Reverence for the Cross, a Token of Faith in the Atonement. 31

ourselves to have done our part, and not to be responsible, should § ii. 18. you remain unbelievers."

(18.) One would have supposed, that at least the piety and good meaning of such trains of thought might remain unquestioned, by all believers in the Cross of CHRIST, whatever judgment might be formed on their logical accuracy. Yet, so it is, that on passages of this kind a charge has been grounded against the Fathers, of directing the "faith of their readers to the efficacy of the figure of the Cross, rather than to the Atonement made thereon." A charge which might perhaps be tenable, could it be proved that the general views and conduct of the same Fathers were such as to contradict their truly believing the Atonement. Just as, if there were any persons, either in ancient or in modern times, who observed no rules of self-denial, we might conclude at once that any trust they had, or taught others to have, in "CHRIST crucified," was in fact a trust in a certain form of words, not in the virtue itself of that blessed sacrifice. What was the Cross, as employed by the Fathers, but a "Verbum visibile," recalling to the minds of the baptized the very truth which they were thus accused of slighting ; and to the heathen themselves conveying so much as this, that the Gospel was essentially a doctrine of the Cross, a doctrine of suffering in adherence to a crucified Redeemer? As an expressive symbol, therefore, or word, the Sign of the Cross was liable to the same abuse with words in general: the self-deceit of man might enable him sometimes to acquiesce in the sign without the thing signified; and such a caution might be occasionally needed, as Wesley is reported to have received from William Law: "Remember that a man may deceive himself as easily by the phrase, 'justification by faith,' as by any other combination of syllables."

But supposing no such practical proof against them, may we not say, that the Fathers' veneration for the Cross is prima facie as much a proof of their receiving the doctrine of CHRIST crucified, as any form of words in which they could possibly have expressed themselves? And there was this plain and material reason, for their preferring the visible symbol to any mode of speech, in treatises for general reading; that they did not thereby convey more knowledge than the rule of the Church allowed, to those who were without, while to every baptized believer they conveyed

32 St. Cyprian's Allusion to the Wood of the Cross.

§ ii. 19. intimations, deep and solemn in proportion to the depth of his faith.

(19.) But not only with the figure of the Cross, but with its material also, the piety of those times associated divine relations and recollections; transferring, by an easy process, the mystical allusion, which the New Testament expressly sanctioned in the case of the ark, not only as before mentioned, to other scriptural facts, such as that of Elisha causing the iron to swim, but also to occasions of common life; such, for example, as that mentioned by St. Cyprian, where he comforts certain imprisoned confessors, with thoughts, which to the world may seem merely enthusiastic and fanciful; but let not us rashly apply such words to the reflections of holy men, suffering for the truth's sake, on the circumstances of their trial; circumstances which others might term casual, but which they feel to be providential. Thus, I say, St. Cyprian writes to Nemesianus and other confessors, condemned to the mines 1.

"The circumstance of your having been first beaten with staves, and by severe pain of that kind begun to solemnize the first glorious stage of your confession, has nothing in it that we need abhor or earnestly deprecate. For those limbs of yours, christened as they were, and having all their hope in the Wood of the Cross, shrank not for terror from the wood of the persecutors' staves. The sacrament and token of his salvation was recognized by the servant of CHRIST. Redeemed before by wood to eternal life, by wood in another form he now finds himself borne onwards to his crown."

This passage may serve as a specimen of the manner, in which those first Christian moralists improved things, seemingly trivial, to spiritual associations. Those who merely make light of such allusions, know little of the real comfort they are calculated to give, to minds over depressed, perhaps, by sickness or privation. And may we not also say, they know but little, I fear we all know far less than we ought, of that serious and thankful frame of mind, which fears to accept such consolations, without owning a special Providence in them, and regarding

1 Ep. 86. ed. Fell, p. 231.

Irenæus associates the Cross with the Tree of Knowledge. 33

them as real tokens of the greater blessing, with which they are associated?

So far we have traced the chief mystical expositions, relating to the Passion of our LORD, in the epistle of St. Barnabas; and we seem to perceive that they are but so many specimens (so to call them) of as many groupes of allusions, constantly occurring in the remains of the early Church.

