the Emperours themselves to shew what veneration they have for this time commanding all Suits and Processes at Law to cease Tribunal-doors to be shut up and Prisoners to be set free imitating herein their great Lord and Master who by his death at this time delivered us from the prison and the chains of sin meaning herein those Laws of Theodosius Gratian and Valentinian which we lately mentioned We proceed now to enquire what other Festivals there were in those first Ages of the Church which I find to be chiefly these Easter Whitsuntide and Epiphany which comprehended two Christmass and Epiphany properly so called I reckon them not in their proper order but as I suppose them to have taken place in the Church Of these Easter challenges the precedence both for its antiquity and the great stir about it that in and from the very times of the Apostles besides the weekly returns of the Lords day there has been always observed an Anniversary Festival in memory of Christs Resurrection no man can doubt that has any insight into the affairs of the ancient Church all the dispute was about the particular time when it was to be kept which became a matter of as famous a Controversie as any that in those Ages exercised the Christian world The state of the case was briefly this the Churches of Asia the less kept their Easter upon the same day whereon the Jews celebrated their Passover viz. upon the 14. day of the first Month which always began with the appearance of the Moon mostly answering to our March and this they did upon what day of the week soever it fell and hence were stiled Quartodecimans because keeping Easter quarta decima Luna upon the 14. day after the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or appearance of the Moon The other Churches and especially those of the West did not follow this custom but kept Easter upon the Lords day following the day of the Jewish Passover partly the more to honour the day and partly to distinguish between Jews and Christians the Asiaticks pleaded for themselves the practice of the Apostles Polycarpus Bishop of Smyrna who had lived and conversed with them having kept it upon that day together with S. John and the rest of the Apostles as Irenaeus who himself knew Polycarpus and doubtless had it from his own mouth speaks in a Letter about this very thing though himself was of the other side And Polycrates in a Letter to the same purpose instances not only in S. John but S. Philip the Apostle who himself and his whole Family used so to keep it from whom it had been conveyed down in a constant and uninterrupted observance through all the Bishops of those places some whereof he there enumerates and tells us that seven Bishops of that place in a constant succession had been his Kinsmen and himself the eighth and that it had never been kept by them upon any other day this we are not so to understand as if S. John and the Apostles had instituted this Festival and commanded it to be observed upon that day but rather that they did it by way of condescension accommodating their practice in a matter indifferent to the humour of the Jewish Converts whose number in those parts was very great as they had done before in several other cases and particularly in observing the Sabbath or Saturday The other Churches also says Eusebius had for their patronage an Apostolical Tradition or at least pretended it and were the much more numerous party This difference was the spring of great bustles in the Church for the Bishops of Rome stickled hard to impose their custom upon the Eastern Churches whereupon Polycarpus comes over to Rome to confer with Anicetus who was then Bishop about it and though they could not agree the matter yet they parted fairly After this Pope Victor renewed the quarrel and was so fierce and peremptory in the case that he either actually did or as a learned man inclines rather to think probably to mollifie the odium of the Fact severely threatned to excommunicate those Eastern Churches for standing out against it this rash and bold attempt was ill resented by the sober and moderate men of his own party who writ to him about it and particularly Irenaeus a man as Eusebius notes truly answering his name both in his temper and his life quiet and peaceable who gravely reproved him for renting the peace of the Church and troubling so many famous Churches for observing the customs derived to them from their Ancestors with much more to the same purpose But the Asian Bishops little regarded what was either said or done at Rome and still went on in their old course though by the diligent practices of the other party they lost ground but yet still made shift to keep the cause on foot till the time of Constantine who finding this controversie amongst others much to disquiet the peace of the Church did for this and some other reasons summon the great Council of Nice by whom this question was solemnly determined Easter ordained to be kept upon one and the same day throughout the world not according to the custom of the Jews but upon the Lords day and this Decree ratified and published by the imperial Letters to all the Churches The Eve of Vigils or this Festival were wont to be celebrated with more than ordinary pomp with solemn watchings with multitudes of lighted Torches both in the Churches and their own private houses so as to turn the night it self into day and with the general resort and confluence of all ranks of men both Magistrates and people This custom of lights at that time was if not begun at least much augmented by Constantine who set up Lamps and Torches in all places as well within the Churches as without that through the whole City the night seemed to outvye the Sun at Noonday And this they did as Nazianzen intimates as a Prodromus or forerunner of that great light even the Sun of righteousness which the next day arose upon the world For the Feast it self the same Father calls it the holy and famous Passover a day which is the Queen of days the Festival of Festivals and which as far excels all other even of those which are instituted to the honour of Christ as the Sun goes beyond the other Stars A time it was famous for works of mercy and charity every one both of Clergy and Laity striving to contribute liberally to the poor a duty as one of the Ancients observes very congruous and sutable to that happy season for what more fit than that such as beg relief should be enabled to rejoice at that time when we remember the common fountain of our mercies Therefore no sooner did the morning of this day appear but Constantine used to arise and in imitation of the love and kindness of our blessed Saviour to bestow
we are here we must worship God with respect to our present state and consequently of necessity have some definite and particular time to do it in Now that man might not be left to a floating uncertainty in a matter of so great importance in all Ages and Nations men have been guided by the very dictates of Nature to pitch upon some certain seasons wherein to assemble and meet together to perform the publick offices of Religion What and how many were the publick Festivals instituted and observed either amongst Jews or Gentiles I am not concerned to take notice of For the ancient Christians they ever had their peculiar seasons their solemn and stated times of meeting together to perform the common duties of Divine Worship of which because the Lords-Day challenges the precedency of all the rest we shall begin first with that And being unconcern'd in all the controversies which in the late times were raised about it I shall only note some instances of the piety of Christians in reference to this day which I have observed in passing through the Writers of those times For the name of this day of Publick Worship it is sometimes especially by Justin Martyr and Tertullian called Sunday because it hapned upon that day of the week which by the Heathens was dedicated to the Sun and therefore as being best known to them the Fathers commonly made use of it in their Apologies to the Heathen Governours This title continued after the world became Christian and seldom it is that it passes under any other name in the Imperial Edicts of the first Christian Emperours But the more proper and prevailing name was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Dies Dominica the Lords-day as 't is called by S. John himself as being that day of the Week whereon our Lord made his triumphant return from the dead this Justin Martyr assures us was the true original of the title upon Sunday says he we all assemble and meet together as being the first day wherein God parting the darkness from the rude chaos created the world and the same day whereon Jesus Christ our Saviour rose again from the dead for he was crucified the day before Saturday and the day after which is Sunday he appeared to his Apostles and Disciples by this means observing a kind of analogy and proportion with the Jewish Sabbath which had been instituted by God himself For as that day was kept as a commemoration of Gods Sabbath or resting from the work of Creation so was this set apart to religious uses as the solemn memorial of Christs resting from the work of our redemption in this world compleated upon the day of his resurrection Which brings into my mind that custom of theirs so universally common in those days that whereas at other times they kneeled at prayers on the Lords day they always prayed standing as is expresly affirmed both by Justin Martyr and Tertullian the reason of which we find in the Authour of the Questions and Answers in J. Martyr it is says he that by this means we may be put in mind both of our fall by sin our resurrection or restitution by the grace of Christ that for six days we pray upon our knees is in token of our fall by sin but that on the Lords day we do not bow the knee does symbolically represent our resurrection by which through the grace of Christ we are delivered from our sins and the powers of death this he there tells us was a custom deriv'd from the very times of the Apostles for which he cites Irenaeus in his Book concerning Easter And this custom was maintained with so much vigour that when some began to neglect it the great Council of Nice took notice of it and ordained that there should be a constant uniformity in this case and that on the Lords day and at such other times as were usual men should stand when they made their prayers to God So fit and reasonable did they think it to do all possible honour to that day on which Christ rose from the dead Therefore we may observe all along in the sacred story that after Christs resurrection the Apostles and primitive Christians did especially assemble upon the first day of the week and whatever they might do at other times yet there are many passages that intimate that the first day of the week was their more solemn time of meeting on this day it was that they were met together when our Saviour first appeared to them and so again the next week after on this day they were assembled when the Holy Ghost so visibly came down upon them when Peter preached that excellent Sermon converted and baptized three thousand souls Thus when S. Paul was taking his leave at Troas upon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break Bread i.e. as almost all agree to celebrate the holy Sacrament he preached to them sufficiently intimating that upon that day 't was their usual custom to meet in that manner and elsewhere giving directions to the Church of Corinth as he had done in the like case to other Churches concerning their contributions to the poor suffering Brethren he bids them lay it aside upon the first day of the week which seems plainly to respect their religious assemblies upon that day for then it was that every one according to his ability deposited something for the relief of the poor and the uses of the Church After the Apostles the Christians constantly observed this day meeting together for prayer expounding and hearing of the Scriptures celebration of the Sacraments and other publick duties of Religion Vpon the day called Sunday says J. Martyr all of us that live either in City or Country meet together in one place and what they then did he there describes of which afterwards This doubtless Pliny meant when giving Trajan an account of the Christians he tells him that they were wont to meet together to worship Christ stato die upon a set certain day by which he can be reasonably understood to design no other but the Lords day for though they probably met at other times yet he takes notice of this only either because the Christians whom he had examin'd had not told him of their meeting at other times or because this was their most publick and solemn convention and which in a manner swallowed up the rest By the violent persecutions of those times the Christians were forced to meet together before day so Pliny in the same place tells the Emperour that they assembled before day-light to sing their morning hymns to Christ Whence it is that Tertullian so often mentions their nocturnal convocations for putting the case that his Wife after his decease should marry with a Gentile-Husband amongst other inconveniencies he asks her whether she thought he would be willing to let her rise from his Bed to go to their night-meetings
Correspondent to which the Canons called Apostolical and the Council of Antioch ordain that if any Presbyter setting light by his own Bishop shall withdraw and set up separate meetings and erect another Altar i. e. says Zonaras keep unlawful Conventicles preach privately and administer the Sacrament that in such a case he shall be deposed as ambitious and tyrannical and the people communicating with him be excommunicate as being factious and schismatical only this not to be done till after the third admonition After all that has been said I might further show what esteem and value the first Christians had of the Lords day by those great and honourable things they have spoken concerning it of which I 'll produce but two passages the one is that in the Epistle ad Magnesios which if not Ignatius must yet be acknowledged an ancient Authour Let every one says he that loves Christ keep the Lords day Festival the resurrection day the Queen and Empress of all days in which our life was raised again and death conquered by our Lord and Saviour The other that of Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria who speaks thus that both custom and reason challenge from us that we should honour the Lords day and keep it Festival seeing on that day it was that our Lord Jesus Christ compleated his resurrection from the dead Next to the Lords day the Sabbath or Saturday for so the word Sabbatum is constantly used in the Writings of the Fathers when speaking of it as it relates to Christians was held by them in great veneration and especially in the Eastern parts honoured with all the publick Solemnities of Religion For which we are to know that the Gospel in those parts mainly prevailing amongst the Jews they being generally the first Converts to the Christian Faith they still retained a mighty reverence for the Mosaick Institutions and especially for the Sabbath as that which had been appointed by God himself as the memorial of his rest from the work of Creation setled by their great Master Moses and celebrated by their Ancestors for so many Ages as the solemn day of their publick Worship and were therefore very loth that it should be wholly antiquated and laid aside For this reason it seemed good to the prudence of those times as in others of the Jewish Rites so in this to indulge the humour of that people and to keep the Sabbath as a day for religious offices Hence they usually had most parts of Divine Service performed upon that day they met together for publick Prayers for reading the Scriptures celebration of the Sacraments and such like duties This is plain not only from some passages in Ignatius and Clemens his Constitutions but from Writers of more unquestionable credit and authority Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria tells us that they assembled on Saturdays not that they were infected with Judaism but only to worship Jesus Christ the Lord of the Sabbath and Socrates speaking of the usual times of their publick meeting calls the Sabbath and the Lords day the weekly Festivals on which the Congregation was wont to meet in the Church for the performance of Divine Services Therefore the Council of Laodicea amongst other things decreed that upon Saturdays the Gospels and other Scriptures should be read that in Lent the Eucharist should not be celebrated but upon Saturday and the Lords day and upon those days only in the time of Lent it should be lawful to commemorate and rehearse the names of Martyrs Upon this day also aswel as upon Sunday all Fasts were severely prohibited an infallible argument they counted it a Festival day one Saturday in the year only excepted viz. that before easter-Easter-day which was always observed as a solemn Fast Things so commonly known as to need no proof But though the Church thought fit thus far to correspond with Jewish Converts as solemnly to observe the Sabbath yet to take away all offence and to vindicate themselves from compliance with Judaism they openly declared that they did it only in a Christian way and kept it not as a Jewish Sabbath as is expresly affirmed by Athanasius Nazianzen and others and the forementioned Laodicean Synod has a Canon to this purpose that Christians should not judaize and rest from all labour on the Sabbath but follow their ordinary works i. e. so far as consisted with their attendance upon the publick Assemblies and should not entertain such thoughts of it but that still they should prefer the Lords day before it and on that day rest as Christians but if any were found to judaize they should be accursed Thus stood the case in the Eastern Church in those of the West we find it somewhat different amongst them it was not observed as a religious Festival but kept as a constant Fast the reason whereof as 't is given by Pope Innonocent in an Epistle to the Bishop of Eugubium where he treats of this very case seems most probable if says he we commemorate Christs resurrection not only at Easter but every Lords day and fast upon Friday because 't was the day of his passion we ought not to pass by Saturday which is the middle-time between the days of grief and joy the Apostles themselves spending those two days viz. Friday and the Sabbath in great sorrow and heaviness and he thinks no doubt ought to be made but that the Apostles fasted upon those two days whence the Church had a Tradition that the Sacraments were not to be administred on those days and therefore concludes that every Saturday or Sabbath ought to be kept a Fast To the same purpose the Council of Illiberis ordained that a Saturday Festival was an errour that ought to be reformed and that men ought to fast upon every Sabbath But though this seems to have been the general practice yet it did not obtain in all places of the West alike In Italy it self 't was otherwise at Milain where Saturday was a Festival and 't is said in the life of S. Ambrose who was Bishop of that See that he constantly dined as well upon Saturday as the Lords day it being his custom to dine upon no other days but those and the memorials of the Martyrs and used also upon that day to preach to the people though so great was the prudence and moderation of that good man that he bound not up himself in these indifferent things but when he was at Millain he dined upon Saturdays and when he was at Rome he fasted as they did upon those days This S. Augustine assures us he had from his own mouth for when his Mother Monica came after him to Millain where he then resided she was greatly troubled to find the Saturday Fast not kept there as she had found it in other places for her satisfaction he immediately went to consult S. Ambrose then Bishop of that place who told him he could give him no better
