of Christianity, which may almost be considered as a modification or instance of the great Sacramental Principle on which I have lately insisted; I mean the view which Christianity takes of Matter as susceptible of grace, or as capable of a union with a Divine Presence and influence. This principle, as we shall see, was in the first age both strongly manifested and variously developed; and that chiefly in consequence of the diametrically opposite doctrine of the schools and the religions of the day. And thus its exhibition in that primitive time becomes also an instance of a statement often made in controversy, that the profession and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the time, and that silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not then held, but that it was not questioned.

Christianity began by considering Matter as a creature of God, and in itself "very good." It taught that Matter, as well as Spirit, had become corrupt, in the instance of Adam; and it contemplated its recovery. It taught that the Highest had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon Himself, in order to its sanctification. It taught that, as a firstfruits of His purpose, He had purified from all sin that very portion of it which He took into His Eternal Person, and thereunto had taken it from a Virgin Womb, which He had filled with the abundance of His Spirit. Moreover, it taught that during His earthly sojourn He had been subject to all the natural infirmities of man, and had suffered all those ills to which flesh is heir. It taught that the Highest had in that flesh died on the Cross, and that His blood had an expiatory power; moreover, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had carried that flesh with Him into heaven, and that from that flesh, glorified and deified in Him, He never would be divided. As a first consequence of these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of

the bodies of His Saints, and their future glorification with Him; next, that of the sanctity of relics; further, that of the Real Presence in the Eucharist; further, that of the merit of Virginity; and, lastly, that of the prerogatives of Mary, Mother of God. All these doctrines are more or less developed in the Ante-nicene period, though in very various degrees, from the nature of the case.

And they were all objects of offence or of scorn to philosophers, priests, or populace of the day. With varieties of opinions which need not be mentioned, it was a fundamental doctrine in the schools, whether Greek or Oriental, that Matter was essentially evil. It had not been created by the Supreme God; it was in eternal enmity with Him; it was the source of all pollution; and it was irreclaimable. Such was the doctrine of Platonist, Gnostic, and Manichee: whereas then St. John had laid it down that "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is the spirit of Antichrist:" the Gnostics obstinately denied the Incarnation, and held that Christ was but a phantom, or had come on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him at his passion. The one great topic of preaching with Apostles and Evangelists was the Resurrection of Christ and of all mankind after Him; but when the philosophers of Athens heard St. Paul, "some mocked," and others contemptuously put aside the doctrine. The birth from a Virgin implied, not only that the body was not intrinsically evil, but that one state of it was holier than another, and St. Paul explained that, while marriage was good, celibacy was better; but the Gnostics, holding the utter malignity of Matter, one and all condemned marriage as sinful, and, whether they observed continence or not, or abstained from eating flesh or not, maintained that all functions of our animal nature were evil and abominable.

"Perish the thought," says Manes, "that our

Lord Jesus Christ should have descended through the womb of a woman." "He descended," said Marcion, "but without touching her or taking aught from her." "Through her, not of her," said another. "It is absurd to assert," says a disciple of Bardesanes, "that this flesh in which we are imprisoned shall rise again, for it is well called a burden, a tomb, and a chain." "They execrate the funeralpile," says Cæcilius of Christians, "as if bodies, though withdrawn from the flames, did not all resolve into dust by years, whether beasts tear, or sea swallows, or earth covers, or flame wastes." According to the old Paganism, both the educated and vulgar held corpses and sepulchres in aversion. They quickly rid themselves of the remains even of their friends, thinking their presence a pollution, and felt the same terror even of burying-places which assails the ignorant and superstitious now. It is recorded of Hannibal that, on his return to the African coast from Italy, he changed his landing-place to avoid a ruined sepulchre. "For that falsehood,' says Apuleius in his Apology "may the god who passes between heaven and hell present to thy eyes, O Emilian, all that haunts the night, all that alarms in burying-places, all that terrifies in tombs." George of Cappadocia could not direct a more bitter taunt against the Alexandrian Pagans than to call the temple of Serapis a sepulchre. The case had been the same even among the Jews; the Rabbins taught, that even the corpses of holy men "did but serve to diffuse infection and defilement." "When deaths were Judaical," says the writer who goes under the name of St. Basil, "corpses were an abomination; when death is for Christ, the relics of Saints are precious. It was anciently said to the Priests and the Nazarites, "If any one shall touch a corpse, he shall be unclean till evening, and he shall wash his garment;' now, on the contrary, if any one shall touch a Martyr's bones, by reason of the

