who was founder of one of the most impious Gnostic sects, spoke of them with disrespect; he considered that their sufferings were the penalty of secret sins or evil desires, or transgressions committed in another body, and a sign of divine favour only because they were allowed to connect them with the cause of Christ. On the other hand, it was the doctrine of the Church that Martyrdom was meritorious, that it had a certain supernatural efficacy in it, and that the blood of the Saints received from the grace of the One Redeemer a certain expiatory power. Martyrdom stood in the place of Baptism, where the Sacrament had not been administered. It exempted the soul from all preparatory waiting, and gained its immediate admittance into glory. "All crimes are pardoned for the sake of this work," says Tertullian. And in proportion to the Martyrs' near approach to their Almighty Judge, such was their high dignity and power. St. Dionysius speaks of their reigning with Christ; Origen even conjectures that "as we are redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus, so some are redeemed by the precious blood of the Martyrs.' St. Cyprian seems to explain his meaning when he says, "We believe that the merits of Martyrs and works of the just avail much with the Judge," that is, for those who were lapsed, "when, after the end of this age and the world, Christ's people shall stand before His judgment-seat." Accordingly they were considered to intercede for the Church below in their state of glory, and for individuals whom they had known. St. Potamiana of Alexandria, in the first years of the third century, when taken out for execution, promised to obtain after her departure the salvation of the officer who led her out; and did appear to him, according to Eusebius, on the third day, and prophesied his own speedy martyrdom. And St. Theodosia in

1 1 Clem. Strom. iv. 12.

Palestine came to certain confessors who were in bonds, "to request them," as Eusebius tells us, "to remember her when they came to the Lord's Presence." Tertullian, when a Montanist, betrays the existence of the doctrine in the Church by protesting against it.1

§ 2.

Cultus of Saints and Angels.

Little as is known of the early Spanish Church, it furnishes one point of detail about itself, which seems to be a further development of the doctrine of the Intercession of Saints. The Canons are extant of a Council of Illiberis, held shortly before the Council of Nicæa, and representative of course of the doctrine of the third century. Among these occurs the following: "It is decreed, that pictures ought not to be in the Church, lest what is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls."2 Now these words are commonly taken to be decisive against the use of pictures in the Spanish Church at that era. Let us grant it; let us grant that the use of all pictures is forbidden, pictures not only of our Lord, and sacred emblems, as of the Lamb and Dove, but pictures of Angels and Saints also. It is not fair to restrict the words, nor are controversialists found desirous of doing so; they take them to include the images of the Saints. "For keeping of pictures out of the Church, the Canon of the Eliberine or Illiberitine Council, held in Spain, about the time of Constantine the Great, is most plain," says Usher: he is speaking of "the representations of God and of Christ, and of Angels and of Saints." "The Council of Eliberis is very

1 Tertull. Apol. fin. Euseb. Hist. vi. 42. Orig. ad Martyr. 50. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 122, 323.

2 Placuit picturas in ecclesiâ esse non debere, ne, quod colitur aut adoratur, in parietibus depingatur. Can. 36.

3 Answ. to a Jes. 10, p. 437.

4 p. 430. The "colitur aut adoratur" marks a difference of worship.

ancient, and of great fame," says Taylor, "in which it is expressly forbidden that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls, and that therefore pictures ought not to be in churches." He too is speaking of the Saints. Let us grant this freely. This inference seems to follow, that the Spanish Church considered the Saints to be in the number of objects either of "worship or adoration;" for it is of such objects that the representations are forbidden. The very drift of the prohibition is this,-lest what is in itself an object of worship (quod colitur) should be worshipped in painting; unless then Saints and Angels were objects of worship, their pictures would have been allowed.2

The glorious reign of Saints and Martyrs with Christ leads to a subject which incidentally came before us in the Introduction to this Essay, the association of His Angels with Him; though to speak of incorporeal beings will be a digression from the line of inquiry which we are pursuing.

St. Justin, after "answering the charge of Atheism," as Dr. Burton says, "which was brought against Christians of his day, and observing that they were punished for not worshipping evil demons which were not really gods," continues, "But Him, (God,) and the Son who came from Him, and taught us these things, and the host of the other good Angels which attend upon and resemble them, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, paying them a reasonable and true honour, and not refusing to deliver to any one else, who wishes to be taught, what we ourselves have learned."3

1 Dissuasive, i. 1, 8.

.....

