lyre," which was brought by some Greek ambassadors to the great emperor, excited the imitative talent of the Franks; and so skilful did they become in the manufacture, that about a century after the date of Constantine's gift to Pipin, Pope John VIII. is found requesting a bishop of Freisingen to send him an organ, because those of the north were superior to any that could be made in Italy."

(3.) The history of the eucharistic doctrine during this period has been disputed with as much zeal and partiality as if the question between modern Rome and its opponents depended on the opinions of the seventh and eighth centuries. The word figure, when it occurs, is hailed by one party, and such words as body, blood, or changed, by the other, as if they were sufficient to determine the matter. But the truth seems to lie between the extremes. Both in language and in opinion there was a progress towards the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the feeling of individuals may have closely bordered on it; but there was no recognition, nor apparently even any assertion, of more than an effective grace, by which the consecrated elements, while retaining their original substance, convey to the faithful receiver the benefits of the Saviour's death. Some passages of Bede and of Alcuin, for example, which are produced by Romanists as favourable to their views, appear really to maintain nothing beyond the doctrine of the English Reformation; when Alcuin speaks of a bishop as consecrating bread and wine into the substance of our Lord's body and blood," it would seem that by "substance" he does not mean any thing material, but only a virtual efficacy; and after this, the Caroline Books, in which Alcuin himself is supposed to have been largely concerned, express themselves in a manner entirely accordant with our own eucharistic doctrine."

X

John of Damascus appears to have gone further than any of the western teachers. He rejects the term "figure," as unauthorised by Scripture, and declares the consecrated elements to be "the very deified body of the Lord."" expression may be reduced by a

Mon. Sangall. ii. 10.

u A.D. 873. Joh. Ep. 1 (Patrol. cxxvi.). Baldric, archbishop of Dol, in the beginning of the twelfth century, mentious with admiration an organ at Fécamp, as the first which he had seen, although he had travelled widely in France, and had visited England. Itinerarium, 7 (Patrol. clxvi.).

See Schröckh, xx. 164-5.

Yet the sense of this startling comparison with the language

Ep. 36, p. 49. Dr. Lingard, however, quotes the words as conclusive in favour of transubstantiation. A. S. C. ii. 465.

2 E. g. ii. 27 (pp. 274-8, ed. Goldast.); iv. 14 (pp. 419-420). The words which Dr. Lingard quotes from the latter passage (A. S. C. ii. 464) do not warrant his inference from them.

a De Fid. Orthod, iv. 12 (t. i. 271).

then current as to the union of our Lord's natures or wills-where it was said that the flesh or the human will was "deified" by its connexion with the Godhead. If the meaning were more than this parallel would warrant-if John intended to maintain that the material elements were changed, instead of being united with something higher-it is certain that the eastern church did not adopt his view. The Eucharist was mentioned in the controversy as to images by the hostile synods of Constantinople and Nicæa. The iconoclastic assembly declares that the only true image of the Saviour is the Eucharist-meaning that the union of the Divine grace with the earthly elements represents that union of Godhead and manhood in his person which images failed to convey, inasmuch as they could only set forth the humanity. The Nicene council, in answering this, finds fault with the term image, as being one which no father had applied to that which is His body and blood. Yet no objection is made to the substance of the comparison; nor do we find anywhere in this controversy the distinction which must have occurred if the modern Roman doctrine as to the sacrament had been then received-that the consecrated elements are unlike images, forasmuch as they are not a representation, but are really Christ Himself.

