BOOK V. 172 Processions among Christians, in Tertullian's Time. "that to be with him in his baths; if a fasting-day come he Ch. xli. a. "hath on that day a banquet to make; if there be cause for "the church to go forth in solemn procession, his whole family "have such business come upon them that no one can be spared 47.” 66 [2.] These processions as it seemeth were first begun for the interring of holy martyrs, and the visiting of those places where they were entombed. Which thing the name itself applied by heathens unto the office of exequies 48, and partly the speeches of some of the ancients delivered concerning Christian processions 49, partly also the very dross which superstition thereunto added, I mean the custom of invoking saints in processions, heretofore usual, do strongly insinuate. And as things invented to one purpose are by use easily converted to more 50, it grew that supplications with this solemnity 48 Terent. Andr. [1. i. 100. 49 6 Martyres tibi quærantur in "cubiculo tuo. Nunquam causa "deerit procedendi, si semper quan"do necesse est progressura sis." Hier. Epist. xxii. ad Εust. [al. xvii. §. 17.] 50 Socrat. lib. vi. c. 8. [Οἱ 'Aρειανίζοντες, ὥσπερ ἔφημεν, ἔξω τῆς πόλεως τὰς συναγωγὰς ἐποιοῦντο· ἥνικα οὖν ἑκάστης ἑβδομάδος ἑορταί κατελάμβανον, φημὶ δὴ τό τε σάββατον καὶ ἡ κυριακὴ, ἐν αἷς αἱ συνάξεις κατὰ τὰς ἐκκλησίας εἰώθασι γίνεσθαι, αὐτοὶ ἔντος τῶν τῆς πόλεως πυλῶν περὶ τὰς στοὰς ἀθροιζόμενοι, καὶ ᾠδὰς ἀντιφώνους πρὸς τὴν ̓Αρειάνων δόξαν συντιθέντες ἤδον· καὶ τοῦτο ἐποίουν κατὰ τὸ πλεῖστον μέρος τῆς νυκτός ὑπὸ δὲ ὄρθρον, τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀντίφωνα λέγοντες, διὰ μέσης τῆς πόλεως ἐξῄεσαν τῶν πυλῶν, καὶ τοὺς τόπους ἔνθα συνῆγον κατελάμβανον. . . . τότε δὴ καὶ Ἰωάννης Χρυσόστομος] εὐλαβήθεις, μήτις τῶν ἁπλουστέρων ὑπὸ τῶν τοιούτων ᾠδῶν ἀφελκυσθῇ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ἀντιτίθησιν αὐτοῖς τοὺς τοῦ ἰδίου λαοῦ, ὅπως ἂν καὶ αὐτοὶ ταῖς νυκτεριναῖς ὑμνολογίαις σχολάζοντες, ἀμαυρώσωσι μὲν τὴν ἐκείνων περὶ τούτου σπουδὴν, βεβαίους δὲ τοὺς οἰ κείους πρὸς τὴν ἑαυτῶν πίστιν ἐργά σωνται.] Sozom. lib. viii. c. 8 ; Theod. lib. ii. c. 24; lib. iii. c. 10. [Julian having permitted the remains of St. Babylas to be removed from Daphne, the Christians ἀσμένως τὸ ἄλσος καταλάβοντες, καὶ ἐπὶ ζεύγους τεθεικότες τὴν λάρνακα, πανδημεί ταύτης ἡγοῦντο, χορεύοντες καὶ τὴν Δαυϊτικὴν ᾄδοντες μελῳδίαν, καὶ καθ ̓ ἕκαστον κώλον ἐπιφθεγγόμενοι, “ αἰσχυνθήτωσαν πάντες “ οἱ προσκυνοῦντες τοῖς γλυπτοῖς.”] Novel. lxviii. 51. [lxvii. I. p. 261. ed. Gothofred. 1688. “ Nulli licen"tiam esse neque monasterium neque ecclesiam neque orationis domum incipere ædificare, antequam “ civitatis Deo amabilis [Θεοφιλέστ τατος] episcopus orationem in loco "faciat, et crucem figat, publicum processum [δημοσίαν πρόσοδον] ipse faciens, et causam manifestam omnibus statuens.” Ibid. cxxiii. 66 66 66 Rogations, or Litanies, added to the Processions. 173 Ch. xll, a. for the appeasing of God's wrath, and the averting of public BOOK V. evils, were of the Greek church termed Litanies; 51 Rogations, of the Latin. To the people of Vienna (Mamercus being their Bishop, about 450 years after Christ) there befell many things, the suddenness and strangeness whereof so amazed the hearts of all men, that the city they began to forsake as a place which heaven did threaten with imminent ruin. It beseemed not the person of so grave a prelate to be either utterly without counsel as the rest were, or in a common perplexity to shew himself alone secure. Wherefore as many as remained he earnestly exhorteth to prevent portended calamities, using those virtuous and holy means wherewith others in like case have prevailed with God. To which purpose he perfecteth the Rogations or Litanies before in use, and addeth unto them that which the present necessity required. Their good success moved Sidonius Bishop of Arverna to use the same so corrected Rogations 52, at such time as he and his people were cap. 31, 32, are laws for the protection of the litany services from disturbance, and forbidding them to be solemnized except by the clergy. Both enactments are by Justinian.] 51 Basil. Epist. lxiii. [al. 207. t. iii. 311. αἱ Λιτανείαι, ἃς ὑμεῖς νῦν ἐπιτηδεύετε. But it is truly observed by the Benedictine editor, that the word Litany is not employed here in its technical sense; no procession being mentioned or implied.] Niceph. lib. xiv. c. 3. [" The younger TheIodosius, having to preside at the "Circensian games in a time of ex"cessive rain, which threatened fa"mine, said to the people, It were "better for us, deferring the festiIvity, to appease God and they "went forth in procession with the Litany, offering hymns to God: " and the city with accordant voice "became in a moment one church."] Cedren. in Theodos. [juniore, p. 281, ed. Xyland. Eelopoi peyado γεγόνασιν ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει τοῦ γοῦν . . . πατριάρχου μετὰ τοῦ κλή ρου καὶ τοῦ λαοῦ ταῖς λιταῖς [ἔξω τῆς πόλεως] προσκαρτεροῦντος, περὶ ὥραν τρίτην, ἄφνω πάντων ὁρώντων ἡρπάγη νεάνιας εἰς τὸν ἀερὰ, καὶ ἤκουσε θείας φωνῆς παρεγγυώσης αὐτῷ, ἀναγγεῖλαι Ch, xli. 3. 