Then if we look to the conduct of the Roman clergy during the vacancies of the Roman see, the letters they wrote, the advice they tendered, the respect with which they were addressed, we must conclude at once that they looked upon themselves, and were regarded by others, as the temporary representatives of a great power in the Church.

And so the primacy of the Roman pontiffs is evinced by the writers of the second and third centuries, like the other articles of the Catholic faith. The witnesses of it are numerous, and as they are from various parts of the Church, their words represent a traditional belief, and are the echo of a universal conviction. And it was in the spirit of such a belief that Tertullian, in his "Book of Prescriptions," after speaking of the Churches of Asia and Greece, thus respectfully turns to the Roman Church, and points to its superior claims on the respect and veneration of the faithful. "If you are near Italy, you have Rome, whose authority is also for us-that so happy Church, to which the Apostles with their blood delivered all their doctrine, where Peter rivalled the sufferings of the Lord, where Paul was crowned with the same manner of death as John, where John the Apostle, after suffering in nowise from being cast into boiling oil, was banished to the island. Let us see what it has learned, what it has taught." 1

1 Tertul. Lib. de Præscr. c. 36, p. 49, tom. ii. Curs. Compl. Patrol. Paris, 1844.

§ 1. Oblations and prayers for the dead. The usage of praying for the deceased members of the Church is frequently spoken of as an established fact by the fathers and writers of the third century. Tertullian (now a Montanist), speaking of the religious rites of Christians, in his book De Corona Militis," enumerates among others the anniversary oblation for the dead. "On the anniversary day we make oblations for the dead." Again, in his book "De Monogamia," written also after he had become a heretic, He advises his wife "to pray for his [her deceased husband's] soul, and to demand for him relief and participation in the first resurrection, and to offer on the anniversary of his demise."" It is admitted that Tertullian had ceased to be a Catholic when both these sentences were written; but his authority as an expounder of doctrine was not impaired, except as regards the points that were debated between the Church he had quitted and the heretical body he had joined. He still claimed to belong to the true Church; and he refers to prayers and oblations for the dead, as practices that were universally customary in his day, and which were not only lawful, but in a certain sense compulsory on the surviving friends of the deceased.

The rhetorician Arnobius, that great convert to Christianity of the third century, has the following expostula

1 Tertul. de Coron. Mil. p. 79 B. Curs. Compl. Patrol.: Paris,

1844.

2 Ibid. p. 942 c.

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tion against the injustice of Pagan tyranny, in his treatise "Adversus Gentes: "Why should our conventicles be cruelly levelled with the ground,-in which the Almighty God is invoked; in which peace and mercy are demanded for all-magistrates, armies, kings, friends, enemies,—those who are still in life and those who are freed from the prison of the body?" It is unnecessary to add that this most learned man and fervent Christian must have been intimately acquainted with the doctrine and ritual of the Church; and consequently, when he affirms that peace and mercy were demanded in prayer from God for those who had "fallen asleep in Christ," demanded in the Church as a matter of ordinary observance-demanded in prayer for them in the same way as for the living-no reasonable mind can hesitate to admit that the Church of the third century believed in the existence of a place of temporal punishment beyond the grave.

From Arnobius we turn to a writer of still higher repute, and from his testimony, striking and suggestive, to words which convey the same doctrine enveloped with a flood of light. The writer is St. Cyprian. The words alluded to the following passage extracted from his 64th epistle:"What the bishops, our predecessors, religiously considering the matter, and making salutary provisions, enjoined, that no dying brother should nominate a cleric to guardianship or charge, and, if any one do so, there should be no oblation for him, nor should sacrifice be celebrated for his repose; for who strove to avert the priests and ministers from the altar, deserves not to be named at the altar of God in the prayers of the priests; and therefore as Victor, in opposition to the rule lately given in council by the priests, has dared to appoint the priest Geminius Faustinus a guardian, there must be no oblation with you for his repose, nor any prayers repeated in the church in his name." There is not simply an allusion to

Arnob. advers. Gen. lib. iv. c. 36, p. 1076, tom. v. Curs. Com. Patrol. Paris, 1844.

2 Cypr. Ep. lxvi. s. 2, tom. iv. p. 399, ibid.

the practice of praying for the dead in this passage, but an outspoken declaration that the highest order of prayer -sacrifice-was offered for their repose as a matter of course, unless, by the violation of some grave ordinance, they rendered themselves amenable to the rigours of ecclesiastical law.

Cyprian does not limit his elucidation of this subject to a simple affirmation of the practice of prayers for the dead: he states, in a letter to Antonianus, that there is a prison in the next world-a purification by fire; and he contrasts the state of those who are immediately admitted to glory with that of others who undergo banishment and previous suffering for their misdeeds. He in fact interprets the texts of Holy Scripture cited in the first part of this work as probative of the existence of purgatory. His words are: "It is one thing to wait for pardon, another to attain to glory; it is one thing, consigned to prison, not to go out from it until one pays the last farthing, another to receive at once the reward of faith and virtue; it is one thing to be cleansed and purified from sin by long pain and torture, another by suffering martyrdom to purge away all sin; one thing to wait for the sentence of the Lord unto the day of judgment, another to be immediately crowned by the Lord." It would be superfluous to dilate upon the character and orthodoxy of Cyprian, who was looked to in his day as a great authority in matters of faith and practice, almost as St. Augustine was regarded a century afterwards, when letters of consultation flowed in to him from the remotest Churches of the West.

By a coincidence it happens that the three ecclesiastical writers who have been here adduced as witnesses of the practice of praying for the dead in the third century were Africans, living and writing, two of them, Tertullian and Cyprian, in Carthage, and Arnobius in the diocess of Sicca. It would therefore appear, at first sight, that they ought

1 Cypr. ad Anton. Ep. x. No. 20, p. 786, tom. iv. Curs. Compl. Patrol. Paris, 1844.

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to be received as vouchers for the faith of two diocesses only. But an impartial consideration of their words and a trivial acquaintance with their characters and the objects for which they wrote, must lead us to a different conclusion. They were Africans, it is true, but they were also Christians, though one of them was unfortunately unorthodox. They were all men who were well known at Rome, and in the East and West. Not only this, but one of them-Cyprian-was in frequent communication with Rome, witness his epistle xxx. to the clergy of that city, and his many letters to Pope Cornelius. Another-Tertullian-had taught a celebrated public school of letters and Christian doctrine for many years, with the knowledge and approval of most Christian bishops. The thirdArnobius-wrote as an apologist for persecuted Christians of all countries.

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Cyprian was a model of orthodoxy; so had been Tertullian; and Arnobius was necessarily a most cautious writer for the treatises of his which remain, were compiled at the command of his bishop, as a test of his sincerity and sound views previous to his being admitted to the priesthood. Under these circumstancs, it is clear that they could not conjointly give utterance to a dogma which was not approved by the belief of the universal Church. And when we find three such men affirming that prayers and sacrifices for the repose of the dead were offered habitually in the churches of Christians, we are forced to conclude that the doctrine of purgatory, put forward by the Redeemer, referred to by St. Paul, plainly announced in the second book of Machabees, was held by the entire body of the disciples of Christ during the third century of the Christian era.

§ 2. Sacrifice. For reasons previously assigned, I believe we will be fully justified in taking St. Cyprian as the exponent of the belief of the Church in his age on the subject of sacrifice. The life of this great bishop was cast at an early period in Christian chronology. He was martyred about the year 253; so that we may take it that the