Orientation at Baptism.
The corruption of baptism by the pagan sun-worship cult was especially shown in the practice of turning eastward and westward in connection with baptism. This chapter has space for a single quotation on this point from Bingham:
“This custom of turning about to the East when they made their profession of obedience to Christ is also mentioned by St. Ambrose, Gregory Nazianzen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and the author under the name of Dionysius. For which they assign two reasons: 1, Cyril tells his disciples that as soon as they had renounced the devil, the paradise of God, which was planted in the East, and whence our first parent for his transgression was driven into banishment, was now laid open to them; and their turning about from the West to the East, which is the region of light, was a symbol of this. For the same reason, St. Basil and some others of the ancients tell us, they prayed toward the East, that they might have their faces toward paradise. The other reason for turning to the East in baptism, was because the East or rising sun was an emblem of the Sun of Righteousness, to whom they now turned from Satan. Thou art turned about to the East, says St. Ambrose, for he that renounces the devil, turns unto Christ. Where he plainly intimates with St. Jerome, that turning to the East was a symbol of their aversion from Satan, and conversion unto Christ,—that is, from darkness to light, from serving idols, to serve him who is the Sun of Righteousness and Fountain of Light.”[232]
Faith in the magical effects of baptism increased, until its sway ruled the wisest and best of the leaders in the Church. The great Augustine recounts many cases which indicate, if possible, more than pagan credulity. Among them are the following. The chapter from which they are taken is entitled: “Of Miracles which were wrought that the world might believe in Christ, and which have not ceased since the world believed.”
“In the same city of Carthage lived Innocentia, a very devout woman of the highest rank in the state. She had a cancer in one of her breasts, a disease, which, as physicians say, is incurable. Ordinarily, therefore, they either amputated, and so separated from the body the member on which the disease has seized, or, that the patient’s life may be prolonged a little, though death is inevitable, even if somewhat delayed, they abandon all remedies following, as they say, the advice of Hippocrates. This lady we speak of had been advised to by a skilful physician, who was intimate with her family; and she betook herself to God alone by prayer. On the approach of Easter she was instructed in a dream to wait for the first woman that came out from the baptistry after being baptised, and ask her to make the sign of Christ upon her sore. She did so and was immediately cured....
“A gouty doctor of the same city, when he had given in his name for baptism, and had been prohibited the day before his baptism from being baptised that year, by black woolly-haired boys who appeared to him in his dream, and whom he understood to be devils, and when, though they trod on his feet, and inflicted the acutest pain he had ever yet experienced, he refused to obey them, but overcame them, and would not defer being washed in the laver of regeneration, was relieved in the very act of baptism, not only of the extraordinary pain he was tortured with, but also of the disease itself, so that, though he lived a long time afterwards, he never suffered from gout; and yet who knows of this miracle? We, however, do know it, and so, too, do the small number of brethren who were in the neighborhood, and to whose ears it might come.
“An old comedian of Curubis was cured at baptism not only of paralysis, but also of hernia, and being delivered from both afflictions, came up out of the font of regeneration as if he had nothing wrong with his body. Who outside of Curubis knows of this, or who but a very few who might hear it elsewhere? But we, when we heard of it, made the man come to Carthage, by order of the holy bishop Aurelius, although we had already ascertained the fact on the information of persons whose word we could not doubt.
“Hesperius, of a tribunitian family, and a neighbor of our own, has a farm called Zubedi in the Fussalian district; and finding that his family, his cattle, and his servants were suffering from the malice of evil spirits, he asked our presbyters, during my absence, that one of them would go with him and banish the spirits by his prayers. One went, offered there the sacrifice of the body of Christ, praying with all his might that vexation might cease. It did cease forthwith, through God’s mercy. Now he had received from a friend of his own some holy earth brought from Jerusalem, where Christ, having been buried, rose again the third day. This earth he had hung up in his bedroom to preserve himself from harm. But when his house was purged of that demoniacal invasion, he began to consider what should be done with the earth; for his reverence for it made him unwilling to have it any longer in his bedroom. It so happened that I and Maximinus, Bishop of Synita, and then my colleague, were in the neighborhood. Hesperius asked us to visit him, and we did so. When he had related all the circumstances, he begged that the earth might be buried somewhere, and that the spot should be made a place of prayer where Christians might assemble for the worship of God. We made no objection; it was done as he desired. There was in that neighborhood a young countryman who was paralytic, who, when he heard of this, begged his parents to take him without delay to that holy place. When he had been brought there he prayed, and forthwith went away on his own feet perfectly cured.
“There is a country seat called Victoriana, less than thirty miles from Hippo-regius. At it there is a monument to the Milanese martyrs, Protasius and Gervasius. Thither a young man was carried, who, when he was watering his horse one summer day at noon, in a pool of a river, had been taken possession of by a devil. As he lay at the monument, near death, or even quiet like a dead person, the lady of the manor, with her maids and religious attendants, entered the place for evening prayer and praise, as her custom was, and they began to sing hymns. At this sound, the young man, as if electrified, was thoroughly aroused, and with frightful screaming seized the altar, and held it as if he did not dare or were not able to let it go, and as if he were fixed or tied to it; and the devil in him, with loud lamentation, besought that he might be spared, and confessed where and when and how he took possession of the youth. At last declaring that he would go out of him, he named one by one the parts of his body which he threatened to mutilate as he went out, and with these words he departed from the man. But his eye falling out on his cheek, hung by a slender vein as by a root, and the whole of the pupil which had been black became white. When this was witnessed by those present (others, too, had now gathered to his cries, and had all joined in prayer for him), although they were delighted that he had recovered his sanity of mind, yet, on the other hand, they were grieved about his eye, and said he should seek medical advice. But his sister’s husband, who had brought him there, said, ‘God who has banished the devil, is able to restore his eye at the prayers of his saints.’ Therewith he replaced the eye that was fallen out and hanging, and bound it in its place with his handkerchief as well as he could, and advised him not to loose the bandage for seven days. When he did so, he found it quite healthy. Others also were cured there, but of them it were tedious to speak.
“I know that a young woman of Hippo was immediately dispossessed of a devil, on anointing herself with oil, mixed with the tears of the presbyter who had been praying for her. I know also that a bishop once prayed for a demoniac young man whom he never saw, and that he was cured on the spot.”[233]
Many other similar miraculous occurrences are related by Augustine, in this same chapter, showing how fully paganism mingled with his belief. He reports also many miracles performed by the power of a shrine which was situated near Carthage. The chapter sounds more like a record of heathen prodigies than like sober Christian history.
CHAPTER XIII.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
Lights in Worship—Worshipping “toward the East”—Easter Fires—Beltane or Baal Fires—Penance—Mariolatry—The Mass—Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead—Peter’s Keys—Christmas—Easter—Lent, etc.
Sun-worship, as the dominant cult in all pagan systems, furnished more elements of corruption than any other.