During The Fourth And Fifth Centuries.
I have said that the council of Elvira, in Spain, held in 305, prohibited
the use of images in the churches. Other canons of the same council show
that even then Christians were but too prone to relapse into the practices
and customs of Paganism; because they enact very severe ecclesiastical
penances against those Christians who took part in the rites and festivals
of the Pagan worship.(39)
If such enactments were required to maintain the purity of Christian
doctrine, at a time when its converts, instead of expecting any worldly
advantages, were often exposed to severe persecution, and consequently had
no other motives for embracing it than a mere conviction of its truth, how
much more was this purity endangered when conversion to Christianity led
to the favour of the sovereign, and when the church, instead of severely
repressing the idolatrous propensities of her children, endeavoured to
facilitate as much as possible the entrance of the Pagans into her pale!
Let me add, that the mixture of Christianity with Paganism in various
public acts of the first Christian emperors, which I have described in the
preceding chapter, could not but contribute to the general confusion of
ideas amongst those Christians whom the church was continually receiving
into her pale, with all their pagan notions. I have described, in the
second chapter of this essay, the policy of compromise adopted by the
church after the conversion of Constantine. I shall now describe the
consequences of this policy, by giving a sketch of the Christian society
which it produced, and which has been drawn, on the authority of
ecclesiastical writers, by the same author whose description and defence
of that policy I have given in the above-mentioned chapter.
“Towards the beginning of the fifth century, the propagation of
Christianity amongst the upper classes of Roman society met still with
many obstacles; but the influential persons who had broken with the error,
remained at least faithful to their new creed, and did not scandalise
society by their apostasy. The senatorial families which had embraced
Christianity gave, at Rome, the unfortunately too rare example of piety
and of all the Christian virtues; the case was different with the converts
belonging to the lower, and even the middle classes of Roman society. The
corruption of manners had made rapid progress amongst them during the last
fifty years of the fourth century; and things arrived at such a pass, that
the choice of a religion was considered by the people as an act of the
greatest indifference. The new religion was embraced from interest, from
curiosity, or by fashion, and afterwards abandoned on the first occasion.
It was, in fact, not indifference, because indifference induces people to
remain in the religion in which they were born; it was a complete atheism,
a revolting depravity, an openly-expressed contempt of all that is most
sacred. How many times the church, which struggled, but in vain, against
the progress of the evil, had occasion to lament the too easy recruits
whom she was making amongst the inferior ranks of society!(40) People
disgracefully ignorant, without honour, without a shadow of piety,
polluted by their presence the assemblies of the faithful. They are those
whom the fathers of the church designated by the name of the _mali
Christiani_—_ficti Christiani_, and against whom their eloquent voices
were often resounding. The heretics, the promoters of troubles and
seditions, always counted upon those men, who seemed to enter the church
only in order to disturb her by their turbulent spirit, or who consented
to remain in the true faith only on condition of introducing into the
usages of Christian worship, a crowd of superstitions whose influence was
felt but too long;(41) whilst the slightest sign of Paganism was
sufficient to call back to it those servants of all the parties.
“It was then, unfortunately, a too common thing to see men who made a
profession of passing, without any difficulty, from one religion to
another, as many times as it was required by their interests. The
principle of that inconceivable corruption in the bosom of a religion
which was not yet completely developed, dated from a period anterior to
that which we are describing.(42) The councils and the emperors had
struggled in vain against apostasy, which the multitude of heresies, and
the vices of the times, had placed amongst legitimate actions.
“Theodosius began in 381 to punish the apostates by depriving them of the
right to make wills. In 383, he modified this law in respect to the
apostate catechumens; but the general principle maintained all the
apostates _absque jure Romano_. Valentinian II. followed the example of
his colleague, and applied the before-mentioned dispositions to those
Christians who became Jews or Manicheans. We know, from a law of 391, that
the nobility was infected by the general spirit of the age, because
Valentinian enacted, by this law, that those nobles who became apostates
were to be degraded in such a manner that they should not count even _in
vulgi ignobilis parte_. In 396, Arcadius deprived again of the right to
make wills those Christians _qui se idolorum superstitione impia
maculaverint_.(43) The political authorities, therefore, cannot be accused
of having remained indifferent to the progress of the evil. We must now
show how little power the laws had in a time like that which we are
describing.
