Images and Relics. 31
Sempronian). And Jerome (in Jerem., cap. 2) calls those heavy sins which draw man to destruction, and opposes lighter sins thereto. So the author of the prayers in Prudentius at the end of his Hamartig. says:
"thou judging still, Of all my sins for pardon hope I will, Although my words and deeds be ne'er so ill."
6. Fourth, sin is called venial because it is excusable before men, through human good will. So an officious lie is venial. And Augustine, Enchir., cap. 11, says, "Therefore it is a sin, but venial, which benevolence excuses. And they are called venial respectively in reference to greater crimes." So Cassianus, Collat. 22, says of venial sins, "They seem light and small unto men." And Sixtus III, 1. de malis doctor. & operib. fidei: "They seem little and slender, and are esteemed light, and this is in respect of the greater."
Images and Relics 1. There was no use of images received at all in the primitive Church, but only symbolical, and for ornament sake, and that in private places for 380 years after Christ. Irenaeus objected against the Gnostics, lib. 1, c. 24, that first they had the image of Christ painted, then that they crowned it and worshipped it. Look also at Augustine, de haeres. 7, and Epiphanius, in haeres. 27. "We worship no images," says Origen, Contra Cels. Lib. 7, "for we do not bind our invisible and incorporeal God unto any figure." So also Arnobius, or rather
Minutius Faelix, contra Gens., lib. 8: "What image shall we make for God, whose true image, if we judge according to truth, is man?" And there he brings in the heathen saying of us: Why have they no altars, no temples, no known images? So also Eusebius, Histor. Eccles., lib.
7, cap. 17: "It was out of a heathenish custom that the ancients did after this sort honor those that they held to be their saviors (that is, with painted images)." "We have decreed," says the Elib. Council, chapter 36, "that there should be no pictures in the Church, lest that which we worship and reverence should be painted upon the walls."
Epiphanius, Epist. ad Joann. Hierosolym, tore a hanging in pieces in the church because there was the image of a man painted thereupon, against testimony of Scriptures. This mind of his Jerome approves, who translated the epistle into Latin. Hereupon some of the papists do reprehend Epiphanius. Castro, contra haeres., lib. 8, titul imago, accuses him of error, though he clears him of heresy. "He had zeal, but not according to knowledge," says Waldensis, de sacrament, tom.
3, cap. 157. Others do reject the latter part of this epistle as counterfeit, namely Damascene orat. de imaginilous, Alan, Cope, and Sanders, but without all proof of argument. First, they say this place is not cited in the Council of Nicea. What then? It is cited in the Council of Frankford, Carolus, lib. 4, cap. 25. Second, they say
Epiphanius did not reckon image worship among the heresies. It is false; he directly affirms, Haeres. 79, that it is the devil's invention to make pictures of men and set them up to be worshipped. And again,
Haeres. 55, speaking of the Melchisedechians, he says, "They made them an image of Moses, and worshipped it, wherein they were seduced." And among the heresies of the Carpocrations, Haeres. 27, he reckons that for one, to worship the images of Jesus, Peter, and Paul. Third, they object that of Gregory, lib. 9, Indict. 4, epist. 9, unto
Serenus, that broke down the images of the saints: "Tell me, brother, what priest you have at any time heard, or seen, do that that you have done." But I would have them show that Serenus did not allege
Epiphanius and other fathers' testimonies against images.
2. About 400 years after Christ, images began to get entrance, not only in private places, but even also in the churches of the Christians.
But the use of them was but historical, as Augustine, De consecratione Evangel., lib. 1, cap. 10; Basil, Oratione in Sanct.
Barlaam; Nissenus, Oratione Theodorium; Prudentius, Hymn. de Sanct. Cassiano; and Paulinus, epist. duodecim., do testify. For the bare and solitary images of the saints, or their single statues, were not erected until six hundred years after Christ, which Cassander, in Consult. de artic. controv., plainly and freely confesses.
3. Superstition getting head, image worship got foundation, yet never among the learned and godly. Never were images set forth for public worship until six hundred years after Christ. Gregorie, lib. 9, indict.
