C. K. L.] ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων, εἰκῆ φυσιούμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ vods τῆς σαρκὸς

αὐτοῦ: (2) On the dogmatic ground of a resulting interference with due recognition of the Headship of Jesus Christ, the One Source of the super- natural life of the Church, καὶ od κρατῶν τὴν κεφαλὴν, ἐξ οὗ πᾶν τὸ σῶμα διὰ τῶν ἁφῶν καὶ συνδέσμων ἐπιχορηγούμενον καὶ συμβιβαζόμενον, αὔξει τὴν αὔξησιν τοῦ Θεοῦ.
P Heb, xii. 22: προσεληλύθατε Σιὼν ὄρει, καὶ πόλει Θεοῦ ζῶντος, Ἵερου- σαλὴμ. ἐπουρανίῳ, καὶ μυριάσιν ἀγγέλων, πανηγύρει καὶ ἐκκλησίᾳ πρωτοτόκων ἐν οὐρανοῖς ἀπογεγραμμένων, καὶ κριτῇ Θεῷ πάντων, καὶ πνεύμασι δικαίων τετελειωμένων, καὶ διαθήκης νέας μεσίτῃ Ἰησοῦ.
4 The ‘worship’ of Buddha has sometimes been compared to that of our Divine Lord, as if Buddha were regarded as a real divinity by his fol- lowers. But ‘le Bouddha reste homme, et ne cherche jamais ἃ dépasser les limites de l’humanité, au del& de laquelle il ne congoit rien. L’enthousiasme de ses disciples a été aussi réservé que lui-méme: dans le culte innocent qwils lui rendaient, leur ferveur s'adressait ἃ un souvenir consolateur et fortifiant ; jamais leur superstition intéressée ne s'adressait ἃ sa puis- sance,... Ni Vorgueil de Qikyamouni, ni le fanatisme des croyants, n’a congu un sacrilége; le Bouddha, tout grand qu’il se oroit, n’a point risqué - Papothéose;.... jamais personne n’a songé ἃ en faire un dieu.’ Saint- Hilaire, Le Bouddha, p. 168,
vu | Cc
386 (8) Fesus worshipped with adoration due to Gon.
Man, ceased not to be God. As God, He received from those who believed in Him the only worship which their faith could rendert. This is clear from the representations of heavenly wor- ship in the Apocalypse, which we have been considering, even if we take no other passages into account. The Apocalyptic worship of our glorified Lord is not any mere honorary acknow- ledgment that His redemptive work is complete. Even at the moments of His Incarnation worship is addressed to Christ’s Divine and Eternal Person. Doubtless the language of devotion to Him which we find in the Gospels represents many postures of the human soul, ranging between that utter self-prostration which we owe to the Most High, and that trustful familiarity with which we pour our joys and sorrows, our hopes and fears into the ear of a human friend. Such ‘lower forms’ of worship lead up to, and are explained by, the higher. They illustrate the condescension and purpose of the Incarnation. But the familiar confidence which the Incarnation invites cannot be pleaded against the rights of the Incarnate God. A free, trust- ful, open-hearted converse with Christ is compatible with the lowliest worship of His Person; Christian confidence even ‘leans upon His breast at supper,’ while Christian faith discerns His Glory, and ‘falls at His feet as dead.’
y. The apostolic worship of Jesus Christ embraced His Manhood no less than it embraced His Godhead t. According to
τ Meyer’s remarks are very far from satisfactory. ‘Das Anrufen Christi ist nicht das Anbeten schlechthin, wie es nur in Betreff des Vaters, als des einigen absoluten Gottes (!) geschieht, wohl aber die Anbetung nach der durch das Verhaltniss Christi zwm Vater (dessen wesensgleicher Sohn, Ebenbild, Throngenosse, Vermittler, und Fiirsprecher fiir die Menschen u. s. w. er ist) bedingten Relativitat im betenden Bewusstsein.... Der Christum Anrufende ist sich bewusst, er rufe ihn nicht als den schlech- thinigen Gott, sondern als den gottmenschlichen Vertreter und Mittler Gottes an.” In Rom. x. 12 our Lord is represented as being equal with the Father (p. 380, note), and equally with Him entitled to adoration. Adoration is strictly due to the Uncreated Substance of God, and to Jesus Christ as being personally of It. The mediatorial functions of His Man- hood cannot affect the bearings of this truth. See Waterland’s profound remarks on ‘Scripture’s seeming in some places to found Christ’s title to worship not so much upon what He is in Himself, as upon what He has done for us.’ Works, vol. i. p. 435.
5 Cat. Rac. p. 164.
* Cf. Pearson, Minor Theological Works, vol. i. p. 307: ‘Christus sive Homo Ille Qui est Mediator, adoratus est. Heb. i. 6; Apoc. ΥΥΣΙ, 14. Hee est plenissima descriptio adorationis. Et hic Agnus occisus erat Homo ille, Qui est Mediator; Ergo Homo Ile, Qui est Mediator est adorandus. St. Greg. Nazianzen, Epist. ci: Εἴτις μὴ προσκυνεῖ τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, ἀνάθεμα
[ LECT.
A
e
(y) Adoration of the Sacred Manhood of Fesus. 387
St. Paul His Human Name of Jesus, that is, His Human Nature, is worshipped on earth, in heaven, and among the dead. It is not the Unincarnate Logos, but the wounded Humanity of Jesus, Which is enthroned and adored in the vision of the Apocalypse. To adore Christ’s Deity while carefully refusing to adore His Manhood would be to forget that His Manhood is for ever joined to His Divine and Eternal Person, Which is the real Object of our adoration. Since He has taken the Manhood into God, It is an inseparable attribute of His Per- sonal Godhead; every knee must bend before It; henceforth the angels themselves around the throne must adore, not as of yore the Unincarnate Son, but ‘the Lamb as It had been slain.’
3. Thus rooted in the doctrine and practice of the apostles, the worship of Jesus Christ was handed down to succeeding ages as an integral and recognised element of the spiritual life of the Church. The early Fathers refer to the worship of our Lord as to a matter beyond dispute. The apostolic age had scarcely passed, when St. Ignatius bids the Roman Christians ‘put up supplications to Christ’ on his behalf, that he might attain the distinction of martyrdom". St. Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians opens with a benediction which is in fact a prayer to Jesus Christ, as being, together with the Almighty Father, the Giver of peace and mercy*. Polycarp prays that ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Eternal Priest Himself, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would build up his readers in faith and truth and in all meekness, . . . and would give them a part and lot among the saintsy” And at a later
ἔστω, καὶ τετάχθω μετὰ τῶν θεοκτόνων.͵ Cf. also Ibid. p. 308: ‘Christus, qua est Mediator, est unicd adoratione colendus. Concil. Gen. V. Collat. viii. can. 9. Si quis adorari in duabus naturis dicit Christum, ex quo duas adorationes introducat, semotim Deo Verbo, et semotim Homini: aut si quis .....adorat Christum, sed non und adoratione Deum Verbum Incar- natum cum Ejus Carne adorat, extra quod sancte Dei ecclesiz ab initio traditum est; talis anathema sit.” See the whole of this and the preceding ‘Determination.’ And compare St. Cyril’s 8th Anathema; Damasc., iv. 3; Hooker, E. P. v. 54, 9.
a St. Ign. ad Rom. 4: λιτανεύσατε τὸν Χριστὸν [τὸν Κύριον ed. Dressel, which, however, must here mean our Lord] ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ, ἵνα διὰ τῶν ὀργάνων τούτων [Θεῷ ed. Dressel] θυσία εὑρεθῶ. Cf. ad Magn. 7.
= St. Polyc. ad Phil. 1: ἔλεος ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη παρὰ Θεοῦ παντοκράτορος καὶ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν πληθυνθείη.
¥ Ibid. 12: ‘Deus autem et Pater Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et ipse Sempiternus Pontifex, Dei Filius Jesus Christus, edificet vos in fide et veritate et in omni mansuetudine,.....et det vobis sortem et partem inter sanctos suos.’
vir]: Ὁ Oc2
388 Theworship of Fesus in the subapostolic Fathers;
day, standing bound at the pyre of martyrdom, he cries, ‘For all things, O God, do I praise and bless and glorify Thee, together with the Eternal and Heavenly Jesus Christ, Thy well-beloved Son, with Whom, to Thee and the Holy Ghost, be glory, both now and for ever. Amen.’ After his death, Nicetas begged the proconsul not to deliver up his body for burial, ‘lest the Christians should desert the Crucified One, and should begin to worship this new martyr. The Jews, it appears, employed an argument which may have been the language of sarcasm or of a real anxiety. ‘They know not,’ continues the encyclical letter of the Church of Smyrna, ‘that neither shall we ever be able to desert Christ Who suffered for the salvation of all who are saved in the whole world, nor yet to worship any other. For Him indeed, as being the Son of God, we do adore; but the martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, we worthily love by reason of their unsurpassed devotion to Him their own King and Teacher. God grant that we too may be fellow- partakers and fellow-disciples with them >.’ The writers of this remarkable passage were not wanting in love and honour to the martyr of Christ. ‘Afterward,’ say they, ‘we, having taken up his bones, which were more precious than costly stones, and of more account than gold, placed them where it was fitting ¢’ But they draw the sharpest line between such a tribute of affection and the worship of the Redeemer; Jesus was wor- shipped as ‘being the Son of God.’ The Apologists point to the adoration of Jesus Christ, as well as to that of the Father, when replying to the heathen charge of atheism. St. Justin protests to the emperors that the Christians worship God aloned, Yet he also asserts that the Son and the Spirit share in the reverence and worship which is offered to the Father®; and
2 Mart. St. Polyc. c. 14, apud Hefele, Patr. Ap. p.131.
® Ibid. c. 17: μὴ, φησὶν, ἀφέντες τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, τοῦτον ἄρξωνται σέβεσθαι.
Ὁ Thid.: ἀγνοοῦντες, ὅτι οὔτε τὸν Χριστόν ποτε καταλιπεῖν δυνησόμεθα τὸν ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου τῶν σωζομένων σωτηρίας παθόντα, οὔτε ἕτερόν τινα σέβεσθαι. τοῦτον μὲν γὰρ Ὑἱὸν ὄντα τοῦ Θεοῦ προσκυνοῦμεν" τοὺς δὲ μάρτυρας, ὧς μαθητὰς καὶ μιμητὰς τοῦ Κυρίου, ἀγαπῶμεν ἀξίως. ἕνεκα εὐνοίας ἀνυπερβλήτου τῆς εἰς Toy ἴδιον βασιλέα καὶ διδάσκαλον" ὧν γένοιτο καὶ ἡμᾶς συγκοινωνούς τε καὶ συμμαθητὰς γενέσθαι.
© Thid. c. 18. 3
4 Apol. i. 8 17, Ρ. 44, ed. Otto. After quoting St. Luke xx. 22-25 he proceeds: ὅθεν Θεὸν μὲν μόνον προσκυνοῦμεν, ὑμῖν δὲ πρὸς τὰ ἄλλα χαίροντες ὑπηρετοῦμεν.