“One day, St Augustinus presented to the assembly of the Christians of
Hippona, a man who was to become celebrated amongst renegades; born a
Pagan, he embraced Christianity, but returned again to the idols, and
exercised the lucrative profession of an astrologer; he now demanded to be
readmitted into the church, that is to say, to change for the third time
his religion. St Augustinus addressed, on that occasion, the
above-mentioned assembly in the following manner:—
“ ‘This former Christian, terrified by the power of God, is now repenting.
In the days of his faithfulness, he was enticed by the enemy, and became
an astrologer; seduced and deceived himself, he was seducing and deceiving
others; he uttered many lies against God, who gave men the power to do
good, and to do no evil; he said that it was not the will of men which
made men adulterers, but Venus; that it was Mars who rendered people
murderers; that justice was not inspired by God, but by Jupiter; and he
added to it many other sacrileges. How much money he has swindled from
self-styled Christians! How many people have purchased the lie from him!
But now, if we are to believe him, he hates the error, he laments the loss
of many souls; and feeling himself caught by the demon, he returns toward
God full of repentance. Let us believe, brethren, that it is fear which
produces this change. What shall we say? perhaps we must not rejoice so
much at the conversion of this pagan astrologer, because once being
converted, he may seek to obtain the clerical office; he is penitent,
brethren, and asks only for mercy. I recommend him to your hearts, and to
your eyes. Let your hearts love him, but let your eyes watch him. Mark him
well; and wherever you shall meet him, show him to those of your brethren
who are not present here. This will be an act of mercy, because we must
fear that his seductive soul should change again, and recommence to do
mischief. Watch him; know what he says, and where he goes, in order that
your testimony may confirm us in the opinion that he is really converted.
He was perishing, but now he is found again. He has brought with him the
books which have burnt him, in order to throw them into the fire; he
wishes to be refreshed by the flames which shall consume them. You must
know, brethren, that he had knocked at the door of the church before
Easter, but that the profession which he had followed, rendering him
suspected of lies and fraud, he was kept back, but shortly afterwards
received. We are afraid of leaving him exposed to new temptations. Pray to
Christ for him.’
“Socrates(44) speaks of a sophist of Constantinople, called Ecebolus, who
conformed with a marvellous facility to all the changes of fortune which
Christianity was undergoing. During the reign of Constantine, he affected
the greatest zeal for the new belief; but when Julian became emperor, he
resumed his ancient devotion to the gods of Paganism. After the death of
that monarch, he gave great publicity to his repentance, and prostrated
himself before the churches, crying to the Christians, ‘Tread me under
your feet, as the salt which has lost its savour!’ Socrates
adds:—‘Ecebolus remained what he has always been,—_i.e._, a fickle and
inconstant man.’ St Augustinus could certainly say the same of his
astrologer. Is it not surprising to find apostasy still prevalent at a
time when no sensible man could believe in the restoration of the ancient
worship? The appearance of Julian must have upset many a mind, shaken many
a conscience, and given to the triumph of Christianity the character of a
transitory event. But, at the end of the fourth century, it was impossible
to abandon the church and return to the idols, except by a feeling which
could not but excite profound pity. I therefore understand why St
Augustinus had consented to plead with the Christians in favour of a
wretch already charged with three apostasies: he wished, above all, to
take from him the name of a Pagan, being convinced that whoever consented
no longer to sacrifice to the false gods would finally belong to the true
religion. A neophyte, restrained by the leaven of all the pagan passions,
might remain more or less time on the threshold of the church, but sooner
or later he was sure to cross it.(45) The leaders of the church considered
it always a favourable presumption when a citizen consented to call
himself no longer a Pagan. This first victory appeared to them a sure
presage of a true conversion; and they recommended to the Christians that
they should not apply the dangerous epithet of _Pagan_ to those of their
brethren who had failed, but simply to call them _sinners_. They
endeavoured, in short, to make them forget Paganism; and in order to
attain this object, they even forbade to pronounce its name.(46)
“The ancient worship was not only obstructing the development of
Christianity by covert and insidious attacks, but it was also vitiating
the discipline of the church, because its sway upon the manners of the
converts was something more like a real tyranny than the natural remnant
of its former influence. It is, indeed, surprising with what facility it
introduced into the sanctuary of the true God its superstitious spirit,
its relaxed morals, and its love of disorder. How little the church was
then,—_i.e._, seventy years after the conversion of
Constantine,—resembling what she ought to have been, or what she became
afterwards!(47) St Jerome had intended, towards the end of his life, to
write an ecclesiastical history; but it was in order to show that the
church, under the Christian emperors, went on continually declining.
