presented in sacrifice to idols, its originators, to whom its use is specially given over, and chiefly on this account, that what has no place among the things of God may not be admitted into use with us as with others. Wherefore the apostle exclaims, "Flee idolatry:"*^ cer- tainly idolatry whole and entire he means. Reflect on what a thicket it is, and how many thorns lie hid in it. Nothing must be given to an idol, and so nothing must be taken from one. If it is inconsistent with faith to recline in an idol temple, what is it to appear in an idol dress? What communion have Christ and Belial? Therefore flee from it; for he enjoins us to keep at a distance from idolatry — to have no close dealings with it of any kind. Even an earthly serpent sucks in men at some distance with its breath. Going still further, John says, " My little children, keep yourselves from idols," ^ — not now from idol- atry, as if from the service of it, but from idols — that is, from any resemblance to them; for it is an unworthy thing that you, the image of the living God, should become the likeness of an idol and a dead man. Thus far we 3 [He seems to know no use for incense except for burials and for fumigation.]
5 [Kaye (p. 362) defends our author against Barbeyrac's ani- madversions, by the maxim, " put yoarself in his place " i.e. among the abominations of Paganism.]
assert, that this attire belongs to idols, both from the history of its origin, and from its use by false religion; on this ground, besides, that while it is not mentioned as connected with the worship of God, it is more and more given over to those in whose antiquities, as well as festivals and services, it is found. In a word, the very doors, the very victims and altars, the very servants and priests, are crowned. You have, in Claudius, the crowns of all the vari- ous colleges of priests. We have added also that distinction between things altogether different from each other — things, namely, agreeable, and things contrary to reason — in answer to those who, because there happens to be the use of some things in common, maintain the right of participation in all things. With reference to this part of the subject, therefore, it now remains that the special grounds for wearing crowns should be examined, that while we show these to be foreign, nay, even opposed to our Christian discipline, we may demonstrate that none of them have any plea of reason to support it, on the basis of which this article of dress might be vindicated as one in whose use we can participate, as even some others may whose instances are cast up to us.
CHAP. XI.
CHAP. XI.
To begin with the real ground of the mili- tary crown, I think we must first inquire whether warfare is proper at all for Christians. What sense is there in discussing the merely accidental, when that on which it rests is to be condemned? Do we believe it lawful for a human oath® to be superadded to one di- vine, for a man to come under promise to an- other master after Christ, and to abjure father, mother, and all nearest kinsfolk, whom even the law has commanded us to honour and love next to God Himself, to whom the gospel, too, holding them only of less account than Christ, has in like manner rendered honour? Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord pro- claims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not be- come him even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the tor- ture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs? Shall he, forsooth, either keep watch-service for others more than for Christ, or shall he do it on the Lord's day, when he does not even do it for Christ Himself? And shall he keep guard 8 [He plays on this word Sacrantentunt. Is the military sacra, ment to be added to the Lord's?]
lOO THE CHAPLEi, OR DE CORONA.
[chap. XII.
before the temples which he has renounced? And shall he take a meal where the apostle has forbidden him? ' And shall he diligently protect by night those whom in the day-time he has put to flight by his exorcisms, leaning and resting on the spear the while with which Christ's side was pierced? Shall he carry a flag,'' too, hostile to Christ? And shall he ask a watchword from the emperor who has already received one from God? Shall he be disturbed in death by the trumpet of the trumpeter, who expects to be aroused by the angel s trump? And shall the Christian be burned according to camp rule, when he was not permitted to burn incense to an idol, when to him Christ remitted the punishment of fire? Then how many other offences there are involved in the performances of camp offices, which we must hold to involve a trans- gression of God's law, you may see by a slight survey. The very carrying of the name over from the camp of light to the camp of dark- Tiess is a violation of it. Of course, if faith comes later, and finds any preoccupied with military service, their case is different, as in the instance of those whom John used to re- ceive for baptism, and of those most faith- ful centurions, I mean the centurion whom Christ approves, and the centurion whom Peter instructs; yet, at the same time, when a man has become a believer, and faith has been sealed, there must be either an immediate abandonment of it, which has been the course with many; or all sorts of quibbling will have to be resorted to in order to avoid offending God, and that is not allowed even outside of military service;3 or, last of all, for God the fate must be endured which a citizen-faith has been no less ready to accept. Neither does military service hold out escape from punish- ment of sins, or exemption from martyrdom. Nowhere does the Christian change his char- acter. There is one gospel, and the same Jesus, who will one day deny every one who denies, and acknowledge every one who ac- knowledges God, — who will save, too, the life which has been lost for His sake; but, on the other hand, destroy that which for gain has been saved to His dishonour. With Him the faithful citizen is a soldier, just as the faithful ' I Cor. viii. lo.
