show how conscious the writer was, that the whole weight of the Scripture authority was overwhelmingly against him, and the miserable shifts to which he resorts to evade its force. He endeavours to prove the doctrine of expiatory fasting from Scripture; and the first step of his argument is a stumble, and an awkward one. If fasting be the means of recovering the favour of God, whence is it that the permission to eat was extended after the deluge, instead of being curtailed? for God permitted to Adam the use of herbs and fruits only; but he allowed Noah to eat flesh also. The answer to this untoward objection is worthy of the entire argument." God conceded this greater liberty, in order that man might acquire more merit by fasting; and that by the practice of a greater abstinence, upon the occasion of a greater licence, he might make a greater expiation of the primary offence." He proceeds to quote a number of other passages from the Scriptures, and to comment upon them; frequently in a strain of inconceivable absurdity. I forbear quoting them, as we are already in possession of the whole of his reasoning.-His citations soon bring him again into an unfortunate dilemma; for it suddenly occurs to him, that nearly all the worthies, whose powers of abstinence he has so strongly commended, were Jews, and, therefore, fasted under a dispensation of ceremonies, which the Gospel has entirely abolished. condition in which his argument escapes from this difficulty is truly pitiable." With one exception, 18 the Christian fasts were appointed at times altogether different from those of the Jews:"19 therefore, Christianity effects no

The

17 Quo magis primordiale delictum expiaretur majoris abstinentiæ operatione, in majoris licentiæ occasione.-C. 4., fin.

18 The Passover, Easter.

19 C. 14.

change whatever in the spirit and temper of Judaism; and derives its title to be termed a new dispensation, merely from the circumstance, that it abolishes the fasts, and some other ceremonies of the older religion, and prescribes new ones. This contemptible evasion is his only refuge from an objection of his own raising!

In the same spirit of quibble and misinterpretation he informs us, that where the New Testament writers condemn these formal and needless abstinences, they wrote by the Spirit of prophecy, against the errors of Marcion, Tatian and others, who enjoined a perpetual fast out of hatred and contempt for the Creator of the world.20 After quoting the case of Hophni and Phineas, who were punished, not for sacrilege, but for eating, and of the prophet sent to Jeroboam, who was slain by the lion, not for his disobedience, but for his crapulary indulgence, he tells us that, on the other hand, the fasts of the Heathens themselves, though instituted in honour of false gods, and intermixed with idolatrous rites, were, nevertheless, acceptable and efficacious with God; he instances the Ninevites. The resemblance between the fasts of Montanism and those of Heathenism, he traces, as usual, to the prescience of the Devil; who, foreseeing their excellence, forestalled and anticipated them in the ritual of idolatry. And that the Devil had a good deal to do with the whole matter, we shall probably all agree: though it would seem to fall in better with his ordinary mode of operation, to to engraft Heathenism upon Christianity, rather than Christianity upon Heathenism.

He proceeds to sing the praises of fasting in the following strain of coarse vehemence :-"O Saint! God is thy belly, and thy lungs are his temple, and thy stomach

20 C. 15.

ter.

is his altar, and his priest is thy cook, and the Holy Spirit is thy savour of cooked meats, and his grace is thy sauce, and prophecy is the eructation of thy full stomach ! But O thou that indulgest thy gorge! thou art like Esau, thou wilt sell thy birth-right, any day, for a mess of pottage; thy charity boils in thy pots, thy faith warms in thy kitchens, thy hope lies in a cradle spit."21 Then follows as filthy passage as you shall find in Petronius ArbiAnd this is the Christianity of the second century. Clement of Alexandria has treated the subject of fasting in a manner which curiously contrasts with that of the preceding writer, and which well illustrates the very different views which two individuals obtain of the same subject, though holding the same sentiments upon it, when their observations are made through the media of different mental prepossessions. The bent of Tertullian's mind was towards fanaticism; Clement, on the other hand, dearly loved the Greek philosophy: and the design of nearly all his remaining works, is to harmonize the Eclectic22 system with that of Christianity. Accordingly, while the former writer, as we have seen, gives the full energies of his mind to the increase of the number and rigour of the stated fasts, and to rendering more stringent upon men's consciences the canon that prescribed them, Clement lays down a rule of abstinence to the full as rigid, in a book whose purpose is to identify the moderation of Christianity with the happy medium of the Aristotelian philosophers; its self-denial with the supreme good of the Platonists; and its entire system with the discipline of Pythagoras!

