Forbes on Article XXII: Of Purgatory

WHATEVER dissidence may be imagined to exist be tween the preceding Articles and the doctrines as pro mulgated by the Council of Trent, there is none with regard to the subjects mentioned in the present one; for while the points formerly touched on were ruled by the Church of England subsequently to the earlier decrees of the Council, the questions of Purgatory and Pardons were not discussed for many months after the

a “The words Romanenses and Romanistce were already used as far back as 1520 by Lutrher and Ulrich von Hutten to designate the ex treme Mediaeval party.” Hardwick, p. 389. Just as in modern French literature, the expression parti romaniste is used for the more pro nounced section of the Ultraoiontanes. Observe that the harsh word per- niciosa of the early Articles is entirely dropped in the later version.

publication of the Article b. The Article, therefore, cannot be strained into a condemnation and contra diction of that which did not exist at the time; and we must come to the conviction that it was not the formulized doctrine, but a current and corrupt prac tice in the Latin or Western Church, which is here declared to be “fond” and ” vainly invented/’

This distinction is a very important one. People are apt to ignore the real reformation which took place ! within the Latin Church, the wise and scientific treat ment to which many points were subjected, and the abuses and scandals which were discountenanced. No doubt the reform might with effect have been carried further. Points vitally affecting our own position, e.g. all questions of jurisdiction, might have been denned; the disciplinary enactments for dioceses might have been extended to the Papal Court ; still a real reform did take place, and it is unscientific or uncandid to ignore it. The reform, such as it was, only came too late. We cannot say what in the Providence of God would have been the results, if the Popes had yielded sooner to the clamours of Europe for a free and (Ecumenical Coun cil ; but they feared similar results to those of Con stance and Basle, and so the time passed, till all hopes of reconciliation had disappeared. Still the Council did a mighty work c, and such men as St. Carlo Bor-

b The decree on Purgatory was passed in the twenty-fifth session of : the Council, begun on the 3rd and ended on the 4th of December, 1563. ! Vide Harduin, Cone., t. x., p. 167, ed. Paris, 1714.

c Cuntu, Histoire des Italiens, t. viii. p. 394, also p. 441.

romeo, Archbishop of Milan, St. Thomas of Yillanueva, Archbishop of Valencia, Rusticucci, Salviati, Sartorio, Gaspar Contarini, Era Bernardino Ochino da Siena, Bonomo, Bishop of Yercelli, Paul of Arezzo, Bishop of Piacenza, Ypolito Gralantino, the silk-worker of Florence, S. Filippo Neri, and a host of others, who carried on the work, exhibit in their own persons the results that were effected.

The points against which this Article is directed may be discerned in any of the satires which immediately preceded the Reformation, such as the Epistolce Obscu- rorum Virorum, the history of Dill Eulenspiegel, or the Colloquies of Erasmus. These exhibit the picture of a great decay of practical religion, corruption and avarice reigning among the clergy, nothing done to stem the flood of immorality, and, beside this, a round of cere monies and puerile superstitions. Nothing is so re markable as the way in which holy names and holy mysteries are placed by Chaucer in the mouths of those who are perpetrating the foulest deeds. It would seem as if morality and religion had got so divorced that there seemed no incongruity in their association. Eras mus’ account of his visit with Colet to Canterbury, and, again, his description of the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, well repay perusal, and are specially im portant in considering the Article, as they exhibit the prevalent habit of thought of the time, the every-day devotional life of the people, as seen by the eyes of one of the most intelligent of men.

Indeed, the one refreshing aspect of the English

Reformation is that which exhibits to us the way in which the scandals that brought it on were dealt with, how the objects of superstition were cast to the winds, and the gainful frauds exposed and scorned. Even in the reign of Henry VIII. the semi-heathen image of Darvel Gatheren, which had in Wales promoted a horrid cultus, such as is said to have existed till the seventeenth century among the cognate race of the Bretons, was destroyed d. The miraculous rood of Boxley, which was said to move its eyes and lips, and to sweat blood, was broken up among the jeers of the people e ; and through the length and breadth of the land, the instruments of fanaticism were cast into the fire or the water. Even the bones of the saints, the temples of the Holy Ghost, the shrines of the grace of God, were mixed up in the common ruin. Because discredited by a base coinage, the true mintage was destroyed. Because mixed up with manifold im postures, the real authentic relics were dishonoured, and one common grave received the lying and fraudu lent objects which had been used to keep alive the fail ing piety of the preceding ages of declension, and the blessed remains of those holy men who had been the vessels of the favour of God, and His lights in their several generations.

Excess always leads to reaction. Superstition is closer to irreligion than men think for, and the

d Vide Froude’s History, vol. iii. p. 294.

e Vide Fuller’s Church History, bk. vi. 8—10, p. 244, ed. 1837 ; also Froude, iii. 288.

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misery is, that you can hardly prune away the one without promoting the other. Tear the ivy off the mouldering church wall, and you will bring away part of the wall with it. So it was at the Reformation. It was impossible to reform and not to deform; and, as a fact, much that had been once good, and in time abused, was for the time lost. Solemn rites that had lost their significance, or been veiled in an unknown tongue, were cast aside as useless ; edifying ceremonies, such as the washing of poor men’s feet, nay, the unc tion for the sick, which had the support of the Inspired Word itself, were ignored ; doctrines, such as the Communion of Saints, the witness of God to innocence in the case of ordeal, the horrible watchful skill and constant infestation of evil spirits, dropped out of sight, and a one-sided view of God’s truth was advocated and enforced. This was specially the case with regard to the subject of the Article. “The Romish doctrine/’ in the earlier type of the Article termed ” the scholastic doctrine,” was hereby condemned. It only was con demned, but somehow people seemed to forget that besides the Romish doctrine on these subjects, there was a Catholic doctrine also ; that the errors lay rather in the exaggeration and want of proportion of the state ments, than in the substance, and that as formerly there had been danger from excess, there now was danger in defect, in the way of suppressing important truths of the Gospel.

For on every one of the points mentioned there is an underlying Christian truth, and it is necessary to

the right understanding of the Article to know what this is. We cannot tell what the Article means till we know what it condemns ; and we cannot know what it condemns till we know the doctrine, the perversion of which drew forth the condemnation.

But before proceeding to this, historic truth and candour demand that we should say that the protest in the Article is still needed. One does not here speak of those ancient mountain-shrines in the Tyrol or in Switzerland, where the simple, loving herdsman toils his weary way over brake and fell, encountering danger and real hardship, till he falls down before the Marien- bild, or other object of veneration, to which his steps have been directed. God forbid that we should sit in judgment on the simple faith which prompts the prayer, which, perhaps misdirected, God rewards and hears, as if offered immediately to Himself; but the protest is still needed, because it cannot be denied that super stition is still tolerated, if not actually encouraged by the authorities of the Church abroad. At Rome itself, in the church of the Ara Cceli, the people are blessed by the elevation of the Bambino, a doll of the infant Saviour, a sort of parody of the solemn rite of bene diction with the most Holy Sacrament. At Calcata, a place near Civita Castellana, the exhibition of a cer tain relic f violates the first instincts of decency and

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reverence ; and Loretto still draws her gains from the credulity of the faithful. Nay, even in France, where the battle of the faith is being fought by an able body of clergy, whose tone in some respects presents a very marked contrast to that of the moderate and learned school of divines who adorned the Church of France before the first Revolution, it is to be feared that, as in the notorious instance of the shrine of La Salettc, too many are using the weapon of superstition to combat the growing irreligion.

I. The doctrine of Purgatory, against which the Ar tide excepts, is that which is made patent to the eye of every traveller as he passes from Germany into Italy. The wayside shrines which so edify him still continue, but the subjects are changed. In place of the affecting representation of the sufferings of the Eternal Son, and the touching impersonations of the Lord crowned with thorns, with the purple robe and the reed in His hand, which speak to the soul of the wayfarer, terrible re presentations of the holy souls in flames appal him. They are the predominant, although not the exclusive subject. Sometimes the Madonna is placed in rela tion to those souls, but oftener still they are by them selves, appealing for a few pence to the awakened sym pathies of the passers by. They say, ” Have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me, oh my friends ; for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.” The popular

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doctrine thus symbolized prevailed in England at the time of the Reformation. Probably, as is believed to be the case in New Spain, it had come to take the place of a living faith in the eternal pains of hell in the case of most men. It was also mixed up largely with in terested motives on the part of the clergy. There was a perfect traffic in masses for the souls, and men fancied that by leaving money to the Church at the hour of death, and at the expense of their heirs, they might purchase mitigation or exemption from pains, which in degree, though not in duration, were said to equal the pains of hell. The English were very strongly affected by these teachings, for several of the most striking and romantic legends, e.g. the dream of St. Fursoeus and the vision of Drithelm, as recorded in Bede’s History %, which had contributed much to fix in the minds of the faithful a conviction of this doctrine, were of British origin, and accordingly the number of endowed chan tries which were founded, that priests might, in the sweet language of the time, ” sing for souls,” was im mense. Of these, the college of All Souls’, Oxford, which was established with the idea of study sub ordinated to that of prayer for those who perished in the French wars in Henry the Fifth’s time, saved by the scholastic endowment attached to it, has sur vived the shock of the Reformation. In the founda tion, too, of Lincoln College, Oxford, the same duty of prayers for the departed was made coextensive with that of theological study. The popular doctrine

B Vide Bedce Historia, book iii. c. xix., book v. c. xii.

of the day is laid down in Sir Thomas More’s ” Sup plication of Souls/’ a work in which he answered the ” Supplication of Beggars/ ’ a political brochure, which pleaded for the suppression of the chantries, on the ground that so much was taken from the poor. The chantries were in due time suppressed, but it may be doubted whether the poor profited much by the transaction.

“If ye pity the poor, there is none so poor as we, that have not a bratte to put upon our backs. If ye pity the blind, there is none so blind as we, which are here in the dark, saving for sights unpleasant and loth- some, till some comfort come. If ye pity the lame, there is none so lame as we, that can neither creep one foot out of the fire, nor have one hand at liberty to de fend our face from the flame. Finally, if ye pity any man in pain, never knew ye pain comparable to ours ; whose fire as far passeth in heat all the fires that ever burned on earth, as the hottest of all that passed a feigned fire painted on a wall. If ever ye lay sick, or thought the night long and longed for day, while every hour seemed longer than five, bethink you then what a long night we sely souls endure, that lie slepeless, restless, burning and broiling in the dark fire one Idng night of many days, of many weeks, of many years to gether. You waiter, peradventure, and tolter in sick ness from side to side, and find little rest in any part of the bed ; we lie bound to the brands, and cannot lift up our heads. You have your physicians with you, that sometimes cure and heal you ; no physic will help

our pain, nor no plaisters coole our heat. Your keep ers do you great ease, and put you in good comfort ; our keepers are such as God keep you from — cruel, doomed spirites, odious, envious, and hateful, despiteous enemies and despiteful tormentors, and their company more terrible and grievous to us than is the pain itself; and the intolerable torment that they do us, wherewith from top to toe they cease not continually to tear us h.”

It was strongly felt at the Reformation-period that the doctrine of Purgatory had been so taught as to invalidate the power of the Passion of Christ. With the usual confusion of the objective and subjective of those times, on the one hand it was coarsely taught that so much suffering would do its work, independent of the merit of Christ, in the way of cleansing so much sin; on the other hand, according to the new learn ing, it was supposed that our Lord’s death took away the temporal as well as the eternal punishment for sin, a mistake, as every day’s experience teaches us ; for the application of Christ’s Blood by the deepest repentance will not restore the lost health to the pro fligate, nor the squandered wealth to the spendthrift. Moreover, a divorce in thought had practically taken place between the Sacrifice of Christ and the applica tive and commemorating Sacrifice, so that the souls were thought to be succoured by masses, to the exclu sion of the thought of that adorable Passion which was pleaded in and by those masses.

h More’s “Supplication of Souls,” Works, p. 337, Cawood, London, ed. 1557.

Now the true doctrine, of which the opinion con demned in this Article is an exaggeration and excess, is founded on the tenderest and deepest sympathies of our common human nature. Mankind will not endure the thought that at the moment of death all concern for those loved ones who are riven from us by death comes to an end. We firmly resist the heathen notion, which the inverted torch and the broken column sym belize, that henceforward they are nothing to us, or we to them ; nay, we go so far as to say, that though the tree must lie as it falls, and though death puts an end to each man’s probation, so far as he is concerned, yet that Infinite love pursues the soul beyond the grave, and there has dealings with it, in which we who sur vive have still our co-operation. To pray for the departed is a deep instinct of natural piety, but it is much more than that, it is one of the best-attested doctrines of the primitive Church. The Jews at the time of our Saviour, as they do to-day, prayed for the dead, and there is not a word proceeding from the lips of our Lord which can be tortured into a condemnation of it. There is little doubt that St. Paul prayed for Onesiphorus when dead : for the Greek phrase for ” his household” implies his absence ; and he prays for no grace for this life, but only, “The Lord grant unto him, that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day1.” The early Liturgies of the Church, which, traced back to the Apostolic times, bear witness to the public teach ing of the most remote antiquity, are unanimous in this 1 2 Tim. i. 18.

respect. That of Jerusalem prays : — ” Remember, 0 Lord God, the spirits and all flesh, those of right faith whom we have mentioned and whom we have not men tioned, from Abel the Just to this day. Do Thou Thy self give them rest [or refresh them] in the region of the living, in Thy kingdom, in the delights of Para- dise, in the bosoms of our holy Fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whence sorrow, grief, and lamentation are banished away, where the light of God’s countenance visits and shines continually •>.” That of Alexandria prays : — ” Best [or refresh] the souls of our fathers and brethren who have fallen asleep before us in the faith of Christ, remembering the forefathers, fathers, patri archs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, bishops, saints, just, every soul perfected in the faith of Christ; and those whom on this present day we commemorate, and our holy Father Mark, the Apostle and Evan gelist, who shewed us the way of faith,” [then after reading the diptychs of the departed,] ” and of all these rest [or refresh] the souls in the tabernacles of Thy saints in Thy kingdom, granting them the good things of Thy promises which eye hath not seen, &c. Refresh their souls, and vouchsafe to them the kingdom of heaven k.” That of Constantinople separates off ” the oblation for the forefathers, fathers, patriarchs,” &c., with the clause ” at whose intercessions may God visit us;” and proceeds, “And remember all who are fallen asleep before us in the hope of the resurrection unto eternal life; and rest [or refresh] them where the J Assem., Cod. Lit., v. 46. k Ass., vii. 24 — 26.

light of Thy countenance visits.” The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, now ” in use through the four Patri archates and Russia, except on the few days on which St. Basil’s Liturgy is said/’ has no special form for those mentioned in the diptychs of the departed. That of St. Basil provides a prayer ” For the rest and for giveness of the soul of Thy servant N. In a lightsome place, where grief and lamentation are fled away, rest [or refresh] him.”

In the Roman Liturgy, the prayers are more varied. In the Canon of the Mass is a prayer “upon the dip tychs” (occurring in a different place, in the Sacra- mentary of St. Gregory) : — ” Remember also, O Lord, Thy servants and handmaidens (N. and N.) who have gone before us with the seal of faith, and sleep in the sleep of peace. To them, 0 Lord, and to all who are at rest in Christ, we intreat Thee to grant a place of refreshment, of light and peace1.” Other prayers, after the pattern of St. Paul’s for Onesiphorus, were for a merciful judgment m ; that God would ” save the souls of the departed from hell,” “from the judgment of vengeance,” ” from the mouth of the lion,” from ” the hands of the enemy;” that they endure not “everlast ing punishments,” ” the fire of Gehenna and the flame of hell n.” Or, again, that they may ” have part in the

m Gelas. Sacram. Orat., n. 91, post Sepulluram, p. 751, Murat. : — ” That before the throne of the glory of Thy Christ, severed with those on the right, we may have nothing in common with those on the left.” (S. Greg., t. v. p. 233.)

n “From the gates of hell deliver their soul , 0 Lord.” (Breviary.)

first resurrection0,” or “have a blessed resurrec.

” Absolve, 0 Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from all bond of sin, and, Thy grace succouring them, let them attain [wiereantur] to escape the judgment of vengeance, and enjoy the bliss of eternal light.” (Misses pro Def. Tractus.) ” O Lord Jesus Christ, King of Glory, de liver the souls of all the faithful departed from the punishment of hell, and from the lake profound ; deliver them from the mouth of the lion, lest hell (tartarus) swallow them up, lest they fall into darkness ; but let St. Michael, the Captain, present them to that holy light, which Thou hast promised to Abraham and his seed.” (Ojfert.) “Deliver it [the soul of one buried] not into the hands of the enemy, nor forget him for ever; but command him to be received by the holy angels, and to be brought to the house of Paradise ; that, since he hoped and be lieved in Thee, he may not endure the punishment of hell [inferni~\ or everlasting punishments/’ [it used to loep&nas eternas in old Missals, as Missale Rom., Paris, 1521, Ussher,] “but may possess everlasting joys;” [ib., “on the day of death or of burial”], “that it may escape the place of punishment and the fire of Gehenna, and the flame of hell, in the land of the living.” (Gelasian Sacram., n. 91 ; post obit. Horn., p. 748, Mur.) “May he pass the gates of hell and the ways of darkness,” (p. 749). ” Deliver him, O Lord, from the princes of darkness and the places of punishment” (p. 750), ” that he may be free from the burning of eternal fire” (p. 751). “That thou wouldest deliver him from the torments of hell.” (Greg. Sacram., post lavat. Corp., ib., p. 215 and 216. ” Let him be severed from the fierce burning of the boiling Gehenna.” (Post sepult. Corpus, p. 217.) ” Grant him to escape the flames of eternal punishment, and gain the rewards of eternal life.” (Miss. Ambros. in Pam. Lit., i. 450.) So also in the Jacobite Liturgy of St. James : — ” Free ing them from the infinite damnation to come, and making them worthy of the joy which is in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Renaud., ii. 38.) ” Spare the sinners in the day of judgment,” (ibid., 39). ” Forgive those sins especially for which in eternity condemnation is prepared,” &c., (ibid., 196). ” Let them be hidden under the wings of Thy grace, and not be condemned,” (ibid., 222). ” Give rest in the habitation of Thy kingdom to all who have fallen asleep in hope of Thee, and free them and us from the unquenchable fire and the worm that dieth not,” (ibid., 339 ; add ibid., 350, 364, 378, 405, 520).

tionp,” ” or that they may obtain eternal felicity in the congregation of the saints ;” ” may be enrolled in

Opp., t. v. p. 228, Paris ; Missale Goth., p. 394, ed. Thomas. Mur. ” That, severed from the horror of hell [horrore tartareo}, placed in Abraham’s bosom, the Almighty would vouchsafe to resuscitate them in the first resurrection, which He shall effect.” Tertullian, in reasoning against second marriages, asks how a wife is to pray for the two husbands, the old and the new; and states the boon demanded for the dead one, “refreshment and a share in the first resurrection.” (De Monog., x.)

P ” May he rise again among those who rise, and among those who receive their bodies in the day of resurrection may he receive his body, and with the blessed who come at the right hand of God the Father may he come, and among those who possess eternal life may he possess it/’ (Sacr. Gelas., 1. c., p. 749.) ” Let us deprecate the mercy of Almighty God for the spirit of our dear N., whose burial is celebrated to-day, that He would receive him in eternal rest, and restore him by a blessed resurrection.” (Ib:d.) “Let his soul receive no injury, but when that great day of resurrection and reward cometh, vouchsafe, Lord, to raise him with Thy saints and Thine elect ; forgive him transgressions and sins ’ to the last farthing,’ and let him obtain a life of immortality and an eternal kingdom with Thee.” (Ibid., 750.) ” Eternal God, Who hast given us in Christ, Thy Only-begotten, our Lord, the hope of a blessed resurrection ; grant that the souls of Thy servants, for whom we offer to Thy Majesty this sacrifice of our redemption, may be found meet, through Thy mercy, to attain with Thy saints to the rest of a blessed resurrection.” (Prcef. Ant. in Pamel. Lit., ii.609.) ” That Thou would^st command the soul of Thy servant N. to be carried by the hands of Thy holy angels to the bosom of the Patriarch Abraham Thy friend, to be raised up in the last day of the great judgment.” (Sacram. Greg., n. 104, p. 214, Murat.) ” And may be found meet to be raised among the saints and elect in the glory of the resurrection.” (Ibid., and in another prayer, at the grave before interment, p. 215.) ” Let us pray that the pity of the Lord would vouchsafe to place him in the bosom of Abra ham, Isaac, and Jacob; that when the day of judgment shall come, He may cause him to be raised, and be placed among His saints and elect,” after interment. (Ibid.) The Jacobite Liturgy prays for the person’s resurrection (Ren. ii. 167), ” Raise them, O Lord, in that last Day, and be Thy face calm towards them : and forgive for Thy mercy’s sake their sins and failings.”

the number of the saints who pleased God.” There are prayers also for the recently baptised 1, and for eternal remission to those who desired penance, but were cut off by death r. There were also the well- known prayers for St. Leo I. and St. Gregory I. specifically s.

Perhaps it may not be an improbable conjecture, that the Church at first prayed for all the departed in one tenour *, without discriminating, leaving it to God

i Sacratn. Gelas., n. 96, p. 755, ed. Mur.

r Ibid., n. 98, p. 756.

s ” Grant to us, Lord, that this oblation, by immolating which Thou didst grant that the offences of the whole world should be pardoned, may profit the soul of Thy servant Leo, through,” &c., (Sacram. Gregor., p. 101, ed. Murat.) ; and, substituting the name Gregory, (ibid., p. 25).