© Ibid. i. 8 6, p.14, ed. Otto: Καὶ ὁμολογοῦμεν τῶν τοιούτων νομιζομένων θεῶν ἄθεοι εἶναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχὶ τοῦ ἀληθεστάτου καὶ πατρὸς δικαιοσύνης καὶ ἤν
LECT,
in SS. Fustin, Ireneus, and Clement Alex. 389
in controversy with Trypho he especially urges that prophecy foretold the adoration of Messiah f. St. Irenzeus insists that the miracles which were in his day of common occurrence in the Church were not to be ascribed to any invocation of angels, nor yet to magical incantations, nor to any form of evil curiosity. They were simply due to the fact that Christians constantly prayed to God the Maker of all things, and called upon the Name of His Son Jesus Christ. Clement of Alexandria has left us three treatises, designed to form a missionary trilogy. In one he is occupied with converting the heathen from idola- try to the faith of Christ; in a second he instructs the new convert in the earlier lessons and duties of the Christian faith; while in his most considerable work he labours to impart the higher knowledge to which the Christian is entitled, and so to render him ‘the perfect Gnostic.’ In each of these treatises, widely different as they are in point of practical aim, Clement bears witness to the Church’s worship of our Lord. In the first, his Hortatory Address to the Greeks, he winds up a long
σύνης καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀρετῶν, ἀνεπιμίκτου τε κακίας θεοῦ" ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνόν τε, Kal τὸν παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ Ὑἱὸν ἐλθόντα καὶ διδάξαντα ἡμᾶς ταῦτα καὶ τὸν τῶν ἄλλων, ἐπομένῳν καὶ ἐξομοιουμένων ἀγαθῶν ἀγγέλων στρατὸν, Πνεῦμά τε τὸ προφητι- κὸν σεβόμεθα καὶ προσκυνοῦμεν λόγῳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ τιμῶντες. With regard to the clause of this passage which has been the subject of so much controversy (καὶ τὸν τῶν ἄλλων... ἀγγέλων στρατὸν), (1) it is impossible to make στρατὸν depend upon σεβόμεθα καὶ προσκυνοῦμεν without involving St. Justin in self-contradiction (cf. the passage quoted above), and Bellarmine’s argu- ment based on this construction (de Beatitud. Sanctor. lib. i. c. 13) proves, if anything, too much for his purpose, viz. that the same worship was paid to the angels as to the Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Several moderns (quoted by Otto in loc.) who adopt this construction use it for a very different object. (2) It is difficult to accept Bingham’s rendering (Ant. bk. 13, 6. 2, § 2) which joins ἀγγέλων στρατὸν and ἡμᾶς with διδάξαντα, and makes Christ the Teacher not of men only but of the angel host. This idea, however, seems to have no natural place in the passage, and we should have expected ταῦτα ἡμᾶς not ἡμᾶς ταῦτα. (3) It seems better, therefore, with Bull, Chevallier (Transl. p. 152), Méhler (Tiibing. Theol. Quartalsch. 1833, Fasc. i. p. 53 sqq., quoted by Otto) to make ἀγγέλων στρατὸν and ταῦτα together dependent upon διδάξαντα: ‘the Son of God taught us not merely about these (viz. evil spirits, cf. § 5) but also con- cerning the good angels,’ &.; τὸν ἀγγέλων στρατὸν being elliptically put for τὰ περὶ τοῦ... ἀγγέλων στρατοῦ.
{ Dial. cum Tryph. c. 68: γραφὰς, at διαῤῥήδην τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ παθητὸν καὶ προσκυνητὸν καὶ Θεὸν ἀποδεικνύουσιν. Ibid. c. 76: Καὶ Aavld.... Θεὸν ἰσχυρὸν καὶ προσκυνητὸν, Χριστὸν ὄντα, ἐδήλωσε.
& Her. ii. § 32: ‘Ecclesia. .... nomen Domini nostri Jesu Christi invocans, virtutes ad utilitates hominum, sed non ad seductionem, perficit.’ Observe too the argument which follows,
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390 References to the worship of Fesusin Tertullian.
argumentative invective against idolatry with a burst of fervid entreaty : ‘Believe, O man,’ he exclaims, ‘in Him Who is both Man and God; believe, O man, in the living God, Who suffered and Who is adored,’ The Peedagogus concludes with a prayer of singular beauty ending in a doxology i, and in these the Son is worshipped and praised as the Equal of the Father. In the Stromata, as might be expected, prayer to Jesus Christ is rather taken for granted; the Christian life is to be a continuous worship of the Word, and through Him of the Father*, Ter- tullian in his Apology grapples with the taunt that the Chris- tians worshipped a Man Who had been condemned by the Jewish tribunals}, Tertullian does not deny or palliate the charge; he justifies the Christian practice. Whatever Christ might be in the opinion of the pagan world, Christians knew Him to be of one substance with the Father™. The adoration of Christ, then, was not a devotional eccentricity; it was an absolute duty. In one passage Tertullian argues against mixed marriages with the heathen, because in these cases there could be no joint worship of the Redeemer"; elsewhere he implies that the worship of Jesus was co-extensive with faith in Christianity®.
Origen’s erratic intellect may have at times betrayed him, on this as on other subjects, into language?, more or less incon-
h Protrept. 6. x. p.84, ed. Potter: πίστευσον, ἄνθρωπε, ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ Θεῷ" πίστευσον, ἄνθρωπε, τῷ παθόντι Kal προσκυνουμένῳ Θεῷ ζῶντι" πιστεύσατε οἱ δοῦλοι τῷ νεκρῷ" πάντες ἄνθρωποι, πιστεύσατε μόνῳ τῷ πάντων ἀνθρώπων Θεῷ" πιστεύσατε καὶ μισθὸν λάβετε σωτηρίαν K.T.A,
1 Pedagog. lib. 111. 6. 7, Ρ. 311, ed. Potter: ὅπερ οὖν λοιπὸν ἐπὶ τοιαύτῃ πανηγύρει τοῦ Λόγου, τῷ Λόγῳ προσευξώμεθα' Ἵλαθι τοῖς σοῖς, παιδαγωγὲ, παιδίοις, Πατὴρ, ἡνίοχε ᾿Ισραὴλ, Ὑἱὲ καὶ Πατὴρ, Ἕν ἄμφω Κύριε. δὸς δὲ ἡμῖν τοῖς σοῖς ἑπομένοις παραγγέλμασι τὸ ὁμοίωμα πληρῶσαι... .. αἰνοῦντας εὐ- χαριστεῖν, [εὐχαριστοῦνταΞς] αἰνεῖν, τῷ μόνῳ Πατρὶ καὶ Tid, Ὑἱῷ καὶ Πατρὶ, παιδαγωγῷ καὶ διδασκάλῳ Tig, σὺν καὶ τῷ ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, πάντα τῷ Ἕνὶ, ἐν ᾧ τὰ πάντα, δι᾽ ὃν τὰ πάντα ey, ... ᾧ ἡ δόξα καὶ νῦν καὶ εἰς αἰῶνας.
K See the fine passage, Stromat. lib. vii. ο. 7, ad init. p. 851, ed. Potter.
1 Apolog. 6. 21: ‘Sed et vulgus jam scit Christum ut hominum aliquem, qualem Judei judicaverunt, quo facilius quis nos hominis cultores existim- averit. Verum neque de Christo erubescimus, cum sub nomine ejus depu- tari et damnari juvat.’
m Tbid.: ‘Hunc ex Deo prolatum didicimus, et prolatione generatum, et ideirco Filium Dei δέ Deum dictum, ex unitate Substantia.’
Ὁ Ad Uxor. lib. ii. c.6: ‘Audiat...deganeé. Que Dei mentio? que Christi invocatio?’
° Adv, Jud.c. 7: ‘Ubique creditur, ab omnibus gentibus supra enumer- atis colitur, ubique regnat, ubique adoratur.’
P Particularly in the treatise, De Oratione, 6. 15, vol. i. ed. Ben. p. 223: πῶς δὲ οὐκ ἔστι κατὰ Toy εἰπόντα' “Τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; οὐδεὶς ΜΙ εἰ μὴ
LECT.
References to the worship of Fesus in Origen. 391
sistent with his own general line of teaching, by which it must in fairness be interpreted. Origen often insists upon the worship of Jesus Christ as being a Christian duty4; he illustrates this duty, especially in his Homilies, by his personal example'; he bases it upon the great truth which justifies and demands such a practical acknowledgment’, It is in keeping with this that
els ὁ Θεὸς, ὁ Πατήρ" εἰπεῖν ἄν" Τί ἐμοὶ προσεύχῃ ; Μόνῳ τῷ Πατρὶ προσ- εὐχεσθαι χρὴ, ᾧ κἀγὼ προσεύχομαι: ὕπερ διὰ τῶν ἁγίων γραφῶν μανθάνετε" ᾿Αρχιερεῖ γὰρ τῷ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν κατασταθέντι ὑπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς, καὶ παρακλήτῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς εἶναι λαβόντι, εὔχεσθαι ἡμᾶς οὐ δεῖ, ἀλλὰ SC ἀρχιερέως καὶ παρακλήτου «.7.A. This indefensible language was a result of the line taken by Origen in opposing the Monarchians. ‘As the latter, together with the distinction of substance in the Father and the Son, denied also that of the Person, so it was with Origen a matter of practical moment, on account of the systematic connexion of ideas in his philosophical system of Christianity, to maintain in opposition to them the personal independence of the Logos. Sometimes in this controversy he distinguishes between unity of substance and personal unity or unity of subject, so that it only concerned him to controvert the latter. And this certainly was the point of greatest practical moment to him; and he must have been well aware that many of the Fathers who contended for a personal distinction held firmly at the same time to a unity of substance. But according to the internal connexion of his own system (Neander means his Platonic doctrine of the τὸ dv) both fell together; wherever he spoke, therefore, from the position of that system, he affirmed at one and the same time the ἑτερότης τῆς οὐσίας and the ἑτερότης τῆς ὑποστάσεως or Tov ὑποκειμένου. Neander, Ch. Hist. ii. 311, 312. From this philosophical premiss Origen deduces his practical inference above noticed: εἰ γὰρ ἕτερος, ὧς ἐν ἄλλοις δείκνυται, κατ᾽ οὐσίαν καὶ ὑποκείμενός ἐστιν ὁ Ὑἱὸς τοῦ Πατρὸς, ἤτοι προσκυνητέον τῷ Ὑἱῷ καὶ οὐ τῷ Πατρὶ, ἢ ἀμφοτέροις, ἢ τῷ Πατρὶ μόνῳ. De Orat. 6. 15, sub init. p. 222. Although, then, Origen expresses his conclusion in Scriptural terminology, it is a conclusion which is traceable to his philosophy as distinct from his strict religious belief, and it is entirely contradicted by a large number of other passages in his writings.
4 Contr. Cels. v. 12, sub fin, vol. i. p. 587. Also Ibid, viii. 12, p. 750 (in juxta-position with some inconsistent language): ἕνα οὖν Θεὸν, ds ἀποδεδώ- καμεν, Tov Πατέρα καὶ τὸν Tidy θεραπεύομεν" καὶ μένει ἡμῖν ὁ πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ἀτενὴς Adyos* καὶ οὐ τὸν ἔναγχός γε φανέντα, ὡς πρότερον οὐκ ὄντα, ὑπερ- θρησκεύομεν. Ibid. viii, 26: μόνῳ γὰρ προσευκτέον τῷ ἐπὶ πᾶσι Θεῷ, καὶ προσευκτέον γε τῷ Μονογενεῖ, καὶ Πρωτοτόκῳ πάσης κτίσεως, Λόγῳ Θεοῦ,
τ See his prayer on the furniture of the tabernacle, as spiritually ex- plained, Hom. 13 in Exod. xxxv. p.176: ‘Domine Jesu, presta mihi, ut aliquid monumenti habere merear in tabernaculo Tuo. Ego optarem (si fieri posset), esse aliquid meum in illo auro, ex quo propitiatorium fabricatur, vel ex quo arca contegitur, vel ex quo candelabrum fit luminis et lucerne. Aut si aurum non habeo, argentum saltem aliquid inveniar offerre, quod proficiat in columnas, vel in bases earum. Aut certe vel eris aliquid. ... Tantum ne in omnibus jejunus et infecundus inveniar.’ Cf. too Hom. i, in Lev., Hom. v. in Lev., quoted by Bingham, Ant. xiii. 2, § 3.
