Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux, Chapter 24
CHAP. 24.
Heroes: of the Asses Head, whose Worship was objected to Jews and Christians.
YOur last end endeavour consists in an exception to somewhat affirmed in the twentieth Chapter of the Animadversions directed unto your Paragraph about Saints and Heroes. And I am sorry that I must close with the Consideration of it because I would willingly have taken my leave of you upon better terms, then your discouse will allow me to do. But I shall as speedily represent you unto your self as I am able; And then give you my Salve aeternum que Vale.
You tell us in your Fiat, that the Pagans defamed the Christians for the worship of an Asses head, and you give this reason of it because the Jews had defamed our Lord Jesus Christ whose head and half Portraicture Christians used upon their Altars, even as they do at this day, of his great simplicity and ignorance. Two things you suppose, (1.) That the Christians placed the Head and half Portraicture of our Saviour in those dayes on their Altars; which is alone to your purpose. (2.) That this gave occacasion to the Pagans to defame them with the worship of an Asses head, because the Jews had so blasphemed the Lord Christ as you say. These things I told you are fond and false, and destitute of all colour of Testimony from Antiquity. That the worship of an Asses head was originally charged on the Jews themselves, and on Christians no otherwise, but as they were accounted a Sect of them, or their off spring▪ and that what in the same place you assert, of the Jews accusing the Christians for the worship of Images, or the Christians using the Picture of Christs head, or his half Portraicture on their Altars, are monsters that none o… the Antients ever dreamed of. What plead you … your Vindication? quite omitting that what … alone you are concerned, you only undertake to prove that the worship of an Asses head was … used to the Christians as well as to the Jews, which you say I deny, and say that it was not charged on the Jews at all. And the reason of this charge you say, was, because they were reckoned among the Jews in odiosis, and accounted of them. So well do you mind what you had said before, of the rise of that imputation on the Christians, from the blasplemy of the Jewes. So (1.) In your Fiat you say no hi…g of the Jews at all, but only that by their …, the Pagans took occasion to slander the …; being now better instructed by the Animadversions, in the rise of that foolish calumny, you change your note and close in with what is in them …. (2.) You unduely affirm that I deny this to have been charged on the Christians, when I grant it was, and that in the very same manner and on the same account, that your self, now contrary to what you had written before, acknowledge it to have been. He must be as much unacquainted with these things, as some body else whom I shall not name honoris gratia, seems to be, who knows not that this foolish impiety was imputed in process of time to the Christians, by the Pagans, among a litter of other follies, as well as unto the Jews. Caecilius in Minucius tells us, audio …os ineptissimae pecudis Caput Asini consecratum inepta nescio qua persuasione venerari: I heer that by a foolish perswasion they worship the head of an Ass, a vile beast. And Tertullian Apol cap. 16. Nam quidam somniastis Caput Asininum esse Deum nostrum. Some of you dream that an Asses head is our God, presently declaring thereon, that this imputation was derived on them from the Jews, who first suffered under that Fable. And if any thing gave new occasion unto it among the Christians, it was not the Picture of Christ despised by the Jews as you imagine, but the report of his riding on an Ass; which Athanasius takes notice of, Homil. ad Pagan, they said foreign, that the God of the Christians, who is called Christ, sate on an Ass. But you will prove what you say out of Tertullian; say you, the same Tertullian in his Apologeticks adds these words, The Calumnies, saith he, invented to cry down our Religion grew to such an excess of impiety that not long ago in this very City, a picture of our God was shewn by a certain infamous Person, with the ears of an Ass, and a hoof on one foot, cloathed with a gown, and a book in his hand with this inscription, Onochoetes the God of the Christians; And he adds that the Christians in the City as they were much offended with the impiety, so did they not a little wonder at the strange uncouth name the villain had put upon our Lord and Master. Onochoetes, forsooth he must be called Onochoctes. In this Testimony of you know not what, you triumph and conclude, are you not a strange man to tell me that what I speak of this business is notoriously false; nay and that I know it is false, and that I cannot produce one Authentick Testimony, no not one, of any such thing: but this is your