曲 the lowest extremity, and confuted by itself, did nevertheless keep its ground. There needed only to clothe it with a specious appearance, and to explain it in words, of a sound agreeable to the ear, in order to procure its entrance into the mind. Porphyry was admired. Jamblicus his follower was esteemed a divine person, because he had the art of enveloping the sentiments of his master in terms seemingly mysterious, though in reality they meant nothing. Julian the apostate, cunning as he was, was caught by these appearances, as the Heathens themselves relate. Inchantments, true or false, which those philosophers boasted, their mistaken austerity, their ridiculous abstinence, which went so far as to make it a crime to eat the flesh of animals, their superstitious purifications, in fine, their contemplation, which evaporated in vain imaginations, and their words, as empty as they appeared to be sublime, imposed upon the world*. But this was not the main matter. The sanctity of the Christian manners, the contempt of plea sures which it enjoined, and, more than all, that humility, which was the very soul of Christianity, offended men; and if we take it rightly, pride, sensuality, and licentiousness were the only supports of idolatry. The Church was daily rooting it up by her doctrine, and still more by her patience, But those wicked spirits, who had never ceased to deceive men, and who had plunged * Ennap. Maxim. Oribas. Chrysanth. Ep. Jul, ad Janıb. Amm. Marcell. lib. xxi. xxiii. xxv. them into idolatry, did not forget their ma lice. They stirred up in the church those heresies which you have seen. Men curious, and, for that reason, vain and turbu lent, had a mind to get a name among the faithful; nor could they content themselves with that sober and temperate wisdom, which the apostle had so much recommended to the Christians*. They launched too deep into the mysteries, which they pretended to measure by our weak conceptions: new philosophers, who blended hu. man reason with faith, and undertook to lessen the difficulties of Christianity, not being able to digest all the foolishness which the world found in the Gospel. Thus were all the articles of our faith successively, and with a sort of method, attacked: The creation, the law of Moses, which is the necessary foundation of ours, the divinity of JESUS CHRIST, his incarnation, his grace, his sacraments, every thing, in short, afforded matter for scandalous divisions. Celsus and others reproached us with themt. Idolatry seemed to triumph. It considered Christianity as a new sect of philosophy, that was sharing the fate of the rest, and, like them, was subdividing into several other sects. The Church appeared to them but a human work, ready to fall of itself. Men concluded that in matters of religion they were not to refine upon their ancestors, nor undertake to change the world. In this confusion of sects which pretended * Rom. xii, 3. Orig. lib. v. cont. Cels. to be Christian, God did not desert his Church. He knew how to preserve in her a mark of authority, which heresies could never assume*. She was catholic and universal: she included all ages: she extended on all sides. She was apostolic; the continual succession, the chair of unity, the primitive authority belonged to her. All that forsook her had formerly acknowledged her; nor were they able to efface the marks either of their innovation or their rebellion. The heathens themselves looked upon her as the stock, the whole, from whence the parts had broken off, the ever-living trunk, which the lopped branches had left entire. Celsus, who reproached the Christians with their divisions into so many schismatical churches, which he perceived starting up, observed one church distinguished from all the rest, and always the strongest, which he called, for that reason, The great church. "There are some," said he, "among the "Christians, who do not acknowledge the "Creator, nor the traditions of the Jews;" meaning the Marcionites: "but," pursued he," the great Church receives them t." In the troubles which Paul of Samosata excited, the emperor Aurelian had no difficulty to know the true Christian Church, to which the house of the Church belonged, whether this was the place of prayer, or the house of the bishopt. He adjudged it Iren. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4. Tertul. de Carn. Ch. 2. de præscript. 20, 21, 32, 36. + Orig. lib. v. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. c. 30. to those "who were in communion with "the bishops of Italy and Rome," because he saw the majority of Christians always in that communion. When the emperor Constantius imbroiled the whole Church, the confusion into which he threw her, by protecting the Arians, could not hinder Ammianus Marcellinus, though a Heathen, from acknowledging that that emperor was erring from the right way " of the Christian religion, which was plain and clear of it"self," both in its doctrine and practice. For the true Church had a majesty and rectitude, which heresies could neither imitate nor obscure: on the contrary, they unwittingly bore testimony to the Catholic Church. Constantius, who persecuted St. Athanasius, the defender of the ancient faith, "earnestly wished," says Ammianus Marcellinus," to have him condemned by "the authority which the bishop of Rome "had over the rest t." By seeking the aid of that authority, he made the very Heathens sensible what was wanting to his sect, and honoured the Church from which the Arians had seceded. Thus the Gentiles themselves confessed the Catholic Church. If any one asked them where she held her assemblies, and who were her bishops, they never were at a loss to tell. As for the heresies, do what they would, they never could get rid of the names of their authors. The Sabellians, Paulianists, Arians, Pelagians, and the rest, were in vain offended at the * Amm. Mar. lib. xxi. + Amm. Mar. lib. xv. party-title that was given them. The world, however ill they took it, would speak naturally, and denominated each sect from him, to whom it owed its rise. As for the great. Church, the catholic and apostolic Church, it never was possible to name any other author than JESUS CHRIST himself, nor to specify the first of her pastors without going up to the apostles, nor to give her any other name than that which she assumed. So that all the heretics could do, it was not in their power to conceal her from the heathens. She opened to them her bosom over the whole earth; and they flocked into it. Some were perhaps lost in by-paths; but the Catholic Church was the high way whereinto entered always the most part of those who sought JESUS CHRIST; and experience hath shewn, that to her it was given to gather in the Gentiles. It was her therefore that the infidel emperors assaulted with all their force. Origen informs us that but few heretics suffered for the faith*. St. Justin, more ancient than he, hath observed, that the persecution spared the Marcionites, and the other heretics. The heathens persecuted none but the Church, which they saw extending, herself throughout the whole earth, and acknowledged her alone for the Church of JESUS CHRIST. What though some branches were plucked off, her good sap was not lost; she shot forth by other places, and the lopping of the superfluous wood did but render her Orig. cont. Cels. v. Just: Apol. 2. D D |