines of the Gospel. And 
 again : their object is at once to promote the general interest of 
 Christianity, and the most desirable exaltation of our Latin 
 Church in particular. With the like inconsistency, the Crusa- 
 ders, when they first took the city of Autioch, restored with 
 much honour the Greek Patriarch to his chair, thinking this, 
 as William of Tyre writes, more agreeable to the Canons and to 
 
 c 
 
18 ON THE PRESENT APPARENT CONFLICT 15ETWEEN 
 
 the constitutioas of the holy Fathers, than to elect and conse- 
 crate a Patriarch of our own Latinity : though scarce two 
 years after, changing their minds, they obliged him to retire to 
 Constantinople, and set up a Latin Patriarch. And when they 
 took Jerusalem and Palestine they made a Latin Patriarch there 
 and a Latin Hierarchy at once, expelling the Greek : and at 
 Constantinople, and throughout a great part of the Levant, 
 how they treated their '' dear brethren,'^ their " very true 
 brethren," and " co-heirs of the heavenly kingdom," how they 
 did to their Churches exactly what the Turks had done to them 
 in Palestine, and created everywhere a Latin hierarchy, needs 
 not here to be described. 
 
 But in the way of Latin admissions in favour of the Eastern 
 Church, no stronger testimony can be conceived than that 
 afforded by the Council of Florence itself, at which, though for 
 the future the Greeks were to submit absolutely to Rome, yet for 
 the past the existence of their Church, of the Greek or Eastern 
 Church as distinguished from the Latin, with all her Saints, 
 was retrospectively recognized. The Pope had recognized the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople as a brother before the opening of 
 the Council, and the other Patriarchs as the legitimate posses- 
 sors of their Sees ; and " a holy union of the two Churches " 
 was thought afterwards to have been concluded without either 
 of them retracting or yielding to the other, both appearing, on 
 explanation, to have all along virtually meant the same thing. 
 Such was the account given by Latin Bishops returning from 
 the Council ; and such is the footing on which those Uniats 
 who have accepted the terms of the Council of Florence stand 
 even at the present day with regard to the non-united Church 
 of their ancestors from the time of Cerularius to the formation 
 of the Unia. And some Latin writers connected with the 
 Uniats, seeing the retrospective latitude of the terms accorded 
 to them, and desiring at once to veil the theological consequences 
 of such latitude, and to make the bridge between the two Com- 
 munions as serviceable for the future as possible, have been 
 emboldened to attempt the most curious and extensive falsifica- 
 tions of history, writing down the whole Eastern Church, in 
 spite of the bitter animosity of so many centuries, as having 
 been all along devoted to the Pope and to " Catholicism," in 
 
"orthodoxy'^ and "catholicis:m." 19 
 
 their sense of the word, down to the very formation of their 
 Uniat congregations ; and the Russian Church, more especially, 
 as having been perfectly " Catholic " down to the time of the 
 Metropolitan of Moscow Photius. Some authors prolong its 
 orthodoxy even to the time of Peter the Great ! 
 
 Lastly, not the weakest testimony is the continued use 
 of the expressions " Greek Church," and " Eastern Church,'^ 
 as distinguished from " Latin Church,'' and "Western Church," 
 and of " the Greeks," or " the Easterns," as distinguished from 
 " the Latins," or " Westerns." The force of this language was 
 felt and pointed out by one of the most powerful of modern 
 Ultramontane writers, the Count Joseph De Maistre; and he 
 suggested as a remedy for its evil tendency the substitution of 
 the epithet " Photienne." After the publication of his treatise 
 the Greek or Eastern or Orthodox Churches were no longer to 
 be called by any of these titles, but were to become " les Eglises 
 PhotienneSy" and therefore, of course, manifest nullities. But 
 it is more reasonable, perhaps, to think that the theory of a 
 talented writer, when it conflicts with language rooted in con- 
 tinuous history and in the popular use and mind and conscience 
 of all Christendom, is thereby shown to be false, than to expect 
 that the world will remodel its language so as to sustain the 
 theory of an individual, even though that theory should be em- 
 braced by the whole Roman -Catholic or Latin Communion. 
 An Anglican theory may require that the Anglican Church 
 should, within her own dioceses at least, be orthodox and 
 Catholic, and an individual or a party may do their best to give 
 her such titles ; but the use and conscience of the world at 
 large will continue to refuse them. A Greek theory may lead 
 a Greek to dissemble the strength accruing to the Latins from 
 their greater apparent universality, and from their possession of 
 the title " Catholic," and of the idea which it embodies ; but 
 this advantage will not therefore cease to exist and to be felt, 
 and even to convert occasionally Greeks and Russians to the 
 Roman Communion, so long as the two Churches remain in 
 their present respective attitudes. And in like manner the 
 advantage, such as it is, which is given to the Easterns by the 
 continuance to the present day even among the Latins of the 
 popular distinction of the Latin Church from the Greek, and of 
 
20 ON THE PRESENT APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 the Western from the Eastern, is one of which it is beyond the 
 power of either individuals or parties to deprive them. 
 
 On the side of the Easterns their continued admission of the 
 existence of the Latin Church as a part of the true CathoHc 
 Church is manifest not only from their conduct on all public 
 occasions, whenever there has been any communication with a 
 view to reunion, but also from the common use of the same or 
 similar language to what has been mentioned above in the ease 
 of the Latins: and this in a much greater degree. Indeed the 
 doubt most likely to arise in the mind of any one who atten- 
 tively considers the popular use of language among members of 
 the Eastern Communion (joined with the almost total absence 
 of zeal for the conversion of the Latins,) is not whether they 
 admit the true life of the Uoman-Catholic Church, but whether 
 they do not unwittingly doubt or deny their own. The Latins 
 nnmistakeably associate both the title and the idea of Catholicism 
 with their own Church, and only by a little lingering incon- 
 sistency betray a consciousness of doubt in having narrowed 
 their Catholicism to its present definition : but the Easterns by 
 taking for themselves, as they do, local and particular titles, 
 such as " Eastern," " Greek," or " Grceco-Russ," as distinctive 
 of their Church and religion, by conceding practically the Greek 
 epithet " Catholic" as a distinctive appellation to the Latins, and 
 by showing so little disposition to dwell either upon the word or 
 the idea for themselves, go far to admit that they are merely a 
 particular Church, or an aggregate of particular Churches ; that 
 is, (so far as there may be in them any radical hostility to the 
 remaining complement of Catholicism,) either schismatical or 
 heretical, or both. But this is move than we want : it is enough 
 for our purpose to say that the popular speech and ideas of the 
 Easterns abundantly recognize the Roman-Catholic Church as a 
 part, at least, of the true Catholic Church. No better instance, 
 perhaps, can be adduced of this than the observation so com- 
 mon in the mouths of Easterns, and not of ignorant people only 
 but of the most learned of their clergy and laity, that there 
 have been but Seven General Councils, and that other Councils 
 held since have not been of equal authority " because of the 
 division of the Churches :" or again, that a General Council now 
 is impossible (that is, among themselves, or among the Latins,) 
 
" ORTHODOXY " AND " CATHOLICISM^' 21 
 
 for the same reason. It is true that this same admission seems 
 to have been made also by the Latins in favour of the Greeks 
 when they were wilhng that the Council of Florence, if only 
 it were accepted, should be reputed and called the " Eir/hth 
 General Council :" and the galleys of Pope Eugenius and of the 
 Synod of Basle racing against each othei*, and contending for 
 the accession of the Greeks, hint something of the same sort. 
 But of Greek admissions in favour of the Latins, one of the 
 most remarkable in modern times is that contained in the Acts 
 of the Synod of Bethlehem held under Dositheus Patriarch of 
 Jerusalem in 1672. This Synod, in speaking of the Church, 
 repeatedly distinguishes the " Western " from the " Eastern" 
 and both from " the ivhole Catholic Church ;" and blames the 
 Lutherans and Calvinists for having invented heresies, and for 
 having gone forth from " that Church" (the Western or Latin cer- 
 tainly,) " in which their ancestors abiding had obtained salvation." 
 
 Yet with all these mutual admissions, or half-admissions, in 
 favour of one another, the two Churches are practically at war. 
 The Latins in the middle ages, without any shadow of reason, 
 from mere hatred, re-baptized the Easterns in Poland and Ger- 
 many ; and still reconcile them individually as schismatics or 
 heretics, or as both. And the Easterns in turn reconcile Latin 
 proselytes as from heresy to the true Church, in Russia anoint- 
 ing them with Chrism, like Arians or INIacedonians, in the 
 Levant even Baptizing them, like Jews or Turks or Heathens. 
 
 As for the Latins, who are the stronger party, their conduct 
 towards the Greeks is both politic and necessary : for any other 
 conduct would be in fact to concede to them the main question 
 between the Churches. But as regards the Greeks, who are the 
 weaker party, and as regards the interest of that truth which 
 they think they represent, it will be worth while to consider the 
 origin of their present custom, and its effect on their controver- 
 sial position, and the question what would be the bearing and 
 tendency of a contrary practice. 
 
 The complete cutting oflF from the Catholic and Orthodox 
 Church of any body of men who are truly and simply heretics, 
 and the practice of reconciling them, if they return, whether in a 
 body or as individuals, as has been done with Arians, Mace- 
 donians, Nestorians, Monophysites, and others, is as far from 
 
22 ON TIIK I'UESblNT APPARENT CONl'LU'T P.ETWEEN 
 
 liaviug auy bud clicct uu the Cliiu'ch liersoli', as is the cutting 
 away of dead wood far from hurting a living tree. On the con- 
 trary, for the Churcli to have remained in Communion with 
 death would have affected her own life. But if we suppose a 
 case where there is disease in any part of a living body but not 
 death, so that the diseased part remains still a living part, then 
 the effect of a total severance of the more sound part from the 
 diseased will have a contrary and pernicious effect both on the 
 sound part and on the diseased. For the diseased part will 
 have no longer any influence in contact with it to correct it ; and 
 the sound part will be mutilated, or it may be, even destroyed 
 by losing its coherence with those other parts which are no less 
 necessary than itself (it may be even more necessary,) to the 
 perfection or life of the whole body. Any one can understand 
 this in the case of a natural living body. And thus, even if the 
 Eastern Church were to the Latin in extent and importance as 
 two thirds to one third, and were spread over the whole globe, 
 and possessed the idea and the title of " Catholic," still, if the 
 Latins wei-e not really and mortally heretics essentially as well as 
 by mere form, it would have been a most uncharitable and per- 
 nicious fault to separate them altogether from Communion as 
 heretics, and abandon them to their error, and so lose all chance 
 of influencing them. But much more is this the case when they 
 arc not only not essentially heretics, but possess so large a share 
 and interest in the universal body, and such great superiorities in 
 some respects, that the Eastern Church in cutting them off not 
 only loses all influence over them, but seems even rather to 
 bring into question her own existence than to affect theirs. On 
 the other hand, if the sound part were to remain in union with 
 the diseased, and by contact to preserve its influence, then even 
 a smaller part which should be sound and healthy might correct 
 disease and renew health even in a larger, always supposing that 
 there was no careless or indifterent toleration of the disease or 
 error. 
 
 As things now are, the Eastern Church has absolutely no in- 
 fluence on the Western. She has cut herself off: and the 
 Western, being materially the stronger and larger of the two, 
 strengthens herself by this very separation in her errors, and 
 boldly calls on all to choose the one Communion or the other. 
 
"ORTHODOXV" AND "CATHOLICISM." 23 
 
 But let any one consider what would be the prospect for " Or- 
 thodoxy," if only one national Church of the present Latin Com- 
 munion, (let us suppose the Gallican,) without withdrawing 
 from the rest, confessed the common fault, and called upon the 
 rest to join in amending it ; or, amending it at once for itself, 
 received for the future only those laity and clergy from other 
 branches of the Latin Communion, who, on examination, should 
 be found to be ])ersonally free from the disposition to defend 
 error ? Would not such a state of things be most hopeful ? 
 And should we not expect to see immediately individuals in 
 other Latin Churches both of the clergy and laity avowing their 
 agreement and sympathy, and so moving from all quarters the 
 whole body towards amendment ? But if any one local Church 
 of the present Latin Communion would probably by such con- 
 duct exert so great an influence, and form so hopeful a party, 
 what would not be the influence of the Eastern Church, of one 
 whole third part of Christendom, if only she had preserved, or 
 if she were now to restore her coherence, and so were to become 
 capable of having influence at all ? Certainly there can be no 
 doubt that, if she has truth on her side, she would speedily effect 
 the reformation of the West. This attitude might be taken up 
 by the Eastern Church if she were in practice to adopt some 
 such rule as the following ; that — 
 
 " If any persons coming from the Latins seek to communicate in 
 anij Orthodox Diocese, such persons shall first be examined, and if 
 they are found willing to recite the Creed in the Canonical form, 
 and personally free from malicious opposition to Orthodoxy on 
 that and other points, they shall he received as brethren, without 
 troubling them for the existence of faults which they acquiesce in 
 only under the idea of authority, but are personally not unwilling 
 to see reformed." 
 
 Such an attitude towards the Latins, an attitude of half-ex- 
 communication and half-recognition, would correspond with that 
 view which we have shown to be taken of the Latin Church by 
 the conscience of the Eastern, (namely, that on the great point it 
 is materially, or in point of outward form, heretical without being 
 intrinsically so, and on other points maintains certain grave 
 errors and corruptions which yet are not heresies ;) and it would 
 give the Eastern Church (without any recognition of error small 
 
24 ON THE PRESENT APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 or great,) the prospect of exerting a salutary and healing in- 
 fluence over the whole West, and of restoring the unity of the 
 whole body. 
 
 But it may be objected that such a course is new, unheard of, 
 inconsistent, impracticable ; a mere scheme of human policy, in- 
 vented after a separation of a thousand years to suit the appa- 
 rent difficulties of the case. It is no such thing. Whatever 
 force there may be in the arguments which have been now alleged 
 in favour of such a course, it has another and an anterior claim 
 upon the attention of all members of the Eastern Church, 
 namely this, that it is the view which was first taken, and by the 
 holiest and wisest men, in their own Church after the completion of 
 the Schism. For after the full ascertainment of the depth of 
 the differences between the East and the West, after the mutual 
 anathemas of the Archbishops of old and new Rome, after the 
 time not of Photius only but of Cerularius, when in consequence 
 of the Latins still continuing from long habit as individuals to 
 recognize the Eastern Church, and to seek the Communion from 
 its Clergy, the question arose how they ought to be treated, and 
 some said in one way, and some in another, and this question 
 was referred to the most holy and learned Bishops of the Eastern 
 Church, such as Theophylact of Bulgaria and Demetrius Choma- 
 tenus, the reply and sentence of such men was this : that the 
 Latins applying for Communion should be examined individu- 
 ally, and if not found malicious maintainers of the errors con- 
 demned by the Church, should be received as brethren. 
 
 But it seemed more consistent and logical to certain Canonists 
 (especially to Theodore Balsamon,) to reason thus : " We ex- 
 communicate the Pope of Rome for certain errors : all the West- 
 erns adhere to him, and to his errors ; therefore all the Westerns 
 are to be treated simply as other heretics, and a Form must be 
 ])rovided for their abjuration and reconciliation :" (for the gall of 
 bitterness had not yet drenched the Greeks so deeply as to settle 
 the point that the Latins were as heathens and unbaptized : it 
 was enough then for general practice that a Form should be pro- 
 vided for their reconciliation.) For their reconciliation to what ? 
 let us ask ; (and let the reader attend to this question :) To the 
 Catholic truth of the Catholic or Universal Church, as in the case 
 of all other heretics ? No ; but to the Catholic truth or Ortho- 
 
" ORTHODOXY AND " CATHOLICISM." 25 
 
 doxy of the " Eastern''' or " Greek,'' that is, of a particular would- 
 be universal Church : an attempt and a pretension by its own 
 language (necessarily employed) self-refuted and self-condemned. 
 Thus the shortsighted reasonings of controversial Canonists 
 were preferred to the judgments of Saints : the absolute separa- 
 tion of the two Churches has been fixed and stereotyped in the 
 Eastern as well as in the Latin Church-law and ritual : the de- 
 finition of the primary sacrament of Baptism itself, and the 
 grace of regeneration for the larger part of Christendom, has 
 been made to depend upon the variable will of men, upon the 
 allowance or non-allowance of necessity or economy by spiteful 
 rivals, galled by the sense of their inferiority. Rome profits by the 
 error ; " Orthodoxy " sufiiers by it. Heathens and Turks and 
 Sectaries sneer, and draw arguments from the divisions of the 
 Apostolic Church against Christianity itself; and " the Son of 
 God," as was foretold by Thcophylact, has " suffered a great 
 damage in that heritage which is given Him among the Gentiles." 
 
 Here follows an extract from the Answers of Demetrius Cho- 
 inatenus, Archbishop of Bulgaria (a.d. 1203,) to Constantine 
 Cabasilas, Archbishop of Dyrrachium. 
 
 " Question. How are the Azymes ofi'ered by the Latins to be 
 accounted of, as common or holy? And in like manner of the 
 vessels, priestly robes, and the like, which are used for their 
 Service ? And is it justifiable in them to wear rings ? 
 
 " Answer. Canons Ixx. of the Holy Apostles, xxxvii. of 
 the Synod of Laodicsea, and Ix. of the Synod of Carthage, 
 mention the Azymes of the Jews, and Azymes sent on festivals 
 to the faithful from the heretics, and forbid the faithful to re- 
 ceive these, or to keep common festivals with them that send 
 them. But the Latin Azymes are mentioned nowhere by any 
 Canon, for this reason, as it would seem, that it was later that 
 the abuse of celebrating in Azymes came into the Roman 
 Church. However, since this custom came up, many of our 
 people, of an excessive zeal, have in private writings among 
 themselves exploded this as a monstrosity. Nor this only, but 
 
26 ON THE PRESENT APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 also the doctrine held by the Latins about the Procession of the 
 Holy Ghost they have absolutely condemned as strange and 
 erroneous. And many other customs of theirs, as departures 
 from the tradition of the Catholic Church, they have reckoned 
 as abominations, and have rejected. Some nevertheless, who 
 have taken the matter more mildly, have been willing to use 
 condescendence towards them for the other points, knoiving the 
 stiff and haughty character of the nation, and the mixture they 
 have among them in many respects of barbarous manners, but 
 in one point only, that of the Procession of the Holy Ghost, 
 would by no means condescend to nor allow them. One such 
 is the most wise Theophylact of Bulgaria, of blessed memory ; 
 who in his treatise sent to the Deacon and Canstrisius Nicholas, 
 afterwards Bishop of Melesova, after blaming such as compauied 
 with them [the Latins] indifferently, and disused their own 
 customs altogether, and after enumerating their apparent faults, 
 proceeds as follows : 
 
 " ' I for my own part think that some of these things need no 
 correction at all, some others only a slight correction, and such 
 as if any one were to obtain, he might do the Church some 
 little satisfaction ; or if it were not to be obtained, the failure 
 would involve no great damage. But what seems to me to be 
 the main thing to make Communion with the Latins to be 
 shunned by right-minded people, and what, if it remain un- 
 corrected, threatens great damage to that inheritance of the 
 Son of God which He has received among the Gentiles, this I 
 will state and explain to you, as well as I am able.' And fur- 
 ther on : ' This therefore is the capital error, and what, to use 
 Solomon's words, makes them run into a snare of hell, the 
 innovation which they have made in the Creed, teaching that the 
 Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son.' And 
 after a good deal more : ' But whereas many have also against 
 the offering of Azymes a very hot zeal, hotter than fire itself, and 
 would sooner part with their lives than give up their opinion on 
 this point ; while some also indulge their own passion, and it 
 seems to Paul a snare of the devil ; what one ought to reply 
 to these we will state by-and-by, so as to chastise the immo- 
 derate zeal of the former, and to show to the latter that that 
 is really low which refuses to come down.' And again, after 
 
"orthodoxy" and "CATHOLICISM." 27 
 
 much more : ' If the Westerns then maintain any error of doc- 
 trine endangering the faith which we have received from the 
 Fathers, (such as is their addition to the Creed concerning the 
 Holy Ghost, which is most dangerous,) whoever admits this 
 as not needing correction, is himself not to be tolerated : not 
 though they speak big words from their throne which they, lofty 
 themselves, set up loftily on high ; not though they advance the 
 confession of Peter ; not though they dwell on the blessing given 
 upon that confession ; not though they shake in our faces the 
 keys of the kingdom.' And again, after a good deal more: 
 ' Wc will not therefore cither for the Azymes or for the Fasts 
 contend obstinately against the obstinate self-will of their na- 
 tion : for this is only to clap one tile against another, and try 
 to make it stick, without putting any thing of moister temper 
 between which might perhaps cement them together. Nor, 
 still less, on account of the rest of the points enumerated, on 
 which when they admit that they practise what is objected to 
 them, except the eating of things strangled, (for this religious 
 Latins endure not so much as to hear named, no more than we 
 do ourselves ; no more than fornication, or robbery ; though the 
 more savage and bestial among them may do it,) they seem to 
 many to be guilty of unpardonable transgressions. Such judg- 
 ments, I think, are not to be assented to by any man who is 
 versed in ecclesiastical history, and has learned that it is not 
 every custom which can sever from the Church, but that only 
 which leads to a difference of dogma. And these things, which 
 our wonderfully wise judges will have to be such great errors, 
 are most certainly nothing more than customs, some of them 
 introduced of pious feeling, as the custom of kissing the pave- 
 ment of the church, (for we must not listen to that satanical 
 calumny that the Latins reject the veneration of Icons,) others 
 out of economy and condescension possibly to spiritual, but at 
 any rate to bodily infirmity, as the allowance of their monks, 
 when unwell, to eat flesh-meat, and that in moderation, and as 
 becomes spiritual persons. But if some make this too general, 
 as a thing indifferent, their case may demand other language, 
 which does not apply to those who in the first instance intro- 
 duced on grounds of reason this condescendence. And other 
 customs there are, which for certain other reasons have come to 
 be rooted m the Latin Churches. Of which none can separate 
 
28 ON THE PRESENT APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 US from them. No : at least not if the case be judged by such 
 as are willing to follow the rules of the Fathers. ^Vnd if I 
 should not be obliged to go to too great length, and go near to 
 writing a history, I could enumerate to you thousands upon 
 thousands of instances of customs allowed by the ancient Fa- 
 thers in order to win the souls of their brethren. For they 
 knew the duty of not pleasing themselves, but striving every 
 one to please his neighbour, for good, unto edification. But now 
 (alas for our dropsical tumour of pride,) we say And who is 
 rrnj neighbour ? and cast down thousands upon thousands that 
 really stand, that we may have our own will.' Afterwards he 
 severely inveighs against them that indiscriminately and im- 
 moderately revile the Latin usages, and reckon them as en- 
 ormous and excommunicable errors. 
 
 " So from the contents of this most wisely written com- 
 position we may understand, that as regards every nation 
 which has received the Gospel of Christ, we ought as little 
 as possible to notice any defects which there may be in 
 their usages ; but, contrariwise, any strange and erroneous 
 doctrines we ought very jealously to suspect, and flee from 
 them as from eating cancers, which St. Paul mentions, or 
 as from any other dangerous and contagious diseases. Since 
 mere usages have not, but evil doctrines have such force as to 
 separate us from them. Wherefore neither the Azymes con- 
 secrated by the Latins, nor the vessels which receive these and 
 which are used by them in their ministration, nor consequently 
 their sacred vestments, nor any thing of the same kind, shall by 
 us be accounted defiled. How should it, when they are sealed 
 by the invocation of the Lord's name, and hallowed, as we 
 hear, by the holy Prayers of James the Lord's Brother ? But 
 if any one object that if the Azymes of the Latins are not de- 
 filed, there will be no harm to us if we go a step further, and 
 partake of them, we answer, that since, as has been said above, 
 this custom of Azymes, together with others, is now rooted in 
 the Western Churches, even as among ourselves the custom 
 of offering and consecrating leavened bread, departure from 
 their own respective customs will be impossible for Christians 
 on either side, unless the one side should ever choose to go over 
 to the other, and embrace its Communion; [that is, in this 
 respect, so as to observe in common with it tJie same usage of 
 
" ORTHODOXY " AND " CATHOLICISM." 29 
 
 Azymcs or leavened bread for the future.] Nevertheless, as 
 they consider what wc consecrate, so we also consider what they 
 consecrate to be holy. And wc are not wrong. For the Ordi- 
 nations even of heretics are admitted by the Orthodox, according 
 to the tradition of the Fathers, when the persons Ordained by 
 heretics either are Orthodox, or become so afterwards." .... 
 
 " Question. Is it any harm for a Bishop to enter the churches 
 of the Latins, and to worship in them, on any occasion when he 
 may be invited by them ? And should he give them the 
 xarajtAao-Tov, [that is, the 'Avri^capov or blessed bread,] when they 
 are present at the Liturgy in the holy and Catholic Church ? 
 
 "Answer. Some of the Latins there are who do not at all 
 differ from our customs either doctrinal or ecclesiastical, but are, 
 as one may say, in this respect double-sided or neutral. As 
 then it is our duty, and agreeable to piety, stiffly to oppose them 
 that essentially differ from us, especially in the point of the doc- 
 trine of the Procession of the Holy Ghost, so on the other 
 hand to use condescendence towards them that are not such, 
 and to go with them into their churches, will be no fault in the 
 Bishop who is charged v.'ith, and aims after, such economy as 
 befits a steward of souls. Wherefore he will both go, when 
 invited, to their churches without scruple, (for they too, no less 
 than we ourselves, are worshippers of the holy Icons, and set 
 them up in their churches,) and will give them freely the 
 Antidoron when they are present in the Catholic Church and 
 come up to receive it. For this custom may have the effect 
 of gradually drawing them over altogether to our holy usages 
 and doctrines. Italy itself is thickly studded with churches of 
 the holy Apostles and Martyrs, the chief of which is the cele- 
 brated Church of Peter the Chief of the Apostles at Rome. 
 Into these churches our people go freely, priests and laymen 
 alike, and make their prayers to God, and render to the Saints 
 who are honoured in them their due relative veneration and 
 honour. And by doing this they incur no manner of blame, 
 the churches in question being all under the Latins. We re- 
 member that there were some Questions asked a good many 
 years ago by Mark Patriarch of Alexandria, of blessed memory, 
 and Answers written to the same by Theodore Balsamon, late 
 Patriarch of Antioch. Among these there was one Question re- 
 
30 ON THE PRESENT APPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 latiug to Latin captives, namely, whether sucli ought to he 
 admitted, when they come to the Catholic churches and seek to 
 partake of the divine Sacraments ? and subjoined to this an 
 Answer altogether forbidding that the aforesaid Latins should be 
 admitted to receive the divine Communion at the hands of our 
 priests. The Answer professed to ground itself upon the holy 
 Scripture, and quoted that saying of the Lord, ' He that is not 
 with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me 
 scattereth.' This Answer however was disapproved of by many of 
 the most eminent men who were living at that time, as showing 
 too great harshness and bitterness, and an unjustifiable tone, 
 in blaming the Latin forms and customs ; ' because all this,^ they 
 said, ' has never been read or decreed synodically, nor have they 
 ever been publicly rejected as heretics ; but both eat with us, 
 and pray with us. And any one,' they said, 'may readily prove 
 the justness of this reasoning from Canon xv. of the holy 
 Synod which is called the First and Second of Constantinople. 
 And again because this very fact of the Latins coming to us, 
 and seeking to communicate at our hands of the holy Oblation 
 which is made with leavened bread, shows plainly that they 
 cannot think much of their Azymes, nor make any great point 
 of sticking to them : else they would not come to our celebra- 
 tion of the Divine Mysteries.' These too, in order to support 
 their own view from the Gospel, alleged what was said by St. 
 John to the Lord, ' We saw,' he said, ' one casting out devils in 
 Thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us. 
 And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not : for ivhosoever is not 
 against us is for us.' They urged also in addition that the 
 words ' He that is not ivith Me is against Me :' are plainly and 
 exclusively intended by our Saviour for the devil, as the con- 
 text of the Gospel in the same place shows. For as Satan is an 
 enemy from the beginning, and abides unchangeable in his 
 malice, and is absolutely incapable of repentance, in this sense 
 he, not being with the Lord, is against Him, and fi'om so being 
 has his name Satan, or adversary : inasmuch as the Lord loveth 
 Ilis own creation and gathereth it to Himself, but Satan hateth 
 it and scattereth. But the words ' He ivho is not against us is 
 for us .•' are spoken in reference to a man who, though he follows 
 not Jesus, yet emulates them that do follow Him, and in His 
 
"orthodoxy'' and "CATHOLICISM." 31 
 
 name casts out devils, and so from walking apart may easily 
 change to following. For for mere hviman infirmity there is a 
 remedy, namely, conversion and repentance, and to change from 
 what is worse to what is better. They appealed also to the 
 judgment on this same subject of Theophylact, the most wise 
 Archbishop of Bulgaria, which we have given in an abridged 
 form above in another of our Answers, and which discourses of 
 condescension and economy in a manner worthy both of admi- 
 ration and of praise. And so they who argued against the 
 opinion of Balsamon, as has been related, were judged to have 
 insisted piously and reasonably for giving the preference over 
 inflexible harshness to economy, in order that so, instead of cast- 
 ing down, we may gently and gradually win our brethren, for 
 whom our common Saviour and Lord shed His own most pre- 
 cious blood." — Leunclavii Juris Grceco-Romani, t^c, a.d. 1596. 
 Tom. /., ;j. 318—323. 
 
DISSERTATION III. 
 
 THE ASPECT OF THE RUSSIAN PART OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 
 AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REFORMATION OF LU- 
 THER ; BEING ** AN ACCOUNT OF THE RELIGION OF THE 
 MUSCOVITES, WRITTEN BY JOHN FABER, FOR FERDINAND 
 KING OF THE ROMANS, TO WHOM HE WAS CONFESSOR.'^* 
 A.D. 1525. 
 
 " The Muscovites follow the Christian faith which they say 
 was first preached to them by the Apostle St. Andrew the brother 
 of Simon Peter. Also all that was decreed under Constantine 
 the Great by the three hundred and eighteen Bishops at Nice 
 of Bithynia, in the first Nicene Council, and all the tradition 
 and teaching of Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom they 
 believe to be so sacred, authoritative, and authentic, that it has 
 never been lawful for any to depart therefrom so much as a 
 hairsbreadth, any more than from the Gospel of Christ itself. 
 And such is their sobermindedness, that whatever has once been 
 decided by the holy Fathers in their Councils, no one of their 
 profession ever dares to make a question of it afterwards. But 
 if any difficulty either about faith or ritual matters arise, it is all 
 referred to the Archbishop and the rest of the Bishops, to be 
 determined solely by their judgment. Nor is any thing left to 
 the variableness and diversity of popular opinion. For the 
 Priest's lips keep the law of God, and the law is to be sought at 
 
 * This account is translated from the Latin text of a book intitled " De Rus- 
 sorum, Moscovitarum, et Tartarorum Religione, 8fc., Spirce, Anno mdlxxxii." 
 p. 170. Its author, John Faber, was a German Dominican, of great note for 
 his numerous and powerful writings against the Lutherans, from the title of one 
 of which, and for distinction's sake, he was sometimes surnamed " Malleus 
 H(preticorum." He was Canon of Constance on the Rhine, and afterwards 
 Bishop of Vienna. He died in the year 1541. 
 
ASPECT OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH, A.D. 1525. 33 
 
 his mouth. Tiicy bave an Archbishop who has his Chair as 
 Primate in the city of ]\Iosco\v, where is the residence of the 
 Emperor. There are also many Bishops besides, as one at Nov- 
 gorod, another at Rostoff, another at Souzdal, another at Vladi- 
 mir, another at Smolensk, others at Riazan, Kolomna, Vologda, 
 Tver, &c., who have each their own separate dioceses. All 
 these Bishops acknowledge the above-mentioned Archbishop as 
 their head : and the Archbishop, before the Patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople fell under the tyranny of the Mahometans, had 
 always acknowledged that Patriarch as his superior; (though they 
 confess that before him again the Roman Pontiff, as successor 
 of Peter, has ever and of right held precedence.) Nor at the 
 present day is the Emperor of the Russians unmindful of this 
 relation, but is sttll very attentive in keeping up the same pious 
 respect ; for it is his custom, even to this present, to send alms 
 year by year to the Patriarch of Constantinople, to help him to 
 live and to wait patiently for the end of his Egyptian bondage. 
 Among the Muscovites the law and rule is that Priests and all 
 clerks are to be ordained by Bishops only. Nor can any mere 
 Presbyter ever give Confirmation.* 
 
 " These same, that is the Bishops, are they that on Holy 
 Thursday consecrate and make the Chrism and the Oil which 
 are afterwards used in Baptism, in Confirmation, and in the 
 Anointing of the sick. They too alone institute and deprive 
 Priests : nor can they ever be judged or censured by laymen : 
 in which respect they do well, keeping before their eyes St. Paul's 
 teaching to Timothy, where he says, 'Against an Elder receive 
 not an accusation but before two or three witnesses.' So not 
 even the Emperor himself ever interferes respecting the punish- 
 ment of Clerks : for this they with one accord affirm and teach 
 belongs only to the Bishop, to rebuke and punish those who by 
 the order of the Gospel and their call into the Lord's inheri- 
 tance have been placed under his jurisdiction. The Bishops 
 
 * A mistake, which may possibly have arisen from the Russian informant's not 
 having understood the technical use of the word Confirmatio among the Latins, 
 The author continues, giving his own inference, thus : " Hoc enim muneris 
 Episcopo soli iucumbere asserunt, ut, posteaquam tinctus aqua adultus fiat, per 
 impositionem manuum Episcopi et signaculum crucls adeptse fidei testimonium 
 reddat, firmeturque per unctionem quae in fronte fieri solet." 
 
 D 
 
34 ASPECT OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AT THE 
 
 have also their Vicars and Officials, hkc ours, who exercise juris- 
 diction over those subject to them, and administer justice in 
 ecclesiastical matters. The Bishops also are maintained from 
 tithes, as has been aj)pointcd by God : they possess estates 
 which have been legally granted to them : they are lords of 
 manors and castles. The rest of the Priests live from certain 
 tithes, oblations, and various other sources derived both from 
 the living and from the dead. For they have Benefices founded 
 for them, the patrons of which are spiritual as well as lay per- 
 sons. However in this matter they are stricter than we, who are 
 often only too lax : for they do not easily give any Ecclesiasti- 
 cal office, or confer any benefice, unless the man be ascertained 
 to be fit by really competent persons, that is to say, by the 
 Bishops or their Vicars. The Bishops have their own house- 
 holds consisting both of nobles and of others. And assuredly 
 it is on these, that is, the Bishops, that the whole religion of the 
 Russians turns, either to stand or fall. They celebrate the Di- 
 vine Mysteries often, and especially when they hold any meeting 
 with their Emperor. For the insignia of their Order they use a 
 staff and a mitre, as is the manner of our Bishops. The abste- 
 miousness of them all, the Archbishop as well as the other 
 Bishops, in meat and drink is great and most remarkable, and 
 indeed above all praise, falling not short of that of the monks 
 of those regions, who are exceedingly numerous ; and these arc 
 all bound by their rule never so much as to taste flesh for food. 
 Not far from the city of Moscow there is a very great monastery 
 in which there are generally about three hundred brethren living 
 together under the Bule of St. Basil the Great ; where is the 
 tomb of the holy Abbot Sergius (the founder), which is visited 
 by multitudes of strangers even from the most distant provinces. 
 For it has become famous by a vast number of miracles which 
 have been wrought at it, and which well deserve the admiration 
 of Christians. Of which I shall be content here to mention 
 one only, a most notable one, which occurred there only a few 
 years ago, when two blind men had their sight restored to them. 
 For that Abbot during his lifetime exhibited such signs of sanc- 
 tity, that men readily persuaded themselves and believe that he 
 has now great power with God, and can obtain many things for 
 men by his prayers. And so they pay frequent visits and in 
 
BEGINNIN^G OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 35 
 
 great numbers to his tomb, and honour it with singular devotion. 
 For indeed all the monks and nuns who are in their monasteries, 
 and who are all under one and the same rule of the Black Habit, 
 as it is called, live with such strictness of religion as to win not 
 merely admiration but the very deepest reverence. Nor is the 
 vow counted so light a matter with them as it is now-a-days 
 among us. But when any one has once gone into a monastei-y 
 he can never afterwards under any pretext, or by any indulgence 
 whatever, leave it, or disengage himself from his vow. The 
 vows which they make are threefold, as with us, of obedience, 
 poverty, and chastity, which if any one breaks and leaves his 
 monastery, and is afterwards taken, his punishment for so hein- 
 ous an offence is imprisonment for life. So sacred are the vows 
 held with them : insomuch that great as is the authority of the 
 Archbishop and Bishops among the Russians, they have no 
 power whatever to make any relaxation in such matters ; the 
 Scriptures, they say, of both Testaments teaching that men who 
 vow must also perform unto the Lord their vows. And so 
 naturally they think too much of chastity to allow either 
 monks ever to marry wives or nuns to be married to husbands ; 
 that being forbidden by the Apostle Paul, and by the whole 
 Church. A man who has married a maid of good reputa- 
 tion is with them ordained to the Priesthood, but cannot be 
 received as a monk. But a Bishop or Priest who has been 
 ordained unmarried can never marry, but must live in celibacy. 
 If any one be guilty of concubinage (a crime however which 
 is of the rarest among the Russians,) he is condemned by 
 the Bishop to the severest punishment, and is deprived of 
 his benefice. And when any Clerk has lost his wife, whom 
 he married at the first, by death, he can never marry an- 
 other. For St. Paul teaches us that a Bishop (or Priest) is 
 not to be a man twice married, but ' the husband of one wife.' 
 And further, as the crowning mark of their religious reverence 
 and zeal, they observe as a rule that when a married Priest is to 
 celebrate Divine Offices, and more especially when he is to 
 celebrate the Mass, he is on no account the night before to sleep 
 with his wife. And for the greater reverence they keep apart 
 the following night also. Such is their respect for the great- 
 ness of the Mystery of the Lord's Body and Blood ; such their 
 
 d2 
 
36 ASPLCT or THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AT THE 
 
 devotion ami pious feeling. After this let our Priests consider 
 with what j)ol luted bands they too often touch this most holy 
 Sacrament, the pledge of our entire redemption. AYould that 
 the example of David could move them (It alone should be 
 enough to do so;) who, though ever so fauiished^ would still have 
 been refused the Shew-Bread by Abimelec unless he and his fol- 
 lowers had for the two days before been j^arted from their wives. 
 How then ought not he also at least equally to observe purity who 
 is to touch the holy vessels of the Lord, nay, who is to administer 
 and handle the Lord Himself? Another primary duty of 
 Priests is that of announcing to the people Christ's Gospel of 
 peace and salvation ; which is done among them everywhere 
 [Seldom however, except by Bishops.] on all Lord's Days, and on 
 Festivals of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and certain 
 Confessors and Martyrs. They have also a great reverence for 
 the Virgin Mary, and frequently invoke her, as the Mother of 
 Christ, to intercede with her Son. For they rightly think 
 that she, being the Mother of God, can obtain for us on earth 
 many things from her Son. And so they celebrate the Fes- 
 tivals of her Annunciation, Purification, Nativity, and Assump- 
 tion, and the rest, with stated Fasts, ceremonies, and Masses, 
 read or sung, [The Easterns have not this distinction.] according 
 to the Ritual which they have in common with the Church of 
 the Greeks. As also they do all the year round, except in Lent, 
 when they celebrate [on Wednesdays and Fridays] the Mass of 
 St. Gregory Dialogus, [that is, the Liturgy of the Presanctified.] 
 Both the forms of their Mass are thrice as long as that which 
 is commonly used among the Latins. The people come to hear 
 it with great devotion, as if they were all about to Communicate. 
 Their Mass differs from ours in this, that the Muscovites conse- 
 crate, after the manner of the Greeks, in leavened bread. Also 
 they mix in the chalice, in equal quantities, red wine and water. 
 [Not so.] And this water they will have warm;* because, they 
 say, it was not without a deep mystery that there came forth 
 from the Lord's side blood and water, which latter we must 
 suppose to have been warm ; else it could hardly be regarded as 
 
 * This is an incorrect allusion to another ceremony totally different from the 
 mixture of the cup at the Prothesis, namely, that of pouring in a little warm water 
 after the Consecration. 
 
BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 37 
 
 a miracle. And this Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood 
 is consecrated only by a Priest, who is vested nearly like our 
 Priests in a white robe (stola alba), and lifts up his whole mind 
 to God with purpose to make that Sacrament which Christ 
 left us in His Last Supper for a sufficient pledge of all His 
 promises, as the whole world confesses. The Epistle too and 
 the Gospel they have in their Masses, just as we have in ours. 
 But after the reading of the Gospel the Nicene Creed does not 
 follow immediately ; for it is sung later, after the Angelic [or 
 Cherubic] Hymn, which is [not to be confounded with] the 
 * Sanctus.' After the [end of the Consecration, but before 
 the] Lord's Prayer there follows an Anthem in honour of the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary. The Consecration is made like ours by 
 Christ's own Words [together with the Invocation of the 
 Holy Ghost] which they think have such power, that upon 
 their being uttered by the Priest the creature gives place to its 
 Creator : and that this cannot be otherwise. Such being their 
 manner of celebrating, the bread which is brought for it is a 
 small barley [wheaten] loaf or cake of a certain size, having the 
 Host in the middle with the form of the Crucifix stamped on it 
 as with us : [really a Cross, with certain letters.] And this, after 
 it has by the force of the Consecration been changed into the 
 Body of Christ, the Priest takes to himself and consumes, while 
 the rest of the bread he [afterwards] distributes cut up into 
 small pieces to such of the congregation as come up to him to 
 receive it. And this they each receive, not as the Body of 
 Christ but as blessed and in a certain sense holy bread, with 
 the utmost reverence. These their IMasses they use to celebrate 
 to the special honour of the Trinity, of the Blessed Virgin, 
 and of other Saints. And as beyond a doubt they have the 
 belief of Purgatory [Rather, although they disclaim the belief of 
 Purgatory,] they make diligent prayers for the departed, and 
 help them with Masses. Tn this point indeed so religious are 
 they, that they commonly keep two anniversary days, as they are 
 called, for the dead -, one the actual day of the death, the other 
 the day of the Saint whose name the deceased bore. In addition 
 there are oblations and alms, which the Christians in those 
 parts on such and other occasions make largely. Ail this their 
 llitual and especially their Liturgies they professed to have pre- 
 
38 ASPECT OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AT THE 
 
 served entire as instituted by tbe primitive Church and handed 
 down by Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory Dialogus. 
 Thus much then shall suffice, though too brief, for this great 
 Mystery, The Sacrament of the Eucharist, according to their 
 use, is administered to the people at the same season at which 
 it was first instituted by Christ Himself and afterwards 
 freqncnted by the Church, that is, at the season of Easter ; 
 though with an order perhaps somewhat different from the prac- 
 tice and decree of the Roman Church. Baptism they consider 
 as the first, and so, in a sense, as the chief Sacrament : where- 
 fore if any one neglect or contemn it, it is with them a capital 
 crime. For the same reason they baptize children, in the Name 
 of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. For conferring it 
 [publicly,] however great may be the necessity, no man is thought 
 to be a competent minister but a Priest. Before the administra- 
 tion of Baptism there are a number of devout Prayers said by 
 the Priest, the relatives, the godparents, the neighbours and 
 friends, and lastly by all the bystanders ; that the Almighty and 
 most merciful God will be pleased to give the fulness of 
 His grace from heaven to the child, and to be with him 
 through all the course of his life. After which Prayers the 
 child is baptized in the Church (which has a Baptistery piovided 
 for such occasions,) or perhaps in winter, to avoid the severe 
 cold, in a private house. As witnesses there must be present 
 godfathers and godmothers, as with us, who are made to pledge 
 themselves that they will bear that Baptism in mind ; that so 
 soon as the age of the child admits or requires it, they will not 
 neglect to instruct him in the faith ; that they will praise God 
 for so great a benefit, and pray Him to increase daily this most 
 divine gift of faith now given. And so, after the reading of the 
 ])revious Prayers, with which are joined also Exorcisms, the 
 child, if it aj)pear strong and healthy, is thrice plunged all over 
 in the water : otherwise it has water applied to it ; though this 
 is seldom, as aspersion is held to be insufficient. Meanwhile 
 Oil and Chrism are also applied to its forehead and shoulders. 
 But the salt which our Priests use in Baptizing, and the mud 
 made of sjnttle and dust, is not much approved by the Musco- 
 vites. But the triple Abrenunciatiou of Satan, and the triple 
 Confession of the Faith, they retain in use. Being asked next 
 
BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. IM) 
 
 by US what they thouglit of Circumcision, and whether they 
 practised it, they replied that nothing was further from their 
 religion than the observance of any particle, however small, of 
 the old Judaism which has been abolished : that, on the con- 
 trary, to show their abhorrence of it, no Jew is allowed to enter 
 any part of the whole Russian empire, no, not though he should 
 attempt to buy the permission with many thousands of gold. 
 When the child is now grown, and come to years of discretion, 
 so as to be able to give proofs of his Christian faith, it is 
 brought to the Bishop to receive the Sacrament of the Confirma- 
 tion of this faith, which is conferred by Chrism applied to the 
 forehead in the form of a cross.* The administration of this 
 Sacrament is allowed by them to the Bishop alone. This we 
 may conjecture to be the case, since they have received all their 
 religion by tradition fiom the Apostles, and because Imposition of 
 Hands, whether in Confirmation or in conferring Holy Orders, 
 was committed to the Bishop alone; and so all ancient monu- 
 ments attest, and ecclesiastical custom hath observed. As for 
 Matrimony, if we are to say something of it, they assured us 
 that both in respect of consanguinity and of affinity they are 
 exceedingly careful and strict ; nor can the prohibitions of the 
 Church ever be made light of. So far do they carry this, that 
 not so much as a single instance can be found of any parties 
 having contracted marriage even in the fourth degree ; nor are 
 dispensations ever given ; but the thing is absolutely disallowed. 
 For this having once been ruled by the Holy Fathers, tliey never 
 think of doing any thing to invalidate their sanctions. And 
 what is more, they observe universally for that sort of relation- 
 ship which is contracted by godfathers and godmothers at Bap- 
 tism and Confirmation a respect to the full as strict as that 
 wliich is enjoined by the decrees of the Roman Church, If in 
 respect of such matters any controversy or dispute arise, the 
 case is decided absolutely by the sentence of the Bishops, with- 
 out their having, nevertheless, any power to use indulgence, or to 
 tamper in any way with the constitutions of the Church. For 
 adultery they have perhaps a greater abhorrence than we have ; 
 for they prosecute that crime with tlie extremcist execration. 
 
 * This is not so. The Chrism is applied by tlie Priest or Bishop wiio biijjtizts 
 immediatvly after baptism. 
 
40 ASPECT or THE RUSSIAN CHUUCH AT THE 
 
 Also with them there is no relaxation of the law that so long as 
 the husband lives the wife can never marry another. It is only 
 on his dying that she is set free from the law ; otherwise she 
 must live inseparably with her husband. Holy Orders also are 
 among them conferred on Priests with certain appropriate 
 charges and ceremonies of their own : nor do they think the 
 power of the keys to be committed to them^ unless in imitation 
 of Christ the ordaining Bishop first says in their ears, 'Receive 
 the Holy Ghost : whose sins ye forgive they are forgiven unto 
 them/ Such is the form prescribed to us by Christ in the 
 Gospel, by which every one whom the Bishop calls and ordains 
 to be a Priest receives authority either to loose men from their 
 sins, or to leave them still bound. For this ministry of the 
 Priesthood is used by the Muscovites in the matter of Penitence ; 
 and every one that has come to years of discretion, so as to be 
 able to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong, 
 leprosy and no leprosy, whensoever he is conscious that he has 
 sinned, and is contrite, forthwith, offering duly to God the 
 sacrifice of a troubled spirit, falls down at the feet of the Priest, 
 and enumerates to him, as sitting in the seat of God, all the 
 sins he has committed, so far as he can remember them, in 
 order, with groans or tears : and so receives afterwards from 
 him, as from Christ's vicar, the benefit of Absolution. For 
 doing this they have a set time, being required by the rule of 
 the Church to do it once a year, about the season of Easter. But 
 the more religious among them confess oftener, before each of the 
 chief festivals. If any one do it not even at the required time, at 
 Easter, he is anathema to all : all are forbidden to converse with 
 him; and he is not allowed to enter the Church. Besides going to 
 confession, ihe penitent, that he may be a worthy partaker of so 
 great a mystery as that of the Lord's Body and Blood, must for 
 some days before afflict his body and bring his flesh under subjec- 
 tion, and perform other worthy fruits of penance in proof of his 
 contrition. In agreement with these usages they affirm undoubt- 
 ingly that the Fast of Lent was enjoined upon us by Christ 
 and His Apostles ; at which season nature herself teaches us that 
 it is very needful to blunt the assaults of the old Adam by 
 abstaining from flesh. And this abstinence they observe for 
 seven weeks with such strictness, that none of them during the 
 
BEGINNING OV THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 41 
 
 whole time may touch either flesh, eggs., cheese, or butter. 
 Besides this tliey also keep a fast from the tenth day of Novem- 
 ber to Christmas Day : and yet again other fasts of whole 
 weeks together, as in June before the Festival of St. Peter and St. 
 Paul, and a fast of two weeks in August before the Feast of the 
 Assumption : then the Fridays in every week throughout the 
 year, and the Wednesdays. Eight of those who belonged to 
 the suite of His Serene Highness had made a vow to abstain 
 from flesh meat three days in the week, namely, on Mondays, 
 Wednesdays, and Fridays ; and the interpreter said that hitherto, 
 by God's grace, they had all been able to keep it. Such is 
 their strictness in following these rules, that in all their fasts 
 without exception it is a sin for any one to eat either flesh or 
 eggs. What is more, they told us that many of their country- 
 men during the fasts never touch anything that has had life, not 
 even fish ; while others on fast-days drink neither wine nor any 
 other made drink. At the hearing of which relations we were 
 so moved and rapt as it were with wonder, as to seem for the 
 moment stupefied ; being struck with the thought that if our 
 Christians are compared with them in these things which con- 
 cern the religion of Christ, the contrast seemed very much to 
 our disadvantage. Nor has any impression ever sunk deeper 
 into our minds than this, that we who are so very confident 
 about the tree of our Faith, turn out in respect of fruit to be 
 behind them. They maintain also the other exercises of peni- 
 tence, by which they believe God is reconciled to us. Of these 
 the chief is Prayer, for the frequent practice of which it is not 
 easy, I think, to find others like them. For every morning be- 
 fore dawn they all prostrating themselves, at their length, to 
 the ground, make long prayers to God : and at all times of the 
 day, almost without intermission, they have Prayers : among 
 which the first place belongs to the Lord's Prayer; then the 
 Blessed Virgin is saluted in the words of the Archangel Gabriel. 
 Thev also recite their profession of the Faith in that Creed which 
 we have been taught by the ancients to regard as Apostolic. 
 And there is none of them who does not every day say his 
 Litany. The richer sort, who can aff'ord to go to a great ex- 
 pense for them, and can read in the Russian language, provide 
 themselves with books of Prayers ; but those Prayers only which 
 
43 ASPECT OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AT THE 
 
 are received by the Church ; of which kind of books wc saw se- 
 veral in the possession of the Ambassadors. Images with them 
 are not treated with that slight regard, or rather contempt, which 
 has become only too common among us, contrary to all godli- 
 ness, through the factions of this present age ; but they keep 
 them ever before their eyes as remembrancers, that they may 
 never forget God's benefits. They come together in multitudes 
 to their churches, in the building of which they spare no ex- 
 pense, and which they call ' Houses of Prayer ', according to 
 the Gospel : they adorn them with various images, of our Sa- 
 viour crucified, of the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, and certain 
 other Saints : and this they maintain that they are warranted in 
 doing by the example of the primitive Christians. Nor are they 
 so easily moved by the fact that there were some among the 
 Greeks at Constantinople seven hundred years ago who taught 
 that images were fit only for idolaters, and that it was unlawful 
 for them to be found among true Christians. For it is well known 
 that all who persevered obstinately in this opinion were after- 
 wards by the second Council of Nice condemned. Nor is it easy 
 to find so much as a single individual here and there who by 
 using these things as helps and remembrances is led to adore 
 them. For there is none of them but knows that we are for- 
 bidden by God's law to worship stocks and stones ; while on the 
 other hand there is no place whatever in Scripture which shows 
 it unlawful or forbids to use such things as remembrancers. As 
 for them, even in their convivial entertainments they set up in 
 view such remembrancers, that they may at all times be reminded 
 of God's benefits, and be moved to think of the pattern of our 
 whole life, that is, of Christ. As for their Ceremonial, they have 
 in common with us in their worship the use of candles ; (as their 
 country produces abundance of wax, and they think that God 
 is to be honoured from the fruits of the earth, and from every 
 thing that belongs to a man's substance) : and these candles are 
 lighted more especially when the Priest handles our Lord's 
 Body and Blood, the Sacrament of our entire redemption ; that 
 is, during the celebration of the Mass. But as for those Organs 
 of Pepin's which we use, (though they were first sent to us from 
 Greece,) they neither go to any expense for them, nor have ever 
 yet so much as admitted them into their churches. 
 
BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 43 
 
 "Nor is this the least noticeable among their other good cus- 
 toms, that they take an extraordinary care of the poor, to whom 
 every one, according to his means and his devotion, gives alms in 
 money, clothing, meat, and drink ; receiving and entertaining 
 strangers ; and doing all other like things to help the poorer 
 members of Christ in this life. They also make set pilgrim- 
 ages to certain recognized holy places ; on which I will not now 
 enlarge. Further, when any man among them is sick so as to 
 seem in danger of death, he not only makes a particular Confes- 
 sion of all his sins, but also, to testify his faith in Christ who 
 by His Testament left us a pledge that He would thus forgive 
 sin, he receives the provision [or viaticum] of the Sacrament of 
 the Eucharist. Nor does he by any means neglect to desire the 
 Last Unction. Then they make frequent Prayers for the sick ; 
 and say Litanies. And so, at length, after he has made his Con- 
 fession, and all has been done which is common among Chris- 
 tians, the Penitent is by the Priest Absolved. Thus they have 
 Seven Sacraments, which they believe truly to communicate to 
 every one who devoutly receives them those graces or promises 
 which they represent. They also hold the Ten Commandments 
 by the same authority which first delivered them to Moses, as of 
 perpetual obligation, being assured by His own word that He 
 came to fulfil the Law, and by no means to destroy it. Indul- 
 gences they receive from their Archbishop and Bishops ; though 
 in this matter they act perhaps more scrupulously than we do : 
 for they say that it would be the greatest wickedness, if they 
 were to set to sale what they have freely received to give. Nor 
 may any Bishop give dispensations to eat flesh. Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, John, Paul's Epistles, and the rest which we receive, to- 
 gether with the Apocalypse, are reckoned by them as the Cano- 
 nical Scriptures of the New Testament. And concerning the 
 Canon of the Old Testament they agree with the decrees of the 
 Catholic Church. The Roman Pontiff they acknowledge to be 
 Vicar of Christ and successor of Peter: and accordingly the 
 festivals of St. Clement, St. Leo, and St. Gregory, are celebrated 
 by the Muscovites. But if the objection were made that they 
 are condemned by the Roman Pontiff as apostates and schisma- 
 tics, they said that they trusted themselves to the judgment of 
 God tlie righteous Judge. Many attempts, no doubt, have been 
 
44 ASPECT OF THE RUSSIAN CIIUUCH AT THE 
 
 made at various times to persuade them to return to the West, 
 into the Church ; [quo ad Occidentale in Ecclesiam redirent .) but 
 what causes they have been which, unhappily for mankind, have 
 prevented success, I had perhaps better pass over in silence, 
 rather than by naming them cause scandal to weaker brethren, 
 and draw down from certain quarters odium on myself. They 
 differ from us in their manner of Consecrating the Sacrament a 
 little, and in their manner of Breaking the Bread. They main- 
 tain with the Greeks that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the 
 Father only, and not also from the Son. But though there are 
 among the Greeks very many who deny Purgatory, and others 
 who attempt to prove Purgatory from the Scriptures, they say 
 that they would not easily endure that there should be a division 
 on this account, but could come to hold firmly the same doctrine 
 with the Roman Church. Our Masses they attend most will- 
 ingly ; and say that nothing gives them more pain than to find 
 themselves shunned by some as if they were aliens from the 
 faith, whereas they observe zealously nearly all our religious 
 customs. They keep the four great Festivals of Christmas, 
 Easter, Pentecost, and the Assumption. They greatly honour 
 the Apostles; and pay an especial respect to St. Nicholas, whom 
 they extol, honour, and invoke. They keep Palm-Sunday, like 
 the Roman Church, with the blessing of palms, olives, and other 
 such-like trees or branches. And this custom of blessing 
 creatures they defend not only as piously received by the Church, 
 but also as truly grounded on holy Scripture. For in the fifth 
 and nineteenth chapters of the Book of Numbers we may see 
 plainly the force of Exorcisms ; and from PauFs Epistle to Ti- 
 mothy this truth, that the creature is sanctified by the word and 
 pi-ayer, is made known to all. Lastly, it is with them a matter 
 of very common experience to see serpents rendered harmless, to 
 see evil spirits cast out, to see persons j)ossessed freed by words 
 of prayer. For that devils should be cast out by prayer and 
 fasting Christ has left us His word written in the Scripture, 
 The Sign of the Cross and the Image of our Saviour crucified 
 they carry with them also when they go into battle, hoping to 
 conquer by that by which Christ conquered. They believe that 
 the Saints can really intercede for us with God ; and wish them to 
 do so unceasingly ; and think that their prayers obtain a readier 
 
BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 45 
 
 hearing. Wherefore also they invoke them, and honour them. 
 Those, moreover, that sin pubUcly they prosecute with excom- 
 munication ; and whoever incurs this is cast out from the 
 common society of all men, and from Ecclesiastical Communion. 
 Only one thing there is which we certainly cannot approve, and 
 which is most contrary to our customs, namely, that they give 
 the Sacrament of the Eucharist to children even under the age 
 of three years; and that they Consecrate in leavened bread; and 
 administer from a spoon the bread mashed in the wine as the 
 Body and Blood of Christ to the laity. These then are the 
 customs of the Muscovites; this is that religion and piety 
 about which thou, of thy laudable diligence respecting sacred 
 subjects, most Serene Prince, didst lament that thou wast al- 
 together ignorant : And therefore, in compliance with thy com- 
 mand, we have ascertained by questioning thus much informa- 
 tion respecting those people. Given at Tubingen, September 18, 
 in the year of our Lord 1525." 
 
DISSERTATION IV. 
 
 DESTINIES OF THE SLAVONIC EMPIRE. PROBATION AND 
 
 FAILURIC OF JOHN IV. (tHE FIRST SOLEMNLY CROWNED 
 TSAR OF MUSCOVy) IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Shortly after the Roman Empire of the West had fallen to the 
 Germans, that people being full of creative force, and of such 
 gifts and qualities as dispose man to pride and self-confidence, 
 having also with them the capital of the world, the elder Rome, 
 and the chair of Peter, they thought that they might securely, even 
 without a General Council, do, and judge, and dictate what they 
 pleased as in the name of the Church ; for that God could not 
 fail to accomplish His own promises, nor accomplish His pro- 
 mises otherwise than through them. 
 
 But God at that time showed that He could dispense not only 
 with the German-Latin Church and world, which was ready to 
 call itself the whole, but even with the Greek or Eastern Church 
 and Empire also. And while the West swerved from the oecu- 
 menical Creed, and subjected itself, in point of form at least, to 
 the anathemas of the oecumenical Councils, and the East was 
 abandoned to the sword of the False Prophet, the Almighty Head 
 of the Church called to Himself a people which was no people, 
 simple and barbarous, neither possessed of any extraordinary 
 powers nor boasting itself of any, yet a people greater or to be- 
 come greater than both Greeks and Romans together, with a 
 country wild and thinly inhabited yet larger many times than all 
 the Roman Empire, to raise up as it were from the dust of the 
 earth spiritual children to Abraham, to vindicate His own omni- 
 potence, to humble all who should presume upon His Grace and 
 promises, and to make room enough in the wilderness for the 
 Church pursued of the dragon to flee into, and to sojourn. 
 
 Again, as in the West the Franks and Germans had renewed 
 
PROBATION AND FAILURE OF JOHN IV. OF MOSCOW. 47 
 
 in a sense the Latin-Roman Empire when it had been overrun 
 and mortally wounded and tramj)led down by barbarians, so it 
 seemed to be prepared for the Slavonians to fulfil a similar des- 
 tiny with regard to the Grseco-lloman Empire of the East, when 
 it should have been trampled down and destroyed by the Saracens 
 and Turks and by other older barbarians. 
 
 And especially, as the three-thonged scourge of Mahometan- 
 ism, the scourge, that is, which consisted of the Hagarenes or 
 Arabs, the Turks, and the Tatars, fell chiefly on the Grseco- 
 Roman Church and Empire, this seemed also to be in store for 
 the Slavonian race, to serve in the hands of the Almighty as 
 that sword of His vengeance by which the oppressor who had 
 taken the sword against His Church and against His Son's 
 name should eventually perish. 
 
 But the Slavonians, after their conversion to Christianity, 
 being guilty as men of great sins, were chastised by great judg- 
 ments. Some of their tribes fell under the yoke of the Latins 
 and the Germans, and lost even their language : some exchanged 
 their original " Orthodoxy^' for the Roman Obedience and ritual ; 
 some fell under the infidels, and even became in part infidels 
 themselves. In the greatest of all their tribes and countries, 
 that of the Russians, two centuries of family feuds and blood- 
 shed among their numerous princes, brother warring with 
 brother, and uncle with nephew, together with other sins of the 
 flesh, were punished by the heavy bondage of the Mongols. 
 Western Russia was dismembered, and subjected to the Hun- 
 garians, the Lithuanians, and the Poles : and it was only in the 
 fifteenth century that Eastern Russia, concentrated around Mos- 
 cow as her capital, began to emerge from the long night of op- 
 pression as an Orthodox kingdom. 
 
 The grandson of Sophia the last daughter of the Palseologi, 
 and inheriting from his father a sceptre now independent, John 
 IV., the first solemnly crowned Tsar or Emperor of Muscovy, 
 was placed upon his trial by Providence; and, like Saul the first 
 king of Israel, had the option ofi^ered to him of either fulfilling 
 the most high and glorious mission in obedience to the will of 
 God, and in execution of the destinies of His people, or, if he 
 failed, of becoming a monster and a by-word of warning and 
 horror to all posterity. 
 
48 PROHiVTION AND FAILURE OF JOHN IV. OF MOSCOW 
 
 Recalled to repentance in bis youth from those early sins into 
 which evil guardians had led him by the burning of his capital and 
 by the seasonable exhortations of a Priest named Silvester, John 
 made his repentance as public as had been his crimes. He sur- 
 rounded himself with wise and able and virtuous counsellors; 
 assembled a Synod for the decision of Ecclesiastical ques- 
 tions; collected and promulgated a Code of civil laws; improved 
 the administration of justice; organized the military forces of his 
 empire; and taking the field in a just war against the Tatars of 
 Kazan and Astrachan, subdued two infidel kingdoms. One only, 
 and that reduced to great weakness and promising an easy con- 
 quest, remained, the kingdom of the Crimea. 
 
 The fame of these conquests resounded over all Europe ; and 
 the effect produced was as if a cloud which had before enveloped 
 Russia had suddenly cloven asunder, and disclosed to the half 
 incredulous eyes of the Westerns, at the moment of their greatest 
 fear and need, a young Christian hero at the head of a great 
 empire, with an army of three hundred thousand men, to be the 
 vanguard and support of Christendom. 
 
 And if John had done what his counsellors told him was his 
 duty, if he had then reduced the Crimea, he would have had the 
 prospect of the undisputed succession to the crowns of Poland 
 and Lithuania being secured to him : and the Emperor of Ger- 
 many and the Pope were about to intreat him to head all Europe 
 against the Turks, adding, that he would have a natural right to 
 whatever could he recovered of the Eastern Emjnre, and that none 
 of the Western Powers would grudge it him. This was his 
 mission, and the mission of his country. Chastised and 
 humbled for her sins during three centuries under the yoke of 
 the Tatars, Russia had confessed her sins, and the justice of 
 their chastisement, and had prayed and waited for forgiveness 
 and deliverance : and at length God had given her her deliver- 
 ance : and He offered her at the same time much more ; exalta- 
 tion, and dominion, and victory, and glory, for the defence of 
 Christianity, the revival of the Eastern Empire, and the possible 
 healing even of the schisms of the Churches. Unhappily John 
 failed of his mission. 
 
 The last act in which he followed the advice of Silvester and 
 Adasheff, his wise and religious counsellors and true friends, 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 49 
 
 that act which revealed a glimpse of the whole vista of his future 
 greatness and glory, if he had done his duty, but which was in 
 fact to be the turning point and commencement of his downward 
 career, has much of dramatic interest. Seeing what had been 
 the fate of Kazan and Astrachan, and knowing that his own 
 turn ought to come next, conscious too of an extraordinary 
 weakness and inability to resist at that time, the Khan of 
 the Crimea, who had before been the ally of Lithuania and 
 Poland and the enemy of Russia, collected all his forces, made a 
 sudden inroad into the country of his unsuspecting allies, laid it 
 waste with fire and sword, and returned to his own dominions 
 laden with booty, and dragging after him a hundred thousand 
 Christian captives to slavery or apostasy. He then sent an 
 embassy with presents from his booty to the Tsar of Moscow, 
 giving him to understand that remembering a former alliance 
 which had subsisted between John's grandfather and his own 
 ancestor, and wishing to renew it, he had sacrificed to that wish 
 his former alliance with the enemies of Russia, the Poles and 
 Lithuanians. But the expectation of the infidel was defeated. 
 Acting upon the advice of those men to whom all his former 
 glory was owing, John refused to receive the ambassadors of the 
 Khan, or to defile himself with their presents ; but sent a special 
 embassy of his own into Poland with expressions of sympathy 
 for the sufferings that had been caused by the late Tatar inva- 
 sion, and with an announcement that forgetting the enmity 
 which had to that time existed between them and Russia, and 
 thinking only of their common Christianity, he was ready to 
 assist them with the whole forces of his empire. The transport 
 of enthusiasm produced among the Poles and Lithuanians by 
 this unexpected and scarce credible generosity knew no bounds. 
 John's ambassadors were received everywhere with the warmest 
 demonstrations of gratitude ; and an understanding was entered 
 into that upon the death of Sigismund (who was old, and had no 
 heir,) John should succeed by common consent to the united 
 Crowns of the Grand Duchy and the Kingdom. 
 
 But in the mean time, apart from his public probation as a 
 Sovereign, John had been subjected to another personal and 
 moral probation as a man : and he had now already passed the 
 turning point of his life and character. From a natural and 
 
 E 
 
50 PROBATION yVND FAILUHE OF JOHN IV. OF MOSCOW 
 
 almost venial cause (in consequence of their disinclination to 
 swear allegiance to his infant son when bis own life was des- 
 paired of, and preferring the old Russian order of succession by 
 which a minority would have been avoided,) John had allowed 
 himself to harbour a secret grudge and jealousy against his 
 counsellors Silvester and AdashefF. It is impossible not to sym- 
 pathize in some degree with his feelings, and those of his Tsaritsa. 
 For a man of his temperament it must have been a sore trial : 
 even as it was a sore trial for Saul of old, being a king, and 
 having sons of his own worthy of a crown, to see before him 
 and at his table the man who had engrossed that glory which 
 he considered as his own, and who was marked by prophecy to 
 supplant his family in the kingdom. Having once harboured and 
 dwelt upon this sinful malice, John presently began to listen to 
 the whisperings of profligate flatterers who could not endure 
 the severity of those great and good men by whom he was still 
 directed. " They engrossed," it was said, " the glory which 
 should have been the Tsar's : they insisted on his following 
 their plans, that they might still keep both the power and the 
 credit to themselves : whereas John's own genius was superior, 
 and the plans of his own devising preferable to theirs." So he 
 listened again to the tempter, and added to his former secret 
 and suppressed illwill a political jealousy, and a vain -glorious 
 desire to do great things independently of Silvester and Ada- 
 sheff and against their counsels. At this point the influence of 
 early habits was allowed to return upon him : his lusts and 
 passions responded to the sentiment of his flatterers, that " those 
 men had put a yoke and bridle upon him too hard to be borne." 
 So he "began to eat and to drink," and to do worse ; and relapsed 
 into the sins of which he had repented. Hence it was that he 
 failed also of his public mission and probation as a Sovereign. 
 
 For as Saul spared the Amalekites, and forfeited the kingdom 
 for ever, so John spared the Tatars of the Crimea, and lost all 
 that was offered to him in consequence. Anticipating the 
 worldly schemes of Peter I., desiring to open Russia to the 
 West, and to obtain a port on the Baltic, and thinking these 
 objects grander and more important than the reduction of the 
 Crimea, which seemed within his grasp at any time, John went 
 to war on his north-western frontier with Christians, with the 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 51 
 
 Order of the Livonian Knights, and with the Swedes : and this 
 drew after it a league neither honourable nor sincere with the 
 Tatars, a breach with Poland, and a long and obstinate war, 
 which ended in the entire ruin of John's political fortunes, and 
 personal character. He was carried on from one wickedness to 
 another, each step in evil making the next more natural or ine- 
 vitable, and a lively imagination bordering almost on insanity 
 with wounded vanity and obstinacy and great suspiciousness 
 hurrying him along, till he became one of the greatest monsters 
 of tyranny, cruelty, and superstitious hypocrisy that the world 
 had ever seen, so that posterity has surnamed him " The Terri- 
 ble." All his political prospects were gradually clouded. The 
 Tatars of the Crimea recovered themselves, made destructive in- 
 roads into Russia, and even burned Moscow. John gave up 
 Christian proselytes to be tortured and put to death, or to be 
 compelled to apostasy, by the infidels. For the sake of his war 
 in the North, he basely demeaned himself, sending presents, 
 kissing the dust, and doing personal homage to the Tatar Khan. 
 Instead of succeeding peaceably to the throne of Poland, he 
 saw an enemy elected to it under the nomination and protection 
 of the Turks, and that enemy a great military commander, 
 Batori, with whom he was to be engaged in long and unsuccess- 
 ful war. He killed his eldest son, who should have been his 
 heir, with his own hand in a transport of mad jealousy, after 
 having first educated him to imitate his own wickedness. He 
 exhibited himself, after all the glory of his early reign, in the 
 disgraceful light not only of an unsuccessful ruler, but of a 
 personal coward; and lastly, concluded at the close of his 
 wretched life an ignominious peace through the solicited media- 
 tion of a Papal envoy, who is said to have cheated him into 
 yielding more than was really necessary even at the last. 
 
 Thus, by the failure of this Russian Saul, the mission and 
 destiny of his country was suspended. The opportunity offered 
 in the sixteenth century was lost. Instead of exhibiting a ca- 
 reer of public glory and of benefits to all Christendom, the long 
 and appalling tragedy of John's life closed (a.d. 1582.) only to 
 be succeeded by all the storms of Divine anger bursting upon 
 his posterity and his kingdom. After the reign of his imbecile 
 son Theodore (a.d, 1598.) the whole Moscow Family of the line 
 
 E 2 
 
5.2 PROBATION AND FAILURE OF JOHN IV. OF MOSCOW 
 
 of Riiric (which liad reigned in Russia ever since it had become a 
 State,) was extinct. It had been extinguished by the successful 
 cunning of a traitor who liad nourished at John's right hand, 
 and had cheated from first to last that suspicious tyrant who 
 murdered for no cause so many other good and brave and faith- 
 ful men. Thus the crimes to be avenged by the supreme Avenger 
 Vv'ere doubled. To the sins of John was added the sin of Godou- 
 nofF. Civil feuds and wars of innumerable Pretenders tore the 
 country from one end to the other. The Latin Poles besieged, 
 occupied, and partly burned Moscow; the Swedes seized the nor- 
 thern provinces ; and Russia seemed in danger of losing both 
 her religious and her political existence. 
 
 At length the scene was changed, and God in wrath remem- 
 bered mercy. The Clergy came forward to save their country : 
 some brave and patriotic nobles responded to their call, and se- 
 conded their efforts. The Poles were expelled from the Kremlin : 
 and around the walls of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius the 
 clouds which had so long lowered over Muscovy broke, and the 
 tempest dispersed, (a. d. 1612.) 
 
 A touching and striking contrast was then presented to the 
 past horrors. We see the unanimous election of a new Tsar, 
 the son of a Boyar-prelate who had suffered much for his coun- 
 try and was still a prisoner in Poland, and who had been inca- 
 pacitated for secular rule by former jealousies : we see the Heads 
 of the Clergy and of the Nobility, going to the Convent of their 
 refuge, and entreating an alarmed and unwilling mother in the 
 name of God and their country to give uj) her son, a young and 
 innocent boy, to the perils of a throne : then a just and peaceful 
 reign : peace concluded with great but necessary sacrifices on all 
 sides : a dutiful and religious son, solemnly crowned and 
 anointed, ruling well under the advice of a Patriarch who was 
 at once his natural and his spiritual father : a new Dynasty 
 founded: Russia taking breath and recovering herself; and 
 though not for many years to be again in the same relative po- 
 sition to Christendom as that which she might have occupied in 
 the middle of the sixteenth century, nor to have again offered 
 to her the mission and opportunity she then lost, yet be- 
 coming yearly more and more powerful, till in the reign of 
 Alexis Michaelovich, the father of Peter I., her new Dynasty, 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 53 
 
 her Clergy, and her Nobility, all those powers in fact which had 
 founded the existing order of things, were once more to be put 
 on their trial, a trial of a very different nature froni that of 
 John IV.; were once more to have good and evil set before them ; 
 and either by choosing good to merit the establishment of a sure 
 house to the Romanoffs and a restoration of her mission and 
 opportunities to Russia, or by choosing evil to draw down upon 
 themselves fresh calamities and punishments, punishments not 
 so much of an external as of an internal kind ; a series of do- 
 mestic vices and tragedies ; the extinction of the Dynasty which 
 began with such blessed promise ; the degradation and ruin of 
 the two Orders of the Nobility and the Clergy ; the ultimate in- 
 troduction of Western immorality, infidelity, and perhaps anar- 
 chy ; or, at any rate, the development of a new infidel Babylon 
 instead of a mighty orthodox Empire. What this new trial was 
 shall be explained in the next following Section. 
 
DISSERTATION V. 
 
 DESTINIES OF THE SLAVONIC EMPIRE. — PROBATION AND 
 FAILURE OF THE TSAR ALEXIS MICHAELOVICH, WITH THE 
 NOBILITY AND HIERARCHY OF RUSSIA, IN THE SEVENTEENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 By the munificence of former times, especially during the Tatar 
 domination, the Russian Bishops and Monasteries had, before 
 the seventeenth century, become possessed of vast domains in 
 land ; and over all such domains they exercised a separate 
 jurisdiction, according to their own Ecclesiastical Code, or Nomo- 
 canun, which differed in some respects from the civil law of Russia. 
 Such wealth, joined with such a privilege, and with the political 
 power accompanying it, tended naturally to excite a jealousy 
 against the Hierarchy in the higher orders of the laity after Mus- 
 covy had become an independent State. The Tsars themselves 
 indeed, at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seven- 
 teenth centuries, do not seem to have felt, nor had they certainly 
 any occasion to feel such jealousy. For, however great might 
 be the influence of the Hierarchy, it had ahvays been used in aid, 
 not in prejudice, of the Grand Princes. The unity of the Empire 
 had been gradually formed and held together by that influence 
 under the Tatar yoke: its peace and security had often been 
 promoted or restored, never endangered or disturbed, by the 
 interference of the Metropolitans and Patriarchs : and their in- 
 dei)endent and clear-sighted patriotism offered the best possible 
 protection to the interests of the reigning Family, and of public 
 order, when the Sovereign chanced to be of weak character, or a 
 minor. But individuals and factions of the Nobility, and perhaps 
 the Nobility as a class, w^re jealous of a power, at once spiritual 
 and political, which by its worldly equality affronted their pride, 
 and by its severe principles and laws thwarted their passions. 
 
DEPOSITION OF THE PATRIARCH NICON. 65 
 
 And, setting aside tliis natural but evil jealousy, there were 
 oonie points in the privileges of the Clergy which an enlightened 
 and religious Sovereign and legislator might fairly have required 
 them to surrender for the common good. To have two different 
 and independent codes of law in force at the same time over the 
 whole extent of the Empire (for the lands of the Church were 
 scattered everywhere, and did not lie together in one mass,) could 
 not but be inconvenient, and tending to become more and more 
 inconvenient in proportion as population should thicken, and 
 civilization increase. And this the more, as there was no third 
 supreme jurisdiction, which could receive appeals in mixed or 
 doubtful cases, and arbitrate between the Civil and the Ecclesi- 
 astical Courts. 
 
 In the reigns of John III. and John IV., not from any per- 
 sonal fear or jealousy of the Hierarchy in those Sovereigns, but 
 from mere political covetousness, and perhaps from a leaning to 
 the Judaizing heresy (a subtle but premature anticipation of 
 modern materialism,) in the former case, and from casual neces- 
 sities in the latter, the first signs were shown of that disposition 
 to curtail the wealth of the Bishops and Monasteries which was to 
 reappear in the seventeenth century, and which was to be carried 
 out to its extreme results by the acts of Peter I., Peter III., and 
 Catherine II. in the eighteenth. 
 
 But it was during the minority of Alexis Michaelovich, before 
 the middle of the seventeenth century, (a.d. 1648.) that the Boy- 
 ars of the Council, his relatives and guardians, in compiling a new 
 Code of civil laws, added to it not only an Act of mortmain dis- 
 qualifying the Bishops and Monasteries from buying or receiving- 
 fresh landed property for the future, but also an enactment for a 
 general State survey of all Church lands, with a view to the ab- 
 straction of such properties as had been acquired since a certain 
 date, and in contravention of the letter of a mortmain edict of a 
 former reign. For the Tsars had by no means held themselves to 
 be precluded from giving, or the Bishops and Monasteries from re- 
 ceiving from them, or with their express permission, fresh benefac- 
 tions : and many such benefactions had in fact been made, and 
 permission to acquire and hold fresh lands had been so accorded. 
 
 By the same new Code the Boyars, instead of merely requiring 
 the Clergy to surrender then* privilege of a separate jurisdiction 
 
56 DEPOSITION OF TUli PATRIARCU NICON 
 
 over their own tenants in purely civil matters, and over all ia 
 certain other mixed matters, (for this might reasonably have been 
 made a matter of negociation, or might have been required from 
 a synod of the Clergy,) leaving the other Church Courts and 
 the superior Court of the Patriarch to continue as they stood, 
 erected a supreme lay Court to over-ride them all, and to deter- 
 mine, further, all questions relating to the properties of the 
 Church ; which, under pretext of the mortmain Statutes, were 
 to be placed under the inspection and control of civil officers 
 nominated by the Crown. 
 
 These enactments of the Code of Alexis Michaelovich compiled 
 during his minority by the Boyars, and ratified by him in his 
 early youth under their influence, became shortly afterwards 
 the occasion of a great struggle between the worse part of the 
 Nobility and the better part of the Hierarchy ; a struggle which 
 forms the crisis of the reign of Alexis, and the key to the subse- 
 quent history of Russia down to the present day. 
 
 There arose at that time in Hussia a great Patriarch, by name 
 Nicon, who embodied in his personal character and life, in his 
 station, and other incidental advantages, all those qualities which 
 were most calculated to promote the prosperity and glory of the 
 Church and of his country, and to concentrate upon him and 
 upon the Hierarchy the envy and malice of the wicked. 
 
 Possessed not only of the respect and confidence but of the 
 tender friendship of his Sovereign, a Sovereign of an affectionate 
 and religious disposition, Nicon in first accepting the Episcopal 
 office made it a condition with Alexis that those laws which had 
 been made against the rights of the Church during his minority 
 should not be enforced in his diocese of Novogorod : and Alexis 
 acceded to the stipulation. 
 
 Seeing the greatness and the difficulty of the struggle which 
 probably lay before him, Nicon, while yet only Metropolitan of 
 Novogorod, suggested, and himself superintended in the Tsar's 
 name, the Translation of the Relics of St. Philip, a former Metro- 
 politan of Moscow, to the Cathedral of the Assumption in that 
 capital. St. Philip had been by birth of one of the chief fami- 
 lies of the Boyars ; and the great merit of his Primacy had been 
 this, that he had dauntlessly rebuked John the Terrible for his 
 cruelties, and for the misgovernmcnt of his dominions, and had 
 
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 57 
 
 received from that tyrant in cousequcDce the crown of martyr- 
 dom. Few perhaps or none at the time discerned any pecuHar 
 significancy in this act of the Translation of his llehcs, though all 
 understood that it wasjab-Qmage rendered by the nation and the 
 Church, by the Clergy, the Boyars, and the Tsar himself, to that 
 virtue in Hierarchs which is ready to resist and reprove worldly 
 violence, and to suffer for truth and righteousness' sake. And 
 if any had seen what Nicon really meant by the suggestion, or 
 that he anticipated that the next Patriarch of Moscow ought to 
 be prepared to follow in the steps of Philip, and to earn a place 
 at his feet, they would probably have thought such an anticipation 
 most ill-timed and absurd. For what resemblance could any man 
 discover between the tender-hearted and affectionate and merciful 
 Alexis, and the half-insane monster who murdered Philip ? or 
 between any party of the Boyars then living and the terrible 
 Oprichina ? Yet so it was. 
 
 Scarcely was the Translation of St. Philip's Relics completed, 
 and the virtue of firmly resisting the Temporal Power in certain 
 cases declared to be one of the four corner foundations of the 
 Russian Church, when the Patriarchal throne became vacant, and 
 that which Nicon had foreseen occurred. And then, when his 
 Sovereign and his friend (and with him all the Court,) were in- 
 viting, and pressing, and forcing him to accept the Primacy, he 
 evinced (out of place and unintelligible as it may have appeared,) 
 exactly the same reluctance and apprehension as his predecessor 
 St. Philip had evinced, when singled out by John the Terrible to 
 become Metropolitan. And, like Philip, he consented to their 
 supplications only on certain conditions, when the Tsar and his 
 nobles had solemnly vowed to him in the church that, if he 
 would become their Patriarch, they would conscientiously obey 
 him in Ecclesiastical matters as their spiritual Father. 
 
