Page:Darby - Christianity Not Christendom.djvu/34

 they were called, for those of demi-gods—places of memorial, where they feasted and got drunk in honour of saints instead of demi-gods, that at least, as Augustine expresses it, their drunkenness might be consecrated to saints, not to demons; and this was deliberately done everywhere, formally allowed in England, where temples were changed into churches; and these festivals were the origin of our village wakes: Christmas was the dissolute feast of the Lupercalia.

But all these things were the fruits of this departure from Christianity. I speak of the departure itself; it had not come to this in Clement’s and Barnabas’ time, but the church, such as it is historically known and thought of to-day, had been substituted for Christianity.

I may sum up the system in the words of a writer long subsequent, as briefly stating the system, using another’s translation: “Whereas the human race, by the demerit derived to it from the fault of the first sinner, had become pierced with the darts of eternal punishment. … Christ granted to it certain remedial sacraments, to the end that it might acknowledge the difference between what is merited by nature and what it received by grace, and that as nature could bring punishment only, grace, not called grace if granted to merit, might furnish whatever appertains to salvation.” This is its ripe formulary. The system began as soon as the apostles were gone.

There were two departures from truth : heresy, particularly, at first, gnosticism—this ends in antichrist; and a human view of the church, with the practical denial of the Christian’s place by the Spirit; the last ends in Babylon. This takes essentially the character of the