2 [Vexilluin. Such words as these prepared {or the Laiarum.']
3 " Outside of the military service. By substituting ejr mili- tia for the corresponding words extra }>iilitia»t, as has been pro- posed by Rigaltius, the sentence acquires a meaning such that desertion from the army is suggested as one of the methods by which a soldier who has become a Christian may continue faithful to Jesus. But the words extra militiatn are a genuine part of the text. There is no good ground, therefore, for the statement of Gibbon: " TertuUian [tie Corona A/iiitis, c. xi.) <i<.ix^e<ils to them the expedient of deserting; a counsel which, if it had been i(enerally known, was not very proper to conciliate the favour of the emperors toward the Christian sect." — Tr.
soldier is a citizen." A state of faith admits no plea of necessity; they are under no ne- cessity to sin, whose one necessity is, that they do not sin. For if one is pressed to the offering of sacrifice and the sheer denial of Christ by the necessity of torture or of pun- ishment, yet discipline does not connive even at that necessity; because there is a higher necessity to dread denying and to undergo martyrdom, than to escape from suffering, and to render the homage required. In fact, an excuse of this sort overturns the entire es- sence of our sacrament, removing even the obstacle to voluntary sins; for it will be possi- ble also to maintain that inclination is a ne- cessity, as involving in it, forsooth, a sort of compulsion. I have, in fact, disposed of this very allegation of necessity with reference to the pleas by which crowns connected with offi- cial position are vindicated, in support of which it is in common use, since for this very reason offices must be either refused, that we may not fall into acts of sin, or martyrdoms endured that we may get quit of offices. Touching this primary aspect of the question, as to the unlawfulness even of a military life itself, I shall not add more, that the secondary question may be restored to its place. Indeed, if, putting my strength to the question, I banish from us the military life, I should now to no purpose issue a challenge on the matter of the military crown. Suppose, then, that the military service is lawful, as far as the plea for the crown is concerned. s CHAP. XII.
But I first say a word also about the crown itself. This laurel one is sacred to Apollo or Bacchus — to the former as the god of archery, to the latter as the god of triumphs. In like manner Claudius teaches, when he tells us that soldiers are wont too to be wreathed in myrtle. For the myrtle belongs to Venus, the mother of the JEneadae, the mistress also of the god of war, who through Ilia and the Romuli is Roman. But I do not believe that Venus is Roman as well as Mars, because of the vexation the concubine gave her.^ When military service again is crowned with olive, the idolatry has respect to Mi- nerva, who is equally the goddess of arms — but got a crown of the tree referred to, be- cause of the peace she made with Neptune. In these respects, the superstition of the mili- tary garland will be everywhere defiled and all-defiling. And it is further defiled, I 4 " The faithful," etc.; i.e., the kind of occupation which any one has cannot be pleaded by him as a reason for not doing all that Christ has enjoined upon His jjeople. — Tr.
5 [He was not yet quite a INIontanist.] 6 i.e. Ilia, CHAP. XIII.]
