George Stanley Faber

“ But, against foolish men, we are constrained to propound foolish things. Return to the heart which you have left, ye wretched prevaricators: ye, who love vanity and are become vain; ye, who crucify afresh the Son of God and put him to open shame; ye, who in this manner, even by whole troops, have made the souls of miserable men the companions of demons, alienating them from their Creator through the nefarious sacrilege of images, and thus casting them down into perpetual damnation. ”

“ I, who hold the unity, and who preach the truth, am teaching no new sect. On the contrary, sects and schisms and superstitions and heresies, I have alway, so far as in me lies, crushed and opposed: and, through God's help, will never cease to crush and oppose. ”

“ The Work itself is a composition of beautiful Christian simplicity. From the superstitions of even the incomplete Popery of the ninth century, it is altogether free. And, throughout, with clearness and fidelity, it propounds the genuine doctrine of the Gospel.
So far as regards the claim of Rome, to the universal supremacy of Peter, and thence to the universal supremacy of his pretended successors the Latin Pontiffs, Claude maintains the equal authority of Peter and of Paul in their respective departments: Peter being at the head of the mis sion to the Jews ”

“ The very vagueness of the allegation, which hovers between the asserted Nestorianism of his early friend Felix of Urgel and a pretended Arianism of which even his bitter enemy Dungal could discover no traces during his life, may well, even on the first blush, induce a full presumption that Claude was a favourer of neither heresy. ”

“ Good Jonas however, himself, as we have seen, must be read cautiously, because he denies that any adoration ought to be paid to images. Thus, in the judgment of better instructed Romanists, does the castigator of Claude actually tremble on the very verge of heresy. On this curious and interesting topic Bossuet, with much sound judgment, is profoundly silent. Jonas, however, sorely enacting the Marplot, quotes, in favour of his dangerous and semi-heretical opinion, Origen and Augustine and Lactantius. ”

“ The madness in question, as holy Claude well knew, existed in Scripture and in the Primitive Church, long before any of the contending parties, either in the fifth century or in the ninth century, had made their appearance upon the face of this nether world. Hence we may perfectly understand the immeasureable wrath of Dungal, that Claude, to confound idolatry, should actually have dared to quote Scripture. ”

“ Epist. ad Theutmir. p. 877. I must not suppress the singular felicity of Dungal's retort courteous. He is quite sure that all Claude's contempt for relics is bottomed upon mere envy. If the Cathedral of Turin was but as well stocked with dead bones and old rags as the richer cathedral of Rome; truly Claude would then be as warm an advocate, as he is now an opponent. ”

“ DESCENDING with the stream of time, while corruption went on rapidly increasing through the provinces and in the rich towns of the now dislocated though partly restored Western Empire, we shall again, early in the ninth century, meet with the Piedmontese Vallenses in direct connection with their eminent Pastor, Claude, Bishop or Metropolitan of Turin. ”

“ VII. I must not omit to remark: that, in an evidential point of view, Dungal's perpetual reference to Vigilantius is not a little striking and important.
He charges Claude and his Vallenses with teaching and maintaining the same doctrines, as those taught and maintained by the eminent individual in question: and his whole strain of uncomely vituperation serves only to shew; that, after a lapse of four centuries, the memory and influence of the admirable Leonist still, in the Valleys of the Cottian Alps, remained fixed and unimpaired. ”

“ God, however, the father of mercies and the author of all consolation, has comforted us in all our afflictions: that, in like manner, we might be able to comfort those, who are weighed down with sorrow and affliction. ”

“ But others resist, maintaining: that the saints after their death, as being ignorant of what is passing upon earth, can aid no one by their intercession; and that, to their relics, not a whit more reverence is due, than to any ordinary bones of mere animals or to any portion of mere common earth. ”

“ He simply says: in magistro hujus erroris Felice. Dungal. Respons. cont. pervers. Claud. Taurin. sentent. in Bibl. Patr. vol. ix. par. poster, p. 878. The hic error, is the subject of the entire Treatise, which extends through twenty two very closely printed folio pages. On this same Hic error, Dungal is very full and very angry: but not a syllable has he to say upon either the Nestorianism or the Arianism of the mad blasphemer and the hissing serpent, whose head, for the good of the Church and the preservation of the faith, he had undertaken to crush. ”

“ Papirius Masson, moreover, has published extracts from his Epistle to the Abbot Theutmir, which are prefixed to the violent attack of Dungal upon that Epistle, and which occur likewise in the Work of Jonas of Orleans written for the defence of images: and Mabillon has printed the dedication of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, addressed to the Emperor Louis the Pious. ”

“ No doubt, he greatly encouraged and strengthened them: but, as we have had direct evidence to their long prior existence, so a diligent authoritative investigation, conducted by a bitter enemy, has been found to bring out the very same result.
Shortly before the year 1630, Marco Aurelio Rorenco, Prior of St. Roch at Turin, was employed to institute a strict inquiry into the opinions and connections and antiquity of the mountaineer Vallenses: and his researches led to the production of two Works ”

“ Ibid. p. 90.
↑ Dungal has written a long and angry answer to what he calls the perverse sentiments of Claude of Turin: and, though he manifestly wished to speak all the evil of him that he could [309] do, he never once, the object of his wrath being then alive, has ventured to charge him with either Nestorianism or Arianism. ”

“ Nos enim, beneficio ct dignatione miseri oordiæ ejus, filii Dei sumus: ille, NATURA, est Filius; QUI HOC EST QUOD PATER. Claud. Taurin. Enarr. in Epist. ad Galat. iv. 5. in Bibl. Patr. vol. ix. par. prior. p. 70. The man who wrote this, could by no possibility have been an Arian.
From a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Theyer, Dr. Allix gives, at considerable length, the sentiments of Claude respecting the Eucharist. The following brief extract may suffice.
Quia panis corpus confirmat, vinum vero sanguinem operatur in carne: hic ad corpus Christi MYSTICE, illud refertur ad sanguinem. ”

“ Alii vero resistunt, dicentes: sanctos post obitum nullum adjuvare nullique posse intercedendo succurrere, nihil eorum duntaxat scientes quæ in terris geruntur; illorumque reliquias nullam alicujus reverentiæ gratiam comitari, sicut nec ossa vilissima quorumlibet animalium, reliquamve terram communem. Dungal. ”

“ Dungal. Respons. p. 888. I do not recollect to have ever met with so palpable a hit. The suppression of it would have been a sin without benefit of Clergy.
↑ Dungal. Respons. p. 880, 881, 883, 888, 893, 895.
↑ Cognovit, quod ilia (scil. Hieronymus) contra suum vicinum suæque auctorem insaniæ Vigilantium hæreticum scripserit. Dungal. Respons. p. 883.
↑ Claude's appeal to Scripture runs, as follows:-
Cum enim distinctè dicatur, non faciendam similitudinem omnium quæ in cælo sunt aut quæ in terra vel quæ sub terra ”