sprinkled over them. Let altars be constructed, and relics placed on them; insomuch as if these temples are well constructed, it is necessary that they should be converted from the Worship of dæmons to the service of the true God. So that the people, seeing their temples are not destroyed, may put away errors from their hearts, and, acknowledging the true God and adoring Him, may the more willingly assemble in the places where they were accustomed to meet."[1] A little further on he adds, in order that no apparent change may be made, "that on great festivals the people may erect huts of boughs around those churches which have been converted (commutatæ) from temples."
The fair inference from this paragraph seems to be that there was so little difference between the temples of the Pagans and the churches of the Christians that a little holy water and a few relics—as much esteemed in the West as in the East in those days—were all that was required to convert the one into the other.
We gather the same impression from another transaction which took place at Canterbury about the same time. After taking possession of the Cathedral, built of old by the Romans,[2] St. Augustine obtained from the recently converted King Ethelbert the cession of the temple in which he had been accustomed to worship his idols, and without more ado dedicated it to St. Pancras, and appropriated it as a burying place for himself and his successors from the circumstance of its being outside the walls.[3] We further learn from Gervaise[4] that it was so used till Cuthbert, the second archbishop, got permission to allow burials within the walls, and then erected the baptistry of St. John for this purpose, where
- ↑ Bede, 'Hist. Eccles.' i. 30.
- ↑ "luibi antiquo Romanorum fidelium opere factam," Bede, 'Hist. Eccles.' i. 32.
- ↑ Thorn, 'Dec. Script. Col.' 1760:—"Erat autein non longe ab ipsa civitate ad orientem quasi medio ilinere inter ecclesiam Sti. Martini et muros civitatis Phanum sive ydolum situm ubi rex Ethelbertus secundus ritum gentis suæ solebat orare et cum nobilibus suis dæmoniis et non deo sacrificare. Quod Phanum Augustinus ab iniquinamentiset sordibus gentilium purgavit et simu-lacro quod in eo erat infracto, synagogam mutavit in ecclesiam, et eam in nomine Sti. Pancratii martyris dedicavit."
Of this "Fane" we further learn from Godselinus ('Leland Collect.' vol. iv. p. 8), that "extat adhuc condita ex longissimis et latissimis lateribus more Britannico ut facile est videre in muris Verolamiensibus," and may now be seen in this very church at Canterbury. "Basilica Sti. Pancratii nunc est ubi olim Ethelbertus idolum suum coluit. Opus exiguum structum tamen de more veterum Britannorum."
- ↑ Gervaise, 'Ace. Pont. Cant.' p. 1640.
