This negative evidence of genuineness extends to other points, and surely is of no inconsiderable weight. We know how difficult it is so to word a forgery as to avoid all detection from incongruities of time, place, and the like. A forgery, indeed, it is hardly possible to suppose this Collection to be, both because great part of it is known to be genuine, and because no assignable object would be answered by it; but let us imagine the compiler hastily took up with erroneous traditions, or recent enactments, and joined them to the rest. Is it possible to conceive, under such circumstances, that there would be no anachronisms or other means of detection? And if there are none such, and much more if the compiler, who lived perhaps as early as the fourth century, found none such (supposing we may assume him willing and qualified to judge of them), nay, if Dionysius Exiguus found none such, what reasons have we for denying that they are the produce of those early times to which they claim to belong? Yet so it is; neither rite, nor heresy, nor observance, nor phrase, is found in them which is foreign to the Ante-Nicene period. Indeed, the only reason one or two persons have thrown suspicion on them has been an unwillingness on their part to admit episcopacy, which the Canons assert; a necessity which led the same parties to deny the genuineness of St. Ignatius' epistles.[375]
(5) I will make one more remark:—First, these Canons come to us, not from Rome, but from the East, and were in a great measure neglected, or at least superseded in the Church, after Constantine's day, especially in the West, where Rome had sway; these do not embody what are called "Romish corruptions." Next, there is ground for suspecting that the Collection or Edition which we have was made by heretics, probably Arians, though they have not meddled with the main contents of them. Thus, while the neglect of them in later times separates them from Romanism, the assent of the Arians is a second witness, in addition to their recognition by the first centuries, in evidence of their Apostolical origin. Those first centuries observe them; contemporary heretics respect them; only later and corrupt times pass them by. May they not be taken as a fair portrait, as far as they go, of the doctrines and customs of Primitive Christianity?
8.
I do wish out-and-out Protestants would seriously lay to heart where they stand when they would write a history of Christianity. Are there any traces of Luther before Luther? Is there anything to show that what they call the religion of the Bible was ever professed by any persons, Christians, Jews, or heathen? Again, are there any traces in history of a process of change in Christian belief and practice, so serious, or so violent, as to answer to the notion of a great corruption or perversion of the Primitive Religion? Was there ever a time, what was the time, when Christianity was not that which Protestants protest against, as if formal, unspiritual, self-righteous, superstitious, and unevangelic? If that time cannot be pointed out, is not "the Religion of Protestants" a matter, not of past historical fact, but of modern private judgment? Have they anything to say in defence of their idea of the Christianity of the first centuries, except that that view of it is necessary to their being Protestants. "Christians," they seem to say, "must have been in those early times different from what the record of those times shows them to have been, and they must, as time went on, have fallen from that faith and that worship which they had at first, though history is quite silent on the subject, or else Protestantism, which is the apple of our eye, is not true. We are driven to hypothetical facts, or else we cannot reconcile with each other phenomena so discordant as those which are presented by ancient times and our own. We claim to substitute à priori reasoning for historical investigation, by the right of self-defence and the duty of self-preservation."
I have urged this point in various ways, and now I am showing the light which the Canons of the Apostles throw upon it. There is no reasonable doubt that they represent to us, on the whole, and as far as they go, the outward face of Christianity in the first centuries;—now will the Protestant venture to say that he recognizes in it any likeness of his own Religion? First, let him consider what is conveyed in the very idea of Ecclesiastical Canons? This: that Christians could not worship according to their fancy, but must think and pray by rule, by a set of rules issuing from a body of men, the Bishops, over whom the laity had no power whatever. If any men at any time have been priest-ridden, such was the condition of those early Christians. And then again, what becomes of the Protestant's watchword, "the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible," if a set of Canons might lawfully be placed upon their shoulders, as if a second rule of faith, to the utter exclusion of all free-and-easy religion? and what room was there for private judgment, if they had to obey the bidding of certain fallible men? and what is to be done with the great principle, "Unity, not Uniformity," if Canons are to be recognized, which command uniformity as well as unity?
So much at first sight; but when we go on to examine what these Canons actually contain, their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of Protestantism becomes still more patent. I will set down some instances in proof of this. Thus, we gather from the Canons the following facts about Primitive Christianity:—viz., that,
1. There was a hierarchy of ordained ministers, consisting of the three orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.
