4

we may conjecture, that the old usage continued till that time in Palestine also. But in some monasteries they took the office by turns of going about to every one's cell, and with the knock of an hammer calling the monks to church; which custom is often mentioned by Cassian,1 and Palladius, and Moschus, as used chiefly for their night assemblies, whence the instrument is termed by them the night-signal, and the wakening mallet. In the monastery of virgins, which Paula, the famous Roman lady, set up and governed at Jerusalem, the signal was used to be given by one going about and singing, Hallelujah! for that word was their call to church, as St. Jerom informs us. In other parts of the East, they had their sounding instruments of wood, as Bona* shows at large out of the Acts of the second council of Nice, and Theodorus Studita, and Nicephorus Blemides, and several other writers. And the use of bells was not known among them, as he observes out of Baronius, till the year 865; when Ursus Patriciacus, duke of Venice, made a present of some to Michael, the Greek Emperor, who first built a tower to the church of St. Sophia to hang them in. But whether it be that this custom never generally prevailed among the Greeks, or whether it be that the Turks will not permit them to use any bells, so it is at present that they have none, but follow their old custom of using wooden boards or iron plates full of holes, which they call Σήμαντρα and Χειροσήμαντρα, because they hold them in their hands, and knock them with a hammer or mallet to eall the people together to church, as we are informed by Allatius, and a late learned writer' of our own, who has been an eye witness of their customs.

Who first brought bells into use in the Latin Church, is a thing yet undetermined; some ascribing them to Pope Sabinianus, St. Gregory's successor, Anno 604; and others

Cassian. Institut. lib. ii. c. 17. lib. iv. c. 12. Lausiac. c. 104. Εξυπνιαςήριον σφυρίου.

Nocturnum pulsare signum, &c.

2 Pallad. Hist. 3 Moschus, Prat. Spirit. Hieron. Ep. 27. Epitaph.

Paulæ. p. 178. Post, Alleluia ! cantatum, quo signo vocabantur ad collectam,

nulli residere licitum erat.

Baron. an. 865. tom. 10. p. 319.

Greek Church, p. 70.

5 Bona, Rer. Liturg. lib. 1. c. 22. n. 2.

"Dr. Smith's Account of the

to Paulinus, bishop of Nola, cotemporary with St. Jerom. This last is certainly a vulgar error, and seems to owe its rise to no other foundation, but only that he was bishop of Nola in Campania, (where bells perhaps were first invented, and thence called Nole and Campane,) and some bold modern writer thence concluded, that he was therefore the author of them. And it might make the story look a little more plausible, because that he also founded a church in Nola. But then it happened unluckily for this fiction, that he himself describes his church, and that very minutely, in his twelfth Epistle to Severus, but takes no notice of tower or bells, though he is exact in recounting all other lesser edifices belonging to his church: which, as Bona truly ob ́serves, is a shrewd argument, joined with the silence of all other ancient writers, to prove that he was not the inventor of them. Yet Bona after all would have it thought, that they began to be used in the Latin Church immediately upon the conversion of Christian Emperors, because the Tintinnabula or lesser sort of bells had been used before by the Heathens to the like purpose. Which is an argument, I think, that has very little weight in it, since there is no ancient author that countenances his conjecture. For he produces none before Audoenus Rothomagensis, that mentions the use of the Tintinnabula, nor any before Bede, that uses the name, Campana; both which authors lived in the seventh century, and that is an an argument that these things were not come into use among Christians long before, else we might have heard of them in writers before them, as we freqnently do in those that follow after. I need not now tell any reader, that the Popish custom of consecrating and anointing, and baptizing of bells, and giving them the name of some saint, is a very modern invention. Baronius carries it no higher than the time of John XIII. Anno 968, who consecrated the great bell of the Lateran church, and gave it the name of John, from whence he thinks the custom was authorized in the Church. Menardus and Bona3 would have it thought a little more ancient, but yet

2 Menard. Not. in Sacramental. 3 Bona, Rer. Liturg. lib. i. c. 22. n. 7.

Baron. an. 968. tom. x. p. 810. Gregor. p. 207.

they do not pretend to carry it higher than one age more to the time of Charles the Great, in whose time some Rituals, Menardus says, had a form of blessing and anointing bells, under this title or rubric,-" Ad signum Ecclesiæ benedicendum, a form for blessing of bells." And it is not improbable but that such a corruption might creep into the Rituals of those times, because we find among the Capitulars of Charles the Great, a censure and prohibition of that practice,' -"Ut clocas non baptizent, that they should not baptize clocks," which is the old German name for a bell. But what was then prohibited, has since been stiffly avowed and practised, and augmented also with some additional rites, to make bells a sort of charm against storms and thunder, and the assaults of Satan, as the reader that pleases may see the ceremony described by Sleidan and Hospinian, out of the old Pontificals of the Romish Church. But I fear my readers will begin to accuse me now, instead of an omission, of making too long a digression upon this subject, and therefore I return to the business of ancient churches.

