saith he, "a certain religious man returning from Jerusalem, being entertained for a while in Sicily by the courtesy of a certain anchorite, learned from him, among other matters, that there were places near unto them that used to cast up burning flames, which by the inhabitants were called the Pots of Vulcan, wherein the souls of the reprobate, according to the quality of their deserts, did suffer diverse punishments; the devils being there deputed for the execution thereof: whose voices, angers and terrors, and sometimes howlings also, he said he often heard; as lamenting that the souls of the damned were taken out of their hands by the alms and prayers of the faithful; and more at this time by the prayers of the monks of Cluny, who prayed without ceasing for the rest of those that were deceased. The abbot Odilo, having understood this by him, appointed throughout all the monasteries under his subjection, that, as upon the first day of November the solemnity of all the saints is observed, so upon the day following, the memorial of all that rested in Christ should be celebrated. Which rite, passing into many other Churches, made the memory of the faithful deceased to be solemnized."

For the elect, this form of prayer was wont to be used in the Roman Church: " Of God, unto whom alone is known the number of the elect that are to be placed in

illa vicinia essent loca eructantia flammarum incendia, quæ loca vocantur ab incolis Olla Vulcani, in quibus animæ reproborum luant diversa pro meritorum qualitate supplicia; ad ea exequenda deputatis ibi dæmonibus: quorum se crebro voces, iras, et terrores, sæpe etiam ejulatus audisse dicebat, plangentium quod animæ damnatorum eriperentur de manibus eorum per eleemosynas et preces fidelium; et hoc tempore magis per orationes Cluniacensium, orantium indefesse pro defunctorum requie. Hoc per ipsum abbas Odilo comperto, constituit per omnia monasteria sibi subjecta, ut, sicut primo die Novembris solemnitas omnium sanctorum agitur, ita sequenti die memoria omnium in Christo quiescentium celebretur. Qui ritus, ad multas Ecclesias transiens, fidelium defunctorum memoriam solemnizari fecit. Sigebert. chron. ann. 998.

Deus, cui soli cognitus est numerus electorum in superna felicitate locandorum, tribue, quæsumus, ut universorum, quos in oratione commendatos suscepimus, vel omnium fidelium nomina, beatæ prædestinationis liber asscripta retineat. Gregor. oper. tom. 5. col. 226. Alcuin. lib. sacramentor. cap. 18. oper. col. 1190. missal. Roman. edit. Paris. ann. 1529. inter orationes communes.

the supernal bliss; grant, we beseech thee, that the book of blessed predestination may retain the names of all those whom we have undertaken to recommend in our prayer, or of all the faithful that are written therein." And to pray, that the names of all those that are written in the book of God's election, should still be retained therein, may be somewhat tolerable; considering, as the divines of that side have informed us, that those things may be prayed for, which we know most certainly will come to pass. But hardly, I think, shall you find in any ritual a form of prayer answerable to this of the monks of Cluny for the reprobate: unless it be that whereby St. Francis is said to have obtained, that friar Elias should be made ex præscito prædestinatus, an elect of a reprobate. Yet it seemeth that some were not very well pleased, that what was done so seldom by St. Francis, the angel of the friars, and that for a reprobate yet living, should be so usually practised by the followers of St. Odilo the archangel of the monks, for reprobates that were dead; and therefore, in the common editions of Sigebert's chronicle, they have clean struck out the word damnatorum, and instead of reproborum chopt in defunctorum; which depravation may be detected, as well by the sincere edition of Sigebert, published by Aubertus Miræus out of the manuscript of Gemblac abbay, which is thought to be the original copy of Sigebert himself, as by the comparing of him with Petrus Damiani in the life of Odilo, whence this whole narration was by him borrowed. For there also do we read, that in those flaming places "the souls of the reprobate, ac

Raphael Volaterran. commentar. Urban. lib. 21.

h So Alanus de rupe would fain persuade fools, quod reprobi et præsciti per devotionem rosarii vitam æternam assequantur: that very reprobates by the devout use of the rosary might obtain everlasting life. But the friars of his own order were so much ashamed thereof, that in the revival of his work of the rosary, set out by Coppenstein, and printed at Mentz, anno 1624. they have quite cut it off and extinguished it.

i Bonaventur. in prologo vitæ Francisci. Bernardin. de Busto, rosar. tom. 2. serm. 27. part. 2.

