Jerusalem, who has left no commentary upon the Gospel of St. John. But how striking an illustration is here presented of the incautiousness, or haste which marks almost all these references to the Fathers!

"Cyrillus an old and HOLY Doctor!" Never has a designation been less appropriate-as well apply the epithet to the most ferocious of the Roman pontiffs! It could be applied in this instance only in compliance with an ecclesiastical usage, and by writers giving themselves too little pains in ascertaining the facts to which they are making reference.

"The history of none perhaps among the Christian Fathers is more disgraceful to the Christian ecclesiastical character than that of St. Cyrill, a man immoderately ambitious, naturally violent and headstrong, a breeder of disturbances, haughty and imperious, hesitating little about the means of securing his ends, and as unfit for a bishop as a violent bigoted unskilful theologian could possibly be."-Clarke's Succession of Eccles. Lit. II. p. 137.

The character of Cyrill of Alexandria flames forth on the page of church history; nor can anything be more inexpedient than to seem to acquiesce in the blasphemous canonization of a man whose temper and conduct were the opprobrium of orthodoxy. Gibbon rejoices to see a blush on the cheek of Baronius, in mentioning the name of Cyrill; and yet Baronius, in the front of volumes of evidence, to the contrary, is not ashamed to profess his admiration of the Holy Patriarch's meekness, gentleness, modesty the crown of all his other incomparable virtues !

The incident related by Epiphanius of himself when he tore down a painted cloth from a church, is pertinently cited by the Homilist, and is a sufficient proof that, in the fourth century, pictures in churches, however common they had become, were disallowed by the aged and better instructed bishops. Yet when this testimony is cited, argumentative equity would seem to demand that the fact of the frequency of the most objectionable decorations in churches, at the time referred to, should be mentioned.

But the Homilist proceeds-"In the Tripartite Ecclesiastical History, the ninth book, and forty-eighth chapter, is testified that

Epiphanius, being yet alive, did work miracles, and that after his death, devils being expelled at his grave or tomb, did roar."

Now this is precisely an instance of that kind of incongruous citation of ancient authorities which, unless it be largely allowed for, and set off from our deference to the Formularies of the Church, must render them doctrinally unintelligible and contradictory. Do the Homilists intend us to accept and assent to the miracles to which they thus refer? Certainly not, for they pointedly condemn the entire system of relic worship, and the invocation of saints, which were there with connected.

The Homilist quotes the Tripartite history-that is to say, the Version of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, made under the eye of Cassiodorus in the sixth century. But it would have been better to trace this testimony to its source, namely, the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, b. vii. chap. 27; for assuredly the compiler of the Tripartite History could know nothing more of the facts than what his author, Sozomen, has related; but neither does this writer, nor even his reporter, affirm what the Homilist attributes to him. Sozomen, speaking of Epiphanius, says-Mortuo enim illo id quod viventi non contigerat, ad sepulchrum ejus dæmones etiamnum fugari, et morbi quidam curari dicuntur. The" did roar," is therefore an embellishment, appended by, we know not whom, to the original story. Cassiodorus, or his friend, the translator of the Ecclesiastical histories, renders exactly the words of Sozomen. In that place of the Tripartite history to which we are so carefully referred by the Homilist, we find as follows;-Eo quoque tempore fuit Epiphanius, Cypriorum Episcopus, ad cujus sepulchrum hactenus Sozomen (eigér vuv) dæmones expelluntur. Nicephorus, b. xii. c. 46, in repeating this passage, expands it a little; but even he does not give us the-" did roar," of the Homily.

It is true that the bellowing of demons at the shrine of the martyrs is a circumstance frequently affirmed by Chrysostom and others; but it does not happen to be alleged in this instance. Even the writer of the Life of Epiphanius, amid all the marvels he relates, does not affirm this. But let the reader turn to this "Life," subjoined to his works, and say whether the writer of the Homily on Prayer, and on Peril of Idolatry, can

be supposed to have deliberately considered, and allowed the facts to which he here alludes: it is impossible: the citation therefore is inappropriate to say the least.

"Now whereas," continues the Homily, "neither St. Jerome &c. .. nor any other godly or learned bishop, at that time, or shortly after, have written anything against Epiphanius's judgment concerning images; it is an evident proof that, in those days, which were about four hundred years after our Saviour Christ, there were no images publicly used and received in the Church of Christ, which was then much less corrupt, and more pure than now it is."

I subjoin Butler's note upon the incident mentioned by Epiphanius, and cited in the Homily.

"In his letter to John of Jerusalem he (Epiphanius) relates how he saw at Anablatha, in the diocese of Jerusalem, a certain curtain over the church door, on which was painted an image, whether of Christ, or of some saint, he had forgot when he wrote this; but he tore the curtain or hanging, and gave others in its place. It is certain from the famous statue of the woman cured by our Saviour of the bloody flux, which stood at Paneas, in that very country, mentioned by Eusebius, as honoured with miracles, and from the writings of St. Prudentius, St. Paulinus, St. Ephrem, &c. that the use of holy images was common in the church at that very time, as Le Clerc in their lives acknowledges. But St. Epiphanius here discovered, or at least apprehended some superstitious practice, or danger of it among converts from idolatry; or of scandal to Jewish proselytes: for upon this last consideration, it might sometimes seem prudent to forbear a practice of discipline, in certain places, as Salmeron observes in 1 John v.-May 12."

