Their Church Assembly's Liturgy and outward form of Worship Justin ii Apol. in fi on the lord's-Lord's-Day which the Heathens called Sunday and which the Christians honoured above all Days in the Memory of the Creation of Light and of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ The place of their Assembly was generally some private House where they chose for this purpose one of the dining Rooms which the Latins called Caenacula and which were the upper Chambers of the House such was that upper Room Act. xx 7 c. from whence fell the young Man Eutychus whom St. Paul recovered to Life which we find was three Stories high enlightned with many Lamps where the Faithful were met together on the Night of the Lord's-Day for the Breaking of Bread that is for the Celebration of the Mysteries which was followed with a repast viz. the Love-Feast In the Persecutions they were often forced to hide themselves in the Cryptae or Hollow places v. Baron an lvii n. xcix under Ground without the Cities like the Catacombs still to be seen at Rome When they had more Liberty they met in Publick Places known by all to be the Idem an ccxxiv n. iii. an 245 n. 302. Euseb viii Hist. c. iii. Churches of Christians We see Examples thereof in the reigns of the Emperors Alexander and Gordianus The Emperor Gallienus causing a stop to be put to the Persecutions gave order that the Christians should have their Cemiteries restored to them near which commonly stood their Churches and when Paulus Samosatenus was deposed the Emperor Aurelian commanded the Church viz. the Ibid 30. Material Church of the place to be restored to those who continued in Communion with the Bishop of Rome Some of these publick Churches had been before Private Houses as that of the Senator St. Martyr Rom. xx Jun. Pudens the happy Father of so many blessed Children St. Novatus and St. Timotheus the Priest and the Virgins St. Pudentiana and St. Praxeda This illustrious Family had been instructed in the Faith by the Apostles themselves and their House was turned into a Church by the Priest St. Pastor There were often also new Buildings erected on purpose for this use A little before the Dioclesian Persecution they had in all Cities Churches new built from the Ground so mightily was the number of the Faithful encreased and the Persecution began by the pulling Euseb viii Hist. c. iii. down these Churches In these Assemblies they said their Prayers before mentioned at the stated Hours of the Day and Night But the chief work of their meeting together was to offer the Sacrifice which could not be done without a Priest They called it either by the Scripture names of the Supper the breaking of Bread the Oblation or by the names afterward received in the Church as the Synaxis that is to say Assembly Dominioum Collecta Cypr. Ep. lxiii ad Caecil in Latin Collecta the Eucharist that is Thanksgiving the Liturgy that is the Publick Service In the time of the Persecutions for fear of meeting with disturbance from the Infidels they sometimes administred it before Day There was but one Sacrifice in each Church that is in each Diocess 'T was the Bishop that Offered it nor did the Priests do it but in case of the absence or Indisposition of the Bishop But they assisted him in performing the Service and all of them Offered together with him The Order of the Liturgy hath been changed according to the difference of Times and Places Some Indifferent Ceremonies have been added to it and some others retrenched but the Essentials have remained always the same The Account we find of it in the first Times is this After some Prayers followed the reading St. Just. ii Apol. in fi of the Holy Scriptures first out of the Old Testament and then out of the New They always concluded with a Lesson out of the Gospel which when Read the Bishop Expounded adding thereto some proper Exhortation suited to the occasions of his Flock That ended they all rose up and turning their Faces to the East with hands lift up to Heaven they Prayed for all sorts and Conditions of Men for Christians and Infidels great and small particularly for all that were any ways afflicted or distressed in Mind Body or Estate A Deacon called upon them to Pray a Priest pronounced the Words of Prayer and the People gave their Assent by answering Amen Then Cypr. Ep. lxiii the Gifts were offered that is the Bread and Wine mingled with Water which was to be the matter of the Sacrifice The People gave the Kiss of Peace Men to Men and Women to Women in token of their perfect Unity After that every one gave his Offerings to the Priest and he in the name of them all offered them up to God Then he began the solemnity Cypr. de Orat. of the Sacrifice calling upon the People to lift up their Hearts to God and with the Angels and all the Heavenly powers to Laud and Magnifie his glorious Name next he proceeded to repeat the History of the Institution and pronoucing the Words of our Saviour he St. Just made the Consecration after that together with the People he rehearsed the Lords-Prayer and having himself received the Communion he gave it the Deacons for the rest of the Congregation For Regularly all those that entred the Church were to Communicate especially Can. Apost ix 10. all that Ministred at the Altar As for those who had not the opportunity of assisting at the Sacrifice in Person the Eucharist was sent to them by the Hands of Deacons or the Acolythi They reserved part of it also to be always in readiness for the Viaticum for Dying Persons as a provision for their Journy They permitted the Faithful to carry it Home to take it every morning before they touched any other Food Tertull. i. ad uxor c. v. or upon sudden occasions in case of Danger as when they should be called to suffer Martyrdom These things were admitted in those Days For they had not then the liberty of meeting together and celebrating the Mysteries when they pleased That which was thus carryed abroad was onely the Bread Though in their publick Assemblies all in General communicated under both kinds excepting little Children to whom was given only the Wine The Agapa or Love-Feast which in these first times followed the Communion was a Repast of ordinary Food which they took altogether in the same place where they had Communicated In after times it was given only Const Apost ii c. xxviii to the Widows and the Poor There was always set aside a Portion for the Pastor though Absent The Priests and Deacons had a double Portion Every one also of the Readers Singers and Door-Keepers had their share of it 'T WAS in these same Assemblies that XIV The secret of the Mysteries as far as was possible they Administred the other
An Historical ACCOUNT OF THE Manners and Behaviour OF THE CHRISTIANS And the Practices of CHRISTIANITY Throughout the SEVERAL AGES OF THE CHURCH Written originally in French by Msr. Cl. Fleury Praeceptor to Monseigneur de Vermandois and to the Dukes of Burgundy and Anjou LONDON Printed for Thomas Leigh at the Peacock against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1698. THE PREFACE THE Learned Author of this Book gives several Instances of his Ingenuity and Candor He recommends some Primitive Practices that justifie our Reformation Particularly the continual reading and studying of the Holy Scriptures Speaking of the Ancient Christians he says that they studied the Word of God in private Meditating upon it Day and Night They read over in their Houses what they heard at the Church Masters of Families took care to repeat those Expositions of Scripture they had Learnt from their Pastors Many Lay-Christians could say the Holy Scripture by heart They generally carried a Bible about with them and many Saints have been found Buried with the Gospel lying on their Breasts Women no less than Men read the Holy Scripture and in the Persecution regretted nothing so much as the loss of their Bibles Parents took such care to Instruct their Families that in all Antiquity we find no Catechism for little Children nor any publick provision made for the Instruction of those that were Baptized before they came to Years of Discretion Every private House was then as a Church He observes that St. John was the Chief in our Saviour's Affection Jesus Christ had a particular Kindness for his Disciples and for his Apostles and among them for St. Peter and the two Sons of Zebedee and for St John above all the rest He does not found the Preference of the Blessed Virgin upon Blood and natural Relation but upon the Endowments and Qualifications of her Mind Notwithstanding the most tender Affection which JESVS CHRIST had for his Mother He seems sometimes to have expressed himself harshly towards her and reproved the Woman that Blessed her barely upon the account of her being his Mother and declared that he owned no other for his Mother and Kindred but they that did the will of his Father He knew what that great Person was able to bear and was willing to let the World see that Flesh and Blood had no share in his affections Mr. Fleury well observes that the Church of Jerusalem which JESUS CHRIST with his own Hands began to Build upon the Foundaion of the Synagogue was the Root and original of all other Churches He seems in nothing more to censure the Reformation than in what he writes of the Celibacy of Priests altho' Platina a Contemporary with Aeneas Sylvius tels us that that Learned Pope Pius II. used to say ' There was great reason for Prohibiting Priests to Marry but greater for allowing it again And Mr. Fleury writes thus of the Primitve Christians they knew but two States Marriage or Continence They generally made chocie of the Married State having no good opinion of the Celibacy of the Heathen tho' they preferred the State of Continence as knowing its Excellency and often found a way of Reconciling both these States into One for there were many Married Persons who yet Lived in Continence They considered Marriage as an Emblem of that Union which is between Christ and his Church They knew that the Relation of Father and Mother was an High and Honourable Character as being the Images of God in a more peculiar manner and co-operating with him in the Production of Men. It is Certain by the Gospel that St. Peter was a Married Man Tradition tells us the same of St. Philip the Apostle and that both of them had Children and it is particularly observed that St. Philip gave his Daughters in Marriage Among the Rules they give for the Education of Children this is one that to secure their Virtue they should timely dispose of them in Marriage And they advised those that out of Charity Bred up Orphans to match them as soon as they came to Age and that to their own Children rather than to Strangers so little did they regard Interest What He says of their Communicating in both Kinds publickly Reading the Holy Scripture always in the Vulgar Tongue The Custom of Sitting in their Churches the Length of their Sunday-Service is also Remarkable When they reserved part of the Sacrament as a Viaticum for Dying Persons that which they carried Abroad was only the Bread tho' in their publick Assemblies all in general Communicated under both Kinds excepting little Children to whom they gave only the Wine All the Lessons of the Scripture were Read in the Vulgar Tongue i. e. in the Language Spoken by the better sort of People in every Country During the time of the Lessons and Sermon the Audience was regularly Seated the Men on one side of the Church and the Women on the other When all the Seats were filled the younger sort of People continued Standing In Africa St. Augustin takes notice that the People stood all Sermon-time but he better approved the Custom of the Transmarine Churches as he calls them where they heard Sitting Their Litnrgy must needs have been very long Indeed Christians did not then think that they had any thing else to do on Sundays but to serve God St. Gregory to shew how much his Strength was decayed says that he was scarce able to keep himself standing for those Three Hours while he performed the Office of the Church and yet his Sermons that are left us are very short What Mr. Fleury says of the Compassion the Church had for Hereticks must not be omitted because nothing seems more to have encreased the scandalous Divisions of Christendom than severity The Church Interceeded in behalf of her own Enemies We have many Epistles of St. Augustin where he Begs the favour of the Magistrate in the behalf of the Donatists convicted of horrid violencies and even Murders committed on the Catholicks He pleaded that it would be a dishonour to the Sufferings of the Murdered to put to Death the Authors of them and that if they could find no other penalties for them but Death they would thereby bring themselves to that pass that the Church who delighted not in the Blood of her Adversaries would not dare to demand Justice against them This was a general Rule that the Church should never seek the Death of any Man They were content that Christian Magistrates should Correct or over-aw Hereticks by Banishment or Pecuniary penalties but they would have their Lives Spared And the whole Church declared against the proceeding of the Bishop Ithacius who Prosecuted the Arch Heretick Priscillian to Death Yet the Bishops could not always obtain the Pardon they desired for these sort of Offenders no more than they could for others Princes to preserve the publick Peace Enacted the penalty of Death against Hereticks and their Laws were sometimes put in Execution If in these latter Ages the