• The ancient Office in the Apostolic Constitutions prays : — ” We offer to Thee also for all who, from the beginning, have pleased Thee, saints, patriarchs, prophets, just, apostles, martyrs, confessors, bishops, presby ters, deacons, sub-deacons, readers, singers, virgins, widows, laics, and all of whom Thou knowest the names.” (Const. Apost., viii. 12, t. i. p. 4C3. Cotel.) The Liturgy of Theodoras, in use among the Nestorians, goes on in one tenour : — ” O our Lord and God, receive from us by Thy grace this sacrifice of thanksgiving, the reasonable fruit of our lips, that there be before Thee a good memory of the ancient just, holy prophets, blessed apostles, martyrs and confessors, bishops, doctors, priests, deacons, and all the sons of the Holy Catholic Church, who in true faith passed out of this world ; that through Thy grace, O Lord, Thou wouldest for give them all the sins and offences which in this world, in their mortal body and soul subject to change, they sinned or offended against Thee; for there is no one who sinneth not.” (Renaud., Litt. Orient., ii. 620, 621.) The Armenian Liturgy prays collectively : — “Through this obla tion grant health, peace, plenty, &c., through it give rest to all who have heretofore fallen asleep in Christ; to the patriarchs [Adam, Noah, Abraham, &c.], to the fathers, [of tribes, families, of the Armenian people, antistites in its secular sense, C. M.,] to the prophets, to the apostles, to the martyrs, to the bishops, to the elders [i.e. presbyters”1,

318 A11T1CLE XXII.

to hear her in whatever way He knew for each ; and so, that the prayers for deliverance from hell,

to the deacons, and to the whole clergy of Thy Holy Church, and to all the laity, both men and women, who have ended (their life) in the faith,” (said privately, then aloud,) ” with whom we beseech Thee to visit us also.” Then ” of the Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and of John Baptist, and of Stephen the first martyr, and of all the saints let there be remembrance in this holy oblation, we beseech Thee.” Then, after full intercessions for the living, special mention of certain departed : — ” Remember, O Lord, also the spirit of Thy servant N. N., and have mercy on him according to Thy great mercy, and on (the day of Thy) visitation give him rest in the light of Thy countenance/’ (but if he be living, ” save him from all snares of the soul and body”). “Remember, 0 Lord, also those who have recommended themselves to a mention of them in their prayers, both them that are in life, and them that rest in death; direct the intention [or “will”] of their requests unto Thee, and of our own to that which is right and that tends to salvation,” &c. (Armenian Liturgy [Gregorian], translated by the Rev. C. Malan.) In the Jacobite Liturgy of the twelve apostles, the one prayer comprises all classes : — ” Remember, 0 Lord, those also who pleased Thee from the beginning, especially the holy glorious Mother of God, Mary, John Baptist, &c. Remember also, Lord, all the faithful departed who have died of old and come to Thee. Receive these oblations which are offered for them to Thee this day, and make them rest in the blessed bosom of Abraham. With hope of Thy mercy, all the departed have received rest, and expect compassions of Thee, our adorable God. Grant that they may be found meet to hear that life-giving word, which shall call them and bring them, that they be invited to Thy kingdom.” (Renaudot, ii. 173.) Alcuin has the like prayer in the offices which he framed, chiefly (it is related, Monit. JPratv. Alcuini, Opp., t. ii. pt. i. p. 3, ed. Frob.) from the Sacramentaries of St. Gelasius and St. Gregory : — ” We humbly pray Thee, 0 Lord, Holy Father, Almighty Everlasting God, for the spirits of Thy servants and hand maidens, whom,y/*o#i the beginning of this world, Thou hast commanded to be brought to Thyself, that Thou wouldest vouchsafe to give them a lightsome place, a place of refreshment and quiet ; that it be allowed them to pass the gates of hell and the ways of darkness, and they may remain in the mansion of the saints and iii the holy light which Thou

related to souls on whom the particular judgment was not yet passed u; those for the saints were “for increase of their glory/’ as was expressed in words in a Gothic Missal, before the close of the eighth cen tury v; on which also Innocent III., at the beginning of the thirteenth, says, that ” very many thought not

promisedst of old to Abraham and his seed. Let their souls receive no injury, but when that great day of resurrection and retribution shall come, Thou vouchsafe to raise them, 0 Lord, together with Thy saints and Thine elect, and efface their transgressions and sins ’ to the utter most farthing,’ that they may obtain immortal life and an eternal king dom with Thee.” (Ibid., p. 82.) That of Dioscorus in like way prays God : — ” Remember all who, from Adam until now, have had a conver sation well-pleasing to Thee, who have departed unto Thee ; especially those who have excellently ministered and served before Thee, faithful priests and deacons, who have purified their own souls and those of the people,” &c. (Ibid., p. 293.)

u They occur chiefly on the day of the death or burial (see above, notes k, 1, m). Since some are dying at every moment, the more general prayers may perhaps relate to them, although not specified. Dieringer says of these prayers : — ” To regard these formularies as prayers for those en gaged in the death-struggle is, even on this ground, inadmissible ; that this liturgy, in its central prayers, presupposes death as having already occurred; but the expressions are too strong to be applied to Purgatory. But if one brings before one’s mind the whole contents of the liturgies in question, that the Church in these prayers sets the departed before her, as they undergo the last agony, are placed before their Judge, pine in Purgatory, await the Resurrection and the Judgment of the world; all this, in time severed, is to the praying Church, directly present, since she may be certain that her intercessions and sacrifices, though as yet future, are taken account of by God at the time when their benefits can still avail to those who are the objects of them.” (Lehrb. d. KatJi. Dogm., § 142, p. 721, ed. 5.)

v “For the glory of the martyrs and the rest of the departed.” (Missale Gothicum in Thomasius, ” Codices Sacram. 900 annis vetus- tiores,” p. 393, Rom. 1680.)

unworthy x.” The more common explanation was that they were thanksgivings7, which suits the forms in which they were commemorated, yet does not fit in naturally with those in which they were prayed for. St. Epiphanius explains that these prayers were in tended to mark the difference between the highest saints and God z. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in explaining the Liturgy, apparently arranges the departed men tioned in it into three classes ; 1. those who are com memorated and not prayed for — ” patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, that at their prayers and inter cessions God would receive our petition;” 2. the holy dead prayed for — ” then also in behalf of (vTrep) the

r S. Aug. Enchirid., c. 109, in his Short Treatises, p. 151, Oxf. Tr., quoted by Innocent III., 1. c.

z “The prayer for them [the departed] helpeth, although it cuts not off everything of accusation. We make mention of the just and for sinners. For the sinners, we entreat for the mercy of God. For the just, and fathers, and patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and evangelists, and martyrs, and confessors, and bishops, and anchorites, and the whole Order, that we may separate the Lord Jesus Christ from the order of men through the honours to Him, and may render Him reverence; mindful that the Lord is not on a level with any among men, though any man be ten thousand fold or yet more in righteousness.” (H<zr. 75, n. 7, Opp. i. 911.)

holy fathers and bishops ;” and 3. of all universally who have fallen asleep among us, believing that it will be a very great advantage to the souls, in behalf of (vTrep) whom the supplication is put up while the “holy and most awful sacrifice lieth there.”

St. Cyril thus meets the difficulty, which was in the mouths of “many,” “What is a soul benefited, which departed out of this world with sins or without sins, if it be remembered at the prayer ?” He answers the question as to “sinners” by an illustration: — ” Now, surely if a king had banished certain who had offended him, and their relations, having woven a crown, should offer it to him on behalf of those under his vengeance, would he not grant relaxation of the punish ments? In the same way we also, offering up to Him supplications on behalf of those who are fallen asleep before us, even though they be sinners, entwine no crown, but offer Christ sacrificed for our sins, pro pitiating both on their behalf and our own, God, the lover of mankind a.”

When we turn to individual writers in the early Church, we find various statements with regard to the conditions of the souls of the departed : and those not only in different writers, but in the very same ; and yet some of these writers are ordinarily so consistent, that their sayings have to be reconciled. Then, too, as to other minds, a concurrent language has great weight as representing some common tone of thought or belief in their period. Now, on the one side, we have broad

• Cat. xxiii. My stag. v. n. 9, 10. Y

statements, which assume that there are but two abodes in the intermediate state, the one for the saved, the other for the lost; and that the abode of the saved is one of rest and refreshment b. They anticipate for

b ” I affirm that souls never perish, for this would be a godsend to the wicked. What, then, befalls them ? The souls of the good are con signed to a better place, and those of the unjust and evil to a worse, there to await the Day of Judgment.” (St. Justin M., Dial. c. TrypTi., § 5, p. 78, Oxf. Tr.)

“We will answer [Marcion], this very Scripture too [of Dives and Lazarus], which separates Abraham’s bosom for the poor man from the inferi, refuting him. For the inferi are one place, I deem ; Abra ham’s bosom, another. For he says that a great gulf intervenes be tween those regions, and forbids a passage on either side. Nor would the rich man have lifted up his eyes, and that from afar, unless unto an upper region. Whence it is clear to any wise man — that there is a certain bounded space called Abraham’s bosom, for the reception of the souls of his sons — which shall yield meanwhile refreshment to the souls of the just, until the consummation of all things shall com plete the fulness of reward at the resurrection of all ; a temporary re ception of the souls of the faithful, where an image of the future shall be delineated, and there be an anticipation of either judgment [of eternal death and salvation].” (Tert., adv. Marc., iv. 34.)

” Are all souls, then, in the inferi ? sayest thou. Will you, nill you, thou hast there already both punishments and refreshments; the poor and the rich. For why shouldest thou not think that the soul is both punished and cherished in the inferi, under the expectation of either judgment, in a sort of anticipation of it ?” (I)e anima, n. 58.)

” Passing which gate [of Hades], those who are brought down by the angels set over souls, go not by one way; but the just, light-led to the right, and hymned by the angels presiding in their place, are led to a lightsome spot, where dwell the just from the begin ning, not constrained by necessity, but ever enjoying the gaze of the things which they behold, and gladdened with the expectation of the things ever new, and thinking them better than these ; to whom their abode brings no troubles ; no burning heat, no frost are there ; but the sight of the righteous fathers which they see ever smiles upon them,

the departed the same comfort and peace which people commonly do now ; they console under sorrow for losses

while, after this spot, they await the rest and new eternal life in heaven. It is called Abraham’s bosom. — But the unjust are dragged by avenging angels to the left” (“to the confines of hell”). S.Hippol., adv. Grcec. et Plat. n. 1, Gall. ii. 451, 452.)

“As those, who departing from this world according to the common death, are disposed of according to their acts and merits as they shall have been judged worthy ; some into the place called Infernus, some into Abraham’s bosom, and in different places or mansions.” (Origin, de Princ. iv. 23 (as revised by Rutinus), Opp. i. 185.)

” For neither are the places which lie below the earth themselves void of ordered and arranged powers. For there is a place where the souls of the godly and ungodly are led, feeling the foretastes of the judgment to come.” (Novatian, de Trin., c. i.)

” The vengeance of hell overtakes us at once, and, immediately we depart from the body, if we have so lived, ’ we perish from the right way/ The rich and poor man in the Gospel shew us this; the one placed by angels in the abode of the blessed and in Abraham’s bosom, the other at once received into the place of punishment. So quickly did punishment come upon the dead, that even his brothers were si ill alive. There is no deferring or delaying there. For, as the day of judgment is the eternal award either of bliss or punishment, so the time of death orders the interval for every man by its own laws, com mitting every one to Abraham or to punishment till the judgment.” (St. Hilary, in Psalm ii. § 48.)

” I think that I have to prove first of all, that our souls are not dissolved when they put off the body; but, according to the quality of their deeds, some are banished to penal places, some are cherished n peaceful abodes.” (St. Zeno, lib. i. tr. 16, n. 2, de Resurr.)

” Why mourn you so pertinaciously those who migrate out of this life to better things ?” (Ib., n. 6.)

“The brazen altar represents the earth, under which is the In fernus, a region removed from punishment and fires, and the rest of the saints; in which the just are seen and heard by the ungodly, but they cannot pass thither.” (Victorinus, in Apoc. vi. 9; Gall. ii. 57.) (Those spoken of by St. John are martyrs, but Victorinus has only the two classes, sancti and impii, of whom the saints are at rest.)

“Between death and the inferi there is this difference; death it is,

with the same topics, not only that those departed rest from their labours, and have no more strife with sin, but that they are in peace c ; they speak absolutely of

whereby the soul is departed from the body ; Infernus, a place in which souls are laid up either in refreshment or in pains, according to the quality of their deserts.” (S. Jerome, in Os. xiii. 14, t. vi. p. 152, Vail.)

” After the departure from the body, forthwith there takes place the distinction of the just and unjust. For they are led by the angels to the places meet for them; the souls of the just to Paradise, where is the converse and sight of angels and archangels, and of the Saviour Christ in vision, as is written, ’ being absent from the body and present with the Lord.’ But the souls of the unjust to the place of Hades,” &c. (Qu. et resp. ad Ortliod., p. 75 ; in St. Justin M., App. p. 470.)

” We learn from the Scriptures that the souls of sinners are in Hades, below all earth and sea, as the Psalm (Ixxxvii. [Ixxxviii.] 7) says, and as is written in Job (x. 22). But the souls of the just, after the com ing of Christ (as we learn from the robber on the cross) are in Para dise. For Christ our God did not open Paradise for the soul of the holy robber alone, but for all the souls of the holy thereafter.” (Qucestt. ad Antioch., q. 19, in St. Athanasius, Opp. ii. 272.)

The author of the Carmen de judicio Domini in Tertullian., pp. 808, 809, knew but of the two abodes. So Prudentius, Cathem. x. 151 — 162, de exeq. def.

0 ” We injure Christ, when, as each is called away by Him, we bear it impatiently, as though they were to be pitied. ’ I have a desire,’ saith the Apostle, ’ to be taken and to be with Christ.’ But how much better doth he shew the desire of the Christians to be ! Wherefore, if we im patiently mourn for others who have obtained this desire, we are un willing to obtain it ourselves.” (Tertullian de Pat., n. 9, p. 340, 0. T.) ” It is for Mm to fear death, who willeth not to go to Christ : it is for him to will not to go to Christ, who believeth not that he beginneth to reign with Christ. For it is written, ’ the just liveth by faith.’ If thou art just and livest by faith, if thou truly believest in God, why, since thou art to be with Christ and art secure of the Lord’s promise, dost thou not embrace thy being called by Christ, and congratulate thee that thou art rid of Satan ? Simeon, rejoicing in the nearness now of death, said, ’ Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace ;’ proving and

attesting that then have the servants of God peace, then free, then quiet rest, when, withdrawn from these storms of the world, we gain the haven of our everlasting rest and security.” (S. Cyprian de Mor tal., n. 2.) ” The righteous are called to a place of refreshment, the wicked are hurried to punishment” [by the pestilence]; “the multi tude of those who are already believers is called to peace.” (Ibid., n. 10.) ’ We should not regret nor deplore them, nor go into mourning for those who have already put on white raiment.” (Ibid., 15.) ” Embrace we the day which assigns each to his own domicile; which restores us, rescued hence and freed from the chains of the world, to paradise and the king dom of heaven.” (Ibid., n. 20.) ” The good man shall go, rejoicing, to his everlasting house, but the wicked shall fill all with lamentations.” (Greg. Neocfes. MetapJir. in EccL, xii. 6. p. 95, Paris, 1622.) St.Macarius of Egypt even contemplates the perfecting of the imperfect in a moment by God. ” Qu. But if a man, engaged in war, and having two sides in his soul, of sin and of grace, is removed from this world, whither goeth he, being held back on the two sides ? Ans. Where his mind hath its aim, where he loveth, there he goeth. Only if affliction and war assail thee, thou oughtest to contradict and hate ; for, that the war cometh is not thine, but to hate is thine. And then the Lord, looking at thy mind, that thou strivest and lovest Him with all thy soul, severeth death from thy soul in one hour (for this is not difficult for Him) and He receiveth thee to His bosom and to the light. For He snatcheth thee, in an hour’s turn, from the mouth of darkness, and forthwith translateth thee to His kingdom. For to God all things are easy to do in an hour’s turn, so thou have love for Him.” (Horn. 26, pp. 151, 152, Par., 1622.) ” On the two-fold condition of those who depart out of this life.” ” When the soul of man goeth forth from the body, a great mystery is accomplished there. For if he be under the guilt of sin, bands of devils come, and angels of the left, and powers of darkness receive that soul, and hold it on their side. — See from the good side that this is so. For to the holy servants of God there are from now, angels awaiting, and holy spirits encircling and guarding them, and when they go forth from the body, the choirs of angels receive their souls to their side, to the pure world, and thus they bring them to the Lord.” (Id., Horn. 22, p. 133.) St. Hilary : — “This guardianship, (to be scorched neither by sun or moon, and to be preserved from all evil,) doth not belong to this time and this world, but is the expectation of the goods to come, when, departing out of the body, all the faithful shall be reserved, through the guardianship of the Lord, for that entrance of the heavenly

kingdom, placed meanwhile in Abraham’s bosom (whither the inter posed gulf hinders the ungodly from approaching) until the time come of entering the kingdom of heaven. The Lord then ’ shall guard their going out,’ when, going out from the body, they rest, severed from the ungodly by the interposed gulf. The Lord shall ’ guard their coming in,’ bringing them into that eternal and blessed kingdom.” (In Ps. cxx. fin., p. 383, Ben.) ” The joy of each just one, as of Lazarus resting in Abraham’s bosom, is shewn. For the joy of the just is when he seeth the vengeance (Ps. Ivii. 11); because, when sinners are to be punished, he rejoices that he is carried by angels into eternal rest.” (Ibid., in Ps. Ivii. n. 6, p. 125, Ben.) “Let innocent religion have this confidence, that, if it be put to death unjustly, the soul, going forth from the habita tion of the body, rests in the guardianship of God.” (Ibid., in Ps. liii. n. 10.) The ancient author of the de Virginitate in St. Athanasius : — ” If thou walkest in the world, thou walkest in death and out of God, according to the Divine Scripture; but if thou walk in righteousness, thou walkest in life, and death shall not hurt thee. With the just it is nob death but translation. For they are translated from this world to the everlasting rest, and as one goeth out of prison, so do the saints go forth from this toilsome life to the good things prepared for them.” (n. 8, in St. Ath., Opp. ii. 120, 121.) St. Ambrose :— ” Death is in every way a good ; because it puts away those principles in us which war against each other, and because it is a sort of harbour for those who, after tossing on the wide sea of this life, seek for an anchorage of secure peace.” (De Bono Mortis, 4.) “Unwise persons fear death as the greatest of ills ; but the wise desire it, as if a rest after toil and the end of ills.” (Ibid., 8.) “Relying on these considerations, let us betake ourselves courageously to our Redeemer Jesus, courageously to the Council of Patriarchs, to our father Abraham, when our day shall arrive ; courageously to that holy assembly and congregation of the just. We shall go to our fathers, to our preceptors in the faith ; so that, though our works fail us, our faith may succour us, our birthright plead for us. We shall go where holy Abraham opens his arms to receive the poor, as he received Lazarus ; where they rest who in this life endured heavy and sharp inflictions… . We shall go to those who sit down in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because when ask^ed to supper they did not excuse themselves. We shall go thither, where there is a paradise of delight, where Adam, who fell among thieves, has forgotten to lament his wounds, where, too, the thief him self rejoices in the fellowship of the kingdom of heaven; where are no

clouds, where no thunder, no lightning, no storm of wind, no darkness’ no evening, no summer, no winter, will vary the seasons. There will be no cold, hail, rain, nor the presence of the sun, moon, or stars ; but the brightness of light will alone shine forth.” (Ibid., 12.) St. Chrysostom : — ” Think, to whom he is gone, and receive comfort ; where Paul is, where Peter, where the whole choir of saints.” (In Illud de Dormientibus nolo, Horn. 5, n. 3, t. i. p. 766.) “Nor then [when Joseph made the mourning Gen. 1. 9 — 11] were the gates of hell broken, or the bands of death loosed, nor was death called a sleep. Wherefore, when they feared death, they did this ; but now, for the grace of God, since death has become sleep, and the end rest, and there is much assurance of the resurrection, we exult and are glad, as removed from life to life. Why say T, ’ from life to life ?’ From the worse to the better, from the temporal to the eternal, from the earthly to the heavenly.” (Horn. 67, in Gen. n. 4, t. iv. p. 641.) ” It is death no more, but a sleep and a journey, and a translation from worse to better. Wherefore also Paul crieth aloud, ’ to depart and be with Christ is much better.’ But this is now, since Christ is come, since the gates of brass have been broken, since the Sun of righteousness hath shone forth over the whole world. For then death had still a fearful aspect, and shook the mind of those righteous men.” (Ibid., Horn. 45, n. 2, p. 459.) ” Death is rest, freedom from labour, reward of toils, reward and crown of struggles. Wherefore, at first, there were wailings and laments for the dead ; but now, hymns and psalmodies. For they wept Jacob forty days, and the Jews wept and mourned Moses forty other days. For then death was death ; now, not so; but hymns and prayers and Psalms; all things shewing that the event hath pleasure. For Psalms are a symbol of cheerfulness : ’ If any is of good cheer, let him sing Psalms.’ Since, then, we are full of cheerfulness, we sing over the dead Psalms which bid us be of good courage as to the end. « Turn again,’ he saith, ’ unto thy rest, 0 my soul, for the Lord hath dealt well with thee.’ Thou seest that death is a benefit and rest. For he who entereth into that rest, hath rested from his works, as God from His.” (Horn, de S. Bernice, &c., n. 3, t. ii. pp. 638, 639.) St. Jerome, to a mother on the death of a daughter : — ” Let the dead be lamented, but he whom Gehenna receiveth, whom hell devoureth, for whose pain the eternal fire blazes up. Let us, whose departure a company of angels attendeth, whom Christ cometh forth to meet, be rather grieved, if we dwell longer in this tabernacle of death, because, as long as we linger here, we are pilgrims from the Lord.” (Ep. 39 ad Paulam de ob. Bices., n. 3, pp. 177, 178, Vail.) St. Augus-

those being at peace for whom they pray for rest d ; they so speak not of individuals only, but of the great body of believers. (See above, p. 324, sqq.)

tine : — ” Although it is not lawful to doubt that the souls of the just and pious departed live in rest.” (De Civ. D.y iii. 19.) ” Of which [our city of God] how that part had its birth, which is gathered out of mortal men to be associated to the immortal angels, and now is in its mortal pilgrimage on earth, or, in those who have died, rest in secret receptacles and abodes of souls, the same God creating them.” (Id., ibid., xii. 9.) St. Cyril of Alexandria : — ” The force of His words (’ Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit’) laid a beginning and foundation of good hope for ourselves too. For it ought, I deem, to be held fixed, and very justly, that the souls of the saints, departing from the earthly bodies, are deposited, as it were, in the goodness and loving -kindness of God, as into the hands of a most tenderly loving Father, and not, as some of the unbelievers think, linger in the tombs waiting for the libations there ; neither are they, like the sin-loving souls, conveyed to the place of boundless torment, i.e. Hades ; but rather they hasten to the hands of the Father of all, and of Christ our Saviour Who made for us this new way. For He gave up His soul into the hands of His Own Father, that we, too, having in this and through this received a beginning, may have bright hopes, firmly settled and believing, that we, when we have en dured the death of the flesh, shall be in the hands of God, and in a far exceeding better state than we were in the flesh. Wherefore also the wise Paul writes to us, that it is ’ better to depart and be with Christ.’ ” (On St. Joh., xix. 36, 1. xii. Opp. iv. 1069, Aub.)

d Archbish op Ussher instances that St. Ambrose says of Valentinian : — “Believe we, that the stain of sin being wiped away, he mounts up cleansed, whom his faith washed and his prayers consecrated. Believe we, that he has ’ mounted up from the wilderness,’ i.e. this dry and un cultivated spot, to those flowery delights, where, united with his brothers, he enjoys the pleasure of eternal […] he adds, ” blessed both, if my orisons shall aught avail, no day shall pass you by in silence, no speech of mine shall pass you over unhorioured ; no night shall run by, some portion of my prayers unbestowed, I will frequent you in all my oblations.” (De Obit. Valent., n. 77, 78, Opp. ii. 1194.) Of Theodosius, St. Ambrose says : — ” Freed from doubtful conflict, Theodosius, of august memory, now enjoys perpetual light, abiding tranquillity ; and, for the

OF PURGAT011Y. 329

This is the light, bright side. There are to be adj usted with this two sets of statements, both founded on Holy Scripture. 1. The one which unquestionably relates to the Day of Judgment, (whether the general judgment of all, or the particular judgment of the single soul, when it parts out of the body,) St. Paul’s

things which he did in this body, he rejoices in the fruits of the Divine reward. Therefore, because he loved the Lord his God, he hath attained the fellowship of the saints.” (De Obit. Tkeod., n. 32, Opp. ii. 1206.) Then he prays, ” Give perfect rest to Thy servant Theodosius ; that rest which Thou hast prepared for Thy saints. Let his soul turn thither, whence it came down, where it cannot feel the sting of death, where it may know that this death is the e/id, not of nature but of fault. For in that he died, he died to sin, that now there may be no more room for sin ; but he shall rise again, that life may be restored more perfect by a renewed gift. I loved him, and, therefore, I follow him to the land of the living ; nor will I forsake him until by my tears and prayers I bring the man, whither his merits call him, to the holy mount of God, where is perpetual life, where is no corruption, no con tagion, no groan, no dolour, no society of the dead, the true land of the living, where this mortality puts on immortality, and this corruption puts on incorruption.” (Ibid., n.36, 37.) And then again : — ” Theodosius there abideth in light, and glorieth in the assemblies of the saints.” (Ibid., n. 39.) Of his own brother Satyrus, after setting forth his excellences, he says : — ” He hath, then, entered the kingdom of heaven, because he be lieved the Word of God,” (ibid., n. 61, Opp. ii. 28) ; and concludes the oration, ” To Thee now, Almighty God, I commend the guiltless soul, to Thee I offer my sacrifice ; receive, propitious and serene, the brother’s gift, the sacrifice of the priest.” (Ibid., n. 80.) And to Faustinus he contrasts his sister’s death with the perpetual decay of earthly things ; she, ” a holy and admirable woman, who is for a time snatched from us, but is pass ing a better life there;” ” so then,” he adds, ” I think that she is not so much to be mourned, as to be followed by orisons ; nor is she, I deem, to be saddened by many tears, but rather her soul is to be commended to the Lord.” (Ep. 39, Opp. ii. 944.) St. Ephrem, in his Canons, for the Departed, prays for those whose pra) ers he had asked, e.g. Can. 16, Opp. Syr. iii. 259, 261.

description of that fire which shall try every man’s work, when they whose work shall be burned shall escape, yet so as by fire. 2. The other, our blessed Lord’s words of that prison, into which they who shall be “cast, shall not come forth till” they have “paid the uttermost farthing,” which, while some interpreted of hell, others conceived to be a temporary prison ; the debt being paid, not by anything which we can do, but by suffering.

