From the extensive use of flagellations that took place among the antient Heathens, the Abbé Boileau ten or twelve times draws the conclusion in different parts of his Book, that the first Christians held that mode of punishment in detestation, and never adopted it for themselves. However, the other Catholic Divines are very far from admitting this conclusion, nor by any means grant that, because certain practices were adopted by the antient Heathens, it follows that the first Christians abstained from them. They, on the contrary, say that the Abbé himself ought to know, that Christians have imitated several ceremonies of the Pagans, which they have sanctified by the intentions with which they perform them; and on this subject they quote Polydore Vergil, who remarks, that the custom adopted by Prelates, of giving the outside of their hand to be kissed, when they officiate in their Pontifical dresses, the custom of making prayers for the dead on the seventh day after their burial, the offering of pictures to those Saints by whose assistance dangers have been escaped, &c. &c. are practices derived from the Heathens.
They moreover add, that even the Temples of the Pagans have been converted by Christians, to their own use; and on this occasion they alledge, among other instances, that of Pope Gregory the Great, who wrote to St. Augustin, Apostle of England (or rather to Melitus, with an injunction to inform the Apostle) that he must not demolish the temples of the idols in the above kingdom, but that he ought to preserve those which are well built (benè constructa), and after purifying them with holy water, and by placing relicks, appropriate them to the use of the Church.
CHAP. VII.
Containing the most ingenious arguments of the Abbé Boileau. The practice of scourging one’s-self was unknown to the first Fathers of the Church; and also to the first Anchorites, or Hermits.
FLAGELLATIONS of different kinds being universally practised among the Heathens, this circumstance must needs have given but little encouragement to the first Christians, to imitate such mode of correction; and we may take it for granted that they had not adopted it. Indeed, we find that no mention is made of it in the writings of the first, either Greek or Latin Fathers; for instance, in the Epistles of St. Ignatius, the Apologies of Justinius, the Apostolic Canons, the Constitutions attributed to Clement the Roman, the works of Origen, the Stromats of Clement of Alexandria, and all the works in general of Eusebius of Cæsarea, of St. Chrysostom, of St. Basil, and of St. Basil of Seleucia. In all the above Authors, no mention, I say, is made of flagellations; at least, of those of a voluntary kind; unless we are absolutely to explain in a literal manner passages in which they manifestly spoke in a figurative sense: we may therefore safely conclude, that the first Christians had no notion of those cruel exercises which prevail in our days, and that to flay one’s hide with scourges or rods, as is in these times the practice of numberless Devotees, in or out of religious Orders, were practices unknown among them.
So far, indeed, were the first Christians from approving the practice of self-flagellations, that they seem on the contrary to have entertained a notion, that their very quality of Christians freed them from any kind of flagellation whatever, as we may learn from the inscription in Latin verses that had been placed by them upon the column to which Jesus Christ was fastened when he was whipped: the following is the translation of that inscription: ‘In this House our Lord stood bound; and, being fastened to this column, like a slave, offered his back to the whip. This venerable column is still standing, continuing to support the fabric of the Temple, and teaches us to live exempt from every kind of flagellation.’
“Vinctus in his Dominus stetit ædibus, atque Columnæ
Annexus, tergum dedit ut servile flagellis.