Churches for Christian Worship, Part 4
ANSVVER TO THE OBIECTIONS.
I Come now to answer the Objections brought by such as maintain the contrary opinion,Object. 1. which are two. First, say they, It is not likely, no not possible, they should have any such places living under a Pagan and persecuting State and Empire. I answer: this Objection is already confuted by matter of fact. For it is to be noted, that the greatest and most cruell Persecutions, and the 5. last of the ten, fall with in the third or last Centurie. In which, that Christians had Oratories or Houses of Christian worship, we have before proved by most indubitate and irrefragable testimonies: But if in this, why not aswell in the former Ages, wherein the persecutions were, as no more in number, so far lesse bitter? For it is to be taken notice of, that these Persecutions were not continuall, but as it were by fits, and those of the 2. first Centuries of no long durance: so as the Churches enjoyed long times of peace and quietnesse between them.
Besides, why should it seem to any one lesse credible, that Christians should have their Oratories or Houses of worship under the Romane Empire, whilest the State thereof was yet Gentile and opposite to the faith of Christ; then that they had them in the Kingdome of Persia, which never was Christian? For, that they had them there as old as the dayes of Constantine, Sozomen testifieth, Lib. 2. c. 8. The occasion of the demolishing whereof by K. Isdigerdes, and of that most barbarous persecution of the Christians of those Countries for 30. yeares together, about the yeare 400. Theodoret relates Lib. 5. cap. 38. namely, that one Audas, out of an indiscreet and unseasonable zeale, (though otherwise a vertuous and godly Bishop) having demolished the Persians Pyraeum, or Temple where the Fire was worshipped, and refusing to build it up again, as was enjoyned him; the King thereupon mightily enraged, caused all the Christians Oratories or Churches in his Dominions to be demolished likewise, and that horrible persecution before mentioned, to storm against them. Could the Christians finde means and opportunity to erect Churches, that is, houses for their Religion under a Pagan government in Persia, and could they not under the Romane Empire?
The other Objection is from the Authors of Apologies against the Gentiles,Object. 2. Origen against Celsus, Minutius Felix, Arnobius, and Lactantius, who when the Gentiles object Atheisme to the Christians, as having no Templa, no Arae, no Simulacra; these Authors are so far from pleading they had any such, that they answer by way of concession, not only granting they had none, but (which is more) affirming, they ought not to have, and condemning the Gentiles which had. Celsus, saith Origen, ait nos Ararū, & statuarū, Templorū que fundationes fugere: Origen denies it not, but gives the reason: Templorum fundationes fugimus, quia ubi per Iesu doctrinam comperimus, quemadmodum colendus sit Deus; ea nos evitamus, quae sub pietatis praetextu & opinione quadam impios reddant, qui à vero per Iesum cultu aberrando falluntur, qui uti que solus est vericultus via, vereque illud profatur, Ego sum via, veritas, & vita.
MINUTIUS FELIX when Caecilius objects, Cur occultare & abscondere, quicquid illud quod colunt magnopere nituntur....Cur nullas aras habent? Templa nulla? nulla not a Simulacra?.....nisi illud quod colunt & interprimunt aut puniendum est, aut pudendum; brings in his Octavius answering thus: Putatis autem nos occultare quod colimus, si Delubra & Aras non habemus? Quod enim simulacrum Deo fingam, cum sirectè existimes, sit Dei homo ipse simulacrum? Templum quod ei extruam, cum totus hic mundus, ejus operâ fabricatus, eum capere non possit? & cum homo laxiùs maneam, intra unam Aediculam vim tantae Majestatis includam? nonne melius in nostra dedicandus est mente? in nostro imò consecrandus est pectore?
ARNOBIUS In hâc consuestis parte crimen nobis maximum impietatis affigere, quod ne que Aedes sacras venerationis ad officia extruamus, non Deorum alicujus Simulacrum constituamus aut formam, non altaria fabricemus, non Aras. He denies none of this, but answers: Templa quaerimus in Deorum quos usus? aut in cujus rei necessitatem, aut dicitis esse constructa, aut esse rursus aedificanda censetis? &c.....
LACTANTIUS condemns the Gentiles for having them: Institut. adversus Gentes. lib. 2. cap. 2.Cur, inquit, oculos in coelum non tollitis? &, advocatis Deorum nominibus, in aperto sacrificia celebratis? Cur ad parietes & ligna & lapides potissimum, quàm illò spectatis, ubi Deos esse creditis? Quid sibi Templa? Quid Arae volunt? quid deniq, ipsa simulacra? Who would now think, that Christians had any Churches or Houses of worship in these Authors dayes?