_Divitiis major, virtutibus minor_ (Greater in wealth, smaller in virtue),
was the severe sentence which St Jerome must have pronounced with regret,
but the justice of which is proved by all the historical documents of that
period. This illustrious leader of Christianity, whose mind was more
inclined to enthusiasm than dejection, frequently lost all energy, by
reflecting on the deplorable condition of the church, declaring that he
felt no longer any power to write. A sufficient number of historians have
represented in vivid colours the excessive luxury of the bishops during
that time, as well as the greediness, the ignorance, and the misconduct of
the clergy; I shall therefore choose from this melancholy picture only
those parts which refer to the history of Paganism.
“All the arts of divination remained still in the highest favour amongst
Christians, even when the grave men of the Pagan party had been, for a
long time, showing for these practices of idolatry either a conventional
respect or an open contempt.(48) They swore by the false gods,—they
observed the fifth day, dedicated to Jupiter,—and they took a part in the
sacred games, feasts, and festivals of the Pagans. Christian ceremonies
did not preserve almost any thing of their ancient majesty. It was not a
rare occurrence to hear pagan hymns chanted at Christian solemnities, or
to see Christians dancing before their churches, according to the custom
of Paganism. There was no more decency observed in the interior of those
churches: people went there to speak about business, or to amuse
themselves; the noise was so great, and the bursts of laughter so loud,
that it was impossible to hear the reading of the Scriptures; the
congregation quarrelled, fought, and sometimes interfered with the
officiating priest, pressing him to end, or compelling him to sing,
according to their taste. St Augustinus was therefore warranted in calling
this so powerful influence of the ancient worship a persecution of the
demon, more covert and insidious than that which the primitive church had
suffered.
“All these scandalous facts are attested by the bishop of Hippona (St
Augustinus) and by that of Milan (St Ambrose); it is therefore impossible
to doubt their authenticity. It may, however, be said, that such a state
of corruption was local, and peculiar to the churches of Africa and Milan;
I must therefore produce new evidence, in order to show that the
calamitous effect of the pagan manners was felt in all the provinces.
“St Gaudentius, bishop of Brescia, a contemporary of St Augustinus,
vigorously combated idolatry in his diocese; and the following is an
extract from one of his sermons:—
“ ‘You neophytes, who have been called to the feast of this salutary and
mystical Easter, look how you preserve your souls from those aliments
which have been defiled by the superstition of the Pagans. It is not
enough for a true Christian to reject the poisoned food of the demons; he
must also fly from all the abominations of the Pagans,—from all the frauds
of the idolaters, as from venom ejected by the serpent of the devil.