2. Their names were entered on a formal roll or catalogue.
3. There were inferior orders, such as readers and chanters.
4. Those who had entered into the sacred orders might not afterwards marry.
5. There were local dioceses, each ruled by a Bishop.
6. To him and him only was committed the care of souls in his diocese.
7. Each Bishop confined himself to his own diocese.
8. No secular influence was allowed to interfere with the appointment of Bishops.
9. The Bishops formed one legislative body, and met in Council twice a year, for the consideration of dogmatic questions and points in controversy.
10. One of them had the precedence over the rest, and took the lead; and, as the priests and people in each diocese obeyed their Bishop, so in more general matters the Bishops deferred to their Primus.
11. Easter and Pentecost were great feasts, and certain other days feasts also. There was a Lent Fast; also a Fast on Easter Eve; and on Wednesdays and Fridays.
12. The state of celibacy was recognized.
13. Places of worship were holy.
14. There was in their churches an altar, and an altar service.
15. There was a sacrifice in their worship, of which the materials were bread and wine.
16. There were oblations also of fruits of the earth, in connection with the sacrifice.
17. There were gold and silver vessels in the rite, and these were consecrated.
18. There were sacred lamps, fed with olive oil, and incense during the holy rite.
19. Baptism was administered in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
20. Excommunication was inflicted on Christians who disgraced their profession.
21. No one might pray, even in private, with excommunicated persons, except at the cost of being excommunicated himself.
22. No one might pray with heretics, or enter their churches, or acknowledge their baptism, or priesthood.
9.
These rules furnish us with large portions, and the more important, of the outline of the religion of their times; and are not only definitive in themselves, but give us the means of completing those parts of it which are not found in them. Considered, then, as a living body, the primitive Christian community was distinguished by its high sacerdotal, ceremonial, mystical character. Which among modern religious bodies was it like? Was it like the Wesleyans? was it like the Society of Friends? was it like the Scotch Kirk? was it like any Protestant denomination at all? Fancy any model Protestant of this day in a state of things so different from his own! With his religious societies for the Church, with his committees, boards, and platforms instead of Bishops, his Record and Patriot newspapers instead of Councils, his concerts for prayer instead of anathemas on heresy and schism, his spoutings at public meetings for exorcisms, his fourths of October for festivals of the Martyrs, his glorious memories for commemorations of the dead, his niggard vestry allowances for gold and silver vessels, his gas and stoves for wax and oil, his denunciations of self-righteousness for fasting and celibacy, and his exercise of private judgment for submission to authority—would he have a chance of finding himself at home in a Christianity such as this? is it his own Christianity?
I end, then, as I began:—If Protestantism is another name for Christianity, then the Martyrs and Bishops of the early Church, the men who taught the nations, the men who converted the Roman Empire, had themselves to be taught, themselves to be converted. Shall we side with the first age of Christianity, or with the last?
NOTE
on p. 366.
Lately the relics of St. Ambrose have been discovered in his Church at Milan, as were the relics of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius several years since. On this subject I received a month since a letter from a friend, who passed through Milan, and saw the sacred remains. I will quote a portion of his letter to me:—
"I am amazed at the favour which was shown me yesterday at the Church of St. Ambrogio. I was accidentally allowed to be present at a private exposition of the relics of St. Ambrose and the Saints Gervasius and Protasius. I have seen complete every bone in St. Ambrose's body. There were present a great many of the clergy, three medici, and Father Secchi, who was there on account of his great knowledge of the Catacombs, to testify to the age, etc., of the remains. It was not quite in chance, for I wanted to go to Milan, solely to venerate St. Ambrose once more, and to thank him for all the blessings I have had as a Catholic and a Priest, since the day that I said Mass over his body. The churches were shut when I arrived; so I got up early next morning and went off to the Ambrosian. I knelt down before the high altar, and thought of all that had happened since you and I were there, twenty-six years ago. As I was kneeling, a cleric came out; so I asked him to let me into the scurolo, which was boarded up all round for repairs. He took me there, but he said: 'St. Ambrose is not here; he is above; do you wish to see him?' He took me round through the corretti into a large room, where, on a large table, surrounded by ecclesiastics and medical men, were three skeletons. The two were of immense size, and very much alike, and bore the marks of a violent death; their age was determined to be about twenty-six years. When I entered the room, Father Secchi was examining the marks of martyrdom on them. Their throats had been cut with great violence, and the neck vertebræ were injured on the inside. The pomum Adami had been broken, or was not there; I forget which. This bone was quite perfect in St. Ambrose; his body was wholly uninjured; the lower jaw (which was broken in one of the two martyrs) was wholly uninjured in him, beautifully formed, and every tooth, but one molar in the lower jaw, quite perfect and white and regular. His face had been long, thin, and oval, with a high arched forehead. His bones were nearly white; those of the other two were very dark. His fingers long and very delicate; his bones were a marked contrast to those of the two martyrs.