THE CHAPLET, OR DE CORONA.
lOI should think, also in the grounds of it. Lo! the yearly public pronouncing of vows, what does that bear on its face to be? It takes place first in the part of the camp where the general's tent is, and then in the temples. In addition to the places, observe the words also: " We vow that you, O Jupiter, will then have an ox with gold-decorated horns." What does the utterance mean? Without a doubt the denial (of Christ). Albeit the Chris- tian says nothing in these places with the mouth, he makes his response by having the crown on his head. The laurel is likewise commanded (to be used) at the distribution of the largess. So you see idolatry is not with- out its gain, selling, as it does, Christ for pieces of gold, as Judas did for pieces of silver. Will it be " Ye cannot serve God and mammon," ' to devote your energies to mam- mon, and to depart from God? Will it be " Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's," 'not only not to render the human being to God, but even to take the denarius from Caesar? Is the laurel of the triumph made of leaves, or of corpses? Is it adorned with ribbons, or with tombs? Is it bedewed with ointments, or with the tears of wives and mothers? It may be of some Christians too;^ for Christ is also among the barbarians.* Has not he who has carried (a crown for) this cause on his head, fought even against himself? Another sort of service belongs to the royal guards. And indeed crowns are called (Cas- trenses), as belonging to the camp; Mimificce likewise, from the Caesarean functions they perform. But even then you are still the sol- dier and the servant of another; and if of two masters, of God and Caesar: but assuredly then not of Caesar, when you owe yourself to God, as having higher claims, I should think, even in matters in which both have an interest.
CHAP. XIII.
For state reasons, the various orders of the citizens also are crowned with laurel crowns; but the magistrates besides with golden ones, as at Athens, and at Rome. Even to those are preferred the Etruscan. This appellation is given to the crowns which, distinguished by their gems and oak leaves of gold, they put on, with mantles having an embroidery of palm branches, to conduct the chariots con- taining the images of the gods to the circus.
2 Matt. xxii. 21.
3 [Such considerations may account for our author's abandon- ment of what he says in the Apology; which compare in capp. xlii. and xxxix.]
4 [Et apud barbaros enim Christus. See Kaye's argument, p. 87.!
There are also provincial crowns of gold, needing now the larger heads of images in- stead of those of men. But your orders, and your magistracies, and your very place of meet- nig, the church, are Christ's. You belong to Him, for you have been enrolled in the books of life.* There the blood of the Lord serves for your purple robe, and your broad stripe is His own cross; there the axe is already laid to the trunk of the tree;' there is the branch out of the root of Jesse.** Never mind the state horses with their crown. Your Lord, when, according to the Scripture, He would enter Jerusalem in triumph, had not even an ass of His own. These (put their trust) in chariots, and these in horses; but we will seek our help in the name of the Lord our God.' From so much as a dwelling in that Babylon of John's Revelation '° we are called away, much more then from its pomp. The rabble, too, are crowned, at one time because of some great rejoicing for the success of the emperors; at another, on account of some custom be- longing to municipal festivals. For luxury strives to make her own every occasion of pub- lic gladness. But as for you, you are a foreign- er in this world, a citizen of Jerusalem, the city above. Our citizenship, the apostle says, is in heaven." You have your own registers, your own calendar; you have nothing to do with the joys of the world; nay, you are called to the very opposite, for " the world shall re- joice, but ye shall mourn." " And I think the Lord affirms, that those who mourn are happy, not those who are crowned. Marriage, too, decks the bridegroom with its crown; and therefore we will not have heathen brides, lest they seduce us even to the idolatry with which among them marriage is initiated. You have the law from the patriarchs indeed; you have the apostle enjoining people to marry in the Lord. '3 You have a crowning also on the making of a freeman; but you have been al- ready ransomed by Christ, and that at a great price. How shall the world manumit the ser- vant of another? Though it seems to be lib- erty, yet it will come to be found bondage. In the world everything is nominal, and nothing real. For even then, as ransomed by Christ, you were under no bondage to man; and now, though man has given you liberty, you are the servant of Christ. If you think freedom of the world to be real, so that you even seal it with a crown, you have returned '° Rev. xviii. 4.
