Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

marvel," saith he, "that those of the heathen, who of old were cured by our Saviour, should do such things: seeing we have seen the images of his apostles Paul and Peter, yea and of Christ himself, kept painted with colours in tables: for that of old they have been wont by a heathenish custom thus to honour them whom they counted to be their benefactors or saviours."

But by whomsoever they were first brought in, certain it is that they proved a dangerous snare unto the simple people, who quickly went a whoring after them, contrary to the doctrine which the fathers and doctors of the Church did deliver unto them. And therefore St. Augustine writing of the manners of the Catholic Church against the Manichees, directly severeth the case of such men from the common cause, and approved practice of the Catholic Church: "Do not collect unto me," saith he, "such professors of the name of Christ, as either know not or keep not the force of their profession. Do not bring in the companies of rude men, which either in the true religion itself are superstitious, or so given unto their lusts. that they have forgotten what they did promise unto God." Then for an instance of the first, he allegeth that he himself did know many which were worshippers of graves and pictures; and at last concludeth: "Now this I advise you, that you cease to speak evil of the Catholic Church, by upbraiding it with the manners of those men, whom she herself condemneth, and seeketh every day to correct as naughty children." This also gave occasion to Serenus,

σωτῆρος ἡμῶν, ταῦτα πεποιηκέναι, ὅτε καὶ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ τὰς εἰκόνας Παύλου καὶ Πέτρου, καὶ αὐτοῦ δὴ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, διὰ χρωμάτων ἐν γραφαῖς σωζομένας ἱστορήσαμεν, ὡς εἰκὸς τῶν παλαιῶν ἀπαραλλάκτως οἷα σωτῆρας ἐθνικῇ συνηθείᾳ παρ' ἑαυτοῖς τοῦτον τιμᾷν εἰωθότων τὸν τρόπου. Euseb. lib. 7. histor. eccles. cap. 18.

e Nolite mihi colligere professores nominis Christiani, nec professionis suæ vim aut scientes aut exhibentes. Nolite consectari turbas imperitorum, qui vel in ipsa vera religione superstitiosi sunt, vel ita libidinibus dediti, ut obliti sint quicquid promiserint Deo. Novi multos esse sepulchrorum et picturarum adoratores, &c. Nunc vos illud admoneo, ut aliquando Ecclesiæ Catholicæ maledicere desinatis, vituperando mores hominum, quos et ipsa condemnat, et quos quotidie tanquam malos filios corrigere studet. August, de moribus Eccles. Catholicæ, cap. 34. op. tom. 1. pag. 713.

bishop of Marseilles, two hundred years after, to break down the images in his church, when he found them to be thus abused: which fact of his, though pope Gregory disliked, because he thought that images might profitably be retained as laymen's books; yet in this he commended his zeal, that he would by no means suffer them to be worshipped. "I certify you," saith he, "that it came of late to our hearing, that your brotherhood, seeing certain worshippers of images, did break the said church images and threw them away. And surely, we commended you that you had that zeal, that nothing made with hands should be worshipped: but yet we judge that you should not have broken those images. For painting is therefore used in churches, that they which are unlearned, may yet by sight read those things upon the walls, which they cannot read in books. Therefore your brotherhood ought both to preserve the images, and to restrain the people from worshipping of them: that both the ignorant might have had, whence to gather the knowledge of the history, and the people might not sin in worshipping the picture."

There would be no end, if we should lay down at large the fierce contentions that afterwards arose in the Church touching this matter of images, the Greek emperors, Leo Isaurus, Constantinus Caballinus, Nicephorus, Stauratius, Leo Armenus, Michael Balbus, Theophilus, and others, opposing them in the east; and on the other side, Gregory the second and third, Paul the first, Stephen the fourth, Adrian the first and second, Leo the third, Nicholas the first, and other popes of Rome as stiffly upholding them in the west. In a council of three hundred and thirty

f Præterea indico dudum ad nos pervenisse, quod Fraternitas vestra quosdam imaginum adoratores aspiciens, easdem ecclesiæ imagines confregit, atque pro. jecit. Et quidem zelum vos, ne quid manufactum adorari possit, habuisse laudavimus: sed frangere easdem imagines non debuisse judicamus. Idcirco enim pictura in ecclesiis adhibetur, ut hi qui literas nesciunt, saltem in parietibus videndo legant quæ legere in codicibus non valent. Tua ergo Fraternitas et illas servare, et ab earum adoratu populum prohibere debuit: quatenus et literarum nescii haberent unde scientiam historiæ colligerent; et populus in picturæ adoratione minime peccaret. Gregor. Registr. lib. 9. epist. 105. ad Serenum. op. tom. 2. pag. 1006. Vide etiam lib. 11. epist. 13. ad eundem. op. tom. 2. pag. 1099.

eight bishops held at Constantinople in the year of our Lord DCCLIV. they were solemnly condemned; in another council of three hundred and fifty bishops held at Nice in the year DCCLXXXVII. they were advanced again, and the veneration of them as much commended. This base decree of the second Nicene council, touching the adoration of images, although it were not by the hundredth part so gross, as that which was afterwards invented by the Popish schoolmen, yet was it rejected as repugnant to the doctrine of the Church of God, by the princes and bishops of England first, about the year DCCXCII. and by Charles the Great afterward, and the bishops of Italy, France, and Germany, which by his appointment were gathered together in the council of Frankfort, the year of our Lord DCCXCIV.