these Orders For how could they have found amonst the Jews and Heathens that were Dayly Converted to Christianity any considerable number of Persons that had preserved an absolute Continence to their advanced Years It was much to find those that had confined 1 Tim. iii. 2. themselves only to one Wife in that liberty which the Jews and other Eastern People took of having many Wives at once and the custom of Divorce Universally admitted which put them often upon changing their Wives But when a Marryed Person was made a Bishop he began from that time forward to look upon his Wife only as his Sister And to the same Rule hath the Ep. Dccret Siricij ad Himer c. vii Can. Apos vi Latin Church all ways kept her Priests and Deacons Yet they were still obliged to provide for their Wives and not to cast them off as Strangers And the Women out of Regard to the Dignity of their Husbands were somtimes called Presbyterae by the Name of Priestesses In Greece and the East this strict Rule of Continence Episcopae came in Course of time to be less and less regarded But in no place whatsoever Can. Neocaeâ— i. did the Catholick Church ever allow a Priest to Marry after his Ordination If he did he was for his Incontinence Degraded of his Order and reduced to the State of a simple Laick As for the Inferior Clerks as Readers and Door-keepers they were commonly Marryed Persons and Cohabited with their Wives So that a great part of them passed their whole Lives in these lower Orders at least they continued in them for many Years till they either lost their Wives or else by mutual Consent they agreed to Separate from each other in order to the leading a more perfect Life Yet was Marriage always spoken of by Christians as an Honourable State And that the rather because there were some Hereticks who professed an Abhorrence of it and others who Absolutely condemned all second Marriages as Unlawful All the Clergy even to the Bishops themselves Lived after a Poor at least a Plain and Ordinary manner having no thing as to outward appearance to Distinguish them from the common People In the Persecutions as they were the Persons the most sought after they had no mind to make themselves known by their Habit or any other marke of their Profession If in any thing they Differed from the common People t was in appearing more like the Philosophers Many of them had parted with all their Temporal Possessions to the Poor before their being advanced to Holy Orders and many of them again after their Ordination still continued like St. Paul to Live by the Labour of their Hands Not that they were obliged so to do The Church always took care of her Clergy supplying them with all Necessaries out S. Cypr. Ep. xxxiv of her common Treasure And accordingly every Clerk received either Weekly or Monthly a certain Distribution either in Money or of Provisions in Specie answerable to the Exigencies of their Condition or the Quality of their Office For the Clerks of an higher Station and consequently charged with greater Labours received according to the precept of St. Paul more liberal Allowances 1 Tim. v. 17. Some there were also that kept their own temporal Estate together with their Spiritual Dignity St. Cyprian at the Pont. Diac. Hortos time of his Martyrdom had still left him a little Country-Farm the only Reserve he made to himself out of the vast Possessions he had quitted The Pastors and Clerks rendred themselves no less amiable by their Charity and their Application to the Services of Religion than they were Venerable for other Excellencies The Bishop dispenced not with himself from performing the Dutyes of his Place in Person presiding always at the publick Prayers Expounding the Holy Scriptures and Offering the Sacrifice on all Sundays and Stationary Days He and his Priests found themselves always fully Employed and never wanted Work to Instruct the Catechumens Comfort the Sick Exhort the Penitents and Reconcile such as were at Variance For to them it belonged to make up all Differences They would Const Apost ii c. xlv 46 c. 1 Cor. vi by no means allow what St. Paul had expresly Forbidden that Christians should bring their Causes before the Heathen Courts and they that would not Submit V. Patres apud Baron an lvii n. 37. 38 c. Tertul. Apol c. xxxix to the Arbitration of the Bishops were Excommunicated for Impenitent and Incorrigible But such Disputes could not often happen among Christians so Disinteressed so Humble and Patient as they were Munday was ordinarily the Day which the Bishop took to determine Differences so that if the Parties should not readily Acquiesse in the Sentence they might yet have time before them to Moderate matters and bring them to a Right understanding before the Sunday following when they were all to meet again in the Church and Pray and Communicate together On the Day of Hearing the Bishop seated in his Chair the Priests sitting down by him and the Deacons attending the Parties Presented themselves before him respectfully standing on their Legs in the midst of the place of Audience After having heard the Cause he first did all that was possible to Reconcile them each other and to perswade them to make up the Difference in a Friendly manner between themselves before he pronounced Sentence At the same time also they heard Complaints and received Informations against Persons accused of not leading their Lives like Christians The Bishop was fully entrusted with Const Apost ii c. xxiv 25. the Churches Treasure all which lay absolutely at his Disposal Nor were they under the least Apprehension of its being Misapplyed Had they had the least suspicion of his Integrity and Uprightness they would never have committed to his Care the Government of Souls a concern of Infinitely greater Moment than Const Apost xli all Earthly Treasure T was to him therefore that all who stood in need of Relief were to apply themselves He was the Father of the Poor and the Refuge for all in Misery and Distress After all this what Wonder is it that their Prelates should be so beloved and Respected by the Faithful as they were 'T is observed of St. Polycarp that he had not for many Years together pulled off his own Shoes the Faithful that were Epist. Eccles Smyrn near him always offering themselves and Ambitiously Courting the Honour of that humble Office So that he had not of a long time before done it with his own Hands till at his Martyrdom as he undrest himself and prepared for the Stake Acta S. S. Hippolyti c. Apud Baron an 259. n. viii Acta S. Sus. an 294. n. viii 10. 12. Their usual way of Approaching their Priest was to Prostrate themselves before them Kiss their Feet and in that Supplicating Posture crave their Blessing And the
in our Plein Chant or Church Musick brought in by St. Gregory For what we now call Musick is certainly a clearly Different thing and altogether Modern As for the Chanting of the Prayers and Lessons that we see consists but of very few Notes only to help to keep up the Voice and mark the distinction of the Periods I think I have said enough to shew how well the Bishops of these first times understood to manage the objects of Sense so as to make them subservient to the end of Religion and by their help to make Impressions of Piety even upon the most heavy and Illiterate For Instance let us suppose the solemn manner of their Celebrating the Vigil of Easter at Rome under the Pope St. Leo. The Faithful V. Euseb vi Hist c. ix on that Holy Night with their reverend Bishop at the Head of them Assembled together in a Body in the Lateran Church In the first place immediately upon the Benediction of the new Fire an incredible number of Lights made the Holy Night look as glorious as a fine Day We may imagin what a charming Sight it must needs have been to see this August Magnificent Church filled with such a Numerous Assembly and yet in so vast a Multitude of People nothing of Noise Tumult or Confusion but every one Regularly disposed and Ranged according to the Quality of their Age and Sex and the station they held in the Church And especially distinguish'd from the rest were those who were to receive Baptism that very Night together with those who had accomplished their Pennance and had been but two Days before Readmitted into the Church Their Eyes were entertained on every side with the Marbles and Paintings the glittering of the Gold Silver and Precious Stones that Sparkled upon the Consecrated Plate and especially near the Holy Altar The silence of the Night admitted of no other Interruption but the Lessons out of the Prophets Pronounced with a clear distinct and intelligible Voice and intermixt with the Singing of the Versicles that so this Variety might make both of them more agreeable So many grand and delightful Objects presenting themselves at one and the same time could not but awaken the Soul and inspire her with Vigour both to attend to those Holy Lessons and profit by them especially being prepared for them before hand by continual exercises in the Word of God What must the Gravity and Modesty of the Deacons and other sacred Ministers have needs been who were made choice of and bred by such a Prelate and serv'd in his presence or rather in the presence of God whom their own thoughts represented to them always before their Eyes But above all How Majestick must the Pope himself appear so venerable for his Learning his Elocution his Zeal his Courage and all his other Vertues With what an awefull Reverence with how Affectionate a Piety must he have pronounced over the Sacred Fonts those Prayers which he himself first Composed and which his successors have found so Pious that they have still preserved the same for us the space of twelve hundred Years I can no longer Wonder that on these occasions and under such helps of Devotion the Christians of those Days should quite forget their Body and having Fasted all the Day before should pass this Holy Night of the Resurrection also in Watching and Prayer without eating a bitt till the Day following BUT this great Day being come and XXXV The Solemnity of Feasts of the Church Pilgrimages the time of their Fasts expired the greatest Saints did not only allow but also enjoyn the refreshing of the Body How profitable soever Fasting might be to raise up the Soul to God and Facilitate the Duty of Prayer for which exercise of Devotion the Feasts of the Church were chiefly designed yet it was forbidden to fast on Sundays or on the Festival Days or throughout the whole Quinquagesima So they called it not as we do now the fifty Days before Easter but the fifty Days between Easter and Whitsunday 'T is true the Monks of Egypt used great precautions Cass Collat xxi de remiss quinq least they should by this little Relaxation lose the fruit of their past Abstinence But at last they observed the Church Distinction St. Pacomus according Vie de saint Pacome c. viii to the direction of St. Palemon his Master on Easter-day Eat a Sallet of Herbs and Oil instead of dry Bread only which was their usual Dyet at other times A certain Holy Priest as God had put it into S. Greg. ii Dial. c. i. his mind on an Easter Day carryed to St. Benet a present of Provisions for him to make better Cheer at that time than ordinary and to express a more sensible rejoycing on the same Occasion St Anthony was wont on Easter and Whitsunday to put on his Coat of Palmtree-leaves which was left him by St. Paul the first Hermite and St. Athanasius at the same time appeared clad in the Cloak St. Anthony had left to him And from that time S. Leo. Serm. iii. de Quadrages forward it was an established custom among Christians to apparel themselves on the Festivals in their Richest Habits and to make better Fare than ordinary on those Days The Feasts of the Martyrs had proportionable honours paid to them and were Celebrated with a great Concourse of People On Sundays and other Feasts common to the whole Church every one was content to stay at home with his own Bishop But on these special Feasts they ran from all parts to celebrate the Memory of the Saints so that upon these occasions many of the Bishops themselves often met together at their Tombs By one example we may judge of the rest St. Paulinus reckons up more then twenty Natali 3. names as well of Cities as Provinces in Italy whose Inhabitants did every Year assemble together in vast Troops with their Wives and Children to Celebrate the Feast of St. Felix notwithstanding the Rigor of the Season it being kept on the fourteenth of January And all this only for one single confessor in that single City of Nola. What then must have been done throughout the. whole Christian World What at Rome upon Prud. Peristeph ii 11 12. Martyr Jun. xxix de S. Cassio the Feast of St. Hippolytus of St. Laurence of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul They flocked to Rome from the most distant places and at all times And that was the Rise of Pilgrimages In the time of the Persecution under the Emperor Claudius the second St. Marius together with St. Martha his Wife and Children Martyrol xix Janu. took a jorney to Rome on purpose to perform their Devotions there and upon that occasion they there suffered Martyrdome The same hapned not long after to St. Maurus who came out of Affrica to visit Ibid. xxii Novem. the Sepulchers of the Apostles And before St. Alexander was chosen Bishop of Jerusalem
