advice in the cause that to do as he did When I come to Rome said he I fast on the Saturday as they do at Rome when I am here I do not fast So likewise you to whatsoever Church you come observe the custom of that place if you mean not either to give or take offence With this answer he satisfied his Mother and ever after when he thought of it looked upon it as an Oracle sent from Heaven So that even in Italy the Saturday Fast was not universally observed Nay a very learned man and a Bishop of the Roman Church thinks it highly probable that for the first Ages especially Saturday was no more kept as a Fast at Rome than in the Churches of the East though the great argument whereby he would establish it viz. because some Latine Churches who must needs follow the pattern of the Church of Rome did not keep it so is very infirm and weak and needs no more than that very instance of the Church of Millain to refute it which though under the Popes nose did not yet keep that day as a Fast although this was many years after it had been so established and observed at Rome And now that I am got into this business I shall once for all dispatch the matter about their Fasts before I proceed to their other Festivals 'T is certain the ancient Christians had two sorts of solemn Fasts weekly and annual Their weekly Fasts called Jejunia quartae sextae seriae were kept upon Wednesdays and Fridays appointed so as we are told for this reason because on Wednesday our Lord was betrayed by Judas on Friday he was crucified by the Jews This custom Epiphanius how truly I know not refers to the Apostles and elsewhere tells us that those days were observed as Fasts through the whole world These Fasts they called their Stations not because they stood all the while but by an allusion to the military Stations and keeping their Guards as Tertullian observes they kept close at it and they usually lasted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Epiphanius informs us till the ninth hour i. e. till three of the Clock in the Afternoon at which time having ended their Fast devotions they received the Eucharist and then broke up the Station and went home whence it is that Tertullian calls them stationum semijejunia the half Fasts of Stations and he seems to censure the practice of some who having privately resolved upon an entire Fast of the whole day refused to receive the Eucharist at the publick stationary Fasts because they thought that by eating and drinking the sacramental Elements they put a period to their fasting for it was usual in those times with many after the stationary Fasts were ended to continue and hold on the Fast until the evening The Historian tells us that it had been a very ancient custom in the Church of Alexandria upon these days to have the Scriptures read and expounded and all other parts of Divine Service except the celebration of the Sacrament and that it was chiefly in those days that Origen was wont to teach the people whether the omitting of the Sacrament then might be a peculiar custom to that Church I know not certain I am 't was upon those days administred in other places So S. Basil enumerating the times how oft they received it every week expresly puts Wednesday and Friday into the number The remains of these primitive Stations are yet observed in our Church at this day which by her 15. Canon has ordained That though Wednesdays and Fridays be not holy days yet that weekly upon those times Minister and People shall resort to Church at the accustomed hours of prayer Their Annual Fast was that of Lent by way of preparation to the Feast of our Saviours Resurrection this though not in the modern use of it was very ancient though far from being an◠Apostolical Canon as a learned Prelate of our Church has fully proved From the very first Age of the Christian Church 't was customary to fast before Easter but for how long it was variously observed according to different times and places some fasting so many days others so many weeks and some so many days on each week and 't is most probably thought that it was at first stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Quadragesima not because 't was a Fast of forty days but of forty hours begun about twelve on Friday the time of our Saviours falling under the power of death and continued till Sunday morning the time of his rising from the dead Afterwards it was enlarged to a longer time drawn out into more days and then weeks till it came to three and at last to six or seven weeks But concerning the different observations of it in several places let them who desire to know more consult Socrates and Sozomen who both speak enough about it This Quadragesimal Fast was kept in those times with great piety and Religion people generally applying themselves with all seriousness to acts of penance and mortification whence Chrysostom calls Lent the remedy and Physick of our souls and to the end that the observation of it might be more grave and solemn Theodosins M. and his Colleague Emperours passed two Laws that during the time of Lent all Process and enquiry into criminal actions should be suspended and no corporal punishments inflicted upon any it being unfit as the second of those Laws expresses it that in the holy time of Lent the body should suffer punishment while the soul is expecting absolution But with what care soever they kept the preceeding parts 't is certain they kept the close of it with a mighty strictness and austerity I mean the last week of it that which immediately preceded the Feast of Easter this they consecrated to