4, epist. 9, denies that images are to be worshipped. And Sigonius, De regno Italia lib. primo, affirms that they would carry the Virgin
Mary's image in solemn pomp, but he makes no mention of any adoration of it, even until the year five hundred ninety-one, about which time some councils approved the images that were then set up in churches, but did not teach that they were to be worshipped. And if this worship got root anywhere before this time, it was not among the teachers, but among the superstitious people. "Pope Sergius," says Regino, "in anno 622, in Saint Peter's vestry, found a great piece of wood of Christ's cross, which from that time forth all the people upon the exaltation day do kiss and adore in the Cathedral Church of Constantine." (Regino) 4. This same image worship was first established publicly in the year
788 by the Second Nicene Council. But on the contrary side, but a little before, a Council of Constantinople (wherein there were three hundred and thirty bishops, held under Copronymus) condemned both the worship of images and relics (P. Æmil., de gest.
Francorum). The same did Leo Constantine's father and Philippicus (Petr. Diac., lib. 6, cap. 12). And the Council of Frankford (wherein was present Charlemagne and the Roman legates) did condemn the
Second Nicene Council as heretical. "The Greek's false synod," says Regius, lib. 2, ad an. 794, "gathered for image worship is rejected by the pope." Yes, this Council was condemned by all the princes and bishops of Britain. "Charles, the French king," says Hoveden in continuatio., Bede ad anno 792, "sent a book of the Synod unto
Britain, directed unto him from Constantinople, wherein (alas) were many things set down quite contrary unto our true faith, but chiefly in that was decreed by the uniform consent of very near all the doctors of the east, 300 bishops or more in number, that images are to be worshipped, which the church of God wholly detests and execrates. Against which Albinus wrote an epistle wondrously confirmed by the Holy Scriptures, and in the person of our princes and bishops, carried it with the same book unto the French king."
(Hoveden) Bellarmine, de imag., lib. 2, c. 14, confesses that the Council of Frankford disallowed the Council of Nicea, "but that," says he, "happened by reason of two errors. 1. Because it thought that the Nicene Council was called without the pope's authority. 2. Because it thought this council had decreed image worship to be Latria, that is, worship due to God." Now hear how he is answered by Suarez, in 3
Thoma., quest. 25, disputa. 54: "I can hardly believe," says he, "that the Council of Frankford could proceed against the Nicene Council by error of fact, for it was gathered a little before under the same
Pope Adrian that confirmed it, whose legates were present at the Council of Frankford (as the same authors do confess). How then can it be that all the fathers of this whole council should be ignorant of the doctrine and authority of this Nicene Council, having the pope's own legate to instruct them in both?" Now Copus, in dialogis, tom. 3 concil., and also Suarez, loco praedicto, do answer that the Council of Frankford defends the honor of images, and that it reproves the Council of Constantinople.
Sometimes by the Greeks called the seventh, which was assembled for abolishing of images. So the Synod of Senona, cap. 14, says that Charles, in the Synod of Frankford, did overthrow the erroneous madness of the Iconomachi. I answer, the Council of Frankford keeps a midway, reserving some honor for images (and so must
Aemilus, de gestis Francorum, lib. 2, near the end be understood, when he says that images have their reverence reserved), and therefore condemned the Council of Constantinople, that utterly abolished them, and the Council of Nicea, that on the contrary did establish the adoration of them. "In the Council of Frankford," says
Platina, in Adrian, "both the synod which the Greeks call the seventh (that is, that of Nicea) and also the heresy of Faelix, concerning abolishing of images, was taken away."
5. The fathers generally do not defend, but rather refute this worship even after the Nicene Council. Augustine, de Morib. eccles., cap. 24, plainly reproves the worshippers of pictures and sepulchers. "Note this propriety," says Jerome, in Daniel 3, "They say their gods are worshipped, and images adored, both which servants of GOD do abhor." "Pictures," says Walfridus, Strabo de reb. eccl., cap. 8, "are not therefore to be trodden underfoot and abolished, because we know they are not to be worshipped, nor adored." And "The Sixth
Council of Constantinople forbade the picturing of the Holy Ghost under the form of a dove, or of the wise men under a star, or of Christ under the lamb." Witness Caranza, annot. ad canon. 81. Leo
Armenius commanded all images to be broken down by express edict, Zonar., annal., tom. 3. The Almaines and Armenians forbade the worship of images in their countries, Nicet., Choniat. in annal.