"The finding, I was told, was thus:—In the ninth century the Bishop of Milan translated the relics of St. Ambrose, which till then had laid side by side with the martyrs in one great stone coffin of two compartments, St. Gervase being, according to the account, nearest to St. Ambrose. He removed St. Ambrose from this coffin into the great porphyry urn which we both saw in the scurolo; leaving the martyrs where they were. In 1864 the martyrs' coffin was opened, and one compartment was found empty, except a single bone, the right-ankle bone, which lay by itself in that empty compartment. This was sent to the Pope as all that remained of St. Ambrose; in the other compartment were the two skeletons complete. St. Ambrose's urn was not opened till the other day, when it was removed from its place for the alterations. The bones were found perfect all but the ankle bone. They then sent for it to Rome, and the President of the Seminary showed me how it fitted exactly in its place, having been separated from it for nine centuries.
"The Government seems very desirous to make a handsome restoration of the whole chapel, and the new shrine will be completed by May next."
Thus far my friend's letter.
I have not been able in such historical works as are at my command to find notice of Archbishop Angelbert's transferring St. Ambrose's body from the large coffin of the martyrs to the porphyry urn which has been traditionally pointed out as the receptacle of the Saint, and in which he was recently found. That the body, however, recently disinterred actually was once in the coffin of the martyrs is evidenced by its right-ankle bone being found there. Another curious confirmation arises from my friend's remark about the missing tooth, when compared with the following passage from Ughelli, Ital. Sacr. t. iv. col. 82:—
"Archbishop Angelbert was most devout to the Church of St. Ambrose, and erected a golden altar in it, at the cost of 30,000 gold pieces. The occasion of this gift is told us by Galvaneus, among others, in his Catalogue, when he is speaking of Angelbert. His words are these:—'Angelbert was Archbishop for thirty-five years, from A.D. 826, and out of devotion he extracted a tooth from the mouth of St. Ambrose, and placed it in his [episcopal] ring. One day the tooth fell out from the ring; and, on the Archbishop causing a thorough search to be made for it, an old woman appeared to him, saying, "You will find the tooth in the place from which you took it." On hearing this, the Archbishop betook himself to the body of St. Ambrose, and found it in the mouth of the blessed Ambrose. Then, to make it impossible for anything in future [or anything else, de cætero] to be taken from his body, he hid it under ground, and caused to be made the golden altar of St. Ambrose, etc.
Castellionæus in his Antiquities of Milan (apud Burman. Antiqu. Ital. t. 3, part 1. col. 487) tells us that the Archbishop lost his relic "as he was going in his pontifical vestments to the Church of St. Lawrence on Palm Sunday. He found he had lost it in the way thither, for, on taking off his gloves, he saw it was gone."
It would seem from my friend's letter that either the Archbishop took away the tooth a second time, or the miracle of its restoration did not take place.
It should be added that the place in which Angelbert hid the sacred relics was so well known, that in the twelfth century Cardinal Bernard, Bishop of Parma, was allowed to see and venerate them,—Vid. Puricelli's Ambros. Basil. Descriptio. c. 58 and c. 352, ap. Burman. Thesaur. Antiqu. Ital. t. 4, part 1.
That St. Ambrose was buried in his own church, called even from the time of his death the "Ambrosian," and the church where he had placed the bones of the two martyrs, Gervasius and Protasius, by the side of whom he proposed to have his own body placed, is plain from his own words and those of Paulinus his Secretary.
For the controversy on the subject vid. Castellion. ubi supra.