Retained By The Roman Catholic As Well As The Græco-Russian Church.
I have given (p. 14) the opinion of an eminent Roman Catholic modern
author (Chateaubriand) about the introduction of Pagan usages into the
Christian worship, and a long extract (pp. 16-28) from another no less
distinguished Roman Catholic writer of our day, describing the cause of
this corruption. The Roman Catholic writers of this country do not,
however, treat this subject with the same sincerity as the illustrious
author of the “Genie du Christianisme,” and the learned French Academician
from whose work I have so largely drawn; but they try hard to deny that
many usages of their church bear the stamp of Paganism.(83) This is
particularly the case with the author of “Hierurgia,” a work which I have
already quoted, and which may be considered as the fairest expression of
what the Roman Catholic Church teaches on the subject in question. Thus
the use of images in churches is represented as being authorised by
Scripture, by the following curious arguments:—
“The practice of employing images as ornaments and memorials to decorate
the temple of the Lord is in a most especial manner approved by the Word
of God himself. Moses was commanded to place two cherubim upon the ark,
and to set up a brazen figure of the fiery serpent, that those of the
murmuring Israelites who had been bitten might recover from the poison of
their wounds by looking on the image. In the description of Solomon’s
temple, we read of that prince, not only that he made in the oracle two
cherubim of olive tree, of ten cubits in height, but that ‘all the walls
of the temple round about he carved with divers figures and carvings.’
“In the first book of Paralipomenon (Chronicles) we observe that when
David imposed his injunction upon Solomon to realise his intention of
building a house to the Lord, he delivered to him a description of the
porch and temple, and concluded by thus assuring him: ‘All these things
came to me written by the hand of the Lord, that I may understand the
works of the pattern.’
“The isolated fact that images were not only directed by the Almighty God
to be placed in the Mosaic tabernacle, and in the more sumptuous temple of
Jerusalem, but that he himself exhibited the pattern of them, will be
alone sufficient to authorise the practice of the Catholic Church in
regard to a similar observance.”—(_Hierurgia_, p. 371.)
All this may be briefly answered. There was no representation of the
Jewish patriarchs or saints either in the tabernacle or in the temple of
Solomon, as is the case with the Christian saints in the Roman Catholic
and Græco-Russian Churches; and the brazen serpent, to which the author
alludes, was broken into pieces by order of King Hezekiah as soon as the
Israelites began to worship it.
The author tries to prove, with considerable learning and ingenuity, that
the primitive Christians ornamented their churches with images, and I have
already given, p. 51, his explanation of the Council of Elvira; but his
assertions are completely disproved by every direct evidence which we have
about the places of worship of those Christians. I have already quoted, p.
7, the testimony of Minutius Felix, that the Christians had no kind of
simulachres in their temples, as well as the indignation of St Epiphanius
at an attempt to introduce them into the churches, p. 68, and for which
there would have been no occasion if it had been an established custom.
The most important part of his defence of the use of images is, however,
the paragraph entitled, “_No virtue resident in images themselves_,”
containing what follows:—
“Not only are Catholics not exposed to such dangers (_i.e._, idolatry),
but they are expressly prohibited by the church (_Concilium Tridentinum_,
sess. xxv.) to believe that there is any divinity or virtue resident in
images for which they should be reverenced, or that any thing is to be
asked of them, or any confidence placed in them, but that the honour given
should be referred to those whom they represent; and so particular are
their religious instructors in impressing this truth upon the minds of
their congregations, that if a Catholic child, who had learned its first
catechism, were asked if it were permitted to pray to images, the child
would answer, ‘No, by no means; for they have no life nor sense to help
us;’ and the pastor who discovered any one rendering any portion of the
respect which belongs to God alone to a crucifix or to a picture, would
have no hesitation in breaking the one and tearing the other into shreds,
and throwing the fragments into the flames, in imitation of Ezechias, who
broke the brazen serpent on account of the superstitious reverence which
the Israelites manifested towards it.”—(_Hierurgia_, p. 382.)