Fulbert. Carnotens. epist. 66.

In quibus etiam locis animæ reproborum diversa luunt pro meritorum qualitate tormenta. Petr. Damian. in vit. Odil. tomo 1. Surii, Januar. 1.

cording to the quality of their deserts, did suffer divers torments:" and that the devils did complain, "that" by the alms and prayers of Odilo and others, the souls of the damned were taken out of their hands."

By these things we may see what we are to judge of that which our adversaries press so much against us out of Epiphanius: that he "nameth" an obscure fellow, one Aerius, to be the first author of this heresy, that prayers and sacrifice profiteth not the departed in Christ." For neither doth Epiphanius name this to be an heresy; neither doth it appear that himself did hold, that prayers and oblations bring such profit to the dead as these men dream they do. He is much deceived, who thinketh every thing that Epiphanius findeth fault withal in heretics is esteemed by him to be an heresy, seeing heresy cannot be but in matters of faith; and the course which Epiphanius taketh in that work is not only to declare, in what special points of faith heretics did dissent from the Catholic doctrine; but in what particular observances also they refused to follow the received customs and ordinances of the Church. Therefore at the end of the whole work he setteth down a brief, first of the faith, and then of the ordinances and observances of the Church; and among the particulars of the latter kind he rehearseth this: "For the dead, they make commemorations by name, performing (or, when they do perform) their prayers, and divine service, and dispensation of the mysteries ;" and disputing against Aerius touching the point itself, he doth

m Quod orationibus et eleemosynis quorundam, adversus eos infœderabiliter concertantium, frequenter ex eorum manibus eriperentur animæ damnatorum. Inter cætera de Cluniacensium cœtu permaximam et eorum abbate querimoniam faciunt, quia quam sæpe per eos sui juris vernaculos perdunt. Ibid.

" Allen, of purgatory and prayer for the dead, book 2. chap. 14.

• Καὶ ἃ μὲν περὶ πίστεως ἔχει αὕτη ἡ μόνη καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία, &c. συντόμως ἔφημεν. περί τε πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ καὶ ἁγίου πνεύματος ὁμοουσιότητος, καὶ περὶ τῆς ἐνσάρκου χριστοῦ καὶ τελείας παρουσίας, καὶ ἄλλων μερῶν τῆς πίστεως. Περὶ θεσμῶν δὲ τῆς αὐτῆς ἐν ὀλίγῳ μέν μοι ἐστὶ πάλιν ἀνάγκη τοῦ παραθέσθαι τῶν αὐτῶν θεσμῶν ἀπὸ μέρους τὸ εἶδος. Epiphan. in fine Panarii, Op. tom. 1. pag. 1103.

- Επὶ δὲ τῶν τελευτησάντων, ἐξ ὀνόματος τὰς μνήμας ποιοῦνται, προσευχὰς τελοῦντες καὶ λατρείας καὶ οἰκονομίας. Ibid. pag. 1106.

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not at all charge him with forsaking the doctrine of the Scriptures, or the faith of the Catholic Church concerning the state of those that are departed out of this life; but with rejecting the order observed by the Church in her commemorations of the dead; which being an ancient institution, brought in upon wonderful good considerations, as he maintaineth, should not by this humorous heretic have been thus condemned: “ The Church,” saith he, doth necessarily perform this, having received it by tradition from the fathers; and who may dissolve the ordinance of his mother, or the law of his father ?” and again: "Our mother the Church hath ordinances settled in her, which are inviolable, and may not be broken. Seeing then there are ordinances established in the Church, and they are well, and all things are admirably done: this seducer is again refuted."

