Such, on the part both of the Greek Church and of the Latin Church, was the ancient estimate of the Apocrypha and consequently of the two first books of Maccabees: and, in strict accordance with it, Pope Gregory the great, who flourished at the end of the sixth and at the beginning of the seventh century, having occasion to quote a passage from the Maccabèan History, introduces it with a regular apology for citing a Work, which confessedly was not canonical, but which nevertheless was used in the Church for the edification'. purpose of Nay more as if these ancient testimonies of the Catholic Church both in the East and in the luerunt, non tamen proferri ad auctoritatem ex his fidei confirmandam. Ruffin. Expos. in Symbol. Apost. p. 26, 27. apud calc. Oper. Cyprian. Oxon. 1682. 1 Qua de re non inordinatè agimus, si, ex libris licet non canonicis, sed tamen ad ædificationem ecclesiæ editis, testimonium proferamus. Gregor. Magn. Moral. in Job. lib. xix. c. 13. Yet, with this evidence staring him in the face (unless, indeed, he were shamefully ignorant of its existence), Dr. Trevern has actually the hardihood to assure the english laic, with whom he professes to correspond, that the Reformers of the sixteenth century removed the Maccabean History from the Canon, purely to rid themselves of the troublesome testimony, which it bears to mortuary supplications and thence implicatively (as he fancies) to the doctrine of Purgatory! Discuss. Amic. lett. xiii. vol. ii. p. 246. The truth is, it was foisted into the Canon by the latin divines for the evident purpose of propping up a superstition, which receives no countenance from the genuine Canon either of the Old or of the New Testament. West were not sufficient to put to open shame, both the Tridentine Fathers who dared to obtrude the mere uninspired Maccabèan History as canonical, and such writers as Mr. Berington and Dr. Trevern who (in defiance of the evidence of Ruffinus and the wise admonition of Cyril) actually adduce a passage from that History as an inspired authority for the settlement of a point of faith: the author of that identical Work, after lauding the deed of a deliberate suicide, finally employs language, which is altogether incompatible with any intelligible idea of a divine inspiration'. I will here, says he, make an end of my discourse. If, indeed, it has been carried on handsomely and worthily of the subject; this also is what I desired: but, if slenderly and meanly; I have at least done my best. No really inspired writer could, either praise an act of self-murder as a glorious and heroic exploit, or speak in such modestly depreciating and apologising terms respecting a composition which in all future ages was to be received as a portion of God's own word to his people. The whole pretended scriptural proof, then, of the doctrine of a Purgatory, as set up by the theologians of the Church of Rome, rests upon a single solitary passage: which, in the first place, 1 See 2 Macc. xiv. 37-46. * Καὶ αὐτὸς αὐτόθι καταπαύσω τὸν λόγον. Καὶ, εἰ μὲν καλῶς καὶ εὐθίκτως τῇ συντάξει, τοῦτο καὶ αὐτὸς ἤθελον· εἰ δὲ εὐτελῶς καὶ μετρίως, τοῦτο ἐφικτὸν ἦν μοι. 2 Macc. xv. 37. 38. never once mentions Purgatory; which, in the second place, cannot be made to establish the existence of a Purgatory, without also teaching that the inmates of that temporary mansion may be persons who have died in the act of mortal sin unrepented of; and which, in the third place, occurs in a Work, rejected by the early Catholic Church both of the East and of the West from the Canon of inspired Scripture, encomiastic of the manful and noble death of self-murder, and apologetically confessed by its nameless author to have been executed only to the best of his ability. III. If the revealed word of God, whether in the New Testament or in the Old Testament, be altogether silent respecting the existence of a Purgatory it is utterly vain to seek for information on the subject from any mere uninspired mortal. Hence, in the very nature and necessity of things, even if, as an historical fact, it could be evidentially established, that the early Church believed and taught the doctrine of a Purgatory: still, we should have nothing substantiated, save that the early Church, departing in this instance too soon from the simplicity of the faith, had presumptuously dared to teach a doctrine, which is no where propounded in the inspired Scriptures either of the Greek or of the Hebrew Canon. But, though such would be the sole result even of the establishment of the fact in question, my veneration for the primitive Church and my unwillingness to see her charged with an unscrip tural superstition prompt me to inquire, whether the passages from Tertullian and Cyprian and Origen, adduced for that purpose by Dr. Trevern or Mr. Berington, are sufficient for its evidential establishment'. 1. Now, even on a mere rapid inspection of the alleged testimony, it is impossible not to be struck, both with its miserable scantiness, and with its comparative lateness. (1.) The Fathers of the three first centuries, whose writings, either wholly or partially have come down to us, may be roughly estimated as in number exceeding twenty: and, out of these, the sole even pretended vouchers for the primitive belief in the doctrine of a Purgatory, whom the painful industry of Dr. Trevern and Mr. Berington has been able to discover, amount precisely to the sum of three. (2.) Woefully scanty as is this meagre musterroll, the comparative lateness of the individuals who are by name summoned to the ecclesiastical parade, is equally unsatisfactory. Omitting all the Fathers of the first and all the other Fathers of the second century, though many of them treat of matters transacted beyond the grave, Mr. Berington is content to give, as his very earliest witness, Tertullian; who, according to his own statement, flourished from the year 1 Discuss. Amic. lett. xiii. vol. ii. p. 243. Faith of Cathol. p. 354-357. 194 to the year 2161: and, with Tertullian, he and Dr. Trevern are willing to associate Cyprian and Origen; who, still according to his own statement, were actively living, the one from the year 248 to the year 258, the other from the to the year 254 2. year 203 Thus, confessedly, we have not a single witness for the first century, and only one for the second: that solitary witness, moreover, flourishing, not at the beginning of the second, but quite at its end and at the beginning of the third. Hence, even if the passages really proved what they have been adduced to prove, they would only establish the somewhat useless fact: that, about two hundred years after the birth of Christ, and about one hundred years after the death of St. John the last survivor of the Apostolic College, the Church, so far as its practices were known to Tertullian, for whatever reason, though certainly not from any scriptural authority, had begun to teach the doctrine of a Purgatory. 2. Some of the adduced passages speak of oblations made for the dead: and the fact of those oblations is thought to establish the early existence, both of what the Latins call the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass, and of the unscriptural dogma now under consideration. 1 See Chronol. Table in Faith of Cathol. Introd. p. li. 2 Ibid. |