A03549:148
The second tome of homilies of such matters as were promised, and entitled in…The second tome of homilees of such matters as were promised, and intituled in…
The second tome of homilies of such matters as were promised, and entitled in the former part of homilies. Set out by the authority of the Queens Majesty: and to be read in every parish church agreeably.The second tome of homilees of such matters as were promised, and intituled in the former part of homilees. Set out by the aucthoritie of the Queenes Maiestie: and to be read in euery parishe church agreeably.
Imprinted at London : In Poules Churchyarde, by Richard Jugge, and John Cawood, printers to the Queens Majesty, 1571Imprinted at London : In Poules Churchyarde, by Richarde Iugge, and Iohn Cawood, printers to the Queenes Maiestie, 1571
No title page in the transcription: set from the catalogue record.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
In Tertullian's time, an hundred and threescore years after Christ, Christians had none ⟨p. 140⟩other temples but common houses, whither they for the most part secretly resorted. And so far of was it that they had before his time any goodly or gorgeous declied temples, that laws were made in Antonius Verus and Commodus the Emperors times, that no christians should dwell in houses, come in public bathes, or be 1seen in streets, or any where abroad, and that if they were once accused to be Christians, they should by no means be suffered to escape. As was practised in Apollonius a noble Senator 2of Rome, who being accused of his own bondman and slave that he was a Christian, could neither by his defence and apology learnedly and eloquently written, and read publicly in the Senate, nor in respect that he was a ci[…]zen, nor for the dignity of his order, nor for the vileness and unlawfulness of his accuser, being his own slave, by likelihood of malice moved to forge lies against his lord, nor for no other respect or help, could be delivered from death. So that christians were then driven to dwell in caves and dens: so far of was it that they had any public temples adorned and decked as they now be. Which is here rehearsed to the confutation of those impudent shameless liars, which report such glorious glossed fables, of the goodly and gorgeous Temple that Saint Peter, Linus, Cletus, and those thirty Bishops their successors had at Rome, until the time of the Emperor Constantine, and which saint Polycarp should have in Asia, or Ireneus in France, by such lies, contrary to all true Histories, ⟨p. 125⟩to maintain the superfluous gilding and decking of Temples now a days, wherein they put almost the whole sum and pith of our religion. But in those times the world was won to Christendom, not by gorgeous, gilded, and painted temples of christians, which had scarcely houses to dwell in: but by the godly, and as it were golden minds, and fiery faith of such as in all adversity & persecution professed the trueth of our religion. And after these times, in Maximian 3and Constantius the Emperors proclamation, the places where Christians resorted to public prayer, were called conventicles. And in Galerius Maximinus the Emperors Epistle, they are called Oratories and Dominica, to say, places dedicate to the service of the Lord.