It is perfectly true that the Council of Trent has declared that the
images of Christ, of the virgin, and of other saints, are to be honoured
and venerated, not because it is believed that there is any divinity or
virtue inherent in them, or that any thing is to be asked of them, or any
confidence placed in images, as had been done by Pagans, who put their
trust in idols (Psalm cxxxv. 15-18), but that “the honour given should be
referred to those whom they represent, so that by the images which we
kiss, before which we uncover our heads, or prostrate ourselves
(_procumbimus_), we worship Christ and the saints whose likeness those
images represent.”(84) But if there is “no divinity or virtue resident in
images,” as is declared by the Council of Trent, what is to become of all
those miraculous images which are the subject of pilgrimage in so many
Roman Catholic countries, and the existence of whose miraculous powers has
been solemnly acknowledged by the highest ecclesiastical authorities? I
shall not attempt to enumerate those miraculous images, because their
number is legion, but I shall only ask the rev. doctor whether he
considers the image of the virgin of Loretto, which is the object of so
many pilgrimages, and to which so many miracles are ascribed, as having
some virtue resident in it or not? and would he break it in pieces on
account of the miraculous powers ascribed to it? Is he prepared to act in
such a manner with the celebrated _Bambino_(85) of Rome? and are the
miraculous powers ascribed to it, as well as to the virgin of Loretto, and
other images of this kind, a reality or an imposture? and, finally, what
will he do with the winking Madonna of Rimini, which has lately made so
much noise, and which, instead of being broken to pieces or torn to shreds
by the priests or the bishop of the place, has been approved by
ecclesiastical authority? I can assure the rev. doctor, that by breaking
into pieces the miraculous images, carved as well as painted, he will
break down many barriers which now separate the Protestant Christians from
those who belong to his own church. I am, however, afraid that he will
find many difficulties in attempting such a thing; and I must remind him,
that in quoting the above-mentioned canon of the Council of Trent, he
forgot an essential part of it, which greatly modifies the declaration
that there is _no divinity or virtue resident in images_, saying, “That
the holy synod ordains that no one be allowed to place, or cause to be
placed, any _unusual_ image(86) in any place or church, howsoever
exempted, except that the image be approved by the bishop: also, that no
new miracles are to be acknowledged or new relics recognised, unless the
said bishop has taken cognizance and approved thereof, who, as soon as he
has obtained certain information in regard to these matters, shall, after
having taken the advice of theologians and of other pious men, act therein
as he shall judge to be consonant with truth and piety.”—(Sess. xxviii.,
&c.)
The real meaning of the above-mentioned canon of the Council of Trent is
therefore, I think, that there is no divinity or virtue resident in the
images which are not authorised by the bishop to work miracles, and that
_unlicensed_ images are not allowed to have any such divinity or virtue in
them, but that such _unusual_ carved or painted images, as those which I
have mentioned above, having obtained the required authorization, may work
as many miracles as they please, or as their worshippers will believe.
It has been observed by a writer, who certainly cannot be accused of
violent opinions, the learned and pious Melancthon, “that it was impious
and idolatrous to address statues or bones, and to suppose that either the
Divinity or the saints were attached to a certain place or to a certain
statue more than to other places; and that there was no difference between
the prayers which are addressed to the Virgin of Aix la Chapelle, or to
that of Ratisbon, and the Pagan invocations of the Ephesian Diana, or the
Platean Juno, or any other statue.”(87) To these observations I shall only
add those of M. Beugnot, which I have given p. 27, on the marvellous
facility with which the worship of the virgin, established by the Council
of Ephesus, 431, has superseded that of the Pagan deities in many
countries.
There is scarcely any ceremony in the Western as well as in the Eastern
church, the origin of which cannot be traced to the Pagan worship. I shall
limit my observations on this subject to the three following objects,
which constitute the most important elements in the divine service
performed in those churches, namely,—1. The consecrated water; 2. Lamps
and candles; and, 3. Incense; giving the Roman Catholic explanation of
their origin, as well as that which I believe to be true.
With regard to the consecrated water, it is described by the author of
“Hierurgia” in the following manner:—
“The ordinance of Almighty God, promulgated by the lips of Moses,
concerning the _water of separation_, and the mode of sprinkling it, are
minutely noticed in the nineteenth chapter of the book of Numbers. In the
book of Exodus, we read that the Lord issued the following declarations to
Moses:—‘Thou shalt make a brazen laver, with its foot, to wash in; and
thou shalt set it between the tabernacle of the testimony and the altar.
And the water being put into it, Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands
and feet in it when they are going into the tabernacle of the testimony,
and when they are to come to the altar to offer incense on it to the
Lord.’—(Exod. xxx. 18-20.)