convenient that every Monastery should have in it one Priest at least and one or two Deacons and this Priest was often their Abbot Thus having no occasion to go abroad they were shut up in their Monasteries as the Dead in their Sepulchres This was the pretence that Arch-Heretick Eutiches made for his not appearing at the Con. Chalc. Act. Council of Chalcedon There were also Monasteries for Women or Nunneries in the Deserts where they abode within Convenient distance of the Monks to receive mutual assistance from each other by their Neighbourhood yet so far asunder as to avoid all danger and Scandal The Monks built the Nuns their Cells and helped them in their most laborious Works the Nuns made the Monks Cloaths and did them other such-like Services But all this Commerce of Charity was managed by some aged Persons appointed for that purpose none else being suffered to go near the Nunneries There were also many of these Nunneries founded in Cities where all the Virgins Consecrated to God lived in Community who before lived separate in private Houses The Nuns of Aegypt and Syria Hier. epist 48. ad Sabinian Baron ad Martyr 20 Sept. cut off their Hair for cleanliness sake in other places they kept it on The practice of Antiquity in these Cases being different The Bishops who made their Clergy live in common took their Method of living from the Monks and as much as the active Life of the Clergy would permit they conformed themselves to it so that these Communities were often called also by the name of Monasteries and in time they were quite confounded one with the other In the Fifth Age the greatest part Thom. Disc ii part l. i. c. 34 35 36. of the Bishops and Priests of Gaul and of the West practiced the Monastick Life and wore the Habit. The Pope St. Gregory was taken out of a Monastery where upon quitting the grandeur of this World Jo. Diac. lib. ii c. xi he had shut himelf up but notwithstanding his Advancement he still kept to the Monastick Life and filled his Palace with Pious Monks out of whom he made many of his great Bishops and among the rest St. Austin the Monk with the other Apostles of England The true use of the Monastick Life was to improve and perfect such unspotted Souls as had preserved the Innocence of their Baptism or such Converted Sinners as desired to Purify themselves by Repentance 'T was for this end they received into their Monasteries Persons of all Ages and Conditions Young Children whom their Parents were for placing early out of the danger of the World Old Persons who desired to end their Lives Religiously Marryed Men whose Wives also had consented to the same way of Living In the Rule of St. Fructuosus Cod. Regul Arch-Bishop of Braga we find Regulations for all these Persons They who for their Sins were obliged by the Canons to do Penances of many Years found it undoubtedly much more Commodious to pass them in a Monastery where the example of Living in Common and the Consolations received from those more advanced in Years might somewhat ease their Sorrows than to Live at large under them in the wide World where they could not avoid being singular and Pointed at So that the Monastery became a kind of Prison or Exile with which great Persons were often punished of which we have examples in France under the two first Lines of our Kings and in the East from the sixth Age. THE Monastick Life is a sensible XLII The Monastick life compared with that of the first Christians proof of the Providence of God and of the care he hath taken to preserve in his Church to the end of all Ages not only purity of Doctrine but also Holiness of Life If we call to mind what hath been said of the Christian Life in the second part of this Treatise and compare it with the Rule of St. Bennet and with the present usages of the well-regulated Monasteries we shall find that there is but little difference between them I have prov'd there that those Christians looked upon Religion as their main Concern making all the Affairs of this Life subservient to it And thus it is with the Monks who sequester themselves from the world that they may be at more liberty to mind the most necessary Poynt And for this Reason they are called The Religious a name common at first to all good Christians The Monks Asceticks and Virgins had also the name of Devotes given them from their being entirely Devoted to God Those first Christians were very frequent both in Publick and private Prayer coming as near as possibly they could to the Rule of Praying always the Psalmody is no-where better Regulated nor more exactly observed than in the Monasteries where it still continues the same as St. Benet set it above eleven hundred Years ago The Monks having nothing to divert them from the exercises of Religion have kept up the Practice more exactly than even the Clergy themselves 'T is supposed they reduced the Office into the form in which it hath stood now for a long time at least they added the Prime and Complin which at first were only private Prayers for every Christian Family or every Monastery to make use 3 Instit iv vi of at their own Houses to sanctifie the beginning and ending of the Day Cassian declares that this Establishment was but new in his Days In all this the Canons are to be esteemed as a sort of Monks and so indeed in the beginning they were being then all of them Regulars The Primitive Christians received the Communion very often fo do the Monks for the most part Ruffinus tells us the Disciples of St. Apollonius Communicated S. Basil ep 289 ad Caesar Patr. every Day The Monks kept up for a long time the Ancient custom of having the Eucharist always lying by them to Communicate themselves when they should want a Priest to Administer it 'T was perhaps for want of this Precaution Chrysost Hom. xvii in Epist ad Hebr. that some continued for the space of two whole Years without receiving the Sacrament Those Primitive Christians spent much of their time in Reading the Holy Scriptures The Rule of St. Benet prescribes Reg. S. Ben. c. xlviii the same to his Monks and more particularly that all the time of Lent and on all Sundays they should apply themselves wholly to this Exercise For on other Days they spent much of their time in the labour of their Hands of which Practice some traces are still remaining though it must be confessed that of all the Monastick customs this is the least continued Silence was necessary as is said before to avoid the common sins of the Tongue so frequent amongst Men and yet so much condemned in the Scriptures as Reviling evil Reports indecent Rallery foolish Jesting vain Impertinent and unprofitable Discourses and 't is observable that the
purpose then may it be objected served the publick Pennances and Excommunications To purge the Church of a Aug. Enchirid c. lxxx great many Vices though not of all To the imposing of Pennance it was necessarily required that the Offender should desire it or at least that he should voluntarily submit to it so that he was obliged to acknowledge his Offence either by a free Confession of it himself or by acquiesing in the Accusation of others Excommunication was for those who would not accept of Pennance though they were convict either by their own Confession or by legal Proofs or by notoriety of Fact And yet after all the Prudent and Charitable Bishops did not hastily proceed to this last extremity They often admonished the Convicted Offender and put him in mind of the desperateness of his Condition upon persisting in Impenitence they earnestly exhorted him to get out of that dangerous State they spared neither Threats nor Intreaties to overcome the hardness of his Heart they lamented over him before God and obliged the Congregation to Pray for him they waited in expectation a long time imitating the Patience and long Suffering of Const Aâ— ii cap. 41. the Father of Mercies in a word 't was not till they had tried all the Methods of Charity that they proceeded to this sad Remedy and that with the grief of a Parent who to save the Life of his Son is himself forced with his own Hand to cut off his Arm. But as for those whose Crimes were private and concealed either known only to God or impossible to be proved there was no remedy against them They could not deny them entrance into the Church nor participiation of the Sacraments if they were so Sacrilegiously impious as to approach the holy Mysteries In former times the Persecutions were sufficient Trials to seperate the Chaff from the Wheat But when they ceased Hypocrisy was carried on to the last breath of Men. In the mean time the Church was a great sufferer by these lukewarm and corrupt Christians their evil Discourses and evil Examples were a scandal to Religion and their loose Conduct had a pernicious effect especially upon their own Families They did but ill instruct their Children and yet brought them to Baptism And this defect of Family Education was of great Consequence in these first Ages where we cannot find that there was any Catechism publickly appointed for the Instruction of Christian Children THE Ravages of the Barbarians who XLV The Incursions of the Barbarians and their manners overturned the Roman Empire had as pernicious an influence upon the Manners of the Church as the Corruption of the later Romans The Gospel which is the highest Reason rejects every vicious disposition as being inconsistent with it Neither the affectedly Ignorant the Knavish the Savage nor the Slothful can be good Christians Barbarity and Cruelty are as incompatible with true Religion as Luxury and Effeminacy Wars and Hostilities are as contrary to Piety as they are to Justice and all good Order So that Religion suffered deeply under those horrid Confusions Hier. in Iscap v. in fi al. Idem epist. de fun Nepotiani in fi ad Gerontiam ad Agenechiam brought upon the World by the Savage Nations of the North who like a Flood breaking in upon the Roman Empire over run it all St. Jerome and the other Fathers who lived in those times have left us a lamentable Description of them A Barba-Enemy destroying all before him their Towns taken by Storm and their Countries lying at the Mercy of the rude Soldiery 'T is easy to imagin with what distraction all Mens minds were filled what would become of their Lives and Fortunes of themselves and their families how to secure their Persons from Captivity and their Wives and Daughters from Violation These were pressing Considerations and violent Temptations to them to neglect their Spiritual concerns A Man must have been endowed with a very Heroick Resolution to maintain the Constancy of his Mind in the midst of the horrible Slaughters the dismal desolations and all the other terrible Ravages of a Brutish Conqueror We have still extant the Letters of St Basil and the more ancient ones of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus where we may see into what grievous Crimes the Christians were betrayed by the Incursions of the Barbarians into Cappadocia and the Pennances thereunpo enjoyned them When the Vandals wasted Africa that which most sensibly affected St. Austin was as Possidius relates it the hazards and loss of Souls by it He saw saith that Author the Churches for saken of their Priests and Ministers the sacred Virgins and the other Religious scattered abroad in the wide World some sinking under their Torments others put to the Sword others led into Captivity where having lost the honour of their Chastity the Integrity of their Conscience and the Orthodoxy their Faith they remained Slaves to their Brutal and unmerciful Enemies He saw the sacred Hymns and Praises of God given over in the Churches and the very Buildings themselves in many places levell'd with the ground That the Sacrifices and Sacraments were no longer sought after and they that did desire them could not easily meet with any capable of Administring them That the Bishops and Clergy whom God had graciously preserved from falling into the Hands of the Enemies or gave them the means of an escape after they had been taken were spoild of all and reduced to the last degree of Beggery without any ones being able to relieve them according to their Necessities By this Instance one may imagin how it was with them in the other great Provinces in Spain Gaul and V. Conc. i. Bracar 411. Illyrium What means were there left under these Confusions either for instructing the People or breeding up Priests and Preachers How could the Bishops visit their Flocks or meet in Councils to fill up the vacant Sees and maintain the regularity of Discipline The Church hath good reason in all her Prayers to beg of God the blessing of Peace and Tranquillity without which the Publick exercise of Religion must needs fall to the Ground 'T is true the Barbarians were converted The Francs turned Christians the Goths and the Lombards of Arians became good Catholicks but still they remained Barbarians I call Barbarism here that disposition of Mind by which Men govern themselves not by Reason but by Passion or by Custom We have remarkable instances of the Power of Custom in the Iroques and the other People of America whom we call Savages We have scarce ever heard of any Nation less given to Women or less Subject to the Passion of Anger they are very Patient great admirers of Justice and Gratitude Liberal and Hospitable But to this very Day it hath been almost impossible to make Christians of them except those who have been brought up among the French and from their Infancy familiarized to our Customs not that they want Reason or
speaks with great vehemence concerning the last Judgment Hell and Paradise it make honourable mention of Moses and the Prophets of the Apostles and Martyrs and gives high Encomiums to Jesus Christ himself Besides it imitates several of the External Parts of Christianity The Christians Prayed seven times a Day the Musulmans Prayed five The Christians had their Annual Fast of forty Days the Musulmans have theirs of twenty nine keeping always strict Fast till Night as the Christians then did The Christians keep Sunday Holy the Musulmans Friday We assemble in our Churches to Pray to God hear the Reading of the Scriptures and the Instructions of the Priest they also Pray after their manner in their Moschs Read their Alcoran there and hear the Preachings of their Doctors They make Pilgrimages to the Land which they Esteem Holy and visit the Tombs of their pretended Martyrs ' They give much Alms and have Hospitals Founded among them in great numbers They have also some sorts of Religious Persons who live in Common and afflict the Body after a Terrible manner For there is no sort of Exteriour Austerities which Persons without Vertue may not Imitate either out of Vain Glory or for Interest But they can never bring themselves to live in Silence and Labour without being seen of Men. To do this a Man must be a Christian Our Travellers Bred up in the midst of Christendom are often affected with this outside of Religion and those Moral Vertues they meet with amongst the Infidels and sometimes return Home staggered in their Thoughts and inclining to believe that all things are indifferent in matters of Religion Under how great Temptations then must those poor Christians have layn that were Born under the power of those Insidels and obliged to pass their whole Lives with them kept under Oppression by them and having no other means of making their condition Comfortable in this World but by quitting the Faith of their Ancestors 'T is a wonder they were not all Perverted And the number of Christians still remayning throughout all the Levant after a Thousand Years of Temptation is a manifest proof of the power of the Gospel and of the weakness of Mahometism The Christians also that were subjects to the Emperors of Constantinople might be easily corrupted by their Commerce with the Mahometans and the several sorts of Hereticks that Infected all the East The Judgment of the