[He understands this of Rome.]
THE CHAPLET, OR DE CORONA.
[chap. XV.
to the slavery of man, imagining it to be free- dom; you have lost the freedom of Christ, fancying it is slavery. Will there be any dis- pute as to the cause of crown-wearing, which contests in the games in their turn supply, and which, both as sacred to the gods and in honour of the dead, their own reason at once condemns? It only remains, that the Olym- pian Jupiter, and the Nemean Hercules, and the wretched little Archemorus, and the hap- less Antinous, should be crowned in a Chris- tian, that he himself may become a spectacle disgusting to behold. We have recounted, as I think, all the various causes of the wearing of the crown, and there is not one which has any place with us: all are foreign to us, un- holy, unlawful, having been abjured already once for all in the solemn declaration of the sacrament. For they were of the pomp of the devil and his angels, offices of the world, ^ honours, festivals, popularity huntings, false vows, exhibitions of human servility, empty praises, base glories, and in them all idolatry, even in respect of the origin of the crowns alone, with which they are all wreathed. Claudius will tell us in his preface, indeed, that in the poems of Homer the heaven also is crowned with constellations, and that no doubt by God, no doubt for man; therefore man himself, too, should be crowned by God. But the world crowns brothels, and baths, and bakehouses, and prisons, and schools, and the very amphitheatres, and the chambers where the clothes are stripped from dead gladiators, and the very biers of the dead. How sacred and holy, how venerable and pure is this ar- ticle of dress, determine not from the heaven of poetry alone, but from the traffickings of the whole world. But indeed a Christian will not even dishonour his own gate with laurel crowns, if so be he knows how many gods the devil has attached to doors; Janus so-called from gate, Limentinus from threshold, Forcus and Carna from leaves and hinges; among the Greeks, too, the Thyraean Apollo, and the evil spirits, the Antelii.
CHAP. XIV.
Much less may the Christian put the service of idolatry on his own head — nay, I might have said, upon Christ, since Christ is the Head of the Christian man — (for his head) is as free as even Christ is, under no obligation to wear a covernig, not to say a band. But even the head which is bound to have the veil, I mean woman's, as already taken possession of by this very thing, is not open also to a « [A suggestive interpretation of the baptismal vow, of which Me BunscD, Hi/>/>ol., Vol. III., p. 20.]
band. She has the burden of her own humility to bear. If she ought not to appear with her head uncovered on account of the angels,^ much more with a crown on it will she offend those (elders) who perhaps are then wearing crowns above. ^ For what is a crown on the head of a woman, but beauty made seductive, but mark of utter wantonness, — a notable casting away of modesty, a setting temptation on fire? Therefore a woman, taking counsel from the apostles' foresight,* will not too elaborately adorn herself, that she may not either be crowned with any exquisite arrange- ment of her hair. What sort of garland, how- ever, I pray you, did He who is the Head of the man and the glory of the woman, Christ Jesus, the Husband of the church, submit to in behalf of both sexes? Of thorns, I think, and thistles, — a figure of the sins which the soil of the flesh brought forth for us, but which the power of the cross removed, blunting, in its endurance by the head of our Lord, death's every sting. Yes, and besides the figure, there is contumely with ready lip, and dishonour, and infamy, and the ferocity in- volved in the cruel things which then dis- figured and lacerated the temples of the Lord, that you may now be crowned with laurel, and myrtle, and olive, and any famous branch, and which is of more use, with hundred-leaved roses too, culled from the garden of Midas, and with both kinds of lily, and with violets of all sorts, perhaps also with gems and gold, so as even to rival that crown of Christ which He afterwards obtained. For it was after the gall He tasted the honeycomb, ^ and He was not greeted as King of Glory in heavenly places till He had been condemned to the cross as King of the Jews, having first been made by the Father for a time a little less than the angels, and so crowned with glory and honour. If for these things, you owe your own head to Him, repay it if you can, such as He presented His for yours; or be not crowned with flowers at all, if you cannot be with thorns, because you may not be with flowers.