* Comm. in Rom. x. lib. viii. vol. 4, p. 624, ed. Ben., quoted by Bingham, ubi ieee ‘[Apostolus] in principio Epistole quam ad Corinthios scribit, vu
392 Lhe worship of Fesus in Origen and Novatian.
Origen explains the frankincense offered by the wise men to our Infant Saviour as an acknowledgment of His Godhead; since such an action obviously involved that adoration which is due only to Godt. This explanation could not have been put for- ward by any but a devout worshipper of Jesus. In the work on the Trinity", ascribed to Novatian, in the treatises and letters * of St. Cyprian, in the apologetic works of Arnobius¥ and Lac-
ubi dicit, “Cum omnibus qui invocant nomen Domini nostri Jesu Christi, in omni loco ipsorum et nostro” eum cujus nomen invocatur, Dominum Jesum Christum esse pronuntiat. Si ergo et Enos, et Moyses, et Aaron, et Samuel, ‘invocabant Dominum et ipse exaudiebat eos,” sine dubio Christum Jesum Dominum invocabant; et si invocare nomen Domini et orare Dominum unum atque idem est; sicut invocatur Deus, invocandus est Christus; et sicut oratur Deus, ita et orandus est Christus; et sicut offerimus Deo Patri primo omnium orationes, ita et Domino Jesu Christo; et sicut offerimus postulationes Patri, ita offerimus postulationes et Filio; et sicut offerimus gratiarum actiones Deo, ita et gratias offerimus Salvatori. Unum namque utrique honorem deferendum, id est Patri et Filio, divinus edocet sermo, cum dicit: ‘‘Ut omnes honorificent Filium, sicut honori- ficant Patrem.”’
τ Contr. Cels. i. 60, p.375: φέροντες μὲν δῶρα, ἃ (ἵν᾽ οὕτως ὀνομάσω) συνθέτῳ τινὶ ἐκ Θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπου θνητοῦ προσήνεγκαν, σύμβολα μὲν, ὡς βασιλεῖ τὸν χρυσὸν, ὡς δὲ τεθνηξομένῳ τὴν σμύρναν, ὡς δὲ Θεῷ τὸν λιβανωτόν" προσήνεγκαν δὲ, μαθόντες τὸν τόπον τῆς γενέσεως αὐτοῦ. ᾿Αλλ᾽ ἐπεὶ Θεὸς ἦν, ὃ ὑπὲρ τοὺς βοηθοῦντας ἀνθρώποις ἀγγέλους ἐνυπάρχων Σωτὴρ τοῦ γένους τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἄγγελος ἠμείψατο τὴν τῶν μάγων ἐπὶ προσκυνῆσαι τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν εὐσέβειαν, χρηματίσας αὐτοῖς “μὴ ἥκειν πρὸς τὸν Ἡρώδην, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπανελθεῖν ἄλλῃ ὁδῷ εἰς τὰ οἰκεῖα. Cf. St. Iren. adv. Her. iii. 9. 2.
5 Novat. de Trin. c. 14, quoted by Bingham: ‘Si homo tantummodo Christus, quomodo adest ubique invocatus, quum hee hominis natura non sit, sed Dei, ut adesse omni loco possit ?’
x St. Cyprian. de Bono Patientiz, p. 220, ed. Fell.: ‘Pater Deus precepit Filium suum adorari: et Apostolus Paulus, divini preecepti memor, ponit et dicit: ‘Deus exaltavit illum et donavit illi nomen quod est super omne nomen; ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur, ccelestium, terrestrium, et infernorum:” et in Apocalypsi angelus Joanni volenti adorari se resistit et dicit: ‘‘ Vide ne feceris, quia conservus tuus sum et fratrum tuorum; Jesum Dominum adora.” Qualis Dominus Jesus, et quanta patientia ejus, ut qui in celis adoratur, necdum vindicetur in terris?’ In Rev. xx. 9, St. Cyprian probably read τῷ Κυρίῳ instead of τῷ Θεῷ. See his language to Lucius, Bishop of Rome, who had recently been a confessor in a sudden persecution of Gallus, A.D. 252 (Ep. 61, p.145, ed. Fell.): ‘Has ad vos literas mit- timus, frater carissime, et representantes vobis per epistolam gaudium nostrum, fida obsequia caritatis expromimus; hic quoque in sacrificiis atque in orationibus nostris non cessantes Deo Patri, et Christo Filio Ejus Domino nostro gratias agere, et orare pariter ac petere, ut qui perfectus est atque perficiens, custodiat et perficiat in vobis confessionis vestre gloriosam coronam,”
y Arnobius adv. Gentes, i. 36: ‘Quotidianis supplicationibus adoratis.” And Ibid. i. 39: ‘Neque [Christus] omni illo qui vel maximus potest ex- cogitari divinitatis afficiatur cultu?’ [ed. Oehler]. [
: LECT.
Rovers ee
Value of lymnus as expressing Christian doctrine. 393
tantius 4, references to the subject are numerous and decisive. But our limits forbid any serious attempt to deal with the materials which crowd upon us as we advance into the central and later decades of the third century; and at this point it may be well to glance at the forms with which the primitive Church actually approached the throne of the Redeemer.
It is clear that Christian hymnody has ever been prized and hated for its services in popularising the worship of Jesus Christ. Hymnody actively educates, while it partially satisfies, the instinct of worship; it is a less formal and sustained act of worship than prayer, yet it may really involve transient acts of the deepest adoration. But, because it is less formal; be- cause in using it the soul can pass, as it were, unobserved and at will from mere sympathetic states of feeling to adoration, and from adoration back to passive although reverent sympathy ;— hymnody has always been a popular instrument for the ex- pression of religious feeling. And from the first years of Christianity it seems to have been especially consecrated to the honour of the Redeemer. We have already noted traces of such apostolical hymns in the Pauline Epistles; but some early Humanitarian teachers did unintentional service, by bringing inte prominence the value of hymns as witnesses to Christian doctrine, and as efficient means of popular dogmatic teaching. When the followers of Artemon maintained that the doctrine of Christ’s Godhead was only brought into the Church during the episcopate of Zephyrinus, a Catholic writer, quoted by Euse- bius, observed, by way of reply, that ‘the psalms and hymns of the brethren, which, from the earliest days of Christianity, had been written by the faithful, all celebrate Christ, the Word of God, proclaiming His Divinity®.’ Origen pointed out that hymns were addressed only to God and to His Only-begotten Word, Who is also God». And the practical value of these hymns as teaching the doctrine of Christ’s Deity was illustrated by the conduct of Paulus of Samosata. He banished from his own and neighbouring churches the psalms which were sung to our Lord Jesus Christ ; he spoke of them contemptuously as being merely modern compositions. This was very natural in a prelate who ‘did not wish to confess with the Church that the
5 Lactantius, Div. Inst. iv. 16.
* Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 28: ψαλμοὶ δὲ ὅσοι καὶ φδαὶ ἀδελφῶν ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ὑπὸ πιστῶν γραφεῖσαι, τὸν Λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν Χριστὸν ὑμνοῦσι θεολογοῦντες.
> Contr. Cels. viii. 67: ὕμνους γὰρ εἰς μόνον τὸν ἐπὶ πᾶσι λέγομεν Θεὸν, καὶ τὸν ὙΠ αὐτοῦ Λόγον καὶ Θεόν" καὶ ὑμνοῦμέν γε Θεὸν καὶ τὸν Μονογενῆ αὐτοῦ. VII
394 Christ adored in the Gloria in Excelsts,
Son of God had descended from heaven’; but it shews how the hymnody of the primitive Church protected and proclaimed the truths which she taught and cherished.
Of the early hymns of the Church of Christ some remain to this day among us as witnesses and expressions of her faith in Christ’s Divinity. Such are the Tersanctus and the Gloria in Excelsis. Both belong to the second century ; both were intro- duced, it is difficult to say how early, into the Eucharistic Office ; both pay Divine honours to our Blessed Lord. As each morning dawned, the Christian of primitive days repeated in private the Gloria in Excelsis ; it was his hymn of supplication and praise to Christ. How wonderfully does it blend the appeal to our Lord’s human sympathies with the confession of His Divine prerogatives! “Ὁ Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, That takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.’ How thrilling is that burst of praise, which at last drowns the plaintive notes of entreaty that have preceded it, and hails Jesus Christ glorified on His throne in the heights of heaven! ‘For Thou only art holy; Thou only art the Lord; Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father.’ Each evening too, in those early times, the Christian offered another hymn, less known among ourselves, but scarcely less beautiful. It too was addressed to Jesus in His majesty :—
‘Hail! gladdening Light, of His pure glory poured, Who is th’ Immortal Father, heavenly, blest, Holiest of Holies—Jesus Christ-our Lord! Now we are come to the sun’s hour of rest, The lights of evening round us shine, We hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Divine! Worthiest art Thou at all times to be sung With undefiled tongue,
Son of our God, Giver of life, Alone! Therefore in all the world, Thy glories, Lord, they own Δ᾽
¢ Kus. Hist. Eccl. vii. 30: “ψαλμοὺς δὲ τοὺς μὲν εἰς τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν παύσας, ὡς δὴ νεωτέρους καὶ νεωτέρων ἀνδρῶν συγγράμματα. The account continues: εἰς ἑαυτὸν δὲ ἐν μέσῃ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, τῇ μεγάλῃ τοῦ πάσχα ἡμέρᾳ ψαλμῳδεῖν γυναῖκας παρασκευάζων, ὧν καὶ ἀκούσας ἄν τις φρίξειεν. They seem to have sung in this prelate’s own presence, and with his appro- bation, odes which greeted him as ‘an angel who had descended from heaven,’ although Paulus denied our Lord’s pre-existence. Vanity and unbelief are naturally and generally found together. The historian adds ex- pressly: τὸν μὲν γὰρ Ὑἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ οὐ βούλεται συνομολογεῖν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ κατεληλυθέναι.
4 Cf, Lyra Apostolica, No. 63. The original is given in Routh’s Reliquie
Sacr. iii. p. 515 :— [ LECT.
eRe
suet
᾿
and in the primitive Evening Hymn. 395
A yet earlier illustration is afforded by the ode with which the Alexandrian Clement concludes his Pedagogus. Although its phraseology was strictly adapted to the ‘perfect Gnostic’ at Alexandria in the second century, yet it seems to have been intended for congregational use. It celebrates our Lord, as ‘the Dispenser of wisdom,’ ‘the Support of the suffering,’ the ‘Lord of immortality,’ ‘the Saviour of mortals, ‘the Mighty Son,’ ‘the God of peace.’ It thrice insists on the ‘sincerity’ of the praise thus offered Him. It concludes :—
‘Sing we sincerely
The Mighty Son;
We, the peaceful choir,
We, the Christ-begotten ones,
We, the people of sober life,
Sing we together the God of peace °,’
Nor may we forget a hymn which, in God’s good providence, has been endeared to all of us from childhood. In its present form, the Te Deum is clearly Western, whether it belongs to the age of St. Augustine, with whose baptism it is connected by the popular tradition, or, as is probable, to a later period. But we can scarcely doubt that portions of it are of Eastern origin, and that they carry us up wellnigh to the sub-apostolic period. The Te Deum is at once a song of praise, a creed, and a supplication. In each capacity it is addressed to our Lord. In the Te Deum how profound is the adoration offered to Jesus, whether as One
Φῶς ἱλαρὸν ἁγίας δόξης ἀθανάτου Πατρὸς
οὐρανίου, ἁγίου, μάκαρος, ἸΙησοῦ Χριστὲ, ἐλθόντες ἐπὶ τοῦ ἡλίου δύσιν, ἰδόντες φῶς ἑσπερινὸν, ὑμνοῦμεν Πατέρα, καὶ Ὑἱὸν, καὶ “Ayioy Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ. ἄξιος εἶ ἐν πᾶσι καιροῖς ὑμνεῖσθαι φωναῖς ὁσίαις,
Tit Θεοῦ, ζωὴν ὁ διδούς" διὸ ὃ κόσμος σε δοξάζει.
