← Back to the beginning of V.15. The sumptuousness of churches.

If we should, over and besides this, allege the care which was had, that all things about the tabernacle of Moses might be as beautiful, gorgeous, and rich, as art could make them; or what travail and cost was bestowed that the goodliness of the temple might be a spectacle of admiration to all the world: this they will say was figurative, and served by God’s appointment but for a time, to shadow out the true everlasting glory of a more divine sanctuary; whereinto Christ being long sithence entered, it seemeth that all those curious exornations should rather cease. Which thing we also ourselves would grant, if the use thereof had been merely and only mystical. But sith the Prophet David doth mention a natural conveniency which such kind of bounteous expenses have, as well for that we do thereby give unto God a testimony of our10 cheerful affection which thinketh nothing too dear to be bestowed about the furniture of his service; as also because it serveth to the world for a witness of his11 almightiness, whom we outwardly honour with the chiefest of outward things, as being of all things himself incomparably the greatest12. Besides, were it not also strange, if God should have made such store of glorious creatures on earth, and leave them all to be consumed in secular vanity, allowing none but the baser sort to be employed in his own service? To set forth the 13majesty of kings his vicegerents in this world, the most gorgeous and rare treasures which the world hath are procured. We think belike that he will accept what the meanest of them would disdain14.

If there be great care to build and beautify these corruptible sanctuaries, little or none that the living temples of the Holy Ghost, the dearly redeemed souls of the people of God, may be edified; huge expenses upon timber and stone, but towards the relief of the poor small devotion; cost this way infinite, and in the meanwhile charity cold: we have in such case just occasion to make complaint as St. Jerome did, “The walls of the Church there are enow contented to build, and to underset it with goodly pillars, the marbles are polished, the roofs shine with gold, the altar hath precious stones to adorn it; and of Christ’s ministers no choice at all15.” The same Jerome both in that place and16 elsewhere debaseth with like intent the glory of such magnificence, (a thing whereunto men’s affection in those times needed no spur,) thereby to extol the necessity sometimes of charity and alms, sometimes of other the most principal duties belonging unto Christian men; which duties were neither so highly esteemed as they ought, and being compared with that in question, the directest sentence we can give of them both, as unto me it seemeth, is this: “God, who requireth the one as necessary, accepteth the other also as being an honourable work.”

← Of the fashion of our churches. · Contents · What holiness and virtue we ascribe to the C →

Footnotes

  1. [“To give ten thousand ducats to have it baned.” Merch. of Ven. iv. 1. 46.] 1886. ↩

  2. Ἔργον τὸ μεγα καὶ καλὸν τίμιον· του̑ γὰρ τοιούτου ἡ θεωρία θαυμαστή. Arist. Eth. lib. iv. c. 2. Τὰ αἰσθήσει καλὰ καὶ νοήσει καλω̑ν εἰκόνες. Philo Jud. ↩

  3. “Felix, thesauri imperialis quæstor, conspicatus sacrorum vasorum pretia; En, inquit, qualibus vasis ministratur Mariæ filio!” Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. c. 12. ↩

  4. Ecclus. xxxix. 34. ↩

  5. Hag. ii. 5, 10. ↩

  6. Minuc. Fel. (second or third cent.) in Octav. [c. 32. “Putatis autem nos occultare quod colimus, si delubra et aras non habemus? … Nonne melius in nostra dedicandus est mente? in nostro imo consecrandus est pectore?”] ↩

