333 THE OPPOSITION MADE TO THE ANCIENT WHETHER at all, or to what extent, if at all, the prevalent ascetic doctrine and practice were opposed by any individuals or parties within the pale of the Church, although a point of some importance in itself, is not essential to our present argument; I shall however devote a page or two to the subject, for the purpose of excluding probable exceptions; but must request that the bearing of it upon our inquiry concerning the deference that is due to christian antiquity, may not be lost sight of. The case then stands thus. It has been acknowledged by the advocates of church principles,' that they are barely indicated, if so much, in the canonical Scriptures; and that they can never be satisfactorily sustained without the aid of the nicene writers. This being admitted, we may suppose an opponent to say, as a demur to the conclusion toward which I am tending, 'It may be true that the writers who have been cited did express themselves too warmly, and with too little caution, on the subject of celibacy, and the excellence of the ascetic life; but there is good reason to think that, in doing so, they outran the general feeling of the Church; in fact, indications may be gathered of the existence of a contrary opinion and feeling.' Be it so; and would that it had been so to a far greater extent than we are at liberty to assume, But then, in what position do we place the extant church writers, one and all; and what, on such a supposition, will be the value of their evidence in establishing church principles? If indeed these writers-that is to say, all who have come down to modern times, or all who are usually appealed to as authorities in support of these principles, were in fact affected by the ascetic delusion, and if under its influence they, so far, forgot moderation, and virtually belied, or greatly overstated, the general sentiment of the Church in their times; then, how can we venture to rely upon them as our guides, in relation to those other church doctrines, such as the intrinsic efficacy of the sacraments, and the high bearing of the sacerdotal office, in relation to which the inducements were manifest and strong to overstep the limits of sobriety? If, after all, the holy catholic church of the nicene age, that is to say, the mass of christians, was much more moderate and sound than we should suppose, in looking into the fathers (a most comfortable supposition truly!) then it follows, that, in yielding ourselves to the guidance of these writers, we make ourselves the dupes of their personal enthusiasm and folly; and are, to that extent, led astray from what we are professing to admire, namely, 'catholic purity.' Most clearly, the fathers, without whose aid, as it is confessed, church principles are not to be established, can be safely resorted to only on the strength of the contrary supposition, namely, that they themselves were in harmony with the Church of their times, and did truly represent its opinions, feelings, and practices. But on the other hand, if (and as in fact is too evident) the extant church writers did speak the mind of the great mass of christians in their times, though not absolutely of all, and if, in the main, a true notion of the feelings and usages of the church catholic be gathered from these remains, and if genuine church principles are embodied in the writings of Ambrose, Athanasius, Basil, and their contemporaries, then, without a question, the ascetic doctrine and practice-that is to say MONKERY, with its illusions, its frivolity, its pretensions, and its corruptions, was a principal, and a darling element of this system; and then moreover, if, on the authority of the nicene fathers, the modern church is to adopt principles and practices which can in no other manner be sustained, there can be no consistency in rejecting (merely because we may not happen to like it) its fully-sanctioned ascetic system. Let us repress, if we can, the abuses to which that system has always been open; but the institute itself, with the doctrines on which it rests, wants no sanction on the part of the authority to which, in other matters, we are religiously bowing. Take it then either way, our inference is saved.-If the ascetic mania was in fact more generally opposed than we have imagined it to have been, then the fathers are delusive guides, in regard to church principles; and they are especially to be suspected when they are known to have been exposed to the influence of powerful motives for running into extravagance.-But if such opposition was in fact of small amount, and if the Church at large went all the length of its teachers, then this church-people and leaders, together, was the victim of a system, which we must think false in principle, and fatal in its operation; and such as vitiates whatever it is mingled with. An opponent may make his choice in this alternative. It may be gathered from the language of Chrysostom, on several occasions,* that objections were raised against the prevailing practices by, probably, the laxer sort of professed christians; and also that more than a few, in and out of the Church, were accustomed to make a jest of the follies, and the hypocrisy, and the shameless abuses, which disgraced the monkish system. It cannot be imagined that in any age, or whatever may be the influence of the promoters of fanaticism, the common sense of mankind should be entirely overpowered, or that absolute silence should be imposed upon either the remonstrance of the wise, or the ribaldry of the profane. All the terrors of