St. Basil quotes it in part, De Spir. Sanct. 73. It is still the Vesper Hymn of the Greek Church.
9 Clem. Alex. Peed. iii. 12, fin. p. 313; Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, tom. iii. p. 3. ‘Der Ton des Liedes ist . . . . gnostisch versinnlichend. (Fortlage Gesinge Christlicher Vorzeit, p. 357, qu. by Daniel) :—
μέλπωμεν ἁπλῶς
παῖδα κρατερόν,
Xopds εἰρήνης
οἱ χριστόγονοι,
λαὸς σώφρων,
ψάλλωμεν ὁμοῦ Θεὸν εἰρήνης.
396 Adoration of Christ in the Te Deum.
of the Most Holy Three, or more specially in His Personal dis- tinctness as the King of Glory, the Father’s Everlasting Son! How touching are the supplications which remind Him that when He became incarnate ‘He did not abhor the Virgin’s womb,’ that when His Death-agony was passed He ‘ opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers!’ How passionate are the pleadings that He would ‘help His servants whom He has re- deemed with His most precious Blood,’ that He would ‘make them to be numbered with His saints in glory everlasting!’ Much of this language is of the highest antiquity; all of it is redolent with the fragrance of the earliest Church ; and, as we English Christians use it still in our daily services, we may rejoice to feel that it unites us altogether in spirit, and toa great extent in the letter, with the Church of the first three centuries f.
The Apostolical Constitutions contain ancient doxologies which associate Jesus Christ with the Father as ‘inhabiting the praises of Israel,’ after the manner of the Gloria Patrig. And the Kyrie Eleison, that germinal type of supplication, of which the countless litanies of the modern Church are only the varied expansions, is undoubtedly sub-apostolic. Together with the Tersanctus and the Gloria in Excelsis it shews very remarkably,
by its presence in the Eucharistic Office, how ancient and deeply -
rooted was the Christian practice of prayer to Jesus Christ. For the Eucharist has a double aspect: it is a gift from heaven to earth, but it is also an offering from earth to heaven. In the Eucharist the Christian Church offers to the Eternal Father the ‘merits and Death of His Son Jesus Christ;’ since Christ
1 On this subject, see Daniel, Thesaur. Hymnolog. tom. ii. pp. 279-299. ε Constitutiones, viii, 12 (vol. 1:}: 482, ed. Labbe), quoted by Bingham : παρακαλοῦμέν σε.... ὅπως ἅπαντας ἡμᾶς διατηρήσας ἐν τῇ εὐσεβείᾳ, ἐπι- συναγάγῃς ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ σον τοῦ Θεοῦ πάσης αἰσθητῆς καὶ νοητῆς φύσεως, τοῦ βασιλέως ἡμῶν, ἀτρέπτους, ἀμέμπτους, ἀνεγκλήτους" ὅτι σοι πᾶσα δόξα, σέβας καὶ εὐχαριστία, τιμὴ καὶ προσκύνησις τῷ Πατρὶ, καὶ τῷ Υἱῷ, καὶ τῷ ᾿Αγίῳ Πνεύματι καὶ νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς ἀνελλειπεῖς καὶ ἀτελευ- τήτους αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ibid. 13 (p. 483): διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ σου" μεθ᾽ οὗ σοι δόξα, τιμὴ, αἶνος, δοξολογία, εὐχαριστία, καὶ τῷ ᾿Αγίῳ Πνεύματι, εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν. Ibid.: εὐλογημένος ὃ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου Θεὺς, Κύριος, καὶ ἐπέφανεν ἡμῖν" 'ὩΩσαννὰ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις. Ibid. 14 (p. 486): ἑαυτοὺς τῷ Θεῷ τῷ μόνῳ ἀγεννήτῳ Θεῷ, καὶ τῷ Χριστῷ αὐτοῦ παραθώμεθα. Ibid. 15 (p. 486) : 'πάντας ἡμᾶς ἐπισυνάγαγε εἰς τὴν τῶν οὐρανῶν βασιλείαν, ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν" μεθ᾽ οὗ σοι δόξα, τιμὴ καὶ σέβας καὶ τῷ ᾿Αγίῳ Πνεύματι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν. Ibid. (p. 487): ὅτι σοι δόξα, αἶνος, μεγαλοπρέπεια, σέβας, προσκύνησις, καὶ τῷ σῷ παιδὶ Ἰησοῦ τῷ Χριστῷ σου τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν καὶ Θεῷ καὶ βασιλεῖ, καὶ τῷ “Αγίῳ Πνεύματι, νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, ἀμήν. [ LECT.
Eucharistic prayers to Fesus Christ. 5307
Himself has said, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’ The canon of Carthage accordingly expresses the more ancient law and instinct of the Church: ‘Cum altari adsistitur, semper ad Patrem dirigatur oratioh.’ Yet so strong was the impulse to offer prayer to Christ, that this canon is strictly observed by no single liturgy, while some rites violate it with the utmost con- sistency. The Mozarabic rite is a case in point: its collects witness to the Church’s long struggle with, and final victory over, the tenacious Arianism of Spaini. It might even appear
h Conc. Carth. iii. c. 23, Labbe, vol. ii. p. 1170.
1 Taking a small part of the Mozarabic Missal, from Advent Sunday to Epiphany inclusive, we find sixty cases in which prayer is offered, during the altar service, to our Lord. These cases include (1) three ‘ Illations’ or Pre- faces, for the third Sunday in Advent, Circumcision, and Epiphany (and part at least of this Mass for the Epiphany is considered by Dr. Neale in his - Essays on Liturgiology, p. 138, to be at least not later ‘than the middle of the fourth century’); also (2) several prayers in which our Lord’s agency in sanctifying the Eucharistic sacrifice, or even in receiving it, is implied— e.g. ‘Jesu, bone Pontifex..... sanctifica hanc oblationem ;’ or, in a ‘ Post Pridie’ for fifth Sunday in Advent: ‘Hec oblata Tibi. .... benedicenda assume libamina (.... tui Adventis gloriam, &c.).’ (Miss. Moz. p. 17.) So again, on Mid-Len@ Sunday: ‘Ecce, Jesu... deferimus Tibi hoc sacri- ficium nostre redemptionis ..... accipe hoc sacrificium ;’ on which Leslie quotes St. Fulgentius, de Fide, ὁ. 19: ‘Cui (i.e. to the Incarnate Son) cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto... . sacrificium panis et vini.... Ecclesia .... Offerre non cessat.’ Again, in the Mass for Easter Friday, in an ‘Alia Oratio:’ ‘Ecce, Jesu Mediator....hanc Tibi afferimus victimam sacrificii singularis.’ From Palm Sunday to Easter Day inclusive, the prayers offered to Christ, according to this Missal, are twenty-nine. The zeal of the Spanish Church for the Divinity of the Holy Spirit is remarkably shewn in a ‘Post Pridie’ for Whitsunday: ‘Suscipe .... . Spiritus Sancte, omnipotens Deus, sacrificia ;? on which Leslie’s note says, ‘ Ariani negabant sacrificium debere Dei Filio offerri, aut Spiritui Sancto.... contra quos Catholici Gotho-Hispani Filio et Spiritui Sancto sacrificium Eucharisti- cum distinct® offerunt;’ and he proceeds to quote another passage from Fulgentius that worship and sacrifice were offered alike to all the Three Persons, ‘hoc est, Sancte Trinitati.’ The Gallican Liturgies, though in a less degree, exhibit the same feature of Eucharistic prayer to our Lord. In the very old series of fragmentary Masses, discovered by Mone, and edited by the Rev. G. H. Forbes and Dr. Neale (in Ancient Liturgies of the Gal- lican Church, part i.), as the ‘Missale Richenovense’ (from the abbey of Reichenau, where they were found), there are four cases of prayer to Christ ; one of them, in the ninth Mass, being in a ‘ Contestatio’ or Preface. In the ‘Gothic’ (or southern-Gallic) Missal, prayer is made to Him about seventy-six times. Some of these cases are very striking. Thus on Christmas Day, ‘Suscipe, .... Domine Jesu, omnipotens Deus, sacrificium laudis ob- latum.’ (Muratori, Lit. Rom. ii. 521; Forbes and Neale, p. 35.) The ‘Immolatio’ (another term for the Contestatio) of Palm Sunday is ad- dressed to Christ. The ‘Old Gallican’ Missal, belonging to central Gaul, has sixteen cases of prayer to Him, including the ‘Immolatio’ of Easter
vit |
398 Eucharistic prayers to Fesus Christ.
to substitute for the rule laid down at Carthage, the distinct but (considering the indivisible relation of the Three Holy Persons to each other) perfectly consistent principle that the Eucharist is offered to the Holy Trinity. This too would seem to be the mind of the Eastern Church, It is unnecessary to observe that at this day, both in the Eucharistic Service and elsewhere, prayer to Jesus Christ is as integral a feature of the devotional system of the Church of England, as it was of the ancient, or as it is of the contemporary Use of Western Christendom},
Nor was the worship of Jesus Christ by the early Christians an esoteric element of their religious activity, obvious only to those who were within the Church, who cherished her creed, and who took part in her services. It was not an abstract doctrine,
Saturday. The ‘Gallican Sacramentary’ (called also the Sacramentarium Bobiense, and by Mr. Forbes, the Missal of Besancon) has twenty-eight such cases, including three Contestations. The Canon of the Ambrosian shite has prayers to Christ.
k The principle affirmed in the old Spanish rite, that the Eucharist was to be offered to the whole Trinity, and therefore to the Son, is also affirmed in the daily Liturgy of the Eastern Church. The prayer of the Cherubic Hymn, which indeed was not originally a part of St. Chrysostom’s Liturgy, having been inserted in it not earlier than Justinian’s reign, has this con- clusion: Σὺ yap ef 6 προσφέρων καὶ προσφερόμενος, καὶ προσδεχόμενος, καὶ διαδιδόμενος, Χριστὲ ὃ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, καὶ σοὶ τὴν δόξαν ἀναπέμπομεν κ.τ.λ. About 1155 a dispute arose as to προσδεχόμενος, and Soterichus Panteu- genus, patriarch-elect of Antioch, who taught that the sacrifice was not offered to the Son, but only to the Father and the Holy Spirit, was con- demned in a council at Constantinople, 1156. ‘This,’ says Neale (Introd. to East. Church, i. 434), ‘was the end of the controversy that for more than seven hundred years had vexed the Church on the subject of the Incarnation.’ Between this event and the condemnation of Monothelitism, Neale reckons the condemnation of Adoptionism, in 794. Compare also, in the present Liturgy of St. James, a prayer just before the ‘Sancta Sanctis,’ addressed: to our Lord, in which the phrase occurs, ‘ Thy holy and bloodless sacrifices.” The same Liturgy has other prayers addressed to Him. In St. Mark’s Liturgy, among other prayers to Christ, one runs thus, ‘Shew Thy face on this bread and these cups.’ After the Lord’s Prayer, the Deacon says, ‘Bow your heads to Jesus,’ and the response is, ‘To Thee, O Lord.’ In fact, the East seems never to have accepted the maxim that Eucharistic prayer was always addressed to the Father. Our ‘Prayer of St. Chrysostom,’ addressed to the Son, is the ‘prayer of the third Antiphon’ in Lit. St. Chrys.; and the same rite, and the Armenian, have the re- markable prayer, ‘Attend, O Lord Jesus Christ our God..... and come to sanctify us,’ &c. In the Coptic Liturgy of St. Basil, our Lord is be- sought to send down the Spirit on the elements. The present Roman rite has three , Prayers to Christ between the ‘Agnus Dei’ and the ‘Panem celestem.’
1 See Note G in Appendix,
[uxcrt.