advice in the cause that to do as he did When I come to Rome said he I fast on the Saturday as they do at Rome when I am here I do not fast So likewise you to whatsoever Church you come observe the custom of that place if you mean not either to give or take offence With this answer he satisfied his Mother and ever after when he thought of it looked upon it as an Oracle sent from Heaven So that even in Italy the Saturday Fast was not universally observed Nay a very learned man and a Bishop of the Roman Church thinks it highly probable that for the first Ages especially Saturday was no more kept as a Fast at Rome than in the Churches of the East though the great argument whereby he would establish it viz. because some Latine Churches who must needs follow the pattern of the Church of Rome did not keep it so is very infirm and weak and needs no more than that very instance of the Church of Millain to refute it which though under the Popes nose did not yet keep that day as a Fast although this was many years after it had been so established and observed at Rome And now that I am got into this business I shall once for all dispatch the matter about their Fasts before I proceed to their other Festivals 'T is certain the ancient Christians had two sorts of solemn Fasts weekly and annual Their weekly Fasts called Jejunia quartae sextae seriae were kept upon Wednesdays and Fridays appointed so as we are told for this reason because on Wednesday our Lord was betrayed by Judas on Friday he was crucified by the Jews This custom Epiphanius how truly I know not refers to the Apostles and elsewhere tells us that those days were observed as Fasts through the whole world These Fasts they called their Stations not because they stood all the while but by an allusion to the military Stations and keeping their Guards as Tertullian observes they kept close at it and they usually lasted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Epiphanius informs us till the ninth hour i. e. till three of the Clock in the Afternoon at which time having ended their Fast devotions they received the Eucharist and then broke up the Station and went home whence it is that Tertullian calls them stationum semijejunia the half Fasts of Stations and he seems to censure the practice of some who having privately resolved upon an entire Fast of the whole day refused to receive the Eucharist at the publick stationary Fasts because they thought that by eating and drinking the sacramental Elements they put a period to their fasting for it was usual in those times with many after the stationary Fasts were ended to continue and hold on the Fast until the evening The Historian tells us that it had been a very ancient custom in the Church of Alexandria upon these days to have the Scriptures read and expounded and all other parts of Divine Service except the celebration of the Sacrament and that it was chiefly in those days that Origen was wont to teach the people whether the omitting of the Sacrament then might be a peculiar custom to that Church I know not certain I am 't was upon those days administred in other places So S. Basil enumerating the times how oft they received it every week expresly puts Wednesday and Friday into the number The remains of these primitive Stations are yet observed in our Church at this day which by her 15. Canon has ordained That though Wednesdays and Fridays be not holy days yet that weekly upon those times Minister and People shall resort to Church at the accustomed hours of prayer Their Annual Fast was that of Lent by way of preparation to the Feast of our Saviours Resurrection this though not in the modern use of it was very ancient though far from being an◠Apostolical Canon as a learned Prelate of our Church has fully proved From the very first Age of the Christian Church 't was customary to fast before Easter but for how long it was variously observed according to different times and places some fasting so many days others so many weeks and some so many days on each week and 't is most probably thought that it was at first stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Quadragesima not because 't was a Fast of forty days but of forty hours begun about twelve on Friday the time of our Saviours falling under the power of death and continued till Sunday morning the time of his rising from the dead Afterwards it was enlarged to a longer time drawn out into more days and then weeks till it came to three and at last to six or seven weeks But concerning the different observations of it in several places let them who desire to know more consult Socrates and Sozomen who both speak enough about it This Quadragesimal Fast was kept in those times with great piety and Religion people generally applying themselves with all seriousness to acts of penance and mortification whence Chrysostom calls Lent the remedy and Physick of our souls and to the end that the observation of it might be more grave and solemn Theodosins M. and his Colleague Emperours passed two Laws that during the time of Lent all Process and enquiry into criminal actions should be suspended and no corporal punishments inflicted upon any it being unfit as the second of those Laws expresses it that in the holy time of Lent the body should suffer punishment while the soul is expecting absolution But with what care soever they kept the preceeding parts 't is certain they kept the close of it with a mighty strictness and austerity I mean the last week of it that which immediately preceded the Feast of Easter this they consecrated to more peculiar acts of prayer abstinence and devotion and whereas in the other parts of Lent they ended their fast in the evening in this they extended it to the Cock-crowing or first glimpse of the morning to be sure they ended it not before midnight for to break up the Fast before that time was accounted a piece of great prophaneness and intemperance as Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria determines in a Letter to Basilides wherein he largely and learnedly states the case This was the Hebdomada Magna the great or holy week so called says Chrysostom not that it has either more hours or days in it than other weeks but because this is the week in which truly great and ineffable good things were purchased for us within this time death was conquered the curse destroyed the Devils tyranny dissolved his instruments broken Heaven opened Angels rejoyced the partition-wall broken down and God and man reconciled For this cause we call it the great week for this cause men fast and watch and do Alms to do the greater honour to it
off the sacred obligation of thy Baptism and the true faith which thou didst then profess and take upon thee Thesese were the main and most considerable circumstances wherewith Baptism was administred in the primitive Church some whereof were by degrees antiquated and disused other rites there were that belonged only to particular Churches and which as they were suddenly taken up so were as quickly laid aside others were added in after-times till they encreased so fast that the usage and the number of them became absurd and burdensom as may appear by the office for Baptism in the Romish Ritual at this day As a conclusion to this Chapter I had once thought to have treated concerning Confirmation which ever was a constant appendage to Baptism and had noted some things to that purpose but shall supersede that labour finding it so often and so fully done by others in just discourses that nothing considerable can be added to them only I shall give this brief and general account of it all persons baptized in the ancient Church according to their age and capacity persons adult some little time after Baptism Children when arrived to years of competent ripeness and maturity were brought to the Bishop there further to confirm and ratifie that compact which they had made with God in Baptism and by some solemn acts of his ministry to be themselves confirmed and strengthned by having the grace and blessing of God conferred upon them to enable them to discharge that great promise and engagement which they had made to God This was usually performed with the Ceremony of Vnction the person confirmed being anointed by the Bishop or in his absence by an inferiour Minister and indeed Unction was an ancient rite used in the Jewish Church to denote the conferring of gifts or graces upon persons and thence probably amongst other reasons as many other usages were might be derived into the Christian Church though a learned man is of opinion that unction was never used in confirmation but where the person being in case of necessity baptized by some of the inferior Clergy had not been before anointed otherwise those who had received compleat Baptism were not afterwards anointed at their confirmation for which the Council of Orange is most express and clear And indeed that Confirmation was often administred without this unction no man can doubt that knows the state of those times being done only by solemn imposition of the Bishops hands and by devout and pious prayers that the persons confirmed might grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ and be enabled to perform those vows and purposes and that profession of Faith which they had before embraced in Baptism and then again owned before the whole Congregation Till this was done they were not accounted compleat Christians nor admitted to the holy Communion nor could challenge any actual right to those great priviledges of Christianity whence it is that the Ancients so often speak of Confirmation as that which did perfect and consummate Christians as being a means to confer greater measures of that grace that was but begun in Baptism upon all which accounts and almost exactly according to the primitive usage it is still retained and practised in our own Church at this day and happy were it for us were it kept up in its due power and vigour sure I am 't is too plain that many of our unhappy breaches and controversies in Religion do if not wholly in a great measure owe their birth and rise to the neglect and contempt of this excellent usage of the Church CHAP. XI Of the Lords Supper and the administration of it in the ancient Church The persons dispensing this Ordinance who The persons Communicating the Baptized or the Faithful Suspension from this Ordinance according to the nature of the offence The Eucharist sent home to them that could not be present The case of Serapion A custom in some places to give the Sacrament to persons when dead if they dyed before they could receive it and why The Eucharist kept by persons at home Sent abroad This laid aside and in its stead Eulogiae or pieces of consecrated Bread sent from one Church to another as tokens of communion The time of its administration sometimes in the morning sometimes at night varied according to the peace they enjoyed How oft they received the Eucharist At first every day This continued in Cyprian's time Four times a week Afterwards less frequented The usual place of receiving the Church ordinarily not lawful to consecrate it elsewhere Oblations made by persons before their communicating Their Agapae or Love-Feasts what Whether before or after the Sacrament How long continued in the Church The manner of celebrating this Sacrament collected out of the most ancient Authors The holy Kiss The general prayer for the Church and the whole world The consecration of the Sacrament the form of it out of S. Ambrose The Bread common Bread The sacramental Wine mixed with Water This no necessary part of the institution Why probably used in those Countries The posture of receiving not always the same Singing Psalms during the time of celebration Followed with prayer and thanksgiving The whole action concluded with the Kiss of peace THE holy Eucharist or Supper of our Lord being a rite so solemnly instituted and of such great importance in the Christian Religion had place accordingly amongst the Ancients in their publick offices and devotions In speaking to which I shall much what observe the same method I did in treating concerning Baptism considering the persons the time the place and the manner of its celebration The persons administring were the ordinary Pastors and Governours of the Church those who were set apart for the ministration of holy offices the institution was begun by our Lord himself and the administration of it by him committed to his Apostles and to their ordinary successors to the end of the world We find in Tertullian that they never received it from any but the hand of the President which must either be meant of the particular custom of that Church where he lived or of consecration only for otherwise the custom was when the Bishop or President had by solemn Prayers and blessings consecrated the sacramental elements for the Deacons to distribute them to the people as well to those that were absent as to them that were present as Justin Martyr expresly affirms and as the custom generally was afterwards For the persons communicating at this Sacrament at first the whole Church or body of Christians within such a space that had embraced the doctrine of the Gospel and been baptized into the faith of Christ used constantly to meet together at the Lords Table As Christians multiplied and a more exact discipline became necessary none were admitted to this ordinance till they had arrived at the degree of the Faithful for who ever were in the state of the Catechumens i.
love of Christ 't is more than probable they communicated every day or as oft as they came together for publick Worship insomuch that the Canons Apostolical and the Synod of Antioch threaten every one of the Faithful with Excommunication who came to Church to hear the holy Scriptures but stay not to participate of the Lords Supper the eye of their minds was then almost wholly fixed upon the memory of their crucified Saviour and the oftner they fed at his table the stronger and healthier they found themselves and the more able to encounter with those fierce oppositions that were made against them This custom of receiving the Sacrament every day continued some considerable time in the Church though in some places longer than in others especially in the Western Churches from Cyprian we are fully assured 't was so in his time We receive the Eucharist every day says he as the food that nourishes us to Salvation The like S. Ambrose seems to intimate of Milan whereof he was Bishop nay and after him S. Hierom tells us 't was the custom of the Church of Rome and S. Augustine seems pretty clearly to intimate that it was not unusual in his time In the Churches of the East this custom wore off sooner though more or less according as the primitive zeal did abate and decay S. Basil telling us that in his time they communicated four times a week on the Lords-day Wednesday Friday and Saturday yea and upon other days too if the memory or festival of any Martyr fell upon them Afterwards as the power of Religion began more sensibly to decline and the commonness of the thing begat some contempt Manna it self was slighted after once it was rained down every day this Sacrament was more rarely frequented and from once a day it came to once or twice a week and then fell to once a month and after for the most part to thrice a year at the three great Solemnities of Christmas Easter and Whitsontide to so great a coldness and indifferency did the piety and devotion of Christians grow after once the true primitive temper and spirit of the Gospel had left the World Concerning the third circumstance the Place where this holy Supper was kept much need not be said it being a main part of their publick Worship always performed in the place of their religious Assemblies 'T was instituted by our Saviour in a private house because of its Analogie to the Jewish Passover and because the necessity of that time would not otherwise admit by the Apostles and Christians with them 't was celebrated in the houses of Believers generally in an upper room set apart by the bounty of some Christian for the uses of the Church and which as I have formerly proved was the constant separate place of religious Worship for all the Christians that dwelt thereabouts Under the severities of great persecutions they were forced to fly to the mountains or to their Cryptae or Vaults under ground and to celebrate this Sacrament at the Tombs of Martyrs and over the Ashes of the dead Churches growing up into some beauty and regularity several parts of the divine offices began to have several places assigned to them the Communion-service being removed to the upper or East end of the Church and there performed upon a table of wood which afterwards was changed into one of stone and both of them not uncommonly though metaphorically by the Fathers styled Altars and the Eucharist it self in later times especially the Sacrament of the Altar This place was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and was fenced in with Rails within which the Clergie received the Sacrament as the Laity did without Here it was that they all used to meet at this heavenly Banquet for out of this place they allowed not the celebration of the Sacrament a thing expresly forbidden by the Laodicean Council unless in cases of great necessity and therefore 't was one of the principal Articles for which the Synod of Gangra deposed Eustathius from his Bishoprick that he kept private Meetings perswading some that were averse to the publick Assemblies of the Church that they might communicate and receive the Sacrament at home We come last of all to consider the Manner how the Eucharist was celebrated in the ancient Church but before we describe that we are to take notice that after the Service of the Catechumens and before the beginning of that of the Faithful at which the Eucharist was administred the custom was to present their offerings every one according to his ability bringing some gift as the first-fruits of his increase which was by the Minister laid upon the Altar or Communion-table none of them then thinking it fit to appear before the Lord empty and therefore S. Cyprian severely chides a rich Widow of his time who came without giving any thing to the poor mans Box and did partake of their offerings without bringing any offering of her own These Obleations were designed to the uses of the Church for the maintenance of the Ministry and the relief of the Poor especially out of them were taken the Bread and the Wine for the Sacramental Elements the bread being no other than common bread such as served for their ordinary uses there being then no notice taken of what has for so many hundred years and still is to this day fiercely disputed between the Greek and the Latine Church whether it ought to be leavened or unleavened bread Out of these oblations also 't is probable they took at least sent provisions extraordinary to furnish the common Feast which in those days they constantly had at the celebration of the Sacrament where the rich and the poor feasted together at the same Table These were called Agapae or Love-feasts mentioned by S. Jude and plainly enough intimated by S. Paul because hereat they testified and confirmed their mutual love and kindness a thing never more proper than at the celebration of the Lords Supper which is not only a Seal of our peace with God but a sign and a pledge of our Communion and fellowship with one another Whether this Banquet was before or after the celebration of the Eucharist is not easie to determine 't is probable that in the Apostles time and the Age after them it was before it in imitation of our Saviours institution who celebrated the Sacrament after supper and S. Paul taxing the abuses of the Church of Corinth reproves them That when they came together for the Lords Supper they did not one tarry for another but every one took his own supper i. e. that provision which he had brought from home for the common feast which was devoured with great irregularity and excess some eating and drinking all they brought others the poor especially that came late having nothing left one being hungry and another drunken all this 't is plain was done
Father Constantine the Great a peculiar honour when he obtained to have him buried in the Porch of the Church which he had built at Constantinople to the memory of the Apostles and wherein he had earnestly desired to be buried as Eusebius tells us and in the same many of his Successors were interred it not being in use then nor some hundreds of years after for persons to be buried in the body of the Church as appears from the Capitula of Charles the Great where burying in the Church which then it seems had crept into some places is strictly forbidden During the first ages of Christianity while the malice of their enemies persecuted them both alive and dead their Coemeteria were ordinarily under ground imitating herein the custome of the Jews whose Sepulchres were in Caverns and holes of rocks though doubtless the Christians did it to avoid the rage and fury of their enemies not so much upon the account of secrecy for their frequent retiring to those places was so notorious as could not escape the observation of their enemies and therefore we sometimes find the Emperours Officers readily coming thither but it was upon the account of that Sacredness and Religion that was reckon'd to be due to places of this nature it being accounted by all Nations a piece of great impiety Manes temerare Sepultos to disturb and violate the ashes of the dead They were large vaults dug in dry sandy places and arched over and separated into many little apartments wherein on either side the bodies of the Martyrs lay in distinct Cells each having an Inscription upon Marble whereon his Name Quality and probably the time and manner of his death were engraven Though in the heats of Persecution they were forced to bury great numbers together in one common grave LX Prudentius tells us he observ'd and then not the names but only the number of the interred was written upon the Tomb. Indeed the multitudes of Martyrs that then suffered required very large conveniencies of interrment And so they had insomuch that the last publisher of the Roma Subterranea assures us that though those Coemeteria were under-ground yet were they many times double and sometimes treble two or three stories one still under another By reason hereof they must needs be very dark having no light from without but what peep'd in from a few little cranies which filled the place with a kind of sacred horror as S. Hierom informs us who while a youth when he went to School at Rome us'd upon the Lords day to visit these solemn places Built they were by pious and charitable persons thence called after their names for the interrment of Martyrs and other uses of the Church for in these places Christians in times of persecution were wont to hide themselves and to hold their Religious Assemblies when banished from their publick Churches as I have formerly noted Of these about Rome only Baronius out of the Records in the Vatican reckons up XLIII and others to the number of threescore We may take an estimate of the rest by the account which Baronius gives of one called the Cemeterie of Priscilla discovered in his time An. 1578 in the Via Salaria about three miles from Rome which he often viewed and searched It is says he strange to report the place by reason of its vastness and variety of apartments appearing like a City under ground At the entrance into it there was a principal way or street much larger than the rest which on either hand opened into diverse other wayes and those again divided into many lesser ways and turnings like lanes and allies within one another And as in Cities there are void open places for the Markets so here there were some larger spaces for the holding as occasion was of their Religious Meetings wherein were placed the Effigies and Representations of Martyrs with places in the top to let in light long since stopt up The discovery of this place caused great wonder in Rome being the most exact and perfect Cemeterie that had been yet found out Thus much I thought good to add upon occasion of that singular care which Christians then took about the bodies of their dead If any desire to know more of these venerable Antiquities they may consult onuphrius de Coemeteriis and especially the Latin Edition of the Roma Subterranea where their largest curiosity may be fully satisfied in these things Many other instances of their Charity might be mentioned their ready entertaining strangers providing for those that laboured in the Mines marrying poor Virgins and the like of which to treat particularly would be too vast and tedious To enable them to do these charitable offices they had not only the extraordinary contributions of particular persons but a common stock and treasury of the Church At the first going abroad of the Gospel into the world so great was the Piety and Charity of the Christians That the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own but they had all things common neither was there any among them that lacked for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the Apostles feet and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need But this community of goods lasted not long in the Church we find S. Paul giving order to the Churches of Galatia and Corinth for weekly offerings for the Saints that upon the first day of week when they never fail'd to receive the Sacrament they should every one of them lay by him in store according as God had prospered him This custome Justin Martyr assures us still continued in his time for describing the manner of their assemblies on the Lords day he tells us that those who were able and willing contributed what they saw good and the collection was lodg'd in the hands of the Bishop or President and by him distributed for the relief of Widows and Orphans the sick or indigent the imprison'd or strangers or any that were in need In the next age they were reduced to monthly offerings as appears from Tertullian who gives us this account of them in his time That at their Religious Assemblies upon a monthly day or oftner if a man will and be able every one according to his ability laid by somewhat for charitable uses they put it into a kind of poor mans box call'd Arca that stood in the Church this they did freely no man being forced or compelled to it leaving it behind them as a stock to maintain piety and religion for 't is not spent says he upon feasts or drinking-bouts or to gratifie gluttony and intemperance but laid out in relieving the needy burying the dead providing for