“That it was a practice with the Jews, not only peculiar to the members of
the priesthood, but observed amongst the people, for each individual to
wash his hands before he presumed to pray, is a well-attested fact. The
church adopted this as well as several other Jewish ceremonies, which she
engrafted on her ritual; and St Paul apparently borrows from such ablution
the metaphor which he employs while thus admonishing his disciple
Timothy:—‘I will that men pray in every place, lifting up pure hands.’—(1
Timothy ii. 8.) That in the early ages the faithful used to wash their
hands at the threshold of the church before they entered, is expressly
mentioned by a number of writers.”
As to the use of holy water being of apostolic origin, he says:—
“The introduction of holy or blessed water must be referred to the times
of the apostles. That it was the custom, in the very first ages of the
church, not only to deposit vessels of water at the entrance of those
places where the Christians assembled for the celebration of divine
worship, but also to have vases containing water mingled with salt, both
of which had been separated from common use, and blessed by the prayers
and invocations of the priest, is certain. A particular mention of it is
made in the constitution of the apostles; and the pontiff Alexander, the
first of that name, but the sixth in succession from St Peter, whose chair
he mounted in the year 109, issued a decree by which the use of holy water
was permitted to the faithful in their houses.”—(_Hierurgia_, pp.
461-463.)
It is rather a strange thing for Christians to imitate the religious rites
of the Jews, whose ceremonial law,—“which stood only in meats and drinks,
and divers _washings_, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the
time of reformation” (Heb. ix. 10),—was abolished by the New Testament.
However, if this is to be done, why is not the holy water adopted by the
Roman Catholic Church prepared in the same manner, and used for the same
object, as the Jewish _water of separation_, described in Numbers xix.,
but, on the contrary, composed in the same manner, and employed for the
same purpose, as the _lustral_ water of the Pagans? The fact is, that it
has been borrowed from the Pagan worship and not from the Jewish
ceremonial law, the truth of which is honestly acknowledged by the Jesuit
La Cerda, who, in a note on the following passage of Virgil,—
“Idem ter socios pura circumtulit unda,
Spargens rore levi, et ramo felicis olivæ,
Lustravitque viros”
—_Æneid_, lib. vi. 229—
says, “_Hence was derived the custom of the holy church to provide
purifying or holy water at the entrance of their churches_.”(88) The same
custom was observed in the Pagan temples, at the entrance of which there
was a vase containing the holy or _lustral_ water, for the people to
sprinkle themselves with, just as is now done at the entrance of the Roman
Catholic churches. The author of “Hierurgia” mentions, as quoted above,
that Pope Alexander I. authorised, in the beginning of the second century,
the use of holy water; and yet Justin Martyr, who wrote about that time,
says “that it was invented by demons, in imitation of the true baptism
signified by the prophets, that their votaries might also have their
pretended purification by water.”(89) And the Emperor Julian, in order to
vex the Christians, caused the victuals in the markets to be sprinkled
with holy water, with the intention of either starving them or compelling
them to eat what they considered as impure.(90)
To these evidences of the abomination in which the primitive Christians
held the Pagan rite of sprinkling with holy water, I may add the following
anecdote, characteristic of the intensity of this feeling:—
When Julian the Apostate was one day going to sacrifice in the temple of
Fortune, accompanied by the usual train of the emperors, the Pagan
priests, standing on both sides of the temple gate, sprinkled those who
were entering it with the lustral or holy water in order to purify them
according to the rites of their worship. A Christian tribune, or superior
officer of the imperial guards (_scutarii_), who, being on duty, preceded
the monarch, received some drops of this holy water on his _chlamys_ or
coat, which made him so indignant, that, notwithstanding the presence of
the emperor, he struck the priest who had thus sprinkled him, exclaiming
that he did not purify but pollute him. Julian ordered the arrest of the
officer who had thus insulted the rites of his religion, giving him the
choice either to sacrifice to the gods or to leave the army. The bold
Christian chose the latter, but was soon restored to his rank on account
of his great military talents, and raised, after the death of Julian and
the short reign of Jovian, to the imperial throne as Valentinian I.(91)
This monarch was, however, by no means a bigot; on the contrary, we have
the unsuspected testimony of the contemporary Pagan writer Ammianus
Marcellinus that he maintained a strict impartiality between the
Christians and Pagans, and did not trouble any one on account of his
religion. He even regulated and confirmed, by a law in 391, the privileges
of the Pagan clergy in a more favourable manner than had been done by many
of his predecessors; and yet this monarch, who treated his Pagan subjects
with such an extreme liberality, committed, when a private individual, an
act of violence against their worship which exposed him to considerable
danger. This, I think, is a strong proof of the horror which the
Christians felt for a rite which constitutes now an indispensable part of
the service in the Western as well as in the Eastern churches, and is most
profusely used by them.
