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which is represented by it." And although this council asserted, with the usual bold assumption and effrontery ever assumed by the Roman church, that this institution was established by "the holy fathers, and the tradition of the Catholic church, which from one end of the earth to the other had embraced the gospel," we have shown in our chapter on Images, that the doctrine of relative worship, introduced into Christian worship at this period by the Second Council of Nice, was the identical practice the heathens adopted and defended, and was specially condemned by the Fathers Arnobius and Origen, of the third century, and Ambrose and Augustine of the fourth century.2

The modern custom of consecration of images, and lighting tapers before them, is only another retrograde step towards heathenism and paganism, these being ancient practices, as we read in the apocryphal book of Baruch (cap. vi.) of the Babylonian idolaters. It was a mark of religious veneration to kiss images (1 Kings xix. 18), as do the modern Romanists. Miracles too were attributed to images by the pagan, as now by modern Romanists. The alleged modern examples are so numerous that they need not here be repeated.

This will be a proper place to give some account of the progress of the doctrine of the alleged real or substantial presence of our Lord in the eucharist.

The sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or the celebration of the eucharist, was regarded as the most solemn act of the church. Figurative and mystical language was applied

1 ... ἡ γὰρ τῆς εἰκόνος τιμὴ ἐπὶ τὸ πρωτοτυπον διαβαίνει· καὶ ὁ προσκυνῶν τὴν εἰκόνα, προσκυνεῖ ἐν αὐτῇ τοῦ εγγραφομένου τὴν ὑπόστασιν. Οὕτω γὰρ κρατύνετα, ἡ των ἁγίων πατέρων ἡμῶν διδασκαλία, εἴτουν παράδοσις. τῆς καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας, τῆς ἀπὸ περάτων eis Tèρàτa deέaμévns evayyédiov."-Labb. et Coss. concil. tom. vii. col. 556. Paris, 1671.

2 See ante, pp. 81, 82.

to it, particularly by members of the Greek church; as, for instance, when Chrysostom spoke of the recipients' mouths being made red with the blood. The elements themselves took the names of the things they represented: the cup of the blood; the bread of the body of Christ. Augustine, of the fifth century, gives us several examples of this, of which illustrations will be found in a preceding page (p. 48).

While it is quite true that many of the early writers spoke of the elements as the body and blood of Christ, in terms which, when taken literally and detached from their context, might be construed as favouring the Romish doctrine; yet such an interpretation becomes wholly impossible of acceptance, when we find these same Christian writers, in succession, from the very earliest periods, speaking of the consecrated elements as similitudes, images, and types.1

As extravagance of speech was highest among the Greek or Eastern church, so some individuals among them, misled by these rhetorical phrases, began to teach the real substantial presence, but not as yet the transubstantiation of the elements. Such appeared to have been the doctrine of Anastatius of Mount Sinai (A.D. 680), and John, of Damascus (A.D. 740), who went still further. He denied the bread and wine to be the types of the body and blood of Christ. The council held at Constantinople (A.D. 754), which condemned image worship, checked this rising heresy in the East. It maintained that "Christ chose no other shape or type under heaven to represent his incarnation but the sacrament, which he delivered to his ministers.

1 In proof of this see the chapter on Transubstantiation, especially pp. 54, et seq.

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for a type and a most effectual commemoration thereof; commanding the substance of bread and wine to be offered," and this bread they affirmed to be "a true image of his natural flesh."1

The Second Council of Nice (A.D. 787), which established the use of images, condemned this statement that the only true image of Christ was in the bread and wine, the type of the body and blood of Christ. They declared that Christ did not say, "Take, eat the image of my body," adding the bold assertion, that "nowhere did either our Lord, or his Apostles, or the Fathers, call the unbloody sacrifice offered up through the priest, an image, but they call it the body itself, and the blood itself." 1

The bishops assembled at this council must have been very little informed on the subject; for Gelasius, bishop of Rome, said " Assuredly the image and similitude of the body and blood of Christ are illustrated in the performance of the mysteries." 2 Numerous passages to a like effect may be quoted from writers of a prior and even of a subsequent date to this council.

