Churches for Prayer 37
that efficacy ex opere operato, by the bare making of it, seeing it had all the power from invocation.
6. Those crosses that were used in the church for the first 400 years had no image at all of Christ crucified upon them. This assertion cannot be confuted by any approved testimony of antiquity. And it seems that this image of the crucifix did first grow in use publicly in or about the year of grace 710, as it appears in the council held in Trullo. "To the end that that which is perfected," says this synod
(Canon. 82), "may be represented unto public view, even in lively colors, we command that instead of the old lamb, the figure of that Lamb that takes away the sins of the world, Christ our God in the likeness of a man, be set up and erected in images from this time forward."
Churches for Prayer 1. The fathers acknowledge churches as houses of prayer but bind us not to come to the church always when we pray.
2. And they name their churches after their martyrs' names for distinction's sake only, appointing the worship unto God and not unto them. "We honor them," says Augustine (de vera religione, cap.
55), "out of charity, not out of duty or bond, neither build we any churches unto them." And Contra Maximinum Arrian (lib. primo, titulo undecimo): "Should we not be cursed and cast out from Christ's truth and His church if we should build any temple of timber and stones unto any angel, although most excellent, because we should give that honor to a creature, which is due only unto the Creator? If therefore we should commit sacrilege in building a temple unto any creature, how is not He the true God, unto whom we build no temple, but are ourselves the temple unto Him?" And here,