ANTIQUITY OF ERRORS IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
By Merritt E. Cornell
Testimony of Eminent Authors.—No. 2.
ANTIQUITY OF ERRORS IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
The advocates of Sunday-keeping, sprinkling for baptism, &c., seem to think that if the early Christian fathers of the second, third, and fourth centuries held to a doctrine, or practice, it must be because they received it from the apostles themselves. They forget that the apostle Paul said, “The mystery of iniquity doth already work,” and that after his departure grievous wolves should enter, not sparing the flock. And Jesus testified that great darkness should follow the going forth of the light given to that people. And so we find that in the period immediately succeeding the time of the apostles, many of the worst heresies were introduced, and many of them were advocated by the so-called Christian fathers themselves. Hegesippus, writing of the second century, says: “When the apostles were dead, then the church was gradually spotted and corrupted, as in her doctrine, so also in her worship, an infinity of ceremonies by degrees insensibly sliding in.”—B. iii, chap. 32. “From Adrian (A. D. 117) to Justinian, few institutions, human or divine, were permitted to stand on their former basis.”—Gibbon, Vol. iv, p. 314. Taylor says: “No great ingenuity, therefore, can be needed in matching any modern form of error or extravagance with its like, to be produced from the museum of antique specimens.” “The vices and absurdities of Romanism, on this ground, are only the vices and absurdities of ancient Christianity.”—Antichrist Exposed, pp. 28, 66. Taylor continues: “The opinion that has forced itself upon my own mind is to this effect, that the period dating its commencement from the death of the last of the apostles, or apostolic men, was altogether as little deserving to be selected and proposed as a pattern, as any one of the first five of church history. . . . We need, therefore, neither feel surprise nor alarm when we find, in particular instances, that the grossest errors of theory and practice are to be traced to the first century. . . . The apostles were intent upon the establishment, not of celibacy, but of virtue. Such, we say, was APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY; but not such was ancient Christianity, even that of the age immediately following the death of the apostles. Nor does the difference reach to the mere amount of a diversity of usage, or a shade of feeling; but it involves nothing less than the substitution of one principle of virtue and piety for another. The scheme of religious sentiments had shifted its foundations—a different standard of good and evil had come to be appealed to, and the commandments of God were displaced without scruple by the whims of man. . . . . . . Clement of Alexandria is almost the only extant writer of the early ages who adheres to common sense and apostolic Christianity, through and through.”—Id., pp. 104, 107, 108, 113. Taylor inquires: “When modern religionists fall into ecstasies over the Christian fathers, why do they pass by that highly illuminated theme, ‘celibacy,’ ‘virginity’? Why not do justice to Cyprian and Tertullian? Why omit the most important part of the burden of Athanasius, Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Theodoret, Basil, the Gregorys, Leo, Benedict, &c.? Why keep out of sight the corruptions of Ignatius?” For example, Taylor quotes Chrysostom, as follows: “The virgin, when she goes abroad, should present herself as the bright specimen, ἄγαλμα, of all philosophy; and strike all with amazement, as if now an angel had descended from Heaven, or just as if one of the cherubim had appeared upon earth, and were turning the eyes of all men upon himself. So should all those who look upon the virgin be thrown into admiration and stupor at sight of her sanctity. . . . Who shall not be in ecstacy in thus beholding the angelic life embodied in the female form? And who is it that shall dare approach her? . . . All are fixed in amazement, as if there were before their eyes a mass of incandescent and sparkling gold.”—Tom. i, p. 321. “I will here only observe,” says Taylor, “that this quotation is a sample one among many hundreds, nay thousands which might be easily produced, of a fault generally characteristic of the great writers [and the small writers] of the ancient church—I mean the propensity to magnify and glorify what is merely human; in fact, to worship and to deify the creature more than the Creator.”—Antichrist Ex., p. 187. After quoting many sickening specimens from the fathers, on this subject, Taylor remarks: “This institute, with all it involves, is as ancient as any other element of ancient Christianity, and may claim from us as much regard as is urged in behalf of any other practice or opinion on the ground of antiquity.”—Id., p. 119. PRAYING TO THE DEAD SAINTS.
