individual might have saved himself from the terrible death, simply by bowing his head, or offering incense to a wooden Jupiter, or other heathen deity, under this idea, that it was only a form of the cross! "for the gods are all made in some sort under the similitude of a cross." On this heathen principle, they were hard to satisfy, who, through five general persecutions, suffered death in the most cruel forms, sooner than save their lives by worshipping the wooden crosses of the heathen, richly covered over with cloth of gold, and "adorned with pomposity beyond ours." Many, possibly deceived by this false gloss of Tertullian, did make peace with the persecutors, and fall away from the faith, by reverencing the heathen gods, whose restoration to church membership after the persecution had ceased was a question that agitated all the churches, and some it divided, as in the parties of Novatian and Cornelius in Rome, and similar ones in Carthage.

In the primitive Church, the want of images and temples, incense and altars, for Christian worship, was a constant reproach in the mouth of the heathen. Tertullian says, in another place, "You charge us that we set up neither buildings, temples, likenesses, nor altars of any god." He does not repel this charge by an appeal to the Christian worship of the wood of the cross. But to the sign he attributes the highest importance, saying, "that in all our movements, our travels, our going out and coming in, putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross."-Lib. Fath., Ter. Apol. p. 165.

Barnabas, Nicodemus, and Justin magnify the power of the sign, but give no hint of worshipping the cross; which worship Minutius and Tertullian agree to justify before the heathen. Thus the wonder grew "with all deceivable

ness of unrighteousness," till at length all Christendom was enveloped in the delusion.

CYPRIAN.

St Cyprian, bishop of Carthage and a martyr, honoured in life, and in death lamented, was born of a senatorial family in Carthage about A.D. 200, and was beheaded A.D. 258, ten years after his conversion to Christ. He was an admirer of the works of his countryman Tertullian, and followed him, as Tertullian did Justin and Barnabas, in the matter of Joshua's victory over Amalek, with this difference they impute the victory to the power in the form and sign of the cross, but Cyprian imputes it to the suffering and sign of Christ. "In the passion and the sign of the cross," he says, "is all virtue and power. In the sign of the cross is salvation to all who are marked in their foreheads." The passion and suffering was on the wood; but the sign and the mark were the initial of Christ, as Cyprian explained it. For the custom of marking the baptized on the forehead with "the sign of Christ"-X--is primitive: not with the murderous stauros, not with the stauros of agony and death; but with the initial of "Christ and of God," says Cyprian. As it is written: "Having His own and His Father's Name written in their foreheads" (Rev. xiv. 1, and xxii. 3). "Muniatur frons, ut signum Dei incolume servetur." Signum Dei-the sign of God;-not of the arboris infelicis-accursed tree. Again, Cyprian says, "They only escape who are born again, and signed with the sign of Christ-signo Christi signati fuerint,”—which is the initial of the owner's name, X; a cross truly, not of shame and death, but of eternal life and glory. Signum Dei, Christi signum-the mark of Christ, which His servants put upon the lambs received into Christ's flock.-Bingham's Ant. b. xi. c. 9, sec. 5, note. This is holy and beautiful; this is

fitting and honourable; but the sign of the murderous cross is quite another thing, having nothing to recommend it from its birth in Tammuz and in Barnabas to this day. That the mark of Christ's name, and not of the wood of His cross, was used in baptism, St Augustine declares, saying, "How many have the mark of Christ on their forehead who have not the doctrine of Christ in their heart! Quam multi habent in fronte signum Christi, et in corde non recipiunt verbum Christi."-Aug. Tract 50, on John xi. 55. Quoted by Elliott's Hora Apoc.

Only fifty years after Cyprian, the custom of introducing symbols of man's invention into the sanctuaries of worship prevailed so far as to cause the council of Eliberis, Spain (A.D. 305), in their canon 38, to declare, "That pictures or likenesses ought not to be allowed in the churches, lest the object adored and worshipped should be represented on the walls."--Rock's Hier., 374.

GREGORY THAUMATURGUS, OR THE WONDER-WORKER.