Idolatry is composed of poisonings, of enchantments, ligatures, presages,
augurs, sorceries, as well as of all kinds of vain observances, and,
moreover, of the festival called _Parentales_; by means of which idolatry
is reanimating error; and indeed men, giving way to their gluttony, began
to eat the viands which had been prepared for the dead; afterwards they
were not afraid of celebrating in their honour sacrilegious
sacrifices,—although it is difficult to believe that a duty towards their
dead is discharged by those who, with a hand shaking from the effects of
drunkenness, place tables on sepulchres, and say, with an unintelligible
voice, _The spirit is thirsty_.(49) I beseech you, take heed of these
things, in case God should deliver to the flames of hell his contemners
and enemies, who have refused to wear his yoke.’
“Who may wonder that such Christians allowed the pagan idols, temples, and
altars to remain, and to be honoured on their estates, as is attested by
the same bishop? St Augustinus, whom I am not tired of quoting, because no
other doctor of that time expressed so vividly the true Christian ideas,
lamented this monstrous worship, which was neither Paganism nor
Christianity. ‘Many a man,’ says he, ‘who enters the church a Christian,
leaves it a Pagan,’ However, far from despairing, he wrote to the virgin
Felicia, ‘I advise thee not to be affected too much by these offences;
they were predicted, in order that, when they should come, we might
remember that they had been announced, and consequently not be hurt by
them.’ But the Pagans, for whom this premature corruption of Christianity
was not a predicted thing, rejoiced in contemplating the extent of its
progress; they would not believe the duration of a worship which had so
rapidly arrived at the period of its decline, and they were repeating in
their delusion this celebrated saying, ‘Christians are only for awhile;
they will afterwards perish, and the idols will return.’ ”—_Beugnot_, vol.
ii. p. 97, _et seq._
This melancholy picture of Christian society, at the beginning of the
fifth century, drawn by M. Beugnot, on the authority of the ecclesiastical
writers, is, indeed, as gloomy as that of Roman society in general, which
had been so graphically described about the same time by the pagan author
Ammianus Marcellinus, and reproduced by Gibbon. It was very natural that
such a corrupted soil should produce the rankest growth of superstition,
and rapidly bring about that melancholy reaction which was not inaptly
styled by Gibbon, “the revival of polytheism in the Christian church.”
This wretched state of things was, as I have said before, chiefly due to
that policy of compromise by which the leaders of the church sought to get
as many Pagans as possible into her pale, and who consequently were
baptised without being converted. This compromise with Paganism was often
carried to great extremes; and the history of the conversion of Florence,
which I have extracted from M. Beugnot’s work, gives one of the most
striking instances of those unprincipled proceedings:—“Florence paid
particular honours to the god Mars. It was not without regret that it
abandoned the worship of this divinity. The time of its conversion had
been assigned to the second or the third century, but the vagueness of
this date deprives it of all authority. Yet, whatever may have been the
century in which the conversion of Florence took place, it could not be a
subject of edification and joy to the Christians. The traditions of that
city predicted to it great calamities if the statue of Mars was either
sullied, or put into a place unworthy of it. The Florentines stipulated,
therefore, on accepting the new religion, that Mars should be respected.
His statue was consequently neither broken nor sullied, but it was
carefully taken from his temple, and placed on a pedestal near the river,
which flows through the city. Many years after this, the new Christians
feared and invoked that god who was dethroned only by halves. When almost
all the pagan temples had fallen either by the stroke of time, or under
the blows of the Christians, the heathen palladium of Florence stood still
erect on the banks of the Arno; and, according to one of the most
enlightened historians that Italy has produced during the middle ages (G.
Villani, lib. i., cap. 60), the demon who had remained in the statue
realised, in the thirteenth century, the old prediction of the
Etruscans.(50) Compromises of the kind which took place at Florence became
very common during the fifth century, and when, at a later period,
Christianity wished to annul them, it met with great obstacles.”—(BEUGNOT,
vol. i., p. 286.)