With regard to the candles and lamps, which form a no less important and
indispensable part of the worship adopted by the above-mentioned churches,
the author of “Hierurgia” defends their use in the following manner:—
After having described the candlesticks employed in the Jewish temple, he
says:—“But without referring to the ceremonial of the Jewish temple, we
have an authority for the employment of light in the functions of religion
presented to us in the Apocalypse. In the first chapter of that mystic
book, St John particularly mentions the golden candlesticks which he
beheld in his prophetic vision in the isle of Patmos. By commentators on
the sacred Scripture, it is generally supposed that the Evangelist, in his
book of the Apocalypse, adopted the imagery with which he represents his
mystic revelations from the ceremonial observed in his days by the church
for offering up the mass, or eucharistic sacrifice of the Lamb of God,
Christ Jesus.
“That the use of lights was adopted by the church, especially at the
celebration of the sacred mysteries, as early as the times of the
apostles, may likewise, with much probability, be inferred from that
passage in their Acts which records the preaching and miracles of St Paul
at Troas:—‘And on the first day of the week, when we were assembled to
break bread, Paul discoursed with them, being to depart on the morrow, and
he continued his speech until midnight. And there were a great number of
lamps in the upper chamber where we were assembled.’—(Acts xx. 7, 8.) That
the many lamps, so particularly noticed in this passage, were not
suspended merely for the purpose of illuminating, during the night-time,
this upper chamber, in which the faithful had assembled on the first day
of the week to break bread, but also to increase the solemnity of that
function and betoken a spiritual joy, may be lawfully inferred from every
thing we know about the manners of the ancient Jews, from whom the church
borrowed the use of lights in celebrating her various rites and
festivals.”—(_Hierurgia_, p. 372.)
It is really difficult seriously to answer such extraordinary suppositions
as that the seven candlesticks, expressly mentioned as types of the seven
churches, should be an allusion to the physical lights used in the worship
of those churches, and not to the moral and spiritual light which they
were spreading amongst Jews and Gentiles. Such an explanation appears to
me nothing better than that tendency to materialise the most abstract and
spiritual ideas to which I have alluded above, p. 126. With regard to the
passage in the Acts xx. 7, 8, which says that there were a great number of
lamps in the upper chamber where St Paul was preaching, I think that this
circumstance might have been considered as a religious rite if the apostle
had been preaching at noon; but as it is expressly said that he did it at
night, nothing can be more simple than the lighting of the upper chamber
with lamps. It was also very natural that there should be many of them,
because as St Paul was undoubtedly often referring to the Scriptures, his
hearers, or at least many of them, being either real Jews or Hellenists,
must have been continually looking to copies of the Bible in order to
verify his quotation. It was, therefore, necessary to have the room well
lighted, and consequently to employ many lamps. It is, indeed, curious to
see to what far-fetched suppositions a writer of so much learning and
ingenuity as Dr Rock is obliged to recur, in order to defend a purely
Pagan rite which has been adopted by his church, giving the simplest and
clearest things a _non-natural sense_, similar to that which some
Romanising clergymen have been giving to the precepts of a church which
they were betraying whilst in her service and pay.
The same author maintains that lights were employed from primitive times
at divine service, saying:—
“The custom of employing lights, in the earlier ages of the church, during
the celebration of the eucharist; and other religious offices, is
authenticated by those venerable records of primitive discipline which are
usually denominated Apostolic Canons.”—(_Hierurgia_, p. 393.)
Now, what is the authenticity of these canons? The author himself gives us
the best answer to it, saying:—
“Though these canons be apocryphal, and by consequence not genuine,
inasmuch as they were neither committed to writing by the apostles
themselves, nor penned by St Clement, to whom some authors have attributed
them; still, however, this does not prevent them from being true and
authentic, since they embody the traditions descended from the apostles
and the apostolic fathers, and bear a faithful testimony that the
discipline which prevailed during the first and second centuries was
established by the apostles.”—(P. 394.)