more peculiar acts of prayer abstinence and devotion and whereas in the other parts of Lent they ended their fast in the evening in this they extended it to the Cock-crowing or first glimpse of the morning to be sure they ended it not before midnight for to break up the Fast before that time was accounted a piece of great prophaneness and intemperance as Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria determines in a Letter to Basilides wherein he largely and learnedly states the case This was the Hebdomada Magna the great or holy week so called says Chrysostom not that it has either more hours or days in it than other weeks but because this is the week in which truly great and ineffable good things were purchased for us within this time death was conquered the curse destroyed the Devils tyranny dissolved his instruments broken Heaven opened Angels rejoyced the partition-wall broken down and God and man reconciled For this cause we call it the great week for this cause men fast and watch and do Alms to do the greater honour to it
Father who was Bishop of but a little Diocess lay very sick and all other remedies proved unsuccessful the people generally flocked to Church and though it was then the joyful time of Easter broke out into mournful and passionate complaints and with the most earnest prayers and tears besought God for his life And of Basil Bishop of Caesarea he tell us that when he lay a dying the whole City came about him not able to bear his departure from them praying as if they would have laid hands upon his soul and by force detained it in his body they were says he even distracted with the thoughts of so great a loss nor was there any who would not have been willing to have been deprived of part of his own life might it have added unto his His Funeral was solemnized with all possible testimonies of love and honourable attendance and with the abundant tears not only of Christians but of Jews and Heathens the confluence so vast that many were pressed to death in the crowd and sent to bear him company to his long home And that we may see that their respect did not lye meerly in a few kind words or external protestations they made it good in more real and evident demonstrations by providing liberal maintenance for them parting at first with their own estates to supply the uses of the Church and after that making no less large than frequent contributions which could not but amount to very considerable sums the piety of Christians daily adding to their liberality of which we may make some estimate by what the Heathen Historian with a little kind of envy relates only of the Church of Rome and doubtless it was so in some proportion in other places that the profits of the Clergie arising from oblations chiefly was so great as to enable them to live in a Prince-like state and plenty And not long after it became the object not only of admiration but envy insomuch that Chrysostom was forced to make one whole Sermon against those that envied the wealth of the Clergie It was also the great care of those times to free them from what might be either scandalous or burthensom to their calling Constantine decreed that the Orthodox Clergy should be exempt from all Civil Offices or whatever might hinder their attendance upon the services of the Church his Son Constantius that Bishops in many cases should not be chargeable in the secular Courts but be tryed in an Assembly of Bishops which privilege was extended by Honorius to all the Clergie that they should be tryed before their Bishops before whom also he ordained that all causes properly belonging to Religion should be brought and be determined by them and by another constitution that for the veneration that is due to the Church all Ecclesiastical causes should be decided with all possible speed And to name no more that the persons of Ministers might be secured from foreign attempts he and his Colleague Arcadius made a Law that whosoever did offer any violence to them should upon conviction or confession of the fact be punished with death and that the ministers of Civil justice should not stay till the Bishop complained of the injury that was done it being probable that he would rather incline to mercy and forgiveness but that every one in this case should be admitted and encouraged to prefer and prosecute the charge and in case the rude multitude should by arms or otherwise obstruct execution and that the powers of that place could not see it done that then they should call in the assistance of the Governour of the Province to see Justice put into execution And because next to his person nothing is so dear to a Clergie-man as his credit and reputation therefore the Emperour Honorius took care by a Law that whosoever be he a person of the highest rank should charge any Clergie-man with Crimes which he was not able to make good he himself should be publickly accounted vile and infamous it being but just and equal says the Law that as guilt should be punished and offenders reckoned as spots and blemishes to the Church so that injured innocency should be righted and maintained How infinitely tender the first general Council of Constantinople was in this case to secure the honour and good name of Bishops and Clergie-men against the malicious insinuations and charges of false accusers may appear by the large provision which they make about it in the sixth Canon of that Council and because it sometimes so happens that a mans enemies are those of his own house therefore the Apostolical Canons ordain that if any Clergy-man reproach