1. Of the first class, St. Clement of Alexandria says, ” We say that fire purifies not flesh but sinful souls, speaking not of that all-devouring and common fire, but of that discriminating fire, which penetrates the soul which passes through the fire e.” Origen pur sues this with much fuller reference to St. Paul’s words : ” If, after the remission of sins and the dispensation of the washing of regeneration, we sin, (as we most of us do who are not perfected like the Apostles,) and after or with this sinning do some things as we ought, what awaits us ? If, after the foundation Christ Jesus, thou hast gold, much or little, silver, precious stone, but also wood, hay, stubble, what wouldest thou should happen to thee after thy departure ? Enter into the holies, with thy wood, hay, and stubble, to defile the kingdom of God ? Or again, abide in the fire for the hay, wood, stubble, and receive nothing for the gold, silver, precious stone ? Neither were this equitable. What, then, followeth, to receive first for the wood ? Plainly, that the fire consumeth the wood, hay, stubble. Strom, vii. 6, p. 851.

For God, Who is a consuming fire, consumed not His own image and likeness, but the wood, hay, stubble, superbuilded f.” Origen is followed in this by St. Am brose, who believed that the Day of Judgment would be prolonged so that all but great saints would have suffering in it.

” ’ Thou hast proved us by fire,’ says David, there fore we shall be proved by fire ; therefore the sons of Levi will be purged by fire; by fire, Ezekiel ; by fire, Daniel. But these, though proved by fire, yet shall say, ’ ^WQ passed through fire and water/ (Ps. Ixvi. 12). Others shall remain in the fire ; and the fire shall be as dew to them (Song of Three Children, 27), as to the Hebrew children who were exposed to the fire of the burning furnace. But the avenging flame shall con sume the ministers of impiety. Woe is me, should my work be burned, and I suffer this worsting of my labour ! Although the Lord will save His servants, we shall be saved by faith, but so saved as by fire. Al though we shall not be burned up, yet we shall be burned. But how some remain in the fire, others escape through it, learn from another Scripture. The Egyptians were drowned in the Eed Sea, the Israelites passed over ; Moses passed through, Pharaoh sank, for his heavy sins drowned him. In like manner the irreligious will sink in the lake of burning fire g.”

f In Jerem. Horn. xvi. n. 5, 6, t. iii., pp. 231, 232 (abridged); in Num. Horn. xxv. t. ii. p. 368 ; also, in Lev. Horn. xiv. n. 3, p. 259.

£ In Ps. xxxvi. n. 26, i. 790, Sen. Again; — “All must be proved

St. Hilary also, probably, here as elsewhere h, fol lowed Origen ; the more so, since he, with Origen *, combines with St. Paul’s words our Lord’s saying, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire […] he adds, ” to those baptized in the Holy Ghost it remains to be consummated by the fire of judg ment V “Since we are to give an account for every

\ through fire, as many as desire to return to Paradise ; for it is not said ior nothing, that, when Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise, God placed at the outlet of Paradise a fiery sword which turned every way. All must pass through the flames, whether he be John the Evan gelist, whom the Lord so loved as to say to Peter of him, ’ If I wish him to tarry, — what is that to thee ? Follow thou Me ?’ Some have doubted of his death ; of his passage through the fire we cannot doubt, for he is in Paradise, not separated from Christ. Or, whether he be Peter, he who received the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, who walked upon the sea, must still say, ’ We passed through fire and water, and Thou broughtest us out into a place of refreshment.’ But the fiery sword will soon be turned by St. John, for iniquity is not found in him whom Righteousness loved. Whatever human defect was in him, Divine Love melted it away, for ‘her wings are as the wings of fire ?’ (Cant, viii. 6.) He who possesses here the fire of love, will have no cause to fear there the fiery sword. But he shall be tried as silver, I, as lead ; I shall burn till the lead melts away. If no silver be found in me, ah me ! I shall be plunged down into the lowest pit, or consume entire as the stubble. Should aught of gold or silver be found in me, not for my works, but through the mercy and grace of Christ, by the ministry of the priesthood, I shall peradventure say, ‘They that hope in Thee shall not be ashamed.’ The fiery sword, then, shall consume iniquity, which is placed on the leaden scale. One, then, only could not feel that ; fire, Christ the Righteousness of God, because He did no sin ; for the ! fire found nought in Him which it might consume.” (In Ps. cxviii. ’ Serm. xx. n. 12—14, i. 1225, B.) h See Bened. Prof., n. 29.

idle word, shall we desire the Day of Judgment, in which we must undergo that unspent fire, and those heavy penalties for expiating the soul from its sins ? The sword will pass through the soul of blessed Mary, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. If that Virgin, who could contain God, shall come into the severity of the judgment, who shall dare desire to be judged of God1 ?”

St. Gregory Nazianzen says, of those who rejected the penitent : ” Let these, if they will, go my way and Christ’s ; if not, their own. Perchance then they will be baptized with the fire, the last baptism, the more painful and longer, which devours what is course, like hay, and consumes the lightness of all vicem.” He says, in a doubtful case of acting : ” The end of these things I will remit to the last fire, which convicts and purifies all things with judgment, if by some craft we escape notice here D.”

St. Ephrem, since he did not know Greek °, is plainly independent. He says, “Both the just and the unjust shall pass through the fire which is to try them, and

1 In Ps. cxviii. Lit. iii. n. 12.

m Orat. xxxix. in 88. Lwm., n. 19, p. 690, Ben. He uses the word Tt/xo’” in the same way of himself : — ” Perchance, I shall hereafter be moulded by another moulding, cleansed by the friendly fire.” De seipso, v. 496, p. 48, Toll. In Orat. iii. n. vii. p. 71, he exhorts to ” build on the foundation of faith, not wood, nor hay, nor stubble, — matter unre sisting and easily consumed, when what is ours is judged by the fire or purified — but gold, silver, precious stones, which abide and are stable.”

” De seipso, 10 — 13.

shall be proved by it; the righteous pass and the flame is quiet ; but it burneth the wicked and snatcheth him away p :” and ” What shall I do, who must pass over the burning flame ? How shall I be able to soar high above it q ?” St. Ephrem connects this fire with the fire of hell, which he prays may shrink back “through the precious Body and Blood of Christ, which” “the saved had received; and that the Cross of the Son of the living God may be a bridge over the sea of fire r.”

St. Jerome, in answer to Jovinian, (who maintained the paradox, that, as there were only two classes, those on the right hand, and those on the left, all the saved would have the same reward,) alleged, among other places, those words of St. Paul : ” If he whose work was burned and perished, shall lose indeed the reward of his labour, but himself be saved, yet not without the probation of fire ; then, he whose work abides, which he built on the foundation, will be saved with out the probation of fire, and so there will be some difference between the salvation of each s.”

St. Augustine expresses himself as strongly as any I. other fathers as to the benefit of prayers for the de-

P Canon xlii., Opp. Syr., t. vi. p. 298 ; Burgess’s Hymns of St. Ephr., p. 32.

i Can. ix., ib. 236 ; Burg., p. 18.

s Adv. Jov., lib. ii. n. 22; t. ii. p. 360, Vail. His words on Am. vii. 4, seem to me to belong to this life.

parted, and enumerates it among the errors of the Arian Aerius, that he said that oblation “ought not to be made for those asleep*.” In regard to the puri fying fire at the judgment, he used the same language as the others, briefly but undoubtingly in earlier works, and has the well - known passage on its awfulness : ” ’ Rebuke me not, 0 Lord, in Thine indignation/ Let me not be among those to whom Thou wilt say, ‘Go into fire everlasting, which is prepared for the devil and his angels.’ ’ Nor rebuke me in Thy wrath/ but purge me in this life, and make me such that I shall no longer need the amending fire. (This he says) on account of those ’ who shall be saved, yet so as by fire/ Why, but because here they build on the foundation wood, hay, stubble ? If they would build gold, silver, precious stones, they would have no fear as to either fire, not only that eternal fire which shall to eternity torment the ungodly, but that also which shall amend those who shall be saved by fire. For it is said, ‘Yet himself shall be saved, but so as by fire.’ And because it is said, himself shall be saved, that fire is despised. Yet, although they shall be saved by fire, more grievous will be that fire, than whatever men can suffer in this life u.” In his latest works he

tt In Ps. xxxvii. n. 3, t. iv. p. 295. He adds, that in this life good or bad, the martyr and the malefactor, suffer alike the same things. More briefly, de Gen. c. Man. ii. 30, Opp. i. 677. ” He who cultivates not this field, but allows it to be choked with thorns, has in this life the curse upon his * earth’ in all his works, and after this life will have either a fire of purgation or eternal punishment. Thus no one

somehow throws a doubt on the interpretation, ex plaining the “fire” primarily of tribulation in this lifex. Even in that last book, De Civitate Dciv, he writes thus doubtfully : ” After the death of this body, until the arrival of that last day of condemnation and re ward after the resurrection of the bodies, should it be said that in this interval the spirits of the dead suffer

escapes that sentence (Gen. iii. 17).” “All are rebuked in the day of Judgment, who have not the Foundation, which is Christ. But they are amended, i.e. purged, who, on this foundation, build up wood, bay, stubble. For they ‘will suffer loss, yet shall be saved so as by fire.’ What, then, prayeth he who willeth not in the anger of the Lord to be either rebuked or amended? What but that he be healed? For where health is, neither is death to be feared, nor the physician’s hand, burning or cutting.” In Ps. vi. n. 3, Opp. iv. 26. ” If he shall have built on the foundation, wood, hay, stubble ; that is, if he has built on the foundation of his faith worldly love ; yet, if Christ be in the foun dation, so as to have the first place in his heart, and nothing whatever be preferred to Him, such are endured, are suffered. The furnace shall come and shall burn the wood, hay, and stubble; and ‘he shall be saved, yet so as by fire.’ This will the furnace (from Gen. xv. 17) do ; it will separate off some to the left ; others it will in a manner strain off unto the right ; — the birds it did not divide.” In Ps. ciii. n. 5, ib. 1154. He gives the same explanation of Abraham’s vision, De Civ. Dei, xvi. 24. 4, ” By that fire is signified the Day of Judgment, severing the carnal who are to be saved by fire or condemned in fire ;” and xx. 26; ” From these things it seems to appear more evidently, that in their judgment there will be some purifying punishments of some;” and xxi. 16 : ” Let him opine that there will be no purifying punishments, save before that last and tremendous judgment.”

such a fire, which they do not feel who had not habits and likings in the life of this body, which require their wood, hay, and stubble, to be burned up ; but they feel who have carried with them the like worldly taber nacles, whether there only, or here and there, or not there because here, though they experience the fire of transitory tribulation, rescuing venial offences from damnation by consuming them, I do not oppose, for perchance it is true.”

St. Paulinus, of ISTola : — ” ’ Our God is a consuming fire/ The Lord grant unto me here, that in me, too, for me, He be a consuming fire. May my heart burn for me with this fire to life eternal, lest my soul burn with it to perpetual punishment. For in this fire shall the day of the Lord be revealed, and ‘the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is.’ — If we dwell in the city of God by those works, whereby we become meet to be citizens with the saints, our work shall not be burned ; and that sagacious fire will, when we pass through its ordeal, surround us with no severe heat of punishment ; but, as if we were commended to its care, it will play around us with a kind caress, so that we may say, ‘We have passed through fire and water, and Thou hast brought us to a place of re freshment Z.J ”

The other passage, — of a prison, where one who is cast shall pay the very last mite, — if not interpreted of

Z

hell, as some fathers do, would imply the existence of a place, where those souls should be detained, who although saved, were not yet (on account of their pre vious misdeeds or neglect of God) admitted to be hold Him.

The very ancient Acts of St. Perpetua and St. Felicitas have been thought to have been written by Tertullian a, and, if so, when a Montanist. In them St. Perpetua relates her being called suddenly to pray for her brother Dinocrates, to have seen him with tokens of distress in darkness, and pining for something with held. After her prolonged prayers night and day she saw him in light, cleansed, refreshed b. In answer to the Pelagians, who quoted this vision, in proof that those who died without baptism might gain its bene fits through the prayers of others, St. Augustine answers, (1) that it is not Canonical Scripture0, from which, in questions of this sort, testimonies ought to be produced; (2) that “perhaps after baptism he had been in time of persecution alienated from Christ through idolatry/’ ” for which he was in punishment, whence he was freed by his sister’s prayers d.” St.

a Maintained in a letter to Valesius their editor. Ruinart leaves this doubtful, denies their being Montanist, which Valesius thought, and which to me seems most natural. Tertullian, de Anima, c. 55, refers to one of the visions, so they are very old anyhow.

b Acta, n. 7, 8. e De Anima, . 10, iii. 9, Opp. x. 343, 380.

d II. cc. In i. 10, St. Augustine uses the stronger language : ” for which he went into the damnation of death, nor went forth, but as granted to the prayers of his sister about to die for Christ.” St. Augustine’s con jecture of the nature of the sin falls in with the expression in the Acts, ” I grieved, remembering his fall.”

OF PU11GATORY. 339

Augustine entirely believed the Acts, and speaks of “the exhortations of the martyrs in Divine revela tions6.”

St. Cyprian f, in maintaining that the clemency of the Church in restoring extreme cases of sin, as of adulterers or of those who in persecution had denied the Lord, would not unnerve devotedness or conti nence, seems to combine both passages. He contrasts ” being tortured with long anguish for sins, and long cleansed and purged by fire,” with ” having purged all sins by suffering” (martyrdom); the “being cast into prison, not to go hence until one has paid the last farthing,” with ” receiving at once the reward of faith and courage.” He adds a contrast yet more awful, “to wait in suspense until the Day of Judgment for the Lord’s sentence,” and being ” crowned at once” by Him.

St. Ambrose, explaining this passage, says, ” that the offence is either redeemed by the price of charity, or the punishment relaxed by the estimation of the in jury ; and that the sin of each is washed away, when the guilty is so long tried by punishment as to pay the penalty of the fault committed g.”

Eusebius, of Gaul, also connects this text with the fires of judgment : ” Thou who hast done things wor thy of temporal punishment, to whom is addressed the

e Serm. 280, beg., t. v. 1134.

[…]

z In S. Luc., lib. vii. n. 156, 157, t. i. 1448. I omit Origen on this place, t. iii. Horn. xxv. p. 975; because, speaking of “infinite ages,” in the payment of the 10,000 talents, he, probably, is substi tuting temporal for eternal punishment.

Word of God, ’ that they go not out thence until they pay the uttermost farthing,’ through the fiery stream, which the prophetic spirit mentions. In proportion to the matter of the sin, will be the lingering in the pas sage ; in proportion to the growth of the fault, will be the discipline of the discerning flame ; in proportion to the things which iniquity in its folly has wrought, will be the severity of the wise punishment h.”

St. Jerome also explains the text briefly : ” What He says means this : ’ Thou shalt not go forth from prison, until thou hast paid for even the least sins*/ >:

St. Chrysologus says, on the words of Abraham, ” Nor can any one pass hence to you:” “The hearing of this voice terrifies me, brethren, terrifies exceedingly; shewing that, after death, those who have been con signed to penal custody in hell cannot be transferred to the rest of the saints, unless, having been already redeemed by the grace of Christ, they be freed from this hopelessness by the intercession of holy Church. So that what the sentence [of the Judge] denies them, the Church may obtain, grace bestow V He seems to contemplate some extreme cases, in which, but for the foreseen intercession of the Church, sinners would have been left to hell, but were delivered from it through those foreseen intercessions.

St. Paulinus asks prayers for his brother who had died ” as a debtor ” to God in spiritual negligence. ""We mourn his death more truly, because we perceive

h De Epiph., Horn. iii. Bibl. P. vi. 625. * ad loc. vil. 28, Vail. k Serm. 123, Bibl. P. vii. 943.

from those things which were done or ordered by him to his end, he did what corresponded more to our sins than to our prayers, so that he chose to pass to the Lord, a debtor rather than free.” St. Paulinus then begged St. Amandus to pray with others earnestly to God, ” that through your prayers He may refresh his soul with drops of His mercy. For as ’ a fire kindled by Him will burn down to hell below/ so doubtless the dew also of His forgiveness will penetrate to hell, so that when scorched in the kindled darkness he be refreshed with the dewy light of His pity1.” To Delphinus, who had converted him, he speaks of his “spiritual negligence,” whereby he provided for his sons in this world, rather than remedies for the world to come, ” preferring what ought to be secondary, making secondary what was to be preferred.” For him he asks, in allusion to the history of Dives and Lazarus, that he would pray lest “we should bring to shame your piety, which gloried in us your sons, a portion of the inheritance being wasted, but rather that it be granted to your prayers, that a drop of re freshment distilling even from the little finger of your holiness may sprinkle his soulm.”

These two aspects of the intermediate state require f

111 JZp. xxxv. p. 223. St. Nilus speaks of praying for everlasting mercy for the departed : ” He that believes that the just buried will rise again from the dead, will be strengthened by hope, will give thanks unto God, will change lamentations into cheerfulness, will pray that the departed may obtain everlasting mercy, will turn to the correction of their own stumbling.” (Ep. i. 101, p. 105.)

reconciliation ; the more so, since each is founded upon Holy Scripture. On the one side it says, ” Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord ! Amen, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours.” For, al though it is primarily said ” from their labours,” i.e. from the toils of this continual strife with infirmities, passions, temptations, sin, it could hardly have been said that ” they rest ” at all, if, as More said in the names of the departed souls, ” when ye rest, which we do never” On the other side, there are those awful descriptions of the judgment, especially that of St. Paul, in which he speaks of a destruction of the building which some who still built upon Christ had raised during their lives, the loss which these endure, the saving of the man himself so as by fire. Then there are our Lord’s awful words, as to that gradation of punishment on breaches of charity (which are the more terrible, if that gradation be understood of eter nal punishment only) ; as to the prison, where ” the uttermost farthing” is to be paid ; as to the account to be taken of every idle word. Truly, this throws a very awful light upon the Judgment. If every idle word is to be taken account of, what a very individual, search ing thing, judgment must be ; and this before Him, and by Him, Who loved us and Whom we offended ! Awakened conscience and love can imagine no such suffering as this, short of hell. What if the soul be, for a time, or even a prolonged time, uncertain of the issue ! Each such moment would be like a lifetime. St. Macarius of Alexandria says, as by Divine reve-

lation, that forty days elapsed before the judgment, and that then, according to its works, the Judge com manded the place of the soul’s custody ; and this the Angels are related to have assigned to him as the rea son why ” the Church prayed for the souls of the de parted on the fortieth day n.” St. Cyprian speaks of waiting in suspense to the Day of Judgment0. St. Ambrose says, that ” the soul is freed from the body, and yet after this life still hangs in suspense through the uncertainty of the future judgment p.” St. Gregory of Nyssa, uniting in one the particular and the general judgments, describes how, in the sight of the glories of heaven and the punishment of hell, the whole hu man race, from the first creation to the consumma tion of all things, shall stand in suspense between fear and hope of the future, trembling oftentimes at the events of the things looked for either way, and they who have lived with a good conscience, mistrusting what shall be, when the}7 see others dragged down to fearful darkness by an evil conscience as by an executioner q. The description of the destruction of the wood, hay, stubble, in the fire of the Judgment Day, was thought, not unnaturally, by Origen and others, to imply a more or less prolonged suffering in that Day, according to the greater or less gravity of the things to be destroyed in those who are saved. Christian instinct agrees with this. It cannot ima-

n De excessujust. et peccat., n. 4, Gall. vii. 239. 0 Ep. Iv. ad Anton., n. 16. P De Cain, ii. 2.

i De leatitud., i. 809.

gine that all this history of sin in those who are saved, can be without some great meaning for eternity. And yet in this life none, probably, but the greatest saints, have any conception what sin is. Then it must be revealed to them in judgment.

