and then learning the Lord's Prayer.1 And the same is evident from Chrysostom, Austin, and Theodoret, of whom I shall have occasion to speak more particularly in Chap. v. Sect. 9. where I treat of the ancient discipline in concealing the sacred mysteries from the catechumens.

SECT. 11,-And the Form of renouncing the Devil, and covenanting with Christ, and other Responses to be used in Baptism.

Together with the Creed, they were also taught how to make their proper responses in baptism; particularly the form of renouncing the devil and his works, his pomps, his worship, his angels, his inventions, and all things belonging to him and the contrary form of covenanting with Christ, and engaging themselves in his service; for though these acts in their highest solemnity did properly appertain to the substance of baptism itself; yet it was necessary to instruct the catechumens beforehand, how they were to behave themselves in these matters, that they might not, through ignorance, be at a loss when they came to baptism. And therefore the author of the Apostolical Constitutions orders it to be one special part of the catechumens' instruction, just before their baptism, that they should learn what related to the renunciation of the devil, and covenanting with Christ. And these engagements they actually entered into, not only at their baptism, but before it, as a just preparation for it: "for," says that author, "they ought first to abstain from the contraries, and then come to the holy mysteries, having purged their hearts beforehand of all spot and wrinkle and habits of sin." And the same thing is intimated by Tertullian and Ferrandus, the deacon of Carthage. For Ferrandus says expressly, that the catechumens, at the same time that they were exorcized, made their actual renunciation of the devil, and then were taught the Creed. And Tertullian

1 Ferrand. Ep. ad Fulgent. de Catechizando Æthiope. Ipsa insuper sancti symboli verba memoriter in conspectu fidelis populi clarâ voce pronuncians piam regulam dominicæ orationis accepit. 2 Constit, Apost. lib. vii. c. 39 et 40. Μανθανέτω τὰ περὶ τῆς ἀποταγῆς τῶ διαβόλε, καὶ τὰ περὶ τῆς συνταγῆς τε Χρισέ, &c. 8 Ferrand. Ep. ad Fulgent. inter Opera Fulgentii, p. 606. Per exorcismum contra diabolum vindicatur; cui se renunciare constanter, sicut hic consuetudo poscebat, auditurus sym bolum, profitetur.

means the same thing, when he says, that this renunciation was made twice; first in the church,' under the hands of the bishop, and then again when they came to the water to be baptized. And hence it became one part of the ancient office of deaconesses, to instruct the more ignorant and rustic sort of women, how they were to make their responses at the time of baptism to such interrogatories as the minister should then put to them, as I have had occasion to show from a canon of the fourth council of Carthage, in discoursing of the office of deaconesses in another place.

SECT. 12.—What meant by the Competentes going veiled some time
before Baptism.

Besides these parts of useful discipline and instruction, there were some other ceremonies of less note used toward the catechumens, which I must not wholly pass over. Among these was the ceremony of the Competentes going veiled, or with their faces covered, for some days before baptism: which custom is taken notice of by Cyril of Jerusalem, together with the reason of it; "Your face" says he to the catechumens," was covered, that your mind might be more at liberty, and that the wandering of your eyes might not distract your soul. For when the eyes are covered, the ears are not diverted by any impediments from hearing and receiving saving truths." St. Austin and Junilius give a more mystical reason for it. For they suppose the catechumens went veiled in public, as bearing the image of Adam's slavery after his expulsion out of Paradise; and that these veils being taken away after baptism was an indication of

5

Tertul. de Coron, Mil. c. 3. Aquam adituri, ibidem, sed et aliquanto prius in ecclesiâ sub antistitis manu contestamur nos renunciare diabolo, et pompæ et angelis ejus. 2 Con. Carth. iv. c. 12. Viduæ vel sanctimoniales, quæ ad ministerium baptizandarum mulierum eliguntur, tam instructæ sint ad officium, ut possint apto et sano sermone docere imperitas et rusticas mulieres, tempore quo baptizandæ sunt, qualiter baptizatori interrogatæ respondeant, et qualiter accepto baptismate vivant. 8 Book ii. chap. xxii. sect. 9. * Cyril. Præfat. ad Catech. n. 5. p. 7. Εσκέπαςαί σε τὸ πρόσωπον, ἵνα σχολάση λοιπὸν ἡ διάνοια. 5 Aug. Ser. 4. in Dominic. Octav. Paschæ, 155. de Tempore. Hodiè octavæ dicuntur infantium: revelanda sunt capita eorum, quod est indicium libertatis. Habet enim libertatem ista spiritalis nativitas. Junil. de Partibus Divinæ Legis. lib. ii. c. 16. Bibl. Patr. tom. i. p. 15. Typum gerunt Adæ Paradiso exclusi-propter quod et per publicum capiti bus tectis incedunt.

the liberty of the spiritual life, which they obtained by the sacrament of regeneration. However it be, the evidences are plain, that there was such a ceremony used to the catechumens: but, as Valesius' rightly observes, it did not respect them all, but only that order of them, that were peculiarly called the Competentes.

SECT. 13. Of the Ceremony called Ephphata, or Opening of the Ears of the Catechumens.

2

Another ceremony of this nature, was the custom of touching the ears of the catechumens, and saying unto them Ephphata, be opened: which Petrus Chrysologus joins with imposition of hands and exorcism; making it to have something of mystical signification in it, to denote the opening of the understanding to receive the instructions of faith. And St. Ambrose, or an author under his name, describes the same custom, deriving the original of it from our Saviour's example, in saying Ephphata, be opened, when he cured the deaf and the blind. But this custom seems not to have gained any great credit in the practice of the Church; for besides these two authors, there is scarce any other that so much as mentions it; and whether it was used to the first or last order of the catechumens, is not very easy to determine.