Rome, in the height of her pride, did not avail to protect the monks and the monasteries from the rebuke and contempt which they deserved. In fact the existence of a somewhat formidable opposition, and the prevalence of a whispered contempt, might be inferred from that very style of extravagance in which the church writers indulge. Men of intelligence, unless provoked and alarmed, do * Tom. i. p. 328, 340, and the Treatise against the Impugners of the Monastic life, passim. See also p. 342. † We may easily imagine what would be said and thought by the people at large, when the monks were seen, in open church, and during the celebration of the 'terrible mysteries,' to be proffering gallant attentions to the ladies, their companions. Tom. i. p. 297. not often run so far upon a road where they are sure to be outdone by fools. Some serious protests were in fact made, from time to time, against the wide-spread infatuation of the general church; and we find each of its culpable superstitions, on the one side branded with merited reprobation, and on the other passionately defended by perverse ingenuity. But in each case the church authorities proved themselves too strong for the dissidents, who were cursed, borne down, banished, crushed; and so the goodly structure of artificial piety was preserved from injury, and safely handed down to succeeding ages. Unhappily the protesting party, in these several instances, and the same is true, more or less, of every protest against popery, down to the time of Luther, took the obvious, but the ineffective course, of inveighing against the particular superstitions of the Church; the objectors themselves, probably, not being conscious of that fatal departure from the first principles of christianity whence all these errors had resulted. Luther, on the contrary, steadily held on his way, and actually brought about a reformation, because (divinely taught) he had felt the apostasy of the church from the Gospel, long before he had learned to disapprove of the prevalent superstitions; and he announced to the world the life-giving truth which the Church had long lost sight of, while yet he himself submissively bowed before the papal chair. Jovinian, Vigilantius, and others, upon whom Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine trampled, do not appear to have well understood the secret reason of the errors they denounced. We should think so, judging merely from the failure of their endeavours to promote reform. What their actual opinions were, is not to be ascertained; for we possess no evidence better than the reports of their angry and triumphant antagonists, to confide in whom, in such a case, would be something worse than credulity; for it would involve a cruel injustice toward men who, by their very persecutors, have been denied the opportunity of appealing to the candour of posterity. The personal character of Jovinian, were it known, might enable us to form a better opinion of his doctrine; and it would not perhaps be altogether safe to interpret the calumnies of his enemies, as so many testimonies to his virtue and piety. Nothing however contradicts the supposition that he honestly and religiously opposed the madness of his times: at least he did so courageously, and he suffered the consequence; for having been ecclesiastically condemned at Rome, and Milan, he was civilly banished to a desolate island, where he ended his days. In nearly the same path followed Vigilantius, who had been sustained, as it appears, by certain bishops. Proh nefas! exclaims the sanctimonious Jerome,* si tamen episcopi nominandi sunt, qui non ordinant diaconos, nisi prius.... There were therefore some, and it is a consoling thought, who, notwithstanding the asceticism of the Church at large, adhered at once to the principles of virtue, and to the apostolic injunction, and who, knowing the peculiar temptations to which the clergy were exposed (especially in consequence of the access allowed them to convents) wisely required that those whom they ordained should be married men. It was on this very account, and precisely because these bishops paid respect to the commandments of God, disregarding the foolish and wicked traditions of men, that this crabbed monk grinds his teeth at them, and would fain have stripped them of their dignities. It does not appear, as I have already said, that Vigilantius, any more than Jovinian (or than later reformers, before the sixteenth century) knew how to lay the axe to the root of the superstitions of his times, by insisting upon those great principles of christianity which, when understood, exclude these follies in a mass, as by the force of an inherent energy, repelling whatever springs from another source. His protest therefore, although calm, reasonable, and not unsupported, died away; his party was crushed, and the doctors who trampled the remonstrants under their feet, had the satisfaction, in leaving the world, to see the ship of the church in full sail, gaily decked with all the fool's colours and tawdry tatters which human wit could devise, making its way in gallant bearing, by favour of wind and tide, toward the haven which it at length reached under the pilotage of the * Jerome's Epistles and Treatise against Jovinian and Vigilantius, as they are not very long, will no doubt be read, or at least cursorily examined by the reader who has access to his works. This comprehensive reference may therefore be enough, on the present occasion. The epistle to Vigilantius, particularly, deserves a perusal. + Constit. Apost. lib. ii. c. 57. |