of the expiation of his crimes embraced Christianity being told that in the Christian Religion there was a promise of cleansing from all fin and that as soon as ever any closed with it pardon would be granted to the most profligate offenders As if Christianity had been nothing else but a Receptacle and Sanctuary for Rogues and Villains where the worst of men might be wicked under hopes of pardon But how false and groundless especially as urged and intended by them this impious charge was appears from the whole design and tenour of the Gospel and that more than ordinary vein of piety and strictness that was conspicuous in the lives of its first professors whereof we have in this Treatise given abundant evidence To this representation of their lives and manners I have added some account concerning the ancient Rites and Usages of the Church wherein if any one shall meet with something that does not jump with his own humour he will I doubt not have more discretion than to quarrel with me for setting down things as I found them But in this part I have said the less partly because this was not the thing I primarily designed partly because it has been done by others in just Discourses In some few instances I have remarked the corruption and degeneracy of the Church of Rome from the purity and simplicity of the ancient Church and more I could easily have added but that I studiously avoided controversies it being no part of my design to enquire what was the judgment of the Fathers in disputable cases especially the more abstruse and intricate speculations of Theology but what was their practice and by what rules and measures they did govern and conduct their lives The truth is their Creed in the first Ages was short and simple their Faith lying then as Erasmus observes not so much in nice and numerous Articles as in a good and an holy life At the end of the Book I have added a Chronological Index of the Authors according to the times wherein they are supposed to have lived with an account of the Editions of their Works made use of in this Treatise Which I did not that I had a mind to tell the world either what or how many Books I had a piece of vanity of which had I been guilty it had been no hard matter to have furnish'd out a much larger Catalogue But I did it partly to gratifie the request of the Bookseller partly because I conceived it might not be altogether unuseful to the Reader the Index to give some light to the quotations by knowing when the Author lived especially when he speaks of things done in or near his own time and which must otherwise have been done at every turn in the body of the Book And because there are some Writings frequently made use of in this Book the Authors whereof in this Index could be reduced to no certain date especially those called the Apostolical Canons and Constitutions it may not be amiss here briefly to take notice of them And first for the Canons as I am far from their opinion who ascribe them to the Apostles so I think their great Antagonist Mr. Daillé bends the stick as much too far the other way not allowing them a being in the world till the year 500 or a little before The truth doubtless lies between these two 'T is evident both from the Histories of the Church and many passages in Tertullian Cyprian and others that there were in the most early Ages of Christianity frequent Synods and Councils for setling the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church though their determinations under that notion be not extant at this day Part of these Synodical Decrees so many of them as concern'd the Rites and Discipline of the Church we may conceive some person of learning and judgment gathered together probably about the beginning of the third Century and put them especially the first Fifty for I look not upon the whole eighty five as of equal value and authority if not into the same into some such form and method wherein we now have them stiling them Ecclesiastical or Apostolical Canons not as if they had been composed by the Apostles but either because containing things consonant to the Doctrines and Rules delivered by the Apostles or because made up of usages and traditions supposed to be derived from them or lastly because made by ancient and Apostolic men That many if not all of these Canons were some considerable time extant before the first Nicene Council we have great reason to believe from two or three passages amongst many others S. Basil giving rules about Discipline appoint a Deacon guilty of Fornication to be deposed and thrust down into the rank of Laicks and that in that capacity he might receive the Communion there being says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ancient Canon that they that are deposed should only fall under this kind of punishment the ancients as I suppose following herein that command Thou shalt not punish twice for the same fault This Balsamon joins with the twenty fifth Canon of the Apostles which treats of the very same affair and indeed it cannot in probability be meant of any other partly because there was no ancient Canon that we know of in S. Basils time about this business but that partly because the same sentence is applied as the reason both in the Apostolical and S. Basils Canon Thou shalt not punish twice for the same fault which clearly shews whence Basil had it and what he understands by his ancient Canon Theodoret records a Letter of Alexander Bishop of Alexandria to another of the same name Bishop of Constantinople this Letter was written a little before the Council of Nice where speaking of some Bishops who had received the Arians whom he had excommunicated into Communion he tells him that herein they had done what the Apostolical Canon did not allow evidently referring to the twelfth and thirteenth Canon of the Apostles which state the case about one Bishops receiving those into Communion who had been excommunicated by another To this let me add that Constantine in a Letter to Eusebius commends him for refusing to leave his own Bishoprick to go over to that of Antioch to which he was chosen especially because herein he had exactly observed the rule of Ecclesiastical Discipline and had kept the commands of God and the Apostolical and Ecclesiastical Canon meaning doubtless the fourteenth Apostolick Canon which treats about such removes Nay learned men both formerly and of late have observed divers passages in the Nicene Canons themselves which plainly respect these Canons as might be made appear notwithstanding what Daillé has excepted against it were this a proper place to discourse of it This for the Canons For the Constitutions they are said to have been composed by S. Clemens at the instance and by the direction of the Apostles And this wild and extravagant
that was overlaid with Gold where he beheld nothing but a company of persons with their bodies bow'd down and pale faces I know the design of that Dialogue in part is to abuse and deride the Christians but there 's no reason to suppose he feigned those circumstances which made nothing to his purpose As the times grew better they added more and greater ornaments to them concerning two whereof there has been some contest in the Christian world Altars and Images As for Altars the first Christians had no other in their Churches than decent Tables of wood upon which they celebrated the holy Eucharist these 't is true in allusion to those in the Jewish Temple the Fathers generally called Altars and truly enough might do so by reason of those Sacrifices they offered upon them viz. the commemoration of Christs Sacrifice in the blessed Sacrament the Sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving and the oblation of Alms and Charity for the poor usually laid upon those Tables which the Apostle expresly styles a Sacrifice These were the only Sacrifices for no other had the Christian world for many hundreds of years which they then offered upon their Altars which were much of the same kind with our Communion-Tables at this day For that they had not any such fixed and gaudy Altars as the Heathens then had in their Temples and Papists still have in their Churches is most evident because the Heathens at every turn did charge and reproach them for having none and the Fathers in their answers did freely and openly acknowledge and avow it asserting and pleading that the only true sacred Altar was a pure and a holy mind and that the best and most acceptable Sacrifice to God was a pious heart and an innocent and religious life Haec nostra sacrificia haec Dei sacra sunt these say they are our oblations these the sacrifices we give to God This was the state of Altars in the Christian Churches for near upon the first three hundred years till Constantine coming in and with him peace and plenty the Churches began to excel in costliness and bravery every day and then their wooden and moveable Altars began to be turned into fixed Altars of Stone or Marble though used to no other purpose than before and yet this too did not so universally obtain though severely urged by Sylvester Bishop of Rome but that in very many places Tables or moveable Altars of wood continued in use a long time after as might easily be made appear from several passages in Athanasius and others yea even to S. Augustine's time and probably much later were it proper to my business to search after it No sooner were Altars made fixed and immoveable but they were compassed in with Rails to fence off rudeness and irreverence and persons began to regard them with mighty observance and respect which soon grew so high that they became Asylums and refuges to protect innocent persons and unwitting offenders from immediate violence and oppression an instance whereof Nazianzen gives us in a Christian Widow a woman of great place and quality who flying from the importunities of the President who would have forced her to marry him had no other way but to take sanctuary at the holy Table in S. Basils Church at Caesarea she was demanded with many fierce and terrible threatnings but the holy man stoutly refused although the President was his mortal Enemy and sought only a pretence to ruine him Many such cases may be met with in the History of the Church nor was this a priviledge meerly founded upon custom but setled and ratified by the Laws of Christian Emperours concerning the particular cases whereof together with the extent and limitation of these immunities there are no less than six several Laws of the Emperours Theodosius Arcadius and Theodosius junior yet extant in the Theodosian Code But how far those Asyla's and Sanctuaries were good and useful and to what evil and pernicious purposes they were improv'd in after-times is without the limits of my present task to enquire But if in those times there was so little ground for Altars as us'd in the present sense of the Church of Rome there was yet far less for Images and certainly might things be carried by a fair and impartial tryal of Antiquity the dispute would soon be at an end there not being any one just and good authority to prove that Images were either worshipped or us'd in Churches for near upon four hundred years after Christ and I doubt not but it might be carried much farther but that my business lyes mainly within those first Ages of Christianity Nothing can be more clear than that the Christians were frequently challenged by the Heathens as for having no Altars and Temples so that they had no Images or Statues in them and that the Christian Apologists never denied it but industriously defended themselves against the charge and rejected the very thoughts of any such thing with contempt and scorn as might be abundantly made good from Tertullian Clem. Alexandrinus Origen Minucius Faelix Arnobius and Lactantius many of whose testimonies have been formerly pointed to Amongst other things Origen plainly tells his Adversary who had objected this to the Christians that the Images that were to be dedicated to God were not to be careed by the hand of Artists but to be formed and fashioned in us by the Word of God viz. the virtues of justice and temperance of wisdom and piety c. that conform us to the Image of his only Son These says he are the only Statues formed in our minds and by which alone we are perswaded 't is fit to do honour to him who is the Image of the invisible God the prototype and architypal pattern of all such Images Had Christians then given adoration to them or but set them up in their places of Worship with what face can we suppose they should have told the world that they so much slighted and abhorred them and indeed what a hearty detestation they universally shew'd to any thing that had but the least shadow of Idolatry has been before prov'd at large The Council of Illiberis that was held in Spain some time before Constantine expresly provided against it decreeing that no Pictures ought to be in the Church nor that any thing that is worshipped and adored should be painted upon the walls words so clear and positive as not to be evaded by all the little shifts and glosses which the Expositors of that Canon would put upon it The first use of Statues and Pictures in publick Churches was meerly historical or to add some beauty and ornament to the place which after Ages improved into Superstition and Idolatry The first that we meet with upon good authority for all the instances brought for the first Ages are either false and spurious or impertinent and to no purpose is no elder than the times of
Epiphanius and then too met with no very welcome entertainment as may appear from Epiphanius his own Epistle translated by S. Hierom where the story in short is this Coming says he to Anablatha a Village in Palestine and going into a Church to pray I espied a Curtain hanging over the door whereon was painted the Image of Christ or of some Saint which when I looked upon and saw the Image of a man hanging up in the Church contrary to the authority of the Holy Scriptures I presently rent it and advis'd the Guardians of the Church rather to make usd of it as a Winding-sheet for some poor mans burying whereat when they were a little troubled and said 't was but just that since I had rent that Curtain I should change it and give them another I promis'd them I would and have now sent the best I could get and pray' entreat them to accept it and give command that for the time to come no such Curtains being contrary to our Religion may be hung up in the Church of Christ it more becoming your place solicitously to remove whatever is offensive to and unworthy of the Church of Christ and the people committed to your Charge This was written to John Bishop of Jerusalem in whose Diocess the thing had been done and the case is so much the more pressing and weighty by how the greater esteem and value Epiphanius then Bishop of Salamine in Cyprus for his great age and excellent learning had in the Church of God This instance is so home and pregnant that the Patrons of Image-Worship are at a mighty loss what to say to it and after all are forced to cry out against it as supposititious Bellarmine brings no less than nine arguments if such they may be called to make it seem probable but had he been ingenuous he might have given one reason more true and satisfactory than all the rest why that part of the Epistle should be thought forged and spurious viz. because it makes so much against them More might be produced to this purpose but by this I hope 't is clear enough that the honest Christians of those times as they thought it sufficient to pray to God without making their addresses to Saints and Angels so they accounted their Churches fine enough without Pictures and Images to adorn them Their Churches being built and beautified so far as consisted with the ability and simplicity of those days they sought to derive a greater value and esteem upon them by some peculiar consecration for the wisdom and piety of those times thought it not enough barely to devote them to the publick services of Religion unless they also set them apart with solemn Rites of a formal dedication This had been an ancient Custom both amongst Jews and Gentiles as old as Solomons Temple nay as Moses and the Tabernacle When 't was first taken up by Christians is not easie to determine only I do not remember to have met with the footsteps of any such thing in any approved Writer for the Decretal Epistles every one knows what their faith is till the Reign of Constantine in his time Christianity being become more prosperous and successful Churches were every where erected and repaired and no sooner were so but as Eusebius tells us they were solemnly consecrated and the dedications celebrated with great festivity and rejoycing an instance whereof he there gives of the famous Church of Tyre at the dedication whereof he himself made that excellent Oration inserted into the body of his History About the thirtieth year of his Reign he built a stately Church at Jerusalem over the Sepulchre of our Saviour which was dedicated with singular magnificence and veneration and for the greater honour by his imperial Letters he summoned the Bishops who from all parts of the East were then met in Council at Tyre to be present and assisting at the Solemnity The Rites and Ceremonies used at these dedications as we find in Eusebius were a great confluence of Bishops and Strangers from all parts the performance of divine offices singing of hymns and Psalms reading and expounding of the Scriptures Sermons and Orations receiving the holy Sacrament prayers and thanksgivings â—iberal Alms bestowed on the poor and great gifts given to the Church and in short mighty expressions of mutual love and kindness and universal rejoycing with one another What other particular Ceremonies were introduced afterwards concerns not me to enquire only let me note that under some of the Christian Emperours when Paganism lay gasping for life and their Temples were purged and converted into Christian Churches they were usually consecrated only by placing a Cross in them as the venerable Ensign of the Christian Religion as appears by the Law of Theodosius the younger to that purpose The memory of the dedication of that Church at Jerusalem was constantly continued and kept alive in that Church and once a year to wit on the 14. of September on which day it had been dedicated was solemnized with great pomp and much confluence of people from all parts the Solemnity usually lasting eight days together which doubtless gave birth to that custom of keeping anniversary days of commemoration of the dedication of Churches which from this time forwards we frequently meet with in the Histories of the Church and much prevailed in after Ages some shadow whereof still remains amongst us at this day in the Wakes observed in several Counties which in correspondence with the Encoenia of the ancient Church are annual Festivals kept in Country Villages in memory of the dedication of their particular Churches And because it was a custom in some Ages of the Church that no Church should be consecrated till it was endowed it may give us occasion to enquire what Revenues Churches had in those first Ages of Christianity 'T is more than probable that for a great while they had no other publick incomes than either what arose out of those common contributions which they made at their usual Assemblies every one giving or offering according to his ability or devotion which was put into a common stock or treasury or what proceeded from the offerings which they made out of the improvement of their Lands the Apostolick Canons providing that their First-fruits should be partly offered at the Church partly sent home to the Bishops and Presbyters the care of all which was committed to the President or Bishop of the Church for who says the Authour of the fore-cited Canons is fitter to be trusted with the riches and revenues of the Church than he who is intrusted with the precious souls of men and by him disposed of for the maintenance of the Clergie the relief of the poor or whatever necessities of the Church As Christianity encreased and times grew better they obtained more proper and fixed revenues houses and lands being setled upon them for such 't is certain they had even during the times