 Thus Nicon became Patriarch (a.d. 1653) ; and, as a matter of 
 course, caused those laws which had before been held suspended 
 for him only in the single diocese of Novogorod to become inope- 
 rative throughout the whole extent of the Russian Church and Em- 
 pire. Still he knew that this mere suspension of their execution 
 could not last; and that before long they must either be carried 
 into execution, or annulled. To annul them,embodied as they were i 
 ui the Code, was no easy matter : it implied a previous struggle, 
 
58 DEPOSITION OF THE PATRIARCH NICON 
 
 and the complete overthrow of those influences which had placed 
 them there. And this it was to which Nicon looked forward. 
 For this he had been making preparation when he procured the 
 Translation of the Relics of St. Philip, and when he bound the 
 Tsar and the Boyars by a solemn oath to obey him as their 
 spiritual Father. 
 
 The obnoxious laws then were suspended, and held in abey- 
 ance J and Nicon, seated on the Patriarchal throne, continued 
 to do for all Russia what he had before done only for the one 
 diocese of Novogorod. He relieved the poor; righted the 
 oppressed; encouraged virtue and learning; enforced discipline, 
 especially among the Clergy, examining personally candidates 
 for Ordination, and summarily punishing delinquent Clerks : he 
 corrected abuses in the manner of performing Divine Service ; 
 introduced a new and improved mode of Church singing ; held 
 a Council for the correction and printing of the Church Books ; 
 and generally promoted all necessary and useful reforms. At the 
 same time he taught diligently himself the Word of God, the style 
 both of his preaching and of his ordinary discourse being re- 
 markable for the constant references he made in them to the 
 Holy Scriptures, references not superficial and conventional 
 but natural and practical, full of rich instruction and holy 
 seriousness, and having a peculiar pointedness of application. 
 By these means he attracted towards himself the deepest personal 
 attachment of religious minds, (and not least that of his Sove- 
 reign,) but also the jealousy and hatred of all the more ignorant, 
 superstitious, and vicious among the Hierarchy and the lower 
 Clergy, who found in his correction of the Church Books a 
 powerful handle for spreading disaffection towards him among 
 such of the people also as were like themselves, ignorant, un- 
 spiritual, and superstitious. 
 
 The accession of unparalleled political influence and splen- 
 dour to such a character and position brought upon the Patriarch 
 from a large faction of the Boyars a personal hatred far more 
 intense than would have otherwise been excited either by his 
 promotion of Ecclesiastical reforms, or even by his defence of 
 Ecclesiastical rights. The Tsar, when absent from his Capital 
 on occasion of the Polish war, entrusted the virtual Regency to 
 the Patriarch above all the Boyars of the Council, and especially 
 
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 59 
 
 above those who stood nearest to the throue as the relatives of 
 his consort and his mother, bad men, to whose influence Nicon, 
 simply and faithfully discharging his trust, would yield nothing. 
 Also, on occasion of the great plague, the Tsar committed the 
 personal care of his wife and family to the Patriarch, as to his 
 dearest and most faithful friend; and on happily receiving 
 again this trust, bestowed on him affectionately and gratefully, 
 but foolishly, the title of Great Highness, {Veliki Hossonddr,) 
 which had been the style of his own grandfather the Patriarch 
 Philaret Niketich, a title which Nicon disclaimed as unsuitable, 
 and forbad his clerH ever to give it to him, but which, being 
 used and given by the Tsar himself, and so also by others of 
 the Court, was naturally most ofi^ensive to Nicon's enemies 
 among the chief Boyars, and became afterwards, however un- 
 justly and absurdly, one of their charges against him. In the 
 exercise of his regency Nicon had also the fortune of obtaining 
 or receiving the most important and brilliant accession to the 
 Empire. It was to him and through him that the proposition 
 was made which brought the whole of Little Russia with the 
 ancient capital of Kieff and the Kazak forces of the Oukraine 
 under the Muscovite sceptre. 
 
 Enough has now been stated to make it very intelligible that 
 a league should have been formed between a large party of 
 the chief Boyars, including the Tsar's own nearest relatives, and 
 the obscurantist and retrograde party among the Hierarchy to 
 bring about the downfall of Nicon. And though, as long as 
 Alexis remained in the same mind, they could do nothing but 
 show their spite by words and by calumnies, yet the time came 
 at length when they found they could safely demand that the 
 suspended provisions of the civil Code should be carried into 
 execution. And the Tsar gave his consent. 
 
 What may have originally led to this change in the Tsar's 
 determination it is now difficult, and perhaps impossible, to 
 discover. The personal calumnies of Nicon's enemies he must 
 have estimated at their just value : indeed the evident continu- 
 ance of his own personal affection and respect for the Patriarch 
 to the end shows that he did so. Disappointment at the want 
 of success of the Swedish war (which Nicon had advised,) could 
 scarcely alone have occasioned such a coolness, though Alexis 
 
60 DEPOSITION or THE PATRIARCH NICON 
 
 had certainly some share of anibition and vanity, and was iras- 
 cible when crossed in his wishes. It is more probable that he 
 had not counted the cost of that conduct to which he seemed to 
 have pledged himself when he suspended for Nicon's sake the 
 provisions of the Code ; and that he was influenced by the mix- 
 ture of reasonableness which there might seem to be either in 
 those provisions themselves, or at any rate in the demand that, 
 being part of the Code, and unrepealed, they should be carried 
 into effect ; and also by a sense of the necessity of either giving 
 his consent to this or breaking immediately and completely with 
 his own relatives and all their party in the Councd, and giving 
 Nicon's principles a complete and permanent triumph at the 
 risk perhaps of his throne. But whatever w-ere the secret causes 
 which first cooled the ardour of his affection for the Patriarch, 
 having once committed himself to a retrograde step, and finding 
 that the Patriarch had foreseen all from the beginning, and 
 would yield nothing, he was carried on by a sort of necessity 
 from one thing to another : the political, and at length even the 
 personal estrangement of the Tsar from the Patriarch became 
 wider, and the anti-ecclesiastical tendencies of that party to 
 which the Tzar had now committed himself, more manifest. 
 
 Not only were the obnoxious provisions of the Code carried into 
 execution, while a lay Court, called the Monastery Court, over- 
 ruled the Court of the Patriarch, but spiritual patronage, and 
 even Ordination itself, was made to depend in some cases on the 
 direct oi'der of the Sovereign : whereas a few years before, when 
 some clerks had sought to interest the Tsar in their favour, 
 Alexis had replied thus : " I fear the Patriarch Nicon ; he will 
 say to me. Do I interfere with you in the command of your 
 armies, or the government of your kingdom ? Why then do you 
 seek to interfere with me in the disciplining of monks and 
 clerks ? " 
 
 Under these circumstances Nicon, as a last expedient to 
 touch the reason and conscience of the better-minded among: 
 the Boyars, and especially of his Sovereign, solemnly declared in 
 the Cathedral that if he, as was said, were the cause of every- 
 thing that went wrong in the State, and even in nature, he would 
 leave them to themselves : he could not be their Patriarch, if 
 the acts that belonged to him to do were to be done by others 
 
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 01 
 
 on the order of the Tsar, or of the Boyars : they might see how 
 they couhl administer the Patriarchal power without him. And 
 so saying, he left his crozier in the church, and went away in 
 the habit of a common monk forty versts from Moscow, to Vos- 
 kresensk, where he was building a great Monastery to be called 
 Neiv Jerusalem, with a church after a model of that of the Holy 
 Sepulchre and of the Resurrection which he had procured from 
 Palestine. 
 
 But evil prevailed : and there were weaknesses in the charac-,,^ 
 ter of Alexis which made him persist, when he had once com- | 
 mitted himself, and had met with opposition. Instead of being 
 brought to a better mind, the Council of the Boyars were for 
 taking Nicon at his word : and so, affecting to view his retire- 
 ment as a simple resignation, they sent and demanded of him 
 his consent to the consecration of a successor. Failing to obtain 
 this, and being practically embarrassed by his refusal to exercise 
 the Primacy subject to their lay encroachments and interfer- 
 ences, they charged all the inconveniences which ensued upon 
 him, and made his retirement itself into a State crime. How 
 great was Nicon's power and personal influence, and how deep 
 the struggle which was now going on throughout the whole 
 civil and ecclesiastical constitution of Russia, was sufficiently 
 shown by the fact that this position of the two parties, the 
 Patriarcli living ui retirement at Voskresensk, and the Civil Power 
 administering the Church temporarily, through such of the 
 Ecclesiastics as would serve it, without a Patriarch, lasted no 
 less than eight years, (a.d. 1658 — 1667.) 
 
 One incident of this period, for its indirect bearing upon the 
 sin of Alexis himself, and its punishment in his posterity, de- 
 serves notice : 
 
 One or two Boyars, who had parted with a certain property 
 to Nicon for his Convent of New Jerusalem, the acquisition of 
 the property being contrary to the mortmain laws and to the 
 Code, but rendered lawful by the licence of the Tsar, took occa- 
 sion from the re-inforcement of the Code to redemand and recover 
 their property. Nicon caused these men to be openly anathe- 
 matized, and made his clerks sing certain imprecatory Psalms 
 in the Office used on the occasion : " AUuaov, Kvpis, touc aS<- 
 jcoOvraj jU.=" x.. r, ?.. Tlpoa^ii avo^lctv ln\ t^v uvoit-lctv avTcov' . . » 
 
62 DKrOSITION OF THE PATRIARCH NICON 
 
 e^a?'.Bt^^rjw(Tuv sx. /3(j(3Xou ^cwvtojV x. t. X. Psvyj9i^Ta)(r«v ol vlo) 
 uvTob op^uvo), xci\ Yj yvvYj avTOU yrjpx' rsvrj^YjTcu to. tskvcx aiiTOU 
 slg i^oKo^(,iV7iV k. r. X. 'Av^' wv riyot.TTr\(js KuTxpuv, xct) rj^ci 
 auTCW, xa» oux ^9;A>jo"ev ev\oylxv, kui f/.axpuvQ^asT'xi Uii uutou. 
 X. T. K." The news of this was soon carried to the Court, and 
 it was asserted there, not unnaturally, by Nicon's enemies that 
 he had anathematized and cursed his Sovereign ; seeing that 
 their sacrilege, which he had cursed, and the individuals named 
 were identified by them with the Tsar and his government. A 
 commissioner was sent from the Council in the Tsar's name to the 
 Patriarch to demand whether he had not cursed the Tsar ; and, 
 if not, whom had he cursed, or what had he done ? The com- 
 missioner, who came with an air of rude command, was made to 
 wait till Divine Service was over, and then was told by the Patri- 
 arch that he had noi cursed Alexis, nor had intended what was 
 done for him ; but that he had cursed certain individuals, rob- 
 bers of the Church, whom he named ; and, if they had a mind 
 to stay and hear it, he would have the same Office sung over 
 again in their ears. So they returned with this answer : but 
 from that day forth it was one of the chief accusations against 
 Nicon that he had cursed the Sovereign : and Nicon, without hav- 
 ing really cursed him, (for he could distinguish between the sin, 
 though great, of a religious and affectionate soul and the obdu- 
 racy of malicious wickedness,) yet showed, as we shall see here- 
 after, that he feared lest Alexis might indeed be comprehended 
 under the curse in point of fact, and might be drawing down its 
 judgments on himself and on his posterity. 
 
 At length, after the struggle had continued eight years, the 
 Patriarchate having been all that time in a sort of abeyance, and 
 an attempt to procure the deposition of Nicon by a synod of 
 Russian Bishops having failed, the Tsar was induced to call in 
 the four Eastern Patriarchs and a number of Greek Metropo- 
 litans and Bishojjs, who, uniting with the Russian Bishops in a 
 mixed synod at Moscow in the year 1666, in the presence of the 
 Tsar himself and of the Boyars, judged and deposed Nicon in 
 such manner as was desired of them, and were honourably dis- 
 missed to their own countries with the rewards of their service. 
 Two only of the four Patriarchs were personally present, Paisius 
 of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch, the latter of whom had 
 
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 63 
 
 been in Russia before when Nicon was at the height of his 
 power, and had received of his bounty : but all the four were 
 parties to what was done. 
 
 For the full history of this memorable trial the inquirer must 
 have recourse to the life of Nicon by his faithful disciple and 
 clerk ShttsherinofF, which has been printed, and to such other 
 contemporary documents as are preserved in MS. in Russia or 
 in the Levant. But one or two incidents are too characteristic 
 to be here altogether omitted. Nicon appeared before the synod 
 prepared and habited as if for a capital condemnation. Alexis, 
 who though unprepared to recede had yet been sinning against 
 his better nature and conscience throughout, and retained at 
 heart much of his former respect and affection for the Patriarch, 
 was shocked at this ; and to the consternation of his Boyars left 
 his throne, and walked up to the Patriarch, took his hand, and 
 expostulated with him for thinking him capable of such inten- 
 tions. A conversation of some length in an under tone followed, 
 the Patriarch explaining how some things misunderstood by the 
 Tsar had really been, and exposing the arts and motives of his 
 enemies ; and the Tsar, as if admitting that he had been more 
 or less in the wrong, protesting that even yet he hoped they 
 might be able to avoid extremities. But Nicon told him plainly, 
 though gently, that he was deceiving himself if he thought that 
 possible : that he could not now go back, even if he would : 
 that his wrath must be gone through with, and be satisfied. 
 On the other hand, when one of Nicon's clerks, forgetting him- 
 self for indignation at some false witness, exclaimed audibly, 
 " That, religious Tsar, is a lie ! " the Tsar showed no anxiety 
 to learn the truth, but rather anger and fury at the clerk's 
 boldness. And when Nicon's answers seemed to have put his 
 accusers to shame, or to silence, Alexis impatiently turned to the 
 Boyars and asked if none of them would come to the support of 
 their Sovereign ? Which call having been answered as might be 
 expected, the Patriarch asked ironically, " Why do you not bid 
 them take up stones? So they would soon do the business, but 
 they will never finish me with words." However of words too 
 there were " enough, and more than enough," the ex-Archbishop 
 of Gaza, a Greek named Paisius, taking the lead in the proceed- 
 ings with his venal and turgid rhetoric, and quoting Christian 
 
64 UErOSITlON OF THE P.\T11IARCII NICON 
 
 and heathen authors, verse and prose, indiscriminately for the 
 deification of kings, till the Council, having decreed (what Nicon 
 himself had always taught,) that " the Tsar ought to be supreme 
 in civil government, and the Patriarch in spiritual," (so difficult 
 is it with full knowledge to lie distinctly.) condemned Nicon on 
 the charges brought against him ; degraded him from the 
 Patriarchal and Episcopal and sacerdotal dignities ; and sen- 
 tenced him to be confined in a distant Monastery, as a common 
 monk. This took place in January, a.d. 1667. 
 
 Under these circumstances, Nicon said to the people, who 
 flocked around to receive his blessing, onlythis one word " Pray." 
 To his chief enemies of the Clergy, who now heaped on him 
 taunts and insults, he foretold their own approaching punish- 
 ment and degradation : and some of them he lived to see falling 
 at his feet with tears of repentance. The Patriarchs he rebuked 
 for their unworthy compliance for the sake of a miserable gain ; 
 offering them significantly a large pearl from the front of the 
 Camilauchion which they took from him, and saying thus, 
 "After all, if you do get for this some alms, to cheer you under 
 the miseries and oppressions you suffer from the Turks, it will 
 not last you long : and you might be more suitably and profitably 
 employed than in wandering into distant countries as mendi- 
 cants." While this was passing, or soon after, the Tsar sent 
 one of his Boyars, a man of the better sort, with a present of 
 money and furs for Nicon and his attendants, for their journey : 
 for they had nothing with them of their own, and were to be 
 sent immediately to a Monastery quite in the north of Russia, it 
 being then the month of January, and the frost being very severe. 
 But Nicon, pointing to the presents, said, " Take these things 
 back to him who sent them : these are not what Nicon wants." 
 The officer, after having in vain in treated him not to dishonour and 
 hurt his master by such a refusal of his bounty, stepped up to 
 him and said, "The Tsar commanded me also to ask your ybr- 
 giveness, and your blessing." Nicon replied with those words of 
 the Psalm which have been quoted already above, " Ouk ^9=Arj(rsv 
 evkoyiav," (that is, not sufficiently, nor with singleness of heart) 
 "x«j S»a TouTo jjicuxf^uvsTcti octt' aiiToii'" alluding, directly, to his own 
 exile, and indirectly to the probable punishment of the Tsar's sin. 
 In getting into the sledge which was to take him away from Mos- 
 
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 6') 
 
 COW, Nicon repeated aloud to himself with a dry iiony these 
 words, recollected probably from some former conversation, 
 "Ah ! Nicon, Nicon, don't lose your friends : don^t say all that 
 may be true : If you would only have given a few handsome 
 banquets, and would have supped with them, all these things 
 would not have befallen you." 
 
 It is not to be supposed that such a man as Nicon, or such a 
 cause as his, were without many devoted adherents, especially 
 among the Clergy. Of these some were even put to death ; 
 others were examined with tortures ; many were sent into con- 
 finement in dififerent monasteries, and kept prisoners as long as 
 fifteen or sixteen years. A few were permitted to accompany 
 him to Bielo-ozero, and to share his confinement. Among the 
 people too, notwithstanding the prejudices of some of them con- 
 cerning the Church Books, there was such a feeling in his favour 
 that the Government proceeded with the utmost caution, and 
 even timidity, in carrying his sentence into execution. The 
 guards within the Kremlin were directed to behave to the as- 
 sembled multitudes with all possible courtesy, and to inform 
 them that Nicon would leave ''by the North side;" whereas, in 
 fact, the gates were closed, and he was suddenly driven with all 
 speed, strongly escorted, across the bridge to the South side of 
 the river, and so out of the city and the suburbs in an opposite 
 direction. Having refused the Tsar's gifts, he was indebted for 
 a cloke to the casual pity of an individual, an Archimandrite, of 
 the Clergy ; and both he and his attendants suffered much from 
 the severe cold. They were driven rapidly through all those 
 towns and villages passing through which could not be avoided, 
 and were not allowed to stop anywhere, nor to purchase anything 
 for themselves by the way. 
 
 At length they halted for the night ; and were quartered in 
 some houses, from which the occupants had first been carefully 
 ejected. But in the middle of the night, when Nicon and his 
 few attendants had been left to themselves, a trap-door in the 
 floor of the room opened, and an old woman came up, who first 
 asked which was the Patriarch Nicon ; and Nicon answering, 
 "/am he," she fell at his feet, and declared to him, with many 
 protestations that it was true, that she had been warned in a 
 dream the night before to expect him. She had seen, she said, 
 
 F 
 
66 DEPOSITION OF THE PATRIARCH NICON 
 
 a very goodly man, saying to her, " IMy servant Nicon is coming 
 hither in great cold and need of all things : now, therefore, give 
 him what thou hast by thee for his needs." In consequence of 
 this, she said, she had concealed herself in the cellar before the 
 Tsar's officers came and took possession of her house and ejected its 
 other occupants. And thereupon she produced a number of fur 
 clokes, and other garments belonging to her sons (who lived with 
 her in the house,) and money, and pressed his acceptance of them 
 for himself and his Clerks. And Nicon accepted this provision, 
 which was thus provided for him, instead of that which he had re- 
 fused from the Tsar. 
 
 Nicon lived many years after his dej)Osition, and outlived 
 Alexis. He never in any way recognized the justice of his sen- 
 tence : nor did the Clerks who attended him ever cease to give 
 him the title of Patriarch, or to pray for him as such in their 
 Offices. Alexis, on the other hand, ceased not to send from time 
 to time to ask his forgiveness, and to ofier him presents, which 
 for some time Nicon refused. His confinement was at first ex- 
 tremely rigorous; the windows of his cell being fastened up 
 with iron bars, and he not being allowed to go out even for exer- 
 cise. But at length Alexis, without the knowledge of the Council, 
 sent secret orders to soften in some degree this excessive rigour ; 
 and the iron bars on his windows were removed : for which an ofti- 
 cial reprimand from the Council followed, as if it had been done 
 without authority. At length, seeing that what was done could 
 not be undone, and that, whatever had been the Tsar's fault once, 
 he could now no longer, perhaps, retrace his steps, nor extricate 
 himself from those political necessities and influences which sur- 
 rounded him, Nicon refused not to acknowledge what was good 
 in the character of his Sovereign, and wrote him a letter saying 
 that he forgave him personalli/, as a man, whatever he had wrong- 
 fully suffered, and thus far sent him his blessing, and for the 
 future would accept his presents. Yet even thus, — consider- 
 ing that the Almighty might even yet give the Tsar another 
 opportunity, and not willing either to do anything towards un- 
 duly lulling, or to neglect to do anything towards quickening 
 and informing his conscience, — he hinted that this was but an 
 imperfect and personal forgiveness ; and that there was a more 
 full and Ecclesiastical absolution, xvith imposition of hands, which 
 
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 67 
 
 Alexis had need to desire, and which he would then be ready to give 
 when he should again see the Tsar's face in Moscow. But this 
 involved the complete undoing of the past, and the fall from 
 power of Nicon's enemies; a mercy which Providence had not 
 in store for Alexis. Nevertheless Alexis was greatly pleased at 
 the Patriarch's having relaxed thus far ; and thenceforth sent 
 him many presents, and especially ornaments and vestments for 
 one of the Chapels of the Monastery in which he was now permitted 
 to officiate; and desired his prayers for himself and his family; 
 and on his deathbed, by special messengers, as well as by his 
 written Testament, he once more solemnly asked Nicon's "forgive- 
 ness and absolution," calling him his " Spiritual Father, Great 
 Lord, Most Holy liierarch, and blessed Pastor," giving him 
 (which is remarkablej his title of Patriarch, and regretting that 
 "by the judgments of God " (that is to say, not by the Tsar's 
 own will,) he was not then in his proper place, filling the Patri- 
 archal throne of Moscow. And Nicon (though Alexis died before 
 it could reach him,) sent once more his personal and verbal forgive- 
 ness (refusing to give it in writing, lest the Boyars should make any 
 undue use of it), and alluded once more with a sigh to that public 
 sin of which it was beijond him either to remit the guilt, or to avert the 
 consequences : " We shall meet before the dread tribunal of God ! " 
 Looking closelylhto the character of Alexis, we may remark 
 in his written Testament and Letters, and in the words and actions 
 of his life, an abundance of affectionate and religious feeling 
 running in its expression into imaginativeness and hyperbole. 
 He had many of the qualities of a great and good Sovereign ; but 
 was not exempt from ambition, vanity, and irascibility ; nor 
 from a certain weakness, consequent on these faults, leading him, 
 when once committed, to persist in what was wrong. His vanity 
 was perhaps enlisted in the struggle against the spiritual inde-, 
 pendence of the Patriarchate : and when they told him that 
 educated, as he had been, at the feet of his grandfather Philaret, 
 and fit to be a Bishop himself, he had not only the right to 
 govern, but the capacity to govern well in Ecclesiastical matters, 
 he may have been all the more inclined to listen to those other 
 arguments which represented the struggle as being simply for an 
 unmixed spiritual or an unmixed civil supremacy, and a choice 
 between either putting down Nicon or i-esigning to him Moscow, as 
 
 F 2 
 
68 DEPOSITION OF THE PATRIARCH NICON 
 
 Constantine the Great was fabled to have resigned his capital of 
 the elder Rome to Pope Silvester. The outward moral signs 
 which a severe scrutiny of Alexis' public government and private 
 life forces us to notice are these : firstly, that whatever may 
 have been the merits or demerits of Nicon and his party, their 
 enemies (and the Tsar's nearest connections among them) ivere 
 plainly bad men ; and to these bad men Alexis, by his conduct, se- 
 aired the government of his kingdom, and enthralled himself : 
 secondly, that the religious feeling and domestic affectionate- 
 ness of Alexis did not prevent his forming at least onje_jUicit 
 connection ; as we read of a natural son who, with his mother, 
 Avas sent away from the Court about the time of Alexis' second 
 marriage. It might be worth while to inquire more accurately 
 into the circumstances and dates connected with the commence- 
 ment of this, or of any other similar and previous connection. 
 
 On the other hand, the more we scrutinize the character of 
 Nieon, the less reason shall we find to charge him with any of 
 those faults which were imputed to him by his enemies. There 
 was nothing about him like ignorance of the distinction and due 
 limits between the civil and the spii'itual power, nor any sort of ap- 
 parent disposition to either worldly or spiritual pride or ambition. 
 During the long-protracted struggle we see from his life what 
 he claimed for himself personally, namely, severe penances and 
 mortifications for his own sins and the sins of his people, hard 
 fare, a stone couch and pillow, and heavy chains. And the 
 Ecclesiastics and others who were personally attached to him 
 appear to have been men of the like spirit, with whom his ene- 
 mies of the Hierarchy and of the Boyars offer the most marked 
 and sometimes grotesque contrasts. 
 
 Several of Alexis' sons and daughters were godchildren to 
 Nicon : and a sister of Alexis, the Princess Tatiana Michaelovna, 
 when Nicon was in confinement, and his enemies governing 
 Russia in the Council, used to relate to her nephew Theodore 
 Alexievich stories of the virtues of that great Patriarch, and of the 
 wickedness of his enemies : how he had contended and suffered 
 for the Church of God : and how the building of his great Mo- 
 nastery of the "New Jerusalem," with its Church imitated from 
 that of the Holy Sepulchre and the Resurrection, was suspended 
 in consequence of his unjust deposition and imprisonment. 
 
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 69 
 
 When Theodore succeeded to his father Alexis, (a, d. 1676,) 
 he was too young to attempt to govern by himself; but his first 
 j)olitical acts were attempts to obtain from the Council the libera- 
 tion, or at least the less rigorous confinement, of his Godfather. 
 And on Nicon's death, which took place (in 1681.) just after an 
 order had been obtained for his liberation, with permission to re- 
 turn and die in his own Convent of Voskresensk, Theodore, having 
 learned to view the past struggle in its true light, desired the titular 
 Patriarch to bury him with the honours due to his rank : and 
 on the Patriarch, as might have been expected, declining, and 
 objecting the authority of the Eastern Patriarchs and the 
 Synod which had deposed and degraded Nicon, the young Tsar 
 estimated that objection at its just weight. He commanded the 
 next senior Prelate, the Metropolitan of Novogorod, to do his 
 will; and himself took the lead in bearing the body to the 
 grave. And not content with this, he sent his messengers and 
 alms into the East, and procured from the four Patriarchs four 
 Letters or Acts, which under a cloud of decent verbiage rehabi- 
 litated the memory of the deceased ; an act which being done 
 to satisfy the religious conscience of the son, was no doubt at 
 least as valid as the former contrary act which had been done to 
 serve the political requirements of the father. The motives 
 and the recompense were in both cases the same. It seemed as 
 if Theodore had been placed on the throne merely to complete 
 in this graceful and touching way the acknowledgments of 
 Alexis, and then was removed to make way for impending 
 punishments. 
 
 Thus ended this remarkable episode in Russian history, so far 
 as it was merely a personal matter. But of its political and 
 ecclesiastical consequences men saw not as yet, or scarcely saw, 
 so much as the beginning. Nor are we yet come to their end 
 even now, after two centuries. For the fall of Nieon was that 
 point and crisis on which the subsequent developments of many 
 generations, both religious and political, were to turn. 
 
 What then are the consequences to be attributed to the fall 
 of Nicon ? it will be asked. This question may be most briefly 
 and most strikingly answered, at least for such as are capable of 
 reflection, by another ; by asking, what would have been the 
 ])rubable or necessary consequences, if Alexis had acted dif- 
 
/O DEPOSITION tH' TIIK I'ATlllAKCH NICON 
 
 ferently ; if he had consistently supported Nicon, and enabled 
 him to put down his enemies ? They would have been these : 
 The government of the State, as well as of the Church, would 
 have been placed and secured in the hands of his friends, men 
 like him : the power of some great and bad men, near to the 
 Tsar, would have been effectually broken : Alexis on his death- 
 bed would not have had to feel the loss of a true personal friend, 
 nor to dread leaving an unsettled government to a sickly boy, 
 surrounded by bad men, who could not be trusted to act justly 
 by his second wife and her family. On the contrary he would 
 have left his elder son Theodore, and his second family, to the 
 charge of his Godfather, with a Government long since securely 
 settled in the hands of good men, among whom Matveeff would 
 naturally have held a prominent place. The deaths of Nicon 
 and of Theodore himself would have caused no danger with such 
 a Government. Matveeff would not have been in exile at the 
 moment when all depended on his presence. Sophia (if her own 
 character had not been differently developed,) would have had 
 no opportunity of returning the sin of her father upon the heads 
 of his children through her unhallowed ambition. She would 
 not have been able to deprive Peter of a becoming education. 
 Peter would not have been self-educated, or educated by such 
 men as Lefort, but by the disciples and friends of Nicon and 
 Matveeff. When he came, duly prepared, to power, he would 
 not have found an obscurantist and retrograde Hierarchy which 
 had already become the tools of the Boyars, and deserved no- 
 thing better than to receive the Tsar, or the Tsar's sword, for 
 their Patriarch : nor would he have found a Nobility incapable 
 of appreciating any thing great and useful in his schemes, or 
 incapable of restraining him by the weight of a legitimate in- 
 fluence from any thing unnational or preuiature 3 nor one which 
 for having trampled the Church under their feet deserved to be 
 trampled down themselves in turn, and to lose that political im- 
 portance which they had before possessed. He would never have 
 had occasion, real or imaginary, for making the horrible sacrifice 
 of his only sou and heir to the idol Civilization. Nor would his 
 throne have been left a prey to adventurers, to be occupied by 
 a strange woman of low origin. Nor would the succession to 
 the throne have been made to depend on the mere personal will 
 
IN THE SEVENTEKNTH CENTURY, 
 
 71 
 
 of the Sovereign, and rendered still more insecure by the pros- 
 tration of its natural bulwarks, the Hierarchy and the Nobility. 
 Nor would his posterity in the female line (if the succession had 
 ever come to them,) have either been what they were, or suc- 
 ceeded as they succeeded to the throne, or have done what they 
 did when seated on it. Nor would another strange woman, the 
 very type and embodiment of bis worldly policy, and such an 
 heir as his patriotism might have preferred to lineal descendants, 
 have murdered the last remains of his brother^s posterity and 
 his own. These are the things which humanly speaking, would 
 not and could not have happened, if Nicon had been maintained 
 in power. Whatever might have been the future destinies of 
 Russia, they could not have been these. 
 
 But Nicon fell : and his fall drew after it the deserved punish- 
 ment both of the Clergy, and of the Nobility, and of the reign- ^ 
 ing House ; a punishment which can never be reversed till the sin 
 which caused it is adequately confessed, and justice done to \ 
 those rights of the Church which Nicon represented. For it J 
 was not a mere personal struggle, but a struggle of two con- ) 
 trary principles concentrated, as often happens, around the / 
 person of a man whose position and character made him the apt \ 
 representative and embodiment of one of them. ■-' 
 
 But if this view be correct, and the fault of Alexis was to be so 
 terribly punished, how is it that we see after a century and a 
 half such a Sovereign as Alexander, in spite of the influences of a 
 philosophical education in a vicious Court, throwing himself 
 back upon principles of true patriotism and Orthodoxy at the 
 great crisis of his reign, the invasion of Russia by the French ? 
 Or how is it that we see again his brother, the present Emperor, 
 standing forth as the champion of order and religion, attracting 
 the respect of all well-disposed people throughout Europe by his 
 public character as a governor, and surrounded by a numerous 
 and amiable family, blessed with every apparent prospect of 
 leaving a throne secured to his posterity for many generations ? 
 And all this too while the Patriarchate or Primacy is still not 
 only infringed upon, but suppressed ; while the just liberty of 
 the Church for spiritual action is still denied her ; while the . 
 Emperor is still " Supreme Judge " of the Most Holy Synod ; an^ ; 
 an Act in which he is even styled " Head of the Church " still' 
 
72 DEPOSITION OF THE PATRIAKCH NICON 
 
 lies upon the Altar of the Cathedral in which he was Crowned at 
 Moscow ? 
 
 In answer to this question the reader may be reminded of 
 what has been said above, namely, that the consequences of the 
 struggle of the seventeenth century have not yet been fully 
 worked out. The relative positions of the secular and spiritual 
 powers have not even yet come to their final settlement. During 
 the last two reigns, though there has been no avowal of past 
 faults towards the Church, there has been a sort of awkward 
 attempt to dissemble and palliate them ; a half- movement in a 
 retrograde direction. " We do not now any longer such things 
 as were done by Peter the Great :" " It must be confessed 
 that Peter had une volonte forte, and did some things rather 
 brusquely : but the Eastern Patriarchs made good whatever was 
 irregular by their acquiescence, and by their recognition of the 
 Synod :" " I am only Oher-politzee-meister in the Church :" 
 "If the Emperor is called the Head of the Church, or the 
 Supreme Judge of the Synod, such titles mean only that he is 
 the supreme protector and guardian of the dogmas of the 
 dominant faith, the conservator of right faith and of all good 
 order in the holy Church." Such is the language of the civil 
 power in the present day. And so long as we see the mass of 
 the peo})le uneducated and believing, free from the idea or con- 
 sciousness of acquiescing in a State Supremacy in religion, while 
 the State itself on the other hand dissembles its usurpations, and 
 even slightly retrogrades from them, or from their consequences, 
 we may fairly say that the principles established have not as yet 
 been carried out in practice to their extreme consequences. 
 
 But this answer alone is no doubt insufficient. What if in 
 the sight of heaven the present Emperor and his Family are free 
 from the sin of Alexis and its debt of punishment ? For it is 
 not the same thing to inherit, as to create evil. What if they 
 have been placed where they are to be on their trial now ; to have 
 the knowledge and opportunity offered them to amend what is 
 amiss in their inherited relations to the Church ; to atone for the 
 faults of their predecessors; and so by doing their duty towards 
 (jloD and His Church to merit the establishment of their throne? 
 while, on the other hand, if unhappily they should neglect the 
 grace and ()])portuni(y given them, identifying themselves in 
 
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 73 
 
 spirit with the unacknowledged and unrepented sins of the State, 
 and either personally repeating and increasing them, or, seeing 
 their true nature, from worldly motives refusing to correct them, 
 then, before any one can argue from their prosperity or from the 
 prospects of their dynasty against the views advanced above, he 
 must wait to the end, and see what shall have been the history 
 of the present Family. God forbid that it should resemble that 
 of the family of Alexis, which yet was numerous and flourishing 
 in its day, educated with a refinement above the age of that 
 Sovereign, and in its individual members not destitute either of 
 personal beauty, fine talents, or amiable and religious dispo- 
 sitions ! 
 
DISSERTATION VI. 
 
 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, IN RELA- 
 TION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Irrespectively of the origin Divine or human, peaceful or vio- 
 lent, legitimate or illegitimate, of any Government, Christians 
 are taught by their religion to obey the existing ruler, whoever 
 he may be; to obey him, that is, so far as he demands either 
 passive submission or active service not inconsistent with any 
 higher duty of obedience towards God. 
 
 " Let every soul" it is written " be subject unto the higher 
 powers : for there is no power but of God : the powers that be 
 are ordained of God : whosoever therefore resisteth the power, 
 resisteth the ordinance of God : and they that resist shall re- 
 ceive to themselves damnation. For rvilers are not a terror 
 to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid 
 of the power ? do that which is good, and thou shalt have 
 praise of the same : for he is the minister of God to thee for 
 good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid ; for he beareth 
 not the sword in vain : for he is the minister of God, a revenger 
 to execute wrath upon him that doetli evil. Wherefore ye 
 must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience* 
 sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also : for they are God's 
 ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render 
 therefore to all their dues ; tribute to whom tribute is due, cus- 
 tom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom 
 honour." Rom. xiii. 1, ^c. 
 
 And again : " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man 
 for the Lord's sake ; whether it be to the King as supreme, or 
 unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the pun- 
 ishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well. 
 For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY. /O 
 
 silence the ignorance of foolish men : as free, and not using your 
 liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. 
 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour 
 the King.'' 1 <S. Peter ii. 13, ^-c. 
 
 If in these passages monarchy alone is distinctly mentioned 
 this is partly no doubt because the Apostles alluded to the then 
 existing Monarchy of the Roman Empire ; but also and chiefly 
 because in strict truth monarchy alone is government. It alone 
 is agreeable to nature and reason and the Divine intention : it 
 alone is consistent with itself in asserting authority and exacting 
 obedience : it alone can exist pure and absolute, and is most 
 perfect when most absolute, and stable and beneficial in propor- 
 tion as subjects are penetrated by the spirit of obedience which 
 it inculcates. It alone reproduces on earth a type and image of 
 the government of heaven. Whereas what is called popular 
 government is in essence no government at all, but only a ne- 
 gation of monarchy, and a spirit of self-assertion. Popular 
 government cannot ever exist pure; but it exists less or more 
 according as the spirit of self-assertion which generates it has 
 been arrested and fixed at an earlier or later stage of develop- 
 ment by some neutraUzing and counteracting elements. It is 
 by virtue of such arrestation, and by union with such contrary 
 elements alone, that what are called Constitutions and popular 
 or mixed governments are formed, and subsist, asserting incon- 
 sistently a sort of spurious authority, and exacting a sort of un- 
 real obedience, not in virtue of but in spite of their distinctive 
 principle. They then approach nearest to true government, are 
 most stable, and most beneficial, when they are most mixed, and 
 when their distinctive spirit is most checked and neutralized. 
 But they have then least the nature of government, are least 
 stable, and least capable of benefiting society, when they are 
 least mixed, and when society is most deeply and generally pe- 
 netrated by their distinctive spirit of self-assertion; a spirit 
 which if unchecked, or strong enough to overcome counteracting 
 forces, tends to hurry society from less popular to more popular 
 forms, and ultimately to produce on earth a likeness of the 
 anarchy of hell. 
 
 However, even those spurious forms of popular and mixed 
 government which are governments only in name are recognized. 
 
76 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, 
 
 SO soon as they exist de facto, by Christianity. The evil spirit 
 and principle in virtue of which they profess to exist is con- 
 demned ; but the spurious authority is honoured upon grounds 
 not its own, and receives an obedience which it could not claim 
 for itself. The expressions used by the Apostles when they 
 teach us to submit " to every ordinance of man'' and " to the 
 higher powers," on the ground that " the powers that he are or- 
 dained of God," are sufficiently general to include by implication 
 every variety of settled government or polity. And this is the 
 sense in which the Divine law has been understood and delivered 
 to us by the Church. 
 
 It may indeed sometimes be a question at what precise point 
 of time any government can rightly be said to exist de facto, so as to 
 have a true claim on our submission. The Jews thought (and 
 not erroneously,) that the empire of the Romans over them had 
 been gained by unjust aggression, and they collected from hence 
 that they had a right to rebel against the Romans whenever 
 they could do so with a prospect of success. They thought too 
 that if any one pretended to be the legitimate heir of the throne 
 of David, the descendant of their former kings who had reigned 
 by Divine appointment, and predestined himself by a Divine 
 promise to perpetual and universal empire, such an one could 
 not do otherwise than forbid them to pay tribute to Csesar. But 
 Christ answered them, contrary to their expectations, that 
 having submitted to the Roman power, and now using in the 
 contracts of daily life money stamped with the effigy and super- 
 scription of Csesar, they had no right to revolt, but were bound 
 to " render unto Csesar the things that were Csssar's." Hence 
 we learn that much less has any other nation (for none can 
 have a fairer pretext than had the Jews,) a right to rebel against 
 the power to which it has once fairly submitted. So long as 
 their native force is unsubdued they are bound to fight for their 
 country against a foreign invader : so long as the success of a 
 domestic usurper is doubtful, and their legitimate Sovereign has 
 his standard in the field, they are bound to abhor treason, and 
 to fight for their master's house. But when once the invader or 
 the usurper has conquered, so that resistance has ceased, and 
 life and property arc now protected by his laws, and his money 
 passes current as the medium of peaceful contracts, then, and 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 77 
 
 from that time forth, however natural it may be for national 
 pride or passion to revolt, the Divine law gives no sanction to 
 rebellion. Such is the Christian law of obedience to govern- 
 ments which exist de facto. 
 
 But though Christians, so far as they are truly such, will be 
 peaceable and obedient subjects or citizens under all govern- 
 ments alike, it is manifest from what has been said above that 
 not every form of government is equally congenial to Christi- 
 anity. However ready Christians may be to render obedience 
 and loyalty, obedience and loyalty cannot, from the nature of 
 the things themselves, be rendered to a power, so-called, which 
 professes more or less not to be a power but to depend on us, in 
 the same sense, or in the same degree, as to a real power which 
 teaches us that we depend on it. Christians rendering obedi- 
 ence to an absolute Sovereign support not only the existing 
 power but the principle of authority on which that power is 
 based. But in obeying, on grounds of their own, the require- 
 ments of a popular government, they support it only so far as it 
 is a government, not so far as it is popular. On the contrary 
 the nature of their obedience is such that it neutralizes, so far 
 as it goes, that principle of self-assertion on which popular 
 governments are based, and which they profess to inculcate or 
 recommend. In proportion as the spirit of Christianity prevails 
 under an absolute Monarchy it will render the principle of 
 monarchy powerful and stable : but in proportion as the same 
 spirit of Christianity prevails among the citizens of any popular 
 government it will either retard and modify, or altogether pre- 
 vent, their progress to a more popular form : or, if it become ab- 
 solutely predominant, it will tend to change the nature of the 
 Constitution so as to retrograde, gradually perhaps and uncon- 
 sciously but certainly, towards monarchy. It would cause 
 s])ontaneous and peaceful revolutions upwards, such as the world 
 has little prospect of seeing. Lastly, so far as a government is 
 absolute or authoritative, it is an instrument for training all its 
 subjects to humility and obedience, which Christianity regards as 
 most important natural virtues, easily passing into Christian 
 virtues of the same names. But so far as a government is popu- 
 lar, it is an instrument for training all its citizens to discontent, 
 pride, vanity, self-assertion, irreverence, and sceptical indiffe- 
 
78 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, 
 
 rence or infidelity ; all which are vices most contrary to 
 Christianity, and the increase of which the Christian must re- 
 gard as an enormous evil. 
 
 When then so many in the West revile and despise the Rus- 
 sian people on account of their devoted loyalty and obedience to 
 an absolute Sovereign, they revile and despise that which is in 
 truth the praise and glory and happiness of the Russians : and 
 when they praise as virtue the spirit of pride and self-assertion 
 which prevails among themselves, and vaunt the " free institu- 
 tions " which have arisen from this spirit, they are in fact glory- 
 ing in their own unhappiness and shame. 
 
 It may be worth while to consider what are the sources of so 
 great an error ; an error which in the West is by no means con- 
 fined to men evidently turbulent and wicked, and which too 
 often has the sympathy of individuals of the higher classes even 
 among the Russians themselves. 
 
 Now that the defects and excesses incidental to absolute 
 monarchy are as nothing compared with the evils inseparable 
 from the direct rule of the nmltitude is generally allowed. But 
 it is not so clear, even to sensible men, that the evils inherent 
 in a mixed government in virtue of its theory, are greater than 
 the evils incidental to an absolute monarchy in spite of its 
 theory ; or that the benefits secured to a people by a mixed con- 
 stitution are not practically, and upon the whole, greater than 
 those which are secured by an absolute monarchy. The chief 
 causes which operate to deceive men's minds are the following : 
 
 First, well-meaning people living under a more or less popular 
 form of government, and enjoying those benefits which it is the 
 nature of all settled government, as such, to afi"ord, are apt to 
 ascribe to the mixed character, or even specially to the popular 
 character, of their own Constitution good efi'ects which in truth 
 are neither produced nor favoured by its popular element, but 
 are lessened and thwarted by it, and would be produced in a 
 higher degree by a pure and consistent monarchy. Secondly, 
 having their ideas formed by their own circumstances, and being 
 naturally partial to themselves, they either do not perceive at all, 
 or undervalue, the pernicious effect of popular principles in train- 
 ing a whole people to lower and lower views of faith and 
 obedience, and in encouraging pride and self-assertion. They 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 79 
 
 even look with complacency on these destructive and odious 
 vices, as producing or favouring certain pagan virtues, such as 
 manliness, truthfulness, honour, patriotism, enterprise, industry, 
 self-respect, progress, civilization, enlightenment, and the like. 
 They do not perceive that representative, and especially mixed 
 representative, government is of necessity nothing else than a 
 perpetual round of lying, trickery, and overreaching. On the 
 other hand they either do not see at all, or undervalue, the bene- 
 fits commonly conferred by absolute monarchy in favouring faith 
 and humility. They even look with aversion and contemjit on 
 these virtues, as tending to foster certain real or supposed vices, 
 such aa slavishness, untruthfulness, dishonesty, stationariness, 
 barbarism, ignorance, superstition, and the like. Tlurdly, 
 setting an exaggerated value on worldly goods, and noticing 
 that popular institutions (at least when favoured by national 
 character,) seem to promote energy, enterprise, and competition, 
 and generally that sort of social progress and prosperity which 
 the many can best appreciate, more than absolute monarchy, 
 they take this to be a proof of the superiority of popular insti- 
 tutions. Lastly, they omit to allow for the influence of extra- 
 neous and incidental advantages, which in particular cases may 
 give permanence and prosperity to mixed or popular govern- 
 ments, just as the vices and cruelties or incapacity of individual 
 rulers may in particular cases make monarchy unstable and 
 calamitous. And thus they will ascribe to liberal institutions 
 effects which really belong to some happiness of national 
 character, or of local circumstances, to the remains perhaps of 
 older monarchical ideas and customs, and above all to the in- 
 fluence of Apostolical Christianity arresting, or retarding and 
 mitigating, the downward developments of liberalism. 
 
 However, as there is generally some foundation in truth even 
 for erroneous judgments, when widely spread and not confined 
 to the ignorant and vicious, we may admit that the causes 
 enumerated above do not of themselves afford a sufiicient ex- 
 planation ; but that there have been in modern times, or are 
 still, in the Russian Government and people some considerable 
 faults which account for their not obtaining on the whole, even 
 from the admirers of monarchy, such respect or favour as mon- 
 archy and loyalty deserve ; while the comparative absence in 
 
80 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIEXCEj AND LIBERTY, 
 
 Russia of certain virtues which flourish, whether in reahty or 
 semblance,in the West in connection with Hberal institutions, may 
 seem to be owing to the pressure of despotic power. 
 
 Certainly the Russian Government at the present time is not 
 notorious in the West for acts of flagrant injustice or cruelty : 
 nor do sober-minded people believe that the Emperor or his 
 governors really flog Polish nuns to death. On the contrary, 
 in all things that relate to material well-being and progress^ the 
 Government is evidently enlightened, paternal, and philanthro- 
 pic. It shows anxiety to mitigate the evils of the existing 
 system of serfage, and to prepare the way for its final abolition. 
 It corrects administrative abuses, and introduces improvements. 
 It encourages education, both spiritual and secular. It patro- 
 nizes art, science, and conrimerce. It protects without invading 
 the doctrine and worship of the dominant Church, which it 
 favours with moderation ; while it tolerates the existence of 
 certain other sects, without however allowing them to spread by 
 proselytism. It is active in developing the internal resources of 
 the Empire. It protects life and property by an efficient police, 
 and by the regular administration of justice. And lastly, with an 
 immense force at its command, it shows moderation in its deal- 
 ings with foreign States, and lends a powerful support to the 
 maintenance of existing treaties, and to the general cause of 
 law, order, and religion throughout Christendom. 
 
 Yet with all this it does not command confidence and esteem. 
 Apart from the hatred of democrats and constitution-mongers 
 (which is simply honourable to it,) it is suspected and feared 
 even by men of monarchical principles. It is suspected even 
 for its very merits. Men can understand that people governing 
 themselves may have a selfish interest in their own material wel- 
 fare and progress : but if an absolute monarch shows himself a 
 prudent administrator of his empire, this, they think, must be 
 owing either to a sense of duty towards God, or to some ulterior 
 motive. Now they do not give the Russian Government at 
 present credit for any sincere faith or zeal towards God. They 
 see that instead of honouring the Successors of the Apostles, 
 giving them free scope to act within their proper sphere, and 
 listening reverently to their counsels or reproofs, it has broken 
 the power of the Hierarchy, robbed it of its possessions, and 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 81 
 
 subjected its action even in purely spiritual matters to a most 
 jealous and stifling control. And this being so, tbey consider 
 the maintenance of doctrinal and ritual religion in the statu quo 
 to be hypocritical, partly from fear of the people, and partly from 
 policy; and suspect that system of good government which pre- 
 vails in lower matters, and which manifestly tends to develope 
 the strength and resources of the Empire, to be pursued of set 
 purpose, to subserve future schemes of violence and ambition. 
 But absolute power aiming after selfish and unjust ends, with 
 great means at its disposal, and with profound hypocrisy and 
 far-seeing cunning making religion itself and good government 
 its instruments for compassing them, would no doubt be suffi- 
 ciently odious and formidable to its neighbours. Add to this 
 the sight of a great and increasing immorality among the 
 higher classes ; a hypocritical conformity to the dominant 
 religion joined with the most reckless scepticism or impiety, the 
 basest adulation of the Government in public joined, too often, 
 with the most traitorous and absurd liberalism in private ; a 
 too general corruption in all departments of administration ; 
 a too general abuse of power and influence, and oppression of the 
 weaker by the stronger; a general suppleness and duplicity of 
 character, and an absence of frankness and self-respect. Add, 
 lastly, the sight of a Hierarchy and Clergy which instead 
 of correcting by good counsels, if listened to, the mistakes and 
 excesses of the government, the police, and the censorship, or 
 illustrating the Church and raising the national character, if not 
 listened to, by suffering patiently for truth and righteousness, 
 lying prostrate and dumb, despised by the higher classes of 
 society, worshipping with slavish adulation the hand that chains 
 and feeds them, and acquiescing without sense or consciousness 
 in the degradation of religion and of the Church to be mere in- 
 struments of secular government. 
 
 In fact, though Monarchy is in itself excellent and divine, 
 and far superior to all spurious or less perfect forms of govern- 
 ment, still human weakness and corruption is such, that even 
 Christian monarchies for the most part minister to the purpose 
 of God for the well-being of society only by the necessity of 
 their nature, but with a will and spirit and purpose of their own 
 which is not in conformity to the Divine will, nor to the interest 
 
 G 
 
82 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, 
 
 of the Church of Christ. It is only on rare occasions that 
 history gives us a bright but transient ghnipse of what Christian 
 government ought to be, and shows us an earthly Sovereign 
 ministering in obedient faith and love to that heavenly Sovereign 
 of whom he is the image and representative. In general the 
 Empires of this world are by Divine sufferance under the in- 
 fluence of him who is called " the Prince of this world," follow- 
 ing after glory, conquest, power, interest, national progress, 
 enlightenment, and other idols. Not only the old idolatrous 
 heathen Empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, which 
 successively trampled under foot the sanctuaries of Jerusalem, 
 and under which the holy seed was scattered among the nations 
 of the earth, but also the continuations of those Empires or of the 
 last of them, the Roman, even under the Christian dispensation, 
 are pourtrayed to us in Holy Scripture as holding the seat and 
 authority of the dragon, that is of Satan, and as being at 
 variance with the Church of God and with His Saints. And 
 they are symbolized by fierce and evil beasts rising out of the 
 sea, that is, out of the commotions and changes of the races and 
 nations of mankind. But it belongs to goodness only and to 
 holiness to be at unity with itself, so that the greater can glorify 
 God for the less, and the less for the greater, and those virtues 
 and graces which seem most contrasted (as rule, courage, energy, 
 are contrasted with obedience, humility, patience,) can appre- 
 ciate and love each other. Thus it is with the Saints of the 
 Lamb, and in the order of the Heavenly Kingdom ; as it is also 
 with the harmonious varieties and contrasts of the material 
 Creation. But thus in the empire of the dragon it is not. His 
 subordinate powers are at war not only with God but among 
 themselves, " hateful themselves, and hating others." And so, if 
 governments, and national characters, differ one from another, 
 then, so far as they are evil, nations will naturally misappreciate 
 and hate or despise whatever is uncongenial to their own several 
 states. Of whatever kind the evil beasts may be which will 
 symbolize the different powers of modern Europe, the " military 
 vanity " of France, the " cold interestedncss " of England, the 
 " stifling despotism '' of Russia, the " restless materialism " of 
 the United States of America, it is natural that such evil beasts 
 should look askance, growling and snarling, at one another, and 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 83 
 
 from time to time claw, and bite, and roar in open conflict. In 
 one thing only they will be agreed, that is, in dislike of the doc- 
 trine and discipline of the Gospel, and in a disposition one way 
 or another to thwart and enfeeble the imvard Church. 
 
 But we need not dwell on this dark side of things. We may 
 remember that there is another and a better point of view from 
 which we may regard governments so far as they are governments, 
 and the rulers and subjects or citizens of each so far as they 
 are men, who may be well-disposed in themselves, and may be living 
 under such circumstances as excuse or extenuate their faults 
 and enhance their virtues. Thus the appearance in Englishmen of 
 a spirit of orthodoxy, of loyalty and obedience to authority, and, 
 more generally, of religious reverence, sober-mindedness and 
 humility, ought to be particularly admirable and attractive to 
 the eyes of a Russian, inasmuch as he must know how very un- 
 favourable to the production of such virtues ai'c the circum- 
 stances of England : much more, if the same virtues should be 
 discernible in American republicans. And in like manner many 
 habits of thought and speech and conduct which would be most 
 culpable in a Russian Christian, or in a Russian subject, would be 
 viewed in Englishmen or Americans by candid and charitable 
 Russians only as slight and venial defects : for instance, the habit 
 of publishing idly and mischievously real faults or vices of their 
 temporal and spiritual Heads. On the other hand the appear- 
 ance in Russians of sincerity and fearlessness in the cause of 
 truth and righteousness, with a noble disregard of worldly con- 
 sequences, ought to seem particularly admirable and attractive to 
 Englishmenor Americans, inasmuch as they will consider the at- 
 mosphere of Russia to be peculiarly unfavourable for such virtues. 
 
 In a certain sense, no doubt, all governments depend on 
 public opinion, feeling, and custom, and must take their direc- 
 tion from it. And so, it is quite possible under a monarchy, 
 no less than under a republic, for any evil to have gone so far 
 that it is beyond the power of the government to correct it. 
 Henry VIII. or Queen Elizabeth, for instance, if they could 
 return to life in England at the present day to reign again as 
 despots, and as Heads or Supreme Governors of the Church, 
 would be utterly unable to dispossess those heresies which they in 
 the sixteenth century forced upon a passive or reluctant nation. 
 
84 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE AND LIBERTY, 
 
 Still, speaking generally and upon the whole, absolute monarchy 
 has this among its other advantages that, if anything has gone 
 wrong, the evil is much more capable of correction than uuder a 
 popular form of government. Uuder the latter there can be no 
 correction (though of course good men should labour for it,) un- 
 less the mind and will of the people, of the electoral and repre- 
 sentative classes, or the majority of them, be informed and 
 persuaded, and the course of the whole body forced backwards, 
 which is all but impossible : for the many are always incompe- 
 tent or evil ; and a whole people can scarcely repent. But 
 under a monarchy the error or fault is in general only that of 
 one man, or of a few ; or at the worst it is only a system and 
 tradition of policy the maintenance of which (like its first intro- 
 duction,) rests with one man or with a few. And for the cor- 
 rection of such faults it needs only that the mind of the 
 Sovereign himself or of a few of his chief servants should be 
 influenced. 
 
 It cannot be too constantly borne in mind by subjects, that 
 the character of their rulers, and that of the government under 
 which they are to live, will depend mainly upon their own. 
 Nothing can be more false than to imagine that subjects under 
 an absolute Monarchy have nothing to do but to obey simply 
 and mechanically, like slaves or cattle. This is indeed the obe- 
 dience which is exacted by despotism and tyranny, when the 
 particular appetite or caprice of the master is his only law. But 
 the theory of absolute monarchy, of true government, as such, 
 is very different. It requires of the ruler that he govern not 
 arbitrarily and irresponsibly, but as the servant of God, with wis- 
 dom, virtue, and religion : and of the subjects it requires that 
 they render not a blind and indiscriminating, but an intelligent, 
 virtuous, and religious obedience. If the Sovereign be ever so 
 perfect, but the people are rebellious, or vicious, or brutishly stu- 
 pid and apathetic, he cannot, in the nature of things, reign over 
 them as a Christian Khig, but must deal with them, if he has 
 the power, in some other way. On the other hand, if the Sove- 
 reign, as a man, chanced to be ever so vicious, seeking to rule 
 like a despot or a tyrant, or ever so incompetent, but his sub- 
 jects, all of them or the majority, were virtuous, religious, and 
 intelligent, it is evident that even the vicious Sovereign would 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 85 
 
 be constrained to govern well, and the incompetent enabled to 
 govern wisely. But these extreme cases of total inaptitude, 
 either in subjects or rulers, are scarcely likely to occur : it is in 
 the more mixed and ordinary cases, where the Sovereign, if good, 
 is yet not without his faults and defects, or, if bad, is not inca- 
 pable of being made worse or better, that the vast responsibility 
 incumbent on subjects, especially on such as are in the higher 
 stations, and the vast importance of true loyalty is most seen. 
 If, on the one hand, for any faults or excesses of their ruler 
 they refuse due obedience, foment a spirit of resistance and dis- 
 order, or even actually rebel, and risk civil war, the mischief and 
 the wickedness are plain, and need not that we should dwell upon 
 them. But if, on the other hand, they render an undue obedi- 
 ence, the obedience of evil or cowardly men, or of stupid and 
 passive slaves, the mischief to society will be hardly less. Mis- 
 government under bad rulers will be facilitated and exaggerated ; 
 and the faults and defects of well-intentioned rulers will be 
 magnified and perpetuated, instead of admitting correction. 
 Not only is it the moral and rehgious duty of all men to prefer 
 the higher to the lower authority if anything wrong is com- 
 manded by this latter, and to obey God rather than man, but, 
 even as regards the earthly Sovereign, true affection, true loyalty, 
 true obedience requires of subjects quite as much that they 
 should remonstrate against and, it may be, disobey what is 
 mistakenly, viciously, or irreligiously commanded, as that they 
 should obey in executing what is wisely, virtuously, and religi- 
 ously commanded. The subject or servant who from being evil 
 himself, or from fear or interest, ministers to a bad Monarch, 
 or to an erring Monarch, for evil, who praises to him evil men 
 or evil measures, or is silent while others praise them, who 
 neglects to declare on proper occasions what is truth, and 
 justice, and duty, or to remonstrate against evil, who will 
 not risk by refusing to be an instrument of evil loss of favour, 
 honour, rank, wealth, power, or life itself, is a traitor no less 
 than if he joined or formed a conspiracy, or publicly slandered 
 his Sovereign, or purposely gave him bad counsel to his hurt, 
 or revealed his secrets, or betrayed his troops or fortresses to 
 the enemy, or fled through cowardice from the field of battle. 
 And, as regards society at large, he who from fear of worldly 
 
86 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, 
 
 consequences, or from motives of interest, praises or defends 
 any excesses or evil acts of tyrants or their ministers, or (still 
 more,) any occasional faults or errors of such monarchs as are 
 on the whole well-intentioned, or who refrains from blaming 
 theui on proper occasions, is by his vicious and mischievous adu- 
 lation a corrupter of his fellow-subjects, and a subverter of his 
 country, and of the Throne, no less than if he refrained from 
 praising on fit occasion, or even maliciously calumniated and 
 misrepresented, the virtuous and beneficent and religious acts of 
 a good government. 
 
 True loyalty and obedience in subjects is so far from being 
 inconsistent with liberty, that without liberty it cannot exist. 
 For there is such a thing also as true liberty, which is a privilege, 
 a hajipiness, and a reward, no less than true obedience and true 
 authority, the rendering and exercising of which are duties. The 
 world is not wholly wrong when it abhors something which it 
 calls " slavery," and aspires after something which it calls 
 "liberty;'^ though, being evil, it can never escape the one or 
 attain the other, nor comprehend what either of them really are. 
 The true slavery is for a will naturally free to be subjected by 
 force to some other will external and contrary to itself; as when 
 the inner man, that is, the reason or conscience, is overcome by 
 particular passions or habits, or when bad men, or imperfect, 
 are constrained by fear or interest to obey any law or will con- 
 trary to their own. True liberty in the creature is, primarily, 
 to be in union with his supreme Creator and Ruler, so as to 
 love and do His will spontaneously : secondarily, to be at peace 
 with himself, so that all particular appetites and passions either 
 actually concur with the inner will, that is, with reason and 
 conscience and good habit, or obey it without reluctance. And 
 as for political liberty, that subject or citizen is iv\\\y free whose 
 w'\\\ coincides with the will of the existing government, so far as 
 it is truly government. Not he who has power to rebel or dis- 
 obey with impunity ; nor he whose will happens to coincide 
 with any tyrannical caprice or erring will of a particular monarch 
 or republic ; but he whose will concurs with the existing earthly 
 government, so far as the will of that government itself concurs 
 with the supreme government of God. The earthly ruler, so 
 far as he has any true authority, can have it only as the slave 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. o7 
 
 and servant or minister of the Lord : and the earthly subject, 
 SO far as he has auy true Hberty, can have it ouly as the freeman 
 of the Lord. The subject for the Lord's sake obeys and vene- 
 rates his earthly Sovereign (so far as he is really a Sovereign,) 
 willingly, not of constraint ; as a free man, not as a slave or 
 machine ; of love, not of fear ; or if of fear also, still this is not 
 an abject but a religious fear, on account of the image of the 
 Divine authority which he bears. But in proportion as any 
 ruler or government demands of the subject any irreligious, or 
 unjust or unfitting obedience, or compliance, or accord, he 
 whose habit and will is in unison with the will of God and with 
 true government, and at variance with the erring will of the in- 
 dividual earthly tyrant, or of the imperfect government, is free. 
 He will do the will of God, which is also his own will, without 
 looking to the right hand or to the left : he will constantly speak 
 the truth, and boldly rebuke vice and injustice : he will do that 
 which all government must be supposed, from its very nature, 
 to will and command, even though the individual ruler may say 
 that he wills something else : and if he cannot persuade the 
 ruler, nor prevent or correct evil, he will for God's sake even 
 more willingly and cheerfully suflfer unjust anger, punishment, 
 or death, than he would for his own gratification have accepted 
 honour or rewards. He will be really free then both when he 
 obeys just commands, and (more manifestly) when he disobeys 
 what are unjust ; and lastly he will be free, and most free, 
 when he suffers ; because, first, he will suffer nothing contrary 
 to his own will, (for his will is to suffer in obedience to the will 
 of God;) and then, further, because by suflFering he shows his 
 own will to be more free and stronger than the greatest powers 
 of this world, and triumphs over them openly in the eyes of all 
 those who are capable of understanding and admiring virtue, 
 and of being taught to imitate it. 
 
 Authority then. Obedience, and Liberty, having all three their 
 sources in Religion, and so far as they come to be disjoined from 
 religion being necessarily perverted and corrupted, it is mani- 
 fest how much must depend in every Christian nation upon the 
 life and purity of religion, and upon the spirit and zeal of its 
 Hierarchy and Clergy. Sent at the beginning to teach and 
 Baptize all nations, and to bear the name of Christ before 
 
88 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, 
 
 Kings and Governors, to whom they rendered a perfect obedi- 
 ence in temporal things, but whose will they utterly disregarded 
 in matters of religion, the Apostles by their teaching and suf- 
 ferings laid the foundation of that society which was afterwards 
 to be called Christendom, and made Christian authority. Chris- 
 tian obedience, and Christian liberty, possible for future gene- 
 rations, lie that had been merely a heathen chieftain or tyrant 
 before, with such authority as it might happen, when he received 
 the Faith and was Baptized, became for the future a Christian 
 Sovereign over brethren, holding his authority intelligently of 
 God, and having a Divine law by which to exercise it. And the 
 people, who in their state of nature before had rendered such 
 obedience and arrogated to themselves such liberty as it hap- 
 pened, upon listening to the Gospel and being Baptized re- 
 ceived, together with the grace of God, a new view of the autho- 
 rity of their Princes over them, and of their own duty of 
 obedience, and of the nature of true liberty. After their Bap- 
 tism Christian Princes had still with them the same Teachers 
 who first raised their power from being merely natural to be 
 reasonable and religious to assist, instruct, and correct them in 
 all that related to its exercise. And Christian peoples after their 
 Baptism had still with them the same Teachers who first ennobled 
 their political obedience and liberty, made them compatible the 
 one with the other, and raised them above the state of nature, 
 to teach, rebuke, and correct them in their relations to their 
 Christian Governors. So then the Hierarchy are naturally and 
 originally in the place of teachers both to the Sovereign and to the 
 people in all Christian nations : and any disposition to disown this 
 relation, or to displace the Hierarchy from it, signifies neither 
 more nor less than apostacy from Christianity. 
 
 Besides that it is their mission and duty, the Clergy are 
 manifestly fitted by their ofiice, their mode of life, their exclu- 
 sion from secular aff'airs, and other advantages, for being the 
 suggesters of motives both to rulers and subjects, the correctors 
 of any thing that may be amiss, and the maintainers of har- 
 mony between the different functions of society, and of a just 
 balance between authority and liberty. An earthly authority 
 inculcating on the people obedience to itself through its sa- 
 tellites and schoolmasters would gain little by the attempt. 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 89 
 
 but would be more likely in tbe long run to produce a spirit of 
 disloyalty ; both because the teaching would be destitute of per- 
 suasive authority, and because he is naturally suspected who 
 speaks much in his own behalf. The very attempt to persuade 
 in him whose place it is to command, is significant of weakness 
 and apprehension. But the instruction and exhortation of the 
 ministers of God, speaking in His name, appointed equally to 
 teach the prince and the peasant, and independent of both, 
 while by their character and office, by their exclusion from 
 worldly callings, and their devotion to works of charity and 
 mercy and of spiritual consolation, they engage especially the 
 sympathies of the poor, are likely to have a very different efiect. 
 So too, if any thing is amiss in a ruler, it would not be con- 
 venient for the people to see laymen rebuking, correcting, or 
 guiding their Sovereign. It would tend to his dishonour and 
 reproach, to the obscuration of his pre-eminence, and perhaps 
 even to absolute danger. But in listening to his Spiritual Father, 
 who is revered by all as a minister of religion, but is inca- 
 pacitated by his office from aspiring to secular command, and 
 disgraces himself if he is forward to meddle with secular afi'airs, 
 who is bound to teach to all humility, loyalty, and obedience, 
 and to set an example of these virtues himself, a Sovereign has 
 no cause for jealousy or fear, lest his authority be weakened or 
 dishonoured. On the contrary the giving and receiving of 
 counsel, admonition, or reproof, in such a way is graceful, hon- 
 ourable, and beneficial both to religion and to the State. 
 
 Human nature being everywhere prone to evil, and to no 
 evil more than to insubordination and lawlessness, it will be 
 everywhere the duty of the Clergy by their teaching and ex- 
 ample to inculcate obedience and loyalty. And more especially in 
 popularly-governed countries, where they may even themselves 
 be in danger from the infection of the democratical spirit, they 
 should do their utmost to remedy in some degree the plague of 
 society by inculcating a spirit of sobermindedness, humility, 
 and obedience, so far as obedience may yet be right or possible. 
 But under absolute governments, where they may rather be in 
 danger of being carried away with the multitude by fear or 
 interest to an excessive and slavish adulation, they are bound 
 more especially to teach by their words and their examples the 
 
90 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, 
 
 difference between spurious and true, hypocritical and sincere 
 loyalty, between the intelligent, reasonable, and religious obe- 
 dience of the Christian subject, and the vicious or brutish sub- 
 serviency of the concealed traitor or the slave. For it cannot 
 be expected that lay servants and subjects should have the spirit 
 on proper occasions to decline compliance, to remonstrate, or 
 to teach and correct erring Sovereigns, if the Hierarchy fail to 
 set them the example : any more than that Bishops and Priests 
 should navigate fleets or command armies, if they who are sailors 
 and soldiers by profession fail to do it. And if unhappily the 
 Prince, and the great men, and the people in any State all fail 
 of their duty, or if the Prince and the great men wrong the 
 poor, or religion, the Clergy are the only representatives of 
 truth, justice, and mercy, left upon earth : and if they fail too, 
 the evil is indeed irremediable. 
 
 If in any countries the Clergy have sought to carry religion 
 beyond its just limits, seeking to subject Kings and Emperors 
 to a direct or indirect temporal Supremacy, or in a lower sphere 
 have assisted domestic factions and rebellions of traitors or 
 democrats, or the arms of foreign enemies, such ministers of 
 religion have plainly departed from the precepts and example 
 of the Apostles Paul and Peter, and of the Martyrs, who honoured 
 and obeyed the heathen Caesars from Nero to Diocletian, have 
 incapacitated themselves from teaching consistently or efficiently 
 obedience and loyalty, and have prepared the way for future in- 
 roads of the temporal power upon the spiritual, and for the law- 
 less insurrection of democracy against both. But of such an 
 excess we need say little, as there is nothing in the present 
 circumstances of the world to suggest the probability of its oc- 
 currence. And for the past, whatever may have been the case 
 in the West, the Clergy of the Eastern Church have never given 
 Princes a.ny just ground for jealousy or suspicion. On the other 
 hand if the secular power, as has been too common, should 
 anywhere have invaded the spiritual, carrying political govern- 
 ment beyond its just limits, and seeking to subject the Succes- 
 sors of the Apostles and their Churches to a direct or indirect 
 State Supremacy, and the Clergy have not had the spirit and wis- 
 dom to resist such invasion, and to maintain their proper relation 
 towards the Kings and nations which they originally converted 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 91 
 
 and Baptized^ the secular ruler in this case has simply impaired 
 or destroyed religion by attempting to reduce that which is 
 spiritual under his own control : he has degraded the Hierarchy 
 without gaining any real advantage to himself : on the contrary, 
 he has sapped the basis of his own authority, and prepared the 
 way for the Nobility and for the people first to follow him (as 
 they followed in England Queen Elizabeth,) into vice and irre- 
 ligion, and then, by a just retribution, perhaps to murder him, 
 (as the English murdered Charles the First,) or to drive him 
 and his family from the throne, (as the English drove out James 
 IT. and his posterity,) and establish a democratical anarchy 
 both political and religious. And in the same case the Hierarchy 
 which submits to such encroachments are plainly no successors 
 in spirit of those Apostles and Martyrs who so undauntedly 
 asserted their own mission to teach the world against all the au- 
 thority of the Roman Emperors, from Nero to Diocletian, who by 
 their patience in suflfering m three hundred years overthrew the 
 estabhshed worship of idols, and founded and cemented with 
 their blood the new order of Christian society, ecclesiastical and 
 political. By their subserviency and timidity they gain no real 
 advantage either for themselves or for the people ; nor do any 
 real service, or show any real fidelity or loyalty, to the secular 
 Government. Rather they degrade themselves, their ofiice, and 
 religion ; they sell the souls of the poor ; they abandon the flock 
 of Christ unfed and unfolded to the wolves of this world ; they 
 prepare destruction instead of security for that King of Moab 
 whom, like Balaam, they serve for gain ; and they are in danger 
 of being brought with Balaam and Judas to a fearful account at 
 the end. As for such a Hierarchy to advise and correct their 
 Sovereign in his political government, to support the throne in 
 times of weakness or trouble, to defend the cause of the poor, to 
 maintain the balance between the conflicting tendencies of out- 
 ward authority and outward licence, to prevent, by the admix- 
 ture of a spiritual element and the presence of a spiritual check, 
 absolute monarchy from becoming despotism or tyranny, obedi- 
 ence and loyalty from becoming vicious and slavish subservience, 
 reasonable and religious liberty from passing into a cloke of 
 licentiousness, — these offices would manifestly be impossible. 
 If then any Christian Clergy would preserve in due propor- 
 
92 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, 
 
 tion the mutual relations of Church and State, and so be capable 
 of teaching Christian Princes and peoples in lesser matters, they 
 have only one thing to do ; (the lesson is brief and simple, but 
 the practice is no light matter;) to study to have the same spirit 
 and to act in the same way towards temporal Sovereigns now 
 as the Apostles and their successors acted during the first four 
 ages of Christianity; with the same unsullied and immoveable 
 loyalty in worldly things, and with the same unmistakeable atti- 
 tude of teachers and independent governors in spiritual things ; 
 rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but exacting 
 also from Caesar for God the things that are God's. 
 
 Lastly, if any one desire to see more in detail some rule or 
 pattern for temporal Sovereignty itself, which in its proper 
 sphere is supreme, over Clergy no less than over laity, and is re- 
 sponsible to God alone, he may find it in the Hundred-and-first 
 Psalm, (LXX. p.) of which the following is an amplification: — 
 
 The Meditation of a Christian Sovereign : 
 
 "My song, my meditation, shall be of the duties of my 
 station ; of mercy and judgment : first, of mercy, that is, of 
 tender paternal care for the welfare, spiritual, moral, and tem- 
 poral, of all my subjects; and then also of judgment, that is, of 
 the administration of true justice between man and man, of the 
 restraint of wickedness and vice, and the punishment of evil- 
 doers, both for their own correction, and for the advantage of 
 society. Unto Thee, Lord, will I sing. Unto Thee will I 
 lift up my heart in my meditation. I will not direct my inten- 
 tion in ruling to any secondary end. I will not look to the 
 tempter, though he may offer me all the kingdoms of the world : 
 nor to the idols of ambition, glory, public opinion, patriotism, 
 civilization, enlightenment, progress : nor to any selfish motives 
 of pleasure, passion, or ease. But I will offer my thoughts, my 
 motives, my designs, my actions, my meditations, my prayers, 
 with fear and love unto Thee, Lord : for Thou art my King, 
 and my God ; and I am Thy servant. For Thy sake alone, and 
 because it is Thy will, I will endeavour, with Thy help, to rule 
 my fellow-men, my brethren, whom otherwise I would prefer to 
 serve. So shall I have understanding in the way of godliness. 
 O let me have understanding in the way of godliness ! give 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 93 
 
 me of Thy heavenly wisdom, that I may understand how to 
 govern well ! wisdom, not so much for the lower ends and de- 
 tails of government, as for the higher : understanding in the 
 way of godliness ; that is, that I may think and feel and believe 
 rightly concerning the Orthodox and Catholic Faith, concerning 
 the unity and authority of Thy holy Catholic aud Apostolic 
 Church, concerning the due relation of Kings to the Christian 
 Hierarchy, and of the Hierarchy to Kings : and that I may 
 govern well, so as to defend and assist the holy Church, and 
 promote her union within herself, her spiritual efficiency in 
 teaching, disciplining, or reclaiming the Christian people, and 
 her extension among the nations which have not yet learned 
 Christ. For Thou hast bidden rulers also as well as others 
 to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
 hast promised to as many as do thus that all other things which 
 are necessary either for themselves or for their subjects shall be 
 added unto them. When wilt Thou come unto me ? This is 
 my motive, this is my desire, this is my end and hope in all 
 that I do, that by governing Thy people in obedience to Thy 
 will, for their good, and to Thy glory, I may obtain, in common 
 with the meanest of them, the salvation of my own soul : that I 
 may be accepted by Thee the King of kings, by Thee Who being 
 Maker and Lord of all didst empty Thyself of Thy glory, and 
 condescend to become an outcast upon earth, and a servant of 
 servants for my sake, making for ever afterwards humility and 
 poverty and suffering precious, but pride and vain-glory con- 
 temptible and miserable. For Thou hast said, ' If a man love 
 me, he will keep my words ; and my Father will love him, 
 and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.' 
 Make me, Lord, to love Thee ! Help me, that I may keep 
 Thy words ! Yea, I will keep them with my whole heart. I 
 see the vanity of worldly things : I see the difficulties and dan- 
 gers of my exaltation : I am weary of a life so unsuitable in its 
 outward circumstances for my weakness and sinfulness, so like 
 to the life of Herod, of Pilate, of Csesar, so unlike the life on 
 earth of the true King of Israel. When shall it be over ? that is, 
 so that it be over well and happily ? When wilt Thou come 
 unto me ? come unto me day by day by Thy grace, to assist 
 and support and enable me ! and give me at the end some part. 
 
94 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, OBEDIENCE, AND LIBERTY, 
 
 however small, with the poor who in this life have received with 
 Lazarus and with Thee evil things. Shut not up my soul with 
 the sinners : nor with those rich men who have their portion in 
 this life : nor with those great men of the earth who on account 
 of their greatness shall be mightily tormented ! And what way 
 shall I take to obtain my desire ? Even this : I will walk in my 
 house with a perfect heart, or in innocency of my heart. My 
 walk, that is, my steps, the course and conduct of my life, in my 
 family, in my court, and in my kingdom, shall be ordered by 
 the pure and single motive of the fear and love of God. My 
 heart shall be whole with Him, not divided : my conscience 
 clear and open towards Him. I will not set before my eyes, that 
 is, by desire or purpose, any unrighteous thing, as any unjust 
 war, any wrong to the Church, oppression of subjects, gratifica- 
 tion of any sinful lust, or of anger, or revenge, or pride. On 
 the contrary I will strive more and more to hate such sins of 
 unfaithfulness, with all tendencies to them, and all remains of 
 them, both in myself and in others. Yea, Lord, I do hate 
 them : I hate the sins of impiety, heresy, schism, sacrilege, pro- 
 faneness, violence, murder, adultery, uncleanness, robbery, 
 fraud, slander, covetousness, and such like. A crooked and 
 perverse heart, a heart that lifts not up itself straight to Thee, 
 but turns aside after lusts and passions, and vanities, and is 
 hypocritical or inconsistent in Thy service, shall not cleave to 
 me : neither within my own breast : nor shall such a heart of 
 any other man adhere to mine by friendship or favour. Bad 
 men shall go out quickly from my presence, and shall not re- 
 turn to it. They shall be forgotten by me. They shall shrink 
 away from me of themselves, and shun me : or, if they presume, 
 I will not favour nor promote nor employ them, nor so much as 
 look upon them, or know them. They shall be for me as if they 
 were not. If any one comes to me with secret accusations 
 against his neighbour, with suspicions, and insinuations, instead 
 of rewarding him, or listening to him, I will drive him from my 
 presence, from the palace, from the court, and from all honours 
 and trusts. Neither they that have a proud and haughty eye, 
 be they ever so great or noble, nor they that have a covetous 
 soul, be they ever so rich or serviceable, shall sit before me or eat 
 at my table. But my eyes shall seek out and note such as ai-e 
 
IN RELATION TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. 95 
 
 faithful and devout Christians within my dominions, that I may 
 have them about my person, to be with me. The most eminent 
 for faith and hohness shall be my Spiritual Fathers, my advisers, 
 and my friends. They that lead blameless lives shall be my 
 servants, my Officers, my Judges, my Captains, my Governors, 
 my Councillors. None shall dwell in my house who show 
 haughtiness or rudeness to inferiors, or to the poor. None 
 shall prosper before me who tell lies, or who do not strictly and 
 openly speak the truth. Him who tells me what he sees amiss 
 in me I will trust and honour ; but him that flatters me, or that 
 palliates wickedness, or commends to me evil men, I will punish 
 as though he insulted me to my face. My first thought shall 
 ever be how to restrain all impiety, heresy, injustice, violence, 
 and immorality : I will cut off at once, without delay, all authors 
 and ringleaders of open wickedness : and labour, as far as pos- 
 sible, to extirpate all incorrigible evil doers from the Christian 
 Empire and Church, which is the City of the Lord." 
 
 Such is the sense of the Psalm which was copied out and sent 
 by one of the early Russian Metropolitans, Nicephorus, at the 
 beginning of the twelfth century, to the Grand Prince Vladimir 
 Monomachus, as a compendious instruction in his duties, with 
 an exhortation to him to get it by heart, to recite it fre- 
 quently, to meditate on it, and to fashion his government ac- 
 cordingly. If any one would be a worthy successor of Mono- 
 machus, he may do the same now. 
 
DISSERTATION VII. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON THE RIGHT METHOD OF CONDUCTING RELI- 
 GIOUS CONTROVERSY. 
 
 Christians being unhappily at variance, religious discussions 
 and controversies abound, and are generally both idle and per- 
 nicious. The soul that loves and seeks truth shrinks from oral 
 discussion, and scarcely less from the perusal of printed contro- 
 versy ; or if we are sometimes obliged to consult controversial 
 Divinity, we labour through volumes with little other benefit 
 than the indirect one of ascertaining what facts against himself 
 are admitted, and what ai'guments against himself are dissembled, 
 by the writer. 
 
 Still, supposing that people may sometimes be so minded 
 that discussion may profitably be offered and accepted, it is 
 worth while to consider by what rules one ought to guide one's 
 self in undertaking and conducting it. 
 
 Towards such a consideration the following suggestions may 
 be found useful : Intellectually, 
 
 I. We should be discreet enough neither to move nor con- 
 tinue with any man a disquisition for which he has not the 
 requisite principles, capacity, knowledge, or dispositions. 
 
 II. We should not seek to demonstrate nor to refute demon- 
 strativelij first principles, or what are assumed as such on either 
 side : nor assume to reason as principals, when we are only indi- 
 viduals and inferiors ; nor to reason as free beyond those limits 
 within which our first principles, and the Doctrinal Authority 
 by which we are bound, leave us really free. 
 
 III. We should never lose sight of the distinction existing 
 between any system, or position, or organized community in 
 itself and the individual who may be connected with it, and who 
 
ON THE RIGHT METHOD OF CONDUCTING CONTROVERSY. 97 
 
 may identify himself with it. What is true against a system seen 
 from a higher point of view may be most false and unjust against 
 the individual, and against the system as he seems to himself to 
 see it, being at a lower point of view : nay, the accusation may 
 not be even intelHgible to him. And that blame which is only too 
 just against individual members, rulers, numerical majorities, 
 and even whole generations and nations belonging to any reli- 
 gious system or Church, and which will so inevitably seem 
 to attach to the system in itself, may, after all, be mere calumny 
 when so applied, and may be seen to be mere calunmy by 
 those who are so placed as to regard the system from a higher 
 point of view. 
 
 IV. We should take all possible pains to understand the 
 feelings, habits, modes of thought, and definitions of words with 
 which we have to deal before we judge, and still more before we 
 openly disallow and attack them. 
 
 V. We must allow for the powerful influence of first principles, 
 position, and habits, upon particular thoughts and reasonings ; 
 and remember that it is not enough in any controversy to have 
 clear reasoning and good dispositions on the two sides, but that 
 there must be also constant attention to the subject and to the 
 reasoning /or a sufficient space of time. Then, morally, 
 
 VI. We should always suppose our antagonist to be our equal, 
 or rather our superior ; and to be seeking only truth, for his own 
 and for our good. And even if there should be any signs to the 
 contrary, we should either shut our eyes to them, and give him 
 the advantage of supposing him to be better than he is ; or else, 
 if this is impossible, we should desist from the controversy, and 
 deal with him in another tone. 
 
 VII. Whatever blame our antagonist may seem to merit, we 
 should never blame him : for this very fact, that he is blameable, 
 is a damage to his argument, and an advantage (perhaps beyond 
 what our cause merits,) to ours. It is enough therefore that 
 he exhibits his weakness. For us to blame or pursue him for 
 this not only is unchristian and ungenerous, but it deprives us of 
 the superiority which we should otherwise obtain from his fault. 
 
