Minstrels playing tunes to the Virgin and child as though the idols were conscious.

Popery, there was a famous image of the Virgin at Walsingham, in the county of Norfolk, which was visited by thousands of devotees, from the most distant parts of the island, notwithstanding they had similar idols in their own neighborhoods, and perhaps in their own dwellings, occupying the same place as the penates, or household gods of the ancient pagans of Greece and Rome. In Italy, where Popery is seen without disguise, each of these images is, by the common people, regarded as a distinct object of worship, and it is a very common sight to see a company of the Calabrese minstrels performing their national devotional airs before them, especially about the time of Christmas, and pleasing themselves with the idea that the tunes are the same that were played by the shepherds at the incarnation of the Saviour, on the plains of Bethlehem.

66

A recent traveller in Italy relates a fact which shows that images are looked upon as real objects of worship, and treated as though they were really conscious of the idolatrous honors paid to them, notwithstanding, in the expressive language of Scripture, "they have eyes but they see not, they have ears but they hear not. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them." (Psalm cxv., 5, &c.) In Rome, according to this traveller," it is a popular opinion that the Virgin Mary is very fond and an excellent judge of music. I received this information," says he, on a Christmas morning, when I was looking at two poor Calabrian pipers doing their utmost to please her and the infant in her arms. They played for a full hour to one of her images which stands at the corner of a street. All the other statues of the Virgin which are placed in the streets are serenaded in the same manner every Christmas morning. On my inquiring into the meaning of that ceremony, I was told the above-mentioned circumstance of her character. My informer was a pilgrim, who stood listening with great devotion to the pipers. He told me at the same time, that the Virgin's taste was too refined to have much satisfaction in the performance of these poor Calabrians, which was chiefly intended for the infant; and he desired me to remark, that the tunes were plain and simple, and such as might naturally be supposed agreeable to the ear of a child of his time of life." The accompanying engraving is a beautiful representation of such a scene as is described in the foregoing interesting extract from the work of Dr. Moore. (See Engraving.)

§19.-Though many centuries elapsed before an idolatry so gross as this was practised, even in apostate Rome, yet as early as the fifth century, many circumstances were tending toward this idolatrous reverence of the Virgin Mary. In the fifth century, a controversy arose relative to the title which it was proper to apply to her, which in its result tended, probably, more than anything else, to increase the superstitious veneration with which she had long been regarded. The occasion of this controversy was furnished by the

* Dr. Moore, in his View of Society and Manners in Italy.

Nestorian controversy on the title "mother of God."

Feasts in honor of the Virgin.

presbyter Anastasius, a friend of Nestorius. This presbyter, in a public discourse, delivered, A. D. 428, declaimed warmly against the title of coToxos, or mother of God, which was now frequently attributed to the Virgin Mary. He at the same time gave it as his opinion that she should rather be called XpoToToxos, i. e., mother of Christ, since the Deity can neither be born nor die, and of consequence the son of man alone could derive his birth from an earthly parent. Nestorius applauded these sentiments, and explained and defended them in several discourses.

The result of the Nestorian controversy, as it was called, was that at the third general council, which was held at Ephesus, in 431, and at which Cyril, the powerful and imperious antagonist of Nestorius, presided, the doctrine was condemned, and its defender branded as another Judas, deposed from his episcopal dignity, and sent into exile, where he finished his days in the deserts of Thebais in Egypt.* This dispute, as is truly remarked by Gieseler, first led men to set the Virgin Mary above all other saints as "the mother of God." To those who reflect upon the natural tendency of an exciting controversy to drive men to extremes, it will not be matter of wonder that henceforward much more was said and done in honor of the "blessed Virgin," "mother of God," and "ever a Virgin," than at any previous period. Among the images with which the magnificent churches began now to be adorned, that of the Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus in her arms, in consequence of the Nestorian controversy, obtained the first and principal place.

§ 20.-In the following century, two festivals were established in her honor, the festum purificationis, or festival of the "purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary," on the second of February (Candlemas day), and the festum annunciationis, the festival of the annunciation on the twenty-fifth day of March, which has been popularly called Lady Day. Mosheim says, with appearance of reason, that the former festival was established with a design "to remedy the uneasiness of heathen converts, on account of the loss of their lupercalia, or feasts of the god Pan, which had formerly been observed in the

* An amusing anecdote is related concerning the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, who lived more than three hundred years after Nestorius, which well illustrates the unreasonable importance which was attached for ages to these vain disputes about mere words. It must be remembered that in this dispute both sides were strictly orthodox in the modern sense of the word. Both sides admitted that Jesus Christ is God as well as man; that his human nature was born of the Virgin, and that his divine nature existed from eternity; both sides admitted the distinction between the two natures, and their union in the person of Christ. Where then lay the difference? It could be nowhere but in phraseology. Yet this notable question raised a conflagration in the church, and proved, in the East, the source of infinite mischief, hatred, violence, and persecution. The Emperor happened one day to ask the patriarch of Constantinople, "What harm would there be in calling the Virgin Mary the mother of Christ?" "God preserve your majesty," answered the patriarch hastily, with great emotion, "from entertaining such a thought! Do you not see how Nestorius is anathematized for this by the whole church?" "I only asked for my own information," replied the Emperor, evidently with some alarm, "but let it go no farther."