Emperor Leo Author of the Sect of the Iconoclasts is supposed to have been corrupted by the Jews and Sarasins or the Arabian Mahometans The Emperor Michael Balbus passed for no better than half-a Jew The Young Emperor Michael the third with the Lewd Companions of his Debauches acted over in a most execrable mockery the Holy Ceremonies of our Religion even to the Tremendous Sacrifice it self and not long V. Baron an 853. Curopal after him I meet with another Young Emperor Alexander the Son of Leo the Philosopher openly Blaspheming against Christianity and Regretting the Suppression of Idolatry This makes me suspect that of all Christians the Greeks were the first Authors of Libertinism in matters of Religion Not that I would be thought to fix this suspicion on the whole Nation of them but only upon some of their great ones and other particular Persons For in these times generally speaking Religion bore up nobly throughout the whole Greek Empire They had among them great Doctors great Bishops and eminent Religious besides many Martyrs too in defence of the Holy Images IN the West the Faith was hitherto XLVIII The Manners of the West The disorders of the tenth Age. kept Inviolate It never enter'd into the thoughts of any Man to call the principles of Religion in Question nor was it here infected with Heresy But Ignorance and Barbarism increased upon it Charlemain did all he could to re-establish good Literature and Ecclesiastical Discipline But the following Princes did not pursue his great designs So that after his Days both Church and State fell into greater Disorders then ever The Faith had been before planted in Saxony Bavaria and all the rest of Germany But to secure it among those rugged Nations Charlemain was oblig'd to back the Preaching of the Gospel with the Sword and Temporal Punishments so that there were many involuntary Conversion which by the unhappines of the Times was not seconded with that care which was necessary to have given Religion sure rooting in a new and unbroken Soil so that one may easily imagin there remained at the bottom a Core of Ignorance and Spiritual Insensibility And this perhaps is one of the Causes why Schism and Heresy have since found so easy an Access and spread themselves all over the North. The Civil Wars which were carryed on from the Reign of Lewis the Debonnaire turn'd all things back again into a state of Ignorance and Confusion even in the soundest parts of the French Empire And to compleat their misery the Normans as yet Pagans ravaged and destroyed it on every side The Huagarian Pagans also overran Italy the Sarasins for a long time hovered upon their Coasts keeping them always upon the Allarm and at last effectually made themselves Masters of Apulia and Sicily besides Spain which they had now Possessed for more then an Age. So that what Remainders had been hitherto left of the Old Roman Manners and Polite Genius were now perfectly worn out The loss of Arts Learning and Civility had been the more Supportable had not the Interests of Religion been involved in their Fate which cannot subsist without both Study and Preaching the one to preserve in it the Soundness of Doctrin the other the purity of its Morals Religion must necessarily fall into Decay unless the Holy Scriptures be diligently Read Taught and Explained to the People unless the Apostolical Traditions be preserved in their Purity and Purged from time to time of those Spurious Additions which the Inventions of Men make without any just Authority All this was a thing hard to be done in the miserable times of which we are now speaking The greatest part of the Layety neither had Books nor indeed could so much as Read And if some of the great Lords had amongst their Rarities some Antient Authors yet they were not able to use them being Written in Latin The Latin was now no longer in common use and in the French and the other Vulgar Languages which were as yet but in their beginning and unformed nothing was Written So that as they could not understand the one they had nothing to Read in the other But the publick Offices of the Church were performed in Latin and the Scriptures were Read to the People in the same Language but seldom Explained The Lords by reason of the little Wars they continually had one against another kept themselves close shut up every one within the Walls of his own Castle so that they seldom came near the Episcopal City especially if they chanced to be as it often hapned at
Vows of Celibacy and Poverty have been inconvenient and but ill kept this might have been prevented by the Omission of of them for as this Author observes We see no Solemn Vows in these first times St. Chrysostom speaks of a Monks returning to the World as of a thing altogether free Again He tells us that the Monks in imitation of the Primitive Christians spent much of their time in Reading the Holy Scriptures The Rule of St. Benedict prescribes the same to his Monks and more particularly that all the time of Lent and on Sundays they should apply themselves only to this Exercise He Judiciously remarks how Forged Books and pretended Miracles gained Credit For want of critical Learning and the knowledg of Antiquity they were ready to receive such Suppositious Writings as were Imposed upon the World under the specious Names of Ecclesiastical Authors and also became too Credulous in believing Miracles So certain it was that the Apostles and their Disciples had wrought Miracles and that many true one 's were Daily performed at the Tombs of the Martyrs that they were not now over-curious in examining so as to distinguish the true from the false The most surprising Relations of this kind in History were the best received Ignorance in Philosophy and the little knowledg they had of Nature made them take all strange Appearances for Prodigies and interpret them as the Supernatural signs of God's wrath They believed there was something extraordinary in Astrology and dreaded Ecclipses and Comets as dismal Presages To give but one Example more Religion says Mr. Fleury can't subsist without Study and Preaching to preserve the Soundness of its Doctrine and the Purity of its morals It must necessarily fall into Decay unless the Holy Scripture be diligently Read taught and expounded to the People unless the Apostolical Traditions be preserved in their Purity and Purged from time to time of those Spurious Additions which the Inventions of Men without any just Authority have made to them Would but the Church of Rome take away these and all other Additions that are contrary to and Inconsistent with the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Christ in the first and purest Ages of Christianity and forbid all Disputation c. as Innocent XI by his Decree of the 19. of Feb. 1678. entirely abolished the Office of the Immaculate Conception c. Approved by Paul V. They might happily put an end to the great Division that has so long made the Enemies of Christianity to rejoyce or be able to maintain the charge of Schism against those that should then refuse their Communion What Passages or Expressions occur in this Treatise which may be judg'd contrary to and Inconsistent with the Doctrine Worship and Government of the Church of England as by Law Establish'd the Author and Editor of this Book are not answerable for nor pretend to justify considering that 't is only a Translation of an Historical Tract written in French and often Printed by a Learned Author of the Roman Communion whose Name is mention'd in the Title-Page of this Book What he hath said in favour of several of the Doctrines of the Reformation and the admirable Moral Reflections which frequently occur throughout his History and especially the former part together with other pious Relations of it are enough to shew that excellent use may be made of this Treatise and hence to justify the Publication of it in our own Language And the more exceptionable passages that are in it I must Entreat the Reader to consiâ—â—◠〈◊〉 the meer effects of our Author 's 〈…〉 the Communion wherein he 〈◊〉 and to admire rather that he 〈◊〉 said so much on our side than that 〈◊〉 has said no more ERRATA PAge 8. Lines 16. read to establish p. 13. l. 13. r. in mind of p. 27. l. 22. dele and. p. 35. l. 22. r. Orchard p. 37. Ibid. l. 22. r. disease p. 41. l. 11. r. furnish Ibid. 18. r. Christians p. 42. l. 24. r. Paedagogus p. 45. l. 8. r. Sanctify p. 47. l. 29. r. giveing p. 54. l. 32. r. itself p. 56. l. 27. r. used p. 77. l. 18. for where r. were Ibid. l. 24. r. Zealous p. 86. l. 26. r. occasion p. 87. l. 13. r. Gnosticks p. 99. l. 15. r. Tutelar p. 103. l. 18. r. Equueus p. 104. l. 28. r. lewd way p. 105. l. 5. for of r. off Ibid. l. 6. r. Spit it p. 106. l. 17. r. Martyrs p. 107. l. 23. dele the. p. 110. l. 25. r. reduced p. 119. l. 25. r. Slaves Ibid. r. State p. 124. l. 22. r. such cases p. 129. l. 9. for Bells r. Belles p. 136. l. 7. for thy r. they Ibid. r. delivered p. 148. l. 12. r. Wife p. 149. l. 25 r. Fifty p. 156. l. 1. r. to each other p. 157. l. 2. r. Priests p. 158. l. 17. for them r. him p. 165. l. 20. for this r his p. 182. l. 24. r. Martyrium p. 204. l. 30 dele or the least sign p. 205. l. 15. r. hath retem'd p. 240 l. 22. r. Sylvester p. 241. l. 5. r. ornamented Ibid. l. 30. r. Candlesticks p. 242. l. 15. dele with p. 251. l. 8. r. Pestilence p. 259. l. 15 r. soever p. 266. l. 17. r. many p. 272. l. 1. for for r. the p. 289. l. 24. r. thereupon p. 305. l. 30. r. Conversions Ibid. l. 32. for was r. were p. 306. l. 1. r. Religion Ibid. l. 17. r. Hungarian p. 307. l. 13. r. could p. 310. l. 2. r. Canons Ibid. l. 31. r. how miserably p. 313. l. 30. r. Barbarous p. 314. l. 2. r. do that Ibid. l. 6. r. Modesty p. 318. l. 10. r. Chaplains p. 322. l. 6. r. our way of Liveing p. 326. l. 20. r. Journeys Ibid. l. 26. r. Travells p. 327. l. 32. r. upon them p. 328. l. 15. r. beare p. 330. l. 28. r. assistance p. 332. l. 31. r. multitude THE BEHAVIOUR AND MANNERS OF THE Christians Part the First I Shall divide my Work into four Parts The first will represent the Manners I. of the Christians of Jerusalem to the The division of the whole Destruction of that City under Vespasian This first state of Christianity though but of a short continuance was so supereminent in its Perfection that it will deserves a separate Consideration The second will take in all the Time of the Persecution that is the entire space of three Centuries In the third I shall describe the State of the Church in its Liberty which Commenced in the fourth Age. And In the last consider the Changes it afterwards underwent and endeavour to discover the Causes of them The Christian Religion as it was not the Invention of Man but the Work of II. God so like the Universe it had its full The first part the Church of Jerulem Perfection in its first Birth and was most Glorious in its earliest Productions It is not to be imagined saith Tertullian that the
more easily nstructed than are the Men of this Generation And that because they have heard say that the World is in a state of Declension and grows worse and worse and because they still see the marks of the Simplicity and easie Temper of our honest Fore-Fathers But they who have made any Reflection on the Writings left us by the Greeks and Romans plainly see the contrary The Preaching of the Gospel began under the Reigns of the Emperors Claudius and Nero. What kind of Courts these Emperors had and the Vices that there Reigned we may see in Tacitus The Manners and practices of the same Age are to be seen in Horace in Juvenal in Martial and in Petronius That these Authors blushed not at the Infamous Impurities with which they have stuffed their Writings is because the Men of that Age blushed not to commit them They thought they might take the Liberty of Publickly exposing what others as Publickly practised And there seems to be a special Providence in it that these Books otherwise so pernicious should be preserved to us to shew out of what an Abyss of Corruption Jesus Christ recovered Mankind We find the same Ordures in Suetonius in the other Writers of the Historia Augusta for the two Ages following in Lucian in Apuleius in Atheneus in a Word in all the Authors who give us an account of their Manners Aug. Civit. ii C. iv Cypr. ep i. Clem. Alex Paedag. lib. ii The Fathers themselves upon this Subject are forced to use great openness and freedom of Speech as amongst the rest St. Austin Tertullian St. Clemens Alexandrinus so that that frightful Catalogue of the Vices of the Heathen World which St. Paul hath given us in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans will not appear strange This Corruption of Manners took its course through Greece Aegypt and the East to Rome 'T is but casting ones Eyes upon Aristophanes to see to what height of Dissolution the Greeks were even in those Days arrived and 't is a thing but too certain that they did not after his time become more Wise on the contrary they made still farther Improvements in Luxury and Effeminacy The Lives of the Kings of Macedonia of Aegypt and Syria furnished History with a New stock and variety of examples of the most monstrous Vices and Impurities 'T is well known for what Alexandria Antioch and Corinth were famed and how noted for their Voluptousness and Effeminacy were the Cities of Jonia and the Lesser Asia Yet in the midst of this general Corruption was it that Christianity took its Birth 't was in the midst of these very Cities that the most famous Churches were founded This Dissolution was not onely Univerfal overspreading the whole Roman Empire but publick open avowed and Authorised nay even Consecrated by their Religion its self Learned Men know what were the Ceremonies of Bacchus and Cybele Wherever one passed one met with a Venus an Adonis a Ganymede and a Jupiter in all Disguises There was not a Garden or Orchard without the Idol of that Ridiculous God whom they made the Guardian of the Place Their common Songs and Poems were upon the Amours of their Gods and most of their Publick Spectacles were abominable Scenes either of Impurity or Cruelty The ordinary Divertisements of the Roman People were to force Men to fight and Murder one another or to see them torn to pieces by Wild Beasts Frequently upon the most