Again, the human instincts of persons of no depth of Christianity, — in view of the great mass of im perfect, ill-taught, erring humanity, the sheep that have gone astray having no shepherd, living and dying as the great mass of men in our large towns live and die — have turned aside from the idea of hell, and sought comfort in the deadly error of its denial. Yet the false doctrine does not lie in the assertion of a temporal penal abode, but in the denial of an eternal one. The deep instincts of humanity, combined of pity and of justice, demand a belief in some punish ment, but deprecate eternal punishment, in the case of many who go out of this world ; and here such teaching as has been cited from the early Church comes in to our aid. Nay, not such as those poor out casts only whom men have most in their eyes and their minds, because their sins are more tangible and coarse, but — and even yet more than these — rich and educated men and women, who have more light than they, yet who, to outward appearance, live mere natural lives, immersed in worldliness, yet not alto gether, it is hoped, separated from God, are, as they are, seemingly ripe neither for heaven nor hell. God alone knows whether they have deserved hell ; yet their whole tastes, thoughts, feelings, tone of mind,

would seem to fit them more for a Grecian Elysium than for the Christian’s heaven and for the sight of God, of whom they have scarce thought, save to hope that He would not cast them into hellr. Will God think it best for them at once to admit them into His presence, which they have never desired ? Or would they be fit to enjoy it, if He did ? But if not, and if, when the soul is parted from all earthly distractions, it comes to see that God is its only Good, and is yet withheld from His beatific sight, that it may learn to long for Him, this is at once what the schools have called the pcena damni ; and this awakened, unsatisfied longing, with the sense that, through its own fault, it remains in this darkness as to God, may be intenser pain than any, or than all the pain which could be accumulated in one in this life. We know what pain separation from an object of deep human love occasions. What may it not be, of God ? This falls in singularly with St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s remarkable expression, ” His banished/’ as though banishment were a chief suffering.

The very theory of the morality of the Gospel, the j notion that justification and sanctification are real, though in the individual often imperfect processes, the belief that salvation depends on obedience8, con duct us to this thought that the work of Christ in us

r Of course tins charitable hope must not be twisted into any argu ment for the postponement of a man’s conversion to God, in the hope that all will be made well in the intermediate state.

s Matt. v. 1, xxv. 34 ; Horn. viii. 17.

whereby we are saved, being individually imperfect, in view of our insufficient co-operation with it, shall continue to work in us, so that at the day of judg ment we may be found pure in Him ; that having had grace to keep the Law of God and having failed to do so, yet having died in His faith and fear, God will carry on the process of our being made fit for heaven, not by the gift of fresh grace, but by the same purify ing process of adversity whereby He fines our souls in this life. We know that we have in us passive bad habits, unheavenly tastes, which the soul contracts through sin, and which remain after the guilt of sin is remitted, and that these must be removed before our entrance into heaven, into which nothing that is im pure or imperfect may enter. St. Macarius thought that these were removed by God in an instant *. The same has been held by very thoughtful minds, who yet had a deep perception of the holiness of God’s loveu. Others may think it more probable that God removes the stain gradually, as it was gradually contracted, and that man’s cleansing after death will bear some re lation to his cleansing in this life, as St. Augustine often suggests. Only as regards the eternal condi tion, as the tree has fallen so will it lie ; and the eternal distinction between the lost and saved is not confused by the process.

But not only is this thought a source of comfort, in view of such as we have mentioned, it is also fraught with unspeakable consolation in the case of all those

• Horn. xxvi. n. 18, in Gall. vii. 29. tt Suarez, Disp. xlvii. 1—6.

who try to do their duty, and who put their whole trust in their Lord’s Passion, and yet are conscious of many short-comings, of want of depth and realit}^ in their contrition. To such, the idea that after death, although they will have no choice of their own, they will be so conformed to the just will of God, that they may joyfully endure that which is to prepare them for the eternal vision and fruition of Him Whom in their poor way they love above all things, is not only not appalling, however terrible, but actually conducive to holy peace. That true humility which ever seeketh the lowest room, will extend beyond the grave ; and to bear the indignation of the Lord because one has sinned against Him, is a disposition of soul well-pleas ing to Him.

To sum up what has gone before : while our Church has justly stigmatized popular practices which had be come gainful superstitions, she has not condemned either the devotions of the primitive Church, or the deep truths on which those devotions are grounded. Recognising the fact that prayer for the dead, as taught in the Jewish schools, was nowhere repre hended by our Lord ; that it was most probably prac tised by St. Paul, and certainly embodied in all the early liturgies ; knowing that the soul does not sleep in the interval before the resurrection; and that, although the Christian’s trial ends at the moment of death, there is no ground to think that the soul is simply perfected at once, as it shall be at the coming of the Lord Jesus ; deeply convinced that the general

• tone of the teaching of antiquity goes beyond a mere prayer for consummation of bliss both in body and soul, and probably extends to actual forgiveness for some sins (perhaps at the foreseen prayers of the Church), and the mitigation of some penalties ; she has formed her burial service on a theory, of which this doctrine is the only interpretation : that words of hope may be used with regard to all whom she does not know to have died not in the state of grace, that is, all save the unbaptized, the suicide, and the excom municate x — and that therefore by implication, with re gard to all save them, however basely they may have lived, if (which God alone knows) they but died in a state of grace, the door of salvation is not closed, — that prayer and Eucharist for them are still available, — and that with trembling hearts we may in the case of those we love, who have been riven from us by death, cast ourselves on the ineffable mercy of Jesus. And so, with regard to the imperfect Christian, who has gone to his account, we may rejoice in the thought that God’s love is preparing the soul for perfect frui tion, and that, through the fire of suffering and the water of affliction, He is bringing him into a wealthy place y.

• The Burial Service is framed for those who die in Christ ; the un baptized are excluded, because they have not been made members of Christ, and therefore prayers cannot be said over them, which express that they had been; the suicide and excommunicate, as having ceased to be so.

y For the legality of prayer for the dead, see case of Woolfrey v. Breeks, Stephen’s ” Clergy Law,” i. 191. The acquittal of Mr. Wilson

Our English minds have so shrunk from the popular doctrine of Purgatory, because, in the representations of it, physical suffering, and that the suffering of fire, (equal perhaps to that of hell, except in its duration,) has been the one thought brought before us. How could the souls be at rest there ? but the very same Fathers, who speak of suffering after death, speak also of the souls being in real rest and peace, as our Service for the Burial of the Dead says, that ” the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity.” They believed, then, that their sufferings, however great, did not interfere with that joy. And so Bellarmine, too, says : ” Joy and rest are given immediately upon death, to all who depart in charity. For presently all become certain of their eternal salvation, which brings great joy.” “Yet,” he adds, “that joy is not given in the same way but diversely, according to the diversity of merits. For to some it is given without admixture of dolour, to others, not without admixture of temporal sufferings, as the same St. Augustine very often teaches z.” The same has been said yet more boldly, because in the language of devotion.

The treatise of St. Catherine of Genoa (only canonized by Benedict XIY. a) brought out the happy side of the state of souls, detained, for a time, through their own

was on the ground of his own defence, that all that he meant was, that in the case of the erring and imperfect, the infinite love of God might pursue them beyond the grave. z De Purg., i. 9, t. i. col. 1894.

” Ben. xiv. De Canoniz. Sanct,, 3, 3, p. 20.

fault when in the flesh, from the sight of God. ” I do not believe,” she saysb, “it would be possible to find any joy comparable to that of a soul in purgatory, ex cept the joy of the blessed in paradise — a joy which goes on increasing day by day as God more and more flows in upon the soul, which He does abundantly, in proportion as every hindrance to His entrance is con sumed away.” ” The souls in purgatory, having their wills perfectly conformed to the will of God, and hence partaking of His goodness, remain satisfied with their condition, which is one of entire freedom from the guilt of sin. Cleansed thus from all sin, and united in will to God, they see God clearly according to the light He imparts to them ; they are conscious, too, what a good it is to enjoy God, that for this very end souls are created. Again, there is in them a con formity of will so uniting them to God, so drawing them to Him through that natural instinct whereby God is, as it were, bound up with the soul, that no description, no figure, no example, can give a clear idea of it, as it is actually felt and apprehended by inward consciousness c.” ” When the soul, by interior

b Treatise on Purgatory, edited by Abp. Manning, c. 2, p. 3.

c Ibid., c. 5. The only notice of this treatise by Alban Butler, is in these terms : ” The necessity of the spirit of universal sanctification and perfect humility to prepare the way for the pure love of God to be infused into the soul, is the chief lesson which she inculcates.” 1 Less. xv. Objections have been made to the line of argument in the text, that from the date of S.Catherine, her treatise must have been known in England at the time of the framing of the Articles : but there is no proof that it was at this time translated into English, or had at tracted any notice.

illumination, perceives that God is drawing it with such loving ardour to Himself, straightway there springs up within it a corresponding fire of love for its most sweet Lord and God, which causes it wholly to melt away : it sees in the Divine light how con siderately, and with what unfailing providence God is ever leading it to its full perfection, and that He does it all through pure love ; it ‘feels itself stopped by sin and unable to follow the heavenly attraction. I mean that look which God casts on it to bring it into union with Himself, and this sense of the grievousness of being kept from beholding the Divine light, coupled with that instinctive longing which would fain be without hindrance to follow the enticing look; these things, I say, make up the pains of purgatory. Not that they think anything of their pains, however great they be ; they think far more of the opposition they are making to the will of God, which they see clearly is burning intensely with pure love to them. God meanwhile goes on drawing the soul to Himself mightily, and, as it were, with undivided energy : this the soul knows well; and could it find another purgatory greater than this, by which it could sooner remove so great an obstacle, it would immediately plunge therein, impelled by that conforming love which is between God and the sould.” “It is true that the overflowing love of God bestows upon the . souls in purgatory a happiness beyond expression great; but then this happiness does not in the least

d Treatise on Purgatory, c. 9.

i diminish the pain, rather the pain is constituted by this love finding itself impeded ; the more perfect the love, of which God makes the soul capable, the greater the pain. In this manner, the souls in purgatory at the same time experience the greatest happiness and the most excessive pain ; and one does not prevent the other6.”

Had this been even an aspect of Purgatory, pre sented to the minds of the framers of our Articles, as a possible authoritative exposition of the doctrine, who would say that ” the Romish doctrine of Purga tory” would ever have been censured in it? Anyhow, this doctrine was not included in that censure, since it was not taught. But what heart, which has known but a little of the love of Jesus, and has hated its own sin, would not respond to the thought : —

” It is the face of the Incarnate God Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain ; And yet the memory which it leaves will be A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound; And yet withal it will the wound provoke, And aggravate and widen it the more. — When, then, (if such thy lot,) thou seest thy Judge, The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart, All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts. Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him, And feel as though thou could’st but pity Him, That one so sweet should e’er have placed Himself At disadvantage such, as to be used So vilely by a being so vile as thee.

e Treatise on Purgatory, c. 14.

There is a piercing in His pensive eyes, “Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee. And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinned, As never didst thou feel ; and wilt desire To slink away, and hide thee from His sight ; And yet wilt have a longing, aye to dwell Within the beauty of His countenance. And these two pains, so counter and so keen, — The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not ; The shame of self at thought of seeing Him, — Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory f.”

II. It is a well-known historical fact that it was the shameless traffic in indulgences which burst the bar rier which had long pent up the dissatisfaction which prevailed on account of the scandals and corruptions in the Church. The reforming Councils had no power to stem the increasing corruption ; and the expensive tastes of the Roman Curia demanding more and more money, a doctrine, which had its roots in primitive antiquity, was preached in a way to destroy all Chris tian morality. To the Dominican and Franciscan Orders, now fallen from their first purity, much of the blame is due, though it is fair to state that they were not the only guilty persons. A hundred years before the promulgation of the Articles, this practice had pointed the satire of the poet; and those ac quainted with the literature of the period are fami liar with Chaucer’s and Sir David Lindsay’s pictures of the ” Pardonere.”

f The Dream of Gerontius, pp. 43, 44 A a

To call this a ” fond thing, vainly invented, and repugnant to the Word of God,” is a mild censure. Gardiner himself describes them as ” the devil’s craft g.” At the close of the thirteenth century the fervent Franciscan preacher, Berthold, called the […] favourite servants of the devil,” and said that ” they crowned the devil daily with many thou sand souls V In theory, the practice was an application of the power to bind and to loose on earth, which was given by our Lord to St. Peter and to the rest of the Apostles l ; as exercised by St. Paul at Corinth k, when he forgave in the person of Christ. Such power was inseparable from all canonical penance upon deadly sin, the “godly discipline,” the loss of which the English Church yearly laments, when “such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the Day of the Lord l.” For it is essential to law, that the same offence should be sub jected to the same penalty. But equity alike and mercy required that this severity should be mitigated in view of the subsequent conduct, penitence, and cir cumstances of the offender. And this the rather, be cause the question related, not only to the remission of canonical penance, appointed to certain sins, but (and that chiefly) to the restoration to the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. Hence it was provided

p. 384, ed. Kl. l St. Matt. xvi. 10 sqq., xviii. 18. k 2 Cor. ii.

4 — 10. * Comm. Service.

in most cases that communion should be given, in dan gerous illness, to those excommunicate, yet under peni tential discipline; and on the approach of a new per secution in St. Cyprian’s time, the lapsed were restored universally, that they ” might be fortified with the pro tection of the Body and Blood of Christ m.” And, more generally, (as was reasonable,) the period of penitence was abridged, on evidence of more than usual sorrow for the sins n ; as, contrariwise, it was prolonged to the impenitent °. ” When fervour and discipline were weakened, the Church, both in East and West, sub stituted lighter penances, sooner than the penitent should refuse all acts of penitence, and so risk the loss of his soul P.” Penitents were also restored to com munion, either altogether, or at an earlier period, at the solicitation of those who were about to die, or had suffered for Jesus Christ; in other words, at the instance of martyrs and confessors. Sometimes that restoration was delayed until the martyrdom was ac complished. The martyrs at Vienne obtained restora tion for all the lapsed at once, yet at the hands of the Bishop s. St. Dionysius notices the carefulness of the

m St. Cypr., Up. Ivii. ad Corn.

” ” Cone. Neocces., can. 3. Cone. Anc., c. 2, 7, 16. Nic. i. c. 12. Arelat. ii. c. 10. Canons of St. Basil, Up. ad AmpML, c. 4, 7, 53, 74, 84. St. Greg. Nyss., Ep. Can. ad Letoium, can. 8—11, 13, 18, 20.” St. Leo, Ep. 79, c. 5.

0 Cone. Garth, iv., can. 75.

P In the East by Joannes Jejunator and Joannes Monachus, in their Penitentials (ap. Amort, Hist. Ind., P. i. p. 32); as also in Bede, Theodore, Burchard, the Roman.

Alexandrian martyrs in recommending those whose “conversion and penitence they discerned1.” In Ter- tullian’s time, not the lapsed, but those excommunicated for adultery, &c., sought restoration from the martyrs in prison s. In St. Cyprian’s time the indiscriminate largess of restoration to the lapsed by certain con fessors, threatened an utter overthrow of discipline, but was moderated and guided by the loving wisdom of St. Cyprian t. St. Gregory of Nyssa regulated by canon u, that ” to those who were zealous in penitence all the stages of the public penitence might be abridged by him who was over this matter.” Pope Innocent laid down that the ordinary term of remission, the Thursday before Easter, might be anticipated for those in whom ” the Priests saw fitting satisfaction x.” By the Council of Ancyra, bishops might deal (i\av- OpawTevecrOai) indulgently with those who had taken part in idol-sacrifices y.

The Crusades awoke through Europe a deep sense of religion among all classes; and when religion af sects all classes, it has been well said that needs must it be, that it should become coarse. As an in ducement to make men take up the cross, the privi- le^es which the Church was said to hold within her

o

treasuries were freely unlocked to the faithful. It

r St. Dion. Epist., in Eus. H. E., vi. 41, 42. 8 Tert. cZe pudic., c. i. and xxii.

was said that as our Lord and the saints have merited more than was necessary, there was a disposable stock of merits, which the Church could bestow on all who were fitly prepared to receive the benefit, and remis sion of sin was freely pronounced to all who joined the army that was marching against the Saracens; and these indulgences were declared to be available not only for the living but for the dead. When the Cru fades ceased, actual service being no longer possible, the permission to buy oneself off the Crusade was al lowed to the indulgences, and they became marketable. To this day in Spain you may obtain a dispensation for fasting, except on three days in the year, by the purchase of the Bull of the Crusade for five-pence, if a lay person.

Indulgences were, from the middle of the eleventh century, granted on the occasion of the dedication of churches and canonization of saints. On the occasion of the re-consecration of the Portiuncula, in the time of St. Francis of Assissi, A.D. 1221, the first plenary indulgence seems to have been granted by Pope Ho- norius III. z 21. s

In the beginning of the fourteenth century, a new phase of the doctrine manifested itself in the system of jubilees. In 1300, Boniface VIII. issued a Bull of Jubilee, inviting the faithful to frequent the Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, promising to all who ap preached them reverently, being truly penitent and contrite, or who shall be penitent, or shall confess in

the present or in any future year of the century, not only plenary, but larger, yea, the fullest pardon of all their sins, ” non solum plenam, sed largiorem, imo plenissimam omnium suorum coneedimus veniam pec- catorum a.” The system was found so profitable, that the period of the jubilee was reduced to fifty, thirty- three, and twenty-five years.

It was from such a state of discipline as this, that, after the dark ages, the corruptions we have stated were developed. When the Articles were promul gated, they were in all their abomination. It is but fair to say, that the Council of Trent, while it main tamed the practice, as being the exercise of a power given to the Church by God, and used in the most ancient times also, set itself to check the abuses which it acknowledged b. How far this last has succeeded, one has no power of judging ; but moderate theolo gians have since that time generally expressed them selves with great candour on the subject, holding in dulgences in the primitive sense to be only the re laxation of those canonical penalties, which, in proper tion to the gravity of his offence, the sinner ought to endure ; and that in the case of those for the dead, they are but the prayers of the Universal Church, which the Pope and all bishops offer in the name of the Church to God, and which God hears, or hears not, as seemeth good to Him.

Mabillon says that ” there are three degrees of in-

a In Amort, Hist. 2nd., P. i. p. 80. b Session xxv. De Indulgentiis.

diligences : 1. In the time of the Apostles, the relaxa tion from excommunication, as in the case of the in cestuous Corinthian; 2. In the time of the martyrs, when at the instance of their prayers the public pen ance was relaxed ; and 3. at the time of the failure of the public penance which in the ninth century began to be not a little diminished. From that time certain indulgences, some more ample than others, were granted, for the remission of the penalty imposed upon or due to sin. The use of public penance was still in force in those times ; but it could be bought off either by Masses and other suffrages, or by alms, or by pilgrimages, or by pious works0. The Coun cil of Cloveshoe (A. D. 747) thought the buying off of penance by alms, a new invention, a dangerous custom (‘nova adinventio, periculosa consuetude’). By degrees, however, this method of redemption pre vailed.”

“In A.D. 878, indulgences were for the first time granted to the dead. Pope John VIII. granted in that year an indulgence to those who fell or were to fall in battle with the Pagans ; and the Bishops of Bavaria besought the same favour for the soul of the Emperor Arnulph, which they desired should be absolved by his authority V The notion of a war against the infidels

c Prof, ad Sac. 5, Benedictm, n. 107.

d Ibid. Amort, however, doubts whether these were strictly indul gences. He observes that, 1. “John VIII. says, ‘we absolve them, quantum fas est ;’ 2. the absolution was from their sins; 3. the Pope adds, ’ and we commend them by prayers to the Lord.’ 4. The Bava rian Bishops asked for that same indulgence for Arnulph. 5. Card.

being a directly religious act, involved as a sequence that death in such a war was a sort of martyrdom ; accordingly plenary forgiveness of sins was freely pro mised. The Bull of the Crusade against the Saracens (A.D. 1118) ran in these terms: “And since ye have determined to expose both yourselves and the things belonging to you to the most extreme perils, if any of you, having accepted the penance for your sins, shall die in the expedition, we, by the merits of the saints and by the prayers of the whole Catholic Church, ab solve him from the chains of his sins6/’ That of A.D. 1122 says: “that to those who go to Jerusalem to defend the Christians, and to aid in breaking down the tyranny of the infidels, we concede the remission of all their sins f.”

However much the Council of Trent may have cleared away the difficulties with regard to pardons, by defining them to be only a remission of the canonical discipline of the Church, it cannot be denied that at the promul gation of the Article there was a substantial abuse which well deserved its reprobation. What that abuse was will best be seen from Erasmus’ tract, De Utilitate

Ostiensis, A.D. 1260, thought that such indulgences were only absolu tions from censures, to the effect that the faithful might be free to pray for them in the church,” (Hist. Indulg., p. ii. S. v. § 1). See the letter to the French bishops as given from Baronius, A. 878, xxxtv. ib.

e In Baronius, A. 1118, xviii. That against Roger, Count of Sicily, in like way, “remitted all sins” under the same terms. Baron., A. 1127, v.

f Given by Calixtus II. in the Council of Lateran, Aj>. 1122, can. 11.

Colloquiorum, where he defends the line he took with re gard to them : ” Nor do I, then, condemn papal indul gences and bulls ; but I censure that greatest of triflers who, thinking nothing of amendment of life, presumes to place his whole trust on human pardon.” So in the colloquy ” Rash Vows,” speaking of one who died on pilgrimage : —

” Con. Was he, then, so pious ?

” Am. Nay, the greatest trifler imaginable.

” Con. Whence, then, do you draw the conclusion (that he is now in heaven) ?

” Am. Because he had his satchel stuffed full of the most ample indulgences.”

Thus in the Vision of Piers Ploughman : —

” Then preched a pardoner, as he a prest were, Brought forth a bulle, with many a bishope’s seles, And seide that himself might assolven them all Of falshod, of fastynge, of a-vowes y -broken.”

These indulgences were not granted by the Pope only, but by all bishops %.

