Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/234

 214 THE DECLINE AND FALL embraced such inferior objects of adoration as were more pro- portioned to its gross conceptions and imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted ; and the monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the intro- duction of a popular mythology, which tended to restore the reign of polytheism.^^ IV. Intro- IV. As the objects of religion were eradually reduced to the ductlonof. -, ^ r ^. • ■ ,.• ^t •.. i Pagan cere- standard ot the imagmation, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century,'-*^ Ter- tullian or Lactantius ^^ had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular jaint or martjT, ^^ they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noon-day, a gaudy, super- fluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd, consisting, for the most part, of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast ; and who already felt the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses -were im- printed on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice ; and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saints, which were usually concealed by a linen or silken veil from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more especially 82 Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. ii. p. 434) observes, like a philosopher, the natural flux nnd reflux of polytheism and theism. "3 D'Aubign6 (see his own M6nioires, p. 156-160) frankly offered, with the consent of the Huguenot ministers, to allow the first 400 years as the rule of faith. The Cardinal du Perron haggled for forty years more, which were indiscreetly given. Yet neither party would have found their account in this foolish bargain. i*^The worship practised and inculcated by Tcrtullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, &c., is so extremely pure and spiritual that their declamations against the Pagan, sometimes glance against the Jewish, ceremonies. 85 Faustus the Manichasan accuses the Catholics of idolatry. Vertitis idola in martyres . . . quos votis similibus colitis. M. de Beausobre (Hist. Critique du Manichdisme, torn. ii. p. 629-700), a protestant, but a philosopher, has represented, with candour and learning, the introduction of Christian idolatry in the fourth ^vA fiftb centuries,