At Antioch, in which city the noble surname of Christians first
became common, there flourished _Doctors_, that is, eminent
theologians, and _Prophets_, that is, very celebrated preachers
(Acts xiii. 1). Of this sort were the scribes and wise men,
learned in the kingdom of God, bringing forth new things and old
(Matth. xiii. 52; xxiii. 34), knowing Christ and Moses, whom the
Lord promised to His future flock. What a wicked thing it is to
scout these teachers, given as they are by way of a mighty boon!
The adversary has scouted them. Why? Because their standing means
his fall. Having found that out for certain beyond doubt, I have
asked for a fight unqualified, not that sham-fight in which the
crowds in the street engage, and skirmish with one another, but
the earnest and keen struggle in which we join in the arena of
yon philosophers,
Foot to foot, and man close gripping man.
If ever we shall be allowed to turn to the Fathers, the battle is
lost and won: they are as thoroughly ours as is Gregory XIII.
himself, the loving Father of the children of the Church. To say
nothing of isolated passages, which are gathered from the records
of the ancients, apt and clear statements in defence of our
faith, we hold entire volumes of these Fathers, which professedly
illustrate in clear and abundant light the Gospel religion which
we defend. Take the twofold _Hierarchy_ of the martyr Dionysius,
what classes, what sacrifices, what rites does he teach? This
fact struck Luther so forcibly that he pronounced the works of
this Father to be "such stuff as dreams are made of, and that of
the most pernicious kind." In imitation of his parent, an obscure
Frenchman, Caussee, has not hesitated to call this Dionysius, the
Apostle of an illustrious nation, "an old dotard." Ignatius has
given grievous offence to the Centuriators of Magdeburg, as also
to Calvin, so that these men, the offscouring of mankind, have
noted in his works "unsightly blemishes and tasteless prosings."
In their judgment, Irenaeus has brought out "a fanatical
production": Clement, the author of the _Stromata_, has produced
"Tares and dregs": the other Fathers of this age, Apostolic men
to be sure, "have left blasphemies and monstrosities to
posterity." In Tertullian they eagerly seize upon what they have
learned from us, in common with us, to detest; but they should
remember that his book _On Prescriptions_, which has so signally
smitten the heretics of our times, was never found fault with.
How finely, how, clearly, has Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto pointed
out beforehand the power of Antichrist, the times of Luther! They
call him, therefore, "a most babyish writer, an owl." Cyprian,
the delight and glory of Africa, that French critic Caussee, and
the Centuriators of Magdeburg, have termed "stupid, God-forsaken
corrupter of repentance." What harm has he done? He has written
_On Virgins, On the Lapsed, On the Unity of the Church_, such
treatises as also such letters to Cornelius, the Roman Pontiff,
that, unless credence be withdrawn from this Martyr, Peter Martyr
Vermilius and all his associates must count for worse than
adulterers and men guilty of sacrilege. And, not to dwell longer
on individuals, the Fathers of this age are all condemned "for
wonderful corruption of the doctrine of repentance." How so?
Because the austerity of the Canons in vogue at that time is
particularly obnoxious to this plausible sect which, better
fitted for dining-rooms than for churches, is wont to tickle
voluptuous ears and to sew _cushions on every arm_ (Ezech. xiii.
18). Take the next age, what offence has that committed?
Chrysostom and those Fathers, forsooth, have "foully obscured the
justice of faith." Gregory Nazianzen whom the ancients called
eminently "the Theologian," is in the judgment of Caussee "a
chatter-box, who did not know what he was saying." Ambrose was
"under the spell of an evil demon." Jerome is "as damnable as the
devil, injurious to the Apostle, a blasphemer, a wicked wretch."
To Gregory Massow--"Calvin alone is worth more than a hundred
Augustines." A hundred is a small number: Luther "reckons nothing
of having against him a thousand Augustines, a thousand Cyprians,
a thousand Churches." I think I need not carry the matter
further. For when men rage against the above-mentioned Fathers,
who can wonder at the impertinence of their language against
Optatus, Hilary, the two Cyrils, Epiphanius, Basil, Vincent,
Fulgentius, Leo, and the Roman Gregory. However, if we grant any
just defence of an unjust cause, I do not deny that the Fathers
wherever you light upon them, afford the party of our opponents
matter they needs must disagree with, so long as they are
consistent with themselves. Men who have appointed fast-days, how
must they be minded in regard of Basil, Gregory, Nazianzen, Leo,
Chrysostom, who have published telling sermons on Lent and
prescribed days of fasting as things already in customary use?
Men who have sold their souls for gold, lust, drunkenness and
ambitious display, can they be other than most hostile to Basil,
Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, whose excellent books are in the
hands of all, treating of the institute, rule, and virtues of
monks? Men who have carried the human will into captivity, who
have abolished Christian funerals, who have burnt the relics of
Saints, can they possibly be reconciled to Augustine, who has
composed three books on Free Will, one on Care for the Dead,
besides sundry sermons and a long chapter in a noble work on the
Miracles wrought at the Basilicas and Monuments of the Martyrs?