2

CHAP. VIII.

Of the Anathemata, and other Ornaments of the Ancient Churches,

SECT. 1.-What the Ancients meant by their Anathemata in Churches.

After having taken a distinct survey of the chief parts, and buildings, and common utensils of the ancient churches, it will not be amiss to cast our eyes upon the ornamental parts thereof, and consider a little after what manner the first Christians beautified their houses of prayer. The richness and splendour of some of their fabrics, and the value of their utensils belonging to the altar, many of which

1 Capitular. Caroli Magni, cited by Durantus de Ritibus. lib. 1. c. 22. 2 Sleidan. Commentar. lib. xxi. p. 388. 8 • Hospin. de

n. 2.

Templis, lib. iv. c. 9. p. 113.

VOL. II.

were of silver and gold, I have already taken notice of: what, therefore, I shall further add in this place concerns only the remaining ornaments of the church, some of which were a little uncommon, and but rarely mentioned by modern writers. The general name for all sorts of ornaments in churches, whether in the structure itself, or in the vessels and utensils belonging to it, was anciently Anathemata; which, though it most commonly signifies persons devoted or accursed by excommunication or separation from the Church, yet it sometimes also denotes things given to God and devoted to his honour and service. In which sense all the sacred vessels and utensils of the church, and all gifts and ornaments belonging to it, were called Anathemata, because they were set apart from common use to God's honour and service. Some of the Greeks distinguish thus between 'Avanuara and 'Avadéuara, as Suicerus1 has observed out of Chrysostom, and Hesychius, and Balzamon,* and Zonaras, making the first to signify ornaments of the Church, or things devoted to God's honour; and the other, things accursed or devoted to destruction. But others of them do not so nicely observe this distinction, but use the same word to signify both things devoted to God's use, and things devoted to destruction, as Suicerus shows in the same place out of Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria, the author of the Questions ad Orthodoxos, under the name of Justin Martyr, and some others. Here I take both words only as signifying gifts or ornaments of churches; in which sense 'Avanuara is used by St. Luke, xxi. 5., for the gifts and ornaments of the Temple. And so Eusebius, describing the hemisphere or altar-part of the church of Jerusalem, and the twelve pillars which supported and surrounded it, says,5 5 "the heads of the pillars were adorned with silver bowls, which Constantine set up as his beautiful 'Avánua," that is, his gift or offering to his God. And a little after he says again," he adorned it with innumerable gifts of

Concil. in Templo Sophiæ.

Chrysost. Hom. 16. in

4 Balzamon et Zonar. in Can. 3.

5 Euseb. de Vit. Constant. lib. iii. c. 38.

Ανάθημα κάλλις ον ἐποιεῖτο τῷ αὐτῷ θεῷ.

δ' αὐτὸν ἀδιηγήτοις κάλλεσι ἀναθημάτων χρυσᾶ, &c.

6 Ibid. c. 40. Εκόσμε

silver, and gold, and precious stones." So that all the rich vessels and utensils of the altar, the rich vestment which the bishop put on when he administered the sacrament of baptism, which was interwoven with gold, and which, as Theodoret1 and Sozomen tell us, was one of Constantine's gifts to the church of Jerusalem;-these, I say, and all other such like ornaments belonging to the church, as well as what contributed to the beauty and splendour of the fabric itself, were all reckoned among the Anathemata of the church. But in a more restrained sense the Anathemata sometimes denote more peculiarly those gifts, which were hanged upon pillars, and set in public view, as memorials of some great mercy which men had received from God. In allusion to which Socrates thinks the term, Anathema, is used for excommunication, because thereby a man's condemnation is published and proclaimed, as if it were hanged up upon a pillar. St. Jerom also had his eye plainly upon this custom, when he speaks of men's gifts hanging in the church upon golden cords, or being set in golden sockets or sconces; for the word, Funale, signifies both. And though he rather advises men to offer their gifts to the true temples of Christ, meaning the bodies and souls of the poor; yet that implies another way of offering their gifts to be in common use, that is, hanging up their Anathemata, or Donaria, as he with other Latin writers calls them, in the material temples. Vide Sidon. Apollinar. Lib. iv. Ep. 18. and Paulin. Natali 6. Felicis.

SECT. 2.-One particular kind of these, called 'ExTurópara, when first brought into Churches.

Among these there was one particular kind of gifts, which they called 'EKTUπμara, because they were a sort of symbolical memorials, or hieroglyphical representations of the kindness and favour, which in any kind they had received.

Theodor. lib. ii. c. 27.

8 Socrat.

2 Sozom. lib. iv. c. 25. lib. vii. c. 34. *Hieron. Ep. 27. ad Eustoch. in Epitaphio Paulæ. Jactent alii pecunias, et in corbonam Dei æra congesta, funalibusque aureis dona pendentia, &c. ld. Ep. 13. ad Paulin. Verum Christi templum anima credentis est.

Illi offer donaria.