For the further opening hereof, it will not be amiss to consider both of the objection of Aerius, and of the answer of Epiphanius. Thus did Aerius argue against the practice of the Church: "For what reason do you commemorate after death the names of those that are departed? He that is alive prayeth, or maketh dispensation (of the mysteries): what shall the dead be profited hereby? And if the prayer of those here do altogether profit them that be there, then let no body be godly, let no man do good; but let him procure some friends, by what means it pleaseth him, either persuading them by

q 'Αναγκαίως ἡ ἐκκλησία τοῦτο ἐπιτελεῖ, παράδοσιν λαβοῦσα παρὰ πατέρων· τὶς δὲ δυνήσεται θεσμὸν μητρὸς καταλύειν, ἢ νόμον πατρός ; Id. hæres. 75. pag. 912.

· ἡ δὲ μήτηρ ἡμῶν ἡ ἐκκλησία εἶχε θεσμοὺς ἐν αὐτῇ κειμένους, ἀλύτους, μὴ δυναμένους καταλυθῆναι. Τεταγμένων τοίνυν τῶν ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ θεσμῶν, καὶ καλῶς ἐχόντων, καὶ τῶν πάντων θαυμασίως γενομένων, ἐλήλεκται πάλιν καὶ οὗτος ὁ πλάνος. Ibid.

• Τίνι τῷ λόγῳ μετὰ θάνατον ὀνομάζετε ὀνόματα τεθνεώτων; εὔχεται γὰρ ὁ ζῶν ἢ οίκονομίαν ἐποίησε, τί ὠφεληθήσεται ὁ τεθνεώς; εἰ δὲ ὅλως εὐχὴ τῶν ἐνταῦθα τοὺς ἐκεῖσε ὤνησεν, ἄρα γοῦν μηδεὶς εὐσεβείτω μηδὲ ἀγαθοποιείτω, ἀλλὰ κτησάσθω φίλους τινὰς, δι' οὗ βούλεται τρόπου, ἤτοι χρήμασι πείσας, ἤτοι φίλους ἀξιώσας ἐν τῇ τελευτῷ, καὶ εὐχέσθωσαν περὶ αὐτοῦ, ἵνα μή τι ἐκεῖ πάθη, μηδὲ τὰ ὑπ' αὐτοῦ γενόμενα τῶν ἀνηκέστων ἁμαρτημάτων ἐκζητηθῇ. Aerius, apud Epiphan. Ib. pag. 908.

money, or entreating friends at his death; and let them pray for him that he may suffer nothing there, and that those inexpiable sins, which he hath committed, may not be required at his hands." This was Aerius his argumentation: which would have been of force indeed, if the whole Church had held, as many did, that the judgment after death was suspended until the general resurrection, and that in the mean time the sins of the dead might be taken away by the suffrages of the living. But he should have considered, as Stephanus Gobarus, who was as great an heretic as himself, did, that the doctors were not agreed upon the point: some of them maintaining, "that the soul of every one that departed out of this life received very great profit by the prayers and oblations and alms that were performed for him; and others on the contrary side, that it was not so ;" and that it was a foolish part of him to confound the private opinion of some, with the common faith of the universal Church. That he reproved this particular error, which seemeth to have gotten head in his time, as being most plausible to the multitude, and very pleasing unto the looser sort of Christians, therein he did well but that thereupon he condemned the general practice of the Church, which had no dependance upon that erroneous conceit, therein he did like unto himself, headily and perversely. For the Church, in her commemorations and prayers for the dead, had no relation at all unto those that had led their lives lewdly and dissolutely; as appeareth plainly, both by the author" of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and by divers other evidences before alleged; but unto those that did end their lives in such a godly manner, as gave pregnant hope unto the living that their souls were at rest with God; and to such as these alone did it wish the accomplishment of that which re

· Ότι παντὸς τεθνεῶτος ψυχὴ ὠφελεῖται μέγιστα διὰ τῶν ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ ἐπιτελομένων εὐχῶν, καὶ προσφορῶν, καὶ ἐλεημοσυνῶν καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ἀντικειμένου, ὅτι οὐχ ̓ οὕτω. Gobar. in Photii bibliotheca, vol. 232.

* Καὶ γὰρ οὐδὲ τοῦτο κοινόν ἐστι τοῖς ἱεροῖς τε καὶ ἀνιέροις. Dionys. eccles. hierarch. cap. 7. init. Et postea: Διὸ τοῖς ἀνιέροις οὐκ ἐπεύχεται ταῦτα κεκοιμημένοις.