divine worship even if "we would wallow upon the ground unto Christ, having in this a mind that He were the best man we could think of, but not thinking Him to be God. For if the lowly manner of bodily observance makes latvia, then we were in grave peril of idolatry in our courtesy used to princes, prelates, and popes, to whom we kneel as low as to God Almighty, and kiss some their hands and some our own, ere ever we presume to touch them; and in the case of the Pope, his foot; and as for incensing, the poor priests in every choir are as well incensed as the Sacrament. Hence if latria, which is the special honour due to God, was contained in these things, then we were great idolaters, not only in our worship of the saints and of their images, but also of men, one to another among ourselves." Though indeed to God Almighty ought to be shown as "humble and lowly a bodily reverence as possible, still this bodily worship is not latria, unless we so do it in our mind considering and acknowledging him as God, and with that mind and intention do our worship; and this, as I think," he says, "no Christian man does to any image or to any saint either."

Now, as touching the second point-namely, that people take the images for the saints themselves, I trust there is no man so mad, or woman either, that they do not know live men from dead stones, and a tree from flesh and bone. And when they prefer our Lady at one pilgrimage place before our Lady at another, or one rood before another, or make their invocations and vows some to the one and some to the other, I ween it easy to perceive that they mean nothing else than that our Lord and our Lady, or rather our Lord for our Lady, shows more miracles at the one than the other. They intend in their pilgrimages to visit, some one place and some another, or sometimes the place is convenient for them, or their devotion leads them; and yet (this is) not for the place, but because our Lord pleases by manifest miracles to provoke men to seek Him, or His Blessed Mother, or

some Holy Saint of His, in these places more especially than in some others."

"This thing itself proves also that they do not take the images of our Lady for herself. For if they did, how could they possibly in any wise have more mind to one of them than to the other? For they can have no more mind to our Lady than to our Lady. Moreover, if they thought that the image at Walsingham was our Lady herself then must they needs think that our Lady herself was that image. Then, if in like manner they thought that the image at Ipswich was our Lady herself, and as they must then need think that our Lady was the image at Ipswich, they must needs think that all these three things were one thing. And so by the same reason they must suppose that the image at Ipswich was the self-same image as at Walsingham. If you ask any one you take for the simplest, except a natural fool, I dare hold you a wager she will tell you 'nay' to this. Besides this, take the simplest fool you can find and she will tell you our Lady herself is in heaven. She will also call an image an image, and she will tell you the difference between an image of a horse and a horse in very deed. And this appears clearly whatever her words about her pilgrimage are, calling, according to the common manner of speech, the image of our Lady, our Lady. As men say, 'Go to the King's Head for wine,' not meaning his real head, but the sign, so she means nothing more in the image but our Lady's image, no matter how she may call it. And if you would prove she neither takes our Lady for the image, nor the image for our Lady-talk with her about our Lady and she will tell you that our Lady was saluted by Gabriel; that our Lady fled into Egypt with Joseph; and yet in the telling she will never say that 'our Lady of Walsingham,' or 'of Ipswich,' was saluted by Gabriel, or fled into Egypt. If you would ask her whether it was 'our Lady of Walsingham,' or 'our Lady of Ipswich,' that stood by the cross at Christ's Passion, she will, I war

rant you, make answer that it was neither of them; and if you further ask her, 'which Lady then,' she will name you no image, but our Lady who is in heaven. And this I have proved often, and you may do so, too, when you will and shall find it true, except it be in the case of one so very a fool that God will give her leave to believe what she likes. And surely, on this point, I think in my mind that all those heretics who make as though they had found so much idolatry among the people for mistaking (the nature) of images, do but devise the fear, to have some cloak to cover their heresy, wherein they bark against the saints themselves, and when they are marked they say they only mean the wrong beliefs that women have in images.”

As regards the third point-namely, that honour is sometimes shown to the saints and their images in "a superstitious fashion with a desire of unlawful things," More would be ready to blame this as much as any man if it could be shown to be the case. “But I would not,” he says, "blame all things which are declared to be of this character by the new teachers. For example, to pray to St. Apollonia for the help of our teeth is no witchcraft, considering that she had her teeth pulled out for Christ's sake. Nor is there any superstition in other suchlike things." Still, where abuses can be shown they ought to be put down as abuses, and the difference between a lawful use and an unlawful abuse recognised. But because there may be abuses done on the Sunday, or in Lent, that is no reason why the Sunday observance, or the fast in Lent, should be swept away." "In like manner it would not be right that all due worship of saints and reverence of relics, and honour of saints' images, by which good and devout folk get much merit, should be abolished and put down because people abuse' "these things. "Now, as touching the evil petitions," he continues, "though they who make them were, as I trust

English Works, pp. 196-7.

2 Ibid., p. 198.

they are not, a great number, they are not yet so many that ask evil petitions of saints as ask them of God Himself. For whatsoever such people will ask of a good saint, they will ask of God Himself, and where as the worst point it is said, 'that the people do idolatry in that they take the images for the saints themselves, or the rood for Christ Himself,—which, as I have said, I think none do; for some rood has no crucifix thereon, and they do not believe that the cross which they see was ever at Jerusalem, or that it was the holy cross itself, and much less think that the image that hangs on it is the body of Christ Himself. And though some were so mad as to think so, yet it is not the people' who do so. For a few doddering dames do not make the people."

" 1

It is hard to imagine any teaching about the use and abuse of images clearer than that which is contained in the foregoing passages from Sir Thomas More's writings. The main importance of his testimony, however, is not so much this clear statement of Catholic doctrine on the nature of devotion to images, as his positive declaration that there were not such abuses, or superstitions, common among the people on the eve of the religious changes, as it suited the purpose of the early reformers to suggest, and of later writers with sectarian bias to believe.

For evidence of positive and distinct teaching on the matter of reverence to be shown to images, and on its nature and limits, we cannot do better than refer to that most popular book of instruction in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, already referred to, called Dives et Pauper, a treatise on the Ten Commandments. It was multiplied from the beginning of the fifteenth century in manuscript copies, and printed editions of it were issued from the presses of Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and Thomas Berthelet. These editions published by our early printers are sufficient to attest its popularity, and the im

1 Ibid., p. 199.

portance attached to it as a book of instruction by the ecclesiastical authorities on the eve of the Reformation.

This is how the teacher lays down the general principle of loving God: "The first precept of charity is this: Thou shalt love the Lord God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, with all thy might. When He saith thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, He excludeth all manner of idolatry that is forbidden by the first commandment; that is, that man set not his heart, nor his faith, nor his trust in any creature more than in God, or against God's worship. God orders that thou shouldst love Him with all thy heart, that is to say, with all thy faith, in such a way that thou set all thy faith and trust in Him before all others, as in Him that is Almighty and can best help thee in thy need." Later on, under the same heading, we are taught that: "by this commandment we are bound to worship God, who is the Father of all things, who is called the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. He is our Father, for He made us of nought: He bought us with His blood, He findeth us all that we need, and much more, He feedeth us. He is our Father by grace, for by His grace He hath made us heirs of heavenly bliss. Was there ever a father so tender of his child as God is tender of us? He is to us both father and mother, and therefore we are bound to love Him and worship Him above all things.

Under the first commandment the whole question as to images, and the nature of the reverence to be paid to them is carefully considered, and the matter put so plainly, that there is no room for doubt as to the nature of the instructions given to the people in pre-Reformation days. Images, the teacher explains, are ordered for three great ends, namely: "To stir men's minds to meditate upon the Incarnation of Christ and upon His life and passion, and upon the lives of the saints; secondly, to move the heart

1 Ed. W. de Worde, 1496.