 VIII. On the other hand, we should never try to refute nor 
 absolutely deny the justice of any moral or intellectual blame 
 cast upon ourselves, partly for reasons similar to those stated 
 
 H 
 
98 REFLECTIONS ON THE RIGHT METHOD 
 
 above under the last head, and partly because we are mostly 
 guilty more or less of that which is imputed to us, and 
 can scarcely defend ourselves without condemning ourselves. 
 Whereas, even if we were blameless, undeserved blame should 
 be accepted as a spur to excellence, to make us only so much 
 the more humble and diligent to avoid all approach to the defect 
 imputed, and to increase in the contrary virtue. 
 
 The above suggestions intellectual and moral being premised, 
 a method shall now be proposed for facilitating and simplifying 
 the actual process of the controversy itself. It is this : Let 
 the two parties by mutual agreement and hypothesis change 
 sides, so far as the outward conference is concerned ; and let each 
 propose to the best of his ability and knowledge what seems to 
 him to be his opponent's case. This being done on one side, 
 the statement made of our case by our opponent will appear to 
 us either to be fair and complete, and as strong as we could 
 have made it ourselves, (it may be even stronger,) or the con- 
 trary. If we perceive that our opponent is in full possession of 
 our case, then we may conclude that whatever considerations 
 appear to him to tell in a contrary direction will be worthy of 
 our attention. If, on the contrary, our opponent's statement of 
 our case is inadequate, we shall be able to correct or enlarge his 
 knowledge of it, and may reasonably desire him to consider 
 and digest such additional information, correction, or argument, 
 before he again announces himself as ready to controvert our 
 positions. The same of course must be offered and done on 
 both sides. By this means an infinite amount of vain and 
 irrelevant discussion will be saved, and the existence of such 
 principles and dispositions as are necessary towards profitable 
 discussion will be tested at the outset. 
 
 Let us suppose, for example, the parties to a conference to be 
 a member of the " Orthodox'^ Church on the one side, and a 
 Latin on the other, who waives for the time his cardinal principle 
 of the Papal Supremacy, and the question in debate to be that 
 of the Procession of the Holy Ghost. If the Latin is willing 
 to endeavour to state the Greek side of the controversy^, and ap- 
 pears to the Greek to do so fairly and completely, the Greek 
 may expect to find something worth attending to in whatever the 
 Latin may have to say afterwards on the other side. But if the 
 
OF CONDUCTING RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 99 
 
 Latin in attempting to state the case of the Greek shows that 
 he has not as yet sufficiently studied or understood it, the Greek 
 will be able to point this out, and may fairly suspend further 
 discussion till the Latin has more fully mastered the subject. 
 This one rule is of itself almost enough to cut short any useless 
 controversy, and to bring any profitable discussion to its issue 
 in the shortest and clearest way. 
 
 With respect to the persons with whom we may at any time 
 be brought into contact, and who may differ from us in religion, 
 one general reflection is important : We see that of the vast 
 numbers of Christians of different persuasions now living 
 scarcely any have originated their errors, if they are in error, 
 for themselves : they mostly follow simply that tradition in 
 which they have been bred : if they are heretics or schismatics, 
 they are so unconsciously : and if even they have imbibed from 
 their sect more or less of the evil principles and spirit in which 
 it originated, still this is so by the unhappiness of their position, 
 not by any wilful and personal departure from the contrary 
 good principles and good spirit of the truth. Now there is no 
 more common fault, nor any fault more blameable^ or more 
 pernicious, than that of reasoning against men who have in- 
 herited their errors in the same tone and manner as might be 
 suitable or venial if they were heresiarchs, or originators of 
 schism. Let us suppose, for instance, a missionary from some 
 heretical sect of England or America to be stationed in this city (of 
 Athens :) What can be more sad, or more repulsive, than to see 
 such a man attacked by Christians who, priding themselves on their 
 " Orthodoxy" and their Baptism, seem to be no better in morals 
 than sectaries who are unbaptized ? who, while invoking Saints 
 and kissing Icons, show the image of God in their lives and 
 conversations no better than the revilers of the Mother of God 
 and the destroyers of images ? who are careless as powerless, 
 and powerless as careless, to communicate their " Orthodoxy '^ to 
 the world ; and certainly have never yet dreamed of sending mis- 
 sionaries to preach to the Americans, or to the Chinese ? who, 
 while reviling sectaries for maintaining and preaching the error 
 they have received, arc too ready themselves to give up the truth 
 that they have received, and to become infidels, for the sake of 
 an ideal civilization ? It would be better surely to reason thus : 
 
 H 2 
 
100 REFLECTIONS ON THE RIGHT METHOD 
 
 " This man, who comes among us, is perhaps in error only ac- 
 cidentally, by no fault of his own, but through his unhappy tra- 
 dition ; while we, perhaps, are in the truth by no virtue of our 
 own, but only by our tradition. His apparent zeal in seeking to 
 communicate what he thinks truth is a personal virtue or merit 
 in him : our want of a similar zeal or energy is a vice and de- 
 fect in ourselves." 
 
 And as for the cause of schisms and heresies, it is gene- 
 rally to be found in some previous corruption among orthodox 
 Christians. They have been cold; and heresy will preach 
 warmth. They have been attached to forms, without the life 
 and the spirit ; and heresy will preach life and spirit without 
 forms. They have multiplied human fables and traditions in 
 things secondary ; and heresy will curtail the faith in points es- 
 sential. They have been superstitious worshippers of traditions ; 
 and heresy will recommend exclusively the study of the letter of 
 Scripture. They have exaggerated Ecclesiastical authority, and 
 carried it beyond its proper region of faith and discipline into 
 political government, metaphysics, and even physical science; 
 and heresy will bring in civil rulers, philosophers, and savans, 
 and even democratical private judgment, to dogmatize con- 
 cerning Ecclesiastical discipline and faith. The true way then 
 not only to understand the origin and strength of heresy, but 
 also to meet it with becoming remedies, will be by the " Ortho- 
 dox" looking into themselves, and correcting or guarding against 
 those faults from which heresy takes occasion ; and by their exhi- 
 biting faithfully and fully that portion of truth on which heresy 
 insists, so as to remove the prejudice excited against that other 
 portion of truth which it denies, and so as to make all men per- 
 ceive the superiority of orthodoxy, which contains all the parts 
 or rays of truth united and unmixed, over heresy, which presents 
 only dismembered and distorted fragments of truth mixed with 
 malice and error. 
 
 In the next Section an attempt shall be made to pass briefly 
 in review the present state of particular controversies between 
 the Eastern or " Orthodox " Church and the Latin: in which 
 review we shall speak as if from the Eastern side, and seek, not 
 how much may be said against the Latins, but how much may 
 be said towards peace with them. For if two brothers have 
 
OF CONDUCTING RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 101 
 
 quarrelled, (to say nothing of the great probability that both 
 are more or less in the wrong,) it would be amiable and winning 
 if that one which was rather wronged of the two were the more 
 ready to admit himself imperfect. And if Christ, who had no 
 sin, made Himself sin for our sakes, surely we, who are sinners, 
 may be willing, even if we are rather in the right of the two, 
 to make as though we might be more or less in fault, and vo- 
 lunteer the first advances towards a reconciliation. 
 
DISSERTATION VIII. 
 
 REMARKS ON THif PRESENT STATE OF PARTICULAR CONTRO- 
 VERSIES BETWEEN THE " ORTHODOX " AND THE "ROMAN 
 CATHOLIC "" CHURCHES. 
 
 I. Of the Procession of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 A Roman theologian would not put this question first, but rather 
 that of the Papal Supremacy ; and reasonably, for if decided in 
 his sense it supersedes and determines all others. Still, as this 
 summary and oracular way of deciding all questions has never 
 yet been perfectly received and acted on by Councils even among 
 the Latins, and as the chief doctors among the Greeks have 
 thought the question of the Procession to be the great, and in- 
 deed the only insuperable, bar to intercommunion, it shall here 
 be treated first. 
 
 As to the mere point of form : That the insertion of the Fi- 
 lioque into the Creed, even supposing the doctrine to be true, 
 was forbidden, and that it could not be inserted either by the 
 Pope himself or by any Prankish or other Latin Bishops, with 
 or without him, without their involving themselves and all their 
 followers in sin, was confessed even by some Popes, as by Popes 
 Leo III. and John VIII. And until some (Ecumenical Council, 
 recognized as such by themselves, shall decide otherwise, and 
 authorize additions to the Creed, we cannot wonder at the 
 Easterns persisting in their opinion that all additions are unlaw- 
 ful, and insisting on the restoration of the Creed as the first 
 and indispensable requisite in order to union. 
 
 Supposing this point to be settled, there remains the deeper 
 question of the doctrine in itself. Is the doctrine of the eternal 
 procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son either a truth which 
 it is heresy to deny, or an error which it is heresy to teach ? 
 
REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES^ ETC. 103 
 
 That it is a truth at all the Greeks deny : and certainly they 
 seem to prove (as may be seen from the treatise of Adam Zoer- 
 nikajf,) that it was unknown to all the Greek Fathers, and even 
 expressly denied by some of them : and that the Latin Fathers 
 too for many centuries (and especially St. Augustine,) taught dis- 
 tinctly the same doctrine with the Greek, and maintained the 
 same phraseology : so that if any passages in which St. Augustine 
 or others now seem to assert the modern Latin doctrine are 
 genuine, those Fathers must have held at once two contrary 
 modes of thought and language on the same subject, a suppo- 
 sition which is improbable, or which at any rate, under present 
 circumstances, needs clear proof. 
 
 Now even if the Latin doctrine should be intrinsically true, 
 the above are strong prima facie presumptions against it, suffi- 
 ciently strong to justify or excuse the Greeks for doubting 
 hitherto or denying it. And there are other signs against it 
 besides these : for instance, L That when the expression of the 
 Holy Ghost proceeding " also from the Son " was first noticed 
 and objected against by the Greeks, the Latins explained it 
 away or dissembled it, instead of openly insisting on it as truth : 
 Again, IL That when at length they had all received it them- 
 selves, the Latins attempted to force it into the Creed, and to 
 impose it on the Church at large, by overbearing violence, not 
 by an (Ecumenical Council : Again, TIL That in seeking to 
 impose it upon the Easterns the Latins generally have rested it 
 upon manifestly false grounds, as upon the ground of unbroken 
 and explicit tradition. Again, IV. That a vast multitude of 
 passages formerly alleged by the Latins both from Greek and 
 Latin Fathers have been proved either to be interpolations al- 
 together, or to have been corrupted : Lastly, V. That some of 
 the texts most insisted on by the Latins at the Council of Flo- 
 rence, and shown afterwards by Zoernikaff to have been cor- 
 rupted, have since Zoernikaff wrote been surrendered even by 
 Latin editors ; so that the Greek cause, as respects the critical 
 examination of passages, has gained materially in strength since 
 the Council of Florence. But to reject a doctrine not revealed 
 in Scripture, nor handed down by unbroken tradition from the 
 beginning, but " dug out," or developed by a part of the Church 
 in later ages, and violently thrust upon the rest on false grounds. 
 
104< REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 can never be heresy. If indeed it were confessed to be a novelty 
 and a development^ and sufficiently shown to be, notwithstand- 
 ing, a legitimate and necessary development, there might be a 
 greater responsibility in rejecting it. 
 
 On the other side, very many of the Greeks assert not only 
 that the Latin doctrine is false in itself, but also that it is a 
 heresy ; and that the Latins are heretics for maintainiog it. But 
 against this view it is fair to object, 
 
 I. That those heretical consequences which seem to flow from 
 the assertion of the Procession from the Son as well as from the 
 Father, and on account of which the doctrine itself is said to 
 be heresy, are clearly rejected and condemned as heresies by the 
 Latins, no less than by the Greeks ; which would seem to reduce 
 the Latin error, if it be an error, to a mere misconception and 
 misuse of words : 
 
 IL That all heresies spring from evil motives : but the motive 
 which prompted the assertion of this doctrine is commonly ad- 
 mitted even by the Greeks to have been good, namely, the desire 
 to maintain against the Arians and other heretics the co-equality 
 of the Son with the Father : 
 
 in. That the Greeks have repeatedly, and all along, offered 
 to unite and Communicate with the Latins, winking at all other 
 faults, if only the form of the Creed were restored ; which they 
 could not have done, if the doctrine of the Procession from 
 the Son had been held to be heresy in itself: 
 
 IV. That until not only some, or many passages, but all those 
 passages in St. Augustine and other Latin Fathers which assert 
 the Procession from the Son have been shown to be corrupt or 
 interpolated, or in sense to mean no more than they were stated 
 to mean in the explanation given at Home to Maximus the 
 Martyr in the seventh century, the Latins, even if they be in 
 error, cannot be called heretics for adhering to a doctrine seem- 
 ingly taught and bequeathed to them by great Saints, who are 
 venerated as such by the Eastern Church no less than by their 
 own. 
 
 We conclude then that, so long as the Filioque is not inter- 
 polated into the Creed without the consent of a Council, the ques- 
 tion of the doctrine in itself is still open and pending; and that 
 neither are the Greeks heretics if they deny it, nor the Latins if 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 105 
 
 they assert it, so long as they both desire that the subject may 
 be fairly aud religiously examined and decided by an CEcume- 
 nical Council. 
 
 II. Of the Roman and Papal Supremacy. 
 
 This for the Romans it is heresy to deny, and schism ulti- 
 mately to resist ; while the Greeks make the assertion of it to be 
 the second great obstacle to union, and often call it in itself a 
 heresy ^ 
 
 Now it is plain that the titles " Vicar of Christ^' and " Head 
 of the Church " are not in themselves necessarily either false or 
 heretical, seeing that the Greeks themselves allow that in a cer- 
 tain sense and on certain occasions every Priest is Christ's 
 vicar and representative, and that every Bishop is in his own 
 diocese both vicar of Christ and head of the Church ; so that 
 the chief Bishop of any wider province, or Patriarchate, or of 
 the whole Church, may well be called by the same titles, only in 
 a more general and laxer sense. 
 
 It must, however, be admitted that these titles are claimed 
 for the Pope of Rome in no such general or lax sense. But 
 that spirit of unbounded domination, with the capacity for exer- 
 cising it, which characterized pagan Rome has been transmitted 
 as a local inheritance to Rome Christian. Already in the second 
 century a Pope (Victor,) could think of cutting off from Com- 
 munion whole Churches merely because they presumed to 
 maintain a ritual tradition differing from his own : And a long 
 history might be written of the encroachments, fresh precedents, 
 conflicts, partial and occasional defeats, great and ultimate vic- 
 tories and conquests, by which the Roman See has subjugated 
 and incorporated under its dominion the greater part of the 
 Church, so as to afford a parallel with the gradual extension of 
 the pagan Roman Empire over the habitable and civilized world. 
 The practical question for the Easterns is the following : Seeing 
 that such a spirit exists as a matter of fact in the Roman 
 Church, and supposing it to be evil, (as they do suppose it to 
 be,) does it follow that the Eastern Church must either accept 
 and teach any heresy by Communicating with the Roman 
 Church, or even thereby approve the Roman spirit of domination ; 
 supposing, that is, that the doctrine of the Papal Headship were 
 
106 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 not imposed upon her in order to such Communion as an article 
 of faith ? Does it not on the contrary seem plain that such in- 
 tercommunion (supposing the two Churches to be otherwise 
 agreed in faith^) would involve neither the assertion nor the 
 denial of any doctrinal proposition whatever, so far as the 
 Easterns are concerned ? and that, therefore, it is not only pos- 
 sible for them, but their duty, to offer such Communion ? 
 
 But a question arises further, whether by so offering to Com- 
 municate with the Latins they would not be subjecting, them- 
 selves sooner or later to Roman rule ? and whether they may 
 not justifiably break the visible unity of the Church for the sake 
 of their Ecclesiastical liberty ? But neither here is there really 
 any room for doubt. For supposing Rome to be willing to Com- 
 municate on such terms, the Eastern Church would remain after 
 the reunion just as free to resist all future encroachments as she 
 has been for the last thousand years : and the only case in 
 which Rome could enter, or establish any new precedent for in- 
 terference, would be if questions were to arise within the 
 Eastern Church herself, and that Church were to be unable, 
 without calling in foreign aid, to enable an orthodox minority 
 to overcome a heterodox majority. In this way in former times 
 many Sees and Churches which once had been independent, 
 and which might, if they had been perfect, have preserved for 
 ever the canonical right of independence, lost both their inde- 
 pendence, and their right to it, and fell under that power which 
 gave the victory to an orthodox minority. And so, no doubt, it 
 might possibly be again with the Eastern Churches after their 
 reunion with Rome. But such a subjugation would be by their 
 own fault, and to their disgrace, and would be to the honour of 
 Rome, and a sign in favour of the Roman claims. 
 
 However, it may be said that this whole speculation is useless 
 because, whatever it might be possible or right for the Easterns 
 to offer, Rome cannot on her side allow any such conditions, 
 but must require the Easterns simply to receive the doctrine of 
 the Papal Supremacy as an article of faith, and to swear in prac- 
 tice to obey it. But this is not necessarily so : 
 
 That the doctrine of the Papal Supremacy, as now held and 
 taught in the Latin Church, was not an article of the faith ex- 
 plicitly revealed and handed down by universal tradition from 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 107 
 
 the beginning is quite clear. Supposing it to be intrinsically a 
 true doctrine, it must have been rather a deposit committed to 
 the Roman Church alone, as the consciousness of a special gift 
 to be manifested gradually as the circumstances of the Church 
 should need it. And if it be now, either for the Latins or in 
 itself, an article of the faith, it must have become so by deve- 
 lopment. But the disallowance of a doctrine resting not on 
 express Scripture or on original and unbroken tradition, but on 
 development, is not heresy ; at least not until it has been (not 
 obtruded violently on false and even absurd grounds, but) pro- 
 posed as a development in a brotherly and Christian spirit, and 
 the legitimacy and necessity of such a development sufficiently 
 demonstrated. The Latin Church has Communicated in former 
 ages with the Eastern without exacting any confession of the 
 Papal Supremacy as an article of faith, and without imposing 
 any oath of obedience, or sending Bulls and Palls in cases of 
 fresh consecrations of Bishops or Primates from Rome. And 
 she might do so again, if she pleased, without waiving a tittle of 
 her own claims or ideas concerning her own abstract rights and 
 powers ; merely waiting her time, till the Easterns of themselves, 
 or under the influence of some future events or circumstances, 
 should ripen among themselves that development which human 
 scandals and passions and mismanagement have hitherto pre- 
 vented or retarded. To act thus economically with a Church 
 which has never admitted the Papal Supremacy as a doctrine 
 would involve no such retractation or humiliation for Rome as 
 would be involved if any of those Churches which have long 
 been governed by her, (if the Spanish Church, for instance, or 
 even the Gallican,) were to be suffered for the future to govern 
 themselves free from all external interference. 
 
 IIL Of Western Baptisms without Trine Immersion. 
 
 Between the time of Michael Cerularius and that of the 
 Council of Florence the Greeks often, but not uniformly, treated 
 such Latin Baptisms as had been administered without trine 
 immersion as mere nullities : and in Russia too we find in the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries Greek Prelates directing that 
 all " Romans " or " Latins " not regularly dipped with three 
 immersions were to be " Baptized.'^ On the other hand the 
 
108 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 German Latins also, by way probably of retaliating upon the 
 Easterns, rebaptized during several centuries Christians coming 
 over to them from the Oriental or Greek rite, without any ritual 
 pretext whatever. 
 
 As for the Greeks, their occasional and inconsistent usage of 
 rebaptizing Latins seemed after the Council of Florence to be 
 corrected and done away for ever, and one uniform practice to be 
 established for the future, by a Synod held at Constantinople in 
 1484, which all the four Patriarchs confirmed. And the enact- 
 ments of this Synod were extended to Russia in 1667 by a mixed 
 Synod of Greek and Russian Bishops held at Moscow, to which 
 all the four Patriarchs were consenting parties, and over which 
 two of them, Paisius of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch, 
 presided in person. And it is remarkable that this Synod of 
 Moscow not only abrogated the custom of rebaptizing Latins 
 which had been decreed by a previous local Synod held under 
 the Patriarch Philaret Niketich, grandfather of the reigning 
 Sovereign Alexis, but gave reasons and precedents to satisfy the 
 scruples of Alexis, showing that the erroneous decrees of a local 
 Council might be so corrected and abrogated by another greater 
 and more general Council. And the question which had been sub- 
 mitted to this Council was not merely whether the Latins ought 
 to be rebaptized on the ground of heresy, but also this, "Whe- 
 ther it is necessary or right by condescension to recognize as 
 Christians those who have been Baptized otherwise than with 
 three immersions " ? The same rule was extended to the Bap- 
 tisms of Lutherans and Calvinists by a Synod held at Constan- 
 tinople early in the eighteenth century; and was soon afterwards 
 established in the Russian Church by the Answer of the Patri- 
 arch Jeremiah III. to Peter the Great, an Answer professedly 
 based upon the decisions of the abovementioned Synods. 
 
 However, in 1756 an "Opoj or Constitution put forth at Con- 
 stantinople with the signatures of three Patriarchs, but without 
 any synodal act, reversed all the former decisions ; and using the 
 terms "affusion" and "aspersion " indifferently, and imputing 
 them both to the Latins, ordered that thenceforth Latin and 
 other Western Baptisms, as being administered by sprinkling, 
 should be held to be invalid ; and that all proselytes from Western 
 communities not previously Baptized by trine immersion should 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 109 
 
 be " Baptized." And thus the custom of rebaptizing being re- 
 introduced into the Greek Church has been uniformly main- 
 tained by it ever since ; while the contrary custom of admitting 
 the essential validity of Latin Baptisms, grounded on earlier 
 decisions of the Greek Church, is still maintained by the Rus- 
 sian Church ; and the Eastern Church as a whole has in conse- 
 quence two contrary and irreconcilable doctrines and practices at 
 once on this important subject. 
 
 The Greeks however by dissembling with the Russians, and 
 by admitting without question as orthodox Christians to their 
 Communion all those " unbaptized " persons (from the Consorts 
 of the Imperial Family down to the thousands of ordinary 
 Latins and Protestants annually received as proselytes,) who 
 have been received to Communion by the Russians, show their 
 own habit of rebaptizing to be either a wilful sacrilege, (for it is 
 sacrilege to attempt knowingly to repeat Baptism,) or else, as 
 we must rather for the sake of charity interpret it, to be virtu- 
 ally, though not in form, conditional or hypothetical. This latter 
 explanation of it is no absurdity. Tor so the ancient Canons 
 direct infants and others about whom there is any doubt to be 
 simply " Baptized." And persons who have received doubtful 
 Ordination are simply Ordained, without its being understood 
 that their former Ordination is thereby declared with certainty 
 to have been a nullity. 
 
 Not only do the Greeks by dissembling with the Russians re- 
 duce their own practice to a conditional sense, but by their una- 
 nimous admission that in case of necessity, or for any great 
 advantage, (as in dealing with large bodies of men or whole 
 communities at once, or to avoid any great scandal,) they can 
 use condescension or economy on the subject, and receive Wes- 
 terns without rebaptism, they virtually acknowledge the validity 
 of Western Baptisms, and reduce their own doctrine to this sad 
 and self-condemnatory proposition, " Latin Baptisms are a nul- 
 lity, except when we Greeks please that they he recognized." The 
 only excuses which can be found for this are, first, that the 
 modern Greek Clergy have not been trained to reason accurately, 
 and if they find themselves entangled in any awkward logical 
 consequences, dismiss summarily all such thorny difficulties as 
 having nothing to do with religion : and, secondly, that they 
 
110 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 can object that similar inconsistencies of opinion and practice 
 existed both on this very subject of Baptism and on others of 
 great importance in earlier ages ; and what the Church endured 
 in the way of inconsistency or imperfection then she may en- 
 dure now ; and so it is not necessary to put themselves to any 
 great trouble to reconcile the Russian practice and their own. 
 But there is a wide difference between the coexistence of con- 
 trary opinions and practices in earlier ages, when communication 
 was comparatively difficult, and when the discovery of any such 
 inconsistency led immediately to a conflict and finally to its 
 removal, and the conscious and purposed maintenance of con- 
 tradictory opinions or usages at the present day. 
 
 The admission of many Greeks that clinic Baptism administered 
 by an orthodox Priest without trine immersion, or without im- 
 mersion at all, ought not to be repeated, is another plain testi- 
 mony to the truth : as is also the uniform conduct of the Greek 
 Church on all occasions of public negotiation whether with the 
 Latins, (as at the Council of Florence in 1448,) or with Protes- 
 tants (as with the Lutherans between 1584 and 1587, and with 
 the Anglican Nonjurors between 1716 and 1724,) with a view 
 to union. Never at any time has she on such occasions so 
 much as hinted that the Westerns need to be Baptized. If in- 
 deed it had been otherwise, all other discussions about doctrine, 
 even about the Filioque itself, or the Papal Supremacy, would 
 have been secondary and out of place. The Latins, having had 
 no Baptism since the time that they disused trine immersion 
 and adopted affusion or sprinkling, could have no Sacraments, 
 and no Priesthood : so that to discuss wath them other details 
 with a view to union would have been, and would be still, quite 
 superfluous. But the Greeks, as has been said, have not been 
 trained to logic ; and consider that all such difficulties arising 
 from their own inconsistencies may be avoided as some birds are 
 said to avoid the fowler, by putting their heads under a leaf and 
 shutting their eyes, though their whole body is left exposed. 
 
 There ai'e also other signs that the Greeks are in error on 
 this subject; namely, that their most learned and eminent 
 men in speaking of it differ much from one another, as having 
 no uniform tradition nor line of argument to bring forward. 
 They often give as the ground for the Constitution of 1756 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. Ill 
 
 the most palpably false and calumnious statements as to the 
 Latin manner of Baptizing, and as to their having changed their 
 Baptismal ritual since the earlier Greek decisions against rebap- 
 tism : and they often run off into foolish and acrimonious 
 tirades against Rome and the Pope, which have nothing what- 
 ever to do with this particular question. In presence of such 
 signs and such dispositions argument is useless. Let us rather 
 be ashamed, and pray. 
 
 Dismissing then the present lamentable state of feeling and 
 opinion on this subject as self-contradictory and self-condemned, 
 and looking forward to better times, let us consider the question 
 in itself : 
 
 It is admitted that clinic Baptism administered by an ortho- 
 dox Priest, though administered without trine immersion, or 
 without immersion at all, is a valid sacrament of regeneration, 
 and not to be repeated if the party recovers. And if this be so, 
 the fact that the Church allows clinic Baptism without immer- 
 sion on the ground of necessity, but forbids so to Baptize in 
 cases where she sees no necessity, will not prevent such Bap- 
 tisms, if improperly administered in contravention of the 
 Church's prohibition, from being valid Baptisms, although it 
 may subject the parties so improperly administering Baptism to 
 Ecclesiastical penance or excommunication. 
 
 Baptism by sprinklin// (which is unhappily common among 
 many of the Protestants, and among the Anglicans also, though 
 contrary to the Anglican Ritual,) is distinguishable from Baptism 
 by affusion or washing on this account, that it does not offer 
 the same certainty that the water touches the person baptized. 
 And on this account it may be reasonable to rebaptize condition- 
 ally those who have been Baptized only by sprinkling. Other- 
 wise, the Scriptures themselves, " I will sprinkle clean water 
 upon them and they shall be clean : " and again " If the 
 ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the puri- 
 fying of the flesh, much more shall the blood of Christ purge 
 the conscience, &c :" and again : " Having our hearts sprinkled 
 from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water :" 
 and the answer of Christ Himself to Peter, " He that is washed 
 needeth not to wash every part, but is clean every whit,'' (though 
 it be only one part that is outwardly washed,) seem to show that 
 
112 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 it is not the quantity of the water used, nor the manner of its 
 application, on which depends the grace of the Sacrament. 
 
 But thus much being laid down, and it being supposed to be 
 conceded that persons improperly Baptized otherwise than by 
 ti'ine immersion, without any real necessity allowed by the 
 Church, are still to be acknowledged as Baptized and regenerate ; 
 and that those only who have been Baptized by siJrinkling, or 
 concerning whom there exists any real doubt, may be rebap- 
 tized conditionally, (the conditionality being either expressed, or 
 understood,) there remains still the question, How are those to 
 be dealt with who presume so to Baptize improperly ? 
 
 In two cases the answer to this question is easy. For first, 
 if the persons so irregularly Baptizing are aliens to the Church, 
 she can do nothing; for she judges " not them that are without, 
 but them that are within." And secondly, if they are indivi- 
 duals of the Clergy or laity under the jurisdiction of any parti- 
 cular Church, they will be punished by that Church according 
 to her Canons. But there is a third case, the following, which 
 is less clear : 
 
 Supposing any whole Church, as the Latin, to persist in 
 permitting or directing within its own sphere the administra- 
 tion of Baptism after an irregular form, without any real neces- 
 sity, and refusing to amend her practice, would this alone justify 
 the Easterns in refusing to Communicate with the West ? or 
 might not even this abuse, though great, be endured for the sake 
 of unity ? 
 
 On the one hand, it is undeniable that if Baptism is unneces- 
 sarily administered otherwise than by trine immersion, some of 
 those lesser mysteries which it contains are no longer visibly 
 exhibited in each particular case of its administration. Neither 
 the three Persons of the Trinity, (so far as the act of Baptism is 
 concerned,) nor the three days and nights of Christ's lying in 
 the grave, nor our being buried with Christ (by being sub- 
 merged under the water,) and rising again with Him (by rising 
 out of the water,) to newness of life, are expressed as they were 
 formerly expressed by the Catholic and Apostolic Ritual. And 
 the greater or more powerful any part of the Church w^iich dis- 
 regards these lesser mysteries of Baptism, the greater also will 
 be the danger that the remaining portions of the Church may 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 113 
 
 become infected with the same irreverence, and so the full type 
 of the Sacrament be lost altogether. In principle therefore it 
 might seem reasonable to deny the right of an individual Pope, 
 or even of the whole Western Church, to change the oecumeni- 
 cal form of Baptism, and to insist upon the correction of this 
 abuse as an indispensable preliminary to reunion. And we may 
 hope that in an united (Ecumenical Council there would be no 
 difficulty in obtaining such a correction. 
 
 But if there w^ere difficulty, then perhaps, as sometimes in 
 medicine, it would be right to consider not what is best or good 
 in itself, but what is possible or tolerable under the circum- 
 stances. If at the beginning of the schism such men as Theo- 
 phylact of Bulgaria judged that unity was so high a duty that 
 for the sake of it all the Latin abuses, excepting only the inter- 
 polation of the Creed, might be endured, much more surely 
 after a thousand years^ experience of the horrible effects resulting 
 from separation may we think the same, when all the world 
 seems merging into immorality and infidelity on account of the 
 outward obscuration of unity. And it might well be hoped 
 that evils which it has been found impossible to correct by divi- 
 sion might be corrected after reunion. And in the mean time 
 not only the judgment of Theophylact and others, but many 
 public precedents on the part of the Greek and Russian Churches 
 since the schism may be adduced to show that such long-suffer- 
 ing is not impossible. 
 
 IV. Of the Controversy respecting Priests applying the 
 Holy Chrism. 
 
 The Latins in the ninth century reconfirmed, or reanointed 
 by their Bishops in Bulgaria those who had been already 
 anointed with the holy Chrism after Baptism by Greek Priests. 
 This controversy, so far as the Latins are concerned, has in- 
 deed since been brought to an end, and their objections have 
 been withdrawn, the conditions which they would have dictated 
 at Florence to the Greeks allowing the Greek practice, and vari- 
 ous Uniat congregations still retaining it. Still, it may be 
 worth while to offer some remarks on the subject, as it may 
 supply an important hint and lesson for the reconciliation of 
 misunderstandings and the restoration of unity. 
 
114 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 The gift of the Holy Ghost was given through the Apostles, 
 and afterwards through their successors, the Bishops. The 
 diviue unguent ran from their hands on to the heads of the 
 baptized. But an Apostle or a Bishop was necessary for this 
 ministry. This is what the Latins rightly asserted : and on 
 this account, seeing the Greek Priests apply the holy Chrism, they 
 imagined that the Greeks made the Priest, no less than the 
 Bishop, the source of this divine gift. But if they had known 
 or considered that the Chrism so applied by Greek Priests must 
 have been consecrated previously by the Bishop, ( and by the 
 chief Bishop,) and that it ran originally from his hands, and 
 that not all the Priests in the world without a Bishop could 
 consecrate or make the Chrism, they might have perceived in 
 this a testimony even more emphatic than their own to the truth 
 that the Bishop only is the proper and original minister of 
 Confirmation, the Priest^s hands for convenience' sake applying 
 the outward unguent, but the Bishop's hands alone having made 
 that unguent effectual for conferring spiritual grace. 
 
 Here is an instance of misunderstanding, scandal, and schism, 
 arising from that which ought rather to have been a cause for 
 mutual love, and honour, and edification ; and for glorifying in 
 common that Spirit from Whose deep unity all varieties of 
 outward rite within the Catholic Church, as garments of the 
 heavenly Bride, receive their contrasted but harmonizing colours. 
 And this one instance may suffice to bring to our notice a gene- 
 ral principle ; and may furnish us with a key to the more or less 
 complete understanding and reconcilement of very many other 
 discrepancies and controversies ; and may fill us with shame and 
 humiliation for those sins, and especially for that want of cha- 
 rity, which has in so many instances turned our very beauty and 
 glory into scandal. The reader will be able to apply this prin- 
 ciple of reconciliation in detail for himself, and will probably find 
 it take him a long way. As a help and illustration at the out- 
 set he may consider one other instance in a purely ritual matter 
 of no controversial importance; namely, the following: 
 
 A Greek Priest hearing for the first time that the Sunday 
 after Pentecost is not the festival of All Saints for the Latins, 
 but Trinity Sunday, and learning that this Latin festival of 
 Trinity Sunday is of comparatively late institution, will probably 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 115 
 
 enough show his self-complacency at the antiquity of his own 
 ritual, and utter some sarcasm at the improprieties of Latin in- 
 novation. Yet if fairly considered, the Latin custom in this point, 
 be the date of its introduction what it may, will be found to be 
 a beautiful variety and supplement to the Greek, so that the two 
 taken together express the whole of one idea with a complete- 
 ness which neither of them could have alone. With the Greeks 
 the festival of Pentecost is the festival of the Trinity because 
 by the descent of the Holy Ghost the revelation of the three 
 Divine Persons is completed ; and with this the Latins, making 
 the octave of the festival to be the special festival of the Trinity, 
 do not disagree : for the octave is the repetition and completion 
 of the first day. The only difference is, that the Greek order 
 contemplates the Trinity as pre-existing and about to reveal 
 Itself by the descent of the Holy Ghost, the Latin order con- 
 templates the knowledge of the Trinity as the result and fruit 
 of that descent, to be acknowledged by us subsequently. And 
 as the Holy Ghost Which came down on the day of Pentecost 
 began thenceforth immediately to form and sanctify the body of 
 the Church, the Greek ritual with manifest propriety makes the 
 festival of All Saints not only to follow next after that of Pente- 
 cost, but to begin from its octave, to be its supplement, continua- 
 tion, and completion. The Latin ritual, on the other hand, in- 
 asmuch as the sanctification of the body of the Church, though 
 beginning from the day of Pentecost, is not complete till the end, 
 celebrates the festival of All Saints at that season when the Ec- 
 clesiastical year is all but completed, and we are now coming 
 round again to the Second Advent. The instructions contained 
 in the Epistles and Gospels for all the Sundays after Pentecost 
 represent all the workings of the Holy Ghost for the sanctifi- 
 cation of the elect during the time of the Dispensation : and 
 then, after the Saints of the whole Dispensation have been thus 
 perfected, they are all mystically united together in one common 
 festival. But the beginning of their prospective sanctification 
 immediately after the Day of Pentecost and the completion of 
 their actual sanctification at the end, and its celebration retro- 
 spectively, together make up one complete idea : and either ritual 
 would be comparatively imperfect, if it had not the other for its 
 supplement. But to return : 
 
 I 2 
 
116 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 Respecting the controversy about the administration of the 
 Holy Chrism by Priests it is further worthy of notice that it 
 may have an indirect connection^ through the mystical signifi- 
 cancy of the ritual^ with the doctrine of the original and secon- 
 dary procession, or rather of the p7'ocession and dispensation, of 
 the Holy Giiost. 
 
 The Latin ritual by making the Bishop alone to be both the 
 maker and the applier of the holy Chrism symbolizes this truth, 
 that the Holy Spirit, both in Himself and in His application 
 as a gift, is from the Father ; and there stops short. But the 
 Greek ritual, which, while restricting the making of the Chrism 
 to the Bishop, allows it to be applied by the Priest also, sym- 
 bolizes not only the above truth that the Holy Spirit is hypos- 
 tatically from the Father (and the Father only,) but also this, 
 that He is sent and given in the Dispensation by the Son. 
 And the Latins, who blamed the Greeks for not asserting au 
 eternal hypostatical procession from the Son, were at the same 
 time, without knowing what they did, attacking the Greek 
 ritual for symbolizing even so much as a secondary procession 
 or derivation from the Son, and insisting on the exclusive va- 
 lidity of their own ritual, which so insisted on, to the exclusion 
 of the interpretation and supplement afforded it by the Greek, 
 would hint a denial not only of the eternal and hypostatical, but 
 even of the secondary and dispensatory procession from the Son. 
 
 Again, the Latin Church by the admission of the Eastern 
 ritual in Uniat congregations is now herself symbolizing, though 
 unconsciously perhaps and unintentionally, the doctrine of the 
 original hypostatical procession being from the Father only, 
 besides being indebted to the Uniat Greek ritual for an inter- 
 pretation and supplement which shows that her own Latin ritual 
 does not deny the secondary procession from the Son. 
 
 A further question concerning Confirmation or Chrism arises 
 from the Latin practice of deferring it to years of discretion, and 
 even thenperha])s confounding the relative orderof the Sacraments 
 by giving the holy Communion to those about to be Confirmed 
 frsi, without any necessity. It is easy to see that in whatever 
 degree the development of the moral and intellectual nature is 
 deemed a prerequisite for the Sacraments of spiritual Unction and 
 spiritual Food, it must be no less but rather more so for the- 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 
 
 117 
 
 Sacrament of the New Birth. Whatever reasons of convenience 
 may have prompted the postponement, it has opened a wide 
 door to Lutheran and Calvinistic errors, as is exempUfied in the 
 Anghcan Church, whose Bishops are fixing later and later the 
 age for receiving candidates for Confirmation. The Easterns 
 therefore would naturally and properly seek to correct this error, 
 though, if it were found impossible to correct it, its continuance 
 might be endured for the sake of unity. 
 
 V. OfAzymes. 
 
 As for the Azymes of the Latins, which the Greeks in 
 the eleventh century (probably soon after their introduction,) 
 objected as a sufficient cause for separation as much as, and 
 sometimes even more than the FiUoque, there are certainly signs 
 that the Roman Church herself originally consecrated like the 
 Easterns in leavened bread, as has been admitted by some of 
 the most learned and candid of the modern Latins. And if one 
 dwells on the sense attached to the leaven in the Eucharist by 
 the Fathers, and suggested by its office in making that natural 
 bread which is the symbol of the Heavenly Bread, the Latin 
 custom must appear in the light of a lawless and mischievous 
 innovation, destructive in part of the sense and propriety of the 
 symbol. But if one considers on the other hand that " leaven " 
 is spoken of also in a bad sense in the Scriptures, and that the 
 present rite of the Latins was not introduced to symbolize any 
 heretical doctrine, (as the Armenian alteration of the TpiTsxyiov 
 was, and perhaps also their unmixed cup,) but to symbolize the 
 same orthodox doctrine as that of the Greeks, though by a dif- 
 ferent and contrary application of the symbol leaven, the only 
 question which remains is, first, whether even half the Church 
 with the Pope, but without a Council, could rightly vary the 
 previously existing oecumenical rite in such a matter? and, 
 secondly, seeing that the Pope and the Western Church have 
 as a matter of fact varied the previously existing oecumenical 
 rite, and that their use of Azymes has now been a fixed custom 
 for many centuries, it must be considered whether, persuasion 
 failing, that which was irregularly introduced may not, in that 
 sense in which they mean it, be for the sake of peace indulged to 
 them; or whether the Easterns even on this ground are justified 
 
] 18 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 in refusing, or are bound to refuse, their Communion till such 
 time as the Latins return to the ancient and oecumenical prac- 
 tice ? This case of the unlawful introduction of Azymes is much 
 like that of the equally irregular introduction of Baptism by one 
 immersion, not as rejecting the sense of trine immersion which 
 figured the three equal Persons, but as varying the symbol in 
 order to express another part of the truth, that is, the unity of 
 their common Divine essence, 
 
 VI. Of the Form of Consecration in the Liturgy. 
 
 The modern Latins have been in the habit of blaming the 
 Greek and other Eastern Liturgies for not consecrating by the 
 recital of Our Saviour^s words of Institution, to which their 
 Schoolmen have attached the whole force of the Consecration, 
 so as to make it improper to pray afterwards for the descent of 
 the Holy Ghost to change the Gifts. And though they seem 
 at length to have yielded to the overwhelming force of the evi- 
 dence against them thus far as to allow that the Eastern Forms 
 are not necessarily heretical, but may be tolerated, they yet con- 
 tinue, wherever they can, (as in the case of various United Rites 
 in the East,) to mutilate the Eastern Forms of Consecration and 
 force them into agreement with their own. And indeed it is 
 not easy to see, with their doctrine, how they could do otherwise. 
 
 But we may set aside their inaccurate scholasticism, or correct 
 it, and reduce it within tolerable limits, so that it shall mean no 
 more than this, that as the Divine word ^'Increase and multiply,'" 
 once spoken gives force to all marriages to the end of time, 
 without constitutmg of itself the Form of Marriage, so also in 
 the Eucharist Christ's w-ords " This is My Body,'' instead of 
 leaving nothing for the Priest to do afterwards but to repeat 
 them, rather imply and require that he should do that which 
 Christ Himself did ; that is, offer the Gifts with thanksgiving, 
 and pray that they may become His Body and Blood now also, 
 as then when He made them to be so Himself. And this being so 
 understood, the question remaining for us wuU be, not to defend 
 the Greeks who are plainly right in doing what they do, but to 
 examine how far the Latins may be, even in spite of themselves, 
 excusable or tolerable, though they seem not to do the same. 
 
 Now if any Church made the Nuptial Benediction to consist 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 
 
 119 
 
 in the bare recital by the Priest of the Divine word " Increase 
 and multiplt//' wrappiug up therein her own prayer that this 
 word might now take effect by His grace who originally spake 
 it, it would not be easy to show that such a Form is insufficient, 
 or absolutely invalid, even though Schoolmen might have at- 
 tached some gross and superstitious idea to the mere utterance of 
 the words themselves. It could only be said that such a Form 
 is not the fullest or most convenient that could be devised. And 
 the same will hold of the recitation of Christ's words of Insti- 
 tution in the Eucharist. If the Roman Church wills to use 
 them in such a way, they will be, even alone and of themselves, 
 a valid Consecration, not because their recital has been appointed 
 by God as an instrument to work the change of the elements, 
 but because the intention with which they are recited virtually 
 contains, though it does not outwardly express, that oblation 
 and prayer, or invocation, which are with more propriety ex- 
 pressed distinctly in all other Liturgies. 
 
 But perhaps the text of the Roman Mass contains, even as it 
 stands, an implied invocation of the Holy Ghost elsewhere 
 than under the recital of the words of Institution. Such an in- 
 vocation may be supposed to be implied either just before the 
 recital of the words of Institution, or after them. For just be- 
 fore the recital of the words of Institution we find these words : 
 
 " Accepta habeas lime dona, qum Tibi offerimus . . . Hanc Ob- 
 lationem placatus accipias . . . Quam Oblationem Tu Domine in 
 omnibus qucesumus benedictam acceptabilemque facere digneris, 
 ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiat dilectissimi Filii Tui Domini 
 Nostri Jesu Christi ; Qui pridie quam pateretur," ^c. 
 
 And after the recital of the words of Institution and the Ob- 
 lation immediately following them we have the subjoined petition ; 
 
 " Supra qua propitio vultu respicere digneins, et jube .... 
 prceferri in sublime altare Tuum ; . . , ut quotquot ex hdc altaris 
 participatione sacrosanctum Filii Tui Corpus et Sanguinem sump- 
 serimus omni benedictione coelesti et gratia repleamur." 
 
 Now if we take i\ie former words to answer to the Greek Obla- 
 tion and Invocation of the Holy Ghost, (And in that case what 
 follows after the words of Institution in the Latin Mass will 
 answer to"ET» 7rpoo-$epo|x=v x. t. A. that is, '' Further we offer" 
 ^c., in the Greek ;) then we may think with reason that it is all 
 
120 REMAllKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 one whether we say with the Uoman Form (and with the Eng- 
 lish Communion Office,) " We offer these Gifts, and j)ray Thee to 
 bless them to be His Body and Blood ivlio said, This is My Body, 
 This is My Blood; This do in remembrance of Me :" or with the 
 Eastern Litui-gies, " He said ' This is My Body, This is My 
 Blood: This do in remembrance of Me.' Wherefore we now 
 offer these Gifts, and pray Thee to send down Thy Holy Spirit 
 upon them and bless them to be His Body and Blood" 
 
 Oy, if we take what in the Roman Mass precedes the words 
 of Institution to have been only preparatory, and think what fol- 
 lows after them to correspond with what follows after them in 
 the Greek Liturgies, (as some may be inclined to do, seeing the 
 close resemblance of the Oblation which follows the words of 
 Institution in the lloman IMass to that following the same words 
 in all other Liturgies,) then in that case there will not be even 
 the slight variety of order to be reconciled. The only difference 
 will be this, that while the Greek Invocation of the Holy Spirit 
 after the words of Institution and the Oblation following them 
 is explicit, the Roman is implicit and indirect, wrapped up in the 
 prayer "Supra (ju(e propitio vultu respicere digneris, et juhe . . . 
 praferri in sublime altare Tuum ; . . . ut quotquot ex hdc altaris 
 participatione sacrosanctum Filii Tui Corpus et Sanguinem sump- 
 serimus omni benedictione ccelesti et gratia replea7nur.'" At the 
 same time it must be confessed that these words, as they stand, 
 though they 7nay possibly bear such a sense, yet sound much 
 rather as if the Consecration was now supposed to be completed, 
 and remind one of that prayer which is bidden among the Greeks 
 "for the Gifts that have been offered" after the completion of 
 the Consecration, and in which, as here, mention is made of the 
 " supercelestial altar:" "'TiT\p xaJv Trpo7iioixi(7QevTcov xa.) ayiacrSrvrcuv 
 Tiy.i'MV JMpuv, OTTwg 6 Ozhi ... 6 7rpocr5:^ajW,:voj uOto. e!j to 
 V7:=poi>paviov xu) vospov avToiJ Sii(Ticx.crTYjpiov, .... 0iVTix.xTCi7TSft.iirj 
 YjiMV T*]i/ htav %i<pfv xa) xj^v ^aopsav t&u Trctvxylov ZTvru/AaTOj.''^ So 
 that, if there has been no alteration (such as Greek and Angli- 
 can writers suppose there must have been, but which we had 
 better not suppose without proof,) it seems most probable that 
 the Invocation of the Holy Spirit spoken of by early Latin 
 writers in common with the Greek as effecting the change is 
 wrapped up in the prayer which precedes the words of Institu- 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 121 
 
 tion, and so is continued and closed emphatically by the recital 
 of these words themselves. 
 
 VII. Of the ])osition of the Great Oblation. 
 
 Connected with the question of the form and the moment of the 
 Consecration there is another, respecting the Oblation. For ac- 
 cording to the ideas of the Latin Schoolmen, the change taking 
 place on the utterance of Christ's words of Institution, the 
 Oblation which follows immediately after them in the Roman 
 Mass is an oblation not of bread and wine as symbols, but of 
 Christ's very Body and Blood, And this will equally be the 
 case whether we suppose with the Schoolmen the consecration 
 to be effected by the mere utterance of Christ's words, or by 
 the Invocation of the Holy Ghost wrapped up in that utte- 
 rance and in the prayer preceding. On the other hand the 
 Oblation of the Greek and of all other Liturgies, except the Roman, 
 though it is like that of the Roman in following immediately after 
 the words of Institution, yet, being followed itself by the Invoca- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost to change the Gifts,cannot be supposed to 
 be an oblation here on earth of Christ's literal Body and Blood ; 
 but must be held to be, so far as the earthly altar is concerned, 
 an oblation of bread and wine as symbols or antitypes of that 
 Sacrifice which is ever present upon the heavenly altar, and 
 which the Priest below also offers in some sense even before the 
 Gifts are changed by virtue of his union with Christ. 
 
 But neither here is there really any doctrinal difference be- 
 tween the Greeks and the Latins, but only a difference of ritual, 
 and of relative proportion in the prominence given to the oblation 
 before or after the Consecration has been perfected. For though 
 we allow that the great Oblation in the Latin Mass occurs after 
 that the Consecration has been really perfected, and so is an 
 oblation of Christ's very Body and Blood, while the great Obla- 
 tion of the Eastern Liturgies, though in words nearly identical, 
 yet occurring before their Consecration is perfected, can be no 
 more than an oblation of bread and wine, still it is to be re- 
 marked that both the Latin Mass has had also another previous 
 preparatory oblation answering to the great Oblation of the 
 Greeks, only less emphatic, and standing before instead of after 
 Christ's words of Institution ; and the Greek Liturgies, on the 
 
122 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 other hand, have also a continuance of the Oblation, answering 
 to the great Oblation of the Roman Mass, only less emphatic, 
 after their Consecration is perfected. (''"'Etj -Trpoai^spofxev aoi t>jv 
 Aoyjx^v TavTYiV XuTpEtxv VTTsp T60V Iv Triorej avaTraueraju.s'vwv,'" x. t.X.) 
 For the Greek Priest, even after the Invocation of the Holy 
 Ghost and the change of the Gifts, that is, after the consummation 
 of the Sacrifice, continues still to offer and to plead that same 
 Oblation which he had made indeed before, but which has now 
 acquired by Christ's presence on the altar a new sense and 
 depth, as is clearly expressed by St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his 
 Catechetical Lectures, when he says that those most solemn 
 prayers which are made immediately after the Consecration 
 both for the departed and for the living on earth derive no small 
 efficacy from the presence of the Eternal Victim on the altar. 
 And this is fully equivalent to the idea of the great Oblation of 
 the Roman Mass after the Consecration. 
 
 Of course if any one should suppose an Invocation of the 
 Holy Ghost to change the Gifts to be implied in the prayer 
 " Jube h(ec prtp/erri/' ^c: which occurs in the Roman Mass after 
 Christ's words of Institution and the Oblation following them, 
 he would then have all the three parts of the Consecration in the 
 Roman Mass corresponding exactly both in order and sense 
 with the same three parts in the Greek ; and the Roman Oblation 
 would then no longer be of Christ's literal Body and Blood, 
 but, like the Greek, of the symbols of bread and wine. But 
 there would still even then remain in the Roman Mass, as in 
 the Greek, the same thing in sense ; that is, a continuance of 
 the Oblation after the Consecration in the Prayer following, 
 " Communicantes," ^r. However, it is much more reasonable 
 to suppose that our Lord's words were always regarded in the 
 Roman Mass as the emphatic termination of the Consecration, 
 and that the Latin Schoolmen of the middle ages followed upon 
 the whole the true traditional sense of their Ritual, than to sup- 
 pose without proof that they invented their theory of Christ's 
 words being the Form of Consecration arbitrarily, in contraven- 
 tion of the wording and traditional meaning of their Mass, and 
 then gave a totally new sense to the Oblation, and otherwise 
 mutilated this most solemn of all Services merely to make it con- 
 sistent with their theory. This is too great an improbability. 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 123 
 
 But whatever view be taken of the matter, this is certain, that 
 both Easterns and Westerns agree in the doctrine that the 
 Sacrifice and Oblation is consummated in the strictest sense by 
 the change of the Gifts itself: and hence it follows that neither 
 does the making of a distinct oblation by the Priest afterwards 
 (if such an oblation be made,) really add anything essential, nor 
 does the omission of any such distinct oblation (if no such obla- 
 tion be made,) really take away anything essential. The differ- 
 ence can be only in the presence or absence of an outward ritual 
 exhibition of that which necessarily exists in both cases alike in 
 virtue of the Consecration itself. 
 
 VIII. Of Communion under one kind only. 
 
 However blameable may be the Latin practice of giving the 
 holy Communion to the laity under one kind only, it cannot 
 reasonably be pretended that the laity are thereby deprived of 
 the benefit of the Sacrament altogether. For all Christians 
 would admit unhesitatingly that if in any case it were impossible 
 for a man to Communicate in both kinds, (as in some rare cases 
 of sickness it may be,) it would be allowable and right to Com- 
 municate in one kind only; and that any one so Communicating 
 might confidently trust to God to give him the whole benefit of 
 the Sacrament, Christianity being a religion not of forms but of 
 spirit. And for the laity among the Latins the discipline of 
 their Church is really a necessity. The only question for the 
 Greeks to consider is, whether the fault and abuse of the Latin 
 Clergy in so withholding, without any real necessity to excuse 
 them, one kind from the laity is so great that, if they refuse to 
 correct it, it is alone a sufficient reason and justification for re- 
 fusing to Communicate either with them or with the laity who 
 are wronged by them. 
 
 If indeed any Christians refused to receive, or any Clergy 
 refused to administer, in both kinds in order to symbolize any 
 heresy, (as, for instance, pretending that the use of wine was 
 unlawful,) it might be a sufficient reason for withdrawing from 
 their Communion. But the motive for the maintenance of their 
 present usage among the Latins is well known by the Greeks to 
 be reverence, though it may be a mistaken reverence ; the very 
 same reverence indeed which moved nearly all the Easterns, 
 
134 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 since the end of the fifth century, to a shghter innovation, 
 namely that of giving the two kinds to the laity mixed. And 
 this abuse of the Latins, though of much later origin, may rea- 
 sonably be comprehended with the rest under that general 
 judgment of so many learned and holy men of the Eastern 
 Church, that, if only the Creed he restored, all the other errors 
 and abuses of the Latins may be borne with and winked at by 
 the Eastern Church for the sake of unity, however much she 
 may, and must, desire and labour for their correction. The 
 like may be said of their custom of depriving young children of 
 the holy Communion, which has already been alluded to in 
 speaking of the holy Chrism or Confirmation, which the Latins 
 delay (and together with it the first Communion,) till children 
 have reached the age of seven or eight years at the least, often 
 much longer. 
 
 IX. Of the state of the Saints before the last Judgment. 
 
 With regard to the admission of the Saints to heaven and to 
 the beatific vision before the final resurrection and judgment, it 
 is difficult to understand how any quarrel should have arisen : 
 for, popularbj speafiing, one finds exactly the same language on 
 this subject received in both Churches. If the Latins have 
 sometimes pressed this language too far, so as to impair the 
 proportion of sound doctrine, this can never make it reasonable 
 for the Greeks to run into the contrary extreme, and by w-ay of 
 opposing a Latin error to condemn and reject altogether lan- 
 guage which is consecrated in their own Hymnologies, and 
 which is constantly proceeding out of their own mouths. 
 
 X. Of Purgatory. 
 
 The doctrine of Purgatory is taught by the Latins, and is re- 
 jected by the Greeks. The doctrine of the Fathers and of the 
 early Church, of the present Greek or " Orthodox " Church, and 
 of all the other separated Eastern Churches, is this, that gene- 
 rally speaking, and upon the whole, the state of the faithful 
 departed is a state of light, and rest, and peace, and refresh- 
 ment, of happiness far greater than any belonging to this life, 
 yet inferior to that which shall be enjoyed after the resurrection 
 and the final Judgment. The doctrine of the Latins, on the 
 
BETAVEEN TUE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 125 
 
 other hand, is this, that generally speaking, and upon the whole, 
 the state of the faithful departed is a state of penal torment, 
 differing from that of hell only in the certainty of future deliver- 
 ance. Here is certainly in appearance a very wide difference 
 between the two Churches : yet perhaps even here the difference 
 is not radically one of doctrine, but only of relative proportion. 
 For there being many differences and degrees among the souls 
 of those who die with the root or habit of repentance and faith 
 and hope and charity in them, and many venial sins and effects 
 of mortal sins adhering in different proportions to departing 
 souls, there are souls in the loiver ranks of them that may yet 
 be saved of which the Greeks can think with hope, but yet 
 cannot think of them as being at once absolutely and unmixedly 
 in a state of happiness. But of such they think as needing the 
 prayers and oblations of the Church upon earth to procure their 
 refreshment, and to lighten them '' tmv xu-rsyovTuiv aurovg 
 uviapuiv." On the other hand the Latins think of the higher 
 souls that they either go straight through Purgatory, or are 
 speedily released from it, and that in proportion as any soul is 
 higher its state, though still upon the whole a state of penal 
 torment, perhaps even in material fire, contains more and more 
 of those same elements of comfort and refreshment which 
 according to the Greek theology predominate for the souls of 
 the faithful generally. The elements then in each of the two 
 theologies are the same; in the Greek happiness, with some 
 admixture nevertheless of suffering ; in the Latin suffering, 
 with some admixture nevertheless of refreshment and happiness : 
 only the proportions in which these two elements of happiness 
 and suffering are thought and spoken of are different and con- 
 trary. And even this contrariety may perhaps admit of recon- 
 cilement, as follows : 
 
 It may be that in earlier ages, when Christians were generally 
 better, the world openly opposed to the Church and divided 
 from it, and discipline within the Church stricter, there would 
 have been some incongruity in the Church or her members 
 dwelling on, or even perceiving, any admixture of pain and sad- 
 ness in the state of faithful souls after death : while on the con- 
 trary when the world had entered into the Church, when the 
 general deterioration of manners among Christians was raani- 
 
1.26 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 fest, and discipline either obsolete altogether or reduced to a 
 mere shadow of what it had been^ it was natural and inevitable 
 that more should be thought of the state of the lower classes 
 of souls which might yet be saved, and that their seemingly 
 immense multitude should give a tone and colour to the general 
 view taken by the Church of the intermediate state. 
 
 If such a view should be admissible, it would seem to follow 
 that an eighth (Ecumenical Council would not necessarily find 
 any great difficulty in defining limits within which the doctrine 
 concerning the intermediate state should be held to be dogmati- 
 cally decreed, or left open to a variable phraseology. The Greek 
 Church already joins together the two contrary ideas in her 
 solemn prayers for the Day of Pentecost, and might equally 
 allow the whole body of existing Latin phraseology on this sub- 
 ject to coexist in one Communion together with the whole body 
 of her own, so long as no particular words or ideas were so un- 
 duly pressed or generalized as to subvert the older and more 
 Catholic proportion of doctrine. 
 
 XI. Of Indulgences. 
 
 That the Bishop or the Church can grant Indulgences or re- 
 laxations of the canonical penances imposed on sin in this world, 
 all Churches and Sects which impose penances at all for sin 
 agree. And as canonical penances varied for difierent sins, and 
 might last many years or even a whole life for single acts of sin, 
 there is no essential absurdity in granting Indulgences for very 
 long periods, even for hundreds or thousands of years, unless it 
 be conceived to be impossible (which unhappily is only too pos- 
 sible,) that our sins should have merited whole ages of penance. 
 Nor is the granting of such Indulgences even for the dead, 
 either absolutely, if they have been formally bound before death 
 to such and such specific terms of penance, and have died with 
 their penance unperformed, or conditionally and vaguely, so far 
 as they may have died liable to penance, any error or absurdity, 
 though it may be difficult to express in words the precise efi'ect 
 of such an act of the Church on the souls to which it is applied. 
 Because God is above all outward means, even of His own Sac- 
 raments, and may be trusted to to correct all errors and to 
 supply all defects, it docs not therefore follow that the Church, 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 127 
 
 which is visible, need neglect to do any outward act, or need 
 suppose it void of efficacy if she does it. And if by her mouth, 
 that is, by the Canons, she has spoken outwardly a word to hind, 
 and has measured her bond by rjears, months, and days, it is as 
 suitable that she should, even for the dead, indulge or remit the 
 bond, as that she should say : " He is dead indeed (or may 
 have died,) in the bond of excommunication, and with penances 
 unperformed, and now, though we may trust he is pardonable, 
 it is not worth while to rehabilitate his memory, seeing that 
 God is Almighty, and will set all right with his soul.'' Even the 
 Anglican Church, which rejects Purgatory and Indulgences, and 
 omits Prayers for the Dead, retains the power and the usage of 
 removing the bond of excommunication after death. As to In- 
 dulgences viewed as applications of the merits of Christ and 
 His Saints and of particular good works of the living for the 
 benefit of the departed, no one can 'question that the Church, 
 and even individuals, in some sense, can make such application, 
 that is, can seek from God the benefit of those souls towards 
 which the intention is directed. 
 
 If one speculates on the efi'ect of remissions of excommu- 
 nication or of penance on the departed, the Greeks will think 
 that the former may sometimes have the effect of facilitating the 
 due but suspended dissolution of the body, and that both may 
 bring to the soul some comfort or remission " tcov xuTsy^ovraiv 
 avTYjv aviapuiv" as they think also of the general prayers and 
 oblations of the Church on earth, and of the faithful living, 
 with respect to the lower and more imperfect souls of those that 
 may yet be saved. And the Latins will naturally express the 
 same thought in the form of a remission of the pains of Purga- 
 tory. And thus far we need not suppose any irreconcileable 
 difference of doctrine. 
 
 But here, to avoid popular misconception, it must be remarked 
 that neither are the canonical years of penance which a sinner 
 may reckon up, or try to reckon up, as due to his sins, to help 
 himself to horror and compunction, necessarily actual years, nor 
 are the Indulgences which are their correlatives literally or es- 
 sentially connected with time, though they seem to be measured 
 or expressed by it. The object of penance is perfect contrition, 
 and the cleansing of the soul : and whether that object is at- 
 
128 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 tained in a few days or weeks (as on the reading of the Apostle's 
 letter and the excommunication of the incestuous Corinthian, 
 and as was commonly the case in the earliest age of the Church 
 when penance was in itself much sharper, but as measured by 
 time much shorter than afterwards,) or in seven, ten, or twenty 
 years, or by a whole life of public penance, (as in later ages when 
 theChui'ch was getting to be more mixed with the world,) it is one 
 and the same thing. St. Paul was afraid even after a short 
 time that the penitent might be swallowed up with overmuch 
 sorrow. In later times the Church was not afraid by decreeing 
 from one to thirty years' excommunication even for single sins 
 that she should endanger the swallowing up of her penitents by 
 overmuch sorrow. But in any particular case where the object 
 seemed sooner to be obtained she left power to the Bishop to 
 "grant Indulgence," that is, to measure penance not by time but 
 by its effect. And later still, when severity had been gradually 
 stretched to the utmost, and had failed, and, iniquity abounding 
 more and more, it became impossible to enforce, or to perform, 
 or even to count the penances decreed, the Church reverted for 
 her practical discipline in great measure to this simplest and 
 deepest principle, that for fallen Christians true contrition and 
 amendment is necessary for salvation. But in order to give some 
 idea, however inadequate and figurative, of the difficulty of resto- 
 ration, and the need of our utmost exertions, in proportion to 
 the number and nature of our sins, she kept before the eyes of 
 men those penances measured in days and years which she had 
 used to curb vice, to inform the conscience, and to assist repen- 
 tance, in former times before her discipline had been quite out- 
 stripped by the abounding of iniquity in the Christian world. An 
 Indulgence then of so many days or years has reference not to 
 any actual rotations of the earth on its axis or round the sun 
 supposed to be sensible in the intermediate state, but to canon- 
 ical years of penance: and canonical years of penance even on 
 earth are only a form varying in different ages for giving some 
 idea of the distinctions of sins and the difficulty of attaining 
 perfect contrition. Nor, again, has an Indulgence reference 
 only to such years of penance as actually imposed, but as im- 
 posable : nor has it reference in the case of its application to 
 the dead to any duty of actually performing the years, if not 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 129 
 
 indulged, which is impossible, but to that essential residuum 
 (whatever it be,) of such a bond which souls may have carried 
 with them into the intermediate state. The measurement of 
 this residuum by time, as regards the souls themselves, is a 
 mere figure of speech, as if one said, "The bond of that Can- 
 onical penance which, if they were living on earth, and lived 
 long enough, and did not merit an earlier indulgence, and the 
 discipline of such and such a century was in force, they would 
 have in strictness to perform for their sins." But the reason 
 for retaining the varieties and distinctions of time in speaking 
 of Indulgences is for the sake of the living, to work upon their 
 minds by ideas which are definite, whereas a vague and general 
 promise oi" some remission or advantage" in proportion to their 
 exertions, without specifying how much remission or how much 
 exertion in each case, might be in danger of producing less effect. 
 
 Viewed thus. Indulgences may be considered as a sort of spiri- 
 tual bonbons which the Church scatters to her children, with dif- 
 ferent values and different works marked upon them, in the hope 
 of stirring them up more or less towards the great objects of at- 
 taining true contrition, and doing good works, and towards 
 charitable intercession for the souls of others. And thus neither 
 need we say that the essential doctrine involved in the Roman 
 practice of granting Indulgences is false or inadmissible for the 
 Greeks, nor that the motive of the Roman Church and the Popes 
 in granting them is an evil one, whatever abuses may have at- 
 tached to them. 
 
 Even in the sale of Indulgences itself, which was forbidden as 
 an abuse by the Council of Trent, it is to be remembered that 
 the essential conditions for gaining the Indulgence sold remained 
 the same as in all other cases : "Whosoever being realhj contrite 
 and in charity with all men, shall devoutly perform this or that 
 religious act, or do this or that good work specified." There 
 was no licence or indulgence for sin, as Protestants falsely sup- 
 pose, no pardon granted beforehand for sins as yet uncommitted, 
 or to impenitent sinners, but a commutation into money or some 
 good work or service to the Cross and to rehgion of Ecclesiasti- 
 cal penances to persons who should have such dispositions, and 
 do such acts as might justify a mitigation of penance even if no 
 alms were given, or no such service performed. This might be 
 
 K 
 
130 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 a vei'y gross abuse, and no doubt was : as may be also the 
 sale of very different Indulgences (to eat butter, eggs, &c., 
 during the Fasts,) sometimes confounded with it. But it was 
 a very different thing indeed from the enormous wickedness 
 into which it was commonly exaggerated by the Protestants. 
 
 We may conclude then that even if the Roman Church re- 
 fused to abate anything of her present doctrine and practice on 
 the subject of Indulgences, even in deference to the wish of an 
 (Ecumenical Council, still there is nothing in either absolutely to 
 prevent the Greeks from communicating with her. 
 
 On the other hand, the Easterns might perhaps hope that in 
 a General Council this latest, and most artificial, and most easy 
 to be misunderstood and abused of all Roman developments 
 might be pruned somewhat, and the remissions and blessings of 
 the Church, especially as applicable to the souls of the departed, 
 reduced to some general form, the measurement by days and 
 years, and the word "plenary " perhaps, being disused. At any 
 rate, as the whole question is one not of doctrine, but of taste 
 and discretion in the manner of moving men to good works and 
 dispositions, the Easterns might, without any breach of unity, 
 refuse to admit the use of Indulgences within their own juris- 
 diction ; and if they were mistaken and Rome right in her prac- 
 tical judgment, the loss would be their own. 
 
 XII. Of the Last Unction. 
 
 As regards the Unction of the Sick, it is true that the Easterns 
 have kept more exactly than the Latins to the primitive idea 
 and practice, calling in not one Priest only but the " Priests " 
 of the Church, that there may be united prayer, and regarding 
 the whole act as a sacramental intercession to obtain healing, 
 whereas the Latins (as the Eastern Divines sometimes object,) 
 make it rather a preparation for expected death. 
 
 Nevertheless, as the Easterns do not seek to be Anointed on 
 every trivial occasion but when they think themselves danger- 
 ously ill, and defer for the most part as long as possible to own 
 that they are in danger, the common practice among them differs 
 not much from that of the Latins. And as it has become a 
 custom for all when they are manifestly in danger to send for 
 the Priests to anoint them, and as the great majority of them 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 
 
 131 
 
 that so send and are so anointed, in compliance with the custom, 
 are not " raised up again " to health of body in this life, but 
 die, it is clear that ordinarily and for the majority of cases 
 Christian faith and charity can only hope that at any rate the 
 remains of sin (so far as sin is connected with disease and decay 
 and death,) may through that solemn Intercession and Anoint- 
 ing be forgiven to the soul. And this is precisely the idea 
 which is now put most prominently forward in the Latm 
 Church. 
 
 And the Latins, on the other hand, by no means deny nor 
 exclude that idea and purpose which seems to be predominant 
 in the instruction given by St. James in his Epistle, and which 
 still predominates in the doctrine of the Eastern Church. They 
 teach that Extreme Unction sometimes (though rarely per- 
 haps now,) obtains not only forgiveness for the remains of sin, 
 but also a grace of bodily healing : and that it is not unlawful, 
 if any one have the requisite faith, to desire to be anointed in 
 order to obtain, if it so please God, even a bodily recovery. 
 The doctrinal discordance then between the two Churches is by no 
 means irreconcilable, but on this, as on many other points, con- 
 sists merely in a diflference of proportion. 
 
 As the name "Extreme " or "Last Unction,'" (which has some- 
 times been borrowed from the Latins by Greek and Russian 
 divines,) is often misunderstood by Protestants, it may be 
 remarked that the epithet "Extreme" or "Last" does not 
 imply that the sick person must be at the point to die, or 
 as they say in extremis, in order to be anointed, but it distin- 
 guishes the unction of the sick from other earlier unctions. 
 For Christians are anointed with oil even before Baptism ; and 
 this is the first unction : and after Baptism they are anointed 
 with the Holy Chrism ; and with oil also on various occasions 
 which need not here to be enumerated : and lastly when they 
 are dangerously sick and thought to be drawing near to death, 
 they are prayed over and anointed : and this, from its being 
 relatively posterior to all the preceding, is called by the Latins 
 the " Extreme " or " Last Unction." The Easterns call it the 
 " Oil of Prayer," or the " Meeting of the Priests over the Sick ;" 
 {Evyihaiov or Xvvolsixjig in the Service Books of the Greeks, 
 in those of the Slavonic people Eleosvieshchenies or Soborovdnie.) 
 
 k2 
 
132 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 XIII. Of the Celibacy of the Clergy. 
 
 The law of celibacy imposed upon the Latin Clergy was 
 already noted as a fault by the Council held at Constantinople 
 in Trullo, a.d. 691, the canons of which the Easterns receive as 
 oecumenical. But besides that these canons have never been 
 so received in the West, this very same Council in Trullo en- 
 acted for the Easterns themselves a restriction similar in kind 
 and differing only in extent from that imposed on the Latin 
 Clergy. In direct contravention of earlier canons, or at least 
 by a very violent wresting of them, {aly^ixaXctiTt^ova-cx. avTovg 
 vpo; TO KuXriTspov,) the Council in Trullo forbade Bishops for 
 the future to live with their wives. And after themselves show- 
 ing so plainly that they regarded the existing discipline on this 
 subject as open to change, it was somewhat unreasonable in the 
 Greeks to quarrel with the Latins because they had chosen to go a 
 little further in the same direction, and to impose on Priests 
 also and on Deacons the same restriction which the Council in 
 Trullo imposed only on Bishops. The Easterns might indeed 
 think this a dangerous experiment and inexpedient ; but so long 
 as they were not required to do the same, they could not deny 
 to the Westerns that right which they had always exercised of 
 using their own discretion and making canons of discipline for 
 themselves. If indeed there had been any Churches in the 
 West still retaining the earlier discipline, and the See of Rome 
 had been invading their liberty and trying to force upon them 
 its own custom, it would have been natural and not unjust for 
 an Eastern Council to take their part. And some such Churches 
 (of the Greek rite) there were, no doubt, on the coasts of 
 southern Italy, and elsewhere, in the latter part of the eleventh 
 century. But when we read of the Popes and Latin Bishops de- 
 priving the secular clergy of their wives, this has not ordinarily or 
 chiefly respect to lawful wives married according to the liberty of 
 the ancient discipline before Ordination, but either to mere concu- 
 bines, or to wives married in despite of the canons of the universal 
 Church after Ordination. 
 
 XIV. Of the Latin Fasts. 
 Another ground of quarrel against the Latins is their manner 
 of fasting ; that they observe the Saturday in every week, and 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 133 
 
 not the Wednesday; that they eat flesh up to the very begin- 
 ning of Lent ; and begin Lent itself on the Wednesday instead 
 of the Monday ; that their monks eat flesh ; and that during 
 the Fasts they allow the use of fish, milk, butter, cheese, eggs, 
 and the like. But besides that these diff"erences are mere mat- 
 ters of rite and custom, they are all much older than the division 
 between the Churches. The weekly fast of the Wednesday and 
 Friday may indeed have been universal in the very earliest times, 
 but the custom of substituting the Saturday or Sabbatli for the 
 Wednesday is nevertheless of very remote antiquity at Rome, 
 (having existed even in the fourth century,) and for ages it 
 occasioned no complaint or schism. And though an oecumeni- 
 cal Council holden in the East may have forbidden Christians 
 to fast on any Sabbath in the year, except one, the Great Sab- 
 bath, still no such Eastern canons of discipline, eveti though 
 made by cecumenical Councils, were ever held to bind the West 
 propria vigore, that is, unless they were there formally admitted 
 and received. And apart froai the consideration of mere autho- 
 rity, the idea of preparing for the weekly festival of Our Lord's 
 resurrection by a weekly imitation of the fast of the Great 
 Friday and the Great Sabbath is no less pious and appropriate 
 than the weekly observance of Wednesday as the day on which 
 Christ was betrayed, and Friday as the day on which He was 
 crucified ; an observance which no doubt makes flesh-days and 
 fasting-days to alternate at convenient intervals. 
 
 If we look to the strict requirements or recommendations of 
 the Latin rite, the difference will be reduced within narrov/ 
 limits. For on the one hand we shall find that the Latins have 
 not absolutely dropped the observance of the Wednesdays. On 
 the contrary at the Four Seasons (when they hold their Ordina- 
 tions of Clergy,) during the season before Christmas called Ad- 
 vent, and at other times of extraordinary supplications, Wednes- 
 day is the day that they select to be added as a day of fasting 
 or abstinence to the Friday and Saturday. And on the other 
 hand the Easterns, celebrating the Liturgy on the Sabbath, and 
 not eating till it is over, that is, till about the middle of the day, 
 come very nearly up to the abstinence of the Latins, who eat fish 
 and eggs and cheese and butter as early as at midday on the 
 Sabbath, and so do not fast in the strict sense of the Easterns. 
 
134 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 As for the time of leaving off meat, or beginning Lent, and 
 for greater or less indulgences in ])oint of diet during the fasts, 
 such differences have existed from the beginning not only be- 
 tween the East and the West, but also between lesser particular 
 Churches. And among the Latins themselves a particular 
 Church, the Church of Milati, has preserved from very ancient 
 times even to the present day the custom of leaving off flesh 
 and beginning Lent some days later than the rest of the Wes- 
 tern Churches, without any breach of charity on this account ; 
 though the other Westerns might more reasonably be offended 
 at the particular of the Church of Milan so varying from them- 
 selves than the Easterns at a similar variation of the whole Wes- 
 tern Church. And as for any abuse or relaxation in the West 
 contrary not only to the Greek but even to the milder Latin rule, 
 such as the sale of Indulgences in Spain and South America, the 
 relaxation of fasting to Roman-Catholics living among Protes- 
 tants or Infidels, as in England and in France, (w^here they are 
 allowed by Dispensation to eat meat four days in the week even 
 during Lent,) such concessions to the overbearing force of na- 
 tional or local custom, or to the spirit of the age, are not peculiar 
 to the Latins. The Easterns also under similar circumstances 
 neglect all or nearly all that is prescribed by their own discipline, 
 and are not refused the Sacraments or put to any serious pen- 
 ance in consequence. The only difference is this : For the 
 Westerns the Ecclesiastical authority itself condescends to the 
 pressure of society, and yields much in order to retain some- 
 thing which it reserves, or at any rate in order to save the 
 weaker sort from the certainty of sinning by disobedience to 
 a law not absolutely essential, and to assist them that are of 
 stronger faith towards obtaining from society some measure of 
 toleration for obedience : whereas in the East, no modification 
 by authority being admitted, the whole of the prescribed observ- 
 ances are in danger of being swept away together so soon as the 
 torrent of social corruption comes in conflict with them. The 
 educated and civilized Greek or Russian of the higher classes, 
 from the moment that the custom in his own grade of society 
 sets against the observance of the fasts of his Church, or that 
 he finds himself living among Latins or Protestants, takes freely 
 all those liberties and dispensations which are sometimes in- 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 135 
 
 diilged by authority to Latins, and a great deal more besides, 
 without knowing where to stop, or having any distinct reason 
 for stopping at all, when he has once ventured to grant dispen- 
 sation to himself without any real necessity. 
 
 XV. Of the free use of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 That there is some difference between the two Churches, in 
 their spirit, that is, and in their tone towards the laity, on this 
 subject cannot be denied. In the West there is a general assump- 
 tion on the part of the enemies of the hierarchy and a disagree- 
 able sort of consciousness among the people and clergy themselves 
 that there is something in the letter of the sacred Scriptures, or 
 at least in the free study and circulation of them, unfriendly to the 
 existing system of doctrine and disciphne. And in consequence 
 there is observable in the hierarchy a total absence of zeal to 
 promote the study of the sacred Scriptures, especially through 
 translations. Among the Easterns on the contrary there is no 
 such disagreeable feeling of divergence or opposition between the 
 Scriptures and the Church, but whoever can is encouraged freely, 
 and as a matter of course, to procure and study the Holy Books, 
 whether in the original languages or in approved versions. 
 
 Yet neither here is there any very deep opposition between the 
 teaching or discipline of the two Churches. The Latin Church 
 has never discouraged any person that may be capable from pro- 
 curing and studying the Scriptures in the original text, or in those 
 ancient translations (such as the Septuagint and the Vulgate,) 
 which have become as the original text for the Greeks and the 
 Latins. On the other hand the Eastern Church has never encou- 
 raged Christians to buy or use those unauthorized translations 
 which have been made by heretics, and which are circulated by 
 them, often with corruptions and perverse interpretations, and al- 
 ways with the idea of insinuating some allowance or respect for 
 their own spurious Christianity. And if the one Church (like the 
 early Fathers,) dwells more on the general benefit of the know- 
 ledge and study of the Scriptures, while the other dwells more 
 on the mischief to be apprehended from heretical versions, and 
 from the study even of the genuine Scriptures with improper 
 dispositions of mind, and therefore is indifferent or hostile to 
 the multiplication of translations into living languages, this dif- 
 
136 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 ference is perhaps no more than local and temporary, arising 
 chiefly out of the peculiar circumstances of the West, which 
 during the last three centuries have thrown the Latin Church 
 into an unnatural and controversial attitude. And certainly, if 
 anything were wanting to justify her, it would be found in the 
 use made of the Bible by those who have rebelled against her 
 authority, and in the results which have followed and which 
 still follow daily from their use of it. Perceiving with the eyes 
 of the spirit the strong and fierce devil that was entering into 
 the Teutonic nations, and was tempting them to abuse the print- 
 ing-press and the Scriptures to their hurt, the Roman Church 
 might seem, and may still seem to superficial or prejudiced ob- 
 servers to direct against the Scriptures in themselves that hostility 
 which is really directed against the evil spirit by whose hand 
 and mouth they are abused. But if ever that smoke from the 
 pit which now envelopes the West should be dispersed, and the 
 sun of faith should shine out again, it is possible that the tone 
 of the Roman Church respecting the free use of the Scriptures 
 may undergo a great change. 
 
 XVI. Of Church Services in a tongue no longer understood by 
 
 the People. 
 
 Reflections similar to the above may have place also with re- 
 gard to that unwillingness which the Roman Church has shown 
 to give to difi'erent nations the Services of Religion in their own 
 spoken languages. The Eastern Church inclines the contrary 
 way ; and her divines sometimes extol her superiority over the 
 Latin on this account. But the fault, if it be a fault, of adhering 
 rigidly for ritual purposes to an antiquated or even to a dead lan- 
 guage is by no means peculiar to the Latins. It is something 
 far more general, and well nigh universal : so much so, as to 
 suggest the idea that there may probably be some Divine eco- 
 nomy in the permission that a custom so contrary to the spirit 
 and practice of the primitive Christians as well as to reason and 
 propriety should have become so generally and so permanently 
 prevalent. The modern Greeks, the Russians Servians and Bul- 
 garians, and the Georgians, of the OrthodoxCommunion, the Nes- 
 toriaus of Kurdistan, the Armenians, the Monophysites of Syria 
 Persia and India, the Arab-Copts of Egypt, and the Abyssinians, 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 137 
 
 all have their worship and Church Books in dialects either abso- 
 lutely unintelligible or only partially intelligible to the people. It 
 is only in some exceptional cases (and that within the last century,) 
 as in the adoption of the Wallachian or Romanian spoken language 
 instead of the Slavonic in the Danubian Principalities, and in 
 the translation of the Church Books into Turkish for some con- 
 gregations which have forgotten Greek in Asia, and into Arabic 
 in Syria, that the Eastern Orthodox Church has shown any dis- 
 position to accommodate Divine worship to the changing dialects 
 of the people. 
 
 It is true indeed that the old Hellenic, the old Georgian, and 
 the Slavonic languages are very far from being absolutely unin- 
 telligible to the modern Greeks, Georgians, or Russians, as Latin 
 is absolutely uninteUigible to the Teutonic or semi-Teutonic na- 
 tions of the West, to the Latin Slavonians of Poland and Bohemia, 
 and to the Magyars of Hungary. But these nations after all com- 
 pose only a part, though an important part, of Western Christen- 
 dom ; and there is another large part consisting of nations, (such 
 as the Italians and Sicilians, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, 
 with their colonies in South America,) in which the Latin lan- 
 guage, though changed and blended with a Teutonic element, 
 still predominates : and for these latter peoples the difference 
 between the Church Latin and their own spoken or written lan- 
 guage, is of the same kind (though greater,) as that which exists 
 between the Hellenic of the Greek Ritual and the modern 
 Romaic. 
 
 Perhaps as the general standard of Christian faith and charity 
 sank lower, and the Church came to be more intimately blended 
 with the world, it became in a secondary sense good for Chris- 
 tians that the full light of earlier and better times should be 
 partially darkened or withdrawn : and that instead of being 
 forced upon all to the greater condemnation of many, it should 
 be half shown and half hidden, so as to be an incentive to exer- 
 tion and a reward for them that have the grace to search for it 
 to their greater profit. 
 