Pagan observations on the worship of Fesus. 399
but a living and notorious practice, daily observed by, and recommended to, Christians. As such it challenged the ob- servation of the heathen from a very early date. It is probable indeed that the Jews, as notably on the occasion of St. Poly- carp’s martyrdom ™, drew the attention of pagan magistrates to the worship of Jesus, in order to stir up contempt and hatred against the Christians. But such a worship was of itself calcu- lated to strike the administrative instincts of Roman magistrates as an unauthorized addition to the registered religions of the empire, even before they had discovered it to be irreconcileable with public observance of the established state ceremonies, and specially with any acknowledgment of the divinity of the reign- ing emperor. The younger Pliny is drawing up a report for the eye of his imperial master Trajan; and he writes with the cold impartiality of a pagan statesman who is permitting himself to take a distant philosophical interest in the superstitions of the lower orders. Some apostates from the Church had been brought before his tribunal, and he had questioned them as to the practices of the Christians in Asia Minor. It appeared that on a stated day the Christians met before daybreak, and sang among themselves, responsively, a hymn to Christ as God, Here it should be noted that Pliny is not recording a vague report, but a definite statement, elicited from several persons in cross-examination, moreover touching a point which, in dealing with a Roman magistrate, they might naturally have desired to keep in the background®. Again, the emperor Adrian, when writing to Servian, describes the population of Alexandria as divided between the worship of Christ and the worship of SerapisP. That One Who had been adjudged by the law to
m Martyr. St. Polyc. c. 17.
Ὁ Plin. Ep. lib. x. ep. 97: ‘Alii ab indice nominati esse se Christianos dixerunt, et mox negaverunt; fuisse quidem sed desiisse; quidam ante triennium, quidam ante plures annos, non nemo etiam ante viginti quoque. Omnes et imaginem tuam, deorumque simulacra venerati sunt, ii et Christo maledixerunt. Adfirmabant autem, hanc fuisse summam vel culpze suze vel erroris, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere secum invicem, seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria commit- terent. .
ο That the ‘carmen’ was an incantation, or that Christ was saluted as a hero, not as a Divine Person, are glosses upon the sense of this passage, rather than its natural meaning. See Augusti, Denkwiirdigkeiten, tom. V. p. 33.
Ρ Apud Lamprid. in vité Alex. Severi: ‘ab aliis Serapidem, ab aliis adorari Christum.’ ᾿ vu |
400 Sarcastic remarks of Lucian.
death as a criminal should receive Divine honours, must have been sufficiently perplexing to the Roman official mind; but it was much less irritating to the statesmen than to the philoso- phers. In his life of the fanatical cynic and apostate Christian, Peregrinus Proteus, whose voluntary self-immolation he himself witnessed at Olympia in a.p. 165, Lucian gives vent to the con- temptuous sarcasm which was roused in him, and in men like him, by the devotions of the Church. ‘The Christians,’ he says, ‘are still worshipping that great man who was gibbeted in Palestine4.’ He complains that the Christians are taught that they stand to each other in the relation of brethren, as soon as they have broken loose from the prevailing customs, and have denied the gods of Greece, and have taken to the adoration of that impaled Sophist of theirs'. The Celsus with whom we meet in the treatise of Origen may or may not have been the friend of Lucian®. Celsus, it has been remarked, represents a class of intellects which is constantly found among the opponents of Christianity; Celsus has wit and acuteness without moral earnestness or depth of research; he looks at things only on the surface, and takes delight in constructing and putting forward difficulties and contradictionst. The worship of our Lord was certain to engage the perverted ingenuity of a mind of this description; and Celsus attacks the practice upon a variety of grounds which are discussed by Origen. The general position taken up by Celsus is that the Christians had no right to denounce the polytheism of the pagan world, since their own worship of Christ was essentially polytheistic. It was absurd in the Christians, he contends, to point at the heathen gods as idols, whilst they worshipped one who was in a much more wretched condition than the idols, and indeed was not even an idol at all, since he was a mere corpse%. The Christians, he
4« De Morte Peregrini, 6. 11: τὸν μέγαν οὖν ἐκεῖνον ἔτι σέβουσιν ἄνθρωπον, τὸν ἐν Παλαιστίνῃ ἀνασκολοπισθέντα. .
τ Ibid. c. 13: ἐπειδὰν ἅπαξ παραβάντες, θεοὺς μὲν Ἑλληνικοὺς ἀπαρνήσων- ται, τὸν δ᾽ ἀνεσκολοπισμένον ἐκεῖνον σοφιστὴν αὐτῶν προσκυνῶσι.
8 Neander decides in the negative (Ch. Hist. i. 225 sqq.), (1) on the | ground of the vehemence of the opponent of Origen, as contrasted with the moderation of the friend of Lucian; (2) because the friend of Lucian was an Epicurean, the antagonist of Origen a neo-Platonist.
Ὁ See the remarks of Neander, Ch. Hist. vol. i. p. 227, ed. Bohn.
= Contr. Cels. vii. 40, Ρ. 722: ἵνα μὴ παντάπασιν ἦτε καταγέλαστοι τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους, τοὺς δεικνυμένους θεοὺς, ὡς εἴδωλα βλασφημοῦντες" τὸν δὲ καὶ αὐτῶν ὡς ἀληθῶς εἰδώλων ἀθλιώτερον, καὶ μηδὲ εἴδωλον ἔτι, ἀλλ᾽ ὄντως νεκρὸν, σέβοντες, καὶ Πατέρα ὅμοιον αὐτῷ (ζητοῦντες.
[ LzcT.
Contemptuous sneers of Celsus, 401
urges, worshipped no God, no, not even a demon, but only a dead man*. If the Christians were bent upon religious in- novations ; if Hercules, and Aésculapius, and the gods who had been of old held in honour, were not to their taste; why could they not have addressed themselves to such distinguished mortals as Orpheus, or Anaxarchus, or Epictetus, or the Sibyl? Nay, would it not have been better to have paid their devotions to some of their own prophets, to Jonah under the gourd, or to Daniel in the lions’ den, than to a man who had lived an infa- mous life, and had died a miserable deathy? In thus honouring a Jew who had been apprehended and put to death, the Chris- tians were no better than the Gete who worshipped Zamolxis, than the Cilicians who adored Mopsus, than the Acarnanians who prayed to Amphilochus, than the Thebans with their cultus of Amphiaraus, than the Lebadians who were so devoted to Trophonius 2. Was it not absurd in the Christians to ridicule the heathen for the devotion which they paid to Jupiter on the score of the exhibition of his sepulchre in Crete, while they themselves adored one who wasehimself only a tenant of the tomb?? Above all, was not the worship of Christ fatal to the Christian doctrine of the Unity of God? If the Christians really worshipped no God but One, then their reasoning against the heathen might have had force in it. But while they offer an excessive adoration to this person who has but lately appeared in the world, how can they think that they commit no offence against God, by giving such Divine honours to His servant » ? In his replies Origen entirely admits the fact upon which
= Contr. Cels. vii. 68, p. 742: διελέγχονται σαφῶς ob Θεὸν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ δαίμονα ἀλλὰ νεκρὸν σέβοντες.
Υ Ibid. vii. 53, Ρ. 722: πόσῳ δ᾽ ἦν ὑμῖν ἄμε:)ον, ἐπειδή γε καινοτομῆσαί τι ἐπεθυμήσατε, περὶ ἄλλον τινὰ τῶν γενναίως ἀποθανόντων, καὶ θεῖον μῦθον δέξασθαι. δυναμένων, σπουδάσαι; Φέρε, εἰ μὴ ἤρεσκεν Ἡρακλῆς, καὶ ᾿Ασκληπιὸς, καὶ οἱ πάλαι δεδοξασμένοι, Oppea eixere «.7.A, Of, 57.
2 Ibid. iii. 34, p. 469: μετὰ ταῦτα 'παραπλήσιον ἡμᾶς" οἴετσι “ πεποιηκέναι, τὸν (ὥς φησιν ὁ KéAgos) ἁλόντα καὶ ἀποθανόντα θρησκεύοντας,᾽ τοῖς Γέταις σέβουσι τὸν Ζάμολξιν, καὶ Κίλιξι τὸν Μόψον, καὶ ᾿Ακαρνᾶσι τὸν ᾿Αμφίλοχον, καὶ Θηβαίοις τὸν ᾿Αμφιάρεων, καὶ Λεβαδίοις τὸν Τροφώνιον.᾽
a Ibid. iii. 43, Ρ. 475: μετὰ ταῦτα λέγει περὶ ἡμῶν “ὅτι καταγελῶμεν τῶν προσκυνούντων τὸν Li ‘a, ἐπεὶ τάφος αὐτοῦ ἐν Κρήτῃ δείκνυται" καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον σέβομεν τὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ τάφου᾽ K.T.A.
> Thid. viii. 12, Pp. 750: δόξαι δ᾽ ἄν τις ἐξῆς τούτοις πιθανόν τι καθ᾽ ἡμῶν λέγειν ἐν τῷ, “Εἰ μὲν δὴ μηδένα ἄλλον ἐθεράπευον οὗτοι πλὴν ἕνα Θεὸν, ἣν ἄν τις αὐτοῖς ἴσως πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ἀτενὴς λόγος" νυνὶ δὲ τὸν ἔναγχος φανέντα τοῦτον ὑπερθρησκεύουσι, καὶ ὅμως οὐδὲν πλημμελεῖν νομίζουσι περὶ τὸν Θεὸν, εἰ καὶ ὑπηρέτης αὐτοῦ θεραπευθήσεται.᾽ vu | pd
402 The worship of Christ defended by Origen,
Celsus comments in this lively spirit of raillery. He does not merely admit that prayer to Christ was the universal practice of the Church; he energetically justifies it. When confronting the heathen opponent of his Master’s honour, Origen writes as the Christian believer, rather than as the philosophizing Alex- andrian®. He deals with the language of Celsus patiently and in detail. The objects of heathen worship were unworthy of worship; the Jewish prophets had no claim to it; Christ was worshipped as the Son of God, as God Himself. ‘If Celsus,’ he says, ‘had understood the meaning of this, “I and the Father are One,” or what the Son of God says in His prayer, “As I and Thou are One,” he would never have imagined that we worship any but the God Who is over all; for Christ says, “ The Father is in Me and 1 in Him4,”’ Origen then proceeds, although by a questionable analogy, to guard this language against a Sabellian construction: the worship addressed to Jesus was addressed to Him as personally distinct from the Father. Origen indeed, in vindicating this worship of our Lord, describes it elsewhere as prayer in an improper sense ¢,-on the ground that true prayer is offered to the Father only. This has been explained to relate only to the mediatorial aspect of His Manhood as our High Priest f; and Bishop Bull further understands him to argue that the Father, as the Source of Deity, is ultimately the Object of all adoration’. But Origen entirely admits the broad fact that Jesus received Divine honours; and he defends such worship of Jesus as being an integral element of the Church’s life }.
The stress of heathen criticism, however, still continued to be directed against the adoration of our Lord. ‘Our gods,’ so ran the heathen language of a later day, ‘are not displeased
© See however Contr. Cels. v. 11, sub fin. p.586, where, nevertheless, the conclusion of the passage shews his real mind in De Orat. ὁ. 15, quoted above. ᾿ ἃ Contr. Cels. viii. 12, p. 750: εἴπερ νενοήκει ὃ Κέλσος τό' “᾿Εγὼ καὶ 6 Πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν" καὶ τὸ ἐν εὐχῇ εἰρημένον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ὑἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν τῷ" “'ῶς ἐγὼ καὶ σὺ ἕν ἐσμεν, οὐκ ἂν ᾧετο ἡμᾶς καὶ ἄλλον θεραπεύειν, παρὰ τὸν ἐπὶ πᾶσι Θεόν. “ὋὉ γὰρ Πατὴρ, φησὶν, “ ἐν ἐμοὶ, κἀγὼ ἐν τῷ Πατρί.᾽
© Ibid. ν. 4: τῆς περὶ προσευχῆς κυριολεξίας καὶ KaTaxphoews.