Nazianzen, praising the course of a pious nun, says, “She supplicated the virgin Mary, beseeching her to afford aid to a virgin in peril.”—Oration 18. Nazianzen himself prays to the martyr Cyprian: “And thou, from thy seat look down upon us propitiously, . . . aiding us in the government of the flock.” In his 19th oration, he speaks of his own father, deceased, as follows: “I am persuaded that our father’s intercession now avails us more than his teaching did while present with us in the body, now that he has got nearer to God, &c.” Tertullian says (A. D. 200), “We make anniversary oblations to the dead.”—De Corona Militis, c. 3. Athanasius prayed to the virgin Mary: “Hear, O daughter of David and of Abraham; incline thine ear to our prayers, and forget not thy people. . . . Intreat for us, lady, mistress, queen, and mother of God.”—Corp. Chris., Vol. i, p. 338. Chrysostom, who died A. D. 407, of the wicked dead, says: “They are not so much to be lamented as succored with prayers and supplications. . . . Let us not be weary in aid of the departed, and in prayer for them; for the communion is a sin-offering for the whole world. Encouraged by this consideration, we pray for the whole world; and with martyrs, confessors, and priests, we make mention also of them in our prayers, and it surely is possible by our prayers, by our offerings in their behalf, and by the saints invoked in connection with them, to obtain pardon for them.”—Chrys. Hom., 41. ADORATION OF DUST, RELICS, &c.
Chrysostom says: “O wonderful pyre! What a treasure does it contain! that dust and those ashes, more precious than gold, more fragrant than any perfumes, more estimable than any jewels! For that which no treasure or gold is able to effect, the relics of the martyrs effect. Whenever has gold dispelled disease? Whenever has it put death to flight? But the bones of the martyrs have done both.”—Tom. ii, p. 828. Of the adoration of relics Dr. Priestly says: “Jerome, who answered Vigilantius, did not deny the practice, or that it was borrowed from the pagans; but he defended it. ‘That,’ says he, ‘was done to idols, and was then to be detested; but this is done to martyrs, and is therefore to be received.’”—Corruptions of Christianity, Vol. i, p. 324. Again Chrysostom is quoted by Priestly as follows: “The Gentiles will laugh to hear me talk of the acts of persons dead and buried, and consumed to dust; but they are not to imagine that the bodies of martyrs, like those of common men, are destitute of all active force and energy; since a greater power than that of the human soul is superadded to them, the power of the Holy Spirit, which by working miracles in them demonstrates the truth of the resurrection.”—Id., p. 331. “A degree of respect, no less superstitious than that paid to the wood of the cross, was demonstrated by Constantine toward the image of Christ, which he commanded to be made of the most precious materials, and to be placed in the most superb apartment of the imperial palace.”—Gregory’s Hist., p. 179. Chrysostom says: “Although a man should be foul with every human vice, the blackest that can be named, yet, should he fall into the baptismal pool, he ascends from the divine waters purer than the beams of noon.” “They who approach the baptismal font, are not only made clean from all wickedness, but holy, also, and just.” “As a spark thrown into the ocean is instantly extinguished, so is all human sin extinguished more readily than that spark, when the man is thrown into the laver of regeneration. Nay, he comes forth another man.”—Tom. ii, p. 269. In searching up the ancient records, historians are generally impressed with the idea that most of the errors of the early church came in by mere human policy to please their pagan neighbors—an effort to conform to their customs in many things and thus take away their prejudice. Thus Gregory remarks: “With respect to the Gentile converts, the tenets of the oriental philosophy concerning the origin of evil and the creation of the world by an inferior power, had prepared the minds of many for the reception of the most absurd opinions which they contrived to unite with the doctrines of Christ.”—Gr. Hist. Ch., pp. 61, 62. Concerning the institution of saint’s days, the historian remarks: “In compliance with the superstitions of the pagan brethren, and with a view to recommend themselves to