Instead of the common bread in which the Eucharist had originally been administered, wafers were now substituted in the west. They were of very fine flour, unleavened, round in shape, and stamped with an instrument. The communion of infants appears to have been still in use, and many superstitions were practised with the

b E. 9. in the sixth general council it is said that the human flesh and will are deified, not destroyed." (See p. 53.) See too 1. iii. c. 17, of Damascene's own work, where he explains how Christ's flesh can be said to be " deified"-that it is not by any change or confusion, but merely by union, the two natures remaining entire and distinct. I have, however, some doubt as to the possibility of clearing the passage in the text by this parallel. There would be no difficulty if he had said that the bread and wine are deified; but instead of this he says that they are the deified body.

c Schröckh, xx. 174.

d Hard. iv. 368-372. That this assertion was incorrect, see Schröckh, xx. 161-3.

e Schröckh, xx. 592 (from Rössler's Bibliothek d. Kirchenväter). During this period there are many tales of miracles in which the consecrated host

is said to have shed blood (e. g. Greg. Turon. vi. 21, and frequent instances in Gregory the Great). These might be supposed evidence of a belief in transubstantiation; but we find also in Gregory the Great (Ep. iv. 30) a story of a cloth which, having been applied to the body of a saint, shed blood on being cut. This cannot mean that the cloth had been changed into the saint's body, but only that the virtue of the body had been communicated to it; and the explanation will serve for the other

cases.

f Mabill. Acta SS. III. xxxv.-xl., xlv. seqq.; Analecta, 538, seqq.; Rettb. ii. 786-7.

* Schröckh, xx. 175. For its continuance into the twelfth century, see D'Achery, n. in Guib. Novigent. (Patrol. clvi. 1023). Compare Lanfranc, Ep. 33 (ib. cl.). See, however, Waterland, vi. 67, ed. Oxf. 1843; and vol. i. p. 165.

consecrated bread-such as giving it to the dead and burying it with them. The cup continued until the twelfth century to be administered to all communicants,1

k

The height to which the idea of a sacrifice in the Eucharist was carried (an idea which appears in the earliest ages of the church, although with some indefiniteness of meaning), now led to some important consequences. The sacrifice was supposed to avail not only for those who were present but for the absent; for the dead as well as for the living. One result of this was, that the obligation of receiving the sacrament was less felt, so that there is much complaint as to the rarity of communion, and that canons are passed for restoring the three receptions yearly which had been prescribed by the council of Agde." At length masses came to be celebrated privately, and by the priest alone." This practice was forbidden by Theodulf of Orleans; it is censured, although not in absolute terms, by the council of Mentz in 813," is more decidedly condemned by the sixth council of Paris, in 829, and in the following century it is again forbidden by Atto, bishop of Vercelli.

8

From the time of Gregory the Great, the doctrine of Purgatory spread and was developed. In the English church, the offspring of Gregory's own exertions, it appears to have especially taken root. Bede relates stories of persons who had been transported in vision to the regions of the dead; they returned to consciousness with a sad and awestruck air, told their tale, and soon after died. Thus Fursey and Drithelm were permitted to see the punishments of hell and purgatory, and the bliss of the righteous who were awaiting their consummation in paradise. The vision of Drithelm was versified by Alcuin; other narratives of the same kind appeared; the idea of such visions became familiar to men's minds; and, six centuries later, the dreams of the obscure Irish or Northumbrian monks issued in the great poem of the middle ages."

This is forbidden by Conc. Trull. without the priest's communicating. A.D. 691, c. 83.

c. 6.

With the belief in purgatory, that in the utility of masses for the departed grew. Fraternities were formed, especially among monks, to say a certain number of masses for the soul of every brother at his death, and on the anniversary of it, or to provide for the purchase of them by a payment, which in England was called soulscot. The performance of these masses became an important source of income to the clergy, and is recognised as such by Chrodegang's rule. Additional altars were on this account erected in churches, which before had only one." Masses were also used in order to obtain temporal benefits, such as fair weather or seasonable rain.a

b

(4.) A greater strictness in the observance of the Lord's-day had gradually been introduced into the church, and occupations which councils of the sixth century had vindicated against a judaizing tendency, were now forbidden as contrary to the sanctity of the day, which it became usual to ground on the fourth commandment. Many canons throughout this period, and shortly after, enact that it should be kept by a cessation from all trade, husbandry, or other manual labour. No lawcourts or markets. may be held, men are to refrain from hunting, women must not sew, embroider, weave, card wool, beat flax, shear sheep, or publicly wash clothes. No journeys were to be taken except such as were unavoidable; and these were to be so managed as not to interfere with the duty of attending the church-service.' Theodore of Canterbury states that the Greeks and the Latins agree in doing no work on Sunday; that they do not sail, ride, drive, except to church, hawk, or bathe; that the Greeks do not write in public, although at home they write according to their convenience. Penalties were enacted against such as should violate the sanctity of the day. Thus the council of Narbonne, in 589, condemns a freeman to

