E C C
317
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^kch^ ai ^° n ' These Consistentes did not go out with thehut after they and the other penitents had left,^‘PQtio ' and j° ine<1 prayer with the faithful. 5th. Par-tesa,,.. n °f the Sacraments .” This is a somewhat remarkable
,*Se.
1° which we shall have occasion again to refer.
- trie . lescr >pt of Galienus the churches of the ChristiansHor ° ned as Totrot Oprjanevaifioi or Places of Worship .^kssb- ^''^ ssen > speaking of the success of Gregory ofl| ’tn j I,* a , r<!a ’. relates, “ How that, becoming all things to all' n a short time gained a great number of convertsle bad t le distance of the Divine Spirit, and that hereuponMice f 0r Str0n S desire to set upon the building of a temple or^^ttrao , 8acred assemblies; wherein he was the more' 16 Co n ^ the general forwardness he observed amongto contribute both their moneys and their best^ seen* 0 S ° " ood !l w °rk. This is that temple which is
-. ••ice \ v i • ® ven at this day.” Eusebius , speaking of the longP'Meti Uc 1 the Church enjoyed before the persecution ofHnite Un ’ sa y s > “ How shall any one be able to express thoseuMultitudes of Christians assembling in every city,^hdies*? 0113 ,ueet ' n gs of theirs in their oratories orNle r • a nd therefore they, not being content with thoset ® Ce s a 1Ur ches which before they had, (those their ancientcm.g 0t ^ e ’ n g large enough to receive so great a number,)t0 erect from the very foundations fairer and more. Soon ° nes ' n every city.”tl, e aft er this ' ‘ ‘ ‘
ta th o^^nment, and having been fully convinced of the
* about • 6 Christian faith, with hearty and unrerc ’*'■
'h,
. _, .hearty and unremitting zeal
l8ta nt ** S esta hlishment, nor to any thing did he give morehfehes att Jr nt ’°n than to the erection and adornment ofd * e ^ ore > however, entering upon a description and0| il s ° n °f these edifices, it may be as well to say a few2st. ,b eot ' n g a subject which has nt
a ttj,
Sj 8 ** Wte la
‘‘Cal Use
i not been agreed upon
• Se r
,f S
„ Se -arned ; it is this, whether the early Christians vjgg heathen temples for the performance of their pub-wij Sl Bingham enters into the subject at some length,
iJ^ fim ' VC , qU0te the following ; —
tit] c y>tio ’ ' V len the reformation from heathenism was in itsOf ,6t Per° '.^-temples were made use of as churches, but were4 'leoioli . ltted to the heathen for some time, or else shut up'll ' ed ' ^bl the twenty-fifth year of Constantine ,
ttii y^ur jj le tetll pies were in a great measure tolerated, but inW Published his laws commanding temples, altars,
to
6 e S trv 1 l— --—. . ° - r — .’
) i., , he destroyed, which laws are sometimes re-
tile J _ « *.. _ _ .1 _ a .. ji - . ,i i
at ^ U1 e 1 heodosian code. And pursuant to these laws.C|, jheif r y temples were defaced in all parts of the world,
M, ls *-iu.n . v ® niJ es confiscated, as appears not only from the11 Write,., m* t._ j i.i.„
Mh ■' ,[ U t | llteis ’ ^t. Jerome and Eusebius , and others, but
tlius t® complaints of the heathen writers, Eunapius ,
m Jul ian. In some of the following reigns also
*> is e t‘>od was taken to shut up or to deface the teni-ae. *» evi^—. ... r.