The Jews had been brought up in the knowledge of the true God, and their
faith could not but be strengthened by the miracles with which their
exodus from Egypt was accompanied, and yet a short absence of Moses from
their camp was sufficient to make them call for gods that would go before
them, and to induce them to worship an image evidently borrowed from the
idolatry of those very Egyptians by whom they had been so much oppressed.
It was, therefore, no wonder that society, educated for many centuries
under the influence of Paganism, were continually returning to their
ancient rites, superstitions, and manners, though under a new name, and in
a modified form. If we consider further, that such a man as Aaron had not
sufficient strength to resist the senseless demands of the multitude, and
even consented to mould an object for their idolatry, how could the
leaders of the church oppose the pressure of Paganism, which they had
incautiously admitted into her pale, and which, under the assumed name of
Christianity, was establishing its dominion over the church? There was no
inspired prophet amongst the Christians of that time, to restore the
purity of their faith in the same manner as Moses did amongst the Jews,
after his return from Mount Sinai. The Christian church was therefore left
for centuries under the oppression of pagan superstitions, from which, as
yet, only a small portion of her has been emancipated, though I firmly
believe that she will be one day entirely restored to her pristine purity.
This hope, however, is not founded upon the mere advance of human
intellect, because, in spite of its boasted progress, it seems now to be
powerless against the daily growing reaction of the above-mentioned
superstitions, even in places whence they apparently had been banished for
ever, but because Christianity is of a divine and not human origin.
There was no lack of opposition to this universal corruption of the church
on the part of several true Christians, and there were undoubtedly many
more instances of this noble conduct than those which have reached us, but
the records of them were probably either lost in the lapse of ages, or
destroyed by their opponents. I have already mentioned the prohibition of
the use of images in the churches by the council of Elvira in 305. The
council of Laodicea, held about 363, declared, in its seventy-fifth canon,
“_That Christians ought not to abandon the church, and retire elsewhere in
order to invoke angels, and form private assemblies, because it is
prohibited. If, therefore, any one is attached to this secret idolatry,
let him be anathema, because he has left our Lord Jesus Christ, and has
become an idolater._” It is therefore evident that this superstition,
expressly prohibited by St Paul, Col. ii. 18, was then secretly practised
in some private assemblies, though it was afterwards introduced into the
Western as well as the Eastern church. The council of Carthage, held
towards the end of the fourth century, condemned the abuse of the honours
which were paid to the memory of the martyrs by the Christians of Africa,
and ordered the bishops to repress them, _if the thing might be done, but
if it could not be done on account of the popular emotions_, to warn at
least the people. This proves how weak the bishops felt their authority to
be against the prevailing superstitions amongst their flocks, and that
they preferred suffering the latter to risking the former.
There were, however, Christians who opposed, in a bold and uncompromising
manner, the pagan errors and abuses which had infected the church. St
Epiphanius, archbishop of Salamis, in the fourth century, celebrated for
his learning, and whose virtues St Jerome extols in the most glowing
terms, explicitly condemned the worship of created beings, “because,” he
observed, “the devil was creeping into men’s minds under the pretence of
devotion and justice, and, consecrating human nature by divine honours,
presented to their eyes various fine images, in order to separate the mind
from the one God by an infamous adultery. Therefore, though those who are
worshipped are dead, people adore their images, which never had any life
in them.” He further remarked, “that there was not a prophet who would
have suffered a man or a woman to be worshipped; that neither the prophet
Elias, nor St John the beloved disciple of the Lord, nor St Thecla (who
had received the most extravagant praises from the fathers), were ever
worshipped; and that, consequently, the virgin was neither to be invoked
nor worshipped.” “_The old superstition_,” says he, “_shall not have such
power over us as to oblige us to abandon the living God, and worship his
creature._”(51)
The same St Epiphanius relates, in a letter addressed to John, bishop of
Jerusalem, that having arrived during a journey at a village called
Anablatta, he found in its church a veil suspended over the door, with a
figure representing _Christ or some saint_. He was so indignant at this
sight that he immediately tore the veil to pieces, and advised the wardens
of that church to employ it as a shroud to bury a dead body. As the people
of the place complained that the veil of their church was destroyed,
without giving them in its place another, Epiphanius sent them one; but he
exhorted in his letter the above-mentioned bishop of Jerusalem, in whose
diocese Anablatta was situated, to order the priests of that place not to
suspend any more such veils in the church of Christ, _because they are
contrary to our religion_.