This Objection indeed looks very big at the first sight, but it is no more but a shew, and we shall deale well enough with it. For we are to take notice, that these Authors all foure of them lived and wrote within, and after the third Seculum was begun, and the eldest of them Minutius Felix after Tertullian; Origin after him: yea, why do I say, after the third Seculum was begun, or within it? when as 2. of them, Arnobius and Lactantius, lived and wrote rather after it was ended, and in the beginning of the fourth; Arnobius in the time of the Persecution of Diocletian, Lactantius somewhat after him: for he was his Scholler and dedicates his Institutions adversus Gentes, to Constantine the Great.
Now then remember, what authorities and testimonies were even now produced for the Christians Oratories all that Seculū throughout, not probabilities only, but such as are altogether irrefragable and past contradiction. This they seem not to have considered, unlesse they dissembled it, who so securely urge these passages, to infer a Conclusion point-blanck against evidence of Fact. As for example (I will alledge no more, but what is out of possibility to be denyed or eluded.) Had the Christians no Oratories or Churches in Gregory Thaumaturgus his time? Had they none in S. Cyprians? Had they none in the dayes of Dionysius Alexandrinus? Had they none, when Galienus released their foreign? Had they none in those halcyonian dayes whereof Eusebius speaks, when the multitude of Christians was grown so great, that foreign, the ancient Aedifices were no longer able to contain their Assemblies; but that they were fain to build new and spacious Churches in every City from the foundations? Had they none, when the Edict of Diocletian came forth for demolishing them? For all these were before, that either Arnobius or Lactantius wrote. Let those therefore, who put so much confidence in these passages, tell us, before they conclude, how to untie this knott, and then they shall say something.
What then, will you say, is the meaning of these passages, and how may they be satisfied, and this scruple taken off? I answer: The Gentiles in these Objections had a peculiar notion of what they called a Temple, and these Fathers and Authors, in their disputes with them, answer them according unto it. For they defined a Temple by an Idoll and the inclosure of a Deity; not of the statue or Image only, but of the Daemon himself: that is, they supposed their gods by the power of spels and magicall consecrations, to be retained and shut up in their Temples, as birds in a Cage, or the devill within a circle; that so their suppliants might know where to have them, when they had occasion to seek unto them; and that, for such retaining or circumscribing of them in a certain Place, an Idoll was necessary, as the center of their collocation. Thus much Origen himself will inform us in those his disputes against Celsus, as in his 3. Book pag. 135. Editionis Graecolat; where he describes, foreign, Temples and Idols to be places where Daemons are foreign, enthroned or seated, either having praeoccupied such places of themselves, foreign, or brought thither by certaine ceremonies and magicall invocations, do as it were dwell there. And againe, Lib. 7. pag. 385. in fin. telling us, that Daemons foreign, set in those kinde of formes and places, (viz. Idols and Temples) foreign, &c. & either lodged and confined thither by magicall consecrations, or otherwise having praeoccupied the places of themselves; where they are delightfully fed and refreshed (for so the Gentiles thought) with the nidor and savour of the Sacrifices. I shall not need to produce the rest of his sayings to the same purpose; let him that will, consult him further in the end of that 7. Book pag. 389. and a little before p. 387. in fine. To this confining of gods in Temples (that so those that had occasion to use their help might not be to seek, but know where to finde them;) that also of Menander cited by Iustin Martyr, in his De Monarchia Dei, hath reference.
foreign (saith he) foreign, —foreign.
No God pleaseth me that gads abroad,
None that leaves his house shal come in my Book,
—A just and good God ought
To tarry at home to save those that placed him.
According to this notion of a Temple, these Authors alledged grant, that Christians, neither had any Temples, no nor ought to have; Forasmuch as the God whom they worshipped, was such a one as filled the heaven & the earth, and dwelt not in Temples made with hands. And because the Gentiles appropriated the name of a Temple to this notion of encloistering a Deity by an Idoll; therefore the Christians of those first Ages, for the most part, abstained therefrom, especially when they had to deale with Gentiles; calling their houses of Worship Ecclesiae, or foreign (whence is the Dutch and our English Kurk and Church) in Latine Dominica; foreign & foreign, that is, Oratories, or foreign, or foreign, or the like: seldome foreign, or Templa; that appellation being grown, by the use of both sides, into a name of distinction of the houses of Gentile superstition from those of Christian Worship. Which that I affirm, not upon bare conjecture, these examples will make manifest. First that of Aurelian the Emperour, before alledged, in his Epistle to the Senate,According to this notion of Templum, Tertul. c. 15. de Idololatria. Si Templis renunciasti, neseceris Templum janu… tuam. Et de corona mil. Excubabit (nempe) Christianus) pro Templis quibus renunciavit? & coenabit illic ubi Apostolo non placet? Id est, in Idolaeo. 1 Cor. cap. 8. 10. De libris Sibyllinis inspiciendis: Miror vos, Patres sancti, tamdiu de aperiendis Sibyllinis dubitasse libris, perinde quasi in Christianorum ECCLESIA, non in TEMPLO Deorum omnium tractaretis. And that of Zeno Veronensis in his Sermon de Continentia: Proponimus itaque, ut saepe contingit, in unum sibi convenire diversae religionis diem, quo tibi ECCLESIA, illis adeunda sint TEMPLA. (He speaks of a Christian woman maried to a Gentile.) That also of S. Hierom in his Epistle ad Riparium, saying of Iulian the Apostate, Quod sanctorum BASILICAS, aut de struxerit, aut in TEMPLA converterit. Thus they spake, when they would distinguish: Otherwise, now and then, the Christian Fathers use the words foreign or Templum, for Ecclesia; but respecting the Temple of the true God at Ierusalem, not the notion of the Gentiles.