and defame a Bishop he shall be deposed from his Ministry for thou mayest not says the Canon speak evil of the Ruler of thy people but if it be a Presbyter or Deacon whom he thus reproaches he shall be suspended from the execution of his Office So sacred and venerable did they then account the persons and concernments of those who ministred in the affairs of Divine Worship CHAP. IX Of their usual Worship both private and publick The Christians worship of God in their Families discovered Their usual times of prayer Praying before and after meals Singing of Psalms and reading the Scriptures at the same time Frequency in prayer noted in divers instances Their great reverence for the holy Scriptures in reading expounding committing them to memory Several instances of it Their care in instructing their Families in divine things Singing of Psalms mixed with their usual labours An account of their publick Worship The order of the Service in their Assemblies Prayer Reading the Scriptures Two Lessons out of each Testament Clemens his Epistle and the Writings of other pious men read in the Church Singing a part of the publick Service How ancient What those Hymns were The Sermon or discourse upon what subject usually Such discourses called Tractatus and why More Sermons than one at the same time Sermons preached in the afternoon as well as in the morning The mighty concourse and confluence of people to these publick Solemnities The departure of the Catechumens Penitents c. The Missa Catechumenorum what The Missa Fidelium The word missa or masse whence and how used in the Writers of those times The singular reverence they shewed in these Duties Great modesty and humility Praying with hands lift up in the form of a Cross why They prayed either kneeling or standing Sitting in prayer noted as a posture of great irreverence Praying towards the East The universality of this Custom The reasons of it enquired into Their reverence in hearing Gods Word The people generally stood Standing up at the Gospels The remarkable piety and devotion of Constantine the Great No departing the Congregation till the blessing was given THus far we have discovered the piety of those ancient times as to those necessary circumstances that relate to the
the Emperours themselves to shew what veneration they have for this time commanding all Suits and Processes at Law to cease Tribunal-doors to be shut up and Prisoners to be set free imitating herein their great Lord and Master who by his death at this time delivered us from the prison and the chains of sin meaning herein those Laws of Theodosius Gratian and Valentinian which we lately mentioned We proceed now to enquire what other Festivals there were in those first Ages of the Church which I find to be chiefly these Easter Whitsuntide and Epiphany which comprehended two Christmass and Epiphany properly so called I reckon them not in their proper order but as I suppose them to have taken place in the Church Of these Easter challenges the precedence both for its antiquity and the great stir about it that in and from the very times of the Apostles besides the weekly returns of the Lords day there has been always observed an Anniversary Festival in memory of Christs Resurrection no man can doubt that has any insight into the affairs of the ancient Church all the dispute was about the particular time when it was to be kept which became a matter of as famous a Controversie as any that in those Ages exercised the Christian world The state of the case was briefly this the Churches of Asia the less kept their Easter upon the same day whereon the Jews celebrated their Passover viz. upon the 14. day of the first Month which always began with the appearance of the Moon mostly answering to our March and this they did upon what day of the week soever it fell and hence were stiled Quartodecimans because keeping Easter quarta decima Luna upon the 14. day after the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or appearance of the Moon The other Churches and especially those of the West did not follow this custom but kept Easter upon the Lords day following the day of the Jewish Passover partly the more to honour the day and partly to distinguish between Jews and Christians the Asiaticks pleaded for themselves the practice of the Apostles Polycarpus Bishop of Smyrna who had lived and conversed with them having kept it upon that day together with S. John and the rest of the Apostles as Irenaeus who himself knew Polycarpus and doubtless had it from his own mouth speaks in a Letter about this very thing though himself was of the other side And Polycrates in a Letter to the same purpose instances not only in S. John but S. Philip the Apostle who himself and his whole Family used so to keep it from whom it had been conveyed down in a constant and uninterrupted observance through all the Bishops of those places some whereof he there enumerates and tells us that seven Bishops of that place in a constant succession had been his Kinsmen and himself the eighth and that it had never been kept by them upon any other day this we are not so to understand as if S. John and the Apostles had instituted this Festival and commanded it to be observed upon that day but rather that they did it by way of condescension accommodating their practice in a matter indifferent to the humour of the Jewish Converts whose number in those parts was very great as they had done before in several other cases and particularly in observing the Sabbath or Saturday The other Churches also says Eusebius had for their