174 Abuse of Processions: how remedied. after afflicted with famine, and besieged with potent adversaries. For till the empty name of the empire came to be settled in Charles the Great, the fall of the Romans' huge dominion concurring with other universal evils, caused those times to be days of much affliction and trouble throughout the world. So that Rogations or Litanies were then the very strength, stay, and comfort of God's Church. Whereupon in the year 506 it was by the council of Aurelia decreed 53, that the whole Church should bestow yearly at the feast of Pentecost three days in that kind of processionary service. About half an hundred years after, to the end that the Latin churches which all observed this custom might not vary in the order and form of those great Litanies which were so solemnly every where exercised, it was thought convenient by Gregory the First and the best of that name to draw the flower of them all into one 54. [3] But this iron began at length to gather rust. Which thing the synod of Colen saw and in part redressed within that province 55, neither denying the necessary use for which such Litanies serve, wherein God's clemency and mercy is desired by public suit, to the end that plagues, destructions, calamities, famines, wars, and all other the like adversities, which for our manifold sins we have always cause to fear, Evils seemingly distant may be deprecated in Litanies. 175 may be turned away from us and prevented through his grace; nor yet dissembling the great abuse whereunto as sundry other things so this had grown by men's improbity and malice to whom that which was devised for the appeasing of God's displeasure gave opportunity of committing things which justly kindled his wrath. For remedy whereof it was then thought better, that these and all other supplications or processions should be no where used but only within the walls of the house of God, the place sanctified unto prayer. And by us not only such inconveniences being remedied, but also whatsoever was otherwise amiss in form or matter, it now remaineth a work, the absolute perfection whereof upbraideth with error or somewhat worse them whom in all parts it doth not satisfy. [4] As therefore Litanies have been of longer continuance than that we should make either Gregory or Mamercus the author of them, so they are of more permanent use than that now the Church should think it needeth them not. What dangers at any time are imminent, what evils hang over our heads, God doth know and not we. We find by daily experience that those calamities may be nearest at hand, readiest to break in suddenly upon us, which we in regard of times or circumstances may imagine to be furthest off. Or if they do not indeed approach, yet such miseries as being present all men are apt to bewail with tears, the wise by their prayers should rather prevent. Finally, if we for ourselves had a privilege of immunity, doth not true Christian charity require that whatsoever any part of the world, yea any one of all our brethren elsewhere doth either suffer or fear, the same we account as our own burden? What one petition is there found in the whole Litany, whereof we shall ever be able at any time to say that no man living needeth the grace or benefit. therein craved at God's hands? I am not able to express how much it doth grieve me, that things of principal excellency should be thus bitten at, by men whom God hath endued with graces both of wit and learning for better purposes. BOOK V. Ch. xli. 4. xii. 1. sius' Creed, XLII. We have from the Apostles of our Lord Jesus of AthanaChrist received that brief confession of faith which hath been and Gloria 56 T. C. lib. i. p. 137. [107] "Patri and the Athanasius' Creed. "The like may be said of the Gloria It was first brought into the Patri 56. BOOK V. always a badge of the Church, a mark whereby to discern "from the Apostles and their disciples," saith Irenæus 57, [2.] Under Constantine the emperor about three hundred years and upward after Christ, Arius a priest in the church of Alexandria, a subtle-witted and a marvellous fair-spoken man, " Church to the end that men παντοκράτορα . . . πίστιν. καὶ εἰς ἕνα Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν.....καὶ εἰς Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ..... τοῦτο τὸ κήρυγμα παρειληφυῖα, καὶ ταυτὴν τὴν πίστιν, ὡς προέφαμεν, ἡ ἐκκλησία, καίπερ ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ διεσπαρμένη, ἐπιμελῶς φυ λάσσει, ὡς ἕνα οἶκον οἰκοῦσα· καὶ ὁμοίως πιστεύει τούτοις, ὡς μίαν ψυ χὴν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχουσα καρδίαν καὶ συμφώνως ταῦτα κηρύσσει, καὶ διδάσκει, καὶ παραδίδωσιν, ὡς ἕν στόμα κεκτημένη . . . . Ωσπερ ὁ ἥλιος, τὸ κτίσμα τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κόσ μῳ εἷς καὶ ὁ αὐτός· οὕτω καὶ τὸ κήρυγμα τῆς ἀληθείας πανταχῇ φαίνει, καὶ φωτίζει πάντας ἀνθρώπους τοὺς βουλομένους εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας civ.] 66 58 Tertull. de Præscr. advers. Hæret. [c. 14. "Hæc regula a Christo..... instituta nullas habet apud nos quæstiones, nisi quas "hæreses inferunt, et quæ hære"ticos faciunt."] et advers. Prax. [c. 2. "Hanc regulam ab initio "Evangelii decucurrisse, etiam ante priores quosque hæreticos, nedum "ante Praxean hesternum, probabit "tam ipsa posteritas omnium hæ"reticorum, quam ipsa novellitas "Praxeæ hesterni."] |