” The ’ Questionarius/ ’ Pardoner/ or ’ Preacher/ was already so scandalous, that the antipope, Clement VII., in granting indulgences for building the nave of the cathedral of Aberdeen, A.D. 1380, declares that they shall be of no force if hawked about by these spiritual pedlars : ’ Presentes autem mitti per Questuarios dis-

[…]

“The Quoestor, Questuarius, or Questionarius, the Par doner, or Home- raker as lie was called, had now fallen on evil days. Even in his better state, when he played something like the part of the travelling deputation of the popular religious society of our own time, the Synod of Exeter, A.D. 1287, could describe him as ’ Communiter idiota, vitse pariter inhonestse, confin- gens se peritum et vitse sanctitatem exterius prteten- dens … ut sic simplicium alliciat animos ad majores eleemos}Tnas largiendas, quas postea in ebrietatibus et luxuriis in omnium conspectu prodigaliter consumere non erubescit ” He was the constant butt of ridicule from the fourteenth century downwards. He figures in the ’ flighting’ of Kennedy and Dunbar, in ‘the Satire of the Three Estates/ and in ’ Symmie and his brother ;’ but no portrait of him can be compared with that drawn by the master-hand of Chaucer. Lindsay paints him as disheartened and discredited: —

[…]

Quhilk I may sair repent. Of all credence I am now guyte, For ith man holds me in despyte,

That reids the New Testament V

“The Council of Trent silenced him in 1546, and suppressed him altogether in 1562 l.”

[…]

Concilia, vol. ii. p. 154. k Poet. Works, torn. ii. p. 9, 27. ’ Ro bertson’s Statuta EccL Scot., vol. ii. p. 288.

III. ” Worshipping and adoration, as well of images as of relics,” is the next point excepted against. In the state of ignorance in which the common people were for some time before the Reformation, it is riot surprising that this should be so. There is always a danger of religion among the unlettered becoming- superstitious, and even in northern nations, there is a tendency to turn objects of faith into anthropo morphic forms. The employment of Christian art, necessary and advisable as it was, to keep alive a belief among the poor, on St. Gregory’s principle, that pictures are the books of the ignorant, had of course its dangerous tendency ; and, as a matter of fact, a cultus of images had grown up which required to be checked, and all its coarser manifestations to be condemned. That condemnation is still due where men of education, in the nineteenth century, have gone so far as to attribute a sort of quasi-sacramental value to images, as is said to be the case with some recent theologians. On the other hand, the absence of pic tures can alone account for the gross ignorance of re ligion so prevalent among the peasantry of England.

The whole history of the employment of art in reli gion is intensely interesting. In the earliest times there is an entire absence of images, though not of pictures, from the worship of the Christians. Ter- tullian seems to deny that any images were used. Origen and the apologists follow in the same linem,

[…]

and so long as heathenism was an existing fact, there was great reserve in the Church in this respect. In the Catacombs, though there are figures of our Lord and His Mother, most of the decorations are symbo lical, e.g. Orpheus drawing the beasts to him, to typify our Lord drawing all hearts to Him, and Moses striking the rock, and the multiplication of the loaves, to indicate the two principal sacraments. The early writers held that no image of God was to be made n ; they maintained the bindingness of the literal sense of the Second Commandment0; some censured painting and sculpture altogether p ; yet Tertullian himself men tions the symbol of the Good Shepherd on the cha lice41; and the Encratites were blamed for a certain heathenish cultus to the images of Christ r. The statue at Csesarea Philippi which Eusebius relates, ” they say, is the image of Jesus,” set up by the woman whom our Lord had healed of the issue of blood ; and the pictures of St. Peter and St. Paul are said, at

n St. Clem. AL, Strom., vii. 5 ; Orig. c. Gels., 1. c. ; Minut. F., p. 313 ; Lact. ii. 2 ; and, in regard to God the Father, Greg. II., Ep. 2, ad Leon. Is. in 7 Syn., p. 503 A; St. Aug., defide et Symb., c. 7.

v Clem. AL, Protr., n.4, p. 18; Orig. c. Cels., iv. 31 ; Tert., de idol., 3, 4; c. Hermog., init.

least by him, to have been made ” after a Gentile cus tom of so honouring benefactors8.” Then, however, the vetri Ckristiani, and other articles in the Christian museums, shew that gradually the use of art in aid of religion asserted itself. It did not do so, without con- ciliar resistance, as in the celebrated Canon of Elvira : “We will not have pictures placed in churches, lest that to which our worship is directed be seen on the walls/’ There is the history of St. Epiphanius de stroying in Palestine the “picture as of Christ or some saint” (he remembered not which), and his re quest to John, Bishop of Jerusalem, to enjoin that “such veils which are against our religion, should not be hung up in the Church of Christ •” and St. Augustine denies that Christians had images in Churches *, and speaks strongly against themu. On the other hand, we have St. Paulinus of Nola’s praise of Sulpicius Severus *, for having had St. Martin as ” a perfect imi tation of Christ,” painted ” in the place where man is formed anew” [the Baptistery] as “an object of imita tion.” Out of modesty, he blames him for representing himself y. St. Paulinus himself had pictures of Job with his sores, Tobit in his blindness, Esther and Judith on two side doors of the Basilica of St. Felix, and figures of Martyrs on the centre door. In the interior he mentions symbols only in mosaic; Christ

s H. E., vii. 18. * In Ps. cxiii. n. 6.

u Ib., and de cons. ~Evang., . 10.

x Up. xxxii. ad Sev., n. 2, 3, pp. 199, 200.

r Natal. 8. Felic., x. 20—27, Poem., pp. 159, 160.

as a Lamb ; a hand with a crown, symbolizing the pre sence of the Father ; the Dove, probably on the Cross j the Cross in a globe of light ; or, standing on a rock whence issued four streams, the Four Gospels z.

A favourite type was Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac a. Then there were the representations of martyrdoms, as of St. Cassian b and St. Hippolytus c in Prudentius ; St. Theodorus in St. Gregory of Nyssa d ; St. Euphemia (in a piece of exquisite beauty) in St. Asterius e. St. Gregory of Nyssa, too, seems to speak as if the pic tures of the martyrdoms, such as that basilica had, were to be found commonly in the basilicas of martyrs f. Evidently at first these paintings were historical, and St. Gregory, in his Epistle to Serenus, Bishop of Mar seilles, commends him for having broken and cast out some images: “I praise thee that thou wert zealous, that nothing made with hands shall be worshipped &.” Then he distinguished between their use for instruc tion, and their abuse for worship.

From the time of Constantino the cross continued more and more to be honoured ; he himself set it up in many places11; it was worn as a protection by

a St. Greg. Nyss., Orat. de Fil. et Sp. Div., iii. 476, painted in so many places ; Aug. c. Faust., xxii. 73. b Perist., ix. 5 sqq.

c Ib., xi. 126 sqq. d T. iii. p. 579.

e Enarr. in Mart. D. Euphem. in Combefis, i. 207 — 210.

f “Whoso cometh unto some spot like this, where is a memorial of the just, and a holy relic, his soul,” &c. (Ibid.)

• Epp. ix. 105, xi. 13.

St. M acrina, the sister of St. Gregory of Nyssa i ; it was defended as an object of honour by blessed Jerome of Jerusalem k. St. Nilus recommends for the decoration of a church one and one only cross, in the sanctuary to the East1, and histories contained in the Old and New Testament on every side, done by the hand of the most skilful painter, in order that they who are unable to read the Divine Scriptures, may have a re membrancer of the worthy actions of those who have nobly served the true God, and be excited to emu late their “glorious excellencies.” In the accusation against Ibas in the Council of Chalcedon, mention is made of athe crosses of silver and gold offered and dedicated m.”

The history of the enlarged use of images is obscure. Of their use apart from churches, there is the memo rable instance of St. Meletius, whose image, St. Chry- sostom relates, was placed by the Antiochenes on rings, seals, cups, and chamber-walls11. Theodoret mentions a report that small images of St. Symeon Stylites were set up at the entrances of all the workshops, as a protection0. St. Chrysostom speaks of

{ Ep. ad JoJian. Hieros., translated into Latin by St. Jerome, Ep. lx. He uses stronger language in relation to the image made of the Blessed Virgin by the Collyridians, Hser. 79, pp. 447. Another statement of the unlawfulness of images was quoted from him in Cone. Const, in Act. vi. ; t. v. Cone. Nic., ii.

k Galland., torn. vii. p. 530. ! Lib. iv. Ep. Ixi. p. 491, 2.

m n. 8, Cone. iv. 650, Labbe.

n Horn, de S. Meletio, t. ii. p. 519, Ben.

which stood in the church p, which some think to have been the Cross. In the Canons of the Quini-sext Council it is asserted that our Lord should be repre sented under the human figure, rather than under that of the Lamb^. Pope Hadrian says at the time of the Sixth General Council (A.D. 680) that “sacred images and painted histories had of old time been reverenced r.” The popular excitement at the insult, when Leo Isauricus had an image of our Lord cast down, evinces what an outrage they felt it to be to Himself. The Iconoclast troubles were Eutychian in their origin3, carried on by godless Emperors, and settled by the second Council of Mce. The protest of the Council of Frankfort rested probably on the misinformation that the Council of Mce had enacted that they who did not pay to the images of the saints service ” or adoration, in the same way as to the Deific Trinity, should be adjudged anathema1.”

The dark ages set in, then commences the time of those miraculous and rudely-carved representations which still hold their places in some countries, — the Yolto Santo at Lucca, and the like. Many sacred images were brought from the East in the times of the Iconoclastic troubles, and formed centres of devo tion in the West : God probably blessing the poor ignorant creatures who came to Him with what im perfect faith they had. Nor them only, for from that

P Horn. 10, in EpJi., n. 2, t. xi. p. 89. * Can. 82.

r Cone., t. vi. p. 136. * See Petav. de Inc., xv. 11.

rude Byzantine art sprung the unspeakable devotional glories of the early Tuscan and Sienese schools ; the pictures that speak to the soul as very symbols of di vine truth ; which pourtray, as no human hand before or since has done, the purity of the Virgin Mother, the ever young, ever fresh bliss of the saints in glory, the ineffable sufferings of God made man for us. God is to be praised for the gifts which. He bestowed, ob tamed by prayer and sacramental communion, on Beato Angelico da Fiesole, and on those who have toiled in the same spirit, Sano di Pietro, Duccio, and Gen til da Fabraino. Next to the development of a Christian philosophy, the greatest desideratum of the times is the development of a school of Christian art.

Of the having images or pictures, nothing is said in the Article, only of worshipping them. It was a com mon saying among many schoolmen, that “the same honour was due to the image as to the original, and so that the image of Christ was to be worshipped with latria, that of the Blessed Mary with hypercfulia, that of the saints with dulia u.” But this language was easily misunderstood ; and probably nothing more was intended than what was expressed in the very opposite way, viz. that ” the image was nowise to be worshipped in itself, but only the original was to be worshipped before the image x,” according to the lines engraven in a church at Venice, contemporary, it is thought, with the second Council of Nice : —

u Quoted by Bellarm., Contr. de Imag. Sanct., ii. 20, t. i. col. 2146. * Ibid.

Bb

” Nam Deus est, quod imago docet, sed non Deus ipsa; Hanc videas, sed mente colas quod cernis in ipsay.”

And the Council of Nice, which they all acknowledged, had said that ” images were to be worshipped, but not with latria* ;” and Basil of Ancyra, and Constantine, who recanted before the Council, said ” that they re ceived and worshipped images, but not with latria*.” Whence Bellarmine, too, says, “As to the mode of speaking, especially in sermons to the people, it is not to be said, that any images are to be adored with latria, but contrariwise that they are not to be so adored.” In support of this, he quotes two Councils of his own time, which said, ” that the people ought to be admonished by preachers not to adore images b.”

A vivid representation calls forth in us the feelings which are felt towards the original. It is so in feelings merely human. People kiss the picture or some relic of one whom they deeply love, as if it were the person. The picture of a friend speaks to us, and people speak to it, as if it were himself. If one kissed the feet of the Crucifix, it would be accompanied by a mental act to our crucified Redeemer, such as St. Mary Magda lene’s when she kissed His feet in the feast ; it would be an act of humble penitence and adoring love to Himself as our Redeemer. The act would be addressed to our Lord Himself, although elicited by the image.

The Homilies illustrate what it was in regard to the

? Quoted by Bellarm., Contr. de Imag. Sanct., ii. 20, t. i. col. 2146. z Act. vii. a Act. i. and iii., quoted by Bell. I. c. c. 22.

b Cone. Senon., c. 14 ; Mogunt., c. 41, ib.

veneration or worship of images, which the framers of the Articles had before their eyes c. The Council of Trent reformed in the direction which our writers wished, but, by reforming, owned the existence of the evils complained of: —

“Into these holy and salutary observances should any abuses creep, of these the Holy Council strongly _rehementer~\ desires the utter extinction ; so that no images of a false doctrine, and supplying to the unin- structed opportunity of perilous error, should be set up. All superstition, too, in invocation of saints, veneration of relics, and sacred use of images be put away ; all filthy lucre be cast out of doors ; and all wantonness be avoided ; so that images be not painted or adorned with an immodest beauty ; or the celebra tion of saints and attendance on relics be abused to revelries and drunkenness ; as though festival days were kept in honour of saints by luxury and lascivi- ousness.”

IY. The worshipping and adoration of relics, is the next subject of condemnation of the Article. The

c See Tract XC., p. 32 — 37, ed. Pusey. ” Thus there was a rood at Boxley, in Kent, made with devices to move the eyes and lips (but not to see and speak), which, in the year 1538, was publickly shewn at S. Paul’s by the preacher, then Bishop of Rochester, and there broken to pieces ; the people laughing at that which they adored but an hour before. Such imposture was also used at Hailes Abbey, in Gloucester shire, where the blood of a duck (for such it appeared at the dissolving of the house) was so cunningly conveyed that it spirted or sprung up, to the great amazement of common people, accounting it the blood of our Saviour/’ (Fuller, Ch. Hist., book vi. sect. iv. 8 — 10, vol. ii. p. 244, ed. 1837.)

shameless frauds of the Friars at the time of the Reformation are well exposed in the writings of the time, and the undue veneration in which the relics of the saints were held is one of its most powerful chapters. Yet the principle that lay at the bottom of the sentiment was not in itself vicious, and had early established itself in the Church. They who see nothing incredible in the mantle of Elias dividing Jordan, in the bones of Elisha restoring a man to life, in the hand kerchiefs and aprons that had touched St. Paul healing disease and casting out evil spirits, will see no ante cedent improbability in some of the effects which well- authenticated Church history alleges to have been wrought by God, in connexion with the remains of some of His most distinguished servants.

To attach a sanctity to the bodies of the saints, which in life had been the temples of the Holy Ghost, which had carried Christ formed within them, was one of the earliest feelings of the Church d. To save the bodies of the martyrs, after their passions, became the privilege of the early Christians. The more solid parts of St. Ignatius, torn by wild beasts, were carried to Antioch, wrapped in linen, and bequeathed to the Church e. The Church of Smyrna collected the bones of St. Poly carp from the fire, where they had been cast to prevent his body being carried off f. St. Saturus plunged a ring

d See a magnificent passage in the peroration of St. Chrys. Comm. on the Romans. Horn. 32, p. 757, ed. Mont. <•’ Martyr. S. Ignat., n. vii. 1 Up. Encycl. Eccl. Smyrn. de mart. S. Polyc., n. 17, 18.

into his wound and gave it to Pudens as a memorial *. Clothes stained with the sweat of St. Cyprian were eagerly coveted h. At the martyrdom of St. Yincentius, the multitude received the blood in linen cloths with sacred veneration, to be a benefit to their posterity1. The governor Maximus gave notice that he would not allow the relics of St. Tarachus and others to be carried away, but was defeated by the Christians’ prayers’4. St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and Paulinus of Milan, agree in attesting the miracle of the restoration of a well-known blind-born man to sight, when he touched the hem of the garment which covered the newly-discovered relics of St. Gervasius and Protasius l. The miracle stopped the persecution against St. Am brose. St. Cyril of Jerusalem mentions that the world was filled with wood of the Holy Cross which was dis covered there in his time m. The depositing of the relics of martyrs, as an honour of basilicas, is men tioned by Eusebius n, by Nilus °, the eye-witness of the martyrdom of St. Theodotus, by St. Gregory of JSTyssa

£ Pass. SS. Perp. et Fel., n. 21, p. 96, Ruin.

h Tit. et pass. St. Cypr., in Ruin., p. 214.

[…]

’” Cat. x. 19. ” Vit. Const., ii. 40.

0 In Gall., iv. 119.

on the Martyr Theodoras p, and on the forty mar tyrs q, and by St. Ambrose r. St. Basil promises to assist the zeal of Arcadius by sending him some martyrs’ relics, if he can discover them s ; he asks Soranus to send him some, ” since the persecution in your parts even now makes martyrs unto the Lord V St. Paulimis writes — ” Our brother Victor has informed me, that you, as is worthy of your faith and grace, want, for the basilica which you have built, the blessing from the sacred relics of saints, whereby your Church should be adorned. The Lord is my witness, that if I had even a scruple of sacred ashes more than I need for dedi cating the basilica which will soon be completed in the Name of the Lord, I would have sent it to you V

St. Jerome asks Vigilantius whether it is ill done of the Bishop of Rome, who, over the venerable bodies of the departed Peter and Paul, offers sacrifice to the Lord, and accounts their tombs Christ’s altars; and not the Bishop of one city only, but the Bishops of the whole world who go into the basilicas of dead men, &c. He relates that the Emperor Constantinus ” translated to Constantinople the relics of Andrew, Luke, Timothy,— before whose relics demons howl ; that Arcadius trans lated the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judaea into

P T. Hi. pp. 579, 580.

i Orat. in xl. Mart., t. ii. p. 213. He says, that “well-nigh the whole earth is blessed with the remains of the forty martyrs,” p. 211. r Exh. Virg., n. 1. Ep. xxii. Sorori, t. ii. pp. 874 — 878. 8 Ep. xlix. Arcad., t. iii. p. 203. 1 Ep. civ. Sorano, p. 354. u Ep. xxxi. ad Sever., init.

Thrace ; while from Palestine to Chalcedon the crowds were as one mighty hive, and lifted on high with one voice the praise of Christ V In the fourth century the system was distinctly recognised and regulated by Canon, as in the 5th Council of Carthage, A.D. 398, which legislated in regard to the wayside altars erected as memories of the martyrs ?. The coarse attack of the inn-keeper Vigilantius was not of a nature to gain him followers, or to disturb the tide of pious feeling. Emi nent fathers believed that there resided power in the bodies also of the just, which had so long been the temples of the Holy Ghost z ; that God witnessed to them who had witnessed to Him ; and that He shewed, in this way also, that “right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints;” that prayers were answered near the bodies of the martyrs, and that the touch of their relics dispelled disease. The evidence is irresistible3. Modern theorists will solve

• Adv. Vigil., n. 4.

y Can. xiv. It directs that the bishops should overthrow those iii which it should be proved that there was no body or relic of martyrs.

z St. Cyril Jerus., Cat. xviii. 16. “There reposes in that body a power greater than that of the soul itself, the grace of the Holy Spirit, which, by the miracles which it performs, gives proof to all of the resurrection.” (St. Chrys. de St. £abyl., t. ii. p. 635.)

a St. Hilary says : — ” Everywhere was the holy blood of the martyrs received, and daily are their venerable bones a testimony, while demons howl at them, while sicknesses are dispelled, while wonderful works are seen.” (Cont. Const. Imp., n. 8.) “The tombs of the apostles and mar tyrs, by the operations of miracles, speak of Him [Christ]/’ (De Trin., 1. xi. n. 3, p. 1084) St. Gregory of Nazianzum : — ” By them devils are cast out and maladies cured; whose bodies, even alone, whether touched or honoured, can effect as much as their holy souls ; even whose drops

the knot by believing that the cures were wrought by the subjective excitation of spirit and the heated ima gination of the ignorant votary. It is a humbler and

of blood alone, and the minute symbols of their passion, can do as much as their bodies.” (Adv. Julian. Orat. iii., t. i. p. 76.) ” The driving away of evil spirits, the removal of diseases, the foreknowledge of future events — all which the very dust of Cyprian can effect, where there is faith, as they know who have made trial, and have transmitted the miracle even to us, and will deliver it to future ages.” (Orat. xviii. de S. Cypr., p. 285.) ” What if I should speak of diseases and demons expelled in a manner surpassing belief, so as to amount to miracles?” (Carm. lamb, xviii.) St. Ambrose : — “It is a source of joy unto all, to touch but the extremest portion of the linen that covers them; and whoso touches is healed.” (Ep. xxii. Sorori, t. ii. p. 87.) St. Augus tine : — ” What does God, by performing marvellous works near the bodies of the saints but furnish a testimony that what dies perishes not to Him ? and it may hence be understood in what honour He holds the souls of the saints who are with Him when the soul-bereft flesh is adorned with so mighty an operation of the Divinity.” (Serm. 275, in Nat. S. Vincent., n. 3, t. v. col. 1631.) “Think what things God reserves for us in the land of the living, He who bestows things so great from the dust of the dead.” (Serm. 317, n. i. de S. Steph., ib., 1870.) St. Isidore of Pelusium : — ” Ask those who are cured by those martyrs and learn to how many they vouchsafe remedies.” (Ep. i. 55. Hieraci.) St.Victricius, A.D. 396: — “Do they [the particles of the relics] afford healing to the miserable, in a different way in the East, at Constanti nople, Antioch, Thessalonica, Neissa, Rome, in Italy ? Are the suffering bodies cleansed in different ways ? John Evangelist heals at Ephesus, and in many other places; and with us is his same medicine. At Bologna heals Proculus, Agricola, and here too we see their majesty; Antoninus heals at Placentia ; Saturninus heals, Trajan heals in Mace donia. Nazarius healeth at Milan ; Mutius, Alexander, Datysus, Chyn- deus, infuse the grace of health with abundant virtue. Healeth Eogata, Leoriida, Anastasia, Anatoclia. I ask, is tue remedy of the saints one with us, another with others ? But if all the saints everywhere defend with like tenderness those who reverence them [c uliores~, cztltus is to be added, not majesty to be discussed.” (De laud. Sanct., n. xi. Gall. viii. 232 ; see also Theodoret, below, pp. 413, 414.)

surer line to take, to say that God, dealing with a rude and unlettered race, permitted that these relics should be the media of His own mercy in cure.

All through the dark ages relic-worship prevailed, but it was after the Crusades that it arrived at its intensity. The thought of the Holy Land filled all Europe with the tenderest sentiments of love and compassion, from the contemplation of the Life and Sufferings of the Saviour; and the soldiers of the Cross brought home objects which purported to be of the most sacred nature. Beautiful churches, in the purest taste of the first Pointed style were erected to receive them, and the skill of the goldsmith and enameller enlisted to do honour to the blessed objects in a style which still excites our admiration. At first, no doubt, the sight of these relics advanced piety. Who would not feel his heart burn within him at the sight of a real Thorn that once pierced the Sacred Brow ? But where will not the idolatry of gain creep in ? Even St. Augustine had to complain of the sale of relics, probably fictitious. The enemy ” hath dispersed on every side so many hypocrites, under the garb of monks, strolling about the pro vinces, nowhere sent, nowhere settled, nowhere stand ing, nowhere sitting. Some hawk about the limbs of martyrs, if indeed they be martyrs b.” So now, too, the trade in relics led to the discovery of impos tures, and there was a reaction. In vain the Friars preached them up ; the feeling turned against them,

b DK Monach., c. 28 ; Short Treatises, p. 509, Oxf. Tr.

and at the Reformation in England and Scotland, well- nigh everything which had formerly excited the de votion of the people — all well-nigh, but the body of Edward the Confessor, saved no doubt on account of his royal dignity — was ruthlessly destroyed.