 And as for the West, though the historian Fleury may have 
 wondered why Rome did not act by the nations of modern Eu- 
 rope in the spirit of the primitive Church, by giving to each, so 
 soon at least as its language was well formed, the Scriptures 
 
138 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 and the Services in its own tongue, it is easy to see that there 
 were considerations of great force to forbid any such change. 
 Even in first communicating Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons, 
 the Germans, and other peoples in the seventh, eighth, and ninth 
 centuries it had been thought best to attempt to draw them 
 through the Church language into the Latin family, and to make 
 some sacrifice of popular edification for the sake of consolidating 
 more strongly the unity of the Church. And the allowance of 
 their own language to the Slavonians of Moravia was no excep- 
 tion : for it was a concession to people who would not be refused, 
 and not a voluntary boon. But when the nations and king- 
 doms of modern Europe were at length formed, and their lan- 
 guages fixed, the disturbing influences of their separate nation- 
 alities became so strong, that they could hardly be kept together 
 in Ecclesiastical unity, even though they had all one and the same 
 faith, Church law, and Ritual, and one common Clergy, with a 
 language of its own, interpenetrating them all and concentrated in 
 one common independent centre at Rome. Under such circum- 
 stances any change which should tend to strengthen still further 
 the separate nationalities, and to divide and nationalize that 
 common Clergy, which like the citizens of Old Rome being 
 mixed everywhere with the Provincials bound the whole into 
 unity, would be manifestly most dangerous : and exactly the 
 same reasons which would move an heresiarch or a tyrant who 
 wished to sin with impunity to introduce the use of the vulgar 
 tongue for purposes of religion, to abolish the celibacy of 
 the clergy, and to banish monks and friars, would weigh with 
 Bishops and Popes to make them oppose or forbid such changes. 
 Whether indeed under other circumstances, if nations and king- 
 doms had been heartily devoted to the Roman See and to religious 
 unity, and had shown no tendencies to separation, Rome might 
 have acted difi'erently; or whether even yet at some future 
 period, when nations and states, as such, shall have hopelessly 
 and irrecoverably apostatized, and the remnant of sincere be- 
 lievers are everywhere and of necessity Ultramontanes, (if that is 
 to be so, as some think,) Rome may still act differently, and en- 
 courage or even enjoin a freer use of the vernacular languages 
 of each people in the services of religion, — are questions on 
 which every one may speculate as he pleases. 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 139 
 
 XVIT. Of " Persecution." 
 
 Greeks and Russians often enough inveigh against the perse- 
 cuting spirit of the Church of Rome, and dwell upon the cruel- 
 ties of the Inquisition, and upon certain well-known passages of 
 history, with as much liveliness as the Protestants themselves : 
 and they contrast these horrors with the mild and tolerant Chris- 
 tianity of their own Church. But here again on closer inspec- 
 tion the supposed difference will be found to vanish. 
 
 Far from being any invention of the Popes or of the Church 
 of Rome, the practice of restraining heresy by civil penalties, 
 and even by capital punishments, originated with the Christian 
 Emperors of Constantinople, and was based upon principles of 
 civil government universally recognized, and sanctioned both by 
 natural reason and by Divine legislation. Among the Athenians, 
 the most intelligent people of antiquity, it was made the ground 
 of a capital accusation against Socrates, that he corrupted the 
 youth by dishonouring the religion of the State and introducing 
 new Gods : and Socrates, the wisest and best of Gentile sages, 
 though he denied the charge, yet by no means denied that the 
 punishment would be suitable if the charge were true. And 
 among the Hebrews, if even a brother, or son, or daughter, or 
 wife, or friend, were to entice any man, though it were secretly, 
 to serve other Gods, he was not to be spared nor concealed, but 
 the hand of the nearest relative was to be first upon him to stone 
 him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And 
 if any city followed or harboured such innovators, that city was 
 to be smitten with the sword and utterly destroyed, with all its 
 people, their cattle and property, and burned, and made a heap 
 for ever, and never to be rebuilt. Thus they were commanded 
 to put away the abomination from among them, and to avert 
 the fierce anger of the Lord, {Deut. xiii.) 
 
 Nor could this well have been otherwise, if any Government 
 was to govern the whole man, the whole body politic, intelligently, 
 with a view to its real good and happiness. If indeed any go- 
 vernor were a mere human animal, without any higher idea than 
 that of material wellbeing, or if, while perceiving the possible 
 importance of religion, he were unable to choose between conflic- 
 ting creeds, or without power to influence his subjects, he would 
 
14-0 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 necessarily iu governing aim after only such inferior and partial 
 wellbeing as lay within his knowledge and his power. But in 
 proportion as any ruler, whether the father of a family, the mas- 
 ter of a house, or the governor of a State, really believes any 
 moral or religious truth, and perceives its importance, it is not 
 only right but natural and inevitable that he should do all he 
 can to favour, maintain, and promote such truth, and to exclude 
 repress and extirpate all contrary error. When men speak or 
 write as if they thought otherwise, their words only publish 
 that they are themselves destitute of belief, or at least of power 
 to promote their belief, or that they are inconvenienced by the 
 existence of belief joined with power in others. Such are the 
 clamorous outcries of Roman -Catholics (no less than of Protes- 
 tants,) in countries where they are not dominant, and the popular 
 praises of religious liberty and toleration in countries where 
 Protestantism is strong as a negative principle, but in its pos- 
 itive forms lukewarm and divided. 
 
 But though the principle of " persecution " (as it is called,) is 
 acted upon more or less (according to their power and discretion) 
 by all governors so far as they have a belief, it is manifestly 
 very liable to be misapplied by indiscreet zeal or evil passion. 
 And such misapplication of it has at various times and in various 
 countries occasioned many ineffectual and revolting cruelties, which 
 have commonly rather strengthened the opinions they were inten- 
 ded to suppress, and have excited an infinite amount of miscon- 
 ception and abhorrence against the principle itself. In fact, the 
 occasions really justifying the extreme application of this princi- 
 ple are of the very rarest occurrence. So rare are they, that one 
 may almost say with truth that the infliction of capital penalties 
 for offences against faith, though right and defensible in theory, 
 is in practice mischievous and wrong. For it is not the duty of 
 any and every government to burn, or even to imprison or fine, 
 every heretic and schismatic whom it has the power to seize, 
 nor under any or all circumstances : but only when the gover- 
 nor and his people are as yet united in the true faith, and the 
 evil attacks them for the first time, so that it is possible by a 
 few summary and capital punishments to destroy it in the bud 
 or egg, (as in one female wasp in Spring the gardener may dc- 
 stroy a whole swarm,) and possible also by a striking severity 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 141 
 
 in the manner of the punishments to impress on men a just 
 sense of the enormity of the crime, and of the mischief it 
 threatens to society, and a sakUary fear of what else (if tolerated, 
 and recommended by any specious qualities in the heresiarchs,) 
 might appear to simple people innocent or even attractive : and 
 lastly, when all that charity and zeal can devise has been first 
 tried by the ministers of religion to convert the heresiarch, and 
 he remains obdurate. These conditions are clearly indicated by 
 our Saviour Himself in the parallel case of the severities en- 
 acted by the Mosaic law against sins of uncleanness, and in par- 
 ticular against the crime of adultery. For when they brought 
 to Him a woman taken in adultery, and questioned Him, saying, 
 " Master, Moses in the law commanded that such should be 
 stoned ; but what sayest Thou ?" He taught them that the law 
 indeed was good, and wise, and just, yet that it was not to be 
 executed against offenders by people who were themselves guilty : 
 that its purpose was not to authorize adulterers or idolaters to 
 stone, or burn, or persecute one another, but to defend the 
 people of God, while as yet pure from such sins, and united in 
 faith and obedience, against the first assault and contagion of 
 the most destructive evils. 
 
 So then, if there has been much and terrible misapplication of 
 the principle of persecution in the West, this has been owing to the 
 fault of particular rulers and governments, or of society in particu- 
 lar ages and countries, and under particular circumstances, not to 
 anything false or evil in the principle itself, nor to the Church, 
 which (as such) merely teaches princes the abstract truth that it is 
 their duty to protect their subjects against heresy no less than 
 against robbery or murder. Neither has persecution in the West 
 been exercised only by Roman-Catholic rulers (in whom, being a 
 duty, it involves no evil passion,) but equally by Protestants, in 
 whom, being contrary to their ideas of justice, it is an inconsistent 
 and odious atrocity. And if on the other hand there has been less 
 heard of severities from Christian rulers in the Eastern Church, 
 and less feeling excited on the subject, this has not been owing 
 to any difference in the instructions she has given to kings as to 
 the principle, but simply to a difference of circumstances. Nor 
 have occasions been altogether wanting when " persecution " 
 has been used in Eastern Christendom, and that too at the de- 
 
142 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 niand of the Clerg3^ That, the Greek Emperors of Constantino- 
 ple punished heresy by death^ and byburniug, has been mentioned 
 above : and in the History of the Russian Church, in her very 
 infancy, a case is recorded which shows the Russians partici- 
 pating in the same views. A Monophysite of Armenian origin, 
 who had devoted himself for many years with singular patience 
 and industry to sowing the seeds of a subtle and imaginative 
 heresy which was to unite the Greek and the Latin rites under the 
 Monophysite Creed, after once recanting before a Synod of 
 Bishops at Kieff, having relapsed, and remaining obdurate, was 
 at length remitted to Constantinople, as a subject of the Greek 
 Empire, to be dealt with according to its laws. And this man, 
 after having been again in vain exhorted by the Greek Clergy, 
 was burned alive. And about the end of the fifteenth century, 
 under the Grand Prince John III. of Moscow, when a deistical 
 heresy of Jewish origin had infected numbers of the Clergy, and 
 some of the chief servants and favourites of tlie Sovereign, (if 
 not the Sovereign himself,) and had the Primate of the Church, 
 whose name was Zozimus, among its adherents, a simple 
 monk, Joseph the Hegoumen of Volokolamsk, by his letters and 
 exhortations roused the sounder part of the Hierarchy, forced 
 the assembling of a Synod, and procured the condemnation of the 
 heresy, the deposition of the heterodox Primate, and the election 
 of another who was orthodox. And when the Judaizers evaded 
 all tests by readily anathematizing their own heresies, while 
 they held and taught them all the same, he demanded, as the 
 only remaining resource, that they should be put down by the 
 civil power ; and actually forced the Grand Prince to give up his 
 own Secretary, together with others, to be burned in the public 
 place at Moscow. It is true that the zeal of this Hegoumen 
 Joseph and his arguments (arguments which he enforced by 
 the example of the King of Spain, whose persecution of the 
 Jews was then noised in Russia,) met with great opposition, 
 especially from the heretics themselves and their favourers. 
 These naturally enough contended that the only arms to be em- 
 ployed against religious error were the arms of meekness and. 
 persuasion ; and that nothing could be more unchristian than 
 for the civil governor to use, or for the Clergy to suggest, perse- 
 cution. Many well-intentioned moderate men, who saw not the 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 143 
 
 real nature of the emergency, added strength to such remon- 
 strances. But the Hegoumen carried his point. Persecution 
 was used. A most formidable heresy, one of the most subtle 
 and evasive that has ever appeared, which had taken deep root, 
 was spreading rapidly, had great worldly and even ecclesiastical 
 advantages on its side, and seemed unassailable by ordinary spi- 
 ritual arms, was cut short, and after a time extirpated by perse- 
 cution. And the monk who effected this is celebrated to this 
 day in consequence as a Saint of the Russian Church. 
 
 XVIII. Of the Existence of 7-eputed Saints and ' Miracles in 
 both Communions. 
 
 At present the Latins commonly make light of those Greek 
 Saints who have lived since the breach between the Churches, and 
 the Greeks make light of the Latin Saints who have lived since the 
 same time. So too the Latins reject Greek miracles and Greek 
 Icons, and the Greeks reject those of the Latins. But this on 
 both sides is merely in consequence of the division : and the ex- 
 istence on both sides of reputed Saints and miracles, far from 
 being an impediment, is really rather an assistance towards re- 
 union. According to the terms of the Council of Florence the 
 Greeks would have continued to honour all their Saints who had 
 lived since the separation, and the Latins would have continued 
 to honour theirs. And even if it were supposed that the Greek 
 Church were schismatical and the Latin Church heretical, still 
 in the opinion of the most enlightened theologians it would by no 
 means follow that sanctity and miracles might not exist in 
 those Churches. For though in ivilful schismatics or heretics 
 they could not be supposed to exist, yet in individuals and gene- 
 rations which should be only materially in schism or heresy, and 
 excusable by what the Latins call invincible ignorance, sanctity 
 and miracles might exist to any extent. And so not only of the 
 Greek, but even of the Nestorian and Monophysite Churches, it 
 may be admitted by Roman Divines that perhaps they have 
 produced Saints, and may have witnessed true miracles. But 
 much more if, as we have been supposing, both the Greek 
 and the Latin Churches are parts of the true Catholic Church, 
 is it reasonable, and agreeable to our theory, that they 
 should botli have continued to produce reputed Saints and 
 
144 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES 
 
 miracles since the time of theii estrangement in the ninth 
 or in the eleventh century to the present day. 
 
 One class of reputed Saints and miracles however there is, 
 which are really obstacles rather than assistances to union : that 
 is, when any reputed Saint or miracle is connected with the di- 
 vision itself, and even seems to have been magnified (by the one 
 side or the other,) for the sake of the division. Thus, though 
 it may be admitted that Photius, Gregory Palamas, and Mark of 
 Ephesus were great and learned men, and that they defended 
 the orthodox phraseology, they will not be magnified into Saints 
 except by such as wish to make of them three beams or wedges 
 of bitterness to keep open the wounds of the Church. 
 
 Neither does the existence on both sides of a vast mass of 
 popular legends and superstitions, and of excesses and abuses 
 connected with the Invocation of the Blessed Virgin and the 
 Saints, and with the worship of Images and Pictures, and of 
 Ilelics, ofl^er any hindrance to unity, though now the Greeks on 
 the one side and the Latins on the other seem often to be very 
 free (as free as the Protestants themselves,) in blaming and re- 
 jecting, and even in ridiculing, these faults in their rivals. 
 Rather, the general similarity of the two Communions in these re- 
 spects would offer great facilities: and if no other hindrances stood 
 in the way of peace, they would accept or tolerate one another's 
 kindred superstitions just as readily as they now reject them. 
 Whereas, on the other hand, even if the Anglican Communion 
 were plainly one with the Greek in all articles of faith, there 
 would still be no small difficulty in the way of a solid practical 
 union arising from the uncongeniality of the dominant feeling 
 in the two Communions with regard to what is commonly 
 called superstition, a weakness (so far as it is a weakness,) 
 natural to man, and nowhere catalogued among the deadly sins, 
 nor forbidden by any one of the ten Commandments. 
 
 XIX. Of Immutability and Novelty, as characteristic of the two 
 Churches respectively. 
 
 A greater appearance of difficulty there is in the reconcile- 
 ment of the stereotyped antiquarianism of the Greek Rite, pre- 
 serving exactly the same usages, with the developments and ap- 
 parent distortions of idea and practice which characterize the 
 
BETWEEN THE GREEKS AND THE LATINS. 145 
 
 present Latin Rite. The Greek Rite is like a plant or building 
 which, though covered with dust and somewhat shrunk, pre- 
 serves all its original shape and proportions : the Latin on the 
 contrary is so changed that it is rather like a new building, con- 
 structed in part out of the ruins of the old. Various important 
 parts of the old are suppressed, others thrown into the shade : 
 things which did not exist, or which were unimportant once, 
 have been brought forward : many ancient channels of grace 
 and edification have become dry, while fresh ones have been 
 opened. Instead of one daily public Liturgy on one altar in 
 the church, and the Bishop con-celebrating with the body of his 
 Clergy, we now see multiplied altars, and each Priest saying his 
 own separate Mass. Then there is the reservation of the Bles- 
 sed Sacrament, not for the sick, but to furnish a local bodily 
 presence of Christ dwelling in and sanctifying the building of 
 the church, with all the train of applications and devotions 
 which follow from this, the Visitation of the Blessed Sacrament, 
 with meditation and adoration before it, &c. Again, the pecu- 
 liar systematized devotions to the Blessed Virgin, with the facts 
 and doctrines on which they are partly based, and other like 
 things, which occupy at the present day so large a place in Ro- 
 man-Catholic religion, but which were totally unknown to the 
 ancients. Some doctrinal points, having been already treated 
 separately, need not to be here mentioned over again. 
 
 The general aspect is this : on the Western side apparent no- 
 velties, errors, and abuses, (it may be,) with manifest life and 
 energy ; on the Greek or Eastern side apparent preservation of 
 the ancient type of ritual and proportion of doctrine with for- 
 malism and coldness. So that, if unity were to be restored, we 
 must suppose either that the Latin life, leaving its new and dis- 
 torted channels, would return to run in the older channels of 
 the Easterns, while the Easterns, preserving what they have al- 
 ready, would gain ?in increase of life from union with the Latins ; 
 or else that there is some real connection between the life and 
 the novelties on the one side, and between the antiquarianism 
 and the coldness on the other; and, in that case, that the Greeks 
 after their reunion with the West would probably begin to inno- 
 vate, and to admit among themselves those Latin developments 
 and changes of proportion which they now reject and condemn. 
 
 L 
 
146 REMARKS ON PARTICULAR CONTROVERSIES, ETC. 
 
 And if we suppose this latter case, and that in a number of 
 lesser particulars the Eastern Church discovered a real connec- 
 tion to exist between spiritual life and the changes of the Latins, 
 she would have strong grounds for extending the same princi- 
 ple so as to accept also upon it, and as developments, the two 
 great doctrines of the "Double Procession" and the Papal Su- 
 premacy : which would imply the complete reversal of those 
 porportions of relative superiority and inferiority which we have 
 hitherto been assuming to exist between the theology and 
 ritual of the two Churches. And this leads to another subject, 
 which shall be treated in a separate Section. 
 
DISSERTATION IX. 
 
 OF THE BEARING OF THE THEORY OF DOCTRINAL DEVELOP- 
 MENT ON THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE ORTHODOX 
 AND THE ROMAN-CATHOLIC CHURCHES. 
 
 The general practice of Roman-Catholic writers has been to de- 
 fend all the existing doctrines of their Church, and (on the most 
 important points) her discipline also and ritual, on the ground 
 of tradition, either written or oral, preserved uninterruptedly 
 from the beginning. Enslaved to this theory they have too often 
 interpolated and corrupted the text of ancient authors, denied 
 or explained away their plain meaning, and given a false colour- 
 ing to Ecclesiastical history. 
 
 The Easterns meanwhile, the Anglicans, and the Protestants, 
 seeing a plain discrepancy on many important points between 
 the modern Roman-Catholic Church and the Catholic Church 
 of earlier times, and considering the efforts of Roman-Catholics 
 to deny, or dissemble, or account for such a discrepancy 
 to be unsuccessful, or even dishonest, have been used to 
 strengthen themselves in their conviction that the Latin Church 
 is in the wrong, and that they themselves (though this does not 
 at all follow,) are in the right. 
 
 Recently a man of the greatest genius and learning and piety, 
 who had long endeavoured to defend the Anglican Church but had 
 found it indefensible, being attracted by many considerations 
 towards Rome, has attempted in an elaborate essay not only to 
 account for the discrepancy existing between the modern Roman 
 and the ancient Church, but even to turn this very discrepancy 
 itself into an argument in favour of the Roman Communion. 
 This he does by means of a certain theory of development, ac- 
 cording to which the Church has power not only to enlarge her 
 
 L 2 
 
148 BEARING OF THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 definitions of the faith by the denial of new heresies, but also to 
 expand the faith itself by the addition of fresh positive truths 
 the knowledge of which may have grown upon her with time 
 from Scriptural, logical, and supernatural sources, and even to 
 contradict, it may be, on some points the confused or erroneous 
 conceptions of earlier ages. Thus the " Double Procession " of 
 the Holy Spirit may have been utterly unknown; the Papal 
 Supremacy may have existed only as a dormant seed, an unde- 
 fined consciousness in the local Roman Church ; the doctrine of 
 the propriety of invoking Saints or worshipping Images may 
 have been the one unknown, the other denied ; the dominant 
 language on the subject of the state of the departed may have 
 been inconsistent with the doctrine of Purgatory ; and there 
 may have been no other Indulgences in existence but remissions 
 of canonical penance; the doctrine of Transubstantiation, so 
 far as the distinction of substance and accidents was concerned, 
 may have been an open question ; the Unction of the Sick may 
 have been used chiefly for the sake of their recovery ; the early 
 history of the Blessed Virgin and the notion of her Assumption 
 in the body may have been taken from apocryphal writings, 
 and the Fathers may have supposed that she was conceived, like 
 the rest of mankind, with original sin : and yet, with all this, 
 the modern Roman doctrine may be on all these points, by 
 development, the true and necessary consequence, supplement, 
 or correction of the primitive belief. 
 
 Without attempting to explain at length, or to pursue further 
 into details this theory, which may be studied, by such at least 
 as can read English or French, in Dr. Newman's own work, a 
 few words only shall be said of its bearing upon the controversy 
 between the Eastern and the Latin Churches. 
 
 The Eastern Church by her general character of immobility, 
 her fixed antiquarianism even in ritual, and especially by her 
 denial of the " Double Procession," and of the doctrines of Pa- 
 pal Supremacy, Purgatory, and Indulgences, on the express 
 ground of their having been unknown to antiquity, seems to 
 declare against the doctrine of positive development in point of 
 faith. These very words, " Our Church knows no develop- 
 ments : " were often used twenty years ago by a late Metropo- 
 litan of St.Petersburgh in speaking of the addition made by the 
 
ON THE DIVISION OF THE EAST AND WEST. 1 19 
 
 Latins to the Creed, Ou the other hand, by her doctrines con- 
 cerning the Invocation of Saints, and the Worship of Icons 
 she seems to many to have admitted the principle. " These 
 Greeks" (said an Anghcan clergyman, long resident in Uussia, 
 to the writer,) " seem to think that the Faith is like a great 
 plant, which came to its full growth only at the time of the 
 Seventh Council." And if so, one does not see why other doc- 
 trinal developments, such as those of the Double Procession, the 
 Papal Supremacy, Purgatory, and Indulgences, &c., may not be 
 true, and to be accepted, just as much as the doctrines concern- 
 ing the Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Icons, which 
 can no more be defended than the others on the ground of ori- 
 ginal, explicit, and unbroken tradition. 
 
 In truth the Eastern Church cannot remain for ever a stran- 
 ger to such intellectual questions and their consequences. And 
 if she does indeed maintain already as doctrines of faith two 
 articles which can be defended as such only on the ground of 
 development, she must prepare herself to re-examine other arti- 
 cles which she has hitherto rejected, and to see whether they may 
 not be admissible on the same ground. Or else, if she still per- 
 sists in denying those articles, and with them the principle of 
 development on which they now claim to rest, she must find 
 some other tenable ground on which to rest her own doctrines con- 
 cerning the Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Icons : as, 
 for instance, if she were distinctly to teach that these are not 
 doctrines of the faith properly so called at all, but only second- 
 ary opinions or doctrines I'ightly decreed and enforced by the 
 Church respecting practical usage and ritual. 
 
 Members of the Eastern Church will sometimes seem to hesi- 
 tate between these two alternatives, and will say that as for the 
 doctrines of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, 
 Purgatory, and Indulgences, if they were defined or developed 
 by a General Council, as the doctrine of the Worship of Icons 
 has been defined, they would admit them as a matter of course : 
 but that they cannot admit the Papal Supremacy as defining 
 and developing either these or any other doctrines, or as acting 
 and ruling of itself and independently, apart from and even con- 
 trary to the decrees of former General Councils. But, if the 
 principle of development be admitted at all, one does not see 
 
150 BEARING OF THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 how any individual or any local Church can set limits to its 
 operation, or dictate to the Spirit which animates the Church 
 and throws up her successive developments that developments 
 shall bud and shoot forth only through the meetings and decrees 
 of General Councils. AVho can say that the constitution and 
 government itself of the Church, no less than her doctrine and 
 ritual, may not be the subjects of development ? and that the 
 same Spirit which at one time spoke and ruled chiefly through 
 Saints and Fathers, through local and General Councils, may 
 not in later ages speak and rule chiefly through one central 
 Chair and Oracle, that is through the person of St. Peter's suc- 
 cessor at Rome ? The principle of development being granted, 
 this may very well be : and all that Christians can do is to judge 
 as well as they can whether the moral, spiritual, and reasonable 
 signs in favour of this or that asserted development are such as 
 they may safely go upon in accepting it. 
 
 Of course, so long as Rome seems to maintain her former 
 antiquarian attitude towards the Eastern Church, and to dictate 
 to her for acceptance her own modern additions or changes 
 either with unreasoning violence or on the untenable ground of 
 continuous tradition, the Eastern Church may not feel herself 
 obliged (though she ought to be ready to try and judge all doc- 
 trine if she is really superior,) to examine closely what appears 
 as yet only as a tolerated theory or school within the Roman 
 Communion. But a time will probably come when this theory, 
 the consequences of which are too vast and important to allow 
 of its being held in abeyance, will either be plainly and gene- 
 rally maintained, or rejected and condemned. If indeed it should 
 be rejected within the Roman Communion, the Eastern Church 
 will have no cause to examine a theory of which she thinks her- 
 self to have no real need, and which is rejected even by those 
 who do manifestly need it. But if it ever comes to be received 
 and carried out fairly to its consequences in the Roman Com- 
 munion, it will involve such a change of attitude and aspect in 
 that Communion towards the Eastern, as will make it absolutely 
 necessary for the Easterns to consider it with attention. For it 
 will be no longer the same thing to reject the novelties of Ro- 
 man-Catholicism when proposed on new grounds and in a new 
 temper, as it has been hitherto to reject them when proposed on 
 
ON THK DIVISION OF THE EAST AND WEST, 151 
 
 grounds manifestly false, and with a temper and spirit not likely 
 to make those false grounds attractive. 
 
 Supposing then the theory of development to be received in 
 the Roman Communion, the future language of that Communion 
 to the Easterns will probably be something like this : " The 
 Church, though infallible in essentials, yet suffers to an extent 
 which it is difficult to limit by the sins and imperfections of her 
 members, by those of nations as well as of individuals, by those 
 of particular hierarchies and Churches, and even of the Papacy 
 itself, as well as by those of laymen. In the long-standing 
 schism between the Greeks and the Latins, the Roman See and 
 the Eastern Patriarchates, it may be confessed that besides jealou- 
 sies connected with races of men and political governments, 
 with hierarchical jurisdiction, and with ritual customs, there has 
 been also one very deep cause of misunderstanding which has 
 never yet been properly or sufficiently acknowledged ; that is, 
 the ignorance on both sides of the principle and law of develop- 
 ment ; an ignorance which made us Latins, even if we were 
 intrinsically in the right in what we sought to teach or to im- 
 pose upon the whole Church, to be outwardly and apparently in 
 the wrong, and you Greeks, even if you were intrinsically wrong 
 in rejecting our Latin novelties, to be outwardly and apparently 
 in the right ; that is, according to the principle then held in 
 common on both sides, that every doctrine ought to be proved 
 by explicit and continuous tradition, and that whatever could 
 not so be proved ought to be rejected. For the past therefore 
 we are willing that there should be a complete amnesty. Far 
 from calling you heretics or schismatics any longer, we confess 
 that, if the principle of unchangeableness formerly received on 
 both sides had been true, you would have been all along the 
 orthodox and we the heretics or schismatics ; for you alone have 
 acted consistently with that principle throughout, and we were 
 acting inconsistently with our own generally-received principles 
 when we would have forced upon you what was new. And 
 though we now think that the principle of unchangeableness 
 formerly held on all sides was in fact erroneous, and that we, 
 though wrong as to the grounds on which we rested and en- 
 forced our novelties, were yet right in the things themselves, we 
 are willing to take upon ourselves the whole blame of the schism 
 
152 BEARING OF THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 for the past : and for the future we demand only that forgetting 
 and dismissing from your minds all the misdirected violence 
 and hostility we have shown against you, and all our ineffectual 
 and sometimes perhaps dishonest attempts to demonstrate our 
 doctrines to have been delivered by universal tradition from the 
 beginning, you will now consider impartially and attentively the 
 new grounds upon which we rest the same doctrines, and the 
 doctrines themselves in the new aspect and bearing which they 
 will have as based upon these new grounds. And if you should 
 be able, upon sufficient consideration, to come to such a conclu- 
 sion as we desire, then the unity of the whole Church, East and 
 West, Greek and Latin, will be thereby restored at once ; and 
 some changes will be desired and adopted by yourselves which 
 we shall regard as great improvements, and which will open to 
 you fresh springs of spiritual grace and life, from which you are 
 now shut out not so much by any fault of your own as by our 
 past faults towards you, and by a mistake or ignorance common 
 to us both. Thus the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, 
 the doctrine of the Papal Supremacy, the doctrines of Purgatory 
 and Indulgences, and of the Immaculate Conception of the 
 Blessed Virgin, which you now deny or doubt, (and rightly upon 
 that older theory of explicit tradition which was commonly re- 
 ceived in times past,) will cease to be objectionable to you. 
 Varieties of discipline and ritual such as the permission of 
 Baptism by one immersion, or even by aflfusion, the restriction 
 of Confirmation to the Bishop, the postponement of that Sacra- 
 ment and of the First Communion of children till they have 
 learned the Catechism, the use of Azymes in the Eucharist, the 
 Consecration (in the same) by the recital of Christ^s words of 
 Institution and not by any direct invocation of the Holy Ghost, 
 the giving of the Holy Communion under one kind only to the 
 laity, and many other like things, will cease to be any cause of 
 offence, or may rather afford matter of instruction and edifica- 
 tion, and occasion for the exercise of mutual respect and charity: 
 while other customs which you now rightly reject as innovations, 
 distortions, or changes and destructions of the ancient religion, 
 such as the multiplication of altars and Masses instead of the 
 former con -celebration of one public Liturgy, the use of the 
 Blessed Saciameut for visitation and meditation, the carrying of 
 
ON THE DIVISION OF THE EAST AND WEST. 153 
 
 It abroad in processions, the multiplied varieties of religious 
 Orders, and especially the more intelligent and more systema- 
 tized devotion to the Blessed Virgin, will change their aspect, 
 and will appear in the light of most desirable springs of spiritual 
 moisture ready to irrigate and fertilize the venerable but parched 
 and dried forms of your Church." 
 
 Suchj we may suppose, will be the language of Roman divines 
 at no very distant day to the Eastern, and especially to the 
 Russian Church : the first preparation for which must be a re- 
 examination of the question of the Filioque, and an attempt to 
 explain historically and to justify theologically the gradual 
 development of the Latin doctrine, till it was defined in the 
 Council of Florence. If this can be done satisfactorily, (the 
 whole rubbish of former polemics on the subject being given up 
 and swept away,) the application of the same principle of deve- 
 lopment afterwards to all other points of difference, and even 
 to that of the Supremacy, will be easy, and will follow of itself. 
 If this be not done, or cannot be done satisfactorily, the Churches 
 will remain in their former attitude, and wait till the almighty 
 providence of God, by the outward changes of the world and 
 its empires, and of visible Christianity, puts a clear end to their 
 controversy. 
 
DISSERTATION X. 
 
 ON THE CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE PROCESSION OF THE 
 HOLY GHOST. 
 
 The following may serve as a short exposition of the main 
 scholastical argument, as it is viewed by the two contrary sides : 
 
 The Latins seem to say that the unity of the Godhead is 
 distinguished into Persons, and the Persons are distinguished 
 one from another only by the direct relative opposition of causing 
 and being caused, such as is implied in the names of the Persons 
 themselves, thus : — 
 
 " He who begets cannot, so far, be He who is begotten ; nor 
 vice versa : but in all other respects He who is begotten is iden- 
 tical with Him who begets. Also, He who makes to proceed 
 cannot, so far, be He who is made to proceed ; nor vice versa : 
 but in all other respects He who is made to proceed is identical 
 with Him who makes to proceed. And therefore, as it seems, 
 
 " He who is made to proceed by Him that begets must 
 necessarily Himself also have this property of begetting, (since 
 there is no apparent relative opposition between the terms being 
 ' made to proceed' and ' begetting ' : ) and He who is begotten by 
 Him who makes to proceed must necessarily Himself also have 
 this property of making to proceed, (since there is no apparent 
 relative opposition between the terms ' begotten ' and ' making to 
 proceed.'') Or, in other words, it seems that 
 
 " The Father and the Spirit together and equally (whether 
 as two Persons or rather as one common principle and substance,) 
 beget the Son ; and the Father and the Son together and 
 equally (whether as two Persons or rather as one common prin- 
 ciple and substance,) make to proceed the Holy Ghost. The 
 consequence is equally necessary in both cases. 
 
ON THE PROCESSION OP THE HOLY GHOST. 155 
 
 "But thus the Spirit causes the Son, and is reciprocally 
 caused by the Son, propositions which are mutually destructive 
 the one of the other. Wherefore, although both these propo- 
 sitions seem to follow with equal necessity, according to what 
 has been said above, it is plain that one [at least) of them must 
 be false. And it is admitted on all hands that the Spirit does 
 not beget the Son. But by that principle which was laid down 
 first of all one of these same two propositions must be true, 
 otherwise there would be no direct relative opposition to distin- 
 guish the Son and the Spirit the one from the other. There- 
 fore it must be the Son who makes to proceed the Spirit. 
 And thus we have between all the thi'ee Persons that distinction 
 of direct relative opposition which is requisite.^^ 
 
 The Easterns on the other hand say that " If indeed the pri- 
 mary assumption of the Latins were true, that there must be a 
 direct relative opposition, of causing and being caused, to dis- 
 tinguish any two of the Persons the one from the other, then, 
 it being admitted, as they say, on all hands that the Spirit 
 does not cause the Son, it would of course remain that the Son 
 must cause the Spirit. But the first principle itself of the 
 Latins is an arbitrary and false assumption. The unity of the 
 Divine Essence is distinguished into Persons, and the Persons 
 are distinguished one from another, not only by direct relative 
 opposition of causing and being caused : but the Son and the 
 Spirit are distinguished the one from the other as Persons in 
 another way : 
 
 " The Pather indeed is, no doubt, distinguished both from 
 the Son and from the Spirit, and they both in common from 
 the Father, by direct relative opposition of causing and being 
 caused : and the Easterns say in common with the Latins that 
 
 '' He who begets cannot, so far, be He who is begotten ; nor 
 vice versa : and He who is made to proceed cannot, so far, be He 
 who makes to proceed ; nor vice versa. But of the mutual dis- 
 tinction between the Son and the Spirit the Easterns reason 
 after the following manner : 
 
 "He who is begotten is not, so far. He who is made to pro- 
 ceed ; nor vice versa. Or again : He who is caused or origi- 
 nated so as to be second in order, immediately, is not, so far, 
 the same with Him who is caused or originated (iw-era, j^ost, Sia, 
 
156 ON THE CONTROVERSY RESPECTING 
 
 per,) intermediately, after the second, so as to be third in order ; 
 nor vice versa." And then they conclude that 
 
 "That Person which is begotten by another Person who 
 makes to proceed cannot, so far, be Himself the Person doing 
 that same numerical act of making to proceed. Nor can that 
 Person which is made to proceed by another Person who begets 
 be, so far, Himself the Person so begetting. So that it is 
 equally impossible that either the Spirit together with the 
 Father should beget the Son, or the Son together with the 
 Father make to proceed the Spirit. 
 
 " For the truth is that both to beget and to make to proceed 
 are equally personal properties of the First Person in the 
 Trinity, the sole unoriginated cause, that is, of the Father. 
 And if it be attempted to conclude otherwise from the unity of 
 the Divine essence, because the terms ' begotten ' and ' made to 
 proceed' do not seem of themselves by any relative opposition to 
 exclude the properties of 'making to proceed' or of 'begetting' 
 respectively, the two consequences which follow from this at- 
 tempt, and which are in truth both equally necessary, equally 
 destroy one another, and by so destroying one another reveal 
 the falsity of that assumption from which they followed." 
 
 Thus, to sum up, as to the distinction of the Persons the 
 Easterns say : 
 
 " He who begets is distinguished from Him who is begotten, 
 and He who makes to proceed from Him who is made to pro- 
 ceed, doubhj ; first, by a common and general relative opposition 
 between that which causes and that which is caused ; and se- 
 condly, by a particular and special relation in the manner of the 
 causation ; that is, in the first case by generation, in the second 
 by procession. 
 
 " And again : He who is begotten is distinguished from Him 
 who is made to proceed not by any direct relative opposition in 
 the names or properties of those Persons themselves, but only by 
 a difierence in the manner of their causation from, and in their 
 relative order (of priority or posteriority,) to their one common 
 Originator. Being from one and the same, they are therefore 
 identical in their essence with Him and with one another : but 
 they are distinguished one from the other as Persons by the 
 manner of their causation : so that, as has been said already, He 
 
THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 157 
 
 who is begotten cannot be He who is made to proceed, nor He 
 that is made to proceed be He that is begotten : and He that 
 is second in relative ordei*, or next after the frst, cannot be He 
 that is third ; nor vice versa." 
 
 As for the Latins, on this point they seem to the Easterns to 
 begin by assuming arbitrarily what is false, and afterwards to 
 reason only from their own assumption. They seem too (at least 
 if any still with St. Anselm admit generation and procession to 
 differ in themselves,) to leave after all for the Holy Ghost that 
 very same inequality to avoid which in respect of the Son they 
 first attributed to the Son the causation of the Spirit. For 
 after all the Spirit (notwithstanding the unity of the Divine 
 essence,) will be destitute of a certain property of the Father 
 (that of begetting,) besides that of making to proceed through 
 which alone He is distinguished by way of direct relative oppo- 
 sition from the Father. And He will also be destitute of a 
 certain property of the Son (that of being begotten,) besides that 
 of making to proceed through which alone He is distinguished 
 by way of direct relative opposition from the Son no less than 
 from the Father. 
 
 Again, another difficulty which they think follows from the 
 Latin way of reasoning on this subject is the following : One 
 Deity, according to the Latins, introverting upon itself and in- 
 troverted, is said to beget and to be begotten : the same Deity 
 a second time (not in time but in order) introverting upon itself 
 and introverted, is said to make to proceed and to be made to 
 proceed ; the only difference between begetting in the first case 
 and making to proceed in the second being this, that begetting 
 is causing simply, while making to proceed is causing the 
 second time ; with the addition, that is, of the idea of posterio- 
 rity to a similar anterior causation. The word person then is 
 properly a relative term between two. The first causation divides 
 or distinguishes what is otherwise one absolute undistinguish- 
 able unity into the causing and the caused. Father and Son, 
 two Persons ; and exactly in the same way that Deity which is 
 (except as to causing and having been caused,) one absolute un- 
 distinguishable unity (in the Father and the Son,) is by a second 
 causation distinguished into the causing and the caused, the 
 ONE COMMON PRINCIPLE and the Holy Ghost, two Persons, 
 
158 ON THE CONTROVERSY RESPECTING 
 
 as it should seem, and Father and Son also (even though this 
 language be not used,) equally with the former Two, that is, 
 with the Father and the Son ; if indeed the ideas and defini- 
 tions of '' person " and ''father " be constituted only by relative 
 opposition in respect of causation. However, for the Easterns 
 all such impossible scholastic disquisitions are mere profaneness. 
 But without entering at present into any further detail on 
 the subject of this deep controversy, there shall be subjoined 
 here a brief collection of such modes of expression concerning 
 the Procession as seem to be used or implied by the Fathers : 
 
 In speaking of the First Person of the Blessed Trinity : 
 
 The Father i. breathes, or causes, or makes to proceed the 
 Holy Ghost : and that ii. by a personal property, in like man- 
 ner as it is by a personal property that He begets the Son. 
 III. He so produces the Holy Ghost in order (not in time,) 
 after the Son. And by this procession He communicates his 
 whole essence, all that He is, (except only his personal attri- 
 butes,) to the Holy Ghost, in like manner as by generation 
 He communicates the same whole essence, all that He is, (except 
 only his personal properties,) to the Son. And, seeing that the 
 Son is second in order, He communicates to the Holy Ghost 
 that same Divine essence which is now already common to the 
 Son with Himself. 
 
 In speaking of the Second Person : 
 
 The Son i. being begotten by the Person of the Father, and 
 from His substance, receives second in order all that the Father 
 is (except only His personal properties), ii. He possesses as 
 his own, not as communicated to Him, but as originally inherent 
 in Him (on account of his con substantiality with the Father, 
 and on account of his being at the same time second in order,) 
 the Holy Spirit, who receives all that the Father is (except 
 only His personal properties,) third in order, [iii. He might 
 be said perhaps, improperly, and indirectly, to give his own 
 essence to the Spirit on account of his consubstantiality with 
 the Father ; inasmuch as the Person of the Father, which pro- 
 perly gives, gives to the Holy Spirit that essence which is 
 now already common to the Son with Himself, and numerically 
 
THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 159 
 
 one ia Both.] So the Son, being God of God, ' sends * not 
 only 'from the Father' but also 'from Himself upon Him- 
 self/ after the Incarnation, in the Jordan, ' His own co-eternal 
 Spirit'; His Spirit 'not received from without, but natu- 
 rally inherent in Himself, and naturally flowing forth from 
 
 Him/ 
 
 In speaking of the Third Person : 
 
 I. The Holy Ghost proceeds i. ' From God ;' that is, from 
 the Father as a Person, or in respect of his personality : ii. 
 ' From the Father :' iii. ' From the Father only :' iv. ' From 
 the Person of the Father only :' v, ' Not from the Son ;' (that 
 is, ' not from the Son, but from the Father :') vi. ' Not from 
 the Son ;' that is, ' not from the Person of the Son :') vii. ' Not 
 from Himself:' that is, 'not from his own Person.' 
 
 II. The Holy Gno^i proceeds i. * From the essence of God ;' 
 that is, ' of the Father :' ii. ' From the essence of the Father :' 
 III. ' From the essence of the Father now already common to 
 the Son :' iv. ' From the essence of the Father and the Son :' 
 V. ' From the essence of the Son, because from that essence of 
 the Father which is the Son's.' 
 
 III. The Holy Ghost receives : i. ' He receives from the 
 Father the essence of the Father,' that is, of God : ii. ' He 
 receives from the Father that essence of the Father which is 
 now already also the Son's :' iii. ' He receives from the Father 
 the essence of the Father and the Son :' iv. ' He receives from 
 the Father the essence of the Son, because He receives that 
 essence which is one and the same in the Son and in the Father :' 
 V. ' He receives of, from, or out of{e vel de^ the Father and the 
 Son ;' that is, ' He receives oi,from, or out of their common Divine 
 essence :' vi. ' He receives of, from, or out of the Son,' (e vel de 
 Filio,) because He receives of, from, or out of the Father. 
 
 IV. The Holy Ghost is i. ' Of the Father's essence ;' 
 {Patris essentia :) ii. ' Of the essence of the Father and the 
 Son :' iii. ' Of the essence of God :' iv. ' Of the Son's es- 
 sence.' Again, He is i. 'From or out of the Father (e vel de 
 Patre,) in respect of his essence :' ii. ' From or out of the Son 
 in respect of his essence, because He is from or out of the 
 Father :' iii. ' From or out of the Father and the Son in re- 
 spect of his essence, because it is now one and the same essence 
 numerically in Both.' 
 
160 ON THE CONTROVERSY RESPECTING 
 
 V. He 'proceeds indeed from the Father/ i. 'But is proper 
 to the Son :' ii. 'But is not foreign to the Son:' hi. 'But 
 receives of the Son's, and of the Son :' iv. * But is sent by the 
 Son.* Or again, i. He ' is from all eternity the Spirit of the 
 Son, no less than of the Father :' ii. He *is not communicated 
 to the Son, but is originally, naturally, and inherently the 
 Son's:' hi. He 'receives from the Son Himself/ that is, from 
 the substance of the Son, and not, like the creatures, from His 
 fulness : iv. He * is sent : and this mission implies something 
 like authority in the Sender ;' (that is, priority of relative order.) 
 
 Four abusive but orthodox applications of the word Procession : 
 
 VI. If the words 'to proceed' and 'procession' be used 
 equivocally, (to speak with the logicians,) it may be said, 
 
 I. That the Holy Ghost 'proceeds from the Father and the 
 Son / that is, from the Father only with respect to that Person 
 ov personality which is the cause ; but from the Son also in respect 
 of that common essence of Deity (common, that is, to the Son, 
 and numerically one in the Father and the Son,) which He 
 receives from the Person of the Father as the cause. 
 
 II. Again, if the word 'procession ' be used equivocally in 
 another way, it may be said that He 'proceeds from the Father 
 and the Son ' thus : namely, from the Father only in respect of 
 His own personality or origin as a Person, but from the Son 
 also in respect of His essence considered apart, (or improperly.) 
 
 III. Again, the same being said in either of the two above 
 ways, or in both at once, the use of the word 'procession' may 
 be made still more equivocal by including further under it the 
 idea of temporal mission ; as was the case in most of the passages 
 alleged and arguments adduced on the Latin side at the begin- 
 ning of the ninth century. 
 
 IV. Or, lastly, the Holy Ghost may be said to 'proceed from 
 the Father and the Son' confusedly, that is, both in respect 
 of the consubstantiality of His Divine essence (which being in 
 Him third in order is of or from the one common essence of the 
 Father and the Son,) by an eternal procession, (the true and 
 proper sense of the word 'procession' to denote oi-igin as a person 
 from a personal cause being thus dropped altogether,) and also, 
 in respect of mission, by a procession in time. 
 
THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 161 
 
 But if the procession from the Son be asserted in any other 
 sense than in one of these four, there will be in the Holy Trinity 
 something besides the three distinct Persons and the one com- 
 mon Essence, namely the peculiarly common Essence of the 
 Father and the Son. Or, if one numerical act be ascribed to two 
 Persons as such, it seems that either two Persons are confounded 
 together into one, or they act as two distinct principles. 
 
 In speaking of the Divine Essence : 
 
 The Godhead or Divine nature considered in itself abstrac- 
 tedly, that is improperly, and irrespectively of the personal 
 properties in it, may be said to be a Monad which doubles Itself 
 without ceasing to be numerically one undivided God ; and 
 which again, after thus doubling Itself, triples Itself, still with- 
 out ceasing to be as before one undivided God. But in truth 
 and fact it is not an abstract Divine nature (that is, a mere 
 mental conception presupposing the idea of a plurality of persons,) 
 which either produces the Duad by generation, or the Triad by 
 procession : but if we would speak t7-ulg and correctly, the 
 Father as a Person is the Monad, which by begetting one 
 only Son doubles Itself, and by emitting one only Spirit, after 
 or through the Son, triples Itself. {" Movag slg 5t;«5a x»vj]9sj(r« 
 
 As the result of all that has been set forth above, we may 
 give the following amplification of the article in the Creed : 
 
 "We believe that the Father begets the Son before in order 
 (not in time) ; and after, {post, fx-sra,) the Son being already 
 begotten and interposed, {genitojam et mediante,) by or through 
 the Son (5ia, per,) produces the Holy Ghost from that same 
 His own Divine Essence which is now already common also to 
 the Son, and numerically one in both the Father and the Son : 
 And that therefore the Holy Ghost 'proceeds' indeed from the 
 Person of the Father only in respect of His causation, but 'is' 
 from the common substance of the Father and the Son, or, 
 which is the same thing, 'is' 'from the Father and the Son,' 
 or, ' from that essence which is the Son's also,' or ' from the 
 Son, in respect of His Essence, as the joint consequence of His 
 con substantiality and posteriority of order:' For in that He 're- 
 ceives ' from God and the Father third in order, He thereby 
 
 M 
 
162 ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 ' receives' also from the Son, and is the proper Spirit of the 
 Son no less than of the Father; proper, that is, not by 'gift 
 or communication' but because of the Son^s being begotten inter- 
 mediatehj, second in order ; proper, not as coming to Him from 
 without, but as originally and naturally inherent ; even as a 
 man contains within himself and breathes forth his own breath. 
 But that the Spirit conversely or recipi-ocally is produced * in 
 order before' the Son, and the Son 'after' or 'through' the 
 Spirit, so that the Spirit also should be 'intermediate,' {medi- 
 ante Spiritu,) or that the eternal Son ' receives of the Spirit,' 
 or Ms the Son of the Spirit,' or 'is the Spirit's own,' in the 
 same relative sense in which the Spirit, on account of His pos- 
 teriority of order, is the 'Spirit of the Son,' and 'the Son's 
 own,' (and beyond the mutual inherence or circumincession of 
 all the Three Persons in virtue of consubstantiality apart from 
 order,) w^e by no means say or allow." 
 
 Such an exposition, supposing the Creed to be restored to its 
 Canonical form, might be accepted perhaps by the Easterns as 
 an interpretation of the clause Filioque occurring in any other 
 documents or writings of the Westerns, as, for instance, in Ar- 
 ticle V. of the XXXIX. Articles of the Anglican Church : 
 
 " The Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father," (that is, 
 from the Person of the Father only,) " and from the Son," 
 (that is, from that substance of the Father which is now already 
 common to the Son, and numerically one in both :) &c. 
 
 This would be giving to the words objected to the same inter- 
 pretation now as was given to them in the name of all the Latins 
 (some of whom had already used them,) and after inquiry into 
 their meaning at Rome, by St. Maximus the Martyr towards the 
 end of the seventh century, when they were first noticed and 
 objected to by the Greeks. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 CERTAIN OPINIONS PREVALENT IN THE GREEK PART OF THE 
 EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH RESPECTING BAPTISM. 
 
 Of Baptism administered by Heretics or Schismatics. 
 
 I. Baptism administered by heretics or schismatics is from the 
 nature of the thing itself no Baptism, and neither does confer, 
 nor can confer regeneration. 
 
 II. Nevertheless the Church can, if she pleases, allow as 
 Baptism that which is no Baptism, and receive as if they had 
 been regenerated those who have not been regenerated, (that is, 
 persons Baptized by heretics,) by condescendence or economy. 
 
 III. Canons xlvi. xlvii. Ixviii. of the lxxxv. called the 
 Canons of the Apostles, ordering all persons Baptized invalidly 
 by heretics [tov; a^aitzldrcas /SanrjcrSsvTaj) on coming over to 
 orthodoxy to be Baptized, did not before ad. 381, or before 
 A.D. 691, represent merely the local tradition of certain Churches 
 in Asia and elsewhere, contrary to the local tradition of the 
 Roman and other Western Churches, and never received by 
 them, but were really decrees of the united company of the 
 Apostles, and the source of a tradition coextensive with the whole 
 Church. 
 
 IV. St. Cyprian the Martyr and the three Synods held by 
 him at Carthage in the third century (a.d. 255, 258,) in de- 
 creeing all persons Baptized by heretics or schismatics to be 
 unbaptized did not base this decree on logical inference from 
 the holy Scriptures supported only by the local tradition of 
 the Asiatic and some other Churches but contrary to the local 
 tradition of Africa, Rome, and the West, but upon an immuta- 
 
 M 2 
 
164 OPINIONS OF THE MODERN GRFCEKS 
 
 blc law laid down by the Apostles themselves in their Canons, 
 and upon the uniform tradition of the oecumenical Church, 
 Western as well as Eastern, from the beginning. 
 
 V. Canons viii. of the First and vii. of the Second Ecumeni- 
 cal Councils, decreeing that heretics of six different sects, namely, 
 Arians, Macedonians, Sabbatians, Novatians, Quartodecimans, 
 and Apollinarists. are to be received with their Baptism on 
 coming over to orthodoxy, neither did reverse nor could reverse 
 the decree of the Apostles themselves that both these and all 
 other heretics are necessarily unbaptized and unregenerated, and 
 need to be Baptized ; nor did they permanently interpret and 
 limit the application of Canons xlvi. xlvii. Ixviii. of the Apostles 
 so that for the future the Baptism of such heretics as the above 
 (of such, that is, as though thinking amiss of the Trinity pre- 
 served in Baptizing the outward invocation of the three Persons 
 and the customary three immersions,) should be admitted, but 
 that of all other heretics should be regarded as invalid. But 
 rather Canons viii. of the First and vii. of the Second (Ecumeni- 
 cal Councils introduced in respect of the six above-mentioned 
 heresies, and none other, an extraordinary and exceptional 
 economy or condescensioUj contrary to the strict truth and law of 
 the Church, whether in Home or in Asia, and not necessarily to 
 be followed as a precedent : and this for temporary reasons of 
 convenience, danger, or necessity. 
 
 VI. And whereas Canon vii. of the Second (Ecumenical 
 Council continues thus, " Euvoju,»avo'jj p,£VTO< tou; eij aiuv xaroc- 
 duTiv /SaTTTi^OjU-svou; [S>;Aa5^, eU tov 9«vaTov TOii XpKTTOV,'] xa.\ Mov- 
 TavKTT^g xa\ ^a/SsAAixvouc, tov; vloTTUTopluv SiSacxovraj, [Canon 
 xix. of the First (Ecumenical Council decrees the same of the 
 ]*aulianists :] x.t.X. x«i raj a AXaj Tratraj alpsaeic, IttejS:^ ttoAXoj elcriv 
 evTuuSx, fxakia-TU ol aTro tyj; FuKutcuv %wpaj opixc/mevoi, vavTUi cu'j 
 ''EAA>jvaj . . /3«7rT('^o/iev" this latter part of the Canon is not to 
 be understood of all such other heretics only as were then actually 
 known in the regions near Constantinople, and differed from the 
 six sects named before in this, that they did not like them pre- 
 serve in Baptizing the outward invocation of the three Persons 
 and the customary three immersions: but the words "raj 
 uWag TTxaag alpeastg /SaTrr/^ousy " are to be taken in their literal 
 and widest sense, as both attesting the preexisting principle 
 
RESPECTING THE CONDITIONS OF VALID BAPTISM. 105 
 
 and usage of the whole Church, in the West no less than in 
 the East, and confirming the same for the future in respect of 
 all possible and future heresies, at whatever time and in what- 
 ever regions they should arise. 
 
 VII. The Canons of the Synod held at Constantinople in 
 Trullo A.D. 691, and commonly called the /7£v9='xtij or Sixth 
 CEcumenical, (it being regarded as a continuation of the Sixth,) 
 are all really of oecumenical authority, and bind the whole 
 Church, the Roman and Western no less than the Eastern. 
 
 VIII. Canon ii. of the Council in Trullo decreeing thus : 
 ""Edo^s 8s Ka) TOVTO rrj ayla. tuvtyj cryi'oSa) xaAXicrra re x«i ctttou- 
 SaJoVara wctts jMBvetv xu) a-no tou vui/ /S=|3«»'ou£ xa» a<J'^%Ki^i irchi v/o- 
 Ywv 9=pa7re/av xa» lotTpslocv ttchQuiv touj uno tmv -Trpo yjjmuiv a'yi'cov xu) 
 ixuxapI'MV TTUTspcav Zs^^EVTctg xui xvpwQsvTCi?, uKXci ju,^v xci\ TTctpulo- 
 QivTuc riiuv ov6ii.aTi rwv uyloov ' AirodroKwv tts' xavo'vaj," recognises 
 Canons xlvi. xlvii. Ixviii. of that collection as decrees of the 
 Apostles themselves, and as of universal obligation ; and, even if 
 this had not been so previously, would have given them such uni- 
 versal force for the future, so as to overturn any contrary local 
 custom or tradition of the Roman or other Western Churches. 
 
 IX. In like manner the same Canon of the Council in 
 Trullo receiving the Canons of certain particular Fathers, as 
 SS. Dionysius of Alexandria, Gregory of Neocsesarea, Peter of 
 Alexandria, Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Gregory 
 Nyssene, Gregory Theologus, Amphilochius of Iconium, Timothy 
 of Alexandria, Gennadius of Constantinople, and especially " tov 
 UTTO KvTrpiuvQu yavoftjvoy 'Ap^isTTiaxonov rr^c "Ai^poiv %»paj xai 
 MapTVpog xa] rr^g xa9' xutov ^''jvo'Sou sxTeSsvru xavova, og h Toig 
 Ttpoziprjixsvoov Upoe^puiv to'ttojj xu.) [xovov xaru to •napu^o^sv ahrol; sQog 
 ExpixTrj(Ts'" confirmed the doctrine of the inherent and necessary 
 invalidity of all Baptisms administered by heretics, and the practice 
 of repeating all such Baptisms (except in certain specified cases 
 where economy was to be used,) as obligatory upon the whole 
 Church, Roman and Western no less than Eastern, any contrary 
 custom or tradition notwithstanding. 
 
 X. The opinion that the Roman and Western custom of re- 
 ceiving heretics and schismatics in general by Imposition of 
 Hands, without rebaptiziug them merely on account of their 
 having been Baptized in heresy or schism, contrary to the judg- 
 ment of St. Cyprian and his three African Synods, and to the 
 
16G OPINIONS OF THE MODERN GREEKS 
 
 tradition of the Asiatic Churches^ and to the judgment of the 
 Synod of Iconium presided over by Firmilian a.d. 258, was based 
 only on an exceptional economy is justified by Ecclesiastical 
 history, and by the confession of the Romans themselves : and 
 this opinion being expressed by St. Basil in the first of his Canons, 
 which became oecumenical by being received by the Council in 
 Trullo, has ever since the year a.d. 691 been the judgment of 
 the whole Church, Western as well as Eastern. 
 
 XI. And whereas Canon xcv. of the Council in Trullo, after 
 reciting and confirming Canons xix. of the First and vii. of the 
 Second CEcumenical Councils in that sense which has been ex- 
 plained above under heads V. and VI., seems to enlarge the 
 list of those heresies the Baptisms of which were to be allowed 
 without repetition, this also is to be considered as done on the 
 same principle of a special exceptional economy, at variance with 
 the strictness of the oecumenical law. 
 
 XII. Canons li. and Ixvi. of the Synod of Carthage held a.d. 
 421, ordering children Baptized by the Donatist heretics to be 
 received by Imposition of Hands, [^' ra^sj ctpyjxia. Sia r^f iTridfcrscuj 
 T»)f xejpoj avaSc;)^9r)v«i,") and Canons Ixxii. and Ixxvii. of the same 
 Synod allowing the reception of the Donatist Clergy in Africa 
 with their existing Orders, and so implying also the allowance of 
 their Baptism, are to be understood as allowing the reception 
 without Baptism of such children and such Clergy only by a 
 special economy : or, if the Synod of Carthage itself meant 
 otherwise, and the decisions of St. Cyprian and his Synods had 
 then (as some say was the case,) been abrogated in Africa, still 
 it was in this sense only that the Council held in Trullo a.d. 
 691 approved these Canons, and gave them oecumenical authority, 
 " aj;)/|aaAajTi^9U(ra," that is, "straining" these also as well as some 
 others " into conformity with the truth of Christ." 
 
 XIII. The Seventh CEcumenical Council acknowledged and 
 confirmed as oecumenical the Canons of the Council held in 
 Trullo A.D. 691, and so also all that they expressly or by impli- 
 cation decreed : wherefore on this ground also the Roman and 
 other Western Churches, having received the Seventh General 
 Council, were bound to receive and to obey this Apostolical tra- 
 dition and decree, that Baptism conferred by heretics or schis- 
 matics is essentially invalid, and that persons so Baptized 
 "a^aTTT/o-Tctis" have need to be Baptized by the Orthodox Church. 
 
RESPECTING THE CONDITIONS OF VALID BAPTISM. 1()7 
 
 Of Baptism administered by Deacons or lay people. 
 
 XIV. As a layman cannot Offer, or Absolve, or Ordain, or 
 make the Chrism, so neither can he Baptize : nor is it true that 
 the Apostles and the Bishops their successors, in like manner as 
 they were divinely instructed to reserve to themselves alone the 
 power of Ordaining and of making the Chrism, but to conmmni- 
 cate to the Presbyters the power of Offering and Absolving, so 
 also could communicate and did communicate not only to the 
 Presbyters but to the inferior Clergy also, and even to the 
 laity, the commission to Baptize as assistants to themselves in 
 cases where such assistance was needed. 
 
 XV. Baptism administered with water which has not been 
 consecrated by a Priest, and transmuted into that water which 
 flowed from the pierced side of Christ, is no Baptism, (unless 
 it be of water only, like that of the Forerunner,) nor does it con- 
 fer regeneration. 
 
 XV [. Baptism with water which has not had oil poured upon 
 it by a Priest in the form of a cross is no Baptism, nor does it 
 confer regeneration. 
 
 XVII. Canons xxvi. xxvii. of the Council of Laodicea which 
 are of oecumenical authority, and other similar canons giving the 
 administration of Baptism only to Bishops and Priests, are not 
 to be understood only of the ordinary public administration of 
 that Sacrament according to the full ritual of the Church, but 
 in the strictest and most absolute sense, so as to declare all 
 other Baptisms administered by Deacons or others to be no real 
 Baptisms, nor to confer regeneration. 
 
 XVIII. Baptism administered by lay people being declared by 
 Canons xlvii. Ixviii. of the Apostles, and by Canon i. of St. Basil 
 (made oecumenical by the Council in Trullo,) as also by St. Dio- 
 uysius of Alexandria, and by Canon xxiv. of John the Faster, to 
 be no Baptism, this is the immutable tradition and law of the 
 whole Church, against which neither any sentences of particular 
 Fathers, nor any contrary tradition or usage of the Roman or 
 Western Church can have any force. 
 
 XIX. Although the abovementioned Canons, and Canons 
 xxvi. xxvii. of Laodicea, allowing that baptism only as valid 
 which is administered by a Bishop or Priest, may have been re- 
 
1G8 OPINIONS OF THE MODERN GREEKS 
 
 laxcd even in the East by some local Canons allowing Deacons 
 also in cases of necessity to Baptize, and though the usage and 
 tradition of the West may have allowed Deacons to Baptize even 
 ])ublicly in the absence of the Priest, still such relaxation is not 
 to be understood as a permission to Deacons to administer law- 
 fully what even if administered by them without permission 
 imlawfully would still be Baptism, but rather as an exceptional 
 economy permitting them to administer and taking when admi- 
 nistered as Baptism that which in strictness and of itself is no 
 Baptism. 
 
 XX. And whatever may be thought of the case of Deacons, 
 not even the oecumenical Church after the Apostles either could 
 extend or did extend to lay people the permission to Baptize, 
 except by some such economy : and if the tradition and usage of 
 the Roman or any other Western Churches was in favour of 
 giving permission absolutely, the Baptisms so administered by 
 laymen were necessarily nullities, and might rightly be repeated. 
 
 XXI. Such passages as the following from Tertullian, 
 " Dandi quidem Baptismum hahet jus summus sacerdos, qui est 
 Episcopus : dehinc Preshyteri et Diaconi, non tamen sine Epis- 
 copi auctoritate. . . . Alioquin etiam laicis jus est, {quod enim 
 ex aquo accip)itur ex cequo dari potest,) . . . quum urget cir- 
 cumstantia periclitantis ;" etc. {De Baptismo, cap. 17.) And 
 the following from the Canons of Nicephorus the Confessor, 
 Patriarch of Constantinople, (a.d. 815,) " Kara. oD/ayxr^v xa« juova- 
 yhg ISjcoTrjj ku\ an'ffjoj ^UTrTii^ei TrajS/ov, 6[x,oiui§ xa) Jiaxovoc" and 
 " To. ct^i'TTTiaia vr^ina, OTuv hsv sivai irapxv 'hpsvi, -npsitei va. tu 
 /3a7rT('^y, oirrAog Tu^ri, xav xai 6 j^joj Trar^p auTwv, yj uKKog oiocr- 
 IrjTt'jte uv^pciyTTOi, (xovov va s]vcn A'picrxjavcj, xcti Ssv dixapTivn'" do 
 not represent the general tradition and custom of the Western 
 and Eastern Churches in the second and ninth centuries, but 
 are either simply erroneous, (And therefore, perhaps, those two 
 canons of Nicephorus have been omitted from the later MSS. of 
 the Holy Mountain,) or else are to be understood as only per- 
 mitting by economy the administration of a Baptism which is hi 
 itself no Baptism, and which, if the person so Baptized lives, it 
 is proper to repeat. 
 
 XXII. Even supposing Baptisms administered by Deacons or 
 lay pco})le with the permission of the Church were valid, and 
 
RESPECTING THE CONDITIONS OF VALID BAPTISM. 109 
 
 therefore not to be repeated, still Baptism improperly adminis- 
 tered by Deacons or laymen without such permission of the 
 Church, and even of the Greek Church, not only subjects those 
 so improperly Baptizing to punishment, but is in itself null and 
 void, and neither can be nor ought to be received by the Church ; 
 but all persons so Baptized have need to be rebaptized. 
 
 XXIII. Deacons and laymen being essentially incompetent to 
 make the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ, it would be a 
 sacrilege for them to imitate the celebration of the Liturgy, and 
 to give a Eucharist which would be no Eucharist to any dying 
 man when no Priest nor validly consecrated Eucharist could be 
 had. But though Deacons and laymen are equally incompetent 
 to Baptize, it is a pious and allowable custom for them to imi- 
 tate the celebration of Baptism and to baptize aj3onrTl(TTwg per- 
 sons in danger of death, when no Priest can be had. And 
 persons so Baptized, if they die, may be sung, and offered for, and 
 commemorated, as if they had really been Baptized : but if they 
 recover they are to be Baptized, not conditionally (to remedy any 
 doubt which may have arisen,) but absolutely, their former 
 Baptism being declared undoubtingly to have been no Sacra- 
 ment of regeneration. 
 
 Of Bajjtizing otherwise than by Trine Immersion. 
 
 XXIV. Baptism administered by one immersion only, or by 
 affusion, or by sprinkling, or in any other way than by trine 
 immersion, although it be certain that the water touched the 
 person Baptized and that the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity 
 were, outwardly at least, rightly invoked, is not Baptism ; nor 
 does it confer the grace of regeneration. 
 
 XXV. Such Baptisms as the above, though not Baptisms in 
 themselves, yet in cases of necessity allowed as such by the 
 Greeks, or by economy or condescendence of the Greek Church, 
 may be allowed as if they were really Baptisms, and when so al- 
 lowed may be supposed to have conferred regeneration. 
 
 XXVI. Though it may be true of all other Sacraments that 
 their existence depends not on any will or discretion of the Church, 
 nor on any recognition of necessity, nor on economy or conde- 
 scendence, but on the presence of certain things required by 
 Christ's institution, yet in the case of the Sacrament of Bap- 
 
170 OPINIONS OF THE MODERN GREEKS 
 
 tism this is not so. Thus bread and wine, and a Priest, and the 
 explicit or virtual invocation of the Holy Ghost, being neces- 
 sary by the Divine institution for making the sacramental Body 
 and Blood of Christ, if any of these things be absent, not even 
 the whole Church has power, on any plea of necessity or eco- 
 nomy, to make that to be Christ's Body and Blood, or to re- 
 gard that as Christ's Body and Blood, which is not really so. 
 But in the Sacrament of Baptism immersion, and trine immer- 
 sion, being necessary by the Divine institution for conferring 
 the grace of regeneration, the Church can nevertheless, even if 
 these things be absent, on the ground of necessity ov economy, 
 make that to be Baptism, or regard that as Baptism, which is 
 not really such. 
 
 XXVII. While the definition, or as the schoolmen speak the 
 matter and form, of all other Sacraments is fixed and invariable, 
 that of Baptism is twofold and variable, the matter of it being 
 primarily and absolutely trine immersion, (that is, when it does 
 not please the Church, or rather the Greek Church, to allow of 
 any exception,) but also exceptionally (when it pleases the 
 Church, or the Greek Church, to allow a plea of necessity or 
 economy,) by one afi'usion, or by three aflfusions or aspersions. 
 
 XXVIII. Canons xlix. and 1. of those called the Canons of the 
 Apostles are really laws enacted by the twelve Apostles them- 
 selves, and have ever bound the whole Church from the begin- 
 ning : besides which, even if it were otherwise, the Council held 
 in Trullo, a. d. 691, having received them, and being itself 
 received by the V/est, would have given them oecumenical au- 
 thority. And these Canons ordering that " if any Bishop or 
 Priest ja^ /SaTrr/croi sij Tlccrspu, kolI Tm, xai "Ayiov ilvsD/Aa," 
 X. T. X., or " ju-i^ Tpi'a ^uTTTlcrixciTa ju,(«5 fji.vri<rsKS iTrjTeXe'crjj, aWoi 
 sv /SaTTTicTfta TO e»5 tov 9av«T0v tou Kuplov SiSo'jXSVOv, xaSaj^siVflco"" 
 imply that all Baptisms whatsoever which should at any time be 
 administered otherwise than by immersion, and trine immersion, 
 although the Three Persons may be rightly invoked, and the 
 Baptism be not like that of the early heretics described as " to elj 
 TOV $uvaTov TOU Kvplou Si3o'jU,sv&v," are necessarily mere nullities. 
 
 XXIX. Canon vii. of the Second (Ecumenical Council or- 
 dering that the Baptisms of Eunomians, who being aliens from 
 the Church, and thinking heretically of the Trinity, rejected 
 
RESPECTING THE CONDITIONS OF VALID BAPTISM. 171 
 
 [both the invocation of the Three Persons and] trine immersion, 
 and Baptized by one immersion into the death of Christ to 
 symbohzc their opposition to orthodoxy, should be regarded as 
 nulhties, decreed virtually that the Baptisms of those also who 
 being within the Church, and thinking rightly of the Trinity, 
 and rightly invoking the Three Persons, and not rejecting trine 
 immersion, should at any time Baptize with one immersion not 
 into the death of Christ but into the name of the Holy 
 Trinity, to symbolize .the unity of the Divine Essence against 
 heretics who from the use of three separate immersions inferred 
 three separate essences, should equally be regarded as nullities. 
 
 XXX. The same Canon allowing the Baptism of seven sects 
 of heretics which, though retaining the outward invocation of 
 the Three Persons and the customary three immersions corres- 
 ponding to them, yet thought amiss of the Trinity, by no 
 means left it free to the Church of future ages to allow the 
 Baptism of certain of her own Bishops who, though both using 
 aright the outward invocation of the Three Persons and retaining 
 inwardly the orthodox faith corresponding thereto, yet dispensed 
 with the customary form of trine immersion, and Baptized either 
 by one immersion, or by affusion or sprinkling. 
 
 XXXI. Though Pope Gregory the Great, called Dialogus, who 
 lived long after the second (Ecumenical Council and was not ig- 
 norant of its decrees, (nor of Canons xlix. and 1. of those called 
 the Canons of the Apostles,) supposed the two cases contrasted 
 under the last preceding number to be quite distinct, and con- 
 sequently that Canon vii. of the Second (Ecumenical Council, 
 and Canon 1. of those ascribed to the Apostles were inapplicable 
 to the case of such Baptisms by one immersion as were prac- 
 tised by some Catholics in Spain in his time and sanctioned by 
 the local Council of Toledo, Gregory Dialogus was wrong ; and 
 those Baptisms were necessarily mere nullities. 
 
 XXXII. When Pope Gregory Dialogus writes that the Bap- 
 tism of certain early heretics " od-x. h ria ovo'/xarj tjjj 'Ayicts 
 Tpiciloi aW' ev xj; jw-v^fx>; Tou Suvoltov too Xpiarou xa» fxiu xutu- 
 t'jcrei xotvws aTrsSoxjjxacrS*] x«i a7rfi3Xy;9rj utto T^f SwTJxiij £x- 
 xXrjo-iui," (as it was also by the Eastern both in the Canons of the 
 (Ecumenical Councils and in those earlier Canons ascribed to 
 the Apostles,) it is to be collected that the Latin Church, by 
 
173 OPINIONS OF THE MODERN GREEKS 
 
 some Synodal act alluded to, had absolutely condemned as nul- 
 lities all Baptisms by one immersion, under whatever circum- 
 stances and with however orthodox a sense they should be admi- 
 nistered, though Pope Gregory expressly asserts the contrary. 
 
 XXXIII. When the same Pope Gregory Dialogus writes 
 " on |X£Ta Toaira. IC dixuprriU-oiTa. Tivcuv ava/SaTTTi^o'vTWV Iv TJ5 ToXstocvyj 
 Svvodco s^ri^lcrSY} slg fxlav K-XTotZiXJiv ylvB<j^on' uKKa. 'nuvo-af/.svri: t^$ 
 TOiavTfjs Trapavoixlui xoivaog 7rupa.TSTrjpYjTai ri TplrTt] ev tu> jSuTTTlcri^ccTi 
 xaraSuo-ij," a similar conclusion is to be drawn, namely, that the 
 Latin Church synodically declared such Baptism as had been 
 permitted by the Synod of Toledo to be a nullity. 
 
 XXXIV. Although St. Cyprian (who rejected as null the 
 Baptisms of heretics and schismatics,) testifies that the Catholic 
 Church of the third century regarded the Baptism of clinics by 
 aspersion or aflFusion as valid, writing thus, " Nee quemquam 
 movere debet quod aspergi vel perfundi videntur agri cum gratiam 
 Dominicam consequuntur,'^ and that such persons, if they live, 
 are on no account to be rebaptized ; and though other similar 
 testimonies are to be found in other Fathers, it is yet certain 
 that all such Baptisms are essentially null, so that it is lawful 
 and better, if the persons so Baptized live, to Baptize them. 
 And if such Baptisms were ever allowed, this fact must be ex- 
 plained either thus, that the Church by economy and con- 
 descension allowed as Baptism what was no Baptism, and men 
 as regenerate whom she knew to be not regenerate; or thus, 
 that the non-allowance or allowance of necessity by the Church, 
 or by the Greek Church, constitutes the matter of the Sacra- 
 ment, rather than either truie immersion or affusion or aspersion 
 in themselves. 
 
 XXXV. The Synod held at Constantinople a.d. 1484, after 
 the Council of Florence, (as also an earlier Synod after the expul- 
 sion of the Latins from Constantinople in 1260,) decreed the 
 reception of Latin proselytes by Chrism without rebaptism only 
 from an economy based upon fear of their power, the Latin 
 Baptisms being then really nullities. 
 
 XXXVI. The above mentioned Synods held after the year 
 12G0, and in a.d. 1484, decreed the reception of Latins by 
 Chrism only because the Latin Church had not then as yet 
 universally adopted the custom of aspersion or affusion. But 
 
RESPECTING THE CONDITIONS OF VALID BAPTISM. 173 
 
 the Latins have changed their ritual in respect of Baptism, and 
 have become worse than they were before, since the year of our 
 Lord 1484, or rather since 1667 ; (for then the Greek Patriarchs 
 abohshcd in Russia the custom of i-ebaptizing Latins, and intro- 
 duced there instead their own rule for receiving them with 
 Chrism ;) or rather, that we may correct ourselves again, since 
 A.D. 1723, when the custom of receiving Western proselytes by 
 Chrism only was confirmed for Russia by the Patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople Jeremiah III. even in the case of Lutherans and 
 Calvinists. And the present rule of the Greek Church to re- 
 baptize or Baptize all Westerns, which was introduced by an 
 "Opog put forth in a.d. 1756, and signed by three Patriarchs, 
 is based upon and justified by the change which the Latins have 
 made in their manner of Baptizing since the dates of the earlier 
 Greek decrees now set aside. 
 
 XXXVI L So long as the Latins Baptized generally by affu- 
 sion, the Easterns allowed economically their Baptism, though 
 irregular: but since the year 1484, 1667, or 1723 they have 
 changed their ritual and substituted sprinkling for affusion : 
 and on this account the Greeks changed their practice in the 
 year 1756: and on the same account they continue to Baptize 
 Latins to the present day. [This is only a particular opinion, 
 not generally held, and sufficiently refuted by the "Opo§ itself 
 and by the book intitled " ^ttjAi'tsuo-jc tov 'P(xvtkt[xov " put forth 
 by the Patriarch of Constantinople a.d. 1756.] 
 
 XXXVIII. The Latins in point of fact allow and practise 
 Baptism by sprinkling, 
 
 XXXIX. Latin Baptism is invalid because the Priest, instead 
 of saying " The servant of God A^. is Baptized/^ ^c, says " N. 
 I Baptize thee,'^ &;c. 
 
 XL. Persons Baptized by one immersion, or by afi^'usion, or by 
 sprinkling, with a correct invocation of the three Persons of the 
 Holy Trinity are neither Baptized nor unbaptized, neither 
 regenerate nor unregenerate, but in a middle state, half Baptized 
 and regenerate and half not ; so as to be capable by the will of 
 the Church, or of the Greek Church, and by her allowance or 
 denial of necessity or economy, of being either perfected into 
 the state of the new-born, or thrust back into the state of the 
 unregenerate. [This is only an opinion of individuals.] 
 
174 OPINIONS OF THE MODERN GREEKS 
 
 XLT. Though the oecumenical Church may have used economy 
 so as from fear or condescension to receive as if Baptized " Tovg 
 oi^xTTTijTcas jSaTTTJoSavTaj otto 'Apeicivcuv/' and other hei'etics who 
 preserved the outward invocation of the Trinity and the three 
 immersions without the inward faith corresponding thereto, the 
 Greek or Eastern Church ought not to use, and will not use, a 
 similar economy in receiving persons Baptized by the Latins 
 who with the outward invocation of the three Persons preserve 
 also the inward faith corresponding thereto, but presume with- 
 out any sickness or necessity allowed by the Greeks to Baptize 
 in that compendious manner by trine affusion which was per- 
 mitted by the early Church only in cases of sickness or urgent 
 haste, as in times of persecution. 
 
 XLII. The present custom of the Russian Church in receiv- 
 ing Western proselytes who are really unbaptized without 
 Baptizing them is merely an abuse owing to the overbearing in- 
 fluence of the Civil Power, or an economy and condescension 
 contrary to the law and tradition of the whole Church, and not 
 defended on principle even by the Russians themselves. 
 
 XLIII. Though it be true that in a mixed Synod of Greek, Rus- 
 sian, Georgian, Servian, and Wallachian Bishops held at Moscow 
 A.D. 1666, 1667, the Greek Patriarchs, who presided, abrogated 
 the canon of an earlier local Russian Synod in favour of re- 
 baptizing Latins, and enacted in its stead that for the future 
 the Russian Church should conform to the contrary practice 
 established by Greek Synods held at Constantinople in the thir- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries, the decree of this Synod of 
 Moscow is of no force against an "Opog put forth afterwards in 
 the year 1756 at Constantinople with the signatures of three 
 Patriarchs (though without any act of a Council,) or against a 
 bookintitled '^ ^TjjXiTfuo-jj'PavTio-jw-o-y approved by the then Pa- 
 triarch of Constantinople and published by him together with the 
 above-mentioned "Opo5 as in the name of the Church of Christ. 
 But both the mixed Synod held at Moscow in 1666, 1667, and 
 those earlier Greek Synods (held after 1260 and in 1484,) which 
 it followed and confirmed, were abrogated and reversed by the 
 "Opog in question ; and now the Russian Church ought to con- 
 form to the said "Opoj and to the present practice of the Greeks. 
 XLIV. The Latins or other Westerns Baptized by affusion or 
 
RESPECTING THE CONDITIONS OF VALID BAPTISM. 175 
 
 sprinkling, and received annually by the Russian Church with 
 Chrism only by thousands, are all really unregenerate and uu 
 baptized. In particular, the Empress of Russia herself, and all 
 the consorts of the Imperial family (whom the Greeks economi- 
 cally style Most Orthodox and Most Religious,) and the 150,000 
 or 200,000 proselytes from Lutheranism received within the 
 last ten years in the Baltic Provinces, are all still unbaptized 
 persons, w^hom the Russian Church knowingly and deliberately 
 and directly, (and the Greek Church no less knowingly and 
 deliberately, though indirectly, through the Russians,) by an 
 economy of dissimulation treats as Baptized Christians, and 
 gives to them the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 XLV. While the Russians thus, under the influence of the 
 civil Power, or by voluntary economy and condescension, treat 
 publicly multitudes of unbaptized persons as Orthodox Christians, 
 and give to them the Body and Blood of Christ, it is allowable 
 for the Greek Church, by economy and condescension, to dis- 
 semble with the Russian Church, and to receive herself also as 
 orthodox Christians and feed with the Body and Blood of 
 Christ all such unbaptized persons as have previously been 
 received by the Russians : and this not only in cases of unknown 
 persons, without examining them particularly so as to ascertain 
 whether they have been validly Baptized or no, but also in other 
 cases where the persons are previously known, and where it is 
 notorious that they have never been Baptized by trine im- 
 mersion. 
 
 XLVI. It is right and allowable for Greek Bishops to instruct 
 a Western proselyte that he is unbaptized and unregenerate, and 
 to require of him to seek from God not conditionally only but 
 absolutely and undoubtingly the grace of regeneration; and 
 yet to tell him at the same time that if he comes to them after 
 having first been received by the Russians without rebaptism, 
 they, the same Bishops, will then at once receive him as if he 
 were Baptized and regenerate, though they know him to be un- 
 baptized, and will give him the Body and Blood of Christ and 
 all other privileges of an Orthodox Christian. 
 
 XLVII. Supposing it to be granted that the Ancient Church 
 varied from herself in respect of Baptism, at one time admitting, 
 at another rejecting, or in certain parts admitting, in certain 
 
176 OPINIONS OF THE MODERN GREEKS 
 
 other parts rejecting heretical Baptism, or lay baptism, or com- 
 pendious Baptism (like that of clinics,) without trine immersion, 
 and that the divine grace of the Sacrament was given or with- 
 held according to the varying will and decision either of the 
 whole Church, or of particular Churches in union with the whole, 
 there is now an equal presumption that the divine grace follows 
 the will and decision of the separated Eastern Church against 
 the Latin, (or rather of the Greek Church against both the 
 Latin and the Russian,) as there was of old that the same grace 
 varied with the will and sentence of the united oecumenical. 
 Church, or of local Churches which were in unity with the rest, 
 and which did not either separate themselves or pretend to be 
 alone the whole Body. 
 
 XLVIIL Perhaps it might -be possible to reconcile the prac- 
 tice of the Greek and Russian Churches, if the Greek, would 
 reason thus : " Neither we Greeks nor the Russians are alone 
 the whole Catholic, or Orthodox, or even Eastern Church, but 
 only local parts of it : and no local part Baptizes in its own 
 name, but in the name of the whole Church : nor can any local 
 part rightly or truly impute to the whole what is only its own 
 local sense contrary to the sense of other parts. The Greek 
 Church therefore in receiving Western proselytes in the name of 
 the whole Orthodox Church, cannot rightly represent the whole 
 Orthodox Church as asserting positively of them that they are 
 unbaptized : for the Orthodox Church, as a whole, asserts no 
 such thing : as a whole, whatever she may do hereafter, she at 
 present doubts : for that man or society which at once asserts 
 and denies the same thing, or at one time or place asserts and at 
 another time or place denies, is said to be uncertain and to 
 doubt. And the Orthodox Church at present asserts of Western 
 proselytes through the local Greek Church that they are un- 
 baptized, and need Baptism, but through the local Russian 
 Church that they are already regenerated and need only Chrism. 
 The Greek Church therefore, in receiving Western proselytes in 
 the name of the whole Orthodox Church, will for the future 
 (until the question shall be cleared up by some joint Synod,) 
 refrain from ascribing to the whole Church what is only her 
 own particular and local opinion, and will rebaptize such 
 proselytes only conditionally, that is, either slightly varying the 
 
RESPECTING THE CONDITIONS OF VALID BAPTISM. 177 
 
 Form in Baptizing as was directed for doubtful cases in the Office- 
 book edited by Peter Mogila at Kieff in the seventeenth century, 
 thus, " The servant of God N., if he he not already Baptized, is 
 Baptized,'^ &c. : or declaring that the usual Form, although un- 
 changed, is used, and is allowed to be taken and understood, in 
 a conditional sense, as in the case of infants and others of whom 
 it is not known whether they have been Baptized or no. For 
 such infants the Canons order simply 'Uo be Baptized;" and 
 yet certainly without any intention of repeating Baptism, if in 
 point of fact it has already been validly administered. 
 
