THE WORSHir OF IMAGES, 435
and superstition. You tell us somewhere in your " Fiat," that the primitive Christians had the picture or half-portraiture of Christ upon their altars. I suppose you did not invent it yourself I wish you had told us of the legend that suggested it unto you; for you seem, in point of story, to be conversant in such learned authors as few can trace you in. If you please to have a little patience, I shall mind you of some that give us another account of things in those days.
(1.) Some there are of the first Christians who give us an account of the whole worship of God, with the manner and form of it which was observed in their assemblies in their days. So doth Justin Martyr in his Apologies, Tertullian in his, Origen against Celsus, with some others. Now, in none of these is there any one word con- cerning images, their use, or their worship in the service of God, although they descend to describe very minute particulars and cir- cumstances of their way and proceeding.
(2.) Some there are who give an account of the persecutions of several churches, with the outrages of the Pagans against their as- semblies, the Scriptures, all the ordinances and worship (as do those golden fragments of the first and best antiquity, the epistles of the churches of Vienne and Lyons to the parishes of Asia ; of the church of Smyrna about the martyrdom of PolycarjDus, preserved and re- corded by Eusebius), and yet make no mention of unj figures, pic- tures, or images of Christ, the blessed Virgin, or his apostles, or of any rage of their adversaries against them, or of any spite done unto them ; which they would not have omitted had there been any such in use amongst them.
(3.) There are, besides these, some unquestionable remnants of the conceptions that the wisest and soberest of the heathen had concern- ing the Christians and their worship, — as in the epistles of Pliny about their assemblies, and the rescript of Trajan, as also in Lucian's Philo- patris,^ — in none of which is any intimation of the Nicene images or their adoration. It may be you will undervalue this consideration, because built upon testimony negatively, when it doth not follow that because such and such mentioned them not, therefore they were not then in use or being ; but, sir, an argument taken from the absolute silence of all approved authors, concerning any thing of im- portance supposed to be or happen in their days, and who would have had just occasion to make mention of it had any such thing then been " in rerum natura," is as great an evidence, and of as full a certainty, as the monuments of times are capable of Is it possible for any rational man to conceive, that if there had been such a use and veneration of images in the primitive churches as is now in the Roman, or that the reception and veneration of them was made the ' See note, vol. viii. p. G41.
43G A VINDICATIOX OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
"tessera" of cliurcli communion, as it is by the Nicene conventicle, that all the first writers of Christianity, treating expressly and pur- posely of the assemblies of the Christians, and the worship of God in them, with the mamier and circumstances thereof, would have been utterly silent of them? or that those who set down and committed to record all the particularities of the Pagans' rage in scattering their assemblies, would not drop one word of any indignity showed to any of their sacred images, when they pass not by their wrath against their houses, goods, and cattle ? Such things are fond to imagine.
(4.) Many of the ancients do note it as an abomination in some of the first heretics, that they had introduced the use of images into their worship, with the adoration of them. Theodoret. Hseret. sub. lib. i., tells us that Simon Magus gave his own image and that of Selene to be worshipped by his followers. And Irenseus, lib. i. cap. 23, that the followers of Basilides used images and invocations : and cap. 24, that the Gnostics had images, both painted ones and carved, and that of Christ, which they said was made originally by Pontius Pilate; and this they adored. And so doth Epiphanius also, tom. ii. lib. 1, Hser. 27. Carpocrates procured the images of Christ and Paul to be made, and adored them ; and the like is recorded of others. Now, do you think they would have observed and reproved this practice as an abomination in the heretics, if there had been any thing in the church's usage that might give countenance thereunto ? or, at least, that they would not have distinguished between that abuse of images which they condemned in the heretics and that use which was retained and approved among themselves ? But they are utterly silent as unto any such matter, contenting themselves to re- port and reprove the superstition and idolatry of the heretics in their adoration of them. But this is not all.
(5.) They positively deny that they had any images, or made any use of them, and defend themselves against the charge of the Pagans against them for professing an imageless religion. Clemens Alexand., Strom, lib. vi., plainly and openly confesseth and testifieth that Christians had no images in the world ; and in his Adhortat. ad Gent, he positively asserts that the arts of painting and carving, as to any religious use, were forbidden to Christians; and that in the worship of God they had no sensible image made of any sensible matter, be- cause they worshipped God with the understanding. What was the judgment of Tertullian is known from his book, De Idololatria; from whence if we should transcribe what is argumentative against image- worship, very little would be remaining. But of all the ancients Origen doth most clearly manifest what was the doctrine and prac- tice of the church of God in his days; as in other places, so in his seventh book against Cclsus he directly handles this matter. Celsus