to make the sign of a cross upon the forehead in the celebration of some of their sacred mysteries.* A satisfactory explanation of the origin of such peculiarities in the ritual of idolatry can now scarcely be expected; but it certainly need not excite surprise if the early Christians were impressed by them, and if they viewed them as so many unintentional testimonies to the truth of their religion. The disciples displayed, indeed, no little ingenuity in their attempts to discover the figure of a cross in almost every object around them. They could recognise it in the trees and the flowers, in the fishes and the fowls, in the sails of a ship and the structure of the human body; † and if they borrowed from their heathen neighbours the custom of making a cross upon the forehead, they would of course be ready to maintain that they thus only redeemed the holy sign from profanation. Some of them were, perhaps, prepared, on prudential grounds, to plead for its introduction. Heathenism was, to a considerable extent, a religion of bowings and genuflexions; its votaries were, ever and anon, attending to some little rite or form; and, because of the multitude

* Tertullian, "De Præscrip. Hæret." c. 40. See also Kaye's Tertullian, p. 441. "The ancient world was possessed by a dread of demons, and under an anxious apprehension of the influence of charms, sought for external preservatives against the powers of evil, and accompanied their prayers with external signs and gestures." Bunsen's "Hippolytus," iii. 351.

+ See Justin Martyr, "Dialogue with Trypho," pp. 259, 318, and "Apol." ii. p. 90. Tertullian, " Adv. Judæos," c. 10. In the "Octavius" of Minucius Felix the following remarkable passage occurs :-" What are your military ensigns, and banners, and standards, but crosses gilded and ornamented? Your trophies of victory not only imitate the appearance of a cross, but also of a man fixed to it. We discern the sign of a cross in the very form of a ship, whether it is wafted along with swelling sails, or glides with its oars extended. When a military yoke is erected there is a sign of a cross, and, in like manner, when one with hands stretched forth devoutly addresses his God. Thus, there seems to be some reason in nature for it, and some reference to it in your own system of religion." The monogram R, composed of the initial Greek capitals X and P of the name xploтos, was in use among the heathen long before our era. It is to be found on coins of the Ptolemies. Aringhus "Roma Subterranea," ii. p. 567.

of these diminutive acts of outward devotion, its ceremonial was at once frivolous and burdensome. When the pagan passed into the Church, he, no doubt, often felt, for a time, the awkwardness of the change; and was frequently on the point of repeating, as it were automatically, the gestures of his old superstition. It may, therefore, have been deemed expedient to supersede more objectionable forms by something of a Christian complexion; and the use of the sign of the cross here probably presented itself as an observance equally familiar and convenient.* But the disciples would have acted more wisely had they boldly discarded all the puerilities of paganism; for credulity soon began to ascribe supernatural virtue to this vestige of the repudiated worship. As early as the beginning of the third century, it was believed to operate like a charm; and it was accordingly employed on almost all occasions by many of the Christians. "In all our travels and movements," says a writer of this period, as often as we come in or go out, when we put on our clothes or our shoes, when we enter the bath or sit down at table, when we light our candles, when we go to bed, or recline upon a couch, or whatever may be our employment, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross." +

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* Tertullian maintains (" Ad Jud." c. xi.) that the mark mentioned Ezekiel ix. 4 was the letter T, or the sign of the cross. See a Dissertation on this subject by Vitringa, "Observationes Sacræ," lib. ii. c. 15. See also Origen. "In Ezechielem," Opera, tom. iii. p. 424, and Cyprian to Demetrianus, § 12. It would appear that the worshippers of Apollo used to mark themselves on the forehead with the letters XH. See Kitto's "Cyclopædia of Bib. Lit." art. FOREHEAD.

+ Tertullian," De Corona." c. 3. By the Romans, crosses were erected in conspicuous places to intimidate offenders, just in the same way as the drop is now exhibited in the front of a jail. It is not improbable that some of these crosses were afterwards worshipped by the Christians! Aringhi mentions a stone, to be seen in his own time in the Vatican, which was treated with the same absurd reverence. On this stone many of the early Christians were said to have suffered martyrdom, probably by decapitation; but it was afterwards held "in very great honour" at Rome, and regarded as " a sacred thing!" "Roma Subterranea," i. 219.