† Bingham's Antiquities, vol. ix., page 170.

Egypt the birth-place of Monkery, whether heathen or Christian.

month of February."* The latter served equally well as a substitute for the festival of the ancient heathen goddess, Cybele, to whom the 25th of February, or Lady Day, was formerly dedicated. There is indeed a strong resemblance, in many points, between the pagan worship of Cybele, and the popish worship of the Virgin. The same appellation of "queen of heaven," which is frequently applied by papists to Mary, was generally applied by the ancient Romans to Cybele.

CHAPTER IV.

ORIGIN OF ROMISH ERRORS CONTINUED MONKERY.

§ 21.-MONKERY, like most of the characteristic marks of Antichrist, bears the most indubitable evidences of its heathen origin. Egypt, the rank soil in which it sprang up, had long been the fruitful parent of a race of gloomy and misanthropic eremites. It was in that country that this morose discipline had its rise; and it is observable, that Egypt has, in all times, as it were by an immutable law, or disposition of nature, abounded with persons of a melancholy complexion, and produced, in proportion to its extent, more gloomy spirits than any other part of the world. It was here that the Essenes and the Therapeutæ, those dismal and gloomy sects, dwelt principally, long before the coming of Christ; as also many others of the Ascetic tribe, who, led by a certain melancholy turn of mind, and a delusive notion of rendering themselves more acceptable to the Deity by their austerities, withdrew themselves from human society, and from all the innocent pleasures and comforts of life. Strabo, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Porphyry, as well as several of the fathers, especially Clement of Alexandria, and Augustine, have handed down incidental notices of the philosophy and manners of the Indian and Egyptian gymnosophists, such as are amply sufficient for the purpose of identifying the ancient, and the more recent-the Buddhist, and the Christian ascetic institute. These professors of a divine philosophy, like their Christian imitators, went nearly naked; they occupied caverns or chinks in the rocks; they abstained entirely from animal food; they professed inviolable virginity; they practised penance; they passed the greater part of their time in mute meditation; they imposed silence and absolute submission upon their disciples; they professed the doctrine, that the perfection of human nature consists in an annihi

* See Mosheim, cent. vi., part 2, chapter iv.

Resemblance between the pagan and Christian gymnosophists. Paul the hermit, Anthony, Hilarion

lation of the passions, and every affection which nature has implanted, whether in the animal or the mental constitution: abnegation was, with them, the one point of wisdom and virtue, and a reabsorption of the human soul into the abyss of the divine mind, was the happy end of the present system, to the pure and wise.

§ 22.-Now, one might reasonably have supposed and expected, that a system of doctrine and practice such as this, if it were to come at all under the powerful influence of Christianity, must have admitted some extensive modifications; but it was not so in fact :— a few phrases and another dialect, or slang, adopted, make almost all the difference which serves to distinguish the ancient gymnosophist from the Christian anchoret. The more rigid and heroic of the Christian anchorets dispensed with all clothing except a rug, or a few palm-leaves round the loins. Most of them abstained from the use of water for ablution; nor did they usually wash or change the garments they had once put on; thus St. Anthony bequeathed to Athanasius a skin in which his sacred person had been wrapped for half a century. They also allowed their beards and nails to grow, and sometimes became so hirsute, as to be actually mistaken for hyænas or bears. It need not be said that celibacy was the first law of this institute, and that an abstinence the most rigid was its second law.

At what time precisely, the wilderness exchanged its pagan for a Christian tenantry, it is not easy to ascertain. In some instances, no doubt, the very individuals who had begun their course as heathen gymnosophists, ended it as Christian anchorets. But oftener, probably, the deserted cell or cavern of the savage philosopher was taken possession of by one who, having, in the neighboring cities, received the knowledge of the gospel, betook himself to the angelic life in consequence of persecutions, or of disappointments in love or in business.*

§ 23. The most remarkable early instances of this gloomy fanaticism on record are those of Paul the hermit, who, during the persecution under Decius, about A. D. 250, betook himself to the solitary deserts of Egypt, where, for a space of more than ninety years, he lived a life more worthy of a savage animal than a human being. Anthony, an Egyptian, regarded as the founder of the monastic institution (because he first formed monks into organized bodies), who fixed his abode in the deserts of Egypt twenty or thirty years later than Paul, and died in the year 356, at the age of 105; and Hilarion, a Syrian youth, who took up his abode on a sandy beach, between the sea and a morass, about eight miles from Gaza, in Palestine, where he persisted in a course of the most austere penance for about forty-eight years.

Influenced by these eminent examples, immense multitudes betook themselves to the desert, and innumerable monasteries were

*See Taylor's Ancient Christianity, page 426, &c., with references to ancient authorities.