The four books, which by his authority were published against that Nicene synod, and the adoration of images defended therein, are yet to be seen; as the resolution also of the doctors of France assembled at Paris by the command of his son Ludovicus Pius, in the year DCCCXXIV. and the book of Agobardus, bishop of Lyons, concerning pictures and images, written about the same time; the argument whereof is thus delivered by Papirius Massonus the setter out of it: "Detectings most manifestly the errors of the Grecians touching images and pictures, he denieth that they ought to be worshipped: which opinion all we Catholics do allow; and follow the testimony of Gregory the Great concerning them." This passage, together with the larger view of the contents of this treatise following afterwards, the Spanish inquisitors in their Index expurgatorius command to be blotted out, which we find to be accordingly performed by the divines of Cologne, in

8 Græcorum errores de imaginibus et picturis manifestissime detegens, negat eas adorari debere: quam sententiam omnes Catholici probamus, Gregoriique Magni testimonium de illis sequimur. Papir. Masson. Præfat. in Agobardi opera, edit. Paris. ann. 1605.

h Expungantur omnia, quæ sub hoc titulo (De Imaginibus) continentur, Index librorum expurgatorum, Bernardi de Sandoval et Roxas Card. de consilio senatus generalis Inquisit. Hispan. excus. Madriti, ann. 1612.

their late corrupt edition of the great Bibliotheca of the ancient Fathers. Gretser professeth that he "extremelyk wondereth, that this judgment of the book of Agobardus should proceed from a Catholic man. For Agobardus," saith he, "in that whole book doth nothing else, but endeavour to demonstrate, although with a vain labour, that images are not to be worshipped." "And who be these Grecians whose errors touching images Agobardus doth refel, as this publisher saith? Surely these Grecians are the fathers of the Nicene council, who decreed that images should be adored and worshipped. Against whom whosoever disputeth, doth mainly dissent from right believers." To which blind censure of the Jesuits we may oppose, not only the general judgment of the ancient Almains his own countrymen, who within these four or five hundred years did flatly disclaim this image-worship as by Nicetas Choniates is witnessed: but also the testimony of the divines and historians of England, France, and Germany touching the Nicene council in particular; rejecting it as a pseudo-synod", because it concluded "that" images should be worshipped: which thing," say our chroniclers, "the Church of God doth utterly detest." And yet for all that, we have news lately brought us from Rome, that "it is most certain, and most assured, that the Christian

Magn. Bibliothec. Veter. Patrum, tom. 9. part. 1. edit. Colon. ann. 1618. pag. 548. et 551.

k Vehementer profecto hoc judicium de libro Agobardi ab homine Catholico profectum, miratus sum. Nam Agobardus toto libello, nihil aliud facit, quam quod demonstrare nititur (quamvis casso conatu) imagines non esse adorandas. Jac. Gretser. lib. 1. de Cruce, cap. 58.

Et quinam sunt Græci, quorum de imaginibus errores Agobardus refellit, ut editor ait? Nimirum Græci isti sunt patres Nicæni concilii, qui sanxerunt imagines adorandas et colendas esse. Contra quos qui disputat, is ab orthodoxis toto cœlo discordat. Ibid.

̓Αρμενίοις γὰρ καὶ ̓Αλαμανοῖς ἐπίσης ἡ τῶν ἁγίων εἰκόνων προσκύvηoic aπnyóρevra. Nicet. Choniat. annal. lib. 2.

n Hincmar. Remens. lib. contr. Hincmar. Laudunens. cap. 20. Egolismens. monach. in vita Caroli Magni. Annal. Fuldens. Ado, Regino. et Hermann. Contract. in chronic. an. 794.

• Imagines adorari debere: quod omnino Ecclesia Dei execratur. Simeon Dunelmens. Roger. Hoveden. et Matth. Westmonast. hist. ann. 792. vel 793. P Ecclesiam porro Christianam, etiam Antiquissimam, Totam, ac UniverVOL. III. LL

[ocr errors]

Church, even the most ancient, the whole, and the universal Church, did with wonderful consent, without any opposition or contradiction, worship statues and images.' Which if the cauterized conscience of a wretched apostata would give him leave to utter: yet the extreme shamelessness of the assertion might have withheld their wisdoms whom he sought to please thereby, from giving him leave to publish it.

But it may be I seek for shamefacedness in a place where it is not to be found: and therefore leaving them to their images, like to like, for "they" that make them are like unto them: and so is every one that trusteth in them," I proceed from this point unto that which followeth.

salem, summo consensu, absque ulla oppositione, aut contradictione, statuas ac imagines veneratam esse, est certissimum ac probatissimum. M. Anton. de Dominis, De consilio sui reditus, sect. 23.

9 Psal. 115. ver. 8. et 135. ver. 18.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »