Madness The Dangermen Sessions Vol 1 Rar
Samantha Ferre
Guitarist Chris Foreman appeared on most of the album, but he left the group during the sessions[12] and was therefore not a member of the group at the time of the album's release and did not take part in promotion for the album. He would later re-join the group.[13] Co-producer John "Segs" Jennings filled in on guitar on the remaining tracks.[14]
Iustin Martyr is the eldest genuine Father extant who undertook to reprove the Gentiles for their Idolatry,Iustin. Martyr. paraen. p. 4. ed. Paris. and to defend the Christian worship. In his Paraenesis to the Greeks he takes notice, how hardly the wiser Gentiles thought themselves dealt with, when all the Poetical Fables about their Gods were objected against them (just as some of the Church of Rome do when we tell them of the Legends of their Saints, which the more ingenuous confess to be made by men, who, took a priviledge of feigning and saying any thing, as well as the Heathen Poets); but they appealed for the principles of their Religion to Plato and Aristotle: both whom he confesses, p. 6. to have asserted one Supreme God; although they differed in their opinions about the manner of the formation of things by him. Afterwards he saith, That the first Authour of Polytheism among them, viz. Orpheus, did plainly assert one Supreme God,p. 16. and the making of all things by him: for which he produces many verses of his: and to the same purpose an excellent testimony of Sophocles, viz. that in truth there [Page 26] is but one God, who made Heaven and Earth and Sea and Winds: but the folly and madness of mankind brought in the Images of Gods, and when they had offered sacrifices and kept solemnities to these, they thought themselves Religious.p. 18. He farther shews that Pythagoras delivered to his disciples the unity of God, and his being the cause of all things, and the fountain of all good: that Plato being warned by Socrates his death durst not oppose the Gods commonly worshipped, but one may guess by his Writings, that his meaning as to the inferiour Deities was, that they who would have them might, and they who would not might let them alone: but that himself had a right opinion concerning the true God.p. 19. That, Homer by his golden chain did attribute to the Supreme God a Power over all the rest;p. 22. and, that the rest of the Deities were near as far distant from the Supreme as men were: and that the Supreme was he whom Homer calls, [...] God himself, which signifies, saith Iustin, [...] the truely existent Deity: and that in Achilles his Shield he makes Vulcan represent the Creation of the world.p. 27. From these arguments he perswades the Greeks to hearken to the Revelation which the [Page 27] true and Supreme God had made of himself to the world, and to worship him according to his own Will. In his Apologies to the Roman Emperours, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, and the Roman Senate and People (for so Baronius shews, Baron. A. 164. n. 14. that which is now called the first, was truely the second, and that not only written to the Senate, but to the Emperour too, who at that time was Marcus Aurelius, as Eusebius saith and Photius after him) he gives this account of the State of the Controversie then so warmly managed about Idolatry:Euseb. hist. l. 4. c. 17 that it was not whether there were one Supreme God or no: or whether he ought to have divine worship given to him: but whether those whom the Gentiles called Gods were so or no; and whether they or dead men did deserve any divine honour to be given to them; and lastly, that being supposed, whether this honour ought to be given to Images or no? For every one of these Iustin speaks distinctly to. As to their Gods, he denies that they deserved any divine worship, because they desired it and were delighted with it; From whence, p. 44. as well as from other arguments, he proves, that they could not be true Gods, but evil Daemons: that those who were Christians, [Page 28] did only worship the true God the Father of all vertue and goodness; and his Son who hath instructed both men and Angels, (for it is ridiculous to think that in this place Iustin should assert the worship of Angels equal with the Father and Son, and before the Holy Ghost, as some great men of the Church of Rome have done) and the Prophetick Spirit, in Spirit and truth.p. 68. In another place he saith, that they had no other crime to object against the Christians, but that they did not worship the same Gods with them; nor offer up libations and the smoak of sacrifices to dead men;p. 66. Nor crown and worship Images; that they agreed with Menander, who said we ought not to worship the work of mens hands: not because Devils dwelt in them, but because men were the makers of them. And he wondered they could call them Gods,p. 57. which they knew to be without soul, and dead, and to have no likeness to God: (it was not then upon the account of their being animated by evil Spirits, that the Christians rejected this worship, for then these reasons would not have held) All the resemblance they had, was to those evil Spirits that had appeared among men; for that was Iustins opinion of the beginning of [Page 29] Idolatry,p. 44. that God had committed the Government of all things under the heavens to particular Angels, but these Angels prevaricating by the love of Women, did upon them beget Daemons, that these Daemons were the great corrupters of mankind; and partly by frightful apparitions, and by instructing men in Idolatrous rites did by degrees draw men to give them divine worship, the people not imagining them to be evil Spirits, and so were called by such names as they liked best themselves, as Neptune, Pluto, p. 55. &c.