And the modern authors teach that the images of God are not to be made. Abulensis, in Deut. 4, quest. 5., and Durand., in 3 distinct. 9, quest. 2, say that it is a foolery to make or adore any image of the Trinity, where also he denies that the images themselves are to be
worshipped, but only the figure in the image. And, in Rational, lib. primo, cap. 3, we worship no image, neither call them gods. And Biel, in can. Miss., lect. 49, says that images are suffered in the church, not to be worshipped, but for other ends. So says Hales 3, part., quest. 30, art. ulti., and Peresini, de traditionibus. And Jonus, bishop of Aurelia, De cult. imag., lib. 1, says that image worship is pernicious and superstitious, adding, "Let not our religion consist in worshipping of human works, for they are better that make them, and yet we ought not to worship them; let not our religion be in our fantasies." And Gerson, in compendio Theolog. expositione primi praecept., says, "You shall not bow down to them, nor worship them, between which distinguish thus: you shall not adorare, that is, with bodily worship by bowing knee or body to them; you shall not volere, that is, with the affect of your mind." And a little before: "Wherefore images are forbidden to be made either to be bowed unto or worshipped."
6. The Latin translator of the Bible never observed the distinction of Imago and Idolum, as we may see in very many places of Scripture, viz. Deuteronomy 4:16, and 2 Kings 11:18, Wisd. 13 and 14, Isaiah
40:18 and 44:13, Ezekiel 7:20, imagines sinsulacr., Amos 5:23, imago idolorum, by which, says Jerome, in Isai. 37, "Speaking of idols, we mean images of the dead." So Cardinal Paleotus testifies, that "Image, picture, and idol are taken in one sense," De sacris & proph. imag., lib. 1, cap. 13. "Saint Jerome," says he, "writes that where
Idolum was put in the text, Aquila translated it Imagines, or figuras."
And we read in Cicero, "Imagines qua vocantur idola," images called idols. And in Plato idola, etc. "Idols are the images which are in the waters or glasses, painted or printed, or such like." So the Latin word
Simulachrum, they always put for the Greek word Idolam, for whereas in the Latin translation of the Psalm we read "simulachra gentium," or the images of the Gentiles, the Greek says εἰδῶλα τῶν
ἐθνῶν. And he adds, "The name of an image, if we mark the propriety of the word, signifies any impious and devilish figure." (7)
The primitive church bore a certain honor and reverence unto the relics of the dead saints, keeping and carrying them from place to place and flocking unto them, according to Jerome, contra Vigil. This honor began about 300 years after Christ, but they neither adored them nor bowed the knee unto them for 600 years. "For the fathers used to put them under the altar," Ambrose, lib. 10, epist. 85, sub fine, "but the papists now put them in glasses and gauderies, above the altar, and that to have them adored." "In elder times the relics were buried in the earth, and in secret places." "So Cyril," contra
Julian, lib. 10. Cyril the Eremite, in vita Euthymii, "removed the body of this holy man unto a church he had newly built and laid it into a holy coffin that should never after be opened." And so says
Prudentius, Peristephanon, hymn. 3 of Eulalia:
The sacred bones and dust of her that sleeps, Our mother earth in hallowed bosom keeps.
And a little after, I love to reverence these bones so blest: And that same altar under which they rest.
"And the multitude there present," says Victor, De persecut. Vanda.
1, lib. 3, "being full of joy, carried the bodies of the holy martyrs unto careful burial." So Constantine made him a bridle, and armed his helmet with the nails that Christ was fastened to the cross withal according to Ruffin., hist., lib. 1, cap. 8.
8. At the places of these relics (while the gift lasted) were sometimes miracles done, not by them, but by God, to increase in us an honor to the godliness of their owners. Not that we should adore them, for in