The second book of the Pædagogue is an expansion

21 Cc. 14, 15. See a similar passage in Clem. Alex., Pæd. 2. 1.

22 See page 33.

into twelve tedious chapters, of that which the Apostle had already declared by the Holy Ghost in a single sentence; "let your moderation be known unto all men." He attempts to establish a rule for all the common functions of life, eating, drinking, feasting, laughing, sleeping, &c, -but never once enforces it by the apostle's sanction, "the Lord is at hand :"23-he merely adduces argument in favour of abstinence drawn from the nature of things, some of which are absurd even to madness; pronounces philippics against excess, and only appeals to Scripture in order to show the value and acceptableness with God of the course he recommends. His rule is sufficiently rigid; he praises a perpetual Xerophagia,24 alternating with full fasts. For those initiated into the occult doctrines, this is indispensable, or nearly so:25 but for the young and uninitiated, he allows the use of roasted or boiled flesh occasionally, with such vegetable food as may be eaten uncooked; (c. 1.) and also wine, in small quantities, but only that produced in the country of which the drinker is an inhabitant; all importation of foreign wines he forbids as sinful, and counteracting the purpose of the Creator.26 (c. 2.) In the same spirit he entirely prohibits the use of

23 Phil. iv. 5.

24 See note 11.

25 7 Strom. § 6.

26 Tertullian utters exactly the same sentiment, with regard to the im portation and use of foreign articles of dress and ornament, in the precious piece of spiritual buffoonery entitled De Habitu Muliebri, c. 9.; he declares the very desire after them to be sinful concupiscence: and in a brochure of still more wretched absurdity (if that be possible) De Virginibus velandis, c. 10., he proclaims the unlawfulness and wickedness of the whole art of dyeing, as a most impious interference with the order of providence; "if it had been the divine will," says this profound reasoner, "that wool should be of a purple or scarlet hue, he would have created purple and scarlet sheep." We will pursue the argument one step further; if the dyeing of a

all costly furniture, (c. 3.) of all music except sacred, of laughter in toto, (c. 5.) of perfumes and garlands,27 (c. 8.)

fleece of wool be sinful, then is the manufacture of woollen cloth sinful also:-for, had it been intended that such a fabric should exist, sheep would, doubtless, have been created with broad cloth, ready made, upon their backs, instead of wool! I have one other remark to make upon these passages. A late writer greatly rejoices in the discovery, from a passage in the book De Animâ, (c. 30.) that Tertullian was an anti-populationist; the passage deeply deplores the dreadful evils of "pleasant farms smiling where formerly were arid and dangerous wastes; of flocks and herds expelling wild beasts; of harbours being excavated," and many other equally calamitous results of a surcharge of people, and informs us, that "in conse. quence of these, we no longer look upon famine, and wars, and earthquakes as positive evils, but remedies provided by Providence," &c. "Professor

Malthus himself," remarks the learned and enraptured divine, "could not have lamented more feelingly the miseries resulting from an excess of population; or have pointed out with greater acuteness the natural checks to that excess." Sorry as I am to damp the pleasure which those who think with this author upon these subjects, will naturally feel at the discovery of so early a proficient in their favourite science, (and especially when it arises from so rational and benevolent a source,) I am, nevertheless, compelled to call their attention to the passages I have just quoted; which afford lamentable proof, that however versed Tertullian may have been in the principles of Professor Malthus, he was sadly to seek in those of Professor M'Culloch; and that, notwithstanding his acute apprehension of the evils of over-popuiation, he can scarcely, with propriety, be canonised as the Patron Saint of Political Economy.

27 His reasons against the use of wreaths of flowers are manifold... 1st. Because it is not proper to cull the fields of their beauties and weave them together; 2nd. because flowers worn in the hair refrigerate the brain, and render the use of perfumes necessary as counteractives; 3rd. because no delight can accrue, either to the eye from the sight of them, or to the olfactory organs from their perfume, when garlands of flowers are bound round the hair, and thus the purpose of their creation is defeated; 4th. because flowers were dedicated to heathen deities; 5th. because our Lord was crowned with thorns, and, therefore, it is highly unbecoming in his disciples to be crowned with flowers." Extravagant and foolish as these reasons may appear, they seem to have possessed considerable influence at the time Some of the worst of them will be found in Tertullian, de Coronâ Militis, c. 5.