 Nevertheless this is a course which the Greek Church cannot 
 rightly or will not adopt, because she is not merely a part, but she 
 is herself the whole, and has a right to Baptize in her own 
 name, and to impute in Baptizing her own opinion to the whole 
 Church : and the Russian Church, if she differs from the Greek, 
 is nothing : and the Greek is not obliged either to confer with 
 the Russian, so as to remove the difference and obtain one con- 
 sentient doctrine and practice for the future, nor, until this be 
 done, to consider her own judgment to fall short of being 
 oecumenical in consequence of the opposition of the Russian 
 Church. 
 
 The main source of most of the opinions enumerated in the 
 preceding series is the book of Eustratius Argentes intitled 
 " ^ttjX/tsuo-jj tov 'P'XVTJO-jU.ou," which was printed by the Patri- 
 arch Cyril of Constantinople, in 1756, in the name of "the 
 Church of Christ,'^ with a Constitution appended for carrying 
 out its principles in practice. A translation of the Constitution 
 shall be given below in Chapter XII I. There is also in the modern 
 "/7>jS«Xiov" of the monks Agapius and Nicodemus, as revised 
 and published by order of the Patriarchal Synod at Constanti- 
 nople, a very long note (from p. 29 to p. 36, of the Athens edi- 
 tion of 1841,) on Canons xlvi. and xlvii. of the Apostles, the 
 arguments of which are all taken from the book of Eustratius 
 Argentes. And this note is now no doubt the immediate source 
 of the opinions prevalent among the Greek Clergy. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF A MEMORIAL PRESENTED TO THE PATRIARCH 
 OF CONSTANTINOPLE, KYR KYR ANTHIMUSj JULY THE 
 24th, N. S. 1851. 
 
 " Having failed (as appears by the accompanying documents,) 
 to obtain from the Scottish or other British Bishops any dis- 
 avowal of proselytes who have renounced Orthodoxy and joined 
 themselves in the name of heresy to the Anglican Communion, 
 and finding himself besides, in common with others, oppressed 
 within the Anglican Communion by a majority of heterodox, 
 careless, or weak members, who have either willingly allowed, 
 or ineflfectually combated, the pretension of the Civil Govern- 
 ment to decide all questions of doctrine and discipline ; and, 
 more particularly, have submitted to a recent decision of that 
 Government to the effect that the doctrine of the regeneration of 
 infants in holy Baptism is for the Anglican Church an open 
 question, on which any man may hold and teach either the affir- 
 mative or the negative without becoming liable to rejection from 
 her Communion : 
 
 " And believing from his heart the Catholic faith of the Creed 
 of Nice and Constantinople, as defined by the seven Ecumeni- 
 cal Councils, or (to name a more recent document,) as explained 
 in the 'Longer Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Church' 
 printed in Greek at Odessa not many years back, and translated 
 from the Russian, the writer is desirous of being admitted to 
 the Communion of the Orthodox and Catholic Church. 
 
 "But seeing now some apparent difference between the Russian' 
 and the Greek churches as to the manner in which any prose- 
 lyte from Western Communities is to be received, and not 
 being willing to be received only by one local or particular Church 
 (whether Greek or Russian,) in opposition to the doctrine and 
 
A MEMORIAL TO THE PATKIARCII OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 179 
 
 practice of another, he thinks it necessary to state precisely how 
 the case stands with him in respect of his present Baptism, and 
 then to ask whether he can be received cither by the Russians 
 SO as not to be afterwards in the eyes of the Greeks an unbap- 
 tized person unlawfully admitted to Communion without Bap- 
 tism, or by the Greeks so as not to be afterwards in the eyes of 
 the Russians a person who being Baptized and regenerate al- 
 ready, instead of thanking God for that gift, and seeking to 
 have any other defects corrected or filled up, has profanely 
 and improperly consented at the bidding of another particular 
 Church, and contrary to the sense of the Russian, and to his own 
 conscience, to be rebaptized as if he had never received the 
 Sjicrament of Baptism. 
 
 " The rule of the AngHcan Church is to Baptize children by 
 immersion, unless it be certified that the child is too weak to 
 bear it, in which case affusion is allowed. But the common 
 practice is not even to ask for any such certificate, but to Bap- 
 tize by affusion, or rather by sprinkling. There is no express 
 order in the Ritual that either the immersion or the affusion 
 should be thrice repeated, once at each Name of the Three Per- 
 sons of the Trinity ; and if it is ever so thrice repeated, this is 
 merely of the private will of the officiating Minister. The 
 writer was himself Baptized in the usual way : and could, if 
 there were need, procure a certificate from the Register of the 
 Parish Church to that effect. The Priest who Baptized him is 
 still living; and his custom in Baptizing is to pour or dash a 
 handful of water on the face of the child, once and not three 
 times, moving his hand, perhaps, slightly at each Name of the 
 Three Persons of the Trinity. 
 
 " Now, to say nothing of the omission of other important cere- 
 monies, adjuncts of Baptism, from the Anglican Ritual, the 
 writer is aware that there is a deep sense both in the immersion 
 (signified by the very word baptism,) and in the threefold repe- 
 tition of that immersion, once at the Name of each Person of 
 the Blessed Trinity. He is aware that to dispense with either 
 the one or the other of these things without any real necessity 
 is contrary to the custom of the whole Catholic Church for 
 many ages ; so that Baptism so administered must be irregular 
 and uncanonical, and any individual so administering it M^orthy 
 
 N % 
 
180 A MEMORIAL PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 of canonical punishments. And although St. Gregory the Great, 
 also called ' Dialogus/ may have thought the Spaniards justi- 
 fiable in using Baptism with one iiamersion only, (they using it 
 in an orthodox sense, not to symbolize any heresy, but to oppose 
 the heresy of some who drew a perverse argument for three 
 separate substances in the Three Persons of the Trinity from 
 the three immersions of Baptism,) still he cannot see that either 
 the Spaniards or Pope Gregory could rightly without a Council 
 authorize any departure from the universal custom and tradition 
 of the Church ia such a matter. And he regrets that he should 
 have been himself so irregularly Baptized : and, if it were pos- 
 sible, he would wish those defects in his Baptism to be remedied 
 and filled up by a conditional rebaptism, if any ground for 
 doubt as to the essential validity of his present Baptism could 
 be discovered, so as to justify such a step. 
 
 " But he cannot himself seek for any such conditional rebap- 
 tism in virtue of any doubt in his own conscience, because he has 
 learned that the whole Church teaches unanimously that im- 
 mersion and trine immersion, however important, are not abso- 
 lutely essential to the Sacrament of Regeneration in each 
 individual case. In cases of necessity all admit clinic Baptism : 
 and such Baptism is not (like a Baptism of mere wish, or of 
 sand,) to be repeated (at least not according to the judgment of 
 the ancients,) if the person Baptized recovers. All admit too 
 that not only in case of such necessity, but also in cases of great 
 public convenience, or to avoid great evils, the Church has used 
 and can use condescension, connivance, and economy in this 
 matter. But neither for necessity, nor for economy, nor under 
 any conceivable circumstances can the Church make the man 
 who has not been regenerated to have been regenerated, or the 
 man who has been regenerated to have not been regenerated ; 
 any more than she can make that which is the Body of Christ, 
 however improperly or sinfully consecrated, to be not His Body, 
 or that which is not really consecrated to be His Body. What- 
 ever power the Church may have in excusing or condemning, 
 allowing or forbidding, the doing of that which is as yet future 
 and undone, she can have no power whatever over questions of 
 fact, after the thing has been done : ' il/o'voy yup avToi> ^cu Oeoi 
 (rrsp(Vx£Ta», ays'vJjTa ttoieTv Oj-c' av ri TTSTrpotyfjiiva.. Agam, 
 
PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 181 
 
 whatever power she may have to allow or disallow, to repeat or 
 iiot to repeat, such Sacraments as may be repeated, such as are 
 in their essence within her power, as the giving the Holy Com- 
 munion (where there is no harm if a man receives twice over,) or 
 the Chrism, or Absolution, or even Ordination, she has no such 
 power in the case of those two Sacraments of Baptism and the 
 consecration of the Eucharist which cannot be repeated. Thus 
 not only the consent of the whole ancient and of the present 
 Latin and Russian Churches, but also, so far as the writer can 
 understand it and make it consistent with itself, the practice 
 and language even of the present Greek Church forbids him to 
 doubt that however necessary immersion, and trine nnmersion, 
 may be to the preservation of the full sense and perfection or 
 type of Baptism upon the whole, and to the Church, they are 
 not strictly of the essence of the Sacrament in any particular 
 case. The same is shown still more plainly and directly by the 
 doctrine and practice of the whole Russian Church, which expressly 
 tells persons in the position of the w riter that their present Bap- 
 tism is valid, and receives such proselytes without rebaptism ; 
 and indirectly again by the practice of the Greeks who, knowing 
 perfectly well what the Russians do, nevertheless receive at once 
 all whom the Russians have received : which they could not do 
 without sacrilege if the Russians had really received unbaptized 
 persons, or had allowed Baptisms not merely defective in such 
 important adjuncts as immersion and trine immersion, but es- 
 sentially invalid ; as, for instance. Baptisms administered with 
 rosewater instead of water; or administered by Unitarians with 
 water, but without the invocation of the Three Persons of the 
 Trinity. 
 
 " However in point of fact the Greeks now in dealing with 
 particular cases follow a practice contrary to that of the Russians, 
 and say to the individual that he is actually unbaptized, and 
 must be Baptized; though in a case of necessity, or for eco- 
 nomy, or if he came in a body with many others, the Church 
 could use condescension, and consider him as Baptized, and 
 admit him without rebaptism : and that there either is no diffe- 
 rence between themselves and the Russians, or else, if there is, 
 the Russians are wrong : but that even if they are wrong it is 
 impossible, or inconvenient, or unnecessary, to move and settle 
 
182 A MEMORIAL PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 such a question for the sake of an individual case : that the 
 applicant must judge for himself as well as he can ; and enter 
 the Eastern Communion in whichever way he likes best, either 
 as unbaptized through the Greek, or as Baptized through the 
 Russian door : only, if he desires to be received to Communion 
 by the Greeks directly, he must present himself as unbaptized ; 
 if he desires to be received by them as already Baptized, he must 
 come to them in a circuitous and indirect way, after having 
 been received first by the Russians. 
 
 " Since this is the view of the Greeks, and they are unable to 
 see anything inconsistent or unbecoming in such language, the 
 only question for the individual is, 
 
 " First, whether he will act, as invited to act, merely on his 
 own private judgment, and the judgment of the Russian Church : 
 that is, dismiss as false and self-contradictory the Greek opinion 
 and practice, and after having been received as Baptized by the 
 Russians return to the Greek Clergy who have refused him as 
 unbaptized, and be received by them, whether baptized or un- 
 baptized, in virtue of his previous reception by the Russians : 
 
 " Or secondly, if this is unsatisfactory, there may remain one 
 other course. He may say thus : ' In Baptizing there are two 
 parties, the Bishop or Priest Baptizing, and the person to be 
 Baptized. I should myself desire a conditional rebaptism, if it 
 could rightly be administered ; though I could not come pro- 
 fessing to seek from God that which I believe myself to have 
 already received : And the rebaptizing practised by the Greeks ap- 
 pears to me now to be virtually conditional, though they are 
 unwilling to call it such : It is not for me to reconcile their incon- 
 sistencies of language or practice : So long as I can take what 
 they do in a good sense, and am allowed by them to do so, I 
 may leave them to their own responsibility as to the rest.' 
 
 " The writer adopts this latter course, and asks. If he puts him- 
 self into the hands of a Greek Bishop to be Baptized, is he free 
 to come to that act with such inward feelings as may be ex- 
 pressed thus : 
 
 " ' God, I thank Thee, as I have ever done, for that grace of 
 Regeneration which I trust I have received m my Baptism : But 
 since I have learned that that Baptism was not administered in 
 all respects rightly, and since some Bishops or some parts of 
 
PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 183 
 
 the Church even doubt of its essential validity, I seek now from 
 Thy mercy for them the assuring of anything that was doubtful, 
 and for myself the filhng up of whatever was imperfect ' ? " 
 
 ANSWER TO THE ABOVE, RETURNED VERBALLY BY THE PA- 
 TRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN ONE OF THE LESSER OR 
 INFORMAL SYNODS ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER THE 8tH, 1851. 
 
 "There is only one Baptism. If the Russians allow any 
 other, we know nothing of that, and do not recognize it. Our 
 Church knows only one Baptism, and that without any detrac- 
 tion, addition, or change whatever," .... [And then, turning, 
 and bowing slightly to the Bishops right and left of him from 
 his corner of the Divan,] " This is the answer, is it not ?" To 
 which they expressed their assent, either verbally, or by a simi- 
 lar inclination in return. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FOUR DOCUMENTS, THREE AGAINST AND ONE FOR THE PRAC- 
 TICE OF REBAPTIZING WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Extracts from the " Travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch," 
 {being a Narrative of that Patriarch's First Journey to and 
 Stay in Russia, from a. d. 1654 to 1656,) ivritten hy his 
 Archdeacon Paul in Arabic, and published in English by the 
 Oriental Translation Fund. 
 
 " The Patriarch of Moscow (Nicon) had held a Synod during 
 this week (the fifth week in Lent, a. d. 1655,) in consequence 
 of what our Lord the Patriarch of Antioch had said to him, and 
 of his admonition to them concerning various innovations and 
 defects in their rehgion. The first point was, that they do not 
 celebrate upon an '/Ivri/xi'vo-jov, as we do, printed and imbedded 
 like ours with the Helics of Saints, but simply on a piece of white 
 linen. The second, that in the sacrifice of the Holy Oblation 
 they do not make (with the particles) the nine Orders (ray/xaTa,) 
 but only four. The third, that in the Creed, they make a 
 wrong inflexion at every clause. The fourth, that they kiss the 
 Icons only once or twice in the year. The fifth, that they 
 do not receive the 'Avrldcopa. The sixth, that they make the 
 sign of the Cross with a wrong disposition of the fingers. The 
 seventh, concerning their Baptism of the Poles : for of late they 
 have been baptizing them with a second Baptism. The Synod 
 was held concerning other affairs also of defective rites and cere- 
 monies, which we have already mentioned and shall hereafter 
 more particularly mention. The Patriarch of Moscow therefore 
 attended to the words of our Lord. And at this same time he had 
 
FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING REBAPTISM. 185 
 
 interpreted the Service of the Liturgy from the Greek to the 
 Russian ; and explained the Ritual and Rubrics in so clear a 
 manner that even children might ascertain the true Greek rite. 
 Of these Rituals he printed several thousand copies, and distri- 
 buted them over the country, as he did also with the service-book. 
 He corrected also many of their errors in points of ceremony by 
 Imperial admonitions and edicts, and by authoritative testimonies 
 from holy books. Then they concluded the business of the Sy- 
 nod by declaring that the rebaptizing of the Poles was not law- 
 ful, according to what our Lord the Patriarch of Antioch had 
 told them, and according to what is prescribed in the Ev)(_oXoyiov 
 and the Noixoxuvoov. For the Poles believe in the Trinity, and 
 are Baptized; and are not far removed from us, as the rest of 
 the heretics and Lutherans are ; like the Swedes, English, Hun- 
 garians, and others of the Frank sectaries, who do not fast, nor 
 bow down to Pictures, nor to the Cross, &c. The Patriarch of 
 Moscow therefore, being a lover of Greece, conformed himself 
 obediently, and said to the Bishops, and the Archimandrites, and 
 Hegoumens, and other chief Clergy who were present, 'I am a 
 Russian, the son of a Russian ; but my faith and my religion 
 are Greek.^ Some also of the Bishops conformed themselves 
 obediently, saying, ' The gift of our faith in Christ and all the 
 rites of our religion and its Mysteries came to us from the 
 country of the East.' But others of them demurred inwardly, 
 saying within themselves, ' We will not alter our Books, nor 
 our rites and ceremonies, which we received from of old.' But 
 they had not the boldness to speak openly : for the anger 
 of the Patriarch is not to be withstood. Witness what he did 
 with the Bishop Paul of Kolomna, when he banished him. 
 Then he confirmed the decree that the Baptizing of the Poles is 
 unlawful ; and presented to our Lord the Patriarch of Antioch 
 six Priests from the country of the Poles Ordained in presence 
 of the Pope's Cardinal residing in Wilna. They said that they 
 were Priests in the service of the Russians [that is Uniats, for- 
 merly subjects of Poland,] and of our own Church. The dress 
 of these Polish Priests was like ours. The only difference 
 between them and us is that they exercise their functions in 
 the name of the Pope. Even the order of their Liturgy is like 
 ours. These men, when one of the Emperor's Commanders had 
 
186 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE 
 
 taken one of their towns, and was destroying the Pohsh 
 Churches, and killing the Priests, presented themselves before 
 him in a suppliant manner, and informed him that they were 
 orthodox. He sent them therefore to the Patriarch Nicon, to 
 look into their affairs. 
 
 " Today (Saturday) we took them with us to the church of 
 the Queen [Helena of Georgia, widow of David, grandson of 
 Timouraz Khan, where the Patriarch INIacarius was to celebrate 
 the Liturgy f\ and as soon as our Lord the Patriarch arrived, we 
 robed him, and he made the '/^yiao-|*oj, &c. Then we brought 
 to him two of the Polish Priests abovementioned, after we had 
 divested them of their gowns, their girdles, and their calpacks. 
 Bowing to the Pati-iarch with three fisTuvoiui, they stood before 
 him bareheaded, with an interpreter near. Our Lord the Patri- 
 arch then began to expound to them the mysteries of the true 
 faith, one by one, and behef in the Seven Councils ; and they 
 blessed what the Seven Councils have blessed, and anathematized 
 what they have anathematized. Then they anathematized all 
 heretics, and the Eighth Council. Afterwards he read to them 
 the Creed word for word. Then he presented to them the Icons 
 and the Cross to kiss, and they bowed to the ground. Having 
 read over them the Prayers appointed in the Ej^o^^oyiov, and 
 the Prayers for the Chrism, he anointed them with it upon the 
 head only, in the form of a cross. Then we commanded them, 
 and they bowed to him three times, both together ; and we took 
 them to the Royal Doors, and they bowed before them three 
 times and before the Icons of Christ and Our Lady. Thus 
 much for the reception. Then we took hold of them by their 
 arms, according to custom, saying ' KeXeua-ov x. t. K. Jsa-noTa 
 clyi'.' Then the Patriarch blessed them, and vested them with 
 the Tunicle (^Ti;5^ap»ov) and Orarion only as Deacons, without 
 reciting any Prayer, saying to each of them ' Thy soul rejoice 
 in the Lord ; for He hath vested thee in the (jarment of purity .' 
 a^c. Then he blessed them a second time, and they stood 
 with us. At the time I said the Gospel, I went and presented 
 it to them to kiss, as is customary. So also we mentioned 
 their names after the mention of the Emperor and Em- 
 press, and their son, and daughters, and sisters. After the 
 carrying round of the Gifts [iu the Great Introit] our Lord 
 
OF REBAPTIZING WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 187 
 
 went out from the sanctuary with the Cross, and they came 
 near to him, and he blessed them with it, as is usual. Then we 
 brought forward those two Poles ; and they bowed before the 
 Holy Table three times, and the Patriarch blessed them, and 
 put on them the 'Enirpu^^Xiov and the <Pi\Mviov [as to Priests,] 
 while he repeated the verses. Then he delivered to them the 
 Service-book of the Liturgy ; and the other Priests kissed them, 
 as usual ; and they took their station [and Celebrated] with 
 them :" &c. Part v. §. x. pp. 85-87. 
 
 "On the Wednesday before the Ascension (a. d. 1655,) our 
 Lord the Patriarch (of Antioch) celebrated the Liturgy in the 
 church of the convent, and ordained Priests and Deacons. He 
 Converted [that is, received as proselytes] four Priests from 
 the country of the Poles j and having Anointed them, delivered 
 them in charge to one of the Priests of the convent, to be 
 taught the order of Sacrifice [that is, of the Offertory or Prepa- 
 ration at the Prothesis,] and the Liturgy for a certain number 
 of days." [So then these were Latin Poles, not Uniats.] lb.. 
 Part vi. §. V. p. 129. 
 
 " On Tuesday in Easter week " [a. d. 1656 ; the Patriarch 
 Macarius and the writer his Archdeacon having left Moscow in 
 order to return to their own country on the evening of the Fifth 
 Sunday in Lent, and being then at Volchova, at the moment 
 they were preparing to prosecute their journey to Pontivlia, a 
 Grand Sotnik overtook them, and requested the Patriarch Ma- 
 carius in the Emperor's name to return to him] " to assist at a 
 new and secret Synod, and for other secret and necessary busi- 
 ness of Church and State " &c. lb. p. 287. So they returned, 
 and on Thursday in St. Thomas's week reentered Moscow, 
 p. 291. 
 
 '•' On Sunday before the Ascension (a. d. 1656,) the Patriarch 
 of Moscow invited our Lord ; and having assisted at Liturgy in 
 the cathedral, we went up to his palace, where he this day held 
 a Synod. Summonses had been sent to all the Bishops, &c. 
 throughout the country ; and the Metropolitan of Kazan was 
 come to attend the Council. The object of the meeting was to 
 discuss the Baptism of the Poles ; because, as wc have before 
 mentioned, the Muscovites were in the habit of Baptizing them ; 
 whereas in the books of Ecclesiastical law this is forbidden, 
 
188 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE 
 
 with the exception of four sects which have made their appear- 
 ance (more recently) in our time, and which are the Enghsh, 
 the Lutheran, the Calviuist, and the Taphlagonians who are 
 followers of Paul of Samosata [Socinians,] and dwell in thirty - 
 small towns or villages in the district of Tornova. Our Lord 
 the Patriarch therefore demanded of them that they should 
 conform to what was written in their own laws. We had found 
 in a book an ancient writing from the Holy Mountain in which 
 this matter was expounded. This section of the book our Lord 
 the Patriarch wrote out, and signed with his own name : and 
 after a long and an angry discussion with the heads of the Mus- 
 covite Clergy at this Synod, he compelled them by the testi- 
 mony of their own laooks of Law [Nomocanons,] reluctantly to 
 submit to the truth. Then he delivered this document or book 
 to the Patriarch of Moscow, after he had put his name to it ; 
 and it passed into the hands of the Emperor. Afterwards it 
 was translated into the Russian language, printed, and distri- 
 buted : and an Lnperial decree in conformity with it went 
 forth to prohibit the Baptism of the Poles and other Franks of 
 the same religion ; for they approach the nearest of any of the 
 sects to ours. Thus this affair was settled, and the business of 
 the Synod concluded." 
 
 " Now at length we discovered the motive of our detention, 
 which was for three purposes. The first was to discuss the 
 affair of the Baptism of the Poles ; the second, to give testimony 
 concerning the Metropolitan of Moldavia; and the third, to 
 condemn a new heresy of a second Arius, which had made its 
 appearance among the Muscovites, as we shall relate hereafter.-" 
 lb., Part vii. §. viii. p. 296. 
 
 n. 
 
 Extract from the MS. Acts of the Synod held at Moscow, a. d. 
 1666— 16G7,/or the Deposition of the Patriarch Nicon. 
 
 In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 Amen. In the present year a. m. 7105, and a. d. 1667, March 
 15, at the desire of the Tsar Alexis Michaelovich, &c., the 
 Most Holy Patriarchs Paisms of Alexandria, Macarius of An- 
 tioch, Joasaph of Moscow and All Russia, assembled together 
 
OF REBAPTIZING WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 189 
 
 with the Most Reverend Metropolitans, Archbishops, and 
 Bishops, and all the sacred Synod ; when the Tsar addressed 
 them concerning a former Synod held in the year 129, [1629?] 
 under the Most Holy Patriarch Philaret Niketich of Moscow 
 and All Russia respecting the Baptizing of persons coming over 
 from the Roman faith to the orthodox faith of the holy Eas- 
 tern Church ; [and asked] whether it was then rightly decreed 
 to Baptize them ? 
 
 Hereupon the Patriarchs, &c., gave order to copy out from 
 the Synodal Exposition made under the Patriarch Philaret Ni- 
 ketich such passages as were quoted in it from the Canons of 
 the holy Apostles and of the holy Fathers, and from other divine 
 writings, for the purpose of ascertaining whether they who 
 wrote for that former Synod transcribed and adduced accui'ately 
 what they adduced from the Canons and other divine writings 
 concerning the aforesaid Latin Baptism, or there was in their 
 transcriptions and adductions any inaccuracy. 
 
 [So there was] transcribed from the Canons and from that 
 former Synodal Exposition [as follows :] 
 
 In the Synodal Exposition, fol. 219, there are printed these 
 words : " Jonah, Metropolitan of Kroutitz said. It is written in 
 the Sixth Council that the Latins ought not to be Baptized, 
 but only anointed with Chrism :" And the answer made to the 
 said Jonah, thus : " In canon xcv., the canon alluded to, this is 
 not written ; but what is written is, that ' The Paulicians, the 
 Eunomians, Montanists, Sabellians, Manichees, Valentinians, 
 Marcionites, and others of like heresies, on their coming to 
 the orthodox faith we receive as heathens :' and a heathen 
 must of course be Baptized/^ There is printed also part of a 
 gloss upon the same Canon respecting heretics not named by 
 it, adding from other Canons a notice which of them are to 
 be Baptized. 
 
 But in this Canon xcv. of the Sixth Ecumenical Council we 
 read : " Them that are converted from heretics we receive thus : 
 Arians, ^Macedonians, &c., Nestorians, ['Apia-Tspov^,] Quarto- 
 decimans, and Apollinarists, and Eutychians, and Sabellians, 
 and those who come from similar heresies, on their anathema- 
 tizing all heresies, and their own among the rest, we anoint 
 with holy Chi-ism on the breast, the eyes, the nostrils, the lips. 
 
190 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE 
 
 and the ears, signing them, and saying ' The Seal of the Gift of the 
 Holy Ghost.' " And with this Canon the answer given to the 
 Metropohtan of Kroutitz in the Synodal Exposition does not agree. 
 In the same Exposition, fol. 220, there are printed as adduced 
 in proof Canons xlvi. and 1. of the Holy Apostles. And of these 
 in Canon xlvi. it is written that " a Bishop receiving the Baptism 
 or Sacrifice of heretics is to be deposed :" and in Canon 1., that 
 " if any Bishop shall not perform three immersions of one initia- 
 tion, but one immersion, which is given into the death of the 
 Lord, he is to be deposed :" &c. 
 
 But these Apostolical Canons must be rightly understood. 
 For in speaking thus of the Baptism and Sacrifice of heretics 
 they plainly intend those heretics who are totally aliens from 
 the divine faith, and whom the Canons following order to be 
 Baptized, but not such as Baptize in the Name of the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but oppose themselves in conse- 
 quence of some other schisms or heresies. 
 
 These Apostolic Canons too are cited unfairly against the 
 Latin Baptism. For they say, "If any man Baptize not by 
 three immersions, but by one only which is given into the death 
 of the Lord, let him be deposed." But the Latins Baptize 
 neither by one immersion, nor into the death of the Lord ; but 
 they Baptize by pouring water thrice in the Name of the 
 Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as the Form of the 
 Roman Baptism exhibited to this sacred Synod proves. It would 
 have been more to the point for the writer of the Exposition to 
 have raised the question about affusion, and to have questioned 
 whether affusion is to be received in lieu of immersion ; whereas 
 now he has adduced no testimonies invalidating affusion. 
 
 In the same Exposition, fol. 220, Canon xix. of the First 
 CEcumenical Council relating to the Paulicians is adduced in 
 argument. But neither can this Canon be rightly applied to 
 the case of Latin Baptism, seeing that the Paulicians denied the 
 Divinity of Christ, and asserted Him to be a mere man. 
 
 At the same fol. 220, overleaf, are printed these words: 
 " The Melchisedekians, and the Jews, and the Armenians, fast 
 on the Sabbath." In this too the writer has made his collections 
 inaccurately. For the Jews the Sabbath is a festival, not a 
 fast, as is plain from their laws. And the Armenians eat cheese 
 
or REBAPTTZIXG WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 191 
 
 and eggs on all Sabbaths, as may be seen from Canon Ivi. of the 
 Sixth Council quoted at fol. 221 by the wiiter himself, though 
 wrongly called by him Canon Ivi. of the Apostles. He has also 
 at fol. 221 these words : " The Jews keep festival on the Sab- 
 bath :" notwithstanding his having written above at fol. 220 
 "The Jews fast on the Sabbath." And yet before, on the same 
 fol. 221, he had written, " The Romans equally with the Jews 
 and Melchisedekians and Armenians fast on the Sabbath." And 
 this is another inaccuracy of the writer. 
 
 On the same folio, overleaf, he has ascribed to the Romans the 
 heresy of Montanus. And if indeed there were found in them 
 the heresy of Montanus, or any other like it, [making them to 
 be] like those heretics whom the Canons order us to Baptize, 
 it would follow that we ought to Baptize the Romans likewise. 
 But upon examination of the Order of the Latin Baptism by this 
 Synod it appears that there is among the Romans no such thing 
 as the heresy of Montanus ; seeing that they Baptize in the Name 
 of the Father, and the Sox, and the Holy Ghost ; only they 
 pour water thrice instead of immerging. But against affusion 
 the writer exhibited to the Synod held under Philaret Niketich 
 no proofs whatever. 
 
 At fol. 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, of the same Synodal 
 Exposition the writer parallels with the Latins certain heretics 
 whom we are oi'dered to Baptize, namely the Montanists called 
 Phrygians, and the Sabellians, who were heretical concerning 
 the Trinity. But these may not so be paralleled with the Ro- 
 mans ; seeing that according to the Roman Order Baptism is ad- 
 ministered in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 At fol. 228, overleaf, it is thus written : " The Arians Baptize 
 with one immersion : They say not ' In the name of the Father, 
 a7id of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' but ' In the name of 
 Him that is to come,' (like John the Forerunner,) that is, Christ 
 Jesus." This too the writer has written inaccurately, without 
 examining the Canons. If such had been indeed the Baptism 
 of the Arians at the time [when the Canons were made,] and 
 not in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 the divine Canons would not have ordered that they should 
 be received, and that they should not be rebaptized, but only 
 
192 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE 
 
 anointed with Chrism, and made to anathematize their heresy ; 
 as is clear from Canon xcvi. of the Sixth Council, quoted above. 
 At fol. 230, overleaf. Canon xix.of the First (Ecumenical Coun- 
 cil, relating to the Paulicians, is applied to the Latins. The 
 writer is again inaccurate in making this application, as has 
 been already shown above. 
 
 The principal heresy of the Latins is their departure from the 
 Eastern Church concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost, 
 holding that He proceeds from the Son also, like as from the 
 Father. And this Latin heresy respecting the procession of 
 the Holy Ghost is exceeded in gravity both by the Arian 
 heresy and by the Macedonian. For the Arians do not confess 
 the Son of God to be of one substance with the Father and 
 the Holy Ghost, but say that He was made and created : and 
 the Macedonians separate the Holy Ghost from the Father 
 and the Son, and make Him a servant. Notwithstanding this. 
 Canons vii. of the Second, and xcv. of the Sixth Oecumenical 
 Councils do not order us to Baptize them, but only to anoint 
 them with Chrism according to the usual form. How much 
 more then are the Latins (who are guilty of a less error,) not to 
 be Baptized ? Canon vii. of the Second Council says thus : "The 
 Quartodecimans, or Tetraditse, and Arians, and Macedonians, 
 and Novatians, and Sabbatians, and Apollinarists, we receive upon 
 their giving libels, sealing them only on all the senses." And 
 Canon xcv. of the Sixth Council has been cited and written out 
 above. And in consideration of these Canons neither ought the 
 Latins to be Baptized ; since they Baptize in the Name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and not 
 like the Montanists, and Pcpouzians, and Phrygians, and all the 
 rest who resemble them and are altogether heretics. 
 
 Canon i. of Basil the Great teaches that he is a heretic who 
 is an ahen in faith: "AlpenKo; Iotjv 6 ttuvteXu); ciiTsppriyi/,iv05 xa» 
 xdT auTYiV TYiV Tvicrxiv anrjXKoTpictiiJisvog' 6 11 5j« i^rjTYjixa. T« ayva:<r- 
 TOV [I«(rj/x.ov,] (7X^(7 ixarixoi' nctpujuvayc/oycA 8= elcriv al (Tuvafeij 
 a\ "Trapa. toutxv rj aAXwv uvvt:ot^x.txv yivj[xsvcn' otnvz^ uTTBO-p^sQ- 
 Yi^av u'JTo) ol jSiOi uTTO T^j xa9oXixr;c 'EjcxX>)Tjac, xa.) ccKXr,v cuv- 
 e(rTrj(Tuv sU rrjv oiroluv avvayovTai. " Elo^s toIvvv toTj I^ agx^? 
 TO ixh Tcov a'iPSTixuiV /3a7rT»a"j!/,a TrxvrsXiuc a.S-Tr,<j-ctr to 8= TUiV oyj><y- 
 [xxTiKuiv xui TO Twv Iv TaTj ■jritpatTvvoiyoiyoui Trapuli^aa-^xt." 
 
OF REBAPTIZING AVESTERN CHRISTIANS. 193 
 
 The Canon of the Presbyter Timothy at fol. C34 of the 
 " Kormchay " [that is, of the Russian Nomocanon,] directs that 
 Arians are not to be Baptized, but only anointed with Chrism. 
 
 In the book of our venerable father Joseph of Volotsk ad- 
 dressed to the heretics of Novgorod, ch. 15, it is written thus: 
 " As for those who come over from the heretics and repent, but 
 believe, and have been Baptized in the name of the Father, tlie 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost, it is not commanded to rebaptize 
 them, but to admit them to the Mysteries at once, as soon as 
 they have renounced their heresy." 
 
 The following is a Canonical Answer of Timothy, Archbishop 
 of Alexandria, to a Question addressed to him : [omitted from 
 the latest editions of the Greek /7)]5aX»ov] 
 
 {Question.) " Why do we not Baptize heretics who are con- 
 verted to the Catholic Church ? " [Answer.) " If we did Bap- 
 tize them a man would not be so ready to return from heresy, 
 from shame to be rebaptized. However, we must know that the 
 Holy Ghost comes also by the laying on of the hand of the 
 Presbyters and by prayer, as is attested by the Acts of the Holy 
 Apostles, chap, xviii. ' Then laid they their hands upon them, and 
 they received the Holy Ghost. ^ Over and above these consider- 
 ations we should consider the case of those who have voluntarily 
 apostatized from Christ, and have sacrificed to idols, and have 
 not only perished themselves but compelled others also to perish 
 with them, of whom Canon ix. of the Synod of Ancyra (fol. 44, 
 in the Kormchay,) decrees thus : ' Whoever has not only himself 
 sacrificed, but has also compelled others, let him do penance for 
 ten years' {The Gloss upoji the same:) 'Whoever have not 
 only sacrificed,' &c.'^ [reciting the Canon at length as it stands 
 in the Greek JTZiiSaAiov, p. 217, with very little variation.] 
 
 But if any one begins to be displeased through respect for 
 that Synodal Exposition made under Philaret Niketich, Patriarch 
 of Moscow and all Russia, and not enduring that it should be 
 set aside, let not such a one be displeased hereat ; nor let him 
 be troubled with any doubt ; but let him know that in old times 
 also one synod corrected another, and did not think it inadmis- 
 sible to meddle with the earlier, but taking counsel for the 
 greater profit of the Church corrected them afterwards ; as may 
 be seen in the following instances : The Synod of Neoc£esarea 
 
 o 
 
194 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING TEIE PRACTICE 
 
 in its fifteentli Canon orders that in each Cathedral there should 
 be seven Deacons, though the city may be a great one. But 
 the holy Fathers of the Sixth CEcumenical Council decided con- 
 cerning this Synod of Neoca^sarea that it had not I'ightly 
 understood the words found in the Acts of the Apostles respect- 
 ing seven Deacons : for the Apostles then were not taking 
 thought for men to serve in the divine Mysteries, but for men 
 to serve tables, &c. The same may be said of many other 
 canons also, which subsequently the (Ecumenical Synods set 
 aside. As may be seen in the case of the Synod held under 
 St. Cyprian which decreed that all heretics and schismatics should 
 be baptized, and gaye [restricted ?] the [power of] Baptizing to 
 the three Orders. Again, the Synod of Carthage appointed 
 that on the Great Thursday [the faithful] should Communicate 
 in the holy j\Iysteries after their evening meal, in imitation of 
 that Supper of the Lord. But the Sixth (Ecumenical Synod 
 set aside that canon, and ordered that the Bishops and Priests 
 should on that day perform the immaculate Service fasting, and 
 that the people to whom they should give the same holy Myste- 
 ries should be fasting too. And what is stronger still, even the 
 Apostolical Constitutions and Canons the holy Fathers after- 
 wards amended on occasion ; as we see was done by the Sixth 
 (Ecumenical Synod in Canon xii., which runs thus : " Though 
 it be said" (that is, in the Apostolical Canons,) "that Bishops 
 are not to send aivay their ivives, still, in order to the greater 
 profit of religion ice command that he who is appointed Bishop 
 shall thenceforth no more live with his ivife." And many other 
 such-like things there are to be found laid down by earlier holy 
 Synods which were amended by other later Synods without 
 any blame : neither did they who made such amendments blame 
 or contemn those earlier Synods which they amended. And 
 thus now also let none doubt or find fault on account of the 
 correction made of the Synod formerly held under the Patriarch 
 I'hilaret Nikctich. For it is properly done, and in agreement 
 with the above mentioned precedents. 
 
 But if any one is obstinate, and persists in wishing to rebap- 
 tize the Latins, he should consider Canon xlvii. of the Holy 
 Apostles : " // amj Bishop or Priest baptize over again him, who 
 has received the true Baptism, or do not Baptize him who has 
 
OF REBAPTIZING WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 195 
 
 been polluted by the heretics, let him be deposed:" and Canon Iv. 
 uliicli has been cited above, (folio 3, overleaf:) For that Canon 
 orders to rebaptize certain who were Baptized with one immer- 
 sion : and Canon xlix. of the same : " If any Bishop or Priest 
 do not Baptize, according to the Lord's command, into Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost, but into three unoriginated, or into three 
 Sons, or into three Paracletes, let him be deposed." 
 
 Such heretics then as these Apostolical Canons and the above 
 recited Canons of the Fathers made subsequently to them order 
 us to Baptize we ought to Baptize : but as for those that have 
 been Baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost, we do not find in the divine Canons of the holy 
 Apostles and the Fathers that they are to be rebaptized. 
 
 And with regard to the Latin Baptism which is administered 
 with three affusions in the Name of the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost, the Most Holy Patriarchs Paisius of Alexandria, 
 Macarius of Antioch, and Joasaph of Moscow, and the Most 
 lleverend Metropolitans, Archbishops, and Bishops, and the 
 whole sacred Synod, having heard these extracts, determined 
 the matter thus : That it is not proper to Baptize those who come 
 over to the holy Apostolic Eastern Church from the Latins. 
 
 And in confirmation of this decree the Most Holy CEcumeni- 
 cal Patriarchs Paisius of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch 
 laid before the Synod an ancient Greek book in which was 
 written how in the year of the world 6992, (or from the Incar- 
 nation 1484,) there was held a Synod in Constantinople in the 
 church of the Most Holy IMother of God called Pammacariste 
 by the four Most Holy and Most Blessed Oecumenical Patriarchs 
 Simeon of Constantinople, Gregory of Alexandria, Dorotheus of 
 Antioch, and Joachim of Jerusalem, for the correction and re- 
 jection of the unholy Synod which had been held at Florence. 
 This holy Synod decreed that " If any from among the Latins 
 return to the Orthodox and Catholic Eastern Church, they are to 
 be anointed with holy Chrism, but are not to be rebaptized." 
 This holy Synod prescribed also the Form to be used in re- 
 ceiving them ; how we are to question them and make them 
 to anathematize the Latin heresies, and afterwards to anoint 
 them with holy Chrism, and say Prayers over them, and further 
 to take a writing from them to the Great Church. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE 
 
 The like directions are given by the most wise and holy Mark, 
 Metropolitan of Ephesus, in his Eucyclical Epistle beginning 
 with these words : " Christians over all the earth and in the 
 islands :" in which after much other matter he says also that 
 " Such as come from the Latins to orthodoxy we receive like 
 Arians, Macedonians, Sabbatians, and Novatians, on their (jiving 
 a writing, and anathematizing every heresy which holds not with 
 the Holy Eastern Church : and in virtue of Canon vii. of the Second 
 Council we seal them [with Chrism] on the forehead, eyes, ^c, 
 according to the rubric, saying, ' The Seal of the Gift of the 
 Holy Ghost, Amen.' " Behold, thus writes and directs the 
 most holy Mark of Ephesus : In accordance with whom the 
 most holy Patriarchs with the whole sacred Synod have made 
 this their present decree : 
 
 " Paisius of Moscow, Macarius of Antioch, Joasaph of Mos- 
 cow, and the whole sacred Synod : Having this day read over 
 the extracts made from the Acts of that Synod which was held 
 in the time of the Patriarch of Moscow Philaret Niketich, we 
 have found that the writers proposed unfairly to that Synod 
 references to the Canons which are not sufficient to justify the 
 rebaptizing of the Latins. Further, in the Acts of that Synod 
 we have found canons not agreeing with the Canons, and refer- 
 ences or quotations not at all agreeing with the Canons, as that 
 same Synodal Exposition itself shows, from which the discord of 
 Canons and references has now been written out. And now we 
 haveall judged unanimously that it isnot right to rebaptize Latins; 
 but that after having anathematized their heresies and confessed 
 their sins they ought to be anointed with holy Chrism, and so 
 be admitted to the divine Mysteries, and to the Communion of 
 the holy Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church, according to 
 the sacred Canons of which mention has been made more at 
 leno-th above. But as respects them that are displeased that 
 the Synod held under the Most Holy Philaret Niketich Patriarch 
 of Moscow should be corrected, something has been already 
 said above. Thus we all give a trustworthy witness synodically 
 to the divine Canons, and have decided unanimously that from 
 this day they who come from the Latins to our orthodox Chris- 
 tian faith of the holy Eastern Church are not to be rebaptized, 
 but are to be received according to the form and testimony 
 
OF REBAPTIZING WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 197 
 
 written above. Thus we have unanimously decreed, and have 
 subscribed with our hands in the year of the world 7175, from 
 the Incarnation 1667, the — th day of June." 
 
 This Act is signed by the three Patriarchs Paisius of Alexan- 
 dria, Macarius of Antioch, and Joasaph of Moscow, (the Patri- 
 archs of Constantinople and Jerusalem having also given their 
 assent to the holding of the Synod, and assenting to its acts 
 afterwards,) by six Greek Metropolitans of Nice, Ainasia, Ico- 
 nium,Trebizond, Varna, and Chios, and four Russian of Novgorod, 
 Kazan, llostofF, and Kroutitz, by a Metropolitan of Georgia, by 
 the Metropolitan of Servia, by Paisius formerly Archbishop of 
 Gaza, by the Archbishops of Sinai and Wallachia, by six Rus- 
 sian Archbishops of Vologda, Smolensk, Souzdal, Riazan, Tver, 
 and PskofF, and by five Bishops of Kolomna, Viatka, Slavono- 
 serbsk, ChernigofF, and IMstislavla, with more than fifty Archi- 
 mandrites, Hegoumens, and Protopresbyters, besides monks and 
 other clerks. 
 
 III. 
 
 (A.D. 1718, August 31.) "A Letter to the Emperor Peter I. 
 from Jeremiah III. Patriarch of Constantinople, directing that 
 Lutherans and Calvinists coming over to the Orthodox Greek 
 Faith are not to he rebaptized, but are to be anointed with holy 
 Chrism." {Extracted and translated from the Russian version 
 printed in the Full Collection of Russian Laws.) 
 
 " After that any matters which seem doubtful have been pro- 
 posed by questions for fitting and ready decision according to 
 the orthodox confession of Christ's holy Church, and by exa- 
 mination and determination of a Synod the difficulty respecting 
 tbem has been done away and the doubt dissolved, the same 
 ought to be and to remain as has been determined by the Synod, 
 that is, unquestioned, and unmeddled with by posterity : Or 
 rather, if ever any doubt should arise respecting any such deci- 
 sion tending to change, we ought to exert ourselves in every 
 way to defend the same decision as a good enactment of our 
 ancestors, and by all means to hinder its being set aside. For 
 this end, as it seems, most exalted and pacific Sovereign, you 
 have communicated to us on this matter by your letter not long 
 ago. In that letter you put a question, and desire from the 
 
198 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE 
 
 Great Church of Christ a judgment concerning Lutherans and 
 Calvinists who corae over to the pious and pure doctrine of our 
 orthodox faith^ whether they ought to be rebaptized, or be 
 added to the sons and heirs of the heavenly kingdom by being 
 anointed only with the divine Chrism ? 
 
 " This same question was proposed in time past by certain 
 other persons also of blessed memory to the Patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople, Cyprian. And when this matter had been carefully con- 
 sidered and examined into by a sacred Synod, it was decreed, in 
 conformity with the holy Canons, (which I consider it superflu- 
 ous to write out here at length or to enumerate by their titles,) 
 that they ought to be perfected by unction only with the holy 
 Chrism, and by no means to be rebaptized, when they come 
 voluntarily to the light of the orthodox Service, after they have 
 first abjured their strange paternal traditions and unseemly 
 opinions, and have confessed sincerely all that in spiritual mat- 
 ters is taught and preached by the Catholic Apostolic and Eas- 
 tern Church. 
 
 "And so, since such was the judgment respecting this question 
 of that Patriarch, who was illustrious at the time, and of the 
 holy Bishops who were with him, the same is likewise the judg- 
 ment of our mediocrity. We judge in agreement with them, 
 and make no contrary constitution concerning this matter, but 
 confirm their decree, and ordain that the same be held un- 
 changeable for ever. 
 
 " Wherefore, by this confirmatory Patriarchal rescript we de- 
 clare that such as leave the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresies 
 and unite themselves to the pious confession of the pure faith of 
 orthodox Christians, holding and confessing all that the Eastern 
 Church well and piously teaches, are no more to be rebaptized, 
 but are to be anointed only with the holy Chrism, and so to be 
 made perfect Christians and sons of light and heirs of the king- 
 dom of heaven. 
 
 " Wherefore also this Epistle is now sent to your Pacific Ma- 
 jesty, that this matter may be settled without any manner of 
 doubt for the future, as we have herein written," &c. [Signed by 
 Jeremiah III., Archbishop of Const antinojjle, ivJiich is New Rome, 
 and (Ecumenical Pa/riarch.] 
 
OF REBAPTIZING WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 199 
 
 IV. 
 
 " A Constitution^^ of the Holy Church of Christ defending the 
 Holy Baptism given from God, and spitting upon the Baptisms 
 of the heretics which are otherwise administered." 
 
 " There being many means througli which our salvation is 
 conveyed to us, and these, lii^e the rounds of a ladder, all let into 
 and supporting and succeeding one another, as looking all to 
 one end, the first of these means is Baptism, which was en- 
 trusted from God to the Holy Apostles, inasmuch as none of the 
 rest without this can have any place : (For ' except a man,' He 
 saith, 'be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven.) For it was necessary that as our first 
 birth or generation introduces each man into this mortal life, so 
 another generation should be found, and a more mysterious 
 way, neither beginning from corruption nor ending in corrup- 
 tion, through which it might be possible for us to imitate the 
 Captain of our salvation, Jesus Christ. For the water in the 
 font is taken for a womb, and gives birth to him who is 
 born, as Chrysostom says : and the Spirit supervening in the 
 water is the power of God fashioning the embryo. And as He, 
 after He had been laid down in the sepulchre, rose up on 
 the third day to life, so believers going under the water in- 
 
 * In the " 2uXA.o77} rSiv deiaii' rrjs Trlanus Aoyndraiv^' of Athanasius Parius, 
 as revised and edited by Macarius Notaras Archbishop of Corinth, and printed 
 at Leipzig a. d. 1806, at p. 350, there is a note giving the following account of 
 this Patriarchal Constitution of 1756 : 
 
 «' About the middle of the last century (the eighteenth,) at Constantinople 
 there v?as moved this question, whether such as are converted from the Latins 
 ought to be Baptized. And there was no small division among the chief men of 
 the Clergy, some insisting that it should be so, and some that it should not. 
 Cyril the Patriarch, [who had before been Metropolitan] of Nicomedia, was a 
 most ardent partizan and supporter of those who were determined that the La- 
 tins should be Baptized. And as he was seeking for judgments of theologians 
 with a view to this, the Patriarch of Alexandria Matthew, who was then at Con- 
 stantinople, and was a very close friend of his, suggested to him that, if he wished 
 to obtain a safe and most complete judgment, the only man capable of giving 
 him such an one was the learned physician Eustratius Argentes of Scio, who 
 was in Scio at the time. For he had been acquainted with him during a long 
 time in Egypt, and so knew how well skilled he was in Ecclesiastical matters. 
 The Patriarch Cyril wrote to him : and he having such a judgment [on the 
 
200 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE 
 
 stead of tlie earth, represent by three submersions their union 
 by grace with the resurrection on the third day, the water being 
 sanctified by the supervention of the allholy Spirit, so that 
 while by the visible water the body is enlightened, the invisible 
 Spirit gives sanctification to the soul. For as the water in a 
 cauldron receives and holds the heat of the fire, so the water in 
 the font by the working of the Spirit is transelemented into di- 
 vine virtue, cleansing and giving the grace of adoption to them 
 that are thus Baptized ; but as for them that are initiated in any 
 other way, instead of giving cleansing and adoption, showing 
 them to be polluted, and children of darkness. 
 
 " And now, whereas three years ago a question was raised 
 whether the Baptisms of the heretics administered contrary 
 to the tradition of the holy Apostles and the divine Fathers, 
 and contrary to the custom and law of the Catholic and Apos- 
 tolic Church, are to be allowed when they come over to us, we, 
 as having by God's mercy been bred up in the orthodox Church, 
 and following the canons of the holy Apostles and the divine 
 Fathers, and knowing only one, our own, Holy Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church, acknowledge only her Sacraments, and con- 
 sequently also her divine Baptism ; but as for those of the here- 
 tics, which are not administered as the Holy Ghost com- 
 manded the holy Apostles, and as the Church of Christ has 
 ever administered them, and administers them at this present day, 
 
 question as the Patriarch wanted] ready by him in the form of a special treatise, 
 sent it to His Allholiness. So having received the hook, and having gotten 
 from it abundant certainty that the Latins are absolutely and beyond all doubt un- 
 baptized, {ndvTri -navTais afidnTicTTot,) he forthwith put forth a Constitution, 
 which the other Patriarchs also accepted and subscribed, that from thenceforth 
 the Latins who come over to our Church are to be Baptized. So consecutive 
 and powerful is that book, that not even those most hateful [heretics] themselves 
 could reply to it. For when it was published (being printed at the press of the 
 Armenians, which was bad enough,) it made a great noise, so that the Venetian 
 Consul having asked to see it, but not being able to understand it from its being 
 in Greek, employed a man to translate it for him into Italian ; and having read 
 it in that language, sent it so translated to the Venetian Senate. But to the 
 present day no answer to it has either appeared or been heard of : so unan- 
 swerable is it. For who can say that the word to baptize (that is, to dip) does 
 not signify to plunge under the water that which is baptized ? Or that in the 
 grave not the whole body is buried, but only a part of it ? Or that the maternal 
 womb does not contain the whole infant but only a part of it ? Or who can 
 contradict Paul, or Dionysius, or Cyril of Jerusalem ? "We have ourselves heard 
 
OF REBAPTIZING WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 201 
 
 but are inventions of corrupt men, we judging them to be mon- 
 strous and alien to the whole tradition of the Apostles, do reject 
 them by common determination ; and such as come over to us 
 from them we receive as unordained and uubaptized ; following 
 herein our Lord Jesus Christ (Who bade His disciples to Bap- 
 tize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost,) and the holy and divine Apostles (who com- 
 mand us to Baptize proselytes by three submersions and emer- 
 sions, and at each of the submersions to pronounce one Name of 
 the Holy Trinity,) and the holy and Apostolic Dionysius the 
 Areopagite (who saith that the proselyte being stripped of all 
 clothing, the Priest is to Baptize him thrice in a font having 
 water and oil consecrated in it, invoking the Triperosnal Essence 
 of the Divine Beatitude ; and immediately after is to seal the 
 person Baptized with the most divinely-working Chrism, and 
 further communicate him in the perfecting Mystery of the holy 
 Eucharist;) and the Second and Quinisext holy CEcumenical 
 Synods, which command that with respect to such as are not 
 Baptized with three submersions and emersions, and do not at 
 each one of the submersions pronounce the invocation of one of the 
 Divine Persons, but are Baptized in any other way, we are to re- 
 ceive all such as uubaptized, when they come over to orthodoxy. 
 " Therefore, we also, following the holy and divine Constitu- 
 
 it praised by the lips of the most learned Eugenius [Bulgaris] with expressions 
 of admiration. And so they are now Baptized everywhere, although some moved 
 rather by feeling, or perhaps rather by ignorance, still even now are inclined to 
 make opposition, putting forward the well-known former rule (tV <pepoij.4vTjv 
 diaraliy) which receives Latin converts by unction with Chrism. But they do 
 not understand that they who lived in those former times made this order of 
 economy, on account of the great power of Popery and the tyranny they were 
 afraid of: (Sia rhv jipaafjlbv rov XlaitKrixov kcu tV Tvpavviav) But now the 
 season of economy has passed ; as Divine Providence has set a guardian [the 
 Turk] over us, and the rage of the Papists shall no more have power against us. 
 Secondly, we bid him who comes over to us from the Latins to anathematize all 
 Popish innovations, and he anathematizes them. But one of these innovations, 
 and the first and worst, is the setting at naught of the Apostolic Baptism ; and 
 he delivers this together with the rest to anathema or to Satan, How then after 
 this shall any one recognize as valid, as holy, and divine, that which he has al- 
 ready subjected to anathema, and confirm it by the divine Chrism, saying, ' The 
 seal of the Gift of the Holy Ghost V The Gift of what Holy Ghost can the 
 innovation be, that which is anathematized and satanical ? Verily this is to 
 combine things incompatible, and to cast holy things to the dogs." 
 
202 FOUR DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE 
 
 tions judge that the Baptisms of the heretics are to be rejected and 
 abhorred, as unnatural, and alien from the Apostolic and Divine 
 commandment^ and as waters which cannot profit (as St. Am- 
 brose and Athanasius the Great say,) nor give any sanctification 
 to such as receive them, nor avail at all to the washing away of 
 sins. And such as are baptized by them with a baptism which 
 is no Baptism we receive as unbaptized when they come over to 
 the orthodox faith, and without any manner of scruple or risk 
 we Baptize them, according to the Canons of the holy Apostles 
 and the Councils, on which rests firmly the holy Apostolic and 
 Cathohc Church of Christ, which is the mother of us all. And 
 upon this our common determination and judgment we set our 
 seals to this our present Constitution, which accords with the 
 decrees of the Apostles and the Councils, confirming it by our 
 subscriptions, in the year of salvation mdcclvi." "+ Cyril, 
 hij the mercy of God Archbishop of Constantinople or New Rome, 
 and (Ecumenical Patriarch." " + Matthew, by the mercy of 
 God Pope and Patriarch of the great City of Alexandria, and 
 (Ecumenical Judge." " + Parthenius, by the mercy of God Pa- 
 triarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and all Palestine." 
 
 If it should be observed by the Greek reader that the last 
 of the four Documents printed in this Chapter is at variance 
 with the three others preceding it, as well as with the earlier 
 Synods held at Constantinople to which they refer, he may be 
 reminded that it is no new thing for the error of older local 
 Synods to be corrected by larger or oecumenical Synods after- 
 wards: and that therefore the Constitution signed in 1756 by 
 three Patriarchs is now to be followed rather than the decrees of 
 the Synod held at Constantinople in 1484-, signed by the four 
 Patriarchs and twenty-four Metropolitans; and than those of the 
 Synod held at Moscow in 1667, attested and signed by three 
 Patriarchs, by twenty-five Greek, Russian, Georgian, Servian, 
 and Wallachian Bishops, and by above fifty Archimandrites, 
 Hcgoumens, and Arch-Priests, besides other monks and clerks. 
 Or again, if any one doubt whether the authority of a Consti- 
 tution signed by three Patriarchs is really greater than that of 
 the Synods above mentioned, he may fall back upon this con- 
 sideration, that at any rate the Apostolical, and Oecumenical, and 
 other Canons, and above all the divine Scriptures, as interpreted 
 
OF REBAPTIZING WESTERN CHRISTIANS. 203 
 
 by three Patriarchs and by ourselves, are of greater Ecclesiastical 
 authority than any decree or interpretation made hy the Synods 
 of 1484 and 1667, or by any other Synods which are not con- 
 curred in by ourselves. 
 
 Also, if the Constitution of 1756 by itself scarcely outweighs 
 the decrees of the earlier Councils, yet with the help of the book 
 intitled " StyiXItsuo-is tov '/^«vTicr/x,ou " to which it is appended, it 
 may be thought abundantly to outweigh them. For that book was 
 published by the then Patriarch of Constantinople in the name 
 of the Church of Christ herself: and the authority of the 
 Church herself is doubtless superior to that of any local Synods. 
 And in that book the Church herself (if we may believe the Pa- 
 triarch publishing it,) says "to them that are obstinate, and per- 
 sist in their fault, and are dastardly cowards, and object that the 
 local Synod held at Constantinople {in 1484) by iiventy-four 
 Archbishops admitted the salt-ivater sprinkling and satanical 
 deadly affusion of the Papists as Baptism, that ice (V^^O not- 
 withstandinff reject this doctrine as evil, heretical, and worthy of 
 anathema : and that as many as admit the Popish sprinkling or 
 affusion, are under the influence of the evil spirit, and make 
 themselves like to the Jews who were the murderers of Christ, 
 a7id to the generations of vipers'' Who after this will not 
 tremble to assert that the authority of the Synods of 1484 
 and 1667 is greater than that of the Constitution of 1756? 
 Or, if fear be a less legitimate motive than reasonable conviction, 
 let him that doubts only read the book intitled " ^VyjX/Tgus-jj 
 Tou 'Pavrio-jaoi)-" and if he finds it distinguished throughout by 
 accurate learning, just dispassionate reasoning, and a spirit of 
 longsufFering, charity, and holiness, he will perhaps doubt no 
 longer, but will receive both it and the Constitution appended to 
 it as the true voice and law of the Church moved and empowered 
 by the Holy Spirit to abrogate and condemn the decrees and 
 usage of former Synods, Oremus ! 
 
DISSERTATION XIV. 
 
 OF THE WORD AND DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 That the Bread and Wine in the Holy Eucharist are after con- 
 secration Christ's Body and Blood, which they were not before, 
 is the constant doctrine of the whole Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church, received originally from the lips of the Lord Himself, 
 Who said not "This is joined with," or "This signifies," but 
 "This is"', and Who, having created all things, knew also how 
 to employ words ; nor left it for any man to modify the force of 
 His words, or to substitute others in their stead. 
 
 In the language of the Liturgies and of the Fathers the 
 " Gifts " or " Oblations,'' that is, the " species " or kinds of 
 bread and wine, are said to be changed, transferred, transfi- 
 gured, transformed, transmuted, or transelemented into the 
 Body and Blood of Christ. And since this change is plainly 
 not a sensible one of place or form or figure, and yet is believed 
 to be real, such expressions as " transmuted " and " transele- 
 mented," which naturally import something deep and inward, 
 must so far be more appropriate, and approximate more to the 
 truth, than such expressions as " transferred," " transfigured," 
 or " transformed," which in their primary and literal sense are 
 plainly inappropriate. 
 
 Subsequently to the separation of the East from the West 
 the Latins added to those words which they had formerly used 
 in common with the Greeks a new term " transubstantiation," 
 and insisted on its use as necessary. Distinguishing all that 
 meets the senses, or is capable of meeting the senses, in the 
 bread and wine from their deeper essence and being, and 
 calling the former "accidents" and the latter "substance," they 
 assert that while the accidents remain unchanged, as appears 
 
OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 205 
 
 plain to sense, the substance, that is, the innermost nature or 
 essence which is beyond sense, is changed ; as it plainly must 
 be in some way if there is any true change at all. 
 
 The Easterns understanding the word " transubstantiation " 
 to be simply synonymous with their own older words of " trans- 
 mutation " and " transeleraentation," and wishing to show their 
 hearty agreement with the Latins in condemning the heresies 
 of Luther and Calvin, have accepted this word, and now use it 
 freely among themselves, refusing to listen to the scruples of 
 some who disliked it merely because it was novel, and because 
 it came to them from the West, Not to mention the writings 
 of many individuals of the modern Greeks, especially such as had 
 studied in Italy, the word transubstantiation was in the seven- 
 teenth century deliberately employed in the " Orthodox Confes- 
 sion'"' of 1648 : it passed from thence into the xvm. Articles 
 of the Synod of Bethlehem in 1672 : and quite recently, in 1839, 
 it has been deliberately retained and noticed in the present au- 
 thorized Catechism of the Russian Church. 
 
 The Lutherans, the Calvinists, and with some few exceptions 
 the Anglicans also, reject the word "transubstantiation" for 
 the contrary reason to that for which the Easterns accept it ; 
 namely, because they deny that there is any real change, trans- 
 mutation, or transelementation : and they justify themselves 
 commonly by the incorrect assertion that the doctrine of tran- 
 substantiation contradicts the senses : whereas they should 
 rather say that the natural prima facie presumption that what is 
 not sensibly changed is not changed at all is stronger with them 
 than their faith in Christ's words, or in the tradition and in- 
 terpi'etation of His Church. 
 
 However, the word " transubstantiation " is not in fact merely 
 a fresh synonym added to the words in use before ; but it is also 
 connected with a certain scholasticnl theory, according to which 
 things known to us through the senses are physically com- 
 pounded of substance and accidents ; and according to which the 
 physical substances of bread and wine in the Eucharist cease to 
 exist, while their physical accidents remain miraculously sus- 
 pended and not inhering in any subject. This explanation or 
 definition of the manner of the change {any further definition of 
 which is declared to be impossible,) seems to be recognized by 
 
206 OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 allusion in the decree itself of the Council of Trent, and is dis- 
 tinctly taught in the Catechism published by Pope Pius V. in 
 the name of that Council. And among the Greeks, besides 
 finding favour with many individual writers, it has been em- 
 ployed in two public documents, the Orthodox Confession and 
 the xviu. Articles of the Synod of Bethlehem, which are for 
 them of about the same authority as the Catechism of Pope 
 Pius may be for the Latins. 
 
 It may be questioned indeed whether propositions concerning 
 the real and separate existence of individuals, species, genera, 
 and substances, individual and specific and generic accidents, 
 differences, and properties, could ever become articles of faith, 
 even if they were imposed as such by (Ecumenical Councils, 
 Still, as every art and science has power to make its own words, 
 so the Church also, even if she seemed to misuse popular or 
 scientific language, would yet within her own sphere be amen- 
 able only to her own will. So far as any thing she decreed 
 had really respect to faith, she would be always right, whatever 
 words were used ; and if in any thing she mistook the precise 
 boundary of faith, and erred in matters beyond her province, 
 such an error would be no real objection against her religious 
 infallibility. For instance, if the Church had condemned as 
 heresy (which she has not,) the proposition that the earth turns 
 round the sun, this in the sense ultimately intended, and in the 
 only sense in which it really has to do with the faith, would be 
 no error ; (for the earth does not turn round the sun in such 
 sense as to overthrow the Scripture in which the sun is said to 
 turn round the earth, and to be arrested in his course, or to be 
 brought back ;) although in her manner of connecting this truth 
 with physics, which are beyond her province, and in her imme- 
 diate sense and intention in decreeing to be faith or heresy what 
 was in its own nature neither, the Church would have been 
 completely in error. And so, if the definition of transubstan- 
 tiation by a severance of accidents from substance were decreed 
 as a point of faith, the proposition decreed would necessarily 
 be true so far as it really pertains to faith, though it might 
 in respect of logical, metaphysical, or physical science, be 
 altogether erroneous. If we were to call all that can by possi- 
 bility fall under sense (that is, all that the world calls bread and 
 
OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 207 
 
 wine) " accidents," or " physical accidents/' we might yet find a 
 " substance " beyond (we could scarcely call it physical sub- 
 stance,) in that will of God in and by which every creature 
 subsists, and is what it is, and what it is called. Thus bread is 
 bread by the will of God ; and if His will changes with respect 
 to it, its substance is changed, and it is transubstantiated according 
 to the change of His will, its accidents (that is, all that t/ie world 
 calls bread,) remaining, if it so please God, without that original 
 will in which they before subsisted, and by which they were 
 what is naturally called bread. 
 
 But the truth of the received explanation of transubstautia- 
 tion, namely, that it is by o. physical change, by the separation 
 of accidents from substance, is still perhaps in strictness even 
 within the Latin Church a point undetermined. The decree of 
 Trent, though it requires all under pain of anathema to confess 
 that there is a " conversion of the whole substance," yet does 
 not add the word '^ physical ^^ nor impose as of faith (supposing 
 this in the nature of things to be possible,) that scholastic phi- 
 losophy which by using the word " substance " it seems to 
 recognize and to imply. And though the Catechism goes further, 
 still, this not being the work of the Council, but only of the 
 Pope, and not having the nature in every word and clause of a 
 definition of faith, it does not follow that the belief of a sever- 
 ance of accidents from substance in the Eucharistic change (any 
 more than the word_^re in relation to Purgatory,) has become 
 an article of faith for the Latins merely because it occurs in 
 that Catechism, though it seems to be at present universally 
 acquiesced in, as the best explanation that can be devised. 
 
 But among the Easterns this is not only regarded as an open 
 question theoretically, (their Church having never so much as 
 considered it in itself, and the Latin phraseology having been 
 admitted only incidentally,) but it is open and controverted in 
 fact. The explanation of the change by a severance of accidents 
 from substance has been rejected, and is still rejected, by some of 
 the most learned and most respected of the Clergy both in the 
 Levant and in Russia : and it has been purposely avoided and 
 corrected by the Russian Church herself both in her Catechism 
 (where she allows and accepts from the Orthodox Confession 
 the word " transubstantiation," but omits the explanation of it by 
 
208 OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 substance and accidents,) and in her authorized translation 
 (which in this i)oint and in one or two others is also a verbal 
 modification) of the xviii. Articles of the Synod of Bethlehem. 
 
 But if there is a real change, it may be asked, and that an in- 
 wai'd not an outward change, what can there be to make any 
 one who so believes suspect or disallow language which seems 
 well fitted to express his belief? This question is natural, 
 and deserves an answer. 
 
 First then it must be remembered that though the Fathers 
 say that the bread and wine are " transmuted," and "trans- 
 elemented," they say also that they are " transferred," " trans- 
 figured," and " transformed." And if our belief now is identical 
 with that of the Fathers, it ought to come naturally to us not only 
 to retain and to follow by imitation but even spontaneously to re- 
 originate and to use all such forms of speech as were natural to 
 them ; and with the same proportions of relative frequency and 
 emphasis. But now, if we adopt the Latin scholasticism, it will 
 no longer come naturally to us to say " transfigured " or 
 " transformed " at all : nor shall we be free from a certain dis- 
 like of such expressions when they meet us in the works of the 
 ancient Fathers. 
 
 Again, the Fathers say indeed, and most frequently and with 
 most emphasis, that the bread, or the substance or nature of 
 bread, is changed into the Body of Christ : that before conse- 
 cration it was bread, now it is bread no longer, but the very 
 Body of Christ; and though our senses seem to tell us that it 
 is still bread, yet in these Mysteries sense is not to be followed 
 but faith. This sounds like a physical transmutation. But 
 then the Fathers say also secondly on other occasions that in 
 this food there are two things, or that this food is compounded 
 of two things, (not the accidents of one thing and the substance 
 of another, but two things,) one heavenly and the other earthly : 
 which sounds like impanation, or an hypostatical union, or like 
 the consubstantlation of the Lutherans. And thirdly they say 
 also, though more rarely, that Christ made the bread to be 
 His Body, that is, the figure of His Body ; and that the bread 
 does not depart from its proper nature : which sounds like the 
 merely figurative sense of the Calvinists. 
 
 Now the Latins are not only prevented by their scholasticism 
 
OF TRANSUBSTANTTATION. 209 
 
 from understanding or reproducing, but are even forced to re- 
 ject and condemn as erroneous or heretical the last two of the 
 three abovemeutioned forms of speech : and the efforts which 
 have been made to explain away, correct, or destroy such pas- 
 sages or wa-itings of the Fathers as contain them prove clearly 
 enough that they arc felt to be a difficulty. But it is probable 
 that the true doctrine of the Fathers would illustrate and har- 
 monize all these three seemingly conflicting modes of expres- 
 sion, would unite them all together, and spontaneously repro- 
 duce them all in due proportion and on proper occasions. 
 
 Any one can see that the Calvinistic or Sociniauizing Pro- 
 testant who takes for his symbol the rare assertion of the 
 Fathers that the Bread after consecration is z. figure of Christ's 
 Body, to the exclusion of the other two forms of speech, has 
 utterly departed from the faith of the Church. And the old 
 Lutheran who takes for his symbol such expressions as that 
 of Irenseus, that the Eucharist is compounded of two things, 
 denying the conversion of the bread into the Body of Christ, 
 does also no less clearly substitute for Christ's words a 
 new phraseology of his own, which cannot maintain itself, and 
 which runs down inevitably into Calvinism. The Latins on the 
 other hand, even though they reject two out of the three modes 
 of speech used by the Fathers, yet do not seem like the Cal- 
 vinists and the Lutherans to destroy the faith ; because the 
 propositions which they deny relate only to the bread, and not 
 to the Body of Christ which is the true object of faith ; and 
 because they make scarcely any change even in the mere propor- 
 tion of language, omitting only or rejecting expressions which 
 are of comparatively rare occurrence, while the Lutheran and 
 the Calvinist omit and reject that language which is the ordinary 
 and necessary expression of the faith, and substitute in its stead 
 the ordinary and exclusive use of language which in the Fathers 
 is only rai'e and exceptional, and subordinated to a higher 
 formula. Still, with all this, it is probable that tbe Latins also, 
 so far as they deny or suppress any part of the language of the 
 Fathers, do some damage to the analogy of faith. 
 
 It is true that they sometimes meet the difficulty in a fairer 
 way than by the expurgation or mistranslation of the Fathers, 
 and argue that when any of the ancients say that the bread and 
 
 p 
 
210 or thansubstanttation. 
 
 wine, the sjovj^ (that is, kinds or species,) the natures, or even 
 the substances, of bread and wine remain after consecration, they 
 mean only what are now more correctly distinguished as the 
 accidents. This explanation is by no means absurd or unworthy 
 of attention : for the very words " slhc " and " species " used 
 in the second intention to signify the kind, that is, the common 
 nature or substance of bread, apart from the accidental pecu- 
 liarities of any particular loaf or crumb, originally and etymolo- 
 gically mean appearance, the inner being or nature of things 
 being known or guessed at (and that vaguely,) only from what 
 appears, and being named therefrom. And when it is said that 
 the bread remains "in substance,^^ this is amplified by the 
 addition of the words " both of its shape and appearance,'" (ju,gys» 
 yap stt) Trig oiKrlag xct) ToD a^Yjix-aTog xaj too g'lSouj*) which 
 clearly relate to what are now called accidents. Still this view 
 will not hold ; because the language of the Fathers, though in 
 the letter it may (like the words sldoc and species themselves,) 
 specify only what falls under sense, yet in its scope and inten- 
 tion reaches forward to and signifies under the name of what is 
 sensible every thing beyond which is known to us only through 
 the senses. And in some cases the whole force of the argument 
 would be neutralized or reversed by the contrary supposition. 
 For instance, when the heretic says that the human nature of 
 Christ ceases to exist, having passed into deity, as the nature 
 of bread ceases to exist in the Eucharist, having passed into the 
 Body of Christ, and the orthodox replies that he is caught in 
 his own net, for that in the Eucharist the nature of bread does 
 not cease, it is impossible here to understand by the words 
 " nature " or " bread " anything short of the very inmost 
 physical substance, whatever that may be. For in whatever 
 degree it were admitted that the nature of bread does pass into 
 the Body of Christ so as to cease to be, in the same degree 
 the assertion of the heretic would be admitted, and the form of 
 the answer would be rendered improper. It w^ould be nothing 
 to the purpose of the heretic to reason from any thing but a 
 cessation of the very substance of the bread to a cessation of the 
 very substance of Christ^s humanity, nor would it be to the 
 purpose of the orthodox to retort with any thing else than the 
 denial of the cessation alleged. 
 
or TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 211 
 
 But fui'ther, it is not only with reference to the change of 
 man's food in the Eucharist, but also with reference to the 
 change of man himself in Baptism that we find the same three 
 different forms of language, and in the same degrees of relative 
 frequency and emphasis, used by the Fathers. For first, the 
 Fathers say that we are in Baptism changed, transfigured, trans- 
 formed, transmuted, transelemented : of which words (as the 
 change is not outward and yet real,) the strongest, such as 
 " transmuted " and " transelemented " (we might add " tran- 
 substantiated,") seem so far the most appropriate. The Fathers 
 therefore using these say freely and ordinarily that the old man 
 born of the flesh of Adam dies ; that we are created anew and born 
 again ; that we are new creatures in Christ, members of His 
 Body, of His bones and of His flesh ; that the old man is put off, 
 and is done away : all w^hich sounds like a physical transmuta- 
 tion. But they say also secondly on other occasions, that in the 
 Baptized Christian there are two natures, two lives, one from 
 the first Adam and another from the second ; and that the 
 second Adam must contend against the first till the whole body 
 of sin be abolished : and this sounds like a double personality, 
 a sort of inhabitation or consubstantiation. And again thirdly 
 they say, though more rarely, that the Baptized do not really 
 die nor rise again, but by a figure are made partakers of Christ, 
 and that they remain after Baptism the very same men, children 
 of Adam, as before : which sounds like the merely figurative 
 or " spiritual " interpretation of the Calvinists. 
 
 Now there is such a parallelism and relation between the 
 change of the man himself and the change of his food in these two 
 Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, and such an identity 
 in the three forms of speech used by the Fathers both concerning 
 the one and concerning the other, that he who asserts a physical 
 transubstantiation or change of man's food in the Eucharist, and 
 denies two forms of speech out of the three, ought in consist- 
 ency to assert a like physical change of the man himself, and 
 deny the two corresponding forms of speech out of the three in 
 the case of Baptism. Or if any one does not say that the change 
 of the man himself in Baptism is physical, so that his physical 
 accidents remain miraculously suspended, and inherent in no 
 subject, then neither shovild he say that the change of man's 
 
 p 2 
 
212 OF TEANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 food in the Eucharist is physical^, uor that the physical accidents 
 of the bread and of the wiue remain miraculously suspended, 
 and inherent in no subject. 
 
 ]\Iany perhaps have been so used to compare only the sancti- 
 fication of the water of Baptism with the sanctilication of the 
 bread and wine in the Eucharist, that they will not readily feel 
 the force of this parallelism, nor see that in a certain sense the 
 doctrine of the Eucharist is capable of being evolved from the 
 doctrine of Baptism by virtue of that correlation which exists 
 between the life or living creature which needs food and the 
 food that feeds it. This therefore may need some fuller state- 
 ment or illustration. 
 
 Apart from any question of religion, we see by common sense 
 and reason that there is a certain necessary relation between the 
 nature or substance of all creatures which are said to be born or 
 to live and the nature or substance of their food : and so between 
 the thing, name, and idea of generation or hirth and the thing 
 name and idea of food. If a nature needing food was not in 
 living creatures which are born, food could not be. That in- 
 deed which is now food might exist as matter, and might have 
 some name in the speech of intellectual beings, but food it 
 could not be either in name or idea : and if on the other hand 
 food were not, the living creature whose nature needs food would 
 be born only to die. 
 
 Now He who created man and the food of man (that is, the 
 natures of bread and flesh, w^ine and water, consubstantial with 
 man's nature) at the beginning, when He came to restore 
 His ruined creature announced a new thing by a new name, 
 a thing which we of ourselves could never have anticipated, 
 and which we can never comprehend, the " new birth " of a 
 man that is already born. 
 
 To natural reason this was either a mere metaphor and figure 
 of speech, or a contradiction in terms, and a manifest impossi- 
 bility. And so Nicodemus objected " How can a man be born 
 w^hen he is old ? Can he enter again a second time into his 
 mother's womb, and be born ?" But Christ answered not " I 
 speak only figuratively;" but with a double asseveration re- 
 peated what He had said, " Verily, verihj ." (" In very truth, in 
 very truth" :) and then only added, to remove misconception, that 
 
OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 213 
 
 this was not any such natural or carnal birth as Nicodemus un- 
 derstood, but a supernatural, heavenly, and spiritual birth, not 
 of flesh but of spirit, that which is born of the flesh being flesh, 
 and that which is born of the spirit being spirit, so that the two 
 interfere not the one with the other. 
 
 Now if Nicodemus had simply accepted this announcement 
 of our Saviour, that a man already born is to be born again, 
 then (without any knowledge of what was afterwards to be said 
 at Capernaum, or to be instituted at Jerusalem, and practised 
 and taught by the Church,) it would have been possible for him, 
 as it would seem, from the mere force of the terms employed 
 to reason thus : Birth looks forward to food : the man that is 
 born, flesh of flesh, needs to be fed ; and if not fed with food 
 consubstantial with himself, he dies. If then there is a new 
 birth, spirit of spirit, that birth too will probably require and 
 look forward to a new food consubstantial with the new or 
 spiritual creature that is born. If the man that is born is him- 
 self born again, and so changed into a new creature, it is proba- 
 ble that his food also will itself be made or created anew, and 
 so changed into the new food of the new creature. If the man 
 himself is born again not after any natural or fleshly way but of 
 the spirit, his food also will be made anew into the new food 
 not after any natural or fleshly way but of the spirit. If the 
 man himself passing into spirit and having his essence changed, 
 becoming what he was not and so far ceasing to be what he 
 was, is still man, (that " spirit " of which he is born anew, 
 though distinguished from " the flesh," having as it seems in 
 some sense the nature of humanity, and being to them that are 
 born anew as a second Adam,) then the food of man also passing 
 into the new food which is spirit, and having its essence 
 changed, becoming what it was not and ceasing so far to be 
 what it was, will still be consubstantial with the spiritual 
 humanity of the new man. If that which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit, and yet not two 
 men are named as united after the new birth but one man, then 
 the earthly food also which is consubstantial with the flesh of 
 the first Adam will be distinct from the spiritual food which is 
 consubstantial with the new man who is spirit, and yet not two 
 foods will be named as united after the change, but one food. 
 
214 OF TRANSUBSTANTIATIOiV. 
 
 If the man that is boi'u anew is still man, but in a higher and 
 transcendental sense, the food also that is changed will still be 
 susceptible of its former name, but in a higher and transcen- 
 dental sense : the bread will have become bread indeed, and the 
 drink drink indeed. 
 
 This reasoning, inferring from the mere force of the term 
 " new birth " another analogous and dependent mystery of a new 
 food, justifies also by anticipation on the subject of the new 
 food all those three different modes of speech which the words 
 of Christ Himself to Nicodemus have already introduced as 
 appropriate and compatible with one another in respect of the 
 new birth. Tt also explains in what sense each one of them is 
 true, and in what sense each one of them is false. 
 
 For in the case of the new birth we have first that which 
 is the object of faith not of sense, namely that which being born 
 of spirit as of a second Adam is spirit ; secondly that which is 
 the object of sight and sense, namely the man that is already 
 born, the flesh born of the flesh of the first Adam ; and thirdhj 
 the union of these two in one and the same subject : for it 
 is one and the same man who is born after the flesh and born 
 again j who is changed of the Spirit into a new creature, and 
 yet remains as to his flesh what he was before. In speaking of 
 the first of these three things we may say that we are speaking 
 '^ of the order of grace " which is supernatural, " not according 
 to the flesh but according to the spirit : " in speaking of the 
 second that we are speaking " naturally," " of the order of na- 
 ture," or " according to the flesh :" in speaking of the third 
 that we are speaking " of the two distinct orders of nature and 
 grace conjointly," according to the '' flesh " and according to 
 the " spirit " at once. If we speak " according to the spirit " 
 we shall say that the man that is born naturally of Adam's flesh, 
 inasmuch as he is not said to be united to some other person or 
 thing but is himself the subject of the new birth, is necessarily 
 changed, and changed too inwardly and essentially, not sensibly 
 or accidentally : we shall say that the old man is abolished, and 
 done away ; that he has passed into a new creature. But if 
 anything like the misconception of Nicodemus, understanding 
 after the flesh what is said after the spirit, causes us to look back 
 to the order of nature, we shall say that '^ that which is born of 
 
OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 215 
 
 the flesh is flesh ;" and that though changed and born again 
 spiritually and supcrnaturally, yet as to the flesh the man re- 
 mains the same man (substance and accidents) as before. Or 
 lastly, speaking of both orders of nature and grace conjointly, 
 we may say that since that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and 
 that which is born of the spirit is spirit, there are in the man 
 that is born anew two natures, and in a sense two men, one 
 from the first Adam natural, earthly, and corruptible, the other 
 from the second Adam supernatural, heavenly, and incorruptible, 
 the "flesh " and the " spirit :" and these two do not interfere 
 the one with the other. 
 
