There was a wide distinction between such divisions of Churches, and that which existed between the universal Church and the Donatists and Luciferians. I have already observed, that the former arose from opposition to the appointment of a bishop in Africa. When the Donatists found their proceedings condemned generally in the Church, they declared the universal Church apostate; refused to communicate with it; asserted that Christianity was limited to Africa; denied that baptism, ordination, or any other rites conferred by the Church, were valid; and employed bands of murderers and robbers, called Circumcelliones, to persecute and maltreat all who did not agree with them. Under such circumstances they were most justly considered as schismatics, and as forming no part of the Church of Christ. The Luciferians were a comparatively small sect, who, after the example of Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, condemned the Church for shewing mercy to those who repented of the Arian heresy, and for permitting them, on easy terms, to re-unite themselves to the Christian community. Lucifer and his followers went so far as to separate from the communion of all Christendom, and to pronounce it fallen from the faith; and they were, in consequence, numbered amongst the schismatics.

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CHAPTER X.

ON THE RISE OF ABUSES AND CORRUPTIONS.

A.D. 320-680.

HE strong faith of the early Christians in some instances degenerated into credulity. Accustomed to the contemplation of the miracles recorded in the holy Scriptures, and still continuing to hear of occasional miracles wrought for the conversion of the heathen, they received with too ready a credence many tales of wonders and signs which superstition or imposture spread abroad. In western Europe, the ignorance of a long night of political barbarism and warfare rendered the multitude prone to the reception of such errors. Men of eminent sanctity were supposed to have the power of working miracles by their prayers; and the veneration which attached to their persons when living followed them beyond the grave.

The Church has not always been gifted with a spirit of wisdom and foreknowledge to discern the future abuses of opinions and practices, which it originally permitted without reproof. Could the pious fathers of the fourth century, who in their orations apostrophised the departed saints and martyrs, and called for their prayers to God, have foreseen the abuses to which this practice was to lead; could they have known that these expressions of an ardent, though somewhat unregulated feeling, were to induce others, in process of time, to adopt such invocations as a stated portion of their daily worship-to lead in later ages to actual prayers addressed to the saints themselves, and to cause such prayers and invoca

tions almost to supplant the worship of God among the ignorant or superstitious-they would have carefully avoided the introduction of a practice so dangerous to true religion. Yet during the period before us, the invocation of saints, however superfluous and unwise, neither usurped so large a portion of the worship of Christians, nor was in itself so censurable, as it became in after-ages. It consisted simply in addresses to the saints to pray to God for us; nor is there any evidence that it was a universal practice. The invocation of angels was directly prohibited by the council of Laodicea, in the fourth century; yet in the seventh it was introduced into some litanies of the western Church. The invocation of saints then also appeared for the first time in public worship in these formularies.

The same affection, the same veneration, with which the spirits of the saints and martyrs were regarded by the early Christians, attended their earthly remains; and the same credulity of individuals led to the circulation of an opinion that even their inanimate relics could procure blessings for those who touched them with faith, since the dead bones of the prophet Elisha, the hem of our Lord's garment, and the handkerchiefs from St. Paul's body, had wrought miracles. Hence the relics of martyrs and saints were, in the fourth and following centuries, regarded with very great veneration in many parts of the Church; and they gradually even became temptations to the ignorant and enthusiastic, who too willingly received the tales of marvels which they were said to have worked, and sometimes seemed inclined to forget the Author and Giver of all good things, in their admiration of the gifts which they attributed to his creatures. The desire of possessing such relics became so great in the fifth and following centuries, that it led

dishonest men to produce a number of spurious relics; so that, after the lapse of some ages, it became almost impossible to distinguish the true from the false. The custom of placing relics in churches, which began in the fourth or fifth century, and became universal in the seventh, also contributed to swell the number of false relics. No one will deny that the remains of martyrs and holy men ought to be treated with honour and respect; but when this assumes the character of superstitious or idolatrous worship, the Church is bound to remove the cause of such abuses. It was this that led the Church of England, in the sixteenth century, to remove the alleged relics of saints,—a measure which was justified by a strong necessity.

It was a pious and natural feeling of love, which led many Christians, in the fourth and following centuries, to make pilgrimages to visit the scenes of our Saviour's life and death, and the tombs of the martyrs and saints whose virtues had adorned Christianity. But this custom led to serious abuses: it led clergy as well as laity to forsake the sphere of their appointed duties, and to consume their time in wandering over the earth. After the period of which I am now speaking, the evil increased much; and St. Boniface, about 750, complained of the disgrace which religion suffered from the sinful lives of many persons who had undertaken such journeys. This practice even became one means by which the ancient penitential discipline was subverted; for it was customary with some bishops, after the period now before us, to commute the lengthened canonical penances, for pilgrimages to Jerusalem or to some other holy place.

The use of pictures or sculptures representing our Saviour, the chief events of sacred history, or the saints, was not unfrequent in the fifth and sixth

centuries. These pictures were only intended for ornament, for the information of the ignorant, or to excite pious recollections: all worship to them was forbidden. St. Epiphanius, A.D. 400, tore the vail of a church on which the picture of a saint was embroidered. Serenus, bishop of Marseilles, about 600, destroyed images which the people worshipped; and Pope Gregory the Great, while he questioned the propriety of the act, yet equally disapproved of the abuse it was designed to prevent.

The evils of which I have been speaking were all engrafted on opinions or practices in themselves blameless or excusable; and it was frequently difficult to distinguish precisely between right and wrong, to trace the boundary between piety and superstition. But as the Scriptures were still understood by many of the people, we have reason to believe that such evils could not yet have been of a very serious character or wide prevalence.

Another evil was slowly growing, at the close of the period now under consideration. When Christianity was first disseminated, the earliest gift of the Holy Spirit was that of tongues, in order that every nation might hear in its own language the wonderful works of God, and that every tongue might confess that Jesus is the Lord. Accordingly, at first, every nation employed its own language in the worship of God; for, as St. Paul said to those who celebrated the eucharist in a language unknown to their hearers, "When thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen, at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?" Guided by these apostolical instructions, the Greeks used their own language in divine service. The Churches of Syria

11 Cor. xiv. 16.