Men who measure faith by their own quips and quirks, must they
not be angry with Augustine, of whom there is extant a remarkable
Letter against a Manichean, in which he professes himself to
assent to Antiquity, to Consent, to Perpetuity of Succession, and
to the Church which, alone among so many heresies, claims by
prescriptive right the name of Catholic?
Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, refutes the Donatist faction by
appeal to Catholic communion: he accuses their wickedness by
appeal to the decree of Melchiades: he convicts their heresy by
reference to the order of succession of Roman Pontiffs: he lays
open their frenzy in their defilement of the Eucharist and of
schism: he abhors their sacrilege in their breaking of altars "on
which the members of Christ are borne," and their pollution of
chalices "which have held the blood of Christ." I greatly desire
to know what they think of Optatus, whom Augustine mentions as a
venerable Catholic Bishop, the equal of Ambrose and of Cyprian;
and Fulgentius as a holy and faithful interpreter of Paul, like
unto Augustine and Ambrose. They sing in their churches the Creed
of Athanasius. Do they stand by him? That grave anchor who has
written an elaborate book in praise of the Egyptian hermit
Antony, and who with the Synod of Alexandria suppliantly appealed
to the judgment of the Apostolic See, the See of St. Peter. How
often does Prudentius in his Hymns pray to the martyrs whose
praises he sings! how often at their ashes and bones does he
venerate the King of Martyrs! Will they approve his proceeding?
Jerome writes against Vigilantius in defence of the relics of the
Saints and the honours paid to them; as also against Jovinian for
the rank to be allowed to virginity. Will they endure him?
Ambrose honoured his patron saints Gervase and Protase with a
most glorious solemnity by way of putting the Arians to shame.
This action of his was praised by most godly Fathers, and God
honoured it with more than one miracle. Are they going to take a
kindly view off Ambrose here? Gregory the Great, our Apostle, is
most manifestly with us, and therefore is a hateful personage to
our adversaries. Calvin, in his rage, says that he was not
brought up in the school of the Holy Ghost, seeing that he had
called holy images the books of the illiterate.
Time would fail me were I to try to count up the Epistles,
Sermons, Homilies, Orations, Opuscula and dissertations of the
Fathers, in which they have laboriously, earnestly and with much
learning supported the doctrines of us Catholics. As long as
these works are for sale at the booksellers' shops, it will be
vain to prohibit the writings of our controversialists; vain to
keep watch at the ports and on the sea-coast; vain to search
houses, boxes, desks, and book-chests; vain to set up so many
threatening notices at the gates. No Harding, nor Sanders, nor
Allen, nor Stapleton, nor Bristow, attack these new-fangled
fancies with more vigour than do the Fathers whom I have
enumerated. As I think over these and the like facts, my courage
has grown and my ardour for battle, in which whatever way the
adversary stirs, unless he will yield glory to God, he will be in
straits. Let him admit the Fathers, he is caught: let him shut
them out, he is undone.
When we were young men, the following incident occurred. John
Jewell, a foremost champion of the Calvinists of England, with
incredible arrogance challenged the Catholics at St. Paul's,
London, invoking hypocritically and calling upon the Fathers, who
had flourished within the first six hundred years of
Christianity. His wager was taken up by the illustrious men who
were then in exile at Louvain, hemmed in though they were with
very great difficulties by reason of the iniquity of their times.
I venture to assert that that device of Jewell's, stupid,
unconscionable, shameless as it was, qualities which those
writers happily brought out, did so much good to our countrymen
that scarcely anything in my recollection has turned out to the
better advantage of the suffering English Church. At once an
edict is hung up on the doors, forbidding the reading or
retaining of any of those books, whereas they had come out, or
were wrung out, I may almost say, by the outcry that Jewell had
raised. The result was that all the persons interested in the
matter came to understand that the Fathers were Catholics, that
is to say, ours. Nor has Lawrence Humphrey passed over in silence
this wound inflicted on him and his party. After high praise of
Jewell in other respects, he fixes on him this role of
inconsiderateness, that he admitted the reasonings of the
Fathers, with whom Humphrey declares, without any beating about
the bush, that he has nothing in common nor ever will have.
We also sounded once in familiar discourse Toby Matthews, now a
leading preacher, whom we loved for his good accomplishments and
the seeds of virtue in him; we asked him to answer honestly
whether one who read the Fathers assiduously could belong to that
party which he supported. He answered that he could not, if,
besides reading, he also believed them.[1] This saying is most
true; nor do I think that either he at the present time, or
Matthew Hutten, a man of name, who is said to read the Fathers
with an assiduity that few equal, or other adversaries who do the
like, are otherwise minded.
Thus far I have been able to descend with security into this
field of conflict, to wage war with men, who, as though they held
a wolf by the ears, are compelled to brand their cause with an
everlasting stigma of shame, whether they refuse the Fathers or
whether they call for them. In the one case they are preparing to
run away, in the other they are caught by the throat.