"

But whilst not a few of the Christians were beginning to adopt some of the trivial rites of paganism, they continued firmly to protest against its more flagrant corruptions. They did not hesitate to assail its gross idolatry with bold and biting sarcasms. Stone, or wood, or silver," said they, "becomes a god when man chooses that it should, and dedicates it to that end. With how much more truth do dumb animals, such as mice, swallows, and kites, judge of your gods? They know that your gods feel nothing; they gnaw them, they trample and sit on them; and if you did not drive them away, they would make their nests in the very mouth of your deity." The Church of the first three centuries rejected the use of images in worship, and no pictorial representations of the Saviour were to be found even in the dwellings of the Christians. They conceived that such visible memorials could convey no idea whatever of the ineffable glory of the Son of God; and they held that it is the duty of His servants to foster a spirit of devotion, not by the contemplation of His material form, but by meditating on His holy and divine attributes as they are exhibited in creation, providence, and redemption. So anxious were they to avoid even the appearance of anything like image-worship, that when they wished to mark articles of dress or furniture with an index of their religious profession, they employed the likeness of an anchor, or a dove, or a lamb, or a cross, or some other object of an emblematical character.+ We must not," said they, "cling to the sensuous but rise to the spiritual. The familiarity of daily sight lowers the dignity of the divine, and to pretend to worship a spiritual essence through earthly matter, is to degrade that essence to the world of sense." Even so late

* Minucius Felix, "Octavius," c. 24. There is a similar passage in Tertullian, "Apol." c. 12.

+ Clemens Alexandrinus, " Pædagog." iii. Opera. pp. 246, 247.

Clemens Alexandrinus, "Stromat." v. Opera, p. 559.

as the beginning of the fourth century the practice of displaying paintings in places of worship was prohibited by ecclesiastical authority. A canon which bears upon this subject, and which was enacted by the Council of Elvira held about A.D. 305, is more creditable to the pious zeal than to the literary ability of the assembled fathers. "We must not," said they, "have pictures in the church, lest that which is worshipped and adored be painted on the walls."*

It has been objected to the Great Reformation of the sixteenth century that it exercised a prejudicial influence on the arts of painting and statuary. The same argument might have been urged against the gospel itself in the days of its original promulgation. Whilst the early Church entirely discarded the use of images in worship, its more zealous members looked with suspicion upon all who assisted in the fabrication of these objects of the heathen idolatry.† The excuse that the artists were labouring for subsistence, and that they had themselves no idea of bowing down to the works of their own hands, did not by any means satisfy the scruples of their more consistent and conscientious brethren. "Assuredly," they exclaimed, "you are a worshipper of idols when you help to promote their worship. It is true you bring to them no outward victim, but you sacrifice to them your mind. Your sweat is their drinkoffering. You kindle for them the light of your skill." +

By denouncing image-worship the early Church, no doubt, to some extent interfered with the profits of the painter and

* Canon 36. The comment of the Roman Catholic Dupin upon this canon is worthy of note. "To me," says he, " it seems better to understand it in the plainest sense, and to confess that the Fathers of this Council did not approve the use of images, no more than that of wax candles lighted in full daylight."-History of Ecclesiastical Writers, Fourth Century.

+ Tertullian, “ De Pudicitia," c. 7. But all were not so scrupulous, for Tertullian elsewhere complains that the image-makers were chosen to church offices. "De Idololatria," c. 7.

Tertullian, "De Idololatria," c. 6.

THE THEATRE AND THE GLADIATORIAL SHOWS. 321

the sculptor; but, in another way, it did much to purify and elevate the taste of the public. In the second and third centuries the playhouse in every large town was a centre of attraction; and whilst the actors were generally persons of very loose morals, their dramatic performances were perpetually pandering to the depraved appetites of the age. It is not, therefore, wonderful that all true Christians viewed the theatre with disgust. Its frivolity was offensive to their grave temperament; they recoiled from its obscenity; and its constant appeals to the gods and goddesses of heathenism outraged their religious convictions. In their estimation, the talent devoted to its maintenance was miserably prostituted; and whilst every actor was deemed unworthy of ecclesiastical fellowship, every church member was prohibited, by attendance or otherwise, from giving any encouragement to the stage. The early Christians were also forbidden to frequent the public shows, as they were considered scenes of temptation and pollution. Every one at his baptism was required to renounce "the devil, his pomp, and his angels "t-a declaration which implied that he was henceforth to absent himself from the heathen spectacles. At this time, statesmen, poets, and philosophers were not ashamed to appear among the crowds who assembled to witness the combats of the gladiators, though, on such occasions, human life was recklessly sacrificed. But here the Church, composed chiefly of the poor of this world, was continually giving lessons in humanity to heathen legislators and literati. It protested against cruelty, as well to the brute creation as to man; and condemned the taste which could derive gratification from the shedding of the blood either of lions or of gladiators. All who sanctioned * Cyprian, " Ad Donatum," Opera, p. 5.

+ Tertullian, "De Spectaculis," c. 4. According to the English Liturgy the person baptized "renounces the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world." This was originally intended to apply to such exhibitions as those mentioned in the text.