of persecution for so we find in a Law of Constantine and Licinius where giving liberty of Religion to Christians and restoring them freely to the Churches which had been taken from them and disposed of by former Emperours they further add and because say they the same Christians had not only places wherein they were wont to assemble but are also known to have had other possessions which were not the propriety of any single person but belonged to the whole body and community all these by this Law we command to be immediately restored to those Christians to every Society and Community of them what belonged to them And in a rescript to Anulinus the Proconsul about the same matter they particularly specifie whether they be Gardens or Houses or whatever else belonged to the right and propriety of those Churches that with all speed they be universally restored to them the same which Maximinus also though no good friend to Christians yet either out of fear of Constantine or from the conviction of his conscience awakened by a terrible sickness had ordained for his parts of the Empire Afterwards Constantine set himself by all ways to advance the honour and interests of the Church out of the Tributes of every City which were yearly paid into his Exchequer he assigned a portion to the Church and Clergy of that place and setled it by a Law which excepting the short Reign of Julian who revoked it was as the Historian assures us in force in his time Where any of the Martyrs or Confessors had died without kindred or been banished their native Country and left no heirs behind them he ordained that their Estates and Inheritance should be given to the Church of that place and that whoever had seized upon them or had bought them of the Exchequer should restore them and refer themselves to him for what recompence should be made them He took away the restraint which former Emperours had laid upon the bounty of pious and charitable men and gave every man liberty to leave what he would to the Church he gave salaries out of the publick Corn which though taken away by Julian was restored by his Successor Jovianus and ratified as a perpetual donation by the Law of Valentinian and Marcianus After his time the Revenues of Churches encreased every day pious and devout persons thinking they could never enough testifie their piety to God by expressing their bounty and liberality to the Church I shall conclude this discourse by observing what respect and reverence they were wont in those days to shew in the Church as the solemn place of Worship and where God did more peculiarly manifest his presence and this certainly was very great They came into the Church as into the Palace of the great King as Chrysostom calls it with fear and trembling upon which account he there presses the highest modesty and gravity upon them before their going into the Church they used to wash at least their hands as Tertullian probably intimates and Chrysostom expresly tells us carrying themselves while there with the most profound silence and devotion nay so great was the reverence which they bore to the Church that the Emperours themselves who otherwise never went without their Guard about them yet when they came to go into the Church used to lay down their Arms to leave their Guard behind them and to put off their Crowns reckoning that the less ostentation they made of power and greatness there the more firmly the imperial Majesty would be entailed upon them as we find it in the Law of Theodosius and Valentinian inserted at large into the last edition of the Theodosian Code But of this we may probably speak more when we come to treat of the manner of their publick adoration CHAP. VII Of the Lords-Day and the Fasts and Festivals of the ancient Church Time as necessary to religious actions as Place Fixed times of Publick Worship observed by all Nations The Lords Day chiefly observed by Christians Stiled Sunday and why Peculiarly consecrated to the memory of Christs Resurrection All kneeling at prayer on this day forbidden and why Their publick Assemblies constantly held upon this day Forced to assemble before day in times of persecution thence jeered by the Heathens as Latebrosa Lucifugax Natio The Lords day ever kept as a day of rejoycing all fasting upon it forbidden The great care of Constantine and the first Christian Emperours for the honour and observance of this Day Their Laws to that purpose Their constant and conscientious attendance upon publick Worship on the Lords Day Canons of ancient Councils about absenting from publick Worship Sabbatum or Saturday kept in the East as a religious day with all the publick Solemnities of Divine Worship how it came to be so Otherwise in the Western Churches observed by them as a Fast and why This not universal S. Ambrose his practice at Milain and counsel to S. Augustine in the case Their solemn Fasts either Weekly or Annual Weekly on Wednesdays and Fridays held till three in the Afternoon Annual Fast that of Lent how ancient Vpon what account called Quadragesima Observed with great strictness The Hebdomada Magna or the Holy Week kept with singular austerity and the reason of it Festivals observed by the Primitive Christians That of Easter as ancient as the times of the Apostles An account of the famous Controversie between the eastern and Western Churches about the keeping of Easter The intemperate spirit of Pope Victor Irenaeus his moderate interposal The case sinally determined by the Council of Nice The Vigils of this Feast observed with great expressions of rejoycing The bounty of Christian Emperours upon Easter-day The Feast of Pentecost how ancient Why stiled Whitsunday Dominica in Albis why so called The whole space between Easter and Whitsuntide kept Festival The Acts of the Apostles why publickly read during that time The Feast of Epiphany anciently what christmas-Christmas-day the ancient observation of it Epiphany in a strict sense what and why so called The Memoriae Martyrum what When probably first begun The great reverence they had for Martyrs Their passions stiled their Birth-day and why These anniversary Solemnities kept at the Tombs of Martyrs Over these magnificent Churches erected afterwards What religious exercises performed at those meetings The first rise of Martyrologies Oblations for Martyrs how understood in the ancient Writers of the Church These Festivals kept with great rejoycing mutual love and charity their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or common Feasts Markets held for that purpose in those places The ill use which after-times made of these memorials TIme is a circumstance no less inseparable from religious actions than Place for man consisting of a soul and body cannot always be actually engaged in the service of God that 's the priviledge of Angels and souls freed from the fetters of mortality so long as
and in the case of persecution he tells Fabius that if they could not celebrate Dominica solennia their Lords-Day Solemnities in the day time they had the night sufficiently clear with the light of Christ This gave occasion to their spightful Adversaries to calumniate and asperse them the Heathen in Minucius charges them with their night-Congregations upon which account they are there scornfully called latebrosa lucifugax natio an obscure and skulking Generation and the very first thing that Celsus objects is that the Christians had private and clancular Assemblies or Combinations to which Origen answers that if it were so they might thank them for it who would not suffer them to exercise it more openly that the Christian Doctrine was sufficiently evident and obvious and better known through the world than the opinion and sentiments of their best Philosophers and that if there were some mysteries in the Christian Religion which were not communicated to every one 't was no other thing than what was common in the several Sects of their own Philosophy But to return They looked upon the Lords-Day as a time to be celebrated with great expressions of joy as being the happy memory of Christs resurrection and accordingly restrained whatever might savour of sorrow and sadness fasting on that day they prohibited with the greatest severity accounting it utterly unlawful as Tertullian informs us It was a very bitter censure that of Ignatius or whoseever that Epistle was for certainly it was not his that who ever fasts on a Lords-Day is a murderer of Christ however 't is certain that they never fasted on those days no not in the time of Lent it self nay the Montanists though otherwise great pretenders to fasting and mortification did yet abstain from it on the Lords-day And as they accounted it a joyful and good day so they did what ever they thought might contribute to the honour of it No sooner was Constantine come over to the Church but his principal care was about the Lords-day he commanded it to be solemnly observed and that by all persons whatsoever he made it to all a day of rest that men might have nothing to do but to worship God and be better instructed in the Christian Faith and spend their whole time without any thing to hinder them in prayer and devotion according to the custom and discipline of the Church and for those in his Army who yet remained in their Paganism and infidelity he commanded them upon Lords-days to go out into the Fields and there pour out their souls in hearty prayers to God and that none might pretend their own inability to the duty he himself composed and gave them a short form of prayer which he enjoin'd them to make use of every Lords-Day so careful was he that this day should not be dishonoured or mis-imployed even by those who were yet strangers and enemies to Christianity He moreover ordained that there should be no Courts of Judicature open upon this day no Suits or Tryals at Law but that for any works of mercy such as the emancipating and setting free of Slaves or Servants this might be done That there should be no Suits nor demanding debts upon this day was confirmed by several Laws of succeeding Emperours and that no Arbitrators who had the Umpirage of any business lying before them should at that time have power to determine or take up litigious causes penalties being entail'd upon any that transgressed herein Theodosius the Great anno 386. by a second Law ratified one which he had passed long before wherein he expresly prohibited all publick Shews upon the Lords-Day that the worship of God might not be confounded with those prophane Solemnities This Law the younger Theodosius some few years after confirmed and enlarged enacting that on the Lords day and some other Festivals there mentioned not only Christians but even Jews and Heathens should be restrained from the pleasure of all Sights and Spectacles and the Theatres be shut up in every place and whereas it might so happen that the Birth-day or inauguration of the Emperour might fall upon that day therefore to let the people know how infinitely he preferred the honour of God before the concerns of his own majesty and greatness he commanded that if it should so happen that then the imperial Solemnity should be put off and deferred till another day I shall take notice but of one instance more of their great observance of this day and that was their constant attendance upon the Solemnities of publick Worship they did not think it enough to read and pray and praise God at home but made conscience of appearing in the publick Assemblies from which nothing but sickness and absolute necessity did detain them and if sick or in prison or under banishment nothing troubled them more than that they could not come to Church and join their devotions to the common Services If persecution at any time forced them to keep a little close yet no sooner was there the least mitigation but they presently returned to their open duty and publickly met all together No trivial pretences no light excuses were then admitted for any ones absence from the Congregation but according to the merit of the cause severe censures were passed upon them The Synod of Illiberis provided that if any man dwelling in a City where usually Churches were nearest hand should for three Lords Days absent himself from the Church he should for some time be suspended the Communion that he might appear to be corrected for his fault They allowed no separate Assemblies no Congregations but what met in the publick Church if any man took upon him to make a breach and to draw people into corners he was presently condemned and a sutable penalty put upon him When Eustathius Bishop of Sebastia a man petending to great strictness and austerity of life began to cast off the Discipline of the Church and to introduce many odd observations of his own amongst others to contemn Priests that were married to fast on the Lords day and to keep meetings in private houses drawing away many but especially women as the Historian observes who leaving their Husbands were led away with errour and from that into great filthiness and impurity No sooner did the Bishops of those parts discover it but meeting in Council at Gangra the Metropolis of Paphlagonia about the year 340. they condemned and cast them out of the Church passing these two Canons among the rest If any one shall teach that the House of God is to be despised and the assemblies that are held in it let him be accursed If any shall take upon him out of the Church privately to preach at home and making light of the Church shall do those things that belong only to the Church without the presence of the Priest and the leave and allowance of the Bishop let him be accursed
the richest and most noble gifts and to diffuse the influences of his bounty over all parts of his Empire And his example herein it seems was followed by most of his Successors who used upon this Solemnity by their imperial Orders to release all Prisoners unless such as were in for more heavy and notorious crimes high Treason Murders Rapes Incest and the like And Chrysostom tells us of a Letter of Theodosius the Great sent at this time throughout the Empire wherein he did not only command that all Prisoners should be released and pardoned but wished he was able to recal those that were already executed and to restore them to life again And because by the negligence and remissness of messengers or any accident those Imperial Letters might sometimes happen to come too late therefore Valentinian the younger provided by a standing Law that whether order came or not the Judges should dispence the accustomed indulgence and upon Easter day in the morning cause all Prisons to be open the Chains to be knock'd off and the persons set at liberty The next Feast considerable in those primitive times was that of Whitsunday or Pentecost a Feast of great eminency amongst the Jews in memory of the Law delivered at Mount Sinai at that time and for the gathering and bringing in of their Harvest and of no less note amongst Christians for the Holy Ghosts descending upon the Apostles and other Christians in the visible appearance of fiery cloven tongues which hapned upon that day and those miraculous powers then conferred upon them It was observed with the same respect to Easter that the Jews did with respect to their Passover viz. as the word imports just fifty days after it reckoning from the second day of that Festival it seems to some to have commenced from the first rise of Christianity not only because the Apostles and the Church were assembled upon that day but because S. Paul made so much haste to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost which they understand of his great desire to keep it there as a Christian Feast But the argument seems to me no way conclusive for the Apostle might desire to be there at that time both because he was sure to meet with a great number of the Brethren and because he should have a fitter opportunity to preach the Gospel to the Jews who from all parts flock'd thither to the Feast as our Saviour himself for the same reason used to go up to Jerusalem at all their great and solemn Feasts But however this was 't is certain the observation of it is ancient 't was mentioned by Irenaeus in a Book which he wrote concerning Easter as the Author of the Questions and Responses in J. Martyr tells us by Tertullian and after him by Origen more than once This Feast is by us stiled Whitsunday partly because of those vast diffusions of light and knowledge which upon this day were shed upon the Apostles in order to the enlightning of the world but principally because this as also Easter being the stated time for Baptism in the ancient Church those who were baptized put on white Garments in token of that pure and innocent course of life they had now engaged in of which more in its proper place this white Garment they wore till the next Sunday after and then laid it aside whence the Octave or Sunday after Easter came to be stiled Dominica in Albis the Sunday in white it being then that the new-baptized put off their white Garments We may observe that in the Writers of those times the whole space of fifty days between Easter and Whitsunday goes often under the name of Pentecost and was in a manner accounted Festival as Tertullian informs us and the forty third Canon of the Illiberitan Council seems to intimate During this whole time Baptism was conferred all Fasts were suspended and counted unlawful they prayed standing as they did every Lords day and at this time read over the Acts of the Apostles wherein their sufferings and miracles are recorded as we learn from a Law of the younger Theodosius wherein this custom is mentioned and more plainly from S. Chrysostom who treats of it in an Homily on purpose where he gives this reason why that Book which contained those actions of the Apostles which were done after Pentecost should yet be read before it when as at all other times those parts of the Gospel were read which were proper to the season because the Apostles miracles being the grand confirmation of the truth of Christs Resurrection and those miracles recorded in that Book it was therefore most proper to be read next to the Feast of the Resurrection Epiphany succeeds this word was of old promiscuously used either for the Feast of Christs Nativity or for that which we now properly call by that name afterwards the Titles became distinct that of Christs Birth or as we now term it Christmas-day was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Nativity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the appearance of God in the flesh two names importing the same thing as Nazianzen notes For the antiquity of it the first footsteps I find of it are in the second Century though I doubt not but it might be celebrated before mentioned by Theophilus Bishop of Caesaria about the time of the Emperour Commodus but if any credit might be given to the Decretal Epistles it was somewhat elder than that Pope Telesphorus who lived under Antoninus Pius ordaining Divine Service to be celebrated and an angelical Hymn to be sung the night before the Nativity of our Saviour However that it was kept before the times of Constantine we have this sad instance That when the persecution raged under Dioclesian who then kept his Court at Nicomedia amongst other acts of barbarous cruelty done there finding multitudes of Christians young and old met together in the Temple upon the day of Christs Nativity to celebrate that Festival he commanded the Church doors to be shut up and fire to be put to it which in a short time reduced them and the Church to ashes I shall not dispute whether it was always observed upon the same day that we keep it now the twenty fifth of December it seems probable that for a long time in the East it was kept in January under the name and at the general time of the Epiphania till receiving more light in the case from the Churches of the West they changed it to this day sure I am S. Chrysostom in an Homily on purpose about this very thing affirms that it was not above ten years since in that Church i. e. Antioch it began first to be observed upon that day and there offers several reasons to prove that to be the true day of Christs Nativity The Feast of Epiphany properly so called was kept on the sixth of January and had that name from a
Coemeteria or Church-yard distinct in those times from their places of Publick Worship and at a great distance from them as being commonly without the Cities Here their burying places where in large Cryptae or Grots under ground where they celebrated these memorials and whither they used to retire for their common devotions in times of great persecution when their Churches were destroyed or taken from them And therefore when Aemilian the Governour of Egypt under the Reign of Valerian would screw up the persecution against Christians he forbad their meetings and that they should not so much as assemble in the places which they called their Church-yards the same priviledge which Maximinus also had taken from them By reason of the darkness of these places and their frequent assembling there in the night to avoid the fury of their Enemies they were forced to use Lights and Lamps in their publick meetings but they who make this an argument to patronize their burning of Lamps and Wax-Candles in their Churches at Noon-day as 't is in all the great Churches of the Roman Communion talk at a strange rate of wild inconsequence I am sure S. Hierom when charged with it denied that they used any in the day time and never but at night when they rose up to their night-devotions He confesses indeed 't was otherwise in the Eastern Churches where when the Gospel was to be read they set up Lights as a token of their rejoycing for those happy and glad tidings that were contained in it light having been ever used as a symbol and representation of joy and gladness A custom probably not much elder than his time Afterwards when Christianity prevailed in the world the devotion of Christians erected Churches in those places the Temples of the Martyrs says Theodoret being spacious and beautiful richly and curiously adorned and shining with great lustre and brightness These Solemnities as the same Author informs us were kept not like the Heathen Festivals with luxury and obsceneness but with devotion and sobriety with divine Hymns and religious Sermons with fervent prayers to God mixed many times with sighs and tears Here they heard Sermons and Orations joined in publick prayers and praises received the holy Sacrament offered gifts and charities for the poor recited the names of the Martyrs then commemorated with their due elogies and commendations and their virtues propounded to the imitation of the hearers For which purpose they had their set Notaries who took the acts sayings and sufferings of Martyrs which were after compiled into particular Treatises and were recited in these annual meetings and this was the first original of Martyrologies in the Christian Church From this custom of offering up prayers praises and alms at those times it is that the Fathers speak so often of oblations and sacrifices at the Martyrs Festivals Tertullian often upon an anniversary day says he we make oblations for them that are departed in memory of their Natalitia or Birth days and to the same purpose elsewhere As oft says Cyprian as by an anniversary commemoration we celebrate the passion days of the Martyrs we always offer sacrifices for them and the same phrases oft occur in many others of the Fathers By which 't is evident they meant no more than their publick prayers and offering up praises to God for the piety and constancy and the excellent examples of their Martyrs their celebrating the Eucharist at these times as the commemoration of Christs Sacrifice their oblation of alms and charity for the