Ordinary Confidence. Seriously Sir, I wonder where you got this Quotation out of Tertullian? Let me desire you to be wary in receiving any thing hereafter from the same hand, out duplicate page duplicate page of Authors that you want the Confidence to venture upon your self. The words of Tertullian, which your Translator hath abused you in, are these: Sed nova jam Dei nostri in ista Civitate proxime editio publicata est, ex quo quidam in frustrandis bestiis mercenarius noxius picturam proposuit cum ejusmodi inscriptione, Deus Christianorum Ononychites; is erat auribus Asininis, altero pede ungulatus, librum gestans & togatus; risimus & nomen & formam. Sed illi debebant adorare statim biforme numen qui canino & leonino capite commistos Deos receperunt. Lately in that City (that is Rome) there was a publick shew made of our God; wherein a guilty Person hired to fight with wild beasts, and to cousin their rage, proposed a Picture with this Inscription Ononychites the God of the Christians: he had Asses ears, hoofed on one foot, carrying a Book and in a gown: we laughed at the name and shape; but they ought immediately to have adored this double shaped Deity, who have received Gods mingled with Doggs and Lyons heads. You see how well you have given us the words of Tertullian, which you pretend to do, saying, he adds these words. But I confess though he sayes no such matter, it is like enough he would have wondred at the name of Onochoetes, had the villain given it unto his picture: For neither he, nor any man else knows what it should mean. He knew well enough what Ononychites signified, and laughed at it. It is but Asinungulus, which it may be comes neerer their understanding. I confess some would read it Onochoerites, as if it were compounded of foreign and foreign, because of those words of Epiphanius concerning the Gnosticks, foreign. Some say their Sabaoth had the form of an Ass, seme of a Hogg. But Tertullian in the description of the Picture mentions no part of a Hogg, nor rejects the abomination of the Gnosticks, as was the manner of the Christians when charged with their silliness and folly, as may be seen abundantly in Origen against Celsus. But who, or what your Onochoetes should be, no man knows. But see your further unhappiness. You prove not by your Quotation that which no man denyes, namely that the Christians also were charged with the worship of an Asses head, which if you had but looked into Tertullian himself, you must have found him expresly affirming it in the beginning of that Chapter, from whence your story is taken. Much less do you prove any thing of the Christians placing the head and half Portraicture of our Saviour upon their Altars, before or in the dayes of Constantine, which was that alone that was incumbent on you to have done. And now to give a brief view of that whole Portraicture that you have drawn of your self in your Epistle, I shall only mind you of those words of mine, that your Assertions were notoriously false, and that you could not produce so much as one Testimony of any such thing, were not by me used at all in reference unto the Pagans charge upon the Christians for worshipping an Asses head, but unto what you said about the use of the Picture of Christ on the Altars of Christians, with the rise of the charge mentioned from thence. This you know to be so; for my words must needs lye before you in your attempt for a reply unto them, and finding them to be true, and that you were not able to produce one Testimony, no not one in the confirmation of what you had written; you pretend them now to be spoken in reference unto that whereunto you know they did not at all relate, the thing it self being acknowledged by me. This dealing becomes not any man pretending to ingenuity, or professing Christianity.
What remains of your Epistle, is Personal; Men are busie; and not so far concerned, I am sure in me, nor (I am almost perswaded) in you as to trouble themselves with the perusal of what belongs unto us personally. For my part I know it is my duty in all things, especially in those that are of such near concernment unto his Glory, as are all his Truths, and Worship, to commend my conscience unto God, and to be conversant in them in simplicity and godly sincerity, and not in fleshly wisdom, not corrupting the word of Truth, nor lying in wait with any subtile sleights to deceive. And this through his Grace I shall attend unto, whatever reward I may meet withal in this world. For I know in whom I have believed, who is able to keep that which I desire to commit unto him. And for your part, I desire your prosperity as my own. I rejoyce in your quiet, and shall never envy you your liberty, and do pray that you may receive Grace, Truth and Peace from him, who alone is able to bestow them on you.
FINIS.
End of the text · John Owen, Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux (1664)