It is again to be remarked that the Article relates, not to the reverence of the relics, (we reverence the remains of any holy dead, much more of those who bore witness to Christ through sufferings which we can hardly imagine), but to ” superstitions in their venera tion” which the Council of Trent had to forbid. St. Jerome had to distinguish the honour to relics from the worship due to the Creator c. ” We worship not, we adore not, I say not relics only, but not even sun and moon, nor angels, nor archangels, nor cherubim, nor seraphim, lest we serve the creature more than the Creator Who is blessed for evermore. But we honour the relics of martyrs, that we may adore Him Whose martyrs they are. We honour the servants, that the honour of the servants may redound to the Lord, Who says, ’ He that receiveth you, receiveth Me/ }’

V. Of all the points of difference between un reformed Churches and ourselves, there is none which has prac tically widened the difference so much as the invocation of saints. The divergence has operated on both sides. Roman Catholics and Orthodox Easterns regard the disuse of this practice as an evidence of great want of faith, and of the presence of an impious unsuper- natural temper on the part of the reformed, while these

c ~Ep. cix. ad Hiparium, n. 1.

in return have accused of superstition, and even idol atry, the having recourse to any created being in the way of prayer d. One cannot help honouring both sen timents, however contrariant their practical results. To live in an atmosphere of faith, to recognise in a very loving and practical way the Communion of Saints, to have faith and confidence even in the most subordinate powers of the unseen world, sheds a beau tiful light over the Christian life of those who have been trained in such devotions; on the other hand, one respects that jealousy for the honour and incom municable privileges of God which sees danger where others find food for faith, and which centres all its thought on the one Supreme invisible Object of the aspirations of the believing soul.

Viewing the matter from this dispassionate light, it shall be our duty, first to assert the truth of the literal meaning of the Article, that the doctrine of Romanists ” on the Invocation of Saints” is ” a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God ;” and then, to shew what has been the real mind of the ancient Church upon this point of doctrine.

There will always be a tendency in human nature to rest in something short of the pure essence of God. His unapproachable holiness bears down upon the hu man spirit with a crushing weight. Anything that will satisfy the religious instinct, and at the same time prevent the soul from too great a proximity to Him

d Palmer’s Essay ” On Orthodox Communion.”

Who is a consuming fire, will be eagerly bailed by those wbo recognise wbat God is and wbat they are, till the correctives supplied by the true faith, in the images of love and mercy revealed in the Gospel, make themselves living truths within the soul. It was in this spirit that the Jews in the wilderness desired Moses to stand between them and God.

Even in Mahomedanism, the centre of the philo sophy of which is the unphilosophical belief in an unipersonal God, the worship of the Ooleys or Saints has developed itself. The votary of Islam, maintaining that <e God hath not begotten, is not begotten,” con sistently refuses to worship the Only-Begotten. He cannot accept the blessed truths of a God united to human nature, and so human nature has avenged it self, and he is now given over to the cultus of men who ought not to be worshipped, and the devotion to AH, Iloosn, and Hooseyn, has avenged the neglect of the true God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Again, not merely are there deep principles in the human mind which lead to a resting in secondary worship, but the political condition of a people will strongly influence belief in this respect. It cannot be doubted that the state of the old heathenism, at the time of the State-establishment by Constantine, told sensibly in the direction of the development of saint- worship. In Italy, specially, the old Pagan ideas got baptized, and the religious devotion of the vulgar was transformed from the elder forms of heathenism to the purer cultus of the personages of the Holy Gospel and

of the Church. That the world gained immensely by the change, the most bigoted religionist must admit. To withdraw the mind from the sensual images that belonged to the beautiful but corrupt Nature-worship of the heathen, to those of the self-denying heroism of the martyrs, must be acknowledged as an immense gain by all those who hold that the imagination ex ercises power over the whole man ; but still, beneficial as the process was, it cannot be doubted that it carried a danger within it, and that it laid the foundation of a state of things, in which a lower standard of religious morality came to be tolerated, and the idea of the one true God to be obscured. Not that either result of necessity took place. M. Comte maintains6 that, at no time have Monotheistic ideas been so prevalent or strong, as in the full sunlight of the Virgin-worship of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; but still the religion of the vulgar will always exaggerate tenden cies, and therefore such a warning as that contained in the Articles is specially salutary.

At the time of the Reformation all this had specially to be insisted upon. The popularity of some devo tions must have been very great, if the offerings at St Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury in one year amounted to £954 6s. 3d. ; while that at our Lord’s was nothing, and at Our Lady’s £4 Is. 8d. The gross immorality which was everywhere prevalent found a satisfaction for those spiritual aspirations which never die, even in the bad, in the cultus of some easy saint.

e Comte Politique Positive, pp. 428—433. Paris, 1823.

But there is another aspect of the practice, which it would be uncandid and unphilosophical to pass over. There are certain high-strung souls, of whose undivided and entire love to God there can be no doubt, whose intense personal devotion to our Lord is the warmest, and who realize His Passion in a measure into which our cold hearts cannot enter, to whom this devotion is congenial. In them it exists in entire subordination to the feelings which the incommunicable right of God to our entire selves engenders and cultivates. We may not be able to understand them, but such there are. There must, therefore, be some aspect of this practice which appeals to a very high part of our nature, and therefore well deserves our careful con sideration. This can best be attained by tracing out the development of the doctrine in the history of the Church. We have, then, to ask two questions : 1. Did the Early Church believe in the intercession of those holy persons who have gone to their rest ? and 2. Did the Early Church think it right to address words of petition to them? With regard to the first of these questions, there is not a shadow of a doubt. But, before entering into the details of evidence, it may be as well to point out that it is not only in conformity to all our Christian instincts of love, but that it is a truth of Scripture. All creatures are, of course, alike at an infinite distance from God. The highest creature which God could create must be a creature still ; and, as a creature, finite ; and everything finite is alike distant from the Infinite. But God, “who has

ordained and constituted the services of angels and men in wonderful order,” has made their mutual ministries a part of the harmony of love in His crea tion. Not only does Holy Scripture declare, that they are ” all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall he heirs of salvation f,” but it speaks of offices which they render, the higher to the lower, and individually to ourselves *. “Twice, in Daniel’s visions, an angel enquireth of one most exalted angel, (who yet himself is a creature, for he swears by the living Grodh,) and receives an answer1.” In Zechariah we see that angels whom God had sent to ” walk to and fro on the earth,” give account to ” the angel of the Lord V A superior angel, in another vision, directs another angel to instruct Zechariah1. In regard to ourselves, it is our Lord Who told us of the angels of the little ones, […] beholding the face of His Father in heaven”1,” as a ground of our reverent care not to offend them. It was the Apostolic body which, thinking it impossible that Peter himself, whom they knew to have been in prison, could be at the door, said, ” It is his angel n.” They were mistaken as to the fact, but they gave expression to their belief. Our Lord Himself allowed His angels to minister to Him, either together0, or in an individual relation to Him. In His dread agony, He admitted of the

f Heb. i. 14. * Dan. xii. 6, viii. 13. h Ibid. xii. 7. * Dr.

Pusey, Daniel the Prophet, p. 521. k Zech. i. 10—12. » H. 7,

8 Heb. ; 3, 4, Eng. m St. Matt, xviii. 10. n Acts xii. 15. ° St. Matt. iv. 11.

‘384 ARTICLE XXII.

strengthening of an angel to His Manhood1’. The Old Testament revealed that they were interested in our race. They all ” burst forth into jubilee q” at the prospect of our birth ; God gave them charge of His own to “keep them in all their waysr,” “ascending and descending8” from heaven to earth. We know how they ministered to the patriarchs and defended Elisha * ; how one especially ” stood up to protect the people of Israel u.” The angel of the Lord “prayed for Jerusalem x ;” and, although “the angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament is mostly a manifestation of God, yet since the angel prayed he must have had a created existence y. God’s declaration, “Though Moses and Samuel stand before Me, My mind is not towards this people z,” by the force of the words implies that they could intercede, though, doubtless, knowing the will of God, they did not. Isaiah’s appeal to God im plies the same, “For Thou art our Father, though [or, for] Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel will not acknowledge us a.” For the belief that God would own them as their Father, though for their misdeeds the fathers of their race should give them up, implies that these ordinarily did remember them. The prophet

P St. Luke xxii. 43. « Job xxxviii. 7. r Ps. xci. 11. s Gen. xxviii. 12, 13. l 2 Kings vi. 17. tt Dan. xii. 1. x Zech. i. 12.

y Job xxxiii. 23, is probably an anticipation of our Lord’s coming in the flesb. See Pusey on Daniel, p. 519.

z Jer. xv. 1. The words are TD3P DM, not ib- Comp. Jer. v. 2 ; Is. i. 18, x. 22 ; Am. v. 22 ; Job ix. 20. Even when spoken of things impossible (Jer. xxii. 24 ; Ps. cxxxix. 8) DS presupposes them as pos sible, since it speaks of what would follow. a Is. Ixiii. 16.

contrasts the endurance of God’s love with the pos sible failure of any manifestation of man’s. But then this implies a real care on the part of man, although, like Abraham’s intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah, it had to come to an end at last. This belief continued on, after the Canon of the Old Testament was closed. In Tobit the angel Raphael says, ” When thou didst pray, I offered thy prayer to the Lord b,” and says that he is one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of the saints, and enter into the presence of the glory of the Holy One c. And Judas sees, in a vision, Onias, ” the High Priest who prayed for all the people of the Jews,” and Jeremiah, ” environed with great beauty and majesty ;” of whom Onias saith, ” This is a lover of his brethren and of the people of Israel ; this is he that prayeth much for the people and for all the holy city, Jeremiah the prophet of Godd.” Both are confirmed in the New Testament, where heaven is opened to us and we see “the angel6,” who ” stood before the altar, having a golden censer, and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne ; and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hands ;” and not he only, but they who are represented by “the

b Tobit xii. 12.

c Ibid. 15. These (with 2 Mace.) are alleged in proof by Origen, de Orat., n. 11, t. i. p. 213 ; in Joann., t. 13, n. 57, Opp. iv. 273. d 2 Mace. xv. 12—14. e Rev. viii. 3, 4.

C C

four beasts and the four-and-twenty elders/’ who fall down before the Lamb, and every one of them had harps, “and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints f.” And those, who so present the prayers of the saints, must themselves be of our race ; for in their ” new song” their thanksgiving is, ” Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy Blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and hast made us to our God kings and priests.” Heaven and earth are joined in one in Christ our Head. “The heavenly Jerusalem,” to which, Scrip ture says, ” we are come,” counts in it, we are told in the same place, ” an innumerable company of angels, the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect g.” In Jesus, our Head, are ” united things in earth and things in heaven h.” Angels and men are one family. The ” Jerusalem which is above” is the mother of us all \ But then, not of us on earth only is that true, that ” we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another k/’ and that ” the members should have the same care one for another; and whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice in it ; now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular l.” As our blessed Lord says that He is persecuted in His members, or receives our benefits in them, so they who are per-

f Rev. v. 8. s Heb. xii. 22, 23. h Col. i. 20.

1 Gal. iv. 26. k Rom. xii. 5. l I Cor. xii. 25—27.

fected must have a care for us, who are yet in our pilgrimage, and are beset by infirmities, and whose crown is as yet unwon ; and we rejoice in the glory and honour of those who have attained. Since the angels rejoice over one sinner that repenteth, they must have a very individual love for those of our race, and know much of our individual histories ; and so then must those of our race, who are admitted among them, and are ” like unto the angels.” Angels and saints are one body, Scripture saith. It is, at least, a pious belief, that, out of the redeemed, every rank of the angels shall be filled up, or, if none fell from it m, shall be enlarged. Nay, as our Divine Lord for ever in-oned with His Divine Nature this our poor human nature, the lowest of His rational creation, so, in the nearest possible relation to His Godhead has He, from our same race, placed her, whom, by His grace, He prepared for that unspeakable nearness to Himself; whom, through those her early years, He formed to be the sacred shrine for His Deity ; whom He taught to believe what was in human sight im possible, yet which, if brought to pass, involved the peril of utter shame ; her, through whose obedience the curse of Eve’s disobedience was annulled ; from whose ” Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word,” her own redemption and the redemption of the world had its beginning. No titles, which the eloquence of human reverence and

111 The Seraphim, with their burning love. Satan, the chief of those who fell, is thought to have been one of the Cherubim. (Ezek. xxviii. 14.)

love have culled for her, reach the majestic simplicity of that, which, in barest truth, utters the mystery of the Incarnation declared in our Creeds, ” conceived of the Virgin. Mary,” that “she bare God,” Theotokos. And since no Divine mystery ends with this world, then, in that closest relation to Himself, higher than the Seraphim, or whatever is highest in the host of heaven, is she, His creature, as God, but, as God-Man, His Mother still. “Well, then, may we think of angels and saints as one body under Him, our Head, since He, their Head, is God-Man, and nearest to Himself is His human Mother. Our Lord calls them, too, “like to the angels n;” nay, He has admitted them to His own throne, as He says, ” To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne ; even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne0 ;” ” he that overcometh and keepeth My work unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations : and he shall rule them with a rod of iron ; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers : even as I received of My Father P.”

It may almost seem superfluous to adduce passages from the fathers to shew that they taught that angels and saints pray for us. Yet it may have its use. First, then, as to the angels. Clement of Alexandria says’* : — “The Gnostic prays with angels, as being already the equal of angels ; nor does he ever come to be out of the holy guardianship ; even though he pray alone,

” St.Markxii. 25. ° Rev. iii. 21.

f Rev. ii. 26, 27. * Strom., vii. p. 879.

he lias the choir of the holy one standing with him.” Tertullian speaks of the indecency of sitting at prayer, while the angel of prayer standeth byr. Origen unites the angels and the departed saints: “But not the High- Priest [our Lord] alone prays with those who pray sincerely, but also the angels who ‘joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth more than over ninety - and-nine just persons who need no repentance/ and the souls of the saints who have fallen asleep be fore (us) 8.” He says, ” The angel of each one, even of the little ones in the Church, both prays with us, and acts with us in those things about which we pray, wherein it is possible *.” ” If the angel of the Lord ‘encamp round about them that fear him, and shall deliver them/ and Jacob speaks truly, not concerning himself only, but all besides devoted to God, saying to him that understands, ‘The angel that delivered me from all evils/ it is likely that when many are assembled together sincerely unto the glory of Christ, the angel of each one ’ encamps round’ each of those who fear ; with that man, that is, whom he has been entrusted to guard and minister to ; so as to be, when the saints are assembled, a twofold Church, one of

r De Orat,, 16, p. 310, Oxf. Tr.

men and another of angels.” “The power of Jesus, and the spirits of Paul and such as he, and the angels of the Lord that encamp round about each of the saints, concur with and come together with those who are assembled in sincerity u.” And in answer to Celsus, who said, “we must render” to angels “first-fruits and prayers, as long as we live, that we may gain their friendliness,” Origen says x, ” To Whom we give the first-fruits, to Him we send up the prayers also, having a great High-Priest, Who hath entered into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, and we hold the con session while we live, having God favourable to us, and His Only-Begotten Son, Jesus, manifested among us. But if we long for a multitude, too, whom we wish to be friendly to us, we learn that thousands of thou sands stand by Him, and ten thousand times ten thou sand minister to Him, who, looking at those who imitate their piety to God as kinsmen and friends, co-operate to their salvation who call upon God and pray sincerely, appearing to [them] and thinking that they themselves ought to obey them, and as by one compact, to be present for the benefit and salvation of those who pray to God, to Whom themselves also pray. For they are all ministering spirits sent forth,” &c. : and, ” The one God over all we must thoroughly pro pitiate, and have Him propitious Whose entire good will is gained by piety and all virtues ; but if he (Celsus) will have it, that certain others are to be so propitiated by us after the God over all, let him

a De Orat., n. 31, p. 269. * c. Cels., viii. 34, t. i. p. 766, 7.

observe that as the motion of its shadow followeth. the body when moved, in like way upon the propitiation of the God Who is above all it followeth, that one has all His friends, angels, and souls, and spirits, propitious ; and not only do they, too, become propitious to those who are worthy, but they also co-operate with those who wish to serve the God Who is above all, and gain His favour, and comprecate, and co-petition; so that we may dare to say, that with those who delibe rately prefer the better part when they pray to God, many myriads of holy powers, uncalled, pray with them?.”

Origen supports his own belief by that of one of the ” older masters […] I so deem that all those fathers who fell asleep before us fight with us and help us by their prayers. For so also did I hear one of the older masters saying z.” He exhorts Ambrose not to fear mar tyrdom on account of wife and children ; for by thus ” becoming the friend of God, thou wilt have greater power to help them.” “Then thou wilt love them with more perfect knowledge, and wilt pray for them with greater wisdom V He asks, ” Who doubts that all the holy fathers help us by prayers b ?” &c. And there is the passage, well known for the beauty of the thought, that since knowledge is perfected in the life to come, so also other virtues, especially love. ” But one of the principal virtues, according to the Divine

y c. Gels., n. 64, pp. 789, 790. * In Jos., Horn. 16, t. ii. p. 437.

a De Mart., n. 37, 38, t. i, p. 299. b In Num., Horn. 26, n. 6,

t. ii. p. 373.

word, is charity towards our neighbour, which we must needs think is felt by the departed saints towards those who are struggling in this life, more exceedingly than by those who are yet in human infirmity, and are struggling together with those who need aid c.”

St. Dionysius, of Alexandria : — ” They who are about to struggle in the sacred conflict of suffering for right eousness, have angels bringing them aid from heaven d.” St. Gregory Thaumaturgus speaks incidentally of ” the holy angel of God, who had as his lot, with great judgment to govern and tend me and be my guardian from boyhood, who nourisheth me from my youth ; him, who in addition to the common governors of all men, is, whoever he may be, specially the attendant teacher of me who am a child, who, being in all besides, everywhere and in all things, my bringer up, stood in charge of me of old, and now, too, rears me up and instructs me and leads me by the hand e. ” Even Eusebius says : — ” How shall we give thanks (for the death of Christ for us) ? Our tongues, our mouths, suffice not, though we had a thousand. We suffice not ; let us seek helpers ; let angels help us ; let archangels, too, give thanks with us, that they, too, may rejoice f.” Didymus, of Alexandria : — ” It is the

c De Orat., n. 11, t. i. p. 214. d De Martyr., pp. 40, 41.

e Orat. Paneg. in Orig., n. 4, Gall. iii. 418. St. Methodius says : — ” We have received, in the God-inspired writings, that these children, though born of adultery, are delivered over to guardian angels.” (Conv., ii. 7, Gall. iii. 682.)

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longing of perfect men, coming to the consummation of sanctity, to become equal to the angels. For angels give aid to men, not men to angels, ministering to them salvation, and announcing to them larger bene fits of God^.” St. James, of Nisibis :— ” Let not the hatred thou hast against any re-enter thy mind whilst thou prayest. Be assured that thy prayers will be left before the altar, and that he who offers prayer will not receive and raise it from the earth. For he examines thy gift, whether it be polluted. If the prayer be holy, he raises it and offers it in the sight of God. But if he find thee saying in thy prayer, ’ For give me, I too forgive/ he that raises prayer will answer thee who prayest, ’ First forgive thou thy debtor, and then I will raise thy prayer to the Lord, Whose debtor thou art V ” St. Basil :— ” Of the holy spiritual powers who have their places in heaven, some are called eyes, from being intrusted to watch over us ; others, ears, from receiving our prayers ” St. Am brose comments on the words in the Revelations : — “which incense, the prayers of saints, is carried by an angel unto that golden altar which is before the throne of God, and glows like a sweet ointment of pious prayer k.” St. Hilary : — ” The angels of the little ones day by day see God, because the Son of Man came to ’ save what was lost/ Therefore both the Son of Man

s De Sp. S., n. 7, Gall. vi. 266. h Serm. iv. n. 7, Gall. v. 30. 1 Horn, in Ps. xxxiii., n. 11, t. i. p. 154. On the Guardian Angel, see further St. Basil, ib., p. 148.

k De Isaac et anima, c. 5, u. 44, t. i. p. 369.

saves, and angels see God and are angels of ’ the little ones/ The authority is absolute that angels pre side over the prayers of the faithful; wherefore an gels day by day offer up to God the prayers of those who are saved by Christ. Therefore it is dangerous to despise him, whose desires and supplications are borne to the eternal and invisible God by the lofty service and ministry of angels V;

So also in regard to those who, of our race, were perfected ; those especially who had borne testimony to Jesus by their deaths. In the very earliest times we find such testimony as this. In the account of the martyrdom of St. Ignatius, many profess that they saw him praying over themm. Origen says, ” It will not be wrong to say, that all the Saints departed, retaining love for those who still are alive, take care of their salvation and them, by their prayers and by their intervention with Godn.” St. Cyprian suggests to St. Cornelius that whichever should first be vouch safed martyrdom, should not cease our prayers for our brethren and sisters, in presence of the mercy of the Father; and asks the Virgins whom he exhorts to ” remember him when virginity shall begin to be honoured in them [i.e. in person] °.”

Eusebius relates how the martyr Potamisena pro mised to a kind soldier to beg him from her Lord, and obtained his conversion by her prayers p; and how

[…]

ed. Hefele. n In Cant. iii. t. iii. p. 75. ° De liab. Virg., 362 ;

Ep. \ii.fin. Ben. P H. E., vi. 14.