{ Tbid. viii. 13, 16. ‘ Loquitur de Christo,’ says Bishop Bull, ‘ ut Summo Sacerdote.’ Def. Fid. Nic. ii. 9, 15.
® Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. sect. ii. c. 9, n. 15: ‘Sin Filium intueamur relate, qua Filius est, et ex Deo Patre trahit originem, tum rursus certum est, cultum et venerationem omnem, quem ipsi deferimus, ad Patrem redun- dare, in ipsumque, ut πηγὴν θεότητος ultimo referri,’
Β΄ See Reading’s note on Orig. de Orat, § 15. E
[ LECT.
by Lactantius and Arnobtus. 403
with you Christians for worshipping the Almighty God. But you maintain the Deity of Oue Who was born as a man, and Who was put to death by the punishment of the cross (a mark of infamy reserved for criminals of the worst kind); you believe Him to be still alive, and you adore Him with daily suppli- cationsi” ‘The heathen,’ observes Lactantius, ‘throw in our teeth the Passion of Christ ; they say that we worship a man, and a man too who was put to death by men under circum- stances of ignominy and torture.’ Lactantius and Arnobius reply to the charge in precisely the same manner. They admit the truth of Christ’s Humanity, and the shame of His Passion ; but they earnestly assert His literal and absolute Godhead. However the heathen might scorn, the Godhead of Christ was the great certainty upon which the eye of His Church was persistently fixed; it was the truth by which her practice of adoring Him was necessarily determined }.
If the Gospel had only enjoined the intellectual acceptance of some philosophical theistic theory, its popular impotence would have earned the toleration which is easily secured by cold, abstract, passionless religions. In that case it would never have provoked the earnest scorn of a Lucian or of a Celsus. They would have condoned or passed it by, even if they had not cared to patronize it. -But the continuous adoration of Jesus by His Church made the neutrality of such men as these morally impossible. They knew what it meant, this worship of
1 Arnob. adv. Gentes, i. 36: ‘Sed non idcirco Dii vobis infesti sunt, quod omnipotentem colatis Deum: sed quod hominem natum, et (quod personis infame est vilibus) crucis supplicio interemptum, et Deum fuisse contenditis, et superesse adhuc creditis, et quotidianis supplicationibus adoratis.’
Κ Lact. Div. Inst. iv. 16: ‘Venio nunc ad ipsam Passionem, que velut opprobrium nobis objectari solet, quod et hominem, et ab hominibus insigni supplicio adfectum et excruciatum colamus: ut doceam eam ipsam Pas- sionem ab Eo cum magna et divinad ratione susceptam, et in θᾶ sold et virtutem, et veritatem, et sapientiam contineri,’
1 Arnob, adv. Gentes, i. 42: ‘Natum hominem colimus. Etiamsi esset id verum, locis ut in superioribus dictum est, tamen pro multis et tam liberalibus donis, que ab eo profecta in nobis sunt, Deus dici appellarique deberet. Cum vero Deus sit re certa, et sine ullius rei dubitationis am- biguo, inficiaturos arbitramini nos esse, quam maxime illum a nobis coli, et presidem nostri corporis nuncupari? Ergone, inquiet aliquis furens, iratus, et percitus, Deus ille est Christus? Deus, respondebimus, et interi- orum potentiarum Deus; et quod magis infidos acerbissimis doloribus torqueat, rei maxime caus4 a summo Rege ad nos missus.’ Lact. Div. Inst. iv. 29: ‘Quum dicimus Deum Patrem et Deum Filium, non diver- sum dicimus, nec utrumque secernimus: siquidem nec Pater sine Filio nuncupari, nec Filius potest sine Patre generari,’ vu | pDd2
404 Pagan caricature of the adoration of Fesus.
the Crucified ; it was too intelligible, too soul-enthralling, to be ignored or to be tolerated. And the lowest orders of the popu- lace were for many long years, just as intelligently hostile to it as were the philosophers. Witness that remarkable caricature of the adoration of our crucified Lord, which was discovered not long since beneath the ruins of the Palatine palace™. Itisa rough sketch, traced, in all probability, by the hand of some pagan slave in one of the earliest years of the third century of our era®, A human figure with an ass’s head is represented as
τὰ See ‘Deux Monuments des Premiers Sitcles de I’Eglise expliqués, par le P. Raphaél Garrucci,’ Rome, 1862. He describes the discovery and ~ appearance of this ‘Graffito Blasfemo’ as follows:—‘Comme tant d’autres ruines, le palais des Césars récélait aussi de nombreuses inscriptions dictées par le caprice. Apres avoir recueilli celles qui couvraient les parois de toute une salle, nous arrivimes ἃ trouver quelques paroles grecques, inscrites au sommet d’un mur enseveli sous les décombres. Ce fut 1& un précieux indice qui nous fit poursuivre nos recherches. Bientdt apparut le contour d’une téte d’animal sur un corps humain, dont les bras étaient étendus comme ceux des orantes dans les Catacombes. La découverte paraissait avoir un haut intérét: aussi Mgr. Milesi, Ministre des travaux publics, nous au- torisa-t-il, avec sa bienveillance accoutumée, ἃ faire enlever la terre et les débris qui encombraient cette chambre, le 11 Novembre, 1857. Nous ne tardimes point 4 contempler une image que ces ruines avaient conservée intacte ἃ travers les siécles, et dont nous piimes relever un calque fidéle.
‘Elle réprésente une croix, dont la forme est celle du Z’au grec, surmonté d’une cheville qui porte une tablette. Un homme est attaché ἃ cette croix, mais la téte de cette figure n’est ρο πὸ humaine, c’est celle du cheval ou plutdt de l’onagre. Le crucifié est revétu de la tuniqne de dessous, que les anciens désignaient sous le nom d’interula, et d’une autre tunique sans ceinture; des bandes appelées crurales enveloppent la partie inférieure des jambes, la gauche du spectateur, on voit un autre personnage, qui sous le méme vétement, semble converser avec la monstrueuse image, et éléve vers elle sa main gauche, dont les doigts sont separés. droite, au dessus de la croix, se lit la lettre Y; et au dessous, l’inscription suivante ;
AAEZAMENOS SEBETE (pour SEBETAI) ; ΘΕΟΝ Alexamenos adore son Dieu.’
For the reference to this interesting paper I am indebted to the kindness of Professor Westwood. See Wordsworth’s Tour in Italy, ii. p. 143; and for engravings of the Graffito, Tyrwhitt’s Art Teaching of the Primitive Church, p.7; Northcote and Brownlow, Roma Sotterranea, p. ii, p. 346. Champfieury, Histoire de la Caricature Antique, c. xxiv. p. 287, sqq.
2 P, Garucci fixes this date on the following grounds: (1) Inscriptions on tiles and other fragments of this part of the Palatine palace shew that it was constructed during the reign of the Emperor Adrian. The dates 123 and 126 are distinctly ascertained. (Deux Monuments, &., p.10.) The inscription therefore is not earlier than this date. (2) The calumny of the worship of the ass’s head by the Christians is not mentioned by any of the Apologists who precede Tertullian, nor by any who succeed wpe
LECT,
The ‘graffito blasfemo’ of the Palatine. 405
fixed to a cross; while another figure in a tunic stands on one side. This figure is addressing himself to the crucified monster, and is making a gesture which was the customary pagan ex- pression of adoration. Underneath there runs a rude inscrip- tion: Alexamenos adores his God. Here we are face to face with a touching episode of the life of the Roman Church in the days of Severus or of Caracalla. As under Nero, so, a century and a half later, there were worshippers of Christ in the household of the Cesar. But the paganism of the later date was more in- telligently and bitterly hostile to the Church than the paganism which had shed the blood of the Apostles. The Gnostic invec- tive which attributed to the Jews the worship of an ass, was | applied by the pagans with facile indifference both to Jews and Christians. Tacitus attributes the custom toa legend respecting services rendered by wild asses to the Israelites in the desert °; ‘and so, I suppose,’ observes Tertullian, ‘it was thenee presumed that we, as bordering on the Jewish religion, were taught to worship such a figure P.’ A story of this kind once current, was
Felix; which may be taken to prove that this misrepresentation of Chris- tian worship was only in vogue among pagan critics in Rome and Africa at the close of the second and at the beginning of the third century. (3) It is certain from Tertullian that there were Christians in the imperial palace during the reign of the Emperor Severus: ‘Even Severus himself, the father of Antoninus, was mindful of the Christians; for he sought out Proculus a Christian, who was surnamed Torpacion, the steward of Kuodia, who had once cured him by means of oil, and kept him in his own palace, even to his death: whom also Antoninus very well knew, nursed as he was upon Christian milk.’ Ad Scapulam, c. 4. Caracalla’s playmate was a Christian boy; see Dr. Pusey’s note on Tertull. p.148, Oxf. Tr. Libr. Fath. (4) ‘Rien dans le monument du Palatin ne contredit cette opinion, ni la paléographie, qui trahit la méme époque, tant ἃ cause de l’usage simultané de 1’ carré et de 1᾿ Ὲ semicirculaire dans la méme inscription, que par la forme générale des lettres; ni moins encore l’ortographe, car on sait que le changement de l’ar en E a plus d’un exemple ἃ Rome, méme sur les monuments grecs du régne d’Auguste. Enfin les autres inscrip- tions grecques de cette chambre, qui sans préjudice pour notre these, pourraient étre d’une autre temps, ne font naitre aucune difficulté sérieuse, étant parfaitement semblables & celle dont nous nous oecupons.’ Garucci, Ibid. p. 13.
° Tac. Hist. v.c. 4. He had it probably from Apion: see Josephus, 6. Ap. ii. το. It is repeated by Plutarch, Symp. iv. 5: τὸν ὄνον ἀναφήναντα αὐτοῖς πηγὴν ὕδατος τιμῶσι. And by Democritus: Χρυσῆν ὄνου κεφαλὴν προσεκύνουν. Apud Suidas, voc. ᾿Ιουδάς,
P Apolog. 16. Tertullian refutes Tacitus by referring to his own account of the examination of the Jewish temple by Cn. Pompeius after his capture of Jerusalem; Pompey ‘found no image’ in the temple. For proof that the early Christians were constantly identified with the Jews by the pagan world, see Dr. Pusey’s note on Tert. ubi supra, in the Oxf, Tr, Libr. Fath.
vo J
406 Fesus Christ adored by early Martyrs.
easily adapted to the purposes of a pagan caricaturist. Whether from ignorance of the forms of Christian worship, or in order to make his parody of it more generally intelligible to the pagan public, the draughtsman has ascribed to Alexamenos the gestures of a heathen devotee1, But the real object of this coarse cari- cature is too plain to be mistaken. Jesus Christ, we may be sure, had other confessors and worshippers in the imperial palace who knelt side by side with Alexamenos. The moral pressure of the advancing Church was making itself felt throughout all ranks of pagan society; ridicule was invoked to do the work of argument; and the social persecution which crowned all true Christian devotion was often only the prelude to a sterner test of that loyalty to a crucified Lord, which could meet heathen scorn with the strength of patient faith, and heathen cruelty with the courage of heroic endurance.