poor every one of which truly may and often is stiled a sacrifice or oblation and are so understood by some of the more moderate even of the Romish Church and with good reason for that they did not make any real and formal sacrifices and oblations to Martyrs but only honour them as holy men and friends to God who for his and our Saviours honour and the truth of Religion chose to lay down their lives I find expresly affirmed by Theodoret. These Festivals being times of mirth and gladness were celebrated with great expressions of love and charity to the poor and mutual rejoycings with one another Here they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Feasts every one bringing something to the common Banquet out of which the poor also had their share These Feasts at first were very sober and temperate and such as became the modesty and simplicity of Christians as we heard before out of Theodoret and is affirmed before him by Constantine in his Oration to the Saints But degenerating afterwards into excess and intemperance they were every where declaimed against by the Fathers till they were wholly laid aside Upon the account of these Feasts and for the better making provisions for them we may conceive it was that Markets came to be kept at these times and places for of such S. Basil speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Markets held at the memorials and Tombs of Martyrs these he condemns as highly unsuitable to those Solemnities which were only instituted for prayer and a commemoration of the virtues of good men for our incouragement and imitation and that they ought to remember the severity of our otherwise meek and humble Saviour who whipt the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple when by their marketings they had turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves And the truth is these anniversary commemorations though in their primitive institution they are highly reasonable and commendable yet through the folly and dotage of men they were after made to minister to great superstition and idolatry so plain is it that the best and usefullest things may be corrupted to bad purposes For hence sprung the doctrine and practice of prayer and invocation of Saints and their intercession with God the worshipping of Reliques Pilgrimages and visiting Churches and offering at the Shrines of such and such Saints and such like superstitious practices which in after Ages over-run so great a part of the Christian Church things utterly unknown to the simplicity of those purer and better times CHAP. VIII Of the persons constituting the body of the Church both people and Ministers The people distinguished into several ranks Catechumens of two sorts Gradually instructed in the principles of the Christian Faith Accounted only Christians at large The more recondite mysteries of Christianity concealed from persons till after baptism Three reasons assigned of it How long they remained in the state of Catechumens The several Classes of Penitents the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the faithful Their particular stations in the Church Their great reverence for the Lords Supper The Clergie why called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of two sorts the highest Bishops Presbyters and Deacons Bishops as superiour to Presbyters how ancient by the most learned opposers of Episcopacy Their office and priviledge what Chorepiscopi who Their power and priviledge above Presbyters
Province who enjoyed nothing but that name and title his Episcopal See being by the Emperours Pragmatic erected into the dignity of a Metropolis He was only an Honorary Metropolitan without any real power and jurisdiction and had no other priviledge but that he took place above other ordinary Bishops in all things else equally subject with them to the Metropolitan of the Province as the Council of Chalcedon determines in this case When this Office of Metropolitan first began I find not only this we are sure of that the Council of Nice setling the just rights and priviledges of Metropolitan Bishops speaks of them as a thing of ancient date ushering in the Canon with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let ancient customs still take place The original of the institution seems to have been partly to comply with peoples occasions who oft resorted to the Metropolis for dispatch of their affairs and so might fitly discharge their Civil and Ecclesiastical concerns both at once and partly because of the great confluence of people to that City that the Bishop of it might have preheminence above the rest and the honour of the Church bear some proportion to that of the State After this sprang up another branch of the Episcopal Office as much superiour to that of Metropolitans as theirs was to ordinary Bishops these were called Primates and Patriarchs and had jurisdiction over many Provinces For the understanding of this it 's necessary to know that when Christianity came to be fully setled in the world they contrived to model the external Government of the Church as near as might be to the Civil Government of the Roman Empire the parallel most exactly drawn by an ingenious person of our own Nation the sum of it is this The whole Empire of Rome was divided into Thirteen Dioceces so they called those divisions these contained about one hundred and twenty Provinses and every Province several Cities Now as in every City there was a temporal Magistrate for the executing of justice and keeping peace both for that City and the Towns round about it so was there also a Bishop for spiritual order and Government whose jurisdiction was of like extent and latitude In every Province there was a Proconsul or President whose seat was usually at the Metropolis or chief City of the Province and hither all inferiour Cities came for judgment in matters of importance And in proportion to this there was in the same City an Archbishop or Metropolitan for matters of Ecclesiastical concernment Lastly in every Diocess the Emperours had their Vicarii or Lieutenants who dwelt in the principal City of the Diocess where all imperial Edicts were published and from whence they were sent abroad into the several Provinces and where was the chief Tribunal where all Causes not determinable elsewhere were decided And to answer this there was in the same City a Primate to whom the last determination of all appeals from all the Provinces in differences of the Clergie and the Soveraign care of all the Diocess for sundry points of spiritual Government did belong This in short is the sum of the account which that learned man gives of this matter So that the Patriarch as superiour to Metropolitans was to have under his jurisdiction not any one single Province but a whole Diocess in the old Roman notion of that word consisting of many Provinces To him belonged the ordination of all the Metropolitans that were under him as also the summoning them to Councils the correcting and reforming the misdemeanours they were guilty of and from his judgment and sentence in things properly within his cognizance there lay no appeal To this I shall only add what Salmasius has noted that as the Diocess that was governed by the Vicarius had many Provinces under it so the Praefectus Praetorio had several Diocesses under him and in proportion to this probably it was that Patriarchs were first brought in who if not superiour to Primates in jurisdiction and power were yet in honour by reason of the dignity of those Cities where their Sees were fixed as at Rome Constantinople Alexandria Antioch and Jerusalem a title and dignity which they retain to this day The next Office to Bishops was that of Presbyters to whom it belonged to preach to the people to administer Baptism consecrate the Eucharist and to be assistent to the Bishop both in publick ministrations and in dispatching the affairs of the Church The truth is the Presbyters of every great City were a kind of Ecclesiastical Senate under the care and presidency of the Bishop whose counsel and assistance he made use of in ruling those Societies of Christians that were under his charge and government and were accordingly reckoned next in place and power to him thus described by S. Gregory in his Iambics 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The venerable Senate of Presbyters that preside over the people and possess the second Throne i. e. the place next to the Bishop they are called Clerici superioris loci and otherwhiles unless we understand it of the Chorepiscopi Antistites in secundo ordine and accordingly in Churches had seats of eminency placed for them next to the Bishops Throne Whereby was implied says Zonaras that they ought to use a proportionable care and providence towards the people to inform and teach them to direct and guide them being appointed as Fellow-labourers with and Assistants to the Bishop But though Presbyters by their ordination had a power conferred upon them to administer holy things yet after that the Church was setled upon foundations of order and regularity they did not usually exercise this power within any Diocess without leave and authority from the Bishop much less take upon them to preach in his presence This custom however it might be otherwise in the Eastern Church we are sure was constantly observed in the Churches of Afric till the time of Valerius S. Augustine's Predecessor in the See of Hippo. Who being a Greek and by reason of his little skill in the Latine tongue unable to preach to the edification of the people admitted S. Augustine whom he had lately ordained Presbyter to preach before him Which though at first 't was ill resented by some Bishops in those parts yet quickly became a president for other Churches to follow after After these came Deacons What the duty of their place was appears from their primitive election the Apostles setting them apart to serve or minister to the Tables i.e. to attend upon and take charge of those daily provisions that were made for poor indigent Christians but certainly it implies also their being destinated to a peculiar attendance at the service of the Lords Table And both these may be very well meant in that place it being the custom of Christians then to meet every day at the
Lords Table where they made their offerings for the poor and when poor and rich had their meales together And hence it was ever accounted part of the Deacons Office as to take care of the poor and to distribute the monies given for their relief and maintenance so to wait upon the celebration of the Eucharist which being consecrated by the Bishop or Presbyter the Deacon delivered the Sacramental elements to the people Besides this they were wont also to preach and to baptize and were employed in many parts of the publick Service especially in guiding and directing of the people The number of them in any one place was usually restrained to seven this being the number originally instituted by the Apostles and which might not be altered although the City was never so great and numerous as 't is in the last Canon of the Neocaesarean Council As the Presbyters were to the Bishop so the Deacons were to the Presbyters to be assistent to them and to give them all due respect and reverence And therefore when some of them began to take too much upon them to distribute the Sacrament before the Bishop or Presbyter and to take place amongst the Presbyters the Council of Nice took notice of it as a piece of bold and saucy usurpation severely commanded them to know their place and to contain themselves within their own bounds and measures and neither to meddle with the Sacrament but in their order nor to sit down before the Presbyters unless it be by their leave and command as 't is expressed by the Laodicean Synod Accordingly the first Council of Arles forbids the Deacons to do any thing of themselves but to reserve the honour to the Presbyters Out of the body of these Deacons there was usually one chosen to overlook the rest the Arch-Deacon an Office supposed to have been of good antiquity in the Church and of great authority especially in after times being generally styled the Eye of the Bishop to inspect all parts and places of his Diocess This was he that in the Church of Rome was called the Cardinal Deacon who as Onuphrius tell us was at first but one though the number encreased afterwards While Churches were little and the services not many the Deacons themselves were able to discharge them but as these encreased so did their labours and therefore 't was thought fit to take in some inferiour Officers under them This gave being to Subdeacons who were to be assistent to the Deacon as the Deacon to the Presbyter and he to the Bishop One great part of his work was to wait at the Church-doors in the time of publick Worship to usher in and to bring out the several Orders of the Catechumens and Penitents that none might mistake their proper stations and that no confusion or disorder might arise to the disturbance of the Congregation When he was first taken in I cannot find but he is mentioned in an Epistle of the Roman Clergie to them of Carthage about S. Cyprians retirement and elsewhere very often in Cyprian's Epistles Where he also speaks of the Acolythus what his proper business was is not so certain by some his Office is said to have been this to Follow as the world implies or to go along with the Bishop in the quality of an honourable attendant to be ready at hand to minister to him and to be a companion and witness of his honest and unblameable conversation in case any evil fame should arise that might endeavour to blast his reputation But by others he is said to have been a Taper-bearer to carry the Lights which were set up at the reading of the Gospel And this seems to be clear from the fourth Council of Carthage where at his ordination he is appointed to receive at the Archdeacons hand a Candlestick with a Taper that he may know 't is the duty of his place to light up the Lights in the Church This might very well be in those times but 't is certain the Office of Acolythus was in use long before that custom of setting up Lights at the reading of the Gospel was brought into the Church By Cyprian also is mentioned the Office of the Exorcist whose business was to attend the Catechumens and the Energumeni or such as were possessed of the Devil For after the miraculous power of casting out Devils began to cease or at least not to be so common as it was these possessed persons used to come to the out-parts of the Church where a person was appointed to exorcise them i.e. to pray over them in such prayers as were peculiarly composed for those occasions and this he did in the publick name of the whole Church the people also at the same time praying within by which means the possessed person was delivered from the tyranny of the evil spirit without any such charms and conjurations and other unchristian forms and rites which by degrees crept into this Office and are at this day in use in the Church of Rome Besides to the Exorcists Office it belonged to instruct the Catechumens and to train them up in the first principles of the Christian Faith in which sense the Exorcist is by Harmenopulus explained by Catechist and to exorcise says Balsamon is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to instruct unbelievers Next to the Exorcist was the Lector or Reader mentioned frequently by S. Cyprian whose business was to stand near the Ambo or Pulpit and to read those portions of holy Scripture which were appointed to be read as principal parts of the Divine Service This Office Julian who was afterwards Emperour when a young Student at Nicomedia took upon him and became a Reader in that Church which he did only to blind his Cousin Constantius who began to suspect him as inclining to Paganism to which he openly revolted afterwards and became a bitter and virulent enemy to Christians making an ill use of those Scriptures which he had once privately studied and publickly read to the people I know not whether it may be worth the while to take notice of the Ostiarii or Door-keepers answerable to the Nethinims in the Jewish Church who were to attend the Church Doors at times of publick meetings to keep out notorious Hereticks Jewes and Gentiles from entring into the Christian Assemblies it doubtless took its rise in the times of persecutions Christians then being forc'd to keep their meetings as private and clancular as they could and to guard their Assemblies with all possible diligence lest some Jew or Infidel stealing in should have gone and accused them before the Magistrate What other Officers there were or whether any at all in those times in and about the Church will not be worth our labour to enquire To these Offices they were set apart by solemn rites of prayer and imposition of hands a ceremony so far as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is
observed the Apostolick Canon not to chuse a Novice but of an age competent to that Office that he was chosen to though it varied according to times and persons and the occasions of the Church For that of Bishops I find not any certain age positively set down Photius in his Nomo-Canon speaks of an Imperial constitution that requires a Bishop not to be under thirty five but the Apostolical Constitutions allow not a man to be made a Bishop under fifty years of age as having then passed all juvenile petulancies and disorders 'T is certain they were not generally some extraordinary instances alter not the case promoted to that Office till they were of a considerable age and thence frequently stiled majores natu in the Writings of the Church Presbyters were commonly made at thirty yea the Council of Neocaesarea decreed that no man though otherwise of never so unquestionable a conversation should be ordained Presbyter before that age the reason whereof they give because Christ himself was not baptized nor began to preach till the thirtieth year of his age The Council of Agde requires the same age but assigns another reason not before thirty years of age because then say they he comes to the age of a perfect man Deacons were made at twenty five and the like distance and proportion observed for the inferiour Officers under them I take no notice in this place of Monks Hermits c. partly because although they were under a kind of Ecclesiastical relation by reason of their more than ordinarily strict and severe profession of Religion yet were they not usually in holy Orders and partly because Monachism was of no very early standing in the Church begining probably about the times of the later persecutions and even then too Monks were quite another thing both in profession habit and way of life from what they are at this day as will abundantly appear to him that will take the pains to compare the account which S. Hierom Augustine Palladius Cassian and others give of those primitive Monks with the several Orders in the Church of Rome at this day I shall only add that out of the Monks persons were usually made choice of to be advanced into the Clergie as is evident not only from multitudes of instances in the Writers of the fourth and following Centuries but from an express Law of the Emperour Arcadius to that purpose the strictness of their lives and the purity of their manners more immediately qualifying them for those holy Offices insomuch that many times they were advanced unto the Episcopal Chair without going through the usual intermediate Orders of the Church several instances whereof Serapion Apollonius Agatho Aristo and some others Athanasius reckons up in his Epistle to Dracontius who being a Monk refused a Bishoprick to which he was chosen But because we meet in the ancient Writings of the Church with very frequent mention of persons of another Sex Deaconesses who were employed in many Offices of Religion it may not be amiss in this place to give some short account of them Their original was very early and of equal standing with the infancy of the Church such was Phebe in the Church of Cenchris mentioned by S. Paul such were those two Servant-maids spoken of by Pliny in his Letter to the Emperour whom he examined upon the Rack such was the famous Olympias in the Church of Constantinople not to mention any more particular instances They were either Widows and then not to be taken into the service of the Church under threescore years of age according to S. Paul's direction or else Virgins who having been educated in order to it and given testimony of a chast and sober conversation were set apart at forty what the proper place and ministry of these Deaconesses was in the ancient Church though Matthew Blastares seems to render a little doubtful yet certainly it principally consisted in such offices as these to attend upon the Women at times of Publick Worship especially in the administration of Baptism that when they were to be divested in order to their immersion they might overshadow them so as nothing of indecency and uncomeliness might appear sometimes they were employed in instructing the more rude and ignorant sort of women in the plain and easie principles of Christianity and in preparing them for Baptism otherwhiles in visiting and attending upon Women that were sick in conveying messages counsels consolations relief especially in times of persecution when it was dangerous for the Officers of the Church to the Martyrs and them that were in Prison and of these women no doubt it was that Libanius speaks of amongst the Christians who were so very ready to be employed in these offices of humanity But to return Persons being thus set apart for holy Offices the Christians of those days discovered no less piety in that mighty respect and reverence which they paid to them that the Ministers of Religion should be peculiarly honoured and regarded seems to have been accounted a piece of natural justice by the common sentiments of mankind the most barbarous and unpolished Nations that ever had a value for any thing of Religion have always had a proportionable regard to them to whom the care and administration of it did belong Julian the Emperour expresly pleads for it as the most reasonable thing in the world that Priests should be honoured yea in some respects above civil Magistrates as being the immediate attendants and domestick servants of God our intercessors with Heaven and the means of deriving down great blessings from God upon us But never was this clearlier demonstrated than in the practice of the primitive Christians who carried themselves towards their Bishops and Ministers with all that kindness and veneration which they were capable to express towards them S. Paul bears record to the Galatians that he was accounted so dear to them that if the plucking out their eyes would have done him any good they were ready to have done it for his sake and S. Clement testifies of the Corinthians that they walked in the Laws of God being subject to them that had the rule over them yielding also due honour to the seniors or elder persons that were amongst them That by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place he should mean Civil Magistrates as some have told us I can hardly be perswaded both because 't is the same word that 's used by the Author to the Hebrews obey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them that have the rule over you and submit your selves and indeed both Eusebius and S. Hierom of old observed such a mighty affinity in the phrase between this and the Epistle to the Hebrews as certainly to conclude S. Clemens to have been if not the Author at least the Translator of that Epistle and also because the sole occasion of S. Clements writing this Epistle was a mutiny which they had
