treatise on the Mortality',) most beloved brethren, and frequently reflect that we have renounced the world, and are meanwhile living here as strangers and pilgrims. Let us embrace the day which assigns each to his own home... which restores us to paradise and the kingdom of heaven, snatched from hence and liberated from the entanglements of the world. What man, when he is in a foreign country, would not hasten to return to his native land? ... We regard paradise as our country... We have begun already to have the patriarchs for our parents. Why do we not hasten and run that we may see our country, and salute our parents? There a large number of dear ones are waiting for us, of parents, brothers, children; a numerous and full crowd are longing for us; already secure of their own immortality, and still anxious for our safety. To come to the sight and the embrace of these, how great will be the mutual joy to them and to us! What a pleasure of the kingdom of heaven is there without the fear of dying, and with an eternity of living! How consummate and never-ending a happiness! There is the glorious company of the apostles; there is the assembly of exulting prophets; there is the unnumbered family of martyrs crowned for the victory of their struggles and suffering; there are virgins triumphing, who, by the power of chastity, have subdued the lusts of the flesh and the body; there are the merciful recompensed, who with food and bounty to the poor have done the works of righteousness, who keeping the Lord's commands have transferred their earthly inheritance into heavenly treasures. To these, O most dearly beloved brethren, let us hasten with most eager long

ing; let us desire that our lot may be to be with these speedily; to come speedily to Christ. Let God see this to be our thought; let our Lord Christ behold this to be the purpose of our mind and faith, who will give more abundant rewards of his glory to them, whose desires for himself have been the greater."

Such is the evidence of St. Cyprian.

SECTION VIII.

LACTANTIUS'.

Cyprian suffered martyrdom about the year 260. Towards the close of this century, and at the beginning of the fourth, flourished Lactantius. He was deeply imbued with classical learning and philosophy. Before he became a writer (as Jerome' informs us) he taught rhetoric at Nicomedia; and afterwards in extreme old age he was the tutor of Cæsar Crispus, son of Constantine, in Gaul. Among many other writings which Jerome enumerates, he specifies the book, "On the Anger of God," as a most beautiful work. Bellarmin, however, speaks of him disparagingly, as one who had fallen into many errors, and was better versed in Cicero than in the Holy Scriptures. His testimony is allowed by the supporters of the adoration of spirits and angels to be decidedly against them; they do not refer to a single passage likely to aid their cause; and they are chiefly anxious to depreciate his evidence. I will call your attention only to two passages in his works. The

1

Ed. Lenglet Dufresnoy, 1748.

2

Jerom, vol. iv. part ii. p. 119. Paris, 1706.

one is in his first book on False Religion': "God hath created ministers, whom we call messengers (angels); ... but neither are these gods, nor do they wish to be called gods, nor to be worshipped, as being those who do nothing beyond the command and will of God."

The other passage is from his work on a Happy Life2: "Nor let any one think that souls are judged immediately after death. For all are kept in one common place of guard, until the time come when the great Judge will institute an inquiry into their deserts. Then those whose righteousness shall be approved, will receive the reward of immortality; and those whose sins and crimes are laid open shall not rise again, but shall be hidden in the same darkness with the wickedappointed to fixed punishments."

This composition is generally believed to have been written about the year 317.

SECTION IX.

EUSEBIUS3.

The evidence of Eusebius, on any subject connected with primitive faith and practice, cannot be looked to without feelings of deep interest. He flourished about the beginning of the fourth century, and was Bishop of Cæsarea, in Palestine. His testimony has always been appealed to in the Catholic Church, as an authority not likely to be gainsaid. He was a voluminous writer, and his writings were very diversified in their character.

1 Vol.

i.

p.
31.

2 Chap. xxi. p. 574.

3 Cambridge, 1720, and Paris, 1628.

Whatever be our previous sentiments we cannot too carefully examine the remains of this learned man. But in his writings, historical, biographical, controversial, or by whatever name they may be called, overflowing as they are with learning, philosophical and scriptural, I can find no one single passage which coun- · tenances the decrees of the Council of Trent; not one passage which would encourage me to hope that I prayed as the primitive Church was wont to pray, if by invocation I requested an angel or a saint to procure me any favour, or to pray for me. The testimony of Eusebius has a directly contrary tendency.

Among the authorities quoted by the champions of the invocation of saints, I can find only three from Eusebius; and I sincerely lament the observations which truth and justice require me to make here, in consequence of the manner in which his evidence has been cited. The first passage to which I refer is quoted by Bellarmin from the history of Eusebius', to prove that the spirit of a holy one goes direct from earth to heaven. This passage is not from the pen of Eusebius; and if it were, it would not bear on our inquiry. The second is quoted by the same author, from the Evangelica Præparatio2, to prove that the primitive Christians offered prayers to the saints. Neither is this from the pen of Eusebius. The third Extract, from the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, is intended to prove that the martyrs were worshipped. Even this, one of the most beautiful passages in ancient history, as it is represented by Bellarmin and others, is interpolated.

The first passage, which follows a description of the

Ed. Par. 1628. vol. i. book xiii. ch. 11. p. 663.

martyr Potamiana's sufferings, is thus quoted by Bellarmin': “In this manner the blessed virgin, Potamiæna, emigrated from earth to heaven." And such, doubtless, is the passage in the translation of Eusebius, ascribed to Ruffinus 2; but the original is, "And such a struggle was thus accomplished by this celebrated virgin 3;" and such is the Parisian translation of 1581.

The second misquotation is far more serious. Bellarmin thus quotes Eusebius: "These things we do daily, who honouring the soldiers of true religion as the friends of God, approach to their respective monuments, and make OUR PRAYERS TO THEM, as holy men, by whose intercession to God, we profess to be not a little aided."

By one who has not by experience become familiar with these things it would scarcely be believed, that whilst the readers of Bellarmin have been taught to regard these as the words of Eusebius, in the original there is no mention whatever made of the intercession of the saints; that there is no allusion to prayer to them; that there is no admission even of any benefit derived from them at all. This quotation Bellarmin makes from the Latin version, published in Paris in 1581, or from some common source: it is word for word the same. We must either allow him to be ignorant of the truth, or to have designedly preferred error.

1 Hoc modo beata Virgo emigravit e terris ad cœlum. Vol. ii. p. 854.

3 καὶ ὁ μὲν τῆς ἀοιδίμου κόρης τοιοῦτος κατηγώνιστο ἆθλος.—Tale certamen ab hac percelebri et gloriosa virgine confectum fuit.

4 Hæc nos, inquit, quotidie factitamus qui veræ pietatis milites ut Dei amicos honorantes, ad monumenta quoque eorum accedimus, votaque ipsis facimus tanquam viris sanctis quorum intercessione ad Deum non parum juvari profitemur.-p. 902. He quotes it as c. 7.