  7. Euseb. lib. viii. c. 1. [Πω̑ς δ’ ἄν τις διαγράψειε τὰς μυριάνδρους ἐκείνας ἐπισυναγωγὰς καὶ τὰ πλήθη τω̑ν κατὰ πα̑σαν πόλιν ἀθροισμάτων, τάς τε ἐπισήμους ἐν τοι̑ς προσευκτηρίοις συνδρομάς; ὠ̑ν δὴ ἕνεκα μηδαμω̑ς ἔτι τοι̑ς παλαιοι̑ς οἰκοδομήμασιν ἀρκούμενοι, εὐρείας εἰς πλάτος ἀαὰ πα̑σας τὰς πόλεις ἐκ θεμελίων ἀνίστων ἐκκλησίας· ταυ̑τα δὲ τοι̑ς χρόνοις προἴοντα, ὁσημέραι τε εἰς αὔξησιν καὶ μέγεθος ἐπιδίδοντα, οὐδεὶς ἀνει̑ργε ϕθόνος. οὐδέ τις δαίμων πονηρὸς οἷός τε ἠ̑ν βασκαίνειν, οὐδ’ ἀνθρώπων ἐπιβουλαι̑ς κωλύειν, ἐς ὅσον ἡ θεία καὶ οὐράνιος χεὶρ ἔσκεπέ τε καὶ ἐϕρούρει, οἷα δὴ ἄξιον ὄντα τὸν ἑαυτη̑ς λαόν.] ↩

  8. [Ibid. c. 2. τω̑ν προσευκτηρίων τοὺς οἴκους ἐξ ὕψους εἰς ἔδαϕος αὐτοι̑ς θεμελίοις καταρριπτουμένους … . αὐτοι̑ς ἐπείδομεν ὀϕθαλμοι̑ς.] ↩

  9. Euseb. lib. x. c. 2. [καί τις ἔνθεος ἅπασιν ἐπήνθει χάρα, πάντα τόπον τὸν πρὸ μικρου̑ ται̑ς τω̑ν τυράννων δυσσεβείαις ἠρειπωμένον, ὥσπερ ἐκ μακρα̑ς καὶ θανατηϕόρου λύμης ἀναβιώσκοντα θεωμένοις, νεώς τε εὐθὺς ἐκ βάθρων εἰς ὕψος ἄπειρον ἐγειρομένους, καὶ πολὺ κρείττονα τὴν ἀγλαἲαν τω̑ν πάλαι πεπολιορκημένων ἀπολαμβάνοντας.] ↩

  10. 1 Chron. xxviii. 14. [xxix. 2, 3, 6, 9, 14.] ↩

  11. 2 Chron. ii. 5. ↩

  12. [The apodosis of the sentence is wanting, unless the punctuation (A. C.) is wrong, and there should be a semicolon after “greatest.”] 1886. ↩

  13. Matt. vi. 29. ↩

  14. Mal. i. 8. ↩

  15. Ad Nepotian. de vita Cleric. [§ 10. “Multi ædificant parietes, et columnas Ecclesiæ substruunt; marmora nitent, auro splendent laquearia, gemmis altare distinguitur; et ministrorum Christi nulla electio est.”] ↩

  16. Ad Demetriad. [Ep. 8. al. 97. “Alii ædificent Ecclesias, vestiant parietes marmorum crustis, columnarum moles advehant, earumque deaurent capita, pretiosum ornatum non sentientia; ebore argentoque valvas, et gemmis aurata distinguant altaria. Non reprehendo, non abnuo. Unusquisque in sensu suo abundet. Meliusque est hoc facere, quam repositis opibus incubare. Sed tibi aliud propositum est: Christum vestire in pauperibus; visitare in languentibus; pascere in esurientibus; suscipere in his qui tecto indigent, et maxime in domesticis fidei; virginum alere monasteria; servorum Dei et pauperum spiritu habere curam, qui diebus et noctibus serviant Domino tuo.” t. i. p. 69.] Ad Gaudentium, Epist. 12. [al. 98. 1. 100. “Proh nefas, orbis terrarum ruit, in nobis peccata non ruunt! Urbs inclyta et Romani imperii caput, uno hausta est incendio. Nulla est regio, quæ non exules Romanos habeat. In cineres ac favillas sacræ quondam Ecclesiæ conciderunt, et tamen studemus avaritiæ. Vivimus quasi altera die morituri, et ædificamus quasi semper in hoc sæculo victuri. Auro parietes, auro laquearia, auro fulgent capita columnarum, et nudus atque esuriens ante fores nostras Christus in paupere moritur.” t. i. p. 100. This passage however seems to relate to private, not to church, expenses.] ↩

← Back to the beginning of V.15. The sumptuousness of churches.