Worship of God we are next to see wherein their Worship it self did consist which we shall consider both as private and publick that which they performed at home and that which was done in their solemn and Church-Assemblies only let it be remembred that under the notion of Worship I here comprehend all those duties of piety that refer to God the duties of their private worship were of two sorts either such as were more solemn and stated and concerned the whole Family or such as persons discharged alone or at least did not tye up themselves to usual times For the first which are properly Family duties they were usually performed in this order at their first rising in the morning they were wont to meet together and to betake themselves to prayer as is plainly implied in Chrysostoms exhortation to praise God for the protection and refreshment of the night and to beg his grace and blessing for the following day this was done by the Master of the house unless some Minister of Religion were present 't is probable that at this time they recited the Creed or some confession of their Faith by which they professed themselves Christians and as 't were armed themselves against the assaults of dangers and temptations however I question not but that now they read some parts of Scripture which they were most ready to do at all times and therefore certainly would not omit it now That they had their set hours for prayer the third sixth and ninth hour is plain both from Cyprian Clem. Alexandrinus and others this they borrowed from the Jews who divided the day into four greater hours the first third sixth and ninth hour three last whereof were stated hours of prayer the first hour began at six in the morning and held till nine the third from nine till twelve and at this hour it was that the Apostles and Christians were met together when the Holy Ghost descended upon them the sixth hour was from twelve till three in the afternoon and at this time Peter went up to the house top to pray the ninth was from three till six at night and now it was that Peter and John went up to the Temple it being the ninth hour of prayer this division was observed by the Christians of succeeding times though whether punctually kept to in their Family devotions I am not able to affirm About noon before their going to dinner some portions of Scripture were read and the meat being set upon the Table a blessing was solemnly begged of God as the fountain of all blessings and so religious herein was the good Emperour Theodosius junior that he would never taste any meat no not so much as a Fig or any other Fruit before he had first given thanks to the great Soveraign Creator and both meat and drink set apart with the sign of the Cross a custom they used in the most common actions of life as is expresly affirmed both by Tertullian and Origen where he also gives a form of such prayers as they were wont to use before meals viz. that lifting up their eyes to Heaven they prayed thus Thou that givest food to all flesh grant that we may receive this food with thy blessing thou Lord hast said that if we drink any thing that is deadly if we call upon thy name it shall not hurt us thou therefore who art Lord of all power and glory turn away all evil and malignant quality from our food and what ever pernicious influence it may have upon us when they were at dinner they sung Hymns and Psalms a practice which Clem. Alexandrinus commends as very suitable to Christians as a modest and decent way of praising God while we are partaking of his Creatures Chrysostom greatly pleads for it that men should be careful to teach them their Wives and Children and which they should use even at their ordinary works but especially at meals such divine Songs being an excellent antidote against temptations for says he as the Devil is never more ready to ensnare us than at meals either by intemperance ease or immoderate mirth therefore both before and at meals we should fortifie our selves with Psalms nay and when we rise from the Table with our Wives and Children we should again sing Hymns to God They used also to have the Scriptures read and as I have elsewhere noted out of Nazianzen every time they took the Cup to drink made the sign of the Cross and called upon Christ Dinner being ended they concluded with prayer giving thanks to God for their present refreshment and begging his continued provision of those good things which he had promised to them So great a place had Religion in those days even in mens common and natural actions and so careful were they not to starve the soul while they were feeding of the body Much after the same rate they spent the rest of the day till the night approached when before their going to rest the Family was again called to prayer after which they went to bed about midnight they were generally wont to rise to pray and to sing hymns to God this custom was very ancient and doubtless took its original from the first times of persecution when not daring to meet together in the day they were forced to keep their religious Assemblies in the night and though this was afterwards antiquated as being found inconvenient for the generality of Christians yet did it still continue in the nocturnal hours of Monasteries and religious Orders But besides these stated and ordinary devotions performed by a joint concurrence of the Family the Christians of those days were careful to spend all the time they could even when alone in actions of peity and religion they were most frequent in prayer Eusebius reports of S. James the just that he was wont every day to go alone into the Church and there kneeling upon the pavement so long to pour out his prayers to God till his knees became as hard and brawny as a Camels the same which Nazianzen also tells us of his good Sister Gorgonia that by often praying her knees were become hard and did as 't were stick to the ground Constantine the Great though burdened with the cares of so vast an Empire did yet every day at his wonted hours withdraw from all the company of the Court retire into his Closet and upon his knees offer up his prayers to God and to let the world know how much he was devoted to this duty he caused his Image in all his Gold Coins in his Pictures and Statues to be represented in the posture of a person praying with his hands spread abroad and his eyes lift up to Heaven Their next care was diligently and seriously to read the Scripture to be mighty in the Divine Oracles as indeed they had an invaluable esteem of and reverence for the Word
of God as the Book which they infinitely prized beyond all others upon which account Nazianzen very severely chides his dear friend Gregory Nyssen that having laid aside the holy Scriptures the most excellent Writings in the world which he was wont to read both privately to himself and publickly to the people he had given up himself to the study of foreign and prophane Authors desirous rather to be accounted an Orator than a Christian S. Austine tells us that after his conversion how meanly soever he had before thought of them the Scriptures were become the matter of his most pure and chaste delight in respect whereof all other Books even those of Cicero himself which once he had so much doted on became dry and unsavoury to him In the study of this Book it was that Christians then mainly exercised themselves as thinking they could never fully enough understand it or deeply enough imprint it upon their hearts and memories Of the younger Theodosius they tell us that rising early every morning he together with his Sisters interchangeably sung Psalms of praise to God the holy Scriptures he could exactly repeat in any part of them and was wont to discourse out of them with the Bishops that were at Court as readily as if he had been an old Bishop himself We read of Origen though then but a child that when his Father commanded him to commit some places of Scripture to memory he most willingly set himself to it and not content with the bare reading he began to enquire into the more profound and recondite meaning of it often asking his Father to his no less joy than admiration what the sense of this or that place of Scripture was and this thirst after divine knowledge still continued and encreased in him all his life S. Hierom reporting it out of a Letter of one that was his great companion and benefactor that he never went to meals without some part of Scripture read never to sleep till some about him had read them to him and that both by night and day no sooner had he done praying but he betook himself to reading and after reading returned again to prayer Valens Deacon of the Church of Jerusalem a venerable old man had so entirely given up himself to the study of the Scriptures that it was all one to him to read or to repeat whole pages together The like we find of John an Egyptian Confessor whom Eusebius saw and heard that though both his eyes were put out and his body mangled with unheard of cruelty yet he was able at any time to repeat any places or passages either out of the old or new Testament which when I first heard him do in the publick Congregation I supposed him say he to have been reading in a Book till coming near and finding how it was I was struck with great admiration at it Certainly Christians then had no mean esteem of took no small delight in these sacred Volumes for the sake of this Book which he had chosen to be the companion and counsellor of his life Nazianzen professes he had willingly undervalued and relinquished all other things this was the mine where they enriched themselves with divine treasures a Book where they furnished themselves with a true stock of knowledge as S. Hierom speaks of Nepotian that by daily reading and meditation he had made his soul a Library of Christ and he tells us of Blesilla a devout Widow that though she was so far over-run with weakness and sickness that her foot would scarce bear her body or her neck sustain the burden of her head yet she was never found without a Bible in her hand Nor did they covetously hoard up and reserve this excellent knowledge to themselves but freely communicated it to others especially were careful to catechise and instruct their Children and Servants in the principles of Religion S. Clemens praises the Corinthians that they took care to admonish their young men to follow those things that were modest and comely and accordingly exhorts them to instruct the younger in the knowledge of the fear of God to make their children partakers of the discipline of Christ to teach them how much humility and a chast love do prevail with God that the fear of him is good and useful and preserves all those who with pure thoughts lead a holy life according to his will The Historian observes of Constantine that his first and greatest care towards his Sons was to secure the happiness of their souls by sowing the seeds of piety in their minds which he did partly himself instructing them in the knowledge of divine things and partly by appointing such Tutors as were most approved for Religion and when he had taken them into a partnership of the Government and either by private admonitions or by Letters gave them counsels for the steering themselves this was always the first and chief that they should prefer the knowledge and worship of God the great King of the world before all other advantages yea before the Empire it self For this Nazianzen peculiarly commends his Mother that not only she her self was consecrated to God and brought up under a pious education but that she conveyed it down as a necessary inheritance to her Children and it seems her Daughter Gorgonia was so well seasoned with these holy principles that she religiously walked in the steps of so good a pattern and did not only reclaim her Husband but educated her Children and Nephews in the ways of Religion giving them an excellent example while she lived and leaving this as her last charge and request when she died This was the discipline under which Christians were brought up in those times Religion was instilled into them betimes which grew up and mixed it self with their ordinary labours and recreations insomuch that the most rude and illiterate persons instead of prophane wanton Songs which vitiate and corrupt the minds of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom calls them Songs of the Devils composure used nothing but spiritual and divine Hymns so that as Hierom relates of the place where he lived you could not go into the field but you might hear the Plowman at his Hallelujahs the Mower at his Hymns and the Vine-Dresser singing Davids Psalms Thus they carried themselves at home what they did in publick in their Church-Assemblies on the Lords-day especially is next to be considered the manner whereof I shall briefly represent as it generally and for the most part obtained in those Ages for it could not but vary something according to time and place And here I should save my self the trouble of any further search by setting down the account which Justin Martyr and Tertullian give of their publick Worship in their Apologies for the Christians but that I am satisfied they did not design to give a perfect and
punctual account of what was done at their religious Assemblies as might sufficiently appear from this one thing that the first of them in those places speaks not any thing of their Hymns and Psalms which yet that they were even in the times wherein they lived a constant part of the Divine Service no man that is not wholly a stranger in Church-Antiquity can be ignorant of I shall therefore out of them and others pick up and put together what seems to have constituted the main body of their publick duties and represent them in that order wherein they were performed which usually was in this manner At their first coming together into the Congregation they began with Prayer as Tertullian at least probably intimates for I do not find it in any besides him we come together says he unto God that being banded as 't were into an Army we may besiege him with our prayers and petitions a violence which is very pleasing and grateful to him I do not from hence positively conclude that prayer was the first duty they began with though it seems fairly to look that way especially if Tertullian meant to represent the order as well as the substance of their devotions After this followed the reading of the Scriptures both of the old and new Testament both the Commentaries of the Apostles and the Writings of the Prophets as J. Martyr informs us How much of each was read at one meeting in the first time is not known it being then unfixed and arbitrary because their meetings by the sudden interruption of the Heathens were oft disturbed and broken up and therefore both Justin and Tertullian confess that they only read as much as occasion served and the condition of the present times did require but afterwards there were set portions assigned both out of the Old and New Testament two Lessons out of each as we find it in the Author of the Apostolical Constitutions Nay not only the Canonical Scriptures but many of the Writings of Apostolical men such as were eminent for place and piety were in those days publickly read in the Church such was the famous Epistle of S. Clemens to the Corinthians of which and of the custom in like cases Dionysius Bishop of Corinth who lived about the year 172. gives Soter Bishop of Rome this account to day says he we kept holy the Lords-day wherein we read your Epistle which we shall constantly read for our instruction as we also do the first Epistle which Clemens wrote to us The like Eusebius reports of Hermas his Pastor a Book so called and S. Hierom of the Writings of S. Ephrem the famous Deacon of Edessa that in some Churches they were publickly read after the reading of the holy Scriptures About this part of the service it was that they sung Hymns and Psalms a considerable part of the Divine Worship as it had ever been accounted both amongst Jews and Gentiles and more immediately serviceable for celebrating the honour of God and lifting up the minds of men to divine and heavenly raptures 'T was in use in the very infancy of the Christian Church spoken of largely by S. Paul and continued in all Ages after insomuch that Pliny reports it as the main part of the Christians Worship that they met together before day to join in singing Hymns to Christ as God these Hymns were either extemporary raptures so long as immediate inspiration lasted or set compositions either taken out of the holy Scriptures or of their own composing as Tertullian tells us for it was usual then for any persons to compose divine Songs to the honour of Christ and to sing them in the Publick Assemblies till the Council of Laodicea ordered that no Psalms composed by private persons should be recited in the Church where though by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the two Greek Scholiasts will have certain Psalms ascribed to Solomon and others to be understood yet it 's much more reasonable to understand it of private constitutions usual a long time in the Church and here for good reason prohibited By this Council it was likewise appointed that the Psalms should not be one entire continued service but that a Lesson should be interposed in the midst after every Psalm which was done as Balsamon and Alexius Aristenus tell us to take off the weariness of the people whose minds might be apt to tire in passing through those prolix offices all together especially the Lessons being so large and many In this duty the whole Congregation bore a part joining all together in a common celebration of the praises of God afterwards the custom was to sing alternatim course by course answering one another first brought in as we are told by Flavianus and Diodorus in the Church of Antioch in the Reign of Constantine but if we may believe Socrates some hundreds of years before that by Ignatius who was Bishop of that Church who having in a vision heard the Angels praising the holy Trinity with alternate Hymns thereupon introduced the use of it in that Church which from thence spread it self into all other Churches and whether Pliny who lived about that time might not mean some such thing by his secum invicem canere that the Christians sung Hymns one with another or in their courses may be considered by those who think it worth their labour to enquire In the mean time we proceed the Reader having done they are the words of Justin the martyr the President of the Assembly makes a Sermon by way of instruction and exhortation to the imitation and practice of those excellent things that they had heard And indeed Sermons in those times were nothing else but the expositions of some part of the Scriptures which had been read before and exhortations to the people to obey the doctrines contained in them and commonly were upon the Lesson which was last read because that being freshest in the peoples memory was most proper to be treated of as S. Augustine both avers the custom and gives the reason Hence in the Writers of the Church Preachers came to be called Tractatores and their Sermons Tractatus because they handled or treated of such places of Scripture as had been a little before read unto the people According as occasion was these Sermons were more or fewer sometimes two or three at the same Assembly the Presbyters first and then the Bishop as is expresly affirmed in the Apostolical Constitutions then i.e. after the reading of the Gospel let the Presbyters exhort the people one by one not all at once and after all the Bishop as it is fitting for the Master to do And thus Gregory Nyssen excuses himself for not introducing his Sermons with a tedious Preface because he would not be burdensom to the people who had already taken pains to hear those admirable discourses that had been made before him This course
