esteemed an incomplete repository of God's known communications to mankind, episcopal inquiries into the principles of religious belief could not safely have been confined within such narrow limits. In these interrogatories accordingly, as appearing in formularies of a later date, we find the following interpolation: "Will you receive and keep the traditions of the orthodox fathers, and the decrees of the holy and apostolic see" ?"

By the term "traditions" here is intended, probably, nothing more than certain passages, alleged from the remains of ecclesiastical antiquity, both spurious and genuine, as authorities for papal claims to supremacy. The comparatively late insertion of such a clause affords, however, a strong presumption, that earlier times had recognised no religious guide independent of the sacred volume. Of such a presumption confirmations are, indeed, abundantly supplied in the homiletic stores of our ancient Church. It is represented in one of these venerable documents, that our Lord's immediate followers, when removed from earth, acted upon subsequent generations by the books which some among them left behind". Of vital truths passed over unrecorded by the sacred penmen no suspicion seems to have been entertained in the Anglo

Saxon Church.

Hence her children were diligently trained in habits of reverencing and consulting the written word: habits, from which they could hardly fail of regarding it as a sufficient rule of faith. Among evidences of such religious training may be mentioned a fanciful picture of the unseen world presented by a Saxon homily. A ransomed soul, summoned to its final occupation of the body from which death had severed it, introduces the following words into its gratulatory salutation: "When we were together in the world, thou paidest earnest heed to holy writ13."

It appears, then, that the insufficiency of Scripture was no tradition of our ancient Church. Nor did she hold the canonical authority of those books which are ordinarily called apocryphal. Her views, indeed, of critical tradition were guided by St. Jerome', and by her implicit deference for the first four general councils. In the last of these, however, that of Calcedon", the Laodicean catalogue of inspired writings was unequivocally, though tacitly, confirmed. The canon, thus authenticated, was naturally recognised by Gregory the Great, honourably commemorated in Anglo-Saxon times, as the apostle of England: for he received, professedly, the de

crees of the first four general councils with a reverence hardly less than that which he paid to the four Gospels". This famous pontiff accompanies, accordingly, a accordingly, a citation from Maccabees with a remark, that it is found in a series of writings not canonical. He denies expressly, therefore, canonicity to one of those two very books for which advocates of a belief in purgatory would earnestly contend, as affording to that doctrine an important scriptural proof. With Gregory, Bede agrees; taking occasion from a passage in the Apocalypse to mention twenty-four, as the number of books in the former volume of inspiration". Again; he speaks of the ancient canon as completed under Ezra; and, more plainly still, he ranks the books of Maccabees with the histories of Josephus and Julius Africanus. Alcuin also rejects, as insufficient, a doctrinal proof alleged in controversy, because drawn from the son of Sirach, a writer, says, who lived after the voice of prophecy had been reduced to silence, and whose work is pronounced apocryphal by Jerome and Isidore". Ælfric likewise adds his testimony to the same side of this important question". The apocryphal books were indeed freely used for popular instruction in Anglo-Saxon times. Nor was approbation even limited to such of

he

them as are appended to the Old Testament; but care was taken to prevent men from considering them as integral portions of God's recorded word.

stream

Anglo-Saxon Church.

Of hermeneutical tradition, the current was followed reverentially by the Her solemn decisions and the works of her divines exhibit none of that vainglorious impatience, which, spurning all antecedent authority, rashly claims an unlimited right of private judgment. On the contrary, she received, perhaps rather too implicitly, such expositions of the written word as had gained established credit. Her conciliar decisions, accordingly, are in strict unison with those already received among Christians, and her divines used contentedly such materials as they found provided for them by the Fathers, especially by St. Austin.

From such sources naturally flowed a profound veneration for the fundamental articles

of our holy faith. Earlier ages had proved fatally prolific in reprehensible speculations upon the ever-blessed Trinity. Hence our Anglo-Saxon fathers found established a precision in the treatment of this important mystery, which other questions in theology did not attain until after the lapse of several centuries. Of this precision their Church availed

herself; adopting the three creeds, as her standard of orthodoxy23. Nor did her preachers lose any opportunity of inculcating those principles of interpreting Scripture in certain leading articles, which these formularies prescribe. The people were thus carefully taught to view revelations of the Deity, passing man's understanding, among indispensable exercises of a Christian's faiths.

Scholastical definitions and enumerations of the Sacraments did not arise until after Norman arms had overthrown the Saxon polity. Bede, however, speaks of Baptism and the holy Eucharist as the foundations of the Church, and subsequent authorities extol these two ordinances far more highly than any other observances of the Christian religion25. Raban Maur, however, declares expressly that the Sacraments are Baptism and Chrism, the Body and Blood". It is plain that he considered Chrism as properly a member of the baptismal ceremony. Hence he does, in effect, assert two sacraments only; and his views coincided, it is hardly doubtful, with those of that English theological school which formed him as a divine. Upon sacerdotal intention, our Ante-Norman progenitors had probably not acquired any dispo

8 See the Homily on the Catholic Faith.