The authenticity of this letter, which bears such strong evidence against
the use of images in churches, was rejected by Bellarmine and the
ecclesiastical historian Baronius, but it has been admitted by Petau and
some of the ablest writers of the Roman Catholic Church. It was translated
into Latin by St Jerome, and is found in all the collections of his works.
The most celebrated opponent of the abuses with which the church had been
already infected at that time was Vigilantius. His writings have not been
preserved, and we know his opinions only from their refutation by St
Jerome, and from which we may conclude that this reformer of the fifth
century maintained the same doctrines which were afterwards defended by
the Waldensians, Wycliffe, the Hussites, and which are now professed by
the Protestant Christians. He was born at Calagorris in Gallia; he became
a priest at Barcelona, and contracted in that place an intimate friendship
with St Paulinus, afterwards bishop of Nola. Vigilantius went to Italy in
order to see this friend of his, and having an intention to visit
Palestine and Egypt, took from him an introduction to St Jerome. They
became great friends with St Jerome, who was much pleased with the marks
of approbation shown by Vigilantius during a sermon which he preached. He
also acknowledges that he, as well as several others, would have died from
starvation, if Vigilantius had not assisted them with his own and his
friends’ money; and he says, in his answer to Paulinus, “You will learn
from the mouth of _the holy priest, Vigilantius_, with what affection I
have received him.” This affection disappeared, however, as soon as Jerome
learned that Vigilantius had accused him in Egypt of being too partial to
Origenes, and the _holy priest_ became an _impertinent_, whose silly
speeches he had observed during their first interview. He made use of
several injurious expressions in speaking of the former object of his
admiration, and which do not well accord with the gravity of his
character, as, for instance, calling him often _Dormitantius_ instead of
_Vigilantius_. His indignation knew no bounds when he heard, in 404, that
Vigilantius, who was then in Gallia, had attacked several practices which
had crept into the church, and he dictated in one single night a vehement
answer to the opinions of Vigilantius, who, according to this writer,
taught as follows:—
That the honours paid to the rotten bones and dust of the saints and
martyrs, by adoring, kissing, wrapping them in silver, and enclosing them
in vessels of gold, placing them in churches, and lighting wax candles
before them, was idolatry.
That the celibacy of the clergy was heresy, and their vows of chastity a
seminary of lewdness.
That to pray for the dead, or desire their prayers, was superstition, and
that we can pray one for another only as long as we are alive.
That the souls of the departed apostles and martyrs were at rest in some
particular place, and could not leave it, in order to be present in
various places, for hearing the prayers addressed to them.
That the sepulchres of the martyrs should not be venerated; that vigils
held in churches should be abolished, with the exception of that at
Easter; that to enter monastic life was to become useless to society, &c.
&c.
