ART. miracles in Palestine, so likewise very great miracles conXXII. tinued still to be wrought at the tomb, where it was at first Chrysost laid. One, in respect to those great men, is tempted to suspect that many things might have been foisted into their writings in the following ages. A great many practices of this kind have been made manifest beyond contradiction. Whole books have been made to pass for the writings of fathers, that do evidently bear the marks of a much later date, where the fraud was carried too far not to be discovered. At other times parcels have been laid in among their genuine productions, which cannot be so easily distinguished; they not being liable to so many critical inquiries, as may be made on a larger work. It is a little unaccountable how so many marvellous things should be Hom. 6. in published in that age; and yet that St. Chrysostom, who 1 ad Cor. ii. spent his whole life between two of the publickest scenes of the world, Antioch and Constantinople, and was an active and inquisitive man, should not so much as have heard of any such wonderful stories; but should have taken pains to remove a prejudice out of the minds of his hearers, that might arise from this, that whereas they heard of many miracles that were wrought in the times of the Apostles, none were wrought at that time; upon which, he gives very good reasons why it was so. His saying so positively, That none were wrought at that time, without so much as a salvo for what he might have heard from other parts, shews plainly, that he had not heard of any at all. For he was orator enough to have made even looser reports look probable. This does very much shake the credit of those amazing relations that we find in St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Austin. It is true, there seems to have been an opinion very generally received both in the East and the West, at that time, which must have very much heightened the growing superstition for relics. It was a remnant both of Judaism and Gentilism, that the souls of the martyrs hovered about their tombs, called their memories; and that therefore they might be called upon, and spoke to there. This appears even in the Council of Elliberis, where the superstition of lighting candles about their tombs in day-light is forbidden; the reason given is, because the spirits were not to be disquieted. Basil. in 40 St. Basil, and the other Fathers, that do so often mention Martyr. the going to their memories, do very plainly insinuate their being present at them, and hearing themselves called upon. This may be the reason why, among all the saints that are so much magnified in that age, we never find the blessed Virgin so much as once mentioned. They knew XXII. not where her body was laid, they had no tomb for her, ART. no nor any of her relics or utensils. But upon the occasion of Nestorius's denying her to be the Mother of God, and by carrying the opposition to that too far, a superstition for her was set on foot, it made a progress sufficient to balance the slowness of its beginning; the whole world was then filled with very extravagant devotions for her. lib. 10. con. The great noise we find concerning relics in the end of the fourth century, has all the characters of novelty possible in it; for those who speak of it, do not derive it from former times. One circumstance in this is very re markable, that neither Trypho, Celsus, Lucian, nor Cecilius, do object to the Christians of their time, their fondness for dead bodies, or praying about their tombs, which they might well have alleged in opposition to what the Christians charged them with, if three had been any occasion for it. Whereas this custom was no sooner begun, than both Julian and Eunapius reproach the Christians for it. Julian, it is true, speaks only of their calling on God Ap. Cyr. over sepulchres: Eunapius writ after him; and it seems, Julian. Euin his time, that which Julian sets forth as a calling upon nap. in vita God, was advanced to an invocation of them. He says, Edess. they heaped together the bones and skulls of men that had been punished for many crimes, (it was natural enough for a spiteful Heathen to give this representation of their martyrdom,) holding them for Gods: and after some scurrilous invectives against them, he adds, they are called Martyrs, and made the ministers and messengers of prayer to the Gods. This seems to be a very evident proof of the novelty of this matter. As for the adoring them, when Vigilantius asked, Why dost thou kiss and adore a little dust put up in fine linen? St. Jerome, though excessively fond of them, denies this very positively, and that in very injurious terms, being offended at the injustice of the reproach. Yet as long as the bodies of the martyrs were let lie quietly in their memories, the fond opinion of their being present, and hearing what was said to them, made the invocating them look like one man's desiring the assistance of another good man's prayers; so that this step seemed to have a fair colour. But when their bodies were pulled asunder, and carried up and down, so that it was believed miracles abounded every where about them; and when their bones and relics grew to increase and multiply, so that they had more bones and limbs than God and nature had given them; then new hypotheses were to be found out to justify the calling upon them every where, as their XXII. Hieron. ad pro mor- ART. relics were spread. St. Jerome, in his careless way, says, they followed the Lamb whithersoever he went, and seems to make no doubt of their being, if not every where, yet in several places at once. But St. Austin, who could follow a consequence much further in his thoughts, though he doubted not but that men were much the better for the prayers of the martyrs, yet he confesses that it passed the strength of his understanding to determine, whether they heard those who called upon them at their memories, or wheresoever else they were believed to have appeared, or not. But the devotions that are spoken of by all of that age, are related as having been offered at their memories; so that this seems to have been the general opinion, as well as it was the common practice of that age, though it is no wonder if this conceit once giving some colour and credit to the invocating them, that did quickly increase itself to a general invocation of them every where. And thus a fondness for their relics, joined with the opinion of their relation and nearness to them, did in a short time grow up to a direct worshipping of them; and, by the fruitfulness that always follows superstition, did spread itself further, to their clothes, utensils, and every thing