necessary to be deferred so long and that it was their universal judgment and resolution that the mercy and grace of God was not to be denied to any though as soon as he was born concluding that it was the sentence of the Council that none ought to be forbidden baptism and the grace of God which as it was to be observed and reteined towards all men so much more towards Infants and new-born Children and that this sentence of theirs was no novel doctrine S. Augustine assures us where speaking concerning this Synodical determination he tells us that in this Cyprian did not make any new decree but kept the Faith of the Church most firm and sure I shall only taken notice of one place more out of Cyprian which methinks evidently makes for this purpose where describing the great wickedness and miserable condition of the lapsed such as to avoid persecution had done sacrifice to the Idols he urges this as one of the last and highest aggravations that by their apostasie their Infants and Children were exposed to ruine and had lost that which they had obtained at their first coming into the world which whether he means it of their right to Baptism or their having been actually baptized and losing the fruit and benefit of their Baptism is all one to my purpose and therefore he brings them in thus elegantly pleading against their Parents at the great day ' T was no fault of ours we did not of our selves forsake the Sacraments of our Lord and run over to join with prophane impieties the unfaithfulness of others has undone us we have found our Parents to be murderers they denied us God for our Father and the Church for our Mother for while we alas were little unable to take any care of our selves and ignorant of so great a wickedness we were ensnared by the treachery of others and by them betrayed into a partnership of their impieties This was the case of Infants but those who made up the main body of the baptized in those days were adult persons who flocking over daily in great numbers to the faith of Christ were received in at this door usually they were for some considerable time catechized and trained up in the principles of the Christian Faith till having given testimony of their proficiency in knowledge to the Bishop or Presbyter who were appointed to take their examination and to whom they were to give an account once a week of what they had learnt and of a sober and regular conversation they then became Candidates for Baptism and were accordingly taken in which brings me to the next circumstance considerable concerning The Time when Baptism was wont to be administred at first all times were alike and persons were baptized as opportunity and occasion served but the discipline of the Church being a little setled it began to be restrained to two solemn and stated times of the year viz. Easter and Whitsontide At Easter in memory of Christs death and resurrection correspondent unto which are the two parts of the Christian life represented and shadowed out in Baptism dying unto sin and rising again unto newness of life in order to which the parties to be baptized were to prepare themselves by a strict observation of Lent disposing and fitring themselves for Baptism by fasting and prayer In some places particularly the Churches of Thessaly Easter was the only time for Baptism as Socrates tells us which was the reason why many amongst them died unbaptized but this was an usage peculiar to them alone The ancient custom of the Church as Zonaras tells us was for persons to be baptized especially upon the Saturday before Easter-day the reason whereof was that this being the great or holy Sabbath and the mid-time between the day whereon Christ was buried and that whereon he rose again did fitliest correspond with the mystery of Baptism as it is the type and representation both of our Lords burial and resurrection At Whitsontide in memory of the Holy Ghosts being shed upon the Apostles the same being in some measure represented and conveyed in Baptism When I say that these were the two fixed times of Baptism I do not strictly mean it of the precise days of Easter and Whitsontide but also of the whole intermediate space of fifty days that is between them which was in a manner accounted Festival and Baptism administred during the whole time as I have formerly noted Besides these Nazianzen reckons the Feasts of Epiphany as an annual time of Baptism probably in memory either of the Birth or Baptism of our Saviour both which anciently went under that title this might be the custom in some places but I question whether it was universal besides that afterwards it was prohibited and laid aside But though persons in health and the space that was requisite for the instruction of the Catechumens might well enough comport with these annual returns yet if there was a necessity as in case of sickness and danger of death they might be baptized at any other time for finding themselves at any time surprized with a dangerous or a mortal sickness and not daring to pass into another world without this Badge of their initiation into Christ they presently signified their earnest desire to be baptized which was accordingly done as well as the circumstances of a sick Bed would permit These were called Clinici of whom there is frequent mention in the ancient Writers of the Church because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 baptized as they lay along in their beds This was accounted a less solemn and perfect kind of Baptism partly because 't was done not by immersion but by sprinkling partly because persons were supposed at such a time to desire it chiefly out of a fear of death and many times when not throughly Masters of their understandings For which reason persons so baptized if they recovered are by the Fathers of the Neocaesarean Council rendred ordinarily incapable of being admitted to the degree of Presbyters in the Church Indeed 't was very usual in those times notwithstanding that the Fathers did solemnly and smartly declaim against it for persons to defer their being baptized till they were near their death out of a kind of Novation principle that if they fell into sin after Baptism there would be no place for repentance mistaking that place of the Apostle where 't is said that if they who have been once enlightened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Ancients generally understand of Baptism fall away 't is impossible to renew them again unto repentance For some such reason we may suppose it was that Constantine the Great deferred his Baptism till he lay a dying the same which Socrates relates of his Son Constantius baptized a little before his death and the like he reports of the Emperour Theodosius who apprehending himself to be arrested with a mortal sickness presently caused himself to be baptized
e. under instruction in order to their Baptism or by reason of any hainous crime under the censures and suspension of the Church and not yet passed through the several stages of the Penitents might not communicate and were therefore commanded to depart the Church when the rest went to the celebration of the Sacrament for looking upon the Lords Supper as the highest and most solemn act of Religion they thought they could never take care enough in the dispensing of it accordingly who ever was found guilty of any scandalous fault was according to the nature of the offence debarred the Communion a shorter or a longer time and sometimes all their life not to be reconciled and taken into the communion of the Church till they had continued their repentance to their death-bed As for those persons that could not be present either through distance of place sickness or any other just cause the Eucharist was wont to be sent home to them some little pieces of the consecrated bread dipt in the sacramental Cup which were usually carried by the Deacon or some inferior Officer of the Church or in cases of necessity by any other person as in the case of Serapion of whom Dionysius of Alexandria relates that having been all his life a good man at last lapsed in a time of persecution and though he oft desired reconciliation yet none would communicate with him not long after he was seized upon by a mortal sickness depriv'd of the use of his speech and senses but coming to himself after four days he sends his Nephew a little Boy late at night for one of the Presbyters to come to him the Minister was at that time sick but considering the exigence of the case gives the Boy a little piece of the Eucharist bids him to moisten it with a little water and so give it him in his mouth which he did and immediately the old man chearfully departed this life For the better understanding of which we are to observe that those who had lapsed into Idolatry were to undergo a very long time of penance and were not many times admitted to the Communion till they were near their death and because it sometimes hapned that they were overtaken with sudden death before the Sacrament could be administred to them thence a custom sprung up to give it them after they were dead which they did doubtless upon this ground that they might give some kind of evidence that those persons died in the peace and communion of the Church though this usage was afterwards by many Councils abrogated and laid aside I take no notice in this place of their giving the Eucharist to new-baptized Infants the case being so commonly known and obvious In those early times nothing was more common than for Christians either to carry or to have sent to them some parts of the Eucharist which they kept in some decent place in their houses against all emergent occasions especially to fortifie and strengthen their faith in times of persecution and to encrease kindness and amity with one another whence one that was well versed in Church-Antiquities conjectures that when ever they entertained Friends or Strangers they used before every meal first to give them some parts of the holy Eucharist as being the greatest badge the strongest band of true love and friendship in the world Besides these parcels of the sacramental Elements there were wont at the celebration of the Communion to be pieces of bread which remained of the Offerings of the people which being solemnly blessed by the Bishop might be given to those who had no right to be at the Lords Table as to the Catechumens and such like and were to them instead of the Sacrament These pieces were properly called Eulogiae because set apart by solemn benediction and were sent up and down the Towns and Villages round about to testifie and represent their mutual union and fellowship with one another nay and sometimes from Churches in one Country to those that were in another which was also done by the Eucharist it self for so Irenaeus in a Letter to Pope Victor tells us that the Ministers of Churches though differing in some little circumstances did yet use to send the Eucharist to one another Which custom is also taken notice of by Zonaras but because the carrying the Sacramental Elements up and down the World was thought not so well to consist with the reverence and veneration that is due to this solemn Ordinance therefore it was abolished by the Laodicean Synod and these Eulogiae or pieces of bread appointed at Easter to be sent up and down in their room For the Time the next circumstance when they met together for this solemn Action it was in general at their publick Assemblies on the Lords day always or the first day of the week as we find it in the History of the Apostles Acts besides other days and especially Saturday on which day all the Churches in the World those of Rome only and Alexandria excepted used to celebrate this Sacrament as the Historian informs us What time of the day they took to do it is not altogether so certain our blessed Saviour and his Apostles celebrated it at night at the time of the Jewish Passover but whether the Apostles and their immediate Successors punctually observed this circumstance may be doubted 't is probable that the holy Eucharist which S. Paul speaks of in the Church of Corinth was solemnized in the morning the Apostles calling it a Supper as Chrysostom thinks not because 't was done in the evening but the more effectually to put them in mind of the time when our Lord did institute those holy Mysteries Tertullian assures us in his time 't was done in tempore victus about Supper-time as all understand him and very often in the morning before day when they held their religious Assemblies of which Pliny also takes notice in his Letter to the Emperour for in those times of Persecution when they were hunted out by the inquisitive malice of their enemies they were glad of the remotest corners the most unseasonable hours when they could meet to perform the joynt offices of Religion But this communicating at evening or at night either lasted only during the extreme heats of Persecution or at least wore off apace for Cyprian expresly pleads against it affirming that it ought to be in the morning and so indeed in a short time it prevailed over most parts of the World except in some places of Egypt near Alexandria of which Socrates tells us that after they had sufficiently feasted themselves in the evening they were wont to receive the Sacrament Under this circumstance of time we may take occasion to consider how oft in those days they usually met at this table And at first while the Spirit of Christianity was yet warm and vigorous and the hearts of men passionately inflamed with the
were of a fearful and bashful temper which he utterly refused and openly made it before all the people affirming it to be unreasonable that he should be ashamed to confess his hopes of Salvation before the people who while he taught Rhetorick wherein he hoped for no such reward had publickly professed it every day An action that begat great wonder in Rome as it was no less matter of rejoycing to the Church No dangers could then sway good men from doing of their duty Cyprian highly commends Cornelius for taking the Bishoprick of Rome upon him in so dangerous a time for the greatness of his mind and the unshaken firmness of his Faith and the undaunted managery of his place at a time when Decius the Tyrant threatn'd such heavy severities to the Ministers of Christianity and would sooner endure a Corrival in the Empire than a Bishop to sit at Rome How freely how impartially did they speak their minds even to the face of their bitterest enemies When Maris Bishop of Chalcedon a man blind with age met Julian the Emperour he boldly charged him with his Atheism and Apostasie from the Christian Faith Julian reproach'd him with his blindness and told him his Galilean God would never cure him to which the good old man presently answered I thank my God who has taken away my sight that I might not behold the face of one that has laps'd into so great impiety Were they at any time attempted by arts of flattery and enticement the charms would not take place upon them So when Julian both by himself and the Officers of his Army set upon the Souldiers and by fair promises of preferments and rewards sought to fetch them off from Christianity though he prevail'd upon some few weak and instable minds yet the far greatest part stood off yea by many even of the meanest and most inconsiderable quality his temptations were as resolutely beaten back as the blow of an Engine is by a wall of marble Nor were they any more shaken by storms and threatnings When Modestus the Governour under Valens the Arrian Emperour could not by any means bring over S. Basil to the party he threatned him with severity Dost thou not fear this power that I have Why should I fear said Basil what canst thou do or what can I suffer the other answered the loss of thy Estate Banishnent Torment and Death but threaten us with something else if thou canst said Basil for none of these things can reach us confiscation of Estate cannot hurt him that has nothing to lose unless thou wantest these tatter'd and thread-bare garments and a few Books wherein all my estate lies nor can I be properly banished who am not tied to any place where-ever I am 't will be my Country the whole earth is Gods in which I am but a Pilgrim and a stranger I fear no torments my body not being able to hold out beyond the first stroke and for death 't will be a kindness to me for 't will but so much the sooner send me unto God for whose sake I live and am indeed in a great measure already dead towards which I have been a long time hastning And there 's no reason to wonder at this freedom of speech in other things we are meek and yielding but when the Cause of God and Religion is concerned over-looking all other things we direct our thoughts only unto him and then fire and sword wild beasts and engines to tear off our flesh are so far from being a terrour that they are rather a pleasure and recreation to us Reproach and threaten and use your power to the utmost yet let the Emperour know that you shall never be able to make us assent to your wicked Doctrine no though you should threaten ten thousand times worse than all this The Governour was strangely surpriz'd with the spirit and resolution of the man and went and told the Emperour that one poor Bishop was too hard for them all And indeed so big were their spirits with a desire to assert and propagate their Religion that they would not hide their heads to decline the greatest dangers When the Officers were sent to apprehend S. Polycarp and had with great industry and cruelty found out the place where he was though he had timely notice to have escaped by going into another house yet he refus'd saying the will of the Lord be done and coming down out of his Chamber saluted the Officers with a chearful and a pleasant countenance as they were carrying him back two persons of eminency and authority met him in the way took him up into their Chariot labour'd by all means to perswade him to do sacrifice which when he absolutely refus'd after all their importunities they turn'd their kindness into reproaches and tumbled him with so much violence out of the Chariot that he was sorely bruised with the fall but nothing daunted as if he had received no harm he chearfully went on his way a voice being heard as he went along as it were from Heaven Polycarp be strong and quit thy self like a man When he came before the Tribunal the Proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp which he presently confessed then he attempted by all arts of perswasion to urge him to deny Christ or to do but something that might look like it but all in vain These fourscore and six years says he have I served Christ and he never did me any harm and how then can I blaspheme my Master and my Saviour Being urg'd to swear by the Emperours Genius he replyed Forasmuch as thou pressest me to do this pretending thou knowest not who I am know I am a Christian then the Proconsul told him he would throw him to the wild beasts unless he alter'd his Opinion Call for them answered Polycarp for we have no mind to change from better to worse as counting that change only to be honest and laudable which is from Vice to Vertue But if thou makest so light of wild beasts added the Proconsul I 'le have a fire that shall tame thee to which the good old man return'd You threaten Sir a fire that will burn for an hour and presently be extinguish'd but know not that there is a fire of eternal damnation in the judgement to come reserv'd for the punishment of all wicked men But why delay you execute what ever you have a mind to This and much more to the same purpose he discoursed of to the great admiration of the Proconsul being so far from being terrified with what was said to him that he was filled with joy and chearfulness and a certain grace and loveliness over-spread his face So likewise when Cyprian was brought before the Proconsul Thou art said he Thascius Cyprian who hast been a ringleader to men of a wicked mind the Emperours command thee to do sacrifice and therefore consult thy welfare To which he answered I am Cyprian I am a Christian
the publick treasury and themselves for ever reduc'd into the condition of slaves These were some of the more usual ways of punishment amongst the Romans though exercis'd towards the Christians in their utmost rigour and severity I omit to speak of Christians being scourg'd and whip'd even to the tiring of their executioners especially with rods called plumbatae whereof there is frequent mention in the Theodosian Code which were scourges made of cords or thongs with leaden bullets at the end of them of their being ston'd to death their being beheaded their being thrust into stinking and nasty prisons where they were set in a kind of stocks with five holes their legs being stretch'd asunder to reach from one end to the other We shall now consider some few of those unusal torments and punishments which were inflicted only upon Christians or if upon any others only in extraordinary cases Such was their being tied to arms of trees bent by great force and strength by certain Engines and being suddainly let go did in a moment tear the Martyr in pieces in which way many were put to death in the persecution at Thebais Sometimes they were clad with coats of paper linnen or such like dawb'd in the inside with pitch and brimstone which being set on fire they were burnt alive Otherwhiles they were shut into the belly of a brazen Bull and a fire being kindled under it were consumed with a torment beyond imagination Sometimes they were put into a great Pot or Caldron full of boyling pitch oyl lead or wax mixed together or had these fatal liquors by holes made on purpose poured into their bowels Some of them were hung up by one or both hands with stones of great weight tied to their feet to augment their sufferings others were anointed all over their bodies with honey and at mid-day fastned to the top of a pole that they might be a prey to flies wasps and such little cattle as might by degrees sting and torment them to death Thus besides many others it was with Marcus Bishop of Arethusa a venerable old man who suffered under Julian the Apostate after infinite other tortures they dawb'd him over with honey and jellies and in a basket fastned to the top of a pole expos'd him to the hottest beams of the Sun and to the fury of such little Insects as would be sure to prey upon him Sometimes they were put into a rotten ship which being turn'd out to sea was set on fire thus they serv'd an Orthodox Presbyter under Valens the Arrian Emperour the same which Socrates reports of fourscore pious and devout men who by the same Emperours command were thrust into a ship which being brought into open Sea was presently fir'd that so by this means they might also want the honour of a burial And indeed the rage and cruelty of the Gentiles did not only reach the Christians while alive but extend to them after death denying them what has been otherwise granted amongst the most barbarous people the conveniency of burial exposing them to the ravage and fierceness of dogs and beasts of prey a thing which we are told the Primitive Christians reckon'd as not the least aggravation of their sufferings Nay where they had been quietly buried they were not suffered many times as Tertullian complains to enjoy the Asylum of the grave but were plucked out rent and torn in pieces But to what purpose is it any longer to insist upon these things sooner may a man tell the stars than reckon up all those methods of misery and suffering which the Christians endured Eusebius who himself was a sad spectatour of some of the later persecutions professes to give over the account as a thing beyond all possibility of expression the manner of their sufferings and the persons that suffered being hard nay impossible to be reckoned up The truth is as he there observes and Cyprian plainly tells Demetrian of it their enemies did little else but set their wits upon the tenters to find out the most exquisite methods of torture and punishment they were not content with those old ways of torment which their forefathers had brought in but by an ingenious cruelty daily invented new striving to excel one another in this piece of hellish art and accounting those the wittiest persons that could invent the bitterest and most barbarous engins of execution and in this they improved so much that Vlpian Master of Records to Alexander Severus the Emperour and the great Oracle of those Times for Law writing several Books de Officio Proconsulis many parcels whereof are yet extant in the body of the Civil Law in the seventh Book collected together the several bloody Edicts which the Emperours had put out against the Christians that he might shew by what ways and methods they ought to be punished and destroyed as Lactantius tells us But this Book as to what concern'd Christians is not now extant the zeal and piety of the first Christian Emperours having banished all Books of that nature out of the World as appears by a Law of the Emperour Theodosius where he commands the Writings of Porphyry and all others that had written against the Christian Religion to be burned The reason why we have no more Books of the Heathens concerning the Christians extant at this day Having given this brief specimen of some few of those grievous torments to which the Primitive Christians were exposed they that would have more must read the Martyrologies of the Church or such as have purposely witten on this subject we come next to consider what was their behaviour and carriage under them this we shall find to have been most sedate and calm most constant and resolute they neither fainted nor fretted neither railed at their enemies nor sunk under their hands but bore up under the heaviest torments under the bitterest reproaches with a meekness and patience that was invincible and such as every way became the mild and yet generous spirit of the Gospel So Justin Martyr tells the Jew We patiently bear says he all the mischiefs which are brought upon us either by men or devils even to the extremities of death and torments praying for those that thus treat us that they may find mercy not desiring to hurt or revenge our selves upon any that injures us according as our great Law-giver has commanded us Thus Eusebius reporting the hard usage which the Christians met with during the times of persecution tells us that they were betrayed and butchered by their own friends and brethren but they as couragious Champions of the true Religion accustomed to prefer an honourable death in defence of the truth before life it self little regarded the cruel usage they met with in it but rather as became true Souldiers of God armed with patience they laughed at all methods of execution fire and sword and the piercings of nails wild beasts and the bottom of