SECT. 14. Of putting Clay upon their Eyes. What meant by it. The like may be said of another ceremony, which is mentioned in St. Ambrose, which was the custom of anointing the eyes with clay, in imitation of our Saviour's practice, when he cured the blind man by making clay of his spittle, and anointing his eyes with it, John, ix. 6. The design of

1 Vales. Not. in Euseb. de Vit. Constant, lib. iv. c. 62. 2 Chrysolog. Serm. 52. p. 286. Hinc est quod veniens ex gentibus impositione manûs et exorcismis ante à dæmone purgatur; et apertionem aurium percipit, ut fidei capere possit auditum. 8 Ambros. De iis qui initiantur, c. i. Quod vobis significavimus, cùm apertionis celebrantes mysterium diceremus, effeta, quod est, aperire.-Hoc mysterium celebravit Christus in Evangelio, cùm mutum curaret et surdum. Id. de Sacramentis, lib. i. c. 1. Mysteria cele. bratą sunt apertionis, quando tibi aures tetigit sacerdos et nares,

2

this ceremony, as that author explains it,' was to teach the catechumens to confess their sins, and to review their consciences, and repent of their errors, that is, to acknowledge what state and condition they were in by their first birth. St. Austin seems also to refer to this practice in his discourse upon the blind man cured by our Saviour, where he says, the catechumens were anointed before baptism, as the blind man was by Christ, who was thereby perhaps made a catechumen.

SECT. 15.-Whether the Catechumens held a lighted Taper in their Hands in the Time of Exorcism.

Vicecomes and Mr. Basnage mention another custom, which was peculiar in their opinion to the African Church, viz. the use of a lighted taper put into the hands of the catechumens in time of exorcism, to signify, as Mr. Basnage explains it, the illustration of the Holy Ghost; or, as Vicecomes would have it, the power of exorcism in expelling Satan. But their observation, I think, is grounded upon a mere mistake, interpreting some words of St. Cyprian and St. Austin in a literal sense, which are only figurative and metaphorical. Cyprian speaking of the power of Christians over unclean spirits, says among many other things, "that they could oblige them by their powerful stripes to forsake the persons they had possessed; that they could put them to the rack, and make them confess, and cry out, and groan; that they could scourge them with their whips, and burn them with their fire." Where it is plain enough to any unprejudiced reader, that the fire of exorcism here spoken of, is of the same kind with the whips, and stripes, and rack;

4

1 Ambros. de Sacram. lib. iii. c. 2. Ergo quando dedisti nomen tuum, tulit lutum et linivit super oculos tuos. Quod significat ut peccatum tuum fatereris, ut conscientiam tuam recognosceres, ut pœnitentiam ageres delictorum, hoc est, sortem humanæ generationis agnosceres. 2 Aug. Tract. 44. in Johan. tom. ix. p. 133. Catechumenus inunctus est, nondum lotus. 3 Vicecomes, de Ritib. Bapt. lib. ii. c. 32. Basnag. Critic. in Baron. p. 488. 5 Cypr. ad Donatum, p. 4. Facultas datur, immundos et erraticos spiritus ad confessionem minis increpantibus cogere; ut recedant duris verberibus urgere; conflictantes, ejulantes, gementes, incremento pœnæ propagantis extendere; flagris cædere, igne torrere. Res illic geritur, neo videtur; occulta plaga, et pœna manifesta.

that is, the spiritual and invisible power of the Holy Ghost, as Cyprian himself immediately explains them, when he says, "all this was done, but not seen; the stroke was invisible, and the effect of it only appeared to men." So that it was

not a material fire, or a lighted taper in the hands of the catechumens, that Cyprian speaks of, as Vicecomes fancies, but the invisible fire or power of the Holy Ghost. And it is the same fire that St. Austin means, whose authority only is urged by Mr. Basnage to found this custom on. He speaks of a fire indeed in the sacraments,' and in catechizing, and in exorcizing. "For whence otherwise, should it be," says he," that the unclean spirits so often cry out, 'I burn,' if there be not a fire that burns them? From the fire of exorcism we pass to baptism, as from fire to water, and from water to a place of rest." There is nothing in all this that can signify a lighted taper in the hands of the catechumens, which certainly has no power to burn an unclean spirit: but the fire of exorcism is the invisible fire of the Holy Ghost, that is, the energy and powerful operation of God's spirit, which casts out devils with a word, and makes Satan fall like lightning from Heaven. Though I deny not but that this custom might come into the Church in after-ages: for Albinus Flaccus, a ritualist of the eighth century, speaks of a custom like to it, as used at least the night before the catechumens were to be baptized. For describing the ceremonies of the vigil of the great Sabbath before Easter, he says, a wax taper was used to be carried before the catechumens, which signified the illumination wherewith Christ enlightened that night, by the grace of his resurrection, and the catechumens coming to baptism." And this was it that deceived Vicecomes, who would have all modern customs appear with a face of antiquity, and therefore wrested the words of St. Cyprian and St. Austin to patronise a no

66

1 Aug. Enarrat. in Psal. lxv. p. 277. In sacramentis et in catechizando et in exorcizando adhibetur prius ignis. Nam unde immundi spiritus plerumque clamant, ardeo, si ille ignis non est? Post ignem autem exorcismi venitur ad baptismum, &c. 2 Albin. al. Alcuin. de Divin. Offic. c. 19. Cereus præcedit catechumenos nostros; lumen ipsius Christum significat, quo præsens nox illuminetur, gratiâ scilicet resurrectionis, et catechumeni ad baptismum venturi.