patronage an Apostolical Tradition or at least pretended it and were the much more numerous party This difference was the spring of great bustles in the Church for the Bishops of Rome stickled hard to impose their custom upon the Eastern Churches whereupon Polycarpus comes over to Rome to confer with Anicetus who was then Bishop about it and though they could not agree the matter yet they parted fairly After this Pope Victor renewed the quarrel and was so fierce and peremptory in the case that he either actually did or as a learned man inclines rather to think probably to mollifie the odium of the Fact severely threatned to excommunicate those Eastern Churches for standing out against it this rash and bold attempt was ill resented by the sober and moderate men of his own party who writ to him about it and particularly Irenaeus a man as Eusebius notes truly answering his name both in his temper and his life quiet and peaceable who gravely reproved him for renting the peace of the Church and troubling so many famous Churches for observing the customs derived to them from their Ancestors with much more to the same purpose But the Asian Bishops little regarded what was either said or done at Rome and still went on in their old course though by the diligent practices of the other party they lost ground but yet still made shift to keep the cause on foot till the time of Constantine who finding this controversie amongst others much to disquiet the peace of the Church did for this and some other reasons summon the great Council of Nice by whom this question was solemnly determined Easter ordained to be kept upon one and the same day throughout the world not according to the custom of the Jews but upon the Lords day and this Decree ratified and published by the imperial Letters to all the Churches The Eve of Vigils or this Festival were wont to be celebrated with more than ordinary pomp with solemn watchings with multitudes of lighted Torches both in the Churches and their own private houses so as to turn the night it self into day and with the general resort and confluence of all ranks of men both Magistrates and people This custom of lights at that time was if not begun at least much augmented by Constantine who set up Lamps and Torches in all places as well within the Churches as without that through the whole City the night seemed to outvye the Sun at Noonday And this they did as Nazianzen intimates as a Prodromus or forerunner of that great light even the Sun of righteousness which the next day arose upon the world For the Feast it self the same Father calls it the holy and famous Passover a day which is the Queen of days the Festival of Festivals and which as far excels all other even of those which are instituted to the honour of Christ as the Sun goes beyond the other Stars A time it was famous for works of mercy and charity every one both of Clergy and Laity striving to contribute liberally to the poor a duty as one of the Ancients observes very congruous and sutable to that happy season for what more fit than that such as beg relief should be enabled to rejoice at that time when we remember the common fountain of our mercies Therefore no sooner did the morning of this day appear but Constantine used to arise and in imitation of the love and kindness of our blessed Saviour to bestow
made against their spiritual Guides and Governours and therefore according to the right art of Orators he first commends them for their eminent subjection to them that he might with the more advantage reprove and censure them for their schism afterwards which he does severely in the latter part of the Epistle and towards the end of it exhorts those who had laid the foundation of the Sedition to become subject to their Presbyters and being instructed to repentance to bow the knees of their hearts to lay aside the arrogant and insolent boldness of their tongues and to learn to subject and submit themselves The truth is Bishops and Ministers were then looked upon as the common Parents of Christians whom as such they honoured and obeyed and to whom they repaired for counsel and direction in all important cases 'T is plain from several passages in Tertullian that none could lawfully marry till they had first advised with the Bishop and Clergy of the Church and had asked and obtained their leave which probably they did to secure the person from marrying with a Gentile or any of them that were without and from the inconveniencies that might ensue upon such a match No respect no submission was thought great enough whereby they might do honour to them they were wont to kiss their hands to embrace their feet and at their going from or returning home or indeed their coming unto any place to wait upon them and either to receive or dismiss them with the universal confluence of the people Happy they thought themselves if they could but entertain them in their houses and bless their roofs with such welcome guests Amongst the various ways of kindness which Constantine the Great shewed to the Clergie the Writer of his life tells us that he used to treat them at his own Table though in the meanest and most despicable habit and never went a journey but he took some of them along with him reckoning that thereby he made himself surer of the propitious and favourable influence of the divine presence What honours he did them at the Council of Nice where he refused to sit down till they had given him intimation with what magnificent gifts and entertainments he treated them afterwards the same Author relates at large The