216 EPIPHANIUS IN PALESTINE. Aterbius, denounced Ruffinus and Jerome as Origenists, Jerome at once disclaimed all sympathy with Origen, while Ruffinus kept within doors in order to avoid the sight of his denouncer. John of Jerusalem was inclined to Origenism; Epiphanius, who regarded it with horror, visited Jerusalem in the Lent of 394. John received the old prelate into his house, and invited him to preach in the church of the Resurrection. Epiphanius denounced Origenists, in such a way as to show what he thought of his host, the archbishop then present, who exhibited his impatience and contempt by signs equally unmistakeable, and sent the archdeacon to bid him be silent. As they passed to the church of the Holy Cross, the people thronged round Epiphanius to kiss his feet and touch his mantle. John preached in his turn, and reprobated the "Anthropomorphists," who took literally the texts which ascribed to God "a body, parts, and passions f." While he spoke, he looked hard at Epiphanius, who afterwards quietly rose and said, "I too condemn the Anthropomorphists,—but we must also condemn Origenism." A shout of laughter showed the congregation's enjoyment of this retort. On another occasion, when on his way to celebrate service with John at Bethel, Epiphanius found on a village church-door a curtain on which was painted a figure of Christ, or of a Saint. The sight offended his rigid scruples ; and being wont to take his own course, with small regard for circum d Jerome admits this, c. Joan. 11. "You and your company," he adds, "sneered, rubbed your heads, and nodded to each other, as much as to say, "The old man is in his dotage." e Sozomen, vi. 32, says that he was a man of wide-spread fame. These persons, that is, held what Augustine, while a Manichean, imputed to the whole Catholic body. See his letter (Hieron. Ep. 51. c. 9) to John of Jerusalem. His feeling was that of the austere Spanish Council of Eliberis, or Elvira, in the beginning of the fourth century. Since that time pictures had been more frequently used, and sometimes abused. S. Aug. de Mor. Eccl. Cath. i. 34; the passage implies that the pictures, which some persons "adored," were set up in sacred places. But they did not become common in churches until a somewhat later period. ORIGENISTIC CONTROVERSY. 217 stances, he forthwith tore the curtain, and advised that it should be used as a shroud for the poor. The keepers of the church naturally observed, "If he will tear our curtain, he ought to give us another." "So I will," said Epiphanius; and he did, in fact, send them the best he could procure. Finding John estranged from him, he withdrew to Bethlehem, where he received a cordial welcome. One of the monks of Bethlehem was Jerome's brother Paulinianus, who was always afraid of being forcibly ordained, according to a strange practice not uncommon h in days when many good men through diffidence avoided the priesthood. The monastery needed a priest, for Jerome's morbid humility would not allow him to officiate; and Epiphanius contrived to seize Paulinianus, and confer holy orders on him, "stopping his mouth lest he should protest in the name of Christ." This violent act was certain to anger John, as being an infraction of his diocesan authority; and he bitterly inveighed against Epiphanius, who wrote a letter in which he endeavoured to defend the ordination, and stated withal eight heads of Origenism which he imputed to the bishop of Jerusalem. Of these the chief were, that the Son could not behold the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the Son; that souls had existed and sinned before they came into bodies; that Satan would return to his heavenly estate. In the strife between John and Epiphanius, Ruffinus and Jerome naturally took opposite sides. On April 24, 394, a council of 310 Donatist bishops met at Bagai, and upheld the cause of Primian, denouncing h See Bingham, b. iv. 7. 1. S. Augustine wept while he was being presented for ordination. i Epiphanius imagined that the ordination of a Bethlehemite monk at Eleutheropolis, which was not within the diocese of Jerusalem, was not an interference with John's authority. But the person ordained belonged to John's diocese; and Epiphanius was in truth copying the conduct of those bishops of Palestine who ordained Origen at Cæsarea without any authority from his own bishop Demetrius. Euseb. vi. 23. The letter of Epiphanius was translated by Jerome; the original is not extant. Jerome did not intend the translation to be publicly circulated. Ruffinus impugned its accuracy. Ep. 57 (101). 218 BATTLE OF AQUILEIA. Maximian as a minister of Korah and a corrupter of the truth. Ambrose had warned Eugenius that if he continued to favour heathenism, the Church would not receive his offer. ings. This in fact took place; Eugenius was shunned at Milan as an apostate. When he set forth to meet Theodosius, who reached Italy in the summer of 394, Arbogastes and Flavian the prætorian præfect vowed that they would turn the cathedral of Milan into a stable if victory declared for Eugenius. In the first encounter Eugenius was successful. The generals of Theodosius spoke of deferring the campaign until the next year; but he declared that the Cross should never retire before the image of Hercules on the standard of the enemy. Again he bade his soldiers advance, and prayed that if he had come thither in a cause approved by God, He would stretch forth His hand. Then, it is said, a wind sprang up which drove back the enemy's arrows, blinded them with dust, and threw them into hopeless confusion. Such was the victory at Aquileia, Sept. 6, 394, which caused even the unbelieving Claudianm to write of Theodosius, "O nimium dilecte Deo-cui militat æther "!" Eugenius and Arbogastes were put to death. Theodosius shewed a princely kindness to the children of the chief rebels; they had sought shelter in a church, and he gave them a Christian education. He wrote to Ambrose, requesting him to give thanks for the victory. "I took your letter with me to the altar," wrote Ambrose in reply°; "I placed it on the altar, and held it up in my hand while I was offering the Sacrifice." The Emperor scrupled for some time as to approaching the Holy Communion, on the ground that so much blood had been shed, although in a fair field and in a good cause. "The Penance" had sunk into his mind. He is said by the Pagan historian Zosimus? k Paulin. Vit. S. Ambr. 31. n De tert. cons. Hon. 96. 