The death-cry of the martyrs must have familiarized the heathen mind with the honour paid to the Redeemer by Chris- tians. Of the worship offered in the Catacombs, of the stern yet tender discipline whereby the early Church stimulated, guided, moulded the heavenward aspirations of her children, paganism knew, could know, nothing. But the bearing and the exclamations of heroic servants of Christ when arraigned before the tribunals of the empire, or when exposed to a death of torture and shame in the amphitheatres, were matters of public notoriety. The dying prayers of St. Stephen expressed the instinct, if they did not provoke the imitation, of many a martyr of later days. What matters it to Blandina of Lyons that her pagan persecutors have first entangled her limbs in the meshes of a large net, and then have exposed her to the fury of a wild bull? She is insensible to pain; she is entranced in a profound communion with Christ™. What matters it to that servant-boy in Palestine, Porphyry, that his mangled body is ‘committed to a slow fire?’ He does but call more earnestly in his death-struggle upon Jesus’. Felix, an African bishop, after a long series of persecutions, has been condemned to be beheaded at Venusium for refusing to give up the sacred books
4 Job xxxi. 27. St. Hieronym. in Oseam, c. 13: ‘Qui adorant solent deosculari manum suam.’ Comp. Minuc. Fel. Oct. c. 2.
τ Eus. Hist. Ecc. v. 1: εἰς γύργαθον βληθεῖσα, ταύρῳ παρεβλήθη" καὶ ἱκανῶς ἀναβληθεῖσα πρὸς τοῦ ζώου, μηδὲ αἴσθησιν ἔτι τῶν συμβαινόντων ἔχουσα διὰ τὴν ἐλπίδα καὶ ἐποχὴν τῶν πεπιστευμένων καὶ ὁμίλιαν πρὸς Χριστόν.
5 Ibid. Mart. Pal. 11: καθαψαμένης αὐτοῦ τῆς φλογὸς ἀπέῤῥηξε φωνὴν, τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦν βοηθὸν ἐπιβοώμενος. - : 5 [ LECT: .
The Martyrs pray to Fesus in their agony. 407
to the proconsul. ‘ Raising his eyes to heaven, he said with a clear voice ... “Ὁ Lord God of heaven and earth, Jesu Christ, to Thee do I bend my neck by way of sacrifice, O Thou Who abidest for ever, to Whom belong glory and majesty, world without end. Ament.”’ Theodotus of Ancyra has been betrayed by the apostate Polychronius, and is joining in a last prayer with the sorrowing Church. ‘Lord Jesu Christ,’ he cries, ‘Thou Hope of the hopeless, grant that I may finish the course of my conflict, and offer the shedding of my blood as a libation and sacrifice, to the relief of all those who suffer for Thee. Do Thou lighten their burden; and still this tempest of persecution, that all who believe in Thee may enjoy rest and quietness"’ And afterwards, in the extremity of his torture, he prays thus: ‘Lord Jesu Christ, Thou Hope of the hopeless, hear my prayer, and assuage this agony, seeing that for Thy Name’s sake I suffer thus*.” And when the pain had failed to bend his resolution, and the last sentence had been pronounced by the angry judge, “Ὁ Lord Jesu Christ,’ the martyr exclaims, ‘Thou Maker of heaven and earth, Who forsakest not them that put their hope in Thee, I give Thee thanks for’ that Thou hast made me meet to be a citizen of Thy heavenly city, and to have a share in Thy kingdom. I give Thee thanks, that Thou hast given me strength to conquer the dragon, and to bruise his head. Give rest unto Thy servants, and stay the fierceness of the enemies in my
τ Ruinart, Acta Martyrum Sincera, ed. Veron, 1731, p. 314. Acta S. Felicis Episcopi, anno 303: ‘Felix Episcopus, elevans oculos in ccelum, clara voce dixit, Deus, gratias Tibi. Quinquaginta et sex annos habeo in hoc seculo. Virginitatem custodivi, Evangelia servavi, fidem et veritatem predicavi, Domine Deus celi et terre, Jesu Christe, Tibi cervicem meam ad victimam flecto, Qui permanes in eternum ; Cui est claritas et magni- ficentia in secula seculorum, Amen.’
« Thid. p. 303, Passio 8S. Theodoti Ancyrani, et septem virginum: ‘ Theo- dotus, valedicens fratribus, jubensque ne ab oratione cessarent, sed Deum orarent ut corona ipsi obtingeret, preeparavit se ad verbera sustinenda, Simul igitur perstiterunt in oratione cui martyre, qui prolixe precatus, tandem ait: Domine Jesu Christe, spes desperatorum, da mihi certaminis cursum perficere, et sanguinis effusionem pro sacrificio et libatione offerre, omnium eorum causd qui propter Te affliguntur. Alleva onus eorum; et compesce tempestatem, ut requie et profundd tranquillitate potiantur omnes qui in Te credunt.’
x Ibid. p. 307: ‘Videns ergo Preses se frustra laborare, et fatigatos tortores deficere, depositum de ligno jussit super ignitas testulas collocari. Quibus etiam interiora corporis penetrantibus gravissimum dolorem sentiens Theodotus, oravit dicens, Domine Jesu Christe, spes desperatorum, exaudi orationem meam, et cruciatum hune mitiga; quia propter Nomen Sanc- tum Tuum ἰδέα patior,’ vu |
408 The Martyrs pray to Fesus in their agony.
person. Give peace unto Thy Church, and set her free from the tyranny of the devil ¥.’ Thus it was that the martyrs prayed and died. Their voices reach us across the chasm of intervening centuries; but time cannot impair the moral majesty, or weaken the accents of their strong and simple conviction. One after another their piercing words, in which the sharpest human agony is so entwined with a superhuman faith, fall upon our ears. ‘O Christ, Thou Son of God, deliver Thy servants2.” “Ὁ Lord Jesu Christ, we are Christians ; Thee do we serve; Thou art our Hope; Thou art the Hope of Christians; O God Most Holy, O God Most High, O God Almighty’ ‘O Christ,’ cries a martyr again and again amidst his agonies, ‘O Christ, let me not be con- founded >” ‘Help, I pray Thee, O Christ, have pity. Pre- serve my soul, guard my spirit, that I be not ashamed. I pray Thee, O Christ, grant me power of endurance 5.᾽ ‘I pray Thee,
Υ Ruinart, Acta, p. 307: ‘Cumque ad locum pervenissent, orare ccepit Martyr in hee verba: Domine Jesu Christe, celi terreque conditor, qui non derelinquis sperantes in Te, gratias Tibi ago, quia fecisti me dignum celestis Tue Urbis civem, Tuique reyni consortem. Gratias Tibi ago, quia donasti mihi draconem vincere, et caput ejus conterere. Da requiem servis Tuis, atque in me siste violentiam inimicorum. Da Ecclesia Tue pacem, eruens eam a tyrannide diaboli.’
5 Tbid. p. 340; Acta SS. Saturnini, Dativi, et aliorum plurimorum martyrum in Africa, a, 304: ‘Thelica martyr, media de ipsd carnificum rabie hujusmodi preces Domino cum gratiarum actione effundebat: Deo gratias. In Nomine Tuo, Christe Dei Fili, libera servos Tuos,’
a Tbid.: ‘Cum ictibus ungularum concussa fortius latera sulcarentur, profluensque sanguinis unda violentis tractibus emanaret, Proconsulem sibi dicentem audivit: Incipies sentire que vos pati oporteat. Et adjecit: Ad gloriam. Gratias ago Deo reynorum. Apparet regnum eternum, regnum incorruptum. Domine Jesu Christe, Christiani sumus; Tibi servimus ; Tu es spes nostra; Tu es spes Christianorum; Deus sanctissime; Deus altissime; Deus omnipotens.’
> Ibid. p. 341: ‘Advolabant truces manus jussis velocibus leviores, secretaque pectoris, disruptis cutibus, visceribusque divulsis, nefandis ad- spectibus profanorum adnex& crudelitate pandebant. Inter hec Martyris mens immobilis perstat: et licet membra rumpantur, divellantur viscera, latera dissipentur, animus tamen martyris integer, inconcussusque perdurat, Denique dignitatis sue memor Dativus, qui et Senator, tali voce preces Domino sub carnifice rab:ente fundebat: O Christe Domine, non con- Sundar. Ibid. p.342: ‘At martyr, inter vulnerum cruciatus sevissimos pristinam suam repetens orationem: Rogo, ait, Christe, non confundar.’
ὁ Ibid. p. 342: ‘Spectabat interea Dativus lanienam corporis sui potius quam dolebat: et cujus ad Dominum mens animusque pendebat, nihil dol- orem corporis estimabat, sed tantum ad Dominum precabatur, dicens; Sud- veni, rogo, Christe, habe pietatem. Serva animam meam ; custodi spiritum meum ut non confundar, Rogo, Christe, da sufferentiam,’ [
LECT.
The Martyrs pray to Fesus in their agony. 409
Christ, hear me. I thank Thee, my God; command that I be beheaded. I pray Thee, Christ, have mercy; help me, Thou Son of God4’ “1 pray Thee, O Christ: all praise to Thee. Deliver me, O Christ; I suffer in Thy Name. I suffer for a short while; I suffer with a willing mind, O Christ my Lord: let me not be confounded 9,
Or listen to such an extract from an early document as the following :—‘ Calvisianus, interrupting Euplius, said, “ Let Eu- plius, who hath not in compliance with the edict of the emperors given up the sacred writings, but readeth them to the people, be put to the torture.” And while he was being racked, Euplius said, “I thank Thee, O Christ. Guard Thou me, who for Thee am suffering thus.’ Calvisianus the consular said, “ Cease, Eu- plius, from this folly. Adore the gods, and thou shalt be set at liberty.” Euplius said, “I adore Christ ; I utterly hate the demons. Do what thou wilt: I am a Christian. Long have I desired what now I suffer. Do what thou wilt. Add yet other tortures: I am a Christian.” After he had been tortured a long while, the executioners were -bidden hold their hands. And Calvisianus said, “ Unhappy man, adore the gods. Pay worship to Mars, Apollo, and A‘sculapius.” Euplius said, “I worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. I adore the Holy Trinity, beside Whom there is no God. Perish the gods who did not make heaven and earth, and all that is in them. Iam aChristian.” Calvisianus the prefect said, “ Offer sacrifice, if thou wouldest be set at liberty.” Euplius said, “I sacrifice myself only to Christ my God: more than this I can- not do. Thy efforts are to no purpose; I am a Christian.” Calvisianus gave orders that he should be tortured again more severely. And while he was being tortured, Euplius said, “Thanks to Thee, O Christ. Help me,O Christ. For Thee do I suffer thus, O Christ.” And he said this repeatedly. And as his strength gradually failed him, he went on repeating these or other exclamations, with his lips only—his voice was gone f.’
4 Acta, p. 342: ‘Ne inter moras torquentium exclusa anima corpus sup- plicio pendente desereret, tali voce Dom'num presbyter precabatur: Rogo Christe, ecaudi me. Gratias Tibi ago, Deus: jube me decollari. Rogo Christe, miserere. Dei Fili, subveni,’
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410 Prayers of the martyrs not chance ‘ejaculations.