truth is the piety of that devout and excellent Prince thought nothing too good for those who were the messengers of God and ministers of holy things and so infinitely tender was he of their honour as to profess that if at any time he should spye a Bishop overtaken in an immodest and uncomely action he would cover him with his own imperial Robe rather than others should take notice of it to the scandal of his place and person And because their spiritual authority and relation might not be sufficient to secure them from the contempt of rude and prophane persons therefore the first Christian Emperours invested them with power even in Civil cases as the way to beget them respect and authority amongst the people Thus Constantine as Sozomon tells us and he sets it down as a great argument of that Princes reverence for Religion ordained that persons contending in Law might if they pleased remove their cause out of the Civil Courts and appeal to the judgment of the Bishops whose sentence should be firm and take place before that of any other Judges as if it had been immediately passed by the Emperour himself and cases thus judged by Bishops all Governours of Provinces and their Officers were presently to put into execution which was afterwards ratified by two Laws one of Arcadius another of Honorius to that purpose This power the Bishops sometimes delegated to their inferior Clergy making them Judges in these cases as appears from what Socrates reports of Silvanus Bishop of Troas that finding a male-administration of this power he took it out of the hands of his Clergie and devolved the hearing and determining causes over to the Laity And to name no more S. Augustine more than once and again tells us how much he was crowded and even oppressed in deciding the contests and causes of secular persons It seems they thought themselves happy in those days if they could have their causes heard and determined by Bishops A pious Bishop and a faithful Minister was in those days dearer to them than the most valuable blessings upon earth and they could want any thing rather than be without them when Chrysostom was driven by the Empress into banishment the people as he went along burst into tears and cryed out ' t was better the Sun should not shine than that John Chrysostom should not preach and when through the importunity of the people he was recalled from his former banishment and diverted into the Suburbs till he might have an opportunity to make a publick vindication of his innocency the people not enduring such delays the Emperour was forced to send for him into the City the people universally meeting him and conducting him to his Church with all expressions of reverence and veneration Nay while he was yet Presbyter of the Church of Antioch so highly was he loved and honoured by the people of that place that though he was chosen to the See of Constantinople and sent for by the Emperours Letters though their Bishop made an Oration on purpose to perswade them to it yet would they by no means be brought to part with him and when the Messengers by force attempted to bring him away he was forced to prevent a tumult to withdraw and hide himself the people keeping a Guard about him lest he should be taken from them nor could the Emperour or his Agents with all their arts effect it till he used this wile he secretly wrote to the Governour of Antioch who pretending to Chrysostom that he had concerns of moment to impart to him invited him to a private place without the City where seizing upon him by Mules which he had in readiness he conveyed him to Constantinople where that his welcome might be the more magnificent the Emperour commanded that all persons of eminency both Ecclesiastical and Civil should with all possible pomp and state go six miles to meet him Of Nazianzen who sat in the same Chair of Constantinople before him I find that when he would have left that Bishoprick by reason of the stirs that were about it and delivered up himself to solitude and a private life as a thing much more suitable to his humour and genius many of the people came about him with tears beseeching him not to forsake his Flock which he had hitherto fed with so much sweat and labour They could not then lose their spiritual Guides but they looked upon themselves as Widows and Orphans resenting their death with a general sorrow and lamentation as if they had lost a common Father Nazianzen reports that when his
Correspondent to which the Canons called Apostolical and the Council of Antioch ordain that if any Presbyter setting light by his own Bishop shall withdraw and set up separate meetings and erect another Altar i. e. says Zonaras keep unlawful Conventicles preach privately and administer the Sacrament that in such a case he shall be deposed as ambitious and tyrannical and the people communicating with him be excommunicate as being factious and schismatical only this not to be done till after the third admonition After all that has been said I might further show what esteem and value the first Christians had of the Lords day by those great and honourable things they have spoken concerning it of which I 'll produce but two passages the one is that in the Epistle ad Magnesios which if not Ignatius must yet be acknowledged an ancient Authour Let every one says he that loves Christ keep the Lords day Festival the resurrection day the Queen and Empress of all days in which our life was raised again and death conquered by our Lord and Saviour The other that of Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria who speaks