1 Ruff. ii. 33. m S. Aug. Civ. Dei, v. 26. P Zos. iv. 59. PAULINUS AT NOLA. 219 to have at this time made a vain attempt to detach the Roman senate from the religion of their fathers. Towards the end of this September a Council was held at Constantinople, attended by Nectarius, Theophilus, Flavian, Gregory of Nyssa, Amphilochius, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, a bishop who afterwards became the head of a rationalizing school of theology. In this assembly Nectarius referred to "the Apostolic canons." The series of canons now known by that name is considered to be a collection, undigested and imperfect, of rules and decrees. which obtained in the Eastern Church before the Nicene Council. Alypius, Augustine's friend, was now bishop of Thagaste. He sent some writings of Augustine against the Manicheans -doubtless including his treatise "On the Usefulness of Believing 1," written soon after his ordination—to a man of noble birth, great literary culture, and fervent devotion, named Paulinus, whom he had known at Milan. This produced a friendship between S. Augustine and Paulinus. The latter had been recently ordained priest at Barcelona; he sold his large estates, and gave their proceeds to the poor; and then, passing into Italy, settled at Nola, devoting much of his time and thoughts to the honour of a local saint, Felix. Jerome became acquainted with him, and in reply to his congratulations on the advantage of living in Palestine, sent him a remarkable letters, in which he warned him In this work he refers to the Manichean promise, "We will give you truth, not by exacting obedience to authority, but by pure and simple reasoning." He deals with Manichean cavils against the Old Testament, and insists that all its contents are "noble, divine, and absolutely true;" c. 13. Heretics themselves, he says, do in fact require faith; and the Catholic Church has a prior claim on our confidence; c. 30, 31. Hence S. Martin proposed him to Sulpicius as a model Christian. Vit. B. Mart. 26. Ep. 58 (13). S. Gregory of Nyssa also had said, "I believed in the Incarnation before I saw Bethlehem....It is not by change of place that we draw nigh to God !" Orat. de Euntibus Hierosolyma. He contends against the idea that pilgrimage is a part of Christian perfection, declaring that vice and bloodshed prevail in Jerusalem, and that a man may stand on Golgotha with a heart full of evil. 220 DEATH OF THEODOSIUS. "not to think that anything was lacking to his faith because he had not seen Jerusalem," a city in which, side by side with the holiest places, were haunts of worldly and sensual corruption. He also drew a clear distinction between the clerical life, instituted by the Apostles, and the monastic, which imitated that of Elijah and Elishat, the sons of the prophets, and the Rechabites. On the clerical duties he wrote about this time a remarkable letter to the young priest Nepotian", exhorting him to avoid whatever might raise suspicion as to the probity of his ministerial life, to be constant in the study of Scripture, to take heed that his conduct "did not shame his teaching," to obey his “ Highpriest," to avoid empty declamations; not to seek for the applause of his audience, nor to court great men even on the pretext of "interceding for the unhappy;" not to impose on himself excessive fasting, nor while abstaining from oil to indulge in other dainties; to eschew all Pharisaic demonstrations, and through good and evil report to march on steadily as Christ's soldier. On Jan. 17, 395, the great Theodosius died at Milan, aged sixty. His last advice to his sons Arcadius and Honorius, who were respectively to govern the East and West, was to consider true religion as the safeguard of the peace of the empire. "I loved the man," said S. Ambrose in his funeral oration, "who thought better of a reprover than of a flatterer, who inquired for me with his last breath "." Arca It is simply wonderful that he should have adduced Elisha as a prototype of men whose aim was individual sanctification to be secured by retirement. ■ Ep. 52 (2). He refers to "frequent gifts," as handkerchiefs, and "sweet little notes" from ladies; and mentions the law of Valentinian I. against legacies to monks and clergy. This letter, which asserts a parallelism between the Jewish and Christian hierarchies, (see S. Clement of Rome, ad Cor. c. 40,) shows how little right Presbyterians have to claim S. Jerome. Like other Church-writers of his time, he calls the bishop Pontifex, and says, "We know the bishop and the presbyters to be what Aaron and his sons were." See the conclusion of his famous Ep. 146 (85), ad Evangelum, where the parallelism is fully drawn out. See also c. Joan. 37. z De Ob. Theod. 34, 35. He added that Theodosius thought more of the |