CENOBITES. A name formerly given to such as entered into a monastic life, and lived in communities, to distinguish them from such as passed their lives in wildernesses and alone, as hermits and anchorites. The word is derived from κοινόβιον, vitæ communis societas.
CENOTAPH. (κενοτάφιον, from κενὸς and τάφος, an empty tomb.) A memorial of a deceased person, not erected over his body. So far as churches may be considered memorials of the saints whose name they bear, they are analogous either to monuments, when the bodies of the saints there repose, (as, for instance, St. Alban’s, and the ancient church at Peransabulo,) or to cenotaphs, when, as is far more generally the case, the saint is buried far off. A great part of the monuments which disfigure Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s are cenotaphs.
CENSURES ECCLESIASTICAL. The penalties by which, for some remarkable misbehaviour, Christians are deprived of the communion of the Church, or clergymen are prohibited to execute the sacerdotal office. These censures are, excommunication, suspension, and interdict; or else, irregularity, which hinders a man from being admitted into holy orders.
The canonists define an ecclesiastical censure to be a spiritual punishment, inflicted by some ecclesiastical judge, whereby he deprives a person baptized of the use of some spiritual things, which conduce, not only to his present welfare in the Church, but likewise to his future and eternal salvation. It differs from civil punishments, which consist only in things temporal; as confiscation of goods, pecuniary mulcts or fines, and the like; but the Church, by its censures, does not deprive a man of all spirituals, but only of some in particular. This definition speaks of such things as conduce to eternal salvation, in order to manifest the end of this censure; for the Church, by censures, does not intend the destroying of men’s souls, but only the saving them; by enjoining repentance for past errors, a return from contumacy, and an abstaining from future sins.
CENTURIES, MAGDEBURG. A celebrated and extraordinary ecclesiastical history, projected by Flacius Illyricus, and prosecuted by him, in conjunction with several others, many of them divines of Magdeburg. Their names were, Nicolaus Gallus, Johannes Wigandus, and Matthias Judex, all ministers of Magdeburg, assisted by Caspar Nidpruckius, an Imperial Counsellor, Johannes Baptista Heincelius, an Augustinian, Basil Faber, and others. The centuriators thus describe the process employed in the composition of their work. Five directors were appointed to manage the whole design; and ten paid agents supplied the necessary labour. Seven of these were well-informed students, who were employed in making collections from the various pieces set before them. Two others, more advanced in years, and of greater learning and judgment, arranged the matter thus collected, submitted it to the directors, and, if it were approved, employed it in the composition of the work. As fast as the various chapters were composed, they were laid before certain inspectors, selected from the directors, who carefully examined what had been done, and made the necessary alterations; and, finally, a regular amanuensis made a fair copy of the whole.
At length, in the year 1560, (though probably printed in 1559,) appeared the first volume of their laborious undertaking. It was printed at Basle. But the city in which the first part of it was composed has given it a distinctive title; and the first great Protestant work on Church history has been always commonly known as the Magdeburg Centuries.
It was in every point of view an extraordinary production. Though the first modern attempt to illustrate the history of the Church, it was written upon a scale which has scarcely been exceeded. It brought to light a large quantity of unpublished materials; and cast the whole subject into a fixed and regular form. One of its most remarkable features is the elaborate classification. This was strictly original, and, with all its inconveniences, undoubtedly tended to introduce scientific arrangement and minute accuracy into the study of Church history. Each century is treated separately, in sixteen heads or chapters. The first of these gives a general view of the history of the century; then follow, 2. The extent and propagation of the Church. 3. Persecution and tranquillity of the Church. 4. Doctrine. 5. Heresies. 6. Rites and Ceremonies. 7. Government. 8. Schisms. 9. Councils. 10. Lives of Bishops and Doctors. 11. Heretics. 12. Martyrs. 13. Miracles. 14. Condition of the Jews. 15. Other religions not Christian. 16. Political condition of the world.
Mr. Dowling (from whose excellent work on the study of Ecclesiastical History this article is taken) adds, that this peculiarity of form rendered the work of the centuriators rather a collection of separate treatises, than a compact and connected history; while, their object being to support a certain form of polemical theology, their relations are often twisted to suit their particular views.
CERDONIANS. Heretics of the second century, followers of Cerdon. The heresy consisted chiefly in laying down the existence of two contrary principles; in rejecting the law, and the prophets as ministers of a bad God; in ascribing, not a true body, but only the phantasm of a body, to our blessed Lord, and in denying the resurrection.—Tertullian. Epiphanius.
CEREMONY. This word is of Latin origin, though some of the best critics in antiquity are divided in their opinions, in assigning from what original it is derived. Joseph Scaliger proves by analogy, that as sanctimonia comes from sanctus, so does ceremonia from the old Latin word cerus, which signifies sacred or holy. The Christian writers have adapted the word to signify external rites and customs in the worship of God; which, though they are not of the essence of religion, yet contribute much to good order and uniformity in the church. If there were no ornaments in the church, and no prescribed order of administration, the common people would hardly be persuaded to show more reverence in the sacred assemblies than in other ordinary places, where they meet only for business or diversion. Upon this account St. Augustine says, “No religion, either true or false, can subsist without some ceremonies.” Notwithstanding this, some persons have laid it down, as a fundamental principle of religion, that no ceremony, or human constitution, is justifiable, but what is expressly warranted in the word of God. This dogma Mr. Cartwright has reduced into a syllogistical demonstration. “Wheresoever faith is wanting, there is sin. In every action not commanded, faith is wanting; ergo, in every action not commanded, there is sin.” But the falsity of this syllogism is shown at large by Hooker, in his second book of Ecclesiastical Polity, by arguments drawn from the indifference of many human actions—from the natural liberty God has afforded us—from the examples of holy men in Scripture, who have differently used this liberty—and from the power which the Church by Divine authority is vested with. That apostolical injunction, “Let all things be done with decency, and in order,” (1 Cor. xiv. 40,) is a much better demonstration, that the Church has a power to enjoin proper ceremonies, for the good order and comeliness of ecclesiastical conventions, than Mr. Cartwright’s syllogism is for the people’s contempt of them when enjoined.—Nicholls.