That the Poetical Fables were rejected 1 at Rome. I do not mean only that they were rejected by their Wisemen as Varro, Seneca, and others, but by their most ancient Laws about Religion. Marlianus mentions a Table of the Laws of Romulus preserved in the Capitol, among which this is one, DEORUM FABULAS NE CREDUNTO.Marlian. Topogr. Romae, l. 2. c. 8. And that this was no invention of his own, appears by what Dionysius Halicarnassaeus at large discourseth on this subject:Dionys. Halicarn. where he shews, that although the customes and rites of Religion instituted by Romulus were agreeable to the best among the Greeks;Antiq. Rom. l. 2. p. 90. yet he utterly rejected all their Fables concerning their Gods (which are indeed so many blasphemies and reproaches of them) as wicked, unprofitable and indecent, and not becoming good men, much less those which were worshipped for Gods: And that he disposed [Page 40] the minds of men to speak and think things worthy of that blessed nature they supposed them to have. And he particularly instances in the Fables of Saturn and Iupiter, and the Mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus, and the madnesses and wickedness of the Greeks in celebrating their Religious mysteries; but, he saith, all things that concerned Religion were said and done among the Romans, with greater gravity than among the Greeks or Barbarians. By this he would not have any think him ignorant, that some of the Greek Fables might be useful to some persons, either for natural or moral Philosophy or other purposes; but upon the whole matter he did much more approve the Roman Theology, because the benefit of those Fables was very little to any, and those very few; but the common people who are not versed in Philosophy, are apt to take these things in the worst sense, either from thence to learn to contemn their Gods, or to follow their examples. I do not undertake to defend all the Roman Theology, nor can it be said that the Romans did in all things maintain that [...] or decency of worship which Dionysius magnifies them for, as appears by the many indecencies which [Page 41] the Fathers charge the practice of their Religion with; but as they were not to be excused in other things, so we ought not to charge them with more than they were guilty of; I mean when all the Poetical Fables of Iupiter are applyed to Iupiter O. M. that was worshipped in the Capitol at Rome. But some Writers are to be excused, who having been bred up in the Schools of Rhetoricians, and practising that art so long before, when they came to be Christians, they could not easily forbear giving a cast of their former employment. As when Arnobius had been proving the natural notion of one Supreme God in the minds of men, he brings in the Romans answering, Arnob. c. gent. l. 1. p. 19. that if this were intended against them, it was a meer calumny, for they believed him and called him Jupiter O. M. and built a most magnificent Temple to him in the Capitol; which he endeavours to disprove because God is eternal, and their Jupiter was born and had a Father and Mother and Uncles and Aunts, as other mortals have. Which indeed was an infallible argument, that Iupiter of Crete could not be the Supreme God; but for all that, might not the Romans call the Supreme God by the name [Page 42] of Iupiter O. M? The Question is not, whether they did wisely to make use of a name so corrupted and abused by abominable Fables; but whether under this name they meant the Supreme Being or no? and they thought it a sufficient distinction of him from that infamous Iupiter of the Poets, that they called him Optimus Maximus: which Lactantius confesseth, Lact. l. 1. c. 10. were the titles the Romans alwaies gave him in their prayers; Quid horum omnium Pater Iupiter, qui in solenni precatione Opt. Max. nominatur? Which not only shews the titles they gave him, but the supplications they made to him, and the believing him to be the Father of Gods and Men: and yet after this, Lactantius rips up all the extravagancies of the Poets; as though the Romans at the same time believed him to have done all those things, and to have been the Supreme Governour of the world, as he confesses they did. c. 11. Regnare in coelo Iovem vulgus existimat, id & doctis pariter & indoctis per suasum est; quod & Religio ipsa & precationes, & hymni & delubra & simulacra demonstrant; Which words are a very plain testimony, that they not only believed him to be Governour of the world, but that they did intend to [Page 43] give solemn worship to him by prayers and hymns and sacrifices. But when he immediately adds, that they confess the same Jupiter to have been born of Saturn and Rhea; he might have done well to have explained himself a little more, for not long after he acknowledges, that many did reject the Poets in these matters, as guilty not only of lying but of sacriledge; and besides these, the Philosophers he saith, did make two Ioves, the one natural, the other fabulous, i. e. in truth, they made but one, rejecting the other as a figment of the Poets. But he saith, they were to blame in calling him Iove; and what then? this is only a dispute about the name, whereas the question is, whom they understood by that name; and some think it was the most proper name they could have used, Iove being only a little varied from the name the Supreme God was called by in the Scripture. And Lactantius himself confesses, they had the knowledge of the Supreme God among them, and what other name had they to call him by? especially when they joyned those two attributes of Power and Goodness, as sufficient to prevent any mistake of him.
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