Though this heresy was held by some in the Eastern church, it had not as yet extended to the West, as is amply testified by Bede (A.D. 720). Druthmar (A.D. 800, a scholar of Bede), Amalar of Triers (A.D. 820), and Walafrid Strabo (A.D. 860), and Elfric, the Saxon,

1 Concl. Nicen. II. Art. vi. Labb. et Coss. tom. vii. cols. 448, 449. Paris, 1671, and Concl. Gen. tom. iii. p. 599. Romæ, 1612. The sentence of the Council of Constantinople is rehearsed after they had set down the words of our Saviour, "This do in remembrance of me,"-"Behold the whole image of that quickening body, the substance of bread."- "Ecce vivificantis illius corporis imaginem totam, panis, id est, substantiam," and see Surius. Concl. tom. iii. p. 153. Colon. 1567.

2 .. et certe imago et similitudo corporis et sanguinis Christi in actione mysterium celebrantur. Gelas de duab. Christ. naturis. In Bib. Patr. tom. iv. p. 422. Paris, 1589. See ante, p. 51.

who lived at the close of the tenth century, all of whom refer to the consecrated elements as types and images.1

A.D. 795.-Leo III. ordered incense to be used in the Latin church in her services.2

The use of incense in public worship was not only a Jewish, but also a pagan custom. All the representations of heathen sacrifices on the ancient monuments have a boy in sacerdotal habits attending with an incense box, for the use of the officiating priests; and the same we see in the present day at the popish altars.

We cannot pass over the eighth century without adverting to one of the most important innovations in the papacy —namely, the assumption of temporal power by the bishop of Rome.

As yet the bishop of Rome held no temporal rule. It was not until past the middle of the eighth century that a temporal power was added to his spiritual jurisdiction. This was effected by a bargain similar to that struck with Phocas.

It is as well first to observe that, previous to the assumption of the spiritual power by the bishop of Rome, the protests of bishops Pelagius and Gregory have afforded us undeniable proofs that previous to the seventh century no single bishop, be he of the Roman or Greek church, assumed a supreme spiritual power over the whole church; so also have we a like testimony, afforded also by a bishop of Rome, that previous to the fifth century, the assumption of temporal power by the bishop of Rome was directly repudiated by Pope Gelasius. Gelasius wrote, or is believed

1 For the original passage, see Faber's "Difficulties of Romanism," b. ii. c. iv. 2nd Edit. London, 1853.

2 Polydore Vergil, b. v. c. viii. p. 109. London, 1551,

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to have written, a treatise entitled De Anathematis Vinculo, the bond or tie of the anathema." It is one of four tracts composed by him at different times, which are to be found. under his name in all the orthodox editions of the councils, such as Labbeus and Mansi's editions, that of Binius, and others. It seems to have been written to explain an expression pronounced by his predecessor against one Acacius, to the effect that he never should, nor ever could, be absolved from an anathema pronounced against him. Though this part is much confused, that which follows is as plain as it is important. Gelasius in this tract, lays down a clear distinction as then existing, between the temporal and the spiritual jurisdiction of bishops and emperors or kings. He states that anciently the royalty and priesthood were often united in one and the same person, among the Jews as well as the Gentiles; but that since the coming of Christ these two dignities, and the different powers that attend them, have been vested in different persons; and from thence he concludes that neither ought to encroach on the other, but that the temporal power entire should be left to princes, and the spiritual to priests; it being no less foreign to the institution of Christ for a priest to usurp the functions of sovereignty, than it is for a sovereign to usurp those of the priesthood. This is a very clear statement, and could never have been made by a bishop of Rome had he held the modern notions of the present possessor of the papal See, who declares that the temporal is inseparable from and is necessary to the spiritual rule.1 It is not, however, our task to reconcile Roman inconsistencies.

1 This declaration is so important that we give the original. We cannot here enter into an examination whether the production is a genuine tract from the pen of Gelasius; it is sufficient for our purpose that it is attributed

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