else that had any relation to them. Aug. de There was cause given in St. Austin's time to suspect opere mothat nach. c. 28. of the bones which were carried about by many monks, were none of their bones, but impostures, which very much shakes the credit of the miracles wrought by them, since we have no reason to think that God would support such impostures with miracles; as, on the other band, there is no reason to think that false relics would have passed upon the world, if miracles had been believed to accompany true ones, unless they had their miracles likewise to attest their value: so let this matter be turned which way it may, the credit both of relics, and of the miracles wrought by them, is not a little shaken by it. But in the following ages we have more than presumptions, that there was much of this false coin that went abroad in the world. It was not possible to distinguish the false from the true. The freshness of colour and smell, so often boasted, might have been easily managed by art; the varieties of those relics, the different methods of discovering them, the shinings that were said to be about their tombs, with the smells that broke out of them, the many apparitions that accompanied them, and the signal cures that were wrought by them, as they grew to fill the world with many volumes of legends, many more lying yet in the manuscripts in many Churches, than have been pub XXII. lished: all these, I say, carry in them such characters of ART. fraud and imposture on the one hand, and of cruelty and superstition on the other; so much craft, and so much folly, that they had their full effect upon the world, even in contradiction to the clearest evidence possible; the same saints having more bodies and heads than one, in different places, and yet all equally celebrated with miracles. A great profusion of wealth and pomp was laid out in honouring them, new devotions were still invented for them: and though these things are too palpably false to be put upon us now, in ages of more light, where every thing will not go down because it is confidently affirmed; yet as we know how great a part of the devotion of the Latin Church this continued to be for many ages before the Reformation, so the same trade is still carried on, where the same ignorance, and the same superstition, does still continue. I come now to consider the last head of this Article, which is the Invocation of Saints, of which much has been already said by an anticipation: for there is that connection between the worship of relics and the invocation of saints, that the treating of the one does very naturally carry one to say somewhat of the other. It is very evident that saints were not invocated in the Old Testament. God being called so oft, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, seems to give a much better warrant for it, than any thing that can be alleged from the New Testament. Moses was their Lawgiver, and their Mediator and Intercessor with God; and his intercession, as it had been very effectual for them, so it had shewed itself in a very extraordinary instance of his desiring that his name might be blotted out of the book which he had written, ra- Exod. ther than the people should perish; when God had offered xxxii. 32. to him, that he would raise up a new nation to himself, out of his posterity. God had also made many promises to that nation by him: so that it might be natural enough, considering the genius of superstition, for the Jews to have called to him in their miseries, to obtain the performance of those promises made by him to them. We may upon this refer the matter to every man's judgment, whether Abraham and Moses might not have been much more reasonably invocated by the Jews according to what we find in the Old Testament, than any saint can be under the New: yet we are sure they were not prayed to. Elijah's going up to heaven in so miraculous a manner, might also have been thought a good reason for any to have prayed to him: but nothing of that kind was then ART. practised. They understood prayer to be a part of that XXII. worship which they owed to God only: so that the praying to any other, had been to a certain degree the having another God before, or besides the true Jehovah. They never prayed to any other, they called upon him, and made mention of no other: the rule was without exPsal. 1. 15. ception, Call upon me in the time of trouble; I will hear thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Upon this point there is no dispute. In the New Testament we see the same method followed, with this only exception, that Jesus Christ is proposed as our Mediator; and that not only in the point of redemption, which is not denied by those of the Church of Rome, but even in the point of intercession; for when St. Paul is treating concerning the prayers and supplications that are to be offered for all men, he concludes that 1 Tim. ii. 5. direction in these words: For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. We think the silence of the New Testament might be a sufficient argument for this: but these words go farther, and imply a prohibition to address our prayers to God by any other Mediator. All the directions that are given us of trusting in God, and praying to him, are upon the matter prohibitions of trusting to any other, or of calling on any Rom. x. 14. other. Invocation and faith are joined together: How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? So that we ought only to pray to God, and to Christ, acJohn xiv. 1. cording to those words, Ye believe in God, believe also in me. We do also know that it was a part of heathenish idolatry to invocate either demons, or departed men, whom they considered as good beings subordinate to the Divine Essence, and employed by God in the government of the world; and they had almost the same speculations about them, that have been since introduced into the Church, concerning angels and saints. In the condemning all idolatry, no reserve is made in Scripture for this, as being faulty, only because it was applied wrong; of that it might be set right when directed better. On the conCol. ii. 18. trary, when some men, under the pretence of humility and of will-worship, did, according to the Platonic notions, offer to bring in the worship of angels into the Church of Colosse, pretending, as is probable, that those spirits who were employed by God in the ministry of the Gospel, ought, in gratitude for that service, and out of respect to their dignity, to be worshipped: St. Paul condemns all this, without any reserves made for lower degrees of worVer. 8, 9, ship; he charges the Christians to beware of that vain phi 10. |