trifling occasions they put their Slaves to the Rack and to the most horrible Tortures The Governours of Provinces did often exercise excessive Cruelties upon such as were not Romans The Emperors put to Death whomsoever they pleased without any Form of Law so that bad Princes spilt a great deal of Blood even of the most Noble Romane themselves Nor was their Avarice inferior to their Cruelty All the World Groaned under their Frauds Perjuries Falsities unjust prosecutions and violent Oppressions of all which we need no other proof than Cicero's Orations If in the time of the Republick Verres in one Province in the space of three Years committed so many Enormities V. Juv. Sat. viii what must have been done throughout the whole Empire under Nero or Domitian by the many Governours chosen out of their own Favourites who were in no fear of being called to account but on the contrary both encouraged by the Example and supported by the Authority of their Princes But I fear I spend too many Words upon a thing too evident in its self Such then were those out of whom were made those Christians I am going to describe When once they were washed and Sanctifyed they were no longer I Cor. vi xi the same Creatures they had been before Yet not to conceal that Good that was in them we must not disown but that there were in many of the Greeks and Romans some kind of hopeful Dispositions and Tendencies towards Vertue In the first place they had much of that Politeness that necessarily carries along with it many good qualities which we may call superficial Vertues as Gravity Pacience and Obligingness in Conversation Complaisance Chearfulness and a lively way of expressing their Esteem or Affection with a true sence of Decorum and decency in every Action of which the Greeks were compleat Masters All this a Man may have without solid Vertue or be wanting in these things without being an ill Man or a vicious Person And yet Vertue seems not Compleatly perfect without this exteriour Dress to recommend her Beauty and set her off to advantage Besides this there were amongst them the Greeks especially many true Philosophers that is to say Persons who did in good earnest and with the utmost powers of their Reason seek after the means of becoming Happy who seriously laboured to come to the Knowledge Recognit Clem. init of the Truth who honestly applyed themselves to the practice of Vertue Justin in Tryph. init according to the best of their knowledge and who to pursue this study renounced all other Interests and Engagments sparing neither Cost nor Labour nor Travails to attain to the knowledge of those things which they accounted the most excellent Nor were the Romans so universally Degenerate but that there were many among them who maintained that Generosity that Greatness of Soul that Constancy and firmness of Mind and other such like Vertues for which their Ancestors were so Renowned The Grace of the Gospel being superadded to these happy dispositions of Nature could not but produce admirable Effects St. Cornelius the first of the Gentiles that teceived this Grace was a Roman Captain The bravery of the Roman spirit appears in many of the glorious Martyrs as St. Laurence St. Vincent St. Sebastian and in many great Bishops as St. Cyprian St. Ambrose St. Leo c. As for the Gravity of the Greek Philosophers one may see it in the Acts of S. Polycarp in those of St Pionius Priest of Smyrna and in the Writings
of it both by affixing some kind of Penalties Tac. An. iii. v tit cod de infirm paen coelib v. Baron an 57. n. 44 c. upon those who continued unmarried after such a Term of Years and rewards to those who in lawful Matrimony encreased the number of the People The Christians knew but two states that of Marriage or Continence They preferred the latter as knowing its Excellencies and they often found the means Tertul. ad uxor c. vi de Resur car c. 8. of Reconciling them both in one for there were many Married Persons who yet lived in Continence But all Christians in general abstained from the use of the Bed on the Feasts and Fasts of the Cypr. de sing Cle. Church as well as at other times when according to the Apostles Rule they were disposed more Freely to give Cor. vii themselves to Prayer Second Marriages were looked upon as a weakness insomuch as in some Churches they enjoined Hier. ad Salvin in fi the Persons so remarrying Penance But how highly soever they esteemed Continence they had an esteem for Marriage as being a great Sacrament They had honourable Thoughts of it considering it as an Emblem of that Union which is between Christ and his Church and that Blessing Pronounced by God upon Mankind at the first Creation which Orat. in Bened. Spons neither Original Sin nor the Deluge hath taken away that is of encreasing and multiplying They knew that the relation of Father and Mother was an high Clem. Alex. ii Paedag. c. x. and honourable Character as being the Images of God in a more peculiar manner and Co-operating with him in the Production of Men. 'T is certain by the Gospel that St. Peter was a Married Man and Tradition as St. Clemens Alexandrinus relates it tells the same of Clem. iii. strom the Apostle St. Philip that they had both of them Children and particularly of Euseb iii. Hist. 30. St. Philip 't is observed that he gave his Daughters in Marriage Among other Directions for the Education Const Ap. iv c. x. of Children this is one That they should to secure their Vertue timely dispose of them in Marriage and they who had Charity enough to take upon them the charge of breeding up Orphans were advised to Match them as soon as Ibid. c i. they came of Age and rather to their own Children than to Strangers a Proof how little the Christians of those days Ignat. Ep. ad Polycar regarded Worldly Interest in the matter of Marriage They advised with their Bishop about Marriages as indeed they did about all Affairs of greater Importance that so saith Ignatius they might be made according to God and not according to Concupiscence When the Parties were agreed the Marriage was publickly and solemnly performed in the Church and Tertul. ii ad ux in fi there Consecrated by the Benediction of the Pastor and Confirmed by the Oblation of the holy Sacrifice The Bridegroom gave his Hand to the Bride and the Bride received from her Husband a Ring engraved with the Sign of the Cross or at least having on it some Symbolical Figure representing some Christian Vertue as a Dove an Anchor or a Fish for of such Clem. Alex. iii. Paedag. c. xi Figures did the Christians make their Seals and among the Antients their Rings were also their Seals or Signets HITHERTO have we considered XII The Union of Christians Christians in their Private Capacities let us now take a view of them as United into a Body and making a Church The name of Ecclesia i. e. Church signifies no more than an Assembly and was taken in the Cities of Greece for a meeting of the People who commonly came together in the Theatre for the dispatch of Publick Affairs We have in the Acts of the Apostles an Example of this profane Acts xix 32 Ecclesia or Assembly in the City of Ephesus and therefore the Christians by way of distinction from these profane Ecclesias where called the Ecclesia or Church of God Origen in his Dispute against Celsus compares these two sorts of Assemblies together and lays it down as a thing certain and manifest that the less Zeal of the Christians who were but few in comparison of the rest did somuch excel other Men That the Christian Assemblies appeared in the World like Stars in the Firmament The Christians therefore of every City made up but one Body and this was one principal pretence of Persecuting them Their Assemblies were represented as Illegal Meetings not being Authorized by the Laws of the State Their Unity and Love passed fot a Crime and was Objected against them as a dangerous Confederacy And indeed all the Christians living in the same Place were well known to each other as it could not be otherwise considering how often they joined in Prayer and other exercises of Religion upon which occasions they met together almost every Day They all maintained a Friendly Correspondence among themselves often met and conferred together and even in indifferent matters conformed to one another Their Joys and their Griefs were in common If any one had received of God any particular Blessing they all shared the satisfaction If any one were under Pennance they all Interceeded on his behalf and begged that Mercy might be shewn him They lived together as kindred of the same Family calling one another by the Name of Father or Child Brother or Sister according to the difference of Age or Sex This Unity was maintained by that Authority which every Master of a Family had over those of his own House and by the Submission that all of them paid to the Priests and their Bishops a Duty so earnestly recommended to Christians in the Epistles of the holy Martyr St. Ignatius But above all the Bishops were most closely United among themselves They all knew one another at least by their Names and Characters and held a constant Epistolary Correspondence which was easy to be done at that time by reason of the vast extent of the Roman Empire Bardesan apud Euseb vi Praepar c. 8. which God in his Providence seems to have so ordered as it were on purpose for the Propagation of the Gospel But as the Church was extended far wider than the Empire reaching to all the Nations round about it that uniformity of Faith and Manners which was found among all the Christians was still the more wonderful considering the Diversity of Nations among whom they were scattered And herein appeared the Power of true Religion Correcting in all that embraced it all those Barbarous and unreasonable Euseb i. Praep. c. iv Customs in which they had been educated In short the universal Church was in reality but one Body all the Members whereof were United to each other not only by the same Faith but also by the same most Comprehensive Charity EVERY Particular Church met together XIII
Idolaters knew not what to make of They demanded of the Christians to tell them the name of their God and called them down-right Atheists because they Worshiped none of the Gods that stood in their Temples had no burning Altars nor Bloody Sacrifices The Sacrificing Priests the Augurs the Aruspices the Diviners of all sorts in a Word all those whose Employment and dependance was upon the Idolatrous worship spared not to foment and blow up the Rage of the People against them To that purpose they made use of pretended Prodigies accusing the Christians as the Causes of all the Publick Calamities that befel them when they were plagued with Famine Pestilence War or the like all was charged upon the score of the Christians by means of whom said they the Wrath of Tertul. Ap. xl Arnob. init the Gods is drawn down upon places where they are suffered to live These violent Prejudices against the Christians made them fly in the Face of their very Vertues and turn them to their reproach The Love they bore to one another was scandalously Interpreted the common Appellation used Tertul. Ap. c. xxxix Petro. amongst themselves of Brother and Sister were wrested to an ill sence as indeed the Heathens had abused those Names in their infamous Amours The large Alms they distributed were Censured to be done with an evil Design to seduce the Poorer sort Acta S S. Hippolyti c. apud Baron an 259. n. xiii of People and strengthen their Faction or as a contrivance of the covetous Bishops to draw into their Churches vast heaps of Treasure to lye at their disposal As for Miracles they said they were only pieces of Sorcery and Magical Impostures And Prud. hymn S. Laurent indeed the World was then over run with cheating Quacks Jugglers and Fortune Tellers who had their several ways of Divination by which they pretended to foretell things to come and by Vertue of their Spells and Charms by the Power of some Barbarous and unintelligible Words and Fantastick Figures and Characters to be able to cure Diseases And whether it were all done by trick or whether they were really assisted by some evil Spirit they imposed upon the Eye sight and did actually perform many strange Feats to the Amazement of the Beholders so that 't was no new thing to hear talk of Miracles nay nor to see them They confounded the true with the false and equally despised all pretenders to them And the Country out of which the Apostles and first Christians came encreased this contempt of them For the greatest part of these kind of Imposters came out of the East The Persecutions themselves were a sufficient Ground of hatred against the Christians People supposed them Criminals because they were every where treated as such and judged of the greatness of their Crime by the severity of their Punishment Thus they were looked upon as an accursed Race of Mortals Tertul. Ap. c. l. Baron an cxxxviii an v. devoted to destruction and marked out for Flames and Gibbets And to add contumely to Injustice they branded them with ill Names And these are those mighty things which rendered the Christians so odious to the ignorant and unthinking Multitude Upon these wild and general Notions Suetonius and Tacitus following common Fame found all they say concerning the Christians The Emperor Claudius saith Suetonius Judaeos impulsore Chresto assiduè tumultuantes Româ expulit banished the Jews from Rome who at the Instigation of Chrestus were always making disturbances as if Jesus Christ had been then living and the Head of a party among the Jews The same Author reckons Suet. Ner. n. 16. Affecti suppliciis Christiani genus Hominum Superstitionn novae maleficae among the good Actions of Nero his having caused the Christians to be brought to Punishment A Sect saith he of a new and dangerous Superstition Tacitus speaking of Nero's having fired Rome only to divert himself with the sight saith that he charged it upon those who were commonly Tac. xv annal quos per stagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabet called Christians a sort of People who were generally hated for their Practices After which he adds They took their Name from a certain Person called Christ who in the reign of Tiberius Caesar was put to Death by Pontius Pilate