* Baron, an. 138. n. 5.
Christians were put to fight for their lives in the same manner, and they rather chose to do it than deny their religion, they therefore got the name ofParaboli and Parabolani: which, though it was intended as a name of reproach and mockery, yet the Christians were not unwilling to take to themselves, being one of the truest characters that the heathens ever gave them. And therefore they sometimes gave themselves this name by way of allusion to the Roman Paraboli. As in the Passion of Abdo and Senne* in the time of Valerian, the martyrs who were exposed to be devoured by wild beasts in the amphitheatre, are said to enter, 'ut audacissimi Parabolani,' as most resolute champions, that despised their own lives for their religion's sake. But the other name ofDesperatithey rejected as a calumny, retorting it back upon their adversaries, who more justly deserved it. "Those," says Lactantius***, "who set a value upon their faith, and will not deny their God, they first torment and butcher with all their might, and then call them desperados, because they will not spare their bodies: as if any thing could be more desperate, than to torture and tear in pieces those whom you cannot but know to be innocent."
* Acta Abdon. et Sennes ap. Suicer.** Lact. Instil, lib. 5. c. 9. Desperates vocant, quiacorpori suo minime parcunt, &c.
Tertullian mentions another name, which was likewise occasioned by their sufferings. The martyrs which were burnt alive, were usually tied to a board or stake of about six foot long, which the Romans calledsemaxis; and then they were surrounded or covered with faggots of small wood, which they calledsarmenia. From this their punishment, the heathens, who turned every thing into mockery, gave all Christians the despiteful name ofSarmentitiiandSemaxii*.
The heathen in Minucius*** takes occasion also to reproach them under the name of the sculking generation, or the men that loved to prate in corners and the dark. The ground of which scurrilous reflection was only this, that they were forced to hold their religious assemblies in the night to avoid the fury of the persecutions. Which Celsus**** himself owns, though otherwise prone enough to load them with hard names and odious reflections.
The same heathen in Minucius gives them one
* Tertul. Apol. t, 50. Licet nunc Sarmentitios et Semaxiosappelletis, quia ad stipitem dimidii axis re-vincti,sarmentorum ambitu exurimur.** Minuc. Octav. p. 25. Latebrosa et lucifugax natio, inpublicum muta, in angulis garrula.*** Origen. c. Cel. lib. 1. p. 5.
scurrilous name more, which it is not very easy to guess the meaning of. He calls themPlautinians*,—homines Plautinæ prosapiæ. Rigaltius** takes it for a ridicule upon the poverty and simplicity of the Christians, whom the heathens commonly represented as a company of poor ignorant mechanics, bakers, tailors, and the like; men of the same quality with Plautus, who, as St. Jerome*** observes, was so poor, that at a time of famine he was forced to hire out himself to a baker to grind at his mill, during which time he wrote three of his Plays in the intervals of his labour. Such sort of men Coecilius says the Christians were; and therefore he styles Octavius in the dialogue,homo Plautinæ prosapiæ et pistorum præcipuus, 'a Plautinian, a chief man among the illiterate bakers,' but no philosopher. The same reflection is often made by Celsus. "You shall see," says he****, "weavers, tailors,fullers, and the most illiterate and rustic fellows, who dare not speak a word before wise men, when they can get a company of children and silly women together, set up to teach strange paradoxes amongst
* Minuc. p. 37. Quid ad hæc audet Octavius homo PlautinæProsapiæ, ut Pistorum præcipuus ita postremusPhilosophorum?** Rigalt. in loc.*** Hieron. Chronic, an. 1. Olymp. 145.**** Origen. c Cels. lib. 3. p. 144.
them." "This is one of their rules," says he again*,—"Let no man that is learned, wise, or prudent come among us; but if any be unlearned, or a child, or an ideot, let him freely come. So they openly declare, that none but fools and sots, and such as want sense, slaves, women, and children, are fit disciples for the God they worship***."
Nor was it only the heathens that thus reviled them, but commonly every perverse sect among the Christians had some reproachful name to cast upon them. The Novatian party called themCornelieans*** because they communicated with Cornelius bishop of Rome, rather than with Novatianus his antagonist. They also termed themApostates, Capitolins, Synedrians, because**** they charitably decreed in their synods to receive apostates, and such as went to the Capitol to sacrifice, into their communion again upon their sincere repentance. The Nestorians(v) termed the orthodoxCyrillians; and the Arians(vi) called themEustathiansand
* Origen. c. Cels. lib. 3. p. 137. f See the precedingtranslation of Celsus, p. 19. f Eulog. ap. Phot. Cod. 280. §Facian. Ep. 2. ad Sympronian. || Ep. Legat. Schismat ad suosin Epheso in Act. Con. Ephes. Con. t S. p. 746. f Sozora,lib, 6. c. 21.
Paulinions, from Eustathius and Paulin us bishops of Antioch. As alsoHomousians, because they kept to the doctrine of the [—Greek—], which declared the Son of God to be of the same substance with the Father. The author of theOpus Imperfectionon St. Matthew, under the name of Chrysostom*, styles them expressly,Hæresis Homoousianorum,' the heresy of the Homoousians.' And so Serapion in his conflict with Arnobius** calls themHomousianates,which the printed copy reads corruptlyHomuncionates, which was a name for the Nestorians.