You cannot, as I have already urged £, dismiss from your con- sideration such prayers as these, on the ground of their being ‘mere ejaculations.’ Do serious men, who know they are dying, ‘ejaculate’ at random? Is it at the hour of death that a man would naturally innovate upon the devotional habits of a life- time? Is it at such an hour that he would make hitherto un- attempted enterprises into the unseen world, and address himself to beings with whom he had not before deemed it lawful or possible to hold spiritual communion? Is not the reverse of this supposition notoriously the case? Surely, those of us who have witnessed the last hours of the servants of Christ cannot hesitate as to the answer. As the soul draws nigh to the gate of death, the solemnities of the eternal future are wont to cast their shadows upon the thought and heart; and whatever is deepest, truest, most assured and precious, thenceforth engrosses every power. At that dread yet blessed hour, the soul clings with a new intensity and deliberation to the most certain truths, to the most prized and familiar words. The mental creations of an intellectual over-subtlety, or of a thoughtless enthusiasm, or of an unbridled imagination, or of a hidden perversity of will, or of an unsuspected unreality of character, fade away or are discarded. To gaze upon the naked truth is the one necessity; to plant the feet upon the Rock Itself, the supreme desire, in that awful, searching, sifting moment. Often, too, at a man’s last hour, will habit strangely assert its mysterious power of recovering, as if from the grave, thoughts and memories which seemed to have been lost for ever. Truths which have been half forgotten or quite forgotten since childhood, aud prayers
dixit Euplius: Gratias Tibi, Christe. Me custodi qui propter Te hee patior. Dixit Calvisianus Consularis: Desiste, Eupli, ab insanid hdc. Deos adora et liberaheris. Euplius dixit: Adoro Christum, detestor de- monia. Fac quod vis, Christianus sum. Hec diu optavi. Fae quod vis. Adde alia, Christianus sum. Postquam diu tortus esset, jussi sunt cessare carnifices. Et dixit Calvisianus: Miser, adora deos: Martem cole, Apollinem et Asculapium. Dixit Euplius: Patrem et Filium et Spiri- tum Sanctum adoro: Sanctam Trinitatem adoro, preter quam non est Deus, Pereant dii qui non fecerunt celum et terram, et que in eis sunt. Christianus sum. Calvisianus preefectus dixit: Sacrifica, si vis liberart, Euplius dixit: Saerifico modo CHRISTO DEO me ipsum: quid ultra Jfaciam, non habeo. Frustra conaris: Christianus sum. Calvisianus precepit iterum torqueri acrits. Cumque torqueretur, dixit Euplius: Gratias Tibi, Christe. Succurre, Christe. Propter Te hee patior, Christe. Et dixit sepius. Et deficientibus viribus, dicebat labiis tantum, absque voce hee vel alia,’ & Lect. VII. p. 376. [ LECT.
The Arian invocation of Christ. 4τι
which were learned at a mother’s knee, return upon the soul with resistless persuasiveness and force, while the accumula- tions of later years disappear and are lost sight of. Depend upon it, the martyrs prayed to Jesus in their agony because they had prayed to Him long before, many of them from infancy; because they knew from experience that such prayers were ᾿ blessed and answered. They had been taught to pray to Him ; they had joined in prayers to Him; they had been taunted and ridiculed for praying to Him; they had persevered in praying to Him; and when at last their hour of trial and of glory came, they had recourse to the prayers which they knew full well to be the secret of their strength, and those prayers carried them on through their agony, to the crown beyond it.
And, further, you will have remarked that the worship of Jesus by the martyrs was full of the deepest elements of _ worship. It was made up of trust, of resignation, of self- surrender, of self-oblation. Nothing short of a belief in the absolute Godhead of Jesus could justify such worship. The Homoousion was its adequate justification. Certainly the Arians worshipped our Lord, although they rejected the Homoousion. So clear were the statements of Scripture, so strong and so universal was the tradition of Christendom, that Arianism could not resist the claims of a practice which was nevertheless at variance with its true drift and principle. For, as St. Atha- nasius pointed out, the Arians did in reality worship one whom they believed to be a being distinct from the Supreme God. The Arians were creature-worshippers not less than the heathen}, Some later Arians appear to have attempted to retort the charge of creature-worship by pointing to the adoration of our Lord’s Humanity in the Catholic Church. But, as St. Athanasius explains, our Lord’s Manhood was adored, not as a distinct and individual Being, but only as inseparably joined to the ador- able Person of the Everlasting Wordi. A refusal to adore Christ’s Manhood must imply that after the Incarnation men could truly conceive of It as separate from Cliist’s Eternal
h St. Athanas. Epist. ad Adelphium, § 3: οὐ κτίσμα προσκυνοῦμεν, μὴ γένοιτο, ἐθνικῶν γὰρ καὶ ᾿Αρειανῶν ἣ τοιαύτη πλάνη" ἀλλὰ τὸν Κύριον τῆς κτί- σεως σαρκωθέντα τὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγον προσκυνοῦμεν.
1 Thid.: εἰ γὰρ καὶ ἡ σὰρξ αὐτὴ καθ᾽ ἑαυτὴν μέρος ἐστὶ τῶν κτισμάτων, ἀλλὰ Θεοῦ γέγονε σῶμα. καὶ οὔτε τὸ τοιοῦτον σῶμα καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸ διαιροῦντες ἀπὸ τοῦ Λόγου προσκυνοῦμεν, οὔτε τὸν Λόγον προσκυνῆσαι θέλοντες μακρύνομεν αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῆς σαρκός" ἀλλ᾽ εἰδότες, καθὰ προείπομεν, τὸ “ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, τοῦτον καὶ ἐν σαρκὶ γενόμενον ἐπιγινώσκομεν Θεό». τα
412 Early Socinian worship of Christ
PersonJ, There was no real analogy between this worship and the Arian worship of a being who was in no wise associated with the Essence of God; and Arianism was either virtually ditheistic or consciously idolatrous. It was idolatrous, if Christ was a created being; it was ditheistic, if He was conceived of as really Divine, yet distinct in essence from the Essence of the Father Κ, The same phenomenon of the vital principle of a heresy being overridden for a while by the strength of the tradition of universal Christendom was reproduced, twelve centuries later, in the case of Socinianism. The earliest Socinians taught that the Son of God was a mere man, who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and was therefore called the Son of God. But they also maintained that on account of His obedience, He was, after finishing His work of redemption, exalted to Divine dignity and honour!, Christians were to treat Him as if He were God: they were to trust Him implicitly; they were to adore Him τα, Faustus Socinus® zealously insisted upon the duty of adoring Jesus Christ; and the Racovian Catechism expressly asserts that those who do not call upon or adore Christ are not to be
J St. Athanas. Epist. ad Adelphium, § 3: tis τοιγαροῦν οὕτως ἄφρων ἐστὶν ὡς λέγειν τῷ Κυρίῳ, ἀπόστα ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος iva σε προσκυνήσω; «.T.A. Com- pare Ibid. § 5: ἵνα καὶ τολμῶσι λέγειν (sc. Ariani), οὐ προσκυνοῦμεν ἡμεῖς τὸν Κύριον μετὰ τῆς σαρκὸς, ἀλλὰ διαιροῦμεν τὸ σῶμα καὶ μόνῳ τούτῳ λατρεύομεν.
k St. Athanas. contr. Arian. Orat. ii. § 14, sub fin. p. 482. Orat. iii. § 16, Ρ. 565, εἰ yap μὴ οὕτως ἔχει, GAN ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων ἐστὶ κτίσμα Kal ποίημα ὁ Adyos, ἢ οὐκ ἔστι Θεὸς ἀληθινὸς, διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἕνα τῶν κτισμάτων, ἢ εἰ Θεὸν αὐτὸν ὀνομάζουσιν ἐντρεπόμενοι παρὰ τῶν γραφῶν, ἀνάγκη λέγειν αὐτοὺς δύο θεοὺς, ἕνα μὲν κτίστην, τὸν δὲ ἕτερον κτιστὸν, καὶ δύο κυρίοις λατρεύειν, ἑνὶ μὲν ἀγενήτῳ, τῷ δὲ ἑτέρῳ γενητῷ καὶ κτίσματι... «. οὕτω δὲ φρονοῦντες πάντως καὶ πλείονας συνάψουσι θεούς" τοῦτο γὰρ τῶν ἐκπεσόντων ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑνὸς Θεοῦ τὸ ἐπιχείρημα. διατί οὖν οἱ ᾿Αρειανοὶ τοιαῦτα λογιζόμενοι καὶ νοοῦντες οὐ συναριθμοῦσιν ἑαυτοὺς μετὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων;
1 Socin. de Justif. Bibl. Fr. Pol. tom. i. fol. 601, col. I
τὰ Cat. Racov.: ‘Qu. 236. Quid pretered Dominus Jesus hute pre- cepto addidit? Resp. Id quod etiam Dominum Jesum pro Deo agnoscere tenemur, id est, pro eo, qui in nos potestatem habet divinam, et cui nos divinum exhibere honorem obstricti sumus. Qu. 237. In quo is honor divinus Christo debitus consistit? Resp. In eo, quod quemadmodum adoratione divind eum prosequi tenemur, ita in omnibus necessitatibus nostris ejus opem implorare possumus, Adoramus verd eum propter ipsius sublimem et divinam ejus potestatem.’ Cf. Mohler, Symbolik. Mainz. 1864, p. 609. .
n The tenacity of the Christian practice may be still more remarkably illustrated from the death-cry of Servetus, as given in a MS. account of his execution, cited by Roscoe, Life of Leo X, ὁ. 19. ‘Ipse horrenda voce clamans; Jesu, Fili Dei eterni, miserere mei,’
[ uct.
ee
abandoned, as resting on antiquarian feeling. 413
accounted Christians®, But this was only the archeology, or at most the better feeling of Socinianism. Any such mere feeling was destined to yield surely and speedily to the logic of a strong destructive principle. In vain did Blandrata appeal to Faustus Socinus himself ?, when endeavouring to persuade the Socinians of Transylvania to adore Jesus Christ: the Transylvanians would not be persuaded to yield an act of adoration to any creatured. In vain did the Socinian Catechism draw a dis- tinction between a higher and a lower worship, of which the former was reserved for the Father, while the latter was paid to Christ™. Practically this led on to a violation of the one positive fundamental principle of Socinianism ; it obscured the incommunicable prerogatives of the Supreme Being. Accord- ingly, in spite of the texts of Scripture upon which their worship of Christ was rested by the Socinian theologians, such worship was soon abandoned; and the later practice of So- cinians § has illustrated the true doctrinal force and meaning of
ο Cat. Racov.: ‘Qu. 246. Quid verd sentis de tis hominibus, qui Chris- tum non invocant, nee adorandum censent? Resp. Prorsis non esse Christianos sentio, cum Christum non habeant, Et licet verbis id negare non audeant, reips’ negant tamen.’ In his sermon on ‘Satan Trans- formed,’ South quotes Socinus as saying that ‘Prestat Trinitarium esse, quam asserere Christum non esse adorandum.’
» See Socinus’ tractates, Bibl. Frat. Pol. ii. p. 709, sqq.
4 Cf. Mohler, Symbolik, p. 609; Bp. Pearson, Minor Works, vol. i. p. 300, and note. Coleridge’s Table Talk, 2nd ed. p. 304: ‘Faustus Socinus worshipped Jesus Christ, and said that God had given Him the power of being omnipresent. Davidi, with a little more acuteness, urged that mere audition or creaturely presence could not possibly justify worship from men ;—that a man, how glorified soever, was no nearer God than the most vulgar of the race. Prayer therefore was inapplicable.’ On the re- sponsibility of Socinus for Davidi’s subsequent persecution for this negation, see Priestley, Corr, of Christ., Part i. § 11. For himself Coleridge says (Ibid. p. 50), ‘In no proper sense of the term can I call Unitarians and Socinians believers in Christ; at least not in the only Christ of Whom I have read or know anything.’
τ Cat. Rac.: ‘Qu. 245. Ergo is honor et cultus ad eum modum tribuitur, ut nullum sit inter Christum et Deum hoc in genere discrimen? Resp. Imo, permagnum est. Nam adoramus et colimus Deum, tanquam causam primam salutis nostre; Christum tanquam causam secundam; aut ut cum Paulo loquamur, Deum tanquam Eum ex quo omnia, Christum ut eum per quem omnia.’ Cf. Bibl. Frat. Pol. tom. ii. fol. 466, qu. by Mohler, Symbolik, p. 609. Méhler observes that ‘man sieht dass an Christus eine Art von Invocation gerichtet wird, die mit der Katholischen Anrufung der Heiligen einige Aehnlichkeit hat.’
5. Cf, Priestley, Corr. of Christ., Part i. 9 11: ‘It is something extraor- dinary that the Socinians in Poland thought it their duty, as Christians, and indeed essential to Christianity, to pray to Jesus Christ, notwithstanding
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414 Explicit confessions of Christ’s Divinity
that adoration which Socinianism refuses, but which the Church unceasingly offers to Jesus, the Son of God made Man. Of this worship the only real justification is that full belief in Christ’s Essential Unity with the Father which is expressed by the Homoousion.