But this Pernicious Superstition Repressaque in praesens exitiabilis Superstitio c. after having suffered some little check brake forth a new and spread it self not only throughout all Judea where it took Birth but also to Rome its self the place where every thing that is black and infamous Quo omnia undique atrociā pudenda confluun◠celebranturque seems to Center and Rendesvouse First there were some seized who confessed and upon their discovery vast numbers were Condemned not so much upon the account of the Fire as being a Sacrifice to the common Odium He treats them afterward as a Mischievous sort of People and such as well deserved the most Exemplary Punishments Even the Men of Learning and Ingenuity among them that would Vouchsafe to enter into any examination of the matter were not without their aversions against the Christians Those persons of Learning were either Greeks or Romans who used to dispise other Nations under the notion of Barbarians and above all People the Jews a Nation that had for a long time made but a Despicable Appearance in the World and stood particularly Branded for a People of a ridiculous Superstition and sottish Credulity This may a Jew believe not I saith Horace Credat Judaeus Apella non ego Hor. i. Sat v. speaking of a Prodigy When therefore they were told that there were some Jews who adored as the Son of God a Person that had been publickly put to Death upon the Cross and that the grand Controversy between them and the other Jews was whether this Person was Act. xxv 19. yet Living after his Death and whether he were the true King of the Jews one may readily imagin how Ridiculous these Disputes would appear to the Heathens They saw that those of this new Act. xxviii 22. Sect were hated and Persecuted by all the other Jews so that it often proved an occasion of great Commotions among them and therefore they concluded that these were a worse sort of Jews than all the rest They further Objected that those of this new Religion used neither arguments nor Eloquence to convince Mens Understanding but barely bad them Believe what was told them without disputing it pretending Miracles for all they said That the Greatest part of them were poor ignorant Souls that never looked into any Books but the Writings of the Jews That they set up for Teachers and Instructers but 't was only of People Simple and Ignorant Orig. Com. Cels. like themselves as Women and little People finding them more forward to receive their Doctrine then Persons of Sence and
to give Money to save themselves from being Persecuted And thus by suffering in their Estates they shewed how much less they valued their Temporal concerns than their Spiritual But if any one gave Mony to procure Cypr. Ep. lii ad Anconian Libellatici false Certificates that he had obeyed the Emperors Edicts he was counted in the number of Apostates this being a tacit owning of himself an Idolater The Rules of the Church forbad a Man voluntarily to expose himself to Martyrdom or the doing any thing which might provoke the Heathens and occasion Persecution as the overthrowing their Idols Firing their Temples speaking Contemptuously Orig. Cels viii of their Gods or publickly opposing their Superstitions Not but that there are Examples of holy Mattyrs that have done such like things and of many others who declared themselves and owned their Religion But those extraordinary Persons we must suppose to have been acted by a special impulse so that their singular Examples are not to be drawn into Precedent The general Const Ap. v. c. v. Rule was not to tempt God but to wait with Patience till one was Discovered and called upon by Authority to give an account of his Faith In this matter there were two opposite Haeresies to be avoided the Gnosticks on the one hand and the Marcionites on the other the Gnosticks and Valentinians decried the suffering of Martyrdom as a needless thing alleadging Baron an cxlv n. iii. c. x. an ccv n. xii c. that Christ had died to save us from Death not distinguishing what kind of Death it was that Christ died to save us from They pretended also that flinging away our Lives was to affront God who since he refused the Blood of Bulls and Goats it was not likely that he should delight in the Blood of Men. The Marcionites on the other hand causelesly Bar. an cxlvi n. xii ran themselves upon Martyrdom out of their hatred of the Flesh and of the maker of it who they said was the evil Principle So that the Church found it necessary to make inquiry into the Principles of those that had suffered Death for the Faith to know upon what Grounds they proceeded and whether they deserved to be Honoured as Martyrs and Bar. an cccii n. c. xxvi this seems to have given the Original to Canonisations When the Christians were Apprehended they were caried before the the Magistrate and by him Interrogated in open Court If they denied themselves to be Christians they were generally dismissed upon their own bare Word For they knew that those who were true Christians would never deny their Faith or that if they did once deny themselves to be Christians they would effectually cease to be so Yet sometimes for greater Assurance they made them do upon the spot some act of Idolatry or utter some Contumelious Word against Jesus Christ If they confessed themselves to be Christians then they endeavoured to beat them off from their Constancy first by Perswasions or Promises then by threatnings or if neither of those prevailed at last by Torments They tried also to surprize them into the involuntary Commission of some Impiety and then to make them believe that they had already Renounced their Religion and that 't was now too late to Recant As they were brought upon their Trials in the Court there were always standing near them some Idol and Altar There the Heathens offered Victims in their Presence and tried to make them eat some part of the Sacrifice wrenching open their Mouths and forcing down their Throats some bit of Flesh or at v Can. xiv Petr. Alex. to i Conc. p. 967. Acta SS Tharaci Probi Andron an 290. Mat. xv ii 18. least some drops of Wine offered to the false Gods And though the Christians well knew that not that which goeth into the Mouth defileth a Man but that which proceedeth out of the Heart yet for fear of giving the least occasion of Offence to those that were weak in the Faith they resisted with all their Might Some having live Coals and Incence clapped into St. Cyrilla Martyr v. Jul. their Hands together held them burning there for a long time least in throwing away the Coals they should at the same time seem to offer the Incence The most usual Tortures they were put to was to stretch them out at Length Eqvuleus upon the Rack or Wooden Horse with Cords tyed to their Feet and Hands and drawn at both ends with Pullies or to Hang them up by the Hands with heavy weights fastned to their Feet to beat them with Rods or great Clubs or with Whips stuck with sharp peices of Iron which they called Scorpions or with Thongs of raw Leather or Leather loaded with Balls of Lead so that many of them Dyed under the Blows Others they stretched out at Length Burnt and tore their Flesh and Skin asunder either with Pincers or Iron Curry-Combs so that they often Bared them to the very Ribs and opened the Hollow of their Bowels till the Fire pierced into their Entrails and Choaked them to Death To make their wounds yet more intolerable they some times rubbed them over with Salt and Uinegar and as they began to close up Rip't them open again During all the time of their Torments they were still putting Questions to them and every thing that was Spoken either by the Judge or by the party Suffering was taken down in writing Word for Word by the publick Notaires So that upon every Tryal there was left upon Record a verbal Process far more exact than any of those made now a Days by the Officers of our Courts of Justice For as the Ancients had the Art of Writing by Abreviatures or a sort of short Notes where every single Character stood for a word they wrote as fast as they Spake and took down precisely the very self same Words that were Utter'd making every one Speak directly and in his own Person whereas in our verbal Processes all the Discourse runs in the Third-person and the whole is put into order and worded by the Register These verbal Processes were what they called Acts. The Christians were very careful to get Copies of these Processes against their Brethren And out of those Acts as well as from what they themselves who were present farther observed were the Passions of the Martyrs reduce into Writing and thus Authentically engrossed and preserved in the Churches At Rome St. Clement set up Lib. Poncif in Clem. seven Notaries every one of which had the Charge of this Affair and two Quarters of the City assigned him And St. Cyprian gives it as a special Direction to Cypr. ep xxxvi his Priests and Deacons that they should carefully note the particular Day on which every one suffered Martyrdom The greatest part of these Acts of the Martyrs were lost in the Diocletian Persecution and though Eusebius Cesariensis had made a great Collection of them yet
But that they might not Can. Apost xxiv punish the same fault twice over and out of Reverence to the Sacrament of Orders they imposed on him no other Pennance If any one shall wonder at this Discipline of the Ancients let him consider that the Sins to which Pennance was due were in those Days rarely known among Christians for as with us Persons of Honour who are well Educated and setled in the World seldom fall into those Crimes which bring them so far under the lash of the Law as to make them liable to the infamy of Publick Punishments so of old it did not often happen that Christians so carefully admitted and so well instructed should be guilty of Adultery Homicide or other such like hanious Sins which deserved Death Tertullian declares that the Catholicks were easily distinguished from De praescript c. xli xlii Apol. c. iv v. the Hereticks by the difference of their Behaviour and he boldly upbraids the Heathen that their Goals were filled with none but Heathens like themselves or if any Christians were there it was upon no other account but barely for their being Christians Or if saith he any other Crime can be baid to their charge they are no longer Christians Innocence with us is a necessary Vertue we understand it perfectly as having learned it of God who is the best Master and we practice it with the greatest Care as being obliged to it by that Judge whom we must not dispise THERE were some Christians who XXI Asceticks Virgins Widows Deaconesses Practiced all the Exercises of Pennance without being obliged to them and without being excluded the Sacraments but then it was out of their own voluntary Devotion in imitation of the Lives of the Prophets and St. John the Baptist and following the Councils of St. Paul for Exercising themselves unto Godliness and 1 Tim. iv 7. 1 Cor. ix 27. keeping under the Body to bring it into Subjection These were called Asceticks that is to say Exercisants They generally kept themselves close shut up in their own Houses where they lived in great retirement adding to the usual Frugality of Christians some extraordinary Fasts and Abstinences They kept themselves to what they called Xerophagy that is feeding only upon dry Diets and held out their Fasts to two or three Days together or some times longer They accustomed themselves to wear Sackcloth to walk Bare-Foot to sleep upon the Ground to Watch the greatest part af the Night to be constantly reading the holy Scriptures and as much as was possible to Pray without ceasing Origen Euseb Hist vi c. iii. for some time led this Life and many of these Asceticks became great Bishops Hier. de Script 87. in pierio and Doctors All the Asceticks lived in great Continence and all Christians in general highly admired that Vertue so much recommended by Jesus Christ and his Apostles Just Orat. ad Anton. Pium. A young Man of Alexandria under the reign of the Emperor Antonine presented a Petition to the Governour of that City that he might have a Surgeon allowed him to make him an Eunuch and many there were who did so in good earnest Can. Nic. i. so that the Church was obliged to make a Law on purpose to repress that indiscreet Zeal There were a great number also of young Persons of the Female Sex who Consecrated their Virginity to God either by the Advice of their Parents or of their own proper Motion These Virgins led the Ascetick Life for they did not look upon Virginity as any thing if it v Hier. Ep. de Asellâ were not attended with great Mortification with Silence Retirement Poverty Labour Fastings Watchings and continual Praying They were not esteemed as Virgins who would not deny themselves the common Diversions of the World even the most Innocent as the taking too great a delight in Conversation the affecting a Pleasantness and agreeableness of Humour and Discourse so as to make a shew of their Wit and Ingenuity much less would they endure those that set up for Bells for Dressing Perfuming Long-Trains and moving with an affected Air. St. Cyprian recommends scarce Cypr. de Hab. Virg. any thing else to Christian Virgins but the renouncing all the vain Ornaments of the Body and Ostentation of Beauty He well knew how fond young Women are of such gaudy Trifles and of how pernicious a Consequence they might prove to those of their Profession In the first Ages the Virgins Consecrated to God generally lived at home with their Parents or in private by themselves two and two together never going abroad but when they went to Church where they had a place allotted them to sit by themselves separate from the rest of the Women If Ambros de virg laps c. vi any one violated her Holy Resolution and Married she was enjoined Pennance The Widows who renounced second Marriage passed their time much after the same manner as the Virgins in Fastings v Heir in Ep. Paulae Praying and the other Exercises of the Ascetick Life but they did not keep themselves so close shut up as being more employed in the outward Acts of Charity as in visiting and relieving the Sick and Imprisoned and more especially the Martyrs and Confessors in taking care of the Poor in entertaining and attending upon Strangers in burying the Dead and generally in the Offices of Charity And indeed all Christian Women whether Married or Widows made these kind of Works the greatest of their Employment rarely appearing abroad but upon the doing of some good Office or when they went to Church But the Widows being more at liberty from other Engagements didicated themselves Tertul. ad â—xor c. iv wholly to these Services If they were Rich they liberally Distributed their Alms if they were Poor the Church maintained them They chose for their Deaconesses the most Aged of their Widows 1 Tim. v. 9. of Sixty years or upward the most v Const Apost l. iii. discreet and those who had best approv'd themselves in all the Exercises of Charity This Office was also sometimes assigned to Const Apos vi c. xvi Virgins They were called Deaconesses not as if they were counted of the Clergy for Women cannot partake of any part of the Priest-hood but because they exercised toward the Women some part of the Deacons Office Their business was to visit those of their own Sex whom Poverty Sickness or any other distress rendred proper Objects of the Churches care to instruct the Female Catechumens Con. Apost iii. or rather to repeat to them the Instructions of the Catechist They presented them to Baptism and upon that occasion assisted them in dressing and undressing them and for sometime after overlooked these new Converts to break and Discipline them into a Christian Behaviour In the Church they kept the doors on the Womens side took care to see every one seated in her proper place and that all behaved