1, 116, seqq.

e Conc. Matisc. A.D. 585, c. 1; Conc. Narbonn. A.D. 589, c. 4; Greg. Ep. ix. 1; Conc. Cabil. I. A.D. 650, c. 18; Conc. Clovesh. A.D. 747, c. 14; Capit. A.D. 789, c. 80; Conc. Foroj. A.D. 796 (?), c. 13; Theodulph. Cap. 24 (Hard. iv. 917); Conc. Arel. A.D. 813, c. 16; Conc. Cabil. A.D. 813, c. 50; Conc. Mogunt. A.D. 813, c. 37; Laws of Northumbrian Priests, in Thorpe, 421, No. 55, &c.

The council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 836, suggests that marriages should not be celebrated on Sunday, iii. 18.

Pœnitentiale, c. 8 (Patrol. xcix.).

m

Ina,

pay six solidi, and a serf to receive a hundred lashes.h king of Wessex (A.D. 688-725), directs that, if a serf work on the Lord's-day by his master's order, he shall be free; if at his own will, he shall pay a fine or shall "suffer in his hide." The council of Berghamstead (A.D. 696) enacts that a freeman breaking the rest of the day shall undergo the healsfang, and imposes a heavy fine on a master who shall make his servant work between the sunset of Saturday and that of Sunday. The authority of pretended revelations was called in to enforce the observance of the Lord's-day. It appears that this was the object of a letter which was said to have fallen from heaven in 788, and of which Charlemagne, in his capitulary of the following year, orders the suppression;" and the same pious fraud, or something of the same kind, was employed in England. Under Louis the Pious, councils are found speaking of judgments by which persons had been punished for working on the Lord's-day-some had been struck by lightning, some lamed in their members, some reduced to ashes by visible fire. The clergy, the nobles, and the emperor himself, are desired to show a good example by a right observance of the day."

But the idea of identifying the Lord's-day with the Jewish sabbath was condemned. Gregory the Great speaks of it as a doctrine of Antichrist, who, he says, will require the observance of both days-of the Sabbath, for the sake of Judaism; of the Lord'sday, because he will pretend to rival the Saviour's resurrection. Gregory goes on to notice the scruples of some who held that it was wrong to wash the body on the Lord's-day. It is allowed, he says, for necessity, although not for luxury, and he adds a curious attempt at Scriptural proof. The councils of Lestines and Verne censure an extreme rigour in the observance of the day, as "belonging rather to Jewish superstition than to Christian duty."

The Lord's-day was commonly considered to begin on Saturday evening, and to reach to the corresponding hour on Sunday.

h C. 4.

C. 3, in Thorpe, 45; Comp. Laws of Edward and Guthrun, c. 7, ib. 73.

kHealsfang'-i. e. a neck-catch-properly a sort of pillory; but, as this was very early disused, the word came to mean a fine or pecuniary commutation for the ignominy, graduated according to the offender's rank. See Thorpe, Glossary to Ancient Laws and Insti

tutes.

m C. 10-12 (Thorpe, 17). The place

of this council is supposed to have been Berstead, near Maidstone.

n Capit. 77. See above, p. 112, note d. • Soames, A. S. C. 257.

P Conc. Paris, VI. A.D. 829, i. 50; iii. 19; Conc. Wormat. A.D. 829, c. 11 (Pertz, Leges, i.). 9 Ep. xiii. 1. Conc. Liptin. A.D. 743 (Hard. iii. 1924-6); Conc. Vern. A.D. 755, c. 14 (Pertz, Leges, i.).

Capit. A.D. 789, c. 15 (Pertz, Leges, i. 57); Conc. Francof. A.D. 794, c. 21.