(20.) There is yet one other aspect, in which the Wood or Tree of the Cross was contemplated by the Church of the first ages, viz. as bearing a designed reference to the fatal wood, or tree of knowledge in Paradise. This is put plainly and forcibly by St. Irenæus, (v. 17,) in a passage which it may be well to quote at length, as containing perhaps the best illustration that can be given of this whole subject. He is demonstrating the harmony of the Old and New Testaments, as different parts of the one great scheme of salvation. And having first pointed to the light thrown by the Incarnation of the WORD on the statement, that man was created after God's image, he proceeds to argue on the Passion in the following way:

"Not only thus did the LORD manifest both the FATHER and Himself, but also by His very Passion. For doing away with that disobedience of mankind, which from the beginning had taken place through the wood, or tree of knowledge, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross." The rebellion, I say, which the one tree had occasioned, He heals by that submission, which was wrought in the other. Whereas, had He been announcing another Father, He could not, by this sameness of subject, have indicated His coming to do away with the disobedience which had been committed against our CREATOR. But inasmuch as the very same things, which occasioned our refusal to hear and obey God's word, were the instruments whereby He introduced obedience and entire conformity to His word, He openly shows Himself hereby to be that GOD, whom in the first Adam we offended, not performing His commandment; but in the second Adam we are reconciled to the same, having become obedient unto death. For to no other were we VOL. VI.-89.

D

§ ii. 20.

34

No Mystical Allusions in Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp.

§ ii. 21. debtors, but to Him, whose commandment also we transgressed from the beginning." And presently after, "He hath blotted out the handwriting of our debt, and fixed it to His cross, that as by the tree we were made debtors to GoD, so by the tree we might receive remission of our debt. This hath been shown in symbol through many, but more especially through the prophet Elisha." Then after relating the miracle as above quoted by Justin Martyr, Irenæus proceeds: "Thus by action the prophet showed, that the solid" (which word seems to mean "enduring, irresistible") "WORD of GOD, which we through negligence had lost and could not find, we shall recover through the dispensation of the Tree or Wood. For that the axe is in some way a figure of the WORD of GoD, St. John the Baptist shows, speaking of Him: Now also is the axe laid to the root of the trees.' And Jeremiah in like manner says, 'The WORD of the LORD is an axe cleaving a rock'.' Him, then, before hidden from us, the dispensation of the Tree or Wood hath now manifested. For since by the tree we lost Him, by the tree again He hath become evident unto all; shewing in Himself the length, and height, and depth, and breadth; and as one of our elders said, by the divine extension of His Hands, gathering the two peoples unto one God. For the hands are two, because there are also two peoples, scattered to the ends of the earth; but the Head in the midst is one, because there is one GOD, who is over all, and through all, and in us all."

(21.) In the other Apostolic Fathers, I do not know that more than one instance occurs of the mystical mode of interpretation; but nothing is to be concluded from this omission, inasmuch as we seldom or never find either Hermas, Ignatius, or Polycarp, quoting the Old Testament at all. St. Hermas indeed hardly quotes the New, perhaps because the parabolical air of his treatise was better preserved by avoiding such definite allusions; or because (which seems not improbable) the sacred Books, many of them, had not yet come into his hands. And of the other two venerable Saints, it may be observed in general, that 1 C. xxiii. 29.

St. Clement of Rome on the History of Rahab.

35

in no part of their writings had they occasion to enter into § ii. 21. debate, either with Jews or with impugners of the Old Testament; which two controversies generally called forth the mystical principle of interpretation in the subsequent age.

But in the epistle of St. Clement there is a well-known passage, which proves that by him, at least, that mode of exposition was neither unknown nor disapproved. Having related the history of the harlot Rahab, as an argument of God's blessing on faith as shown by hospitality, he proceeds1: "They went on to give her a sign, viz. that she should hang a scarlet thread from her house; foretokening this, that by the blood of the LORD shall be redemption to all who believe and hope in GOD. Behold, my beloved: not only faith, but prophecy was in this woman." As if he had said, "It was not a simple case of an individual sinner of the Gentiles preserved by faith; but GOD so highly favoured her, as to make her person and history a prophecy by action, of the salvation which should be by the Cross."

Now this single instance, well considered, appears to bring the question of the mystical interpretation, as it were, to a point. Here is a writer (one is more than half afraid to speak in such a tone of one who came so very near the Apostles, but, if we must so speak of him, here is a writer) of the very highest human claims; the chosen, ordained friend of St. Paul and St. Peter; a person of the greatest practical good sense, as every part of his epistle shows; full of deep piety, and reverence for the holy Scriptures of GOD; of a flowing style, and abundant in resources both of imagery and of language, so that he was not under the temptation, which an ordinary writer might feel, of inserting such topics as happened to present themselves, whether satisfied with them himself or no moreover, he was evidently not carried away by a passion for allegorical interpretation as such, as is proved by the fact that this of Rahab is the solitary instance in which he employs it. Now, can we believe that such a person, so circumstanced, writing in the most solemn way on the most sacred of all subjects, and on an occasion which must have recalled most forcibly the memory of St. Paul, his father in the 1 1 Ep. ad Cor. c. xii.