I shall not enter into a discussion about the value of evidence furnished
by a work which is acknowledged to be apocryphal, and not to have been
written by those to whom its defenders had ascribed its authorship;(92)
but I shall only remark, that one of the most eminent fathers of the
church, the learned Lactantius, who flourished in the fourth century, and
consequently long after the time when the Apostolic Canons are supposed to
have been composed, takes a very different view from them in regard to
this practice, because he positively says, in attacking the use of lights
by the Pagans, _they light up candles to God as if he lived in the dark,
and do they not deserve to pass for madmen who offer lamps to the Author
and Giver of light_?(93) And is it probable that he could approve of a
practice in the Christian church which he condemns in the Pagan?
And, indeed, can there be any thing more heathenish than the custom of
burning lights before images or relics, which is nothing else than
sacrifices which the Pagans offered to their idols?
I have described above, p. 74, the manner in which St Jerome defended the
use of lights in the churches against Vigilantius. This defence of St
Jerome is adduced by our author in a rather extraordinary manner.
“It happens not unfrequently that those very calumnies which have been
propagated, and the attacks which were so furiously directed by the
enemies of our holy faith in ancient times, against certain practices of
discipline then followed by the church, are the most triumphant
testimonies which can be adduced at the present day, both to establish the
venerable origin of such observances, and to warrant a continuation of
them. In the present instance, the remark is strikingly observable; for
the strictures which Vigilantius passed in the fourth age, on the use of
lights in churches, as well as on the shrines of the martyrs, and the
energetic refutation of St Jerome of the charge of superstition preferred
against such a pious usage by that apostate, may be noticed as an
irrefragable argument, in the nineteenth century, to establish the remote
antiquity of this religious custom. After mentioning as a fact of public
notoriety, and in a manner which defied contradiction, that the
Christians, at the time when he was actually writing, which was about the
year 376,(94) were accustomed to illumine their churches during mid-day
with a profusion of wax tapers, Vigilantius proceeds to turn such a
devotion into ridicule. But he met with a learned and victorious opponent,
who, while he vindicated this practice of the church against the objection
of her enemy, took occasion to assign those reasons which induced her to
adopt it. That holy father observes:—‘Throughout all the churches of the
East, whenever the Gospel is to be recited, they bring forth lights,
though it be at noon-day; not certainly to shine among darkness, but to
manifest some sign of joy, that under the type of corporeal light may be
indicated that light of which we read in the Psalms, “Thy word is a lamp
to my feet, and a light to my path.” ’ ”—(_Hierurgia_, p. 298.)
Now, I would observe to the learned doctor, that St Jerome, in answering
Vigilantius, maintained, as I have shown above, p. 74, that it was calumny
to say that the Christians burnt candles in the daylight, and that it was
done only by some people, _whose zeal was without knowledge_.
Consequently, the church which has adopted this practice shows, according
to the authority of that “holy and learned father,” that _her zeal is
without knowledge_. With regard to the argument in support of the
abovementioned practices given by St Jerome, and reproduced by our author,
that the Eastern churches make use of lights, I admit that it is
unanswerable, because it is an undoubted fact that the Græco-Russian
Church makes an immense consumption of wax candles, chiefly burnt before
the images, and it remains for me only to congratulate the advocates of
this practice on the support which they derive from such an imperative
authority as that of the Græco-Russian Church.
It remains for me now only to say a few words about the _incense_, which
forms a constituent part of the service of the Roman Catholic and
Græco-Russian Churches, as much as the holy water and lights, and which is
defended by the author of “Hierurgia” in the following manner. After
having described the use of incense in the Jewish temples, he says—
“It was from this religious custom of employing incense in the ancient
temple, that the royal prophet drew that beautiful simile of his, when he
petitioned that his prayers might ascend before the Lord like incense. It
was while ‘all the multitude were praying without at the hour of incense,
that there appeared to Zachary an angel of the Lord, standing at the right
of the altar of incense,’—(Luke i. 10, 11). That the oriental nations
attached a meaning not only of personal reverence, but also of religious
homage to an offering of incense, is demonstrable from the instance of the
magi, who, having fallen down to adore the newborn Jesus, and recognise
his divinity, presented him with gold, and myrrh, and frankincense. That
he might be more intelligible to those who read his book of the
Apocalypse, it is very probable that St John adapted his language to the
ceremonial of the liturgy then followed by the Christians in celebrating
the eucharistic sacrifice, at the period the evangelist was committing to
writing his mysterious revelations. In depicting, therefore, the scene
which took place in the sanctuary of heaven, where he was given to behold
in vision the mystic sacrifice of the Lamb, we are warranted to suppose
that he borrowed the imagery, and selected several of his expressions,
from the ritual then actually in use, and has in consequence bequeathed to
us an outline of the ceremonial which the church employed in the apostolic
ages of offering up the unbloody sacrifice of the same divine Lamb of God,
Christ Jesus, in her sanctuary upon earth. Now, St John particularly
notices how the ‘angel came and stood before the altar, having a golden
censer; and there was given him much incense, that he should offer of the
prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne
of God; and the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended
up before God, from the hand of the angel.’—Apocal. viii.