This Gregory was a pupil of Origen, and bishop of New Cesarea, in Great Armenia. Basil, Jerome, Nazienzen, Nyssen, Eusebius, and others, magnify him and the wonders he wrought. These eminent bishops relate that, by the word of his mouth, Gregory removed a mountain-rock out of the road-way; by his prayer changed a fish-pond into a beautiful meadow; and with his hand stuck down a rod, for a bound to the rising flood of the river Lycus, thereby saving New Cesarea from being drowned in the waters, which rod at once became a great tree! His mode of converting the heathen was equally original, and was deemed equally successful. The official historian of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Baronius, whose annals abound with labour of the richest authority mixed with superstitious puerility, affirms that the absence of all images from all the churches before

the reign of Constantine, was due to their utter extirpation in the Dioclesian persecution. Accepting this testimony. to their absence, we reject the cause assigned, lest we might seem to regard the last and severest of the persecutions, as made against the images, and not against the Christians, who suffered martyrdom sooner than worship them. And we further accept his testimony, "that Gregory Thaumaturgus, the bishop of Great Armenia, first of ali commanded the wooden crosses which were set up by him in certain places, to be adored: ante omnes cruces ligneas, quibusdam in locis a se collocatas, adorari.”—Bar. Ann., A.D. 311., sec. 23.

Of all bishops, this wonder-worker is declared, on the highest Roman authority, to be the first to introduce the worship of wooden crosses by his own command. Gregory Nyssen, a century later, celebrating the memory of his great namesake, tells how he brought about that conversion of the heathen which followed. To save his life in the Decian persecution, this Bishop Gregory fled the country. After the persecution had spent itself, he returned home, and instituted festal days commemorating the martyrs, and commanded the worship of the wooden crosses. And says Nyssen, "When he saw how the simple and illiterate multitude persisted in their false esteem of images, in order that he might by all means perfect what is most excellent in them, to wit: that forsaking vain superstitions, they should turn unto God, he permitted them to make merry, solace themselves, and riot in joy, in honour of the holy martyrs!" "And why not?" asks Cardinal Baronius on a like occasion. "Is it not lawful to

transfer to pious uses things consecrated by a sacred rite, which things were impiously used by the pagans in superstitious worship; that by a high contempt of the devil, in the very way he delights to be worshipped, Christ may be honoured of all?"—Ann. vol. i. p. 198. This laurel is plucked

from Satan's brow, to entwine Emmanuel's crown, which the Cardinal graces with words of Theodoret, triumphing over the fallen gods of the heathen, and saying: "Our Lord brought His own dead into the temples of your gods, which gods, vain indeed, and stript of their glory, He dismissed: but gave honour to His martyrs. Instead of feasts of Pan, of Jupiter, and of Bacchus, solemnities, with a feast, are performed in honour of Peter, Paul, Thomas, Sergius, and other holy martyrs. So what was done in heathen superstition, the same having been sanctified for the worship of the true God, might be done in the service of the true religion."-Bar. Ann. vol. i. p. 198. This language allows the removal of the image of Jupiter, that once stood in the ancient Capitol, to a high place in St Peter's of Rome, equally with the conversion of the Mexicans from worshipping the symbol of the rain-god to the worship of the same image for the sign of salvation. So Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and Milcom, and the rest, lying vanities of the heathen, having been once consecrated by a sacred rite, might be dedicated to Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or even to Christ, and "worshipped with a high contempt of the devil, in the very way he delights to be worshipped," with honour to the saints, and glory to Him, who says, "Thou shalt have no other gods but me." Thus it came to pass, in the fifth and sixth centuries, that pagan temples, by sprinkling with holy water, were converted into places of Christian worship, and were made receptacles for fragments of the cross, and the relics of martyrs; and the more readily to gain the attendance of the people at the house of worship, eminent bishops suffered the old idols and altars to remain, under the name of the patron saint, the Virgin, or the Apostles, and to receive the honours supposed to be due to their images and likenesses. Such is the fruit of symbolism, which man invents for the honour of God, and