488 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



0<» S. IX. Ji-ne 23. '60. 



Communes in 1560, of which I quote the English 

 version (ed. 1563, fol. 254.) : — 



" It agreeth better with the nature of the New Testa- 

 ment, that the place wherein the people vseth to rcpayre 

 together, shoulde bee called the Churche, than to geue it 

 the magnificall title of Tempels emonge Christian men." 



The Calvinists soem to have called their places 

 of worship temples because they called the con- 

 gregation the church, and wished to make a dis- 

 tinction. Another reason perhaps was that the 

 Catholics termed the building a church. They 

 remembered also that the Jewish sanctuary was 

 called a temple. They knew too that the ancient 

 church had applied the word temple to places of 

 Christian worship. Examples of this may be 

 found in Suicer, s. v. vabs. The later Greeks 

 adopted the word t^ttKov, and the modern Greek 

 church uses the word vabs of a portion of the church. 

 Among the Latins the word templum seems at first 

 to have been distasteful, but was afterwards used, 

 as may be easily shown ; e. g. the Second Council 

 of Nicea, can. vii. : — 



" Therefore whatever temples (Jempla) have been con- 

 secrated without the relics of martyrs, in them we ordain 

 the deposition of relics with the usual prayers. And he 

 who consecrates a temple (templum) without holy relics, 

 let him be deposed." 



Among the Syrians the huiclo or temple was 

 that elevated portion of the church which is ele- 

 vated by two or three steps, and accessible only 

 to the priests. In a Jewish Synagogue the haicel 

 or temple is the body of the building, just as the 

 vabs in the Greek churches, the heicel or temple, 

 in the churches of Abyssinia, and the nace of 

 churches among ourselves. In reference to this 

 word nave, there seems to be good reason for be- 

 lieving that it etymologically signifies a temple ; 

 and rather comes from the Greek vabs than the 

 Latin navis. Even the general term temple has 

 been consecrated among us to all time by the 

 genius of George Herbert. 



These remarks have been made merely to show 

 that the peculiar practice of our Reformed neigh- 

 bours, is not peculiar, but in harmony with the 

 customs of all churches and of all times. It is 

 possible that the word chapel would have been 

 adopted, but for the fact that its uses among the 

 Roman Catholics are some of them very repulsive 

 to Protestant feeling ; as, for instance, when it is 

 applied to images inserted in the niche of a wall, 

 or set up at the corner of a field, oftentimes from 

 very superstitious motives. B. H. C. 



BURNING OF THE JESUITICAL BOOKS. 



(1" S. x. 323.) 



The author of " A Few Words on Junius and 

 Macaulay," published in No. 3. of the Comhill 

 Magazine (vol. i. 257. et seqq.), after citing the 



well-known paragraph respecting the burning of 

 Jesuitical books at Paris, for their sound casuistry, 

 contained in the letter signed Biff on* (April 23, 

 1768, vpl. ii..p. 175. of Bonn's Wood/all's Junius), 

 assumes that Bifrons was the same writer as Ju- 

 nius; and then adds: — 



" A passage so pregnant with suggestion has of course 

 provoked abundant comment : but all of the loosest de- 

 scription. No one seems to have taken the pains to fol- 

 low out for himself a hint pointing to conclusions of so 

 much importance, both negative and affirmative." 



He then condemns — first, Mr. W. H. Smith, edi- 

 tor of the Grenville Papers, for stating that the 

 burning "probably took place in or about the year 

 1732;" and next, "a writer who endeavours to 

 establish a claim for Lord Lyttleton" for assum- 

 ing that it "took place in 1764;" and thereupon 

 he authoritatively asserts : " The burning of books, 

 so accurately described by Bifrons, took place, be- 

 yond a doubt, as we shall presently see, on August 

 the 7th, 1761." In proof of this assertion, the 

 author adduces a despatch of that year from Mr. 

 Hans Stanley, culled from the State Paper Office, 

 in which was enclosed the original printed arret of 

 the 6th of August, 1761, condemning the books to 

 be burnt ; and then triumphantly closes his para- 

 graph thus : " And a MS. note at the foot of the 

 arret states that the books were burnt on the 7th 

 accordingly." 



Now, sooner or later, a literary error is sure to 

 meet its detection in the columns of " N. & Q." 

 In the present instance, the several errors to be 

 found in the " Few Words-article " of the Corn- 

 hill Magazine were detected sooner than they were 

 committed by the author of that article, as may 

 be clearly seen on reference to the Queries under 

 the above head, and the thereto subjoined extract, 

 in " N. & Q.," l 8t S. x. 323. ct seq. 



It will there be seen that at least one writer 

 had, in 1854, done that which the author of "A 

 Few Words," &c, ought — according to his own 

 rule — to have done, but which he has certainly 

 not fully done, namely, " followed out for himself 

 Bifrons' hint pointing to conclusions of so much 

 importance, both negative and affirmative;" — that, 

 in execution of the arret of the 6th August, 1761, 

 the books were not " burnt on the 7th accordingly ;" 

 but that, by the king's letters patent of the same 

 date, the execution of the arret was suspended for 

 one year ; and that on the same day of August in 

 the following year another arret ordered the exe- 

 cution. The books were accordingly burnt in the 

 latter year, 1762, and, it has been said, on the 17th 

 of August. 



The author of the " Few Words-article " has 

 very ingeniously endeavoured to show that Mr. 

 (afterwards Sir) Philip Francis was in Paris on 

 the 7th of August, 1761, when the MS. note stated 

 "the books were burnt accordingly ;" and thereby 

 to lead his readers to his owu q. e. d. conclusion, 