Theodosia came to the confessors in bonds, ” both out of kindness, and, as is likely, to ask them to remember her when they came to the Lord q.” St. Athanasius speaks of the holy Psalmists, ” who communicated the words as ministers praying with us r ;” St. Antony says ” that the saints use much prayer and gladness in ex ultation before our Creator. The Maker, too, of all re joices in our works, and on account of the testimony of the saints gives us immense charismata5.‘3 Nilus, an eye-witness, relates how (about A.D. 303) the Martyr St. Theodotus, just before he was beheaded, bade the weeping Christians, ” weep not, but glorify our Lord Jesus, who had enabled him to finish his course. For I shall be with confidence unceasingly interceding with God in heaven for you *.” Eusebius himself says : — ” that it is probable that holy powers and choirs of sacred angels pray with and over those who send up to God, by prayers, spiritual and pure sacrifices,” as it ” was probable that a choir of holy angels and men dear to God, the sacred ministers of God, prayed with David u.” St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, says : — ” that we commemorate those who have fallen asleep before us, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, that God, by their prayers and intercessions, may receive our peti tions x.” St. Hilary says : — ” that apostles, patriarchs, prophets, or rather angels, with a kind of guard, fence round the Church. Good, indeed, is an angel’s pro-

i De Martyr. Pal., c. 7. * n. 31, t. i. p. 1001. * Epist. v.

n. 1, in Gall. iv. 666. * Mart. S. Theod., n. 32, in Gall. iv. 128.

u In Ps. xix. 1, Montf. Coll. Nov., i. 75. * Cat. Myst., v. 9.

tection, but that of the Lord is better y.” St. Gregory, of Nazianzum, says of his father : — ” I am persuaded that he now (guards the flock) more effectually by his intercession, than he did formerly by his teaching, by how much he is nigher to God z.” And of St. Basil : — ” His body is assigned to the tomb of his fathers, and he is joined, the high-priest to the priests, that grand voice which still ringeth in my ears to the preachers, the martyr to the martyrs ; and now, indeed, he is in heaven, and there, as I think, is offering up sacrifices for us and praying for the people ; for though he has left us, yet has he not utterly deserted us a.” And of St. Athanasius : — ” He now, I well know, looks down from above upon our affairs, and reaches out his hand to those who toil for what is excellent, and so much the more that he is free from the bonds [of the flesh] b.” And of his mother Nonna : — ” And now from heaven she greatly prays over our affairs6.” St. Ambrose hopes that he might the sooner rejoin St. Satyrus by his intercessions d. St. Augustine holds that the souls of the martyrs reign with Christ. They chiefly reign, when dead, who have combated for the truth, even unto death.

St. Chrysostom ends a Lenten exhortation, ” If we thus rule our lives, and, together with abstinence from meats, manifest abstinence from evil too, we, too, shall enjoy greater confidence and be admitted to a larger

y In Ps. cxxiv. n. 6. z Or. xxviii. p. 332. 8 Orat. xliii.

p. 831. b Orat. xxxiv. p. 620. c Garni, xciv. 5, Gall. vi.

379. 288. d De Fide Eesur. earn, fin., t. ii. 1170.

loving-kindness of God, both in the present life and in that coming awful day, by the prayers and inter cession of those who have pleased Him, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Whome,“&c.

St. Asterius, a contemporary of St. Chrysostom, says : — ” The freedom of speech of the martyrs accomplishes the intercession for the world; and the enemy un awares fell into the opposite of what he meant. For as many as he slew, having confessed the faith, so many succourers of men did he provide f.”

St. Leo nowhere uses invocations, but speaks very frequently of the value of the intercession of St. Peter and St. Paul ; once, also, of St. Laurence. He appeals to his own experience and that of those before him : — ” But as we, too, experienced, and our ancestors have proved, we believe and are confident, amid all the toils of this life, that, to obtain the mercy of God, we shall ever be helped by the prayers of special patrons; that in proportion as we are sunk down by our own sins, we may be raised by Apostolic merits s.” ” Let us use for our amendment the lenity of Him who spares us, that blessed Peter and all the saints, who were pre sent with us in many tribulations, may vouchsafe to aid our entreaties for you with the merciful Godh.” Of

St. Laurence he says, ” by whose prayer and patronage we trust that we are aided without ceasing i.”

It was, then, an intense, stupid, loveless paradox, of Vigilantius, that, “while we are alive, we ever pray mutually for one another, but that when we have departed this life no one’s prayer is heard for an other k.” “If the Apostles and martyrs,” St. Jerome answers, “while yet placed in the flesh, can yet pray for others, while they must still be anxious for them selves, how much more after their crowns, victories, triumphs ! — Paul the Apostle says that e two hundred threescore and sixteen souls’ were granted him in the ship ; and after that, being dissolved, he has begun to be with Christ, shall he then close his mouth, and be unable to utter a word for those, who throughout the world believed at his Gospel?” St. Jerome himself speaks of it as certain that some departed pray for him. He says to Heliodorus, that, when he should himself be crowned, ” then wilt thou pray for me too, who spurred thee on to conquer1;” and to Paula of Blaesilla, “she prays to the Lord for thee, and impetrates for me, (cer tain I am of her mind,) the pardon of my sins m ;” and to Theodora, on the death of her husband : — ” He, already safe and triumphant, beholds thee from on high, and aids thee in thy efforts, and prepares thee a place near himself n.” St. Augustine says : — ” For the faithful departed, prayers are offered ; for Martyrs,

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not : for they departed so perfect, that they are not our clients but our advocates. Nor this in themselves, but in Him, to Whom, their Head, they, perfect mem bers, cohered. For He is truly the One Advocate, Who intercedeth for us, sitting at the right hand of the Father ; but He is our One Advocate, as also our One Shepherd0.” As, then, His character of “the Shepherd of the sheep” does not exclude others being shepherds in and under Him, so neither does His being the One Advocate preclude others being advocates, in His body, with and through Himself. Sulpicius Se- verus, comforting a friend on the death of St. Martin, says : — ” I cannot command myself not to weep. I have, indeed, sent before me a patron, but I have lost the solace of this present life, although, if grief admitted of reason, I ought to rejoice. For he is inserted among the Apostles and Prophets. He will not be wanting to us, believe me, he will not be wanting ; he will be with us discoursing of him ; he will stand by us pray ing ; and what he has vouchsafed to do to-day, he will often let us see him, and protect us with his continual blessing, as he did just nowp.” Prudentius says of St. Cyprian : — ” Here below he is a teacher ; above, a martyr: here, he instructs men; thence, a patron, he gives loving gifts <*.” St. Maximus says ” that the

P Epist. ii. de ol. et app. B. Mart., Gall. viii. 400, 401. The allu sions are to a dream which Severus had, just before he heard of St. Martin’s decease, in which St. Martin blessed him

1 Hymn. 13, fin. Gall. viii. 467.

400 ARTICLE XXn.

heathen aimed a blow at the Church by the martyr dom of St. Sixtus ;” but ” that great Xystus, who had 011 earth been a shepherd of the sheep committed to him by God, was at hand, a patron from heaven r.” At the Council of Chalcedon, mention being made of Flavian, all the Constantinopolitan Bishops said : — ” Eternal the memory of Flavian ; of the orthodox, eternal the memory — Flavian after death lives ; the martyr will pray for us s,” &c. The Bishops, collectively, in their synodical Relation to St. Leo, own some aid from St. Euphemia, in whose church they assembled, in the happy accomplishment of their labours : — “It was God Who worked, and the victorious Euphemia who crowned the Council by her bridal-chamber ; who, re ceiving the definition of the faith from us as her own confession, did, through the most pious king and the Christ-loving queen, present it to her Spouse, having lulled the whole confusion of the adversaries, and strengthened the love and confession of truth, and by hand and tongue, having put the question to the votes of all for demon strationV The Bishops in the Council of Tours, A.D. 461, express their hope that ” the in tercession of the holy and most blessed bishop, St. Martin, which is acceptable to God, will obtain, that the constitution of our humility may, by the mercy of the Lord helping, be preserved0.”

• Horn. 2, in Nat. S. Laur. * Cone. Chalc., Act. xi. iv.

698, Labbe. * Cone. Chalc., part iii. cap. 2 ; Labbe, torn.

iv. p. 835.

u Cone. Turon.y Labbe, torn. iv. p. 1052, prima pagination!? serie.

But, further, it is equally true and equally scriptural that, in prayer to God, they pleaded to Him the accept- ableness of those to whom they stood in this relation of love. Thus Moses prayed to God, after the people’s sin as to the calf: — ” Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants, to whom Thou swarest by Thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed*,” &c. He does not say simply, “Remember Thy promise ;” but, ” Remember those to whom Thou didst make it.” And God speaks of Himself as ” keep ing mercy for thousands ? ;” and Jeremiah pleads to Him that His character ” that shewest loving-kindness to thousands z,” i.e. that whereas He ” visited iniquity to the third and fourth generation” only, He kept or retained His mercy to manifold more, if they would at last admit of it. And Solomon seems to have pleaded to God, ” Lord remember David, and all his trouble,” i.e. his laborious zeal for the House of God, and entreats Him, not for his own deserts, but ” for Thy servant David’s sake turn not away the face of Thine anointed a.” And it is recorded that ” for David’s sake did the Lord his God give Abijam a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem ; because David did right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittiteb.” And St. Paul says

r Exod. xxxii. 13. J Ib. xxxiv. 7. z Jer. xxxii. 18.

a Ps. cxxxii. 1, 10 ; comp. 2 Chr. vi. 41, 42.

b 1 Kings xv. 4, 5.

ud

of all Israel, ” as touching the election, they are be loved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance c.”

Among the friends of God in the Church of Christ, an eminent place was early given to the Martyrs, as having borne witness to Christ ” the True Witness d,” as having been likenesses to His sufferings, in whom especially these words were fulfilled, ” If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Hime;” and His pro mise, that ” he that overcometh, to him will I grant to sit down on My throne f.” Hence the title that they were avvOpovoi, ’ enthroned with’ Christ. Hence came the language, so often used of them, that they had much ” boldness of speech” with Christ, as having suf fered for Him. ” I know,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa of the forty martyrs *, “how mighty they are, and what boldness of speech they have with […] says St. Chrysostom, ” have much boldness of speech, not when living only, but also having died, yea, much more, having died. For they now bear the stigmata h, the marks of Christ; and, displaying those stigmata, they are able to persuade the King all things1;” and “as soldiers, exhibiting wounds which they have received from the enemy, speak boldly to the king, so these [Juventinus and Maximin, martyrs,] bearing in their hands their severed heads, and bringing them in the midst, can with reason effect all they wish with

c Rom. xi. 28, 29. d Rev. iii. 14. e 2 Tim. ii. 12. f Rev. Hi. 21. 8 Orat. in xl. Mart., Opp. ii. 211. h Ghil. vi. 17.

the King of heaven k.” Thus, also, Eusebius says, on Psalm Ixxviii. [Ixxix. :] — ” We are instructed to say these things in prayers, instead of sacrifice and whole burnt offerings putting forward the blood of the holy martyrs, and sending up such supplications as these. We, indeed, have not been held worthy to strive unto death, nor to empty out our blood for God ; but since we are the sons of those who suffered these things, glorying in our fathers’ virtue, we beseech to be com passionated for their sakes1;” and, at the close of his commentary on Isaiah : — ” Of which (heavenly con templation) may we, too, be deemed worthy by the merits and intercessions of all the saints”1.” And St. Gregory of Nazianzum: — “May my affairs be con ducted how God wills; may they, by his [St. Basil’s] intercessions, be conducted better n.” And St. Gregory of Nyssa : — ” May we, too, [as well as the forty mar- iyrs,] enter Paradise, having been strengthened through tneir intercession unto the good confession of our Lord Jesus Christ; to Whom0,” &c. And St. Ambrose to his brother : — ” That this favour [a speedy reunion] may be conferred on me by thy intercessions, that thou mayest summon me, who long to join thee, more speedily P.” St. Chrysostom closes his homily on St. Pelagia: — “May it be by the prayers of this holy martyr, and by those of the rest who wrestled with

k In Juvent. et Maxim, fin., Opp. ii. 583. ’ Monff. Nov.

Coil., i. 486, 487. m Ibid., t. ii. p. 593. ” Orat. 43

in laud. S. Basil., n. 25, t. i. p. 791. ° Orat. ii. in xl. Mart,

fin., t. iii. p. 511. p JJe Res. fin., Opp. ii. 1170.

her, that you may retain in accurate remembrance these things and the rest which have been said, and shewing them all forth by your deeds, may in all things abide well pleasing to God; to Whom V &c. And on the saying “God remembered Abraham, and sent just Lot out of the overthrow r :” ” What, then ? one may say, was the just man saved on the ground of the intercession of the patriarch and not of his own righteousness ? Nay, for the intercession of the patri arch too. For, when we contribute our part too, does the intercession of the righteous most benefit us ; since if we ourselves are remiss, and place the hope of our deliverance on them alone, we shall gain nothing. Not because the righteous are weak, but because we betray ourselves by our own remissness.” Then, hav ing contrasted God’s forbidding Jeremiah to pray for Israel when obstinate in sin, he says, “knowing this, beloved, let us flee to the intercession of the saints, and exhort them to beseech for us ; but let us not rely on their supplications alone, but let us also order, as is meet, our part, and hold fast to amendment of life ; that we may give room for their intercession for us.” He closes his oration on St. Meletius : — ” Let us all pray in common, rulers and ruled, women and men, old and young, slaves and free, taking the blessed Meletius as sharer of this prayer, (for he has greater freedom of speech now, and his love to us is more glowing,) that this love may be increased, and that

i Horn. i. in S. Pelag.fin., ii. 590.

’ Horn. 44, in Gen., n. 2, Opp. iv. 448, 449,

it be vouchsafed to us all, as we are now near this urn, so there, too, we may be near his everlasting taber nacles, and obtain the goods laid up there8;” and, ” Taking the holy martyrs as partakers of our prayers, let us pray for length of her [the empress’s] life, cheerful old age, sons and sons’ sons, and, above all these, that this zeal may be heightened, piety in creased*,5’ &c.

There remains the question, — “Apart from the prayer to God to grant favours at the intercession of such or such a martyr or saint ; apart also from those instances of rhetorical apostrophe with such expressions as el’ TIS ala6r]aL$, taken evidently from the form of the heathen rhetoricians ; — did the early Church think it right directly to ask the saints to use those intercessions, in whose efficacy they believed ?” It is true that no in stance can be quoted before the Council of Nicaea, except the case related by St. Gregory Nazianzen, out of Acts undoubtedly apocryphal, how Justina, fleeing the assault of Cyprian the magician, (whom those Acts confounded with the great African father and martyr before his conversion,) ” abandoning all other hope, fled to God for refuge, and took as her defender against that accursed passion Him to Whom she was betrothed ;” and after many such prayers ” besought

the Virgin Mary to aid a virgin in danger11.” Yet it cannot be doubted that in the latter part of the fourth century the great fathers, who secured and transmitted our faith, practised it and taught it. St. Ephrem, in his funeral canons for a departed bishop (for whom yet he prays), asks him, in the vacancy of the see, ” Visit thy Church, father, by thy prayers which are heard, and pray for it, like Moses, that there may be a priest like Joshua ; for David had long departed and was not in the day of Hezekiah; his prayer defended and delivered Jerusalem from […] thy prayers defend thy flock, and entreat deliverance for it, and may the congre gation, which praises thy memory, be blessed by thy prayers ; that thy people may rejoice in the (heavenly) chamber, and may say, Praise to Him “Who chose theeV And for a monk, for the forgiveness of whose sins he afterwards prays : — ” Pray to and supplicate God for the congregation of thy beloved, that He would re ward their tears, which they have shed for thee. Supplicate Him Who lieareth thee, that He would for give them their sins ; raise up thy hand over thy con gregation, which, beareth thy corpse with honour, and bless it as thou wert wont in the name of the holy God ; for very loved and precious is the prayer of the hour of departure. Remember the holy Church, and recall it in the general assembly; for as a mother she buried thee, and as a sister she honoured thy

u Orat. xxiv. n. 10, 11. « Can. 1, Opp. Syr. iii. 227.

death y.” These, however, are not invocations of saints, but mutual deprecations. In another, the congrega tion says : — ” Pray and beseech for all of us, that we may be worthy to behold thee in the (heavenly) courts, and with thee may rejoice and be glad z.” There is also a short prayer : — ” Apostles twelve, intercede for me; prophets and martyrs, entreat for mea:” and, ” Martyrs, who endured resolutely, afflictions cheer fully, and received crowns perfectly, as is meet, justly, supplicate with us b conjointly, to Christ lordlily, that He would shew mercies abundantly, upon us all un ceasingly.”

St. Damasus, in his poems, says to a martyr : — ” Now dweller with the Lord, who guardest the altars of Christ, I pray thee to favour the prayers of Damasus, illustrious martyr c.” St. Gregory of Nyssa asks the martyr, St. Theodore : — ” Intercede with our common King for thy country, for the martyr’s country is the place of his passion. We anticipate afflictions ; we expect danger; not far off are the wicked Scythians, in pangs with war against us. As a soldier fight for us ; as a martyr use boldness of speech for thy fellow- servants. Ask for peace, that these public assemblies may not cease. That we have been preserved un harmed, to thee we ascribe the benefit; but we ask for safety in the future too. If there be need of greater importunity, assemble the choir of thy brother martyrs;

y Can. 16, p. 259. z Can. 15 fin., p. 255.

a Parcen. ad pcenit., 33, fin., ib., p. 486. b JSTot “for us,‘3

as Ass. 1. c. c Carm. 22, Gall. vi. 549.

and implore with all. Let the prayers of many righte ous loose the sins of peoples and districts. Remind Peter ; arouse Paul ; John too, the theologian and be loved disciple, that they have a care for the Churches which they established d,” &c. He closes his panegyric on St. Ephrem, “Do thou, standing by the Divine altar, and ministering with angels to the life-giving and All -holy Trinity, remember us all, asking for us remission of sins, and the fruition of an everlasting kingdom in Christ our Lord ; to Whom e,” &c. St. Gregory of Nazianzum says to St. Cyprian : — ” Do thou look down on us propitiously from above, and direct our speech and life, and shepherd or co-shepherd this holy flock; and, directing the rest, as far as may be, for the best, and driving away the grievous wolves, the hunters of syllables and phrases, and bestowing on us a more perfect and bright illumination of the Holy Trinity, by Whom thou standest, Whom we worship f,” &c. And to St. Basil : — ” Do thou, divine and sacred one, look down upon us, and by thy intercessions either stay the thorn of the flesh, given us by God, our discipline, or persuade us to endure it bravely, and direct our whole life for us for the best; and if we be removed thence, receive us in thy tabernacles, that, living together and together beholding the holy and blessed Trinity s,” &c. St. Ambrose says : — ” Angels

d Horn, de S. Theod.fin., Opp. iii. 585, 586. e De Vit. S.

Ephr.fin., iii. 616. f Orat. 24, fin., p. 450.

s Or. 43, fin., p. 832. He also asks his father and mother, ” Save me now, too, by mighty supplications.” Carm. 97.

are to be besought for us, who were given to us as a guard; martyrs are to be besought, whose patronage we seem to claim for ourselves by the pledge of the body. They can ask for our sins, who washed what ever sins they had with their own blood. For they are God’s martyrs, our presiders, the surveyors of our life and actions. Be we not ashamed to employ them as intercessors for our infirmity, who knew the in- iirmity of the body even when they overcame h.”

St. Chrysostom says to the people : — ” Thou, then, when thou perceivest that God is chastening thee, fly not to His enemies the Jews, lest thou kindle His wrath the more against thee, but to His friends the martyrs, the holy and well -pleasing unto Him, who have also much freedom of speech [towards Him] ’.”

St. Jerome says to St. Paula : — ” Help with thy prayers the extreme old age of thy devotee. Thy faith and works associate thee with Christ ; present, thou wilt obtain more easily what thou askest V St. Chryso stom exhorts the people : — ” Not on this festival only, but on other days too, let us be at their side, let us invoke them; let us beg them to be our patronesses1” [S. Bernice and Prosdoce]. “Since they have such power and friendship with God, let us, making our selves their familiars by constant attention and coming to them continually, draw on us, through them, the loving-kindness of God.”

St. Augustine, in his beautiful De Curd pro Mor-

h De Viduis, c. 9. t. ii. p. 200. » Adv. Jud. Or. 8, n. 6.

[…]

tuis m, says, that the benefit of burying their friends at the Memorials of the Saints, was that the living “recol lecting where are the bodies of those whom they love, may commend them to the same saints or patrons.” At the second synod of Rome, A.D. 495, they exclaimed, ” Lord Peter preserve him,” (the Pope) n.

But a far stronger impulse than the advice given by these reverenced fathers or their practice, lay in the facts of those days. For apparently (and, in face of the evidence, we cannot contradict it) it was God who encouraged it by the answers to prayer so ad dressed. Gibbon has scoffed at the fact that one of the miracles very commonly dwelt upon was the cast ing out of devils. But if it were ever so much, that these persons who spoke as demoniacs, persons pos sessed, were simple maniacs, still the maniacs were healed. Were it ever so much, that, in some cases, the body was healed through the mind, this would leave a large residue, in which any mind, open to evidence, must acknowledge ” the finger of God.” St. Augustine says : — “If, to omit others, I would write the miracles of healing alone, which were wrought through this martyr, the glorious Stephen, in the colony of Calama and in ours, many books must be written. And yet all cannot be gathered in one, but those only, of which accounts have been sent in, to be recited before the people. For this we had done, seeing that Divine miracles, like those of old, were multiplied in our times, and that this ought not to m c. iv. t. vi. p. 519. n Labbe, torn. iv. pp. 137, 8.

be lost to the knowledge of many °.” ” Many know how great miracles take place in that city (Ancona) through the most blessed martyr Stephen p.” “At Uzalis, where my brother Euodius is Bishop, how many miracles take place, seek and ye will find q.” One which he guarantees, was the temporary restora tion of an infant, who had died unbaptized, that it might be baptized r. He is careful to say that all was done by Christ : — ” Ye who know how to love Stephen, love him in Christ. — Do we read, or can we read any where in sound doctrine, that Jesus did or doth mira des through the name of Stephen. Stephen did them, but by the name of Christ s. This he doth now, too. Whatever ye see done through the memorial of Ste phen, it is done in the name of Christ, that Christ may be extolled, Christ adored, Christ expected as Judge of quick and dead V

St. Gregory of Nyssa says : — ” I placed the bodies of my parents near the reliques of the [forty] soldiers, that, at the time of the resurrection, they may be raised with those who have noble freedom of speech. For I know how mighty they are, and I have seen the

S. Sleph., n. 2. * Ibid., n. 3.

r Serm. 324 : ” The mother said, « Holy martyr, thou seest I have no solace. — Thou knowest why I mourn. Restore me my son, that I may have him in the presence of Him who crowned thee.’ ” The child re vived, was baptized, and, all the sacraments now completed, was taken. ” When, then,” St. Augustine sums up, ” God wrought such a miracle through His martyr, could He not there [at Uzalis] cure these ?”

• Acts vi. 8. * Serm. 316, n. 1.

evident demonstration of their freedom of speech with God.” He then relates how ” a soldier, long and almost incurably lame, being within the martyrium. and the resting-place of the saints [the forty martyrs], having prayed to God, implored the intercession of the saints.” The soldier was restored in a vision, his companions heard the sound of the re-setting of the bone. ” He awoke and was whole.” ” This miracle,” St. Gregory says, ” I saw, falling in with the man, relating it to all, and proclaiming the good deed of the martyrs u.”