3-5.”—(_Hierurgia_, p. 518.)
To this explanation of the use of incense in the churches, I may answer by
the same observation which I have made, p. 144, on a similar defence of
the use of lights, namely, that it is a strange materialization of
spiritual ideas by embodying into a tangible shape what is simply typical,
and which is not warranted by any direct evidence. Such far-fetched and
fanciful conjectures cannot be refuted by serious arguments; but as
regards the Jewish origin of the use of incense, as well as of many other
ceremonies common to the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches, I shall give
the observation of the celebrated Dr Middleton, on an answer made by a
Roman Catholic to his well-known Letter from Rome, and who, defending the
ceremonies of his Church in nearly the same manner as the author of
“Hierurgia,” says, “That Dr Middleton was mistaken in thinking every
ceremony used by the heathens to be heathenish, since the greatest part of
them were borrowed from the worship of the true God, in imitation of which
the devil affected to have his temples, altars, priests, and sacrifices,
and all other things which were used in the true worship.” This he applied
to the case of _incense_, _lamps_, _holy water_, and _processions_,
adding, “that if Middleton had been as well read in the Scriptures as he
seemed to be in the heathen poets, he would have found the use of all
these in the temple of God, and that by God’s appointment.”
“I shall not dispute with him,” says Middleton, “about the origin of these
rites, whether they were _first instituted by Moses_, or _were of prior
use and antiquity amongst the Egyptians_. The Scriptures favour the last,
which our _Spenser_ strongly asserts, and their _Calmet_ and _Huetius_
allow; but should we grant him all that he can infer from his argument,
what will he gain by it? Were not all those _beggarly elements_ wiped away
by the spiritual worship of the Gospel? Were they not all annulled, on
account of _their weakness and unprofitableness_, by the more perfect
revelation of _Jesus Christ_?—(Gal. iv. 9; Heb. vii. 18.) If, then, I
should acknowledge my mistake, and recall my words, and instead of
_Pagan_, call them _Jewish_ ceremonies, would not the use of Jewish rites
be abominable still in a _Christian church_, where they are expressly
abolished and prohibited by God himself?
“But to pursue his argument a little farther. While the _Mosaic_ worship
subsisted by divine appointment in _Jerusalem, the devil likewise_, as he
tells us, _had temples and ceremonies of the same kind_, in order to draw
votaries to his idolatrous worship, which, after the abolition of the
_Jewish_ service, was carried on still with great pomp and splendour, and
above all places, in _Rome_, the principal seat of his worldly empire.
Now, it is certain that in the early times of the Gospel, the Christians
of Rome were celebrated for their zealous adherence to the faith of
Christ, as it was delivered to them by the apostles, pure from every
mixture either of _Jewish_ or _heathenish superstition_, till, after a
succession of ages, as they began gradually to deviate from that apostolic
simplicity, they introduced at different times into the church the
particular ceremonies in question. Whence, then, can we think it probable
that they should borrow them from the _Jewish_ or the _Pagan_ ritual? From
a temple remote, despised and demolished by the Romans themselves, or from
temples and altars perpetually in their view, and subsisting in their
streets, in which their ancestors and fellow-citizens have constantly
worshipped?(95) The question can hardly admit any dispute; the humour of
the people, as well as the interest of a corrupted priesthood, would
invite them to adopt such rites as were native to the soil, and found upon
the place, and which long experience had shown to be useful to the
acquisition both of wealth and power. Thus, by the most candid
construction of this author’s reasoning, we must necessarily call their
ceremonies _Jewish_, or by pushing it to its full length, shall be obliged
to call them _devilish_.