* The canon runs "ne quod colitur . depingatur; if it merely meant "lest what may become an object of worship," &c. it would have been ne quod colatur."

3 Εκεῖνον τε, καὶ τὸν παρ' αὐτοῦ υἱὸν ἐλθόντα καὶ διδάξαντα ἡμᾶς ταῦτα, [καὶ τὸν τῶν ἄλλων ἑπομένων καὶ ἐξομοιουμένων ἀγαθῶν ἀγγέλων στρατὸν,] πνεῦμα τε τὸ προφητικὸν σεβόμεθα καὶ προσκυνοῦμεν, λόγῳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ τίμῶντες, καὶ παντὶ βουλομένῳ

A more express testimony to the cultus angelorum cannot be required; nor is it unnatural in the connexion in which it occurs, considering St. Justin has been speaking of the heathen worship of demons, and therefore would be led without effort to mention, not only the incommunicable adoration paid to the One God, who "will not give His glory to another," but such inferior honour as may be paid to creatures without sin, on the side of giver or receiver. Nor is the construction of the original Greek harsher than is found in other authors; nor need it surprise us in one whose style is not accurate, that two words should be used to express worship, and that one should include Angels, and that the other should

not.

The following is Dr. Burton's account of the passage:

เ

"Scultetus, a Protestant divine of Heidelberg, in his Medulla Theologia Patrum, which appeared in 1605, gave a totally different meaning to the passage; and instead of connecting the host' with 'we worship,' connected it with 'taught us.' The words would then be rendered thus: 'But Him, and the Son who came from Him, who also gave us instructions concerning these things, and concerning the host of the other good angels we worship,' &c. This interpretation is adopted and defended at some length by Bishop Bull, and by Stephen Le Moyne; and even the Benedictine Le Nourry supposed Justin to mean that Christ had taught us not to worship the bad angels, as well as the existence of good angels. Grabe, in his edition of Justin's Apology,' which was printed in 1703, adopted another interpretation, which had μαθεῖν, ὡς ἐδιδάχθημεν, ἀφθόνως παραδιδόντες.—Apol. i. 6. The passage is parallel to the Prayer in the Breviary: "Sacrosanctæ et individuæ Trinitati, Crucifixi Domini nostri Jesu Christi humanitati, beatissimæ et gloriosissimæ semperque Virginis Mariæ fæcundæ integritati, et omnium Sanctorum universitati, sit sempiterna laus, honor, virtus, et gloria ab omni creaturâ," &c.

been before proposed by Le Moyne and by Cave. This also connects the host' with 'taught,' and would require us to render the passage thus: ... and the Son who came from Him, who also taught these things to us, and to the host of the other Angels,' &c. It might be thought that Langus, who published a Latin translation of Justin in 1565, meant to adopt one of these interpretations, or at least to connect 'host' with 'taught these things.' Both of them certainly are ingenious, and are not perhaps opposed to the literal construction of the Greek words; but I cannot say that they are satisfactory, or that I am surprised at Roman Catholic writers describing them as forced and violent attempts to evade a difficulty. If the words enclosed in brackets were removed, the whole passage would certainly contain a strong argument in favour of the Trinity; but as they now stand, Roman Catholic writers will naturally quote them as supporting the worship of Angels. There is, however, this difficulty in such a construction of the passage: it proves too much. By coupling the Angels with the three persons of the Trinity, as objects of religious adoration, it seems to go beyond even what Roman Catholics themselves would maintain concerning the worship of Angels. Their well-known distinction between latria and dulia would be entirely confounded; and the difficulty felt by the Benedictine editor appears to have been as great, as his attempt to explain it is unsuccessful, when he wrote as follows: Our adversaries in vain object the twofold expression, we worship and adore. the former is applied to Angels themselves, regard being had to the distinction between the creature and the Creator; the latter by no means necessarily includes the Angels.' This sentence requires concessions, which no opponent could be expected to make; and if one of the two terms, we worship and adore, may be applied to Angels, it is unreasonable

For