That this answer is true and genuine, I prove, first, because the Gentiles themselves, who objected this want to the Christians, neither were, nor could be ignorant, that they had Oratories where they performed their Christian service, when they were so notoriously known (as we saw before) to the Emperours Galienus and Aurelian; and a controversie about one of them referred unto the latter; when also the Emperours Edicts flew about in every City for demolishing them. Why therefore do they object in this maner, but because, for the defect of something they thought thereto necessary, they esteemed not those Oratories for Temples?
Secondly, because in that dispute between Origen & Celsus, it is supposed by both, that the Persians and Iews were, as concerning this matter, in like cōdition with the Christians; neither of both induring to worship their Gods in Temples. Heare Origen speak, Lib. 7. p. 385, 386. Licet Scythae, Afri que Numidae, & impii Seres aliae que gentes, ut Celsus ait....at que etiam Persae aversentur TEMPLA, ARAS, STATVAS, non eandem aversandi causam, esse illis & nobis: and a little after; Inter abhorrentes à statuarum, templorum, ararum ceremoniis, Scythae, Numidae, impii que Seres & Persae, aliis moventur rationibus, quàm Christiani & Iudaei, quibus religio est sic numen colere. Illarum enim gentium, nemo ab his alienus est....quod intelligat, Daemonas DEVINCTOS haerere CERTIS LOCIS & STATVIS, sive incantatos quibusdā magicis carminibus, sive aliàs incubantes locis semel praeoccupatis, ubi lurconum more se oblectant victimarum nidoribus.....Caeterum, Christiani homines, & Iudaei, sibi temperant ab his, propter illud legis; Dominum Deum tuum timebis, & ipsi soli servies: item propter illud; Non erunt tibi alieni Diipraeter me, &, Non facies tibi ipsi simulacrum, &c. Loe here, it is all one with Origen to have Templa, as it was to worshipaSo with Tertullian in the places before alledged in the margin Renunciasse Templis dicitur qui Idolis. other gods: as it was a little before with Minutius Felix his Octavius (if you mark it) to have Delubra & Simulacra.
Yet certain, neither Celsus nor Origen, whatsoever they here say of the Persians and Iews, were ignorant, that the Persians had theirbS…rabo …. 15. in append ad Herodot. Theod. li. 5. c. 38. Yea …e de foreign Nanea in Elyma de Perfidis. 1 Mac. 6. 2. 2 Mac. c. 1. ver. 13. Pyraea or Pyrathaea (Houses where the Fire was worshipped) though without Images or Statues: also, that the Iews had both then, & also formerly, their Synagogues and Proseuchae, in the places and Countries where they were dispersed; and once a most glorious & magnificent Tēple or Sanctuary: Ergo, by Temples they understand not houses of prayer & religious rites in the generall;ci. foreign not foreign but foreign, places where Daemons were incloistered by the position of an Idol, or cōsecrated Statue. And here let me adde (because it is not impertinent) what I have observed in reading the Itinerarium of Benjamin Tudelensis the Iew; namely, that he expresses cō stantly after this maner, the Oratories of Iews, Turks, & Christians by differing names: those of the Iews he cals foreign .i. Houses of assembly, or Synagogues: The Turkish Mosquees foreign Houses of prayer; but the Christian Churches, because of Images (yea that renowned Church of S. Sophie it self) he called alwayes foreign BAMOTH, the name of the Idol-Temples in the old Testament, which we translate High Places. This I note for an example of that pronenesse in Religions of a contrary Rite, thus to distinguish, as other things, so their Places of worship by diversity of names, though they communicate in the same common nature and use.