“He observes that I begin my charge with the use of _incense_ as the most
notorious proof of their Paganism, _and like an artful rhetorician, place
my strongest argument in the front_. Yet he knows I have assigned a
different reason for offering that the first; because it is _the first
thing_ that strikes the sense, and surprises a stranger upon his entrance
into their churches. But it shall be my strongest proof, if he will have
it so, since he has brought nothing, I am sure, to weaken the force of it.
He tells us that there was _an altar of incense in the temple of
Jerusalem_, and is surprised, therefore, how I can call it _heathenish_;
yet it is evident, from the nature of that institution, that it was never
designed to be perpetual, and that during its continuance, God would have
never approved _any other altar_, either in _Jerusalem_ or any where else.
But let him answer directly to this plain question: Was there ever _a
temple in the world, not strictly heathenish_, in which there were
_several altars, all smoking with incense, within our view, and at one and
the same time_? It is certain that he must answer in the negative; yet it
is as certain that there were many such temples in _Pagan_ Rome, and are
as many in _Christian Rome_; and since there never was an example of it,
but what was _Paganish_, before the time of _Popery_, how is it possible
that it could be derived to them from any other source? or when we see so
exact a resemblance in the copy, how can there be any doubt about the
original?
“What he alleges, therefore, in favour of _incense_ is nothing to the
purpose: ‘That it was used in the Jewish, and is of great antiquity in the
Christian churches, and that it is mentioned with honour in the
Scriptures,’ which frequently _compare it to prayer_, and speak of its
_sweet odours ascending up to God_, &c., which figurative expressions, he
says, ‘would never have been borrowed by sacred penmen from heathenish
superstition;’ as if such allusions were less proper, or the thing itself
less sweet, for its being applied to the purposes of idolatry, as it
constantly was in the time of the _same penmen_, and, according to their
own accounts, on the _altars of Baal_, and the other _heathen idols_: and
when _Jeremiah_ rebukes the people of _Judah_ for _burning incense to the
queen of heaven_ (Jer. xliv. 17), one can hardly help imagining that he is
prophetically pointing out the worship paid now to the _virgin_, to whom
they actually _burn incense_ at this day under that very title.(96)
“But if it be a just ground for retaining a practice in the _Christian_
church, because it was enjoined to the _Jews_, what will our Catholic say
for those usages which were actually prohibited to the _Jews_, and never
practised by any but by the _heathens and papists_? All the _Egyptian
priests_, as Herodotus informs us, _had their heads shaved, and kept
continually bald_.(97) Thus the Emperor _Commodus_, that he might be
admitted into that order, _got himself shaved, and carried the god Anubis
in procession_. And it was on this account, most probably, that the
_Jewish priests_ were commanded _not to shave their heads, nor to make any
baldness upon them_.—(Lev. xxi. 5; Ezek. xliv. 20). Yet this _Pagan
rasure_, or _tonsure_, as they choose to call it, on the crown of the
head, has long been the distinguishing mark of the _Romish priesthood_. It
was on the same account, we may imagine, that the _Jewish priests were
forbidden to make any cuttings in their flesh_ (Lev. xix. 28, xxi. 5),
since _that was likewise the common_ practice of certain _priests and
devotees among the heathens_, in order to acquire the fame of a more
exalted sanctity. Yet the same discipline, as I have shown in my
_Letter_,(98) is constantly practised at _Rome_ in some of their solemn
seasons and processions, in imitation of these _Pagan enthusiasts_, as if
they searched the Scriptures to learn, not so much what was enjoined by
true religion, as what had been useful at any time in a false one, to
delude the multitude, and support an imposture.”—(_Middleton’s
Miscellaneous Works_, vol. v., p. 11, _et seq._)
The same author justly observes, that “under the _Pagan emperors_ the use
of _incense_ for any purpose of religion was thought so contrary to the
obligations of _Christianity_, that in their persecutions, the very method
of _trying and converting a Christian was by requiring him only to throw
the least grain of it into the censer or on the altar_.”
“Under the _Christian emperors_, on the other hand, it was looked upon as
a _rite_ so peculiarly _heathenish_, that the very _places or houses_
where it could be proved to have been done, were, by a law of Theodosius,
confiscated to the government.”(99)—(_Ibid._, p. 95.)
I shall conclude this essay by a short sketch of the superstitious
practices prevailing in the Græco-Russian Church, which will be the
subject of my next and last chapter.