The limits of this essay allow me not farther to extend my researches about the legends of mediæval saints, and their miracles; and I shall try to give in my next chapter a short analysis of several practices which the Roman Catholic as well as the Græco-Russian Church have retained from Paganism.
Chapter VII. Analysis Of The Pagan Rites And Practices Which Have Been Retained By The Roman Catholic As Well As The Græco-Russian Church.
I have given (p. [14]) the opinion of an eminent Roman Catholic modern author (Chateaubriand) about the introduction of Pagan usages into the Christian worship, and a long extract (pp. [16-28]) from another no less distinguished Roman Catholic writer of our day, describing the cause of this corruption. The Roman Catholic writers of this country do not, however, treat this subject with the same sincerity as the illustrious author of the “Genie du Christianisme,” and the learned French Academician from whose work I have so largely drawn; but they try hard to deny that many usages of their church bear the stamp of Paganism.[83] This is particularly the case with the author of “Hierurgia,” a work which I have already quoted, and which may [pg 131] be considered as the fairest expression of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches on the subject in question. Thus the use of images in churches is represented as being authorised by Scripture, by the following curious arguments:—
“The practice of employing images as ornaments and memorials to decorate the temple of the Lord is in a most especial manner approved by the Word of God himself. Moses was commanded to place two cherubim upon the ark, and to set up a brazen figure of the fiery serpent, that those of the murmuring Israelites who had been bitten might recover from the poison of their wounds by looking on the image. In the description of Solomon's temple, we read of that prince, not only that he made in the oracle two cherubim of olive tree, of ten cubits in height, but that ‘all the walls of the temple round about he carved with divers figures and carvings.’
“In the first book of Paralipomenon (Chronicles) we observe that when David imposed his injunction upon Solomon to realise his intention of building a house to the Lord, he delivered to him a description of the porch and temple, and concluded by thus assuring him: ‘All these things came to me written by the hand of the Lord, that I may understand the works of the pattern.’
“The isolated fact that images were not only directed by the Almighty God to be placed in the Mosaic tabernacle, and in the more sumptuous [pg 132] temple of Jerusalem, but that he himself exhibited the pattern of them, will be alone sufficient to authorise the practice of the Catholic Church in regard to a similar observance.”—(Hierurgia, p. 371.)
All this may be briefly answered. There was no representation of the Jewish patriarchs or saints either in the tabernacle or in the temple of Solomon, as is the case with the Christian saints in the Roman Catholic and Græco-Russian Churches; and the brazen serpent, to which the author alludes, was broken into pieces by order of King Hezekiah as soon as the Israelites began to worship it.
The author tries to prove, with considerable learning and ingenuity, that the primitive Christians ornamented their churches with images, and I have already given, p. [51], his explanation of the Council of Elvira; but his assertions are completely disproved by every direct evidence which we have about the places of worship of those Christians. I have already quoted, p. [7], the testimony of Minutius Felix, that the Christians had no kind of simulachres in their temples, as well as the indignation of St Epiphanius at an attempt to introduce them into the churches, p. [68], and for which there would have been no occasion if it had been an established custom.