Thus it is that Romanists have secured an easy advantage in flatly contradicting-as they were fully entitled to do the loose affirmations of their opponents, concerning the purity and simplicity of the early church. Epiphanius did indeed condemn the image-worship of his times; and thus far an appeal to him is legitimate. But how strange, how inexplicable, is it that well read men should affirm that, in the times of Epiphanius, "there were no images publicly used and received in the church of Christ!" This indeed may be true if we choose to deny the

church of the fourth century to be "the church of Christ :"-not otherwise.

Inter cætera Religionis Catholicæ testimonia, quibus Liberiana Basilica semper enituit, extrema non obtinent sacræ imagines, quibus ex primæva Ecclesiæ consuetudine ornata fuit a Beatissimo Pontifice Xysto III. (Sixtus.) Hæc satis integræ adhuc visendus, post diuturnum mille ducentorum et quinquaginta circiter annorum spatium; ac non minorem de tempore triumphum agunt, quam de suis hostibus, cum ætatem vincant incolumitate suâ; Novatorum vero errores manifestissima suâ vetustate redarguant.

The "very ancient" mosaics of this church having been more fully exposed to view by the removal of rubbish-Delectus etenim fuit Spiritus Sanctus, et Gabriel Angelus, Beatissimam Virginem Mariam annuncians. Quatuor Evangelista formis animalium expressi. Capita Apostolorum Petri et Pauli: necnon gemmata Crux et Arcus columnis impositi, Porticum representantes. Vetera Monumenta. J. Ciampini Romani. Pars Pr.

p. 195.

These monuments of Christian antiquity, such as they appeared in the time of the author here cited, two hundred years ago, are represented in the numerous Plates which illustrate the work. Paulinus of Nola, the contemporary of Epiphanius, and forty years earlier than the pontificate of Sixtus III. (especially when his testimony, so artlessly given, is collated with the pictorial and sculptured remains of the fourth and fifth centuries) irrefragably contradict the assertion that-"about four hundred years after our Saviour Christ, there were no images publicly used and received in the Church of Christ."

The next citation in this Homily is from Ambrose; and on several accounts it merits attention.

"St. Ambrose, in his treatise of the death of Theodosius the emperor, saith, 'Helene found the cross and the title on it. She worshipped the King, and not the wood, surely-for that is an heathenish error, and the vanity of the wicked-but she worshipped Him that hanged on the cross, and whose name was written in the title,' and so forth. See both the godly Empress' fact, and St. Ambrose' judgment at once; they thought it had been a heathenish error, and vanity of the wicked, to have worshipped the cross itself, which was imbrued with our Saviour Christ's own

C

precious blood. And we fall down before every cross piece of timber, which is but an image of that cross."

The words of Ambrose here referred to are

Invenit ergo titulum, Regem adoravit, non lignum utique, quia hic gentilis est error, et vanitas impiorum, sed adoravit illum, qui pependit in ligno, scriptus in titulo, illum inquam qui, &c.

These expressions, by themselves, seem fitly enough adduced in rebuke of the adoration of the very cross, as popularly practised among Romanists. But the fairness of the citation-all the circumstances considered, a Romanist would at once, and very justly deny. He would say, in the first place-"Ambrose here affirms absolutely nothing more than what our own approved doctors have constantly said :—we do not, say they, worship the wood of the cross; but him who hung thereon:-witness Peter Dens--Prout sunt res quædam, seu certa materia, puta aurum vel lignum sculptum vel pictum et eatenus imagines non possunt honorari. tom. v. p. 45. Witness the cautions of the Tridentine Fathers against superstitious abuses of the respect paid to holy images (or crosses)-Si qui autem abusus fortè committantur ab aliquibus idiotis, hos sanè non docet nec approbat Ecclesia. But protestants are not entitled to the seeming support which they may derive from an insulated passage when, if the entire tract or sermon whence it is taken be examined, the drift of it is decisively in favour of those notions and practices of the Roman Catholic church which protestants reject."

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"In this very instance,"-thus might a Romanist argue, appeal to the entire oration on the death of Theodosius; and we further ask that this be compared with that on the death of Valentinian, and with the two discourses on the death of the brother of St. Ambrose, Satyrus.-We ask that, before this Father be appealed to as an authority on the protestant side, the general quality of his writings, and particularly of these three funeral orations, be considered :—and we then boldly affirm, that St. Ambrose is ours; not yours: for, most distinctly does he recognise and authenticate-Prayers for the dead-Prayers to the deadthe merit of penance, the supremacy of the bishop of Rome-and that opinion of the miraculous property of the eucharistic elements which protestants deny. Is it then equitable in argument, to