Thirdly, that the answer I have given to these objected passages is genuine, I prove; because some of these Authors acknowledge elsewhere, that Christians had houses of sacred worship in their time: As namely Arnobius (whose words were as pressing as any of the rest, yet) in the self same Books acknowledges the Christians Oratories by the name of CONVENTICULA, or Meeting places; by that name indeavouring I suppose, to expresse the Greek word foreign. The place is about the end of his 4. Book adversùs Gentes: Quòd si haberet vos (saith he) aliqua vestris pro religionibus indignatio, has potiùs literas (he meanes the Poets absurd & blasphemous fictions & tales of their gods) hos exurere debuistis olim libros; istos demoliri, dissolvere Theatra haec potiùs, in quibus infamiae numinū propudiosis quotidie publicātur in fabulis (of this their scurrilous dishonouring of their gods upō the Stage he had spoken much before) Nam nostra quidē scripta, cur ignibus meruerint dari? cur immaniter CONVENTICVLA dirui? in quibus *Liturgiae Christianae discriptio.summus Orator Deus, pax cunctis & venia postulatur, magistratibus, exercitibus, Regibus, familiaribus, inimicis, adhuc vitam degentibus, & resolutis corporum vinctione, &c. He alludes unto the burning of the Books of Scripture and demolition of the Christians Oratories by Diocletian; of which see Eusebius, Lib. 8. cap. 3. And know from hence when Arnobius wrote.
Nay Origen himself, one of the first brought to depose against us, (if Rufinus his Translator, deserve any credit) will in his Homily upon the 9. chap. of Iosua testifie both for Churches and Altars among Christians in his time. For, thus he allegorizeth there the story of the Gibeonites, whose lives Iosua & the flders spared, but gave them no better entertainmēt, than to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Congregation, and for the Altar of the Lord. Sunt quidam in Ecclesia (saith he) credentes quidem, & habentes fidem in Deum, & acquiescentes in omnibus divinis praeceptis, qui que etiam erga servos Dei religiosi sunt & servire eis cupiunt; sed & ad ornatū ECCLESIAE vel ministerium satis prompti parati que sunt: in actibus verò suis, & conversatione propria, obscoenitatibꝰ & vitiis involuti, nec omnino deponentes veteremhominem cum actibus suis, sed involuti vetustis vitiis & obscoenitatibus suis, sicut & isti (.i. Gabeonitae) pannis & calceamentis veteribus obtecti; praeter hoc, quod in Deum credunt, & erga servos Dei, vel ECCLESIAE cultum (.i. ornatum) videntur esse devoti, nihil adhibent emendationis vel innovationis in mores, &c..... And a little after: Veruntamen sciendum est, quantum ex hujuscemodi figurarū adumbrationibus edocemur, quòd si qui tales sunt in nobis, quorum fides hoc tantūmodo habet, ut ad ECCLESIAM veniāt, & inclinent caput suum sacerdotibus (mark here a custome) officia exhibeant, servos Dei honorēt, ad ornatum quo que ALTARIS vel ECCLESIAE aliquid conferant, non tamen adhibent studium, ut etiam mores suos excolant, actus emendent, vitia deponant, castitatem colant, iracundiam mitigent, avaritiam reprimant:.....sciant, sibi, qui tales sunt, qui emendare se nolunt, sed in his us que in senectutem ultimam per severant, partem, sortén que ab Iesu Domino cum Gabeonitis esse tribuendam.
Thus Origen by his Interpreter. And if any where Rufinus may be trusted, sure he may in this, forasmuch as in his Peroration in Epist. ad Romanos, he hath given us his word, that in his translation of this and the next Book, he took not his wonted liberty, to insert or alter any thing, but simply expressed every thing, as he found it. Heare his words. Illa (saith he) quae in Iesu Nava & in Iudicum librum & in 36, 37, & 38. Psal. scripsimus, simpliciter expressimus ut invenimus, & non multo cum labore transtulimus. Vide locum & Erasmi Censuram. Lib. Origen.Besides, he that but considers the matter, together with the brevity of this Homily, cannot see a possibility, how these passages can be an addition or supplement of the Translators, unlesse he made the whole Homily: because the contents of them are the onelyonly argument thereof, and being taken from it, nothing would be remaining.
Lastly, because the fore-alledged words of Lactantius are so usually brought against us, though they be nothing urgent, and his time be altogether repugnant to any such inference: yet absolutely to take away all scruple, let us heare him also, Instit. Lib. 5. c. 2. expresly giving evidence for us, and that even by the name of Templum. Ego (saith he) cum in Bithynia literas oratorias accitus docerem; contigissét que eodem tempore, ut Dei Templum everteretur: duo extiterunt ibidem, qui jacenti at que abjectae veitati (the Christian verity) nescio, utrum superbiùs an importuniùs, insultârunt. See the rest which follows. This was when the Edict of Diocletian came forth for the demolishing of the Christians Churches.
And thus, having removed that stumbling stone, which hath been the main inducement to the contrary opinion, so prejudicial to those works of religious bounty and piety: I hope my proofes will finde the freer passage with those of understanding and judgement; to whose pious consideration I have devoted this my Discourse.
FINIS.
End of the text · Joseph Mede, Churches for Christian Worship (1638)