 In the same manner with respect to that new food which 
 may be inferred from the new birth we shall have fast the food 
 which is the object of faith not sense, which is spirit consub- 
 stantial with that which is born of spirit, or with the spiritual 
 humanity of the second Adam : secondly the food which is the 
 object of sight and sense (bread, it may be, or flesh) consub- 
 stantial with the flesh of the first and natural Adam : and thirdly 
 the union of these two in one and the same subject : for it is 
 one and the same food which is made or created natural food, 
 consubstantial with the flesh of Adam, and which afterwards is 
 made or created anew of the spirit ; which is changed of the 
 spirit into a new substance consubstantial with the spiritual 
 humanity of the new man, and yet remains after the flesh what 
 it was before. If we speak according to the spirit we shall say 
 that the natural food, inasmuch as it is not said to be united to 
 some other thing which is made spirit of spirit, but is said to 
 become and to be itself the new food, will necessarily be changed ; 
 and changed too inwardly and essentially, not outwardly or ac- 
 cidentally. We shall say that the natural food will have been 
 done away, and will have ceased to be, that it will have passed into 
 a new thing. But if any misconception (like that of Nicodemus 
 respecting the new birth,) causes us to look back to the order of 
 nature, to that which is after the flesh, we shall say that, though 
 changed and created anew spiritually and supernaturally, yet 
 according to the flesh, that is, according to the order of nature, 
 and as to its natural substance, the food remains the same as be- 
 fore, and has by no means undergone any physical change ; as if 
 bread or flesh were to return into the womb of their being and 
 
216 OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 to be naturally made anew into other bread or flesh either abso- 
 lutely or at least as to their substance. Or lastly, speaking of 
 the two orders of nature and grace conjointly, we may say that 
 since that which is con substantial with the flesh is flesh, and that 
 which is consubstantial with the spirit (or with the new and 
 spiritual humanity) is spirit, there are in the food that has been 
 changed two things, an outward and an inward, and in a certain 
 sense two foods, one consubstantial with the first Adam, natu- 
 ral, earthly, and corruptible, the other consubstantial with the 
 second Adam, supernatural, heavenly, and incorruptible, the 
 earthly food after the flesh and the spiritual food after the spirit : 
 and these two will not interfere the one with the other. 
 
 We shall be able too to distinguish and anticipate three pos- 
 sible misconceptions and erroneous forms of speech respecting 
 the new food corresponding with what are possible respecting 
 the new birth. For first, a man may look to the order of na- 
 ture or of the flesh, that is, to sight and sense only, so as to 
 deny the truth of Christ's word, and the existence of the 
 hi"-her order of grace or spirit : and in this case he will say with 
 Nicodemus " How can a man be born again V and (by analogy) 
 " How can his food be created anew, or pass into other natural 
 bread or flesh from what it is ? These things cannot be : and there- 
 fore they can only be said figuratively or metaphorically. The man 
 remains unchanged, and his food remains unchanged." Secondly, 
 thinkinf of the distinction between that which is born of the 
 first birth and that which is born of the new birth, and between 
 the old or ordinary and the new food, and yet seeing that the old 
 and the new man, the ordinary and the new food, are respectively 
 united in one and the same subject, he may so misconceive of 
 this union as to make it a physical union in each case, by inhe- 
 rence or consubstantiation, a union of two natural substances 
 under one and the same order instead of a union of two distinct 
 orders in one subject. So he may think that there must be two 
 men, two personahties, joined or compounded together under 
 one appearance, denying that the natural man is (after the order 
 of the spirit) really changed into, and becomes, and is a new 
 man. And in like manner he may think that there must be 
 some new food created and added to the natural food, and that 
 these two foods are physically joined or compounded together 
 
OF TRANSUBSTAXTIATION. 217 
 
 in, with, and imder one appearance, denying that the natural 
 food is changed, and passes into, and becomes, and is (after the 
 order of the spirit) the new food, and that numerically there arc 
 not two foods but one food. Or thirdhj, a man may so miscon- 
 ceive while looking to the supernatural order alone, as to thnik 
 that the supervention of that which being born of spirit is spirit 
 interferes physically with the continuance of that which having 
 been born of the tlesh is flesh : and that the supervention of the 
 food consubstantial with the new man interferes physically with 
 the continuance of the natural food. And in this case he will 
 say that the man that is born again has even physically, or after 
 the flesh, ceased to exist ; and that either absolutely (both sub- 
 stance and accidents,) or if not so, yet at least as to his natural 
 substance, the accidents of which remain suspended and in- 
 herent in no subject. And in like manner he will say that the 
 food that is created anew has even physically, or after the flesh, 
 ceased to exist, and that if not as to its accidents, yet at least as 
 to its natural substance, the accidents of which remain suspended 
 and inherent in no subject. 
 
 The propriety of the three different forms of speech which 
 may be justified from our Lord's words to Nicodemus con- 
 cerning the new birth, and by analogy also concerning the new 
 food, will be seen to consist in the preservation of the due dis- 
 tinction between the two orders of grace and nature, of the 
 spirit and of the flesh, so that the one is neither confounded with 
 the other nor denied because of the other. And the same three 
 forms of language will be perceived to become each of them 
 erroneous, so far as the contrary is the case : as when an ab- 
 sence of change which belongs only to the order of nature is in- 
 sisted upon so as to exclude the change which belongs only to 
 the order of grace : or secondly when a union of two things which 
 may be assei'ted with truth only in respect of the two distinct 
 orders conjoined is asserted in respect of one order alone, so as 
 to subvert the numerical unity and identity of the man or of 
 the food, and that change of each which is according to the 
 spirit : or lastly when a change which belongs only to the order 
 of spirit is insisted upon so as to subvert or exclude the order of 
 nature. And of these three errors the first will directly subvert 
 faith, and faith only; the last, physical truth, and physical 
 
21S OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 truth only ; while the second will subvert; but indirectly, both 
 physical truth and faith. 
 
 That use which has been made above of the word " spirit " 
 as distinguished from " flesh," and the contrast of what has 
 been called the supernatural order, the order of grace, or spirit, 
 to the order of nature, or of the flesh, and of the heavenly to the 
 earthly, are clearly enough taught us by Holy Scripture. Of 
 the new birth it is said " That which is born of the jlesh is flesh, 
 and that which is born of the spirit is spirit J" And of the new 
 food it might be anticipated even by analogy that it would be 
 said " It is the spirit that quickeneth : the flesh profiteth nothing J' 
 But yet this "spirit"" which both in the new birth and the new 
 food is thus opposed to the "flesh " contains in some sense (as 
 has already been inferred above,) the human nature, a new 
 human nature, identical with the old and yet new. For it is 
 not any pure spirit, as the nature of angels, nor the incommu- 
 nicable Divine essence, but something from which that which 
 is born is still called " man," something which is to all those 
 who are born anew into the kingdom of heaven as a second Adam, 
 answering to the first Adam the father of all those who are 
 born into the world. And subsequently to the time when 
 Christ spoke with Nicodemus this has been explained to all, 
 that as the first Adam (the unbegotten source of future natural 
 generations after the flesh,) was made a living soul, so there is a 
 second Adam (the unregenerated source of all future regenera- 
 tions after the spirit,) who is a quickening Spirit : that as the 
 first man is of the earth earthy, so there is a second man who 
 is the Lord from heaven : and that the Lord is that Spirit. 
 And Christ said by implication at least even to Nicodemus, 
 that He is Himself the life of them that are born again, and by 
 consequence also the food of their new life. So that the 
 " spirit " which is contradistinguished from the " flesh " in the 
 new birth and in the new food is Christ Himself, the Sou of 
 Man who came down from heaven and yet remained in heaven, 
 who came down and was lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent 
 in the wilderness, and ascended up again visibly where He was 
 before ; the Word incarnate, God made communicable to man 
 through the assumption of man's nature, God made flesh, God 
 and man in one person, called " spirit " as contrasted with 
 
OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 219 
 
 "flesh" from the superiority of His higher nature and of His 
 incorruptible and spiritualized humanity, yet communicating 
 himself to that " tlesh " with which He is contrasted as 
 " spirit " through His own flesh which He had assumed from 
 it: For otherwise He would have remained incommunicable. 
 
 So then although that which being born of the spirit is 
 spirit is opposed to that which being born of the flesh is flesh, 
 still, to be born again of the spirit will be to be transformed 
 into Christ the second Adam, to be engrafted or incorporated 
 into Him through His humanity (by the operation of the Holy 
 Ghost,) to put Him on, to be clothed with Him, to live with 
 His life, to become a member of His Body, of His bones and of 
 His flesh. The word " spirit " therefore in the new birth is 
 not opposed to all flesh, but is identical with the flesh of 
 Christ. And to be fed after the new birth with that new 
 food which is spirit and life, and which is opposed to " the 
 flesh which profiteth nothing," will be to be fed with the 
 eternal Bread of Life through the Incarnation, that is, with the 
 flesh and blood of that sacrifice which shall have been ofl'ered 
 for us, with that Flesh which is meat indeed, and with that 
 Blood which is drink indeed, in which alone is the communica- 
 ble and true life. The word " spirit " therefore in the new food 
 also will not be opposed to all flesh, but is identical with the 
 flesh of Christ. 
 
 The supposition that such inferences as these might have been 
 in themselves possible even for one versed only in the Hebrew 
 Scriptures like Nicodemus may be justified perhaps by those 
 words of our Saviour, " Art thou a master in Israel, and 
 knowest not these things P" And if so, and if the inferences 
 are in themselves legitimate, it is unnecessary to use many 
 words to point out how they are illustrated and confirmed by 
 what was subsequently said at Capernaum concerning the 
 spiritual or heavenly " Bread of God" and the "spirit" as dis- 
 tinguished from the " meat that perisheth," and from the 
 "flesh that profiteth nothing;" by the actual institution of both 
 the Sacraments of the New Birth and the New Food ; by the 
 selection of the natural food of man, bread and wine, to become 
 the spiritual food ; by the continued use of both these Sacra- 
 ments in the Church for the beginning and the continuance of 
 
220 OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 spiritual life from the Day of Pentecost to the present clay; by 
 the occurrence in the writings of the Fathers of all those three 
 modes of speech respecting each of these two Mysteries which 
 have been shown on grounds of antecedent propriety to be 
 admissible ; by the existence either in reference to the new birth 
 or to the new food, or to both, of all those three corresponding 
 errors which have been shown to be possible ; and by the close 
 parallelism which in all these respects is noticeable between the 
 two Sacraments, corresponding to that antecedent correlative- 
 ness which exists between the living creature itself that is born 
 and the food that is made to sustain its life. 
 
 But as some can believe nothing to be real which is called 
 " i!piritual," \\\\\\q toothers it may still seem paradoxical first 
 to name the new life and the new food " spirit,^' opposing them 
 to '' flesh," and then to interpret this spirit itself to be flesh, 
 and flesh too literally assumed from our own, it may be well to 
 add something to show more clearly the transcendant reality of 
 these mysteries, the words for expressing which, though irre- 
 concilable to carnal reason, (for we certainly cannot comprehend 
 how one thing is changed into another and yet remains what it 
 was before, nor how the natural flesh which is contrasted with 
 spirit and the spirit which yet is flesh are one in Christ,) have 
 not been invented by man, but have been given to us from the 
 mouth of Christ Himself and by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Now we know that the outer world was made with such a 
 correspondence to man's nature and senses, and both the world 
 and man himself with such a correspondence to the attributes 
 of the Creator, as to make it possible for man through ideas 
 obtained from the outer world to rise to a perception of spiritual 
 and heavenly things : which could not have been unless God 
 had placed a certain likeness and analogy between spiritual or 
 heavenly things and the things of the natural creation. And 
 wherever there is imitation the picture or likeness is of course 
 for the sake of the original, not the original for the sake of the 
 picture : and if they are both called by the same name, it is not 
 the picture but the original to which the name in strictness be- 
 longs. And though the picture in itself may be called a reality as 
 distinguished from the mere perception or immediate idea which 
 it excites in our eye or mind, and even as distinguished from 
 
OF TRANSUDSTANTIATION. 
 
 221 
 
 any remoter idea of an original otherwise unknown to us which 
 it may suggest, still if the picture be compared not with any 
 mere idea immediately or remotely excited in us, but with the 
 original itself, then, in like manner as the picture is said to be a 
 real thing as distinguished from any impression, likeness, idea, 
 or notion derived from it, so the original from which the picture 
 has been taken must be said to be a reality rather than the 
 picture itself. Thus, for instance, if the sun in the material 
 heavens, inaccessible itself to the eye, but emitting light, and 
 heat through and in the light, to enlighten and vivify all things, 
 has been made purposely to be an image, its original must be 
 the truer sun. We know too that wherever there is method, 
 growth, and system, the beginning is for the sake of the end, the 
 former things for the latter, the lower for the higher, the lesser 
 for the greater, the part for the whole, the imperfect for the 
 perfect, the preparatory or the instrumental for the complete 
 and abiding. The seed and the bud are for the flower and the 
 fruit. The elements and the lower creatures are for the sake 
 of man : the child for the sake of the grown man : the indivi- 
 dual man for the sake of the city or community : the creature 
 itself for the sake of the Creator. And that which is last in 
 execution is first in idea, and when realized in fact is more real 
 than any thing which may have been for its sake. And if in 
 any case the same name belongs to that which is subordinate 
 and inchoate as to that which is final and perfect, it belongs 
 most properly and strictly, originally, and finally, to the latter, 
 but to the former only for the sake of and in respect of the 
 latter. Thus the name of " man " or humanity may belong also 
 to the child or to the woman, but most strictly and properly it 
 belongs to the man. 
 
 These two principles being borne in mind, we may see that if it 
 was in the Divine counsels that the Word, the consubstantial Ray 
 of the true Sun, should assume to Himself a body from the dust, 
 and not directly from the dust but from a creature made a little 
 lower than the angels, in order to combat in a manner worthy of 
 God the pride and rebellion of Satan, it follows that the elements, 
 and the dust itself, and the human creature made from the 
 dust, must have been from the beginning created and prepared 
 in subordination to that Divine purpose. And so the Word In- 
 
222 or TRANSUHSTANTIATION. 
 
 carnatc must be the true and prototypal Adam, from whence the 
 subordinate and preparatory, that is, the natural Adam had both 
 his nature and his name. And if there was to be any gradual 
 process of change and growth and improvement in humanity 
 itself, (like the change from childhood to manhood in the indi- 
 vidual,) that is to say, from the humanity of Adam, whether 
 before or after the fall, and of his natural posterity, to that of 
 Christ the second Adam, in Whom that nature is restored and 
 united (in a far higher sense than before the fall) to God ; and 
 again from the humanity of Christ Himself as it was " in the 
 days of His flesh,'' suffering and dishonoured, and like in all 
 things to that of sinful and mortal men, sin only excepted, to 
 the same humanity glorified, spiritualized, and deified, (without 
 however being absorbed, or ceasing truly to exist,) then hence 
 also it follows that the truest, most real, and prototypal man is 
 Christ, and Christ as glorified, when His human nature has 
 attained its perfect and permanent state. And this being so, 
 His Body was not less but rather more truly and properly a 
 human body when it was so subUmated after the resurrection 
 that it seemed gifted with the properties of spirit, appearing and 
 disappearing, showing itself in different aspects, passing through 
 unopened doors, living with an open w^ound pierced through the 
 side to the heart, and ascending visibly in the clouds of heaven. 
 And again, after His ascension to the Father, Christ's Body 
 in its glorified state, His Flesh and His Blood, is not a modifica- 
 tion, a qualification, an absorption (as the Monophysites blas- 
 pheme,) of the humanity of the first Adam : but the humanity 
 of the first Adam, and Christ's own body "after the flesh" in 
 its state of change and humiliation on earth, were rather begin- 
 nings, preparations, advances, towards Christ's glorified Body. 
 The first Adam was made and named with a view to this, and 
 for the sake of this, and from this, not this from the first Adam. 
 Again, to reason from the relation of symbols and pictures to 
 the greater reality of things signified or represented : Almost 
 every thing that was made or written of the visible creation, and 
 under the older and less perfect dispensations, besides being 
 preparatory and instrumentally subordinate, was also significa- 
 tive and symbolical of something answering to it in a future and 
 spiritual creation, into which the first was to pass. For as men 
 
OF TRANSUBSTANTIATTON. 223 
 
 paint with colours, to give an idea of things in strange countries, 
 so God paints with things and persons and events, to give to 
 His children notions of heavenly and supernatural things. And 
 to say nothing of the preceding stages of creation, when Adam 
 was created from the virgin earth, not begotten like other men 
 his posterity, nor produced, one of many, from the earth like 
 the lower animals, but fashioned by God Himself, single and 
 alone, to be the sole source and father of the human race, this 
 was to symbolize the birth of a second, the true Adam, from the 
 Virgin, to be the father of the w^orld to come. When God, Who 
 could have made plants and animals and men without sex or 
 generation, made man male and female, and united them in mar- 
 riage, this was to subserve, and also to symbolize, a mystery 
 connected with the Incarnation. When He who could have 
 made the w^oman directly from the ground as easily as He had 
 made the man caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and took 
 one of his ribs, and made thereof a woman, and brought her 
 unto the man ; and Adam said, This is now bone of my bone 
 and ilesh of my liesh ; she shall be called woman because she 
 was taken out of man : this was done to symbolize the forma- 
 tion of another Eve from the side of the second Adam. For 
 Christ also slept a deep sleep on the Cross, and His side was 
 pierced, and there came out blood and water, two sacraments 
 for the formation of the Church, which is His Body and His 
 Spouse. When God Who could have multiplied mankind in 
 other ways willed that they should have the beginning of life 
 from a single pair by generation and " birth,'' this was to sub- 
 serve and symbolize a higher and truer birth of heavenly and 
 incorruptible seed, which thus became intelligible, and capable of 
 being named by us. When the Giver of life, AVho could have 
 maintained in His creatures the life begun by birth in some 
 other way, willed that their life should need the sustenance of 
 food, and created and named certain kinds of food to be correla- 
 tive to the life of that which is born, this was to subserve and 
 symbolize a higher and truer food, which thus became intelli- 
 gible, and capable of being named by us. If man had not been 
 made to live by food, the words food and bread could not have 
 existed : nor could the knowledge have been conveyed as now 
 to man, that the spiritual essences of God's creation live by some 
 
224 OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 mysterious communication of nourishment from the Divine 
 Word as in this natural world men and animals and plants are 
 naturally fed to the support of their natural life. But man 
 being made to live by bread and water and wine could so under- 
 stand by likeness or analogy the truth that the Eternal Word is 
 both the bread of angels, and also his own " spiritual bread," 
 his " water of hfe." If after the fall sacrifice of innocent and 
 clean beasts was instituted, this in all its circumstances and 
 varieties was to foreshadow, prepare for, and render intelligible, 
 the one true and sufficient sacrifice foreordained for sins. If the 
 sacrificers were clothed by God with the skins of the victims, 
 this was to signify the spiritual putting on of the fleece of the 
 Lamb of God, that is, of the righteousness of the promised 
 Redeemer. If not bread only, as before, but the flesh also of 
 creatures ofi'ered in sacrifice was now to be eaten by man, and 
 joined with bread, this was to signify that man alienated from 
 God could never eat the spiritual bread till He who is the 
 "quickening Spirit" and also tlie " Living Bread " should come 
 down from heaven and be made flesh, and having been sacrificed 
 for us should give to as many as have been born again the flesh 
 of His sacrifice to be the sustenance of their new life. If the 
 blood of the first sacrifices, in which was the life of the victims, 
 was not to be drunk but poured on the ground, this was to 
 show that man subject to death for his own sin could be pro- 
 fited neither by the death nor by the life of other creatures ; 
 and that the eating of the flesh of those sacrifices was only a 
 figure, and imperfect, looking forward to another and truer 
 sacrifice, in w^hich bread and flesh should be one thing, and from 
 which not only the flesh should be eaten but also the blood in 
 which is life, and communicable life, should be drunk by those 
 for whom the sacrifice should be ofi'ered. 
 
 And so, if all these things in the first natural and transient 
 creation were not only rudiments, preparatory and subordinate, 
 but also types and symbols of other archetypal things answering 
 to them in the new or spiritual and supernatural creation of 
 Christ the second Adam and His Church, it follows, as has 
 been said above, (and that for the double reason both of their 
 being subordinate, and also of their being symbolical,) that the 
 things of the first creation, of the order of nature, or of the 
 
OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 225 
 
 flesh, are less realities (if there can be degrees of reality,) than 
 the things of the new creation, or of the order of grace and spirit. 
 The formation of the second Adam by God Himself, the forma- 
 tion of the second Eve, the Church, from the side of the second 
 Adam, the prototypal sacrifice, the new birth by the change of the 
 old creature into the new, the bread from heaven by the change 
 of the natural food into that which is food indeed, the eating 
 the flesh and drinking the blood of the prototypal sacrifice, the 
 participation of the very substance of the second Adam, are as 
 much higher and truer realities than those things in the old cre- 
 ation which prepared for them and symbolized them, as the grown 
 man is more properly a man than an infant or an embryo, or than 
 a picture which is called by his name. If we are forced to make 
 distinctions and degrees of reality, then certainly the things of 
 the natural oi'der, of the flesh, are the unrealities and the sha- 
 dows rather than the things of the spirit. 
 
 Yet the things of the natural order, rudimentary and symboli- 
 cal as they are, are so real that it is from them we have our 
 only ideas of solidity and reality. We have no doubt that Adam 
 really existed, and that Eve was really formed from his side : 
 We have no doubt tliat bread, and flesh, and wine, and water, 
 are real things, consubstantial with the nature of Adam, and 
 rightly called food capable of sustaining life : There is no doubt 
 that the children of Adam and Eve really offered real sacrifices, 
 and really were clothed v»?ith the skins of those sacrifices, and 
 really ate of their flesh with bread : We ourselves do not doubt, 
 any one of us, of our own existence : we have most certainlij been 
 born naturally of Adam^s real flesh and blood, children of wrath, 
 and inheritors of death : there is no doubt that we have been 
 born ; there can be no doubt that we shall die : these things are 
 realities and certainties if any things are : We admit too that 
 the Incarnation of the Son of God is a reality, and no mere 
 figure : that He who is spirit was made flesh of our natural 
 flesh, and united in one person the two orders of the spirit and 
 the flesh, the supernatural and the natural, without prejudice to 
 the unity of His person ; being born, and living, and being fed 
 with our natural food : We admit that His sacrifice of Himself 
 upon the Cross, His death, and resurrection, and ascension, 
 and the glorification of His human nature, so as to be no longer 
 
 Q 
 
226 OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 a natural body as in the days of His flesh, but a spiritual body, 
 are all realities. But if by a true and real participation of Adam's 
 nature we are truly liable to death, we must also have a true 
 and real participation of the substance of Christ the second 
 Adam, if we are truly to live again. Else, if we partake of 
 Christ only in a figure, we shall live again only in a figure. 
 But flesh and blood, the Apostle declares, cannot inherit the 
 kingdom of God : neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 
 There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it 
 is written. The first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last 
 Adam is a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which 
 is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which 
 is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second 
 man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they 
 also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also 
 that are heavenly. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh, 
 and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And as we have 
 borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of 
 the heavenly. This participation then of the substance of Christ 
 the second Adam by our regeneration in Baptism, and by our 
 nourishment afterwards through the transmutation of our natural 
 food of bread and wine into His body and blood in the Eucha- 
 rist, is to us, and ought ever to be considered and spoken of by 
 us, as the greatest of all realities. And the transmutation of the 
 bread and wine is no more made to be less real by the continu- 
 ance " after the flesh '' of the bread and wine, than is our own 
 transmutation and new birth less real because it is not according 
 to the flesh but according to the spirit ; or because we remain 
 after our natural substance what we were before. 
 
DISSERTATION XV. 
 
 OF THE NECESSITY OF CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 
 
 Another error or corruption imputed by Protestants and by An- 
 glicans to the Eastern Church is this^ that, like the Roman, she 
 requires all her members, from the age of discretion, to confess 
 their sins to a Priest at the least once a year. It is said, and 
 with truth, that in the first ages of Christianity there was no 
 such obligation. 
 
 Grounding themselves upon this view of antiquity, the Pro- 
 testants and the Anglicans have either abolished the Confession 
 of secret sins altogether, or have made it optional : and they 
 tacitly assume that that state of things which in the present day 
 results as a necessary consequence from their abolition of the 
 law of Confession is agreeable to antiquity and to the Gospel. 
 
 But the truth is directly the reverse. The existing tradition 
 and practice among Anglicans and Protestants with regard to 
 the participation of the Holy Communion is manifestly much 
 more xmlike what prevailed in the primitive Church than is the 
 existing tradition and practice among the Roman-Catholics and 
 the Easterns. So that if antiquity is to be followed, and it is 
 impossible to reproduce antiquity exactly, but we must choose 
 between the so-called corruption and the so-called reformation, 
 every serious person ought at once to submit to the discipline 
 of the Romans and the Greeks as being the nearer approach 
 to antiquity of the two. 
 
 For among the Anglicans (to say nothing of those Protestants 
 who are mere sectaries,) the Church exists as a visible society 
 only thus far, that there is an outward form of admission, namely 
 Baptism,) which is administered to those who are first allowed 
 and approved, and pledged to renounce certain things and to 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 or THE NECESSITY OF CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 
 
 do certain other things for the future. But beyond this the 
 Church with them cannot be said to be in strictness a society. 
 For the participation of the Eucharist being the badge of mem- 
 bership^ this is given indiscriminately and without question to 
 all who approach to take it : not only to regularly admitted 
 members, who continue to believe a certain prescribed faith and 
 to avoid certain sins, but also to multitudes who either indivi- 
 dually or in the mass are known to be destitute of those quali- 
 fications j to many who have never been admitted at all, and 
 who so are not even fallen members, who are professed followers 
 of other creeds or denominations, who perhaps have not even 
 been Baptized. So the Church is like a house without doors, 
 or like a field uninclosed, into which every thing that moves 
 can enter, and go in and out, and feed itself without hindrance. 
 This passivity of Communion it is which is now defended from 
 the Gospel and from the primitive Church, because the primi- 
 tive Church had not as yet imposed a law of annual Confession, 
 or of Confession at all, as a preparation for Communion. 
 
 But in primitive times from various causes those who had 
 not the right to Communicate dared not attempt to join them- 
 selves to the Church. Judgments such as fell on Ananias and 
 Sapphira, together wath the severities of public penance imposed 
 on all who were known to have lapsed, made them that had 
 lapsed secretly feel that they could not restore themselves, and 
 led them voluntarily to confess their sins, and to seek to have 
 penance imposed for them. So there was no need then that the 
 Church should either suspect any large proportion of her mem- 
 bers of having secretly lapsed, or require all to do what only a 
 few needed, and what they who needed it, when repentant, were 
 upon the whole forward to do of themselves. 
 
 But when with the Roman Empire the w^orld had entered into 
 the Church, and the general standard of religion among Chris- 
 tians had come to be much lower, and Communion much less 
 frequent, so that there was danger that very many of those that 
 would seek to make their Easter Communion might have fallen 
 into excommunicable sins, it w^as necessary for the Church 
 either tacitly to allow the principle that such sinners may rightly 
 be left to judge of their own penitence, and to take to them- 
 selves the pardon of God, and, as a consequence, the outward 
 
OF THE NECESSITY OF CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 229 
 
 SacramentSj by an inward act of their own minds, or else to call 
 all before her, and ascertain by questioning whether each one had 
 not fallen, and in the case of as many as had fallen whether 
 there was in her judgment sufficient penitence to justify her in 
 absolving them and admitting them to the Holy Communion. 
 This latter alternative is that which was adopted. And so the 
 growth of the custom of Confessing to a Priest as a preparation 
 for Communion, and afterwards the enforcement of the same, 
 was not any mere addition or innovation : but it was a repara- 
 tion, compensation, or equivalent, added at one point of the 
 Ecclesiastical system to make up for what was being lost at 
 another, and to preserve as far as possible under the change of 
 circumstances the essential proportions of the whole. 
 
 That essential doctrine in which the ancient and the modern 
 Church is one, and in which it differs from all Protestant and 
 Reformed communities, is this, that the Church and the Sacra- 
 ments of the Church are, like man himself, compounded of body 
 and spirit ; and that the body of them, though inferior and for 
 the sake of the spirit, is yet so necessary that it is made by God 
 to be the instrument and channel of His gifts ; so that except 
 through their outward parts we can neither possess ordinarily, 
 nor even conceive or name the distinctions and relations of spi- 
 ritual things. This being the case, the man living in the body 
 who has sinned in the body (For it was with the hand and 
 mouth that he plucked and ate of the forbidden fruit,) confesses 
 outwardly his sin, recites outwardly a definite creed, and is ad- 
 mitted by an outward rite into fellowship with an outward 
 community, and to the participation of certain outward privi- 
 leges of membership, on the condition of abstaining from certain 
 outward acts named by the law of God and by the canons of 
 the outward community as incompatible with its fellowship. 
 If any man after having been admitted fails to keep his pledge, 
 and his fall be known to the congregation, their knowledge of 
 it imposes upon tliem the duty of '' putting away from them- 
 selves that wicked person." But if his fall be known as yet 
 only to himself, his knowledge or consciousness of it imposes 
 upon him the duty of abstaining from any surreptitious partici- 
 pation in those privileges to which he knows he has no right. 
 Common sense and honesty, if unperverted by any false tra- 
 
230 OF THE NECESSITY OF CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 
 
 dition or custom, (to say nothing of religious fear,) must teacli 
 him that, whatever might be said of any merely mental sin not 
 cognizable by the outward Church, yet in the case of overt acts 
 involving outwai'd excommunication he cannot have a right to 
 judge of the sufficiency of his own repentance, nor to readmit 
 himself to bodily sacraments, after a bodily loss of his right to 
 them, by a merely inward act of his own mind ; whereas, if his 
 sin by any accident were to become known afterwards, his opi- 
 nion of his own penitence and the fact that he had presumed to 
 take the Sacraments in virtue of that opinion could avail nothing 
 to exempt him from being excommunicated, and from having to 
 perform the full term of canonical penance. 
 
 This doctrine, therefore, has ever been held by the Church, 
 and most of all at the very beginning, that so far as the hierar- 
 chy has " bound '^ any thing " on earth,'^ (whether by pro- 
 scribing certain outward sins on account of their inherent 
 deadliness and incompatibility with the Body of Christ, or 
 by enforcing its own lawful commands or prohibitions by the 
 penalty of excommunication,) a lapse into such sins or oflfences 
 incapacitates the transgressor for participation in the Holy 
 Communion until he has submitted himself to penance, and has 
 obtained Absolution, that is, until he has been loosed from his 
 bond by that sacramental power which imposed it. But the 
 true novelty and corruption, or rather heresy and utter destruc- 
 tion of the sacramental body of the Church, is the doctrine that 
 they who have committed acts of sin worthy of excommunica- 
 tion, so long as the act remains secret, and the sinner thinks 
 himself sufficiently penitent, may rightly " quiet their own con- 
 sciences,'^ and take to themselves the Holy Communion as if 
 they had not fallen ; and that the Church is not obliged to 
 teach men otherwise. 
 
 The identity in principle of the primitive and the modern dis- 
 cipline respecting Confession and Absolution being once per- 
 ceived, there will be little difficulty in tracing the origin and 
 explaining the grounds of those gradual changes by which the 
 modern system has come to differ so greatly, as it must be ad- 
 mitted to differ in details, from the ancient. 
 
 At the very beginning the Church would naturally anticipate or 
 contemplate sin in Baptized Christians, among " the brethren " 
 
OF THE NECESSITY OF CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 231 
 
 and " the saints," as little as possible : and the earliest cata- 
 logue of excoramunicable sins may have been briefly summed 
 up in the Apostolic Canon sent to the first Gentile converts 
 under the three heads of idolatry, uncleanness, and blood. 
 
 As time went on, and particular cases of sin were forced upon 
 the notice of the Church, the Canons would become more full 
 and explicit both concerning the varieties of sins referable to 
 the three abovementioned heads, and concerning others for 
 which at first there was no specified penance. 
 
 Further additions would accrue from the positive legislation 
 of the Church herself, which would begin to enforce her discip- 
 line and her customs by excommunication, in proportion as she 
 saw need for such exercise of authority. 
 
 But if at any particular time in early ages certain sins are 
 mentioned by any Father as not needing to be confessed to the 
 Church or to a Priest which in later times would need to be 
 confessed, this fact by no means shows that at the time in question 
 no secret sins were held to need confession. Nor because after 
 some sins men were then free to continue to Communicate if only 
 inwardly penitent, (though they were in all cases encouraged to 
 confess to a Priest,) does it therefore follow that they understood 
 themselves to have in all cases alike the same liberty of either 
 confessing only to God or to the Priest also according to their 
 own discretion. 
 
 The gradual transition of the public Discipline into the 
 system of private Confession and Absolution would also neces- 
 sarily tend to increase the number of sins held to need confes- 
 sion, and to introduce a facility for the same person to obtain 
 many times penance and absolution : so that instead of being a 
 single plank after shipwreck, a single outward restoration allowed 
 once only to them that had lapsed after Baptism, as in the 
 earliest times, Confession, Penance, and Absolution came to be 
 rather an ordinary training from imperfection towards perfec- 
 tion, and even from habits of mortal sin towards habitual con- 
 trition and correction. 
 
 Again, when partly from the general ileterioration of morals 
 and infrequency of Communion, and partly from Confession 
 having already become a custom, the Church imposed a law on 
 all her members (whether guilty of excomraunicable sins or not) 
 
232 OF THE NECESSITY OF CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 
 
 to Confess themselves to a Priest at least once a year, this 
 change would have a powciful tendency to increase both the fre- 
 qnency and the minuteness of Confession. For though at iirst 
 the prescribed form was (as it still is in the Eastern Church,) 
 nothing else than an interrogatory or examination by the Priest, 
 thus : " Tell me, mi/ son, hast thou not done so or so ?" going 
 through the catalogue of excommunicable sins, so that if the 
 penitent were free from all these there would seem to be no 
 confession required, nor penance to be imposed, nor absolution 
 to be given, still, when once a Christian had been brought by 
 the Church before his Confessor, it would seem unnatural and 
 contrary to the spirit of humiUty and compunction to go away 
 as if justitied, and to Communicate as if of right, merely because 
 by God's grace he bad been preserved free from excommunica- 
 ble sins. It would be natural rather, and inevitable, that the 
 more perfect Christians should acknowledge themselves to be 
 sinners no less than others, confessing all sins whatever, even 
 venial, which they found on their consciences, and using the 
 prescribed discipline of periodical Confession in the same way 
 as they might in earlier times have used voluntary Confession 
 in cases where it was not required. 
 
 And when the matter had reached this stage, it would be 
 natural that penitents (apart from their own readiness to go 
 beyond the rule in accusing themselves rather than fall short 
 of it,) should be held to be bound to confess not only such sins 
 as were named by the Canons as outwardly mortal, that is, as 
 incurring excommunication, but also all such others as seemed 
 to be equivalent to these in inward guilt, even though not named, 
 nor ])crhaps capable of biing named by any canons of discip- 
 line. Thus confession of inwardly mortal sins which had no 
 place of public penitence, and the confession of which was 
 optional in early times, came to be included under the public 
 Discipline : and the benefit of what is now called spiritual 
 Direction, which in early times it needed a sj)ecial effort of piety 
 to seek and find, is now offered systematically to all in conjunc- 
 tion with the prescribed use of Confession, out of which it 
 naturally arises. 
 
 It is true that as in early times not even the severity of public 
 penances, nor the abundance of sanctity within the Church, nor 
 
OV THE NECESSITY OF CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 233 
 
 the visible separation of the unbelieving immoral and perse- 
 cuting world, could prevent the gradual declension of Christian 
 faith and charity, so neither now can the discipline of Confes- 
 sion established in the Latin and in the Greek Church prevent 
 the declension of nations and societies to any conceivable de- 
 gree of general immorality and wickedness ; and that too not 
 only in conjunction with open rebellion against discipline, but 
 also in conjunction with its formal observance. This down- 
 ward tendency even in the Christian society is a mystery which 
 no man can fathom. But lest it should shake our faith, it has 
 been foretold from the beginning that it should be so : That 
 like the antediluvian world, like the cities of the plain, like the 
 nations of Canaan, like the kingdoms of Israel and Judah before 
 the destruction of the first Temple, and like the Jewish people 
 before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, so also the Chris- 
 tian world is to become in the apparent majority of its mendjers 
 and in its public character an apostacy before the return of 
 Christ to judgment, when the earth with the works that are in 
 it shall be burned up. It is not till the ungodly shall be green as 
 the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, that they 
 shall be destroyed for ever. This permitted development and 
 prevalence of evil therefore neither the discipline of Confession 
 nor any other sacraments or checks of the Church can over- 
 come. Rather, like other sacred things, and like other customs 
 intended by the Church for good, the custom of habitual 
 Confession is capable of becoming a snare and an opiate, con- 
 cealing- from the Christian society and from individuals the 
 depth of their own lapse, and conducing to the destruction of 
 them that perish. But to those that are fallen indeed but 
 capable of real restoration it is a most blessed medicine and 
 safeguard : and to them that are preserved from mortal sins it 
 is a most profitable assistance in the way of perfection. 
 
 It is liable, no doubt, to particular abuses, and may some- 
 times have become the occasion of scandals. But all good 
 things are liable to abuse : and the abuse of that which is best 
 is most pernicious, according to the proverb. A traitor among the 
 Apostles, or a reprobate among the Christian clergy, are no doubt 
 the very masterworks of Satan : but it is no argument that the 
 Apostolate or the Priesthood are evil in themselves, because 
 
234 OF THE NECESSITY OP CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 
 
 through their existeace such enormity of wickedness is possible. 
 Rather on the contrary, if the thing in itself be good, the in- 
 tensity of the evil which arises from its abuse or perversion is a 
 sign of the degree of its goodness. And so if the discipline of 
 Confession be good in itself, the magnitude of any particu- 
 lar scandals which have been connected with it can cause no 
 just prejudice against it, but on the contrary is rather a sign of 
 its preeminent value and importance. Whatever such scandals 
 there may have been in later ages, and more especially in the 
 Western Church, whether in respect of some rare cases of in- 
 dividuals or of social laxity and corruption, they have been dwelt 
 upon and exaggerated beyond measure by Protestants : and 
 their prejudice and heat on this subject seem to border upon 
 madness. Or rather it is a special delusion of the enemy to 
 set men against that medicine of all others which they most 
 need. But if any man be capable of inquiring seriously and dis- 
 passionately whether the discipline of Confession as it exists 
 among the Roman-Catholics and the Easterns be upon the vvhole 
 a good thing or a bad, training men and women to purity or to 
 impurity, to religion or to irreligion, to heaven or to hell, he has 
 only to attend, and to mark what is the testimony of those wit- 
 nesses which are of all witnesses the most irrecusable, and the 
 most nearly concerned ; of the best people he can find among his 
 Roman-Catholic or Orthodox acquaintances on the one hand, and 
 of the worst he knows on the other. The former'will tell him that 
 it is a blessed instrument for the salvation of souls. But the lat- 
 ter, the representatives of the devil, the world and the flesh, what 
 do these say of the Confessional ? Do they like it ? Do they 
 frequent it ? Do they amuse themselves with it ? If they do, 
 then perhaps the religious public among Protestants may be 
 justified in bestowing upon it as much blame, and much more 
 indignation than they bestow upon the Theatre or the Opera, 
 and on whatever is behind the scenes of these and other public 
 amusements. But the inhabitants of a city in which there are 
 said to be so many thousands of their fellow-creatures living by 
 prostitution are too pure to be questioned in the church by a 
 Priest about sins which so many of them commit, and which so 
 many more must indirectly (consciously or unconsciously) en- 
 courage. They are too delicate to hear any mention of sins of 
 
OF THE NECESSITY OF CONFESSION TO A PRIEST. 235 
 
 impurity even from the law of God, even though joined not 
 with incentives to sensuahty, as in their own fine arts and 
 literature, but with the most terrible threateuings of the ven- 
 geance of eternal fire, and with the most moving encourage- 
 ments to purity and virtue. Such is the delicacy of Sodom, the 
 purity of Gomorrha. 
 
DISSERTATION XVI. 
 
 ON THE SEPTENARY NUMBER OF THE MYSTERIES OR SACRA- 
 MENTS. 
 
 It is objected against the Eastern Orthodox Church by Protes- 
 tants, and sometimes by Anglicans, that she has adopted from 
 the Roman Church the doctrine that the Sacraments are Seven 
 in number, which is called one of the errors of Popery. 
 
 It is true that this doctrine, or rather this mode of speech, 
 was unknown to the ancients. But on the other hand when 
 Protestants teach that the Sacraments are two, or two only, they 
 introduce a number and a limitation which were just as little 
 known to the ancients as the number Seven. 
 
 In holy Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers very 
 many things are called mysteries or sacraments, and in various 
 senses and respects, which may all perhaps be reduced under 
 the general idea of a holy thiug which is hidden. This general 
 undefined use of the words " sacrament " and " mi/sterij " is still 
 current among both Greeks and Latins notwithstandnig their 
 introduction of the doctrine that the Sacraments or Mysteries 
 arc Seven. But among the Protestants aud Anglicans the same 
 is not the case. Among them the Greek word " mystery " alone 
 retains its ancient latitude of signification, while the correspon- 
 ding Latin word " sacrament " is rigidly confined, according to 
 an arbitrary definition, to the two great Sacraments *f Baptism 
 and the Eucharist. 
 
 When a Greek or a Russian first hears it objected against his 
 Church that she teaches Seven Sacraments, he imagines that 
 the very existence and use of some one or more of the seven is 
 attacked ; or that at least it is denied that they each convey to 
 such as rightly receive them a special grace of their own, and 
 
OF SEVEN SACRAMENTS. 237 
 
 are more than mere outward symbols or rites. But if it be ad- 
 mitted that any one of the other five besides Baptism and the 
 Eucharist (as for instance that Ordination, Confirmation, or 
 Absolution) does convey grace, this is to him a full admission 
 that it is a Sacrament. And if it be admitted (as some Angli- 
 cans will admit) that all the seven carry with them an accom- 
 panying grace, he will perhaps say " So then it seems that our 
 Church always had seven Sacraments, and the Latins have 
 counted them for us. And if they have counted aright, what 
 error is it that we assent, and say after them. Yes ; the Sacra- 
 ments or Mysteries are seven ?" 
 
 On the other hand, if the Protestant or the Anglican be re- 
 quired to put his own doctrine, that the Sacraments are two, or 
 two only, into Greek, he will at first perhaps be a little startled 
 at the plain absurdity or novelty, even for himself, of asserting 
 that there are only two mysteries, or that "the Mysteries" are two 
 only : {"Jvo fcrr) fxovov ra Mv(7Tripia'") but after a moment's hesi- 
 tation he will yield to necessity, and will attempt to confine the 
 Greek word also, as well as the Latin, within the limits of his 
 own arbitrary definition. 
 
 It would be more rational, instead of disputing about the 
 mere definition of a word, to perceive that whether the Greeks 
 and Latins on the one side, or the Anglicans on the other, be 
 rather right of the two, there is probably some truth underlying 
 both their modes of speech. And if we examine what this truth 
 is in each case, we shall be better able to judge whether there is 
 any exaggeration or distortion on either side; whether the two 
 modes of speech agree in sense, and are simply compatible the 
 one with the other, or, if not so, which of them must in rea- 
 son yield to the other. 
 
 What then was it, let us ask, which moved the Latin school- 
 men of the middle ages, from the time of Peter Lombard, to 
 pick out and count from the innumerable sacraments of Christi- 
 anity neither more nor less than seven, and to call those seven em- 
 phatically and in a technical sense 'Hhe Sacraments V And what 
 was it which moved the later Greeks, in spite of their separation 
 and their jealousy, so readily to accept from the Latins a doctrine 
 and mode of speech which was unknown to their Fathers ? The 
 motives which we inquire after seem to have been these two : 
 
238 ON THE SEPTENARY NUMBER 
 
 First, there was a predisposition to look for the number seven 
 in all things connected with the operation of the sevenfold Di- 
 vine Spirit. And so it would seem antecedently probable that 
 the chief Mysteries or sacramental rites of Christianity should 
 be seven in number, even before the mind of the theologian had 
 considered the relation of particular Mysteries to one another, 
 or settled what the seven must be. Such a predisposition may 
 be observed at the present day among the Nestorians of Kurdis- 
 tan, and among some of the Monophysites, who have heard 
 from Roman missionaries that the Sacraments are seven, and 
 have relished and accepted this information, though they have 
 not as yet learned how to count the seven aright. 
 
 Secondly, the schoolmen of the middle ages perceived (and 
 the modern Greeks agree with them in perceiving) the existence 
 of such a mutual relation and connection between certain seven 
 sacred Mysteries as separated them off from all others, and united 
 them together into one system. For in the Christian Church 
 there is need first of Marriage, in order to the natural birth of 
 living souls. For unless men are born into the world of the llesh 
 they cannot be born again of the spirit. This is one Mystery. 
 Secondly, after natural birth, there is the Mystery of the new 
 birth, Baj)tism, which alone is mentioned in the Creed because 
 it draws after it all the rest. Thirdly, after a man has been 
 born again, he needs a certain quickening and strengthening of 
 his spiritual life, even as the natural life which was at first 
 without consciousness, latent and dormant, is afterwards awa- 
 kened into energy and strength. And for this there is another 
 Mystery of Chrism or Confirmation, the Seal of the Gift of the 
 Holy Ghost. But after life has been given by birth, and that 
 which is born has been quickened into consciousness and energy, 
 there is need of food to support life. The Mystery therefore of 
 Baptism or spiritual birth implies and requires another Mystery 
 (which W'ill be a fourth,) of a new and spiritual food. This is 
 the Eucharist. But if the spiritual life given by Baptism and 
 nourished by the Eucharist is impaired by any spiritual sickness, 
 (according to the analogy of the natural life,) so that food is no 
 longer allowable or nutritious, there will be need of some spiri- 
 tual medicine, which is a fifth Mystery, that of Penitence and 
 Absolution. Again, if the body which is united to the regenerate 
 
OF THE SACRAMENTS. 239 
 
 soul, and wbicli is to be raised from the dead, suffers any sickness 
 in consequence of sin, (whether such consequence be only gene- 
 ral and remote, or special,) there will be place for another Mys- 
 tery, a sixth, for the healing of the body so far as it is afflicted 
 through sin, and for the remission of sin so far as it affects the 
 body. This is the Unction of the Sick ivith Prayer. And lastly, 
 that there may be Clergy to confer all these preceding Mysteries, 
 there still needs one more, a seventh, that of Priesthood or Order. 
 
 Or we might have begun with the Mystery of Priesthood, 
 since in order of time it must precede the sacerdotal ministra- 
 tion of all the rest. And it was not till the Apostles had re- 
 ceived for themselves all Sacraments at once in their Baptism 
 of fire, and among them the grace of the Priesthood, that they 
 began to Baptize converts, and to Confirm them by Laying 
 on of Hands, and to feed them spiritually with the Eucharist, 
 and to restore fallen penitents by Absolution, and to lay their 
 hands on the sick, praying over them and Anointing them with 
 oil, for their recovery, and that the Church might continue and 
 increase through children being born for Baptism, to bless the 
 union of Christian Marriage, and to reproduce by Ordination of 
 Clergy the grace of Priesthood in their successors, to continue the 
 same cycle of ordinary sacramental ministrations from genera- 
 tion to generation. 
 
 Whether we begin from Ordination and end with Marriage, 
 or begin from Marriage and end with Ordination, the order of 
 the intermediate five Mysteries in virtue of their mutual connec- 
 tion will be the same : and the Eucharist will in both cases alike 
 be the fourth, the central and culminating Mystery of the Seven. 
 
 These Seven have ever existed in the Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church of the East and West ; and have been preserved in the an- 
 cient but heretical communities of the Nestorians and the Mono- 
 physites from the time of their separation in the fifth century. 
 They have been preserved too in the Anglican Church which 
 was separated from the Roman-Catholic Communion in the six- 
 teenth century, though in this latter case with some considerable 
 mutilations. Nay, even in the sects of the Protestants and the 
 Reformed, or in most of them, there remain such fragments or 
 traces of them all, that even to their members we may be 
 intelligible when we say that these Seven are the great external 
 
240 ON THE SEPTENARY NUMBER 
 
 acts of religion ; the generative, strengthening, sustaining, repa- 
 rative, and perpetuative acts, joints, and bands of visible Chris- 
 tianity; through which by the concurrence of Divine grace 
 the invisible and spiritual body of the Church is generated, 
 nourished, repaired, and increased. From these Seven no one 
 can be taken away, so as to leave only six ; nor can any other be 
 added to them, so as to increase their number to eight. 
 
 Thus the truth and propriety of the assertion that the Sacra- 
 ments or Mysteries are Seven lies not merely in the fact that in 
 each one of the seven taken by itself there is something hidden, 
 beyond what meets the senses ; that there is an outward symbol 
 or rite or act accompanied by an inward spiritual grace ; and 
 that each one of them is necessary or important towards the 
 being or edification of the Church ; but rather in their mutual 
 relation and connexion. It is in virtue of this mutual re- 
 lation that each one of the seven is truly reckoned as one 
 Mystery with regard to the rest, though some of them are in 
 fact in themselves complex, others only single Mysteries. The 
 Eucharist, for instance, is compounded of two distinct mysteries, 
 one of the Body, the other of the Blood : and Priesthood contains 
 within itself a separate mystery in each of the Holy Orders. 
 But with respect to the spiritual birth the spiritual food, 
 though subdivisible into meat and drink, is as one idea and one 
 thing : and with respect to all other Sacraments Priesthood 
 (that is, the grace which makes and administers all the rest,) 
 though it may contain distinctions within itself, is as one idea 
 and one thing. 
 
 Within this septenary system two Mysteries, those of Bap- 
 tism and the Eucharist, are so pre-eminent, differ so in kind 
 from all the rest, and have such a special mutual relation to one 
 another, that so long as the mutual relation of the Seven is not 
 denied, it may be said with truth that " the chief Mysteries," or, 
 speaking emphatically, "the Mysteries" of the Gospel, of the New 
 Law, of the New Testament, of the Church, or of Christianity, 
 are these two, answering to the two great foederal rites of the Old 
 Testament, Circumcision and the eating of the Paschal Lamb. 
 For these two alone are directly necessary both to the Church 
 and to individuals, (" generally," that is, or to all men) in order 
 to salvation. Of the other five some (as Confirmation and 
 
OF THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 241 
 
 Unction,) arc only conducive to salvation, as imparting some 
 spiritual grace : others, if necessary, are necessary only to some 
 men, and under particular circumstances, (as Penitence and 
 Absolution to the lapsed ;) or they are necessary not directly to 
 individuals, but indirectly, for the sake of other Sacraments, as 
 being necessary to the Church. Such are Ordination and Mar- 
 riage. Again, in Baptism and the Eucharist alone is there an 
 outward sign instituted by Christ Himself to be the means of 
 conveying the inward grace which it signifies. And the history 
 of the first announcement of each of these two Mysteries (to 
 Nicodemus, and to the Jews at Capernaum,) of their actual 
 institution afterwards, and of their administration in the Church, 
 beginning from the day of Pentecost, is recorded with a marked 
 parallelism in the Scriptures of the New Testament. And other 
 similar observations may be made with truth to exhibit the pre- 
 eminence of these two great Mysteries. All which may be 
 briefly summed up and explained by one consideration, namely, 
 that by these two alone the very substance of the Church, the 
 second Eve, is formed from the substance of Christ the second 
 Adam, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. By Baptism we 
 have the spiritual birth ; by the Eucharist we have the spiritual 
 food. But generation or birth and food, the first creation of 
 our substance and its nourishment and increase afterwards by 
 food consubstantial with itself, make up together the whole of 
 life. All other benefits, however important, can be only relative 
 and subordinate to these. 
 
 This truth (which is fully acknowledged and taught by the 
 Eastern Church, and is not denied by the Roman,) has become an 
 occasion of error to the Protestants, who not content with assert- 
 ing the preeminence, and difference in kind, and peculiar mutual 
 relation of the two chief Sacraments of the Gospel, have framed 
 arbitrary definitions, excluding even from the name of sacra- 
 ments all sacraments besides these two, and more especially 
 denying the truth, that, if one speaks generally and absolutely, 
 the Sacraments of Christianity are Seven. And though mere 
 ignorance of the mutual relation and number of the Seven Mys- 
 teries, or even the error of restraining the use of the Latin word 
 " sacrament " to two only, might seem very slight defects not 
 affecting faith in any Church which still retained in use all the 
 
 R 
 
242 ON THE SEPTENARY NUINtBER 
 
 Seven Sacraments, and taught that each of them conferred its 
 proper grace, still in point of fact among the Protestants and 
 Reformed these faults are connected with specific heresies con- 
 cerning each of the Sacraments, and in some cases with their 
 total disuse and abolition. 
 
 Some indeed, especially among the Anglicans, do not very 
 much insist on their own language of Two Sacraments, nor con- 
 tend that the Roman doctrine of there being Seven Sacraments 
 is absolutely false or inadmissible. But they complain that it 
 is imposed de fide, as necessary to salvation, being one of the 
 twelve articles of the new Creed of Pope Pius. They say that 
 the adding of new articles to the Creed, even if the articles added 
 be true or probable in themselves, is a capital error, and that 
 into this error the Roman Church has fallen on the subject of 
 the Sacraments, and has drawn after her the Easterns. 
 
 But it is a misconception to imagine that every proposition 
 which is decreed to be " de fide " by the Roman Church is there- 
 fore held to be equivalent to an article of the Creed, or necessary 
 in itself to salvation. This is no more true than is the notion 
 that whenever the Roman Church commands or forbids any act 
 " under pain of mortal sin,'' the breach of such a command has in 
 itself the same guilt as the breach of one of the Ten Command- 
 ments of God. On the contrary, by decreeing any proposition to 
 be held ^'de fide," or by commanding or forbidding any act '■hinder 
 pain of mortal sin," the Church may often mean merely to declare 
 that she uses her authority, and in case of necessity will enforce 
 obedience by excommunication. Thus what of its own nature, 
 intrinsically and directly, is neither de fide, nor mortal sin, may 
 become so indirectly, through the necessity of believing the 
 Church, (For that is an article of the Creed, and of the faith,) 
 and through the duty of obeying her. And the use of the word 
 " Sacrament " or " Mystery " as a word of the second intention, 
 to teach briefly to all the mutual relation and number of certain 
 spiritual graces or gifts, though it is not in itself any matter of 
 faith, yet is by no means a mere matter of arbitrary and unim- 
 portant terminology; but in the present state of Christianity it 
 has an important bearing on the conservation of the true belief, 
 and even of the outward integrity of the Mysteries themselves. 
 Nor is it a mere rejection of Roman or Greek authority, or a 
 
OF THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 243 
 
 mere difference between rival authorities, to have substituted for 
 the doctrine of the Latin and Greek Church such a form as 
 this, that " The Sacraments ordained by Christ as generally ne- 
 cessary to salvation are Two only." For though this may be true 
 as limited by the words "generally necessary to salvation," the 
 practical effect is all one with teaching absolutely that there are 
 only two sacraments; and that the other five are not sacra- 
 ments at all. And hence both Clergy and Laity among the 
 Anglicans come to have very doubtful notions concerning the 
 spiritual nature and importance of the five lesser Sacraments, not 
 believing distinctly that Confirmation is the Gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, nor that it is necessary to Confess to a Priest even ex- 
 communicable sins, not offering Unction to the sick, nor disal- 
 lowing the substitution of a mere civil contract for Christian 
 Marriage, nor absolutely denying the identity of Protestant and 
 Reformed Preachers with Christian Clergy. 
 
 R ^ 
 
DISSERTATION XVII. 
 
 OF THE INVOCxVTION AND WORSHIP OF SAINTS, AND ESPECIALLY 
 OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 
 
 It is objected by Protestants and by Anglicans against the 
 Eastern Church that, in common with the Roman, she invokes 
 and worships Saints, and especially the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
 
 As regards Invocation they say that it is wickedness, because 
 there is only " one mediator between God and man, the man 
 Christ Jesus." But since we are taught all of us to pray 
 (that is, to intercede or mediate) one for another, and to desire 
 the prayers of others for ourselves, it is plain that though in one 
 sense there is only one mediator, and no second apart from or 
 concurrently with Him, yet in another secondary sense, under 
 and in Christ the primary mediator, there are many mediators. 
 
 But then, secondly, they say that admitting the existence of 
 such secondary mediation in Christ, those only who are still 
 living in the body upon earth can so mediate, and it is therefore 
 reasonable to desire the mediation of such only, but not of 
 angels or departed souls. But this objection is purely arbitrary, 
 and is sufficiently disposed of by the Greeks or the Latins if 
 they reply, " So you think perhaps ; but what if we think other- 
 wise, and act accordingly V 
 
 But then, thirdly, they say that granting that there is a 
 secondary mediation, and granting that to suppose departed 
 spirits to continue their intercessions begun on earth (whereas 
 in point of fact they are unconscious and inactive,) is a mere 
 innocent mistake about a matter of fact, and no sin nor heresy, 
 still to speak to the spirits of the departed is wickedness, because 
 by so doing we attribute to them omniscience and omnipresence, 
 which are attributes of Deity. But if the bodily sense of every 
 
OF THE INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OF SAINTS. 245 
 
 insect and beast and bird and of man himself has in each case 
 its proper range for seeing and hearing, and the eagle which 
 sees furthest is as far removed from omnipresence or omniscience 
 as the fly, then surely there will be no necessary encroachment 
 upon Deity even if we suppose a creature to see and hear at 
 once every thing that passes within the whole solar system. 
 And in truth we know nothing of the faculties of spirits, nor of 
 the laws of their exercise aad limitation : we know nothing of 
 the range of their sight and hearing, that is, of their knowledge 
 or presence : only we are inclined to suppose a certain likeness 
 or analogy between the faculties of bodies and of spirits, and a 
 certain superiority in those of the latter. The Prophet Elisha, 
 being yet in the body, said that his spirit saw and followed 
 Gehazi when the Syrian turned again from his chariot to meet 
 him. Why then may not disembodied spirits of Saints do as 
 much ? Again, we ascribe even to the devil a very wide range 
 of knowledge and action, a sort of ubiquity. Why then may 
 not Angels and Saints know or hear at least as much of what 
 passes on earth as does the devil ? especially what has relation to 
 themselves ? Or if in point of fact they do not, but the Greeks 
 and Latins think they do, and speak to them in consequence in 
 that sense in which they might lawfully speak to them if they 
 were present in the body, how can this be more than a mere 
 innocent mistake as to a matter of fact ? Not to say that there 
 may be, and are, other reasons for addressing them besides the 
 belief that they actually hear ; as, for instance, to cultivate in 
 ourselves a sense of the Communion of Saints by poetical hymns 
 and meditations, and by rhetorical apostrophes, or as an indirect 
 form of praying to God. Or why should the error of a child 
 which calls to some one (its mother perhaps, or brother) who is 
 too far oflf to hear, or divided by too thick a wall, or altogether 
 absent, be venial or rather amiable, but the mistake of those 
 who invoke Saints and Angels (supposing it to be true that they 
 cannot hear,) be heresy, or worthy of blame ? They indeed who 
 can see no reason for speaking to them will of course not speak 
 to them : they would be acting absurdly if they did. But why 
 should they quarrel with others who, thinking that there is 
 reason for speaking to them, speak to them accordingly ? 
 
 But then, fourthly, they say that even admitting secondary me- 
 
246 OF THE INVOCATION AND AVORSHIP OF SAINTS, 
 
 diation, admitting tliat to suppose departed spirits to be conscious 
 and active, even if they are not so, is at most only an innocent 
 mistake, and admitting that to suppose them capable of hearing- 
 is not necessarily to ascribe to them omniscience or omnipres- 
 ence, still it is sinful to invoke them because it is nowhere com- 
 manded in holy Scripture, But this again is purely arbitrary, 
 to suppose that nothing may be believed and nothing done but 
 what is expressly commanded in holy Scripture : whereas in fact 
 Christianity is not the bondage of a prohibitive law, but a spirit 
 of love and liberty in Christ. And again, if any principle or 
 energy, as that of mutual intercession, is called into action by 
 Christianity, and taught in the Scriptures, it is true to say that 
 the continuance of this energy, and every natural and legitimate 
 application of it, is by implication directed also. The Scriptures 
 tell us plainly v/hile we are as yet in the body that we are to 
 pray for the brethren, and for all men : Who are they that tell 
 us that we are to discontinue this habit so soon as we are freed 
 from the burden of the flesh, and out of danger for ourselves ? 
 The Scriptures tell us plainly that we ought to desire and on 
 occasion ask the prayers of our brethren while they are as yet in 
 the flesh and in danger for themselves : Who are they who for- 
 bid us to continue to desire and to ask, if we think we have 
 occasion, the same prayers so soon as any one comes to be 
 absent from us in the body, out of danger for himself, and in a 
 higher state, with Christ, " which is far better V It rests with 
 the objectors surely to justify rather their own arbitrary limita- 
 tions and prohibitions, than to accuse those who merely continue 
 (without any prohibition, except from these their neighbours,) 
 what they have been plainly taught both by the Holy Ghost 
 and by the Scriptures to begin. 
 
 If pursued through all the above arguments, the objectors 
 commonly return to the point from which they began, and re- 
 commence with their first objection, that there is only one 
 mediator, just as if they had as yet heard no answer to this, and 
 had made no concession. And thus further discussion becomes 
 impossible. 
 
 With regard to worship the controversy is very similar. In 
 one sense God only and Christ are to be worshipped, that is, 
 with unlimited devotion : But in Gou and Christ, and for His 
 
AND ESPECIALLY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 247 
 
 sake, all good creatures rightly receive, each iu its proper degree 
 and respect, a secondary value, honour, love, worship, or vene- 
 ration : and inanimate things too, as well as animated creatures ; 
 both for the sake of God, and for the sake of holy men or 
 things with which they may be associated. And this is so uni- 
 versally admitted and practised, that it is a mere waste of words 
 to explain it, or to insist upon it more at length. 
 
 But they say that, granting such secondary honour or worship 
 to be natural and proper, the Greeks and the Latins give to the 
 Saints and to the Blessed Virgin that unlimited worship which 
 is due only to God. And when this is denied with horror, they 
 insist upon the use of certain expressions as implying Divine 
 worship. For the Greeks and Latins say not only " Prmj for 
 tis : " or " Obtain for m by thrj prayers :" but also " Grant to 
 us :" " Give us :" and even "Save us.'^ They say that they "put 
 their whole trust " in this or that Saint, and especially in the 
 Blessed Virgin ; or even in this or that image or picture : and 
 that the Blessed Virgin is " the only hope of Christians" or " of 
 the whole race of mankind" : &c. \n answer to this it is replied 
 that if any Protestant thinks that by using such expressions he 
 would be offering divine worship to creatures, he does right to 
 avoid such expressions, and would be doing wrong if he used 
 them. But if others, using such expressions, assure hira that 
 they neither understand nor mean by them any wickedness, but 
 suppose them to be as innocent and as intelligible as any other 
 of those elliptical or hyperbolical expressions which are in the 
 mouths of all men, then he ought in equity and reason to allow 
 them to interpret their own words. If one may say that "Baptism 
 doth now save us ;" or that "the Church (like the ark of Noah) is 
 the salvation of the world ;" or that " the Cross is our only hope;" 
 and no one needs to have it explained that this is not apart from 
 but in Christ, then if any one say also " most holy Mother 
 of God, save us 1 " and assure us that he means the same as 
 when he sa:ys " May the Mother of God be our protection in 
 Christ Jesus 1" it is a duty in reason and in charity to believe 
 what he says. 
 
 In fact so long as any person or community professes to hold 
 the true faith of the Trinity and Incarnation, to reserve unli- 
 mited worship, adoration, or XutosIu to God alone, and to render 
 
248 OF THE INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OF SAINTS, 
 
 all such secondary worship as they render to creatures only in 
 and not apart from Christ, it is impossible to find any valid 
 theological objection not only against Invocations in themselves, 
 or against such expressions as those mentioned above, but 
 against any conceivable degree whatever of limited worship, 
 whether it be inward only, or outwardly expressed in words or 
 acts. Positive words or acts of men can never of themselves 
 express an unlimited worship : and even expressions of infinity, 
 as we have seen, are customarily used to express merely a high 
 degree of what is limited. The words or acts which are used 
 by one man, or people, or age, as the highest expressions of 
 Divine worship, are capable of being used, and perhaps are ac- 
 tually used, by others to express only some secondary respect to 
 creatures : and what is only a trivial ceremony or form of speech 
 to one may be an expression of Divine worship to another. In- 
 vocations, Incense, direct petitions for temporal and even spiri- 
 tual blessings, may in one age have been ofiered to God only, 
 but in another may be offered also (though in a different sense,) 
 to creatures, so as to make a vast increase of their outward honour; 
 and yet there may remain between the worship of Saints so in- 
 creased or developed and the worship proper to God the same 
 absolute difi^erence as before, when the honour of the creature 
 was confined within its narrowest limits. 
 
 What is the highest degree of veneration, love, and worship 
 which may be due to any creature, or which may be expressed 
 outwardly without interfering with the infinite worship of the 
 Creator, or what maybe the highest glory and worship which 
 the Omnipotent can will and direct to be given to the most 
 glorious of His creatures, are speculations beyond our reach. 
 But we need not fear to say that /or us, so long as we do all in 
 proportion, and in Christ, it is impossible to exceed, or even to 
 go far enough, in the love and worship of those beings, or those 
 things, to which our love and worship are due. 
 
 It has sometimes been said that the Greeks and the Latins 
 have sought on principle to render to the Blessed Virgin the ut- 
 most possible worship short of Divine. And no doubt her wor- 
 ship, and even that of other Saints (as of St. Nicholas,) has 
 received at different times great and striking augmentations, 
 and has reached a very high point. But whatever point may 
 
AND ESPECIALLY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 249 
 
 have been reached, there must always be room in what is of its 
 own nature limited for further addition and increase : and it is 
 not difficult to imagine to ourselves very considerable additions 
 and developments which might yet be made to the worship of 
 the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 For assuming that in and under Christ the Head the Bles- 
 sed Virgin is, after her Assumption, as it were the neck of the 
 Church, so that all grace whatever flows to the Body through 
 her, that is, through her prayers, it might be argued that, for 
 such as have this belief, to ask anything of or through her is 
 identical in sense, but in point of form better, than to ask it di- 
 rectly of Christ; in like manner as to ask anything of or 
 through Christ is identical in sense, but clearer and fuller in 
 point of form, than to ask it directly of the Father. And 
 hence it might seem that it would be an improvement if, reserving 
 only the use of the appointed Forms for the making of the Sacra- 
 ments, and an occasional use of the Lord's Prayer (and this 
 rather from respect to the letter of their outward Institution 
 than from any inw'ard necessity or propriety,) every prayer, both 
 of individuals and of the Church, were addressed to or through St. 
 Mary ; a form beginning " Our Lady, which art in heaven^' &c., 
 being preferred for general use to the original letter of the 
 Lord's Prayer ; and the Psalter, the Te Deum, and all the daily 
 Offices, being used in preference with similar accommodations. 
 
 No doubt this is moi'e than has as yet been done : and many 
 Greeks perhaps and Roman-Catholics may be inclined to exclaim 
 against the very supposition of such an increase and develop- 
 ment of their present worship of St. Mary as something impious, 
 and shocking, and impossible; just as now Protestants and An- 
 glicans exclaim against that degree of worship of the Blessed 
 Virgin which both Greeks and Latins do actually practise or al- 
 low. Still, if such a change as we have been imagining (to sup- 
 pose it possible for argument's sake,) were to come over the 
 practical devotions of the Greek or the Eoman-Catholic Church, 
 and they said i\\dit they held the true Faith of the Trinity, and 
 far from impugning the one absolute mediation of Christ, 
 sought only to express, and did express in fact, more forcibly 
 their unlimited devotion to Him through a higher (yet in its 
 nature not unlimited) devotion to her whose only value and emi- 
 
250 OF THE INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OF SAINTS, 
 
 nence lies in her relutiou to Him, there would be no more strict 
 force or accuracy iu the popular arguments of Protestants 
 and Anglicans against such a form and degree of worship, than 
 there is in the same arguments against the worship of the 
 Blessed Virgin in its present stage. 
 
 However, it does not follow because the arguments of Protes- 
 tants are unsound, or because we should have no right to con- 
 demn others even if they went to lengths hitherto unknown iu 
 the worship of Saints, that thei'efore all that we have no right 
 to condemn is good in itself, or in the sight of God, or to be 
 imitated by us. On the contrary it is confessed on all hands to 
 be quite possible that they who say they are honouring creatures 
 only in Christ, may really be doing otherwise, withdrawing 
 themselves from Him, speaking lies iu hypocrisy for vanity or 
 for gain, deceiving themselves and deceiving others. When the 
 ancient Fathers decreed thus, " Let Mary be honoured, hut let 
 Christ be ivo7-shipped, or adored :" they clearly contemplated the 
 possibility of excess. And St. John himself, the Apostle of love, 
 falling down to worship in some undue degree an Angel, was 
 reproved thus for our sake, " See thou do it not, for I am thy 
 fellow-servant : worship God." Both Greeks and Latins occa- 
 sionally blame even things permitted in their respective Com- 
 munions as excesses : and most of them would shrink, as has 
 been said, from contemplating as admissible any such further 
 development of the! worship of the Blessed Virgin as we have 
 imagined. And besides excess in degree, we can see that any 
 and every degree of worship given to creatures, the lowest de- 
 gree as well as the highest, becomes at once sinful if the heart 
 be not right with God. As the Patriarch Jeremiah II. wrote well 
 to the Lutherans, that for any man to invoke the Saints, if he 
 be not also at the same time striving with all his heart to imi- 
 tate their virtues, is " worse than useless.'' It becomes therefore 
 a matter of importance to consider what that is which makes 
 any particular form or degree of secondary worship to be legiti- 
 mate and salutary, and the absence of which would make the 
 same to be dangerous and blameable. 
 
 This question is answered in the simplest and fullest way if 
 we say that whatever is from the Spirit of Christ cither in the 
 individual Christian or in the Church is aood, whatever is from 
 
AND ESPECIALLY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 251 
 
 any other spirit is evil or unprofitable. And the Spirit of 
 Christ is a spirit not of formal bondage, but of liberty and love. 
 " All things ore lawful unto me," says the Apostle : and again, 
 "All things are yours, and ije are Christ's, and Christ is 
 God's.'' And the Spirit is a law to itself, and is not judged of 
 thera that are without : nor have the children of God need that 
 any man should inform them what is lawful for them, and what 
 unlawful : for they " have an unction from the Holy One, and 
 know all things" If therefore there is such a thing as poetry 
 and rhetoric for the natural man, much more for the Christian : 
 and whatever figures of speech are allowable in the world are no 
 less so in the Church. Or if any Christian has from the Spirit 
 of God any sense of the presence of an angel or spirit, as in a 
 dream or vision, or by a miracle at Relics, so as to make it natu- 
 ral in him to speak to them, or if he is moved of the same 
 Spirit in any other way to speak to them as if they were sensi- 
 bly present, whatever is natural to him to say or to do will be 
 good in him : and whatever he testifies of himself to be so 
 cannot rightly be condemned by others, at least not by equals. 
 
 But if any man have no such direct personal revelation, inspi- 
 ration, or impulse, prompting him to speak (otherwise than by 
 poetical or rhetorical apostrophe) to those who are not sensibly 
 present, he will then need a sufficient reasonable proof that the 
 belief of this or that doctrine, and the practice of this or that 
 secondary worship to creatures, is enjoined upon him, or recom- 
 mended to him indirectly, by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 A Protestant therefore, or a member of any Church (as of the 
 Anglican, or the Nestorian) which has not that worship of Saints 
 and of their images which is common to the Latins and Greeks, 
 cannot, except either by some personal inspiration or revelation on 
 the one hand, or by mere will-worship and private fancy on the 
 other, invent, ])ractise, or imitate such worship. He may con- 
 clude indeed by reasoning that it is probable that Christ should 
 have already accorded such and such honours to His Mother, but 
 he can never of himself advance to the assertion that He has ac- 
 tually done so. But if any one believes in a visible Catholic 
 and Apostolic Church as a Divinely appointed and (in all essen- 
 tial things at least) infallible teacher and guide, and if this 
 Church teaches him to give any particular worship to the Bles- 
 
252 OF THE INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OF SAINTS, 
 
 sed Virgin and other Saints, and to their images or pictures, 
 then he will be safe in doing what the Holy Ghost through 
 the Church teaches him to do, and will bless God for having 
 given him, in addition to the Sacraments and other channels of 
 grace, the Saints, their Relics, and their Icons, to be used as cus- 
 tom may direct, or as individual zeal and piety may prompt. Nor 
 will it make any difference whether what is ordered or recom- 
 mended seem to have been from the beginning, or to be of later 
 institution, so long as the basis, that this is the Catholic Church, 
 and that the Church so teaches, is certain or undoubted. For the 
 Church being to teach continuously, even to the end of the 
 world, any difference or contradiction which may seem to us to 
 exist between her teaching at one time and at another can be no 
 more than an intellectual difficulty, which we shall do very well 
 to consider, and to resolve, if we can, whether by a theory of de- 
 velopment, or by a more accurate examination of facts, or in any 
 other way, but which, if it cannot be resolved, ought not to in- 
 fluence either our faith or our practice. 
 
 What then for the Greek or the Latin is the teaching of the 
 Catholic Church ? What does it require him to believe and to do ? 
 What does it merely encourage, or allow to individuals or socie- 
 ties to be done of their own particular devotion or inspiration ? 
 In other words, how far does the Church take upon herself the 
 responsibility of directing serious prayers to be made to Saints, 
 or any particular degree of worship to be paid to them (or 
 to their Icons or Relics,) by individuals beyond what their own 
 spiritual sense or inspiration may prompt ? 
 
 The Eastern Church teaches distinctly, and the Latin Church 
 by the decree of Trent makes it " a point of faith " to be- 
 lieve and confess, that it is good and proiitable to invoke the 
 Saints that are with Christ to pray with us and for us. 
 But when, or how, or in what sense the Saints must be invoked ; 
 or whether any individual, not personally moved thereto, need 
 invoke them at all otherwise than through the public ritual 
 of the Church ; or in what ivcnj it profits us to invoke them ; 
 whether by the Saints actually and ordinarily hearing the 
 words addressed to them and praying to God in consequence, 
 or by God's communicating to them our petitions either ordi- 
 narily or occasionally that they may pray for us, or by His 
 
AND ESPECIALLY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 253 
 
 answering us Himself for their sakes as if they heard us 
 and prayed for us in consequence, or as if our prayers to them 
 were only an indirect form of prayer to Himself, there is no 
 determination of faith. As for the public ritual of the Eastern 
 Church, there is nothing in the regular Services nor in the 
 Offices which either necessarily or in its natural and apparent 
 sense goes beyond poetical and rhetorical apostrophe ; nothing 
 which is directed to be said by the Priest or Deacon as a prose 
 prayer; nothing which is not in its structure and origin plainly 
 poetical, and directed to be sung by the Singers to such or such 
 a " Tone," except one rather long address beginning ""AdTuXs, 
 aiio><.vvTc-" at the end of the '^ttoSeittvov, which has indeed the 
 form of a prayer, and is to be said by the Reader.* But this, 
 besides being in its wording highly rhetorical, is to be said to 
 the Blessed Virgin as represented by her picture : and its in- 
 troduction into the ritual had respect to the controversy with 
 the Iconoclasts. It is certain however historically that the 
 Eastern Church in teaching that it is good and profitable to in- 
 voke the Saints meant not only to defend as sacred poetry those 
 apostrophes which might occur in her hymns, but also to 
 sanction the practice common among Christians of seriously 
 calling upon the Saints to help them whenever they were moved to 
 do so by any particular association; and of affixing to the poetical 
 invocations contained in the hymns of the Church, whenever 
 and in whatever degree they were moved to do so, a similar 
 sense of reality. 
 
 * The two other short addresses to the Blessed Virgin " r-irepevSo^e," k.t.A. 
 and " TV iraffw iXiriSa " k.t.\. which follow in the same place, and are said hy 
 the Reader turning to the Icon in the same way, are properly anthems called 
 QeordKia, and elsewhere (in the MeaovvKTiK6i') appear as such, with the " Tone " 
 to which they are to be sung. At the end of the Prayers and Thanksgivings after 
 Communion commonly printed in the 'n.poA6yiov there is one " 'Avaivvixov els t^iv 
 'Tirepayiav QsotSkou" beginning " Uavayia Aiffiroiva'^' and at the end of the 
 Kavwu or Set of Hymns to the Angel Guardian there is a Prayer beginning ""A7J6 
 "AYYeXe." In the more modern Slavonic Kan6ns or '' Molebens," such a 
 Prayer often occurs at the end, and the Bishop or chief officiating Priest says it, 
 he himself and all present with him kneeling on their knees, a custom probably 
 imitated in Little Russia from the Uniats and the Latins. Various little manuals 
 of devotion printed in modern Greek at Venice and elsewhere contain Prayers to 
 the Blessed Virgin, to the Angel Guardian, and other Angels and Saints, and 
 even to things inanimate, as the Cross, in which poetry, rhetoric, meditation, 
 and serious prayer are all confusedly blended together. 
 
254 or THK INVOCATION AND WOHSHIP OF SAINTS, 
 
 Thus the principle of the Invocation and worship of Saints 
 (as also of the worship of their Images or Pictures and Relics,) 
 is taught : but for all details and consequences of the particular 
 application of the principle the Church does not make herself 
 responsible. Beyond the use of the public ritual she prescribes 
 nothing. She throws back the responsibility of every assertion 
 and of every act beyond what she requires on the individuals or 
 communities with which they originate, granting them however 
 a general encouragement so far as she has no reason to deny what 
 they testify concerning themselves, or concerning matters of fact. 
 Hence there has arisen in respect of the worship of Saints, their 
 Images, and Relics, a vast popular growth of particular opinions 
 and devotions, differing in different individuals, communities, 
 ages, and countries, as to which it is difficult to say how far 
 when once introduced they do or do not belong to the Church 
 herself, or claim more than a passive respect from such in- 
 dividuals as have no personal inspiration or persuasion in their 
 favour. For on the one hand when the hierarchy renders 
 homage to any popular or local belief, allowing it to be alluded 
 to or recognized in the ritual, and sanctioning particular devo- 
 tions, it may seem too subtle a distinction to say that it 
 leaves the responsibility of asserting and teaching the matter of 
 fact (for example, the miracle, vision, or revelation,) to those 
 with whom it originated ; or that it does not teach by the 
 ritual which it authorizes as well as by its more formal decrees. 
 And yet, on the other hand, the conduct of the Church in allow- 
 ing to individuals and to communities particular beliefs and devo- 
 tions is no more than what every Christian, as we have seen 
 above, is in reason and charity bound to do towards his neigh- 
 bours, so long as the individual or the community professing 
 any particular belief, or practising any particular devotion, pro- 
 fess to hold the true faith of the Trinity, and to do whatever 
 they do for sufficient reasons of their own, and all in Christ. 
 And certainly it is held both by Greeks and by Latins alike that 
 the mere admission of any assertion or opinion into the ritual 
 is no proof that it is deliberately taught by the Church. It is 
 held too that matters of fad are in their own nature beyond 
 the sphere of the Church's authority; so that they must rest, 
 with all that is built upon them, upon credible proof or testi- 
 monv. And we see that the ritual of the Church has varied 
 
AND ESPECIALLY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 255 
 
 much in different ages and countries : and that vast changes in 
 matters of belief and feeling and habit take place silently and 
 imperceptibly among Christians, so that what is unknown in 
 one age becomes a main point of religion in another ; and what 
 it might cost a Sovereign his throne to disregard in one age 
 comes to be disregarded by all who please in another. One 
 Saint, or one devotion, rises from obscure beginnings to an in- 
 credible height of popularity. Again, some generations pass, 
 and Saints who were in everybody's mouth, and without whose 
 help nothing could be obtained, are half forgotten, and new 
 intercessors are celebrated in their stead. 
 
 Seeing the prevalence and strength of many particular beliefs 
 and devotions, the importance attached to them, the zeal with 
 which they are preached by men of energy and seeming holi- 
 ness, the strong assertions of supernatural revelations, commands 
 or encouragements, and miracles, on which they are often based, 
 or by which they are recommended, an individual may well in- 
 quire how far he ought or ought not to throw himself into the 
 belief and practice of others, beyond what the Church requires, 
 and without having within himself any such particular inspira- 
 tion or assurance for the things recommended, as may be alleged 
 to justify them in others. 
 
 With respect to this it may seem to some that to keep 
 guardedly within the letter of the Church's requirements is 
 scarcely compatible with a sincere and loyal obedience to those 
 requirements themselves : that it must be safe and pious to 
 imitate and appropriate (though, it may be, with a certain sense 
 of unreality at first, if one has not been trained to it from a 
 child,) whatever respected individuals, or societies, or dominant 
 opinion and feeling among religious people urges us (with the 
 allowance or favour of the hierarchy) to adopt, trusting to the 
 testimony of others for its lawfulness and profitableness. To 
 others it may seem on the contrary that it is not the same 
 thing to follow teaching merely allowed by the Church as to 
 follow the teaching of the Church herself: and that as the 
 teacher who teaches of himself, by permission only, or it may 
 be with encouragement, so he who listens to and follows such a 
 teacher, by permission only, or it may be with encouragement, 
 must bear his own responsibility. And though no Christian may 
 condemn either the teacher or the hearer of doctrine which the 
 
25G OF THE INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OF SAINTS, 
 
 Church allows, nor make himself a judge of others, yet neither 
 is the feeling or belief of others, nor even their assertion of 
 having received direct revelations or miraculous favours, any 
 sufficient basis upon which to adopt new devotions for himself. 
 And with regard to the whole popular system of Saint-worship 
 and Image-worship, it may appear in two contrary lights to 
 different minds. To some it may seem that the close parallel- 
 ism existing between it and the old polytheism or hero-worship 
 and idolatry of the heathens, far from being an objection, is a 
 sign that it has grown up by the will of God and by the inspi- 
 ration of the Holy Spirit, For all false religion being but a 
 perversion and misrepresentation of the true, it may seem ante- 
 cedently probable that the corruption of the early Patriarchal 
 religion and worship should exhibit a certain perverse and dia- 
 bolical mimicry of that true and perfect religion into which the 
 early Patriarchal religion and worship was in time to be de- 
 veloped. And it may be thought a triumph worthy of God, that 
 He should accord to the servants and witnesses of the Crucified, 
 and above all to The Woman, the INIother of the promised Seed, 
 an exaltation, and glory, and power, and worship, and deifica- 
 tion, far eclipsing the honours suggested by evil spirits, or 
 imagined by corrupt men, for the dremons of the heathen 
 Olympus. To others on the contrary it may appear that the 
 worship of the Saints and the Blessed Virgin, and of their 
 Images or Pictures, grew up not in those earliest and best times 
 " when the Church was as yet a pure virgin," but in later times, 
 from a mixed and corrupted Christian society : that the stages 
 of its development correspond not with any growth of fervour 
 in imitating the Saints, but with a gradual cooling down and 
 declension from their standard : that the best motive of those 
 who popularized it seems to have been to arrest by an effort the 
 decay of piety, and to influence by lower and more human 
 feelings souls no longer capable of relishing higher and more 
 divine : that its characteristics are poetical and rhetorical effo7't 
 and unreality, contrasting sensibly with the thrilling simplicity 
 and reality of the Apostolic age : and that the responsibility of 
 voluntarily taking part in a system not imposed upon us by any 
 authority, but of gradual and popular growth, and lying be- 
 yond the formal teaching of the existing Church, is greatly 
 increased if we perceive in the same system a close parallel 
 
AND ESPECIALLY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 257 
 
 with the details of heathen superstition, dsemonolatry, and 
 idolatry, in all their varieties and ramifications. 
 
