Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	apostle_n	church_n	prove_v	3,145	5	6.1841	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92878	Theanthropos: or, God made man. A tract proving the nativity of our Saviour to be on the 25. of December. / By John Selden, that eminently-learned antiquary, late of the Inner-Temple.	Selden, John, 1584-1654.; Chantry, John, d. 1662?, engraver.	1661 (1661)	Wing S2439; Thomason E1809_2; ESTC R203528	58,933	119

use of keeping this Feast on the 25 of December 400 years after Christs Birth they are frequent in S. Ambrose S. Chrysostome S. Augustin and others of the Fathers that liv'd about the end of those 400 years Those three especially have many Sermons appropriated to the celebration of this day and they frequently tell the people confidently that the Birth of our Saviour was on the 25 of December or the 8 Kalends of January as also that the birth of Saint John Baptist was on the 8 Kalends of July or the 24 day of June according as to this day they are observed Ecce saith (a) Serm. de Temp. 8. 10. Saint Ambrose in nativitate Christi dies crescit Johannis nativitate decrescit illo oriente lux proficit hoc nascente minuitur That is On our Saviours Birth-day the days begin to lengthen and on St. Johns to shorten for the Fathers herein supposed the 25 of December to be the Winterat what time ever the days begin to lengthen and the 24 of June to be the Summer-solstice in which they contrariwise begin to shorten and this was according to the ancienter Astronomy out of which supposition in this Feast-day the antiquity of the tradition shall be also presently confirmed And to this purpose of the Summer-solstice at St Johns Birth and of the Winter at our Saviours they apply I dispute not how well that in St. John * D. Joan. c. 3. comm●n 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. He must increase but I must be diminished So St. Augustine also Natus † D. Aug. serm ded versis 40. 59. l. 4. advers Crescon c. 37. in Psalm 132. est Johannes hodiè ab hodierno minuuntur dies natus est Christus 8 Kalend. Januarias ab illo die crescunt dies And enough to this purpose occurs in others of that * D. Hiero. in epist de celebr Pasch tom 4. age wherein these two Births were observed and only these two and that in all or the greatest part of Christendom Solius Domini saith † Serm. de fanctis 2. St. Augustine Beati Iohannis dies Nativitatis in universo mundo celebratur colitur But it being clearly plain that about this time of 400 years past after our Saviour this 25 day was so observ'd and taken generally for his Birth-day it falls next to inquire the original whence it was so taken Had those Clementines been of sufficient credit there had been no need to have made any further inquiry for then we might have thence resolved that the Apostles had ordained it and it had been fit for them that stand so much for the Authority of those Constitutions to have proved that the Apostles had done so that so they might have cleared that supposititious Volume of such a Character of falshood For doubtless had such a Constitution been published in that Volume and by the Apostles the Eastern Church had not so long been ignorant of it as it appears by St. Chrysostom they were For untill some 10 years before his Sermon † D. Chrys edit Savilianâ tom 5 fo p. 511. made upon this day especially for the truth of the time of the Feast that Church had not been generally instructed with this certainty of it for then it was newly learn'd from the Western Church in which even from Thrace to Cadiz as he tells us from such as instructed him it was so observ'd But although that Ordinance touching it in the Clementines attributed to the Apostles be supposititious yet there is great reason for us to think that the tradition of this Feast to be so kept on that day was Apostolical that is taught and deduced into the Church though not in writing both from the Apostles and first Disciples and Observers of our Saviour Quid autem saith * Advers Hares l. 3. c. 4. Irenaeus si neque Apostoli quidem scripturas reliquissent nobis nonne oportebat ordinem sequi traditionis quam tradiderunt iis quibus committebant Ecclesias And we shall here use aptly enough the very words also of Tertul. † De corona militis c. 4. speaking of divers observations in both Sacraments and other parts of Christian Religion in his time which was near the Apostles Harum aliarum ejusmodi Disciplinarum si legem expostules scripturarum nullam invenies But traditio praetendetur auctrix consuetudo confirmatrix fides observatrix But for the order of proof here it being first cleared that this tradition was about the time of those Fathers that testifie it commonly received in Christendom before we come to the particular deductions of it out of the elder ages that preceded them we shall here not untimely first note that as it was commonly received as a thing then setled so was it generally thought of as what was then very ancient So saies St. Chrysostom expresly * Serm. dict item in hom 34. tom 2. edit Basil in serm 27. de nat Jo. Baptist codem tom being instructed from learned men of the Western Church it was then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is of ancient time and delivered in the Church many years before as his words are and yet saith he it is new too new in the Eastern Church because as he writes we have so lately learn'd it that is within ten years since but he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. old and very ancient in that it is even of equal age with the ancienter feast-dayes which they had received and again though it came but lately into the Eastern Church yet it was saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. well known from ancient time to those that were of the Western Church And St. Augustine also * Enarrat in Psalm 132. expresly sayes that the birth was upon this day sic tradit Ecclesia which denotes great antiquity even in his time and in * Serm. de sanct 4. another place speaking of the celebration of St. Iohn Baptists birth-day which was received with this it seems by a like tradition Hoc majorum traditione suscepimus saith he hoc ad posteros imitanda devotione transmittimus These passages alone are enough testimony that this Feast-day thus placed was reputed in those times that is about 400. years after Christ very ancient But to know how ancient it was more particularly it behoves us to look backward from those times by such degrees as that by careful observing one of them after another up towards the times of our Saviour we may be herein instructed according to the occurrence of such testimony as may make to the end of the inquiry and I doubt not but we shall so well enough at length find it receiv'd in the Church in the Western Church even from Apostolical tradition deriv'd from observation while yet our Saviour was on the earth But to begin this course of inquiry by looking back by degrees from the time of St.