The Cataphrygians or Montanists commonly called the orthodox [—Greek—], 'carnal'; because they rejected the prophecies and pretexted inspirations of Montanus, and would not receive his rigid laws about fasting, nor abstain from second marriages, and observe four Lents in a year, &c. This was Tertullian's ordinary compliment to the Christians in all his books** written after he was fallen into the errors of Montanus. He calls his own party thespiritual, and the orthodox thecarnal: and
* Opus Imperf. Horn. 48.** Conflict. Arnob. et Serap. ad cakem Irenæi, p. 519.*** Tertul. adv. Prax. c. 1. Nos quidem agnitio Paracletidisjunxit à Psychicis. Id. de Monogam. c. 1. Haereticinuptias auferunt, Psychici ingerunt. See also c. 11. and 16.
some of his books* are expressly entitled,Adversus Psychicos. Clemens Alexandrinus** observes, the same reproach was also used by other heretics beside the Montanists. And it appears from Irenæus, that this was an ancient calumny of the Valentînîans, who styled themselves thespiritualand theperfect, and the orthodox thesecular and carnal***, who had need of abstinence and good works, which were not necessary for them that were perfect.
The Millenaries styled themAllegorists, because they expounded the prophecy of the saints reigning a thousand years with Christ, (Rev. xx. 4.) to a mystical and allegorical sense. Whence Euseubius**** observes of Nepos the Egyptian bishop, who wrote for the Millenium, that he entitled his book, [—Greek—], 'A confutation of the Allegorists.'
Aetius the Arian gives them the abusive name of [—Greek—]; by which he seems to intimate, that their religion was but temporary, and would
* De Jejuniis adv. Psychicos. De Pudicitia, &c.** Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. 4. p. 511.*** Iren. lib. 1. c 1. p. 29. Nobis quidem, quos Psychicosvocant, et de sæculo esse dicunt, necessarian) con-tinentiam, &c.**** Euseb. lib. 7. c. 24.
shortly have an end; whereas the character was much more applicable to the Arians themselves, whose faith was so lately sprung up in the world; as the author of the dialoguesde Trinitate, under the name of Athanasius, who confutes Aetius *, justly retorts upon him.
The Manichees, as they gave themselves the most glorious names ofElecti, Macarii, Catharistæ, mentioned by St. Austin**; so they reproached the Catholics with the most contemptible name ofSimplices, 'ideots,' which is the term that Manichæus himself used in his dispute*** with Archelaus, the Mesopotamian bishop, styling the Christian teachers,Simpliciorum magistri, 'guides of the simple;' because they could not relish his execrable doctrine concerning two principles of good and evil.
The Apollinarians were no less injurious to the Catholics, in fixing on them the odious name ofAnthropolatræ, 'man-worshippers'; because they maintained that Christ was a perfect man, and had a reasonable soul and body, of the same nature with ours; which Apollinarius denied. Gregory
* Athan. Dial. 2. de Trinit. t. 2. p. 193.** Aug. de Hær. c. 46.*** Archel. Disp. adv. Manichaeum adcalcem Sozomen. Ed.Vales, p. 197.
Nazianzen* takes notice of this abuse, and sharply replies to it; telling the Apollinarians, that they themselves much better deserved the name ofSarcolatræ, 'flesh-worshippers': for if Christ had no human soul, they must be concluded to worship his flesh only.
The Origenians, who denied the truth of the resurrection, and asserted that men should have only aerial and spiritual bodies in the next world, made jests upon the Catholics, because they maintained the contrary, that our bodies should be the same individual bodies, and of the same nature that they are now, with flesh and bones, and all the members in the same form and structure, only altered in quality, not in substance. For this they gave them the opprobrious names ofSimplicesandPhilosarcæ**, 'ideots' and 'lovers of the flesh';Carnei, Animales, Jumenta, 'carnal, sensual, animals';Lutei, 'earthy', Pilosiotæ***, which Erasmus's edition reads
* Naz. Ep. 1. ad Cledon.** Hieron. Ep. 61. ad Pammach. t. 2. p. 171. Nos Simpliceset Philosarcas dicere, quod eadem ossa, et sanguis, et caro,id est, vultus et membra, totiusque compago corporisresurgat in novissima die.*** Id. Ep. 65, ad Pam. et Ocean, de Error. Orig. p. 192.Pelusiotas (leg. Pilosiotas) nos appellant, et Luteos,Animalesque, et Cameos, quod non recipiamus ea quae Spiritussunt.
corruptlyPelusiotæ, instead ofPilonotæ; which seems to be a name formed frompili, (hair); because the Catholics asserted, that the body would rise perfect in all its parts, even with the hair itself to beautify and adorn it.
But of all others the Luciferians gave the church the rudest language; styling her the brothel-house, and synagogue of Antichrist and Satan; because she allowed those bishops to retain their honour and places, who were cajoled by the Arians to subscribe the fraudulent confession of the Council of Ariminum. The Luciferian in St. Jerome runs out in this manner against the church; and St. Jerome says, he spake but the sense of the whole party, for this was the ordinary style and language of all the rest.—Hieron. Dial. adv. Lucifer, t. ii. p. 135."
Thus far Bingham: to whose extracts may appropriately be added, what the Emperor Julian says reproachfully of the Christians, in the fragments which Cyril has preserved of his Treatise against them. "You do not take notice (says he) whether any mention is made by the Jews of holiness; but you emulate their rage and their bitterness, overturning temples and altars, and cutting the throats, not only of those who remain firm in paternal
institutes, but also of those heretics who are equally erroneous with yourselves, and who do not lament a dead body [i. e. the body of Christ] in the same manner as you do*. For neither Jesus nor Paul exhorted you to act in this manner. But the reason is, that neither did they expect that you would ever arrive at the power which you have obtained. For they were satisfied if they could deceive maidservants and slaves, and through these married women, and such men as Cornelius and Sergius; among whom if you can mention one that was at that time an illustrious character, (and these things were transacted under the reign of Tiberius or Claudius) believe that I am a liar in all things**."
* Julian here alludes to the contests between the Arians andTrinitarians.** Vid. Cyril, apud Spanh.
THE END.