 Historically, the stages of the growth of the worship of the 
 Saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary, more especially in the Eas- 
 tern Church, seem to have been as follows : 
 
 In the Revelation of St. John the Divine an Angel in the 
 heavenly sanctuary is represented as offering from a golden 
 censer much incense " by the prayers of all saints ''; and the smoke 
 of the incense is said to ascend up before God " by the prayers of 
 the saints " (Sta tcuv izpos-iv^itv t«jv dyiaji) out of the Angel's 
 hand. And in another place the souls of the Martyrs are seen 
 under the heavenly altar, and are represented not as uncon- 
 scious and inactive, but as full of energy, crying with a loud 
 voice, and longing for the final vengeance upon the wicked, and 
 for the consummation of the bliss of the righteous. (Rev. viii. 
 3,4; and vi. 9, 10, II.) 
 
 Now whether the figures in the visions of the Apocalypse 
 were taken from the Christian worship, or the Christian worship 
 of the Apostolic age was taken in some points from the figures 
 of the Apocalypse, or both were simultaneously from the same 
 divine patterns, it matters nothing to inquire. But we find 
 that in the Liturgy of the primitive Christians at the most 
 solemn moment, after the Consecration, there was a prayer to 
 God .to receive their sacrifice by the prayers of His Saints, and 
 also by the ministry of Angels. This is expressly mentioned 
 by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catechetical Lectures, in the 
 fourth century. 
 
 At the same time we find in panegyrical Sermons direct 
 apostrophes to Martyrs and other Saints, sometimes with such 
 hypothetical qualifications as " 5« tij aTo-^rjo-j^,'' and the like, 
 showing that they were not meant in any strict sense, and that 
 the Saints were not as yet commonly addressed, as if they heard, 
 with serious prose prayers. The same appears also from the use 
 made against the Arians of this argument, that Christ must 
 be God because He was invoked ; and from the imputation of 
 idolatry to them because, making Him to be only a creature, 
 they yet invoked Him, whereas invocation or prayer belongs 
 only to God, Nor is it any sufficient answer, that by the word 
 " invocation " (sTr/xXyjo-ij) in such passages of the Fathers is 
 
 s 
 
258 OF THE INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OP SAINTS, 
 
 meant only proper^ absolute, and final invocation or prayer, as 
 distinct from invocation in a secondary sense : any more than 
 it is a sufficient explanation of those passages in which early 
 Fathers reject images and image-worship, to say that they mean 
 only pagan images and Divine worship. The distinction in 
 both cases may be just ; but it seems clear that the customs of 
 invoking Saints and venerating images in that sense in which 
 they came afterwards to be distinguished and approved could 
 not well have existed as yet, nor even have been mentally con- 
 templated by the Fathers who so wrote. 
 
 Besides rhetorical apostrophes, from the fourtli century at the 
 latest, but probably earlier. Hymns (that is, rpoTtapia and cnt^Yipa,) 
 to be sung in the Vespers and Matins began to be composed in 
 honour of the Martyrs : and in these hymns addresses, and in- 
 vocations, and personifications, were used, as a matter of course, 
 with all that freedom and with all that variety of form which is 
 natural to poetry. 
 
 At the same time we find occasional miracles and graces of 
 healing vouchsafed at the tombs and Relics of Martyrs ; and 
 Christians in consequence flocking to them, and asking their 
 aid by spontaneous fervent ejaculations and prayers, with a 
 feeling of their being in some sense present, or capable of 
 hearing, caused partly by the actual presence of their Relics, and 
 partly by the association of miracles or visions already connected 
 with the same. 
 
 Any one can see that if a hymn containing apostrophes were 
 composed to be sung at the anniversary festival of any Martyr, 
 and were so sung at first merely as sacred poetry, to stir up the 
 minds of Christians present, and to glorify God in His Saints, 
 the invocations contained in such a hymn would necessarily ac- 
 quire a new emphasis so soon as any miracle was accorded, or 
 was believed to have been accorded, on the spot. Thenceforth it 
 would be impossible to sing them, or to hear them sung there, 
 without a sense of some mysterious reality attaching to them, as 
 if the Martyr or Saint addressed were actually present to hear. 
 
 And from such a sense of any Martyr being in a manner pre- 
 sent, and in some way hearing and answering addresses made 
 to him, at those places where his tomb or Relics were preserved 
 and honoured, a similar sense would come to attach by associa- 
 
AND ESPECIALLY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 259 
 
 tion to the same hymn or to similar hymns in his honour where- 
 ever sung, and to ejaculations and prayers wherever uttered. 
 And the same thing having taken place at once at many differ- 
 ent " Memorise ^^ of different Martyrs, the popular impression 
 and feeling thence arising would run together, and gathering 
 fresh strength from all fresh accumulations of real or reputed 
 miracles and visions, would form at length a general idea and 
 tradition that the spirits of departed Saints either actually hear 
 or know by revelation when they arc invoked ; and that if any 
 man invokes them with a right faith in God, and with a pious 
 mind, this is agreeable to God, and many benefits may thus be 
 obtained of God through Christ our Saviour. 
 
 After the honour and invocation of the Martyrs, there grew 
 up that of the Confessors and other Saints : and last of all, as if 
 from a sense of consistency and logical propriety, after the he- 
 resies relating to the Incarnation had been condemned and the 
 doctrine of the Trinity defined, the worship of the Mother of 
 God rose upon the Church, like the moon rising into a sky al- 
 ready studded with stars, which from thenceforth, though still 
 bright and visible, became as nothing compared with the greater 
 and more splendid luminary. 
 
 The introduction of Icons or pictures to render present as it 
 were in the churches the Saints and Angels who are not present 
 to the senses, and the practice of singing hymns containing in- 
 vocations or reciting addresses before the Picture, as if to the 
 Angel or Saint himself who was represented by it, heightened still 
 further the sense of reality already popularly attached to the 
 poetical addresses of the Church Hymns. And lastly, the occa- 
 sional substitution of the rapid perfunctory reading of particu- 
 lar Kanons or strings of hymns instead of singing them (when 
 such compositions were multiplied, and the monastic Services 
 had reached their full length,) begot a more prosaic and matter 
 of fact, though unspiritual, idea of the profitableness of the in- 
 vocation and worship of the Saints. And when such rapid 
 perfunctory reading came to be the ordinary practice in many 
 cases, the reading of a string of hymns containing addresses 
 would not differ perceptibly from the recital before the Icon of 
 a long prose prayer full of poetical warmth and rhetorical ver- 
 biage, such as is actually recited in one or two instances in the 
 
 s 2 
 
2G0 OF THE INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OF SAINTS. 
 
 present Greek ritual, and at the end of " Molebcns/' or Flupu- 
 x\r)(TSig, in the Russian. 
 
 At this point the public practice and ritual of the Easterns 
 stops shortj and seems either to have outgrown perfection or to 
 have not yet reached it. For if on the one hand it is best that 
 the invocations contained in the public ritual should go no fur- 
 ther than sacred poetry, as was the case for centuries, then the 
 rapid perfunctory reading of strings of hymns as if they were prose, 
 instead of singing them, and the addition of one or two rhetorical 
 prose prayers, is a corruption and abuse ; and the superabun- 
 dance of the hymns themselves would seem to need retrenchment. 
 But if on the other hand it is desirable that the public ritual 
 should distinctly inculcate and reduce to practice the popular 
 belief that an indefinite experimental worship of the Saints (as 
 also of their Icons and Relics,) is a Divinely appointed channel 
 of grace, then it would seem a desirable improvement to drop or 
 curtail the older and now obsolete poetical forms, so far as they 
 have come to be read or gabbled over as prose, and to substitute 
 for them shorter and direct prose Prayers and Litanies, to be bid- 
 den by the Priest or Deacon, after the manner of the Latins. For 
 the Offices of the Blessed Virgin now used by the Latins con- 
 tain short and terse prayers to her ; and their Litanies of the 
 Blessed Virgin and the Saints are more suggestive of the idea 
 of serious prai/er than are the Acathists and Kanons of the 
 Greeks, both from their structure being less plainly poetical, 
 and because of the kneeling posture in which they are often said 
 or sung; and because the petitions to the Blessed Virgin and to 
 the Saints are conjoined with and follow immediately after those 
 to the Trinity, with which they correspond in form : also be- 
 cause of the way in which they are often altered and adapted 
 from those parts of the ritual which are addressed to God, so 
 as to suggest the idea of a purposed parallelism of prayer ; as is 
 the case with the Offices of the Blessed Virgin corresponding 
 to the greater public Offices, the accommodation of the Psalter, 
 the Te Deum, &c., the imitations of the Collects, the " Domina, 
 ad orationem meam infende ;" &c. The view which any one may 
 take of this matter will probably depend in great measure upon 
 the favour or disfavour with which he may regard the theory of 
 Doctrinal Development. 
 
DISSERTATION XVIII. 
 
 OF THE WORSHIP OR VENERATION OF ICONS AND RELICS. 
 
 The objections made by ProtestaDts and by Anglicans against 
 the veneration of Icons or Pictures and of Helics resemble so 
 closely those made against the worship of the Blessed Virgin 
 and the Saints, that the worship of Saints, Icons, and Relics, 
 may for purposes of Controversy be regarded as three parts of 
 one and the same subject. 
 
 Against Images or Pictures (for it may be conceded that there 
 is no valid distinction between the two,) the objection commonly 
 first urged is this, that the Second Commandment forbids us to 
 make or to have them. To which it is enough to reply that 
 the objectors themselves both make and have them freely ; and 
 so show that they do not really and seriously understand them 
 to be forbidden by the Second Commandment. 
 
 Next they say that, granting it lawful to make and to have 
 them, it is forbidden us to " worship," that is, to honour them. 
 To which the answer is as before, that all Protestants also, not 
 merely by the use of a lawful liberty, but by the necessity of 
 human nature, give honour and dishonour to such pictures and 
 images as they have or see ; and not to pictures and images 
 only, but to everything else which carries with it to their minds 
 any relative association with good or with evil. 
 
 Next they say that, granting it lawful to make and to have, 
 and natural and unavoidable to honour relatively all things which 
 carry with them any association worthy of honour, still such 
 honour may not be expressed outwardly, nor its expression made 
 a matter of public custom. And the answer is again that Pro- 
 testants also, when not thinking of religious controversy, make 
 .no scruple to express outwardly such feelings of inward honour 
 
263 OF THE WORSHIP OR VENERATION 
 
 or affection as they entertain, nor to conform to any social cus- 
 tom of expressing such honour which they may find anywhere 
 established. 
 
 Next they say that, even though they abandon the three pre- 
 ceding objections and confess that holy things as well as holy 
 persons are to be honoured, still the honour given them must 
 not be " religious honour." But this is mere verbal trilling. 
 For the nature of the honour does not depend on our will, but 
 on the nature of the thing that is honoured. A token, or pic- 
 ture, or statue, which brings to men's minds some political 
 achievement will be honoured of course with a civil honour : 
 that which recalls some object of natural affection will be 
 honoured v* ith an honour of natural affection : and that which 
 is associated with any object of religious love or reverence will 
 receive a corresponding religious honour. To say that we may 
 have pictures and other objects connected by association with 
 holy persons and holy things, with the House and worship of 
 Almighty God, and may honour them, but not with a religious 
 honour, is no more reasonable than to say that one may have 
 the picture of his parent, and may honour it, but not with an 
 emotion of filial affection. 
 
 Another form of the same unreasonable prejudice is exhibited 
 by those who say that pictures or images may be had indeed and 
 honoured with such honour as naturally belongs to their origi- 
 nals, but then this must not be " in the church J' As if the arts 
 might freely be used by men for their own pleasures and vani- 
 ties, but were inadmissible in that higher sphere of religion from 
 whence alone all things belonging to the lower spheres of public 
 and private life receive their sanctification. 
 
 There is more apparent force in the objection that the custom 
 of paying an outward reverence to pictures or images was un- 
 known to the Church of the first ages, and that divers of the 
 Fathers in inveighing against heathen idols use such general 
 and absolute expressions as show that they neither knew of any 
 Christian use or worship of images, nor contemplated any such 
 thing as compatible with Christianity. Still this objection also 
 on closer examination vanishes. For firstly, even though a man 
 admit not the idea of any positive development of the faith it- 
 self, still in secondary matters of discipline and ritual (such as 
 
OF ICONS AND RELICS. 263 
 
 this is,) he must admit that the outward form of Christianity 
 may vary according to varying circumstances. And if so, it is 
 unreasonable to expect in the Christians of any particular age such 
 a degree of speculative foresight as shall contemplate distinctly 
 all future phases of Orthodox Christianity which may differ in 
 some respects from their own : or to make a difficulty of the 
 fact, that Christians living under certain peculiar circumstances 
 may have expressed themselves so as to show that they did not 
 look beyond them, nor calculate the possible effect of contrary 
 circumstances. Now in the primitive Church, composed partly 
 of Hebrew converts, to whom it had been a religious tradition 
 to make no likeness of any hving creature, and partly of con- 
 verts from the heathen, whose worship of images was the special 
 abomination distinguishing them from the Jews and Christians, 
 there was certainly nothing to suggest the idea that image-wor- 
 ship under any form would one day be discovered to be conge- 
 nial to orthodoxy. Nor was the condition of the Christians, 
 their poverty, the smallness of their churches, the secresy of 
 their assemblies, under persecution, in private dwellings, or in 
 catacombs, at all favourable to the development of an external 
 ritual. At any rate, the circumstances of the Church so long 
 as she was in conflict with pagan idolatry supply a very sufficient 
 explanation of the fact that she did not as yet originate or con- 
 template any analogous Christian system of her own. But when 
 Christianity had triumphed, and was now clearly distinguished 
 for ever from that system which it had combated without truce 
 and which it had totally destroyed, a number of new things 
 scarcely contemplated as possible before, but contained in germ 
 within the Church, were visibly manifested. Emperors and 
 nations, as such, came to stand in the same relation to the 
 Church and to the Christian Clergy, as they had formerly stood 
 in to heathenism and the heathen priesthood. Endowments in 
 money, houses, and lands, accrued to the Church, as before to 
 the heathen temples. Great and magnificent churches were 
 built from the same motives of zeal, policy, or vanity as had 
 prompted the erection of the most celebrated edifices of pa- 
 ganism. And when these had been built, there were the same 
 motives for adorning them in the spirit of the new religion. 
 The worship of the true God, emerging from the catacombs and 
 
2G4 OF THE WORSHIP OR VENERATION 
 
 other hiding-places, expanded into a complex and attractive 
 ritual from causes analogous to those which had produced the 
 ceremonial which it supplanted. Under these circumstances, 
 idolatry being now clean swept away, and no longer occupying the 
 mind, it was inevitable that in due time the question should 
 come up whether the application of the arts of painting and 
 sculpture to the service of religion, considered abstractedly and 
 in itself, was lawful or forbidden. And nothing but a general 
 positive tradition that it was forbidden could prevent those arts 
 from obtaining their natural place in connection with the 
 Christian ritual. But the general positive tradition existing 
 among Christians was precisely the reverse. Sacred sculptures 
 and paintings had been known among them, both in private 
 dwellings and in places frequented for worship, from the very 
 beginning. And the very same Fathers, who from not knowing 
 nor contemplating any ritual custom of reverencing Christian 
 Icons seem in words to condemn all image-worship of whatever 
 kind, allude nevertheless to the existence among the brethren of 
 gems and cups with sacred symbols and representations cut upon 
 them, and of sculptures, pictures, and frescoes about the tombs 
 and " Memorise " of the Martyrs, and of other Christians de- 
 ceased. And such incidental mentions or allusions are by no means 
 accompanied by any expressions of reprobation, but quite the 
 contrary. It is true, no doubt, that in the earliest times these 
 things were not everywhere equally common : and while in some 
 places walls of churches and catacombs were already painted with 
 frescoes, and tombs or sarcophagi were sculptured with human 
 figures, m other places a holy Bishop may have torn down from 
 the church doors a veil which had a figure painted or worked 
 upon it, or a local Council may have forbidden to paint the walls 
 of churches with objects of reverence or adoration. But enough 
 remains to prove that when the question was first publicly 
 moved there existed no general sense or tradition received from 
 the beginning that the use of sculpture and painting in connec- 
 tion with religion was unlawful, or that Christians were bound, 
 like the Jews, by the letter of the Second Commandment. 
 
 Christians then, both having and making sacred representa- 
 tions, must undoubtedly also have honoured them with such 
 honour as belonged to them, as has been said above; and 
 
OF ICONS AND RELICS. 265 
 
 must have expressed that honour even outwardly whenever the 
 occasion prompted, just as all men express outwardly, whenever 
 the occasion prompts, their inward feelings of honour or affec- 
 tion, contempt or aversion. 
 
 It was not till Pictures in the possession of private persons 
 began to be made much of and to be talked about, and in- 
 dividuals began to show them an outward honour beyond that 
 prompted by incidental emotion, making a custom of kissing 
 them, and of lighting lights before them, that some of the 
 Fathers take notice of this, and rather blame it as a weakness 
 and superstition, not by any means as heresy or idolatry. And 
 this, so long as it was as yet a mere private custom of individuals, 
 may have been indeed a weakness : but when once it had been 
 adopted into the ceremonial of the Church it was a weakness 
 no longer. For then it became a matter of ordinary obedience 
 and conformity ; and it would have been a weakness, or rather 
 a pernicious rebelhon, to reject it. After long and violent con- 
 troversies, caused partly by the novelty of the ritual custom and 
 by a plausible scruple on account of its outward similarity to 
 heathenism (perhaps also by a Manichsean aversion for bodily 
 forms,) partly by the coexistence of contrary habits and disposi- 
 tions on this subject in different parts of the Church, but most 
 of all by the personal partizanship of the Emperors of Constan- 
 tinople, it was determined by the whole East and by the chief 
 authority in the West (the rest of the Westerns also gradually 
 acquiescing,) that it is good and profitable both for individuals 
 and for the Church to show outwardly to the Icons of our 
 Lord, His Blessed Mother, and the Saints, as well as to other 
 sacred things, that relative honour and veneration which belongs 
 to them in virtue of their associations : in like manner as it had 
 from old time been customary to show such honour to the Cross, 
 the Gospels, the doors of the church, the rim of the altar, the 
 Priest's hand, the vestments of the clergy, and all other holy 
 things and vessels connected with the worship of God and with 
 the persons or memory of His Saints. 
 
 Assent to this general principle, and conformity to those 
 ritual customs which have been based upon it, is all that the 
 Eastern Church requires of her members. For any further and 
 more particular application of the principle in practice she leaves 
 
266 OF THE WORSHIP OR VENERATION 
 
 individuals and societies to their own responsibility^ according to 
 them only a general encouragement so far as she has no reason 
 to deny, nor is able to disprove, what they may assert concern- 
 ing any supernatural facts or inspirations. 
 
 Yet on this subject, as on that of the worship and invocation 
 of Saints, the bare statement of what is required must give a 
 very inadequate view of the matter, and one which it is hardly 
 fair to put off upon Protestants or upon Anglicans without some 
 further notice of ideas and practices popularly dominant, which 
 go far beyond what is required, and which cannot be either 
 tacitly or openly condemned without implicating in some sort the 
 Church herself in the same condemnation. 
 
 In the case of the worship of Saints the dominant and living 
 creed has been stated in the preceding section thus : That faith 
 in the general efficacy of Invocations, and a tentative or experi- 
 mental use of particular invocation according to impulses which 
 may seem to come of imagination, of some outward connection 
 of circumstances or inward association of ideas, or of the example 
 and suggestion of others, but which really come also from a 
 higher source, are means of grace and aid appointed by God for 
 the benefit of such Christians as use them with an orthodox 
 faith and piety. In like manner in respect of the worship of 
 Icons the dominant popular belief is this : That a sense of the 
 importance of their worship, and a tentative experimental prac- 
 tice of it in particular cases and towards particular Icons, from 
 motives similar to those which prompt particular invocations and 
 devotions to particular Saints, has a sort of sacramental virtue ; 
 and has been appointed by God to be a channel of His benefits, 
 not indeed to all who may worship holy Icons, nor in all cases, 
 but to men of pure faith and religious life, and in particular 
 cases, w^hen it pleases Him so to manifest his goodness. 
 
 The source and basis of this dominant belief is to be found in 
 the belief of particular miracles and deliverances associated with 
 particular Icons or pictures. 
 
 We read of certain of the earliest Christians that they 
 " brought forth their sick on beds and couches into the streets, 
 that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might over- 
 shadow some of them." And again, that " God wrought special 
 miracles by the hands of Paul; so that from his body were 
 
OF ICONS AND RELICS. 2C7 
 
 brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, and the 
 diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of 
 them." In these relations we see a certain tentative or experi- 
 mental act of faith rewarded with miraculous healings. And we 
 can understand that the same faith would continue to prompt 
 Christians to do like tentative or experimental acts even after 
 the Apostles were removed, so long as they had the idea that 
 the grace and power of God wrought through outward channels. 
 They would go and pray at the tombs of IMartyrs, or bring the 
 sick or the possessed to their Relics, or take to others at a dis- 
 tance some handkerchief or apron or garment from their Relics 
 or their tombs. They would see too in churches named after 
 them (whether containing or not any particle of their Relics,) 
 in Hymns made to be sung in their honour, and lastly (after the 
 use of sacred pictures had become general,) in their Pictures also 
 a sort of " shadow " of the Saints who were represented. And 
 when once it was believed, whether rightly or mistakenly, that 
 by this or that particular handkerchief or apron or picture the 
 Divine grace had been pleased to manifest itself, it would be 
 natural and unavoidable that men should feel a certain special 
 regard for those instruments, and should be moved by the 
 association to seek and expect a repetition of the same graces 
 rather through them than through any others of which no such 
 miracles were as yet reported. There is no room here for 
 questioning whether such a special regard is allowable or blame- 
 able. The thing could not be otherwise, the nature of man 
 remaining the same. It is therefore safe to say that if the first 
 experimental use of the handkerchief or the picture was lawful 
 and pious, those consequences which followed from the success 
 of the experiment of faith were foreseen and allowed prospec- 
 tively by the Spirit of God, Which would not otherwise have 
 wrought the first miracle. 
 
 It is probable then (to speak generally,) that as there had 
 been in earlier centuries particular graces and healings vouch- 
 safed through the intercession and invocation of Saints, and 
 through their Relics, so there were also (after the use and 
 veneration of Icons had been introduced,) similar graces and 
 healings vouchsafed through particular Icons. And if this is 
 believed to have been so, and may have been so in truth, it fol- 
 
268 OF THE WORSUIP OR VENERATION 
 
 lows that any Icon which has the reputation of being miraculous, 
 and is popularly honoured on that account with a special honour, 
 ought to be honoured so far as custom requires by all those who 
 have no sufficient reason for denying, nor can disprove, what is 
 generally believed respecting it. 
 
 But it by no means follows in respect to the worship of Icons 
 (any more than in respect to the worship of Saints,) that be- 
 cause the common arguments urged against the thing in itself 
 are false, therefore there neither can be nor is any excess or abuse 
 connected with it in practice. Nor because it w^ould be wrong 
 in a man to condemn his neighbours for the respect which they 
 may show^ to any particular Icon, or to deny absolutely himself, 
 or insist on their denying, any miracle or revelation or healing 
 which he cannot disprove, does it therefore foUov/ that whatever 
 is so asserted and believed, whether by individuals or by com- 
 munities, is true in fact. Even in the Apostles^ times their 
 miracles would give occasion, especially among those without, 
 to many more reports than were true, and to other tentative acts 
 besides those of genuine piety ; and would cause them some- 
 times to be sought to and honoured by men very different from 
 those who, like the cripple at Lystra, " had faith to be healed.'^ 
 And in tlie same vfay, when the Christian society came to be 
 more mixed, and the majority of its members were weak or 
 unholy, the fame of miracles would produce in the mixed multi- 
 tude more or less of a mixed and unholy superstition. Men 
 would think rather of the outward wondei*s in themselves, and of 
 the Saints, Relics, or Icons with which they were associated, than 
 of the inward dispositions requisite in all who would either 
 obtain miracles or profit by them. And they whose tentative 
 acts, or whose devotion towards any Saint, Relic, or Icon was 
 least likely to obtain any real grace from God, would be most 
 apt, from their want of spiritual discernment and virtue, both to 
 propagate false stories and to distort true ; while all that was 
 not in itself contrary to faith, w^ien once it had obtained circu- 
 lation, would be credited by good and simple people, and by 
 society at large. 
 
 This concrete growth of faith and piety mixed with supersti- 
 tion and carnality^, tentative and imitative acts proceeding from 
 the one mixed with tentative and imitative acts proceeding from 
 
OF ICONS AND RELICS. 
 
 269 
 
 the other, and popular beliefs and devotions representing the 
 joint influence of both, is absolutely identical in all the three 
 branches of the worship of Saints, the worship of Icons or 
 Pictures, and the worship of Relics. But its character may be 
 examined and distinguished most easily in the case of the wor- 
 ship of Relics ; and that for the following reason, that the in- 
 quiry, so long as it is confined to this one branch, is embarrassed 
 by no such preliminary, objections and prejudices as lie against 
 Saint-worship and Image- worship. Relics arc not living creatures 
 to which the honour due to God may be misdirected : nor are they 
 likenesses of things in heaven or in earth or under the earth, by 
 making or honouring which the Second Commandment may be 
 violated. The bones of a Martyr are inoffensive and passive. 
 A man must be indeed brutalized by heresy who can deny to 
 them that honour and affection which even heathens sometimes 
 bestow by natural instinct on the remains of their dead. Nor 
 will he deny that such affection and honour may be expressed 
 outwardly, as well as felt inwardly : and in conformity with an 
 established custom, as well as incidentally of spontaneous emo- 
 tion. And if it chance that a sick man or a demoniac approach 
 the Relics of a Martyr and is healed, or if a blind man receives 
 his sight, there is no room to quarrel either with the Martyr 
 who sought no worship, nor with the Relics which are inanimate, 
 nor with the man healed who perhaps uttered no word, nor with 
 the free grace and power of God. Yet such facts as these once oc- 
 currins:, or being believed to have occurred, it was inevitable that 
 the Relics and the Martyrs themselves through which they had 
 occurred, should be celebrated and honoured not only by the 
 secret "faithful," but also by the mixed "congregation^' of 
 Christians : that a general feeling, and a ritual custom for 
 honouring all Relics of Saints should grow up : that some Relics 
 should be worshipped more, some less, from divers causes more 
 or less valid or superficial : that in time true Relics should be 
 multiplied, and should be subdivided into fragments, and false 
 Relics invented, and celebrated as true : that fabulous miracles 
 should be ascribed to genuine Relics, and sometimes perhaps 
 true miracles be granted to simple worshippers of Relics which 
 are not genuine : that communities, nations, and ages should 
 take the colour of their belief from the individuals of whom they 
 
270 OP THE WORSHIP OR VENERATIOiV 
 
 are composed : that things false as well as true should find their 
 way not only into the popular belief but even into the Hymns 
 and Lessons and Ritual of the Church ; and that it should be- 
 come wholly impossible not only for common individuals but 
 even for Ecclesiastical authorities to discriminate between the 
 true and the false portions of the concrete growth, or to pre- 
 scribe such rules as shall present the continuance of a similar 
 process of concrete growth for the future. 
 
 Such a complication of certainty and doubtfulness respecting 
 particular facts (though not respecting principles or doctrines,) 
 of truth and falsehood, of good, bad, and mixed religion, on 
 three such important subjects, is no doubt highly irritating to 
 the impatience of human reason, which would rather deny and 
 condemn everything with the Protestant or believe everything 
 with indiscriminating and reckless credulity, than endure the 
 torture of a suspense which it abhors. But these three are not 
 the only subjects on which the same suspense must be endured. 
 The whole body of external religion (especially in respect of those 
 things which are good or bad only as they are used or abused,) 
 has a double aspect : so that contrary propositions, favourable and 
 unfavourable, Orthodox and Protestant, are true of it at once, 
 and of all its parts, though in different respects. In itself, in 
 the intention of the Church, and in the practice of good Chris- 
 tians, all is good : but in its abuse or perversion, and in bad or 
 imperfect Christians, the whole body of external religion tends to 
 become (what it is called by the Quakers and the Duchobortsi, and 
 by other sectaries,) an idolatrous and heathenish superstition. 
 
 Most of all is this the case in respect of that union of the 
 Church and the Clergy with the world which is called the civil 
 or national establishment of Christianity. Viewed in itself the- 
 oretically, and in one part or aspect of its practical working, this 
 is very good. It makes the kings and rulers of the world to 
 become the servants and fosterfathers of the Church, and faci- 
 litates the salvation of innumerable souls. But viewed in 
 another aspect of its practical working it is intensely evil. It 
 enslaves the Church to the powers of this world : it enfeebles 
 and corrupts her spiritual energies : it combines Jerusalem and 
 Babylon inseparably and undistinguishably together, so that 
 one and the same concrete is in one of its aspects Jerusalem, in 
 
OF ICONS AND RELICS, 271 
 
 another Babylon. And if so, then it is no more than we might 
 expect that there should be in the subordinate details also of 
 outward Christianity other instances of a similar double-sided- 
 ness : that ritual worship in one of its aspects should be a 
 symphony of men with angels, but in another a lip-service wor- 
 thy of the priests of the Grand Lama : that the stated fasts 
 should be at once the life of prayer and spirituality, and a mere 
 Judaical form : that monasticism should be at once the salt of 
 the Church, and a sink of hypocrisy or idleness : that the wor- 
 ship of Saints, Images, and Relics should in one aspect be 
 worthy of the citizens of the New Jerusalem, but in another a 
 mass of such adulterous and unholy superstition, covetousness, 
 and imposture, as can only belong to Babylon. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 Apart from particular controversies, though closely connected 
 with them, there is the general question of Credulity and Super- 
 stition which it may be proper to consider separately. Super- 
 stition, it is said, not only exists abundantly and is tolerated 
 within the Eastern Church, but it is even adopted and main- 
 tained to a certain extent by that Church herself. 
 
 Some, seeing how religion is clogged with a mass of the most 
 grotesque fables and the most palpable frauds, are for discarding 
 indiscriminately whatever seems contrary to the belief and spirit 
 of the present age. Others, seeing whither such a spirit of cri- 
 tical scepticism tends, are afraid to hint the slightest doubt of 
 any thing which the popular mind receives, and defend, sincerely 
 or hypocritically, much which it is neither easy to believe nor 
 edifying to defend. Thus the two parties assist the enemy of 
 souls, and conspire to force men to choose between an irreligious 
 scepticism and an unbounded superstition. 
 
 We shall here state briefly a few considerations which may 
 serve to limit the excess of scepticism on the one side and the 
 excess of mischievous credulity, or still more mischievous afiec- 
 tation of credulity, on the other. 
 
 Against unlimited scepticism respecting stories of revelations 
 and miracles by the intervening ministry of Saints or Angels, 
 or through Relics, or directly from God in answer to prayer, it 
 is enough to say, 
 
 I. That as we have the record of many such miracles both in 
 the Old and New Testaments, and as all nations and men of all 
 religions have ever been inclined to believe such things, it is 
 more natural and reasonable to believe than to doubt : 
 
OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 273 
 
 II. That Christianity itself being altogether divine and su- 
 pernatural, and every one of its most frequently repeated Mys- 
 teries involving miracles of the highest kind, he who makes a 
 difficulty of believing the less can scarcely be thought sincerely 
 to believe the greater. And unquestionably, to give one exam- 
 ple, for a blind man to be restored to bodily sight is a less 
 miracle than for a soul to be enlightened or regenerated in 
 the Sacrament of holy Baptism. 
 
 III. If it be objected that all the miracles recorded in holy 
 Scripture seem to recommend themselves by some propriety of 
 signification or circumstance, whereas with great numbers of 
 Ecclesiastical miracles it is just the reverse, it may be remem- 
 bered, first, that if the inspired writers had not recorded all with 
 exact propriety and accuracy, but we had been left to find out 
 for ourselves from a mass of w^ritteu or oral traditions and popu- 
 lar tales the miracles of the Apostolic age and of all other ages 
 preceding, we cannot doubt that there would have been a great 
 mass of truth and error or fable mixed together ; many false 
 miracles as well as some true ; and respecting the ti*ue many 
 distorted representations, suppressions of important particulars, 
 and additions of fabulous circumstances ; so that it would have 
 been no easy matter for mere unassisted reason to discern the 
 grain from the chaff. 
 
 IV. Even granting that there is a difference in kind between 
 modern or Ecclesiastical miracles and those recorded in holy 
 Scripture, still there may be many degrees and kinds of mira- 
 cles, as well as of revelation and inspiration. 
 
 V. Further, it is to be remarked that if on the one hand it is 
 difficult or impossible even for the most enlightened to distin- 
 guish accurately between false miracles and true, or between the 
 truth and the fable or error mixed up together in any one par- 
 ticular legend, on the other hand it is not at all necessary to 
 faith or piety that this should be otherwise. It is indeed neces- 
 sary for us to know the Articles of the Faith, the Commandments 
 of God, and certain short Prayers : But to know whether this 
 or that story of a divine interposition is fact or fable ; whether 
 it is unmixed truth or unmixed error, or a mixture of truth and 
 error ; and, if a mixture, in what proportions ; this is often a 
 question rather of curiosity than of religion. And it may be 
 
 T 
 
274 OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 more salutary for the mind to be left in doubt upon many such 
 matters, than to be encouraged to decide upon every thing. 
 
 VI. And as it is not necessary for us to judge even for our- 
 selves in all cases, so still less is it necessai*y or reasonable that, 
 if we do judge, we should force our judgments upon others. If a 
 man or a nation believe any miraculous story, which is not im- 
 pious in itself but capable of being viewed in a good light as 
 making to the glory of God, and we think we have reason to 
 doubt or deny this story, we are not necessarily called upon to 
 attack, nor even justified in attacking, the popular error. And 
 if we do attack it we must take the consequences, just as if we 
 attacked the dominant opinions or feelings of the multitude on 
 any other subject of social or political interest. 
 
 VII. Neither is it necessary or right for us to refuse to sing 
 in the church a Kanon in honour of some doubtful Saint or 
 miracle, or to pay the customary honour to some doubtful Icon 
 or Relic. For charity forbids us for our own personal doubts to 
 scandalize those who, not being in doubt, will see in our con- 
 duct only a dishonour of holy things : not to say that a personal 
 doubt ought to give way to a public belief, rather than expect 
 the public belief to give way to it. Nay more, even if we had 
 a conviction or knowledge that the Icon or the Relic was false, 
 though in that case we should not seek occasion unnecessarily 
 to honour them, we should not be justified in refusing the ho- 
 nour if called upon to pay it, unless we were in the place of 
 authority, and were able to teach the people that they were 
 under a mistake without fear of some greater scandal or mis- 
 chief resulting from this assertion on our part than from a con- 
 tinuance of the people in their innocent or pious error as to a 
 mere matter of fact. 
 
 The cause for which we ought to be careful to encourage a 
 spirit of religious and discriminating caution, and avoidance of 
 precipitate credulity, even in cases where the thing itself seems 
 harmless or edifying, is this, that there is a tendency in credu- 
 lity and superstition to produce eventually a contrary excess of 
 scepticism and unbelief. The evil one, the father of lies, is not 
 so simple as to prompt men to invent lies which are directly 
 and absolutely to his own disadvantage. One Saint, it is said, 
 in two days and two nights sailed round on a stone by way of the 
 
OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 275 
 
 Atlantic ocean, the Baltic sea, the Neva, the lake Ladoga, and 
 the river VolchofF, from Old Rome to Great Novgorod : Another 
 sailed about the Northern ocean on his cloke : And if one hesi- 
 tates to assent to such legends, one is liable to be asked Why, if 
 these miracles are not true, should the devil invent such tri- 
 umphs over himself, or such testimonies to the power of the 
 Cross, which is the same thing ? But the devil knows very well 
 that at a certain point of accumulation of grotesque miracles 
 men begin to laugh : and sometimes the miracle is in itself not 
 only grotesque but laughable : next they discover in some in- 
 stances clear signs of fraud or folly : and then, the whole seem- 
 ing to have grown up together into one system, and to have be- 
 come one concrete mass with the very faith and life of the 
 Church herself, the superstructure of wood, hay, and stubble is 
 made an occasion for overturning even the foundations. 
 
 For this reason, and seeing the danger of utter scepticism 
 which is fostered by the indiscriminate defence of all popular 
 and ecclesiastical beliefs, we will now briefly point out some of 
 the chief sources of false and mixed legends, leaving it for the 
 most part to the reader to apply them to particular cases, and 
 to add other similar sources for himself. 
 
 I. One of the simplest and most innocent sources of false 
 miracles lies in men^s having misunderstood what was said or 
 seen or done mentally, metaphorically, or spiritually, as if it had 
 been seen or done bodily. Thus when the Saxon Saint Dunstan, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury in England, had enforced the disci- 
 pline of the Church even against the king, and some of his 
 "contemporaries and disciples had said strongly and expressively 
 
 that he had " taken the devil by the nose," and the painters had 
 visibly embodied this figure of speech, the common people un- 
 derstood both the word and the paintings to express a literal 
 fact. Another Saint, wishing to reprove and teach a slothful 
 monk who slept in his stall during Matins, said that he had 
 seen a huge serpent coiled up and lying on his head : and it 
 was supposed that the Saint had seen a real snake. 
 
 II. Another source is the misconception of what was told or 
 written allegorically, as in the legend of the Sicilian Virgin Agatha 
 who is tempted by five abandoned young women, who are evi- 
 dently nothing else than personifications of the five senses. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION, 
 
 III. Another source lies in the popular misunderstanding of 
 emblematical ceremonies. Thus the reappearance of a light 
 from the Holy Sepulchre, after all other lights have been extin- 
 guished in the church, has for many ages been taken to be 
 miraculous, (formerly by the Latins and Armenians as well as by 
 the Greeks, and still by the common people among the Greeks,) 
 although it is plainly only a very significant and appropriate 
 Ecclesiastical ceremony, identical with what is practised in all 
 Latin churches without any idea of a miracle. 
 
 IV. A fourth source is 6ju,aivy/x.ja, of which we have a good 
 instance in the ascription of particular Icons to St. Luke the 
 Evangelist. When attention began to be drawn to such pictures 
 as existed among Christians, and questions to be raised about 
 them, it is plain that they who painted them or possessed them 
 must either admit that they were mere creations of fancy, and 
 had no claim to be likenesses, or say that they exhibited a tra- 
 ditional likeness handed down through pictures first painted by 
 contemporaries, and through copies afterwards made from such 
 pictures. The likeness then in this or that picture of our Sa- 
 viour or of the Blessed Virgin was said to be from St. Luke, 
 who was supposed first to have painted pictures of them. And 
 the likeness in the Icon and the Icon itself being expressed by 
 one and the same word, and so being liable to be confounded 
 together from tbe first, the material picture would get the credit 
 of being itself the original, and of having been painted by the 
 hands of the Evangelist. Then, as copies came to be taken from 
 such pictures, they too would be said, to distinguish them from 
 others of later design, to be from St. Luke, that is, to be reproduc- 
 tions of that particular design and likeness which belonged to 
 the older picture from which they were copied. And the same 
 process would be repeated over again with these also, the copies 
 coming to be taken to be not only in the likenesses contained in 
 them but in their material substance and colour from the very 
 hands of St. Luke. Another double misconception of the same 
 kind was not uncommon in the West : The Relics of a Martyr or 
 Saint and the Saint himself are in a manner identical : and if 
 the Relics were translated to any particular spot, the Saint w^ould 
 be said " to have come thither," and to have blessed and defended 
 that church or city with his presence and protection. Again, 
 
OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 277 
 
 the statue or picture of a Saint or Martyr was said to be the 
 Saint himself, that is, his likeness. And it was common to re- 
 present a Martyr who had been beheaded with his head in his 
 hand, or under his arm, that the statue or picture might of itself 
 signify the manner of his death. Hence arose stories among 
 the people that such and such Martyrs (whose statues they were 
 used perhaps to see in niches outside of their Cathedral with 
 their heads under their arms,) had been beheaded, and after their 
 decapitation had miraculously walked to this or that spot hold- 
 ing their heads in their hands, or under their arms. Of the 
 same kind among the heathens were various legends in which 
 the name or sign given to a ship was confounded with the 
 ship itself. Europa no doubt crossed the sea in a ship with the 
 figure of a Bull at its bulkhead ; and Ariou was picked up and 
 landed at Tsenarus by a ship named the Dolphin. 
 
 V. Another source is when things were reported which could 
 not be correctly understood at a distance, or effects witnessed 
 which could not be accounted for by any known power or agency. 
 In such cases it is natural for Christians as well as for heathens 
 to refer those things which strike tbem as wonderful not only 
 directly to God, but also to such other inferior agencies as they 
 may seem to be connected with by any association of ideas. 
 Thus vast ruins in the East are ascribed to Solomon tasking the 
 Genii ; and the building of Cathedrals still standing in Scandi- 
 navia is ascribed by the people to similar invisible powers sub- 
 jected to the command of Christian Bishops and Saints. The 
 first ship seen by savages ignorant of navigation becomes a liv- 
 ing being : the first steamer a dragon breathing out fire and 
 smoke. The first horsemen were Centaurs. And we are still 
 familiar with the actual production of fable from this source, 
 whenever any people comparatively ignorant and barbarous are 
 brought for the first time in contact with the wonders of art and 
 science and civilization. 
 
 VI. Another source there is identical in principle with the 
 preceding, but differing from it in this, that either the associa- 
 tion in virtue of which we refer any particular effect not directly 
 to God but to this or that subordinate agency, or the wonder 
 itself, or both, are of men's own original or conventional devising. 
 God, Who is Almighty, infinite, and all-sustaining, contains all 
 
278 OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 things; and \Yithout His will nothing is done that is done: we 
 are therefore always I'ight in seeking all things which it is right 
 to seek from Him, and in ascribing all that befalls, whether in 
 seeming answer to our prayers or otherwise, to His will or per- 
 mission. But when we come to subordinate limited agencies, 
 this is no longer so. And yet it is very natural and very com- 
 mon first, in virtue of some hint or association, to ascribe a 
 general or particular sphere, influence, or ministry, to this or 
 that Angel, or Saint, or other created thing, and then to seek 
 from it or through it this or that effect ; and if the effect follow, 
 to attribute it to the agency or intercession which was in our 
 minds. Elijah having brought down rain after a long drought 
 by his prayers upon the top of Mount Carmel, Christians by 
 virtue of the association make the nearest height to their city or 
 monastery into a Carmel, and plant upon it a chapel of St. Elias : 
 and if they pray there in time of drought, and rain follows, it is 
 for them a miracle obtained by the prayers of St. Elias. The 
 vessels of the Russians which came to attack Constantinople in 
 the ninth century were wrecked and driven ashore near the 
 church of the Blessed Virgin at Blachernse ; and the Patriarch 
 had dipped what was supposed to be her robe in the sea before 
 the storm arose, and had sung an " Akathist '^ to implore her 
 protection. The result following which was desired, it is no 
 wonder that both the Christians of Constantinople and the bar- 
 barians themselves ascribed it to her interference. Yet seeing 
 that rain after drought, and storms of the sea, and vicissitudes 
 of dangers and deliverances to men and cities and nations cer- 
 tainly do happen in virtue of God's general and particular 
 government of the world, we must always be more or less uncer- 
 tain in attributing such things to some other secondary agency 
 over and above, so long as this secondary agency is of our own 
 choice and devising, and so long as the things themselves are not 
 manifest and striking reversals of the ordinary course of nature. 
 The case would be different if any one had made iron to swim by 
 invoking the aid of Elisha ; or if any one by invoking the aid of 
 the Blessed Virgin had restored sight to one born blind : or had 
 raised a man to life from the dead. 
 
 On the same principle as that spoken of above, St. Luke having 
 come to be regarded as the first Icon-painter and the Patron of 
 
OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 279 
 
 that art, an Icon found in a cave, as at Megasp^laion, without 
 any known history, overgrown with ivy and other greens, 
 would seem as if painted and left there by St. Luke himself. 
 And even if, on burning the underwood and clearing out the 
 cave, it appeared that there had been an altar cut in the rock 
 and a hermitage in connection with the Icon, this, instead of 
 destroying the former idea, would only suggest an addition to it, 
 namely, that St. Luke himself had been the hermit who had 
 lived there, and had celebrated on that altar ; and even that he 
 had written his Gospel in the same cavern. All which would be 
 corroborated by the historical tradition that he did really come 
 into Achaia, and was buried at Thebes. To account for the 
 growth of the whole legend we need suppose no more than that 
 the two brothers from Thessalonica, when they first saw the 
 Icon in the cave, uttered some such words as these, " How can 
 this have come here ? It looks as if it had grown of itself 
 among the ivy on the walls of the cave : or rather as if St. Luke 
 himself had painted it, and left it here for us to find, and to as- 
 sist us in our mission V These words falling upon the ears of 
 others would be enough : and in the next generation of their 
 disciples and followers the whole would be related as a fact or 
 tradition, which had probably been related to the Saints, the 
 first finders of the Icon, in a vision or dream. 
 
 VIT. Another source is the insensible and unintentional accre- 
 tion of circumstances through the imperfection of oral tradition, 
 and through the licence of imagination and embellishment in- 
 dulged in by those who with scanty materials first fix oral tra- 
 dition in writing. All monks, as such, have placed themselves 
 in a manner under the protection and intercession of the Blessed 
 Virgin. A monk founding a hermitage or monastery must, as 
 a matter of course, desire to find water for it ; and on finding the 
 water, or digging the well, he will say with propriety not merely 
 " Here by the favour of God,^^ but " Here by the favour of God 
 and of the Blessed Virgin," or " Here by the favour of the Blessed 
 Virgin I found water for the brethren." (As, when the Deacon is 
 going to read the Gospel in the church, the Bishop blesses him with 
 a prayer that God " by the prayers of the holy Evangelist N." 
 who is to be read, will give him grace to read to the edification 
 of the hearers.) The disciples of such a monk or Founder in 
 
280 or CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 the next generation will relate that " Here the Blessed Virgin 
 helped the Saint to find water." In the mouth of the next it 
 will he that " Here she appeared to the Saint, and showed him 
 the spring/' Then comes some one who writes for the first 
 time the life of the Founder : and he will not only make the 
 Blessed Virgin appear, but will dramatize the narrative, and give 
 the very words which passed between her and the Saint; and 
 very probably will suppose and represent that she did not merely 
 teach the Saint where to find a spring already existing, but 
 called the spring itself into existence for his sake. 
 
 VIII. Another most fertile source lies in the spirit of imita- 
 ti(m and rhetorical embellishment common to writers of the bio- 
 graphies of Saints. Little being known in many cases of the 
 details of the real life, the tradition of the Saint whose life is to 
 be written having been distinguished for certain virtues, or the 
 general idea of the virtues belonging to this or that class of 
 Saints, suggests certain details : and the half-miracles of the en- 
 comiast swell into real miracles. The miracle of feeding the 
 brethren by some miraculous supply, or by the multiplication of 
 some small remains of their stock of provisions, with many other 
 like marvels, occur over and over again in the lives of different 
 Saints who were hegouraens, just as if the biographers of later 
 Saints had borrowed largely from the lives of the more ancient. 
 
 IX. Another source is that of apocryphal and spurious wri- 
 tings. For example, certain particulars respecting the early life 
 of the Blessed Virgin now popularly received by tradition and 
 celebrated in some of the hymns of the Church seem to have 
 been taken from the spurious Gospels of the early heretics. 
 
 X. Another source often superadded to one or more of the 
 above is that of human influence and authority. For instance, 
 the influence of some holy man in the Church, or of some great 
 man or body of men in the world, of Emperors, Courts, Cities, 
 or jNIonastcries, or Nations, whose reception and veneration of 
 any miracle, or Saint, or Icon, others follow. There is also the 
 still higher influence of the Church, when private and popular 
 ideas and devotions concerning matters of fact have come to 
 be countenanced, and in some measure received by her, and 
 even Ofiices and Hymns to be composed and used consecrating 
 the popular belief of this or that particular wonder. 
 
OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 281 
 
 XL Another source is that of human reasoning, which, not 
 content with deducing logical consequences from the facts or 
 doctrines of revelation, goes on to the assertion of fresh /«c/s 
 which at most can only be said to be probable. For instance : 
 From the Incarnation it seems to follow clearly that our human 
 nature is taken into a closer union with the Deity than any 
 other nature ; and from having been a little lower than that of 
 the angels is crowned with glory and worship ; that is, is exalted 
 far above all principalities and powers. Viewing the human na- 
 ture in th« Blessed Virgin, who is, in and under her Son, its 
 most preeminent representative, in this light, it is no super- 
 stition to teach and sing that she who is the mother of Christ 
 our God is " more honourable than the Cherubim, and incom- 
 parably more glorious than the Seraphim." And when we 
 argue that, if after the Resurrection of Christ " many of the 
 bodies of the Saints which slept arose," (and some of the Fathers 
 suppose this to mean that they arose with their bodies never to 
 die again,) it is difficult to suppose that the Blessed Virgin was 
 not equally honoured : and that therefore it is not only possible 
 h\xt probable that she also received her body again shortly after 
 her decease, we are thus far guilty of no superstition. But 
 when we go on further to assert categorically, either on the 
 strength of this reasoning, or on the authority of some spurious 
 or anonymous writing later by centuries than the event, and in- 
 consistent with the allusions of earlier Fathers, that she did actu- 
 ally receive her body again ; that she was carried to heaven by 
 angels in the body on the third day ; that the Apostles were 
 gathered together; and that St. Thomas again doubted ; so as to 
 make of the whole history a counterpart to that of our Lord's 
 resurrection : and when all this is popularly and ecclesiastically 
 received, and made the subject of hymns, and sermons, and 
 ceremonies, we must either allow that here is a growth of hu- 
 man superstition floating in the Church ; or we must boldly 
 assert that the matter of fact has been made known to the 
 Church by a later revelation ; and even perhaps in part (as will 
 be the case in some other similar instances also,) through 
 the means of testimonies and arguments which will not bear 
 scrutiny in themselves, the premisses being false but the con- 
 clusion true, the foundation worthless but the superstructure 
 which has been raised upon it not doomed to fall. 
 
282 OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 XII. Another source is that of connivance, silence, or ma- 
 nagement (without any actual assertion of what is false) assisting 
 the imagination of the simple and ignorant in originating and 
 perpetuating wonders. Thus in respect of the Holy Fire at Je- 
 rusalem, the Clergy, for whatever reason, do not teach the 
 people that what they celebrate as a miracle is merely an eccle- 
 siastical ceremony. And, to cite another instance, in the very 
 remarkable legend of the preservation of the young monk of 
 Dochiareion on Mount Athos by the Archangels, it was enough 
 that the monk himself, and the Hegoumen, and the porter, kept 
 their secret, and did not publish how he had escaped drowning, 
 or how he came to be found by all the brethren lying before the 
 Icon of the Archangels in the church of their Monastery, with 
 the stone fastened to his neck. 
 
 XIII. Lastly, no doubt, there have occurred, and may occur 
 still, direct frauds, in which falsehood in some degree or other 
 has been used for a certain definite purpose : though very com- 
 monly even where there seems at first sight reason to suppose 
 fraud, it will turn out on closer examination that the original 
 nucleus of the legend may have involved nothing of the kind ; 
 and that there has only been a subsequent accretion of marvel- 
 lous circumstances from one or more of the sources abovemen- 
 tioned. We should therefore be religiously careful never to 
 assert nor to suppose any fraud unless we are absolutely com- 
 pelled to do so. 
 
 In conclusion, with regard to this whole subject, it must not 
 be forgotten that all matters of fact which are not actually at- 
 tested by holy Scripture, or by clear and universal tradition from 
 the beginning, are by their very nature excluded from the pro- 
 vince of faith. Not only individuals but Councils, not only 
 local Councils but CEcumenical Councils, and the Church herself 
 in any country, or in all countries at once, may err concerning 
 matters of fact, even though these last be ever so closely con- 
 nected with religion. A General Council, for instance, stigma- 
 tizes such and such Popes as heretics : but it is quite possible 
 notwithstanding that in point of fact these Popes were personally 
 orthodox. Another Council, or the Church diffused, has acknow- 
 ledged certain individuals for Saints : yet they may for all that 
 have been sinners or concealed heretics. Certain passages are 
 cited by a General Council in support of this or that doctrine, 
 
OF CREDULITY AND SUPERSTITION. 283 
 
 or certain facts are alleged from history : nevertheless the pas- 
 sages may be spurious or misinterpreted ; and the facts may have 
 had no real existence. The Church of a certain age may have 
 supposed the earth to be fixed, and the sun to move round it, 
 and that to assert the contrary was to contradict the Divine 
 Scriptures : but the Church in that case was mistaken. In just 
 the same way, whatever assertions of supernatural occurrences 
 have been received either by Popes or Councils, or even by the 
 Church diffused, they are none the less open to criticism on that 
 account as questions of fact. And whatever developments of 
 idea, whatever customs, anniversary celebrations, Oflfices, pilgrim- 
 ages, or further reputed miracles, may have followed upon their 
 belief and reception, all these things resting only on a question 
 of fact are, together with the fact itself, open to examination and 
 criticism, without any danger of heresy. And if in any such 
 case the supposed fact itself, for instance, the transportation of 
 the House of Loretto, or the Introduction of the Blessed Virgin 
 into the Temple, and her being fed there by Angels, or her As- 
 sumption in the body, or her Immaculate Conception, came to be 
 doubted or disbelieved, all that has been built upon such sup- 
 posed facts might fall with the belief of the facts themselves, 
 without the true doctrinal infallibility of the Church suffering 
 thereby any danger or curtailment. Nor would it make the 
 least difference if the Church should have decreed at any time 
 the dominant opinion concerning any such matters of fact to be 
 an article of faith, any more than if she had decreed the Coper- 
 nical opinion to be a heresy, and the older theory to be a part 
 of the faith. The promise which endues her with infallibility 
 for teaching the true and necessary faith and for condemning 
 heresy does not necessarily secure her against such errors. 
 
DISSERTATION XX. 
 
 OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 Man being himself a compound of soul and body, his religion 
 must have its form or body as well as its life or spirit : and reli- 
 gion is then in a good and healthy state when the inward life, 
 whether of the individual or the Church, is vigorous enough to 
 embody itself according to occasion in suitable forms ; and 
 when such forms as preexist, and have not by any change of 
 circumstances become unsuitable, are used and animated by the 
 same spirit which originally produced them. 
 
 Nevertheless, every human energy being liable to waste itself 
 and to decay, the Church herself also, so far as she is human, is 
 subject to this same infirmity. That inner life which in Apos- 
 tolic or early times threw up such holy and divine forms, and 
 could scarcely find forms adequate to its own strength and rich- 
 ness, afterwards gradually decayed, and left the forms more or 
 less hollow and empty, but still useful to mark to a degenerate 
 age a higher standard than its own, and to communicate in 
 some degree to the souls of them that should continue to use 
 them the shadow, the echo, the faintly reproduced image, of that 
 full volume of living energy from which they originally came. 
 
 The Apostles and their company, after sufiering for the first 
 time persecution for the name of Christ, prayed together in 
 the Upper Chamber on Mount Sion, lifting up their voice with 
 one accord in the words which are still preserved to us : And 
 " when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were 
 assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy 
 Ghost.'^ Cornelius the Centurion and his friends listened not 
 with the outward ear only, but with hearts duly prepared, to 
 the words spoken by Peter, and the Holy Ghost fell on them 
 
OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 285 
 
 even before they were Baptized with water in the Name of Jesus 
 Christ. Paul and Silas sang praises to God at midnight in 
 the prison at Philippi, using certain words, and the prisoners 
 heard them : And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so 
 that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and the doors 
 opened, and every one's bands loosed : and the keeper of the 
 prison with all his house was Baptized. In these cases it was 
 from the fulness of the heart and spirit that the mouth spake, 
 and the eflfect was accordingly. 
 
 Nor was such concurrence and unison of the inward spirit 
 with the outward word or act of religion, and such mighty effect, 
 confined to cases where the words were used only once : but in 
 the primitive Apostolic Church that living spirit which first 
 suggested the words and forms of her Liturgies and Ritual 
 accompanied also their habitual use. 
 
 Thus when in the darkness of the night, long before dawn, 
 the spiritual children of Sarah persecuted by the children of the 
 bondwoman, and from among the Gentile Christians members 
 of divided households, wives illtreated by their husbands, chU- 
 dren threatened or cast out by their parents, slaves oppressed 
 by their masters, citizens hunted out and accused by their neigh- 
 bours, subjects proscribed by the tyrants of this world, met 
 with difficulty and apprehension in the catacombs under some 
 great city, or in the retired house of some brethren in the out- 
 skirts, and the 'E^a^uXixoc or Six Psalms^ at the beginning of 
 Matins were read with a devout and meditative voice by the 
 Superior, containing the complaints and meditations of the 
 Messiah, the perfect man, under the sorrows and afflictions of 
 His humanity and the assaults of His enemies, all who were 
 present knew that this voice was not only from the Messiah, the 
 Head, but also from the Church His Body : and each one of 
 them in particular found his or her own spiritual application of 
 the verses of those Psalms according to the personal troubles 
 and necessities of each ; and his own comfort and strength in 
 that mixture of more cheerful prayer and meditation with 
 which one of those Psalms (Psalm p/3',) tempers the others. 
 
 And when after the Six Psalms the reading was succeeded by 
 
 * Psalms iii., xxxviii., Ixii., Ixxxvii., ciii., cxliii. In the LXX. 7', Xf, 
 1(3', wr', p/3', piuP'. 
 
286 OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 singing, and the Church, instead of dwclhng on the afflictions of 
 her humanity, changed her note, and poured forth in the words 
 of Psalm cxviii, (p<^'.) the Eucharistic confession of her faith, 
 with a firm confidence of being more than conqueror in her war- 
 fare with the Jewish and heathen world, and the congregation 
 present, or the singers, repeated as a burden at intervals between 
 every two or three verses, " God is the Lord who hath showed us 
 light: Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord!" 
 they might feel the old synagogue to be overturned, and the 
 idolatrous city overhead on her seven hills with the whole empire 
 of the heathen world to be shaken to their centre from beneath. 
 
 So also in the Psalms cxxxv. cxxxvi, cxxxvii, or xlv. (^xS', pXe', 
 qXr', or JU.S',) called IloXusXeog, sung to heighten the celebration of 
 Sundays and Festivals; which, while similar in tone to the preced- 
 ing, are more particular in the enumeration of the noble acts of 
 God in old time, foreshadowing those of the Christian Dispensa- 
 tion, and in their openly triumphing over the idols of the heathen: 
 We cannot doubt that the spiritual sense of the " wonders of old 
 time " celebrated in these Psalms, as well as their pointed appli- 
 cation to the present conflict with heathenism, was felt by the 
 assembled worshippers of the first centuries. And the music 
 to which these Psalms are sung, as well as that of the Laud 
 Psalms (cxlviii. cxlix. el.) the praises of which are more gene- 
 ral, (and which were no doubt always sung at length,) and that 
 of the " Great Doxology" carries with it still sensible traces of that 
 spirit with which these singings were originally accompanied. 
 
 In the celebration of the Divine Liturgy the people doubtless 
 answered intelligently to each petition of the Common Prayers 
 or '£xT£ve»5 bidden by the Deacon : and they heard distinctly 
 pronounced " with all his might '^ by the Bishop or Priest those 
 most eloquent and solemn doxologies and thanksgivings, which 
 were at first so full and detailed (though afterwards said inau- 
 dibly, and curtailed, and replaced for the laity by singings with- 
 out the veil,) that besides being a worthy sacrifice of praise on 
 the part of the whole assembled Church, clergy and laity, they 
 were also for each individual Christian a most rich instruction 
 and remembrance of the whole substance of his faith. Having 
 heard with the ear and joined with the heart in the introductory 
 part of these thanksgivings, relating to the mystery of the 
 
OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 287 
 
 Trinity and to the CreatioD, they joined also with the Bishop 
 and with his Con-celebrating Priests, and with all the Heavenly 
 Host assisting invisibly around the Altar, in that Hymn of the 
 Angels " Holy, Holy, Holy," &c., knowing what they did, and 
 with whom they were joining, and through what preparatory 
 words they had come to that outburst of praise. And in like 
 manner, after having heard the Eucharistic commemoration re- 
 specting the whole economy for the recovery of man after the 
 Fall, down to the Incarnation and the Institution of the Myste- 
 ries, and having witnessed the Oblation of the creatures of bread 
 and wine, the antitypes of the heavenly Sacrifice, and the Invo- 
 cation of the Holy Ghost to descend on them and to change 
 them, they responded with awe, but with their whole hearts, 
 that intelligent " Amen," which the Apostle requires. So too 
 did they after the intercessory Prayers for the departed, and for 
 the living, and for the whole Church, which followed after the 
 Consecration, and which derived such increase of solemnity and 
 efficacy from the presence of the aweful and adorable Mysteries 
 then " lying in open view " on the altar. And again, in the 
 united recitation of the Lord's Prayer immediately before the 
 Communion, they prayed in earnest for the heavenly and super- 
 substantial Bread, to be received by all (unless prevented by 
 some sufficient cause,) to be the staff of their spiritual life. 
 After so assisting, and at such a Liturgy, and after so Commu- 
 nicating, they retired ready either to do zealously such good 
 works as the day might have in store for them, or to suffer 
 firmly and cheerfully every persecution which might befall them 
 for the Name of Christ. 
 
 And at Vespers, after the reading of a Psalm (Psalm civ. gy.') 
 fit for the commencement of the day or the week, concerning 
 Creation and the renewal of Creation, and after the singing of 
 other Psalms (141, 142, 130, 117. In the LXX. pju.', pi,.u', 
 px^', p«s-',) not unlike the 'E^a\|/aXiw,&5 of the Matins, in which 
 " prayer was set forth as the incense, and the lifting up of pure 
 hands was an evening sacrifice," having come to the setting of 
 the sun, and seen the star of evening, and lighted the lights of 
 the church, the Clergy coming out and standing in a broad curve 
 Eastwards, sang that glorious and most ancient Hymn, " ^wg 
 IXapov," X. T. X. {" O cheerful Light," &c.) to the eternal and con- 
 
288 OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 substantial Effulgence of the Father^ of Whom the visible light 
 is a symbol; glorifying Him together with the Father, and the 
 Holy Ghost, one God : a hymn full-orbed, mellow, calm, 
 deeptoned (as expressing the depth of the mystery,) slow (as 
 being contemplative,) rich with the splendour of vestments^ ac- 
 companied by the Gospel and by Incense representing prayer 
 and praise, sung by the Elders the first half standing without, 
 the latter half after all going up into the Sanctuary, as the 
 doxology of the Holy Trinity begun in the Church on earth 
 below, and to be finished and continued for ever in heaven. 
 
 In the Greater 'A-Trotsimov or Compline, which is used at cer- 
 tain seasons, there is a manifest relic of those primitive times 
 when the Church was in the catacombs under Jewish and heathen 
 persecution. And it is impossible to read or to hear the singing 
 of this relic without feeling ourselves to be as it were breathed 
 upon by the breath of that living energy which first selected 
 and accommodated its words from those of the Prophet Isaiah : 
 
 " iV/s5' y]ju.aJv 5 6eo:," x. t. X. In the Syriac more strikingly, 
 " Immdnu-El ! " that is, " God is with tis ! Understand, O ye 
 nations, and submit yourselves : For God is with us ! " " Ki Im- 
 mdnu-El ! '^ This is sung first by the Choir on one side. 
 Then the same a second time by the Choir on the other side. 
 Then as follows, verse and verse alternately : 
 
 " Give ear unto the ends of the earth : For God is with us ! 
 
 " Ye mighty, submit yourselves : For God is with us ! 
 
 " For if ye wax powerful again, ye shall again be broken in 
 pieces : For God is with us ! 
 
 " And though ye take counsel together, the Lord shall bring it 
 to nought : For God is with us ! 
 
 " And if ye speak any word, it shall not stand : For God is 
 with us ! 
 
 " Your terror will we not fear, neither be troubled : For God is 
 with us ! 
 
 " But the Lord our God, Him will we sanctify, and He shall 
 be our fear : For God is with us ! 
 
 " And if I trust in Him, He shall be unto me for a sanctuary : 
 For God is ivith us ! 
 
 "And I will trust in Him, and I shall be saved through Him : 
 For God is with us ! 
 
OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 289 
 
 " Behold I, and the children whom the Lord hath given me : 
 For God is with us ! 
 
 " The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light : 
 For God is with us ! 
 
 " We that dwelt in the valley and shadoiv of death, upon us 
 hath the light shined : For God is with us ! 
 
 " For unto us a Child is born, unto us a So7i is given : For 
 God is with us ! 
 
 " On Whose shoulder is the government : For God is with us ! 
 
 " And of His peace there is no end : For God is with us ! 
 
 " And His name shall be called The Messenger of the Great 
 Counsel : For God is with us ! 
 
 " Wonderful, Counsellor : For God is with us ! 
 
 " The mighty God, the Lord of power, the Prince of peace : 
 For God is ivith us ! 
 
 " The Father of the world to come : For God is with us ! 
 
 " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
 Ghost .• For God is with us ! 
 
 " Both now, and ever, and world without end. Amen : For 
 God is with us ! 
 
 (And lastly both the Choirs sing together) " For God is 
 with us F^ {"Ki Immdnu-El !") 
 
 After the earliest and golden ages of the Church, during which 
 she was subject to persecution, and during which her ritual wor- 
 ship and the writings of her Saints, like their lives, were almost 
 wholly spiritual and practical, there followed in the fourth and 
 fifth centuries another phase of character, in which the divine 
 depth and earnestness of the ancients, without ceasing altogether 
 to exist, is clothed in a garb of intellectual, rhetorical, and po- 
 etical cultivation. Many touching Prayers, eloquent and in- 
 structive Homilies, STiy^ripx to be sung at '• Kvpis, sxeKpa^cf" in 
 the Vespers on Sundays and chief Festivals, 'ATroa-riy^a, TpoTrocpia 
 'AiroXvTUioi, Ka.^ltry.'XTu perhaps, and Sriyy^pot for the Laud 
 Psalms at Matins, and probably strings of Kovrax-ia. and OWoi, 
 were produced in this second period. Nor is there in the ritual 
 and homiletical compositions of this period, though their merit is 
 certainly of a lower and more humankind than that of the Divinely 
 inspired Scriptures, or the productions of the Apostolic age, any 
 appearance of hollowness or unreality. Nor, so far as we can 
 judge, is there any reason to doubt that they who used the Prayers 
 
290 OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 and sang the Hymns of this period used them upon the whole 
 with the understanding and the spirit, as well as with the lips. 
 
 Later, after the composition of the first " Kanuns," (which are 
 sets of nine '' Odes '' {'P.Wt) to be sung with the nine Propheti- 
 cal and Evangelical Hj^mns, the TpoT:y.pix of each '/25^ being 
 made or turned so as to answer to the syllables and accents of 
 its Elpixos-) that is, after the time of St. Andrew of Crete and 
 St. Cosmas, we come to an imitative period ; in which the cere- 
 monial of the Byzantine Court, with all its hyperbole and 
 hypocrisy, was carried into the Church ; in which many doubt- 
 ful miracles and legends, and particular Icons, gained exten- 
 sive honour through worldly adulation and Court influence ; in 
 which various opinions based on spurious or doubtful writings 
 became parts of the popular belief; in which, for the sake of a 
 certain uniformity or symmetry in the ritual, vast numbers of 
 Kanons and other Singings were composed for all the Saints of 
 the Daily Calendar throughout the year on the model of the ear- 
 lier compositions of the same sort : and the monastic ritual, 
 calculated for communities v/hich should employ one third part 
 of the twenty-four hours of the day and night in the Services of 
 the Church, w^as introduced more or less into general use even 
 in common churches. During this period, which we may fix 
 from the end of the eighth to the end of the twelfth century, 
 we find a great deterioration in the quality of the additions 
 made to the ritual, and a vast growth of formalism and unre- 
 ality in their actual use. In place of deep, warm, and just 
 poetry, we have often cold, empty, and hyperbolical rhapsodies. 
 And the readings and singings being felt to be too long for a 
 full and proper performance of them, men commonly fell into 
 a perfunctory and merely external performance of the ritual, or 
 of many parts of it ; an abuse which was in still later times 
 brought to its climax by the gradual corruption and change of 
 the Hellenic language into the modern Romaic, so that not 
 only were the Psalter and the lesser Offices, instead of being read 
 devoutly, gabbled over with heathenish rapidity, and the Kanons 
 or strings of hymns, instead of being sung, read or gabbled in 
 the same manner, but all this was done, and the rest of the Ser- 
 vice was performed, in a language no longer familiar to the 
 people, and only partly intelligible to them, nor to them only, 
 but even to the majority of the Clerics and Singers. 
 
OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 291 
 
 But without pursuing into further details this historical sketch 
 of the rise and growth of formalism in the Services of the 
 Church, we will now offer some reflections on the present state 
 of ritual worship in the Eastern Church as contemplated from a 
 practical and popular point of view. 
 
 " God is a Spirit ; and they that worship Him must worship 
 Him in spirit and in truth." This text perversely interpreted 
 by some sectaries is urged as an argument against all the ritual 
 forms of the Latin and Greek Churches, and against the whole 
 body of religion. In the same way another text, "When ye 
 pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think 
 they shall be heard for their much speaking/' is made into 
 an argument for attacking repetitions which are not always nor 
 necessarily vain. And that of St. Paul, " I had rather speak five 
 words in the church in a known tongue than ten thousand words 
 in an unknown tongue," is made to prove the duty of attempt- 
 ing that which is impossible, namely, to make all the Services of 
 the Church perfectly audible and perfectly inteUigible to all wor- 
 shippers, though there may often be a mixture of different tongues, 
 and though the languages themselves may be for ever changing. 
 Still, these perverse interpretations notwithstanding, there is such 
 a thing as a sincere and practical desire and effort to act in the 
 spirit of these texts. And there is such a thing as an undue 
 excess of outward forms and repetitious in Divine worship. 
 
 It may be not uninstructive for a member of the Eastern 
 Church to be informed in what light some parts of his religious 
 worship now appear to Anglicans, whose faults are of a nature 
 contrary to those of the Easterns, inasmuch as the Anglicans 
 have destroyed a great part of the outward forms of religion, 
 (and for this no doubt suffer great spiritual loss,) but who have the 
 merit of being often sincere and serious in what they have re- 
 tained, and are far removed (even to the contrary extreme,) 
 from outward formalism, superstition, or hypocrisy. " Fas est 
 et ah hoste doceri." None are so perfect but they may learn 
 something from what is said against them even by the malice of 
 enemies. And much more may they learn from the serious ob- 
 jections of erring brethren, whose very errors are perhaps only 
 excessive reactions occasioned by the faults of older Churches. 
 
 If an Anglican then could be taken into a Greek or Russian 
 
 u 2 
 
292 O? FORMALISM AS lMl'Uii:.l> TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 church just at such parts of the Services as the follov/ing : for 
 the reading of the Gospel^ and often also of the Apostle, for the 
 singing of the Great Doxology at Matins, or of the " <Pxg Wapov" 
 on any great festival at Vespers, or during any of the Singings 
 of the Vespers or Matins, or at almost any part of the celebra- 
 tion of the Liturgy, the impression produced would certainly be 
 one of reverence and respect. On the contrary, if he chanced 
 to be present at the reading of the lesser Services, as the Hours, 
 or Compline, or a ZTap^xXrjcrjf, at the reading of the Cathisms 
 of the Psalter (that is, of the divisions of the Psalter as ap- 
 pointed to be read in course,) or of the Kanons, he would be 
 utterly annoyed and shocked. He would say " If ever God was 
 mocked with a lip-service He is so assuredly now, and in the 
 Greek Church. Neither Jewish Rabbis nor Buddhist priests 
 of the heathen can gabble over their unspiritual caricature of 
 worship in a more profane way." No words could be found too 
 strong, none indeed strong enough, to express what he would 
 feel : and the more serious and religious the observer, the deeper 
 would be his pain and wonder. As regards some other things, 
 such as the reading of the 'E^avf/aAjaoj at Matius, or of the Intro- 
 ductory Psalm at Vespers, the bidding of the 'Exxevsic, and the 
 responding to these, or the performance of any occasional Offices, 
 as a Baptism, a Wedding, or a Funeral, the impression produced 
 would vary much according to the manner and spirit of the 
 Priest officiating. Sometimes the stranger would hear only a 
 slovenly and profane gabbling, as in the preceding cases : some- 
 times the performance would not seem altogether irreligious. 
 The saying of the Introductory and Concluding Prayers (that is, 
 of the ^' TpKTuyiO'j,''' K. T. A. to the end of TlxTsp i^|xxv) in every 
 Office would almost always strike him in the worst light. As 
 for the style of singing, that of the Russians would captivate 
 him at once by its sweetness and harmony, and that of the 
 Greeks would repel him by its nasal discord. But such merits 
 or defects are different things from devoutness and irreverence. 
 
 As for the congregation, a stranger would be wearied by the 
 perpetual multi])lication of manual gestures, by the triple cross- 
 ing repeated so often and with such rapidity of the fingers that 
 his eye could scarcely follow it. He would notice, at least here 
 at Athens, a too general neglect of attendance at Divine worship, 
 
OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 393 
 
 and the practice of coining in only about the beginning of tbe 
 Liturgy, or a little before ; so as to assist neither at Vespers nor 
 at Matins. He would see men coming in not only with their 
 heads covered after the Turkish custom, and contrary to the 
 Apostle's injunction, with the fez, but even with Franldsh hats, 
 walking in and out, talking, laughing, and spitting during the 
 Service : a confused crowd pressing upon one another to kiss 
 the Icons at the moment that the primitive Christians Commu- 
 nicated in the Body and Blood of Christ ; and numbers leaving 
 the church almost as soon as the Consecration is over, without 
 even waiting for the Dismissal. 
 
 And if he came to converse with any on the subject of their 
 religious worship, as wishing to ascertain how far they " pray 
 with the spirit, and with the understanding also," he would find 
 that not only are the Services now, whether conducted in Slavonic 
 or in Hellenic, in a great measure unintelligible to the people (as 
 is the case also with those of the Latins, the Armenians, the 
 Syrians, the Copts and Abyssinians, and the Nestorians,) but 
 also that, while secular schools are being founded and education 
 extended, there is little or no effort made to give to the young 
 a knowledge of the Church dialect. Instead of learning that 
 the Church Books and the Scriptures are printed in portable 
 editions, and with a Romaic version or commentary in parallel 
 columns or below, and that it is considered the first and 
 most indispensable part of a good education to learn to read 
 these books with understanding, he would find these books 
 altogether neglected, left only to the Priests, Readers, and 
 Singers who have to use them in the church ; while not one 
 family in a hundred possesses any one of them ; though news- 
 papers and other light and pernicious publications are multiply- 
 ing on all sides. 
 
 Of Discipline it may be enough to say that, with the obligation 
 of Confession to the Priest before Communicating existing nomi- 
 nally, as in the Roman Church, to Communicate thrice only in 
 the year is the general practice. And morals, to say the least, 
 appear to be in no better a state among the " Orthodox " than 
 in the civilized countries of the West ; while the higher classes, 
 who aspire to imitate Western civilization, show a strong ten- 
 dency to add infidelity to their immorality. 
 
 The abovementioned defects and scandals which would strike 
 
294 OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 a stranger are ofteu freely admitted by members of the Eastern 
 Church themselves, most commonly lightly, and as a sort of 
 excuse for irrcligiousness and general scepticism, but sometimes 
 with an appearance of serious desire that religion should again 
 become a living reality instead of an external superstition. Such 
 persons will commonly regret, and with reason, that the Ser- 
 vices of the Church are too lengthy to be performed becomingly; 
 and that, though they are in fact shortened in actual use in the 
 church to suit the convenience of the people, this is still done 
 in such a way as to leave the Priests burdened with the duty of 
 reading over all that is omitted, so that they who ought to lead 
 the people out of formalism are thus habituated to a profane 
 formalism themselves. Again, they observe that the Orientals 
 have ever been addicted to hyperbole, and to outward expressions 
 of affection and respect to a degree which of itself involves no 
 slight danger of hypocrisy : and that it is much to be regretted 
 that this natural excess should have been exaggerated by an in- 
 troduction of all the overgrown ceremonial of the Byzantine 
 Court into religion, and by its crystallization in the Church 
 even after the Byzantine Empire itself had ceased to exist. In 
 the same way they observe of the numerous Kanons or strings 
 of hymns, that though there is a great difference discernible 
 between the earlier and the later of such compositions, yet so 
 long as Christians were disposed to siny them (as they were in- 
 tended to be sung,) they might conduce to piety, and to the 
 heightening of religious feeling : but when, having no longer 
 time or disposition to sing them, they drop down from singing 
 to reading, and from reading again to gabbling in the church, 
 and from gabbling them over in the Service to requiring the 
 Priest to read or gabble them out of the Service as a perfunctory 
 duty, such things are worse than useless : they become a snare 
 to consciences, and a most pernicious abomination. Nor is it 
 a slight source of superstition that thus words and ideas which 
 were originally used freely in sacred poetry, and which were 
 appropriate, beautiful, and edifying when so used, come to be 
 misunderstood and misapplied in a gross sense when the poetry 
 has subsided into prose. Poetical addresses in Hymns come to 
 be taken as prose prayers : and prose prayers (which might be 
 useful if said with reverent attention, and with a spirit elevated 
 to God, whether addressed to Him directly, or indirectly through 
 
OF FORMALISM AS IMPUTED TO TUB EASTERN CHURCH. 295 
 
 His Saints,) become an unholy superstition when said with the 
 idea that the mere reciting them with the hps is an acceptable 
 service, and may obtain blessings to the reciter. 
 
 At the same time it must be remarked as another evil, that 
 most of those who, like Koriles, have once begun to allow them- 
 selves in such criticisms, and to propose schemes of curtailment 
 and reform, have gone too far ; and have shown a spirit tend- 
 ing directly not only to Protestantism, but .even beyond Pro- 
 testantism, to infidelity ; a spirit ail the more dangerous because 
 concealed under a great show of common sense, and critical 
 learning, and good intentions ; and because the evils which it 
 attacks, however they may be dissembled by some, are really 
 more or less felt to exist by all. 
 
 On the other hand, from traditionary prejudice and habit, 
 from a desire to approve themselves to the people, from regard 
 to personal and pecuniary interests, and from a sincere dread of 
 that Sadduceeism to which any admission of the ideas of criticism 
 or reformation seems to lead, the greater number take the side of 
 the Pharisees of old : and, without conceding an iota, defend 
 honestly or hypocritically the whole existing system, dead, rotten, 
 and crystallized though it be ; and are deaf to all arguments or 
 warnings pointing out the defects of their Communion, and 
 blind to all consequences of their obstinacy. 
 
 Meanwhile the enemy laughs, and triumphs. The educated 
 classes despise religion and the Church ; and as a matter of 
 course unite libertinism of practice with scepticism of belief. 
 " The nation,^^ it may indeed be replied, " is still sound in 
 Russia, and in Greece also.^^ And perhaps this is true. But 
 when we see only stationary ignorance and simplicity in the 
 lower classes on the side of religion, and on the other side the 
 powers of government, philosophy, art, science, literature, 
 education, commerce, and the natural bias of man towards 
 material good, we know how things must end. Either the Church 
 then must evolve from within herself a spirit and power 
 capable of regaining the upper classes of society, or some of 
 them, and arresting the spread of corruption among the lower, or 
 the spirit of the upper classes will assuredly spread downwards, 
 and the belief and practice of religion will gradually disappear in 
 proportion as wealth, civilization, and education come to be 
 shared by greater numbers. 
 
DISSERTATION XXI. 
 
 OF THE PARALLEL AND CONTRAST EXISTING BETWEEN THE 
 REFORMING SECTARIES OF THE WEST AND THE ANTI-RE- 
 FORMING SECTARIES OF THE EAST OF EUROPE. 
 
 The author of discord and of lies is consistent with himself only 
 in seeking to destroy the souls of men, and in fighting against 
 God. In other respects there is no unity nor consistency in the 
 principles and conduct which he suggests to his servants. And 
 for such men as can reflect there is no clearer exposure of error 
 and malice, nor any more persuasive recommendation of truth, 
 than the perception of that gross inconsistency and self-contra- 
 diction which marks the history of heresy and schism. 
 
 All men in the West of Europe, the partizans of the so- 
 called Reformation and its enemies alike, know from what causes 
 that vast movement originated ; namely from the revival of 
 Greek learning which followed upon the conquest of Constanti- 
 nople by the Turks, and from the invention of the art of print- 
 ing. But few know what a remarkable parallel and contrast to this 
 movement was exhibited about a century later by another move- 
 ment originating from the very same causes in Russia ; nor how 
 these two movements in the West and in the East and North of 
 Europe bear witness the one against the other, and so against 
 the evil spirit which prompted them both, and in favour of the 
 truth held in common by those two Churches or parts of the 
 Church against which they respectively rebelled. 
 
 In the West many of the people, and some even of the clergy, 
 intoxicated by the new light of the revival of learning, and 
 by the multiplication of printed books, especially of the 
 Divine Scriptures, and taking occasion from a certain corruption 
 of morals and relaxation of discipline, and from other abuses 
 
PARALLEL BETWEEN WESTERN AND RUSSIAN SECTS. 297 
 
 really prevalent, asserted that religion was corrupted even in its 
 essential doctrines. They had the Scriptures and the testimonies 
 of antiquity now in their own hands : they could read and judge 
 for themselves : and they demanded not only a reformation in 
 things superficial and secondary, but even an essential change. 
 And when in answer to this demand the Roman Pontiff and the 
 Bishops, with the Emperor of Germany and other Sovereigns, 
 objected that the true religion was a thing essentially unchange- 
 able ; and that if it had really been corrupted in such manner 
 as was alleged, it must have failed altogether, contrary to 
 Christ^s promise, and could never more be recovered or re- 
 formed ; and for this reason refused to yield what was demanded, 
 the people roared out like madmen that the Church had become 
 Babylon, and that the Pope was Antichrist, and separated them- 
 selves, and came out by millions. And this separation they 
 called a " Reformation," which upon the whole was distinguished 
 into two great sects or families of sects, differing both in spirit 
 and in outward forms the one from the other. For on the one 
 hand many millions followed Luther who was a Priest, though 
 apostate ; and these preserved in some measure the idea and 
 semblance of an outward religion, with Priesthood, Sacraments, 
 and ritual, as may still be seen among them in some parts, 
 especially in the Scandinavian peninsula. But the other half of 
 the Reformation, the Calvinistic, followed a man who was not 
 either Priest or Deacon, and whose temper and doctrine struck 
 at the root of all those externals which the older and more 
 moderate Lutherans, however inconsistently, retained. In con- 
 sideration of this difference between the two heresiarchs them- 
 selves, and between the two branches of the Reformation which 
 were named from them respectively, one may say that the more 
 moderate Reformation of Luther was in a certain loose sense 
 Presbyterian or Sacerdotal, while Calvinism was, comparatively 
 speaking, destitute of the idea of Presbytery or Priesthood. 
 