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grace dwelling in the body, he receives some participation of his sanctity." Nay, Christianity taught a reverence for the bodies even of heathen. The care of the dead is one of the praises which, as we have seen above, is extorted in their favour from the Emperor Julian; and it was exemplified during the mortality which spread through the Roman world in the time of St. Cyprian. They did good," says Pontius of the Christians of Carthage, "in the profusion of exuberant works to all, and not only to the household of faith. They did somewhat more than is recorded of the incomparable benevolence of Tobias. The slain of the king and the outcasts, whom Tobias gathered together, were of his own kin only."2

It was far more of course than such general reverence which they showed to the bodies of the Saints. They ascribed virtue to their martyred tabernacles, and treasured, as something supernatural, their blood, their ashes, and their bones. When St. Cyprian was beheaded, his brethren brought napkins to soak up his blood. "Only the harder portion of the holy relics remained," say the Acts of St. Ignatius, who was exposed to the beasts in the amphitheatre, "which were conveyed to Antioch, and deposited in linen, bequeathed by the grace that was in the Martyr to that holy Church as a priceless treasure." The Jews attempted to deprive the brethren of St. Polycarp's body, "lest, leaving the Crucified, they begin to worship him," say his Acts; "ignorant," they continue, "that we can never leave Christ;" and they add, "We, having taken up his bones which were more costly than precious stones, and refined more than gold, deposited them where was fitting; and there when

'Act. Arch. p. 85. Athan. c. Apoll. ii. 3.-Adam. Dial. iii. init. Minuc. Dial. 11. Apul. Apol. p. 535. Kortholt. Cal. p. 63. Calmet, Dict. t. 2, p. 736. Basil in Ps. 115, 4.

2 Vit. S. Cypr. 10.

we meet together, as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate with joy and gladness the birthday of his martyrdom." On one occasion in Palestine, the Imperial authorities disinterred the bodies and cast them into the sea, "lest, as their opinion went," says Eusebius, "there should be those who in their sepulchres and monuments might think them gods, and treat them with divine worship." Julian, who had been a Christian, and knew the Christian history more intimately than a mere infidel would know it, traces the superstition, as he considers it, to the very life-time of St. John, that is, as early as there were Martyrs to honour; makes their observance contemporaneous with the worship paid to our Lord, and equally distinct and formal; and, moreover, declares that first it was secret, which for various reasons it was likely to have been. "Neither Paul," he says, nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor Mark, dared to call Jesus God; but honest John, having perceived that a great multitude had been caught by this disease in many of the Greek and Italian cities, and hearing, I suppose, that the monuments of Peter and Paul were, secretly indeed, but still hearing that they were honoured, first dared to say it." "Who can feel worthy abomination ?" he says elsewhere; "you have filled all places with tombs and monuments, though it has been no where told you to tumble down at tombs or to honour them, .... If Jesus said that they were full of uncleanness, why do ye invoke God at them?" The tone of Faustus the Manichæan is the same. "Ye have turned," he says to St. Augustine, "the idols" of the heathen "into your Martyrs, whom ye observe (colitis) with similar prayers (votis)."1

It is remarkable that both Christians and their opponents proceeded from the subject of the relics of the Martyrs to that of their persons. Basilides at least,

1 Act. Procons. 5. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 22, 44. Euseb. Hist. viii. 6. Julian. ap. Cyr. pp. 327, 335. August. c. Faust. xx. 4.