press and intrude upon the Bishop himself both out of respect to his Person and for fear of being troublesom So that the Deacons led a very busy Active Life It was necessary for them to walk much about the Town and sometimes they were obliged to take longer Journies and Travail abroad and for that reason they had neither Cloaks nor any Const. Apost ii c. lvii of the larger sort of Garments worn by the Priests but only Tuniques and Dalmaticks to be always more at liberty for Action and Motion HOSPITALITY was commonly XXIII Their Hospitality used even amongst the Heathens themselves Among the Greeks and Romans their Inns and Publick-Houses of Entertainments were rarely frequented by Persons of any Fashion or Quality In every Town where their Concerns might lead Vide Thomassin de Tesser Hospital them they took care to make themselves some particular Friend in whose Family they might be entertained during their Abode in that Place repaying their Friend who entertained them the like Kindness at their own Houses if his occasions ever brought him that way This usage grew to Prescription in Families It was the principal cement of Friendship and Correspondence between the Cities of Greece and Italy and afterward spread over the whole Roman Empire Nay so sacred was this Priviledge of Entertainment that they made it a part of their Religion Jupiter said they Presided over the Affair both the Persons entertained and the Table at which they Eate were counted Sacred 'T is no wonder then that the Christians should be so forward in Exercising Hospitality who lookd upon themselves as Friends and Brothers to one another and who knew that Jesus Christ had recommended Hospitality as one of the Mat. xxv 35. most Meritorious Performances If a Sranger discovered to them that he made Profession of the Orthodox Faith and lived in the Communion of the Church they received him with open Arms. He that should have shut his Doors against such an One would have been thought to have shut out Jesus Christ himself But first they Expected that he should make himself fully known To that purpose those that Travailed took with them Letters from their Bishop And V. Baron An. 142. n. 7. V. Prior. de Lit. Canon these Letters had certain Marks known only to Christians among themselves These Letters gave an account of the Quality and Condition of the Bearer whether he was a Catholick whether after having been an Heretick or Excommunicate he was again Reconciled whether a Catechumen or a Penitent whether in Holy Orders and in what Degree of Orders For the Clergy never Travailed without Dimissory Letters from their Bishops They had also their Recommendatory Letters to Distinguish Persons of Merit as Confessors or Doctors or those who stood in need of any particular Assistance The first Act of Hospitality was to wash the Feet of their Guests Instances of which we meet with often in Scripture And this was but a necessary Manners of the Israelites in English Pag. 77. 1 Tim. v. 10. Refreshment considering what sort of Shoes they anciently Wore And therefore St. Paul joyns the Lodging of Strangers and the washing of their Feet together If the Guest was in full Communion with the Church they joyned in Prayer and gave him all the respect of the House As to Pray before them to sit uppermost at Table to Instruct the Family They counted themselves Happy in having his Company and looked upon their Meat as in some sort Sanctifyed by his taking part with them The Clergy were every where Honoured proportionably to the Station they held in the Church If a Bishop Traveled he was in all places where he passed invited to perform the Office and to Preach among Const Ap. ii c. 58. them shewing thereby the Unity of the Priest-hood and of the Church There have been some Saints to whom their Hospitality in entertaining the Clergy or such others as came to preach the Gospel proved the occasion of their Martyrdom as Martyr xxii Jun. id 11. Decem. the Famous St. Alban in England and St. Gentian at Amiens The Christians were Hospitable even toward the Infidels themselves Thus they Executed with a great Forwardness of Affection the orders of their Prince obliging them to Lodge his Soldiers Officers or others Travailing upon the Service of the State and to furnish them Vie de St. Pacomre c. iv with Provisions St. Pacomus having Listed himself very Young into the Roman Army he and the Party to which he belonged were Embarqued on Ship board and Landed at a certain little City were he was amazed to see with what Civilities the Inhabitants received them Treating them not like Soldiers but as if they had been their Old Friends and Acquaintance And upon inquiry who they were he was told they were a People of a particular Religion called Christians From that time he informed himself of their Doctrine and this was the Occasion of his Conversion THE Christians took great care to visit XXIV Their Care of the Sick and Burial of the Dead Mat. xxv 36. Dionys. Alex ap Euseb 7. Hist c. 22. the Sick an Office of Charity so much Recommended in the Gospel The City of Alexandria being afflicted with a great Mortality under the Emperor Valerian The Christians readily took that opportunity of shewing their Charity even towards their Persecutors They so freely offered themselves to assist the Sick under their Extremities that many both of the Clergy and Laicks Dyed themselves of the common Distemper and were honoured as Martyrs The Priests visited such Christians as were Sick to Comfort them to Pray by them and Administer to them the Sacraments In such Cases the Viaticum was given only under the Species of Bread and in case of Necessity might be carryed to them by a Laick as appears by the History of Old Serapion Besides the unction of the Consecrated Euseb vi Hist. xliv Jam. 5. 14. Oil administred by the authority of St. James Sick Persons were often recovered by the Application of another Oil called the Oleum Benedictum or Blessed Oil which was Indifferently applyed either to the Faithful or Infidels either by V. Baron an lxiii n. 16. Priests or Laicks according as they had received the gift of Miracles some times they made use of the Oil of the Lamps for this purpose which were kept Burning before the Tombs of the Martyrs The Heathen having no hopes after this Life ended looked upon Death either purely as an Evil which deprived them of the Enjoyments of this World or as Adeone me delirare censes ut ista credam Cic. Tus. Quest. l. i. n. vi Nec Pueri credunt Juven an Aunihilation that Delivere them from all the Sufferings of it There were scarce any among them that gave any Credit to the Fabulous Tales of the Poets concerning the Punishments and Rewards of another Life So that as for Dying Persons their Business
Princes Magistrates and the secular Authority They were never heard complaning against the Government nor ever spake contemptuously of the Civil Power They gave them all the honour and obedience they could on this side Idolatry they paid their Tributes not only without resisting but without repining and rather then defraud them of their Rights if they had not otherwise to answer they made it up out of the labour of their Hands So far were they from raising Sedition Tertul. Apol. c. xxxv xxxvi xxxvil or Rebellions that in all the many Conspiracies which were formed against the Emperors one after another for the space of three hundred years no Christian was ever found to have had an Hand in any of them tho' the Emperors were never so bad and the Persecutors never so cruel The Christians were the only Persons who did not make it their business to get rid of Nero Domitian Commodus Caracalla and so many other Tyrants Opprest and Harrassed as they were with all sorts of injuries and groaning under the most unheard of Cruelties Yet it never entered into their Thoughts to resist the Powers or to take up Arms in their own Defence though they were numerous enough to have made up a greater Body of Men than any of the Nations could that made War against the Romans Nay more than that of so many Christian Soldiers with which the Roman Armies were filled none ever made use of the Sword they had in their Hands but to Execute the Orders of their Prince or their Commanders and we read of entire Legions as that of St. Mauritius that without the lest resistance suffered themselves to be cut to pieces rather than to fail of doing their Duty either to God or Caesar Scarce could they perswade themselves so much as to open their Mouths in their own Defence and Publish some answers to those horrid Calumnies most wrongfully laid to their Charge For near the Orig. Cont. Cels init space of an Age they were content to suffer with silence after the Example of their Master who answered nothing to his Accusers but without resistance submitted himself to the unrighteous Judge v. 1 Pet. ii 21. They were content to be justifyed by their works and let their Actions plead their Cause 'T was not till the Emperor Adrian that they began to Write some Apologies but those in so respectful a manner so Solid and so Grave as made it v. Euseb iv Hist iii. xxv plainly appear that it was only Zeal for the Truth made them take Pen in Hand This invincible Patience at last surmounted all opposition and forced the Powers of this World to submit to the Power of the Gospel Even under the Persecutions the number of Christians was grown Prodigiously great We are saith Tertullian but of Yesterday and Apol. c. xxxvii yet the World is filled with us your Cities your Houses your Garrisons your Villages your Colonies your very Camps your Tribes your Pallaces your Senate your Courts of Justice And indeed there were Christians of all Degrees and some of the first Martyrol 18. Apr. x. c. 19 Ma. xix Aug. xiii Sept. viii Oct. Martyrol Martii xii xxvi Mai. xvii xix Jun. xx Jul. Quality We see in the Martyrology Senators Prefects Proconsuls Tribunes Quaestors and even Consuls themselves we find Christians in the Court and among the Domesticks and principal Officers of the Emperors as under Nero Trajan Alexander Decius Valerian Diocletian The Court of Diocletian served also iii. Sept. v. Oct. xviii Euseb vi Hist xxviii Act. S. Sebast S. Susan sometimes for a safe retreat to the most Zealous Confessors of Rome The Pope St. Gaius and St. Gabinius the Father of St. Susanna were his own Nephews and St. Serena his Empress was a Martyr The People affected with these vertues of the Christians and with the many Miracles wrought among them began at length to do them Justice loudly declaring that great was the God of the Christians Acta S. Bonif an 305 Martyrol Ja. iii. Feb. xvi xvii xxvii Mar. ix xxvii 30. Mai. 31. Jun. 30 Jul. 7. Aug. 21. Sept. 20 25. Oct. 10. 19. Nov. 26. Dec. 3. and that the Christians were Innocent Persons It sometimes happened that as they were Tormenting the Martyrs the common People themselves whom this sight had drawn together took part with the Christians on their own accord and Pelted the Magistrate with Stones off this Tribunal and made him fly the Court. The Clerks of the Court the Goalers the Soldiers the Executioners were many times all on a suddain Converted openly calling out that they were Christians too and offering themselves to the same Punishments Even Comaedians themselves as they were in Derision Martyrol 25. Aug. 15 Sept. Baron an 303. n. 118 acting upon the Stage the sacred My steries have been Converted on the spot and made Illustrious Martyrs Hence proceeded the extream violence of the last Persecution They saw the whole World turning Christian And this last Persecution also as all the former had done served only to spread it farther and give it the deeper Rooting So that all the World bare a favourable Aspect toward Religion when Constantine declared himself the Protector of it Part III. I AM now come to the third part of my Work where I am to represent the XXVII The Church out of Persecution Behaviour of the Christians when the Church came to be in a state of Peace and Liberty For three hundred years they had been longing and sighing after these happy Days of serving God without any lett or hindrance But experience as sad as it was taught them that Persecution was more for the advantage of Religion than Liberty Not but that the same Manners before described continued yet a long time after So that I have nothing to do here but to observe those differences which the free exercise of Religion forthwith produced Though they had always used great The Examination and Preparation for Baptism care in Examining such as demanded Baptism yet there was now required a far greater Circumspection when there was no longer any danger to become a Christian For Worldly Interest and diverse other bad Motives might make Men desirous of taking upon them that Name Therefore every one that presented himself v. Methodedos Pere c. iii. ix to Baptism was in the first place taken into strict Examination and obliged to give an account of the causes of his Conversion of his Condition in the World whether he was a Slave or a Freeman of his Behaviour and of his past Life They who lived in any unlawful Const Ap. viii c. 32. S. Aug. xi de serm dom in mont Calling or in a customary way of Sinning were not admitted till they had actually renounced that course of Life Thus they rejected all common Women and those that made a Trade of Prostituting their Bodies Actors upon the Stage Gladiators Racers in the Circus
