Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsActs 17
English College of Douai–Rheims
Read Acts 17 in the BibleActs 17:22
Superstitious.
[1] S. Paul calleth not them superstitious for adoring the true and only God with much devotion or many ceremonies or in comely prescribed order, or for doing due reverence to holy Sacraments, to Saints and their memories, Images, or Monuments: or for keeping the prescribed laws, days, and fasts of the Church, or for fulfilling vows made to God, or for blessing with the sign of the Cross, or for capping and kneeling at the name of Jesus, or for religiously using creatures sanctified in the same name, or any other Christian observation, for which our new Masters condemn the Catholic people of Superstition: themselves wholly void of that vice by all wise men's judgement, because they have in a manner taken away all religion, and are become Epicureans and Atheists: who are never troubled with superstition, because it is a vice consisting in excess of worship or religion, whereof they are void. [2] But the Apostle calleth them superstitious for worshipping the Idols and gods of the Heathen, and [3] for the fear that they had, lest they should leave out any God that was unknown to them: for thus their Altar was inscribed: Dijs Asiæ, Europæ, & Libyæ, Deo ignoto & peregrino. that is, To the gods of Asia, Europe, and Libya: to the unknown and strange God. This superstition (saith S. Augustine [4] ) is wholly taken away from the Church by Christ's incarnation, and by the Apostles' preaching, and by Martyrs' holy life and death. [5] Neither doth the Catholic Church allow this or any other kind of superstitious observation. Only we must take heed that we believe not her Adversaries' definition of superstition, for they would imply therein all true religion.
- 1 The protestants call devotion, superstition.
- 2 The Apostle speaketh of the Heathens' superstition.
- 3 * δεισιδαίμονες
- 4 Aug. de cons. Evang. li. 1. c. 26.
- 5 The Catholic Church alloweth no superstition.
Acts 17:29
The Divinity to be like.
Nothing can be made by man's hand of what form or sort so ever, that is like to God's essence, or to the form or shape of his Godhead or Divinity. Therefore howsoever the Heathens did paint or grave their Idols, they were nothing like to God. And this also is impertinently alleged by Heretics against the Church's images: which are not made, either to be adored with godly honour, or to be any resemblance of the Divinity or any of the three persons in Godhead, but only of Christ as he was in form of man, who in that respect may be truly expressed, as other men by their portraits: and of the Holy Ghost, not as he is in himself, but as he appeared in fiery tongues or in the similitude of a dove, or such like. [1] And so to paint or grave any of the three persons as they appeared visibly and corporally, is no more inconvenient or unlawful, than it was undecent for them to appear in such forms. And therefore to paint or portrait the Father also being the first person, as he hath shewed himself in vision to any of the Prophets of the old or new Testament (namely to Daniel as an old man [2] ) or the three Angels representing the three Persons to Abraham [3], or the one Angel that wrestling with Jacob bare our Lord's Person [4], no such thing is any where forbidden, but is very agreeable to the people's instruction. In which sort the Angels were commonly portraited [5] (and namely the Cherubins over the Propitiatory) as they be now in the Church, not in their natural form, but with corporal wings (as the Seraphins appeared to Esay the Prophet [6] ) to express their quality and office of being God's Angels, that is, Messengers: and God the Father with the world in his hand, to signify his creation and government of the same, and such like: Whereof the people being well instructed may take much good, and no harm in the world, being now through their faith in Christ far from all fond imagination of the false gods of the Pagans. [7] And therefore S. Gregory [8] saith of the Church's Images, That which scripture or writing doth to the readers, the same doth the picture to the simple that look thereupon. For in it even the ignorant see what they ought to follow, in it they do read, that know no letters. Where he calleth it a matter of antiquity and very convenient, that in holy places Images were painted to the people's instruction, so they be taught that they may not be adored with divine honour. And he in the same place sharply rebuketh Serenus the Bishop of Massilia, that of indiscreet zeal he would take away Images, rather than teach the people how to use them.
Acts 17:34
Dionysius Areopagita
◦ This is that famous Denys that first converted France, and wrote those notable and divine works de Ecclesiastica & Cælesti hierarchia, de divinis nominibus, and others, in which he confirmeth and proveth plainly almost all things that the Church now useth in the ministration of the holy Sacraments, and affirmeth that he learned them of the Apostles, giving also testimony for the Catholic faith in most things now controversed, so plainly, that our Adversaries have no shift but to deny this Denys to have been the author of them, feigning that they be another's of later age. Which is an old flight of Heretics, but most proper to these of all others. Who seeing all antiquity against them, are forced to be more bold or rather impudent than others in that point.
- ◦ S. Dionysius Areopagita is all for the Catholics.
Original Douay–Rheims Annotations — English College of Douai–Rheims. CC0 1.0
Acts 17:11
Searching the Scriptures.
[1] The Heretics use this place to prove that the hearers, must try and judge by the Scriptures, whether their teacher's and preacher's doctrine be true, and so reject that that they find not in the Scriptures, as though here the sheep were made judges of their Pastors, the people of the Priests, and men and women of all sorts, even of S. Paul's doctrine itself: which were the most foolish disorder in the world. And they did not therefore read the Scriptures of the old Testament (for none of the new were yet extant commonly) to dispute with the Apostle, or to try and judge of his doctrine, or whether they should believe him or no: for they were bound to believe him and obey his word, whether he alleged Scripture or no, and whether they could read or understand the Scriptures or no. But it was a great comfort and confirmation for the Jews that had the Scriptures, to find even as S. Paul said, that Christ was God, crucified, risen, and ascended to heaven: which by his preaching and expounding they understood, and never before, though they read them, and heard them read every Sabboth. [2] As it is a great comfort to a Catholic man, to hear the Scriptures declared & alleged most evidently for the Church's truth against Heretics, in Sermons or otherwise. And it doth the Catholics good & much confirmeth them, to view diligently the places alleged by the Catholic preachers. Yet they must not be judges for all that, over their own Pastors, whom Christ commandeth them to hear and obey, and by whom they hear the true sense of Scriptures.