‘'Hh al dest Vide0t from the account which Ruffin gives of theB u 5 u . et ' on of them in Egypt by the order of Valen-
\
an,
Ul'^H * n ^ le nex t reign, in the time of Theodosius,1 fi lo fi'ed 0 , lod Was taken with some of them. For asW^Osing 3erves ! out of the Chronicon Alexandrinum :—)(pJ l 'iurn j j tur ned the famous temple of Heliopolis , called' \ 0 a Christian church, (tiroirjatavro tKkXrjaiav
fj f n'* 1 Wh e J* ^ r ^- n d about the same time Socrates tells us,*ll t J e Bgyp t - a * ens bad banished the two Macarii, the headsJcl, *® ini,^, '. 1111 monks, into a pagan island, they converted'p| tants ’ and turned their temple into the form of' Jj ^estia • * 6 was done by the famous temple of thei f V ri 'U'i u , at Carthage, by Aurelius, the bishop, in the timei 399, which the author of the book, de
under the name of Prosper, tells, with this4 it
remarkable circumstance, ‘ that it had been dedicatedbefore by one Aurelius, a heathen high-priest, with thisinscription, Aurelius pontifex dedicavit, which our authorsays was left in the frontispiece, to be read by all the people,because, by God s providence, it was fulfilled again in Aure-lius the bishop, for whom it served as well as the formerAurelius, when he had once dedicated it to the use and ser-vice of the Christian religion, and set his chair in the placeof the goddess.’ Not long after this, Honorius publishedtwo laws in the Western empire, forbidding the destructionof any more temples in cities, because they might serve forornament, or public use, being once purged of all unlawfulfurniture—idols and altars, which he ordered to be destroyedwherever they were found.
“ These laws, as Gothofred rightly observes, seem to havebeen published at the instance of the African fathers, who, asappears from one of the canons of the African code, peti-tioned the emperor, that such temples as were in the countryonly, and private places not serving for any ornament, mightbe destroyed. Arcadius published such another law for theEastern empire, which relates only to the destruction of tem-ples in country-places, and not in cities, where now there wasno such danger of superstition, since they might be convertedto a better use. And upon this ground the author, under thename of Prosper, commends Honorius for his piety and devo-tion, because he gave all the temples, with their adjacentplaces, to the church, only requiring the idols to be destroyed.’Tis true, indeed, after this we find a law of TheodosiusJunior commanding all temples to be destroyed; but, asGothofred seems rightly to interpret it, “ the word destroy-ing, in that law, is to be understood only of despoiling themof their superstition, because it follows in the same law,that they were to be expiated by placing the sign of thecross upon them, which was a token of their being turnedinto churches. And his observation may be confirmed fur-ther from what Evagrius reports of Theodosius—that heturned the Tychasum, or temple of Fortune at Antioch,into a church called by the name of Ignatius. The like wasdone by a great temple at Tanis in Egypt , as Yalesius hasobserved out of the Itinerary of Antonius the martyr.
“ Cluver also, in his description of Italy , takes notice ofa place in the Jerusalem Itinerary, called Sacraria, betwixtFulginum and Spoletum, near the head of the river Clitumnus,which he thinks was no other than the temple of JupiterClitumnus, though another learned antiquary makes it some-what doubtful as to the present church now standing there.However, we have seen instances enough of this practice,and Bede tells us, that ‘ Gregory the Great gave Austin the monk instructions of the same nature about the templeshere among the Saxons in Britain, —that if they were wellbuilt they should not be destroyed, but only be convertedfrom the worship of devils to the service of the true God .’And so he observes it was done at Rome , where, not longafter, Boniface the Fourth tuyned the heathen temple, calledthe Pantheon, into the church of All Saints, in the time ofthe emperor Phocas. Sometimes the temples were pulleddown, and the materials were given to the church, out ofwhich new edifices were erected for the service of religion,as Sozomen and Ruffin particularly observe of the temples ofBacchus and Serapis at Alexandria. I have already shownout of Antonius, that the Roman halls or basilicas were like-wise turned into churches. The like is reported of someJewish synagogues by the author of the Chronicon Alexan-drinum, who takes notice particularly of a synagogue of theSamaritans , in a place called Gargarida, which Zeno theemperor converted into a large Christian church.
“ And though it is not agreed by learned men whether the