, p. 393.)

Now, what is the authenticity of these canons? The author himself gives us
the best answer to it, saying:--

"Though these canons be apocryphal, and by consequence not genuine,
inasmuch as they were neither committed to writing by the apostles
themselves, nor penned by St Clement, to whom some authors have attributed
them; still, however, this does not prevent them from being true and
authentic, since they embody the traditions descended from the apostles
and the apostolic fathers, and bear a faithful testimony that the
discipline which prevailed during the first and second centuries was
established by the apostles."--(P. 394.)

I shall not enter into a discussion about the value of evidence furnished
by a work which is acknowledged to be apocryphal, and not to have been
written by those to whom its defenders had ascribed its authorship;(92)
but I shall only remark, that one of the most eminent fathers of the
church, the learned Lactantius, who flourished in the fourth century, and
consequently long after the time when the Apostolic Canons are supposed to
have been composed, takes a very different view from them in regard to
this practice, because he positively says, in attacking the use of lights
by the Pagans, _they light up candles to God as if he lived in the dark,
and do they not deserve to pass for madmen who offer lamps to the Author
and Giver of light_?(93) And is it probable that he could approve of a
practice in the Christian church which he condemns in the Pagan?

And, indeed, can there be any thing more heathenish than the custom of
burning lights before images or relics, which is nothing else than
sacrifices which the Pagans offered to their idols?

I have described above, p. 74, the manner in which St Jerome defended the
use of lights in the churches against Vigilantius. This defence of St
Jerome is adduced by our author in a rather extraordinary manner.

"It happens not unfrequently that those very calumnies which have been
propagated, and the attacks which were so furiously directed by the
enemies of our holy faith in ancient times, against certain practices of
discipline then followed by the church, are the most triumphant
testimonies which can be adduced at the present day, both to establish the
venerable origin of such observances, and to warrant a continuation of
them. In the present instance, the remark is strikingly observable; for
the strictures which Vigilantius passed in the fou