prejudice to their souls he resolved to shew them the way by his own example and himself first retiring out of the reach of danger retreated to the mountainous parts there-abouts that were freest from the rage and malice of the enemy Nor was this any impeachment of their zeal and readiness for suffering but only a prudent gaining a little respite for a time that they might suffer with greater advantage afterwards They did not desire to save their heads when the honour of their Religion call'd for it nor ever by indirect means screw'd themselves out of danger when once engaged in it though they did sometimes prudently prevent it reserving themselves for a more convenient season Thus Cyprian withdrew a little not out of fear of suffering but a desire to prevent his being put to death in an obscure place which his enemies had designed being desirous his Martyrdom should happen in that place where he so long liv'd and so publickly preached the Christian faith Secondly They were so far from declining suffering and being terrified with those miseries which they saw others undergo that they freely and in great multitudes offered themselves to the rage and fury of their enemies embracing death as the greatest honour that could be done them they strove as Sulpitius Severus observes speaking of the ninth persecution which should rush first upon those glorious conflicts men in those days as he adds much more greedily seeking Martyrdom in the cause of Christ than in after-times they did for Bishopricks and the preferments of the Church Lucian who certainly had very little love to Christians yet gives this account of them The miserable wretches says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do verily perswade them i. e. those of their own party that they shall surely be immortal and live for ever upon which account they despise death and many of them voluntarily offer themselves to it Indeed they did ambitiously contend who should be first crown'd with Martyrdom and that in such multitudes that their enemies knew not what to do with them their very persecutors grew weary of their bloody offices Tiberianus the President of Palestine in his relation to the Emperour Trajan recorded by Joannes Matela mentioned also by Suidas gives this account of his proceedings against them I am quite tir'd out in punishing and destroying the Galileans call'd here by the name of Christians according to your commands and yet they cease not to offer themselves to be slain Nay though I have laboured both by fair means and threatnings to make them conceal themselves from being known to be Christians yet can I not stave them off from persecution So little regard had they to sufferings nay so impatient were they till they were in the midst of flames This made Arrius Antoninus the Proconsul of Asia when at first he severely persecuted the Christians whereupon all the Christians in that City like an Army voluntarily presented themselves before his Tribunal to be surpriz'd with wonder and causing only some few of them to be executed he cried out to the rest O unhappy people if you have a mind to die have you not halters and precipices enough to end your lives with but you must come hither for an execution so fast did they flock to the place of torment faster than droves of beasts that are driven to the shambles They even long'd to be in the arms of suffering Ignatius though then in his journey to Rome in order to his execution yet by the way as he went could not but vent his passionate desire of it O that I might come to those wild beasts that are prepar'd for me I heartily wish that I may presently meet with them I would invite and encourage them speedily to devour me and not be afraid to set upon me as they have been to others nay should they refuse it I would even force them to it I am concern'd for nothing either seen or unseen more than to enjoy Jesus Christ Let fire and the cross and the rage of wild beasts the breaking of bones distortion of members bruising of the whole body yea all the punishments which the devil can invent come upon me so as I may but enjoy Christ They even envied the Martyrdom of others and mourned that any went before while they were left behind When Laurentius the Deacon espied Sixtus the Bishop of Rome going to his Martyrdom he burst into tears and passionately call'd out Whither O my Father art thou going without thy Son Whither so fast O holy Bishop without thy Deacon Never didst thou use to offer spiritual sacrifice without thy Minister to attend thee what have I done that might displease thee Hast thou found me degenerous and fearful Make trial at least whether thou hast chosen a fit Minister to wait upon thee To this and more to the same import the good Bishop replied Mistake not my Son I do not leave thee nor forsake thee Greater tryals belong to thee I like a weak old man receive only the first skirmishes of the battle but thou being youthful and valiant hast a more glorious triumph over the enemy reserv'd for thee Cease to weep thy turn will be presently for within three days thou shalt follow me So pious a contention was there between these â—ood men which of them should first suffer for the name of Christ 'T is memorable what we find concerning Origen though then but a youth that when a great persecution was raised at Alexandria wherein many suffered he was so eagerly inflamed with a desire of Martyrdom especially after his Father had been seized upon and cast into prison that he expos'd himself to all dangers and courted torments to come upon him and had certainly suffered if his Mother after all other intreaties and perswasion to no purpose had not stoln away his clothes by night and for meer shame forced him to stay at home To these I shall add but one Example of the weker Sex When Valens the Arrian Emperour who persecuted the Orthodox with as much fury and bitterness as any of the Heathen Emperours came to Edessa and found there great numbers of them daily meeting in their publick assemblies he severely check'd the Governour and commanded him by all means to rout and ruine them The Governour though of another perswasion yet out of common compassion gave them private notice of the Emperours commands hoping they would forbear But they not at all terrified with the news met the next morning in greater numbers which the Governour understanding went to the place of their assembly as he was going a woman in a careless dress leading a little child in her hand rush'd through the Governours Guard who commanding her to be brought before him asked her why she made so much hast That I may the sooner come said she to the place where the people of the Catholick Church are met together Knowst thou not said he
sin of a deeper and more than ordinary dye and one reason I conceive why some of the Antients were against all swearing and Clemens Alexandrinus confirms me in it was because they would not come so much as within the danger or possibility of perjury Such as have sworn rashly or in unlawful cases S. Basil earnestly exhorts to repentance and that they would not persist in an obstinate defence of their impiety and for such as are guilty of perjury he appointed that they should be suspended and banished the Communion for eleven years together The like severity though not altogether so great they used in case of bearing false witness If any Christian falsly accused another before the Church for in those days they allowed no appeals to Heathen Tribunals he was to be punished i.e. suspended the Communion the only punishment the Church in those days could inflict according to the nature of the crime which he charged upon the other according to the decree of the Illiberine Council if he made good his charge yet if he had concealed it a considerable time before he revealed it he was to be suspended for two years the reason probably being because by this delay the criminal person had had opportunity to infect others by propagating his vitious example to them But that they might not set the door open and give encouragement to busie and malicious tempers they ordain'd that although the person should be really guilty of the crimes he was charged with yet if the accuser did not sufficiently prove it in conventu Clericorum before the Ecclesiastical Senate he should be punished with a five years suspension and because then they had an honour and veneration for Ministers above all other men they ordain'd that whosoever should falsly accuse a Clergy-man a Bishop Presbyter or Deacon with any crime which he could not make good should not be received into Communion even at the hour of death The truth is they were exceeding tender of any mans reputation readier to add to it than to detract from it or to fasten any undue imputation upon him S. Basil commending Gregory Thaumaturgus has this of him amongst the rest Out of regard says he to the threatning of our Lord he durst never call his Brother fool no anger wrath or bitterness proceeded out of his mouth Slandering he hated as a quality greatly opposite to a state of salvation pride and envy were strangers to that innocent and guileless soul He never approached the altar till first reconciled to his brother All false and artificial speeches and such as are cunningly contrived for the slander and detraction of others he greatly abominated well knowing that every lie is the spawn and issue of the devil and that God has threatned to destroy all those that speak lies And so indeed he oftentimes does even in this world not respiting such persons to the tribunals of the other world whereof we meet with this memorable example Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem a man of admirable piety and holiness of life shined with so glorious a lustre in the place where he lived that the brightness of his conversation offended the sore eyes of other men Three more especially not able to bear the eminent strictness of his life and being themselves guilty of very great enormities thought to escape themselves by accusing him Whereupon they laid a very hainous crime to his charge and to beget the greater credit with them that heard it solemnly ratified it with their oaths The first imprecating upon himself that he might be burnt if it were not true the second that his body might be consumed by some noysom and pestilent disease the third that he might lose his sight The good man though notwithstanding all this he stood right in the thoughts of all true Christians who knew his life to be too clear and unblameable to be sullied with the breath of such vile fellows yet not being able to bear it withdrew himself to an Eremits life in the wilderness But the restless eye of the divine vengeance quickly overtook these perjured wretches and caught them in their own snares the first by a little spark that casually and whereof no account could be given happened in his house was in the night himself family and house universally burnt to ashes the second was from head to foot over-run and consumed by such a disease as he had wished upon himself the third that saw all this and feared the righteous and inevitable vengeance of God upon himself confessed the whole plot and combination and testified his repentance with so deep a sorrow that with the multitude of his tears he lost his sight We have seen how exact the Christians were about their words that they should be harmless and inoffensive and the true conveyances of their minds nor were they less careful about the conduct of their actions whether of distributive or commutative Justice For matters of distributive Justice so far as it concerns a fair hearing and impartial determining of tryals and causes rewarding the good and punishing the bad they had little opportunity to shew themselves Christians in the first Ages being seldom invested with any external Authority and power till the Empire submitted to Christianity and then we find them executing their places with the most unbyassed uprightness and integrity S. Basil speaking of an excellent person though he names him not who was sent to be Governour of Neocaesarea where he was Bishop but presently undermin'd and outed by the accusations of some that could not bear his free and impartial carriage and his temper so extreamly opposite to flattery says this of him that he was a most rigid observer of Justice courteous and easie of access to them that were oppressed but his presence severe and terrible to the injurious and transgressours of the Law He was the same to rich and poor equally at leisure for both of all men he exceedingly abhorr'd taking bribes never favouring any beyond the Equity of his Cause and which was above all he was one that designed to reduce Christianity to its antient dignity and perfection The same Nazianzen reports of his own father and reckons it one of the excellent properties for which he accounted him a Christian even before he embrac'd Christianity that he so exactly observed justice himself and so impartially administred it to others that though he went through very great offices in the State yet he made not one farthing's addition to his own revenue though he saw some before his eyes who with Briareus his hands laid hold upon the publick treasures and therewith filled their own Coffers In matters of Commutative Justice and ordinary transaction between man and man they observed the rule to deal with others as they would be dealt with themselves they took no advantage of any mans ignorance or unskilfulness so as to grasp that commodity at a far under-rate of which
long before others were called to do the same offices for them Their bodies they decently committed to the ground for they abhorred the custom so common amongst the Gentiles of burning the bodies of the dead which they did not as the Heathens objected because they thought that their bodies once burnt to ashes would be difficultly brought to a Resurrection a doctrine which they strenuously asserted and held fast as the main pillar of their comfort and confidence but because they looked upon it as inhumane and barbarous and contrary to the more ancient and better usage of mankind in this matter Tertullian calls this way of burial by inhumation a piece of piety and tells us they abstained from burning the Corps not as some did because they thought that some part of the soul remained in the body after death but because it savour'd of savageness and cruelty Therefore their enemies to do them the greater spite did not only put them to death but very often burn their dead bodies and sprinkle their ashes into the Sea partly to hinder them from a decent burial and partly as in that tumult at Alexandria under Julian that nothing might be left of them to be honour'd as the remains of Martyrs As Christianity got ground this more civil way of inhumation did not only take place but rooted out the contrary custome even amongst the Gentiles themselves For though the Emperour Theodosius the Great gives some intimation of it as remaining in his time yet not long after it wholly ceased as is expresly acknowledged by Macrobius who liv'd in the time of the younger Theodosius Nor did they ordinarily content themselves with a bare interrment but prepared the body for its funeral with costly Spices and rich odours and perfumes not sparing the best drugs and ointments which the Sabeans could afford as Tertullian plainly testifies They who while alive generally abstained from whatever was curious and costly when dead were embalm'd and entombed with great art and curiosity Whence Eunapius much such a friend to Christianity as Julian or Porphyry derides the Monks and Christians of Egypt for honouring the season'd and embalm'd bones and heads of Martyrs such says he as the Courts of Justice had condemned and put to death for their innumerable villanies This cost the Christians doubtless bestowed upon the bodies of their dead because they looked upon death as the entrance into a better life and laid up the body as the candidate and expectant of a joyful and happy resurrection Besides hereby they gave some encouragement to suffering when men saw how much care was taken to honour and secure the reliques of their mortality and that their bodies should not be persecuted after death This their enemies knew very well and therefore many times denied them the civility and humanity of burial to strike the greater dread into them Thus Maximus the President threatned Tharacus the Martyr that although he bore up his head so high upon the confidence that after his death his body should be wound up and embalm'd with ointments and odoriferous spices yet he would defeat his hopes by causing his body to be burnt and sprinkling his ashes before the wind Thus after they had put Polycarp to death they burnt his body out of spite to the Christians who had beg'd it of the Proconsul only to give it a solemn interrment whereupon gathering his bones which the mercy of the fire had spared they decently committed them to the earth and there used to meet to celebrate the memory of that pious and holy man During those times of persecution they were very careful to bury the bodies of the Martyrs some making it their particular business by stealth to interr those in the night who had suffered in the day this they did with great hazard and danger many of them as appears from the ancient Martyrologies suffering Martyrdom upon this very account Afterwards when the Church was setled there was a particular Order of men call'd Copiatae either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the pains they took or else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they committed the bodies of the dead to the grave the place of ease and rest appointed for this purpose about the time of Constantine or to be sure his Son Constantius in two of whose Laws they are expresly mentioned and in the latter said to be lately instituted Their office as Epiphanius tells was to wrap up and bury the bodies of the dead to prepare their graves and to interr them and because inhumation and giving burial to the dead was ever accounted in a more peculiar manner a work of piety and religion therefore these persons were reckoned if not strictly Clergy-men at least in a Clergy-relation being in both Laws of Constantius enumerated with and invested in the same immunities with the Clergy By the Authour in S. Hierom they are styled Fossarii grave-maker and by him plac'd in the first and lowest order of the Clerici and exhorted to be like good old Tobit in Faith Holiness Knowledge and Vertue In the great Church of Constantinople they were called Decani or Deans but quite distinct from the Palatin Deans spoken of in the Theodosian Code and freequently elsewhere who were a military order and chiefly belonged to the Emperours Palace they were one of the Collegia or Corporations of the City Their number was very great Constantine is said to have appointed no less than M. C. of them But by a Law of Honorius and Theodosius they were reduc'd to DCCCCL till afterwards Anastasius brought them back to their former number which was also ratified and confirmed by Justinian their particular duties and offices both as relating to the dead and all other things are largely described in two Novell Constitutions of his to that purpose Nor did they only take care that the body might be prepared for its funeral but to provide it of a decent and convenient Sepulchre wherein it might be honourably and securely laid up a thing which had been always practised by the more sober and civiliz'd part of mankind Their burying-places called Polyandria Cryptae Arenaria but most commonly Coemeteria or Dormitories because according to the notion which the Scripture gives us of the death of the Righteous Christians are not so properly said to dye as to sleep in the Lord and their bodies to rest in the grave in expectation of a joyful resurrection were generally in the fields or gardens it being prohibited by the Roman Laws and especially an ancient Law of the XII Tables to bury within the City walls This held for some Centuries after Christianity appeared in the world and longer it was before they buried within Churches within the out-parts whereof to be interred was a priviledge at first granted only to Princes and persons of the greatest rank and quality Chrysostome assures us that Constantius the Emperour reckoned he did his