The answer of Jerome to the above-mentioned opinions of Vigilantius is a
curious mixture of violence and casuistry. He declared his _quondam_
friend and _holy priest_, Vigilantius, a greater monster than all those
which nature had ever produced, the Centaurs, the Behemoths, the Syrens,
the triple-bodied Gerion of Spain; that he was a most detestable heretic,
venting foul blasphemies against the relics of the martyrs, who were
working miracles everyday. “Go,” says he to Vigilantius, “into the
churches of those martyrs, and thou shalt be cleansed from the evil spirit
by which thou art now possessed, and feel thyself burning, not by those
wax candles which offend thee, but by invisible flames, which will force
that demon who talks within thee to confess that he is the same as that
who had personated, perhaps a Mercury, a Bacchus, or some other of the
heathen gods, amongst their followers,” &c. He is unable, however, to
produce any other argument in support of the worship of relics than the
example of those who had practised it. “Was it wrong,” he exclaims, “of
the bishops of Rome to celebrate divine service on the graves containing
the bones of St Peter and St Paul, which, according to Vigilantius, were
nothing better than dust? The Emperor Constantius must then have committed
a sacrilege by translating the holy relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy,
to Constantinople; the Emperor Arcadius must be then also considered
sacrilegious, as he has translated the bones of the blessed Samuel from
Judea to Thrace; then all those bishops who consented to preserve mere
dust in vessels of gold or wrapt in silk, were not only sacrilegious, but
were fools; and, finally, that all these people must have been fools who
went out to meet these relics, and received them with as much joy as if
they were the prophet himself alive, because the procession which carried
them was attended by crowds of people from Palestine to Chalcedon, singing
the praises of Christ, whose servant Samuel was.”
There is no abuse in the world which cannot be justified, if the example
of persons occupying a high station or that of great numbers is sufficient
for it. The advocates of the adoration of relics in our own days may
defend it by the fact that about half a million of people went in 1845 to
worship the holy coat of Treves, and that still more recently great
honours were paid to the relics of St Theodosia at Amiens, by a number of
distinguished persons,—bishops, archbishops, and even cardinals. The
_autos da fé_ of the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions could not be
wrong, since kings, queens, and the most eminent persons of the state,
approved them by their presence. Idolatry cannot be an error, since so
many monarchs, statesmen, and learned men, had conformed to its rites;
whilst, on the other side, the same reason may be pleaded for the penal
laws of Ireland, and other enactments against the Roman Catholics, because
they were established and maintained by so many parliaments. Jerome
maintained that it was a calumny of Vigilantius to say that the Christians
burnt candles in daylight, though he admitted that it was done by some men
and women in order to honour the martyrs. He did not approve of it,
because their zeal was without knowledge; but he thought that on account
of their good intention, they would be rewarded according to their faith,
like the woman who had anointed the feet of our Lord. He also tried to
justify the use of candles by those passages of the Scriptures where an
allusion was made to _lamps and lights_; as, for instance, the parable of
the virgins, the expression of the Psalm cxix. 105, “Thy word is a lamp
unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
The rest of the arguments which St Jerome employs in refuting what he
calls the errors and heresies of Vigilantius are of a similar nature to
those which have been given above; and it is really astonishing to see
that a man like this celebrated father, who is generally considered as one
of the great luminaries of the church, not only by Roman Catholics, but
also by some Protestants, could descend to such miserable shifts, and
indulge in such violent language as he did, in his answer to Vigilantius,
which bears a strong mark of having been dictated more by his personal
feelings against his former friend and benefactor, than by a conviction of
the justice of the cause which he was defending on that occasion. It is,
however, evident from the other writings of the same father of the church,
that his imagination was much more powerful than his reasoning faculties,
and that he had entirely forgotten the precept of St Paul, to “_refuse
profane and old wives’ fables_”—(1 Timothy iv. 7)—because no one has ever
indulged in more absurd fables than this good father did, in his lives of
St Hilarion and St Paul, two celebrated monks, and of which the following
is a fair specimen:—
“A Christian citizen of Majuma, called Italicus, kept horses for racing,
but was continually beaten by his rival, a pagan ducumvir of Gaza, who, by
using certain charms and diabolical incantations, contrived always to damp
the spirits of the Christian’s horses, and to give vigour to his own.