St. Basil is less definite in regard to the forty mar tyrs. He attests only the number of the applicants : — ” Forty are they, that send up harmonious prayer. Where two or three are gathered together in the name of the Lord, there is He in the midst of them ; and where forty are, who doubts of God’s presence? The afflicted flies unto the forty, the gladdened runs unto them ; the former to find escape from his troubles ; the latter, that his prosperity may be preserved. Thus a pious woman is found praying for her children, asking a return for her husband when absent, health for him when sick. Let your prayers be with martyrs x.” In regard to the martyr St. Mamas, he speaks more defi nitely : — ” Remember for me the martyr, all who have benefited by him through dreams ; all who lighting on this holy place, had him as co-operator to prayer ; all to whom, called by name, he has stood by in their deeds ; all whom he has raised from sickness ; all to

u Or at. in xl. Mart., Opp. ii. 211, 212.

whom he has given back sons, when now dead ; all to whom he lengthened the appointed term of life. Bring them all together ; form a panegyric from the common contribution y.” St. Gregory Nazianzen tells the Emperor Julian, “By them [the martyrs] devils are driven out and diseases cured2.” St. Chrysostom says of the Egyptian martyrs : — ” Many, both of the natives and of those who have come from elsewhere, know how great the power of these saints, who also bear witness to what I say, having learned through the experience itself, their free access to God a.”

St. Asterius, Bishop of Amasea, relates : — ” Those op pressed by calamities incidental to man hasten, as to an asylum, to those places, where those thrice-blessed rest, and employ them as legates and mediators of their prayers and requests, on account of their bound less confidence with God ; thence the poor are solaced ; — the sacred temples of the martyrs are tranquil harbours amidst all tumults and storms of life. Thus father or mother taking the sick child — having come to any of the martyrs, through him offer up a prayer to the Lord, saying to her mediator, ’ Thou hast suffered for Christ, intercede for one who suffers and is ill. Having freedom of speech, use it for thy fellow-servant V ’

Even Yigilantius appears to have admitted the fact of the miracles; for he argued about them: — “He argues against signs and miracles, which take place

z Orat. 4, n. 69, p. 108. a Opp. ii. 700.

b In S. Mart, in Combef. Nov. Auct., i. 186, 187.

in the basilicas of the martyrs, and says that they benefit unbelievers, not believers ; as though the ques tion now were, for whom they take place, and not, by what power they take place.” ” Tell me not, they are ’ signs for unbelievers/ but answer how in ’ most vile dust and I know not what ashes ’ there is such presence of signs and wonders0.” Rufinus relates, that the bodies of the martyr Apollonius and his com panions ” were buried in one sepulchre, by which up to the present time many miracles and wonderful signs are wrought for all. Yea, and the vows and prayers are received by them, and are fulfilled with the fruits of the petition d.”

Prudentius says to St. Laurence : — ” What power is entrusted, what gifts granted, the joys of the Romans prove, to whom, asked, thou assentest. What every sup plicant asketh, he beareth off obtained prosperously; they ask, are enriched, tell, and no one returns sad e.”

Yet more remarkable are the statements of Theo- doret, both as being himself of a dry matter-of-fact mind, and in regard to the extent of the facts which he states, For, in refuting Heathenism, he is con trasting the martyrs with all which the heathen held great, gods or men : — “Time, which withereth all things, hath preserved their glory un withered. For the noble souls of the victorious (martyrs) traverse heaven, form ing part of the incorporeal chorus, but their bodies — it is not a single tomb that conceals each one of them,

c S. Jer. cont. Vigil., n. 11, Opp. ii. 397. <* De vitis Pah-urn, c. IV, Jin. « Perist., ii. 561—568.

but cities and villages, having shared them between them, style them the Preservers both of soul and body, and healers, and honour them as tutelars and guar dians : and, employing them as intercessors with the Lord of all, by these means obtain divine gifts. And when the body is severed, the grace remains un- severed. And that small and tiniest relic hath the same power with the martyr who hath never been dis tributed. For the grace abounding distributeth the gifts f.” ” These are truly leaders, and champions and succourers of men, averters of evils, conducting away the injuries brought by demons g.” ” Those who were distinguished for piety, and were slain for it, we call averters of evil and physicians, friends of God and benevolent servants, using freedom of speech, and announcing to us the harvest of goodh.”

“But the shrines of the martyrs glorious in their victory, are grand, magnificent, and conspicuous in size, and manifoldly adorned, and sending forth flashes of beauty. And to these, not once or twice in the year, nor even five times do we go, but ofttimes we hold solemn assemblies, and often every day offer hymns to their Lord; and they who are in health beg for the preservation of their health; they that are wrestling with any sickness ask a riddance from their sufferings ; the childless men ask for offspring, and the barren women for children. And they who have gained this gift, ask that their gifts may be preserved perfect ; and

f Grcec. off. cur., viii. t. iv. p. 902, Sch. t Ibid., p. 912. h Ibid., p. 915.

those who are setting out upon any journey, implore them to become their fellow-travellers and guides on the way ; and they who have gained their return, offer the acknowledgment of the favour ; drawing nigh to them not as gods, but approaching them as devout men, and beseeching them to be intercessors on their behalf. But that they who faithfully ask obtain the things which they ask, their votive offerings clearly testify, manifesting the healing ; for some offer models of eyes, others of feet, and others of hands ; and some of them fashioned of gold, others of silver. For their Lord receives the small and cheap things, too, mea suring the gift by the power of the offerer. But the things which are there testify the ceasing of the suffer ings, whereby they are placed as memorials by those who have become \vhole. And these things proclaim the power of those buried there; and their power shews that their God is the true God1.”

We have already seen St. Augustine, before his people, carefully referring to Christ the miracles done at the intercession of the martyrs. He does the same, in answer to the allegations of the heathen ; that “their gods, too, had done some marvels” [the fables of a legendary antiquity]. He says that neither did the facts bear comparison, nor the ends for which they were done. For that the end of those things had been to obtain worship for creatures ; ” but the martyrs do these things, or rather God doth them, they either praying or co-operating, to the advancement of that 1 Ibid., pp. 921, 922.

faith whereby we believe that they are not our gods, but have one God with us. Lastly, they [heathen] both built temples and set up altars, and made priests and offered sacrifices to such gods of theirs ; we build not to our martyrs temples as to gods, but memorials as to dead men, whose spirits live to God ; and we erect altars therein, not to sacrifice to martyrs, but to the One God of the martyrs and of ourselves ; at which Sacrifice, as men of God, who, in confessing Him, overcame the world, they are named in their place and order, yet are not invoked by the priest who sacrifices. For he sacrifices to God, not to them, although he sacrifices in their memorials ; for he is God’s priest, not theirs. But the sacrifice itself is the Body of Christ, which is not offered to them, because they, too, are it [viz. Christ’s mystical body].” He draws out more sci entifically the contrast between the cultus done to Almighty God and that shewn to the martyrs (which, he says, was the same in kind as that to holy men on earth). In his celebrated treatise against Faustus the Manichean, who charged the Church with hav ing made an exchange for idols in the cultus of the martyrs, he says : — ” The Christian people unite in celebrating with religious solemnity the memories of the martyrs, both to excite to an imitation of them, and to be associated with their merits and aided by their prayers ; yet so, that to none of the martyrs, but to the God Himself of the Martyrs, although in places dedicated to martyrs, do we raise altars. For what prelate, standing at the altar in the places of their

£ 6

holy bodies, ever said, ( we offer to thee, Peter, or Paul, or Cyprian?’ But what is offered is offered to God Who crowned the martyrs, in the memorials of those whom He crowned ; that through the admonition of the places themselves, a greater affection may arise, to make our love keener both towards those whom we are able to imitate, and towards Him by Whose help we are able. We, therefore, worship the martyrs with that worship of love and of fellowship with which even in this life holy men of God are worshipped, whose hearts we feel are prepared for the like suffer ing for Gospel truth ; but the martyrs the more devotedly, the safer it is, their conflicts ended ; as also with the more confident praise do we exalt those who are already conquerors in a happier life, than those who are still warring here below. But with that wor ship, which, in Greek, is called ‘latria/ in Latin it cannot be expressed by one word, as it is a kind of service due and appropriate to the Divinity alone, we neither worship nor teach to worship other than the One God. But whereas to this worship appertains the oblation of sacrifice (whence their worship, who give this to idols, is called idolatry), we do not any wise offer, or teach to be offered anything of this kind, either to any martyr, to any holy soul, or to any angel; and whosoever falls into this error he is re proved by the sound teaching, either that he may amend or be avoided k.”

k c. Faust, xx. 21. And again : — ” Even at the memorials of the holy inartjrd, do we not offer to God? The holy martyrs have an

And St. Jerome : — ” Madman, who ever adored martyrs ? Who thought man to be God } ?”

And St. Cyril, of Alexandria, in answer to Julian :— ” The holy martyrs we neither say are gods, nor are we wont to worship them, viz., with Divine worship, but relatively and honorifically. But rather we crown them with the highest honours, as having striven nobly for the truth m.”

St. Asterius, of Amasea, in like manner, says to the heathen : — ” We worship not martyrs, but we honour them, as sincere worshippers of God. We do not wor ship men, but we admire those who, in time of per secution, nobly worshipped God. We deposit them in beautiful shrines, and the houses of their repose we raise magnificent in structure, that we may zealously honour men who died gloriously. But we shew them not an unrequited zeal, but enjoy their patronage to ward God. For since our prayer suffices not to im portune God in time of necessity and calamity ; for our supplication is not an obsecration but a reminiscence of

honourable place. Observe. In the recital at the altar of Christ, they are recited in a better place ; yet they are not adored as Christ; whence their act who offer this too to idols is called idolatry. When heard ye it said by any Other my brother and colleague, or any Presbyter, ’ I offer to thee, holy Theogenis, or I offer to thee, Peter, I offer to thee, Paul.’ Never have ye heard. It is not, it may not be. If it be said to thee, ’ Dost thou worship Peter ?’ answer what Eulogius [the deacon] said [to the heathen judge] of Fructuosus [his bishop, whose martyrdom he shared], ’ I do not worship Peter, but God I worship, whom Peter too worships. Then Peter loves thee.’ “—Serm. 273, in Nat. Fruct. Aug. Eulog., n. 7. t. v. 1108.

420 AKT1CLE XXIT.

our sins, therefore we flee to those our fellow-servants, the beloved of the Lord, that they in their own good deeds may heal our transgressions. What censure is it that, honouring martyrs, we too are zealous to please God ? What accusation is it to flee to patrons11?”

Such, then, being the authorities, for the practice of asking the prayers and intercessions of the saints, even those same great fathers who jealously guarded for us, and by their toils and sufferings transmitted to us the belief in the A 11- Holy Trinity and our Blessed Lord’s Divine Person : — such being the testimony upon which they tested it; viz., the experience of those, who had sought through the saints what God alone could give and had found it, we could have nothing, in principle, to except against it, if only those errors be guarded against, to which our poor nature is so easily inclined, of betaking ourselves to the saints, as to beings less holy, less awful, whom the soul ever ap proaches with less effort and less fear than Him, Who, being our Mediator, will also be our Judge. The Council of Trent itself desired that ” all superstition in the invocation of saints should be removed/’ A learned writer said, ” Many Christians sin for the most part in a thing which is good, in that they venerate the saints no otherwise than God. Nor, in many, do I see what difference there is between their opinion of the saints, and what the Gentiles thought of their gods °.”

” Encom. in SS. Martt. in Combefis. N. Auct., pp. 191, 192. Paris, 1648. ° Lud. Vives on S. Aug. de Civ. D., viii. ult., quoted by

Bp. W. Forbes’ Consid. Mod. t. 11. p. 310.

This is precisely what our homily (which illustrates this Article) excepts against, when, having spoken of the conduct of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, and the monition of the angel in the Revelations to St. John, it sums up, ” which examples declare unto us that the angels and saints in heaven will not have us to do any honour unto them, that is due and proper unto God?”

On the other side, Bellarmine, in treating on this subject, lays down formally these propositions01: — ” (1.) We may not ask the saints, that they, as authors of the Divine benefits, would grant us glory or grace, and other means to beatitude. (2.) Saints are not our immediate intercessors with God, but whatever they impetrate for us from God, they impetrate through Christ/’ The first statement he proves (1.) from Holy Scripture : — ” The Lord will give grace and glory ;” and St. James, ” Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights :” (2.) From the usage of the Church ; for in the prayers read at mass, or in the office on the festival of the saints, we never ask anything else but that, at their prayers, benefits may be granted to us by God. (3.) From reason ; for what we need surpasses the powers of the creature, and therefore even of saints ; therefore we ought to ask nothing of saints beyond their impetrating from God what is profitable for us. (4.) From Augustine and Theodoret, who expressly teach that ” saints are not to be invoked as gods, but as able to gain for men what they wish.” Bellarmine, however, subjoins : — ” When

v Homily on Prayer, p. 277. 1 De Sanct. Beat., i. 17.

we say that nothing should be asked of saints, save that they should pray for us, the question is not about the words, but about the sense of the words. For, as far as the words go, it is lawful to say, * St. Peter, have mercy upon me, save me/ &c., so that we understand, ’ save me and have mercy upon me, by praying for me/ &c. ; for so speaks Gregory Nazianzen and many other of the ancients, and the universal Church, &c. And, as the Apostle says of himself, Rom. xi., ’ that I might save some of them/ and 1 Cor. ix.”

St. Thomas Aquinas says : — ” To Him alone, from “Whom we hope to obtain what we pray for, do we, by praying, pay the cultus of religion, because in this we testify that He is the Author of our good things; but not to those to whom we resort as our advocates with God V

In principle, then, there is no question, herein, be tween us and any other portion of the Catholic Church. Even where the incommunicable attributes of God have, in expression at least, been invaded, the real underlying belief has been explained to be, that no thing is obtained for man, no grace, no aid, no gift for body, soul, or spirit, except through or from the One Mediator between God and Man, our adorable Lord, Christ Jesus. Prayer to the saints in heaven is ex plained, again and again, to be the same in kind as the prayers to the saints on earth ; as St. Augustine speaks of the cultus of the saints in heaven being the same in kind as the cultus of saints on earth. ” Since the me-

• 2. 2. q. 83, art. 4, ad 1.

diation of the saints is not invoked like that of Christ, since their mediation is held to be only one of inter cession not of redemption, since the effectualness of their intercession rests on God’s free mercy and the merits of Christ, then the honour of Christ and the aloneness of His redemption is not in the least in trenched upon. If the intercession of believers on earth may be invoked, without injury to the honour of Christ as Mediator, why not also the intercession of the saints in heaven8?” Had this been all, the Article never could have been written. Not our own Divines only, but foreign reformers, too, have seen nothing herein to reject*. The Church of Rome has not stated the practice to be necessary to salvation, nor required it of any, so that he deny not that, as above explained, it is in itself good and useful. The more this aspect is dwelt upon, the more we shall be disposed to accept the con clusion of a pious Divine: — “Let God alone be reli giously adored ; let Him alone be prayed to through Christ, Who, truly and properly speaking, is the sole

s Klee, KatJi. Dogmalilc., iii. 407, 408, ed, 3, ” It is good and useful to apply to the saints for intercession and help. They are, namely, friends and beloved of God, whose intercession is effectual, and they being, by reason of their love, inclined to help us, then it is also praise worthy and beneficial to apply for their intercession, as for that of the righteous living upon earth. Therefore the Church has of old approved and recommended the invoking them, and only rejected the saint-worship which obscured the merits of the Redeemer.” — Dieringer Lehrb. d. Kath. Dogm., p. 733, ed. 5.

and only Mediator between God and man. Let not that most ancient custom, common in the universal Church, as well Greek as Latin, of addressing angels and saints in the way we have said, be condemned or rejected, as impious, or as vain and foolish. Let foul abuses and superstitions which have crept in be taken away, and so shall peace hereafter be easily formed and ratified between the parties. Which, may the God of peace and all holy concord, vouchsafe to grant for the sake of His Only-Begotten Son u.”

u Forbes, Consid. Mod., ii. 513.

Notes

• Opp., iii. p. 4. Ben. Comp. p. 289, n. 70.
• Gelasiau Sacram., n. 91, post obit. Horn, in pp. 749, bis. 750, bis. Murat. ; add Gal ic. Sacram. Mi.Ks.pro defunct., ibid., p. 950; S. Greg.
• ” What is contained in a great many [plerisque], viz. ‘let such an oblation profit [profit vel proficiaf], this or that saint to glory and honour,’ ought to be understood, that it should profit to this end, that he should be more and more glorified on earth, or be honoured ; although a great many _plerique] do not think it unworthy that the glory of the saint be augmented up to the judgment, and that therefore, meanwhile, the Church may wish for an increase of their glorifying.” (Innocent III. ArcJilep. Lugdun. in Decretal. Greg. IX. 1. iii. tit. 41, vel de celebr. Miss. c. 6. Quum Martha, p. 614, ed. Ritter.)
• Horn. 24, in Luc., Opp. iii., 961, 962, De la Rue. k In Matt. ii. § 4, p. 616; add In Ps. cxviii. Lit. iii. n. 5.
• See Dr. Pusey, ” Doctrine of the Real Presence,” pp. 411, 412.
• See Canon Ixxxi. init., p. 355 ; Parcen. in. p. 386, P. xiii. p. 432 ; P. xxiii. pp. 458, 459 ; P. Ixiv. p. 535 ; in Dr. Pusey’s ” Real Presence,” 1P. 124, 418—422.
• De Hares., n. 53, t. viii. p. 55.
• Sufferings in this life are but prominent and in the first place, as an adequate meaning of 1 Cor. iii. 11 sqq., with an expression of un certainty as to any further fulfilment of the words ” after this life,” defide et oper., c. 16, pp. 62 — 65, Oxf. Tr. (about A.D. 413, Ben. Preface), in the Enchiridion (not earlier than 421, Ben. Pref.), c. 68, 69, ela borately in the de 8 Dulcitii quastt. [A.D. 422 or 425, Ben. Pref.] q. i. n. 6. r xxi. 26, 4.
• Epist. xxviii. ad Sever., n. 1—3, i. 176, Paris, 1085. So also the author of the Ep. ad Marc., n. 7 ; ib. App. ii. 6. Lactantius (though no authority) expresses much the same.
• Ep. xxxvi. ad Amand., n. 2, pp. 224, 225.
• Against Joye, cit. Hardwick, p. 390. h Deutsche Pred.,
• Ep. Eccl. Lugd., &c., in Eus. H. E., v. 1.
• See his Epistles xv. — xxiii., xxv. — xxvii., xxx., xxxii.— xxxv., Iv. ; and those of the Roman Clergy, Ep. xxx., xxxvi. u Ad Letoium, can. 8, P. ii. p. 119. 1 Ep, xxv. ad Decentium. * Can. 5.
• On its genuineness, see Amort, p. 149.
• Vide J. GL Nichols’ “Pilgrimage of St. Mary of Walsinghain,” p. 98, London, 1849.
• St. Clem. AL, Strom., v. 5; Orig. c. Cels., v. 6, vi. 14, vii. 64; Tert. de Sped., 23; de Idol., 3, 4; St. Cypr. Test., iii. 59. St. Augustine held all the Decalogue to be binding on Christians except as to the Sab bath ; c. Faust., xv. 4, 7, xix. 8 ; con. 2 Epp. Pelag., iii. 4.
• De Pudic., c. 6, 10. In note 28, on St. Paulinus, Ep. xi., it is said ” under this form Christ occurs in the Roman Hagioglypta.” St. Pau- lin., Opp., t. ii. p. 35. Constantine set them up in the market-places. — Eus. de Tit. Const., iii. 49. r St. Iren. i. 25, 6.
• Ep. xxxii. ad Sev., n. 10, p. 206. and notes, pp. 66—70.
• De laud. Const., c. ix. p. 740.
• Hist. Eelig., c. 26, t. iii. p. 1272.
• Cone. Francof., can. 2, quoted ib.
• Pass. St. Vincent., ib., p. 395. Prudcntius says the same, pro bably from the Acts, Hymn. v. Pass. St. Vincent., 341—44.
• St. Ambrose, Ep. xxii. Sorori, t. ii. 874, 848, embodying his dis course to the people ; St. Augustine, Conf., ix. 7, n. 16 (see note, Oxf. Tr.) Serm. 286, n. 4, 5, (where he says, ” 1 was there ; I was at Milan,”) t. v. p. 1689 ; de Civ. D., xxii. 7, t. vii. pp. 1057, 1058 ; Paulinus, Vit. S. Ambr., n. 14.
• Ibid., n. 11, t. i. p. 213. “It is likely that the angelic powers are present at the assemblies of the faithful, and the power of our Lord and Saviour, yea, too, of the holy spirits, and I think too, even of those who hdve fallen asleep before (us), and undoubtedly also of those who are still living, even though the ‘how’ is not easy to d. clare.” Ibid., n. 31, p. 269.
• Ibid., p. 215.
• Horn. 9, in Gen. fin., t. iv. 71. f In SS. Mart. Combef. N. Auct., p. 192. B Serm. 82, in Nat. SS. Pet. et Paul., pp. 326, 327. h Serm. 84, in Oct. App. Pet. et Paul., p. 337. He speaks of the prayers of St. Peter, Serm. 12, 14, 76, 86, 88, 90, 92, 94.
• Serm. 85, c. iv. p. 340. k In St. Jerome, c. Vigilant., n. 7.
• Ep. xiv. n. 3, ad Heliod., p. 29, Vail. M Ep. xxxix. n. 6, p. 183.
• Serm. 285, in Nat. Martt. Casti et ^EmiL, n. 5, t. v. p. 1147.
• Horn, de SS. Bernice et Prosdoce fin., Opp. ii. 645.
• Horn, in S. Melet.fin., Opp. ii. 523.
• Horn. ii. ex xi. Jin., Opp. xii. 334; “preached before the Empress and the whole city and magistrates, in the Martyrium, three miles from the city, after she had translated thither the relics of the mar tyrs at midnight/’
• De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8. P Serm. 323, post lilell. de
• Horn, in xl. Mart., n. i. t. ii. pp. 209, 210.
• Horn, in Mam. Mart., n. i. t. ii. pp. 259, 260.
• c. Vigil., n. 5, t. ii. 391, Vail. •» 1. vi. t. vi. p. 203.
• Bishop William Forbes quotes even Luther (A. 1518 and 1522). (Ecolampadius, Bucer, Camerarius, apparently the author of the En- chirid. T/teol., Consid. Mod., t. ii. pp. 266, 274.