CHAP. XV.
Keep for God His own property untainted; He will crown it if He choose. Nay, then. He does even choose. He calls us to it. To him who conquers He says, " I will give a crown of life."* Be you, too, faithful unto 2 I Cor. xi. 10. [Does he here play on the use of the word angels in the Revelation? He seems to make it = elders.']
5 [A very striking collocation of Matt, xxvii. 34, and Luke xziv.
ELUCIDATIONS.
death, and fight you, too, the good fight, whose crown the apostle ' feels so justly con- fident has been laid up for him. The angel - also, as he goes forth On a white horse, con- quering and to conquer, receives a crown of victory; and another ^ is adorned with an en- circling rainbow (as it were in its fair colours) — a celestial meadow. In like manner, the elders sit crowned around, crowned too with a crown of gold, and the Son of Man Himself flashes out above the clouds. If such are the appearances in the vision of the seer, of what sort will be the realities in the actual mani- festation? Look at those crowns. Inhale those odours. Why condemn you to a little chaplet, or a twisted headband, the brow which has been destined for a diadem? For Christ Jesus has made us even kings to God and His Father. What have you in common with the flower which is to die? You have a flower in the Branch of Jesse, upon which the grace of the Divine Spirit in all its fulness rested — a flower undefiled, unfading, everlasting, by choosing which the good soldier, too, has got promotion in the heavenly ranks. Blush, ye fellow-soldiers of his, henceforth not to be condemned even by him, but by some soldier of Mithras, who, at his initiation in the gloomy cavern, in the camp, it may well be said, of darkness, when at the sword's point a crown is presented to him, as though in mimicry of martyrdom, and thereupon put upon his head, is admonished to resist and cast it off, and, if you like, transfer it to his shoulder, saying that Mithras is his crown. And thenceforth he is never crowned; and he has that for a mark to show who he is, if anywhere he be subjected to trial in respect of his religion; and he is at once believed to be a soldier of Mithras if he throws the crown away — if he say that in his god he has his crown. Let us take note of the devices of the devil, who is wont to ape some of God's things with no other design than, by the faithfulness of his serv- ants, to put us to shame, and to condemn us.
ELUCIDATIONS.
ELUCIDATIONS.
Here a reference to Bunsen's Hippolytus, vol. III., so often referred to in the former volume, will be useful. A slight metaphrase will bring out the sense, perhaps, of this most interesting portrait of early Christian usages.
In baptism, we use trine immersion, in honour of the trinal Name, after renouncing the devil and his angels and the pomps and vanities of his kingdom.' But this trinal rite is a ceremonial amplification of what is actually commanded. It was heretofore tolerated in some places that communicants should take each one his portion, with his own hand, but now we suffer none to receive this sacrament except at the hand of the minister. By our Lord's own precept and example, it may be received at the hour of ordinary meals, and alike by all the faithful whether men or women, yet we usually do this in our gatherings before daybreak. Offerings are made in honour of our departed friends, on the anniversaries of their deaths, which we esteem their true birthdays, as they are born to a better life. We kneel at other times, but on the Lord's day, and from the Paschal Feast to Pentecost we stand in prayer, nor do we count it lawful to fast on Sundays. We are concerned if even a par- ticle of the wine or bread, made ours, in the Lord's Supper, falls to the ground, by our care- lessness. In all the ordinary occasions of life we furrow our foreheads with the sign of the Cross, in which we glory none the less because it is regarded as our shame by the heathen in presence of whom it is a profession of our faith.