 In Russia also there had been some dark ages of ignorance 
 and comparative isolation, which were succeeded, as in the West, 
 by a gradual revival of learning consequent upon the capture of 
 Constantinople by the Turks, and the invention of the art of 
 printing. Sophia the heiress of the Palaeologi brought with her 
 to John III. of Moscow a rich library of Greek manuscript books. 
 
298 OF TUE PARALLEL AND CONTRAST EXISTING BETWEEN 
 
 And the learned monk Maximus, librarian for a time to her 
 son Basil Ivanovich, lived many years in Russia, contending 
 both by word of mouth and by writing against the ignorance 
 then prevalent. And when for his learning, and for his Chris- 
 tian boldness in the cause of truth and righteousness, he was 
 rewarded with long and cruel persecutions and imprisonment, 
 he found in the harshness of that rude and dark age an occasion 
 not for sowing divisions among others, but for obtaining sanctifi- 
 cation to himself. A contemporary of Luther and Calvin, he 
 left behind him his good name and his learned writings to bear 
 fruit and to lend a powerful aid towards a real Reformation in 
 another generation, when there should be a Russian Primate 
 and a Tsar capable of undertaking and effecting it. This was to 
 be a full century after his death, when it was already under- 
 stood how serviceable the art of printing might become to 
 religion, and when a beginning had already been made under 
 the Patriarch of Moscow Joseph of printing, though inaccurately, 
 the Slavonic Service-books of the Church. The Patriarch Nicon, 
 who succeeded Joseph in 1653, understood not only how im- 
 portant was the art of printing, but also how necessary was 
 sound learning in order to a right and profitable use of it. 
 Through the agency of clerks whom he sent into the Levant for 
 Ecclesiastical study and observation he procured an addition of 
 above 500 Greek books to those that were already at IMoscow ; 
 and at the same time he retained about himself learned Greeks 
 to assist in collating and translating books, for the printing of 
 which he kept two printing-presses employed under his own 
 direction. This Patriarch in the year 1656, with the concur- 
 rence of the Tsar Alexis Michaelovich, held a Synod of the Rus- 
 sian Bishops, and having collated the text of the Slavonic Service- 
 books and Rituals with the original Greek of the MSS. which 
 had been brought from the Levant, and having discovered many 
 corruptions, more or less considerable, in the received text, 
 printed for use in all the churches a corrected edition. For he 
 knew that though in essential doctrine and discipline the tra- 
 dition of the faith is unchangeable, still in secondary matters, 
 such as these were, there might be need of reformation ; and 
 that a correct printed text obtained by collation of the more 
 recent Slavonic MSS. with the older, and of both with the 
 
THE SECTARIES OF WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE. 299 
 
 original Greek, was to be preferred to one deformed by the 
 errors of copyists or by designed variations. But many of the 
 people hereupon, and some even of the clergy, insisted that 
 religion was unchangeable not only in its essence, but even in 
 such secondary matters as these. And when they were not 
 listened to, they roared out, like madmen, that the Church had 
 become Babylon, and that the Patriarch was Antichrist ; and 
 separated themselves, and came out by millions. And this 
 separation and refusal of all change or reformation they called a 
 preservation of the Old Faith and the Old Ceremonies. And 
 the whole Schism was divided and distinguished outwardly into 
 two great branches, different and even contrary the one to the 
 other. For on the one hand the greater branch or division, 
 though destitute of Bishops, preserved among themselves both 
 the idea and function and the reaUty of Priesthood, together 
 with the whole outward form of doctrine and ritual. But 
 the other great division, or family of divisions, had among 
 them neither Priests nor Deacons, but only a new and ir- 
 regular ministry of certain Preachers to whom no idea of any 
 sacerdotal character attached. And from this difference be- 
 tween the two great branches or families of the Anti-reforming 
 Schism the followers of the one were called " Popdfchins," that 
 is. Sectaries having Priests, and those of the other " Bez-popqf- 
 chins" that is, "Non-Presbyterians,'' or Sectaries having no 
 Priesthood. 
 
 The parallel between the Lutherans and the Calvinists of the 
 West and the "Popofchins " and " Bez-popofchins " of the East 
 of Europe holds good in this also, that though the principle or 
 pretext of the Anti-reforming Schism in Russia would have led 
 one to anticipate for all its sects, when once formed, a narrow 
 and bigoted conservatism (such as has in fact characterized the 
 " Popofchins,") that branch of it which dispensed with Priest- 
 hood has shown a proneness to further changes and subdivisions 
 more and more destructive of all outward religion, very analo- 
 gous to the downward developments of the Calvinistic Reforma- 
 tion in the West of Europe. 
 
 But the contrasts and the mutual denials or refutations of one 
 another's errors which are exhibited by the double-branched 
 Reformation of the West and the double-branched Anti-reform- 
 
300 OF THE PARALLEL AND CONTRAST EXISTING BETWEEN 
 
 ing Schism in Russia are no less curious and instructive than 
 are their parallels and resemblances. 
 
 In the West (to speak generally and upon the whole,) the 
 leaders of the Lutherans, who did not cast off altogether the 
 idea of Priesthood, finding that they had the Bishops against 
 them, and being only Priests themselves, took the liberty to 
 make fresh Priests or Pastors ; and for their justification they 
 maintained (in the Articles of Smalcald) that Priests and Bishops 
 are in fact one and the same Order, and that in case of necessity 
 a Priest may be ordained by Priests or Pastors only. 
 
 But, that a testimony might not be wanting against this error, 
 the corresponding branch of the Anti-Reformation, that is to 
 say, the " Old Believers," or " Old Ceremonialists " {Popofchins, 
 Staroviertsi, or Starobrdfsi) of Russia, being placed in precisely 
 similar circumstances, thinking Sacraments and Priests necessary, 
 but having the Bishops against them, and being hard pressed 
 what to do, though they had Priests among their first leaders, 
 and might probably have heard the fame of what the Lutherans 
 had done in Germany and Denmark, never admitted the idea of 
 an Ordination of fresh Clergy by Priests only. For not all the 
 Priests in the world, they said, without a Bishop, could make a 
 Priest, however pressing the necessity ; not though the ancient 
 Church (as they said was the case,) had apostatized and become 
 Babylon, and its Patriarch Antichrist. Yet Priests must be had: 
 for without Priests there could be no Sacraments. What then 
 was to be done ? The course on which they decided, and which 
 they continue to pursue even to the present day, was this : Who- 
 soever of the Priests of the old Church was known or suspected 
 by them to be discontented, or to be in danger of punishment 
 for any irregularit}', or to have been actually suspended or de- 
 prived, they would offer him such and such a stipend if he would 
 abandon that Church which they called Babylon, and join them, 
 and be their Priest. And when he consented, the Priests that 
 were among, them first put him to penance and gave him Abso- 
 lution for having belonged to the apostate Church, and then 
 used his ministrations because he had been Ordained by a Bishop, 
 and was a true Priest. So the true and spotless Church which 
 had preserved her purity by refusing all reformations, by retain- 
 ing and venerating the uncorrected MS. Service-books and the 
 
THE SECTARIES OF WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE. 301 
 
 oldest and blackest Tcous^ and by continuing to say " sua mise- 
 ricordid " for " tud miser icor did,'' witnesses not only against the 
 Bez-popofchins of Russia and the Calvinists of the West to the 
 necessity of Priesthood^but also most singularly and emphatically 
 against the Presbyterian Lutherans to the necessity of Episcopal 
 Ordination ; although by her tenaciousness of this truth she is 
 reduced to the necessity of depending for her own existence on 
 the Bishops of the apostacy, and accepting the very refuse of 
 their Priests for the service of her altars. 
 
 The Calvinistic lleformation in the West (to speak again gene- 
 rally and upon the whole,) having had a mere layman, Calvin, for 
 its Apostle and Doctor, could not make much advantage, even if it 
 had been more inclined that way, of the shift of the Lutherans 
 by pretending that Bishops and Priests are essentially but one Or- 
 der. Nevertheless, retaining some idea of the importance of 
 certain rites, and especially of two which they still called Sacra- 
 ments, the Calvinists found it necessary to settle for themselves 
 how the grace of Sacraments w^as to be obtained. And the 
 theory to which they had recourse was this : Dispensing with 
 sacerdotal benedictions and consecrations, and with the whole 
 ministry of the Apostolic clergy, they taught that under that 
 new state of things which their " Gospel " had introduced or 
 restored the true and efficacious, and the only necessary, conse- 
 crating or constitutive principle in Sacraments was the faith of 
 the individual receiver. 
 
 But, that a testimony against this error might not be wanting, 
 the corresponding branch of the Anti-Beformation of Russia, 
 the Bez-popofchins, being placed in precisely similar circum- 
 stances, having neither Bishops nor Priests of their own, and 
 considering it to be absurd and unbecoming for the pure Church 
 of the Gospel to depend for a succession of ordinary clergy 
 upon the apostacy which they named Babylon, and yet thinking 
 that Sacraments were necessary, were obliged to settle for them- 
 selves how Sacraments were to be had. But though they had 
 gone thus far with the Calvinists of the West, that the whole 
 ancient hierarchy, having become apostate, might be dispensed 
 with, and that the letter or form of antiquity must yield in case 
 of necessity to the spirit of the Gospel, they stopped short here ; 
 and, thinking Sacraments to be necessary, never admitted the 
 
30.2 OF Tin: PARALLEL AND CONTRAST EXISTING BETWEEN 
 
 idea that they could make Sacraments to themselves by an in- 
 ward act of their own minds. Not all the faith in the world, 
 they maintained, (unconsciously contradicting their brethren in 
 the West,) could make a Sacrament. For a Sacrament there 
 needs certain fixed elements, and certain words of consecration : 
 for consecration there needs a Priest : and for Priesthood there 
 needs Ordination by a Bishop. What then was to be done ? 
 The expedient to which they had recourse was this : They per- 
 suaded themselves that there had been preserved among them 
 Holy Mysteries (that is, one or more Hosts, smeared from the 
 Chahce and dried, as is usual for the Communion of the Sick,) 
 which had been validly consecrated before the old Church with 
 her hierarchy had apostatized and become Babylon. The Bles- 
 sed Sacrament thus preserved they took and mixed perpetually 
 with fresh dough and fresh wine, so as to multiply to any ex- 
 tent they pleased Oblations which were already consecrated even 
 before they were baked or kneaded. And thus they satisfy them- 
 selves that they have true Sacraments validly consecrated by 
 Priests Episcopally Ordained, without depending for Priests 
 (like the Popofchins) on the dead and apostate Church and hie- 
 rarchy which they call Babylon ; while they testify most singu- 
 larly and emphatically against the error of their brethren in 
 the West who have resolved not only the visible Church and the 
 Priesthood, but the consecration also and the essence itself of 
 Sacraments into faith. 
 
 In the West the separation of the Protestants and the Re- 
 formed, though prompted for evil by the enemy, has indirectly 
 been an advantage to the Church, and an occasion of real refor- 
 mation. Both in discipline and in morals, in learning, and in in- 
 tellectual and spiritual activity, the Latin or Roman-Catholic 
 Church has profited from the dangers, the losses, and the fierce 
 and incessant attacks to which she has been exposed : and she 
 presents now a very difi*erent aspect from that which she may 
 have seemed to wear before the Council of Trent, And in like 
 manner the separation of the Popofchins and the Bez-popofchins 
 in Russia in the seventeenth century, though prompted by the 
 enemy for evil, has been in truth only the accompaniment and 
 the attestation of the accomplishment of a far greater good. 
 For from the nature and magnitude of this schism we see clearly 
 
THE SECTARIES OF WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE. 303 
 
 the nature and magnitude of that danger which had previously 
 been growing upon the Russian Church (and through her upon 
 the whole Eastern Church) from within ; and what need there 
 was for that reformation which is now for ever connected with 
 the name of the Patriarch Nicon. If the Russian Church had 
 not then had the strength to cast out that spirit and leaven 
 which had long been working within her, she would have become 
 what the separation of the Popofchins was and is, a mere outward 
 Judaical superstition, a rite rather than a living and spiritual reli- 
 gion. And the power of life which was needed to make that refor- 
 mation which was made, and to cast out a spirit which was of 
 such long standing and so extensively prevalent, may be easily es- 
 timated by Anglicans, who have learned by recent experiences how 
 difficult or rather impossible it is among themselves, civilized, 
 educated, and enlightened though they may be, for reason or 
 legitimate authority to effect even the smallest reformation 
 against the narrow bigotry of popular custom. It is true that 
 Nicon was Antichrist in the eyes of the separatists, and true 
 that they had their revenge upon him in this world, when by a 
 union of their favourers with the wicked Boyars, and by the 
 fault of the Sovereign, and the subserviency of the Eastern Pa- 
 triarchs, he was deposed and imprisoned. But in all this the 
 serpent was in truth only biting the file to his own confusion. For 
 the fall of Nicon carried with it no condemnation nor reversal of 
 his great work. On the contrary it only gave additional weight, 
 and emphasis, and confirmation to his reforms. And it exhibited 
 to the world and to posterity a contrast which deserves to be 
 studied by the admirers of Luther and Calvin : a true Re- 
 former : not a man of inferior station exciting the people with 
 bitter invective against dignities, but a Bishop, the Primate of a 
 great empire, taking the lead, according to his duty, in intro- 
 ducing just and necessary reforms; and then, when unjustly 
 condemned and degraded even from his Orders by a confederacy 
 of all parties, and of all the forms of outward authority, the 
 Boyars, the Hierarchy, the Tsar, the Eastern Patriarchs, and a 
 Synod representing the whole Eastern Communion, not inveigh- 
 ing against his enemies, not countenancing separation from that 
 Church which seemed to be a party to the injustice, but unbend- 
 ingly maintaining the truth, praying for them that wronged 
 
304 PARALLEL BETWEEN WESTERN AND RUSSIAN SECTS. 
 
 him, and offering them Absolution when they should repent, 
 taking upon himself to do penance for the public sins, and ad- 
 ding to the rigours of his imprisonment the voluntary austeri- 
 ties of an ascetic Saint. If a Protestant would wish to know 
 how any really religious man, a Priest like Luther, or a layman 
 like Calvin, advocating a reformation within bounds, and un- 
 justly condemned and persecuted by the authorities of the 
 outward Church and State, ought to have acted, he may find 
 something to correct his ideas in the life of this Russian 
 Patriarch. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 AN ENUMERATION OF CERTAIN THINGS WHICH SEEM TO BE 
 DESIRABLE FOR THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH. 
 
 I. That the discrepancy now existing between the Greek and 
 Russian Churches as to Baptisms administered by heretics or by 
 lay people, or otherwise than by trine immersion, should be 
 done away, either i. By the decree of some joint Synod : 
 or II. By separate decrees, to be made after mutual correspon- 
 dence on each of the two sides : or iii. By the Greek Patriarchs 
 reprinting and publishing the Synodal and Patriarchal decisions 
 of their Church on this subject, and letting the older and more 
 authoritative of them tacitly supplant the later and less authori- 
 tative as a rule for practice : or lastly iv. By the Greeks adopt- 
 ing a Conditional Form for rebaptizing such proselytes as the 
 Russians do not rebaptize, or allowing a conditional sense to be 
 attached to the existing Form, as is suggested above at p. 1 76. 
 
 II. That the discrepancy now existing between the Greek and 
 Russian Churches as to the number of Degrees of Consanguinity 
 and Affinity within which intermarriage is forbidden, should be 
 done away. 
 
 III. That the discrepancy now existing between the Greek 
 and Russian Churches on the subject of Mixed Marriages should 
 be done away. 
 
 IV. That the discrepancy now existing between the Calendars 
 of the Easterns and the Westerns should be done away by the 
 Easterns adopting the corrected Calendar or New Style, which 
 might be done almost imperceptibly, if they made every year to 
 be a Leap Year until the Calendars coincided. 
 
 V. That the discrepancy now existing between the Greek and 
 the Latin computations of Easter should be done away by the 
 
 X 
 
30G CERTAIN THINGS WHICH SEEM DESIRABLE 
 
 Greeks aclo})ting for the future the more accurate computations 
 and Tables of the Lathis. 
 
 VI. That the use of pubhc Excommunication and pubUc 
 Penance shoukl be restored in the case of sins that have been 
 scandalous and pubhc. 
 
 VII. That such Christians as are judged fit by their Confes- 
 sors should be encouraged and exhorted to more frequent Com- 
 munion : and that, in order to facilitate the more frequent 
 Communion of such persons, the customary formal preparation, 
 by a week's fasting and daily attendance at the Services of the 
 Church, should be modified at the discretion of the Confessor ; 
 as is indeed not unfrequently done. 
 
 VIII. That a Rule or Tv-ttikov like that of the Patriarchal 
 Church at Constantinople should be made for parish churches 
 in Russia, directing how the full monastic Services of the Church- 
 books, especially the Readings and Singings, may be abbreviated 
 in such churches. Also, that the Priest should be relieved from 
 the obligation of reading over all that is omitted from the abbrevi- 
 ated Service, not only when the Service is abbreviated at will in 
 a private house, but also when the Service abbreviated according 
 to the shorter Typicon is used in a church. 
 
 IX. That it should be required of all who read anything in 
 the church to read distinctly and reverently ; and that the 
 Readers and Clerks should be trained to do this : and, if good 
 Readers are not to be found, that some of the Priests or Deacons 
 themselves, or some religious layman of education, should read; 
 or even that the reading should be omitted altogether, rather 
 than that anything should be gabbled over profanely. 
 
 X. That directions should be given with respect to Fasting 
 to guide those whose health or duties, or other circumstances, or 
 residence among aliens in religion, may render some relaxation 
 necessary or reasonable : As, for instance, if it were allowed that 
 such as may be living with Latins should follow the Roman- 
 Catholic rule for the place or country, instead of neglecting the 
 Fast altogether because it may be difficult to observe it after the 
 Greek manner : And if for the three lesser Fasts, before the Na- 
 tivity of our Lord, before the Festival of the Apostles, and be- 
 fore that of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, the fasting of 
 one week only before each should be made obligatory (as was 
 
FOR THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH. 307 
 
 the case in former ages,) tlie observance of the whole period now 
 customary being left to everyone's own will and devotion. 
 
 XI. That education both of the Clergy and laity, and of girls 
 as well as boys, should be more generally extended ; and that 
 the knowledge of the Church Books, and especially of the Cate- 
 chism, should be made a primary part of it. 
 
 XII. That the Holy Scriptures and the Service-books of the 
 Church should be printed in portable editions in the vulgar dia- 
 lect of each country, both alone, and in parallel columns with 
 the original text : or, where the difference between the original 
 and the modern language is small, with such glosses and notes 
 as may be necessary at the foot of each page. 
 
 XITI. That the foundation of Monasteries, both of men and 
 women, should be encouraged, and full permission given to 
 monks to possess and cultivate lands, subject to no other inter- 
 ference on the part of the Government than such as all other 
 proprietors are liable to. 
 
 XIV. That some Monasteries should be more especially con- 
 stituted and directed to particular ends, over and above the 
 general end of the monastic life : as to the purposes of particu- 
 lar Missions, of Education, of particular good works of mercy, 
 as also to agriculture, and the settlement of uninhabited districts. 
 
 XV. That, on a just occasion occurring, the Empire of the 
 Infidels should be overthrown, and the regions of the East re- 
 gained to Christianity. 
 
 XVI. That the Patriarchate, or personal primacy, m the 
 Russian Church should be restored, according to the require- 
 ments of the Apostolical and (Ecumenical Canons; and that 
 just liberty should be allowed the Patriarch or Primate and the 
 other Bishops to hold Synods, and to make Canons in spiritual 
 matters ; to hold and manage real property with the same free- 
 dom as other proprietors ; and to appoint, pay, and remove, their 
 own officers ; as was the case before the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century in Russia. Or, if the present synodal govern- 
 ment be retained, that at least the constitution of the M. H. Synod 
 should be corrected in some such way as that in which the Patri- 
 arch and Synod of Constantinople in 1850 attempted to correct 
 and reconstitute, with the concurrence of the Civil Government 
 of Greece, the Holy Synod of the Church in that Kmgdom. 
 
 X 
 
308 CERTAIN THINGS MHICH SEEM DESIKABLE 
 
 XVII. That the same reparation which was made to St. John 
 Chrysostom and to St. Philip MetropoUtan of Moscow after 
 their deaths by the successors of those Sovereigns who had sinned 
 against God and the Church by persecuting them should be 
 made also to the memory of the Russian Patriarch Nicon ; and 
 that his name should be added in the Liturgy to those of the 
 holy jNIetropolitans Peter, Alexis, Jonah, and Philip. 
 
 XVIII. That the inconsistency existing at present in the 
 Books and Canon Law of the Eastern Church, and in the 
 thoughts and language of her members, respecting the definition 
 of the visible Catholic Church should be done away: and that 
 it should be made clear that the Eastern Church pretends no 
 more for herself than to be k part of the whole (as her very name 
 implies,) and admits the Latin Church to be also a part ; and 
 desires the correction in some secondary matters, not the radi- 
 cal conversion or destruction, of this latter. 
 
 XIX. That the mission and duty of the true and orthodox 
 Church to preach and communicate Christianity to all nations, 
 and perfect Christianity to all Churches, nations, or individuals 
 which already profess Christianity but with more or less admix- 
 ture of error, should be more generally understood and taught 
 among the Easterns ; and that a spirit should arise among them 
 prompting them to a better fulfilment of this duty. 
 
 XX. That with regard to such as are already Christians the 
 following principle should be laid down and acted upon ; That 
 the Orthodox Church should not call upon them to condemn or 
 renounce anythmg that is in itself true, or good, or indifferent, 
 of what they have, or suppose themselves to have, already ; nor 
 prohibit the retention of anything in itself good or harmless, to 
 which even individual proselytes have been accustomed ; nor 
 impose unnecessarily any new burden to which they have been 
 unaccustomed ; but should make them renounce only what is false 
 or evil, filling up their Christianity hitherto imperfect so as to 
 make it conformable not to any Greek, or Russian, or Eastern 
 type, but to the (Ecumenical Creed, and discipline, and tradition. 
 
 XXI. That there should be maintained at Rome, in connec- 
 tion with the Russian Legation, one or two learned Ecclesiastics 
 charged with the duty of studying carefully those questions 
 which seem to be cither doctrinally or politically obstacles to 
 
FOR THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH. 309 
 
 uuion ; of labouring to discover some way to remove or lessen 
 such obstacles, or some of them, or some one of them ; of making 
 from time to time to the Roman See and its theologians such 
 representations or explanations as they may be able to make, or 
 may be instructed to make, towards the facilitation of union ; 
 and of seeking or receiving from the Roman side similar com- 
 munications tending to the same end. 
 
 XXII. That the origin and history of the expressions " Filio- 
 que " and " e Filio procedere," and the gradual growth or de- 
 velopment of the doctrine of the " Double Procession " within 
 the Latin Church, should be more fully investigated : and that 
 all those texts of Latin Fathers and writers in which either the 
 language or the doctrine occurs should be collected, and critically 
 examined, so that the work of Zoernikaflf (who has exhausted 
 the subject so far as relates to the Greek Fathers, but has left 
 something still to be done in respect of the Latin Fathers,) may 
 be completed. 
 
 XXIII. That the Eastern Church should again, in accordance 
 with the judgment of Theophylact Archbishop of Bulgaria, offer 
 Communion to individual Latins, whether of the clergy or laity, 
 on condition only of their being willing to recite the Creed 
 without the interpolation, and to look forward to the final settle- 
 ment of that and other controversies with an implicit submission 
 of mind to a future (Ecumenical Synod. 
 
 XXIV. That Missions or permanent religious stations for ob- 
 taining accurate information, as well as for communication and 
 action, should be established in connection with Russian civil 
 authority or protection among or near all those communities 
 which though heretical have preserved the organisation of 
 Churches : such as are i. the Nestorians in the mountains of 
 Kurdistan, betvveen Mosul and Oormiah ; ii. the Armenians, 
 whose chief sanctuary of Etchmiadzin is now within the Russian 
 territory; iii. the Syrian Jacobites near Mardin; iv. the Copts 
 of Egypt ; and v. the Abyssinians. The duty of the mission- 
 aries in respect of each of these Churches should he first, to learn 
 thoroughly the Ecclesiastical dialect, and study accurately the 
 doctrine and ritual of each, so as to be able, secondly, to suggest 
 for approval to the authorities of the Orthodox Church that pre- 
 cise correction of the ritual of each Church, with the least possi- 
 
3J0 CERTAIN THINGS WHICH SEEM DESIRABLE 
 
 ble change, wliich may be necessary in order to bring it into 
 conformity with the (Ecumenical Creed, discipline, and tradition : 
 And, such correction of the Ritual having been determined, 
 then thirdhj to admit to the Communion of the Orthodox Church 
 any Christians, whether coming as individuals or in bodies, who 
 will accept such a correction of their ritual, and withdraw for 
 the future from Communion in prayers and Sacraments with 
 others who refuse to accept it. 
 
 XXV. That the same should be done in the West in relation 
 to the Anglican Church ; and that, if possible, separately in 
 England, Scotland, and America, as the circumstances of the 
 Anglican Communion are somewhat different in each of these 
 Countries : Only, in these countries, the Orthodox Missions 
 should be free from all suspicion of dependence upon any poli- 
 tical Legation, Consulate, or agency of Russia. And the mis- 
 sionaries themselves should become citizens of the country in 
 which they are to labour. 
 
 XXVI. That something of the same hind should be done in 
 relation to the Lutherans of Finland, either by a Mission in con- 
 nection with the Russian Government, or directly by the Minis- 
 ter of State for the Tolerated Religions. For the Lutherans of 
 Finland, like those of Sweden and Norway, having retained the 
 outward form of the Ecclesiastical organisation, (though destitute 
 of a real hierarchy,) and something like a ritual, and ascribing 
 (according to the principles of Lutheranisra) a " super-episcopal" 
 power to the civil ruler in all that relates to the outward form 
 of religion, the Emperor of Russia might, without any violation 
 of their consciences, use prudently this power ; and might desire 
 of them from time to time to consider whether there were not 
 any points of ritual, however small, in which they could approxi- 
 mate towards the Orthodox Church. And thus, not at once, 
 but gradually, either the whole body might become capable of 
 union ; or at least the nucleus would be formed for an Orthodox 
 Finnish Rite, which w^ould have great facilities for the conversion 
 of such as remained still attached to Lutheranism. 
 
 XXVIL That for all proselytes from Lutheran and Calvinistic 
 or other sects some short and simple form of union should be 
 adopted, like that by which the Russian Church now reconciles 
 native Russian schismatics, the proselyte by no means renoun- 
 
FOR THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH. 311 
 
 cing his former sect in the concrete, so as to seem to himselt 
 or to others to deny or disavow any good thing or any truth 
 which he had received through it, but merely renouncing all 
 heresies, and particularly those of his former sect, and its Commu- 
 nion, and professing to believe all that the (Ecumenical Councils 
 and the Catholic Church have delivered, and being Baptized or 
 conditionally rebaptized, if he was either altogether unbaptized 
 before, or it seemed uncertain whether he had been Baptized 
 with the invocation of the Three Persons of the Trinity and 
 with water which actually touched him. 
 
 XXVIII. That Missions should be established among the 
 heathen of China, India, and Japan, the missionaries in these 
 cases also becoming subjects of the Governments within the 
 territories of which they are to labour ; and the ritual of the 
 Eastern Church being given to the converts to use in their own 
 tongue unclogged with irreverent gabblings or accumulations of 
 dead and barren forms ; that is to say, reduced in its dimen- 
 sions by the omission of all that is now either practically omitted 
 or irreverently hurried over in the Greek and Russian churches, 
 and of all mere local or national peculiarities, as of singings and 
 legends which refer to local Russian, or Greek, or Georgian 
 Saints, or wonders, which are not of oecumenical importance. 
 
 XXIX. That some central Missionary Establishment should 
 be created, as in the Crimea, or at Tiflis, or on Mount Athos, 
 which should be under the direction of the Russian Primate and 
 his Synod, or of a mixed commission named by him and by the 
 Greek Patriarchs ; the first Missions sent from thence being mo- 
 nastic, but their efforts being directed to establish as soon as 
 possible, each in its own sphere of labour, a native Rite, with its 
 own secular Clergy and Schools in connection with Orthodoxy. 
 
 Two things still more to be desired than all the above shall 
 be treated of separately in the next Section. 
 
DISSERTATION XXIII. 
 
 OF THE DUTY OF MAKING SPECIAL CONCERTED PRAYERS FOR 
 THE REUNION OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES : 
 AND OF A FUTURE (ECUMENICAL SYNOD. 
 
 It is written in the Psalms " God is He that maketh men to be 
 of one mind in the house ;" and again^ " Behold, how good and 
 pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity !" 
 This divine concord of men in the House, this dwelUng together 
 of brethren in unity, wliich is so good and lovely, began with 
 the House itself, that is, with the Church itself, from the 
 descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, from that 
 Baptism in which all other Sacraments were contained. Then 
 the tongues which had once been divided and stiffened separately 
 into confusion and discord, were blended together again by 
 elastic and multiform fire, which was cloven without being 
 divided : and the nations which had once been scattered abroad 
 from the tower of Babel were called together again to the foot 
 of the Ladder of Jacob. The New Jerusalem, the "city of 
 peace," began to rise from the ruins of Egypt, Canaan, and 
 Babylon : and for nine hundred years, or thereabouts, the unity 
 of the Church was plainly visible to the world. 
 
 Now however it is otherwise. We hear of " the Churches," no 
 longer of " the Church." " Orthodoxy " is distinguished from 
 "Catholicism," and Catholicism from Orthodoxy. Common sense, 
 (so it is said at least,) learning, science, and the Bible, from both. 
 " Spiritual religion " is opposed to " dogmatism," and to "formal 
 and sacramental worship," and they to it. The Tomb of Christ, 
 and the Eastern half of the Christian world, have for many 
 centuries been in the hands of infidels, who alone prevent the 
 Greeks and Latins and Armenians from tearing each other in 
 
OF CONCERTED PRAYERS FOR UNITY, ETC. 313 
 
 pieces on that Calvary where Christ spread His arms from the 
 Cross to all nations, and on that Mount Sion where the Holy 
 Ghost came down to turn discord into love. 
 
 What is to be the end of these scandals ? or what is their 
 remedy ? The Latin looks perhaps to the zeal and training of 
 his missionaries, and to the political influence of France in the 
 Levant : the Greek, unless blinded by narrow jealousies, looks to 
 the growing power of Russia. But perhaps the best way for 
 all to learn how unity is to be restored may be by considering 
 how it was first obtained. 
 
 What then on the side of men were the conditions under 
 which unity was first given ? They were these : Men already 
 prepared, the Apostles and other disciples, in whom the whole 
 future Church and her hierarchy were contained, "together 
 with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus," were abiding- 
 together with one accord in one place, in the Upper Chamber of 
 the last Mystical Supper, on Mount Sion. They were abiding- 
 together there, with one accord, and in prayer. 
 
 Christians then, it would seem, should now also be together 
 with one accord in the church, their Sion, and in the sanctuary, 
 their Upper Chamber ; and should pray for the restoration of 
 their primitive unity. 
 
 It will be replied by Greeks, and indeed by Anglicans also, 
 that this is what their respective Churches already do. And 
 the Greek will quote from the Prayers of his Church such ex- 
 pressions as these : " For the peace of the holy Churches of 
 God, and for the union of all :'"" "And grant us with one mouth 
 and one heart to praise and magnify Thy glorious Name," ^c. : 
 and from the Hymns such as these to the Archangel : " Smite 
 down the haughty rage of the Hagarenes which unintermittingly 
 attacks thy flock : Lull to calm the schisms of the Church," ^c. 
 " Gabriel now again announces glad tidings, the union of the 
 Churches, and the overthrow of all opposing heresy :^' " The heresies 
 in the Church and all scandals do ye extinguish by your interces- 
 sions :" ''Kill the sources of the storms of passions, and so with 
 them put an end to all offences relating to the faith." 
 
 That such passages are contained in the ritual as these, which 
 every one may well a})ply in his heart to the present division of 
 the Churches, even though the passages have not historically 
 
314 OF CONCERTED PRAYERS FOR UNITY, AND OF 
 
 any such application, is, no doubt, a great blessing. But still, 
 if we consider, we shall see that the existence of such passages in 
 the ritual, and their private application by some Christians in a 
 particular sense, is not enough of itself to make the wall of sepa- 
 ration to fall down. 
 
 Our Lord says " Whatsoever thing two or three of you shall 
 agree together to ask in my name, it shall he done for you of my 
 Father which is in heaven." So then, firstly, there must be a 
 definite thing asked : Secondly, it must be asked not separately 
 by individuals in their hearts, whether in public or in private 
 prayer, but by two or three at the least who have first agreed 
 together to seek the same thing, and to unite their prayers in 
 seeking it : Thirdly, it must be asked in the Name of Christ. 
 
 Now with regard to the fiist of these requisites, that the 
 petition must be distinct and definite, this is evident of itself; 
 for unless it be so, it cannot be made the subject of previous 
 agreement. Nor will a general petition for unity, any more 
 than for grace, or for repentance, obtain effectually all those 
 particulars which may seem to be virtually comprehended under 
 it. It may do so indeed so far as the heart is }3erfect towards 
 God, and is not improperly inattentive to any thing which 
 ought to fix its attention, and to be made the subject of par- 
 ticular prayer. But so far as this is not the case, a general 
 prayer is at the best barren, or more probably even sinful, being- 
 used as a means of self-deception, not in order to include 
 effectually what seems to be contained under it, but in order to 
 avoid thinking distinctly and particularly about particulars 
 which are distinctly disagreeable : as in the following example, 
 
 A child has perhaps been taught to pray generally to God to 
 " bless his father and mother and brothers and sisters, and to 
 bless himself also, and to make him a good child :" which in- 
 cludes in one general form all that he can desire either for them 
 or for himself. But he has been stubborn or envious, and is 
 told by his parents to be sorry for his sin, and to pray to God 
 to forgive him, and to make him humble and obedient and 
 affectionate for the future. This, so long as he is under the in- 
 fluence of evil, he will not do. But perhaps he will not like 
 either to confess to himself that he is so bad a child as to be un- 
 fit and unable even to pray. So he will kneel down, and will 
 
A FUTURE (ECUMENICAL SYNOD. 315 
 
 say the same general prayers which he has the habit, more or 
 less mechanical, of repeating ; and will even think perhaps (if he 
 think at all,) that they contain all that his parents have bidden 
 him to pray for ; and will wish generally that they may have 
 their effect, and that at some future time he may be a good boy. 
 Every one can see what is the nature of such a child's general 
 prayer ; and how unacceptable it must be in the sight of God. 
 
 Just the same is the use now often made controversially in the 
 divided Greek and Anglican Churches of those general prayers 
 for unity which either are older than their separation from the 
 Roman Church, or, even if later, have properly and historically 
 no reference to it ; and which are put forward only to avoid 
 thinking closely, or seeking to feel and act rightly, with regard 
 to the separation and its causes. 
 
 If people were in earnest, every Christian should at the least 
 individually pray every day some such prayer as this : " O God, 
 heal the divisions of the Latin and the Greek and other particular 
 Churches: and make me to think humbly and reasonably and 
 piously and rightly on those points in particular which now seem 
 to divide them ; especially on the unity, visibility, and universality 
 of the Church, on the supremacy claimed by the Roman See, on 
 the procession of the Holy Spirit ;" ^r. &^r. (dwelling, mentally 
 at least, on each of those chief points which he knows to be 
 causes of division,) " through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.'' 
 The habit of saying such a prayer would at any rate be salutary 
 for the individual (whether Greek or Anglican,) and would tend 
 to lessen the danger of his sharing personally in the guilt of 
 perpetuating or deepening any error or schism. 
 
 But for the restoration of unity between the Churches the 
 prayer of individuals is not enough. Christians must " agree 
 together " to ask it, and must ask it unitedly, if they would 
 obtain it. For it is more than the removal of mountains, more 
 than the casting out of many fierce and strong devils. There is 
 however such a promise to the concerted and united prayer even 
 of tivo or three, that if there be only two or three souls in the 
 Greek or Orthodox Church which have the grace given them to 
 suffer pain from the existing division, and to sigh after unity, 
 they ought to seek one another out, and agree to ask it in con- 
 cert, that is, at the same time and in the same words, and if 
 
316 Ol' CONCERTED PRAYERS FOR UNITY, AND OF 
 
 possible also iu the same place. As it is written of individuals 
 under somewhat similar circumstances in the older Dispensation, 
 that " Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another ; 
 and the Lord hearkened and heard it ; and a book of remembrance 
 was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and that 
 thought upon His Name." — Malachi iii. 16. 
 
 But though even two or three can pray in concert, and are 
 encouraged to do so, even though they be lay people, or women, 
 or children, yet when the thing prayed for concerns the Church 
 it must not be forgotten that the lesser duty implies the greater. 
 If a promise is given to the united prayer even of two or three 
 lay people, much more is the same promise given to the united 
 prayers of two or three or many Clergy ; and more still to that 
 concerted and united prayer which is made with the spirit and 
 with the understanding by the Bishop the Priests and the 
 Deacons, with the whole local Church, celebrating all together 
 the Divine Liturgy ; and most of all to the united prayer of the 
 whole Apostolic Company, that is, to a Synod of the Bishops 
 themselves. They were the Apostles chiefly, who were abiding 
 together in prayer in the Upper Chamber on Mount Sion, when 
 the Holy Spirit of unity first came down on their company, 
 and filled the House : And the promise of Christ respecting 
 the efficacy of prayer was addressed directly and in the first 
 instance to the Apostles, " Whatsoever thing two or three of 
 you," that is, " of you or your successors,'^ and to the rest who 
 '^should believe through their word" only indirectly, and 
 through them. In whatever degree then it is a duty for even 
 two or three of the Greek laity who seek the peace of Jerusalem 
 to find one another out, and to pray together in concert for it, 
 in the same and in a still higher degree is it the duty of every 
 Priest and Clerk within his sphere, of every Bishop in his 
 diocese, and most of all of every Synod of Bishops, and of every 
 Archbishop or Patriarch, who with the Bishops nearest to him 
 represents the whole Synod of any great or independent portion 
 of the Church. 
 
 Some labourers for peace in the West have suggested that on 
 every Thursday at the Mass or Liturgy Christians should say a 
 special prayer for unity, and join in ihc Holy Oblation with that 
 intention : and many different ways might be concerted : nor 
 
A FUTURE (ECUMENICAL SYNOD. 317 
 
 need they be everywhere the same. For members of the Eastern 
 Church one very simple and easy method vvoidd be the follow- 
 ing : That a few individuals, whoever they were that were first 
 moved to it, should agree to wear round their necks over their 
 outer clothing a little cross (such as are brought from Mount 
 Athos and Jerusalem,) in token of mutual concert, and for the 
 sake of mutual recognition, whenever they attend the public 
 Service of the Church, and especially the Liturgy • And that at 
 the words, " For the peace of the holy Churches of God, and Jor 
 the union of all : " at the words " For whomsoever {or whatsoever) 
 each one present hath in his thoughts:'' and again at the Excla- 
 mation by the Celebrant at the end of the most solemn interces- 
 sions after the Consecration of the Mysteries : " And grant us 
 all with one heart and ivith one mouth," &c., they should each 
 think of the existing divisions of the universal Church, and pray 
 distinctly in their minds for the restoration of unity, especially 
 between the Orthodox and the Latins, the Eastern Patriarchs and 
 the Pope of the Elder Rome. 
 
 If there is any one place or time rather than another at which 
 one might properly wish to see such prayers offered by a Bishop 
 Con-celebrating with his clergy and people, or rather by a Synod 
 of Bishops, it would doubtless be in the Cenacle on Mount Sion 
 at Jerusalem (now unhappily in the hands of the infidels,) and 
 on the Day itself of Pentecost. And something answering to 
 this might in truth be possible for the Bishop and his clergy in 
 the cathedral church of each diocese, and even for a Synod of 
 Bishops in the chief Patriarchal churches, (at least in those of 
 Constantinople and Jerusalem) where there are always a certain 
 number of Bishops residing on the spot, and forming a lesser 
 permanent Synod to represent the larger Synod of the whole 
 absent Episcopate. 
 
 With this idea, in the summer of 1850, a member of the Or- 
 thodox Eastern Church presented to the Patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople Anthimus the following petition : 
 
 " Seeins: that the Catholic or universal Church of Christ 
 has now for many ages been divided into two great hostde 
 conununities excommunicating each other, and that from this 
 first schism have followed many other lesser divisions of here- 
 sies and schisms, with cruel hatreds and jealousies ; so that now 
 
318 OF CONCERTED PRAYERS FOR UNITY, AND OF 
 
 at tlie very Tomb of our Saviour, and around Mount Sion, the 
 birthplace of Christianity, is heard rather the confused discord 
 of Babel than the harmony in many tongues of the Paraclete, 
 while the Easterns accuse the Latins of heterodoxy, without 
 showing any very ardent zeal or charity for their conversion, 
 and the Latins on the other hand send their missionaries among 
 the Orthodox, preaching to them new doctrines unknown to 
 their Fathers, and contending with them for the possession of 
 the Holy Places, 
 
 " Certain Christians, who do not wish their names to be pub- 
 lished, petition Your Holiness that you would be pleased to 
 appoint that this year, and every succeeding year henceforth, on 
 one day, the Day of Pentecost, at the least, there be celebrated a 
 Synodical Liturgy of the Bishops with special prayers for the 
 return of the Latins and other Westerns to perfect Orthodoxy, 
 and generally for the. return of all who call themselves Christians 
 towards the faith and zeal and charity of the first ages : that He 
 who on the Day of Pentecost by the descent of cloven tongues of 
 fire on the synodof His Apostles recalled the dispersed and jarring 
 nations into unity, may be pleased even now also, in these last days, 
 to hear the synodical prayers of the Hierarchy, and to grant some 
 renewal of that divine outpouring of the Spirit, commensurate 
 to the evils which oppress the Church : that so we, with all who 
 so much as name the Name of Christ, may with one heart and 
 one voice glorify His great and holy Name, of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen." 
 
 Lastly, it is necessary to bear in mind that not only must 
 the thing itself, that is, the reunion of the Churches, be dis- 
 tinctly desired by two or three at least, and made the object of 
 prayer by agreement between them, but this concerted prayer 
 must be continued persevcringly. When our Lord said " What- 
 soever two or three of you shall agree together to ask," the word 
 "ask" did not mean only to ask once, but with such earnest- 
 ness, and such other accompaniments, and such perseverance 
 also, as are suitable. And if even for personal requests perse- 
 verance is necessary, (as in the parables of the man seeking 
 bread at night from his friend, and of the widow importuning 
 the unjust judge till she wearies him,) much more is it neces- 
 sary in order to the obtaining of such great mercies for the 
 
A FUTURE (ECUMENICAL SYNOD. 319 
 
 whole Church as the healing of schisms which have grown and 
 strengthened themselves for many ages. The Apostles and 
 their company in the upper chamber on Mount Sion did not 
 merely pray once, and receive in return the promise of the Fa- 
 ther ; but they were there all together continuing in prayer 
 {■Trpoa-xapTSf^ouvTSi,) and waiting for the time of God's good plea- 
 sure to obtain what they prayed for. And so now, if there were 
 only two or three, children or women, it might be, if Patriarchs 
 and Bishops are unwilling, who had grace given them to think 
 such a thought, and to agree together to pray for union, they 
 should look forward, not to any immediate sensible result, but 
 to the probability of their having to pass their whole lives in the 
 habitual practice of this concerted intercession, having the com- 
 fort perhaps of being joined gradually by more and more indi- 
 viduals whose hearts God should touch, but leaving their prayers 
 and the association which had begun with them to be continued 
 after their deaths, even if they lived long, in a future generation ; 
 and that not with any the less trust of being heard and of ob- 
 taining the result in the end. If this is the will of God, there 
 will be souls found among the members of the Orthodox or Eas- 
 tern Church which He will move to devote themselves to such 
 prayer. And though it may seem too great a thing for an in- 
 dividual soul, or for two or three individual souls, to seek with 
 such faith, "believing that they shall obtain,^' as to enable 
 them to obtain it, yet they may consider for their encouragement 
 that if only they have the grace to wish to do it, they cannot be 
 wrong in uniting to pray for that for which their Saviour Him- 
 self pi-ayed so earnestly on the night of His agony, namely, that all 
 they who should believe on Him (that is now, who have believed 
 on Him) through the word of the Apostles may be one, as the 
 Father is in Him and He in the Father, that they also may 
 even so be one in the Father and the Son : that the world may 
 believe and know that the Father hath sent the Son, and loves 
 the Church, even as He loves the Son. Also there is a saying 
 of our Lord which has been preserved to us by an early tradi- 
 tion, though not written, at least not in these words, which they 
 that have the grace will do well to meditate upon, " Ask the 
 things that are greater, and the lesser shall he added unto ijouP 
 And if we are to do thus in asking for ourselves, then, no doubt. 
 
320 OF CONCERTED PRAYERS FOR UNITY, AND OF 
 
 also in our intercessions for others, and for the whole brotherhood. 
 And something of the satne kind is suggested when we are 
 taught that such a very little faith, " as a grain of mustard seed." 
 is all that is required to move mountains and cast them into the 
 sea, or to pluck up sycamore trees {or' fr trees) by the roots, ef 
 fects which seem to our natural apprehensions quite as im- 
 probable as a reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches. 
 
 But supposing the duty of prayer, and united prayer, for the 
 restoration of unity to be admitted, and acted upon by some at 
 least, however few at first, among the Clergy and other members 
 of the Eastern Church, it may be asked whether there are not also 
 some human means to which they should look under Divine 
 Providence for bringing about their desire ? And to this ques- 
 tion every well-informed Christian will reply that what men 
 must look forward to and desire, and move one another to desire 
 and prepare for, is an (Ecumenical Council. 
 
 Difficult and almost impossible as the undertaking to reunite 
 the Churches so long divided may seem, there are circumstances 
 which seem to promise that a time is approaching when a Coun- 
 cil, if convoked, may more easily meet, and may deliberate with 
 more independence and liberty than before ; and when civil Po- 
 tentates and spiritual Primates will have stronger reasons for 
 sincerely seeking union on the basis of truth and charity. 
 
 On the one hand the power of the Russian Empire and the ex- 
 tent of the Eastern Church is likely to become such, that the Rus- 
 sian Emperor may at the least concur as an equal with the King- 
 dom of Italy, and with other Powers of the West, if not take an 
 absolute lead, in the convocation of the future Council. This 
 alone will secure to its deliberations a real liberty and indepen- 
 dence, such as no Council attended merely by distressed Greeks 
 on the territory of Latin strangers, and under their power, and 
 importuned by their own Sovereign for his political necessities, 
 could ever have. The two parties will for once meet as equals. 
 Nor, however great may have been the extension of the Eastern 
 Church, or the exaltation of the Russian power, will there be 
 any fear lest the Eastern Church should be in a i)osition to de- 
 mand or usurp more than her just voice and influence, as an 
 important but subordinate jsar/ in the whole. On the contrary, 
 the Russian Emperor will have strong political reasons for de- 
 
A FUTURE (ECUMENICAL SYNOD. 321 
 
 siring a solid reconciliation ; not only for the closer political 
 union of his now divided Roman-Catholic subjects (amounting 
 to many millions) within his own empire, but also for the sake 
 of that vast accession of influence and importance in the West 
 which he would gain by becoming the Emperor, the very first 
 power V. ithin united Christendom, instead of being as now merely 
 a formidable neighbour on the outside of Western Christendom, 
 precluded in many ways by the difference of religion from exer- 
 cising what would otherwise be his legitimate influence within it. 
 The Russian and Greek Hierarchies too, having fallen too much 
 under the ascendancy of the civil power within their own Eas- 
 tern Communion since their separation from the West, would 
 have strong reasons for wishing, if it could be done without pre- 
 judice to truth, to reconnect themselves with that part of Chris- 
 tendom in which there is still at least one central point, one 
 Apostolic chair, where the pastoral authority, as such, has not 
 been entirely prostrated before Kings. As we read in the his- 
 tory of form.er times that, when the Greek Emperor was urging 
 the Patriarch of Constantinople to attend tiie Council of Florence, 
 the Patriarch had a jmvate reason which weighed somewhat in 
 inducing him to consent, namely, the hope that his brother of 
 the elder Rome might let him into his secret, and teach him how 
 to lighten that yoke which the Emperors of Constantinople had 
 laid upon him and upon the other Bishops of the East. 
 
 And for Rome herself, seeing not only the inroads of Protes- 
 tantism and infidelity, but also the threatening waves of democ- 
 racy, and the weakness as well as lukewarmness even of those 
 thrones which are still nominally Roman-Catholic, while the 
 whole fabric of society in the West is shaken to its base, the 
 prospect of being able to win an accession so vast as that of the 
 Eastern Church and the Russian Empire, the most powerful of 
 all existing monarchs for a civil protector, and from sixty to 
 seventy millions of Christians still living by the simple faith of 
 the middle ages as a counterpoise to the pseudo-enlightenment 
 of the West, will be of sufficient importance to induce the Popes, 
 who have the credit of being sagacious in matters of policy, to 
 seize the opportunity, whenever there shall appear a fair prospect 
 of success, and to do all they can, consistently with their own 
 religious traditions and pretensions, to facilitate union. 
 
 Y 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 OF THE SEVEN APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES ADDRESSED TO THE 
 SEVEN CHUKCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 In the seven Apocalyptic Epistles addressed to the seven 
 Churches of Asia it is reasonable to suppose that warnings and 
 encouragements are proposed with exact fitness not only to those 
 seven local Churches, and at that one time, but also through 
 them to all Churches, to the universal or Catholic Church, both 
 as diffused indefinitely over space, and as passing through suc- 
 cessive phases in time. This both the number seven, denoting 
 universality, and the reason of the thing itself (the whole book 
 being written and preserved for general instruction,) and the 
 authority of ecclesiastical tradition confirms. And with respect 
 to the history of the universal Church in time, there is a certain 
 order in the arrangement of the seven Churches and the Epis- 
 tles addressed to them which shows of itself that they were 
 designed to be considered in this relation also. It is evident at 
 once that the warning given in the first place to the Church of 
 Ephesus, respecting an incipient cooling or remission from the 
 fervour of first love, suits that state and period of time which 
 comes next after the first planting of the faith and the first be- 
 ginning of spiritual life whether in the individual soul, or in any 
 particular Church or nation, or in the Church at large. It is 
 also evident that the severe awakening rebukes addressed to the 
 selfsatisfied lukewarmness of the Laodiceans in the last place 
 suits that state of things which is foretold as characteristic of 
 the last times before the second advent of Christ. Thus we 
 have already a certain suitableness of the first and last of the 
 seven Apocalyptic Epistles to the first and last historical periods of 
 the Church at large, which is enough to set us upon examining 
 
OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF THE APOCALYPSE. 323 
 
 whether the intervening five Epistles may not also have a similar 
 relation to five consecutive historical periods intervening between 
 the first and last ages of Christianity. 
 
 To those who have noticed the correspondence or analogy 
 which exists between nature and Revelation it will be no new 
 thing to be told that there is often discoverable in spiritual 
 things a regular symmetry, or proportion, or harmony of mea- 
 sured parts or numbers, answering to the symmetry, proportion, 
 and harmony of numbers, lines, sounds, colours, and the like, in 
 the material world. So the seven petitions of the Loed's Prayer 
 form a symmetrical whole, which may be represented by writing 
 them in seven parallel lines, thus : — 
 
 Hallowed be Thy Name. 
 
 Thy kingdom come. 
 
 Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 
 
 Give us this day our daily bread. 
 
 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 
 
 And lead us not into temptation. 
 
 But deliver us from evil. 
 
 The first petition corresponds as a parallel with the last, the 
 second with the sixth, and the third with the fifth. The three first 
 petitions above relate to what is good ; and from the highest and 
 most comprehensive wish gradually narrow down to that which 
 is lower and nearer to the individual soul that prays on earth. 
 The three last petitions relate on the contrary to what is evil ; 
 and from the narrowest contemplation of evil and that nearest 
 to the individual soul that prays (concerning our own trespasses 
 and our neighbour's,) gradually widen and deepen to the con- 
 templation of the lowest depth and greatest extent of evil, and to 
 the author of evil himself. The two contrary triplets of peti- 
 tions in their inverse order are connected in the centre, as at a 
 point, by the personal petition for our own necessary subsistence 
 for this day, the atom which prays, and which in some sense by 
 free will is a centre to itself, connecting itself with all that is 
 good, (even with the highest and infinite Good) above, and need- 
 ing to be delivered from all that is evil (the least and nearest as 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 OF THE APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES 
 
 well as the deepest and most remote) below. The parallelism 
 holds good even to the least details in the sense of the corres- 
 ponding petitions, though not in their words or letters : so that 
 if the third petition, which is neai'cst to the central point above, 
 is divided, and has a dependent clause, "as it is in heaven/' the 
 fifth petition, which corresponds to it and is nearest to the central 
 point below, has also its similarly dependent clause, " as we forgive 
 our debtors." He who framed the petitions of the Lord's Prayer 
 is the same God which appointed the cycles of the heavens, and 
 fixed the sides and the angles of every crystallization in nature. 
 With a like symmetry the universal Church is viewed, as it 
 seems, in the Apocalyptic Epistles to the seven Churches of 
 Asia under the form or image of a pyramid or mountain ; as it is 
 written in the book of Daniel of the Stone cut out without 
 hands, which smote the idolatrous Image of the four heathen 
 Emph-es on its feet in the time of the fourth or Roman Empire, 
 that it " became a great Mountain, and filled the whole earth." 
 And in traversing the history of the universal Church in time 
 we are made to begin as it were from the bottom of the Moun- 
 tain on the one side, (let us say, on the left hand or Western side, 
 since Ephesus is West of Laodicea,) and to ascend by three 
 distinct divisions or stages (imaged by the Churches of Ephe- 
 sus, Smyrna, and Pergamus,) to the summit, and then, after 
 pausing on the summit itself (represented by Thyatira,) to de- 
 scend by three more divisions or stages on the other side, (namely, 
 Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea,) each of them corresponding 
 to one of those by which we ascended, thus : — 
 
 
 
 
 4. 
 Thyatiri 
 
 a. 
 
 
 
 Pergamus. 
 Smyrna. 2. ® 
 Ephesus. 1. (^ 
 
 3. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ®5. 
 
 Sardl 
 
 #6. 
 
 is. 
 Philadelphia. 
 <^ 7. Laodicea. 
 
 Let us consider then, according to our ability, what those 
 lessons are which are addressed to the successive periods or 
 developments of the Christian Church, and which so indirectly 
 contain an outline of its history sketched beforehand by the 
 
ADDllESSED TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 325 
 
 Head of the Church Himself. Let us do this not of vain 
 curiosity, but in order to seek the blessing* promised in the 
 Apocalypse by applying its lessons to ourselves ; and especially 
 in order to seek out and to apply that lesson which is more 
 especially designed for the Church (and in the Church for all 
 Christians) of our own period of time. 
 
 And first, before coming to the details of each Message to 
 the Churches, we may remark generally that as on the one 
 hand in the selection of seven distinct Churches in Asia, to 
 represent the Catholic Church, there is no hint given of all 
 Churches being resolvable into one particular Church, the 
 Roman, so neither, on the other hand, is there any thing to 
 countenance the modern idea of Protestants that the Catholic 
 Church is an aggregate of heterogeneous communities out- 
 wardly separate one from another. Though the seven Churches 
 are praised and blamed in different degrees, and have each then- 
 own particular characters, they are yet all under their Angels or 
 Bishops, through whom they are addressed, in full outward com- 
 munion with one another, under one Metropolitan of Ephesus, 
 and acknowledging one and the same Apostle St. John. 
 
 I. Ephesus. All Christians associate historically the idea of 
 the Apostolic and primitive Church with something like the 
 fervour of first love ; with a higher measure of faith, and love, 
 and zeal, than could long continue. And in those remains 
 which have come down to us of the earliest Christian writers we 
 find already confessions, with lamentation, of the decay or remis- 
 sion of that first love. The name itself Ephesus {"E^itro;) seems 
 connected with ?^s(J"«f, the first efi'ort of starting as for a race, or 
 of aiming as at a mark, a word which by the corruption of a 
 single vowel, its first letter, becomes a$:a"i?, or remission. 
 
 II. Smyrna. The word a-^'jpvri signifies myrrh : and myrrh, 
 we know, was associated with the ideas of bitterness and suffer- 
 ing, of the embalmment of the dead, and of preservation from cor- 
 ruption. And, like other spices, it gives out its odour on being- 
 bruised. With what significancy myrrh was offered to Christ 
 in His infancy, and on the Cross, and was used to embalm His 
 Body, it is unnecessary here to explain. We shall only point 
 out that as, after the priuiitive Church in the Church of Ephesus 
 has been warned on account of the cooling of her first love, we 
 
326 OF THE APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES 
 
 find in the second place the SmyrncEans, who are praised ivith- 
 oiit any mixture of blame, and are exhorted to persevere and to 
 suffer fearlessly imprisonments tribulations and death, and are 
 promised iu recompense a crown of life, so also in the history of 
 the universal Church, after the fervour of the first age and its 
 speedily apparent signs of declension, our attention is next 
 fixed by the glorious sufferings of the Martyrs, which came to 
 their climax in the great persecution of Diocletian, when all the 
 House, that is the Church, was filled with the odour of the 
 spiritual myrrh that was bruised. 
 
 III. Pergamus. The Church in Pergamus is represented as 
 " dwelHug where Satan's seat is :" For Pergamus was the capital 
 of one of those four kingdoms which arose within the third or 
 Macedonian Empire upon the death of Alexander the Great. 
 It was one of the ''heads'' of the third mystical Beast which 
 was four-headed; and by transition* it became one of the heads 
 
 * The following account of Pergamus is translated from Strabo : 
 " Since we have now gone through the coasts of the Troad and iEolia, it will 
 be next in order to run over the inland parts up to the Taurus, keeping to the 
 same method. The honour of being the capital, in a sense, of all these parts be- 
 longs to Pergamus, a city of renown, which long flourished in connection with 
 the kings of the Attalian dynasty. So this will be our proper point to start from. 
 Pergamus was the treasure-fortress of Lysimachus son of Agathocles, one of 
 Alexander's successors ; and occupied together with a mass of dwelling-houses 
 just the summit of the hill, which is conical, ending in a sharp point. The com- 
 mand of this fortress with the charge of the treasure (which amounted to nine 
 thousand talents,) was confided to a certain Philetserus of Tyana, who was a 
 eunuch from his childhood. This man for some time remained faithful to 
 Lysimachus ; but at length, having a quarrel against his wife Arsinoe, who 
 slandered liim to Lysimachus, he revolted with the place under his command, 
 and suited his behaviour to circumstances, seeing the times to be favourable for 
 such a speculation. For first Lysimachus was engaged with troubles in his own 
 family, and was forced to put his son Agathocles to death ; then Seleucus 
 Nikator invaded him and put an end to his power ; and was himself murdered by 
 Ptolemy son of Ceraunus. All which changes the eunuch got safely through, 
 keeping in his fortress on the hill-top, and dealing politicly by promises and other 
 attentions or services with whatever power was at the time strongest and nearest. 
 And thus he retained during twenty years both the fortress and the treasure. 
 
 " He had two brothers, the elder named Eumenes, the younger Attalus. 
 Eumenes had a son of the same name with himself, who succeeded his uncle in 
 the possession of Pergamus, and was already lord and ruler of the places and 
 country round about to some distance : insomuch that he fought a pitched battle 
 near Sardis with Antiochus the son of Seleucus, and defeated him. He died 
 after a rule of 22 years ; and was succeeded by his cousin Attalus, son of his 
 
ADDRESSED TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 327 
 
 of that last Beast which contained all the four, and was one 
 with the fourth, and which, when come to its full growth, had 
 seven heads answering to the seven mouths of the river of 
 Egypt, to the seven nations of Canaan, the seven hills of Rome, 
 and the seven heads of the Dragon antagonistic to the seven 
 horns and eyes of the Lamb. Whether Pergamus then, or 
 Constantinople (which it may seem specially to foreshadow,) or 
 Rome, or any other city, be capitals of worldly power within the 
 last mystical Beast or Empire, Pergamus will here stand for 
 any of them, or for all : And the Church and her hierarchy 
 sojourning in such capitals, or under their influence, are re- 
 buked and threatened for this, that some of them '' hold the 
 doctrine of Balaam," a prophet who, knowing better, taught 
 Balak the king of Moab (a people sprung from incest) to cast 
 a stumbling-block in the way of Israel, to eat things sacrificed 
 to idols and to commit fornication. And here again in pursuing 
 the history of the Church downwards we find what seems to 
 correspond. For after the age of the Martyrs we come next to 
 a period during which the Church and her hierarchy appear in 
 close connection with the State ; while for honour, precedence, 
 gain, and other worldly advantages, the hierarchy are accused 
 by contemporary writers of too often lending themselves to the 
 powers of this world, to make the spiritual Israel eat things 
 sacrificed to spiritual idols, and to commit fornication both 
 spiritually by heresy, and carnally by a relaxation of discipline. 
 IV. TInjatira. Thus we have arrived at the top or apex of 
 
 uncle of the same name by Antiocliis daughter of Achseus. And this Attalus 
 it was who first of the family took the title of king;, after he had gained a great 
 victory over the Galatse. He also made an alliance with the Romans, and assisted 
 them in their war against Philip in conjunction with the fleet of the Rhodians. 
 He died at an advanced age, after a reign of 43 years, and left four sons by 
 Apollonisof Cyzicus, named Eumenes, Attalus, Philetserus, and Athenseus. Of these 
 the three younger lived as private persons, the eldest, Eumenes, succeeding his 
 father in the kingdom. He too warred with the Romans as an auxiliary against 
 Antiochus the Great, and against Perseus ; and received from the Romans all 
 that had belonged to Antiochus within the Taurus. Before this the dependencies 
 of Pergamus had been only an inconsiderable number of places, as far as the sea 
 about the Elaite gulf and Adrammyttium. This king beautified the city, and 
 planted the grove called the Nicephorium, and set up temples and statues, and 
 libraries, and increased the city by his improvements to its present extent. 
 After a reign of 49 years he left the crown to his son named Attalus, whom he 
 
328 OF THE APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES 
 
 the Mountain, where we find in the Church of Thyatira, a name 
 connected by sound with sacrificing, {0.1:0 tou Sueji/,) and inci- 
 dentally with the trade of dyeing and selling purple, a mystery 
 mure difficult to understand than any other of the seven. For 
 while the praises bestowed upon this Church imply higher gifts 
 and merits and greater energies than are ascribed to any other, 
 (whereas the Churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia, which alone 
 are praised without any mixture of blame, are spoken of as 
 rather weak and unpretending in themselves,) these praises are 
 joined with warnings and threatenings for faults which it is 
 difficult to conceive coexisting with such a character. " I know," 
 it is written, " thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and 
 thy patience, and thy works ; and the last to be more than the 
 first." What great praises are here ? And yet, with all this, 
 " He who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet 
 like fine brass " (that is, without any tarnish of rust or impu- 
 rity,) discovers in this Church (in whose walk another eye could 
 have seen only what is great and glorious,) that she is all the 
 time suffering a fahe-prophetess, called Jezebel, to teach, and to 
 seduce the servants of Christ to commit fornication, and to eat 
 things sacrificed to idols. To this false-prophetess space is given 
 to repent, and she repents not. And thereupon she and they 
 that sin with her are threatened with the most terrible judg- 
 ments, and with great tribulation, and her children shall be 
 killed with death, whereby all the Churches shall know that the 
 Lord is He which searcheth the reins and the hearts. But to 
 the 7'est in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine concerning 
 Jezebel, and which have not known the depths of Satan, Christ 
 says that He will lay upon them none other burden ; only, that 
 
 had by Stratonice daughter of Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia. And as his son 
 was as yet a mere child, he appointed his brother Attalus to be his guardian and 
 regent of the kingdom. This old man died after reigning (as regent) 20 years 
 with great prosperity. For ia conjunction with Alexander the son of Antiochus 
 he subdued Demetrius the son of Seleucus ; and he was the ally of the Romans 
 in their war against the pseudo- Philip. He also made war successfully in 
 Thrace, and subdued there Diegylus king of Caenee : and he destroyed Prusias. 
 by setting against him his son Nicomedes. And after all these successes he left 
 the throne to his nephew Attalus, v.'hose guardian he had been. This last was 
 suruaraed Philometor. He reigned only five years ; and then dying of some sick- 
 ness left the Romans his heirs, who made of his dominions a Province, which 
 they named Asia, after the name of the Continent.'' — Book diii. Ch. 4. 
 
ADDRESSED TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 329 
 
 which they have they are bidden to hold fast till He comes : 
 And then to him that overcometh, aud keepeth the works of 
 Christ to the end^ Christ will give the most glorious prizes, 
 equal to the very highest ambition, namely, " to have power over 
 the nations, and to rule them with a rod of iron, and to break 
 them in pieces as a potter's vessel, even as Christ Himself has 
 received of His Father." He will "give also to him the Morn- 
 ing Star." These are the very things which in another sense 
 would be the temptations of an earthborn Lucifer. 
 
 That it should be difficult to understand and apply this pro- 
 phecy is not surprising when the Scripture itself connects it with 
 " the depths of Satan." But we may remark thus much ; that a 
 woman often stands as the symbol of a city or community, as 
 Eabylon is elsewhere represented : and that the name Jezebel 
 may afford some clue to the interpretation. For Jezebel was 
 the idolatrous daughter of the king of Tyre, united in unholy 
 marriage to Ahab king of Israel, whom she stirred up to all 
 manner of wickedness. She set up throughout Israel the wor- 
 ship of Baal of the Zidonians, and slew thfe prophets of the 
 Lord, and especially persecuted Elijah (the messenger of repent- 
 ance I'eserved for the latter days,) and practised and prospered, 
 till he supposed, though mistakenly, that he alone was left 
 faithful in Israel. But how can such deeds, or the permission 
 of such a false-prophetess to teach, coexist with such praises as 
 are given to the Church of Thyatira ? This is indeed a mystery. 
 
 If we look to Ecclesiastical history, the next great phenomenon 
 in order of time which presents itself, after the three preceding 
 phases of the nascent, the persecuted, aud the political Church, 
 is that of the Papal Supremacy, as connected wiih the site and 
 spirit of old Home. And this may prompt one to adopt the 
 conclusion that the Church of Thyatira symbolizes the Roman 
 Church or Communion of the middle ages, and the false-pro- 
 phetess Jezvibel the city of Rome itself, and the spirit of that 
 city. But even supposing that this may be so, we shall not yet 
 have arrived at such an interpretation as will suit the Protes- 
 tants. For there is nothing said to justify the imputation of a 
 false faith or doctrinal corruption to the Angel of the Church of 
 Thyatira, or to that Church herself, as such. Nor is it said of 
 that Church, as it is said elsewhere of Babylon, " Come out of 
 
330 OF THE APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES 
 
 her, my licople.^' On the contrary her gifts and merits are ex- 
 tolled above those of all other Churches. And they are not her 
 children, as such, but the children of Jezebel (whom she however 
 permits to teach,) who are threatened with death. And two 
 kinds of Christians are spoken of as existing together at Thya- 
 tira, and both of them members of that Church, the one kind 
 holding, the other not holding, the doctrine concerning Jezebel being 
 a prophetess, the Angel himself being with i\\e former kind, and 
 suffering the false-prophetess to teach. Yet it must no doubt 
 be admitted that the punishments threatened against Jezebel 
 and her children reflect upon the Angel and the Church of 
 Thyatira, as it is by those punishments that " all the Churches " 
 shall know that the Lord is He " who searcheth the reins and 
 the hearts," and in the Church of the highest gifts and noblest 
 energies detects even " the depths of Satan." 
 
 V. Sardis. Descending now, as on the other side of the hill, 
 we come to the Church of Sardis, which is rebuked as having a 
 name to live but being in fact dead ; and is warned to be watch- 
 ful, and to strengthen the things which remain that are ready 
 to die ; to remember how she had received and heard, (that is, 
 to remember the first preaching of the Gospel,) and to repent : 
 or the Lord will come upon them as a thief unawares. 
 
 And in fact the next phase in Ecclesiastical history which pre- 
 sents itself to the mind, after the four preceding, is that of a 
 popular attachment to the forms, the ritual, and the name of Or- 
 thodoxy or Catholicism, of a general zeal for the externals of reli- 
 gion, and even superstition, joined with internal deadness, with 
 a great and wide-spread departure from the morality of the 
 Gospel, and with a general relaxation or neglect of Church Dis- 
 cipline. Individuals may differ as to the dates they will assign 
 to this period, and as to the degree in which they may be willing 
 to admit the prevalence of the evil : But nearly all will admit 
 that a change more or less has come over Christianity ; so that 
 while outward forms have been multiplied the living spirit 
 within has decayed ; and a rigid and often ignorant and super- 
 stitious adherence to Ecclesiastical traditions has supplanted 
 that living and elastic spirit which in earlier times originated or 
 abrogated, varied, and changed, the things afterwards fixed and 
 crystallised into a stiff" uniformity. 
 
ADDRESSED TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 331 
 
 The faults of the Church of Sardis (and of that phase of the 
 universal Church which it symbolizes,) show a certain relation, 
 correspondence, or antithesis to those of the Church of Perga- 
 mus, these two Churches occupying corresponding places the 
 one to the other on the two sides of the Mountain. Perga- 
 mus was the last stage before reaching the summit; and Sardis 
 is the first stage after leaving the summit to descend on the 
 other side. In Pergamus certain faults of the rulers of the 
 Christian Church were noted ; in Sardis corresponding faults of 
 the people : while in Thyatira, the apex that unites the two, 
 both the Ecclesiastical ruler and the people, as a civil commu- 
 nity, seem to be alluded to. Sardis, we know, was a rich and 
 luxurious city, once the capital of Lydia, the people of which had 
 oi'iginally been warlike but after having lost their liberty had 
 been systematically trained by their conquerors to be slaves to 
 the corruptions of peace and indulgence ; so that the Greek 
 historian Herodotus relates of it that all the women there were 
 unchaste. As then in the Church of Pergamus we saw the 
 Christian hierarchy, or many of its members, lending themselves 
 to civil rulers to lead the people into sin, so here in the Church 
 of Sardis we see the Christian people fixed in a lifeless and hypo- 
 critical religion of externals; zealous perhaps for kissing pictures, 
 and worshipping Saints, and for magnifying uncertain miracles, 
 for multiplying Kanons, and for gabbling over Psalms and 
 Prayers, but neglecting the weightier matters of the law, justice, 
 mercy, and truth, and drowned in the leprosy of sins forbidden 
 bv the Ten Commandments of the Old Law. What the real 
 source of the evil is is shown clearly enough by the words used 
 to encourage those who are exceptions to the prevailing degene- 
 racy : " Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not 
 "defiled their garments," (their Baptismal robe of innocence;) 
 "and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy." 
 
 VI. Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, a name signifying bro- 
 therly love, which of itself gives a clue to the lesson intended, 
 we come once more to a Church which is praised without amj 
 mixture of blame or warning ; which in its position on the 
 descending side of the hill corresponds to the Church of Smyrna 
 on the ascending side ; and represents that virtue which is 
 especially sought for by the Lord and especially commended in 
 
332 OF THE APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES 
 
 the latter days which come next before the end,^ just as the 
 Church of Smyrna symbolized that virtue (of heroic suffering 
 for the truth) which especially characterized those early cen- 
 turies of Christianity which followed next after the beginning. 
 This peculiar characteristic virtue of the true Church of Christ 
 and of true Christians in the latter ages is brotherly love, or love 
 of the brethren, based upon the faith and fear of God and the 
 keeping of His commandments : that is^ it is the virtue con- 
 trary to the characteristic fault of the latter ages, when " the 
 love of many shall have waxed cold/' And as this characteristic 
 fault, the decay and absence of charity, is ascribed to moral 
 causes, " because iniquity shall abound," so we may perceive 
 that the secret oil which shall keep the lamp of charity in the 
 true Philadelphians from going out will be this, that they strive 
 to " abstain from iniquity," and to " keep themselves unspotted 
 from the world." Their hearts will not be given to eating and 
 drinking, buying and selling, marrying and being given in mar- 
 riage ; but they will be looking to the Ark that is preparing, 
 and desiring to escape to the true Zoar. 
 
 VII. Laodicea. Lastly, having come down now to the foot 
 of the Mountain, we can tell even without looking at what fol- 
 lows in the Apocalypse, what will be the faults of the Church, 
 that is, of professing Christians, in the latter days ; and what 
 sort of rebukes and warnings will be addressed to them. For we 
 know what Christ and His servants have prophesied elsewhere 
 of those times : namely, that it stall be as in the days of Noah, 
 and as in the days of Lot : that when the Son of Man cometh 
 He shall scarcely find faith in the earth : that before the end 
 there shall be an apostacy, and the revelation of the man of 
 sin : that as the Angels, the first-born of creation, fell from 
 their first estate, and are reserved unto everlasting punishment, 
 and as the people who had been delivered from Egypt afterwards 
 were destroyed in the wilderness, so it shall be with many even 
 
 * The following remarks of Strabo are capable of a spiritual application : 
 " After the Lydians come the Mysians, and the city of Philadelphia, ever shak- 
 ing with earthquakes : for there is no cessation of the walls parting asunder, and 
 one part of the city after another suffering. On this account few live permanently 
 in the city ; and one cannot but marvel at those few who do, how they can be so 
 attached to the place, when their dwellings are always in danger. Much more 
 must one wonder at them who first built the city on such a site." 
 
ADDRESSED TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 333 
 
 iindev the last and more perfect dispensation, who shall crucify 
 unto themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open 
 shame : All which is summed up briefly by our Lord in one 
 short prophecy, that " because iniquitij shall abound the love of 
 mamj {that is, of the apparent majority) shall wax cold." The 
 citizens of the spiritual " Philadelphia" and of the "heavenly Je- 
 rusalem " shall be few : those of Sodom and Egypt and Babylon 
 many : and between the two there shall be a Church of the Lao- 
 diceans, of Christians enjoying the good things of this world, 
 judging for themselves, trusting to popular opinion, and think- 
 ing themselves sufficiently righteous forasmuch as, though not 
 philadelphians, they are not openly apostate. Wherefore Christ 
 says to them, " / knoio thy ivorks, that thou art neither cold nor 
 hot : I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art 
 lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I ivill spue thee out of my 
 mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, 
 and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, 
 and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked : I counsel thee to 
 buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich : and 
 IV hit e raiment, thai thou mayest be clothed ; and that the shame 
 of thy nakedness do not appear ; and anoint thine eyes ivith eye- 
 salve, that thou mayest see." Such is the terrible severity of 
 warning used to awaken the deadness of the latter days. 
 
 And now, since these divine lessons are perfect in their literal 
 application to the seven particular Churches chosen as symbols, 
 as well as in their more general applications to other particular 
 Churches, and even to individual souls, and to the universal 
 Church, both irrespectively of time and in its successive chro- 
 nological developments, let us look for a moment at the actual 
 history of those seven Churches of Asia which were addressed 
 from Patmos. Of all the seven (whatever graces or merits 
 may be mentioned as existing in any of them,) every one is 
 blamed and warned or threatened, except two. Two only, those 
 of Smyrna and Philadelphia, are praised without blame, and re- 
 ceive encouragements and promises without any mixture of 
 threats or warnings ; the one representing the sufferings of the 
 Martyrs in the earlier ages, the other the enduring charity of 
 the faithful remnant in the latter ages of Christianity. At the 
 present day nearly eighteen centuries have passed since those 
 
334 OF THE APOCALYPTIC EPISTLES 
 
 seven local Churches were selected as symbols ; and we have no 
 difficulty in ascertaining from history, or, if we please, even from 
 the very sites themselves, what has been the result with respect to 
 each of them ; whether the five, or any of i\\Q five, have profited 
 ])ermanently by the warnings or threatenings addressed to them, 
 or the two, though chosen once to bear a type of unmixed en- 
 couragements and promises, have since in their literal character 
 of local Churches been permitted to fail, and have been aban- 
 doned by Him who addressed them in such gracious words. 
 The answer which we shall obtain to our inquiry is this : All 
 the five which were in any degree warned or threatened, Ephesus, 
 Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, and Laodicea, have long ago ceased 
 to exist as Churches. Their candlesticks have been removed. 
 Most of those cities are now mere heaps of ruins ; and of one or 
 two the very sites are disputed. There may indeed still be a 
 titular Metropolitan of Ephesus ; but Ephesus itself exists no 
 longer, nor are there either Clergy or a Christian congregation 
 on its site. There may be Christians and Priests at Pergamus; 
 but Pergamus is no longer a Church with its Angel, but has long 
 since been merged like Thyatira, Sardis, and Laodicea, in another 
 diocese. Only Smyrna and Philadelphia remain erect amid 
 surrounding ruins; the types of patient suffering and enduring 
 charity. These two have preserved an uninterrupted existence : 
 The candlesticks of these two have never been removed : And 
 they bear still visibly, as they bore eighteen centuries ago, the 
 type of the encouragements and the promises addressed to those 
 virtues which they represent.* 
 
 * The infidel historian Gibbon, describing the conquest and division of Ana- 
 tolia among the Turkish Emirs in the early part of the fourteenth century, has 
 the following passage : " The maritime country from the Propontis to the Mean- 
 der and the Isle of Rhodes, so long threatened and so often pillaged, was finally 
 lost about the thirtieth year of Andronicus the elder. Two Turkish chieftains, 
 Sarukhan and Aidin, left their names to their conquests, and their conquests to 
 their posterity. The captivity or ruin of the seven Churches of Asia was con- 
 summated ; and the barbarous lords of Ionia and Lydia still trample on the 
 monuments of classic and Christian antiquity. In the loss of Ephesus the 
 Christians deplored the fall of the first Angel, the extinction of the first candle- 
 stick, of the Revelations : the desolation is complete ; and the temple of Diana, 
 or the church of Mary, will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The 
 circus and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and 
 foxes ; Sardis is reduced to a miserable village ; the God of Mahomet, without a 
 rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamus ; and the 
 
ADDRESSED TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 335 
 
 Now for us, whether as individuals or as local Christian com- 
 munities, every one of the seven Apocalyptic Epistles has no 
 doubt an appropriate lesson. We have all need to remember 
 and look back to our stpBcric, the beginning of our Christianity, 
 our first love and earnestness, and to search and ask our own 
 selves whether there has not been some a'($ro-<j, some cooling or 
 declension. We have all need to think of the primitive Martyrs, 
 and to seek for grace to enable us to suffer with Christ and to 
 die with Him (since we must all suffer and die,) even though we 
 are not in these latter days tried in the fires of bodily persecu- 
 tion, as the first Christians were. All those of the hierarchy 
 who live in worldly capitals, or under their influence, have need 
 to be jealously on their guard that they lend not themselves to 
 civil rulers to corrupt and adulterate the sincerity of the Gospel, 
 and to cast for worldly ends scandals in the way of the spiritual 
 Israel. Those who have the greatest gifts, the noblest energies, 
 and the most exalted eminence in the universal Church, may 
 search themselves whether there be no false-prophetess, daughter 
 of a heathen power, whom they are suffering to teach ; to whom 
 a long time has been allowed for repentance, and she has not 
 repented. The Christian peoj)le everywhere may search and ex- 
 amine themselves whether they are not formalists and hypocrites 
 in their religion or superstition ; whether they have not a name 
 of Orthodoxy or Catholicism to live, while they are really dead 
 by not keeping the commandments of God's Law. All these 
 lessons are still evidently more or less appropriate or necessary 
 for all Christians, or for some, for all Churches or for some, 
 according to their particular states and circumstances. But the 
 special lesson and instruction intended fur us, and for our aye of 
 the Christian world, is to be found under the symbol of Phila- 
 
 populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the Franks and Ar- 
 menians." [Yet Sniyrna'h?i& been preserved as a Church with its Bishop, Clergy, 
 and laity, without any break to the present day.] " Philadelphia alone has 
 been saved by jirophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by 
 the Emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens de- 
 fended their religion and freedom above fourscore years ; and at length capitulated 
 with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and Churches of 
 Asia, Philadelphia is still erect, a column in a scene of ruins ; a pleasing ex- 
 ample that the paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same." — 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ch. Ixiv. 
 
336 OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 delphia. All the evils which abound, the vast and long standing 
 schism of the Greek and Latin Churches, the consequent mul- 
 tiplication of more recent heresies and schisms, the increase of 
 doubt, indifference, infidelity, and materialism, and the deluge 
 of lawlessness and immorality which has flooded society, — all 
 are traceable (the former directly, and even the last by reaction) 
 to that one root of the declension of charity. And the one only 
 remedy or antidote for all is for those who live after the law of 
 Christ to be more and more earnest in loving one another. 
 Let us only seek to have our lot with the PMlcdelphians, and we 
 shall not be in danger either from the self-complacent lukewarm- 
 ness of the last times, that is, of the mystical Laodiceans, nor 
 froDi those older sins of formalistic hypocrisy in the people, or 
 worldly subservience to civil powers in the clergy, which, though 
 the period of their first development is ancient, are still living 
 and widespread evils, and far from having passed away. We 
 may hope too, though our lot be in the Church of Thyatira, to 
 be among those who " have not that doctrine'' who are preserved 
 from " knowing the depths vf Satan'' and to be saved as mem- 
 bers of that Church without becoming children of the false- 
 prophetess whom she suffers to teach. 
 
 " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
 have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling 
 cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and under- 
 stand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though I have all 
 faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I 
 am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the 
 poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not 
 charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is 
 kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not 
 puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly ; seeketh not her own ; 
 is not easily provoked ; thinkcthno evil; rcjoicethnot in iniquity, 
 but rejoiceth together in the truth ; beareth all things, belie veth 
 all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things ; maketh herself all 
 things to all men, if by any means she may save some. Charity 
 never faileth. And the Christian virtues being three. Faith, 
 Hope, and Charity, the greatest of these is Charity.^' (I Cor. 
 xiii., and ix. 22.) 
 
 JoSlil-H .MASTi;HS ANU CO., PRINTERS, j\ LUEHSli ATK STUKKT.