Italicus applied, therefore, for help to St Hilarion, who, thinking that
it was improper to make prayers for such a frivolous object, advised
Italicus to sell his horses, and to give their price to the poor, for the
salvation of his soul. Italicus represented, however, that he was
discharging against his inclination the duties of a public office, and
that as a Christian could not resort to magical means, he addressed
himself to a servant of God, particularly as it was important to defeat
the inhabitants of Gaza, who were known as enemies of Christ, and that it
was not so much for his own interests as for those of the church that he
wished to overcome his rival. Hilarion, convinced by these reasons, filled
with water an earthen vessel, from which he usually drank, and delivered
it to Italicus, who sprinkled with the water his horses, his chariots and
charioteers, his stables, and even the barriers of the racing ground. The
whole city was in a great excitement, the idolaters deriding the
Christians, who loudly expressed their confidence of victory. The signal
being given, the Christian’s horses flew with an extreme rapidity, and
left those of his rival far behind. This miracle produced a very great
effect upon the spectators, and many persons, including the beaten party,
became converts to Christianity.”
The above-mentioned work is filled with fables still more extravagant than
the one which I have related, and which entirely throw into the shade the
celebrated tales of Munchausen. Jerome complained that many people, whom,
in his Christian meekness, he calls _Scyllean dogs_, were laughing at the
stories related in those works, and which he begins by invoking the
assistance of the Holy Ghost. Was it then a wonder that a Christianity,
defended by such wretched superstitions, was frequently abandoned by
individuals, who, comparing the Christian legends of the kind quoted above
with the fictions of Pagan mythology, preferred the latter as being more
poetical? and, indeed, we have instances of the ridicule which the Pagans
attempted to throw upon Christianity, by comparing its saints with their
own gods and demigods.
I must, however, return once more to Vigilantius.(52) The Roman Catholic
historian of the church, Baronius, who calls him “_a horned beast, a fool,
and furious, who had reached the last degree of folly and fury_,” &c.,
&c., maintains that his heresy was solemnly condemned by the Pope Innocent
I., whom the bishops of Gallia had addressed on this subject. He also says
that the same heresy produced terrible consequences; because two years
after Vigilantius had spread his doctrines, the Vandals and other
barbarians invaded Gallia, and destroyed all his adherents. Admitting even
with Baronius that Vigilantius was a damnable heretic, it cannot be denied
that this learned historian had a very strange notion of divine justice,
because the barbarians alluded to above destroyed a great number of
churches and relics, as well as those who prayed at their shrines, whilst
Vigilantius died quietly, and, notwithstanding the assertion of Baronius,
never was excluded from the communion of the church, or even condemned by
her legal authorities.
We know from Vigilantius’ opponents that his opinions were approved by
many, and there can be no doubt that there was, not only in his days, but
long after him, a good number of witnesses for the truth, who opposed the
rapid spread of Pagan ideas and practices in the church. Thus, at the end
of the sixth century, Serenus, bishop of Marseilles, removed all the
images from his church, because the people worshipped them. This produced
a great discontent amongst many people of his diocese, who appealed to
Pope Gregory I. in favour of the images. The Pope advised a middle course,
_i.e._, that the images should remain in the church, but that it should
not be allowed to worship them. Serenus, however, who well knew that the
one infallibly led to the other, refused to comply with the papal
injunctions, upon which Gregory wrote to him again, saying that he praised
his zeal in not suffering the worship of any thing that was made by the
hand of man; but that images should not be destroyed, because pictures
were used in churches to teach the ignorant by sight what they could not
read in books, &c.(53)
We therefore see that at the end of the sixth century, the celebrated Pope
Gregory I., surnamed the Great, considered the worship of images as an
abuse to be prohibited, but which was afterwards legalised by his
successors, and an opposition to it declared heresy.
I could produce other evidences to show that the worship of images was
condemned by many bishops and priests of the period which I have
described, though they approved their use as a means of teaching the
illiterate, or tolerated them as an unavoidable evil. The limits of this
essay allow me not, however, to extend my researches on this subject, and
I shall endeavour to give in the next chapter a rapid sketch of the
violent reaction against the worship of images in the east by the
iconoclast emperors, and of the more moderate, but no less decided,
opposition to the same practice in the west by Charlemagne.