thus that both custom and reason challenge from us that we should honour the Lords day and keep it Festival seeing on that day it was that our Lord Jesus Christ compleated his resurrection from the dead Next to the Lords day the Sabbath or Saturday for so the word Sabbatum is constantly used in the Writings of the Fathers when speaking of it as it relates to Christians was held by them in great veneration and especially in the Eastern parts honoured with all the publick Solemnities of Religion For which we are to know that the Gospel in those parts mainly prevailing amongst the Jews they being generally the first Converts to the Christian Faith they still retained a mighty reverence for the Mosaick Institutions and especially for the Sabbath as that which had been appointed by God himself as the memorial of his rest from the work of Creation setled by their great Master Moses and celebrated by their Ancestors for so many Ages as the solemn day of their publick Worship and were therefore very loth that it should be wholly antiquated and laid aside For this reason it seemed good to the prudence of those times as in others of the Jewish Rites so in this to indulge the humour of that people and to keep the Sabbath as a day for religious offices Hence they usually had most parts of Divine Service performed upon that day they met together for publick Prayers for reading the Scriptures celebration of the Sacraments and such like duties This is plain not only from some passages in Ignatius and Clemens his Constitutions but from Writers of more unquestionable credit and authority Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria tells us that they assembled on Saturdays not that they were infected with Judaism but only to worship Jesus Christ the Lord of the Sabbath and Socrates speaking of the usual times of their publick meeting calls the Sabbath and the Lords day the weekly Festivals on which the Congregation was wont to meet in the Church for the performance of Divine Services Therefore the Council of Laodicea amongst other things decreed that upon Saturdays the Gospels and other Scriptures should be read that in Lent the Eucharist should not be celebrated but upon Saturday and the Lords day and upon those days only in the time of Lent it should be lawful to commemorate and rehearse the names of Martyrs Upon this day also aswel as upon Sunday all Fasts were severely prohibited an infallible argument they counted it a Festival day one Saturday in the year only excepted viz. that before Easter-day which was always observed as a solemn Fast Things so commonly known as to need no proof But though the Church thought fit thus far to correspond with Jewish Converts as solemnly to observe the Sabbath yet to take away all offence and to vindicate themselves from compliance with Judaism they openly declared that they did it only in a Christian way and kept it not as a Jewish Sabbath as is expresly affirmed by Athanasius Nazianzen and others and the forementioned Laodicean Synod has a Canon to this purpose that Christians should not judaize and rest from all labour on the Sabbath but follow their ordinary works i. e. so far as consisted with their attendance upon the publick Assemblies and should not entertain such thoughts of it but that still they should prefer the Lords day before it and on that day rest as Christians but if any were found to judaize they should be accursed Thus stood the case in the Eastern Church in those of the West we find it somewhat different amongst them it was not observed as a religious Festival but kept as a constant Fast the reason whereof as 't is given by Pope Innonocent in an Epistle to the Bishop of Eugubium where he treats of this very case seems most probable if says he we commemorate Christs resurrection not only at Easter but every Lords day and fast upon Friday because 't was the day of his passion we ought not to pass by Saturday which is the middle-time between the days of grief and joy the Apostles themselves spending those two days viz. Friday and the Sabbath in great sorrow and heaviness and he thinks no doubt ought to be made but that the Apostles fasted upon those two days whence the Church had a Tradition that the Sacraments were not to be administred on those days and therefore concludes that every Saturday or Sabbath ought to be kept a Fast To the same purpose the Council of Illiberis ordained that a Saturday Festival was an errour that ought to be reformed and that men ought to fast upon every Sabbath But though this seems to have been the general practice yet it did not obtain in all places of the West alike In Italy it self 't was otherwise at Milain where Saturday was a Festival and 't is said in the life of S. Ambrose who was Bishop of that See that he constantly dined as well upon Saturday as the Lords day it being his custom to dine upon no other days but those and the memorials of the Martyrs and used also upon that day to preach to the people though so great was the prudence and moderation of that good man that he bound not up himself in these indifferent things but when he was at Millain he dined upon Saturdays and when he was at Rome he fasted as they did upon those days This S. Augustine assures us he had from his own mouth for when his Mother Monica came after him to Millain where he then resided she was greatly troubled to find the Saturday Fast not kept there as she had found it in other places for her satisfaction he immediately went to consult S. Ambrose then Bishop of that place who told him he could give him no better