War with the Bishop himself They were forced therefore to be content with the private Masses of their Chaplains or the Office of the Neighbouring Monasteries But the Monks were never designed for the business of Preaching nor could they without their own Walls exercise any thing of Discipline or Correction In the ninth Age we find the Conc. Ticin an 855. c. iv Agob de priv Sacerd Theodulph c. xlv 46. Hom. Leon. P. P. iv Bishops complaining that all the People of Estate and Quality had forsaken the Parish Churches and earnesty pressing it upon them that they would vouchsase to shew themselves there at least at the solemn seasons So they called those Feasts on which they thought all Christians obliged to Communicate which were these four viz. Christmas Holy Thursday Easter and Whitsontide Nor were the common People better instructed than their Nobility except in some Citys where they had good Bishops For most of the Bishops themselves Preached so very seldom that we find there were many Canons made requiring them to explain to the People in the Vulgar Language the Creed and the Lords Prayer that is to say the first Rudiments of Religion or as we now call it the Catechism In this gross darkness who could have imagined how far Ignorance and Credulity might improve but that we have the Marks of it still extant in the Old Legends of those times The Priests and Clergy were in too mean a Capacity themselves to be able to instruct others Under those Universal Hostilities with which the World was then Harassed they were also forced to take up Arms in their own Defence and with Sword in Hand to secure the temporalities of the Church by which they Subsisted Many of them were by their Poverty necessitated to betake themselves to sordid Employments or else to travel about from Province to Province till they could meet with some Bishop or Lord to entertain them Being Reduced to such a Condition how could they pursue their Studies or lead Lives Conformable to their orders 'T was only in some few Cathedrals and Monasteries that a regular Course of Studying and the exact Rules of a Religious Life were preserved and maintained All this while the Monks Conc. Aquisgran an 817. and Canons were notoriously degenerated from their Primitive Constitution as one may see by those excellent Regulations which Lewis the Debonnaire made to reestablish their Discipline But the Confusions following put them into a worse state than they were in before The greatest part of the Monasteries were Plunder'd Burnt and Ruin'd by the Normans the Monks and Canons Massacred or dispersed and forced to Live in the World again This Ignorance and Poverty to which the Clergy and Monks were reduced so debased their Spirits that they soon became insensible of the Sufferings of the Church in general and little minded any thing else than how to secure their own Stakes and Live at Ease themselves Thus Simony came to be a common practise Concubinage was so too and often maintained with great Impudence especially in Germany where Religion ever had a weak footing These Ignorant Clerks who never looked upon their Ministry as any thing else than meerly a Trade to get a Livelihood who Lived every one by themselves without applying to their Studies or their Prayers but very much to their secular Affairs did not uuderstand the reasons of Celibacy and looked upon the enjoyning it as an Insupportable Tyrany This was the cause of the Rage they expressed against Pope Gregory the Seventh and all others who were for taking away this occasion of Offence Under these Publick Calamities one may easily imagin ho wmiserably the Poor were neglected How could they be releived by the Clergy who had so much ado to live themselves or where could they receive Alms in the times of such dreadful Famines as happened in these Ages where we often read of Mens being reduced to feed on human Flesh Nor was Commerce in those Days sufficiently open to have the wants of one Country supplyed out of the abundance of Conc. Calchut in Ang. 787. Tribur 89â— de consecr dist i. c. 45. another The Church found it difficult to perserve its Consecrated Plate 'T is in these times we see the Prohibition of the use of Calices of Horn Glass Wood or Copper and the permission of them of Tin Not but that the Churches had still vast Patrimonies but that served only as a Bait to the Princes and Lords the more greedily to invade them The Bishopricks were often usurped by Persons altogether unqualified who seized them by violence Many times a Neighbouring Lord would by main force of Arms place a Son of his under Age in the Episcopal See to Plunder the Church under his Name Rome its self was not secured from these disorders the Petit Neighbouring Tyrants insulted her most and during the tenth Age we meet with nothing but violent Intrusions and Expulsions in this principal See where till now Ecclesiastical Discipline had been all along maintained in its Genuine Purity Councils were very rarely held by reason of the difficulty of their meeting and the universal Commotions which were such that they could not safely pass from one City to another Thus not only the Diseases of the Church were desperate but even the Remedies were hard to come at The Precedents and Rules of the former Ages were by little and little lost and forgotten by seeing Crimes pass unpunished Men ventured more boldly upon them and thus they were at first accustomed to them and at last hardned in them It was now no longer an ordinary Distemper but a plain loss of Sense and a Spiritual Lethargy Every one was a Christian but in such a manner as if they had thought it a bare priviledge of Nature and the Christian and the Man had been the same thing There was now no longer a distinction Christianity was little more than a Custom of the Country and scarce discovered it self in any thing else than in some external Formalities As for Vertues and Vices there was hardly any difference between Christians and Jews or Infidels but only in Ceremonies which have not force sufficient for the reforming Mens Manners HAD not the Christian Religion been the work of God it could never have XLIX The preservation of Religion Ps xlvi 5. weathered out so violent a Storm But he hath plainly shewn That he is in the midst of his Church and that all the Revolutions of Affairs are not able to overthrow her on the contrary the power of the Gospel in a most wonderful manner shined forth in these miserable times How much soever ignorance prevailed yet all the World acknowledged and adored the one only God Creator of the universe and Jesus Christ the Saviour of Mankind All the World believed a future Judgment and the Life to come all the great principles of Morality were every where received and acknowledged whereas in the most enlightned times of ancient Greece they
were always doubted and disputed even by the Philosophers themselves 'T is true these principles were but ill practiced and though none called the truth of them into Question yet few pursued them to their necessary Consequences so as to lead their Lives in conformity to them But the Morals of Christianity failed not to produce some good effect even upon those that were no good Christians It prevented a world of mischief it softned the most Barbarious People and V. Euseb i. Prae. Evan. c. iii c. made them more tractable and Humane If they did not avoid all Crimes yet many of them repented at least and did Penance or if they did not do that yet in their own Consciences they condemned and disapproved of them In a Word Christianity in all places where it prevailed gave a general Tincture of Humanity Modesly and Decency of Behaviour not to be met with any where else In these times of which I am now speaking when the Face of the Church appeared so disfigured in general yet there were great Doctors and great Saints of all Conditions in all parts of the West in France the Monastick discipline began to raise up its head by the Foundation of the famous Monastery of Cluny whose first Abbots St. Odon and St. Majolus are renowned both for their Life and Doctrine In Italy St. Romualdus founded the Monastery of Camaldoli with many others and had many eminent Disciples We see in the same times many holy Bishops of an extraordinary Zeal for Religion a St. Dunstan in England a St. Vdalric in Germany a St. Adelbert in Bohemia the Apostle of the Sclavi and a Martyr We see St. Boniface also a Martyr in Russia St. Bruno in Prussia St. Gerard a noble Venetian Bishop and Martyr in Hungary and many others who by their Preachings their Holiness and their Miracles continued down the Tradition of sound Doctrine and Ecclesiastical discipline In the same Age we have amongst the Laity many Saints even of the greatest Lords as St. Gerald Count of Aurillac St. Stephen King of Hungary and St. Emeric his Son the Emperor St. Henry King Robert In these Saints particularly those of the Nations newly Converted as St. Henry and St. Stephen we may see what dispositions towards Vertue were found in those Nations whom the Romans called Barbarians They were naturally great observers of common Equity generously Plain and Open-hearted Chast Despisers of Pleasure and sensual satisfaction lovers of Justice Hospitality and Alms-giving When these Serious Sincere and Couragious People had once made trial of the Christian Religion they Embraced it heartily They never sought after Niceties in the Interpretation of it nor were they staggered at any of the difficulties it contained 'T is true their Conduct was not always so consistent and uniform as that of the ancient Greeks and Romans but then they were greater Strangers to Hypocrisy 'T was by the special Care and Authority of these Holy Persons that the Publick Peace began to be re-established by making all the Lords swear to the Truce Glab li. v. c. i. an 1041. of God so they called the Cessation of all acts of Hostility from Wednesday Night to Munday Morning in every Week and all that time the Clergy Monks Pilgrims and Labourers in Husbandry were to be unmolested This Truce was established Cap. i. extr de trev pa. in many Councils under the pain of Excommunication such force had Religion upon the Minds of Men when the very Foundations of civil Society were almost overthrown In these times also we meet with frequent mention of Excommunication against those who should strike a Clergy-man this was a thing never thought of in the First Ages Their own Dignity was then thought a sufficient Protection to them but they were now every Day exposed to the utmost Violences THE Normans had destroyed a great L. The restablishment of Piety and discipline number of Churches and others were suffered to run to Ruin upon the false Opinion they had That the end of the World would be precisely in the Thousandth Year of our Lord but when they Glab lib. saw that the World still stood after that fatal Year they began every where to build Churches again and that after the most magnificent manner they were capable of in that Age always more stately than any dwelling Houses not only of private Persons but of the chiefest Nobility They annexed to them large Endowments though for the most part they were no more than the Restitution of Tythes and the other Gods usurp'd in the late disorders Great care was every where used for the recovery of Relicks and great cost was spent in adorning them with the most precious Jewels that could be got as we may still see in the Treasuries of the most ancient Churches They applyed themselves also at the same time to the restoring of the use of singing in Churches and the other Solemnities of divine Service 'T was in the Eleventh Century that Guido Monk of Arezzo in Tuscany invented the Notes and introduced that Method which is the Foundation of all modern Musick The Religious Princes I have before mentioned both by their Liberalities and by their Examples favoured all these good designs Part of the Responses which are now sung were composed by King Robert and he Helgand vit Rob. thought it an honour to perform the Office of a Chanter publickly in the Church I find no Age in which the long Psalmody was more in Vogue as one may see by the Rule of the Carthusians and the other Orders Baron ad Martyrol ii Nov. of those times The Monks of Cluny brought into common use the Office for the Dead and soon after commenced the little Office of the Virgin Many had devotion enough to repeat over every Day the Petr. Dam. li. 6. ep 32. whole Book of Psalms As the number of their Offices increased so did also their Masses and Altars Domestick Chappels were exceeding numerous every Lord would have one to himself within the Walls of his own Castle that so he might not in the War-time be without the Mass and other Services of the Church but there was a mixture of Vanity in the Case they loved to have Chaplians in their Family and disdained the publick Churches where they were undistinguished from the common People In the mean time it was impossible that this multitude of Offices Celebrated in so many different places should appear with the same advantage as it would have done had there been but one Form or Office performed and directed by the Bishop assisted by all his Clergy as it was the manner of the Ages foregoing Besides the Reason of a great many of the Ceremonies was now forgotten and yet the Forms were still kept up by Tradition and the notion of the ancient Politeness was quite lost so that from these times we see not the same care taken as was formerly to erect their Churches at a convenient